Dear Diary,
It's 12:02 am when I roll over to look at the clock sitting on the dresser beside me. The window that seemed perfect only hours earlier, was now stressing me out with the shadows it was casting all over the dark bedroom, only dimly lit by the moon. I never realized how much comfort I had found in the sounds of the city. How the hum of traffic and sirens lulled me to sleep. Here it was so silent, that every little sound popped against the backdrop of the still night. Every shift, every creak, would startle me back to alertness. How could the silence be so much louder then the noise?
I start to dial Vanessa, but change my mind remembering she has an interview at a small home design store in the morning. I wanted her to be well rested and alert for it, she really needed this job. I wanted her independence and success just as badly as she did. I reminded her about three times to be ready to order a car an hour before her interview just in case he ignored her notes on the fridge that it was her day to use the car. I put my phone back down, taking a deep breath to try and calm myself.
By 1:34, I had convinced myself that there was a bear in the yard, and that he would have no problem breaking through the old wooden planks of the large window. Kicking off my covers, I decide to face my fears and take a look out at the yard in person, hoping that seeing it's motionless and empty body will calm my nerves.
It's of course desolate, no bears in sight. Not even a squirrel can be seen scurrying around the bushes. Through the trees between grandpa's house and the next, I can see there's a fire burning in Calvin's yard. There's someone there too, because the brightness of the flames keeps fading in and out as their body walks around it. I shine my phone around the yard one more time, before stopping its beam on what seems to be a trail right off the tree line. Walking closer to it, I could see it was more a remnant of something that used to be a trail, but was now over grown with grass and leaves from not being walked on in quite some time.
Further and further I take myself to see what's beyond every curve, until I'm quite a ways down the path before I've even decided if I want to see where it leads. I start to worry that I'm getting close to the water, I can't see a thing. I stop to listen, to see if I can hear it. There is something that may be the crashing of waves in the distance. I decide it must be far off, and continue. Moments earlier, I was terrified and covered in sweat at the thought of a bear breaking through my window. Now I was desperate for that window, for anything to be some sort of barrier between me and any creature that might appear. But I couldn't tame my curiosity.
At the very moment I've decided to turn around and run back to the safety of my silent bedroom, I've taken one last step, revealing a small clearing, dimly lit only by the moon, with some tree stumps and rocks. There was something off, but I wasn't quite sure what it was, my interest now overtaking my desire to turn and run. When I sat on a stump, I realized what it was: the stump was not rooted to the ground. In fact, none of them were. The longer I looked around, the more sure I was that everything had been placed where it was, almost like seating.
My eyes were wandering around the clearing, trying to make out what exactly it was that I stumbled upon, they stop above me at the canopy of branches overhead, barely any light shining through with the thickness of the woods. I'm trying to make out what I'm seeing, some sort of net? Or was it just the way the branches looked in the dark? There's a crack of a branch ahead of me, the opposite way from where I came in. It doesn't take much time or thought for me to start backing away, first slowly, and then I'm running back the way I came. My heart was racing and I'm in such a panic that I need to stop and catch my breath when I'm back in my yard only moments later.
Looking over at Calvin's yard again, I see that the fire is still burning bright.
...
"Hey Jane." Calvin says when he looks up to see me enter the yard, as if he wasn't completely annoyed with my existence the last time he saw me.
YOU ARE READING
That One Summer
Fiksi RemajaJane was raised by her free spirited uncle, but when he moves to Paris she is forced to live with her grandpa for the summer in a small town where she finds romance and secrets to her past that she never knew were there.
