Suspended In Dusk (35 page)

Anna wanted her jeans and sneakers. She wanted to go outside. She wanted to see her new friend again. But none of these things were to be. Her mother had a list of tasks she wanted Anna to be on hand for. She helped lay out the heavy silver trays of snacks. Not real snacks Anna noticed, but crackers and grey gooey stuff. Adult snacks; serious snacks with no flavour that were low in
clories—
whatever those were.

Anna huffed and puffed, but if her mother heard her she paid no heed. On the third heavy tray run, Anna made a break for it. Instead of going back to the kitchen, she snuck out the hall exit. She stood there in the main hallway a moment, listening. No tell-tale footsteps, and no one in sight. She was clear to make a run for the stairs, when she felt a hand on her shoulder and the high-pitched warbles of her aunt Helen.

“Oh Anna, dear Anna, is that you?”

Of course it’s me, do you see any other people still in grade school?
She thought, grumpy at being caught. She turned to face the massive form of her aunt Helen. The black-clad planetoid loomed about her, a giant veiled radar dish of a hat pinned to her head. Her painted face a mixture of gossip and grief.

“Oh Anna, how you’ve grown,” said Aunt Helen as she touched Anna’s hair, resting her small clammy hand on Anna’s cheek. It made her skin want to crawl off her body.

“Yes,” was all Anna could think to say with her aunt’s hand cradling her cheek like that. She didn’t want to move. It was like finding a horrible stinging insect already on you—you had to stay absolutely still and hope it would leave of its own accord.

“Oh, how long has it been? You must be what… thirteen by now.”

“Ten,” Anna said, unmoving.

“Oh I know your Grandmother would have been so proud to see you all grown, almost a woman.” Her aunt began to cry a little and moved her hand from Anna’s shoulder to wipe her eyes on a small lace handkerchief.

I’m free!
The wretched hand had gone, the insect buzzing away to sting someone else. She had to get away quickly. If she encouraged her aunt, she’d be trapped all day with her. A fate worse than kitchen duty.

“I know, I miss her,” Anna said casting her head down and making whimpering noises. She wasn’t going to tell Aunt Helen that she’d seen Grandma Harris only a month ago.

“Oh dear, it’s alright to cry young Anna, you let it out. Come to your Aunt Helen.”

Oh no! Backfire! Quick—think, Anna. Think!

She turned to look at her aunt and said, “It’s alright I can be brave. Grandma would have wanted me to be brave. I just need a moment in the bathroom. I’ll be fine.” Anna walked a few steps down the hall then added, ‘Thanks, Aunt Helen.’

The monolithic woman smiled, and her eyes welled up with tears again.
Perfect.
As Anna went into the small bathroom beneath the stairs and closed the door, she heard her Aunt say, ‘Aw, bless that child. So brave, and not half as bad as her mother.’ Then she heard the tap of Aunt Helen’s shoes (she had such tiny feet for such a big woman) cross the hall then fade away into the carpeted silence of the lounge.

Yes, I did it! I knew that’d get her. Ha, the perfect getaway.
She still had to make it out the bathroom and up the stairs before anybody saw her though. Her mother was, no doubt, already wondering where she was. Anna waited a second or two longer, just to make sure Aunt Helen had gone, and readied herself to make a dash for it.

A last minute idea struck her. She quickly unbuckled her shiny beetle-like shoes, tucked them under her arm, then opened the door and
ran
. Up the hallway she bolted, catching the wooden banister. Anna swung herself around it, her socked feet sliding as she turned. By the time she registered the impressive move she had just pulled off, she had already quietly yet speedily, padded halfway up the stairs.

She had been right to remove her shoes. She had moved faster, and more importantly, much quieter. Now that she was on the first floor landing, Anna slipped her shoes back on but didn’t buckle them. It’d take too long and she had another flight to go.

She crept up the second flight. She heard voices, male voices, muffled and deep coming from the second floor.
Damn it!
she thought, recognising her father by his tone rather than his words. As she reached the top she peered around down the hallway in both directions. No one. But the muffled male voices were coming from the same direction as the entrance to the attic.
Double Damn!

