by Glen Krisch
Heidi ignored her brother, even as the beam crisscrossed her body.
Clara’s dad handed her a heavy-looking Maglite. She pressed the power button and it gave off a weak cone of yellow light.
“Batteries are a little low, but I don’t see any more in this cabinet. Why don’t you ask your mom where we can find some more?”
“Okay,” Heidi said. She looked conflicted over leaving their company for the darkened hallway.
Clara hoped she didn’t ask her to go with her.
“She can’t leave,” Robby said. “She’s dead!”
“Robby, tone it down a notch, will you, bud?” Her dad flashed a charming smile.
Robby practiced Jedi stances, the flashlight held like a lightsaber.
That was enough to chase Heidi out into the darkness. She padded away in a huff.
Robby went over to Trev and pretended to slice him open from stem to stern with his flashlight’s beam. Trev fell dramatically to the floor, silently, and tried in vain to keep his invisible guts from gushing out across the kitchen floor. The boys rolled around on their backs, laughing without sound.
“Dad?” Clara whispered, not wanting to break his concentration, but unable to hold back.
The boys clamored to the back window and pressed their faces against the glass, taking turns shining Robby’s flashlight into the storm.
Her dad gave her a quick glance as he brought down a cardboard box with various candles piled inside. “Yeah, honey?”
“Do you think Mom’s okay?”
He set the box of candles on the island counter and looked at her fully.
“Of course, she is.”
“She’s probably still on the ferry boat in the middle of this,” Clara said.
Rain battered the deck’s broad windows. Violent gales shook the tree branches, scattering wet leaves.
“Yeah, you’re right …” He trailed off, a hint of concern reaching his eyes. “But they wouldn’t leave the pier if there was any danger.”
“Can you text her?” she asked. “Just in case?”
“I sure will.” He took his cell phone from his pocket. “Ask and you shall receive.” He sighed in relief. “She texted about five minutes ago; I must’ve not heard the notification.” He looked up from the screen. “She’s fine. Just fine, dear. She’s going to text again when she finds her hotel room.”
“Why did she leave? Why did she have to go to Wisconsin? Is it to see him? To see Edgar Jenkins?” Clara felt more empowered than any other time in her life to speak up. She didn’t feel more mature—she’d always been emotionally mature for her age, or so her parents often told her—but something had changed in her the last few days.
“How do you know about Edgar?”
“I heard Mom talk about him before we got here. On the ride up … she was so upset. And her friend … Breann—”
“I thought you were sleeping,” he said.
“I kind of wish I had been.”
Aunt Leah entered the kitchen and said, “Poppa’s resting.”
Heidi, at her side, added, “He looks so … small.”
An uncomfortable silence filled the room.
“What?” Aunt Leah said. “What did we miss? Everything okay?”
“I asked about Edgar,” Clara said, glad the subject was now out in the open. “I still don’t know why Mom went to see him tonight.” Clara looked from one adult to the other. “It could’ve waited. For any number of reasons, it could have waited.”
Aunt Leah grabbed a shoebox from a high shelf in the pantry and pulled out fresh batteries for Heidi’s flashlight. The girl’s apprehension went away when she turned it back on to push back the darkness.
“She had to, honey,” Aunt Leah said. “This whole thing has been weighing on her for a long time, since long before you were even born.”
Clara wanted to press with more questions, so ready for answers.
Aunt Leah, as if sensing her, said, “Hey, how about we play a game!”
“Boring!” Trev said. “How ’bout we go run in the rain?”
“Yeah, right,” Heidi said. “You’re too chicken, Trev.”
“Am not!”
“I’ll go with!” Robby added.
“There will be no going out in this storm.” Her dad’s voice rose above both the children’s voices and the squall outside. “We will all gather together as a family and play a game.”
“All of us?” Clara asked.
“Yes, no better time for it,” her dad said. “What should we play? Monopoly? Yahtzee?”
“Yuck!” Trev pretended to throw up.
