The Door to January

by Gillian French

  “You saw. I know you did.” Grace didn’t let go as Natalie straightened up. “Christ, I saw you. Why didn’t you ever tell?”

  Everyone was staring at them.

  “What’s she talking about?” Lowell said.

  The words were spilling out of Grace now. “You ran away through the trees. I followed you—I found your stupid barrette on the ground. But you acted like you didn’t know. How come?” She shook her head slowly. “I waited and waited. When you came back, I was so sure you’d talk. But you didn’t.”

  Memories: trees flying by, crawling on her belly through the bushes, the sight of Peter’s dirty white Adidas passing by on the far side of the gully.

  “No. I didn’t see anything.”

  Grace’s chin shook. “Quit lying.” She pointed at the others. “Tell them. You know. Peter wouldn’t stop. He kept grabbing at the gun. You know how he used to be. You’d say no, and he’d keep on working on you until you gave in. Like a little kid.” She croaked, somewhere between a sob and a cry. “I told him no because he’d never shot before. I’d gone deer-hunting once, at least.”

  She opened her hands around the Browning, helplessly. “I told him he couldn’t hold it. He grabbed my arm and I pulled away from him and—I didn’t even know the safety wasn’t on. I thought you’d put it on, Jase!” she screamed, making him flinch.

  Lowell squeezed his eyes shut.

  “Peter fell down and blood came through his shirt so fast and he acted like he was choking, or drowning, or something, and he”—she pointed at Jason with the Browning and he stepped back—“he came up after he heard the shot and Peter was lying there and I was saying, We got to get help, we got to get help—and he said we gotta get out of here because the police will come and nobody will think it was an accident and you’ll get in trouble—and I just grabbed the gun and we ran—”

  “Shut your mouth!” Jason’s eyes were wide. “Are you crazy?”

  “Hid the gun in the woods behind my gramma’s place. Wrapped it in plastic and buried it until it was safe to dig it up.” Grace's eyes were streaming. “You get my presents, Natalie? You get the things I left for you?”

  “Yes.”

  “I remembered, about the secret place. Peter told me one time. Said you guys used to leave messages in there. We were going to leave something gross for you guys to find, prank you . . . never got the chance.”

  “Grace.” Natalie could barely control her voice. “I did not see you. I was down too low. All I saw were bushes. I heard Peter talking to somebody and then the shot. I couldn’t even remember that much until this summer. I got up and ran away. I never saw you.”

  Grace tilted her head, eyes bleary. In time, understanding dawned. Something in her expression twisted. She didn’t turn to Jason as she addressed him. “You said you did that time in lockup for me. Because of me.”

  “I did, babe.”

  “All the things I did . . . because you said so. Because you were the one who really knew. Thought I owed you.” She turned her head. “My own mom doesn’t want me in her house anymore because of you.”

  “Now, Gracie—you can’t hang that on me. You girls had problems way before—”

  “You were never gonna shoot them.” Grace gave her shouting laugh. “You talk real big, like a real killer, but you were never gonna do it. You’d play with them a while, and then you’d let them go. Think I didn’t know that?” He stared back, unmanned. “Think I didn’t know I was gonna have to do all the hard work? All the dirty work?”

  Jason hesitated, wavering, five pairs of eyes fixed on him. He pointed toward the woods.

  “You know, I’m about ready to walk outta here, Grace. Leave you on your own, see how you do then. You’ve never been without me once. Think you can handle it? Everybody here knows what you did now. Shot your mouth off and spoiled everything for yourself, didn’t you?”

  He started edging away, shouldering his rifle, expression tight and watchful.

  “Forget it. I’m walking.”

  Grace’s upper lip twitched. She said, “Babe, don’t.” Her voice was small and without fear. Her eyes were like the ocean, shifting and wild. She put her arm out and shot him as a reflex.

  The night shattered. Everyone ran. There wasn’t time to grab anyone’s hand, to make sure Teddy or Delia were on their feet, to see which way Lowell was going. The gun was still firing, Grace was still shooting.

