Leap - chapter five

                                          5

          In the morning, Grace went for a walk around the property, enjoying the beautiful fall day and hoping to spot the girl she had seen last night.  She could not get the scene out of her head; the eerie dash across the yard, the look of joy on the girl’s face as a storm raged around her.  It gave her the creeps, but at the same time, it made her want to know what that girl was doing out there last night.  She even thought about stopping by the office to inquire if any of the guests matched the description of her mysterious visitor, but she didn’t really want to explain the inquiry.  She had lunch in the dining room and by afternoon she had given up without seeing anyone who resembled the girl.  The mystery would stay a mystery. 
         
          She found herself on the porch-swing as the sun began to set that evening, turning the sky a brilliant, fiery orange, tinted purple at the edges.  A gentle breeze stirred the trees and set the swing in motion.  It was so quiet and peaceful here, as if this place were set apart from the real world, the world where everything marched relentlessly forward and people were ripped from your life in an instant. 
         
        There were so many decisions left to face, and she knew that she was running from them, but when she thought about what she should do now, she found herself overwhelmed.  When she tried to break it down, problem by problem, there were so many points that it felt hopeless.  She wished she could hide here, outside of time, forever.  But she only had three days to get it together.
The first decision of course, was school.  The current semester was almost over and she had already missed two weeks of classes and assignments.  Could she finish the term with a passing grade?  Did she even want to go back to school at all?  She certainly didn’t have to.
         
            Her parents had been investment savvy and financially diligent.  They had amassed an enormous portfolio that included investment-based, structured trust funds for both of their daughters.  They had included certain restrictions to accessing the funds until age thirty-five, but the sudden death of both parents removed all restrictions.  Grace could draw as much of the interest as she wanted.  Coupled with the insurance policies and the revenue from Rockwell Consulting, she was now a very wealthy young woman.  If handled correctly, she would never have to work a day of her life.  It seemed to Grace, in her present state of mind, that college would be too much of an unnecessary effort, and she just did not feel up to it at the moment. 
         
              Another issue was the house in Kingwood.  The prevalent suggestion among her closest friends was that she sell it, which she had been considering, but only in the vaguest sense.  She certainly did not need a house that big now that she was alone, but it was home.  She had grown up in that house.  It was where she’d learned to ride a bike, where she’d been picked up for both junior and senior prom, where she’d had her 10th birthday party, and her 13th, and her 18th.  She didn’t think she could let it go, she had already lost so much.  And she was sure the thought of someone else living there would be too much to deal with, almost like a violation.
         
              There was also Rockwell Consulting to consider.  Her mother had put 27 years of constant effort into building that business, and she had done an impressive job of it.  The company now employed fifty-eight people full-time, and boasted a client list of over two hundred, including many local celebrities; sports figures, broadcast personalities, and a best-selling author.  What was Grace supposed to do with that chunk of her mother’s life?  Mom, in her wisdom, had provided for the company in the event of her death and given Grace a way out.  Either she could take over as acting President, promote Evelyn Richards from Vice-President to President and take an inactive CEO position, or she could sell the business, with the requirement that she offered the present employees a buy-out option.  But it still required a decision on her part and any thought of walking away from it felt like abandoning her mother.  On the other hand, she wasn’t up to the task of carrying on in her mother’s shoes and she knew it.  Wouldn’t it be better to leave it in capable hands than to bury it through her inexperienced attempts at management.   
         
            The daylight seeped from the sky pulling the warmth of the day with it. A gentle wind played through the treetops, rustling the yellowed leaves and sending them fluttering to earth. Grace pulled her jacket closed against the chill.  Considering a future without her parents, she was overcome with a longing for her mother that was so intense it was as if she’d been hit in the stomach.  She doubled over with her arms wrapped around her middle.  “What am I supposed to do without you?  I’m not ready to be alone,” she cried.  She held herself tighter, giving in completely to the tears she had fought thus far, too tired to fight any longer.  Her body wracked by sobs, she longed for the comfort of her mother’s arms.
         
