Violet Delights

Violet heard thunder in the distance but hoped the rain would pass or hold off until dinnertime. It was her turn to seek and she wouldn’t lose this time. She hadn’t found either of her sisters in the large cornfield when it began to pour. There were flashes of lightning and Violet heard her sisters scream, but she couldn’t tell what direction the screams were coming from. The lightning was close at times and she worried it would strike her. She could hardly see or hear from the pounding rain and increasing darkness. Violet spun in circles, wishing a stalk would stretch out a leafy hand and show her the way home.

Frightened, she called out for her sisters again and again with no reply. So, she pointed herself one way and ran.

She reached a clearing. Drenched from head to toe, her favorite sunflower dress, wet and splashed with mud, tears streaming from her eyes.

But, she didn’t see her family’s white farmhouse. No candlelit windows beckoned her home. Here, there was nothing but overgrown grass and wildflowers.

She ran back in and out of the field, took random turns, and made futile leaps to peer over the corn. Nothing.

She ran so hard that her chest was burning. She tasted iron in the back of her throat, like well water in the summertime.

Violet could only think of finding another home where she could stay for the night or call home.

Violet hoped, but she found nothing. Her feet felt pruney and uncomfortable. She was soaked and her limbs were stiff as she trudged through fields and puddles with nowhere to go.

Until finally, she came across the shape of a barn in the distance. With a burst of strength, she rushed to the barn. The walls were broken and the roof caving in, but the door was ajar and any shelter was a welcome sight.

She slipped through the large open door and entered the room that smelled of hay and mildew. While it wasn’t pleasant or home, at least it was an escape from the rain.

Violet stepped slowly through the dark space, holding her hands out so she wouldn’t run into anything. She reached the far wall and walked along it. Her eyes were beginning to adjust to the moonlight coming through holes in the roof and walls.

She turned a corner and found what seemed to be a wall of hay bales. She felt her way around it and saw something peculiar — more hay bales stacked like building blocks with light shining through.

“Hello?” Violet asked hesitantly. There was no answer.

“Hello?” She called again.

She heard something shuffle on the ground and her heart rate picked up.

Suddenly, something came running toward her. A small animal became visible just as it leaped onto her, forcing her to fall onto her back in surprise. She screamed and put her arms up to protect her face.

When she moved her arms away she shrieked once again. A furry white and grey animal with a long snout, pink nose, and tiny sharp teeth was staring at her, inches from her face. She feared it would bite her, but instead, it reached out its tongue and gently licked the tip of her nose. Violet couldn’t help but smile and said, “What are you, little one?”

“Her name is Jillian.” Said a boy’s voice. “She’s kind of my guard possum.”

The boy walked closer and offered his hand to help her up. The possum wrapped her long, rough tail around Violet’s neck as the boy helped her to her feet. Then Jillian hopped down, scurried to the boy, and climbed to sit on his shoulder.

“Sorry if we scared you,” the boy said. “We obviously weren’t expecting visitors out here.”

He reached his hand out to Violet. “My name is Thomas Winters.”

Violet reached out her hand, shook his, and quickly pulled hers back.

“Violet.” She said, “Eberly.”

“Nice to meet you, Ms. Eberly! And of course, you’ve already met Jillian.” He said, petting his giant rat-like friend.

“I’ve, umm, never seen a possum before.” Violet admitted.

“No? They only come out at night, so maybe you just missed ‘em.”

Violet nodded, not knowing what else to do.

“Uh, okay, well here, let me show you my fort! It’s not much but it’s dry and there are some blankets and candles so you can see better.” Thomas said.

He led Violet to the stack of hale bales with light coming through.

The bales were built up in a way that created a square room against one fairly in-tact barn wall. There was a gap between bales that they could walk through, like a doorway. The ceiling was the floor of the barn loft, Thomas explained.

There were two very melted candles lit as far away from the hay as possible — one on the floor and one sitting on an old wooden stool. Both were in tarnished candle holders.

The floor was sparsely lined with dirty, plaid horse blankets. Thomas picked one up, shook off the hay, and offered it to Violet. She accepted it gratefully as she was still drenched.

She could still hear the rain loudly beating the roof and dripping on the floor in other parts of the barn.

“Thank you.” She said, and a moment later, “How did you get here?”

He was smiling at her and then his face turned sad at the question.

“There was a fire at my house,” he began. “I woke up in the middle of the night to my mom yelling for me and smoke pouring under my bedroom door. She screamed again, telling me to go out the window. I had a trellis outside my window and she knew I’d climbed it before even though I was told not to. It was getting hard to breathe through the thick smoke and I yelled for Mom, but she didn’t respond. She just stopped responding. So, I climbed out the window. And when I stepped back, I saw our whole house was on fire. I ran around the front door and flames were bursting out of it. I screamed for my parents for a long time but no one ever came out or yelled back. So, I tried to find help. There were no other houses for miles, so I didn’t know where to start. I just ran and ran and eventually found this barn.”

