The Mahogany Door

by Mark Boliek

Chapter 4

  “May we sit for a moment?” I asked my band of dedicated listeners, and all gathered around and sat on the stone benches in a grand garden off of the south end of the large house at the edge of the ocean.

  “Isn’t this garden lovely?” I asked and received a delighted response from the children.

  “It was grown in hopes of reminding passersby of the cycle of life; the process where every living thing is reborn and then sadly must die.

  You see, every year the showers of spring bring the tulips and petunias into full bloom. The azaleas burst with their own fireworks display, showing off their bright colors of pink, white, and violet. Thick grapevines are heavy with their plump, fruitful bounty. But the roses, my friends, out dazzle them all with their genius strokes of red, white, yellow, and pink that paint a perfect portrait from one end of the garden to the other.

  Then, just as the landscape seems to reach its full potential, the twilight of summer dwindles into the past, and fall begins. The garden’s colorful scenes give way to the dreadful brown, grays, and black of death and winter. The tulips, azaleas, and petunias wither away. The vines won’t produce any fruit, and the roses leave tall, ugly stems that are cracked and littered with thorns. However, just as with all of earth’s creations, the garden nurtures hope.

  The plants during their spring and summer reigns, secretly spread seeds in the ground where they wait. Those little kernels wait with the promise that the sun and showers will return the following spring so the garden may become brilliant once again.”

  The children looked around at the fading fall garden, and I could tell that they were trying to picture it in full regalia. Some of the children smelled at the withering plants and tried to catch the last bit of flowery bouquet before the plants finally bent in dormancy. One little girl with auburn hair even picked a dying petunia and placed it behind her ear.

  “Michael,” I continued as I sat beneath an arch covered in dried out sunflowers, lilies, and grapevines fading with the creeping fall, “was full of nerves and confusion. Earlier, as he wrote his letter, Michael had wished only that he would find JT - but there he was, his friend from so long ago, standing in front of him. His thoughts were racing. Michael wanted so much to just tell JT everything he knew about his life and the path he took to get to the Shorts’ farm. His heart wrenched against his ribs and his palms began to sweat.

  ‘I have no idea where to start,’ Michael told JT as they stood beneath the tree. He felt faint ready to collapse with exhaustion.

  JT didn’t know what to say or even think about the situation. He searched his brain for any rational thought, but said the first thing that came to his mind. ‘Who are you and what are you doing here?’

  ‘That’s fair enough I guess.’ Michael’s bubble instantly burst and he was filled with assorted emotions. It was a very strange and humbling moment when he heard his best friend from childhood tell him that he didn’t remember who he was. He knew he should understand why JT did not remember him, but he was still distraught.

  ‘My name is Michael, you know - I guess - Michael Peterson and we have been -- well maybe -- we were friends a long time ago, before your accident. Basically, we grew up together in a little town on the coast called Athens Eden. I know you can’t remember anything since before your mom got killed.’ Michael started to calm just a little, and his mood started to improve. The chance to talk to his old friend sobered his soul and soothed his jittery nerves. For a brief moment under the big oak tree, he felt a sense of peace.

  It sank in that he had found JT, and surprisingly, it was exactly where Billy, the guide from his past, had led him in his dreams. Was that monster setting him up for more failure in his life, or was he actually helping him? Was JT a part of some unseen destiny laid out for him? The conflict in him grew. Michael suddenly felt a surging burst of emotion and his peace was shattered. His emotions spiraled out of control.

  ‘Gosh JT, there’s just so much to say! I mean there’s your grandfather and the house, and Billy and Kali, and Charlie! Geez, I almost forgot about Charlie. And there’s your mom and dad. I don’t know what to say! It’s so overwhelming! My mind is so confused, I can’t think straight!!’ Michael collapsed to his bottom under the tree. He slumped his shoulders over and sat, out of breath.

