The Chosen: Chapter 8 - The Cave

Darwin looked up at Rose with a pitiful look on his furry face. He was begging for some of her breakfast as she sat on her bar stool at the kitchen counter eating a bagel.

Rose realized that she had created a monster. It was her fault that Darwin persistently begged for food. She had caved in response to his pathetic looks one too many times and now he expected a handout every time she ate.

He sat and watched her intently as she tore off a piece of her bagel and held it above him. His tail wagged wildly as he stared up at the piece of bagel, but he didn't move to grab it from her. He had better manners than that. He always waited for her to tell him he could have it first.

"Here you go boy." Rose said, lowering the piece of bagel in front of Darwin. He took it gingerly from her hand and it was gone in one swallow. Then he continued to stare up at her piteously.

"That's all you get buddy," she said, "Sorry. Doc said we need to keep an eye on your weight."

Almost as if he had understood her, Darwin went over to his bed and laid down with an exhaled huff. Rose let out a small laugh and smiled. Darwin was so human-like that she sometimes almost forgot that he was a dog. He was the most intelligent and affectionate dog she had ever had the privilege of knowing, and she loved him dearly. She often found herself wishing that a dog's lifespan was longer than it was. It would be a sad day indeed when she would have to say her last goodbye to Darwin. It was not a day that she looked forward to.

As Rose ate her breakfast, her thoughts returned to the strange occurrences that had taken place the evening before. She had been deeply frightened by the events and hadn't slept well. When the sun had finally risen, she had retrieved her bracelet from the porch railing. In the early morning light, the bracelet's presence on the railing hadn't seemed as ominous or sinister as it had in the darkness the night before.  

But the presence of the strange form Rose had glimpsed in the shadow of the barn had left her very unsettled.  No attempt that she had made to identify the form had been successful, but she knew that it had to have been an animal of some kind.  Her logical mind was telling her that it had been a wild animal, but there was another part of her mind that was not quite so rational.  Her imagination had gone rogue and was running rampant.  It was cooking up a lot of different possibilities, none of which she liked much.  

Then Rose had a thought that caused her to pause mid-bite.  What if it had been a cougar?   

 

Cougars, or mountain lions as Rose's neighbor called them, were known to live in the area, although they weren’t sighted very frequently.  She hadn't considered the possibility in the darkness the night before, when fear had muddled her thoughts, but now in the comfort of daylight, it seemed very possible, if not likely.  Unfortunately, this new possibility was not much better than any of the ones her imagination had concocted.  This possibility had a whole new set of concerns for Rose.  Having a cougar lurking around her property, with all of the animals she had, could spell disaster for her.  She decided that she had better call the Fish and Game department later in the day and notify them that a cougar was coming dangerously close to a residence.  Perhaps they would relocate it before it became a problem.                   

Having solved one mystery, all Rose could think about now was the remaining one. How had her bracelet managed to end up on her porch railing? And the only logical explanation she kept returning to was that someone had placed it there. The idea that someone had been on her property without her knowledge was extremely disconcerting. Even more disturbing was the odd behavior her animals had displayed, particularly Darwin. They had obviously sensed that someone had been out there in the night. And apparently they had not liked whoever it had been.

But something didn't make sense to Rose.

Who could have known that the bracelet was hers? Why would they have returned it by just leaving it on her porch, instead of knocking on her door?

The more Rose thought about it, the more baffled she became. Then as she sipped her tea, a thought occurred to her. It was something that she had not yet considered.

Perhaps it had been her neighbor, George Yazhi?

George lived about a mile and a half down the road from Rose, and he was her only neighbor. They knew each other fairly well. He was an older Navajo Indian who lived alone and kept mostly to himself, which lead to rumors in town that he was a medicine man. Rose didn't believe that this was the case though. She felt that he was just a quiet older man, who liked his privacy.

Maybe George had found her bracelet on the roadside and had recognized that it was hers? And maybe he hadn't knocked on her door to return it, because he had thought she was sleeping and he didn't want to wake her? Or, perhaps because George wasn't a very sociable person, he had just left it on the porch for her to find?

The more she entertained the idea, the more sense it made. That had to be it. She would have to ask George about it the next time she saw him.

