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Written byP. Mattern & Lynne Ligocki Gauthier
Late spring in Vermont may not be as spectacular as the fall, but nevertheless it has its own charm. As we drove that day through the countryside I rolled down my window to better appreciate the smell of clean country air and admire the flowering trees and bushes dotting the landscape.
The meadows were a vibrant green that reminded me of hope and new beginnings appropriate because my husband had taken a new job and we had traveled to Vermont looking for a house to move into. We were meandering and checking out homes for sale, but up to that point we hadn't seen anything that grabbed us.
Nothing about the way that day started could have given me a clue as to how it would end.
Out of my peripheral vision I saw something fluttering. When I turned I realized the occupants of a car traveling alongside us were waving, desperately trying to get my attention.
I rolled down the window. Their mouths were moving and although both cars were still moving, the wind in between carrying their voices away, I caught the word, ”smoke.”
“What are they saying,” my husband wanted to know. He was still driving, reticent to pull over since we were definitely in the boonies—no cell service, and with a few ominous clouds rolling in. I knew what he was thinking, I was thinking the same thing—it was a desolate stretch of road with the farmhouses tucked way back from the roadside. If someone tried to force us over and rob us no one would hear us call for help.
We were both thinking of that movie ‘Deliverance’, dueling banjos and inbred marauders attacking folks that happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
But the faces in the other car looked alarmed for us, so I was inclined to believe them.
“Pull over,” I told him, "They said the car is smoking!” Mike slowed down and pulled onto the shoulder of the road. I thought the people waving us down would pull over also but they just breezed past, the woman on the passenger side that had done the most waving shooting me an apologetic look in the nanosecond that our eyes met.
There was an acrid, smoky odor in the air as Mike and I exited. It was a warm day, and before he turned the car off he lowered the windows. Our autistic son Quinton, had fallen asleep in the back seat. He was resting comfortably in between two bolster pillows and had gotten bored with the scenery, signing games I tried to play with him and his sensory integration toys.
At that juncture, after Quinton was diagnosed as being on the Spectrum, Mike and I had set aside our plans to have any more kids. Parenting Quinton was like getting redirected to some underworld of parenting that we hadn’t know existed, where there was never enough information and where choices were daunting—and where there was never anyone who could answer the question on the mind of every parent of a special needs child:
Will my kid be okay?
Quinton had just turned six, and it was safe to assume he would always need some degree of care. He was smart with technology, and had picked up writing and reading quickly, but with his brain unable to connect with his tongue to produce more than two words at a time, communication was limited. We often gave him choices and asked for yes or no responses to make it easier.
Quinton also hated to read and be read to. He would do it if his teacher or Mike or I cajoled him to, but he did it with such obvious distaste that we knew it would never be his ‘thing’. Quinton’s thing was music, and he had a perfect ear. He could sing like an opera star, as well as play keyboard to any tune like a prodigy.
Mike lifted the hood of the car,
“And of course no Wi-Fi out here in the sticks,” he grumbled, “And there won’t be anything open until Monday. I guess I should start walking and get a tow.”
A few yards in front of us was a gate, the old fashioned kind constructed of boards that was at least ten feet in length and hinged on one end. The dirt road beyond it looked as though it was a private road that meandered over several hills and probably ended up at a farmhouse.
I was scared for him. We knew where we were, and it was miles from town.
“What if they have dogs?” I asked, "And they attack you because that’s their job and you are a stranger coming onto their property?”
Mike winked at me.
“Always the worst case scenario with you,” he smirked, “I will be fine. I am wearing my shit kicker boots and I am sure I can find a big stick to carry. In the mood I am in, no mutt wants to mess with me. I’ll use their phone and call someone to tow us to a service station. I’m glad we got an early start because if it were any later in the afternoon we might have to spend the night in a bed and breakfast waiting for the car to be repaired - and it’s over 3 hours drive back to New Hampshire. I need sleep before I go into work tomorrow!”
I looked up at the sun, still high overhead. Mike had been offered a better job in Vermont, but we would have to relocate to one of the small towns for him to take it. So we put our own house up for sale in the meantime and planned an excursion to check out available homes in the country. We had stopped for pancakes that morning before starting our quest and had already looked at several properties, none of which were impressive. I was trying not to let my inner whining over having to move spill out and ruin our trip. I hated leaving our home, and it was the only home that Quinton had ever known.
If you know anything about autism, you would know that kids on the spectrum do not adapt well to change. I was worried about Quinton adapting to rural life when we had always lived in the suburbs.
Mike walked a few feet and unlatched the gate. It swung outward with a squealing sound, and I noticed it was one of the weighted kind, with an oiled chain and a greasy looking weight attached that looked like a big rusted gear.
