Olympus must be a glory to the eyes and the heart, and there are those who crave it and those who find a clear way to it, mayhap, but I know Castle Rock like the back of my hand and I could never leave it for no shortcuts where the roads may go; in October the sky over the lake is no glory but it is passing fair, with those big white clouds that move so slow; I sit here on the bench, and think about ’Phelia Todd and Homer Buckland, and I don’t necessarily wish I was where they are…but I still wish I was a smoking man.
THE ONTOLOGICAL FACTOR
DAVID BARR KIRTLEY
David Barr Kirtley has published fiction in magazines such as Realms of Fantasy, Weird Tales, Lightspeed, Intergalactic Medicine Show, On Spec, and Cicada, and in anthologies such as New Voices in Science Fiction, Fantasy: The Best of the Year, and The Dragon Done It. Recently he’s contributed stories to several of John Joseph Adams’s anthologies, including The Living Dead, The Living Dead 2, and The Way of the Wizard. He’s attended numerous writing workshops, including Clarion, Odyssey, Viable Paradise, James Gunn’s Center for the Study of Science Fiction, and Orson Scott Card’s Writers Bootcamp, and he holds an MFA in screenwriting and fiction from the University of Southern California. He also teaches regularly at Alpha, a Pittsburgh-area science fiction workshop for young writers, and is the co-host of The Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy. He lives in New York.
When my great uncle Cornelius died, our family needed someone to drive up to his house in Providence and make an inventory of his property, and I was the natural choice. After all, my recent bachelor’s degree in philosophy and East Asian studies had done nothing to secure me regular employment, and I’d had to move back in with my parents, where I’d thrown myself into an ambitious project to create the world’s longest-running manga comic about a flying mushroom who quotes Hegel. Cornelius had had some sort of falling out with the rest of the family years before I was born, over some (possibly imagined) slight. He’d lived alone, in a mansion he’d inherited from his mother.
I wasn’t crazy about being by myself in a giant old house. For years I’d suffered from an odd, disconnected feeling, as if nothing was real, including myself, and this caused me constant low-level anxiety as well as the occasional panic attack. The distress inevitably intensified the longer I spent alone. I had not mentioned this to anyone.
I told my dad, “I don’t know if I’m really the best person to be going through his things. I never even met the guy.”
“Just do your best,” Dad said. “Everyone else is busy. I’ll try to come and help out if I can.”
So, reluctantly, I agreed.
I arrived in the late afternoon. The house was gray, Victorian, sprawled across the top of a low, forested hill. The central section was three stories tall, and additional two-story wings spread out in either direction.
I drove up the gravel drive, then pulled to a stop near the front door and got out. Dark clouds filled the sky, and as I approached the house a cool breeze rose, rustling the dry leaves that littered its porch. I jogged up the front steps and let myself in with the key I’d been given.
The place was musty and dim, with papers piled everywhere. I wandered through room after room of tables and sofas and bookshelves. Pausing by a window, I looked out into the backyard, where a gazebo overgrown with weeds huddled beside a scum-covered pond. I made my way into the kitchen. The sinks and countertops were cluttered with dirty dishes, and the cupboards revealed that the owner’s diet had consisted mostly of coffee and cold cereal. So far this was about what I’d expected.
My first surprise came when I stepped into a parlor off the main corridor. There was a door there. A very strange door.
It was built into the far wall and painted bright green, a revolting neon shade that clashed with the subdued hues of the rest of the house. The door was quite small—I’d have to stoop to pass through it—and extremely crooked, though this seemed intentional. And unlike the rest of the place, this door looked new, and clean, and I suspected it was something Cornelius had added himself. Strangest of all, it was locked with no less than four heavy padlocks.
I stepped closer, studying the locks. I had only the one key, and it obviously didn’t fit any of them. I’d have to come back later and see if I could spring them with my tools. Among my many odd and useless skills was picking locks, at which I had always been uncannily talented.
I began gathering up all the loose papers and sorting them into piles on the dining room table. There were the usual bills, ads, catalogs, etc., but also strange notebooks, dozens of them, full of puzzling diagrams and near-illegible scribbling, though certain words—“portal,” “opener,” “world”—jumped out at me.
I was so absorbed in the task that I didn’t notice anyone enter the dining room, but suddenly a voice at my elbow barked, “Who are you?”
I started violently, and turned.
In the corner stood a large, burly woman who was maybe in her mid-forties. She wore a knapsack, and her outfit looked like a cross between a sweatsuit and a uniform.
“I… I’m Steven,” I said. “Cornelius…he was my great uncle.”
“Who’s Cornelius?” she said.
“He… owns this place. I mean, he did.”
When she’d first spoken, I’d thought she must be a friend of Cornelius—though by all accounts he hadn’t had any. Now I wondered if she might be a burglar—she was sort of dressed like one—but she spoke with such casual authority that I doubted this was the case. At least, I wasn’t about to ask.
She studied me, and I noticed that her irises were an odd golden color. Also, I could swear that her skin had a faint bluish tinge to it…like something not of this world. And it was as if she’d just appeared out of thin air…
“All right, Steve,” she said, “you seem harmless enough. Carry on. But stay out of the east wing, if you know what’s good for you.”
She turned, as if to depart, though she was standing in the corner.
“Wait,” I said. “Who are you?”
“Asha,” she called over her shoulder. “Nice to meet you.”
A dozen questions swirled in my mind, but I sensed that I’d only get a chance to ask one, and that one, the most important, rose to my lips. “Wait,” I called softly. “Are…are you real?”
“Ha! That’s a good one. Am I real?” she said, as she walked straight through a solid wall and disappeared.
So obviously I was freaked out, but what could I do? Run home and tell my parents that I’d been chased off by a ghost? No thanks. Instead I turned on as many lights as I could and positioned myself on a couch in the center of one of the larger rooms, where nothing could sneak up on me, and played movies on my laptop to keep the silence at bay. Finally I passed out, from sheer exhaustion.
When I woke it was morning, and everything seemed more manageable. As I wandered the empty house, I was already half convinced that my encounter with Asha had just been something I’d dreamed during the night. Still, I avoided the east wing.
What I needed right then, I decided, was some sort of challenge to occupy my mind, and the padlocks on the green door seemed just the thing. I’d become increasingly intrigued by the door, because, as near as I could tell, it couldn’t possibly lead anywhere. The layout of the surrounding rooms was like a maze, but I was pretty sure I’d seen the far side of that wall, and there was nothing there but blank plaster.