Fall is when the Ghouls come out. Everyone knows they hate the heat. It is a small part of the reason we avoid the dark, because the dark is not our friend. The dark is the ally of what happens after life.
In the two late years of the nineteen sixties and the better part of the seventies I was a caretaker. The home was not to be touched, not to be visited, and certainly not to be inspected by any living soul but me. These rules were set in place long before I came and probably would have been held the same when I left had there not been a small mishap, but obviously people can’t just let things alone. It’s alright. I understand curiosity because it’s only part of human nature. It didn’t make my job any easier, though.
It was the end of summer and I was pruning the awful roses that were for some reason mandatory in the west garden off the house. This was my easy season, when everything that should be asleep was and I could do almost whatever I pleased, like leave the place for more than an hour. I could smell it in the air as I clipped a stock with thirsty looking thorns that seemed to scream ouch.
They wanted to wake up, all of them. It was just about time for-
The phone rang and I jerked too hard, letting those thorns tear into my palm. Liz didn’t flinch at the sound and stayed lying near the freshly cut pile of dead plant, but it wasn’t as if she ever did. She was a strange dog in that way. Always steady and always silent. I ripped the white - almost green after the day - work glove off, staring at the little dots of red bead up in a perfect line. The phone was still going crazy inside. It was the only one in the house but could be heard clear down to the fence line over a hundred yards away.
“Damn it. Come on, Liz. It’s about that time again.”
The line was in a stupid place if I’m going to be honest about this story. The actual connection was way on the far corner of the kitchen, under the upper cabinets and over the counter but the receiver had been hung on the wall opposite. They, meaning whoever added the phone in the last couple decades, hadn’t even thought to place it right beside the connection and the cabinets, and erase the need to feed the cable through more wood. Either way when I came in still squeezing whatever debris out of my hand, it was jangling almost off the hook as it usually did.
“Hello,” I asked the caller.
The voice on the other end buzzed, crackling as it always had like it was quite a long-distance call.
“Yes.”
More buzzes and fuzzing. A fly had gotten in and I remember it trying to escape through the solid wall of glass over the sink. It didn’t realize there was a barrier and repeatedly slammed against it with a ticking sound. I had thought about catching it to set it free but I believe, after the call, it must have died inside because I forgot.
“I’ll start getting it ready as soon as I hang up.”
The caller said one last thing. Something I had been worrying about more and more as each season came and went.
“I know. If it happens, I’ll deal with it.”
What I said was practically a lie. I had no idea how to deal with it and like most things, I flew by the seat of my pants. With each new season I seemed to be forgetting things, losing important facets of the rules they’d taught me and not realizing until later. I couldn’t tell if it was me becoming more lax or something else, but I wasn’t about to mention it to them. There was nowhere else for me to go.
They hung the line up before I had the chance. Liz looked up at me, wagging her tail, tomato splattered in her fur from digging in the garbage again as I answered the phone.
“Again? Was that necessary?”
I sighed and ran my hand over the hairs sticking out around my head from sweat and work. I’d already forgotten the cut which started to sting from the touch.
“You’ll have to wait.”
Her tail paused and she flopped down flat on her stomach, ready to do her duty. On a hook on the left cabinet by that same window the fly wanted through was my rosary. I grabbed it, slinging it over my head. It was cold with disuse. The old woman would want to be fed with her return and I wasn’t going to let it be me that she feasted upon.
I kept all the meat stock piled in a freezer on the back porch, just off the entryway hall. It was the best place for something so large and I wasn’t about to call on the butcher every week. I already looked weird living up here with only a dog for company.
Last Friday I expected her awakening, expected to hear her chains sliding around from above. Like I said, it was in the air, that smell of chill on its way. I guess the butcher was ready too and had gotten into the swing of things early, having just enough for not only the regular shoppers but what I had always needed as well. Sometimes I like to think I was much more organized than earlier keepers of the house, but maybe not since Liz always seemed to crawl into the garbage wherever I put it.
I walked back, letting the screen door swing and slam shut behind me. Liz stayed put on the kitchen floor. The old woman didn’t like her meals freezer burnt but I knew she would take what she could get because she wouldn’t have another chance to feed. The old platter, able to hold a whole cut up watermelon if I wanted, was still on the top of the fridge beside with all its ugly, rose painted crustiness. I took it off, opened the lid, and began to pile the red stuff up. To keep her satiated but not too strong I only added a pound of ground beef and some full-size sausages. I wasn’t positive about this but hoped after almost seven years of guessing I would get it right.
Back in the kitchen Liz was still frozen like a statue until she heard the door shut behind me. Her furry head swiveled my way with curious and watchful canine eyes.
“Stay there, Liz,” I commanded, moving on through the entryway.
The chandelier was already swinging back and forth above me, clinking the crystals together. I was just about to take the stairs when I remembered something important that probably would have been ugly if I’d left it behind. The meat rested on the bannister as I searched through the drawers in the side table, eventually finding the syringe. The fluid inside had separated a bit since I mixed it but I shook it up and lifted my sleeve sticking it in. It stung at first, as if it was something that shouldn’t be passing through my veins and disappeared a moment later, the empty tube placed on the top of the table as I went off.
The wood creaked with each step like it was trying to tell everyone where I was, that if they all woke up right now they would know where to find me. All the way past the bedrooms and two closets, the crawlspace and the towels, and down the long hallway I walked to greet the door I hated the most. It was small for an adult to fit through. It might not have bothered me so much if it actually looked like the entrance to an attic instead of a regular door shrunken down. The steep staircase beyond didn’t help with setting a good mood either.
I reached above the tiny door frame and grabbed the key. Already, I could hear heavy chains scraping the hardwoods above. When I unlocked and opened it, she was waiting at the top like I knew she would be.
*
*
*
The cuts looked deeper that time and there was no denying she’d really been aiming for my face. My first season had been worse but this did little to help me feel better about my appearance in the mirror. The stinging heightened a second later when I dabbed on the orange stuff. I looked like a clown once everything was covered and then realized I probably should’ve stripped before adding the antiseptic. The fabric of my shirt was cut to ribbons and hanging off me like streamers. Somehow, I couldn’t feel the slashes on my torso until I spotted them but they certainly started burning. It was about time I remembered to take the injection with more time for it to set in.
“Wonderful,” I mumbled, gingerly pulling what was left of my shirt over my head.
The left strap on my bra was also torn practically in two, a deep gash right on the knob of that shoulder. I finished up with the iodine, cursing like a sailor and gripping the edge of the sink until it felt like it would give way. Liz’s nails ticked down the hallway until she was looking in the open doorway at me.
“Come on in. I know you will anyway.”
She trotted over to the other side of the tub and plopped her hindquarters down in front of the bath rug to watch me brush my teeth. After a minute or two of scrubbing I looked down at her, meeting her still gaze. A thought came to me so I spat the suds out.
“Do you actually want something?”
Liz licked her chops and seemed to nod.
“Well…what is it? Show me.”
She glanced at my toothbrush and didn’t move. Something crashed and rolled upstairs. Both our eyes flew to the ceiling at the same time knowing it was only the beginning of sounds we were sure to hear through the night.
“Come on, Liz,” I dropped the toothbrush, rinsing my face, “Show me what it is you want.”
Liz was never the kind of dog that led you places. She was more of the ‘follow behind and nudge until you were where she wanted’ type. All the way down the hall, to the bottom of the stairs, through the living room and dining room and to the back porch she pushed me forward with little taps on my calves. At the cellar door she went around and nuzzled the lock as big as a fist and stone grey.
“I’d really rather not tonight, Liz. We can save him for tomorrow. Besides, I hear no sounds from down there so he’s probably not even risen yet.”
She nosed it again.
