Chapter Five
Time
“A joke?” Brett said, not amused in the slightest.
Rachel nodded, maintaining eye contact. “I thought it would lighten the mood after last night.”
Brett sighed and backed away from the canvas. “I still have a few waterfalls and nature trails to shoot for NG. Will you be good here with officer whatever-his-name-is?”
“I’ll be a-okay,” Rachel said. “The extra rest I got this morning is what I needed.”
That was the second time she lied to him, and it was the second time Brett look at the canvas that clearly said, “TRUTH OR DARE?” and saw nothing. Or acted like it. Then again, he wasn’t the type to play tricks on her like that. He knew the stories Rachel had told him about her mother, the few that were, and no matter how spiteful he may be feeling, he would never make Rachel believe she’s losing it. Right? Rachel watched him walk out the door and lock it behind him.
She stood up and walked away from the canvas, snapping a picture of it with her crappy phone camera. It appeared just how she saw it, phrase and all. To double check her theory she grabbed her hand mirror and reflected the canvas. The phrase was there. She could feel the pencil’s grooves with her fingertips. How could Brett not see it?
Rachel decided it was best to shun her easel for today. Under the kitchen sink, she picked up window cleaner and rag, touring through the old house. As she wiped down the glass windows, Brett took helm of her thoughts. Nearly a decade they’d known one another. Rachel hoped that the house meant to progress their relationship wouldn’t be it’s bane. After a time of cleaning, unpacking boxes, and package some sold artwork. Rachel felt woods calling her. She took a long hike out in the backyard, passed where she found the children’s toys and up to a ledge on the mountain side. Her skin crawled as she dangled her legs over the cliff’s edge, but the adrenaline rush comforted her.
For miles and miles, mighty mountains ruled. Their vast heights and immense sprawl seemed picturesque. Rachel rubbed her upper arms, feeling her goosebumps. The mountain breeze tousled her dark hair, and after only a moment, caused her to back inside. In the threshold of the hallway, she stared at the easel and the words “TRUTH OR DARE” scribbled across its face. She walked over it, studying it more intently than ever before. If was a figment of her imagine or an hallucination wouldn’t have the truth revealed itself by now? Rippppp! She tore off the front page and exited the house.
The sun was low and orange. It hung on the blue sky. Rachel squinted at it, wondering where the day had gone. She rapped her knuckles on the police cruiser window. Officer Lynchfield awoke quickly, eyes wide and face stern. He wiped away drool from the side of his mouth and rolled down the window.
“What?” He did little to hide his annoyance.
Rachel unrolled the canvas paper. “I have a stupid question.”
“Heh.” Lynchfield looked her over.
The canvas paper rolled out a scroll. “What do you see?” Rachel asked.
Lynchfield’s apathetic eyes scanned over the paper. “A blank page.”
Rachel’s heart sunk. She forced a smile. “Thanks.”
Lynchfield crinkled his brow and gave her a judgmental look.
Rachel opened the metal grate guarding the fireplace. She shoved the rolled canvas paper inside and clicked on the candle lighter. The mislay fire danced in Rachel’s green eyes. The corner of paper curled and blackened under the heat. The fire took. Rachel shoved it into the ashy fireplace and closed the grate. She watched the paper burn, catching a final glimpse of the harrowing words before the paper dissolved along with a portion of her stress.
She sighed and returned to easel stool. It felt oddly satisfying to look at a fresh page. Then she noticed something amiss. The pile of blank canvas paper was largely diminished. Rachel flipped back the large pile of paper already boasting sketches. The first few were of her latest artwork all the way to the portrait of Brett and bloody couple behind him. The pages after that thought caused Rachel to gasp.
A drawing of a kid holding his knees in the back of a closet, the sketch of the authoritative woman lying dead on the floor, and a dozen more death scenes. Once with Rachel hanging from the upstairs balcony with blackened face and noose. Rachel stepped back from the easel, instinctive thinking it would separate her from the horror. She knew two truths immediately. One: she didn’t draw these. Two: by the distinct artistic style, it was clearly her work.
