The Back Door of Midnight (2 page)

Patch by patch, the old house began to show through the leaves, pieces of brown shingle roof and weathered gray boards. Its wood had a greenish tinge, like that of the moss-covered trees. I had remembered the house as being unusually long, and when I got close, I saw why. It must have been built as two structures, the left one added on to the right. Both sections of the house had a second floor, but the right portion was taller, boxier. The left portion sat low, with a simple sloping roof and dormer windows for its second floor. A narrow covered porch ran along the front of the low portion.

The house’s windows were open, blackened screens in each one, but not a sound came from within. I was relieved to see Uncle Will’s pickup parked at the end of the driveway, next to what looked like a horse trailer.

“Hey. . . . Hi. . . . Uncle Will?” I called.

At first I heard only insects, then there were soft, leafy sounds, stirrings in the trees and bushes around me, and cats began to emerge. They strode out in that fluid, stealthy way cats have, their increasing number making them bold. I stopped counting at sixteen.

Several of the cats trotted up the steps to a square porch and sat looking at the entrance to the tall section of the house.
I followed them, opened a warped screen door, then knocked loudly on the main one. There was no answer, and after a moment the cats turned to me expectantly.

“Uncle Will? Aunt Iris?” I knocked again, then turned the handle. The door swung inward, sweeping over a threadbare rug, letting out a breath of musty air. I stepped inside, and so did the cats, padding softly. A center hall ran past the stairs to a door at the back of the house. That door was open, and through it, I could see tall grass, a yard that sloped down to the wide creek.

I called out several times, then noticed the cats scurrying to the front door, which they scratched energetically. After letting them out, I watched the entire herd trot over to Uncle Will’s truck. They leaped onto the pickup, some of them choosing to sit on the hood, others making a second leap to the top of the cab. I stepped onto the porch, surveying the trees, wondering what had caused them to act that way.

About a minute later I heard a car engine. An old sedan came barreling through the trees. Branches snapped back and crunched beneath its wheels. When the car stopped next to the pickup, I saw a bouquet of twigs attached to its bumper and another one stuck in its windshield wipers. Perhaps the cats knew from experience to stay clear of this driver.

A tall, broad-boned woman got out of the sedan. Aunt
Iris, I realized. Her hair was dyed a harsh version of its original red, and her skin looked both paler and more freckled than I remembered. In some places it stretched over her large bones; in others, like the backs of her arms, it hung loose.

“Oh, stop it!” she snapped, before I could speak a word. “I’ve heard enough already.”

She stalked toward the porch where I stood, but never looked at me. I assumed she was talking to the cats, since they had jumped down from the truck and were mewing. Then her gaze became fixed on the right porch post.

“Hello, Aunt Iris.”

She turned her head sharply. For a moment she looked surprised to see me, then she made a face. “It’s about time!”

I glanced at my watch. “I told Uncle Will three o’clock.”

“Well, he didn’t tell me. He didn’t even mention you were coming back.”

“He didn’t?”
Uh-oh.
“Where is Uncle Will?”

“At the coroner’s—most of him, that is.”

“Excuse me?”

“They won’t return him. They said they have more tests to do. It’s not right, a man to be half ashes, half skin. He should be one or the other.”

I stared at her, a grisly image materializing in my head. “Half ashes . . . you mean he’s dead?”

She nodded and looked somewhat smug. “I see you didn’t know. That’s William for you—always forgetting to mention the important things.”

“When did he die?” I cried. “How did he die?”

She shot a look at the right porch post. “You’ll have to ask him yourself. He’s not speaking to
me.
”

I glanced at the post as if I might see him there, then back at her. She wasn’t making sense—not that anyone claiming that my uncle was dead would have made sense to me. Had he been seriously ill and waiting till I got here to tell me?

Then I got a creepy feeling.
Half ashes.
“Was there a fire?”

“Of course there was a fire,” she replied, stomping up the steps and into the house.

I followed her, images from my dream flickering through my mind. “Were other people there? Were there kids my age? Did someone deliberately set the fire?”

“You ask too many questions, Joanna.”

“Anna,” I corrected quietly.

“What?” She spun around, and I stepped back.

She was a head taller than I, and her hands, though worn, were still powerful, like those of a woman who had spent her life working a farm. I had no problem imagining her snapping the necks of chickens before throwing them in a boiling pot.

