Blue Aspen Page 4

  "With the research?"

  "No, are you lonely?" He looked concerned.

  "Oh, no, not at all. I didn’t even know what time it was when you called me to lunch. I think I could easily spend a whole day in there. I haven’t felt alone at all."

  "Do you think that you would be all right if…I wasn’t here?" he asked slowly.

  I was instantly taken aback by the question. Was he going to leave me?

  "What do you mean?"

  Uncle Jack gave a deep sigh, his face contorted with an acerb expression.

  "Nothing…So, what would you like on your sandwich?"

  His previous smiling expression returned as he waved a slice of ham under my nose. I laughed and pushed his hand away, but the look on his face a moment before and the question he asked, I was not about to forget. I filed both in my mind and decided I would wait to bring it up. I could tell he wanted me to forget it, which was the surest way to cement it in my brain.

  We ate our huge sandwiches in the kitchen. I observed Uncle Jack all through lunch. He didn’t have a good poker face. I guessed he had lived alone too long to realize that becoming more introverted, constantly pulling his eyebrows together, and biting his lower lip, were all giveaways. Something was happening, and it was only a matter of time before it directly affected me. I decided to pretend to be oblivious. Maybe if he thought I wasn’t paying attention, he would let more slip.

  After lunch, I pretended to go back to the library, but I waited around in the hall to see what he was going to do. He went to his office and closed the door. I tried to eavesdrop, but the door was too thick for me to hear anything except him muttering on the phone, no words were clear.

  I went back to the library, but I couldn’t focus on plants anymore. I cleared away the heavy books and went back to my room. It was already much easier to find my way around. I plopped on my bed and looked out my windows. The sky had turned grey, matching my mood. I tried, unsuccessfully, to clear my head.

  I needed a distraction. I thought about going swimming, but then I realized I didn’t have a swimsuit. I weighed the odds of getting caught skinny-dipping. I knew they were slight, but any chance of that humiliation was too great. Bra and panties was also too great a risk. I didn’t even have a pair of shorts I could use. I made a mental note to get a swimsuit along with snow boots on our shopping excursion tomorrow. I sighed and ground my teeth in irritation. I really needed to do something physical and decided to go for a walk.

  I pulled on all three pairs of socks I owned, put a tank-top on under my tee shirt before putting on my sweater and jacket, laced up my sneakers, and headed outside. I should have told Uncle Jack what I was doing, but I didn’t. I didn’t even think about it. Once the idea to take a walk was lodged in my head, a little tickle of excitement went through me and I couldn’t wait to get outside.

  I looked at the security system panel by the front door before opening it. I didn’t want the alarm to sound. The little lights and buttons indicated that the system was unarmed. I stood regarding the massive front door for a moment before touching it. The ceiling was high above the entryway, framed with two pillars that were actually tree trunks that had been stripped of their bark and carved with designs and motifs. The door itself was twice as wide as a normal door and nearly twice as tall; solid mahogany, trimmed with ornate bronze hardware, and carved in the same manner as the pillars. Despite its size and weight, the door opened easily and silently after I unlocked the two deadbolts. Snowflakes blown by the frigid wind floated through the door into the house. I stepped outside, quietly closing the door behind me.

  The packed snow crunched under my feet in a very satisfying way as I headed off the front stoop, around the side of the house. I reached the edge of the lake and stood, instantly beguiled by its semisolid surface. The snowflakes landing on the water, floated momentarily before dissolving

  . I walked around the bank to a snow-covered stone bench a ways away. I glanced at my reflection on the silvery grey surface. There was no movement to the water; it should have reflected me like a mirror, but my reflection was distorted, blurred. I brushed the snow from the bench and sat down. It was like sitting on a solid block of ice, but I sat there anyway. The wind blew through the forest in front of me. I listened intently. The sounds floating on the wind were ostensible. I listened even closer, and began to dissect the various layers. It was as if the wind was whispering secrets to me, but in a foreign language. I listened until there was nothing to hear, the snow was falling thicker, and the silence extinguished the wind.

  I stood up, having no more feeling in my butt, and began to approach the trees. It was like a dream. Did I really intend to go in there? My feet moved me forward without the consent of my brain. What was I doing?!

  I stopped just under the boughs of the rim. I listened again.

  Silence.

  I shivered, but not from the cold. The silence was wrong, aberrant. I had reached my boundary, stepped back, and exhaled in relief. This was my world, the forest was not. I began the trek back to the house, the closer I got the better I felt. Looking back at the trees it seemed there was an invisible circle set around the house and lake, encapsulating it like the glass of my snow globe.

  "Dulcee! Dulcee!"

  My name hit my frozen ears when I came back into the house, causing me to wince. Every intercom in the house was shouting for me.

  "I’m here!" I shouted, but he couldn’t hear me.

  "I’m here," I said again, into the first intercom I found.

  Uncle Jack found me in a matter of seconds. He hurried around a corner into the front room, where I was standing. His eyes were crazed with concern. I didn’t realize how long I had been outside. He stopped a foot in front of me, his whole body was rigid, his face contorted. I braced myself for the blow or at the very least the shouting that was sure to ensue.

