In Her Eyes

Chapter 1

It all started the year I went crazy. I had gotten taken out of school by my parents during the first week of senior year, the only place I had known all my life. My dad found some new accounting job in the northern mountains. The mountains. Of all the places in the wold, he chose the mountains.

That was their excuse anyways. I knew the real reason.

My grandmother had recently fallen ill with dementia. It was actually pretty bad, I guess, because she would scream in the middle of the night but she never remembered why she was screaming. My mom felt it was a bad idea for my sister and I to be around her. I overheard her talking to my dad once, which lead to him searching for jobs everyday on our computer. I only know this because he left his browsing window open when I went to play World of Warcraft and I looked through the history.

As I searched the page and scanned the information with my eyes, I heard a faint 'ping'. I had heard the noise before as I stared at my ceiling in bed during the night. It took me a moment to realize that a small window had appeared on the screen in the bottom right hand corner. It was only a username, so I couldn't tell who it was. The message said something about how 'we'll have fun in North Dakota' with a smiley face. There were X's and O's after the message which is computer language for hugs and kisses. I closed the message and didn't think anything of it.

Anyways, he finally found one, picked our family up, and moved us by the Killdeer Mountains in North Dakota. I was 17 when all this happened, but by the time we finally reached our new place I had already been 18 for two days. Driving from Florida to the middle of nowhere in North Dakota takes a long time! We had to stop multiple times for my sister and each time we did, my mother would turn to me saying, "You get out of this car, Carter Lions, and hold back your sister's hair for her." Of course every time I did, but she didn't have to reiterate it so much.

Pulling into the driveway, I could see a cozy, wooden house that looked as if only our family could fit in it and not one more person. Julie, my sister, stuck her head out the window and stared at the vast mountains that were a couple miles away from our small house. I imagined a small avalanche coming down the mountain's steep slope and landing on the fine wood, crushing the structure and us in the process.

"Carter, come on out and help me with these boxes," My dad was yelling outside the car window to me. When I glanced around, I realized everyone had gotten out and was walking into the meager building. The door handle felt oddly cold in my hand and I told myself that I would have to get used to this new temperature. My natural Florida body was racked with a shiver as I used my force to open the metal door.

The old door creaked under the pressure and made a sharp noise as I slammed it shut. I walk to the back of our car and grabbed a box labeled 'dishes'. It didn't seem like we had that many before, but this box felt like it weighed almost as much as Julie.

I carried it inside the narrow doorway, the floorboards groaning from the weight that had just been placed on it. The living room was the first thing you saw as you walked in. To the left was a stairway leading up to the second floor. I walked down the hallway to the kitchen where I found my mother unpacking more dishes.

"Mom," I called to her from the doorway of the kitchen. "When did we get so many plates and bowls? Did we really have this many in Florida?"

My mother chuckled a bit and nodded her head. "Carter, you can never have too many plates! Besides, I think you have our bowls. Set them down by the sink on the floor and help you father get more boxes."

I felt something sharp poke through the side of the box and after I set it down, I realized there was a crimson streak running down my finger,

"Hey, where's the bathroom?"

"Upstairs and to the left. Go all the way down the hallway, it's the last door."

I nodded and worked my way back to the staircase. When I reached the top, I followed my mom's instructions and found a sink inside the small bathroom. I rinsed my finger and momentarily stained the white porcelain a light red. I shook my hands in the air since we had no towels out yet. Glancing out the small window, I noticed Julie outside playing by the path that led into the dark woods that I now called my backyard.

The upstairs hallway was narrow and had multiple doors on its sides. Making my way down the strip, I listened to how each step produced a different sounding cry and that the last room on the right side of the hallway connected at the top of the ceiling to form a triangle. It was small, but somehow comforting, so I decided that it would become my bedroom. There was a medium sized window that took up most of the tallest wall and outside there were more trees.

I went back downstairs and out to the car to grab all the boxes with my name on it. After I made sure all my things were there and my dad brought up my bed, followed by a dresser and a small table I began to unpack. The table was placed by my bed and after I pulled my record player out of the small box that protected it, I set it on the table along with a small clock. The Mumford and Sons vinyl that my family had gotten me for Christmas slowly came out of the speakers as I continued to unpack the rest of my things.

I could only fit one dresser into my room, so I unpacked my clothes next and placed them inside the hollow wood. The low voices of the singers kept coming out of the record player and when I glanced out the window again, Julie was walking from the mouth of the woods. Downstairs I could hear my parents talking as my dad helped mom unpack.

No one was watching Julie and it was starting to get dark, so I went down the stairs and out the back door towards the woods. When the cold air hit my face, tears welled in my eyes. I couldn't see Julie as I called for her, but there was no answer.

"Julie!" I cupped my hands around my mouth to try and make my voice louder.

"Carter," Julie said coming towards me. "Be quiet! You're going to wake her up."

"Wake who up?" I glanced into the now black woods. There was no one in sight. "Julie, there's no one there."

"That's because she just went to sleep." Julie was whispering now and then she ran past me towards the house. A soft breeze blew on my face and rippled my hair. After staring at the darkness for five minutes and listening to the leaves tumble in the wind, I decided to head back inside.

"-and there's a lake! It's so beautiful and the water doesn't move. It's huge and so calm. Oh mom, you have to see it sometime." Julie was explaining her adventures as I walked in the screen door. I watched as my dad paced around the kitchen frantically looking for something and my mother put the last dish away.

"Claudia, where did you put the glasses?" My father's booming voice echoed through the house.

"They're right here." Mom walked over to a small cabinet and pulled out a glass, handing it to my father. He filled it with water and then walked into a small room next to the kitchen.

"Can we go see the lake tomorrow?" Julie grabbed mom's hand and started to whine.

"Oh, I don't-"

"I think it sounds nice," I heard myself say. "We could all walk out to it tomorrow."

Mom glanced to the room where my dad had walked into. I wondered if she knew who told us we'd have fun here. She sighed and agreed. "But you two need to go to bed! Tomorrow is the last day before you start school."

We groaned, but trudged ourselves upstairs. Julie's room had ended up next to mind. Her's seemed a little more spacious than mine, but I didn't mind. As I crawled into bed, I closed my eyes and heard the faint 'ping' downstairs below my room.