Chapter 11

Chapter 11

 

            A sunny warm morning, turned into a stormy afternoon. I was ridding my horse. Then the clouds came in to surround the sun. The sun surrendered to the army of clouds and retreated. I was ridding faraway from the Inn, when a drop fell on my cheek. I galloped back, but I didn’t go inside until I heard thunder. I just loved the rain, I didn’t know why but I just did.

 I was wrapped in a towel, and dry Dylan was shaking his head and chiding away.

            “Tisk, Tisk, Courtalia. You naughty little girl.” I whipped him with one of the towels and that was the end of his smart comments.

            I only needed one more lesson after that day. Then I had permission to leave. I had to get as much money as possible, so I could pay for everything here. I had prepared more songs. It was a little different then what the people might’ve be into, but I didn’t care. I walked in the bar still wet. My hair stuck to by cheeks like kelp. I sat at the piano and thought on what I was going to do…. I played an D minor, then a G minor, an F, and then back to a C. I started singing while giving the notes a beat.

            I sang my way through the whole song, getting lost in the beauty of the high notes. Singing was like a natural high; it was what I was meant to do. I thought that for a long time. I finished. Then I got up to bow.

            It didn’t take long for the seats to clear. I was fed at the end, and I collected my pay. I’d been doing my shows for two hours, of I didn’t have stuff to play I just played chords that went together and pretend that it’s a song. It was my show, so no one would’ve known but me. The deal for my pay was simple: I got all the tips while I performed, the money thrown onto the stage, and the pay Markus gave me for actually doing the show. My average had been about $35 per show. I was in my room doing the math in my journal…let’s see… I did the math and I was a little short. Maybe I should ask if there any other part time jobs available. I thought.

            “Hey Michelle!” She lifted her head from her desk.

            “What do we have here?” She rested her chin on her fist. “Our very own piano-play’n poppy… heard you did well, might come out to see yah if ye play’n tomorrow.” There was a pause, then she stood up strait. “So what do yah need doll?”

            “I was wondering if you were in need in any assistance by which would improve your establishment, and the eligibility for me to pay for your expenses.”

She gave me a dumb look on her face, and said

            “Uh, I don’t quite know what you just said, but if you need a job I could have you take care of the horses. Go ask Dylan what you should do.” So I did. I went to the barn and found Dylan brushing a large brown horse. He saw me and smiled.

            “Whatcha need kid?”

            “A job, Michelle is paying me to help you.”

            “Damn, she don’t pay me. Me being her son and all.”

            “So what should I do?” I asked. He looked around.

            “You can start by changing their water.” I looked over to the pump, it had a basin at the bottom. Hmm. I opened the empty stall. The container in which the water was served looks like a lager version of a bucket. Inside there was a greenish black substance that swirls in the depths of the bucket. I lifted it up, it was lighter then I thought it would be. I dumped the toxic waste out, and grabbed a long brush. Then I started scrubbing over the sink-like basin. After doing about four of those, I painted the barn. Dylan said it was due for a new coat of paint. The barn was green, but we decided to paint the rims gold, to give to give it a little pizzazz. He left to get more paint, so I just sat there. Watching the last rays of the sun disappear slowly.

We eventually had to stop working because we lost the sunlight. We went inside and sat in the lobby for a while. I looked behind me and looked at the titles of some of the books on the shelves.

            “Dylan, how old is this place.” We both stared in front of us, looking at nothing.

            “My mom bought this place when she got married. And even then it was old. But…” He swallowed hard, “I was about three at that time.” I could hear voices at the bar. “His name was Gale Cannon. He seemed nice… before he was accused of murder.” I said nothing. I think I might’ve but he jumped back into talking before I could. “I know my mother loved him, but I also know that she loved the woman he killed. She was my aunt. She used to live here with us. She was older, wiser, and she always knew the answer to everything, and every problem. I loved her.”

I let him breathe. He looked like he was trying to think. “I forget what she looked like, because I was only seven when she died. My sister was six, she loved her too.” He took a long sigh. “But my mom loved her the most as her big sister. When she found evidence Gale killed her, my mom kicked him out of the house, which is pretty much this place… but I don’t know if it was more of kicking because she threatened him with anything she could find that could possibly kill him.”  He leans back looking at me. We locked eyes for a while in the silent lobby. Dylan opened himself up to me and I felt a connection with him.

“After that my mom started drinking a lot… I would too if the person I married killed my sister. She wasn’t addicted, although she drank a lot. It was mostly if she couldn’t sleep or if she woke up in the middle of the night and wanted to go back to sleep or something.” I didn’t want Dylan to keep talking about something like this, but I didn’t want to say anything. I could tell he hasn’t had anyone to share his problems with. He trusted me I guess.

“She stopped drinking because she learned that it couldn’t fill that empty spot in her heart that made her feel beautiful and ‘powerful’ if you would.” I know he didn’t want to continue, but he did anyway. “She started an additional business, to earn extra money, and to fill the hole in her heart. Her only other employee in this business is Marianna. I was fourteen when I met her, she was twenty-two.” I really have to change this subject.

            “Dylan… it’s ok.” He grabs me by my shoulders

            “No! It’s not ok!” His eyes were like darts centering a target in mine. “Do you know how if feels to see the exact men, that aren’t your dad, who have-” He held back from taking it out on the closest person near him which was me. I hugged him, and he slowly fell apart on the inside. Dylan was a teenage boy, and they don’t cry unless it’s really something to cry about. He got up and tried to recover. He looked down at me who had patently listened to his troubles.

