Dark Light

by Bernard, Bonnie; Ellery, Stefan; Hansen, John; Browning, Amanda R. ; Thomas, S. J. ; Barrett, Ruth; Sharpe, Dennis; Parker, Megan J. ; Purdy, Alexia

  She must have seen the skeptical look in my eyes because she puffed out a sharp breath, making her long ash blonde bangs sway. Then she flicked the spider off her thumb, grabbed my elbow, and said, “Come on. You’re not backing out on me now. We’re almost there.”

  I yanked my arm away. “I’m reconsidering. You know I’m not cut out for this kind of work. Can’t we just hire someone to haul the junk away that’s in the shed and bulldoze the rest of it?”

  She chuckled with uncertainty, but her eyes were scornful in half shut slits. “Honestly Mia, you’ve put this off for two years. You rarely call home. You never visit. If Brant hadn’t been in that unfortunate—but thankfully nonlife threatening—car accident, I doubt we would have seen you for another two years.”

  Brant, I mentally spat. He and Melanie had been married for a little over three years and if she hadn’t called me with terror mixed with sobs, I wouldn’t have set foot in Hillsdale. Generally, I liked Brant. He made my sister laugh and I could see the enduring love between them, but at this moment, surrounded by the untamed wilderness, a tiny part of me held a grudge against him for bringing me back to this awful place. I plastered on a smile and said truthfully, “I’m glad Brant will make a full recovery.”

  She nodded with a worn, tired grimace that I had seen her wearing too often since I arrived in town.

  As if another thought crossed her mind, she gestured over her shoulder down the path that we were heading on. “We need to go through Dad’s things. There might be something important.”

  I eyed the dilapidated shed. It was surrounded by oak, maple, and popular trees, their leaves weaving a canopy of green while their limbs where knotting and twisting like oversized gnarled fingers. When I was seven, Dad had painted the shed an uplifting lemon yellow, but over the years, the cheerful color faded and chipped, leaving four walls of mostly gray weathered, warped wood. The only notable color was the shiny green ivy that crept along the right side, spread across the double doors, and completely covered the metal handles.

  From the corner of my eye, I saw a grasshopper leap. I shivered as a new thought crossed my mind. What if the ivy or some other dark shadowy area were the home—the nest—for those creepy crawling creatures? There’s bound to be more of them.

  “Do I need to remind you,” Melanie said, interrupting my observations, “that Brant and I are selling the house? It’s too big of a property for us to maintain plus the upkeep of our own house. This may need a little work, but it’s a good home.” She paused as though remembering. When she continued, her tone was filled with sorrow. “Dad wanted you to come back and live in it.”

  “He never said that.”

  “He said it to me just before he died.” Her words came out sternly and she sighed, trying to calm her voice. “He thought—we all thought—you’d come home.” We’d had this conversation a hundred times. There wasn’t anything she could say to change my mind, but now that the house was going up on the market soon, I felt as though she needed to hear my decision again.

  Softly, but persuasively, I said, “My home is in Manhattan. I don’t belong here. I never have.”

  “You haven’t given it a chance. You made up your mind when you were very young and never looked back.”

  “Melanie, what do you want me to say?”

  Her pale eyebrows knitted together. She held up her hand, stopping me from uttering another word. “Forget it. Let’s just go see what’s in that shed and then you can go on with your busy life in the big city, forgetting about Hillsdale, forgetting about Dad, your home, and about me.”

  “That’s not true. I can’t forget about you. You’re my sister; my only sibling. I love you.”

  For a few long seconds, she stared at me with one raised doubtful eyebrow. Her lips pressed together making a thin line of pale pink.

  I opened my mouth to protest to her hostility, but she tugged on both straps of the backpack, shifting it higher on her shoulders, then turned on her heels and marched down the overgrown path, forcing prickly branches and tall grass out of her way.

