The Haunting of Gabriel Ashe

by Poblocki, Dan

  Leesy listened, thunderstruck that another person saw their world swarming with as much mystery as she did. She begged him to write down the stories for her, but Mason explained that he had never thought himself capable—certainly not in the same manner as a Lovecraft or Lewis, never mind the power of Edgar Allan Poe or Mary Shelley or the great Robert Browning in Mason’s new favorite poem, the nightmarish “Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came,” which his English teacher had discussed with his class earlier that month. Leesy laughed and told him that everyone had to start somewhere. He promised her he’d write the stories, but only if she agreed to illustrate them. Leesy was delighted to be asked.

  Over the course of several weeks, the two accumulated pages of journal entries and doodles: Mason’s tales of monsters and mayhem accompanied by Leesy’s increasingly disturbing and gory depictions of the poor victims. At first, Leesy shocked herself by being so macabre, but soon, she considered that to make pictures in which Mason’s monsters received a comeuppance gave her relief that she hadn’t known she’d needed. For surely, monsters worse than these existed—all one had to do was open a newspaper or turn on a radio for proof.

  By the time winter slammed its icy hand down on the coast of Massachusetts, Leesy’s drawing skills had improved so greatly, she believed her collaboration with Mason had the potential to turn into something real, complete, true. Whenever she finished another illustration, she’d sign it and hand it over to him for safekeeping out of fear that if her parents ever found her grotesques, they’d disapprove.

  As the cold weather continued its reign into the next year, she believed that her project with Mason just might be the only thing keeping him going. He had asked Leesy to keep it a secret that his room was in the barn’s drafty loft, and that despite his diligence, his aunt continued to withhold the occasional meal.

  Leesy couldn’t understand why he didn’t wish to alert someone to his situation, even after he explained that the alternative would be for him to leave Slade. She could never have borne such cruelty, especially from someone who was supposed to care unconditionally.

  At night, safe in her own bed, Leesy imagined him shivering inside his sleeping bag, on his thin mattress, tucked into the upper hollows of the barn’s roof. At school, she began to sneak some of Temple House’s blankets to him. Some days, she would even wear one of her father’s extra-bulky sweaters and hand it over during lunch.

  No one in her family ever questioned the slow dwindling of items from the house’s deep closets. Unfortunately for Mason, someone in his family did end up wondering where he’d acquired such new and fancy décor. From her kitchen window, Aunt Verna had seen Mason lugging quite a few of Leesy’s gifts into the barn.

  One day, after he’d left for school, his aunt explored the loft. When Mason came home, he found her waiting up there for him, her face twisted in anger. It wasn’t the blankets from Temple House or the clothes that had belonged to Leesy’s father that had brought about her fury. Instead, she’d laid out on his bed the pages of handwritten stories and sheaves of illustrations, using her finger to draw an invisible line of accusation between Mason and his beloved project. She demanded to know what sort of evil he’d been playing with. “What is Howler’s Notch?” she’d asked quietly.

  He later told Leesy that her question hadn’t been about his stories. How could she be concerned about evil when she was the one who forced him to live like this? No, her dilemma was about his relationship with the “Princess on the Hill.” Leesy’s signature was all over the drawings. One sketch in particular shocked Mason’s aunt so thoroughly that, for a moment, she’d lost the ability to speak and instead croaked out her disgust. It was an illustration of a haggard old woman whose face bore a striking resemblance to Verna’s own. Leesy had labeled it “The Witch Queen.”

  Mason knew that an explanation would never suffice, so he refused to answer. Red-faced, Aunt Verna had instructed him to gather up the pages from the bed and bring them into the cottage. Inside, a warm fire was already burning in the living room fireplace. She opened the small door in the iron furnace and heat rustled Mason’s hair. He understood what his aunt was asking of him, and judging from her expression, he thought it best to obey.

  As he fed each leaf of paper into the furnace, Mason had tried uselessly to control his tears. He’d saved Leesy’s drawings for last, as if some interruption might prevent him from finishing the worst of his aunt’s chores.