  Natalie plunged through the dark woods, hearing the others crashing off through the bushes, screaming. Adrenaline pulsed through her, along with the dream mantra: Almost time, almost time, almost time. If she could clear the trees, if she could get to the road, it might be okay, she might make it.

  Grace was bathed in moonlight, turning unsteadily, the gun pointed at nothing as she squeezed the trigger, as she fired again, again, again . . .

  In the deafening explosion, something parted the air next to Natalie’s head. The next bullet took her down.

  CHAPTER 33

  Natalie stood alone on a road.

  “Hello?” Her voice was muffled. Her heartbeat was amplified in her ears.

  It was still nighttime, woods on all sides. She had no memory of how she’d gotten here. Dreamy unease spread through her. She searched for the moon. She couldn’t find it. There was only a smooth, onyx sky above.

  “Where are you guys?” Her voice echoed out, out.

  If she tried, she could recall everyone running in different directions, running from something—what?—like kids splitting off for a game of hide-and-seek. But whatever this strange state was, she seemed to be in it alone.

  Come home, darning needle.

  She began walking, slowly becoming aware that she was on Morning Glory Lane. The road was sleeping except for the occasional pair of glowing eyes moving through the woods, a soft chirrup from the undergrowth. Nocturnal animals, highly aware of her presence.

  She reached the house and found it drenched in splendor. Every window was aglow. Winter light poured from the panes. Natalie felt the rightness of it all now.

  She passed through the brambles like a wraith, drawn to the open front door.

  We wait for you.

  Snow fell from the ceiling, coating her shoulders and hair as she drifted down the hallway into the kitchen. The dream door she had drawn on the wall was open, revealing a square of blinding blue light.

  A thread of light separated itself and moved across the air toward her. Natalie watched, paralyzed. With a tugging sensation, the three spirit lights rose from her body. Pieces of souls, returning home.

  The spirit lights formed a single globe and joined with the glowing thread, fusing in a flash of light that consumed Natalie entirely. She was lifted up and into the blinding horizon beyond the doorway. She knew no more.

  CHAPTER 34

  A clock chimed a four-note melody, followed by three reverberating bongs tolling the hour. Natalie sat, head in hands, awakening.

  There was a harsh wind outside, alternately whistling and moaning away, the ticking of the clock, and a rotten smell. Natalie looked around.

  She was crouched on the floor against a wooden counter. To her left sat a cast-iron cookstove with glenwood c stamped on the oven door. A copper kettle sat on the range, burbling away like one gone comfortably mad. There were knitted oven mitts, and tins on the stove shelf labeled flour, coffee, and tea.

  She stood. Her nostrils filled with that overripe smell again.

  Dishes were everywhere. They covered the countertops and filled the sink, china stacked in piles, teacups upended on saucers. Everything was crusty with smears of moldering food.

  Snow. They should be filled with snow. Oh God, don’t let it be don’t let it be—

  A 180-degree-turn brought her back to the door, which had been behind her all along: Six panes of rippled glass reflected the kitchen and her own thunderstruck expression.<
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  Natalie muffled her scream too late. She seized a paring knife from the counter and dropped back into the corner.

  She remembered light. A sensation of weightlessness, of being drawn forward against her will. Then nothing, until the chiming of the clock.

  Natalie grabbed her own flesh and twisted, trying to wake herself up. It hurt.

  “What did you do?” she hissed to the girls. “What did you do?”

  The temptation of checking out was irresistible, of hiding in her mind until the storm passed. She hid her face in her folded arms.

  Don’t you dare, an internal voice spoke. Snap out of it.

  Natalie sniffled, still not raising her head.

  Listen. Really listen. What do you hear?

  She strained for what lay beneath the babbling kettle and the wind. No footsteps, no movement.

  Get your bearings. You know this place. In your heart, you know it better than almost anyone.

  Natalie held the knife in front of her as she crossed the kitchen, her gaze jumping to the doorway every few seconds. She went to a window and stared out at a winter afternoon. The sky was clouded, considering more snow. Chickadees and blue jays hopped around on the shoveled driveway.

