Falling in the Garden

Chapter Eleven - Investigation

Chapter Eleven

Investigation

The sun had come up, but soon slid behind the grey quilt of an overcast sky. As I moved up Heaton Road and then left toward the Kasner’s, the sky darkened further, threatening rain. I listened for thunder, but heard only the wind. When I crested the hill, passing a great mulberry tree, I noticed how dark the windows were. They refused to reflect the morning, the heavy-lidded eyes of an infinitely patient creature. I finally stopped at the edge of the driveway. There were no children playing in the woods behind me. No sounds of vehicles moving or lawnmowers droning. In fact, the only sound that made any impression at all were the wind chimes on the porch of some nearby home. The gentle sound was faint, but my mind was hyper tuned to everything around me.

Joe and I had considered entering the house, but never carried out the forbidden act. Now I wished that we had, just so I didn’t have to be doing it for the first time alone.

I already decided that entry from the back of the house was safest. The front was too visible from the bottom of the hill where Heaton turned into Oak. The entire backyard, however, was completely secluded, which I’m sure was intentional given the pool.

It was odd to think that Ashley was only a ten-minute walk and 53 years away. I never seemed to stop thinking about the mystery of our communication. It almost made some sort of strange, science-fiction sense when we were talking via radio and walkie-talkie. But now, speaking through empty air with no electronics just seemed, well… wrong.  When I later discovered the mechanics behind this bizarre miracle, I would question how much control I had over anything in my life.

I think something inside me knew this trip inside the fabled Kasner House would not be in vain. There was something inside and it was waiting for me, had been waiting for years. This heavy, uncompromising feeling scared me.

I moved from the front of the house to the left, toward the great, white gazebo. Years of ice, snow, rain and sun had stolen its youth, but the cedar shingle roof faithfully protected the bench and floorboards beneath it. Joe and I had sat inside on many occasions, talking about school, girls and our own stories about the woods. I walked up to it and sat inside, the past immediately pulled back into vivid focus.

I turned and looked over to the side of the small mansion, just past a large oak tree. Two high windows sat empty, yet seemed to beckon: please come, there’s something you must see! I think what I felt then, belying my apprehension, was sorrow.

Leaving the gazebo, I moved slowly toward the half-buried stone path that led around back. Witch grass poked through the submerged cobblestones like coarse whiskers, parting only grudgingly as I made my way through.

The surface of the pool on my left was blackened glass, broken only by stray leaves. At night, the chorus of a thousand frogs could be heard from this pool, sometimes even all the way to my bedroom window. Leaning over, I spied evidence of their movement as discolored shapes in rotation. The rain began as I stared into these depths; each drop stippled the glass-like effect, shattering the illusion. Soon thereafter, the frogs began to surface. Their song began beneath the gentle shower, taunting me. Go in, they said. Go in, go in, go in!

I stood and turned back toward the house. It would have to be the kitchen window. Of course, Joe and I had looked through all available openings and knew where many rooms were. It was the kitchen we knew best for the boards that covered this window were placed at odd angles. We decided that whoever boarded up the house forgot about the kitchen window and rushed to complete their task.

Working slowly, despite the strengthening rain, I carried cinderblocks from a pile to my left and sat them below the point-of-entry. It took only four of them before I found myself eye-level with the center of the window. Pulling the boards from the house proved a simple act as they secured weakly with shingle nails. A minute later, six thin boards scattered around the concrete blow, I heaved myself up through the unlocked window. My hair and shoulders were now soaked. Standing inside, I looked back out through the window, but could no longer see the pool through the now furious downpour. Even the sound of chirping frogs was drowned out. The smell inside was stale, so I left the window open and turned to face the kitchen.