Chapter Four: Graduation
The days crawled by slowly, time passing idly like wax down a candle. Lucas, as the flame, grew impatient and burned out quickly as the hours grew into days, grew into weeks, and grew into a fortnight. He attempted to busy himself with his journal and lessons each day, taking them in stride to get out as quickly as possible. Mr. Fletcher had even given him a ribbon for his new attitude, earning him a new pen from Maynard.
“This one has ivory in the handle and writes so smooth you would think it was butter. However, I would recommend you save it for a while before writing with it.”
“Save it for what?” Lucas had asked him as he pocketed the heavy pen. “And why would I write with butter?”
Maynard smiled, something rarely seen, and clapped Lucas on the shoulder.
“You’ll see what I mean when you have nothing to write with.”
Then he had stalked off to fetch lunch for their next meeting. Lucas hurried to his room and changed from his shirt into a sweater and brushed his hair down with his fingers. The pen fell from his pocket and landed on his journal with a thump. He wiped the sleep from his eyes and splashed his face with water, dabbing it up as he was also ridiculed for not doing.
“Lucas, are you ready?” Maynard asked him from the doorway, laden with bowls of soup and buttered bread. A twitch of a smile met his lips and clean shaven cheeks.
Lucas had been invited once again to lunch with his father on very special terms. He was to meet him in the backyard. Lucas couldn’t remember the last time he had ever been let out, even to the backyard, and was riveted with anticipation. He made sure to keep his appearance clean as he strode past Maynard at the door, and through the living room and down the southern hall he had never entered. Pictures hung from each window he passed in the long corridor, completely lit by sunlight.
How have I never been back here? This is so different from the rest of the house, so much better! If things go well, I’ll have to ask to come out again.
He approached the back door, made of stained glass painted with a griffin on its hind legs. The bright crimson around it shone through the sunlight and washed the room in a sleepy red that made the end of the hall appear to shrink as you neared it. Lucas opened the door and held in a gasp.
Great trees taller than the house stretched into the sky before him on either side of the stone trail, the red-orange and yellow leaves rustling in the wind. He stepped through the doorway and the door slammed behind him. The canopy above made a sea of waving green and cast an emerald glow to the ground level as it reflected the sunlight.
“If the outside is all this good I may never go back inside.”
Lucas walked for several minutes, pleasantly surprised at the immense size of their property and absorbed all his surroundings. The new feeling of adventure and freedom radiated from him and shone in his eyes with a glitter. He could feel the weight of his previous lifetime, of work and toil seep away and replace the loneliness with a new vigor for company. His limbs were instantly rejuvenated from the long walk and felt lighter with each step.
A thin smile began to etch its way across his face.
He froze mid-stride as the forest walls split and gave way to a beachfront. Soft, white sand shifted beneath his feet in the cool breeze of the October day and kissed at his cheeks. He left the wilderness and tried to grasp the words to explain what he was seeing.
A sandbank sat resolute before him, cradling a large lake with the clearest waters. The land was smooth and windswept with large rocks laid in a Zen pattern, strokes in the sand drawn around them. Smaller palm trees littered the area in deep shade and the occasional coconut sat half buried beneath them. A small pure glass table sat beneath the largest wall of refreshing shadow. A tall, thin man hidden behind his newspaper sat there with a cup of coffee simmering to his left.
Lucas’ heart hammered against his ribcage and he was sure his father would hear it. He swallowed his fear and gulped in the fresh air. It felt magnificent compared to the musty air he was sure he had been recycling since he was born.
He sat across from his father silently and stared in shock as Maynard appeared right behind him with a tray of food.
“How did you--?”
“I was right behind you, you must have missed me.” Maynard replied instantly and set the table.
Lucas watched his father’s newspaper sit completely still as he read it. Lucas read the headline:
Disappearances Confound All Yet Again
Abductions all across the country have continued to rise in number as another body has been found. Miss Gloria Croft (47) of Birmingham, England was found in her home dead after being gone over three months. No sign of forced entry had been found nor has a suspect been identified. Officers are inspecting the house and corpse for any new evidence of what transpired those months ago.
Maynard cleared his throat and thumped Lucas’ on the back of the head.
“You may eat now.” He murmured and backed away as usual.
Lucas surveyed the plate and took a little bit of everything, surprised at his now ravenous hunger. He ate quickly as to have time to talk to his father and washed it all down with a tall glass of milk.
