Once Upon A Lane - Excerpt by duncanwilson on DeviantArt
Old
Mrs. Habernathy went about her morning routine with the diligence of
one who had long ago etched her motions into hallowed traditions and her
traditions into venerable monuments of regularity. Her life for the
last five decades had been in this house, and the house was only a few
years older than her occupation of it, making it the younger of the
pair. It had served her well, rarely causing her any vexation, likely as
it did not dare to upset her. The house was locked in a mutual
competition with Old Mrs. Habernathy as to who would outlast the other.
Most of the residents of the lane were betting on Old Mrs. Habernathy.
Having
completed her rituals before the dawn, as she always did, Old Mrs.
Habernathy settled down on her porch swing with a large kettle of tea on
the table next to her and got out her knitting. She would not move from
that spot except for meals the rest of the day. As the clocks in her
house, of which there were hundreds, all chimed fifteen minutes to
eight, she looked up to see Paxton Green walking briskly up the lane
toward her house at the end of the cul-de-sac. She nodded imperceptibly
to no one in particular. He was right on time as always. Being the only
resident of the lane who had been there longer than herself, she seemed
to extend a begrudging respect for the elderly widower, even if he did
keep the most garish flower garden in the city and was an impossible man
to manage. He was one of the last great untamable lions of masculinity,
by the reckoning of those that knew him. No one now on the lane had
ever known Mrs. Green. Her passing had preceded Old Mrs. Habernathy’s
arrival into the world, much less to the lane, and everyone else on the
lane had arrived after Old Mrs. Habernathy.
Paxton Green strode
right past her house as he rounded the end of the lane on his morning
walk, nodding politely toward her as he always did and ignoring her
sardonic grunt of acknowledgement. As he headed down the opposite side
of the lane, his confident powerful strides were automatic, as his
attention was entirely devoted to the lawns of his neighbors. There was
not a change that went unnoticed in the topiaries and flowerbeds of the
entire lane, so rapt and detailed was his examination, all while
conducting his morning walk. He was not being nosey or spying on his
neighbors, that was what the lane had Old Mrs. Habernathy for. Rather,
his interest was entirely of the master hobbyist. Lawns and gardens were
not only his one abiding passion in life, they had been honed over the
last seven decades into his personal art. He examined his neighbors’
yards not to steal their ideas, no indeed.
When he got home, as
he did every morning after his walk, he poured himself a strong cup of
coffee and sat down to several hours of writing. In brief, but
articulate and polite, language he noted any peculiarities or missteps
of each yard on the lane, and then proceeded to detail various
suggestions and tips for how to improve upon or entirely revolutionize
the landscaping in question. Once this series of missives was scripted,
he placed each in its own envelope with the name of the homeowner on the
outside, then handed them to Young Tommy, who stopped by Mr. Green’s
house every morning at eleven for just this task. They would be
distributed to the whole lane over the next hour. After this had been
accomplished, Paxton Green ate a light lunch before setting out into his
garden for the remainder of the day. It was in his garden that he could
be found each and every day, lovingly coaxing it into the most wondrous
forms ever seen by his neighbors, as he had been for the last seventy
years.
Young Tommy, who was actually well into his forties, took
these unstamped letters and added them to his postal bag with the other
correspondence for the lane, having long ago resigned himself to this
peculiar and unofficial task on behalf of the eminent Paxton Green. It
had been Mr. Green who had saddled Young Tommy with his misleading
sobriquet, albeit at a time it would have been far more properly
applicable. Young Tommy had grown up on the lane, and had become its
mailman shortly after achieving majority. It was only a subsection of
his total route, but it was by far the portion he looked forward to the
most, as these homes were of his family and neighbors. It was always
warm smiles and handshakes, and even the occasional hug that greeted him
as he delivered the dispatches from the world outside of the lane.
There were only two houses he could ever expect to be greeted with less
than congeniality. There was, naturally, Old Mrs. Habernathy, whom he
was always respectful to yet from whom he never anticipated more than a
disinterested grunt and a wary eye. Of course, since she rarely received
letters, not even the spam that everyone always received, he did not
often have the opportunity to endure her icy reception.
The other
house where Young Tommy never got a cordial salutation was the only
other house, other than Old Mrs. Habernathy’s, that Paxton Green never
wrote yard advice for. Several houses in from the end of the cul-de-sac,
on the east side of the lane, sat a lonesome graying ruin of a
structure, the house with the dead yard. The trees in the yard, a yard
which could never even generously be called a lawn, stood dead, having
been planted some time around the building of the house itself, and
never maintained since that time. There were a series of creepers that
appeared to have attempted to colonize the walls of the ancient
residence, but they too had presumably withered and died at various
points in their conquests. The whole lot stood in stark contrast with
all of the homes around it, each adorned with a garden or lawn of some
level of magnificence depending on how much of Mr. Green’s guidance had
been followed. Even the animals avoided the house with the dead yard.
Young
Tommy never liked picking up letters from this address, not because of
its creepy demeanor, he’d seen houses in as ill repair elsewhere, and
they were often far more cozy than their dilapidated exteriors let on.
