Journey to the Center of the Earth (Or, The Dirt Hole at the Side of the Yard)

The summer when I was eight years old, I fell in love with digging.  Not just any digging.  Not some small pea-hole in the corner of the yard.  No.  I went all-in. I recruited my friend Matt, and together, we planned on digging our way straight through to the center of the earth.

Of course, the question had come up–where could we even undertake our mission?  My mother wouldn’t go for us digging up her flower garden or vegetable garden.  She wouldn’t want us to tear up the front yard, either.  That didn’t leave us with many options.  We asked if we could use the side yard.

The side yard consisted of a narrow alley that separated our house from our neighbor’s.  Abutting our house was a red-brick patio that led to the back gate, but beyond that was a small strip of grassy real estate just begging to be ripped into.  The thing was, that small strip wasn’t technically on our property.  It belonged to our next-door neighbor, George.

George had lived in that house since it was built, decades ago.  He lived there with his wife, daughter, son-in-law, and two grandsons (who, incidentally, inspired two of the characters in The Eye-Dancers!)  At the time, he was a tall, jovial man in his sixties who, every Christmas, dressed up as Santa Claus.  As far as I was concerned, there was no chance he’d tell us we couldn’t dig a dirt hole in the side yard.

And he didn’t.  He said, “Go ahead!”

My father handed Matt and me a pair of shovels and told us not to overdo it.  “Just take it easy,” he said.

By lunchtime, we’d already tunneled down several feet.  When my mother came out to check on our progress, I was standing in the hole, nearly up to my chest.  Matt was up top, examining a large rock we’d unearthed.

“I don’t think George thought you’d be digging a hole that deep,” she said, her eyes wide.  I swelled with pride.  All this in just a few hours . . .

We ate heartily, our appetites stoked, and then resumed with our work.  We widened the hole, making sure we had plenty of elbow room, and created small earthen “steps” on one of the sides, ensuring that we’d be able to climb out once we dug in over our heads.  By three o’clock that afternoon, we were both drenched in sweat.  But we didn’t stop, didn’t slow down.

“We’re almost in all the way,” Matt said when the top of the hole was at eye level.  “How far do you think we can go?”

“All the way,” I said.  In my mind, we had only just begun.  We had an entire summer before us, yawning like a chasm full of wonders.  “And who knows what we’ll find down here.  Maybe we’ll even see Merwks.”  Merwks (not a typo–the “w” was very important!) were creatures who inhabited the depths of the earth.  They were small, brown, furry monstrosities with no eyes and fangs sharp enough to sever stones.  I had first imagined them two years earlier, and was convinced they existed.  When I told Matt about them, he was sold.

“We better be careful,” he said.  “Merwks have sharp teeth!”

We brought our shovels down again, and again, and again, striking earth, eager to discover ancient secrets, buried treasures, perhaps even a skeleton or two.  We were tired, bone-tired, but our effort did not flag, our eagerness did not waver.  There was a new universe that awaited, monsters in the dark we needed to reveal.  Looking back now, I can still remember, clearly, vividly, the elation I felt that day.  I was young and free, embarking on an adventure for the ages.

But then my mother came outside and put an end to it.

“That’s enough for today, boys,” she said.  “Time’s up.”

We whined a little, but we were tired enough not to carry on with it too long.  There was tomorrow, after all.

Or was there?  My mother warned me that when George came home that night, he might not like seeing his side yard with a four-foot-deep hole smack dab in the middle of it.

“But he already said we could dig,” I protested.

“I’m not sure he realized how . . . committed . . . you were,” she said.

When George got back, we all joined him at the side of the yard.  He smiled at me when I looked up at him.

My mother apologized for the size of the hole, told him she hadn’t expected it to be such a crater.  But George held up a hand.

“They’re only kids once,” he said.  “Let ’em dig.”

And so we did.  Matt and I were at it the next day.  We had Merwks to find.

*******************

Anytime I begin a new writing project, I need to feel excited.  I might have a workable idea, a complex plot, an intriguing protagonist, but if I don’t feel completely fired up, I know, before I even start, that the story will go nowhere.  Over the years, I have tried to force it, attempted to manufacture enthusiasm that wasn’t there organically.  It never works.  At least not for me.

