The cobblestone driveway which led up to Elizabeth’s family home appeared as a shadowed, bloody tunnel. Red maple trees lined the cobblestone way like crimson guards standing at attention. In a cul-de-sac, just before the house, was a dry fountain lined with dead, but colorful leaves.
They parked in the front and mounted the nineteen cracked, granite steps. Daniel, Elizabeth’s husband, struggled with the luggage, but managed to get the suitcases up to the wide slab of marble which served as a front porch.
He opened the door to Elizabeth’s late grandmother’s house. The scent of mildew and roses flowed past them like a wave. They entered the house and marveled at their new home.
Their echoed footsteps followed them as they walked through the entrance hall into a vast dining room. A chandelier hung over the room like a crystalline bat from a tin-plated ceiling, and there was an oval-shaped spot on the floor, darker than the rest of the hardwood where a table had once been.
“This house is amazing,” Daniel said. “How long did your grandmother live here?”
“As long as I can remember. We used to take a trip out here every summer and spend a week. I used to love playing hide and seek in these rooms with my imaginary friend.”
“And what was your friend’s name?”
“Cecile. He was a little boy about my age. God, I can still remember him. It’s like he was real.”
“I just had a Cabbage Patch Kid. Simon William Braddlebunk or something of that sort.”
That got Elizabeth laughing. It had been forever since she’d heard herself laugh and was surprised by the richness of it, the sincerity of it. Even now, nine months later, it seemed cruel to be laughing when her son, Corey was deep in the cold ground. She stopped. Daniel saw exactly what she was thinking.
“Liz. Corey would have wanted you to go on. That’s why we’re here, right? To get a new start?”
Elizabeth didn’t have to answer. Daniel knew how much she’d wanted to move back here, back to her roots. His job at the hospital would have made it impossible, but last month, he’d surprised her and applied for a position in the area. He took a big pay cut, but so what, they’d be living rent-free. Elizabeth’s mother, who lived in California, had been pestering them since their marriage to move into the old house, probably because doing so would save her the fortune she spent on a caretaker. Elizabeth thought that here, in this familiar, yet foreign place, she might be able to, if not get over Corey’s death, at least get past it, maybe rebuild her life a piece at a time. The psychiatrist told her to start small, take up a hobby. She’d taken up cross-stitch and found she was quite talented. Some of her framed works would soon line the living room walls.
“I love you,” she said.
“I love you too. Everything will be alright. You’ll see. I’ve got a really good feeling about this old place.”
Elizabeth smiled and put a hand on Daniel’s arm. “Yeah, me too.”
***
The truck with their belongings arrived an hour later. Two burly men unloaded everything and set appropriate boxes and furniture in appropriate rooms. Elizabeth and Daniel helped the men move them up into what would be their bedroom.
With the last few things placed in the dining room until they could figure out where to unpack them, Daniel ordered a pizza for supper. As they ate, they both remarked at how strangely quiet the house was. They eventually attributed it to not having their cable hooked up yet and switched on the radio.
After dinner, Elizabeth brought a few items upstairs, but realized the unmarked cases of old tax returns, books, photos and dusty knickknacks didn’t really belong anywhere and decided to take them up all the way into the attic instead until they could go through them and throw away what they didn’t want.
She climbed the creaking wooden stairs and was glad for the last rays of dim sunlight which filtered through the dirty windows. This place was creepier than she had remembered. The wide open space covered the entire breadth and width of the house. Spider webs hung from the corners, and at least an inch of decades-old dust covered the floors. It was hot up here too, and sweat began to bead on her forehead. A ragged hole, about the size of Elizabeth’s fist glared at her from a far corner of the ceiling. She’d have to tell Daniel to get someone to fix it before they had any water damage. Roofing nails protruded from the slanted, clapboard ceiling, like some kind of medieval torture chamber. She’d get whoever fixed the hole to pound the nails over as well.
Liz wondered if bats roosted up here during the day, then thought, if they did, they’d be here now. The sun was still a half an hour from being gone, which reminded her she should get back down the rickety wooden stairs while she still had some light to see by.
***
The next day, Daniel went to work at the hospital, and Elizabeth went to work on the house. There was a lot of cleaning to do, and she wanted to get some decorating done that afternoon. They didn’t have enough furniture to fill half the rooms, but she planned on making the house at least comfortable. Maybe later she’d have time to work on a new cross-stitch she’d bought.
She started on the downstairs, cleaning the floors, walls and windows and then tried to decide what color they should paint each room. Right now, the walls had dull blue and yellow wallpaper on them. It was peeling in some places and completely gone in others.
The upstairs had carpeting throughout, and Liz began vacuuming although it was her least favorite household chore. The whir of the machine echoed though the open spaces, and so much dust was kicked up that she had to open all the windows to breathe.
As she aired out the upstairs, flapping her hands against the fog of dust, she heard a cry come from the attic. It was not very loud, really no more than a squeak.
Must be a bat, she thought. Or some other animal has crawled through that hole.
