FICTION  |  By Shirley Green  »  Just as the end of October ushered in that time of year when the veil is thin between the worlds of the living and the dead, November descended with shrieking winds that tore through bare branches and rain that cried down window panes bemoaning autumn’s loss.

As she stood on the only grassy spot left in front of 171 Wicker Lane, Suzanne was crying too; crying for the loss of an old friend and foe.  Only memories remained. From her solid cement-block foundation to the rust red shingles, she had been Suzanne’s solid refuge against the overwhelming onslaught of childhood’s daily life. 

171 Wicker Lane had been built on a grand scale. Her outer dress had been cream coloured stucco, and the distinct placing of brown painted beams at both ends along with two chimneys rising on the front of her roof, had given her the right to be called ‘Tudor Style’ architecturally.  And now she was gone.

Nothing remained but a pile of rubble.  She had burnt beyond recognition.

Wiping tears away with the back of her hand, just as she had done since childhood, Suzanne wondered if the monster had been responsible.  After all these years she occasionally still dreamt about the monster in the basement waiting to be fed.  Its paper-thin arms had run between the spaces in the flooring above, the fire in its belly burning low, but a still-visible dull red glow had shown through the ever widening seams held together with baling wire to keep his fire contained.  

Perhaps it was the few remaining wisps of smoke rising from the rubble, but Suzanne felt herself slipping back to that time when tending the monster had been her job.  Descending the few steps to the cellar had made her sweat with fear even when she grew older and more capable of looking after him.  He had to be replaced even then, but they were poor, very poor. 

The coal man had come monthly during winter months, his face and hands sooty with coal dust, his back bent double under the burlap sack full of coal. 

She had sat on the old wooden cellar stairs listening to the chatter of the coal as it had roared down the chute almost drowning out Granny shouting at her to get herself up out of that dust before it set her to coughing.  Suzanne had chosen not to listen. When the dust had settled she would dart over to the shiny heap and gather a few of the largest pieces that shone like black diamonds and had grooves and pits gouged in them.  They had been carefully secreted on a hidden ledge where they could be brought out later to become magical creatures to wonder at in her child’s imagination.

Now, wrapping her arms tightly around herself Suzanne recalled that spring was a dreadful time to try and feed the monster.  He would be sitting up to his maw in water.  Waiting to be fed.  In spring rubber boots were necessary when you stepped off the last of the eight stairs to the cellar.  The place had the the odor of fetid water and you constantly had to remind yourself to walk carefully.  The cement floor had become slippery if the water had not been baled out within the first week of the rains.  They had no sump pump so bucket bailing had been the only way.  It had been a trap of sorts that would find you picking yourself up, soaking wet but carrying on because the monster still had to be fed even if surrounded by water.  Spring weather was fickle and far too chilly to let him die out too soon.

Summer with its golden heat was the best time to visit. He had no need to be fed. The clouds of black particles that found their way into the air during late fall and winter had fully settled into what remained of his food in the coal chute.

Autumn brought the dread of tending to the monster by getting him ready for winter.  We could carefully, oh so very carefully remove the grey arms from his main body, and tap out the yearly collection of soot that must be removed for him to perform at his best when winter came.  We had prayed; prayed that his paper thin arms would last one more winter; his body would not deteriorate any more than it had; that his first meal, set with careful instructions from Granny, was a well balanced first meal.  We hoped the fire in his belly would remain there and not spill out to engulf the house at 171 Wicker Lane. 

But it wasn’t my monster that had done this.  It was over fifty years since she last visited this street.  Suzanne stomped her feet trying to keep the circulation going in the cold November air, regretting that she had only running shoes on instead of the warm winter boots sitting in her hall closet.  She wouldn’t be here at all except that Diane, her neighbour across the hall, knocked on her door this morning to let her know that the house at 171 Wicker Lane had been on the late night news.  Diane knew Suzanne’s history with the house and had hastened to let her know.  That was why she was here getting colder by the minute and wondering why she was here at all, because her memories at this moment were not especially happy ones.  There were other memories.  Good memories of having sat in front of the blazing fireplace with granny, sipping hot milk with lots of sugar in it; warming her almost frozen feet and hands after coming in from skating on the old pond up the road.  Suzanne had only skated on the pond at night so that the other girls wouldn’t see her boys’skates.  She hoped they didn’t see them.  They would poke fun at her if they did.  Sometimes she really had hated being poor. 

There were rare moments in time when Granny hadn’t seemed as cross as she usually had and this was one of them.  Sipping the hot, sugared milk while her feet and hands warmed up, Granny had even suggested that before she got into bed she would brush her hair for her.  Heaven.  Suzanne thought she had died and gone to heaven.  She remembered that heaven didn’t visit 171 Wicker Lane very often, especially after Grandpa died, but the house had always remained her refuge despite the monster in the cellar.

