The Back Door of Midnight

  “No, it doesn’t look as good on land.”

  He smiled down at me, then tossed it into the water.

  “When you said ‘Avoid ducks,’ I thought you meant don’t hit the ducks—you know, like ‘Avoid pedestrians.’”

  He exploded with pent-up laughter. “Sorry. I understand. I should have been more specific,” he said. “Come on, we keep towels just inside the terrace door.” I walked beside him up the hill, accompanied by Clyde, who kept trying to lick the water off my legs.

  The towel Zack handed me was big and soft. I wrapped myself in it and sat down in the same chair as before. “It’s better if I stay over here and not drip on your stuff,” I explained.

  “Very thoughtful of you. Unnecessary, but thoughtful.”

  “So, what are you working on?”

  “Just some sketches.”

  “Of what?” I asked.

  He carried his chair over to mine with the sketchpad on its seat. As he opened it, I wondered if I was going to have to say those nice things artists like to hear. But as it turned out, I didn’t have to be insincere; he was good, really good. Old oyster trawlers, crab pots, nets, men in heavy work gloves, piles of discarded shells, the carcass of a horseshoe crab. “Wow!”

  The last three pages were efforts to draw a skipjack under sail, a workup of various angles. “Is this from the photographs over there?”

  “Yeah, I have about a million of them. I just can’t get it right. It looks like the boat is pasted to the sky. I can’t get its movement.”

  I walked over to the table to look at the photographs, then came back to the sketchpad. “The colors and shading won’t give the movement?”

  “They’ll help, but the lines are wrong. I’ll get it, eventually. I love skipjacks. I love things that are both beautiful and useful.”

  I glanced up at him. “I love things that are beautiful when you don’t expect them to be.”

  “Like what?” he asked softly.

  “Oil rainbows on the road. Rain on a car windshield at night.”

  “Broken glass in sunlight?” he suggested.

  “Yeah!” I met his eyes, then quickly looked down at the paper, pretending I was seeing his sketches rather than his eyes. “What, uh, medium do you work in?”

  “Watercolor is my favorite, but it’s the hardest. Do you paint?”

  “Just walls and woodwork.”

  He laughed. “That’s beautiful and useful.”

  I was starting to like his laugh.

  “Are you dating anybody?” His blunt question caught me off guard.

  “Uh . . . no.” I felt vulnerable. I reminded myself of last night’s dream. Dream or not, Erika was real. “No, I’m looking for a jock.”

  “A jock! Why do girls always chase sweaty guys?”

  “I don’t know why the others do, but I have a lousy track record with artistic types.”

  “Oh.”

  “A writer, a musician, and a visual artist. That was my senior year.”

  “Really. Did you date the artist for long?”

  “Till ten o’clock the night before my senior prom.”

  “Ouch.”

  “When artists need an audience, they find me. And then later on . . .”

  Zack quickly closed the sketchpad. “You don’t think jocks are looking for an audience?”

  “The difference is, they’re up front about it. They don’t pretend to be falling in love with the soul of a girl.”

  He gazed at me steadily, as if he could see into my soul.

  “Jocks don’t say and do all those romantic things—probably because they don’t know how—and then drop you for some hot girl who carries her soul in a purse.”

  “I see.”

  I stood up. “I should check on Aunt Iris. Thanks for the towel. I’ll bring it back clean.”

  “Just leave it here,” Zack replied. “I’ll throw it in the wash.”

  But my clothes were wet and clinging to me. “No, it’s not a problem,” I said, and headed home, holding on to my security towel. If only it were as easy to keep my heart safely wrapped up.

  eleven

  TIRED FROM MY first day of work and the swim in the creek, I fell asleep quickly Tuesday night. When I opened my eyes again, I lay in darkness. I waited for the low, vibrating sound, my fingers gripping the edge of the mattress. A bead of sweat trickled down my face. I turned my head to dry my cheek on the pillow, then sat up slowly. I could move, which meant the strange experience wasn’t happening. My alarm clock read 4:08. What had awakened me? I climbed out of bed and turned off the fan to listen. The house was silent, as if waiting to exhale.