  ***

  When I caught up to Melanie, she had the backpack unzipped at her feet and was squatting over it. Her hands rummaged swiftly and intently through its contents. I leaned forward slightly trying to get a better look at what she was looking for when without a glance or any other indications she whipped out a pair of gardening gloves, pea green with alternating blue and orange flowers. They sailed through the air toward me. I stumbled awkwardly trying to catch them without falling onto the most likely—ewww—insect infested ground. I snatched one between my ring and pinky fingers while the other plummeted down. I retrieved the second one, eyeful for any gruesome, little critters. Thankfully, I didn’t see any and donned on the gloves.

  By the time I readied myself for the next task, Melanie had zipped up the backpack and put on her own pair of gloves. She tossed the bag behind her, glowered at me, and then ripped into the ivy that covered the door.

  Although the air was pleasantly warm for this mid-June morning, I could feel the coldness from that look. I knew the only way she would believe that I still loved her and that my choice in living in the city had nothing to do with her was to actively participate in this God-awful job. I took a deep breath, stepped forward, and tore at the ivy too.

  Once the ivy was gone, which now looked like leafy green snakes circling around my feet, I turned the doorknob. It turned but something prohibited the door from opening. From the curvature of the gray worn wood, I suspected the elements of time shifted something. Under normal circumstances, I would have called the building maintenance supervisor. But this was far from normal. I was at a loss and looked to Melanie for help. “It won’t budge.”

  Her lips pursed thoughtfully. “Let me give it a try.” With her knee bent, she braced her foot in the middle of the wall to give her extra leverage as she pulled the doorknob. The top corner split open just enough that I could see briefly inside the shed, but the bottom stayed securely wedged.

  Looking beyond Melanie’s profile, I noticed a fallen tree branch, its scarce leaves withered and brown as though it had been detached from the tree for a while. I pointed toward it. “Do you think we could use that to wedge it in like a crowbar?”

  Her eyes followed the path that I gestured to. She smiled. “Little sis’, I think you might actually have a good idea there.”

  “I come up with them once in awhile,” I muttered, a smirk of gratitude spreading across my face.

  With knees high, she trampled the tall grass and retrieved the branch. Together we tore off small limbs and crumbled leaves until we were left with a crooked four-foot long branch.

  While she yanked at the door in the same interesting position, I shoved our makeshift crowbar into the crack near the top. After a minute of pushing and pulling, I heard a thunderous sound and the door snapped open. My heels slipped in the intertwining vines, my arms flailing wildly through the air as I flopped through branches and weeds to the earth. Melanie stumbled as well, but with the handle still grasped tightly in her hand, she managed to stay upright.

  Winded with wide eyes, she darted over to me. “Oh my gosh, Mia are you okay?”

  I cursed then looked down and laughed incredulously. My beautiful silk shirt was ripped over my left shoulder, but other than a light graze over several spots going down the same arm, I seemed to be fine. “No worries.”

  At that same moment, something tickled my foot. I glanced down and saw a stinkbug crawling over my skin. I flicked it off, screamed, and jumped to my feet. “This place is infested!”

  “Don’t be so melodramatic.” Melanie picked a leaf out of my hair. “They’re just little bugs. I’m sure it’s more scared of you than you are of it.”

  “I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” I muttered, self-consciously checking myself for any more of the repulsive bugs.

  Melanie laughed at my grumpiness and turned her attention to the contents inside the shed. Standing on my tiptoes, I peered over her shoulde
r. Shovels, rakes, a jagged saw, pots in various shapes and sizes stacked haphazardly on a long shelf, and other gardening paraphernalia lined the far wall. On my right, a motorless reel lawn mower looked as though it beckoned for some TLC after a long thirty-year hibernation. Dust mites danced in the suns rays from the one tiny window along the same wall as well as coming from the unexpected hole in the ceiling that was roughly the size of my fist. Cheap plastic lawn chairs were tossed drunkenly in the middle of shed and to my left, cardboard box after cardboard box were stacked from floor to ceiling, forming a new kind of wall. All these things were covered by a thick layer of dust. And like a bad omen, large cobwebs seemed to be in every nook and cranny.

  I grimaced. “When was the last time you’ve been in here?”

  “I haven’t.” She cleared her throat as though it was suddenly dry. “At least not since Dad died.”

