Finding the Way Back

by Jill Bisker

  I gazed around the room, searching for a weapon I could use to defend myself, but all I could see were the shadowy shapes of boxes piled around. I remembered seeing a baseball bat leaning against the dresser the night before. I groped for it in the dark, and was heartened as my fingers met the rounded, wooden surface.

  I tried to swallow, but my mouth was so dry my tongue just stuck to the roof of my mouth. I tightly clutched the bat and started down the hall. Fortunately the hallway was clear of clutter and debris, just about the only place in the house that was. I kept my back to the wall and stepped sideways, trying to keep the floor from groaning with the shifting of my weight. At least I didn’t have to look at the revolting wallpaper with only the glow of the nightlight lighting the way.

  The music was still playing. I didn’t hear any other noises that would indicate an intruder but I kept the overhead hall light off so I wouldn’t tip off anyone to my presence. I hoped it was just a radio, but it sounded odd, like an old recording that was muffled, or was coming from far away. It sounded familiar, like something from an old movie, but I couldn’t quite place it.

  Arriving at the top of the stairway, I halted at the landing and listened. I was about to take my first step down the stairs when the music abruptly stopped. The deathly silence that replaced it amplified my labored breathing so that I momentarily held my breath to avoid being heard. Had someone turned it off? Or did it turn off on its own?

  My hands were sweaty as I tightened my grip on the bat and bit down on my lip to keep my teeth from chattering. If I could just get to my cell phone.

  My feet were like ice as I felt my way down and stared straight ahead, not wanting to take my eyes off what little I could see of the living room and dining room below. I could feel my heart pounding in my chest but I kept moving forward anyway. I strained to hear some sound, some clue. Anything would have been better than the stillness that taunted me.

  My nerves were on edge, waiting for something to happen. I wasn’t big on confrontation in the first place, let alone defending myself physically. Simon had always stressed that that was his job. Well, I didn’t need him anymore. I could handle myself now. Part of me was terrified, but part of me thrilled at my first feeling of independence.

  I stepped into the living room, craning my neck to see if anyone was there, my feet warmed slightly by the shag carpet. The dining room was to my left, and both rooms were lit dimly by the lamp I left on in the living room. Not knowing what I might find, hoping not to find anything, I knew something was responsible for the unexplained music. I looked across both rooms, but all I could see were the boxes and clutter that filled every room in the house. I still didn’t hear any telltale noises such as a rustle of fabric or creak of the floor, and there was no movement I could see anywhere.

  Turning to look in the kitchen, I saw my purse on the counter next to the back door. It was a little darker than the other rooms, but I didn’t see anyone there either and I started to breathe a little easier. Not ready to abandon my small bit of protection, I placed the bat under my arm and walked over to dig my phone out of my purse. My relief was short-lived when I noticed the battery was dead. Great. The charger was upstairs in my suitcase so I just slipped the phone into a pocket of my robe.

  I rattled the knob of the back door to assure myself it was locked. There was a small window next to the door and I glanced out to the back yard but I couldn’t see beyond a small, wooden porch. It was pitch black with all the overgrown bushes and trees shading the yard. I tried the switch next to door hoping to turn on an outside light, but nothing happened. I hoped it was just a burned out bulb and not something more sinister.

  Not remembering if I locked the front door before going to bed, I tiptoed to the front entryway to check. Maybe the music came from outside. Holding my bat in one hand I quickly unfastened and fastened the lock, making sure it was secure. I flipped the switch next to the door but that light was burned out as well. I flipped it a few more times then shook my head in disgust. More bulbs to replace tomorrow. I wasn’t about to step out the front door to check any further. If someone was there, I wasn’t going to open the door and let them in.

