The walking stick.

I

It had been twenty-four years since she'd last seen it, but the place looked exactly the same. She had stood right there by the end of the steps, unable to take the final few steps and ring the knocker. Sensationally, her stomach was in her mouth and her heartbeat in her ears, the past and the present streaming simultaneously in vividity consequently each overlapping the other because even after all this time everything was still the same. The wind whistled calmly, bristling her hair as if to usher her forward towards the verandah she remembered so vividly. The chipped edge on the step that had scarred her knee still had the same menace to it. It was by this same step that she had let the first boy who was smitten with her attempt to slosh their lips together, albeit rather horribly. She edged down with warm tears in her eyes as she grasped the earth with dry and trodden sand slipping through her rosy slender fingers.

When the wind stopped singing and she felt the tears begin to burn her cheeks, she knew the moment for reckoning was fast approaching. She struggled to pick herself up, feeling the immense weight of the enormous guilt holding her down. Guilt that had plagued her for over two decades, for it was here that the atrocity happened

The metal door had a familiar ugly creak to it. The dull rhythmic thud that accompanied it though was unfamiliar. "Well, aren't you going to come in?" The sadness that was enveloping her heart stuttered to a halt. "Don't stand out there in the cold Ariel. You'll get a warm cup of tea and the chocolate muffins you always liked." Even after all this time, her voice and accent still had its characteristic nasality to her mother tongue. She had put on a few pounds around the middle though, and the spectacles and wooden walking stick were definitely a newer touch.

She clutched it firmly as she stood on the front porch that was once filled with well tendered petunias.
Ariel picked up her suitcase by its handle and took those final few steps, slowly dragging it past the metal door into the dimly lit farmhouse. It had been her house once. She had navigated its rooms and corridors, found and hidden secrets under its floorboards and walls yet here she now stood a stranger to its mysteries once. Permanence it seemed would always evade her. There was an uneasy silence as they took that flight of stairs. Her mother led and she followed, like she always had when she was little. They always walked in silence to the second room on the right where she would tuck her in and turn off the lights with a soft goodnight before retreating to her room. The color had aged somewhat, peeled off in some places but nevertheless, it seemed in prime condition for its unoccupied state.