Entangled

Only mildly concerned--the power was out of course, though it hadn’t stormed-- my brother jerked the shades and sent them scuttling upwards. Where were the streetlights, the porch lights of our neighbors, I asked.

"The power’s out, Dumbo." My brother answers.

We’ll just go to our parents’ room. They’ll light a candle for us.

But there’s no door.

Out night vision is improving, and our blindness creeps away. This is the room we’ve lived in for months. We know where the door is--where it’s supposed to be.

There is no door.

Maybe there’s a gas leak, and we’re delirious, maybe mom put a little too much rum in the rum cake, maybe the door isn’t on the wall where it’s been for months now. Perhaps it moved.

Okay, we know where the door is supposed to be: it’s just not there. So, we’ll just check on the other walls. Everything else is where it should be: the beds, the closet, the nightstands, the windows. All is still but the sound of our breath. There’s no traffic on the road, no birds, no crickets, no wind--nothing.

We take a moment, huddled together at the foot of my bed. We know where the door is, we laugh. All we have to do is go over to the corner and open it. Hand in hand, we scuttle to the corner. Slowly, we search, scratch, and feel.

There is only a wall.

There is no door.

Eventually, we drift into fitful sleep, together on my brother’s bed. When we open our eyes, my mother is poking and prodding to get us up and ready for school. If she wonders why we’re in one bed, she doesn’t ask.

There is now electricity, cars on the road, birds and crickets chirping away outside.

There is now a door.

I told my mother about our experience over lukewarm oatmeal. She is expectantly doubtful. My brother nods in agreement with me but offers no other support. I can tell he doesn’t want to talk about it.

As I have said, I have no explanation for these events but can only say what my eyes saw and my fingers felt.

We moved to Savannah shortly thereafter. One of our friends wrote to tell us about the house burning down a week later. A young girl was trapped in the house, I hear. I never heard if she lived or not.

I returned to that neighborhood twenty-five years later, just to take a look. Had they rebuilt on the lot, or had nature reclaimed her own?

The house was still there. If it had burnt down, I couldn’t tell. The brick and shutters, the red stained deck, the mounds/graves in the back yard. Maybe they rebuilt with the same floor plan. Maybe I imagined the letter from our neighbor.

My wife wanted to go in and talk to the current residents. Have they seen any doors opening or closing on their own? Have they ever felt the hairs on their arms trying to stand on end? Have they ever been trapped in a room and smelled smoke?

Stopped in the road across from the house, my wife wanted to know these things. I, on the other hand, had no desire to set foot in that place again. I felt chilled--you know that feeling when you know someone is staring at you?

There are some things that can’t be explained. Believe me if you will--I don’t know what I believe in, but know only what I felt and saw.

There are some things that should be left alone.