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Climbing down the tree was harder, the Runt found. You couldn’t see where you were putting your feet and had to feel around for somewhere to put them. Several times he slipped and slid, but Dearly went down ahead of him and would say things like “A little to the right, now,” and they both made it down just fine.
The sky continued to lighten, and the moon was fading, and it was harder to see. They clambered back through the gully. Sometimes the Runt wasn’t sure that Dearly was there at all, but when he got to the top, he saw the boy waiting for him.
They didn’t say much as they walked up to the meadow filled with stones. The Runt put his arm over Dearly’s shoulder, and they walked in step up the hill.
“Well,” said Dearly. “Thanks for coming over.”
“I had a good time,” said the Runt.
“Yeah,” said Dearly. “Me too.”
Down in the woods somewhere a bird began to sing.
“If I wanted to stay-?” said the Runt, all in a burst. Then he stopped. I might never get another chance to change it, thought the Runt. He’d never get to the sea. They’d never let him.
Dearly didn’t say anything, not for a long time. The world was gray. More birds joined the first.
“I can’t do it,” said Dearly, eventually. “But they might.”
“Who?”
“The ones in there.” The fair boy pointed up the slope to the tumbledown farmhouse with the jagged, broken windows, silhouetted against the dawn. The gray light had not changed it.
The Runt shivered. “There’s people in there?” he said. “I thought you said it was empty.”
“It ain’t empty,” said Dearly. “I said nobody lives there. Different things.” He looked up at the sky. “I got to go now,” he added. He squeezed the Runt’s hand. And then he just wasn’t there any longer.
The Runt stood in the little graveyard all on his own, listening to the birdsong on the morning air. Then he made his way up the hill. It was harder by himself.
He picked up his schoolbag from the place he had left it. He ate his last Milky Way and stared at the tumbledown building. The empty windows of the farmhouse were like eyes, watching him.
It was darker inside there. Darker than anything.
He pushed his way through the weed-choked yard. The door to the farmhouse was mostly crumbled away. He stopped at the doorway, hesitating, wondering if this was wise. He could smell damp, and rot, and something else underneath. He thought he heard something move, deep in the house, in the cellar, maybe, or the attic. A shuffle, maybe. Or a hop. It was hard to tell.
Eventually, he went inside.
Nobody said anything. October filled his wooden mug with apple cider when he was done, and drained it, and filled it again.
“It was a story,” said December. “I’ll say that for it.” He rubbed his pale blue eyes with a fist. The fire was almost out.
“What happened next?” asked June, nervously. “After he went into the house?”
May, sitting next to her, put her hand on June’s arm. “Better not to think about it,” she said.
“Anyone else want a turn?” asked August. There was silence. “Then I think we’re done.”
“That needs to be an official motion,” pointed out February.
“All in favor?” said October. There was a chorus of “Ayes.” “All against?” Silence. “Then I declare this meeting adjourned.”
They got up from the fireside, stretching and yawning, and walked away into the wood, in ones and twos and threes, until only October and his neighbor remained.
“Your turn in the chair next time,” said October.
“I know,” said November. He was pale and thin-lipped. He helped October out of the wooden chair. “I like your stories. Mine are always too dark.”
“I don’t think so,” said October. “It’s just that your nights are longer. And you aren’t as warm.”
“Put it like that,” said November, “and I feel better. I suppose we can’t help who we are.”
“That’s the spirit,” said his brother. And they touched hands as they walked away from the fire’s orange embers, taking their stories with them back into the dark.
FOR RAY BRADBURY
THE HIDDEN CHAMBER
Do not fear the ghosts in this house; they are the least of your worries.
Personally I find the noises they make reassuring,
The creaks and footsteps in the night,
their little tricks of hiding things, or moving them, I find
endearing, not upsettling. It makes the place feel so much more like home.
Inhabited.
Apart from ghosts nothing lives here for long. No cats,
no mice, no flies, no dreams, no bats. Two days ago
I saw a butterfly,
a monarch I believe, which danced from room to room
and perched on walls and waited near to me.
There are no flowers in this empty place,
and, scared the butterfly would starve, I forced a window wide,
cupped my two hands around her fluttering self,
feeling her wings kiss my palms so gentle,
and put her out, and watched her fly away.
I’ve little patience with the seasons here, but
your arrival eased this winter’s chill.
Please, wander round. Explore it all you wish.
I’ve broken with tradition on some points. If there is
one locked room here, you’ll never know. You’ll not find
in the cellar’s fireplace old bones or hair. You’ll find no blood.
Regard:
just tools, a washing machine, a dryer, a water heater, and a chain of keys.
Nothing that can alarm you. Nothing dark.
I may be grim, perhaps, but only just as grim
as any man who suffered such affairs. Misfortune,
carelessness or pain, what matters is the loss. You’ll see
the heartbreak linger in my eyes, and dream
of making me forget what came before you walked
into the hallway of this house. Bringing a little summer
in your glance, and with your smile.
While you are here, of course, you will hear the ghosts, always a room away,
and you may wake beside me in the night,
knowing that there’s a space without a door
knowing that there’s a place that’s locked but isn’t there. Hearing
them scuffle, echo, thump and pound.
If you are wise you’ll run into the night, fluttering away into the cold
wearing perhaps the laciest of shifts. The lane’s hard flints
will cut your feet all bloody as you run,
so, if I wished, I could just follow you,
tasting the blood and oceans of your tears. I’ll wait instead,
here in my private place, and soon I’ll put
a candle
in the window, love, to light your way back home.
The world flutters like insects. I think this is how I shall remember you,
my head between the white swell of your breasts,
listening to the chambers of your heart.
FORBIDDEN BRIDES OF THE FACELESS SLAVES IN THE SECRET HOUSE OF THE NIGHT OF DREAD DESIRE
Somewhere in the night, someone was writing.
Her feet scrunched the gravel as she ran, wildly, up the tree-lined drive. Her heart was pounding in her chest, her lungs felt as if they were bursting, heaving breath after breath of the cold night air. Her eyes fixed on the house ahead, the single light in the topmost room drawing her toward it like a moth to a candle flame. Above her, and away in the deep forest behind the house, night-things whooped and skrarked. From the road behind her, she heard something scream briefly-a small animal that had been the victim of some beast of prey, she hoped, but could not be certain.
She ran as if the legions of hell were close on her heels, and spared not even a glance behind her until she reached the porch of the old mansion. In the moon’s pale light the white pillars seemed skeletal, like the bones of a great beast. She clung to the wooden doorframe, gulping air, staring back down the long driveway, as if she were waiting for something, and then she rapped on the door-timorously at first, and then harder. The rapping echoed through the house. She imagined, from the echo that came back to her that, far away, someone was knocking on another door, muffled and dead.