It was not the air of unease and the lack of life of the landscaping,
though it was unnerving to see such sharp lines of life and non-life
side by side like this. It was that no one ever entered nor left. The
house was not abandoned, far from it, there were always strange noises
emanating from within at random times of the day, often unidentifiable
sounds that frightened birds and small children. As well, when Young
Tommy picked up the letters patiently awaiting him from the box on the
wall next to the front door, he could always hear the creaking
floorboards of the entryway as someone, or something, moved about
within. The mailman could not be certain it was a human that made this
noise, as he imagined he could occasionally hear panting and the
clacking of claws on wood. No one even knew who owned the house with the
dead yard, as all correspondence that came from it had only the
required number and street as the return address. Neatly printed, but
not by any machine, with an ink that seemed to glow if you looked at it
just right. There was never a name with the address. A few discreet
enquiries by concerned residents of the lane with the city authorities
had resulted in even more unanswered questions.
After picking up
the one solitary grey letter from the house with the dead yard this
morning, Young Tommy hurriedly moved on to the next house down, which
belonged to the lane’s resident professor. Wilber Tumbleburry was not
employed as a teacher at any university or institute of education, nor
was he employed in any fashion by anyone, and had not been at any time
in the past. Rather, he was an heir to a moderate but handsome fortune
from more industrious ancestors, who spent the years of his life
accumulating knowledge for knowledge’s sake. He was a professor of no
particular subject, and at the same time, a professor of all of them. It
was theorized by some of his more erudite neighbors that Wilber
Tumbleburry likely knew more about any particular discipline than any
other outside of that discipline’s experts, and knew about any of them
just less than would be necessary to be useful to any of those
disciplines. It was a marvel to some just how much time and effort one
man had dedicated to the art of being equally adept and useless at
everything. Still, he was popular at parties, as he was relied upon to
settle most any argument and always had some particularly fascinating
story or news about some obscure science or craft to liven up any social
gathering.
Young Tommy walked up the professor’s path to find
the middle aged scholar standing on his porch in his bathrobe, coffee
mug in hand, regarding the decrepit structure next to his. Turning and
nodding to Young Tommy as he approached him, Wilber Tumbleburry raised
his mug by way of greeting. Clearing his throat of the morning’s phlegm,
Wilber greeted the lane’s mailman, “Good morning to you! Another
mystery letter from the mystery house?”
Young Tommy nodded as he handed Wilber his mail, replying, “Yep. How’d you know it was only one?”
“You’ll have to pardon me my peccadillo, Young Tommy, but I’ve been noting every time you pick up mail there.”
“But they don’t always send just one letter.”
“Indeed
not! However, there is a pattern. They send one letter, then they send
three letters fifteen days later, then six letters two days after that,
then one letter two days later, then another twenty days before they
once again send one letter.”
Young Tommy scratched his head as he
tried to follow along or remember if this accounting was accurate, but
quickly gave up and just whistled, “As regular as that?”
“Without fail.”
“That’s
quite something, professor. If you take into account the occasional bad
weather days when the post office halts our routes, I don’t see how it
could be that consistent.”
“Neither do I, and yet it is. This is
the truly amazing aspect of the matter.” The professor nodded eagerly
and his eyes went wistful as if he were suddenly drawn into the most
scintillating of contemplations of the potentialities of this mystery.
Young Tommy just frowned and waved goodbye as he made his way across the
street, glancing back every so often at the strange house, troubled by
this revelation of regularity of letters posted from the house with the
dead yard. It made no sense to him, so he tried to put it out of his
mind rather than dwell on it as he approached the porch of the house
across the lane. This well-appointed residence, with well-appointed
floriculture that made Mr. Green beam with pride every time he wrote a
brief congratulatory note to the residents, belonged to Ella and Ida.
Young Tommy liked Ella and Ida, as did most everyone who ever met Ella
and Ida. This near universal fondness was entirely the blame of Ella and
Ida’s congeniality and conviviality, incontestably manifest in the most
delicious baked goods that were readily proffered to any and all they
came in contact with.
This morning, these delectable delicacies
took the form of a tray of ginger snaps held out to the approaching
Young Tommy by Ida, who was sitting on the porch swing, enjoying the
early morning coolness and reading some dense gaelic tome Young Tommy
could not even read the name of. Young Tommy grinned as he handed Ida
her mail with one hand and took a cookie from the tray with the other.
He salivated at the mere sight of the treats, as he knew they would be
peerless. He cheerfully thanked her, “Morning Ida! Thank you so much!”
Ida
waved off his thanks, as she always did, as if anyone could so easily
and regularly bake such scrumptious confections, responding instead,
“How is the lane today, Young Tommy?”
“Same as it always is, Ida! Idyllic.”
“Same as it always is, yes.”
The
door lazily swung open and Ella stumbled out, yawning. Ella slumped
down on the swing next to Ida and grumbled incoherently about mornings
and what particular class of animals they were for. Young Tommy nodded
to the still bleary Ella, who gave a little wave in reply as she stifled
yet another yawn, and headed back down the path to continue his
deliveries.
“Morning, Ella dear,” Ida’s voice had a hint of bemusement, as it always did during this ritual.
“Morning…”
“How was your sleep?”
“Brief, restless, and full of strange dreams that upon reflection meant nothing.”
“I asked about your sleep, not your life.”
