by Melissa Kuch
“You’ll pay for this,” he cried out.
Stunned and shaken, Aurora turned and ran as fast as she could in shock and despair, dropping Old Mr. Harold’s hamburger as an innocent casualty. She ran through the backwoods, not caring that her dress was torn mercilessly by branches. She was not going back to the block party or to Wishbone Avenue ever again. She didn’t care what her mother said. She was going to hide and never come out. She couldn’t believe she had made such a fool of herself in front of Jonathan. And Hattie was the one kissing him, the one holding him and making love to him. She felt the rage within her make her run faster, the trees whirling past her until she collapsed and cried, her face buried in the grass to muffle her sobs. She didn’t care what time it was or who would be looking for her. She doubted anyone even missed her. Aurora was an embarrassment to the Alvarez family, nothing like the legacy her mother had made in this town. Her mother shouldn’t have had a daughter like her.
Aurora felt sick to her stomach, her body convulsing as she sobbed harder and harder. Night was encroaching over Candlewick, the trees acting as a canopy. The sunset painted the sky with an abundance of colors stretching out toward the sobbing girl hidden beneath the comforting arms of the tree branches. Aurora didn’t even notice time drifting forward as she was immersed in her frozen moment of grief, crying until she passed out, the stars her only witness as the tears were absorbed into the earth.
urora awoke to the blast of fireworks in the air as the colors streamed across the sky. She jumped up, frazzled and disoriented, trying to get her bearings before finally discerning she was still in the backwoods behind Mrs. Taboo’s ruby-red house. She took a deep breath, wiped the dirt and tears away from her eyes, and paused to reflect on what she was going to do now. The fireworks show had started, and nobody had cared to look for her. She was invisible.
Aurora leaned against the side of the house to fix her shoe that was untied. The events of that afternoon made her nauseous, and she could not face these people again. Not Hattie, not Jonathan or her mother or Boreas, who would most likely make her pay for his broken cell phone. She wished she could stay hidden in those backwoods forever, but the night was making her restless and uneasy, especially being so close to the mysterious ruby-red house, where the inhabitants were never exposed. They were hidden away just like she was.
She stared at the house now within her touch and she felt fear gnawing at her intestines and she started imagining shadows coming to life and encircling her. She removed her hand from the wooden paneling and retraced her steps to go unnoticed from this forbidden abyss. She started to break out into a run when all of a sudden the deep blowing of the conch shell sounded out of nowhere, and she froze mid-step. She felt like her feet were glued to the soil, and her body trembled as she slowly turned to face the house that without a doubt was the source of this mysterious sound. She thought her mind was playing more tricks on her because out of the darkness one of the shadows had in fact come to life and was heading straight toward her. Overcome with fear, the shadow advanced, coming closer and closer. She braced herself for impact as the shadow collided with her body and both tumbled to the ground.
“Ow!” It exclaimed. “What the hell!”
It was a boy’s voice, and Aurora stood up quickly in defensive stance, groaning slightly from the ache the impact had left in her side. “Who is there?” she said forcefully, her voice no longer paralyzed.
The figure struggled to its feet and rubbed its knees. “You’re that stupid girl who broke my phone!” it shouted at her. “I’ve been looking for you all afternoon. You owe me a new phone!”
Of all the people to run into in the woods it had to be Boreas Stockington.
“Look, I’m sorry about your phone. I will get you a new one.”
“You’d better! And I am going to sue you for attacking me!”
“You can’t sue me for attacking you. You attacked me. You rammed right into me.”
“I thought you were a tree.”
“I look nothing like a tree.”
“Well, a very demented-looking tree.”
Another firecracker went off by the Stockington house, exploding shades of bright orange and yellows into the night sky, their twinkling resembling fallen stars.
“What are you doing here anyway?” Aurora asked as she rubbed her side, convinced it would be bruised by the Awakened Hour. She wished she had some ice. “Aren’t you supposed to be with your family, lighting the fireworks for the grand finale?”
