Breaking Free

Breaking Free

          It was late by the time Elle could escape from the prison walls that detained her, and with much delayed zeal she took a deep breath and prepared for her departure. The aroma of the restaurant kitchen filled her lungs. She could taste the linguine and tonight’s special, Vista Piacere, pasta, grilled chicken with Italian herbs and the Vista house dressing.
          “Elle,” her boss called out to her, “let me know about next Thursday as soon as you can. The Miller’s keep calling. Bit annoying. That woman has quite the…”
          “I will.” Elle turned around and forced a smile. “As soon as I know, I’ll call you.” She didn’t much feel like carrying on a conversation right now, exhaustion was drowning her and she longed for her room.
          Facing the door once more, a dazed look swept over her as she daydreamed momentarily about her bed, warm and soft, with blankets and pillows galore. The cool metal door gave her chills as she placed her hands against it in preparation. With stressed eyes bolted shut and purse in hand, Elle swung open the back door and walked out into the alley. The air chilled her lungs.
          Finally, fresh air and freedom. A projected sigh of relief calmed her jitters and caused her arms to shutter inevitably. Now don’t be mislead, Elle loved her job. She had dreamt of becoming a chef since she was a kid and received her easy bake oven for Christmas. She participated in every sort of cooking competition she was able and enrolled in every class that pertained to the matter of food. It was when she graduated from the Institute of Fine Cuisine in Chicago she received her locket. It had been a gift from her mother, but it also reminded her of her grandmother, her father’s mother, because previously it had been hers as well.
          As the cool wind bit her ears, she nostalgically looked at the gold locket and brushed it over with her thumb. It was a perfect reminder. A circle, to resemble a constant flow of life, and in the middle the word ‘faith’ was inscribed. Faith, the main element that brought her to the place she currently was, La Vista di Notte. Her feet had carried her inadvertently to the end of the alley. Looking back down the alleyway, she saw the back door to her restaurant and smiled.
          Continuing down Main Street, she started to debate about what she would do with her free night. There was a world of possibilities that awaited her. She just had to find which event she would take on tonight. To her left she noticed the bright red lights from the Lita Theater. None of the movie titles sounded familiar, possibly because lately she’d been locked in her apartment due to an overwhelming amount of paper work, but tonight was her holiday.
          “Hmmm,” she looked over the movie titles once more, “Trapped. The story of my life.”
          And on she walked; passing by faces both familiar and new, two more blocks to her apartment; a cozy little place. Cute, but not too cute, there were no pink ribbons or floral arrangements in this flat. Simple was Elle’s style, with an added touch of home comfort.
          The familiar trip brought her home. “Two hundred and thirty four,” she said airily once she reached the foot of the steps, “never miss a beat.” She trudged up the cement stairs and retrieved her key from her jacket pocket. Before she unlocked the door and entered the foyer, she snatched the mail from the black iron mailbox. On the wall opposite, above the fireplace mantle, Elle looked in kindness at the framed pictures of family and friends. Her favorite, by far, was the one in the black and silver frame, which sat next to an old, yellowed picture of her grandmother, Mary, reading Elle’s favorite book as a kid, The Captain’s Birthday. She learned a lot from the Captain like “Trust is the most valuable thing you’ll ever earn.”
          Elle didn’t know much about her grandparents. They were married when they were young and not five years after they said their vows, Elle’s grandfather died in Vietnam. Her grandmother never remarried, she was so distraught from her loss that she frequently retreated to her home. She lived in the woods just out of town, somewhere down the street, Elle assumed because no one really knew exactly where the house was. The only people that ever came to the home were the paramedics, when they came after Mary placed a strange call. Her death was a mystery because she was in perfect health; they suppose it was because of heart failure. However, Elle liked to believe it was because she did something romantic, like in Romeo and Juliet.
          A week before her death Mary told her granddaughter, “I’ll always be here. I’m always watching over you.”
          First things first, she had a hankering for a raspberry iced tea. She set her bag and coat on the bench in the foyer and headed to the refrigerator, making a slight detour to put the mail on the kitchen counter. As usual, her friend had left her a note.
          Sup Elle Bell-
                    I’m out for the night.
                    Hope you will be too.
                    Take care!
