Letters Home, Section 3, May, 2000, part 2 of 2

“Oh, things are really good. Do you remember that I have two kids now. You’ve met my daughter, but we have a seven-year-old son named David now, too. We’re happy. And, knock on wood, we’re all healthy. My family, my daughter, my son, and husband and I, we make time to spend time together each week even though we all have busy schedules. We’ve been doing a lot of camping and bicycling and just enjoying the sunshine whenever possible. I’m still working at the crisis center, but I’ve been working on opening my own clinic since I earned my counseling degree. My daughter, Faith, is doing well. She’s about ready to end this school year. She’s a teenager now, and she’s got camp and swimming and all sorts of plans on how she wants to spend her summer. And, my husband, Matt, is finishing up law school this semester. So, he’s studying hard. Oh, listen to me going on and on. What about you? How are you doing?”

Lisa provided the standard answer for those not knowing the answer to that question or simply not wishing to reveal the answer, “Fine, I’m fine.”

“Are you sure? I know we haven’t spoken in a while, but you sound a little strange.”

“I’m fine,” Lisa repeated, “just a little surprised by your call. We haven’t heard from you in so long. I guess the last time you called was, uh, around Thanksgiving. I know I can always expect to talk with you then. Everyone here at The Oak has always enjoyed hearing from you each year, especially Christina. Those calls meant a lot to her. Oh,” Lisa remembered.

“I know, and I’m sorry,” Hope began before being interrupted.

“Oh, I’m sorry, Hope. I forgot that we call you every spring, every Easter, and I didn’t try to contact you. I’m so sorry. I forgot all about it.”

“Don’t worry about it. From what I’ve been hearing, you’ve probably had a lot on your mind. Can we just call it even and start over?”

“Yeah,” Lisa exhaled with relief. “That sounds like a good idea.”

“Should I start with, ‘Hello, I’m Hope?’”

The ladies chuckled, tension melting into ease.

“Really, how are things there,” Hope asked.

“I’m beginning to think they’re hopeless, no pun intended.”

“There is no such thing as hopeless, not if we don’t want there to be. Hope is all around us all the time. We just have to want to hear her words. Now, tell me what is going on there?”

Lisa went into detail about the tourists, the new buildings, the deaths, the shadows, the changes in the appearance and atmosphere of The Oak, leaving no stone unturned for Hope as Lisa searched for explanation, for salvation. “They actually had all those letters printed up into books to sell.”

“I heard about that,” Hope said.

“Don’t worry. I haven’t read them but, from what I’ve been told, last names and other identifying information were removed to protect both the innocent and the guilty. After all, Christina’s letters alone spanned a decade and Abigail’s letters were written over about three months, and names were mentioned.”

“Still, it sounds like the changes really took a toll on The Oak.”

“Something did,” Lisa’s tone weakening further, “something dark and dangerous. It almost feels like a battery that is charging, but it is charging on negative energy. I don’t know how to explain it. That probably didn’t make any sense.”

“I wish I knew what to tell you to do. Do you think you need to get away from there for a while?”

Lisa took the phone from her ear, looking at the receiver with a confused expression as if she could see Hope through the phone before returning it to her ear. “Uh,” she stuttered, “no, no I don’t think I need to get away. I don’t really know what I need, but I’m not prepared to leave.”

“Then, you have to be prepared to fight, or whatever is draining you of your energy will continue to do so until there is nothing left of you. It will whisper into the pits of your soul until you are as unhappy, as dark, as it is.”

“But, how do I fight this?”

“You fight darkness with light. You fight the negative with the positive. You fight sorrow with hope. It’s all related. It’s like a circle. You’ll receive back whatever vibes you give because what people are given, they will give to others.”

“But how does that explain what happened to you? You didn’t deserve that, no one ever does,” Lisa said, her voice rising in anger.

