Yellow light blared from the kitchen and the two windows in front twinkled like eyes over the big, gaping mouth of the porch. The door was open. As she got closer, Vivian saw that the whole house was ablaze with light; every window glowed except for the triangular panes at the peak.
Carefully, she pushed open the screen door, noticing where it had been bent at the edge, almost ripped off the hinges. The kitchen was loud with light and spent activity. Several drawers and cupboards were open, some of the contents spilled onto the floor.
Vivian walked towards Nowell’s study, still dark, and her hand went to her mouth when she saw the scattering of paper and books. Through a crack in the curtain, a sliver of moonlight fell on the computer and over the center of the keyboard.
In the living room, the pillows they had left in the middle of the floor had been kicked against a wall and the light was left on. In the bedrooms, it was the same: drawers opened, closets explored. In the spare room, the newspaper she had arranged for painting had been trampled and torn, the bag of supplies emptied onto the floor. Their bedroom was dimmer than some of the other rooms. The light bulb in the overhead lamp had a low wattage and they had sold the lighthouse lamps to Mr Stokes along with the dresser. He said they reminded him of a picture he saw on a greeting card once, a painting of a whitesailed boat perched on the back of a rolling, angry wave. He had kept the card tacked to one of his walls for years, he said.
Vivian became aware of a dull pain in her elbow, the familiar warning of impending bad weather. The curtain was open; normally, she closed it in the afternoon to keep out the heat from the setting sun. She had forgotten most of her regular routine that day. The mail, the curtains. Walking to the window, she stumbled over her jewelry box, a pale, velvet-lined one that played a lilting song. A present from her parents, her father really, on her thirteenth birthday. She picked it up and turned it over. The slight tear in the blue velvet lining was now a long slash and all of her jewelry was gone, except for a silver hoop earring that had gotten stuck on the frayed edge of the fabric. Suddenly, she noticed the shiny fragments, not gone but sprayed over the bed like mercury raindrops. There was one of her dangling heart earrings, and here was the star bracelet from Dot.
Leaning her forehead against the cool window, she looked outside. A sharp mildew odor reminded her of the well outside, its brick lips open to the dark sky, and of the nights when her mother brought ice wrapped in a soft towel for her elbow, the times they sat in the quiet living room, listening to the thunder.
A glimmer appeared in the trees. Vivian’s quick breaths clouded the glass. The light flickered, peeking out amidst the dense trunks, jumping haphazardly through the foliage. In a moment, it was gone.
She found the spare flashlight in the drawer of her nightstand. The bulb stayed lit for only a few seconds before it faded. She tossed it onto the bed and rushed down the hallway. In the kitchen, she wasn’t surprised to find the other flashlight missing from the drawer near the pantry. Didn’t they have another one somewhere else? She couldn’t think straight. She called Lonnie’s name. There was no answer, only the rooster clock ticking loudly in synchrony with the blood pulsing at her temples.
She picked up the telephone and listened to the dial tone. Sheriff Townsend was at the festival; he had seen Lonnie fighting. But this was Lonnie, big and childish but harmless, wasn’t he? She hung up the receiver. Lonnie threw some sort of fit and went outside to cool off. He’d been spending lots of time in the woods. Maybe it soothed him. She just needed to find him. She would clean up the house, clean up Lonnie, before Sheriff Townsend came.
Vivian climbed the staircase so quickly that she almost hit her head on the trap door. Throwing it back forcefully, she peered inside. The attic was dark but she could make out the silhouette of the purplish bureau, the several boxes along one side.
But Lonnie’s had so much to drink, she thought, and he didn’t want Mrs Brodie nosing around. He’s so unpredictable. Maybe I don’t know him, not really. And all this time, I’ve been thinking…
She flew down the stairs, ran outside and around the side of the house. The night air was falling in shelves of temperature. Now and then she hit a warm pocket as she leapt through the high grass. Her feet made quick cuts through the blades. She didn’t know what was going on, but she sensed with every pore that it wasn’t good.
Her eyes became accustomed to the moonlight. The woods were a very different place without the flashlight to guide her steps. She stumbled frequently, tripping over branches and stubbing her toes on small, jutting rocks. The way to Mr Stokes’s house had become familiar to her in the confused, uncertain way that a recurring dream is familiar. The moon was a paper lantern peeking in and out of the tree limbs; its glow was muted and grayish.
