Girl in the Shadows

Prologue Most people don't think about the way night falls around them. They go along their merry way and suddenly think, Oh, it's dark outside. They are truly unaware of how the shadows thicken and begin to ooze toward each other, merging, melding, clasping their invisible hands together to unite and flow forward to surround us. They rarely notice that the birds have retreated to their quiet places within the inky corners of the forest, nesting calmly with patience and optimism. Birds don't suffer through nightmares as I often do. They believe the sun will always return and the clouds will eventually be gone. All that they know, they have inherited. They do not separate their knowledge from themselves. It is who or what they are and they are comfortable with all of it. You can see their contentment and their confidence in the way they fly. I envy them for that, for their comfort but mostly for their self-assurance, their wonderful trust in themselves and in the promises Nature makes, whether it is the promise of the seasons, the promise of the rain, or the promise of the sun itself. They glide and slice through their day, carving a world of beauty for themselves. Mrs. Westington said that even though we are the more complex and the higher form of life for which all of this supposedly has been created, we still covet the simplicity that animals, that even insects enjoy. Their lives are so uncomplicated. "They don't need the guidance of the Ten Commandments in order to avoid sin," she said. "But," I asked, "are they capable of real happiness or do they just plod along in a mechanical manner? Do they have ambitions? Do they dream and hope? Do birds, rabbits, foxes, and snakes smile? Do they really ever experience rapture, ecstasy, contentment?" "Oh, I don't know if they do or if it even matters. More important," Mrs. Westington replied, "you should ask, do we? We have our moments, even our days," she said, "but it doesn't last. Before long, we're envious of others or we're upset with someone we love or we're bored, disgusted, and disappointed. Notice the coming of night?" she asked when I'd mentioned my thought, punctuating her reply with her tiny, coughlike laugh. "Most of us don't even notice the day, much less stop to smell the roses or look up at the stars in awe of their dazzling beauty. My husband was oblivious like that. He never stopped to enjoy what he had. He was always in pursuit of something more and it was never enough. I wonder if he found enough in the grave." Sometimes for hours, I listened to her ramble on, moving from one topic to the next, dropping her tidbits of wisdom with the grace and generosity of a loving mother feeding her newborns in the nest. She lectured authoritatively, like a professor in the school of hard knocks. When she got too despondent or waved a tattered flag of lifelong regrets, her loyal employee of fifty years, Trevor Washington, would just shake his head and say, "You c'mon now, Mrs. Westington. None of that doom and gloom talk or you'll scare the poor girl outta here." Most of the time she ignored him or dismissed him with a short wave of her hand. And the only other person who lived in the old vineyard home, her fourteen-year-old granddaughter, Echo, was deaf, and in many ways a birdlike creature herself, hovering in her private corners waiting for a song she would never hear sung. Mrs. Westington had invited me to move in and live with them to help her with Echo and be Echo's companion. Echo's mother, Mrs. Westington's daughter, Rhona, had left Echo here more than ten years ago and Echo was without any brother or sister, any friends or any parent. I couldn't imagine a lAndrews, V. C. is the author of 'Girl in the Shadows ', published 2006 under ISBN 9780743493871 and ISBN 0743493877.