She mounted the stairs. The place wasn’t quite so creepy in the bright, noon daylight. The box which she’d put up there last night was in the far corner directly under the hole. It was not where or how she had left it.
The small brown container had been sealed shut with masking tape and set at the top of the stairs, but now it was on the other side of the attic and one of the flaps stood open.
Surely an animal couldn’t have done that. Daniel must’ve come up here before work and gotten curious, she thought.
She walked across the dusty space and started to close the flap. As her hand touched the cardboard, she saw a photograph of Corey lying on the floor next to the box. He wore his baseball uniform and had a bat on his shoulder as if ready to hit a home run. She was suddenly struck with a sadness she hadn’t felt since the day her son had been killed. She seethed at Daniel’s carelessness. How could he just spill the photo from the box and then just leave it on the floor.
Liz knelt down, picked the picture up and hugged it to her chest. The tears came all at once. They seemed to hollow her out and rip her apart at the same time. She rocked back and forth, feeling stupid, but not caring. She realized Daniel was probably trying to forget, to move on, and then wondered if she should too.
When she could cry no more, she put the picture back in the box, wiped her eyes and went back downstairs. Daniel would be home in an hour. She decided she wouldn’t ask him about the picture. Sometimes forgetting was better.
***
The next few weeks passed quickly. They got the downstairs rooms painted and Elizabeth decided to wallpaper the upstairs. Daniel helped her on the weekends. They rented movies at night and fell asleep in front of the television. Elizabeth scoured the local furniture stores and antique depots for items to fill the rooms. She got several bargains and the house was looking more and more like a home.
***
“Momma. Momma,”
Elizabeth sat up in bed. She had been at that place between awake and asleep where dreams and reality sometimes blur.
She listened for her son’s voice in the darkness but heard only Daniel’s breathing beside her. She looked over at him. He was a vague lump under the covers.
As she pulled her own blankets aside and got out of bed, she heard her son’s voice again.
“Please. It hurts; make it stop.” The tiny voice was just barely loud enough to hear, and it was coming from the attic.
On her way into the stairway Elizabeth searched for a light switch by the door out of habit, but then remembered there was a single, naked bulb at the top of the stairs with a pull chain dangling from it. She climbed the stairs, feeling her way along the smooth plaster walls. The soft voices had stopped and the silence in the attic was making her ears ring. The only sound was of her slippered footfalls on the rough pine steps.
When Liz reached the top of the stairs, she had to feel around for the pull chain. She hit it with her hand. It swung out, then back and this time she clutched onto it like a lifeline. She pulled the chain, and the room was splashed in harsh, white light. She squinted, waiting for her eyes to adjust, and then looked around the room, searching for whoever had called out.
You know who called out. It was Corey, her mind spoke up.
As she put one hand up to block the glare, she saw the cardboard box standing open again. She walked over to it, expecting to see Corey’s picture lying on the floor, but instead, it had been impaled on one of the roofing nails sticking down from the ceiling. There was another photo, tacked up the same way, a few feet away. The second one was of Corey swimming in Gilman Pond during their Fourth of July picnic. Elizabeth could vaguely remember taking the photo, and for a moment, she could smell the lake water, the suntan lotion and the delicious aroma of charbroiled hamburgers, but most of all, she could smell Corey’s sweet, little boy smell hanging in the mid-summer air like some omen of his impending death.
Next to the pictures was the splintery hole which had grown larger. Now, it was the size of a beach ball. The cool night air flooded in, drying the perspiration on her brow. She experimentally put one hand through the gap, but then had a horrible vision of some grey, creeping thing, grabbing it and yanking her through the mouth-like orifice, so instead, she gingerly felt around its rough edges. The wood had been freshly splintered. A flap of shingle stuck out from one side like a thin, black tongue.
She pulled the photos down and held them. Sweat made them stick to her hand. She kissed each one, hoping Corey could feel her touch in heaven. Then, she put the pictures away once more and pondered why and how they’d gotten there.
Daniel was the only one who could’ve done this, but why? They had plenty of pictures of Corey all over the house. Why put two small wallet sized prints up in a room they never used? She went back downstairs, meaning to wake her husband and question him, but instead, she let him sleep and then soon fell asleep again herself.
***
“Have you been up in the attic?” Elizabeth asked the next morning over coffee.
“No, why? I’ll bet it’s pretty big.”
“I put a box up there when we moved in and twice since then someone has opened it up and gone through it.”
Daniel raised his eyebrows. “Someone, as in, not you or me?”
“Exactly.”
“No one has been up there. Are you sure it wasn’t an animal that got in? I keep meaning to call a roofer to get that hole you told me about fixed.”
Elizabeth started to tell him about the pictures but stopped herself. If he hadn’t done it and neither had she, then either someone had broken in or their house was haunted. She had heard voices up there. Was it too far of a stretch that a two hundred-year-old house had a few mischievous spirits roaming about? She thought it might be, for Daniel. He was a pragmatist and usually laughed at the idea of anything paranormal, and she wasn’t in the mood to be laughed at.
