I’m going to tell you how I learned to beat evil at its own game…
The telling begins in middle of coldest January. I had played hooky from the big yellow bus, glad to be rid of its sour-faced driver and the battery-throwing heathens I begrudgingly called classmates.
Ian had been waiting at my locker, and I had followed him down Wimbley Street, the two of us cursing the frigid air.
I worried about my parents. I didn’t want to be compared to my sister. Not again. I didn’t want to prove them right. Nevertheless, this one time they could wait.
“Is it far?” I asked.
“My house?”
“This so-called ‘secret’ of yours.”
“No.”
A thin layer of ice hid beneath the fresh snow. Our feet slid, which made us laugh.
“This is what my mother walks like when she’s had a few too many,” Ian said. “Then my stepfather raises hell and says he’s going to send her away again.” Ian grimaced and bit his lip, looking suddenly like the man he might be at forty rather than fourteen.
“My mum always says winter’s the season of death.”
“Grim stuff.”
“Yes. I suppose that’s the British in us.” I didn’t know Ian all that well, hadn’t disclosed Elsie’s death to anyone at my new school.
Force a smile, I thought. If you fake happiness long enough, just maybe… Maybe you can be an adult.
Ian slipped in the slush and I caught him. This seemed to embarrass him, and for another block or so we didn’t speak. Flurries landed in our hair, taking time to melt.
The wind was persistent, but not strong. The houses that lined the streets were large, brick-fronted, friendly in that vague, American way. To me, they all looked the same, as so many of my classmates did. Ian had stood out from day one, but I couldn’t say why, exactly.
This was the age of newly operative hormones. The age my parents had warned her about. Fourteen: the age Elsie had transformed from an innocent into a runaway. “And just look where that got her….”
“Want another hint?” Ian asked.
“No! I told you, surprise me.” I spoke through giggles, wondering if this is what flirting felt like. To fly, or to at least float out of the miasma and to suck a bit of fresh air into the lungs.
To me, this day had seemed the culmination of the entire fall semester at my new school. I would finally be alone with Ian, the handsome boy from my orchestra class. Only now that I was nearing the moment, I didn’t know what to do, or even how to feel. I studied his face as we walked. As always, his features did not seem quite real. His eyes coal black yet plasticine, his lips a gently looping circle, his expression focused.
“Today is the perfect day to show you,” he had said. “My parents won’t be home.” I wasn’t sure how to take that, but before I could object he added: “That house over there is haunted.” He pointed at a rancher with peeling white paint and duct taped pink shudders. The house stood apart from the others on the street. With its worn authenticity, surely it predated the development itself.
“Haunted? Why?” I said in my most argumentative tone. “Because it’s not as nice as the other homes? Poor people aren’t ghosts, you know.”
“I didn’t mean it like that,” Ian said. “I like that it’s haunted. My house is haunted too.” He smiled mischievously. “In a sense.”
“Is that the big secret you’re going to show me?”
“Part of it, yeah. That is, if you don’t mind haunted things.” He leaned in, close enough to brush the polyester edges of our jackets together. (Not close enough to lend body heat.)
“Perhaps I do.” I answered. “Perhaps that’s why we left good old England.”
“Because your ‘flat’ was haunted?”
“Yeah. Something like that.” As always, I thought of my lost sister.
We eventually reached Ian’s home. Its black shudders and empty driveway were the only things to distinguish it from the other houses on Cherry Blossom Lane.
“Before we enter, how do you feel about dogs?”
“Love ’em. I’ve always wanted a dog. My mum says she’s allergic, but I think that’s just tosh.”
“I wonder why they lie so much…?” Ian said, turning his key in the door.
“My parents?”
“All of them: Parents. Adults.”
Inside the unsmiling foyer the home did smell vaguely of dog, and also of vanilla and cinnamon. But no animal came to greet us as we entered, nor as we made our way to the expansive kitchen, all sanded cedar cabinets and granite counters.
“Want a snack first? Or should we head straight to the basement?”
“Can I call my parents? They’re probably worried.”
Shrugging. “Sure. Don’t have a cell yet?”
Imitating my mum: “I grew up perfectly fine without a mobile.”
“Wow. So, she’s allergic to dogs and cell phones? Your mom’s a real piece of work.”