Feeling satisfied with her explanations for last night's events, Rose finished what was left of her bagel, took a final sip of tea and got up from her stool.

Time to get to work.

"Come on Darwin, let's go." She said in a cheerful voice, as she headed into the next room, Darwin at her heals.

Rose had several unfinished commission pieces in her studio that needed to be completed by the end of the week. One was a large sculpture, a couple others were pieces of jewelry, and one was a painting that she hadn't started yet. Painting was somewhat of a departure for her from her normal mediums, but she had a loyal customer who had insisted she paint a desert landscape for their living room. She hadn't painted in years and she wasn't sure how it was going to go, so she decided to work on the painting first to get it out of the way.

Once in the studio, Darwin assumed his favorite spot on a rug underneath one of the east facing windows, in a patch of morning sunlight. The studio was bright and airy, with several windows on three sides of the room, and a vaulted ceiling. The room was what had sold Rose on the house. She had known she wanted a space where she could work on her art, and the room made a perfect studio. 

After Rose finished digging her paints and brushes out of her supply cabinet, she began getting herself organized. A large blank canvas sat on an easel waiting for her. She dragged her stool away from her work bench and situated it directly in front of the easel. Once she had finished gathering everything else that she needed, she plopped herself down on the stool and began painting.

She started with broad strokes of different shades of blue for the sky, and then beige in the foreground which would become desert sand. Soon she was lost in her work, and everything else faded to the background. All of the techniques she had learned in art school were coming back to her, and it was going far more easily than she had anticipated. She quickly found herself in a zone, as if she were painting by autopilot, not even aware of what she was doing.

Some time later, a pull on her pant leg drew Rose's attention away from the canvas, and she looked down blankly at Darwin. He had the cuff of her pant leg in his mouth and was tugging frantically on it, whining anxiously. When Darwin saw that he had her attention, he stopped tugging on her pants, but his whining became more urgent. Rose's eyes narrowed as she studied him curiously, a bit confused. He had never behaved like this before.

"What's wrong boy?", she asked him, and he whined louder in response.

She had an eerie feeling that Darwin was trying to tell her something, and that whatever it was, it wasn't good.

Rose felt groggy and slightly disoriented, and she wasn't sure exactly why. Looking down at her hand with an absent expression, she realized that she must have stopped painting for a bit. Her hand holding the paintbrush hung down at her side, and the brush was dripping paint on the floor. There was a small puddle of green on the hardwood below.

If she hadn't been painting, then what had she been doing?

She realized with alarm that she couldn't remember. Her thoughts were foggy, as if she had just woken from a deep sleep.

Had she just been starting at the canvas in front of her? And for how long?

Suddenly Rose realized that something about the room seemed off, or wrong. Crimson sunlight was streaming in the west facing windows at a nearly horizontal angle, and shafts of light stretched to the other side of the room. Staring at the sunlight, she immediately understood what was wrong.

 

It was evening now, and the sun was setting. She had been sitting on her stool, in front of the canvas, for an entire day with no concept of the passing time, and no recollection of what she had been doing.

Had she really been sitting there all day? And why couldn't she remember what she had been doing just moments before?

A rising sense of panic filled her.

Rose glanced up at the canvas perched on the easel in front of her, and she was so shocked by what she saw that she nearly fell off of her stool. Her panic quickly turned to dread, and she could almost feel the color leaving her face.

The painting was done.

She wasn't surprised by the fact that she had managed to finish a painting in a single day. She had done it before. What had her badly shaken was what she had painted, or rather what she hadn't painted.

She had been tasked with painting a desert landscape, complete with mesas and cactuses. But the painting in front of her was not of a desert. In fact, it was a painting of a landscape that was as far removed from a desert as one could imagine.

And what troubled her the most, was that she had no memory of painting It.

As Rose studied the painting, Darwin sat at her feet, staring up at her. He had stopped whining, but his demeanor was still anxious. He knew something was wrong, and he wasn't going to leave her side.

Rose's sense of dread mounted as she took in the details of the painting. It was so different from any of her other artwork, that it was hard to believe she had been the one who had painted it.

She had painted it, hadn't she? She must have. Who else could have?

