one night you cut into my head ; with a cold, bright fear that struck me dead. & your body lay heavy in our bed, with those 𝒃𝒍𝒐𝒐𝒅𝒔𝒕𝒂𝒊𝒏𝒆𝒅 tears on your chest.
K E I R A could hear her heart pounding in her ears as she waited for an answer. she had no idea if this would have been overstepping her bounds in the purest fashion, but this was her attempt at being nice? it was a new thing for her. but she nodded at the invitation, stepping inside, her eyes immediately surveying her surroundings as a hard pit began to dig in her gut. this woman had lost her child– a child that she seemed to love and adore, but keira had no regard for her own, leaving him alone and probably thinking that he’d done something to make his mother hate him. her own guilt surfaced like a wave in her chest, almost knocking her for a loop had her fortitude not been strong enough to endure its pressure. she would have gone back to war if it meant she didn’t have to be a parent…
“ T H I S is a nice place, “ she said simply, following her direction toward the kitchen. she dropped the bee and food onto an empty counter, her eyes catching sight of the fridge and all the other small instances of a home sprouting within the house like weeds. a place filled with memories, no doubt, making it that much harder on jess. she drew a slow breath, letting her face relax a bit, “ i was sorry to hear about maya, “ she offered flatly, the empathetic tone feeling heavy on her tongue, “ did they– is there any word on any leads? “ it wasn’t that she didn’t care, she just didn’t know how to come off as anything but rude, even when trying.
it was obvious before she spoke that keira meant to broach the subject --- in the way her lips pursed, gaze cast over the drawings on the fridge, the pink lunchbox on the counter, casual cues reminding her that a child once lived there. jess, in the way she carried herself, in the look in her eyes, a reminder that a child lived there no longer --- she was an object lesson in missing pieces and keira was smart enough to see it. ‘ thank you. ’ the words were difficult to say. she shook her head at the next question.
‘ no --- there’s nothing. ’ she kept her voice carefully monotonous, her words already hopeless enough without a tone of despair. ‘ the only thing they’ve found is her backpack, and the police --- well, they said the rain contaminated most of the evidence, if there was any to begin with. ’ unsure why she was sharing so much with a near-stranger, she turned to search keira’s face for something familiar. it was odd to think of the woman before her as maya’s aunt, and suspected the thought hadn’t crossed keira’s mind, at least not consciously.
it had taken him almost an hour to get to jess’ house - between having to walk and stopping to check on his flowers ( there was a decent sized bouquet of carnations tucked-ish into his jacket ). he’d stopped a few times to talk himself out of going – this was weird … showing up to a grieving mother’s house with flowers was especially uncharacteristic. ‘ okay, ’ he mumbles to himself, as he approaches her front door - lifting a hand to knock once. ‘ okay. ’
( * starter for ☁ @jesspryors
it isn’t particularly loud, yet the hesitant knock on the door pierces the silence of the house, and jess halts mid-motion, a blouse half-folded in her hands. a familiar dread as she opens the door. first, searching for a police badge --- only afterwards does she recognize the florist. ‘ oh ---... ’ was that disappointment, or relief ? ‘ hi. ’ her smile is only polite, eyebrows raised inquisitively.
“ H E Y, “ keira managed, biting past the initial awkward glances before she looked at her fully. she tried to find herself in jess’ features. outlined, they seemed similar, but she certainly didn’t have the scowl creases that pressed in around keira’s lips ninety percent of the time. of the thin sternness that cut her vision into daggers, aiming to attack anyone who came within more than a few feet from her, “ keira– “ she introduced herself awkwardly, hoping her name would be enough to garner her entrance so that she could at least try to make this work.
“ I bought food and beer, “ she nodded, her calm dissipating faster than she could pull it back together. with everything that was happening, she didn’t know what to say or do. or how to act. or what was normal in such situations. she’d given her own child up at the first chance. but jess seemed to love her kid and to have her stolen… “ if you don’t mind the company…? “
the woman standing on her doorstep was so unexpected jess could do nothing but nod, to accept with all the appearances of placidity. ‘ yeah, keira, ’ she repeated, testing the name on her tongue, still so unsure of what to think. her father left before she was born, her mother died two years ago, and her daughter had disappeared --- it was tempting to embrace the appearance of a sister ( half-sister, her mind supplied ) but caution and time had taught her better.
‘ of course, of course, come in. ’ she stepped back from the doorway, gesturing for keira to enter, all too aware of the image that greeted her. children’s shoes stacked in the hall, colorful drawings and photographs framed on the wall gathering dust, keys in a garishly painted clay bowl on the sideboard. all the markings of a family home, all suspended in a mournful silence. ‘ the kitchen’s just through here. ’ her gaze lingered just a little too long on the report card stuck to the fridge.
