Carolyn MacCullough

Falling Through Darkness - Excerpt

Aidan loved night adventures—but not the kind that most of their classmates found in the backseat of a car at Grass Island.

He talked about seeing who walked through the night, who lived their lives while most of the world was sleeping. So she started sneaking out of the house and meeting him under the enormous weeping willow in her front yard. Holding hands, they would skirt the gravel driveway and run through the dark to the bottom of the lane, where he had parked his car.

They visited all-night diners in unknown little towns and sometimes drove into the city. Once they ended up at a Laundromat where an impromptu poetry slam was being held. Sometimes they just drove for hours and hours in his old Chevrolet, singing with the radio. At first she had been too shy to sing in front of him. But slowly, she found herself joining in, if only to balance his off-key renditions of old country songs. “Come on, Ginny, anyone can halfway carry a tune. How many people can sing really, really badly? Try it.” And he howled along with the chorus until she gave in.

These night adventures left her sleepwalking the next day, with shadows blooming under her half-closed eyes. But she drifted through her classes with a smile of such extraordinary sweetness that most of her teachers failed to comment on her barely audible responses to their questions.

Her father never left the office before six. This gave her enough time to listen to and delete the frequent please call, a conference will be necessary messages on the answering machine, while feeding the cat and watering the plants. Then, crunching an apple or swallowing slices of an orange, she would make her way up the stairs, to her little room at the end of the long hallway. The afternoon sun slanting across her narrow bed filled with giddiness and she fell into it like someone who had not seen the light for days. An abrupt exhaustion would surge up, no longer to be denied, and she would fall asleep within minutes.

When her father returned at seven, she was able to present a clear face and shining eyes and answer most questions about school. They usually ate while listening to the radio, sometimes NPR, sometimes a classic rock station, her father humming along with the tunes while she served second helpings of the pasta or curry or whatever she had made that evening. After dinner, her father would disappear into the garage, attempting to repair his battered English Triumph motorcycle, while Ginny did her homework. Finally, she would be able to call good night, close her door, and sit by her window, listening to the house settle into sleep.

Aidan always wore his fedora hat for these expeditions. She watched and waited by the window, slanting back the blinds now and then to see if his shadow had appeared. On nights when she waited a particularly long time, she played a game. If the next six cars passed and none of them had a broken taillight, then he’d be coming in six minutes. He’ll come when the clouds cover the moon. She hummed nonsensical rhymes to herself, pausing every so often to listen to the deep stillness of the house, worried that her father would wake and divine her thoughts.

Just when she decided that Aidan was not coming, she would hear the low two-note whistle and she had only to glance out her window to see his shadow waiting by the tree. A thrill, like the first sip of wine slipping through her.

I know you, I know you, I know you, you are mine.

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