Michael Allen's Blog: Michael Allen Online

I slid down the ramp to my yard. From now on, it was the only way to go. When I flopped on the grass, I looked up to see the pirates casting off the lines and shoving off already. At least, they had gotten me home.

“Bon voyage,” I yelled from the yard as I waved.

“We’ll be seeing you soon, we hope,” Teye Ba yelled as the ship turned and headed back down the river.

“Who are you talking to?” Chris said from behind me.

I turned around, and there he was, not much older than he had been before, “Hi, daddy!”

He looked at me with a smile and a strange glitter in his eye as he studied the river, and then stared back at me, “What do you have there?”

I looked down and shrugged, “It’s a blanket Maggie gave me, and this is KeeKee.”

“Ah, that’s where you’ve been,” he said as if he had just solved a puzzle. He looked at the book in my hand as he continued, “This explains why you’ve been gone for a few days.”

A few days? I didn’t know it was that long.

“Yeah, I just went home to grab a few things,” I said.

“You were having one of those days?” he asked.

I knew he knew. I didn’t have to tell him. We were so much alike. He knew my heartbeat. He knew my ups and downs just like he had his own.

“Yeah, but it helped,” I answered.

“I can see that,” he said.

“How?” I had to ask.

We walked to the porch together as he explained, “Sometimes, when we’re going through tough times like we don’t know who we are, we’re feeling totally lost in a world that feels like it left us behind, we go home.”

He went into the house and brought us both out a cup of coffee. Then, we sat on the porch together for a quiet moment that just felt right. That’s when I knew I could say all the things I had been dying to say, just let all the words out and stop holding onto them.

“I was raised by strangers,” I started. “They had no idea who I was, and I had no idea who I was. They were great, though. They didn’t have to step up and act like my parents. But they did.”

I looked at Dad, and he just took a sip of coffee. In a world full of people trying to talk over each other, to be the first to say something, to snap at people when they don’t agree, Dad sat patiently. I knew with him I could take my time, and he would listen. I also knew I could say anything and he wouldn’t argue with me over it.

“Now, I find out who I really am,” I started again. “It’s confusing. I went from one reality to another, only to find out that my life with them wasn’t real. With you was my real life. With them, it was all made up. Even my name.”

That’s when Dad giggled into his coffee just before he was about to take a drink. What was so funny?

“Honey, you gave yourself that name,” he said.

“I did?”

“Yes, you did,” he answered. “You couldn’t pronounce your name. For some reason, putting Krista together was too hard for you at the time. So, you just kept saying Kissy.”

“Okay, I remember you telling me that’s why Kissy is on the locket,” I said.

“That’s exactly why,” he answered.

“So, the girl I made up in my head,” I said, remembering Mikayla. “She only knows me as Mikayla.”

“You made up a girl in your head?” he asked.

I looked at him and realized that this was the part of the story he didn’t know about. “It’s silly, right? I made up a life with a girl from a children’s book just to give myself someone to play with.”

He looked at me and smiled. I didn’t know which way it was going to go. Was he going to start laughing and joking with me about it? I was so relieved when he didn’t do that.

“Kissy, I made up a girl too,” he said.

“You did?” I asked. But then, I remembered I had met her. “Wait! You called her, Angel.”

“That’s the one,” he nodded with a smile.

“You painted her,” I said as if reminding myself. “And she looked just like me.”

He nodded, “It was like my soul knew you existed, that you were out there somewhere. Even if my mind couldn’t remember who you actually were, my spirit was searching.”

“Wow,” I said. I had heard this story before. But this time, it was coming from a different place, and I was feeling it.

“Yeah, we did all kinds of things,” he said. “I imagined the yard being a race track, and you raced on your bike. You always won. Then, the yard out here was a huge amusement park like I brought a fair into town.”

I was speechless. We had never talked about this. But he wasn’t finished yet, “And I remember playing hide and seek with you.”

“What?” I asked, completely astonished.

He laughed as he looked at me, “I came up with the goofiest things. This one time, you hid under a blanket. I could see you. You were sitting up even, hiding under this blanket. Then, this other time, you were hiding behind the curtain in the living room. It was the cutest little thing. Can you imagine, a little girl with her feet sticking out under the curtain? And not only that, but the window was behind you. I couldn’t help but see you. But you were hiding.”

“Are you kidding me?” I asked.

“I know,” he said. “I have an active imagination. What can I say?”

“No, Dad,” I said. “Have you been reading my journal? Do I keep a journal?” At this point, I wasn’t sure.

“Why?” he asked.

“Because I imagined all of those things too,” I answered.

“You did?” he said as if this conversation had just taken a weird turn. We just went from cozy to crazy in no time flat.

“Yes, I did,” I nodded with a hard look in my eyes. “The race track, the amusement park, hide and seek, all of it.”

“Well, that’s interesting,” he said in a long, drawn-out way.

“Yes, it is,” I replied. In a moment of silence, we sat.

It was easy to do, especially with him. Quiet never got awkward to me. Dad wasn’t that way either. He could sit in peace for hours and never feel the need to fill the silence with noise.

After talking to him, I did feel better. We hit a weird bump, but everything else made me feel like I was no longer lost. I had found what I needed to find. Besides, Dad is a veteran of weird. He doesn’t freak out over things like that. In fact, just the opposite. He relishes it.

But I did have one more thing on my mind, “Do you ever think about all the time we lost together?”

“I do,” he answered without hesitation.

“It doesn’t bother you?” I asked.

He nodded as he looked around the yard and stopped on the river running not that far from the house, “It would if I dwelled on it. But that’s not what matters now. We’re together, and that’s all I care about.”

His words sat right. I let that moment have its own heartbeat. But he wasn’t finished yet.

“And guess what?” he whispered.

“What?” I whispered back.

“We’ve been together all along,” his words dropped heavy on my soul.

I told you it wouldn’t freak him out. In fact, he relished it a little more than I thought he would. I let out a laugh as I wiped a tear from my eye.

“Our imaginations kept us together,” he whispered again as he stood up and walked back in the house.

In my room, I folded the blanket and placed it in the bottom drawer of my dresser. I propped KeeKee up against the mirror and I put the book right beside her. As I looked at the cover of the book, I thought about Mikayla.

I should visit her more. She shouldn’t have to stay there all alone. After all, it’s mine too.

Down the river, past the sounds of pirates singing. Keep going until you get to the field where you can see the imprint from the horse’s hooves. When you see the barn, you’ll find a huge rock sticking out of the dirt. You’ll know which one it is. It’s the biggest one.

From there, walk thirty-four steps to where there is a slight opening in the woods. You’ll see a path that will take you back to a leaning tree with a knot in it that looks like Peppa Pig.

“Don’t worry, Kissy,” Mikayla said as she tapped the ground below her. She leaned back against the tree and closed her eyes, “I’ll take good care of it.”

The post When You Miss Me Revisited – Rappahannock  appeared first on Michael Allen.

When I opened my eyes, I was no longer in the yard. What felt like ages ago, I found myself back in my cubbyhole. Mikayla was across the room, smiling through her heart.

That old, stitched blanket was covering my legs, and KeeKee was on my lap. It was the oddest thing that she still had that burn mark on her cheek. Had this all been a dream, or was it real somehow?

I licked my thumb and started to rub, and that’s when I felt the age of the old burn. It hadn’t just happened. It was a scar KeeKee had worn for years. I looked up at Mikayla, and she nodded knowingly. She knew the thoughts running through my mind. She had been reading them all along.

When I looked down at the blanket, that’s when I realized that it had been torn and weathered. Stitches coming undone and colors fading with time. One moment, it felt brand new, and before I knew it, the blanket was showing years of use.

“Well, you did drag it everywhere,” Mikayla said as she pointed to it. “It was eventually going to get old.”

The cigar box was sitting on the chest in front of me. I had no idea what I was going to find inside, but I had held onto this moment long enough. It was time to find out what all this was about.

I pulled it to me and opened the top. The first thing I noticed was a stack of notes. They were little story ideas I had written myself. My mind had been such a creative little writer with adventures of flying to the moon and diving to the depths of the ocean. I climbed everything this world had to offer and visited every land ever drawn on a map.

But what I noticed that brought it all home to me were the clippings from a story about the Whydah Gally shipwreck. When it was found, there were treasures aboard. My heart stopped when I learned about a ring that had an inscription on it that read, “Teye Ba.” It appears that was also the title of a song written by the pirate Black Sam Bellamy.

“Well, what do you know,” I said.

“I know,” Mikayla agreed. “Exciting stuff, huh?”

As I dug further, I found more clippings about musketeers. Not from the fictional story, but actual musketeers, and among them was d’Artagnan, a real historical figure who served King Louis XIV. These clippings had been ripped from pages of magazines and newspapers, collected by a little girl who was trying to make a world all her own.

Through the notes about an archaeologist and a spy, I came across a dozen keys. I picked them up and studied them one by one with a look of confusion that made Mikayla laugh. When I looked at her, she had her mouth covered, but it wasn’t working.

“What are the keys for?” I asked.

“They unlock doors,” she giggled.

“Of course, but why do I have them?”

“At one time, you thought everything was special,” she started. “A button. A piece of string. A pebble you found in the yard. Just about anything. But then, you started to really like keys for some reason.”