It was difficult to hold her gaze, but he didn’t dare hide his eyes from the younger woman. He owed her that at least. Considering he hadn’t managed to come through on anything else. The very least he could do was be honest with the defeat which seemed to emanate from his amber eyes. When she admitted there was noone here to visit he tilted his head as a look of confusion took over his features.
He should say something, but what? Everything that came to mind had a tinge of judgment to it. Perhaps get her to talk and provide some sort of outlet or counsel. Ryan had never been the greatest at offering comfort and had been told so on more than one occasion. So taking the advice he shut his mouth opting to just listen; however, Jess wasn’t saying much. “Did it work? Must of if you fell asleep.”
The thought of his sister made his throat thicken causing his voice to deepen when he replied, “Just Sarah…my sister.” With the announcement of leaving he stepped forward in protest closing the distance slightly feeling he’d been of such little use as she still looked so fragile. “Look she’s not going anywhere. So if you’d like to talk or just sit in silence. I’ve nothing but time.” The very fact that she chose to be alone in a cemetery isolating herself made him feel she needed to connect with someone more than anything.
there was a sort of guilt, jess realized ; the more he pressed his sympathy on her, the more the pit in her stomach twisted and tied, as though subjecting him to her presence was something to be ashamed of. grief was driving her mad. she knew this then, when she wanted only to excuse herself, to return home and draw the curtains over the graveyard of children’s toys gathering dust there.
she didn’t correct his assumption. there was no peace to be found here, or anywhere else, but it would soothe him to think there was, so she only nodded. ‘ i’ll walk with you, ’ she suggested, ‘ if you don’t mind. ’ she set off through the rows of headstones, towards where sarah lindholm was buried. jess knew the way, had passed by often enough, looking for something nameless. the more she considered it, the more inseparable they became : maya, sarah, all the other kids.
the thought of maya buried beside them weighted her like cinder blocks tied to her feet ; she knew the detective could see the thought cross her mind, knew she didn’t need to speak, but the words left her anyway. no tacit understanding would do, and she had enough of weighted silences. ‘ what was it like ? ’ a tough subject, but jess was in the unique position to ask. she couldn’t imagine he’d refuse her an answer.
With the lord’s name in vain, she tilted her head and widened her eyes. Whatever the dream was about must have been intense, and wanting to provide a small comfort reached out to rest a hand on Jess’s shoulder. With the apology, she shook her head, “Don’t be. It’s alright.” Even thought the assurance felt false and vapid is still fell from her lips.
Winnie chewed at her bottom lip as she attempted to swallow the passivity Jess muttered. Needless to say, she was skeptical. Concern prompted her to ask, the next question, “Jess why are you falling asleep in a graveyard?” With the question, she gazed around the surroundings for a clue over why she would even be here.
‘ i’m not crazy, ’ she assured her friend, all too aware of the insistence betraying the lie ; it wasn’t hard to imagine jess going crazy, and she was different, sure, but those who hadn’t felt grief themselves only saw madness. but winnie knew better. a laugh left her lips, a defeated, mirthless noise --- it didn’t sound natural even to herself.
‘ i don’t know, i just --- needed to get away. it’s quiet here. i sat down, drifted off. ’ her gaze fell to the nearest headstone ; a husband, father, grandfather who died at eighty-seven, decades ago. fresh flowers stood on his grave, proud against the summer heat, and she wondered who, after all this time, still cared that much.
‘ --- maya was cared for, better than her mother was, or her grandmother before her. she was protected and she was loved, and on may 28th 2017 she left a friend’s house to walk the three blocks home, and hasn’t been seen since. ’
jessica pryor’s father was a photographer, though her mother never told her as much --- she found out prying through public records. in 1988, during the pickaway creek disappearances, he worked for a small newspaper out in columbus, now defunct. jessica’s maternal grandfather had died the year before, and her mother had moved in to the old house, unsellable in the wake of the town’s missing children. their romance was brief, the sort of hollow distraction sought after by small town people with limited options in a time where stifling fear created a sense of urgency. after the bodies were found, jessica’s father returned to columbus with his prize shots, leaving her mother pregnant and alone.
susan pryor had inherited an unsellable, decrepit house and her father’s debts. poor, and poorly educated, she made her living housekeeping, making weekly rounds of the well-to-do households. she always smelled of laundry detergent and bleach and the cigarettes she indulged in after jessica was put to bed. jess went to school in hand-me-downs, clean but patched, and mended all her own clothes. she couldn’t afford piano lessons or cheerleading uniforms, but her library card was free, so in the time she had between school and the few hours she worked at the supermarket, jessica read.
