Enter If You Dare

by Alyson Larrabee

  “Dad!”

  He doesn’t heal like I do. What if he’s been shot?

  Wild-eyed and barefoot, he charges along the path, toward me. “Annabelle, get the hell back in the house!”

  I’m overjoyed to hear his voice, even though he sounds pissed off. Bending over, I put my hands on my knees, to hold myself up and catch my breath.

  Dad takes a few steps closer.

  “Shh, listen.”

  Rapid, faint footsteps scuffle away in the distance. I can barely make out the sound.

  “Damn! He got away.” Dad turns and looks down at me. “Annabelle! What the hell are you doing out here? You could’ve gotten shot.”

  He obviously hasn’t realized yet that I did get shot.

  Like an idiot, I begin to quiver and suck in deep breaths.

  His tone softens. “Honey, are you all right?”

  I have a sudden urge to say, “I’ve been hit,” like they always say on TV. But this is no time for joking.

  “I’m fine, Dad.” I sniffle and try to stop shaking. “It just felt like a big bee sting.”

  By now my mother has turned on the outside floodlights and we can all see a little more clearly. Dad finally notices the blood soaking through the shoulder of my t-shirt.

  “Holy shit! Oh my God!” He tries to scoop me up in his arms to carry me, but I wince at the contact and shove him away.

  “I can walk, Dad. It’s my shoulder, not my leg, and it only hurts a little.” I’m lying. The stinging feeling has evolved into a horrible throbbing sensation.

  “Get in the house. What the hell are you doing out here?”

  “I had to know. I couldn’t stay inside.”

  “You’ve always been like that. Worse than your brothers. When you were little, I was always fishing you out of some pond. Or helping you climb down from the highest limb of the tallest tree in the yard.”

  “Sorry, Dad.”

  “Shit, Annabelle. The lunatic had a gun.”

  “I’m aware of that.”

  He gently rubs the back of my head, puts his arm around my waist and supports me as I stumble into the house. I could probably walk fine by myself, if I wasn’t shaking so hard.

  My mother greets me with that mixture of anger and worry I know so well. I’ve been inspiring these two emotions, simultaneously, in her for as long back as I can remember.

  She doesn’t know whether to say, “You poor baby, you’re hurt.” Or “You idiot, why the hell did you do that?” So she says both.

  We go into the bathroom together and she takes off my t-shirt, wraps me in a towel and cleans up my gunshot wound. It’s superficial and easily patched up with some antibiotic ointment and a big square bandage. Still, it stings and hurts like hell when she touches it, even though her hands are gentle.

  “That’s Joe’s UMass t-shirt, isn’t it?” she accuses me.

  “Go, Minutemen!” My weak attempt at a joke.

  “Not funny, Annabelle. Not funny at all.”

  “Yeah, it’s Joe’s shirt, but even though there’s a hole in it now and you might not be able to get all of the bloodstains out, he’ll think it’s cool. He’ll probably still wear it.” I’m still shivering really hard, so my mother runs upstairs and gets one of my dad’s old flannel shirts. She helps me into it and buttons it up the front. It would hurt too much if I tried to raise my arms to get a sweatshirt over my head.

  When we enter the kitchen, Dad’s already back outside, pacing back and forth with the rifle; making sure we’re all safe. I can see him through the big window because the lights are still on out there.

  My mother makes me sit down and yells at me to stay put while she goes into her little pantry and measures out handfuls of lavender, Echinacea and golden seal. Then she brews me a cup of tea designed to speed the healing process and ease the nerves, plus it’s nice and hot and I can’t stop shivering. The night’s grown a lot colder since I went to bed. The whole ordeal has really shaken me up. That happens when the adrenaline surges then ebbs. You feel cold and shaky.

  Mom makes sure that I finish the whole mug of heavily-honeyed tea and then she pours me another. “Later, I’ll make a poultice for your wound by soaking a clean cloth in cooled-down tea made from speedwell and yarrow blossoms. I’ll put one on your shoulder every night until the scab falls off. Even though you heal more quickly than most people, you’ve been shot and that’s always serious.”

