La Femme en Bleu
She thought that once she’d moved out of the sprawling 1930s-era farmhouse with the endless veranda porch in Cassopolis, Michigan and into a minuscule apartment in New York City that she’d never go back. But here she was, another victim of the bad economy, calling her parents to see if they’d let her come back, at least temporarily.
"Of course you can come back, sweetie," her mother cooed over the phone. "You’re always welcome here."
"Thanks, mom," she said sheepishly. She was 30 years old, and moving back in with her parents was a real blow to her pride. "I–I’m sorry I won’t be able to pay something in rent or food for a while--"
"Don’t mention anything of the sort! Having you back will be a joy to me and your father, and we understand that you don’t have any money because you got laid off." What Clara was not about to admit to her mother was that the reason that she didn’t have a savings "nest egg" was that she had a serious fetish for Jimmy Choos and Chanel, two highly developed tastes she’d acquired shortly after moving to New York at 22.
"Darling," her mother continued, "do you need some money for air fare?"
"Yeah, thanks, that’d be real helpful, mom."
"I’ll have your father deposit the money into your shared account this afternoon. Let us know when you’ll be arriving."
"Thanks, mom. I will. I love you," she finished meekly.
"We love you, too, sweet pea. Come back to us safely."
Three days later, Clara was unpacking the remains of her New York life in her old room at the farm house. God, it was so depressing to be home again after nearly a decade of being a self-sufficient adult. She loved her parents dearly, but she’d barely been home an hour, and she was already finding life with them rather stifling. She felt the undeniable urge to have a cigarette, so she grabbed her pack of smokes and headed to the front porch.
"Oh, Clara, honey, I wish you wouldn’t do that," pleaded her mother.
"I know, ma, but I can’t help it."
"Yes you can. I wish you’d never dated that Justin Baylor boy in high school. He turned you on to such a dirty habit. Did you know he’s in jail now? I guess he was selling those methamphetamines that are all the rage with kids these days."
Clara merely rolled her eyes, went out onto the porch, and lit a cigarette. She enjoyed the nicotine as it rushed through her bloodstream and watched the sun color the sky with pinks, oranges, and purples as it made its final serenade to rural Cass County. A part of her enjoyed the quiet serenity of farm life, but another, stronger part of her yearned for the hustle and bustle of the never-ending life cycle of the ultimate of cities, New York. She could tolerate farm life for now, but she was definitely going to move on. Hopefully back to another position in the city, but most assuredly not into a local position. She’d paid her dues in the county and was well within her rights to leave for good. She finished her smoke and returned to her room, reluctantly finishing her unpacking. This was going to be a long stretch of time–whatever duration it might be–and she was anxious for it to end as quickly as possible.
She slept fitfully her first night, constantly awakening to listen for the noises that had been at her old apartment: the trains, buses, and cars, the obnoxious neighbors blaring their television sets until all unholy hours, the police and fire sirens crying out over a distress, and the garbage workers bitterly crashing about in the wee small hours. She listened yearningly, yet heard nothing other than the meditative chirp of the occasional cricket or the lone howl of a far-off dog or coyote. Even the cows on the farm seemed to be walking on eggshells in regards to waking her during the nocturnal period of the earth’s rotation.
"Ugh! It’s too fucking quiet!" she said in disgust to no one in particular as she rolled over yet again in a vain attempt to get more comfortable in the bed that hadn’t been hers for years. Her cat leapt onto her chest and began to purr as if in agreement to her outburst.
"At least you understand, Mishu," she said to her furry companion as he started to knead her with all four of his feet, his needle-like claws gently pricking her skin through her pajamas.
Finally, at about 4 a.m., she heard her parents begin to stir in preparation for completing the never-ending sets of chores that come along with a 400-acre farm with an equal number of head of cattle. "As good as time as any to start the day," she mumbled grumpily to herself.
