Nightingale Songs (2 page)

That we are living in a renaissance of weird fiction seems evident from even the briefest survey of the contemporary literary scene.  In Simon’s neck of the woods alone, Gemma Files, Richard Gavin, and Ian Rogers are writing the work that will be read twenty, fifty, a hundred years from now.  With this collection, Simon has taken yet another step towards ensuring his attention from those future readers.

Fortunately for us, we can experience Simon’s work as it is appearing.  So as these introductory remarks draw to a close, I’ll ask you to find your tables.  If you don’t have one, there are still a few seats left up front.  I’ll ask the two English gentlemen in the back to keep the chatter down, please.  I ask you to direct your attention to the front of this fine establishment.  What you are about to hear is full of mystery, and regret, and pain, and horror.  You will listen to secrets, to things that will not soon leave your memory.  You will not depart this performance unchanged.

But you didn’t come here for any less, did you?

I grew up in the suburbs, in a small bungalow house identical to every other bungalow house on my block. Row after row of these houses, all in straight lines, filled the streets as far as my bicycle would take me. That was why the house across from my own never struck me as strange or out-of-the-ordinary, not in all the years I shared the street with it. It was like looking at
my
house in a mirror, and I found it no less reassuring than any of the others around me. Sure, its lawn was left to grow weed-filled and wild, where any insect could find a home, but there was really no reason why the house should have stood out in my mind, no reason at all why I should have noted it -- except, of course, that it had been vacant for as long as I could remember.

In fairness, even
that
isn't so strange. At least, it didn't seem so then. Time is soft and malleable, and can slow to a crawl when you're young. Sometimes, it almost seems to stop. For all I know, the place had been empty for only a few months before I really noticed it -- though, afterwards, I never saw a single person set foot there.

I'd spent a good part of my summer vacation with Mitch under direct orders from my mother. No doubt, she thought it would do us both good. She and Mrs. Ramsey were friends, and through some miracle of childhood Mitch and I were supposed to have bonded, too. It wasn't that I disliked him, but at the time I would rather have been left alone by the world instead of been forced to socialize. My father was still only a few months gone, and his absence from my life left me in a sort of limbo, where I wanted nothing more than for each day to be over. The last place I wanted to be was inside Mitch's room with its overpowering chemical smell, and a part of me hated my own discomfort.

He rolled his dice.

"Double-sixes!" he said, then moved his marker twelve squares. "You suck at this game, you know."

"I know, I know." I rolled my own set of dice, and reported the number to him so he could move my marker across the board. The air-conditioner made the room cool, much cooler than my own, though the recycled air also tasted funny. On the bright side, though the air-filter made too much noise, it offered the constant amusement of blowing Mitch’s dark black hair out of shape. "You look like a caveman," I said.

He smiled and beat his chest. I held my breath for a second and waited, but nothing happened.

"I've asked my mom, but she won't let me keep a comb in here. I don't know what she thinks I'll catch from a
comb
." He shook his head and laughed, and while he did so I sneaked a look at the clock. It was nearly time for me to go. When I looked back at him he wasn't laughing any longer.

"You know, Neil, you can leave whenever you want. It's okay."

"I can stay a few minutes more. Do you want to do something else?"

He didn't seem to.

Part of me knew he was lying, but I had put on a brave face for too long already. I needed time to myself, and already I could feel the seconds slipping away from me forever.

My mother wasn't too thrilled when I arrived home.

"Mrs. Ramsey called me today at work. Did you and Mitch have a fight?"

"You
said
I didn't have to spend the whole day there."

My mother sighed, and rubbed her temples. Through the thin drapes in the living room window I could see the house across the street. Its long grass wavered as the sheer material between us moved with the wind.

"Neil, right now, it's good for you to be over there. Don't you understand?"

I grumbled. "I don't think I can do it. There are too many rules --"

"It will be okay. Just do this for me, please?" She took my hand and smiled at me. What else could I do but agree? She ran her fingers through my hair approvingly.

"You're growing up too fast, little man."

# # #

The next day I was allowed to take a vacation from Mitch. It sounds harsh to say, but I needed it. As much as I didn't want to disappoint my mother, I also couldn't be cooped up in that moldering house. The day was a beautiful one, the kind where the sunlight shines so bright it makes everything glitter, and I spent the good part of it on the front lawn of the house, just sitting in the grass, looking up at the sky and trying to pretend my family was still whole. It worked, but only for a few seconds at a time.

I lay there and watched the clouds change shape and creep past, and without warning I was startled by a soft flutter of darkness over my eyes. I shook my head violently, and instinctively sat up, but the obstruction had gone. Across the grass, a dark brown butterfly moved erratically before it lit on the stem of a dandelion.

It came from the house across the street, whose overgrown lawn attracted them by the dozens. My mind flashed to Mitch and how much he used to like watching the butterflies only a year earlier, before being sealed away in his house. I carefully stood and inched my way toward the creature. It flattened its wings to warm itself in the sun, and I saw the beautiful pattern of tiny circles, like a row of eyes, that edged them. I stood over it, careful to avoid putting my shadow between us, and when it closed its wings once more I bent down and pinched them between my fingers. The insect struggled, its legs moving wildly as I picked it up, but I did not let it go.

