by Ike Hamill
He didn’t turn to Henry until he had the handle in his grip.
“I can never find this door unless I use that poem.”
“Can’t you just count from the left. You picked the third door from the left.”
Auggie shook his head. “It changes.”
Before Henry could question him, he had thrown open the door and started to move through.
“Izla, Millie, Gus, Sam, Penny,” Auggie shouted into the open space of the huge barn. His voice traveled to the far walls and then bounced back at random intervals. Henry jumped when the door slammed shut behind them. Auggie added a flashlight beam to the weak yellow glow that was spilling from bulbs here and there.
“Izla, Millie, Gus, Suh…” Auggie stopped, mid name.
Henry cocked an ear.
He heard it too.
“Dad?”
Auggie began to jog across the dirt floor. Henry followed close. He wanted to stay close to that light. Picking up speed, Auggie scanned the beam left and right. He stopped short when they heard Millie’s voice say, “Up here!”
Auggie backed up a step, forcing Henry back as well. When the beam reached the edge of the loft, they saw three faces looking over—Millie, Sam, and Gus.
“Where’s your sister?” Auggie asked.
Sam and Millie answered at the same time and then looked at each other.
Sam said, “They’re not here. They’re playing somewhere else.”
“Can you get us down, Dad?” Millie asked. She looked back over her shoulder at something that Auggie and Henry couldn’t see. “We don’t want to be up here anymore.”
Henry stepped close to the edge and put his arms up.
“Lower her down, Sam,” Henry said. “Point the light,” he said to Auggie over his shoulder.
Gus and Sam worked together, getting Millie turned around and holding her up by her arms until she could climb down far enough for her feet to brush Henry’s fingers.
“I got you,” Henry said. He prepared himself for a lot more coaxing, but Millie didn’t require it. He was barely ready when she dropped. Henry took a quick half-step backwards and caught the girl under the armpits. His heart fluttered for a second and then steadied out when he realized that she was fine. Millie ran to her dad once her feet were on the dirt floor.
“Gus next,” Sam said from above.
Henry nodded. Gus lowered himself even farther—hanging from the lip. Plus, he was taller. Henry was able to get his hands around Gus’s legs before the boy even dropped. When Henry set him down, he looked back up and saw that Sam was peering off into the dark in the same direction that had drawn Millie’s stare earlier.
“Come on, Sam.”
“I can drop.”
“I’ll catch you,” Henry said.
“I can drop.”
Sam slipped his weight over the edge and began to lower himself.
He said, “Ow!” and began to fall before Henry was ready. He caught his son with a stiff arm to the back and an elbow under his knee. They both teetered, Henry trying to find his balance while Sam wriggled in his arms, and then Henry went down to one knee. He set Sam down next to his cousin.
“I could have jumped,” Sam said.
“Isla and Penny are still in the house? You’re sure?” Henry asked.
Gus and Sam both nodded. Henry turned towards Millie. She was up in her father’s arms now. Millie and Auggie were looking up into the darkness. Auggie’s beam seemed to point at nothing. When he moved the flashlight, the shadows of the barn’s trusses danced in the distance against the underside of the roof.
“Gus, your mom needs to talk to you,” Auggie said.
After setting Millie down, Auggie and the flashlight led the way. Henry brought up the rear, with a hand on Sam’s shoulder, hurrying him along. Behind them, the barn was a cavernous bubble of emptiness.
# # # #
They came down the stairs in a line. Henry could hear Penny’s voice downstairs before he even turned the corner. Deep inside him, a puzzle piece clicked into place. He tried to not control the kids—constantly wrangle them—but that meant that he had to suffer a little unease whenever they were outside of his sight.
Henry had no problem letting his kids take risks. He could watch them swing too high, or run too fast on gravel. It was okay if they took a spill and got a scrape or two. Henry appreciated the courage it took to be a kid. They had to face new challenges every day. Sam and Penny were constantly placing all their trust in him.
It was only when they were apart that he worried. Other parents didn’t seem to constantly fret. Deidre actually appeared calmer when the kids were off doing their thing, or someone else’s responsibility.
Rounding the corner, with both Penny and Sam in his line of sight, Henry’s heart beat a little easier.
“Okay,” Auggie said, “Millie and Izla, you’re going to stay here with Aunt June until your mom comes back. I have to go finish getting ready. I will see you next year.”
“And nobody opens a door without knocking first,” Henry added, pointing at each kid. He felt June and Auggie looking at him. Auggie shrugged and then nodded.
“Wait,” Gus said. “Uncle Auggie, you promised to finish the foxbane story this year.”
Auggie’s shoulders sagged a little with the weight of the promise. He glanced at his watch.
“Can we postpone until tomorrow, buddy?” Auggie asked. “Or maybe your mom can finish it while I go do the last of the prep?”
“I’m not telling that story,” June said.
“You did promise, Dad,” Isla said.
Auggie glared at her.
“I have two things that I really have to do. If I have time before midnight, I will come back and tell you. Otherwise, you’re just going to have to wait.”
