No Doors, No Windows

by Joe Schreiber

  She ran out of space, flipped the sheet of paper over, and discovered that she had written on that side too. She flipped it back over again, increasingly anxious, searching for empty space on the margins, turned it sideways and flipped it back.

  Scott looked at the orderly. “Is she on medication? How much do you have her on?”

  “You want a list?”

  “I want an explanation.”

  “You’ll have to talk to her doctor.”

  “Where is he?”

  “Right now?” The orderly stared at his watch for a long moment. “I’d have to say home in bed.” And he added, in a lower voice, “Which is where you ought to be.”

  On the other side of the glass, his mother flipped the page and started a fresh sheet:

  Your name is Scott?

  “That’s right,” he said.

  For a moment, she stood there looking at him with a little frown, her lips moving slightly. Then:

  I have something for you.

  Swaying back to the room behind her, she stooped down, digging through a box somewhere in the shadows. When she straightened up again, she was in possession of a flat rectangular object roughly the size of an unfolded newspaper. Through the smeared safety glass, Scott saw that it was some sort of faded handicraft, a brittle tapestry woven from colorful strips of construction paper, apparently assembled a long time ago. It was wide enough that she had to curl the sides up to push it through the slot. He accepted it and held it in both hands. It crackled when he turned it over, reading the handwritten words printed on the back as a kind of reminder to herself:

  Give to Scott

  “It’s a place mat,” the orderly explained. “They make them in the activity room on arts and crafts day.”

  Scott looked at the place mat, a thing a child might have brought home from kindergarten or summer camp, and then back up at his mother. She was still hanging on to the crayon, eyes wide and pleading and blank on the inside. Her hands stroked the grimy glass that divided them, fingers splayed, as if she wanted to touch him. He thought of her here, inside this place, locked away where no one even seemed to know who she had once been—a wife, a mother, someone who had made a difference in his life.

  “Why did Dad do this to you? Why did he lie?”

  Still smiling, she settled back down and slipped her hand through the slot beneath the window. Scott reached down and touched her fingertips, the ragged fingernails rimed with dirt. They felt cool and damp, as if fashioned from hard clay. Withdrawing them, she picked up the crayon one last time and scrawled:

  My name is Eleanor

  “That’s enough now,” the orderly said. “Time to go.”

  “Mom.” Scott kept looking into his mother’s eyes. “Listen to me. I’ll be back. You don’t have to stay here. I’ll talk to your doctors and … I’m going to get to the bottom of this, okay? I promise. Mom?”

  She peered at him, tears welling now. Shaking her head. Trembling. Not sure what to do with her hands. A teardrop clung to her chin, dangling fat and pendulous, and fell.

  “Mom? Mom?”

  He put his hand through the slot again, but she stood back, arms crossed over her chest, staring at him, scared out of her mind, as if she were looking into the eyes of a stranger.

  SILENCE FOR THE FIRST HOUR, with only the muffled rumble of the road between them. At last:

  “Scott.”

  He stared straight ahead and didn’t answer.

  “I know not telling you was wrong,” Sonia said.

  “Wrong.” Monotone: “You think it was wrong.”

  “I know it was. And for what it’s worth, it probably doesn’t mean anything to you right now, but it’s been torturing me from the moment I laid eyes on you again. It’s been killing me. From what your father told me at the time—”

  “Why?” Iron rods fastened his neck to his shoulders, preventing him from turning to look at her, or looking at anything besides the snow-strewn galaxy of the very early morning in front of them. “Why couldn’t you just tell me?”

  “Your father said she was … beyond help. He said seeing her like this would be much harder on you and Owen—you in particular, because you weren’t there that night and he knew you felt terrible about it. He made me promise. He said it would only make you feel worse.”

  “Isn’t that my decision to make?”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Scott didn’t bother responding. Raw black emotion was piled up inside him, scalding and ugly, and although he didn’t know what he was going to do with it, he could already tell that it wasn’t going to go away. He fingered the place mat that his mother had given him, the crooked strips of what he’d realized was nothing more than cheap construction paper woven together, looped and secured with school glue.

  “Something happened to her in the fire,” Sonia said. “Your father said she was trapped under part of the wreckage for hours. He said when she was brought out, she had just … snapped. She wasn’t herself. She wasn’t going to recover. So he put her there for her own safety.”

  “Safety from what?”

  Sonia didn’t answer, just kept her eyes on the road.

  “It doesn’t make sense,” Scott said. “He told everyone she was dead.”

  Her voice was scarcely a whisper. “He said she would’ve wanted it that way.”

  “And you believed him.” Scott leaned forward, shoving his fists against his eyes, the dull ache somehow helping relieve the pressure that was building behind his sinuses. “What made you change your mind about telling me the truth now?”

  “Tonight, when you told me you thought you were losing your mind …” She glanced at him. “I don’t know. You’re so lost. I guess I was hoping for … some answers.”

  “You wanted answers,” he said, and shook his head. “Unbelievable.”

