Oak Avenue (Dark Corners collection) by Brandi Reeds

Author:Brandi Reeds [Reeds, Brandi]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Published: 2018-09-26T16:00:00+00:00

6

CRACKERS

We didn’t mention the episode again the rest of that weekend. Not when we stripped the door of its dirt and grime, not when we scraped a century’s worth of paint from its crevices and treated it to a turpentine scrub, and not when we carried it into our new home.

The whole scene must have been a dream. A very intense, vivid dream.

But the house feels happier this week, now that the door is propped against the wall in the front parlor, a drop cloth spread beneath it. The oppressive weight I’ve been feeling is gone now . . . or perhaps I really did just need to get a good night’s sleep.

Ed will be home tomorrow. The week has passed without major incident. The attic door still opens, of course. But as everyone keeps telling me, I should expect things like that to happen in a house so old.

With Sabrina on my hip, as always, I place a bag of groceries on the kitchen countertop, then carry her to the front room, where both the door and her toys are currently housed.

I stand back, and from a distance, I study what has to be the architectural find of the century. The graining of the fir, raw and breathing for the first time in decades, is open and ready for stain.

“Pretty door, isn’t it, pumpkin?”

“Pretty,” Sabrina parrots.

I set her down on the floor; she hugs me tight, her chubby cheek pressed to my leg, and looks up at me with her angelic blue eyes.

“Zozozozo.”

“What is zozo?” I ask.

“Zo.” She grins.

“Show Mommy.”

She walks over to the door and pats it with her palm. “Zo. Zozozozo.”

“Is that right?” I crouch next to her. “Are you trying to say door? Brina, look at Mama.” I overenunciate: “Door.”

“Zo.”

Such a happy child. Even through last weekend’s turmoil, she remained content.

“When Daddy comes home tomorrow, we’re going to refinish it and hang it upstairs.”

She drops onto her diapered bottom, then rights herself on her feet again and toddles toward her bin of blocks.

I spill the blocks onto the floor and touch the iTunes icon on my phone. “I’ll put away the snacks, and then I’ll be right back to play. Okay?”

She nods, already engrossed with her toys.

“Okay!” I pat her on the head and return to the kitchen.

I feel an inexplicable cold the moment I pass through the hallway, an uncomfortable icicle stabbing at my spine. It’s as if the temperature dropped twenty degrees once I crossed the threshold. And once I round the corner, I turn numb.

I can’t garner voice enough to scream.

There’s a fine white powder coating the countertops.

“What in God’s name . . .”

Is it snow?

The substance is room temperature and grainy, like sand.

I look up at the ceiling to see if the tiles have begun to disintegrate. But of course they haven’t.

At closer inspection, I see it’s crushed crackers. The box I just purchased is out of the bag and overturned. The cellophane sleeves that contain the columns of crackers are shredded, and the crackers themselves are pounded to dust.

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