Masquerade

By Bradley McIlwain

She led him through the woods.

Somewhere, their childhood footprints disappeared long ago into the moss, except for a few breadcrumbs of memory they remembered along the way, if only to keep those from vanishing too.

Their feet ruffled through crisp leaves and dried mud that swallowed the forest floor. He hugged his jacket a little tighter and watched his breath linger among dead oak and blue ash trees, their skeletal twigs grabbing at his jeans.

“This place feels stuck,” he said, batting away a twig that poked against his shin.

“How do you mean?”

“It doesn’t feel like winter.” It was late December, but strangely mild. There was still some foliage on branches, and a solitary apple tree baring rotted fruit stood like a morose Christmas tree. It reminded him more of spring, just before the winter reveals what secrets she’s kept closely buried.

She considered for a moment, still as a watchful angel scanning the tree line. Stillness replied.

Her dog barked, breaking the silence.

“Noodle’s,” she said, scratching her forehead.

Noodle’s was their faithful companion on this impromptu adventure, instantly adding a Scooby dynamic to the trio.

The three of them stopped. Noodle’s tilted her head, listening to what the stillness had to say. “It’s weird,” he said. “With no snow, and leaves…but, it’s more than that. I don’t ever remember it snowing here…ever.”

“It must have.”

“It’s like it all stopped — mid-season.”

Like looking out of a broken snow globe, he thought, but didn’t say it. He shook himself to be sure. Noodle’s looked at him quizzically He shrugged.

“You’re right,” she exclaimed after a brief silence, listening to what stillness had to say. “There’s no snow on the ground. And look at the trees, those leaves are still on their branches.”

There was a strange greenness that permeated from the underbrush and hollow roots that stood out like the decorated initials of an illuminated manuscript, whose artist remained anonymous.

“It looks like purgatory.”

Trunks shot out of the ground like tusks as sunlight abandoned them behind the clouds. She told herself there was nothing to fear, shadows make quick work of the imagination.

A large bird swooped over their heads, its silhouette briefly mixing with their own.

“I want to show you something.”

They exited purgatory stepping under an uprooted tree trunk and through the gift shop of his inner child. The baseball diamond was still there, where he fell off of the old wooden bleachers, fracturing his wrist in the seventh grade. The doctor said it snapped like a branch. The memory stayed with him, especially in the rain. He gently touched the bumped where it never healed properly.

She turned off the path, and they headed for the school, crossing the threshold of childhood memories. It seemed strange, strolling over the uncut lawn, peering at rows of peeled and empty portables. The walked to the eastern edge of the property line, marked by a rusted chain link fence that was overgrown with vines. She handed him Noodle’s leash, motioning for him to hold her dog as she brushed away several thick pine leaves to see what was on the other side. Pausing a moment, she said to herself in a whisper, "I can't believe it's still here." Then, to him excitedly: "This is what I wanted to show you.”

He peered through the thick needles and suddenly became aware of what she was looking at. Half obscured by the pine trees and twisted vines was an imposing Victorian style home. "I wonder who lives there," he said.

“You don’t remember?”

“I must have blocked it from my memory.”

“I can’t believe you don’t remember. It was all of the news, and the playground at recess.”

“I spent most of my time in detention,” he said with a hint of sarcasm, but there was at least some half truth. What he remembered most of recess of the three years spent here, was his bloody clothes and scraped knuckles of kids trying to take his lunch money.

“Apparently, there was an eccentric woman who used to live there, who watched the children play from her second story window.” She pointed to which one, and there was a noticeable layer of thick dust on the glass, and the sill and shutters had begun to chip away from time and neglect.

“If they got too close to the fence, she’d shout curses at them.”

“She sounds like a real witch.”

“Exactly! And that’s not all…”

“Don’t tell me…it’s made of candy?”

She smiled at him wryly. “It is all starting to feel a little bit Hansel and Gretel, isn’t it?”

He felt his pockets. “I forgot my breadcrumbs at home. If this were a fairy tale, we’d be fucked.”

“Don’t worry.” She said, and slid the small backpack she’d been carrying off her shoulders, stretching her hand inside. “I’ve got Scooby Snacks,” and pulled out a small ziplock bag of liver flavoured dog treats.

He laughed, and Noodle’s sat patiently at attention. “Good girl, Noodle’s,” she said. “Shake a paw.” she gulped the treat in one bite, and waited expectantly for another. She gave Noodle’s another before putting the treats back in her bag.

He had to admit, there was a strange aura about the place. “So what happened next?” He genuinely wanted to know.

“What do you mean?”

