is every bit as difficult as Luke forewarned. I finally take them off and carry them, hoping against hope that I don’t step in something questionable or disgusting. Our flashlight beam isn’t the brightest, but it does illuminate enough to know that Rose isn’t here and never has been.
“There’s another up the road a couple miles,” Luke says, starting up the truck again. I toss my useless heels behind my seat. My stomach growls and I wish the art show had something more substantial to eat than olives and cheese and fruit in the shape of flowers.
The truck bounces along the gravel road. We are silent. I feel elated to be doing something to find my sister and scared both at the prospect of locating her or not locating her. How will I convince her of who I am? How will she react? Will she come home with me? And what if I’m wrong and it isn’t Rose after all? What if the only person we find is a crazed serial killer escaped from prison who buries us under the floorboards, never to be seen again? My imagination has never been my friend in stressful times.
“There!” Luke leans forward in his seat, hunched over the steering wheel as he peers ahead in the darkness. “Did you see that? It looked like a light in a window.”
I lean forward too. If there was a light, it’s out now.
“Maybe it was the reflection of your headlights,” I suggest. We are close enough now to see the outline of a two story house. It’s definitely abandoned; half of it has collapsed from the weight of a fallen tree that still leans crazily into the rubble. There are junked cars in the field next to it; their shapes eerie lumps that loom at me. I expect the shapes to suddenly jump up and reveal their true forms: ogres and giants and trolls, but they are only cars.
“Don’t park too close,” I whisper. “Here’s good.” I suddenly feel as though I don’t want to drive up with our yellow headlights and scare her, if indeed she is here.
Luke stops the truck obediently and kills the engine. My heart in my throat, I get out. The dirt and weeds and rocks hurt my feet, but I don’t slow. I feel a premonition that I will find Rose here. It’s not like the nervousness of the last house, where we crept along, Luke whispering in an exaggerated voice and me laughing when a bat flew over our heads. I knew instinctively Rose wouldn’t be there and it was only a fun game we were playing. I am not having fun here and we haven’t even reached the house. I keep my eyes straight ahead, and I too, feel as though I see the briefest flicker of a yellow light, like a candle or a weak flashlight beam or lantern as it passes by a window, but it is gone so quickly, I can’t be sure. I blink hard and keep walking. Luke takes my hand in his this time, instead of my elbow. I lace my fingers through his and hold tighter than is probably necessary.
“Hello!” I call out weakly. I clear my throat and call again, this time stronger. Only the silence of the night and my own echo responds. Gingerly we reach the house and I reach out my hand to try the door, which I realize is silly as half the house has collapsed and we could just as easily go through the gaping holes in the walls if we wanted. Somehow it seems disrespectful to do so. If there were a doorbell, I would ring it. It’s no surprise that when I turn the old knob, the door obediently creaks open. Luke shines the beam of the flashlight inside. Directly ahead of us is a staircase, to the right is the broken wing of the house where the floor is littered with boards and beams and broken glass, to the left is a small room with two doors. Past the stairway is a hallway, but the collapsed section of the house has reached it as well and it is nearly impassable. Here and there is furniture, they loom and list to the side the way the abandoned cars did outside. Their shapes are misshapen and lumpy and unrecognizable until the flashlight beam hits them and then they are clearly a chair here, a small end table there, a bookshelf with broken and missing