Boreas swayed back and forth, and Aurora’s eyes began adjusting to the darkness and making out more than the shadowed frame of the teenager in front of her.
“They are doing fine without me,” he said sternly. “And it’s none of your business why I’m here.”
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to piss you off.”
“You already mastered that by breaking my phone.”
“Then you shouldn’t have taken that picture of me, you jerk,” she exclaimed, nearly pushing him, but he backed up out of her reach.
“What picture?”
“You heard me!”
Just then the conch shell sounded in the night, and both Boreas and Aurora froze, listening to the sound now getting louder and clearer in their midst.
“Did you hear...?”
“Yeah! Wait, you really did?”
“Yeah. I thought I was going crazy.”
“Me too!”
It sounded again, this time stronger and steadier.
Aurora felt goose bumps prickle on the back of her neck. “It’s coming from the house.”
“But no one lives there. My dad said it was abandoned months ago.”
“Old Mr. Harold said he saw Mrs. Taboo last week, that she still lives there.”
“Old Mr. Harold is a quack.”
“Then are we quacks too?”
One lone broken shutter banged against the side of the house, causing Aurora’s heart to nearly burst out of her chest. She was very glad Boreas had turned up when he did, though of course she would never admit it out loud. She watched as the leaves of the honey locust trees gently swayed back and forth in the wind. An outsider would never suspect that thorns lay hidden beneath those leaves, spiking out on the branches. Aurora feared this ruby-red house was just like those trees—appearing all innocent but potential danger within. And yet despite her instincts telling her to retreat, the answer was as clear to her as it had been that morning.
“We have to go into the house,” she declared, and Boreas laughed at her.
“You’ve got to be kidding. I am not going in there. It’s probably haunted or some crazy perverts are trying to lure us into their cave.”
“You watch a lot of movies, don’t you?”
“Well, there is some foundation of truth in that. My body is telling me to run—adrenaline pumping and all that scientific crap. You cannot be seriously thinking we need to go in there.”
“Did you hear the conch shell last night at the Sacred Hour?”
Boreas turned to her in complete disbelief. “How did you know that? Are you in cahoots with whatever is in there?”
“No, you idiot. I heard it too. And I heard it sound my name. It’s calling us. For some reason only we can hear this, and whatever is inside needs our help.”
Boreas gulped and nodded. “Well, then ladies first.”
The wind howled as they took their first steps toward the little ruby-red house, their footsteps crunching the grass with each step they took. Ghoulish faces were imprinted onto the tree trunks and glared at them as they trespassed. The sky was slightly overcast so that the only light was from the occasional burst of a firework that exploded nearby. It highlighted enough of the path before them to help them reach the window without tripping over the loose roots that were sticking out from the ground like booby traps barricading their path.
“I don’t think we should do this,” Boreas whispered, his deep voice pleading. “My dad will literally kill me if I end up in Candlewick Prison again.�
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“Shhh,” she instructed urgently as she mimed to him to give her a boost with his hands in order to reach the window. “Just don’t look up my dress,” she warned, and he snickered as if that was the last thing on his mind. Cobwebs draped over the crevice of the window, but it was slightly open, just enough to squeeze her pinky finger underneath and pull upward with all her strength. At first it didn’t budge, and a mosquito buzzed around her ear, distracting her momentarily. Boreas held her feet in his palms and whispered to her that it was possibly rusted from lack of use.
“Try again,” he urged, struggling to keep his balance.
She took a deep breath, mustering as much energy as she could, and lifted again with all her strength. The window squeaked slightly and then gave way, and she was able to squeeze the rest of her hands underneath and pull upward, creating an opening just big enough for the two of them to squeeze through. She wished she had changed out of her torn dress because jeans and a t-shirt would have made this break-in much more manageable. Burglars did not go breaking into people’s houses while wearing tight dresses. Probably rule number one in the guidebooks.
