Falling

• Mairead Devlin, Grade 12
• Short Story
• 2011

My grandparents had comprised only a small part of my childhood. My sister and I had stayed with them occasionally when our mother and father, prominent investors at the time, had travelled overseas on their business trips. I only vaguely remembered those visits to their old house in the countryside, the rich smell of red earth and freshly mown grass strangely vivid in my mind whenever I thought of them. These few details were all that I recalled, yet I felt ill at ease being back in the house, and I couldn’t fathom why. I reflected upon this as I stood out on the edge of the tall balcony that overlooked their property. My property, I reminded myself. Granddad had left it to me in a will written only days before his death. Suddenly, I felt my head spinning and the world lurched beneath me. I gripped the balcony railing to steady myself and felt my nails bite into the brittle wood. What was that? Shaking the feeling off, I watched the last of the sun sink slowly below the horizon, shrouding the land in darkness, before retreating into the house to await Emily’s arrival.

She came not long after, laden with cans of chicken soup which she proceeded to heat on the stove while babbling amicably about the last year of her life that I had missed. Barely aware of what she was saying, I sat on the sofa and watched her, transfixed. My sister seemed to have grown up so much since last time we had met. Her body had matured into womanly curves and her green eyes, so similar to mine, had acquired much depth and a far older look. I noticed that, like me, she had added blonde highlights to her light brown hair.
“So,” she said brightly, handing me a bowl of steaming soup and settling down on the adjacent couch with her own, “It’s just you and me tonight.”
“Yes. Thank you so much for coming. I just didn’t think I could pack up all of granddad’s belongings without some help.”
“My pleasure. I think it’ll be fun.” She paused, and then added, “When’s Joe coming?”
“He said later on tonight, but I believe he’ll be late back from work and have to come in the morning.”
The topic of conversation then moved to men.

“Wow Gracie, look at this!” Emily exclaimed for the umpteenth time. She bounded over to me with an old photo album. “It’s full of pictures of us!”
I sighed, making a mental note not to ask my little sister to ‘help me’ again. She was so easily distracted! I extracted myself from a tangle of linen to pore over the faded photographs with her. They were dated from twenty-five years ago and followed our lives from when we were infants to ten and fifteen respectively. We were together in almost every photo, our happy faces forever preserved in our youth.
“I’ve never seen this before,” I whispered, mesmerised, as I leafed through the pages. “I’m so glad granddad kept this.”
I turned over to the last double page. On it were a few individual shots of me, as an awkward teenager. Abruptly, my earlier sense of unease returned with renewed intensity, sparking a wave of nausea. Something wasn’t right. I looked up at Emily. She was pointing and giggling at the final photo in the album, one of myself no doubt, oblivious to my distress.

That night we slept in our old room. I lay awake on my side, staring into darkness, struggling to quench my growing feeling of dread. Why was I scared? I felt I’d been missing a piece of a jigsaw but hadn’t realised until now. I heard a faint thudding coming down the hallway from the kitchen. I strained my ears to identify the noise. They were footsteps, slow and measured. Panic, absolute, froze my limbs in place. I felt my breathing accelerate and my heart beat frantically within the confines of my chest. My voice shook as I whispered into the silence of the bedroom. “Emily? Who is that?”
“Be quiet. He’s coming,” was her terrified reply.
The footsteps became louder, until they stopped outside the door. There was a moment’s silence, and then, with deliberate slowness, the door creaked open.
“I’ve come to say goodnight girls,” drawled the intruder.
I squeezed my eyes tightly shut and curled into a foetal position, suddenly powerless and childishly vulnerable. The voice was my grandfather’s.
“Emily,” he breathed, and in three long strides crossed the room to her.

She whimpered quietly. I heard the rustle of fabric hitting the floor as he undressed them, then the springs of her bed creak in protest as he climbed onto it. This was followed by silence. I bit my bottom lip, drawing blood, as Emily’s long, drawn out groan of anguish rent the night. Why was he doing this to my sister? I had to help her! Drawing all my courage and strength, I stood to face my grandfather, tremors of fear and anger racking my body. He was on top of Emily, his face turned away from me. I looked at my sister. She was staring at the ceiling, her eyes wide and glazed over and her young face contorted with pain. I couldn’t bear to see her like that...It had to stop! I lunged at the naked man, exerting all my hatred for him into a push that sent him sprawling on the ground.
“Get up Emily, run!”
My scream awoke something within my sister. She scrambled off the bed, and together we dashed out of the open doorway, with no thought other than to escape.

The floorboards shook beneath me as we pounded along the hallway. I heard my grandfather bellow incoherently as he propelled himself from our bedroom, slamming the door against its frame in his haste to catch us. Emily and I burst into the lounge room. I searched desperately for a place to hide, or another door to safety. Granddad’s ragged breathing behind us signalled that we had but a few seconds.
“Gracie, the balcony!” Emily cried, rushing to the screen door and flinging it open.
I followed her out onto the veranda and slammed the door shut behind us. I backed into a shadowed corner and slid to the ground, defeated. We were trapped. Emily retreated into a corner also, but stood, every muscle on her naked body tensed, a trickle of blood running down the inside of her left thigh. Granddad wrenched the door open and leant against the frame, his body heaving from his exertions.
“Emily,” he rasped, “why won’t you **** me?!”
His hideously wrinkled face flashed a grotesque smile before he lunged at her. I watched, as Emily was caught completely unawares, and leapt backwards, instinctually, to avoid his attack. Her sweet face, framed as it was with terror, was the last thing I saw as her momentum carried her over the edge of the railing.

When you’re in pain, nothing else can exist. Not thought. Not emotion. Only the drive to escape. When it’s strong enough, pain strips us of everything that makes us who we are, until we’re reduced to creatures less than animals, creatures with one single desire: to flee. I welcomed the darkness, it was my escape.

My sense of smell returned first. The rich scent of red earth and freshly mown grass permeated my nostrils, intoxicating, demanding my attention and awareness. I became conscious that I was lying on my back on the ground, the grass slick with dew beneath me. Disjointed murmurs invaded the silence in short intervals, increasing in volume and diversity of tone, until they became a voice I knew – familiar but frantic.
“Grace, are you alright? Talk to me, babe! What happened?”
Slowly, I opened my eyes to stare up at Joe. He was kneeling beside me, worry etched across his face. Memories of the night flooded back to me then, every detail painful, intense. I tried to stand, but a jagged line of pain bisected my back. For a few seconds all I saw was a haze of red and, again, I was a feral animal.
“Stay still, Grace! I can’t let you move! Can you please just talk to me?!”
“It’s Emily! Joe, you’ve got to help me! Emily fell off the veranda...Granddad chased her off...” I was sobbing now. “Joe, it was so horrible...what he did to her...”
Joe’s gaze wavered from my eyes. He glanced up at the balcony, and then back to me.
“Grace,” he spoke gently, an edge of fear in his voice, “Emily died ten years ago.”