A Million Doorways

by K. Martin Beckner

  “I’ve always wanted to go to Mammoth Cave,” said Ethan, standing up and wiping his cheek with the back of his hand. “It’s not too awfully far from here.”

  “Then Mammoth Cave it is. That’s a perfect idea. I love you so much, I hope you know that.”

  “Yeah, I know it,” said Ethan. “I guess I love you too.”

  “You guess?” she said and laughed.

  “I love you for sure, I mean.”

  Getting dressed quickly, they walked out the front door, closing two doors behind them. They had a wonderful day at the park, and Ethan felt closer to his mom than he had ever felt before. There were no secrets between them now; those walls had come crashing down.

  That night he had the dream again, but this time when the basketball hit his dad’s face it didn’t fall off. This time his dad looked over at him, smiled, and said, “It’s okay, Son. Love is the only thing that matters in the end.” Ethan woke up smiling. It was the last time that he ever had the dream. He soon drifted back to sleep, feeling content and happy.

  Chapter 18

  The next morning Ethan awoke with two thoughts on his mind: how was he going to make money for the rest of the summer, and how was he going to learn the rest of Miss Green’s story. For one thing, there weren’t too many jobs for thirteen-year-olds, except maybe mowing yards; and for another thing, Miss Satterfield, probably the only person in the world who could tell him what he wanted to know, seemed to hate his guts.

  He decided to pick up a Country Peddler magazine at Square Deal and search the classifieds for a job. He figured with a little perseverance, he could find a job, solving his money woes. But as for his second thought that morning, he’d probably just have to forget about ever having any resolution on that one. What was down in the cellar that made Miss Satterfield jump every time he got anywhere near the door? It reminded him of the time the electricity went out during the last ten minutes of a particularly interesting episode of The Andy Griffith Show. Years later he finally got to see the ending. But Miss Green would never be back to finish her story, not now or ever, leaving him to wonder about it in the back of his mind for the rest of his life. He determined to pay Miss Satterfield a visit, assuming she was back home. She’d probably run him off the property, but maybe, just maybe, he could convince her to talk. It was worth a shot.

  He spent a little extra time fixing his hair and picking out clothes to wear. Looking in the bathroom mirror, he didn’t want to brag to himself, but he thought he was starting to look pretty handsome, not so much like a little boy anymore. Until recently he’d never put much thought into how he looked. Now he was afraid that Cynthia would notice if he had a hair out of place. So it’s Cynthia that’s making me freak out over my looks, he thought and smiled. He was feeling so happy for a moment that he whistled to himself, something he rarely did. But then he remembered something that popped his happy balloon: he was going to have to explain to Cynthia why he’d run away. She’d surely heard about it, like the rest of Rocky Creek, and now she probably thought he was mentally unstable, someone to avoid at all cost. Oh, he hoped that wasn’t the case. He practiced in his mind the best way to explain the situation to her.

  Sandy had gone back to work, and he was home alone, since he was now jobless. He was enjoying a bowl of Honeycomb cereal with a cup of coffee, repeating in his mind what he was going to say to Cynthia, when he heard a knock. He was pleasantly surprised to find Simon Green standing at the front door.

  “Hey, Simon, how’s it going?” said Ethan through the screen door. “How’d you find me?”

  “Boy, you’re more forgetful than I am. What are you going to do when you get my age? Stood me up the other day, and now you’re a wondering how I found you. Yeah, I came all the way over here, and you were nowhere to be found, done run off. Did you forget about the beehives?”

  “Oh, I’m terribly sorry about that,” said Ethan. “I had a little crisis going, but it’s okay now. Anyway, come on inside.”

  “Do you think we’re going to set up the bees inside the house? Come on out here, and we’ll figure out the best spot.”

  “Great,” said Ethan. “Let me get some shoes on, and I’ll be right out. I’m so glad you came back. With all that’s been going on in the last few days, I almost forgot about it.”

  “Just be quick about it. It ain’t getting any colder out here. Supposed to get up to a hundred today.”