  She lights her candles and we sit at the kitchen table together, both clutching mugs of hot, sweet tea. I put my face down near the cup and breathe in the steam. It warms me down into my toes.

  “Wait ’til your father comes in, Annabelle. Then you can explain everything to both of us at the same time.”

  “What do you mean: ‘explain’?”

  “Don’t you think you owe us an explanation? I suspect you have some idea why someone was shooting off a gun in our backyard in the middle of the night.”

  “I suppose I do have a theory.”

  My mother eyes me. “I’m slowly starting to figure out what happened, based on the information Nathaniel told me about your visit to Mrs. McGuire’s. You’ve been holding back. I don’t know exactly what you said to her, Annabelle, but we need to know everything and so does Uncle Johnny. You just visited her this afternoon, so tonight’s attack has to be connected to her somehow. I hope the police can find this guy.”

  “Me too.”

  “I still don’t understand why you ran outside. That was so dangerous.”

  “I had to know. You and Dad were in danger and it’s my fault. I did something stupid. I couldn’t just sit in the house and wait. Everything happened because of me.”

  “Why did it happen because of you? What did you do, Annabelle? What did you say to that old lady this afternoon?”

  I avoid answering my mother’s questions and instead try to distract her by explaining tonight’s sequence of events as best as I can.

  “Anthony woke me up. Then I heard someone shinnying up the downspout. When I got out of bed and looked out the window I saw the top of his head. You and Dad must’ve heard something, too. By the time I ran out of my room, Dad was already in the hallway with his rifle.”

  “I figured out you were in danger through a different sense, not hearing: a sixth sense. When any kind of evil is close by, I feel sick: dizzy and nauseous. The feeling was so strong tonight; I woke up out of a sound sleep and grabbed hold of your father. He knew immediately, just by looking at me, that something horrible was going down. He ran for the gun and I screamed for him not to go, but he headed out back anyway. The old fool.”

  So, not only can my mother sense and ward off evil, my dad provides back-up, with a loaded weapon. And I always thought they were boring.

  “That’s amazing! He saved our lives tonight.”

  “Him and grandpa’s old rifle.”

  “It was pitch black and he was barefoot!”

  “That’s a Blake thing. Your dad and his brother can move through the woods like animals. They don’t make any noise. They have super-keen night vision. They’re surefooted and stealthy even in the dark. His dad and granddad were the same way.”

  As if they know we’re talking about them, my dad walks in with his brother, my Uncle Johnny. Both of them look pretty grim. Through the big bay window overlooking the backyard and the woods, I can see a handful of police officers searching everywhere with flashlights. They won’t find him though.

  The intruder’s gone. I can tell by looking at my mother. She’s composed and calm, not nauseous and agitated. There’s no evil close by.

  Dad starts in on me. “So, Annabelle, can we assume your intruder wasn’t some random bad guy looking for an anonymous victim?”

  Uncle Johnny and Dad sit down with us and my mother sets cups of tea in front of them. My dad’s younger brother is obviously not pleased and I can guess why. A close family member’s at the center of a giant heap of commotion in our small town. He’ll have to think fast and perform a lot of damage control. Eve
ryone in Eastfield will want to know what happened.

  Why was someone on the Blakes’ property firing a gun in the middle of the night? That’ll be the question of the day tomorrow, in our close-knit, gossipy community.

  My mother announces that my gunshot wound should remain a secret. I don’t require a doctor, so we don’t need to report it. We certainly don’t want all the attention it will draw. Uncle Johnny agrees and delivers some directions into his crackling walkie-talkie. He manages to keep the other police officers outside and at bay, while we continue to have our private conversation in the kitchen. He even quells the flashing blue lights and sirens. My dad turns off the floodlights and the cops aren’t using any huge, brilliant searchlights in the backyard, or adjoining woods and swampland. Only a quiet handful of police officers explore the dim shadows of our property with their crisscrossing flashlight beams. The circles of pale yellow light look like inflated fireflies floating here and there in the darkness.