  JT’s eyes became wide. There was an actual person in front of him mentioning people that were from his past - the elusive past that he wanted to remember. There was no more fantasy about mysterious worlds far away. Michael could give him what he craved. ‘What?! What did you say?!’ JT asked with cautious enthusiasm. ‘You know about my past? About my childhood?’

  ‘Know about it?’ Michael answered, his voice rising to a slight squeak. ‘I lived it. I was right there with you.’

  ‘Tell me about it. I want to know everything.’ JT seemed demanding, his mouth beginning to water.

  Michael scanned the field like a military lookout. ‘Do you have it? Do you have the cane, the cane with the skull and crossbones?’ Michael’s voice faded into a slight whisper.

  JT answered with suspicion, ‘Yes, I got it. It’s at the house. It’s strange but…’ JT then thought that maybe Michael might be one of those people (or things) like that little boy Willy who wanted to take the cane away from him.

  ‘You have to get it! You have to keep it safe!’ Michael jumped up and grabbed JT. He then realized that he acted impulsively. He quickly let go of JT and pretended to straighten out an invisible collar on his shirt. There was a strain in Michael’s face, his eyeglasses slid to the tip of his nose; his mouth grimaced.

  JT didn’t know how to respond. Michael was acting very bizarre, as though he couldn’t collect his thoughts. He was acting as strange as Willy when he had changed into the monster in the horse barn. Every step and movement Michael made, JT tried to prepare himself for Michael to grow ten inches and shoot fire from his eyes or start spouting out another strange tale about renegade Egyptian tribes. As JT tried to keep a careful distance from Michael in case he did start to change, he was at least a little relieved that Michael wanted him to keep the cane safe.

  JT watched Michael pace around the big oak tree and mutter incoherent messages. The now excited Michael would stop his pacing and swear at the sky, shaking his head. He smiled at the big oak tree and placed his hand on it as though he had missed it. He was a bag of emotions now, and JT thought the scene would be almost comical if it weren’t so serious.

  After a few minutes of watching him gyrate and swear, JT became convinced that Michael wouldn’t turn into some sort of creature. He calmed Michael down and sat him under the tree again. ‘It’s OK. The cane’s in my room. I just haven’t used it. That stuff Willy was telling me yesterday really freaked me out. He was all about that cane too. Kinda like you.’

  ‘What did he tell you exactly?’ Michael asked with a renewed curiosity.

  ‘He told me all about some tribe called the Vry - Vry-something. He also told me that the cane was first given to me by my grandfather, but that he was the one who gave it to me in the hospital. He said something about me being a steward of the key. He didn’t really elaborate.’

  ‘The Vryheid. That is or - eh - was the tribe in Africa,’ Michael interrupted. ‘The tribe was very ancient. And your grandfather, Captain Luke Xavier Davis, was quite a man.’ Michael took a deep breath, and just as Willy had done the day before, he told JT his own little story.

  ‘Your grandfather -- everybody called him Captain Luke -- was a sailor, a Navy man,’ Michael began, and JT sat and listened carefully. ‘But he was a strange old guy to say the least. When he was young, he was part of a combat unit that sailed over to Africa to fight against a revolt. They chased one of the revolution leaders through some of the deepest jungles on the southern tip of Africa around the Cape of Good Hope and then deep into the continent itself. They went so far that they ended up in the Kalahari Desert. There they found the lost city ruins of the Vryheid called Hopian, where the leader of the revolt was hiding out
. When Captain Luke and his team got to the city, they were ambushed and the revolutionaries drove your grandfather and his team of soldiers out of Africa.

  After the revolutions in Africa, it was very dangerous to go back. The leaders of the new countries were in total control. It was exactly what the Vryheid were trying to get away from in Egypt: total domination. Ol’ Captain Luke never quit though. He told us right before he died that something in the desert kept calling him back. He said it became an obsession to return to Hopian.

