The Tall Grass

By HM Weimar

Standing tall in the rains of Washington State are blades of grass that grow so thick they almost whistle in the winds during a storm. They reach far and wide along Heather's back yard. She used to play there with her sister Kendra until she disappeared about 7 years ago. Since her mother died when she was young, all Heather was left with after that was her father, the town Sheriff, who has lived inside a bottle most of her life. She left after high school, confused and angry, and went away to college. Now she is returning to wade through the tall grass and find the secrets she knows are hidden there. To find answers to the questions she has about her sister's disappearance, the ones she knows her father has buried beneath the tall grass. Secrets that may cost her the very breath she breathes and the only family she has left as she parts the grass and starts to dig at its roots she begins to realize that those secrets might be better off hidden. It's too late; she has already stirred up the soil and uncovered a truth she would have never expected.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HM Weimar
• Release date: Jul 17, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310442193

HM Weimar

Born in Seattle,Washington and raised Olympia. Heidi now lives in Ohio. She is the mother of 5 grown children and the grandmother of 3. She has dedicated her life to God and the work he asks her to do. She is a writer/photographer/artist.

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The Tall Grass

By

H.M. Weimar

Copyright 2012 HM Weimar

Smashwords Edition

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Dedication

I dedicate this to my children who have supported me through everything I have done and to everyone who gave the encouragement to keep going.

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Table of Contents

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty One

Chapter Twenty Two

Chapter Twenty Three

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Prologue

When it would rain the drops would kiss each hopeful strand of grass. The roots would drink its sweet nourishment, each vein and artery, of each almost human stock, would pump with vibrancy. In the late afternoon sun the blades of green would flicker. From root to tip they stood tall, at the least three feet tall and the most four. The perfect shade of green must have been chosen from the variety that would grow right here. The pond that was surrounded by these shades of green would gently push them as each ripple, created by leaves softly falling from the trees that populated part of the area around it, would rock the boat, knocking it against a small dock, which rested at the end of a trail that led through the tall grass to a gate.

On the other side of the gate was a yard, blanketed with a plush carpet of well trimmed grass, beyond that stood a house. It was yellow, the perfect yellow. The kind you find on the dresses of little girls at Easter. It was the shade that lets you know that spring is here and the flowers would be blooming. All the trim on the yellow house was white. Even the shutters on the windows and the doors that led in and out were all white. If you entered the home you would find that the center of the house was open. The kitchen surrounded by a bar with stools. The dining room was open to the kitchen and the living room. Off the kitchen a hall that lead to two bedrooms and ended with a bathroom. The master bedroom, with its door off the living room, had its own bathroom. Inside the home was a family that used to be four, a Mom, a Dad and two daughters. They had lived out here in the woods, away from town, secluded. The girls had loved to play by the pond in those blades of green. They played there, rain or shine. It was the perfect view; a perfect picture of a perfect home; but, the family inside had sadly dwindled down to two.

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Chapter One

Heather, the oldest daughter, was now listening to the wind blow, whistling through the cracks in the windows of this house. It was blowing the leaves from the old oak trees through the tall grass and across the pond. It made small white caps form and crashed against the blades where they met the water. The boat at the dock was rocking, back and forth, with a soft subtle sound that she remembered so well from when she was young.

The pond wasn't deep and some summers it would evaporate to nothing but a puddle; but during wet years it would get as big as a lake. No matter what the year was, dry or wet, the tall grass always survived.

She watched the storm from the rocking chair that her mother used to put her to sleep in. She rocked, along with the sound of the boat, back and forth, inside the house where she grew up, too quickly. That rocking chair was the only place in the house that she had really felt comfortable her last years here. It was the only place that she could close her eyes and remember her sister and her mom. She wanted to remember them.

She closed her eyes and saw the memories that lived in the house. She couldn’t help but get lost in them. Dad I swear I didn’t do it. She would say as she ran down the hall to her room. She would try to close the door before he got there but she never could. I don't lie! He would say, in his big deep voice, as he followed behind her. He would always reach the door seconds before it would click closed. His foot always slipped in the crack at the last minute. She could never push hard enough to make it move. The door always came open and she could still feel his entire hate slam into her face through his hand as he slapped her. She remembered hearing how many times she was wrong and how many times she had lied. She remembered everything that she had seen happen in that house. She still heard every word he ever said and remembered how many times she had believed it. She didn't, however, want to believe that it could all be true that these memories were hers. That her family had fallen apart, piece by piece.

Heather Drum looked like their Mother, Kristin. She had a fair complexion with no freckles and brown eyes. She got her curves sooner than Kendra, her sister, but then again Heather was three years older.

Both her Mother and her sister had found a way out of here. They had found the key that would open the door to release them from their seclusion. Her Mother was first to leave. One day, in the late afternoon, with no wind and no rain her Mother was gone. She left in a flurry of lights that would rush her into town. She had opened the door and when she had realized what was on the other side; she tried to lock it behind her. Lock it so that no one else would ever open it again. She tried to help her husband keep their daughters safe. Keep them secluded and away from harm. It didn’t work. That was about 10 years ago.

Coming back from the memories of her Mothers death, Heather opened her eyes and stood up. She walked across the floor and opened the sliding glass door that led to the yard, pausing to stroke the glass. She had run through that door when she was younger. Her Father laughing as she lay there with blood running down her face. He had just slowly walked to the phone and picked it up, still laughing as he dialed the ambulance. His first sentence when they answered the phone, You are not going to believe what my stupid daughter just did. She closed the door behind her as the memory turned into a tear and rolled down her cheek.

