The Tragic Tale of Teddy Woven

The depiction was made in black ink, a detailed illustration of his house at some point in time. It appeared abandoned then, with tall weeds growing at the side of the house. The windows were boarded up with wood, and the shabbiness of the house was felt profusely the longer I stared at it.

“Not so long ago,” he revealed. “That it looked that way.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“No?” He questioned me with a playfulness to his voice. “Then I shall take credit for it.” Teddy straightened his back to bring himself to his full height. “This was a little more than five years ago.”

“I thought it was over fifty years at least.”

“No, at that time it was quite livable.” He looked over his shoulder at the closed doorway. “Thriving.” He averted his attention back to the hand-drawn sketch in front of him. “When my mother was still young and happy. When her father and the rest of her family were still alive.”

“Do you have any images of them?”

“I would have to go looking for them.” He left my side, intent on seeking out the images that would quench my curiosity. When he was gone I turned the page, too curious for my own good. It was a small depiction of Teddy as a child, probably between the ages of six or eight. He was a tall, wiry sort of boy with an unusual growth spurt. His clothes were shabby though, disorderly and worn out to the point that it looked too small for his frame. The strangest image of all was that he was holding a raggedy old teddy bear; it was pressed hard against his chest in a protective manner that matched the haunting sadness to his eyes.

“I couldn’t…” Teddy paused, realizing the image that I had discovered. His jaw clenched tightly and then he tore his eyes away from me to look out the open window.

“Sorry.” I shut the sketchbook closed and took a large step back.

“There is stuff in there that is private,” he growled. A hand reached downwards to snatch it off the table. “And I can’t locate the photo album. I think it’s in the cellar.”

“Should we go looking for it?”

“Look for it?” he echoed with a voice that was full of mockery. “No, Sela.” The sketchbook was tossed into the open drawer at the side of the table. “I think it’s

“Teddy, I…”

of his trouser pockets. The door was soon pushed further back, a tell-tale sign that it was time for me to leave

I finished off. “I

a word when I bypassed him, he simply watched me place on

I hated the distance that stretched

leaving it there

was something I could do to

out.

curiosity had gotten the better of me. Luna padded down the hallway, heading towards the music room where Teddy and I had first sat down to have a proper conversation. How long ago it felt, but it had been just days since we first met. I forced my gaze to shift to the right, noticing that he had trouble looking at me. There was pain coursing through him, and I realized then that his anger had turned to

yet again. “Please, can we

first. Teddy waited for me to join him before he slammed the door behind us,

have to say?” he asked

that

suppress them, but sometimes they force themselves out. So that book is my coping mechanism. Some people write diaries.” Teddy stretched out a long arm to rest his hand over the sturdy tree bark. “I

a large one that must have been planted when the house was first developed. I was too busy looking up at the treetops to

you keep a diary?” he inquired with

“No.”

“Some people do.”

not much of a writer,” I told him

ever haunted by some