House of Darkness House of Light (22 page)

“Let me see.” Andrea longed to comfort, sensing her mom’s vulnerability.

“It’s my heart that hurts right now, not my shoulder.”

Based on the child’s reaction Carolyn regretted making a somber comment; in lieu of sharing too much she suggested it was almost time for bed. Having divulged her sadness, something she’d tried to avoid, Carolyn decided, rather than risk any further inquiry, to instead send Andrea on one last errand; to collect a bowl from the dining room table. She would use this time to gather herself. Her daughter dutifully retrieved it, discovering the napkin had been thrown, shroud-like, over the remains of a fly. It explained a loud sound she heard, as well as her father’s race to the bathroom sink. She’d cleaned up the mess he’d made, kissed her mother goodnight then went off to her bedroom. Carolyn abandoned her efforts in the kitchen: Lights Out. She made her way through the house finding her acrimonious husband sound asleep on the sofa. There she left him, securing the pantry door one more time as she passed it.

Roger was up with the flies. Based on his cheerful demeanor, no one would have suspected he had a less than pleasant encounter with his wife the night before then slept on the sofa. If he did come to bed, Carolyn hadn’t noticed. In any event, he was up and very busy well before she emerged from beneath the relative warmth and comfort of their quilt. When she finally entered the kitchen, she could not believe her bleary eyes. Roger had already prepared a pot of oatmeal and the girls were gathered around the table, devouring their scrumptious gruel in peace and quiet. Their father had forsaken the morning murder and mayhem regimen in favor of joining his children for breakfast, monitoring the surrounding area from his seat. He glanced up and smiled as she came into the kitchen then winked. Carolyn knew it was as close as she’d ever come to a formal apology, though she found herself gratefully accepting it nonetheless; another kind gesture to follow, her husband then rose from his seat to get her a hot cup of coffee. He was making an effort to make amends. Carolyn acknowledged it. He gently placed his hand on her bruised shoulder. She reached up to touch him, patting his fingers, releasing an almost audible sigh of relief. Then, as if nothing had happened between them, as if nothing happened at all, an odd couple chatted about restoration plans. Each guilty of ignoring an issue they could not comprehend, their discussion was a prime example of the tendency. Problem was, in that house, dismissing an anomaly never resulted in its disappearance. Deciding on three slabs of granite for the hearthstone, Roger suggested they first prepare the space. It meant removing the existing rocks, piece by shattered piece. Then they should go to a nearby quarry to choose a more desirable stone. Carolyn agreed. (Note: prerequisite of living in New England requires having a well-developed appreciation for granite.) As they’d done so many times in the past, the family made a project of it, working as a team. Once breakfast was finished, everyone got dressed then hard labor began.
The
Bugs Bunny
/ Road
Runner
Hour
kept the kids entertained as they toiled. Late in the afternoon Carolyn excused herself from the project, going off to begin another chore: dinner. Everyone else remained on task until that dirty job was done, revealing the gaping hole in their floor, nearly two inches deep. Two-by-six feet across: all that remained where the once cracked, damaged-beyond-repair hearthstone had rested undisturbed for decades, if not for centuries.
Well done
according to Roger; an enormous but well-worth-the-effort restoration project was only partially complete.

Congratulating themselves over a hearty meal, the girls were exhausted and went to bed early, leaving their parents behind to admire all their handiwork. Even with a massive removal effort, a shifting of weight, Carolyn noticed the pantry door had not been a problem. It stayed closed and latched throughout the day. Though she kept it to herself, she felt a certain sense of satisfaction, a realization: Roger’s theory of “unbalanced floors” had apparently been shot straight to hell. No animosity; just vindication in her grin.

Though everyone else had the chance to hose off before dinner, Roger was the only one yet to enjoy the many benefits of a hot shower; ladies (and more ladies) first. When his turn finally came Roger was grateful there was any hot water. He left his wife standing in front of their fireplace…smiling. When he returned to the parlor several minutes later, her mood had abruptly changed. In the brief time he was away the room had become frigid, the air had turned rancid and the pantry door had, in death, taken on a life of its own. Carolyn stared at the man in silent desperation.

