Almost Gone

" I can't! Noo! You don't understand, please!" I could still hear my mother's screams every time I drifted off to sleep... My mother lived in fear. She never said as much, but I could feel it nagging at my senses like nails on a chalkboard. I felt nothing but complete willingness as the word "Hide" left her lips and bounced around in my head like a ping pong ball. I could feel her fear rolling off of her in waves, crashing into me like an angry ocean surf and making it hard to breath. She looked at me for a moment as though for the first time as she removed my pendant necklace and fastened it around her own neck. It was an exact replica of the necklace she wore and served as a symbol of her love to me, and mine to her. I watched as she closed her vivid green eyes, took a deep breath and, with trembling hands, reached for the clasp of her own necklace. When she opened her eyes, my already scarce breath was knocked out of me with the force of the sudden terror in her eyes. Her eyes darted everywhere before she finally looked back at me. I could feel her struggling for control, like it was the last thread keeping her soul tied to this earth. With one last deep breath she reached her shaking hands around my neck and fastened her necklace around my neck. As soon as the clasp clicked, I could breath again... The crashing waves stopped replaced by only a slow ebb of fear......

They always started the same... Filled with the screams of my mother...... Torment? I wasn't sure why she screamed, who she was talking to, or where she went. My dreams were so vivid that I swear I could still smell every dusty, decrepit crevise of, what I assumed was, our home even as I woke up. I was certain that I must have been in the hiding place my mother spoke of when the screams happened... Of course, I wasn't sure where that even was! In my dreams, the screaming only began while it was dark and the air was heavy with a dusty grime filling my lungs, choking off what little air I could breathe.

I was only four years old when my life was disrupted. From what? I wasn't yet sure, but for the past three years the dreams have come. Sometimes the same as the last, and sometimes a little more detail would be revealed. At first, I thought they were just bad dreams. I would tell my Aunt Jenna about them and how real they felt. She brushed me off at first, until I described the troubled woman I kept seeing over and over. That was the first time she actually seemed truly interested in my talk of dreams. She has always listened, sure, but it always felt half hearted... Like she didn't really care. At the mention of the woman in my dreams and her repeated words to "hide" she looked at me strangely, held her hand up in a gesture that said "stop talking", and quickly disappeared in her bedroom. I huffed and flopped down on the couch feeling sorry for myself before I finally stopped long enough to realize the unease and confusion in the room. Something I said must have gotten through to my aunt, because I knew the emotions I was feeling were not my own. Moments later she returned clutching something to her chest. "You said you saw a woman in your dreams, with green eyes?" She said it with a trembling voice, but I could feel the doubt in her words. I nodded my head and voiced the word "yes". Aunt Jenna nodded, tucking her box colored-black hair behind her ear. Licking her lips, as though the desert air had chapped them dry, she lifted the photo she had at her chest and looked at it with indecision. She turned the photo for me to see and I felt like someone had punched me in the chest. I noticed the eyes first, the vivid green that I saw in my dreams. The beautiful woman with the blazing red hair that I had fondly thought of as my mother simply because of the great deal of concern I felt in my dreams. Who else would care so much? Certainly not an aunt. Not my aunt. I reached for the photo with trembling fingers, the only words I could form being "how?..... Where did you get this?" Before my fingers could so much as graze the sun kissed face of the woman in the photograph my aunt snatched it away. I didn't know what I did but I could feel her anger at an ebb mixed with pain... I didn't mean to hurt her. I didn't know how I had, but I needed it confirmed. Once and for all, who was this woman?

