by Various
I run to her, my tattered borrowed skirts dragging across the stone floor. She holds out her arms, and I don’t slow down. I crash into her. Somewhere beneath the grime is spearmint, subtle and sweet. My body is complete again.
With five of us, it’s nearly impossible to keep quiet. We try and fail, feet skittering and clothes rustling. Small whispers bruise the silence.
“Are we really leaving?”
“We have to.”
“What about Father?”
We pass his room last before heading downstairs to the parlor. When he hears us approach, his skeleton body darkens the doorway.
I stand in front of everyone, stretching out my arms to protect them. “We’re leaving.”
“You’re staying,” he rasps.
“It’s over,” I say. “Mother wouldn’t want this.”
“I’m to protect you.” He steps forward. “I promised.”
From behind me, Clarey clears her throat, her voice thick. “You’re killing us.”
Pollock pushes forward. “We can’t live like this. We miss Mother, but she’s gone and we’re not.”
“I don’t want to go with her,” Min whispers. “Not yet.”
Father stares at us. Eyes branching from one to the next, twitching. Filling with more emotion than I’ve seen since Mother’s funeral. “Go.” He falls against the wall then shoves back into his room.
I reach for the door. “Father – ”
“Leave.”
And there’s nothing left to say. The five of us race downstairs, no longer playing at silence.
“Wait.” Diana shouts and diverts our path toward the aviary. She props open the door with a fallen branch. We don’t wait for the birds, who are so accustomed to their cages they might never leave. Instead, we run – Clarey and Pollock ahead of us, Min behind – until we’re through the gate.
That night, we all sleep huddled in blankets on the grass in front of the hovel.
Under the stars.
To my son, Caleb.
Black crows punctuated the damp April morning with bleak conversation. Long-neglected hedges and comically unkempt shrubbery guarded the perimeter of a vast, overgrown property. A young woman fought her way through the snarled branches and emerged from a particularly slovenly-looking clump of bushes. Her appearance suggested she had already endured a gauntlet of physical indignities, of which this was the culmination.
“Come on, Alice.” She perked up. “Urban exploration is a dirty business. I should’ve thought about how messy this was actually going to be, though.” Next time she’d bring a towel, and…she looked down at her clothes…maybe a plastic jumpsuit, on second thought. Wiping her muddy hands down the front of her jacket, she shifted attention to the object of her efforts.
At last she had a clear view of the mansion. Alice gasped. Abandoned for decades, it had slumped into an exquisite state of disrepair. “What a spectacular wreck.”
Things of beauty succumbing to the ravages of time and nature sent her heart leaping into her throat. Was it the catharsis of tragedy, the ache of nostalgia for a bygone age that thrilled her so much? Or the fact that she wasn’t supposed to be here? D, all of the above.
She forgave herself a mischievous chuckle at the thought of her phone ringing in the medicine cabinet where she “accidentally” left it. Why was the concept of voluntary solitude so difficult for some people to grasp? Certain places practically clobbered you over the head, demanding to be designated as tether-free zones. Nothing can rip the cheesecloth from the lens of a Tolkien-esque excursion faster than a techno ringtone or someone handing you their soda so they can pee in the bushes while badgering you about how late it’s getting. A badass adventuress can only tolerate so much pestering; she was entitled to a little harmless payback.
Her eyes roamed across the decaying exterior as she strode through the long grass to the top of the hill. After rummaging for a moment she produced a small digital camera from her pocket and took a picture of thick, tangled vines embracing the chimney, which lurched as if recoiling from the side of the house. She relished a delicious gothic shiver before resuming her assessment of the formidable structure.
The front door was boarded up and the porch was an obvious deathtrap, so she began checking windows. “Ah, I think we’ve found a winner.” She pushed up with all her strength. “Half-open will have to be good enough,” she muttered. Judging by the condition of the wood and surrounding vines, this had been a popular entrance for previous visitors. “Wait, my leg – whoa!” She pitched through headfirst and tumbled to the floor. Narrowing her eyes at the windowsill, she brushed herself off and surveyed the room.
