by Eve Langlais
Maura crawled back onto the bed and pulled the covers over her body. It might smell musty, but it was warm and safe. All she had to do was wait.
Chapter Two
No one came.
It was possible minutes felt like hours, and hours felt like days. Maura had no sense of the time, only that night and snow persisted outside. A woman could only wait so long before fear tickled the back of her thoughts. She’d pounded on the walls, stomped on the floor, tried to pull open the sealed window, stared into the tarnished mirror until her own face seemed to mock her. Then it occurred to her that she might be in an attic room and the door might be in the floor.
She took the lantern and placed it on the wood planks. Crawling on her hands and knees, she looked for a hinge. After exploring the length of the floor, pressing and pulling each and every board, she finally caught a glimpse of hope. A small door, barely large enough to crawl through, was hidden partially by the bed post. The tiny handle looked as if it had been built for a doll, but the tarnished brass keyhole was large enough to fit the skeleton key on the wall. Someone had carved, “Everlastingly,” on the wood.
Maura pushed the bed aside and grabbed the key. The lock did not easily turn and she had to use both hands to find the strength to unlatch it. The small door swung open. A cool breeze whipped in to the heated room from the darkness beyond. She pushed to her feet and fetched the lantern. As her eyes fell back on the door, a light had turned on inside, and she didn’t need the lantern to see.
A voice whispered from within, light and high like an excited child’s, “Do you think she’ll come this time, or run?”
“I don’t know,” another calmer voice answered.
“She doesn’t have much time. She can’t keep doing this. The house will not stand forever. Maybe I should go in and lead her from the door. I’m sure I can find what Jack wants.”
“Quiet or she will hear you. Interfering does not help. We tried that.”
“Jack?” Maura whispered, her body instantly awakened by the name. Now was not the time for desire, and yet that is what she felt. Tingling erupted on her skin, a reminder of warm hands and deep kisses. But she didn’t know anyone named Jack. How could she be aroused by a name? How could she feel safe and warm when she was trapped in an old house during a snowstorm?
With only one way out she reached into the opening.
“Someone should tell Jack she’s escaping,” the child decided. “I’ll go. You watch.”
***
Nothing.
It was possible minutes felt like hours, and hours felt like days. Maura had no sense of the time, only that night and snow persisted outside. How did she get in this doorless room? Why was there no way out?
Frantic, she had torn up the withering prison, pulling curtains from the window, ripping the mirror from the wall, tossing the stupid key decoration to the floor. How could she be in a room with no way out?
What if her kidnappers found her? What if they kept her here and had some kind of torture chamber in the basement? Snow or not, she couldn’t stay. She had to run, to fight to survive. She vaguely remembered seeing an old farm truck outside before she passed out. If she pressed her face to the glass she could see the outline of it below. She might not comprehend fully what was happening, but there was a sense of urgency building inside her. She had to get help.
Grabbing the mirror, she threw it at the window. Glass shattered. She took the coverlet from the bed and wrapped the corner around her fist to strike the remaining glass pieces from the sill. She then swung the thick material around her shoulders for warmth, and to protect herself from the broken shards. Outside the window was a trellis of dead ivy, conveniently placed, acting like a ladder, and helping her climb down. She tried to carry the lantern with her, but it fell to the snowy ground and extinguished. Now, helped only by moonlight, she shakily made her way down the side of the house. She hopped off, away from the broken glass in the snow.
The cold stung her feet through the pantyhose as she ran toward the old pickup. The faded red font on the side of the blue vehicle read, “Jack Everla”. The vehicle was from the early 1950s, with a flat solid windshield, headlights set into the grill, and a rounded frame. It was the exact model she’d wanted as a kid.
Maura yanked the creaky metal door open before crawling inside. There were keys in the ignition but the dead engine did not so much as whimper with life. She was so cold already and didn’t want to run again. There might not be another house for miles. Considering her options, the farmhouse seemed like the safest bet. She had no proof the people inside were dangerous. They might be upset that she broke their window, but she could offer to pay for it.
With little by way of a choice, she made her way to the rickety porch. The dark windows revealed only shadowy hints of what was inside. She pressed her face to the glass, trying to see. It didn’t take long before she tried the door. As she pulled it open, light cut the dark porch. The glow from a Christmas tree lit the front room, the tiny white bulbs blinking slowly. She had not been able to see it through the outside window, which made no logical sense. Like the doorless room above, the home was covered in dust.
Maura remained quiet. Her bare feet made tracks on the floor as she closed herself in. Pictures hung on the wall and she smudged her fingertips through the dust on one to reveal dark eyes in a handsome face. The man was not smiling, as appeared to be customary in old sepia photographs. A thin scar ran over his left temple. Something about him looked familiar, creating feelings of warmth, but he’d probably died years ago. Still, she found herself standing for a long time, staring at his face, trying to remember why he might look familiar. Perhaps she knew his grandson? Dated his grandson? She swiped her finger over his chin to reveal his mouth. Her lips prickled with awareness, like she had kissed that mouth before and wanted to do it again–desperately.
“Are you Jack Everla?” she whispered. The name Jack sounded familiar, as if she’d said it a hundred times, but that made no logical sense. Nothing here made sense.
