Toward

The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night a candle burned in the window. Little did the cabin's occupants know, the forest was very much alive.

Familiar. Warm. Lillian stepped lightly down the overgrown bricks toward downtown. She studied the bushes with a light pat, running her hands along their messy edges. She'd walked this path often, and found new delights in its flora each time.

The crooked long fence. The white chair. Purple painted shutters. The same order.

Wildflowers grew throughout this path. Constantly reaching, constantly squirming upwards.

Ivy grew in the dry heat. The windows of the commercial area turned residential as the heart of the city faded around her.

Jean pulled on pajamas, content with the outcome of the day, and hurried down the stairs into the kitchen. Nightly tea, a warm blanket, creaky wooden floors. The night hushing around her.

She'd been gnawing at something yesterday - a thought? a revelation perhaps? - but it seemed so distant now.

The night was violently quiet, so viscously mute. The room was heavy and thick.

The tree outside the house shivered, the house held its breath, and she was waiting for something. She gripped her teacup hard. She was ready for bed, but her feet wouldn't take her there.

The daylight drank its way through every hole it could find in the trees. The brick street was quiet with footsteps, flooding with colors. Lillian was moving too fast, sprinting the road twisted like taffy, flattened, stretched to the sky and then sighed back into a long line.

A house was approaching.

Was this familiar or different?

A fragmented wind drew through, unsounding but everpresent.

Her legs knew the way well, whatever way this was.

Lillian's feet stopped at the front door. Her hand was moving now, knocking.

Jean's front door was quiet. No one would be there this late anyway. She chewed her tongue, looking into her empty cup. She never tasted a single drop of tea.

She marched the stairs, turned the hallway, ignoring the mess of books. Suddenly unnerved by the familiar feeling. Suddenly unnerved by the warmth.

The lights flickered.

Why did she so desperately want to hear a knock at the door?

Lillian panicked at no answer. She closed her fist and rounded the door, begging the curved wood. Her body screamed and her fist ached. She wasn't sure why, but she knew she had to get to the other side. She had to fight the feeling that all of this was so inevitable, that whatever she was here for was already long gone.

Noise poured over her. Daylight was torn like a scab and dropped behind her with a thud. She'd heard that sound before.

Her surroundings washed into the night. The fence, the chair, the shutters.

Her sister's body snug to the sidewalk.

She decided to look up.

Jean sat, uneasy, at the foot of her bed. She watched the light change in her room from her favorite candle, comforting but dull.

Her window breathed open, curtains fluttering. She pondered over the quietness of nights like this, how they should soothe her.

A knock at the door nearly startled her to her feet.

She picked up the candle and ran to the window, peering down to see her sister below. She felt immediate relief and opened her mouth to alert her - but the screams were unsettling.

Why was she screaming?

The light was so clearly there, the curtains sprawled out into the night. Realization overwhelmed her and made her sick.

Lillian shuddered and covered her eyes until there was familiar. Warm.

Lillian stepped lightly down the overgrown bricks toward downtown.