But he certainly was not at ease. And something was wrong, he was sure of it. In the house meant to represent his parents’ house especially. Meant to represent his character’s parents’ house, he meant. Outside, no, he didn’t feel it—nor, strangely enough, did he feel it in the other indoor locations, but in the house, yes, there he felt it. It made him feel seasick, as though the floor was shifting slightly under his feet, but that was crazy, houses didn’t act like that.
But that was how this house acted. At least for him. Was he the only one who could feel something was wrong?
Steven was most sure something was wrong at those moments when he stood at his mark in the house meant to represent his parents’ house—meant to represent his character’s parents’ house—and waited for the scene to be shot. The lighting was adjusted, the camera positioned, and the whole time he just stood there. Soon, he would think, maybe even as early as his next film, someone else would stand on his mark for him, a body double, but for now it was him. This was his big break, but until the break had broken it would be him standing in for himself.
At those moments, standing on his mark, sometimes he felt he could see, there beside him, a flickering, a strangeness in the air. But if he turned his head to look straight at it, he couldn’t see it anymore. And then the cameraman would scold him mildly, coax him back to looking in the direction he had originally been meant to look, and the flicker would begin again. What was it? The rapid oscillation of the ceiling lights, maybe? Something wrong with his brain? He couldn’t say. He didn’t think it was something with his brain, but if it wasn’t, why didn’t anyone else seem to see it?
It happened about three quarters of the way through shooting, right in the middle of the murder scene. There he was, the dismembered bodies of what were meant to be his parents at his feet. He was still breathing hard, hyperventilating slightly, his vision fading a little, spattered in what would pass on film for blood, and he saw what he’d come to think of as a flicker. Only this time it was more than a flicker, more like a rip in the air, like an animal had torn the air open with its teeth. The cameraman was seeing something too. There was a strange expression on his face, and he was looking at the air just beside Steven’s head with a sort of mute wonder. Don’t move, something inside him said, and he could feel the hair rising on the back of his neck. He held still, very still indeed.
There was a smell like ozone, bitter and deep in his throat, the sound of something unfurling, and then he could feel breath hot on his neck. In front of him, the cameraman moved abnormally slowly, as if walking underwater. And then, suddenly, he was jerked, hard and fast, off his feet, the air knocked out of him.
By the time he had pulled himself up, just seconds later, the room was empty. The camera was gone, the entire crew as well, the room deserted. How was that possible?
“Hello?” Steven called, but there was no answer.
He got up and walked around the room. No sign, as far as he could see, of where they had gone. No sign, if he was to be honest with himself, which he was not sure he wanted to be, that the production team had ever been here: camera gone, lighting gone, none of the cables or other apparatus of a shoot. What the hell? he thought.
He walked around the room another time, and then again, growing more and more anxious. He tried the other rooms, but found them just as deserted, just as silent. He called out and listened for a response, but there was no response. Finally, he went through the front door and left the house.
Or at least he would have, if there’d been anything to go out into. There was nothing outside of the house, the door opening onto nothing at all.
How long had he been there? How many days? A long time, it felt like, though in another sense it felt like almost no time at all. He had tried all the doors and windows. It was always the same: there was nothing outside the house. He wasn’t hungry, which confused him. He wasn’t sure how he could still be alive. Assuming he actually was.
He sat with his back to the wall, watching, waiting. Looking down at the backs of his hands he could see through them the ebb and flow of his blood. How strange. Had he been able to see that before? It was as if his skin was becoming transparent. He got up and paced, back and forth, back and forth, then sat down again. He slept for a while, woke, slept again, woke, went back to sleep.
He was just stretching, getting up again, when he caught a glimpse of it—that same flickering he had seen before. Immediately he was on his feet and looking for it, searching for it in the air. He swept his fingers back and forth but found nothing: there was nothing there. And yet, when he turned away, there it was, in the corner of his vision, flickering, again.
He moved toward it slowly, not looking directly at it so as not to startle it. He followed it as best he could, backing toward it, head down.
And then, from one moment to the next, his vision shifted, the flicker becoming a line of light, a line that opened until it became a slit and he could see something through it.
He was looking at the house, at another version of the house. This one had the production crew in it. The camera was rolling, and there he was as well, axe trailing from one hand, breathing heavily, his shirt spattered with blood. He watched the scene come to an end, watched as he, his character, killed both his parents, watched until the director said cut.
Only then did the figure that was meant to be him relax and glance his way, looking right at him, straight through the narrow gap. For a moment, they both just regarded one an-other and then the other him smiled in a way that bared his teeth, and Steven realized that what he was seeing not only wasn’t him after all, but wasn’t even human.
Through the slit he’d watched the film wrap, watched them pack all the equipment up, watched whatever it was that had taken his place genially shake hands with everybody and then head out the door, out to live his life. The rest of the crew went too. When the last crewmember had turned off the light, the opening faded.
