Shadow Garden

by Alexandra Burt

  A ghost house is what this is. One moment there was a landing I used to navigate from but now there are so many rambling hallways, half stories, offset stairs, it’s no longer simple and easy to get around, and everything is complicated and overthought. The transition between floors makes my head spin. I’m tangled within these walls. Maybe it’s just the dark inducing some sort of bewilderment? That’s what I tell myself: the darkness is playing tricks on me.

  The hallway unfolds and there’s panic. Has the house morphed into a labyrinth? There’s this sinking feeling of despair, a lack of confidence in finding my way around, and is this warped house no longer willing to accommodate me? I might as well admit it to myself: I am lost. How does one get lost in one’s own home?

  Making my way back down the stairs, I end up in a passageway with a round table and a hideous horse statue. A glimmer of a memory in this otherwise unaccustomed space—Penelope in pajamas, a Christmas morning, her calling out to me, mere seconds and she was down the stairs tearing wrapping paper, Edward saying from above, “Would you look at that, Santa’s been here!”—but then my heart sinks right through my body onto the floor. Is that where we used to put up the Christmas tree? I don’t remember the area being so spacious. Why would I not remember the very house where I raised my daughter and where I lived for almost twenty years?

  If I were in court, if someone made me rest one hand on a bible and raise the other, I’d say this isn’t my house. But that is just silly. Silly.

  20

  DONNA

  Down the hallway, a window looks out onto the neighboring property—the St. Clairs—the house is barely a faint light in the distance. What a pretentious name. The interior is decorated in white, all white mind you, even the bricks are painted white. Any designer or real estate professional will tell you that’s a sin.

  There were nights at Shadow Garden I dreamed in such vivid details about Hawthorne Court that when I woke I often forgot for a fraction of a second where I was. Though the muddle of the layout continues, to my surprise, I find the door to Penelope’s room just fine. The more I hype myself, the heavier my heart gets.

  Why haven’t you called me or visited?

  If you think I’m mad at you, I’m not.

  I love you, that’s what mothers do.

  Your father told you lies about me, is that what this is?

  I grasp the glass doorknob and I stand there, unable to move. The knob turns and the door swings open. I hover on the threshold. Paralysis isn’t an exaggeration, for once I’m not being dramatic. I don’t dare enter because the very end of the room disappears into blackness.

  21

  DONNA

  A nostril flare confirms the carpet smells stale, unaired, yet there’s something else, a tinge in the air, a trace of something I can’t quite place. Though I’m unable to make out details in this faint light, I know Penelope’s room by heart, every inch is etched into my brain. Though impossible to validate in the dark, the walls are painted in a soft daffodil yellow with gold flecks mixed into the paint.

  Three framed prints on the opposite wall centered in a horizontal grouping tell a fictional story of an accumulation of bad choices. One: a girl leaning out of a window as she brushes her long hair. Rapunzel was the epitome of Penelope, mainly concerned with herself, up in a tower, but also, and I hate to admit it, due to the actions of her parents she ended up in the hands of a witch. In the second print, the girl sets off into the forest, carefree, her dress billowing, and her head high. A fearless heroine, Penny the adolescent, curious and unafraid in everything she did. I have since abandoned that belief and replaced it with a complete absence of self-awareness, ignoring the dangers of the world rather than being daring. Unprepared and ill equipped. In the third print the girl comes upon wild animals in the woods, battling them, her dress torn and her hair undone, unable to fight them off. I shiver.

  The light and the darkness in the room create confusing and obscure shapes and nothing about it says it has recently been occupied. There are shadows on the floor, on the walls, on the shelves. There’s no nightstand, no vanity. No couch. No chair. No coffee table. No white fluffy rug. The bookshelves are there but only a few sad editions rest flat on the dusty surface. Nothing is as it used to be, it’s a dollhouse without furniture, empty and unassembled.

  Drawing conclusions is difficult with just the faint moonlight coming through the window and I won’t know until I turn on the light. I close the door gently so as not to make a sound. Pushing the dimmer to the bottom, I switch on the light and move the knob up. The light in the room is barely more than the flickering of a candle, yet I see the floor clearly: dark squares and light rectangles in the shape of tables and couches and chairs. No one had been here to move furniture to allow the wood to evenly lighten. Ruined. It’s all ruined.

  Penelope’s not here and neither are her things. Do I check every room of the house to find her? That seems impossible in the dark—too many rooms, too much can go wrong. Look for signs, I tell myself. Look for signs and clues about Penelope.

  I step toward the window and peer outside. The oak is too tall to see Preston Hallow Road. Placing my hand on the windowsill and leaning forward until my forehead touches the glass, I run my fingertips across the wooden frame. Splinters and slivers and bits of wood dig themselves into my skin. The window casings are peppered with holes, numerous wooden chips have gathered on the sill, I feel deep grooves beneath my fingers like someone took some sort of tool to the frame and hammered away.

  The closet door is open and in the corner, like an array of sticks, sit floorboards with nails sticking out. In the far end of the room is the bed frame—just a mattress, no sheets or pillows—a skeletal piece with four posters. Draped over the footboard is a pillowcase, left behind in a hurry, as if its existence has escaped the person who removed everything else from the room. Even the fabric that was used to create the canopy is gone.

