Life
with Amy
by Karen Kalbacher
“Once upon a time there were ten little soldiers who went out over the sea. They flew on the wings of a great bird they called the Tomahawk. They were on a mission to free people from a red demon, but the Tomahawk’s wings were made of metal, strings and sap. So when the great bird flew high, high up into the sky to impress the soldiers with its might, its wings began to warm. Sap melted away, loosening the strings, and the wings unraveled. Like Icaris the great bird had flown too high and he fell from the sky like a stone, carrying the soldiers into the sea.
One of the ten little soldier men had a magic ring his wife had given him to keep him safe. He took that ring in the raging gray waters of the sea and he used its magic to make a boat. One by one he pulled the soldiers from the sea and lifted them onto the boat. The sea, outraged, threw wave after angry wave at him. The soldier was tired but he refused to leave anyone behind. He fought the sea until nine soldiers lay exhausted in the boat. But the sea would not let him leave it. One great wave came and pushed the boat out of reach. Exhausted, he could not swim to it. His limbs thickened in the cold water, his heart grew heavy and he sank with the remains of the great bird Tomahawk into the underworld of the sea.
And somewhere under the sea he lies there still. A man who saved everyone but himself, a good man lost because not all endings are happy. Remember that dear heart. Some are just endings like stones or good men tossed into the sea.”
Chapter One – Air
Thick winds buffeted the taxi cab Veree Laughlin was staring out. Inside the air was hot with the comfortable scent of sweat and close humans. Outside the window was an enormous Victorian style house. The dark sky flashed with lightening. Each flash revealed more of the house. Grayed out paint, broken stones, loose shingles and an alarming area on the right of the house was blackened or scorched. It was a murders house, a ghost house…her new home.
The letter in her hand was wet with her sweat.
“Welcome to grandma’s house,” the cabbie said
Veree jumped, startled.
“Looks like you got here after the wolf.”
Veree walked up the gravel walk, tripping in muddy spots. Grass had sprouted and died everywhere among the stones and she made her steps light, cautious. She couldn’t afford a twisted ankle right now, or say a cup of coffee really. The last of her money had gone with the cabbie and now she was stuck here.
The porch bowed dangerously under her weight. Winds took her hair forward, blocking her view. She caught a glimpse of a spider web than hair than again a glimpse of wind chimes where all but one chime had dropped off and then the door. The porch light was on, so to stall for time she stood in the wind and reread the letter.
In a thick red feminine ink all curled was a single sentence:
-They think I’m too crazy to live alone, come to me.-
Veree had turned it over to see a familiar address from her childhood in Maine. It was the same one that had been scrawled on every mysterious note, Christmas card and Birthday card from her grandmother. Curiosity and her fourth eviction notice had convinced her to come.
Now Veree damned her own curiosity. The wind threw her forward against the door. A ring echoed beyond the chipped and rotting door. Oh God, she had accidentally hit the door bell. Sweating harder, she pulled away from the door and tried to remain upright in the rough wind. She wanted to look strong, powerful unafraid because she wasn’t any of them.
The door opened inward hinges creaking like the beginning of a bad horror movie. A disembodied voice called, “Get inside before we’re both blown away.”
Veree hesitated.
“Now girl!”
She jumped inside and the door shut behind her. Silence, the winds died and she heard the patter of rain on a far above roof. The rain strengthened pummeling the house and the door behind her. Veree looked ahead at her new home and the woman her mother said worshipped the devil in her underpants and howled to animals.
“Well?” A dark haired woman stood hand on hip, willow tree tall and thin, her skin glowed in the light of a dozen lit candles. Shrewd steel blue eyes sized Veree up. Full cream breasts flowed out of the top of her floral negligee. Her skin was smooth, younger than Veree’s.
“Wow.” Veree whispered. Who was she? Was she a servant? Was Amy upstairs, too stiff to come down? She was only in her fifties…but if she had arthritis. Plus the note had said she was too crazy to live alone. Was this sexpot nurse the compromise until Veree arrived? Unless… Unless she was Amy and she had sold her immortal soul to the devil for eternal youth.
“What’s that? Speak up, this storm is about to get louder and a whole lot wetter. Cold?” She moved across the floor in her stylish floral silky night gown.