  He lunged for me.

  I cowered instinctively. And then gasped in shock as Uncle Jack caught me in a tight hug.

  "Thank God," he whispered. "Thank God."

  I realized that he was not angered but relieved, and he wasn’t going to hit me or shout. I wasn’t quite sure how to respond. Uncle Jack pulled away from me, grasping both my shoulders with his hands and looked into my eyes.

  "I’ve been looking and calling for you for forty minutes. Why did you leave the house without telling me?"

  "I’m sorry…I’m not used to anyone caring where I am."

  He narrowed his eyes at me. "Well, I care. You nearly had me panicked. Please, tell me from now on when you want to go outside. Okay?"

  I smiled. "No problem."

  The day was over. We ate soup and bread for dinner in the kitchen. We didn’t say much to each other over dinner. I was feeling awkward and Uncle Jack was preoccupied with whatever it was that was bothering him.

  In truth, I think we both were happy to go our separate ways after dinner. I headed up to my room, feeling tired. I still had on all of my layers, with the exception of my jacket. I pulled off my clothes and threw them into a pile on the bathroom floor. My room was a little chilly so I turned the key on the wall that lit the fireplace. After throwing on my bathrobe, I lay down on the floor in front of the fire, my snow globe beside me. I watched the flames dance, reflected strangely through the water in the globe.

  "It’s pretty isn’t it, Daddy?" I whispered to the glass.

  Once I was warm, I got up, turned the snow globe over once, and set it back on the mantle. I went to my cave of a closet and really looked at it for the first time. It was as big as my old bedroom had been, and filled with drawers, shelves, and racks. I went around pulling open the drawers. Not all of them were empty. One drawer had a couple of thick sweaters folded neatly inside it. I pulled out a brown cable knit and held it up to my chest. It was too big, but not by much.

  There was only one other drawer that had anything inside it. A new package of women’s thick wooly socks, and a new pair of pink flannel pajamas. I sank to the floor and cried, clutching t
he package of socks to my chest. Uncle Jack had bought these for me. I looked at them as if they were some precious treasure, and cried harder. I knew how pathetic it was; crying over socks, but it wasn’t just the socks. It was the ring on my finger, and the bathrobe. The way he had caught me in his arms and thanked God I was safe (when I had expected him to hit me) his sense of humor and our common bond in the deaths of loved ones. He honestly cared. He cared enough to buy me new socks.

  I went to bed exhausted, without telling my uncle goodnight. I smiled to myself, before drifting off to sleep, thinking about our shopping trip the next day.

  Time passed, I wasn’t sure how much, maybe hours, maybe minutes. I vaguely became aware of a flickering light in my room. It danced along my closed eyelids. I rolled over, trying to ignore it. I had been sleeping so well.

  I was almost asleep again, when the wind whistled through the French doors. I pulled my pillow over my head to stifle the sound. The wind refused to be ignored, however. It gained in strength and the glass began to rattle and moan like a ghost. I threw my pillow away from my head and sat up.

  The flickering was coming from my fireplace. I didn’t leave the fire going, did I? I was sure that I had turned it off before going to bed. The wind whistled again rattling the doors. I looked out on the terrace and had to throw a hand over my mouth to muffle the scream. Someone was standing there! The shadowy silhouette of a man outside my room, looking in.

  I slid out of bed onto the floor and was about to run to my uncle’s room, when I noticed with a jolt what I was wearing. The flames of the fire illuminated my pale skin and shimmered off the dark-blue satin nightgown that cascaded down my body all the way to my ankles.

  I momentarily forgot about the shadow on the terrace, catching a glimpse of myself in the full-length mirror on the wall. My hair was hanging in ringlets around my bare shoulders. The gown had spaghetti straps and high slits up both sides, well above the knees. Goose bumps surfaced on my skin as the silky material tormented my nerve endings. I relaxed as I realized I was dreaming.

  "Dulcee…" The wind whispered, bringing my attention back to the shadowy figure.

  I walked very slowly over to the French doors. The movement of the gown against my skin was giving me warm shivers. I hesitated, reaching for the knob. Should I open the door, or was this a nightmare?

  "Hello," I said quietly.

  The shadow didn’t move or respond. I could see nothing of him, but I suddenly wanted to.

  "Who are you?" I asked.

  He raised his right hand and began to write something with his index finger in the condensation on the glass. I couldn’t see what it said, it was too dark. I was about to open the door when my fire flared, drawing my attention. It sparked and cracked, and for a split second it flashed blue. I blinked, looking at it perplexed. The flames had turned blue. I looked back to the terrace but he had vanished. The full light of the moon fell on me and I could see what he had written. Soon.

  I woke up in the dark. My fireplace was cold and lifeless, as it had been when I went to bed. I put my hand on my forearm, feeling the sleeve of my pink flannel pajamas. I rubbed my eyes, feeling a little strange. I looked at my digital alarm clock. It was only an hour before sunrise.

  I lay back on my pillows and thought about my dream. It was so uncharacteristic of me to have such a dream. Most nights I only dozed, never going deep enough to dream. And on the rare occasion that I would dream, it was always a nightmare, always. I wanted to remember this dream, especially the nightgown. I contented myself for the next hour dwelling on the details of my dream, replaying it over and over in my mind, like a movie.