When I wrote The Eye-Dancers, I truly believed it was a one-shot deal.  Sure, I’d write other stories, other novels.  I wasn’t retiring as a writer.  But I didn’t plan or intend for there to be a sequel.  Then, about a year and a half ago, I had–for lack of a better term–a vision.

I was lying in bed in the middle of the night–something had jarred me awake.  A dream?  A nightmare?  Something my subconscious had been wrestling with, interacting with?  I suppose I’ll never know.  All I know is that, when I woke up, I visualized something with crystal clarity.  I saw a huge building, larger than a dozen football fields, its walls and columns climbing high into a nighttime sky.  I saw the four main characters of The Eye-Dancers—Mitchell Brant, Joe Marma, Ryan Swinton, and Marc Kuslanski–standing before the structure, gazing up at the sky.  They weren’t looking at the moon or the stars or a meteor that had entered Earth’s atmosphere, afire, burning up as it sped toward the surface.

They were staring, transfixed, at a pair of blue eyes that stretched across the entire canvas of the night sky.  The eyes glared at them, swirling, the blue in them darkening like a bruise.  And I knew.  I had a surge of momentum rush through me like a lava flow.  I didn’t have a plot.  I didn’t have a direction.  But I had an inspiration, a need, to tell a story.  There was no silencing it.  It was time to write a sequel.

And as I sit here, eighteen months later, nearing the end of the middle portion of the novel, as the stretch run comes into view, just around the next bend, I still feel that enthusiasm, that desire, that need to make it all the way, to tell the story to the best of my ability straight through to the end.

That, I believe, is the key to it all.  Whether you’re writing a novel or painting a picture, crafting a memoir or singing a song, you have to feel that same sense of wonder and excitement you once did, when you were eight years old.  Sometimes, I think, writing novels is nothing more than my way of remaining a kid, discovering new adventures to explore, new avenues to traverse, new enthusiasms to pursue.

“May you live with hysteria,” Ray Bradbury once wrote, “and out of it make fine stories. . . . may you be in love every day for the next 20,000 days.  And out of that love, remake a world.”

*********************

Matt and I continued to dig throughout that summer.  Granted, our efforts waned as the calendar ticked on, as the start of the school year and third grade approached.  But we kept at it, telling each other scary stories the deeper we went, wondering if our next shovelfull of dirt would finally unearth a sightless, sharp-fanged monster.

It never did.  Try as we might, we never came face-to-face with a Merwk.

*********************

My parents still live in the old house, and, invariably, when I visit, I wander over to the side of the yard and walk along that narrow strip of grass.  The dirt hole has long since been filled in, of course.  But I always look, and remember.

The thing is, even to this day, I still believe in Merwks.

If you want to discover them, you just have to dig a little deeper.

Thanks so much for reading!

–Mike

An Escape . . . and a Confrontation

It’s unavoidable, really, and it’s a question that needs to be asked of anyone who spends a good deal of his or her time creating stories out of the ether, as it were, searching for ideas that resonate and entertain, ideas that will take readers by the hand and lead them to high, rocky promontories overlooking new and exotic lands.

 

What is storytelling?  What does it represent?  Why do we write?  Is creative storytelling, particularly speculative fiction, nothing more than an escape, an imaginative flight of fancy that takes writers and readers far away from the world they inhabit?

 

On one level, perhaps.  After all, what author can deny the heady thrill of the first-draft rush, when words spill out like lava, flowing, steaming, too hot to touch?  Or the excitement of vicariously living through characters that seem so real, so vivid, we talk to them out loud as we wash the dishes or drive along a lonely stretch of country road on a blue-skied day, the windows rolled down?  Or the fascination of building a world, of crafting, brick by literary brick, the cities, towns, inhabitants, monsters, laws, and social customs of places thousands of light-years, or millennia, from our own earth? And what reader, what lover of the imaginative places, asking the questions of “What if?” and “Why not?” can deny the enjoyment of devouring words on the page (or the e-reader screen, as the case may be!), getting lost in the story, being swept away by the scope and wonder of the events?

 

An escape?  A journey to a distant land, far beyond the sight line of our everyday existence?  Indeed.  Storytelling is that.

But it’s other things, too.