“Well, nice fireplace. Hideous wallpaper, though.” What had they been drinking when they picked it out? She wrinkled her nose.
Alice peeked into the main hallway, where a moldy aroma promptly greeted her nostrils. A grand staircase sagged in a manner that did not inspire confidence. She grimaced in disappointment. Upstairs was probably out of the question.
The flash from her camera made the dusty chandelier sparkle, likely for the first time in ages. Where to go next? A door on the other side of the hall was half-open. It issued a shrill creak as she pushed it farther and peered in. She widened her eyes and let out an awestruck whistle.
It was a chaotic sight. What had clearly been a library looked as if it had been turned upside down, shaken vigorously, then placed right side up again. A large chasm in the center of the floor gaped open like a yawning mouth, and splintered floorboards protruded jaggedly from the sides like a set of decimated, wooden dentures. A corresponding hole moaned from the ceiling above it. Moving closer, Alice saw weak shafts of light stream down from somewhere above. Thunder rumbled. Rain gently spattered the windows and dripped down through the hole in the ceiling.
The floor must’ve rotted and some heavy piece of furniture must’ve crashed through. Twice. “Wish I’d seen that.”
The room had been thoroughly ransacked. Very few books remained on the shelves; the majority teetered in haphazard piles and towers on the floor, pages ripped out, shredded, and tossed around, giving the general appearance that a confetti cannon had gone off. An overturned desk with broken drawers, a large battered globe (likely kicked around like a soccer ball), pictures torn off the wall, window panes shattered, and the finishing touch: “REEDING IS STOOPID” spray-painted on the wall in bright red.
“Someone should’ve consulted a dictionary instead of ripping it up,” she quipped, drinking in the visual assault. As she photographed the damage, her emotions played tug-of-war. Thick spider webs clung to the ceiling and empty shelves. The cavernous hole gnashed its spiky jaws; the weak floorboards creaked and crunched with shards of glass. Not a place to be loitering longer than was necessary. Yet a stubborn desire to stay tugged at her like a persistent child.
As Alice turned to leave, something shiny caught her eye. At the bottom of a random pile of books, large gold letters leapt out at her: Buddy Rabbit Takes A Nap.
“I know that book.” Her pulse quickened as she crept over and pulled it from the stack. “I had one just like it. Grandma read it to me all the time.”
She sat cross-legged in the corner and studied it lovingly. A large, old children’s book with a bright blue cover and thick board pages, and a stuffed Buddy Rabbit doll was anchored to the center of the final page. Each previous page had a Buddy-shaped cutout in the center so the doll was flush with the cover when it closed.
“Buddy’s in such good shape considering how trashed it is in here.” She brushed dust from his fur and opened the book.
Buddy Rabbit takes a nap,
Warm and cozy on your lap.
Stroke his fur, so soft and white,
Alice dutifully complied.
Join him as his dreams take flight.
She turned the page.
Buddy dreams about some bears,
Dancing gaily on the stairs.
She pushed a small lever up and down, and the little cardboard bear fig
ures pranced on the staircase.
The next page showed the stuffed rabbit flanked by a pair of lovely silver wings.
Buddy dreams that he can fly!
Watch the stars go shooting by.
She pulled the lever back and forth gently and smiled as the stars glided across the page in their tracks. She skipped ahead to the final page, her favorite.
It’s time for Buddy’s nap to end.
Won’t you wake him, faithful friend?
Just press his nose and you will see,
He’s wide awake as he can be!
Alice pushed on his pink nose, and Buddy’s eyes popped open cheerfully. “I must’ve done this a hundred times before.” His little face looked so sweet and familiar, with eyes just as blue and twinkling as she remembered.
She stood up and leafed through the pages. “Buddy dreams about swimming, Buddy dreams about flowers, Buddy dreams of carrots, Buddy dreams about…SPIDERS!”
