Wolf Dreams

His door- well quite honestly, his door was something else and something else again. You know most people have ordinary, plain doors, maybe even boring doors, but not him. No sirree, his door was unique.

Bright grass green it was, made of wood, with the boards going up and down  and curving at the top to form an arch. The top part of the door had a little round window in it, set with patterns of colored glass which at first glance didn’t seem to form any sort of picture, but as you stared at it, you weren’t quite so sure…

Not so strange so far, you might say. A little different, not the ordinary door in the neighborhood, but not that far off…Well, but that isn’t all

There were carvings running up and down the edges of the door, under the paint, and accented with different colors- carvings of twisting tree trunks and leaves, with birds and small strange creatures hiding in the swirls. They met overhead at the top of the arch with a burst of blooms- large flowers nodding their heads at each other and drooping down towards the window.

In the middle, around the doorknob (oh, didn’t I mention that the bright brass doorknob with its pattern of Celtic knots in it was in the center of the door, not on the side?) was yet another carving. This one had dragons- four of them- chasing one another around in a circle with mouths open and fangs showing, talons extended, and wings half-spread. And if you looked away, the dragons had moved around in their circle, and were frozen in a different posture than they had been previously. No matter how hard you looked, though, you could not catch those dragons moving. They just did, and laughed at you for thinking you were smarter that they.

Now, didn’t I tell you that his door was like no other?

 

   Jon, Rob and I were talking at lunch one day. We all walked or biked at least part of the way to work, and Jon was telling about the lady who was being walked by her rottwieler every morning as he came to work.

     “I always cross over to the other side of the street,” he confessed, “I mean, I know nice rottweilers, but I don’t think this is one of them. He barks and pulls on his leash when he sees me. This lady is not big, and I can just see him pulling away from her and having me for breakfast!”  he concluded with a shudder.

     “Yeah, I’ve seen her out with him. He really is scary,” Rob said. “You know, I saw something kind of odd this morning. I could have sworn I saw some guy in a top hat and tailcoat turning the corner in front of me on that first little stretch of shops over on Vale.”

     “You probably did,” Jon grinned at him, “There’s a brand new tux rental place over near there. They rent out some really fancy stuff. My buddy Dave got an outfit like that to wear at his brother’s wedding.”

     “Poor slob.” Rob shook his head. “Man, these girls have the strangest ideas…” He stopped as he realized I was sitting there, glaring at him. “Oops. Sorry. I, uh…”
     “Never mind. I know. You forgot I was here. I’m just one of the guys. I know.” I rolled my eyes and twitched my skirt into place. “But hey, I came to work a different way this morning. You know, there’s all that construction the way I usually come, and with the rain, there’s mud every where, so I walked a few blocks out of my way. I thought I was just going to go down a street a few blocks over, but it turned out to be a long, twisty, cul-de-sac. I didn’t even notice until I was at the end of it, and then I saw the strangest thing. It was a door.”

     Jon interrupted, “Yeah, doors…” He whistled the theme from the Twilight Zone.

     “IF you would let me finish,” I said.

     “Sorry,” he smirked.

     “I know doors are not what you would think of as something strange, but this one… I don’t know. The house it’s on is pretty ordinary. It’s just another tract house from the sixties, a lot like mine. The yard is kind of nice, nothing special, with lots of wild flowers and a bird bath. The house has been remodeled, you can tell, and has sandstone bricks on the facing, but it’s still shaped like a rectangular box. The curtains were drawn, and there wasn’t any car in the driveway. But this door, well, let me tell you about it. It was bright green, with all sorts of carvings on it, and a gorgeous stained glass window in it. It was shaped like an arch, with a curved top, and the doorknob was in the middle. Now is the part that gets weird. There were these carved and painted dragons in a circle around the doorknob. And they moved.”

     “How do you know they moved,” Rob said in a “you’ve got to be kidding” sort of voice, “I mean what did you do, go up and stare at it?”

    “And what precisely did you eat for breakfast this morning?” added Jon.

      “I had cereal- the ordinary kind, in a cardboard box from the grocery store. As for how I noticed it moving, well, the color caught my eye, and I stopped on the sidewalk for a second to look. The dragons are highlighted in different colors, so they are easy to see. I heard something rustling in the tree over my head, so I looked up for a second, and then I looked back and they had moved. The red one had been on the top and now he was half-way around the circle. I thought I didn’t see it right, so I rubbed my eyes and looked again. This time, he was three quarters of the way around the circle. I turned around to see if anyone was watching me, you know, a candid camera sort of thing, but there wasn’t anyone there. When I turned back he had moved again. About that time, I thought I saw the curtains twitch, so I got out of there. I’m sure there’s a reasonable explanation for it, but it was kind of weird.”

     “It sounds really cool!” Jon was very enthusiastic. “I wonder if it’s mechanical or computer generated graphics in a screen set in the door. Did you get close enough to see if there was something like a screen there?”

     “I was on the sidewalk, Jon. I wasn’t close enough to see any details.”

     “Hey,” said Rob, “let’s walk back over there this afternoon after work- I want to see this thing too. If it looks like someone is home, we can go to the door and ask how they did it. I bet they’d tell us- something like that sounds too cool to keep to yourself!”

     But that afternoon it was raining again, a real thunder-gully-washer. We all had to bum a ride home from
Myra over in accounting. She never walks or bikes and always smirks when we have to ask for rides home when it rains. It was raining the next morning, too, and we carpooled with
Myra, all chipping in a few bucks for gas and parking. Saturday morning was still icky and wet, but by Saturday evening it was beginning to clear off. Jon invited himself for dinner, bringing Chinese take-out, and we called Rob to join us. Over Kung Pao beef and green tea, we discussed our plan of action.

     “I’ll pick up Jon and we’ll be over at about six in the morning.” Rob was a morning person.

     “What time did you say? Ten?” Jon, like me, did not want to lose a precious morning of sleeping in.

     “Anyway,” I added, “We’re going to look awfully suspicious wandering around at 6 o’clock on a Sunday morning. And if you’re serious about wanting to talk to whoever lives there, they probably won’t like being waked up at 6 am”

     Rob conceded that point, and then said, “So why don’t we go now? We still have a little time before sunset, and I could go for a walk to work off this dinner.”

     We all thought this was a splendid idea. I grabbed my windbreaker and the small backpack I use as a purse/knitting bag - you never know what you’re going to need, and this thing carries just about everything, and the guys grabbed their windbreakers and we took off. Jon asked if maybe we should drive over there, but Rob and I convinced him that walking was less suspicious than three strangers coming up in a car and then parking. This way we could make it look like we were out for a harmless walk, which we were, sort of.

     It only took about 15 minutes to get over there, most of it spent walking down the long street to the dead-end. You couldn’t see the house until you got to the end of the street, because of the trees planted between the sidewalk and the street. The house was up on a little rise, with two stone steps leading up to the sidewalk to the house.

     “Hey, where’s the front door?” said Jon, sounding annoyed. “Were you screwing with us? Some sort of practical joke or something?”

     I looked at the house. He was right. There was no green, carved, colored front door. There was an old-fashioned screen door. It was a square one, with a solid bottom and rusty-looking screen on the top half. It was green, though, and I though I could see a hint of green behind the rusty screen.

     “It was there the other day. I swear it was!” I said as I started up the walk.

     A young voice came from behind me. “You don’t want to go up there. That’s the haunted house.” I turned around to see a boy of about nine or ten on a bicycle on the sidewalk near us. He was near, but not too near. He was far enough away to make a quick getaway if he needed to, from us or from the haunted house, whichever seemed more threatening at the time.

     “What do you mean, haunted?” Rob beat Jon and me to the punch.

