When the Sloan family first moved into their two-story, oceanside abode, the oldest Sloan daughter claimed the room with the balcony. Only minutes apart from her two sisters, she exclaimed “It’s mine,” as she flew up the stairs.
She lived on that balcony. Curled up in a blanket against the railing, wisps of brown hair windblown through the ornate bars that contain her. Her sisters did not enjoy the height–or sometimes just her presence–enough to join her but that did not stop her from guarding the door like her life bet on it. The silver-plated key strung through a worn piece of yarn hung around her neck, her little hands protecting it until she had to scrub the smell of metal from them.
One clear night, she was, expectedly, on her balcony. Barefoot, standing near the edge, though not right up against it like she usually is. She was watching their neighbors house, a good ways away but close enough to watch figures walk past windows and a similar balcony.
It was there where one of their neighbors–a sweet, old man named Robert–fell to his death.
She watched him open his door, take a deep breath of salty air, and clutch his chest. He clutched the railing so suddenly that she felt it in her own hand. The indent and chill. With one more painful tremor, he fell right over. She watched it all from a safe distance. Or what she thought was safe for years.
Before she could watch his similarly sweet wife, Amalia, find him lifeless in their escallonias twenty feet below, she ran back into her room. Shut the door and locked it.
Her sisters woke first. After all, she shared both walls with them. When she left her room in a haste, they opened their doors. Light filtered out into the dark hallway and out came their sleep-mussed forms, irritated at the interruption. She did not look at them as she bound for their parents room at the end of the hall.
The cops were called and on their way, their mother threw on a jacket and ran across the sand to check on Amalia, much to their father’s hesitance. He clutched the three girls, now all fully awake and far gone from sleeping. A cheek to each of their heads. Heavy breathing and a fast heart the oldest can hear being in between her sisters and therefore, smushed into his chest. She could barely hear his heartbeat over her own.
Her feet never touched the balcony again. It was locked tight. She threw her own key in the ocean and begged her parents to do the same with theirs. She would not leave them be until she saw them do it, as hard as they could. She could not even be near the door. She pushed her bed herself to the farthest wall from it in the middle of the night when she heard something creak, and had her father install thick curtains to cover any light, any shadow from the other house.
It was much a surprise then where Amalia found the oldest Sloan daughter fifteen years later.
She continued to live in the house. Even after their fathers death right after they turned fifteen, after her sisters moved out right after they graduated high school, one to college and one out of the country. Even after their mother passed the year after that left her, at long last, alone.
In the same room. With the same covered balcony, as if there was not one at all.
Her sisters rarely visited. They appeared for their mother’s funeral, stayed in the house for a few days, before their departure again. The middle Sloan daughter visited a couple times. It was not long until she felt that same pull to leave once more, with a concerning look and a haste in her footsteps.
Somewhere in the time since, the curtains were removed. The door opened. Old creaks and white knuckles and a whisper on the wind ruffling long, brown hair.
But the sisters did not know that. They did not know an old haunt was resurfaced while they were gone, whether forgivingly or regretfully. The last that they had known was how the oldest would cower in fear, an egotistical desire turned nightmare, at a singular door.
They did not know what else she saw that night. Or what she saw fifteen years later that led her into their own escallonias below.
Amalia did not see the moments before as the oldest had with her late husband. Not a blur of brown or a clutch at the railing or a single misstep that would seal her fate. She did not see her until days later as she was walking her dog down the shore.
The balcony, in the end, was always hers.
Average Rating:
You must be logged in to rate this post.