It happened three weeks ago, three weeks that seems like enough time for me to grow out of my adolescence and into adulthood it's been so consuming of every thought in my head. To be honest, I don't even know what's real and what's fantasy anymore. Away at college, my older brother Ethan had told me fifteen would be a strange and difficult age to get through, but I have a feeling he wasn't talking about this.
Six months ago, my parents and I moved into a rather peculiar house on what has to be one of the oddest suburban blocks in all of America if not the world. Still, to this day, I remember my mom yelling out, "John! Stop running around the neighborhood and come look at the house," waving her hand from the front porch of a house that could only be classified as "Steampunk Rustic".
Black wrought iron railing covered by a reclaimed barnwood banister greeted would be guests as it opened to more reclaimed barnwood for the entire front porch. It was obvious that the house gave off a different vibe depending on the individual looking at it. From my mother's point of view, I can only guess it was something like "Rainbows and Unicorns that shit rainbow sherbet". As a self-proclaimed nerd and bookworm, it didn't really give me one particular vide. Realistically, I would say it more followed my mood which became evident three weeks ago. No matter what the vibe or the opinion of each person that saw it, one thing was always the same. "It's a work of art," felt like a ringtone on the cellphone of a PR consultant who never stopped getting calls.
To think there was even this much Copper, Brass, Wrought Iron and Reclaimed Wood in the entire state of Oklahoma was mindboggling. No detail in the 5,000 sq/ft house had been overlooked. My dad is quite the detail-oriented person and an amateur architecture aficionado, so the house was immediately on the top of his list. His exact words were, "Steampunk meets Frank Lloyd Wright", without even knowing there was an actual Frank Lloyd Wright kitty corner from us that would become the center of several missing persons in four months' time.
This house sat on one of the corners where four very large-lotted corner houses converged. At the center of the streets intersecting was a large chunk of grass and the ugliest, creepiest, most massive old oak tree I'd ever seen. It had made the intersection into a round-about which the HOA had decided to keep and mark the tree as an official historical landmark. Just staring at the tree at night makes me want to piss my pants and it feels like something that grew right out of Stephen King's mind.
Straight in front of our house was a dilapidated, rundown, eye-sore of a Victorian you ever did see. Even that house had some crazy commotion happen about six weeks ago. Maybe it's the street we live on?
The house to our right looks like a mini Scottish Castle with a wooden drawbridge as it's front gate and everything. I've seen an old man in one of the upstairs windows a few times, but if I hadn't I would think no one lives in the house.
"John," mom called again to break my trance of the old oak, "hurry up and get in here! Stop making the nice realtor wait," she pointed at the man standing next to the door that looked more like a butler in his three-piece black suit than a realtor. As I ran up the steps to the front door, that was the first time I noticed the realtor's eyes. My heart jumped, and my legs followed suit as I bounced into my mom's side. His eyes were a beedi, glowing, bright yellow that for some inexplicable reason made me feel like I had just sold my soul.
"John," she held me up from falling. Now, I'm up to date on my movie and tv watching, especially horror, and I can't remember ever seeing anything about someone having Black Cat Yellow Eyes that wasn't attached to a horror story of some sort.
"No worries, Mam," the man stood up and said, "I am sorry, young man. I have a genetic defect that only occurs once out of every 500,000,000 people. I assure you though," he bent his eyes down to mine and whispered, "they are real."
If the Mad Hatter was dressed as a Butler, this would be the visual. It looked as if he had control of his eyes separately from one another as I could have sworn his right eye did a circle as he looked at me. Between the four off the wall houses, the creepy damn oak tree and now the Mad Hatter Butler for a realtor, you would have thought I could have come up with some stupid childish excuse to prevent my parents from buying the house. Of course, I was as mesmerized by the house as everyone else. Stupid me.
Ethan helped us move in and setup his own room. There were seven bedrooms in the house and thinking back that probably should have been more of a red flag for me. Who the hell has seven bedrooms anymore other than celebrities?
Night one in the house was the first event, subtle as it was. According to the Mad Hatter, the lot had been here since the late 1600's. House after house had been demolished and then rebuilt on this lot. Of the four, it was the only one that seemed to keep up with the times. The current house had been built on spec by the builder and had sat vacant for over a year before my dad decided to buy it. As I emptied box after box of useless crap into my room, I kept looking out the window at what I can only call our "backyard". Perfectly rectangular, a large patch of green luscious grass was connected to the back deck and patio. From there it reached out as brown dead grass, if you could call it that. It went out for what seemed like forever before running into the reclaimed wood fence that enclosed the property and stood at least eight feet high. Looking back, I don't think I ever saw the backyard the day we looked at the house and dad bought it.
