The Neighbors to the Right

The meeting the following week with the lawyers went off without much issue. Being his only living relative meant a straight-forward will. After only 45 minutes Eve had the deed to his home and the keys to the front door in her hands. With everything signed and settled, she walked out from the dim office into the shattering brightness of the July afternoon.

Eve was not expecting to have so much time between yoga and book club, thinking the lawyer would have had more to do to pass over Cal’s estate. Eve began to drive then, not sure of where she was going to go. It was Mary’s turn to host book club and the thought of begin the first one there or even a moment early, caused her hands to involuntarily tighten their grip on the black leather of the steering wheel. Looking down to the envelope and papers to her right, staring at the address on the deed, she sighed deeply, then and took the next left.

Pulling the tires of the car tight to the curb, Eve gripped the steering wheel, peering over to the documents on the passenger seat once again. The string on the manila envelope had somehow undone itself on the ride across the city. The corners of the letter were visible, the address of her uncle’s home clearly visible. She sat still for several moments, head leaning against the cool leather wrap on the steering wheel before looking up at the houses, search for the corresponding numbers that lay visible on seat next to her. The houses stood tall, sheathed in dark siding, accented with the dull shine of corrugated steal and the deep brownish-red of cedar. Their garden minimalistic and low maintenance, with their lawns trimmed sharp and tight to the edges of the pale concrete paths leading to each identical front door. The once eclectically historic neighborhood of her childhood stood modernized beyond recognition. The curved eaves, spires, and sprawling English rose garden and lilac bushes gone, except for one home in the center of the row.

It leaned slightly under the weight of the years that had passed, the paint was a faded, peeling red trimmed in equally faded black. Sun-bleached velvet drapes hung in each window, drawn tight together to either keep the light out of keep the view of the activities in the home well clear of the eyes of passing neighbors. Eve took her gaze from the row of houses and looked back to the envelope, reaching her slender hand under the edge of the opening and drawing out the letter and keys. The lawyers had advised her that she had 30 days to clear the home and retrieve any items of importance, but none of value. They had been very clear on that part. It seems that Uncle Cal had accumulated significant debt after his sudden and early retirement from the University.

She remembered her mother telling the news to her father over dinner one night, questioning his decision. Eve had always loved her uncle, but her mother was indifferent to him at the best of times and downright cruel at the worst. There was always something her mother had never liked about Uncle Cal. Something she seemed to never be able to express, but it hung in the air, thick, heavy and invasive at every family dinner and holiday until its presence finally drove Uncle Cal into the seclusion of the house, who’s front stoop she stood under now. Slipping the key into the lock, Eve turned it slowly, feeling each click of the bolts through the bones in her hands, she leaned into the door and with some pressure, pried it from the frame to allow it to swing into the entry way.

The thick smell of dust and decay filled her, making her step back, hand moving instinctively over her mouth to stifle a wretch. She stood where she had retreated, recalling the phone call that had led her here. It was from the neighbors to the right. The neighbors to the right were the type of people who knew everything. Who was coming and who was going. Who was divorcing and who was staying together for the children while running around with the Nanny or the particularly fit young man who trimmed those tightly manicured lawns. They were the type to notice when Uncle Cal missed his weekly outings to the liquor store not once, but twice. They had called in the middle of dinner exactly a week ago and said they were concerned, so had called in a welfare check and the check had found Uncle Cal already dead for over 2 weeks. Time and cats had begun to bloat and remove his flesh, so several days had been needed to clear the mess before Eve was allowed in. As his only living family members, she felt obliged to come and clear out some of the contents of the life of a man none of them ever really known.

Leaving the door wide open to encourage air flow, Eve strode into the entryway, which towered above her small frame, stretching to the into the darkness above where the shaft of light from the outside reached its way in. The letter had included a labelled map of the large home to help in her search for her uncles’ personal possessions, but she hadn’t needed it. This house was imprinted on her mind from a childhood spent running through its twist of narrow hallways, exploring its vastness as the adults sat and bickered in the parlor or kitchen during family meals. Reaching behind her to the wall to the left of the front door, she flicked the ancient black light switch on, canceling out the light from the open door and illuminating the entryway. To the right stood a set of stairs up to the second floor, where she knew the bedrooms and offices were located. Ahead of her was the door to the parlour, which lead to the kitchen and maids’ room deeper into the home. To her left was a door that she knew was from her memories was locked. It was always locked and no matter how she used to beg him to remove the large, black iron key from round his neck and let her turn it in the lock, he had always found a way to avoid it and eventually draw here attention to other things. She had forgotten about the room behind the locked door until then. Standing in the dim light of the ancient chandelier, dressed in years of dust, the door called to her, begging to be opened by the large black iron key on the ring in the pocket of her navy pea coat. She gripped the key as the matching black knob stood bold in the pale light. Her hand loosened on the cold iron. She loved rules and this rule had always been a clear one. No one was to open the door to the left. Eve let a light sigh escape, shaking her head at her near fetish obsession with following what she was told and stepped back into the house, letting the front door shut firmly behind her.

