Timothy's Monsters, Chapter 2

Let me introduce you to Louise and Henry. And just how old IS Eleanor??

Another Fiction Friday is in the books, this one even posted on Friday, though just by the skin of my teeth. Here it is, the most recent draft of Chapter Two of Timothy’s Monsters! If you missed Chapter One, you can read it here, and a sort of a prequel to that is this one about Arthur the banana slug. As always, this is work in progress, unrefined, far from perfect and subject to change. I have started writing many novels, and never finished them, because the job was just too big and I just had too many other things on my plate. I am really enjoying sharing little bits of this story here on Substack, and it feels like I’m getting more momentum here than I have in a long time. Posting here is a bit like setting an anchor while climbing a mountain, rather than just blundering up the thing without anything to keep me from falling all the way down when I slip or get too tired to go on. This won’t be a straight-line kind of a journey, but, so far at least, it is continuously forward and upward, and that’s all I need.

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Chapter Two

It didn’t take long for the majestic, towering redwoods to melt away and be replaced by much less spectacular specimens. Q had taught him to identify just about anything in the forest. He also taught the boy to love the forest, but Timothy couldn’t help but be unimpressed by the ponderosa pines, Douglas firs, and mountain hemlocks that flew past him as they drove. He looked past them, as if trying to find the home left behind. The sun flashing between the trees gave him a headache and eventually he pulled the hood of his sweater up and over his eyes and drifted into a restless sleep plagued with strange dreams and kinked muscles, thanks to his unwillingness to wake Birdie in an attempt to resituate himself more comfortably.

He felt groggy and achy when he woke, and it took him a few seconds to remember where he was and what they were doing. Although, when he opened his eyes he realized he didn’t actually know where they were. The car was stopped and Eleanor wasn’t in it anymore. From where he sat leaning against the door, he could only see tree tops. It certainly wasn’t his forest, but it was a forest. With a sigh, he pushed himself up. Birdie had long since found a different place to rest her head. Her gentle snores mingled with the hum of the bees in a sound so pleasant and familiar that Tim’s heart, though aching with longing for his forest of giants, felt calm as he surveyed their surroundings. 

At first he wasn’t sure what he was looking at. There was a short wrought iron fence not far from the car. It had ivy, still green despite the lateness of the season, meandering up and around its rods and bars. Beyond it, snuggled in a clearing in the midst of what would have seemed impressively tall lodgepole pines to anyone else, were dozens of tall stones in rows. Late afternoon sunlight peeked through the tops of the trees and trickled down to speckle the place in patches of gold. Even when Timothy realized what the place was, he felt like it was one of the most peaceful places he had ever been. Why Eleanor had stopped at a cemetery, however, was beyond him. He pushed the button to release his seatbelt and slipped his shoes, which he had kicked off almost immediately after their drive began, back on his feet. He bit his lower lip as he gently squeezed the door handle, hoping not to wake Birdie. When it popped open, loud as ever despite his effort, the little goat jolted upright and bleated in annoyance at the startle. 

“Sorry, Birdie girl,” Tim said, sliding off the seat and out of the car. “I’ll be right back. Wait here.”

He shut the door behind him. Birdie plopped back on the seat with another irritated bleat and tried to resume her nap. The air was chillier than the warm sunshine had let on and he shoved his hands in his pockets and hunched his shoulders as he made his way to a gap in the fence a few yards away.

The cemetery was old. Some of the headstones were so worn he couldn’t make out any of the words or dates. Some were relatively new, from the last decade or so. Some were just weathered stumps, with more recent iron plaques nearby that gave the information that might have once been etched on the time-eaten marker. In the very back of his mind, he registered a degree of unease at finding himself alone in this quiet place that also felt crowded. His young heart couldn’t quite put its finger on the feeling, only that all these names had once been people and all these people had once had lives, and now they were all here in one place, still, quiet, and forgotten. Then, as he rounded a thick bramble of blackberries, he spotted Eleanor. She knelt on the ground a few rows from him in front of a small cluster of graves. He made his way to her. When he was almost to her, he tripped on a vine that grabbed at his shoes and collided with the rough earth. He hissed with pain and examined his scraped knee.

