Chapter Four
He looks so old.
Mommy warned Jessie that her older brother would look different today. She knew that he'd been through a bad thing and that he was still hurt. He needs you to help him, Mommy had said.
But she can't help it. Standing there in the front hallway with Mommy, Colin looks so old that it scares her, like a big hand grabbing her and freezing her to the floor. She wants to go to her brother, but she can't. And this makes her feel a hot rush of shame so that Jessie buries her face in the side of Mommy's skirt and weeps uncontrollably.
"Oh, hey Jessie," Colin whispers, leaning forward, with Daddy's hand on his shoulder, and she can tell that Daddy needs to hold Colin up, or he would collapse to the floor. And his voice, it's so weak. What happened to him? "It's okay, honey. It's me. It's really me."
Jessie can feel the gentle pressure of Mommy's hand on her back, and she knows that even though Mommy isn't quite pushing her forward just yet, pretty soon she's going to do just that. It's really me. This makes Jessie remember what Pastor Ellis wife Katy taught them all in in Sunday school.
She hears Katy's soft, kind voice in her mind, pictures her sitting in the glow of the sun that lights up the window sill in the back room of the Eliss home, while Jessie sits on the floor with all of the other kids, rapt in attention. Katy told them that there were three forces in the universe. There was the Real Mind, there was the Unreal Word, and there was the Number. And the Real Mind and the Unreal Word spoke to each other using the Number.
But there was another thing in the Universe, and it was not a force at all. In fact it was not an anything. This was called the Not-Real. And even though the Not-Real didn't exist, it had a need. It wanted to exist so bad, but because it couldn't, it tried to use the Unreal Word but without the Number, to make people bad. Or something like that.
Because people aren't perfect they can find themselves being hurt by the Not-Real. Like when people lie, it's Not-Real.
And she told them that if you think that someone is being hurt by the Not-Real, there was a very simple solution. Let them know that they are real. Whatever's happening to them is Not-Real. But they are real.
Jessie bursts away from Mommy and in an abrupt rush she runs across the linoleum floor and into her brothers arms. She runs into him so hard that he makes a little "oomph" sound, and then she wraps her arms around his waist and squeezes as tight as she can while he leans over and and pats her on the shoulder.
"Easy there, kiddo!" He laughs, and so she releases her hold and looks up at him.
"I'm sorry," she whimpers, tears welling up in her eyes. And maybe it's because the tears are blurring her sight so that she can't see the wrinkles and white hair, but she can tell that's it's him, after all. It's really him.
He drops down to one knee and faces her. "Aww, that's all right, Jess…" And now she can see his face up close, can see the damage done, but she can still tell that it's him. Jessie lunges forward and throws her arms around his shoulders. Even though his hair is white it still smells the same, and as she presses her face against his she can feel her tears wiping away onto him, soaking into his skin. She wonders if maybe her tears will help to bring him back, and then remembers what Katy told them all to do.
"You're my brother." she whispers into his ear, "You're real."
And they both just hold each other like that, rocking back and forth, while she repeats this mantra to him, over and over. You're my brother.
You're real.
And now it's dark outside and Jessie is lying under the covers, staring at the ceiling while trying to make herself go to sleep, but she can't. It has been a very strange day today. After Colin came back this morning they had a really uncomfortable breakfast, with Mommy smiling too much and Daddy making the kind of small talk that he never usually makes. The only time any of it felt okay was when Mommy would stop next to Colin's chair and squeeze his shoulder or brush back his white hair. But Colin was pretty quiet, which was really strange… Normally he talked a lot about what he was going to do that day. Jessie couldn't even really enjoy her pancakes, which was even more extra weird because pancakes were her favourite and they hardly ever got to have them.
But then after breakfast Colin went straight to his room and Mommy went with him. He needs to rest, Daddy explained to Jessie. Then he asked her if maybe she could go play with her dolls or something. After Jessie went to her room to play with her dolls, she could hear Daddy talking with Mommy in the kitchen, their voices low so that she couldn't hear them. But she knew what they were talking about.
They were talking about the Not-Real. Mommy had explained to her yesterday how that was why they had to leave before the ocean dried up - because the Not-Real was coming to take the ocean away, and after that this place would be no good for living and the ocean floor would be no good for living either. And so they had to go. This had made Jessie very upset because where? Where were they going? And Mommy had told her that they had to have Faith, that the Real always showed you the way if you just believed in it.