  “My questions were all about you. Whether you were going to be okay about all this. Whether you and I could ever—” She broke off, took a breath, held it, and let it out. “I’m so sorry, Scott, and you don’t have to forgive me, now or ever. I just want you to know that I was only doing what I thought was right. Most of all I guess I just hope you won’t shut me out.”

  He didn’t say anything. He watched the road and the snow.

  “We can fix it,” Sonia said. “We can make it better—we can get her out of there. I can help you do that.”

  They drove for another long stretch without speaking. The pressure in his head felt close to exploding. It was after six now, and Milburn lay up ahead, becoming visible in the first reluctant moments of winter dawn.

  SCOTT’S MIND FLASHED to the vision of the man in the woods, Robert Carver, grinning at him from the snow, the figure seeming to writhe and churn. The pressure in his head gave another massive squeeze, and he felt the harsh electric pain drive white-hot shards through his spine. It was far worse than it had ever been before. Without actually meaning to, he made a fist, causing the place mat that his mother had given him to rip at one side, the paper strips splitting apart along the outer edge.

  In the glow of the dashboard light, he saw the edge of something tucked inside. It looked like yellow legal paper, several sheets, folded and stuffed into the woven place mat.

  Sonia looked over. “What’s that?”

  “It was inside.”

  He removed the pages and unfolded them. Four sheets of paper, each one full of the careful cursive handwriting that he associated with his mother, interrupted occasionally by large blocks of text that she’d crossed out so thoroughly that he couldn’t read through it. Scott switched on the dome light and held up the first page.

  9/21/96

  Dear Scott:

  If you are reading this, then it means I have somehow found a way to get through to you, and I am glad for it. Your father says that he has put me in this place for my own safety and protection, but protection from what? I am not crazy. I pose no threat to myself. But from what happened that night at the Bijou Theatre, I believe your father thinks that I am saf
er here, far away from town and presumed dead. I don’t know if that’s true or not. I feel like I know very little. There’s no question that this is an awful place, full of pain and suffering. At night I lie awake and listen to the screams. But

  Here a thicket of crosshatched pen lines scratched out the rest of the paragraph, rendering it illegible. Scott’s eye moved down the page to where the handwriting resumed.

  It may be better than continuing to live with what I know now. Because of the security here and the medication the doctors give me, I am afraid that this letter will have to be our only communication. The drugs are very powerful, and they administer them regularly. I am already beginning to forget. This may be a blessing. It is very hard for me to focus, but I have to try.

  What I’m about to relay to you, I discovered before the night the Bijou burned. I already had my suspicions, long before that. I researched the Mast family without your father’s knowledge. I already knew that some of his relatives had committed suicide, many more of them had gone insane. Knowing that, I began to

  The rest of the paragraph was crossed out. It resumed with:

  Your father’s great-grandfather was a human disease, a walking affliction. There are no words to describe what was wrong with him. He built Round House as a place where he could indulge his very worst desires and urges without fear of being caught. I don’t know how many women and girls died within its walls, but their voices still speak to me, so perhaps I am less stable than I initially supposed. Or it may be the drugs, or the voices here in this godforsaken

  This godforsaken

  Another block of crossed-out text.

  The worst mistake your great-great-grandfather ever made was abducting a girl named Rosemary Carver. She was a girl who

  Scott, this is very hard for me.

  The drugs

  The drugs are

  Believe it or not, what I’ve written so far has taken me almost a week to put down, and if I don’t

  No extra time important things only

  Rosemary Carver’s father was a witch, not a female kind but maybe a warlock is what he was called. Swore a blood oath of vengeance against the Mast family—a curse is what he called it a curse of madness carried on in stories, plays, paintings. Your father knew but didn’t believe it until he started seeing things that made him want to believe it. I tried to tell him about the movie because I could already tell it was too late because he told the story

  The rest of the second page had been completely slashed away with such vehemence that Scott could almost feel his mother’s frustration in trying to convey what she knew. He started the third page, already alarmed by how much larger her printing had become, slanting blocks that took up too much space.

  Scott, the curse is the story. I didn’t know the rest until it was too late. Colette McGuire’s prom dress. I sent you over to her house with it that night. She had given it to me to alter it for her so she could wear it for prom.

  Reason why: She was pregnant.

  Owen. Owenowen.

  Shared her physical body wifth Owen.

  The baby was Owens.

  Little boy who died in the fire, baby of hers and Owen wuz Colettes attempt to try to mend things with the Mast family. She may try share herself again I don’t know. She may try sharing with you. Maybe she has alredy dun this, I dont know. To stop the curse. She’s part of the curse too but on the other side of it. This is what I learned about Colette that you must know scotty.

  Rober Carver had two dotters. Not just 1 but TWO, rosemary dyed but the 2nd cotter lived & she marry a man name mcguire & colette

  Colette is only living dessedent of rosemary carver

  Wait.

  I can do this.

  Scott laid the third page aside and picked up the final sheet of yellow paper with trembling hands.

  Colette is bound to our family as we are to hers, by Blood. Possessed by the spirit of her dead ansister. Brought back every generation by The Rosemary story. Or song. Or play. Or painting.

