The story, as far as she could tell it, was that the Reeds had built this house when they were young, had lived in it for some years before coming upon a baby in the woods. They'd kept the child a secret from everyone they knew, probably because they feared some stigma, and then took to caring for the child. Then, when the child, seemingly rambunctious, was old enough, it ran away from home and they spent the bulk of their time in the house waiting for its return.
There were details, though, which she couldn't account for in this neat little narrative, details which she found herself pushing out of her mind. These details; the masked onlookers in the woods, the religious paraphernalia in the cellar, the fact that Marshall had, supposedly, buried their child in that makeshift grave near the woods, were things she could not place in the chronology for fear that they might suggest other, more ominous events. She took to dismissing them each as she nibbled on a crust of pizza, legs crossed.
She'd seen the photograph of the masked subjects, probably taken some Halloween many years ago, and in her earlier, worried state, she'd glimpsed things out in the yard that weren't really there. Then there was the matter of the visitation outside, the night she'd been led out of the house by a phantasm masquerading as her husband. Dakota had wished to make contact with her, that was all. And the religious items were commonplace enough. Perhaps they'd been gifts, or intended as gifts, and simply left behind in the chamber by the couple. Dakota's assertion that Marshall had buried the child near the woods, well, that was frankly impossible. It would have constituted murder. And then, there was the fact that she herself had investigated that grave and found a tunnel issuing from the pit. No human being, much less a child, could possibly dig through so much earth to free itself. There was no way Dakota had actually meant that. Kim had misremembered, or her dreaming mind had taken liberties with that specific bit of information.
Everything was falling together nicely. With a little effort she could easily explain the events that'd left her ill at ease during their time at the house. It all seemed so ordinary to her now, so comfortable by comparison. She had her answers and was pleased. Virtually everything, except for what'd happened to the Reeds, was known to her, but she now found her curiosity ebbing away. Her hunger over that specific tidbit had waned. It might have sounded strange, but Kim felt a kind of sisterhood with Dakota. Dakota's life had been one with no shortage of frustrations, and having to deal with an unsupportive husband was something that Kim had grown to know well since moving into the Beacon estate. Reading the journal, having her series of fevered dreams, Kim felt she knew Dakota better than any of her friends had known her in life. She was no longer frightened, holding only pity in her heart for the old pair who'd likely gone on waiting till the end of their days for their runaway child. Maybe, she thought, the elderly pair had gone looking for the child in the woods and had gotten lost, possibly hurt, never to emerge again. That was probably what'd happened.
Kim had spent her first weeks in the house running away. She'd reacted with fright and outrage whenever Dakota made herself known, whenever the forces about the property revealed something new to her. That'd been the wrong attitude entirely. Had she only done the opposite, acted warm and open to the mourning spirits of the Beacon estate, then perhaps she'd have saved herself a good deal of grief. Following Dakota's lead, listening to her whims, would have been the smarter thing to do.
It occurred to her, too, that in listening to what Dakota had to say, Kim could help her spirit move on. Kim had seen the tortured soul of Dakota with her own eyes; some aspect of the woman still lingered here, wandering the halls late at night, communicating through dreams. If Kim could stay the course and listen, then she could help Dakota move into the next life after eight years of isolation and suffering. From that point on, she resolved to keep her wits about her, to remain understanding to the spirit's plight and to do her best to assist. There was no telling what Dakota might ask for, but if Kim kept an open mind, then perhaps she wouldn't see it fit to resort to fright tactics like she'd been doing.
Julian was exhausted from the day's work. Having guzzled a few beers and eaten some pizza, he laid back on the sofa and began nodding off, eventually settling against the armrest and snoring lightly. She smiled, throwing a knit blanket over the top of him and shutting off the television. Stretching out herself, she placed her heels up on the edge of a nearby coffee table and picked up one of her books.
This, she thought, is what it felt like to truly live in a home. More and more she was becoming excited about their future there, about the possibilities that awaited them. Her finger still ailed her, but as soon as it'd fully healed, she'd be able to help Julian with the renovations. She shared his vision now, looked forward to fixing up the house and making it theirs. With nothing left to fear, she possessed only the warmth of happiness in her breast.