“It’s only a couple hours!”
Those brown eyes gave me a look.
“Okay, more than a couple but I need the sleep so you’ll have to come on inside. I’m the one with opposable thumbs here, anyhow.”
I left her behind, heading all the way back to the dark, abandoned living room with its funky yellow furniture, listening for her to follow. Looking down at the rugs I remembered one more thing I forgot to do that day: vacuum. Even without the lights on I could see the dog hair and dust gathered in the corners of the floorboards. Oh, Liz. Why couldn’t you have been a short-haired creature?
“Liz,” I yelled through the doorway.
Her nails didn’t tick on the floors. For a moment, I thought about just going to bed, but I ended up peeking back out to the screened porch. She was looking off into the yard from beside the cellar, almost like she was watching the moonlight filter down. Such a strange animal.
“Inside, please. We’re doing this tomorrow.”
At the sound of my voice her ears perked up. Her gaze went to the door she so badly wanted me to open at once but then she followed my order and walked into the house.
“You’re really getting clingy. I’m not so sure he’ll like that, but maybe he’ll cut you some slack since you’re a dog.”
She made a whistle noise in her throat and moped up the staircase without me. I reached over to switch off the kitchen light, shaking my head. Breath cold as snow hit my neck and I felt the smirk I’d held for Liz fall from my face.
So…everyone’s waking up together this year.
*
*
*
“You’re starting early.”
I blinked the fuzzy vision from my eyes, peering over the mattress at my housemate’s black nose poking over the edge. She had probably been watching me sleep for an hour. Usually, dawn was when she left her blanket. She nudged her nose hard into my face in the way that border collies do when they really want something. I rolled off the sheets and pillows and grabbed some clothes out of the dresser, dropping them off in the bathroom before taking the stairs with Liz on my heels. I let her out and she ran straight to the right by the oak, sniffing for a spot by its roots. Something white by my feet caught my eye. A slip of paper sat under one of the rocks from the landscaping around the yard. The side with writing was left face-side-down. When I nudged the cold, pointy rock to the side with my toe and bent over for the sheet. I could see on the front that the words were handwritten in a sprawling cursive making everything but the numbers hard to read.
I don’t mean to ask for much, but I will ask for your help in this. They tell me in town that you would be the one to do this. Please, meet me at the West corner of your gate at 3:00 p.m. If you’re not there, I will understand and go.
The bottom was signed with a huge ‘P’ and a looping ‘C’. The first thing I wondered was what could this possibly mean that the townspeople sent someone to me of all others. Everyone knew to stay away and the only thing I had to offer were some dead vegetables in the garden and a shed full of dried herbs anyone could grow…not to mention what was stored here that no one would need.
What did I do to have this little inconvenience thrust upon me this time? We had a history of avoiding each other, everyone else down there and myself. They knew where I was from and I knew their dirty secrets. It wasn’t because I tried to, it was only the house held creatures that knew things and blurted them out either to bother or bribe you.
The pastor was secretly homosexual and preached against just that very thing, marrying an unwitting woman not even ten years before. Whoever Elizabeth Spanner was, she had slowly poisoned both her father and two husbands, but never had been caught. The most interesting one I found though, was that the mayor’s niece liked to dance naked under the light of the moon for some unknown reason. Now, I’d rather have gone my whole life continuing to be happily clueless of any of these people’s goings on but that’s the way it was. The bribes - and there were plenty more of these secrets - never worked on me.
“They should be thanking me down there,” I crumpled the paper, “not sending strays my way.”
I crossed my arms and thought over the situation, waiting for Liz to finish her business. She was taking too long. I raised my hand, fingers ready for a whistle when her black and white furry figure came rearing around the house just in that moment.
“What were you doing behind the house? Looking for your friend again or the trash?”
She looked at me and then trotted around, ready to go in.
“We’ll get breakfast finished and then wake him.”
She seemed to quietly nod in agreement and skittered through the open door behind me. Just in case, I scanned the portion of fence line I could see looking for a figure sneaking around or rushing off. Only the morning wind was present to rustle things up.
*
*
*
Over my slightly mushy bowl of half-eaten Wheaties I made a mental list of all I’d need before going into that cellar. Liz chewed on a bone I gave her two days before after finding her rooting through the garden again. She almost had the marrow that morning. Her crunching distracted my thoughts just a little but they came back around with some effort.
Grapes for my pockets, a ball cap to cover most of my hair, and definitely a jacket besides what I’ll need to give him to drink. There was still half a carton of milk I’d left to spoil in the fridge that would do. I was sure Liz would come down with me but he never had a problem with her beforehand. I just summed it up to be a dog thing.
I stood from the stool to rinse my bowl and felt a cold hand grab my waist just for a second, as if to say, “Hold on, I’m passing by you.” I believe if there were an actual person who had just done that I wouldn’t have noticed a difference and turned around. I only paused for a second before finishing what I’d gotten up to do.
Liz must have felt my anxiety because as soon as I left the room for the back porch I heard her follow. I went to the left for the fridge and she went to the right to wait. The grapes had been stuffed away in the bottom to keep fresh. They shone wet from when I’d washed them, nestled in two bunches at the bottom of my grandmother’s ceramic bowl. I always hated the thing with its bubbled feel on the outside and wondered why I never bought any of my own dishes that I might actually like. Something about running my finger across the surface of it ticked me off. The only reason it was here though was because she left it and it alone to me when she died. She’d enjoyed being funny like that.
I opened the pockets of my sweatpants wide and stuffed a torn off bundle in each, then grabbed the cap off the top rack on the wall at the same time as my coat. Liz had stopped watching me by then but was intently staring at the lock on the engraved cellar door.
“Behave yourself when I open that, Liz.”
Her head bobbed a little as if she was agreeing to my requirements with impatience.
“We really don’t want to startle him.”
I snatched the key off the old vegetable crates and leaned down to the lock. Liz’s tail started wagging out of the corner of my eye. The lock popped free and I slowly slid it from the loop, realizing I was holding my breath. The wood was tough under my fingers but I grabbed the lip of the door and stood back to pull it open. Dust motes flew out in the sunlight, the cold air already seeping out to my legs through the pants I’d slept in. Before I could stop her, Liz ran up to the entrance. We both paused in suspense but then she leapt down the stairs out of sight.
“Lovely. Liz, I said behave yourself,” I shouted to the darkness.
I grabbed the flashlight, red fabric stretched taut over the beam at its head. He didn’t like bright lights. It would probably hit anyone in the eyes like a punch after being asleep with not even a sliver of the brightness of day for months. The stairs creaked painfully with each step I took, reminding me again that I still needed to find a way to build new ones before I fell and was stuck down there forever. The light swung out ahead of me, showing what I would be dealing with. I saw a black and white tail sweeping an arch in the dirty floor with excitement…and then a pale hand in real need of some clippers patted down her back with a shaky touch. I heard a gruff voice almost cooing at Liz. It was always such a strange thing, this relationship they had.
I swallowed my distaste like a lump in my throat and called out, “Hello, Nathaniel. Good Morning.”
“I wouldn’t know,” he answered.
His voice sounded more and more like gravel and mud churning every year. At least he didn’t usually attack me with nails and sharp things dug from the floorboards like someone else loved to do on the opposite end of the house.
I shone my light in the direction I saw the hand, stopping my descent on the last step down. His eyes flashed green discs like any animal’s would.
“Have you brought what I need, boy?”
I answered to the name that didn’t fit my description, knowing what would happen if I corrected him. Something cold dripped on my neck, down the collar of my shirt and jacket. It ran slowly down my back and at first touch I had to physically force myself not to jerk forward. Instead I slowly brought my arm to my back, patting what I hoped was water into the fabric.