“You said there was more to the story.”

“Right — the woman was reportedly taking polaroids of the kids — God knows what she took them for — but when the PTA at the school found out, they called the cops. The whole thing was weird. It always stayed with me, even after I left. I tried looking into it a few years ago, but…”

“Any clippings on microfiche?”

“Nothing that I could find.”

He scratched at his unshaven beard. As they looked at the house, it seemed to look back at them, or through them. The large wraparound porch beckoned like an old crone’s toothless grin.

“I’ve always wanted to go inside, I could just never figure out how. It’s strange — it’s at the centre of the neighbourhood, but somehow secluded from visitors at the same time.”

“There’s always a mystery at the centre of anything, and a monster that needs to be unmasked. What do you think Noodle’s?” Noodle’s was busy sniffing out a clue they haven’t quite figured out.

They walked around the old yard, or maybe it just appeared that way because they have grown older. He no longer sees with the eyes of a child, but with the farsightedness of his early thirties. Funny, he thinks, there are days he still acts like a child.

“Feel like going for a swing on that swing set?”

She looked at him suspiciously, then laughed. “How long has it been since we did that?”

“You know, there was this kid I used to play with on my street. My dad built this slide and swing in our backyard, and we would spend hours, challenging each other to see how far we could jump. One day, he was headed up to the cottage in Owen Sound, just for the weekend. Before he left, I made him a promise. I told him I would jump off the swing, as high as I could, and yell the loudest, to see if he could hear me. Like a long distance walkie-talkie or something.”

“That’s ridiculous,” she laughed. “Your eight year old self would think that was possible.”

She was thoughtful for a moment, perhaps stirred by some similar childhood fancy. Then added: “Did you do it?”

He nodded. “I think my neighbours thought someone was being strangled.”

“He couldn’t have heard you though — not from that far. That’s beyond even Andrea Bocelli range….did it work?”

“He told me it did, that he thought he heard something around sunset, which is around the time that I did it.”

“No fucking way.”

“I believed him…” he said, “at the time.”

He smiled, and they both almost keeled over, Noodle’s barking at them.

In the yellow grass, he noticed something silvery next to the frozen tree stump, where he use to read Christopher Pike paperbacks at recess. He swept his fingers along the grass, and picked up a tiny lock. It was the kind of lock that would have belonged to the clasp of a teen’s diary, filled with dreams and thoughts secreted safely away from the rest of the world, or at the very least, your parents, and buried in the bottom of clothes in your closet.

For him, it had been the vent in his room, where he’d hidden bubblegum, a J&B Zippo found walking home through the forest, and his very first pack of cigarettes he was “holding for a friend.” He wished he’d still had that zippo, and always wondered where it went too. Where does anything end up?

He wondered now about the lock. It was closed shut. What was it still hiding?

“Found a lock,” he said. “It could be a clue.”

“To what?”

“Maybe the universe?”

“Better call Neil deGrasse Tyson.”

He slid the lock in his pocket for safe-keeping, and both hands, to keep warm. He began walking again, both out of necessity and some need, as yet unknown. The old neighbourhood pulled him, almost magnetically like a ley line, to some unconscious destination.

“Now, there’s something I want to show you,” he said. “Do you remember the Gingerbread House?”

“The Gingerbread House?”

“It’s down this dead end street, across from that Devil Plaza that closed down.”

“You mean Devill’s?”

“That’s the one. I used to love walking down this street, so many century homes. I can’t believe you don’t remember the Gingerbread House — it’s straight from Hansel and Gretel. I’m pretty sure it’s not made of candy, but when I was a kid I thought a witch used to live there.”

“Interesting.”

Noodle’s barked.

“Me too,” he said to the dog in agreement. “I wouldn’t mind munching my way through a house made of treats.”

The trio crossed the street.

Passed the corner where he’d fallen off his bike.

Passed the houses where he played Nicky Nicky Nine Door — never actually running away once he knocked, his friends hiding in the bushes, the adults laughing.

Memories blow through his scalp, some good, others accompanied by scars, or stitches that never fully closed. The ghosts that don’t depart string cobwebs in the mind.

As he lead her down the dead end street, she stopped dead centre in the road and held her breath. She was face to face with a house she had never seen, but recognized it almost immediately.

“Oh my god. Is that The Gingerbread House?”

The house was built in a Tudor style, with an overhanging roof and mixture of wood and tan brown brick. A large front garden had gnomes strewn about a stone path. A large willow tree cast striking shadows on its doors and windows.

“It feels so out of time…”

“Like a fairytale,” he said.