                              --Your Favorite Person
          This was so typical. Elle just left the note where it was and grabbed her iced tea before beginning her search for dinner. Elle started to rummage through the refrigerator and dig through the cupboards. “What to eat? What to eat? What to eat?…” she said as though in anticipation for a four course meal to magically appear in front of her. “Ah pasta! You can never get enough of that,” she enjoyed talking to herself, “even when you work with it some sixty hours a week. Nope, not even when you have nightmares of noodles chasing you and wrapping you up as if you were some sort of caterpillar. You can never have enough pasta.”
          And pasta it was, fettuccine alfredo to be precise. She started to boil water on her top of the line, fully equipped stove. Elle made herself comfortable and sat at the counter to read her mail. “Bills, bills…” she shuffled through the envelopes, “What the…” she came upon a letter the completely perturbed her. “To Ellie,” she read aloud, “From Granny G.?”
          Her heart skipped, she thought she was going to collapse. It was postmarked a week ago. But she’s been dead for years, she thought. She opened the envelope with care as to not disturb the words it contained and delicately extracted the sheet of paper. All it said was: You’ve earned it. “Earned what?” she said aloud. Then Elle thought of her and her grandmother’s favorite book, The Captain’s Birthday. Trust.
          A rush of excitement ran over her and with letter in hand she raced to her bookshelf in her bedroom where, amongst the magazines and novels, lay the book from her childhood. She began to flip through the pages, not knowing exactly what she was looking for, but she knew she was looking for something. “Ouch!” she put her finger in her mouth to recycle the blood from the paper cut. Then she opened it to the inside of the front jacket where three names were signed: grandma’s, mom’s and hers; all written in blue ink. She missed her family so dearly; Elle could almost feel their presence as she was plunged into this expedition.
          Even though they all lived in the same city, Elle never saw much of them. She was one of those people who never really enjoyed going away on week long camp trips with the church; being away for even that long made her awfully homesick. The one time she did go to a camp it was two hours away in a national park. Nevertheless, the wildlife and freedom did not satisfy her desire for the home life she left behind. Needless to say, Elle called her mother with in the first seventy-two hours and convinced her to come and pick her up.
          Then she flipped to the back cover, where she noticed something different. There was a circle drawn on the inside of the back cover with the word faith written in the center. She looked down at her locket and then back at the book. The sound of ripping paper rang from her apartment as she tore the paper from the hard cover, only to reveal an old, folded piece of paper. She walked over to her bed and gently began opening the ancient document. Chills exploded from her stomach to the ends of her body, finding rest in her toes and fingertips. Her numb fingers unfolded the unknown page.
          It was an old map. The map reasonably looked like her town, but with slight discrepancies, like where the theater was, there was a supermarket, and where La Vista di Notte currently stood there was a soda shop. “Heh,” she said, “you don’t need a degree to work there.” She studied the map closely, inspecting it carefully. There was a date at the top, 1928. It must be a really old map of the town, she thought. There were more forest on the map than there were now, and in the forest, there was a house. Elle wondered why she never seen or knew of this house in the woods. The map indicated that the house was down the road a little ways. Bringing the map closer to her and squinting her eyes to look at this house better, “home,” she said aloud, “that must have been where Grandma G. lived!”
          She put the map in her back pant pocket, grabbed her iced tea from the kitchen counter, and put on her coat. She took a sip of her tea and opened the door. It was light outside because of the full moon but still a bit chilly so she zipped up her coat and headed east down Main Street, towards the country. Her paced quickened as she reached the last buildings of the city. Once past them she stopped and pulled out the map. Looking at it, “It shouldn’t be very far.” She started walking once again and threw her now empty iced tea into a trashcan. No more than two minutes of walking, she came across a dirt driveway. She wasn’t surprised that she’d never seen it before, there were bushes and trees hiding the path. Elle burrowed through the thick greenery, cutting herself along the way. The trees were beasts, fierce beasts with coarse hair and sharp claws, attacking Elle from every direction. She tried going back to the road but she was getting lost. Lost amongst the monster trees, and who knows what else. Elle began to think of what other creatures laid in these forests. Were they nice? Were they mean? Would they eat her? She had heard stories that, in fact, werewolves lurked in these woods, alone and in packs of up to ten. She never believed the tales; but, she did know for a fact that bears and coyotes lived among the trees. She had seen them before, crossing the streets. If one ever attacked a person, it would make the front page. These stories frightened her, now more than ever. Noises stirred around her. Howls and growls echoed though the night, and she swore she saw something move ahead.