Her eyes adjusted to the darkness, and it appeared she was looking at a dining room. A table setting was placed at the head of the table, but it was clear of food. She smelled pea soup, but the plates were clean. Whoever was about to eat had lost their appetite in a hurry or was still cooking in the other room. She spotted a small flashlight on the table and hoped it would still work.
“Boreas, I think I see a flashlight. I am going to go first. If I am not out in ten minutes, call the police.”
“With what? I don’t have a phone, remember?”
Aurora wanted to kick him but instead tossed him her purse. “My phone’s in there. I don’t have a lot of battery, so don’t turn it on unless you absolutely have to. I’ll be right out.”
“Don’t get caught,” he whispered, the wind carrying the panic in his voice, which added to the feelings of foreboding she was experiencing first hand.
She slipped through the window and landed on the carpeted rug of the ruby-red house, picking up the small flashlight sitting on the cabinet. She was an unwelcome visitor, and the house knew it. She tiptoed her way across the carpeted dining room floor and pressed her ear against the closed mahogany door. The disturbing scent of pea soup wafted through the slits in the door, but she could not make out any motion or sound from within. She fumbled in the darkness for the door knob and opened it a crack. The door made a screeching sound, like a tortured cat screaming in slow motion, but there was no turning back. Aurora flung the door open and pressed her shaking finger onto the rubbery knob of the flashlight, and to her relief it illuminated a yellowish halo over a dilapidated kitchen. A wretchedly old and weathered pot was sitting on the stove. The gas burner was turned off but the scent of soup was still potent and rancid. She wearily turned around expecting at any minute the chef to pop out from behind the closed doors and make his or her whereabouts known. She had to stay in control of her senses and stay in the moment. There was someone living in this house after all. Soup had been made, but the chef had disappeared. Why? Was it before or after the conch shell had sounded and called them to this spot? She wanted to call out but didn’t know if Mrs. Taboo would appreciate her trespassing. Maybe she should have tried the doorbell first. That would have been logical. Why did she sense that the conch shell owner was in trouble? And what could she, an overweight girl of fifteen, who knew one self-defense move that her gym teacher had taught them the year before, do about it? Old Mr. Harold described Mrs. Taboo as an old woman. If that was the case, Aurora thought she could probably take her—as long as Old Mr. Harold was not senile.
She meandered her way slowly past the kitchen and into the foyer that led to the living room. Cobwebs draped down from the ceiling and the couches were smothered with dusty old sheets, as if it had been uninhabited for months. An old grandfather clock was silent in the corner, the hands fastened to the Sacred Hour. Dust tickled her nostrils, and she had to squeeze her nose so that she didn’t sneeze and bring down the entire house. She felt the floor was swaying—or was her mind hallucinating? She followed the mustard-yellow carpet that led her to a narrow corridor with medieval paintings fastened to the walls. She saw one of a cross and peered at it most curiously. The symbol of Christianity. She recalled reading about it in online by the author Thomas Young. He had been arrested after getting the story through the government security censures and had found a way to distribute the story to whoever had been online at that moment. Aurora had been one of those people and had read the story about a man named Jesus who could perform miracles. He had died for the people’s sins. Aurora had read the story, fascinated, but thinking it very farfetched. Immediately after the release, Thomas Young had disappeared, never to be heard from again, and the story was destroyed out of her inbox. But they hadn’t found a way to destroy her memory.
Aurora finally reached the end of the hall where there was only one more room left to view. The door was shut, and she hoped that her heartbeat was not audible to anyone besides herself. It was eerily quiet except for the nasally soft breaths she was taking, and she had a strong urge to flee from this place. There was something not right, and she feared what lay behind this sealed shut door, her imagination thinking of all different obscene scenarios. Maybe there was a reason this door was shut. People didn’t just leave their doors closed all the time. Could the inhabitants have been poisoned or killed by an insane madman who’d dumped their bodies in the bedroom?