  Ethan quickly threw on some flip-flops and followed Simon out into the yard.

  “We need to find a good location not too close to the house,” said Simon.

  “I guess you heard about Miss Green dying,” said Ethan as he helped Simon unload the wooden boxes from the back of an old truck.

  “Yeah, I heard about that,” said Simon. “She might have been a little strange, but overall she wasn’t a bad woman. I’ve met worse, alright. She was a lot nicer than that sour-faced Miss Satterfield that lived with her, for sure. I haven’t seen that woman yet that she didn’t look like she’d just killed somebody’s cat and buried it. Miss Green has always spoke and been nice. I can’t say the same for Miss Satterfield. I knocked on the front door once, and she told me to go around back to the kitchen, like I was the help or something. She was the help, if you want to get technical, acting like she owned the place.”

  “Don’t feel bad,” said Ethan. “She did me the same way.”

  “I always assisted Miss Green with collecting her honey and selling it to Square Deal and Piggly Wiggly,” said Simon, removing his cap and wiping sweat from his brow. “It wasn’t like she needed the money, but she gave me half, and I never complained about that, though it weren’t enough to buy a tuxedo for a field mouse.

  “They buried her yesterday afternoon,” he continued, replacing the cap on his head. “She was barely cold when they put her in the ground. I paid my respects and went to the funeral. She had a fairly good turnout, I guess. I suspect most people were just curious. I think I saw that old Miss Satterfield actually shed a tear.”

  “I kind of wish I’d went,” said Ethan. “I didn’t think about it until now that it’s too late. Do you mind showing me where she’s buried? Maybe I can at least pay my respects.”

  “Yeah, I can take you over there sometime this week, if you don’t mind riding in my old truck. You can catch me at the store when you get ready to go; it’s not like I’ve got much else to do. I think that’d be a real nice thing for you to do.”

  “Thanks,” said Ethan. “The truck’s fine. My mom’s Volkswagen is about as fancy as your truck, anyway, so it’s not like I’m used to riding in a Cadillac.”

  “Now, let’s get these hives set up,” said Simon. He walked to an area of the yard behind the house and in front of a fencerow and began working to assemble the boxes, Ethan watching his every move. “We’ll put the hives here a good distance away facing south. You don’t want the bees flying towards the house, might sting somebody. I brought these stands here to keep the boxes off the ground so the skunks won’t bother them. This solid board goes on the bottom, and the two brood chambers with frames go above that. The queen lays her eggs in these chambers, and the bees store their food there for the winter. It’ll take about six months for the bees to fill them with brood and honey. You want to leave that honey for the bees to eat. This metal queen-excluder grate sits on top and keeps the queen in the brood chambers. A box of ten frames goes on top of that. This is where you collect the honey, and you can add another box when it’s about half full. Finally, you have this inner ventilated cover, and the lid, or roof, goes on top of the whole thing.”

  “Sounds kind of complicated,” said Ethan. “I hope I can remember it all.”

  “Oh, you’ll pick it up in no time.”

  “I can’t wait to get it started.”

  “Well, with your mother’s permission, we’ll collect us a swarm of bees, if we get so lucky as to find one. You may have to end up buying them, though. Old Mr. Tunks sells them for fairly reasonable.”

  “It’d
be funner and cheaper if we could catch a swam,” said Ethan.

  “Hopefully we will. I’ll keep my ears open.”

  Ethan lay in bed that night staring at the ceiling, which was dimly lit by moonlight filtering through the window curtain. He’d chickened out of making a trip to see Miss Satterfield that day, but he determined that tomorrow he’d do it, no matter what. He thought about what he was going to say to her, and how he was going to say it, until he slowly drifted off to sleep.

  Chapter 19

  The next day Ethan was both excited and terrified to see Miss Satterfield’s car in the driveway when he rounded the back corner of the house. He parked his bike, swallowed the lump in his throat, and knocked on the kitchen door. No one answered, so he knocked again. When no one answered the second knock, he turned away disappointed. He figured Miss Satterfield saw him riding up the driveway and was hiding inside. Just before he pedaled his bike away, the back door squeaked open.

