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DOG

Narrator: It was in the time of the year when the wind turns cool and the leaves display colors of orange and red that the Father began the Stories. He came into our room that first night after Randy and I had been put to bed in our bunk beds. He carried with him a red candle in a pewter holder, the “Story Candle,” as we would come to call it. He sat himself down in the center of the round yarn rug and set the candle down in front of him. Its yellow light drew dark lines across his face, and he looked in a way we had not seen before. He waited and after a while, the Stories began. Telling the Stories would last one year. 

“It was on a night such as this when first the noises came,” said the Father, as he began the first Story. “It was the season of the year when the days grow short, then shorter, then so short that children begin to wonder whether it might never end, and the light of day itself would disappear,” he said. “Earlier that day, in the playroom with the yellow carpet in the basement of the cedar house in the forest, there had been omens, warnings, that all might not be right.

“The winds came from the north that day, from unknown faraway lands of snow and ice, bringing with them streaking sheets of rain that slashed against the high playroom windows. The windows were so high neither of the boys playing there was tall enough to see out of them. With the winds came sounds — mourning sounds and sighs — as of spirits lost and doomed forever to ride the currents of the winds, searching for something they could never find. ‘It’s only the wind,’ said Gail, the Childminder. She hitched the boys up, one at a time, so that they were close to the dark windows, close enough that they could peer into the darkness and touch one small pale hand against their cold glass.”

Narrator: I should say here, if you haven’t already guessed, that although Randy and I were being told the Stories, we were also in them. Others from our lives at that time were also in them, making it difficult, from time to time, to distinguish what was real from what was not. 

“You could always tell when Gail was close by because her heart made an audible tik tik tik tok tok tok sound,” continued the Father. “She had been born with a heart that could not properly tok, so the doctors gave her a better mechanism. It was better than it was, but it still wouldn’t go tik tok, tik tok. After that, Gail could not do the kinds of jobs that Grownups do; instead, she came each day and made the two boys, Randy and Brenton, her job. She also looked after Kandy, their big, tan-colored dog with a long black nose.

“Now, in the yellow playroom, Gail knelt down beside the two boys and put her arms around them. ‘The spirit noises of the winds will pass,’ she said, and all was better with the boys. But Kandy slunk away and crawled into the colored plastic doghouse in the far corner of the playroom. Once inside, she turned herself around, as dogs do, so all anyone saw was her long black nose sticking out the front.”

Narrator: The Father briefly paused the Story here and, after a time, continued. He did that every so often.

“That night, after bedtime, the two boys lay awake in their bunk beds. They listened to the sounds that houses make in the night,” he said.  “They heard the sounds of the Parents coming home; of Gail taking her departure; of the Parents going up the carpeted stairs to their bedroom down the hallway. At first, all was quiet. But then, there were other sounds — whirrings and clickings, the sounds electrical appliances make.

“There were also creaks and twists, the sounds wooden boards bound up within the walls make, complaining perhaps of the years and of the weight they must bear.

“But then there came a sound unlike the others,” said the Father.

“It came from someplace deep within the house, downstairs, perhaps, at the doorway, or maybe even outside. It was a crying out — high pitched and mournful — a whining protest against the terrible sadness of this life. The two boys lay, eyes open in the dark, not speaking, just listening. And then, the sound stopped.”

Silence came over the darkened house in the Story, and also over the candle-flickered bedroom in which the Father told us the Story. 

“The two boys, continued the Father when he was ready, remembered what Gail had told them in the playroom with the yellow carpet about the passing of the wind. They thought, like the noise of the wind, these noises would pass; but then the noises came again.

“Short screams came now, urgent callings out, for help, perhaps, or for something worse. Clawing sounds and scratchings emanated from the hallway outside their bedroom and from somewhere down the carpeted staircase to the great white door. This door that had never yet been opened by a child’s hand stood, tall and strong, defending the entrance to the cedar house in the forest.

“From the upper bunk, Brenton spoke. ‘Did you hear that, Randy?’ No answer from below.

“‘It’s downstairs, outside the white door,’ said Brenton. ‘It’s outside. It wants … in.’

“In the lower bunk, Randy slowly pulled the puff cover up and over his small blonde head, leaving only a single opening, big enough for just one eye to peer out. All he could see in the grey-black uncolors of the night was the open doorway of their bedroom that led out to the hallway and the place where the carpeted stairs descended to the tile floor below.

“Now came a throatier sound from somewhere in the dark night hallway of the cedar house,” continued the Father. “It was a growly sound, the sound of an animal of a certain size, an animal hungry, an animal angry; an animal wanting … in.

“Brenton was in the top bunk, appropriately enough, because he was seven, and Randy was five. Fine and dandy this had been, in Brenton’s view. Until now. At that moment, he would have given one of his best things from his special-things wooden box to have been younger and in the bottom bunk. But he wasn’t. He was two years older than Randy. He was the big brother. It was up to him to do something.

“‘I am going to the Parents for help,’ said Brenton after a while to a silent room. Once he said the words—he had no choice, he had to do it.

“So, brave-footed in his cloth-zippered pajamas, Brenton climbed down the four pine board ladder steps from the upper bunk to the wooden floor of the bedroom. The floor’s pine boards felt cold, even against his PJs footie-feet. He turned and faced the open doorway and out beyond, the long, long hallway to the Parents’ large bedroom. He paused, standing in the dark. It seemed like such a long way to go. He looked back up the four ladder steps to the warmth and safety of the upper bunk, whence he had come. But when you’re seven years old, you can’t go back. He stepped forward, across the yarn circle rug in the center of the room, to the open bedroom door, then out. Bravely, he went down the hallway, walking the gauntlet to the Parents’ bedroom. In the lower bunk, Randy watched, one-eyed, and waited.

“Time passed,” said the Father.

Narrator: And it was, even in the candle-lit bedroom where the Father was telling the Story. Then, he went on. 

“Randy saw with his one eye many things, all shadowy, shapes drifting in darkness, unreal, or so he told himself. But then, after a time, there in the bedroom doorway was something that did not drift. A hunched over figure? Perhaps not. If it were a real figure, thought Randy, it would move. Randy closed his one eye and opened it. He looked. The figure moved. It came into the bedroom.

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