  Then I heard Aunt Iris’s voice. I tiptoed through Uncle Will’s room to the hall. The first floor was dark, but Aunt Iris was there, in the living room, I thought. She was arguing with someone. I couldn’t hear the other person’s response, just furious rushes of words from my aunt with long pauses in between.

  “I’m tired of your opinions,” I heard Aunt Iris say. “I’m sick of you telling me what to do.”

  There was a moment of quiet, enough time for someone to respond, then she went on: “You don’t understand, William. You couldn’t possibly, you’re a man.”

  William? Was she reliving an old argument with Uncle Will or having a new one with a wooden post? I crept down the steps.

  “We have enough room, enough money,” she insisted. “I’ve made up my mind. We’re keeping the child.”

  I paused mid-step: This was an argument about me.

  “It’s not interfering!” Iris said, her voice getting shrill. “It’s loving. Don’t you understand? Someone had to say something to her. It may as well have been me.”

  There was another silence, a long one.

  “How dare you blame me for that! How dare you, William!”

  I couldn’t tell if this was one argument or several mixed together. I didn’t know if “her” was myself or my mother. Reaching the bottom of the stairs, I flicked the light switch. Aunt Iris was in the living room, standing five feet from the grandfather clock, staring at its luminous face, her hands clenched.

  I didn’t know what she heard or saw, but she suddenly buried her face in her hands and began to cry. “I did what I thought was best.” Her crying became louder. “Stop it, stop it. I don’t care what you think!” She began to sob.

  “Aunt Iris,” I said, moving quickly to her side. “Aunt Iris, it’s me, Anna.” I pulled on her hands, trying to get them away from her face so she would see it was just us there, but her arms were surprisingly strong. She kept her face hidden and continued to cry.

  “Everything’s okay. It’s just a—a dream,” I said. “You’re having a dream. Aunt Iris, can you hear me? Look at me.” I pulled on her fingers.

  Quick as a cat, she struck, making long scratches down my arm. I stepped back, surprised, rubbing my raw skin.

  “Aunt Iris, it’s just a stupid clock!”

  The crying lessened. Spreading her fingers, she looked through them like a child, peering anxiously at the tall clock’s face.

  I walked up to it. “See, it’s ticking and has a pendulum, and hands that show—” I broke off, aware of a strange cold that emanated from the area in front of the clock. The skin on the back of my neck rose in goose bumps.

  Crossing my arms over my chest, I walked toward a window, then returned to the clock and walked toward the open hall door, trying to find a source for a draft. The air was stale, motionless, warm—except in front of the clock. I shivered.

  “Stop blaming me, William,” Iris said bitterly. “I had no choice. Do you hear me?”

  I stared at the clock: painted numbers, hands like delicate arrows, a gold moon setting in its crescent-shaped window. What was she seeing that I couldn’t?

  Her voice began to rise in pitch. “Listen to me!” Her body trembled with anger. “Why don’t you listen to me?” she screamed, and charged the clock, slamming against it, making it rock.

  I tried to drag her back from the heavy piec
e, afraid she would pull it down on herself. I couldn’t loosen her grip. The strength in her arms and hands seemed unnatural.

  Uncle Will, I prayed silently, please stop. Please go. Please leave her in peace.

  A second later Aunt Iris ceased struggling. Her shoulders hunched and her hands hung limply at her sides. I eased her into a nearby chair. She sat silently, head bowed, knees together, one bare foot crossed on top of the other.

  I stood next to her, shaking—after my spontaneous prayer I had felt the cold drain from the air. I paced back and forth in front of the clock. The air was warm now; only my skin felt cold and clammy.

  “He’s left,” Aunt Iris said.

  “I—I couldn’t see him.”

  “I could. He’s gone.”

  “You fought a lot with Uncle Will, didn’t you?”

  “He was my older brother. Papa died when I was eighteen. William came back from the war and started acting as if he were my father too.”

  “And my grandmother, your sister, she wasn’t around?”