“True. You’re right,” Hope began, her voice remaining calm and steady, a soothing, nurturing tone about it. “But, people who are given hurt and violence their whole life until they know little else will give that to others, even to people who have never hurt or been violent towards another. It doesn’t excuse anything, just sort of explains it a bit. The world isn’t perfect. This isn’t some Eden where bad things never occur. Pain, violence will happen. Darkness will fall. Bad things will happen to people who don’t deserve them, many of them events that are undeserved by everyone. But, will we let it rule our lives? I could have let it ruin my life. I could have let the entire experience kill my spirit and darken my thoughts and I could have let it turn me into something negative, maybe even something evil. But, I chose not to, and I had enough love and caring and hope and, well, even forgiveness, that had been given to me in my life before that ever happened that I was strong enough to fight that evil and not let it destroy me or my hope. Can you say the same? You know, hope, forgiveness, it's never about condoning anything that's happened in the past; it's just about letting it go so you can heal your own self.” She paused. “What about a year from now? Will you be better then if you remain as you are? Sometimes, Lisa, you can overpower darkness and turn it into light. God, hope, goodness, they all hold incredible powers. But, sometimes, you have to know when to break the chains tying you to the anchor that’s pulling you down.”

Again, Lisa’s eyes were drawn to the roses, her mind repeating Christopher’s words, “I like it out here in my garden….Hope…,” as if he was whispering her in ear.

“Lisa, are you there,” Hope asked.

“Yes,” Lisa said, turning her eyes back to the table before her, “I was just thinking.”


Lisa sat in bed, reading a letter or two from one book and then switching to the other, sometimes setting a book down for a short period for feeling that she was reading the private thoughts of people who had lived in the house. The letters were full of nature, full of personal events, and opinions on life, written in manners in which Lisa did not consider life.

As she read, Lisa tried to see the world through Christina and Abigail’s eyes, but Lisa did not think of life as fluidly as them. When Lisa saw a tree, she simply saw a tree and thought not of the meanings or communications of winding limbs or intertwined branches or rustling leaves. There were no crying winds or speaking ripples of water in Lisa’s life, rather only things that she could see or touch, things that she could prove. In facts rather than mystery was where Lisa preferred to dwell. Either the dishes were done or they were not done, either an object was dusty or it wasn’t, but the warm sudsy water or the stirrings of dust held no messages within.


Lisa was in her mid-thirties, but she had never really held any lust for life outside of the Oak. The day after she was born at a local hospital, Lisa was brought home to the Oak, her parents employed there, and, except for brief outings for school or short trips about town, she had never had any interest to be elsewhere or to explore the world, no real ambition in any particular subject, no desire to marry or bear children. At least, none that she remembered.


Born late in life to older parents, Lisa’s mother had been the head housekeeper at the Oak, as generations of women in the family had previously been, and her father worked in the fields, tending to the land. It was her mother who had taught her of the history of the Allgood family and of The Oak, the home in which her mother had been born and raised, a home that she respected and kept as her own. Though her mother would sometimes speak of the house like a member of the family, Lisa never gathered the impression that her mother thought the house was a living entity. Lisa’s father taught her of the value of the weather, of the timing of planting, but did not speak of the fields as spirits that could, at times, be moody and particular.

Lisa’s childhood was a somewhat simple one, yet happy and content, watching the tasks that her mother and father would complete during their days and often reading in her room or in the flower garden, watching it tended by Mr. Gates. Though she enjoyed being outside, she felt no great admiration for walking through the fields, though Christina would often encourage her to breathe in and respect the beauty of the property.

Christina and Lisa had a relationship of distance in Lisa’s younger years, the two getting along when in the same room but never truly talking or getting to know one another. But, not until Christina’s death did Lisa begin to remember the words of encouragement, the words of hope that Christina would try to give her. Not until the Oak began to die did Lisa began to remember sitting on the porch as a child and listening to Christina talk about The Oak, about it being built from hope, about how hope could change the world. Even as a child, Lisa thought it unlikely good advice if coming from someone who did not even speak to her own sister.

Lisa did well in school, a smart girl who, encouraged by those living at The Oak, studied hard and seemed successful in extra-curricular school activities. Yet, still in high-school when her father died, Lisa found no interest in pursing college or even vocational school. And, at only twenty years of age when her mother died, Lisa fell into her post at The Oak, keeping the home she thought of as her own and guarding the family legacy.

