The Mahogany Door

by Mark Boliek

Chapter 12

  “Well, I guess everyone is set,” announced my grandson as he interrupted my story once again. I think I specifically remember him tell me and my listeners that he wouldn’t interrupt us again.

  James explained to me that he had split the parents and their children into the sixteen bedrooms of Warhead Dale. He let us know that parents were waiting in the great hall to take their children up to their assigned chambers to go to sleep.

  The kids ran out of the dining room and met their parents in the great hall as I explained and promised I would tell the rest of the story in the morning. The grown-ups, who were holding candles that illuminated the room, grabbed little hands in a very tightly synchronized, almost choreographed manner as the children effortlessly located their appointed guardians. The menagerie of pairs and some trios filed down the many corridors of the big old house and went to their rooms.

  It was a very relaxing, calming sight to watch all of the candles light the walkers’ ways up the circular staircases and down the endless halls, their glow bouncing off the walls. I was quite happy that the children were going to be safe for the evening. Even if the old house took a beating some years ago when JT, Kali, and Michael entered the inky black hole behind Billy, I could guarantee now that the house could stand up to any torrential rainstorm, except maybe a few windows, of course.

  I labored back to the French doors located in the great hall. My legs were tight from sitting so long. My ancient, fulfilled, sometimes lonely age was catching up to me after the very long, yet exciting day. I stared out at the raging storm; lightning burst through the night air and the thunder cracked and rumbled across the vast blanketed ocean. The doors rattled, but I still felt secure. I was very lucky to be standing in the shell of Warhead Dale that particular night. I knew there were so many other souls out in that frightful, black night that were much worse off than I.

  I then turned my thoughts to Michael, as I had so many other times when I told this story to my family. Years later, JT would stress with beaming in his eyes how his skinny friend with the big, horn-rimmed glasses rescued him from a timid life on a farm in such a gracious way, and how the young man he re-met beneath Gregory’s big, old, oak tree meant the world to him.

  I thought about retiring myself as I continued to stare out the vacant door listening to the falling rain, but retreating to a room would have to wait. I sat back in my black leather chair and gazed upon the tawny light of the fire. I wanted to sit until it burned out. As I became hypnotized by the dancing flames, I suddenly remembered that I had a special cabinet in the kitchen. There, I could get a soothing, comforting snifter of brandy to make the mood complete, and also loosen my old legs. It might even be better than a hot dog from Perrywinkles.

  I had just sat down and propped my tired feet up, when I felt a little tap on my left shoulder. A familiar little blonde-haired boy stood there spying me. He then opened up, “Mister, can you keep telling me the story about JT and everything? I really wanna know what’s gonna happen. I can’t wait until tomorrow morning.”

  I panned behind him to his left, and then I panned behind him to his right. He was the only other person besides me occupying the great hall.

  After a few moments of awkward silence and a very soulful, begging expression from the tyke, I muttered “Hmm.” I really didn’t know what to tell the young man. I debated myself on whether I was up to the task. I concluded that I had nowhere else to go. I guess the brandy would have to wait. “Sure!” I laughed and ran my hand through the boy’s golden locks. “Why not?!”

  “OK,” said the little boy. He then whirled about and ran down a corridor.

  My eyes bulged out and I thought it very perplexing, “That’s weird. He wants me to continue telling the story but takes off like a shot.”

  As soon as the thought evacuated my brain, the little boy returned, skipping with an enormous smile. Behind him were a number of other children doing the same thing; in fact, to my delight, it was the remainder of my dedicated listeners. They came back to listen to the rest of my tale about Michael, JT, Kali, and Bruinduer. I was elated. It did seem they liked a good story about their own hometown.

  “Kali stretched and then grabbed from her purse a sandwich that Linda had made,” I continued. The children settled by the fire without making a sound. Their eyes glittered in the wavering light.

  “‘You’re eating,’ said JT. He sighed, and tried to clean himself of the dust and soot he gathered while rolling about the floor. He then searched for candles the best he could in the dark since the tiny flashlight Kali had brought had also disappeared.

  ‘I’m hungry,’ Kali answered. ‘Anyway, where’s Michael gonna go? Home?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ replied JT. ‘I don’t trust him. There’s no telling what he might do. Remember, his emotions are all over the place.’

  Kali shrugged and continued eating her sandwich.

  JT scuttled about and found some white candles in the back of an antique dresser. Luckily, one of the last two matches in the box JT found earlier struck. After Kali was done with her snack, the two went searching through the house for Michael. They tiptoed down the north side of the house and then shuffled back down the south side. They volleyed from room to room in hopes of trying to discover where their thin friend went. They burned through two of the small candles before JT and Kali stumbled into a room on the second floor. It was just down the hall and to the left from where the large circular staircase ended.