     The boy was more than happy to fill us in, with a slightly frightened look on his face, his eyes sliding over to the house as he talked. “Nobody ever comes or goes from there, but sometimes the curtains move like somebody’s looking out behind them. Sometimes late at night, a truck comes up in the alley behind the house and I think someone goes in, but I’ve never actually seen them. There’s strange floaty lights in there at night, too, but not any regular ones. One time, I thought I heard someone laughing in there, a real strange laugh, but I wasn’t sure. Me and the other kids on the block, we don’t mess with it.”

     “What about the neighbors on either side?” Rob asked.

     “The house on this side is empty- has been for a long time. My dad says it needs too much work done on it for the price they want for it. The one on the other side belongs to some little old lady who doesn’t come out much. She’s pretty deaf and likes to watch soap operas all day. And she doesn’t like kids much,”  he added.

     “Any of you kids ever go up and say, ring the doorbell or anything like that? That’s what we used to dare each other to do with the haunted house in my neighborhood,” said Jon.

     “No way, mister. We stay clear of that place. And if you know what’s good for you, so will you!”

     “Wait, who keeps up the yard and stuff, you know, gets the junk mail out of the box, that kind of thing?” I asked him as he turned to bike away.

     “Some yard service. I never saw them anywhere else in the neighborhood, though. I don’t know what happens to the mail.” He pushed his bike around. “I gotta go. If my mom or dad sees me talking to strangers- specially in front of the haunted house- I’ll be in big trouble!” He raced off on his bike.

     “Well, so much for asking about the door,” Rob said.

     “What door? All I see is a rusty screen. It’s green, but that’s about it,” replied Jon.

     “It’s there, I know it is. And I’m not afraid of kid stories about a haunted house. Let’s go look.” I turned, stomped up the two stone steps, and started down the sidewalk. Rob and Jon followed me.

     “Hey, let Rob go first. He’s the one who take karate. If there’s some crazy recluse in there, he’ll keep us safe!” Jon was glad to volunteer our friend’s services.

     I snorted, but let Rob take the lead.

     The cement stoop was large enough for all three of us to stand there at the same time. Rob tried the screen door, but it was latched, or stuck or something. He peered through the screen, down at the door inside it, and then up at the top.

     “Hey, you weren’t joking. This is something else. It’s all carved and colored, like you said. And the top is arched, and this little window is a work of art!”

     “Let me see!” Jon pushed past me and crowded up next to Rob. He let out a low whistle. “I’ve done little carving and some stained glass over the last few years, but this stuff is a master’s work.”

     I pushed my own way between the two of them. It was there, just like I remembered. “See, now you know. When have I ever lied to you or set you up for that kind of joke? Huh?” I felt vindicated. Truthfully, I was beginning to wonder if I had imagined it all.

     “Hey, these dragons don’t move, though. I just shut my eyes and they are in the same place as they were before.” Jon was disappointed.

     A rustling from the lilac bushes by the door made us all look away for a moment. When we looked back, Jon peered down into the space between the doors again. “Hey, this time they did move! Maybe we all have to look away!”

     So we all closed our eyes, and when we opened them again, the dragons had moved. ‘Weird! That is just plain weird,” Rob said. He and Jon spent a few moments trying to get a better look between the doors and then gave up and Jon rang the doorbell. A gonging noise could be heard inside the house, and then nothing. A few minutes went by, and he tried again. Still on one answered the door. Meanwhile, Rob was idly playing with the mailbox by the door.

     “Cut that out. It’s a federal offence to mess with the mail!” I snapped.

     “Well, this must be mine anyway, because it’s all addressed to Resident, just like mine!” he joked, but he quit messing with the mailbox.

     “Look, there’s no one here, just like the kid said. Let’s see what we can see from the alley.” Jon led the way back down the walk. Rob paused, though, to look at the bird bath in the middle of the wild flowers in the front yard. He said, “You guys should come and look at this. It’s not quite what it seems to be, either.”

     We came over and took a look. He was right. It was a bit different. The bowl was filled from all the rain we had had, but under that the surface was as smooth and shiny as a mirror, clean and unscratched.

     “Curiouser and curiouser,” I quoted, and we all walked off down the street to go around to the alley’s entrance.

     The back of the house would have been hard to find if it weren’t at the end of the block, right on the curve. All of them looked alike from this angle- privacy fences, a few garages, and trash can holders with dented trash cans in them. Oh, and mud and weeds.

      I tried to peer through the cracks in the fence, Rob risked life and limb to climb on the rickety trash can holder, and Jon went over to look at the garage door. It was dusk, and getting a little hard to see, but both Rob and I could tell that the back yard was filled with more wild flowers, little paths and stone benches, and maybe a small pond. We could also see that the curtains were drawn just as tightly in the back as they were in the front.

     “Come over here,” Jon said quietly from just beyond the garage. He had found a gate, and a very strange gate it was. It was completely round. There was no carving on it, but it was painted a bright green, just like the door. “Have you got your knitting in that bag, like you usually do?” he asked me. When I nodded, he said, “Can I see one of those little itty bitty needles you use for knitting socks?” I poked around in my bag and came up with one of my size 0 double points.

     “Don’t poke yourself, it’s sharp,” I cautioned.

     “Don’t worry, I’m almost done.” He fished at the gate’s latch with the needle and pushed the green circle open with a flourish, handing me back my sock needle at the same time.

     “After you. And if anyone asks, you’ve lost your cat and you thought you saw it run in here,” he said.

     “You’re a bit nefarious,” said Rob. “I don’t think we know you at all!”

     “When you have cranky neighbors and lose a lot of baseballs, you get really good at gate-cracking and excuses,” replied Jon.

     The gate had opened onto a small flagstone walkway between the fence and the garage. We went down it single file, and as each of us rounded the corner of the garage, we stopped to stare.

The sun was setting , and the whole world had a pinkish tint. That, added to the beauty of the little garden, made the scene seem magical. There were wildflowers, of course, and lots of regular flowers run wild- hollyhocks and pansies and poppies, roses blooming out of season and what seemed to be a lot of herbs. The stone benches we had glimpsed were there, and there was a little arbor with some sort of blooming vine draped over it. The little pool had the ripples fish made on the surface, and small frogs sang on its edges. A few butterflies floated over the flowers, and it was quiet enough to hear bees buzzing. A couple of small trees were near the edges where they could provide shade on hot days, and a large cottonwood tree was near the back fence, hanging over the back quarter of the yard. Small creatures seemed to be moving among the wild flowers, and as we stood there, birds came down from the trees to get an evening drink from the pool.

     The area between the garage and the house was covered with flagstones like the little path, and there was a door into the house- this time an ordinary one, with a window and curtains drawn tightly.

We were all standing there, staring at the magical little garden- not something you would expect with an abandoned house- when the sprinkler system in the back yard came on. Hard. Full blast. We ran for the alley to avoid being soaked, and as we ran, I could have sworn I saw a curtain twitch.

     Later on, back at my house, over glasses of my favorite micro-brew beer, we discussed what we had seen. “There is something truly strange about that place,” Rob spoke for all of us. “There must be a recluse living there, with someone who brings food and stuff at night, through the alley. I don’t know about you guys, but when we left rather precipitously, I thought I saw one of the curtains move.”

     “So did I,” I said.

     “You did,” replied Jon. “I did too, and at another window, right before the sprinklers came one, I saw a cat looking out.”

     “A cat?!” Rob and I chorused.

     “Yeah, a cat. You know, furry face, triangle ears, big eyes, whiskers? I saw it quite clearly right before things got wet. And then there’s this.” He held out a small bloom he had tucked in his shirt pocket.

     “So? It’s a flower, a wildflower I guess,” I said.

     “I know flowers. My mom had a huge flower garden that I had to help her with, and my last girlfriend was a nature nut. She photographed wildflowers all the time, and made me learn the names of all of them. This is like no flower I have ever seen, either in person or in books.”