As that first day passed and slowly became night, I would look at some newly planted trees in the back-right corner. Tall and slender young trees, eight of them planted in that one corner and no others until you came to the landscaped portion of the yard. As the sun set, I watched as the light faded and the great color the sky turned in the disappearing light. That's when I noticed the one large old oak tree in the back right of the property. I vaguely remembered not minutes before seeing and thinking about how odd the eight young trees looked in that same corner. As I puzzled over my own thoughts of being mistaken, I saw them. Glowing in the old oak tree about fifteen feet off the ground were those beedi yellow eyes. That damn realtor was perched on a branch staring at me with those crazy yellow eyes, I was sure of it. Opening the window, I was about to give the nut-ball a piece of my mind when they vanished. Or were they ever actually there?
Ethan was putting his baseball trophies on a shelf next to his own window when I rushed in. I tried to put into words what I saw, the eight trees into one tree, the yellow eyes of the Mad Hatter, but it just sounded crazy when I said it aloud. Staring at me, Ethan just broke into laughter and said he wished he would have recorded it for Twitter. I couldn't blame him and just started cracking up with him.
During the first two weeks of being in the house I explored as much of it as I could, and I was defiantly obsessed with research into not only the house but also the neighborhood. Every doorway had some strange markings around the doorframe. My dad said they were just part of the theme of the house, which did kind of make sense since the house is on the eccentric side, but they all still seemed to follow the same pattern. Figuring that it might be Latin, going with the eccentric thought, I researched every letter only to realize it wasn't Latin at all.
After ten days I read the property was once owned by a Preacher. Very little was known about him except that he was a Christian Preacher, but there was nothing about what happened to him. Amazingly, the history of ownership of the property from the first house right up to us, was pretty detailed except for what happened to the owner before the next owner took possession.
Reading about the Preacher's life, an article about him in a local paper said he was a scholar in ancient Angelic Folklore which led me into a bottomless hell of information on rumors and speculation on Angels and Demons I never thought in a million years I would have read previously.
Exactly two weeks after we moved into the house, I found a match to the markings and I'd also found a lot more of the markings than just the doorway. They are everywhere in the house. On the underside of the floorboards, every fireplace mantle, every windowsill and even on the custom furniture. Shockingly, they are etched in every corner of the windows in such small print it looked like a scratch mark. In a bizarre turn of events, the language turned out to be Aramaic.
Translating it turned out to be a bit patchy since Aramaic is a very old language and there is some conflict on words by the academic community, but as soon as I translated what was around my doorway I thought it sounded familiar. Ironically, the left side of my door frame simply translated to "This side makes you tall" and the right side said, "This side makes you small". I pretty much lost hope that they really meant anything when I read the top translation of "Why is a Raven like a Writing Desk?". So, the builder was just being funny or, so I thought.
Just for shits and giggles I decided to translate what I could from the front doorway. It's a rather large door with glass panels on either side. The top, left, right and on the floor, all said the same thing four times. "Abandon All Hope, Ye Who Enter Here". That was the first time I pissed myself in this house, but not the last. A little phrase or two from a popular kids' book, though oddly connected to the nickname I gave the yellowed eyed realtor I swear was watching me from the backyard, can be laughed off. It's harder to accept the marking to the Gates of Hell is written around your front door.
At that point, I just decided not to look anything else up. I already had quotes from two prominent books, Lewis Carroll's 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' and Dante's 'The Divine Comedy' written in Aramaic, of all things, on two doorframes in the house. Like an idiot, I kept it to myself and decided to just blame the builder as not only eccentric but also missing a couple of screws.
School started the very next day, my Sophomore year. The year of the driver's license and, undoubtedly for me, the year I would be officially nicknamed 'Nerd' or 'Brain' or some other new-aged version of those creatively thought up by 'The Cool Kids'. Lucky for me, I made my first friend who just so happened to live two blocks away from me.
At some point after lunch, I began to wonder if nothing in this world was a coincidence. Tim, the new friend, was also the son of the builder. In what he termed 'An unfortunate turn of events', his dad had been hospitalized two weeks after finishing the house. Without explaining it in so many words, he had a psychotic break and ended up in a mental health hospital for over a year. Due to this, the house was never listed on the market until the day my dad called. Tim's dad had been discharged from the hospital two weeks prior to us seeing the house. He had spent two weeks on the landscaping before listing it. The ads for the house hadn't even been run yet. He said we were the only one's to look at the house because my dad bought it that morning we saw it.
"You should have seen my dad," Tim gushed. "He was in a trance working on that house night and day, giving every detail his stamp of approval."
