Something in the Dark

by Pamela Cowan

  The entrance to Suite 301 was one of a half dozen doors, spaced equally along the third floor hallway. Each was different from the next, only because of the discreet brass numbers hung at eye level. For a moment she hesitated, wondering if she should knock or just walk in. It’s an office, she decided, they expect you to walk in. She turned the knob and stepped into what turned out to be a small waiting area. There was no receptionist, only a short counter to her left with a sign that read, Please take a seat. We will be with you shortly.

  Austin took a seat in one of the two mission-style leather chairs against the wall on the right. There was a door set in the far wall that she assumed led to an office. She wondered how he would know she was there. She looked around trying to get a feel for his personality.

  The chairs were tasteful reproductions, burgundy leather and cherry-toned wood. Between them, a slate-topped table held a lamp with a heavy iron base and a fan of magazines. She read their titles: Good Housekeeping, People, National Geographic, Newsweek. No help there.

  There was only one picture on the walls, right above the counter. Austin stood up to get a better look at it. Framed in the same cherry-stained wood as the chairs was a painting of a futuristic city, but as she stared at it, she realized something was wrong. There were fish swimming through the windows and across the sky. Seaweed, not vines, growing around the columns. Everything was underwater. It seemed obvious to her now, but at first it was as if her mind had refused to see what it didn’t expect. Well, if that wasn’t a great advertisement for the faultiness of perception. But it still didn’t tell her much about the man who, she conjectured, had hung it there.

  She heard the click of a doorknob and turned.

  “It’s a Nogeth. Do you like it?”

  “I do. It makes you wonder if what you see is really there, and wonder what might still be there that you don’t see.”

  “Exactly. You must be Austin Ward. I’m Mark Harworth,” he said. “You can call me Mark. Sorry if I kept you,” He stepped across the room with his hand extended. “I was on the phone.”

  “That’s okay, I wasn’t waiting long.”

  She preceded him into the office. It was well-lit by a row of windows that looked out over the parking lot. There was a long couch under the window and a couple of mismatched leather recliners, one brown one black, facing it. Between the chairs was a table and the usual box of Kleenex.

  “Please sit down, anywhere you like,” the therapist said.

  Austin chose the brown chair. As she sat down she took a quick look around, comparing her imagination with reality, she decided she’d been about fifty percent right.

  The couch under the windows was also covered in leather, like the chairs, but so old its entire surface was covered with a fine cobweb of cracks. It looked too comfortable to sit on. She thought it would be the perfect couch for a therapist, the kind that would lure you in and make you want to lie down, and once you were there, and helplessly comfortable, it would draw out all your darkest, most private thoughts.

  The walls were paneled and had probably been some dark imitation wood grain but were now painted eggshell white. There was a big desk, but he couldn’t sit behind it and still talk to a client. It was shoved against the wall and to sit at it he’d have to have his back to her. Its surface held a computer, a printer, a fax machine, a phone, and a stacking file almost buried under folders. The wall above the desk had become a bulletin board, and layers of brochures and documents had been thumbtacked all over it.

  The bookcase she’d expected was also present and reached from floor to ceiling, taking up the entire wall opposite the desk. As large as it was, it sagged under the massive weight of books and professional journals, but she also noted several stacks of paperbacks and magazines. At a quick glance the paperbacks were by King, Sandford, and Mitchner and the magazines were Northwest Paddler and Cross Country Skier. So, he was a man who read for entertainment, and liked outdoor activities. It was a good start.

  She slid back farther into the chair. Mark sat down in the black chair that was beside hers but angled so that they could look at each other comfortably. She decided that while she had been fifty-percent right about his office, she had been one-hundred percent wrong about him.

  He couldn’t have been more than thirty, thirty-five tops. Instead of gray, his hair was dark brown, thick and wavy, and long enough to reach his collar. There was no beard or mustache. Instead of a suit he wore khaki Dockers, a pale blue Oxford shirt that set off a dark tan, and hiking boots. He was a couple inches taller than Austin, five-ten or eleven, and heavy without being fat. He looked like an ex-football or wrestling jock, not at all like her vision of an aging Freud wannabe.