     “So when are we going back?” I asked, and Rob nodded.

     “We need a plan, an excuse to get in there,” Jon said.

     Not once did any of us ever wonder why we were harassing some poor recluse who apparently just wanted to be left alone.

     As the thunder crashed and the lightening blazed, we laid our plans.

    

The door came to me in my dreams that night. I saw it being made; the boards joined tightly and shaped, the carving on the sides skillfully and lovingly done, the glass for the window cut, pieced and inserted into the door. Then the color was applied- a thick bright coat to the center portion, and a lighter wash to the carvings. The carvings were then highlighted with bright colors here and there. As each stage was completed, the opposite side of the door was done as well. The carvings were not identical, though, and the coloring was different on the carvings. All was done except the dragons in the center and the door knob with its knotwork- some how these were separate, and somehow I knew that they were magical.

  Our list of things to do was depressingly short. Monday at the end of lunch Rob came into the lunch room and dropped some papers down in front of Jon and me. “I checked with the city and county.  The house is owned by a corporation, Pearsall, Inc. All the taxes are paid in full on time, and the city bill is paid out of a corporate account. That’s all I could find out during my lunch hour.”

     “My turn, now,” said Jon, scooping up the papers. “I’ll check on line and see what I can find out during the rest of lunch.” He headed off for his computer.

     Rob sat down next to me and gave my lunch sack the puppy-eyes look.

     “Why didn’t you grab something while you were out?” I grumbled.

     “Didn’t think about it. I’m not used to going out at lunch, or having my car, or going through drive-thrus. Now I’m hungry.”

     “Lucky for you I anticipated you being an air-head. There’s a sandwich and apple and chips and some cookies- just like Mom used to pack in your lunch when you were ten.”

     “My mom, pack me a lunch when I was ten? She made me make my own the night before. That’s still what I packed, though. Is this peanut butter? With grape jelly? I love pbj’s!”  Rob enthused, and dug in. “You must be psychic! What would you have done if I didn’t want this?”

     “Stuck it in the fridge for tomorrow and not had to bring a lunch. Rob, what are we going to do next? It’s not like we can go and visit a corporation and ask them about a house with a weird door and strange flowers blooming in the yard. Why are we doing this, anyway?”

     “I don’t know to the first question and I really don’t know to the second. I’ve been trying to figure that one out, too. Why has this grabbed all of us so hard? It feels like we can’t let it go until we figure it out. It’s really weird. I mean, if it was just one of us, I would chalk it up to temporary insanity or being obsessive. But it’s all three of us. Usually one of us has a level head on their shoulders. But not this time.”  He shook his head and bit into the apple. “We’ll let Mr. Computer do his thing and see what he can find out and then we’ll go from there. Maybe something he finds will give us an idea of what to do next.” He eyed the knitting in my hands. “Hey, I like the pattern on those socks. Are they for me?”

     “Just because that worked for the lunch doesn’t mean it’ll work for the socks. They’re for me. Live with it.” I gathered up things. “Let’s meet after work at that place that brews its own beer near your place. That way you can ditch the car at home and we can brainstorm some more.” Rob nodded as he stuffed an entire cookie in his mouth at once. I winced as I left the room,.

     By the time work was over, it was raining again. I couldn’t remember the last time we had had so much rain- and so many thunder storms. Since Rob had his car with him we all ditched
Myra from accounting and he drove us over to the little bar and grill near his house. It wasn’t too crowded this early in the evening and privacy was easy to find in a corner booth. “Well?” Rob and I asked Jon after we had ordered brews and a huge nacho appetizer that was almost a meal for three by itself.

     “Well, I found the company.” He pulled some papers out of his messenger bag and shuffled through them. “Okay, here it is. Pearsall, Inc., is a mail order company for new age type items. You know, crystals, essential oils for aroma therapy, meditation tapes and books, all sorts of things like that. They even have a specialty line of dragon and gargoyle castings from some artist that I never heard of- but let me tell you, the pictures I found of them were gorgeous- and familiar. They looked an awful lot like what I could see of that door. However, the company doesn’t seem to have been doing a lot of business lately. Many of the items were labeled ‘out of stock’ and some of the pages on the web site were completely down, like no one has updated it or maintained it in quite a while. I sent off an email to the webmaster and we’ll just see what happens.

     “New age stuff, huh? And a mail order business.” My mind went off in a new direction.

     “What if we made a delivery?  Not to the house, of course, no one answers the door. But maybe we could try to leave it with the soap-opera lady next door. Elderly people often know a lot more about the neighborhood than any one else, any way. And that would give us an excuse to ask questions.”

      “Maybe,” said Jon doubtfully. “I don’t know if I could impersonate a delivery person, though. I mean, they have uniforms and stuff.”

      “Let’s think about this one,” said Rob. “By the way, I checked on the empty house next door, too. It is owned by someone who lives out of state and has been on the market now-as for sale by owner- for about five years. The asking price is a little bit steep, but not so bad with the way housing prices have gone up lately. We should talk to him and see if he’ll let us look at that house. Maybe we can find some clues to the mystery house there.” Rob paused for a moment. “You, know, I dreamed about the door last night.  I saw the doorknob being made. It was pretty impressive. And the weird thing is, I don’t know anything about casting brass, but I think my dream showed how it worked. I must have caught something on TV about it sometime.” He shook his head as if to clear it.

     Jon looked up sharply, but didn’t say anything. I didn’t either.

     The rest of the evening passed with the guys eating nachos-they ordered more- and watching a baseball game on the bar’s TV and me knitting and doing the same. I made sure to root for the other team, just because.

     The next morning Jon was late to work. Over lunch, he told us why. “I’ve got a perfect excuse to talk to that guy who owns the house next door now,” Jon was holding his head. “All that rain we’ve had lately? And the storms? It turns out the roof on my apartment wasn’t in the best shape. It’s leaking like a sieve. My ceiling was dripping all night in about five places and there are damp spots on half the walls. The owner says he can’t get it fixed for a while- all the roofers are busy for the same reason, and I can either live with a tarp on the roof, flapping in the wind and still letting in drips, or he will let me out of the lease with no penalties. Maybe I can rent that house. I called the owner this morning and told him that I needed a place ASAP, and heard that he had a house on the market, and would he like to rent it to me, providing I like it, if I did some of the repair work he needs to sell it.”  He looked up and grinned. “We’re looking at it right after work.”

    

They say that there is no such thing as coincidence. They are right.

    

     After work found us back over at the end of the street, right next to the mystery house, with a local lawyer holding a set of keys. It turned out that the guy who owned the house was getting so desperate he was delighted with Jon’s offer and was willing to rent the place at a ridiculously low price as long as Jon could do some of the handy-man work on the house. We studiously avoided looking at the house next door and concentrated on the house we were supposed to be looking at.

     It really wasn’t in that bad of shape, most of the work being things like repainting, tearing up carpets and refinishing floors, and other cosmetic work. The structure of the house was good. “And the roof was re-done just five years ago,” the lawyer informed us with a grin, nodding at Jon.

     Jon said, “It seems like a great deal to me. You checked that reference I gave you for the construction company I worked for part-time a few years ago?”

     The lawyer nodded. “Yep. They not only remembered you, but they told me to tell you that if you come back, they’ll pay you top dollar!” He laughed and slapped Jon on the shoulder.  “We’re good to go if you like the place.”

     “Show me where to sign.”

     An hour later, we were standing in the empty house next door, with the keys in our hands.

     “So,” said Jon, “Which of you am I teaching to run a sander first?”

     I looked at Rob. “Why do I think we’ve bitten off more than we can chew?”

     He looked at Jon. “Okay, Captain Bligh- let’s get your stuff packed up.”

.

