The orange tree in my grandmother’s garden leaned over the picket fence, stretching a long afternoon shadow across the neighbour’s lawn. Of course, I’d never seen any fruits grow out of the thick foliage, and anyone passing through the sleepy town of Kenilworth would do best to doubt its legitimacy, as well.
Fraudulent tree throws shade, but still no rotten fruit, I scribbled into my notebook.
One of these days, my carefully curated ideas would turn into a bestseller and a fat paycheck. If only the sun would stick its glowing face into a cloud, I could actually get some work done. Writing with the sun’s glare on the page was like cooking blindfolded, and until something changed, my magnum opus of a novel would remain a half-baked pie in the sky.
The click of a lighter disturbed the peaceful setting and made me lift the towel from my face. At first, I figured it was the man next door, who’d snuck out for a drag behind his wife’s back, but even he, in his addiction-induced ingenuity, wouldn’t have been able to pull off such a disguise. In fact, the girl smoking in the shadow of the tree looked nothing like Mr. Warren. Twirling a parasol of black lace, she leaned against the fence, her dark dress and makeup a sharp contrast to her pale skin.
“You’re Collin,” she said, wisps of smoke oozing out of her nose.
“And you’re Count Dracula’s rebellious daughter…”
She narrowed her eyes, but a smile flickered across her black lips. “We used to play when we were little. You look about the same.”
“Mac?” I said, unable to stop staring at her red irises. “You look… well… um, nice contacts!”
The shy girl with the toothy smile and the oversized glasses, who used waddle after me like a lost duckling, had somehow turned into a demonic swan. It must’ve been ten years since I last saw her, and despite the strange metamorphosis, she still seemed like the clingy type.
“I go by Mackenzie now,” she said and flipped her bleached hair as if to soften the correction. “And, yes, they’re perfect for keeping the old folks at bay! How long are you staying?”
“To the end of the summer. What about you – reckon you’ll ever get out in the real world?”
“I had planned to go to London in the fall to study.” Her eyes dropped. “But it sort of fell through…”
“All for the better. University is a swizz,” I said, covering a yawn. “I’m taking the year off to write.”
The wood of the lounger creaked under my weight as I reached for the manuscript of my latest short story – an avant-garde approach to post-structural Derridean melodrama, with just a sprinkle of horror to keep the genre fascists happy. Honestly, a modern day classic that would surely drop both jaws and pants in the editor’s office of any reputable journal.
She pouted her lips, sucking on the cigarette. “My great-grandfather was a writer.”
I groaned inwardly. As soon as you tell someone that you’re a writer, they’ll list every plonker they know who’s ever touched a pen. Anyone can put words on a paper – that’s not what makes you a writer.
“Let’s hang out some day.” She stubbed out the cig. “I’ll be around for a little while longer.”
“Sure,” I said, letting a breeze of disinterest sweep through my voice. “If I have the time.”
Mackenzie tilted her head to the side and gave me a long look. She then turned without another word and waltzed back inside. Uncouth, to say the least, especially since I’d come here to focus on my writing. Surely, she would understand that a man must put his pursuit of art above all else. I opened the notebook again and let the pen dance across the page.
Protagonist tested by the succubus’s vile charms. Barely escapes with his life.
With a sigh, I pulled the towel over my face again. If the sun insisted on hindering my work, I would at least get some tan and well-needed rest out of it. Waking up at noon was apparently against the law in the pagan household of my grandmother, and in the current year of our Lord, moonlight inspiration remained a shunned concept.
I’d barely closed my eyes when the old lady stuck out her wrinkled neck from the balcony.
“Collin!” she croaked. “The Warrens’ just called. You awake, kiddo?”
I gave her a dismissive wave without sitting up. “Send my regards.”
“They invited you over for dinner.”
“Pass.”
Only a couple of days into my stay and my incognito status was already as good as compromised. Gossip is the lifeblood of any English small town, and Kenilworth was no different. As soon as the elderly sniffed out your whereabouts, they’d start lining up for visits, or worse, invite you over for tea.
“Their daughter is…” My grandmother fell silent for a moment, clearly searching for the right words. “You remember Mackenzie, right? Little Mac. Well, you’re going over there, young man. That’s final.”
The door slammed shut before I could argue. From a woman of her age, I guess I should’ve expected such an expert manoeuvre in the art of debating.
The Warren Estate, as so pretentiously called, stood no taller than the other buildings on the street, and the only thing that marked its considerable age was the hall house design, the timber frame, and the thatched roof. The kitchen itself reminded me of a toddler’s attempt at Art Deco, with garish peacock tapestry and a crystal chandelier that belonged in the ceiling of a hotel lobby.
“Collin, what a pleasant surprise to have you in Kenilworth over the summer,” Mrs. Warren said, without much conviction, which probably meant that Mackenzie had orchestrated the whole thing. “It feels like forever since I last saw you. Ah, the two of you were little peanuts playing in the shadow of the orange tree.”
I nodded and scribbled a few well-worded lines about her into my notebook.