Two black spiders crawled across the page toward her hand. Reflexively, she flung the book away from herself and watched as it skidded and came to a stop uncomfortably close to the edge of the chasm. “Of course.” As if she needed another reason to dislike spiders.
She struggled with herself for a moment, then sighed heavily. She patted the camera in her coat pocket, zipped it firmly, and approached the book as one would a bone lying next to a slumbering attack dog.
“This is probably the wrong decision.” She got on her knees and strained forward to grab it. She then heard an ominous crack. “Yep.” The floorboards gave way beneath her, and she plunged into darkness.
Alice opened her eyes then closed them again. It was equally dark both ways. Sprawled on her back, she searched around with her hands and guessed she had landed in a pile of soggy paper. Rolling over, she crawled through the squishy mess.
“I bet the vandals threw all this down here.” The hill of mush sloped downward, and after a moment cold water splashed beneath her hands and knees. Her eyes began to adjust; a wide, shallow stream flowed away from the pulpy mound. She stood up and took physical inventory. No pain, no scratches, gashes, or splinters. After that plummet, it was difficult to believe.
“I’m either dreaming or incredibly lucky.” She followed the trail of water, murky and speckled with shreds of paper. After a few minutes she stopped and furrowed her brow. It didn’t make sense. “I should’ve hit a wall by now. No basement is this big.”A rectangular patch up ahead began to stand out from the surrounding darkness, like the hazy outline of a doorway. Alice approached it, reached forward, and her hand vanished. Startled, she drew it back. It felt normal and seemed unharmed. Did that actually just happen? Her growing curiosity soon eclipsed apprehension. She leaned forward, and her senses were overwhelmed by blue sky, lush green, warm sun on her face. She pulled her head back, and it was dark again. Forward. Back. Her dreams were never this vivid or convincing.
Could this truly be happening? Inter-dimensional portals didn’t just inexplicably appear in random basements, did they? Her senses hadn’t lied to her before, and the excitement that gripped her at the prospect of it being real made her hope it was.
A rush of spirited determination quickened her pulse. “I won’t find out standing here, will I?”
Alice passed through into a perfectly manicured garden surrounding a massive country estate. She blinked a few times as the sun dazzled her eyes. Two men relaxed at a table on the lawn, drinking lemonade. One was wearing a fedora and had a five o’clock shadow. A trench coat was hanging off the back of his chair. The other one appeared to be a hulking Roman centurion. As she stood brazenly gawking, Mr. Fedora spotted her and waved her over.
“Don’t worry about him, honey. He’s an okay guy. You don’t speak Latin, do you?” She shook her head as he leapt up and pulled a chair back from the table. Alice sat down. The man thrust out his hand, and she shook it firmly.
“The name’s Dirk Flanagan, and you look like a dame who doesn’t know where she is or how she got there. Am I right?” He lit a cigarette with cinematic flair.
“That about sums it up.” She shrugged and gave him a bewildered smile. “I don’t know anything about anything at the moment. Where am I?”
“I know how you feel. I was just as confused at first. One minute I’m wrapping up the case of the Sunset Boulevard Slasher. I walk out of my office and suddenly I’m stepping into the dining room of the big house up there. I sure spoiled their dinner.” He burst out in a throaty chuckle.
“Are there more people around here in the house?”
“Let me tell you something, sweetheart. That house was filled with nothing but bone-headed layabouts. It was this crowd of young, upper class do-nothings, with Limey accents, too much dough, duds thirty years out of style, and not a full working brain between them. They were saying things like jolly good. And right ho. I didn’t like it. Didn’t like it at all.” He squinted into the distance.
“They were just offering me a spot of tea all nervous-like when this guy here suddenly shows up at the window.” Dirk threw a thumb toward the centurion, who was yawning and twirling a flower between his fingers.
“You should’ve seen them. They jumped up all screaming and running around like headless chickens. They took off in twenty different directions, and they haven’t been back since.” He chuckled again. “The only one who didn’t clear off was Pemberton. Aw, great, here he is with the food.”