  Despite my fears, I didn’t want to argue with Melanie again and with a growing anxiety, I wanted to get this over as soon as possible. I inhaled a sharp breath and asked, “Okay where do we start?”

  “I suggest we take out all of the chairs except for two in case we want to sit and then disregard anything else that isn’t deemed necessary. That way we can go through these boxes and see if Dad left us anything that you might want to keep.”

  I highly doubt it, I thought miserably but plastered on a fake smile.

  Over the next hour, we searched, sorted, and cleaned. We moved all the chairs but two outside. The lawn mower came next. I tested it on the overgrown grass, but it didn’t even dent the wildness. We scanned the gardening wall, tossing old seeds, worn rusted hand trowels and shovels, and dull pruning shears into one of the many garbage bags from the backpack. Melanie found a broom in the back corner and stirred up so much dust I started sneezing and had to leave until she finished.

  By the time we were about to start on the boxes, I was famished. Melanie hadn’t suggested lunch, and I decided not to interrupt our pace. The sooner we finish, the better, I reminded myself.

  She handed me the first box and went to retrieve another for herself. “Do you want to take a break soon?”

  I shrugged not that she could see me since her back was still toward me. “I’m fine. I’d rather just get this done.”

  “First, I can’t get you to come into the shed, now I can’t get you to leave. You know, it may take the rest of the day to finish going through all of this.”

  My reply came in the form of a nervous laugh as I set my box on the floor, the wooden boards groaning beneath it. I teetered on the edge of one of the plastic chairs and pulled the tape off the box. Melanie placed her box near mine and pulled her chair closer. I exchanged a look with her while my hand moved around the flaps of the box. Something small and thread-like tickled my wrist. The hair at the base of neck stood up on end. I looked down seeing nothing unusual. I pressed the box’s sides open when two black spiders the size of a half dollar with fat bodies and long legs crawled out. I screamed and sprang to my feet, the chair tumbling on the floor behind me with a thud.

  Melanie jumped to her feet. “What is it?”

  With one hand trembling and clamped over my mouth from shrieking louder, the other pointed at the box. I gulped and stuttered, “S-spid-der. Two spiders.”

  “Is this another one of your ant sized spiders?” Her voice was tinged in mockery.

  Adrenaline kicked in, and I darted for a long handled shovel, holding it defensively over my shoulder. “No, these were bigger. This time you need to believe me.” I shook the shovel. “But don’t worry, I’m not giving in.” My eyes darted back and forth searching for the critters.

  One of them scampered across the floor and headed to the crevice under the shelf that held the gardening pots in the back of the room. I slammed the shovel down, narrowly missing the dreadful spider. It moved under the shelf before I reached it. I threw down the shovel and started taking the pots off the shelf.

  “What are you doing?” Melanie asked.

  “What does it look like? I’m moving the shelf.”

  “But it’s probably long gone, having found another hole to crawl out of.”

  My eyes squinted into tiny frowning smiles. “If there’s any chance it’s still in here...” My voice trailed off and I shivered, before continuing, “I can’t work with those things in here! So you can either help me, or you can just stand there.”

  She rubbed her palms down the front of her overalls as though delaying but then joined me in my mission. “Spiders actually do good. They eat mosquitoes and beetles that damage flowers or vegetable plants.”

  “Don’t care.” I barely paused taking the pots off to glare at my sister.

  When we each grabbed the last of the pots and set them aside, she picked up the shovel and I positioned myself to move the shelf. “You ready? You’re not going to back down are you with all those thoughts in how great spiders are?”

  “I didn’t say they’re great only that they...”

  Her words were cut short when I slid the shelf away from the wall with a grinding noise and a long black leg slid out the front side of the shelf. The spider’s body and remaining legs followed swiftly. I gasped. This wasn’t the same half dollar sized spider I had seen moments ago. No, this spider was the size of a Chihuahua. Its legs looked like tent poles against a solid furry body. Fangs twitched as it glided toward my sister. Her face blanched, her muscles frozen in horrid. “Run!” I shrieked.

