Secrets Never Known

AnnaBelle woke up the next morning to a quiet house and a horrendously messy bedroom. She laid in her bed for as long as she could, not wanting to face what she'd done the night before. Her eyes wandered over to her alarm clock, and she jumped as she saw that it was almost noon.

She shot into a sitting position, glancing around her room. She wondered to herself why one of her parents hadn't come in to wake her up; they hated laziness. Anna got out from under her covers and slid off of her bed. She stepped around the things scattered on her floor to get to the door. Pulling it open, she walked into the hallway, straining her ears to hear if her parents and brothers were downstairs. She heard nothing.

Her feet carried her down to the living room, which was empty. She walked to the kitchen. It was also empty. AnnaBelle was just about to leave the room to explore the house some more when a pink sticky note that was stuck to the front of the refrigerator. She crossed the linoleum and tore the paper from where it was, seeing that it was in her mother's handwriting.

AnnaBelle,

Your brothers, father, and I are taking a trip to Wisconsin to visit your grandparents. We'll be gone for a few days. Make sure you keep up on your chores and don't trash the house. See you Wednesday afternoon.

Mom.

Anna shook her head, for a moment unable to believe that her family would leave her behind. Then she remembered that her family would rather spend time in the Sahara Desert than with her. She clenched her fingers, hand closing on the note. She went to the trash can and dropped it inside.

She turned on her heel, leaving to room and going back upstairs to hers. She shut the door behind her, leaning against it as she surveyed the damage. From what she could see, she hadn't broken anything. Her notebooks were strewn across the dresser, clothes from her hamper were hanging from her closet door handle and thrown all over the floor, stuffed animals littered the carpet and the make up and perfume bottles from her vanity were laying beside her bed.

AnnaBelle walked around her room, picking up the shirts and sweaters to hang them back up in the closet. She grabbed the three stuffed animals she owned from their various locations and set them in their rightful place on her bed. She was happy to see that the lids to her perfume bottles hadn't come loose, and she picked those and the make up items up from the floor to replace them on the vanity. She stood in front of her dresser, piling her notebooks.

Anna grabbed a pair of shorts and a top, then left her now clean bedroom to get ready for her day.

--

The water rolled up onto the sand, covering AnnaBelle's feet. She smiled to herself. She had always loved nature. It made her feel better when she was down; happier. She often came here, to the beach at First Lake just a few blocks from her home, when she needed something to help her mood.

Anna felt the rays of sun beating down on her shoulders and the bare skin of her legs. But, unlike most of the other people at the beach, she wasn't worried about a sunburn. Along with having an exceptional immune system, AnnaBelle had never gotten a sunburn. No matter how long she stayed in direct sunlight, her skin stayed the same shade.

A large, shaggy brown mass rammed into her and she fell onto her side. Warm, wet liquid splattered her face and she began to laugh. Her hands reached out as she pushed the dog off of her body. She scratched his ears and his owner, a little boy, came running over to retrieve him.

"I'm sorry!" he yelled, pulling on the leather of the dog's collar.

AnnaBelle grinned at him. "It's alright. He just wants to play," she said, still patting the dog's body.

The boy smiled back at her. "C'mon, Bear!" He ran in the opposite direction and the dog followed after him in a long stride.

She turned back to the water, lips still pulled up in a smile.

--

Curled up on the couch under a blanket in her air-conditioned living room, Anna flipped through the channels on the television. She didn't often watch tv, she wasn't much interested, but every now and again she found a nice program to watch on the History, Discovery, or Science channels.

Her flipping stopped when she came across a movie on WE. She'd seen it many times, seeing as it was one of the very few she owned herself. Titanic. She smiled, watching Jack and Rose, two complete opposites who'd only known each other for a couple of days, interact in ways so intimate she dare not speak of them out loud.

AnnaBelle's eyes drifted closed, and her mind took over.

--

He was watching the screen again. His fingers hit the same button over and over, switching from screen to screen. The clicking noise it emitted was almost as hypnotic as the usual tapping rhythm that he performed.

AnnaBelle watched him closely. He seemed calm. His shoulders were relaxed completely, his feet kicked up to rest on the control board, seemingly unconcerned with the possibility of hitting unknown controls with his haphazard position.

What wasn't promising was the far off look in his eyes. They watched the screen almost unblinkingly, clouded by more than just the strange text that reflected in their depths. AnnaBelle wanted nothing more than to know what was in his mind. She wanted nothing more than to hear and see what was in her Madman's head. What kind of memories did he have? What was he like as a child? For the first time in a long while, AnnaBelle asked questions. He couldn't hear her. He never heard her. But no matter how many times she told herself that, she still spoke, still tried.

The screen blinked off. The Madman came suddenly out of his foggy thoughts. It didn't seem like he had made any move to to switch things off. He swung his legs down to rest in a regular sitting position. His hands moved to rub his eyes. There was a new weariness etched into the lines on his face when AnnaBelle saw it again. When he spoke, his voice was small, distant, and on the verge of cracking. The most vulnerable he had ever been in Anna's memory.

"Oh, Alagracia."

Anna had two immediate reactions. One was of anger and confusion. Once again, her Madman had spoken a name that wasn't her own. She felt smaller, like she was the closest one to him, but with no way of touching him. Her second reaction was more accepting. It sounded...right. The tone was wrong, but the words...

She took an instinctive step forward. Something danced on the tip of her tongue. A name that she knew fit in the same sentence as the one he spoke. But as her hand reached forward, the word was lost and she felt the familiar sting of sunlight against her eyelids.