Daddy went down to the boat and her and Mommy had lunch together. They sang old songs and even laughed a little, eating their sandwiches while Colin slept.
Later in the day Pastor Ellis and Katy showed up, along with a few of the Elders. Jessie stayed in her room but she could hear their voices through the wall, and one of the Elders sounded angry. He said that this put them all in danger, but then Pastor Ellis spoke with a clear power in his voice and the man was silent. Then Pastor Ellis and Katy went into Colin's room for awhile.
Suppertime came and still Colin slept. Daddy asked Jessie how her day had been but she really didn't have much to say because she'd spent most of the day in her room. She wondered why none of her friends had stopped by to visit, but Mommy explained that they were all probably busy getting ready for the Big Leave. Jessie nodded her head. That was probably it. Then Mommy took a plate of food into Colin's room, and when Jessie walked past the door she saw Mommy leaning forward with her arms around Colin's neck and her head on his chest, and she could tell that Mommy was crying from the way that her shoulders were moving up and down.
And now the ceiling stares back at Jessie and asks the question: What are you going to do about all of this? Which seems like a stupid question, because after all she's just a kid, and so what can she do? But she kind of knows that really, it's not such a stupid question. Not such a stupid question at all.
Carefully, Jessie pulls the covers back and slides out of her bed, guiding her feet into her Bigfoot slippers on the floor. She softly steps across her bedroom, through the door and out into the hall. Colin's room is across the hall from hers, and while during the day his door was closed, now that it's night the door has been left opened, and she can see the glow of moonlight shining through from his side of the house. As she crosses the hall she check her parent's bedroom to see if anyone is awake. She sees Mommy turning over in bed, mumbling something softly to herself, before going quiet.
With her heart fluttering under her ribs, Jessie steps through the doorway of Colin's room. She can see him framed in moonlight that casts down through the window next to his bed. The moon is small and bright in the sky, haloed by quickly moving clouds that glow bright outlines as they pass by. Every cloud has a silver lining. Must have meant moon clouds.
Maybe it's the way the moonlight bathes over him, but he looks to Jesse to be a little less old, now. Maybe he's starting to get better. She sure hopes so. Maybe my tears did that. She stifles a laugh at herself. Don't be stupid! Magic tears.
And then Jessie sees something through the window. Outside, up the path that leads past Colin's window, just at the corner where Mr Russo's house is, there is a person standing in the shadow of that Sycamore tree that grows next to Mr Russo's fence.
Jessie steps forward to get a better look. The person is definitely there, and from what she can tell they've been standing there for quite some time now. And Jesse can tell one other thing. This person, whoever they are, has been watching Colin's room. Is watching the room, right now.
The figure stares from the shadows, silent and completely still. But from the way that they're standing, Jessie can tell who it is. It's Mr Russo, their neighbour. He's the old man that started this whole village, Jessie knows that. He's come by for lunch plenty of times, filling their house with his booming laugh, always calling Jessie my little gemstone. Why would Mister Russo be standing outside of his own fence staring at their house? Why didn't he just come by today? But then, almost just as quickly as she has recognized him, Jessie comes to understand something else.
This is not Mr Russo. This is, in fact, Not-Real Mr Russo. And more than just when someone lies or is sad. This person was never Mr Russo at all.
Something happens to Jessie at that moment. Because, normally, when confronted by a stranger staring into their house in the middle of the night, it would make perfect sense for Jesse to run to her parents for help. But that isn't what Jessie does right now. Because she knows that what she's looking at is the reason why Colin has gotten sick. And it's the reason why they all have to leave their home forever. But that doesn't mean she's going to run away from it right now, not tonight, not with her brother lying here vulnerable right next to this window. She's not going to leave him alone.
Jessie walks around to the side of Colin's bed that faces the window, hops up onto the edge of the bed, and proceeds to sit in guard over her sleeping brother. She glares back at the figure on the walk and focuses all of her thoughts at the being.
I don't know what you did to the real Mr Russo, she thinks. And I'm not sure what you did to my brother. But I'm going to fight you to the death if that's what it takes.
A subtle movement close to a smile seems to pass across the being's softly shadowed visage. And Jessie holds her guard, the moonlight her shield cast over their slumbering home. Because I'm real.
This has been the fourth Chapter of "The Storm", an ongoing serialized novella written by Greg McCann exclusively for Steemit.
Writing and images by Greg McCann, the author of this post and owner of this Steemit Channel. To view more of my work, please visit www.fireawaymarmot.com.
