muchtooarrogant | LJI S9.2, The Missing Stair

When the yelling started from down stairs, I curled away from the noise, holding the book like a protective shield in front of my face. The individual words were mercifully indistinct at this distance, but the pitch and timbre clearly communicated the underlying anger of both parents. I checked my mental calendar and sighed. Yes, it was the last Sunday of the month, so they'd probably be fighting over the past four weeks accumulation of unpaid bills for several hours.

I could go to my bedroom, close the door, and put on some music to drown out their voices. My room's door was just a few feet away, but... The window seat where I sat was warm and comfortable, and I didn't want to move. If I peered over the blockade of pages I held, its vantage gave me a bird's eye view of our neighborhood street. Most of the houses on our block were two stories in height, but there were a few single level ones here and there, giving the row across from me a sort've ragged appearance, as though the shorter houses were baby teeth that hadn't yet been pushed out by their adult successors. This early in the morning, there wasn't much activity below, although two houses down, Mr. Epstein was patrolling the hedge that bordered his front yard, occasionally swooping down on an over enthusiastic frond with his hedge clippers.

"Did they just start?" Erika's voice asked from a little way down the hall leading to our bedrooms.

"Yep," I confirmed, lowering the book I had been ignoring and glancing at her over my shoulder. "Bright and early, just like always." She was wearing the ill-fitting blue pajamas I had given her last Christmas, the long sleeves draped down past her fingertips, and the leg cuffs rolled up to her ankles.

"Crap!" She advanced to the window where I was sitting, peered down the staircase for a moment, and then flopped dejectedly on the first step. "I was going to go down and grab some cereal, but ..."

I shook my head, and then realized that she couldn't see me. "Probably not a good idea right now."

If we stayed up here, out of sight, and presumably out of mind, they would probably be content to flail away at one another without our input. There were, after all, plenty of betrayed promises and failed expectations without dragging Erika or I into the argument, so long as we didn't actively provoke them while they were going at it.

We sat without speaking for several minutes, the verbal artillery from below rolling over us like distant thunder.

"They seemed fine yesterday," she finally said, her wistful tone giving the lie to the frail hope she had obviously tried to pin to our family outing.

"H'm," I responded noncommittally.

I preferred her silent companionship from a few moments earlier. If we talked, if I encouraged the longing I sensed in her to ask the thousands of unanswerable questions she was holding inside, too many ugly truths would be dragged into the open, and I didn't want that.

"They'll be fine after this is over too," I said casually, and continued quickly before she could raise any objections. "We could sneak out and get some Starbucks if you want. Better than cereal any day."

Erika turned so that she was half facing me, leaning back against the staircase banister, and propping her feet on the opposite wall. She was wearing a pair of bedraggled bunny rabbit slippers that hadn't fit her in years.

"Sneak out?" She grinned up at me through the hair which had fallen across her hazel eyes. "I thought Dad cut off that tree branch you were using for your daring escapes."

"Rope," I answered nonchalantly, sweeping my arm towards her in a pretend throw. "He didn't cut the whole tree down, and it actually works better than a branch."

From below, there was a masculine shout, an exclamation of two words distinct from the barrage of insults being hurled back and forth. It snapped across our ears like the crack of a whip against tender flesh. "Fucking bitch!" There was a pause, then the sound of a slamming door, followed shortly by muted thumping and more curses.

"Do you ever think about just leaving?" Erika asked, her sweet expression from a few seconds before replaced with one of forlorn desperation.

"What, like running away or something?" I swung my feet off the window seat, and turned my back on the view of the outside world. This was worse than the conversation of a thousand questions. "Erika, that's crazy."

The morning sunlight flowed around my upright body, over Erika's legs, and landed in a descending ribbon of shimmering light on the steps leading downward.

"No," she murmured, her voice full of an emotion I couldn't identify, "it's not crazy. Look at that!"

"Look at ..."

I broke off when she stood up, being careful not to interrupt the stream of sunshine between us, grasped the stair railing with one hand, and gazed down at the thin swath of light that began three stairs down from her.

"You goofball," I told her, "it's just a sunbeam."

She stood, poised on the brink of something I couldn't begin to fathom, and then leapt outward.

I wanted to scream, to lunge forward and catch her before she fell, but could only sit, paralyzed by the terror of what she had done. She sailed out into emptiness, and then her feet, clad in those ridiculous bunny slippers, landed solidly on the step she had been aiming at. Giggling, she ran downward, her arms spread wide, only stopping when the pathway of light ended. She swiveled, and stood there for an instant, surrounded by the brilliance of the morning sun.

"Erika," I whispered, filled with a sudden dread I couldn't vocalize, "don't!"

Our eyes met, and for the briefest of moments I thought I had reached her, communicated my fears, somehow bridged the gap between us. Then she ran upward, almost seeming to float from one shining stair to the next, her face alight with an inexpressible joy.

"Robin," she cried, "it's beautiful!"

When her slippered feet landed on the last stair in the pathway of light, Erika vanished, and the ribbon of light winked out of existence.

Author's Note:
Recently, I've been reading a series of books collectively called The Iron Druid Chronicles by Kevin Hearne. His books are full of descriptions of "ways" into other realms, and while some of them can only be accessed through the use of druidic power, others are available to everyone, so long as you walk a set series of steps along a certain path. When Gary posted this week's topic, I knew I wanted to explore a similar idea, although it took me a while to flesh out the rest of the story.

Dan

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

witchwife.livejournal.com

Hey Dan! This was really cool. My heart was drawn to both of your characters - and not just out of sympathy!

The dialogue was very believable and I loved the interior thought process shown on the protagonist's end. Not wanting to draw the conversation out in fear of bringing up more difficult subjects, etc. So well done.

Also, this line: "as though the shorter houses were baby teeth that hadn't yet been pushed out by their adult successors."

Excellent work.

The last bit about the pathway of light lost me for a bit, but your note at the bottom cleared things up a bit. I think the genre mash just took me by surprise. Interested in Hearne's series though. I love stuff like this. May order it from the library.

-Nichole

From:

Only 7 Chromosomes

LJI S9.2, The Missing Stair

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