Chapter 2
Chapter Two
Ican feel a throbbing in my head and the brightness of the neon lights overhead make my eyes sting as I crack them open. I am met with Benji and Marissa hovering over me and I swear it looks like they are holding hands.
“She’s back! Make room!” Marissa nudges Benji out of the way as she kneels down, grasping her dress so as to not wrinkle it as she lets her bare knees hit the hardwood floor beside me.
“Nuria! Nuria are you ok? You bolted out of there like a jack rabbit!” Marissa clearly exaggerates whilst shaking my shoulders. I brush her off, coming up onto my elbows.
“I didn’t bolt. I walked like a normal human. I’m fine, I think I just haven’t eaten enough today,” I lie as I push myself up onto my feet and dust off my clothes. My vision swims for a second, Benji leans in to grasp my arm but I pull it away before he can.
“Get back in there Mar, really I’m fine. I’ll wait in the car,” I say with a little feigned smile and start walking towards the front door so she won’t see my hands shaking.
I hesitate pushing the door open for fear that I will be transported back to wherever that place was.
“Here, let me get that for you,” Benji offers, swinging the door open and letting the hot midday air wash over me. I give him a little nod then hurry towards the car.
“I’ve got the keys, remember… I’m the Valet,” Benji chuckles whilst following me and swinging the keys around his finger. I grasp out for them but he pulls his hand away. Concern wrinkles his brow.
“What happened in there, Nuri?” he asks.
I just shrug in response and try to grab the keys again but he pulls them away.
“I think that happened once when we were together but you didn’t collapse that time.
You just kind of looked straight ahead and couldn’t hear me.
Also this time you said a name. You said Embrys.
Is that your new boyfriend?” he questions me but I’m too shaken to deal with this right now.
Embrys… his name is Embrys. I feel my cheeks flush and my body warm despite the chilling scene I have just witnessed.
“Leave me alone Benji,” I say through clenched teeth. He sighs and turns on his heel to walk back towards his Valet’s podium. Annoyingly, he also took the keys with him. I decide I just need to get out of here, so begrudgingly I start my walk back home.
The entire walk is a blur as I go over every detail of what I saw when I was passed out.
Am I losing my mind? These flashes used to happen for the briefest of moments when I was younger when I would enter a room or spin around suddenly but they would never last for more than a few moments.
I remember enjoying the scenes I would see.
Sometimes I was in a vibrant forest, others were on horseback.
I know it sounds strange but I felt like a friend was taking me away from my reality, just for a moment, to show me another life.
They all felt joyful and exciting as a kid but it happened less and less as I became a teen, to the point that I stopped believing they were anything other than childish dreams.
This one was different. This one felt sinister.
The visions seem to be getting stronger since my return from university, it feels so real. The hard stone beneath my feet and the cool iron door handles in my hands. It all felt so real! And that voice… Why do I know that voice? Fear sours my stomach.
When I finally get home I’m a bit of a sweaty mess and just want to dissolve into nature for a while.
I peel off the skin tight skirt and frilly blouse right there in the foyer before running up to my room to put on my swimmers.
I also grab my towel and sketch pad before I bolt out the back door, letting it slam behind me.
The midday heat is softened by the dense canopy of the forest just beyond our backyard, the call of the birds a familiar comfort.
I find my well-hidden deer track that leads to my favourite swimming spot and pad my way down to the creek in my bare feet; the crackle of leaves and soft sponge of the mosses underfoot giving me a sensory delight; the tickling brush of the ferns on my shins are friends welcoming me home.
I’ve been coming here ever since I first arrived at the Piedmont’s house.
Delia and Hunt had to constantly keep an eye on me, otherwise I would race off into the forest. They would find me by the creek turning over boulders as if I was desperately looking for something and babbling away about gnomes.
Just the grand imagination of a five year old they would joke.
The creek is just as I left it in its sweet bubbling glory; I drop my towel and sketch pad on the bank and wade in; the first touch of the cool water eliciting an audible sigh from my lips.
