The Back Door of Midnight

by Elizabeth Chandler

  I should have realized then that if Marcy was ignoring me, it was because she had something more important to do at the moment. I should have stopped to think things through. But when someone has made it clear she wants to kill you, the instinct to flee pushes out all other thoughts, and you keep moving.

  After the window, I reached the corner quickly, which indicated I was in a small room. Turning the corner, I felt a built-in bookcase, shelves with binders and folders. Expecting nothing but office materials, I got careless. My hand suddenly struck something tall and smooth to the touch. It crashed into the furniture behind me and shattered. Through the fireplace wall, I heard a loud, raucous laugh. Marcy knew where I was now. I backed into a chair and desk, turned myself around, and headed toward what I thought was the room’s exit.

  I was back in the hall. I knew because when I took an extra step to the left or right, I could touch the walls. I felt the frame of a doorway and entered the next room, walking straight ahead this time, hoping for windows. I banged my shin on a low table. It was all I could do not to kick it aside. I had passed the point of daunting fear and was getting reckless and desperate. Then I heard the sound of a door opening, the door into the wing. Marcy was coming for me. I moved quickly around the room, hoping for a window with unlocked shutters. I prayed to God and to Uncle Will. I groped and found the mantel of another fireplace.

  “Where are you, baby?”

  Baby?

  I felt for the tools usually kept by a hearth. There were none.

  “Are we playing hide-and-seek, baby?” Marcy’s voice sounded high-pitched, peculiar.

  I kept searching for something to defend myself with. Next to the fireplace my hand grasped a knob. I pulled on it—Yes! Stairs! Maybe the second-floor windows weren’t locked. I tiptoed up two steps and reached back to close the door behind me.

  “All right, I will count, and you hide.” Her voice chilled me to the bone. “O-one, two-oo, three . . .”

  I scurried up the turning steps, hoping the door hiding the stairway and her loud counting would muffle the noise I made. At the top of the steps I stopped to remove my shoes so she wouldn’t hear me walking above her head.

  I stood still for a moment, trying to orient myself, which was impossible since it was as dark upstairs as down. I didn’t understand the lower floor plan, so I couldn’t imagine a duplicate much less a variation of it for the second floor. But I did know I was in a wing, and if I found a short stairway, it would indicate that I was moving back toward the center of the house. If Marcy came up the turning stair and I could find the main stair, I’d be able to race down it and, with a little luck, find the front door or the exit to the garden.

  I started toward what I thought would be the center portion of the house. Marcy had stopped counting. I heard a noise, footsteps in a different place than I had expected hers to be.

  “Anna?”

  Zack! It was Zack’s voice, calling from below.

  “Anna? Anna!” he cried.

  I had to bite my tongue to keep from shouting back. Marcy was silent, listening. If I answered Zack, she’d know where I was. But if I didn’t warn him, she might lie in wait for him. Two against one, we had a chance; somehow, Zack and I had to find each other.

  I prayed. Help. Help me know where he is.

  Zack had become quiet, as if he had figured out the nature of the game being played. The silence of the house was like a roaring in my ears.

  Maybe I could send my mind out, I thought, send it on a journey like I did during an O.B.E. Guessing that Zack had entered the house the same way as I had, I imagined the room off the garden, picturing in my head how I would move along its walls, searching it with mental hands.

  There was a door—not the door I had gone through, a door to the left. Are you there, Zack? Yes! I knew it in the place I call my “heart.” And then he wasn’t. I had lost him.

  He’s moving, I thought. I have to keep up with him. But at that moment I heard a sound close to where I was standing, the turn of a knob. Marcy was opening the door to the steps I had just climbed.

  I rushed ahead, then smashed my toes into a step and sprawled forward, catching another step with spread palms—the top step, I realized—a short stairway into the main portion of the house. Scrambling up it, I heard Marcy climbing the turning stairs.

  “Where are you now, baby?” Marcy called. “Are you hidden? Hide-and-seek.”

  I shivered at the childish pitch of her voice and tiptoed forward.

  “Have you found a good spot, baby? Here I come, ready or not.”

