THREE TALES BOOK TWO

Isabel

Isabel Stratten sat cross-legged on the floor in the center of her room. The house was quiet and moonlight drifted in through a partially open window. She was home alone and the air seemed to ring with silence. It was a little spooky for a nine-year-old girl, but she was used to it. Her parents left her home alone, a lot.

Isabel didn't know where her parents had gone. She never did. She guessed they were probably high again. They were always high it seemed like. And even though she was scared, sitting in the dark by herself, she was also glad they were gone. It was the only time she really felt safe, when she was there alone.

Her little body ached as she sat listening to traffic flow by beyond the walls. Her dad had really given it to her good this time. He'd beaten her really hard with his belt. Harder than usual. She had actually screamed. Usually she took it quietly, like a good little girl should. Because he would only whip her harder if she screamed. "If the fucking neighbors hear you and call the goddamn cops," he would say, "I'll really beat your ass you stupid little bitch!" But the last time had really hurt bad and she couldn't help herself and she'd screamed and screamed and screamed until everything went black and she finally woke up alone.

Isabel flinched at the memory. But mostly, she just felt numb. She was hungry, as she hadn't eaten since the day before when her mom had been in an unusually good mood and made her macaroni and cheese. But she was too tired to get up and go to the kitchen. And so, she just sat there, listening to the drone of tires on the road outside.

But she must have fallen asleep, because she soon found herself waking up to a sunlit room. She was laying on the wooden floor, her hair spread out around her in the dust. She laid there for a few minutes, listening at the silence with all her might. Were her parents home yet? But no matter how hard she strained her ears, nothing came to them except the sound of the ever-present traffic from the road.

She finally rose up onto her skinny legs. They felt weak and shaky and she noticed how she left tiny footprints on the dusty floor as she walked quietly into the hallway. She went into the bathroom and peed. The toilet was almost too unclean to sit on. But she was used to that too. When she finished, she looked at herself in the mirror while she washed her hands in cold water. Her face was dirty and her hair hung from her head in greasy tangles. Her dotted dress was smeared and messy from being worn all week long. She frowned at herself. She thought that maybe, a long time ago, she had been a pretty little girl.

Walking as quietly as she could, Isabel made her way down the hall until she reached the doorway to her parents' room. Holding her breath, she peered around the corner and looked inside. The bed was tangled and littered with discarded bags of potato chips, but empty. She exhaled a relieved sigh. It looked like they weren't home yet.

Isabel walked into the living room. It took her several minutes to find the remote, which was buried under a pile of clothes in the recliner, but she finally did. She turned the television on and scrolled down to the cartoon channel. But she only stood in the center of the room in her dirty dress staring at the screen with blank, blue eyes.

Her stomach growled. She was still hungry, after all. There was never much food in the house, but she thought there must surely be something as she made her way into the tiny kitchen. The counters were a mess. Empty beer and food cans were everywhere and Isabel noticed gnats swarming around them in the dim light. She opened the fridge but saw nothing more than moldy bologna and beer.

She opened a cabinet and found a jar of peanut butter. She scanned the kitchen with her eyes before she realized there was no bread. And so, she grabbed a spoon and headed back into the living room to watch cartoons. She ate nearly the entire jar of peanut butter while she watched her shows. But her mind was empty and mostly she just stared and let her head be filled with nothing more than the sound of tires on pavement outside. She sat there for a long time until she finally drifted into sleep.