  “I suppose you’re here to pick up your last check,” said Clara. “Of course your services won’t be needed here anymore.”

  Ethan stood frozen for a moment. He didn’t know why the woman scared him so much. I mean, she most likely wasn’t going to kill him. It’s just that she made everything seem so serious. Finally, clearing his throat, he said hoarsely, “No, Ma’am, to tell the truth, I almost forgot I had another check coming, with everything that’s happened.”

  “Well, wipe your feet off and step inside here before flies take over the house. This screen door’s got a hole in it.” She fastened the door behind him. “If you’re supposed to be so handy, looks like you would have fixed it while you were employed here. Anyway, Zelma left you an envelope upstairs. I’ll have to go up and get it. I’m surprised I didn’t see you at her funeral. As much as she thought of you, it’s a shame you didn’t take the time to pay respects.”

  The words hit Ethan like a needle prick. “I’m sorry. I had some things going on, and I didn’t know it happened until it was about too late to go.”

  “I suppose one excuse is as good as another,” she said, leaving Ethan alone in the kitchen.

  He looked about the kitchen and noted how forsaken the place now seemed. He sure wished Miss Green were still around. Besides losing a great summer job, he had lost a fascinating and wise friend. There was so much more about life he could have learned from her.

  “Here you go,” said Clara upon returning to the kitchen, startling Ethan from his thoughts. “She left you a sealed envelope for some reason. Knowing her, she probably had a premonition she was going to die and left you something special. She was kind to everyone but especially so to the people close to her. It’s a shame she was so misunderstood by so many.”

  Ethan detected a bit of softening in her demeanor, so he ventured to ask, “Do you believe that she really was psychic?”

  “I didn’t use to,” she said, laying the envelope on the table in front of him, “not until the night her last husband died.”

  Ethan perked up. “What happened that night?” he said, barely able to get the words out of his mouth in his nervous excitement. Maybe she will be willing to talk, he thought. He’d have to play his cards right, though, and not appear too eager or pushy about it.

  She sat down across from him and said, “I suppose it doesn’t matter what I say now. A dark secret has been buried in this house for many years. Soon they’ll be coming to dismantle this beautiful old place and auction Zelma’s lovely things away. What they find downstairs is going to be the talk of the town for many years to come. All they have to do is move the shelves, and it all comes unraveled. And someone will move them, you know. They’ll put them in the auction; families always want every dime they can get. It’ll be a miracle if they don’t sell away the doorknobs and chandeliers.”

  “What is downstairs?” asked Ethan, clinching his hands together, trying not to nervously twiddle his thumbs.

  “You’ll know soon enough, once they move that shelf and discover it. I don’t even know what’s compelling me to talk to the likes of you. I guess with Zelma gone, it proves that even people with dead hearts, like myself, can get lonely. Zelma was really the only one I had left in this world. She was a good woman. She always wanted what’s best for me; I see that now. There was a time I hated her though; for many years, I did. She at the same time furnished my livelihood and ruined my chance of having all the things I ever wanted. We were great friends once, the best of friends.”

  “Tell me about it,” said Ethan, thrilled that Miss Satterfield had softened up enough to actually talk to him. “I really would like to know more. You started telling me about what made you believe Miss Green was psychic. Will you please finish telling about what made you change your mind about her?”

  “I wish I’d never opened my mouth. I’ve never been much of a talker, but you caught me on a good day, I guess. Zelma was the only person I would actually sit and talk to for very long, and now she’s gone. I’ve been so lonely since she passed, I’d probably start a conversation with a stray dog if it wandered in.”

  Thanks for the comparison, Ethan thought to himself, smiling a little. She had such a nice way with words.