     We packed his stuff up in a hurry, because he hadn’t been kidding about the leaks in his apartment. His things were going to be ruined in short order if he didn’t move. Even with the tarp on the roof, there was enough water in his walls and ceiling to have the place stinking of mildew for along time to come. One leak had developed in his closet where he couldn’t see it and some of his clothes were drenched. “I suppose things happen for a reason, and this gave us an in, but ugh!” he said, holding a soggy pair of slacks at arm’s length.

     “Just be glad none of the leaks were over your precious electronics or your computers,” I said. “Did you call the phone company to get your high-speed set up connected at your new address? Did you transfer your electric and gas? Did….”
     “Enough! Yes! Yes, mommy, I did all of that! Geeze Louise!” Jon grumbled. Rob and I just laughed and kept shoving things in boxes. “At least it isn’t you that’s moving,” Jon said to me. “All those thousands of books! That would be a job.”

     “I know,” I answered. “Why do you think I bought my house? I have no desire to move again any time soon. When you have to deal with selling and buying instead of a lease, the temptation to move is greatly reduced. My books and I are staying put!”

     We should have been suspicious about the way things worked out. 

     I dreamed about the door every night that week.

The dragons were in place now, and activated. They were the warning system. The alarm, so to speak. If ever the dragons spun and danced, danger was nearby, trying the doorknob. If the dragons were dancing, he would know, right enough, not to open that door. Door like this one needed something to keep them safe, oh my yes, they did. Because they really weren’t safe, at all. 

By Saturday, Jon was settled in and so were Rob and I. We had decided that it would be better if we all lived there, ostensibly to work on the house, but of course in  reality to work on the house next door. We had all roomed together from time to time anyway, usually after a traumatic breakup in a relationship, so we at least knew each others’ bad habits.

The constant dreams were wearing on me, along with the unusually rainy weather. The guys were acting odd, too, and I got the feeling that they might be dreaming about the door, too, from some things they said. Finally I said something about the dreams. I had been painting the kitchen and Rob had been sanding the hallway – he had turned out to be very handy with the sander. We were taking a break and watching Jon try to take down the mailbox.

     Jon looked at Rob, kind of out the corner of his eye. Rob looked surprised, and then both of them admitted they were having the dreams, too. Rob said that his seemed worse whenever there was a thunderstorm in the night. We were having a lot of those, these days. “Then,” he said with a shudder, “It’s like there’s something that wants me to come closer, and it’s not something I want to see.” He looked pale at the memory of the dream.

     “I know what you mean. It seems to be just waiting for me to come closer. And, I don’t know, there seems to be something pushing at me to find out about that door,” Jon said as he fiddled with the mailbox. It was going to get a new coat of paint and new numbers. “I can’t really explain it. I just figured it was my imagination working overtime.”

      I had felt the same way, and apparently, so had Rob. It was really strange and a little bit embarrassing- it felt almost like we weren’t in control of our own lives right now.

We were all quiet for a few minutes and then Jon, who was still trying to get the mailbox down from the side of the house, said, “Hey, look at this!” He fished around a little more with the screwdriver, and out popped a small weathered envelope. “Who knows how long this has been in the mail box!” We crowded around him and looked at the envelope. The postmark was gone, weathered away by rain and maybe snow, depending on how long it had been there, but the part of the address and the return address were clear. It was to the house next door, although the name of the recipient was blurred out, and the return address was Pearsall, Inc.

      “Hey, did you ever hear back from the webmaster at that website?” Rob asked.

      “No, not a word. I guess we could try placing an order and see what happens. But you know what, let’s take this over to the lady in the house on the other side and see if she has any information about our mystery house.”

      “I’ll go,” I said. “I’m not going to be nearly as intimidating as either of you two lugs would be. She won’t think I’m going to mug her or anything like that.”

      “Hey, I resemble that remark!” Rob laughed. Jon just handed me the envelope.

      To make a good show, I went over to the house next door first and rang the gong-bell. I waited a few minutes, and then went over to the house on the other side. The elderly neighbor must have been watching from behind her curtains, because she opened the door almost as soon as I rang the bell.

      “You’re one of those young people fixing up that house down the street, aren’t you? Welcome to the neighborhood, my dear. Come in and sit down, have some tea. Would you like some tea? I made cookies this afternoon. Do you want some? And I can send some home with you for those nice young men…Boys always like cookies, don’t they?”

       At the same time, she was pulling on my arm with a grip like steel wires and hauling me inside. So much for little old ladies who were afraid of being mugged. On the other hand, if she knew this much about us already, there was a good chance she was a goldmine of information on the house next door. I let myself be pulled into the dark, slightly musty living room. A cat stared at me from the back of the sofa as I sat down in one of the chairs by the television. “I’m Mrs. Avery, but you just call me
Florence.” I opened my mouth to reply, but she had already left the room, saying she was going to fetch the tea and cookies. The cat – mostly white with a few orange tabby markings, including a splotch over his right eye and nose- came over and jumped up in my lap and started to purr, effectively anchoring me.

      Mrs. Avery –
Florence- was back with a pitcher of iced tea and a plate of snickerdoodles in record time- she must have had it waiting in the kitchen. “I see you’ve met Eleanora. I hope you don’t mind cats. If you do, I’ll just put her out. It’s almost time for her evening hunt anyway.  Now, what can I do for you, dear? I doubt if you came down here just to say hello.
      She was sharp, this old lady. All the better for our purposes.

      “Well, yes, you see, we found this envelope in our mailbox, and it’s for the house next door, but no one ever seems to be there, and no one answered the door…” I trailed off, waiting for her answer.

      “No one’s going to answer it either. I haven’t seen hide nor hair of anyone over there for years. For a while, the fellow who lived there did some business with a mail order place, and I think it was this place on the envelope, but no one’s come or gone in quite a while. For a while I thought maybe the fellow had up and died or maybe done away with himself, but apparently, he just left and made arrangements for everything to be take care of. The lawn gets done, the walk gets shoveled, the mail gets removed when it builds up, the house even got painted a while back. Last week, the screen door on the porch got taken down and repaired and it was up again in about 15 minutes. Whoever is getting things done, I sure wish they worked for me. You just can’t find good workers these days.”

      When she paused for breath and a drink of tea, I asked, “Why do you say apparently he left- did you see him go?”

      “No, I got a letter in the mail from him. He said he had to leave, and had people taking care of things for him. He left me a number to call if things didn’t get taken care of, but that’s never happened. I don’t even know what I did with it, now. He gave me another number to call if anything bad happened to the house- that was a little bit strange, I thought. I think I still have that number. He was a nice fellow, kept to himself. I think he was some sort of geologist, with all those crystals he kept playing with. I know he did artsy-craftsy stuff, like that front door. He never used it- said it was for show only. Anybody came around, he’d shout out the front window for them to come around to the back. He showed it to me one time. It was beautiful, but way to fancy for my tastes. All of those little creatures in the vines on the sides. Make believe stuff.” She snorted. “Or maybe he was a chemist, because some of the stinks he used to make would run him out of the house. He would come flying out that back door like monsters were after him, and the stink would come all the way over here.” She laughed at the memory.

      “That letter also said that if any mail came for him that didn’t get picked up, I was to just throw it away. Anything important was being sent somewhere else, and he didn’t want to worry about it stacking up and making the house look too empty. So, if I were you, I’d just go ahead and toss that.” She handed it back to me with a flourish and picked up a crochet hook and an afghan in progress.

       The tea and cookies were excellent and the purring cat was peaceful. We chatted a while longer - mostly about knitting and crochet and her cat and gardens- I had to come back and see hers in the daylight- until I finally stood up and said I should probably go.

She nodded and hurried off to get a paper bag full of cookies for “the boys” as she put it. I went home with the cookies and a determination to go and see
Florence on a regular basis.