Veree tore her eyes off the “sexy nurse” to look at the candles. Tapers of a thousand different sizes and colors adorned a granite fire place mantle, ran in a wave down a dark scarred and waxed book case to a glossy oak reading desk. She chased the candles across the floor with her eyes were they were lit almost in a landing strip across the floor, surrounding a thick plush crimson rug with a dark burgundy rose in the center radiating hunter green leaves. Than the candles raced away to the couch and up onto a coffee table. They stopped abruptly at the antique Spanish sofa with the same rug crimson with the burgundy roses repeated in a pattern against the age darkening fabric. On the far wall the race started again, climbing several ascending book shelves and illuminating a few paintings of strangers with shrewd blue eyes and the last candle in the row was in Veree’s grandmother’s hands as she stood impatiently in front of an open door way.
Her full lips were painted the same color as the couch and a bit of color had hit her cheeks, highlighting the supermodel height of them. “Cold?” she asked again.
“A little bit.”
“Okay, good, a phrase. Eventually we’ll have you speaking in full sentences. Come on girl, to the remains.” She disappeared from view. Veree quickened her pace to keep up with the long powerful strides. “You’re a bit of a mouse but we can fix that. I don’t really want you here. Not that I have much of a choice. It’s you or the home. I am not ever going to the home.”
She whipped around, the candle flame flickering, leaving a visible arc through the dark air. “Can you see me in a home? In a home?”
“No?” Oh God, she was Amy. Veree shrank back from the angry frown and downcast eyebrows of her grandmother with her flawless skin, taut across her frame, elastic and swelled with muscle, devil youth. “That would be ridiculous. You’re, you’re so, so young.”
The candle dipped for emphasis and her face burst into an appreciative grin. “Good girl, now let’s warm you up.” She crossed a room with over stuffed plush furniture, light beige paint and dark wood trims. A few candles were scattered around but the warmth a few ornate lamps with rosy shades gave the room a friendly open look as if a gentle breeze played in the shimmery curtains. Large windows open to the night showed the power of the storm. Lightening flashed, Veree backed away and splashed. She looked down at a puddle and turned to notice thick plastic sheets covering the doorway on the right side of the room.
Large puddles were forming, leaking in from underneath the plastic. Veree’s grandmother walked towards it as if it was normal. Her feet were bare, the toenails painted a girlish pink and she didn’t shiver as she stepped into the thickening pools of water. But she did place the candle on a small round light wood stool by the doorway, placed as if candle holding was its purpose. It even had small splashes of wax on its top as if to justify its presence. Amy pushed through the plastic; it crinkled and rustled under her rough treatment, reluctant to let her pass.
Veree followed. The plastic was clammy, and smelled moldy. She hesitated to touch it any more forcefully so she tried to slide it to one side, just wide enough to slip her chubby body through into the kitchen. She stopped and stared.
The floor tile was bleached white and pristine sparkling with wetness. It spread outward like a white washed yellow brick road. There was a counter with ruined knickknacks on her right. A refrigerator sat beside her, humming with electricity against the wall and a kitchen table with six chairs. But the white brick road dropped off suddenly, broken and blackened. The kitchen table was half teak and half char. And the walls of the kitchen were ruined beams halfway down the length of them and the wall where the stove would normally sit was not there. The storm was. A beautiful midnight blue sky loaded with storm clouds and racing with lightening and howling wind was there. The kitchen floor dropped off to grass and rolled away into the night.
Grandmother Amy placed a cup with a tea bag in the microwave next to the fridge and turned it on in the pouring rain. She seemed oblivious to the nightmare kitchen around her. She waited until the microwave let out a feeble beep than walked past Veree and back into the living room. Veree stared at the half kitchen for a few more seconds before she could believe it was real.
“Cream and sugar?” Her grandmother asked from the other room.
Veree forced her way back through the slick plastic. Amy Laughlin was shaking out like a Greek goddess, water droplets flying. Her hand covered the tea cup to protect it. Veree had water running down her face and the top half of her was soaked. She started to shiver. She wanted to just hold the tea cup to warm up and to feel something real. “Just plain, um grandmother?”
Her grandmother stuck out her tongue and made a hacking sound, “God, you are Clare’s daughter aren’t you? Listen, at least have some sugar.” She dropped a heap of it into the tea and stirred it vigorously. “Tea’s too bitter without it. And let’s drop the ‘grandmother’ crap. How about I call you Veree and you call me Amy?”