  After many years and many secret trips back to the desert, he met a man named Jato Bindi who helped him search the desert and find the hidden city once again. There he found the cane and learned the secrets in the story that Willy told you. Here, wait a minute.’ Michael got up, went to his car, and pulled an old, thick, brown leather notebook from the trunk. It was only kept together by a string tied around it, and the two bound covers strained to keep the loose papers between them.

  ‘It’s in here. This is your grandfather’s journal of the trips and his stories of the time he spent searching and finding Hopian. I’m sorry I took it, but I thought it might be lost or destroyed after you left.’ Michael took a deep breath and gave it to JT. Maybe he had finally started to let his destiny take over, but something still kept driving him. It had to have been Billy - driving him and calling him - wanting to get him back into the old house, visiting him in his dreams, and taunting him. Returning to the old house had become an obsession for Michael just as it was for JT’s grandfather to return to Hopian. He couldn’t help himself even though he was dog-tired and scared of the outcome. Could death be the outcome of this obsession?

  ‘Oh!’ Michael said. ‘There’s a house - Ol’ Captain Luke’s big, ol’ house by the sea. It’s called Warhead Dale.’”

  All twenty children in the group in front of me leapt from their stone benches and pointed at the big, old house on the shore situated behind us. “That house! That’s the house! Yeah! That one!” They all bounced up and down as though they were standing on the surface of the sun.

  “You’re right, children! That’s Warhead Dale, now calm down.” I had never seen children so excited. “I told you, you would find out all about the wonderful house you came to see today.” A few moments passed and the children gathered around once more, listening intensely with large eyes and wide smiles.

  “What a huge and lovely house it is,” I thought. It was at least a football field in length, 100 yards of bright beige brick, concrete, and mortar. It stood four stories tall, and from the bluish-green clay, tile-covered roof popped out ten chimneys -- three on one side, three on the other, and four that were equally distributed across the length of the center. The house was divided into three equal sections, all rising to a point, and the tallest of the sections was the one in the middle.

  The front and back of the house were covered with windows, but the most striking quality was the circular staircase that rose from inside but looked as though it were attached to the outside of the center section.

  The right side of the house stretched to a somewhat smaller servants’ house, and the left side extended to the garden where the children and I sat. The front lawn was five acres of green grass with a large, circular, brick structure in the middle. A brass fountain in the shape of an angel with wings that spanned some thirty feet stood within it, its brilliance gleaming in the cool afternoon sun. A large, stone wall circled the house grounds with a big, black iron gate that opened to a newly built driveway.

  The backyard of the house was very short compared to the front and stopped at an outcropping of rocks that were piled to the length of the house. There was a single, wooden walkway that led from the back of the house, over the rocks and down to a crystal-clear, white sand beach. The waves crashed gently on the shore and the ocean went on forever.

  I then thought quickly about why we were there. I had almost forgotten. I was so immersed in my story that I, like my audience, was lost in the moment.

  My grandson and companion for the day, James, had purchased Warhead Dale from JT’s immediate family some ten years ago. He was hypnotized by the stories (much like the children) that JT had told to his family as an older man about the house and his adventures. He thought that the house was worth restoring and sharing with the world. He was granted a historical site certificate from the government, and today was the first day it was to be shown to the public.

  As I looked over the shining faces of the children ready to hear more, I noticed that their number had grown by at least five while more little ones were still scurrying down the walkway to the garden. I continued my story with the meeting of Michael and JT.

  ‘You still didn’t answer my other question,’ JT sputtered to Michael with a demeaning tone. He didn’t want to belittle Michael, but he had become frustrated.

  ‘What was the question?’ Michael answered back, fiddling with his hands.

  ‘I know who you are, but what are you doing here?’ JT turned and looked out over the Ol’ 22 warily, much like Michael had done moments before. The first leaf of fall fell from the old oak tree to the ground beside his right foot.

  Michael paused for a second because he didn’t know quite how to phrase his answer without being combative. He heaved air from his lungs, and with the last morsel of courage he could gather, he looked into JT’s blue eyes. ‘I came to take you back.’”