“She wasn’t always so lame, but…” My voice trailed off. I was flat tired of the secrecy, resented all these little cul-de-sacs of speech. I didn’t want to, but I blamed Elsie for that too.
My sister’s killer had never been found, so it felt there was nobody else to blame. Hopeless, hopeless. A black hole right in her parents’ living room, one that followed from London as easily as a reversed jet stream.
An oddness now filled the space between us. Ian tossed me his phone, but I handed it back.
“You know what? I’ll call them after.”
He shrugged again. “Whatever.” I couldn’t believe this was the way Americans really spoke. ‘Whatever,’ had always seemed like some cliché on the telly.
“Anyway,” Ian said. “The door to the basement’s this way.”
I should have called my parents. I know that now. I could have made up debate club tryouts, or some half-truth about going over a friend’s house.
But it was too late now to change my mind. Since Elsie’s death it seemed they wanted me locked away in a tower, had even seriously discussed homeschooling. I was desperate for independence.
“You’re not going to believe this,” Ian gushed. “What I have to show you is literally insane.”
“Huh?” I answered, almost forgetting where I was, the purpose of this little visit.
“The secret. This…thing I discovered. It’s…”
I followed him down the dimly lit steps and into a partially finished basement. Down there it smelled of mold behind walls, of dampness and decay. I felt a twinge of fear, but I wasn’t sure why. We walked past a red felt pool table, past plastic tubs of papers, past old office filing cabinets.
“I don’t do drugs if that’s what this is about,” I stammered.
“Noted,” Ian said. “Neither do I.”
“And…I don’t kiss boys.”
“Good to know.”
“Sorry,” suddenly feeling ashamed of how presumptive I’d been.
“Don’t worry,” Ian assured me. “This is a good secret. I promise.”
“Okay,” I lifted my chin to smile at him, straining to all at once cast aside all of the anxiety and negativity of the past few years. Ian’s eyes shined even in the semi-darkness of that place.
“Watch your step.” He offered me his hand, so I took it. The palm of his hand looked so tan compared to mine.
That’s what had started this journey, a simple joke in orchestra class about whether he was frequenting tanning salons. “I found something even better,” he teased. “Meet me after school today and I’ll show you.”
So, we had sworn on it. Pinkies were involved.
The sound of running water greeted us as we edged against the crawl space. It seemed to come from inside the concrete walls of the basement itself. I no longer detected the smell of dead things.
“Our names are kind of similar,” I said. It seemed a dorky thing to say, but my heart was beating so and I didn’t know what to feel, let alone speak. I had never before disobeyed my parents. Not like this.
And I had never been so alone with someone I might have a crush on. I felt both a foreboding sense of dread and the desire to take Ian and snog him against the concrete.
Ian smiled, putting me more at ease. “Yeah, our names are sort of same-same. The school should give us a radio show: Mornings with Ian and Ingrid.”
“No. Mornings with Ingrid and Ian.”
He laughed and then he scrambled up the side of the basement wall, his lithe body disappearing into the crawl space.
“You coming?” His voice now sounded tinny from behind the concrete burrow.
“Erm—”
“Oh, come on. You made it this far, don’t be a noodle.”
I lifted myself up over the thick rim of the ledge to join him. When I opened my eyes, I was surprised to find before me a seemingly endless black tunnel with jolts of bright light striking across the periphery.
It was like looking into an inky mirror. The concrete gave way to phantoms, the phantoms gave way to abyss. I dusted off my pale jeans, wishing it were that easy to shake off my anxiety.
“You all right?” Ian’s voice asked from my left side. We held hands now, somehow finding each other in the permanence of the darkness.
“What even is this place?”
“I honestly don’t know,” Ian said. “The other week I caught my stepfather crawling out of this thing. He was supposed to be on a business trip. It seems to be some sort of…worm hole or time warp?”
“Worm hole? In your cellar? And you didn’t think to ask him about it?”
“No—I don’t think he wants anyone to know. He seemed fairly shady about the whole thing.”
“I can see why. Maybe we shouldn’t be here. Wouldn’t he be upset?”
Gripping my hand tighter, Ian’s expression turned momentarily concerned, then sour. “Who cares,” he said. “Fuck old Aldous, the creep.” It wasn’t quite a lie, but it also wasn’t quite an answer. It hung there between us, changing the flow of air even in that prismatic tunnel.
