by Aiden James
The dog looked up at her face in response to the coddling. Sadie licked Miriam’s hand with her tongue and then cast a brief glance toward David that made him wonder if the dog even had any idea what they discussed. Miriam looked up in time to see his smirk widening.
“Don’t be surprised if she’s the only one who really knows what’s going on,” she chided.
“Hopefully it won’t come to that,” he said, the smirk replaced by a more serious look as he considered what they discussed so far. “I guess that’s it for Monday. What about earlier today?”
“Something happened to Ty that really upset him,” said Miriam, patting Tyler on his knee once more. “But, he has yet to tell anyone about it.”
“He was shaking when Chris and I got home!” added Jillian, not realizing her tone was closer to exuberance than concern. Tyler scowled in response.
David turned to face him better, and he immediately looked out the side window closest to him, likely embarrassed from being so scared earlier.
“Tell me what happened, son.”
Tyler shook his head, defiant, and continued to stare out the window. Under the glow from a nearby street lamp, his eyes welled up and his chin quivered.
“I suppose it can wait until another time.”
David reached back to grasp Tyler’s shoulder as a show of his affection and support. Tyler didn’t remove his gaze from the window, but nodded that he preferred to wait.
“Jill called me soon after she and Chris got home,” said Miriam. “I rushed home after getting Eileen to take my last two appointments—I owe her lunch twice in the next week, since she did it for me yesterday too.”
“That’s when the noises in the ceiling started!” said Jillian, taking advantage of her mom’s sidetrack and obviously enjoy-ing the attention.
“Actually, it didn’t really get going until about twenty minutes after I got home,” said Miriam, shooting a wry look at Jillian for always wanting to be the story teller in the family. “Everyone was sitting on the sofa. I could tell from the look on Ty’s face that he was really upset about something, and Jill and Chris were trying to get him to talk about it. Maybe if I had enough time I could’ve gotten him to tell me what happened. But no sooner than I made a cup of hot cocoa for him and brought it into the living room, the noises started. They were subtle at first.”
She paused to look out the passenger window, as if afraid the unseen menace now lurked somewhere nearby. .
“That was the calm before the storm,” she resumed, turning to look at him. “Loud crashes followed, like somebody picked up our bed and dresser and slammed them onto the floor upstairs. You should’ve seen us then. We all huddled on the couch, crying like babies.”
Her mouth began to quiver and she folded her arms tight across her chest. David sought to comfort her, along with Jillian and Christopher. Tyler seemed far too focused on being a brave man to provide any relief to them.
“‘Tell you what,” said David, while everyone except him and his oldest son wept. “I’ve got an idea on what might help everyone feel a little better, to take our minds off all of this.”
“Like what?” Miriam asked between sniffles. She glanced at the dashboard clock, which read 9:04 p.m.
“Something fun.”
***
In response to his first idea, to take them to see the latest Disney flick, Miriam reminded him that Christopher and Jillian’s usual bedtime had already passed and Tyler’s wasn’t too long after theirs. His second idea of visiting a local arcade to let the kids wind down met with more disdain, since it seemed he hadn’t listened to her objection to the first idea. Besides, video games didn’t exactly chill the kids out.
His last idea of checking into a hotel for the night was one she already considered, and wanted. She called Janice first before giving the final okay. As it turned out, Janice was on her way back to her townhouse after her dinner date when Miriam called her on her mobile phone. She offered for them all to stay with her tonight. Miriam and David would share a guestroom while the kids slept on the sofa bed in her living room. She also reminded Miriam that she had plenty of dog food from Sadie’s most recent stay with her.
They took Janice up on her offer and soon dropped the kids and Sadie off at the townhouse, located on the other side of their subdivision. Then they returned to their house to get some things. From the outside, their home appeared as they left it. The lights they left on brightly illuminated the main floor. David and Miriam stepped inside, their senses heightened.