He brushed the crumbs from his mouth and cleared his throat.
“Actually, I wanted to talk to you.” His father spoke quietly and just as Lucas had opened his mouth.
“O..okay.” He stammered and gave his father his rapt attention.
“You spoke to Hollow a few weeks ago did you not?”
“Yes.”
“And what did he ask you?”
Lucas tried to recall all the strange questions the old man had listed off to him.
“Not all of them, just in general.” His father added after a moment of silence had stretched to a full minute.
“Oh, well, just a bunch of odd questions about things I could do.”
“And can you?”
Lucas seemed to lose all the air in his lungs. A cold depression had formed in his chest and weighed down his soul. He had not found anything he could do despite Hollow’s cheery outcome. He began to wonder if his father knew of what Hollow had meant by them.
“No.” He said at last, and flinched as though he thought his father would strike him. He clenched his eyes shut and peered slowly over as he sensed his father’s relief spread, relaxing his posture behind his newspaper, Lucas sighed. “Although, Hollow seemed to think I made a candle catch flame.”
Instantly the mood of the table changed. His father stirred no longer and had become a statue once again. The newspaper had ripped in two in his father’s hands and blew away in the breeze. Lucas couldn’t bear to look up at him though and stared down at his lap through the glass table. Then came what he had dreaded:
His father stood and disappeared into the wooded trail. Lucas sat alone at the table and turned to ask Maynard a question but found him to have gone as well. The all too familiar sense of longing began to gnaw at his insides. The cold depression clenched his heart and squeezed it with all its might, but no tears would fall. Lucas had decided long ago he had none left to shed after a childhood of neglect and prison walls.
He stood slowly and pushed his chair in, mouth tightly shut, and swept away from the table and into the trees. He rounded a corner and heard a rumbling groan like roots torn up. He turned and saw the sunlight around the corner he had just taken to be gone. He eyed it a second then continued, the nagging feeling that something was wrong began to grow in the back of his mind. Ignoring this, he continued on at a faster pace despite not wanting to leave the warm sunshine. The groaning began to follow him, a steady roar now, rushing from behind like a wall of water about to crash down on him and drown the house.
He turned and saw no path behind him, but the walls on either side of him closing together with more trees. He turned and ran, panting from the forest, sprinting as fast as he could. His shoes beat on the earth with every quaking step as the forest tried to swallow him, its great maw opening behind him with more roars as the trees uprooted themselves to close the path.
Lucas didn’t remember it taking this long to get back and began to panic. His legs began to ache and his head felt light. He was sure he would pass out and be engulfed by the trees. But he continued, automatically it seemed, something within him keeping the ravenous wild at bay and holding back his body’s ailments. He didn’t know what but he knew to trust it.
He began to follow the feeling, something lighter than air and more powerful than fear. A warm glow in his chest as his heart swelled with the tingling sensation. This fire began to consume him and propelled him forward faster and faster until all he could hear was his own ragged breathing and the ecstatic thumping of his heart.
He stopped and waited, listening intently over his own noise for any sign of the trees’ next move.
How are they doing this? Trees don’t move. They just don’t, it’s impossible! Trees-don’t-move.
Or do they?
He had never asked this question before. It went against all logic, something that couldn’t, can’t and shouldn’t be; yet here it was before him, as plain as the nose on his face. How could he continue to deny it when it was chasing him? Was it fear or something else? Something he had known all along and would never admit?
BOOM!
An explosion of movement shook the earth beneath him as he leaped out of the way of a fallen tree, scratching his knees and palms and ripping the hems of his pants. He kicked at the ground as he struggled to his feet and reached inward for the feeling to give him the courage to run.
But it did not come.
Nothing, no matter how hard he tried, would it return. It had abandoned him and deemed him unworthy to guide. He kept running but it was so close now.
His heart began to beat faster.
Bump-bump, bump-bump.
He could hear the sounds of the trees giving chase as clearly as his own thoughts.
Bump-bump, bump-bump, bump-bump.
He could feel the tips of the branches against his back as they reached out for him. They were so close, too close, he couldn’t get past them.
Bump-bump-bump-bump-bump-bump-bump!
He could see the door to the house, the red window casting a crimson glow against the emerald of the leaves, he was so close, just a little further!
I’m almost there! I’m almost home! My..my..