In the wallpapered and carpeted hallway, Anna felt like a spy from an old movie, sneaking about trying to hear the secret meeting that would reveal the villain’s plot. But she wasn’t a spy. She couldn’t just blast away anyone who discovered her, with the small silenced pistol she kept—strapped to her thigh, of course. No, she was just a girl, and if her father saw her, he’d probably send her back downstairs to help her mother.
Back to the gulag with you!

The voices were coming from an old office to her right. The attic entrance was just beyond it at the end of the hall, with its little pull string dangling, tempting her. The door to the office wasn’t wide open,
thank goodness
, but it was ajar, which meant they might see movement outside if they were looking in that direction. Anna crept up and peered through the crack between the doorframe and the hinges. Through the sliver she saw her father and two other men, all in their dress suits, huddled around something, their backs to the door. She still couldn’t make out what they were saying, or doing for that matter. What on earth were they huddled around? A moment later she found out.

A muffled voice again, and all the men cried out, “Aww, no!” she heard her father say, “Damn it.”

The men moved a little and spoke to each other their faces a mixture of enjoyment and concern. Her father patted who she reckoned was her uncle Marty on the shoulder. As they moved, Anna saw it. An old transistor radio. They had tuned it in to a station and were listening intently. There was no music, only another man’s voice.
Was it a secret communiqué from their organisation’s evil commander?
Nope, it was sports. They were listening to the game on the old radio.

With their attention fixed, Anna had no trouble sneaking by. She pulled the cord which brought down the attic stairs slowly. Then, very carefully, she unfolded the lower steps and began to climb. As she got half-way up she reached down and pulled the lower steps up. She didn’t want to get caught. When she got to the top, the lower steps already lay folded up against the upper set. Now all Anna had to do was tug the trap shut, which she did. She hoped her father and the others didn’t hear the click as the steps popped back into place.

Anna found herself in near complete darkness. She searched with her hands above her, found the cord and pulled it. The lonely bulb came on, its weak light stark to Anna’s eyes, which had just begun to acclimate to the darkness.

Without waiting, she moved through the towering labyrinth of ancient objects and dust-cover ghosts, almost making a wrong turn, but catching herself at the last moment. Anna was so excited to see her friend again that she paid no attention to the fact that she was running through the near darkness. Spotting the old tailor’s dummy with her bonnet head, Anna smiled. Yesterday it had frightened her thinking it an intruder, but today it was like an old friend. Squeezing by it Anna went up on her toes to pat the top of the bonnet hello. A few steps later Anna found herself at the far end of the attic, facing the mammoth trunk again. She crept over to the small space behind the trunk and called softly.

“It’s me Anna, I came back like I said.”

But there was no response and nothing behind the trunk. Just a gloomy narrow space littered with a few hiding dust-bunnies. Anna’s heart sank. Where was her new friend?

“Slou’ha?” she called, a little louder than before. The dust-filled darkness of the attic yawned wide, swallowing her words. Yesterday the girl had been right here, hadn’t she? At that moment Anna started to doubt herself. Her mother was always going on about how her imagination was getting the better of her. But she hadn’t imagined it, and it certainly wasn’t a dream. Anna slumped down to sit on the old heavy trunk, uncaring of the thin layer of dust that would surely mark her dress.

“I didn’t imagine it, I’m sure,” she said to herself. Hearing her words made it more real. As crazy as it was, she
had
met a tiny girl yesterday, whip thin and chalk white.

At that very moment she heard a collection of tiny whispers come together to form a tiny voice.

“Anna.”

She looked up, and from behind the tailor’s mannequin stepped the girl. She was not quite so tiny as Anna had remembered her. Yesterday, with Anna sitting and her new friend on the trunk, they had been eye-to-eye. Today, with Anna slumped on the trunk and Slou’ha standing they were again at eye level.

“Anna,” she said again, coming further out from the shadows, “you came back.” The not so tiny, yet still small girl had a smile on her face. It made Anna happy to see her smile. Yesterday she’d been so terrified.

