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I’m looking at a picture. Some dark twisting thing of a forest on my neighbors living room wall. New neighbor.
Mom hadn’t given me much information about the woman, mainly because no one knew anything about her. For one, she arrives to our neighborhood in the start of winter, which nobody did because it was Lenox. Everyone at school thought her a witch. She was not only a witch because this was Massachusetts, but because this woman entirely in black moved in by herself in a colonial house with nothing but a big dog who looked more wolf than anything else.
And she stayed there. Across the street. Well, not exactly across the street, on account of so many trees.
It’s the coldest day in the week when I go over. I don’t know what compels me to do so, maybe curiosity. Bitterness towards classmates who didn’t know how to keep their mouths shut about a lady who didn’t do anything to them.
There’s a winding path up to the front door, trees overhanging. I like it. Something like a cocoon. I poise myself to knock, and then I look, and I see that her front door is ajar.
Now, having grown up on Nancy Drew and Twin Peaks, I knew it was my duty to investigate. Hopefully not get killed. Or yelled at. I open it, and there’s not a creak or squeak or anything.
There is that dog.
It’s right by the stairs, and it’s grey, and it’s watching me with yellow eyes. It doesn’t move, even as I carefully let the door close back behind me. Just…sits and watches.
There’s something unnerving about it. How still it is, like some statue. I elect to ignore it and move down the hall, lined with portraits, but it’s nothing of today. These are old photographs, black and white of Edwardians and Victorians, all blank faced to the camera. And then it changes into scenes of Pre-Raphaelites. Ophelia drowning. Dante and Virgil.
And then I’m in a spacious living room, long couch and armchairs. There’s no television down here, and I’m guessing the kitchen must be somewhere else. But it’s the picture that makes me stop.
Dark, creeping forest. So dark, and in that forest is a figure of a woman, and her dress is torn, and her feet are bleeding.
She has no eyes.
I tear my own eyes away from the photo, and then let out a full scream.
She doesn’t react in the slightest. This woman is tall and pale and long black hair that falls past her waist in a braid. Long black skirt and a grey sweater. Barefoot. She is peeling the skin off an apple with a paring knife.
“What are you doing in my house?:
I choke. "I-I’m from-” her eyes, I can’t look at her eyes because they are like the woman in the painting, and yet not. “I’m from…next door and I-it was open.”
She takes a step forward. “You consider it appropriate to enter houses on a whim that aren’t yours?”
“Yes-no! I-your dog-”
“Jasper didn’t perceive you as a threat, otherwise you would be dealing with a rather unpleasant wound.” Her grey eyes flicker up and down my form. “What’s your name?”
“Vivienne.”
“Vivienne,” she repeats, as if testing the weight of it. She’s British, at least I think so. I start to relax until her next words. “You’re not good at lying.”
“What?”
“Your answers implies some form of hospitable visit. One neighbor to another. You’re lying.”
“I’m-” Annoyance rises inside of me. This lady didn’t even know me, and she-
“I understand,” she says, and the sound of her knife cutting into the apple seems almost deafening. “Well, to a point I understand your curiosity. A strange woman with a strange dog moving into a strange house. What do they say?”
“I-I’ve heard you mentioned.”
She raises an eyebrow. “Talked about, you mean. So, with that being said, you came here to see if there was any weight to rumors, correct?”
I can’t think of a rebuttal, so I just nod. “Yeah-yes. I’m…I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have-”
“No, you shouldn’t.” she says. The words are clipped. In the same moment, that big wolf looking dog pads into the room and sits by her side. Continues to watch me.
“Does he make you nervous?”
“He doesn’t…why is he staring at me?”
The woman cocks her head. “Why not?” I don’t understand how her hands keep moving to twist the apple and use the knife without looking.
“Um, your...” I gesture awkwardly to the painting on the wall.
“Death and the Mother. The painting is based of a fairytale by Hans Christian Anderson.”
“I haven’t read it.”
She doesn’t say anything, and then suddenly moves over to a bookshelf, scanning spines before selecting a dark blue volume. She hands it to me. A Collection: Poems and Stories of Hans Christian Andersen.
She begins to walk away, and like some dumb kid I follow after her. We move back to her front hallway, her silent dog following us all the way. She pushes open the front door. The cold air bites my cheeks, but my neighbor doesn’t seem perturbed in the slightest. “Read it.”
“Thanks,” I murmur, holding the weight of the book in the crook of my left arm. “And I’m sorry for…well-yeah. I don’t-your name?”
She stares at me for several seconds, studying. “Mrs. Danvers.”
I nod, and even send an awkward wave to Jasper, moving down her steps before she calls me.
“Vivienne!”
I stop. I turn. Snowfall picks up again. Her lips turn up in a smirk, and something in my stomach flutters.
“Knock,” she tells me, and disappears back inside, Jasper on her heels.