          She sat that way, doubled over and holding herself in a poor imitation of the embrace she craved, until her tears were exhausted, then she slumped back in the swing.  She stared at nothing, her mind blank of thought or emotion.  She was numb.  The evening breeze that rustled through the autumn leaves seemed to whisper her name – Grace.  Maybe the wind knew how alone she was and felt sorry for her.
         
          Grace.  She heard it again and knew it was not the wind.  Someone was calling her name.  The numbness quickly lifted and her mind snapped into focus.  Her gaze drifted in the direction of the sound, toward the bottom of the hill.  In the fading light of evening, near the cluster of trees, was the girl from last night.  She was blonde, about sixteen, and she was wearing blue jeans and a white tee shirt.  She stood at the bottom of the hill, one pale hand resting on the trunk of the closest tree.  She smiled.
         
          Grace rose slowly to her feet not wanting to make any sudden movements that might scare the girl away, and not taking her eyes off of her in case she made another lightening dash across the yard.  She crept to the porch rail and grabbed one of the posts for support.  The girl waved.  Grace timidly waved back.  She did not know what to do next.  She wanted to talk to the girl but the memory of last night was too fresh and the girl made her nervous.  The way she just stood there looking at Grace was disturbing, and the way she had moved last night was not right.
         
          Still smiling sweetly, the girl waved again and motioned for Grace to . . .what come down there?  She motioned again and this time there was no doubt, she wanted Grace to come to her.  Here was her chance to find out what was up with this girl, if she could just stop the trembling in her legs.  She carefully made her way to the gate in the right side of the fence, never taking her eyes from the stranger.  She pushed through and closed the gate behind her.  The girl motioned again and Grace moved a little quicker forgetting her nerves.  When she was within twenty feet of her, close enough to notice that her eyes were the color of Caribbean waters, the girl turned around, motioning for Grace to follow, and then she walked away.
         
          “Wait,” Grace shouted and started after her.  “Hey, wait,” she called again, knowing the girl would not stop; she seemed determined for Grace to follow her.
         
            Dry grass crunched loudly underfoot as they moved through the quiet little valley, the girl in the lead and Grace trying to catch up.  A strong wind came from behind and seemed to push her forward, encouraging her to hurry.  When she reached the top of the hill, the blonde girl turned to face her. She smiled, turned back towards the woods and headed for the tree line.  Grace followed leaving the fading light behind as she stepped into the forest. The moon was hidden by a passing cloud and here everything was shadow.  She lost sight of the girl in the deepening gloom and thought for the first time about turning around and going back. 
         
            “Grace,” the stranger called out in a singsong voice and it occurred to her that this girl knew her name.  Her eyes began to adjust and she stepped further into the woods, quickening her pace.  She followed the sound of the girl crunching through the carpet of leaves on the forest floor.  The moon emerged overhead and washed the woods in an eerie sea of silver light and shadow.  The girl came to a gravel road and followed it deeper into the forest, then she veered left up a one-lane dirt drive and they began to climb a slight hill.  The girl was walking faster now almost running, and Grace wondered where she was being lead. She lost sight of the girl again and stopped.  She recognized this as insane behavior and turned around to go back to the house before she got lost.
         
          “Graaaace, are you coming?”
         
          “This is crazy”, she mumbled to herself as curiosity beat out common sense for control of her legs; she had to know what was going on here.  She jogged after the girl, around a bend in the path that had taken her from view, and stopped dead in her tracks. 
         
          Thirty feet in front of her the girl stood in the gravel road.  The woods around her glowed with a brilliant light, as if she were standing in a spotlight and Grace searched the sky, and then the trees around her but could not find the source.  On closer inspection it seemed as if the girl herself could be the source, the light flowing from the pores of her skin.  She had tucked her blonde hair behind her ears giving Grace a clear view of her profile.  She was remarkably pretty.  Dark lashes framed her clear blue eyes, and she wore an expression of overwhelming joy. 
       