Strolling passed the locked door to the left, Eve reached the doorway to the parlour, and as her foot passed the threshold, a faint noise pulled her back. It was a small sound, light, high and piercing. She turned from the doorway, coming to stand in the centre of the entry way, her mind trying to locate the source of the noise. As she stood still, dust that had lifted from her footsteps settling back to the ground around the edges of her pumps, the noise grew, sharpening as if coming into focus. It wrung through her head, filling every crease inside of her head, pushing her down to her knees. As she pressed her hands to her ears to stem the screeching howls of what could only have been the last desperate cries of every animal on earth dying at once, she realized the sound was not coming from around her.

As her hands pressed to her ears, the sound remain, locked inside of her head. She could not run, could not move to even raise herself off her knees, now coated in 30 years of dust. She could only muster the strength to look around, still searching for a source. As her head turned, eyes scanning the room, she looked to her left, just as the door handle to the room on the left dropped from its place, rolling rapidly across the floor and coming to rest gently against her knee, still pressed to the faded floorboards. Fear ran through her, cold and sharply sobering, screams still echoing through her mind, growing still as she stared at the door handle now laying at her side. Looking back at this moment over the years to come, Eve never knew what drew her to crawl forward to her left, long streaks of clean floor laying where her hands and legs had cleared the decade of filth from the floors. Crawl forward to the handless door to the room they were never allowed to enter. Nor would she really know what made her push it open, fingertips catching on the chipped black paint briefly as they nudged the door open. As the door swung in on its iron hinges the screams stopped as abruptly as they had begun to fill her mind. Eve rose to her feet, holding onto the door frame and she steadied her herself on her black suede pumps, reaching down to dust off her knees and smooth her coat.

The room was windowless, with only a single desk lamp, casting long shadows around the cramped and musky interior. The walls, once rich velvet, were faded, rubbed clean in some spots, while other spots held waves of torn fabric, revealing the damaged plaster below. A desk stood centered in the room, black walnut made all the darker with the shadows of the pillars and wayward piles of books that surrounded it. Faded carpets lay overlapping each other, so that only the occasional worn floorboard could be seen. The surface of the desk lay dusty, yet nearly bare. The only thing occupying its surface was a single book. Laying dead center on the rectangular expanse of dark wood, corner slightly turned up at the edges. Eve walked into the room, the sound of her pumps striking the floor filled the space with the screams nowhere to be heard. She moved to the desk, peering down at the book. Even in the dim light, Eve could see that the cover was made of dozens of small pieces of fabric, each one different from its neighbor. Some were smooth and white, while others were textured, colored, scaled. One in particular had course hairs attached to it, while another was dark, chalky grey and smooth. As she approached, the whispers from before began again, weaving through her head. She should have turned and left and never returned, but there she stood, voices filling her mind, as the pace of the whispers quickened, raising in volume as she stood, staring at the geometric pattern of fabric stretch over the cover. Tucked in from the edge of the fabric were hundreds of aged pages, edges bent and stained from the years spent sitting in the study. As she stood taking in the book, the screams began again, launching forward out of the whispers. The noise pushed against the inside of her skull until Eve felt as if it would burst. She began to fall again, bracing herself on the desk, on hand landing on the edge and the other, directly on the book. The scream stopped as if a door had been shut in her mind. As Eve caught her breath and regained her footing, she looked down at her hand. She could feel the various textures under the soft flesh of her hands, each soft with age. Bringing herself to her full height, she dropped her hand from the edge of the desk and began to lift her right hand off the book. As she lifted her hand, the scream came back, forcing her hand back down onto the cover of the book. Eye wide, she looked down again at the book and gently lifted the heal of her hand, as again, the screams began. Dropping the back of palm down again, she drew her left hand and placed it over the right, pressing down of the book cover the stifle the noise she now knew was coming from the book.

Every nerve in her body was on fire, sending tingles down her limbs, fear began to bead sweat on her forehead as she searched her mind desperately for an explanation of what she was experiencing. She searched and searched and when logic failed, she looked down releasing her left hand from the book and allowing her right hand to slide over to the spine, fingers curling under the edge as she picked it up. Below it lay a perfect rectangle of clean black walnut, edged thickly with dust. Afraid to let it go and awaken whatever had been screaming, Eve clutched the book to her chest, turning quickly from the study and out into the entry. She walked to the front door and stopped, left hand reaching up to re-organize her hair and straighten her coat before stepping outside the door. The last thing she wanted was to give the neighbors any reason to talk. She tucked the book clutched in her hand into the left side of her coat, careful to make sure none of its various patches were showing and stepped into the fading light of the early July evening with her new companion.