  “Now that I’ve got no one left in the world,” she continued, “I find myself strangely reflective. Most of my whole life has passed me by, and oh what a great deal of it I have wasted, wasted it ruminating on what could have been, being hard on everyone, hard on myself most of all. A week ago I’d have ran you out of this house for coming in here with all these questions about things that are really none of your concern.”

  “I don’t mean to pry,” said Ethan. “It’s just that Miss Green was telling me about her life and sort of left me hanging.”

  “No, it’s okay. I want to talk, need to talk, to someone. It’ll be good for me to get things out. Besides, Zelma wanted you to know things, for her own reasons. But I can’t do it without coffee.

  “That sounds good,” said Ethan. “I wouldn’t mind a cup, myself.”

  She made a pot of coffee and poured them each a cup, again seating herself across the table from Ethan. “I had always believed her stories to be a lot of fanciful nonsense,” she began. “She’s told me so many incredible things over the years, like the time an angel visited her son on the night he passed away.

  “She already told me about that,” said Ethan. “That was such an amazing thing to happen.”

  “Well, I never once believed it, thought for sure she had dreamed it all.”

  “Did something make you change your mind, then?”

  “Yes, something absolutely horrifying. To this day cold chills run up my spine when I think about it.”

  “What was it?” asked Ethan, sipping coffee, his eyes opening wider.

  “The night her last husband, Granville, died I was witness to one of her visions. I saw an angel too. One thing you need to remember, though, is that not all angels are good.”

  Ethan gasped.

  “I was awakened that night from a fitful sleep,” she continued. She paused a moment to take a sip of coffee, her hand trembling. “It had been a very eventful night, but I had somehow managed to fall asleep, from exhaustion, I suppose. Anyway, I woke up and had the most awful feeling you could ever imagine. There was an overwhelming presence of evil in the house, like a pulsating vibration that I could never explain adequately. The air in the house was sweltering and had a smell not unlike burning sulfur. Afraid that there might perhaps be a fire, I eased out into the hallway and saw that Zelma had crept down the stairs and was standing at the other end of the hallway, her face pale as a ghost. The evil presence had somehow awakened us both, drawn us to it. We were both speechless. I nearly lose my voice now trying to talk about it.

  “Standing between us was a demonic being, or dark angel, if you will. I know that’s what it was: an angel of death there to take someone to the wrong place, the place where no one wants to go when they die.”

  Ethan gasped a second time. “What did it look like?”

&nb
sp; “It was a shape, the shape of a large man with no discernable features, just utter darkness, far darker than the dimly-lit house. Then suddenly it turned and looked at me with eyes that were like coals of fire. I had no power within me to run; I was completely paralyzed, as was Zelma. After the horrible thing we had done earlier that night, I was certain it had come for us both. I prayed silently for forgiveness; it was all I could do. But then the thing turned away and started moving, almost floating, towards the cellar door. It passed through the door without opening it. Still unable to move or speak or scream, my heart pounded heavily as a fear came over me that the thing would ignite the house in flames, consuming Zelma and me along with the furniture.

  “A few moments later we heard an agonizing scream coming from the cellar. The scream broke our paralysis, and we ran up the staircase and into Zelma’s bedroom, locking ourselves inside. I don’t have to tell you that we didn’t sleep a wink for the rest of the night. Although the feeling of evil had left the house, like the flick of a switch, at about the time we’d heard the scream, it wasn’t until daylight that we found the courage to creep down the stairs again.

  “So you see, after that night I never doubted Zelma’s incredible stories again, not after having been a witness to one of them.”

  “Wow,” said Ethan. “That’s scary. I wouldn’t have slept for a year after that.”

  “It’s absolutely a true story, whether you believe it or not.”

  “Oh, I do believe it,” said Ethan. “But what about the scream? Who was screaming down in the cellar?”

  “I’ll tell you that, but you have to know the rest of the story first for it to make any sense.”

  “I’d love to hear all of it,” said Ethan, adding a cube of sugar to his coffee and stirring it.

  “We were friends once, you know, Zelma and I,” she continued. “Things were a mess in this house when I arrived here in 1912, if I remember correctly.