She ambled downstairs to the kitchen where her mother was brewing the coffee and her father was frying some eggs and bacon. Her father always did the cooking because her mother always had a knack for completely incinerating any food item she was entrusted with making edible. Coffee was the one thing she could do, and she did it well. Clara suspected that in the early years of her parents’ marriage, her mother had felt rather guilty about having her husband doing all the cooking after spending countless hours in the fields and pastures, but after 35 years of the arrangement, she’d grown remorselessly acclimated to it. Clara also suspected that, at one point, her father initiated a hostile takeover of the meal preparation after eating one hopelessly-charred dinner too many. That thought made her smile a bit as she envisioned her usually stoic and sedate father grabbing a frying pan and yelling "I can’t take it any more!"
"Mornin’, sunshine," her father said in his gruff bass. "How’d ya sleep?"
"Oh honey," exclaimed her mother, "we didn’t wake you, did we?" Her concern was deep and genuine.
"No, no," said Clara. "I just couldn’t get comfortable. I’m so used to the city noises, and it’s so quiet out here. I guess you don’t realize how quiet farm life really is until you leave it for a while. Besides, I have a busy day ahead of me with job hunting and all that."
"Fair enough," said her father decisively. "Sport! Go fetch the paper!" he boomed to the border collie mix lazing around on the front porch awaiting his first of many commands of the new day. The dog completed the task effortlessly and was soon back on the porch, eagerly fixated on his reward for a job well done, a cut of the breakfast his keen nose could tell was being expertly prepared in the skillet. He whined slightly until the food was placed in his bowl, then tore into it like he’d never been fed before in his entire life.
"Do you need me to do anything to help out?" Clara asked out of politeness. She’d always hated doing her farm chores and was not eager to restart them, but she felt obligated to at least make the offer.
"Well--" her father started.
"No, I don’t think so, sweetie," her mother cut him off. "Just work on finding a job. That’s what’s most important. Besides, Jake, Brian, and Ted all help out around here now." Jake and Ted were Clara’s brothers. Brian was her sister Patti’s husband. "Oh, and Patti’s got a job now in Kalamazoo. She works on the x-rays in the hospital, so Brian’s going to be bringing the kids with him."
Patti and Clara had never been especially close due to their polar opposite personalities. Patti was the extrovert, the cheerleader and prom queen, who’d followed in the very ingrained tradition amongst the local girls by marrying her high school sweetheart immediately after graduation and quickly springing forth a new generation of life-long Cass County residents. She’d recently completed an x-ray technician program at a local community college, no small feat given that she had three children under five and a fourth on the way. It wasn’t that Clara disliked children–she did love her niece and nephews–but she found Patti’s highly active brood a bit overstimulating. Great, Clara thought, I won’t be able to get anything done today.
Just then, Brian’s truck pulled up the long driveway on the north of the property. He barely had time to take the vehicle out of gear before his bleary-eyed, pajama-clad offspring were popping out of the cab and tearing up to the house.
"G’ma! G’pa! Auntie Clara!" they cried vigorously as they wound their arms chaotically around the three previously solitary adults.
"Hey! Don’t get out of the truck like that again until daddy says so!" bellowed Brian. "Mornin’ Chuck, Edna, Clara," he said as he nodded to each. Brian and Clara had never truly liked each other. Clara was too independent for Brian’s tastes, and frankly, with her two bachelor degrees in computer science and economics, she was too threatening in the intelligence department as well, though they’d never squared off intellectually. He secretly thought Clara was extremely full of herself, though Clara had never given him any reason to even have an inkling of thought in that direction. They were civil to each other out of family loyalty, but had family not been involved, the two would’ve gone their separate ways caring neither hide nor hair of the other.
"My! Look at how big you’ve grown!" Clara said as she quickly turned her attention back to the children. She started warmly giving out abundant hugs and kisses.
Ted and Jake pulled up a short time later, and everyone ate a hearty breakfast. The men then left for the farm work while the women cleaned up the kitchen. The children had been conveniently placed in front of the television while it played cartoons and were drifting in and out of various states of wakefulness.