  A magnificent light flashed and pain penetrated JT’s head. He fell to the floor. Kali immediately tried to pull him to his feet, but it was no use. She screamed at him to respond, but JT couldn’t hear anything. He only saw Kali mouth incoherent words at him. He shut his eyes and then reopened them. An amber mist cloaked the room. JT struggled to his knees. Kali still stood silent despite her lip-synced screams. The room and its contents were brand new. He saw a full-size bed made up with a blue, fluffy, down comforter. Posters of his favorite movies hung on the wall. Books of varying sizes and binds lined a grand shelf to his left, and to his right there was a very fine oak desk with a globe and many pads of paper scattered about it. He saw a green chest trunk full of baseballs, footballs, toy swords, and ray guns. Hanging on a hook over the desk, he saw an old black leather pirate’s hat, soft and cracked with age. Was this an old bedroom of his? He remembered Michael telling him that he never lived in Warhead Dale.

  JT slid over to the desk and saw a picture in a beautiful maple frame. He turned and saw Kali with a very concerned expression dressing her face. The picture on the desk had three people standing on the back deck of Warhead Dale, gazing over the rocks to the ocean. There was an older man that resembled a younger likeness of JT’s grandfather with only a mustache; a young boy with the same dimples and smile he had; and to the boy’s left, another man. The man’s face had very similar features to the other two people in the picture. He was JT’s father. JT plopped to the floor. He was jolted out of his trance. Kali was standing, peering down at him.

  ‘Are you all right JT?!’ Kali yelled out with excited fret.

  ‘I had another memory, I think.’ JT reached his hands down to the floor and pushed himself up. He felt a wooden, splintered picture frame beneath his right hand. He placed it under the candle light. It was the same picture he had seen in his vision; however, it was older, faded, and tattered with folded edges.

  ‘I saw this room. It was mine,’ JT said and warily examined the floors and walls. ‘I thought I never lived here. At least that’s what Michael said.’

  Most of the books were strewn about the floor, and the full bed was cracked in two, its center knifing into the floor. Everything was dusty and forgotten.

  Kali scanned around the room with JT and her memory seemed to return as well. ‘I remember this room too. It was yours. Your family did have a house across town, but you stayed here a lot.’ Kali cracked a rare, bright, cheerful smile. Nostalgia covered her. ‘We sure did have a few good times in here.’

 
JT’s eyebrows sprinted up his forehead. He had no idea what she was talking about. She walked out of the room.

  As she walked out of the room there was an unexpected bounce in her step. She peeked over her shoulder and caught JT’s dumbfounded expression. ‘Oh, come on JT,’ Kali said. Her eyes twinkled. ‘I was the first one who ever kissed you, you know.’

  JT’s face burned bright red, though I’m sure it was hard to see in the glowing candlelit darkness. He felt another little tingle shoot down his spine, which brought a welcome spring to his step.

  Suddenly, JT and Kali heard a muffled, distant, and definite ‘thump!’ perforate the walls. After every few seconds, the sound repeated.

  Attracted by the hopes of trying to locate Michael, the hunting duo held their candles out in front of them. The light guided them through the massive house up and down its long narrow corridors and enormous, ornate, ransacked rooms, intent on finding the source of the thumping sound. Kali kept apologizing to JT for Michael as they navigated their course within the house. For some reason, she felt responsible for Michael swiping the cane.

  ‘There’s no need to apologize,’ JT kept telling her as he placed his ear deliberately to the walls of the rooms they entered, trying to fix the location of the sound. ‘I had a feeling Michael was up to no good. I just didn’t have any proof.’ JT explored each room methodically. He and Kali would trip every once in a while over a ripped rug or an out of place leg from a piece of furniture, but they weren’t deterred. ‘I realized he was probably scamming something when you told me that I was the one that took him under my wing when we were younger, and not the other way around. Now he takes my cane while I’m sleeping.’ JT took his ear off of a wall in one of the last rooms they searched on the second floor. He concluded the thumping might be coming from beneath the house. The thought of Billy keyed into his brain.

  ‘What?’ Kali started. Her temper returned. ‘What did that little worm tell you?’

  ‘Yeah,’ continued JT. ‘He told me on the way here in that bucket of rust he calls a car that he was the one that took me under his wing. He said all the kids teased me because of the way I talked or something like that.’ JT put the candle close to Kali’s face. He pulled it away when he noticed the young lady’s snarl. ‘That’s what I was going to ask him about when he was trying to hack his way through the vines. Remember, you told me it was I that took him under my wing. I never had the chance to confront him when my cane started acting all weird and untangling the vines. Then he got snatched up. Funny. I just wish we could find him.’

