Элизабет Чандлер - The Back Door of Midnight

He grimaced. “Well, good luck.”

“I’m surprised your friend didn’t tell you that I stopped by her shop.” The tone of my voice gave away my feelings about his friend.

“What friend?” he asked, caution seeping into his voice.

“The guy at Tea Leaves. The guy who followed me down to the park, then up High Street. Either he’s a lousy stalker or he was trying to intimidate me.”

Without comment, Zack picked up the oars and started to row.

“Why?” I asked. “Why did he do that?”

Zack’s face was a mask, his eyes avoiding mine, which was a mistake: As long as I wasn’t looking in his eyes, I had a fighting chance against the spell they cast.

“What is your friend’s connection to the fire?” I persisted.

“What is his connection to my uncle’s death? What’s yours?”

He rowed in silence. We rounded a bend in the creek, and his home slid into view.

“Tell me what you know,” I demanded.

“It’s complicated, Anna.”

“There’s nothing like facts to make things simpler.”

But he wouldn’t answer me. Letting one oar drop, he steered with the other as we drifted toward the Flemings’ dock. His long fingers caught the rope that I had so carefully untied. While he secured the boat, I unfastened my life jacket.

“You have three choices,” Zack said. “You can climb without my help and scrape your knees. I can give you a push from behind. Or I can climb out first and give you a hand from above. Which would you like?”

“A hand from above.”

He scrambled out of the boat, then extended his hand, pulling me up easily.

“Anna.” He stood so close, I could smell the creek on him.

“Take care of Iris. And let the police take care of the rest.”

Mere closeness was as dangerous as his eyes. “Is that advice or a warning?” I asked.

“Both.”

I WALKED TOWARD the gate in the hedge alone, veering from Zack’s path as soon as I could. I heard a dog barking, a shrill whistle, then the sound of a door closing. The yard was suddenly quiet.

“I’ve been waiting for you.”

The voice came from behind me, and I jumped, letting go of the gate I had just opened.

“I didn’t mean to scare you,” the woman said. The voice was that of an older woman. In the thin light coming from the Flemings’ windows, her hair looked white, a fluffy halo around her head. “You’re Joanna’s daughter.”

“Yes. I’m Anna.”

“I saw you with the goats yesterday.”

I remembered the stocky figure in the black-and-white uniform. “And I saw you,” I told her. “Do you work for the Flemings?”

“My name is Audrey Sanchez.”

She said it as if that should mean something to me. It didn’t. “Nice to meet you.”

“Are you psychic, Miss O’Neill?”

“My last name is Kirkpatrick now,” I said, but smiled, relieved to know that something as silly as that was on her mind. “And no, I’m not. The farmer refused to leave until he got some advice, so I pretended to do what Aunt Iris does.”

“What Iris does is wrong.”

“Excuse me?”

“It is an unnatural ability,” the woman said. “Iris’s knowledge is unholy. It is against God’s laws. Her ways are the ways of the devil.”

For a moment I wasn’t sure what to say. “Well. . well, everyone is entitled to an opinion, and I suppose that’s yours.”

“And God’s,” she replied.

“You talk to him directly?”

“Every day.”

“In prayer,” I said, hoping that was all she meant. If she imagined it was by Verizon, Aunt Iris wasn’t the only loony on Oyster Creek.

“I can tell you are an innocent girl,” Ms. Sanchez said, “and that concerns me. You need to be careful.” There was genuine worry in her voice. “This is a house of evil.”

“Oh!”

“It is so easy to stray.” One doughy hand massaged the other as she spoke. “William strayed.”

“Uncle Will?”

“He was once righteous and God-fearing, but he turned toward the darkness.”

“Really.”

“If he hadn’t, he would not have suffered a fiery death.”

I stared at her. “What do you mean?”

“Psychics are the tools of the devil. Perhaps you weren’t aware of it, but William protected Iris. He was in league with her and therefore brought on his own death. It was the only thing that could save him — fire here rather than fire hereafter.”

By that, I assumed she meant hell. “I see. Well, thanks for the advice. I’m getting a lot of it tonight.” I pushed open the gate, but the woman caught it, pulling it closed.

“What was Iris burying today?”

I faced her. “When?”

“About ten o’clock this morning.”

Right after I went out.

“She had a jar,” the woman went on.

“Oh, that. Uncle Will’s ashes — at least she thinks they are.

Where did she put them?”

“Behind the old kitchen.”

Close to Uncle Will’s den. That made sense.

“Be careful, girl,” Ms. Sanchez warned. “Evil draws evil. If something tells you to get out of the house, get out.”

“Don’t worry,” I replied, “I don’t usually argue with voices.”

Her eyebrows drew together. “Are you hearing them?”

“Not yet.”

She touched my arm lightly. “I am here if you need my help.”

Just what I needed, another crazy lady. “Thanks. G’night.”

On the back step of the House of Evil, I enjoyed an icy glass of Dr Pepper, then went in and took a shower undisturbed. I called good night to Aunt Iris, who wished me the same from the other side of her bedroom door. Not only did she remember I was Anna, she had thoughtfully set a fan on the bureau by my bed. With a day’s worth of heat trapped beneath the roof, I turned it on full blast and aimed it at my bed, where I lay down, thinking I’d never fall asleep. Less than five minutes later, I closed my eyes.

I awoke to a low vibrating sound. At first I thought it was the fan, but the sound grew louder, more intense.

Remembering my previous dreams, I waited anxiously for what came next. The strange electrical buzz ran through my body, making each nerve ending tingle. I tried to raise my arms and found them as useless as dead things. I couldn’t even blink my eyes.

Let go, I told myself, recalling the words that had released me once before from the noise and paralysis. Let go, I repeated in my head over and over, until not only my mind but my heart gave up the struggle against something that seemed meant to be.

For a moment all I knew was darkness, then, at the top of the blackness, I saw a silvery outline, the wall like that of a castle. Immediately, I found the door in the wall and went through it. The maze of paths was there, just as before, and the tall figures, blurred forms. I remembered that during my last dream experience, when I had complained to Aunt Iris about my vision, it had cleared a little.

“Aunt Iris, I can’t see. I want to see what that is.”

I found myself gazing at a rabbit. Tall as a person, its posture was almost human, like that of an animal character in a children’s book. I ventured closer, wanting to see what its rough surface was made of, when suddenly, I began to fall — Alice down the rabbit hole!

When the falling stopped, I knew where I was: the burn site. I heard someone behind me and turned quickly. The scene swam in my head, the images colliding, wobbling, then settling.

A girl had run past me. A guy was chasing her. Zack.

He didn’t appear to see me, having eyes only for the girl he had just caught in his arms, the girl who was at Tea Leaves, the girl at his stepmother’s party.

“Erika, stop! This is crazy!” He pulled her back against him.