mother with upraised fists.
"It wasn't there. The trunk was empty. I couldn't explain it."
"They thought you were lying."
"Of course, I'd never been truthful as a little girl. I always got my own way, whatever Emmy had, I had to have better. When daddy heard about it, he took the switch to my backside. But, there wasn't anything to confess. The doll was gone."
"Was it ever found?"
"Eventually."
I could see it now. The house was quiet. Sunlight warmed the western side as the sun traversed the cloudless sky overhead. The lazy drone of flies hummed against the screened porch. A small girl climbed the stairs into the shadowy recesses of the upper floor.
"They'd gone out picnicking beneath the blossoming cherry trees. I was left behind as punishment with a slice of cold ham and milk in the icebox. I'd gone upstairs to play a game of cards. Lying across my bed, fanning the red and black Queens, I thought I heard something...a slight sound, the creak of a knotted wood stair. Naturally, I thought mama had come back for something. She was moving about so quietly that I rose from the bed and went to the door. I went out into the hallway, to the top of the stair and looked down. I could still hear movement down there, uneven as the floor creaked under not two, but with four distinct thumps. The same instant, I was reminded of what it sounded like, goose pimples broke out on my bare arms. It was the sound of someone crawling on all fours!"
"I could see nothing, nothing at all, but could hear the sound as it moved stealthily across the floor and to the base of the staircase. It was the fear that held me there and fascination for though I couldn't see anything, I could hear it. I've never known such palpable terror in all my life since that moment." She finished with great effort, pausing to dab a napkin to her mouth.
"But, it was just a noise." I mildly protested. "One that had a cause in the natural world."
"Oh, certainly that's what a skeptic would say." She scoffed, "blame it on sunspots, on a country girl's mind. I was rooted to the spot ever so long that when it stopped, I heard the sound of the key turning in the lock and my parents’ voices. I stood at the railing when they came in, laughing, cheerful. Only Emmy stopped at the foot of the stair and looked around. She knows, I thought helplessly, but didn't know what she knew."
"We stood side by side at the old kitchen sink, wiping our teeth with salt and baking soda. The white foam tasted awful, frothing unpleasantly at the edges of our lips. "There are things in this house, I hear them too." Emmy said solemnly.
"You shut your mouth." I hissed afraid mama would hear us.
Emmy looked at me, spat in the sink and went to our shared room. When I entered, she lied there unmoving, staring up at the ceiling. Her silence frightened me most because she hadn't meant it as anything but, the truth. I was frightened of those things and the flat speech of my sister who said those things existed. Mama and daddy didn't believe, being solid stock from Missouri."
It was about that time that things started to go missing around the house. Little things, mama's silver-handled hair brush from her wedding set; daddy's pipe, my shoelaces.
"Daddy was returning one sunset, with the reddish light lowering in the west. The old ranch truck stirred dust obscuring the horizon. He'd been out inspecting a suspicious fire on the northern edge of the property. Mama had packed him off with an ample picnic lunch, serving us girls, baked beans and cold toast. I still remember his face when he walked in after the glow of dusk had faded. His face was as white as a sheet.
He’d been driving along the dirt track, the bed bounced over the ruts in the road. He’d stopped with the glow of sunset behind the dusty windows of the truck. He'd taken a sip of coffee from the thermos, lowering from his lips; it was then that he saw her walking along the side of the road. Almost level with the truck, visible in the rearview mirror. A woman...pale, her head down, her hair lank and her body clad in a shapeless white night dress.
He was startled because there wasn't much out there at the time. Just fields and cherry trees. The houses were far and few between. What was she doing out there all by herself and dressed thusly? Daddy leaned over and rolled down the passenger window. "Hey!" He called, "hey, you there, this is private property! No tres--?"
But, she....she disappeared.
Likely into the copse of dying trees, maybe down another path.
Now something wasn't right about her, he felt that right away. He kept sipping his coffee until the dregs touched his lip, then he switched on the ignition. The glow of dusk was fading fast, the darkness was settling in across the land. Daddy drove past her, keeping his eyes on the road. When he came level with her again, his eyes darted to the side where the girl walked and still no sign that she even heard the dull roar of the truck. Daddy said he'd driven on another quarter mile, leaving her far behind, he made a few turns, cutting through a work path.