It was getting hotter. As I watched Mike’s back retreating up the road I looked into the back seat, concerned about Quinton, but he looked fairly comfortable. He wasn’t sweating; I couldn’t see any beads of perspiration on his forehead, so I relaxed.
A man came by in Priest’s garb driving a black, late model SUV, pulling over in front of us. He was handsome and reminded me of Richard Chamberlain in the movie The Thornbirds. He got out and asked what was going on. Just seeing the Father relaxed me and put me at ease. Two nuns got out of the passenger doors and came over to talk to me,
“Oh!” one of them said quietly, “You have a little one with you. Are you all right?”
“Yes, I said gratefully. “I’m Lynne, by the way, and my husband Mike just left to try to use the phone at the farmhouse—and my son Quinton is the sleepyhead.”
“I am Sister Theresa and this is Sister Mary Beth,” she told me,” You know it’s the oddest thing. Father has OnStar for the Tundra, and I always thought it worked any place. I mean that’s supposed to be the point of having it, right? So that you can get help in any situation?
But for some reason it’s not working at all!” she finished with a perplexed look on her face.
After pulling and tugging on things and shining a flashlight down at the workings of our car, the Father gave us the bad news.
“The wheel bearings are gone,” he said, wiping his hands on several wet wipes I had brought along, the extra large kind, ”This car isn’t going anywhere without a repair, and unfortunately we are late for a meeting. Can we give you a ride back to the monastery with your son?”
“Oh I am sure we will be fine,” I told him. The truth was that I didn’t want to be separated from Mike. Even if I left a note he might be concerned.
Suddenly I got an inspiration. Pulling out a notebook I scribbled my sister-in-laws number.
“Maybe you could please contact Connie, my husband’s sister. Her husband owns a towing service and they live about an hour away. Just tell her we broke down on this Highway and we’ll be waiting here.”
I hadn’t really made a plan with Mike but I felt fairly sure his mission was to use the phone at the farmhouse and contact Connie anyway. Just in case the rustics didn’t have a working phone I wanted a back up.
“I certainly will,” the Father said, smiling kindly, "I’m Father Prescott by the way. I’ll be praying for your safe return home, especially considering your little guy.”
“Thank you so much Father,” I said, meaning it. Say what you want about religion but it’s always been a comfort to me, always helped me keep my equilibrium, always helped me be a better person, and definitely prevented some panic attacks, which I have had since I was a teenager. I have had them to the extent of hyperventilating and passing out.
Just as the two nuns and Father Prescott drove away, I started to be able to make out a lone figure coming up the road from the farmhouse. I shielded my eyes from the sun, glad to see Mike returning. I grabbed a juice box and a bottle of water from the mini cooler in the back for Quinton and a bag of chips. Quinton sat up mumbling and immediately drained the juice box, while digging into the chips.
“So how did it go?” I asked Mike, as soon as he relatched the gate. I noticed he looked sweaty and handed him the cold bottle of water.
He took off his cap and ran his hand through his hair, then twisted the cap off the water and glugged down a few swallows.
“Didn’t they offer you anything to drink?” I wondered, "Did you get to use the phone?”
“Well this was certainly one for the damn books,” he told me, “You wouldn’t have believed it, Lynne. I got up into the yard—there were two more gates by the way, on the way in, and I could see a Brahmin bull in one of the pastures, and two dogs started barking and came toward me. You’ll never guess what kind they were either.”
“Coon hounds?” I said, thinking of the most backcountry kind of dogs I was familiar with.
“St. FUCKING Bernards!” he answered,” They were as huge as horses! How they get around in this heat I have no idea. I was fairly certain they were going to have me for dinner, but just as the first one reached me—I had a stick by the way—the screen door of the farmhouse burst open and a young lady shouted at the dogs. They stopped in their tracks and turned around like I’d become suddenly of no interest. They strode off at a leisurely pace and resumed their spot in the shade of one of the trees. The girl motioned me to the house.
'They won’t bother you now,’ she assured me.
“There was another one of the weighted, makeshift gates to get to the stone paved path to the door she was standing in. And I felt like I should explain myself, so I was telling her that I didn’t mean to bother anyone but my car had broken down out on the highway and I need to call towing.
“I almost did a double take as I got closer. The girl was the spitting image of Daisy Mae from the old ‘L’il Abner cartoons—she had on torn up jean shorts showing a lot of thigh and a checkered pink blouse that was unbuttoned enough to show off cleavage. I was thinking, ‘Are you seriously fucking with me? This can’t possibly be real!’”
Mike paused again to take another couple of swigs from his water bottle.
