2019-06-14 - Nothing There

"Pourquoi voulez-vous aller dans cette petite ville? Vous quittez votre famille pour quoi, un sentiment?" My Maman never was one to mince words. The day is still vivid in my mind even if weeks had passed. She stood next to my bed as I packed, pacing along with as if at any moment she was going to pull things out and put them back into drawers or closets.

I tried to explain that it was more than a feeling, but like always the words choked in my throat. I simply looked at her as I continued to pack, my feelings shining in my eyes. She hugged me then, even if she didn't understand what I felt like I needed to do, she would support me.

I have never lied to my Maman before, but since I've made my way into Gray Harbor, I have done it a few times. She calls, asking how I am, and I lie. "I'm fine." I tell her, when I'm homesick and anything but. "There isn't much going on out here." But there is. Why do I think she will be angry at me if I told her what I was doing? I'm not sure, it's a feeling. I've learned in the last few years to trust my feelings. They rarely steer me wrong.

"Tu es si loin maintenant. Que me caches-tu, mon petit amour?" My Maman could sense when I wasn't being completely open with her. She calls every other day, she wants to know how what is going on in my new place. Have I met anyone? Am I comfortable? Some days are better than others. She remembers my trip out here ten years ago. How spooked I was when I came home.

It was the Dream, the sense of pressure that almost sits on your shoulders. It whispers insidious things in your ear, things that you don't really hear. You feel it though. You're not good enough. Nobody will miss you when you're gone. Nobody will understand you. They'll think that you're crazy. Not the first time I've heard those things.

I'm still lying. Everything is fine my Mère. No, no nightmares, I've been sleeping quite well.

It's raining again.

My fingers are in the dirt, the smell of earth grounds me. The smallest things are the most sharp now, the drops of rain in my hair. The spider crawling up my wrist, attempting to get away from the wet and the dirt. Poor thing, I'll put him in the greenhouse.

I never knew how to explain why I was drawn to Gray Harbor. Something is waiting here, and according to Eli, it's not just waiting for one person. I almost came back a few times in the last ten years. I was in Seattle, and was going to take a day trip. That nagging in the back of my mind, something that I should be doing. Louise told me she had that feeling every time she left. She may have settled in Georgia, but she never really settled. She'd paint the harbor. She'd paint the trees. For all that she would tell me to resist the draw, a part of her lived there still.

It was nice to have someone who understood the strange things that happened around me. Louise never judged, she'd just listen. She didn't have to take me under her wing and teach me anything, but I'm glad that she did. Instead of a nebulous feeling, it was sharp and real. It was a place, one that I usually saw in my nightmares. When she passed, I knew I would come here again.

The wind is whistling.

I look up from my planting but the trees aren't moving. It's still, and it's quiet, like the deep breath before a big storm. I get to my feet, and I walk to the edge of the building, hands shoved in my pockets. I feel it around me like static.

My head turns just as the hands make contact with my shoulder blades, it throws me off balance, and the sure feeling that I can't come back from this settles into the pit of my stomach. I wrench myself around mid-air, the ground comes at me so fast. I can't even scream, there isn't any chance that my life will flash before my eyes.

The impact is like that feeling that you get when you're falling, but you're just lying down. I look down, there is dirt on my fingers, and rain splattering in my hair. Was that real? I'm alive, so obviously it wasn't. There was nothing there.

The wind whistles again, but it feels sinister. "J'en ai assez de toi." I get to my feet, unsteady, and walk toward the roof door. Something makes me turn, and it might be a trick of the light, but for a second I see the shimmering outline of a person. The whistle of the wind drives me inside. The phone on the charger is ringing. It's time to dredge up another lie.