Millie, Gus, and Isla erupted in a chorus of moans.
“Meanwhile,” Auggie said, “you can catch your cousins up on the story so far. That way they’ll be able to follow it as well.”
The kids started to moan again.
Henry took a seat. “Millie, Isla, what is this story?”
While they turned, excited to bring him up to speed, Auggie put his hands together in thanks and nodded towards Henry. He slipped out while the girls talked over each other.
Chapter 11 : June
“MOM, DO WE HAVE to be in here? It’s embarrassing,” Gus said. He was sitting on the closed toilet seat lid. One of the plastic spacers had cracked and fallen off. Every time Gus shifted his weight, the lid rocked and clicked.
“I don’t feel like freezing my buns off out on the front porch and shouting over the wind. Sit still, this won’t take a minute,” June said. She chewed at one of her fingernails while she tried to think how to start. The problem was that she didn’t know precisely what she intended to say, and that was because she didn’t know precisely what she had decided to do. They were running out of time before midnight.
“Is this about the…”
“Hush,” she said. Normally, she would have let him confess to whatever was troubling him. Gus always confessed in the face of silence. If he kept up that trait, he would never have any adolescent secrets.
June reached under her leg and slid open the drawer enough to get her nail clippers. She trimmed the ragged fingernail and then put the trimming in the sink.
Gus watched her every move.
“I don’t know, Gus. I don’t want you to go to the ceremony tonight.”
“So you’re going?”
“I didn’t say that. I guess I’m thinking that neither of us should go. I always knew that we weren’t going to be the final branch. Why should we risk it?”
“There’s nothing to risk, Mom,” Gus said. “I just go and sit through the thing. Same as last year. Same as the year before.”
June shook her head. “No, maybe not same as last year. There’s something different this year. There’s the snow. All your cousins came back. Plus, Travis is here and Tommy has been banging around upstairs.”
&
nbsp; Gus’s eyes immediately turned upwards. She saw fear creeping into him. This was exactly what she didn’t want to do. She didn’t want to make him afraid of the very place where he lived. What a terrible thing for a kid—to not have a safe place where they could lay their head without worrying about what was lurking in the dark. That kind of stress ruined lives. Wars were fought to escape that future.
“We’re not staying here,” she reminded him. “This is our last year. We agreed to that.”
The objections were beginning to bubble up in him.
“We agreed,” she said, putting up a finger.
His little nostrils flared as he held his tongue. When he became an adolescent, secrets weren’t going to be what she had to worry about. It was that temper—that was what she would have to worry about.
“Your uncle thinks that this is the year we should call a vote,” June said.
Gus waited for her to explain.
“There’s a thing they say when they start reading the… contract, or whatever they call it.”
It had been too many years since she sat in that room. She could no longer remember all the details.
“A vote can be called to redraft the whole contract. Only the eldest members of each branch are allowed to vote. Back when I was going to the ceremony, that vote always failed. Your Uncle Auggie thinks that we can talk Travis and Allison into joining our side. Allison was always holding out for Andrew to come back, but this could be her last year. To make the vote work, I would have to go.”
“If you don’t go then they can’t vote?”
“They can still vote, but it only carries if they have more than eighty-five percent approval. It would take me, Allison, and Travis all voting in order to overrule Uncle Tommy. He’s the one who doesn’t want things to change.”
Gus thought this over for a second.
June wanted to run. Her brain kept plotting out the steps. She would start the car, throw some stuff in a bag while it warmed up, and then slip and slide all the way into town. With luck, there would be plenty of cops out on the road, looking for drunk New Year’s Eve drivers. That way, when they inevitably slipped off the road into a snow bank, someone would find them quick.
“You would have to go to the dining room,” Gus said.
June nodded.
“That’s all the way down the hall. You can’t do that.”
June sighed. “I know. Maybe this once, when everything is going on, I can risk it.”
“We both have to go,” Gus said.
“It’s not allowed.”
Gus nodded. “Yeah, it is. You can ask Uncle Auggie or Uncle Jules. You have to have at least one person to keep a branch, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have more than one.”
“Why though, Gus? The only reason I’m thinking about going is so you won’t have to. I’m afraid it will be dangerous this year.”
“It won’t be dangerous for me if you’re there. Besides, what if something happens and you can’t stay? If neither one of us is in the room when the clock starts striking, then that means that I’ve been going for the last five years for nothing?” Gus asked.
June didn’t want to admit that he had a point.
# # # #
Gus squeezed by her and June stayed behind for a minute. She looked at herself in the mirror and then examined her teeth. She tried to calculate how many years she had lived in that front room. It wasn’t the same as with Mumma Claire or Trudy—she was not a shut in. Nearly every day, she left the house. There were simply certain parts of the house and the surrounding property that she didn’t care to frequent. Who could blame her? After enough negative feedback, it would have been crazy of her to keep pushing her luck.
