Saturday, March 24, 2012

"Hide and Seek" (Part 2 of ?)

Part 1 to this story posted previously (here)

Leaning over the desk in the library and recalling a night half his lifetime ago, Mark shook his head, returning his mind to the problem at hand. Those memories of make believe held a special place in his mind, even though he had grown to see them as anything but real in the intervening years. Sure, Caroline had always been a trickster, but Mark could explain away any interventions of the invisible companion as tricks Carrie played on him, and on herself. She was good at that, Mark knew - losing the line between pretend and real, and she had the knack for helping others lose it too.

The medications she was accused of being off, of course, were designed to reduce this - to make her more “normal and stable”, which of course meant “quiet and pliable”. They’d been prescribed to Caroline in the sixth grade, but Mark knew that his little sister didn’t need them. Sure, she was eccentric, but so was everyone, in their own way, and Carrie had never been a threat or a bother to anyone. If one were to say she was insane, it might also be said that she didn’t suffer from it, but instead had learned to enjoy being herself without regard to what other people thought.

A wisp of a nostalgic smile on his face, Mark hunted about until he located a piece of unused paper and a pen. “Carrie, Mom’s worried again. Call me on my cell.” He wrote, then signed and dated the paper before folding it and placing it neatly on the desk chair before he slid the chair home. With any luck, Carrie would find it before some neat-freak library aide tossed the note in a recycling bin. As he left, he felt a slight chill, which he passed off as the work of the library’s air conditioning.


Over the next hour, Mark made a stop at each place that he knew Carrie sometimes spent time, as well as several places suggested by her helpful classmates. She was at none of them, and no-one Mark talked to had seen Caroline all day. Annoyed, and damp at the repeated soakings in the evening’s now-steady rain, Mark got into his car to start the long drive home. He knew he’d have to stall his mother’s fears in the morning, and come back over the weekend.

Before he started the car, though, Mark remembered the book in his pocket. Venting his annoyance, Mark dug out his pocketknife and reduced the knotted ribbon to a dozen small pieces. Turning on the overhead light against the encroaching evening and the rain, Mark opened the cover and found the first page covered in Caroline’s neat, slanted handwriting. As he read, Mark couldn’t help but imagine Caroline, hidden away somewhere to write the words on the page.

It wasn’t easy to gain access to the dormitory building’s flat roof, but the effort had paid off in the end. Caroline sat leaning on the warm chimney pipe to ward off the fall chill, and after a moment gazing out over the road cutting through the middle of campus, pulled a little blank notebook out of her pocket, a prize purchased in a recent trip to the town bookstore.

“You sure this will work?” She whispered, glancing around, finally locking her gaze on a seemingly empty space nearby. She shrugged, as if receiving a positive response, then took up her pen and opened the book to the first page, lips moving slightly in tune with what she wrote.
Mark, the contents of this little book are not to be taken lightly. Of everyone, I know you are the last to think me insane, and I beg that you continue through it even if what is written or what the writing asks of you seems nothing but madness. Perhaps it is, but I don’t think so.

The pages following contain instructions of a kind. For reasons that will be later apparent, I ask that you read sequentially, and if something is asked of you, that you do it before continuing. The purpose will likely be wasted if you skip ahead.
     
You once asked a question of a good friend of mine, and for years it went unanswered. If you do as I have indicated, perhaps you’ll get your answer. Please, try to keep an open mind, and trust me through the whole process, Mark, and I expect you’ll see what the purpose of this is once you get through even if you don’t see it on the way.
    “There.” Caroline set the pen down and surveyed the page. If she was right, that would get Mark’s attention, or at least pique his considerable curiosity long enough for him to play along. “Now the steps. Where do we start him?”

    Mark paused before turning the page. Caroline could be cryptic at the best of times, but this was on a level all its own. Instructions for what, he wondered - usually when one read instructions it was to get to a known goal state. Carrie clearly wanted Mark not to learn the end until he got there, and it wasn’t worded like a game. 

What was to stop him, though, from skipping all the way to the end and figuring out what was going on? Sure, that’s not what Carrie wanted him to do, but she wasn’t here to enforce that, was she? Mark’s fingers slid down the stack of pages as he toyed with the idea. 

No, he realized. Carrie was a fan of playing tricks, but she never passed off a trick as something serious or vice versa, and the tone set by the first page, if bizarre, was definitely serious. If Carrie thought that this was not to be taken lightly, then Mark would play along, at least for now. Shaking his head and wondering where that particular resolution would drag him, Mark flipped the first page over. 

There wasn’t much text on page 2. Go to my favorite nook in the library. It commanded. Once you’re there, you can read the next instruction, so remember to bring this book. The rest of the lines on the page were blank. Mark blinked. Had he not just been there? That desk held no clues as to Caroline’s location, or for that matter much of anything else.

 Sighing in frustration, Mark turned over the engine of his car and headed back to the library. At least, he realized, he’d not waited to read the book until he’d gotten home. 