Midlife-crisis-ginger-dye. Might’ve murdered someone over the last polka dot dress during a Topshop sale. Probably gets more aroused from the jingle of milk bottles at the doorstep than anything her husband can manage.
“Those were the days,” I finally said and sat down at the table next to Mackenzie. To my surprise, she smelled of apple soap and cinnamon, not blood and brimstone.
A quick smile tumbled across her lips. “I’m glad you could come.”
From the other side of the table, Mr. Warren measured me up in silence, while his wife served me a plate of over-cooked veggies, well-done steak, and roasted potatoes – the middle-fingerling kind. I probably seemed very posh to them, with my Queen’s English and my Loake Oxfords.
“So, summer finally came to England,” Mr. Warren said. “Who would’ve thought?”
With my notebook propped up against the table edge, I watched him carefully inspect his food, as if to make sure none of his remaining few hairs had dropped off his head and onto his plate.
Wanted a son instead of a daughter, I wrote. Started smoking to spite his wife, but became addicted. Wears tracksuits to remind him of his brief career in high school football… and to always have an excuse to leave the house for a drag.
“So, you want to be a writer, eh?” Mr. Warren said, chewing on an extra tough piece of meat. “This market. Hope you have a plan B.”
“George!” his wife chided, shooting him a glare.
“What? The boy needs to think ahead.” He turned back to me, his meaty cheek muscles churning. “Applied for any summer jobs yet? Worst case, we could use an extra pair of hands down at the grange.”
“Thanks, but as soon as I finish my novel…” I drummed my fingers on the notebook. “Well, I don’t want to smell of cow dung on my first book tour.”
Mr. Warren’s knuckles whitened around his fork, but he turned his attention back to his food. He clearly didn’t appreciate the importance of keeping your brand clean, but what can you expect from someone who has worked manual labour their entire life?
While Mrs. Warren defused the tense silence with more talk about the weather, I carved out the edible bits of the steak and washed them down with lemonade.
Finally, when her monologue started to run dry, she turned to her daughter. “Sweetie, have you told him about… you know…”
Mackenzie, who’d been very quiet so far, stopped picking at her food and looked up. “Mum! Can you not?”
“Yes, can we have one bloody dinner in peace?” Mr. Warren looked like he was about to slam his fist into the table.
“Okay, fine! I just figured… all right, let’s change the topic,” his wife said, her shoulders slumping. She took a deep breath. “Did you know that my grandfather – Mackenzie’s great-grandfather – used to be quite the prolific writer back in the day. Most of his things are still up in the attic.”
“I doubt he’d be interested in those kind of books,” her husband cut in, pointing his fork in my direction. “He seems more like the sci-fi type.”
Ignoring the unwarranted insult, I closed my notebook. I could, indeed, think of better things to do with my time than looking at slapdash manuscripts from a hundred years ago, but Mackenzie stood up before I could answer.
“That’s a great idea, Mum!” she said and pulled me out of the chair. “Come on.”
Dust swirled in the fingers of light that reached in through the windows of the attic. Stacks of cardboard boxes towered along the walls, competing for the cramped space with both furniture and sprawling cobwebs. Mackenzie steadied herself on a wooden beam, breathing heavily.
“You okay?” I said, stifling a sneeze.
“Yeah, I… I just get winded easily.” She rolled her eyes. The floor creaked as she tiptoed over to a wooden coffer and petted the cat that slept there. “Sorry for subjecting you to my parents. I just needed someone to drink with, who isn’t in their seventies… or a cat. No offense, Lilith.”
The cat meowed in annoyance and jumped up on top of an old armoire. Mackenzie ignored it and opened the coffer, pulling out a bottle of wine and a pair of Styrofoam cups. “Do you like Shiraz?”
Dealing in specifics is important, and anyone with a few ounces of brain mass knows that there’s a difference between wine and wine. For example, if someone offers you a glass of Gaja Barbaresco, they’re probably looking for a sophisticated conversation, whereas a box of Thr3 Monkeys means they want to get drunk and nasty. Her wine lay somewhere in between, which only deepened the furrows in my forehead.
“Sure,” I said, allowing her to pour me one.
“Mum hates it up here – says the attic gives her the creeps.” She emptied her cup in one big gulp, leaving a smear of black lipstick on the rim. “I think it’s kind of cosy.”
The musky smell of the rotting fur coats and the shadows that skulked along a cemetery of discarded toys, made me inclined to agree with her mother.
“You can grab the flashlight if you want,” she said, sticking out her tongue.
I took a few casual steps, pretending to examine a rusty set of garden shears. “Nothing to worry about up here except spider bites and asthma attacks.”
Grinning, she refilled her cup and sat down cross-legged on the floor, her pale knees sticking out from under her dress. “Do you believe in the paranormal?”
“Only when it comes to the grammar of the general population – that’s proper horror.”
