by Joe Hart
“Yes, thanks very much. Oh, and my name is Mary. You gave me yours, it’s only right I do the same.”
Lance smiled. “Nice to meet you, Mary.”
“You too.”
Without further risk of embarrassment, Lance turned and walked out the front door and into the heat of the day. As the bell dinged mutedly behind him in the store, he shook his head and hurried to the Land Rover. The similarities between Mary and the woman he had seen in his car were undeniable.
As he backed the SUV up and then drove down the street to the northern end of town, he realized that instead of resolving the questions that had been eating at him since seeing the house in his mind, only more had emerged like foreboding ships out of a foggy sea.
Lance checked and then rechecked the fire number on the driveway against the one written on the listing printout. They matched—he was here.
The gravel driveway led from the pavement at a ninety-degree angle. The drive crossed over a set of intersecting railroad tracks and then dropped down into a large turnaround. The circular drive sat on a rough upheaval of ground made decorative by the growth of three small pine trees. The berm hadn’t had a good going-over in years and looked shabby with weeds beginning to grow over the timid grass layering the bottommost area. The drive led away from the road and turned sharply into a thick copse of woods. Oak, birch, and pine all intermingled, making an impenetrable wall that dominated the right side of the highway.
Lance had lost sight of Superior several miles back as the road curved away from the water. Although the real-estate agent had told him over the phone the house was only five miles north of Stony Bay, the turn had still snuck up on Lance as he rounded a hard left.
As he pulled into the drive, he took in the surroundings. The sun filtered in less and less through the crowded trees as he drove farther into the property, bathing the interior of the car in dingy light. Gray squirrels ran and jumped from branch to branch on all sides. The gravel crunched under his tires, and when he rounded yet another corner in the driveway, he finally got his first look at the house.
It loomed solemnly in the middle of a clearing, just as he had seen on the realty website. The grass in the yard looked longer than in the photo and there was an air of disuse about the grounds. The stone of the lower level had darkened with time, and moss of some sort grew in patches here and there in the cool shadows. The logs of the upper floor were beginning to lighten and needed to be stained. Two darkened windows stared him down from the upper floors as he approached, and he could see a few sticks lying like sunbathing snakes on the roof. Another circular turnaround was positioned before the front entry and a twin of the berm at the driveway’s mouth rose neatly in its center. Lake Superior stretched out beyond the house like a dreary drop cloth, its waves rolling over one another in a race to reach the rocky shore first. In its day, Lance thought, it would have been a sight to behold; perhaps a place of envy by neighbors who lived in much less striking abodes nearby.
A shining Chevy Tahoe and a Ford Ranger so rust-coated its original color was indiscernible were parked near the front door. As Lance approached and stopped the Land Rover a few paces behind the Ranger, he caught sight of a man sitting on a stone bench just outside the entryway. Lance could only make out white hair protruding in every direction from beneath a dark baseball hat that had been jammed on, it seemed, as an afterthought. The man also wore a black T-shirt and baggy gray painter’s pants. The bill of the hat obscured his features, but if he had to guess, Lance would have placed him near seventy-five, if not more.
When Lance cut his engine, the man seated on the bench looked up and stared from beneath the brim of his hat, his hands resting flat by his sides. He looked like someone on the edge of a deep pool contemplating a dunk into waters that he no longer trusted. Lance opened his door and shut it, making his way between the vehicles to the front porch. The man did not move as he approached, and it was only when Lance was a few feet away that the man betrayed the illusion of a statue.
“Afternoon,” the elderly man said, his dark eyes running uneasily up and down Lance.
“Hi, I’m Lance. I’m here to see the house,” he said as he stepped forward and extended his hand. The man hesitated only a moment before reaching out and shaking Lance’s outstretched palm. The man’s hand felt like iron wrapped in paper.
“John Hanrahan. I’m the caretaker here, although I haven’t been able to fulfill my duties as of late, and for that I apologize.”