To most people, that would sound pretty normal, a builder making sure the house was built properly. To me, because my mom is an interior designer and works with general contractors constantly, this was really strange. Usually the 'General' on the house isn't laying subflooring and screwing in light fixtures every single day. Just using the word 'trance' gave me the creeps as if I was staring at that old oak in the round-about.
After school, Tim and I walked home together. Being about two miles from the school, we figured it was better than waiting for the buses to roll out. Asking him about the markings around the house, he stopped, and his eyes glossed over as he spoke in a monotone voice, "Ha. I saw those. They were some kind of hidden joke my dad said." As he took a step forward, he started talking about gym glass and how he couldn't stand dressing down in front of every "dude" in class.
That night, sitting at the steampunk style desk in my room, I did homework for several hours. Before calling it quits I remembered that Tim had given me a present from his father who specifically told him to give it to the 'boy' in the house. Kneeling down in my closet, I riffled through my backpack and pulled out the black paper wrapped box shape. Fitting given the eccentric house, why not an eccentric gift. Tearing it open, the box had "Steampunk Tarot Deck" written on the blue and copper lid. A little note card was taped to the lid which said, "You'll need these". Knowing what I know now, I would say if anyone gives you a tarot deck as a house warming gift as a need then you should move. A "need" is a toothbrush or a plunger or maybe even a BBQ utensil set. Who the fuck gives you Tarot Cards?!
Just as I was looking at the beautifully artistic Steampunk cards artwork, I started to feel dizzy and light-headed. It happened so fast, I still don't remember how it happened except to say I rolled forward into my closet while blinking. When I opened my eyes, I was laying outside in the grass staring straight up. Right before my eyes were tree branches dashing through the darkness and a huge fucking owl with glassy eyes looking down at me. "Hoo," the timing couldn't have been more perfect for its iconic sound.
Sitting up, I still had the box of tarot cards in my lap. I was laying in the grass by the old oak tree in the center of the round-about with no idea how I go there. Looking at my house with a light on in the front living room, I got to my feet.
"How goes the new life, new life, new life, in the new house?" my heart pumped so hard I threw the box of cards in the air. All the adrenaline in my body felt like it was rushing to my head pounding. Gracefully, the yellow eyed butler caught the box then bowed holding them out in front. I felt surreal like I was in an Anime all of a sudden.
"What the fuck are you doing out here, stalker?!" I was a bit harsh due to the scare he gave me.
"Ouch! That hurt a bit, a bit, a little bit," he laughed as I took the cards. His yellow eyes met mine as he stood up straight. "Oh, I see. You figured something out, did you not?"
"Are you trying to be the Mad Hatter or are you really fucking nuts?" the smile dropped from his face and his eyes squinted at me.
"Careful, boy," he said in a much lower darker voice. "My grace only extends so far."
"What's your name, anyway?" he quickly smiled, and his eyes grew huge as his hands clamped together.
"It makes me so happy you want to know my name," spinning around on one foot. "So happy, so happy." Stopping with his head cocked, "Alas, I have had many names in my life." Gazing off into nothing, "But, this is a riddle just for you." He pushed my nose like a button on an elevator, "because I like you."
I turned and walked back toward my house. Two steps in I turned and looked back, but he was gone. My spine tingled as I sprinted back to the house and through the front door. The owl still shows up in that tree from time to time.
Over the next week I read up on Tarot cards. How to use them, how to read them and more importantly, why anyone would need to use them. What seemed to be more than a little strange to me, was the builder gave me these with something in mind, yet he couldn't just tell me what it was. Riddles seemed to be the only thing that came with our new house.
Halloween was the first real nightmare. My dad decided to setup the front porch to be kind of creepy for the trick or treaters. I had Tim and a couple other guys from school come over to watch horror movies and spend the night. My dad took a crushing blow when Tim revealed that he wouldn't get any trick or treaters because no one, not even adults, would come to the houses on the corners. There were way too many stories. Red flag skipped.
Ethan went out early on and came back before midnight. Since we were up on a sugar high from candy my mom bought us, he just crashed the movie binge. A little after eleven, in-between movies, I decided to spill the already creepy story about the house and the realtor. Tim and my school buddies, who had grown up in the area, looked pale white after I told them about the last event, ending up at the old oak with the realtor. Again, another red flag not raised.
Laughing, Ethan just blurted out, "As if!" He threw a piece of candy at me. "Good story, though. I give it a 7," he continued laughing at me. Half heartedly smiling, the rest of the guys were getting their color back.
"Ethan," I looked him dead in the eyes, "have you ever known me to be That Good of a story teller? Honestly?"
