by S. A. Glenn
With her heart beating like a hummingbird’s she clutched her hand around the door latch of the solid oak door and pushed it open. A whoosh of a smell of rotting meat and then gunpowder flowed past her head, causing her hair to sway back in the gust of nausea. She held back the vomit that begged to spew from her soured stomach. The unearthly sound that emanated from behind the closed door halted instantly, as if it were hiding from her, knowing she had come. Nancy saw a small rectangular object resting on the dirt floor at the center of the cold, dank cellar smelling of moss. She held out the lantern in front of her body, not daring to journey deeper into the blackness that hid a mystery. It was a book she saw at the center of the cellar on the dirt floor. She squinted to focus in on its title. “It’s ‘Mac Beth,’ by William Shakespeare,” she blurted out.
Something was there, watching her, waiting for her to ask the question: who murdered you? That was the topic placed into Nancy Miller’s mind for her to seek from the ‘something’ within the cool, dark cellar smelling of moss.
But Nancy ignored the request of the entity, believing she would become a victim herself if she were to seek the truth. She experienced brief petrification. The hair all over her body stood on end, several strands of it turned white, instantly. With every bit of courage she could find, she turned her back on the fright within the cellar and ran up the stairs. At first her legs felt like they were wading through cold honey; but, eventually, she was able to run like a hurricane.
She made it into the living room, then set the lit lantern down on the coffee table in front of the couch. She bent over to her knees to catch her breath, tasting blood at the back of her throat. She remembered the book in the cellar, the same one she had pulled out from the bookcase. It couldn’t be the same exact one, she thought. There must be two of them. She stood tall and faced the bookcase, anxiety overwhelmed her. “It’s gone!” she shrieked as she ran over to the bookcase next to the fireplace. “It was right here: ‘Mac Beth,’” she murmured as she ran her hand across the bare top of the bookcase. She fingered through the other books on the shelves, causing some of them to drop to the floor. “Mac Beth” was not there.
A strong odor of whiskey and tobacco rushed across her dainty nose. She breathed it in deep, and it just about gagged her. (She and her husband didn’t partake in those things.)
A vicious barking of a dog erupted, seeming to be coming from outside—then there was only the sound of a dog whimpering. (Ruff had been killed by a stage coach soon after Samuel died, run over and cut into two pieces by the wheels.)
Many strange things were happening at once, Nancy couldn’t process them. She sat on the edge of the couch, rocking back and forth, chewing on her freshly manicured nails. “This isn’t happening. None of this is happening,” she tried to convince herself. But she didn’t believe a damn bit of her words.
There was the sound of a man weeping from a spot on the couch next to her, his voice dry and crackling. “No, no, no! Go away!” Her hands covered her ears as she shook her head, seeing no one next to her.
Then five gunshots: bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, sounding like they came from the cellar, had her jolt up off the couch, nearly startling her to death. Her knee smacked the coffee table in front of her. She screamed in horror as she darted out the front door and down the steps with her dress’ length in her hand, heading toward her husband in the field.
The lantern had tipped over and set the coffee table ablaze. The oil from the lantern flowed across the top of the table like a river of fire, dripping like hot lava onto the rug underneath. But the rug couldn’t resist the liquid inferno and it burst into flames.
The couch was the next victim. The fire consumed it as though it were starving for fuel. If the couch were alive it would have screamed in horrific agony.
The growing flames stretched for the ceiling, touching it with its long, ominous fingertips. An elongated plume of black smoke swallowed up most of the light. The only source of light left was the rolls of orange and white glowing gases that hugged the ceiling and melted the walls within the furnace from hell.
The holocaust breathed its fury on the entire place, brought it down all at once, triumphantly.
The barn and chicken coop were engulfed by the extensions of fire, burning them down like worthless wood. The only things untouched by the tragedy were the walnut, cherry, plum, and apple trees; and the mint and sumac Samuel and Katherine planted. (To this day, the mint and sumac thrives every year on the hill that overlooks the land that meets the deep, blue horizon.)
Katherine’s ghost lingered.
She was not able to tell her story, to expose the truth.
Katherine’s ghost wept on.