  “Where’d you get your name?” he asked. “It’s very unusual.”

  “Yes, and usually a boy’s name, I guess. My mom thought it up. My dad was in the army and we moved a lot, so my mom decided it would be fun to name her kids after the places we were conceived.

  “That could have been tragic.”

  “Tell my brother,” she said, “Muncie.”

  “Ouch.”

  “Yeah, but the ironic thing is that Dad was never stationed where we were conceived. They were there because they were on vacation or visiting friends or something.”

  “Do your parents live in town?”

  Austin shook her head. “No, my mom died four years ago, in Colorado. Cancer. They had retired there. My dad died about nine months later.”

  “Janice told me she’d given you my card and you might be calling. She mentioned to me that you’d bought the old nursery on Spring Hill road.”

  “Yes, just a few months ago. When my father died he left me a small inheritance. It was enough to buy the house I’d been renting and the nursery. Now all I have to do is come up with enough to keep them both from falling apart. The house and the business are both fixer-uppers with a lot of fixing up to do.”

  “Sounds like that could get pretty stressful. Is that the reason you’ve come to see me today?”

  The question reminded Austin of where she was. If getting someone to talk was the sign of a good therapist, then Mark must be a good one. She couldn’t believe how easy she found it to discuss things. Well, at least the surface things–her parents and her business; but to talk about the rest? To really look at the bad places and the emotions that came with them. She wasn’t so sure she could do that.

  “You’ve got a nice black eye there,” he said, covering the awkward silence that had greeted his question. “Run into a door, did you?”

  Austin burst into laughter, and Mark smiled with her, without knowing why.

  Somehow the laughter made it easier for her to admit the reason she had come. She blurted it out in a rush. “I’m twenty-six years old and I’m so afraid of the dark that if the lights go out, yes, I panic and run into doors. It’s silly and embarrassing, and I doubt you can do anything about it, but that’s the problem. Well, that and the other thing.”

  “Other thing?”

  “Well, I’m not only afraid of the dark. I’m also afraid of closed spaces–offices without windows, elevators, mummy sleeping bags. Sometimes even going through a carwash can sort of freak me out. Well, to be totally honest, the only time I ever went through a carwash I freaked out, and I have never used one since. I avoid situations like that. I guess that’s why I went into landscaping. You get to be outside most of the time. Well, unless someone locks you in a potting shed.”

  Mark was curious, so she explained about being locked in the shed and finished by telling him the conclusion she and Muncie had come to.

  “You see, Will knew Bunny was going to be working there that night. He must have decided it would be a good way to pay her back for telling me about the marijuana plants. I don’t think he realized I was the one in the shed. It was a mean prank, but I don’t think he meant to hurt anyone. All he did was slip the bar across the door and switch the power off at the electrical box. The box is up by the store so he probably never heard me ye
ll or, if he did, he thought I was Bunny and deserved it.”

  “And you didn’t fire him?”

  “I know. Most people probably would have. I just think that now that he knows it was me who got trapped in the potting shed, he must be embarrassed and realize what a stupid idea it was. Maybe he’s grown up a little. He’s great with plants.” She added, lamely, “A real green thumb.” Then she realized that once again she was defending a decision she’d made. It made her angry that she had to justify every step, and even angrier when she realized no one was asking her to justify her actions except herself.

  “Let’s review what you’ve told me,” Mark said. He took a legal pad and pen from the table between the two chairs and scribbled as he spoke. “You live here in town and own a landscaping business as well as a nursery. You employ four people, who frankly sound a little nutso, to use a professional term. You have been suffering from a fear of the dark and of closed spaces for . . . how long would you say?”

  “Since I was seven, I guess.”

  “Interesting. What happened when you were seven?”

  “You'll think this is strange, but when I was seven we, my brother and I, were playing in the basement of our apartment building and I got locked inside an old bomb shelter. It must have been pretty scary, and I’ve been afraid of the dark and being locked in since then.”

