Sonya
The
restless Autumn wind came in whistling through the leaking windows.
Raindrops ran down in little streams into the cold kitchen from the
holes in the roof. All the windows were covered with thick black
curtains that secluded us from the world outside. I took a look at
Patrick who was resting on the moldy living room couch and after
making sure he was
asleep,
I dared to pull the curtain back and peek out. Even though, it was
only six o’clock in the evening, the surrounding forest was
pitch-black. Far in the distance, behind the tree trunks, I saw
lights in the darkness. I knew they were candles burning inside our
neighbor’s jack-o’-lanterns.
I would have like to put a lantern outside our cabin as well but I
knew Patrick would never allow me to do that. We were suppose to be
hidden from the world, disappeared, drowned in the bottom of a great
lake. No one was to know that any living soul nested in this 1800’s
shack. No one lived here, so they believed, and that was for the best
for us. I took an old brass bucket and placed it under yet another
leaking hole. I wished I could at least fix the roof or burn some
wood to warm the place up as it was freezing. I went to the living
room, took a sheep’s hide and pulled it up to cover my sleeping son
so he would not get cold. It was too small to reach the stern, robust
body of a twenty-five-year-old from head to toe.
Only
ten minutes later someone knocked on the door. I felt my heart stop.
No one could know we were here. During the eleven months we had spent
in the cabin, no one had come near to it. Was the police on to us? I
felt nauseous. I peeked out between the curtains and sighed in
relieve: there were two little children standing in the wooden porch,
no older than ten, I guessed, with Halloween costumes on and tiny
baskets full of candy dangling from their hands. I knew I was not
supposed to open the door but I could not resist. They were little
children, no little children could harm us.
Carlton
“No
one lives there”, Carlton told Max who was already running through
the overgrown forest trail towards the abandoned shack. Carlton could
not make up his mind whether to follow his friend or not. Max
disappeared into the darkness and suddenly Carlton got scared
standing there all alone. He ran after his friend yelling:
“Wait
for me, Max!”
Carlton
recalled that the shack had stood there forever. No one had been
living there for decades, Carlton’s mom had told him once. She had
explained that years ago local teenagers trashed the place and before
that, when Carlton’s mom was his age, satanists used the place to
perform rituals. Carlton was not sure if he believed the story but he
definitely did not want to go near the damn hovel. Carlton and Max
had visited all the houses in their area but Max was still hungry for
more and wanted to be absolutely sure there
was
no
one in that shack that could offer them candy.
“Ew,
the place is creepy, let’s go back”, Carlton begged but Max’s
eyes were sparkling in the subtle, pale moonlight as he was
mesmerized.
“There
is a witch living here, for sure!” Max yelled in excitement and
jumped on to the wooden porch. The old and decayed wood swayed under
his shoes and Carlton was afraid it would crack.
“No
there isn’t, don’t be stupid. I already told you, no one lives
here”, Carlton answered frustrated but Max knocked on the door,
nonetheless. A moment passed. In the silence of the forest, the rain
drummed against the metal roof. Carlton was holding an umbrella that
was constantly pulled by the wind. His sneakers as well as his socks
had gotten wet while running on the mossy forest trail. Max had no
umbrella of his own and his dark, wet hair
hung
glued
to
his big, pale forehead. His blue eyes gleamed in the dim moonlight.
Then
Carlton noticed something moving in the corner of his eye.
“Did
you see? Someone was at the window!” Max shouted and knocked again.
The wooden door opened in the middle of him knocking. It made a
creak. In the doorway stood an old woman with short, blond hair and a
tired face. She
must be at least fifty, the same age as my mom, Carlton
thought. The woman had opened the door just enough so she could peek
outside.
“Trick
or treat!” Max yelled. Carlton felt frozen. He stared at the woman
suspiciously. No
one was suppose to live here, he
repeated to himself in his mind.
“Oh
my, you look so cute! A skeleton and what are you? A monster? I’m
so sorry, I don’t have any candy but wait a second...” The woman
said and closed the door. She had not recognized Carlton’s green
Hulk costume and that disappointed the boy.
“What
did I say! She’s definitely a witch!” Max giggled and Carlton
lift his finger to his lips nervously. Right then the door opened
again.
“My
apologies, this is all I have”, the woman said while offering two
bruised and brown oranges to the boys. How
miserable, Carlton
thought but took the fruit anyway. The woman smiled pleased.
Sonya
“How
can you be so reckless, mother! Do you want me to go to jail?!”
Patrick yelled all red and hit the kitchen table with his fist. I
hated confrontation but I tried my best to stay calm.
“They
were little children, Patrick. They will tell no one or even if they
do, no one will think anything of it. Children tell stories all the
time. No one cares if there’s someone living in a cabin in the
woods”, I explained to him.
“Children
precisely tell everyone, they gossip! And then some parent gets
worried and comes snooping around. And when they recognize us, the
police is gonna be here in that instant and I will be thrown in to
jail! I can’t believe you put us in danger! Don’t you understand
how it would be for me to be in jail for child murder? I would be
beaten to death!” Patrick screamed.
“I
don’t want that, honey. Besides, you’re innocent and we’re
gonna prove that one day”, I told him calmly.
“No
we are not. We didn’t before. And even thought they had no
proof
that
I was guilty, they we’re still ready to judge me. People want to
see me hurt, mom. Don’t ever open the door to anybody again,
promise me!”
“I
promise. I’m sorry, honey”, I said sincerely. Patrick sighed in
anger and left the kitchen. There was
no
place to escape in the cabin though, as it only had three little
rooms: a kitchen, a living-room and
an
alcove.