“I have it-”
I stopped, feeling nothing in my hand. The milk carton was still upstairs in the kitchen fridge. My light shone in their direction. His hand twitched a little tighter in Liz’s fur but she didn’t seem to notice. How could I have forgotten? Not once had I ever slipped up on my rules for Nathaniel in seven years of living there. It didn’t change the fact that the milk was not in my right hand.
“Boy? I need it. Where have you got it?”
What did they say I should do? The book of rules I had read over a million times, but at that moment, I couldn’t recall how to keep him calm from this misstep. The cogs were just not turning. His hand was in a fist in my dog’s fur, sticking out all white and black, and she peeked back at me with what looked like an uneasy glance. I did remember what would happen if he didn’t get what he wanted. He might’ve been kind to her when he was fed but things were different when he had just woken from his seasonal slumber. I improvised, still not digging the rules up in my mind.
“It’s here behind my jacket. I didn’t want to get dust or dirt in it, but you have to grab it with both hands.”
“I know what to do,” he spat harshly, “You appear to be holding it with one just fine.”
He tried to look around my back where nothing but my hand was. I wouldn't let him and instead shuffled forward a little, my slippers scrapping in the grit.
“You know how weak you are when you haven’t eaten,” I replied, thinking not as weak as I’d like.
I could barely tell that he looked at me sideways for a moment, still suspicious, by the flash of his eyes in the dim light.
“Do you want it or not,” I asked.
Even in this cool place, sweat was following the path of the earlier drop down my back.
“Give it,” he growled, letting Liz go.
She ran off up the stairs, disappearing out of sight like the good dog she was. I was counting on her escape to be a distraction for me to run as well but lost the nerve and the chance.
“Boy!”
I jumped, turning around from watching her go.
“Alright. Here it is.”
Steadily I brought my empty hand around my back. In the darkness it was probably hard for even him to see, but he would’ve known when there was no dish. His hands, sharp and ghastly white, reached out in front of him like a child grabbing for its favorite toy. Right as I had my wrist passing the front of my hips I whipped my left one back and hurled the torch at his head. I heard it crack as I bolted for the steps in pitch blackness. The glass bulb shattered on some part of his head, making him scream. On my third step I slipped and felt the skin of my shin tear on the wood. I barely registered the pain and scrambled for the top, my heart pounding as his nails started to scratch just behind me.
“You little prick! I’ll tear you apart!”
His voice dropped an octave at the end, deep and unnerving just in time to claw at the back of my sweats. Thankfully it only cut into the fabric. I crawled out of the opening, flipping around in time to see his face at my heels. A scream I’d never heard before flew out of me and then got caught in my throat like I choked. The sight of his face in full daylight was gruesome. I lurched forward on my knees and grabbed the cellar door, slamming them before he scrambled into the real world. Just when I put the lock through there was a massive crash with the sound of wood splintering. I froze in the wake of it, listening. No more sound or curses came from the hole. The stairs, I thought. They finally collapsed.
The sound of nails on wood clicked somewhere around me and I practically leaped to my feet by some force of magic, searching for the culprit until I saw Liz entering the room. She looked up at me, tail completely stiff, eyes saying ‘you almost got me killed’. She was right. Because I had forgotten one simple but essential thing, she could’ve been torn apart…but at least it was better than being eaten alive as I would have been. It was a good thing I didn’t forget the grapes as well or he really would have been fast enough and twice as violent. Liz would not be staring at me reproachfully just then. She’d be a mess of hair and meat.
“Maybe you shouldn’t be so friendly with these things, huh?”
For a moment she held my gaze, then walked off to the hall.
“Well…”
*
*
*
It was 2:45 and I was standing, facing the front door and deciding. Liz waited patiently beside me like she knew I would open it, whether to head for that west gate or to let her out so she could relieve herself. She had drunk a lot of water with lunch, I noticed, almost like she wanted to force me out, knowing if I was already past the door I would more than likely walk on.
“It’s a bad idea, Liz.”
Her ears bounced when I spoke but fell flat with the period of the sentence. I could have been cleaning or planting the mums. Hell, I should have done that earlier but I was distracted by that note and the new wounds I’d collected. I knew I would need to fortify that cellar door sooner rather than later. Just the protections in the wood weren’t going to hold him back forever, especially with it cracked slightly open after the fall. I was just too shaken to even enter the back porch again that day. Liz hadn’t either. The nails of my first finger and thumb clicked back and forth nervously. It pulled on the skin at the bed like pressure instead of pain. Trying to trick myself, I jumped for the knob and jerked the door open. There was still a closed screen door but I felt one step closer and like I’d made my decision, no turning back. Liz left my side as I stepped off the tiny front stoop and met me again at a trot when I passed the point in the yard where the house had started to look small. The gate came up almost menacing even in the daylight. An iron beast lining the expanse of the entire property with black points sharp enough to tear clothing if someone were to try and climb it, not that anyone in the know would. At least, anyone who thought they were in the know.
The great big sycamore had started to change faster than any other trees across the property but there was still a bare spot where it had been hit by lightning last year. A third of the tree's branches were cut away in a fraction of a second. It was a hard time trying to get anyone up here to help chop up the dead stuff and even more so to keep them from the house. They may have thought I was hoarding something up there or maybe just a nutty clean freak, but at least they were safe then.
The first fallen leaves crunched under my sneakers and reminded me of yet another task to get done. At least it would be a while before I was bored again.
“Well, I don’t see a soul.”
At the west corner, not quite making a perfect ninety degrees, I was alone. I looked down the hill seeing the end of the drive and the beginnings of the grid patterned streets of town. A furniture store on the closest corner was selling green leather couches that I wouldn’t have purchased in a million years. There was a woman looking both ways down the road on the opposite corner, a faded blue scarf wrapped around her red-brown hair. For a reason I don’t understand, I hid behind the closest object, a decorative obelisk that’s writing hadn’t been decipherable in decades. Liz felt no embarrassment and sat on her haunches watching the woman walk up on the other side of the gate. When she reached a foot away she spotted the dog. Her eyes darted back and forth looking for any sign of a human and then her face dropped when she found none. As a last resort, she knelt down and twiddled her fingers at Liz calling her over. Liz stared at the hand knowing there was no treat in there, then looked up at her face.
“Come here, girl. You’re a pretty dog, aren’t you?”
Liz turned directly around to look at me as if asking what she should do. The stranger saw me then, following the dog’s gaze and spotting me peeking around like a scared old woman who hides in her house all day. I walked around the stone, hoping it looked more like I was only waiting back there with my arms crossed. She hurried to her feet and as an afterthought, untied the scarf and slid it from her head. Her hair was longer than I thought it was, going past her shoulders.
“I’m guessing you’re the one who left the note,” I said.
“I didn’t mean to be pushy or presumptuous. I only needed help,” she answered, noting the irritated tone to my voice.
Her eyes were very sincere but I didn’t let it persuade me. I’d met my fair share of good actors in the world. Also, I didn’t need anyone dying on my watch. Best for me to have run her off as soon as I could.
“What is it you want?”
“Everyone I asked said I should come here, that you would take him. They told me you were lonely and wouldn’t mind another hand for the work.”
“Wait, what? This is not a boarding house. The only living things I allow here are me and the dog-”
She cut me off.
“There’s nowhere for him to go. Nobody wants him and we moved here only weeks ago. Please, I know what this place is. The only people who watch over this place are those who either wish to die, don’t expect to live long, or those who’ve been forgotten.”
“Thanks,” I mumbled.
“You know it’s true and there is something about this child. You’ll see it if you let me bring him. There’s nowhere more fit for him to be and there will be a time when you are gone. What will become of this place? Can’t you feel it coming?”
