Intolerable Silence

Intolerable Silence
Prologue: The Attic Window

 
 
         "She's 'gonna kill me!" Luke mumbled as he jumped on his bike.  "Late again.  Late again and detention, nonetheless!"  His feet sped round and round, thrusting him forward.  He was to be home at 3:15.  No earlier, no later.  That was the new rule set in place after the last... Incident.  Tears whipped across his face as he tried not to think about what she would do to him.  He was sure he wouldn't have supper--that was a given--but she had been in a mood that morning, and nearly missed his head with a fork.
         He made it to the house in good time, luck following him all the way.  He whizzed through the midday traffic like there was no tomorrow, and wasn't hit by a single thing.  He threw open the garage door, shoved his bike in and ran toward the door.  He was just about to open it when it swung open.  No-one was there, just the dark hallway he'd always known.
         "Get in."  Luke gulped and put a foot in the doorway.  The door shut abruptly behind him.  "Why are you late--again?" the woman snapped.  "Not talking to anyone, I hope?"
         "Of course not!" Luke squeaked.  "I was just cleaning the gym floors, that's all."  He lost eye contact.  He could never keep it for long.
         "Why?  You've never volunteered to clean before."
         He couldn't dodge this bullet.
         "I-I had..." he gulped and buried his hands in his pockets.  "I was in detention."  The last word he spoke brought an air of silence to the house, thick as death.  That was when her face changed.  Her face changed from a tired, pitiful, harmless face to a terrifying, hurtful face.  She grabbed his arm.
         Tomorrow you shall call in sick, and the next day, and the day after that," she said coldly.  She headed for the steep, steep stairs.  Luke didn't bother screaming for help.  No-one would hear him.  Mother and son walked by the living room to their right, where a single T.V was blaring an old "Naked Gun" movie.  A Lazy Boy chair was facing it, its back to Luke.  Finally Luke screamed.
         "I hate you, you sick, cold-hearted man!" he spat at the chair.  A tanned hand fell on the armrest, but nothing more.  There definitely was someone sitting there.  But he didn't move or speak.  Only a loud snore erupted from behind the chair.
         "Shut up, you twerp!" the mother screamed.  Her heeled foot hit the first step, and then the second, and the third.  She dragged the poor boy up the stairs, whose legs were limp and unmoving, chest heaving heavy sobs.
         There were twenty steps, and, at the top was a door.  A thick, hand-carved door similar to those seen in castles.  The doorknob was tiny and rusted brown, with a huge keyhole underneath.  The clunky key hung around the old woman's neck, day in and day out.
         "Please Odette!" Luke whimpered.  "I didn't do anything wrong, really!  I was just making up for all my sick days.  They said it was the only way for me to pass.  If you keep me at home, I'll just have more detentions!"
         Odette pursed her lip.  There was a long moment of silence.  At the moment Luke thought she would leave, her hand went to the key, caressing it, stroking its shaft.
         "Then you're lucky it's Friday."  And with that, she took the key, opened the door and shoved Luke in.  He landed on his knees.
         "No!"  But it was too late.  His palms and forearms hit the door again and again in vain.  "Not again."  He buried his face in his hands and sat like that for a while.  "What about my homework?" he muttered.  "It's still downstairs."  He got up and went to sit on the mass of fluff and blankets he called a bed.  If any visitor were to be in that room, he would have noticed a most peculiar smell.  A musty, stingy smell.  Of course Luke never noticed it.  He lived up there.  This was his room.  This was the attic.
         Luke sighed.  He might as well make the best of his seclusion.  He slid off the bed, stuck his fingers in the dusty floorboards and pulled.  The board came out with ease.  Inside the compartment was a picture with an ebony frame, a small shoe box, some candy and a few withered comic books.  He took all these things out and laid them side by side.  Luke picked up the picture and smiled.  There were three people in the portrait: a young woman, a young man and a small child.
         "I thought you were looking after me mom," he said to the woman's face.  She had long, straight chestnut hair, with sparse bangs.  Her eyebrows were thin and arched, her cheeks small and appled into a pearly white smile.  Her eyes were small, yet slightly angled, the bluish gray sticking out from behind the thick black mascara.  Her cheekbones were small and smooth, and her jawline could be seen sticking out slightly.  Her skin was slightly tanned and aglow with life.  She had her arms wrapped around the neck of the small boy, whose hair was a beautiful and shimmering blond, it cut neatly in a flat mushroom cut with perfectly straight bangs cut just above the eyes.  His were a pale blue, nestled above a smiling face.  His teeth too were pearly white.  He seemed to be laughing;giggling.  On the right side was the young man with leather-tanned skin.  He wasn't smiling as broadly, but his lips were parted just enough to reveal his white teeth.  His hair was sandy blond, it swept to the side in a wave.  His head was cocked to the side, it resting on the boy's shoulders.  They were all dressed out of today's fashion, with denim and plaid, and pearls around the woman's neck and in her hair.  The glass was dusty, and the photo was starting to yellow at the edges.
         This was all that was left of Luke's family.  In his opinion,  both his parents had died.  His mother in a drunken car accident, his father in his mind.  He was declared legally insane two years before, though all he did was sit and stare at the T.V, not really watching, not really listening. He never spoke at all, never-mind standing up to his newfound wife.  When he looked at anything, he seemed out of focus, his eyes glassy and looking to the side slightly.  He couldn't think for himself any longer; he did what his wife told him to do--which was not to talk.
         He broke his silence once.  Just once.  And when he did, he made it big.  But Luke was sure he'd forgotten, just like he'd forgotten about Cheyanne.
         Luke put the picture aside and opened the box.  Newspaper clippings, pictures, paper filled with cursive writing and some beads and other trinkets were inside.  He ruffled through the clippings until he found a specific one.  Tears filled his eyes as he read it over, just like he had hundreds of times before.  The title read, in big, bold print: "CHARGES DROPPED IN ALLEGED CHILD ABUSE CASE."  The subtitle read, "Despite father's efforts, lack of evidence forces investigation to a halt."  Odette's greasy-haired picture was slapped under the title, next to the start of the article.  Odette was the opposite of his mother in every way.  She had bleach-blond hair, a large face, pale skin, a chin that stuck out like that of a horse, ghastly teeth, dark brown eyes adorned with excessive eyeshadow and liner and fake eyelashes.  She wasn't overweight, but wasn't in as good as shape as Cheyanne, and her limbs were unnaturally bony.  Her breasts were out of proportion to her small frame, obviously fake.  And was she tall!  Over six feet without the heels.  Her height alone was an effective scare tactic.
Lukes' hand shook with rage as he read the last sentence.  The one time his father spoke up, it was for nothing.  And after what [i}she did to him, he wouldn't ever again.
           Thump.
 
