by R. A. Nelson
I pull off my shoes, but I keep everything else on. Say my prayers and climb into bed. I tell myself I’ll just stay awake, see her when she comes. Then I change my mind and pull the cord on the bedside lamp. The room fills up with dark—just a little stripe of yellow under the big hallway door. I cock my head to one side, waiting, and catch a single star skating across the big window. Before you know it, I’m gone to the world.
When I wake up, the light is on. Look all around, but the room is empty. There’s a fly on my blanket—a big, fat summer fly. I watch its creepy black eyes, but it doesn’t move. I reach my hand over, doing a trick Certain Certain showed me a long time ago—you cup your hand and sweep it across the fly, and the fly will wind up inside your fist.
I swing my hand quick, feel the fat, heavy fly smack into my palm. Then something closes over my wrist, clamping down so hard my fingers spread open and the fly scoots away. It’s Lucy—standing beside the bed, holding my arm.
“You shouldn’t have even touched it,” she says. “That’s what it wants. It wants you. Do you understand that?”
She’s squeezing my wrist tighter and tighter, stronger than I figured she could.
“Let me go. Let me go, please” I say.
Lucy unclenches her fingers, and I scramble away to the chair, rubbing my wrist.
“Did I hurt you?” she says.
“It’s just—you surprised me, that’s all. Your hand—why’s it so hot?”
“Sorry. I’ll stick it in a bucket of ice water next time.” She grins.
My heart is still going ninety to nothing. I can’t get used to the way she comes and goes.
“What could a fly do?” I say.
“Maybe nothing. Maybe everything. You can’t take chances like that. Anything that comes around you acting curious.”
“Like you?”
“Present company excepted. We have to be careful, that’s all. It wants you, too. The one that is holding them. It’ll do anything it can to get to you.”
“Including changing itself into a fly?”
“It wants all of us. Whoever it can get. Any way it can.”
“Why?”
“How should I know?” Lucy looks away from me, almost like she’s listening to somebody. “The ones it’s holding— they’re showing me—they’re so angry. So much anger and fear. I think that’s how it holds them.”
“Who is ‘them’? You were trying to tell me last time.”
“That’s what we need to find out. So we can set them free. But their huge anger—their rage—I think it makes them blind. Keeps them from moving on.”
“Moving on where? Heaven? Because the Bible says—”
“Home,” Lucy says. “They need to go home.”
“You mean here—this isn’t—”
She makes a disgusted sound.
“Don’t be stupid. I’m not talking about a place, Ronald Earl. I’m talking about… home. You’re always there. You just don’t know it. This … world … is a distraction, okay? Every thing about it. Everything that is … here….” Her eyes flare in frustration. “When you’re in the middle of it… what you call life … you think that’s all there is. There can’t be anything else. Anything … better.”
“But there is?”
“Oh yeah. Home.”
“So what’s it like there?”
“I don’t know if it’s right… showing you. But maybe I will sometime.” She grins. “If I feel like you can handle it.”
“It’s that bad?”
“That good, goofball. Good can fry your circuits, too. You of all people ought to know that. What does it say in the Bible about looking on the face of God?”
“Okay. But if that’s our home, and it’s so great, why do we come here in the first place? To the earth, I mean.”
“Ha.” Lucy shakes her head. “Like I’m some kind of teacher. I don’t know half what I need to know. Not one-tenth. That’s one of the reasons it’s important to be … here.”
She lifts her arms, making me know she means the world. My world.
“To learn?” I say. “We come here to learn?”
“Grow. We’re supposed to grow. There are so many things … you can’t do here. Everything’s so hard. Doing things the hard way kinda helps us grow … faster.”
“So when we get done … growing … we go back home?”
“Bingo. Only there is no going back. You’re just there. All the time. You know you’re there. That’s what they need to know. The ones it’s holding.”
“So why don’t you just tell them?”
“Doesn’t work that way. They can’t see it, know what I mean? They’re like an old-timey TV station—they can broadcast, but they can’t receive.”
“We’re talking dead folks here, right? Are they spirits? Are they …”
“You mean, are they like me?” Lucy says. “Yeah, that’s what you would think of them. They’re dead.”
“Well, how else would you think of them? Souls? Do they have bodies?”
She turns toward the window. No moon tonight. “Everything living has a body, Ronald Earl. Just not like what you would think.”
“But you said they were dead.”
“They are … it’s just hard to think of them that way. Nothing living ever really dies. The soul, as you call it—that’s what a person is. That’s the real person, the whole person. This”—she tugs at the skin of her arm—“this is the part that’s not real.”
“So … the people we are trying to help are dead. Well, they passed on, let’s say. How can you be talking to them and not know who they are?”
“Who said I was talking to them?”
“Then how else do you communicate? How do you even figure they’re in trouble?”
Lucy frowns. “Sheesh. Okay. They don’t speak in words to me. Think of… pictures. They show me things—things that are kind of like pictures. Only … you are inside the pictures. Does that make sense?”
“I guess. Like the bracelets? They were showing you something that looked like bracelets.”
