When Things Get Dark

by Ellen Datlow

  “Me too,” said Rose, and they walked to the front door. I stared at the empty room, its white walls greying as twilight fell, the glowing floorboards now charcoal. It still looked beautiful, and my exhilaration became a sort of quiet expectancy. I rested my hand against the wall again, saying goodbye, and followed the others outside.

  * * *

  We decided to have our sleepover the following Saturday night. The weather was supposed to be good, which meant there would be hikers on the summit trail, but we didn’t plan to go to the house until sunset, which would be right before six. If we saw any cars parked in either of the pull-outs, we’d just wait till they were gone, then drive up. We told our husbands we’d be camping at a lean-to in the state park, something we’d done many times over the years.

  “Don’t get eaten by a bear,” Brandon warned me as I left. “What time will you be back?”

  “Early, maybe ten or so? Helen goes to church, we’ll all probably leave when she does.”

  “You should have gone before now, it’s getting dark.”

  “We’ll be fine,” I said, and kissed him goodbye.

  I went out to the car and put my things in the back. The day had been warm and sunny, in the sixties, but the air had already grown chilly. I knew it would get colder, so I’d brought my ultralight sleeping bag, good for temps down to the thirties; also my pillow and a backpack with three sandwiches I’d bought at the general store, a big bag of chips, cookies, and a couple of water bottles. I beeped as I pulled away from the house, and drove at a respectable speed. We don’t have a police force in our town, only the occasional statie on rotation, but this would be a bad time to run into one of them.

  I’d arranged to pick up Rose, then Helen, so we’d only have one car.

  “It’s going to be cold.” I eyed Rose’s sleeping bag, one of those flannel-lined camp bags that’s really just meant to be used indoors.

  “I’m wearing layers. Plus, hot flashes.”

  “Did you bring the wine?” I asked Helen when we picked her up.

  “Of course.”

  We drove through town, everything quiet as always, and dark except for the streetlight by the general store. The darkness deepened as I pulled onto the winding road up Mount Kilden, my headlights illuminating trees that seemed slightly threatening as their branches moved in the wind. Dead leaves swirled across the road, and a pair of laser-green eyes flashed in the headlights, like bits of glass. Something stirred in the underbrush, too big for a fox or porcupine. A bobcat, maybe.

  I slowed the car to a crawl. I don’t see well in the dark anymore—I should have let Helen drive, she’s a few years younger and has better night vision. I steered carefully between potholes and ruts, keeping an eye out for deer. Rose and Helen chattered in the back seat, laughing at something Helen said. I smiled, even though I wasn’t paying attention and hadn’t heard the joke.

  It took us twice as long to reach the end of the road as it had the last time. There were no cars in the pull-out. I backed in, turned on the dome light, and opened the trunk so we could gather our things, then kept the headlights on so we could see our way to the house.

  “No, don’t,” said Rose. “Turn them off, I want to look at the sky for a minute. It’ll be fine.”

  I nodded, and we stood outside for a few minutes. It was much colder now, and I shivered as I craned my neck to look at the sky above Mount Kilden. The stars looked bright as a string of LED lights, much bigger than they appeared down in the village. I heard wind high up in the trees. In the distance, an owl hooted twice.

  “Okay, I’m cold,” announced Helen. “Let’s go.”

  We all switched on flashlights and trooped to the door. Rose went first, pausing with her hand on the knob. “What’s if it’s locked?”

  “Then we go home,” I replied. I tried not to sound too excited by that prospect, but it really was much colder than I’d expected, and while it was only getting on for seven, I was tired.

  But the knob turned easily under Rose’s hand. I heard a click, followed by a sweeping sound as she pushed the door open.

  “We’re home!” she sang out, as Helen and I walked in behind her. I hesitated, then closed the door. Immediately I felt better—safer, even though the three of us were alone in a dark empty house, and trespassing at that.

  “Hang on,” said Helen, and I heard her rummaging in her backpack. Seconds later, light filled the room as she held up a large brass hurricane lantern. Tim had given it to her as a thirtieth anniversary present. She crossed to the fireplace and set it on the mantle. “Let there be light.”

