Thirteen Years

I opened the car first, to search for the flashlight I had brought with me. It was lying on the backseat. I put it into the pocket of my coat, and closed and locked the car doors again.

The gate to our garden looked at least as old as the cemetary gate and it was barely hanging on to the fence. I pushed it open with ease, the screeching sound breaking the silence of the evening for a few moments, and entered the garden.

It was so dark, I could not see farther than a few feet. At the place I knew the house stood, there was nothing but darkness, the trees prevented me from seeing even the outline of the house. I turned on my flashlight and in the circle of yellowish light, the footpath up to the house appeared, then a few bushes, and when I pointed it further on, something that looked like a black wall.

As I approached it, I recognized the front wall of my childhood's home more clearly. I could see the little porch that was burned and almost fallen down, the door, of which only a tiny bit hung on the hinges. The windows were broken, the heat of the fire had probably burst them. In front of me, some stones lay around, I didn't know which wall they had fallen from. A bit of colorful tape the police had probably used thirteen years ago to secure the site, was moving in the wind, making weird scratching noises whenever it touched part of the porch or the wall. Behind me, I once again heard the screeches of the trees.

I stood in front of a ruin. The house looked like it could crumble to dust at as much as a touch. Still, I decided to go inside. Something in there seemed to call out to me, or something in me longed to be there, to search for just a tiny sign of the past, something to reassure me that my life here had existed, that this had once been a happy place full of light.

Going up the stairs of the porch was a dangerous activity: half of them were missing, and the other half made sounds like they would break any moment. But I managed without breaking a leg, and soon climbed over the threshold of the door into the house.

Inside it was even darker – the walls blocked what little light there had been outside. I could only recognize whatever the small round circle of my flashlight fell on, anything else was black. For a second the thought appeared in my mind that if there was someone in here, watching me from some corner, I would not have a chance to see them. Hastily I let my light circle the room – our old entrance room, the one I had to take my shoes off in, the one where I left my coat in winter when I got back home, the one were we stored the skis.

My heart stopped for a second when the light hit something undefinable. Upon a second look, however, it turned out to be the remains of a set of shelves that the fire had melted into a small pile. I tried to grin at my own stupidity – who would hide out in such a ruin? The place didn't even protect well of the cold with its broken windows, there was nothing here a person would want to look for. And yet, I was looking for something. I went further inside, setting my feet carefully to not trip over the stones and burnt items splattered across the floor.

Under the light of my lamp I saw the remains of what once had been our sofa. Somehow, suddenly, the memory of my mom's hiding place flashed through my mind. Behind the sofa, there was a hole in the wall, with an iron door. Like a safe, except since we never had anything of value to hide, we usually didn't lock it. Instead, my mom put little things in there, a drawing I made, a postcard we got from grandma – "Just so we don't lose it", she used to say.

A wild hope for something that would be a light in all this burned darkness awoke in me. Moving the sofa was not that difficult, but a messy job. It broke apart, and I smeared ashes all over my clothes and hands, but I didn't care. Behind it, sure enough, my flashlight found the iron door, untouched by the fire. In fact, it looked so clean, I should have wondered how it didn't get disturbed by the flames at least a bit.

The iron door opened suprisingly easy as well, and inside, my flashlight fell on a few white pieces of paper, untouched by the fire.

The first things I found were a few post cards, written by my grandmother in her clear handwriting and the big letters she always used. I looked at them, for a moment lost in memories. Then there was an envelope. "To my dear daughter" it said on the outside, the writing was smaller and rounder – as my mother had written. Eagerly I opened the envelope and pulled out several pieces of paper. I let my flashlight wander over the first page. There, on top of that first page, there was something that caught my attention more than anything: The date the letter had been written.

"31st of October 1993". The day of my mother's death.

