Amara
"Amara please put down your book and come eat with us." Aurora chided gently from the3 kitchen.
"I'm almost done," Amara called from the arms of an overstuffed blue chair. The comfy, chintz chair in Papa's study was her favorite in the entire house: and she didn't like leaving it for anything other than natural disasters.
"What? Fifty more pages?" Allene teased from the kitchen.
"No!" Amara retorted, turning a page, "thirty-six." The dinnerware clattered musically to accompany her sisters' laughter.
"Come eat bookworm."
" Alright, alright," she grumbled, jamming the bookmark into Sophie's World''s crease. Untangling herself from her reading position, Amara proceeded to the kitchen. Sitting in her usual place, Amara smiled at Aurora's creativity with the mash potatoes—now in the shape of a sun with flecks of gold in the creamy white.
"I don't understand why you have to mix the corn in with the potatoes." Allene grimaced picking out the hated vegetable.
"It's festive! And don't think that just because Papa isn't here, that you don't have to eat your veggies," Aurora sat down in her spot to the right of the head with authority. Allene and Amara snorted in their mash potatoes.
"It'd be much more convincing if you hadn't said 'veggies' in your kindergarten voice," Amara quipped.
"Oh dear," Aurora lamented covering her mouth with a dainty hand, "that happens more than you know. I was talking to my supervisor a few days ago and he started to tell me about he school's attempt to raise money for more kindergarten field trips and I replied, 'oh that's wonderful! Just lovely!' in that exact voice too! I felt so idiotic!"
"It's alright. We all do it. Sometimes I walk down the street and see a dog and start to check its gums before realizing I'm not at the veterinary clinic." The three girls laughed before Aurora and Allene turned to Amara with penetrating stares.
"What?" Amara asked between bites of meat loaf.
"Any confessions? Or should we just start with the charges?" Asked Allene playfully.
"I have nothing to account for,"
"Do you even do any work? Or do you just read everyday?"
"I work. And I read. I work while I read."
"No wonder people call us strange! Listen to us!" Aurora smiled starting to clear the dishes from the faded wood table.
"No, people call Papa and me strange. You two are the normal ones." Amara's face pinched and she traced the swirls in the old oak table.
"Oh. Oh my dear, you mustn't let them get to you," abandoning her dishes, Aurora scurried over to envelope Amara in a hug.
"Yeah. They're just jealous. Don't listen to them, Amara."
"I don't. It's just…its hard sometimes. Being the only one."
"Oh," Aurora whimpered, squeezing Amara tighter. Allene stood up to join in the group hug. Amara smiled from within her older sisters.
"It's okay. Librarians and inventors are the usual scapegoats." The girls laughed and pulled away. "Where is Papa anyway?"
The girls exchanged anxious glances. Aurora started tugging on her golden braid and Allene looked down at the floor. This only induced more panic in Amara.
"Where is he? Why isn't he home yet? He said he'd be home on Sunday."
"Don't panic Amara. We're not sure where Papa is. We haven't heard from him since he stopped in Detroit yesterday."
"He left a message on my cell phone," Allene contributed.
"But Detroit's not that far. It's only four hours from here. Where could he be?" Amara reasoned a deep cut forming across her forehead. Aurora reached in for another hug, but before she could a bang echoed through the house causing all three to jump.
"Girls!" Their father's voice screamed. Looking at one another in confusion—they had never heard their father yell before. "Girls! Aurora! Allene! Amara! Oh God. Answer me!" Amara was the first to push through the kitchen door, followed closely by Aurora.
"Papa?" The man in the doorway was greyer and more haggard than her dear Papa. But into his outstretched arms she ran.
"Papa we were so worried. Why didn't you come back yesterday?" Amara could feel the old man's tears plop onto her head.
"Not here. Not here my darlings," the man released Amara to briefly hug her sisters, "to the kitchen." Allene ran ahead to open the kitchen door while Aurora and Amara helped their father in. He fell into the chair exhausted, his hands coming up to slick back his grey-streaked hair.
"Water. Get some water," Allene commanded in her best doctor voice—Amara wondered if she said the same thing to her veterinary technician. Rushing to obey, Aurora ran to a cabinet and flung open its doors, looking for the nearest cup. Amara bent down beside her father to see what comfort she could provide to his downcast eyes. Alighting a hand on his knee, she noticed something clutched in his grasp. Fascinated, Amara stretched out tentative fingers and took the object from his hand.
"'Huhn," Amara sucked in a quick breath as her fingertips buckled and broke under the pressure of a thorn. The blood trickled out highlighting the veins in the rose's golden flesh perfectly.
"Blood. No. No, no, no, no!" Thomas grabbed the injured hand and attempted to sop the bleeding by applying pressure.
"Papa, its alright. It's just a little cut." Gently, she tried to pry her hand away, but Thomas snatched it back.
"Get me a towel! A bandage. Something! Anything!" Allene moved to comply with the fast order as Aurora set down a glass of water near Thomas' elbow. Peering over her father's shoulder, Aurora scrunched her face when she saw the damage. Aurora and Amara exchanged quizzical glances: why was their father freaking out over such a minor thing? Allene returned with a cotton swab, an antiseptic, and a bandage. Grabbing the swab out of his daughter's hands, Thomas quickly pressed it to Amara's finger.