“What’s the matter?” He waited for her response. Standing rigidly in place, only the movement of her eyes indicated
the matter
; her gaze shifting slowly toward the door. It was swinging open then closing, as if fanning an invisible flame. Roger rushed over to it, stopping the momentum, pressing his weight against the wood then holding it still in the frame. He secured the latch with a small piece of cardboard from the nearby desk, wedging it tightly in between the fixture. Once he’d jammed the paper into place, a fit so snug it wouldn’t budge, he went back into the kitchen, there to locate the roll of twine in the sideboard drawer. Winding the string around the latch, over then under again, he tied a knot that would have made any sailor at once envious and proud: A Navy man. The recurring chill and odor dissipated in the time it took him to traverse the farmhouse back and forth then back into the parlor again. Roger wrapped the latch then wrapped his wife protectively in his arms, as secure an embrace as twine binding a latch; her gaze fixed on the door…what next?

“That’ll do it.” Yep, that oughta do it. Treat the symptom…not the disease.

Shocked as much by the fact that he had virtually ignored the odd behavior of a pantry door (as doors don’t normally have
behaviors
) as she was by the episode itself, she could not believe he’d virtually dismissed blatant evidence of supernatural activity in the home. The man acted as if it was nothing at all; perfectly natural. Actually, this was perfectly
super
natural! With his silence, Roger refused to acknowledge or discuss it. After the news they went to bed.

The following morning Roger rose early, up before dawn. He opened their bedroom door and could not help but notice the mounded pile of twine on the parlor floor. That pantry door had opened again…sometime during the night. The room was flooded with a foul, acrid odor he had become all too familiar with in recent days. The awful air was thick with a stench attributable only to decomposition; the aftermath of death. Roger’s angry heavy sigh appeared as mist in the frigid room. Fighting fright which swept through him like a wave of nausea, Roger stood before the open door, staring down his demons. What was tormenting them apparently fled the premises. It was beyond his mortal comprehension. Instantly, the laundry room became as warm as sunshine and smelled of detergent; a clean, fresh aroma penetrating his nostrils. The twine at his feet had been shredded into thousands of tiny threads, as if having been clawed at for hours with sharp fingernails. Did their cat do that? A tight knot woven to secure that latch the night before was virtually indistinguishable; its thick cotton twine resembled a wad of sewing thread. No way.

By the time Carolyn awakened her husband had emptied the laundry pantry of all its contents, except the washer and dryer. Those had been disconnected then dislodged, so he could examine the dead space behind them. There was nothing there. They had not lived in the house long enough to even build up the predictable lint often found behind such appliances. Roger was stymied. There were no rotting carcasses in the room, no evidence of mice or anything else, for that matter. Just the flies, alive and well, buzzing his head while he worked. Pausing long enough to splat one whenever he could, Roger decided to trap them inside the long, narrow pantry by closing the door behind him, effectively trapping himself in the process. It was an opportunity to wipe all of them out at once. No exit. Roger
did
think twice before closing that door. The man was officially spooked.

An ungodly racket disturbed Carolyn’s deep and restful slumber. She rose to find Roger vacuum cleaning in the pantry, cornering flies in windowpanes, sucking them in and pulling them down through the hose attached to a bag of dust, there to slowly but surely suffocate; to go back to their father, the devil. Roger clearly derived some sadistic pleasure from the effort, engrossed as he was, taking aim at those who had so often taken aim at them.

“Jesus Christ!” He did not hear Carolyn opening the door behind him and her sudden, unexpected presence shook him to the core. Touching his elbow, Carolyn got Roger’s attention, all right; then she witnessed terror in his eyes. Such an adverse reaction was quite unlike her husband. He was not one to be easily startled. To her knowledge, the man feared nothing. According to him, there was nothing to fear but fear itself; apparently his attitude had changed. In the instant prior to mortal recognition of his wife he looked at her as if she was a ghost; an unholy apparition manifesting through dim morning light.

“Sorry! I didn’t mean to scare you. What are you doing in here?”