There followed a long period in which nothing happened, where it was just he himself alone. His body grew longer, leaner. He didn’t sleep anymore, though he sometimes lay down and pretended to sleep. He was hungry all the time but not for food exactly—for what he didn’t exactly know. The flicker maybe, or what it led to. He wandered the house, looking again for that flicker, but it just wasn’t there. Maybe it was still there, but if it was, he couldn’t find it.
Or couldn’t anyway, until something changed. There it was, suddenly, the flickering, and there he was, slowly moving toward it while trying to give the impression of moving away, until, finally, he had found the slit again. There it was, he could see it, the twin of the house he was now trapped in, dimly lit by the beams of two flashlights flickering their way through the dark space.
“It’s got to be around here somewhere,” said a voice, one he was pretty sure he recognized.
“Are you sure it’s a good idea?” asked the other voice, also familiar.
He wasn’t the one being asked, he knew, but he was sure it was a good idea. Maybe not for these two men, but definitely for him. Whoever he was, now. He could already feel his body changing, becoming more and more like whichever of the two men he looked at the most.
“Even if we do find it, how are we going to get through it?” asked the second voice.
Steven had an answer for this question too. He waited patiently for them to find the slit. When they did, well, they’d have no problem getting through it, because he would help them in. Would help one of them anyway, and in the process swap places and make his own way back out. The problem for that one would not be getting in, as he knew from experience, but getting out again.
EVERYTHING BEAUTIFUL IS TERRIFYING
M. Rickert
“But we, when moved by deep feeling, evaporate.”
—Rainer Maria Rilke
THE STRANGOS COME ALL YEAR, identifiable by the clothes they wear, the giggling behind open hands, the wide-eyed pretense of innocence; like belled cats they give their trespass away. I ignore
them—for the most part—though recently the baristas have begun giving directions to Laurel’s tree. They think this is funny, apparently, even if they never witness the punch line. Strangos standing in the middle of Wenkel’s cornfield clutching their little purses. Strangos in the Piggly Wiggly parking lot next to the dumpsters, noses squinched against the stench. Strangos in front of my house—not funny at all—so close to each other the heels of their black shoes touch. I found them early on Christmas morning, standing beneath the streetlamp, upturned faces dotted with flakes of snow, matching pea coats frosted with ice, knees trembling above soggy ankle socks and black shoes.
They arrive all year, undeterred by the season. July and August bring a few carrying guidebooks and taking selfies (which no legitimate Strango would ever do) things get more serious in September, but October is Strango high season. In October the scent of wood smoke mingles with the beeswax candles perfuming my home with honey. Give me that and a blood moon casting everything in a mortal glow. Give me that and the ghost the Strangos seek, though I am not one of them, but an original.
She was buried, they say, in an unmarked grave at her mother’s request. It was generally understood this was done in the usual manner, but after that movie came out with its silly premise that Laurel’s weary ghost haunts the mysterious location of her body’s interment the Strangos arrived with their earnest obsession. I, myself, seeking answers, once stood on Laurel’s porch until her mother threatened me with a kettle of boiled water.
“Forgive me?” the Strangos murmur as they pass. It’s just coincidence. The Strangos murmur their forgiveness request because in the movie that’s how it’s done. I stand in white ankle socks and black shoes, clutching the little purse with the clasp that clicks open and shut. Laurel stands beside me, dressed to match; though it’s not really us, of course, but actresses portraying me and her ghost. When I whisper, “forgive me?” she doesn’t say anything. The camera pulls back until we are in a circle of light surrounded by black; then a dot, then nothing at all.
I resisted watching for quite some time until one dreary night, while clicking mindlessly through cooking shows, women-buying-wedding-dresses shows, and fertile-family shows I stopped, stunned, as though experiencing a sudden change in altitude. There she was—Laurel—in her black shoes and white socks, wearing a dress I’d never seen; spinning beneath a bright arc of autumn leaves.
That particular scene comes quite close to the end—as you may know—but it was one of those stations that plays the same movie repeatedly. I can truthfully say that by the third viewing I was eating popcorn again; less enchanted by the Laurel look alike and more annoyed by what they got wrong, which was almost everything.
Though accused and found not guilty, my innocence was never restored. The Strangos (and the screenplay writer) are convinced I am a murderer but the truth is so much more benign. Ask the Strangos and they will whisper, in sibilant tones, “forgive me?” over and over again until the reporter, either irritated by their petulance, or thrilled to have gotten a good clip for the weird news story gives up trying for more while the photographer waits for that moment when the Strangos open and close their purses making a sound like click beetles.
I am disinclined towards empathy with Strangos, but must confess I understand. Reporters are so annoyingly persistent in asking the wrong questions (as are parents, detectives, attorneys and everyone) that sometimes a person can find no response more perfect than the defiant sound of purse latch. I did not do it to be annoying or frightening though the movie portrays me as both. I was a child then, accused of murder. I was terrified, not terrifying.
The tree isn’t hard to find, if one knows where to look as, of course, I do. And, while I hate to attribute anything of value to that movie, I must admit after watching it several times I, too, became obsessed with the old oak as a potential location for Laurel’s ghost. I did not, to be clear, think her mother would have her buried there. I believe she was cremated; her ashes now in Florida.
