Reflections

“No to the left,” Charlie urges, “down that side alley.” 

 

Bill sighs, clearly unbelieving in Charlie’s certainty that this is the right turn. But she knows it is. Bill flicks his blinker as he rushes to turn left across the two lane road, coming to a halt as their path in front of them disappears into the woods that lay ahead. “Keep going down this road now and follow the turn to the right,” Charlie prompts. 

 

“I wouldn’t call this a road,” Bill mutters — and Charlie can’t find it in herself to disagree. Nestled between a grouping of mailboxes and a shack, surrounded by overgrown trees and shrubbery, the dirt road hardly resembles anything but the paths one might find at a public hiking trail. Just big enough to fit one car going in a single direction, Charlie hopes that no one is coming out as they go in, unwilling to let anything get in the way of their trip to a house that only one of them wants to visit. 

 

As Bill pulls past the shack on their right, a clearing behind it opens up to reveal a manicured lawn with an arrangement of hand-carved stone that really only signifies one thing. The light, bright and warm against the bitter cold of the late morning, peeks through the gap of the trees, lighting up an intimate local cemetery — one Charlie and Bill would have seen from the main drag more clearly if they had come from the other direction. Charlie cautiously turns to face Bill, sizing up whether or not he had noticed the institution that neighbored the house they were just now going to see. But, as a chill swept down her spine knowing that which lay to their right, Bill was unbothered. Or, as unbothered as one could be when committing an afternoon to touring a house he adamantly does not want to step foot in. 

 

Now taking the curving right turn that Charlie had described before, the coverage opens up ahead and above, the dirt road no longer constricted by the trees on either side of them but rather held together as if the trees were now securing the path instead of constricting it. What was once a dirt road now turns into cement, making the path that lays just between the trees feel more civilized through the road's structural validity, the houses they start to pass even more so. 

 

Light shines once more on the car as they pass not one, but two houses on their left, assuring Charlie that the neighboring houses are still there and that the one they are going to see is not as solitary as it may feel at that moment — ignoring the fact that while she does see the houses, there are no true signs of humanity in them. 

 

“Glad to see this house isn’t the only one out here after all,” Bill quips as they pass. 

 

The house they are visiting is the last of three; neighbored by a house to the left, trees to the right, and in front, the cemetery that only Charlie had seen; the house is perfectly nestled between the edge of the world and human civilization. Although Charlie is expertly aware that the cemetery lays just beyond the trees to their right, she worries she had remembered — and seen — incorrectly. She wonders, questioning the fortitude of her memory now that they are surrounded by trees with no cemetary in sight, if everything she recalls about this place is truly what it used to be. It’s possible the road had taken them further into the woods than she had initially thought, that the cemetery is not just a step or two through the woods but a mile in front. She is unsure whether or not to find comfort in this ambiguity. 

 

Looking out the window to her right, Charlie sees a girl in the woods. Bright blonde with a pink sweater and dark jeans on, the girl couldn’t be more than 8 years old but is remarkably alone in the expanse of trees that make up the woods surrounding them. Charlie turns to see if Bill has noticed her too, finding it hard to believe he could miss her as the one bright form against the subtle greys and browns of the woods. But, his eyes are glued to the road ahead, focused only on their forward trajectory:; traveling unrelentingly away from the girl he did not see. Just as Charlie thinks to let the moment go, she is startled to see the girl has seemingly traveled alongside them, again just to her right but this time looking right at her. 

 

“Hey,” Charlie calls out, her audience ambiguous, with the recipient being Bill or the girl or somewhere in between. Anyone to make the moment less solitary in essence. 

 

“God, what,” Bill startles, bringing the car to a sudden halt. 

 

“A girl in the woods,” Charlie stammers, “right next to the car wearing pink. How could you not see her?” Not intending to pick a fight with Bill but unintentionally heading that way, Charlie finds herself annoyed at him for not having seen the girl. For being oblivious to the scene around them while she could only find herself glued to the world they were being absorbed into. 

 

“I didn’t see anyone because I was looking at the road,” Bill grunts, “you scared me half to death.” 

 

“I’m sorry,” Charlie says, finding herself instantly deflated, unsure of why she got so suddenly emotional. For the rest of the short drive to the house, Charlie felt a palpable charge in the car; unsure of whether or not it was coming from inside or out. Looking around, trying to find her bearings again, Charlie grows unconfident in what she had done in bringing them there. Charlie’s neck is warm, the burning of lingering eyes still forcing its presence onto her. 

 

--

 

Bill shifts the car into park, letting it rest in the center of what was clearly a driveway meant for two cars. Charlie takes in the surroundings, widening her eyes in an effort to take everything in that she can — trying to find emotional significance in being there in the woods, a significance she has been looking for for some time now. Looking into the trees she tries to find anything that connects back to what she once knew, a reminder of a place that used to be so permanent in her life but now only feels like a washed out memory, a place that was impermanent in everything but her mind. 

 

A two car garage directly ahead, closed; to the right the woods they just drove through. On their left, in front of the large glass paneled door, unnatural and overly smiling, someone who could only be assumed is the agent they were in contact with over email. 

 

“God, what a smile,” Bill says as he finally picks his head up from his phone, the device his eyes had been glued to since he put the car in park. In an act of neutrality Charlie simply nods, picking up her bag from the floor of the car while waving lazily at the woman staring so dedicatedly at them. 

 

“You ready?” Charlie asks, opening the car door. 