Lisa continued sorting through the letters in the books, overwhelmed by the reoccurring theme of hope. Some of the events written about in Christina’s letters were events Christina had felt comfortable enough to share with Lisa in the final years, while others were sentiments that Christina had never expressed or secrets that Christina had never shared.

The gun, the bloody clothes, hidden in the walls decades earlier by Christina and Betsy, had been found in the house by the State shortly after Christina died. Though turned over to the sheriff with the original hand-written letter, too many years had passed to prove anything. Yet, Lisa felt uncomfortable about her family’s involvement in the matter, even though it was long before her time. And, the letters written by Kevin Allgood on behalf of Betsy, an attempt to locate the child she never knew, letters which had been shared with Lisa prior to being returned to their location in the wall, were found by the State and put on display due to the signatures of influential people of the time. It bothered Lisa, family history being on display like a china cup from France.

Some of the letters reminded Lisa of her own childhood, of listening to Mr. Gates speak about how to care for the garden, of being allowed to help plant the roses in the spring. There were the times that her father would show her the right time to pick a peach or the time to pull an ear of corn, telling her jokes as they walked along the rows, or showing her how to milk a cow without getting kicked off the stool. There were the days that her mother would talk about her own childhood at The Oak or how food was cooked in the early days, showing Lisa how to bake the family’s prestigious sourdough bread.

Then, Lisa came across the letter about Steven, a letter that reminded her of a situation that, on good days, she was able to forget for a little while.

She had only been seventeen, walking from school to the local co-op where she was to meet her father, often there picking up supplies for the Oak, to travel home. The air was cooling, the autumn settling in, the leaves changing from delicate greens into bright, crisp reds and yellows. It was only Monday, yet her backpack was heavy with texts and notebooks, folders and homework assignments. Second semester finals were coming, and she had to be prepared.

The co-op was just a short walk down the main road from the school, both locations on the only highway through this quaint, little mountain town. As she walked down the sidewalk, waving at the occasional passing car of someone she knew, she kept reciting historical information from the major wars, trying to commit to memory the who and when and where of all the major battles.

“Get in!”

The voice took her by surprise, her mind focused on the Battle of Gettysburg. Then, she turned her gaze to the rusted-out Charger edging forward beside her, the young man with the greasy, long, blond hair driving and holding a gun towards her.

“Get in, now!” He said the words again, looking forward quickly and then returning his stare to Lisa. “Or, you’re dead,” he added.

Lisa looked about, but the street suddenly seemed quiet, vacant, and she didn’t think she’d reach the co-op a couple blocks up the street without being shot first. Not knowing what to do, her pulse quickening, Lisa stepped in to the car.

Though she did not know him, she knew of him. Spike, people called him, though she had never known why. Spike was from a bad family known well to the law. His reputation was bad, reality worse, and Lisa knew enough not to try and fight with him.

“Close the door,” he yelled, “now!”

Lisa held her backpack in her lap, wondering what to do as the car turned away from town and began to speed off down the highway.

He drove, the gun remaining in his hand as he grasped the wheel. “Just sit tight,” he said as she heard the electric locks engaged, locks he had wired into the car for occasions just like this. “We’re gonna go for a ride.”

Lisa remained quiet, looking at the evergreen air freshener hanging from the rearview mirror behind an old, rusty, metal railroad spike. Or, was that not rust but dried blood?

He noticed where her eyes were focused. “Yeah, they call me Spike and I’m about to show you why.”

Lisa wasn’t entirely certain what came over her, but a calmness engulfed her like an embrace and she sensed words coming to her mind. Gently, she placed her hand on Spike’s shoulder and, in a calm voice, nearly whispering, said, “Someone must have hurt you very badly when you were little.”

Spike swallowed hard and, as tears nearly came to his eyes, he punched the brakes, spinning the car part of the way through the highway. “Get out,” he said, almost calmly but nearly breathless, his stare focused straight ahead, his hands, the gun, still on the wheel, “before I change my mind.”