A mixture of excitement and fear washed through my body, making me tremble. My mother had written a letter to me on the day of her death! My feet felt like they couldn't hold the weight of my body anymore, and I sank down, sat on the floor, leaning on the black wall. I didn't care that I was messing up my already dirty clothes even more. I wanted to read her letter now.

In the light of my flashlight I read the first few lines:

"My beloved daughter,

Whenever you read these lines I will be long gone. I imagine, several years will have passed since my death, before you find this letter. And there will be so many questions, there are so many things you should know. You have a right to know these things.

But before I continue, I have to ask you for one favor: If you are still inside our house, please leave it right now. There are things here that you have no idea about, there are dangers for you, should you remain inside the house, or even just on our land. Please, leave the house, go into town, and continue reading there."

My heart was beating wildly.

I felt watched all of a sudden. There I was, in the dark ruin of my childhood home. I couldn't see what was around me, except for what little my flashlight allowed me, and in my hands I held a letter my mother had written just before her death – knowing that she would die. And knowing, that I would sit here to read it many years later, and that I might be in danger at that very moment.

For a few moments fear made it impossible for me to move, to even breathe. But then I jumped up and in a few quick steps I was at the door. I almost tripped over something, I don't know what, but I caught myself and ran outside and down the creaking stairs of the porch.

It had gotten even darker outside, I estimated it to be maybe 7 pm now, but compared to inside the house it seemed light, I could make out the shapes of bushes and trees, and the air smelled fresher, I felt almost free, relieved to have escaped the house. Quickly I walked towards the gate, left the garden, and reached my car.

***

I entered the car, and took a deep breath. The idea of returning to my warm hotel room, where there was light, where there were people nearby, was comforting. I fished my car key out of the pocket of my jeans, and wanted to start the car. The motor only made a few tired noises, and then it got quiet again. For some seconds I sat there motionless, my heart beating loudly. Then I tried again. The result was even worse than before – now the motor didn't make any sound at all.

I stared through the window, down the muddy street that I wanted to drive down. I could hardly see the way, and the trees were swaying in the wind, above. Maybe I should just stay in the car, wait for it to become day again? I could read the letter here, and maybe I would be able to sleep a bit – I started feeling how exhausted I was from the long drive.

However, it wasn't late in the evening yet, it would be a very long night. Maybe I should just walk back to town, it wasn't all that far. I wasn't too worried about leaving my car here – it seemed unlikely someone would come by this lonely area, and apart from that, if it didn't work they wouldn't be able to steal it anyway. Maybe walking wasn't so bad, with the help of my flashlight...

The flashlight! Only now I realized that I didn't have it anymore. "I must have dropped it when I ran to the car", I thought with horror – I needed the flashlight, and to find it meant to go back into the dark garden, maybe even into the house.

A few moments I remained in the car, listening to my heart beat and the wind. "It's nothing", I told myself. "It is just a wild garden with the ruin of a house in it. You were just there. Nothing happened, so why should something happen now?" Then I opened the car door and stepped out into the night again.

***

I found the flashlight faster than I had thought: It was lying on the ground not far from the gate. I picked it up – and just then a sound, like iron banging against iron, made me jump. Quickly I turned around, and to my surprise I saw that the gate was closed. The wind must have pushed against it, I knew I had left it open.

Nervous as I was, I walked towards the gate as fast as I could, I wanted to leave the garden again, I didn't want to feel the presence of my burnt down child hood home anymore. I wanted to get back to town as fast as I could. But when I tried to open the gate, I couldn't. I remembered that when I had first arrived I could push it open with ease. But now, for some reason, it seemed stuck. I shook harder, even tried to kick it open, but nothing could be done.

The gate still looked like it was only losely hanging on to its hinges, but as much as I tried, it stayed in its place. I decided to try to climb over it, but gave up soon enough – the gate was high, and consisted of long, thick, smooth iron bars that my hands slipped off of again and again. The fence was of the same material – I remembered my mom putting this fence in place after some boys had climbed into our garden one night and made a mess of her gardening efforts. Had I not been so scared I might have laughed at the irony of that it was me of all people who was locked in because of that fence now.