The trees grabbed onto his shirt with their gnarled branches and lifted him off his feet, wrapping him up in their vines. He kicked and screamed, struggling against them as they enveloped him in darkness. His heart was a flutter now, pounding against his chest like it was about to leap from him and run for cover. He wanted to go with it, to be away from these things that wanted him, but there was no way to escape, he was trapped.
He curled his arms around himself to protect his face and struck at the insides of the leaves that surrounded him like a cocoon. He was within their many hands and fingers, held like a baby in their arms, so weak and fragile, something to be cared for and held tightly but not too tightly. They gave him room, enough to pull up his arms, he held them flat against the leaves and felt the feeling from before give his heart strength, the spirit to escape.
He screamed the first word that sprang to his head and collapsed as the leaves around him exploded and writhed in agony, instantly giving him a wide girth on the trail. He stood as fast as he could, covered in great trembles and shuddering breaths. He felt ice cold and numb, a dream-like state that spread from his head and down his neck then spine until it had stretched around his body like a second skin.
He could feel it.
His eyes opened as if he had never seen before. Colors so bright and vibrant, there were several he was sure he had never seen before. Great myriads of crisp, pure pigment filling his vision and embellishing this great new world he had yet to experience. A new life to live laid out before him. He accepted it and stood slowly, watching the trees around him back away as he neared them, several covered in small singes and blackened leaves.
He approached the door and grasped the handle in a firm grip and wrenched it open.
My..sanctuary.
The first time he had ever really appreciated the house for what it was had him taking it all in like a visitor about to buy it. He inspected every inch of it as he walked down the portrait-laden hall and into the grand plaza. He stared in awe at the new definition within the room, at the paintings of his ancestors and places he had never been. Their definition was astounding.
The smell of smoldering cherrywood logs and leather filled his lungs as he gulped down the cool air. It felt good after all that running. The stinging on his hands and knees subsided and was all but gone by the time he reached his room. He changed his clothes and washed away the sweat from his brow. Even then, he was not as refreshed as his first time truly seeing. He was sure there were several pictures and small ornaments he had never noticed before. His small, heavily lived-in room felt spacious and cozy, like a warm, feather bed with too many blankets.
He smiled inwardly and stepped over to record these feelings in his journal. He stopped over to where he knew it had fallen and picked up his pen and instead of his small leather bound book, a single small strip of parchment, bearing the words:
We need to talk.
His mood remained undiminished, despite the steadily growing fear he was in trouble, and guided him up to the second floor to where Maynard would be quickly. Even as he made sure to investigate every object he passed with renewed vigor he made it to Maynard’s quarters in short time. He knocked lightly.
The door opened slowly and revealed a small office. It was unnaturally tidy and spaced out. A small bed, with corners so sharp and lines so smooth it looked like a coffin and a desk in the opposite corner with neatly stacked books with their titles facing out in gold embroidering. A large vanity mirror sat upon the desk and reflected the nearest wall, revealing a small closet and chest beside it. The walls were plain white and had not a single color upon them.
“How may I serve you?” He said obviously annoyed by Lucas’ wandering eyes. “Or are you here to snoop about my private quarters?” He sneered.
Lucas wondered why he was so spiteful but was not offended.
“You said we needed to talk.”
“I did no such thing. What are you talking about?”
Lucas was confused now and beginning to grow in suspicion.
“I found this note where my journal used to be, saying: ‘We need to talk’.”
“Well, it was not I who left it.”
“Who else could it have been?” Lucas countered.
“Perhaps your father?”
Lucas left Maynard standing in the doorway who called after him angrily. But Lucas was somewhere else now. His mind was traveling through the house to trace another’s steps.
Why would he be in my room? Was he looking for me? Maybe that’s why he left a note. But then again, I was already with him; if he wanted to talk he would have said more and not left.
He argued with himself all the way up the stairs and to the crimson doors guarded by gargoyles. Even in his blissful state, the ancient red doors filled him with dread. The room beyond was his father’s study for his eyes only. Lucas’ presence had never been felt within that room.
He reached out and grasped the heavy lion shaped knocker and released it a few inches from the door. In its’ own weight, it swung against the door with a knock like a gunshot and reverberated down the halls. Lucas recoiled from it and covered his ringing ears. A low creak was barely audible through his cupped hands. He looked up as the door opened and into his father’s smiling face.
“Congratulations, son, you’ve made it.”
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