The chill had receded noticeably. David led the way upstairs with Miriam clinging to the back of his coat. The hall and bedrooms no longer seemed like a haven of hostility, while the heater steadily brought the temperature on the second floor back up to 70 degrees. They found very little out of place, the only thing of note being their bed pulled out slightly from the wall it sat up against.
Hoping the menacing presence had truly left, David told Miriam he intended to remain in the house that night. He encouraged her to stay with Janice if she preferred, helping her pack clothes and toothbrushes for the kids. Reluctant to leave him alone, she told him that she’d come back to stay with him. Alone in the house, David waited in the living room for her return.
As soon as Miriam pulled the minivan out of the driveway, he began to hear creaks in the floorboards upstairs. Perhaps it was just the house settling....But the noises continued, sounding more like someone moving back and forth near the front windows in the master bedroom.
He moved directly below the area where the creaks originated and listened, feeling his heart begin to pound hard. A sudden noise resounded from the kitchen and he whirled in that direction, only to realize it came from the refrigerator’s icemaker.
Feeling foolish, he wondered if every noise he’d ever heard again in the house would make him skittish. Then definite footsteps resounded from the landing upstairs. He steadied his breath while he stepped quietly to the foyer. Unlike the other night, he didn’t want to rush toward where the noises originated like a crazed bull. He moved upstairs methodical this time.
Empty, the landing lay fully exposed by the hall light left on earlier. But he couldn’t remember if he also had left the master bedroom light on or not. A soft glow emanated through the small space between the closed door and the carpet. Cautious, he approached the door and again heard footsteps inside the room. It also sounded like some type of heavy broom was being dragged across the carpet.
David placed his hand on the doorknob and turned it.
Shit…this sucker’s really cold!
The noises continued, as if whoever made them remained unaware of his presence, or didn’t care. He counted silently to three and pushed the door open.
As before, no one was there. But a trail of small twigs and dried yellow leaves had been spread across the carpet in the shape of an arc around the bed from nightstand to nightstand. The twigs and leaves lay intertwined upon one another in a deliberate pattern.
Beyond the initial surprise, his first thought was this must be part of some symbolic ritual. His next thought? No way in hell it could remain here, even though he wished Miriam could view it first to help decipher its meaning. But he couldn’t let her see it, and for only one reason. The little cloth bag with “Allie Mae’s Treasures” stitched on it, which now bore smeared pizza stains from when it fell into the trash container the night before, rested on the bed. The obvious centerpiece, it sat between two decorative pillows and another below it.
The minivan’s headlights flashed though the bedroom windows, announcing. Miriam’s return. Surprised that nearly half an hour had passed since she left to go to Janice’s place, he hurriedly gathered up the twigs, leaves, and bag and stuffed them inside the same dresser drawer he used Sunday night.
She entered the house just as he scooped up the last few twigs and leaf fragments. He noticed his hands smelled funny, for the leaves carried a peculiar odor. He ran into the bathroom and washed them thoroughly with the antibacterial soap Mir
iam preferred. She stepped into the bathroom, startling him.
“I’m feeling a little jumpy too,” she admitted, after he stifled a gasp. “The kids have settled in for the night, and I gave Jan money for breakfast and a snack at school tomorrow. Even Sadie seems calmer now that she knows she won’t be here tonight.”
She let out a long sigh, laying her coat and purse on the bed.
“Are you sure you’re okay staying here tonight?” he asked, as he rejoined her in the bedroom. He wrapped his arms around her waist.
“Yeah, I think so.” She sniffed the air around her. “Do you smell that?”
“Smell what?” he asked, aware now of the leaves’ acrid aroma hanging in the air.
“It smells like mice or something,” she said, bending down to lift the bedspread. She then positioned her nose just above the carpet. “It reminds me of the lovely mouse shit you found in the garage last summer,” she advised once she stood back up. “That smell wasn’t here earlier.”
“It’s hard to say.” He shrugged his shoulders. “We could sleep someplace else tonight. In one of the guestrooms, maybe?”