One way or another, she was going to break her boundaries. Tonight, she would retake the dining room. Then, once the damn ceremony was over for another year, and the roads were cleared, she and Gus would pack up and leave, just like the rest of them. If Auggie or Uncle Tommy wanted to make sure that the place survived the winter, they could hire Jerry to come live there full time. It wasn’t her responsibility.
Her heartbeat was speeding up.
Even though she was successful at keeping the images out of her head, her body was remembering. The dining room certainly remembered. June hadn’t been there in years, but it definitely remembered.
# # # #
The last time June had set foot in the dining room, sweet Gus had been only four years old. It wasn’t New Year’s Eve. In fact, she had made it through New Year’s with no problems that winter. Just like always, she had walked down the long hall and attended the ceremony, the same way she had ever since her mother had died.
The world was two days into the New Year, June had worked a full day, and Jules was already gone. Auggie had asked her to help him move the small table out of the dining room and back into Andrew’s lounge.
“Why don’t we leave it there?” June had asked. “Nobody is going to need it and we’ll just have to move it back in next year.”
“Because we can lock Andrew’s lounge, and then we don’t have to worry about attrition.”
June had nodded. Attrition was the word they used to describe how things tended to disappear when Uncle Tommy was around. Anything unsecured, like the silver tea set that used to be in the dining room, might wander off before next year. In recent years, the attrition had gotten particularly bad. Even small furniture wasn’t safe.
“Yeah, okay,” June had said. She had left Gus with pregnant Kate and little Millie, and followed Auggie down the hall.
Her brother had been oblivious. June had known from the second she set foot into the room. The feeling was akin to nausea. It almost felt like she was on a boat and the wind was starting to pick up. She stared down at the lines of the floorboards, trying to spot the undulation that she knew must be happening.
“Over here,” Auggie had said.
June could only reach out and brace herself against the doorframe. If it had only been that strange, unsettled feeling, Auggie would probably have never believed her. He had always been mean about their mother, insisting that she had been mentally ill instead of accepting that maybe her incarceration in the house hadn’t been her own fault.
They had both heard the crack from the beam that ran across the ceiling.
Auggie had looked up at the chandelier as the glass baubles rattled.
June had caught her breath. She had intended to get out of the room, but her balance was already compromised. When June let go of the molding, she had stumbled forward just as the door slammed shut. A second longer on the jamb and her fingers would have been severed by the heavy door banging home.
Another splintering crack sounded from above. Dust filtered down as Auggie caught June before she hit the floor.
“I can’t be in here,” June had gasped.
Auggie had only nodded. He helped her back to her feet and then nearly dragged her to the door.
The walls shook. Later, Auggie had searched the internet for reference to an earthquake or, at least, aftershocks. A chair fell over as the big table began to rattle. Auggie had tried the door with one hand and then let go of June so he could tug at it with both hands as he braced his foot against the wall.
“Let us out!” June had screamed over the groaning beams and thumping furniture. A picture fell from the wall as she repeated, “Let us out!”
The moment her finger had touched the door, it flew open and Auggie was the one falling this time. June couldn’t catch him. They both went down and then scrambled towards the open portal. The sanity of the long hall was in sight but the floor was bucking and thrashing so hard that they barely made it.
Finally, as soon as they spilled through the doorway and landed side by side on the hall floor, the chaos had ended. The chandelier gently swayed and another chair made a graceful spin on one leg before it tumbled over. The door started to close again. Auggie had moved his foot from its slow path.
“This isn’t safe either,” June had whispered. Her vo
ice was hoarse from screaming. The hall was just starting to make her nauseous as she and Auggie ran back towards the front room. Once she was back in her front room with Gus in her arms, June had felt grounded again. She had sworn that she would never go back to that part of the house again.
# # # #
“So what’s different now?” June asked her reflection in the mirror.
There was plenty different. In her memory, she was still young and pretty. Now, she felt like she was on the downslope, sliding fast, away from pretty.
She took a breath and tried to feel as old as she looked as she whispered to the woman in the mirror.
“The house was bored then. Tonight, it’s preoccupied. Allison will be there and probably Travis. It has a lot more to contend with than just me. The only times I have been targeted, I was the most interesting thing it could play with.”
June closed her eyes and tried to sense the living people around her. It was easy if she tried. The kids were the brightest. They glowed with such a strong, warm energy that they were barely dampened by the walls. Her siblings, Auggie and Jules, were also easy to pick out. She had known them forever. Upstairs, Allison was fading but her presence was still as comforting as a favorite quilt on a chilly night. The others were harder to differentiate. She would always recognize GUT. That man was too peculiar to fade into the background.
Deeper in the house, there were more and more people moving around. Some of them only came on New Year’s, to add their names to the list of souls laying claim on the house.
June broke her staring contest with the mirror when she heard little feet sprinting up the stairs. It was Gus. She left the bathroom and forced herself to stay put, not running to the bottom of the stairs to see where he had gone. A moment later, his footsteps began to pound back down. Gus had a serious look on his face and arms loaded down with the New Year’s hats that he had made for his cousins. He distributed them while Millie and Isla continued telling their story to Henry.