  “Bomb shelter? Well you're right, that is a bit strange.”

  “Army brats have interesting experiences, I guess. Were your people military?" Austin asked.

  “No. Teachers. Dad taught history and Mom taught math.”

  “Here in Spruce?”

  “No, Seattle,” he said. “They still live there. They love it, but I was sick of the rain. I much prefer blue skies and snow.”

  “Then you’re in the right place,” said Austin.

  “I know. It’s great. Well, I wish we had more time.” He scribbled a few more words on the pad. “Let’s start off there next time. That is, I’m assuming you want to schedule another appointment?”

  “That would be fine.”

  “Good. I have some forms I need you to fill out. You can return them next time.”

  “All right,” Austin said rather stiffly. For a while she’d forgotten that listening was this man’s business. He got paid to seem interested.

  He set the pad down and they both stood. There was a brief buzzing sound, and he looked toward the door. Austin realized the sound must be an alarm, alerting him that someone had come through the front door and into the reception area.

  “Here, let me get you those forms. He went to his desk and pawed through the piled folders, obviously his idea of a filing system, until he found the form he wanted. He set another appointment for the same day and time the following week, then walked her to the door. She saw that an attractive woman was sitting in the waiting room and felt two unmistakable emotions. First, a sense of jealousy and second, a sense of embarrassment. Immediately she realized that jealousy was silly. As for the embarrassment of being seen in his office, well, the woman in the waiting room probably felt exactly the same way.

  Driving toward home, Austin realized how tense she was. She was gripping the steering wheel and hunched forward as if preparing to take flight. Other than stopping for a pack of cigarettes, which she was not about to do, there was only one other cure she could think of. She drove past her home, then past Josh’s house and up into the hills. As she drove farther from town, the number of houses and their welcoming porch lights grew more and more scarce. Finally, all she could see was a luminous full moon, and in the sweep of her headlights, the jagged outline of the trees that lined the road.

  She kept catching a flicker, an almost presence, tracking her through the trees. She felt a moment’s keen fear, until she realized it was just a ghost cast by one of her own headlights. Her logical mind told her she’d have to remember to have them realigned, while her more primitive side shivered at the thought of ghosts following her in the dark.

  She turned up the radio and rolled down the window, breathing deeply of the pine-scented air, the chill wind stroking the side of her face with icy but seductively gentle fingers. Soon the land to her left began to rise.

  The ridge which gave the town its name, appeared beside her. Its row of stately blue spruce, planted by someone whose name had been lost, marched in an unnaturally straight line until the road began to curve away and drop down to a wide, slow stretch of the Broken River.

  She pulled off the main road into the wide gravel parking area, and right up to the boat ramp, her headlights throwing reflections on the ripples of water. The area was wide enough, open enough, so that she could see by moonlight. In fact, someone had coined the name Moon Meadow for this spot on the river. There was nothing to cast shadows here, and unless it was an unusually cloudy night, no real darkness. Tonight it was clear and the moon was joined by an uncountable number of stars. If the price of that clarity was a fall in temperature, Austin was happy to pay it. This was what she thought of as “her place.” The place she came to think and be alone.

  Getting out of the truck she walked toward the dock. She passed the haphazardly-placed picnic benches, whose tracery of graffiti, gouged deeply into the wood, shone silver in the moonlight.

  She continued alongside the narrow strip of vegetation growing along the waterfront. This was where fishermen drove forked branches into the ground to hold their poles, freeing their hands to bait their children’s hooks, or open another beer. She noted the dark rings of soot left on the ground by the tires the night fisherman burned to attract cat fish.

  “Light ‘tracts them,” an old black man had explained one night, when she had been brave enough, or cold enough, to warm herself by his tires’ pungent flames.

  Afterwards they had become sometime companions, nodding to each other as she made her way to the dock and he slowly rowed his plywood drift boat along the edge of the river. They were content not to speak, but she liked to think they enjoyed each other’s silent presence.

