Shift

The House

"I can't explain it," said Scarlet. "I have no idea how I survived. And scar-free now, it's a miracle." She sat on the end of a long dock, observing the grey swans that glided across the calm lake. A thin sheet of fog sat on top of the water, moving gently in the chill breeze. Scarlet pulled her sweater tighter around her neck.

"Strange things happen," said her mother. A gray-haired, wrinkle-faced woman who looked about ten years older than she really was, Yvonne Usher hadn't seen or spoken to her daughter in nearly six years. "You were meant to come back home and be with your mother."

"Please don't make this about you," Scarlet said. "I came here to see you because I very well could have died recently."

"You need to be close to family right now, pumpkin," Yvonne said. "And I'm the only family you've got left, whether you like it or not." She reached her bony, dry fingers toward Scarlet.

She pulled away. "Please, don't touch me."

"I'm your mother," said Yvonne. "What did you do with your father's things?"

"They're in storage for now," said Scarlet. Her heart ached at the loss of her home and the memory of her father.

"Should have just thrown them away. He's not coming back for them."

"Whatever. Adrian said I can stay with him until I figure out what I want to do. I'm not staying with you, I just thought you'd like to know that I'm alive." Scarlet stood up, brushed past the woman she used to call mama, and stomped toward the truck waiting in the driveway. "I'll call you."

"No, you won't," her mother replied. "But I'll be here waiting when you're ready to come home."

Scarlet climbed into the passenger seat of Adrian's truck. She scowled as she buckled her seatbelt and leaned her head against the window, seething at herself for thinking that coming here would be a good idea.

"Let's go," she said.

"That went well," said Adrian. He started the truck and backed out of the driveway, starting down the dirt road.

"I don't know what I was expecting," Scarlet replied.

"I do. You wanted to be able to cry to your mother and have her hold you and tell you everything will be okay. That's what mothers are for."

"Not mine," she said, "apparently."

"She's always been a little on the crazy side."

"That's a very polite way of saying she's a selfish basket case."

Adrian's truck turned onto a long, rutted driveway, overgrown with various bushes and tree branches. At the end of the drive, they bounced into a parking spot in front of a huge log house. The house sat next to a river, inside a clearing surrounded by woods. It was absolutely gorgeous, like a secluded, private vacation home.

"Wow," Scarlet said. She climbed out of the truck and Adrian lifted her bags from the truck's bed. "This is your house?"

"Yep," he said. She could tell he was proud of it. "I built it myself."

"You did?"

"From the first line in the floor plan to the last piece of furniture." He grinned at her, his typical wide, dazzling grin.

Scarlet actually felt herself smile back, just barely. It was the first time her lips had curved upward at all since Halloween night.

Scarlet Usher had always promised herself that she would never end up back in Annex for as long as she lived. Now, standing outside Adrian's immaculate Annex abode, she apologized to her past self. He's all I have, she thought. I'd probably off myself if I'd stayed in Seattle alone.