****************

When I was a boy, I used to love to explore the pond that lay, like a magnet attracting my attention, several hundred yards behind the high school where my older brothers and sister attended, and where I myself would one day attend.   And on a pleasant, sunny, warm early October afternoon when I was seven years old, I asked my friend Matt to come along and see if we could find any toads or carp or perhaps, if we were really lucky, some salamanders frolicking in the shallows.

 

It was a Saturday, and my brother, who played fullback for the varsity football team, was out on the field, leading his team to victory.  But I didn’t care about any of that.  The sun was shining.  I was bored.  I wanted to do something.  So I asked my parents if Matt and I could head over to the pond.  “Sure,” they said.  “But be careful.  And don’t be long.”  I assured them we wouldn’t be.  After all, what could go wrong?  The pond wasn’t far away, and it wasn’t like we planned to swim in it.  We’d just stroll along the dirt path that wound its way behind the pond and around to the other side.

 

I was so familiar with the path, having explored it dozens of times before with my father, I could have navigated it blindfolded.  Matt and I walked slowly, looking this way and that, not wanting to miss anything good.  Lily pads formed green oases in the water and cattails grew luxuriously by the pond’s edge, as the dirt path circled back, behind the pond, shrouded by poplars and maples, the leaves just beginning to turn gold and crimson and burnt orange, readying themselves for the autumn color show to come.  The hum of insects filled the air, and we spied a dragonfly zigzagging its way inches above the surface of the pond.

 

Back here, behind the pond, there was a chain-link fence to our right.  Beyond it lay the backyards of neighborhood homes, incongruous against the wild growth that flanked the path.  Normally I paid no notice to the homes.  They were a distraction, a sign of civilization I didn’t want to acknowledge.  I preferred to believe I was exploring uncharted territory in the rain forests or jungles, cutting through thick undergrowth, on the lookout for exotic new species of flora or fauna.  The neighborhood homes had no place in these imaginary expeditions of mine.

 

But on that day, that brilliant early October day of my childhood, there was no way to ignore them.

“Hey, kids,” a voice suddenly rang out.  Matt and I turned around.  On the other side of the fence, his long brown hair stringy, unwashed, a smiling teenager stood.  “What’cha doin’?”

 

It was hard to focus on his words.  My attention was locked on the shotgun he held, cradling it with both hands.  I looked at Matt.  His eyes were wide, glued to the gun.

“So here’s the deal,” the teenager said.  For all I knew, he was a student at the high school, maybe someone my brother knew.  Maybe he shared homeroom or study hall or trigonometry with him.  Maybe they talked, hung out in the halls.

None of that mattered now.  All that mattered were the words he said next:  “I’m gonna count to seven.  Not ten or fifteen or twenty.  Seven.”  He raised the shotgun, ever so slightly.  “And when I get to seven, you two better be gone.  ‘Cause if you’re not, I’m gonna blow your heads off.”  He smiled, pointed an index finger at us, and pretend-shot us with it.  “Got it?”

For a moment, I just stood there, unreality washing over me like a poisonous waterfall.  How could this be happening?

 

“One,” the teenager with the stringy hair said, and Matt took off, not waiting for him to count to two, running down the path, in the direction of the football field, which was hidden from view behind the leaves and tangles of plants and trees.  I still stood there, stunned.  I looked at the gun, aimed now, right at my head.  Peering through the opening, into the barrel of the shotgun, all I could see was black.

 

“Two,” he said.  That did it.  I turned around and ran; I ran so fast I was sure I’d trip and fall.  I caught up to Matt, and we ran together, all the way back to the bleachers, where my parents sat and clapped, and where things seemed normal again.

 

I never told them, or anyone, about that day.  It was something better left forgotten.

****************

But we never really forget, do we?  Not really.

Near the end of The Eye-Dancers, Mitchell Brant and Marc Kuslanski are held at gunpoint.  Mitchell, at one juncture, looks at the barrel of the shotgun, its “black, empty mouth” pointed directly at his head.  And yes, as I wrote that scene, I felt myself pulled back, back, to the path behind the pond, to the day when I looked into the “black, empty mouth” of the gun myself.

But that’s the way storytelling is, I think–a blend of the imaginative and the real, the fantastic and the actual.  Bits and pieces of our lives scatter through the pages of our fiction like literary calling cards, giving voice to memories and dreams and fears and hopes that, though they may occasionally flicker, never die.