Ella
yawned for the dozenth time that morning as she simultaneously groaned.
Every morning it was the same tired joke, every morning it was just as
bemoaned as the last, yet they both still engaged in the tradition as it
was as much a part of their mutual identity as their baked goods and
their undying love for one another.
Ella blinked a few more times
before her vision became useful, and she stretched as she asked Ida,
“Any new or notable sounds this morning?”
Ida shook her head, “Nope, dead silence this morning.”
“That’s odd.”
“It’s happened before.”
“Not often, as I recall.”
“No, not often, but occasionally.”
They
both sat silently regarding the house with the dead yard across the
road as the birds, in their own horticultural paradise, competed with
the buzzing of the bees to serenade the cresting of the sun in the sky.
They made a regular activity of observing the unnatural auditory
emissions of the old house, proceduralizing as much as possible the
peculiar abeyance the house had presented from time immemorial. Ella and
Ida had moved onto the lane a few decades after Old Mrs. Habernathy,
but they were still only the fourth longest remaining dwellers of the
lane. As far as they had been able to piece together, the house with the
dead yard held the oldest resident or residents of the lane, but no one
could attest to having ever seen them. The perpetual mystery of the
residence piqued their curiosity, as it did everyone’s, but like all of
the others, they were not nearly as intrusive as to take the matter
beyond idle observation. Truth be told, many of the residents were a
little afraid of the enigmatic abode. Most, but not Ida. Being closer
than the rest to the foreboding structure had bred in her, like it had
in the professor, more of a familiar fascination than any trepidation.
As
they discussed the other customary matters of life, they smiled at the
youngest Murphy boy who came running up to their porch for a cookie.
They liked the youngest Murphy boy, even if they did not care for his
father. Not many on the lane cared for Mr. Murphy, but no one had to.
Mr. Murphy cared enough about himself to make up the difference. His
youngest son, on the other hand, was a preternaturally friendly young
boy who was adored by every adult on the lane. Despite, or occasionally
because of, the boy’s mischievousness, he was welcome in each and every
home on the lane, except Old Mrs. Habernathy’s, though she too seemed
fond of the little scamp in her own gruff way.
The youngest
Murphy boy grabbed three cookies, despite a reprimanding cluck from the
couple on the porch, and ran off toward his best friend Bobby’s house.
He always took two extra of everything Ella and Ida made, but not for
himself, as the couple always thought. The youngest Murphy boy dashed
through the back kitchen door of Bobby’s house, shouting a cheery hello
at Bobby’s mom as he passed by in a blur. Stomping up the stairs as fast
and as loud as he could, he shouted down the hall to Bobby that he had
arrived before letting himself into the twins’ room. Grinning like a
maniac, he chirped hello to the twins and their faces lit up in delight.
The youngest Murphy boy was one of the highlights of their day. He
never failed to bring them such delicious treats and then would spend
the next hour rambling on about what he had done the day before. The
youngest Murphy boy was a terrible story teller, and would usually hop
about in his narrative without rhyme or reason as he recalled some
specific detail he had forgotten to mention before, but the twins
cherished everything he said. What they were incapable of communicating
with words or other means of expression they beamed forth in ear-to-ear
grins as they listened raptly to the boy relate the inconsequentialities
of his daily adventures outside while he fed them the cookies.
After
a while, as usual, Bobby’s mother came into the room and shooed the
youngest Murphy boy out so she could shift the twins into sleeping
positions. Bobby was waiting outside and the pair scampered down the
stairs and outside to go adventuring somewhere along the lane, often in
some unsuspecting neighbor’s back yard or shed. The only place they
never played was near the house with the dead yard. As they
energetically ran down the sidewalk, the boys almost ran into and over
Leo Tuttle. Barely twisting in time to allow the passage of the pair,
Leo Tuttle squawked.
A man of a particularly nervous disposition,
Leo Tuttle was quite prone to accidents of the usual and unusual
variety, and as such was overly cautious about all of his movements and
actions, not that this did much to alleviate his peculiar personal
affliction of mishaps. As the young boys darted past with almost no room
to spare and no worries in the world, Leo started into an awkward dance
designed to keep him on his feet as he staggered to and fro like a
drunken sailor, reeling. It took a full minute for him to regain his
balance, a miraculous outcome especially considering the box he held was
large and unwieldy and seemed to have a mind of its own as to which
direction it would be heading at any moment. Upon fully recovering his
footing and having stilled the box’s independent movement, Leo Tuttle
sighed in relief and shushed the box when it growled menacingly.
Leo
Tuttle continued down the lane toward his own home, eyeing the house
with the dead yard warily as he passed, never having trusted any place
without some form of life. He customarily nodded with a smile to Ida and
Ella as well, having nothing but appreciation for the couple, since
upon more than one occasion he had received aid from them when one of
his more calamitous mishaps struck. As he approached his own house at
the end of the lane, his wary gaze shifted from the house with the dead
yard to his less-than-amenable neighbor on the left, Old Mrs.
Habernathy. His relations with Old Mrs. Habernathy were guarded at best,
which was as good as anyone could hope to have with the aged spinster.
