Homeplace
Elizabeth Massie

 

Setting the stage for this scene: Charlene Myers, a struggling artist, is anxious to jump-start her painting career. Having just inherited her ancestral Homeplace, an isolated two hundred-year-old farmhouse and acreage, she imagined the place as the perfect spot for a solitary artist’s retreat. She planned on moving there and painting there until spring, then sell the place for whatever she can get. But the house is in disrepair and the yard little more than tangles of weeds. In the side yard sits a small, eerie cabin with a crudely drawn sign that identifies it as the “Children’s House.” Ever since moving to Homeplace, Charlene has heard sounds and has caught glimpses that suggest the place is more danger than sanctuary. On her return from the nearby town of Adams after ordering new appliances for the house, Charlene discovers a pile of rabbits slammed up against her front door. It appears they killed themselves in some sort of supernatural frenzy.

***

When she was sure they were all dead, Charlene gathered the rabbits up in her bath towel then took them to the backyard and burned them.

The rabbits were possessed. To break their necks on my door like that, they had to be possessed.

Stop thinking like that. Charlene shook her head to clear the thoughts. She picked up a stick and flung it onto the crackling pyre composed of rabbits, scrub brush, and a few logs from the back porch. Ash and sparks burst from the flames and flew into the air.

Maude said Charlene’s family was never to sell this place. What if something here at Homeplace really was angry that she didn’t plan on keeping the land?

Damn, would you just stop this? If someone else were here to bounce those thoughts off, like Ryan, Mary Jane…or Andrew…then you would see how silly they sound.

Beside her on the ground were three buckets of water, ready in case the flame was blown from the bald patch of earth into the weeds. But there was no wind and it did not spread. She stood, arms crossed against the chilling air and her own trembling. After ten minutes she doused the flames and left the blackened, skeletal remains to the elements or to wild scavengers.

By five o’clock the appliances had not arrived. Charlene called to ask what the holdup was but only got a busy signal. Come on! Who has busy signals these days? Don’t they have call waiting? Or at least a second line? What’s with these guys?

By five-thirty, still nothing. She tried to call again, but their answering machine picked up, “Sieber Appliances close at 5 p.m. Please call us again during our regular business hours between…” Charlene jabbed the end button on the cell.

Damn it! I want my stove and fridge!

She picked up her camera, flashlight, and bolt cutter, and tromped across the yard to the Children’s House, casting a sidelong glance at the flattened, charred pile of rabbits and wood, getting another shiver from the idea of what they had done on her porch and what she had done to their little bodies. But back to the task at hand. She might have knocked herself out last time she was in the cabin, but that wouldn’t happen again. She would get into the attic. She would take pictures. If she couldn’t paint the mill yet, she would paint something else. She would paint the mysteries of the cabin’s attic. Artists had to press on through the mire if they were to get anything done. Neither this place nor worries about it would control or hold her back. Besides, she now had a bolt cutter.

It took several good, hard squeezes with her knee braced on the handle to slice through the old padlock on the trapdoor at the top of the steps. Once the lock was dislodged, Charlene pushed the trapdoor open and crawled into the blackness.

The flashlight cut a pale ribbon across the cluttered attic floor. The roof was too low for Charlene to stand, so she crawled forward through the thick dust, praying that black widows would hide from the light. She discovered a scattering of old medicine bottles with water stained and illegible labels, rotting leather children’s high top shoes and empty, mildewed haversacks. She sneezed and her eyes stung.

I should have bought a paper mask for this.

She reached a small straw-stuffed mattress, covered with scraps of what must have been clothing at one time. She trained the light along the length of the mattress. Mice had chewed chunks out of it, leaving huge sores from which the brittle guts protruded. Putting the flashlight down, Charlene carefully reached beneath the mattress, and turned it over. It struck the floor with a soft thud, sending more dust into the air. Charlene covered her nose and mouth until it settled. She picked up the flashlight. There, in the center of the ticking, was a large brown, stain.

It was blood.

What happened here?

A tingle ran down her back and across her shoulders. She sat back on her heels, gathered her camera up, and took a number of flash photos of the mattress. Then, bracing the flashlight between her knees, she snapped photos of the items near her, catching the bottles and the shoes, the leather bags, an old shotgun, a mildewed saddle and rusting stirrups. The flashlight loosened and fell from her knees to the floor with a clack. Charlene aimed the camera where there was no light at all, and continued to snap photos.

The flashlight suddenly snapped off. Charlene spun about on her knees and felt for it but came up short. It clicked on again, throwing its beam across the jagged mounds of litter in the attic.

Then, on its own, it began to roll.

Slowly, like a child’s toy with a wind up spring, it moved forward across the uneven floor, thumping up and over the thumb switch with each revolution. There was no sound in that attic, not the creaking of boards or the shifting of winds outside against the roof, only the slow, rhythmic thack-thack-thack of the flashlight as it propelled itself along. Charlene stared at the light, unable to move toward it or away from it, held in place by terrified revulsion.