“No, actually. I hadn’t been preparing for my demise. To be honest, I thought I had a long time to go.”
“I am sad for you,” she leaned against the bars, grabbing the iron beneath the points, “because someone gave you hope like this when they shouldn’t have. Look where you are, look how unprepared.”
I was appalled and quite confused by this stranger’s forwardness. I couldn’t even think of a response.
“Please, just let me show him to you. Then you will see if he can be trained or not. He’s already been thrown from everywhere else.”
“I don’t see that that’s possible. There’s no way you’ve been all over the U.S. Go bother some other hermit to adopt your little heathen. Come on, Liz,” I barked, walking away up the hill.
I heard her plead as I continued walking but the front door eventually blocked her out as I slammed it behind me.
*
*
*
Three days later I heard the first knock on the wall. I couldn’t place it at first thinking it might’ve been a branch or some lost sparrow nesting in the eaves. From the living room where I’d been tinkering with a wall clock it echoed in from the kitchen but when I went to the kitchen it came from the living room.
“What on earth,” I muttered, finally resolving to just go outside and see.
It hadn’t gotten too cold just yet but the spice in the air had finally left and wouldn’t be back until the next summer. I went from the front stoop over to the right of the house, passing Liz’s favorite tree and turning around the corner to where the back porch met the side wall. Just before where the screens began was a boy, cracking his knuckles on the wood. He looked confused as though something wasn’t working out as he’d intended.
“Aye! What are you doing?”
My voice rose as I truly felt how ridiculous this was. I knew who he was, generally speaking, and wondered how I was going to run him off to that odd woman. He stopped and watched me approach with an unflinching stare. He looked like the type of kid that would be called a perfect angel - blonde hair, blue eyes, and rosy cheeks - but there was something in the tilt of his face like if he wanted, he could think hard enough to make one of the branches above come down and crush me.
“Can I help you,” I said sarcastically but he didn’t take it that way.
“My sister said to stay here, that you would find me and take care of me.”
“Oh no. I’m not a sitter. Go back to where she brought you from.”
“I don’t know where that is. She said you were going to teach me things and she was making a new home for us until I was done.”
The kid had to be about seven or eight. The woman I guessed was the one he was talking about being his sister. It was messed up to lie to him that way so I felt bad in that right but I really couldn’t keep anyone there, much less a kid. Especially not when I was going to be repairing the cellar stairs soon.
“Alright…she just called and said she finished early. You got lucky, kid. Now run along,” I ordered with a shooing motion.
He blinked at me with that same strange expression.
“You’re lying.”
“No, I’m not.”
“She was lying too. You aren’t very good at this job.”
“What makes you say that? You don’t even know what it is I do.”
“Yes, I do. And all adults have to be good at lying to make it…you the most.”
He was a creepy little thing.
Abruptly, he picked up his feet and walked on past me like he was heading inside. I grabbed the sleeve of his jacket that felt like suede under my fingers. He froze and looked up at me suddenly with complete innocence. It made me think of a dog when it's begging for a treat and I shuddered at how well he played the part.
“Wait. I’ll take you on for a day at most, then you’re getting shipped off.”
He didn’t say a word so I let go of his shoulder and guided him to the front door and into the kitchen, not that he had trouble finding it.
“So, do you eat, sleep, and poop like regular kids or just live off unsettling people?”
He sat down on the stool I was in this morning and spun around to face me with a slightly confused look.
“I like spaghetti.”
“Of course, you do. Everyone does…even little demons,” I added, mumbling that last part while grabbing a pot from below.
I could feel his eyes on my back as I filled it with water and started the burner, tossing the match on the counter. As I reached in the top cabinet for the uncooked pasta, I heard the tick-tack of Liz’s nails entering the room but when I turned it wasn’t what I’d expected. The boy was only looking down at her mildly as she wagged her tail at him, not hopping down to scratch at her fur like most kids. I stared at their meeting for a minute and then went on with the cooking and eventually, Liz got bored with no attention, drank some water from her bowl, and moved on to lay out in the sun on the porch.
“Do you like cats,” I asked while measuring out a portion of noodles.
“I don’t know.”
“You’ve never seen a cat?”
“I don’t know,” he answered again.
That seemed a bit silly.
“You like spaghetti, don’t know if you care for cats, and you obviously aren’t partial to dogs. Do you know your name?”
“Ethan.”
“Okay, Ethan. I can remember that name easily. Ethan, would you like sauce and cheese with your pasta?”
“Yes, please.”
It was surprising that he even said please but I would take it. Thirty minutes later I was sitting across the couch from him, his plate empty on the coffee table with only a few red smears left to show any sign that it had held a meal and the television switched on to Gilligan’s Island. The chandelier started to shake just slightly, not enough for most people to notice, but his eyes darted to the ceiling right when mine did. He stayed watching it swing and I stared at him, realizing how odd he was quickly becoming.
In the exact same moment we stood, both freezing mid-stance.
“What are you doing?”
He swallowed and looked up at me sideways through his long lashes. It was such an “old person” gesture that I raised my eyebrow and looked at him quizzically.
“Can I have more,” he said, grabbing the plate with both hands.
“Sure.”
I took it from him and got what he wanted before ordering him to stay on the couch while I went upstairs. He did as told but with a reluctant expression. I managed a couple moments later to sneak past him with the meat platter but the way he sat on the couch, his back to me, looked like he was purposefully trying to appear like he wasn’t paying any attention. Maybe I was paranoid from being alone so often in a place like this especially, but there had to be a good reason why she wanted him here of all places. I was starting to wish I’d let her explain further if I’d known she was just going to throw him on me and leave.
The second visit to the attic of the year required a few less cuts and scrapes than the first, but once I’d quietly stepped foot back in the hall I found another thing that was strange. I sat the platter down on the side table, careful not to spill over any old blood, and walked around to the living room and then the other way to the kitchen looking for Ethan and hoping in my own secret and wretched way that maybe he decided to go find his sister. I was wrong. He was standing in the doorway of the back porch, Liz nowhere in sight, talking to someone. I knew it wasn’t Nathaniel in the cellar because the doors were too far away for his soft words to carry.
“I know. I think I can do better.”
Then he paused tilting his head a bit to the left. He was looking up like whoever it was, was slightly taller than me. I had an idea of who this could be but not even I had heard a word from it once in all my time.
“Marie said I would fit in here and that was- No, I don’t think I should…I’m much better, I promise.”
He started to reach out with his hand into the other room, like calming an unsure beast.
“Ethan,” I snapped.
He jumped and looked at me wide eyed. I could feel the other thing move on to the other end of the porch and through the wall into the dining room. I didn’t have a good feeling about the boy touching the thing. I never knew what it had wanted before this and it didn’t sit right with me the little of the conversation I had overheard. Nothing good came from these creatures acting as though you were here to cater to them.
“Where’s your food?”
He turned to one of the hall tables where his plate sat scraped clean once again.
“How did you- never mind. Are you done with the television?”
His head bobbed up and down before he really took in my appearance.
“You’re bleeding.”
“Yeah, I know,” I called, going to the other room to switch off the set.
“Why?”
“Because it’s part of my job.”
I was halfway up the stairs before I heard his smaller feet following me. I would have stopped him if he wasn’t staying the night but the fact was he would have to sleep in one of these rooms later anyhow. Secretly, I wished one of them had a lock on the outside so I could keep him from snooping while I got my own rest.
“Besides,” I paused to look behind me at his dimly lit face, “I thought you knew that already.”
“I did, I just… I just wanted to know what happened. You’re supposed to teach me anyhow.”
“Listen, you’ll be here for a very short amount of time. There’s no reason to put ideas into your tiny head with the ugliness that fills this place. Now, go in there so I can keep an eye on you.”