 

“Actually,” Bill starts, a tell-tale sign that the conversation is veering into one that Charlie is not going to like, “I’m going to stay out here for a bit, I have a call I’m waiting for.” 

 

“You’re kidding,” Charlie says. “I’m literally just asking you to do this one thing for me and you can’t even get out of the car.”

 

“It’s just not my thing, Char, you know that…” Bill answers, pointing out the one thing that Charlie didn’t want to be brought up — the reason as to why they are here in the first place, it being solely hers. The thought of entering the house alone was not something that Charlie had largely considered before this moment, something that now haunts her in its solitude. Sure, being here was important for her and Bill being there was solely as a means of support, but now that it was clear it would only be her walking through the house, the weight of the moment feels different, haunted. 

 

Of course, the agent would be there as well. 

 

Charlie comes out of her head, realizing that Bill has been talking to her the entire time she as she was elsewhere, “... and I think it’s great that you’re scratching this itch that you’ve been irritated by for so long, but this job is our livelihood and me being in the house with you is just not relevant to the journey you are taking.” Unsure of what exactly to say to that, Charlie decides on nothing at all. 

 

“Fine,” Charlie says, getting out of the car now, slamming the door shut behind her. 

 

As she walks around the front of the car Charlie is aware of Bill rolling the window down on the driver’s side of the car, sticking his head out only just enough to grab her attention but not enough to fully immerse himself in the wooded world he was so clearly disgusted by. “It’s your Grandparents’ old house anyway,” Bill says. 

 

With that, Charlie turns from Bill and confronts the house face on for the first time in 30 years, forgetting the feeling that came with looking through the glass door from the outside, of the waves in the panes of glass as you strained your eye to see straight through to your favorite room, the one lined with mirrors at the back of the house. One can’t really see all the way through the door to the back room — a door is no window and Charlie is realizing that all too quickly. All or nothing she is stepping back into this house, there is no halfway. Charlie finally realizes how rude she has been in not greeting the agent already, one who seems all too content with her taking in the house silently. 

 

The agent’s smile hasn’t broken a second since Charlie got out of the car. Charlie tries to smile back. 

 

--

 

“Well, welcome in,” the Agent says in an unnaturally sharp voice, floating through the door as she leads Charlie into the main foyer. The entryway is more than just that; a cavernous space situated with no use except to lead the individual through to the other rooms of the house. It’s as if the architects were trying to accomplish an open concept space without actually committing; from just three steps through the door Charlie could see the kitchen to the right, in front the living room, and down the stairs to the left the lower living room. 

 

Standing in the entryway, Charlie is startled by how empty and bare the walls are. It’s not as if she expected her Grandparents’ things to still be where she last saw them, but not having seen them be removed, she unrealistically hoped that this might be the case. Thinking back to a time where she would take her shoes off at this door, Charlie can almost feel the cold tile of the entryway floor on the bottom of her feet. It roots her there to that exact place in time, visiting the past as she is almost too aware of the present. 

 

Lost in her own thoughts, Charlie jumps at the sound of the Agent’s shrill voice again, this time asking if she’s from the area.

 

“I grew up around here,” Charlie offers, unwilling to connect any loose ends for the Agent — what she is doing back in the area, if she ever left in the first place, where, when. Thinking now, Charlie has a lot of disgust for the fake intimacy in house tours, the expectation that because you are viewing the depths of one’s private space together, that this opens doors to vulnerability from the recipients. Charlie grows nauseous at the idea of having to explain the real reason as to why she is here; a reason that could not come up outside of her own doing so. Taking control now of the tour, Charlie treks into the kitchen on her right. Taking the two steps up comfortably, as if she hasn’t missed a day doing so. 

 

Walking through the kitchen Charlie smells a waft of garlic and onions, hears the sizzle of oil on the stove. Reaching the other side of the kitchen now, she looks out the window above the sink, smelling the soft aroma of basil soap — the lingering hint of cabernet that had been left out a bit too long. Long enough to stain the glass. Charlie looks out the window without taking in much of the woods that lay beyond it, noticing that her vision blurs in and out of focus, tired. She knows she is being rude, walking away from the Agent, but she can’t displace the uneasy feeling she has being in this place she used to belong to but no longer has ownership over. Of course, the house never truly belonged to her, did it. 

 

A soft breeze dances along the back of her neck, a breeze that comes from the feeling that eyes are on her, rather than the one that moves the leaves on the trees and eases one after a day in the sun. Charlie begins to turn around, and as she does so she hears a squeak that one would only know from having spent years glued to the same spot in that very kitchen. The chairs, pinned down to the tile floors of the kitchen, adjacent to the countertops near the steps leading up, had a penchant for grating against the metal. Although promised to be a swivel chair it instead ached and groaned around in a circle, creating a sound that is now burned into Charlie’s ears. One she is presently greeted with. Turning fully, Charlie is met with an empty chair facing her. She is unsure of how it was oriented before, but feels as if it’s welcoming her to sit down, stay; color in the pages she used to fill in so dedicatedly. The breeze still lingers on her neck, its origin unknown. Charlie takes a step. 

 

With a blink Charlie is back in the foyer, she finds herself across from the Agent, unmoved.

 

“Should we wait for your husband,” The Agent begins, “or are you ready to start the tour now?” 

 

“He’ll catch up,” Charlie says, unsure of how she got back to the entrance, how she managed to travel so far without taking a single step