The Door to January

by Gillian French

  Teddy made himself scarce without a word to either of them, the back of his neck still red.

  Delia crossed her arms, studying Natalie. “You really want to hold a grudge this long?”

  “It’s not up to me.” Then she went out to check on her tables.

  The corner booth grew rowdy fast. Grace Thibodeau had never been a lap-sitting kind of girl when sober, but now her throaty laughter carried, and Cilla, who was running the register, finally stopped ignoring them and stared, her gaze flinty.

  When Natalie locked eyes with Jason for a second, then deliberately turned her back on him, all pretenses were dropped.

  Jason knocked a basket of fries onto the floor with a flick of his hand. Ketchup splattered and there was a chorus of ohhhh’s from the booth. Bess huffed and squatted to pick up the mess. Natalie knew she should help—Cilla and most of the Grill were watching—so she knelt down, close enough to Lowell’s protruding leg to count the loose threads on the cuffs of his jeans. As she scooped up fries, she half-expected Jason’s Nike to catch her under the chin; by the time she stood up, her whole body was tensed for a blow.

  “Hey, there, sunshine.” Jason’s voice held the same false brightness it always had. The expression in his deep-set blue eyes was flat. “You’re back.”

  Grace hiccuped over a giggle and fell silent. Lowell pushed his hat up his brow, studying the Formica table as if it held some secret code.

  Natalie turned away from Jason again, simply saying “Uh-huh,” as an afterthought.

  “We missed you,” Jason called as she walked away.

  In the employee bathroom, Natalie threw water on her face, covered her eyes, and waited for her heart to stop hammering. She was not shaking. She was fine. She could handle this, any of them, all of them.

  Ten minutes later, Jason’s crowd got up to leave. Natalie was wiping down the counter, and Jason started swaggering over. Lowell got in his way. They had a hushed disagreement, ending with Lowell stepping back, hands held up, his expression saying, What’s it gonna be?

  Jason said, “Whatever, man. I’m gone.”

  Grace followed him out.

  Lowell stayed. He sat at the end of the counter and ordered a coffee from Delia.

  She brought it to him and rapped him on the forehead with her pen. “That’s for fixing the damn juke.”

  He rubbed the sore spot. “Problem?”

  “Only if you consider country music a problem. Hint: I do.” Behind them, another tune twanged to life. Delia growled. “This is cruel and unusual.”

  “So file a grievance.”

  Delia flipped him off behind a menu and went to take an order.

  Teddy, somber-faced, idled by the kitchen doors, never taking his eyes off Natalie.

  Lowell took a long drink of coffee, set the cup in the saucer, and said to Natalie, “Got any cream?”

  She brought it over. When she turned to leave, he reached out to stop her.

  “Don’t,” she said, before they even touched.

  He stopped. “I’m sorry.”

  She said nothing, her shoulders held taut.

  “I don’t want to . . . I didn’t come in here to hassle you.”

  “No, you came in here to back up your buddy.” She forced herself to look him in the eye. His hazel eyes were clear, nearly blue in this light. “Don’t you ever get tired of following Jason around?”

  That hit a tender spot. It was satisfying to see the air of humor, which seemed to keep him buoyant, disappear for once. He braced his hands against the edge of the counter. “Hear me out. Two seconds.”

  “I don’t have two seconds for you.” She turned, working the rag over the back counter until she heard the bells over the door jingle. He was gone.

  CHAPTER 8

  It rained the next day. Natalie and Teddy got off work at two o’clock and rode their bikes to 25 Morning Glory Lane, which looked as dark and crumpled as wet cardboard.

  “What did he think he could say?” Natalie went on. They’d been having this conversation in fits and starts since they’d left the Grill. “There’s nothing to say.”

  “Maybe something like, ‘Oops, sorry I used to torture you guys, but if you could let me off the hook now, that’d be awesome.’ ” Teddy was quiet a second. “None of them have tried to talk to me. Ever.”

  “Yeah, well. Lucky you.”

  “It’s Peter’s family they should apologize to, anyway.” They continued up the hill, lost in thought, and then Teddy shook himself. “Lowell’s weird. Mom says he keeps himself to himself.”

