Page 1 of Fall From Grace

Part One:

Grade School

1

Grace age 6

Noah age 7

The treehouse is mine. No one has lived in this house for a couple of years… A new family just showed up today. Shit, there’s a little girl coming.

Girls are such a pain.

N.P.

Looking back now, it’s funny that my parents named me Grace. They couldn’t have picked a better name for their only daughter. I was sweet and caring, beautiful everyone told me. Picture perfect, dressed head to toe in frilly little dresses, Mom made me wear. She’d place headbands or bows in my brown hair that added to the freckles splashed across my cheeks. As a kid, I was always the center of attention and I loved it. I knew all the right things to say to make the adults laugh and smile at me more.

It didn’t matter how doting my parents were, though, because it was only a matter of time before I started to disappoint them. It wasn’t their fault. They didn’t know the town we moved to when I was six would be three houses down from a dirty trailer park. And inside one of those trailers would be a wild, lonely boy left to do whatever he wanted day-in and day-out. It wasn’t their fault their daughter took a liking to the dirty neighbor boy and became his friend.

If only that was all we became, they would have been happy. If only our bodies weren’t made to do the things I did with the neighbor boy.

I met him the same day Dad drove a U-Haul to our new house with Mom and me in her car behind him. The electric and water had been hooked up days before we even got there, Mom and Dad were always efficient in everything they did. Mom was a math teacher and would be a teaching at my new school. Dad was an accountant, I didn’t really understand what that meant until I was older, I just knew it had something to do with numbers. They met and fell in love in college over their mutual attraction to numbers… Don’t ask me, I didn’t understand it either.

Our new house was a two-hour drive from our last one, but it was still in Virginia. When I thought of the friends I was leaving behind from kindergarten, it made my heart ache, but the moment my feet touched the concrete driveway at our new place, I couldn’t help but feel excited. Everything was new. And for a six-year-old, new was exciting. It wasn’t until you were older that change was scary.

“What do you think Gracie?” Dad asked, stepping out of the U-Haul with a smile as he watched me soak it all in. Everyone called me Gracie in an endearing way, and that was another thing that wouldn’t bother me until I got older.

I didn’t answer his question at first. Instead, I took it all in with my eyes, ears, and nose. This house was just as big as our old house, a two-story, but our old one had been white with a blue roof. This one was white too, but its roof was red as were the windowsills and porch banisters. The air was hot, yet clean as I inhaled. We were in the middle of June so even the breeze was hot. There was another house next to ours, followed by two double-wide trailers. In the distance, I could see a bunch of trailers grouped together. But my eyes quickly fell back on what was ours. The front yard wasn’t very big, but the back one was huge. I finally giggled and ran back to answer Dad’s question. “I love it!” His hands were there to catch me as he swooped me up and spun me around.

“Okay, you two, we have to unload the last of our things so Dad can take the U-Haul back and pick up his truck.” The whole time Mom spoke, Dad mimicked her with a goofy face and it had me laughing the entire time she was talking.

“Steven,” Mom clucked at Dad which only made me burst into more giggles.

“Yes, dear,” was his sugary sweet reply to her. My dark eyes and hair were passed down from Mom, but my freckles came from Dad who was a redhead with freckles all over his body.

She shook her head and sighed at him. “I give up, I don’t know what to do with you both.”

Dad sucked in his jaws and looked back down at me. “We better listen to the boss lady.” I nodded and agreed completely.

“I’ll help,” I offered excitedly, already lifting myself in the back of the U-Haul. I bent down for the first closest box and couldn’t even grasp it correctly, let alone lift it.

Dad chuckled. “Here, why don’t you go check the place out while your mom and I get everything unloaded?”

“Just give me something that I can carry,” I protested.

“Gracie,” he started, then smiled. “Stop trying to be a grown up and go check out the backyard some more.”

I huffed. “Fine.”

I hopped out of the back of the U-Haul and made my way through the grass. It needed to be cut, being just above my ankles and making them itch. “And make sure you watch for snakes,” Dad hollered. “Better yet, just go inside and look around until I get a chance to cut the grass.” I took off running around the house, and I heard his frustrated sigh and smiled.

Glancing at the hill behind the house, I knew I was going to enjoy exploring it but not that day. My eyes lit up when I saw the giant oak tree in our yard. It wasn’t exactly the tree that caught my attention, it was the treehouse in it. “Oh, my gosh!” I squealed as I ran toward the tree. My palms and the insides of my legs met the rope in a frenzied rush as I pulled myself up. It wasn’t hard for me, gymnastics and naturally being an adventurist kid, I was one of those that thought I could do anything growing up.

My eyes fell on the blankets toward the back of the treehouse before I dropped them back to the floor as I finished hoisting myself up. I smiled to myself once one leg was already on the floor, then the other. Something darted through the treehouse, I paused, my gaze snapping forward. My scream was at the edge of my teeth before two hands clamped over my mouth quickly.

“Shh,” a scratchy voice barked out.

My eyes raked over the thin boy in front of me. His dirty hands were cupped over my lips as his blue eyes studied me darkly. They were so bright and blue, even the darkness of the treehouse couldn’t hide their color. But the rest of him… was dirty. Even his hair looked dark and matted in such a way I’d never seen before.

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