Garnet

Prologue

The sky was dark. Clouds had formed overhead, creating a gray layer that covered the sky, burdening the weight of the Heavens. The sun had barely shown all day and the temperature was crisp, striking at the few pedestrians who ventured out.  The town of Megg Falls, Michigan was reticent and slow that day and mirrored the ugly weather above.  There was a slight breeze in the air; just enough to shake the spindly pines and sturdy branches of the tall trees that grew in the town.
   The buzz of a bee startled Alma, as she was just finishing watering the tomato plants she grew in her backyard garden. She jumped and her right foot landed on a sharp rock, sitting on the dirt path that connected her tomato bush to her basil leaves. She took a step forward and winced in pain as the rock dug deeper into her foot.  She knew that the cut was deep because she felt blood starting to gush from the opening in her skin. She pulled her foot up to her hand and was disgusted at the sight of the wound. When she finally mustered up the courage to touch the cut, she attempted to pull out the rock. Each pull on the rock was received with more pain and Alma had almost stopped trying when she finally managed to pull the small foot-cutter out.  The rock was small and gray, like the clouds above, and covered in her own dark red blood. Alma cursed in Italian under her breath.
   She made her way out of the garden, hopping on her left foot as to avoid stepping on the gash in her right.  After what felt like days, Alma made it to her back of her house. She swung open the back door, with reluctant squeaks from the opening, and found herself in the shabby, old kitchen.  Alma knew that the house wasn't nice, but she preferred it that way.  She had never lived in luxury, so the house was just right for Alma, her husband, and her three children.
   She started to search for the Band-Aids she kept in one of the cabinets in the kitchen when the phone started to ring.  She made her way to the landline, sitting on the counter next to the microwave, and picked it up.
   "Hello?" Alma inquired.
   "Hi, Alma, this is Maryann, Edward's mother," said the woman on the phone.
   Alma did not recognize the woman's voice or name at first, but then realized it was the lady from down the road.  Her son, Edward, always played with Alma's own son.  "Oh, hi, Maryann," Alma said, brightening up her voice.
   "I'm calling this late at night because I was wondering if you had seen Edward anywhere," Maryann said, a note of worry in her voice.  "I told him to come home by six for dinner, but he still hasn't arrived.  I'm getting a little nervous."
   Alma remembered she had seen Ed.  He had stopped by her house earlier to go play with her children.  "Yes, yes, I have seen Edward.  He came by at around twelve and asked if my kids were home."
   "Oh, okay, thank you," Maryann said, though the worry in her voice had not disappeared. 
  "No worries, Maryann," Alma said, soothingly.  Now that Alma had thought about it, she hadn't seen her son come home either. Her other two children had come home hours ago, but her son had not.  She had completely lost track of time, tending her garden, that she hadn't realized how late it had become.  "Hold on, Mary, hold on.  I haven't seen my kid either."
   "Oh no! Lord, where could they be?" Maryann exclaimed. 
   "I'm sure it's fine, Mary," Alma said, but she wasn't sure she even believed herself.  "They probably just went out and lost track of time.  You know how young boys are."
   "Okay, okay, I'm sure you're right," Maryann said quickly.  "It's just motherly instincts, I guess."  She gave out a halfhearted false laugh.   "Well, I'm sure he'll turn up.  Thank you, Alma."
   "Any time," Alma said, and hung up the phone.  Now, where could Edward and my son be? Alma thought, trying to think if her kids or Edward had turned up late before.  Surely, they had; they were kids, for God's sake.  She convinced herself that they definitely had, and she just couldn't remember.
Alma put the phone back on its holder and once again, started the search for a Band-Aid.  She knew that it was in the cabinet beneath the sink, but unfortunately, so were many other things.  She whisked aside window cleaners, extra lightbulbs, multiple bottles of hand soap, rolls of paper towels, and toilet bowl scrubbers before finally finding the Band-Aids.  She picked one out of the box, unwrapped it, and gently, placed it upon the cut.
   She then, grabbed some paper towels and started to clean the floor, for her blood had spilled all over.  The little droplets of blood that had escaped her foot were everywhere on her hardwood floors.  Though the floors hadn't had a good cleaning in years, Alma didn't think the addition of her own blood made the floors any more appealing.  She mopped them up, and then threw out the paper towels.  Finally, Alma thought. 
   The mother made her way down the hall and as she went, she pressed her right foot very softly to the floor.  Though the blood had subsided, the pain had not.   It was as if stepping on a bunch of nails, concentrated to the one spot on her foot.  Alma carefully walked to her daughters' room.  The girls were 8 and 11 and had had some previous resistance of sharing a room.  All was well now, because both girls were soundly asleep.  One had a bed on the right side, her youngest, and one on the left, her older daughter.  The room was scattered with old Mad Libs the girls had completed, fortune tellers they had made, and slap bracelets that had fascinated the girls to no end. 
What a mess, Alma thought to herself as she backed out of the room and shut the door.  She then headed to the front of the home and unlocked the front door.  Alma stepped in the cool air.
   BANG!  Alma Opale flinched at the loud noise that had just erupted from inside her home.  "What the hell was that?" she said aloud, as she began to make her way back to the front door and into her shabby home.  She called for her husband down the hall to where the bedrooms were.  She got no response.  She called again; this time not for her husband, but for her son.  Again, no response.  She walked briskly down the hallway to where she had thought the noise had come from.  She opened the door to her daughter's room and what she saw made her scream out loud. 
   The window that had been in the middle of the wall opposite from Alma had been shattered.  Glass pieces were scattered everywhere, almost looking like a new toy the girls had left all over the floor.  Her two daughters were lying on the floor, limbs lying in positions that were unnatural.  Blood had seeped all over the carpet that covered the floor, similar to the blood that had fallen from Alma's foot in the kitchen.  Alma knew almost immediately where all this blood had come from.  A large, bloodred spot had found its way onto both of the daughters' pajama tops and seemed to go deeper than just the shirt.  Alma had never seen a stabbed person before, but she knew that her daughters had been.  Her knees hit the floor exceptionally hard.  The pain would have been excruciating to any sane person, but Alma was not sane.  She would never be again.
   She wept, her large tears falling fast to the already stained carpet.  Her lovely daughters, her only daughters.  She cried into the night and mustered up a big sob.  Her tears were falling quicker now; quicker than the blood gushing from her daughters' wounds.  Alma knew that they were dead.  Her lovely daughters, her only daughters. 
   A person stepped into the hallway.  After finishing off the husband that lay in the master bedroom, the person started walking towards the sound of a person sobbing uncontrollably.  It has to be the mother, the person thought.  Oh, how this would be sweet.  So, so sweet.  The person had seen another bedroom in the hall.  It was decorated in the manner of a teenage boy.  Car posters hung on the walls, yet they weren't cartoony or from a television show.  They were muscle cars.  Like the one the person drove.  The walls were painted a dark blue, not a baby blue or a light blue. Dark.  The person found it fascinating how the older you become, the darker everything around you becomes too.
   The mysterious killer made his way down the hall and found the room where the woman was crying.  It had been the room where he had broken into to get inside the home.  The woman had her back turned to the person and she was on her knees, crying extremely loudly.  The man stiffened his grip on the knife in his hand and swung it up, then back down into the woman's back.
   Alma Opale never even felt the knife.