  We set down our sleeping bags, pillows, and other gear in the center of the room, a few feet from the fireplace. It felt distinctly warmer in here, or at least less cold. I took out my own lantern, much smaller than Helen’s—plastic, not brass, but with a powerful LED light—and set it on the mantle beside hers. Rose did the same with the lamp she’d brought. We each had our own flashlight as well, and our cell phone lights.

  I unrolled my sleeping bag, folding it over to make a comfortable place to sit, and dug through my backpack for the food I’d bought at the general store. Three sandwiches, one tuna salad, two Italian. Also the bag of fancy sea salt and vinegar chips, and three ginger-molasses cookies. Those cookies are huge, probably we could have split one between the three of us, and god knows I don’t need the extra calories. But it was a special occasion, so I splurged.

  I sat on my sleeping bag and lined up the sandwiches, cookies, and bag of chips in front of me. Rose had scooted over to the fireplace and was fiddling with something there. A match flared in her hand, and she began to light a number of little votive candles.

  “There!” she said, pleased, and got to her feet. “Now we can actually see.”

  I was surprised at what a difference those little candles made. Combined with the lanterns on the mantle, they lit up the entire room. I could even read the labels on the different sandwiches

  “Everyone warm enough?’ asked Helen. “I brought an extra hoodie and a big scarf.”

  Rose nodded. She wore a bulky sweater under her fleece jacket, also a knit cap. I pointed at the cap.

  “That was a good idea.”

  “Remember that time we froze our butts off at the lean-to? I learned my lesson then.” Rose sat cross-legged on her sleeping bag and pulled it up over her legs like a blanket. “I’m starving. Where’s the food?”

  I handed out the sandwiches, opened the bag of chips, and set it on the floor. I knew that Rose and Helen liked tuna fish, but there had only been one tuna fish sandwich left, so they each took half. Helen produced a screw-top bottle of red wine and three plastic cups. She handed the cups around, then filled each one.

  “To us,” she said, holding hers up.

  “And the house,” added Rose, and we clicked our cups together.

  We ate the sandwiches by candlelight and lamplight, reminiscing about camping trips, snowstorms, power outages.

  “This is so much better!” Rose exclaimed. “I’d do this all the time if I could.”

  “Really?” Helen raised an eyebrow, took a sip of her wine. “I mean, you couldn’t—you can’t just go breaking into houses. But don’t you like being outside? Seeing the stars and a campfire and the trees and everything?”

  Rose wrapped her arms around her knees and stared up at the ceiling. “No,” she said after a long moment. “I like this. I prefer this.”

  “But we live indoors all the time,” countered Helen. “This isn’t camping, really.”

  “I know that. But this is different. It’s so… welcoming.”

  Helen and I looked at each other but didn’t say anything. I couldn’t think of any reason why Rose would find this empty house more welcoming than her own, which was a perfectly nice house, especially since Hank redid the kitchen a few years ago.

  But she did have a point. There was a kind of, maybe you would call it an aura, about this place. It might have been what people mean when they talk about good feng shui
. I’d never felt it before, either, but I wouldn’t say I preferred it to my own home.

  “Maybe I could talk Hank into selling our place and buying it,” Rose went on. I couldn’t tell from her tone whether she was kidding or not.

  “Well, that would make for an interesting conversation,” said Helen, and we all laughed.

  When the chips were gone, Helen produced a bag of Little Lad’s popcorn, and we finished that too. She poured the last of the wine into our cups and placed the bottle on its side on the floor.

  “Spin the bottle?” She sent it rolling toward Rose, who put it in the bag we’d designated for trash, then turned to dig into her own backpack.

  “It’s only half full. But here.” She held up another wine bottle, uncorked it, and refilled our cups.

  I felt pleasantly buzzed, not drunk but happy. The light from the votive candles made the walls appear washed in yellow paint and cast shimmering circles on the ceiling. I wondered what it would be like to live here. Not seriously, not for myself; but for whoever had lived here, once upon a time.