I studied her for a moment, “Interesting.”

“But is it, though?” she remarked with a smirk. Her little sense of humor could be sharp at times. Unexpected. But always sharp. “If I remember right, there is one more thing in there.”

I brushed the notes aside. I could come back to them later. I pushed the keys away, and there I found it, a folded piece of paper with the title scribbled in pencil.

Bing, out of tune

Bing, bing, a clash out of tune

But, sweet to my ears

Burned dolls on the floor

Dirty blankets with holes

An old ripped coloring book

And a broken piano

What do I remember first?

There’s so much and it’s not all there

Before my memories fade

Grab it all in and don’t let it go!

It’s a part of you

It makes the you

The who no one knows

They never know

Just you and your broken piano

Pieces of you all over the floor

You want what? There isn’t any more

You didn’t have the life others had

They were getting ahead, and you…

You were playing that broken piano

You were stuck with that broken piano

Dragging it everywhere you go

Won’t even leave it behind once

Won’t let it alone for a minute

It felt like betraying an old friend

If you closed it up and walked away

Because it was there too

Through everything about you

Years later, you’ve grown

It’s still there in your room

Wrap your arms around yourself

And remember the you

The who no one ever knew

No one will ever know

It’s always just me and my broken piano

“This has all been about that broken piano downstairs?” I asked as I wiped a tear from my eye.

“That’s not what any of this has been about at all,” Mikayla replied.

“What’s it about then?” I asked.

She shrugged as if she had something heavy to lay on me but didn’t know how at first, “The kind of kid you were, and yet, you made music anyway.”

She let the thought linger in the air. Then, she looked toward the door, “Look outside.”

I started toward the door of the cubbyhole and then looked back at her, “You’re six, right?”

She was such a big person for a six-year-old. How could she know all these things at such a young age? After climbing through the door and picking myself up, I walked to the window to find them all there. Everyone was in the yard staring up at me like they were waiting for me to appear.

My smile was automatic. My heart felt so full. I opened up the window and yelled, “I’ll be right down.”

Just before I could completely shut the window, I heard Teye Ba, “Not that way, Kissy. Come down the right proper way.”

My heart, beating. A laugh flew out of my face. I looked at the roof outside and remembered. So, I climbed out the window and found the ladder right where I had left it all those years ago. It guided my feet to the ground that wasn’t that far below.

I walked through the yard, and the first to greet me was Gilmer in a leather hat, “Good to see you again, Kissy.”

“That was you?” I asked.

Then, he took off his leather jacket and flipped it around. It became a tuxedo jacket. “Sometimes, I play more than one part.”

“You were the spy, too,” I giggled.

“He definitely can play,” Maggie said, still holding the lantern.

“That was you,” I said as I gave her a hug. How many tears was I going to let go?

“She was more than just a guide,” Bruce nodded as he caught my attention. “She taught me how to cook.”

“As if I would ever make such a foul dish for my girls,” Maggie protested.

“Aye, but you taught me the ingredients,” he exclaimed. “I came up with the recipe.”

“That’s right, dear,” Maggie agreed. “You take all the credit for that one.”

“I’m just along for the ride, I guess,” Johnson’s voice broke through.

“You know you’re my First Mate,” Teye Ba replied. Then, he looked at me and nodded.

This was my time to ask if there ever was one, “Is your name Teye Ba, or did I just give you that name because it was on a ring?”

He smiled and bowed his head with a touch to his hat, “That is between me and the sea.”

He was always so hard to shake for an answer. I admired that, a little bit. At times, though, it could get annoying. What comes after a question should always be an answer.

“That’s right,” Mikayla whispered loud enough for me to hear.

The knights were standing side by side in no particular order. When I looked at them, it wasn’t as if I knew any particular one. They were all just faces in a crowd.

“We are merely extras in a play,” one announced.

“We fill the stage,” another added.

“Watch this,” a third urged. Then, they all started taking off their headgear and their armor. Within a flash, they were all dressed like cowboys.

“But wait! There’s more,” I heard another one say as they all started changing again. This time, they looked like superheroes ready to save the day. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

As I watched in amazement, I suddenly heard a voice come out of nowhere, “Alright, you can stop auditioning.”

He rode up on the back of his horse, the knight who had followed me all along. Hooves clicking rhythmically, almost hypnotic. He climbed off the horse and reached out his hand to mine.

“Dad, you remember Kissy?” Mikayla asked, and suddenly, my mind started racing through a thousand memories until I landed on one in particular.

We played hide and seek! I remember hiding behind the curtains in the living room. Gilmer must have walked by me five or six times. Maggie walked by me, too. But they didn’t notice my silhouette hiding behind a curtain with a huge window behind me? That’s when he came and found me.

“We raised you right, child,” Maggie’s soft tone, comforting my soul.

“It wasn’t easy, though,” Gilmer offered. “We didn’t really know what we were doing ourselves.”

“And you didn’t have anyone to play with,” Maggie added. “You didn’t have other kids around.”

“You don’t need to explain all that to me,” I answered, something nudging me to make them feel better. “You guys did the best you could.”

I looked down, and there she stood looking up at me with her arms wrapped around my leg, “It was fun being your friend. We had a lot of fun, didn’t we?”

I brushed her blonde hair, “Yes, we did. And that’s right, your dad was always with us.”

“I did find you that day,” he answered. “I thought the curtain was a perfect place to hide.”

I looked around the yard, and I could see the river running strong and beautiful. I took in my world full of trees, where I played the hardest. The yard had been made into a thousand roles. It could be an amusement park one minute and completely change into a race track the next.

“I was never bored,” I said as if letting everyone know how much I appreciated them. “I was never alone.”

The post When You Miss Me Revisited – Notes and Keys appeared first on Michael Allen.

Mikayla woke up with a wink, unaware I’d been watching her. There was a moment of peace, just a breath of it, before she suddenly jumped up and snatched KeeKee from the tree.

Something was wrong. I didn’t see it at first. Not until she turned KeeKee’s face toward me.

The sun had been shining on her cheek too long. I thought I smelled a whiff of smoke earlier, but I brushed it off as just another strange thing in this world of unknown pirates and creatures with lights, knights of absurd rights, curious things that whisper through the night.

But it wasn’t my imagination. KeeKee’s cheek was burned. My heart dropped. I took her gently from Mikayla and held her close. I didn’t know what to do.

Mikayla leaned in, studying KeeKee’s cheek like she was a doctor in an emergency room. “I can fix it,” she said.

“How?” I asked.

She shrugged, “Spit.”

I stared at her, “Spit?”

“Yeah,” she said, like it was obvious. “Spit fixes everything.”

“No, it doesn’t.”

“Yes, it does.”

“Since when?”

“Since forever,” she said, already getting ready to do it. “You put a little spit on it and rub it in. Everybody knows that.”

I pulled KeeKee closer, “That’s gross.”

“No, it’s not.”

“Yes, it is!”

Mikayla rolled her eyes, “Do you want her to look better or not?”

I hesitated. “Well…yeah.”

“Then spit,” she said, as if she’d just solved world peace.

I sighed, leaned forward, and whispered, “Sorry, KeeKee…” then dabbed a tiny bit of spit on my fingertip.

Mikayla nodded, approving, “Now rub it in.”

I rubbed the burned spot gently, “This feels wrong.”

“That means it’s working,” she said.

“Who taught you that?”

“Didn’t your dad do this to you?” she asked quietly. “Didn’t he teach you this?”

The world stopped. My breath caught the way it does when something old wakes up inside you. Like a door cracking open. Like a memory pressing through the dark. I didn’t answer her. I couldn’t. My throat closed up, and my hands started shaking around KeeKee’s little burned cheek.

Mikayla didn’t push. She just nodded a little, “It took you this long?”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“You think you’re remembering,” Mikayla said, her eyes soft and certain. “But really, you’re just remembering to remember.”

What does that even mean? But honestly, in a peculiar way, it made sense as I sat there holding KeeKee tight.

Mikayla watched me for a moment, then flopped back into the grass and stared up at the sky. Her voice got quieter, like it had a secret in it, “Who do you think all this is for?”

“All what?” I asked back.

She rolled onto her side to look at me, “You really do ask a lot of questions.”

“I guess I’m a questioner,” I said.

“Questions are good,” she agreed. “I like questions. But you know what comes after a question?”

“Is this a trick question?” I asked.

She laughed as she rolled on her back and looked toward the sky, “Maybe.”

The clouds were bright against the blue sky, and I couldn’t help wondering, “Is that a dolphin?”

“That is definitely a dolphin,” she claimed. “And that over there is a turtle with wings.”

“A turtle with wings,” I looked as I thought. “If it has wings, why does it move so slow?”

“Now, that is a good question,” Mikayla said as she scooted closer, her dress brushing the blanket. She smoothed it with her hand, the patchwork squares that Maggie had sewn together when I was sick. I watched her fingers move over it, gentle and sure.

As I watched her hand, I started to remember the night I had a fever. I remembered the time I hid under it playing hide and seek. I wrapped it around myself and walked around the house when I was cold.

“This is that blanket?” I said louder than I wanted.

“There she is,” Mikayla said as she looked at me and smiled.

I looked at KeeKee and held her closer, “I’m so sorry, baby. I didn’t mean to leave you behind.”