“I think the place is beautiful, just needs someone to live here, I’m guessing.” John pursed his lips and nodded in agreement. A moment later the front door opened and a tall blond woman dressed in a white business suit and black high heels stepped out onto the concrete apron before the entry.
“Lance?” she said as she strode over to him, her hand held out before her.
“Yes, and you must be Carrie?”
“The one and only,” she said, beaming at him through what must have been an inch of makeup. “Well, what did you think of the drive? Very scenic up here, but just wait until fall. You said you live near Minneapolis, right?” Without giving pause to let Lance answer, she hurtled on through what must have been a customary greeting and sales pitch combined. “I lived there in college, couldn’t really get the hang of city life though. I grew up a few miles south of Duluth, so this has always been my home, so to speak. I wouldn’t trade it for the world. Come inside and I’ll give you the grand tour.”
Lance followed Carrie as she spun on one polished black heel and disappeared back into the house. As he mounted the steps, Lance looked over his shoulder at the old man, who still sat on the bench, not looking in his direction but staring at something across the yard, seemingly in deep thought. Lance was about to ask him if he was coming with them when Carrie’s high voice called out from inside.
“Coming, Lance?”
He turned away from the motionless figure on the bench and stepped into the coolness of the house.
The foyer that met him was wide with tall ceilings. Smooth oak planking made up the floor he stood on, and the walls were covered in surprisingly light, neutral colors. Beyond the foyer, the home opened up with vertical support beams made of stained logs that ran from the floor to the ceiling nearly fifteen feet overhead. A large bathroom was positioned to the right with bright track lighting already glowing within. Lance assumed Carrie had gone throughout the house before he arrived, throwing on lights and perhaps tidying up a bit to further entice her potential buyer.
“The last owners really wanted to modernize the old place. They sheetrocked over all of the stone walls, which to me wasn’t the best idea, but it turned out really well nonetheless. The house was built in the late forties just as Stony Bay was being fully established. Actually, the bay out front is the town’s namesake and I’m guessing you’ll be able to see why.”
Lance followed the realtor farther into the house, glancing up every so often at the large chandeliers hanging from ornate chains. Suddenly he imagined he could see the blond man sitting in an overstuffed chair covered by a white sheet. Lance stopped and stared. The man blinked and Lance could see a tear running down the right side of his face. Absently, the man wiped it away and kept looking forward blankly, then dissolved to leave only an empty dust-covered chair behind. He’s here, Lance thought. Why’s he here? What is he waiting for? Lance’s mind was so consumed with the story dancing at the edges of his imagination that he barely heard Carrie speak to him.
“Lance, are you okay?” He nodded and licked his lips as he looked at the Realtor vacantly.
“Sorry, I’m fine. Long drive,” Lance replied, finally gathering his wits. The Realtor gave him a sidelong glance and turned to walk farther into the house.
Carrie led him into a wide kitchen set into the right side of the home. Lance admired the black marble the prior owners had chosen for countertops and the contrasting light wood of the cabinets beneath. A hanging pot rack hovered over a large cutting block in the middle of the room, and Lance even spie
d a fairly new-model dishwasher tucked beneath one end of the counter.
“As you can see, they spared no expense in the kitchen. If I remember right, the owner used to be a chef at a culinary school in Boston.” Lance nodded and was about to follow Carrie out of the kitchen when he imagined the blond man seated at the counter, staring forlornly out of the window. There was a scrap of paper and a dulled pencil lying on the marble top. His left hand kept rolling the pencil back and forth, over and over.
Excitement buzzed in Lance’s stomach as he followed Carrie out into the wide expanse of the dining/living room. Details were starting to appear. It was always the first sign of a story taking shape. He would see something in his mind or imagine it happening in the world around him, and it was only when he noticed a detail within the imaginations that he realized there was something worth writing there.
