Dancing felt like freedom.
It was late when Alice got back to the house, a pale green and white-painted Victorian on a side street near school. She tried to be as quiet as possible as she made her way upstairs to her little rented room. It was a simple space, spare yet cozy, but it was hers—her own little haven from the world. As she started changing into her nightclothes, she noticed her window was still open and walked over to it.
She moved one of the light cotton curtains aside and saw movement in the backyard, as if something darted across quickly.
What was that?! she thought in alarm as she squinted, peering out to see what was there. Nothing. There’s nothing there. Probably just some animal or something. I’m too tired for this mess. She closed the shades and turned around, practically falling into her bed with exhaustion.
Just as she started to drift off, Alice could hear music. She lay there for a moment listening. Bom bom bom went the bass with a tinny-sounding piano tinkling away. A simple, old blues song.
Alice opened her eyes and looked around. It didn’t sound far away enough to be neighbors having a party. It sounded like it was coming from inside the house. She knew that Bea liked to play music sometimes, but turned it off late night so that Alice and Miss Clara, the older woman who owned the house, could get some rest. The music stopped almost as abruptly as it started. What in the world? She was now wide awake, listening intently and trying to figure out what just happened. There was a loud creak on the side of her bed and it felt as if it was being pressed down by someone at her side.
“Pay attention,” a low male voice said breathily right at her left ear, startling Alice so much that she recoiled and jumped away from it in the opposite direction, almost falling out of the small, iron- railed bed. What was that?! She had even felt the voice’s vibration.
She sat upright, frozen in place as she gripped the bedcovers. Her eyes darted back and forth, knowing that the room was empty except for herself. She quickly contemplated her options: Should I run out? Should I wake up Bea and Miss Clara? What just happened here?! She looked around in the dim of her room again. There was nothing there. No one and nothing.
There’s nothing here, that wasn’t real, there’s nothing here, she told herself as she tried to calm back down. She slid back down under the covers, still jittery and unnerved.
There was no sleep for her that night.
In the morning, Alice finally drifted downstairs, where Bea was sitting at the dining room table eating a biscuit with some scrambled eggs. “Mmph, mmph, mmph!” Bea said as she took another bite, smiling at the gray-haired woman sitting at the table’s head. “Miss Clara, you really outdid yourself with these today!” Bea’s dark hair was shiny, her curls neatly in place. She patted the side of her head touching them as she turned and looked at Alice.
“Ooo, girl, I’m so excited! I can’t wait for my beau to come up here from school tonight!”
“If all goes well, maybe you’ll be Mrs. Dr. Johnson someday,” Alice said, her smile more subdued than normal.
Bea squealed with delight at the thought. “I’m telling you, he’s going to be such a good one! He’s staying with his friends instead of—” She stopped talking and raised an arched eyebrow at her friend. “Wait—Alice, you seem a little worse for wear this morning. Are you alright?”
Alice averted her eyes for a moment before responding. “I thought I heard a man’s voice in the middle of the night. Right in my ear, but there was no one there. No one there at all and everyone was asleep. Scared me pretty good.”
This time it was Miss Clara’s turn to raise an eyebrow. “Girl, that must’ve been some dream. Don’t you go on talking about haints and such. You know I don’t like that kind of mess in my home.”
“But Miss Clara, I swear it happened. I’m not crazy or anything.”
“Mmm-hmm,” Miss Clara said, unconvinced. “What you are crazy about is working at that club. What is a respectable girl like you doing working in a place like that?” She shook her head as she handed Alice a plate.
“My job is just a tap dancer. I show up, I dance, I get my money for school and life. Nothing more. No sense in letting all those lessons go to waste. It is paying for my tuition. Just a means to an end.”
“Besides, Miss Clara,” Bea interjected with a smile as she tried to change the subject. She shot a look across the table at Alice. “All of the big time jazz stars come and play there: Duke, Pearl, Cab, Ella—it’s the place to be! You should go see for yourself.” Miss Clara just shook her head again.
