Dark as Wine

It was colder than I had anticipated, my hands shook as I gradually lost the feeling in them. I could barely keep a grip on the leash in my hand - this was not a problem, Sol was well trained and wouldn’t pull. He stayed by my side as we walked through the vineyard.

My vineyard. The decades of establishment and labor had been passed to me recently. It was my vineyard, something I was still getting used to.

My vineyard housed nearly a hundred vines, each of which produced dark high quality wine. Every evening Sol and I walked between the trellises, ensuring that everything was in order for the next day. That nothing needed immediate attention.

We continued through the lines of trellises as I tucked my hands into my pockets, leash still clutched in my left hand as Sol padded beside me. An uneventful evening thus far.

Uneventful until the leash wrapped around my hand pulled taught, stinging as it collided with my nearly numb skin. I turned to look at Sol, expecting a bird or squirrel to have caught his attention.

Instead, his body was rigid, ears upright as a low growl rumbled in his throat. My brows lifted in surprise, he wasn’t typically an alert or even remotely aggressive dog. I followed his gaze to the edge of the vineyard, where the rows of trellises faded into a strip of flat land that would meet the treeline.

A tall and stocky figure. Far enough away that all I could see was the dark figure and a shadow. Sol ‘yodeled’, a loud high pitched sound that rang through the vineyard. I was sure whoever this was could hear it, and yet, they only moved to look at me. Not him, me.

“This is private land!” I called across the clearing. Still, nothing but a blank stare blurred by the distance. Sol growled, raising his lip to show his teeth. My heart beat against my chest, eyes wide as he lunged against his collar, snarling. “Leave or I’ll let him go!”

I reached for the snap of his leash, intending to keep my word. Then, the figure turned and ran. Not towards the end of the property, the road, or the small gravel parking lot. It ran into the treeline, quickly fading into the woods. Fantastic, further into the property and towards the house. I undid the snap of Sol’s leash and followed him into the woods - Basenjis are considered sight and scent hounds, the best course of action was for him to lead.

I followed the rustling through the brush and Sol’s yodel, along with the occasional glimpse of the figure in the distance. The glimpses got closer together, we were gaining on whoever this intruder was.

Once we were close enough to consistently see them, I called Sol to my side and ran faster. Once I was close enough, I reached out and closed my fist around a handful of fabric. The chase seemed to have warmed me just enough to regain my dexterity.

But the figure didn’t stop, they kept going, and the handful of fabric stayed with me. My pace slowed, losing the figure, as the rest of the fabric I had grabbed fluttered against my chest.

A scarf?

A red scarf. A familiar red scarf. My eyes flew open wide, and I came to a complete stop. Sol whined, eyes still cast on the receding figure finally racing off the property as I turned and started toward the house, having him follow me.

There was a path this way, and I followed it through the woods, to the house, and then around it. It led nearly a mile behind the house, to a small clearing. I slowed to a walk as the dirt path faded into neat stones that fit perfectly together, so perfectly that they formed an even edge to the path. I followed it to an old ornamental gate with a matching fence, pushing it open and gritting my teeth at the accompanying screech from the rusted hinges.

Inside of the fence were three rows of four headstones. All perfectly aligned and undisturbed. I walked towards the one in the front row, all the way to the right.

This stone was unweathered and unfaded, the ground only had a few sprigs of grass despite it being undisturbed, and the letters carved in ‘father’ were still sharp unlike the inscriptions on the other stones. I hesitated a few feet away, lips tugging into a frown, before walking closer to inspect it.

It was truly undisturbed, the ground was intact. I released a breath, frustrated; perhaps my mind had been slipping. Stress can do that, I suppose. I chuckled, shaking my head as I turned back to the ornamental gate.

Sol growled, stepping forward. And there it was, standing in the middle of the open gate. It didn’t move, either towards or away from me, just stared. I held its gaze. Even this close, it was just a shadow. No features, just a dark blank face looking at me.

My hands were wet. Wet, and warm. My brows rose in shock, and I lifted my hands to my face, still clutching the bundled scarf. Warm red liquid dripped from my fingers, as dark as wine, disappearing before it reached the grass.

I looked up, narrowing my eyes in contempt at the figure still watching me, before turning back to the new headstone. The red liquid pooled in my palm that was free from the scarf, and I smeared it against the word ‘father’ on the stone, watching it drip out of the engraved letters.

Ignoring the splotches of a darker red, I unbundled the scarf and wrapped it around my neck. Eyes still narrowed, I strode through the open gate, not bothering to look back as I slammed it shut behind Sol. Re-attaching his leash, we strolled down the path in the last of the sun’s light, reaching the house just as it was replaced with the back porch light.