October 2023 Fiction Project: The Witch House – Oct 9

There was no school today because of Indigenous People’s Day. We’re off school all week for parent-teacher conferences and teacher work day.

Lola and I were supposed to meet at the library again but she’s not here.

I knew where her house was, because she mapped directions between our houses on her phone yesterday.

But I was nervous about walking there.

Maybe she was just sleeping late?

Or she was grounded?

I don’t know.

I’m worried.

It’s probably not important.

I’m still worried.

Isaiah and Cooper were at the library too, playing video games on the computers in the Teen Zone area. I don’t know what game they were playing together but they weren’t paying attention.

Isaiah said, “Are you going?”

Cooper said, “My mom always makes me go to the Halloween event at church.”

“Tell her you can’t go.”

Click click click went their keyboards and mice.

Isaiah said, “My mom says I’m too old to go trick or treating, that I should just watch slasher movies like a normal teenager.”

“She doesn’t want to answer to pass out candy. She wants to make you do it.”

This morning is cold, not cold enough for snow this year, but cold enough and windy enough that it feels like spirits are swirling around me whenever the wind blows the leaves off the trees.

This will be the first Halloween at Stepdad Dave’s house.

Mom was still downstairs in the basement this morning. No bacon, no pancakes, no smiles, no “hi honey” and no milk in her coffee.

Stepdad Dave is back from wherever he went.

He came home after midnight. He played the answering machine messages when he came home. I woke up when the front door opened. My heart was beating quickly.

When the answering machine went beep I twitched.

I was having a nightmare before I woke up.

It was one of the melting ones.

At first, everything is wonderful. I am eight years old and it’s my birthday party. Dad is still alive and Mom is happy. My birthday party was at the children’s museum, which was my favorite place when I was eight. I still like it, but we haven’t gone there since Dad died.

We are upstairs in the kids’ Lego area and our birthday team is working on the Apollo 11 Lunar Lander together, and it is going awesome, unlike in real life.

And then, suddenly, I know that something bad is about to happen.

On the far wall is a big glass room with a remote-controlled Mars Rover exhibit. Inside, the orange fake-rock wall is bending inward, oozing, until it plops and falls over.

Everyone else is rushing to put their blocks in place. I can see without looking that their hands move faster and faster. They are all working together and everything is fitting together, even though part of the challenge is that we don’t get to look at the instruction booklet.

I point at the wall inside the glass room. “Look.”

Nobody looks.

“Hey.” I grab the person next to me. “Hey, look.”

Nobody looks.

Behind the orange fake rock is a steel door with a big turning lock on it, like at a bank. The big wheel on the door turns a little, then gets stuck.

“Can’t you see it?”

“We have to finish,” says the person next to me.

Nobody is wearing regular clothes anymore. They are all wearing white coveralls, not spacesuits but thin papery fabric like you would wear at a chemical spill or a disease center. They all have the same face now, even though some of them are white and some of them are Asian and some are Black. The boys all have short hair and the girls all have hair in a ponytail.

The door is starting to come unstuck.

The wheel is turning quickly now.

The fake orange rock is still moving. It is climbing up the thick glass of the observation area. I can see the air bubbles trapped between the glass and the oozing orange material.

Let us in.

I shiver, even though it feels hot in the Lego area.

The person next to me grabs my arm. They don’t have regular fingers. They have Lego hands now.

“Don’t go,” she says.

Her face is plastic, orange plastic the same color as the fake rock.

I am closer to the observation area for the Mars Rover exhibit. If I take another step, I will pass the railing and go down two stairs and into the observation area.

The Lego table is ten steps behind me.

I say to Lego Girl, “We have to close the door.”

“Don’t go,” she says again.

“But what if the door opens?”

“We have to finish the landing module before the door opens, or nobody will be able to escape.”

I go with her back to the table.

Now the ceiling is melting and the floor is oozing under our feet.

I am wearing a white coverall, just like everyone else.

The door opens and I wake up and Stepdad Dave is home and my heart is beating and I am sweating and all my blankets are wrapped around me.

Stepdad Dave puts heavy things down on the floor.

The answering machine goes beep and Lola’s dad starts talking.

The answering machine goes beep again and Lola’s dad stops.

Stepdad Dave curses.

A few minutes later, he opens the refrigerator in the kitchen. Then the microwave goes beep beep beep, rrrrr.

I fall asleep after that, a long time later but before the sun comes up.

When I tiptoe past his room I can hear him breathing. At first he’s asleep but then I know he’s awake and listening to me as I go downstairs.

The stairs creak. No matter how quiet you try to be, the stairs always creak.

Whatever Stepdad Dave brought home last night, it’s not there now.

I found Mom downstairs in the basement. I asked her if she wanted some coffee. She looked like she was going to start crying but she didn’t answer me. I made her coffee with milk anyway, lots of milk and not too much coffee.

Miss Emma is working at the library today, the public library, not the school library. I can’t remember whether the school librarian was at parent-teacher conferences at my old school. I think she was.

She just asked me if there’s anything I need, and I asked her if it would be okay if I used one of the adult computers to send an email, since Isaiah and Cooper are still playing video games.

She said

Lola’s here!