  “They must have had money,” I said, thinking aloud. “Whoever lived here—if they weren’t farmers, they must have been well off to keep up this place. And who keeps it up now? It must cost a fortune.”

  Rose yawned. “I don’t know. I’m getting tired.”

  “Don’t you think it’s mysterious? Even if it’s just once a year,” I continued, “somebody has to do something to maintain it. Otherwise how could it have lasted this long?”

  “Me too,” said Helen. She stretched and glanced at me. “Tired, I mean. Sorry, Marianne.”

  I tried not to look annoyed. I’d go to the town office and ask to see the tax maps and determine who the owners were. Someone there would know who kept it up. Regina, the town clerk—she knew everyone. “Yeah, okay.”

  Helen and Rose took turns going outside to pee while I picked up the rest of the trash. When they returned, Helen walked to the mantle, switched off her brass lantern, and looked expectantly at me and Rose.

  “Go for it,” I said, and Helen turned off our lanterns as well.

  We all snuggled into our sleeping bags. “Are you going to be warm enough?” I asked Rose, thinking of her flannel bag.

  She nodded. “I’m wearing thermal long underwear.”

  I scrunched into my own down-filled bag. Even though I hadn’t bothered with a sleeping pad, and I was lying on a hardwood floor, I felt as snug and warm as if I were at home in my own bed. I gazed at the ceiling, where the light from the votive candles danced. I soon heard Rose breathing, deeply and evenly. A little while later, Helen started to snore. Not too loudly, but enough to make me wish I’d thought to bring my earplugs. Brandon snores and I have to wear them every night. I turned onto my side and closed my eyes, grateful for my pillow.

  I couldn’t fall asleep. My thoughts weren’t racing, I wasn’t worrying about bills or the kids or anything like that. I just couldn’t fall asleep. I looked at the time and it was getting on for ten, my usual bedtime. But sleep wouldn’t come. I finally decided I’d go outside to pee, since I hadn’t when the others did.

  I crawled reluctantly from my sleeping bag and stood. I expected the room to be cold but it was quite comfortable. Most of the votive candles were still burning, so maybe they generated a bit of heat, along with the three of us. I pulled on my sneakers, padded to the back door, and went outside.

  Almost immediately, a peculiar unease came over me. The air was still and cold, the stars so brilliant that, after a few moments, I could clearly see the expanse of grass and Queen Anne’s lace and goldenrod that swept up to the woods behind the house. I heard nothing except the rustle of leaves. But it still took all my courage to take the first step, and then another, until I reached the trees. I quickly did my business, zipped my pants back up, and started back.

  I only took two or three steps before I froze. I’ve been outside in the middle of the night plenty of times, in places far more isolated and wild than this. I’ve never felt afraid. Watchful and on alert, in case I came across some wild animal, but I never saw anything more exciting than a skunk, and I smelled him long before I saw him. I’d never been truly frightened.

  But now, in the overgrown backyard of a house in my own hometown, surrounded by woods I’d hiked dozens of times over the years, I felt my unease grow into dread, and, after some moments, terror. Gazing at it now, I realized that the house appeared different than it had just a few hours earlier. The neat proportions that had felt so calming now seemed, not exactly askew, but crude. The house no longer appeared three-dimensional: it looked like a drawing someone had made on an enormous sheet of grey paper, four black lines enclosing a grey square.

  And as I stared, even that changed. The roof dissolved into the night sky, the windows shrank to black dots. I couldn’t see the door, and as I tried frantically to determine where it was, my mind grew sluggish, as though I was waking from a heavy sleep.

  Yet I couldn’t wake and, as I stared at the looming shape in front of me, I could no longer remember what a door was. Something important, I knew that, something I knew and had often used—but for what purpose, and why?

  I squeezed my eyes shut, and opened them again to fog, a haze that darkened from grey to charcoal to inky black as it spread across everything around me. The stars were gone, and the ridge of Mount Kilden. My chest grew heavy, as though I was compressed between heavy walls. Was this a heart attack? A stroke? I tried to breathe but the air had been sucked away. I couldn’t feel my arms or legs, my face or skin. Everything melted into darkness: I was being snuffed out, like a candle.