  “Really? He seems pretty out there to me. I guess that’s his role, right? Jason’s the douchebag leader, Lowell’s the smartass sidekick, Grace is . . . I dunno. Gangster’s girlfriend.”

  Teddy gave a thin smile. “I guess Mom thinks Lowell’s got this heart of gold underneath it all.”

  Natalie snorted. “Whatever he’s got, Delia sure seems to like it.”

  Teddy kept his gaze down, tugging the drawstrings of his windbreaker. “All waitresses have to flirt to make tips.” He accepted her punch in the arm. They’d reached the back door of the house. “No more footsteps outside last night, right?” he said, scrutinizing her. “Nothing new in the bird hotel?”

  “I would’ve told you.”

  Natalie gasped when she stepped inside. It was freezing in the corridor. A chill breeze wafted in and out of the rooms, twining around her bare legs. Without sunshine, it was dark enough to need a flashlight—Teddy had packed one, ever the Boy Scout (he’d made Eagle Scout last fall)—and they walked to the foyer with the beam lighting their way.

  “What is this?” she asked.

  Teddy watched his breath plume in the air, then shone the beam on the sidelights flanking the front door. “Look.” He leaned into the parlor, shining the light around. “All the windows are frosted over. In June.”

  Gooseflesh rose on Natalie’s skin. “We’d better get started.” She pulled out the recorder and pressed the button.

  Pound-pound-pound-pound. The thudding from the first recording was back, impossibly loud, thundering from the speaker until Natalie threw the recorder down with a cry. It skidded across the floorboards and chirped into silence.

  “Nat!”

  Teddy's voice was distant. She turned, feeling leaden. He was reaching out to her, but time was dallying around them, spinning out like a top, everything moving in slow motion.

  She stumbled and fell to her knees. There was light now, blue and strange, coming from her. Sparking, building, encasing her hands as she held them up before her face, disbelieving. She looked at Teddy, thinking How can he still be so far away?

  With that, Natalie Payson ceased to be.

  #

  Spring 1948

  Rachel chased the kitten beneath the wood cookstove, where it mewed, crouching among ashes and shadows.

  Rachel reached for it, and Mrs. Page placed her foot lightly on her arm. “If you want to burn your hand off, keep right on doing what you’re doing.”

  Rachel stood. Her long dark hair was braided and pinned in a crown on her head, and she wore a baggy housedress with a full apron and no shoes. The girl’s eyes were wide, black, inscrutable. A simpleton, poor little devil. How old could she be—eighteen? Nineteen?

  “Don’t tell. Please-please.”

  “All I want you to do is help me with this cake. I won’t say boo to your brother if you’ll just be still. These cooking lessons are for your own good.”

  Together, they turned the cake out onto a cooling rack. Mrs. Page had met the girl at church; their farm was just down the road, and George’s sister seemed sharp enough to learn her way around a kitchen. With George’s shy ways, he’d never ask for help teaching her. He kept out of the big house entirely while Mrs. Page was there, the sound of hammering from the workshop the only proof he was home at all. />
  She noticed a doll in Rachel’s apron pocket. “Who’s this, now?”

  Rachel bit her lips, watching as Mrs. Page sifted powdered sugar into a bowl for frosting, then whispered, “Her name’s Hazel.”

  “Any reason she’s got no clothes on?” Mrs. Page held out a spoon. “Stir.”

  The girl obeyed. “She got stripped naked. All she’s got is a sweater over her face.” Down the hall, a clock sang a tune of varied chimes. “She’s cold and she misses her mama and papa in New Ashford.”

  A scrap of knitting was tied over the doll’s porcelain face, mussing its golden ringlets.

  “Is that where you came from, too? Massachusetts?”

  The Dawes family’s origins were a mystery to Mrs. Page and the rest of Bernier. They were hardly the sort of people you could ask flat out. They were private.

  Rachel nodded.

  “You must miss it, too.” Mrs. Page paused. “Do you have kin there?”

