Death at the Thistle Manor

If you look beyond the parting fog and follow the cobblestone road to the top of the hill, that’s where the old Thistle Manor is. Until we’d piled all our things into the car and left our driveway in Yellow Springs, I had no idea the funeral was for the old man’s grandson. I assumed it was for the codger himself, but my father’s newspaper clipping told of the untimely death of his only grandson, Barley Thistle. The feeling of my heart sinking into the carseat when I read his name on the headline still plagues me ten hours later.

Barley, only nineteen years old, was dead. How could such a terrible thing happen? Barley—who used to explore the forest surrounding the Thistle house with me until the last ounce of sunlight dipped below the trees. Barley, who had stolen my first kiss beneath the ancient willow tree we decided was ten thousand years old and no younger.

Barley, who had too much thirst for life to have died at nineteen.

Our car sputters to a stop on the steep driveway of the Thistle house and my dad shoves the emergency break into place to keep our decrepit car from rolling down the hill. I wonder if Odette and Fletcher will be here too. They used to embark on the greatest adventures with Barley and I before. . . well, before we grew up. I haven’t seen them in eight years, maybe more.

“Should we take our stuff out?” I ask, gesturing at the car. My father seems more interested in entering the Thistle house. He waves his hand dismissively.

“After the funeral,” he drawls, his voice dragging with the last effects of the whiskey he’d been drinking in the car. “Come on, Millie, it starts in an hour.”

I abandon the car with my suitcase; enough clothes for the week. Dad decided to stay in the house following the funeral to help arrange new caretakers for the old man. I peer up at the house for the first time in years. It didn’t have the same whimsical draw as it once did. The vines creeping up the house didn’t invite sneaking around like it had when we were young. Now it was hinting at a premature and peculiar death. The sickly leaves remind me of Barley’s unbeating heart. The crumbling bricks from each of the many corners of the manor used to beckon our ascents to the roof, but it’s more uncomfortable than exhilarating as I walk along the pathway. One of the stained glass windows is busted in, exposing a void inside. A small scampering sound echoes inside. A rat, maybe, dwelling in our once sacred space.

“Millie?” The voice is almost familiar. Almost the same. “Oh, I hardly recognized you!” From around the corner, arms hurl themselves around my neck and drag my body in. We part, and there, tight red curls, wire glasses and all, is Odette. She’s taller now, taller than me. Her face is older and more mature. Her teeth are straight.

“I can’t believe it. . .” I reply, trying to decide if I’m excited to see her or unsettled. “How have you—”

“Come inside, you’ve got to see Fletcher.”

Odette grabs my hand and we go inside. The wallpaper that used to be bright crimson is faded and peeling. There’s no telling how many mice have made their home behind these walls, gnawing on the drywall until there’s no evidence of any life in the house but theirs. The old portrait of the codger above the fireplace is gone, the paint behind where it used to be is untouched by the grime of time.

Did they take it down recently?

The smell, however, is the exact same. It smells stale, like bread that had been left out too long. That, and old books. Barley’s grandfather always loved books before he lost himself. His mind is as empty as this house now. The house groans more often now, too, like it’s crying out. The pain of this place sits deep within me, like the foundations of the manor have plunged into my stomach and rooted wooden posts into my bones. It’s an ache only beaten by the emptiness of Barley’s absence. Although he died three weeks ago, there is still evidence of his dwelling here. A t-shirt that had been yet to be moved from the stairwell, a half-sipped glass beside his worn blue chair. My heart twists within my chest, hot tears well in my eyes. Barley, dead.

There’s dust collecting on every surface, but it’s always been like that. Everywhere except for the bookshelves, always shined. Odette steers us through several people who are already inside, each outfit uniquely black and dreadful. Veils adorn the heads of women whose faces I don’t recognize. The wooden counters have refreshments and small plates for small appetizers.

Deviled eggs. Barley’s favorite. I never liked deviled eggs.

Odette whips around the banister of the stairs before I have time to wipe the tears away. Her nose stops inches from mine as she whirls around to face me with wide eyes. “Do you know what happened?”

I blink. “What happened to. . . to Barley?”

Her eyes fill with grief, tears magnifying her green irises. She nods. Understanding. I shake my head. I follow her upstairs. “We don’t have long,” she whispers.

At the end of the attic hallway, a small dreary window lets in a little cloudy light. The rafters of the roof are exposed. A figure engulfs the light from the window.

“Fletcher?” I ask. “You’re. . . tall.” It is true, Fletcher’s once gangly small frame has filled out, he now stands tall above both Odette and I and his shoulders are broad.

He smiles at me, almost to extend understanding. Like he knows this is not the way any of us intended to meet again. “Camille. It’s good to see you.”

Odette does not feed into our silent conversation. “I want to know how he died,” she announces. Fletcher’s gaze softens even more when he looks at her. Odette wrings her hands like she used to do when she was nervous. “You don’t know anything?”

I shake my head. “He wasn’t, like, depressed or anything?”