“How about The Knowing?” Heidi asked.
“What’s The Knowing?” her dad asked. “I don’t think I’ve played it before.”
“Oh, it’s just … it’s something I made up.”
Aunt Leah looked away, as if embarrassed. “We can play something else,” she said. “There’s even a big five-hundred-piece puzzle in the front closet.”
Uncle Jack joined them, having changed into a white knit shirt and black jeans. His mop of damp hair was combed, his eyes unfazed, steady, assured. “I heard something about a game?”
“I suggested a puzzle,” Aunt Leah said.
Uncle Jack’s face wrinkled, as if he’d eaten something spoiled. “A puzzle, no way!”
“I agree!” Trev said.
“I want to play The Knowing,” Heidi said.
“Me too,” Robby said. “Come on, Mom, let’s show them!”
Aunt Leah looked around the room. Everyone waited expectantly, eager for her decision. “Okay, fine. But you can’t make fun of it.”
“Would I make fun of you?” Uncle Jack said.
“I’m going to regret this, aren’t I?”
“Most likely, sis. Most likely.” Uncle Jack wrapped his arm around Aunt Leah’s shoulders and squeezed.
And then he did a surprising thing, something Clara had never seen before. He closed his eyes, contented, and tilted his head until it rested on the crown of Aunt Leah’s. It wasn’t a sarcastic motion, but sincere. Clara didn’t have siblings, didn’t think she would ever understand the give and take, the love-one-second hate-the-next aspects of such relationships.
When he broke the embrace, Aunt Leah slugged him in the arm, but a slight grin played across her lips.
Her dad clapped his hands together, grabbing everyone’s attention. “So, how do we play this game?”
“Well,” Aunt Leah began, “it’s only as fun as your belief is strong.”
Jack scoffed. “This sounds like one of your new-agey performances.”
Aunt Leah rolled her eyes. “Why do I bother?”
“Mom!” Heidi cried. “Please!”
“For the kids, Jack?” her dad said from the corner of his mouth.
“I’m sorry, Leah,” Uncle Jack said. “Go ahead with the game. It’s better than staring at the walls.”
“Or some dumb puzzle!” Trev added.
“Okay, everyone, gather around the island,” Aunt Leah said.
While she explained the rules, Clara listened intently, thinking it wasn’t any sort of game at all, but a form of magic.
Within a few minutes, the family had gathered around the island, spreading chairs around to allow them all to sit and hold hands. They placed a trio of hurricane lamps on the counter.
Aunt Leah looked at each of them in turn. “Do you all remember the phrasing?”
“It sounds more like a chant,” Clara said.
“Well, I guess it is. The words themselves don’t mean much, but the focus, the connection you feel with the other people in the circle, that’s the key.”
Uncle Jack smirked, his eyes gleaming in the darkness. “So chanting, spooky candle light, a crazy storm outside—this is witchcraft, isn’t it?”
&nbs
p; “No, brat,” Aunt Leah said, obviously annoyed at her younger brother. “Go someplace else if you’re going to poke fun.”
“Dad, come on,” Trev said. “Stay. Please?”
“Okay, Leah. I’m sorry. Proceed.”
“So, everyone, make sure you’re holding hands with those on either side of you,” Aunt Leah said, looking around the circle. “Don’t let go, or you’ll ruin the circuit.”
Their shadows danced on the walls, thrown into marionette-like gyrations by the guttering flames at the center of the island.
“Okay, now everyone, close your eyes. Picture a ball of heat in each of your palms. Picture it flowing both out from you and into the person next to you. Picture the circle gaining strength, energy. Picture this energy projecting toward the center of our circle.”
Clara’s hands broke out in clammy sweat. It was either that or sweat from Heidi and Robby on either side of her. Perhaps a little of both. Heat bloomed in the center of her palms. She almost broke contact, but held fast, curious about the cause of the phenomenon.
