23
B lake found himself staring down a private driveway hidden behind a gate. It curved sharply off of a public road, dipping into a small grove of apple trees. Beyond it, Blake could catch a glimpse of a sizable craftsman-style log home.
Celeste popped open the back door of the car, stepping out onto the grit-and-gravel road to ring the call box. A low voice answered: “Hello?”
“Hi, Mr. Aberley?” Celeste responded, raising their voice over the rush of traffic. “It’s Celeste: we’ve been talking over e-mail?”
“Right, hey,” Mr. Aberley responded, sounding like he had recalled something important. “Here, lemme buzz you in.”
“Thanks.”
The gate began to roll open a moment later, revealing the depths of the shady apple grove. The trees towered higher and higher the closer Blake drove towards the house, their limbs overgrown and unkempt, creating a dark canopy pregnant with little red fruits.
As Blake pulled the Camry up to the front deck, something pale flickering through the tree trunks caught his eye. Frowning, Blake put the car in park and scanned the treeline to follow the slight movement.
There was nothing but the almost-imperceptible sway of boughs in the still August air.
“You okay?” Marin asked, following Blake’s line of sight.
“Yeah, I thought I saw someone out there.” Blake shrugged off the encounter, still frowning. “Must have been a deer or something.”
“Hm,” Celeste vocalized. They quirked an eyebrow at Blake, but didn’t add anything to the conversation.
As the three climbed out of the car, the front door swung open and a man in his mid-fifties stepped outside.
He was far from the farmer stereotype that Blake was expecting.
Dressed in a smart pair of grey jeans and a sports jacket over a light button-down, he would have looked more at home in a Silicon Valley coffee shop than an apple orchard.
“Hi,” Celeste greeted him with a brief wave.
“Hey,” Mr. Aberley returned the greeting.
His eyes looked a bit too large behind his glasses, and for several solid seconds they were fixated upon Marin.
Looking awkward, the merman waved and murmured a greeting before sidling up to Blake.
Only then did Mr. Aberley tear his gaze away from him. “I’m Paul. You can come on in.”
“Ooooh-kay?” Celeste uttered, scaling the steps up to the porch.
Blake and Marin followed, exchanging uneasy glances as they went.
Paul remained hovering in the doorway, looking over the three of them, glasses flashing from the bright summer light that crept in through the door.
His mouth pulled into a frown lined with stress.
“You kids don’t happen to have any matches or lighters on you, do you?” he asked.
While Celeste shook their head and Marin responded with a negative, Blake reached into his pocket and pulled out a zippo, showing it to Mr. Aberley. The man’s frown stretched further, carved into his mouth.
“Would you mind keeping that in your car? I don’t like fire in my house,” he said.
“Uh, sure.” Blake nodded. He reluctantly released Marin’s hand and backed away towards the door.
Even if he was only going to be a few yards away, he wasn’t sure if he was keen on leaving Marin and Celeste alone with this stranger.
Not that he had done anything untoward, but there was something so…
off about him. About the whole situation, really.
Marin nodded at Blake in encouragement. “Go ahead.”
To Blake’s dismay, Marin and Celeste followed Paul into the dark depths of the doorway.
As fast as he could without appearing rude, Blake returned to the Camry and dropped his lighter on the driver’s seat.
Whilst heading back up the steps, he scanned the outside of the home for anything else strange—there was nothing out of the ordinary save for some swathes of sawdust in front of the garage and a pyramid of large logs off to the side.
When Blake entered the house, it was not to the sound of screams, but of dishes clanking. His shoulders sagged in relief as he released an anxious breath.
However, his respite was short-lived. When he stepped over the threshold, his foot sunk into something dense and soft.
He looked down to see another pile of sawdust where a welcome mat would usually be, the curls of wood fluttering in the feeble breeze.
A significant streak disrupted the dust, like something with a large base had been dragged through it.
Inside was dark and cool, the windows all drawn and the air conditioner cranked up to a temperature that Blake could barely withstand, the fine hairs on his nape rising to attention.