“I’m Anna, Anna O’Neill Kirkpatrick. Joanna was my mother,” I said. “She’s dead, remember?”

“Despite what William says, I remember everything that I want to.”

She strode through the dining room. I trailed her, and two kitties trailed me.

“Why aren’t you in Baltimore?” Aunt Iris asked, making it clear she now knew who I was.

“Uncle Will invited me. He said there were some family things he wanted to talk about.”

I saw the color wash up the back of her neck. She shoved the swinging door between the dining room and kitchen so hard, it slammed against the kitchen wall. “He wanted to talk about
me.
He thinks I’m out of my mind. He thinks I should be committed to the crazy-people place.”

I caught the door as it bounced back at me. The two cats slinked away.

“I’ve been there,” Iris went on, “and I just can’t get along with those people. They’re strange.”

“I guess so.” I glanced around the room, which had appliances even older and stickier-looking than ours and a faded tile floor. Perhaps when you are less than three feet tall, you stare at the floor a lot: The checkerboard pattern was familiar to me.

“What do you see?” Aunt Iris asked.

“Excuse me?”

“What do you see?” she demanded, sounding almost fearful.

It took me a moment to catch on. If a porch post looked like Uncle Will’s ghost to her . . . “Nothing but a kitchen,” I replied. “A stove, sink, cupboards. Aunt Iris, what day did Uncle Will die?”

She looked at me out of the corner of her eye. “I don’t know.”

Apparently, it was one of those things she chose not to remember.

She dropped down in a chair, her sandaled feet spread wide apart and loose dress gaping between her knees. “I’m exhausted. Stupid deputy. It’s indecent to keep a man half skin and half ashes.”

I sat down with her at the kitchen table.

“Fix yourself something to drink,” she said. “I don’t have Mr. Pepper.”

“You mean Dr Pepper?”

“For the love of God!” she exploded. “People expect everything from a psychic! ‘Doctor,’ ‘mister,’ I was close enough. I didn’t call it ‘Mrs. Salt,’ did I?”

“No. No, you didn’t. Water is perfect,” I said, though in fact I had been longing for a Dr Pepper and found it creepy that she knew.

I rose and filled a glass from the tap, then walked over to the freezer for ice cubes. Opening the door, I jumped back. A large, speckled fish—scales, fins, head, and tail—tumbled out, landing at my feet. I stared down at it, then up at the compartment, which was filled with fish.

“Put it back, put it back!” Aunt Iris cried.

I quickly stuffed the fish in with the others and decided I could do without the ice cubes.

“So Uncle Will is—was—still fishing a lot,” I observed.

“I can’t stand the way they look at you. So accusingly!”

“The fish, you mean, their glassy eyes?”

“The fire was Wednesday night.”

The sudden disclosure caught me by surprise.
The same night as my dream,
I thought, my sweaty skin feeling cold. I sat down at the table again.

“Where did it happen?”

“Near Tilby’s Dream—the old farm. The car’s been rusting there for years,” she added. “Sheriff said it took some work to pry open the trunk.”

“Uncle Will was inside the trunk?”

She nodded. “Poor William, he hated Buicks. He always insisted on Chevrolets.”

“Did someone . . . put him there—did someone kill Uncle Will?” I asked.

“I
said
he hated Buicks. You don’t think he climbed in willingly, do you?”

“No,” I said slowly, “not even if he liked the car.”

Obviously, Aunt Iris was not the most reliable source of information. I had to talk to the police—the sheriff, she had said. Then what? If my great-aunt was losing it mentally, what was I supposed to do? Mom would know; but she would come rushing home from a vacation she needed badly. I could handle this—at least for a little while, I could.

“How long are you going to stay?” Aunt Iris asked.

“I’m not sure. I have college orientation—”

“Your clothes are in Papa’s room, in the mahogany bureau.”

“Oh!” I visualized myself in a kindergartner’s clothes. “I don’t think I’ll fit them anymore.”

“Well, don’t expect me to buy you any. We’re going to need every penny for the child.”

“What child?”

“She’ll be here soon enough.”

I gazed at my great-aunt, mystified. Then I realized I must have slipped back into being Joanna. My mother was attending college when I was born. The child who was coming was probably myself, and she had been speaking of my mother’s clothes in the mahogany bureau.

