Mom was about to say something when the lights above the table flickered.
Uncle Walt jumped up from his chair and sprinted for the cellar door. Throwing it open, he practically threw himself down the stairs. A moment later, every light in the house went off. The record player spun to a stop as the music faded.
“Walt, what on earth are you…”
The light over the sink flashed. It was the same pattern, only reversed. Instead of blink, blink, pause, blink, it was flash, flash, pause, flash.
I jumped when I heard my uncle’s voice in the darkness.
“See?” he asked.
The flashing moved to the living room.
“Every breaker in the house is off,” he said. “Whatever is making those lights flash isn’t coming from Central Maine Power.”
“It could still be an electrical problem,” Mom said. “In fact, I imagine this just means it’s even more serious.”
In the years since, I’ve studied electricity enough to believe that Mom was wrong. Walt didn’t have a generator or any batteries hooked up to his power. There was no good explanation for why the lights flashed at all, let alone in a pattern that roved through the house. Uncle Walt could have hooked up an elaborate system to trick us into believing that there were fairies in his house, but that wasn’t in his nature. He wasn’t a trickster like that.
His house and his life were just strange—that’s one of the things that I liked best about visiting. In other parts of the world, people call you silly or dumb for believing in weird things. At Uncle Walt’s house, you would have to be dumb to not believe. If it’s all around you, it’s undeniable.
The next time we came back for a visit, I asked about the lights.
Uncle Walt shrugged and waved and told me that whatever had been causing the flicker had simply moved on. As quickly as the mysteries arrived, they moved on. Oh well. But there was always something new to wonder at. One time we saw the northern lights over the hills, rolling across the sky. One winter we saw footprints that led from the side door, David’s door, out into the snow that disappeared after exactly thirteen paces.
Uncle Walt never tried to come up with dismissive, rational explanations. We experienced what the house offered and sometimes we even investigated, but we never jumped to any conclusions. Most people feel the need to classify and explain. Uncle Walt accepted things as they were.
There’s a dark side to that philosophy though. The dark side is that when it’s the middle of the night and you can’t sleep because of the hook and eye latch at the neighbor’s house, you have to accept that there might be telekinetic vampires down in the man’s cellar.
If they’re over there, they might decide to stroll down the road to my house. After all, Mr. Engel is at the hospital now. If they were feeding on him, they’re probably pretty hungry by now.
I’m moving through the dark living room, trying to find the fan. I really don’t want to turn on the light and advertise that someone is home. If anything is out there moving around in the dark, I would rather have them assume that this house is still unoccupied.
Then again, telekinetic vampires can probably track someone by their scent. I’m sure I left my scent all over Mr. Engel’s house and it’s probably coming off of this house in thick waves. If they’re out there, they’re probably headed my direction.
My hands find the fan and I trace the cord back to the wall so I can unplug it.
At the bottom of the stairs, I stop to look through the window, across the meadow.
When I was a kid, Uncle Walt used to keep the field mowed short. One spring he ran over a family of baby rabbits. After that, he only cut the field in the fall. He called it ”bushwhacking” the field, because it would be grown up with heavy brush and seedlings by the time he cut it.
“Around here,” he said, “the forest is always encroaching. If you let that field go for two summers, it would be impossible to clear. Not impossible, but you know what I mean.”
I did know. Together, we had cleared space for a garden behind the manure shed. It had taken forever. The black alders were so thick back there and we had to pull each clump with the big tractor.
The tall grass was pretty in the summer. It would wave in the slightest breeze and I always thought about little rabbit parents, free to raise their babies now that nobody bushwhacked the meadow until fall. Unfortunately, it was also terrific cover for whatever might try to sneak up on the house. Across that meadow and down the road, Mr. Engel’s house sat in the dark. The cellar door was open because the hook was out of the eye. Anything that came up from the cellar could track me here and invisibly move through the tall grass of the meadow.
I like the strangeness of Uncle Walt’s house and the idea that anything is possible here, but it’s not a comforting thought at three in the morning.
I take the fan upstairs.
(Everything seems clearer in the morning.)
Everything seems clearer in the morning.
Overnight, the heat has broken and the air has that crisp edge that Maine is famous for. I think that’s why people like to vacation up here so much. If you come and stay for a couple of weeks, even in the armpit of summer, you’re going to wake up at least once to a morning where you can see your breath. Maine wants to remind you that the winter nights are dark and deep. August is only two months away from the first snowfall.
That contrast—between the heat of the noon sun and the overnight chill—reminds you that you have to cherish each moment of hot weather. It will soon be gone.
I cherish the cooler air as I come downstairs