Leo Tuttle kept his lawn well tended, thanks to the never-ending tips
and encouragement from Paxton Green, and his fence well mended. He had
consistently given Old Mrs. Habernathy no adequate excuse to complain,
but was still often the recipient of her disapproving looks.
As
he kept an eye on his less-than-sociable neighbor keeping an eye on him,
Leo Tuttle stepped onto his porch and set down his parcel. It made a
low sound as if it meant to growl again, but then fell silent. As he
unlocked and opened his door, Leo Tuttle was startled by a hail from his
neighbor from the other side. He turned and smiled at Jane, who had
just exited the house with the pink vinyl siding and burnt umber trim
and was jogging in place. Leo Tuttle liked Jane, a recent arrival on the
lane. Young, vibrant, and full of energy, Jane was all smiles and waves
to everyone on the lane, even Old Mrs. Habernathy, and her energy was
infectious. Leo Tuttle waved to the young woman and greeted her, “Out
for your ‘morning’ jog?”
“Yep!” Jane responded with a smile to
the statement of the obvious, as she did with everyone. She turned and
set out down the lane as Leo Tuttle picked up his large box and entered
his house. Jane always jogged every morning, or mid-day on the weekends,
having found that the air on the lane suited her exercise regimen far
better than it had at her old place. Her pace was intense, and very
quickly she had passed the house with the dead yard, had passed by
Bobby’s house, and was rapidly approaching Paxton Green’s majestic yard,
a highlight both coming and going on her morning jog. Mr. Green waved
and bellowed a cheery hello to Jane as she ran past, a greeting she
always returned with enthusiasm. The old man was set in his ways, but
fortunately for everyone, those ways were congenial and warm.
Jane
kept jogging, passing the youngest Murphy boy and Bobby as they were
playing with something in the bushes, and even catching up to and
passing Young Tommy, who tipped his hat to her as she flew by. Young
Tommy was making good progress this morning, since most of the residents
were still fast asleep as was customary on a weekend, which markedly
decreased the amount of time he spent at each home. Young Tommy watched
Jane as she went, marveling at the constant energy and enthusiasm she
always seemed to have, then turned in to the house with the pink pelican
statues. Before he reached the front door, a strained bellow of 'Come
in!’ escaped the home, and Young Tommy obligingly opened the unlocked
door and entered Liola’s house. He paused to wipe his shoes on the rug
and take off his hat, a convention he never forgot, and entered the
'room’. It had once been a sitting room, but over time had been
converted into a library, a study, a bedroom, and a dining room all at
the same time, as Liola’s needs dictated. While he had never seen these
changes taking place, Young Tommy occasionally noticed some new object
or piece of furniture that had succumbed to the specific gravity of the
'room’ and migrated there from elsewhere in the house.
Liola was
where she always was when Young Tommy delivered her mail, in her chair.
The chair had as much character as its resident, and Young Tommy had to
wonder at its craftsmanship to have survived the many decades of almost
constant occupation. Liola was grabbing a book off of a shelf behind her
with her grabbing stick when Young Tommy greeted her. Hesitating in her
present task, Liola turned her head and nodded acknowledgement, before
going back to her struggle with the stick. Young Tommy waited for her to
finish retrieving the tome, knowing better than to attempt to help,
having well learned that lesson before. When she had the book safely in
hand and had recovered her breath, she turned to Young Tommy again and
held out her hand for her mail, asking as she did, “So how is the lane
today?”
Young Tommy dutifully handed her the official
correspondence addressed to her, keeping back the letter from Mr. Green,
as usual, and related the prosaic happenings of the day that had
elapsed since last he had stood in the 'room’ relating such things. She
nodded appreciatively, as always, and thanked him as he left, then
turned to her newly arrived letters from her distant family. They wrote
to her every day, detailing their lives in as much detail as they could
muster, and she always did the same, despite the lack of change in her
sedentary existence. Her correspondence, and the man who ferried it to
and from her, were two of the few windows to the outside world routinely
available to her. Her own return letters from the day before were
already safely stowed in Young Tommy’s mailbag.
Upon exiting the
house with the pink pelican statues, Young Tommy walked down the path
alongside the house. This path led to a seemingly random spot along the
back fence, which bordered a house outside the lane. Once there, Young
Tommy knocked twice softly on the wooden slats, and when the return
knocks sounded, he slid Paxton Green’s letter to Liola between two of
the slats. With a satisfied smile on his face, Young Tommy made his way
out front again and set out once more on his route. It was a few houses
further that he came to Mrs. Tilly’s home. She exchanged a glass of
lemonade for her mail, taking the cup back after the mailman had slaked
his thirst. This exchange was wordless out of necessity, but was always a
warm and friendly one. Once more without a word, Young Tommy set out as
Mrs. Tilly set the now empty glass down on her patio table and opened
her letter from Paxton Green. Easily the second most enthusiastic
gardener of the lane, Mrs. Tilly always looked forward to these letters,
as they were usually filled with nothing but praise for her lush
flowerbeds teaming with vibrant colors and shapes in daedal patterns
that would dazzle even the most analytical mind.
