Sabbatical

Sara and her mother were considering an opportunity. A seat was available at a prestigious seminar, and though it was across the country, it meant her mother could return for a year to her hometown on sabbatical. More importantly, it offered the possibility of peace from recent events in California, which, for their small family, and Sara’s mother in particular, provided a near-constant reminder of one tragedy or another.

Sara’s mother explained it would be an opportunity for Sara to learn more about where her side of the family is from – a town a hair shy of 7,000 people, next to Salem, Massachusetts. And Sara was intrigued. She was interested if her mother’s lectures about “real cold” were real or imagined, and, secretly, if the town could explain her mother’s quirks. Years of life on the West Coast had not chipped away at her mother’s raw New England edge. While Sara’s friends bathed in their parent’s positivity and encouragement at birth, Sara could count on her hand the times she’d received praise from her mother. Though loving, Sara’s mother was equally taciturn and demanding, setting the highest expectations for all around her, especially her loved ones. This, Sara suspected, but never voiced, was the cause for at least one, if not all, of their tragedies.

Sara and her mother packed their things and moved for the first time, at the height of summer. After settling in a motel off Route 1 for two days, Sara’s mother came across an old colonial rental 50 minutes from Boston, but almost next to her old house. As they drove closer to the property, Sara’s mother called out homes and names of long-gone neighbor friends, her old bike route, and her elementary school. As they approached, a blonde realtor walked out to meet them.

As Sara watched her mother standing next to the broker, she realized how much older she looked in comparison. Over the last two years, the thin streaks of gray that highlighted her mother’s hair had spread like wildfire, and new grooves emerged as her mother’s face settled into a familiar grimace. Sara knew then they were discussing cost, as her mother looked far ahead of her, silently calculating. Finally, her mother smiled pleasantly, thanking the broker for her time. The broker left briskly after exchanging pleasantries. To her surprise, later that evening Sara’s mother called her back, and let her know she would accept.

The property was dwarfed by the land surrounding it – a mixture of lawn, brambles, and swamp seemingly unexplored. Off for summer, and with her mother in Boston during the day, Sara was determined to navigate this lot. To her surprise, she often found abandoned glass bottles covered in old cursive writing, bleached animal bones, and occasionally, an untouched blackberry bush. Fat, shiny, black bulbs emerged from greens thick with knife-sharp thorns. It was worth the scratches to pick bowls of pristine berries that spilled hot, sticky-sweet juice. Sara would often emerge from the woods as a freak creature, shoeless, covered in crimson juice and scratches, with flies settling in her hair and clothes. Blackberry and artifact hunting was one of the many things she learned that summer, with the help of friends in the neighborhood.

The pre-teens of this small town operated as a makeshift gang, covering territory in groups of bikers, 5-10 strong, investigating the latest town problem or, in absence of entertainment, making their own. Although Sara was a loner, she learned about the town history through the occasional side conversation with Kim, one of the girls on the block.

Halloween, apparently, was the town’s claim to fame. The oldest town story revolved around the house at the end of the next street over. By this point, Sara could get there in the dark, blindfolded. Bike half a mile to the roundabout, stay straight for nearly a mile, veer left at the intersection. Keep biking down until the house was right ahead – it is set back, but eventually you’ll see it.

The story goes, exactly at midnight on the night of Halloween, a candle emerges on the top left hand corner of the house. The candle will then hover until it hits the next window over, and then the next. Without any pause, the candle will then jump straight to the ground floor window and continue on. This will stop exactly at 12:05. According to the town, this has happened every year since 1693 – the end of the Salem Witch Trials. A rite of passage for outgoing high school seniors is to drink in the yard of the house the night before Halloween night, a tradition the kids continued to do year in and year out.

This was one of many stories Sara had heard since her move, and like the others, it struck her as interesting but silly. She had more important problems ahead of her as September quickly approached – in particular, school, since her only friend, Kim, would not be attending her public school. Sara had also been longing for California, with the novelty of Massachusetts wearing off by the day. She missed her home and her neighborhood, the long hikes she would take with her father over steep hills dotted with eucalyptus trees and shocks of bougainvillea on cream stucco.

