Answers Buried with Her

Lord Byron

1816

The trees here have secrets. Summer wind rushes through the branches trying to sweep them away – trying to lessen the burden on the trunks – but it doesn’t help. Those eucalypts have seen too much, heard too many whispers.

I watch them sway, heavy under the weight of their knowledge, humidity clinging to the window before me.

If I squint hard enough, it’s easy to consider it beautiful.

Scorching sun breaking through the leaves, carrying twittering birdsong that echoes through the hollow places.

But I know better. I’ve seen what happens in the shadows out there.

“Heather?” A voice fractures my daydreams, bringing warmth into my pessimistic wondering.

Her reflection smiles, obscured by the Christmas lights flashing and dancing in the glass. I turn to her, a grin sneaking across my lips.

“Francesca Gallows, how did you find yourself in a place like this?”

My home, more a prison than a sanctuary. Filled with evidence of lives lead by discipline rather than joy.

She squints, winking, covering her lips with one finger, trying to look serious but the curve of her mouth betrays her.

“Mrs. Rhodes?” the voice says again, though not Francesca’s voice at all. “Ma’am, please sit. We’ve come to talk to you about Francesca.”

Time turns viscous as memories of her – my friend, more sister – flicker through my thoughts. The moments of unbridled glee, our leashes loose, reverting to childhood happiness while it was just the two of us.

“Did you find her?” I ask, glancing away from the sympathetic eyes of the woman who stands before us. Not Francesca. She is gone. Swallowed by the secrets of the forest months ago.

My mother, ramrod straight, stands beside me with her lips pursed in an unreadable expression.

“You found her?” she echoes.

The policewoman’s jaw tenses, eyes straining to maintain contact, quivering with longing to glance away.

“We found Francesca.”

The cold was bone deep that winter. Damp wind gripped my lungs as we roved through the undergrowth. Six months ago, we were free – or as free as you can be as eighteen-year-olds under the watchful eye of my mother.

“What will you ask Santa for this year?” Francesca asked me, a coy smile trying to be bitten back.

Our families were devout – the story of Saint Nicholas was woven into our festivities, yet the wonder of his evolution lived as whispers between the youth at mass.

We longed for his visit as children, each morning waking to find our Christmas trees barren and another splinter of disappointment embedded in our souls.

“Santa, or Satan, mistress of the night?”

She laughed, the sound reverberating through the branches overhead. “Perhaps Krampus. Coming to claim your body for his amusement.” She wiggled her fingers, taking pleasure in the inevitability of my discomfort.

“Funny.” I kicked a pebble, sending it skittering across the earthen path. It skipped and hopped over moss covered stones and roots, landing at the feet of a shadow.

“Ladies,” he said, tipping his hat.

We each smiled politely, Francesca more than me – all teeth, rosy cheeks and fluttering lashes.

“Oh, stop that!” I hissed at her as he disappeared down the path.

Her dark-lined eyes blinked at me, attempting innocence.

“Whatever do you mean?” she asked with her lower lip pinched.

“You know what I mean. Leave that poor man alone. He’s not only far too old for you, he’s also an outcast. Which you will also be if you keep up this dark charade,” I said through my teeth.

Since the weather turned that winter, Francesca wore nothing but black. Black jeans that hugged her thighs, black tops trimmed with lace, black kohl around her eyes, making the blue look mystical in the cool sunlight.

“Has your mother forbidden you from seeing me yet?” she asked, plucking a wildflower from a nearby bush.

“Not yet. But you’re pushing it. This whole thing…” I told her, waving in her direction. “…is cumbersome to her cause. I’m surprised your own mother hasn’t shunned you yet. Surely she despises it as much as all the other parents do?”

She snorted – her burgundy lacquered lips pursing.

“I wish she would. I hate it here. I can’t wait to grow wings and fly away,” she said wistfully, watching the sky. Plumes of fog escaped from her mouth as she slowly exhaled.

“I envy you, Raven. I wouldn’t dare press my luck having even an ounce of personality within earshot of my mother, let alone wear it proudly on my face.”

She would tsk whenever I spoke of my mother, her tongue sucking the roof of her mouth.

I glanced down at my clothing – thick linen overalls and weather-beaten loafers that never fit quite right. I was in the first months of adulthood, with no pleasures of my own. Simply clay for my mother to mould as she wished.

“Have you considered my offer?” Francesca asked, head crooked in concern.

“Yes,” I sighed, daydreams beginning to swell through my thoughts. “But I can’t leave Isabel alone with our mother. I’m the only tether to reality she has, as you were for me. Without someone here to ground her through mothers’ ideologies, she’d surely drown in the lessons.”

Lessons. More like fear enabling fables designed to keep women in line. To be weight bearers for men – their fathers and brothers and husbands alike.

She hummed quietly as she stepped over swaying weeds that broke through the pebbly path.

“You can’t tell me that you don’t think Cole is absolutely steamy.”

I feigned a gag, though I thought of his face, and the way his jawbone turned sharply at the edge. The way his stubble grew into his hairline. The way he always smelled of rain and lumber, even in the middle of a drought.

If I were a braver woman, I’d have approached him that day, shown interest – but I wasn’t.

I was a rabbit – a frightened little mouse.

Winter is always claustrophobic here, nestled in the woodland. Tepid wind collected raindrops, carrying them through the air to invade your chest, making it nearly impossible to breathe.

I felt as though I could have melted into a heap of muscle and sinew when Francesca and I eventually stopped. Even in the middle of the coldest season, a rare day of unrelenting sun will occur, and reset something across the hills.

The hideout we made as children remains nestled between trees in the woodland that skirts the edges of our properties. Perfectly mid-way. Neither hers, nor mine. Ours. We had a collection of memories there – moments together, fusing our bond to iron within the quiet appreciation of friendship.

But our secrets remain there to this day, never to be spoken of again. I haven’t dared enter it since she left. Since she vanished into a mist of tears and broken promises.

I often wondered if she got out, just decided to leave under the secrecy of the moon, hitchhiking her way to her brother in the city. I wondered if she felt guilty for leaving me behind. I wondered if she ever planned to come back for me.

“Mrs. Rhodes, please, sit down.” The uniformed officer directs my mother, gesturing to the old fraying chaise.

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