Reaping Window

Along the coast in the dreaming town of Rosley Harbor, where the salty tang of the ocean permeated the air, a legacy of whispers hung heavy. The Marsh family, an old and esteemed clan, cast a long shadow over the community, their presence a chilling reminder of a forbidden truth.

           My name is unimportant as you, my engaged readers, are not here for that. You are reading this article because I have become the first journalist in known history to be granted an interview – scheduled for later this evening – with the equally infamous yet reclusive Marsh family, a family as close as any in America to have the appearance of old royalty.

           Instantly I’d noticed outsiders to this town were met with a wall of silence regarding the Marsh family. The townsfolk averted their eyes, their lips sealed as if they had sworn an oath not to speak of what lurked within the Marsh manse. But to me, this only heightened my curiosity about this strange town of Rosley Harbor and its secretive residents. I’d managed a brief testimony from a few townsfolk who felt comfortable enough talking to me about the Marsh family. It was confided in me behind closed doors by these informants, who, like myself, wished to maintain their anonymity in this article, claim they would see the faces of the Marshes glaring at them through their windows, nose pressed against the glass as cold unblinking eyes peered into their soul. But when the homeowner would rush outside to face them, the Marsh ad vanished, not a trace of human print left behind.

           It has apparently become a belief that the Marshes would stalk the homes of the unassuming late in the night and steal them away for some dark ritual held somewhere on the grounds of the family manor upon the hill – this ritual was said to explain how the Marshes kept their wealth and status, despite the fact that they haven’t been seen or heard of (aside from the outside of somebody’s window, of course) for several years now. As I dug deeper, I discovered that the townsfolk were not merely afraid of the Marsh family but also of what they represented. The Marsh manse, with its crumbling facade and overgrown gardens, was said to be a gateway to realms beyond human comprehension.

           I was undeterred by the ominous atmosphere of the townsfolk; on the contrary, I was more intrigued than I could possibly believe.  I decided to perform a small investigation of the Marsh residence before our agreed-upon time to meet.

           Coming up the walkway of the old estate, I crouched down and rushed into some overgrown, decaying hedges that spread along the long gate around the house itself. I admit I felt rather silly while doing this; it was so dark outside that I could’ve walked normally just fine – unless of course, the Marshes had cameras at the front of their gate, which gave the impression that my approach mattered little, I would be caught regardless. But that was something to worry about another time.

           I crept along the Marshes’ wall unsure what exactly I was looking for, but knew I found it when I found a small hole through the barrier. I couldn’t think of what could’ve caused such a collapse in the structure, but I didn’t care – I was in, and in such a way that I felt like the main character of an old mystery novel; it was as if I’d stumbled upon a hidden passage which led deep into the Marsh property. Driven by an unquenchable thirst for knowledge, I ventured into the darkness. As he descended further, the air grew heavy with a sense of foreboding, and the sound of distant whispering echoed from some unseen speaker.

           Once on the other side, I looked around and failed to notice any ritual site for the Marshes’ evil money. A shame. But I did notice that all the vegetation around me was oddly both overgrown and dying. Among of clusters of decaying brush, I noticed a marble bust of some man’s face sitting in the center as if this unnamed man was the cause for both the rapid unkempt growth as the foliage spread upward toward him, as well as for the decay which caused it to bend backward and wither away, back into the earth. I smiled to myself as I thought of the gloomy atmosphere about me and thought of a “bust of Pallas” above a chamber door; though this was clearly not Pallas, I couldn’t help but focus on the parallels in imagery.

           Moving closer to the manor, I felt the first drops of rain fall on my forehead. Talk about setting the tone.

           As I crept closer in an attempt to find any shelter from the coming rain, I noticed one of the windows that overlooked the crumbled garden had been smashed open. Quietly, I took a step toward the broken window to sneak a look inside. As I planted my foot, I heard a loud crunching sound – I looked down and saw shattered glass, implying this window had been broken from the inside. As I looked back up, what I saw made me jump back as a startled yell escaped my throat. Looking back at me through the broken window was the gaunt face of a middle-aged man, dark hair flayed lazily across his forehead. “You’re the reporter, I assume?” he said to me with a tone of indifference. I like to believe I recomposed myself with dignity, but that would be for Mr. Marsh, the witness here, to decide.

           “Yes, sir,” I said with a clear of my throat, “I’m sorry to snoop, I didn’t mean any–” But he didn’t let me finish. “There’s a door several feet to your left,” he said in that same dull, flat tone, “You may use it.” With that, he disappeared into the darkness beyond the shattered glass.

           I’d be lying if I said that wasn’t incredibly uncomfortable to witness, but there was no way I was going back now. I found the door I was offered and stepped inside.