I gestured for him to enter the bathroom which he did but not without looking thwarted for a second. At least he’s melting that eerie façade to actually show emotions like a regular human, I thought. He sat down on the wooden surround at the end of the tub, facing where I would stand to use the sink. I eyed him curiously before searching for the iodine in the cabinet. Usually, Liz was the one joining me, watching with her ever steady eye as I disinfected the nasty wounds the tenants had given me so it was odd to have an actual person there. I hadn’t seen or heard from Liz since she’d found our new little roommate in the kitchen .
“What’s your name,” Ethan asked abruptly.
“First or last?”
“I don’t know.”
“I won’t bother with the last since it would probably be best if you didn’t know, but you can call me Theresa.”
“Is your dog’s name Liz, Theresa?”
I glanced at him through the mirror, surprised.
“Yes.”
“Liz knows why I fit in here too.”
“Does she?”
“I think she knows a lot of things. She’s good at listening to this place. She thinks they’ll like me like they like her.”
My own disquieted face looked right back at me, covered in scabs and fresh scratches and little dabs of orange. Just when I thought he might be somewhat normal he shifted my view right back. The bottle sat down on the sink counter with a little clink and the cotton swab without even a whisper of a sound fell further down into the basin. I turned to him and crossed my arms, leaning against the pedestal.
“By they you mean what I have living here? And that’s who you were talking to downstairs, right?”
He clammed up, looking down at the inside of the tub where the dotted grip pads and the drain plug sat side by side.
“Ethan, I obviously know what it was you were doing.”
Still he seemed to examine the surface of the porcelain as though it held a million secrets. I huffed and said, “Alright,” before wrapping up my first aid. The bottle fell into the sink, almost making me jump right as Liz appeared in the hall.
“Where’ve you been,” I asked, glancing.
Honestly, part of me was starting to believe I might walk into the yard at some point in the next couple days and find Ethan had done something to the poor dog. But for the moment, she stood wagging her tail at the boy who seemed to find her a little more than not interesting at all, before sitting down.
“What are you going to teach me first, Theresa?”
“You are a pushy kid. I just told you there was no need to corrupt you before you’ve even hit puberty.”
“But what else should we be doing today?”
“Laundry. That’s what we’re doing today,” I decided on a whim and took his hand.
He scrunched up his nose like that was the dumbest idea.
“Being the caretaker isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, kid. I still have to do the yard and house work and maybe one day, if you’re lucky, you’ll get to clean that toilet and tub drain out too.”
His face really twisted then but he didn’t resist me tugging him along and Liz followed us down to the back porch where I gave him the smaller basket of soiled dish towels and rags.
“Theresa,” he practically whispered when I bent over to grab my clothes.
I stopped with my hand on the basket handles and looked up at his cherubic face.
“She really isn’t coming back. She’s really gone.”
We looked at each other for a long moment, as if we’d been together since he was born.
“I know…let’s go find the bleach.”
*
*
*
“That’s where I have to sleep?”
“Mhmm.”
He looked up at me with uncertain, or rather unwilling, large eyes.
“Are you sure?”
I took that to really mean, “Please don’t make me sleep in the dark, drafty room.”
“Why? What’s wrong with it?”
He didn’t seem to want to say but his focus I noticed hadn’t moved. There was a radiator with chipping white paint on the wall opposite the bed and near to the left of that one of those room-dividing screens opened to the corner. I couldn’t tell which was frightening him or even why, especially when he acted so comfortable in the rest of the house with the other inhabitants.
“Honestly, I’ve slept in this room before when I was fixing up my own. It’s just as comfortable as the rest and look how big the bed is. I could hang the drapes back up on its canopy and it’ll be like a tent; your own little space to hide away.”
“Well then why don’t you sleep in here?”
It was a quick comment, another “adult” thing to have said, and I nudged him in with my knee to his rear to show him around in response.
“Because I’m bigger and therefore take up more space which the other bedroom has. Do you want the curtains or not,” I asked, really not wanting to dig them up but being willing to make him go to sleep in any way I could.
“I guess so.”
“Wonderful.”
The last time I’d messed with the bed curtains was several years before and I had a vague idea of where they might be. I padded down to the end of the hall, a section I usually ignored because - surprisingly enough in this house - it gave me the creeps. I couldn’t tell if it was the crawlspace down there, the fact that it had a door just like any other besides the fact that it was twice as solid but really went no place necessary besides in the wall, or because I had the strongest sensation that there was something undocumented over there. Something or someone that the owners had missed when they’d brought in their own shit. This was its home, it had always been here.
In my mind, it was entirely possible that dark happenings could go on in any place that had been traded back and forth so many times. Things were left, created by people signing their own ugly mark. Why would this one be any different?
It also unnerved me that this specific door was the only one without a knob or a lock. The only thing keeping it closed in place was a flimsy piece of metal resting in its matching arm. The clink of its opening made me want to flinch the same as if a glass vase had just hit the floor. I swiveled away from it, a shiver running through me, and to a different cupboard door that opened with a one solid squeak.
*
*
*
“Did you hear that?”
Ethan turned to me already tucked neatly under the covers that were pulled to his chin. He didn’t appear to be frightened by it but kept his gaze steady on me once again as the sound grew louder. The boy was unnervingly calm in the moment, not that it was a new development. My own heart began to beat heavily against its ribcage. The sound was unfamiliar and therefore, off-putting. I closed my eyes and tried listening more intently. There was the usual and muffled rattling of chains from the attic above as the woman dragged them back and forth, bored, but I knew there was something else above that high and keening. It was like a whistle, or even like a scream.
As abruptly as it came, it stopped again. I shrugged and Ethan watched me, still as stone, while I closed the door to his room. The grandfather clock in the hall ticked lazily, echoing off each of the closed doors, across the walls, and down the staircase as if it were chatting with its brother on the floor below. There was no hint of the piercing noise from the landing and although it was going to stick in the back of my mind I wasn’t about to let it steal sleep from me after the long day it had been. I trudged toward my own bedroom at the rhythm of the clock, a slow march into a night full of winding dreams.
*
*
*
“Quickly. Just take it.”
I knew in a groggy sort of way that this was not part of the ongoing swap of nonsense my mind had produced in the hours of the night. All the same, my eyes did not want to open yet.
There was a mumble, a sort of whimper of hesitation in an anxious voice.
“We need it.”
I sat bolt upright in the bed and looked around at the shadows in my room. Everything was as it usually was, I thought. The rickety victorian chair in the corner held a pile of my clothes folded high and the chest of drawers sat to its left. I faced the window letting in moonlight on the other side of the room and almost forgot for a moment that I’d cracked it open for air.
There was a voice, I reminded myself. I know I heard a voice.
My first thought was that Ethan had snuck into my room but I corrected myself.
That was not a child.
The person speaking had more of a woman’s tone anyhow.
My mind was groggy, confused by the fact that this had never happened before and the only female presences in the house I could recall were a young girl and the old lady in the attic. I thought perhaps Ethan had brought someone with him, let his sister onto the property, or attracted something new. But in the next few minutes, I walked down the hall and checked on the boy who appeared to be fast asleep. The drapes were opened just enough that he could still see the lamp on the nightstand he must have turned on after I’d left earlier.
Perhaps it’s just dreams meshing with reality.
I wandered away again and only paused while crawling back across the mattress when I thought a spot on the wall had caught my eye. An extra dark area that was new, there at the corner of my vision one second and gone the next. It had happened before. The feeling of this scene being repeated in my mind from another time in the past rushed upon me. I glared at the patch of shadow, unreachable by the moon. I didn’t like the thought that I was being toyed with when it skipped through my mind but also, I very much wanted to close my eyes.