“This whole time, I never knew this was here.”

“I used to run by here all the time…when I use to run.”

She laughed. “You use to run?”

“Use to being the key phrase.”

She handed him Noodle’s. “Hold on to her for a second. I have to take some photos. Do you think they would let me?”

“Sure,” he smiled, and took Noodle’s leash. She turned toward the house, and he heard the click of her cellphone as she snapped a few pictures. He walked Noodle’s further up the road. Some of these houses were in need of new shingles, and the odd paint had taken to peeling on colonial style doors that he loved so much, but the homes still retained their original charm.

When he turned around, she was standing in the middle of the road again. Her back to them, staring intently across the street. “What. Is. That?” she said, jaw dropped.

He stood alert, still, and listened.

“Tell me you see it.”

“What —“ he looked about, thinking one of the neighbours came out after seeing them snapping pictures of their houses, and got defensive.

“That gate.”

He followed her hand, and saw it too.

In-between a row of houses back on the main street was a hidden stone driveway, rusted, double wrought iron gate, ajar.

“I see it,” he said. “But where does it go to?”

The gate seemed to be independent, and didn’t open to either of the houses beside it, which begged the question.

“Oh my god,” she said a second time. “It can’t be — can it? Yet, it has to be.”

He understood what she was saying, what the gate meant.

It was the house in the heart of the labyrinth. The monster that needed to be unmasked.

It driveway beckoned.

An invitation and a warning.

His heartbeat raised suddenly, racing steadily with anticipation and anxiety.

“Should we?”

He scratched his red beard again.

“Come on Noodle’s. Time to Scooby up.”

They crossed the street, and lingered in the driveway, examining it for tire tracks.

The gate waited.

So did whatever was on the other side of it.

“If anyone does live here, it looks like they haven’t used this driveway in awhile,” she said.

“If someone asks us what we’re doing here, we’ll tell them that we’re weary travellers in need of lodgings,” he said, “and that our carriage broke down up the road.”

“Right,” she added, “and we’ll just remind them if we’re not home by the time the street lights come on, we’ll turn into pumpkins.”

“What happens if they eat pumpkin seeds? Or are connoisseurs of pumpkin pie?”

“Shush,” she said. “We’ll probably fine on both counts.”

“Only one way to find out,” he said, and put his hand out to push a gate that was already open.

The three of them plunged like explorers into terra incognita, the unpaved drive a map to the known and the unknown, between childhood and imagination. The driveway was longer than expected, and wound like an ouroboros, splitting in the middle where a strange limestone structure was built, with three uneven pillars. Dead plants were placed at its feet, as if in some strange necromantic offering.

“This house is massive,” she exclaimed. “Who could possibly live here? Could you imagine the maintenance?”

“It looks like they couldn’t either,” he said, pointing to one of the Victorian style imitation gas lamps leading to the house. The base of the lamp was shattered, a long burnt out bulb still inside, un-replaced and uncared for.

A stately wraparound porch with a flaired staircase lead to two unfurnished French doors. On the second story were three brimming walkout balconies with steel railings, painted off-white. A lone coat hanger was hooked to the outside of one of the windows, knocking on the pane. At least one or two of the windows were cracked.

She was inspecting the triple car garage, which was unusually small when compared to the square footage. “It has to be abandoned, right?” She pointed to the peeling paint and chipped wood at the bottom of the middle door.

“I wonder what happened to that woman you told me about,” he said.

“It’s strange, isn’t it? She would have stood in that window, right here.”

“Right, which would have been the one…that is directly above us.”

They both looked up.

The windows revealed only greying rooms and hallways, no trace of their ghostly grey lady.

She started towards the front door. “Coming?”

He lingered a moment longer, holding his gaze.

What was he expecting to see at the window?

Even in the emptiness, some former essence of its residents remained, a pentimento of their former lives, etched onto the canvas of peeling wallpaper and crumbling drywall. Loneliness masquerading as emptiness, masquerading as…

“…a facade,” she shouted after him from the west side of the lawn.

“What?”

“The front of the house is a facade — It’s not wooden at all. It’s actually brick underneath.”

He was starting to think the whole house was something that it wasn’t. He walked up the steps to the front door, yellow newspapers he hadn’t noticed were scattered about the porch.

She picked up the paper. “What the hell? It’s from 1995. How is that possible?”

“Maybe they forgot to pay the paperboy…”

“For twenty years?”

“You’re right,” he said. “They should have probably cancelled their subscription.”

She laughed. “I’m serious. This is seriously weird.”

