Shadows Burned In

by Chris Pourteau

  “And you don’t own this place,” she said matter-of-factly.

  A head—more than an outline but less than a face—shook slowly from side to side. “No, I’m just stayin here awhile.”

  “Oh,” Elizabeth said, awareness suddenly dawning. It seemed to take the edge off her fear. “You’re homeless?”

  The old man chuckled, a slow sound. “You could say that.” Then he paused before asking, “Did you know your name means ‘oath of God’?”

  “No.” What a strange thing to say. “I didn’t know that.”

  “He’s a weirdo,” her 3V voice said.

  But then the feeling came to her again that this man—this stranger—knew too much about her already. She was afraid of his knowing so much.

  As Elizabeth’s eyes continued to adjust in the waning light of early evening, she could make out more than a shadow now. He had a thin face. Grizzled. Unshaven. Dirty.

  Like the floor of this house.

  “Well,” he said, exhaling heavily as if he wanted to discuss her name’s significance but knew it would only bore her. “Why not stay awhile? This place gets lonely. ’specially at night.”

  There it was. The invitation. She felt the paralysis creeping over her again. The wizard was casting his spell. And what was worse—she was consciously letting herself be spellbound.

  “I—”

  “The dog would like you to stay.”

  Elizabeth managed to break her gaze from the chiseled gray eyes inside the lined face. She looked down at the dog staring up at her from beneath bushy brows. The orange eyes with coal centers reassured her for some reason. He won’t hurt you. Not while I’m here, the eyes seemed to say.

  And then, within a heartbeat, Elizabeth completely changed her mind.

  “Okay, I’ll stay. As long as you promise not to move from that chair.”

  She saw the old face crack, and it took a moment for her to realize he was grinning. And she could actually see it this time. It was exactly what she’d pictured when she’d felt him smiling before. Weird, she thought.

  “I don’t think I could move from this chair too easily right now even if I wanted to,” he said. “I’m very tired, you see.”

  He motioned for her to sit down on the floor opposite him. It must have been where Old Suzie’s television had once sat, Elizabeth realized. But she sat there anyway. The dog walked over and curled up next to her with a slight creaking of joints and a contented moan as she laid down to rest.

  The old man in the armchair smiled at her. Elizabeth smiled back, letting her imagination take over. Being homeless, he must’ve traveled to a thousand different places. She wanted to ask him about all of them. Then she noticed he was just staring at her—wouldn’t take his eyes off her. It made her uncomfortable again.

  “So you live here,” he said, just when she was getting ready to stand up again and run out through the kitchen. “In town, I mean.”

  “Yes,” Elizabeth said. She was grateful for the conversation beginning at last. At least she thought she was. But she’d rather talk about the thousand other places he’d visited instead of boring old Hampshire. “Just not very long.”

  “Oh? Where did you move from?” The old man’s voice had a strange quality to it, almost scripted.

  “Houston. My dad moved his practice from there. He’s from here.” She said the last with a sour voice.

  “Practice? He’s a doctor?”

  “Lawyer.”

  “Ah.”

  Again, there was something in his voice.

  “You don’t like lawyers?” she asked.

  “Shakespeare didn’t,” he said, with a grin that wasn’t quite a smile.

  “So?”

  “Do you even know who Shakespeare was?”

  “Sure. We’ve read some of his plays in school.”

  “Really?” The old man seemed genuinely surprised. “You get better schooling nowadays, I guess.”

  “You didn’t read his plays in school?”

  “They taught them.”

  He left it hanging, and Elizabeth didn’t understand the difference. Then she did.

  “Oh. You didn’t read them.”

  “Lawyers aren’t so bad, I guess,” he said, changing the subject.

  “They defend people,” confirmed Elizabeth. For some reason she thought she needed to do the same for her father now.

  “Jesus, what’s wrong with you?” asked her 3V voice.

  “Even when they don’t deserve defending,” continued the old man.

  Elizabeth thought about that for a second. “Doesn’t everyone deserve a chance to tell their side of the story?”