Mark pocketed the instructions again to protect them from the rain as he dashed from his car to the building, again getting his clothes thoroughly wet. The library would still be open for most of the night, thankfully, as its hours were set decades before when students working on projects had no choice but to pull data and references from its catalogs and journals. Now, of course, all it seemed to do after business hours was provide minimum wage to the idle student aides.

 Back upstairs in moments, Mark half-expected his sister’s favorite corner to have been altered, but it looked exactly as he left it. Not sure what he was looking for, Mark flipped to page three of the book, after appropriating a nearby blank note card to use as a bookmark.

Now that you’re at the desk in the library, Mark read in Caroline’s handwriting, sit there until you feel a chill down your spine. It will be noticeable.

 Mark stopped reading, and blinked twice. What kind of an instruction was that? Perhaps the rest of the paragraph would explain, he reasoned, and read on.


Yes, I know that’s an odd instruction, Mark, but humor me. Perhaps if you put your mind to it you can guess what is going on, but you must trust me if you don’t. Once you feel the chill, go on to the next page. That’s all it said. Mark, confused, regardless pulled out the chair and sat down, his note crinkling under him, wondering what was going on. What was a chill down his spine supposed to signify? Was he waiting for the air conditioner’s cycle (which would imply a periodic event)? What else might be going on?  

That his sister might really be losing her mind did occur to Mark, but he discounted that. This wasn’t the work of a damaged mind - it had to be the work of someone with vastly more information than he himself had. That in itself made this little stunt classic Carrie.


“Checkmate.” Ten-year-old Carrie flourished her wrist as she plunked the rook down in a killing blow to Mark’s white king. It was summer, a hot day, but with enough cold drinks the shade of the porch was a tolerable place to sit and play. Their mother Lauren, not really paying attention, sat reading a novel in the porch’s third chair.

With a sigh, Mark flicked the piece over. This game, at least, he’d put up a fight - about a third of the pieces in the box were Carrie’s. The previous three she’d won easily. “What’s that, ten in a row?”

“Nine. You beat me with the trick play last Sunday.” Carrie reminded her older brother.

That Mark, almost fifteen, consistently lost a game of strategy to his younger sibling didn’t bother him as much as one would expect. Mark, after all, knew that Carrie’s gift was having all the information, even when she shouldn’t. At least their games of chess were over quickly and Mark learned some new tricks from watching her play. That, and there was nothing Mark was supposed to be hiding from Carrie. He had resolved long ago not to play cards with her ever again. How she always knew his what he had was a mystery, but somehow she always did.

After the remaining pieces joined their compatriots in the plastic box, and the board had been moved away, Carrie jumped out of her chair. “Mark, come on!” She took a running jump off the edge of the porch and tumbled along the sloped lawn, which elicited a stifled gasp followed by a grumble from Lauren. This in turn pulled a bit of playful laughter from Mark, who was always for a little tweaking of the sometimes-overbearing parent.

After a look of ice daggers was directed in his direction, Mark decided he was better off joining Carrie, farther away from his mother. He jumped after her, but managed to land on his feet with only a little help from his fingertips. Carrie, though, was already tearing off behind the house, up toward the thin stand of trees between their yard and the one behind it. Despite the heat, Mark followed, his lanky-teenager lope easily catching up to the smaller girl’s sprint.

As soon as they were in the backyard, Carrie stopped, and sat down in the patchy grass at the edge of the trees. “There.” She said, only a little winded. “Mommy doesn’t like it when I talk about Rozzie.” Caroline lowered her voice to a semi-sarcastic whisper. “She said I wasn’t allowed to have invisible friends anymore.” As soon as those words had been spoken, she started laughing, as if it was the most absurd thing in the world.

Mark made a face. He would protest his mother trying to control who his visible friends were, and controlling potentially imaginary ones sounded patently absurd. Mark wasn’t sure that Carrie’s imaginary companion existed, but wasn’t yet old enough to consider it out of the question. An invisible pair of eyes would after all explain why Caroline was so good at cards, among other things. Still, regardless of whether there really was a Rozzie, he didn’t see any way their mother could actually enforce anything. “Carrie, she can’t do anything about Rozzie.” Mark pointed out.

“Rozzie said that too, but she said that if I wanted her gone, she’d go.” Carrie shrugged her shoulders. “What do you think, Mark?”

“Carrie, I think you shouldn’t let her control who you are friends with. I don’t.”

Carrie considered this. “But when your friends are around, Mommy can see them.”

Mark chuckled. “That’s why you’re luckier, Carrie.” Caroline hadn’t really ever had friends at school - it wasn’t that she was a pariah, but she just kept a distance from other girls, and at her age, boys and girls enforced their own segregation of friendships.

“But I should pretend Rozzie isn’t around when Mommy can see, right?” Carrie asked.

“If you want.” Mark shrugged. “I might keep on just because. That’s for you to decide.” Mark knew Carrie already kept her somewhat bizarre behavior to a minimum at school, at least around her teachers.

Mark stopped, though, and squinted. Why would Carrie say that she would have to “pretend” that Rozzie wasn’t around if Rozzie was imaginary? Could she just imagine that Rozzie wasn’t around?