“Yeah. Except the bracelets were on me. I could feel them. They’re heavy. And they aren’t bracelets.”
“So what are they, then?”
“That’s what I’m hoping to find out tonight, if you’ll get a move on. Do you have the key I brought you?”
I unzip my suitcase and pull the old key out.
“Put it in your pocket, and let’s get going.”
“Where?”
“Come on.”
I’m tying my shoes as fast as I can. “Okay, but you have to answer me this: Are we talking about Satan? Is that who we’re fooling with here? Is that who is holding them?”
“It doesn’t have a name, as far as I know.”
She looks all around, agitated, like she’s afraid of being overheard. For some reason Miss Wanda Joy’s voice jumps up in my mind, quoting from Revelation: “‘And on their heads were as it were crowns like gold, and their faces were as the faces of men.’” Only it’s talking about locusts with scorpion stingers from the bottomless pit.
“What are you waiting on?” Lucy says. “Let’s go.”
She moves away from the bed, all arms and legs, awkward, then glides across the room to the door. My legs nearly turn to rubber just watching her.
“Can’t you walk regular?” I say.
She looks over her shoulder at me with those eyes.
“What’s wrong with the way I walk?”
“Never mind.”
The door swings open by itself, and Lucy starts glide-walking up the hallway. We make our way through the quiet, dark house, me trailing behind.
We wind up in the kitchen. Lucy stops next to a skinny little door with a black doorknob. Seems she can see better in the dark than I can. She makes a funny jerking motion with her arm.
“I can’t open this one,” she says. “You try.”
My eyes are just now starting to adjust. I put my hand on the knob and give it a turn.
�
�It’s jammed,” I say.
I set my knee against the frame and yank. The skinny door screeches open. A smell of raw dirt comes up in my face, and a big gush of cold air. Has to be the cellar.
“Look for the switch,” Lucy says.
I hold on to the doorframe and feel around in the black. Something brushes my hand, and I give it a tug and a light-bulb pops on, throwing a weak yellow glow down some rickety stairs.
“You want to go down there?” I say, feeling stupid for saying it.
Lucy gives me a poke in the back.
“That’s what they’re showing me. Get going.”
“Ladies first,” I say.
She just stares at me.
“Okay.”
No handrail and the stairs are steep. The wood is so old, I can see the circle marks from the sawmill blade. I start down, hearing creaks and pops. There is definitely a smell of the underground. On one side is a scabby stone wall, cold to my fingers. On the other, a whole lot of nothing.
As we go down, I realize I’m caught between two strange and terrible worlds, and mine is getting smaller all the time.
At the bottom I step into a weak little spot of light.
“Whoa.”
So big and so old. There’s an arched brick ceiling running off in several directions. The floor is nothing but dirt.
It’s too easy to picture being tombed up down here. Lucy comes up behind me. I don’t like the fact she’s between me and the stairs.
“Why—why do you want me down here?” I say.
“That way.”
Lucy points toward a looping string of bare lightbulbs running off down one section of archways.
I follow the lights—we pass a few old crates made of slats of wood, but they are empty, the tops busted in. I see scuff marks in the dirt where boots have come through, who knows how long ago. I come to a kind of intersection.
“Now what?”
Lucy points again—to another hall with a bricked arch over the top. Only there’s no string of lights in this direction.
“That way?” I say, pointing.
Lucy nods hard. Prickles grow all over my back. I’m way down here with nobody, nobody else but her, whatever she is.
“Let me be your eyes,” she says. She puts a warm hand on my shoulder, pushing just a little.
I walk a little ways down the dark hall, feeling the light shrinking. I move slower, with Lucy using my shoulder to steer.
“Why don’t you go in front, seeing how we need to hurry?” I say.
“Nice try. I’ll let you know if there’s something there.”
“Thanks a lot.”
“You’re welcome.” I can hear the smile in her voice. Then she gives me another little push.
I go forward again as fast as I dare, afraid of tripping over something. But mostly just plain afraid. I start putting my hands out in front of me, thinking about spiders.
And worse.
“Will you be able to tell if it’s coming?”
“Oh, we’ll both know,” Lucy says. “Keep going.”
She’s so close, I can feel the heat from her body against my back. I couldn’t swallow if I wanted to.
“What if we get stuck down here?” I say.
“There,” she says. “I can see it now. This is where they wanted us to come. They’re showing me.”
“What is it? I can’t see a thing.”
I feel my fingers bump something. It’s cold and a little damp, like wood that’s been underground a long time.
“That’s the door,” Lucy says.
“I can feel it.” I run my fingers over the wood, feeling my heart up in my ears.
“Find the place for the key,” Lucy says. “Lower, move your hand lower.”
I gulp and move my hands all over it, knowing any second a centipede the size of a Slinky is going to creep over my fingers. Then I touch it, a big metal handle sunk in the wood, with a keyhole just below it.
“Found it!”
“Open it.”
I dig out the heavy key. My hands are shaking; it takes two tries to fit it in the lock and turn it. The door clicks loud and sharp in the brick tunnel, making me flinch. I give the handle a shove, and it comes open easy with nary a creak.