  For the first time, she saw the old man shake his head. “Some people don’t. Those that aren’t sorry for what they’ve done.”

  She quietly considered what he’d said, reaching down to pet the dog pressed against her. The fur was soft, oddly cool. Not knowing really how to answer the old man, she asked, “So what are you doing here?”

  “Just passing through. I found this old house and decided to stay here awhile. It gets a little chilly for old bones on the road this time of year.”

  “How do you eat?”

  The question was a natural one, but it seemed to make the old man uncomfortable. I’ll bet he steals and doesn’t like to but has to because he’s homeless, she thought.

  Then he smiled again. “With my right hand.”

  Elizabeth rolled her eyes. “Oh, brother. You know what I mean!”

  The smile faded. “I get by.”

  She decided not to press. “Do you know the story of this house?”

  “No,” he said, intrigued. “Do tell.”

  “Well, they say it’s haunted,” Elizabeth explained. Her voice took on a conspiratorial quality, like when she shared a secret with Michael.

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. The ghost of Old Suzie, the witch-woman who used to live here.”

  “Witch-woman? Which woman would that be?”

  “Huh?” Then she saw the silver moonlight twinkle in his eye, and she got it. “Oh,” she said, “that’s pretty bad.”

  “The witch-woman?” he asked, continuing the joke.

  “No, your joke. Gawd. You’re worse than Dad. Old Suzie was supposed to be a witch.”

  “Oh. I see now.”

  “She used to catch little kids and cook them for supper.”

  He looked pensive for a moment. He had the look on his face a person gets when they’re trying to dredge something up from the back row of a fallow mind. “Wasn’t that what the witch in Hansel and Gretel did?”

  Now it was her turn to skim the rows of knowledge filed away in her head. “Well, that’s probably where she got the idea,” Elizabeth surmised.

  “Oh.”

  “Anyway,” Elizabeth said in an exasperated voice, “she died sitting right where you are now.” She emphasized the last five words the way camp leaders do when they’re trying to scare children.

  “My goodness!” he said, feigning concern. “Do you think she minds that I’m sitting here?”

  “Dunno,” said Elizabeth sheepishly. “Why don’t you ask her?”

  “Huh?”

  “She’s standing right behind you.”

  The old man started forward in the chair, twisting and looking over his shoulder. Elizabeth was laughing as loud as a girl her age could.

  “Got you!” she said.

  He slowly turned back around, settling in the chair. “Yes, you did. A word of advice,” he said, wincing, “don’t make old men move quickly. We don’t snap back as easily as you do.”

  She slowly stopped laughing and her face became concerned. “Are you okay? I’m sorry—”

  “No, it’s okay,” he said, holding up a hand. “Let’s just not scare old Rocky again, okay?”

  “Okay. Sorry.”

  He nodded, settling back in the chair. “So, tell me about Old Suzie.”

  “Like I said, she was a witch. She used to eat children. Then she died. Watc
hing her shows.”

  “Who told you that?”

  “Um. . .” She wasn’t sure how to answer. She didn’t want to get Michael in trouble. “A friend of mine.”

  “Not your dad?”

  Elizabeth cocked her head to one side. Another odd thing to say. “No.”

  “Weird old coot,” chimed her 3V voice.

  “Mmmm,” he said thoughtfully.

  “Why did you think that?”

  “Well, you said he was from here. Stories like that don’t start up overnight. I’m guessing Old Suzie was the talk of this town for years before you were ever born. Stories are like that. They get started and take on a life of their own. A spirit, you might say. They hang around and haunt you when the person they’re about is long dead.”

  Elizabeth hadn’t even wondered where the story came from. It just . . . was. “I don’t think I understand.”

  “That’s okay,” he replied, the smile returning. “Not many folks do. Else stories like that wouldn’t ever get started. Least you’d hope that was true.”

  She shook her head. The old man was talking like an adult now. They were entering you’ll-understand-when-you-get-older territory. “Well—what was she like?”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” he said. “I’m not from here. I just live here.”

