Authors: Amanda Carpenter
wrong?'
She was twisting around, trying to keep her face hidden from him,
and she asked him, 'Can you remember where I left my camera bag?'
She walked away from him in a way that suggested hurry. Greg stood
very still and watched her.
'No, I don't.'
'It's so dark that I can't see where I left it,' she remarked, using the
excuse to move even further away from him. The problem was that
he followed. She backed up again.
'I could bring it to you in the morning,' Greg offered quietly.
'No! That's all right,' she tried to mollify her terse answer. 'I think I
can find it, and I don't want you to go to any trouble on my account.'
Why did he make her feel so threatened?
'It's no trouble,' he was still quiet, and very still.
Sara turned and abandoned the conversation, just leaving Greg where
he stood. She went to the bushes and started to feel around with her
hands, remembering that it was somewhere near the edge and just out
of casual sight. She heard footsteps behind her and refused to look
up.
'What happened?' the quiet voice came to her. She stopped looking a
moment and then continued, her mouth dry and hands shaking. Ever
since she had started to entertain doubts about him, it had thrown all
their conversations into a different light. What if he was a reporter?
What if he was sent by Barry to keep an eye on her? It was
something that Barry would do.
'What do you mean?' she asked, stalling for time. Her groping hands
found the bulky bag, and she swung it up to her shoulder with relief.
She had to get out of there; she had to get away from this man.
'What happened just now? Something did, what I don't know, but I
can tell you just when it did. You've thought of something, and you're
shying away like a startled rabbit.' That quiet voice could be so
terrible, she found, listening to it with ears pricked with fear. 'What
did you think of, Sara? Has something started to bother you? Have
you forgotten to tell me something about yourself, like, are you a
reporter out for a story?'
'What?' she gasped, astounded. It was so close to what she had been
thinking that she sagged from the shock. Then she remembered. She
had been acting oddly, and if Greg was involved with something
illegal like she suspected then he wouldn't want reporters around any
more than she would. Of course he'd be suspicious. 'No, I'm not a
reporter. I just want to go home.'
'Then I'll walk you.' In spite of all her protests, he did accompany her
on her walk with a pleasantness she - didn't find at all relaxing. Never
had that five-minute walk from the beach to her back door seemed so
long or so uncomfortable. He asked her all sorts of searching
questions, and she fumbled through most of them like a first-grade
girl caught lying. Thrown off balance and feeling immeasurably
shaken up by his curiously menacing attitude, she couldn't think how
to answer some of his more pressing questions. She finally flared up
at him in anger, telling him to leave her alone, and whirled away to
sweep into her house and lock the door behind her with a trembling
hand.
INSIDE the door, Sara leaned up weakly against the wall, listening for
sounds from outside. She couldn't hear any, and moving to the
curtained window, she twitched it aside to peer from the darkened
kitchen into the equally dark night. There was nobody there, and that
was why she felt so shocked when she glanced casually out the front
window before retiring to bed and saw a tall dark shadow just off the
road and under the trees. He appeared to be staring at the cabin, and
she backed away from the door in a panic, in spite of knowing that he
couldn't see her.
Just knowing that Greg was watching the house made her rush
around, bolting the front and back doors in addition to locking them,
and she made sure that every window was closed and latched. Then,
sitting on her couch in an empty, cold living room, she stared into
space, shivering.
She finally went to bed late that night and as a result slept heavily
and deeply into the morning. It was eleven o'clock before she even
opened her eyes. A depression settled over her when she realised the
time. What did she have to get up for? Where did she have to go?
Whom did she get to look forward to meeting? These questions and
others plagued her throughout the small remainder of the morning.
She didn't bother to get dressed; she wasn't going to get out of the
house, and no one would be seeing her.
After feeling so good about herself for a long stretch of time, this
depression hit her hard. She listlessly made herself a cup of tea and
took it into the living room. Setting the cup down on the coffee table,
she took the time to belt her dressing gown more firmly around her
small waist before sitting down. Just as she was sinking into a curled-
up position on the couch, a firm knock sounded at the front door,
making her nearly jump out of her skin. She stared at the rectangular
frame of wood, as if expecting someone to bash down the door and
force an entry into the house. Who in the world could be wanting to
see her? Perhaps it was someone who had taken a wrong turn off the
nearby highway, and wanted to know directions. Sara considered this
possibility for a moment with her head cocked to one side, as the
knocking turned to imperative pounding, and she decided that it
couldn't be that. The road was little more than a hard-packed dirt
path, and was obscure. It was impossible to mistake the way, and
impossible not to find the way back to the highway. All one had to do
was turn around.
She slipped quietly up to the door and peered through the peephole
with curiosity—then recoiled as if stung. Greg's tall commanding
frame fully filled the small magnifying glass, his dark face looking
sombre, even stern. She didn't like that look. It frightened her. She
backed away from the door and climbed on to the couch slowly,
watching her front curtained windows as if she expected him to crash
into the room. He didn't, but the pounding continued for some
minutes, along with his deep voice calling her.