          The undergrowth was starting to clear and Elle could see better what lay ahead of her now. She knew she saw movement, and she knew it wasn’t the wind. Wind can’t blow on only certain trees and part them as she saw, and there was no wind tonight, not in the middle of these woods at least. She stopped in her tracks and slowly crouched down, maybe they won’t see me, she thought, if I’m close enough to the ground. The ground was wet and cold and the grass itched her ankles. “This,” she whispered to herself, “is the reason why I’m not a cat.” She shook her head and looked down at the ground. What exactly was she doing here? She had no right trespassing in these woods.
          Laughter boomed into her ears, but only briefly. She whipped her head up to look around. Squatting still, she gradually made a full rotation to see who was there, but she saw nothing. Looking back at the ground she decided she was just going to go home. She’d crawl back to the road. That way she’d be under the thickest part of the bushes and she wouldn’t be seen by anything that might be craving a raw Elle for a bedtime snack. She turned around and began crawling. For nearly ten minutes she crawled, inching her way along. She was filthy. Elle hated the feeling of the dirt underneath her fingernails. Then finally, she reached the edge of the brush, but not the end of the woods that she was expecting. She froze still as a figure skipped across her vision. But this was no wolf or bear, nor even werewolf, it was a young girl. Her laughter could have shattered the darkness it was so shrill, and yet, at the same time, joyous. The young girl danced around the clearing in front of her.
          “I should go home,” she whispered so gently she couldn’t even hear herself. The girl’s face glowed white; she was looking directly at her. Elle’s heart stopped as she watched the ghostlike girl walk slowly towards her. The little girl took her time. Elle knew this girl, who was no older than eleven, couldn’t possibly understand the strain she was causing inside Elle. How could she? This sadistic character seemed to enjoy seeing the sweat drip from Elle’s brow. She took great pleasure in watching Elle’s breath grow shallower and shallower with each step, closing in on her prey. This young girl was the hunter and Elle was the prey, caught with nowhere to run. The innocent bunny that did nothing wrong, she just existed. Will she just hurry up already, Elle screamed inside her head. No more than three steps away, Elle shut her eyes tight. She kept them shut for almost half a minute, but nothing yet had struck her so she opened her eyes only to see the girl still a meter away. Elle rose to her feet. She stood high above the girl.
          “Come with me Elle.” The girl said.
          “Wait,” Elle said, “where are we going?”
          “To my house.” The girl replied in a ‘well, where else would we be going?’ sort of fashion. Elle followed the girl. They didn’t go far and there was a path, like a dirt drive. The whole way neither of the girls said a word, not until the girl’s house was in view.
          “Holy cow!” Elle said in amazement. “That’s your house?” The house looked old and run down; vines swallowed this ancient mansion. There must have been fifty rooms in there, Elle thought. “Are your parents home, uh… uh, sorry, I didn’t catch your name.”
          “My name is Mary and no, my parents are not home. They’ll never be home.”
          Mary. This familiar name had forever been lost in time to a mystery. Such a gentle name, it was. Elle never thought that, after that strange day she would ever gaze upon the face, never say the name, and never hear her peaceful voice. Is little girl was the one that pried open her mind’s eye, the one that changed her life evermore, the one that introduced her to a world where there are no rules and no boundaries to the imagination. This child was her reader. Stepping back slightly Elle tried to think of what to say next. She lightly licked her lips, the delicious sound, and Elle absorbed the name. “Grandma?”
          “Well, I’m not quite a grandma yet.” she may not have looked like a grandmother, but she sure sounded like one, “I’m telling you girl, the Big G is one merciful guy. He’s kind enough to give you the body you had the most fun in. I, myself, always loved doing cartwheels as a girl, couldn’t do them much after I left junior high.”
Grandma Mary led the way into her house, and gave her a grand tour of the main rooms on the first floor. Elle most enjoyed the dining room, it was elegant and classy and with the natural aged effect, it had that timeless appeal; but, when they reached the kitchen, everything changed. The room was huge and the counters, as vast as the planes of the Midwest. She stood in the doorway, in complete and utter awe of the sight.