  ‘I’m sorry JT,’ Kali apologized. JT rolled his eyes.

  Kali’s blood was scorched and flared. She searched deep into her thoughts. She had been duped by Michael again. After his touching, sympathetic little speech by the car about how he needed to go back to the house and Bruinduer to fix what was wrong, how coming back now was a bad idea. She actually thought that this time Michael was sincere. She felt like hitting herself. How could she have been so blind? Michael had played the pity card to steal his way back to Bruinduer.

  ‘I said there is no need to apologize, Kali,’ JT said and limped his way down the huge circular staircase from the second floor.

  ‘I know, but there is something I guess you need to know,’ Kali said as she stopped a couple of steps down the staircase. She was obviously nervous as her breath quivered.

  JT looked puzzled, but he wasn’t surprised. There had already been many twists and turns in his journey to Warhead Dale.

  ‘It’s Michael,’ Kali stated. ‘Look, I’m sorry but I thought he had changed. I thought he was heartfelt. I prayed that he would get over Bruinduer. I was wrong.’ She was hesitant.

  ‘What is it?’ JT asked concerned.

  ‘You see, Michael never had anything,’ Kali started as she plopped down on a step and laid her face in her hands. ‘His dad and mom were split up.’ Her voice was muffled but coherent. ‘He came to live with his dad here to be with him while he was sick, but only a few weeks after Michael moved here, his dad died. He was close to him. He hadn’t had the chance to see him as much as he had wanted because his mom couldn’t be in the same state, much less the same room as Michael’s dad. That’s when Linda dropped out of school, moved here, and bought the diner from old man Parker. She was so busy with trying to get that started up, she couldn’t give Michael the attention she wanted to. She tried, but I guess that’s why she over compensates now.’ Kali shook her head and gazed up at JT. ‘Michael, aside from the roof Linda provided, basically took care of himself - and at eight years old to top it...’ Kali paused a second. ‘That is, until he met you and your family. I know that’s what drew me to you.

  Your grandfather was so refreshing to be around. His stories about Bruinduer only fueled and drove our imagination. You and your family were so nice to Michael; and in fact, I don’t think you guys were mean to anyone. When Michael and I would walk home from being here or around your family, he would always tell me that all of this was just too good to be true.’ Kali’s anger faded away. ‘I thought so too, but you were the real deal.’

  ‘So then why is Michael doing this to me if I was so nice to him?’ JT asked, perplexed.

  ‘Bruinduer, JT. That’s all it is; Bruinduer. He’s just so confused right now. It’s maddening.’ Kali’s voice turned melancholy. ‘He lost you; we lost you. You aren’t the same person you once were,’ she finished with a sigh.

  ‘I can’t help it. I wish I could,’ JT said with frustration. He clenched his fists almost snapping the candle.

  ‘I know JT. I know. But now Michael thinks it’s his chance to have the life that was left behind so many years ago. Bruinduer and Billy can give you anything you want.’ Kali’s voice became more animated. ‘We just scratched the surface of Bruinduer’s power when we were younger. I thought he was crazy when he told me, but now I’m not so sure.’ Kali shivered in the candlelight. ‘Michael used to write to me about these get rich quick scams. Most of the time, I read the first couple of lines and realized what it was and just ignored the rest. I would politely write back that I didn’t want anything to do with whatever scheme he was trying to cook up.

  But one day a couple of years back, I received a letter from Michael that was a lot longer than any of the previous ones he had sent. I held my nose and for some reason I read past the surefire investment he wanted me to make in an ostrich farm. For the first time in six years since I even heard the names, he mentioned the Mahogany Door and Bruinduer. He said he had studied your grandfather’s journal and discovered their mystery. He explained that the Vryheid had not even known the full power of the land they had created, but Ol’ Captain Luke somehow did. He indicated then that he wanted to go back to Bruinduer. He didn’t fully explain the mystery of what Ol’ Captain Luke discovered, but I wrote him back and told him that he was crazy. I felt it was just another one of his sad attempts to sucker me into one of his “deals.” Now, after all of this and the fact that we’re here, I know he was serious.’

  ‘Do you know where the door is in the house? Is it even here?’ asked JT. He was as cordial as possible. He had a sneaky feeling - much like the one he felt as Kali jotted Billy’s poem down on one of the journal sheets - that she, along with Michael, was hiding a lot of what she knew from him.