      When I got back, the guys were waiting for me at the door. “You were gone long enough! What were you doing?” they grumbled.

      “I was visiting. You know, being polite? She’s lonely, poor thing. And she’s very nice. And a good baker. Here- peace offering.”  I handed over the bag with the cookies.

      While they ate, I told Rob and Jon what
Florence had said.  “So, maybe we should just open the envelope and see what’s inside,” said Rob, ever practical. “It wouldn’t take much. It’s been soaked so many times, the glue’s almost completely gone.” 

      Jon picked up a screwdriver and ran it under the flap, and it popped right open. He carefully slid out the paper inside. It was quite brittle from being exposed to the elements.  He opened it and we all leaned over to see what it said.

      “It’s hard to read,” said Jon, “But it seems to be handwritten, and in real ink, like from a fountain pen. That’s why it soaked away so.” He moved it under the lamp to get a better look at it. “I can see the word warning, and secure and portal and something about a- a guardian? That’s kind of strange. It doesn’t seem to be a regular business letter. The last line is pretty legible, though- it says ‘I hope this letter has come in time for you to do something. If nothing else, flee and save yourself.’ The signature is impossible to read, though. This is really odd. It must have been stuck in our mailbox for ages! I guess he got the word somehow, though, because he made arrangements with
Florence and someone else to look after things…”

      “But how weird is all of that- warnings and guardians and secure portals and things like that?” said Rob. “On the other hand, how weird is that door?”

      “I think our lives just got whole lot stranger, guys,” was all I could think to say.

Little did I know how right I was.

      Late that night, and I do mean late, because we had to wait until
Florence had gone to bed on the other side of her house and all of her lights were out, we took our knitting needle gate opener, some small flashlight, and our courage and went next door again. We didn’t feel quite as bad on one hand, now that we knew there wasn’t supposed to be anyone there, but after that strange letter with its eerie warnings, and the dreams we had all been having,  we were quite uneasy. Once again, Jon opened the gate and Rob led the way. I walked in between the guys down the walk by the garage.

      The first thing Jon did was try the door from the garage into the yard. It wasn’t locked, but it seemed to be stuck. Rob put a little muscle into it and it opened into the musty smelling garage. We flashed our lights around. There was no car inside, and very little besides a few boxes stacked near the big door. They were covered with dust and were addressed to Pearsall, Inc. Rob picked one up. “This one isn’t too bad, must not be full of crystals, anyway.”

      The bottom one was heavy, though. Jon pulled out his Swiss Army knife and carefully lifted the paper tape sealing the first box. Inside were carvings- originals- of the dragons and gargoyles featured on the web site. The bottom box proved to be full of crystals. Amethysts, rose quartz, and smoky quartz were carefully packed in wood shavings and excelsior. We closed the boxes back up and stacked them up again. “Well, his last shipment didn’t go out. We know that. He must have been in too much of a hurry to leave to send these off.”  I said as we closed the garage door behind us.

       We poked around the little garden for a while; even untended, it was a magical place-a bit creepy in the dark- with all sorts of  little nooks hidden in the large back yard. The flowers had reseeded themselves randomly, and the rain had kept the pools filled and the benches cleaned off. The sprinkler system kept it watered. (We had made sure to wait until we heard it finish before we came over here.) Clearly the yard service must come in here a few times a year, but no more than that.

       A rustling in the bushes by the fence made us all jump. We were on edge already, what with the dreams we had been having, and the eeriness of the night-time garden. Flashing our lights over to the noise in a panic, we caught sight of a white and orange tabby body pouncing on something in the underbrush.
       “Eleanora!” I exclaimed with relief. “So this is where you do your hunting! I’ll bet this is heaven on earth for you!” The cat darted away with a mouse in her mouth, tail swishing.

       “Is that the cat you saw in the window?” Rob asked.

       “No, the one I saw had a different face- the markings were all over the face, not just in patches like this cat. Anyway, how would she have gotten in?” Jon mused.

       We finished walking around the outside of the house. There were no broken windows, and everything seemed to be sealed up tight. You couldn’t even see any cracks in the curtains, they were drawn so tight. The evening thunder storm began to move in, and our lights were beginning to fade, so we slipped back through the gate into the alley and into our own yard, to go find our beds.

      That night I was dreaming of the door again when the storm was directly over head. I woke up to an enormous flash of lightening and a crash of thunder that shook the house. The clock by my bed and the nightlight in the hall both clicked off and the house fell silent- no hum of the refrigerator or any of the other electronic noises that we take for granted.

      The huge noise and the sudden silence woke up Jon and Rob, too, and one by one we all got up to make sure everything was all right. Or that was the excuse we gave each other, anyway. Jon suggested a game of poker by flashlight, and since we were all too shaken up to go back to bed yet, Rob and I agreed. I went back into my room to get my slippers. When I looked at my window, I stopped and backed up slowly.

      “Jon, Rob, come here please, now!” I squeaked out in a tight voice. My heart was pounding, and I wondered if I was still in my dream.

      Jon and Rob heard the panic in my voice and came running.

      We all stared out the window in fear and amazement as we watched the side   window of the house next door. Even though the power was out, the window (and that window only) was lit up, like the room was flooded with light. It wasn’t a reddish, flickering glow, like a fire would cause. It was a steady, white light. It lasted for about five minutes and then slowly faded away.

      We stayed up until dawn, when the power came back on.

 

      Sometimes people just can’t take a hint, can they?

We all crawled back into our beds for a few hours of sleep Sunday morning. It’s just lousy when you feel hungover and didn’t have any fun getting that way. We were all groggy and cranky and arguing over silly morning things and refusing to talk about the night before when we heard the doorbell. We were jumpy enough to start swearing when we heard it. “Who the hell could that be?” Jon grumbled as he put down his coffee cup. “No one knows we live here and it’s Sunday so it can’t be the mailman.”

He dodged various tools as he went to answer the door. “Mrs. Avery! Is everything all right?”
     Rob and I followed Jon into the room to see
Florence standing there with a strange cat in her arms. The cat looked much the worse for wear- wet, skinny and bedraggled.
Florence looked very distraught.

     “No, no it isn’t.” Her voice was quivering and she held the cat a little closer. “I don’t know what is going on, but it can’t be good.” She shuffled over to the sofa and sat down.

I sat down beside her and gently pried her hands away from the cat so that it could breathe. “What’s wrong?”

     She eased her grip on the cat, who settled onto her lap in a ball, and answered. “This is Isadore. I would know him anywhere. He is Eleanora’s litter mate and I got him for the man who used to live next door when I got Eleanora. This morning- just a few minutes ago, really, I was letting Eleanora out and Isadore was sitting on my back door step. He looks awful. I don’t know where he came from and I haven’t seen him since the house has been vacant. He can’t have been in there all this time! He’d have starved to death long ago, wouldn’t he? Do you think he ran away and came back here? All of this right after we were talking about the house and you found that letter and all…”  she trailed off, petting the cat nervously. She was right. He did look awful. Clearly, he had been out in the storm the night before and he must not have eaten for days, because he was all skin and bones.

     “I don’t know what’s going on either, Mrs. Avery, but I could swear I saw that cat in the window of the house next door last week. His face markings are the same, but he looked better then.”

     Rob had quietly disappeared during this exchange and came back now with two small bowls in his hands. One was full of water, and the other contained some leftover chicken he had torn into little pieces for the cat. He put the bowls on the floor by the sofa and gently picked up the cat from
Florence’s lap, placing him down by the bowls. Isadore didn’t need a second invitation. He tucked right in.

     “Poor thing.” She reached down and stroked the cat while it ate. “What does all this mean?”

     “We don’t know either, but we’ll try to get to the bottom of it,
Florence. We’ve noticed a few odd things about the house next door ourselves,” Jon said.

