Dead Of Wynter

A Story by Athena Marie

Work in progress... psych. thriller is the path I'm on.

The pond is so clear today I can practically see straight through to the bottom. The water, so blue and so green, almost sparkling; I’m sure there must be some kind of magic within it. The peaceful and ever-changing song of the birds is hypnotizing me as I gaze beyond the fair weather clouds into the serendipitously majestic sky. And look at how the color of the water changes like liquid pastels as I swish my toes around in little circles just beneath the surface " it is magic! It must be! How lucky I am to have all of this beauty to myself, to witness such…. “Wynter! WYNTER!” Suddenly, the sound of my name, harsh, yet restrained, carries me to another place and time. This must be the real one because it’s certainly not what I would have chosen. Yes, my toes are indeed wet, but that is due to the fact that my feet are half-way submerged in a swampy section of grass and mud. How long was I gone for this time? And at a funeral no less, I think frustrated with myself. “Are you okay Wynter?”, says Gavin, my husband of six months. Gavin’s great aunt Tessa recently passed away in her sleep. Such a sweet thing Tessa was, well, so I’ve heard. I never actually met her, and Gavin only saw her three time in his life, all before he was 11 years old. But each of those memories seemed to include ice cream and a trip to the zoo or some other type of child-friendly endeavor. So therefore I have ascertained that Great Aunt Tessa was a sweet soul; or should I say is a sweet soul on her journey to whatever lies ahead for her. Anyhow, I digress.

“Yes, I’m fine, no worries,” I assure Gavin as we finish paying our respects to the rest of his relatives, somber and nameless, as the traditionally rainy funeral comes to an end.

The two of us walk silently back through the uneven terrain of the cemetery lawn; yet as we are about to cross the road to reach the spot where we have haphazardly parked our car, the call of a woman’s voice from several yards away startles me, abruptly breaking the comfort of the mutual silence Gavin and I seem so frequently able to achieve these days. Before my mind can begin to acknowledge the words of this faceless woman, I find myself suddenly alone in a room: a waiting room of sorts with faded linoleum floors and no windows. I know why I am here, yet I know that I really shouldn’t be. I’ve been looking all over for her, but a girl my age really shouldn’t be left unattended in a public place such as this. So many strange faces coming in and out of focus, yet all I can think of is if they will let me see her " my mother, that is. Suddenly, I hear the sound of footsteps approaching, and a feeling of excitement wells up inside of me. Finally, has she come out to see me? But my excitement turns to disappointment as I realize that the foot-steps belong to the female attendant who informs me, in a high-pitched tone one may direct toward a child that she is very sorry but my mother will be staying in her room once again today. I know her words before she says them, but they sting just the same. She asks if I am here by myself. I do not answer, but instead ponder the strange treble-like sound of her voice. A shrill voice, a voice I do not want to hear. Before the attendant can ask me any further questions regarding my current state of guardianship, I have already run out of the waiting room and down the hall when I feel my arm being grabbed in restraint.

“Where on earth are you going, Wynter?” Gavin says, once again jarring me back to the here and now. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost! Hey, have I ever introduced you to my cousin Claudia? I haven’t seen her since we were kids! If she hadn’t stopped me and reintroduced herself, I’d have passed her right by. It sure has been a lot of years, huh Clauda!”

“Yep, I think the last time was that day at the zoo with Great Aunt Tessa”, says Claudia in a sharp and ringing voice. She continues with a slight laugh, "So why did you take off down the street like that? I thought you were going to run straight into traffic!”

“Oh, that’s just Wynter; she has these strange impulses sometimes, but we all love her anyway”, says Gavin quickly, pushing his brown rain-soaked hair back from his forehead. His speech is light-hearted, but his mannerisms are distressed, and I feel as though I’ve embarrassed him, though he would never admit it. So I try laughing it off, and dismiss my odd behavior by attempting to casually introduce myself to this mystery-kin as Gavin’s new wife, since that part seems to have been entirely skipped in the confusion of the moment. However, I’m too late, as Claudia has already flipped the topic to the state of her own life’s hardships.