She walked up to the French doors, and placed her fingers over one of the knobs. “I wonder what’s beyond door number one,” she said.

“You can’t be serious.”

“I am serious. Seriously.”

“We couldn’t possibly…what if it’s actually not abandoned?”

She hesitated a moment, then tried the knob anyways, and he held his breath.

Thud.

Whoever — or whatever — was on the other side of the door to the mystery house, would safely remain a mystery he thought, at least for now. He was feeling an anxiety he couldn’t quite explain, and had the desire, or instinct, to move out of sight of the door. It was as if someone — or again, something — was looking back at him from a space he couldn’t see, the way you secretly peer out the shutters when your doorbell rings in the middle of the day, just to make sure its not another solicitor, or serial killer, on your porch when you’re in your p.j.’s.

He walked down the steps and leaned up against one of the burned out gas lamps, but they offered no light on the situation. “I’m going to go around back,” he announced, and walked around the side of the house.

The actual backyard is small, cramped. An octagon deck that’s seen better days is wedged up against a chainlink fence, and backed on to a newer court that he never knew was there before. It was like stepping through a closet door and into another world. The seasons will do that to you, especially when the colourful branches of fall transform to the skeletal clutches of winter.

This was something in between.

A chill followed the cry of a crow, somewhere close in the distance.

He could make little out of the layout inside from the kitchen windows, except for a round, Bloodwood table and a single chair. There was a row of cabinets, some of them open and bare. A kettle and box of matches sat on a gas stove. On the face of it, the house seemed to be disappearing like an old daguerreotype, the details in the portrait becoming more blurred with time.

For a moment, he thinks he hears a noise.

Was she trying the doorknob a third time?

No, its more like tapping…nails on glass.

He imagines he sees a form retreating into one of the other rooms.

Was he imagining it?

He called out to his friend, and Noodle’s. He waited, but no answer.

Then, Noodle’s yelped.

He ran back to check if they were okay.

“Noodle’s!” she shouted, but Noodle’s ignored her, barking and digging a pile of dirt near one of the basement windows.

“She’s not normally like this,” she said, cradling Noodle’s in her arms until she was settled.

“Dogs have a sixth sense,” he said. He started getting the the tingles up his arm before he said, “You don’t think…that someone buried something back here do you?”

“I don’t want to think about that.”

Noodle’s gave another bark.

“I thought I heard tapping.”

“It was probably the wind.”

“Maybe. I thought you were trying the door.”

“No, I…”

“What?”

Something grabbed her attention. She started walking back up the porch, and with the sleeve of her jacket wiped the dust from a casement window for a closer peek inside. “Come here,” she gestured. “Look at this!”

He walked up beside her, and peered through the looking glass. There was a spiral staircase with the familiar Bloodwood on the bannister, and elaborate vine-like patterns in the iron, with unusual nymph motifs.

A crystal chandelier was adorned above, but none of the lights were functioning.

Beyond that, he noticed something silvery in another room, larger than the lock in his pocket. He moved to the other window to get a better look, and making a small circle with his palm to clear a thick layering of dust.

“What can you see?”

“It’s a huge dining room.The plates are set!”

All of the silverware and plates were set at a large empty table, with a candelabra in the centre as if expecting company. As if…they were expecting them? He didn’t want to think about who they were.

“I am starting to think…” he said, slowly backing away from the window.

“…that the facade isn’t quite abandoned?”

There was an exchange of glances and nods.

“I don’t exactly want to end up on the menu,” he said.

“Come on,” she said, tugging on Noodle’s leash. Then to him: “the street lights are coming on. We’d better get home before we turn into pumpkins…and find out that whoever they are are having pumpkin pie for desert.”

The three of them walked back down the unpaved drive, passed the strange altar and through the beckoning gate. They paused, turning around as soon as they got back to main road for one final look.

“You know what’s weird about this whole thing?” he said.

“That they didn’t ask us to stay for dinner?”

He gave a quiet chuckle.

“No,” he said. “When you look at the gate, what’s missing?”

She thought for a moment.

“There’s no address on the gatepost.”

“Exactly — or anywhere on the porch or above the garage. The funniest thing, it’s like this place never existed at all — or didn’t want to be found at all.”


That night, something like the shawl of a woman flapped against his windowpane. He dreamt of grey rooms, oblong hallways and a dining hall filled with the cacophony of restless dead.

When he woke, it was little after 7:00 a.m. He walked out on his back porch with a cup of coffee. The moon was out, its glow a flashlight illuminating more mysteries, and a house without a key at the centre, whose history waited to be unlocked.