  Uncle Johnny goes outside and we watch him through the window as he converses with the other officers. Then he comes back inside and reports to us that the intruder got away. He ran through the woods, through the shallow end of the swamp and then disappeared. A cop with a bloodhound on a leash tried to follow his trail, but it ended at the edge of the pond. The police investigators have by now concluded that the culprit arrived and escaped by boat, somewhere farther into the swamp. Out there the wetlands open up into a small and isolated pond we call Deep Water.

  The Morse family has owned Deep Water Pond and the surrounding land for centuries. Mr. Morse is quite elderly now, so he doesn’t spend much time at the pond. But he always lets us fish out of it in the summer and ice skate on it in the winter. He won’t take kindly to someone borrowing one of his boats in the middle of the night to sneak over and shoot at his closest neighbors.

  “Old man Morse and his wife probably slept through it all. The intruder didn’t go near their house. So they won’t be able to tell us much about him. Most likely, he parked on the street at the edge of the woods and snuck out to the pond to steal the Morse’s boat. Then he rowed it quickly across the water, got out and jogged through the woods into your backyard,” Uncle Johnny explains.

  “How did he know which window was Annabelle’s?” my mom asks.

  “My officers found a couple of snapped lower branches on one of the pines out back and a few cigarette butts under it. I think he sat up in that tree with binoculars and checked out the house for a while.”

  “I remember standing at my window, looking out before I turned off the light and went to bed.”

  “Then that’s it, Annabelle. He saw you in your window, right near the porch roof, saw the downspout. Bingo. He made a plan and executed it.”

  “He almost executed Annabelle.” Dad’s calmer now but he still looks worried.

  My uncle continues to question us so he can put together the facts.

  “Bill, what the hell were you doing, shooting that damn thing off in the middle of the night? What the hell were you thinking?”

  “He shot first.”

  “Then just call us. Let us do the damn shooting. Where the hell did you get the damn gun?” Uncle Johnny runs his hand through what’s left of his hair but there’s not even enough to mess up. His gray-blue eyes are wide open and wild.

  There are a lot of damns and hells getting thrown around in my mother’s kitchen. But she won’t get mad unless someone lets loose with an F bomb. She won’t care who’s shooting off guns and running through the woods at midnight. My mother refuses to tolerate the F word in her home.

  “It’s Dad’s old gopher-shooting rifle,” my father answers. “I haven’t fired it since we were kids. Remember how Dad used to set up those tin cans for us to aim at, down at the dump, before it became the landfill and recycling center?”

  “It’s a wonder you didn’t blow the guy’s head off, or shoot someone’s pure bred poodle, out for a midnight pee.”

  “I aimed a foot above the guy’s head. I guessed that he might be about average height, so I aimed about seven feet up just to be sure, although I wanted to blow his head off. I was always a way better shot than you and it all came right back to me as soon as I raised the butt to my shoulder and sighted down the barrel. Just like riding a bicycle.”

  “Very few people die from getting hit by a bicycle. And you were never a better shot than me.”

  “I’m calling Dad down in Florida. He’ll remember.”

  “Okay, okay, no need to bother Dad. He and Mom go to bed at seven. Right after they get back from the early bird special. Let’s not give him a heart attack. You’re an excellent shot. I admit it. But that thing hasn’t been fired in years. You’re lucky it didn’t explode and blow your face off.”

  “I haven’t fired it in a long time, but I keep it cleaned up and in good condition just like Dad taught us. Also, it’s licensed to me and always kept in a locked closet. I’m the only one who has a key. None of the kids even know it exists, except for tonight. Now Annabelle knows.”

  “It’s a damn pain in the ass, Bill. We got people calling the station saying they heard shots. Susannah called me all hysterical to tell me you were headed out the backdoor full speed ahead carrying a loaded rifle in the middle of the night like some damn lunatic militia man.”

  “He’s after Annabelle, Johnny. We can’t have that.” My dad’s statement silences his brother.

  “Now why would anyone be after Annabelle?”

  “It’s a long story, John. Like a lot of stories involving the Blakes, it’s complicated.”

  I can’t think of a good way to tell my uncle, the cop, about Mary McGuire’s hidden note and Daniel’s journal without revealing that we trespassed at the Wild Wood Hospital. I’m hoping Dad or Mom will think of something. Also, I’m sure Uncle Johnny isn’t ready to hear about the ghost, but then again, he’s a Blake and they all know about the family curse and how I’m the one who broke it. I was the last to find out about all that.

