Dancing in the Oaks

Prints

I hadn't seen the extensive damage to the barn yet. It appeared that half the barn was alright and half was burnt. There wouldn't be much effort to replace it back to its original sense. As we got closer it was apparent that the air smelled of Burt wood. "Norah, I'm not sure if you're ready for this..." He found footprints, but they could have belonged to anyone at this point. There were so many people there that night. So many people wore the same steel toed boots.

"They're footprints, they could have belonged to anyone." I doubted everything he said. Nothing added up in my mind. Everything just added to another deadend or another question. The damage has been done, but the criminal is still out there.

"Y-yes, my father has a pair of hiking boots that imprint just like this. Here, we're gonna cover this with a piece of wood." He laid a piece of plywood over it. "Anyways, I meant to show you where your family died."

"Alright." We walked over to the North side of the barn. Nick pointed to the ground where some flowers laid. There was a stone memorial on the ground in the shape of a rectangle. It spanned about 10 feet by 6 feet. A heart made of stone was in the center. "D-did you make this?" My mind flooded with sad emotions. My eyes couldn't help but sob.

Nicholas wrapped his arms around me and gave a tight hug. I felt safe when he hugged me. I am not sure why, but I just felt protected. "Yes, yes I did. We have to find out who did this. I will slyly interrogate my father tomorrow when I have to work." Still hugging me, I could tell he was smiling.

Staying home is so boring to me so I asked, "Can I come with you tomorrow when you work at your place?"

"Yeah. Uhm Huckleberry will be there. Yeah I'll come and pick you up. You gotta stay away though." No problem, I can stay away from Berry. Can I? Is that even possible?

I looked off into the distance and noticed a red box in the trees that wasn't there before. "Nicholas? There's something weird over there that wasn't there before." My tears ran down his plaid shirt.

"Yeah. Show me where it's at." He looked over at the trees.

My finger pointed in between the largest oaks on the property. "Right there, it's red. My family never had anything like that."

"Hmm it's too dark to see anything. We'll see it in the morning. I don't wanna go over there."  He looked down at the little memorial. "Your parents were great people. I'm so sorry." 

"You know it's a shame because I had been helping them for four months. Watching them in pain is just awful. I'd take care of the farm chores and my siblings. The animals always needed me, I was there. Running errands all throughout the town was crazy. I had to help my brothers with their homework." I looked down at the memorial then at Nick's emotional face. "N-now they are g-gone. I-I'm all a-lone now." What seemed like gallons of tears poured down my face and completely dampened my shirt collar.

"Y-yeah that's absolutely rough." He scratched his head. "We are going to catch that desperado! I don't care how long or what we have to do; we are catching that desperado." I laughed a little bit. "What's so funny?" He asked.

"It's just.. I don't even know how to explain this, but I like how you said that." Thank goodness it was dark because I could swear my face turned red. I shined the flashlight at the ground.

"What? Desperado?" He smiled.

Laughing and crying is quite a hard concept to manage. Tears and uncontrollable laughter is like walking and running at the same time. "Yeah. You, uhm, said that in a very sharp way. I've never heard someone say that word so perfectly before. Putting the extra stress on the o makes it sound right out of an old western movie."

"Right. They are gone, and that is rough. I understand even more than you think. I was struggling about four years ago. I just really didn't wanna stay at home anymore. My father hasn't ever really been encouraging towards me. Dillon seems to get rewarded a lot. It's always tough because everyone here knows who I am, so I'd have the pressure of answering questions and odd things like that. My mother died and then everything went south from there. Norah, even though you may feel alone, you're not." We decided to walk closer to the house in order to make it inside.

After walking through the door the first thing I did was hobble around locking everything up. I made sure all of the windows were shut and the doors were locked. There's just something so terrifying when you know the criminal is still out there. What kind of danger does that pose on me? On Nick?

I hobbled over to sit on the couch. Since I was cold, I reached down and retrieved a blanket out of the wooden crate. Nick came and sat next to me. "When you first started handling the milk stand... did you have any odd encounters with anyone?"

His eyes searched my face. "Yeah actually, there was one specific time that I can recount. Mr. Schmidt walked in, needing some mozzarella cheese. I was the cashier at the time. Berry was actually there too. She was stocking the product on the shelf. Mr. Schmidt asked me an odd question; an odd question that I will never forget. That question was: What if I told you that your father was involved in a hit and run? He proceeded to explain how he witnessed it and in the other car was a couple. He said they drove a rusted, white Chevy farm truck."

I found myself confused. I had to interrupt Nick. "Uhm.. that's the car that my parents drove. It was an old, beat up, white, Chevy truck. Mr. Schmidt told you that? He witnessed it! They never caught the other driver did they?"

"Nope they'd never pulled over. M-my father hit your parent's truck and injured them! I'm confronting him tomorrow." It was evident that Nick was mad.

"No! You are not confronting him about it. If you've already had issues. I will not let you get hurt. This is probably a misunderstanding. I cannot lose you now too. I've already been through enough, and you have too." I buried my arms in the blanket.

On that note Nick left. As I watched him drive off into the distance I just shut and locked the door. When I shut the door I pressed my back against the door and let my body slide down slowly until hitting the ground. I felt confused. I crawled to my bed and fell asleep. This was the fastest I have ever fallen asleep.