I’m not sure, but I think she winked at me. I looked at her cheek and suddenly felt motherly. I licked my thumb and rubbed it again. Now, I’m sure that time, she smiled.

Mikayla grabbed the book and started flipping through the pages, “Okay. So now that that’s settled, can we get on with it?”

“Oh,” I looked at the book and suddenly remembered, “We have a park to get to.”

“Yes, we do,” Mikayla looked at me with those deep blue eyes.

 In that moment, something else came to me, too. All of a sudden, I remembered who.

“Who?” Mikayla asked.

I looked at her and locked eyes, “Captain Teye Ba, that’s who?”

She got on her knees and stared at me, “You are so close!”

“We’re missing something,” I declared.

“What are we missing?” she asked as she looked around. “We have everything.”

“Oooh,” I couldn’t put my finger on it. But it was at the end of my tongue.

“Come on,” Mikayla urged. “Spit it out.”

“We’re missing the key.” Saying that, it suddenly came to me, “My piano.”

“Yes,” Mikayla said as she jumped up off the blanket. “Let’s go!”

“Let’s go where?” I asked. “Let’s map it out.”

“There river’s over there. The park’s that way,” Mikayla directed with her arms as she stood in front of me. “This is here, and that’s over there. I’m pretty sure we know which way we need to go!”

“Oh, right,” I said as I stood up with KeeKee and grabbed the blanket. “Let’s go.”

“Don’t forget the book,” Mikayla said in a final order as she darted down the path.

Why was I forever running after this girl?

It was odd when I saw the house. Looking at it from the backside, it had a different feel to me. One that drew me closer but brought back so many memories.

“What about Teye Ba?” Mikayla asked in a quiet tone.

“That’s right,” I said as the focus came back to me. “He taught me how to hide it.”

“That I did, young lass,” Teye Ba said.

I looked up, and there he was, leaning against a tree like he had been waiting all day for me. Johnson stepped out from behind him. Bruce waved in the background as if we had just walked into a reunion.

“Hi guys,” I said quickly. “I’m kind of in the middle of something.”

“Yeah, she is,” Mikayla confirmed.

I looked around the yard, taking it in piece by piece. The place where the treehouse used to be held scraps of wood that still clung to the branches. A beehive hung where the ladder used to reach. Then I saw it. The faint path in the grass where small feet used to run.

“There you be,” Bruce said with a slow nod as I walked by him.

It was like my feet remembered before I did. They carried me toward the far corner of the yard as if they had been waiting for this walk. The tall weeds and brush were still there. They had grown older, but they hadn’t forgotten.

And there it stood. My leaning post. The oldest tree in the neighborhood. Its bark, rough and knotted. Its roots curling into the earth like it was holding on for both of us. I turned and looked at the rock that still stuck out of the dirt beside it, and the knot in the wood looked like it was smiling. Almost like Peppa Pig giving me a wink.

“This is it,” I announced.

I dug with sticks and rocks to clear away the dirt. The further down I went, the more determined I became. It couldn’t have been buried that deep. With each new pound of dirt I pulled out of the hole, I felt myself getting more excited.

Then, I suddenly hit something that made a hollow sound. This was it. This is what I had been looking for this whole time. What I pulled out of the hole was an old cigar box. With a smile on my face, I pulled it to my chest. Then, I turned around to show everyone.

That’s when that old feeling came rushing back to me. I sat down under the tree and looked around. There wasn’t anyone there. It was like they had all vanished without even a whisper. I looked at my dirty hands and tapped my finger on the lid of the box.

Then, I took in a deep breath as I closed my eyes and leaned my head back against the tree. I let my mind wash itself free. It felt good to be home, with people I had known. Why I ever left them, I’ll never know.

“You’re not alone,” a young voice sounded from the darkness.

The post When You Miss Me Revisited – Cigar Box appeared first on Michael Allen.

Before I had a chance to understand what was happening between the pirates and the knights, a horse cut through the scene like a whispered warning. The branches swayed. The ground thudded. And our knight appeared from the trees with his horse already moving at full speed.

He didn’t say a word. He didn’t need to. He reached his arm down to Mikayla first. She grabbed his wrist like she had done it a hundred times before, light as a dragonfly lifting into the wind. He swung her up behind him, then reached for me. His gauntlet was cold around my hand. I barely had time to catch my breath before I felt myself rise off the ground.

In one pull, I was seated behind Mikayla, and she wrapped her arms around the knight’s waist as the horse turned. The wind tore past my face. The sounds of the knights and pirates faded behind us. And the woods swallowed us whole.

For a while, there was no talking. Only the steady rhythm of hooves and the warmth of Mikayla leaning back against me. The knight’s red cape fluttered against my knee. Sunlight dripped through the canopy of trees in soft golden streaks, like the morning was trying to paint the world brand new just for us.

He didn’t look back. But somehow, I could feel that he was listening. I could feel that he knew exactly what direction he needed to take. There was a reason he always found us. There was a reason he always arrived just in time. I didn’t know what that reason was yet. But the feeling was there, tugging at my insides like a quiet truth waiting for the right moment to speak.

We burst from the trees and into an open field of wheat that shimmered in the sun. He slowed the horse to a walk. The field looked like something from a dream. A place too peaceful to exist in a world full of knights and pirates and whispered prophecies.

The knight brought the horse to a stop near a narrow dirt path. He finally turned. Not fully. Just enough so I could see the edge of his helmet and the soft reflection of the sky in his visor.

“This is where you walk,” he said.

“Why?” I asked.

“You will know,” he answered in a voice even quieter than before.

Mikayla hopped down first. I slid off after her. Before I got my footing, he leaned forward and reached out. For a second, I thought he was going to hand me something. Instead, he placed his hand on my shoulder with a gentleness that didn’t match his armor.

“Do not fear the ones who search,” he whispered. “Fear the ones who tire of searching.”

I opened my mouth to speak, but he straightened up. He nodded once. Then he nudged the horse with his heels. He was already fading down the path before I found the words I wanted to say.

Mikayla waved after him anyway, “We’ll see you sooner than she thinks!”

Why was she always talking about me like I wasn’t there? Annoying. Aggravating. But I finally knew something she didn’t know. I had the map.

When I pulled it out of my back pocket, her eyes lit up like life had just given her a second wind. We spread out the blanket and put the book down like we were about to find out where the holy grail had been hidden. KeeKee was in the corner watching with one eye open.

“It’s here,” I said.

“You might be onto something,” she said as she looked at me with surprise.

I was pointing at a page in the book where Dad and I used to go to the park. I looked with a smile as I started to remember. Then, I looked back at Mikayla.

“Where is the park?” I asked.

“It’s over that way,” she pointed. “We’ll need help getting there.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Well, because it’s over a thing and around another thing,” she said to me as her eyes lit up with the bluest blue I had ever seen them.

She grabbed the book before I had a chance to realize and started running. I grabbed the blanket, and as I started to run, I looked back at KeeKee leaning up against the tree. I doubled back and grabbed her.

“Hey, slow down,” I yelled.

“No time,” she yelled back.

So, I knew I had no choice but to grab everything and run after her. That’s when one of the most frightening things happened. Mikayla was running straight toward the path when a boulder rolled right in front of her.

She stopped, which was a good thing. When I caught up to her, a guy with a leather hat and a leather jacket walked by like nothing had happened. My heart was beating a hundred beats per minute, but Mikayla was fine, and this leather-wearing guy didn’t seem bothered by it either.

“What’s your name, kid?” he asked.

“Mikayla,” she answered.

“Hey, Mikayla,” he said as if he knew her. “You know you have to watch out for stuff like that, right?”

“Yeah, yeah,” she said in a way that stirred me from a long sleep.

“Watch out,” I yelled.

That’s when a rope came flying at us. Mikayla ducked, and it only caught the top of my head when it wrapped back around and caught the leather man by his boots.

It pulled him up, and there he was stuck in the sky, “Well, this isn’t good.”

I covered my mouth and started giggling, “Do you need help?”

As he swayed back and forth between the trees, he muttered, “It’s nothing but a thing. Gravity and I are just in a complicated relationship, right now.”

“Well, if you’re okay, then,” Mikayla waved as she started walking away. Then, she doubled back, “Just kidding.”

She started climbing the tree and out onto the branch where he was swaying. He looked at her and watched as she pulled the rope to her and then pushed it back. Then, she pulled it to her again and pushed it back. She kept doing that until I watched the rope start to fray.

“Now, be careful, honey,” he said as he watched strands of the rope break away.

Before I knew it, he fell flat on his head. I couldn’t help from laugh. His head made a BOINK noise that was so funny that keeping myself from laughing was not going to happen.

Mikayla climbed down from the tree and walked over to the man. He was already getting himself up and tapped her on the top of the head when he did. Then, he tapped me on the head like he understood why I found everything so funny.

“You had to save him again, did you?” A calm, cool voice came out of the shadow.

He was dressed in a suit like he had just come from some private affair. He had a swagger that was undeniable. He pulled gum out of his left breast pocket and shot a stick in his mouth like he had practiced it in the mirror.

“Oh, you?” The leather guy asked.

“Yeah, me,” he answered.

