*****
Tears made sweaty tracks down Sarah’s cheeks. She was running, almost to the gate now, and the crying had begun. Sarah made it a little farther each day before breaking down into sobs. It felt like the emotion was ripped out of her, but it only happened when she ran. The exertion tore open some part of her heart that was otherwise sealed up. For good or ill, Sarah became addicted to the feeling of release that it provided.
She never cried during the day, not even when she couldn’t sleep. It didn’t matter how worried, disheartened or scared she was. It didn’t matter how many times in the day she thought of her mother or watched in heartbroken silence when Kimmy’s mom lifted her up for a kiss. Aunt Rachel and Jessie sat in the den, talking about art and eating strawberries and Sarah felt like she would burst with jealous sorrow. But she did not. She was calm. Until she ran.
Once her feet began crushing gravel beneath her, she was free. When the wind of her own speed brushed her cheeks, she cried. Slow silent tears at first, but soon her pounding heart would signal a break in her soul and the dam would crumble. Collapsed and sobbing, she stayed in the lane, hidden from sight, the forest surrounding her like a warm blanket, until she stopped, finally empty of emotion. Then she would run the rest of the way to gate and back to the house and return to her room and the day would begin again.
This morning, she reached the gate and turned around before the sobbing burst from her throat. Air could scarcely get into her lungs and she sat suddenly, sharp rocks painful on her backside. Sarah pulled her knees up, hugging them and bawled without restraint. She leaned into the ground, curled in a fetal position, a ball of wretched unhappiness.
That was how Adam found her. He almost ran right into her before he managed to skid to stop. Sarah looked up from her crouch with swollen eyes wide and crab-walked backwards, startled at the intrusion. For a moment, Sarah had no idea who he was or why he suddenly appeared in front of her.
Adam was dressed for exercise. His hair was slicked back with perspiration and his dark eyes were regarding her with a shocked expression. He’d obviously been going for a run, just as it was obvious that Sarah had been running.
Sarah’s sweaty blond hair hung in halo around her face having escaped the confines of her ponytail. Her own eyes mirrored Adam’s shock. The two runners stared at each other in the darkness of the early morning, each unmoving.
With concern, Adam asked if Sarah was okay. She nodded mutely in embarrassment and shame quickly consumed her. She stopped crying for now and tried to will herself to be calm. She needed her normal composed self. She did not want Adam to see her like this, but it was too late. The thought brought a sob to the surface, mortifying Sarah. Reacting out of instinct more than anything else, she scrambled to her feet and ran back to the house leaving Adam standing in lane.
Sarah didn’t bother with quiet. She raced up the stairs into her room, leaving echoes of sound in her wake. Slamming the bedroom door behind her she slid down to the floor in a heap of discordant thought. Her breathing was labored, but she was relieved to find her eyes had stopped acting like faucets. A few minutes of gulping in much needed oxygen and she began to think more clearly.
Adam had seen her crying. She vaguely recalled Adam telling her he was an athlete and he occasionally jogged the lane. But she never expected this. She hadn’t anticipated his run colliding with hers. She wasn’t prepared to let her secret out. She needed the running. She needed the release, but she couldn’t let anyone see. She just couldn’t.
What if he told Grandpa or Aunt Rachel and Uncle Matt? What if he sat down at breakfast and related the story of nearly crashing into her miserable, collapsed form? How could she possibly explain her behavior to anyone? She needed her cathartic runs. She wasn’t sure she could survive the day without them anymore. What was she going to do?
Sarah hung her head between her knees, taking deep slow breaths and staring at the veins in the hardwood floor. It was okay. She was being irrational. Adam probably thought she just tripped and fell or something. Sure, running away from him like that was odd, but she was used to being odd by now. Her own brothers thought she was weird. Adam probably wouldn’t say anything.
God! She hoped he didn’t say anything!
Pushing her panic back into the depths of her mind, Sarah dragged herself to her feet and into the bathroom. She kicked her shoes off and left her clothes scattered on the tile before stepping under a warm shower spray. Her body felt heavy and slow. Sarah was used to the lighter, clean feeling her runs produced. Now, it felt as if stones dragged at her feet, like Jacob Marley dragging his chains.