“I’ve been thrown out again, Gavin”, she says. “This time, for good I think.”

Gavin responds with an air of confusion, “You’ll have to catch me up to speed, Claudia. My aunt and uncle throw their own daughter out on the street? That doesn’t sound like them at all!”

My mind questions the notion that this woman who appears in her early thirties is living with mom and dad, but times can be unforgiving these days so I suppose it’s not that unusual. Yet, I still wonder about the cause of the supposed rift between Claudia and her family. I study her eyes, her mannerisms, and speech patterns as I tend to do with strangers. A sense of uneasiness consumes me. Her body language is aggressive, her natural speaking voice is sweet and saccharine, yet sharp and shrill, and her eyes are dark and depicting of hidden intentions. I’ve decided I do not trust Claudia, and I wish to leave at once.

* * * * * * * * *

Yates County in upstate New York is a truly blissful place to live, half way between Pennsylvania and Lake Ontario, especially if one could base the essence of their existence on beautiful scenery, quaint old houses, and farmland that goes on forever. Gavin and I are both New York City dwellers from birth; I, an unfinished psychology major and youngest daughter of middle-class parents, and Gavin, second-in-command at his family's namesake textile company and an only child of a doting family. The recent relocation of Renard Textile and Design from New York City to Yates was our last deciding factor in leaving the big city. Renard, or RT&D as they are mostly referred, moved out of the big city in their last attempt to compensate for dwindling profits and a future that is still uncertain. Gavin was, of course, quick to follow in the relocation, not thinking twice, and I must say it didn't take much coaxing on his part for me to obligingly agree to the change. You see, just as RT&D was dwindling, so was I in our little apartment in lower Manhattan above the deli take-out restaurant.

In the recent weeks prior to our move three months ago, I was witness to some confusing events, and they all took place in this very apartment building. For instance, on certain days when I would exit the door of our humble one-bedroom space, I would have no choice but to take notice of the very curious painting hanging straight ahead in the hall. It was large enough to take up half of the vertical portion of the wall and certainly large enough for your eyes to become lost in. It pictured a young girl and boy, sitting on the edge of a large fountain in a lush courtyard. The boy held a small coin in his hand, and was positioned to look as if he would make an underhanded toss of it into the shallow water. The girl, however, held a small stick, and seemed to be moving it in a circular motion in the water, conveyed by the swirled brushstrokes of blue and white which looked rough and choppy when viewed too closely. This, in and of itself, was innocent enough, but if one viewed it for too long, you could actually see the water move and splash, as the little girl swished the broken stick around and around. And other times, the reflection of the wide-eyed, sandy-haired child would appear muted and translucent within the roughly blended, oil-painted water. However, on certain days when the reflection would appear, it was not HER reflection at all! It was an entirely different person; sometimes the stern face of an adult woman with neatly coiffed hair; other times it was the pained looking face of a much younger female child with stains of dirty tears upon her cheeks and the corners of her mouth turned downward, giving a look of hopeless despair that no child's face should ever convey. As time went on, I began to expect these images to appear in the painting and it didn't even seem unusual to me after a while. I never searched my mind for a logical explanation, and I never mentioned it to anyone because even though the idea of this ongoing event didn't faze me all that much after a while, the thought of translating the description into actual spoken words with another human being seemed completely unfathomable.