The stories she had heard came alive as she ran through the woods: tales of love and loss, loneliness and death. The woods were the hiding place for Ronella and her lover and the secret route for Sherman to Kitty Brodie. They held the untimely graves of two people: Russell Gardiner and Chanelle Brodie. So many people had been influenced by this small piece of land, this chunk of wild kept safe from the asphalt road that now wound its way into town. Betty Gardiner wouldn’t abandon it, even when she was elderly and alone, Sherman returned to it again and again in his middle age, and Lonnie hesitated to leave now. Abe Stokes had spent a lifetime here, she thought. Even Nowell went into the woods, away from his veritable hermitage, his wife. Vivian was drawn as well.
The trees rushed by, formless and aloof, like they did the summer she separated from her father. That afternoon, she stayed calm for a long time, moving between the thick trunks, jumping over soft, leafy spots and pushing off stumps and fallen branches. She would stay calm now. Soon, the trees drew back and Mr Stokes’s house appeared. Vivian felt a sense of relief and trusted it. Her suspicions about Mr Stokes were ungrounded. His house seemed warm and welcoming. Dark brown with darker trim, accented with reddish brick – the white marbling within just perceptible in the dark night – Mr Stokes’s house pulsed, a dim light from what she knew to be the living room, its heartbeat.
Vivian passed the two stunted tree trunks in his work area, and the neatly trimmed bushes with their red blooms. The flowers had dulled and wilted; they hadn’t survived the heat wave. She neared the house. The curtains were drawn over the dining room’s wide window.
There’s something about the woods, Mrs Gardiner, haven’t you felt it?
The trees were still full and green but their leaves were dry, starting to fall. Vivian didn’t know much about nature, only the little that she’d read and the things she’d been told by her father and later, Mr Stokes. Somewhere, there were animals already preparing for winter, but some plants hadn’t yet flowered, late bloomers.
When she knocked on the door, the sound reverberated. She waited a moment and knocked again. Feet padded along the creaky old floors. Stepping back, she waited for the doorknob to turn, which it did, slowly, before it receded into the house.
A woman leaned into the opening, her long, black hair pulled over her shoulder like a shawl. She watched Vivian expectantly.
Vivian looked around the front of the house, as though maybe she’d come to the wrong place.
‘Are you looking for Abe?’
‘Y-yes,’ she stammered. ‘I’m looking for Mr Stokes.’
The woman’s eyes narrowed, not unkindly, and Vivian inhaled sharply. ‘You’re Miss Burnside?’ she asked.
She turned towards the interior of the house, as if she would call Mr Stokes, then turned back. ‘Do I know you?’
‘I bought a book from you last week, and took one of your brochures.’
She nodded. ‘I remember now. Should I wake him?’
‘No,’ Vivian said. ‘I’m his neighbor, that’s all.’ She motioned vaguely with her hand towards the white house.
‘Is something wrong?’ Miss Burnside glanced at her wristwatch.
‘What? No. We’ve had a disturbance, but it’s not his, he doesn’t need to…’ She thought about the two abandoned cars in the driveway, the disturbed state of the old, white house. I’ve had too much beer, she told herself. Maybe Mrs Brodie’s car wouldn’t start back up and she walked home. Lonnie threw his fit and ran off, like he always does.
‘What kind of disturbance?’ Miss Burnside gathered her nightgown around her neck and leaned slightly outside.
Vivian started to back away. He’s got his own life, she told herself. It’s not what you thought. This is our problem, our family. ‘It’s nothing, everything’s fine.’
She looked over Vivian’s shoulder and closed the door the slightest amount. ‘I’ll be sure to tell him you stopped by.’
Vivian began to cross the clearing, feeling foolish and strangely, hurt.
‘Excuse me,’ Miss Burnside called. The door was opened wide again, and the light from the hallway passed through her sheer nightgown, tracing the outline of her long legs. ‘What was your name, so I can tell Abe?’
‘Vivian,’ she said. ‘Mrs Gardiner.’
In the doorway, someone came up behind her. Vivian instinctively stepped backwards. Miss Burnside turned toward the other person and their faces almost touched as they spoke. Mr Stokes, she thought. Suddenly, his dark form had eclipsed the white gown and he was out on the lawn. He wasn’t what Vivian had thought he was, not at all. She imagined that he was lonely, suffering. She thought: his lop-sided grin and the way he kept showing up to flirt with her. She didn’t want his help anymore. Nobody was who she thought they were. She was blanketed amidst the tree trunks, camouflaged in darkness. She was sure he couldn’t see her anymore. Picking up her pace, she plunged into the woods, determined to put an end to things.