Dawn's Abyss

I knew the truth now. I knew everything, really. I was aware of why my mother, Gloria, and my father, Gabriele, abandoned me when I was only a toddler. It all made sense, I suppose. The pain was still there, however. I still felt betrayed by my own family.

It wasn’t a good feeling. On the other hand, I no longer felt so empty on the inside. The missing pieces of my heart and soul had been filled by the knowledge my brother had given me, and by Carson himself. He was such an uplifting spirit that I couldn’t help but be in a good mood by the time we got back to Hazelwood, despite the tragic news of my parents.

I didn’t fully understand that story, but I strained my comprehension abilities to their fullest extent. Carson only referred to my Algebra teacher as the Kurl, so the view of my Algebra teacher changed dramatically during that car ride.

Apparently, Gabriele and Gloria had been high school sweethearts. From what Carson had originally told me while in his living room, I’d thought that my parents hadn’t met until after Carson was born. This was evidently not the case, however. The Kurl had been madly in love with my father. She’d been pining after him since the first day of high school. According to my brother, the Kurl had given Gabriele the creeps.

After Mrs. Kurl was rejected the first time, she began stalking my dad. She slept outside of his house in her car. She drove behind him on their way to school. Gabriele was too scared to file for a police report because she didn’t know what the Kurl was capable of. She didn’t have many friends, but it wasn’t because she was anti-social. No, she struck up conversations with all of the popular kids, but nobody wanted a stalking tag-along.

My mom and dad started dating sophomore year, and when the Kurl found out, she was furious. She began doing horrible things to my mother. For example, the week after my parents were officially an ‘item,’ Gloria found her locker completely vandalized. The graffiti that covered it was not complimentary to my mom’s love life. Sometime in the following month, my mom almost got killed in a car wreck before discovering that her break lines had been clipped.

Gabriele was absolutely furious. There was no doubt in his mind who had been behind all of his girlfriend’s misfortune. He did finally go to the authorities. Unfortunately, the Kurl had hidden her tracks very well. There was no trace of fingerprints on the break lines or on the empty cans of spray paint they’d found in the garbage can nearest to my mom’s locker after the vandalism incident.

The Kurl was taken into custody, but she only got put on probation, seeing as they couldn’t prove much of anything except for a motive. That didn’t stop her from all of her treacherous deeds. Gloria was still getting ‘anonymous,’ untraceable phone calls from a muffled voice telling her to stay away from Gabriele if she valued her life. My mom had been utterly terrified and distraught. She didn’t know what to do.

Then, suddenly and miraculously, the Kurl ended up moving away. Neither Gabriele nor Gloria saw her again throughout high school. Unfortunately, after a big fight over something Carson couldn’t remember, my parents broke up. Gloria’s senior year, she got involved with Harvey McKnight. He was supposedly some sort of ‘stud,’ in Carson’s words. I think he only said that because he also mentioned how much he and his father looked alike. I tried my best not to laugh at that.

Too soon after my mom and Carson’s dad started going out, they conceived a baby boy. Gloria was scared and she blamed Harvey for the accident. Therefore, that relationship ended as quickly as it had begun. Even though I’d been an accident, I know our mother loved me, despite the fact that she gave my father custody.

After graduation high school, Gloria met my dad, Gabriele at a high school reunion. They hit it off instantly, and basically picked up where they left off, any troubles they’d had before were forgotten. Carson thinks it was only a couple of months after that reunion that they were eloping. Neither of their parents approved of the relationship between the two. Gloria’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. Telnor, thought that Gabriele wasn’t good enough for their little girl after he broke her heart in high school. Mr. and Mrs. Parma, Gabriele’s father and mother, didn’t think Gloria came from a wealthy enough family to serve as a good housewife for their strapping, young fellow.

Nonetheless, my parents were in love, and nothing could stop them from getting married. And so they did. Just as Carson had told me earlier, I was conceived on their wedding night. Not longer after Gloria became pregnant with her second child, she and my father bought the house that I currently lived in.