“Trev, you need to keep your eyes closed,” Aunt Leah said, then added, “and Robby, you know better.”
“Sorry, Mom.”
“Okay … does everyone feel the bond of our circle? It’s power?”
Everyone echoed affirmatives, even Uncle Jack, who didn’t sound snarky in the slightest.
“Let’s begin,” Aunt Leah intoned. What do you see, what do you know?”
“What do you see, what do you know?” everyone repeated, not altogether in sync.
“What do you see, what do you know?” she said again. “Heidi, what do you see?”
Clara’s cousin’s hand jerked in her own, gripping tighter from surprise. Everyone else started to hum as Aunt Leah had instructed.
“I see …” Heidi said and trailed off. “I see a boat on a lake. A lake on the earth. The earth in the universe.”
Adding the details, Aunt Leah had explained, amplified the circuit’s focus.
“Some vision,” Trevor scoffed. “It’s the Little Whisper.”
“Trevor, no interruptions,” Uncle Jack said.
Clara wanted to open her eyes, but she kept them clamped shut. The heat diminished in her palms, as if the flame of their collective had died from lack of momentum.
“Okay. Sorry, Dad.”
“You see a boat on a lake. A lake on the earth. The earth in the universe,” Aunt Leah said. “Now that you see, what do you know?”
“I know the universe is as big as anything you can imagine. I know the earth is special, full of life. I know the lake …” Heidi paused to collect her thoughts. “The lake is a pit … that it’s bottomless,” the girl’s voice cut off, as if choked. She cleared her throat.
“Are you okay, honey-bean?” Aunt Leah said.
“It’s empty and dark,” Heidi said, “it’s full of … de-de-despair.”
“No wonder I didn’t catch anything!” Uncle Jack said.
Everyone opened their eyes.
Every step of the way, Clara had been able to picture Heidi’s vision. That’s why, when she looked into her cousin’s eyes, she knew she was lying. Heidi didn’t mean to say despair, even if it was a close approximation for what she had seen, what she had felt. The word she had been unable to say was death.
“Oh, Mom.” Heidi wrapped her arms around Aunt Leah’s waist.
Aunt Leah shushed her and rubbed her back. “It’s okay, honey-bean. You just glimpsed something you shouldn’t have.”
“What does that mean?” her dad asked.
“This lake is old,” Aunt Leah said, “older than human habitation, most likely. Any number of things could’ve impacted her vision.”
“Sounds like a game not suitable for kids,” Uncle Jack said.
Everyone sat in silence, looking around at each other. Shadows continued to dance across the walls; the darkness cast an ominous pall over everything.
Clara wished she could turn on the lights.
“We can’t end like this,” Heidi said, holding her mom at arm’s length.
“I think we should put The Knowing on the shelf for a different day,” Aunt Leah said.
Robby slapped his palm against the island’s countertop. “Mom!”
“Hey, I thought it was fun,” Trevor said.
“Is there a way to,” her dad said, “I don’t know, steer the game a bit?” He didn’t look like he cared if the game continued, but he couldn’t help mediate tensions and find middle grounds.
“Well, I guess …” Aunt Leah said.
“Then it’s settled!” Uncle Jack said.
“I thought you said it’s silly?” Aunt Leah said.
“It is, but I also felt something, you know, in my palms. Heat. Like it was really working. I could clearly picture Heidi’s vision. Like I was there, seeing every detail.”
“Me, too,” Trevor said.
Robby nodded agreement.
“Does anyone not want to continue the game?” Aunt Leah asked. “Just remember, that’s all The Knowing is: a game.”
Clara looked around the circle; everyone wanted to play.
“Okay …” Aunt Leah sighed. She couldn’t back out now. “Everyone, again, hold hands and close your eyes. Picture a ball of heat in each of your palms. Picture it flowing both out from you and into those next to you. Picture the circle gaining strength and energy. Picture this energy projected at the center of our circle.”