  My single panicked word must have shook and cracked her icy shell because before the monstrous spider put one creepy leg on her, she lifted the shovel high, building momentum, and slammed it down. It bounced back up. She thrust it over her shoulder again. Her arms swung the shovel like a golf club and hit the spider on the side, sailing it into the back corner. It shook its head like shaking off a daze then rolled back on all eight legs readying itself to charge again. I exchanged a nervous look with Melanie.

  “Now we run!” she said. She tossed the shovel with a loud clang, grabbed my wrist, and yanked me toward the door.

  Spiders with varying hues of black or browns in equally different sizes—yet none as large as the one we enraged—scurried from every crevice and shadow on the floor. They spilled out of corners and down the sides of the boxes. Hundreds of spiders converging on us. As we crossed the threshold side-by-side, one slid down a single silky thread coming dangerously close to my head. I ducked as we entered into the bright sunlight.

  We ran through the overgrown terrain not stopping until we reached the car in front of the house. Glancing back, I discovered the spiders didn’t advance on us and seemed to be nowhere in sight, but that didn’t stop Melanie from jamming the keys in the ignition and peeling out of the gravel driveway.

  “What the hell was that?” I asked breathlessly.

  “I don’t know. I’ve never seen spiders congregate like that. And that big one...I should have pulverized him. How does a spider push a shovel back like it was made of rubber? How do you explain that?”

  “I don’t know.” I shook my head, my racing heart starting to slow. “I just don’t know.”

  “Well, I’m not going back there—at least not like this.”

  “And you think I am? I never wanted to go there in the first place.”

  She inhaled a sharp breath and let it out slowly. “But we need to see what’s in the boxes.” Her voice sounded calmer, more rational. “Dad might have left something important.”

  “What do you suggest, an exterminator?”

  “No,” she snapped. “We can’t kill them.”

  My mouth dropped. After almost becoming a human-sized fly, subjected to the spider’s predator advancements, how could she defend those creatures?

  As though she knew what I thought, she gave me a forced smile. “I’m not going back in there with those spiders.” She shivered. “I didn’t change my mind on that, but I still think spiders are good bugs.”

  “Then what do you suggest?”

  “You’re going to think this so
unds nuts but there’s a lady who lives in town. Her name is Madame Josephina. I’ve only heard about her work, but she’s authentic.” Melanie paused, giving me a sideways glance, as though making sure I was listening. “She’s...um...that’s to say...it may sound weird, but she’s a spider whisperer.”

  “A what?” I gasped, thinking I heard her wrong.

  “A spider whisperer. She can communicate with spiders, any arachnids. She can get rid of the spiders without harming them.”

  I shook my head incredulously, but when I opened my mouth, I remembered the irritation and doubt Melanie had toward our relationship. I didn’t want to anger her again. I wasn’t convinced a spider whisperer could help, but for my sister’s sake, I decided to give Madame Josephina a try. “Okay where do we find this spider whisperer?”

  ***

  MADAME JOSEPHINA, SPIDER WHISPERER, the sign read in bold capital letter on the glass door on the middle of High Street. Although Melanie knew roughly where Madame Josephina’s place of business was located, she had driven passed the door three times before we parked the car and decided to search for it on foot. The door was hard to locate because it was tucked in an alcove between the bookstore and a bakery that specialized in gourmet breads.

  I pushed the buzzer, shifting uneasily on one heel to the other. Melanie stood beside me peering anxiously through the glass door at the ascending stairs.

  “Do you think she will come out to Dad’s property today?” Melanie asked.

  “I don’t know,” I said honestly. “I hope so. I’m not sure how many more days I can get off work before my boss gives me hell.”

  The corners of Melanie’s mouth fell and then her lips pressed into a thin line. She didn’t say the words, but from that scornful look, I could tell she wasn’t happy about me leaving again. She claimed she needed closure on Dad’s estate, but I suspected it was more than that. She missed us—missed our sisterly bond. We had been close once—nearly an inseparable pair—but we both changed and grew apart. It had only been a few years since I left town but it felt like eons ago.