Heartless
part 1
April's eyes opened, her first waking thoughts nebulous and hard to grasp. Turning her head, a glance at the bedside clock told her it was nearly two am. The farm house seemed quiet and April wasn't sure what had awakened her.
She closed her eyes again, wiggling into a more comfortable position, but after a few minutes found that she couldn't capture sleep again. Feeling a little warm, April kicked the blanket aside, lying still for another couple of minutes before deciding that a bit of fresh air might help.
It was only a few steps from her bed to the window. Pushing aside the curtain, April unlatched the window and raised the sash.
The air smelled clean with just a hint of moisture in it and April glanced up at the sky, expecting that there would be clouds. Instead all she saw were twinkling stars and a quarter moon.
Her eyes strayed across the yard where she could just make out the outline of the swing set. Beyond that was the woods, too dark to see into.
Looking off to one side towards an open meadow, April noticed that area seemed much brighter. Deciding that had to be due to a play of light and shadow, she sighed and prepared to return to bed.
From the corner of her eye April caught movement and swiftly returned to her perusal of the meadow. Wisps of low mist stretched across the ground, hiding all but the tallest of the grasses that grew there.
The mist curled and twisted on itself, dancing in an almost mesmerizing way. So enthralled with watching its ebb and flow, April almost didn't comprehend the fact that she was seeing something else in the meadow, something nearly inexplicable.
With a frown, April pressed her forehead against the window glass so she could get a better look. Standing completely still in the meadow, surrounded by the rolling mist, was a woman. Though the quarter moon did not give off a lot of light, there was a strange glow about the woman, almost as if she was backlit by a small lamp.
April quickly lifted the window sash further and stuck her head outside. The distance was too great to afford her details, but April could see that the woman wore a light colored diaphanous gown of sorts, the sleeves long and puffy. Her hair appeared to be dark and it hung loose, nearly to her waist.
Not once since April first spotted her did the woman move. A shiver tickled April's spine then, because it almost seemed as if the woman was looking directly at her.
April mentally kicked herself for having such a fanciful flight of imagination. The woman was no doubt looking at the house, perhaps in need of assistance and unsure as to whether she should approach.
Closing the window, April crossed to the bed, sliding her feet into her shoes before retrieving her robe. Pulling it on, she grabbed a flashlight from her dressing table and hurried out of the room.
The nearest bedroom to hers belonged to Leo, and April went directly to it, tapping lightly on the door. As she expected, the turtle leader responded within seconds.
"April?" Leo asked, looking wide awake but confused at the early wake up call.
"There's a woman in the meadow," April told him. "She's just standing there looking at the house. I think she needs help."
One of the things April liked about Leo was that he didn't waste time with questions when action was required. Leading the way towards the stairs, Leo used the side of his fist to bang once on the bedroom door next to his, rousing Donatello. As soon as the tall turtle saw April, he fell into step with her, a quick glance taking in the fact that she carried a flashlight.
The next door in line opened of its own accord, and a disgruntled Raph appeared. "What's going on? Who's making all the racket?"
"April spotted someone out there in the meadow," Leo explained.
"Intruder?" Casey asked, coming down from his attic bedroom, followed closely by Mikey.
"A woman," April answered, following Leo downstairs. "I think there's something wrong with her."
"Why would you think that? Just because she's wandering around in the middle of nowhere all by herself?" Raph asked sarcastically.
"Do we have anymore flashlights?" Leo asked.
"In the kitchen," Don said.
"You and Mikey grab a couple of them and go out the back way," Leo instructed. "The rest of us will go out the front, just in case she's already made it to the house. We'll meet up at the meadow if none of us sees her."
Signaling for Mikey to come with him, Don quickly strode towards the kitchen. Looking back over his shoulder, he watched April go through the front door just behind his oldest brother.
Once outside, April skipped up next to Leo, determined to stay with him at the front of their search. Since she was the only one with a flashlight, it wasn't necessary for her to ask him to slow down.
The woman was nowhere near the house, so the group headed for the meadow. When they were around the house, April saw the bouncing beam of another pair of flashlights and in a second the foursome had caught up to Don and Mikey.
"We didn't see anyone," Don said, handing an extra flashlight to Leo while Mikey passed one each to Raph and Casey.
"She wasn't moving when I saw her," April said. "It was almost as if she was afraid to come up to the house."
"If she sees all of us coming at her it might scare her even more," Mikey said.
April jogged a few steps ahead of the group and then turned to face them, stopping the others. "Let me go first. You guys stay back so she doesn't get frightened."