  The next day, when Leesy found him sitting at their usual lunch table, Mason’s anger had already dried up any other emotion. In fact, his calm demeanor was more shocking to her than hearing what Mrs. Hopper had made him do. He was cold, detached, as if he’d encountered one of the beasts from his tales, and in order to survive, had fed it a piece of his soul.

  “We’ll start over,” she told him. “We’ll be better than before.”

  “Sometimes, I wish that my monsters were real,” he answered.

  Not knowing what to do, she nodded with tentative sympathy. If she were to reveal Mason’s story to her parents, would she need to confess the dark subjects of her artwork? If she somehow were able to get her point across, what power would they have to change his situation? Would they even care? What else might Mason’s aunt force him to set aflame? The blankets? The sweaters? Himself? With the frigid temperatures of the approaching February, she worried for his safety. Someone needed to talk some sense into his guardians.

  That was how Leesy ended up at the Hoppers’ cottage later that evening, rapping on their front door, waiting patiently for Verna to open up and let her in. She stood on the porch, bundled tightly, a scarf wrapped around her neck and most of her face, a thick wool hat pulled over her ears. A harsh wind howled through the branches, sounding like a high-pitched cry. But as the sound grew louder, more frenzied, Leesy realized it was a human wail. Lifting her hat away from reddened ears, she understood quickly that it was coming from the barn.

  LEESY FOUGHT AGAINST THE COLD and her fear, descended the stairs of the cottage, and traversed the path toward the dark building beyond the driveway. Every step brought her closer to what sounded like a disturbed and violent confrontation. Standing outside the barn’s side door, Leesy heard the argument clearly.

  “What did you do?” This came from a woman. Mason’s aunt Verna? She sounded frantic, frightened, angry. “What did you do?”

  “I didn’t do anything,” said a low voice. Mason. He sounded different, as if his throat had been ravaged somehow, choked raw. Had Verna put her hands on him? Hurt him? What was his aunt blaming him for? Surely something bad.

  “It was the Hunter,” he added.

  Leesy flinched. Had she heard correctly? They both knew that the Hunter was only a character in a story.

  A moment later, there came a great smashing, clattering crunch, as if metal had met wood or wood had met metal. She reached for the latch.

  “Stay away from me!” Mason cried out. “Leave me alone!”

  Leesy stepped back, hugging her rib cage, as if she too needed protection. One of her mother’s rules was People will not mind if you mind your own business. But Leesy wondered whose business it would be if someone was seriously hurt. Mason and his aunt seemed to be battling, like mortal enemies in Howler’s Notch.

  She called out, “Mason!” as if announcing her presence here might be enough to stop them from killing each other. Another raucous scream erupted from just inside the door. What if, when she opened it, Verna attacked her too?

  Leesy glanced back toward the cottage and saw Mason’s uncle standing on the porch, watching and listening, just as she was doing from outside the barn. The man noticed her noticing him. He stiffened then turned, slipping quickly back inside. Leesy wanted to run over to the house, to pound on the door, to demand his help.

  The barn door burst open with a crack that sounded like a shotgun. Lantern light spilled out onto the grass. A tall, thin figure dashed from the doorway and raced toward the woods. “Mason!” Leesy screamed again. The figure pa
used to look over his shoulder. She was certain he saw her, but he continued to run, disappearing into the mass of trees, swallowed by the shadows of the in-between. She moved to follow him, but stopped herself. Mason was faster than she and clearly did not wish to be tracked.

  Seconds passed. The night grew quiet, almost silent, but for the ambient sounds of nature settling into slumber. Specks of snow floated in the cold air. Leesy stared at the forest, seeing in her mind the fantasy world that Mason had created; within, her friend was a soldier regrouping from an assault by the witch queen herself.

  She remembered his aunt’s desperate question: What did you do? It struck her, had Mason done something? What could be so horrible that it would cause his aunt to erupt like Vesuvius? It was the Hunter. Earlier, Mason had told her he wished that the monsters of his imagination were real.