  Kali glanced at JT and her eyes were wide under the failing candlelight. ‘JT, I’ve tried to forget about this place like I told you earlier. After everything that happened here so many years ago - my family being kicked out of this town; Michael’s would-be trial and Charlie’s death; my father losing his job and his nervous breakdown.’ Kali’s voice cracked and her eyes filled with sad, hopeless tears. ‘Deep inside, I don’t want to go back to Bruinduer, JT. I figured if we scrounged around this big old house and just wasted time, this nightmare would just go away. To tell you the truth, I don’t know if I’m not dreaming all of this. Unfortunately though, being here has flooded my brain with memories of this house and all of the fun times and brazen adventures w
e had.’ Kali grabbed her forearm and clamped down on its skin like an angry crab. She grimaced with pain. Her eyes squinted. She paused. ‘Well, I’m not dreaming. I don’t want to tell you this, JT. Please don’t be mad. I know where Michael is.’ She turned and walked away.

  JT didn’t ask any questions. He followed Kali down the circular staircase, through the northern corridor, and into a small closet at the end of it. He couldn’t waste his time thinking about or even trying to understand the reasons for why what lay before him were happening, and he felt no answer that Kali could give would satisfy him. He knew Kali and Michael were just as distraught as he. He had to get to Billy and the door, and tracking this destiny would be a lot easier if he could remember more than just a few hazy snapshots.

  JT gave no allusion to Kali of the vision of his grandfather he had as he was asleep on the couch. He didn’t want more panic or doubt in an already combustible situation. For all he knew, the visit with his grandfather on the Mary Maid was just a dream and meant nothing. He calmed himself the best he could. He was the steward of the key. Michael couldn’t go through the door anyway according to his grandfather in his dream.

  The closet at the end of the northern corridor was cramped and dusty. Claustrophobia showered over Kali and JT as they maneuvered around the four squeezing walls to get settled. Kali held her candle up to the wall to the right of the opening, and under the floundering flicker she saw that dust had been brushed from a small, wooden panel.

  ‘Michael was here all right,’ said Kali. She shuffled her finger to the left edge of the panel and pushed. It flipped open and two buttons were revealed: one green and one red.

  Another louder, clearer thump rumbled across the walls of the house, its origin obviously beneath them. ‘I don’t know what’s going to happen from here,’ Kali whispered to JT. ‘I hope it’ll be OK.’ Kali pushed the green button.

  The door of the smothering room slapped shut, throwing dust into the room and dousing Kali’s candle. The little closet jerked and started to sink. The rusted wheels and corroded cables of the elevator screeched and rattled down the neglected shaft. Bits of paint flakes and more dust rained on Kali and JT’s head. Kali snatched JT’s hand and braced herself with the other. JT tried to buttress himself to the jolting box by jamming his back to the wall behind him. That way he could hold onto his pathetic candle and Kali’s hand at the same time.

  A few anxious, hopeful moments passed and the elevator came to a relieved stop. Frozen on the walls were panicked, horrified shadows cast by the light of JT’s candle. The thumping noise reverberated from the other side of the closet door.

  JT and Kali heard the muffled voice of Michael; its tone pitchy and cracked.

  ‘Please let me in. I have the cane. He made me the steward.’ Then, ‘Thump.’

  Kali flipped the little wooden panel and pushed the red button. The door flung open and smacked the wall beside it.

  JT and Kali emptied out of the elevator and Michael, sweating and puffing, pounded on a wall illuminated by the fading light of a tiny flashlight who’s battery was about to die. He had taken JT’s walking stick, but now, frantically and futilely waved it back and forth across the length of the wall in hopes that some sort of magic would happen. He sensed Kali and JT stabbing the back of his neck with their eyes. He stopped and turned very slowly. Billy’s low, ominous, dark laugh filtered through the wall.

  ‘Hey guys,’ said Michael matter-of-factly with a high, cracked pitch. He gripped the cane tightly. His cheeks flushed. ‘Did you have a good nap?’

  ‘Save it,’ announced JT. ‘What are you doing? What’s this all about?’ JT’s eyes squinted and anger spiked his veins. ‘I don’t want any crap about you fighting your destiny or any kind of sappy mess about the past and how your life is a mess. I’m tired. All I want is the truth.’

  Michael swallowed hard. His heart raced. ‘The truth is how you define it.’ Michael’s tone was demeaning.

  JT blew his top. He pounded toward Michael, not caring about the pain firing through his knee. He stared directly into Michael’s eyes. ‘You tell me the truth right now!’

  Michael cowered away from JT. His mind raced. His plan had not turned out the way he had hoped. He was scared of JT. He told him the truth.