Quickly, the smile vanished from Ethan's face, "No," he started to grow pale, "no you haven't."
Looking back on it now, I probably should have just gone along with it. In the back of my mind I thought about just playing along as if it was a joke, but my stupid pride got in the way. Who knows if things would have turned out different if I had.
Crawling over to the closet, I knelt down facing inward with the closet light off. Within a few seconds I felt dizzy and light headed. Feeling myself falling forward, I knew what was about to happen and I would never regret anything more.
When my eyes opened, I was lying in the grass, facing up at the old oak. This time there was no owl. Sitting up and turning around, I could see Ethan bolt out the front door of the house with the rest of the group following closely behind.
"Holy shit! You weren't lying!" Ethan yelled as he crossed the street. Tim and the other two looked all around the tree for the realtor, but he wasn't there. "This is batshit crazy!" He pinched his head between both hands. Helping me up, "You honestly teleported!" He pulled me to my feet and looked at me for what felt like a couple of minutes.
Spinning, Ethan walked aggressively toward the house. All of us went back in and up to my room. No one said a single word as Ethan knelt down in front of the closet and mimicked what I had just done. As he fell forward, he vanished from the closet. Tim was headed out of the room faster than I was. Leaving the front door, I could see my brother laying in the grass at the bottom of the old oak. For some reason, I'm not sure why even now, I looked down at my watch. It was ten minutes before midnight.
"Okay," looking up at me, "I feel a bit light headed, but now I want to try something different." Getting up we all followed him back into the house. Getting Ethan involved was the reason I ended up where I am now, but it was hard to stop him when his mind is made up.
Running up the stairs, Ethan went to his own room in the opposite corner of mine toward the front of the house. Without even saying, I knew what he wanted to try. He flung open his closet door and knelt down in front of it. Within moments, he fell forward into the closet smashing his face into the closet floor.
"Ow. That didn't work," he was rubbing his nose as he sat back up. "What was different besides the closet?" he said rhetorically, but it raised a thought in my mind.
"You know, I was in and out of my closet dozens of times before I fell through it," I pointed at Tim.
"Those tarot cards," he looked bewildered at me. I ran into my room and grabbed the box of cards and took them back. "I had these in my hand the first time I fell through," handing them to Ethan.
Without hesitating, he briefly held the box in front of his closet before falling forward and disappearing. Looking out his front window, there was no one at the old oak. We rushed around the house looking in every closet upstairs before he came bounding up the stairs, box in hand.
"Okay," he grinned like a Cheshire cat, "MY closet leads to the oak in the backyard." It was unbelievable. Even writing this all down right now feels like something unimaginable. We all grinned at one another and we all had the same idea, but it was obvious we all felt overwhelmed by what we had already seen, but no one said it.
Testing a theory, I walked into Ethan's closet and shut the door. Once I opened it and walked out, we knew we had to kneel down and wait until that light-headed feeling came over us. Confirming it was safe to use the closets after the first time with the tarot deck was a big relief.
That night, I'm not sure if anyone slept. We all looked pretty ragged in the morning when mom called us all down for breakfast. Ethan looked that way because he was up all night on the internet looking for some kind of explanation. Other than some odd folklore of the area and strange occurrences as the two houses across the way, nothing explained the teleporting closet phenomenon. Per Tim, there was the 'Narnia' theory.
Over the following three days we tested and mapped out the other closets in the house. One of the spare room closets sent us to the front porch. Another sent us to the front yard. My parent's closet sent us to the opposite corner in the backyard. The kitchen pantry, which we just accepted it must be a closet after much debate, sent us to the front of the drawbridge gate at the neighbor's house.
With a pretty detailed map of the entry and exit points complete, Tim was putting the tarot box on my nightstand when he tripped and ended up with the box in hand as he knelt at the door to my room and fell forward. All of us, even though we had been in and out of closets, were shocked when he disappeared.
Here's another point where a mistake was conveniently guiding me to where I eventually ended up. There were so many points that I should have just turned back. Now I understand what adults mean by the "What Ifs".
Running out the front door, we found Tim heading back from the old Victorian across the way. My door led to the front porch of that dilapidated house. Needless to say, we mapped out all the doors in the house. We figured if "a doorway" was the criteria, then any doorway in the house would work. The doorway to my bathroom, in my room, went to the house kitty-corner from us. I was surprised to end up on the roof.
After mapping out all the doorways, Ethan returned to school and the boys stopped coming over so often. Things had pretty much died down until Thanksgiving break. Two days before Thanksgiving to be precise.