     “Florence, didn’t you tell me you had a number for emergencies that you got in a letter? This would qualify, don’t you think?” I asked.

     “Yes! I’ll go get it right now!” She was out of the door like a shot.

     I looked at the cat. “Do you think this is connected to that light somehow?” For him to turn up now was just too much of a coincidence for me.

      “It must be. I am sure that this is the same cat I saw in the window,” said Jon.

      By the time she got back, the cat was done eating and was back on the sofa, washing his face. He was already looking better. “Well, I found the number- it was right where I left it- but it has been disconnected.”  Looking very puzzled, she reached over and scratched Isadore behind the ears. “Old fellow, I don’t know what to tell you. I don’t know what is going on or how to get you home again. I’ll take you home with me for now, but you have to promise not to fight with Eleanora.”

     “He can stay here for now, if you like, Florence.” I thought Isadore was looking quite at home already anyway. “We’d like to know what is going on, too.” I gave Rob and Jon a significant look.

     “Yeah, sure.”

     “Of course.”  The guys were agreeable.

     “Thank you- Eleanora is used to being an only cat and she and Isadore didn’t always get along in the past. I think I’ll go back home now. I just don’t know what to think. Maybe I’ll put an add in the paper. I don’t know.” She started down the steps and stopped. “Oh, look. The yard service is over there and it looks like they’re hauling away a big tree limb. One must have come down in the storm last night. I wonder how they knew so quickly? I do wish I could get them to work for me!” She shook her head and started home.

     We all ran to catch sight of the mysterious yard service. There was one person in the front yard, hauling a large tree branch from the far side of the house. His cap was pulled so low we couldn’t see his face. He tossed the limb in the truck and drove away. Jon took down the license plate on the truck “No name of the yard service on the truck or his cap or anything. Interesting,” he said.

     Rob said, “I think there’s another truck in the alley. Let’s see what we can see in the back.”

     We hurried out, and risked our skins in the rose bushes by the fence to try to peer through the gaps. We could see another man there, and he seemed to be carrying a small piece of plywood around the far side of the house. A few minutes later we heard the sounds of an electric drill.

     We backed away and I said quietly, “I think the branch took out a window. Probably a basement one from the size of the wood.”
     “I think you’re right,” said Jon. “Which tells me how Isadore could have gotten out of the house if he was inside.”

     “Let’s see it the truck in the alley has any names on it. Now, before that guy gets done.” Rob sounded nervous. I couldn’t blame him. I was, too, especially after last night.

     We walked quietly over to the gate, opened it, and looked out. Jon pretended to be doing something with the trash cans and glanced down the alley. “Nothing,” he said. At that moment, the man who had been carrying the plywood came out the back gate. He looked up at us. We froze, all the way to our marrows. His body was that of a man, but what looked out his eyes was something else. It was not something nice and it didn’t like us, not one bit. Not at all.

     We were still standing in the alley, too frightened to move, when the truck drove away. It started to rain again.

 

The rain brought us to our senses. We ran for the house, and, as one, with no discussion, we went straight through it to Rob’s car. Jon grabbed the cat on the way through. Once we were out on the street, I said, “My house.” It was the first thing any of us had said since we had left the alley.

     Rob nodded and then said, “Store first.”

     We looked at him and he said, “It would feel safer in a crowd right now.” He was right. I wanted bright florescent lights and lots and lots of humanity around me right now.

We left poor Isadore in the car by himself and went into the seeming safety and everyday ordinary normality of the busy discount store. We moved through it together, staying close to each other through the aisles of frozen foods and cold cuts. As the cart filled and the public address system blared out music and announcements, our sense of unreality lessened, and we made one last stop in the pet department to take care of Isadore’s basic needs. Litter box, litter, cat food, and catnip mice joined the junk food and comfort food in the cart. At the register, none of us even winced. We had been buying peace of mind and a feeling of security and that was priceless.

     No one said anything else for the rest of the trip to my house. We just took turns cuddling the cat as we rode.

     As soon as we were back at my house, the silence ended.

     “Dear God in heaven, what was that thing!?” was all I could say.

     “Wrong place. That thing never even saw the suburbs of heaven,” Jon answered.

     “That’s for sure. I don’t ever want to see anything like that ever, ever again,” Rob said.

     “But what was it?” I repeated.

     “I don’t know, and right now I don’t care,” said Jon. “Do you have any sage we can burn? It’s supposed to be good against evil spirits.”
     “It didn’t follow us, did it?” Now I was panicked again.

     “I don’t think so. We were at the store for a while, and I took a twisty route over here. I didn’t see any one following us, either.” Rob said.

     “As if something like that would need to follow us in a car,” Jon said. “Do you have any sage, or holy water, or anything?” He began rummaging in the kitchen cabinets.

     I found some sage in the kitchen, although I didn’t think it was precisely the kind he had in mind, and some sea salt. Jon went around, muttering and offering up prayers and trying to protect us against that whatever it was. Rob and I did more prosaic things like setting up the cat’s things and putting up the groceries. The cat was the least unsettled of all of us. He found a basket of hand-spun wool by my spinning wheel and set about discombobulating one of the balls. I didn’t have the heart to stop him.

     The thunder crashed and the rain came down in torrents. I started a fire in the fire place and we all huddled around it in shock. Isadore came over and curled up in my lap, purring.

     “What is going on?”  Rob said, “And what are we going to do about it?”

     “Do about it? Do you mean you want to go up against that whatever-it-was? Are you insane? No, I take that back. You are insane.” Jon turned and glared at him.

     “Think for a minute, Jon. This cat came from somewhere, probably the house. We saw something happen in the house that we can’t explain. Where’s the old man who used to be there? Is he still in there somewhere, like the cat was? I mean, if the cat could survive, maybe something is going on that would make it possible for a person to, too.”
     “Rob, how on earth is anyone going to live in there? What are you talking about?” Jon was angry now.

     I looked at them both. “It’s obvious, isn’t it? Think about the door, the dreams. We don’t like to think it’s real, but maybe it is. Magic.”

     Jon opened his mouth to protest, but I put up my hand and stopped him. “No, Jon, who just went around the house and burned up my sage? Who lit the purple candles I had left over from Advent? You acknowledged it before any of the rest of us did. We all know. In some deep, primordial way, we all know. Magic. And whatever that thing was, it’s evil, and it wants to keep us out of the house.”

     I paused. “And, if it wants to keep us out of the house, that’s probably the first place we should go.” That statement dropped like a piece of lead.

     The rest of the afternoon and evening, we discussed and debated and downright argued. We argued until we were so tired from our sleepless night the night before and our unbelievable day that we could barely keep our eyes open. Finally, we agreed on one thing. It was time for bed. I retired with relief to my own bed, which I had missed, and Rob took my spare room. Jon stayed out on the couch. He said he wasn’t going to sleep anyway, so he might as well stay out there.

     Despite all that had happened, I slept like a log. When I got up, Rob was already in the kitchen, making some breakfast. Jon was “not sleeping” loudly, sprawled out on the sofa and snoring with the cat curled up on his chest. The smell of coffee woke him up shortly after that, though, and we resumed our discussion over breakfast.

     “You know, why don’t we just call the cops? That’s what you’re supposed to do in missing persons cases, isn’t it?” Jon really did not want to give up.

      I turned on him. “And tell them what? That the man who used to live there might still be in there even though he clearly made arrangements for the house to be taken care of, and oh, wait, there is some evil demon thing that’s trying to keep us out of the house? Oh, yeah, Jon, I can just hear them now. ‘Yes ma’am, and you say you just moved into the house next door and you’ve know him for how long? What makes you think he’s still in his house? And what kind of -ah- herbal supplements have you been taking?’ They’ll either think we’re nuts or we’re some kind of con artists. Take your pick. For sure they’re going to tell us to mind our own business. They may decide we’ve done something suspicious, and then we’re the ones who will be under investigation. Stunning idea, Jon, simply stunning!”