The last thing I can recall was thinking there was definitely something odd about the way light filtered into that side of the house.
*
*
*
The cicadas were thrumming outside the screen door, an effect that wanted to put me to sleep. I had things to do, “people” to feed and although I didn’t want to, everything would get far worse rapidly if a few inmates started to go hungry. I glared across the table at my new housemate, disturbed by the fact that his baby face was somehow supposed to surpass me. Some dark part of my ego wanted to go ahead and show him the ropes. Ethan was more clueless than he realized. He was still very much in love with spaghetti and the only other thing I’d gotten him to try in two days was a handful of grapes. I was on my way to feed the old man when I felt a small tug on my sleeve. When I turned back, his gaze was fixed not on the bowl in my hands but the fruit I’d stuffed deep into my pockets. It seemed very important for him to try them, and although he had to have popped at least six down his gullet, he had stated firmly that they were actually disgusting. Children.
Ethan slurped up the last few noodles out of the bowl with a loud smack before looking about himself as pleased as the little boy had ever appeared to be. I looked at the clock. Just past eight-thirty. I was going to time him, keep track of how much pasta he could digest and when. In that moment, something dawned on me.
“Have you used the bathroom at all since you’ve been here? I don’t want you to get constipated or anything. You know where it is.”
Ethan peeked up at me from the table with very round blue eyes and nodded just barely.
I looked at him sidelong, knowing full well that if he hadn’t he probably wouldn’t tell me until it was too late. I was going to have to make him try some other foods. If I could feed the rest of these beasts, I could trick a little boy into some vegetables. He would need some fiber and definitely some iron if he was so determined to live in the house.
“Alright, get up. We’re working in the yard today.”
Ethan stood in a tiny, yet determined fashion before pointing to his feet.
“Do you think these shoes will be okay?”
I paused and glanced down at his miniature green sneakers with a chuckle. What a strange kid.
“I’m sure they’ll be just fine,” I reassured him, turning his shoulder to march us into the living room.
I didn’t think that the temperature had dropped enough just yet for him to be cold, especially with the sun out, but then again I knew nothing about children. I swiveled him to look down my nose at his little scrunched brow turned up to meet me, curious as to why I had him pause.
This was going to be a massive game of trial and error, him being under my care.
“Are you cold? Did she bring you with a coat? I don’t remember.”
“Yes, it’s upstairs.”
I moved to lightly shove him in that direction but his tiny frame protested. His feet stayed firmly planted in place.
“But I’m fine, I’m not cold.”
He was looking up. Instead of staring back into my face, worried I might force him up the stairs anyway, he focused a firm gaze diagonally above. There was someone up there looking forward to the moment he would be alone again. I could feel it just a minute after he had. All these years I had been curious as to what it wanted, what it craved for, because it had been absolutely silent during my whole time. In my own silly way, I had assumed it was part of the house before it was taken for its current purpose of boarding these beasts. I assumed it was practically harmless, a presence to be felt as I went about my business and nothing more.
But the wave of interest - hunger even - that rippled down at us made me realize that what it had wanted just happened to be something other than me.
Ethan met my eye again, seeing realization pass across my features.
“You didn’t sleep last night did you?”
He blinked once at me and pushed his lips together into a straight line that made two deep indents appear in the center of both cheeks.
Cherub, I thought, absolutely vulnerable.
I felt as though something was crawling up my spine, over my shoulder, and poised to stare at the young boy, ready to strike. It wasn’t as though I’d planned to let him out of my sight, but now it was simply a fact that it was absolutely necessary. Fuck. What kind of person drops off a child in this kind of place? I didn’t really give a damn about one day having a replacement sensing the fear in the eight-year-old's eyes while he tried to put on a blank expression.
He can’t stay here. I was determined now to find him a way out of this. He can’t stay here and live.
“We’re gonna be roommates now, alright? Starting tonight you stay in my room with me.”
I could hear the nails clicking before I saw her. Liz appeared from around the banister as if she’d been spending time in the back room, perhaps waiting for me to head down to the cellar again. The dog couldn’t remember that the stairs had collapsed. It would be a while before anyone really descended. I had no idea how I was going to go about rebuilding a set of stairs and I knew absolutely that a ladder just wouldn’t work. The thought of turning my back on the creature below, fully exposed, pulsed in my mind. I felt my mouth twitch absentmindedly and shook it off.
Ethan glanced down at Liz who nosed his hand gently. The boy did not reciprocate and said in a matter-of-fact tone, “She has blood in her fur.”
And it was true, there was a smear of something rusty where her fur got thicker around the collar. In my mind I took that to mean it was old blood. Liz had just found something dead among the bracken in the yard and rolled in it like dog’s often do, a gross habit I never really understood and couldn’t get Liz to stop no matter how intelligent she seemed sometimes.
The dog blinked up at me as if she could smell my slight frustration but then immediately turned her head to the top of the stairs. She was quite obvious about disliking what she saw there and laid her ears flat to her head before exiting into the kitchen to stand by the back door. She always knew when we were leaving the house. She also always knew who was in it.
*
*
*
Ethan was just tall enough that he could hold a rake and actually do something with it, and determined enough that what he was accomplishing barely qualified as productive. Well, at least he’s preoccupied in a spot where I can keep an eye on him, I decided. I never really rake the yard anyhow.
I felt the ladder below me wobble slightly on its feet as I refocused on the branches above where I’d been trimming. My hand gripped tightly at the first branch to stabilize, heart fluttering a little at the idea of actually falling off and seeing the earth come up to meet me with a punishing blow to my bones. I’d only taken the accidental plunge once but my shoulder still felt funny if the weather turned or if I used it too much.
The saw dug back and forth into the dying limb as I thought about my own age, how it continued to increase faster and faster each year. There was no way of stopping it. One day in the house would be my last. I couldn’t recall who had been the caretaker before. If my memory was correct, no one had ever mentioned the person, which could have been why I found it so strange that they’d left the boy with me to literally raise up into such a position. Had I been doing the job so poorly? Then again, why would they have me train him if that was the case?
The branch came away from the trunk and hit the ground with a very hollow thunk. It looked to me like an arm lying on the ground among the leaves where I’d already trimmed the scraggled bits off the end.
I reached forward for the second limb, one of a batch that had been affected by a plague in the dead of summer and I’d only put off trimming until the tree - and most of nature - was going to sleep. The blade was about halfway through the thicker piece of wood when Liz let out one deep bark.
Liz never barked. In the seven years we’d lived together, I had never once heard her voice.
When I turned to stare over my shoulder, to the exact spot the boy and the dog had been just a minute before, all I found was the empty yard and a tiny pile of messily raked leaves.
Once more, Liz let out a sharp yap that had me practically sliding down the ladder in one surprisingly agile movement. I rushed for the small copse of trees knowing Ethan couldn’t have gotten far. There wasn’t anything on the other side of it but the fence that stood way over my own head. My mind started racing.
The rake’s not even lying on the ground anywhere. Could he fit through the bars? How far away was Liz’s bark? I swear she was just here, a few feet over. I didn’t think that the shadow that filled the house, that had followed me from room to room on occasion breathing cool air over my shoulder, could leave its confinement of the building's solid walls. I’d never felt it out on the rest of the grounds. But, then again, it clearly wasn’t interested in me.
“Ethan!”
There was just enough brush, enough of the trees and their fallen brethren, that I could not see all the way through the grove. I knew that I would have to walk a little ways if I wanted to meet the property line and worried that somehow the boy had already gotten that far…or been taken there.
I stood thinking for a moment before shouting one last time, “Liz!”