  Elizabeth rolled her eyes again. She could tell he was baiting her, but she bit anyway.

  “Well, what do you think she was like?”

  “Well now,” he said, his eyes lighting up, “like I said, I don’t rightly know. But if I had to guess . . .” He looked around. Despite the dusky haze of the early evening, some light still crept into the corners. “I’d guess she was a hardworking woman, looking at that big used-to-be garden out back. There’s a rusted-out tractor in the garage, but you can tell by looking at the engine—when you open it up, that is—it was well taken care of for a long time. I didn’t see no children’s bones anywhere, so either she was a very neat witch, or those stories were maybe a little too tall for the truth.”

  “Her husband left her and she worked the place alone,” supplied Elizabeth. It was a tidbit of Michael’s story she hadn’t really thought about till now.

  “Really?”

  “Yes.”

  “And she died watching television, sitting in this very chair?”

  “Yes.”

  “So what, dear Watson, can we conclude from these facts?”

  She looked quizzically at him. “My name’s Elizabeth.”

  He looked quizzically at her. “You never heard of Sherlock Holmes?”

  She shook her head.

  “I take back the good stuff I said about your schooling,” he muttered. “They’ve shortchanged you, girl.”

  “Whatever ‘shortchanged’ means,” her 3V voice snarked.

  “Okay, answer the question,” he said. “Forget the Watson part. Put the facts together.”

  Elizabeth put her mind to it. It seemed like a game to her now. “Her husband left her. She kept up her own garden. Kept her equipment in good order. Loved watching her shows on television.”

  “That’s the stuff on the left side of the equation. What about the right?”

  It struck her then. “Maybe she was lonely. Maybe that’s the stuff she did to keep from feeling alone all the time.”

  He didn’t smile, which she thought he would’ve done if she’d gotten the right answer. Her monitor did that at webschool. “Positive reinforcement,” he called it.

  “Well, like I said,” he said, “I didn’t know her. But that sounds about right from what little I know of her.”

  Elizabeth turned her eyes down to watch her hand petting the dog. She’d been stroking her fur while they talked, but now she felt a particular need for something soft and pleasant.

  “I wonder why people tell the other story about her, then. I mean, she wasn’t like that—a witch, I mean—was she?”

  “I’m guessing not,” the old man said. “But folks believe what they want to. It’s how they stay sane. Most everyone believes that black is black and white is white, only each person really defines the colors in their own way. And sometimes—like with Old Suzie, I’m guessing—sometimes they agree on what’s true and what’s not, and that becomes the reality of it.”

  She looked at him with that confused expression again. “I don’t understand.”

  He sat back in his chair. “Well if you don’t now, kiddo, you might one day.”

  “Okay, that’s as bad as ‘You’ll understand when you’re older,’” her 3V voice moped.

  “That’s not fair. If you don’t help me understand, you shouldn’t make me feel bad for not understanding.”

  The old man muttered agreement. “That’s a fair thing to say. All I meant was, most people decide what something means—or what someone is—without bothering to find out what’s true and what’s not. Without thinking, really. People tell stories about a person when they never even know that person.” His voice turned flat, spitting out the words to get them out of his mouth. “They’re like sheep. Baa-baa-baaing their way through life without saying anything meaningful. And whatever they do say is often hurtful to someone else. Cuz they usually speak from fear and ignorance, not a thoughtful place.”

  Now, that was something Elizabeth understood. Without asking, her father had simply assumed that the monitor’s call yesterday had been bad news.

  “Because it usually is,” admonished her 3V voice.

  Yeah, okay, she answered back, but yesterday it wasn’t. And her father hadn’t even bothered to find that out.

  “To find out the truth is always more difficult,” the old man was saying, bringing her attention back. “It takes more effort. And people can be lazy by nature.”

  “I understand now.” She felt her nose starting to run and realized then that her eyes were tearing up. Why didn’t Daddy just ask me? Why did he assume the worst?

