Across the Map

Prologue

"Do we have to go home?" Liley asked her brother, Caleb, as they walked out of Charlottesville High School. "There has to be at least one after school activity that we can go to". Liley had understandable reasons for not wanting to go home, and Caleb agreed with her one hundred percent.

Ever since Liley and Caleb were about seven years old, they had dreaded having to spend time at home, mostly because of their parents. From the outside, the Amberson family looked like the picture perfect, all smiles, Brady Bunch like family. Two admirably sweet children with two loving, inseparable parents to match. But when the doors close, everything changed. Two shy, scared, isolated kids with two fighting, screaming parents who never wanted to be in the same room together, unless they were going at each other's throats. The charade that they had put up had been fooling the people of their small town for years, mostly because Mr. and Mrs. Amberson had threatened to starve Caleb and Liley to death if they ever told what happened behind closed doors.

Caleb and Liley had learned that at home, they always had to keep to themselves, unless they wanted to get caught in the crossfire of their parent's harsh bullets of words. Liley learned that the hard way at nine, when she interrupted the fighting to ask for help on her math homework. She was called powerless and a disgrace by the battling adults and sent back to her and Caleb's room without dinner. She had fallen asleep crying in Caleb's arms that night.
"Liley," Caleb expressed, "Even if we stay at school, we would have to go home to World War 3 sooner or later".

"I guess you're right, " she sighed, "But at least we would have to endure less until we lock ourselves in our room again". The siblings usually went to bed very early, locking the doors so their parents couldn't get in and start screaming at them instead of each other. But even with all of that precaution, they could still feel the vibration of the floorboards as their parents shrieks about how bad each others' lives turned out.

Caleb and Liley walked over to their four door white Jeep with mud splattered on the sides. Part of the reason that no one knew the secrets of the Amberson house was because they lived in a small cabin in the woods surrounding the town, where no one can hear their screams. Liley grabbed the roof of the car with her petite hand and swung herself into the passenger's seat. Caleb climbed into the driver's seat way easier, since he was a head and a half taller than his sister. As they pulled out of the immense parking lot and onto the open road, Liley watched all the different types of cars following each other; silver Porsches for the popular people, black minivans for the struggling band members, and a vast array of others going to the 'special hangouts' for each of their cliques.
Caleb and Liley didn't belong to a clique. They just hung out with whichever one would keep them out of their house longer. They made sure they were friends with everyone, so they would always have people to escape from the cabin with. The only part that they hated about it was that they had to change their personalities like the weather to make sure they had that many friends. So naive it was concerning with the farmers, obnoxious and condescending with the popular people, loud and overly committed with the sports fans. They hated their Jekyll and Hyde on steroids plan, but it was their only way to get out of their parent's way.

After they got at least a mile away from the school, Caleb made a sharp right turn into a cluster of trees that other people might look at as a death wish, since a couple meters from those trees was a cliff. But to them, it was just the longest route to their house. Caleb tried to steady the car as best as possible as the car jumped down the jarring path. They drove in silence, listening to whatever pop song was playing on the radio every twenty seconds.

Liley stared out the window, watching the trees pass by through her shuddering vision. Her mind was packed full with reminders and other things from school. Physics test on Thursday. Track meet on Monday. Band practice Tuesday. Her haze was interrupted by the feeling of Caleb's hand rubbing her shoulder, a comforting technique used between them constantly.

"Hey," he said thoughtfully, "maybe it won't be so bad today". Liley looked over and the white streaks of hope still littered her brother's eyes. His eyes were so blue that they were almost silver, brilliantly contrasting his gold streaked brown hair. It was a striking look compared to his sister, who had curly, fire red locks with a set of royal blue eyes to contrast. They both had features that looked inhuman and some that looked natural.

"Yeah, you said that yesterday, too," Liley rebuttled, "and now there are wood chips all over our kitchen floor from dad's chairs incident". Caleb removed his hand from her shoulder and they went back to riding in silence.

Liley started to doze off after a while, but was rudely shook back to reality by her brother slamming on the brake pedal. Her vision was still hazy from her descent from consciousness, but when they refocused, she realized there was a quaint structure blocking the car from going forward, their house. Caleb jumped out of the car as Liley tried to escape into her seat. He came over to her door to find her attempting to climb into the back.

"Liley, stop acting like a kid." he said, gripping her ankles and pulling until she was standing on the mesh-like forest floor with him.

"But I like acting like a child. It's safer, quieter, and way better than this". She walked through this door everyday, yet she never stopped looking horrified at the sight of it. Caleb grabbed her hand as a weak smile started to spread across her face. Caleb took a deep breath and slowly turned the knob and opened the door.