by Ellen Datlow
You couldn’t see anything from the turn-off because of all of the trees. It was like going into a tunnel, the way the trees made a curving roof and walls over the narrow lane of white gravel, but then suddenly there was the house in a little clearing, very picturesque, three wide gray flagstone steps leading up to a green door between two white pillars, a pointed gable above. The house itself was a sunny yellow color, two-story with many windows. Behind the house, more trees.
“Nice place,” Bronwen said. “Cheerful.”
Andy’s phone still had no reception. It seemed to him that there were several possible scenarios about to play out. In one, Hannah’s Uber had been delayed. The green door opened and Hannah came out. In another, this all turned out to be a substandard prank, and the door would open and a stranger would be standing there. But what happened is that he got out of the car and went up the steps and saw that there was a note on the door. It said:
CAN’T WAIT ANY LONGER. WILL CALL FROM AIRPORT. WROTE UP INSTRUCTIONS FOR YOU AND LEFT THEM ON COUNTER. FOLLOW ALL OF THEM.
Andy tried the door. It was unlocked. Bronwen and Lester got out of the car and began to unload the trunk.
“We must have missed her by, what? A half hour?”
Andy said, “I guess she waited around a little while.”
“It always takes longer than you think it will,” Bronwen said. This seemed accurate to Andy, but not representative of the whole picture.
Lester said, “Come on. Let’s get Andy’s stuff in and hit the road. There’s a sugar shack near the campground we booked that does a maple IPA, and today’s Tuesday so it closes at six-thirty.”
“Or you could stay here,” Andy said. “Why camp when you can sleep in a bed?”
“Oh, Andy,” Bronwen said. “That’s so nice of you. But the whole point of this is camping. You can sleep in a bed anytime, you know?”
“Sure,” Andy said. “I guess. You want a quick tour before you go? Or to use the bathroom?”
“Here,” Lester said. He passed Andy’s backpack over and then went back to the car to get the gym bag and the rest. Something about his body language suggested that perhaps Lester was as weary of sharing an apartment with Andy as Andy was of sharing one with him.
Bronwen and Andy remained on the porch. You could see, through the door, an open-plan living room with furniture arranged around a central fireplace and chimney of stacked gray stone. Even though it was summer, there was a stack of firewood piled up beside the fireplace. Everything looked comfortable and a little shabby. There was no reason not to go inside.
“At least come get a glass of water,” Andy said.
“No,” Bronwen said. She sounded very certain. “I’m good.”
“What?” Andy said. “Are you getting a bad vibe or something? Is it haunted?” He was joking. He was kind of not joking.
“No,” Bronwen said. “No vibe at all. Promise. It’s just I don’t think I want to go inside, if that’s okay. That’s all.”
“Oh,” Andy said. He mostly believed her, he thought. “Okay, good.” On the whole, however, he had liked Bronwen better before he knew she was an authority on the supernatural. He decided he would keep the gummies for himself.
“That’s everything!” Lester said. “Have fun, buddy. Get lots of work done. See you in a couple of weeks.”
“Will do,” Andy said. “Enjoy sleeping on the ground. Bye.”
They got back in Bronwen’s car, Lester driving again, and turned around, disappearing back into the trees. You could see how the lower branches were practically scraping the top of the car. It was cooler here than it had been in Philly, which wasn’t exactly a surprise. The coolness must collect in the trees, little pockets under each leaf. There was no breeze, but the leaves were not still. They flexed and turned, green to silver to black in a shivering cascade as if Lester were catching a glimpse of the scaled flank of some living, crouching thing, too enormous to be seen in its entirety.
Andy picked up the carrier bags and went inside the house. It was a very nice house, very welcoming. He was lucky Hannah had thought of him. He went in search of the instructions she’d left.
* * *
Your phone won’t get reception here, she’d written, unless you’re online. Then it should be okay downstairs. Upstairs not so great. You’ll see the network. Skinder’s Veil. No password. Get on and send me a text, please, so I know you’ve arrived. If you don’t, I’m going to have to turn around and come back.