Mrs. Tilly
gasped inaudibly in shock and almost dropped the letter as she whirled
around to confirm what she had just read. Sure enough, there, amongst an
arrangement of daffodils, chrysanthemums, and tulips she had been
lovingly cultivating the last few weeks, was a molehill. She had not yet
made it to that part of her garden this morning, so was surprised at
the mention of it in the letter. Losing no time, Mrs. Tilly dashed to
her garden shed to retrieve the mole poison. She would not allow such a
beast to blight her art. She was stuffing the poison down the hole when
Matthew stopped by her fence and tried to ask her directions. When she
made absolutely no acknowledgement, or any movement indicating she had
heard him, Matthew repeated his query with exactly the same result.
Raising his voice in an attempt to make himself heard, he repeated
himself once more.
“She can’t hear you, Mister.”
Matthew
stopped mid-sentence at this pronouncement, and turned to the youngest
Murphy boy and Bobby, who were standing behind him and grinning. Looking
confused and flustered, he asked, “She can’t?”
“No, Mister, she can’t hear nobody. She’s deaf”, Bobby giggled as he informed the stranger to the lane.
“Oh, then perhaps you boys can help me.”
“Yeah, maybe. Who you looking for?”
“I don’t have a name, just an address. I’m looking for house number 34?”
Both
boys gasped loudly and suddenly looked scared. Turning as a pair, they
ran away, leaving a startled and confused Matthew standing alone on the
sidewalk, behind him the ever industrious Mrs. Tilly still oblivious to
his presence. After a minute, Matthew shrugged in puzzlement and
continued down the lane. Intently scrutinizing each house as he passed,
Matthew boggled as to how anyone on this lane found anything, as none of
the houses had visible numbering. This was both confounding and
frustrating to him, having never set foot in the lane before today, yet
he was determined to find his destination, even if he had to ask
everyone he met. The young woman whom he had earlier encountered jogging
in the other direction had not stopped at his raised hand, instead
high-fiving it as she passed.
Spying an old man working
diligently in his yard much like the deaf woman, Matthew took a deep
breath and approached his picket fence, clearing his throat and saying,
“Excuse me, sir.”
“I’m not a sir,” the old man replied without looking up from his work.
“I’m sorry?”
“I’ve never been knighted, so I’m not a sir.”
“Oh, well, it’s mostly just an expression.”
“Well, I’m specifically not a sir.”
“Okay…”,
Matthew was understandably taken aback by the exchange, but seeing no
one else around to ask, decided to press on, “Well can you tell me where
house number 34 is?”
“No.”
Matthew did not know how to
respond to this. The old man’s tone had not been rude or hostile, yet it
had been certain, so Matthew did what he always did in cases where he
was at a loss for how to respond, and apologized, “Oh, I’m sorry to have
bothered you.”
“No, as in I cannot tell you.”
“…Is it some sort of se-…”
“I cannot tell you because I do not know.”
“Well, if you could tell me any of the houses’ numbers, I’m sure I could figure it out from there.”
“I do not know the numbers of any of the houses.”
“…Not even your own?”
Paxton
Green stopped his excavation of the flower bulbs to stretch his aging
back as he explained, “They renumbered the whole lane about thirty years
ago, only they never got around to telling anyone on the lane what
their new number was. I’m sure the younger folks picked it up as they
moved in, but I never bothered to investigate, never had a need.”
“So how do you know which house is which?”
“By knowing who lives where. I know the people, so I know the homes. Who are you looking for?”
Matthew
fumbled with the grey paper denoting his destination for a few moments
as he tried to think of how to answer, “Oh, uh… I don’t know. All I
have is an address.”
Paxton looked up at the now glaring
mid-morning sun as it beat down unmercifully upon all the earth and
those that resided there, thanking it wordlessly for providing the vital
power for his plants to grow. Leaning down to resume his task, he
stated finally, “Then I can’t help you.”
Matthew watched the
faithful gardener at work for another few minutes, marveling at his
simplicity, before continuing down the lane, still searching for someone
to ask for help. It was Ella and Ida who he finally found and asked, as
they sat on their porch trading barbs about each other’s more
troublesome relations. He waved to them from the sidewalk, and motioned
as if to approach. When they indicated this would be fine, he walked up
to their porch, holding the grey piece of paper out in front of him as
if in explanation. Stopping in front of the porch, he asked, “I do
apologize, but can you direct me to house number 34?”
Ella’s jaw
dropped slightly in shock, but this went unnoticed as Ida, who had been
eating a cookie at that moment, started hacking and coughing and
convulsing as she discovered her inability to respire baked goods. As
she cleared the evidence of her inadvisable activity with the assistance
of her partner, Matthew stood by looking particularly useless and
uncomfortable, unsure of what to do. After Ida was breathing air absent
of crumbs once more, and had gone inside to get a drink of water to ease
her now irritated throat, Ella settled back down into her chair and
closed her eyes as she tried to slow her panicked breathing. She had no
idea of what life would be like without Ida, and did not want to
speculate on the possibility. When Matthew gently cleared his throat,
her eyes popped open again as she remembered the man.
Glaring at
him, as if to blame his intrusion into their life for the incident, she
simply pointed directly across the street and remained coldly silent.
Matthew at first took her gesture as simple dismissal, but then,
following the direction of her aim, noticed for the first time the house
with the dead yard. Looking askance at Ella, who nodded curtly in
affirmation, Matthew turned to study the house with the dead yard. A
stiff wind picked up just then, and a small eddy of lawn clippings
swirled up from one side of the house with the dead yard and sped across
the lot, missing it entirely, almost as if by choice, to settle on the
lawn on the other side. The yard remained desolate and devoid of any
sign of life.