On the canvas, a series of lush blue-green mountains rose majestically above a gently sloping valley. The range of rugged ridges and rounded, weathered peaks of exposed stone appeared to be wrapped in a soft blue haze. Mist rose from the valley and hung in the air just below the regal mountain tops. It was absolutely stunning, and so detailed that at a distance it could have passed as a photograph.

How had she created such detail in just one day? More importantly, why had she painted mountains? And why couldn't she remember painting them?

The painting seemed to call out to Rose, and she felt strangely drawn to it. She found herself staring at it, unable to avert her eyes, as if there was some unseen force pulling her in towards the canvas; pulling her towards the mountains.

Darwin's whining finally drew Rose's attention away from the painting. He whimpered restlessly at her feet, looking up at her with an uneasy expression; the same expression he always wore during their trips to see the Veterinarian. She looked down at him affectionately and smiled slightly. He could always sense when something was bothering her, and he never left her side during these times.

"I'm OK boy, don't worry." She said to Darwin in an encouraging voice, while inside she didn't feel encouraged at all.

Am I really Ok?, she thought. Why can't I remember?

Darwin stood and his tail wagged so vigorously that his entire hind quarters were wriggling. His body language seemed to indicate that he was happy and excited, but his eyes and expression told a different story. His ears were pinned against his head, and the look in his eyes was anxious. Rose tilted her head as she watched him. Something wasn't right. Something clearly had him agitated.

"What is it boy?, she asked, "What's wrong?"

If only he could answer her.

Darwin sat back down and stared up at her expectantly. The look on his face seemed to say, 'It's so obvious! Why can't you figure it out?' Then it hit Rose. The sun was setting, which meant that it was close to eight o'clock and they hadn't had dinner yet, and it was time for their evening walk. That was probably what had Darwin all riled up.

"Oh, I know what's bothering you!" She said in a soothing voice, leaning down towards Darwin to scratch him behind an ear, "You haven't had your supper yet, have you boy?"

Rose expected Darwin to jump up and down and start running in circles after hearing the word "supper". That was what he always did. But this time he didn't. He just sat there staring up at her with the same apprehensive expression. Something definitely wasn't right.

Maybe once she put some food in his dish he would perk up a bit.

The thought of food caused a sudden ache in Rose's belly, and she realized that she had been sitting on the stool in her studio all day, and hadn't had lunch.

Or had she eaten lunch and just didn't remember? She didn't remember painting an entire picture, so was it possible there were other things she couldn't remember?

Rose pushed the thoughts away, and decided that she needed to get some dinner into Darwin and herself. A full belly might make them both feel better. She stood, and immediately hunched over in discomfort, her joints stiff from inactivity. She certainly felt like she had been sitting all day. As she stretched, and straightened herself out, Darwin waited patiently by her side; almost protectively.

They headed into the Kitchen and Rose scooped some dog food out of a bin in the Pantry and filled Darwin's bowl. Darwin sat patiently near his food as she took his water dish to the sink and filled it with fresh water. He had impeccable manners. He always waited to eat until after she had finished filling both dishes. She put his water dish back down on the floor, and turned to walk to the refrigerator.

Standing in front of the open refrigerator, Rose examined its meager contents, trying to figure out what she could make for dinner. It was slim pickings. She settled on breakfast for dinner and grabbed the carton of eggs and some butter from a shelf, and closed the refrigerator door.

As she was getting a frying pan from a cabinet, Rose noticed that Darwin was still sitting by his dishes, his food untouched. It was extremely odd for him to not immediately devour his food in just a few bites. He usually ate so fast that she doubted he even chewed his food before swallowing it. Concern began to build inside her. Darwin had never refused to eat before.

 

Perhaps he just wasn't feeling well and had an upset stomach.? Dogs were likely to get sick on occasion just like people, right? If he was sick that would also explain his odd behavior yesterday.

"Aren't you going to eat your supper boy?" She asked.

Darwin just stared back at her, his demeanor tense.

After eating some scrambled eggs and toast for dinner, Rose rinsed her dishes and put them in the dishwasher. Then she headed into her studio to clean up and put her paint and brushes away. Darwin abandoned his uneaten dinner and followed closely behind her.