“I’m really sorry you had to see me like that, it’s just I love my mom so much…” I’d only known Dylan for a few days, but it surprised me how he trusted me. “I’m going to sleep.” He walked to the stairs, and walked a few steps up. But then he came back down just enough to look at me and say. “Courtalia, you’re a good friend, you know that?” I smiled at him and the next thing I knew he was gone, and the only trace of him was the sound of him going up the steps.

I sat there for a few moments. I thought of how I was very fortunate to not be going through what Dylan and Angelia were. I also had never experienced what it was like to lose someone close. Whether it was by death or by just leaving. I had yet to experience any of those things. I knew it was bound to happen. I had also never experienced killing another human being… well I didn’t think that was going to happen. But sometimes I wondered what it was like for a murderer. Did they feel guilt? Were they nonchalant about their victim’s death? Well I wouldn’t know, and I didn’t plan to find out… What I did plan to know was this: Who were my parents? Did I have parents? Were they still alive? Would I ever see them again? What were they like? Did they know the hooded woman who spoke with Anastasia before she found me? Was the hooded woman my mom? What was with this necklace? Why did I have that one dream? How long would it be until I answer all of these questions?

            I got up, and went to my room. For the first time in a while I turned on the TV. It was a news channel. The news report was coming from Oiram, some governments refuse to have television stations set upon their land. But Oiram is almost in the middle of our country so the signals would be reached to more destinations. The story was of the usual bad news. Sometimes I didn’t understand media, they always seemed to focus on the negative things. They could have focused on nicer things like the grand opening of a museum located on Dana Street in Oiram. But of course no one cares about that kind of stuff. They want to hear about the seven year old girl that was beaten by some druggie in the streets of a crowded, dirty city.

            I wanted to turn it off. My knees were to my chin, while I was thinking all of this. I laid back on my bed. I heard the faint voices of the reporters. It was all so stupid, all they could say about it were things like “Oh how sad” or “let’s hope they found out who did it” or “what a tragedy” They took it all so lightly, too lightly. I laid on my stomach as I watched the interview with the girls parents. They were all sitting together: the daughter, the mother, and the father. The mother has tears streaming down her cheeks. The father was looking at the ground, his elbows resting on his legs, and his fingers tangled in his hair. His body language asked one question: Why? The daughter was attached to her mother. She was hiding in her scarf and was crying. It went something like this:

Interviewer: Now tell me Mr. and Mrs. Dilate, where were you when all this happened?

Mom: (silence) …… I was making dinner, and my Husband was at work.

Interviewer: Ah, I see.

(The girl rose from hiding by making eye contact with the interviewer.)

Interviewer: (leaned down) Now tell me, my darling, what’s your name? Don’t be shy.

Girl: Patricia. W-what’s your name?

(There was silence from the reporter and, most likely, everybody else who was watching it. The little girl had a black eye, and she was also wearing a sling on the arm she wasn’t using to cling to her mom.)

Interviewer: (taken back by this response) Um, Marybeth…

I don’t understand! Why would someone do such a sinful thing to a pure hearted girl like her?! Tears met the edge of my chin and stained the sheets I sat on.

Mother: (almost in a whisper) She was playing outside with her doll, and the next thing I knew, she was gone…  I went out looking for her, then I heard a scream from the depths of a nearby ally… and… there she was alone, on the ground, crying. I just…. (The woman collapsed on her daughter sobbing in tears.)

(The father encloses them both.)

Interviewer: Thank you so much for your time Mr. and Mrs. Dilate. (She looked strait into the camera, like she was focusing on me.) This has been Marybeth Mist with your news report from right here, in-

I turned the TV off.

            I stared at it for a long time.

            “Are all people this cruel?” I caught myself saying out loud.

            “No, there’s you, and you’re far from cruel.”

I looked around the room; no one was there. What’s going on? “Trough the vent, Court, up here.” It was against the wall where the TV was. I got closer.

            “Dylan?”

            “Yes?” He asked in a low voice.

            “Haha, What are you up to now? Ease dropping on my crazy conversations with myself?”

            “I don’t know, it was easy to hear you through this vent, so I thought I’d join.”

            “Humph, well then… so you heard?” I asked.

            “Yah I could even hear the TV in your room.”

That was when I collapsed in front of the vent, right there and then.

            “I just don’t understand who would do such a thing to that girl… she didn’t do anything wrong! I just don’t get why someone would do that!” I couldn’t believe it; I started crying, but why? I didn’t know her; I shouldn’t have cared. But that wasn’t it. I was crying because I had just learned the truth about the world and life. It wasn’t all cake and candy, sometimes it was sad. But then I thought about it this way: If the world was always happy… It really wouldn’t be happy. When we think of happy we compare the bad times and we say to ourselves that it is not sadness, it is a good kind of feeling. So if we have no sad, we have no happy. Love, hope, kindness, friendship, that is what creates happiness, not perfection.

            “I’m very glad you stopped crying, I don’t want you to be upset.” I wiped my tears on my arm waiting for him to say something else. “It’s late, you should sleep.”

            “Thanks for everything.”

            “Pshhaw, what did I do?”

            “I don’t know, I just feel like I need to thank you for something.” I squeezed out a laugh and wipe my tears.

            “Good night.” He said finally.

            “…Same to you.”

The last thing I saw that day was the ceiling of my hotel room.