  ‘I have nothing out here, JT - nothing at all!’ Michael’s voice turned somber. ‘When I’m in Bruinduer, I can finally have control of my life.’ Michael’s head directed to the floor and he began shuffling the dust with his feet. ‘Just like the Vryheid - they wanted to control their destiny and now I want to control mine. Job after job, dead-end road after dead-end road - that’s all I’ve ever seen and had since you got hurt and left. I have to go back to Bruinduer.’ Michael peered back into JT’s eyes. His expression turned desperate. ‘Whatever it takes.’

  Without warning, Michael shoved JT to the ground. He whirled back toward the blank wall and waved the cane dramatically. The light of the tiny flashlight succumbed and went out.

  When JT tumbled to the ground, he reached and tugged for Kali’s arm in hopes of gaining his balance. He dropped his candle to the floor and the flame vanished. The space was completely dark and the tension was thick.

  ‘Let me in you miserable beast! I’m the steward of the cane now!’ Michael barked as loudly and deeply as he could. He tossed the flashlight to the floor, raised his free arm, and banged on the wall in the darkness. Sweat dripped from his brow. ‘He gave me the cane willingly at the farm. I ask to be recognized!’ Michael’s tone suffered and winced in his plea to Billy on the other side of the wall.

  JT sprang from the dusty floor to his feet; he grabbed the back of Michael’s red shirt and yanked him from the wall. With one swift move, he wrenched the cane from Michael’s clamp-like grip and raised it toward the wall. The ruby eyes in the skull and crossbones handle exploded. The red light was so intense that Michael and Kali shielded their eyes.

  ‘I’m the steward of the key!’ JT announced with commanding authority. ‘I demand to be recognized!’

  The strong beams of red light revealed a glowing map and a block of uncommon, strange pictographs. With his eyes unfazed by the brightness, JT gazed at the map with wonder. Michael stood still, his eyes still adjusting, hanging his head.

  ‘What does it say?’ asked JT, his voice wide with confidence.

  Michael remained speechless and Kali shrugged her shoulders.

  ‘Come on, Michael...’ JT paused. He could sense the conflict within Michael. Would his will allow him to fulfill his destiny? ‘I know you know what it says; Tell me.’ JT stared straight ahead, not taking his eyes off the amazing illuminated map in front of him. ‘You know you want to.’

  Michael stepped up and beside JT. He felt like a failure. ‘It says,’ he started humbly and panned up the wall, ‘the steward can only unlock the gate of Hopian. The door waits.’

  Though it ricocheted relentlessly through his brain that he had probably seen this incredible map before, to JT it felt like the first time. Michael appeared calm though annoyed that he wasn’t able to reveal the map first. Kali watched. JT studied the radiant map, curiously paying very close attention to its detail. On it was a village. Around that village there was a large stone wall. Inside the wall there were many buildings and small houses. After a few moments, although he wasn’t sure, he discovered what he thought he was looking for - something familiar.

  He noticed an outline of a gate, possibly iron, on the map. In the center of this gate there was a bright red circle. It looked as though the handle of his grandfather’s old cane would fit perfectly. JT weakened his grip on the cane and placed the tip of the handle on the bright red circle. As he slid the handle into the circle by gently pushing on the shaft, the red burning light vanished, dressing the room in complete darkness.

  After a hair-raising pause there was a loud, ‘CA-CHUNK!’ The room jerked. The map wall split to the left and right of the cane, and as the pressure from the room released, the wind almost put Michael, Kali, and JT on the
ir rears. A bright, white, heated light flooded around them.

  When each half of the wall stopped separating, the surprised trio peered into another room opposite of them. Across that room, in a huge arching ornate frame, was the Mahogany Door.

  It was twelve feet tall and solid. Its majestic, deep red color clashed with the filth of the room, but it stood soundly in its jamb. Kali, JT, and Michael’s eyes bulged as they gazed at the marvel before them. Its power and awe seemed to possess them and place a transparent strangle hold on the trio as they immediately stepped toward it, oblivious of their environment; their eyes were fixed on a large ornamental ‘B’ donning the top of the elaborate frame.

  The door was different, and in some strange way, JT knew it was not the same as it had been. If one looked closer, the single solid, wooden plaque attached to the center of the door possessed a faded, unrecognizable carving. As well, the large tarnished brass handle, worn with time, was cocked slightly with a half turn to the left.

  As JT, Kali, and Michael crossed the threshold of the inner room still inattentive of their surroundings, a deep, dark, burly voice burst from their right. The trio froze petrified realizing their blunder. Billy once again greeted his favorite people in the world, ‘Welcome.’”