  “No. We had to leave. It wasn’t a place for decent folk anymore.”

  A door closed somewhere. A moment later, George could be seen through the window, crossing the dooryard. Mrs. Page adjusted her spectacles. He was a queer character; such a slow, awkward manner, so reluctant to meet a lady’s eye. He was a great big dark fella, six and a half feet high, broad through the shoulders and chest, with a hitch in his walk from an Italian bullet during the War. He seemed to take no interest in bird-dogging the young gals, who, in Mrs. Page’s estimation, could do a lot worse.

  Once the cake was frosted, Mrs. Page gathered her coat and pocketbook. Rachel followed her outside, holding her hand. “You’ll come back?”

  “ ’Course. You keep well, wild girl. Last time I stopped by, your brother told me you were feeling poorly.”

  George came out of the workshop then, hauling lumber, a cigarette clamped in his teeth.

  “Appreciate your time. Sorry for the bother.” His voice was husky and deep.

  “No bother.” There was a honk as Mr. Page brought his Packard to a halt at the foot of the drive. Mrs. Page smiled and smoothed Rachel’s flyaway hair. “See you soon, dear. Take good care of Hazel.” She winked.

  The way George stared, he must’ve thought his sister’s daftness was catching.

  Once brother and sister stood alone, he grabbed her arm. He knew just how far to bend it back. Rachel shrieked. He dug into her apron pocket and pulled out the doll. In their shared language, he said, “I told you not to fool with me.”

  She ran. He pursued at a measured pace, tapping the ash from his Chesterfield King.

  The milk house was closest. She ran inside and pushed an old milk can under the knob so the door couldn’t be opened, then sank down, hugging her knees.

  The doorknob rotated. Rachel—this was not her real name—shut her eyes, looking up only when she was sure she’d waited long enough and he’d be gone.

  It was nearly dark when she emerged. The yard was deserted. She’d sneak in through the back door and climb the stairs to her room. He’d probably leave her be now. On her way, she found her doll lying in the yellow spring grass. Its face had been crushed.

  #

  Natalie opened her eyes to blackness. She was curled up in a small space. Reaching out, she felt shelves, empty, gritty with dust. She pounded her fist. “Hey!”

  Running footsteps approached, and then a doorway opened in the darkness. She sat up, squinting.

  Teddy pulled her out of the kitchen pantry into a hug. “Where the hell have you been?”

  She couldn’t speak.

  “I thought you were dead. How’d you get in there?” He shook her, almost in tears. “Tell me where you went!”

  She sank to her knees. “Here. In this room. Only I wasn’t me. And it wasn’t now, it . . .”

  She covered her face.

  He squatted beside her, breathing hard. “I looked everywhere. There was light all over you, Nat. Then you were gone.”

  “I saw them.”

  “Who?”

  “I know things they didn’t even say out loud, things they were only thinking. I was inside their heads—”

  She knew she was babbling and shut her mouth, rocking slightly. On the opposite wall, the doorframe she’d drawn in ink stood dimly defined.

  CHAPTER 9

  Cilla’s front porch was a refuge from the rain. Natalie sat cocooned in a quilt, watching runoff drip into the rhododendron bushes along the latticework.

  Teddy said again, “The neighbor lady’s name was Page? There aren’t any other farmhouses on Morning Glory now. Just woods.”

  Mrs. Page. A plump lady of sixty whose arms dimpled like uncooked bread dough and whose eyes required strong spectacles. “Maybe it was torn down. Or fell down.”

  He blew out a breath, resting his chin on his folded arms. “Could the whole thing have been a hallucination? You were only gone for about fifteen minutes. Maybe you didn’t go anywhere except in your mind.”

  “But how did I get inside that pantry? I’m telling you, I know it was real. Some part of me was really there. What I can’t figure out is why you didn’t come with me.” Natalie watched the rain. “Rachel Dawes was lying about her name. George, too, I guess.”

  “In the first recording, George asked her about her name, didn’t he? Maybe she had a hard time remembering the lie.”

  “And don’t forget the doll. He was really going to hurt her over that.”