 

“Fantasy’s hardly an escape from reality,” author Lloyd Alexander once said.  “It’s a way of understanding it.”

As we weave the stories, even the ones from beyond the stars, in galaxies and worlds on the other side of the void, so far away we can scarcely even imagine the distance; as we get lost in the adventure and mystery and journey of the story, we can never really escape.

 

Because as we write, and as we read, we must, inevitably, come face-to-face with the reflection in our own personal mirror.

 

Thanks so much for reading!

–Mike

Going Forward . . . by Going Back

When I was growing up, there were a few nights each summer when I would host a sleepover–not all that different from the sleepover that occurs in chapter six of The Eye-Dancers.  Of course in my case, my friends and I were not haunted by a swirling-eyed “ghost girl” who whisked us off to a faraway and alien dimension.  But the adventures we shared, the things we talked about, the “what-ifs” we brought up were the inspiration behind the novel.

 

As were my friends themselves.  Mitchell Brant, Joe Marma, Ryan Swinton, and Marc Kuslanski, along with several supporting characters in The Eye-Dancers, were inspired by the friends I knew growing up, indeed the same friends who would sleep over on those warm July and August nights, when thoughts of school and homework, of college majors and impending adulthood, seemed galaxies away.

 

When I wrote The Eye-Dancers, it often felt as if I were returning back to those days.  And that, I suppose, is one of the many joys and wonders of creative writing.  You can be sitting at a desk in an office, in a studio apartment, anywhere, decades removed from the childhood you’re writing about, and yet, with a flourish of keystrokes and finger taps you can be transported back through the years, as if by some whimsical magician waving a white-tipped and wonder-filled wand.

 

It’s a cliche, I suppose, but in my case it’s the truth.  I write because I love to write, need to write.  And now I am in the midst of writing the sequel to The Eye-Dancers.  At first I was reluctant.  Did I really want to write a sequel?  But the idea, which arrived unasked for–not at all a preplanned project–demanded attention.  So I began writing, not convinced it would go anywhere, but scratching the itch, as it were, allowing the process to take me where it will.

 

I wrote the prologue, and chapter one, which grew into chapter two and three and four . . . and by that time, the scope of the novel began to take shape in my mind.  I don’t outline my novels, but I do formulate a general plan–or, perhaps more accurate–the plan forms on its own, a result of the characters’ decisions.  And now, nine chapters and 40,000 words into this still-untitled WIP, I have an overwhelming urge to continue, to keep the story going . . . to find out where Mitchell and Joe and Ryan and Marc and the “ghost girl” will take me.  I am along for the ride, and I can’t wait to round the next bend.

 

At this point, I would like to devote more time to the sequel than I have so far.  In fact, Joe Marma himself told me just the other day, “C’mon, bud, get with the program.  You gotta start working on this novel more, or else . . .”  And as readers of The Eye-Dancers know, you don’t want to frustrate Joe! As a result, I will be posting on The Eye-Dancers site every two weeks for the foreseeable future, down from the once-weekly schedule I have maintained for over a year now.  This is definitely not a blogging break or blogging sabbatical–just a slight scaling back.  I enjoy the WordPress community far too much to take any extended leaves.

 

**************

On those summer sleepovers from yesteryear, sometimes I would read aloud stories I had written.  Back then, they were pencil-written plays, starring myself and my friends–no fictional names used!  Looking back, they were very poorly done–highly imaginative but sloppy and far too often over the top.  But one thing they were for sure was fun.  I used to laugh out loud when I read them, and my friends would join in.  Even today, if I need a pick-me-up, or a creative boost, I will pull out one of the old stories and remember . . .

It is with that spirit of adventure, fun, and love that I will turn to the sequel of The Eye-Dancers this summer.  And, with hope, that same spirit will manifest itself on every page.

 

So even though I’ll be posting less, I hope you’ll all continue to read and follow this blog.  You are the reason blogging is so much fun for me.

 

Thank you so much for reading!

–Mike

Short Story — “Stone Wall”

The Eye-Dancers, at its core, despite the ghost girls and parallel worlds and strange, recurring nightmares, is a coming-of-age story, where the main characters must confront certain aspects of themselves and deal with the inner demons they have always wrestled with.  This coming-of-age theme is one I have written about many times–often in short stories.