For five glorious years, the three of us resided in Hazelwood in serenity like the Three Musketeers. My parents were happier than they’d ever been and figured life couldn’t get much better than that. Carson visited for a couple of nights every few weeks or so. Gabriele was surprisingly accepting of hi partial residence at his home, considering that he came from the man who’d had a child with our mother other than himself. Carson loved visiting our house because it always felt so cozy and familiar; like nothing could ever go wrong.

My fifth birthday turned everything upside down. My parents had registered me for Kindergarten at the single elementary school in Hazelwood. The day that I turned five-years-old, they got a faculty list of all the teachers who worked at the public school system up through grade twelve. The Hazelwood elementary, middle, and high school were all connected, so most people went to school together for thirteen years straight.

That was the first year the Kurl had started working at the Hazelwood school system. She’d been an Algebra teacher even then. Of course, the idea of their only daughter attending school where Gabriele’s former, potentially dangerous stalker was teaching, was not appealing to my father or Gloria.

Having no idea what else to do, Gabriele confronted the Kurl. He’d warned our mother to stay home with me and Carson. He’d been staying with us at the time. All Gabriele wanted to do was talk to the Kurl and see if she’d changed any. He didn’t plan on mentioning anything about me, for fear of her coming after me in revenge.

I didn’t remember any of this. It frustrated me that I simply could not recall my parents faces. Even after seeing Carson, whom I’d apparently gotten on so well with as a little girl, I only felt a vague sense of familiarity. I couldn’t, however, picture spending any time with him before in my life. Oh, how I wished I could.

Anyway, it was long into the night before Gabriele finally returned from his confrontation. He’d left early in the afternoon and had been expected home hours ago. Carson said that he could still remember our mom pacing frantically around the entire house. She’d ended up cleaning the entire house. Apparently, she cleaned when she was nervous.

The sight of a pale-faced and bloody Gabriele barging through the door did not exactly ease her anxiety, either. The Kurl had shot him. After he’d had a long talk with her about if she’d changed her ways, she’d gotten down on her knees and begged. She begged him to come back to her. She pleaded desperately, wildly, for him to love her like she did him. Gabriele had politely shrugged away from her grasping hands and declined her offer, saying that he’d gotten married . . . to Gloria.

In a fit of fury, the Kurl had crawled over to her desk drawer pulled something out and aimed that something right at my father. She’d had only one thing to say to him.

“If I can’t have your love, no one can.” Then, she fired her gun, and Gabriele was sprinting through the school. He knew he had to get home. He had to keep Gloria, Carson, and I safe from her.

His shirt had been soaked with blood when he’d arrive back on our doorstep. The bullet had evidently gone a bit too deep in his torso. Mom had bandaged it with some gauze and medical tape from the first-aid kit as best she could, but they had to pack and leave. Nobody was safe here anymore. The small, serene town that my parents had grown to love, had ultimately turned out to be the most dangerous place for them.

My parents had gotten to thinking while packing all of their possessions into the van they’d owned then. The Kurl didn’t know about me. Gabriele hadn’t said anything to her about having a child. He’d only said that he’d heard she was back in town and he wanted to talk to her. I would still be safe here as long as there was no possible way that I would be affiliated with either of my parents.

I was already a very bright, young girl by then. I could fix my own meals, I oftentimes went down to the local market for groceries. In a town like Hazelwood, there hadn’t been any crime to worry about before the Kurl. I was as self-sufficient as they could hope for. Hence, they left me there. They figured the Kurl would follow them and I would be protected. They took all of my files: my birth certificate, my dental records, even any trace of my last name. All I had left was a home, a truck I wouldn’t be able to use for eleven years, and a first name.

Gabriele Parma died that night. Even if they’d gotten him to a hospital, which they didn’t have time for, there was nothing anybody could have done. They’d packed the van with most of their possessions. They left enough groceries for a month, that wouldn’t go bad. They left everything in my room except for family photos or anything that would refer to my parentage. They cleared out Carson’s room completely. They left the bedding in their own master bedroom. It was the only thing they could think of to leave me so that I would always have a little piece of my parents.

Gloria brought her dead husband’s body with her, unable to part with him after all they’d been through together. Carson, who’d only been eleven-years-old at the time, had not really understood much of what was going on. He only knew that he was leaving me forever and that he could no longer talk to Gabriele.