     Rob stared into his coffee cup. “I don’t want to do this either, but I think you’re right. I think we’re going to have to do this. Go into the house, I mean.”

     Jon slumped in his chair. “I know you’re both right, but I have never not wanted to do something like I don’t want to do this.”

     In the end, we agreed that we had to try to get into the house, and it should probably be as soon as possible. For one thing, if we put it off any longer, we would probably lose our nerve. We scrounged up some flashlights and Jon found a crowbar in my garage. We grabbed my cordless drill, too, because none of us wanted to go into our house. We just didn’t feel like it was safe, after yesterday. The last thing we grabbed was Isadore.

      “We need him,” said Jon. “If he was in the house, he might know something.”

      “What would he know? He’s a cat.”  Rob was skeptical. For that matter, so was I.

     “I don’t know. Cats are supposed to be sensitive to the supernatural. Anyway, it’s just a feeling I have.” Jon was clearly unsure of why he felt that way.

I understood that part. I wasn’t sure about anything to do with that house and that door and just what exactly we had to do with it. I only knew that we did have something to do with it.

     “Fine. Bring him,” I said. I didn’t know what else to say.

     When we got back over to the house, it was sprinkling lightly. Our house looked completely normal, but we weren’t taking any chances. We went through the gate to our back yard, and then out into the alley. As we jimmied the latch on the gate with my knitting needle, we were surprised to see
Florence come through her back gate. She held one umbrella over her head, and was carrying another.

     “I saw you drive up and head straight for the back,” she said. “I thought I might find you back here. I thought about what you said- about thinking you saw Isadore in the house last week. And then I thought about some of the strange things I have pretended not to see over here – lights that I could blame on reflections from cars and things like that. I don’t know exactly what you have in mind to do, and maybe it’s better if I don’t, but it’s raining out, and well, I brought you an umbrella.”

     With that,
Florence handed me the umbrella and marched back through her gate. We heard the back door close. We all stood there looking at each other. Isadore decided he had had enough, and dug his back legs into Rob’s stomach, spring boarding off him onto the top of the gate and down into the yard. We took that as a sign and entered the yard ourselves.

      Rob held the umbrella over us while Jon used the cordless drill and removed the screws holding the plywood in place over the basement window. I kept a nervous lookout for the lawn service or whatever they were. In just a few minutes, the plywood was off. Jon reached in the broken window and undid the catch. He pushed it open and slipped inside. We saw a flashlight turn on. “Come on down,” he whispered.

      Rob slipped inside next, and I collapsed the umbrella and followed – quickly because it was raining harder again.

     I landed in a small puddle on the concrete floor. This seemed to be a store room, with dusty shelves and boxes. A single light bulb hung from the ceiling. We ignored it in favor of our flashlights. There was no use advertising that we were here- just in case. A noise at the window made us jump and turn. Isadore slipped through the window and landed lightly on the floor, missing the puddle. He meowed quietly and rubbed against my legs, then jumped up on a shelf to wash his face.

     “Well, he seems at home,” Jon ventured. “But then cats can seem at home anywhere if they are where they want to be.”

     “I don’t think we ever had any question that this was Isadore,” I retorted, “The question was where he had been living recently and where he had come from.”

     Isadore jumped down from the shelf and trotted out the door. Turning our flashlights that direction, we followed. The basement seemed to be all storerooms and all very dusty. Mindful that the lawn service might show up at any time, we didn’t investigate the contents of the rooms too thoroughly; at a glance, they appeared to be things that might have been sold at the online store- crystals, carvings, and the like. We did find the answer to one of our questions, though. Isadore’s litter box was down here, and it was used- recently used, and in need of a change of litter. The dust around it was disturbed, although it looked like it had been quite heavy at one time. Isadore stood at it meowing. I got the feeling that he was trying to tell us to clean the darn thing. “Okay, Isadore, how do you explain this? Where did you come from? How did you get in here?” He just stared back at me.

     “Come on, the stairs are this way,” said Rob. Jon and I followed, with Isadore trotting behind us. We could hear thunder rumbling in the distance as we started up the stairs.

 

“It is customary when setting a portal to choose one or two destinations. Unlimited portals are dangerous; one never knows what sort of world will be on the other side of the door. If an unlimited portal is set, it is recommended that the anchor end be in a place with as little magic as possible, in order that there be some control over who uses the portal. When there is sufficient magic, those on the far side of the portal may be able to open the door themselves; this may have disastrous results. Without enough magic, they may knock, but the guardian of the portal has the option of not opening the door. The maker always keys the portal to himself, as well, so he can always use the portal from either side. He can also change the destination after he opens the door, although he must keep part of himself in the anchor world to do so.”

 

 He knew the chances he was taking. That was why he had the dragons to spin in the presence of danger. He would simply set the portal in place somewhere without much magic. He made sure there was a portal that went to his home world  not too far away, but not on site. That was a rule.  If something went wrong, one didn’t want to provide easy access to one’s home. He was good, plenty good enough to manage the unlimited portal. He knew he was good. 

     The trip up the stairs was silent. Isadore wove through their legs and led the way through the door to the kitchen. At the top of the stairs, he stopped and nosed a plastic container that was tipped over on the floor and gave a silent meow. Obviously, this had been his food container and he thought it should be filled. The house was silent except for the sound of the rain and nearing thunder. Jon walked over to the kitchen table. It had mail stacked on it, with layers of dust on top. There were dishes in the sink, and in the dish drainer. The refrigerator was humming, and when I opened it up, I could see that the food in it was long past gone. What was left wasn’t even in any state to rebel. All that was left were dried up crusts and powders of things. Rob went over to the door and looked through the window. “No sign of the yard service,” he reported.

     “I don’t think the man who lived here ever left,” I said.

     “Let’s keep going,” said Jon.

     The door to the front room was nearly closed, so we bypassed it for now. In one bedroom, we found an unmade bed and clothing on the floor as well as in the closet and dresser, and a stack of books on the bedside table. The other bedroom was empty except for a bed and dresser. The bathroom had shaving things and toiletries in it, and a shower curtain with tropical fishes on it. And everywhere there was dust. Lots and lots of dust. We were uncharacteristically silent while we were exploring the house. Occasionally, one of us would go and look out the windows for the yard service, but so far we were safe. We weren’t finding anything strange or even any signs of whatever he had used to produce the stinks that
Florence had been laughing about.

     Finally, we approached the door to the front room, with Isadore going ahead of us and slipping through the crack in the door.

     When we pushed the door open, we stopped in wonder. The room was filled with table and books and strange looking apparatus of various sorts. The front window was covered over completely with a board with writing and drawings all over it. But the center piece of the room was the door, looking the same as it did on the other side, except that the dragons were moving openly, spinning in a circle around the doorknob. It was open a crack, with light coming through it. “It was shut, wasn’t it? On the other side, I mean,” said Jon.

     “I know it was. It always is. Besides, it’s storming out again, and that’s a different kind of light coming through the door,” replied Rob.

     I just stood there. I could feel something coming from the door. Something imploring me, begging for help. At the same time, I felt an overwhelming sense of danger. My heart pounding, I stepped forward, towards the door.

      Rob tried to grab at me, but I shrugged him off. Jon said, “Let her go. I feel it, too.”

     “So do I, but I also feel the danger,” replied Rob, but he let me go. They fell in behind me.

     I crossed the room slowly, carefully, waiting for something to come flying out at me, but nothing came. When I got to the door, I looked through the crack.

     There was a man there, an old man, with a beard and wild grey hair. He was wearing blue jeans and a sweatshirt, and he looked at me and blinked, in slow motion. I just stood there with my mouth open.