Sleep in whatever bedroom you want. The one at the back of the upstairs on the left has the most comfortable bed. Also the biggest. The bathroom upstairs is a little finicky. Don’t flush if you’re about to take a shower.
Don’t forget groceries come on Fridays. Driver comes around ten a.m. and leaves everything on the porch. The delivery list and all the info is on the fridge if you need to add anything.
If there’s a storm the power will probably go out, but there’s a generator. You have to fill it every twelve hours when it’s running. It’s in the little shed out behind the kitchen. Internet is mostly good if slow.
Help yourself to whatever you find in the cabinets. Laundry is upstairs next to the bathroom.
This house belongs to Skinder. I don’t know if that’s his first name or his last name. He’s eccentric but this is a sweet gig so whatever. He only has two rules for the housesitter, but please take them very seriously. Like, Moses coming down with the stone tablets level serious. All of this was going to be much simpler to explain in person, but you’ve already fucked that up, so let me hammer this home. TWO RULES. DON’T BREAK THEM.
RULE ONE! IMPORTANT! If any friends of Skinder’s show up, let them in no matter what time it is. No matter what or who they are. Don’t worry about taking care of them. Just let them in and do whatever and leave when they’re ready. Some of them may be weird, but they’re harmless. Some of them are actually pretty cool. Hang out if you want to and they want to. Or don’t. It’s totally up to you! You’ve got your dissertation to finish, right? Anyway, it’s entirely possible nobody will show up. Some summers a bunch of Skinder’s friends show up and some summers I don’t see anyone at all. No one so far this year.
RULE TWO! THIS ONE IS EVEN MORE IMPORTANT!!! Skinder may show up. If he does, DO NOT LET HIM IN. This is HIS OWN RULE. Why? I have no idea, but for the duration of the time during which he pays me to stay here, Skinder may not enter his own house. No matter what he says, he is not allowed to come in. I know how bizarre this sounds. But, fingers crossed, this will be a non-issue and you won’t see Skinder at all. If you do, then all you have to do is not let him in. It’s that simple.
ANDY: This is my favorite place in the world and the easiest job in the world and you had better not fuck it up for me. If you’re thinking of fucking it up, then also start thinking about how I’m going to murder you one inch at a time.
Love, Hannah.
P.S. If you look outside at night and there’s mist coming up from the ground all over, don’t freak out! There are a lot of natural springs around this area, a lot of water underground on the property. The mist is a natural phenomenon. It’s called Skinder’s Veil which is also the name of the house, which has belonged to the Skinder family for a long, long time. Also, the water here comes from a well. It’s spring fed so it tastes funny but apparently it’s good for you. It’s supposed to, and I quote, “open your inner eye.” So, basically, free drugs! There’s plenty of bottled water in case you don’t like the taste but I always just drink the water from the tap.
P.P.S. Seriously, if Skinder shows up, do not let him in the house no matter what he says.
* * *
Andy put the note in his pocket. “Much to think about,” he said out loud. This was a thing that one of their TAs had liked to say at the end of every class, back in undergrad. There’d been a certain intonation, and it had cracked Hannah and Andy up all semester. They’d said it to each other all the time. It had been the working title of Hannah’s dissertation. Andy couldn’t e
ven remember the guy’s name.
He found the network on his phone, waited until he had a few bars back. And here were Hannah’s texts, increasingly frantic, then terse. Three voicemails. He went back to his bags at the front door and dug through the backpack until he’d found the pouch of gummies. Ate one and then texted Hannah back. Here! Just missed you, I’m guessing. So so sorry. Call me when you can. I have some questions.
He investigated his new living situation while he waited for Hannah to call. The kitchen and the living room he’d seen. There was a farmhouse table off to one side of the open-plan space, set in front of a big window overlooking a small area of flagstones, furred with moss. There was an Adirondack chair in case you wanted to sit outside, which Andy was not sure he did. Everything was very green: the mossy flagstones, the chair, the slumped, ferny ground, and trees, trees, trees crowding in close around it all. It had taken Andy some time to get used to the East Coast, the way there were trees growing everywhere, but this was another order of magnitude. Here there was nothing but trees and this house and whatever lived in and among trees.
