Contents

  Title Page

  Attention

  Life Outside the Manor

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  Copyright

  LIFE OUTSIDE THE MANOR

  The Jason Jack

  Copyright 2014-2018

  -

  www.walapiemedia.com

  This story is part of the story collection

  Darkness and Shadows (Read My Shorts Volume 2).

  Head to WalapieMedia.com.

  LIFE OUTSIDE THE MANOR

  Maria Lavender was born a sickly girl. She did not have a choice in the matter, but she did not want to die without ever seeing the outside world. Even if it meant breaking her father’s heart.

  “We’re almost there, Trudy,” Maria said, hunched over her rather large golden retriever. Her hands gripped the dog’s fur for stability, and she blinked away the fog converging before her eyes. “We’re almost free.”

  -----

  “Let me go, Dad—” The girl sat up in bed, her skin a pale green of sickness but her eyes filled with life.

  “I can’t have this conversation with you anymore, Maria,” her gray-haired dad said, propped up on a cane with his back against his daughter’s bedroom door. His entire face sagged from the dark bags beneath his eyes to his wrinkled cheeks and thin lips. “I just . . . can’t.”

  “Today’s my thirteenth birthday, and every year I wish for you to let me see the outside world. Let me be free!”

  “Calm down, Maria. You must calm down.”

  -----

  Maria underestimated the ease of her escape, her mind and heart racing. More specifically, she underestimated the length of the grand hall leading to the front door. And her first chance to experience life outside the manor.

  “Trudy,” Maria whispered, her voice shaky. The dog followed her into a small closet along the wall. They sat together in darkness, listening to the sound of Maria’s drumming heartbeat while a set of footsteps moved down the hall.

  “Maria?” her dad called.

  -----

  “Maria,” the elder man said, moving his weight off of the door and fully onto his cane, “please. This home, this room, is the best place for you until we find a cure.”

  “Do you really believe there is even a cure?” Maria’s chest bobbed while she gasped for air. “You’ve been searching every day since I can remember and you still haven’t found one. How many days will you leave me in bed while you get to go out? How many years will I remain sick?”

  “I’m trying.”

  “Will I die before you find a cure?”

  “Don’t say that, princess.”

  “Look at me, Dad.” Maria pushed back her covers. She planted her trembling hands into the mattress and draped her too thin legs over the side of her bed. Her dad limped toward Maria, but she put up a hand to stop him. She placed her bare feet on the wooden floor and stumbled along the edge of the bed until she made it to the corner bedpost. She gripped the wooden post with all her strength, teetering. Tears fell down her cheeks the same as her father’s. “Look at me.”

  -----

  Please, don’t find me in here. Maria shut her eyes tight and buried her face into Trudy’s fur. Please don’t see me.

  Her father’s shadow hovered outside the closet. She could see him through the horizontal slits on the door, tired and frail, hunched over his cane. He had given his life to protect her; to find a cure for her. He had given her everything: a castle, Trudy, her best friend in the world, and a deep love. He gave her everything but freedom.

  She hugged Trudy close, remaining silent while her dad moved away from the closet, down the hall, and toward her bedroom. She had never disobeyed her father; she had always listened to him when he said not to go out the front doors. Until today.

  Wiping the tears from her eyes, Maria wondered if what she was doing was right along with what was more important: her father’s protective love or her need to be free.

  -----

  “With every passing year, with every passing day, you remind me of your only wish in life. To see outside these walls just once,” Maria’s father said. “But I also must protect you . . . I do see you. I see my beautiful daughter, the most important person in my life, and I see the sickness she was born with taking over her body more and more with each passing second.”

  He exhaled. A sob escaped him. He turned from his daughter, and removed the moisture from his eyes with the back of his hand.

  “Dad . . .”

  “My love for you may seem strict, overbearing.” He motioned to the room around. “Perhaps it may even seem like a prison the way I insist you stay in here. I can only hope you’ll understand, one day. Why I can’t let you go outside. It is a burden knowing you need more. I want you to have more. I truly do. But I cannot give it to you.”

  “Yes, you can,” Maria said. She calmed her breathing, settled in place, and curled her bottom lip inside of her mouth. The vein on her forehead protruded while she focused her efforts on keeping her legs and feet firmly rooted on the floor. She locked eyes with her father, showed him a weak smile. “Give me your permission to go.”

  -----

  Maria did not need permission from her father. She had done every last thing he had ever asked of her in her thirteen years of life, and she had always stayed away from the front door. She deserved experiencing life outside of her father’s embrace. She wanted to see the world in all of its beauty. She hoped her father would understand and forgive her. One day.

  “Let’s go, Trudy. We don’t have much time before Dad finds us,” Maria whispered, climbing onto her companion’s back. The duo snuck out of the closet and headed toward the grand double doors. Maria eyed the exit, goosebumps spread across her arms. She couldn’t wait to see what was beyond the manor.

  -----

  “What lies out there will be the death of you, Maria,” her dad told her. He eyed his cane and spotted hands. “It will eat away at you as it has done me. I cannot give you what you ask for.”

  Maria took a step toward her father. Her ankle wobbled but she managed to stay upright. Simply standing proved a toll on her frail being.

  “I’m already the death of me. How can what’s out there be so much worse than what I’m enduring now?”

  “Maria, you should lay down.”

  “Dad.” Maria focused her attention on the brimming bookshelf next to the foot of her bed. She moved her shaking arm with precision and rested her hand on a book on top of the furniture. A sprawling green field with sunflowers, butterflies, and a vivid blue sky plastered the cover. “I want to see grass this green. I want to breathe air this pure.”

  Maria’s voice choked. Her lips trembled when she swallowed.

  “I want to see something other than the ceiling when I look up.”

  “Oh, Maria.” Her father dropped his cane and fell to his knees. He took his daughter into his arms, their sadness and tears combining. “Let’s be happy for what we have in this life—each other. I cannot bear to lose you, my child. You would only get worse if you step foot outside of these walls. The world is real, not imagination. It will not protect you.”

  -----

  “Stop, Maria! Stop!”

  Maria huffed while her dog dashed toward the double doors. She did not know what hurt more, the emotional or physical pain she felt at the moment: her legs ached, her arms throbbed, and dizziness overcame her. She had driven her father into hysterics of which she feared he’d never forgive her.

  “Stop!”

  She dismounted Trudy, ignoring the pain, ignoring her twisted stomach and shaking limbs. Ignoring her father’s pleas, how much the world spun around her, and how she desperately relied on her canine companion to continue. She only saw the door, her freedom, and her bony fingers wrap around the knob.

  “No, Maria—no!”

  Her father’s panicked voice trailed away. So did the sound of his cane moving rapidly across the wooden floor in her direction. She heard one last clang or two behind her before every sensory intrusion went away at the twist of her wrist.

  The door opened, slow and steady, nudged further open by Trudy’s nose. Maria felt warm air brush against her face. It was thick and not sweet as she imagined. She shielded her eyes although the light of the sun did not seem as bright as it did on the cover of her book. The first moments experiencing the outside world was not as she expected, but joy overwhelmed her. A chill swept over her body and her lips spread into a weak smile, while she clung onto her companion, walked through the doorway, and onto the front porch.

  “We’re free, Trudy.” Maria took a long, deep cleansing breath. “We’re finally free.”

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  THE JASON JACK

  MORE FROM THE JASON JACK

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  Life Outside the Manor

  Copyright 2014-2018 by Jason Jack.

  All rights reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, events, incidents, and so forth are fictitious or are products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons (alive or dead) is coincidental.

 

 

  Jason Jack, Life Outside the Manor

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