GRETCHEN WAS SO FILLED WITH DREAD ENTERING THE darkroom she was shaking, but the real shock was how orderly and put together it was. The walls painted black, the long porcelain sink full of developing trays that had been drained and turned over to dry. A red bulb bathed the place in strange light. Photos were hanging on a line stretching from one end of the room to the other. The enlarger—state of the art—was not some relic from the sixties. And there was a small refrigerator full of film canisters. She was beginning to get used to these extremes and contradictions.
It was a fully functioning professional darkroom. And like the Nikon in her aunt’s studio, one of the best she’d ever seen. Despite her fear and anxiety, and her brush with whatever weird animal was in the hall, Gretchen put her new Nikon to her eye and took a photograph of her aunt standing in the room where she had so long worked. The sound the camera made was amazing, a fast powerful slide and click, as if it were snatching something from the world in front of her and pulling it into another. She could not believe this camera had shot the things it had and now it was in her hands.
“There,” Esther said after Gretchen had taken her picture. She sounded calm and relieved. “There. Now we can get on with it.”
She walked over to the cabinet that held jugs full of Dektol and D-76 and Fix, took out more black plastic bottles, uncapping them. Gretchen turned away to study the enlarger. But when she turned back around Esther was not filling the trays with chemicals, as she had thought she would. She was gulping down the entire bottle of D-76 as if she were drinking cool, sweet water.
“No!” Gretchen screamed, rushing forward and trying to knock the bottle out of her hands. She wrenched it, but Esther somehow was stronger, and by the time Gretchen had gotten hold of it, it was too late; the jug was empty. Will of steel indeed. “No no no!” Gretchen shrieked, and pulled out her phone. She tried an emergency call to 911 but there was no reception. How could this be possible?
“We have to get you to a hospital,” she said to Esther, who was now sitting on the floor, her knees pulled up to her chest, and breathing shallowly, her weathered combat boots solidly planted on the tile. She tried to pull her aunt to her feet but the woman was much heavier than she looked. An odd smile was spreading across Esther’s face. She looked up at Gretchen. They both knew even a hospital wouldn’t matter now.
Gretchen started to cry. The woman’s face was turning blue and her breathing was labored as she stared at Gretchen. Her black eyes shone in agony.
“Why why why?” Gretchen whimpered, holding her aunt’s face. For a brief moment Esther looked happy, like she had when Gretchen had first arrived, and she realized this was what Esther had planned all along. Gretchen’s blood was beating in her veins and she felt she might pass out. For a moment she felt like she was watching it all from very far away. She squeezed Esther’s hand. As the life drained from her eyes, Gretchen was flooded with love and remorse. How could she have met and lost this amazing, triumphant disaster of a woman all in one day?
“It’s up to you, sweets,” Esther gasped. “At least now I can help you.”
“No!” Gretchen wailed.
But her protests couldn’t prevent Esther from choking, convulsing, and succumbing to what could never be described as a painless death.
Filled with horror, Gretchen ran out into the brightly lit hall. The floorboards bounced and shook beneath her feet as she ran. She pounded down the stairs, family portraits staring at her from both sides, then ran down the long hallway toward her room, the only room that had reception.
Across from it, in front of the mirror, stood the two little girls. They were holding a rope. Dressed in their dingy white dresses. No, she said to herself. This is not real. When the girls saw her they hunched their shoulders and whispered to each other. One of them—the one who had bitten her in the dream she’d had at the piano—smiled brightly, her teeth gleaming and pointed as a cat’s.
Gretchen stifled a scream, then forced herself to look more closely at them. “I am hallucinating,” she whispered to herself. “I am asleep. I am dreaming or Esther must have drugged me. This is a nightmare. I won’t be controlled by a nightmare.”
Then she looked up, put the Nikon to her eye, and shot the picture. The girls seemed to take a step back. She needed protection from whatever was going on and the only protection she’d ever known was a camera. Tomorrow she would look at the photo and no one would be there. It would be proof that she’d imagined it, that there was nothing to be afraid of. The other girl reached out her little fingers toward Gretchen. They were filthy, covered in dirt and grime. She shot another picture and then another, then ran into the room, turned on the light, and slammed the door.