"The kids will probably be fully awake around 9," Clara’s mother explained. "Then we’ll give them a snack and clean them up for the day. After that, I have them help around the house until the men come in for lunch. After lunch is when Patti comes to pick them up."
"Thanks, mom," Clara said. "That’s going to really help me plan my day."
By the time Clara got finished in the kitchen and cleaned up and ready for the day, the kids were up and about and not too keen on being washed up and dressed. To keep them out of her mother’s hair, Clara read to them, took them to the chicken coop to find eggs, helped them to harvest some nice-looking tomatoes and peppers from the garden, and played tag with them in the orchard to the south of the property. By lunch time, Clara’s mother had completed her household chores and the children were sufficiently tired out so they would be good for Patti when she took them home. But Clara had one last trick up her sleeve.
"Who wants to help Aunt Clara make lunch for grandma and grandpa and Uncle Jake and Uncle Ted and daddy and mommy?" she sagaciously asked the wild bunch.
"Me!" they all cried out in unison.
Clara quickly put them to work blending the eggs and vegetables they collected earlier with some cheese and spices to make a simple quiche. The dish had just finished baking by the time the men came in from the fields.
"Mmm. Smells good," said Jake. "What’d ya make, sis?"
"Just a quiche. Nothing fancy."
"Nothing fancy? Sounds pretty exotic to me. Did you learn how to make it in New York?" asked Ted.
"Yeah. My first room mate was a quiche-a-holic. We used to make them together all the time."
"Well, let’s stop flappin’ our gums and eat," said Clara’s father.
Everyone sat down and enjoyed their lunch. Everyone except Brian. The quiche disgusted him. It wasn’t that it was bad–in fact, he found it rather delectable–it was just that he saw the quiche as yet another way Clara was showing off her fancy-pants ways she’d acquired in New York. He was unusually sullen and silent at the noon meal.
Patti arrived, heavily pregnant, shortly after the lunch dishes had been cleaned and put away and collected her slightly drowsy kids.
"I think I’ve got them all set for nap time," Clara said with a wink.
"Yeah, thanks, sis," came Patti’s reply. "I really appreciate it. They have me working twelve-hour shifts at the hospital, and it really takes it out of me. I don’t get it. I was never this tired all the time with my other three. This baby’s literally kicking my butt!" She smiled. "Oh well. Just four more weeks, and I’ll have another bundle of joy. I hope you’ll be around for the birth. I would love to have you with me."
Clara shuddered slightly. She hadn’t planned on being in town that long.
"Yeah, Patti, I’d love to be there. I’ll do what I can, O. K.?"
Patti grinned, and they hugged. This was a feeling of closeness she had never felt before with her sister. Clara was genuinely flattered that her sister wanted her to be present during the birth of her next baby.
"Well, I should get them home before your magic wears off and they wake up," said Patti. Clara and Patti hugged one last time, and soon everyone was gone, leaving Clara alone in the house with her mother.
It wasn’t until Clara came into the house and saw her mother knitting and watching her soaps that she felt tired. She went out on the porch again to smoke a cigarette and get motivated to start harassing people she’d been networking with while she was in New York. She checked the signal on her cell phone and was highly impressed. Who knew that she’d get a halfway decent signal in the middle of nowheresville? She pressed 1 on her speed dial.
"Charles Schwab Information Technology Department, how may I help you?"
"Hi," she began nervously. "Could I speak with Hassan Ansari please?" She and Hassan, who was the general manager of the department, had met at an information technology conference about two years ago and had dated briefly. They had amicably decided that they made better friends than lovers.
"He’s in a meeting right now," came the disembodied voice of the anonymous receptionist. "Can I tell him who’s calling?"
"Um, yeah. Tell him to call Clara Sybille on her personal cell. He’s got the number on his phone, I think."
"O. K. I’ll do that. Did you need anything else?"
"No. That should do it."
"All right. Thank you and have a nice day."
"You too." Great, thought Clara, I’m not going to be able to use any of my contacts because no one will return my calls. Unemployed and stuck in Cassopolis–two things she found highly undesirable.
