Notebook for Fantastical Observations (10 page)

Postcard from a hobgoblin
(
back
):

“The stones. The stones speak. They speak to me.”

FROM
B
OOK
4: T
HE
I
RONWOOD
T
REE

KNOCKERS

TAP. TAP.

That is the sound I’ve been hearing every night in the new apartment. Since Dad lost his job, everything has been different. Before, we lived in a nice house. Now we have a cruddy apartment near where my two aunts live. My older sister, Maria, and I have to share a bedroom. A sheet divides the room, protecting Maria’s “privacy.” It doesn’t protect me from Maria’s snoring. And, of course, there’s the other sound.

TAP. TAP.

I told Mom, but she said it was old pipes and I should ignore it. It gets in my head, though, cutting through my dreams, making it impossible to sleep. I’m tired all the time, stumbling through the halls of my new, scary school, but no one notices.

TAP. TAP.

Late one night I can’t take it anymore. The tapping seems to have started earlier and is louder than usual. It bangs around in my skull like loose dice. I get up and stick my feet into my sneakers, not even bothering to pop my heels in, letting them squash the back of the shoe. I unlatch the front door, taking off the chain and turning the bolt lock. Even though Dad would have a fit, I wedge a book in the door to keep it open and go out into the hall.

TAP. TAP.

The hallway’s worn blue carpet has strings hanging off of it in places. The other doors in the hallway look just like ours. The sound is clearly coming from the stairs, so I start down them. I hear a television on at the second floor and a dog barking on the first—even
though we’re not allowed to have pets—but the sound is lower still. There’s a numberless door to the basement and when I turn the knob, it opens.

TAP. TAP.

The stairs to the basement are rickety and it smells weird down here, like the stove does sometimes right before it lights. I swipe the dusty wall with my hand, looking for the light switch, but I don’t find anything. The only light is a soft red glow from around the corner. I can feel my heart thumping away in my chest, in time with the steady tapping.

“Hello,” I call, but my voice barely travels in the dark.

I take a step and the wood creaks under me. This is like a horror movie and I’m the really stupid heroine.

I get to the bottom and turn the corner.
And there is a wrinkled little creature, all huge luminous eyes and skinny limbs. It’s holding a pick-ax, which freaks me out because only serial killers seem to get a lot of use out of those, but after I look again I realize that the creature seems to be chopping a tunnel in the wall. It has stopped now, though, and it’s staring at me and still holding the pick.

“You’re keeping me awake,” I say with mock bravado. “Can’t you quiet down?”

“Noooo . . . must diiiig,” it says in a voice that’s little more than a whisper. “Gasssssss come from pipes. Sloooowly at first, like hissss of snake. Now worse. Choke or flame. Choke or flame. Must tunnel into a new building.”

That’s what the smell is. A gas leak.

I run up the three flights of stairs, run to our apartment, push open the door, and go right into my parent’s room. I shake my
dad’s arm hard and he groans, eyelids fluttering.

“Gas leak,” I say. My voice comes out somewhere between a shout and a squeak. It seems to work, though, because he nearly falls out of bed.

Together, we go down to the basement. The creature is gone, but the tunnel is still there. It seems like there might be light at the other end. Maybe the what-ever-it-was actually made it into some other basement.

“You saved us, honey,” Dad says.

But I didn’t.

TAP. TAP.

—Keisha X.

ANALYSIS: At one time, knockers were found in mines and often warned miners of impending disasters. It is unclear what this one was doing in this apartment building.

—H. B. & T. D.

Here’s a creature I would expect to find in most basements: