Obsidian Ledge

I always do my best thinking before four in the morning. As I nod in and out of weightless thoughts in the driver’s seat of my car, I consider that might be a curse placed upon me by my ancestors. 

My fingers absentmindedly tighten around the steering wheel, squeezing until my palms ache. How am I supposed to explain my sudden disappearance? My alleged death? The people who once adored me searched restlessly for my body in the river beneath the ledge. They will despise me now. They will expect an explanation, but I have none. 

I drive up a winding road toward the ghost town I once called home. Written across a collapsed sign in bold black letters are the words Welcome to Obsidian Ledge. Electric chills run up and down my spine propelling me to sit forward in my seat as I quickly approach the life I abandoned. 

I linger in thoughts that encourage me to turn around. No one will expect my return. Elijah will not care when I walk through the front door of our family home. Katerina will not glance twice in my direction. Half of the people in town will not recognize me, yet I find myself eager and hoping that I might effortlessly slide into an old routine as though I never disappeared. 

But I think it safe to assume that people will not happily welcome the runaway Reynolds child. 

Uncertainty tears through my chest and ties a knot in my stomach as I park my car beside a rusting gas pump. There are a thousand and one reasons to end my story at this gas station, but the fear that convinces me to leave and pretend as though I never intended to return is not stronger than the curiosity that compels me to keep moving forward. 

People die in Obsidian Ledge. 

“Excuse me?” a soft voice asks in a lousy attempt to drag me from my thoughts. 

I continue to stare forward at the slow rising numbers on the gas pump, having ignored the woman itching carefully toward me. When I glance at her, I see an image of my younger self with pale skin and natural auburn hair cut to sit above a pair of thin shoulders. 

“I’m sorry to bother you, but I’m lost. Which town is this?” 

“Obsidian Ledge.” 

There is a sorrow embedded deeply within the green eyes that study me. I wanted to know why the woman was standing alone at a ghost town gas station. Where was she headed? Where would she go? 

But I only tell her, “There is a motel up the road if you need a place to sleep.” 

A single tear crawls down her face. It drips onto the cracked concrete beneath our feet. Her voice is a distant whisper that disappears in the harsh wind moving around us. It trembles. “I need to leave.” 

It is not rare to find a person alone and crying in Obsidian Ledge. I consider sitting with the stranger until she is at ease, but an unknown grief piles heavily over my shoulders and my heart sinks in my chest. My curious mind craves to know the troublesome worries of the stranger, yet I only smile and wave a polite hand toward the town line and wish her a good night. 

The sun sets slowly illuminating the sky in a mix of orange and pink clouds as I drive further into the town and toward a large white Victorian home built at the end of a dead end street. The Reynolds house was once too small for the twelve people residing there. Now it is much too big for the remaining two. 

I hit my knuckles against the front door three times before taking a step back and looking across the yard. Once filled with life, it is now nothing more than an empty field of green. The birds no longer sing happy songs. They move quietly in fear for their life much like many of the people in Obsidian Ledge. 

When Elijah opens the door there is a familiar pout across his lips that reels my mind toward terrible memories that I wish to forget. He blinks slowly, peering through me, and as I expect, he never smiles. I have not seen him smile genuinely since the death of our parents. With the death of our grandmother, his frown deepened. It became permanent with the death of our siblings. 

I love what you’ve done with the house, I thought. I might have said this if my lips were not zipped shut. You repainted the shutters blue, I consider saying. Mother loved the color blue. 

I will not dare mention our mother. 

“I thought you were dead.” Elijah’s voice is as cold and bitter as I recall. He stares for a moment longer before stumbling into the foyer and waving a hand to welcome me into our home. “Katerina is in the library. She will be thrilled to see you again.” 

Elijah’s eyes follow me as though he is carefully tracking a ghost. He moves silently behind me as I walk across wooden floors toward a set of French doors. 

The library welcomes me with the scent of old leather. It is one of the many familiar smells from my childhood capable of sending my mind into a downward spiral of terrible moments from the past. 

Katerina sits in our late father’s brown leather chair with her feet propped atop his massive writer’s desk. An open book is grasped tightly between the fingers of her right hand. She does not flinch when the doors open. She does not turn. She flips the page of her book and continues to read the words printed across the page. “Is there a reason for this intrusion, Elijah? I’m busy.” 

“Your sister is here.” 

“All of our sisters are dead.” Katerina’s feet stomp against the floorboards. She closes the book around a metal bookmark and looks up with little interest. Her eyes narrow at me. “I thought you were dead.” 

In a town where people disappear daily, I am not surprised you would think that. I might have said this to ease into a basic conversation with my only surviving sister, but instead I stand motionless and silently with wide eyes staring across the room at her. “Did you mourn?” 

“No.” A braid of dark auburn hair trails down the center of her spine as she stands. She prowls around the edge of the granite desk. “I’ve spent too many years of my life in mourning. I’m tired of the suffering.” 

So many words could have been said. They might have been said if I were not trembling in my boots, fidgeting with the sleeve of my coat. “Are you angry?” 

“Angry? No.” Katerina leans her hip against the edge of the desk. She studies her fingernails. “If I had the energy to run away from this wretched town, I would, but I would never willingly come back. Why did you?” 

This might have been the perfect time to gloat about my success out of town, about my photography business that blossomed into a garden of wild travel opportunities. Still, I know they will belittle my accomplishments. They will undermine my achievements. Look where it landed you, they will say. Joyfully, they will laugh. They will mock me. Here. I ran in a circle, they will say. So I say nothing. 