One such story, “Stone Wall,” is a very short tale I wrote quite a few years ago about a moment between a father and a son.  The intent, when I wrote it, was that the short interaction presented in the story was one that would leave a lasting mark on the boy . . . something he would always remember.

Looking at the story now, I question some of the choices I made when I wrote it a dozen years ago.  Dissecting their old stories is something all writers do, I suppose.  But I wanted to share “Stone Wall,” in its original form, and I hope you will enjoy it!

 

 

 

 

“Stone Wall”

Copyright 2014 by Michael S. Fedison

**************

When Dad asked me to go outside with him, I felt a little worried.  He didn’t talk with me much—didn’t have a chance, really.  He tended our herd of Holsteins and worked full-time at the power plant in Montpelier on top of that.  So, usually, when he called for me it was because I had done something wrong and deserved a good talking to.  I wasn’t sure if I had done anything wrong recently.  I couldn’t think of anything, unless calling Jane Hanson a no-good little tramp was off limits.  But that had been over a week ago, and I wasn’t even sure if Dad knew about it.

“Get your jacket, Billy,” Dad said as we walked toward the back door.  “Kinda cool this mornin’.”

I put on my jacket, now a size too small for me, and we walked out onto the back porch.  The air was wet and a thick fog hung over the valley.  In the distance, I could see the summit of Camel’s Hump mountain peaking above the low-lying clouds.  It made me think of a sleeping giant.

“C’mon, Son,” Dad said.  “Follow me.”

We walked into the yard.  It was the middle of March and much of the ground was still covered with snow.  It crunched under our boots.  But the first patches of pale grass were beginning to show up on our hillside, where the cows would be grazing just a few weeks from now.  It looked like a soiled green and white quilt that had been exposed to the Vermont elements for too long.

Dad continued walking, and I followed close behind.  I wasn’t sure where he was taking me or what his purpose was, but I figured I would find out soon enough.  I took a deep breath, inhaling the clean late-winter air.  The air felt sharp in my nostrils, as if it might draw blood if I wasn’t careful.

We crested the hillside and headed for the perimeter of our property.  We were in the high meadow now.  I loved coming here in the summer.  The grasses would sway in the wind and the cows would look so peaceful below me, and the mountains would appear so far away and yet so close.  They would make me think of soaring birds and barefoot rambles in the hollows, of stars that shimmered mysteriously on an oily canvas of October sky.  And sometimes the mountains would cause a longing in me, a longing for something so beautiful it couldn’t be expressed, like the sound of a butterfly’s wings flapping, velvety soft, on a windless summer twilight.  I didn’t understand it all.  I just knew I belonged here, in the hill country.

“See that stone wall there?” Dad said then, jolting me back into the moment at hand.

I nodded.  We were at the very edge of our acreage now.  Just beyond the stone wall was a thick copse of fir trees.

“That wall was built near two-hundred years ago, Son,” Dad continued, “and look at it.  Standin’ firm and true to this day.  Weathered, maybe, but still gets the job done.”

The stone wall actually bounded our property on three sides.  I always thought of it as The Barrier.  I could go anywhere I wanted, within reason, on our forty acres, but never cross over The Barrier.  That would be an offense bad enough to get a spanking.  My brother, Davey, crossed The Barrier without permission once and got tangled up in some barbed wire just beyond it.  He didn’t get a spanking, though.  Dad figured the barbed wire was punishment enough.

The wall wound its way through fields and woods, through flat land and hilly terrain.  It even crossed over the brook that bordered the east edge of our land.  I had never thought much about the wall.  I just knew it was old and, as I have mentioned, not to cross it.

“Your great, great, great grandfather Abraham built this whole wall, all round this forty acres, with his own two hands.  He built it as a dividin’ line.  Set off his property, maybe keep the goats from leavin’—or comin’ in if they were someone else’s.  That’s why folks built these walls in the old days, Son—to divide up the land and keep the animals penned in.  Nowadays, they’re reminders, mostly, relics.  Folks like ‘em, but don’t get much use out of ‘em.  Amazing thing is that they’re still standin’, even after all this time.”

