CHAPTER 2

(? I Can Haz Title ?)







         A roll of thunder startled Ellen from her nap. She glanced at her alarm clock, stretching. The clock flashed 12:00 every few seconds, as if to say, "Fix me! Fix me! Fix me!"



"Ellen, are you in there?" her aunt called, knocking on the door loudly.

The shadow at the break... What did it mean?

"Yeah, gimme a second." Ellen called back. She stood, startling Aelphaba, who darted under the bedside table.

Ellen folded the soft, woven blanket she had fallen asleep under and placed it on the end of her bed. Glancing out the window, she could not see the back yard; the rain was pulverizing the ground, plummeting in sheets from the sky like an army of angry wasps. She walked to the door and opened it, smiling at her breathless Aunt Hilda who stood there soaked, still holding her keys and purse. She had just come back from work.

"I just wanted to make sure you weren't outside in this awful weather!" Hilda said, hand to her chest. "Did the power go out up here too?" She glanced over Ellen's shoulder at the clock.

"Yeah...I guess so." Ellen replied, stepping over to the clock, letting her aunt into her room. She squinted at the buttons on the top of the time keeper, her eyes aching from the strain of peering in the dark.

"What time is it?" She asked.

"I have no clue...the powers out all over the house. Even my watch stopped working!" Hilda announced, fingering the charms on her silver necklace nervously.

Ellen groaned, standing to rummage through her school bag for her cell phone. She stood, her brow furrowed.

"Did you take my phone out of my bag?" She inquired.

"No. Why, isn't it in there?"

"Well, I thought I'd put it in there on my way home from school, but I guess I didn't."

"Did you leave it in your pants pocket?" Hilda walked over to the hamper, and began checking the pockets of everything inside.

"No. I learned my lesson last time." Ellen said, rubbing her forehead as she remembered how angry she was when she opened the washing machine to find her Nokia cell phone sitting on top of her favorite sundress. She walked over to her jacket and joined her aunt in the hunt for her phone. Hilda looked at her intently.

"Are you alright? You seem aggravated about something-- something other than your phone, I mean." She brushed a strand of Ellen's hair behind her ear.

"I'm okay, I guess....One of my teachers assigned too much homework on the pretense that they would have had time to do it all in class if I hadn't interrupted..."

Ellen closed her eyes and rubbed her forehead.

Hilda furrowed her brow in a way only she could.

"How much are we talking?"

"Multiple chapters and an essay."

"How much time was left to the class?" Hilda asked raising one brow.

"Two minutes, tops..." Ellen muttered.

"What? Why?" Hilda cried, trying to be heard over a particularly loud roll of thunder.

"Because he's a jerk? Because he hates me? Who knows?" Ellen shrugged.

"Well, that's just wrong. I have half a mind to go on down there and give him a piece of my mind!" Hilda ranted, fists on her hips.

"Oh, yeah, that'll help the situation. My aunt parading in there and hauling my bio teacher out by his ear." Ellen giggled.

"You better believe it! I'd waltz on in there and snatch him right out of his chair!" Hilda replied, laughing.

They fell to the floor laughing. After a time, the power came back on. Ellen wiped her eyes on her sleeve and sat up.

She turned to the window, stretching; suddenly she screamed. A bolt of lightning had ripped the sky apart, silhouetting a man in front of her window. The shadow at the break... Hilda snapped her head up and followed Ellen's line of sight, but the figure had gone.

"What? What did you see?" She asked, looking back at Ellen.

"There was a guy! Right there! Right in front of the window!" Ellen yelled, a hand to her throat, the other pointing out the window at where the man had been standing.

"Ellen, he'd have to be certifiably crazy to be out in this weather. Maybe it was a trick of the light." Hilda said, with her hand on Ellen's shoulder, using a tone like the one an adult would use when comforting a small child of their ridiculous fears and trying not to laugh.

"No." she said firmly. "I know what I saw, Aunt Hilda, and he was right there." Ellen insisted indignantly, her voice

shaking slightly. Hilda glanced out the window again and then back at Ellen, frowning. Her niece looked at her stubbornly.

Hilda sighed and walked over to the bay window, straining to see through the rain. At first, she couldn't see a thing. After some time she sighed and turned away, but something caught her eye. She turned back to the window, and saw something on the sill outside

the window. She opened it, rescuing Ellen's cell phone from the relentless storm outside. Hilda pursed her lips and examined the blue and white Samsung Gravity before closing the window and handing the phone to Ellen.

"See? What did I tell you!" Ellen cried. "It wasn't there a second ago, I would've seen it! I'm positive!"

Hilda frowned, furrowing her brow. Turning to Ellen who was still sitting on the floor, she said, "Alright, that's it. I'm calling your father."

"What?" Ellen looked at her aunt, nervously. Her father was an author; he traveled all the time, and left a number for emergencies only. He was less a father than a distant stranger. He was currently in Australia doing research for his next book, a thriller novel. "But--" Ellen started, following her aunt out of the room, who was already out the door and walking down the hall. Hilda turned her head over her shoulder, interrupting her niece.   

"Ellen, this is too much. I have to at least let him know what's happening." Hilda opened the door to her own bedroom and retrieved the cordless phone from its cradle. Ellen went downstairs to search for the cat, and could hear her aunt talking to her father's secretary.  It figures... she thought. He never answered the phone himself. All of his calls were screened by Rena, a Brazilian girl around Ellen's age. She knew her father only kept the girl around for her looks. She wasn't smart enough for anything but staring at, and spoke very little English. Whatever came of this phone conversation wouldn't matter much anyway. There was nothing he could do about it, even if he wanted to. Ellen wasn't sure she  wanted him to. He never sent any postcards or letters, not even on her birthday. She remembered the day he left. It wasn't long after her mother disappeared...she had come down the stairs for a glass of water one morning and saw him climb in his car and drive away. She didn't cry that morning; she didn't call anyone to let them know he had left, because in her mind, he had left a long time ago. Ellen gave up her search for the cat and looked out the screen door. The rain had begun to let up a bit. The shadow at the break.... She realized she was shaking. She grabbed her own keys off the counter, figuring a drive would help her think. She went to the foot of the stairs and could hear Hilda arguing with Rena in Spanish. She figured now wasn't the best time to interrupt. Returning to the kitchen, Ellen wrote a note to Hilda explaining that she'd gone out and stuck it to the freezer door. She double checked that she had her phone, put her jacket on, and left.