“Slou’ha,” Anna began, “here, I brought you a sandwich. I thought you might be hungry.” Anna fished out the small triangular tuna sandwich she’d stolen from the silver trays. As she offered it to her, Slou’ha stepped closer still.
She is taller?
Anna wondered. Her hair was messy, but less tangled too. Her dress had somehow grown with her, but she was still gaunt and frighteningly pale, with eyes shiny and black like Anna’s shoes.

She reached out and took the small white triangle from Anna. She seemed curious of it, but unsure as to what it was, or what to do with it. First she sniffed it, then tasted it on her little grey tongue, then just like that the sandwich was gone. Slou’ha smiled at Anna, her cheeks puffed up and moving. Anna noticed a smudge of tuna on the girl’s curved lips. Her grey tongue darted out to retrieve the little morsel.

“You were hungry,” Anna said.

Slou’ha moved closer to sit alongside Anna on the huge old trunk, then said, “You came back.”

“I told you I would,” she beamed. “It wasn’t easy either. My aunt Helen almost got me, and then I had to sneak by my Dad and some of my uncles.” Anna said, proud of herself.

“So no one saw you come here?”

“Nope.” Anna said, “I told you it was our secret.”

Slou’ha was pleased and she relaxed with a smile. The smile looked strange on the pale girl’s face, yet quite beautiful at the same time.

“Can you stay long?” asked Slou’ha in her whispery voice.

“Not too long, but for a little while,” Anna said and realised she’d been vague.

“Good,” said Slou’ha.

“You haven’t had any company for a long time have you?” Anna asked.

“Not really. I used to talk with Ida, but after a while she stopped coming.” Slou’ha seemed touched briefly by a wave of sudden melancholy, but quickly brightened, “But then you came.”

“Ida?” Anna wondered, “You mean Ida Harris?”

The other girl nodded.

“You mean Grandma Harris, you knew my Gran?” Anna had been thinking more out loud than meaning to state the obvious, but Slou’ha smiled and nodded again.

“And her mother before her.” The simple statement made Anna’s mind whirl.
She knew my Great-Grandmother!

“You must be old to have been around so long,” said Anna then clapped her hand over her mouth. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to say that you’re old.”

“It’s alright,” said the girl, “I’m not really. I just stay the same. I don’t feel old, especially not now.” Again that cute, slightly crooked little smile graced her tiny, pale, perfectly curved lips.

Anna’s mind was so full of questions she didn’t know which one to ask first. They’d all gotten into a traffic jam before they reached her mouth. She just sat there gawping at her new friend.

Sensing her distress, Slou’ha decided to answer a few of Anna’s unspoken questions. “I came over on the boat with Elena, we were best friends back then. We spent most of the voyage sneaking about the boat, spying and hiding and then telling each other what we had seen. Mostly we went together though.”

“How long was the trip?”

“On the ship?”

Anna nodded her head.

“It took a little over a week, but it felt like forever.”

“Wow,” said Anna. She’d never been on a boat in her life. She’d been on a plane once or twice for family holidays, but she thought that they were probably very different. Anna found herself desperately wanting to go on a long sea voyage. An adventure on the High Seas.

“Wait,” said Anna, ‘if you knew my great grandma when she was a girl, then you must have known Grandma Harris all her life?” Anna found this amount of time difficult to imagine. She understood the quantity but just couldn’t wrap her mind around experiencing it.

“Not really,” came Slou’ha’s reply, “when I sleep, I sleep for a long time.”

“Like a bear when they hibernate for the winter?”

“I suppose it is a little like that, yes.”

They sat there again in silence before Anna eventually spoke again.

“What was she like? Grandm—Ida?”

“She was much like you are now,” said the pale girl, her smile still on her lips. It wasn’t what Anna had been hoping for. She wanted long rambling tales about her Grandmother’s exploits as a child. But her new, extraordinary friend seemed unwilling to go into too much detail about the past. Anna floundered as to what to say. Perhaps the obvious was best;