Shifted

Chapter 8

Amy was gone as quickly as she had arrived.  After we finished spray painting the side of the school, we drove around for a while chatting. Eventually Jackson dropped us off back at my house, and Amy and I fell asleep within minutes of hitting the bed. When I woke up in the morning, Amy was already awake and packed. We exchanged tearful goodbyes before she loaded up in her taxi and was gone.  After she left, I went back into the house and started searching for something to eat.  Since we'd only been in the house for a few days, and my mom had been working non-stop, we didn't have much.  All I could find was a box of lucky charms. 

As I ate the dry cereal, I wandered around the house.  I hadn't really taken much time to explore the place yet.  The kitchen opened up into a cozy family room.  We didn't have much in the way of furniture, but the space was nice and there was sunlight coming in through the windows.  There was a sliding glass door there that lead to the back yard.  I walked out, and wiggled my bare toes in the grass.  The sun was shining, and it was a nice warm morning.  I took a deep breath in through my nose, really taking in the scent of fresh air.  Having lived in cities all my life, the smell of fresh air was something new to me.  The backyard was small, and behind it was a small forest. 

As I looked around, I noticed a quick flash of orange between two trees.  I walked a little closer, trying to see what it was.  I saw another flash of orange, and quickly tried to turn to see it, but whatever it was it was too quick.  I heard a ruffle of leaves at the edge of the woods, and as I watched a small red fox emerged from a bush.  It stared at me for a moment, as if it were sizing me up, then it turned and walked into the forest.  Without hesitating I followed after it.  The second I stepped into the woods, my surroundings changed.  The trees overhead cast a dark green light on the world around me.  I looked back, only to find that my backyard and house had disappeared.  In their place was an expanse of trees and bushes.  I was in the middle of the forest.  I slowly turned to face the fox.  It once again stood staring at me a short distance away.  I met its gaze, and I got the feeling this fox wanted me to follow him. 

I followed the animal once again as it scampered across the forest floor.  I had to duck around the low hanging branches, and the bushes became thicker and more snarled.  The branches clawed at my clothes as I tried to keep up with the fox.  Suddenly I burst out of the trees and found myself standing in front of what looked like an abandoned mansion.  I looked around, but the fox was nowhere in sight.  The house was tall and looked old. It stood up against the bank of a small river, and the place had a slightly magical look to it. There were large round turrets resembling the towers of a castle. Many of the windows were boarded shut, and had burn marks around them. I stepped closer to the building and ran my hand over the cold brick exterior. I felt a sort of familiarity, like I had somehow been here before.

I walked around to the front of the house and stood there just looking at the building. There was a front porch that wrapped around the side of the building, and large arched windows above looking into the upper floors.  I slowly walked up the front steps to the large oak door. The door was slightly ajar, and I pushed on it. It slowly creaked open, and I stepped into the dark expansive foyer. The floors were hardwood, and covered with dust and leaves and dirt. A spiral staircase rose from the floor, covered in cobwebs.  The place smelled like charcoal and dust.  The ceiling and walls were charred, and the place looked like it hadn't been touched since the fire.  I ran my fingers across a piece of burnt wallpaper, and a cold chill ran down my spine.  Something about it made me feel uneasy, like something awful had happened here.

I stepped into another room, and stopped in my tracks.  Sitting in the center of the room, barely illuminated by the green light filtering in through the boarded up windows, was the fox.  In its mouth it held an object.  Slowly, without breaking eye contact, the fox bent down and placed the object on the floor.  The fox then turned and sauntered out of the room.  I walked over and picked up the object.  It was an picture frame.  The glass was covered with dust, so I whipped it with my shirt.  When I looked again, I saw that inside was a picture that had been torn in half.  A man stood with a small toddler in his arms.  The man had dark features, and a strong jawline.  They stood in front of a lake, with fishing gear beside them.  Something about the picture felt familiar.  I flipped over the frame, and opened the back.  I slid out the picture and took a closer look.  Running my fingertips over the torn edge, I felt my stomach drop.  I reached into my back pocket, and with shaking hands took out my wallet.  I pulled out a slip of folded paper that I kept safely tucked in the folds of my wallet.  Unfolding it, I felt my unease grow.  I only had one photograph of my father.  I was a toddler in the image, and my dad stood smiling with me on his shoulders and a fishing rod in one hand.  I ran my finger over the torn edge of the picture.  My head began to spin as I slowly brought the two pictures together and the torn edges met perfectly together. 

