Chapter 12 Elm’s Ridge
“Did you hear the headmaster?” asked Liz, when I hesitated to answer his question.
“Yes, I did.”
“Then give him your name.”
“It’s Caleb. Caleb…” and I paused, waiting for Liz to fill in my last name. I had taken on my stepfather’s last name, and my mother had never told me my real one.
“Anaid,” she finished, and I rolled the word around in my mouth for a second. I liked it. Definitely better than Conti, which many of my school mates had the pleasure of transforming into Cunty.
“Caleb Anaid,” he repeated, in the faraway voice of an old man with a muffling beard. “Typically we would not have room for another, but for you we can make arrangements, Liz. One of my brightest students back in the day, you know, son?”
“You flatter me, Alfred,” she said, “but I’ll need you to do more than just school him. I know this is an atypical request, but he’ll need lodging as well. Perhaps he can stay in a back room, from back before this was a school?”
“There is room, but there will not be anyone around here after hours,” he said, then pointed the next sentence directly at me. “And I won’t have any sort of trouble. From you or from your pet. On the first instance of trouble, he’s out. Second instance, you’re out.”
“I assure you, I will take responsibility for all of his actions. And I assure you,” she said, and also directed her sentence at me, “that there won’t be any.”
“Hmm. I suppose we can make an exception. Follow me, and bring his things.”
We walked down the halls of the school, with no movement but our own and no sound but our footsteps and the scratching of Shankey’s nails. There was a spiral staircase, made entirely of stone, and we ascended three stories. I was carrying my suitcase, but thanks to Mrs. Derundi’s exercise classes, my breath was still steady at the top.
“This room is available. I do request though that you not mention to anyone that you are staying here, as we cannot accommodate anyone else. For this purpose please use the back door when entering and leaving the school. Additionally, this school was originally a monastery, and this room has been uninhabited for quite some time. Ever since the last priest left—died on this very bed, you know—his room has been preserved in his honor. You will keep it clean and will not alter the original décor. It is a piece of history and will be treated as such. Do I make myself clear, boy?”
“Yes, sir,” I said. The room smelled musty, and there was a thick layer of dust, as well as the remnants of a cobweb, on the windowsill where my hand rested. I sneezed, which kicked up more dust, making me sneeze again.
“Good. Classes will resume after the holidays. Until then, you will find food in the kitchen, and there is a limited braille section in the library nearby you may entertain yourself with. But now it has grown quite late, and it is time for me to retire.”
The man left, and Liz helped me unpack in the room.
“I’m leaving you with my card. There’s a pay phone downstairs,” she said. “I’ll be in to check on you from time to time. As the headmaster said, much of this place is history, and I would not disturb it if it can be avoided. Good night, and don’t wander far from here.”
She left, and Shankey curled up on the edge of my bed. The room was at least four times larger than the one in my trailer, and there was even a small bathroom attached. There was a closet, and my unpacked clothes barely made a dent in its space. My window opened into the city air. Beneath it was a kneeling bench with a wooden rosary dangling from its side. Words were carved into the bench, and I felt them out, reading:
To Father Fabio, Guardian of the Peace
The floors were wooden and cool to the touch, while the walls were made of the same smooth stone as downstairs. Overhead was a light with a dangling chain switch, but I would not be needing that.
Liz had left a package for me on the oak dresser, and I opened it, pulling out its contents.
First was an envelope full of cash. Without sight it was impossible to determine its worth.
Then I smiled when I felt the outline of the radio I had used at home. On a braille note tied to its handle, I read:
Careful, this is contraband. Don’t play it too loudly, or it will be taken.
I fell asleep that night to its soft music, Shankey’s warmth, and utter darkness.
Chapter 13 - Christmas Vacation
A vibrating noise woke me on the first day at Elm’s Ridge, jolting me out of bed and onto the floor. Shankey ran in circles around the room, barking until my bed stopped shaking and the reverberating died away.
The headmaster had neglected to tell me that the room was situated directly beneath the monastery’s bell tower, which, as I found out later, was protected by the city’s historical laws and had tolled every morning at dawn for the last one hundred and fifty years.
I spent my first day exploring the hallways, tapping along with my cane while Shankey led me around the corners. The school was much taller than it was wide, with spiral staircases that spanned its three stories and often led to locked doors. After an hour I found the kitchen, where there were cans of tuna stashed inside one of the cupboards. Prying one open, Shankey and I had breakfast.
Before the first bite, I heard thunder in the distance, a low rumble that caused Shankey to stir and my ears to prick. I had hoped to leave the school today and get a feel for the surrounding area, but by the time I ate the last bite, the thunder was as loud as the awakening bell.
Shankey whined, a low-pitched sound, nearly indistinguishable from his growl, and I rose to my feet as he stood on his three.
“Come on, boy,” I said, feeling my way along the wall to the door. Behind me I heard the cabinet close. I froze.
Besides Shankey and the mice, to my knowledge, I was the sole inhabitant of Elm’s Ridge.
“Hello?” I called behind me. “Anyone there?”
Silence responded to my words, and I felt my way over to the cabinet. I had left it open, and despite the sound, it was still open on its hinge.
