Double Back

One Clue

When Sybil awoke, the brittle smell of onions hit her nose. The hard dirty bed on which she had accidentally fallen asleep on was beginning to make her legs itchy. She slowly sat up, her back cracking every time she moved the slightest bit. When she finally stood up on the dampened floor she had to adjust her outfit so that it could fit her body as close as possible to normal. When she put her hand on the brass door handle she began to turn it ever so slightly so as not to disturb the silence. The door slowly creeped open to reveal a tray of food sitting on the floor just in front of the door. On the tray was a bowl of onion soup with a roll of some kind of bread that somewhat resembled the bread she was used to. She perched her hand just slightly above the bowl and could feel the steam rising up into the room. When she leaned over to pick up the tray she heard a creek in the floor boards that came from another room, soon two shinny black pairs of shoes came into view and she stood up, tray in hand to encounter her visitor. It was Chase, the strongly built, red haired, farm boy who had rescued her from the barn. When he opened his mouth to invite her to dinner, she saw a small scar on the brim on his upper lip. Gently he grabbed her elbow and helped her to the dining room. The dining room was probably the biggest room in the house. The large, oak table could probably sit around 10 people and was draped with an auburn red table cloth. On the walls there where multiple portraits of the former owners of the house, the most interesting of these, was the one that hung at the head of the table, it was of a man who was a little older than Chase, beside him was his wife in a baby blue dress. In her arms was a little boy with hair the color of fire, and at her feet was a girl who was holding a parasol that was the same shade of white as the house behind her. When Chase caught her staring at the painting he felt that he had to explain.
"Those are my folks." He explained.
"Where are they now?"
"They died a few years back, one of the bridges near town collapsed while their carriage was passing over it, it's just me and Jill now. As you can tell Jill ain't no homemaker so the family house been running down a bit but so far we been making our way."
Sybil now felt bad for asking, if she had known that the story had a tragic end, she might not have wanted it to be told. She pitted the young man and his sister who lost their parents so young. Of course she too had lost both her parents at a young age but their deaths where spread apart. When Sybil was a young girl, her mother had gotten into a serious accident on her bike where she broke her legs, later after she was released from the hospital her left leg got an infection. She was stuck in her bed for months, not being able to tell her only child what was happening. When Sybil's mother finally passed away, Sybil was the one to find the mangled corps. When she came home from school that evening her father was still at his shop, so she went strait into their room to see her mother, when the young girl attempted to wake her mother, nothing happened, she then lay down beside her and fell asleep. When Sybil woke back up again she was gone. After the death of her mother, her father became distant, so when he passed, when he drown in the lake, it wasn't as hard for her.
Sybil sat down with the two strangers to eat. Jill had made a pork roast with mash potatoes and many vegetables. As no one would talk she found herself observing the strangers behavior, it seemed that whenever Jill would take a bite she would bend over so that her chin was just inches away from her plate of food. She also watched Chase, he was a mostly civilized man but he did slurp his drink. Every few bites of food he would look up at the table and look at Jill, then only when he thought she wasn't looking, would he steal a quick glance towards her. When they finished their meal, they then moved to the sitting room where Jill would sow and Chase would read the paper.
"You know they say there's a storm coming." Chase said to break the silence
"We should go into town tomorrow and pick up some supplies, you remember how the last one went now don't ya Chasey." Responded Jill.
After saying their goodnights Sybil climbed up the long flight of stairs towards her room. When she opened her wardrobe she found long dresses of every colour in the rainbow, she searched through the entire thing until she found a plain gray night gowned, when she slipped it on over her head she decided that she did indeed like the fabrics they used here, even if they were scratchy they smelt of summer air. There was a small knock on her bedroom door and when she opened it she found Chase standing awkwardly in the hall way holding a stack of towels.
"I thought perhaps you where need'n these." He said holding the towels out towards her. She swung open the door to reveal a large stack on top of her desk that his sister had brought to her earlier that day. When he saw those his cheeks filled with colour. She said a quick thank you anyway before he vanished into the dark hallway towards his room. After she closed her door, she began to analyze what just happened. If Jill had previously brought her towels, she couldn't have been the one to send Chase, therefore he had to have been worried about her missing towels and brought them himself. Maybe he wasn't so bad after all. She got into the big, fluffy bed and pushed aside three pillows before finally resting her head on the small blue pillow to sleep.
She was standing in a sunny field of flowers, her hand began to stretch out in front of her. When she lifted her eyes to where her hand was pointed she saw her mother walking towards her. Once she arrived she smiled.
"Sybil my girl, I'm so happy you're here."
"I don't understand, what are you doing here?" She asked puzzled
" I'm here to explain why you're here my sweet love."
"Why? What happened, I don't understand why I have been brought to the past."
"You're here because of me, I was supposed lived three lives or at least my spirit was. But when I died in your lifetime so tragically, my spirit was trapped. I have sent you to one of those times, to fill the empty space of my missing spirit, I'm so sorry my love. I wish it didn't have to be you." Her mother answered.
"I don't understand? Is this a bad thing?"
"Be careful of..."
Her mother disappeared when she opened her eyes to the sunlight of the new day.