  When I think about it I can see how that is, our two family tied together with the story, slave to her fathers curse as we are. The haunted and the haunting, with no end ever to the pain and madness and suffring. Having Owns child may have seem like the only way to try to undo the curse but when I saw at the bijoo Fire the movie start. The little boy started screaming in so much pain he died & I know the curse cannot be ended like this but she may try again

  she may try again & try again but never get free

  in the end Scott she always get hungry

  It is a curse & ther is no way to stop it I am so sorry Scott Mommy is tired but I cant remember anymore because they give us medicin here it makes things softer I am so glad they give me medicin here every day so I can forget but I will never forget yu.

  I love you scotty,

  Mom

  SONIA HELD PERFECTLY STILL, reading the last pages over again. “That night with the prom dress. I saw you two up in her bedroom window together.”

  “That’s why.” Scott looked at her, remembering the night sixteen years earlier, Colette’s hands tearing open his shirt, her tongue on his skin, so eager and hungry, her breasts already beginning to swell from the baby that she’d had Owen put inside her belly. “She’d never shown any interest in me, but that night—”

  And tonight.

  Sonia looked away. Scott remembered Colette telling him how Henry’s mother had been Rosemary Carver, and now he understood what it all meant. Rosemary Carver in her tattered blue dress, restless and yearning to find some peace across the decades, willing to try anything to release herself from the bondage of the curse … and failing, failing.

  in the end Scott she always get hungry

  “We need to find Owen,” Scott said, and no sooner were the words out of his mouth than another, more urgent thought dawned.

  We need to find Henry.

  EARL’S JUNK SHOP STOOD untouched. They walked through the hushed aisles, every item holding its breath as they passed into the house.

  “Dad?” Sonia called. “Dad, did—” She paused, touched her face. “Oh my God.”

  They found him sprawled facedown on the floor in front of the sofa, still hooked up to his oxygen mask, the tube having pulled loose from the tank. In the end, death had shrunk him, diminished whatever was left of his presence, flattening every dimension of his body until he looked like a suit of clothes that had simply slipped off the hanger. Somewhere the tank hissed on and on. Sonia fell to her knees beside him, her shoulders trembling in silence as she wept. Witnessing her silent crying, the old things, the curios and bric-a-brac that had gravitated toward Earl Graham throughout his time here, all seemed to release a long, slow communal breath of resignation.

  Scott ran up the stairs, three at a time.

  “Henry! Henry?”

  He checked the bedrooms, the bathrooms, the closets, under the tables, and behind the doors, just in case the boy, frightened, had gone into hiding. He went back through the junk shop and searched under the tables there. He called and called the boy’s name until it was only a meaningless sound.

  There was no answer.

  Circling back around to the front room, he found Sonia still kneeling on the floor with her father’s hand pressed between both of her own. She lifted her face up to him, chalk white and empty of expression. She had never looked so lost or lonely in her entire life, an ageless sense of abandonment hollowing out her eyes, making her seem very small.

  “Is he here?”

  Scott shook his head. “Your father …?”

  “No,” Sonia said. She spoke very softly, hardly louder than the sound of the oxygen seeping from the tank, but he heard her very well.

  “I’ll call an ambulance.”

  “No need,” she said. “There’s no hurry. Henry first.” She cleared her throat without much strength. “Do you have any idea what might have happened to him?”

  “Yeah,” Scott said. “I do.”

  OWEN HAD BEEN WANDERING in t
he woods throughout most of the night and could no longer feel any part of his body. The fear had dissipated, but the temperature and numbness only grew worse, more burdensome, until he arrived at the realization that he was going to die out there. The knowledge brought only a faint sense of regret that he would never see his boy again. Henry was all that mattered. There was nothing else in his life worth missing.

  It had all started when he’d slipped the rest of the way down the hillside in the dark, tumbling ass-over-teakettle through the darkened drifts. His head hit a rock, and he’d let out a sharp cry of shock and pain.

  He had sat up again, rubbing the back of his skull and eventually groping his way forward through the night, looking for the lights he’d seen earlier and not seeing them. How far had he fallen? He had almost called out for Red, and then he remembered the thing that had emerged out of the trees, a shape that had seemed neither animal nor human but something else entirely, a tall, ungainly thing that nonetheless stood up in humans’ clothes and moved on overly long and stilted legs. Witnessing its arrival had made his heart beat faster and reduced his whole body to some kind of quaking percussion instrument, like the kind that stagehands used to simulate thunder.

  He thought of Grandpa Tommy singing, playing the guitar with shaking junkie hands, forcing the words out as if he didn’t want to sing them but didn’t have a choice, singing to Owen about the tall man all dressed in black, come to take his daughter back. When Owen had first heard the song, as a small boy, it had scared him, but what frightened him worse was the way old Tom played it for him, over and over, driving the words deeply into Owen’s head. Gotta learn this, Grandpa Tommy had said, his cigarette-ruined voice sounding weak and awful and somehow feminine. Someday this song will be yours, all yours. You’ll own it and it will own you, just as sure as your name is Mast, so you better make sure you know all the words and know ’em well…