My ears were met with silence. Even the dog wasn’t responding. A different sort of concerning, disturbing, thought came to my mind. What if he wasn’t outside at all anymore? What if somewhere in my distractions from having to be his new guardian I’d missed a step? I swiveled in the dry leaves to look toward the kitchen windows behind me.
Any one of them could have gotten out, I thought.
Something shifted just off to my left and I shook the last remnants of the horrifying images off before rushing straight for it. I had been right, Ethan had somehow made it all the way near the black bars that kept everything in including us. He seemed to be in shock, Liz somewhat guarding his small frame warily. The rake was still clutched tightly in both hands. He was squeezing the wood of the handle so tightly that his knuckles had gone as white as the ashen skin of his face.
“Ethan, why didn’t you answer me when I called,” I practically growled at the child.
I took a step forward and paused when Liz glanced over with a strangely human look of concern.
“Ethan.”
He was frozen in place, refusing to look up from some random point on the ground in front of him. Although, I wondered, perhaps it’s not so random.
My eyes scanned the ground, searching for anything that would cause such an intense reaction to come out of a kid. Liz hasn’t budged so it can’t be that bad, I decided. But then again, she barked in the first place. I wasn’t sure if it was a signal from the dog that Ethan was leaving or a protest that he’d gone out of my view. It was completely out of the ordinary and I found my hands shaking slightly, a second later something brown and slithering catching my eye.
My blood ran cold as I watched the blotched, brown scales pass by under some sycamore leaves and a tramped-on old thorn bush. It didn’t seem like the snake was in a hurry, more like its work was done and now it would go look for a snack. Ethan’s eyes like deep blue saucers stayed pointedly fixed on the cursed reptile as if he didn’t have the choice of looking away. How is he going to manage? If even a snake - probably a poisonous one, I might add - frightens him, he’ll last about an hour without me. I shook my head, wondering how long this was all going to last before I found a better home for him and mentally made a note to dial the one number I was never supposed to use unless the “sky was falling”. If they were going to give me more chores to do they needed to at least speak up about it…or give me some kind of a raise.
“Hey, you’re okay. It’s leaving, see? It wasn’t that interested in us,” I said, before gingerly stepping toward my tiny ward. “Ethan, snap out of it.”
Before I could reach out to him though, Liz barked once again loud enough for me to grab my ears and sharp enough for the boy to actually notice the snake had disappeared.
“What is your problem today?”
Liz did what she often did before and nosed the back of my leg before pointing it toward Ethan’s and sniffing the air in his general direction.
“I don’t know what you’re trying to tell me, lady.”
The dog softly snorted in protest before giving me an expression that let me know I was the dumbest person she had dealt with.
I sighed, “Whatever. Ethan let’s get you back closer to the house so I can keep an eye on you. You can’t be wandering off in these woods with just the dog guiding you. I hope you’ve learned your lesson after this because…”
But Ethan wouldn’t budge. He had one hand enveloped by mine and the other still keeping a tight hold on the rake between us. I looked down at him confused. His expression now reminded me of when Liz made a mess on the hardwoods.
“Theresa, I don’t feel so good.”
“I know. You’re just in shock, we’ll get you inside so you can calm down a bit.”
“No,” he hurriedly added. “I think it got me.”
My brow furrowed before I realized what he was staring at now. His pants legs completely covered his ankles but I knew it would have been easy for something small and looking for a fight to slither right up. One of us would have to check. As he let the rake drop to the ground I released him, his chapped hands turning up the hem over his right foot. There were indeed marks harsh and pink across his pale ankle bone; one closer to a scratch than an actual puncture, but it was all the same to me.
“Oh, god.”
And just a second after seeing the expression on my face, Ethan bent over and vomited all the spaghetti I’d made for him onto the bracken below.
With no hesitation, I grabbed the boy and scooped him up into my arms. In the back of my mind it registered how light he was, no more than the dog could be, but most of me shook with the thought that he would die under my watch.
I ran for the house trying to recall where last I’d left the car keys. It had been ages since I’d left the place and never alone, especially not in peak season. I wasn’t sure the monster would even start since it gave me fits on a good day. Does this count as the sky falling?
I could hear Ethan swallow down the bile that must have been in his throat before he croaked, “Theresa, I’m going to be sick again. Can we slow down?”
“I think you were just bitten by a copperhead, kid. We don’t have time to slow down,” I growled, already breathless by the time we reached the main yard.
The sun was beginning to drop lower. It has to be afternoon already, I worried. I paused looking around me for a moment to think things through. The child waited patiently in my arms, watching for my next move and starting to look ghastly with either motion sickness or venom. The longer I stood in one spot the more locked in place I became, decisions and responsibilities running through my mind at full speed.
Nathaniel was still trapped below in the cellar, the stairs horribly shattered to the point that I had trouble lowering his meals down to him, especially because he would viciously try to swat past it at me.
Everyone but the shadow, the thing that most wanted Ethan, was stuck away in their respective rooms. They had all been relatively quiet for the start of Autumn.
I wondered if they would notice if I was gone. The quiet of no heartbeats pounding against the plaster walls and wooden floor joists, no smell of life to waft up and down the different levels of the building.
Would the owners find out that I’d had to go at such a crucial moment? I couldn’t think of a way that they would but they seemed to know everything. Eyes were hidden in the corners of each room.
Liz whined and tucked her tail between her legs. I looked down at the vein of white fur that ran down the center of her head making a bridge over the black of her ears.
“You’ll have to keep an eye on everything while we’re gone. Okay, girl?”
*
*
*
Theresa and Ethan had left the house no more than half an hour before when Liz’s ears perked up. She sat alone in the center of the drive, waiting on their safe return in the anxious way most dogs do with their owners. But the sound of the engine that suddenly made its way up was wrong to her, so she fled before the wheels hit the gravel to a safe place behind the rose bushes.
Liz watched as the large man jumped down from the truck and stormed forward to the front steps of the house. His fist slammed so angrily against the dark paint of the door that it had her hunkering down even further into the grass.
Danger.
Her instincts were to go and warn the stranger off. People were to be protected, she knew, but this man was not familiar and stunk of rage. She was smart enough to stay hidden and she knew that if she could catch his scent then so could the others.
The man flew from the steps and went searching for another entrance toward the back. Liz, keeping low to the ground and knowing all the best spots to be shadowed, followed his figure in the dimming light.
There are two of them, she thought. One is a friend.
Liz was a tad off, of course. Only hours before, she had wandered to the back porch for the second time that day. A voice had risen from the cracked cellar door. Theresa hadn’t been able to properly close it since the day they’d barely escaped and the steps had been shattered.
She liked Nathaniel and so her tail wagged at the idea of a surprise visit. She nosed the door open a little wider. Dark eyes found hers with a sly smile.
“Hello there, little one.”
For a brief moment, Liz had thought she recalled a reason to be afraid of Nathaniel. It had something to do with the stairs, but then she decided that that had been an accident. Theresa should have been more careful. Nathaniel was always nice, always knew where to scratch behind her ears.
In the next few moments, she was helping him out of the cellar. His hands found purchase on the chunks and splinters of wood left - the protections once carved into each plank now shattered - and she watched as they dug into his soiled skin enough to bleed. It was an ascent he would have been willing before if not for the extra wards burned into the thick slats of the cellar lid. Liz had remedied that easily though, and it was a trip of meer minutes up into the light of day.
He squinted, clothes befouled and horrid face in full view for the world to see, but there was only Liz. Her tail wagged a little more as she waited for her reward scratches.
“That’s a good little beasty,” he cooed and gave her a rub at the neck. He brought one gnarled finger up to his lips and whispered. “We’ve got to keep quiet now. This is just between you and me, alright?” And then, he was off.
Nathaniel was hungry now, though. Liz could see it in his eyes from where he stood by the old shed Theresa never let her enter.