  I shivered. It wasn’t this cold when I went to sleep, and I wondered if the heater had quit working in the night. It felt even colder here than it did upstairs. The house was certainly drafty, with poor insulation and windows that didn’t close quite right, but this felt like a deeper cold. Turning my head, I thought I saw something out of the corner of my eye. I spun around quickly to look into the dining room, raising my bat with two hands again. The hair on the back of my neck stood up and goosebumps ran up and down my arms. There was nobody there, and everything was still. God, this was a creepy place to be alone. My nerves were starting to get the best of me.

  I wondered what I should do next. I put the bat down next to the sofa and thought about the music once more. Looking around the room, I realized I would never find the errant radio tonight and decided to let it go until morning. I was thoroughly annoyed with myself and with the run-down old house I let my mother talk me into occupying ‘temporarily’ while it was renovated.

  Not knowing what else to do, I went back to the kitchen for a glass of milk. I stopped in the doorway and noticed the basement door was ajar several inches. I thought I slammed it closed earlier but maybe the latch didn’t catch. Did I need to search the basement? The music did sound muffled. I didn’t want to go down there in the daytime, let alone in the middle of the night after hearing strange sounds. I felt somewhat encouraged that no one had attacked me yet. If an intruder was really here he could have killed me by this time and been done with it. Or he could be hiding in the basement waiting for me to go back to bed so he could kill me in my sleep.

  I threw open the cellar door and turned on the light. Here we go again, I thought, back into the abyss. The light flickered disconcertingly when I turned it on. Just don’t burn out once I get down there, I prayed, my confidence beginning to seep out through the cracks in my self-assurance.

  I waited a few more moments, listening. If someone was there, they might have moved after I suddenly opened the door, allowing it to bang loudly against the wall. All was quiet.

  As I began to descend, I tried not to picture someone under the stairs reaching up through the open steps to grab my ankles. The stairs groaned and squeaked with each step. When I got to the bottom, I swiftly looked from side to side. The cold concrete was almost painful on my bare feet. I knew I didn’t want to stay here very long. The basement wasn’t terribly well-lit, but it was open enough to see that no one was there. The furnace against the back wall was humming, and seemed to be functioning. The weird feeling I had in the living room returned, and it felt like someone was watching me again.

  However, with no evidence of anyone around, I dismissed the feeling and attributed it to nerves. I had had enough. I turned and ran back upstairs to the first floor and slammed the door behind me, making sure it latched this time.

  I returned to the refrigerator for a glass of chocolate milk to help me calm down enough to go back to sleep. I was glad I stopped to pick up a few groceries earlier in the day. I opened the refrigerator door and brought out a carton of milk and a plastic container of chocolate syrup. Not trusting the cleanliness of anything in the cupboards, I reached into the box of kitchen items I had brought with me, and found my favorite red cup. I had brought a few of my familiar daily items to help me feel at home. I filled it with milk and reached for the chocolate syrup. Fully intending to pour the syrup into the cup, I instead popped the top and drank the syrup straight from the container. Some dribbled down my chin, but I just wiped it with the back of my hand and then licked that clean too. Satisfied with my straight injection of sugar, I then also put some syrup in my milk, and downed that in just a few swallows. Simon would have been appalled. But, you know, Simon wasn’t here, so maybe anything that appalled him was the right thing to do.

  My late-night snack complete, I retrieved my bat from the living ro
om and returned to my bedroom, leaving on all the lights behind me.

  Sitting on the side of the bed, I took a deep breath and thought of the events that had led me to this point. This wasn’t where I thought I’d be at the age of thirty-two. In my early twenties, I didn’t necessarily believe I needed a man to take care of me, I was stubborn and independent. But I sure had gotten used to having one around, and it would have been nice to have someone else here to take up the baseball bat and search for intruders. I believed Simon was supposed to be that person, but things didn’t turn out that way. The truth was, it had never been Simon. He had never been there when I needed him. Everyone kept telling me I’d get over it, that I would move on. But right now I still felt the anger, the resentment, even a little bit of shame that I hadn’t been able to keep his interest. Sometimes it felt like I would drown in the loneliness. I always went through life with a picture in my mind of how I thought things ought to be, and then reality ended up vastly different. Life could be quite the joke.