  The shapes on the walls must be my imagination. Square, the size of an index card. Brushstrokes, they look like? Someone sampling shades and color choices before making a selection?

  Pulling the pillowcase off the bed, I bunch it up and with my foot shove it into the gap underneath the door to keep the light from escaping into the hallway. I push the dimmer up another notch. The dark corners of the room illuminate and the angles and curves are now clear for me to inspect. Dings and dents everywhere. I recognize the indentations on the wall for what they are: square holes with jagged edges.

  I inspect the bookshelves. The ledges are spare, only a few books remain flat on their backs, toppled over as the adjacent ones were removed. They are dusty, though the pages are immaculate as if they’ve never been cracked open. I stroke the spines as if the physical touch will make my mind recall them, yet none of them look familiar. I study the titles, make an attempt to recall the covers and stories, but I can’t seem to make a connection. I can’t quite get there. All those dollhouses Penelope had are so vivid in my mind—chairs, vanities, coat hangers, and fireplace stokers, no feature left neglected. How does one remember one detail but not another?

  I switch off the light and push the pillowcase away from the crack underneath the door, turning to look at the room one more time.

  There’s a shiny object on the floor. I step toward it and get down on my knees. My hand passes through it and I realize it’s just a sliver of moonlight coming through a crack in the window. My veins are prominent, my bones protrude. There’s a shift, a slight flicker, real or imagined, who’s to say. Old houses do that, make the world fluid, like a double exposed photograph. Am I caught in overlapping timelines? Or have I been in a coma and the world has gone on without me and I’m just now catching up to it?

  One vivid memory pops into my head, from a time long ago. I take a deep breath, hold it. There’s a question in my head, a loop without beginning or end, like a corkscrew, it spirals down, down, down, down, to the bottom of the steps.
Out the door and to the place where I must go.

  That’s where I will find the truth about Penelope.

  22

  EDWARD

  Edward awakes to a thud. A tree touching a window, a falling branch, he can’t tell. He stares off into the darkness. There’s the sound of breathing that isn’t his own, a labored heaving like someone having exerted themselves. Probably his very own breath waking from a nightmare he no longer recalls. The duvet lies bunched up next to him and the night is cold. Maybe he neglected to shut a door or close a window? He’s been forgetful lately.

  He’s aware of the shadows in the room, so familiar in the space he used to share with Donna. He could swear she’s standing next to him, he smells the scent of her lotion hanging in the air. He’s imaging this, must be, her perfume probably trapped in the bedding.

  His forehead is hot as if he has a fever. He sits up in bed, sweating and chilled at the same time. There’s a humming in his ears. He hasn’t been himself lately, feels dizzy all the time. A constant spinning sensation, his body is no longer his own, hasn’t been familiar to him in months. His bones must be leaking calcium, his wrists are weak and his muscles have lost their strength, how else is he to explain that he can’t open as much as a jar without straining?

  Even though he’s grown accustomed to it, he loathes staring into the dark. The blackness around him multiplies his anxiety as if the night has studied him and seen to it he wakes. He evens his breathing, and then he hears the floorboards creak. No, it’s more than that. It’s not the house settling, this time it’s different, he knows something is there. He wants to reach for the light switch but then he doesn’t. All those hours he’s been wandering around this house in the dark, he knows every inch of it. No need to turn on the light. But he’ll take a flashlight. Just in case.

  23

  DONNA

  As if teleported, like a figure in a dollhouse plucked from one part of the house and discarded in another, I find myself on the first floor.

  I remember something else now—the months of my depression. How easy it has become to call it what it was: my depression. The misery of it all, like vapors it hung in the air. The staircase, the winding one, echoes with Edward’s voice, why why why did you do that?

  There was this long, drawn-out period of behavior that was odd, to say the least. It began with a rather short temper I suddenly felt prone to, its origin not something I could put my finger on. I was lashing out, in the beginning I had enough insight to be aware of it. I blamed Penelope for it, her living at home.

  “The strangest things are happening to me,” I’d told Edward and described one of the incidents to him. I called a cashier a name because she didn’t bag my groceries fast enough, waiters also got the brunt of it, I’m embarrassed to say—I was so relentless in my pursuit to hurt people and dash out insults.

  The next thought comes to me in a random fashion. That’s what this house does, it makes it all come back.

  Down the hallway, there’s a window open inward, like a door. From there I see the pool and parts of the pool house. A cast-iron bench sits observing the night.

  I pause in front of my former bedroom—our former bedroom. It’s time. It’s time. It’s time.

  It’s all there, plain as day. All those years, an entire lifetime sloshes over me. I will my breathing to slow as if my beating heart is echoing off the walls. I turn the knob and I enter the room.