  “JoEllen was ten years older than William,” Aunt Iris explained. “She hated the Shore and moved out of the house at seventeen, moved to Philadelphia and married twice—came back here only once. She brought your mother when Joanna was a young teenager. Perhaps JoEllen foresaw that she would get cancer and her daughter would need us one day.” Closing her eyes, Iris rested her head against the high back of the chair. Her big hands hung heavily off its carved arms. She breathed slowly, deeply. She was exhausted.

  “Maybe we should get a little more sleep,” I said. “Come on, Aunt Iris, I’ll help you upstairs.”

  Although she wouldn’t let me take her arm, she walked with me. Outside her bedroom door, she stopped, looking lost.

  “This is your room. Would you like to go in?”

  Her mouth worked, but she said nothing.

  “Or maybe you would like to talk for a few minutes,” I suggested. “Are there some things you want to talk about?”

  “I can’t.”

  “Maybe tomorrow.”

  Her hands became agitated, her fingers plucking at her tattered nightgown. “I can’t tell you. I can’t tell you!”

  “You can’t tell me . . . about something from the past?”

  “Past, future, it’s all one.”

  “Sometimes it helps to talk.”

  She shook her head. “There are secrets I can never tell.”

  “Well, maybe not the secret part, but it might help to—”

  “Never, never, never!”

  “Okay.” I’d had enough. If she needed to talk, there was always tomorrow. “Try to get some sleep. G’night.” I headed down the hall to the entrance of Uncle Will’s room, aware that she was watching me. When I reached the door, I turned back and saw a suspicious look on her face.

  “Why are you going in William’s room?”

  “Because that is how I get to the other room, where my bed is, where you left the fan,” I added, hoping it would jog her memory.

  She narrowed her eyes. “You’re searching for something.”

  “I’m going to bed, and I think you should too.”

  “I can’t.”

  I sighed and retraced my steps. Squeezing past her, I entered her bedroom and turned on a small lamp. She followed me into the room as far as her bureau, stopping suddenly, looking fearfully into the mirror that hung above it.

  Her bed hadn’t been slept in. I pulled down the covers and plumped the pillows, trying to make it look inviting. She watched, facing me, then turned away to watch me in the mirror. She looked at me directly again and turned a second time to the mirror image, as if she thought she were seeing two different images and couldn’t decide which one was real. She was giving me the creeps.

  “Your bed is ready,” I told her.

  “You’re on his side.”

  “What?”

  “It’s the two of you against me,” she insisted, looking at me through the mirror.

  “Who?” I asked, although I guessed that she meant Uncle Will and me.

  “Don’t play dumb! You and William are trying to get rid of me. You want to push me out of my home. You want this place for yourselves.”

  I walked across the room to her. “Aunt Iris, I have a home in Baltimore, and I’ll be going away to college in August. I’m not going to push you out of your home.”

  “You think I’m crazy,” she said.

  When I didn’t respond, she whirled around to face me directly. The anger in her eyes made me take a step back.

  “You want to send me away.”

  “That’s not why I’m here,” I replied. “I came for a visit.”

  She turned back to my reflection in the mirror. “I don’t like what I see.” The way she peered into the glass made the mirror seem as deep as Oyster Creek. “I don’t like it at all.” Her fingers curled around a hairbrush with a silver handle. She lifted it slowly, her eyes locking on mine in the mirror. Inch by inch, she pulled back her arm, as if fearing too quick a movement would give her away. The ornate back of the brush glimmered in the lamplight. She slammed it against the glass. The mirror shattered, fragments of our reflections dropping onto her bureau.

  For a moment Aunt Iris seemed as stunned as I by what she had done. I grabbed the brush from her, then scooped up the matching hand mirror and retreated from her room. Knowing she still had lamps and other potential weapons, I pulled the door closed behind me, pausing for a moment in the hall, listening for activity inside her room. Hearing none, I continued on to mine. I debated whether to shove a piece of furniture against my door. I assumed I could outrun her, but if I fell asleep and she came in . . .