Knots of apprehension tightened her stomach when she sat down at the breakfast table an hour later. Aunt Rachel and Grandpa were already eating. Uncle Matt fixed blueberry pancakes this morning. Tyler and Benji were there, shoveling the syrup covered treats into their mouths and complementing Uncle Matt’s heretofore unknown culinary skills.
Adam was not there, and Sarah realized abruptly that, of course he wouldn’t be at breakfast. Adam ate with his own family for breakfast and dinner. She probably wouldn’t see him until lunch. Her tension waned in relief, but her hands still shook a little when she poured milk into a glass. She forced herself to be calm and filled a plate with a stack of pancakes, drenching them with syrup.
“Morning everyone,” Jessie said sitting down across from Sarah. She kissed Aunt Rachel affectionately and teased her father about his cooking. Uncle Matt told her to hush and eat, but he said it with a grin. Jessie laughed, heaping a plate with pancakes. Sarah watched her with mute wariness. If Adam told anybody about this morning, it would probably be Jessie. They were best friends. But Jessie ignored Sarah as usual and said nothing. Sarah embraced the reprieve, acting as nonchalant as she could manage.
Sarah shoveled down two stacks of pancakes before following Aunt Rachel out to the workshop. The pancakes were delicious, and, though she felt painfully full, the food soothed Sarah. She was scared. Even if Adam didn’t disclose their morning meeting, Sarah knew she would have to stop running. It wasn’t safe anymore. It wasn’t private. She had no idea how she was going to cope.
Sleep was elusive as ever that night. Sarah glanced at her cell phone: two-thirty in the morning. She’d been awake and miserable since going to her room at nine. Sick with worry, the familiar, but unwelcome, feelings of sadness building up within her, she immediately sought solace in a hot bath. But she couldn’t relax. Topping off her normal assortment of negative emotion was a stack of guilt, anger, and humiliation. Sarah felt like she could sink to the bottom of the tub and drown.
Her day was awful. Sarah was preoccupied with her own thoughts, absorbed in them, obsessing over what she would do now without running. She spilled lye on her hand, which left an angry red mark, and mixed a horrible combination of soap scents because she wasn’t paying any attention. After half an hour of mishaps, Aunt Rachel sent her with Kimmy to feed the livestock since she was being more hindrance than help.
Kimmy! Sarah moaned in the darkness of her room. She felt so awful about Kimmy!
The little girl had greeted Sarah with customary smiles and giggles. She tried to cajole Sarah into a conversation with one of the horses, but Sarah was so upset. She abused her young friend with the backlash of her own hateful emotions. Sarah had been so mean to her. She didn’t yell at her, but what she did was worse than yelling.
“Animals don’t talk to you,” Sarah told Kimmy abruptly. Irrationally, Sarah needed to give the child a reality check. “They don’t talk you and you can’t talk to them. You’re not Dr. Doolittle. You’re a child with an overactive imagination and I’m through with pretending.”
“They do so talk,” Kimmy said stubbornly. Her cherubic face was scrunched in confusion when she looked up at Sarah. “They talk just like the flowers and the rain. You just don’t listen right!”
“No, Kimmy,” Sarah said softly. Her voice sounded flat and hollow and mean echoing in the stables, but she couldn’t stop hers
elf. The words flowed, unrelenting. “They’re dumb beasts and dead plants. They can’t speak, you can’t hear them, and I don’t want to hear you right now.”
“I don’t want to hear you, either!” Kimmy covered her ears and ran out the stables quick as a fox with Sarah staring blankly after her.
Adam came in just as Kimmy disappeared around the corner. “What’s going on?” he asked pointing in the direction his sister had run.
Sarah shrugged. She didn’t trust herself to speak to Adam. She said horrible things to Kimmy for no reason at all and she knew that if she opened her mouth at that moment she would do the same to Adam. She couldn’t do that. Adam might confront her about this morning. She quickly put away the feed bucket and left the stables before he could ask her anything else.
