The Door’s Locked

Knock. Knock. Knock.

Cherry stood in front of the accident: a lake hidden between tall whispering trees with a perfectly preserved old wooden dock. The lake, which had a local nickname, but wasn’t important enough for Cherry to remember, contained countless good memories; it washed over the area in a thick coat of paint: its hues ever-changing after every visitor. But that was its lie, and within that lie hid its true depths, the memories caged, and the number of bodies it had stored over its long life. Even Cherry couldn’t help but indulge, imagining a day when she would watch the stillness, soaking her feet in the stained water.

Henry, a twelve-year-old boy now represented by a grinning photo of himself holding a baseball bat stapled to a white, flower-covered cross, was too trusting.

So, he was lured.

The lake was empty of people, partly because it was noon on a Monday and partly because of the dead boy. The air was a bit humid from the morning rain, and the sun shone enough to where Cherry could feel herself beginning to sweat, but it didn’t stop her body from trembling. The lake invaded. It nauseated. She couldn’t take a deep enough breath, and despite the warm day buried her hands deep in her jacket pockets. And even though she couldn’t stop the movement of her body, her eyes, semi-blurred, were staring straight through the paint, the lie, at three ripples in the water in the middle of the lake.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

Her eyes closed at one point when the crying sounds were too noticeable. When the real pain cut through her senses stronger than the lingering's of one. It made her question often. Why am I here? Why did I agree to this again—to be uncomfortable and bothered? This doubt, this hesitant feeling, was sewn into her skin, and the only time she noticed it was when the strings were plucked, tearing her fragile, healing skin.

“Just leave,” she thought after another distant sob. “There’s no point. Never was or will be—but you’ve already been paid—I’ll pay them back—no, you won’t.…Cherry, calm down. A child died. And you’re here because all those years ago when you knew nothing, you learned infinity can be caged. You’re here because they believe you have a key.” She clenched her jaw at the old childhood memory of The Hanged Man lightly swinging in her closet that always replayed near death, age, and questioning. “And they’ll always pay for that key.”

A pull made her take an unwilling step toward the old wooden dock. She opened her eyes, and everything seemed so bright. Another pull—like an invisible rope tied around her heart with someone tugging on the other end—made her take a second step. A third step and frantic whispers, so low and faint that they could have been mistaken for the rustling of trees, crawled into her right ear. Cherry scrunched up her face and tilted her head side to side as if trying to hear a distant sound.

There were some nearby. But they were far, far in the past while in Cherry’s present. And there was another, the one at the end of the rope tugging at her insides; someone or something—a creature; yes, a creature.

It sat in the middle of the lake.

Cherry tilted her head to the right, listening. It mimicked her while playing with a white object in its bony, human-looking hands. Cherry wondered what it was, and with that thought, the creature showed it to her, but it hid it again before she could understand. The rope around her heart tightened with the interaction. Now, she could see more, could see that its head was a skull, a mixture of a wolf’s muzzle and a large fish’s head tied together with thin tree roots weaved through sharp holes in the bones. There were four eyes, two on the sides of its head, far apart like a fish, and a second pair above the first, closer together—the wolf. And even though it was a skull, the eyeballs were still inside the sockets, pinkish and glistening.

“Old,” she whispered. “Old.” Yes, from long ago, too old to have an age. Unbodied and untethered—this was the one that lured Henry.

Cherry heard its laughter: a rapid-fire of a child’s giggle, then a deep, hearty laugh, an old man’s wheezing, and in between, its own strange croaking.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

If one watched Cherry work from the inside and out, one could say that she wasn’t exactly where she had arrived. That the world around her was now out of place. Yes, the lake was there, and yes, anyone could walk over and see Cherry in front of it and hear the cries that start and stop and start again. But she was elsewhere once the pull happened, and an interaction was made.

Before stepping onto the wooden dock, Cherry closed her eyes, and said a short prayer made of words entirely her own—more out of habit than belief. As the last syllable left her lips, she was pulled again, a forced step onto the dock which moaned a soft creak. And when she opened her eyes, she thought she saw plump purple fingers letting go of the wood at the end of the dock.