  I could no longer deny it: If the right object were in her hand, Aunt Iris was capable of killing someone. It frightened me because I didn’t know what she saw, what she thought she saw when she looked at me, or the mirror, or the grandfather clock. I could only guess at what would set her off.

  I considered calling the sheriff, but I knew that neither he nor anyone else had the power to whisk her away to a psychiatric hospital, not if she wasn’t willing to go. She’d have to do something clearly life-threatening, and even then, they’d probably just stick her in the hospital for a day or two and medicate her. Afterward, I’d be bringing her back here—spitting mad.

  Mom would know how to handle this kind of thing, and she would be back in ten days. I just needed to hang on till then.

  I didn’t bother to barricade the attic—there wasn’t much chance of me falling back asleep. Outside, the sky was growing lighter. At twenty minutes after five I crept to Iris’s room and quietly opened the door. She was sleeping soundly.

  I returned to my own room and dozed for the next two hours, then was awakened suddenly by the loud creak of my door.

  “Just me,” Aunt Iris called cheerfully.

  I sat up quickly, hitting my head on the ceiling.

  “The sun is up. It’s a lovely day.”

  “Great,” I muttered, swinging my feet down to the floor, resting my arms on my knees, more tired now than when I had gone to bed. I watched her carry the broken mirror past my corner of the attic room, placing it with the cemetery of smashed television sets.

  This had happened before; it would happen again.

  twelve

  ALWAYS CHRISTMAS WAS a world apart from Aunt Iris’s house, and as soon as I entered the shop, I felt better. Marcy and I got along well, maybe because I liked to work hard. About three o’clock that afternoon, when the temperature and humidity had soared high enough to keep vacationers inside whatever air-cooled place they’d found, the sleigh bells on the door stopped jingling. Marcy perched on a stool behind a counter, paging through wholesale catalogs, circling items. I picked up a spray bottle and attacked smudgy surfaces.

  “Audrey mentioned meeting you two nights ago,” Marcy said. “I’d be willing to bet you had an interesting conversation.”

  I glanced across the room at her and detected a smile. “Yes. When Uncle Will invit
ed me, he didn’t tell me I’d be living in a house of evil.”

  She laughed. “That’s Audrey for you. My friends find her very strange and wonder why I keep her on.”

  “Why do you?”

  “Loyalty. She worked for my parents and was very good to me when I was growing up.” Marcy turned a page, then looked up. “You and I have something in common. I was adopted. Most people would consider it lucky to be me, adopted by a wealthy family like the Fairfaxes. It would have been, except that my mother later gave birth to a son, one who happened to look like the portraits of every firstborn male Fairfax since the seventeenth century. They nearly worshipped at the crib.”

  “That doesn’t sound good, for him or you.”

  “It wasn’t for me. Unfortunately, getting into trouble was the one way I could get my parents’ attention. Audrey looked past the stupid things I did. While the other servants enjoyed reporting those things to my parents and making our relationship worse, Audrey always tried to make it better. I guess she figured it was her job to save me and took me on as her mission in life.” Marcy smiled wryly. “I certainly kept her busy.”

  “I hope she doesn’t make me her next mission. Marcy, are there other people in Wisteria who think Aunt Iris is in league with the devil?”

  She thought about the question. “A few, probably, because of her reputation as a psychic. People fear anyone who differs from what is considered normal, and in a small town the idea of normal can be as narrow as the streets.”

  “Did anyone fear my mother?”

  “Why would they?”

  “She was psychic.”

  “I knew she lived with Iris and William, but I was away at college when she moved in. She died in a robbery, didn’t she? How old were you?”

  “Barely three. I don’t really remember her. When Uncle Will asked me to come, he said he wanted to tell me about my family. He said there were some things that he needed to explain.”

  Marcy nodded and turned a page, her eyes on the catalog. The fact that she didn’t study me with the overly concerned expression of a school guidance counselor encouraged me. “I need to ask you a question.”

  She waited a moment, her pen holding her place on the page. “No point in backing out now.”