Her growing anxiety proved to be on point, starting with the first day of school. Sara recognized a familiar face, freckled and crowned with red hair. She had seen her before when she and Kim went swimming in the town pond one day over summer. Becca had yelled something at Sara at the pond that she had not heard, but she noticed Kim looking down as Becca, and the girls surrounding her, laughed. Sara ignored her and, instead, stared at the brackish pond water as others around her splashed, oblivious. She had never longed so much for the clear, cool, Pacific. When Sara mispronounced a Massachusetts town in class, Becca pounced feverishly on the error, making the class erupt in hoots and chants. Occasionally, her hair would be pulled viciously, and when she whirled around, Becca would ask her what her problem was. Other girls joined in during class. Nevertheless, Sara chose to ignore it and reminded herself they would be back in California the following year.

When Halloween approached, in protest to Massachusetts, Sara did not participate. Her mother encouraged her to go to the town fair with Kim and go trick or treating, possibly the only community activity Sara’s mother enthusiastically encouraged year to year. Late at night, Sara awoke to a series of loud cracks. She looked out her window and saw black figures running away – girls – and one with unmistakeable red hair underneath a black cap. Sara and her mother spent the early afternoon cleaning eggs off the back of the house. “That’s Halloween, huh?” Sara’s mother laughed. Sara went back to bed.

She dreamt she was in a field of eucalyptus trees. She could smell them in the breeze: cool and salty – air coming straight off the ocean. The air was humming with the sound of waves and bees. As the humming got louder and louder, Sara woke up. The humming was in her room – a concentrated, murderous thrum. In the corner of her eye she saw a wasp emerge from a hole in the wall and creep down the side of the wall. Sara jumped back and watched, eventually cornering the wasp and throwing a large glass bowl on top of it, unscathed. She peered into the tiny hole in the wall. What she had not noticed for months was a sliver of blackness emerging beneath curled, and yellowed wallpaper. She knocked the wall with her fist and heard nothing. She put her finger in the hole, gingerly, waiting for an army of ready wasps to make a noise. When nothing responded, she put her finger in deeper, and wood gave way. A piece fell off, in a chunk, on the floor, dirt spreading on the pink carpet.

Sara looked into the hole. She put her palm into the dark, feeling wood, like a shelf, and slight grooves in the wood. There were deep scratches, as if vermin had clawed their way in or out. Disgusted, Sara recoiled and her hand hit something soft. Pieces of feather tied with string around wood. Then something hard. She felt around what seemed to be a wood block, with something soft attached to it. She pulled. While pulling, wind escaped the hole – a barely audible sigh from the bowels of the house. When she looked at it in the light, she saw a book. The book was black, a pouch tied around it. Inside the pouch was a series of incredibly heavy coins. Sara felt lightheaded and struck by the strong urge to throw this in the pond. She could almost feel her feet in the water. She looked down at her mother through the window, still in the yard. What had the realtor said to her mother? She thought. A few days after they moved in, her mother said, bitterly, they could’ve gotten the rental for cheaper – that it was empty for a long time. She remembered the realtor driving off hurriedly in her car. What had Becca whispered at the pond? Something about really desperate, poor.

Sara found herself walking down the street with the book and the pouch, quickly, in silence. She tried to remember the way to the pond, but she had walked with Kim and they were talking at the time. It was starting to get dark and quiet on the roads. As she turned the corner she looked up. She was at the start of Becca’s street. Almost without thinking, she walked straight to the front steps of Becca's house. The gleaming glass lamps in the driveway kept the front of the house dimly lit. She could hear activity inside - laughing, loud talking. Sara left the book and coins on the front step. Then she turned, swiftly, and ran like hell.

****

Sara and her mother had been driving for days. Finally, they were able to drive with the windows down, commenting on familiar markers together. Sara listened to the hum of the car and the cars around her. She closed her eyes, and for the first time in a long time, smelled eucalyptus.