Matthew was drawn to it, not in an attractive way,
but no less insistent. It was foreboding, but also bewitching, an island
of remorseless and wild desolation in a vibrant sea of cultivation and
beauty. Even the sunlight that bathed the lane and each of the lovingly
maintained houses that lined the lane seemed to dim and dull as it
illuminated the drab and dreary structure that somehow stayed in more or
less one piece despite a complete lack of upkeep. Matthew felt a chill
that could not be blamed on the warm breezes of the day as he stared
listlessly at the house with the dead yard.
Inexorably, as sure
as the passage of time itself, Matthew walked toward the house with the
dead yard. Each step as reluctant as the last, as an apprehension he had
never known before gripped him. The sounds of the cheery neighborhood
gradually faded and died in his ears and his vision blurred ever so
slightly as he stepped from the sidewalk onto the path leading up to the
doorway of the house with the dead yard. Every unrelenting stride was
accompanied by a breath, but he could hear neither his own footfalls nor
inhalation over the sound of his heart throbbing in his chest. It was
not a dread but a fatalistic resign that clouded his mind and guided his
movements as he stepped onto the porch and raised his hand to knock on
the shabby door. When it swung open slowly before he could touch the
wood, he was not surprised, which should have unnerved him. He could not
see anything inside through the gloom, which should have worried him.
Some inexplicable compulsion was drawing him inside, which should have
terrified him.
From across the street, Ella watched with rapt
fascination as the stranger stared into the interior of the house with
the dead yard then reluctantly entered. She could not see him anymore
and the door swung slowly closed. Ella turned to Ida and yawned. The
mornings had never really agreed with her, but she still got up at this
unreasonable hour to spend more of each day with Ida. Her protracted
oscitancy coming to an end, she asked, bemused, “Did Wilber ever find
that cat that’s been bothering his parakeet at night?”
Ida
shrugged, “If he has, he’s made no mention of it yet. Of course, he
hasn’t dropped by yet today, so you can ask him when he does.”
“If the universe doesn’t end before then, I shall.”
Ida
stared intently at the house across the street, as she often did, and
noted to anyone who happened to be listening, which was of course Ella,
“It’s curious how no one ever enters or leaves that place.”
Ella
nodded in agreement, even though her partner was not looking in her
direction and would not have seen the gesture. They fell silent once
more as they regarded the constant curiosity of their lives with the
detachment of experienced observers. This silence was only interrupted
an hour later when Wilber Tumbleburry trotted up their path, waving
amiably at his favorite neighbors. Motioning toward the tray of ginger
snaps he asked by way of expression if it was alright for him to take
one, as he always did despite their regular assurances that he did not
need to ask. He grabbed a cookie and took a seat on the deck chair that
Ida pointed to, settling in for the lengthy gossip session with the
couple which they conducted at least once a week. Wilber Tumbleburry was
always interested in any new details Ella and Ida could impart on their
shared interest, the house with the dead yard, and they always had some
tidbit he had missed while either away at the library or sleeping
soundly.
They passed the next hour discussing the lack of any new
developments of note, and the strange, but not unprecedented, lack of
strange sounds in the prior day. They paused in their dialogue to watch
Leo Tuttle walking past hurriedly, clutching tightly at a towel wrapped
around his left hand. Despite the oddness of the spectacle, this only
proved a momentary distraction from their prior topic, as Leo Tuttle was
always doing something peculiar or inexplicable. Soon, Leo’s passing
would be forgotten entirely. Leo continued down the lane, grimacing in
pain whenever he stumbled a bit. He only had to go a few more blocks
before he reached the bus stop, but in his current circumstances even
that short distance seemed immeasurable. He squawked as he was brushed
on both sides by small forms dashing past him. He was too startled to
even yell at the passing youngest Murphy boy and Bobby, who were
giggling as they ran toward Liola’s home.
They were shouting and
laughing at each other, as if they were running away from the scene of
some mischievous prank, which they were, as if they were being chased,
which they were, and were fleeing to a safe refuge to wait out the
temporary ire of their hapless victim, which they were. They careened
wildly around various residents of the lane with little regard for their
or the residents’ safety, as the young invariably do. Most just grunted
or smiled in annoyance or bemusement, but some shouted reproaches at
them or tried to reach out and grab them short with no success. When at
last they reached Liola’s home, they were short on breath, but giggling
all the same. They made their way around the pink pelican statues, down
the path along the side of the house, around to the back of her house,
past the back door that never opened and into the barely discernible
hole in her hedgerow.
There was a hollow in the center of the
bushes that lined most of the back fence that connected from bush to
bush, and here was the favorite hideout of the youngest Murphy boy and
Bobby. It was here that they planned their adventures, it was here that
they hid their treasures, and it was here, in the hidden hollow, that
they sought refuge from the adults who did not care for their childish
escapades. The birds and squirrels had long ago ceded the whole hedge to
the two boys. This was their refuge and their fortress. The bushes had
served duty as a pirate ship, a castle, an underground cavern, a
courtroom, a spaceship, and at all times a tunnel into another world
that only they could see and visit.
