CRUMBS

CRUMBS
by Serena Edwards

It couldn’t be her? How could it? 

Today was meant to be happy. Scarlett and her family had loved my idea of having a daytime engagement party. John, Scarlet’s dad, had kicked out the barbeque, and the entire cul-de-sac had set up eskies, tables and even a fricking jumping castle to keep the kids occupied. 

Why now? Was I sabotaging myself? It can’t be her, she should have been in her sixties, but she looked as young as the day I met her.

“Whoa, Jeffery, are you alright?” John asked, putting his hand on my shoulder. The touch caused me to jump, but I tried my best to laugh it off. 

“Oh, I’m good. Just thinking.”

His eyebrows shoot up. “Thinking? Jeffery, you were crying.”

My smile dropped as I reached for my cheek. The heat of the tears made my fingers feel like ice, so I wiped my face with my sleeve. 

“Ah, it must be from the grill. I think you are taking extra crispy too much to heart, sir.”

He looked at me for a moment before giving me a light punch. If it was clear I was lying, I wanted to hug him for playing along. Calling him a good man doesn’t cover it, and calling him a great dad to Scarlett even more. 

Long before what happened to my sister, kindness wasn’t a part of my father’s nature. All Violet and I had was each other when mum died. 

I remembered our bedroom door shook like thunder had hit it.

“Lock me out in my own fucking house!” Father said. The door shook again. “Try and hide my beers, and you think nothing’s gonna happen. I’m the grownup; yous’ don’t get to tell me what’s what!”

I looked over at Violet as she sat upright in her bed, looking less terrified than I felt. She held her arms out to me, and I rushed over to her bed. 

“It’s okay,” Violet assured me. “I’ve got you.”

Soon the banging stopped, and we heard him swear as his boots faded back to the living room. My face was so wet and snotty, I felt like a giant baby. “I’m sorry. I should be braver.”

She wiped my face with her sleeve. “I wouldn’t be brave if I didn’t have you.”

Then it was just me. Even as a kid, I should have known he’d never believe me. I should have kept it to myself, whether I was crazy or not. I couldn’t have John or Scarlett look at me like that. I needed to sort out the truth from guilt.

I turned back to where I saw the woman, but she’d gone. I couldn’t remember her name; I didn’t even remember if she did tell us her name. I scanned the street looking for her blonde hair, but most women here had light hair. I can’t even remember what she was wearing; I was just so focused on her face. Reminded me of a doll; huge forehead and sickeningly straight teeth. 

I moved my head around, but I couldn’t see anyone close to looking similar; there were just too many people. I patted John on the shoulder, as a bye, then started looking. I wasn’t even too sure what I was looking for until a flash of white caught the corner of my eye. I remembered; she was wearing a white dress.

My head followed and discovered yellow hair at a table near the jumping castle. I headed towards her faster than logic could reach me and spun her around, but it was just a teenager who looked at me like I was a lunatic.

I snapped my hands away. “Sorry. I’m… sorry.”

I dropped into a chair by another table and crushed my icy knuckles into my eyes. Maybe I just saw someone who just reminded me of that awful time in my life?

“You have such a cute smile, you know, that right?” Her voice came from behind me.

My stomach twisted like it was wrapped in piano wire. Vomiting wasn’t an option; I was too terrified; that was until she kept talking, and I realised she wasn’t talking to me.

Her voice; I couldn’t believe I’d forgotten it. Her voice, so sweet and smooth but natural like honey. You couldn’t help but feel … cared for. I peered over my shoulder, afraid she’d recognise me. But there she was, smiling, not at me, but at a little girl. 

I started to shiver as my eyes watered. I felt like I should go and calm down, but I felt like if I looked away, she’d disappear again. Would that be a bad thing? I started to think. I mean, look at the life I’d managed to find for myself. I’m loved and love someone –

“You have lovely hair,” I heard her say. I watched her lift the girl’s locks between her fingers, twisting the end around her thumb. Nausea began to overwhelm me, and the skin on my inner elbow prickled. I tried to rub the feeling away, but it lingered. She’d played with Violet’s hair like that when we first met her. 

Everything else went out of focus like a knife carved the space around her. I loved my sister too, and I let that bitch take her.

Throughout my childhood, the memory of this woman had left two shadows in my heart; fear and shame. At that moment seeing history repeating. For the first time, I felt anger. My jaw was clenched so tight I thought I’d break my teeth. I pictured what I could do to her with one of these chairs, what I could do to her with my fists. Fists that belonged to a man.

I launched off the chair, but Scarlett stepped in front of me. Her light touch on my face brought me back to myself, but I did keep my eyes on that woman. 

“Hey, are you alright? I’ve been calling out to you,” she asked.

“I’m fine. I’m sorry.”