“I think not. Something about that place, that’s all,” she said with a sniff as she finished her breakfast and went into the kitchen, leaving the two younger women behind. Alice leaned over the table a little towards Bea, whispering.
“I’m telling you, I definitely heard a man.”
Bea looked a little nervous for a moment. “Know that I believe you, hon. If you say you heard it, you heard it.” They ate the rest of their breakfast in silence.
Thump, thump, thump went the music and Alice tapped her foot to the beat as they waited backstage. She closed her eyes, letting the rhythm carry her as she prepared for her performance.. Except this time, it was tempered by her fatigue. For many nights now Alice had been sleeping fitfully, her dreams always the same.
She would be standing in a room so dim she could not see her hands before her. Always she would try to feel around her hoping for a door or way out into the light again, but there was nothing but empty, nothing to touch. A tall, dim shadow always lurked along the wall, always speaking with the low, butter-smooth voice from before. He had finally told her to call him The Mentor. She sighed out loud as she thought about the dreams, thinking about the senselessness of them and her situation in general. The Mentor was ever present in them both with a voice like a little menacing serenade.
She opened her eyes again wearily and stood up straight, adjusting her costume and putting on a smile before following the dancer ahead of her out into the lights and the small stage floor. Her smile faded almost as soon as they began their routine and she looked out into the audience. What is going on? Something isn’t right.
Her eyes widened in disbelief when she saw liquid dripping from the ceiling and stalactites down onto the club goers below. Thump, thump, thump. They continued to laugh and smile and chat as they always did, but the thick, viscous liquid was rolling down their heads and faces, coating their carefully coiffed hair, staining their fine clothes and furs, and pooling on the white linen tablecloths. Drops fell into their drinks, turning them red, and Alice recoiled as they sipped from them.
Blood, she thought as she gasped. That is blood.
Bewildered by what she was seeing, Alice lost the beat and stumbled into the dancer to her left, who shot her a confused, annoyed look. She recovered quickly, jumping back into step in sync with her colleagues. They tapped and kicked and swung their arms as Alice tried not to focus on what she was seeing out there.Oh God, oh God—is no one else seeing this?
Thump, thump, thump.
Then she saw him. The Mentor stood there in the back corner of the room, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed watching her. Silhouetted from the light of the doorway behind him, he looked as he did in her dreams: tall, formless yet with form, a shadow yet solid, everything dark. This time was different—she met his eyes, or the dark spaces where eyes should have been, and The Mentor threw back his head and laughed, his white teeth glinting in the low light as he pointed a slender hand at her. Alice lost her step again and froze in panic before running off the stage. Her colleagues stopped for only a moment to watch her leave before picking up their routine once more.
Thump, thump, thump.
A few days later, Alice was in her room surrounded by her books and notes studying for an exam. When the house was still, it was just her and the nighttime city sounds. Since she saw him, what used to bring her calm now made her nervous and being able to hear things so well in the quiet of the evening troubled her
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instead. She felt really lucky that the club didn’t can her for running offstage like that, and she was still rattled from her experience.
Management gave her another chance and bought her excuse that she had not been feeling very well that night, which was not entirely untrue. “You’re a good girl and a good dancer,” management told her. “We’ll cut you a break this time, but that can’t happen again or you’re out.” She sighed at the thought, her lip curling up at the memory, and leaned back onto the pillows, careful not to dislodge the scarf around her carefully pinned up hair.
She was beginning to think that her mind was slipping. Maybe school or work is too stressful and working on me? There was a loud knock on her door. She sat up suddenly, surprised, and got up to get it,
unsure if she had somehow missed Bea or Miss Clara while lost in her thoughts. She opened it and no one was there. As she peeked out, a look of confusion crossed her face as she looked up and down the hall. No one was there. The door clicked as she slowly closed it behind her, shaking her head.
I’m letting this get to me. Maybe I was hearing things?