Once secure in their
hide-away, the youngest Murphy boy and Bobby chattered away in whispers,
lest they be heard by their imagined pursuer, whispers far too loud to
be stealthy, but quiet enough that none listening could possibly discern
anything meaningful. Not that they discussed anything meaningful to
anyone else, as they excitedly retold the events they had just
experienced, misremembering and embellishing every detail, until their
latest amusement was of the greatest magnitude with the highest of
stakes and the fraughtest of perils. The erstwhile neighbor they had
forayed against became a terrible dragon whom they had vanquished with a
mighty spell, which happened to take the form of a water balloon, atop a
high mountain in the forests of suburbia. Even woeful Leo Tuttle was
transformed in their retelling into a mighty guardian troll they had
deftly flanked as they crossed a rickety bridge spanning a yawning chasm
without bottom that still somehow held a fearsome river filled with
piranha and lava at the same time.
The boys stopped their
narrative dialogue suddenly when they heard a creak and scrape of wood
from the fence next to the hedge. There was only silence, as much as
there ever is silence in a world filled with birds and insects and
squirrels and other varieties of life. The two boys held their breath
and listened intently, suddenly wholly convinced that they had been
found out and their secret lair was about to be exposed to the world at
last. Long moments of tension and worry held them captive, but the sound
did not repeat. Finally, when they could hold neither their breath nor
their tongues any longer, they burst into a frenetic whispered debate as
to what had caused the sound or if they had heard any sound at all.
They came to the mutual conclusion that they had imagined it, then
subsequently decided that they had hidden long enough and the world
outside was safe once more, so they peaked out of their hole in the bush
before creeping out into Liola’s back yard.
Laughing and
chattering once more, the pair dashed around the house, not hearing the
boards behind their hideaway creak and scrape once more. Dodging and
weaving around the pink pelican statues, the youngest Murphy boy and
Bobby almost ran over a now exhausted and bedraggled Jane, but even in
her weary state, Jane was deft enough to twist about to allow the
passage of the young rapscallions. Pausing to catch her breath, Jane
leaned over and grabbed her knees to rest as she watched with a smile
the ever rambunctious pair of boys dash off, shouting something about
pirates and ninjas as they went. Jane liked the kids on the lane, even
if sometimes they were a little troublesome. To her mind, that was just
part of the nature of kids. Her short rest over, Jane resumed her
relaxed jog home, being a mere few houses away from her house. After her
usual multi-hour jog, she was more than ready to take a shower and
start her day. Just before she turned down her own path to the house
with the pink vinyl siding and burnt umber trim, she noticed Candice
from across the street waving at her. Turning and smiling, she returned
the wave, shouting so as to be heard, “Morning Candice!”
“Morning, Jane! Could I bother you to stop by today? I’ve got a chest of drawers I need to move, but can’t do it by myself.”
“Sure thing, Candice! I’ll be over in thirty!”
“Thank
you, Jane!” Candice smiled at the younger woman as she disappeared into
her house, before turning to find Old Mrs. Habernathy glaring at her
from her own porch. Frowning at her perpetually persnickety neighbor,
Candice turned and walked back into her house. She did not care for Old
Mrs. Habernathy, but she could not imagine any but mosquitoes caring for
the old crone. Not for the first time, Candice wondered why some folks
found it so hard to be pleasant. Or was it that they purposefully set
out in life to be bitter and cold, as if that were some grand
achievement? Dismissing the issue from her mind, Candice wandered back
into her sitting room and sighed, pondering her own immediate personal
problem. The chest of drawers sat on the wrong side of the room, in the
perfect spot for a chest of drawers. Looking from the drawers to the
other side of the room, at the least suitable spot for a chest of
drawers, she contemplated how to momentarily hide the disturbingly
pallid stain that was growing outward from the pinprick hole on the wall
before Jane came over to help her move the drawers there. She settled
on a flattened cardboard box, concluding that she could explain its
presence as a buffer so as to not scrape or bump the wall with the chest
of drawers as they positioned it. Yes, that made sense, Candice
thought. Once she had set the cardboard in place, her mind grew easier,
as she could no longer see the execrable stain or the hole it was
growing from.
Her mind at ease, Candice almost jumped out of her
skin as she heard a crash of glass from the front of her house. Had she
made it outside, she would have seen the back of Justin’s running form
disappear down the block. Justin was a troubled young man, too young to
be held directly responsible for his actions but far too old to not know
better. Lacking adults who actually cared about his wellbeing, Justin
made his own decisions about his upbringing, and these decisions were
often less than wise. More often than not, Justin did not run these
ideas past either of his parents or his teachers before acting upon
them. He got into more trouble than was average for his age, all of
which was dismissed or ignored by those who should be guiding his
development into adulthood. As Justin ran away from his latest foray
into self-parenting, he cursed under his breath. He had thought Candice
was not at home, and was not sure if he had been seen throwing the
stone. Justin had timed his assault on the house for one of the rare
occasions when Old Mrs. Habernathy was taking one of her meals inside
and not keenly watching everything that occurred on the lane.