  “Yes, I think you do,” Rocky said. “Good for you.”

  She nodded, beginning to stand. “I think I better be getting home now. My parents are going to be pretty worried.”

  “It is getting dark out there,” he said, nodding.

  “Well,” she said, hesitating as the dog looked up at her without raising her head from the floor. She really does look like a hairy flounder, Elizabeth thought. “Maybe I can come back tomorrow. If I’m not grounded, that is.”

  “That would be nice. It’s nice to have people around, now and then.”

  The dog perked up and panted at Elizabeth. Her vote seemed to confirm the old man’s.

  “I’ll see,” she said, turning to walk back through the kitchen. Then she stopped and considered the front door. The moonlight streamed in through the half-rotten wood but lit her path well enough that she wasn’t too afraid of going that way. And it was the shorter route for getting home.

  “Oh yeah, let’s rush that. Man, you’re in so much trouble,” her 3V voice pouted.

  “Tell me something I don’t know,” she whispered.

  “What was that?”

  “Nothing,” she answered him. “I’ll try to come by tomorrow.” She walked past the old man, through the parlor, and into the entryway.

  “All right then,” he said as she passed.

  A hallway was to her left and a door on either side, just before she got to the foyer.

  (just like in the dream)

  “Weird.”

  She stepped onto the porch, but before pulling the door closed behind her, she said quietly, “Sorry, Suzie.” Then she walked out into the grass, brainstorming about what her punishment might be.

  So focused was Elizabeth on her parents’ wrath she failed to notice that, unlike in her dream, the porch had been quiet beneath her feet.

  Chapter 16

  The moon was a solid disc reigning over the smaller stars in the sky. Elizabeth’s skin tingled under the crisp air.

  But it wasn’t so much the cold as the fear that gave her goose bumps. Walking along the street toward home, Elizabet
h pondered how bad it would be when she got there.

  Her father would lay into her. He’d yell at her for, first, getting kicked out of school for the day and, second, leaving the house that morning without telling her mother. And then he’d ask her if she knew she’d done wrong, and after she’d admitted the sin, he’d give her penance and grant absolution.

  The penance would probably be the revocation of her 3V privileges for a week. Some kids didn’t care about that. Some even reveled in the fact that they’d earned the punishment. Not Elizabeth. If she could avoid the confrontation, she would. If she could short circuit the yelling prior to the punishment being doled out, she would. And she would take the punishment and be grateful it wasn’t worse. The routine of that cycle was what she was used to. It was almost comfortable. Because there was always worse.

  The gravel crunched under her feet, and she kicked a loose rock into the drainage ditch. The loss of her 3V privileges—that was the cruelest punishment of all. Her parents thought it was fitting because they knew she enjoyed the 3V tank and they thought if they took the privilege away, she’d learn her lesson. She mulled that over as she walked the plank toward home.

  Adults seemed to think the way they handle children is some sort of super-secret recipe for creating a proper person, a formula that only adults really understand. They think all children know is they’ve been bad and that being bad is, well, bad. Wasn’t it adults that performed the psychological studies and monitored behavior? Wasn’t it the adults who mapped the path to responsible adulthood through a process called parenting? But children know what’s really going on.

  We always know, thought Elizabeth.

  Adults who grow up and remember what it was like to be a child realize this truth about the same time the generation behind them is moving on to college. For Elizabeth the understanding had come early, a way of keeping her sanity. It took on the firm shape of knowing exactly what was to come. Punishment for the crime. Loss of her 3V privileges.

  For Elizabeth, losing those was like losing her own imagination, that safe place where she escaped the voices calling one another names in the other room. When she became Elsbyth, the Warrior-Queen of Rheanna, no one could stand against her. Her Horse Companions looked to her for leadership. They asked her what to do and she made the rules. There were no dueling parents. No disappointed monitor. There was nothing but the world of her own creation, a fantasy full of wondrous creatures and endless adventures where conflict was a simple matter of good versus evil.