  Why was she calling me “baby”? Did she think I was her brother? Was this a game she had played with her hated younger sibling? She was crazy.

  I waved my arms around, hoping to touch a surface. I felt as if tricks were being played on me, as if the walls had the power to recede from me when I reached out. Get a grip, Anna. Maybe I was in a large, square hall. Then I must be near the steps, I thought.

  Stop, let your mind search, I told myself, but I couldn’t. I didn’t trust myself enough to stand still and let my mind do the work.

  “I’m coming, baby. I’m going to find you.”

  My left hand finally touched a wall, and I raced ahead, letting my fingers drag lightly along to keep me going straight. A doorway—I hesitated. There was no light inside the room: The shutters were closed on this floor as well. I kept going. Another doorway, another pitch-black room. I slipped inside and flattened my back against the wall by the door. Stop, think, I told myself; you’re going to get yourself cornered.

  I took deep breaths, trying to slow my racing thoughts. My mind went out into the hall again—I sent it there. I searched for Zack: He was coming upstairs. Zack. Zack, I’m here.

  I heard Marcy opening and closing doors in the wing I had come from. “Olly olly in free,” she sang out, as if calling in the players of her game. I wondered if she knew, as I did, that Zack was climbing toward the upstairs hall.

  He’s at the top of the main stairway, I thought. The stairs ran sideways, not back to front, as I had assumed. I must have rushed past its landing without realizing it.

  He was in the hall now, coming toward me. I started out of the room, moving as fast as I could while trying to be quiet, wanting to reach Zack quickly and get us both back to the steps he had just climbed. His light was off, but I knew where he was. I extended my arm and touched him. He jumped.

  Something clattered to the floor—his flashlight. In response, a wild laugh erupted from Marcy.

  “It’s Anna,” I whispered.

  Zack gripped my hand. “We’ve got to get out of here.”

  But Marcy had come racing from the wing and positioned herself at the top of the main stairs, blocking our escape route. I saw it as she shone her flashlight on us. Zack used the brightness of her light to find the one he had dropped. He clicked the button, and for a moment they focused their beams on each other.

  “I see you,” she said, her eyes sparkling in the light. She shook her head, her perfectly cut hair swinging a bit. She was like a child who had discovered the feel of her hair moving and enjoyed making it do that. “You are supposed to hide! Hide, hide now. I’ll count again.”

  “She’s off the deep end,” I said to Zack.

  “No kidding.”

  Marcy played at hiding her eyes. “O-one, two-oo, three . . .”

  “Does she own a gun?” I asked.

  “She wouldn’t have told me if she does.”

  “We’ll never get past her. We need to find another stairway.”

  “Or try a window. What’s in here?” He shone his flashlight around the room from which I had just emerged.

  “The shutters are locked. At least, they are downstairs,” I told him.

  “I’ll break them open.”

  “There’s probably another set of back stairs. They’re usually next to a fireplace,” I said, placing my hand over his to guide the beam of light, scanning the walls on either side of the hearth. “I’m going next door
.”

  “Better stay together,” he said. “If this battery gives out—”

  “I can find you.”

  He started banging at the shutters’ lock, using his metal flashlight like a hammer. Out in the hall Marcy was reciting her numbers in a singsong voice that set my teeth on edge. I stepped into the hall, then froze.

  Marcy had set her flashlight on its side, and it illuminated her, throwing tall shadows against the walls. While counting cheerfully, she poured a liquid across the landing of the main stairs, then moved swiftly to the entrance to the wing, still pouring.

  “Do you smell that?” Zack asked from inside the room.

  “I see it. She’s going to burn this place down.”

  Zack hurried to the door and watched her a moment. “Crazy, but not stupid—one more arson. You’ve got to help me break through this shutter. There must be back stairs, but if we don’t find them—”

  He picked up a wood chair with a long back and four thick legs. We lined up, making the chair a battering ram, and ran at the window, jamming the chair legs into the shutter. Pieces of wood splintered and broke off. We ran at it again.

