It’s near dusk as I round the corner, heading away from the town’s paved streets. Mom told me not to go, but she knew I’d go anyway. Like mother, like daughter.
I make a left turn, then a right. Bright Freesia blossoms line the alley-ways between the houses and cottages, shifting in the gentle breeze, and the air’s thick with their scent. In daylight, these alleys are a maze we play in. But at dusk, you can get through. Twice, now, I’ve found my way to the place of gold and song. You must focus, look, and listen, because the way changes.
But I’m remembering the last time. The warmth, the music, the joy. The memory quickens my feet, makes them impatient. I need to be there, and—
A deep purple-blue descends, washing away the dusk sun, and the stink of mildew replaces the vanished flowers. The breeze vanishes, and the air is left still, all around me deathly silent. There’s no song here.
I’ve made a wrong turn.
As I move, everything looks distorted, warping with every step as though seen through a glass bottle. I look behind me, but I know that’s not the way home. Just as you find the way in, you must find the way out again.
I can feel my pulse pounding in my chest, hear it in my ears. I shouldn’t have been daydreaming. I should have watched the earth at my feet, listened for the song, but—
“Welcome, little girl,” says a voice of mud and gravel. “I’ve been waiting.”
I freeze. I can’t see the speaker, but though I’ve never been here, I know it. I’ve dreamed it, woken screaming to seek shelter in my father’s arms, him telling me it’s nothing, just a dream, all justa dream, gone as soon as I blinked it away. And that was all true, back there, in my bed. But it’s real now, it’s here, and waiting for me. Twelve feet both tall and wide, with spider-legs and an old woman’s face, with a mouth that grins impossibly wide. I can’t see it, but it’s there. Waiting, hunting.
I creep forwards. My feet are light, and my breath slow and quiet, but deep, because I’m seeking that scent, the sweetness of Freesia that lies beyond this dank nightmare–if I can find the flowers, they’ll lead me home. Drawing closer, I can hear the faint click-click-click of hard feet on the paved roads, footsteps that suddenly fade out. Not stopping, but moving onto the dirt.
Seeking me. It’ll find me soon.
I hurry, but smell is harder to follow than song. Then I hear laughter, low and filthy, as it seeks me, drawing slowly closer. I pause at a smell on the air, something different, but then it’s gone, followed by foul, suffocating mildew. More time wasted, more for it to find me. But if I can—
“Found you.”
I turn to face it, not twenty feet away. Its human mouth is drawn too wide, and it seems that the number of teeth grows with the looking. I want to run, need to run–but my legs won’t move. I can’t even scream. I’m frozen, as though my body thinks if I stay quiet enough, still enough, I might be invisible. It laughs.
“Good, good,” it says. “Wait for me.” It hurries close to me as fast as thought, and as its mouth draws wider, draws open, its foul breath tumbles over me, and I know it is the source of all this dank odor.
Then a shadow moves, and a figure stands between us—taller than me, and broad in the shoulder, I know him at once, and I wrap my arms around his waist. I want to close my eyes and not see it, but I feel stronger now, braver. I poke my head around his and look straight at it.
“You leave her alone,” my Dad says. It clicks, and growls. I stick my tongue out at it.
“This is my place,” it says. “You have no power here.”
“But you don’t even exist,” he says. “Not if she doesn’t want you to.” And as he speaks, I see it begin to break, one foreleg crumbling into dust, drifting on the air. As the last of it breaks apart, Dad untangles himself from my arms, and turns to me. “See? Nothing to be afraid of.”
I nod. “I’m not afraid of it,” I say, and I’m surprised after I say it to realize that the words are true.
“I know. That’s why it’s gone, now. Likely, it’s gone forever.” He ruffles my hair with one broad hand. “Come, follow me. I’ll lead you out.”
I hang onto his hand with both of mine as he leads me through the alleys, into the town square and along the main road. Soon, I smell the freesia blossoms, and then the blue-purple is fading, the yellow freesia bright under the last rays of the fading sun.
“The way home,” he says. “Go on, now.”
I grip his hand. “Come with me.”
He shakes his head. “You know I can’t. But I’ll be waiting for you, in the place of gold and song. So watch your feet the next time. And listen to your Mom!”
I don’t say anything, but I won’t. He knows I won’t.
I wrap my arms around him, and linger for what must surely be only a little while, until he is no longer there at all. The flowers are hard to see by then, their bright colors buried under the shadows of night. But I can still smell them, calling me home.
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