For about an hour Kim sat and read by lamplight. She'd set her book aside and patted Julian on the arm with the intention of going to bed, when her gaze was drawn towards the kitchen. She perked up a little, incredulous.
There'd been three, firm knocks at the back door.
Kim wondered if she wasn't imagining things, but the fact that Julian himself had sit up and taken notice, along with the utter solidity of the noises, reassured her. Someone was knocking at their back door. It was well after dark, so that she couldn't imagine having company of any kind. She felt the familiar stirrings of dread well up inside her but did her best to subdue them. Relax, she thought. It's probably nothing pressing; someone's gotten lost out here and is asking for directions. Or, if it is something... supernatural, well, Dakota knows you're on her side.
It was at that moment that she remembered the Amber Light. She'd gone into the basement to flip the switches some hours ago, just as Dakota had asked. She tensed. Had the light actually worked? Had it subsequently drawn someone... or something... from the woods? She cracked a nervous smile and looked to her husband, who was standing up.
“I'll check it out,” said Julian, his grogginess banished at once. He approached the door firmly, straightening his clothes and narrowing his gaze. “It was this door back here, wasn't it?” he asked as he crossed into the kitchen.
“Yeah, I think so,” replied Kim. She was up and following him in the next moment, keeping just a few feet behind.
Pausing before the back door, Julian reached over and plucked a crowbar from the floor where he'd earlier been doing work with it. Grasping it firmly in one hand, he hovered by the door with obvious hesitance until a second sequence of firm knocks, three in all, started him and he moved to open it. “Stay back,” he said to her as he unlocked the deadbolt and gripped the handle.
Julian opened the door, his other hand twitching as he did so and the crowbar ready to fly into action at any moment.
Then, a few seconds and a few curious glances later, Julian took a couple of steps outside. “Hello?” he said quietly.
Kim walked up to the door, looking out into the cool, dark night. There was no one there. “What in the world?” she muttered. “Was anyone there?”
He shook his head. “Nah, doesn't look like it.” He looked this way and that, first out to the woods, then to his right and left. There was no one. Julian scratched at his head and sighed, loosing a nervous chuckle. “You know, that's really damn weird.” He cleared his throat, taking a step back and looking up to the moonlit sky. “I opened the door just as the knocking was going on; if someone did knock, then there's just no way they'd be able to disappear that quickly. I'd have caught a glimpse of them running towards the woods, or walking around the house or something.”
“Maybe it was someone looking for directions,” she ventured. “Maybe a car broke down on the main road, or...” She trailed off, her limbs growing tense at the passage of an unnaturally chill breeze. It wafted in through the door, hanging about her frame for a rather long while before dissipating into the kitchen. She felt her hair standing on end, as though something had just shifted in the space immediately be
fore her. She knew the space between her and the door to be empty, but had felt the new presence nonetheless. Julian was pacing about the lawn, looking around for the source of the knocking and apparently oblivious to the chill. Kim shuddered, looking behind her, towards the cellar door, and then the living room, wondering if some unseen trespasser hadn't just walked by.
The house had fallen still. Completely. Not a floorboard creaked, not a pipe rattled. It was a sepulchral quiet, unlike anything she'd ever known in the house. Even in the dead of night, when both of them were asleep, she couldn't remember it ever being this quiet. Tonguing her molars pensively, she found she didn't care for it one bit. She crossed her arms and waited for Julian to come back inside.
Pointing out into the distance, Julian came back towards the door, stealing a glance her way and stepping aside to let her through. “Say, what is that out there?” He paused, squinting. “Maybe it's just me, but the woods look a lot brighter than normal. Don't they? Could be that the moon is hitting them just right. I dunno what to make of it.”
Taking a step forward, Kim looked out towards the woods, studying the treeline for a time. That was when she realized it, her heart fluttering. The Amber Light... it worked. It really worked. She shook her head and denied it, saying that they looked the same way they always did. Julian dropped it, unconcerned, and reentered the house. But Kim hesitated at the threshold for a brief time, her eyes glued to the faint amber glow that dwelt between the trunks of the dense trees like the flickering candlelight of a jack-o-lantern. It was unmistakable.