With her shoulder length brown hair blowing in the wind, she walked across the yard. She felt every inch of earth below her feet and each memory that owned them. She could still hear her sisters giggle and feel her small body run past.

Kendra Drumm, the one with the sweet face and pale skin. She had just the right amount of freckles across her nose and blue eyes, bright as the morning sky. She was the girl whose smile made everyone take notice. It consumed her whole face. She had just started to blossom at the age of 13, just a slight amount of curve to her still young body. She was the girl who had long dark blond hair that was straight and would sway back and forth as she walked. The one that wasn't tall and wasn't short. She was just a girl who was a little slow to learn, a little slow to run and a little slow to act. She was a girl who was in the wrong place at the wrong time and she was slow in seeing that. She saw too much.

Heather wasn't slow to learn, slow to run or slow to act. She was fast and understood things in a way she probably shouldn't. She didn't know what she had seen that day when Kendra was 13 years old. Not because she was too slow to understand or unsure of what she saw. She didn't know because she didn't want to know. She had blocked out what she had seen that day. Heather wanted to remember her sister just like she was the last time that they had played together in the tall grass. Her long hair streaming along and covering most of her face when she turned around. Come on Heather, our kingdom a waits, Kendra had said. Heather replied out loud to her memory, I'm coming Kendra.

The carriages are waiting for us, Kendra said as she stopped and turned in Heather's mind. Even in the darkness of this night, as Kendra turned she could still see her smile and her blue eyes flashing with playfulness. I'm going to wait right here for you, so you better hurry up or we will both be left behind. Heather could still see Kendra, lift her eyes, tip back her head and point at the clouds. You see them there coming for us. Kendra, head still tipped, throwing her arms back and falling into the tall grass on her back, her hair flowing upwards behind her. The blades of tall green grass parting around her as disappeared within them.

Heather had tried to believe that one day some one would save her. She would find a way out like her mother and sister. Some day some one would see what was happening and make it stop. Someday a prince from their imaginary kingdom would come to life. Swooping in, taking all these memories out of her mind and it would all be over, it would all be gone. She would find a new life. Yet, through all of her faith, she still ended up here, a little older and nothing had changed. The memories were still running, like Kendra, through her mind.

Heather could feel the color leave her skin as she walked closer to the edge of the fence that led to the tall grass. Her chest was pumping inside as she opened the gate and stepped out into the path, the first blade hitting her leg, reaching for her, the memories still causing the tears that rolled down her face to her chin and blowing off in the wind. The prince is waiting for you hurry up, before it gets dark, hearing Kendra's voice again she stopped. This was all too real for her. She is not here. Heather told herself. So many years had passed since she remembered or even wanted to remember what she had seen in the tall grass. The tears were filling her eyes and she couldn’t move. It was all rushing back. All those memories of the tall grass, the pond, their home, all seemed the same as now. She couldn’t separate them from the present. She closed her eyes and tried to erase the sound of Kendra but all she could do was see her.

In Kendra’s slow mind it had taken too long for her to remember and finally understand what she had seen, before her last day in the grass. Unfortunately, she had understood too late. What she had come to understand would cost her. The secrets she realized she knew would cost her. That sweet face with those bright eyes would have to be hidden along with all the secrets that slow mind held. That young smile no longer held innocence, it held fear. That is what Heather saw now.

Opening her eyes and looking at the tall grass in the storm of the night, it seemed the life was gone. The place that used to bring so much joy for her and Kendra now held too many memories and the bad ones were overcoming the good.

She remember the pond being almost dry when the rains started that year, the last time she ever wanted to be near that tall grass, it seemed to go on forever in that dryness. The birds would fly into the tall grass and land, pulling fresh worms out of the new found soil. Kendra was crying a lot back then. Their Mom was gone and Heather had no idea what to do with her little sister. She tried to help her, make her stop crying. Nothing seemed to work. She remembered running out into the extended kingdom that was made by all the new tall grass. Every time she turned around to wait for Kendra that summer, she wouldn't come past the gate. Standing alone in the grass, Heather would hold back her tears, missing their time, their kingdom, her sister's smile. Heather fell to her knees, her mind drifting back to the first time that her sister refused to play amongst the blades. Heather turned and looked, wishing Kendra was still there standing at the gate, holding it shut against the wind. All Heather could picture was the terror on Kendra's face and the single tear that fell before that long hair had swung and turned toward the house.

But now, in tonight, there were no birds brushing through the tops of the soft blades and none of them collected worms. There was no extended kingdom and only dark carriages in the sky. The near by trees seemed so silent in the storm outside. She bent away from the tall grass as each blade tried to grab her, pull her in. Even when it rained this place used to be so full of life. But there was silence in the tall grass now, and all the noise that she wanted to forget was still in her head. It wasn't the noise of her sister's laugh anymore, or her sister's words. It wasn't even her sister's voice anymore. It was the silence that had entered after they were all gone. It was the tears that Heather shed in the emptiness of their home. The loneliness she was left with when she had been left her alone with her Father. It was the darkness she had lived in for too long now.

She remembered when Kendra had left without any notice too. There was a little wind and a little rain. It was not enough to keep her inside. The weather was never enough to keep either one inside.

Kendra had found the key to the lock on the door of seclusion and it clicked. When she opened it there was someone standing on the other side. That person didn't like the grass, except for its seclusion. He liked things hidden. He kept secrets and so did Kendra. She knew him and he knew her. Once the door was open she realized she knew his secrets too; so, while she was outside with him, he took her in the tall grass, he laughed and she cried. They danced together in the grass and washed the secrets from their souls, each blade cleansing them of their past. Kendra dreamed of far off lands and places. Places safer than the tall grass. Safer than what was outside the door she had opened, a place with no secrets.