  The cedar closet door on the far end is open. Even in the dark I can make out the room, the furnishings, even the corners in their entirety. It’s odd and disjointed, none of the furniture I remember is here, how can that be? Those wingback chairs with the glass tables are an atrocity. I walk backward and bump into something. A wooden banker chair with wheels screeches across the floor. A negligent move on my part, reminding me to be more careful, be on my toes, have my ducks in a row. I bump into a wall—why is there a wall? This house, this room, it’s like my body doesn’t know where it begins and where it ends or maybe the house is encroaching on me? I know there’s no such thing, it’s not like the house is alive. Is it?

  The bed is no longer on the east wall but in front of the windows facing the back of the house. A single body forms an outline underneath the duvet, chest uncovered, expanding then lowering. One must ask questions to keep sane and so I allow myself: What if the man in the bed isn’t Edward at all? What if he sold the house and there’s someone else sleeping in this bed? It’s not a woman, not a child—a man for sure—but maybe even that’s a lie my mind is telling me. The body stirs but there’s not enough light in the room to see his face.

  I step carefully toward the bed. I reach out and pull the duvet off the man’s shoulders, away from his torso. He turns and rolls over, mumbles in his sleep. He reaches for the duvet, pulls it back over himself. The man stills and I dare not move. My brain is sending weird signals. All those things happen simultaneously and all I can think of is how I would have preferred to have some sort of a weapon in my hand, in case he charges at me.

  What I do next, I can’t explain. Not in the moment, not later on. My arm hovers in midair, my hand floats above him. Once that movement is made, everything after is hard to undo. I touch his cheek ever so lightly as if I want to wake him gently. The man sighs and that’s when I know it’s Edward. I can tell by the way he releases a breath, the minute pause he makes after he has completely deflated his lungs. I take a step back and that’s when he opens his eyes.

  I have retreated far enough into a dark corner, where I remain invisible. I reach back to steady myself but the wall behind is out of reach. I don’t remember the room being this large.

  Edward sits up and looks around, disoriented. He gazes in my direction, yet the shadows protect me from his view. He reaches for his glasses but they slip out of his hands. They land softly on the carpet. Quietly I take another step back. The wall is now cold against my back. One more step to the left and I’m in the bathroom. I slip into the space where the commode is. If he switches on the light, he will see me. I don’t know what will happen after, I have no plan for what to do or what to say.

  Edward is up and about. A drawer opens and closes, followed by a beam powering through the darkness. How silly of him to use a flashlight, why not switch on the overhead light?

  He leaves the bedroom and I follow him, the beam of light alternating between illuminating the ground in front of him as if to make sure there are no surprise obstacles, then pointing straight ahead to find his way. I move about the edges of rooms, my body brushing against woodwork in hallways. I slide behind a column or remain on the other side of a doorway, in corners, that’s where the shadows are best, where I feel secure, as if I’ve just been handed an invisibility cloak.

  Following Edward feels peculiar. The flashlight dangles lifeless in his hand and underneath an accent table it reveals rolled-up rugs. Edward isn’t looking for an intruder, he’s predictable in his movements, no sudden turns, and most of all, he sees what I see, the chaos of this house, yet he’s on autopilot, robotic in his steps, as if this is some sort of nocturnal pastime. His gait is that of a man overwhelmed, as if something has been claiming him bit by bit. I know him, know him too well, this is, was, my husband, how would I not?

  The beam shoots upward as we reach the living room, spotlighting a cluster of photographs—strange apparitions as the light passes over them—there are so many gaps and the ones that remain are crooked. The mantel, so stark and empty. And above it all, the disarray, the missing furniture, the disorder, lingers the scent of old ashes, the raised hearth is sprinkled with debris.

  We reach the entrance to the kitchen, a rectangular space, where it’s not impossible for a light beam to catch me. There is nowhere to hide, crouching behind the island is all I can do, I have to think think think—I won’t see him coming if I stoop behind it—and I panic.

  The man, who had just barely shuffled through the dark, stops dead in h
is tracks. Like in a game of freeze I pause, mere inches from him. I’m his shadow, that’s how close I am. Nothing but a swift swivel on his part and the light will expose me. To the right, past the butler’s pantry, is the back door. I stare at it, prepared to make a run for it. I’m overheated and my heartbeat pounds in my ears but I don’t waver, I have to trust myself.

  How absurd to follow Edward, yet how essential it was just ten minutes ago. As if he heard something, he turns and moves past the opening into the kitchen and back to the living room. His pace even slower now, defeated. I stare at the back door, imagine the pebbled back porch underneath my feet. The path to the pool house.

  It still bears the same memory—the hodgepodge of discarded outdoor furniture and lounge chair covers and umbrella stands—but there’s something else. I can’t come up with a clear understanding of why I do it, but I abandon Edward, leave him to his nocturnal stroll, and silently slip out the back door.

  Like a ghost in the night I make my way to the pool house. The door is unlocked—still, we have never been able to locate the key and no one’s ever bothered to replace the lock—and though it was an unfinished thought just seconds ago, I now feel compelled to search the entire place. I turn to look back at the house and there’s Edward, standing on the lawn, his legs in a stance as if in anticipation of a gust of wind about to knock him over. He points the flashlight across the expansive lawn, as if he’s expecting to see someone rush away from the house.

  I slip into the pool house and pull the door shut behind me. I don’t know how much time I have, I better be quick.