Elara Is Dead

Chapter five

Mason's POV 

I came home late at work that evening, the sort of late when the house is too quiet and you know it is just waiting until you arrive. My tie was unfastened partially, the burden of the day pressing in between the shoulder blades. Ordinarily, I would detect some evidence of her having been here one lamp burning, her mug in the sink, a whiff of her cologne down the hall.

Tonight there was nothing.

“Elara?” My voice bounced form the wall as I placed my briefcase. The silence which replied was not, of late years, an unusual one; but it struck me to-night, as disquieting in a way, which I could not determine.

I stepped up the stairs hoping to find her in the bedroom with her obstinate face that is so much more comfortable when we were quarreling. Instead it was deprived of her in the bedroom. Dressing tables, closets yawning half fit blue around, Against half a hanger rattling itself. I was clutched with emotion. The wedding ring shone up at me on the dresser in the low lamplight like a harsh and final full stop.

I banged the front door with some violence. These words rumbled like a shot through the house like an echo. Silence was my answer No steps, no wary voice aloud in the hall, no Elara in the doorway with that head-strong toss of her head.

Nevertheless I called her name anyhow

“Elara?”

Nothing.

My fingers felt the tie loosen with impatient fingers and I felt my level of irritation boiling beneath. My battle with her had left me furious- her unending reproaches, her refusal to accept my eyes were closed, her continued insistence that I open my eyes and that I listen. I had not wanted to hear. I had wished to have her silent, submissive, thankful.

Instead she’d flung truths like knives.

"You think I don't know ? That you can not make out your mother on pulling the strings? You see! too blindly, Mason. Too frightened to lose her favour.” her words echoed in my ears.

I walked out before I said something I could not recall.

Here I was in the hallway, something eating at me. Now the air had a different feel to it Emptier.

I walked toward our bedroom in shoes that dragged as I walked on polished wood. What met my eye paralysed me.

And yet on her side of the closet empty. Dresses gone. Scarves missing. The trifle jewel box she never suffered me to open, was spoiled.

Now the bed was cleanly laid out except it was so obvious, why with her wedding ring on the dresser giving off its silver in the lamplight.

My chest tightened “No…”

I grabbed it, feel the cold metal of it sinking into my palm. Elara would not take this off even when she is asleep. She said she would wake up at night and stroke its presence against her skin-to remind her that she was hers no matter how she was angry and pleased.

Still staggered back, I was short of breath. I could not help noticing an envelope leaning against the corner of my desk in the office next adjoining.

Her neat handwriting was used to write my name. Mason.

I did not unfold it. Such was my blood boiled too fast Another letter. This other act at trying to get under my skin. She was controlling because she always tried to pull at my guilt. That is what I told myself, at any rate.

I hurled the envelope off, and stamped my foot to prevent her victory.

I could not sleep. The hours dragged by, and I was walking about the house, looking at the doors, like they would open up and she would come back. Looking like she would stride in with bare feet and dishevelled hair blown by the wind and determined eyes set on me.

The stillness closed in.

At two-am, I fell back in the armchair of my office. There was also the ring fairly burning in my pocket.

It was not possible to sleep.

.....

And with the morning came the news in a thunder-bolt fashion

A tragic bus accident just outside Briar bridge last night The driver got the vehicle off-road and set it on fire. Officials say many of the bodies are unidentifiable…”

I jumped up in shock,my phone almost out of my hand.

Bus crash. Briar Ridge?

My heart thumped like a hammer as the anchor spoke but there was only static.

Elara.

She had gone last night. Where else would she go but out of town?

My stomach turned over and I felt bile in my throat.

I phoned her number Voice mail.

Again. Again. Again.

Nothing

“Damn it, Elara!” And my voice tottered I banged the phone down on the table.

The envelope was there yet, and untorn. It was fear that crept under my anger the first time. My goggling hands tore it open.

The papers were scattered about the desk, weary old carbon copies of letters. I was struck with patent breath. The handwriting was hers. The pages belonged to her alone

Then the photos. Sketches. Scaled pictures of stars, wildflowers, the decaying cabin that we'd wanted to rework together.

Different things that Selene had written to me and things I thought had come to me in someone else.

Why, they were Elara's! All of them?

My knees collapsed and I fell to the floor shaking as I shuffled through them. There were words that were blurred with the tears in her eyes that were threatening to spill words of consolation, of devotion, of love.

She had given me all this. I had driven her and crushed her and maltreated her bit by bit.

“No…” my voice was broken, unsophisticated and harsh. No, no, no.

I covered my face in my hands, pain tearing at me. The cry which awakened in my throat was not wholly human, not wholly sane, it was the between-crunch of a man who had just seen himself break the heart of the one person who ever loved him.

By morning I was in my car. The interstate went by in a blur of headlights that streaked through the vision. I had my teeth set to the wheel.

Several hours after the crash site was reached. The plat of a burnt metal and ash was the first that I smelled. Yellow tape barricaded the debris, blackened hulks of steel that lay lashing against a back-drop of trees. It was still smoky.

I stumbles along, showing the officer my ID. I must see the names..”

"We are still investigating sir. The great majority of our remains..”

“I don’t care!” My roar took hold of his sleeve. “The names. Tell me the names.”

The compassion came into his eyes a little. We don t have all the list. names did not appear there, some were torn off.”

I froze. “What?”

He sighed. "No Elara Lorne in the manifest."

My heart turned over, Not in the list, she's not a victim.

I reeled backward, gasping as I could not take in the air fast enough. there was bliss at the expense of bewilderment, that bore and beat like a thunder against my blood.

He did not see her on the bus, But that implied…

Where was she?

I clenched my hands over my face and all my nervous energy was breaking into threads.

“Elara…” I spoke hurriedly and hoarsely.

It broke over me like a wave she was lost not to death, but to me. To my blindness To my cravenness

She was out there, and alive, but away from me.

I had not the slightest notion where to find her.

My heart closed down and a crushing pain rent in two.

I looked up at the blackened hulk, rising to its feet like ash and smoke into the morning sky.

"Where are you, Elara?"