A hand grips my arm with only the force of my father. “Did you hear me, Millie? I asked you to help with the floral arrangements.” I feel eyes burning into the back of my head. I walk downstairs without another word.

The arrangements don’t take long, but I don’t have time to find Odette and Fletcher again before the grand living room has filled with people who have all lost someone named Barley Thistle. I am met with the old eyes of a grey-haired woman smiling at me with tear stains on her wrinkled cheeks. “How did you know my grandson?” she asks.

I feel another rush of heat in my cheeks. I fold my hands in front of me as if it made me look more presentable to talk to a person of such age. “Childhood friends.”

She nods satisfactorily. “I see. Such a shame to see this illness take the life of such a young person. He was so, so bright.” Her voice trails off laced with confusion. Dissonance, almost. I listen so carefully my head starts to hurt. He was sick? Hospital sounds echo in my mind, tubes and machines.

“I’m so sorry, Ma’am,” I say. I find my father standing in the back of the crowd. He places a hand on my back. He can be so gentle when he wants to be.

Barley’s grandfather steps in front of the fireplace and clears his throat. “Welcome to Thistle Manor,” says the man. “My name is Richard Thistle, I thank you for coming to—”

A hand yanks me away from the crowd. “I found something,” says Odette, her usual curious voice replaced with something thick and frightened. She looks pale. “Follow me.”

“We’re missing the—”

Again, she interrupts me, her voice low. “Please.” Before my father has time to turn around, I peel away from him. As Odette and I weave the crowd, a cold sensation spreads over my skin.

“The poor child,” a woman says, shaking her head. “They never found his body after the accident.”

The room spins, a black vignette creeping into the corners of my vision. I grip the counter, suddenly dizzy. Odette pauses. “What?”

“How did he die?” I whisper.

But Odette knows as much as I do.

Fletcher is already in the cellar when we get there. “What did you find, Fletch?” I ask, unable to mask my unease. “We’re missing his service. . .”

“I know, I know. But look,” he says, pointing at the wall most lit by the old lightbulb screwed bare into the ceiling. A single thread dangles down acting as a makeshift lightswitch. A nauseating nostalgia weakens my knees at the sight of it.

And there, leaning against the wall, is the portrait of Barley’s grandfather. Richard. Except, something’s wrong. I approach the portrait, knowing every brushstroke far too well not to notice the obvious tampered wristwatch.

The time was 10:30. That was the time Richard chose; it was the time at which his beloved wife died. I sink to my knees.

“What is it?” Odette asks.

I can hardly breathe. I can’t tear my eyes from the time that now reads 4:26. “His wife died too, you know.”

“Elizabeth Thistle?”

I swallow, though it feels like a rock is lodged in my throat. “He got the painting to commemorate her death. He told everyone that she. . .” Another wash of realization crashes over me. “He told everyone she died in a car accident.” I stand now, clutching the frame to steady myself.

Stirring comes from an area of the cellar Odette and Fletcher don’t know about. A place only Barley and I went. It was our secret hideout. He found the opening after finding dust collecting on one of the old bookshelves. His grandfather never forgot to dust them, and when we realized they were unused, we knew something was very wrong with either Richard or the bookshelves. The bottom cupboards were barely large enough to fit a human, and if you opened them, it revealed a dark tunnel instead of a backboard. We stored everything we found that was wrong there; the key with no door, the compass that didn’t point north, the wordless book.

Barley and I always knew there was something wrong with the house.

We whirl around to see a gaunt figure standing in front of the bookshelf. Uneven stubble and dark grey circles accompany a face once brimming with life. “You know what time it is,” Barley wheezes, smiling. A pit in my stomach forms at the awful sameness of that smile, reckless and cunning. His lazy eyes slide to mine. “Hello, Millie.”

That same fog that swallows the road to the Thistle house envelopes the cold cellar floor. I stumble back, my lips parting. To my left and right, Odette and Fletcher have vanished. I can hardly breathe, unable to speak.

But Barley is composed. He takes a step closer, I take a step back. “You’re supposed to be dead.”

His smile fades, his eyebrows stitch together. It’s colder here than before. “I’m sorry, Millie. I wanted to tell you.”

“You’re. . . dead.” My mind aches trying to comprehend the gut wrenching shift from grief to utter shock.

Barley’s gaze is soft. I smell rotting. “It’s three thirty,” he murmurs, extending his hand. “You can trust me, Millie. I can explain.” Reluctantly, I accept his hand. He takes me gently to the cupboard opening and looks at me. “There’s something I want to show you.”

I remember the coarseness of the wood under my palms and elbows and knees from when we were ten, crawling into our secret passageway. The room on the other side housed our collected items. We called them relics, the ones that behaved almost how they should. I remain silent as he lights a match to illuminate the crawlspace.

Where are Odette and Fletcher?

“See this?” he asks, holding up one of our oldest relics. The one that began it all.

I can’t fight the smile breaking on my face. “The doorless key.”