After Daniel left for work, Liz tried to keep busy, cleaning and figuring out what they could have for supper, but the attic seemed to call to her. She couldn’t concentrate on anything else.
As she started upstairs to make the bed, she noticed some of the picture frames on the mantle were empty. Not all of them, just the ones that had been filled with pictures of Corey.
She ran up the steps, rounded the corner and slung open the attic door. As the warm air assaulted her, she could hear a lost, lonely voice, crying, no pleading, for her help. She raced up the narrow attic stairs expecting to find her son sitting in a corner with his arms outstretched and a warm smile on his face. She did find Corey, but just his image. Pictures of the boy were plastered everywhere. Every photo they’d ever taken of him was up here. Every image from the time he had been born to the day before he died was pushed onto rusty nails like a photo gallery from hell. The effect was dizzying. Suddenly everything spun and she reached out for something to grab, but found only humid air. She landed on the rough, pine floor and the world grew black.
***
Daniel arrived home, exhausted. His hours had grown longer and longer lately. He really wanted to be home more with Elizabeth. She’d had a rough year. Shit, they both had. Losing Corey was horrible, and he’d hoped that moving away from their house in the city with all the memories would have helped Elizabeth, but lately he just didn’t know. She was despondent and lethargic. One night last week he caught her sleepwalking. She went downstairs and took one of Corey’s pictures from the frame on the mantle. She was kissing it over and over again. It nearly broke his heart to see her like that, grieving even in slumber. He finally was able to get her back in bed without her waking up, but the whole incident had been creepy as hell. Then there was that box in the attic which she swore someone had been going through. He knew no one could have been up there. She was home all day and what would anyone want with a box of junk in the attic anyway? It was all wearing on his nerves. He thought maybe it was time for Elizabeth to make a return visit to the psychiatrist. Losing Corey hadn’t been any easier on him, but he pushed through it, remembering the good times and trying to get on with his life, with their life.
He parked his car, walked across the lawn and started up the stairs. That was when he saw a flash of movement above him on edge the roof. He backed up and tried to get a better look. A dark shape crept behind the gable and disappeared over the roofline.
“Damn cats,” he said. “They probably made that huge hole in the roof.” He opened the front door and walked inside. He’d forgotten again to call some roofing companies and get quotes. He didn’t trust Elizabeth to do it, and he hated using up his lunch break, talking on the phone.
“Lizzie!” he called. “Elizabeth! I’m home.”
There was no answer. He didn’t smell anything cooking in the kitchen. That wasn’t like Lizzie at all. Usually dinner was nearly done when he got home. It was something she enjoyed doing and over the years she’d spoiled him with it.
He climbed the stairs and called out to her again, still with no response. He rounded the corner and saw the attic door standing slightly ajar. He walked over, almost shut it, but then opened it wider.
Daniel could tell the place would be as hot as an oven even before he started climbing the steps. Dust motes swirled in the air like tiny feathers. A dim, flickering glow illuminated the space above him. He could hear a dull crunching sound coming from the top of the stairs. It sounded like someone was tearing into plywood with a crowbar or an axe.
“Elizabeth? Are you up here?”
No answer.
“Hon?” he said, and climbed the stairs. The humidity hung in the air like a wet blanket. He wiped sweat off his forehead continued. As Daniel reached the top of the stairs, he gasped.
A single candle burned in the center of the room. The walls and ceiling was covered with pictures of Corey. The place looked like a shrine. But that wasn’t what held his gaze; it was his wife.
She was hanging half in and half out of the jagged hole in the ceiling, chewing on the wood around the opening. Daniel then realized what, or rather whom he had seen crawling around on the roof.
Elizabeth turned her gaze on him and smiled. Her long, black hair was nearly gone. It looked as if she had cut or yanked it out. Only a few clumps remained on her otherwise bald skull.
“H..Honey? Are you alright? What happened to your hair?” Daniel asked softly.
“I needed it to make Corey’s picture. I had a blank spot on the wall that needed to be filled. I ran out of photos, so I decided to make a portrait of him instead.” She pointed across the room with a shaking hand. Hung on the wall was a cross-stitched picture of Corey. His features were startlingly lifelike even in black and white. As Daniel looked closer, he realized the likeness had been created with Elizabeth’s dark hair.
“Oh my God.” Daniel whispered.
“Do you like it. The psychiatrist was right. A hobby was good for me and it really does help me to relax. I feel like Corey’s here with us right now. He’s here, in this room. That’s why I have to go; I can’t stand it anymore, but I wanted you to see what I made before I left.”
Daniel realized what she meant to do as she jumped and crawled back through the hole. She disappeared onto the roof. He could hear her feet and hands shuffling against the weather beaten shingles just over his head.
“Lizzie, No!” he screamed and ran to the hole. He pulled his upper body through the opening and caught just a glimpse of Elizabeth’s smile as she dove off the roof into the peaceful abyss.