         Someone was coming up the stairs!  Luke shoved everything in the shoebox, stacked it in the compartment, put the board back down, and stomped on it.  In his head he was counting the steps. Nine, ten, eleven..  He sprinkled some dust he'd collected in a jar over the cleared spot, put it back under the bed, then got on it, pretending to be resting.
         Sixteen, seventeen, eighteen.
         He pulled the curtains shut.  Oops, almost forgot that.
         Twenty.  The key clinked noisily on the other side, and the doorknob giggled.  The door swung open and Odette entered, holding Luke's backpack.
         "Why do you sleep so much, child?" she bellowed.  "Get up and get to work!"  She threw the bulging backpack single-handedly on the bed, and she was gone.  Luke's eyes popped open.  He counted the steps again.  Four, five, six...  When twenty came, he opened the curtains.  He had a perfect view into the backyard of a house similar to his.  The girl who lived there was in his math and social class, he knew.  Both homes had upstairs windows, but he was almost certain that their attic was cleaned and divided into suitable, slept-in rooms.  The backyard space was minimal, so the homes were quite close together, back to back, showing a clear view into one-another's windows.
         Luke stopped dead and held his breath.  There was a lamp on in that upstairs window on that cloudy day, revealing a room with salmon and cream coloured walls, with a pretty chenille bed cover.  And, obstructing the view of the bed was the face of a girl.
         She was staring right at Luke, mouth gaping, eyes wide open in shock.  She kept shaking her head, and Luke could tell that she was beginning to cry.  Luke smiled back sweetly and shook his head.  When he looked up, the girl was gone.  But only for a moment.  She soon ran back and slapped a piece of paper to the window.  It read, in big red crayon:
"DO YOU NEED HELP?"  Luke nodded profoundly, and she scribbled on the other side, "I WILL HELP YOU."  Luke pulled a stolen eyeliner pen from under the mattress and wrote on the glass:
"THANK YOU."
         So she had seen!  But what, exactly?  For how long?  When?  Luke smiled.  It didn't matter.  Now someone knew.  And for Luke, there was still hope.