Sarah sought solace in her room, going up the outside staircase to avoid running into anyone else. Missing lunch seemed like a good idea, so Sarah occupied herself by tracing the outline of the lion’s head inlay at her desk and thinking about nothing. She didn’t want to think. She didn’t want to talk. She wanted to be left alone.
Aunt Rachel came up sometime after noon to interrupt her voided state. She looked concerned and asked Sarah if anything was wrong.
“No, nothing,” Sarah answered, her face dull and blank. “I’m fine.”
It was evident that Aunt Rachel didn’t believe her, but she didn’t press the issue. Jessie was sent to bring her down for dinner a few hours later.
“You know, Kimmy’s been crying all day,” Jessie told her. She looked smug about something, but Sarah barely noticed and didn’t respond. “Adam knows you did something to her.” The accusation sprang hatefully from her lips.
Sarah just looked at her. She was standing outside the threshold of Sarah’s room. Sarah had opened the door when Jessie knocked, but did not invite her in. “What do you want?” Sarah’s question was dispassionate, which seemed to make Jessie angry.
“My mother told me to come get you for dinner. She thinks you’re sick,” Jessie said. It was clear that wasn’t what Jessie thought.
Sarah didn’t respond. Jessie glared at her, then turned on her heel and disappeared down the hall. Sarah followed her down to dinner, hungry after missing lunch.
She spoke little, but ate much, piling her plate with starchy potatoes and buttered rolls. A detached part of her noted the worried look on Grandpa’s face. Uncle Matt and Aunt Rachel were obviously concerned, asking her repeatedly if she was okay. Even Tyler glanced at her with an anxious frown once or twice.
Once back in her room, Sarah went straight to the haven of her bathroom. She combined jasmine and lavender, hoping it would sooth and relax her, but it did not. She couldn’t lose control, she couldn’t. She had to . . . . Had to what?
Sarah wasn’t the one in charge anymore. She wasn’t the one holding everything together. But somehow that meant she couldn’t hold herself together anymore, either.
She got out of the tub in frustration. Why couldn’t she handle herself? She was supposed to be the strong one, the mature one, the responsible one. She couldn’t lose that when it was so important to keep what was left of her family. She tried to come to terms with herself, with her feelings, with her compulsive habits, but it was no use. She only gave herself a headache.
Many hours later, nearly three o’clock now, all she managed to do was stare at the ceiling going over and over and over everything, thoughts swirling like a typhoon in her head, while her body remained deathly still.
It was so early she briefly considered trying to run. Maybe no one would be up; no one would bump into her at this time of the morning. She discarded the idea almost as quickly as she’d come up with it. It was too risky. It was too risky in the first place, she just didn’t realize it until now.
More than anything, Sarah wanted to sneak downstairs to the kitchen. There were probably leftovers from dinner sitting in the fridge. Maybe she could hunt up some cookies or have a bowl of sugary cereal. It didn’t matter. She wanted to eat, as if that would make everything better. However, Sarah was well aware that gorging on food wasn’t going to solve anything. It would just make her feel fat and guilty. So what should she do?
Sarah pushed her covers away with vehemence and went to the huge window overlooking the garden. She needed to get lost, Sarah thought. She needed to go where no one would find her. She’d needed a place to cry, a place to loose all these unwanted emotions. Then she’d have peace, she could rest.
What better place to get lost in than a maze? Below her, the hedge maze was shadowed in moonlight. Sarah was amazed how clear the thin mountain air made everything seem. Like she was suddenly given glasses that she didn’t know she needed. The dark arch of the closest maze entrance was inviting. It was a place to hide, a place to get lost.
Sarah went out onto her balcony, barefoot, in white shorts and a tank-top. She would be easy to spot in the dark, but once in the maze, she could disappear, so she didn’t bother changing. The day had been warm and dry. Heat still clung to the stones beneath her feet. She passed Jessie’s balcony without stopping and continued down to the garden path. In the blink of an eye, she was in front of the arch looking into the leafy corridors of the maze.