“I met the Farmer’s Daughter,” he joked, “And I was about to meet the Farmer. I heard the noise of a big motorcycle running rough, and over the top of the hill in front of the house comes this HUGE bearded guy with a scarf over his head and a ZZ Top type beard. He must have been close to 400 pounds, Lynne, I ain’t lyin’! It was unbelievable that he could even balance on that big Harley to ride it.”
“I didn’t know farmers were riding Harleys now,” I said, laughing, “Kind of reminds of the thing about the bumble bee, you know, that’s it’s not supposed to fly with that big body and those little wings, that according to the laws of aerodynamics it’s impossible!”
“I know, right?” Mike agreed. “Anyway, he came roaring through the yard kicking up a cloud of dust and scattering chickens, and turned off his machine. He was riding a Harley Bagger with floorboard extensions. The seat was custom too, so he seemed pretty comfortable.
‘Hi I’m Mike Smith,’ I told him immediately, ‘My wife and son are out on the road, and I just came to ask if I can use the phone to call a tow. Problem with the bearings. Hope you don’t mind.’
“The man stared at me for a minute, I got the impression he was sizing me up, and I could imagine what he was thinking: city slicker, pencil neck, couldn’t possibly own a bike.
“He smiled and all I could see was a mouthful of gold teeth.
‘Sure,’ he told me, opening the screen door and ushering me into the kitchen, ‘Come on in, Mike. The phone is right through that doorway up the three steps off the dining room and into the hallway.’
“I followed his directions and called Connie, thank God she answered. As I returned to the kitchen I could hear the Farmer talking to his daughter. As soon as they saw me again he said, ‘I’m Samael Black. Did you get to make your call? I was just telling Bessie here she shoulda got you something to drink by now!’
“As the farmer excused himself and disappeared through a curtained doorway at the end of the kitchen, his daughter handed me a glass of lemonade. I drank it right down as she watched me, then took my glass.
“‘I bet you want some more don’tcha?’ she asked. And before I had a chance to answer she poured another one. I was standing in the middle of the kitchen, kind of in front of the stove. It wasn’t a fancy place, the kitchen sink and cabinets looked like they were from the 1920’s. Daisy Mae jumped up on a counter across from me. It was a long laminated counter that was the lower shelf of some built in wooden cabinets with glass doors on the front, where they kept the dishes.
“'My Daddy was wonderin’ how come you all are so far out here?’ she said conversationally, ‘You got relatives out this way?’
“'No actually,’ I told her, ‘We were going to look at houses for sale or rent. I just got a new job out this way and the commute from New Hampshire is out of the question. Now it’s kind of late in the day so I guess we’ll have to come back another time.’
“'Whereabouts were you lookin’ to settle?’ she asked, leaning back against the cabinet. As she was doing that, Lynne, she kind of shifted her legs. Her shorts were so tight and her legs open so wide I got a clear shot of her blonde pubic hair on either side of where the crotch of the shorts was forming a camel toe.
“It was just a split second, but I got the impression that she WANTED me to see her.
“The big farmer guy came through the curtains just then. He was completely naked, all of his flesh exposed and hanging like he was some sort of giant melted candle. His belly hung down so low it covered his crotch.
“’I’m fixin’ to take a shower now,’ he told me, winking and tugging on his beard. ‘One I rigged up outside. You best be on your way.’
“He didn’t have to ask me twice, Lynne. I think I thanked them and then I took off like my tail was on fire. On the way across the yard I noticed that his Harley was still parked outside the gate, but the St. Bernards seemed to be gone.
“Now tell me that’s not as fucking weird as it gets!”
“Beats my story,” I told him. “Although I ended up meeting new people too—a Priest and two nuns stopped by—sounds like the beginning to a bad joke, right?”
“Wow,” Mike said, reaching into the back seat to grab Quinton, who’d started making his usual noises to get Mike’s attention, and hoisting our son up on his shoulders. “So they just left you and Quint here?”
“They offered to give us a ride to the Monastery,” I told him,” But I would have felt bad leaving a note. I did ask them to call Connie too, though, just in case you decided to leave us for the Farmer’s Daughter.”
We both had a laugh then, and I asked, “So what do we do now? Just wait, I guess?”
“Sure,” Mike said, “And while I am waiting for you to pull the sandwiches out of the cooler for your starving man and little man, I am going to show Quinton how to swing on a gate!”
I felt calmer as I watched them run a short distance up the road hand in hand. The weather was nice, and I was humming as I pulled out paper plates, chips and sandwiches from the cooler.
I was still worried though. We only had two weekends to find a place.
It was two nights later the dreams began.