But her ghost? It seemed possible the tree would make a perfect host. (Like the Caribbean Lagarou tree where people have reported seeing, from a distance, flickering orbs of lights in its branches which, I know, is meant to sound ominous but I find reassuring.) Thus began my October quest through the backyards of my youth to that small hidden field we discovered all those years ago.
When the seasons turned to Halloween we, best friends forever, chose to be twins. The movie would have you believe we dressed alike for years, but in truth it was only a single month, and not even all of that.
When October comes I close the windows, happy to sever any tie with murmuring Strangos. I take out the old photographs: Laurel and me in our bathing suits (not matching) eating popsicles (and in the left corner, beneath the azalea bush the toes of my father’s shoes. He used to like to play that game of spying on us.) Laurel and me on her swing set (there was a time when I was a welcomed guest). Laurel and me in sleeping bags, wide awake, Laurel giving the finger, and me frozen in shock by her bold gesture. I remember how my brother ran to report what she had done and how my mother (still innocent in her own way then) laughed. The last photograph has been widely duplicated—I’m sure you’ve seen it in some fashion or other—Laurel and me in the matching cotton dresses that Mrs. Sheer made in a single weekend. She had extra time on her hands, my mother said, since Laurel was an only child. We are standing in front of my house in those dresses, ankle socks, and white Keds spray painted black. I can’t remember why we did that. Sometimes too much is made of the casual choices of the young.
My mother found the purses at the dime store and splurged, buying both. I think she felt a little competitive with Mrs. Sheer, though this is pure speculation on my part and, as one who has suffered by what people assume, I try not to guess the motivation of others. My mother bought the purses. They were red. Matching white hairbands completed the look.
I suspect that arranging photographs of Laurel on the mantel might seem macabre to others. I can’t be sure about what “normal’ people think; they got everything so wrong with me that I have never adjusted to their ways. Halloween has, by necessity, evolved over the years into my own manner of celebration. Not for me the freedom of cheap costumes and pillowcases full of candy. That was lost with Laurel’s death; first to my grief, then to my shame, and finally to my compromised life. While others were content with false ghosts, I hoped for the real thing. To be forgiven. Not for a murder I never committed, but for leaving her where she was later found with dirt and skin beneath her fingernails.
It is true that, as they said, the skin was mine. So much was made of this! We had a fight. About what, I can’t remember. There was dirt on my dress and shoes and socks. We ran through backyards and fields to get to our tree. Dirt is not blood, or criminal in any way, but try telling that to folks set on vengeance, or any of the Strangos who think they know so much.
When October comes I decorate with photographs of the dead: Laurel and me as already mentioned, my parents, and my bother whose suicide is not a part of this story. Also my cats, Batman and Robin, each found with strings around their necks and, I believe, victims of my notoriety. I arrange the photographs in a display of fake autumn leaves ever since trying to use real ones which brought bugs into the house, an infestation I do not want to repeat, appropriate as it may be to the occasion.
Sadly, no one begs treats from me; a pattern I ignored for years, stocking up on candy bars, popcorn balls, and fairly expensive caramel apples which I ate throughout winter, solidifying the caramel flavor of loneliness, the apple bite of regret. While others dress as someone else, I dress as myself (or the girl I once was) in yellow gingham, white socks, black shoes, headband; waiting until dark before I sneak through the backyards, everyone so distracted I make an easy passage to the tree where I wait. The first time I did this I panicked when I realized how, without awareness, I had so thoroughly become Laurel’s last moments, or what we know of them, before she was murdered, but no one came to re-enact the cri
me. I just sat shivering, in the dark.
We had gone trick or treating with strict instructions to return home by ten but, if you haven’t picked up on this by now, Laurel was cheeky and I, her happy co-conspirator.
“Heyo,” she said, (using our twin language) “Let’s go-o to our-o tree-o.”
Why? Oh, I don’t remember though I suspect it seemed just enough of a transgression to deliver a delicious thrill, running through moonlight on that night inhabited by the occult. It was meant to be fun! We giggled and whispered, lugging pillowcases heavy with loot.
The paper reported candy wrappers littered amongst the leaves. I suppose this is right. We probably delighted in our feast, drunk on sugar. We fought. About what, I don’t remember. She scratched me and I ran home, though to this day I can hear her cries. “Come-o back-o,” she called. “I’m-o afraid-o of the Strangos.” A false laugh, and then, “Don’t go-o-o.”
Later, the policeman handed me a cider doughnut and said, “I often think what I would say if I had one more day with my friend who died. Heck, I bet you know what that’s like, don’t you?”
Click-click.
“Go ahead. Close your eyes. Picture Laurel.”
Click.
“Say it.”
“Forgive me.”
“Who but the guilty ask forgiveness?” The prosecutor intoned over and over again. In my youth I thought this was compelling, but as a grownup I am shocked that adults fell for this false equivalency. Though I was guilty to be sure, it was not of the crime I was charged with. In the end, I was just a bad friend. No danger of repeating that mortal error again. Who would want to be friends with me? I can tell you the answer is no one. Not even a ghost.
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