  A soft weeping hovered in the air between the tenuously falling snowflakes. Leesy cautiously approached the rectangle of light flickering at the wall of the barn. Mason’s aunt was at the far wall. She didn’t notice Leesy step through the doorway. A kerosene lamp hung from a hook on one of the posts that held up the hayloft. Leesy glanced around the room. Shattered glass lay on the ground. One of the hayloft ladders was smashed to pieces. Animal feed was scattered haphazardly across the floor.

  One of Leesy’s mud-crusted shoes met a weak plank; a squeal rang out. When Verna turned, Leesy screamed.

  The woman’s floral dress was covered in blood. Red specks had splattered onto her face, but tears had cleared away two clean trails to her chin. She stepped toward Leesy, clutching a dripping red mess. Leesy thought of the Hunter’s bag and what Mason told her the beast carried in it. Bits of ash swirled around them. Holding up her palm, she caught a piece. It was actually a black feather.

  Quite a few were pasted to Verna, her clothes, her blood-slick arms. “He killed it,” said Mason’s aunt, her voice wobbling like the cry of an injured animal. Leesy’s own throat began to swell, making it hard for her to find breath. The room spun. The kerosene lamp’s flickering light was dizzying, and she fell back against the wall.

  A pool of blood covered the floor in the far corner where Verna stood, holding the small bloody thing, as if in offering to her. A dark doorway stood open behind Verna. From inside came a rustling followed by the sound of flapping wings. The chicken coop. An axe lay several feet in front of the door. Not far from the blade, illuminated by the uneven light, lay a small, glistening lump of feathers. A head.

  “Abraham,” said Verna, her bottom lip trembling. “My rooster.” Her eyes darkened as she seemed finally to understand who was standing with her in the barn—the reviled Princess on the Hill. “That boy is evil,” she spat out. “The basest kind of evil. The vengeful sort. There is no reasoning with a creature like that. I should have known better than to let it in.”

  It. She’d called Mason it.

  Leesy felt a white heat rise up the back of her throat. How dare this woman accuse him? It took every ounce of strength to keep her mouth shut even as she began to wonder if Mason was capable of such an atrocity.

  “If you see him,” said Aunt Verna, reverently placing what was left of the rooster onto the floor a few feet from its severed head, “you tell him he is no longer welcome in my home.” Verna sighed. Her eyes seemed to glaze over, as if she’d gone away to some secret place. “Now, if you’ll excuse me,” she said, “I have a real mess to clean up.”

  The storm continued to gather strength, a mix of snow and sleet. By the time she’d climbed the slick road back to Temple House, Leesy was soaked. Feeling numb, she raced to her bedroom.

  Kicking off her shoes, stripping away her overcoat, Leesy slipped beneath the blankets on her bed. Once she’d caught her breath, she turned her head to the window. A thin layer of ice had begun to stick to the glass, obscuring her view of the churning clouds. The wind picked up, seemed to cry out at her in a language she could not comprehend.

  Was Mason still out there? she wondered. Maybe this wailing at the window was not the wind. Maybe it was him, crying for help, pleading for shelter from the storm. Every time Leesy blinked, she saw blood, glistening darkly by the light of that lantern. Deep down, she knew that Mason had done it, and though she understood why, she couldn’t bring herself to condone it. The idea that her best friend had been filled with such hatred frightened her beyond all expectation.

  Leesy shoved her face into her pillow and cried until the cotton case was soaked nearly through. She was sure if she thought on it all night long, in the morning, she’d still have no clue what to do or say when they met.

  But what Leesy didn’t know—couldn’t have fathomed—was that she’d never have a chance to find out. After that night, Leesy never saw Mason again.

  GABE WAITED FOR HIS GRANDMOTHER to continue. She licked at her lips and brushed at her robe but said nothing more. Not immediately. Clutching the blanket closer to his chin, Gabe finally blurted out, “But what happened to him?”

  Elyse stared at the floor. “I told you, no one knows. Not now that Verna Hopper is dead. A car accident, many years later.”