“My dad said you were acting strange, and you just walked off.” She then looked over her shoulder, following my gaze. “What are you looking at?”

I opened my mouth to tell her the truth, it was my first instinct, but then I remembered what that had done for me before. My father’s unrelenting boot.

I shook my head and smiled at her. “I think the smoke from the grill has made me nauseous. In fact, I think I’m seeing stuff.”

“Seeing stuff? Like what leprechauns, Bugs Bunny?”

I turned her around to face the woman, who was still talking to the kids. They smiled at her like they would their own mothers. The feeling in my elbow grew, so I wrapped Scarlett’s arm around me. I felt more grounded in an instant. “Do you see that woman at the jumping castle?”

“You mean that mini-Barbie talking to the kids.”

I exhaled with relief. “She’s real.”

Scarlett looked at me and frowned; her focus danced between my eyes. She took a sniff of me, and I jerked my head back. “I’m not drunk. I’ve had one beer.”

“Well, you shouldn’t really be drinking.”

“Drinking wasn’t my problem, okay. I … she just looks like someone I knew when I was a kid. I think she knew my sister too.”

“Oh … well, do you want me to make nice then introduce her to see if she recognises you?”

I started to nod my head, but something in me froze. Did I want to get that close? What would she do if she did recognise me? What would I do if she did? Or even worse, what if she didn’t remember me? We couldn’t have been the first kids she’d tricked. Did I want her to know? Did it matter I’d grown up? God, I had no idea.

Scarlett rolled her eyes and began to walk over to her. “You’re such a scaredy-cat.”

I reached out after her, but she was too quick. The two spoke, and when Scarlett pointed towards me, and I spun around before the woman looked over. I needed her to be closer when she saw me. There couldn’t be any space for doubt. I grabbed a drink from an esky by one of the tables and began to drink, trying to appear casual, but my heart was far from casual.

I could hear them come closer even through the noise of the party. I did all I could to brace myself, but I twitched when Scarlett touched me. I swallowed and put on my best smile. I turned, and it wasn’t like slow motion but fast, like pulling back a curtain. Scarlett began to introduce us, but I didn’t hear her; it was like Scarlett was in another room.

It was her.

The only difference that time had made was that now I was taller than her. In fact, up close, her height made her look like something of a child herself. It was strange; she seemed so much bigger and evil in my memory. Yet, here she was, small and smiling. 

She stuck her hand out to me, and I jerked, spilling my beer all over myself. Scarlett scolded me and grabbed some napkins off the table. I didn’t really care about my shirt. Did I show too much of her effect on me – that she still affected me? The idea made my cheeks burn. 

I brushed Scarlett off by kissing her hand and holding it in mine. The warmth of her kept me steady. 

“It’s alright. I guess I have had a bit too much.” I offered my hand out to the woman again. “Jeffery.”

I looked for any sign of recognition from her. A twitch of her eye, a knowing smile? Instead, she looked down at it with a smile, an amused smile. 

She grabbed my hand. “Mona. I just moved down the street. The house with the red and white mailbox.”

Her hand was warm … like a bonfire. The smell of hawthorn filled my nose, and I wanted to vomit. I pulled my hand away and tried to smile while I brushed her touch off on the back of my pants. Scarlett put her hand on my chest, and it made me realise she’d been talking the whole time. 

“Forgive Jeff, Mona. He can be kind of quiet in these kinds of settings.”

She flashed a flour white grin. “That’s fine. Just means his mum taught him not to talk to strangers. Am I right, Jeffery?”

My neck tightened, and the idea of smashing this bottle into her throat flashed in my head like a dying tv. Instead, I pulled at my sleeve and tried my best to laugh, but it came out stiff. Scarlett picked it up no problem, but for the wrong reason. She put a comforting squeeze on my shoulder. Jeffery’s mum died when he was six,” she explained.

Mona’s face contorted into the perfect picture of shock, sadness and discomfort, like a well-practised actress. “Oh, I’m sorry. I had no idea.” 

She put a hand on my arm. “Mothers are so important to have,” Mona said. I felt my brow soften from the warmth of her eyes. I felt my anger retreat as the heat from her hand swept up my arm. “I can understand. I’ve lost children.”

The world changed to a funny shade, but I didn’t care. Her smile broke the cold stiffness of my own. She wrapped her arms around me. I’d hadn’t felt that warm since I was a kid; the feeling seeped past my skin toward my heart. 

“But sometimes they come back,” Mum said. 

“I’m sorry,” I said. 

“Don’t be sorry. I forgive you; Violet forgives you too.”

“Children?” Scarlett asked. Her words were like a door cracked open in a steaming room. Mona and I weren’t hugging anymore; instead, only her hand lingered on my arm. I jerked my arm away as I took an unnecessary step to the table to grab my beer. I didn’t sip it. Scarlett somehow didn’t seem to notice what had just happened. Had it happened?