“To me, this is the best part of the house. The atrium was added just before the previous owners bought it. It’s the best view of Lake Superior I’ve ever seen.” Lance stepped out into the glass room and couldn’t help but agree. The panoramic view floated before them, unobstructed by walls or doors. The contractor who had built the vestibule was talented and had the foresight not to install wide supports that would have cut up the observatory like a tic-tac-toe board.
“I could write here, I think,” Lance murmured, mostly to himself, but the Realtor perked up instantly.
“You’re a writer?” she said with what seemed to be polite interest, but after a moment Lance could almost see the gears turning and lights flipping on in the control rooms behind her eyes. “Oh my God! You’re Lance Metzger! Wow! I’ve read some of your books! I didn’t put two and two together until now. God I’m so dumb!” Carrie issued a high, annoying titter that made Lance’s teeth grate against one another, but he smiled nonetheless and nodded as Carrie’s face flushed in the light thrown by the afternoon sun. “So, you’re coming here to write a novel?” For the first time the Realtor seemed genuinely interested in Lance and what he had to say.
“Possibly, if everything works out. I do really like the place so far, but I’d love to see the rest of it.” He hoped that the gentle redirection wouldn’t hurt the woman’s feelings, and he was grateful when she smiled and continued walking through the living room.
“This is such a nice room—the bay windows looking out over the lake and the high ceilings. Just a really great room to mingle or have a little get-together in.” Carrie nodded while pulling her overly red lips into a grin that any clown would have envied. She turned and began to make her way across the living room, to the stairway that undoubtedly led up to the bedrooms on the second floor. Lance trailed after her, his eyes looking for another piece of the story to jump out at him when they landed on a darkly stained door set off to the north side of the room. The door looked odd to Lance, set in a recessed frame, uncharacteristic of the other remodeling the house had undergone. So flat and smooth. He strained to see a gap at any of the sides of the entrance. An oblong cast-iron door handle protruded from a steel plate, seamlessly fastened in the wood.
“What’s in there?” Lance asked, and Carrie paused, two stairs up from the main floor.
“Oh, that? That’s storage. I think the prior owner may have had some of his cooking equipment in there before moving. It’s locked. I have the key somewhere in my office, I believe.” Without hesitating, she turned and made her way farther up the wooden stairway to the second floor.
Instead of following, Lance walked toward the door and examined it further. It was even darker than he had initially thought and coated with an enormous amount of lacquer. The depth of the grain pattern in the wood was intricately layered and almost mesmerizing. His hand reached out to the doorknob. Could he feel cold coming off the iron, or was it his imagination? His fingers stretched out, a few inches from the black of the handle. Closer. There was definitely a chill coming off the knob. His hand circled to grasp it.
Lance.
The whisper came from the door. His hand froze over the knob and he looked back and forth to see if perhaps John had entered behind them without him noticing. The house remained silent around him, and he could no longer see Carrie at the top of the stairs.
Lance.
It came again, and this time there was no denying it. The sound had issued from behind the door. Lance knelt before the handle and peered into the small black keyhole below the knob. There was only darkness there; no windows seemed to grace the room inside. He leaned farther in. A soft stream of cold air filtered out of the hole, making his eye begin to water. He peered closer, straining to make out any features of the room beyond.
The darkness on the other side of the keyhole moved.
“Lance?”
He flew back from the door, scrambling to remain on his feet. A wood pillar rammed firmly into his shoulder blades, pain blooming there and halting his backward motion. He could feel his eyes bulging in their sockets and it seemed that his scalp had been drawn into a thousand tight points. Carrie stood at the top of the stairs, a fist held tightly to her chest, as if she were grabbing at her heart. Even from where he stood leaning against the support, Lance could see the furrows of worry on her brow.
He stretched his jaw and it clicked loudly, echoing off the flat surfaces of the nearly empty house. His mouth was full of syrupy spit and his heart felt as if it had somehow learned to double-beat within the last minute or so. Something had moved behind the door, he was sure of it. It wasn’t the twisting of nothingness the eye sometimes saw in the complete lack of light. The darkness itself had shifted. Had he really heard his name, or was it just the apprehension he had felt at the sight of the door? Trying to regain his composure, he stood without the help of the log behind him and aimed a tight smile up the stairs.