I wrinkled my nose and withdrew my hand.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, his face aglow a bright shade of sage.
“I just wish you’d be straightforward about what we’re getting ourselves mixed up with.”
“You can’t be mad at me for having my secrets,” Ian said. “You’re like, the most secretive person I’ve ever met!”
“But you said this was your secret. But it’s really your stepfather’s secret. Don’t you see? it’s not the same thing.”
“Look, you just have to trust me, okay? This will be worth it. I promise.”
“Where does it lead?”
“You’ll see.”
“Listen: Answer me now or I’m turning back.” In that moment I was suddenly afraid of Ian. Afraid that my parents had been right to never trust anyone outside the family. Not ever. And future events would prove them right, but not in the way I then suspected.
“This tunnel goes to all sorts of places. It seems to be all my stepfather’s properties, all throughout the world. He’s a real estate investor, you know. Wealthy as sin and all that.”
“Could we go to London?”
“Sure, but I want to show you someplace really cool. I mean, somewhere you’ve probably never been.”
I paused before responding. I stood apart from Ian, blushing, cursing my parents. That their hang ups were becoming my own. Cursing my poor dead sister. Cursing myself.
“Well?”
“Okay,” I answered, fighting back both my own and my parent’s second-hand fear.
We trudged through the tunnel in silence for some indeterminate amount of time. Maybe a minute, maybe an hour. Time no longer seemed real, just a burden of another world.
Doors appeared on our sides; large jambs outlined in different colors. Various and distinct shades of blues, coppers, neon greens, honeyed yellows. And reds…horrible and frightening shades that seemed but trapdoors to Hell itself.
“You could really get lost down here, huh?” Ian whispered. I shuddered.
It was all incredible, and bedazzling, and more than a little intimidating. I wanted to both know everything about it, and to turn back time, to just get on the school bus like every other afternoon and to put as much distance between myself and whatever this place was as possible.
There was a sense of foreboding about the tunnel, of secrets beyond secrets.
“Which one of these doors takes you to London?”
“I think it’s in the gray family, up ahead.”
I let out an uninhibited chuckle. “Gray…course it is.” I turned toward Ian, the outline of his face still alighted by the technicolored prism of the doorways.
“This place is honestly amazing! Have you ever brought anyone else here?”
The silhouette shook its head. “No.”
“Is it some sort of virtual reality?”
“Nuh-uh. It seems real, whatever it is. Real as anything else, anyway.”
The endless hallway smelled of many things: of holly leaves, of baked soft pretzels, of vinegar, of earth.
I hugged myself as we walked on, shaking a little with each step from that odd mixture of trepidation and excitement. I didn’t want to succumb to it, had wanted to play it cool.
Sure, okay: sometimes magic just happens. Even in America.
“Here we are,” Ian said while his prismatic outline shrugged. We stood before a cyan colored door, the light almost blinding my eyes.
It seemed a sort of blasphemy, left me vaguely worried that if I stared at it directly, I’d be turned into a pillar of salt.
Ian tapped me on the shoulder. “Hey, you can swim, right?”
“Yeah…”
“Good, just make sure you hold your breath.” He took my hand again and said: “Jump on three.”
As we entered the prism, it seemed as though we were cracking open a robin’s egg. Such was the intensity of the blue. Then…
Water.
We ascended from a rivet in the bottom of a pool, one that snapped back tight as our legs floated past.
Ian tugged at my shoulder, gesturing toward the surface. The sun reflected above us through a haze of chlorinated liquid, its rays like gossamer-thin tendrils reaching down.
We held hands until we reached the surface. As we crowned above the clear liquid, we both laughed and gasped for air. Back in London I used to be on the school swim team, but that felt like a million years ago.
I treaded water, the reality of the place slowly dawning on me in distilled pixels of truth. I was floating now in a lagoon-shaped indoor pool.
In a corner of the room, facing the interior of the house was a full bar complete with blenders, a microwave, a four-slotted toaster, fancy neon pink lights.
What a place, I thought, for a moment forgetting my parents. Even forgetting Elsie, not just pretending to.
It seemed to me that I had spent half my life in a gray muddle, but suddenly that no longer mattered. I draped my right arm over Ian’s shoulder, giggling. “Holy hell,” I said.
