Sending out \\ smoke signals // {Aramir}
Apr 25, 2012 2:16:38 GMT -5
Post by Kheft on Apr 25, 2012 2:16:38 GMT -5
“Mum?” Sam was careful in the approach, choosing a day when her mother seemed content and calm. The weather grew warmer with each new dawn, and the two were spending the afternoon wandering from patch to patch, picking some of the new berries that hung in glossy clusters from a thicket of cliffside bushes.
“Mmm, yes, Saamina?” The distracted reply rose from beneath a swathing of foliage.
“Mum…why did dad get so angry at Gage? He seemed to know something of Mr. Bystrom…and so did you.” The days had stretched into a week during which she’d been attending classes, but strictly forbidden to make any contact with Gage. His absence in her life was devastating. It felt like picking the stitches out of her small world and watching the seams unravel. He should be here, right now, picking berries with her. They’d laugh at the way territorial birds sat in the overhead trees and screeched at the humans who were divesting their bushes of the delicious fruit. Instead her parents had made exceptional effort to spend more time with their offspring, a state that would previously have been accepted with pleasure. Now, however, it still felt miserable without Gage’s company. Sam paused in her picking to wait for a reply.
“I suppose we both knew him from school, dear. I’m not sure why your father was angry, a headache maybe?” The elusive words neatly sidestepped what Sam was convinced of. There had to be some history behind all of this, the reactions from her parents were just too abnormal. “Mum, please…Gage is my best friend.”
A straw hat emerged first from the bushes, followed by the rest of her mother’s figure. Elsa took a seat on a bit of rock that jutted from amidst the longish grasses, taking a moment to arrange the long skirt about her legs. Sam seized the moment to do likewise; abandoning the tin pail she was using and curling up like a lizard to sun herself. For a moment, the tableau looked picturesque—mother and daughter resting beside one another.
“I met Arnav Bystrom when I was your age.” The words began softly, following a long lapse of silence. “He was a lot like his son, and we were friends just as the two of you are. Things changed when we left our school years behind. I…I thought it was time for us to be more than friends, but Arnav wasn’t interested. His rejection left me angry, and hurt, wanting to prove myself in some way. I began seeing your father, whom Arnav had never gotten along with in school. As things between us grew more serious, and eventually turned towards marriage, Arnav tried to convince me to leave your father. He was worried that Tark’s temper would turn destructive, but I was too bitter towards him to listen.”
Sam listened in slack-jawed silence. It was the most that her mother had ever revealed about life before Sam and Brooke were born.
“Your father hated Arnav for that. After we married, I lost track of my old friends. I heard when the wedding between Sandy and Arnav took place, but I didn’t attend it. In fact, it was years and years before he vanished that we last spoke…when Brooke was born.” The name crossing her lips held an instantaneous affect, and the narrative ceased. Elsa sat, staring out blankly at the sea bashing itself against the rocks below. When she finally stirred, it was to gather up her basket and head home without another word.<><><>
Mangrove Cove tonight after dark.
S.
After two weeks of silence, one morning found the note stuffed in the fencepost that served them as a mailbox. The white paper barely visible, like a tiny flag to call Gage’s attention. It only contained the one sentence, scrawled in pencil.