When I looked at them, it was like watching two impossible people in motion. One, some archaeologist who had no idea how archaeology worked. And the other, a spy? The cool spy type that ate gum?

“Everyone’s after the treasure,” Mikayla whispered to me.

When I looked at her, she was serious. She wasn’t playing anymore. This was no longer a game to her. Then, I looked at the two men standing in front of me. That’s when I understood what Mikayla was saying.

“Let’s go,” I said.

“Where?” she said.

“I know the way,” I said.

I grabbed her hand and started walking. They followed us for a moment until I started whispering into her ear, “You know where the treasure is?”

“No,” she whispered back.

“Do you remember the tree we climbed?” I asked. “The one with the rope?”

“Yeah,” she whispered.

“That’s not where it is,” I said to her.

“Well then, why did you tell me that?” she asked.

When I looked back, they were gone. They had split a long time ago.

When Mikayla looked back, she nodded, “That was good.”

“Are you guys going to dillydally all day, or are you going to get it along?” I heard the voice of a lady who sounded familiar.

When I looked at her, she was holding a lantern. I hadn’t noticed that it was dark again. How long had I been on this adventure?

“You’ve been on it for a while,” Mikayla answered.

As the lantern lady looked at us, she said warmly, “Would you like to come in and sit? Or are you set on keeping your ways?”

“Just a few more moments longer,” Mikayla answered.

“Okay, dear,” Lanter lady answered. “I’ll be right here when you need me.”

As Mikayla and I walked by her cottage, I took an extra look at her, “Who is that?”

“She’ll be with us the whole time,” Mikayla said as she squeezed my hand and we kept down the path.

The post When You Miss Me Revisited – Treasure Roads appeared first on Michael Allen.

As the ship sailed over the waters, the waves crashed against the sides in a rhythmic motion. Fast asleep, I breathed into the blanket while Mikayla snored like a dinosaur searching for food. That’s what woke me up, a chainsaw right by my head like she hadn’t slept in days.

Teye Ba looked over at me when he saw me stir. He wasn’t much for small talk. The nod from his head would do. As I stretched, a huge full-body yawn came over me, and I couldn’t believe that the little munchkin was still snoring like a raptor. How could such a small body make that much noise?

As my eyes were just starting to open and sleep was fading from them, Bruce slammed into my vision, “Would you like some pirate stew, fresh from the ocean?”

“You got that out of the river,” I said before I had a chance to think.

“Well, yeah, close enough,” he said.

“It’s not even…” I said as I smelled the stew and looked at him with one eye, the sun shining brightly on my face. “What’s in it?”

“Aye, you don’t want to be learning about that,” Johnson said as he came into my view with a hardy laugh. “Some things are better left unknown.”

“You’re in a different world, matey,” Bruce said as he placed the bowl down beside me and walked over to the companionway. “You make do with what you got.”

“Oh, yes,” I quickly replied. “I appreciate the…” I said before I looked down at it, and my stomach immediately protested. “Are you sure I don’t want to know?”

Have you ever looked at a bowl of soup and you couldn’t figure out what anything was? It looked like vegetables and some kind of meat. Then, there were other things floating around in there.

“We call it salmagundi,” Teye Ba announced as he walked toward me. “It has a little bit of everything.”

“It’s good for you,” Bruce announced. “It will stick to your ribs.”

I didn’t really know what was funny when they all started laughing at Bruce’s joke. I was too busy staring at the bowl with concern. I poked at it and stirred it a bit. Then, I lifted a taste to my mouth. That’s when my mind changed. Bruce must have been a master chef because it was good.

Bruce laughed as he watched me enjoy the stew, “It’s not half bad, is it?”

“No,” I answered. “It’s really good.”

“The myths of the pirates go back ages,” Johnson started. “But the truth is that we don’t have too much to eat out there on the ocean. We have to make do with what we have.”

“You have fish all around you,” I said.

They burst out laughing again until Teye Ba quieted the noise, “We don’t have time to fish. Fishing takes too much time to get a small bite on the line.”

“What is all the fuss about?” Mikayla asked as she rubbed her eyes.

“Ah, there’s my young river sprout,” Bruce said.

When she looked up, a smile came across her face, “Do you have any pirate stew waiting for me?”

“That I do,” he said as he headed down below and came right back with a bowl.

She looked at the blanket that covered us both, “How did this get here?”

That’s when I noticed it. Pieces stitched together like it was a blanket made of five different blankets. What made it so special?

Mikayla looked over at me, “This is the one Maggie made when you were sick. It gave her something to do while she was waiting on you.”

I looked at the blanket harder. That memory wasn’t coming back to me. Then, as if there was a flash before my eyes, I saw the blanket in the back of my mind. I couldn’t remember much about it, but suddenly, it belonged.

“And KeeKee,” Mikayla cried out. “My mini me. You thought of everything.”

Johnson grabbed a doll out of the small chair from across the deck and brought it to her, “That we did.”

She hugged it like she hadn’t seen it in years. Then, she looked at me. I could see in her eyes that there was an ounce of pity, “You don’t remember KeeKee, either?”

I looked at KeeKee for a moment. To be honest, this was all starting to get frustrating. The pirates said I knew them. The blanket was supposed to be mine. Then, there was a doll named KeeKee who didn’t look recognizable to me at all. When was any of this going to start making sense?

“You took her everywhere,” Mikayla started to explain. “From the moment Maggie bought her at the yard sale, she was your best friend. You even wrote a poem about her.”

“I wrote a poem?” I had to ask.

“Aye, that you did,” Mikayla said as if she had joined the pirate crew.

She handed KeeKee to me as if for us to get acquainted, and then she stood up to walk to the side. Then, she pointed to dry land and ordered, “Right there. That’s where we need to be.”

“Got it,” Johnson saluted.

“We’ll get you there,” Teye Ba said as he walked to the wheel.

And with that, it wasn’t long until Mikayla and I were walking down the ramp with a blanket and a doll. Why we needed these things didn’t make any sense to me. What good were they going to do? They were just dead weight to me because I thought we had more important things on our minds, like finding a hidden treasure.

Mikayla suddenly turned and looked at me with piercing eyes, searching mine, “You didn’t bring them, Kissy. They brought you here.”

Once again, I was dumbfounded. She caught me by surprise. What did she know about me? And what did I know about a stitched-together blanket and a doll, a little doll I wouldn’t have played with for years.

I didn’t have much time to think about that because Mikayla didn’t take long to say goodbye to the new friends we had just left before she was darting off down a path through the trees. I had a few seconds to turn back and wave before I lost her.

“Better get along,” Teye Ba urged.

“We’ll be seeing you,” Johnson said with a salute.

With that, I turned and ran after my little companion like I was chasing a rabbit through the woods. She was hard to follow, but her blue dress helped me keep an eye on her so I could keep up. When we came out in the clearing of the trees, my heart leaped out of my chest.

There in front of me was that band of knights we had bumped into before. Was this the same field? Had we circled around and found ourselves back in the same spot?

I didn’t have an answer to either of those questions when that knight approached me again, “Didn’t I tell you it was too dangerous around here for the both of you?”

“Who says?” Mikayla blurted back in full defiance.

He looked down at her with annoyance in his eyes, “It’s been declared by solemn decree, Hear ye, hear ye. By royal proclamation of King Bramblewick the Uncertain, we knights are the officially appointed Pursuers of the Legendary Treasure, rightful claimants to its glory, and steadfast preservers of our own confusion.”

I had to laugh. Mikayla looked at me with a serious look, as if what he had just said was some official thing. I had to remind myself, I didn’t really know this world yet. They had their own language and their own ways of doing things. My fault was not catching on quickly enough.

So, I thought I’d try, “The legendary treasure has yet to be found. By which, I declare belongs to no one. It is the rightful heir of anyone who finds it, and by that, I decree that we have every right to search for, and King Bumbleweed can suck lemons.”

Mikayla laughed. But the knight didn’t take it so funny. Even his horse threw a fit.

“How dare you mock King Bramblewick,” the knight declared before drawing his sword.

That’s when I realized that things had just gotten serious. I didn’t know this world could get that serious. As the other knights started toward us, we soon found company at our backs.

Captain Teye Ba, First Mate Johnson, and Bruce stood tall. I could see them out of the corner of my eye, and then I turned to fully look at them. They had swords!

My eyes grew wide as I looked at Mikayla and whispered, “They have swords?”

“Well, of course they do,” she joked. “You didn’t expect them to come empty-handed, did you?”

“Stand to the side,” Captain Teye Ba ordered, and I knew who he meant.

I was quick to step aside as the knights and the pirates started toward each other. There was grunting and groaning, murmuring and moaning. They each were progressing forward with no backdown in sight. Then, Mikayla grabbed my hand. When I looked down at her, I saw her eyes. That’s when I realized we were about to get company.

The post When You Miss Me Revisited – A Blanket and a Doll appeared first on Michael Allen.

He’ll go where your courage goes. That’s where you’ll always find him. What in the world does that even mean? Why does everyone want to talk so fuzzy around here and expect me to know what they’re talking about?

“Will you stop all that thinking?” Mikayla suddenly blurted out, jerking me out of my rant. “You got what you wanted.”

“I did?” I had to ask. “What did I get that I wanted?”

“Now, you know what we’re looking for,” she answered.