There was the start of a path, too, heading off into those trees. Maybe it went somewhere interesting. More likely it was just going to be more trees.
There was a flat-screen TV, though, on the wall opposite the fireplace. And there had been a satellite dish on the roof. That seemed promising. They didn’t have a TV back in the apartment in Philly. There was a bookshelf with a blue ceramic bowl of small pinecones, a perfectly ordinary and unremarkable piece of granite, and some paperback books, mostly Stephen King and Michael Connelly. No family pictures, nothing sentimental or which might indicate the kind of person who lived here.
Andy set up his printer and his research material on the table. Then he took his small assortment of clothes and toiletries upstairs. There were four bedrooms. The two at the front of the house were smaller, the beds and curtains made up in cheerful floral fabrics, one red and white, the other green and blue. In the green and blue bedroom there was an amateurish painting of some sort of creature standing on two legs beside a river. So, a bear, perhaps? Were there other animals that stood on two legs? But then again, bears didn’t have long and luxuriant tails, did they. In the red and white bedroom, instead of a painting there was a framed cross-stitch that said: “WEST EAST HOME IS THE BEAST.” He would have to google that.
Above the bed in each room were two dainty bells, mounted just below the crown molding. A wire attached to the canon disappeared into a small hole drilled into the wall. They were called servants’ bells, weren’t they?
“Much to think about!” Andy said, and went to see the other two bedrooms. These were larger than the front bedrooms and the ceiling sloped down over the headboards of the beds. Here, too, were the bells, but no paintings, no vaguely Satanic cross-stitches. He decided to claim the left-hand bedroom, the one Hannah had suggested. The bed had been stripped; he found the sheets in the dryer.
Andy made himself a grilled cheese for dinner and had what turned out to be pasta salad out of a Tupperware container. There was a half-bottle of white wine in the refrigerator. He finished that and was sampling the tap water, which was a little musty but perhaps would get him high, when Hannah finally called.
“You’re there,” she said.
“Eating your pasta salad,” he said. “Not sure about the raisins.”
“It’s my mom’s recipe,” Hannah said. “You grow up eating something, it’s comfort food.”
“Mine is grilled cheese,” Andy said. “But it has to be Swiss cheese.”
They were both silent for a minute. Finally, Andy said, “Sorry I didn’t get here in time to see you.”
“Never mind,” Hannah said. “At least you’re there. I started thinking you weren’t going to show at all. What do you think?”
“I think I should have brought some sweaters,” Andy said. “So what’s with the rules? I’m supposed to let everyone in except for Skinder, who is the one who actually owns the house?”
“That’s pretty much it exactly,” Hannah said.
“So anyone can just show up and I let them in? But then, what if I accidentally let Skinder in? It’s not like I’ve met him.”
“Oh, wait, no,” Hannah said. “Shit. This would have been so much easier if I’d been able to explain this in person. Look, Skinder’s friends show up at the back door. The kitchen door. So, someone shows up and knocks at the kitchen door, let them in. The only person who will knock at the front door is Skinder. It’s actually pretty easy. Don’t let anyone in if they knock at the front door.”
“Doesn’t he have a key?” Andy said. “To his own house?”
“I know,” Hannah said. “It’s freaky. If it makes it easier, think of it like a game. Like Settlers of Catan. Or Red Rover! Or, whatever. There are rules and everyone has to follow them. If you think about it that way, then you just do what the rules say and you’re fine.”
“Okay, but what happens if I mess up and I let Skinder in?”
“I don’t know,” Hannah said. “I lose my summer job? Look, I signed a contract and everything. I’d have to give back what he paid me, which means you’d have to give me back the money I passed on to you. Just don’t let him in, okay? If he even shows up, which he probably won’t do. I’ve done this for a while and he only showed up three times, once the first summer, and then twice the summer before last. He knocks on the front door and you don’t let him in. I didn’t let him in. He asked me to let him in and I didn’t and so he went away again. It was a little weird, especially when he came back the second time, but it was fine. You’ll be fine. Just don’t let him in.”