Cherry’s eyes blurred…

Sundown. Two shadows: one standing skipping rocks while the other sat, leaning against the thrower’s legs, gently rubbing the thrower’s calf. Sunrise. Children’s laughter—a stolen one within it—with playful yells echoing, sending ripples through the paint, as they jumped off the dock. A wave of deep night and a lone man sat in his small wooden boat, an orange glow from his third cigarette. Hunters follow prey, and predators follow the hunters. Something was thrown, farther than it should have been, into the water. The trees rustle and let go of a hundred birds into the orange-stained sky. A swimmer floating, eyes closed, and alone. A curious new visitor. A strange reflection.

Cherry now stood at the end of the dock.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

The ageless thing held out the white object again: a dirty white ball with red stitching and a black mark. Cherry could sense the thing smile. She could feel acid rising from her stomach, and her teeth chattered. An ice-cold touch stung the base of her neck.

The paralysis, a rush of panic, desperation. Shallow breath cut short. A struggle between him and nature and the ageless thing. A fight lasting a long, unending few minutes.

Cherry was frozen. Her body wanted to gasp for air, but she couldn't. She could only force her breathing through her nose and try to calm her racing heart.

The ageless thing cocked its head to the left.

The ice-cold touch was gone. Cherry gasped for air. She wanted to back away, but as her foot lifted, the cold touch turned into an ice shard digging into the base of her neck. The ageless thing threw the ball in the air and caught it. Cherry’s head snapped down. And Henry, the lured boy, stared back at her from under the rippled skin of water. Only silence came out of his desperate scream: brown eyes wide and searching and begging and crying as his hand curled into a fist, slamming against the inevitable.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

Then Henry stopped: his body unwinding, his face relaxing as it became his time to rest, unwilling and unwanted. “Watch,” the ageless thing said with a feminine voice. “Watch,” it said with a croak. The boy’s story didn’t end or start or have a place in time anymore. The image of him blurred as thousands upon thousands of milliseconds tore themselves apart, going back and forth and back again—until the boy revived, his face twisting into another scream.

Silence.

His hand balled into a fist.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

The cold was gone. Cherry lifted her head to see the living water slithering through the paint, the lie, with its secrets. All of them trapped. Some were under the water’s solid surface like Henry, trying to escape; some were still like statues from knowing; others were halfway out of the waters, reaching, grasping at nothing for someone to see them, take them, save them. And not all were human. No, she could see antlers sticking out of the water, wings, and tails twitching, and some limbs belonged to beings she couldn’t identify.

“Shit,” Cherry mouthed.

After catching her breath, she stared at the ageless thing. It stared back. Cherry on the perfectly preserved dock. It on its throned cemetery.

The ageless thing wanted her, and she knew that because even with everything unveiled, she could still see herself soaking her feet under the clear sky, listening to the wind caress the trees, but as that light whisper of a daydream played, Cherry saw the ageless creature’s eyeballs dart behind her.

“You can leave now,” it said with Henry’s voice.

It spread its arms wide, the ball still in hand, gesturing to the lake. It cocked its head, eyes glancing behind her again, and then held out the white ball toward her. There was another cold touch, this time on her hand inside her jacket pocket. Her heart thumped hard, and her stomach lurched as her fingers curved around the new wet object.

Cherry glanced down at the water: Henry was gone.

She looked up, and the ageless thing was gone too. But the paint was still there, and her moment, unlike all the others before her, was stained not with more paint, but with a thin, drying ink.

Cherry turned to walk away, but once she did, her chest tightened as if her lungs were being filled with imagined water. Aggressive, panicked murmurs invaded her ears. The pull around her chest and heart was so strong that she thought that if she lost control, she would fall back and slam her head against the old wood. She was here too long. One step at a time, slowly, to make sure nothing looked off.

Breathe. Everything is okay.

As she walked away, one by one, the various voices of the victims drifted away, and once there was only a small gap between the sole of her foot and the grass, she heard one last whimper.