Rachel hustled up and down the stairs, retrieving her laptop. She pulled it open, chewing her nail and reviewed the footage for the living room. She switched off the live feed and rewound back to the start of the day. In fast warded, she watched herself and Brett point at the canvas. Brett walking out the door and Rachel headed to the kitchen for clean supplies. She watched herself walk out of the kitchen and freeze. For a solid three minutes, Rachel in the footage scarcely breathed. A tear trickled down Rachel’s cheek as she watched the video unfold. Rachel in the footage approached the canvas and gently put down the blue bucket of cleaning supplies. She sat on the bench and started to draw. The fast forward video had Rachel flipping over a complete piece of artwork every thirty minutes without suffering quality. Flip. Flip. Flip. The paper rolled over the top of canvas adding to pile. Rachel checked the timestamp on the video.
From nine in the morning till four in the afternoon, she drew without ceasing.
Rachel paused the video and stared at the screen with slacked jaw. She no words. No thoughts. No explanation. She needed to get out of this house. She sat on the front steps with glazed eyes until the cab arrived. The middle-aged Romanian man with the thickest mustache she’d ever seen rolled down the window. “Nice place.”
Rachel didn’t reply. She climbed into the back seat and told him the restaurant's address.
“You must think of me as a one trick pony,” Her father said jokily over the soft oriental chimes that filled the authentic Chinese restaurant. “I just love this place.”
Rachel smiled at him. She felt consequences of her sleepless nights in the aching of her muscles and the straining of her eyes. Around six in the evening, the place was largely vacant and moodily dim with orange lights casting comes up on the walls and Chinese artwork.
“You called me at such short notice, you seemed bothered.” Her father asked, pinching a piece of beef in his chopsticks.
You don’t know the half of it. “I want to talk about mom,” Rachel replied.
By the looks on her father’s face, she’d torn open the stitches of an infected wound. Rachel felt the same painful memories but she far better at hiding it then her pastor-turned-drunk-turned-sober-retiree father, Liam.
“Well,” Liam set aside the fork and clear his throat. “That’s an interesting topic. What makes you so curious about your mother?”
Rachel shrugged. Because I’m losing my mind. “Because I’ve been thinking about her lately. I realized I don’t know her that well.”
Liam smiled sadly. “She was one of a kind, that one. Smart, creative and beautiful like you. She had this outlook on the world that so… unique. Like hope with a healthy amount of cynicism. It made her very wise. I think that’s what I loved about her most of all. I could trust her advice.” Liam eyes lingered on his messy plate, lost in thoughts and memories.
“When did she… you know?”
Her father’s face turned pale white for moment. “Have her episode?”
Rachel nodded, hearing the hurt in her father’s voice. The memories turned him to the drink for many years. Rachel felt a bitter twisting in her gut as she asked.
“As much as I’d like to believe the episode was spontaneous, your mother’s insanity started a long time before her episode.” Liam pushed his plate aside. “First, she distanced herself from me, signing up for dance programs and art classes. Not unusual. She was a stay at home wife. But, then, I got his idea during my quiet time to surprise her at one of her recitals or classes and rea
lized that she wasn’t there. She never signed up.”
“Where was she?”
Liam looked Rachel in the eyes and spoke with unapologetic honesty. “I still don’t know. I thought it was an affair but our love life was amazing. The church had nearly doubled in size. Life was good. No, great. So why would she have an affair? Was I blind? Instead of practicing what I preached and confronted her with love and understand, I said nothing. I thought things would just get better the more I prayed. And things did, but she still left most days and got home late. I vowed I wasn’t going to be a paranoid husband. I failed. One night, as I went to call her out on strange behavior, she interrupting me and pointed to the corner of the room, asking if I saw something. I didn’t. As the days progressed, she’d point out different aspects of the room and ask if I saw a person or some writing. I didn’t and I knew something was wrong.”
“How long did that last for?”
“All the way to the end,” Liam grunted in frustration. “She started to forget where she was. Said she was having blackouts. I got worried and begged her get some rest. Instead, she’d get up super early in the morning and drive away for long hours of the day. When she was home, I’d hear her talking to herself. Having two way conversations with air. One day, she lost it. She started screaming. The Orphans! The Orphans! Get out of my way. Only I can save them! When I tried to calm her, she threw plates at me, screamed, and ran around the yard with no regard that she was in her undergarments. The rest of the story you know…”
The soft plucking of a Chinese instrument filled their silence. Rachel’s leg tapped uncontrollably beneath the table. She had no appetite. “Did mom ever improve?”