  “You think Verna did something to him?”

  The tilt of her head told him she wasn’t sure. “The next morning, after my guilt caught up with me, I told my parents what I’d seen in the barn. Of course, they called the sheriff’s office. When the officer arrived at the Hoppers’, Verna showed him what had become of her rooster and shared who she thought was the culprit. She claimed that hours earlier, Mason had snuck back to the barn, gathered what was left of his stuff, and taken off. She said she didn’t know or care where he’d gone.

  “Later in the week, Verna called my parents and told them what she’d found in her hayloft—my drawings of Mason’s monsters. Turned out, she’d kept one to show them.”

  “The Witch Queen?” Gabe asked, appalled.

  Elyse nodded. “It was the first time I saw how spiteful a person could be. Needless to say, they weren’t happy.

  “My parents sent me away to the Nettleburn Academy for Girls, a boarding school in New York State. I left Slade in a smoke cloud of shame.

  “More than anything, I wished to see Mason again. To ask him what really happened that night or, at the very least, to say good-bye. I did try to find him. Unsuccessfully of course.

  “I returned to Temple House on holidays. But it no longer felt like my home, just another stopping place where I was lucky enough to have a bed and a roof over my head. I spent many of those holiday breaks doodling in my notebooks, trying to re-create the sketches that Verna had forced him to feed to her furnace.

  “The Hoppers’ two sons returned and took over the house. The oldest boy married soon after that and his wife gave birth to a boy, who grew up, I believe, to become your friend Seth’s father.

  “A lifetime later, after my father’s funeral, I never would have imagined that, when I stepped through Temple House’s front doorway, I would be overcome with a sensation that I mustn’t leave, that it was imperative I make this house my home once more. It was not a bad feeling, merely a voice insisting it was time for a change.

  “I packed up my apartment in New York City—every prize I had acquired over the years—and came home.” She smiled, looking inward, seeing the picture of her story. “Only recently have I understood what truly called me back here.” Elyse paused. “Do you know what it was?”

  “I-I have no idea.” Gabe grew tense.

  “It was you,” she said.

  “Me?”

  “You and your sister and your parents. If I hadn’t returned to Temple House, I most certainly would have sold it to one local nincompoop or another. Do you realize what would have happened then?”

  He shook his head, confused.

  “After the fire, you would have had no place to go. No place to start over. The apartment where your father grew up wasn’t nearly large enough for all of us. Oh, I’m sure he’d have found something for you. But here, you have space, an okay school, friends. You have every advan
tage I had when I was your age.” For the first time since she’d come into his bedroom, his grandmother took Gabe’s hand and held it firmly. “But as you know, I didn’t visit your room tonight to give you a pep talk.” He tried to control the sudden trembling that was creeping down his arm. “I came because you found that drawing in the book I did with Nathaniel all those years ago. The one of the Hunter.”

  Gabe wasn’t sure if he was ready to hear the rest. “Wh-what about it?” he forced himself to ask.

  Elyse squinted at him, as if into a clouded mirror. “You say you’ve been playing this game with that boy Seth. Somehow, your game is all mixed up with my memories of Mason’s stories—Howler’s Notch and whatnot.”

  Gabe nodded cautiously.

  “Now, your mother was correct in thinking that Seth or his brother could have read the old book of ghost tales and mythologies. The local library has a copy of it, I’m sure. It is entirely within the realm of possibility that those boys based their game on my drawing and my memories.” Elyse squeezed his fingers. “But I have a feeling that’s not quite it.”

  Gabe couldn’t control himself any longer. “You’ve seen it, haven’t you?” he blurted out. Her lips opened with a crisp smacking sound. “The shadow by the woods,” he continued. “The thing that hides just inside the line of trees.” To his surprise, she remained silent. Not a denial. “That’s what you meant when I found you in the library that night—you said you like to watch the night because sometimes the night watches you back. But it’s not the night that watches. It never was the night, was it?”

  As she sighed, her thin rib cage expanded visibly beneath her silk robe. “No. It wasn’t.”