When lit up in this way, the woods seemed to take on a new characteristic. They were given a kind of life, their solid trunks subtly animated. She closed the door behind her and suggested they go to bed.
Even as she changed into pajamas and made her way across the bedroom, she caught hints of the ethereal amber glow issuing from the woods through the closed curtains. Burning like a beacon out there, its rusted shape casting an eerie light in those woods where light was such an oddity, was the fixture the Reeds had installed in the hopes of drawing their runaway child back to the house.
It was when she laid her head upon her pillow and fought to get to sleep that Kim recalled a detail out of her dream. She remembered Dakota's complaint that Marshall was unsupportive; unsupportive because he claimed their child was not a child at all, but something else.
She sighed deeply. Of course it'd been a child. Kim had seen the photograph herself.
And, if the Reeds hadn't installed that light in the dark woods to lead their child back home, then... what, she wondered, could they have hoped to guide to the property?
It was unwise to dwell on such a thing considering the hour. Kim forced it from her mind, but still her wandering thoughts returned to that territory, until sleep overcame her.
Thirty
The night passed without incident. There'd been no other disturbances, no dreams. The pair had slept soundly into the early afternoon and risen refreshed.
Still, as she considered her mug of coffee, Kim felt that something was awry.
Having felt comfortable around the house the previous day, and pleased with having learned more about its previous owners, she'd been confident that she could now put the property's “bad vibes” behind her. And yet, here they were, all the same, and with renewed gusto. Something was different in the air, and it wasn't solely the clouds of dust that Julian's noisy, constant work on the kitchen floors was producing. The air, even from her spot in the living room, felt heavy, unsuitable for breathing. She stirred her coffee for a minute, let more steam pour off of the top before chancing a careful sip.
It tasted awful to her, the bitterness nigh overwhelming. She'd made it the same way she always did, had used the same beans and water in the same proportions. Glancing around at the crowded living room, the piles of dishes upon the relocated dinner table, stacks of boxed foods filling a nearby chair, she wondered at the source of this new unease. It wasn't new, exactly, but it was different. She'd thought herself through with all of this dread, but its newest incarnation hit her from somewhere far closer than ever before. There'd been a sea change in the house overnight, ever since the queer knocking at the back door the previous evening. She recalled the way she'd felt a profound cold wash over her, the way her senses had tracked movement where her eyes could find none.
Kim was jumpier this morning than she had been for quite some time. Julian's pounding and grunting in the kitchen did little to calm her nerves. More than once she'd startled, staining the bandage on her finger with fresh coffee. Sitting on the edge of the sofa, fidgeting, she tried to remember what she'd done the previous day, or the day before. Each day in her memory ran into the last, however, and in searching through her thoughts she could suss out only the highlights, usually curious or frightening. Anything that didn't deal with the house or the Reeds became blotted out and obscured. Dinners with Julian, books she'd read; none of that could enter her focus.
Palming at her forehead, Kim continued to fidget, her toes tapping against the rug in a nervous dance. She felt like her head was elsewhere, as if she'd somehow become disembodied and the act of rejoining her body and mind was too difficult. Something was in the way, scrambling her thoughts and making her feel sapped of intelligence. Maybe she'd eaten something off, or gotten too drunk the previous night. No, you hardly drank then, didn't you? She doubted her memories of the previous night's dinner, counted, then recounted her memory of the beers she'd consumed.
It didn't matter.
Setting her coffee down amidst the clutter of a side table, Kim rose in a huff and ascended the stairs. Entering the master bath, she switched on the light and pulled out the first-aid kit. It was time to change her bandage, the white gauze still damp with lukewarm coffee. Tugging away the old bandage, she threw it in the waste bin before applying an antiseptic spray and tugging open a new patch of gauze. The digit was healing well, and had clotted evenly, but it was still hot and red around the wound. She carefully applied the gauze, wrapping it around the tip of her finger, and then finished it up with some paper tape as before.