“Come here, dear,” Eleanor said. She didn’t turn her head, but she held out a hand to him. He hobbled over and sat down next to her. She already had a bandaid in her hand and was pulling a wet wipe from her bag. Eleanor had learned early on that when raising a young boy, these things should never be out of reach. She gently cleaned the wound, then added a drop of lavender oil to the bandaid before affixing it to his injury. 

“Thanks,” he muttered.

“It’s alright to cry, you know.” 

The permission made the tears he had been trying to hold back press harder for freedom. He considered allowing it for a moment, and one or two sneaked past his defenses, but he swallowed them back. He didn’t want to cry anymore. 

“Where are we?” he asked instead.

Eleanor didn’t answer immediately. She drew in a long, deep breath, closed her eyes and lifted her face to the fading sun. Finally, she exhaled with a sigh that sounded like a song.

“This is a town called Nevada City.”

“We’re in Nevada already?”

“No, we’re in California.”

Tim’s brow furrowed.

“Then why is it called Nevada City?” 

“Well, Sierra Nevada means snow-covered mountains. That’s what these mountains we’re in now are called, the Sierra Nevada. The people who settled this place named it first, and the folks who settled the state next door liked it so much, they borrowed the name.”

“Huh. That’s kind of rude, don’t you think?” 

Eleanor smiled.

“It’s a nice name, it’s hard to blame them.”

“Why are we here?” 

Eleanor looked back at the gravestones beside her. 

“It’s a good place to rest for the night,” she said. 

“In the cemetery?” he asked, his alarm poorly masked.

“No, silly boy. In Nevada City.”

After a sigh of relief, Timothy looked closer at the markers and could see that the pine needles and leaves and other forest debris had been carefully brushed away. 

“Who are they?” he asked. Eleanor’s lips twitched sideways a bit, like she wanted to smile and frown at the same time. She reached out and brushed the tops of the stones.

“Mama, Papa,” she said as she touched each one. Her hand brushed a third, smaller stone, but she didn’t name that one. Her hand lingered on it a moment longer than the others. Then, with another deep inhale, she smiled and stood up at him. 

“Did you live here?” Timothy asked, his curiosity piqued. He had spent his entire life with Eleanor and Q, and didn’t realize how little he actually knew about them and their lives before him until he caught little glimpses like this.

“I did,” she said. She smiled again and took his hand. She stood and pulled him to his feet. She led him back towards the car. “In fact, we were some of the first. But that was a very long time ago.”

Tim knew she was old. Really old. Impossibly old. But for some reason, it never seemed strange to him. She didn’t look old, besides her silver hair and her smile wrinkles by her eyes and on her cheeks. She didn’t act old, either. She didn’t moan or groan when she stood up after sitting for a while. She didn’t hold her back or squint her eyes like some of the other old people he had seen. She was graceful and strong, she stood tall and moved smoothly. But he knew she was the oldest person he knew. Maybe Q was older, but he didn’t know for sure. It didn’t seem important. It wasn’t a question to which he felt the need to know the answer, nor had the inclination to ask. But as he glanced over his shoulder for one more look at the stones–stones whose inscriptions had long since faded, who might have stood twice as tall when they were first placed there under the trees, or perhaps the ancestors of the trees that stood now, he got his first idea of just how long his guardian had walked the earth. 

“Come now, my sweet,” Eleanor said, tugging him along. “We’ll be late for supper.”

Ten minutes later, after driving through the quaint town nestled in the middle of the Sierra Nevada mountains, they found themselves rumbling down a gravel road into a small valley. They passed a handful of houses, but they were difficult to see, set back from the road as they were. A huge brown, black and white dog came running up to the fence around one house. It barked a low, booming, welcoming bark and was quickly followed by a tiny, yappy little bite-sized dog that yipped and squeaked alongside it. Timothy was afraid the little one might get trampled by the giant one, and smiled as he watched them out the back window. Their wagging tails drooped and they sat forlornly watching the car continue on, the hope of visitors fading back to boredom.