Dad lifted his head, as if listening for something.  I heard nothing out of the ordinary.  But then—

“Hear that?” Dad said.

I did.  Red-winged blackbirds.  I heard their watery call ride the chilly March air.  Their call made me think of the sound swamps might make if they could talk.  It was a wet sound, damp, like the lushness of a springtime shower or the sweet coolness of dewdrops dripping lazily from the grassblades on a fragrant May morning.  It was the sound of spring coming, ever so slowly, ever so shyly, to the Vermont hills.

Dad smiled.  “Winter’s comin’ to an end,” he said.  “The blackbirds are here.  But c’mere, Son.  Let me show you something.”

Dad walked right up to the stone wall and knelt beside it.  He touched the weathered surface of the wall with a work-worn hand.

“Feel that, Son,” he said.

I felt it.  It was cold and old and hard.  It made me think of Dad’s will when he set his mind to something—unyielding, unbendable, stern, and proud.

“What do you think?” he asked me.

“It’s hard,” I said.  “Solid.”

“And old, Son, very, very old.  It’s been here longer than any of the trees we got still standin’ on our farm, I’d say.  It’s seen a lot of hard times, blizzards, winter winds, even a few floods.  But it’s still standin’, true and sturdy.  You know why?  You know what it is makes this wall last so long?”

I shrugged.  “I guess not,” I said.

“Look at the stones,” Dad said.  A gust of wind picked up, and I almost put the hood of my jacket over my head.  But I didn’t.  I wanted to show Dad I could take it like a man.  I was almost thirteen, after all.

I looked at the stones but noticed nothing out of the ordinary.  They looked like stones, granite stones, nothing more.

“Look at the sizes, the shapes,” Dad said when he realized I wasn’t understanding.

There were hundreds of individual stones just in this one small section of the wall.  I examined them.  They were various shades of gray.  I touched several of them.  Some were smooth, some rough and craggy.  Some of the stones were actually colder to the touch than others.  The most striking aspect of all, though, was the shapes and sizes of the stones.  No two were alike.  Some were small, barely larger than a pebble.  Others were the size of a pumpkin, big and round and cumbersome.

“They’re all different,” I said.  “No two are the same.  Some of ‘em are pretty close, but no two are the same.”

Dad nodded.  “Ayuh,” he said.  “They’re all different.  Different but not different.  That’s why this wall’s been standin’ here for so long, Son, and why it’s gonna keep on standin’ long after I’m gone.”

Dad got up from his crouch and sat on the stone wall.  He motioned for me to sit beside him.  I nearly let out a squeal when I did.  The coldness of the wall went right through my jeans.  But I just sat there, my backside freezing, hoping I would get used to it soon.

“Y’know what I mean, Son, what I’m tryin’ to say?” Dad asked me.  Another gust of wind came up, but Dad appeared not to notice.  He looked out over our meadow.

I shook my head.  “Not really, Dad.”

“They’re different—the stones—but not different.  They’re all different shapes and sizes, but they’re all stones, see?  They’re all sturdy and hard.  They ain’t gonna sway when the wind blows, when the rains come, when the storms come crashin’ through.  They’re gonna hold steady, lodged in this hard wall.  They’re different, but they’re the same, too.

“Sometimes, different is good,” Dad continued.  “Sometimes, we get stodgy, too set in our ways.  I know I have.  Take the Bakers up the road.  They’ve been here since before you were born, but time was, they moved here from California, and some of the folks didn’t take too kind to ‘em at first.  And when Harry Baker suggested we take down the church steeple and repair it, we almost lynched ‘im.  But he was right.  That steeple was old, dangerous.  It needed fixin’.  It took an outsider to see that, Son—someone from away, someone different.  The Bakers’ve helped this town out in lotsa ways since then, too.  Sometimes, different is good, Billy.”

“But they’re the same, too,” I said.  “They’re all stones.  All rocks.”

Dad nodded.  The wind came up, stiff and strong again, rustling the boughs of the fir trees, sounding lonesome, longing for something I could not see, hoping for something I could not touch.