Concrete encased us from all sides, but the exterior walls beyond the natatorium were clear glass. Outside, I could see ocean, the turquoise blue of sand-sifted waters. It seemed a private beach, devoid of people, or even footsteps.
Pristine.
“Told you I didn’t frequent a fucking tanning salon,” Ian teased. “Christ, old Aldous was pissed when he saw my color. He must have guessed my little secret.” Ian leaned back with a smug expression. “Well, I sure know his…”
I was still taking it all in: “We’re…really not supposed to be here, are we?”
“In my stepfather’s house in the Carribean? No, Ingrid. Of course not! But he left last night on a business trip, and, anyway, the last thing in the world I care about is obeying that fucking bed bug.”
“Did he take a plane on his business trip?”
“Would you, if you had access to these passageways?”
“No,” I said as I grabbed ahold of a corner ledge. “I suppose not.” But what I was really thinking was that he could be here right now, or that we might run into him in the tunnel. And for some reason, I didn’t want that to happen.Feared it more than anything since arriving in America.
“Shit,” Ian said. “I think I perma-fucked my phone.” He smiled at me and held up a dripping iPhone. “Second time this week. Good thing it wasn’t plugged in, or we’d literally be toast.”
We made our way to the shallow end of the pool, where we lingered for a while. For a moment, I was afraid he was going to try and kiss me, even though part of me wanted to. It’s just, I wasn’t sure how I’d react. For some reason I remembered Logan, the last ‘normal’ boyfriend Elsie had.
How dejected he looked the day Elsie broke things off. She wouldn’t even keep the flowers he brought her. “That boy’s just…too boring,” Elsie had said. “He’ll make a perfect middle manager someday.”
Elsie preferred the artist type, thought herself a nonconformist. Younger though I was, I had rarely agreed with my sister’s choices in art, or clothes, or boys. Did that mean I too was destined for middle management? And what would it matter if my parents never allowed me to evolve beyond grammar school.
“So, Ms. Noodle Bug” Ian said, splashing me with water. “You want to see the rest of the house? Or, would you rather walk the beach for a while?”
“I should get back—my parents are probably already losing it.” I feared that this sort of wild-child afternoon was something Elsie would do. To just run off with no concern at all about the consequences. The type of reckless behavior that had made her run away for good, and that got her good and murdered.
“Okay then, Ms. Ingrid, my uptight English friend. Right this way.” Ian held his nose and dove down to the bottom of the pool. I followed, the water stinging my eyes as I trailed him back to the doorway.
On the return to the cellar, I felt a funny sensation, as though somebody was watching us. Twice, I thought I heard the tapping echo of footsteps. But my ears were a bit plugged from the water, and Ian didn’t seem to detect anything odd.
An hour later I was home, fielding angry questions from my parents about where I had been, why my hair was so damp, why I smelled like chlorine in the middle of January.
Apparently they were five minutes away from calling hospitals and the police had already been notified. They didn’t use to care what I did, back in London. They used to treat me like the spare that I was.
I missed my sister.
The next day, Ian was absent from school. His fourth celloist chair sat empty that morning. And the next, and the day after that.
The weekend came, and I felt no relief. I had wanted to discuss the tunnel with someone, and Ian was the only person who wouldn’t think me crazy.
More than that, I promised myself I would get back to the tunnel, and that I would surprise all my friends back in London with a visit. What I wouldn’t do was visit Elsie’s grave.
I tried to repress stray bullet memories of my sister. The way we used to have tickle wars to cheer each other up, how we fought over literally everything, but always made up.
I recalled Elsie’s soft voice discussing high school, reprimanding our parents, reading aloud horrible beat poetry, remembered her tiny hands slapping another Radiohead poster on her bedroom’s turquoise walls. Even the worst of times didn’t seem so bad now, compared to the endless void birthed by her absence.
Why did you run away, Elsie? Was it really all that bad?
But by then it seemed that everyone I grew close to was destined to vanish for good. By that Monday, Ian’s disappearance was the talk of the community.
“Missing,” everyone gasped. “Four days now…” “He vanished just like that…” snapped fingers and clenched jaws.
Everyone insisted there were “no leads” and “no information,” and “nothing we could do about it,” but I thought I had an idea where my schoolmate was: Somewhere in the tunnel. Perhaps lost between liminal spaces?
But wouldn’t his stepfather know to look there?