Splat

My most memorable summer was magical, outlandish, fretful, gratifying, and horrendous. It began the week after I finished sixth grade, that morning when I snuck up to the attic for the first time. Aunt Bee told me not to wander around the dingy loft without her or Uncle Herman because there were too many things up there that I could get hurt on; broken furniture, splintery floorboards, not to mention all the accumulated dust wouldn’t be good for my asthma. But when Aunt Bee told me no, I brainstormed on how to get my way. Being banned from something just created a mystery I had to solve. While she hung the wash on the clothesline outside that sunny day in June, I opened the forbidden door at the end of the hallway and began my assent up the creaking steps.

Once I reached the landing, a sweet, musty smell tickled my nose, making me sneeze. I paused to survey my surroundings. The air felt thick and humid and a single sunbeam cut through the gloomy space. Discarded furniture and boxes of holiday decorations were scattered across the uneven wood floor. To my left, two artificial Christmas trees encased in trash bags leaned against the spackled drywall. Chains not long enough for me to reach dangled from three strategically placed lightbulbs screwed into the ceiling beams.

I blazed a path through the clutter to the vintage, double casement windows on the far wall. From that vantage point, I was able to survey the entire property behind our house. I pressed my palms and forehead against the glass pane and peered down at Aunt Bee looming over the laundry basket; I never realized how thin her hair was.

To the right of the windows stood a steel combination safe encased in marble. It had been left behind by the previous owners. One of its bottom corners was chipped and jagged and it appeared to be unnervingly off kilter. It was taller than me and I wondered if it housed a body. Next to the safe was a torn, yellow wingback chair that I have only seen in photographs from past years. I circled behind it and pushed it into the sunbeam. My secret reading nook was almost complete.

When I glanced out the window again, Aunt Bee was balancing the empty wicker basket on her hip and gathering the extra pins. I made my way back down to the second floor in time to hear the screen door in the kitchen slam. That night I threw some of my favorite books into an old milk crate to haul up to the attic the next day.

***

“Okay,” Aunt Bee hollered. “I should be back in about an hour.” It was the third time she said she was leaving.

I sauntered over to the banister that overlooked the foyer and Aunt Bee stared up at me questioningly. Just go already, I thought while rolling my eyes, but I said, “I’ll be fine.”

I watched the door shut behind her and listened to the crunching and grinding noises of the SUV as it trundled over the gravel in the driveway. Strutting back to my room, I snatched up my small library and trudged up the thirteen steps to the attic. The moment I crossed the threshold at the top of the staircase, I dropped the cumbersome load onto the floor beside me, a plume of dust erupting from beneath it. Fishing my inhaler from my pocket, I huffed a cloud of medicine before bending to clamp onto the edge of the crate. I shuffled backwards, dragging it along the meandering trail until I felt the safe behind me. Fearing that the wounded monster would fall over with the slightest tap, I sprung upright, spinning around and holding my hands up as if I could support the gigantic heavyweight if it wobbled. The air was stagnant, so I shoved the aged glass windows open.

Crouching, I slid THE BIG BOOK OF MODERN FANTASY off the top of the book pile then settled into the well-worn chair. An insect, delicate and sleek as a dragon fly, fluttered outside the window and landed on the sill. I stared at it in fascination. It very much resembled a tiny human. “Are you a fairy,” I asked, not expecting an answer. But the creature confirmed that yes, it was a fairy.

Their name was Twyla. They lived at the bottom of the pond on the edge of our estate. Each day at 11am, except Sunday, that’s church day, but all the other days, they would float to the surface of the water in a bubble. They would fly up to the attic window and perch on the windowsill. I would read one or two stories to them from the massive fantasy anthology and, when there were no more stories left to read, they would grant me three wishes.

At the top of my list was a dirt bike. Aunt Bee was dead set against me getting one, so I’d need to keep it under wraps, at least for a while, therefore, my second wish would be for a secret place to stash the bike. For my third wish, I was going to request a million dollars, but Twyla was unable to grant me that one, so I would settle to find out what was in the safe. The entire collection of tales was going to take weeks to finish. It was the first and only summer of my young life that I wanted the days to quicken. My wishes were the first things I thought about in the morning and the last things on my mind before I fell asleep.

One time I saw Twyla fly directly into a spider’s web. The arachnid scurried towards her, Twyla’s helicopter wings spinning faster and faster. The creeper pounced. Its chubby body began to disintegrate into a reddish goo as if it were being chewed by the blades of a blender. That fragile sprout of a fairy had some thorns.

For several weeks, I was able to keep my encounter with the fairy to myself mostly to avoid Aunt Bee’s negative warnings and opinions that were sure to follow. But as my wish day neared, I found it increasingly difficult to contain my enthusiasm. Seventy-four days and eight hundred fifty-six pages after I began reading to Twyla, I confessed my secret to my aunt. She was sitting at the pub table in the corner of the kitchen drinkin’ her coffee and swattin' flies.