“Let’s go, Shankey,” I muttered, moving forward at a slower pace. My eyes looked ahead, but my ears lingered behind, ultra sensitive to any slight disturbance in the thick air. The hairs on the back of my neck prickled as I made my way to my room then slid the lock into place behind me.
My window was open, and thick sheets of rain bounced against the floor and formed a fine mist before I locked it shut as well. Thunder clapped again, shaking the room and rattling the freshly-shut window. Shankey crawled under my bed, and I rummaged in my pack before I found one of the braille books I had brought from home.
I immersed myself, letting the white noise of rain dull my senses. My fingers traced over the pages as I focused, the dots beating in tune with the drops. Every so often, the stream of rain outside my window hit the gutter at a peculiar angle, slapping against the metal in a trilling fashion.
The noise sounded familiar. Just like a small child’s laughter.
My finger stopped on the bumps. I listened, my spine tingling and the hairs on the back of my neck raised. But the noise stopped, and when I opened my window and felt the siding, I could find no gutter.
I dried off my arm and found my radio, plugged it into the wall and dialed past the static. The stations were different from back home, but after a few moments, I found one that only played music. I turned the volume knob until it clicked against the maximum extension.
There was another thunderclap, and I saw a flash in the darkness, a mixture of red and blue in the distance. I saw the contours of my room, outlined in the same electric blue. And beneath me, deep beneath me, I felt a deep red pulse I had never felt before. Then the light disappeared, the thunder boomed away, and my world dipped into total darkness again.
I sat stunned, while Shankey’s cold nose rubbed against my hand.
“I hope you don’t have to use the restroom anytime soon, boy,” I said, my hand upon his head.
The music was now so
loud that I couldn’t hear the rain or Shankey’s breathing, save for small intervals between the breaks in commercials.
For a while the thunder died away, and I resumed reading. Six hours passed, and I fed Shankey some more of the tuna I had carried in from the kitchen.
The rain let up around four, and I took him outside, letting him use the restroom before hustling through the abandoned halls back to our room. Soon afterward, the clouds built up again, and I felt the sun’s warmth fade away—a combination of the coming night and the approaching rain.
The winter cold swept through the cracks in my window, and had I let up on the radio volume, I would have heard the wind howling against the pane, searching for an entry point.
The thunder built up, reaching a crescendo near eleven. With each strike I saw colors, some near and some far, stretched out deep into the city.
Then with one particularly loud crack, the noise from my radio died away. Above me, the single light bulb shattered, exploding in a shower of shards that scattered onto the floor.
In that instant of silence following the boom, I thought I could hear a rattling down below me, like the dragging of chains upon cold, stone floor. Then there were stretches of silence, silence that seemed filled, not like an empty silence. As if it were a noise in and of itself.
For hours I lay awake, my ears pricked, my eyes fruitlessly wide open. But eventually sleep took me, and as I drifted away, I heard a mumbling to my right.
I had heard my mother pray, and recognized the sound as a Hail Mary, repeated over and over in the voice of an old man. And when he finished I heard him stand, unlock the door, and say toward the heavens.
“Guard us from the evil locked within these walls.”
Chapter 14 - Cheated
I awoke the next day to the clang of the bell and a beam of sun on my face. Shankey barked, still unused to the bell, and I listened before climbing out of bed. The feeling I had had so strongly the night before, of presences around me, was gone—replaced by an emptiness and silence that I welcomed.
“Alright, boy, I’m getting up. Let’s get something to eat.,” I said, shaking Shankey off the bed and walking downstairs, ignoring the fact that the door was unlocked. In my pocket was the envelope of bills that Liz had left me, and I was tired of eating tuna.
I followed Shankey’s nose to the nearest deli about a block away, being careful not to step into the street. We were given a wide berth by the occasional passersby, which I attributed in large to Shankey’s growls at anyone who came too close, combined with the tapping of my cane.
The door opened with the sound of chimes and I entered the deli, tapping my way past crowded tables to the counter at the back. The buzz of tables went quiet as I passed them, and I could feel the stares pressing about me like a supermarket turnstile.
“How can I help you, son?” said the owner. He sounded overweight, his speech greasy and working hard to escape the gravitational pull of his double chins, and the voice came from a head shorter than most. I imagined that there were stains running down his shirt and that he would have fit in well back at the trailer park. To some extent, I found that comforting.
“Two sandwiches, turkey and cheese,” I said, placing a hand on the slightly moist counter.
“Type of cheese?”
“There’s more than one?”
“One? There are dozens, son. Swiss, cheddar, pepper jack, provolone. The list goes on.”
He sounded reproachful, as if I had insulted his mother.
“I’ll take swiss for me, cheddar for my dog.”
The cash register chimed, and I pulled a single bill out of Liz’s envelope to hand over the counter. There was a long pause, and I heard him rolling the bill in his hands.
“Does that cover it?” I asked.
“I can’t take this, son,” he said.
“Why not?”
He paused again, before I heard the register open.
“Nevermind, that will cover it.”
I sat at a table to wait as he went to the back, then realized I had not received any change.