A tall, well-dressed man glided across the lawn toward them and placed a tray of cakes and sandwiches silently on the table. “Will there be anything else, sir?”
“Hey, you want something to drink, honey?” Dirk offered.
“No, no, I’m all set, thank you.” Alice grinned broadly, suppressing the urge to laugh.
“Nah, thanks, Pemberton. That’ll do it for now.”
“Very good, sir. Dinner will be at seven.”
Pemberton leaned over and whispered something in Latin to the centurion, who burst out laughing and fell out of his chair, holding his sides. Then the butler glided back up the lawn.
“Damn, I wish I knew what those two talked about.” Dirk drained his glass of lemonade, threw his fedora on the table, leaned back in his chair, and heaved a contented sigh.
“Those spoiled numbskulls didn’t really appreciate this place. At first I didn’t know what to do with myself. There’s no crime here, no grisly murders, nobody calling me up, nobody chasing me. There are scrambled eggs and kippers waiting on the sideboard every morning. Drinks on the lawn. Nobody bothers me. I’ve earned this. I’ll bet my big warrior friend here has earned it, too.” The centurion had picked himself off the ground and was poking Dirk on the shoulder and pointing down the lawn.
“Yeah, okay, why not? Hey there, doll, how do you feel about lawn bowling? You wanna join us before dinner?”
Alice smiled at them, “No, thanks. You guys go ahead. Have a good time.”
She watched them amble away together. “This is insane, totally insane.” She laughed as she pulled out her camera and snuck a picture of the two friends before they disappeared from view.
Alice started up the lawn in the opposite direction. “It’s so beautiful here. I’ve never seen flowers that perfect.” Click. She stopped short as an armadillo trundled past her. Click.
After vaulting over a small stone wall at the property’s edge, the sky turned white like a blank page, and it became eerily quiet. She found herself in a small clearing surrounded by trees of every type. Leaves appeared to be rustling here and there. She could detect dozens of small, darting movements, but there was absolute silence.
A small bird flew down and hopped toward her. Alice squinted, shook her head, and squinted harder. It wasn’t so much a bird as a very detailed illustration of a bird, and there appeared to be some small cursive text hovering just over its back.
She leaned down and read, “Brown-headed Nuthatch.” Another bird sailed past her in slow motion. “Red-winged Starling,” she read, her eyebrow arching incredulously.
>
“This is nuts. Anybody want to tweet or warble or something? You guys are a little creepy.”
Several more birds hopped into the clearing, all facing her and blinking in unison. Click. One flew onto her shoulder. “Whoa, back off.” She squinted. “White-crowned Sparrow, don’t crowd me, please.” It flitted to the ground. She sighed then chuckled.
“You’re all very sweet, but this silence is getting to me. Can’t somebody make a little noise?” Suddenly a thundering shout cut through the stillness.
“Ah! My Salvation!”
Alice jumped, and the birds dispersed in a flurry of hushed wings. A tall man loped toward her with great purpose in his blazing eyes. In spite of there being no breeze whatsoever, his dark hair floated behind him and his frilled sleeves were like a ship’s sails billowing at his sides.
“So long since I have heard another human voice. So very long. And what a voice it is, the voice of an Angel, of a Goddess!” He grabbed Alice’s hand and pressed it to his lips with melodramatic passion.
“Hey, whoa, excuse me, but what are you doing?” She yanked her hand free. “Who do you think you are, anyway? Get a grip…on yourself, not my hand.”
“I do not think. I know who I am, my dear lady.” He said. “I am a man in love, a man bewitched by your loveliness, languishing here in solitude for what has seemed an eternity; a man who has prayed to the stars each night” – he clasped his chest with one hand and gestured heavenward with the other – “for relief from my sorrow and distress. And they have sent you, my darling, my love.”
Alice backed away. “Yeah, I don’t think we’re talking about love here. I think this is more like a ‘ham sandwich looking like a feast to a starving man’ type situation. Try to think rationally for a minute, okay?”