As Rose was gathering up her painting supplies and putting them away in her cabinet, she felt a strange compulsion to look at her recent painting. It felt almost as if the canvas itself was a large magnet pulling her with an invisible force towards the easel it sat upon. She stopped cleaning and crossed the room to stand directly in front of the painting.

The mountains in the picture seemed to call out to Rose. She studied the rocky peaks and the valley below, taking in the amazing detail she had somehow created in just one day. It was possibly her best work. As her eyes scanned the surface of the canvas, she discovered even more detail that she had previously missed. Then her eyes stopped suddenly and settled on one detail in particular. A feeling of overwhelming recognition came over her, although she wasn't sure why.

Rose leaned in closely to examine the detail further, her nose just inches from the canvas. It was a small dark spot on the side of a mountain which she at first had mistaken for a shadow. But after closer inspection, she realized it was actually the opening to a large cave or cavern. It was surrounded by bare rock which formed a peaked archway over an open black mouth of a cave. The longer she stared at the cave's entrance, the stronger her mounting sense of familiarity became. It was a quiet whisper, easy to dismiss at first, which gradually grew into a battle cry, impossible to ignore.

Somehow Rose suddenly understood that it was a real place; that the location she had painted actually existed somewhere.

I know this place. That is why it looks familiar.

I've been there before.

Only, Rose knew that she couldn't have. She had never been to a cave in her life. The rational part of her knew she couldn't have been to the location in the painting. Despite this, something deep within her told her that she had. An instinctual part of her knew she had visited the very same cave before and that it existed somewhere in the physical world. But for some reason she had no memory of it.

I must go there again.

Rose wasn't sure why she felt that she needed to find the cave and go there. But she did. Every part of her was screaming it loudly in unison.

Reviews

[matrixmark]

Firstly - I am gutted that I am on the last chapter. *sob*

Ain't that the truth Rose - Giving in to the puppy dog eyes - what do you expect...lol.
I really can't get over how well you do these little details - Darwin laid down with an exhaled huff - Perfect image.
With regards to this sentence - As Rose ate her breakfast, her thoughts returned to the strange events that had occurred the evening before. She had been deeply frightened by the events and hadn't slept well. - The word 'events' appears twice and very close to each other. A simple fix should put it right.
I really like her thought process of trying to untangle the mystery of the bracelet and how it led to George - It left me wondering whether this person is going to come into it and play a bigger part.
Great descriptions of the studio and the image Darwin tugging at her the bottom of her pants was another good touch.
And then we come to her painting the mountains and her not recalling a single thing about it, then it starts to call out to her......hmmm interesting. I really am so excited to see all these characters having weirds things going on and I am still tryng to work out how its going to progress. Do they have something in common? will they all meet and....? who was resposnible for the bracelet? What can Darwin see what Rose cant Will harold find the burglar in the flower Bed?....lol, sorry couldn't resist.
Back to the Canvas - the cave which she stared at, which she originally thought was a dark spot and then it was if it was calling her - Another little detail which I AM SURE is going to play a MUCH BIGGER ART soon. - REALLY GREAT USE OF THE IMAGINATION by putting that detail in - CLAP CLAP CLAP.

Excellent Editing by the way.I appreciate the time it must have taken to do this.
MORE PLEASE.

Mark.

[D.M. Knight]

Don't worry... Chapter nine is nearly done and should be posted on here soon! ;)

Thank you so much for the great review!!! I really appreciate that your pointed out the repetitive word "events"... I didn't notice it in my editing. It is so helpful to have another set of eyes looking at my work... It is greatly appreciated!!

George may very well appear later in the story :)

But Harold will not find a burglar in the flower bed!! lol :)

The Mountain and Cave are at the heart of the story... you called that one!

Thanks again much appreciated!!

[matrixmark]

Brilliant work. I loved every chapter. My mornings wont be the same without them. I really mean that.

Mark.

[matrixmark]

I had a feeling that George may appear. Gutted that Harold wont find the burglar in the flower bed...lol
The mountain and the caves - these I look foward too and Chapter 9 - HURRY! - kidding, take your time.I don't want to rush good word.

Mark.