  When the sun finally broke over the snow-covered horizon, I went to take a shower and get ready for the day. I dressed in my fraying jeans and pulled on the brown sweater I had discovered in my closet yesterday, pushing the too long sleeves up around my elbows. The sweater was so much cleaner than my other clothes, I hadn’t even thought about laundry yet. I figured Uncle Jack was still asleep, so I looked again at the books on the shelf in my room.

  Glancing at the titles on the spines, something caught my eye. The dust layer on the rims of the shelves, I was sure had been solid, even, undisturbed, but it wasn’t now, or I just hadn’t noticed. On the shelf that was right at my eye level there was a thin line in the dust. It looked like the line had been scraped there by a book being removed or replaced.

  I looked at the book that was suspect. There was nothing on the spine. I pulled it from the shelf. It was a smallish hardback with a flat black cover, an aspen embossed on the front in blue foil. That was all, no title, no author, just the tree. It was the most beautiful book I had ever seen. I wanted it for myself. I felt some irrational connection with the book, though I knew I had not read it before. I took the book over to my reading chair and sat down. I stared at the cover for a while, but decided not to open it. I was going to save it for later, when my mind wasn’t absorbed in thoughts of a shopping trip.

  I made my bed and paced my room for a while. That was when I noticed the box. There was so much to my room, it didn’t surprise me that here was something I hadn’t yet seen. The small wooden box was sitting on one of my bedside tables. It was lidded with a metal clasp. It looked old and on the lid was carved yet another aspen, very similar to the one embossed on the cover of the book. I opened it. It was empty. I liked it immensely. I decided to place it on the mantle next to my snow globe.

  Finally, when I couldn’t pace any longer, I went downstairs. Uncle Jack was up and in the kitchen, sitting at the table, drinking coffee. He looked haggard, not at all like he had the previous morning. My happy mood began to ebb instantly. There were no eggs this morning. A variety of cereal boxes were set out on the counter for me to choose from. It’s not that I minded eating cold cereal, I was raised on it. But the atmosphere had changed so drastically from yesterday.

  "Good morning," I said halfheartedly, as I picked up a box and began to pour the dry contents into a bowl.

  "Oh, good morning, Dulcee." he replied as if he was only somewhat aware I was there at all. He continued to drink his coffee, staring out the window.

  I had a horrible feeling we were not going shopping at all today. I decided not to mention it and see if he remembered. As I sat down at the table, Uncle Jack seemed to shake himself out of his reverie.

  "How did you sleep?" he asked, his attention now wholly on me.

  "Good," I said. "Really good. And you?"

  He grimaced and took another gulp of coffee. I wondered how long we would have to dance around what was really going on. I wondered how long it would take before he told me anything. I felt it was totally none of my business until it really affected me. We sat in silence through breakfast. Finally, when I got up from the table to put my bowl in the sink, he spoke.

  "I’m really sorry, but I don’t think we can go shopping today."

  I was prepared for that. "That’s okay. We can go some other day, right?"

  He smiled. "Absolutely."

  I felt a little let down, nothing I wouldn’t get over quickly. Mostly I was curious about what could be so wrong. I thought about how he had asked me if I would be alright if he wasn’t here, and what that could mean. Was he dying, or did he simply need to leave town?

  "Do you have to work again today?" I asked.

  "Yes. Sorry about neglecting you. It can’t be helped."

  I decided to try to probe a little. "Is anything wrong?"

  He hesitated, his face turned stoic. "Maybe." His voice was flat.

  His response made me sorry I had asked, and I wanted to leave him alone. "Well, let me know if I can do anything to help." I said, as I backed out of the kitchen.

  I retreated up to my room for a while. I was feeling very sorry for my uncle. He had already done so much for me, I was unhappy he was having troubles, whatever they were.

  The next two days passed without consequence. I busied myself pleasantly, enjoying the vast luxury of the house. I used the gym, bowled a few games
, and even took a chance swimming in the pool, with a tee shirt on over my bra and panties, of course. I was still afraid of the house. I felt so utterly alone. I could hardly stop my imagination from working me into a frenzy of fear at times. There were times when the silence would bear down on me. Maybe my fear of being this alone was only a fear of myself. Not even my uncle’s toys could distract me from myself all the time. With no one but yourself for company, you have to face nasty questions like: Who am I, really?

  I only saw Uncle Jack at breakfast, now. He didn’t even surface for lunch or dinner. Of course, I had no problem foraging for myself. The days passed quickly enough, with more enjoyment than I had ever known, despite the fear that sometimes gripped me. On the morning of my fifth day at Uncle Jack’s house, I woke to the smell of pancakes. It was the first time he had made breakfast since my first morning. I hoped it meant things were going to be better today.

  I tromped down the stairs and to the kitchen, still in my pink pajamas. Uncle Jack was flipping the pancakes, fully dressed with his hair slicked back. I couldn’t say he looked happy, but at least he didn’t look so disjointed. He smiled grimly at me when I came in.