Sundown. One shadow was at the end of the dock, skipping rocks. Sunrise. A child’s scream—a stolen one—smearing on the lonely dock. An empty boat and a floating cigarette in the water. Hunters, predator, prey. Someone went farther than they should have. Hundreds of birds diving straight down from a red-stained sky. The back of a swimmer caressed by wavering phantom hands. A corpse’s bloat. A kill.

Cherry stepped off the dock. One clear breath, let the shivers die down, and the nausea subside. She looked straight ahead.

Henry’s mother and father were huddled together, waiting for her answers. It then occurred to her that she couldn’t remember their names—not that names were important.

Cherry smiled at them, and her face cracked.

The mother looked at her smile, and her red puffy eyes widened, searching through Cherry’s. She wanted to say something, but it seemed her cries were not done; she put a hand to her chest while trying to stifle the emotion.

Then an older woman appeared through Cherry’s gifted eyes, walking in a blurred, unfamiliar kitchen, opening a cupboard. As she reached for a mug, she jerked, a hand clutching at her chest. The first few hours of death alone on the floor.

Cherry approached the parents and asked the mother, “Your mother has passed, correct? Heart attack?”

“Oh-uh. Wow.” Henry’s mother straightened her back and wiped her tears as seriousness overcame her. “Yes, about five years ago now.”

“There are spirits here, but Henry isn’t one of them. He’s with your mother.” Cherry took a deep breath. “There is nothing to worry about.” She then looked at the father, whose clenched jaw, narrow eyes, and focused stare told her his thoughts. “He’s moved on.”

Henry’s mother tried to contain herself, tried very hard, as she said. “Good.”

“Again, I am so sorry for your loss,” Cherry said.

Cherry looked at the father, and within his red-rimmed eyes she could see that he needed more. Relief is one of the hardest things to hide, Cherry thought. And there was no relief within him, unlike the mother, whose eyes started to daze into inward grief. Even if she didn’t fully believe in Cherry’s ability, it at least gave her an excuse to try and pick up her drowned heart.

Cherry’s fingers twitched around the item in her pocket, forgetting she was still holding it. She could feel the smile on the ageless thing again. She had only seconds to decide whether to give it to them, seconds to try and figure out if this would cause more harm than good.

But Cherry’s hand started to slip out of her jacket pocket. She couldn’t tell if this was her action, her will, and as the round object came into view, the father’s eyes darted to it. When he realized what it was, his breath caught in his throat. No choice now. Cherry held it out.

"Is this Henry's?" she asked, already knowing.

The mother gasped, "Oh my God."

The father took it, flinching when he felt the wet, slimy coating. "How?"

"It's his sign," Cherry's said. "It's his sign that everything will be okay."

The father looked at Cherry, "You didn't touch the water. You—"

He looked at the lake, then at Cherry, and back to the object. He turned the ball until he saw the black mark, the signature of memory and ownership. His mouth opened to ask how again, but his body turned and left, walking back to his home that was only a mile or so away with the baseball that had helped lure Henry into shallow depths.

The mother’s tears dripped down her neck. "He's…we thought…Henry took it everywhere with him. It, uh, it was his comfort if that makes sense." The mother's face twisted, and she hid her face with her hands. Cherry waited until she could speak again. "We searched everywhere. We thought it was gone...at the bottom of the lake." Again, her face twisted. "H-how? We didn't see you—"

Cherry looked into her eyes and said, "Henry said to keep it safe."

The smile was wet with tears, and to Cherry, that was good enough reason to leave as quickly as she could. Because sometimes good news did sound like a lie, and she had to make sure they believed in it. How else could they move on and live the rest of their lives if they knew Henry was trapped somewhere with no key?

"Thank you...you know a friend told us about you...we are—especially him—uh-we don't know if we fully believe it, but it helps. It's something." The mother looked at her husband, who was now just a small figure rushing to sanctuary. "He never liked this lake. Said it gave him the creeps. I-I guess he was-um...well, anyway. Thank you.”

When the session was over, after more questions and reassurances, Cherry could finally walk away from the lake, but there was yet another pull, weak and desperate, and with it, soft, stolen laughter twisting with the whispering of trees. Cherry gave one last look and said a half-empty prayer for another infinity trapped in a cage.

Knock. Knock. Knock.