Almost before he disengaged the electric locks, Lisa was out the door, dropping her backpack to the ground and running as fast as she could back towards town, back to the co-op and the security of her father as Spike sped off, heading out of town.

Her father took her to the sheriff’s office before going home to The Oak, but they were told that charges would probably not be brought. What harm had come, the officers asked. Her father died shortly after that, the stress too much for his health. A few months after the incident, Spike was charged with driving under the influence and carrying a concealed weapon without a permit, but years would pass before Christina and Lisa learned that it was Spike’s uncle, Henry Stevenson, who had gotten the charges dropped. And, since Spike was dead, suicide by hanging the paper had said, years had passed, and Henry had been with the Oak since before the incident, Lisa and Christina decided not to terminate Henry’s association with the Oak. Yet, before Christina’s death, they both spoke of regret of that decision.

Lisa read through the letters about hope, about speaking out for those who can’t, about early life at The Oak. For hours, she read about taking chances, being happy, finding joy in each day, and about two sisters, dressed as one, running through fields of wildflowers, laughing. And, little by little, she grew to understand the Christina that was and the Christina that came to be, and she grew to understand more about her own past, her life.

Lisa held on to the book, drifting back and forth between letters, reading some of the letters two or three times, studying them, searching for what she felt was written between lines and within words. Dreams are paths to follow the letter read, and as Lisa lowered the book she thought about those words, their meaning, her life.

“Your destiny,” Lisa’s mother had told her when Lisa was young, “is not necessarily to be here at the Oak, but to be happy. Where you are or what you do, whatever it is that makes you happy, well, that may be here at the Oak or it may not.”

“Now, you know your mother,” Lisa’s father had told her repeatedly, “honors the family legacy of working here at the work. You need to stay. You’ll be taken care of here and it’s safe at the Oak. You won’t have to worry about anything.”

Lisa, only seventeen at the time, had been walking around the corner of the drugstore in town, on her way to pick up a prescription for her father shortly after the incident with Spike. She was unaware that Henry Stevenson was having a final chat with a client outside his office door located, at that time, by the drugstore. Lisa stopped short of the corner when she heard his voice and her name mentioned. Lisa stopped, hiding, unseen beside the corner wall, listening to what Henry was saying, listening to him refer to her by name, calling her a tramp, and saying that Lisa had made up everything about Spike, adding that Lisa deserved to be punished, saying that Lisa had asked for trouble and deserved it.

Once the voices had ended and the door was heard closing, Lisa walked past Henry’s office and into the drugstore. The drugstore was old, with wooden floors that creaked slightly with each step. The cashier was not at her post at the front of the store as Lisa walked to the pharmaceutical counter in the back and requested the prescription. After being told it would still be a couple of minutes, Lisa spent a few minutes looking through the small selection of magazines against a corner wall.

“He did, Mr. Michaels fell ill about that same time,” she heard a voice an aisle over say. “People are saying that he just couldn’t handle all this, his daughter being kidnapped or not, depending on who you believe.”

“Well, that Spike never has been any good to anybody,” a voice answered. “I don’t know anything about that Lisa girl, but if she’s hanging out with Spike she can’t be any better.”

“What I heard was that she was just walking, and he propositioned her and she agreed,” the first voice responded.

“Guess it doesn’t really matter what happened,” the second voice answered, “because I’ve heard that whatever happened has upset Mr. Michaels so bad that his health can’t handle it. It’s gonna kill him.”

Lisa gently put back the copy of the architectural magazine that she had been leafing through, pretending not to have heard a word from the nearby aisle when she heard the pharmacist clear his throat.

“Here you go, Lisa,” the old man gently and quietly said as he bent over the counter and handed her the small brown bottle with the label affixed to the front. “Pay them no mind, young lady,” he said, whispering as he nodded for emphasis.

Yet, before long, Lisa was standing over her father’s grave, and a part of Lisa blamed herself.