“Amy?” Veree wasn’t sure that was proper, Amy Laughlin was her grandmother and she deserved the respect of the title, didn’t she? But if she didn’t want it did that mean she didn’t want to acknowledge that she was actually related to Veree? Veree could understand that, Amy was an incredible creature, glossy and youthful. Veree was plainer than yogurt and chunkier than cottage cheese.
Grandmother Amy smirked, “Yep, grandmother just makes me sound like I’m a hundred thousand years old and I have no time for that, let me tell you. Want to see your rooms?”
Veree nodded eyes on the steaming mug. Amy dropped it into her hands with a snort and made a right into the beige room and walked to a staircase that was partially concealed by a domineering bookcase of dusty books and loose papers. Amy rustled past them and grabbed the rail. She had trouble going up the steps as if her gait was uneven or her legs were weakening. It was the first sign of age Amy had shown. It was almost as jarring as her appearance.
The steps were uneven and Veree was hard pressed to keep the tea from spilling. She took judicious sips of the stuff to keep it from flying free of the mug. Amy didn’t notice or ignored it, setting a vigorous pace past the first landing and up to the second. Veree tried to catch a glimpse of the first landing but for some reason Amy had curtained it off.
Veree took two steps at a time to keep up and was so busy with the tea to notice Amy had stopped. She bumped right into the older woman. Her cheeks grew hot with embarrassment. Amy merely stepped farther into the room. With a grand gesture she announced, “These are your rooms.”
Veree nodded, hissing. Hot tea spilled over her fingers pulling back from Amy’s back. She wanted to blow on them so badly but she didn’t feel she could just yet. “How many rooms?” she asked.
“Three: bedroom, sitting room and bathroom. There’s a small loft you can get into if you’d like to expand upward but that’s it. The rooms on the first floor are common ones. We will both use them. The second floor is mine and the third is yours. I will never come up here again without being invited and you will never go into my rooms unless invited. Understand?”
Veree nodded although she didn’t understand. Why would someone segment the house like that?
“Good,” Amy nodded curtly. “That’s the first rule of living here. There’s a few more but you get settled in. Did you have any bags?”
Veree had none.
Amy let out a long suffering sigh. “There are some of my old things in a trunk in a corner somewhere up here. You’re welcome to wear anything in it. But it might not all fit you. You are a little thicker in the middle than I was. Anyway, it’s late. This is a lot for anyone, especially me. I’m tired. Good night Veree. Breakfast is at eight. Don’t be late.”
Amy went down the stairs silently in her bare feet and soft silky negligee. She was a light breeze and she was gone. Veree was alone in her new home. Lightening flashed outside a portal window.
Luckily the lights were already on and coming from delicate glass lamps. She stepped away from the landing and cautiously onto a pale lime shag rug. Veree se the tea cup on a dark wood coffee table and pulled off her deteriorating sneakers. She sank into the rug. A giggle escaped her. She hopped from foot to foot and did a little dance.
A few feet in front of her was the back of a boxy 80s style couch. The fabric was rough thick striped plaid with lime streaks that matched her new favorite area rug. She ran her hand over the back of the sofa, luxuriating in the velour softness of it. She couldn’t resist sitting in it and staring around her. The room was huge and packed wit things but not cluttered. Large oval mirrors hung on the wall in beautiful brass frames. In front of her the coffee table was solid wood and glistening in the light. On it was a bound leather book with age spots. Veree flipped it open and saw a beautiful raven haired woman and a tiny plump girl with brown pigtails clung to her leg frowning fiercely.
“There you are Momma.” Veree sighed and closed the book on the scowling baby. She didn’t want to think about Clare Laughlin Murray just now. Weakness spread through her limbs, wiping out the last of her energy and dropping thirty pounds on top of her eye lids.
She fumbled out of her stained shirt and baggy thread bare jeans and headed across the room, shivering slightly. The roof wasn’t leaking but the rain was loud. Veree imagined it running down the old wooden slats and sloshing down and over clogged drains in a waterfall.
A side door led her to a giant bed in a cast iron frame complete with canopy. Veree pushed her way through incredibly thin gauzy blue fabric and collapsed onto the thick flannel sheets underneath. She crawled underneath the enormous coverlet and before her mind could spin out of control about her young grandmother, the half kitchen and the letter that had brought her here, Veree’s breathing evened out and the weight on her eyes forced them shut. She was asleep for the first time in her strange new home.
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