I
felt bad for Patrick. I believed my son was innocent to the crime
everyone wanted to blame on him without proper evidence. It had been
a brutal
murder
of a
young boy that lived in our neighborhood at that time. I remember how
the boy was stabbed to death, full of holes like that, he reminded a
voodoo doll. It had been a true hate crime by the looks of it. He had
been stabbed several dozen times and there was so much blood. Patrick
found the body and immediately came to tell me. I was the one who
called the police. I could not have ever imagined that Patrick would
be blamed for the killing. Patrick’s fingerprints were all over the
scene but I thought it was obvious since he had been first at the
scene. There
was
no real
evidence. Patrick was an easy one to blame though, as he was not a
bright boy. Even when he had been little, he always struggled to keep
up with everyone else.
The
police thought that Patrick’s motive was the fact that the victim
had spread a rumor that I was having an affair. It was all nonsense
as Patrick would never be so petty that he could murder someone over
such a little thing. Patrick was nineteen at the time and the victim,
Thomas, was thirteen. The police and the media made Patrick look
guilty from the very beginning, trying to paint as bad of a picture
of him as possible. The trials lasted two years. During that time my
husband suffered a heart attack and died. Maybe that was a relieve
compared to what we endured in the following years.
It
seemed likely that Patrick was gonna go to jail for a crime he did
not commit. So we came up with a plan. We staged our deaths. I made
sure every detail was taken into consideration: weeks prior we talked
to our friends and family about suicidal thoughts we were having. We
wrote a note explaining why we felt a need to end our lives together.
Then we rode the car to a near by lake and made everything indicate
that we had drowned ourselves into the freezing water. The lake was
huge and deep and I was well aware that the police had no resources
to search the whole body of water. As months passed by, our demise
seemed to satisfy the media and people started to believe in the
story. Newspapers stopped writing about us. We lived in abandoned
buildings, stayed on the move, constantly traveling but only during
nighttime. Eleven months ago we found this little cabin that seemed
like a perfect hiding place. Even though, the nearest neighbor was at
a seeing distant, we made sure no one ever saw any movement inside.
In the safety of the darkness of the night, we hunted little animals
and went through the neighbors’ trash. That was how we got enough
food to keep ourselves alive.
I
do not know what came into me, why did I open the door for the
children. I had felt isolated and lonely for such a long time, I
guess. And I loved children, always had. I did not think anything bad
could come out of it. Was I wrong? I pulled the curtain back and
watched how the first snowflakes rained down in an otherwise black
night. They looked like white flowers. Winter was coming and soon we
would not be safe here anymore. The snow would reveal our footprints
and it would bury us and the cabin under a cold blanket.
The
feather-light first snow glistened in the sun showcasing all the
colors of the rainbow. It was truly amazing how fast the Autumn’s
pitch-black darkness had turned into a Winter’s bright whiteness.
“I
dropped my keys last night, lost them. I guarantee you they’re
somewhere in the forest around that witch’s shack”, Max told
while the boys were making a big pile of snow with little shovels.
“Was
your mom mad?” Carlton asked.
“Sure,
she was. But I’m gonna go back there to find my keys. Of course the
snow has covered everything but maybe that woman found them and she’s
holding on to them or something. Or I could ask her to keep her eyes
open, just in case”, Max explained.
“You
want to come with me?” Max asked then. Carlton did not. He wanted
to decline the offer but he did not like the idea of Max returning to
that place alone. The woman could indeed be a witch. She could throw
Max into a cauldron or cast a spell turning him into a frog. So
Carlton answered:
“Yeah.
I’ll go with you.”
Sonya
I
was taking a nap at the time. My throat felt sore and I was so cold,
I thought I might be getting sick and tried to rest. I was wearing
three quilts and these, ragged, dirty, old woolen socks that I had
found in the shed. I was freezing regardless. I was half asleep when
I heard someone scream. I jumped up and dropped the quilts to the
floor. I ran the few steps to the kitchen and saw Patrick standing
there, an angry expression on his face and a knife in his hand.
“Those
bloody kids are back! I told you so! They recognized us and came back
to snoop around!” Patrick hissed at me with a coldness in his
voice.
“Why
are you holding a knife?” I asked shivering. I felt nauseous.
“We
can’t let them go, they’re witnesses, mom. You don’t want me to
go to jail, do you?” Patrick said in a voice that made me tremble
in fear.
“What
are you talking about, Patrick. They’re just children, for God’s
sake! Give me the knife. I’ll talk to them”, I begged him but
something inside me warned me. The old feelings of doubt, I had tried
to avoid and forget all these years, came back to me suddenly. I
reached my hand towards my son. Then, someone knocked on the door.
“Mom.
Go back to the other room”, Patrick ordered me and took a step
towards the door.
“No,
don’t!” I yelled and launched at him but he pushed me aside
effortlessly. I tripped and hit my head in the cabinet, hard.
“You
should’ve listened to me, mom”, I heard Patrick’s voice telling
me. The whole world was black for a while, my ears were ringing. I
heard how the door was opened and then this, inhuman, high-pitched
screaming. Slowly my sight came back and the world stopped spinning
so that I could make out what I was looking at. My son was bend down
next to a little boy’s body. The boy’s dark hair was stained with
red blood and the lifeless blue eyes stared straight at me, blind.
Everywhere was so much blood, oh God how much blood. Patrick had
stabbed the boy repeatedly, shredding him into pieces. The tears of
horror rose to my eyes and blurred my vision.
“You
really did do it”, I whispered crying.