  “Johnny, maybe you should come back when you’re off duty if you want to hear the whole story.” Dad saves the day again, this time without a loaded weapon.

  My uncle looks at his watch. “That’ll be in about ten minutes.”

  “So call off the troops. Sit and finish your tea. In ten minutes I’ll break out the Jack Daniels and we’ll talk about the whole truth. Until then I’ll give you a version you can use in your official report.”

  Chapter 26

  Uncle Johnny Hears the Truth

  I walk over to the big window in our kitchen and look out into the night, at the dark and dangerous world that used to be my backyard. Now it’s a crime scene. Three or four police officers are still poking here and there with flashlights, looking under shrubs and in between the tall herbs in my mother’s raised flower beds.

  My dad and I go out with Uncle Johnny, to show him approximately where I was standing when the bullet grazed my shoulder. I whisper in my uncle’s ear so no one will know that I actually got shot. Dad and Uncle Johnny look around but fail to find the bullet anywhere. There isn’t much evidence out there. No one, not even my uncle’s fellow officers, needs to know I got shot. At the first light of dawn, when no one else is around, Uncle Johnny and my dad will look around again, to see if they can find the bullet that grazed my shoulder. The three of us go back in the house, and I watch the torch beams through the window.

  Behind me I hear someone knocking at the back door. I assume it’s one of the cops and continue to gaze out the window, facing away from the small group at the table. My mother opens the door to let the officer in. I feel pretty humiliated because I caused all the trouble, so I don’t turn around.

  As I hang my head and marinate in my own disgrace, two strong arms circle me from behind. Wyatt bends down until his lips are next to my ear. “What have you done, you stupid girl?”

  I don’t answer him.

  “Thank god you’re okay.” Then he turns me to face him, but I can’t look up and meet his eyes.r />
  When he pulls me closer, I wince.

  “Annabelle, are you hurt?”

  My mother answers him. “She has a superficial bullet wound on her shoulder. But that’s a secret, Wyatt. She’s going to be fine physically. However, I think right now she just might die of remorse. Her recklessness has caused everyone a load of trouble, but worst of all, she’s in danger.”

  No one knows what I asked Mary McGuire right before we left her house and it’s time to confess. What I want to do most is stand here with Wyatt and hide my face against his chest. He seems willing to grant my wish, too, but my uncle interrupts.

  “I don’t think I’ve ever met this young man, Annabelle. I’d like to know what he’s doing here in the middle of the night during a police investigation.”

  Wyatt lets go of me and steps forward to shake hands with Uncle Johnny. He introduces himself and then explains why he’s shown up in the middle of the night.

  “Marc Adams lives over there, to the left.” He points out the back window. “We’re on the high school soccer team together. He knows Annabelle and I are going out. Anyway, he heard the shots and his dad has a police radio, so he ran and turned it on. When the dispatcher mentioned Annabelle’s address he called me to see if I knew anything. I answered ‘No’ then pulled on some clothes and raced over. Oliver’s probably coming, too. He was moving too slow for me, though. I couldn’t stand it. I had to see if Annabelle was all right.”

  “The cops outside just let you in?”

  “I told them Annabelle called me and Mrs. Blake knew I was coming.”

  “You lied to the police?” My uncle looks pissed.

  “Sorry, I had to, sir. I couldn’t stand it. I was going crazy with worry. Plus I’m involved in this whole mess. I might be able to help in some way.”

  Feeling miserable, I stand quietly by Wyatt’s side as the tears dribble down my cheeks. In a quiet voice, I beg my parents, “Can I please talk to Wyatt alone? It will be easier for me to tell him everything. Then we can talk to all of you together.”

  Rolling her eyes, my mother sighs and looks to my father and uncle for their opinions. When they nod their heads in agreement, she gives us permission. “Annabelle, count yourself lucky that your uncle and father feel uncomfortable in the presence of a crying female. You and Wyatt can go into the den for a few minutes, but we expect you to return soon and tell us everything.”