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Finding Home

The wind whipped madly, making the tears on her face run faster. A storm was brewing up. The clouds were stirring. Gray formed the sky making the world seem dark and angry. She smelled the rain, that musty, earthy scent before and after every shower. Her head hung lower as the wind tried to push her back. The cold snapped turning her shivering limbs to blue pieces of ice.
Meria was only thirteen, a girl of power and stubbornness. Everything she knew, the world she lived in, all of it, was a vicious lie. The person she thought was her mother was in fact a woman, just a woman of no relation. Meria had nothing to go on, nothing to hope for. All she had was a memory, a distant thought of warmth and rose smelling hair. It made her happy to think of such things, it took away the constant hatred churning in her chest. The happiness of her real mother made the walk seem less painful; she no longer regretted her choice.
Kay, the person she thought was her mother, had given her a name while pleading for her not to go. “Please, Meria, wait. I raised you like my own; I have loved you all these years.”
Meria had been walking out the door then. She kept her head held high, ignoring all sobs behind her.
“Molly Ingley,” said a voice from behind the door.
“Excuse me?” Meria said her tone of voice sharper than a razor’s edge. The door opened to a face she did not know. The mascara running made Kay seem less human, like a picture going out of focus.
“Molly Ingley, she is your mother, your real mother.”
“Thank you,” Meria replied with her tone still harsh.
It had been a day since then, perhaps more. Meria walked to the bus station, many miles away from home. She had been saving money for a day like this. There had always been a thought that Kay was not her mother. They didn’t look or even act alike. Meria had thought she took after her father that she never knew, her father who left long ago.
It was night when she found a bench to sleep on. She could see her own breath as she looked up at the sky. The stars glowed faintly like God’s eyes looking down upon her. The clouds had faded away from yesterday’s shower of snow and ice. It was another night in the open. No one was around; no dogs howled and no owls flew. Meria began to weep bitterly.
“What have I done?” Meria asked the night. She knew Kay would be worried sick about her. She had made up her mind; she was going to New York. The notes had told her where to go, it was only a matter of time. Tonight would be sleepless.
Under the street lamp, by a fence taller than she remembered it, Meria dried her tears and looked at the pictures in her hand. A woman of twenty-four smiled back at her longingly. The same black ringlets and warm chocolate eyes gazed up at her.
“I can’t go back,” she whispered under her breath and sat back down. Hours would pass before the station and fence would open. Yet, Meria sat there, patiently waiting for the day to come. The sun rose golden yellow; a promise of a new beginning. A man entered the ticket booth.
“May I help you?” the man asked looking rather concerned. “Are you lost?”
“I’m fine, thanks,” she replied. Meria tried her best to make herself presentable. She ran her fingers threw matted hair and brushed herself off.
“One ticket to New York,” she said, making herself feel confident by showing as much maturity as possible.
“Fifty dollars please,” said the man. He decided that she was no longer his problem. She handed the money over and got the ticket. New York was a long way from Ohio.
At eight o’clock, she took a deep breath, sighed, and boarded the bus.
Meria sat in the very back, alone for thirty minutes. More people boarded, half asleep. “Perhaps, they too, wanted a new beginning,” Meria thought. At half past nine, the bus began to move. The countryside began to look the same; trees blended, the sun got higher and higher in the sky. Meria’s window was filled with face prints from her habitual napping. She knew it would be night before she arrived.
“Never be in a big city at night,” Kay had told her. That was most likely the best advice she’d ever received and now she was not heeding it. New York seemed more and more exciting, a jungle unknown, waiting to be explored. Ignorance of a thirteen year old was bliss.
She tried to make it into an adventure: The Hunt for Molly Ingley. All maturity was forgotten. People walked up and down the aisles, stretching and using the bathroom. They all ignored her. A child of thirteen was of no importance to them.
Day turned into night before she knew it. The city lights blinked like stars on a stormy sea. New York City was approaching, the skyline growing higher and higher. There were wonderful skyscrapers, and flashing lights, advertising Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “The Phantom of the Opera.” Strange places were waiting to be explored. It could take years, but she was looking for her mother. The bus stopped, everyone got off. “Broadway” the sign said.
“I am in way over my head,” Meria mumbled to the grates beneath her. She kept walking, imitating those around her. She held her head high, looking at nothing, ignoring everything from the flashing lights to screaming horns. She kept walking in the same direction. The city grew dirty and less people roamed the streets. Before she even knew it, she was alone.
Buildings with boarded up doors and shattered windows made Meria feel uncomfortable. “Just keep walking,” she thought. She looked at addresses trying to find the one that matched the note. “It should be a block away.” It felt as if sad eyes were watching her every move.
A house slightly larger than the rest stood before her making her insides flip. A memory coated her thoughts with joy. Everything had changed. She knocked on the door lightly and it swung open with a satisfying yelp. The old house smelled of mold, death, and forgetting. Something told her to go back, a gut feeling too hard to ignore. “No,” she told herself “I have come too far to turn back now.” And somehow she didn’t like the words coming out of her mouth. Meria wanted to run as far as her legs would carry her, all the way back to Ohio. Somehow, she knew that her mother, Molly Ingley, was dead.
She walked around the house until she found the bedroom. A beautiful woman drenched in crimson was laying face up, dagger in hand. It was a horrible sight. Meria walked closer, slowly, softly. She tucked her mother’s hair behind her ear with a feeling of emptiness she never knew. Both of her lives were dead. A tear fell slowly down the side of her face, but she didn’t feel it. Meria felt nothing.
As she turned to go she slipped on the wood and fell backwards onto the bed. Not a cry escaped her mouth. Everything had suddenly gone black, she couldn’t breathe. Her limbs refused to move. She slipped into unconsciousness.
It was like waking from a dream. Everything was white, bright, and beautiful. Meria’s mother stood before her, an apparition perfected by her memories. She smelt the rose of her mother’s hair and felt the warmth of her eyes. She walked towards her feeling light as a feather. All her old needs and emotions were long forgotten.
“My darling,” her mother said stroking her hair, “you are home.”