Clara felt the heat building in her palms, but this time it didn’t relent; the heat quickly became nearly unbearable, close to scalding. She held fast, and as far as she could tell, so did everyone else.
“Let’s begin,” Aunt Leah said. “What do you see, what do you know?”
“What do you see, what do you know?” everyone repeated, this time as one voice.
Everyone hummed as before.
“What do you see, what do you know?” she repeated. “Neal, what do you see?”
“Um … hmm, well, I guess …” Her dad paused while everyone else continued to hum rhythmically. “I see a book on a shelf. A shelf in a room. A room in a house on the Little Whisper.”
“What’s inside this book? Go ahead, reach out. Take it off the shelf.”
Clara felt herself swaying forward and back, slowly, and couldn’t do anything to stop it. In her mind’s eye, she saw the volume on the shelf in Poppa’s library. It had gilded edging and was bound in worn brown leather. She could read the title, so clearly, yet obscured by the language of origin: Terrenum Quidem Monstrum.
“I … I’m not sure. I see … I see words on the binding, but they are, I think, Latin.”
“Monsters,” Clara blurted, surprising even herself. “Terrenum Quidem Monstrum,” she whispered, and it felt like the weight of the air absorbed her words.
“Yes,” her dad said distantly.
The heat left her palms, rushing out to the center of their circle.
Clara opened her eyes.
The candle flames guttered, sending shadows in a violent fury across the walls. Everyone else continued to hum, continued to sway, eyes still closed. She tugged her hands and Heidi and Robby reluctantly released their grips. No one said a word. No one reacted to what she had said, either. They all remained entranced as they hummed and swayed.
The deck door sliding open drew her attention. A shadow swept inside, as if something sinuous and enormous passed just outside the door frame. But the darkness continued to manifest within the kitchen, blocking out the view to the woods beyond.
“I see pages of writing,” her dad said, his swaying picking up speed. His forehead wrinkled as he concentrated.
“Tell us what you see,” Aunt Leah said. “Yes, tell us everything.”
“No!” Clara shouted, but to no effect.
“Et assumam monter locum occupando
ponte crebra vivorum et mortuorum,” her dad said, and Clara was somehow able to translate the words: And the monster will take its place, the bridge between the living and dead.
The whirling darkness filled the borders of the kitchen, absorbing the dancing shadows cast by the hurricane lamps.
“Dad, wake up. Snap out of it!” Clara backed away from the circle, horrified. This could not be happening. It wasn’t rational. It wasn’t even close to being sane.
Her dad spoke again, in Latin, and again, she was able to translate his words, verbatim: And it will harness their darkness to its bidding, gaining strength beyond measure.
Tendrils of shadow lashed out at Heidi, coiling around her wrists, prying her up and out of her chair. The girl never opened her eyes as she fell back, as if unconscious. The darkness took her cousin in its embrace—with something resembling maternal gentleness—and lifted her above the broken circle. The darkness wound so tightly around Heidi that it left indentations in her skin, like a boa constrictor strangling its prey.
“Heidi!” Clara screamed, until her throat was raw and her voice cracked. As she backed away, her legs bumped into the counter by the sink, and there she remained, paralyzed, a witness to this waking nightmare. “No!”
More amorphous appendages slithered away from the larger mass; they wrapped around Trevor, then Robby. Again, her cousins didn’t react as they were lifted from their chairs. The constriction began, the narrow bands of shadow tightening until furrows deepened in the unconscious children’s skin.
Clara snapped out of it. She hurried over to her dad, to shake him from whatever spell had taken over the game, but a dark tendril shot out at her, slamming her square between the eyes. The darkness shattered before reforming in a single sheet to cover first her face then the rest of her body. The curling dark coiled around Clara’s arms and legs, burning her exposed skin with icy coldness.
She whimpered blindly, “Daddy, please!”
The darkness shot out, funneling between her parted lips. It writhed and snaked through every inch of her, leaving a bitter broken trail in its wake.
Clara no longer felt the ground beneath her.