Mr. Aberley’s home was neat and ordinary, save for the thin layer of sawdust and wood shavings that covered everything from the floor to the picture frames.
Blake followed a distant, dim glow of light to a kitchen.
There, Marin and Celeste were sharing a bench seat beside a handsome, carved kitchen table.
There was an aging book of some sort placed before them, small enough to fit into a pocket, but Blake was too far away to properly see what the title was.
Paul stood at the counter, pouring three tall glasses of murky amber cider.
“Hey, did you want a glass of cider?” he asked Blake as he stepped into the room. “Got it from my neighbors up the road—they press all their stuff by hand. Great family.”
“Sure, thanks,” Blake said, trying not to appear rude.
He sat down opposite Marin, shooting him an encouraging smile.
His eyes fell down to the book placed in the center of the table.
It looked delicate and old—older than any book Blake had seen before, bound with fading and cracking leather.
The spine was faintly embossed with the word “brILHART”.
“Ce—uh—Celeste, was it?” Paul stuttered, glancing over at the addressed person. “They were saying that you kids were writing a blog post about these things?”
Blake shifted in unease. In this context, something about the term ‘things’ didn’t sit well with him.
“That’s right, sir,” Marin replied, voice as easy as ever. “Would you be able to tell us more about the poem on the vase we found?”
Paul was quiet for a moment before grabbing the last glass of cider. As Blake watched him shuffle around, he spotted that there was a large chunk missing from the counter where a range stove might have been. There were no gas pipes hanging from the wall, only empty holes bored into the wall.
Paul set the cider in front of Blake before sitting down next to him. He pushed away some sawdust that had accumulated on the surface of the table before taking the tiny volume up in his hands.
“It took me years to find this,” he said by way of reply, removing a tiny leather belt binding the book closed.
“Even longer to translate it. Eric Brilhart was a tradesman in Switzerland at the turn of the nineteenth century… he—he studied and collected these things after his daughter Fluirina became one.”
Collected . The thought alone was reprehensible. A disquieting itch began to form at the nape of Blake’s neck, like something was trying to make its way out of his skin. He struggled not to squirm.
“Eric observed the people who had found and woken them up,” Paul continued, ignoring the clear discomfiture of those gathered around his table. “He’s the one who figured out the three conditions and wrote them down in here: his diary.
“There’s not much information out there about these things, he’s one of the only people to ever document this phenomenon.
I had to know more after my wife—” Paul spoke, and his voice came out as a whimper.
“She grew up here, in Camino. When we lived down in Milpitas it was all she could talk about. Coming home.”
He traced a groove in the wooden tabletop with a dirty fingernail. “I was working at a tech company back then. She was pregnant and really missing home—since the company was doing so well, I decided to sell my stakes and move out here to open up a hardware store. Mind you this was…”
He trailed off, eyes a little glazed over. The three sitting at the table stared at him, Celeste looking away with a distressed frown.
“1997… so that was twenty-five years ago.” Paul landed on the words, tone awkward. His carved mouth pulled into a slant. “Was it really that long ago? Damn. You really lose track when you’re up here alone.
“But I got enough out of the company to afford the shop and this place out here.” He opened his arms, gesturing towards the house. “Real nice family owned it before us. They used to press their own cider.”
“Didn’t you just say…?” Marin asked, but his words faded away. Paul wasn’t listening, staring beyond him at something out in the ether.
An uncomfortable silence fell over the table. Paul stood abruptly.
“I should probably show you something,” he said, glancing around in a furtive manner, never quite making eye contact with any of them. “Out in the garage.”
Paul led the trio down to the owner’s entry; Marin hesitated at the table for a moment before trailing along, looking hesitant.
Paul pushed open the garage door and led them into a room that smelled of hot, processed wood.
Once the lights in the garage clicked on, it became clear why.
Whatever unsettling prickle Blake had been experiencing made his hackles rise, a chill climbing down his spine.
If Blake had found the interior of the house ominous, then the contents of the garage bordered on disturbing.
Tiny motes of sawdust floated around in the stale, heavy air. The lines of light bleeding out of the overhead lamps were outlined by the grit, making them look like solid things.