          The girl looked at her and held her gaze for several moments and in those moments, she could not recall why she was here.  Her only thought was to marvel at what she felt; peace and contentment.  The aching, throbbing emptiness had vanished, as if even in the darkness of her bruised heart, it could not hide from this light.  In those moments, the world was perfect and always would be.  The girl raised her arms to her, as if she wanted to hug her and Grace took a step forward.
         
          “Tell him for me,” the girl said.  “Tell him that it’s wonderful.”

          Grace nodded.  Yes, yes it was wonderful.
         
          The light pulsed from the girl, growing in mass and intensity.  Grace instinctively threw an arm over her eyes, but instead of the blinding flashed she’d expected, the forest grew dark.  Stunned, she stood blinded, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the sudden change.
         
            When the world went dark abruptly, a chorus of crickets and frogs sang out their farewell to the intruding brightness and where now reaching a crescendo as she took in her surroundings.  She put her hands on her hips and turned in a slow circle surveying the shadowed woods.  She appeared to be standing in someone’s yard; there was a Ford pickup parked next to a small dark house.  There was a light in the front window and remembering the girl’s eerie agility last night, Grace wondered if she had made it into the house before her eyes had adjusted to the sudden darkness.
         
          While she debated whether to knock on the door or to turn around and go home, a security light on the corner of the house came on and cast a wide circle of yellow light on the driveway.  A shadow moved across the front window.  Should she run?
         
          She hesitated and a solidly built man wearing blue jeans, cowboy boots, and a brown western-cut shirt with the sleeves rolled up, pulled open the front door and stepped into the yellow glow of the security light.  He spotted her and after only the briefest moment, a slow smile spread across his face.  “Well, hello there,” he said, his voice thick with east Texas twang.
         
          “Hi,” she responded while her eyes darted around the yard looking for the girl who had just been there. 
         
          “You all right,” he asked and she wondered if it was concern or annoyance she heard in his voice.
         
          “Yeah.  Fine.”  She did not feel fine – where was that girl?  “I’m looking for someone.  I followed this girl into the woods and I lost her.”
       
          “Well I haven’t seen anybody out here tonight, except you, but I don’t guess that helps you none does it,” the old man said.   
         
          “Are you sure?”  She wanted to hold on to the belief that the girl had darted into the house.  There was no where else for her to go.  “About 5’2”, blonde, white tee-shirt that said SPOILED or something on it, she was just here.”  The old guy’s smiled faltered, his eyes grew hard and she felt herself being scrutinized.  Maybe she did go in the house.  But was it worth arguing with a strange man, all alone, deep in the woods just to find out? 
         
          She was about to tell him never mind and go home when his smiled returned.  “Would you like to come inside for minute, I got something I’d like to show you.”
         
          “I don’t know . . .” she could just imagine what he might want to show her, “I should probably be getting back.”  She turned to walk back up the gravel road.
         
          “It might aid ya in the search,” he called after her.
       
            She turned around and looked at him.  The need to know who that girl was and how she knew her name pulled her like gravity toward the house. 

          “Oh come on,” he said.  “I promise I won’t bite ya and I won’t waste much of you’re time.” 
One of her mother’s speeches, this one titled ‘Don’t Take Candy from Strangers’ played in her head as she moved toward the house.
         
          She followed the old guy into the house and found herself in a long rectangular room, with a living area to the right, and a kitchen/dining area to the left.  There was a door off the kitchen and three others along the back wall, presumably where the bedrooms were.  The room was a pale peach with white trim and bleached pine flooring.  The furnishings were decidedly feminine, (except the bottle of Wild Turkey on the dining table), and the room was warm and inviting.  She wondered where Mrs. Old Guy was. 
         
          He motioned to a sofa against the wall and Grace sat on the edge of the seat, her body tense, still not sure if she would have to make a run for it.  The old guy relaxed into a matching chair on her right.  He extended his hand, “Aubrey Thacker.”
       