She settled back down on her bed and started reading again.
This time, Alice could clearly hear the familiar sound of Miss Clara’s soft footsteps starting down the hallway. Alice did not think much of it. She must have left something downstairs. Suddenly a voice was right in her ear. “Made you look!” it said in a low hiss, before it let out a harsh, raspy laugh, obviously amused with itself. She dropped her book, jumped out of bed and ran towards the center of the room. The Mentor. “Stop this!” Alice called out as she looked around in the room’s dim light. His laughter had barely faded when she heard a scream and a series of hard bumps as if something was falling. Thump, thump, thump. It stopped with a loud thud. Alice threw open her door and ran out of her room to the top of the stairs. “Oh my God!” she said as she rushed down to Miss Clara, who was lying in a heap at the bottom crying out in pain.
Bea was soon at their side, her face still slathered with night cream and her hair also pinned and tied up. Her robe was tied loosely as they both hovered over Miss Clara. “I’ll get an ambulance,” Bea said, running to the telephone on the wall nearby. Alice could hear her talking to the operator as she tried to comfort Miss Clara, who was a bit beside herself. “No worries,” she told her. “They’ll be here soon.”
Alice stayed with her when the ambulance came. Miss Clara was still a little shaken as she sat there later at Freedman’s Hospital wringing her hands over and over again. “Doctors say that I broke my foot. I’m telling you that I thought I felt a hand upon my back push me hard as I was going downstairs,” she said. “But that can’t be. It was just me there. That could not have happened. Maybe I wasn’t paying attention to what I was doing as I was going down? Misjudged?” She looked perplexed and Alice could tell that she was hoping for some type of explanation. Alice could not offer her one and gritted her teeth, patting Miss Clara’s arm to reassure her. “Well now, you are just going to have to be more careful going up and down those stairs!” she said, feeling certain that The Mentor was becoming more aggressive and looked down at the floor, thinking. A sinking feeling roiled around in her gut:
How do you get rid of someone who is unwanted if you don’t know if they are a someone at all?
Alice’s days and nights began to blend as she started going through them both feeling like a shell, hollow and uncertain of herself. When she danced, it had no feeling. The freedom she once felt as she moved was diminished, each step empty for her where it had once been full of joy. She saw him at the club every night now. His tall form always leaning against the wall in the back, watching her. What do you want?! she wanted to shout at him as she pushed on through her routine. Everywhere she went she worried that The Mentor would be there watching. She could not shake that feeling of his presence in her life, and after the incident with Miss Clara, not knowing what he was, and the unpredictability of what he—or it—was capable of. She was not the only one who did not seem to not be themselves. A pall hung over the entire house, with all three women seeming more diminished. They barely spoke at breakfast, or any other mealtime, any more. It was as if they had all retreated, the others not treading onto or into each other’s own little worlds any more. As the days went on, they all seemed as if they were fading, becoming shadows of their former selves going through the motions of when they were whole.
As she got ready for work, Alice passed by the doorway to Bea’s room and thought she’d stop, leaning on it. Her friend was quieter than normal, subdued even for her, sitting on the edge of the bed in her pale green satin slip and brown stockings. Clothes and shoes and books were strewn everywhere, her normal mess, but Bea just wasn’t…Bea. Like her, Bea looked tired. Almost haggard even, unusual for someone who so highly prided herself on her appearance. Alice came in, sat down on the bed next to her and looked at her more closely. “Are you okay? Feeling alright? Your eyes are a little bloodshot.”
“I haven’t been sleeping well,” she said as her large brown eyes looked up at Alice slowly. She opened her mouth to say something and stopped. She was tapping her well-manicured nails on a book. Clickety-click click, clickety-click, click, click.
“Everything okay with Mr. Soon-to-be-Doctor Johnson?” “He’s fine and dandy. No complaints there.”
She hugged her friend and held her hand. “Maybe you just need some rest or something?”