“You might be looking for a treasure,” I said. “But I think I’m here for something else.”

“Of course, you are,” she said without hesitation.

I stood there looking at her, dumbfounded. I couldn’t figure out what to say. She said it without thinking, as if it were something she already knew. “What?” I stuttered. “What do you mean?”

“All of us. Everyone,” she began. “We could all be together, going to the same place. But that doesn’t mean we’re going for the same reason.”

“What’s your reason?” I asked.

“Hello,” she said in that drawn-out way of saying something obvious. “There’s treasure.”

“Then, what’s my reason?” I asked, without fully thinking it through.

“That’s for you to figure out,” she answered.

“Fair enough,” I had no choice but to agree. “So, we’re just going to go off looking, not knowing where it is, and you expect to find it?”

She looked at me with certainty, “Pirates do it all the time.”

She was getting better at this. I had nothing to say to that either.

When I looked around, the woods all looked the same. Were we in the same woods we had been in before? Were we running circles around ourselves like busybodies without a chore? Like being in a maze that doesn’t believe in doors anymore?

“Where are we?” I finally asked.

She turned and looked at me as she rested her hand against a tree, “Has it been that long?”

“I guess it has,” I answered.

She reached down and picked up a stick, then pointed it one way, “The house is back there.” She pointed the stick the other way, “The river is that way.” Then, she pointed it up in the air above her, “And this is the tree where you and me made an elevator out of rope and creativity.”

I looked up at the branches high above us, and the memories came rushing back. Even though I was dazzled, I almost let it go. But I felt it my duty to say something, “Where you and I…”

“What about my eye?” she asked.

“No, it’s you and I,” I repeated.

“You and I, what?” she asked again as she looked at me sideways.

I looked at her for a moment and then began, “When you said where you and me made an elevator out of rope and creativity, you should have said you and I because we were the subject of the sentence.”

“Oh, you became one of those,” she grinned as she shook her head.

What she said stopped me in my tracks. Here we were playing, and I decided to correct her mistake. But I couldn’t just let it go. She had to know.

“There you go again,” Mikayla interrupted. Then, she looked up at the branches above her with a huge smile on her face, “Get back to remembering this.”

Her smile was infectious, and her wonder pulled me away from myself for a flash. But I didn’t get a chance to look up because a rope hit me on the head. It didn’t hurt. Maybe just a little. But there it was, the magic piece to the puzzle.

Without a blink, I wrapped the rope around my waist and tied it, making sure it was good and tight. Then, I looked around and found the other end of the rope dangling in front of me. When I yanked it, I could feel it pull. Then, I yanked it again and took out all the slack.

“Come on,” Mikayla cheered. “You remember how to do it.”

I looked up the tree and then put my effort into it. With each pull of the rope, I lifted a foot off the ground. As long as I kept pulling, my body kept lifting. It wasn’t long before I was up to the branch. Then, I wrapped my leg around and climbed up like I had been doing it all along.

“There you go,” she cheered again. “Feel good?”

I untied the rope from my waist and threw it down to her, “It does. It really does. Come on up.”

“Be right there,” she said.

Quicker than a hiccup, I saw her head rise above the branch. I grabbed her hand and helped her up. She wiped off her hands and looked around with a huge smile, even letting out a laugh. Then, she looked down.

We were up pretty high. It’s why we came up with the rope idea in the first place. I normally climbed trees where I could reach the first branch. But this tree was taller than most. Its first branch was above my head.

One day, I studied it. I walked around the tree and looked at it from all angles. Then, a thought occurred to me. I ran back to the barn and grabbed some rope Gilmer had thrown in a pile. I don’t think he ever missed it.

I knew how wells worked with a bucket at the end of a length of rope wrapped around a windlass. My mind flashed through other examples of this kind of mechanism, like a crane, a pulley system, a fishing reel, and an elevator. That’s when we knew we had come up with its name. It was our elevator.  

After that day, I must have climbed that tree a hundred times. Then, the thought occurred to me that brought on a strange feeling in my heart. I wasn’t sure when the last time was that I had climbed it. There was a day I walked away and didn’t know that it was for the last time.

“Come on,” Mikayla ordered.

Shaken from what I was thinking, “Where are we going?”

“We’re going to catch our ride,” she said as she flipped her leg around the branch and held on with both her hands. Then, dangled for a second until she let herself drop.

Getting up the tree took some engineering. Getting down was the easy part. I did it the same way she did it and joined her on the ground. After brushing my hands off on my jeans, I looked at her with a happy heart and eyes full of curiosity, “Our ride?”

“Yeah, it will be along soon,” she said as she started to run along the path.

I had no time to waste. I would have lost her if I hadn’t started running after her. She was fast, too. Keeping up with her had always been the hard part. But I followed with every breath I had.

Suddenly, there was a clearing. We had made it out of the woods, and there she was in front of me. We were standing on the bank of the Rappahannock, that beautiful river I’ve always called home.

“Our ride is coming, you said,” I repeated as if half asking, half making a statement.

“They’ll be here,” she said. “Be patient.”

“How do you know?” I asked. It was a good question. As far as questions go, it was up there in the top five at the moment.

“They always come,” she answered.

It might have only been a minute, but the clock felt like it was tick, tick, ticking. It was one of those waiting games that seemed to get longer the more you waited. Wasn’t waiting supposed to get shorter as time went by?

When Mikayla gave me a side eye look, I knew what she was thinking. She didn’t have to say anything. And just like that, the thinking trigger had been activated both ways.

Confirmed by the fact that I looked before she had a chance to say, “Here they come.”

In the distance, I saw a ship. As it got closer, the pirates on the ship looked somewhat familiar. I couldn’t shake the feeling that I had met them some time before. But I couldn’t put the time or the place together.

Mikayla whispered, “It’s Captain Teye Ba, First Mate Johnson, and Bruce.”

“Bruce,” I whispered in return. “What an odd name for a pirate!”

That struck me too. It felt like déjà vu. It seemed to me that I had said those very words before.

The ship pulled right up to where we were standing. That’s when the captain in the big black hat said, “Ahoy, hearties! What can I do you for?”

“We need a ride,” Mikayla blurted out without a beat.

“Aye,” his shipmate said. “You looking for the treasure too, I see.”

“Well, that’s a maybe,” she replied. Then, she looked at my confusion and offered an explanation, “The one wearing the headband is First Mate Johnson, and Bruce is wearing the bandana.”

“Oh, she knows who we be,” Bruce laughed.

“It will come to her,” Johnson agreed.

Captain Teye Ba took his time. It felt like he was staring into my soul. Then, he announced, “We’ve got fresh wind and old friends! Come aboard, the tide waits for no one!”

The post When You Miss Me Revisited – Captain Teye Ba appeared first on Michael Allen.

When you miss me…

I miss you too!

But you know what I do?

In my mind, I can see you.

Think about me, while I think about you…

And our times apart turn into times we spend together!

When you miss me, look at my picture.

Imagine me there!

Read the letters I’ve written you.

Read them over until you can hear my voice.

Imagine us walking to the park,

swimming in the pool,

talking in the mornings,

making breakfast in the kitchen,

popping popcorn for a scary movie,

and playing hide and seek

around the house.

Just close your eyes

And I am there!

It’s never too long

Before we are together again…

As I closed the book after the last page, I remembered reading it for the first time. The book was so much more than words to me. I was watching Mikayla with her father and learning about the things they used to do together. They seemed very close, which ironically is the exact opposite of what the book was about. It was about when they were separated, but those are the kinds of games my mind plays on me.

When I thought about my relationship with Gilmer, it was nothing like that. He didn’t write me letters. We didn’t have talks in the morning while we made breakfast. We didn’t go on walks or play hide and seek. When I thought back on my life with Gilmer, he was always up to something, like a little boy getting into everything.

Maggie was like his mother at times, the way she warned him about danger and taught him about things he didn’t know. She tried to talk sense into him, and for the most part, he understood. But I could tell when he didn’t get her at all. He had a look of total cluelessness, and I wondered sometimes if she picked up on that herself.

That was my life with Maggie and Gilmer. They were two fascinating people, each with their own quirks. But the relationship Mikayla had with her father? He was more of a guide with a calm voice. Sometimes, he even talked in a whisper. That’s how I imagined him to be.

“Hey,” a voice called to me.

When I looked around, I realized that I was still in my cubbyhole. How long have I been here?

“Hey, Kissy,” I heard the voice call again.

“Kissy?” I asked no one in particular. “Who is calling me, Kissy?”

So, I climbed across the small floor to the tiny door and popped my head outside to see. There wasn’t anyone in my room. This was confusing me.

When I crawled through the door, I stood up, and that’s when I saw her. Mikayla was in the yard. I could see her through the window.

When she saw me, she waved, “There you are. Come on.”

Come on, I thought. Where does she want to go?

“Come on down and I’ll tell you,” she answered.

That threw me back a bit. I lifted the window and yelled down, “You heard what I was thinking?”

“You were thinking so loud,” she answered. “Everyone could hear what you were thinking.”

“How do you think loud?” I asked.

Mikayla thought, “When people around you can hear what you’re thinking, I’d say that’s loud.”

“Fair enough,” I said. Then, I looked around the yard. Mikayla was the only one there. “Who is everyone?”