I looked up and my eyes fell on the house across the street. I don't know why -- I'd barely given it much thought until then -- but when I looked I momentarily saw the face of a young girl in the dark curtained window before it disappeared. It was so quick, I wondered if I'd truly seen anything. If I had, the curtains were certainly no evidence. It didn't look as though they'd moved.

I went to cup the butterfly in my hand, before going inside to get a glass jar, but the fragile creature had disappeared. It must have slipped free during my surprise. All that was left was a dust of dark brown scales on my fingertips. I cleaned them on the side of my pants and looked back at the vacant house. It lay still in the summer morning, looking as though nothing unusual had occurred.

Inside, my mother sat at the kitchen table, her back to me. When she heard my voice, she jumped, but didn't turn around right away. I asked her if someone had moved into the house across the street.

"No. Why?"

"I thought I saw --" I started, and as she turned around I realized how foolish I was being. It was likely a reflection and nothing more. She didn't give me time to explain anyway.

"Get ready. We're off to the Ramseys'."

"Mom!" I said, and stamped my foot. "You
promised
."

She had no patience for my tantrum. She shut it down before I was even worked up.

"We're going, and that's final. Get ready.
Now
."

Mitch was away from his bedroom window when we arrived, a white mask covering the lower half of his face. Mrs. Ramsey let my mother and me in, and then triple-checked the door was shut before hugging us both very tightly. I could feel my ribs straining from the pressure, and thought she’d never let me go. When she did, she glanced at me with an uneasiness that suggested she'd gone too far, and tried to compose herself by pushing her tight curls back into her bun. She smiled at me, her face folding into deep lines that looked forced and unnatural. Her eyes, though, were the worst. Baggy, wide and tired, they were the eyes of someone who had seen far too much and lived through even more. Far more than anyone deserved.

She took hold of my small hands and inspected them as she did every time I visited. Then, she said, "You run upstairs and play." Did she look as though she was going to cry? Did my mother? I wanted to say something, but I was at a loss. Everything was still for a moment, and the afternoon light from the window made the world look like a photograph. The only sound was a gentle tapping from somewhere in the house, like a flutter on glass. Then Mrs. Ramsey sniffled and broke the spell.

Mitch called out from upstairs: "Come up to my room, Neil," and I looked at my mother for some sort of reassurance. She wasn't looking my way, but Mrs. Ramsey was, and at the time I thought the ineffable look on her face was directed at me. In hindsight, though, I suspect I was wrong.

Mitch had his chessboard setup on a small table, and he sat there with his large brown eyes staring expectantly at me. I hesitated at the door, long enough to hear my mother's voice, but not what she said.

"I'm glad you're back, Neil. What's going on?"

I took a seat across from him, though I had to twist my legs around one of his machines.

"Nothing really. Just hanging out."

He moved one of his pawns, and didn't look at me when he said, "You look like you have a tan already. How is it out there?"

I twisted my foot further around the machine, and then stopped, afraid I might damage it. I stammered.

"Fine, I guess. Do you remember that house across the street? You should see its lawn now. It looks like a jungle. It's filled with butterflies, too."

"I remember butterflies," Mitch said, and then nothing else. He just looked at the chessboard. I wondered what my father would say, but came up empty.

"I think I saw someone inside the house today, though."

This piqued his interest.

"But no one's lived there in
years
."

"And my mom says no one has moved in. I probably just imagined it. I thought I saw a girl in the window."

Mitch forgot about the game, intent on learning more about what I saw. I immediately wished I hadn't said anything, but I suppose he'd grown bored housebound for so long.

"What did she look like?"

I shrugged, and then fidgeted with a chess piece.

"I only saw her for a second. She was about our age."

"And she just sat there? Watching you?"

"I don't know. As soon as I saw her she disappeared behind the curtains."

He pondered what I'd said, holding his finger to where his lips would be under the mask.

"Neil, I don't like this. Not at all. We need to investigate."

But only I would be doing the investigating. Mitch pleaded with his mother to let him out of the house, assuring her he felt fine, and that he'd
always
been fine before the doctors said anything, but I knew it would be no use. He could never leave that place.

Not that he would have seen much if he had. Despite his paranoia, nothing else happened at the house across the street. Weeks passed with me watching its windows, looking for any nugget I could give Mitch to get him to drop the topic, but I only saw the grass grow longer, and the dark brown butterflies within it grow in number. Whatever weeds were on that lawn had attracted them so specifically that I wasn't sure if I saw any that summer than
weren't
in front of the neighboring house.

Part of me, I'll admit, was intrigued -- especially after Mitch's unusual reaction. For a little while, he almost managed to convince me that I
had
seen something real in that house -- that somehow there was a young girl living within, despite all appearances to the contrary. I soon wanted as much as Mitch did to get a better look in that window, but crossing the street into the yard was something I promised myself I would never do.

My father had once suggested going there. I was quite young at the time, so I might be misremembering as I misremember many things about my father, but even then the house looked vacant, and he took it upon himself to mow the lawn. It didn't take long for my mother to emerge from our house screaming.

"But it's an
eyesore
," he told my mother later, by way of explanation, after she had calmed. "It’s a forest! God only knows what's running around in there. We have to live on this street too, for Pete's sake. It only makes the neighborhood look rundown."

"There's something wrong with that place, Jerry. I can feel it. Just stay away from it, okay?"

He did not look pleased.

"Would you do it if
she
asked?" my mother added, underbreath. He looked at her, stunned, then stood and left the house. She started to cry.