“Rest, yes. Good idea. Wish I could though. You were right, you know?”
“Hmm? Right about what?”
Bea looked off towards the doorway as if watching something in the hallway. Alice followed her gaze and looked over that way too, not seeing anything. “Nothing,” Bea said. “Never mind.” Clickety-click click, clickety-click, click, click, went her nails again.
“If you like, I can stop by the restaurant, and let them know you’re unwell?”
Bea nodded slowly as Alice hugged her again. Alice stood up to leave, looking at her friend with concern. “Feel better, hon. Let me know if you need anything.”
“What I need is for—” Bea started to say, but stopped herself, waving Alice off. “Go on now, before you’re late. Don’t give ‘em a reason, you know?”
Clickety-click click, clickety-click, click, click.
That night Alice dreamed that she was walking through the halls of a large house or mansion filled with rich, dark woodwork.
Although she wanted to touch it, everything had a touch of gray film upon it and was faded, as if no one had been there for decades. Dingy. Dank. She opened door after door entering room after room until she walked into one with large ceiling-to-floor windows with sheer white billowing curtains, a cold breeze blowing them inwards. A deep blue tufted velvet couch was in the middle of the room and she sat down upon it. She found herself entranced by the undulating curtains lifting and so softly falling, lifting and so softly falling again. The ones to her right blew towards her, but when they dropped back down, she gasped as they enveloped the form of a man.
The tall figure walked forward, the curtain slowly falling away as it came towards her. He was dapper in his shined shoes, dressed in a tailored dark pinstriped suit with a white silk square neatly tucked into the front pocket. As the curtain fell away from his face, it revealed desiccated brown-gray skin drawn back tightly like that of a corpse. He—no, it—ran a hand over its skull-like bald head as Alice’s hand flew to her open mouth. There were only empty hollows where there should have been eyes. The Mentor. It had to be. What IS this thing? The figure moved languidly with an assured confidence, a swagger, its movements smooth and elegant as it went over to a gramophone on a small mahogany table. Its hand set the arm down onto the record with a flourish, the needle gliding along the grooves as it began to play the blues song that she had been hearing every night.
Thump, thump, thump.
Alice had never hated a song more.
She could not say anything as The Mentor came towards her, terrified to
take her eyes off o f it. Alice scrambled back across the length of the couch, her hands swinging at it wildly as it came closer. Suddenly, with great speed it was inches from her face, its drawn mouth curved into a sly smile showing very sharp, fanged teeth. She put her hands up before her and it snapped its teeth at them as if to take a bite of them before it laughed at her silent scream.
“I do not know who or what you are—you can’t do this!” she screamed at it.
Its smiling mouth now turned into a sneer as it put a knee on the sofa next to her, its body leaning against her with its face mere inches from hers. Too close! Too close! My God! Alice thought, recoiling in disgust even further into the velvet of the sofa.
The voice was all too familiar now as it leaned over her menacingly, sidling up next to her ear.
“Me?” it said, laughing again. “I do as I like. I told her to pay attention, too, when I was in the hallway.” It tilted its head, as she took a swing at it.
“Didn’t you hear me?”
Alice woke up sweating and still swinging at the air. The sense of dread did not leave her as she quickly got out of bed. She needed some water. Something, anything, to still herself and to help her try to forget that experience.
Then she heard it.
Thump, thump, thump. The bass. The tinny piano. The doleful singer. Coming from…Bea’s room?
She ran to the door and knocked. Nothing.
She banged on it. Still nothing. Normally, Bea would have answered by now, groggy and annoyed.
“What is going on?” Miss Clara said, limping out into the hallway in her robe, a scarf neatly tied around her hair.
“Something’s wrong with Bea, Miss Clara!” Alice banged her fist against the door to no avail. As loud as she was being, there was no way Bea couldn’t hear her.
“How do you know that? Maybe that girl is sleeping hard, so leave her alone,” the older woman said with a shrug, clearly annoyed at being awakened this time of night.
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