I answer the question with a small shrug of my shoulders. 

“The whole town thinks that you’re dead, Violet,” Elijah growls. “There is nothing here that is worth coming back for. You could have easily made a better life for yourself on the other side of the country.” 

“Have you seen Sebastian since you’ve risen from the dead?” Katerina lurks to stand beside Elijah near the threshold. A snakelike grin plays across her thin lips as she leans gracefully toward his ear. “I think she came back for him.” 

Elijah groans. “Try not to get yourself killed, Violet. If you disappear again, I’m not going to waste time searching for your body.” 

People have always been suspicious of the ghosts that roam the streets of Obsidian Ledge at night. They haunt lonely travelers, pulling them unknowingly toward the rocky cliffs less than two miles away from the edge of town. Some people assume that was what happened to my parents and to my grandparents and to my siblings. Some think they chose to jump off of the ledge like many others knowingly had. People think the same fate will inevitably befall upon Elijah, Katerina, and I. That is why I left town. 

Now I walk alone down the dark and cold streets wandering toward Palmer Bar. I hope that I might catch a ghost trying to sway my thoughts and lure me to an inevitable death, but I am alone. 

Bright lights shine through the windows. A shiver travels down my spine as I approach the busy entrance. I blend in with the Friday night crowd of unfamiliar faces. Inside I am greeted by loud grumbled conversations and laughter. 

Delilah Calder weaves through the crowd with a large silver tray of drinks held effortlessly above her head. She serves them with a smile to a small crowd of twenty-somethings surrounding one of the pool tables. With straight blonde hair falling over thin pale shoulders, she looks more like a kindergarten school teacher than a bartender. Never known to dress provocatively, she charms the customers with big blue eyes and an innocent smile. 

I immediately notice how she lingers toward the far end of the bar. Seeing the strong back of a man with dark curly hair, I know exactly who she is trying to charm. 

Sebastian Coldwell, the younger, sweeter Coldwell brother sits on a balanced stool with an empty glass of whisky gripped in his hand. Delilah fixes another and slides it carefully across the bar. With a dazzling smile, she leans flirtatiously toward him, and he studies her features like he once studied mine. 

My chest tightens and my heart races with regret. Fear crements my feet to the floor as they laugh together, both flushing red. 

“Violet?” a woman’s voice calls over the crowd. I turn to see a pair of tear filled copper eyes staring from an arms length away. “I thought you were dead.” 

That seems to be a running theme around here, I think to myself. A reluctant smile pulls at my lips, but I do not speak a word. 

Brennan Blake is the most beautiful woman I have ever rested my eyes on. My time spent with her is the most heartbreaking short story from my past. My best friend, she is a victim like many others who have unfortunately crossed my path. She fell in love with me. 

Heartbreaking is the tragedy of my love. It has been taken from me time and time again. I am no longer inclined to it. I no longer crave the sweet taste of affection. I have no interest in being tethered to another. But in Brennan’s eyes there is hope that I can learn to love again, that somehow being here and seeing her will force my heart to grow three sizes. There is hope that I can forget my everlasting pain and find happiness, but I have been broken far too often to be easily repaired. 

She blinks the tears away. “I’m glad you’re alive. I almost didn’t recognize you with black hair. I’ll fix you a drink.” With a professional wave of her hand, she guides me toward the crowded bar. “Sebastian is here tonight. He’ll be ecstatic to know that you’re alive.” 

My breath quickens. My eyes stare longingly toward the handsome man sitting at the end of the bar. He smiles at the innocent woman leaning toward him. They laugh. 

Brennan stops when she notices my distraction. She smiles cautiously, her soothing voice saving me from suffocating thoughts. “You’re nervous.” 

My voice quivers. “He thinks that I’m dead, doesn’t he?” 

“After you disappeared, everyone assumed that you jumped off the ledge.” 

I watch Sebastian reach across the bar, placing a hand over Delilah’s to keep her from walking away. They smile gently at one another. They laugh again. “Is he happy with her?” 

Brennan sneaks a glance over her shoulder. “With Delilah? No, they aren’t together.” 

“Oh.” Though I want to say more, to ask questions, that is all I can manage to say.

Sebastian stands. My first instinct is to shield my face as he turns away from the bar, away from Delilah’s pretty smile. He greets the owner of the bar with a handshake then walks out of the side door. 

“Do you still love him?” 

I look at Brennan. Though what feels like many silent minutes pass, she never repeats her question.

Looking at Sebastian, seeing him again, my heart thumps wildly in my chest. I miss his crooked smile and his perfect hazel eyes. I long for the touch of his smooth hands against my skin. But do I still love him? Yes, with all of the broken heart beating in my chest. Yes, I love him. 

I stare down at my fidgeting hands. “I don’t know.” 

Later that evening, long after the sun had set, I stood in the driveway of the Coldwell mansion. Shivering, I tell myself to only knock three times. If no one answers the door, then no one will know that I have been standing in the cold for twenty minutes like a neighbor waiting to borrow a cup of sugar. 

I lift my hand and knock three times. Before I can spin on my heels and rush down the brick steps, the door opens. It opens instantly as though he had been waiting, expecting me to arrive. 

In the inescapable tension that follows, I am studied by a pair of forgiving eyes. I want to ramble, to apologize until I have no breath. Standing before my love, I am paused, and I can only utter one word. “Hi.”