           It took my eyes some moments to adjust, as the lighting in here was so dim I almost felt my chances of seeing better outside in the moonlight. As my vision cleared, I beheld a large parlor with two cushioned chairs sitting before a small fire in the fireplace, the man who greeted me at the broken window sat slumped in one of the chairs, staring into the fire with a glass of scotch sitting in his hand. I walked towards him, noting the pictures that hung in wide frames along the wall – some were paintings, some were old, blown-up photographs.

           When I came into the man’s view, he made a half-hearted gesture for me to sit in the tall armchair beside his own, which I sat in happily. “Well?” he asked me.

           I cleared my throat. A crashing flash of thunder echoed through the broken window and seemed to rattle down my spine. I cleared my throat again, leaned forward, and just as I opened my mouth to speak, my host said in a mildly irritated voice, “Why have you been constantly pestering me and my family? Surely there is something else more interesting you can write about?” He took a sip of his scotch, and I took this as my opportunity to speak, “Well that’s just it, isn’t it?” I replied, “You were once the most influential family in this side of the country, and now you’ve gone so silent, so secluded, so – pardon, but – boring, that it is because of this that you’ve become an interesting subject.” I stopped to give him time to respond, but he only looked at me with that same disinterested, mildly annoyed expression. So, I introduced myself to which he retorted by identifying himself as Logan Marsh, the youngest son of the Marsh patriarch, Pierre Marsh. “That’s my father there,” Logan said with a gesture of his chin toward a painting above the fireplace. I looked and understood how Pierre had been able to do it. His eyes were sharp and menacing behind their high cheekbones over a set jawline, as he glowered down at anyone who dared to sit before his fireplace. “Impressive,” I mused.

           After a bout of small talk after our introductions, I opened up the first, and in a way most important, question of my interview. “So, Mr. Marsh–” I began, but was interrupted by my interviewee’s hand raised up, “Logan will do,” he said, his inflection not quite as off-putting as when we first started. I nodded.

           “Okay then, Logan,” I started again, “Why is it, in your opinion, that your family has… Fallen under the radar, as it is?”

           Logan took a long drink from his glass and then said unvarnished, “No opinion about it, I know exactly why no one hears from us anymore, but I guarantee you won’t believe it.”

           This was the statement that always excited me; more times than not, when someone said this to me I knew it was going to be a good one. I leaned forward, notepad at the ready, “Go on then, Logan,” I said in a way to attempt the greedy hunger in my voice.

            Logan made another gesture towards a painting, this one being smaller and titled to the side, and it displayed a gorgeous young woman whose hair was the same dark auburn as Logan’s. “That was my sister, Liana,” Logan mused. “A few years back she met with one of the locals in town, claims she was in love with him – just some cook at that little restaurant, whatever it’s called,”

           “Red Docks,” I said with a smile. I hadn’t been in this town for long, but I had lunch or dinner at the Red Docks burger place almost every day here so far.

           Logan made a pantomime which clearly indicated, ‘Sure, whatever’.

           “Anyway, Liana and this… Boy, they fall in love. Before you know it, she’s pregnant with his little bastard,” I could tell this topic was uncomfortable to Logan though he kept it well hidden from both his voice and expression, but it was in the way he looked so emptily at the rim of his glass. He cleared his throat, “And so the bastard came out. Father wasn’t too pleased about that, I’ll tell you.” He paused and looked at me, then his eyes shifted past my shoulder. I heard what sounded like something scraping just outside the wall near the shattered window. I turned and looked, but there was nothing there. My forehead started to sweat as I returned my attention to Logan who was looking at me again. “And what did Pierre do about the baby?”

           “The bastard.” Logan corrected.

           “Right, yeah. The bastard,” I replied, not entirely agreeing, “What did Pierre do about it?”

           Logan sighed and looked longingly again at his glass, “What any self-involved, world-famous father would do. To him, this baby wasn’t even human and had no right to have our blood mixed in with it. So, he takes it to the wilderness, miles far behind the house, and leaves it there. That morning, Liana wakes up screaming, and screaming, and screaming.”

           While my forehead still sweat, my mouth had become uncomfortably dry. I licked my lips and made sure my voice was still firm before asking, “And, erm… What did Liana do? After the screaming that morning, of course.” For a moment, Logan seemed as though he wasn’t going to speak anymore. “Mr. Marsh?” I asked, ignoring his instruction to be called by his first name. He didn’t seem to notice. “After she came down from her hysteria from what her father had done, she ran out into the woods to find her son. She begged me to come with her, but I didn’t. I couldn’t, not then.”

           “And why couldn’t you join her, Mr. Marsh?” I asked quietly.