“Lots of folks in the world,” Dad said,  “and lots of notions.  A man, he needs to be like a sturdy stone wall.  Listen to ideas that help him out, learn new things, new ways of lookin’ at things.  Be open-minded, or else he’ll drive out the Harry Bakers of the world, and he’ll be worse off because of it.  But a man needs to know when different ain’t good.  He needs to be able to separate the good grain from the bad, the wormy fruit from the good fruit.  That’s what old Herb Preet has to do up on Newkirk Hill Road in his apple orchard.  Separate the good from the wormy.  You gettin’ me, Son?”

“I dunno,” I said.  “Sometimes, different things are good, and sometimes they’re bad?”

“Ayuh,” Dad said and for some reason, I thought to myself, Dad isn’t young anymore.  He won’t live forever.  “You got to let yerself grow, hear people out, take in the big stones with the little ones, you might say.  That’ll build you up, make you a better man.  But you need to be stony, too, solid.  Like this wall here.  Ain’t nothin’ here but good hard granite.  No wood.  No nails.  Wood rots.  Nails rust.  You felt the wall, Son.  It’s tough.  Don’t break easy.  Doesn’t sway and bend in the wind, going here and there.  That’s the way a good man needs to be.  You believe in what’s right, and you don’t bend.  Don’t let some smooth talker get you to do somethin’ that you know ain’t right.  Stand up for yourself.  And when the storms come, they won’t blow you down.  Different, but the same.  Just like this wall.  You understand now, Billy?”

“Yeah,” I said.  “I think so.”

Dad nodded.  It was quick and subtle.  It seemed he wanted to say something else, but he didn’t.  He sat there for awhile, his face turned to the wind.  Perhaps he was thinking of red-winged blackbirds and crocus flowers and dandelions.  Perhaps he was thinking of me, of the challenges I would face as I grew older, of the choices I would make.  I could have asked him what he was thinking.  I could have.  But I didn’t.

Dad stood up.  I did, too.

“C’mon, Son,” he said softly.  “Your mom’ll have lunch ready soon, I guess.”

We walked back into the high meadow, away from the wall.  We didn’t speak, but the silence was warm and comforting, like an old mitten that fits snugly on your hand and protects you from the cold.  Dad walked briskly, and I had to hurry to keep up with him.  I wished he would slow down, linger, to extend the moment and not have it be so fleeting.

We headed down our hillside, our home coming into view.  Smoke rose up from our chimney, billowing into the chilly air like ungraspable tendrils.  I loved the sight of it and again wished Dad would slow his pace.  But he kept on going and soon we were back inside, and I was taking off my jacket, and we would be eating lunch, and Dad would have chores to do, and so would I.

Dad never spoke to me of stone walls again.

*****************

Thanks so much for reading!

–Mike

The Doll in the Basement

There was nothing unusual or out of the ordinary about that day–at least, not at first.

It was just another in a string of  lazy end-of-summer afternoons, the kind of day that lingered, unhurried, like a traveler sitting on the front porch of some country store in a small New England town, feet up, sipping lemonade and chatting with the guests.

 

And that was fine with me.  With the new school year set to begin the following week, the day could take as much time as it wanted as far as I was concerned.  I was about to enter the fifth grade, and the teacher, a veteran of three-plus decades, had a reputation for being a no-nonsense disciplinarian who expected his students to perform from the get-go.  I knew I had to be ready.

But that was next week.  No need to dwell on it, not while a last sliver of summer vacation stood, like a buffer, against the onset of roll call and homework.

The day was hot, clear but humid, the air like a moist blanket that needed to be wrung out, drip by drip.  I decided to head down to the basement–the coolest space in the house.

The basement was split into two distinct zones.  The front, or “Light section,” as I liked to think of it, was partially finished, with food shelves, a freezer, a pool table, and a ping pong set.

 

Every time I went down there, I felt as if I were being greeted by an old friend.  I could relax, unwind, let my imagination wander, as I dreamed up new stories to write or new games I could play with my friends.

But the back . . . the back of the basement was unfinished, darker, with metal pipes straddling the ceiling; an old furnace, tucked away in a corner that hummed like a living thing on cold days; a mysterious window, which I had nicknamed “the window to nowhere,” that led to a narrow crawl space; a workbench built in against the far wall, cluttered with hand tools and scraps of wood and paintbrushes; and a snug, pitch-black little compartment under the stairs, where all manner of knickknacks and other assorted sundries were stashed.