Clara’s prediction was only about half right. By the end of business hours, she’d managed to actually talk to 20 of the 37 people she’d called and had managed to fax off and e-mail an equal number of resumes. She hoped to finish going through her Rolodex by the next day. She was workin’ it big time.
Dinner came and went uneventfully, and she decided to unwind by reading a cheesy spellbinder novel that she’d bought while she was waiting for her flight at the airport.
Some time around midnight, she began to feel tired, so she marked her place in the book and went out for her final cigarette of the night.
She stepped out onto the porch and was nearly engulfed by the blackness that is the night in rural southwestern Michigan. She fumbled in the pocket of her pajamas for her smokes and lighter, and finding them at last, hastily sparked up a cigarette. It was then that something caught her attention out of the corner of her eye.
Standing across the driveway on the north side of the property was an elderly woman. She was clad in a full-length, frumpy, and rather shapeless, sky-blue crepe dress with a matching blazer and hat. She was as visible to Clara as if she’d been standing under the marquees of Times Square at high noon, despite the fact that the only light on that side of the property was a medium-sized florescent bulb that lit the entrance to the barn. Clara opened her mouth to speak to the woman–to ask her why she was on the property or if she needed help–but then quickly snapped it shut in a stunned, silent horror. The elderly woman was staring straight at Clara from two empty eye sockets, her mouth--which was full of crooked, rotten teeth--contorted into a scream and encircled with fresh blood, her grey, moldering hands on either side of what was left of her face, the nails clawing into her cheeks and hair–it was all frighteningly real. Clara closed her eyes rapidly and shook her head. The ammonia in the farm fertilizer must be getting to me or something, she thought. When she opened her eyes again, the old woman was gone. Clara didn’t bother to finish her cigarette and went back inside and straight to bed, blaming the apparition on a combination of jet lag and lack of sleep on the previous night. She hastily got under the covers and promptly fell into a deep, even slumber.
Clara didn’t realize how late she’d slept until her curious niece crept up beside her bed and startled her into alertness by asking, "Auntie Clara, aren’t you ever going to get up?" It was 9 a.m., and Clara felt the dire urge to resume her job search.
"Sure, honey, I’ll get up now."
The morning passed smoothly enough. Clara spent most of it on her cell phone and on the internet, desperately trying to find some sort of employment. After Patti came to pick up the kids, her mother even tried to get in on the act.
"Clara, dear, I could take copies of your resume down to the banks in town here and Dowagiac since I’m headed that way on my errands today."
"Thanks, mom, but I was looking for a position not so–, so--" she just couldn’t find the right word that wouldn’t offend her mother. The woman had a hard enough time when Clara first moved away to New York. She didn’t want to reopen the old wound.
"Local? I understand," her mother said in a definitively "I’m highly offended" tone of voice, but like a good Midwesterner, Clara’s mother had learned to be highly reticent at an early age.
"No, mom, no," Clara pleaded. "It’s not that I don’t like it here–I do–it’s just that I’d probably be over-experienced for anything up for grabs in this area. I worked writing banking coding software at Bear Stearns. I wasn’t a simple teller. In fact, I probably wouldn’t be qualified to be a teller, and I certainly don’t want a managerial position."
Clara’s mother looked away, her lips pursed into a stony silence. Clara shrugged and went back to her Rolodex.
Shortly after her mother left, Clara’s cell phone rang. She answered it excitedly, a little prayer on her lips that it would be at least an interview offer, if not an outright job offer.
"Clara Sybille speaking."
"Hi Clara! It’s Zara, what’s up?" Though the phone call from her best friend from high school wasn’t exactly what she had wanted or expected, she was still pleasantly surprised to hear a friendly voice on the other end of the phone.
"Not a lot. You know I lost my job when Bear Stearns went under?"
"Oh no! That’s terrible! Well, how about a pick-me-up? Jill and I are both in town until Sunday. Do you want to do something some time between now and then?"
The prospect of reuniting with her two closest friends was too much for Clara to resist. "Sure! I’d love to! When? Where?"