“Okay,” Andy said. “So what does he look like?”
“Skinder?” Hannah said. “Oh, boy. You’ll know it’s him. I’m not going to try to explain it because it will sound crazy, but you’ll know. You’ll just know. For one thing, he always has a dog with him. It’s this little black dog. So if you see the dog, that’s him.”
“What if he doesn’t bring the dog? Or what if the dog’s dead? You didn’t see him last year. The dog could have died.”
“It really doesn’t matter,” Hannah said. “You don’t have to know what he looks like to know it’s him. He only comes to the front door. Just don’t let anyone through the front door and you’ll be fine.”
“Don’t let anyone in the front door,” Andy said. He took another swallow of musty water. Perhaps he would acquire a taste for it. “But if anyone knocks on the back door, then I have to let them in, right?”
“Right,” Hannah said.
“I don’t really understand any of this,” Andy said. “I’m kind of feeling like you’ve gotten me into something here. Like, I thought this was just a housesitting gig. You didn’t mention all of this other stuff on the phone the other day.”
“Yeah,” Hannah said. “I was pretty sure that if I brought all this up then you’d pass on the golden opportunity I was holding out to you. And I really, really needed you to come up so I could get out to my sister.”
“And this is in no way a hilarious prank,” Andy said.
“I’m paying you nine hundred dollars to stay in a secluded house in the country where you can finally get some real work done on your dissertation,” Hannah said. “Does that seem like a prank?”
“Much to think about,” Andy said.
“Much to think about, asshole,” Hannah said. “I’ll call you in a day or two, okay? I have to go catch my flight.”
“Safe travels,” Andy said. But she had already hung up.
There was a six-pack of some fancy IPA at the back of the fridge, and a jar of Red Vines on the counter beside the sink. He took a couple of those and one of the beers through to the living room and sat at the farm table. He turned on his laptop and put aside thoughts of Hannah and rules and the person who owned this house. He set aside, too, thoughts of Bronwen and the thing she said followed her. Regardless of whatever she felt or thought, it wasn’t real. Nothing was following anyone. He h
ad felt nothing. And if there had been something, well then, it wasn’t here, was it? It was her ghost, not his, and so it would be wherever Bronwen was, waiting for the moment when Lester wasn’t there.
Andy worked for an hour, comparing penalized splines in various studies, until at last the edible kicked in, or perhaps it was the tap water smoothing down his splines and his thoughts and all the strangeness of the day. He watched TV and at nine he went upstairs to bed. He slept soundly through the night and only woke up because he had forgotten to close the blinds and sunlight was coming through the windows, turning all of the room to auspicious gold.
* * *
For the next two days he did not return to his dissertation, though he told himself that he would tackle it after breakfast. After lunch. Before dinner. Instead of doing this, he took naps, got stoned, played Minecraft, and did his sets and reps. After dinner he watched old science fiction movies. He left the television on when he went to bed. It wasn’t that he was lonely. It was just that he was out of the habit of being alone. On the third night, when he looked out of his bedroom window, threads of mist were rising from the ground below the trees. As he watched, these threads wove themselves into pallid columns, and then a languorous, uniform cloud, blotting out the patio. The Adirondack chair shrank away until only its back and arms remained, floating in whiteness. Andy went to the red and white bedroom at the front of the house and saw that the driveway had already vanished. If Hannah hadn’t told him this would happen, he supposed he would have found the phenomenon eerie. But it was perfectly natural. Creepy but natural. Natural and also quite beautiful. He tried without success to get a good picture with his phone. No doubt it would be possible to get better results if he left the house to take a picture at ground level, but he dismissed this idea when it came to him. He preferred not to go stand outside knee deep in something called Skinder’s Veil, natural phenomenon or not.
Instead he went to bed and had two hours of sleep before he woke. One of the bells above his head was ringing, ringing, ringing.