It was starting to snow now, those large fluffy flakes that clung to your clothes and eyelashes making it difficult to see without constant blinking.  Suzanne looked back into her memories of 1941 when she had been seven years old.

Christmas would be soon and Suzanne had loved everything about Christmas! Getting off the school bus and dashing in the front door to a kitchen that smelled like laundry day and bake day all in one meant that Granny was boiling Christmas puddings on top of the stove.  Bobbing merrily in a plum pudding dance all their own, they had been anchored to the tub handles by long strings to make it easier to remove once they were cooked. Suzanne recalled that she had sniffed and sniffed the wonderful smells.  Granny had told her “Stop those rude sounds.”    

How excited she had been about her school concert that Grandpa had said they would all attend.  It was only two weeks away and Suzanne had a part in the school nativity play as well as in the choir.  All the girls in the choir had special dresses of blue crepe paper made by their teacher.  It was so pretty. It was blue as the sky, with a ruffled skirt and was trimmed with Christmas tinsel around the neck and puff sleeves. Gran had said, “Don’t to get so excited!  It’s only a paper dress.  Hang it up in the clothes closet and remember not to tear it!”  

The memory of what had happened next flooded her being.  She had been standing at the front door scratching frost off a pane of glass waiting for the bus from the city to arrive with Grandpa.  He would always wave to her before crossing the street and Suzanne would tell Granny he was home.  That night it had been snowing hard, just as it was now, making it difficult to see across the road even though the street lamp had been on.  Cold had crept in through the cracks under the door.  Suzanne shivered as she had on that night so long ago.

 There was the bus, lumbering up the slight incline, slowing to a stop across from 171 Wicker Lane.  Grandpa got off with a neighbor who immediately disappeared from view in the swirling snow.  Grandpa pulled up the collar of his overcoat, his back to the wind, sheltering a cigarette he was trying to light, walking backwards into the street.  He didn’t see the truck looming out of the snow.  The driver didn’t have a chance to stop.

In the confusion of the next few minutes Suzanne had been forgotten.  People from the corner store ripped off a sign to use as a stretcher to carry Grandpa and place him in front of the blazing fireplace.  Neighbors tried clumsily to console Granny who was crying hysterically while wandering aimlessly from room to room.  Everyone was waiting.  Waiting for the doctor to come.  There was nothing any of them could do but wait, while the man on the floor struggled for each breath, bleeding from the critical head wound he had sustained.

From the big armchair where Suzanne had retreated to safety, she had seen the doctor arrive and take charge, directing people to assist where they could.  Hardly breathing, Suzanne felt so cold, so alone; so frightened. And then Grandpa wasn’t making those terrible sounds any more.

The doctor stood up and put his stethoscope back into his bag which shut with a snap of finality. He noticed Suzanne and ordered someone to remove her from the room.

She remembers running past Granny weeping in the hall, running past the clothes closet where the blue crepe-paper dress hung waiting.  Finally she was in the safety of her bedroom, curled up under the bed where the coverlet hung down to the ground, shrouding her for a little while from the sadness that was to come.  Sadness that would remain for years.

Grandpa was dead. There was no Christmas that year at 171 Wicker Lane.  Instead, the house was dressed in black, like everyone else.

Suzanne shook herself free of the past and the still-falling snowflakes. She must get home. It was only a couple of blocks to where her car was parked. Cat would be waiting impatiently for her.  The evening news would confirm the cause of the fire and she would recall happier times at 171 Wicker Lane.  Memories of the heat of summer sending the sweet smell of pink clover in the air as Grandpa and she had walked hand in hand while he wove magical stories of fairies and elves living in the grasses and hillocks they had walked through. The child that was Suzanne adored this man who took the place of the father who never came.  

The smoke from his cigarette had wafted through the evening air like the stories he told.   They had walked and walked, and then they had walked some more; not wanting the precious moments to end, when they would have to return to the reality of home where Granny would be cross because they had stayed out until almost dark. Granny would have chastised Grandpa for putting tall tales and fairy tales into Suzanne’s impressionable mind.  Granny had never been the same, grandpa had told me, since their youngest son had died only one year before Suzanne had been born.

To this day, when the sweet smell of pink clover fills the air, Suzanne sees them walking and walking and then walking some more, just like she’s doing now, only she’s walking through quickly forming snow drifts this time.

A small flock of cedar waxwings flew from a nearby crabapple tree, showing the waxy scarlet tips of their wing feathers as they continued their search for food before daylight fades into night.

Suzanne unlocked her apartment door, and called out “Cat. Cat. I’m home, my boy.  That heap of rubble that had been 171 Wicker Lane was my old house.  Sleeping her final sleep.”