"Do you know who she is?" Aunt Jenna asked, through clenched teeth. "I....... Are you angry with me?" I was so confused. I could feel my aunt battling her emotions, I could feel all of the emotions from my dreams and my longing for answers about my life. It was all almost overwhelming and I couldn't understand why Aunt Jenna would be angry. Calmy and so low that I wouldn't have heard her if I had so much as swallowed hard she demanded "just answer the question Emery." I didn't dare tell her my childish musings so I simply answered "I... I don't know Aunt Jenna... I just know that she haunts my dreams, but there is a familiarity I can't place." She looked at me for a moment before saying "the woman in this picture, is my sister.... When she was happy and free... I care about you Emmery, as did my sister.... Your mother... Yet I fight my own mind. My mind wants to be angry with you while my heart wants to love my sister's greatest treasure. See, she ran when she found out she was pregnant with you... She went into hiding and nobody found her. Until almost 5 years had passed apparently. They found you in an old building with a note sewn into your waistband, no mother in sight and dumped you on my doorstep. You are the reason she ran, we could have helped her if she had let us and now..... We don't know if she is alive or dead!" Everything was a blur, so many questions flew through my head, I couldn't breath. She hated me.... No wonder she had been so distant to me all these years. I couldn't blame her, I couldn't even remember my own mother and she was stuck with years of memories and had no answers. I wish I could help her, but I didn't know where to start or what to say... I ran to my room as I let my emotions take over letting every sob rack through my body until I had no more emotions left in me. I did the only thing I knew how. I shut everything out. Every emotion, every thought everything. I didnt know the time, only that it was dark outside and my aunt wasn't home. I guess she didn't want to face me after her latest revelation. I could help her with that. I quickly made my way to the first door at the beginning of the narrow hallway and slipped inside.

I had never been allowed inside of my aunt's bedroom. Everything was dark minus the light pouring out of the adjoining bathroom. I didn't know what I was looking for, but I hoped to find something to tell me more of my mother. I looked through dresser drawers, under her bed, inside the bathroom pantry and cabinets, inside of some decorative books I had found and through the closet. I found nothing. I was about to give up when my curiosity got the best of me. Inside one of her decorative books that sat on her vanity was a small gold key, yet I had found nothing that was locked. What did the key go to? I went over every wall until all that was left was the floorboards. I sat down at her vanity and retreived the key. I knew I was missing something, I hadn't even found the picture that my aunt had shown me. I looked around the room that was still only lightly lit by the light coming out of the bathroom. As I turned my head something glinted at the corner of my eye. I turned my head, facing toward my aunt's bed but saw nothing. While still staring intently I moved my head back and leaned forward once more. There! The glint, it was coming from a large frame above the head of her bed. Inside, was a picture of a small cabin tucked safely in the covering of trees complete with a water wheel positioned by a small pond. The frame was made of a rich mahogany and on the right side of the frame almost at it's very edge, something glinted... I edged closer before realizing it was a small key hole. I looked at the key in my hand and decided to give it a try.

I held my breath as I inserted the key and turned it in the lock. *Click* I let my breath out and paused for a moment as I listened for any sign of noise inside the dark house. When I didn't hear anything I pulled the frame open revealing a compartment build into the wall. I reached in and pulled out the first thing that my fingers touched. I walked back to the light of the bathroom and found it to be a book. As I opened the front cover I discovered that it was a picture book filled with pictures of my aunt and mother's childhood. It was like flipping through a time line, watching the same faces grow older and more descernible. As I reached the back of the book I found a picture of my mother that put her right around the age from my dreams. She was laughing and happy, she was beautiful when she was happy. I carefuly slipped the picture out of the adhevise filled pages and took the book back to its hiding place. As I replaced it, my fingers caught a wooden box of some sort. I grasped it and pulled it out repeating my earlier steps so I could see clearly... It was about the size of an old cigar box but was real wood instead of the thick cardboard of a real cigar box. On it's lid was a beautifully carved rose in full bloom. I opened the top and plucked out the folded piece of paper on top that revealed my birth certificate, underneath that, in the box, was a completely sealed envelope with my name on it. My curiosity was peeked but I wouldn't use my time reading it just yet. This box must have been intended for me. I replaced everything in the box along with the picture I had confiscated, closed the picture frame once again hiding the compartment in the wall and replaced the key where I'd found it. I didn't bother replacing anything else, I just grabbed the box, ran to my room and filled my backpack with as much as it could hold including the box. I took one last look at the only home I had truly known, took a deep breath and walked out the door. If Aunt Jenna didn't want me here, I'd make that decision easy for her.