 

I enjoyed scaring my friends with ghost stories about these tucked-away corners of the basement, and they were genuinely in awe of “the window to nowhere.”

 

But while I acted cool and confident in front of them, the truth was . . . I was uncomfortable being in the back of the basement, alone.  I imagined furry things curled up in secret nests; slithery, poisonous things that lived under the workbench or behind the water heater, who would reach out with tentacled limbs and pull me in.  Sometimes, when I ran upstairs, I could swear I heard something stirring in the shadows behind me, and my pace would quicken, my feet rushing, rushing . . .

 

But on that day, with the afternoon heat at its worst and the reality of fifth grade and the demanding teacher on the near horizon, I didn’t think of unseen monsters or dark creatures with fangs and feral, angry eyes.  I just wanted to escape to someplace cooler.

So I went down and played pool with myself, pretending to be a high-stakes player performing in front of thousands of riveted spectators.

 

It was fun for a while, but after a few minutes, I wanted something else to do.  I peered in toward the back of the basement.  Sunlight filtered in through a small window, and I could see particles of dust dancing in the beams.

Why not?  I thought.  Maybe I could discover something new with which to frighten my friends.

The first thing I did when I went back there was yank the chain that lit the naked lightbulb fastened to the ceiling.  The sunlight through the window helped.  But it was not enough–I needed full-on, bright light if I were to venture into this section of the basement, alone.

 

I walked slowly, alert, ready to bolt in a heartbeat if anything should happen.  The sound of footsteps upstairs, muted by the floor above my head, descended upon me.  It was a comforting sound, secure.  It injected me with a fresh dose of courage.

I continued on, heading for my father’s worn, paint-speckled workbench.  Clotheslines crisscrossed in front of it–though no clothes were presently on the lines.  What did hang from one of the lines was a blonde-haired, blue-eyed doll.

 

I jerked back, not expecting to see her.  Whose doll was she, anyway?  My sister, never a big collector of dolls to begin with, had recently started college.  It wasn’t hers.  One of my cousins, perhaps?  I didn’t know.  And I hesitated, considered turning around and going back to the relative safety of the front portion of the basement.  From upstairs, I heard the dull thud of more footsteps.

The doll was pretty, wearing a dress, with a bow in her hair.  But something about her disturbed me.  I had never liked dolls anyway–maybe that’s all it was.  They always seemed like living things, sentient, only pretending to be dead.

 

But when the lights were turned off, and night fell over the house like a shroud, I imagined them walking, on whispery feet, down the hallway, rummaging through dressers and drawers, scheming their secret schemes.

I approached the clotheslines and the doll, slowly, quietly.  Finally, I stood there, face-to-face with her.  I shook my head.  Why had I been afraid?  How ridiculous!  She was made of porcelain, not flesh and blood.  Besides, what could she possibly do?  I scolded myself for being so jumpy over nothing.

I swallowed, reached for the doll.

The doll winked.

I stumbled back, nearly falling over, and was sure I could hear the murmur of some unseen piece of machinery grow louder, closer.

 

I turned away from the blonde doll with the blue eyes and the hair bow.  I raced for the stairs, forgetting to switch off the light on the way.  As I took the stairs, two at a time, my mind imagined the doll on the clothesline, smiling now, her eyes staring, empty, calculating, wanting me to return.

 

I never did.  I did not venture alone into the back of the basement again until that doll was gone, nor did I tell anyone about what I’d seen.  I’d occasionally head down with my father if he needed to search for something on the workbench–though I always made sure to keep my distance.  I peeked in, sideways, checking to see if she was still there.

Finally, nearly a month later, the doll was gone.  Just as I never learned where she had come from, I never learned where she went.

*****************

To this day, I still ask myself:  Did that doll really wink at me?  I was nervous as I approached her, so it’s possible my mind created the illusion.  Marc Kuslanski would favor that theory.

But I have always believed that she did in fact wink.  I saw her eye close, slowly, and then open again–as clear as the sunlight that filtered in through the small window on the other end of the basement.  Perhaps, in her own way, she was the reason the blue-eyed “ghost girl” appeared in my nightmares years later, the same girl who haunts Mitchell Brant‘s dreams at the start of The Eye-Dancers.

 

That version makes for the better story, anyway . . .

 

Thanks so much for reading!

–Mike