Silent Nightmares and Morbid Fairytales

Dinner with James was a silent, uneventful thing. We ate the fish we caught earlier that afternoon, and paired it with vegetables.

I don't think he had planned for a silent mute to be moving in with him. I'm sure he doesn't talk or socialize much on his own, and that's fine, until you're forced to live with someone who has the same level of silence and trauma behind them to make the whole situation really awkward.

We poke and prod at our food with nothing to say. I have questions waiting, but asking him them on my first day might not be the best idea. He hardly knows me, so staying on his good side could prove to be a very difficult thing to do.

I have questions about the town in the mountains, questions about him and Mary, and most of all, questions about the strange young girl by the name of Laura. The letter professed that she was only eight years old, or soon to be eight at the time it was written, and she had obviously meant a great deal to Mary in her final weeks.

That's another thing, the letter speaks of the littler girl so fondly, as though she were there at the hospital every day until Mary died... Yet I have no memory of there ever being another young girl there around us.

"Something on your mind, Anaya?"

I look up from my plate, surprised that he was the first to break the ice. He looks just as uncomfortable as I feel sitting at that dining table for six when there's only two of us.

"No," I lie, "not really."

"I don't buy it." He laughs, but it sounds forced, causing him to frown. "I think you have a lot of questions. Go ahead, fire off."

I wince a little, "You won't like them." I murmur sheepishly.

"Well we won't know unless you ask, now will we? Go ahead, Anaya."

"Promise you won't get mad?"

I hold my pinkie out towards him, and he studies it for a few seconds before realizing what it is. He hooks his own pinkie around mine and shakes it, "I can't guarantee that I won't get uncomfortable, but no, I will not get mad."

I hesitate for a few more moments, carefully choosing my words.

"The town... In the hills, what's wrong with it?"

"Town?..." There's surprise in his voice, like I wasn't supposed to know about it. Like it's sacred. "I never said it was a town, I said that it was a place." He gets a small smile on his face, amused that he's caught me.

"Same thing, really." I shrug, feeling awkward, like I'm bound to walk into his trap and he'll find out that I've already been snooping. (albeit on accident)

"Why do you want to know?" He asks conversationally, avoiding eye contact as he does.

I shrug again, "I dunno. It sounded interesting, I guess."

"Anaya," he addresses me very carefully, "you cannot go there. Do you understand?"

I nod, "I won't. But-"

"But there's really not more to it. I'll tell you this much: it's an abandoned mining town that had an underground coal fire back in the late nineties,, and it's still burning to this day. It's more... Of a hazard than a magical place."

I narrow my eyes at him a little, then calm down and remind myself that if I make him mad by pressing too much he may not tell me anything else, or share personal details at all, and this whole place will lose it's magical, mysterious charm without the stories and facts to back it up.

"Okay." I nod, forcing myself to accept his vague answer for now. At this point, we've both finished eating, and are now sitting at opposite ends of the long dining table, staring at each other in awkward silence.

"I can do dishes." I volunteer quickly to save us both from the weird silence that seemed to envelope us both more often than not. He doesn't fight the offer, just thanks me for helping out and excuses himself.

"If it's alright, I think I'm just going to head to bed. Do you need anything else?"

I shake my head, "No, I'm good. Thanks... Uncle James. For everything. For even giving me a chance. Most people look at me and think I'm one of those troubled kids who deals with problems through drugs and vandalism and I'm not. I'm going to try really hard to make this work."

He gives me the first genuine smile of the day, and nods. "Glad to hear it, and I'm glad to have you here. Hopefully this is just what you need to get your life back on track... Goodnight, Anaya."

"Goodnight Uncle James."

His heavy footsteps go down the hall and are followed by the soft creak of his bedroom door closing.

I run some hot water into the sink and add some liquid dish soap to it, stirring it around before dunking in the dirty dishes and scrubbing them with the brush next to the sink. The task doesn't take long, and I find myself standing alone in the middle of a kitchen that isn't mine. It's dark out, and when I try to look out the cloudy windows, I can't see anything, not even the moon or stars.

It feels to early to go to bed, and I feel too restless to even try. I pace the kitchen a little, familiarizing myself with my surroundings, getting acquainted with the knick knacks still hanging on the walls from when Mary was alive.

I drift from room to room, noticing that there is no TV, computer, or anything to represent modern day technology except for an old radio in the living room and a rotary phone in the kitchen. The rest of his house is decorated by crooked stacks of boxes and shelves packed with books covering every detail of cancer.

I frown when I see those... James tried really hard to save her. He did everything humanly possible to keep her alive and it still was not enough.

There's a glass fronted bookshelf near the doorway that connects to the foyer. It's filled with things from their travels, though from what I remember, there wasn't much of that. James has always been a solitary soul and Mary was a free spirit who forced him out on adventures and pulled him out of his shell.

Mary completed the flawed parts of my Uncle, and after she died he just lost his way, unable to find a way to keep pushing forward with her ideals. He did not pursue adventure after that, except for when he went on his psychotic rampage in the mountains.

Really makes you question the people you put your life in trust with.