Lisa put the book of letters on the table, easing out of bed, and slowly walking to the closet, brushing her hair behind her ears, uncertain if she wanted to reopen the past. Moving aside shoes and a couple of other boxes, Lisa reached for the plastic box in the back and pulled it outside of the closet. Slowly, she removed the lid, though she remembered what was inside. The box held magazines, lots of magazines, two years worth, in fact, her entire subscription, and, texts and notebooks as well.

Architecture. Lisa remembered reading everything she could about the subject, memorizing line and form, styles, angles. When they had the time, Lisa would talk to the workers at The Oak who knew construction, asking about how to piece together frames and strengthen structures and build foundations. When the barn would need to be patched or when a new cabin was built for a worker, Lisa was there, watching, sketching, hammering, measuring, listening, learning. Math and geometry, she studied, and in a spiral-bound sketch pad she had poured her ideas, writing in the margins about distances and heights and degrees. Lisa had wanted to design, to build, to be able to create something as beautiful and as strong as The Oak.

But, that was before Spike, and before the incredible feeling of safety that rushed over her when she passed through the gates of the Oak on that day that her father drove her back home after leaving the sheriff’s office. It was before the death of her father, when the light of her heart dimmed a little more and she boxed up her ideas, her dreams, packing them away into a dark corner of the closet in protective plastic just in case she wanted them to see the light again. It was before the death of her mother, when staying at The Oak and fulfilling a family legacy seemed the perfect excuse for not moving on, for not taking a risk.

Lisa leafed through a few of the magazines, smiling as she remembered the Antebellum, the Greek Revival, the Modern. But, exhaling, she put the magazines back and snapped the lid back on.

“What’s the point,” she thought, her hand upon the plastic lid as if protecting whatever was left of the dream. And, then, the light shown in through the window, a new dawn had broken illuminating the room with an old familiar golden breath. “What was it the letter had said? Every day is a new opportunity,” she thought.


Henry had rung for his morning coffee, and Lisa did as she was told, making her way up the staircase more quickly than he expected.

“You don’t have to worry about that,” he said to someone on the phone, Lisa standing next to the wall just outside the door. “Trust me. It just takes time.” He paused for the voice on the other end to answer. “I’ve done it before,” Henry reassured before another pause. “Trust me. By the time I’m through, she’ll be leaving on her own and we won’t have to worry about making up some excuse to fire her. Take my word for it. I’ve done it before. I’m good at this. It’s a talent,” he laughed and sighed self-righteously before another pause, followed by a short, “um-huh,” and another pause. “No, it’s in the bag. Between that freak accident with the porch, which, frankly, was just plain lucky for us, and a few strings I pulled, there will be no complications. I’m set to sign the papers the day after tomorrow, and the Oak will be mine and we’ll be counting all that money from that development deal.” And, another pause. “That’s right. Serves the old bitty right too, losing this place to us. So, what do you say, Ben, old man, you’d better start thinking of what you’re going to do with all this money.” And, he hung up the phone.

Lisa knocked on the door before entering. “Here you go,” she said as she put the coffee down on the desk as Henry always wanted.

“Have a seat. I want to talk to you.”

Sitting in the chair facing away from the window that Henry had positioned by the desk, Lisa tried to remain calm, her eyes already red from reading, her mind fatigued from being up most of the night.

“I’ve been watching some of the house staff’s performance and wanted to know what you think of it.”

Lisa paused, thinking, trying to figure out what it was he wanted, trying to determine what to say.

“Well,” he asked, his voice with a shaper edge to it than earlier.

“I’m thinking,” Lisa answered.

“What’s there to think about,” Henry yelled, his face turning red and wrinkling at the eyes and mouth with anger.

Lisa swallowed hard, finding herself unable to say anything.

“Get out of my office until you can grow up and stop acting like a three-year-old,” Henry barked at her as Lisa nearly ran out of the room.

Back in the kitchen, Lisa wondered what to do, knowing that soon Henry would have control over the Oak, over her. But, then, he already had both, didn’t he? Lisa was familiar with people like Henry, those who did as they pleased, no use for rules, no room for others, no consistent ethics or principles unless it suited their need. Yet, somehow, people like Henry always seemed to get what they wanted, as if they wished it to themselves with sheer determination of will. Truth never mattered to people like Henry, people who believed as they wanted and, somehow, had the power to convince others of the same. And, now Lisa felt that she was the prey Henry had in his sights, and she knew not how to save herself.

