THEM

THEM

Author: Kelsey Yoor

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The Beginning

    The day her mother decided to move again was the day Eleanor found the envelope on her bedroom floor. It was a very ordinary looking envelope, cream in color, one edge slightly bent. It had her name on it, nothing more, but that name was written in such lovely and precise penmanship that the whole thing looked fairly unreal.

    Eleanor picked it off the ground, holding it by one corner. It felt all right, she figured, like an ordinary envelope - hardly weighing a thing. She sat down on the bed and stared at it, slapping the paper against her knee in a fidgety rhythm. Then she stopped, shrugged, and tore it open.

    Inside was a single page and it read:

Ms. Eleanor,

The Court would be delighted to host you at your earliest convenience.

You are requested to bring exactly ten and one half articles with you.

We await your arrival. No reply is required.

-The Court

    The Court. Had her mother been the joke playing type, Eleanor might have chalked it up to a prank and that would have been the end of that. But, as it happened, something about it caused Eleanor to take pause, frown, and think for a moment. There was an undeniably real quality about it all, but she could not put her finger on just what that was. And, though she truly could not figure out why, she found herself grinning, as though she had been waiting for just this envelope her whole life.

    With a shrug as if to say, Well, honestly, why not? she dug out her old duffel bag, a faded purple remnant of her childhood dance class days, and dumped out the various socks and gum wrappers and rings - from the plastic, gumball machine sort to the faux silver ones scrounged at the sales bins of Claire’s - that had made their home there. Ten and a half things, the note had said. Looking about her room, she stopped to think a moment and then threw into her bag:

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1.     Her wrinkled, dog-eared copy of Sense & Sensibility

2.     A photograph of her huge mutt, Bear

3.     A thread and charm bracelet she had made at summer camp ages ago

4.     A Polaroid instant camera

5.     One blue and green striped umbrella

6.     Her favorite gray hoodie, ratty and loved

7.     A hair brush (she did not care how long or rough the trip would be, she would not stand for massive knots and tangles in her hair)

8.     A flashlight

9.     Betty, her old plush lamb

10.     Her flip phone

    She ticked off each item as she threw it into her bag. Ten. What in the world is supposed to be my half of an item? she wondered. She thought for a minute, then, rummaging through her nightstand, casually snapped a candy bar in half and tossed one piece in the bag, shoving the invitation in the pocket of her jeans. With a sudden thought, she jogged into the kitchen and grabbed a family sized bag of trail mix. The snack did not really count as an item, she reasoned, if she ate it all before she arrived. The letter had not forbidden food for the road.

    Zipping up her bag, she shouldered it and prepared to venture out. It was only when she opened the door to step outside that she realized she had absolutely no clue where she was headed. She paused for a moment, only briefly troubled, then cast the thought aside. She would follow her feet, she would find her path - in a way, she just knew.

Chapter One

    It was a crisp fall day. Not quite winter, not yet autumn’s end. The scent of the air itself was invigorating. Eleanor took a deep breath and zipped up her sweater. Stray strands of her chestnut hair danced about in the breeze.

    She turned left onto the sidewalk, walking past the long line of apartment buildings, past the 7-11 on her side of the street, past the nail salon on the other. Her pace had a steady rhythm to it, determined and quick. The sun was mid-autumn high in the sky, casting a clear and bright white about her. A gust of wind occasionally zipped down the street, leaving a cool stillness behind.

    Eleanor was enjoying walking with no time limit, no obvious destination. Just walking to find out where she would arrive. She must have been trekking for an hour, no more than two, when she abruptly realized she was past the edge of town and traveling along the old and neglected thoroughfare. Not many cars drove by, perhaps three or four an hour. There goes any hopes of hitchhiking, she thought with a grimace as a lone Chrysler minivan sped past her outstretched thumb. It was desolate, here, in an old, B horror movie sort of way. This seemed to confirm to Eleanor she was going in the right direction.

    The sun had drifted a little lower in the sky, preparing the late afternoon for early evening. Eleanor shivered and pulled down on her sweater’s crimson sleeves, suddenly wishing she had thought to bring a pair of gloves, too. Still, she resolutely readjusted her dance bag and put her hood up, hoping to trap in a little last heat.

    This trip, she determined, was going to be interesting.

    Four hours later found the sun all but completely vanished from the sky. Eleanor’s breath was coming out in icy little puffs and she was more shuffling than walking, now.

    She shoved her chilled hands into her jeans’ pockets and stopped for a moment. Was there something ahead? She squinted, focusing into the distance. Yes! Some sort of building, some fading neon lights. She walked closer. Now she could make out a eight or nine of trucks parked in the front of the lot, three cars pulled around to its side.

    She moved a little closer and saw it was a truck stop and motel. Seedy and glorious. An oasis of dingy, disreputable beauty - with heating. If Norman Bates himself had been waiting in the parking lot, she would not even had cared...