The force of the door slamming knocked an avalanche of papers from the tall bookcases onto the floor. She dialed 911. Nothing. She tried again. Nothing. She called Simon. Nothing. The reception was too spotty. She walked around the room, looking out the windows at the pitch-black night, and trembled. She tried again, pacing and clutching at the phone. It rang a few times and then disconnected. She pulled out the car service’s card, dialed, and was flooded with relief to hear the heavy New York accent of the dispatcher when he picked up and said, “Paragon Limo, how can I help you?”
“I need a car to pick me up in Mayville, New York, immediately.”
“Mayville?” the dispatcher said with distaste, and then the line went dead.
The sounds of more running feet through the house, and this time they didn’t sound like rodents. She tried to breathe calmly and think about exactly what had happened, slowly, rationally. There was a dead woman in the attic and she may have been drugged and hallucinating. She broke out in a cold sweat. She looked at the time on her phone—it was two in the morning. She dialed 911 again—nothing.
Gretchen paced the room, trembling. She was also starving—the last thing she’d eaten had been a bag of pretzels Janine gave her for the trip. She was feeling everything she’d been ignoring—hunger, terror, pain—and somehow she had bumped or bruised her side. She lifted up her dress to look at the spot. And with a sickening clarity realized it was exactly where she’d been bitten in the dream she’d had at the piano bench. There was a red round bruise in the shape of a mouth. Individual tooth marks were clearly visible.
That was enough—body or no body, cell reception or no cell reception, she was getting the hell out of the house, even if it was two in the morning and there were strange creatures outside the door and there was nowhere to go. She grabbed her bag, threw the door open.
The little girls were gone. In their place was a tall thin man with dark eyes and dark skin holding a book. Behind him were several other men and women, a small group talking among themselves in southern accents. Two women were passing a baby back and forth trying to hush its crying.
She shut her eyes and went to push through the crush of people and tumbled to the floor. No one was there at all. No bodies in her way.
She sat for a minute in the hallway breathing hard, trembling, rubbing her bruised elbow and knee. When she heard whispering she scrambled to her feet, grabbed her suitcase firmly by the handle, and tore through the house, turning on every light as she ran by it. She could still hear murmuring and animals scurrying. She tried to find a telephone in the kitchen and found only another nest of insects—this time an enormous anthill on the tile counter, the black ants moving steadily forward, carrying the contents of a box of cereal that had spilled across the floor. There was no phone in the parlor, and she was not going to go upstairs again and look around. She ran into the front room and saw the same group of people descending the long stairs, a massive silent crowd now, as though they were at a solemn event. She stood directly in front of them to frame the shot. Not believing she could even do something like this—never in her life had she been that brave or stupid or possibly completely out of her mind—she took the picture, then ran outside and slammed the door.
The silent night surrounded her and the forest loomed in the distance. She raced off the porch, dragging her bag. There was only one house—that little white house nearby. And only one light, a small square window at the back. Esther had said who lived there. That piano tuner, some kid and his sister. There was no other option. She began running desperately down the road, her new camera bumping against her chest, the stars overhead shining as brightly as stars had ever shined.
NOTICE:
Mayville Community Picnic and New Member Meeting
Our children, our race, and our Nation have no future unless we unite and organize White Christian Patriots.
As we light the fires of truth to dispel the darkness around us and bring light to the night, so must we dispel those who would bring darkness into our midst.
This Order will strive forever to maintain the God-given supremacy of the White Race. To preserve the blood purity, integrity, culture, and traditions of the White Christian Race in America.
“Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? And what communion hath light with darkness?”
—II COR. 6:14
Come this afternoon to hear the truth and Join the
Traditional Knights of the White Christian Patriots
3 P.M. Village Grange at Axton Road
Dear James,
Now more than ever I know there is no going back. If we are not committed to this struggle we are committed to nothing. Thank you for bringing me with you. It was the most terrifying night of my life, and the most worthwhile. Those hours in the woods waiting for the dogs to pass, those horrible men with their lanterns. Hunting people as if they were prey. I saw the true face of evil in those men that night. It was a miracle we were able to bring anyone to safety. I was so certain we would all be caught. And in that certainty I knew that this is something I would die for and that I would be a coward and a hypocrite if I did not do even more. And when you held my hand, I knew that you felt the same.
All of this is to say: of course I will be there next week. I would be nowhere else but by your side.
Yours,
Fidelia