I tried to see any trace of knowing from Mona, but she seemed as casual as ever, though she had the appropriate twinkle of sadness in her eye. “I’ve not been fortunate as a mother, but I keep trying,” she flicked her eyes towards me. “Are you okay, Jeffery?”

I guess I wasn’t because then I collapsed. I woke up on the lounge to see the sun had disappeared, and the street was empty. I turned my head, and Scarlett’s note stood out like blood on a wall. 

“One beer, my arse.” 

I palmed my face. Maybe I did have too much. My brain said it was too much, enough to trick myself about Mona. I ran my fingers through my hair, feeling the cold sweat that coated my skin. I’d embarrassed Scarlett and her dad. Why did I have to sabotage everything good in my life? 

Violet forgives you too.

I lifted my head. Forgives. Not forgave. 

The word echoed in my skull, overrunning every other voice. My father’s, the doctors’, even my own. I felt like a passenger in my body as I crept through the sleeping house towards the kitchen. I grabbed the chef’s knife and went down the street to the house with the red and white mailbox.

The lights were off, but nothing about it seemed asleep, like something waiting, hidden behind its fence. The strangeness of it damped my nerve, and it didn’t look like the other house. Of course, a part of me felt stupid for being disappointed it wasn’t. The house that haunted me was wooden like the hawthorn trees around it with a fireplace that burnt an odourless fire. A house that disappeared when I found grownups to help us; help Violet.

I seemed crazy then, I’d thought. I lifted the knife up, and it seemed to shine from the moonlight. What the hell did I look like now?

I started to drop the knife, but the reflection in it stopped me. I lifted it back up, and I saw a pair of eyes mirrored my own except smaller.  

The front door snapped open, and I hid the blade behind my back. The doorway was like a black hole in the midnight sky until Mona’s tiny face peered forward into the moonlight.  

“I suppose I can’t lure you in, can I?” She said with a smirk. Did I even think I could surprise her? 

“I think you should stay away.” I cleared my throat. “I think we should both stay away from each other.”

Her brow curved as she leaned against the doorframe. “I don’t understand why you have this attitude towards me. I’m sorry I don’t remember you but –”

“Cut the shit!” I hissed. I cleared my throat. “Even if you don’t. I remember you. I know what you did, what you want.”

“Oh, you do?” Mona asked. She folded her arms like she was happy to be amused.

I could feel the rhythm of my pulse through my neck. I took a shaky breath. “You want kids.”

“How could I want what I already have?”

“… I don’t believe you.”

“Well, seeing is believing, Jeffery. Oh, wait, that’s Santa.” 

The impulse jerked out of me quicker than lighting as I smashed my foot against her fence. Snapping the white wood exposing its rotten core. The sight distracted me, and I crouched down to look at it; the wood was dry and had spots of fungi all over it. A gush of wind washed me, and I looked up to see Mona standing over me, the Mona I remembered, who looked like a giant. A cry burst out of me as I fell back on to the path.

“Well, aren’t we jumpy?” She quipped, though her voice was flat. 

She slowly crouched, and the image of a lion crept into my mind. She looked away from me and at her fence. Her fingers brushed the wood with a tenderness that left a pang in my chest.

“I’m sorry,” I whimpered. I knew I shouldn’t, but the words crawled out of me. 

“Sorry, won’t fix it, will it?”

“I can get some glue from my house –”

“No, I have glue inside.” 

Then without discussion, she stood up and walked back into her house. The blatant confidence I would follow made my face screw up, but it quickly melted into defeat. Of course, I would go in. This was my home. 

I took a step forward, and the skin above my left arse cheek stung. I pulled the knife out with care and saw my blood on it. I checked the cut, fearing how deep it was, but it was only trickling. I tucked the knife back in a less tender spot. What was I doing? This wasn’t my home. Why did I keep forgetting that? Only the feeling, the pull and the memory of it remained.

How can I get answers if she has this power over me? I stared into the black void of the doorframe. Feeling eyes on myself. Maybe I should just burn this house down, I thought.

“Jeffery?”

I didn’t move.

“Violet?” I asked.

Nothing. The tears began to line my eyes, and I realised I was holding my breath. I didn’t hesitate and walked towards the house with every step burning pain into my side. I didn’t care if it was a trick anymore. I had to see her. If Mona looked the same, maybe Violet did too. 

Past the doorframe, and it was like a soundless light had switched on. I knew this room; I knew this house. Shouldn’t have let the exterior fool me. The decorative furniture facing the fireplace was the first thing anyone would notice walking in, but what owned my attention was the fireplace. It was like it was inviting me in from the cold. I hadn’t realised just how cold I’d felt. The warmth, the furniture, the wood-panelled walls – none of it had changed.  