“Sorry, just stumbled. Knocked the wind out of me, I think.” Lance saw the Realtor’s face relax, but unease remained just below the surface. Lance breathed in and out several times as he began to climb the stairs. “Let’s see the bedrooms,” he said as he neared the woman on the landing, and kept the smile frozen in place like the mask that it was.
“So, what do you think?” Carrie asked as she shut the front door behind them, and walked down to where Lance stood by the now-vacant bench. Her enthusiasm, which had been dampened by Lance’s odd behavior, returned as she led him through the two spare rooms along with the enormous master bedroom, complete with a full attached bath.
Lance stood looking out across the open grounds toward the shoreline beyond the house. He could see the outline of the old caretaker there, now seated in a lawn-chair beside the large three-season gazebo.
“It’s great, really spacious, which I like. Would it be okay if I took a turn around the outside and get a feel for it?”
“By all means. I’ll just be in my car if you have any questions.” Carrie began to turn away when Lance stopped her.
“Why didn’t John come inside with us?”
Carrie smiled as she stepped closer to him and lowered her voice conspiratorially, as if to keep the breeze that blew between them from carrying her words across the yard like fallen leaves.
“John’s been the caretaker here for close to fifty years. He’s seen owners come and go. I think he feels quite an attachment to the place and he might be a bit upset seeing it change hands again.”
“How many times has the house been sold?” The Realtor’s makeup-caked face took on an almost cartoonish thoughtful expression.
“The same owners have been trying to sell it since I became a Realtor two years ago. Beyond that, I’m not really sure. John would be able to tell you, though; he’s been knocking around this part of the world for a long time. He might’ve even known the person who built the place.” Carrie laughed while Lance nodded and thanked her before turning to walk through the ankle-length grass.
Lance noticed the wind had picked up, and the waves on the lake reflected it. Whitecaps were beginning to form every so often in the distance, like the backs of whales surfacing for ai
r. He counted at least a dozen submerged boulders poking their heads out of the water within the bay directly in front of the house. He wondered absently how many boats had been damaged or sunk just a few hundred yards from shore and if their skeletons were still there like bones of ancient aquatic creatures, waiting in the shallows.
Lance stopped and stood still as he came abreast of the caretaker, who sat motionless in the plastic chair. John’s eyes were narrowed, studying the bay. He didn’t acknowledge Lance’s presence, so instead of breaking the silence first, Lance sat on the lawn nearby, his arms resting on the tops of his knees. Waves continued to crash on the shore, marking off the seconds and minutes that passed by, their insatiable thirst for erosion unquenchable.
“You’re pretty good at being quiet,” John said. Lance turned his head and studied the old man’s profile. It was worn and tired, like a statue made of materials unintended for rain and wind. “I’ve had a lot of practice.”
John lifted his chin in acknowledgement. “You gonna buy the old place?”
“The thought crossed my mind.” John nodded again. A lone seagull coasted overhead, the wind fueling its flight without the beat of its wings. It looked down on them for a moment, its black beady eyes there and gone as it glided away in search of food.
“You’re a writer.” The words were a statement, not a question.
“Yeah, have you read my books?”
“No, knew your name, though. You’re alongside Patterson sometimes when I buy his latest. I like Patterson.” Lance smiled and looked back out across the expanse of water. “What’s a writer want with a place like this?”
Lance pulled a strand of grass from the ground beside him and began to tie it in knots. “It seems like a good place to think. Calm, quiet.”
John finally turned his head and examined Lance. He could feel the caretaker’s eyes running over the surface of his face like the fingers of a blind person. Eventually, John turned back to the lake and sighed. If Lance hadn’t been listening closely it could have been misconstrued as the breath of the wind.