Before they’d left, he remembered Gloria talking to me. She told me that I would be on my own for now, but that she and my father loved me more than anything in the world. She said to be careful, and to never let my guard down around anyway. Among other things such as I would have to buy all my own food now, and they would send money through the mail, I must never try and go after them if I knew what was good for me.

Then, they were gone. It was at that point that I knew my memory split. My birthday, August 30th, was always the day before school started. I remembered my first day of Kindergarten almost perfectly.

The next part of the story got even more so complicated for Carson to tell. Gloria sent him back to live with Harvey for a long time before he ever saw our mother again. He only got cryptic messages (I suppose it was a maternally hereditary thing) every so often that he had to assume were from Gloria. They were hidden messages that could only be revealed using the same Legend that I’d figured out in the letter Ashton had sent to me.

Then, the letters stopped coming. For about four years, he heard nothing from our mom. He didn’t know if she had died, or what. Finally, he got one last letter. It was instructions for him to do something. By that point in time, Carson was eighteen-years-old, which would have been four years ago. It had told him to send me $600 a month and to ask Harvey to pay my bills. That was it. There was no explanation.

Since then, Carson had gotten a job. He wasn’t about to complain about the directions. He knew what was at stake, and he knew it was important to get me that provision. He’d actually already had a job, working as a cashier at McDonald’s. He knew that wouldn’t be enough to get me the money I needed.

He felt really bad asking Harvey to do a favor for someone he didn’t knew, but Carson knew that Harvey still loved Gloria. He would do anything for her, even if it meant paying the bills of her daughter, whose life he’d never been a part of.

It turned out, Carson didn’t actually need a job. Harvey was fully willing to pay for all of my needs. To this day, from his house in Cobnutton, he was still giving Carson the money to send to me. That almost brought a tear to my eye. I’d never even met Harvey and only heard about him for the first time today. I didn’t mean to be sappy or emotional, but my mother was MIA, and my father was dead. He’d been shot by my wretch of an Algebra teacher. Why wasn’t she locked up somewhere?

Now, we were sitting in my living room in silence. Carson had just finished his long and melancholy tale. I was still trying to fathom it . . . still trying to wrap my mind around my past. I actually had one now. Well, I supposed I’d always had one. I simply knew of it now. I didn’t know how to feel, exactly. On the one hand, my mother had left me. I didn’t know what Gabriele’s plan had been if he hadn’t died. Regardless, they’d both had my safety foremost in their minds. I couldn’t resent either of them for that.

“So, that’s as far as it goes?” I asked. “That’s all there is?”

Carson nodded his head, eyeing me carefully. He’d figured out already that I had a rather sensitive personality, and sudden movements might scare me away. I guess that was accurate. I didn’t like taking things too fast, but Carson was my half-brother. He was the only family I knew of that I had left.

“You haven’t gotten in touch with me sooner . . . because of your last name, right? You didn’t want the Kurl to connect the pieces. So, why now?” I asked. It was Friday evening and we were both tiresome, but I wasn’t quite finished asking questions.

“I expected as much,” he sighed, getting up from his spot on the couch. He began to pace. “Well, I knew you turned sixteen a while ago. I had this gut feeling like something wasn’t right here in Hazelwood. I feared that the Kurl was suspicious. You are basically a spitting image of Gloria, after all. I sent you that movie poster, that I designed on the web. There was no such movie as ‘Watch Out for the Kurl.’ I made that up to get you on your guard. I wasn’t quite assuaged, though.

“I didn’t know how much impact the warning would have on you. I know Gloria told you to always be on your guard, but I wasn’t even sure if you would remember that. Then, I wasn’t sure the extent of the Kurl’s abilities. For all I knew, she could be screening your calls or checking your mail. Those crazy stalkers have all sorts of CIA secrets that could be used to spy on people. Hence, I coded the message, using the same Key that was used in the letters our mom sent to me. I only hoped that you would decode it in due time.”