  I was still chilled so I crawled into bed with my robe on. Lying on my side, I listened for the music to return or any creaking that seemed out of the ordinary. It felt like hours that I lay there awake, tossing and turning, wondering what would happen next. Eventually, I fell back asleep.

  Chapter Three

  I didn’t know what time it was when my eyes opened again. I guessed it was early morning because I could see the sky lightening through the uncovered windows. The glow from the hallway light I left on the night before was seeping into my room and it brought back the memory of my nocturnal adventure. I tossed and turned after going back to bed, and I just couldn’t bear to get up yet. Feeling groggy, I leaned over to look at my watch but the room was still too dark for me to see the little numbers. Giving up, I decided I didn’t really care. Whatever the time, it was way too early. Was I going crazy, hearing music in the night? Maybe I shouldn’t be alone. I was actually thankful I was picking up my cousin Connie at the airport. Although we hadn’t seen each other very much over the past few years, our time spent together as children created some of my favorite memories. At least I wouldn’t be alone again at night. Everything is less scary with another person around. I had really let my imagination get the better of me the previous night when I allowed myself to get so scared. Buried somewhere in one of these boxes I would probably find the answer to the strange music.

  I took a deep breath. I needed more sleep than this. Turning over, I pulled the covers over my head so the light wouldn’t keep me awake. I made a conscious effort to clear my mind and actually fell into a fitful sleep.

  I dreamed I was standing in the kitchen and someone was knocking on the closed basement door. Knocking. Knocking. I was walking towards the door but my mind kept telling me not to open it. I needed to do something so that whoever or whatever was on the other side of the door couldn’t get through. When I was almost to the door, the knob started turning, the door was opening.

  I sat up straight in bed, throwing my quilt aside, wide awake. Someone was knocking on the basement door, for real. Then silence again. Upon hearing the next knock my mind cleared a bit and I realized someone was at the front door, not the dreaded basement door. The sun shone brightly into my eyes, making me wonder just how late it had gotten. It felt like I only went back to sleep for a few minutes but obviously hours had flown by. Relieved but still unsettled, I slid out of bed and looked for my woolen slippers. I found them in my suitcase and quickly pulled them on. The knocking continued as I tried to hurry down the stairs without slipping on the wooden steps, flipping off the light switch in the hall as I passed.

  Arriving at the front entryway, I looked through the beveled panes that graced the top of the heavy oak door to see who was knocking so early in the morning. I didn’t want to survive the night only to open the door in my pajamas to some serial killer. I didn’t see anyone standing on the porch so I unlatched the door and opened it just a crack. There was no one there, but a piece of paper fell from the door as I opened it. Reaching down to pick it up I saw that it was an order form for some kids’ sports team selling stuff. The girls’ racquetball team was selling candles.

  “I need ten dollar candles like I need more crap piled in this house,” I muttered to myself grumpily. If they came back later, I would be sure to hide and not answer the door because that was my Minnesota passive aggressive way of not ending up with fourteen candles I really didn’t need.

  There was a small table next to the door with a pile of unopened mail stacked on it, some of which had trickled to the floor. In the sunlight streaming through the front door, I could see the layer of dust on the table. On a whim I reached out and wrote my name in it with my finger. I set the flyer on top of the stack of mail and looked around. In broad daylight, the house didn’t seem quite so threatening. There still was crap everywhere—unopened boxes piled high from room to room, plastic bins, heaps of papers, and bulky pieces of mismatched furniture tucked in and around the dining room table and hutch. I moved about the living room, looking in one box and glancing in another on my way by. So far I could see he had collected old children’s magic tricks in their original boxes, and several boxes of 78 RPM vinyl records. There were a few boxes of tools which might come in handy when I had to start fixing things. I wondered what other riches might be hidden in all the containers.