“No,” she replied, her hands on her hips while she looked around the room. “If I’m spending the night in this house—our home—then I’m staying here in this bedroom. It will take more than just the smell of mouse turds to get me to leave!”
She had moved past fear toward anger. Figuring out what to do about the little bag that refused to go away might be harder with her more pissed off than afraid. But at least she wouldn’t overreact to every creak and bump she heard tonight, which meant the actual prospect of her sleeping would be better. As for David, he no longer expected a restful night’s sleep.
“I guess it’s settled,” he told her, forcing a smile that lasted long enough to sell the illusion he wasn’t worried about them spending the night here.
By the time they were ready for bed, the strange odor had mostly disappeared from the air. But a feeling of uneasiness pervaded the bedroom. Lying in bed, huddled close together, they turned off the TV after watching part of an HBO special. 11:30 p.m. approached, and the bedroom’s only illumination came from a lone nightlight near the bathroom. Tired, anxious, and not knowing what to expect, they continued to hold each other close until they both drifted off to sleep around midnight.
Chapter Twelve
David fell from a dizzying height, moving at incredible speed through an immense dark chasm. His descent slowed dramatically just before he reached the bottom, when a brilliant white light appeared below him. The light intensified until too painful to keep his eyes open, and he brought his arms up to shield his face. Then everything stopped and he drifted in darkness. Distant shouts from behind startled him, the echoes of his screams. As they steadily died, other sounds replaced them…birds and insects singing nearby.
He slowly opened his eyes. Everything blurred at first, when his vision cleared he found himself lying on his back, sheltered by an oak tree’s shade. Solid ground beneath him, cool blades of grass pressed against his skin through his pajamas. The sound of water trickling nearby drew his attention to a small stream coursing through rows of oaks, maples, and a horde of white pines.
An array of beautiful wild flowers in brilliant shades of yellow, blue, and orange amid tall grass covered both banks of the stream. Sitting up, he noticed a group of closely clumped oak tree saplings across the streambed.
“My God!” he whispered.
The trees immediately familiar, though much younger than when he and Miriam had seen them just a few days earlier, without a doubt he was back in the secluded ‘Lover’s Lane’ of Cades Cove.
At first he believed it only a dream. When he crossed the ravine to get a closer look at the saplings, the stream’s cold water splashing up against his bare feet and ankles challenged that idea. The shock alone almost caused him to retreat, especially once the water level reached his knees. He persisted, scrambling up the opposite bank while shivering from the stream’s coldness. The sun’s warmth trickling in through gaps between the more mature trees gave rise to goose bumps on his exposed flesh.
This can’t be real... yet it sure as hell feels like it!
It had to be the same place. Even the rock ledge at the top of the ravine seemed the same. Across the stream, the oak he found himself lying under marked the identical spot he and Miriam ate lunch and later made love. Incredulous, he turned his attention back to the names, noticing the carvings seemed fresher. No dark and crusted signs of aging from his earlier visit. Walter Smith, Marylee Oliver, and the date of June 13, 1908 looked fairly new, with no sign of the later dated carving from the 1930s.
He ran his fingers across the carved letters, comparing the way they felt under his touch against the other time he did this. The carvings much fresher, they lacked the smoother, eroded feel of something old. A splinter pierced the skin of his index finger. David stepped back from the trees and gazed toward the deeper woods further downstream. Even the etched names on those trees seemed sparse compared to what he recalled from his earlier visit.
A pair of excited voices drew his attention back to the top of the ravine. He crouched down behind a thick maple and peered toward the ledge. The voices belonged to a couple of kids.
“I win!” shouted the boy from atop the ledge.
“Ya cheated, Zachariah!” accused the girl. “Ya started runnin’ first, but I almost caught yer sorry behind, anyways!”
“Nah, you couldn’t catch me if ya’s ridin’ old man Olsen’s best horse!” retorted the boy.