She went in unhesitatingly. Her feet felt gritty with dirt, but she hardly noticed. Sarah passed the sleeping fountain and turned a few more corners. She had a vague idea of finding one of the alcoves that housed a statue and hiding there, perhaps somewhere in the center of the maze. Around another corner, Sarah saw the exiting archway looming in front of her. The maze was small, but had she really completed it in so short a time? She walked forward feeling bitter disappointment and resigned to returning to her bedroom.
It took her a few minutes to realize she wasn’t walking back into the garden. She was going somewhere else. The path she was on was still made up of rough stone, but it led through a grove of dark trees. Sarah saw shimmering light in the distance and without much deliberation continued forward to investigate.
The light was further off than she expected and Sarah was unsure of how long she’d been outside. There was a gentle curve in the path before it petered out into widely spaced stepping stones that traced the edge of a thin, narrow lake. The smooth stones led to a large Roman pavilion at the edge of the water. Shimmering moonlight reflected in gentle lapping waves. This was what she needed. This was a place to hide.
She picked up her pace and sat down on a long curving stone bench with a high back under the pavilion roof. Across the lake, Sarah saw a few lights through the trees. Houses, maybe? Had she come far enough to be able to see the town? She put her curiosity aside and inhaled slow and deep. In the darkness, she expelled a pained breath.
She wished Mom weren’t dead and let out a sob. The distant illumination blurred before her eyes. She wished she hadn’t made Kimmy cry. She wished she were home in Mobile. She wished and wished and wished, but no wish came true.
Releasing the misery, she let her head drop into her arms and cried, washing herself out with tears, scrubbing her soul clean. The hard sobs eventually gave way to softer sniffles and her shoulders relaxed a little. She had no idea of the time and hadn’t thought to bring her cell phone with her. Sarah looked up to check the position of the moon, checking time the old fashioned way. It was low in the sky, half hidden by the trees and mountains. That meant sunrise wasn’t far off.
“Why are you crying?”
Sarah didn’t have the energy to be startled. She slowly faced the soft spoken voice. Not again, she thought faintly. She was tired. She had no energy to muster up any embarrassment or fear of the tall figure leaning against the pavilion pillar.
“Because I have to,” the words were a whisper of sound. Sarah hadn’t meant to say them aloud.
The figure pushed off the pillar coming towards her. It was a boy. A very tall boy of indeterminate age. He could have been fifteen or twenty five, Sarah noted sluggishly. He was thin, lanky and had very pale yellow hair that hung in short tangles aro
und his face. His eyes were large, dark and ill-framed with small round spectacles. “Have you so many things to cry about?” he asked. His voice was still soft, like a breeze.
Sarah was too tired to wonder at his identity. She felt exhausted and might have curled up and slept on the stone bench if the stranger hadn’t spoken. “Yes,” she told him, “I have.” With that, she did close her eyes and lean back on the bench.
She might have dozed, Sarah wasn’t sure. Dawnlight pierced her eyelids and she opened them to see the narrow lake, silver and glistening in the gray morning. The sound of water gently lapping at the shore was soothing and Sarah almost went back to her drowsy slumber, but she was slightly perplexed to see group of houses, on the far side of the lake.
Where was she? Panic hit her, making her chest tight and her breathing fast. She needed to be back at the house. She should have been in her room.
Sarah had vague memories of walking among the hedges and a lake lit with moonlight. She recalled a pale boy speaking to her, but thought that must have been a dream. She might still be dreaming. Tired and unsure, Sarah got up from the bench and followed the stone path back to the hedge maze.
The morning was hazy with dewy fog. The garden looked mirage-like blurred with the moisture. Sarah found her way back to the house through the maze and carefully climbed the slick stairwell to her room. She left the balcony door open and crawled into bed, leaving smears of dirt where her bare feet slid against her white sheets. She was asleep within seconds.
A pressure on her forehead caused Sarah to swim up to consciousness. Bright sunshine streamed through her window. Aunt Rachel was feeling Sarah’s forehead with her wrist and looking down at her concernedly. “How do you feel?” she asked when Sarah yawned herself the rest of the way awake.