In the dream I am walking through the rooms of an old farmhouse, as if I’m looking for something. The atmosphere is humid, and the interior of the farmhouse is dingy, with dust everywhere. There are gauzy looking cobwebs hanging down from the exposed beams in the ceiling that are fluffy and thick, like infinity scarves. All the doorknobs are either the rounded metal kind or the see through cut crystal type that you’d find in old homes. In my dream I am thinking that no one has lived here in a very long time, and whoever left here, left in a hurry, because many of the dust covered items look like personal items: books, stacks of papers, vases and so on.
I walk to the end of the room I am in. It has a stone fire place at one end, and a mantle with an antlered deer hung above. I am about to go up a short flight of stairs when I hear a noise coming from a built-in corner closet to one side of the fireplace. I realize that the door knob is turning with a metallic grating sound.
In my dream I wrench it open. It is so dark inside the closet, I can’t make anything out at first. Then I realize that what I had mistaken for a dirty pile of rags that looks like old torn up sheeting, is moving.
It has a human shape, like a child. It is making muffled whimpering noises.
I can’t move or breathe. I see that the thing in the back corner of the closet has hair so matted and dirty that it blends in with the rags. It stops making noises and I realized it is a child curled up with its arms around its knees and with its head facing the corner.
As the head swivels to face me, even though it is grey and pinched and covered with clear primordial ooze of some kind I can still make out the features.
It is Quinton.
I ended up having some version of the same dream two more times after that, once during a late afternoon nap. Each time I woke up in a cold sweat, my heart pumping wildly. I told Mike about my dream after the second time, but he didn’t take me seriously. He told me that, strangely enough, he was having dreams too since our first house hunting trip, centering around the Farmer’s daughter.
I punched him for teasing me, although I wondered if it were true. After all, the girl had practically ‘flashed’ him.
The weekend finally arrived and this time we were prepared—the car had been fixed and was in great shape for a trip and the weather was nice, cooler than before after some rain. This time we had reinforcements: my in-laws, Pete and Gladys, had consented to go with us, partly for a ride and partly to help us find something decent to move into.
The first house was further up North than we liked, but we decided to start at the farthest point and work our way back toward home. It was listed as a ‘large multiroom fixer-upper surrounded by lush farmland, shingled roof, multiple gables.’ Its listing price was more than we wanted to pay, but since it was a fixer-upper we were hoping the owners might be motivated to take less.
The realtor met us there, a spare middle aged lady in a polka dot blouse and navy skirt. Quinton stood by my side wide-eyed, clutching his stuffed Pokeman Pikachu character. From the outside the house looked to be in pretty good shape—the realtor pointed out the wraparound porch, shingled roof and multiple gables. Shading my eyes, I could see an old barn and a couple structures of weathered grey boards behind the house that looked as though they had seen better days, but the realtor just referred to them as ‘outbuildings.’
Inside the front door opened into a large kitchen area, typical for a farmhouse. It looked fairly clean with the exception of a few cobwebs in the rafters, and opened into a generous living room area. I didn’t really mind the exposed framing. I wondered what it would take to keep the wooden beams free from dust. Still the open airy look made the main living room seem larger.
There were several bedrooms. Nothing was new and there were some drywall repairs that would need to be made, but overall the place was charming. The price was not so charming and Mike had a brief, private discussion with the realtor, putting in an offer.
From there we went to a place that we knew we could afford. The young gentleman with his dark hair slicked back was already there waiting for us in front of it. The property contained a yellow painted farmhouse, a one car garage, a half built barn/garage that was two stories high and an open fronted pole barn replete with hay. Looking beyond that, as the realtor gave an overall description of what we were looking at, there was a pond and an unbarbed wire fence that contained several large horse troughs—not a selling point since neither Mike nor I ride and didn’t anticipate owning horses.
The inside of the home wasn’t bad. It was obvious that someone was still living there, but the layout seemed cramped, and though the rooms were larger than they looked from the outside, the hallways and stairways were smaller than we had hoped for.
It had an odor too, one that I couldn’t quite place. Kind of musty and mildewy.
Again Mike talked privately with the realtor. Walking back over to where Quinton, I and his parents stood he asked, “What do you think?”
“Not bad,” I said, “I mean, are you really crazy about it, though?”
“Not really,” he told me.
“What’s with the unfinished projects?” Pete asked the realtor.
“It’s really typical with these farm properties,” the realator chuckled. “People get the building and improving bug out in the country. You’ll find that just about everything you look at will have some kind of unfinished building project on it!”