She hadn’t thought of that and had no time to move before both of them were surprised to see the stranger enter the house. Her ears raised at the sound of two voices from the kitchen. This was a confusing development and Liz slipped out from behind the bushes, taking small sneaky steps in that direction.
Did they come home when she wasn’t looking?
Nathaniel’s eyes found hers and he shook his head once before disappearing into the evergreens.
It was probably best that she stay with the roses.
*
*
*
Ethan stayed quiet most of the ride home until, under the pressure of my own thoughts about the evening, I couldn’t stand it any longer and roused him by speaking up. As soon as he heard my voice he seemed to jump a little and swivel in the squeaky leather seat underneath him. His entire face was averted to the window beside.
“So, are you feeling any better?”
“Yeah,” he practically whispered.
He had turned out to be fine after the doctor’s examination. The snake hadn’t actually been venomous, just a copycat of its scarier twin. What bothered me was the separate conversation I’d had with one of the staff. I’d told them I was his cousin on the form, that I was just watching over him while his parents were away, but when everything was about to be wrapped up and we were waiting patiently in our own curtained area a nurse pulled me to the side. She clearly didn’t want to be within earshot because I was taken all the way around a corner off toward the waiting room with a promise to Ethan that I’d be right back.
“I don’t mean to alarm you but you said that boy is your cousin, correct?”
I nodded, knowing all too well the truth.
“Do you get to see them often? Are you around his family much?”
“Not all that much, no. Why?”
I was more than a little confused at what she was about to say. As far as I knew, Ethan wasn’t from the area, not that he’d told me anything at all. It was just the fact that his sister had mentioned the “townspeople” like they weren’t hers. As if she were a visitor.
It seemed like the type of situation where someone decided popular gossip was fact and this nurse was about to tell me the dirty laundry of Ethan’s entire family, which she’d only heard a week ago from an uncle or something. Like she was trying to warn me off, but what she said next I wish I could say was a surprise.
“Well,” she brought her hands together in front of her and stared at the tiled floor. “We found some places, on his person, you know? Have you ever noticed any signs,” she trailed off a bit like I would know what she meant before adding, “…of abuse?”
I believe at that point I shook my head but it was a halfhearted gesture. I had become a little bit numb.
“I’m sorry. I know how distressing this can be to hear but it’s also important to take notice. You weren’t aware of anything going on?”
She had the funny kind of sweet voice that belonged with someone twice her age, that made her seem more like someone’s grandmother than twenty or thirty-something years old. I thought about how I should be responding and I had made a point to focus on the little flower sewn into the lapel of her uniform.
“I know what she told you,” Ethan said, abruptly pulling me from my memory.
“What?”
“That nurse took you away to tell you what they saw when they checked up on me. Not the snake bite.”
I tried to look over at him and not crash the car into a building but his little face was focused on what was passing outside.
“How do you know that?”
“It’s happened before but all the other times it was my sister. She pretended not to know.”
He glanced my way once slowly. “You actually didn’t know. I didn’t want you to find out.”
I was beginning to become nauseous and a small part of me wished I had kept my mouth shut. I could have pretended like the nurse told me nothing, anything else, and then Ethan could go on his way to a healthy home and hopefully a nurturing environment. He still had time. Let the rest of us forgotten souls deal with the dead.
“Why didn’t you want me to know?”
“Because,” his fingers twisted a bit in his lap.
We were at the end of the drive now and I hesitated to make the turn up the hill. The sun was gone, the headlights shining beams across the empty road ahead. It was important that we get back as soon as possible but I felt that Ethan might clam-up once we were out of the car.
I made the turn anyway. The gates passed by in the darkness and I could see something off about the house above, it just hadn’t registered as I led us as slowly as possible upward.
I bit my lip and asked quietly, “Were you ashamed?”
“Only because it didn’t work.”
My foot slipped off the accelerator for a moment before I recovered and continued the car forward. We were halfway toward the house now, where the drive fell off from pavement to gravel.
“What do you mean? What didn’t work?”
“It’s why I had to come and stay with you. They kept trying but it wasn’t making me get any better so they said I should come here. If I was around them all the time I would have to do my best.”
I could feel anger and confusion twisting up my expression. My mouth fell open but I found that none of my sentences, or simple questions even, could come out coherently, so I took a moment to breathe before I accidentally exploded on the wrong person.
Ethan decided to go on.
“I don’t think I am getting any better though.” His face was lit up a bit now by the light at the end of the drive. “And no offense, Theresa, but you seem kind of bad at it too.”
Flabbergasted I stopped the car a few feet short and stared at him. His expression was honest and part of me knew he was right, but it was still a low blow. I’d only just tried to save his life.
Then again, he probably wouldn’t have gotten the snake bite if I had been actually watching him instead of putting that on the dog.
Where is Liz, I thought as I finally turned to the house.
That’s when I noticed the other vehicle in the drive. The truck was dark green and parked so far off to the right that I almost missed it while looking at the lights that were on in the house which definitely hadn’t been when we’d left. Everything but the kitchen and the living room was alive.
“Theresa, who’s that?”
I turned my head back to Ethan who was staring straight ahead and in the same moment heard the crunching of gravel footsteps outside the car. A man I didn’t recognize was marching straight for the hood only to pause a second later with a murderous stare in my direction. This should be fun. I didn’t think I let it show that I was a tad afraid but when I turned to Ethan again he was already analyzing me. He already knew this was a stranger before I opened my mouth.
“Stay in the car. Lock the doors behind me and no matter what, don’t open them. Not even if I beg you to, alright?”
He nodded his head twice, eyes tired and wide in his face but seemed otherwise unconcerned.
I slid out of the front seat to meet my fate.
*
*
*
Theresa is making a bad choice, Ethan thought, but he knew she was the adult. Whatever she told him to do he would try his best to remain obedient. She had taken care of him up until this point. That was new.
He watched as her figure, shadowed and obscure behind the dusty windshield, met the man’s. He was quite a lot taller than her and Ethan could hear that he wasn’t happy or pleasant by the sound of his voice. He could hear Theresa trying to reason with the stranger which only made him angrier. There wasn’t much of the conversation he caught but he knew he’d heard the word “father” and the name Cody.
Ethan glanced at the round clock on the dash. 7:23. His stomach growled like an angry animal.
“Listen, I don’t know who you’re looking for and I don’t really care. The kid in that car is named Ethan. Now, I’m going to ask you politely one more time to get the hell off my property before I call the police up here.”
“I’ll tell you right now, you’re a lying bitch. I can see his face from here. That is my son, Cody. You’re lying right to my face just like the day you fucking freaks snatched him away. I wanted no part of this, I just wanted my son back away from this bullshit. You’re all going to get him butchered.” He was practically yelling in Theresa’s face at that point and Ethan was surprised at how well she stood her ground with the size difference. The man was towering over her with rage.
She shook her head which visibly irritated him enough that he pushed past her headed straight for the passenger door.
Ethan shrunk into the seat further and spotted the locks still pushed down safely.
There was a moment of struggling and shouting where Theresa tried to grab at the man, the man pulling at the handle of the car finding he couldn’t get in, and him turning on her with his fists.
Ethan’s hands twitched toward the door before he heard Theresa’s voice in his head tell him to stay put no matter what.
Outside, gravel was kicked out and rained against the side of the car. Ethan heard a gasp from Theresa and then there was only the shape of one standing up in the moonlight. The stranger stared down at his work. Theresa was at his feet where Ethan couldn’t see and she was absolutely silent. He found his voice lodged in his throat with her name wanting to croak out but he knew she wouldn’t hear him.
Then the man turned back to Ethan’s door handle.
To Be Continued…
