The Maple Leaf

Eight: A Room For Two

When William opened his eyes he noticed the soft light from a lantern dancing across his body and onto his face.

"Ah, my head." He said, starting to feel an intense headache come over him.

As he lay there holding his head, a voice he had never heard before came from nearby. It was a sweet voice; soft, with a slight rasp to it. He never imagined how the sound of a voice that wasn't Father's could be so mesmerizing. It was the opposite of Father's old, worn vocality. It was indescribable to William.

"You fell on your head," said the stranger, "could have broken your neck."

"Yeah," said William as he propped himself up and looked at the person sitting in front of him.

It was a girl. Seemed about his age. He would ask but it seemed irrelevant. She probably had no idea. The light revealed her well enough to notice that her clothes were similar to his own. Her hair looked brown, but it could have been dark blonde. The darkness in the room helped little with the details.

Her eyes were enough in the light to reveal a hazel color. She was a small woman, perhaps just as malnourished as William. Her oval face ended with the point of her small, pronounced chin. It was like discovering a new, spectacular species for the first time. All the women, living ones at least, that may have been in his memory before had all but faded away. Silence sat between them for a brief moment before she spoke.

"You feel OK?"

"I think I'll be fine." He said.

"What's up there?" She asked.

"I didn't get a good look at what was chasing me. The rest is just a shitty hallway." He said.

He hadn't had an actual conversation in years. It was like the answers and questions were present in his mind but the mouth and the words couldn't connect.

"I hear them up there sometimes. Tapping and breathing." She said.

"They were tapping with broomsticks."

"Broomsticks?" She asked, surprised.

"Don't ask me." He said.

"Some kind of fucked up housekeeping service, huh?" She replied with a grin.

He countered her grin with one of his own, though it didn't strike him as funny at that moment nor did he fully understand what a housekeeper was.

"They were pulling on my legs. And the hallway got so small, I had to crawl on my stomach." He explained.

"I used to wonder if they were just others, like me. But after a while, I realized they aren't anything like me." She said.

"How do you figure that?"

"They don't talk. Sometimes I'll hear them up there just scratching. I think they take turns sniffing up there." She said.

"Sniffing?"

"I don't know. It used to creep me out. But they're just a bunch of crazy fucks and I've learned to tune them out. I assume it's Father's little helpers or something, coming to keep an eye - and nose - on me."

"So, you know Father," he asked before continuing, "he makes you call him that, too?"

"He used to keep me in a room with a window. Now, I get... this." She said, holding her palms out and presenting the room like a sad, last-place trophy.

"I had a window, too. More like a hole, really. But I guess that's what windows are when you think about it." He replied.

"Mine didn't even lead outside. It was just another room on the other side of it. Kind of like that hole you almost died in. Or would the culprit have been the ground?" She said sarcastically.