Return to New Arden

Returning home

Returning to a house that was once your home is a strange thing. My name is Ella Pitch and my family home is in a tiny place called Frog's Hollow, it's deep in the mountains. The nearest town to it is a place called Applewood. For the past year I've been attending College in New Arden. I'm studying nursing hoping to specialize in psychiatric nursing. Maybe that's why my mother called me, maybe it's just because I am her daughter.

I wasn't sure what it was all about. I just knew that she was worried and wanted my support. I packed up my books and caught the train up to Athena Academy, there I was met by one of my mother's neighbours who took me further into the mountains. We stopped for lunch in Applewood and picked up some supplies. With each landmark we passed I could feel memories reigniting in my mind.

It was a misty evening and we had to turn the headlights up to see. There is never a mist like this in New Arden. The neighbour left me at my mother's gate and I walked down the long track to the house. The forest was thick and dark all around me and I couldn't help but think of all the weird stories she used to tell me as a child.

The house itself is like something out of a fairytale, all timber with a pitched roof and a smoking stack. I rang the bell and my mother came to let me in. She is a small straight backed woman with glittering eyes, full of wit and humour, she likes nothing more than to tell stories. I bring in the supplies and stock the cupboards while she finishes making supper. My Dad is dosing by the fire, his favourite spot. There is a book open in his lap but he is not reading it.

My father is a decade older than my mother, they married when she was twenty seven and he was thirty seven, it did not seem like such a difference between them then but as time has gone on I see age catching up with him faster. One thing I am certain of is that it was a love match between them. Her family disapproved of him and there was some bad blood there but they have been married for over twenty years now and surely that proves their naysayers wrong.

When I first got home my parents were unusually quiet and I was the one doing most of the talking, filling the room with chatter about university life. They occasionally shared a bit of news but all of it is stuff I have heard before. This neighbour had been ill, a tree had fallen on the road higher up, the roof of the shed needed fixing. I am more curious than ever to know why I've been called here but I know I have to be patient and wait. The story does not emerge until after my father goes to bed. As we are washing up, I ask my mother what is going on.

"Well Ella it's your father."

"Yes"

"He's been having a lot of trouble with his memory lately."

I nod, "he's getting older, he's bound to forget things"

"I think it might be more than that."

My mother looks out at the misty garden and frowns. I know she usually leaves something out there for the wildlife.

"Did you feed them yet?"

"Oh yes, that's all done."

"So dad..."

"I think I have to take your father to the doctor and I didn't want to go alone."

We chat a little more and then go to bed.

I go to bed in my old room but I find I can't go to sleep easily. My parents have seemed like an unchanging force in my life for so many years. I can't imagine either of them brought down, it makes me afraid in a way I never have been. If it's just me alone to face this life what does that mean? Will I be strong enough? Will I be brave enough to stand by my mother's side?

I watch my dad closely over the next few days, most of the time he is alright but sometimes he gets this far off look in his eye and he pauses mid sentence and then can't seem to recall what we were talking about. I think my mother is right. We take him to the doctor who tests him and concludes that my father has the beginnings of altzhiemers.

I spend more nights awake. In this restless state I take to going for walks at night. I am coming back from one of these ramblings when I see a black shadow climbing out of my parent's window. I pause uncertainly, the shadow seems to dissolve and resolve as it moves. It's a many legged shape, not human, more like a spider. Very quietly I follow this creature as it skitters down the trail. It stops occasionally and I freeze in place hoping it is not aware of me.

Eventually it turns off the trail and into the woods. With trepidation I walk into the darker shadows between the trees. I do not have far to go for a glade opens up before me. Moonlight pours in from above and I see suspended between the trees on the far side a giant web. The shadow spider sits massive and fat balancing in the centre.

There is something very strange about the web. As I inch forward I see that between the strands web there are windows in which scenes play like movies. I slowly recognise them as memories from my father's life. There is my mother when she was younger, there I am three years old and unwrapping Christmass presents. I understand with a deep sense of horror that I am looking at a memory thief.

I don't know what to do, only that I have to somehow rescue my father's memories. Grabbing a large stick from the ground I rush at the spider. It scuttles back to the edge of the web and we dance like two sword fighters advancing and retreating. It makes a leap straight at me and I raise the stick. To my amazement I manage to skewer the spider so that it dies wriggling on the stick. It is the worst thing I have ever had to do and I wretch emptily into the grass for a while. Then I stand and go to the web. I slowly unhook it from the trees gathering it all up into a bundle so I can take it home with me.

In the morning I tell my mother what happened. I expect her to laugh at me or say I was dreaming but she nods seriously and takes the bundle of silken thread from me. Over the next few days she spins and then knits that thread into a blanket for my father. When it is done she lays it tenderly on their bed. I watch over the next week as his memory slowly improves. It is always best in the morning after a night's sleep. I think of the pictures of neurons I have seen, tiny spiders we have in our own minds that spin our thoughts together. It is strange and beautiful and terrible all at once.

I go back to New Arden and back to my studies. It's a world of reason and science where inhuman monsters don't exist. I wonder what I will experience next time I am called home to the mountains.