     “What the hell…” breathed Jon.

     “What on earth…” whispered Rob.

     The man’s mouth moved slowly, and although we couldn’t hear what he was saying, we understood what he wanted, because his hand moved up slowly, trying to reach for us. Isadore meowed and bumped his head on the door and looked up at the man hopefully.

The guys and I looked at each other.

     “He wants out.” I was stating the obvious.

     “Yeah, but how did he get there, and why is he stuck and why is he moving so slowly and where the hell has he been all this time?”  Jon exclaimed.

     “Do you think we should help him out? Something here just feels wrong,” said Rob.

     “I don’t know, but I’m willing to risk it. Isadore likes him, and he looks like the man that
Florence described,” I replied.

     We all stared at each other for a few moments, and then I stepped back over to the door.

     I reached out, along with Jon and Rob, and we grasped the man’s hand and arm. And then we pulled. We pulled hard, leaning back. I could tell he was trying to go with us, but he was like a cork in a bottle. Finally, with a slight popping sound, he came out of the crack in the door. He fell in a heap on the floor and simultaneously the back door burst open.

     We heard the glass shattering as the door crashed into the wall and then several sets of tromping footsteps making straight for the front room. The old man picked up his head and looked towards the doorway. He kicked his foot at the door, pushing it almost closed as the two whatever-they-were things from the lawn service entered the room.

     “Oh, no. Not after all this time, you  aren’t,’ he creaked at them in a rusty voice.

     “Over your dead body is how we planned to do this anyway,” the one on the left purred.

     The other one added, “What you want doesn’t matter to us. The protections are down and we are in. In just a few moments, it will all be over.”

     As they spoke, they were advancing on the door and the old man lying prone on the floor.

     Isadore hissed at them and ran between their feet, trying to get out of the room. Rob, Jon and I backed away slowly. I had never felt such evil as they exuded. I reached back for the guys and found them reaching for my hands, too. Jon pulled me out of the path to the door, as the old man on the floor gave a wheezy laugh. “Hubris. That was my downfall, too,” he said.

     The two things reached the old man as he staggered to his feet. One of them grabbed him as the other one reached for the door, opened it and stepped through.

I saw into the opening. The place on the other side of the door was not the front yard. It was some place wet and dark and foul-smelling. I could feel the evil of it rolling across the threshold. The old man grabbed hold of the man who was holding on to him and twisted, sending both of them through the door. The old man’s foot was still on this side of the door, but I could see the creature pulling on him, trying to get him all the way through.

     “More of them!”  shouted Jon, and I looked up, seeing what looked like a small army of the things, some of them only partially shaped like humans, waiting for the old man to be pulled through the door. Several of them reached out to help pull him through to their side.

     I grabbed his foot, and Rob grabbed me. As we pulled on the old man for the second time today, the scene in the door way suddenly changed and changed again. I saw a collage of scenes go by, most of them beautiful, enticing, enchanting. I smelled scents that made me ache with pleasure, and felt breezes like caresses on my cheeks. Strange sounds rang in my ears, bell-like and beautiful. And then it all stopped and the old man came sailing through the door again. Jon slammed the door shut and we all collapsed on the floor.

     As we all lay there, Isadore wandered into the sudden silence and bumped his chin against the old man, who was wheezing and gasping for breath. Finally, he spoke. “I have been in there, like a finger in a leaking dike, for far longer than I care to think. Even with stasis to keep me alive, I was almost out of energy. Had I run out of energy, they would have won. They would have seized the portal and overrun this world. I thank you.”

     “What is a portal and what the hell were they?” Jon sputtered, “and what do you mean, overrun this world!?”

     “The portal reaches other worlds. In this case, unlimited ones. In my pride, I thought that my system of using the dancing dragons as a warning for danger would keep me safe. I thought I was strong enough and smart enough not to get caught by creatures like those, who look for opportunities to invade other worlds.” He laughed mirthlessly. “If you three had not heard my summons and come to help, they would have been able to do that in a very short amount of time.”

     He told us that he had been careless, and when he had opened the portal one day to go to another world, the creatures had come through at the last second. They had meant to over power him and take control of the portal, but he had stuck himself in the gap, like a finger in a leaky dike, as he had said. He had put up protections around himself against their attacks, but in doing so, he made it impossible to get out without help. After that, it was a waiting game- would help come first, or would he weaken enough for them to finish their job? He put a protection on the house, to keep them out, and then put himself and Isadore (who had been caught between his feet when everything happened) in stasis to keep them alive longer. Occasionally, he would try to reach out for help, with either a mental summons or a display of light. He thought that someone, eventually, would come to see what was going on.

     He had felt me last week, and shown me the door to draw me closer, so I could feel his summons. Rob and Jon were drawn in when they came to look, too. Feeling this was his last chance for help, he had relaxed the stasis. Isadore had slipped out of the doorway and into the house, and the old man had sent out some of his last power to make Jon’s roof leaky and to suggest the renting of the house next door (which actually belonged to him.)

     “There was a letter, in the box at our house, and it seemed to be some sort of a warning,” said Jon.

     “Yes, my companions may very well have tried to warn me. Some of us can get hints of planned attacks like this one – from unnamed sources, of course.” He smiled wryly. “If the letter was mis-delivered, then they did not know that I was not been warned. The creatures would have been able to attack them from here when their attack on me failed. That would explain why my friends did not come to my aid.” He shook his head and sighed. “I have caused so much pain because of my pride.”

     We got him some food, and put him to bed. Then we went next door, returned the umbrella, and told
Florence that he was back. We said she might want to ask him what had happened; we knew she would never believe us.

     “Oh, and by the way, you really don’t want that lawn service. It turns out they were a bunch of bad characters.” I told her. Then we went back to the house on the other side and had several beers.

     Later that day,
Florence knocked on our door. “Come next door. He wants to see you,” she said.

     We followed her back to the house with the strange door and found the old man in the front room with a plate of  Florence’s cookies in front of him. He looked a little better, but was still very weak.

     “I need to go back to my home world, to regain my strength,” he told us. “I need strength to find a way to dismantle this portal without opening it up to the wrong worlds in the process. At the very least, I need to seal it permanently. As long as it exists, the temptation to use it or abuse it exists.  In time, someone would open it again, and then we would risk everything again.”

     We shrugged. “But what does this have to do with us?” I asked.

     He looked me in the eye. “I need someone to live here, with the door, to make sure no one uses it.” Before I could say anything else, he said, “My company, Pearsall, Inc., will pay you a handsome fee to stay here and watch over the door. You will never need to worry about money again. The house will be placed in your name. All you have to do is stay here, not leaving the house unless someone else is here,” and here he looked at Jon and Rob. “I need someone who understands exactly what is at stake. You saw what they were, and how quickly the portal works. I feel that the portal would be safe with you.”

     It took several days of arguing and discussing, but finally, in the end, I agreed. Jon was to move into the house next door, and Rob took over my house.

     The guys complained when they had to move all of my thousands of books, of course. I made the front room, the room with the door, my library. It seemed fitting that the room with the portal to infinite possibilities hold my own small portals to infinite possibilities. Isadore lives with me, and likes to curl up on shelves, among the books.

     Everything has gone just as it was supposed to.
Florence comes over to visit quite a bit- the old man told her everything, and surprisingly she believed him She door-sits sometimes so Rob and Jon and I can go out for nachos and beer. I keep busy with my books and knitting. I took up quilting, too, and have sold a few on-line.

     Sometimes I worry though, about when the old man, the Guardian, will come back. He says that time runs differently in his world. I hope he isn’t gone too long- I’d like to do a little traveling later on in life. Now that I know all the possibilities that are out there…

 

-She Wolf (c) 2007