What Remains of You

The Note

The notebook ended there, but that wasn't what stopped Rebecca, it was the last sentence. The sentence that changed everything. It wasn't just words strung together or meaningless thoughts that implicated nothing. No, this sentence was none of those things. This one gave her hope. It shone through her, cluttering over the darkness and breaking it at its seams.

A cloudy day. A cloudy day. It rang a bell deep inside her, making it echo in her ears. A cloudy day. Rebecca jolted up from her bed. Her mind scrambled and searched for all the pieces and strung them together like a cord. It all made sense now.

Dennis knew she would find the notebook. He knew that if it had nothing on it claiming what it was, she would just skim over it, placing no thought on the only thing that had answers. He understood her so well, and he had thought of everything. If any other person had come across this, they would have either skipped over the notebook entirely or flipped through it and not paid any attention to the insignificant line at the end. But Rebecca understood.

She shoved the diary back into the desk and ran downstairs. Her mom was not in the kitchen but the oven was still on and all the ingredients were laid out on the counter. Rebecca couldn't care less. She rushed past it, insistent on getting to the treehouse. It was as though an invisible force was pulling her towards it, pushing her with conviction that she couldn't ignore. There was something in her chest that kept pounding in her head, telling her that the more time she wasted getting there, the less impact it would have.

She sprinted out the back door, not caring to put her shoes on, and ran barefoot into the grass. The ladder to the treehouse could be seen in the left corner of her backyard, shrouded in moss and leaves. Dennis and Rebecca had not used it in a while, and nature seemed to have claimed its prize on the structure.

She raced towards the little building that her dad had built, and hastily climbed up the ladder. It trembled when she put her weight on it, and she wasn't sure how easily she could trust the spindly steps that went straight up. Testing each rung with her foot, she continued up the ladder until the opening of the treehouse came into view. She pushed on the small trapdoor that hadn't been opened in a while. The trapdoor swung free and she stuck her head through the hole. It was just how she remembered it.

The two tiny chairs that her dad had made rested in a corner and on the opposite side a bright red carpet with a table on it sat in silence. She quickly pushed up the rest of the way into the treehouse. Trying not to pay any attention to the pounding in her head reminding her of him, she progressed to the loose board. It hung behind the table and she effortlessly pulled it back. It had never been that easy to open, which told her Dennis had been there before to put something in there. He had. A small piece of paper, folded so it was barely visible to her, lay in the now slightly cleared away dust. It was tucked away into the corner and her heart skipped a beat.

She picked it up carefully so it didn't fall back into the crack behind it which would have caused it to fall to the ground. Gingerly prying open the first fold, she continued until the paper, clear as day in front of her, revealed a note. It was not filled with words, but with symbols. Our language. She thought. She delicately scoured the little paper.

⟟⋏  ⏁⊑⟒  ☌⏃⍀⏃☌⟒  ⎍⋏⎅⟒⍀  ⏁⊑⟒  ⍀⍜⌿⟒  ⏃⋏⎅  ⍙⍜⍜⎅  ⊬⍜⎍  ⍙⟟⌰⌰  ⎎⟟⋏⎅  ⏃ ⏚⍜⌖.  ⟟⏁  ⍙⟟⌰⌰  ⊑⏃⎐⟒  ⏃⌰⌰  ⏁⊑⟒  ⏃⋏⌇⍙⟒⍀⌇  ⊬⍜⎍  ⋏⟒⟒⎅.

It was drawn in symbols she barely recognized. A memory tickled at the edge of her brain and she grasped at it waiting until it came into full view. Years ago, they had come up with some form of their own writing by making up symbols to represent letters. It didn't take them long to both invent the different letters and spend the next while trying to memorize them. They had stopped using it after they found the secret compartment in the treehouse and Rebecca's brain stored the information in the back of her head until it started to fade away. The note in front of her brought it all rushing back.

She wasn't able to decipher the code in front of her except for the odd symbol she recognized which didn't help much. I mean, what good is it to know where a few e's are in a phrase when the rest is all gibberish? Her hand shot to her mouth. My notebook.

She gave one last thoughtful look to the structure then plunged back down the ladder. Rushing back through the grass barefoot and barging through the door, she came to a stop. The oven was still on and smoke had started to fill the house.

"Shoot." Rebecca rushed to it and hurriedly turned it off. Praying that the smoke detector wouldn't go off because she was too short to reach it without Dennis being there, she went back to her room. Her hand reached straight for her desk and plummeted into her memories box. It was full of recollections of the past that she didn't want to think about. A past where he was still there with her. She shook her head deciding to not go down that road for the umpteenth time that day.

Rebecca did her best to avoid all of the relics in front of her and trained her eyes to look only for the pink little book. After moving around almost everything in the box, she finally saw the object she was looking for. It was light pink with lace hanging from a corner and blank on both sides. She carefully took it out and admired it. Pushing the cardboard in front of her, so it was no longer in her sight, she walked back to the bed. The whole time her eyes were transfixed on the paper in her hands.

Rebecca flipped through it until the page laced with symbols appeared in front of her. It was very messy due to the fact that she had been quite young when she wrote it, but she did her best to make it legible. Taking the note from her back pocket, she examined it again. His writing had always been very neat and she was easily able to identify each symbol. Rebecca ripped out a page from the notebook and began to decipher the message.

It didn't take long for the phrase to slowly appear, and each word she uncovered sent shivers down her spine. Suddenly the whole message lay bare in front of her.

In the garage under the rope and wood, you will find a box. it will have all the answers you need.

What. Rebecca stared until her eyes started to water and her mind raced at inexplicable speeds. She shot up from her bed. The book clattered to the floor, but she didn't care. Answers. Answers to what? Dennis? Or dad? She shot downstairs and plunged through the garage door. It was messy and random stuff splattered across the floor at odd angles. It made no difference to Rebecca as long as she could find the rope. A brown colour shined in the corner of her eye, and she ran to it. Ripping off the rope and hurtling the wood to the other side, she found a dark blue box resting on the ground. She ripped it off the floor and opened it with strength she did not know she possessed. Rebecca opened it up and a sentence stared back at her.

What I think really happened.