"Well, we were thinking about going to Kalamazoo to go bar hopping tonight."
"Sounds great! When can someone pick me up? I’m kind of wheelless since my dad sold my old car a while back."
"We’ll come get you at 8. Jill’s designated driver and she’s got her grandma’s old Lincoln. We’re gonna be big pimpin’ tonight!"
"Excellent! I’ll see you then."
"All right. Ta-ta my cha-cha," Zara said in her flawless Latin Lothario accent that she’d worked on perfecting with Clara and Jill in high school Spanish classes instead of doing the assigned verbal drills.
The rest of the day flew by, and soon enough, Jill and Zara pulled up in the rusting hulk of the car that would barely get them to Kalamazoo and back but would have to suffice. Hey, you can’t be picky when you’re borrowing someone else’s wheels.
On the drive up, the three old pals chatted like they’d never been separated. Jill was finishing up her Ph. D. in nuclear chemistry at the University of Chicago, and Zara was principal cellist for the San Francisco Symphony. They were a perfect grouping. They’d been the shy, nerdy girls in school who always knew the right answers and always had their homework perfectly done. They’d come together almost as if by the hands of fate because they were always assigned to the same classes. That they’d managed to keep in touch for so long after high school and through so many geographical changes was a herculean effort, but they considered the pay out to be well worth it. Zara and Jill were just in town because of the upcoming Labor Day holiday, but they were very empathetic to their dear friend Clara. They even offered to pay for her bar tab, but Clara flat-out refused. She still had some money left, after all.
The night was deliciously wild, yet the girls, feeling their advanced ages, called it an early night. Clara was home by 3:30 a.m. She stepped onto the porch and waved goodbye to her friends, then paused to light a cigarette as she watched Jill and Zara drive off.
Suddenly, Clara had the irresistible urge to look towards the north of the property by the driveway. She felt like she was being stalked by something. She quickly and sharply turned her head to the north.
The old woman was there, like she was the previous night, only there was something different about this appearance. At first, Clara just stared at the apparition helplessly, desperately trying to figure out what could be so sinisterly changed by this situation.
Abruptly, she heard the slow shuffle of feet across the gravel of the driveway and realized that not only was the old woman closer to her than she had been last night, she was coming even closer. Clara felt the hair on the back of her neck stand up, and her pulse started to go wild. She quickly threw her half-smoked cigarette into the front yard, dashed inside the house, and clumsily locked the door. Her breathing was rapid and heavy as she dashed up the stairs and flew under her blanket without bothering to get ready for bed like a silly, frightened child. She was highly unnerved, yet she managed to fall into an undisturbed slumber.
Her parents let her sleep until noon. Patti had the day off, so Brian didn’t need to bring the kids over. Clara was still upset about the incident with the old woman when she’d arrived home in the wee hours, but she mentioned it to no one as she went about her daily job hunt. They’ll just think I’m cracking up, she told herself. Best not to let on. And who knows? Maybe farm life is starting to get to me.
That night, Clara felt it best to skip her nocturnal cigarette and instead went straight to bed around 9 p.m.
Again, the tranquility of the farm jarred her awake at about 2 a.m. Instantly, as though she were an automaton, she grabbed her smokes and headed for the porch. It wasn’t until she was almost done with her cigarette that the thought of the old woman crept into her mind. I’ve won, she thought. She hasn’t appeared yet. She really was just a figment of my imagination.
As Clara turned to go into the house, she heard the sound of footsteps coming very rapidly towards her across the gravel driveway. She whirled around to investigate and saw that the old woman was on the other end of the veranda porch, her arms outstretched, the smell of death and decay so prevalent you could practically taste it. She was gaining on Clara.
Clara threw the front door open with such force that it cracked one of the door’s glass panes, slammed it shut, and did up all of the locks and bolts she could find.
Suddenly, she heard both an aggressive pounding and scraping on the door and the sound of heavy footsteps coming down the stairs. Instantly, the light in the foyer came on, and Clara’s father appeared in his robe carrying a cocked and loaded hunting rifle.