With tears in her throat and pain in her heart, Lisa poured herself a cup of coffee, so distraught that she forgot the cinnamon stick she always added. Turning to the door when it seemed to call to her, Lisa saw the shadow, a figure in black growing more specific with each passing day as if growing, feeding, coming to life. The cup fell to the floor, splashing coffee about the room and drawing her eyes to the floor. And, when she looked towards the door again, the shadow was gone.

“Sleep, dear, you need sleep,” Christopher said to her after Lisa had made her way to the garden bench. “Just close your eyes and rest for a while,” he said, gently rubbing her temple in such a way that Lisa didn’t even seem to notice as she laid down on the bench and fell into sleep under a blue sky dotted with white clouds.

And as rest soothed her tension and the scent of roses filled the air, Lisa began to dream. “Don’t make the same mistakes I made,” she remembered Christina telling her as the old lady sat at the old oak desk, staring with regret across the fields of clover. “Fight,” she heard Hope repeat in urging, “fight, Lisa.” In her mind, she saw Monica sitting on a deck, laughing and eating ice cream, Monica’s face turning to Lisa and saying, “You can have this too. You can be happy.” Lisa’s body felt light, as if her spirit were taking flight, flying to the top of the mountain and sitting, listening to leaves rustle and crunch, listening to the birds sing. And, in her mind she heard Christina’s voice again, “It’s the closest thing I’ve ever known to hope, to God.” And, as her spirit sat there on the mountaintop, she saw the white rabbit with crystal blue eyes sitting there watching her protectively, trying to tell her something, but what? Lisa saw the Oak as it was, with gentle hands and soothing hues about it, protecting it, caring for it. And, as before, her attention was turned toward the Oak as it is now, with dark hands clenching at its sides and fists pounding at its roofs with threatening storms above.

When Lisa awoke, lying there on the bench, her eyes slowly opening to the beauty of the garden, her eyes were drawn to the white rose bush before her. “Could it be,” she thought as she looked into the crystal blue eyes of a white rabbit. Sitting up and rubbing her eyes, she looked again, and found only white roses.

“You awake,” Christopher said from the other side of the garden where he was pulling up weeds.

“Yes, sir, Mr. Gates.” Looking towards the sun, Lisa could feel the warmth of the rays on her face, feeling as though they were entering her soul and cleansing her.

Mr. Gates made his way over to Lisa, sitting beside her on the bench. “You okay now? I was pretty worried about you a little while ago.”

“Yes, I feel much better now. What time is it?”

“Well, it’s about two. Don’t worry, I kept an eye on you.”

“Mr. Gates, you didn’t happen to see a white rabbit running around here, did you?”

“Not lately, but there is one that’s supposed to live on the property. Supposed to be tens of thousands of years old.” He laughed a bit.

Lisa gave him a confused expression.

“Ah, you’ve never heard that story?”

Lisa shook her head.

“Well,” he cleared his throat, “let me see if I can recall. If I remember correctly, it goes like this. In the early days of time, God liked this little piece of land here, and God blessed it and the land became sacred. Blue skies and light reigned, the seasons lived in peace, and the rain fell with joy. It was here where the angels came to renew their spirits when they began to lose faith in the world, and the hope about the land would restore their faith in all living beings. While still in favor, God sent Lucifer, the angel of light, to watch over the land and protect it, to guard it and bless it with the light. Then, Lucifer began to crave power and boundless freedom, wanting the land for his own, cursing God and doing as he pleased. And, Lucifer fell out of favor with God. When the two battled, a drop of God’s blood fell to the Earth, and the oaks grew. And, Lucifer was banished to the Dark Well of Lost Yesterdays, the Well of Sorrow. But, the damage was done, the land was like Eden no more, and sorrow had found its way to the land, a mixture of voices of hope and despair riding upon the air leaving a choice to be made by all living things about which voice they would follow. And, though hope remained prominent, the rain often became like Heaven’s tears and the storms came. So, needing a guardian for the land, God asked Aphrodite, the angel of fertility to watch over the land. Aphrodite was a good guardian, and she blessed the land with roses. It is said that where Aphrodite touched, a rose would bloom, and where she walked, the oaks would flourish, and hope, again, ruled the land. But, humans began to worship Aphrodite instead of God, and a jealous God he can be, so he summoned Aphrodite back up to the stars and, in her stead, God sent a white rabbit as his messenger. Since that time, the white rabbit has watched over this land. It is said that those who are visited by the white rabbit are receiving a message from the angels, or from God himself, if they are willing to hear it. But, the message can only be heard by those with an open heart, a heart open to hope, to the Heavens.”

