The Woman in Red

The fury that overhauled my senses had clouded my judgment as well. Town was too far and I had no money for a motel and I wasn’t going back to Blackwater. My legs, with a mind of their own continued to carry me down an old dirt road. A light mist had started to weep from the sky and I rushed further now understanding where I was.

The old cabin once envied for its rustic abeyance was now a heap of rotted wood abandoned by all but most of all time. The site brought tears to my eyes bringing my back to the last time I had seen it and at the time thought it was so shameful to be affiliated with but now, now it was a pitiful sight. The porch was sunken in to the ground no longer held up by the strong wooden beams almost all the windows had been smashed the roof fallen in close to the middle.

Loud thunder sounded from overhead before the rain fell down in thick heavy sheets. I ran up the steps to the porch and looked out. No way could I make it anywhere in this downpour. I scanned the front porch and felt the twitch at my heart of momma’s old rocking chair. I jiggled the door knob and found it was unlocked but was stuck within the frame. I pressed all of my body weight onto it and pushed. As it gave way I landed into the threshold with a heavy foot and was shocked as the wood gave way and my foot fell through the floor. I gasped pulled myself up right and examined the damage. A decent cut was bleeding from my ankle but not much more than that. I stood on shaky legs and looked around.

The main room was bare and filled with dust and cobwebs the smell of musky mold unbearable. The roof was caved in sand had separeated from the walls in some corners, vegetation beginning to vine its ways down onto the floor. Momma would die if she could see her house like this. I continued through to my old bedroom and found the bare iron bed and my old dresser. Tears pricked my eyes as I picked up the small crystal bottle from the dresser the pads of my fingers pulling away the gobs of sticky dust. I pulled the tab and held it to my nose and inhaled the sweet nectar. Like a movie screen slips of my childhood played in my head and I fought back the tears as I placed the tab back and tucked the bottle into my jacket.

Momma and Daddy’s room hit me the hardest. It looked untouched save for the thick dust that lay atop everything. Their bed was still made like it always was and Reba’s crib remained in the corner along with their dresser and chiffarobe. I walked to the crib and fingered the lace that still adorned the crisp white sheets in the chiffarobe I found momma’s old jewelry box. The one that had housed the gold locket before she gave it to me. I opened it and rummaged through. A lock of my baby hair tied with a silk bow and baby teeth held in a velvet pull string bag was all that was obvious and I looked some more. My fingertips traced over something smooth I wrapped my fingers around it. The arrowhead necklace Forrest had made me for my eighteenth birthday looked back at me. The clasp was broken from where my mother had torn it from my neck. I clutched it in a fist and shoved it in my pocket.

After the general overlook of the room I moved to the closet curious to see if any of daddy’s old keepsakes were still in there. As I twisted the knob I instantly wished I hadn’t . The pungent smell hit me immediately pulling at my dinner. Once I had taken a few gulps of fresh air I looked back and felt my heartbreak even more.

“Oh Duke” I whispered eyeing the carcass of the dog with pity. The poor thing looked like he had died within the last few months. Still mostly intact his ribs prodding through his rotting flesh. Feeling my childhood friend needed a proper burial, I pulled at the thin blanket he rested upon and with much trouble and difficulty and my ankle pounding I managed to pull him to the back of the house where an old Spanish oak stood. Once reaching the shadow of the tree I left him there and returned to the front porch. I kneeled down and my fingertips gripped a plank of wood. A grunt escaped my lips as I stood pulling the wood as it crackled under the pressure before breaking away. Sloshing through the mud I reached the tree again and began prodding the ground looking for the softest ground.
I struck the dirt with the wood and began moving the dirt away as I got deeper the continuous downpour soaked the shallow grave making it more difficult. Finally I decided it was deep enough and maneuvered Duke into his grave and began shoving the dirt over his body. I wiped at my rain and my tears and prepared to stab the ground again when I slipped and fell onto the side. I closed my eyes for a moment allowing the rain to pelt on my face as I wondered how I got to this point. A flash of lightning struck scaring me up into a sitting position. Another flash of lightning made me look around seeing Duke’s freshly concealed grave. I turned away from him and looked further to the trunk of the tree. Something was planted near the base, something stone.

I paced myself as I walked to it and another flash of lightning provided the light I needed; a headstone.

Patsy Tallahatchie Baker

Tears and my knees fell at the same time as I cried. My screams mixed with the thunder and the rain. I gripped the grass that grew around the headstone and screamed again falling to my side. I rested on my arm and stared at the stone as the rain, though now softer, continued to stream down. Soon the rain lightened up more but the occasional droplets fell on my face these much colder than the ones before. I opened my eyes and gazed up at the sky watching as small white flakes swirled down. Great. It was snowing though the ground wasn’t cold enough for it to stick it didn’t help my situation.
I forced myself onto my feet and picked up the lone wooden slab and shoved it into the ground right above Duke’s grave as a makeshift marker.

I limped back inside my ankle now a swollen knot. The stench from the closet had now leaked into the bedroom so I grabbed a couple of grandma’s old quilts from the trunk in the closet finding a hole from the outside created from the termite infested wood and concluded that’s how Duke had found his way in. I returned to the main room and curled up against the wall pulling the quilts around me and listening as the rain began to fall again outside.