The Chickadee Girl

Left Behind

Croft Prep owned no power boats; on a clear day, only clippers with attractively billowy sails dotted the waterfront. A fleet of sleek canoes in the school colours cut noiselessly through the water, during Outdoor Education classes. 

In her first week at the school, Isa had been taken down to the waterfront with her fellow first years, and directed to walk fully clothed out into the bay until she could no longer touch the bottom. This was as close as Croft Prep came to administering a formal swim test. It was both an administrative formality that had to be gotten over with, and a mild hazing ritual that the older students looked forward to watching. 

Shuddering violently in a black one-piece suit, a t-shirt and bike shorts, Isa had stalled at ankle depth. The rest of her class, meanwhile, thundered past her and threw themselves into the bay without hesitation. The assembled senior students had jeered at her reluctance first, then simply watched her with mounting incredulity. At last most had floated off, embarrassed for her. Only a few of the gentler souls had stayed behind; these had closed in on Isa, some even venturing into the water themselves, in an effort to show her there was nothing to fear. They formed a small pod, laying hands on her shoulders, and attempting to coax her into action. Try as she might, she hadn't been able to move any further, and eventually even these disappointed few had dispersed.

 It had been Daphne, still drenched from her own trip into the bay, who had eventually wandered back, where she stood shoulder to shoulder with Isa in accepting silence. There seemed to be no expectation from Daphne that Isa would summon up the courage to dash into the water; she merely stood resolutely with her as they stared bleakly out into the bay. The sun fell lower in the sky, and Isa had vibrated with humiliation and cold and gratitude. Gradually, simply by continuing to be there, Daphne had absorbed the humiliation, until finally Isa was left only with gratitude and cold. She'd spend the rest of their friendship trying to repay the kindness, without every really finding a way to do so.

But there was no one to gently coax her back to Peyman now, and comfort her with tea and avant-garde Jazz. The sun was sinking again, and she had not yet been able to move from the end of the dock, unable to shake the feeling that the Thing had to be watching from somewhere close by. It had to be. It knew where she was now.

But it would be dark soon, and then she really would be fucked - at the end of a dock, unable to jump into the water, and with only the knife to protect her. And she wouldn't even be able to see it coming, until it was already upon her.

She inched forward towards land, but was halted immediately by a wave of nausea and fear. Everything in her body resisted leaving the dock, and she had to focus all of her energy on her feet in order to force them forward. She took a deep breath, choked back a sob, and forced herself to press on. The dock squeaked its protest underfoot. She was shaking. 

She was shocked to still be alive when she arrived back at Peyman. Darkness was falling in earnest as she crossed the threshold into the dorm, looking around before she pulled the door shut behind her. Nothing stirred, inside or out. And then she was back in her room, checking the closet and pulling the dresser in front of the door. She crawled over to the space under the desk where her flashlight still stood guard. She wedged herself under the desk, and turned the flashlight on. Only then did she allow herself to cry, a great shuddering series of sobs that wracked her body. Too loud. She fought to swallow them, and quickly lost the fight. Then she cried with real commitment, as though she badly wanted to be found, by the Thing or by anyone.

***

Once, on a trip to see her cousins, eight-year-old Isa had stumbled across a novel that had chilled her to her very soul, and given her seething, fire-filled nightmares for months. She knew that her cousins worshipped at a peculiar sort of church, where everyone sang loudly and the pastor cried during his sermons. Eleven year old Malcolm referred to their cousins as "The Jesus Freaks" whenever he could do so unheard. Their real aunt had died young, and the cousins new stepmother was the sort that sang hymns while accompanying herself on the guitar. Their own mother used to call her "a bit much" whenever she could do so unheard. 

Isa had been bored to sobs during an Easter weekend of church and brunches and more church, and her youngest cousin was twelve years her senior (and therefore had no interest in playing with her). And so she'd hidden herself in a far corner of the garden, and devoured the book in a few short hours, with each page turn bringing on further anxiety. 

The book had detailed a Rapture-like event, wherein all the unwed mothers, unbaptized babies and sexual deviants (she wasn't sure) had been left to suffer on earth, while good God-fearing people had been gently elevated to dwell in some distant, off-stage paradise. The sins of those left behind had been sometimes as simple as parental disrespect and petty theft, which had made Isa stiff with fear - was that really all it took? She'd committed both of those sins as recently as the day before, with no inkling that the consequences would be so dire, and so permanent. She'd wet the bed that night, and suffered in meek silence for days, until an irate Malcolm had demanded to know what her issue was. He'd taken the book from her, and burned it in their own back garden.

"There, Is. It's gone, now", he'd stoked the flames roughly with a poker, and watched the pages curl, his look of satisfaction visible even in the dying light. "It's all a bunch of bullshit, anyway," he'd continued, with the easy assurance of one not quite twelve. "Anyone with even a basic education knows God is made up. When people hate their lives, they need to believe in something bigger. It gives them someone to blame, and someone who might fix everything for them if they find the right words to ask him." And the way he'd said it, and his sureness, and the fact that eleven was so much older than eight had convinced her. Religion, she decided, was the refuge of the weak and ignorant, and God was a grubby little man behind the curtain (if he existed at all). She summoned up the cover of the novel in her memory - blazing buildings, lost souls. 

Was that what had happened?

No. She banished the idea. She was no saint, but she had classmates who were far worse. And, now that she knew what sexual deviance was, she knew the campus was rife with every type of it. No, she might be awkward, smart-mouthed, and lightly larcenous, but Isa couldn't imagine that this was the Rapture.

She slipped into a tortured sleep perhaps an hour later, and again dreamt of walking along the hallway at her childhood cottage. She knew she was playing with Malcolm, and though she couldn't see him, she could hear his voice calling out somewhere up ahead. Her feet slipped forward as though her body weighed nothing at all... and then she looked up, and frowned. She was no longer at the cottage, but in Peyman, staring down the hallway. All the bedrooms doors were standing open - Daphne's, Angie and Mary's, Kate's, all of them. And not casually propped open, but open at different awkward angles, as though someone had run down the hall smacking them open. Hesitantly, she took a step forward, and realized that Malcolm's voice had evaporated. Everything was dark. She turned the corner, and looked down the east hallway - doors all open, all silent. 

But the laundry room door, at the end of the passage, was shut. 

 And a light shone out from underneath.