  As she walked onto the dock it shifted and groaned beneath her feet, little waves formed by the motion moving away to eventually lap at the shore. A breeze came from across the river, bringing a strange but not unpleasant combination of scents; dried hay, fish and snow.

  She sat down, making sure the bottom of her coat was between her and the icy planks. Pulling her hat over her ears and her arms into her sleeves she let herself slide into the peacefulness of the water, with its millions of tiny sparks of light.

  A glittering bar of light, cast by the moon, seemed to reach across the river. She imagined it to be a fairy path that she could follow and let herself imagine what she might find at the end.

  Never once did she consider that her posture, her position in relation to the water, was almost exactly as Granny Birdie had described in her dream.

  Chapter 11

  On Tuesday, Austin was not surprised that she had to open the store by herself. By the time she had set up the displays, watered the hanging plants and turned the open/closed sign around, she knew that Bunny wasn’t going to make an appearance.

  Will came in a little late, as usual, but since he often stayed late she didn’t comment. She didn’t mention Bunny’s absence either, and neither did he. They seemed to have come to an unspoken agreement to stay away from that particular subject. They were slammed with customers that morning, and Will stayed inside, helping her wait on them.

  In between customers, they discussed the Christmas tree lot. Austin had agreed to rent space to a tree seller who had been asked to move from his usual spot. It was a sure sign that Spruce was growing. Land use ordinances, zones, and restrictions were being more frequently applied and enforced.

  “I think we should put in our own trees,” Will said. “We’ve got that hedgerow at the back of the property that isn’t doing anything and we could also put them all around the perimeter. Except for the parking lot, of course.”

  “It’s an idea. Let’s look into it some more. I’ll g
et on the Net sometime this week and see what I can find.”

  Will looked up. “Isn’t that your friend, the schoolteacher?” Austin turned from the shelf she’d been straightening to see Janice walk in.

  “Hi. What are you doing out on a work day?”

  “I’m on a break.” Janice explained. “I decided to come by to get some poinsettias for the house. I’m going to decorate this year—lights and everything. Then I’m going to invite everyone I know to a Christmas party. Whoever comes, comes. Whoever doesn’t gets put on the list.”

  “Oh really? What list?”

  “The list I give to my students. Potential customers for the annual spring seed and cookie sales.”

  “Ooooh, scary. Say no more, I’ll be there,” Austin promised.

  “I knew I could count on you.”

  “Things are slowing down up here,” interrupted Will. I’m going to get started out back.”

  “Okay, thanks” said Austin.

  Austin helped Janice pick out a nice selection of poinsettias and carry them to the counter. Finally Janice broached the subject Austin had been afraid was coming. “So, did you do it? Did you call Mark?”

  “I did, and he was great.”

  “I told you so. Are you going to keep seeing him?”

  “I don’t know. I– ”

  The back door flew open and Will burst in. “Austin. Oh Jesus. Oh God. Austin, you have to see!”

  Will rubbed his hands across his face, pulling the skin taut. His eyes were so wide, and his skin so pale he was almost comical, a parody of fear.

  “Potting shed. Blood,” he mumbled.

  “Show me.” Austin said.

  Will turned and stumbled across the threshold. Both women followed him across the yard to the door of the potting shed. The same one that Austin had been locked in only three nights before.

  The door was wide open. Will stood aside and the two women looked in.

  Later, Austin would think how it had been like that painting in Mark’s office. At first her mind just wouldn’t let her see it, would not accept that the brown splotches and stains splattered across the bags of compost and fertilizer, puddled on the floor, and covering Bunny’s blouse and hands, was dried blood. It took another moment for the fact to register that the wooden handle protruding from her throat was not attached to a knife, but to a simple everyday gardening implement, a trowel. It was the base of that trowel, painted white, slightly curved, that smiled at them from Bunny’s throat. It was a thin-lipped smile, like the smile a child might draw, like the smile on one of those big yellow smiley face buttons.