“What?” Carrie giggled at the confused expression on teenaged Mark’s face.

“I dunno. Is Rozzie always around?” Mark asked. He was sure he’d asked this question before, back when he had little doubt that Rozzie was a real girl that followed Carrie around, but he didn’t remember the answer.

Carrie made a face, as if Mark was crazy. “Nobody’s around all the time. Rozzie goes away sometimes, but she always comes back.”

Mark asked the next logical question. “Where does she go?” Where, he wondered, does an imaginary person go when they aren’t being imagined?

Carrie looked around, and apparently not seeing anything, leaned in conspiratorially. “I’m not supposed to tell you.”

Mark was really curious now. For the time being, he was willing to suppose Rozzie existed. “Why let that stop you?”

Carrie looked around again then leaned in further, practically whispering in her brother’s ear. “She goes to another place. A - ” She jerked away suddenly, standing up and folding her arms innocently behind her back. Mark jumped to his feet, but though he spun around he saw no-one. A cold feeling began in his gut and crept up his spine.

“No-othing.” Carrie said suddenly, in her best innocent tone, as if responding to a question. Mark fancied that it was “What are you doing?” He was about to ask who she was talking to (it was clear it wasn’t him), but realized that the only person it could be was Rozzie. Folding his arms, he did his best to find any evidence of an invisible person - depressions in the grass, wavy distortions in the air, anything. Needless to say this effort failed.

“Maybe...” Carrie stretched the one word, hedged answer to no question. Mark guessed that the implied question was something like “Were you about to tell him something secret?”

Carrie’s shoulders drooped. “Aww. Can I tell him you said that?”

Mark, on a whim, stepped up beside his sister, facing the way she faced, and dived forward. Mark caught nothing save the air, but halfway to a face plant in the sparse grass he was pretty sure he felt that cold feeling again.

Carrie, imagined (or at least invisible) berating forgotten, fell over backwards, shaking with laughter. After almost a minute of her laughing, which Mark spent extracting grass seed and dirt from his eyebrows, Caroline regained enough composure to speak breathlessly. “Right through Rozzie... Mark... that was... was really dumb. Were you really trying to... to grab her?”

Mark shrugged sheepishly. “If she’s invisible, I thought, maybe I’d learn if she’s real without my eyes.” He chuckled a little. “She really is imaginary?”

Carrie looked at her older brother with an expression that would have been a better fit if their ages were reversed. “No. She’s not invisible either, or even I couldn’t see her.” Her tone indicated that Carrie considered this elementary, like the fact that one plus one is two.

“Then...” Mark paused. “Why can’t I see her or touch her?”

Carrie looked off to the side for a moment, as if listening to someone else speak. When she finally turned back to Mark, it was with a slightly disappointed look. “I can’t tell you everything. And the part I can tell you is the boring part.”

 Mark judged that for Carrie to say something like that the most important parts were to be left out, but his curiosity had to be sated. “Better than nothing.” 

“Rozzie is from somewhere... else. When she’s there, she’s not here at all, but she can leave there and come almost all the way here, to where we are. But she can’t make it all the way here. Just almost. And you can’t touch something that isn’t all the way here.”

Mark frowned in confusion. What was Carrie talking about? “There” and “here” meant little to him. He tried to suppose that “here” was wherever Carrie was, but then where was Rozzie’s “there”?

“Told you it was the boring part.” Carrie rolled her eyes. “Rozzie says it’s bad for you if you know more.”

Mark nodded, though he understood nothing. “Wait, but you know?”

Carrie shrugged. “Rozzie tells me some.” She looked up to Mark. ”Oh, Rozzie says part of me isn’t all the way here either. It’s why I can see her.” Caroline whirled suddenly, as if responding to an accusation. “What? You didn’t say anything about that part.”

Mark shook his head. “I don’t understand. Can you tell me anything else, or will Rozzie be angry?”

Carrie looked off toward the place Rozzie presumably was. “Umm. She says I can tell you that she’s pretty sure all of you is here.”

Mark wasn’t making any headway, but soldiered on through the confusing puzzle Caroline had put in front of him. “How does she know that?”

Carrie listened to nothing patiently for several seconds before answering, either continuing the charade or really listening to something. “She says that you would have felt something when you tried to grab her if you weren’t.”

Mark frowned. “I did feel something little. A cold feeling, like...”

Carrie interrupted before he could finish. “Like an ice cube spider climbing up your insides?”

Mark had to chuckle at the bizarre analogy. “Yeah. Like that. That mean something?”

Caroline looked away for a moment, then back. “Rozzie won’t tell me, so I don’t know. But I get those all the time.” She wiped her forehead, as if suddenly noticing the day’s heat. “Sorry, I can’t tell you all the good stuff. Come on, I saw Mom put more popsicles in the freezer.”

The mention of popsicles didn’t entirely put the strange conversation out of Mark’s mind, but after days not making sense of it, he decided it was probably nothing worth worrying about. 

Story continues in part 3 (here).

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