The Start Of Something

6: the coming dark

 ♫ Dark Red – Steve Lacy ♫

This time of year, if a person paid attention, the sun seemed to be at a race to rise earlier every morning. Marion had never been a morning person and had never cared to pay attention, but as she opened her eyes to the wash of pink flooding through the living room picture window, she realized for the first time just how fleeting the daylight was. In a few days, the light would begin to shrink again – just as quickly as it had seemed to grow. And the other darkness that she had begun to know – the one that lived inside of her dreams, the one without a face – would grip her unconscious mind a little longer.

She didn't normally wake up watching the sunrise, but this morning she wasn't surprised to find herself in Maggie's overstuffed recliner rather than her own bed. For the past week this is where she had ended up, back straight and stiff, hands gripping into her thighs until her thumbs began to leave bruises. The first time, she and Maggie had a good laugh about the sleepwalking, but after that Marion decided not to tell her. Her own fear rising in her throat told her that this was something Maggie couldn't fix, though it seemed like she'd had all of the solutions to Marion's problems from the moment she moved in with her. Even when Maggie's husband, Dan, died seven years ago, Maggie had been the one to comfort the rest of the family. She understood what words to say to make the pieces fall into place, though it was clear to Marion that the senselessness of his cancer was something that Maggie would never understand herself. The darkness was different. Her aunt didn't perceive the plane of reality that held Suffolk's dead residents to the earth, and there was nothing she could say to ease the realization that the darkness was inexplicably tied to it. For in that realization was the fact that Marion was more alone than she'd ever been.

Marion looked down as a wet nose pressed against her ankle. Edgar, Maggie's quivering, geriatric dachshund, looked up with enthusiasm that she'd awoken, his entire body swinging about in tempo with his wagging tail. She'd read before of dogs' abilities to sense things outside of human perception, and she wondered if Edgar could see the souls of the departed like her, or if he knew about the shadow that seemed to cling to her.

"Breakfast, Ed?" He followed her into the kitchen, and she watched him chomp at the food she poured into his bowl. The ringing of kibbles against the metal dish was an almost meditative sound so early in the morning, when the rest of the house was silent. Outside, a muffled chorus of sparring robins stirred the pre-dawn quiet, and Marion thought about Becky's shadow of a figure emerging into visibility at this moment. She would go to her later, when the sun was higher in the sky and the darkness seemed less threatening. She wouldn't be able to see her as well, but Marion could always feel her soul just as easily as she could with the living.

Before Maggie could wake and ask her how she slept, Marion had pulled on a pair of tattered jeans and an equally worn sweatshirt before heading out to her truck. If she was awake, Maggie would hear the rumbling, but it would still be better to face her later than endure any questioning now. Marion didn't have it in her today to force her usual coolness, and she didn't have the energy to break down when Maggie inevitably saw how distraught she was. And so she drove until she hit gravel heading west, to where Becky would be waiting as she often was by the stream.

It's not your day to visit, Becky commented dryly when she arrived, her form already becoming seamless in the brightening day. Though she was made of nothingness, the fog still seemed to wrap around her. Death had granted her an ethereal beauty that was so unlike her brash nature when she was alive; she was quiet now, thoughtful, and when she spoke it was with a care that Marion never remembered. But Becky didn't sleep, and her only conversations were with Marion and the other souls, who were mostly elderly, so Marion figured that in life her friend had simply never had the time to sit by a stream and ponder.