  “She’s lit something,” he said, and rushed to the door to close it.

  It was eerie, smelling the fire again, smelling it as I had the night I was with my uncle. I began to yank on the heavy curtains, and Zack, realizing why, joined me, using his weight to bring down the drapes.

  He handed them to me, and I rushed them to the door to stuff under the crack, hoping to keep out deadly smoke. “Want this rod?”

  “Yes. No. The andiron!” he said. He picked up one of the heavy brass pieces intended to hold logs. Looking like a shot-putter, he spun to gain momentum, then slammed the andiron against the shutters. The lock snapped. I ran to the window, and both of us clawed at the wooden panels, opening them. We struggled with the window locks, then shoved up the sash.

  I heard a whoosh. Drapes or not, the house was too old to be airtight, and we had created a draft. Marcy screamed, then let out an excited laugh. “Here I come, ready or not.”

  “I hope you’re not afraid of heights,” Zack said.

  “I’m more afraid of fire.” But when I looked down from the window, I saw that the large proportions of the house had put us farther off the ground than I expected.

  “It’s okay,” Zack said, as if sensing my fear. “Get in the window. It’s wide enough for both of us.” He climbed through first, then gripped my arm as I climbed into a sitting position. I sat on the sill, clinging to the bottom of the raised window.

  Zack shone his flashlight on the shrubs below. The blue of the LED, like the moonlight, reflected off the surface of bushes. They were mounded deep against the house.

  “Want me to go first?” he asked. When I didn’t reply, he said, “Okay, we’ll jump at the same time.”

  I pressed my lips together and forced myself to nod.

  He studied my face. “This is like the water-at-night thing,” he said, remembering our conversation at the party. “You don’t like it because you can’t see what’s beneath the surface. Want me to go first?” When I still didn’t answer, he said, “I’ll go first, but you’ve got to jump right after. Promise?”

  “Promise.”

  He leaped.

  I watched him roll far below me, lie still for a moment, then stagger to his feet. He rushed forward, shook the bushes in a rough kind of search, then called up. “No thorns, no stakes, no skunks. And you don’t have to worry about the lawn sprinkler—it’s sticking out of my back. Just kidding. Jump, Anna!”

  I nodded and turned myself around until I lay with my belly on the windowsill.

  “Anna, what are you doing?” Zack cried.

  “Getting five feet closer to the ground.” I planned to hang by my hands, then close my eyes and drop. But at that moment the door of the room burst open.

  Marcy came through, and I saw in one terrifying flash the hallway burning behind her. She started toward me. I quickly lowered myself till I dangled by my hands. I couldn’t see her, but I could hear her gasping, coughing uncontrollably from the poisonous smoke.

  “Marcy,” I called, “crawl, crawl to the window!” I beat my feet against the house, trying to get traction, trying to hoist myself back up.

  “Anna, drop!” Zack shouted.

  “Marcy, come on. Come here!” I pulled myself up high enough for my chin to be supported by the sill. I saw that the fire was burning fast, coming into the room.

  “Marcy, crawl to me!”

  She sat on the floor wheezing. I didn’t have the strength in my arms to pull myself all the way up.

  “Marcy, can you hear me? Crawl to me! Crawl to the window! Please!”

  “Anna!” Zack shouted.

  “Marcy!” I screamed, desperate to get through to her. The fire was a quarter of the way into the room, close to the edge of the rug.

  She looked up suddenly, her light eyes meeting mine. The hungry flames were within two feet of her. She laughed in a manner too bright and tinkly for an adult. “Better fire here than fire hereafter,” Marcy said, and leaned back.

  “Let go, Anna,” Zack begged from below.

  Let go, Anna, Uncle Will called.

  Let go, Anna. The third voice was soft, familiar, sounding closer than if the words had been spoken in my ear.

  “Mother Joanna?”

  Let go now, she said.

  And I did.

  twenty-five

  SHOCK—THE NUMBNESS of it, the disconnect it creates with actual events—is useful. It keeps you from running through a burning house, screaming to the person left behind, when it is much too late.