I hadn’t really seen anything that seemed like a bargain. We stopped at a small restaurant off of route 202 and had a great ‘threshers’ group meal served family style that included fried chicken, mashed potatoes, peas, green beans, cider soaked ham and hot homemade biscuits with apple butter. We all got up groaning, but happy, because it was a lot of food and a lot of fun. Quinton is a picky eater, but he stuffed down mashed potatoes and two chicken legs, so the country air must have given him an appetite.
The third house was supposed to be the last stop of the day, but the realtor didn’t show up, even though we waited for a good half hour. We were nearing the exact spot where our car had broken down when I noticed a huge man on a motorcycle rising in front of us on the road. Mike and I saw him look into his rearview at us and wave us over to the side of the road,
As Mike slowed down to pull over I felt a chill go down my spine and said, “Don’t do it Mike! What if he has a gun or something?”
Mike turned to me, his eyes filled with amusement.
“That’s the FARMER,” he explained, ”The one whose phone I used.”
He got out without saying anything else and I waited nervously. In the back seat my in-laws were helping Quinton play a video game. I watched Mike talk to the big scary looking guy. As they were talking the farmer turned once toward me, shading his eyes and waved. It was a friendly enough wave. He and Mike talked about 5 minutes and Mike returned to the car with an air of excitement.
“Well that was Mr. Black, Samael is his first name. He was telling me the Branford place up the road was sold yesterday, but he told me that HE owns a couple properties nearby—one is basically a farm with a trailer and a storage unit, Lynne—but the OTHER one is a farmhouse located on the other side of his farm—it has its own entrance about a mile and a half up the road. ...what do you think about taking a look at it? I know you had your sights set on the Branford place, but this is right in our range and, HEY, at least we already know our closest neighbors!”
“Sure!” I agreed. Mike turned around and told his parents we’d run into the same farmer he’d met the past weekend and we were still going to check out one more house.
The road to the farmhouse didn’t have a gate, and the entrance was set back into the tree line so that it was easy to miss. I was sure if Mike hadn’t been following the Harley we would have missed it.
The road was one of the old fashioned kind that are only one a half cars wide, so that if two cars happen to meet they both have to ease down into the small ditches on either side to pass each other. As we traveled along, the road dug more deeply into the surrounding woodland, so that the roots of trees corkscrewed out from the dirt bank on either side.
Up ahead of us dust puffed out from the sides of the Harley, and I found a strange comfort in its roar. I had known that we would have different kinds of neighbors moving so far away from the city, but I had been thinking of Ma and Pa Kettle-rustic types, rather than a 400 pound, Harley rider.
As narrow as the road was, after about a mile and a half it opened up to a startlingly panoramic view. The road widened and we drove past a pond on one side, a small newly painted red barn and to our left, placed between two gentle rolling hillocks, the most charming farmhouse imaginable.
I was worried that it seemed small from the outside, but when we all exited the car I could see that it was bigger than it had seemed at first blush. There was the typical laid-stone pathway up to the front porch of the house, which was small but had twin rocking chairs sitting there. It had a wraparound porch on the second floor, rather than the first, and the part of it that wasn’t new England clapboard was hand hewn stone from the countryside.
It looked to be in pretty good, not perfect shape. The farmer pointed out some of the obvious problems. There was a gabled roof and a cupola on either end of the roof. One of them contained a huge infestation of wasps—a big negative as far as I was concerned, since I am allergic to all kinds of stings, and for all I know Quinton might be too, we just never got around to having him tested.
“Sugar shack,” our burley tour guide explained, pointing to a building in which maple sugar must have been made at one time. The porch groaned in protest as he stepped up on it, and as he opened the six paned front door a rush of wind coming out from inside blew the sides of my hair back as I followed him.
I thought that was very odd.
The day had warmed up, but it was cool inside. We were standing in a large kitchen, and, although there was a lot of dust, I was immediately charmed. Not only did it have a modern stove, but also an old-fashioned wood stove with a griddle. It reminded me of one that my Grandmother had had when I was a child. I noticed that there was space for our own kitchen table and chairs and lots of built in glass front cabinets.
The next room was even larger, and seemed like it could either be a dining area or a family room. There was a large fireplace with the head of a five point buck mounted over it. That wasn’t the only head on display—altogether there were four more deer heads, a moose head, and a large stuffed bird on the fireplace mantle. The entire room was a sort of shrine to taxidermy. There was even a bearskin rug in front of the fireplace.
Quinton started crying, hiding his face against my jean clad legs.
“It’s the animals,” I told the farmer when he looked over at us, ”He probably thinks they’re hurt.”
“I noticed he doesn’t talk much,” the farmer said thoughtfully, looking at the back of Quinton’s head, “Is he afflicted?”