  “Did you bring back any memories about him, like you did with Mrs. Page?”

  “I got a feeling, all right. I don’t like him.”

  Words weren’t strong enough. George, his face remarkably handsome from one angle, and that of a prizefighter from another, repelled her completely. It was a visceral reaction, from the gut. She no longer felt so snug in her chair and stood to go inside.

  Teddy said quietly, “We shouldn’t go back to that house.”

  “Then what? What if the nightmare never stops?” Natalie shook her head, letting the screen door close on her final words, “I can’t give up yet.”

  Natalie followed the girls’ whispers through the darkness and spitting snow of the dream plane.

  “Look.” Their voices spoke as one. The snow swirled, solidified, made ground beneath her feet, a semblance of surroundings that grew brighter, more real.

  She was on a winter road, familiar to her, surrounded by woods capped in snow.

  It was flurrying here, too. There were footprints along the shoulder, heading up to the bend in the road, where a large chestnut tree stretched its branches into the gray sky. Something about those solitary footprints—boy’s, size nine Converse—sent a stab of dread through her.

  “Hurry, darning needle,” the whispers hissed. “You know the way.”

  Natalie began to run.

  Natalie awoke and lay there with her eyes closed. Those burned pinpoints were on the backs of her eyelids again, like faded memories of intense light.

  The girls were right. She did know the way. She knew that back road. For some reason, now the dream was taking her back through the memory of that day as it had happened, the day that Jason, Lowell (damn, but it had been easier to think of him as a kid with stringy hair and zits on his chin), Grace, and Peter had cornered her and Teddy in the woods.

  The day Peter McInnis had died.

  Teddy had always been—well, Teddy. The kid who was such a brainiac that he’d skipped a grade, placing him in with Natalie, Jason, and the rest. Bullies lay in wait everywhere for a kid like him, but Jason’s crew had taken it to the next level. Jumping Teddy downtown and really whaling on him. Slashing his bike tires. Thinking up stupid, cruel nicknames and convincing everybody in school to use them. Natalie had stuck by Teddy whenever she could, sure, but she wasn’t exactly the queen of cool herself. She’d taken her share of lumps in eighth grade.

  For Teddy, it had b
een hell.

  In the spring, he’d secured a hiding place in the woods off Pemaquid Road, by a brook. He’d literally run out the school doors to Pemaquid and wait there until Natalie met up with him so they could cut home through the woods. If they were followed, they never knew.

  By January, the bullies had found them. The day that Jason’s crowd had stormed the woods, Jason had brought along one of his stepdad’s guns. Just to scare them, he’d later claimed. Just to freak them out. But that wasn’t where it had ended.

  She needed air. Natalie threw the covers back and went outside, taking deep breaths.

  The bird hotel door stood open again.

  She looked inside. On the plywood floor lay a shell casing. Small-caliber, crimped from firing. She pulled her hand back from the bird hotel as if stung.

  It wasn’t the casing. The state police would’ve collected that, along with whatever other evidence had been salvageable from the forest floor that day. But it was close enough.

  Natalie didn’t want to touch it. She didn’t want Cilla finding it, either, or Teddy. Not sure what her plan was, she forced herself to pick up the casing, then walked into the trees.

  The woods were thin on Bailey Street, barely more than a screen between yards. Natalie studied the bushes and dead leaves and mud, hoping for a footprint, some obvious sign of passage. Impossible to tell.

  She followed the tree line toward the street, wondering if she was taking the same path as her nighttime visitor. How could they even know she was sleeping in the summerhouse unless they’d been spying on her? Or maybe it was someone who spent a lot of time at the Grill, had overheard Cilla talking about Natalie’s upcoming visit . . . someone who’d been turning up like a bad penny ever since she got here.

  Certain now, Natalie reached the sidewalk and stood there, fists clenched. There was a storm drain beside the neighbor’s driveway, and on impulse, she dropped the casing through the grate. It clattered once, deep down.

  Back in the woods, Natalie said aloud, “I know who you are,” as if he might still be watching from some secret place. Birds and insects continued their productive hum, unbothered.