'Sara? Sara!' he shouted through the door. 'I know you're in there,
because your car is in the garage. Let me in, please! I want to talk to
you. Sara? Are you all right?'
She picked up her cup of tea and sipped it carefully, listening to his
calling. Finally, seemingly to take ages in her mind, the calling
stopped and footsteps sounded on the small wooden porch. She
sighed and began to relax, only just then realising how tensely she
had been holding herself. That was why when she heard hard
knocking at her back door, and the rattle of her door knob, she
jumped like a startled colt. Unable to help herself, she crept into the
kitchen to listen to Greg calling to her, a thread of impatience
running through his deep voice. Eventually he stopped, and she went
about the small routine of fixing herself another cup of tea. After
staring at the wall opposite the couch for quite some time and
consuming several cups of tea, she finally managed to rouse herself
enough to take a shower. Leaving her hair wet and hanging limply
down her back, with the dressing gown belted once more about her
waist, she padded into the living room, seating herself at the old
upright piano and stared at the keys with sadness.
She wanted to play but couldn't seem to find it within herself. She
wanted to be creative and work out a new, strange melody to
adequately describe just what she was feeling inside, but she couldn't
seem to pick up her heavy hands and play. She wanted to sing, to
pour out her guts and to fill the room with her voice, to release all
that was inside and aching to get out, but the music just wasn't there.
For the first time in her life, Sara couldn't play.
She sat looking down at her hands, and tears slid down her face.
What had she done to herself? Had she really damaged her own
music beyond repair? She couldn't accept that. Her music would
always be with her. It was as much a part of herself as her breathing
and thinking. She would only lose her music when she laid down her
head and died. Somewhere, deep down inside, it was still living.
One hand tentatively reached out to caress the keyboard with a
reverent, loving finger. She loved it so. She would never, ever
sacrifice her own desires to play what others wanted to hear. She
would make music only for her own fulfilment, and offer that to the
public. She would play now, only for herself. Both hands came to
rest on the keys, and she flexed her fingers, once, twice. Then a
resounding crash filled the room as she played a half-forgotten
melody that she had written years ago. It had never gone beyond the
stage of pure sound and personal satisfaction, and she was suddenly
very glad for it. It was her own song, nobody else's. She had not sold
it for money; it belonged only to her.
She faltered through the execution of the melody, stopping several
times to go back over certain parts of it again, refreshing her memory
and reviving the song. She had written it in a furious burst of anger
when she was barely twenty. Her mother had just died, and all Sara's
pain, grief, and anguish had spilled into the song. Playing it now was
like some kind of purge to her soul. It cleaned her out and filled her
up again with something new.
Afterwards, feeling hungry for the first time that day, she went to the
kitchen and ate a hearty meal. The afternoon was fast disappearing,
and she turned on a table lamp in the living room and prepared to
settle down with a good book.
She had just barely begun to read when a knocking sounded again at
her door. Should she answer? She didn't particularly want to see
anyone. Greg's voice sounded through the door, and she detected a
note of anxiety. 'Sara? I hoped to see you on the beach today. Are
you not feeling well? Can I help you in any way? Do you need a
doctor?'
As she listened, strangely touched by his concern, slow tears filled
her eyes, but she wouldn't let them overflow. She had to blink rapidly
to make her vision clear. Why should he care? Was this just a ruse to
get her to open the door?
Footsteps sounded on the front porch like they had this morning
when Greg had gone away, but she began to hear funny noises, things
being pounded against the outside wall just back from the porch. It
sounded as if he was hitting something in between the back door and
the stone fireplace, to the left of the house. Eventually overcome by
curiosity, Sara slipped into the kitchen and tried to peep out of the
curtained window, but she couldn't see anything. The footsteps were
making regular, short trips back and forth, and it sounded as if there
was something metal outside.
She slowly slid back the bolt and turned the lock in the doorknob,
still listening intently. Grasping the handle and turning it, she pulled
the door open quietly to peer outside, her half wet hair hanging
around her in a tumbled mess and her large eyes uncertain, wary. She
saw Greg approaching her way from a pick-up truck, his powerful
arms filled with neatly cut firewood. He already had a nice amount
carefully stacked against the house. He in turn saw her head and one
shoulder peek around the half-opened door, and he took in the large,
startled look in her eyes, the pale skin, and the slight circles
underneath those huge questioning orbs. She looked like a small,
puzzled child.
Setting down the firewood in a careful movement, he made no
immediate attempt to come nearer to her, for she looked as if she
might bolt and slam the door shut at any sudden action. 'Hello,' he
said calmly, as if talking to an unsettled horse. 'I remembered that
you said you needed firewood, and I had a few trees I've been
planning to get rid of for some time. Is it all right stacked here, or do
you want it someplace else?
'What?' she asked, feeling stupid. She felt stunned at this uncalled-for
gesture of goodwill, and edged a little further from behind the door.
Greg saw that she was in a quilted dressing gown that fell nearly to