  The big black car is gone. He isn’t home.

  Nothing but fields, miles of them, crosshatched with fence lines tilting in snowdrifts.

  “No,” she whispered, striking her fist against glass, willing this dream-image to shatter.

  Maybe this shouldn’t be possible. But you can see it, you can feel it, so it’s real. He’ll find you. It’s what he does. All he knows how to do is satisfy his hungers, and stay alive.

  She whimpered, but she was already moving toward the hallway door.

  The girls brought you here for a reason, darning needle.

  The corridor seemed endless in her terror, slanting and telescopic. At the end, the foyer was barely recognizable. Lace curtains flanked the front door. The fanlight projected a dappled crown of daylight onto the floor. The grandfather clock stood against the hallway wall, and Natalie looked up at it in awe. There was a moving mechanism in the face which rotated a celestial illustration with the passing hours. Now, the image was halfway between sun and moon.

  Get moving. Think.

  Edith.

  If this was December 1948, then Edith Soucy was in the barn right now, dying or dead. It might not be too late.

  Natalie lunged for the front door, and then pulled her hand back from the cold knob. Right. Winter.

  She ran upstairs and let herself into Raisa’s bedroom. The air was stagnant, choked with dust. Apparently Vsevolod wasn’t a big believer in housekeeping. Why should he be? This was only a den, a place to rest and recoup between hunts. Through the window, the slope of a high barn roof was visible, hung with icicles as thick as her arm.

  She searched in the closet for something warm to wear over her T-shirt and shorts, finding a pair of woolen pants to squeeze into and a sweater. She slipped the knife into her hip pocket.

  Downstairs, she went to the overloaded hall tree, draped with coats and hats. She dug into the pockets of his tartan-flannel coat. It smelled of him—that was the most incapacitating thing—and she held her breath, touching loose change, a matchbook, and finally, the padlock key.

  She went through the door with the six panes into a summer kitchen. It was crowded with old junk, probably left by the farm family who’d owned the place before: Humpty Dumpty potato chip tins, piles of yellowed newspapers dating back to the 1920s.

  The door at the end opened into Vsevolod’s workshop. A sign leaned against the wall: george dawes, master carpenter. custom-built furniture—inquire within.

  She ran. It was as if she could hear the hallway clock inside of her, keeping time.

  The final door of the winter passage let out onto the haymow of the barn, the floor intact, the air still smelling of livestock. As Natalie went through, a sound from outside made her turn.

  In all that winter silence, a car engine purred, drawing closer.

  It might not be.

  Her muscles tightened as she faced the window, already shaking her head at her own reassurances, fumbling for the knife. Not a car had passed since she’d been here.

  It was Vsevolod. Coming home.

  CHAPTER 35

  The Dodge sedan coupe, all chrome and black enamel, pulled into the dooryard. There was very little daylight left now. Vsevolod gathered his things and climbed out into the frigid air, hefting two crates of groceries in his arms.

  Natalie’s breath caught.

  He was far larger in person, broad through the shoulders and chest, dressed in a charcoal car coat and fedora. There was very little daylight left now.

  He didn’t know she was here, couldn’t know.

  Once Natalie had seen him open the front door, she slipped out the rear door of the barn. The cold hit her and she gasped, tucking her hands into her armpits; it didn’t help that these pants left about three inches of ankle exposed. She ran, skidding the last few feet down to the basement door.

  Natalie pressed her ear to the door. What if her only response was a heavy, telling silence?

  “Edith? Can you hear me?”

  No answer.

  Natalie bit her lip as she fumbled with the padlock. “Edith, I’m here to help you. Please say something if you can.”

  A scrabbling sound. Edith’s fingertips, scratching on the other side.

  Natalie rested her forehead against the door for a second, fighting tears. “Hold on.”

  When she opened the door, Edith fell out in a cloud of kerosene fumes, still wrapped in the canvas tarpaulin, and Natalie experienced another moment of awe—this was actually happening.