The soft sound of a record caught her attention and pulled her away from the handsome picture. She tiptoed toward it. The coverlet dropped from her shoulders. Brass and woodwind instruments played Big Band music, the crisp sound punctuated by the occasional bump and scratch of a record needle. Such music was meant to be loud, not soft.
Wooden stairs creaked as she made her way up them, no matter that she tried to tiptoe. A faint light came from beneath a door, drawing her toward it. The music became louder. She turned the oval nob and stepped inside the room to confront whoever was there. The second she was through the door, the music abruptly stopped as if it had never been.
The doorless room.
The broken window had been repaired and the area tidied as if she’d never been there. She turned to leave but the door had disappeared and she slammed into the wall in her haste.
“Ow!” Maura gasped, putting her hand over her injured nose.
“We should tell Jack she’s lost,” a child’s voice said. “It never takes this long.”
“I opened the door for her,” another young voice answered.
“You should not have done that. The others will be mad if they find out you interfered.”
“What else could I do? Jack wants her to come. It’s been too hard for her to find it this time.”
Shaking, Maura looked around to see who was talking. Instead, she found something she had not seen before–a small door in the wall just big enough to crawl through. A skeleton key had been fitted in the lock. Though she listened, the voices did not come back. What choice did she have? She couldn’t stay locked up. The old truck didn’t run. The farmhouse was abandoned. Those were the first voices she’d heard since her run through the snow. It took a long time before she found the nerve to go toward the opening.
***
No way out.
How did she get in this doorless room? Where was the person who pulled her from the snow? She didn’t remember coming up here, so someon
e had to bring her. Why didn’t they let her out of the room? Or at least check on her?
It was possible minutes felt like hours, and hours felt like days. Maura had no sense of the time, only that night and snow persisted outside. She swiped at her eyes and paced the wood plank floor. The key had to mean something.
Where there was a key, there was a lock.
Holding the skeleton key, she looked for a hole to fit it in. She lifted the curling wallpaper, ran her hands over the floor. The radiant heat kept her from trying to go out the window. Her feet still stung from her run through the snow and there was no way she was facing those elements again. It would be better to find a way downstairs. Maybe they would have a phone. Or boots and a coat. Or truck keys. She vaguely remembered seeing an old farm truck before passing out. If anything, the downstairs should be less dusty and there may be some food. She couldn’t remember the last time she ate. Though, really, she didn’t feel hungry so that wasn’t an immediate priority.
If there was a way in to this room, there was a way out.
She knocked on the bed posts and found them to be solid. Throwing the side of the coverlet up, she searched under the mattress. Her hands hit an old book and she pulled it out. Butterfly stickers clung to the journal’s cover. In very curvy writing that reminded Maura of being in middle school, a young girl had written, over and over, on the pages, “Mrs. Taylor, Mrs. Jack Taylor, Mr. and Mrs. Jack Taylor”, along with doodles of man and a woman together doing various mundane things–driving a car, eating in a restaurant, watching television. Whoever the girl was, her pictures were much less graphic than Maura’s would have been at that age.
Next, Maura looked under the bed and found a small door with a tiny knob. The word, “Everlastingly,” had been carved on the wood. How strange that she hadn’t noticed it before. She was sure she’d never seen anything quite like it. The keyhole was the perfect size for the key. She rushed to it and thrust it in the lock. She was crawling out of her skin. She had to get out of the room. Anywhere was better than here.
Opening the door, Maura was met with a gentle illumination. She thrust her head inside the opening to look. A wooden wall blocked her view, but she saw the light coming from around the corner.
“Sh,” she thought she heard someone whisper.
“That was too fast,” a second voice answered. “She couldn’t have found anything useful.”
“Maybe she’ll turn around. Sometimes she turns around.”
“Who’s there?” Maura called as she reached her arms through the opening and pushed against the wall to pull her body through. “Are you the girl who wrote the journal? Is this your room?”
“Too soon, too soon,” the voice said. “Warn Jack.”
Chapter Three
The bulky weight of Maura’s satin skirt caused her hips to catch on the miniature doorframe. She pushed harder, heaving her body through the small opening. Looking up, she found the ceiling was too short to stand. Maura crawled toward the light coming around the corner. When she reached it and peeked around the side, she found the light had moved around another corner.
Much like a mouse in a maze, she scurried on her hands and knees, turning corner after corner, trying to catch the light. Her palms ached. The wooden planks of the floor were padded only by the material of her skirt under bruised knees. The deeper she went into the tunnel, the faster she moved, desperate to get out.
The air became colder, a slight breeze that smelled of the outdoors. The yellow glow of light morphed into the blue tint of moonlight. She crawled from the tunnel and out of a snow–covered mound of earth. A forest stretched around her. The dense overgrowth blocked all but tiny dancing spots of light.
“You made it.” The male voice was punctuated by the slam of wood on wood.
Maura gasped and spun around in time to see a figure locking the tunnel shut so she couldn’t go back. She backed away from him, dragging her bare feet in the snow. Forest litter poked her arch and she stumbled.
