Returning to the Dark

Sometimes I think about the way the rain smelled against the dirt, back at the farm. The way the wind felt like warm breath against my skin and shook the pines around me. I used to throw my head back and howl against the thundering clouds as if I could fly away into them.

I remember creeping out into the edges of the night, fairies lighting up the gardens and flying squirrels twittering. An owl lived down in the barn where a massive wisteria vine wound its way up around the beams and formed a cradle for me to rest in. There were times I sat there until early morning, whispering to the wise bird and listening to him call for others.

Occasionally, I return in my dreams to sit in those vines and sing sweetly to the owl. I can smell the purple blossoms around me and feel the cool breeze tickle my skin. The owl’s amber eyes look me, and his feathers puff out with a call. Then he spreads his wings and thrusts himself into the sky in search of the rats that plunder the garden.

The moon shimmers over me as I lull myself into silence with a song. Shadows dance and twist until a dreadful beast darts from around the barn with feverish red eyes. His mouth is full of so many teeth that they spill over his closed lips, glistening. He parts his jaw and snaps it closed, as if tasting the air. Saliva pools beneath him.

I scream, seize the rough vine in my hands, and climb onto the rusted metal roof. On shaky legs I run across the thin metal. He claws up after me, snarling and spitting. Fear clutches my heart. His jaw clamps on my calf. His bristled black fur ripples in excitement. My lungs burn as he tears into me. His massive black forearms stretch over me, cover me in itchy fur as his claws grasp my shoulders and pull me closer. And, then I awake, my chest filled with hollers that echo into the night.

I have long forgotten the path back through the woods to the farm. Like the scars that mark my skin, it has faded to a dull memory. Yet, when the rain patters on my window just right, the trail froths up behind my eyes like a bubbling spring. I used to run through the pinewoods late in the evenings with butterflies fluttering and goblins chortling around me. The air tasted sweet and salty like sweat on the skin. I can still feel the way the amber needles crunched beneath my calloused feet. I returned once, barefoot, the same way I had left.

There is not much left of the old barn, just dust and gloom. When I was little, it was kept full of animals and bathed in the scent of hay and manure. Mosquitos hid in its shadows and feasted upon me when I carried out my chores. For most of my life, there was a gaping hole in the rusted roof. On bright mornings, dust would dance in the sunlight drifting through it like the lingering sparkle of a spell. Each time I look back at my memories, the hole is larger. The wisteria I loved so is now nothing more than an ugly stump, and an empty nest is all that remains of the owl.

The whole farm used to be quite beautiful. There was a greenhouse kept full of herbs and an orchard of many different fruits. My brother and I used to play hide and seek in the waxy leaves and thorny limbs of the orange trees. In the winter they were wrapped in sheets of plastic and bundled in straw. On days when the beast was prowling about, I would seek shelter there. Inside the warm folds of plastic, surrounded by green and the smell of citrus, I felt safe.

The beast was the only creature not bound by the rules of the night. He came when he pleased, and lay waste to what he could. But, there were others. I recall shadows that crossed the street at night, and a boogeyman that would slink from my closet or reach out from under my bed. Sometimes he would pinch my toes or twist my arm until I awoke in tremors and pain. At others, he would just stand in the corner, his thin lips pressed into a grin, watching me.

Mushrooms and mold now cover the brick shell of the house. In places, the roof is worn down to the beams, and the steps to the front door are buried beneath a carpet of moss. Many times I have played on those steps. I would sketch and scribble with chalk until my hands were blue and pink. Dust pixies would scurry into the crevices with shrill chitters of excitement as I ran up the steps and though the door into the kitchen.

The dining table was always covered in stacks of papers, dishes, and fresh food from the garden. Even when I was little, mold bloomed on the walls in there, and black holes dotted the floor with curious eyes peering up. Despite this, it was my favorite room.

I used to spend what felt like hours sitting on my stool at the counter. With the help of my father’s strong hands, we would kneed and shape a heap of flour and dough. My hair got streaked with white as I brushed it back away from my face and time would melt into the smell of baking bread. Even now, the scent tugs me back into those memories.

Deeper in the house, in my old room, the bunk beds still stand as if my father’s children never left. Past our room, down a long hallway, there is a doorway that is never closed. Most nights I traveled down that eerie hall after a fitful fright, always to be sent back to bed with no comfort. I remember how the old wood creaked and sung beneath my feet.

I think my father will always be there at the end of the hall, just beyond the open door, sitting in his bed with a book open and stacks of novels taller than me littering the floor. There is a mirror on the wall behind him where I can recall my green eyes, eyes like his, dancing on the silvery surface.

Our eyes are green like the fresh pears we used to pick in the summer. We would wrap them tightly in newspapers and stow them away until they were needed for pie or cobbler. My hair is brown like the soil we tilled every fall. Father’s hair was black as the crows that screamed while we worked the land. And, we had to be careful, far the beast loved to lurk at the wood’s edge where the garden lay.

By the time I returned, father’s black hair had turned silver and his strength all gave way to wrinkles and frail bones. He was older. Weaker. His large glasses were perched on a paper-thin nose. His voice and anger were the only things that did not fray with age.

“Why have you returned?” he had asked.

I had tried to stay away forever, but time had pulled me back. And, I could not explain this to him.

He had been away the night I left. In his absence, the beast had crawled up to the house and was waiting on the porch steps when I opened the door. That was the only time I fought him, and it is impossible to know which of us won. But that time, when I ran he did not chase me.

When I returned, it was my father who met me at the porch. I had tried to explain myself but it only led to us arguing. I had left; that was all he remembered. Through tears and strain I at last said what my heart felt.

“So long as you stay here, a piece of me must die here as well.”

It was the only time I can remember being so vulnerable in front of him.

He had laughed and said something cruel, but I no longer really know the words.

The end of that memory is the hardest to revisit. His glowering gaze still haunts my mind. He walked toward me, shaking with age, and I offered him one last chance to leave and take only the good with us.

In an angry snarl, he bid me to never return. Then his skin fell away like a cornhusk, and the beast slipped out of it. Many of its teeth had become worn and broken. Its red eyes had dimmed. Its fur had grayed. The fear I had carried through my life dissolved at last into the background, and I fought the urge to sob. The man beneath did not return, and I have not been back since.

More than the scent of rain, I remember the dark. I remember the attacks. The feel of fear so tight in my throat I could not breathe. The way I tiptoed everywhere he was. The memories of that place are often confusing and fragmented least they run long enough to turn ugly. I remember the feelings, the place, and he is erased.