“Look at this.” He stepped out of the pantry to show her the pile of twine.

“Did you do that?” Carolyn had already sensed the answer to this question. Roger shook his head in disgust then picked it up to examine it more closely. “If you
didn’t
do this…then who did?” His expression told the truth. Afraid: Be very afraid. He did not know who shredded the knot of twine overnight. “I’ll go make us some coffee.” Carolyn headed toward the kitchen.

The children got up to watch cartoons, only to discover the sofa space was taken by whatever had been formerly stacked on all the pantry shelves. From bleach bottle to blankets, washcloths to linens, every seat was spoken for this Sunday morning. It was a day much like any other; bright and full of promise as any spring morning could be. The Sun crept up over the tree line, peeking in through their kitchen windows as breakfast was served. Roger entered the kitchen. He looked pale and drawn, tired before the day had begun. Sitting quietly at the table for a few minutes, he made a declaration no one expected, suggesting the girls finish eating then go upstairs and get dressed for church. Carolyn was as stunned as their children. It had been quite awhile since they attended services, having had a falling out with the parish priest at the church in Cumberland. He’d been a brutal, abrasive man; unkind to several children attending catechism. As reports of this abusiveness began running rampant in town, finally reaching Roger, this resulted in a serious confrontation between the Father of a church and the father of a family. Mr. Perron withdrew them as parishioners from Saint Aiden’s Parish. Not since then had there been any mention of returning to any place of worship; not until that Sunday morning. Carolyn knew precisely what prompted him to make the abrupt statement; as rapid a reconsideration of an issue as she had ever heard from him before.

Rather than parking in front of a television; within an hour all of them were packed into a pew at Saint Patrick’s Church located in beautiful downtown Harrisville. As they’d entered the quiet church every head turned, not simply because they were so late for Mass, but also due to the sheer volume of them! Approaching the family afterward, the kindly priest welcomed them into the church and then invited them to join the congregation. Roger and Carolyn gratefully accepted on behalf of their family…as a way to leave the Light on.

After several more days of labor-intensive restoration and a visit from the chimney sweep, their fireplace was ready for burning. Carolyn found all the necessary hardware tucked in a corner of the woodshed, as well as a wooden box covered by a tarp. It was finally time to dispel the chill from their home. The children gathered around their father while he layered kindling so dry, it splintered between his fingers. Carolyn stood on the hearthstone beside him, anxious to feel the burn destined to be welcome respite from cold unlike any she’d ever experienced in her life. Fire was more than elemental…a blessing and a curse of Nature. It was the promise of comfort, the release from a kind of pain unfamiliar to Carolyn, made all the more daunting by her inability to control it. Now she would possess the means of escaping what she perceived had been haunting her: relentless unforgiving cold. With the balmy, bountiful spring season poised on the horizon, Carolyn had, at last, allowed herself to sense the pleasure of relief. It was nearly over; winter was almost gone. This was a false sense of security, but one which she relished. With a single strike of a match, Roger created a towering inferno. Whoosh! Flames crackled and sputtered, leaping up to lap at the logs. “Fire in the hole!” He was so pleased, pride beaming as brightly as the blaze. Scouting skills had not been lost with time. As long-seasoned wood burned fast and hot, permeating the parlor with its welcome-home warmth, it was the first time Carolyn could recall feeling completely comfortable in the old farmhouse; at times, too close for comfort! Worth the work but not the wait; for months she endured sub-zero conditions outside and sub-human conditions within. While baking a body to the bone, this grateful woman spoke her mind. “The swallows just lost their chimney.” Perhaps so; maybe Mr. Kenyon knew, when he’d closed that fireplace, it had something to do with bizarre sights and sounds manifesting within the house. Maybe he knew something more than he shared. There was purpose; a reason why he sealed it shut decades before they arrived; a decision made with some intention. When a portal once closed is reopened, some say it creates a crack in the Cosmos; presumably, following logically, that’s how the Light gets in.

“Hope is the feeling we have that the feeling we have is not permanent.”

Mignon McLaughlin

 
bless this mess