Primal Promise

Four*

[AUTHOR'S NOTE : Trigger warning - non-consent issues. ]

She was lost. There was no doubt now.

Three days. It took her only three days to completely screw everything up. It had begun so promisingly too. When Aunt Julia's estate man called, saying that she should come claim anything she wanted before the sale, she'd discovered something amazing. Her aunt had never told her much about her parents, never shared pictures or stories, yet there it was. A whole album of her father's youth and, at the very back, a single photo of a happy couple and a very small girl standing together in front of a little cabin in the woods.

The mom and dad had their arms around each other, the girl was wearing a Dora, The Explorer tee shirt, shorts, and a big smile. The cabin filled the back of the picture, a few small trees around the edges, and on the back, an address. She had been happy once. Here was proof. She had decided to go seek it out. See if it still stood and if that feeling that had followed her all her life was a memory or a nightmare.

The next day she took a cabin at the Diamond Lake Resort, her home for the next two weeks.

There were boats gliding across the lake, folks swimming and laughing, kids running about. Mount Bailey rose on the lake's far side, the blue sky was dotted with fluffy clouds. The air was still and warm. It seemed idyllic, but something about the reflection of the mountain on the lake's smooth surface made her feel uneasy. Despite the warmth of midday, a little shiver raced up her arms. She turned and went back inside, unable to fully shake that feeling of foreboding.

She'd stocked up at the local dollar store. Cleaning products and some cabinet staples for her stay as well as shampoo, toothpaste, and so forth. The box containing the latter carried to the bathroom, she caught a quick flash of her reflection.

She was fairly average, by all measurements. Standing at five foot eight, which while not near WNBA height it certainly cut her off from the word 'petite'. If her height hadn't, her weight would. She possessed what older people called 'Old Hollywood' and others just called 'thickness'.

She ran her palms over her waist, which though the circumference hadn't started with a two since she was in eighth grade, still was a good deal inward from the curve of her hips. Her breasts were full on the width of her rib cage, always a bit too big. It got her the wrong kind of attention since puberty. The red hair didn't help. She wrinkled her nose and made a face before shaking her head, returning to putting away the toiletries, lost in her thoughts until a knock at the door made her jump. She peeked out, a breath of relief to see it was only Mrs. Belcourt, the lady owner of the resort.

"Found it."

"Oh, thank you." Contessa hoisted the empty box, tossing it onto the bed as she closed the distance, taking the offered yellow page of newsprint.

"I knew I had it." Her hands clasping at her waist. "Terrible thing."

The article was short and very slim on details. A gas line had exploded and there had been casualties but there was no mention of who or how many. There was a photo but it was a grainy sort of shot of a gas truck and a fire truck before a hazy pale thing that might have been a fire. The date and address matched up, so she surmised this was the truth of what happened that night.

"Thank you." She held it back out to Mrs. Belcourt. It felt a bit anticlimactic, but that was hardly the lady's fault.

"I hope it helped." She sighed, putting the scrap back in to a faded floral album of news clippings. "Though I can't see how. The past is best left in the past, I think." Her eyes kind. "Especially such sadness." There was a tense emotional note in her voice but a moment later when she smiled more widely and lit into a list of all the fun things the resort had to offer, Contessa was sure she'd only imagined it.