She scratched her head, “What’s with all the questions? Everyone is whoever isn’t you and me.”

“But I don’t see anyone,” I said.

“Oh,” she understood. “Everyone is here. Trust me. They’re around. Just because you can’t see them doesn’t mean they aren’t here.”

“Who is everyone?” I asked.

She pointed at me as she stomped her foot, “Are you trying to dillydally? Because I know dillydallying and it looks an awful lot like that’s what you’re doing right now.”

I had nothing to say to that. But I didn’t know what she wanted, where she wanted to go, or who was coming with us. I thought those were perfectly good questions to ask.

“Come on already,” she yelled up once more. “Just get down here and I’ll explain as we go.”

“Good enough,” I said. Then, I looked at my bedroom door for a moment. It would be so much easier to go down the steps and out the back door. But would it be as fun?

I climbed out the window and found the ladder right where I had left it all those years ago. It guided my feet to the ground that wasn’t that far below. I had climbed rocks, and hills, and trees. I had earned every single one of the scuffs on my knees. Climbing down from my bedroom window was nothing but a breeze.

“It’s about time,” Mikayla said with excitement in her voice.

I took the view of her in for a moment. She looked back at me with wonder, but she let me have this little bit of time for myself. I hadn’t seen her in so long.

“If you’re going to want a hug,” she began. “You might want to get it over with now because we have to go.”

I thought about it for a moment, and just as she thought she was in the clear, I wrapped my arms around her so hard she could barely breathe. She patted me on the back with a soft touch. Then, she patted me on the back again, a little harder this time.

“Okay. Okay. I get,” I said as I pulled away.

“Good. Now that you have all that out of your system, we really have to go,” she said as she started walking away.

I started running after her, but I couldn’t keep my mouth from saying things, “Why are we in such a hurry? Where are we going?”

“You do love asking questions,” she said as she looked around.

When I looked up to see, we were deep in the woods. When I looked back, I could no longer see the house. It was at that minute that I had to realize I had no idea where I was or what direction to go. By the look on Mikayla’s face, neither did she.

Taking one step after another, she continued moving forward as if she knew the way. This was sheer ridiculousness, and it was time for me to get some answers. I simply didn’t like doing things this way. Going without knowing. Doing without a plan. How did anyone ever get anything done this way?

“Okay,” she stopped and looked me square in the eyes. “You’re thinking way too loud.”

“At least, tell me where we’re going,” I said.

“Fair enough,” she replied. “We’re going to find it.”

“Find what?” I asked.

“That’s a good question,” she said as she nodded. “We don’t know yet.”

“Well, how will we know when we find it?” I asked.

“That’s a good question,” she repeated. “We don’t know that either.”

That’s when we both heard a voice coming from the trees, “You’ll know when you find it.”

I turned to look and recognized him immediately after he moved out of the shadows, “You’re the knight from the road.”

“I am,” he said as he nodded.

He sat on top of his tall horse in full body armor made of shiny metal. A red cape flowed behind him, and he had a long lance in his hand. He also had a sword attached to his waist.

“Do you know where it is?” Mikayla asked.

“I know which way to go,” he answered, and with that, his horse turned so that he could walk beside us.

The horse was majestic as it gracefully cleared the trees and stole glances at me. His feet walked lightly like a ballerina dancing with no sound. The branches and leaves didn’t crunch beneath his steps. He looked huge but had mastered the art of tiptoeing through the woods. It was impressive.

“Let me ride up a way and I’ll spy the trail,” the knight said before galloping ahead.

I watched until he disappeared into the distance. That’s when Mikayla stopped and looked at me, a thought brewing in her head, “I think I know a shortcut.”

“If you don’t know where we’re going, how do you know how to get there?” was a question that seemed perfectly reasonable to me.

But she was already walking a small path that took us a different way. It brought us out into an open field, which felt good for a moment. The mysterious woods were behind us, and we were in an open field where we could see the light. Everything felt right.

That is, until we saw a band of knights. They were gathered in confusion like a mob of turkeys looking for a king. When one spotted us, he trotted over and looked down as if we were so hard to see from his highness’s towering seat.

“I don’t think you belong here,” he said without any question.

“Well, where do you think we belong?” Mikayla asked.

“Anywhere but here,” was the answer. Then, he continued, “It’s too dangerous for the two of you. The word is, there’s a treasure around here, which means they’ll all be coming to find it.”

Mikayla’s face lit up with surprise, “Who?”

“Them,” the knight answered.

 “Who are they?” I asked, the vague answers starting to annoy me.

“All of them,” he answered, an answer not any better than any other.

“This is going to be fascinating,” Mikayla said.

I had no idea what she was so excited about. But I knew what I wanted to ask, “Do you know where our knight went? He slipped away, and we ended up here.”

The knight looked down and stared at me for an uncomfortable moment. He held the silence, the kind that begged anyone to break it. Then, as if his voice had gotten lower somehow, he finally spoke, “He’ll go where your courage goes. That’s where you’ll always find him.”

The post When You Miss Me Revisited – Dillydallying appeared first on Michael Allen.

If Dad wasn’t painting on the front porch, he was working on a piece of furniture in his shed. I could hear faint noises coming from out there, so I knew he was either trying to fix something someone found invaluable or he was trying to invent the next chair. He was quite imaginative when it came to stuff like that, so I know I got my gift of imagination from him.

Either way, I knew he didn’t hear me tell him I was leaving when I yelled from the driveway. Even after I heard him answer, I knew he still had no idea I was leaving. When I climbed into the car and closed the door, I looked back toward the shed. I heard a power saw fire up, and that’s when I knew he was in his own world. Later, he would ask me where I went when I got back. For now, he was fine, and I was off to do my thing.

Driving down that same road felt different somehow. I had driven it a thousand times before. Years ago, Gilmer taught me how to drive on it, and I did a good job for the most part. Maggie didn’t like it too much, but that’s because she didn’t drive. She didn’t like driving, and she wasn’t a fan of my learning how. But after I got my license, she sure did know how to get in the front seat and go with me. She never had a problem doing that.

That’s how I met Dad in the first place. Well, I can’t be too sure because there was a time before that when I saw a man painting on the bank of the river. I’m pretty sure that was him, too. But then, I wondered if I was imagining things.

When we went to a store in town, Maggie bumped into him. We had no idea who this man was. All we knew was that his name was Chris Ferlin, and the store was selling his paintings. Out of the kindness of his own heart, he gave Maggie one. She walked across the street with a huge smile on her face, and she was moving fast. It was like she wanted me to drive away before anyone had the chance to change their mind. That was when I saw him on the sidewalk, and he saw me too. He was looking at me like he knew me, and I had no idea how, but that was the look he was giving me.

These memories kept flooding my brain, and they wouldn’t stop. Why did this way feel so different? It’s so odd to be on a road you were just on yesterday, but this time it feels so old. It’s like missing something, but it’s still a part of your life. It was taking its good old time getting me where I wanted to go, but the drive was a nice change of pace.

That’s when I spotted something peculiar in my rearview mirror. It wasn’t uncommon to see a man riding a horse on these backroads. What was odd was that the man was wearing a costume. He had armor on like a knight, and then suddenly there were two horses. I could tell by the way they were closing the distance that the horses were running full speed.

Just as they got up to me, the knight turned his horse around and started going the other way. It was scary for a moment until I looked back and saw another knight simply sitting on his horse in the middle of the road. There was something familiar about him. He didn’t seem scary at all. I slowed the car down as I came closer to him.

He stared at me for a moment. Then, he saluted and galloped away. When he cut through the grass and headed off into the woods, that’s when I saw the old house. It was sitting there waiting patiently for me.

Pulling into the driveway, the sight of it took me back years. I could see that some paint had chipped. The porch bowed a little. Maybe it had been that way back when I was a child. I just didn’t notice little details like that. All I knew was that the home wasn’t designed to be used gently. It was built to roof a hard line of workers who could fix it if it broke. So, breaking and repairing were part of its charm.

I had always loved how the sun shone through every room. It was a bright world full of warmth and welcome that you felt as soon as you walked through the front door. The smells Maggie fixed years ago still lingered as a cocktail of dust and time was starting to take over. It was like the world had just stopped in its place.

Boards creaked as I walked around the house, the kitchen first and then the dining room, where I used to do my homework. In the living room was the wide picture window where I could sit and stare out for hours at nothing in particular. But the upstairs was calling my name, and I had put it off long enough while reminiscing on the bottom floor.  

Every other step made a sound as the top of the steps whispered my name. I knew exactly where my old bedroom used to be, even though it felt like I was being guided by a chaperon who had yet to show their face. Down the short hall to the left, I found my room just the way I had left it.

It looked smaller than I remembered. I reached up and I could almost touch the ceiling. The dresser only stood as high as my waist, and my bed was so short that my feet would dangle over the edge. What little girl used to sleep here?

The springs squeaked as I sat softly on the mattress. It might have been a small bed, but it was strong. It didn’t need much encouragement to hold me. As I sat listening to the springs settle, with the window just a few feet away, that’s when I saw it. There was a small door in the wall right where it had always been. It had a makeshift knob I made myself from a block of wood and a screw. I wasn’t much on making exquisite repairs as long as they did what I wanted them to do.