Another one of these odd situations involved an acquaintance who lived just down the hall. The young woman suffered a miscarriage six months before her baby was to be born. I may not have noticed right away, but this neighbor, whose name I never knew, confided in me the very next day she returned home from the hospital. Now this alone, while very saddening and terribly difficult to endure, is not unusual or even remotely supernatural of course. However, what made this all the more alarming was the crying! No, not from family of the poor lost child, but from the baby! It never stopped from the day my neighbor returned home. And aside from the crying, there was no sign of a baby anywhere. No one in our building had any children, and my neighbor was always alone. Needless to say, my mind wandered endlessly, but still, I couldn't imagine her pulling such a pointless scam. Yet, I could hear this baby crying from across the hall as clear as day! And mind you, the child sounded as if in terrible distress. Too afraid to approach the situation for fear of offending her, I did not ask my neighbor about the crying baby. It just seemed inappropriate to ask a woman with no children who just experienced a miscarriage why her baby would not stop crying. So this just went on and on until the day we moved from that apartment. Now, I have no logical explanation for this, and no one else ever admitted to having heard the cries. If I were to tell anyone, especially Gavin, they would think I was either lying or just plain crazy, neither of which is true, naturally, so I vowed at the time to keep this one to myself.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

As I sit on the steps of our weather-beaten porch, pondering the not-so-distant past, I realize how long ago it all really seems. After all, with Gavin’s long hours at the textile, I still spend much of my time alone. It doesn’t bother me much, or that our 19^th century two-story home is in dire need of repairs. I’ve managed to hammer down some loose floor boards, and Spackle some of the more obvious holes in my spare time, but when the wind blows on a mid-November night such as this, there aren’t enough nails or Spackle in the world to stop the drafts and creaks which ruminate through the house. I realize, however, that this doesn’t make me like it here any less, as I gaze out at the pretty little stone-lined brook just across from our front yard. Where it leads, I do not know, but it was one of the reasons I fell in love with this particular spot.

The sounds of a rumbling car muffler and tires rolling over gravel suddenly interrupt my introspective daze. A faded black car with a dented bumper " I cannot make out the model " pulls abruptly into our driveway, and I hear a loosely familiar voice; shrill and saccharine sweet with a demanding lilt.

“Wynter! What on earth are you doing outside? Haven’t you heard the weather-reports? A storm is on its way and headed straight for Yates.” It was Claudia. A sense of dread mixed with confusion overtook my mind.

“Two feet of snow; 60 mile an hour winds! You’d better batten down the hatches and fast. Where is Gavin?”

“Claudia??” I shrieked with disgust and bewilderment. “What are you doing here? Gavin is at work. No, I haven’t checked the weather reports in a while.” I never listen to the weather, actually. So the storm is headed straight for Yates. That sounds awfully specific. “How did you ever find our house?” I don’t remember Gavin giving Claudia our address when we met.

“Oh I just gave my good ol’ cousin a ring. He’s at that sewing plant, day and night, isn’t he.” Well, if that’s what she wants to call it, I think to myself. I’m not in the mood to correct semantics. Why on earth would he send her here though? Then my memory serves me, and my question is answered seconds before the words leave her mouth.

"Well I don't know if you remember, but - well you were in somewhat of a fugue when we met. Anyhow, I've literally got no where to stay. Had a bit of a falling out with my - oh never mind the details. Gavin said it would be alright if I stayed here for a while, at least just to weather the storm. Said you'd be fine with it. It's not like you don't have the room, huh?" Claudia continues in her assertively nasal tone.

I studied her carefully before responding. I noticed how Claudia's jet black hair was really just a very dark brown and fell choppily just above her shoulders. Her complexion was ruddy and lightly weathered, although it was evident she was not more than 32, possibly 33 years of age. Her shoulders hunched slightly forward when she walked which created an obvious dichotomy to her blunt, even glib, personality.

Although I had been hesitant to admit it to myself, Gavin and I have been living parallel existences for quite a while now. He has been so dedicated to dragging his family's business out of the proverbial gutter that, lately, the hours we spend apart far outnumber the ones we spend together. Even so, it is not like him to just spring a house guest upon me without even so much as a phone call.

"Ok, come on in Claudia", I muttered reluctantly in a voice just louder than a whisper, but Claudia didn't hear me. In fact, she was already inside the house, setting her overstuffed duffel bag on the couch.

"Well, this sure is cozy. I see you're going for that old-fashioned flea market decor", Claudia condescends as she collapses backward onto the couch. .....to be continued --->> Check back soon for added content.