"We ain't gonna stay too far back," Raph warned her. "If she brought some trouble along, we need to be close enough to take it on."
"I didn't see anyone else, but I'll be cautious," April promised.
Before going into the meadow, April got her bearings by locating her bedroom window. She took her directional cue from that point and then moved into the tall grass.
Damp leaves slapped against her pajama bottoms, soaking them fairly quickly. It didn't take long for a distinct chill to set into her skin, but April ignored the feeling, determined to find and aid the woman she'd seen.
Behind her April could hear the turtles and Casey. They were maintaining an even distance from her; not so close that they'd alarm the woman once April found her, but near enough to be of assistance if needed.
The only problem was that April was certain she should be able to see the woman by now. Frowning, she wondered if the woman was hiding, having seen the large group exit the farm house.
"Hello? Miss? I saw you from my window," April called. "I'm here to help you. Did you have car problems? Hello?"
Though she received no answer, April kept going, her eyes continuously sweeping the terrain. The beam from her flashlight wasn't much help; it kept her from tripping over the larger clumps of grass but the mist made her light bounce back at her whenever she tried to look ahead.
April wasn't sure how far she'd gone but after a while was certain she'd reached the place where the woman had been. She was no longer anywhere to be found and was not responding to April's repeated calls.
Finally April stopped and huffed in frustration. She was wet and cold and knew that the woman had to feel the same, if not worse. At least April was wearing long pants and a robe, the mystery woman had only appeared to be garbed in a thin gown.
"If there was someone here, she's gone now," Casey said, sliding up alongside April.
"What do you mean 'if'?" April asked, frowning at him. "Of course she was here. She obviously ran off when she saw us coming."
"That makes no sense at all," Casey said. "Why walk within yards of a house in the middle of the night if you don't need help?"
"Yeah," Mikey seconded. "If she needed help, she could have knocked on the door. Maybe she saw Raph's face and that scared her off."
"Wait until she sees your face after I get done rearranging it," Raph growled.
"Stop it you two," Leo admonished, seeing how agitated April appeared to be.
"Maybe she's fainted," April said a touch frantically. "Maybe she's lying out there in the grass and we can't see her."
"Is this the area she was in?" Don asked.
Nodding, April answered, "Yes."
"How much time has elapsed since you first saw her?" Don asked.
April glanced at Leo and said, "It took maybe three minutes to get to Leo's door and another three or four to make it out the front door."
"Add another minute to the meadow. Say eight minutes on the outside," Don calculated. "She can't have gone far unless she started running."
"Well if she was running I doubt she needs our help," Raph said.
"Let's separate out from this point," Leo said. "We'll form a big circular search pattern. Sweep the ground with your light and yell if you find her."
"Anything to get this over with," Raph grumbled.
The search party spread out and began walking away from each other. Periodically one of them would call out to the missing woman, but there was never an answer. They kept it up for almost fifteen minutes before Leo finally stopped.
"Everyone come back!" Leo shouted.
Converging back at the starting point, the group of six all looked at each other. It was clear that none of them had found anything, not even a clue to where the woman could have gone.
"There isn't much more we can do out here in the dark," Don said gently, looking at April.
With a sigh April nodded. "I suppose she's all right. We're so far from anyone that she had to have come from the road, but that's a long walk and she couldn't have seen the house from there."
"Who knows why humans do anything?" Raph asked grouchily. "Let's go back inside and dry off."
They all turned and trudged back towards the house. April wanted nothing more than to get out of her wet things and slide back under her blanket, but she couldn't get thoughts of the strange woman out of her head.
When they reached the front porch, the others proceeded inside, but April stopped and turned to look around. She couldn't help but wonder if the woman had gone into the woods and might be watching them even now.
Leo's voice snapped her out of her trance. "We'll go out in the morning and pick up her tracks, how does that sound? That will at least tell us where she came from."
April smiled at him. "Sounds good. Thanks Leo. I'm really curious now and it'll bug me until I get some answers."
"Same here," Leo in agreement. "Come on inside so I can lock up."
Following him indoors, April dashed upstairs to change while Leo locked the door and turned out the lights. In her room, April took a final look out of the window and then firmly shut it.
Out of her wet things and in dry ones, April crawled between the sheets and plumped her pillow before lying down. Staring up at the ceiling, the image of the woman standing in the meadow came back to her.
For a second there it had almost seemed as if the woman was floating on the mist. Shaking her head, April flipped onto her side and closed her eyes. She really needed to rein in her imagination.
TBC…