        “Grace Rockwell” she shook his hand.  “So . . . what did you want to show me?”  He opened a door in the base of the coffee table and brought out a photo album.  He flipped through the first few pages and turned the book toward Grace.  She looked at the picture he indicated, a five by seven-school picture with a generic blue background.  She studied it for a second and her eyes grew round. 
         
          “That’s her, that’s the girl I chased through the woods,” she said.
       
          “Are you sure it was this girl?” 

          She gaped at the picture.  “Yes I’m sure, I saw her last night in my yard and then today she was back and she called my name and led me out here.  I know it was this girl” she grabbed the book and looked from the picture to Aubrey, waiting for an explanation.  He put his elbows on his knees and hung his head.  His shoulders began jerking up and down and she wondered if he was laughing, until he lifted his head and his face was damp. 
         
          He wiped at his checks absently, “How did you end up chasing this girl?”
         
          Grace shut the book and dropped it on the table.  “I told you, she was standing in my yard and she called my name.  I walked down there to see who she was and she started walking off, calling me to follow her.”  Tears spilled from his eyes and Grace wanted to shake him.  “Who is she?  What’s going on here?”
         
          He sat back in the chair and stared down at the table.  “She’s my granddaughter,” his voice broke and he cleared his throat.  “My granddaughter, her name’s Ruth Ann.” 
         
          “Well where is she . . . is she here?  I want to talk to her, find out how she knows who I am.”  She scanned the doors along the back wall.
       
          “No, she’s not here.”  His smile was gone now and he looked positively exhausted.  “Did she say anything else to you Grace?”
       
          She did not want to tell this man about the blinding light and the sudden disappearance of his granddaughter, but there was something so desperate about his expression that she found herself telling him everything, from the storm last night to the creepy disappearance.  When she repeated the girl’s last words, “Tell him it’s wonderful,” the storm of emotions that moved across his face was painful to watch.  His hands gripped the arms of the chair turning his knuckles white from the strain.  His face grew red, his breathing deep and forced.  Grace flinched when he leaned forward.  This time when he hung is head there were no tears, just a heavy silence and his slow, hard breathing. 
       
            She was afraid to speak but the silence was uncomfortable and it would be rude to just get up and walk out.  “Mr. Thacker . . .”
         
          “Aubrey,” he said.  He did not look up. 
         
          “Aubrey . . .”
         
          “Thank you,” he interrupted.
         
          “For what,” she nearly shouted in frustration.  “I came here to find out why a complete stranger would know my name and ask me to follow her through the woods.  I tell you the weirdest story I have ever heard, let alone been part of, you have some kind of emotional breakdown and you thank me.  Mr. . . . Aubrey, that’s just not good enough.  I need to know what’s going on here.  Why was this girl in my yard in the middle of the night?  And during a storm?  Why did she lead me through the woods just to disappear?  And how does she know my name?”   
       
          He finally raised his head and met her gaze.  “I thanked you Grace because you brought me a gift.”
         
          “What gift,” she huffed.
         
          “This is gonna take some explainin’, and it’s gonna make your story even weirder.”  Aubrey flipped through the photo album to a page near the back. Grace waited.  “Two years ago, April 19th, Ruth Ann walked out that door to go to school and she never came back.”  He handed the book to her, opened to a newspaper article, already yellowing at the edges. 

          MISSING GIRL FOUND

          “We still don’t know exactly what happened, they never arrested anyone,” Aubrey continued.  “She was at school that day, there for all her classes, that much we know, but she never came home.  Four days later, her body was found in the Neches River.  She’d been stabbed so many times the coroner couldn’t get an accurate count, but the official cause of death was strangulation.”
         
          “But that’s impossible” Grace interrupted.  “I saw her, walking around and talking.”
       
          He held her gaze for a moment, sizing her up.  “Think about what you saw Grace.  Think about what it was you saw, exactly.”
         