I bristled at the farmer’s choice of words.
“He is autistic,” I told him, “Lots of children are nowadays. They’re not sure why, they think it might be environmental.”
“Too bad,” the farmer commented briefly, then led us up some steps into a huge foyer. There were sets of stairs going off on either side of us. Overhead was an old-fashioned ruby globe of a chandelier with lead crystals hanging down. Behind us was a screen door that I assumed went outside to the wraparound porch.
Straight ahead was a set of three steps going into another large room. It was a living room, and it contained large carved wooden shelves in all four corners with dusty collections of small glass objects. I couldn’t make out what they were, but I love antique knickknacks and I couldn’t wait to get my hands on them.
By the time we had seen the bedrooms (two adjoining ones on each side located up the stairways) we were all but sold. Mike and the farmer stepped out onto the second floor wraparound porch. Even though there were only two bathrooms in the entire house, one up one of the flights of stairs to the bedrooms and one downstairs off the kitchen, they both had claw tubs and showers had been set up, and I wasn’t picky. I knew the place needed a lot of cleaning just to get the dust out, and made a mental note to get a couple of air purifiers, because both Quinton and I have allergies.
Mike came in from the porch with excitement reflected in his eyes. The farmer wasn’t with him.
“What do you think, Lynne?” he asked. “You like it?”
I was so happy that I just threw my arms around his neck. “I LOVE it. I can really see us here. Now if only the price is right!”
“Well I can tell you soon enough,” Mike assured me, turning and exiting out the screen door to the second floor porch again. I heard him talking to the farmer, but couldn’t make out what they were saying. I had been chatting with Pete and Gladys but I excused myself, took Quinton’s hand, and started walking toward the screen door off the foyer. I was standing in front of it just in time to see the two men shaking hands.
Mike came back inside instantly, the farmer close behind him.
“We GOT it!” he announced. I dropped Quinton’s hand as he whirled me around twice before setting me down. Then we kissed briefly, and Mike picked Quinton up and started tossing him in the air until Quinton was laughing too.
The next few weeks went by in a blur. We sold our house in New Hampshire, and parked Quinton with relatives the next two Saturdays and Sundays so that Mike and I could clean up the farmhouse in Vermont. We moved stuff to storage and shared Mike’s parent’s small house until moving day, but looking back it seemed to come up pretty fast.
One thing Mike and I couldn’t figure out before hand were the mounted taxidermy in the family room at the new house. Other than taking an ax to the mounted animal heads, Mike was at a loss as to how to remove them. He said it was like they had been super glued to the walls, and he didn’t want to damage anything before we moved in. He was also afraid of what might be lurking in the walls, since it was an older house and he’d heard horror stories of infestations of hornets in the walls of old houses. In the end, I just threw pillowcases over them for the time being. The stuffed bird went in the garbage, the bear rug Mike and I argued about, and I finally helped him move it into the huge ‘parlor’ on the second level so that Quinton wouldn’t have to look at it. For the time being we could live in the rooms we had already cleaned and prepared for our arrival.
One thing we had overlooked was laundry facilities. There was an old-fashioned wringer washer from the 40’s that still worked in a utility room off the kitchen, but I wasn’t up for a level of rustic living that included hanging clothes outside on a clothesline that was behind the house, so I drove to the nearest small town once a week to use the Laundromat. Quinton and I would spend the day there, getting lunch at the burger joint, but I hated being away from our new home even with all its quirks.
Mike got promoted at his job, and had to travel several days a month. We had a landline, so I spent time on the phone with friends and Mike’s parents, updating them on our progress on the house. We made several attempts to have them down for the weekend, but for some reason, one or the other of them seemed to come down with something every time we set a date.
Summer turned to early fall. Quinton and I explored the property, and discovered a small creek on the side of the road away from the pond, also a Spring House that the creek ran through where in old-fashioned times the farm families would keep blocks of ice to preserve food in there.
The first time I saw something strange, Mike was out of town. Quint and I had just gotten back from doing laundry in town, and I was heading in to our bedroom, located on the West side of the house and adjoining Quinton’s room. His room was directly above the kitchen, with the chimney from the old-fashioned stove running up through it, so we figured even in winter his room would be the warmest.
I had come up the steps and cleared the doorway when I saw something that made me gasp and drop my basket of neatly folded laundry to the floor.
It was the nuns and the Priest I saw, the ones that had offered to help us the first time we went house hunting and had car problems. They were all naked, except Sisters Mary Beth and Theresa had on their head pieces, the veil and coif, and the priest had on a collar. I could see the rest of their clothing strewn around the bed, and the priest was making grunting noises as he fucked one of the nuns from behind, while the two sisters kissed passionately and fondled each other’s breasts.