With Ethan home, I had the boys come over, so we could test some more theories about the doorways. Ethan was convinced they were some kind of space time anomaly or distortion of some sort. It seemed like a sound idea at first, but…..
"Okay, that seems like it could fit," it was getting messy in my head, "but, why would each doorway go to another geographic point when this house hasn't been here but two years at the most?"
"Well, technically," Tim was the one to jump in, "if this entire house was the area, maybe these symbols are like a gateway." He lost me and everyone else for a moment, "You said that all the symbols on all the doorways were different," I nodded. "So, maybe each set of symbols is a unique address of sorts. It's using the distortion as the power to create gateways from one place to another. Basically, a space time generator." It was actually a really good way to explain it, or so we thought.
After dinner, the sun had already gone down when we decided to try something different. We all picked a doorway in the house and group called each other on our cells. On the count of three, we all fell forward. That was the first time we went to nowhere.
My face was buried in grass. At first, I thought I was at the old oak as planned. When I realized I was face down, something felt different this time around. Getting to my knees, I could see the other four doing the same. We were on a patch of green grass which had a very long park bench in the middle of it. On the right of the bench was a wrought iron looking lamppost about twelve feet high. Beyond the grass was blackness.
Blackness could be taken as darkness, but even in darkness you can see something. There was nothing in the black that surrounded us. Looking up, there was no moon or stars, only black.
Ethan got up and sat down on the bench, "Where the hell are we?"
"You're neither here, nor there, nor anywhere," a familiar voice echoed in the pitch black all around.
Just as I was scanning around for the second time, in the black beyond behind the bench, two yellow eyes appeared. My heart raced as I lifted a finger pointing at the eyes glowing in lighting darkness.
Ethan's head spun in the direction I was pointing, "So, you finally show yourself, Mr. Realtor." A silhouette of the old oak was rough to make out, but as the butler dressed realtor stepped out from behind it, you could make out the tree.
Clasping his hands together, "My, my. Looks like, looks like it," his body was becoming more and more visible with each passing moment, "looks like we all made it." Twirling and spinning as he made his way toward the bench it felt as if he was dancing to music we couldn't hear.
"Who the hell are you?" the words just blurted out of my mouth.
"Me?" he spun all the way up to the bench. "Me? Well now," he bent over to be eye to eye with Ethan, "I'm the Administrator of this game."
I could feel Tim trembling in fear next to me even though there was five feet separating us. The other two weren't fairing much better.
"Game," Ethan laughed out. "Game? What kind of fucked up game is this?"
The realtor's face turned to the smile-less, squinted eyed, serious version I'd seen before. "That's right," his voice turned gruff and stern, "this is a game." Smiling he stood straight with wide eyes again and pointed to his right, "That door leads somewhere," lifting his finger to the right, "and that door leads somewhere." Out of the black, two white doors appeared at the edge of the grass on opposite sides. "Now, one will lead you home and the other," placing his finger to his temple as if thinking, "well, let's just say it's 'Not' home." As he faded away, "Better hurry. There is a time limit before both ways lead you to 'Not' home." His giggle echoed and faded.
"How the hell are we supposed to pick between them?" Tim said with a high-pitched squeaky voice like a boy hitting puberty.
It dawned on me as soon as he threw out that question. Only one thing could tell us which one. Walking up to the left door I could see the inside of the frame. It had "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here" written in Aramaic.
Running for the right door, "It's this one! Hurry!" I was waving everyone to the door.
"How do you know?" Tim's voice was shaking like a kid freezing to death in the dead of winter.
"That is 'Abandon all hope'," pointing at the left door. "I don't know what this one says," pointing at the right door, "but I do know it isn't the saying on the gate to hell."
It didn't take any more convincing then that before we all barreled through the right door ending up on our backs at the old oak in front of my house. Seeing stars in the sky never gave me so much joy.
We all gathered at the front door and agreed not to do anything else. Being stuck in nowhere was a lingering thought in all our minds, at least it was in mine. Really, we could have been stuck there if the realtor hadn't made a way out for us. Playing with fire is one thing, this felt like playing with a nuclear weapon. Also, I added that our front door had the saying to the gate of hell around it and none of us wanted to see where it led.
Between Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve, we didn't even talk about the house and the doorways. We didn't talk about nowhere or the realtor. All in all, we had a let sleeping dogs lie mentality about it.
Christmas Eve brought a massive thunderstorm to the area. There was talk of freezing rain and mixed snow in the weather. As the sun set, the rain began to pour down in buckets. Just as the first round of thunder and lightning hit us, we got a knock on the door. An odd-looking younger guy with an umbrella, fedora and fleece jacket showed up on our doorstep. He had gotten lost in the neighborhood when his car broke down and then the storm hit. The rain was almost coming down sideways.