Only
briefly cursing his own luck, he quickly turned his malice toward
Candice herself, blaming, as was the custom of bullies, his victim for
having crossed him earlier that week and thus provoking the assault upon
her home. Justin only stopped cursing and running when he realized no
one was chasing him. Looking around, he found himself in front of Mrs.
Tilly’s house. Other than the deaf woman busily working away at her
garden with her back turned to him, Justin was alone. Justin watched the
happy lady with boredom and disdain. How could anyone be that
enthusiastic working in the dirt? What an idiot she must be. Well, she
was deaf and dumb, so it made sense she would be content with such
mindless activities, he thought. He did not even consider Paxton Green
in this conclusion, but he was not watching Paxton Green at the moment.
He was watching the idiot deaf woman, and he had just decided he wanted
her to not be happy anymore. Keeping his eyes on her to make sure she
did not turn around, Justin reached down and grabbed her freshly planted
bushes firmly at their bases. Pulling hard, Justin uprooted the plants
and tossed them out into the street. Laughing at her lack of reaction,
he repeated his action with more of her hard work, rapidly reducing her
immaculate cultivation to ruins.
It was only after he had also
trampled all her newly bloomed flowers into litter that he grew bored
and wandered off. All the while, Mrs. Tilly had been oblivious to the
carnage ensuing behind her, humming silently to herself as she lovingly
aerated the soil around the delicate arrangement of flowers in front of
her. Her plants were a large part of her life, and she cultivated and
tended to them as if they were her children. Under her care they thrived
and grew into beautiful exemplars. To Mrs. Tilly, the smell and feel of
the dirt was one of the most pleasing sensations one could have. Not
even the discomfort of age could discourage her from experiencing it
whenever the sun was out. Standing and inspecting her work, she nodded
in satisfaction and stretched her back. Mrs. Tilly turned to start on
the next flowerbed and discovered the destruction strewn about her yard
and the street beyond. Her eyes bulging in shock and horror, she opened
her mouth and emitted a scream no one heard.
Mrs. Tilly stood
there, crying and shrieking in silence for several minutes before the
first of her neighbors noticed the distraught woman and the destroyed
garden. As if by magic, word of the horrible vandalism spread up and
down the lane, and just as quickly, her neighbors converged on the scene
of the crime. While Jane and Wilber Tumbleburry did their utmost to
calm and comfort the distressed Mrs. Tilly, Paxton Green organized and
led a concerted effort to salvage what they could of her uprooted plants
and repair the ravaged yard. Even the youngest Murphy boy and Bobby
were enlisted as gophers for the adults as the reparations were made. In
less than an hour, the yard was restored to a condition that would have
been satisfactory to most, a condition that only Mrs. Tilly and Paxton
Green would know was less than perfect. By this time, poor Mrs. Tilly
had vented her anguish sufficiently that she was able to communicate by
way of a translator to the police officers who had arrived to take her
statement.
As the impromptu landscaping brigade disbanded, none
of them being of any use to the police since none of them had seen what
had transpired, Jane remembered her promise to Candice and walked over
to Candice’s residence. Candice, who had not been part of the
restoration effort, did not answer the door when Jane rang her bell.
This worried Jane a little, and she turned to look at Old Mrs.
Habernathy, asking with a look if the old battle-axe knew what was
wrong. For her part, Old Mrs. Habernathy just glared silently at Jane
like she had always done since the young woman had moved onto the lane.
Turning back to the silent door, Jane tried knocking a few more times
before giving up and trying the doorknob. It turned and the door opened,
as it was not locked. Jane entered while calling out for Candice, but
received no reply. It was only when she was inside that Jane noticed the
broken front window, with a large rock-shaped hole in the center and a
spider web of cracks radiating out to the edges of the frame.
The
window only held her attention for the briefest of moments, until her
gaze and concern were drawn first to the prone form of Candice on the
living room floor, then to the rock lying just beyond the pool of dried
blood forming an almost perfectly circular corona around the head of her
friend. The ambulance arrived in record time, twenty minutes too late
to be of any use at all. The police cruiser, which had only just left
the lane, returned and was joined by several others as the end of the
lane was cordoned off and a murder investigation was launched. A chill
went up and down the lane and everyone felt a little less safe and
serene than they had before. Just as with the vandalized garden, no one
had seen anything and the police found nothing of use in questioning the
various residents, but they diligently made their way up and down the
lane, inquiring at every house but two. For no particular reason, they
did not approach Old Mrs. Habernathy, and they did not approach the
house with the dead yard.
By the time the police left the lane
and all of its distraught residents, the sun was setting, and the houses
of the lane lit up for the evening meal. Old Mrs. Habernathy got up as
the last light of the day faded away behind the picturesque houses and
reentered her house to go to bed. A silence settled on the lane as the
beasts of the night came out to make their rounds. The cats started
their nocturnal stalking of all the smaller creatures that emerged from
their holes and dens to feed upon the vegetation on such bountiful
offer. The raccoons emerged from their hiding places to feed upon both
the flora and on any of the cats ignorant enough to consider raccoons as
prey.
____
This is an excerpt of my novel Once Upon A Lane. To read more, please visit one of the online retailers listed below.
Available now at your favorite online marketplaces:
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B081XKL3J6
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Also available in the iTunes App Book Store
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