"What in the hell was all that about?" Clara’s father demanded angrily, but his features dramatically softened when he saw how genuinely terrorized his daughter was.
"Dad! D-dad! There’s someone out there! An old lady in blue! She’s trying to hurt me!" was all Clara could choke out in her present state of mind.
"Oh Clara, honey! What’s wrong?" her mother said as she came down the steps.
"The old lady–she wants me! She’s trying to kill me!"
"Oh honey," cooed her mother. "There’s no old lady. There couldn’t be. You know the nearest farm has been abandoned for at least 20 years."
"I’ll go check the property," Clara’s father said as he unlocked the door, hunting rifle in tow.
Clara’s mother made coffee and chatted to calm Clara down. When Clara’s father came back to the house and said he couldn’t find a trace of anyone or anything out of the ordinary, Clara put her head in her hands and cried softly to herself.
"She was there! I saw her so--clearly!" she mumbled as her mother took her back to her bedroom. She laid down obediently, but she refused to close her eyes and sleep until the faint traces of dawn started to creep through her window and she heard her parents stirring about as they began their daily grind. She felt guilty, and she felt like a fool, but eventually, she drifted off into a restless slumber.
She awoke with a start at 11 a.m. The house was eerily quiet. She cautiously made her way down the stairs towards the kitchen.
She poured a cup of cold coffee and switched on her laptop and cell phone. Just then, she felt a hand on her shoulder. She nearly leapt out of her skin. She dropped her coffee cup, and it shattered on the perfectly varnished hardwood floor. She spun around.
"Oh! Mom! Hi! Uh, sorry about the cup!" she said nervously.
"Don’t worry about it, sweetie. In fact, we need to talk."
"About what?"
"I–well, that is, your father and I–think you’ve taken this lay off thing a bit hard and that you’re trying too hard to find a job and that that’s what caused you to be upset in the night. So, please take a day off, O. K.? I know I can’t make you, but you need to focus on your health first and foremost, so your father and I are begging you to just take one day off, O. K.?" Her mother’s plea had taken over her whole face, the effect of which made her normally youthful features seem 75 instead of her actual 57. Clara relented at this profound show of concern.
"All right. I’ll just go get a book from the library to read today."
"Thank you, sweetie," her mother said as she stood on her tiptoes to kiss Clara’s forehead.
Clara got ready and went to the library as promised. She found a couple of books that were nothing but literary brain fluff, promptly checked them out, returned home, and settled into her favorite recliner to enjoy a day of reading. She was grateful to be able to find some books that were insipid and predictable, yet stimulating enough to be a distraction. She was quickly lost in her first chosen book, and the day passed in a peaceful, rapidly quiet manner.
After dinner, while there was still some sunlight peeking through the clouds of the approaching nightfall, Clara was smoking what would be her last couple of cigarettes of the night. After what had happened in the smothering darkness of the previous hours, she’d learned her lesson and learned it well: no more cigarettes after dark. She didn’t know what was after her, or why, but she didn’t really care to find out. She just wanted to survive her stint in Cass County in one piece.
Her head hit the pillow as the creeping darkness that ends a twilight began enveloping the land. She fell into a sound slumber almost immediately. Perhaps the day off had done her some mental good.
Around 3 a.m., a scratching, sucking noise aroused her out of her nocturnal reverie. She sat up in bed and began looking around to find the source of the sound. She almost instantaneously discovered what it was that was disturbing her: though there was no moon that night, there was the old woman, clear as the midday sun, her face pressed against Clara’s window, her hands clawing the panes that separated them, her mouth sucking hungrily at the midnight air. Any ability to scream or cry out had been horribly frightened out of Clara. She grabbed her copy of the King James bible from her bedside table and thrust it against the glass. This only caused the old woman to become more determinedly energized, and she began aggressively assaulting the window. Clara promptly dropped the book and ran to the crawlspace in the basement, where she remained amongst the boxes and cans of preserves until she heard her parents get up. Only then did she venture out of her hideout.
