One Saturday morning, when I was two years old, I woke up hungrier
than I'd ever been. Down the hall, I could hear my parents snoring
off their hangover. They wouldn't be up until past noon at least. I
vaguely remember climbing over my half collapsed baby gate and waddling down the hallway to
the kitchen. I twisted the little black knobs on the stove, which just
like my parents did, but no scrambled eggs appeared. Instead, the stove
made a mean, hissing noise, and the kitchen filled with a nasty smell
that I didn't like at all. The smell kept getting worse and worse,
and I had a feeling that I'd get into the worst trouble of my life
if my parents found out. I went back to my room to play with
my blocks, hoping that the problem would just magically go away. Five minutes
later, there was a loud knock on the door. My parents grumbled all
those four letter words that they had told me never to say, and then
I heard my mother sniffing. She said the house smelled like ass, whatever
that meant. My father staggered out of the bedroom with his jeans and shirt
half on, then yelped. When he reached the kitchen, windows and doors
flew open. I crept downstairs to see what was going on. How'd you
know, my father said, breathlessly to the shadowy figure on our front doorstep.
No, the kindly female voice sounded confused. No what. I'm Eliza
Mortimer from the end of the block. I was just dropping off these cookies
that I baked to welcome you to the neighborhood. Coincidence, are not Eliza
Mortimer. It saved our lives, and not for the last time. Two
years later came the first of many plate shattering, furniture breaking, screaming matches
between our parents. I was crouching down in the closet with my hands pressed
over my ears, but the sharp knock sounded as loud as someone rapping on
my own skull. I tiptoed out of hiding and open the door. Hello,
young man, I'm Eliza Mortimer from the end of the block. I'm
in a bit of a pickle and I could use your help. The woman
on the doorstep was short and stocky, with fizzy brown hair, bright green
eyes, and round frame glasses. She wore an old fashioned black dress a
wide belt and stood with one hand on her hip and the other she held
a small red notebook. I'd never seen her before, but for some reason
I knew her voice. Okay, I smiled behind me. The battle had
stopped. I felt my father's damp hand on my shoulder, even washing the
blood off of his knuckles. If it isn't our favorite neighbor, he sneered,
what can we do for you? Well? I started a new recipe
before I noticed I was all out of sugar? Can I borrow a few
cups? My father shrugged and nodded. Sugar, he grumbled as I followed
him into the broken battlefield of our kitchen. Were the fuck borrow sugar?
At ten pm, I goddamn work night. My father shoved a wrinkled bag
of rock hard sugar into my hand. Tell her she can keep it.
Oh, this ought to be more than enough. Give your parents my thanks,
Ethan. As I waved goodbye, it occurred to me that I'd never
told her odd neighbor my name. This Mortimer came by a lot over the
next five years. I was with a good excuse missing cat duct tape for
her garden hose. Once she even wanted help with a crossword puzzle. She
didn't always arrive in time to stop my parents from getting violent, but she
always showed up before anyone got seriously hurt. I didn't know how she did
what she did, and by the time I was seven years old, I
loved her for it. I wanted to spend more time with her than my
parents wouldn't hear of it. Nothing good can come from a kid hanging around
strangers, my father said darkly, although as I would soon learn, he'd
been spending quite a lot of time around strangers himself. My mother's response to
discovering his extramarital affair was doubting a cocktail of pills with a vodka martini.
No matter how much I shook her, she wouldn't wake. And if Miss
Mortimer hadn't just happened to have been out for a walk when I ran crying
into the street, she probably wouldn't have survived. With my mother in the
hospital and my father off with his mistress, it was Miss Mortimer who took
care of me. I wish she could stay here forever, I told her
that night, as I sat in bed sipping her hot soup instead of them.
That would be lovely, dear, Miss Mortimer replied, but I can't.
Perhaps, though, there's a way that we can keep in touch,
would you like that? Miss Mortimer walked over to the inside of my bedroom
door, bent down, and drew a small chalk circle with a series of
odd symbols around it, white marks that looked like letters, weren't She gently
pushed the door closed. Now, Miss Mortimer grin mischievously, put your hand
inside that circle and open the door. At the same time. I did
as I was told. Instead of the drab hallway I was used to,
my bedroom door suddenly opened to a cozy room filled with bookshelves, well cared
for plants, and an enormous antique desk lit by a single brass lamp.
I tried again several times, always with the same result. Then when I
removed my hand from the circle and opened the door, the hallway was back.
That room you saw is my study in my house at the end of
the street. Miss Mortimer smiled. Now, if you ever need anything,
or even just to talk, you know where to find me. But how
I couldn't even say it. See these symbols around the circle. You must
never remove or change them in any way. If one should happen to get
smudged, let me know right away, and do not use the circle until
I fix it. No matter what understand I nodded, I thought I did
good. Now get some sleep. Your mother and father will be home in
the morning, and they'll need all the help you can give them. Miss
Mortimer wasn't wrong. Both my parents eventually came home, but they refused to
speak to each other or take care of the house. Dirty dishes and overflowing
trash bags piled up like monuments to the disgust they felt for each other.
They mostly ignored me, just another bitter reminder of the lives they could have
had, and honestly, that suited me just fine. I stayed out of
the house as much as possible, reading in the local library, playing in
the cul de sac with other neighbor kids until the street lights came on,
and visiting Miss Mortimer for the next two years. Anytime I had a question
or needed to talk to an adult, I just put my hand in a
strange circle and stepped into Miss Mortimer's study. She was always ready to feed
me something delicious, to listen to my childish problems, or even just give
me a clean space to draw as far as I was concerned. Stretching out
on her big Turkish carpet with my sketch pad and a cup of tea,
it's the best feeling in the world. With my trusty crayon in hand,
I'd try to recreate the unsettling images that I found in Miss Mortimer's old books.