“Excuse me,” I said, turning around to where a father and his son sat behind me and were discussing the intricacies of sharing during playtime, “would you mind counting my money for me?”
“Sure thing,” he replied, and thumbed through the envelope.
“Whooah,” said the kid, a solid five years younger than me.
“Is this some type of joke?” said the man.
“Uh no. Just how much is it?”
“You didn’t steal this, did you?”
“No I didn’t steal it. I don’t even know how much it is, why would I take it? It was a gift.”
“Well then, you must have some good friends.” He sounded suspicious, but handed the envelope back, then leaned in to whisper in my ear.
“Fourteen hundred dollars, all hundreds.”
I paled. I had never held a hundredth of that much money, let alone actually possessed it. And that much money scared me. In the trailer park, whenever large sums of money were involved, violence followed. Violence like my mother’s death.
I heard my name called at the counter and I rose, accepting the heavy bag of food from the owner.
“Where’s my change?”
“Change, son? You gave me ten dollars, and I made you two sandwiches.”
“I gave you a hundred and you know that, where is my change?” My voice rose, and my face flushed where it had been pale moments before as my hands clenched into fists.
“Fair’s fair, son. Now move along.” A smirk worked its way into his words, and I grew angrier. And I felt something I never had before.
I became aware of his presence, a pinprick of existence that swelled into being. It was like a small fire, and it smelled, similar to the fumes given off when burning cheap plastic or the burn drums at the trailer park. Like all fires, it would one day go out, and I could feel that distance of time shortening.
And as the the owner continued his smirk, my anger continued to rise, and I felt the room grow cold. Behind me conversations died out until the deli was immersed in silence.
“Go on,” said the owner, but I stood defiant. I pressed against his fire, and I felt pieces of it go out and begin to smolder. The owner coughed, his breath catching in his throat, and the cheap plastic countertop cracked as his hand supported his weight.
“Leave before I call the police. Who are they going to believe, son?” he gasped, coughing again.
With a huff my anger flared, and his fire sputtered as I whipped around and Shankey barked. I heard him stumble before regaining balance, and I knew that the time before his fire would go out had greatly diminished.
“Come on, boy,” I said as I entered the winter air, which now differed little from that inside the deli. We sat on a bench, and I gave Shankey his cheddar sandwich, which he consumed in three bites, while I ate my own. I was not as hungry as I had been, and I fed the crusts to the pigeons, particularly a cooing one by my right hand. He deserved it—in two hours, he would have an unpleasant meeting with a car windshield before being buried in the city gutter.
Chapter 15 - School
With the aid of Liz’s money, the rest of the break passed quickly and without event. There was the occasional noise inside the monastery, footsteps in the hallways or a conversation just around a corner, culminating when there was a small rain shower that lasted around an hour one midnight. A week after Liz left, I stumbled upon a package outside my door, filled with new clothes and a note taped to the side, written in braille.
Sorry I have not been around. Expect me soon. -Liz
For a guardian, Liz seemed to be lax in her methods. But I could handle myself. Then one day I awoke to the headmaster knocking on my bedroom door.
“Father,” he said, “you’re needed downstairs. We have a situation.”
“Sorry,” I said, opening the door, “I think you have the wrong room.”
“Who, who are you, boy? And what are you doing in F
ather Fabio’s room?”
I raised my eyebrows. The headmaster was old, but Liz had failed to mention he had dementia.
“I’m Caleb. Don’t you remember? Liz brought me here. For classes, to board in this room?”
“Hmmmm. Yes. Yes, that’s right. Well get moving. They start in an hour. Schedules by year can be found downstairs.”
“Yes, sir,” I said, and I started getting ready, putting on the new clothes from Liz. From her note I would have expected her to check in sooner.
By the time I made it downstairs, the once-empty halls were filled with students rushing and bumping past me as if I were nonexistent.
“Watch it!” said one, knocking the cane from my hands and shoving me against the stone wall. I pushed back but he was gone as soon as he came, weaving back into the morphing crowd. No one helped me retrieve my cane, and it was only by following the conversations emanating from the pockets of circulating student cliques that I could discern my path.
“Ninth years, room two-oh-three. Ugh, not again, period one is taught by Mrs. Halleway,” said a boy ahead of me in a whining voice.” I watched the primer coat of paint dry on her wall all last semester, and now I’ll have to watch coat two.”
This was met with echoes of groans from around the circle, along with curse words uttered under their breaths. They were relatively clean for trained ears like my own, but I heard some colorful varieties that must have been particular to Philly, and took a mental note of the new additions.
I followed them upstairs and through an open door to a room with scattered chatter, thick with the smell of chalk dust. I found an empty chair and settled into it, coughing at the cloud of dust that rose as I descended. Either Elm’s Ridge decided not to employ janitors over the winter break, or they went through enough chalk in a day to singlehandedly employ a mine.
“Is anyone sitting here?” asked a girl’s voice next to me as I heard a backpack slump to the ground.
“I don’t think so.”
“I’m Mary,” she said as she rustled through her pack. “I don’t believe we’ve met before.”
Eden's Eye (The Gates Book 1) Page 5