As sweet and kind hearted as my mother was, she invited the man in to wait out the storm. My brother was suspicious of the man right from the get go, it was in his eyes. The man took off his jacket and fedora as he sat on the couch in the living room.
My mom handed him a cup of coffee, "Oh, thank you. I really do appreciate the hospitality." Looking around the room, he nodded at all of us before he took a sip. "Oh, nice and warm." Staring up from his mug to me, "So, John, how do you like the house?"
Did I tell him my name? I don't remember ever saying it or my family saying it in the time he's been here. "Good, I guess." Ethan noticed it too. He was almost in a death stare at the man by this point.
From head to toe, this man looked like a gypsy or at least what version of gypsy we have now from movies and tv. His button-up was unbuttoned halfway down showing several necklaces around his neck. Itself, the shirt was more of an old-school aristocrat type of look with ruffles on the sleeves.
"Well now," he set the mug on the coffee table, "let me repay your graciousness," I didn't even know that was a word, "by doing something for you. Why don't I give you all a reading?"
Reading in this context meant something different than, I think, my parents had an idea of. My mom's face was showing the "Oh shit, we have a psychic nutjob on our hands" look to it.
"Oh, please, don't worry," looking at my mom. "I just do it for fun instead of board games." My mom's face unclenched and looked relieved. "I just use tarot cards to have a little fun." Both Ethan and I tensed up at the mention of the cards.
My mother has been long attached to the artwork of tarot cards, "Oh, please, let me see your deck. The artwork is always so amazing!" It was really hard to tell if mom was genuinely interested in tarot or if she was just giddy having something in common with our guest.
"Oh," looking at me, "I left my deck in my car. Can I use yours?" he pulled his scarf from around his neck.
The opportunity had never arisen to tell my parents about the builder's gift. Once we knew they could open the doorways we decided not to tell them and keep them ignorant for their own good. Besides that, my mom loved the artwork and probably would have stolen them with the excuse, "it's a gift for the family as a housewarming."
"Sure," spinning and looking Ethan in the face with the "What the fuck do we do now?" face.
Running up to my room, I grabbed the box on my nightstand. By the time I reached the coffee table I was getting an eerie feeling. Looking at Ethan, he nudged his head out the front window where I could see the same damned yellow eyes that were haunting my dreams. Next to the old oak, the realtor was gazing in at us.
"Let's start with John here," he was shuffling the deck and motioned for me to sit opposite him. He handed me the deck and I knew what to do, shuffle them and think of questions about that I wanted to know. I was in the mood to get an answer to who the hell the yellow eyed realtor was.
Handing them back, he shuffled a bit more with his eyes shut and then left it for me to cut. Keeping the same questions in my mind, I cut the deck and he scooped them up. He began to place cards face down in a patter I'd never seen. There were twelve cards in a circle around a thirteenth card in the middle.
Putting the rest of the deck to the side, "The circle represents the recent past, the present and the short distance future." Opening his eyes, he began to flip the cards.
Dad and mom were watching over my shoulder very intently as Ethan sat back in the same chair with his eyes fixed on our guest. A knife couldn't cut the tension between the two.
After he had flipped the first twelve cards, "Something happened when you first entered this house," he was pointing at the cards as if it were a clock face starting with one. "You found," his eyes close as he hovered his hand over the cards, "gateways and places you could go." He was so eerily dead on both my brother and my own eyes were starting to bug out.
"You made a new friend," dipping his head and shaking it, "no, not friend. Someone or wait," he pulled his head back up with his eyes still closed. "Someone or something sought you out. Five of you, but he wants you." Looking over at Ethan, who sat up in the chair. "Using the doors," his hand was shaking more and more violently, "no longer using the doors has made him angry."
"I see time," moving on the other side of the clock. "Time and the doors," pointing his head away, "time and the doors are connected. Change the time and change the doors."
At this point, I should have just called it good. But, I didn't want to let this chance go. It was a chance to know more.
"A name," he blurted out in the silence. "No, names. Many names. He has many names." My mouth had dropped open in shock. "Find the name. The name is the key. The key to THE Door."
"Okay," I was now going for broke, "but what is his name?!"
"He won't," his hand was shaking violently, "he won't let me. He won't let me tell you." Jerking all over, his head was like a bobble-head doll.
As he clenched control of his hand and pulled it back, the twelve cards all popped up into the air and flew in different directions around the room as my mom squealed in surprise. Opening his eyes, we all followed his gaze to the one card left on the table face down. Reaching out slowly, he flipped it over.