A smell of rot creeps out of this room, like when you tump over a log in the forest.
Silhouetted against the far light, Lucy looks like she’s floating above the dirt floor. She lets go of my shoulder and takes my arm.
“Go in,” she says.
“Um, maybe we should go back and get a flashlight?”
“It’s too late, Ronald Earl. It’s already looking for us.”
I feel my skin tighten, take one step inside the little room, and crack my head on something.
“Ow!”
I reach up, feeling the curve of a low arch against my scrabbling fingers.
“Sorry,” Lucy says.
The room is really small; just enough space to close somebody in, swing the door shut, gone forever. Something moves between me and the light.
“Hey!”
My heart is hammering, but Lucy’s still there.
“What?” she says.
“I was afraid you had … never mind.”
“It’s got to be here,” Lucy says, suddenly all agitated. “We’ve got to find it. Keep looking.”
“What am I looking for?”
“I—I don’t know. They’re trying to show me, but… I don’t think they have a picture for it.”
“Fine,” I say. “I thought you were going to be my eyes?”
“All I can see is your butt.”
“Real funny. Some ghost.”
“Wait—I think maybe—they’re showing me something different. Stairs. The stairs, coming down from the second floor, Ronald Earl. It’s coming down. Looking for us.”
Sweet Jesus.
“Let’s go!”
“No. We have to find it. It has to be here. Keep looking.”
I squat down, feeling lower and lower on the far wall, skin crawling. Finally I come to cold dirt; it’s damp and puffy, like maybe water seeps in here after a rain.
“Wait!”
There’s something there; it’s about the size of a suitcase, only more square. Rounded across the top. I run my fingers over it, feel pockmarked metal buckles and big leather straps flopped across the curved lid.
“It’s—it’s some kind of box!” I say.
“It’s an old trunk,” Lucy says.
“Let’s go,” I say, starting to pick it up.
“No—we only want what’s inside. Open it. Hurry.”
I get down on my knees now and start tugging furiously at the buckles, little wiggles of fear squirting over my back.
Finally I get the first strap loose, then the second. But still the trunk won’t open.
I’m thinking about where it is right now. The kitchen?
I fumble to get a fingerhold and lift the lid. I get the tips of my fingers into the crack and hoist it up. I want more than anything not to have to stick my hands into this box.
“It’s empty! No, hang on….”
There’s something flat on the bottom. I’m almost surprised when it comes out fairly easy. Then it flops open—I realize I’ve only got part of it, pages fanning in my fingers; it feels like a composition notebook.
“It’s—it’s stuck to the bottom!”
“Get it out.”
“What if it tears?”
“Get it out. We don’t have any more time.”
I give a sharp tug, and the notebook tears loose, leaving part of its skin behind. I drop the trunk lid, thunk; you can hear it up and down the brick passage.
“Should I lock the door?” I say.
Lucy’s already moving away from me, glide-walking. I turn the key in the lock, feeling it clunk, and hustle after her. I stick the notebook under my arm and follow her back toward the light.
Then just as I’m getting to the corner, out of the blackness of the brick tunnel, all the light
s dink out.
We are in a tomb.
The black is so dark, I can see flashes of my eyeballs when I blink.
“Lucy!” I hiss into the dark.
“Come on.”
I touch the brick wall with my free hand, keeping my head low, and move as quick as I can toward her voice. I’m near about to panic when she takes my hand.
“Can you see?” I say.
“Shhh.”
She gives my arm a tug, and I stumble after her, using the wall as a guide, heart kicking in my chest. We get to the corner and move out of the tunnel that led to the locked door. We can’t be far away now, can we?
A sound comes from in front of us. In front of us!
Lucy yanks me back against the wall and claps a hot hand over my mouth. She squeezes my face hard. There’s a kind of scratchy noise up ahead, like somebody running a screwdriver over the bricks.
Closer. Closer. Finally just past us, trailing away in some other part of the cellar.
I can’t help it—I wrench away from her and start to move quick toward the hall where I think the stairs are, feeling any minute whatever is making the noise could be right at our backs.
“Come on,” I hiss.
A cracking noise sounds just behind us, like stones crunching together. I’m half running now, fingers raking on the raspy bricks. I bark my shin on something and tumble down. Lucy hauls me to my feet. We’re at the bottom of the stairs.
It’s still behind us. I let go of Lucy’s hand and scramble up the stairs on all fours as fast as I can, knocking my knees on the splintery wood till I slam into the door at the top. I nearly drop the book as I claw for the latch. I crank it hard, then tumble through into the kitchen. I roll onto my back and kick the cellar door shut and lay there gasping.
Alone.
“Lucy!”
I wait there breathing hard in the dimness—watching the door. Expecting the black knob to turn, something to come out, anything.
Where is she?
Nothing.
I jump to my feet and rush to the cellar door. It’s jammed again. I put my weight against the frame, tugging and pulling, but it’s like it’s nailed shut this time. I beat on the door.