Descent

16 - "Someone's been here"

They met at the road up to the Gannet house from Rosshaven's main street, on the forest side of the wire-and-wood fence that bordered the highway. They decided that to stay out of sight was best: they didn't want to get picked up by a passing car. The town was obeying the curfew and seemed to be making the most of it: Tommy passed two distant houses with blazing lights and thumping music. One farmhouse seemed to have turned the side of their barn into a movie screen, and Tommy watched from the woods for a moment as Bill Murray investigated Sigourney Weaver's apartment for signs of ghosts.

Arjun and Leslie were waiting for him: she sat on a fence post and he was shivering in the tall grass. Arjun saw Tommy first and waved, Leslie gave him a very cool chin nod. He felt himself smiling and it felt nice, felt right, being out here in the dark in the fall air with a killer on the loose.

"Sup?" Leslie said as she hopped down to the ground.

"Any problems?" Tommy asked.

"Nope," Arjun said, "My parents were in bed already and I told my brother I'd beat him up if he said anything."

"None for me." Leslie reported with a shake of the head.

"I'm good too." Tommy nodded and suddenly drew them both into a tight hug that was firmly reciprocated. When he pulled away, he kept a hand on their shoulders, but their eye contact didn't last long--it was too intimate, too present, for three kids their age. He didn't see this, but after Tommy turned to walk towards the house, both his friends wore smiles: Arjun's wide and toothy, Leslie's small and shy, and both confused.

The slope up to the house was trickier in the bush than on the road. The woods grew thick here, and wild, not like the mechanically planted trees that dotted most of the environs of the town. They did their best to navigate fallen trees and tangled branches, brambles and bushes, holding aside whip branches and helping one another over tricky sections of forest floor. The density and darkness conspired to trip them up, but the night held that early winter clarity and their path was lit in an indigo wash. Though they travelled up a hill, Tommy felt as he had during Ms. Eleanor's meditations: journeying down deep somewhere, descending with every step. They came to another wire fence and helped each other through it, and as they passed over and through the fence each of them felt something fall away: their youth, perhaps, or their hesitation, or some part of their reliance on adults. Each of them was taking a risk--social, emotional, maybe physical--and they did it willingly and easily. As Leslie stepped over the wire, she chuckled softly to herself. Arjun heard her, and began to laugh as well. Tommy caught the bug then, and soon all three of them laughed aloud as they trudged up the hill and down to the past.

The Gannet house appeared suddenly as the trees gave way to open space, like they had chosen not to take root near it. As they stepped out of the woods, the air grew noticeably colder and their breath steamed in the night. Gone was their laughter and carelessness, replaced with shortness of breath and a deliberate slowness to their walking. They approached in a line, shoulder to shoulder, as close as they could get to one another. There were lights on the road but none on the house and the bleed from the laneway lamps lit only the front steps and Tommy was struck by the image of a grinning mouth soaked in blood. They passed by the front door, past the teeth of the front steps, and headed around back to the old barn. Tommy spared the house a glance over his shoulder and, despite the low light, he noticed something he hadn't before: a sculpture of a bird with its wings spread wide was carved above the door.

Tommy had never been to the side of the house--but Clara had. They passed the big oak tree that had split on the night of the storm and fell into the dirt path that led from the dining room door to the barn. The barn itself was massive--it had once housed cattle, and then horses, and then cattle again--and though its wood was warped and grey, the small door set into the face was modern steel with a metal knob. They approached the door and tried the knob but it was locked. Tommy felt as if a thousand eyes were watching them, ghosts of the house from all times, not just Clara's but other families too, and not just one pair of eyes per resident but pairs of eyes for every person and every time of the house, tragic and happy, feast and famine. The weight of the history of the house dragged at Tommy like long fingernails and he began to feel himself pulled into the earth.

Leslie tugged at his arm and pulled the three of them around the side of the barn. She seemed to be in a daze as well--she must have been having the same deja vu as Tommy was, only through the lens of Charles. Leslie pulled aside a thick brush and revealed a hole in the ancient wood wall. She turned and flashed Tommy a grin that was both her face in 1997 and Charles' in 1859 and Tommy replied: "Well done!" which was not something he would ever say. Arjun observed in silence, but his hands tightened around themselves.

First Leslie vanished into the barn, then Tommy. Arjun loitered outside, his courage faltering. What was he doing out here? Breaking so many rules for these two crazies who thought they could time travel? He stamped his feet and looked around. A feeling that had taken root in the back of his mind began to creep tendrils of doubt through his brain: they had left him behind. He'd felt the sting of this thought the first time Tommy went off to that drama class and it had grown every day after school: Tommy's reluctance to discuss what happened at rehearsal, and his spending more and more time with Leslie, was like fertilizer for his jealousy. Now this crazy kid was getting him in serious trouble! This was breaking and entering, they were thieves now. He wanted to leave, but he honestly didn't know how.

Tommy emerged into the barn and nearly bumped into Leslie, who had frozen in place where she stood. They had expected the barn to be dark, cold and empty and it was anything but--there was a hole in the middle of the barn floor. Tommy had a flash of Father climbing out of the hole, naked and bloody, his face torn into that desperate grin. This hole was new: there was a modern-looking shovel stuck into a pile of dirt nearby, and a pole suspended between two A-shaped posts from which hung a work lamp. The work lamp had a cable that snaked to a metal socket growing out of the earth, and another that plunged into the hole. In the harsh light, there were clear tracks from the metal door to the top of a metal ladder peeking out of the rim of the hole.

"Someone's been here." Leslie whispered.

"Or still is." Tommy replied. He turned to check on Arjun and finally noticed he hadn't joined them.

Tommy's head appeared in the hole in the wall with a whispered "Hey!"

Arjun jumped--he'd been staring off to the woods, "Hi." He said.

"Come on." Tommy called, but Arjun shook his head.

The other boy studied him for a minute, then disappeared back into the barn. Arjun snorted--typical, leave the Indian kid alone, he's not cut out for this. Happened all the time, he wasn't surprised Tommy was no different from the kids at his old school. He jammed his hands in his coat pockets and started to walk away from the barn when he heard scraping and snuffling in the hole in the barn wall. Tommy emerged and popped up, dust poofing off his coat.

"Hey, wait!" He called, jogging up to Arjun.

Tommy put his hands on his friend's shoulders. Arjun wouldn't look at him. "Hi, hey, I know," Tommy gulped down some cold air, "I know this is super weird but I need you, okay? I need you because you're my friend. I kinda...forgot what that meant. But I remember now. You showed me." Tommy squeezed his shoulders and Arjun looked up at him. Tommy grinned, his eyes shining in the cold air, and Arjun smiled back, then shoved the kid back, playfully.

"Get offa me!" Arjun said and they both laughed.

Arjun took a deep breath and nodded with conviction. Tommy grabbed his shoulder again and held him in place: "Listen though, we're gonna have to climb into a scary hole in the ground."

Arjun blinked once. "I hate you." He said.