“Fine,” Sarah said. “What time is it?” she asked suddenly aware of the height of the sun. She leaned up abruptly on her elbows, panicked. Sarah grabbed for her cell phone on the dresser, but her aunt stopped her.
“Be still,” Aunt Rachel said. “You don’t have a fever, but you look pale and you’ve got dark circles under your eyes,” she listed the symptoms with a frown. “I’m worried you may be coming down with something.”
“I’m just sleepy,” Sarah said. Aunt Rachel looked unconvinced. “I don’t sleep well,” Sarah admitted.
“Insomnia?” Aunt Rachel asked. When Sarah nodded her aunt’s concern gentled into compassion. “How long has this been going on?” she asked gently.
Sarah shrugged, sitting up more fully. “For about a year, I guess.”
Aunt Rachel nodded. “You’re father told us about your eating problems,” she said, much to Sarah’s chagrin. She ducked her head in shame.
“He did?” Sarah softly inquired.
Her aunt nodded. “I noticed you ate quite a bit yesterday,” Aunt Rachel pointed out. “Are you binging again?”
Sarah shook her head fiercely. “I felt bad yesterday, but I haven’t been eating at night, I swear. I was just. . . .” Sarah’s voice trailed off. Aunt Rachel looked at her intently.
“Hungry?” Aunt Rachel asked. “Or sad?”
“Both,” Sarah answered.
“I was worried about that originally,” explained Aunt Rachel, “after your father told me about it. But you’ve lost weight in the time you’ve been here and an eating disorder is pretty hard to hide in a house full of people. I thought you were doing okay until yesterday, but you’re not are you?”
“It’s no big deal,” Sarah mumbled, embarrassed.
“Yes it is,” her aunt corrected. “Binging is an eating disorder. It can be dangerous and is definitely bad for your health. I’m worried about the insomnia, too,” she added. “Prolonged sleeplessness can lead to all kinds of problems, it’s just as hazardous.” Aunt Rachel’s expression was warped into intense concern. “You’re a growing teenager,” she said, “you need sleep and you need to eat right.” Sarah looked away and shrugged.
“How about you stay in bed today?” she suggested. “I’ll have Uncle Matt bring up a grilled cheese sandwich and some soup.”
“No,” Sarah interrupted quickly. “I’m fine. I can do my chores like always. It’s not that big of a deal. I’m fine,” she repeated.
Aunt Rachel shook her head. “You aren’t fine, Sarah. You’re sick,” the older woman sounded resolute. “Let us take care of you for a little while,” she requested. “That’s what we’re here for.”
Sarah didn’t want them to, though. She shouldn’t have said anything at all. She looked dejectedly at the sunny day outside her window. “I don’t think that’s necessary,” Sarah told her aunt.
“Well, I do.” Aunt Rachel did not relent. Instead she changed tactics.
“Your grandpa was worried when you didn’t come down for breakfast,” she informed Sarah. “I imagine he’ll come up to play a few games of chess with you. I can send Kimmy up here later, too, but I really think you should rest and relax for the rest of the day.” Aunt Rachel spoke as if it was already decided.
“I’m fine,” Sarah insisted. “Really, Aunt Rachel, it’s okay.”
Aunt Rachel was persistent, though, and eventually Sarah conceded defeat and lay back against her pillows. She also made Sarah promise that if she was still having sleeping trouble or binging at the end of next week, Sarah would go with her to the doctor in town and see what could be done. Sarah reluctantly agreed and was briefly left alone while Aunt Rachel went to find Grandpa.
Sarah hazily recalled her dream about the maze and the lake. It had been so real. The details were clear. She remembered the smell, the sound of the water, and the strange boy with the pale hair. She couldn’t remember how she got back to her room or getting into bed, but dreams were like that. Some things were so clear while others were faded.
Sarah decided to at least get into the bathroom and brush her teeth before Aunt Rachel returned. She drew back her thin quilt and slid her feet off the mattress and then froze in astonishment. There, on the pristine white of her sheets, were two dark smudges of dirt and gravel. She looked down at her feet, still covered in filth, and then at the window again. The door to the balcony was open. It wasn’t a dream?
*****
Chapter 15: Sneaks and Thieves