Barley nods, smiling too. “I found where it goes.”

A rush of adrenaline pounces down my spine. “You’re kidding.”

He shakes his head. “I’m serious. I’ll show you.”

“Wait, wait,” I whisper. He looks back at me. Why is he looking at me like he’s nervous? “Where are Odette and Fletcher?”

Barley purses his lips. “Do you trust me?”

I grab him by the shoulders. “You’re supposed to be dead!” Again, I feel unwelcome tears burn in my eyes. My lip quivers. “You’re dead. You know how I found out?” Barley only watches me. “A newspaper. That’s it. Why did you die?”

“I’m sorry.”

“Tell me.” I cross my arms.

Barley fidgets with the key in his fingers. His knuckles are scabbed, something I hadn’t noticed until now. “It’s complicated. Only you would understand. That’s why you’re here.”

“Tell me.” I want to sound strong but a tear rolls down my cheek. Barley’s shoulders relax and he draws close to me, wipes the tear away.

“It’s the watch,” he murmurs. “On the portrait? You noticed it right away, I knew you would. But I knew you wouldn’t be close enough to see the time if it were hung on the mantle. I moved it because I knew Fletcher and Odette would find it down here.”

I chuckle, leaning into his hand. “They wanted to know what we knew.”

“Yeah,” he says, smiling. “The time before was for my grandmother.”

“A commemoration.”

“A clue.” Barley leads me back into the cellar. “He told everyone it was a car accident.”

The fog is thicker now, billowing up into the cellar as if it were choking it. “That’s what they said happened to you—”

“They never found her body.”

My heart freezes. “They didn’t find yours. Except someone said you were sick.”

He presses his lips together.

I draw in a slow breath. “Where did she go, Barley?”

“Where I went. Where we are right now.”

“Where are we?”

He takes my hand again, memories of running through the forest flood my mind. Dodging low branches and thick bushes and thorns and upturned roots. Our compass always faced one direction, and it wasn’t north. Now it all makes sense.

Barley pulls it out, the compass. We go upstairs, into an empty house, like we’re suspended in some sort of liminal plane between real and figment. And we’re outside, just like we used to be. The trees have a somber droop and the fog continues to engulf every inch of unoccupied space.

“Where is she now?” I ask.

“She really is dead now,” he replies. “But before, she was here. This—this is what we’ve been searching for, Millie. We’re almost there.” Ahead, there is an old structure, some sort of handbuilt shack.

“Barley—”

He stops, facing me. “Don’t be afraid. Remember this place? Where the compass went all haywire like it was drawn to this place alone? But there was nothing there? It’s here.”

“And. . . where is here, exactly?” I ask.

His eyes flash with that daring drive despite his exhausted body. “It’s the place my grandfather wanted to hide. I don’t know why it’s here, but he doesn’t want us to know about it. Our compass is engraved with his initials, Millie, it makes perfect sense that he’d want to—”

But before he can finish, he cuts himself off like his mind had been wiped clean.

“Sorry. . .” he mumbles. “I don’t remember what I was saying.”

My stomach churns. Something's very wrong about this place. “Come on, Barley, let’s go back.”

“Millie?”

I furrow my brow. “Let’s go. We’re going.”

“What’s happening?” He looks at the key as if he’s just now finding it for the first time. “Oh, that’s right. Here, let me show you—”

“No, Barley. Listen.” He doesn’t want to slow down. He shoves the key into the door of the shack. He looks down at his watch. “Four nineteen.”

“And?”

“We can’t get back until four twenty-six.”

Another dot connected. “Your grandfather was. . .”

“Trying to save us. He painted that time, he built this house.”

“How did he know?”

Barley shakes his head. “I don’t know. We’ll never know now, he can hardly remember his own name.”

“And you don’t think that was this place? You lost yourself a minute ago.”

“Yeah. . .” He looks down again. “We can go home.”

I walk through the door with Barley, but more questions burn in my mind. As we walk out into the trees, the shack vanishes behind us. “They’re having a funeral for you.”

Barley frowns. “After my grandmother never returned from that place. . . my grandfather stopped trying to get her out. He must have thought I couldn’t get out either.”

“You died three weeks ago.”

Barley tilts his head. “I left the manor last night. Millie, I only knew you were in the house because I could feel your footsteps. The magic is drawn to you. It let you merge into the other plane without going through the door.” He’s lost any concept of time. Last night?

And the part about the magic letting me in. . . “Why?” I ask.

Barley smiles recklessly. “Isn’t that the mystery?” He begins walking back to the house. “Listen, I’ll tell my grandfather I’m alright.”

“He doesn’t even remember losing you. He told them different stories.”

“I’m back now,” he counters. “It’s what we’ve always been looking for.”

And yet somehow, what we’ve always been looking for doesn’t satisfy me the way I thought it would. It unsettles me. It feels unfinished, like its work has yet to be complete. When we open the door to the manor, the funeral is over and dust has begun collecting on the bookshelves.