Lavender Mist

A Boy Without a Name

Timothy wasn't certain how many times he had sneezed, as tiny specks of dust, visible only in a thick beam of a sunray, piled in both of his nostrils. Every time his father would put down another heavy, cardboard box, a new swarm of small, flying crumbs would rise up, landing either back onto the floor, or into the boy's nose and eyes. The edges of the cardboard boxes were crony and flaking in tiny pieces, which could also float in the air, along with the dust.

As the father was climbing on the short, metal ladder, he was sorting his hands through the shelf, untouched for a long time, peeking into the boxes, full of belongings, for which there was no other place than in the attic, mumbling something in his old, hoarse voice, in a way that made it seem like he didn't care if Timothy understood him or not.

Meanwhile, the boy carefully followed the father's research, while feeling Maggie's presence behind him. He needed a few moments of thinking to realize that she never once said a word to his father. From the time when they headed to the attic, she was hidden behind his back, like she was intentionally trying to stay unnoticed. Although the boy was used to her silence, this time, it felt unusual for some reason. He longed for knowing what was occuring in her thoughts, but he was aware that there wasn't any way to peer into them. They were secured by her blank expression, as if she was really behind an unbreakable wall from Timothy's dream. For several times, since she had come to his house, he tried to read her, to be close to her like before, but something seemengly prevented him. The girl, that stood behind him, didn't feel like Maggie, but rather like a stranger, someone, that he knew nothing about, but he vividly remembered that he had been familiar with her once. Before, he was able to feel along with her and, although he thought that it would become even easier through more time spent with her, it looked like that ability was, in fact, leaving him more and more.

He sighed in relief when his father stopped his thoughts, by finding a cardboard box, that he was searching for. A pile of old, yellow paper was squeezed between the walls of the box, which were slightly crooked from the pressure.

"These are the newspapers, that you asked for," said the father, then released a loud groan and made a painful grimace, while straightening his back. "I bought all of that in the year of 1994."

"Thank you, dad," answered Timothy, while the balding man headed towards the door of the attic.

When he and Maggie remained alone, they sat at both sides of the large package and put all of their focus into it. The girl, to Timothy's surprise, immediately started pulling out thin pages and rapidly running her eyes over the big titles and black and white pictures.

"Are you sure that this bunch of newspapers will give us some answers?," asked the puzzled boy.

Maggie was so concentrated on scrolling and reading, that she needed a few seconds to understand and respond to his question. "No," she said briefly, "but it might help me get a part of them."

After she rushed to complete that sentence, her gaze fell back into the heap of newspapers, which her hands skillfully and quickly scrolled, a page after another. One strand of hair escaped from the back of her ear and spread over her pale face. Timothy was confused, since she didn't even take a single, short moment to remove it, though it was obviously bothering her and touching her eyelids as she was blinking. He assumed that she was so immersed in what she was doing, that she didn't even notice it.

The noise of rustling, folding and crumpling of the paper, that was filling and bringing the whole old room to life, made Timothy feel at least slightly more comfortable in the spot, where he was sitting, while turning his head into all directions and observing the attic, to cut the time short, as Maggie was looking for the title she didn't tell him about. Only his father was familiar with this segment of the house, as he spent a large part of his life exploring every one of its corners, shelves and small details, including shallow holes in the wooden planks, small, black burns on the parquet and long scrapes on the window, which was, long ago, covered by a metal panel from the outside. Maybe that was why his father always looked so tired and lazy every time someone would ask him to bring something from the attic? He must had been going there often, much more often than Timothy, and that place must had represented to him just a few additional, unnecessary steps up the stairs and back. The boy, unlike him, saw it as a mysterious, lonely cave, that wasn't a part of his own home. His gaze would always dreadfully roam and seek through the dense darkness, crawling into seemingly distant places, where light from the dusty, naked bulb, couldn't reach. He wasn't, however, certain what about the attic frightened him. Maybe he was dreading something, that he couldn't see?