Falling in the Garden

Chapter Four - Hidden

Chapter Four

Hidden

I looked through the TV Guide the next morning, searching for a broadcast that might coincide with what I’d heard the previous afternoon. Eventually, I decided that what I heard could have been anything at all. It could have come from anywhere! I had every intention of packing up again that morning and leaving for The Meadow, but some awful news kept me from a second attempt at listening for the phantom voice. After a phone call from a hospital in New Jersey, my mother and I jumped into her car. My grandmother had fallen and broken her leg. Her good friend and neighbor, Ethel, had been looking out her kitchen window at the pivotal moment and called an ambulance. Ethel was waiting there with my grandmother as we sped down Route 17 toward Mahwah and then into Elmwood Park. We passed so many familiar landmarks that the trip felt more like ten minutes than an hour. We waited fifteen agonizing minutes at the front desk of St. Mary’s before finding out that everything was fine. They would be able to put a cast on her left leg within the hour. I was dropped off at my grandmother’s house and my mother drove back to the hospital to wait. Alone in the epic four-story house built in the 1920’s, I found myself wandering.

It seems strange now that I would find such an important clue to the voice in The Meadow so far away and in another state. At that moment, walking through so many familiar rooms, I wasn’t even thinking of the voice.

“—don’t want to stay! I hate it—!”

I wasn’t thinking of the Kasner’s place or of the woods. I was lost, instead, in my past. I was only fourteen, remember. Looking back through my limited years proved a vivid playback of many memories. The carpeted floors I now walked on had been worn thin by my own feet as well as many relatives.

Christmas was always a special gathering time for us at this house, but Thanksgiving was always the most memorable. Every family member was present. The kitchen was an amalgam of aromas ranging from fresh cranberry casserole to sweet buttered corn. The turkey, of course, danced among all these delectable smells. The turkey was usually so massive that only an oven as large as my grandmother’s could hold it. The appliances in her kitchen must have been designed to accommodate a race of giants.

The adults were seated at the main table in the dining room. A smaller table sat nearby for the children. There were five of us. My sister, Anne, was the eldest. My grandmother always set our places with as much grace and loving detail as she did the adult table. The “kids”, however, had a distinctive bonus—behind each plate was a beautiful, foil-covered chocolate turkey. Dessert, which followed dinner with no noticeable pause, was something out of a fairy tale. Still, what I remember most were our sleepovers on Thanksgiving night. This was the only time all the cousins could spend the night together. Instead of the two extra guest rooms upstairs, we’d always choose the huge, king-sized feather bed in the basement. This was also the only time any of us would ever dare sleep in a place as dark and creepy as the basement. Before my grandfather passed away, he would always tell us that horrible creatures haunted the basement laundry room. Later in life, I learned that the eerie, hollow sound that randomly came from this forbidden room was nothing more than a draft of air blowing down an ancient, unused coal chute.

On one such Thanksgiving night, each of us took turns venturing alone into the laundry room. Our only contact with the others, hiding beneath the feather bed’s quilting, were through a pair of walkie-talkies. I recall my turn well. The walkie-talkies belonged to my cousin Nicole, who had gotten them a month earlier for her birthday. She handed one over to me and explained how to use it. Our goal was to walk to the far end of the room, touch the wall and return. We would tell those back in bed, through the crackling pop of speaker static, about everything we imagined along the way.

Thanksgiving now was so much quieter, and I have to admit that nearly all of that magic now belonged to the past. Everyone except for my mother and I had moved away. Here was another house that was beginning to feel like a shell.

I moved quietly to the top of the stairway that led down to the basement. Halfway down, to the right, was a door that opened onto the side porch. Moving past it, I took the stairs to the bottom. Knowing exactly where to reach, I stretched my arm out (slightly to the left) and tugged gently on a frayed string. A solid click. Dull, yellow light oozed into the vast, open room, graining and pausing only when it reached corners and under-areas. The ceiling above, paneled in some dark, corduroy textured wood, was low enough for me to touch with the tips of my fingers. I did this without thinking as I moved toward the door to the laundry room. Stopping at the closed entrance, I looked to the left of the doorframe and reached up into the small shelf hidden just above it, hoping….

My fingers touched cool metal and I almost laughed with surprise. It was still there! Finding a small chair, I pushed it against the door and was now able to access far enough into the darkness to pull out a small, rectangular box. Its smooth, slightly dented tin had been painted a washed-out, army green. It was also locked. I’d forgotten about the lock.

Leaving the basement in an excited hurry, box in hand, I took the stairs two at a time back to the kitchen and went directly to the utility drawer. Inside I found a pair of needle-nose pliers that easily snapped the lock. Inside, by some odd run of luck, I found my treasure. My link to the voice in The Meadow. They had unknowingly been waiting there, unused for almost five years. I took the pair of walkie-talkies out and popped open the battery compartment. Empty. Nicole explained that we shouldn’t leave batteries in them because they could go bad and leak, ruining everything. The two 9-volt batteries I would need (one for each walkie-talkie) were located in a brown paper bag in the back of the same drawer. Eagerly, I snapped the batteries into place and turned on both of the small handsets. Static hiss. Again, here was the sound of distant rain, mystery hidden somewhere deep within it. I didn’t know what to expect bringing the walkie-talkies back to The Meadow, but I had a strange feeling that this was something I had to do. Needed to do. This odd urgency followed me throughout the next few days as both my mother and I helped my grandmother get re-settled in her home. Driving back to Monroe five days later, the sun sinking further with each agonizing mile spent, I began to wonder whether or not I could wait until morning. I began to seriously contemplate sneaking out to The Meadow that evening, after my mother had fallen asleep.

By the time we arrived home, however, I could barely make it out of the car. I’d fallen asleep the final ten minutes back and couldn’t shake the fatigue left behind.

On the way down to my bedroom, my mother noticed the walkie-talkies. I’d kept them concealed in my overnight bag, but had just taken them out to make sure they were real. She asked if they were the same ones we used to play with a few years ago. She remembered! I smiled and told her yes, wondering if she was going to ask what I intended to do with them. She didn’t. Perhaps she was just being sensitive not to remind me again that I was spending my first real summer without a best friend. Whatever the reason, she gave me a quick hug and kiss and allowed me to finish the descent to my room and temporary oblivion.

It’s strange to be leaving out so much that happened that summer between my mother and I. She and I have always been very close. After my sister and father died, we had grown all the more closer. We rarely spoke of the accident, but we did talk about Dad and Anne often, keeping them alive in our hearts wherever we went or whatever we did. Everything that happened in The Meadow that summer and well into autumn was so removed from my normal life that any memories that don’t directly involve it have fallen to the side. With shame, I admit that this includes memories of my mother.

Still, I would take the next step in the morning. My life was about to change in so many ways. I fell asleep, thinking for the last time that everything around me followed normal, accepted rules.

“—don’t want to stay! I hate it—!”

These words still echoed in my mind. They eventually turned soft, then whispered as painful lyrics of a forgotten song. Without recognizing the terminating edge of sleep, I was gone.