He looked up and Violet was crying without looking away from him.

“You just lost your whole family?” She asked.

Thomas looked at the ground, a familiar knot twisting in his throat, chest, and stomach. He dug his nails into the palms of his hands to keep from crying himself.

“Yeah, I guess so.” He said quietly.

Violet sat there crying and couldn’t stop. She was so sad for this boy and so scared she would never find her way back to her own family.

Thomas walked over to a crate in the corner and picked up a jar. The pop of the new lid snapped Violet out of her wallowing.

“Do you, uh, want some peaches?” Thomas asked. He didn’t know how to deal with crying. He never could.

“Peaches?” She sniffed.

“Yeah, I found a whole bunch of canned goods up in the loft.”

Violet tried hard to stop the tears, wiped her eyes, and realized she was very hungry.

“Yes, please.” she said.

So, she sat there as her tears dried and ate peaches with sticky fingers. Thomas told her about a time he and his brother tried to surprise their parents with breakfast in bed. They'd made pancakes that ended up in ripped, half-cooked piles that the boys topped with peaches and syrup. They carefully carried trays upstairs and to their parents’ room, opened the door, and proceeded to trip over their Dog and throw the food all over the bed.

“It wasn’t quite the breakfast in bed we were hoping for.” Thomas said, chuckling.

Violet laughed too. They laughed together and almost forgot they were lost. They fell asleep on dirty blankets on the hay-covered ground.

In the morning, they ate more peaches, sharing bites with Jillian, and Violet explained how she ended up there.

Afterward, they climbed a rickety ladder up into the damp loft where Thomas said he had lots of interesting things to show her. There were more wooden crates, some filled with more food, and others that held crinkly photo albums and waterlogged newspapers.

They spent all day looking at pictures in the albums, wondering who the people were, making up whole stories about their lives. They read the old newspaper articles and imagined living through the events.

When Violet reached the last newspaper in the crate, she grew quiet.

She looked at the picture of the family on the front page. Then, at the title — Winters family perishes in house fire. She began to shake and felt unsteady. She looked at the date — 20 years earlier. She looked back at the faces of the family and stared at one of the boys.

“Violet? Are you okay?” Thomas asked.

She didn’t respond. Her eyes were scanning the article — ‘All bodies have been recovered. No survivors.’

“Violet? What’s wrong?” He asked again.

“Thomas, are you d..dead?” She stuttered.

He stared at her and then at the newspaper in her hands.

“I forgot about that.” He said.

“Forgot about it? Forgot about the story that says you’re dead?! Is it true? How…?”

Thomas moved closer and touched her arm. She sharply pulled away.

“You can’t be dead! I can see you!” She said.

He said nothing.

“Answer me!” She shouted.

“Yes, Violet. I think I’m dead.”

The tears started flowing down her cheeks and she backed away from him. She scrambled back down the ladder.

“Violet! Come back!”

She made her way to the door. “Stay away from me!” She yelled.

Thomas panicked. He needed her to stay. He had been alone for so long and she needed — she needed to know.

“Violet! “ He screamed down to her. “I think you are too.”

She slowed and turned.

“You think I am what?”

Thomas climbed down the ladder and was holding what looked like an old ornate hand mirror.

“I think you’re dead, Violet.”

“I’m not dead. I’m right here!” She said, almost scoffing. “And I’m leaving.”

She turned toward the door again and was standing in a bright beam of sunlight coming through the opening.

“Violet, look at your hands.”

Unable to help it, she looked down at her hands, turning them over and over again in the light.

“What...what is this?” She asked.

Her hands and arms were covered in red streams and rivers, in raised trees with bare branches. She lifted her dress and examined her legs and feet. The red lines ran everywhere she could see.

“What’s wrong with me?!” She screamed.

Thomas was next to her now and held out the mirror.

“Look at your face.” He said.

Shaking, Violet held up the mirror and saw the same branches crawling across her forehead. They grew darker and purpled as they jutted down and over her left eye. And her eye — the one that was once bright green to match the other — was completely white.

She shrieked and dropped the mirror, shattering it.

She fell to the ground, sobbing and holding her knees to her chest.

Thomas crouched down and put his hand on her shoulder. She didn’t pull away this time.

“What’s wrong with me, Thomas?” She wept.

“That’s what people look like when they’ve been struck by lightning.” He whispered.

She moved closer and he wrapped both arms around her. She finally saw his burned skin and cried harder. He closed his eyes and cried for the first time in 20 years.

Jillian, perched on a wooden crate in the loft, looked down at the children and smiled. They were ready to go home.