  Natalie dragged her farther out into the fresh air, unwilling to look back at the blackness where Irene’s corpse lay. Edith stuffed clumps of snow into her mouth. She sat up, swallowing, barely conscious but still focusing bloodshot eyes on Natalie.

  “I didn’t know if you were real,” Edith slurred.

  “Shhh. He’s right inside the house. Come on.”

  Natalie saw the girl’s hands. Some of her fingers were black. Frostbite. Natalie cursed.

  Edith dropped back on one elbow, eyelids fluttering. “Cold.” She drew her head toward the crook of her arm.

  “Wake up. We have to get inside the barn.” Natalie shook Edith’s shoulder, patted her cheeks with snow; obviously, she had to get mean. “Edith, snap out of it! Get on your feet and move! You want to die out here?”

  Edith could barely walk. Once they were inside the barn proper, Natalie found a mound of moldy hay in the corner of one stall and dug a hole, pushing Edith down into it.

  “Hide in there, okay?”

  Edith’s eyes brightened a little and the stubborn set returned to her mouth; if she’d had her way, she probably would’ve slugged Natalie right there. “You’re leaving?”

  “Somebody’s got to get help. You can’t run. You’d just slow me down.”

  There was an old horse blanket folded over the stall door, and Natalie spread it out on Edith. Under a layer of hay, she’d be completely hidden from sight.

  When Edith spoke next, she sounded drowsy. “What’re you gonna do?”

  Natalie thought. How far did this world go? Did the actual 1948 town of Bernier exist out there? Would she find the sardine cannery running, the dock churning with life?

  “It’ll be dark soon. We’ve got to take his car.”

  She placed handfuls of hay over Edith, watching her twitch as she sank back into a semiconscious state.

  “I’ll be back as soon as I can. Keep still until I come for you, okay?”

  No response. The girl had passed out.

  The keys might be in the car. Suddenly, Natalie would’ve given anything to have Teddy here, walking these unwilling steps wit
h her into the cold. For a moment, memory flickered—a gunshot?—and then went out.

  It was flurrying in the twilight now. She lifted her gaze to the barn’s roof peak and felt a dizzying sensation of vertigo; it seemed to go up and up forever. Her eyes followed the connected buildings back to the main house and saw a lamp glowing in a second-story bedroom window.

  She skirted the front of the house, praying he wouldn’t part the curtains at that moment and spot her. People did leave their keys in their cars sometimes, didn’t they? Especially if they lived way out in the country . . .

  Natalie dove into the snow behind the car, gasping, unaware that she’d begun to cry. She eased the passenger-side door open. The interior of the coupe was darkly oiled, fragrant. She stretched across the bench seat, leather squeaking beneath her.

  The ignition was empty. Natalie tried the glove box, then the visors. The ashtray held nothing but scrunched cigarette butts. She jammed her hand under the seat, along the cushion, places where keys would never be. “Come on, please.” Blinded by tears, she covered her face.

  You need to keep moving. That voice was back. If the keys are in the house, you’ll just have to go get them.

  “No. I can’t.”

  You must want to die here, then. Edith, too.

  Natalie cursed and fled.

  Cutting through the workshop and summer kitchen was excruciating. Every step felt loaded, threatening a creaky board or a stumble. If only she could hide until he went to bed. If only it wasn’t a matter of time before Edith’s strength gave out. Natalie gripped her knife, ready to slash. Outside, it was now snowing heavily.

  She ducked against the summer kitchen door and peered into the house through the glass panes. Lamps were burning inside and the grocery cartons sat empty on the table. She didn’t see the car keys. Oh God, I cannot do this. Yet she was doing it. To her own horror, she was already in the kitchen.

  Her flesh crawled. She was shaking in a way she’d only read about in books. She inched forward, hearing music from another room. She bit her fist. No car keys in sight. Maybe they were in his coat pocket. Or, worse, his pants pocket. No choice but to go to the hall tree and check the charcoal coat, praying he stayed occupied.