David stood up, careful to remain out of sight. He could see each child clearly, as both faced each other on the rock ledge. Dressed in a loose-fitting white shirt and brown trousers rolled up at the bottom, the boy’s dark hair and features reminded him of Tyler, when he was a bit younger, maybe around the age of ten or eleven.
The pretty girl with him seemed about the same age as he, with shining strawberry blond hair that hung just below her shoulders. She wore a plain gray dress in a style David remem-bered seeing once in an old photograph, like what one might find in an antique store. Her feet bare, she held one hand on her hip while the other pointed meanly at Zachariah.
“That’s so not true and you know it!” she scolded him, her deep green eyes burning in anger. “If we started at the same time, I’d’ve beaten ya draggin’ old man Olsen’s slowest mule behind me!”
The boy stepped back from her and smiled. But he also looked perplexed.
“Ya expect me to believe you’d do that?” he asked, sounding skeptical. “Allie Mae, yer the biggest exaggerator the world’s ever seen—that’s fer sure!”
David gasped as he learned the little girl’s name.
“Sh-h-h!” she whispered. “‘Ya hear that just now?”
She looked out toward the ravine until her eyes settled on his hideout.
“Over there!”
She pointed right at him, just before he slid away from her view. It seemed wisest to stay hidden and covertly observe. The kids weren’t a threat, but an adult could be. He thought of the horrible tales he heard growing up in Chattanooga about what happened to unwanted strangers in the backwoods of Appalachia.
“Don’t try ‘n change the subject, Allie,” said Zachariah. “Ya know, I’ve a right mind to tell yer daddy about all yer exaggerations, and I’ll bet he’d be more ‘n pleased to give ya one hell of a whippin’!”
“Ya don’t dare!” she said with playful arrogance. “And if ya did, you’d soon be pullin’ one of the longest reeds from behind ya’ll’s place for yer pa to whip yer butt for swearin’ just now, once I tell ‘em all ‘bout it!”
“I’s just playin’,” said Zachariah, still smiling, though the seriousness in the boy’s voice let David know he feared his pa’s anger. “So ya think someone’s over yonder?”
“I surely do!” said Allie. “Let’s go find who’s hidin’ behind them trees!”
David frantically looked around for another hideout. A large moss-covered boulder
surrounded by heavy brush sat nearby. He scurried over and crouched behind it, praying the pair didn’t see him as they climbed down into the ravine.
“What exactly did ya hear, Allie?” asked Zachariah, once they reached the maple.
He peered at the tree’s exposed roots and frowned.
“‘Looks like someone was here,” he said. “The grass’s all pressed down.”
“Could be an animal...but I believe I heard a man’s voice,” she said. She bent down and touched the grass. “He was whisperin’ somethin’. The grass’s wet, too.”
They both scanned the area around them to determine where the ravine’s mysterious visitor had moved. David peered at them through the brush, his heart racing.
“Ah-h! I think I found the critter makin’ all the comm-otion!” Zachariah announced proudly. He stepped toward the stream and picked something up. A large bullfrog squirmed in his grasp. “Here’s yer whisperin’ man!”
The frog croaked deeply while it tried to free itself from his grasp. Zachariah thrust the frog up in her face, but she didn’t flinch. Instead, she took the frightened creature from him and it stopped squirming. It croaked softly in her hands.
“That’s a present from me to you, Allie Mae,” said Zachariah, his hands fidgeting as he held them together in front of him. His face flushed.
Allie smiled at him while she stroked the frog. She then looked around and let her gaze settle upon the boulder where David hid behind. Squinting her eyes, he thought somehow she could see him through the dense brush surrounding the rock.
“Come with me!” she said.
Zachariah followed her to a small patch of yellow and purple wildflowers nestled in front of the boulder. Meanwhile, David tried to push himself into a slight crevice in the boulder’s base. Looking up at her, he was amazed by Allie’s striking beauty. He watched her gently pick a handful of columbines and turn to face Zachariah.
“I’ve got a present for ya, too, Zach.”