           He shrugged. “I was afraid of my father. We all were in those times, yes, but I was terrified of what he’d do to me. Liana was once, too, but she showed she was more afraid of what became of her unnamed son than she was of dad. I regretted every day since, not going with her, when she came back…” Logan trailed off. I had started to forget I was doing this for an article, and asked Logan to carry on not just for you, the reader, but because I had to – no needed to hear this whole story. So when I asked Logan what happened to the baby, what happened when Liana came back home…

           “She was never the same, after that,” Logan said coldly, “Not that I blame her. She needed help after it all, but help was something our father never gave her… She started wandering the house, unwashed, unfull, and unaware of life around her, just muttering, ‘Where is my son? Where is my son?’ until Dad decided it would be best to keep her locked away, hidden from the public. Sometimes I would still hear her, no matter where I was in this rotten house, it was as if she were in the pipes lamenting for her lost bastard.”

           I have no shame in admitting my watered eyes, but I had to press on with the interview. Though, I would refuse to call the nameless child ‘bastard’ from now on. “And Liana,” I started, but Logan’s eyes seemed to have shifted just past my shoulder again. “It’s almost like you can still hear her moaning for her son,” Logan reiterated. I slowly started to turn to follow his gaze – my heart thumping with anticipation at whatever was behind me – and jumped away from my chair as another bolt of lightning flashed seemingly just outside the house. I glared outside the shattered window just in time to see there was nothing but the silhouette of a doe outside looking in through the broken window. I attempted to reground myself from this senseless fright as I forced out a chuckle, saying, “Curious creatures, aren’t they?” Logan’s eyes slowly melted back into mine, but he said nothing, his face remaining impassive though his eyes were bloodshot. I cleared my throat yet again.

           “I’m sorry if this is a difficult question,” I began, “But how did Liana die? Did she...?” I didn’t want to say ‘suicide’, though I assumed trailing off was good enough. Logan raised an eyebrow at me. “Who said she was dead?” He said with underlying bitter amusement. “Oh, I’m sorry,” I stammered, “I just assumed… Well, I just thought –” I gestured vaguely at the disheveled state of the Marshes’ manor and of Jason Marsh himself. “No,” Jason said, “Nobody died. Not even the bastard.”

           I blinked several times as I tried to register what he had just said. “I-I’m sorry, the baby didn’t die? I thought Liana never found him.”

           Logan’s eyes became cold, like daggers eager to pierce into my own skull if I were to keep looking. “No, she never found him. But eventually, he found her.” I gulped, and with a voice that sounded less like my own, I asked, “He found her? But how?” Logan shook his head at me. “I don’t know how he survived, only that it was through unnatural means. Or, more accurately, too-natural. Supernatural. Some form of nature that mankind had long presumed folklore and myth. It was the kind of nature that no mortal dared dream of in over a thousand years; being left alone in that forest somehow allowed that boy to cross the bridge that connects the realms of our conscious and subconscious, where power awaits to be unleashed. Now he’s calling us each back to join him in this other-place, for why I am uncertain and do not wish to know, but I know I cannot avoid it. Father was the first to go –” he nodded again towards the broken window, “he had no control over it. Not long after was Liana, though she too seemed frightened. Perhaps she wasn’t ready to face her son, worried he blamed her as well for his abandonment – certainly a possibility I’ve considered as I await my time; the uncle who never bothered to help find him.”

           The clock in the corner chimed midnight, the fire dying out. “It should be any moment now. I’ll at least try to leave with what dignity I have left.” He stood, his bloodshot watery eyes glazed over me as he hovered from the once-grand parlor, toward the supposed exit of his father and sister.

           “Mr. Marsh – Logan – what exactly are you saying exactly?” I asked worriedly as I turned to watch him leave. I stood up and went to follow him but stopped as I saw a large buck had joined the doe outside the smashed window, seemingly waiting for Logan to join them.

           I had been left speechless, and what happened next I could explain no better than what you will read next, word for word, as the last accounting of the House of Marsh, and the final testimony of Logan Marsh.

           He lifted himself up and into the window frame, stood among the broken pane, and said to the two deer before him, “I sow seeds of regret in the somber garden of our parting ways,” then, facing me, finishing by saying, “Tell our story – or don’t. It doesn’t matter anymore.” As he faced the two deer again, a flash of lightning burned bright, and the three figures had vanished from my sight. The last glimpse I saw was not of Logan, however, but of the buck – where beetle black eyes should have been were ocean blue, and a snout instead a short crooked nose; atop the deer’s body below the antler’s was not the face of that of a deer, but that of Pierre Marsh, sneering at me as his painting had sneered.