"Have to stop the blood. Oh please don't let this be sign. Please don't let it stain."
"Papa its alright! It's just a tiny knick." Amara reached to untangle his weathered fingers form her bloody ones—now that time had passed the cut seemed to leak even more. Throwing her hand away from him, Thomas turned and sobbed. The girls stared at one another in alarm---the last time they had seen their father cry was at their mother's funeral.
"That cursed rose. That damn bloody rose. What have I done? What have I done?" Turning completely away from his daughters, Thomas' whole body began to contract with sobs.
"Papa," Aurora ventured cautiously laying a soft hand on his shoulder, "what's wrong?" Thomas turned to look at his daughter's with bleary eyes.
"I have doomed us all." Startled, the girls looked around at one another.
"Papa? Papa, what's wrong?" Amara asked readjusting her legs beneath her. Her sisters crowded behind her, knowing if anyone could get the answer from their father it was Amara.
"Oh my darlings. The things I have seen! Oh God, the," something in Thomas' throat snagged and caused him to choke.
"Papa!" Amara cried and reached up for him. Placing a delicate hand on his shoulder, she felt his frame shudder underneath her.
"My dears, what I am about to tell you is the strangest story you will ever hear." Afraid to rush him, the girls waited breathlessly. Taking a deep breath Thomas readied himself. "On my way home from the convention I tried to take a short-cut through the woods and got lost. After driving around for a few hours I came upon an iron gate. And behind the gate was a massive house exactly like Seaton Deveal hall,"
"What's Seaton Deveal Hall?" Allene whispered to Aurora.
"It's a mansion," Amara answered over her shoulder, "in England."
"I went up to the house and knocked. No one answered. I knocked again. And this time the door swung open. I called out but no one answered. All of a sudden the wind picked up and pushed me in, slamming the door shut behind me. I then got pushed all through the house. What a gorgeous house! The artifacts in there must have been worth thousands. There were, uh…tortoise-shell snuffboxes, Chinese vases, and crystal figures. The wind took me to a dining room and invisible hands served me. I dined in a medieval hall! And then the wind took me to a bedroom, but it was modern. There were fluorescent lights and a bed. I spent the night. And when I woke up in the morning I went into the garden—it was the most beautiful garden I've ever seen! —And there were flowers and trees everywhere! In bloom!" The entire time Thomas told his story his arms gestured wildly and his eyes flung wide open. He seemed mad with trauma, but the girls listened patiently, wondering what happed to their father.
"And there was this entire section of roses. What beautiful roses! All colors too! Red, golden, white, pink…they were so beautiful and I know how much you like roses Amara, so I decided to pick one and bring it back for you. But the minute I picked it he appeared," a giant arm wave interjected here, "he swooped down from the sky, blocking out the natural sun. And in the most grating voice—it was like iron nails on a chalkboard—he told me I must die for picking the rose." Amara and her sisters stared at their father in disbelief. What he had just told them sounded like a fairy tale.
"Papa, who was this man?" Clutching her arms, Aurora stepped a little closer. Thomas tugged on his face with his fingers, pulling the loose skin even further down—he looked like a melting balloon.
"It wasn't a man. It wasn't even close to a man. It was a vampire." If it had been someone other than her father and his voice hadn't been so serious, Amara would have said "good one". Vampires! They were things of horror stories and Eastern Europe. They were just a myth. Her father was obviously suffering some form of post-traumatic stress.
"A vampire?" Thomas glanced around at his daughters, his chocolate eyes finally landing on Amara in a last attempt to find a believer.
"You don't believe me?" His voice cracked and caused Amara to wince.
"It's not that we don't believe you Papa, it's just…"
"It's kind of hard to swallow," Allene finished for Aurora. "I mean a vampire demanding your life in exchange for a silly rose."
"But its true! Look at the rose! Where else would I have gotten it?" Biting her tongue, Amara tried to bite back the tears—was this to be their father's first break down? It happened to older people and he wasn't all that young.
"Papa, its alright. We believe you, but maybe you should get some sleep and then tell us the rest in the morning," the calm-headed, authoritative Aurora suggested.
"It is after eight," Allene interjected kindly, looking at the clock above the sink. Thomas pursed his lips,
"None of you believe me. My own daughters!" As if to prove his point, Thomas rose with a wobble from his chair and stomped towards the kitchen door, being sure to carefully pick his way around his daughters.
"Papa! Papa wait!" Aurora called but watched him go. Gathering her legs Amara stood up and brushed the imaginary dirt specs off her shirt.
"What on earth was he talking about?" Whispering, Allene drew closer to Aurora and Amara so that they formed a tight circle.
"Something about a vampire demanding his life," Aurora murmured, biting into her grapefruit colored lip.
"Well what are we going to do? I feel terrible not believing him. But how can we?"
"Perhaps he'll be more coherent in the morning."
"Maybe something went wrong at the convention…maybe the automatic tea maker malfunctioned." Locking her lips together, Amara listened to her sisters, trying to keep the tears from spilling out.