“Wow,” Lisa whispered.

Christopher chuckled. “Well, it may just be an old dramatic wise tale, but there is a moral to the story.”

“What?”

“God could have just given up, just turned the land over to Lucifer and took the losses, but he didn’t. He fought. He fought with the greatest weapon anyone can ever have.”

“What’s that?”

“Hope, goodness, whatever you want to call it. But, look around,” he motioned with his hands, “the oaks and the roses still flourish here on this land. And, before the last few months, so did the people who lived here.”

“But, what about the house? What about now?”

Christopher looked at Lisa with tender eyes of explanation, “Choices were made.”

Lisa looked about at the roses, still unclear in her train of thought.

Christopher gently placed his finger beneath Lisa’s chin, turning her eyes back to his own and repeating in a voice that sounded as if it came from within Lisa instead of without, “Choices were made. But, there is still time for choices to be changed.”

And, Lisa suddenly noticed Christopher’s eyes of crystal blue.


Lisa returned to her room and finished reading the letters written by Abigail and Christina, periodically looking towards the window and noticing how the rays of light were floating in through the window, shining onto her body, the books, and a ray that directed itself toward the closet door. She felt a peaceful quiet about the room, a comforting cool like a fresh spring day that awakens the senses and brightens the soul.

Returning to the closet, again she pulled out the plastic box from the back corner, sitting in the floor, opening the box, and looking through the memories once more. There was strength in those buildings and atmosphere about the structures and certainty within the lines, those were the things that had drawn her to architecture. She liked studying the graceful flow of angles that would lead one corner into another and enjoyed the continuous breath that seemed to pass from room to room.

“We were put on this old Earth to be happy, to live,” Lisa remembered her mother telling her, “not just to die.”

As she turned the pages, reading the articles and studying the faces, she remembered dreaming of designing homes that would reflect the family, their mood, their love for another, their love of art or music or a certain type of wood or color. Lisa had wanted to design houses for lovers of music that would carry a flow between rooms as if the walls were whispering a rhythm in four-four time. She had wanted to design abodes for painters and sculptors that would have angles uniquely their own, masterpieces drawn from inspiration with the intention of inspiring. She had wanted to design homes for the masses that were affordable, but more interesting, more personable, than the homes often built at the time, a single design sitting upon every lot in a neighborhood, each house differing only in the color of its shutters. Lisa had wanted all of that. And, she still did.

Leaning against the bed and looking into the light, Lisa remembered Christopher’s story and the white rabbit with blue eyes. Drifting in on a beam of gold, a memory returned that had been stored away in a dark corner of her mind. Yes, she had seen the white rabbit before, once when she was young.

“There’s one, Daddy,” Lisa mouthed, a child of nine pulling excitedly at the arm of her father’s jacket and pointing. It was the first time she had been allowed to go hunting with her father, her mother not keen on the idea of her only daughter being in the woods with guns during hunting season.

He raised the gun and looked through the scope, seeing a white rabbit hopping away, the crystal blue eyes periodically glancing back at him, and he immediately lowered his gun and smiled.

Lisa could not remember seeing a live rabbit not housed in a cage prior to that moment, and she reveled in the beauty of the snow white fur that ran bouncing through the trees, hopping from root to root. “It’s okay, Daddy,” she said, “there’ll probably be another one come along soon. Wasn’t he pretty?”