"The Fool," he whispered. Looking up at me, his face was overrun with fear.
"Well," Ethan slapped his hands together and made everyone jump again. "That was a very cool parlor trick! Maybe you should teach me that one, huh?" Laughing he lightened the mood in the room.
As the man finished his coffee and put on his scarf, hat and jacket, "John, can you walk me out? I do believe the rain's let up."
There was only one reason for me to show him out, he needed to talk privately. At the front door he closed the door behind us and pulled me to the front steps. I looked at the old oak, but the realtor wasn't standing there.
"Listen," he rolled his umbrella tightly, "I'm sure you figured out I didn't get here by accident." Yeah, it was pretty obvious during the reading. Nodding at him, "I was asked to come here as a favor to the builder. I was the one you gave you those tarot cards," that was a bit of a shocking admission. "Tim's been telling all kinds of stories and it concerned his father." Now it was all coming together. "The Fool is very far from a fool at all. He wants you to think he is, but heed my warning," placing his hand on my shoulder, "do everything you can to avoid him. I'm afraid you're in serious danger."
Once again, we have a moment where I should have just turned back. Not doing anything from that point on would have saved me or at least I think it would have.
"He's coming for you," still holding my shoulder. "New Year's Eve he's coming to take you." A bit vague, but it did leave the obvious question, "No, I don't know where."
As he ran off toward his car, I got the chills thinking about the realtor's yellow eyes. At the time I felt like I was more confused than ever. Warnings about 'He' was coming from complete strangers to add to the rest of the nutty happenings at and around my house.
New Year's Eve came much faster than I expected. After telling Ethan what the gypsy told me, he basically set me up on John watch. He'd even slept on my floor the two nights before New Year's Eve with a baseball bat in hand.
Finally, the night had arrived. My parents were supposed to head to my dad's company's party, but it got cancelled last minute do to a burst pipe at the venue. At some point early on, Ethan looked so terrified that my mom could tell something wasn't right. Eventually, he caved and just gushed out every damn detail about what had been going on. I'm pretty sure my parents thought this was some kind of elaborate hoax and that just pissed off my brother. He was trying to convince them so hard he finally just walked over to the family room doorway and just knelt down and fell forward. My mom screamed out in a gasp when he disappeared into thin air. When he came through the back door, my mom was in such heavy shock that she fainted.
Trying to gage my father's emotions became too difficult as his face just had the defied logic expression. Adults can be so strange at times. Even when they see with their own eyes, if it defies their known logic it's like their mind ceases to function. It's strange that they can create a crazy fictional story, but if something like it happens in reality it's just too unbelievable.
After each of my parents tried it for themselves and ended up someplace else, they seemed to come to terms with it. Still, they kept asking questions we didn't have any answers to.
Looking down at my watch, just as the clock struck midnight, my parents decided they wanted to do it one more time. Each of them picked a different doorway and both followed the same instructions. Ethan and I sat at the front door waiting for them to return. After two minutes or so, I was getting worried. It took five before Ethan was up and on the front porch yelling for them.
We spent the next sixty minutes searching the properties of all four corner houses without finding them. Anxiety was overwhelming both of us as we continued to wait. Ethan started to pace in the front hallway.
"Shit!" Ethan yelled out sounding extremely scared. "What if they got stuck in nowhere like we did? What if they didn't figure out how to get out?"
"Hell if I know," I shrugged. What could I do? I had no idea what was happening or where they could have gone. "I don't know" just kept coming out of my mouth.
"I know," he said. "I'll follow mom's path. I can get them out." He headed upstairs to mom's closet.
"Wait," I grabbed my notebook from my room with the translations in it.
Showing him the "Abandon all hope" Aramaic writing I made him take a picture on his cell phone and try to memorize the letters quickly. At that point he knelt down and fell forward to where he vanished.
Leaving the book in my parent's room, I ran outside and yelled all their names over and over for what seemed like an eternity, but in reality, it was only ten minutes. Heading back into the house, a familiar voice shuddered through the night air.
"Happy New Year!" a party blower rang out. I could see his yellow eyes staring back at me from the end of the porch. "Lose something did we?" Twirling and spinning, "We did! We did!" His laughter sounded more sinister than ever. "I wonder where they went, my dear boy."
Moving up into his space, I grabbed him by the jacket, "What the hell did you do with them?"
"Hee Hee," his smiling was unnerving at that point. "Interesting choice of words." Tapping his temple, "Think now. Use that wet noodle of yours." Tapping on my temple, "Abandon all hope..." Somewhere deep inside of me, I knew what had happened. Did I want to admit it? Hell no!