Women with mouths in the back of their heads, men transforming into hyenas,
children with a single eye in the middle of their foreheads. While I
talked and sketched, Miss Mortimer would stir the black cast iron pot that was
always bubbling on her hot plate, or take notes in her little notebook.
The cozy little room was my home away from home, the one place I
felt safe, until suddenly it wasn't. Just like on most afternoons, I
had tossed off my backpack and opened my bedroom door with one hand on this
Mortimer's chalk circle, eager to tell her about my day. But the study
was empty, the little brass lamp was turned off, the hot plate was
cold, and Miss Mortimer's favorite teapot lay shattered on the Turkish carpet. Something
terrible had happened. I could feel it before I could investigate further. However,
I glanced through the open door behind me and saw a sight that frightened
me more than any of the monsters and Miss Mortimer's old books. My mother
was rooting around in my bedroom. Where should come from? She slurred as
I appeared suddenly behind the door. What are you hiding back there? I
could smell the booze on her breath from three feet away. My eyes daughtered
in Miss Mortimer's circle, betraying me to my horror. My mother picked up
a pair of jim shorts from the floor and began to wipe the chalky symbols
away. It's not enough that I bust my ass every day to pay for
the stupid fucking house. They said, No, you go and draw all
over it. Ungrateful, that's what you are. It's like your deadbeat father.
Stop, I shouted. I couldn't push past her. In time,
my past and this Mortimer study had been completely wiped away. But you dare
talk back to me, mister. Now listen. I ordered us a pizza.
We're gonna have dinner like a normal goddamn family tonight. Understand. I've
had enough of you skulking around him here As she dragged me by the collar
to the kitchen. All I could think about was the gloom and this Mortimer's
study and the broken teapot on its rug. One way or another, I
had to get back there. After my mother stomped off to bed alone and
my father passed out on the couch. I snuck out into the oily darkness
of the garage and tumbled around until I found a tin can full of sidewalk
chalk. I hurried up to my bedroom and sat staring at the inside of
my door, trying to recall Miss Mortimer's odd symbols. There had been one
that looked like a tree with no leaves, two that were more like crow's
footprints, fourth with the appearance of a heart stabbed through with a spear.
The final two are the hardest to draw. It just thinking about them made
my head hurt. But ten minutes later I was pretty satisfied with the circle
that I'd redrawn on my door. It's true, it wasn't perfect, but
I had to try something didn't. I took a deep breath, but my
hand in the circle i'd drawn pulled open the door. I wanted to cheer.
I'd done it. There was the study out in darkness. The little
brass lamp and the hot plate were both in place, but the shattered teapot
was gone. I wondered if maybe Miss Mortimer had cleaned it up. That
means that she was all right after all. I sprang through the door,
sure that she'd be proud of me for recreating her circle all by myself.
My breath came out in a cloud of bluish white. It was cold in
the study, and the floor felt wrong, squishy, almost it was made
of human skin. I shuddered and reached out for the draw string of the
little brass lamp. When I turned it on, the bare bulb emitted an
eerie greenish blue glow. It wasn't all that was different either. I could
see now that what I thought was a pot was actually more like a cauldron.
Greasy bones and hair floated in the coagulated soup instead of Miss Mortimer's vibrant
collection of plants. Stuffed crows and animals skull lined the bookshelves. Their uncanny
glass eyes seemed to follow me as I tiptoed across the weird, squishy floor.
I wasn't sure why I was being so careful hadn't I always been a
welcome guest in Miss Mortimer's house. Most disturbingly of all, there was a
breeze in the study, wheezing gusts of air that seemed to blow down from
the ceiling. When I looked up, however, all I could see were
layers and layers of something ragged hanging from the ceiling substance halfway between tattered cloth
and spider's webs. Like everything else in the dim light of the lamp,
it had an awful bluish color that reminded me of dead things rotting underwater.
I took a deep breath and kept walking forward. Up ahead, I saw
an angular hallway that led to the rest of the house. I froze.
The hallway hadn't been there before, I was sure of it was I even
inside Miss mortimer study at all. I've been so excited to find her that
I hadn't even considered the fact that I might now be somewhere very different,
somewhere very very wrong. I could feel that weird, erratic breeze on the
back of my neck, smell it even cold, reek, like meat that
had gone bad in the freezer. I spun around and looked up for the
second time and saw its source. It dragged its distended body towards me through
the cobwebby rags with eight spider like limbs, each caped by a horribly human
hand. Its face was a nightmare version of Miss Mortimer's lanky, brown hair,
pupilss white eyes, a jaw that was opening wide enough to swallow me
whole run. The voice of the Realness Mortimer boomed in my head. It
came out of nowhere, but it sat me out of my paralysis. As
I sprinted across the spongy ground, those awful hands grazed my hair and tangled
in my shirt fabric ripped. As I squirmed free and flung myself back through
my bedroom door, I slammed it shut. I heard a hungry pounding from
the other side. I hastily wiped away the less than perfect circle I'd drawn
and scrambled backwards, breathing hard. Now I understood why Miss Mortimer had warned
me to never ever alter the symbols around the circle. But I wasn't ready
to give up. I just have to find it a different way into the
house at the end of the street. For those of you guys that like
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