There hasn’t been any rain in weeks though so my swimming hole is more or less a spot to sit in with the water going just above my belly button when I am seated but it does the trick to cool me down both physically and mentally.
I lie down in the creek, using a big rock as a pillow and let the soft current flow over my shoulders. The waving, whispering leaves of the willows overhead lull me into deep relaxation, my eyes flutter closed by their own accord. I bask in the quiescence of the moment, audibly sighing.
The squirrels chitter at each other from different trees, proclaiming their territory and the sweet, yellow warblers call, searching for their mates.
In the distance, there is the tap tap tap of the woodpecker and the lilting song of the robin.
The songs of the forest all meld together in a symphony of balance that puts me into an easeful trance.
The weirdness of the morning washes away in the serenity.
My consciousness is fading between dream and wakefulness as I soak in the cool tendrils of the creek when, out of nowhere, I hear a crash coming from deeper within the forest.
My eyes snap open, I notice that the sun has lowered significantly in the sky and there are some big clouds rolling in.
How long have I been here? I wonder, looking down at my wrinkly hands.
In that moment, a chill creeps down my spine as I take in the eerie silence of the forest. The birds have fallen silent and the squirrels seem to all be hiding or staying completely still.
All I can hear is the soft bubbling of the creek as it tumbles around the rocks.
There must be something big nearby, I observe with a twinge of panic, scrambling out of the creek and grabbing my towel.
I pause, listening closely and looking in the direction I heard the crash but everything is utterly still.
Surely a bear wouldn’t come this far down the mountain, I try to reassure myself, I grab my sketchbook and quickly tiptoe back up the deer track, not wanting to find out.
Once I begin to see the houses through the trees the birds start picking up where they left off, giving the illusion of safety again.
Whatever that thing was, it must have headed back into the direction of the mountain.
I sigh and slow my pace. I still need a bit of time before I step into what I know will be uncomfortable scrutiny from my family.
When I get back to the house it feels quiet. I realize with relief that it is only Delia who is home – interrogation avoided.
“Where is everyone?” I ask, putting my sketch pad and towel down on the kitchen counter as I grab one of her famous chocolate chip cookies.
She startles at the sound of my voice. “Oh… Marissa is at her friend’s place and your father will be home late…
again. Just you and me, dear.” She sounds far away and it feels like a punch to the heart.
Ever since Dad was promoted within the council he is barely home and it’s awful to see the effect it has on her.
I often wonder who and what she was before she had me and Marissa in her life.
She is an absolute badass when she is in front of people from town, but at home she just feels like an empty shell sometimes.
“That’s ok. Let me help you cook dinner, it will be fun.” I get a little nod and a meek smile in response, a small victory. We end up baking more cookies after dinner as well, cookies always fix things.
The next morning I leave the house early to document the morels but the heat is extraordinarily oppressive today so, before I know it, I find myself daydreaming by the creek instead.
Thankfully there are no strange silences or feelings of being watched today.
Just the sweet symphony of croaking frogs, chirping grasshoppers, and twittering birds – the soundtrack to my admiration of a spider performing her dance of geometrical magic.
When I return home the air-con is pumping and, while I usually despise the dry, recycled air, today I have to admit it is welcome. Perhaps I will just catch up on my paintings.
The day has well and truly turned into a rot day though, all productivity is fried away by the hot air outside and I find I am just mindlessly flipping through magazines, trying to avoid looking at my phone.
I look up from the new monthly Eco-Quirk magazine to find Marissa’s head peering into my room; I sigh and wave her in.
“Hey Nuri, I brought some nail polish. I thought maybe we could hang.” She plops down on the bed beside me. This feels strange, she never wants to just hang, or at least she hasn’t for many years. We were inseparable when we were little. Puberty ruined everything.
“Okay… why?” I don’t hide my confusion.
“I just… feel like we need some sisterly bonding time, or whatever.” She rolls her eyes and starts flicking through the magazine I had been reading, landing on an article about medicinal weeds for a moment before quickly setting it back down.
She probably thought it was an article about marijuana – to her disappointment, it was a spotlight on the resourcefulness and necessity of dandelions in urban gardens.