          “But what you’re suggesting is impossible.  Maybe . . .” She looked around the room, searching for a quick answer.  “Maybe I saw someone else.”  No she did not.  “Maybe it wasn’t her.”  Yes it was. 
         
          “Do you believe that?” he asked.
         
          “Well what’s the alternative.”  She threw her hands up, letting them come back down the boook with a slap.
         
          “I think you saw Ruth Ann, and I think she spoke to you,” he said.  He was so calm and rational she had an urge to slap him.
         
          “But how can that be,” she demanded.
         
          “I won’t even pretend to understand how it works but I know it was God.”
         
            “God?  Are you kidding me?  How do you get God out of all this?  First, you tell me that I’ve seen a ghost right, you’re dead granddaughter.  Now you’re telling me what - that I saw an angel?”  She was becoming frustrated with her inability to grasp the situation.  She was still trying to come to terms with the whole ghost thing and this guy pulls God into it.  Just like her parents, seeing God in everything.
       
          She closed the photo album and put it on the coffee table.  She stood up to leave and Aubrey reached out and grabbed her forearm, his touch was light, non-threatening.  “Please let me try to explain.”  She slowly sat back down on the edge of the couch.
         
          “Ya see, when Ruth Ann died, it broke my heart, and my faith.  I couldn’t understand why God would let this happen.”  Grace looked down at her hands.  “You would’ve had to have known her to understand.  She was so good, so full of love.  She absolutely adored Jesus.  You could see it when she talked about Him, that girl was on fire.”  He smiled and she could she how much he loved his granddaughter.  “She lived her life the way God called her to, so why would He let her suffer through such an awful thing.”
     
          Grace had recently experienced these same thoughts, these same questions of why, and she had concluded that God did not care.  He was not the loving father that Christianity wanted to paint Him; God was a Supreme Being, Master of the Universe, and He didn’t give a hill of beans for the puny little humans inhabiting His earth. 
       
          “I became very angry with God,” he continued, “and through that anger I allowed doubt to creep into my head.  Before long, doubt had a good hold and I convinced myself that there was no God, at least not the way I understood God.  So after thirty years of walking with the Lord I turned my back on Him.”  He grew quiet; scratching the gray stubble on his chin as he slowly shook his head.  “But, if there is no God then there is no heaven.  I began to dwell on that thought.  No heaven.  That meant no beautiful eternity for Ruth Ann, or my wife, or any of the other people I have loved and lost.  No heaven and no eternity meant that after only 16 years of life, Ruth Ann was no more.  She was just gone.”
       
          Grace shifted position on the couch, she could not look at Aubrey, he was poking at some tender spots and she didn’t want him to see that he’d touched her.  “I’ve spent the last two years lost in depression and despair,” he continued, and she had a grim glimpse of her future.  “But some part of me, not the walkin, talkin, mad at God part, but the subconscious part that was still hearin the voice of truth, continued to pray that Ruth Ann hadn’t suffered and that she was happy and surrounded by love.  So ya see, you’re the answer to a prayer.  Through you I know that Ruth Ann is happy, I know she’s gone to heaven to be with her Lord . . . and it’s wonderful.”  Grace met his gaze and saw tears in his eyes, but this time she saw something else as well.  She saw an expression of joy very much like the expression Ruth Ann wore when standing in the light.
       
          Aubrey’s happiness, in light of her own grief, made her face grow hot.  How could he be so simple as to think that the appearance of a ghost proved that God, Jesus, heaven, the whole thing was real?  “I’ve heard enough, I’m leaving.”  She stood up and moved quickly to the door, the old man right behind her.
       
        “Grace wait.  Did I say something that upset you?  If I did I . . .”
       
          “No, you didn’t upset me.  I’m just not that gullible.”  She opened the door on the dark November night.  “I don’t buy the whole God thing,” she said and stepped outside closing the door firmly behind her.