I could have gone to the back of the garden. There was a wall there that I had climbed a thousand times as a child, and that led onto the cemetary – but maybe it was the feeling of panic that made it impossible for me to think.

In the end, I sat down on the cold and wet ground somewhere underneath a tree, and started reading my mother's letter in the light of my flashlight.

"My beloved daughter," I read.

"Whenever you read these lines I will be long gone. I imagine, several years will have passed since my death, before you find this letter. And there will be so many questions and there are so many things you should know. You have a right to know these things."

I jumped over the next paragraph – I was already scared, and I didn't want to remind myself that I shouldn't be here.

"How can I explain to you that which will happen, how can I tell you what has happened? I don't understand it very well myself, but you have a right to know everything. Thus, let me take you thirteen years back, to another stormy and cold Halloween afternoon. I had bought this house only a few weeks earlier together with my fiancé, who was from this area. He had things to do, so I was alone for the afternoon and spent it unpacking boxes from the move. Later in the evening we wanted to go visit his parents. I was looking forward to my new life with him, in this beautiful house and garden, and with our child: I was in the third month of pregnancy.

After a while I decided it was time for a break, and started warming the water for some tea. Just then, the doorbell rang. I was a bit surprised – I didn't really know anyone in the area yet, except for my fiancé's family, and they knew we would be visiting them later on anyway. I opened the door, there was a man there. I can't really describe him, but there was something about him that got my attention right away. He was very tall, and his dark hair was somewhat tousled from the wind. And he had green eyes – I think that was the first thing I noticed, the intense look from his green eyes. There was something about them that made me blush, made me unable to say a word, ask him what he wanted.

After a few seconds he started speaking – he introduced himself and told me that he had lived in this very house thirteen years earlier, and that he was in the area by coincidence now and had decided to ask, if he could have a look at it, for old memories' sake.

I think it was the look in his eyes that made me trust him immediately. I invited him in, and let him look at every room, and he could tell me stories about all of them. It was he who showed me this little hiding place in the wall.

I can still see it in my mind, how he knelt down there, to open the little door, and how he pulled something out of the wall: A silver necklace. "I had been wondering where I left it", he said. Then he stood up, the necklace in his hand, and smiled at me. "It's your house now", he said, "so maybe the necklace should be yours too." I wanted to protest, but I saw the necklace in his hand, and for some reason I liked it so much, I really wanted to have it.

At any rate, he did not wait until I answered, he just looked at me with his green eyes, and then opened the necklace to put it around my neck. And then he kissed me.

I don't even know how he started. I just suddenly realized that we are standing there and kissing each other. And that his kiss was the most wonderful one of my whole life.

Somewhere in the back of my mind I remembered my fiancé, but I pushed the thought away, and just gave myself to the feeling of this stranger's lips against mine, the taste of his tongue.

We were standing right next to the sofa. Our kiss wouldn't end, it got deeper and more demanding, I didn't want it to end. In the end it was me, who sat down on the sofa and pulled him to me, ripping off his clothing with an impatience and desire I don't think I ever felt before or since. I wanted to feel his skin on mine, I wanted to be as close to him as I could. It was as if I had forgotten who I was, where I was and how I was supposed to behave.

When it was over, we were lying on the sofa, naked. Even though it was quite cold in the house, I felt warm with his arms around me. I was just about to fall asleep, when I heard the door open. Looking up, I saw my fiancé standing in the middle of the room, staring at us. He was pale and I will never forget the expression on his face. It was only then that I suddenly realized what I had done.

Before I could say anything though, the strange man had jumped up, and stood between me and my fiancé. My fiancé did a small step towards him, and for a moment I thought they were going to fight. But then something happened with the stranger.

I don't know how to explain it, but he suddenly wasn't human anymore. I couldn't describe what had changed about him, but everything was different. He looked more like an animal than like a human being. Just his sight was enough to fill me with fear. I wanted to hide somewhere.