"Oh, Clara, there you are, honey," her mother cooed. "I thought I heard you get up. Is something wrong?"
The question ripped through Clara like a hot knife through fresh butter. She quickly tried to regain her composure as much as possible because she didn’t want her parents to think she was cracking up. Hell, she didn’t want to think she was on the verge of a nervous breakdown, though every fiber of her being was shrieking otherwise. She pushed her emotions back as much as possible and tentatively answered:
"No. Nothing’s wrong. I just couldn’t sleep, that’s all."
Her parents could tell she was lying (she’d always been a rather obvious liar in the past), but they could tell from her body language that they shouldn’t push the issue. Clara’s father broke the deafening silence.
"C’mon, Edna, let’s get some coffee into the girl before she decides to go back to bed."
Clara’s mother did as she was told because she trusted her husband’s judgment about their daughter implicitly. Clara and her father, due to their reserved, methodical natures, had always been able to read each other extremely well and were therefore very close. That is, until Clara moved to New York, but there was still an almost unnatural understanding there.
Breakfast progressed as usual, and Clara perked up enough by the end of the meal that her mother simply turned a blind eye to the fact she’d switched her laptop and cell phone on. Farm people are not deeply psychological by nature and prefer action to deep meditation, so Clara’s mother took the attitude of "at least she’s trying to be productive today" in regards to Clara’s regaining touch with the larger world via technology.
Boy, was Clara ever bummed by what she saw when her e-mail finally loaded on the fickle wireless network she’d installed herself at her parents’ home last Christmas. Form rejection e-mail after form rejection e-mail. "Thank you for your interest in the position at our company..."
"Ha! My ass!" Clara said bitterly as she slammed her laptop closed. She decided to go back to her bedroom and get ready to help around the farm for the day.
She’d almost forgotten her most recent nocturnal encounter with the old lady in blue as she headed up to her second-floor bedroom until she reached the threshold of the door, which was just to the left of the staircase. From there, she could see out of her window. At first, all she could view was the encroaching dawn upon the scenic landscape, except for the rather large smear smack dab in the center of the glass, but as she got closer, she noticed the filth on her window was not from some poor hapless bird that had haphazardly flown into it. No, it was blood. And soft, wet earth. And scratches. Tons of scratches. She shrieked in horror. The old woman was real.
At her cry, Clara’s mother ran to her side, saw her daughter’s distress and the offending mess upon the glass, and promptly made a mental note to get Clara to see a doctor promptly.
"Oh, honey," she sighed. "A bird must’ve flown into your window in the night. It’s all right." She cradled her sobbing, hysterical daughter in her arms. "Don’t worry yourself about the chores. Just lay on the couch and relax and watch some TV. I’ll clean the window."
She turned to her husband (who had flown up the steps behind her when Clara screamed) and whispered, "Chuck, call Dr. Stendhal." She didn’t have to say for what or how soon. They both wanted Clara to see the good doctor as soon as humanly possible.
Clara spent the rest of the day idly flipping through the myriad of channels on her parents’ satellite TV service. Dr. Stendhal paid a visit to Clara’s house as an emergent favor to her father, who’d been his best friend since high school. The doctor merely shook his head and clucked his tongue at Clara’s story. She was too stressed out, he concluded.
"Here, get this filled right away and insist that she take it every four hours," he commanded her mother as he hastily shoved a prescription for a powerful sedative into her hand. "After a week, try to get her into some talk therapy. She’s not dealing with this well at all. Hopefully the combination of the sedative and the therapy will bring her out of this state, but only time will tell. The damage that’s been done may have been permanent."
"Thank you, Earl," Clara’s mother said to the doctor as the tears slowly fell down her cheeks. Her daughter must really be in a bad way, she thought. As soon as the doctor left, she drove to the nearest pharmacy and filled the prescription.