At first, they didn’t seem to notice me, then the Priest turned his head and looked straight at me, a leer on his face, and lifted one of his hands from the nun’s hip to make a gesture for me to join them.
As I stood at the doorway, frozen, the scene before me vanished. My heart was pumping wildly as I started to go into a panic attack, but as I made a visual sweep of the room, I could see that it was empty.
The incident unnerved me. Even if I had seen ghosts, why did they look like Father Prescott and the helpful nuns we’d met that day? And worse, what if Quinton was going up to his room to get a toy one day and saw what I had just seen?
When Mike came back home, I told him that I’d seen ghosts in our bedroom. I didn’t give him any details because I knew he would just make a joke about the Priest and the two nuns.
Nevertheless, I was nervous. It seemed to me that the atmosphere inside the farmhouse had gotten thicker and darker somehow. I began to hate it when Mike had to travel, and a lot of times Quinton and I slept downstairs on the couches in the family room.
I was elated when Mike told me he wouldn’t be traveling for awhile. At last I could expect him home for dinner every night, and I relaxed again. We decided to buy Quinton a pony, which turned out to be a wonderful idea. Quinton named the pony ‘Ocean.’ I knew it was because he loved having a pony so much, as much as he loved going to the beach, so Quint figured he would name his new pony after his favorite place. Quint started talking more, saying one or two words together. In light of the positive effect country living was having on my differently able child, I all but forgot about the ghosts.
One weekend Mike was mowing the fields on our tractor and hit something that cracked one of the blades on the mower. It was early October by then, but still warm during the daytime. He told me that he was trekking over to our nearest neighbor, the Harley riding farmer, to see if he had a spare blade Mike could buy off him and save a trip to town.
Quinton asked me for a lump of sugar for Ocean, and as I watched him in his farmer overalls trotting confidently toward the barn with the lump of sugar clutched in his hand I felt my heart swell with pride. He had come so far in the last couple of years, and he was still amazing me every day.
He was also my best buddy. What he lacked in verbal skills he made up in affection. And my most favorite sound in the world was his laughter.
I got involved in beating the dust out of an old but gorgeous antique throw rug that I had discovered in the back parlor. I had thrown it over the clothesline in the back of the house, whaling on it with an old rug beater that was shaped like a flexible, braided wire loop.
When my arm started getting tired, I started wondering how much time had gone by. I figured Mike must be back from the neighbors, but I hadn’t heard the mower starting up.
I walked around to the front of the house, and stopped to listen, still hearing nothing. Frowning I propped the rug beater against the porch and dusted off my hands as I walked toward the barn.
Ocean was there, but, looking around at the dust motes dancing in the shafts of sunlight coming in between the boards, I didn’t see Quinton right away.
“Quint?” I called, my voice echoing.
Just as I started to panic a little, I felt arms around my waist. At first I thought it was Quint-he loved to sneak up on me and hug me from behind. But then I realized the arms around my waist were huge, strong, and meaty.
When I turned I was staring into the face of Samael Black.
“Where is Mike?” I blurted, as a feeling of dread so palpable I felt like I was being christened in it descended over me. “He said he was going to borrow a blade from you!”
The farmer smirked.
“Oh, he got what he came over for, and a little bit more, Lynne. Just about now he is fucking my daughter, balls deep in her pretty blonde cunt as she sits on the kitchen counter. So, I figured it was only fair that I just meander on over here and get a taste of your honey pot.”
For the first time I noticed two tall figures standing behind him. They were cloaked in brown robes, wearing hoods that concealed their features.
“Your husband met the boys, though I guess you haven’t had the pleasure,” the Farmer said, cocking a thick thumb at them. “The last time he saw them they were St. Bernards.
“So what’s it gonna be, Lynne? Because nobody says no to Daddy Black, and I’m not a patient man.”
It occurred to me that I might just be seeing my second set of ghosts. Or having a daymare. In the end I opted for bolting toward the open door of the barn.
I was caught between the two cowled figures. They tore my clothing away, forced me down in the hay scattered across the dirt flooring and held me there.
Panting, I watched as the Farmer shed his own clothing and stood before me naked. He was a mountain of sweaty flesh, his fat hanging down in voluminous folds, his huge stomach hanging down not quite far enough to cover the largest rigid penis I had ever seen.
I started screaming.
“Shhhhhhhhhhhhh,” he told me, kneeling down between my legs. “All I want is a piece of your pussy. It’s not like I’m taking souvenirs either. Nobody’s gonna hear you screamin’ this far out, lady. Just relax and give the Devil his due, then.”