“Yes, he sure was.” Kneeling beside Lisa, her father settled on to one knee so that he was eye-to-eye with the child. “Now, let me tell you something,” he said with a smile. “I’ve been hunting in these parts a long time and I don’t think I’ve ever seen that rabbit. You must be my good luck charm.”

“We’ll get the next one, Daddy.”

“Well, maybe, maybe not,” he continued. “You see, that rabbit you just saw. Well, that’s no ordinary rabbit.”

“Why?”

He looked to the ground and then back to his daughter, “A white rabbit with blue eyes, well, he’s pretty special around here. If you see him, he’s supposed to be good luck. So, no matter what, you never, ever shoot at the white rabbit with blue eyes. And, if you happen to catch him in a cage, you let it go. And, if you find that he got caught in one of these traps around here, you be sure to help him out. ‘Cause that’s a special rabbit. Yep, a very special rabbit.”

Sitting by the bed in the rays of sun streaming in, Lisa smiled at the memory she had forgotten. And her mind remembered more.

It had been an overcast day, the late summer heat of her twenty-first year threatening from time to time to erupt in storms. The dreams of architecture had been returning to her mind, the strength of the tangled roots of trees beginning to bring questions to her mind, possibilities for strengthened foundations and, perhaps, a fanciful treehouse or two. Lisa walked through the fields, walking to where the trees reached their branches up to the Heavens over intertwined roots and limbs. And, Spike stepped out from behind a tree, not hiding but hidden by a trunk as he tried to maneuver the tangled roots sitting atop the ground.

Lisa screamed, the trees rustling their leaves in response but with no one else about to hear.

“It’s okay,” Spike said, the liquor making his walking unsteady, his speech slightly slurred but still clear enough to understand every word. “I won’t hurt you, not you.”

Lisa stood there, unable to move, frightened, but noticing the greasy blond hair streaked with dirt and pulled behind ears, the face stained with soil and the tracks of old tears and, in an occasional moment, new ones. The man she thought of as a criminal, a hardened heart, or someone with no heart at all, sat down before her on the tree roots and, now, to her seemed broken. Lisa said nothing.

“I won’t hurt you. I won’t,” Spike repeated.

“What do you want,” Lisa stuttered, her voice sounding her fear.

Spike’s only response was a stream of tears.

“Are you alright, are you hurt,” Lisa couldn’t believe she heard her own voice saying the words.

Spike laughed, laughed the laugh that everyone does when they don’t know how to answer, when the question seems overwhelming and overpowering. Finally, he swallowed another drink from the bottle in his hand, looking down to the ground with hollow eyes and a lost soul, exhaling what little bit of strength he had left within. “You’re the only person who’s ever asked me that. You’re the only one who ever seemed to care.”

But, Lisa did not understand. Feeling Spike was not an immediate threat, she walked away, saying nothing more. And, turning back once when she felt far enough away to do so safely, she saw Spike sitting there where he had been, crying, his head supported by his knees. Then, turning back again, he was gone, and she assumed he had walked back from whence he came.

It was only a couple of days after that when the papers wrote of Spike’s death. Lisa somehow felt responsible, feeling pain, confusion, and regret instead of safety, but not knowing why, packing away her dreams again and submitting herself completely to life at The Oak.

Lisa sat leaning against the bed and looking into the light, holding a magazine in her arms, close to her heart. “What could he have meant,” she wondered. “Why would he think I cared?” The light seemed to carry her back and remind her of her tender words, “someone must have hurt you…”

Through the window, Lisa watched the setting sun, deep shades of magenta and amber and blue gliding through the sky, helping to transition the day into the night, the sun’s phase into that of the glowing moon. Within the changes, Lisa began to feel her own transition, her strength growing as well as the peace within her spirit, her dreams returning, and her hope filling up like a well that had been empty of water too long.






This work is entirely fictional. Any resemblance to situations or persons, living or dead, is unintentional and coincidental.