she did well in school, with a gift for academia, and quit her job at the supermarket in favor of the library. jess dreamt of becoming a teacher in the same way other girls her age dreamed of becoming surgeons or supermodels --- it was unattainable, and the unfairness of hit stung her then, stings her still.
he was a friend ( one of few ) and she was seventeen when they first kissed, eighteen when she realized the fluttering of butterflies in her stomach had become something else entirely. the town whispered, then, as her belly grew beneath hand-me-downs. she became her mother, in some ways. not all. young, unmarried and pregnant, jess stopped going to church after the disapproving looks became too much to bear, but when she first laid eyes on her daughter she saw God in her small pink face. ( this is the image that wakes her most often, in the early hours of the morning. maya, only hours old, swaddled and sleeping peacefully. it comes to her so clearly she can count the lashes on her closed eyes, smell the clean, warm scent of freshly laundered baby blankets. )
three generations of pryor women lived together in that little house, jess working at the library and her mother still cleaning homes on jess’s days off, when she didn’t have to watch maya. maya went to school in hand-me-down clothes, but wore new shoes and a new backpack. susan pryor died in 2015, of a heart condition she had known of for years and allowed to go untreated, a secret she kept from her daughter. she left behind another secret, a small trust with a few thousand dollars set aside for maya. for college, she had said.
maya was cared for, better than her mother was, or her grandmother before her. she was protected and she was loved, and on may 28th 2017 she left a friend’s house to walk the three blocks home, and hasn’t been seen since.
my baby has a s w o l l e n face, long stiff limbs. them eyes are black pits of a place where i've been. her hair is long, still smells like mud ; she answered to my kiss with a ROTTEN tongue. no death can tear us apart.
Driving aimlessly she didn’t care where she ended up only that it consumed time, and didn’t have to go home. The clinic was closed until JP’s replacement came; he’d mentioned something about an old school chum to run it until things settled down. Meanwhile, Winnie’s small savings slowly dwindled away; the only saving grace was Eric’s unemployment checks started to come in. One would think it would be a good thing, but it changed the paradigm of the relationship further. Now every penny needed to be rationalized and approved by him, and Winnie felt overwhelmed and trapped. After stopping at Buckeye Bargains to inquire about a temporary job she soon found herself driving around again.
She hadn’t noticed her friends car until she looked in the rearview mirror and immediately slowed before making an illegal u-turn. Strangely enough, it was parked outside their local cemetery which struck her odd as she couldn't think of single reason why she’d be there. Pulling off the road she exited and began to walk among the rolls of marble and granite. Shamefully, I had been weeks since she’d seen her friend and a visit was long overdue. Guilt had seeped in and coupled with the helpless feeling of being unable to fix the terrible situation kept Winnie away.
Finally, spotting Jess curled up she softly trod through the grass and bent over near the other. It appeared as if she’d been asleep, and looked quite angelic until she began to call out her missings daughters name. Reaching out Winnie did her best to console, “Jess it’s okay. It’s a dream.” With her face washed in concern, she asked, “What were you dreaming about?”
‘ jesus christ. ’ the name left her lips in a sigh, almost disappearing on the exhale --- blasphemous in a way that she knew winnie would forgive, if only considering the circumstances. jess was beyond caring ; there was no god worth worshipping that let something like this happen. ‘ i’m sorry. ’ she ran a hand over her face, hoping the motion might bring some sense of reality back to her. in a cemetery at sundown, nothing felt real, like this conversation wasn’t even happening.
she shook her head, unable to put words to what she’d seen --- to the growing certainty that planted poisonous roots in her chest. ‘ it’s nothing, i just drifted off... ’ her tone was unconvincing at best, her voice shaky. the image haunted her, burned into her eyelids : a child’s body broken among tree limbs.
K E I R A had been in town long enough that she could no longer excuse her resistance to meeting jess. she’d cyber-stalked her life, for a while, letting facebook guide he through the channels of her half-sister’s life. but it wasn’t the real thing. she knew that it was something her mother wanted ( that SHE wanted ) but even approaching he idea was enough to make her nervous. keira, a usual pinnacle of calm, found no rational reason for her to be scared. jess was just a person, after all– a connection to a past that she’d missed out on after her mother had swept keira far, far away from pickaway.