Looking up at herself in the mirror, Kim noticed two, wide eyes surveying her in the reflection from nearby. Standing just behind her, leaning over her right shoulder, Kim saw Dakota's bright, wild eyes and toothy smile. She said nothing, and their eyes didn't meet; in fact, by the time Kim took notice, the image of Dakota had vanished, making her wonder if she hadn't just imagined it. Kim shook her head, ran a brush through her black hair and pursed her lips. What do you want now, Dakota? Just tell me what you want.
She'd been letting her hair go as of late. The ends were tangled, knotty. With a wince, she went about untangling the strands, brushing at them vigorously. She started from the ends, tugging hard on the tangles with her boar's hair brush. When they wouldn't come easily, she went even harder. Harder.
Running the brush through her hair, she found she was panting, the bristles clawing large, black clumps of hair from her scalp. She continued on, tearing fresh hairs out and gripping at the side of the sink, her knuckles going as white as the porcelain. Her eyes teary, she stopped what she was doing and removed the brush from her hair, finding it ridden with black knots. A large clump of hair stuck to it, far more than she'd intended to come away with. Her scalp tingled where hairs had been yanked out, and suddenly she threw the brush into the sink, taking a step back and bumping into the door at her back. Kim looked at herself in the mirror, her face seeming altogether more gaunt and white than usual. Perhaps her eyes were simply bothering her, but the shape of her chin looked different than she remembered it; longer, elongated, unfamiliar. Her eyes were a bit sunken; she'd slept well the night before, but evidently not well enough. She pawed feebly at her cheeks. The reflection is just off because of this mirror. It's new, you're not used to the way you look in it yet.
Smoothing out her hair, Kim licked the corner of her lips and took an unsteady step out into the hall. She wasn't feeling at all well. A powerful lethargy had
claimed her, and she seemed hopeless to shake it off. Shambling down the stairs, she bypassed the kitchen where Julian was still noisily tearing up the flooring and exited through the front door. Closing it behind her quietly, she looked up into the blue sky and paced around near the garage for a time. A cool breeze worked its way over her, bringing her the closest thing to invigoration she could find.
She'd been living out here in the middle of nowhere for weeks. She couldn't remember the last time she'd left the property, the last time she'd seen other people. Oh, she'd visited with Edwin that one time, she knew, but other than that her only companion had been Julian.
She wasn't sure whether Dakota counted in this case.
Spending so much time out here can probably warp your perception... and maybe that's what living here did to Dakota...
Kim banished the thought, shaking her head as if trying to force it to tumble out of her ears. Dakota and Marshall had had a great social life, by the sounds of it. They'd gone to church. Or, maybe they hadn't. Their surviving acquaintances couldn't seem to agree on that. But, of course, they'd had many friends in their day, despite the isolation of this property. Good friends like Edwin, Enid, and--
Kim sighed, stretching. She'd spent far too long in the house, away from other people and other sights. It would do her some good, she thought, to take a day-trip somewhere. A trip to a shopping mall, to see a movie, to visit a park. Perhaps even visiting family, or friends back in the city. All of it sounded lovely. It's time the two of you go for a trip. It isn't healthy to be here all the time, focusing on what happened. Maybe Julian's right... I've been obsessed and it's unhealthy of me. We could both use some time out, some time around other people, doing new things.
She stepped into the garage, its large door sitting open. Scattered all across the floor were tools, boxes of cabinetry and relocated kitchen fixtures that Julian hadn't found space for throughout the house. Kim sighed, walking carefully around a mass of plastic pipes, and looking through the space. She hadn't spent much time in the garage yet. In time they'd go shopping for another car; they could probably fit two full-size vehicles in it with room to spare for the lawn mower and a few boxes of tools. The ceiling was made up of knotted wooden rafters, the space between them thick with spider's silk. The walls, which seemed made of thin sheets of wood, were covered in pockmarks where tools had once been hung. Rusty nails stuck out of virtually ever wooden surface in sight. The floors, smooth concrete, were stained with old paint and oil.
Black Acres- The Complete Collection Page 18