“Be sure not to anger them, that creature could be your worst nightmare,” she replied.

Here we go, I thought, rolling my eyes. “Twyla reminds me of Tinker Bell in Peter Pan not Maleficent in Sleeping Beauty.”

“Don’t roll your eyes at me. You shouldn't be fooled by their loveliness OR their size; fairies are very vengeful creatures.”

I recalled the spider incident.

Aunt Bee’s eyeballs rolled around in their sockets. WHAP. “Gotcha you dirty bugger.”

Her obvious disinterest in my news was both surprising and disappointing.

I turned and stalked up the spiral staircase to the second floor, clomped down the hall and marched straight up to the attic. I pushed the windows open, as was my routine, and settled into the wingback chair. While I was awaiting Twyla’s appearance, my cell phone pinged. I looked at the notification on the screen. It was an announcement for an updated version of a game I regularly played. I was eager to try it out and since Twyla hadn’t arrived yet, I decided to give it a go. I got so engrossed in the game that I failed to notice the fairy’s entrance, big mistake.

As I looked down at my phone, my neck began to ache and throb. Sort of like my legs would hurt during the night, Aunt Bee called them growing pains. I strained to rotate my head from side to side, but to my great horror, it was locked in place. O-M-G, I thought, my neck finally did stick that way.

I was woozy and I felt the warmth drain from my face. Twyla hovered close to my ear. I watched shavings of my hair sail to the floor and heard a faint whistle from her whirling, razor-sharp wings. She assured me that she would fix my neck if that was my wish, but I had to finish the stories first. She was punishing me for snubbing her and she was doing it the way fairies do. I was scared, mad, and confused, but mostly scared.

And just like that, one of the desires that I was aspiring to attain, had been replaced. After all, how could I drive a dirt bike if I couldn't see in front of me? I would have to give up my wish of finding out the safe’s true contents.

I was able to keep the whole neck fiasco from Aunt Bee and Uncle Herman. At supper, I stared down at my plate as always and as always Aunt Bee commented that if I didn’t look up occasionally, my neck would stick that way. I think that’s called poetic justice—or due reward—or irony. I listened to Aunt Bee and Uncle Herman discuss the End-O-Summer Community Yard Sale.

“I need to get up to the attic, see what I could find,” Aunt Bee said.

After supper, I went straight to my room, which wasn’t unusual either. I decided that in the morning, I would complain of a stiff neck on account of my window being open all night.

I was rubbing my neck as I shambled into the kitchen the next morning, but Aunt Bee wasn’t there to view my performance. I shouted. No response. It was early but I rushed directly to the attic. With a little luck Twyla would see the open window and decide to arrive early as well. I had one more story to read before making my wishes.

In hindsight, the laundry basket beside the Christmas trees should have alerted me to Aunt Bee’s intrusion on my hideaway. Half-way through THE JINN DARAZGOSH, the last story in the book, she emerged from the shadows, fly swatter raised above her head. Her stealthy footsteps astound me, and disturb me, to this day. Exactly how Twyla became aware of what was about to happen remains a mystery. Aunt Bee was meaning to squash Twyla and all I could do was shout, “Heads up.”

But Twyla just kept looking straight ahead like she wasn’t worried about a thing. She took a deep breath and expelled a gust of wind through her little puffed cheeks so powerful that Aunt Bee stumbled backwards. Aunt Bee tried to maintain her balance, whirling her arms franticly while teetering on her heels before crashing onto the rough, wooden floor. The heavy, steel safe wobbled on the quaking boards and toppled onto Aunt Bee's upper body. Her feet jounced as her head and torso were smacked like a fly under her swatter. Her body didn’t squirt like a tomato. Instead, a slow-moving stream of crimson blood flowed along a crack between the mahogany floorboards.

My lower jaw dropped, and I was having trouble breathing. My asthma had been triggered by my shock and astonishment. Twyla removed the inhaler from where it hung around my neck and dropped it onto the open book in my lap. After taking a puff and a pause, Twyla insisted that I finish the story and I didn’t dare refuse.

Once all the stories were read, and the book was shut, Twyla effortlessly lifted the safe off the corpse, unplugging a deep crevasse cut into Aunt Bee’s right brow. The gaping wound had been caused by the steel door hinge and now fresh blood gushed to its surface and trickled across her forehead. It dripped on the floor, and the crimson stream began to flow once again. Her mouth was wide open in a silent scream, and I could see that her upper front teeth were missing. Her nose was pushed off-center and an impression of the number’s keypad was visible in the coagulated blood on her chin. Her right cheek bone had been pulverized making her facial features look unfinished.

I probably would have wished Aunt Bee alive if Twyla hadn’t convinced me that it would be a bad idea. My neck was readjusted, and I got my dirt bike. I went with my original third wish, and the safe popped open. But, alas, it was empty. So, you know what Twyla did for me? She put Aunt Bee in the safe. It wasn't hard convincing Uncle Herman that she up and left us.