On the other side of the door was something special. It was my world away from worlds. The secret I kept, where I kept all my secrets. A smile crept across my face as I thought of the possibilities. Was it the same? Was it the way I remembered it?

I got on my hands and knees to open the door and look inside. Everything was exactly the way I had left it. There was a chest I had used as a small desk. On it was a notebook full of stories I used to make up with a mind so active I never knew what adventure the day was going to bring.

Wiping away the cobwebs and brushing away some dust, I crawled further inside the cubbyhole so I could take a seat and read some of the things a six-year-old girl had imagined. She had climbed the heights of a made-up mountain and dove into the waters of a made-up sea. She had ventured deep into the thickest jungles and made friends with the most ferocious animals anyone could ever meet. She had voyaged with the most unique characters who were from all walks of life. As I read the notebook, I wondered who this person was from another life.

When I took another look around, I found a special gift Maggie had given me one day when I was bored and I couldn’t find anything great to do. It was a book full of advice a father had given his daughter when she felt alone in this world without him. Coloring pictures for small toddlers just learning about crayons to heartwarming whispers for children being put through separation and loss, When You Miss Me felt more like a hug than a book.

There in my old cubbyhole, I stretched out my legs and got comfortable. I had a feeling I was going to be there a while. As I cracked open the book, the words came back to me like they had never left. My heart lit up as I remembered both of them so clearly. He was a simple man with a voice so calm that it could settle the most restless soul, and her spirit was so infectious that she could get you to join her anywhere she wanted to go. I hadn’t quite figured out why I had gone home or what I was supposed to do while I was there. But spending time with Mikayla just felt right to me.

The post When You Miss Me Revisited – A Strange Knight appeared first on Michael Allen.

My mind had been in a world of its own all day. I wasn’t quite sure where it had been or what I had been doing. But I know that milk doesn’t go in the cabinet, and empty bowls don’t go in the refrigerator. So, my mind was somewhere else while I was going through the motions.

It happens sometimes. I get caught between the past and the present, like my thoughts can’t decide where they belong. Dad says I daydream too much. He laughs when he says it, and yet I can tell he means it. Daydreaming is good for a creative spirit, but it’s in life where all the real magic happens. I’m well aware of that, even though sometimes my dreams feel more real than the reality I’m living. It has always been that way.

Today was one of those days. I kept feeling a name creeping up from my soul. It faded in and out until it finally decided to stay. At last, the name entered the room and settled into a chair beside me. Her name was Mikayla. She was a playful little girl in a blue dress and a bow in her hair. She went on adventures that were so exciting to me that I thought I was on them with her. I don’t know why I was thinking so deeply about her like an old friend of mine coming to visit. But I’m glad she did. I think I needed her today.

Years ago, there was a part of my life I didn’t know. My memories of my real father had faded while I was being raised by a quirky couple who were figuring things out on the go. They had never had a child of their own. So, I was their first experiment. No, I meant to say that. I might have been their first experience, but it was so much more like I was an experiment.

Maggie was so motherly, her heart could hug me from across the room. Gilmer was so childlike that sometimes I felt like the grown-up when we were plotting our next quest. Together, they thought my name was Kissy, and I grew up thinking the same. It was a name that felt like sunshine. It wrapped itself around me like morning light shining through the window.

We lived in an old farmhouse that had been handed down through the family to Gilmer. It needed a little work, but it was a home. The furniture was lived in, and the walls had a life of their own. The floors could tell stories as they took you anywhere you wanted to go. There wasn’t any time of the day when you couldn’t smell hot food coming from the kitchen. It was one of Maggie’s joys in life.

Gilmer had a little world of his own in the barn where he kept his tools and did his work. I would often visit him out there to see what he was up to because most of the time, it was something interesting. He was always trying to invent a thingamabob for the world to use or come up with some kind of contraption to make his life a little easier.

One of his many gadgets was the walker, a device he created without knowing that a thing already existed with that name. His gadget was different, though. It was made of wood and metal bolts. It had springs and sliding things. When he stepped onto the footpads, they snapped to his boots. Up from that, kneepads were attached to rods that ran the length of his legs. At the top was a seat he could use to rest on long walks.

Maggie was amused when she saw him using it for the first time. It clanged and twanged as he walked around the yard. It held him loyally when he took a seat. The poor lady watched this boyish man show off his invention that helped him kneel to the ground and stand back up again. Then, it carried him across the yard when he walked straight up to her as she stood on the porch looking down with nothing to say. But fate had a way of giving her something.

When a spring came undone, the whole thing fell apart. He fell flat to the ground when the support gave way. The puzzled look on his face was priceless. There was no reason it shouldn’t have worked. He had thought it through so thoroughly.

Maggie nodded her head as she said, “That’s nice, Gilmer. You almost have it.”

Even I had to scratch my head because it had been working just fine. I watched him put it together. He had a drawing and everything. I even helped him figure out where some of the springs could go. So, I was just as baffled as he was.

While he went back to the drawing board and tried to figure out what went wrong, I went back to playing around the house. In front of the house was a dirt road that came from nowhere and went to nowhere as far as I could see. But behind the house was where all the real adventures took place. I had a world full of trees and little animals to find. There was a river that had narrow parts as well as wide parts. The first time I heard Gilmer say its name, I thought it was the Wrapper Hammock. I had no idea why a river would be called such an odd name.

But I’m twenty now. I just turned it this year, and that river is actually called the Rappahannock. I’ve been in Fredericksburg, Virginia, all my life, and that’s the river that runs through. It’s those same flowing waters that connected me to my real father, but I’ll save that story for later.

Maggie and Gilmer have long passed away, and that old house still sits there a few miles down the road. I haven’t been there for quite a while because my life has moved on since learning the truth. It wasn’t some small secret like where they had been hiding my sketchpads. It was bigger than finding out that my clothes had never been new, but that they had been bought off the rack at a thrift store and wrapped to make it look that way.

Finding out that my name wasn’t my name and my father wasn’t my father was a huge, mind-blowing twist. Maggie had written me a letter that explained it all. I didn’t find it until after she passed away.

My real name is Krista. They thought my name was Kissy because of the locket I was wearing around my neck the day they found me. My father’s name is Chris, a man I had just recently met and had no idea we were even related. He told me how my name came from his, and Kissy was my nickname because when I was young, I couldn’t pronounce it right. So, he gave me a locket with my nickname on it. When I think back hard enough, I can remember that was the last day I saw him until I met him again at a diner where I was working as a waitress.

That was a big bombshell of information that was dropped on me all at once. I wrapped my brain around it as quickly as I could and kept marching to the rhythm of life. But those things aren’t the kinds of things you simply tuck away in your back pocket before returning to the path you’re on. They have a way of sneaking up on you and exploding between your ears on a day when you least expect it.

Once in a while, when I look at my father, it feels like he’s a stranger to me. He is my real father and part of the reason I exist, but when I think back on all those years we missed, I really don’t know him. And the couple I knew, that quirky couple who raised me, they don’t feel real anymore. Yet, I miss them every day.

So my real father doesn’t feel like my real father, and the man who feels like my real father was only playing the part. My home on the river wasn’t really my home, while my real home was only a few miles down the road. They call that a hop, skip, and a jump away. Thinking about Maggie feels like a warm hug, but the name for mother was just a figment of my imagination. Everything I thought I knew about myself was made up on the fly. I dare say it was all a lie, but that’s a little harsh when everyone was only trying to do right by me. Try wrapping all that around your tongue and saying it five times fast.

This chair is comfortable, and the only thing that I can trust is real right now. But I can’t sit in it all day looking out the window. I’m lost and I know I’m lost. I think it’s time for me to go back to the place I once called home.

The post When You Miss Me Revisited – Wrapper Hammock appeared first on Michael Allen.

“Are you okay?” Jeph asked as he looked down at Julie.

She cracked her neck and felt her head, “No. I’m not okay. I just got hit by a car.”

Jeph looked back at his car, looking for dents, “That was me. That was my car.”

“I know whose car it was,” she said as she sat up and looked at him. She could feel a few muscles, but no bones were broken.

Read from the start to get a better experience, Joker Joker Deuce Halloween Series Part I – A Monster Awakens…

“Do you want me to take you to the hospital or something?” he asked as he knelt down to eye level.

She looked at him as she rolled her neck. Then, her voice softened, “No. I do not want to go to any hospitals. I just want to go home.”

“Why don’t I take you home?” he offered.

“Well,” she thought. “If I’m in the car, I won’t be able to get hit by the car.”

She stared at him as his mind raced through thoughts a million miles a minute. What a way to meet! That’s the story we’ll tell our kids. No, Dad didn’t say he hit on your mom. He said he hit your mom.

“That was a joke, silly,” she added.

His mind finally caught up to the real conversation happening right in front of him, “Oh, right.”

“Hey, give me a break,” she said. “I did just get hit by a car.”

“Here,” Jeph shook his head as he put his hand on her arm. “Let me help you up.”

Her face hardened a bit, “Tough crowd.”

He helped her to her feet and walked her to the passenger side of the car, where he opened the door like a gentleman and gently guided her into the seat. When he closed the door, he got a little pep in his step. His heart was singing as he walked around the back of the car to the driver’s side.