  A sudden noise jarred me: I lurched forward and felt air rush back into my lungs. As I gasped, the sound came again—an owl hooting not far behind me. I fought to catch my breath, looked up to see the house just a few yards away. I stumbled toward it, sneakers sliding on damp leaves and grass, grabbed the knob and turned it and staggered inside.

  I closed the door—too loudly, but I didn’t hear a peep—locked it, and walked unsteadily into the living room. Relief flooded me, not just relief but a sudden, overwhelming calm. The stark terror I’d felt only minutes before faded completely, the way a middle-of-the-night dream does when you try to recall it in the morning.

  I was safe here. A single votive candle still burned in the fireplace, its flame wavering. I could see Rose and Helen curled up on their sleeping bags on the floor: Helen on her side, arms tucked out of sight and her expression relaxed; Rose face-down, half of her pillow squashed up to cover her head.

  I sighed with pleasure, removed my sneakers, and slid back into my own sleeping bag. It was still warm. So was my pillow. I burrowed deeper, gazed through half-shut eyes at a hint of gold on the wall from the tiny candle flame, and felt the house sigh with me as I fell asleep.

  I woke early, to Rose and Helen speaking in low tones.

  “…going to be so cold,” murmured Rose, and she laughed softly. “I don’t want to get up.”

  “I know. But I told Robert I’d be back in time for church.”

  “You could call him.”

  “That’s not going to make it any warmer in here.”

  I rolled onto my side and propped my head on my hand. “Good morning.”

  “Good morning!” Rose said brightly. Her eyes shone beneath her mussed-up hair. “Did you sleep well?”

  “I did.” I stopped, recalling my trip outside. I felt none of the fear I’d experienced then: I felt detached from it, as though remembering a story someone else had told me. “It was weird—I went out to pee, and… I don’t know. I had some kind of sinking spell.”

  Helen sat up. “Like what?”

  “I don’t know. I felt dizzy, and then I couldn’t breathe. Everything got dark—even darker, I mean.”

  “Maybe you had a stroke. A mild one,” she added.

  “Maybe,” I said. “It didn’t feel like that.”

  “Have you ever had a stroke?” asked Rose.

  “No. But I’ve read a
bout it, and—I feel fine now.” I sat up so I could see them better. “I felt fine as soon as I got back inside. I might have just stood up too quickly or something.”

  I rubbed my arms. Rose was right—the room was very cold. The light was cold, too, more grey than gold. I remembered the dark haze that had blotted out everything else the night before, and shivered. “We should go get coffee at the general store.”

  “They don’t open till eight on Sunday,” Rose said.

  “We can go to my house.” Helen emerged from her sleeping bag, yawning, and ran a hand through her hair. “I wish there was a mirror here.”

  “No you don’t,” said Rose, raising an eyebrow at Helen’s disheveled clothing, and we both laughed.

  “Well, running water so I could brush my teeth. I’ll be right back.”

  Helen bent to retrieve a cosmetics bag and headed for the front door. I thought of warning her, but against what? I turned to Rose. “You sleep okay?”

  “I swear, I slept better than I have for a year.” She sat upright, her flannel bag pulled around her shoulders like a comforter. “Hank snores like you wouldn’t believe—he has sleep apnea, he should really have one of those machines. I may come back here tonight.” She smiled, but sounded half-serious.

  I got up and found my own toothbrush and toothpaste and water bottle. When Helen appeared in the doorway and announced “Next,” I went outside.

  The sun had risen but was hidden by the mountain. Mist streamed up the hillside and clung to the trees at the edge of the woods.

  Everything looked the way it does through a window screen, dim and a bit out of focus. I stood beside the door, steadying myself with one hand on the wall, waiting to see if I had another bad spell. I felt fine. I started to walk away from the house, pausing to look back.

  The FOR SALE BY OWNER sign still leaned against the wall. Overnight, more leaves had drifted around the stake, and the lettering seemed more faded. The plywood had buckled and splintered where it was screwed to the stake, and more of the white paint had flaked off, revealing the bare wood beneath.