There's a lot to see and look at, but I figure that with any luck, I'll be staying for a good long while and I'll have plenty of time to look at everything, so why try and see it all now. I go to my room, making my way down the hall with light footed steps to avoid disturbing James.

Ten years I lived with someone who was quick to abuse me for every wrong doing, so it feels almost impossible to break that habit now. I automatically wince when someone's voice raises so much as an octave, and if someone looks like they're about to throw something at me, even jokingly, I scamper off like a deer being chased by a freighter.

I push open my door and shut it behind me quickly, flipping on the light switch, the bulb makes little effort to light the room, though. I look down at the handle before deciding with a guilty conscious to lock the door. I don't think Uncle James is a bad guy, but he's already exhibited enough that his mind's not all there, and I'm not quite on trusting terms, nor have I memorized his quirks that make him seem a little weirder than normal.

There's a few items in my suitcase waiting to be unpacked, and just looking at them reminds me of my old room, and oddly enough, I start to feel a little homesick seeing them on the shelves of this new, foreign room. It's not meant to be, it just doesn't feel right. I may not have been very happy living at home with my Mother, but dammit, it was all I had, and even leaving that behind is proving to be a very difficult task to accomplish. I've gone all day, thinking about her or something she'd done every other half hour or so, reminded again of her existence after Uncle James would mention something or I'd see something to remind me of my old life.

Agh, no more... The only time my mind seems to quit racing is when it's unconscious, and that's just what I plan to do.

I linger by the window for a minute longer, trying to spot the stars that are not there, before changing into my pajamas and getting into bed. The frame is old, cold metal, and the mattress is filled with lumpy springs, but it beats the water damaged floor boards by a long shot.

I untie the scarf that's pinning my pillow and comforter together, and unroll them, a gust of smells hits my nose and stops my actions.

"Stop it." I mutter to myself in frustration. "You're going to be okay here. Act like it."

Another deep, unconvincing breath is somehow enough to convince me to lie down in the bed. I lie there, adjusting to the texture of the mattress, trying to mentally prepare myself to sleep. After a few minutes, I turn out the lights and lay there in silence.

Thinking about my Mother and past life all day was bound to have a negative affect on my dreams, I should have known... Because that night, after an hour of tossing and turning, I finally fall into a fitful bout of sleep, and that night, I dream of my Dad.



"Anaya, take this to your mother."

My Dad holds out the newly repaired TV remote towards me, and I eye it curiously instead of taking it my three year-old mind absolutely transfixed on this spectacular object being offered to me. His laughter breaks my concentration and I look up at him, and the biggest grin I could possibly manage slides across my face, making him laugh harder.

My Dad, Mason, had contagious laughter and a smile to match. If he was laughing, everyone was. He was just one of those rare people who can control the mood of any room of people through his charisma and infectious attitude. He would have made a great public speaker, but somehow he ended up a truck driver for Walmart.

"Here kiddo," he kids forward, grabbing my hands, clasping them around the control panel tightly, pointing at my mother laying on the opposing couch, chuckling, watching us interact. "Take it to momma. Go, Anaya, take it to mommy."

He grabs my shoulders and turn me around to face her and she has a big, encouraging smile on her face, "Come here, honey."

I waddle across the room and give her the remote, a deed that is repayed with a kind thank you and a kiss on the cheeks.

"She's damn adorable, hun." Mason laughs, nodding towards me. It's late in the evening and he's still wearing his trucker uniform. He looks tired, but still happy.

"She is." My mom agrees with a grin, rolling onto her other side so she can completely see him. "And so is her father. And so kind and helpful." She compliments him, making him chuckle in embarrassment. "Naw, she gets those things from her beautiful mother."

I remember just thinking how cute they were together, and how grateful I was to have them both as my parents.

"When do you have to go?..." My Mom asks him, her voice lower and sadder. She looks at him intently, trying to hide the disappointment in her face.

He looks down at the watch on his wrist and frowns. "Another fifteen minutes then I should probably head out."

"When will you be back?"

"On Sunday." He smiles tiredly, "I'll be back on Sunday, I promise."

"Are you sure you're not too tired?"

"I'll be okay." He reassures her again for what I remember being the third time since he'd gotten home that evening. "The sooner I leave, the sooner I can be back. Sound good?"

She opens her mouth to reply with something saddened, then changes her mind, frowning a little, trying not to make him feel guilty. "No, that's fine. You'll be fine, I know you will."

That was the last time I saw my Daddy. He never came home that Sunday or the Sunday after, and my Mom kept telling me that he was just running late. She always said it with tears in her eyes, voice shaking with uncertainty. She didn't even know what had happened to him, even after all these years we still don't. Many people speculated that he'd run away to find a new life with less trouble and stress while others thought he had an affair and a family with another woman.

Me? I could never think badly of my Daddy, even though he'd promised to return,and had taught me himself that promises were not something to be broken or taken back. I guess I always just assumed that he was still running late, even ten years later. I could never bring myself to accept the most likely possibility, which was that he'd been robbed and murdered somewhere, and the truck was disposed of or disguised.

If that was the case,the man I spent ten years waiting to walk through our front door had been long dead in a ditch somewhere, unable to fulfill his promise of returning home Sunday.