Элизабет Чандлер: The Back Door of Midnight

I watched for several minutes. “Aunt Iris, are you trying to collect Uncle Will’s ashes?”

Again she cocked her head, but she didn’t answer and didn’t look at me.

“The sheriff will give him back when the coroner is finished.”

She grimaced.

“Uncle Will was inside the trunk when the car burned. I don’t think those are his ashes.”

“Go away.”

“What are you trying to do?” I persisted.

“Don’t tell me what to do!” she snapped, as if she hadn’t heard me correctly. “I’m sick to death of listening to voices.”

“I’m not one of your voices,” I argued. “I’m—”

“I’m not listening! I can’t hear you!”

“—Anna.”

She dropped the jar and held her hands over her ears. “I can’t hear you, I can’t hear you, I can’t hear you,” she chanted loudly.

Seeing that I was upsetting her, I backed away. As I did, she raised her head and looked in my direction.

“Anna? Anna, is that you? Are you dead?” she asked, then answered her own question before I could. “Yes, yes, I can see clearly, you’re on the other side now. I shouldn’t have let it happen, but I hope you will be happier.”

I quickly looked down at my body. I could see through it! It was more like light than substance, and through the sheer light that was me, I saw mud and tire tracks. I stretched out my hand. It was transparent. My God, I was dead!

Help me! Uncle Will, help me. I want to go home!

There was a rush of darkness, stars flying past me, as if Uncle Will had caught me with his fishing line and reeled me in through the night. When I opened my eyes, I was lying on my back in bed. I lifted my head to look across the long attic room. What was happening to me?

I could move and could see my fingers now, solid skin and bone tightening around the sheet. I was alive. Gradually, my body relaxed. It was just a nightmare, I told myself, like the one I had the night Uncle Will died. I didn’t want to think about why I was having these nightmares. All I wanted to do was stay awake, to keep myself from dreaming again, but my eyes felt tired and gritty, my lids heavy. The weight and weariness of my arms and legs, the humid air, even the damp feel of the sheets — the physical sensation of these things — was reassuring. I gave in and fell asleep.

WHEN I ROLLED over to look at my travel clock the next morning, it was already nine thirty. I sat up quickly, bumping my head on the low ceiling. I listened for a moment, heard nothing but birds, then headed toward the hallway bathroom.

Aunt Iris’s bedroom door was shut. The image of her sitting in ashy dirt, like a baby plopped down in a sandbox, flashed before my eyes. If the dream hadn’t been so weird, I would have laughed. But staying in your uncle’s house right after his murder, the same house where your mother was killed, kind of drains the humor from a dream in which your aunt thinks you’re dead and says she hopes you will be happier that way.

I put on a pair of capris and a clean top, then organized my backpack. The sheriff was first on my list for that day.

There was no sign of Aunt Iris downstairs. In the kitchen I unplugged and pocketed my cell phone. Hoping to find some cereal and tea, I started opening cupboard doors. I pulled a box of Cheerios from the cabinet above the sink, then stopped, staring at the dish rack below. Sitting among the dried cups and plates was a jar filled with ashes.

I couldn’t move — couldn’t believe I was seeing it. The birds that had been singing happily a moment ago sounded screechy. The cool air off the creek gave me goose bumps.

I gingerly picked up the jar, turning it with the tips of my fingers, then set it down. How had I known about this?

I had never been psychic, and I refused to believe I was becoming that now. If there was such a thing as paranormal ability, then certainly it was a talent you were born with, not a germ spread by contact.

Slow down, think it through, I told myself.

I knew that Iris was upset about not having Uncle Will’s remains. I also knew she was crazy. She could have scooped some ashes from somebody’s barbecue and convinced herself it was him. As for me, knowing that my aunt was upset and angry, it made sense that I would dream about it.

I had nearly convinced myself of this theory when I noticed Aunt Iris’s shoes by the porch door. They were crusted with mud. I turned over the shoes. The ridged soles were covered with ashy earth. I examined my own shoes, speckled with small pieces of grass that had dried on them after last night’s walk down to the water, then I ran upstairs to check the slip-ons by my bed and even my sandals still packed in their plastic bag. They were clean. Of course, why would my shoes be crusted like Aunt Iris’s, since, in my dream, I didn’t have solid feet to wear them? But it didn’t make me feel any better that the present situation was consistent with last night’s dream.

My search must have awakened Aunt Iris. I heard water running through the noisy pipes in the bathroom. For a moment I considered bolting from the house, driving till I found a Denny’s and could think things over with the help of a stack of pancakes. But I got a grip on my imagination and returned to the kitchen.

I was sipping tea and munching dry cereal when Aunt Iris entered the room. She blinked and straightened up, as if she was surprised to see me. Oh, great, I thought, I’m going to have to explain who I am all over again.

“You’re still here,” she said.

“Yes. Good morning.”

“You’re alive.”

“I’m Anna,” I reminded her.

“I knew that.”

“Then why wouldn’t I be alive?” I asked.

She shrugged. “I’m not as sure about things as I used to be.”

She fixed herself tea and sat down at the table.

“Aunt Iris, what’s in that jar in the dish rack?”

“William,” she said, sounding quite sure about that. She reached over and took a handful of dry cereal from my bowl.

“You mean his ashes?”

She nodded and chewed.

“I thought he was at the coroner’s.”

“I got them from the place where he burned. I went last night.”

“Where the car burned,” I said.

“It’s been towed,” she informed me.

“Was anyone else there — last night, I mean?”

“Just the voices.”

The skin on the back of my neck crawled. “What did the voices say?”

“Nonsense, all nonsense. I didn’t listen.”

“And no one else was around?”

She gazed at me, her blue eyes luminous as if lit from behind — just catching the light from the window, I told myself.

“I thought you were, but maybe it was Joanna. I thought you were dead, Anna, but here you are alive.”

I found myself looking down, checking that my hands weren’t transparent.

“Do you want the rest of your cereal?” she asked, dipping her fingers into the bowl for more.

“No, you finish it.” I had lost my appetite, watching the same fingers that had sifted the ashes digging in my Cheerios.

“I’m going into town this morning.”

She nodded. “I know, looking for a job. Perhaps, in time, you would like to take on some of my animal clients. The work is getting too much for me.”

“Thank you, but I’m not good at that kind of thing.”

“In time,” she repeated.

I didn’t argue. Excusing myself, I hurried upstairs to brush my teeth. I couldn’t wait to get back to the normal world.

I walked to town, the bridge being just a quarter of a mile away and the town not much bigger than my neighborhood in Baltimore. Most of Wisteria’s streets were tree-lined with brick and clapboard houses, a few dating back to the

1700s, when it was a port and center for commercial fishing.