“Come sit,” she said. Her voice came from the lounge chair closest to me. I hadn’t noticed her sitting down. It was like she was a part of the furniture.

“What about the glue?” I asked. My voice came out weak like a child.

“The fence will fix itself. Come sit.”

The fire did look incredible, and the chair looked soft like a cloud. I stepped forward, but my cut burned, and I hissed.

“What’s wrong?” Mona asked, her blue eyes poking over the back of the seat. 

“Nothing. I think I hurt myself when I fell.”

“Well, then you should sit down, clumsy.”

I laughed, feigning a broad smile, but my head fought for clarity with every painful step. I turned around before I pretended to dust off my arse while adjusting the knife to sit down. Sitting down itself, well, even with the cut, I couldn’t help but hum with relief. The chair really did feel like a cloud, and with the warmth of the fire, I could’ve fallen asleep. The firelight bathed the room inviting every shadow. Mona had her face rested against her knuckles as she looked me over.

“You hurt yourself,” she said. 

“Yeah, I told you when I fell over.”

Mona got up and walked towards me, her feet leaving tiny thuds against the wood floor. “No,” she reached her hands towards my arm. I jerked away, but she didn’t deter. Instead, her searing fingers rolled my sleeve to my elbow. Where pinprick scars tracked all over the crook of my elbow. “You hurt yourself.”

I ripped my arm away, rolling down my sleeve. “You hurt me,” I spat.

Mona stood up and took a step back, her eyes full of knowing. “I didn’t put that needle in your arm. All I wanted to give you was love. I gave Violet –”

I ripped out of the chair, pulled the knife out and held it to her throat. “Don’t talk about my sister!”

She didn’t speak, but I saw it in her eyes. Fear or at least uncertainty, as she looked from me to the knife.

I grinned. “Yeah, I’m not a kid anymore. You can’t do anything to me quicker than I can stick this in your neck.” My heart was ecstatic; I had her. 

“What will this do, Jeffery?” She asked. “What will killing me solve?”

My grip on the handle softened for a moment, but then I brought it closer to her throat. “It’ll make sure you’ll stop hurting other kids.”

“Hurt? I don’t hurt any of you.” Her hand gently gripped my wrist. “I give you what you need. I love you.”

The light from the fireplace began to grow, and the warmth grew around me like a hug. Mona had wrapped her arms around my waist. I looked over at the fire, and it wasn’t small like a shoebox; it was a big as a door.

“Violet knew that; it’s why she didn’t leave,” Mona explained.

I snapped back at her, but her eyes were clear. My chest began to twitch as the tears pooled in my eyes, refusing to fall. “No, she wanted to leave. I was just quicker. I thought she was right behind me.”

Mona, with one arm, stilled wrapped around me, wiped the tears from my face. “She stayed there because she was tired of being brave.”

The knife hit the ground with a sharp thud as I sobbed into my hands. I couldn’t keep it in anymore. Mona held me to her. No one had ever hugged me like that in my life. No one ever would. 

“Jeffery,” Violet called.  

I looked over into the fireplace as the flames licked the stone and devoured the wood. The fire twisted and danced into Violet covered shades of yellow and orange. 

She smiled at me, and I felt like a little boy again. Without problems, without fears and with my sister again. It was her; despite the flames, I knew it was her like I knew my own face in the mirror. 

“She never left,” I said. More to myself than Mona. I’d thought Violet was dead; I guess in a way, she was, but she was also free.

“She did leave. Violet left the pain and the cold, but not you. She refused to go into the Ember with all the other children, not without you.”

The knot in my throat made breathing feel impossible, let alone speaking. I’d spent years feeling like I’d failed, been a coward. What was I without the pain? Pain was the gravity of my life. Without it, I felt I’d float up into the abyss.

Violet held her hand out to me. Flames burned up from her fingers to her arm like a line of lit petrol. Words couldn’t describe the beauty, but the love in her eyes made my heartache. I thought of Scarlett and what she’d think, but she grew pale in my mind like a dying lightbulb.  

I reached my hand out to Violet and walked towards the fireplace. If the flames hurt me, then they’d hurt me, but as my fingers brushed Violet’s, the fire felt like warm water. It ran up my arm and poured itself all over me. Then the great weight of my life slipped off me like a lead coat. I didn’t look behind me, and I didn’t want to. I was as tall as my sister again and my hand as soft and small. I felt like I could float away, but Violet held my hand as we went into the Ember.

Fiction © Copyright Serena Edwards
Base Image by Reto Scheiwiller from Pixabay

Serena Edwards is an Australian with a love for storytelling that has followed her since before she could write. So, go ahead and follow her on Twitter at @OrehKeats, if you want to catch what she writes next.