S H E came bearing gifs of a six pack and burritos, hoping that jess liked either of those things enough to endure her company. she let her hand fall meekly against the door in a soft knock, teeth pinching he tongue as she waited hoped that jess would open the door.
in the first few days, knocks on the door had been consistent --- concerned neighbors and kind strangers bringing flowers, casseroles and condolences. as time passed, so did their concern ; jess’s house was avoided now, like a sanatorium, for fear of contagion. she would have believed the knock at the door to simply be her ghost, rattling against the frame, if she hadn’t seen the human-shaped shadow across the porch.
of all the people she’d expected on her doorstep, this particular stranger wasn’t even on her list. she wasn’t even sure it was who she thought ( she hadn’t given her half-sister much thought since she first found out she had one ) but who else would show up. ‘ um --- hi. hey. ’ one hand on the doorframe, the other curled tighter around a stuffed shark falling apart at the seams.
‘ nightmares, ’ she corrects. ‘ and when they’re not they’re just… normal days. i make breakfast, walk maya to school, go to work. and because it’s a dream, i don’t realize anything’s wrong —… until i wake up. ’
The daylight was quickly and quietly losing its battle to the night sky creating a shadow for every gravesite he walked by; clutching the cellophane wrapped flowers tightly as he made his pilgrimage. The older he became the more accustomed he was to see the familiar names as he passed marked on the stones. What he wasn’t used to seeing was a woman laying on lawn motionless. Perhaps she was having a private moment, but after starting for a minute he decided to make his way over to check and see if she needed some assistance.
Moving past several rows he stopped in front of the woman only realizing it was Jess as he hovered above. It became apparent she was in the throws of a nightmare. Leaning over he rested his hand on her shoulder attempting not to startle her, but it was too late. She yelled out and shot up almost immediately before he could even offer a hand. “It’s okay. I’m sorry I was worried something was wrong,” he mutters an apology. Regretting his last words no sooner than they left his mouth; of course, something was fucking wrong.
Looking down at the tombstone he didn’t recognize the name and seeing as it didn’t share her surname he was curious. “Are you visiting someone or something?” He adjusted the bouquet of calla lilies in his hand.
light eyes, green ringed by bloodshot whites, fixed on his face, for a moment not even focusing --- all she could see was maya, and the traces she’d left behind. teeth, a bloodstained backpack. it was so wrong ; there was no better word for it. the horror of it consumed her, had left her irrecoverably warped. that she seemed to be the only one so affected baffled her --- couldn’t they see what had happened ? anyone just moving on from that was impossible.
yet it seemed that they had. it’d been a month and hope was running thin. she could see it in the detective’s eyes : the unmistakable shadow of defeat, pity. he looked the way most people did---like they were watching something distasteful, but were too fascinated to look away. ‘ no, i’m --- ’ immediately, she regretted answering truthfully. a thoughtless lie about visiting a grandmother would have saved her from having to explain why she was here.
‘ i was just trying to clear my head. ’ trying to imagine maya here. ‘ you’re here to visit someone, though, ’ she observed, noting the lilies in his hand. ‘ i --- i should go. ’
the graveyard’s quiet at this hour --- just a few minutes past sunset, with only sparse remnants of daylight hanging in the air, clinging like morning dew to the rows of headstones. jess spends more time here than with the living, these days ; she feels more at home here, among the dead and the mourners, living somewhere in between. fresh flowers, placed on the grave of a man who died decades ago, already begin to wilt in the cold, wet air, and the water gathered in the grass soaks through jess’s shoes to her socks. though the rains have stopped, drops still fall from the trees, following the tracks across her face left by tears.
she identified maya’s backpack that afternoon. faded blue canvas, with flowers drawn on in black sharpie, and a new decoration, recently added : a stain, rusted-iron red. like a bloated, swollen body, the image floats to the surface of jess’s mind, and stops her in her tracks, her eyes fluttering shut. she sees maya before her like it’s real --- her lips are red, and when she opens her mouth, her teeth fall out one by one. she’s bleeding, stains spreading dark across her yellow raincoat, oozing down the front of her shirt and dripping thick and warm onto her shoes. she reaches for jess, tiny hands vice-like around her forearm and shaking, harder than any child could...
‘ --- maya ! ’ she startles awake, eyes wide, and for a minute doesn’t realize she’s been dreaming --- until she takes in her surroundings, and embarrassment and sleep stains her cheeks a splotchy red. jess thinks of her newly acquired handgun, tucked away in a locked kitchen cabinet, as she rises to her feet. ‘ oh my god, i’m --- ’ she shakes her head, unable to think of any reasonable excuse to be sleeping in a cemetery. ‘ i must have sat down and lost track of time. ’
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