A fiction piece I wrote as an assignment for my Creative Writing class.
The house that we moved into in the spring of
1984 looked a lot bigger than our previous one. It was old, with moss creeping
up its carmine bricks that extended towards the sky. My parent’s said it was
because of my father’s job that we had to move out. As a small boy, I didn’t
understand what they meant, but I remember how my elder sister had felt uneasy
the moment she laid her eyes on the building.
Something’s wrong with this place.
That was what she whispered in my ear the
first time we stood on the front porch. I brushed it off; Euphy’s words had a
way of getting in my head. At the young age of seven, I’d learnt not to take
what she says too seriously. If I did, her words would haunt me when I lay
awake in the darkest hours at night.
I discovered that not far from the house,
there was a meadow. It was a giant field of plush greenery, with large rocks
that nestled in grass that reached my knees. When the wind sang its song, daffodil
petals would rise from the ground and butterflies would dance to its tune. I
liked that place, and I visited it frequently.
There was only one thing I didn’t like about
the meadow. Surrounding it stood tall, dense trees that were one with the darkness.
The wind didn’t sing its song at the perimeters of the meadow, and no matter
how brightly the sun shone, it was always dark there. Save for the narrow entrance that I travelled
so frequently leading to my safe haven, the ominous forest shrouded the rest of
it.
I remember showing my secret meadow to Euphy
for the first time.
“Clyde!” she resisted as I yanked her arm,
leading her along the narrow path towards the clearance.
“You’re going to love it!” I insisted,
grinning as trudged along, my little hand firmly gripping her wrist.
I had to tug her along the whole way, until
we finally arrived at the meadow. I took a step back to observe her reaction.
She stared at the soft green grass around her with wide-eyed wonder. A smile
found it’s way onto her face. “How did you find this place?”
I beamed proudly at her. “That’s because I’m
Clyde, the great explorer!” I exclaimed as I puffed out my chest. Euphy ruffled
my hair and bounded out toward the open.
We both took great care to avoid wandering
into the periphery of the meadow for several years. I was ten by the time Euphy
mustered up the courage to approach the darkness. I stood many feet behind as
she warily treaded towards the shadows. She peered into the forest for a long
while. I couldn’t tell what she was thinking or how she felt, for I only had a
view of her back. When she finally turned around, her face was frozen in a
stiff smile.
“Well…?” I probed.
She glanced back at the forest and chuckled
sheepishly. “Nothing there.”
“You were terrified.” I taunted, much to her
chagrin. “You were scared, weren’t you?”
“Was not,” She spun on her heels with a
defiant hmph, and started towards
home.
Ever since then, Euphy seemed to be fixated
with the darkness. She would stare at the same spot that she had first dared to
take a peek into from a distance with blank, vacant eyes. It was as if she’d
discovered something there, but every time I looked, there was nothing but
soil, dirt and looming trees.
As time went by, Euphy’s obsession with the
forest intensified. I discovered that she was making solo trips to the meadow,
and when I was present, she hardly ever talked to me. She just stared. Slowly, Euphy began to shut herself out from
me, from the family, from the rest of the world.
One day, after Euphy returned from her
solitary visit to the meadow, she locked herself in her room and didn’t come
down for dinner. Neither did she respond to any of our calls. That night, my
father forcefully knocked down her bedroom door and we found her body, hanging
by a rope from the ceiling fan.
We immediately moved out of the town.
Even today, at the age of thirty-two, the
image of Euphy’s lifeless body remains etched, clear as day, in my mind. I’d
taken a peek from behind my mother’s skirt, despite how much they’d shrieked at
me to not look. How her face had turned a sickening shade of blue, how her
tongue hung limply out of her mouth, how her toes pointed straight toward the
ground, how the noose still swung sinisterly.
My parents
believed it was depression. Even then, I knew it had something to do with the
darkness beyond the meadow. I never said anything to anyone. Perhaps it was the
pain of having to deal with the loss of my only sibling; perhaps it was fear.
Perhaps it was sheer guilt, because deep down, my conscience told me that it
was I who’d caused my sister’s death. It was I who’d brought her to the meadow,
I who’d urged her to look into the darkness to begin with. Following the
incident, nightmares haunted me for years before they started to dim and fade.
Today, at
the age of thirty-two, I’m back at the meadow which I was so sure took my
sister’s life. I still am sure.
“So, this is
the place…?” Fiona takes a deep breath, admiring the beauty of the meadow.
Fiona is the
most beautiful woman I’ve ever met in my life. She taught me to see the beauty
in the simplest of things. We’re getting married next year.
I nod as I
let go of her hand. I immediately recognize the tree that Euphy stood in front
of the first time she stared into the shady perimeters of the green pasture. It
has the same, eerie air that seems to linger around it. I advance towards it,
leaving Fiona to trail behind.
Stopping at
the same spot Euphy did, I peer into the dark woods, for the first time in such
close range.
A young boy
sits on the soil, his face masked by the shadows. He looks bone thin, his ribs
jutting out of his torso in an almost grotesque manner. His skin is pale –
almost blue, and in his small palms, rests a noose.
I freeze. I
can’t do anything. My heart pounds violently against my chest as I feel the
blood drain from my head. The boy looks me in the eye, and expressionlessly,
brings an index finger up to his mouth.
This thing isn’t human. I can feel it. Was this what
Euphy saw back then?
I want to
scream, but I am frozen to the ground. My voice seems to have lost itself
somewhere in the back of my throat, for all I manage to do is choke and sputter
something incoherent, even to myself.
I hear Fiona
shifting a few feet behind me and I turn around, forcing a smile onto my face.
I don’t want Fiona to see this.
“Well…?” She
probes.
I glance
back into the forest. The pale boy drags his index finger across his throat,
his face still expressionless as his eyes pierce into my bare soul.
I chuckle sheepishly as I turn to face Fiona again. “Nothing there.”