  Amongst all the piles, I noted the architectural details and built-ins typical of an old, craftsman style house. The wide, oak crown moldings and fireplace mantle were visible, but the lead glass doors that enclosed the solid shelves surrounding the hearth were mostly obscured by the disarray. Sometime during the seventies the horrible brown shag rug had been installed, along with the heavy, matching curtains, everything covered in the same layer of dust as the small table by the door. I hoped that when we stripped the carpets out there would be hardwood floors beneath everything.

  A newer flat screen television was on prominent display and it seemed a surprising touch to the dated interior. A recliner and couch faced the TV stand, the view uninterrupted. A low coffee table in front of the couch had piles of clothing, newspapers, magazines, and beer cans waiting for someone to clear away. The couch was filled with boxes. That left the recliner as the only piece of furniture free from clutter. My grandfather had obviously had his priorities.

  Next to the TV, a battery-operated clock sat on the stand, reminding me I had to watch the time so I could pick up Connie at the airport. But first, there were a lot of things I wanted to do before picking up my cousin. The house was in total disorder and I knew I would feel much better if I could reclaim some living space from the wilderness. I hated feeling disorganized and out of place. Unfortunately, it seemed as though I would be discombobulated for quite some time. I realized as I looked around that I would have to clear out most of my grandfather’s possessions before we would even be able to start any renovation projects. This was going to be a much larger job then I had anticipated.

  I looked around at the mess and wondered if it was worth it. However, I could see the charm beneath the mess—the wood trim, the plaster detail, the ornate fixtures. I was really looking forward to the redecorating my mom asked me to do, and I knew I could make this house a showplace. I had grown up helping remodel houses. My parents loved buying old properties, fixing them up and selling them. They were never happy unless they had a project to work on and that always meant that I had projects I was helping with. With my father gone now, and Mom getting on in years, she could no longer tackle such a big project. In this economy, I would need to be very careful about the renovations I wanted to do—I could no longer put too much money into a house and still make a profit.

  I loved refinishing furniture, stripping wallpaper, painting, and doing small fixes, but I had never taken down walls, replaced cabinets myself, or sanded floors. In the past, I would hire it out when remodeling my home with Simon. He always thought I’d hurt myself or that I’d do it wrong. Now I was excited to try some of the work myself. After watching
all the home improvement shows I really wanted to take a sledge hammer to some walls. It might even be good therapy.

  I just needed to find out how much money my mom and Aunt Shelly were willing to sink into the old homestead they had just inherited. Then I could find a contractor we could trust to help me get the job done. Unfortunately, there were some major projects that probably had to be done that I wouldn’t even consider attempting on my own, such as replacing the roof, the windows, and possibly even the foundation. That would run into some big dollars before I ever got to the fun stuff of redecorating. I took another deep breath and had to tell myself—don’t think too far ahead, Laney, or you might never get started.

  Walking into the kitchen, I felt a little depressed. It was a dismal space with dirty white cabinets, ancient appliances, and unfortunately, no dishwasher. The counters were an unusually-colored eyesore. Who put red linoleum on a counter top anyway? Worn red and white striped linoleum was on the floor—at least it matched the countertops. A white, porcelain-covered, cast iron sink with numerous chips that had rusted sat beneath the window. At least I’d be able to look at the trees and see the neighborhood while I washed my dishes.

  By now, I really needed coffee. Eyeing the worn outlet by the sink, I hoped the electrical wiring was okay and I wouldn’t electrocute myself just plugging in my machine. I reached into my box on the table and pulled out my coffee maker, smiling as I realized how much I loved my cup of coffee in the morning. I had just bought one of those machines that made a single cup at a time in just a few short minutes. Simon had never wanted me to buy one before because he wanted fresh ground beans, brewed in his expensive espresso machine.

  “Screw you, Simon Hughes,” I said out loud. I was going to allow myself this one simplicity and he could grind his own damned beans.