I suddenly felt sick.  I'd never known anything about my father.  Never asked the questions that a boy growing up without a dad should get to ask.  I knew that it hurt my mom to talk about it, so I'd never gone there.  Now I stood, looking around the charred remains of an empty house, my head spinning in circles, my knees weak, feeling as if I were about to throw up.  I couldn't take it.  I ran from the house, down the porch, and kept running down the long gravel driveway.  The path wound through the woods, curving down a steep hill.  I kept running until I came to a paved road.  Only then did I stop to breathe.  As soon as I stopped, my knees gave out underneath me.  I curled up on the side of the road, leaning against a rock formation, and let the tears wash over me. 

I didn't understand what made me cry.  It felt as if I had just lost my father, when in reality I'd never known the man.  I had so many unanswered questions.  I didn't even know how he had died.  Had that been his house?  Was the home that I lived in until he died?  The fire that burned the house, could that be the reason he was gone?  I sat there for a long time, feeling everything and nothing at the same time.  After a while it started to get dark, and I realized that I had no clue where I actually was.  I pulled out my cellphone and said a silent thank you when I saw that I had at least one bar of reception.  It took a few tries, but eventually I got a call through.

"Hello?" He answered the phone in his smooth deep voice. 

"Jackson," I said in a sigh of relief.  "I need a favor."

Within thirty minutes, Jackson pulled up next to me on the road.  I'd been able to share my location with him through our phones's gps, and I thanked the Lord for modern technology.  He parked his dad's truck on the shoulder of the road, and stepped out with a look of concern on his face.  He walked over to me, and as soon as he saw me, it was as if he could read my emotions.  He wrapped his arms around me and held me to his chest just as a new wave of tears spilled over.  We stood like that for a while, him holding me in the headlights of the truck.  He didn't ask any questions.  When I was done, he helped me into the passenger seat of the truck, and he drove me home. 

As we sat in the truck, parked in my driveway, I tried to think of something to say.  I fiddled with my hands in my lap.  And I turned to look at him only to find his intense gaze already fixed on me.  No words were exchanged, but somehow I felt better as I gazed into his warm brown eyes.  After a long moment of silence, he nodded.  Somehow he knew what I needed.  At that moment, I needed to be alone with my thoughts.  I gave him a small smile, and stepped out of the car.  I walked up the front porch, and unlocked the front door.  Before I opened it, I turned around to look back at the truck.  He had the window down, and he was watching me, waiting to be sure I got inside safely.  I felt an overwhelming sense of security under his watchful gaze.  I mouthed a silent thank you before stepping into the house, and shutting the door behind me. 

I leaned my back against the door, and stood there for a long moment.  Thoughts of all that had happened swam through my head.  I'd never asked my mom how my father had died.  It seemed too painful a topic to talk to her about.  I knew that he was the love of her life, and I couldn't bear to see her upset.  I climbed the stairs, and crawled into my bed.  I pulled the two parts of the picture from my back pocket, and laid back on my soft bed as I examined the pictures more.  Had my mother been the one to tear the photograph?  Who was the man and the little boy in the picture.  The little boy looked a little older than me.  He was probably four or five years old, where as I knew,  from what little me mom had told me of my half of the photo, that I was three when it was taken.  It had been in the summer.  Only a few weeks before my father passed away.  Questions swam through my head as my eyes began to droop.  The emotions of the day had drained me, and I felt exhausted.  I fell asleep, the picture resting beside my head, feeling something I'd never felt before: a small thread of a connection to my father.