As I stared, two separate protrusions appeared on either side of his bald head and I gaped at them uncomprehendingly as they morphed silently into horns. He lowered his body onto mine, suffocating me with his mountain of clammy flesh. He grunted, entering me with a hard thrust, and I felt excruciating pain between my legs.
“Sorry, not sorry,” he growled next to my ear, “It’s barbed.”
“Mommy wake up,” a voice said from above me.
I opened my eyes but it took a moment for my vision to clear, and a little longer to realize that I was still lying on the floor of the barn.
“Where your clothes?” Quinton wanted to know.
I sat up quickly, looking around. I saw my shorts first, and grabbed them. My panties were nowhere to be found. My tee shirt was torn but I stood up on rubbery legs and slipped it on over my head.
“We have to call 911, Quinton,” I told him, trying to get my breathing regulated again. “Some bad men hurt Mommy. I need to find Daddy—have you seen Daddy?”
Quinton nodded.
“Daddy’s in the house,” he told me. “Come see!”
He took my hand and pulled me to the porch of the farm house. All I wanted to do was see Mike’s face, call the police, and go the ER.
And then it hit me. I stopped as soon as we got into the house and looked down at Quint.
“Quinton, you can talk!” I said wonderingly. “You’re talking really good!”
Quinton dropped my hand and smacked himself in the forehead, then turned to me.
“My bad,” he said,” I should have let you know sooner, huh?”
I took a step back. Looking into his eyes, I could tell something was off. Way, way off. His eyes were silvery with no whites showing at all.
“You’re not my SON!” I gasped. “YOU’RE NOT QUINTON!”
“No shit!” he answered in a bored tone. “And Mike is upstairs, by the way. In the second floor foyer. He hung himself from the chandelier, and his face has turned some disturbing colors—mostly blues and purples. You can go on in and check on him but, given your current state of mind, I would have to advise against it.”
I turned away and took the three steps down into the family room with a single jump. As I moved through the room I caught movement out of the corner of my eye.
Nearly all the animal heads on the wall were moving, and most of them had managed to toss the pillowcases off that I had draped over them so that Quinton wouldn’t see them. But they were no longer the heads of deer. They were human heads, mounted to the wall like trophies. As my eyes darted around the walls I saw the head of a bearded man, he was making bawling noises like a cow getting slaughtered. The next head down from his was a dark haired woman wearing an old fashioned black bonnet. She was muttering to herself and turning her head this way and that. When she saw me she began screaming.
The other head was that of a little girl, her blonde hair dusty and tangled. She was weeping, tears making silvery trails down her smudged cheeks.
I got out before the last three mounted heads were able to shake away the pillowcases covering them. Just as I reached the kitchen door, dizzy from hyperventilating, I looked behind me.
Pulling itself across the floor by bloody elbows and making gurgling noises was the flattened body of a man. His long dark hair was matted, and his torso had been gutted and flattened, as though he had been skinned to make a rug.
I found I could no longer draw a breath, and that is the last thing I remember.
I was told later that the highway patrol found Quinton and I walking down the road, hand in hand, and I was in a catatonic state brought on by my violent assault. I was hemorrhaging badly and nearly died on the way to the hospital. Mike was never found, despite several organized searches by local law enforcement authorities.
My in-laws cared for Quinton while I recovered. They were overjoyed at his progress. He was able to enter a regular classroom that fall. Eventually I asked them to adopt ‘Quinton,’ and they agreed.
Whatever that thing is, I know for certain that it is not my son.
The authorities were never able to locate the farm, or our farmhouse. They even drove me there to point it out, but somehow the road had simply vanished. There was nothing but forest, and they told me that there had been a homestead there in the 1780’s but the forest had taken over the property nearly a century ago.
Somewhere in Vermont there is a portal to hell. Within that portal, masquerading as a charming turn of the century Vermont farmhouse, there is a child whose clothing has disintegrated into rags rocking back and forth inside a corner closet to one side of a fireplace.
The ashes in the nearby fireplace are cold.
The closet exists in a place beyond reason or time.
And the child trapped there for eternity is mine.
––––––––
P. MATTERN IS AN AWARD winning, #1 and Top 100 Bestselling author. She began composing stories in utero and was born with a stylus clutched in her tiny hand. She has written more than 25 books, has appeared in numerous Bestselling Anthologies and currently has publishing contracts with CHBB Publishing, Tell-Tale Publishing and Dark Books Press. She has co-written the Bestselling Full Moon Series, Strident House and Forest of Bleeding Trees with her adult children J.C. Estall and Marcus Mattern and has been nominated for a RONE award for the co-written thriller Fangirl' with D. James.
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