When Uncle Will had written that Aunt Iris was doing poorly, he wasn’t kidding. Was she senile or just plain crazy?

Her eyes met mine. “You would be crazy too, if you saw and heard the things I do.”

I took a long sip of water. Had she just read my thoughts? No. She had heard herself talking and, knowing that she didn’t make sense, had offered an explanation.

When I glanced up, her eyes were darting around the room, as if insects were popping out of the kitchen walls and she was trying to count them. Her eyes finally lit on me.

“I’m Anna,” I said, just in case.

“Then I suppose you’ve brought luggage.”

“It’s in my car at the top of the driveway,” I replied, although, at the moment, I was thinking about finding a motel.

She stood up. “You may as well fetch it and start unpacking. William knows you’re here.”

Perhaps he can knock twice to say hello,
I thought. Aunt Iris was one person I wouldn’t want to join in a séance.

She gave me a sideways look. “Unless you’re afraid of me. You were as a child.”

“I’m not now. I’ll get my things.”

After placing my glass in the sink, I retraced my steps through the dining room to the center hall and front door. When I had exited and looked back at the house, I realized I
could have left directly from the kitchen. It was the first room in the long, low section of the house, and Aunt Iris was watching me from behind its screen door.

I trudged up the gradual incline to my car, feeling her eyes in my back even when the curtain of trees was between us. I drove slowly toward the house, trying to avoid ruts and cats. Easing past Aunt Iris’s car, Uncle Will’s truck, and the horse trailer, I parked at the far edge of the driveway, snug against some shrubs so I wouldn’t be in my aunt’s way. I pulled out my suitcase and started toward the house.

There was a sudden roar of an engine, and I leaped back, flattening myself against the pickup truck. Aunt Iris’s gold Chevrolet lurched backward, then stopped. I stood on my toes, sandwiched between the sedan and the truck. If I leaned half an inch forward, I’d touch her car. I heard the front wheels wrench around on the shells and dirt, watched its big metal nose turn, and stared after the car as it sped off through the trees. She was a maniac.

I wondered if there was someone besides my uncle looking out for Aunt Iris. I had a bad feeling there wasn’t and that she didn’t want there to be. The first thing I’d do was charge up my cell phone. I dropped my bag at the bottom of the stairway, then headed into the kitchen, figuring it would have the best outlet. When I saw the stove, I gasped. A burner was on, the
gas turned up all the way, with blue flames shooting into the air, looking hungry for something to burn. I ran to the stove and twisted one of its knobs. A window curtain hung just inches from the flames—if a breeze had stirred, it would have caught fire immediately.

Why did she do this?
I thought angrily.
Stay cool,
I told myself. There was a teapot on the burner behind the one that had been lit. It was possible that Iris thought she had lit that burner, then decided to leave suddenly and forgot about it—just like it was possible that she never saw me when she backed up the car. Of course, it didn’t much matter: Whether by neglect or plan, she was dangerous. I had a credit card and could stay at a cheap highway motel. Still, I hated being cowed by an old lady, my own great-aunt, especially after the challenge she had issued. I’d stay tonight; whether or not I’d sleep was another question.

WITH THAT DECIDED,
I opened the refrigerator to see if there was something more than glassy-eyed fish to eat. One look told me that food shopping was a priority. The date on the egg carton indicated that they were laid in March. The lids on the mayo and mustard were off, the mustard’s yellow separating from the vinegary part. There was a flounder lying on top of an open butter dish and the tail of another sticking out of the meat drawer. I peeked in the crisper. A package of slimy deli meat sat on a pile of mail. After a moment of debate, I removed the mail.

All of it was addressed to Uncle Will’s post office box. Some of it looked like bills—electric, telephone, Visa; the postmarks were from the previous week. I realized that if Aunt Iris kept mail in the fridge as long as she kept other things, she’d need someone to help her with her bills. Did she and Uncle Will have a lawyer or someone else who could do this?

Flipping through the envelopes, I came upon one that was missing a postage stamp and marked
RETURN TO SENDER
. It was addressed in my uncle’s bold handwriting to the Maryland State Police. Adding postage and sending it on would have been the right thing to do, but curiosity got the better of me. I opened it.