Liam frowned. “She’s been in that mental hospital for twenty-five years, tried to take her own life multiple times and shows no signs of ever getting better. The last time I saw her, she was in a straitjacket, locked in a padded room and having seemly dozen conversations with the things she saw. The church elders and I tried to exercise whatever demonic force had done this to her. Your mother laughed at me and then cried. That was nearly five years ago.”
Rachel took her father’s hand in her own. He placed his other hand on top of hers and smiled with his eyes closed. They shared unspoken sympathies. Deep down, Rachel wonder what would happen to this man if Rachel shared the same fate as her mother.
The cab ride back was a blur of thoughts and mix emotions. Rachel shut her eyes and imagined standing in a padded room in a straitjacket. Scribbled in black across the all the cushioned walls were the words “TRUTH OR DARE.”
After folding up her easel and storing it in the cluttered downstairs office, Rachel read Brett’s text.
“Great,” She mumbled sarcastically. The client wants night photos and a few beers. Brett won’t be home for at least another two hours.
Rachel took a long, hot shower. Wearing her lazy clothes, she checked every window lock and shut every door, both up and downstairs. With a carton of mint chocolate chip ice cream and a cup of black tea, Rachel clicked on the television and forced herself to relax. She watched hallmark movies, something she never did, and stopped herself from thinking negatively. I am not my mother. She chanted internally.
At the start of the second film, Rachel yawned and puffed the pillow under her head.
Thump!
Rachel’s eyes shot open. The movie was halfway over. Feeling terrible, she sat from on the couch.
Thump!
It came from the basement.
Rachel stood up, her eyes on the old door at the side of the stairwell. “Hello?”
Her voice echoed in the ancient house. She opened the door and stared down into the darkness. She toggled the light switch. The darkness remained. She grabbed a ruby red mag light from the key bowl and shined the beam to the depths of the stairs. Three steps, she told herself. Three steps and if she can’t see the problem, she gets the pervy officer outside.
The first step creaked. The second groaned. On the third, Rachel felt a pull at the front her shirt, and she toppled downward. The following stairs beat her all the way to the basement floor. Bruises Throbbed on her shoulders, arms and the back of her head. Grimacing, she pushed against the concrete floor to rise. Musty air bombarded her sense of smell. Like snow in a snow globe, specks of dust flurried the beam of the flashlight. The laundry area rested against the leftmost wall. Covered coaches, stands, chairs and fashion mannequins cluttered the rest. Rachel’s beam of light scanned over the lost treasures, casting long shadows across the walls beyond.
Rachel stepped forward, the flashlight held tightly in her hand. An object in the back of the room grabbed her eye. Her heart pounded. She closed the gap, navigating passed a nightstand with a dust-covered lamp. Behind her, light spilled from the upstairs into the basement. Rachel stepped over a plastic-wrapped rug. Farther than she’d ever gone in the basement, she found of late seventies and early eighties men’s blazers ravaged by moth holes and slumped over the back of a rocking chair. Women’s dresses spilled out of a gnarly tear on a black trash bag. A sequence of wooden buttons dotted the skirt of one. Rachel paid it little mind. Amidst the artifacts, she stood before the teddy bear. It’s tuffs of fur were caked with dirt. Darkened fuzz budded out of its right arm, and the stub where it’s leg was missing. Rachel blinked twice. She didn’t trust her eyes anymore. She touched the clumsy fur.
It was the same teddy from outside that her and the officer had found a day prior.
Wham!
The basement door slammed violently.
“Brett!” Rachel shouted.
Her flashlight caught a glimpse of something scurrying by the mess of covered furniture. Rachel couldn’t track it with the light. It moved too fast. Out of darkness, a picture-less frame flung through the air, narrowly missing her face. It shattered into wood fragments behind her.
The thing moved again.
Rachel wasn’t alone.