Элизабет Чандлер: The Back Door of Midnight

Returning to the kitchen, I finished mine, then sat on the back stoop, watching the first shy stars appear. I wondered if Zack and his girlfriend had hung around for the party. A hedge about four feet high separated his yard from Aunt Iris’s. With no lights burning on the O’Neill property other than the beacon at the end of Uncle Will’s dock, I figured no one from the party could see me. I walked halfway down the slope to the water and looked back at the two houses. Aunt Iris’s was dark, huddled against the trees. Zack’s home was lit like a manse in a movie: lamps shining softly inside the long windows, candles flickering on the patio, torches winding a path down the black velvet lawn, red and gold lanterns on the dock.

I walked down the mowed path to Uncle Will’s dock. His boat was missing. A new ladder had been installed on the side of the dock where he used to tie up. I guessed he wasn’t as agile as he’d once been.

For some reason, I have always found black water scary.

So I sat on the dock with my back to the dark creek and the party, facing the bridge with its old-fashioned lamps and the town twinkling beyond it. Wisteria was surrounded by water on three sides, the Sycamore River and the creeks of Oyster and Wist, creeks that were as wide as the river itself.

It was Aunt Iris’s and Uncle Will’s father who had purchased this old house and property outside of town, next to the bridge over Oyster Creek, a perfect place for him to set up as a large-animal vet who called on farms.

I wondered what it was like to be as old as Aunt Iris, living your whole life in this one house — except for the hospital stays, of course. Had Uncle Will joined the army to get away from the small town, to see the world? Too late now to ask him that. I wondered, if I had come a week earlier, whether I could have kept his death from happening.

I sat swinging my legs above the water. The smell of the creek made me think of the summer days I had sat on the dock with him, wearing one of his fishing hats — they must have been his, they always fell over my eyes — each of us holding a rod. I fought back tears. For a moment I thought he was there — actually there — resting a hand on my shoulder. I turned quickly.

At the same time, standing on a dock a hundred feet across the water, Zack turned toward me. The dark-haired girl I had seen earlier leaned against him casually, her head turned away from me. Zack gazed at me, his face thoughtful in the gold light of the lanterns. He looked. . and looked. I finally glanced down. The dark stretch of creek between us reminded me of just how far apart our worlds were. I rose to my feet and headed back to the house.

After entering the kitchen, it took me a few minutes to find the light switch. A bright kitchen is usually cozy, but with no streetlights around, I found the sudden blaze of light unnerving. I felt like a lit-up window display, unable to see what was outside in the trees. I turned off the light and let my eyes adjust to the darkness. Then I stepped out the front door of the kitchen onto the narrow porch that ran the length of the lower part of the house. I followed it to the end, past Aunt Iris’s Chevy, and retrieved a flashlight from my car’s emergency kit.

Turning back to the long house, surveying it from end to end, I saw that the old kitchen, now Uncle Will’s den, was connected to the main house by the new kitchen and another room. All the rooms on the left side of the house had a door to the front, facing the trees, and a door to the back, facing the creek. There was one room I hadn’t looked in, the one between the old and new kitchens. I walked toward it, shining my light on its entrance.

I found the door locked, and not just the door, but the window, too. I shone my light through it, but I could see only a table and bookshelves. At home, when going to bed, we closed up and locked the windows on the first floor, but it appeared that, with the exception of this one room, Aunt Iris’s house was always open. Oh, well.

Upstairs, I found the door to Aunt Iris’s room still shut. I pressed my ear against it and, hearing nothing, called her name softly.

“William?” she replied, sounding as if she were half asleep.

“No. It’s Anna. I’m going to bed now. I’ll be in the room next to Uncle Will’s, in the bed where I used to sleep, okay?”

She didn’t answer, and I wondered if she had fallen back asleep. “Good night,” I said quietly.

“Good night.”

I changed into my nightshirt, put on clean athletic shorts, and laid a pair of slip-on shoes next to my bed, just in case.

Exhausted by all the emotions of the day, I stretched out on the little bed and stared up at the sloping ceiling. The soft lamp next to my bed cast an arc of light against the low ceiling. I remembered as a child gazing at that particular pattern of light and shadow, staring at it until my eyes were too heavy to stay open.

I awoke to a low throbbing sound. I lay there, eyes closed and listening. I felt anxious, as if some part of me knew what the sound was, knew what would happen next, and didn’t want it to. I couldn’t move my arms, couldn’t roll over to cover my face, couldn’t even turn my head to see what or who was next to me. My bed began to shake. A strange, electric energy traveled up my body, taking over me, leaving every muscle, tendon, and nerve tingling.

Stop! Please stop!

And then I remembered the last time, the familiar voice, the calming words: Anna, let go.

Let go, let go, I repeated to myself.

The sound and shaking stopped. Able to move, I stood up. I was surrounded by darkness. I looked for the flickering orange light, but it wasn’t there, and I began to panic again.

“Help me!”

I could speak. I could hear my own voice.

The opaque blackness slowly lightened, as if the moon was emerging from behind a cloud. I gazed upward and saw an edge to the darkness, like the rim of a high wall. It was traced in silvery light and notched like the battlements of a castle. I lowered my eyes, trying to find the bottom of the blackness, and saw an opening in the wall. If there was a choice, it didn’t feel like it to me; I had to go through, and I did.

On the other side of the wall were paths, many of them, but they all went to one place. Two tall figures stood close to me, still as statues. I moved past them, uneasy with the way they seemed to watch me.

Suddenly, the ground gave way. I was falling down a hole.

A small light appeared in the distance, and I moved toward it. From my previous dream, I thought I knew where I was headed. I expected to smell fire and hear laughter and talking, but the night was silent. All I could smell was a pinelike sweetness and the sour odor of wet ashes. There was no flickering brightness tonight, just one small bobbing light and a single voice — Aunt Iris talking to herself.

I could see the shape of her, her loose dress and wild hair, but everything was blurry, one form melting into the next. “Aunt Iris, what is going on?”

She tilted her head as if she heard my voice.

“Please,” I begged. “I don’t know what’s happening to me.

I can’t see very well. Aunt Iris, I need to see.”

As soon as I spoke, I saw that the bobbing light was a flashlight. My vision had become clearer, although things still looked strange. I could see police tape in all four directions, as if I were standing in the center of a crime site and had eyes in the sides and back of my head.

The ground beneath me was dark and crusty — scorched, I realized; the car was gone, but this was where it had burned. Aunt Iris sat down, dug her fingers into the ground, and raised her palms, letting the ashy earth sift through her fingers. She looked bizarre, her legs spread out like a little girl’s, her hands scooping the soft surface like a child playing in a sandbox. She took a jar from her pocket and unscrewed the lid. After setting it next to her, she continued to sift through the ashy earth. When she found a handful she liked, she put it in the jar.