“Ha!” she said, her red eyes gleaming in the twilight. “Did you know that my great-grandfather didn’t believe in superstitions either? He walked under ladders, kept several black cats, and broke a mirror once just to prove the villagers wrong.” She leaned closer and lowered her voice to a whisper. “But one night, when the house was asleep, a maid saw him climb up the ladder into this very attic. The next morning, he was gone! They searched everywhere but never found him. It is said that his grave down at the abbey is empty.”
“Bit cliché, isn’t it?”
Mackenzie shrugged.
My next questions would’ve been if she got a kick out of dressing this way, and if scaring people was a hobby of hers, but I decided against it. She was probably just into tacky Goth music about vampires and death. Instead, I kicked at a pile of blankets. “Anyway, good luck finding his books in this mess.”
“I didn’t think you were interested!” she said, hurrying over to a small chest next to an antique full-length mirror. She pulled out a book at random and read out loud. “‘The barrier that separates the words on the page from the reader’s imagination – classically referred to as the Veil of Ice – is one of the oldest concepts in literature. A writer who manages to break this barrier, will allow the reader to look through the page and behold the world that lies beyond.’”
“A writing textbook from the eighteen-hundreds – how exciting!” For a moment, I’d been willing to look at his work, but now… well, everyone knows that writing can’t be taught – you either have it, or you don’t – and textbook-slaves have always been wankers.
“I haven’t looked at these in years,” Mackenzie mumbled, flipping through the yellowing pages.
“What are those?” I said, pointing at the pile of books at the bottom of the trunk that she avoided.
“Oh, uh, those are just gibberish. I’ve tried to read them, but I think they’re in Arabic or something.”
Bound in withering leather, these parchment manuscripts seemed older than the rest of the books. The quirky longhand squiggled across the pages, stretching in a backwards manner from right to left. Despite the tiny calligraphy, some things were abundantly clear...
“It’s not Arabic,” I said. “And the book is probably older than the writing.”
Mackenzie appeared by my side. “How can you tell?”
“Well, first off, paper replaced parchment long before your great-granddad’s time. So, unless he skinned animals and made it himself…” The obnoxious writing style felt familiar somehow, but I couldn’t quite place it. “And secondly, the letters are from the Latin alphabet, but… twisted, somehow…”
With a drawn-out ‘hmmm,’ Mackenzie went to refill our cups. That’s when it hit me. For a project back in high school, I’d spent a lot of time researching Leonardo da Vinci.
“Watch this!” In triumph I held up the book to the tall mirror, ready to read whatever purple prose and mossy metaphors that her great-grandfather had tried to hide behind the mirrored handwriting.
I blinked a few times. “What the hell?”
The mirror no longer reflected the open book in my hands or the dusty attic. Instead, on the other side of the glass, the ice-glazed tip of a mountain pierced a blanket of roiling clouds.
“What did you put in my drink, Mac?”
Part of me expected her to tilt her head back and let out a practiced maniacal cackle, but her mouth just formed a silent ‘O’ and her eyes grew wide.
I turned the page, and the image in the mirror shifted to a slope at the foot of the mountain, where a ring of tents surrounded a campfire. A hint of burning firewood perfumed the dry attic air. The book slipped through my fingers and tumbled to the floor.
Another set of pages fell open.
In the mirror, the mountain shrank into the hazy distance and a windswept expanse of endless snow stretched out in every direction.
“What is this?” I blurted out.
Mackenzie blinked, her voice a higher pitch than normal. “I don’t know… I, uh… Collin!”
“What?”
She grabbed my arm. “Look!”
A single trail of footprints sullied the otherwise untouched snow, snaking through the frozen landscape like a single line of text across a blank page.
As we watched in awe, new prints appeared, but instead of following the original route, these came right at us. One crunching step at the time. Picking up speed.
“What’s happening?” she whispered, her bottom lip wobbling.
A chilling wind howled through the attic as I kicked the book shut. “Screw this!”
The winter landscape, however, remained in the mirror, and the footprints kept rushing forward.
Mackenzie screamed, and I winced as her nails dug into my arm. She ripped off her shoe, slamming the heel into the mirror.
A spider web of cracks shot across the glass. Then, in an avalanche of glittering shards, the mirror crashed to the floor, taking the world on the other side with it.
A cold darkness settled in the attic.
Somehow, Mackenzie had ended up with her arms wrapped around me, panting into my chest – probably smearing my shirt with a makeup-imprint of her face. Despite her clinginess, I decided to hug her back, just this once.
“I’ll get the flashlight,” she said, her voice trembling.
My heartbeat still thudded in my ears when she let go and fumbled her way through the pitch-black room. A moment later, the flashlight clicked on.
“We both saw that, right?” I whispered, shielding my eyes from the light.
Mackenzie didn’t answer. She just walked towards the attic window, shining the beam through the dirty glass, a small whine escaping her lips.
I stumbled over to the windowsill.
Howling winds whipped snow smoke across the open yard where my grandmother’s house used to be. The picket fence and the hedges were gone as well. Only the naked orange tree reached up at the night sky, its skeletal branches clawing at the moon.
Submitted January 20, 2019 at 09:31AM by Lilwa_Dexel http://bit.ly/2DlvWKe
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