He never said how he far he was from the house when he saw her again, walking ahead on the narrow lip of dirt and scattered branches. "What the...," she was ahead, but how? He paled and his hands clenched the steering wheel. Something was horribly wrong about the figure. He tried driving past her, drawing level once more. In the second that he passed her, she stirred and in the mirror, he glimpsed her face as she lifted her head. He told my mother later, there was a desperate sort of hunger in her face and a terrible longing that frightened him. He gunned the engine and drove recklessly the rest of the way to the farmhouse."
"Our mama listened to his story silently, then when he was finished, rose up and brewed him a strong cup of coffee. That night, he bolted and locked every window and door, parting mama's wispy lace curtains to peer out into the gloom. Noticing us watching, he barked at us to go upstairs and bed. I'd never seen papa in such a state. I was frightened climbing into bed, pulling the covers over my face, shivering with the knowledge that whatever could frighten a grown, strong man like papa was still out there somewhere.
They’d talk about it over coffee some mornings, in hushed voices meant for us not to hear. Mama would tell him of the day she found all our missing items hidden in a barrel in the cellar. When she'd fall silent, he'd tell her of the sound of a man crawling on all fours, horrible murmuring noises and muffled screams that he'd awaken convinced were real. These were all things that we never knew, we were oblivious, innocent to them real or imagined.
“I’m afraid, George. The girls act as if nothing’s wrong, but it’s bound to affect them.”
“Well, what do you want me to do?”
She fell silent and their conversation remained unspoken.
Then, one morning, daddy didn’t leave to work and he announced we were moving. "Everybody pack up, we're leaving!" With those words, in mass exodus, we scrambled top and bottom, piling crocks in blankets, gathering broom and dustpan. I pulled worn suitcases from the closet top, precariously balanced on a small three-legged table of my mother's. In that suitcase, I piled our clothes, shoes and frayed ribbons from past county fairs. Emmy helped our mother downstairs, dusty as a ghost when she reappeared on the landing below. "Triny, daddy says to come down already!"
"But--, I looked around at our beds, neatly made, our wooden toys and my building blocks. The strength fled from my body and I sank onto the braided rug. It wasn't fair at all. This had been our home; I’d loved the trees and the pale pinkish blossoms carrying a faint scent in the springtime. I’d loved the weathered rooftop that made little rat-a-tat-tat sounds in the rain. I didn't want to leave this house.
Emmy climbed the stairs and stood a little ways behind me.
"Sissy, come on."
"Must we?" My voice sounded far off.
"Daddy says."
When I made no move to get up off the floor, she strode over and grasped my arm, hauling me to my feet. We left that house, she and I, left our toys, my dreams and daddy's job.”
“But, there is more…I can see it in your face.”
“…a postscript, if you were.”
We moved into my aunt’s townhouse
some miles away. One day, Mama heard the sound of weeping upstairs while folding laundry in the washroom. She’d thought one of us girls had come back inside. Mama went to the foot of the stairs and listened intently; our aunt had loaned us the use of three rooms above with an attached bathroom. Oh, we’d thought we were living high on the hog with interior plumbing.
“Emily? Triny?” She called, concerned. We heard her calling over our noisy games outside and came in banging through the side door. “Mom, what’s wrong?” She was halfway up the stairs, her face tilted upward. At that same instant, the sound stopped. Mama looked startled, “wasn’t one of you upstairs just now?”
“No, we were outside,” I answered. “Why?”
Before mama could speak; Emmy looked up to the ceiling above us. “They’ve followed us…haven’t they?”
Mama and I turned to look at her.
“Who, sweetie? There’s no one here but us.”
“No, mom. They’re here, the dead ones.”
From then on, we moved into a succession of tenements, crumbling, rat infested places. Yet in all of them, the one pervasive factor remained…something, whether a noise that was unexplainable, voices in the night and the one day when I too, saw the woman with the hungry eyes, we were haunted.”
“How awful…but, how did you get it to stop?”
My mother lifted her withered shoulders, her mouth pursing in a way that I
The House on Cherry Tree Lane Page 2
