Disclaimer: I do not own anything recognizable as being from "The Village."
Secrets-"There are secrets in every corner of this village."
Alice Hunt's gaze moved to the black box sitting in a dark corner. Layers of dust blanketed its top.
She tried to go back to her knitting, a blanket for Lucius and Ivy's newborn son, Noah, but her eyes were once again drawn to the box, her secrets, her heartache.
Setting the half-finished yellow and blue blanket in her knitting basket Alice stood up, tucking a piece of wild brown hair behind her ear. The house was so quiet. It was just her and the ghosts now.
Breathing in deeply she took off her necklace. A small key hung from the end. She brought it to her lips, kissed it gently, then kneeled down before her past, black and brooding in the corner of her thoughts.
"Charlie," she whispered, sticking the key in the lock. The lock was stiff from no use so it took a second for Alice to turn the key. When she got it to turn a small click ringed across the room.
Warily she lifted up the top. She had been trying to run from her past half of her life. Now it had chose to confront her and she would meet it head on.
The top fell against the wall, revealing what Alice had tried hiding from. A brown jacket lay on top. It was a bit ragged.
Alice lifted it up lovingly and pressed it to her face. She could smell his cologne. It clung to the jacket, still, after all these years.
That smell used to make her feel safe and comfortable. Now it made her sad and lost. There was also a twinge of cigarette smoke on it. He had been trying to quit when...
Alice's eye began to burn and sting. Pent up tears trying to burst through the damn. She hadn't cried when he had died. Why should she cry now? The past couldn't be changed. Charlie was dead.
Lovingly she set the coat on the floor next to her, still trying to hold back the tears. She looked down into the box.
"BODY FOUND IN RIVER" the headline read. Beneath it was a serene picture of the river; a boot was washed up on its shore.
She began to read the article, as a tear rolled down her cheek.
"Yesterday afternoon local teens, Robbie Harris and Harold Foster, were playing by the river's edge when they noticed something amongst a pile of driftwood. Upon further inspection they discovered a body of a dead man, Charles Hunt."
o o o o o
"Honey! I'm all out of diapers!" Alice shouted, as Lucius lie in his crib crying in discomfort.
Charlie poked his head into the room. He hadn't shaved or showered yet so his person was rather disheveled. "I'll go and get some. Is there anything else you need me to get?"
"Umm... I think I'm almost out of baby food. Let me check." Alice bustled from the room, while Lucius whined.
Charlie sauntered over to the crib and stared down at his son, who looked so much like him.
"Hey Lucius," he cooed, tickling the baby's belly. Lucius stopped crying and just stared up at his father's face. Charlie tickled his belly again and this time Lucius giggled.
Alice stood in the doorway, smiling. Her two boys.
"I'm good on food. But could you pick up some bread from the bakery?" she asked when Charlie looked up, his face was lit up with happiness.
"Okay. Bye-bye Lucius." He kissed Alice on the cheek.
o o o o o
An hour later he still hadn't returned. The store and bakery were just around the corner. But she delayed calling the cops. He may be running a few other errands. He was a grown man. He didn't need to tell Alice where he was going every second of the day.
Alice, only mildly worried, stood over Lucius' crib. The baby had cried himself to sleep. His diaper soiled.
She settled into her rocking chair, picking up the dog-eared mystery novel she was in the middle of. Turning to the page she had left off on Alice began to read, patiently waiting for Charlie to come home.
An hour passed. As did another, and another, and another. Soon night was falling and Alice was frantic with fear and worry. She had called the police to report a missing person. They said they'd get on it, but were rather booked up.
Not in the least bit consoled Alice turned the news on. They were showing footage of medics pulling a body out of the water. You couldn't see the body, but a bag was all ready. The ambulance lights flashed red and white casting an eerie glow on the dark river water.
For a second as she watched this scene dread filled Alice's body, what if that was here beloved Charlie being pulled from the churning hands of the river?
Her common sense told her this was preposterous, yet something deep down inside her said that is was true.
"You're letting the fear get to you," she told herself. Just then Lucius began to cry. Alice sighed, getting up to take care of her son. She had already gone to get some diapers herself.
o o o o o
In the darkness right before dawn Alice's phone began to ring. She reached over to her bedside table and picked up the receiver.
"Hello," she said groggily, sitting up.
"Misses Hunt?" a deep voice asked, sounding a bit uneasy.
"This is she." Alice didn't like the sound of the person's voice. She stared sadly at the empty part of the bed.
"Could you come down to the station. We need you to identify the body of a man we believe to be your husband."
Coldness spread quickly through her body. Bile rose in her throat.
"Misses Hunt?"
"I'll be right down," she forced herself to say. On the other end was a small click.
Alice threw her head over the side of her bed and barfed all over the floor. Bits of it got stuck in her wild hair.
After doing that several more times, she got up, feeling dead inside, and put on a coat over her pajamas. She picked up a still sleeping Lucius and brought him over to the neighbor's.
The old woman didn't ask questions. She looked at the bits of bile in Alice's hair and the dead look on her face to know what had happened. "I'm sorry," she whispered. Her husband had been killed years ago in the war. She had looked just like Alice does now.
Alice kissed Lucius' head before trudging down the stairs.
o o o o o
Stoically Alice followed the chief of police down into the cold morgue. It reeked of death and chemicals. She would've barfed but there was nothing left in her stomach.
He led her to a wall covered in little doors and unlatched one. He pulled out a table with a sheet-covered body lying on its surface.
The cop pulled back the sheet letting Alice move forward. There was Charlie, black and blue. Bruises covered his face and upper chest. He looked so peaceful, so quiet.
In dead silence Alice nodded her head, everything inside her becoming as dead and cold as everything else in the rest of the room.
o o o o o
Alice pulled out her handkerchief, dabbing away the tears that she had finally allowed to come.
"Oh, Charlie," she whined, curling up with his coat. "I miss you so much."
The tears streamed out freely now, soaking the jacket. "I love you," she whispered through the sobs kissing his jacket.
Alice Hunt cried herself to sleep that night, her head nestled in Charlie's old brown jacket that still smelled of him.
o o o o o