My fiancé just stood there, as if he was unable to move. Then, suddenly, he turned around and ran out of the door. I didn't hear of him until a few weeks later, when I got a call from the police. They had found him in one of the nearby towns. I went to pick him up, but it turned out that something had happened to his mind. He never again behaved normal after that, he wouldn't even speak. I took care of him for a while, as did his mother, but he seemed unwilling to even live in a house. No one could understand what had happened to him, and I couldn't tell them, I said I don't know. With time people got used to him being the way he was now, and I ended up living alone. Until I had you, that is.

After my fiancé had left, the creature turned to me. Now I saw that one thing about him hadn't changed: His eyes. They were the same eyes I had noticed when I had opened the door. And only now I realized that these eyes hadn't looked human even then.

I was still lying on the sofa, and I felt the cold of the room now. My nudity embarrassed me and made me feel unprotected and helpless. But the creature in front of me didn't spend attention to that.

"I will be back in thirteen years to this day", it said. "I will come back to get what is mine. Don't try to hide from me, I can find you anywhere."

Then he was gone.

The thirteen years have passed today, this is why I send you away to be with my parents. I didn't want the same happening to you as to my fiancé. I don't know if it's just the necklace that creature is after, or if it is something more, but I am here to wait for him. I don't know what will happen, but I am prepared for the worst. Should I survive, I will burn this letter, and you never need to know anything about it. But should I not be here anymore when you return, I want you at least to have this letter, and I want you to know that I love you."

***

For minutes I stared at the letter. Could this be true? I had always thought of myself as a realistic person, someone who would never believe in anything supernatural. Was it some kind of sick joke someone was playing on me? But no one knew I was visiting the house, and the handwriting looked exactly like my mother's.

I was still sitting on the muddy ground, it was dark, and now I realized that the light of my flashlight was growing dimmer.

The realization that soon I would not even have this little light scared me. Carefully I listened out into the darkness. Every rustling of leafs, every screech of the trees in the wind suddenly sounded dangerous to me. What if there was someone out there, maybe that creature my mother had written about?

In panic I jumped up and ran back to the gate. I tried to shake it, kick against it – but it still wouldn't open. I was caught. And as soon as I stopped kicking the gate and listened into the darkness again, I could make out the same rustling and screeching sounds that had scared me before. But I could hear more than that. My heart almost stopped when I clearly distinguished the sound of footsteps, approaching me from the side, from one of the dark corners of the garden. They sounded different from Eric's footsteps in the cemetary, earlier in the evening. They were hard to even make out unless I listened with all concentration.

At that moment I remembered the wall in the back of the garden, the one I had climbed a thousand times as a child, and I started running.

I am not used to running, sports had never been one of my interests, and considering that I stopped playing with other children when I was thirteen, I hadn't run at all in years. A few metres were enough to have me out of breath and have my sides aching. But I could now hear the sounds of someone following me more clearly.

There have been a few moments in my life when I believed myself to be stuck in some kind of film, when my reason disconnected from me, and I saw myself as if in a movie. At these moments, my mind starts forming words to describe what is happening, or imagines the movie this could be made into. It is almost, as if it is not me, this is happening to. I remember how a huge dog attacked me when I was nine – that was one of these moments. I knew I should be scared, part of me was sure I was going to die. At the same time I couldn't believe it, my mind refused to accept that it was me, this was happening to. The long seconds I needed to reach the back part of our garden were such a moment, too. I could almost feel the breath of whomever or whatever followed me in my neck, I expected at any second to be grabbed from behind and thrown to the ground. I also felt the urge to vomit caused by the shock of the sudden physical exhaustion. At the same time, it was as if it wasn't really me who was fleeing. Some part in my mind was convinced, that I hadn't even arrived yet, that I was still in my grandmother's house, and maybe just dreaming all of this.