He climbed in and looked at her for a moment. Then, he reached over and grabbed her seatbelt, “Buckle up! You look great in that seatbelt.”

Jeph remembered that line from an old Don Johnson Driver Safety video from the late 80s that schools were still recycling. Julie smiled at the corny attempt. She actually appreciated it because she had a similar sense of humor. As he drove away, he looked over and they exchanged a glance. Forget the fact that he ran a stop sign, and a car almost hit him as he ventured his way down the street.

“I saw you the other day at the gas station,” he mentioned to get the conversation going.

She looked over at him with a strange look, “That was you. I thought you looked familiar. I remember thinking about you as I left, but I felt weird about striking up a conversation.”

“You did?” Jeph reacted with surprise. “I felt weird about saying something to you.”

“You should have,” she urged. “I would have liked that.”

“I should have,” he agreed. “But I have trouble with that part. I can imagine having an entire conversation, but when it comes to really having one, that’s when I fall apart.”

“You’re having one now,” she said with a soothing hum to her voice that made his heart stop.

He looked at her and admired her smile. Then, something started to change. Her face was doing weird things. Suddenly, bursting through his imagination, he could hear her scream, “What are you doing? Where are you going? You were supposed to take me home? Where are we?”

When he looked out the window, he saw a familiar tree. He looked through the back window and then up ahead to confirm that he was on Sandmont Hill. He shook his head, and his eyes darted around. Then, he focused on her.

She was still yelling, “Will you say something? Where did you bring me?”

“This is Sandmont Hill,” he pointed at the tree. “I thought you’d like it. We came here one day, remember?”

“What?” she said, startled.

“Yeah, we had a picnic. Right there,” Jeph pointed again at the tree.

“No, we didn’t,” she protested. Then, before thinking, she blurted out, “Are you losing your mind?”

She suddenly froze. She immediately remembered something she had learned in one of her classes. If he were a psycho, that would have been the last thing she wanted to say to him. She studied his face and watched as his eyes darted in different directions. His breathing seemed normal. His face had no twitches. Do crazy people really twitch like they do in the movies? Is that a real thing?

She thought it would be best if she just sat in her seat quietly. So, she addressed her situation. She was in the middle of nowhere without a way to get home. When she realized that, all the survival tips she had learned over the years started to come back to her. But she was already too late. She should have been paying attention to landmarks and counting seconds, all of that stuff.

The silence in the car was deafening. She could see his wheels turning like he was trying to reconstruct reality, “A picnic? We had a picnic right there? That’s a nice place, a beautiful spot for a picnic. Maybe we can do that?”

He looked at her in defeat, and she suddenly saw a flash. But she didn’t remember much after that.

Jeph studied her as she slept peacefully in the wooden chair across the room. He had parked the car in the garage and carried her through the kitchen so that nosy neighbors had no idea he had brought a date home. As he sat in Dad’s old recliner in a room he hardly ever entered, he remembered that chat on the forum when a thought suddenly occurred to him, “I’m glad I followed their advice and got the drugs. This would have been a whole lot harder.”

Then, he watched as she started to struggle awake. She lifted her head a little, and then it dropped again. This time, when she lifted it, she opened her eyes and looked around the room. She suddenly felt a sharp pain in her face. When she went to move her arms, she realized she was tied to the chair.

Looking across the room, she realized her worst nightmare. She had been kidnapped and was being held hostage in some psycho’s house. When she looked around, the first thing she noticed was the 1970s décor. The smell of clean dust assaulted her nose, which was something she had never smelled before. But if she had to describe the smell, that would be it.

Then, she looked down and realized that she was in a sundress. Shockwaves went through her mind. She closed her eyes and thought the worst. If she had this sundress on, she could only imagine what else might have happened.

“That was the dress my mom wore on her wedding day,” Jeph’s commentary split the contemplation, disturbing her peaceful trauma. “Imagine Mom trying to become a homemaker. She was a working girl for years. In fact, I think my real father was one of her clients. That’s why I never got to meet him.”

In a timid voice with very little volume, Julie asked, “This is your mom’s dress?” She started to feel the age of the fabric, and then a thought hit her hard. When was the last time it was washed?

“Yeah, Dad liked it,” he answered. “He liked a lot of the things Mom wore, like her skirts and her high-heeled shoes. I remember him telling her to wear them because they made everyone look at her. But he really liked that dress because I remember him saying it was easy access.”

“Ew,” she stomped her feet lightly as the thought of his mom wearing the dress ran through her mind. Then, she had another thought. Didn’t he just say he didn’t know his dad?

She was not going to be able to piece that one together. And she realized that she shouldn’t even try. She was staring at a man who was seriously screwed up in the head. Asking him questions would be her worst mistake.

But she didn’t have to ask as he volunteered, “She found a man who didn’t care about her past, or at least he didn’t think he did. It eventually got to him. I found them in the room. He had shot himself, and what he did to Mom before that, I can only imagine. I found her on the bed with the life choked out of her.”

Julie’s heart started pounding.

“The only guy I knew who was even any kind of father to me went to prison one day. I never saw him after that. He died in there,” Jeph reminisced. Then, he continued, “So, I was all alone and I was doing pretty good with that. Being all alone until you came into my life.”

He smiled. Julie looked at him, concerned. She was starting to wonder if she was losing her mind. Where had she met this man? She couldn’t place him anywhere?

“It was really good at first. I met your father,” he continued. “That was a nice day out on his yacht. But I really liked that moment we had in the bathroom when you followed me in there. That was…that was pretty great. You have some skills.”

Her heart beating faster. Fear rising up in her.

“But what I don’t understand,” he started. “You sent me a message and then, you didn’t even read what I sent you back.”

She knew she was talking to a madman, but what was he talking about?

“Why would you do that?” he insisted.

Her silence was no longer appreciated. He was staring at her like he wanted answers. She had none, and her mind was racing, but what could she offer him? “I don’t know what message you’re talking about.”

He slammed his hand down on his phone and picked it up. He scrolled through his apps until he found it, then he searched and found the message. When he stood up to walk toward her, she flinched, but her eyes were steady on the phone. She looked in horror as she saw a message from her to him, “I must have been hacked. I don’t know what that is. I didn’t send it.”

Jeph looked at her lie and steam rolled off his neck. His nose started to flare like a raging bull. Julie watched as Jeph’s face contorted, and she had no idea what was going on, but she knew she didn’t have too many options.

Her blood-curdling scream startled Jeph out of his moment. His temper tantrum was going to have to wait. He looked around the room, and there sat an old washcloth. On the other end of the table was duct tape. That was convenient.

He shoved the washcloth in her mouth and started taping. It wasn’t pretty, but her voice was muffled, and that was all that mattered. That’s when his entire reality came crashing down around him. He looked at this girl in his mother’s dress, tied to a chair with a washcloth taped in her mouth. This wasn’t good. Not good at all.

There was no way he was going to get out of this one. If he just let her go, the first thing she would do would be to go straight to the police. But then he wondered, what was he actually thinking?

Are you thinking what I think you’re thinking?

I don’t know.

Because if you are, that’s a place you can’t come back from.

I don’t know, I said.

Well, know. Figure it out. Because that’s a place you can’t come back from.

“Okay,” he yelled as if talking to thin air. “If I let you go right now, would you go to the cops?”

She shook her head. Her mouth was trying to say something, but he couldn’t make it out.

“What?” he asked.

She tried to say it again until she realized that wasn’t working. So, she just shook her head slowly as her eyes remained on him. Then, tears started rolling down her face. It was as if she had been crying, then ran dry. Now, she was finding water reserves to cry some more.

“So, you’re saying I can let you go and I don’t have anything to worry about?” Jeph clarified.

Again, she shook her head slowly. She was fighting for her life, but anxiety rose up in her. Her breathing quickened like she was about ready to start hyperventilating. All his times of playing cards with Stone, he knew that was a tell.

Then, he repeated the words that had somehow been stored in his mind from way back when he was a kid, “Can’t trust a damn woman.”

He walked to the kitchen, and Julie could hear him rummaging through drawers. Then, she heard cabinets opening and slamming shut. When she heard his footsteps coming back to her, she braced herself and started screaming with everything she had. That’s when he put the plastic bag over her head and held on tight. When he got tired of holding the bag, he put a zip tie around her neck and tightened it until he cut off any air.

He walked around her and watched as she struggled. Her body was fighting to get free. Her neck was doing all it could to get air into her body. But nothing was working for her. She was slowly slipping away.

She looked like an angel. She was still beautiful and sweet. They had had some good times. What would one last goodbye hurt?

He drew close to her and touched his lips on hers. He could feel her love even if it was through a plastic bag. The moment was special, if only for him.

Staring down into the open drawer in his desk, he shook his head as he thought back to that time. Julie was special. His first one. He had really made some mistakes on that one. But how else was he supposed to learn anything?

He reached into the drawer and dropped a new pair of panties into his collection. He touched each one as he said their names until he got to Julie’s. He ran his finger over the fabric and then pulled them up to his cheek. He remembered each one, but she was the one who gave him the fondest memories.

This series is inspired by Joker Joker Deuce, a psychological thriller set in a college town where students are being targeted by a serial killer. Available now on Amazon!

The post Joker Joker Deuce Halloween Series Part IX – The Awakening appeared first on Michael Allen.