The man turned to her. He wore a dark cloak and breathed hard as if he’d run a long way. Dark eyes were familiar, but a fleeting familiar, a face in the crowd, a passenger on a bus. She couldn’t place him. A thin scar formed over his left temple, the wound long healed.
“You are early.” He smiled, a charming look meant to draw her in, but she didn’t trust that smile.
“Who are you? What do you want? Why did you lock me in that room?” Maura lifted her hand to keep the stranger back. “Don’t come near me!”
“My name is Jack. I–”
“Jack Taylor?” Was that his house? The childhood home of his wife? The idea of him being married struck her hard and she found she didn’t like it. Though, there was no logical reason as to why she should be jealous.
“Oh, so it was the journal this time.” Jack seemed disappointed by the revelation.
“Were you watching me?” Maura eyed him cautiously. “Is this some kind of sick–o game?”
“Game,” he repeated sadly. “Oh, how I wish.”
Maura’s breathing deepened.
“You’re going to run, aren’t y–”
Maura didn’t wait for him to finish. She bolted from the now locked tunnel. Though snow blanketed the ground, it didn’t feel as thick as her first run, nor was it as cold. Perhaps she had lost permanent feeling in her feet. She darted through the trees, torn between the easier path for speed and the thicker brush for stealth.
Slowly the snow cleared, as if she ran through the winter season, and she erupted from the dense trees into a valley. Warmth surrounded her–not the artificial warmth of radiant heat fighting back winter, but the sunlight warmth of spring. Tiny gasps greeted her as butterflies leapt into the air.
“Maura!” Jack yelled behind her.
The butterflies swooped forward in formation like tiny planes. She tried to dart past them, but they re–angled and blocked her escape.
“Maura, stop,” Jack said, catching up to her.
For some reason she was compelled to obey. Fear filled her but it wasn’t fear of him. In fact, she wanted to turn around and stay with him.
“What is going on?” she demanded, looking at the dark winter forest, and then the bright spring valley. “Where am I?”
“Go,” Jack ordered the butterflies. They instantly broke formation and fluttered around the flowers as if nothing had happened.
“What did you give me?” She was too scared to move. “I’m hallucinating. None of this is real. It’s some kind of fever induced dream.”
“We did not expect you back so soon. You are on the wrong path again.” He pushed back his cloak to reveal a white tunic shirt and tighter black leather pants with cross laces up the side. Who dressed like that? Shakespearian performers?
Maura stared a little too long at his hips and became momentarily distracted by strong thighs and a tapered waist. Under different circumstances… “None of this makes sense. I have to run. I don’t know why, I just need to run.”
Spring felt safe. She wanted to stay but an outside force told her to run.
“There is still time to start over,” Jack said. “Close your eyes and remember. You can find the right path. You have to find it.”
Maura found herself obeying as she closed her eyes.
“Go back to the beginning and do it again,” he urged.
“I want to stay here with you. I don’t want to go,” she said, desperation filling her. And it was true. It was nice here in spring. The gentleness of his voice calmed her. The look of him drew her in and she wanted to touch him, be with him.
“I know, but you have to try again. Go back to the beginning. You remember it, don’t you? Snowflakes on Christmas Eve. They’re magical, aren’t they? Tiny perfect ice kingdom–”
“Perfect ice kingdoms doomed to melt,” Maura finished.
“I never understood that.” He chuckled.
“I was a little drunk,” she whispered. “I was talking nonsense.”
She had been admiring the fat fla
kes falling against her coat, not paying attention as she tipsily weaved her way from the Christmas Eve party toward her car. A lawn gnome poked out from the snow. The shoveled sidewalk had cracks in the old slabs. Dread and fear filled her with such intensity. Gasping, she fought the memory and violently shook her head. “No!”
When she opened her eyes, Jack stood closer than before. His hand hovered by her cheek. He didn’t touch her, but the expression in his eyes said he wanted to. The yearning inside him was palpable and raw. Firm lips pressed together a little too harshly. Eyes narrowed in concentration as if holding back tears. He said, “Go back. You’ll find it.”
“I don’t know what I’m looking for.” Part of her wanted to obey the strange request, even though it didn’t make sense. Go where? To the tunnel? To the doorless room? The fear came back as she thought of running in the snow. She didn’t want to go back into the snow. It was warm here. Safe. Danger lurked in the snow.
She wanted to stay here. Forever.
It didn’t make sense.
Her body told her to run.
“Stay away from me,” she ordered, fighting the confusion. Jack’s mouth had been on the verge of kissing her. She felt the heat of his breath on her cheek. Desperation shone in his eye.
“Remember,” he whispered. “Everlastingly.”
Chapter Four
Maura felt the pull of winter down to the deepest levels of her soul. The warmth felt so nice against her skin and yet she still had the urge to run into the dark forest. It wasn’t something she wanted to do, but something she was compelled by outside forces to do.
“You look tired,” Jack said. “Maybe close your eyes and rest.”
Maura’s lids became momentarily heavy. She was tired. How could she not be after all she’d been through? Swaying on her feet, she mumbled, “I think I have a fever. I’m seeing things. I can’t concentrate. None of this is real.”