Sprinting up the stairs and back into my parent's room, I grabbed my notebook and flipped to the page with the translation of the front door. It took less than a second for me to figure it out. The closet doorway had the exact same symbols as the front door. I started to check all the door frames. Each and every one said the same thing.
That was the riddle. Time. The gypsy said it himself. Not so much space time as I was thinking about it, but time itself. The now. We had never messed around with the doorways after midnight. The Fool wasn't the realtor with the yellow eyes. The Fool was me.
Every door frame in the entire house all said the exact same thing as the front door. "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here." At midnight, all the frames changed. Each night at the stroke of midnight, the frames had the same phrase as the front door. He was right. It was a game. His game. And he'd won.
As I came down the stairs, he was waiting for me, sitting crossed legged in the middle of the entryway. Rocking back and forth, the smile on his face was impossible by a normal human and his eyes seemed to glow like they were florescent. Was I in hell?
"You know," he spun his body, so he was stretched out on his side and propping his head on his hand, "the gypsy was right. It's you I'm after." With a fake frown, "Tick tock, tick tock, my good lad."
"Why?" I was through with being surprised. How could I be at that point?
"Hmmm," he sat back up and grinned, "I think it's because I like the way you smell. Hee hee." Standing up, "Delicious," his voice was dark and echoed through the house.
"Who are you?" the question was still bugging me.
"As I said before, my good boy," he arched his head and back backward awkwardly to look at me, "I've had many names in my lifetime." Spinning around to face me with a finger on his face, "Or maybe I should say, I've had and also assumed many names in my lifetime."
"Okay," at this point I was just going all out, "Assumed, huh?" I sat on the steps looking at him, "Maybe one name would be Dante?"
"Ooooo. You are a clever one," he started to dance around. "Might I have another?"
"Lewis Carroll?" I was just tossing out author names that went with the marking passages.
"Ding, Ding. We have a winner Johnny!" his laughter was getting overly obnoxious. "So, now. In order to be with your family," he pointed to a picture on the hallway table of his family, "you'll only need to follow them. Is that not the most happy of endings?"
"And if I say no?" the only answer I was expecting was him to come out and say he would kill me.
"Well," the frown was back, "then you will find out. Eventually, you will give in, though. They always do." Prancing around the foyer he was bouncing like a small child.
"Yeah, whatever," I had no emotions or feelings at that point. "You're no longer welcome in this house. Invite revoked." I had no idea if it would work, but it was in a book I read once though, I think it was about vampires.
It took half a second and he turned into black smoke with a tiny squeal and was sucked under the front door. The only sound was a faint "give in" as the smoke vanished.
That was three weeks ago. Since then I've been going to school like it's a normal school year. My consequences for not following my family to this point have been unusual and difficult to deal with.
First, my family have all disappeared. Yet, whenever I step foot outside the house, every single person I talk to seems to think that my family is unchanged. The real odd part is that no one can remember my parents name or what they look like when they are outside my house. Even I think they are just at work or gone. From outside the house, I have no memory of anything that's happened in the house other than very basic and generic memories of moving in, eating, bathing and sleeping. Each day is similar in my memory where I see my parents and brother. When I'm outside, my bother is at school and my parents are at work. This is basically how everyone else outside the house feels. My dad is absent from work, yet his employers say they've seen him doing something on each of those days. Same goes for my mom and brother at school.
Second, once I come back into the house, I get all my memories back along with how I felt when I was outside the house. It's frustrating to come home and remember them and what happened all day when I felt like they were just at work. It's really bizarre when my friends come over and they remember my parents, but they think they are at work or out someplace. Everyone thinks my brother is just at college.
Third, the realtor doesn't ever get in the house, but he spends the nights tormenting me from the yards and somehow projecting his voice into the house, so it sounds like an echoing whisper from every corner in every room. Torture at Gitmo would have to be better than this.
Honestly, this is my last straw. I've tried so many different things from wiring letters to texting myself and they are blank once I'm outside the house so, naturally, I don't think anything of them since I don't remember shit.
I'm posting this on the internet hoping I'll be able to read it. I understand at this point, I won't remember anything given the circumstances, but at least this might keep me from going back to the house. If I can just get this much read on the outside I figure I can try to find some help to get my family back. I don't know what that bastard with the yellow eyes is, but if I had to guess I would say he's some kind of evil spirit or demon that is attracted to this area. For all I know this could be a Wizard or an evil God. I really don't know. If I get to read this and I do have to go back to the house, whatever you do, don't go in the damn basement no matter what you hear or what you see. Stay the fuck out of the basement!