That only sort of made sense. I mean, I guess I understood him waiting to contact me until he thought I was old enough to handle it. I just really wished I could remember something - anything - that would trigger all of the memories of my early childhood. I’d always seen kids with their parents and I would automatically know that they were mother/daughter or father/son. Carson said I looked like my mom, but I would never really know, unless she was still out there somewhere. Even then, I would still have to find her, and that seemed so unlikely.

“Okay,” I gave him a small smile, before standing up myself. “Well, I’m sorry that you’ve had to go through all that. I’m not sure who has it worse between the two of us. You’ve had to experience all the trauma, and I’ve been spared it, only to learn of it after eleven years of ignorance.”

He laughed. “I know what you mean. It feels good to be back with another family member other than my dad. He’d really like to meet you, too.”

“I’d like that. I really should thank him for all that he’s done for me,” I said. It would be nice to meet another part of my mom’s past, at least. Harvey sounded like a nice guy, even if things got messed up when they were in high school.

“One more thing,” he said, briefly pacing again. “You just found out that your Algebra teacher of two years is your stalker and a potential murderer . . . doesn’t that bother you?”

My eyes widened. That part of the story hadn’t quite sunk in yet, oddly enough. Really, it was probably the single most important part of the tragedy, but I’d been more concerned with learning all I could about my parents.

“It should,” I said quietly. “And it does.”

Then, I did something I’d been waiting to do since I’d learned of my relation to Carson. The longing had only increased as the tale went on, and I couldn’t control it anymore.

“I just really need a hug right now; a hug from my brother,” I said a little bashfully. I would’ve thought that I would be more embarrassed about something like that, but I wasn’t. Maybe it was the fact that I really was beginning to realize the seriousness of my situation, but Carson was also my brother, and I needed him.

He didn’t hesitate before pulling me into a familiar embrace. I knew this would be one of those moments that I would look back on forever and always remember how grateful I was to Carson right then. So many things were crashing down around me, and I didn’t know what kind of power I possessed to stop it from happening. I couldn’t just sit back and watch, but then again, I was only sixteen-years-old. It seemed like just yesterday I’d been teaching myself to ride a bicycle, and now I was going up against the monster who’d killed my father. The Kurl - yes, I was referring to her as that now, too - had supposedly loved Gabriele. I hadn’t loved many people in my life. I knew I loved Carson as my brother, and Ashton as my best friend, and I couldn’t imagine harming them in any way, physically, mentally, in a minor or major way. I would never be able to do it.

I suppose that was the difference between good people and bad, wasn’t it? It was the ability to make wrong or right choices. The right side made the good choices and the bad side made the wrong ones. Was it as simple as that? I suspected not. There was always something deeper behind the bad guys motives. The Kurl was a perfect example of this. She’d loved my dad, and he rejected her for Gloria. I imagine that could trigger a lot of genuine emotions.

“When do I get to meet this infamous Mr. Voss?” Carson asked after we’d finished our hug, referring to Ashton. I knew that my brother was kind of touchy about me having let someone in on all of my secrets. He was even more so suspicious when I told him that everything weird had begun happening after I’d first spoken to Ashton.

“I guess we could meet him tomorrow morning. It’s too late now,” I explained. “Did you ever visit the park when you were a kid, here?”

“No, I don’t think I ever did. I know our mom and Gabriele took you on walks there a lot. In fact, I think that’s where you took your first steps, if I remember correctly,” he said, stretching and yawning. I had to agree with that display of tiredness. I didn’t know if I would even be able to make it up the stairs.

“That’s interesting,” I said sincerely. “I think we should meet Ashton there tomorrow for lunch, maybe?

“Sounds like a plan,” he said with a smile on his face. It almost made me laugh to remember how scared I’d been of him several hours before when he’d been yelling at me through the door about Girl Scout cookies.

We parted ways, then. I went up to my bathroom so I could shower and wash away the toll that today had taken on me. I didn’t know what time it was, but I figured well past midnight. I’d probably never stayed up that late before, but there was a first for everything. What better way to spend it than with my brother, right?

Just as I was snuggling under the covers, my door opened a crack. I nearly had a heart-attack, not used to having company. Then, a gentle voice drifted in from the hallway that immediately calmed my racing heart.

“Goodnight, Dawn Parma.”