Clara took the medication as directed, and she saw instant improvement. It was as if the prescription was a magic talisman against the old woman. She completely stopped seeing her. Wow, thought Clara, it really was just all in my head. She was able to resume all of her regular activities, and by the end of the week, Dr. Stendhal dropped the recommendation for talk therapy. He had declared her case a success and had formulated a plan for Clara to wean herself off the drug.
Things were even looking up in the employment area of Clara’s life. Hassan Ansari called and offered her a job. The best he could do at the present moment was entry-level programming, but, hey, it would pay the bills. Clara was psyched. She was going back to New York! Though she wasn’t supposed to start for another two weeks, she eagerly began packing her belongings.
"Oh, Clara, dear, we’ll miss you," said her mother when Clara delivered the news over dinner. Everyone except Brian was in agreement with that statement. Brian couldn’t wait until she was gone for good. Not only was she stuck on herself and her fancy-ass city life, she was a few beers short of a six pack. Best not to have her around the kids. She’s too unpredictable.
"I’ll miss you guys, too, but I’ll be back for Christmas for sure," Clara said genuinely. She’d miss them, but Cass County had never felt like home to her. New York did. New York was where she belonged.
Dinner finished late with tentative plans for a going-away party. Clara cleared the table, but her mother insisted on doing the dishes. Not objecting to her mother’s wishes on the subject, Clara took to her room and promptly began to read the last of the books she’d checked out of the local library the week before. The night was unseasonably warm, so she opened the window to let in the fresh end-of-summer breeze. She debated staying up all night because she felt too excited, too alive, to go to sleep.
About midnight, a skunk walked by, the scent of which disturbed the meditative stupor she’d fallen into while reading her book. She got up and closed her window, checked her watch, and decided to head out to the porch for one last cigarette before hitting the hay.
The skunk scent had dissipated by the time she stepped out onto the porch, which struck her as odd because, as anyone knows, the eau d’parfum of a skunk tends to linger long after the animal embodied of the stench leaves the area. But she quickly shook the thought out of her head and rejoiced the fact that said smell was no longer present. She lit a cigarette, took a long toke, and exhaled the noxious fumes serenely. God, it was going to be great to leave the farm again.
Suddenly, there was a faint scraping noise to her right, which was toward the north end of the property. It startled her a bit, but she quickly dismissed it as a foraging raccoon. She turned back to her cigarette and was rudely surprised. It was the old woman in blue, and she was roughly an arm’s length away from her. Clara went to scream and flee, but the old woman was too close. She caught Clara’s face in both of her decaying, claw-tipped hands and drew it close to hers. She then opened her mouth and a horrible gurgling, sucking sound came forth from the opening. The noise became increasingly louder as the distance between their faces got smaller and smaller and smaller...
Clara’s father thought it was odd that her bedroom door would be open and the lights on when he got up for the day, but he dismissed it as her being too excited to sleep. He got some eggs out of the refrigerator and began to cook them as his wife made her way downstairs.
"Sport! Go get the paper!" he commanded the dog. The animal merely whined in response. Puzzled, he looked out on the porch and saw a dark form laying motionless across its planks. He went out to investigate.
"Oh my God! Edna! Call a doctor! It’s Clara!"
The paramedics arrived, but it was far, far too late. Clara was most obviously dead. They radioed the State Police for assistance.
Dr. Christopher Melli, the medical examiner on duty at the time, made the official pronouncement. "Death by exsanguination," he said matter-of-factly to his assistant.
"What does that mean? English, please," said Detective John Bunchen, the lead homicide investigator who’d had his sleep rudely interrupted by the call to start investigating this case.
"Blood loss," said the doctor curtly. "There’s not a drop of blood in her body. See? Even the deep gashes on her cheeks didn’t bleed when they were inflicted." He pointed to the angry cuts on Clara’s pale, flaccid face. A small trickle of blood oozed slowly from the right corner of her mouth as if to spite the doctor, but that was the only blood present at the otherwise ghastly scene. Off to the north side of the driveway, there was a faint scraping noise, so slight it was nearly inaudible. Those who heard it thought it was merely the wind.
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