Once again her curiosity led to excitement and renewed strength, and she slowly reached down with a quivering hand and touched the metallic knob, sparks bursting from her skin. She shook her hand and realized the static shock must have been from treading over the carpet. She tried again, and this time her hand enclosed the door knob with no obstructive force. She counted to ten and turned it quickly, shining the light into the darkness. An old woman’s gray eyes stared back at her, and Aurora screamed at the top of her lungs, her cry echoing throughout the entire house. She slammed the door shut and backed up against the wall, shrieking again, as the entire house appeared to come to life. She fell to the ground, searching wildly for the flashlight she had dropped. Where was it? She feared the door would fling open and the old woman’s eyes would again peer directly into her own. She put her hand against something hard, but it wasn’t a flashlight. She traced it with her hands and then realized it was a foot! A hand reached down and grabbed her shoulder. Instinctively she punched with all her strength and jumped to her feet, hearing the groans of her attacker. She then immediately performed her one self-defense move, which was putting her attacker into a head lock.
“Aurora,” the voice gasped. “It’s me! It’s me!”
She immediately released her hold on Boreas, recognizing his voice. He coughed again and again, his body letting air flow back into his bronchial passages.
“Are you trying to kill me?” he shrieked, leaning against the wall.
“I thought you were trying to kill me! What are you doing here? I thought you were standing guard!”
The flashlight was piercing his eyes, and he grabbed it from out of her hand. “Don’t shine that thing at me. You screamed, and I came rushing in to make sure you were okay. What happened?”
“I got scared. I thought it was Mrs. Taboo.”
She opened the door, this time in one fluid motion, and shone the light on the eyes of the old woman, this time the light illuminated the rest of the canvas.
“It’s just a painting of her. But that’s all that’s there. There are no more rooms in the house and it’s definitely uninhabited. If someone lived here they would have heard my scream. The conch shell must have been a trick or maybe even an animal from the woods.”
“An animal that sounds like a conch shell?” Boreas shook his head, not convinced.
He opened the bedroom door and shone the light on the painting of Mrs. Taboo. She was Indian and dressed in a red sari with a
shawl draped over her head. She was holding a compass that pointed north. She had a wicked smile on her wrinkled and withered face. The painting was held up against the wall over the bed that didn’t appear to have been slept in for weeks.
“It doesn’t add up,” Boreas said. “Then who made the soup?”
“Must have been from Mrs. Taboo when she came back. Over a week ago. That’s why it smells so rancid, left out in this heat for all that time.”
“And the rats,” Boreas cried out. Both immediately jumped to the opposite sides of the room as a large furry gray rat scurried past them. Aurora had her hand to her mouth to muffle her shriek. She was through with this house of horrors. She grabbed the flashlight from Boreas’s hand and started to retreat out of the bedroom when all of a sudden the conch shell sounded again, this time louder and clearer than it had before.
“It’s coming from behind the painting,” Aurora shouted, madly jumping onto the bed and lunging for the painting. “Someone is trapped behind it.”
Boreas bounded onto the bed, and both tried pulling the painting off its hinge, the old woman’s crooked smile gloating at them as if she knew something they didn’t.
“It’s not coming off. What kind of painting is this?”
She started banging on the wall and screaming, “We are here. Can you hear us? We can’t get the painting off.”
“I’ll run and get help,” Boreas shouted, about to jump off the bed when the entire house shook like an earthquake. They tumbled violently off the bed. Furniture crashed to the ground and sunk beneath the floor like quicksand, sucking everything in. Glass broke around them as the room started caving in. Aurora tried to cling onto the bedpost, but a shelf knocked into her and caused her to lose her grip and she slid toward the black hole vortex.
“I am going to fall under,” Aurora exclaimed, feeling her weight being pulled down beneath the floor boards. Boreas grabbed her hand and tried to hold onto the bedpost with the other. The pressure was unbearable, beating down on them.