          Her words were drawn out, “Oh my goodness!” She ran over to the island in the middle of the kitchen, sprawled the upper half of her body over the marble top, and stretched her arms out as if in attempt to hug the counter. She stood up straight, “Look at this,” she petted the counter, “this is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. I can’t believe you lived here, it’s like…” she thought, “heaven.”
          “Oh it may be your heaven, but for me, it will always be the harvest grounds for death.” Mary looked around in a sort of aversion. She did not like this room, not in the slightest.
          “How exactly,” Elle asked hesitantly, “did you die?”
          “It was awful. It happened in this very room, uh hum. I was right over there,” she pointed towards the stove on the far side of the room, “I never saw it coming, death that is, stealthy and camouflaged little ogre. I was going to make spaghetti. I had intended to light the pilot, when the phone rang, it was one of your grandfather’s friends, Ned. I got completely caught up in conversation and forgot all about the stove and my dinner. The night went on and I began to feel a little sick, but I just figured I was catching that nasty flu that was going around, I mean, I couldn’t smell for the life of me. So, I got into my pajamas, ready to go to bed, and I made my rounds, turning off all the lights in the house, the whole time getting increasingly dizzy and feeling sick. The kitchen was my last stop, and I walked in to see the gas still on, as I was making my way over to the stove, I collapsed. I could feel my balance going so I reached for the counter, knocking the phone off, onto the floor beside me, which was lucky for me. I dialed up the medics, but by the time they answered, I was dead. When they arrived, I was looking down on them, vainly trying to revive me.”
          “Why are you telling me this?” Elle asked.
          “Heaven, it’s a tricky place.” Her grandmother explained, “Hard to get into, and even harder to take a vacation from it. Its just too good to leave. It was physically painful for me to leave Heaven. See, up there, you can talk to God anytime you need. You can ask Him questions, tell Him secrets, or just chat with Him. Well, I visited Him the other day and before I said a word he told me I had to help you. He told me it wouldn’t be easy leaving Heaven, but I had to. We, you know, are very similar, both always busy and spectators to a life we really wanted. Elle, when I was alive I spent my whole life behind piles of papers and documents trying to find answers which I never found. God also told me to come here because He knows all that was, all that is, and all that will come. He knew if I were to send for you that you may die, in the same way I did.”
          “You! You actually sent the letters and… Oven!” Elle said in comprehension of all that the night had brought to her. She lifted her head, would she even be able to get into the house, she thought.
          “Go child! You still yet have time.” Mary whispered urgently.
          Elle looked toward the front door and then turned around to say thank you, but her grandmother was nowhere to be seen.
          Elle raced out of the house and down the dirt drive. She dove straight into the brush and swam through the thorns, trees and bushes. The way out was a lot quicker and less painful; that is until she tripped upon her departure of the woods, she landed face down on the hard pavement of Main Street. She ran and ran, gasping for air, even though there was none left. Once Elle reached the steps she dug in her pockets for her keys, but they weren’t in there. “Crap!” she yelled at the door stomping her foot. They were on the counter. She ran to the back of the apartments where there was a water drain and plenty of trees. When she looked around in the back, there was no water drain in the same area code as the sole window to her apartment, which she had planned to climb through, but, luckily for her, there was a huge oak tree nearby. She climbed its huge trunk like a professional lumber jack and crawled out on the thick branch, “Now, it’s times like these when I do wish I were a cat.” She said to herself. She opened the window with ease and fell flat on her kitchen floor. The room smelled like something fierce. Elle turned off the stove and started wafting the contaminated air out the window.
          Ring. The phone rang on the counter in front of her. Ring. She always waited until the third ring. Ring.
          “Hello?” Elle said.
          “Hey Elle, it’s Julie. Listen, some of the girls are going out to the midnight movie tonight at the Lita. You want to join?”
          “Sure. What’s the movie?”
          “It’s called Trapped.”
          A smile snuck onto Elle’s face, “Really. Know if it’s any good?”
          “It’s supposed to be winning. We’ll meet you at about quarter ‘til in front of the theater. See you then.”
          “Yep, see you.” Elle hung up the phone slowly. She changed and went to see the movie, but it wasn’t quite what she expected. Afterwards she was convinced the movie would have been better entitled: Breaking Free.


THE END