When he turned back around, he saw the road was sloping up rather steeply. When they finally crested the hill, a house stood before them. It had creamy white wooden siding and a welcoming front door with a simple stained glass insert and flower boxes under the windows on either side of it. On one side was a rose garden, on the other a patch of lawn with a large rock in the middle of it. Timothy immediately felt the need to climb up and jump off of it. The gravel drive widened and rounded the side of the house. There was a little island of four trees in the middle of it, with several bird feeders and a sundial nestled among them. As they pulled around it to park in front of the garage, Timothy spotted an old railroad crossing sign tucked back in the trees and wondered at it. The place felt like an oasis, like a secret pocket of comfort and safety. He knew there were other homes nearby, but there wasn’t any sign of them. He climbed out of the car and gazed up at the trees. More lodgepoles. Maybe they weren’t as impressive as his redwoods, but they were growing on him. Eleanor was waiting for him in front of the car. A brick path led around the corner of the garage to the back of the house. 

“Coming?” she asked. Timothy hurried to join her. A much larger lawn sprawled down a gentle slope behind the house. It was swallowed up by the forest that cocooned the home from the world. On the edge of the forest was a rope hammock and a path that called for Timothy to explore. He must have been straying towards it because Eleanor took his hand and pulled him back towards the house.

“Later,” she promised.

There was a large wooden deck at the back of the house, and a pair of french doors that were wide open despite the chill in the air. Timothy could see that the doors led into a kitchen where an older woman was busy setting a table. She was lighting a pair of candles as they approached.

“Hello, Louise,” Eleanor called, and the woman’s eyes looked around in the fading light for just a moment before spotting them. Next to the pair of steps leading up to the deck was a stone fountain that Timothy admired; it was of a boy and a girl huddled under an umbrella while water poured out of the top and dripped down into a basin below. An iron bicycle leaned against the house with flower pots in its basket and on its seat. Other plants hung in baskets or sat contentedly in planters on the deck. There was a bird bath and hummingbird feeders and inviting benches here and there. Eleanor had to shake his arm to get his attention and it was almost like waking from a dream.

“Timothy, this is Louise,” she was saying. Tim blinked several times, then held out his hand.

“How do you do?” he said as he looked at the woman closely for the first time. He could tell she was old, but her hair was black with just a strand or two of gray. She had the same smile wrinkles as Eleanor. She walked a little stiffly, but seemed spry enough. Her eyes twinkled and her smile seemed ever so slightly mischievous.

“Very well, thank you,” Louise answered, accepting his handshake. Her hand felt soft and a bit fragile, so he refrained from the tight squeeze that Q had insisted was important to a man’s handshake. 

“I like your house. I really like it. It’s very nice,” Tim blustered. Something about this place had put an immediate spell on him, and he felt like he had been coming here all his life. The smile-creases on the woman’s face deepened and her twinkle brightened. 

“Why, thank you, young man. I like it, too.”

“It’s lovely to see you,” Eleanor said, wrapping an arm around Louise and pressing her cheek to her friend’s cheek. Louise squeezed her back and planted a kiss on Eleanor’s cheek.

“Henry will be along shortly. He’s just down at the pond feeding the ducks. Come in, you two, it’s getting quite crisp out here.” 

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This isn’t the true end of the chapter, but it’s as far as I was able to get for now. I’m hoping to have some extra writing time on the weekend, but we’ll see. I’ll admit, I’m not entirely sure where this chapter is going. The setting, Nevada City, is part of my heart. That road, with the Bernese mountain dog and the little yapper, is one I drove down so many times in my childhood. That house, with the rock and the rose garden in the front, the island of trees, the railroad crossing sign, the sundial, the deck, the flowers, the hammock…those are oh, so, so real to me. Louise and Henry, they are oh, so real. They are my sweet grandparents, Joan Louise and Stephen Henry Fitch. They, along with my other pair of grandparents (who I’m sure will make an appearance in another story), are gone from this world now. And, strangely, so are both of their homes. Torn down and replaced with new ones built by the new owners of the properties, those two houses now exist only in memory. I find it simultaneously tragic and romantic. I needed to write about that place, and about those people. I needed to give them to Timothy. And, in case you were wondering (probably not, but just in case) this is the house that stood next to Beauwood Forest from my last post, Inside the Brain of a Writer. My sweet memories of this place are a mental refuge that I reveled in retreating to while writing this chapter. In fact, all of the places Timothy ends up visiting/inhabiting in this story are real and dear. For some reason, I knew early on that the settings in this story would be the places that mean the most to me. I don’t always pull so much real life into my stories, but I sure do with this one. I hope to give you the rest of the tour next week with Chapter Three. Thank you for being here with me, as always, it means the world 💚