  Zack and I crawled together out of the bushes, then ran fifty feet or more before turning back to look at the house. Aunt Iris emerged from the main entrance. She must have taken the route I had been looking for so desperately. The fire roaring above her and its choking smell did not seem to faze her. Shock, I thought, and called to her. She came quietly.

  Aunt Iris, Zack, and I sat together on the wet grass and watched the upper story burn, listening to the approaching sirens, thinking about Marcy.

  I remember the next two hours as a jumble of images: the pulsating lights of the trucks; the smoke that kept pouring out when there were no more flames; the look on Dave’s face; the way Zack held his father in his arms and cried with him. We waited for the firefighters to remove Marcy’s remains, but with the effort now designated as recovery rather than rescue, and her body considered part of a crime scene, the police told us it would be hours before that happened.

  I put my arms around Aunt Iris. She had borne the burden of Marcy for years, and in some ways, her burden had finally been lifted. Now Zack’s father was bearing the brunt of the pain. My eyes met Zack’s. I ached for him and Dave.

  We left Aunt Iris’s car where she had parked it earlier, in the employee lot on the estate. She told the sheriff she had “sensed” the gate’s entry code, but I thought it just as likely that Marcy had divulged it at some point. McManus’s deputy drove us home, then stayed and drank some stale instant coffee. Later I found out he had been told not to question us. I was grateful to the sheriff; while I could have insisted on having a lawyer present, there was no controlling what Aunt Iris might say with or without legal advice. She wandered from room to room, and I held my breath, hoping she would not talk to the grandfather clock or smash a mirror. She didn’t, and the young deputy never ventured out of our kitchen.

  At three a.m., Sheriff McManus arrived, accompanied by a fire investigator and Zack. Earlier Zack had called his uncle, who had made the drive from Philadelphia and was now with Dave.

  In a quiet discussion on the porch, I told them that Marcy had admitted to killing Mick, my mother, and Uncle Will, and that the police should look for forensic evidence of the third murder beneath the gazebo. I assumed she had killed Uncle Will while he was fishing on the estate and that Uncle Will’s equipment might be found nearby. I then asked what I needed to know most: If it “ha
ppened” that Aunt Iris had “suspicions” about Marcy’s crimes, would she face charges? The sheriff said his unprofessional opinion was that mental incompetency would get her off the hook but that I needed to phone her attorney and have her present when he questioned her. He also advised me of my rights.

  Returning to the kitchen, I suggested to Aunt Iris that she go up to her room and rest. She was exhausted and didn’t fight me on it. Then the four of us sat down to piece together the story of that evening.

  At 7:15, Zack had driven Erika to an appointment with McManus and the fire investigator, having convinced her that if she didn’t come clean, he would go to the authorities himself. When Zack had stood guard outside the house Friday and discovered the obsessive Elliot Gill watching the upstairs windows, he didn’t know what to think, except that the facts of the arson game had to be revealed immediately so that the police could figure things out before another tragedy occurred.

  Returning home from his and Erika’s meeting with authorities, Zack found that his father was still at a business dinner, but, unknown to Zack, Marcy had come home and read my note. Audrey, ever watchful for evil acts, had observed and happily reported to Marcy that I had stolen Zack’s boat and headed up-creek. Marcy must have guessed where I was going and realized I was giving her a golden opportunity to get rid of me.

  She instructed Audrey not to tell Zack that I had come for him. Later the note I had written was found in Marcy’s purse. It was Zack’s theory that Marcy had planned to give the note to the police and tell them about my previous assault. Erika’s three friends had unwittingly provided Marcy with cover for another murder. It wasn’t clear when Marcy’s final plan for me came together. As the fire investigator pointed out, quantities of accelerants are readily available in country houses, and Marcy was familiar with her childhood home.

  Audrey did not tell Zack about the note, but, fortunately for me, she couldn’t resist telling him about the stolen boat. Setting out in his father’s cruiser, Zack had spotted the anchored rowboat, then the ladder that I’d left against the bank. Following my route, he had found Iris semiconscious in the garden. At that point he called 911 on his cell.