Thack-thack-thack-thack. The flashlight inched its way purposefully across the attic floor, over papers and shredded socks, books, and string.

Then it ran into the base of what looked like a big box. The flashlight’s glow grew dim then, as if rolling had drained the life from it. But the puddle of illumination it cast allowed Charlene to see that it had indeed struck an old trunk with a canvas cover and scratched metal corners.

She crawled hesitantly toward it, refusing at first to touch the flashlight but then holding her breath and snatching it up. It did not burn her. It did not come alive in her hand and try to bite her or to leap away. The floor must be at a tilt. It was gravity that pulled it along.

It’s mojo, Charlene. The floor is flat.

She unlatched the rusty buckles with her thumb and pushed the lid up. More dust and years’ worth of stink lifted from the trunk. Charlene shone the flashlight about, revealing piles of more old newspapers and magazines. Removing the top tray and putting it aside, she peered at the contents in the bottom.

There were baby mittens and christening gowns, browned with age and eaten through by silverfish. Silver teething rings lay amid lace collars and hand-crocheted bibs. There were loose sheets of paper, tattered on the edges, and written in fading pencil by a child’s hand. A small leather journal, still in tact and stitched with thin lacing, was tucked in one corner. Charlene pulled it out, wiped the cover with her sleeve, and opened it. The first page was inscribed in ink “To God. From Opal Alexander. 1821.” Beneath the heading was, “Shhh. Don’t Tell.”

There was a thump on the roof directly over Charlene’s head, and she flinched and cried out, nearly dropping the journal and the flashlight. But then more thumps came, with increasing speed and rhythm, and she realized it had begun to rain. As carefully as she could, she backed to the open trapdoor with the journal in her hand and the flashlight in her teeth then eased out onto the steps.

She raced across the yard through the downpour, and once on the porch stripped from her shoes and wet jeans. As she shook the jeans to make sure there were no spiders in them and draped them over the firewood pile to dry, she glanced out at the spot where the bonfire had been.

The rabbit skeletons were not there. There was only the charred spot where the fire had been.

Those scavengers are quick about their business. I wonder what picked them up? A fox? Maybe a skunk? They’ll eat about anything.

It didn’t matter. They were gone.

She tugged off her socks and padded down the hall to the living room. On the sleeping bag she wiped rain from her face with her bath towel and pulled the journal from her shirt.

“Dear God. From Opal Alexander. 1821.”

Opal must have been one of Phoebe’s daughters.

Thunder rumbled outside the house. Charlene pulled the rubber band free from her hair and ran her fingers through the strands, untangling a few rain-matted clumps. More thunder. The room darkened. She got up to turn on the overhead light. It blinked but went on. Rain blew across the front porch and batted the closed window.

I hope the electricity hangs in there.

She flipped through the journal, trying not to break the fragile edges. The first three quarters of the book were filled with writing. The last quarter of the pages were blank. Each entry was brief, and inscribed a large, juvenile, but careful cursive.

The first page: “May 14, 1821. I was caught. I didn’t mean to but I broke it. I am in here until I am forgiven, if I am forgiven. God forgive me.”

Another page, deeper in the book. “June 23, 1821. I am sorry I am sorry. I am sorry. I will say it until I am believed. So many days counted on the walls. I am sorry.”

Poor child. What was she sorry for? What had she broken? Although she had no idea of the age or face of this child, she imagined herself in the girl’s situation. Frightened. Alone.

How sad.

She turned a number of pages. She stopped on July 2 nd. The handwriting was particularly unsteady. “July 2, 1821. Help me Jesus. Help me God. Help me or I shall die! Save me from the hands!”

The hands. What hands?

A chill clutched at Charlene’s shoulders. Were the dreaded hands Phoebe’s hands? Did this little girl truly fear for her life? Were the stories Maude told based on truth, that the woman called Phoebe Alexander was a witch in the way she hurt and terrified her children? That the Children’s House was not one for play but for banishment and punishment?

“Did Phoebe threaten to kill Opal?” Charlene whispered to the walls.

Charlene’s hands trembled madly, making it difficult to turn another page. The next entry was so garbled that it was almost impossible to trace one letter to the next, as they traveled not on a straight line but up and down.

“Ju…ly 3, 1821. My…ey..es…are….g…one…..T…he h…a…nds ar…e coming for me…soon soo…n…no no no Ple..as..e God…no no no….I don’t wan…t…t.o…..g…o……”

Sickened, Charlene threw the journal toward the fireplace. It smacked the sooty wall beside the hearth and fell, open, on the floor. She could see the tiny scrawls of horror… “The hands…are coming for…me!” She got up, kicked the book shut, and then slid it under her suitcase. She didn’t know exactly why she did that, except that the book terrified her. She had no idea what had happened to the little girl (Yes, you do, her mother blinded her and threw her down that ghastly well God rest her terrified little soul!) and didn’t want to dwell on it. The mere presence of the book was too disturbing. Maybe it would be best to burn it like she had the rabbits.

Berkley - August 2007