Calla

Dad begins Mack’s tour with the casket elevator.

This is a mistake.

The old brass gate stands open at the rear of the main hall, revealing a compartment barely large enough for a casket, a bier, and the person trusted to accompany both. Its dark wooden panels are scarred from more than a century of use. Brass buttons sit beside the gate beneath a small needle indicating the floor.

Mack stops in front of it.

“Hello, beautiful.”

I lean against the wall. “It’s an elevator.”

“It’s a casket elevator.”

Dad slides the gate aside.

Mack steps inside with the solemnity of someone entering a cathedral.

Finn follows her. Dare and I remain in the hall, where reason still has a fighting chance.

“Where do the caskets go?” Mack asks.

“On a bier,” Dad says. “The bier rolls into the elevator.”

“Do you have one?”

“Yes.”

“Can I ride on it?”

“No.”

She considers this.

Then she lies down on the elevator floor.

Dad looks at her.

Mack folds her hands over her chest and closes her eyes.

“I would like the authentic experience.”

“This is not authentic,” Dad says. “We do not place decedents directly on the floor.”

“I’m improvising.”

I press two fingers against my forehead.

“I’m leaving her here.”

“No, you aren’t,” Mack says without opening her eyes. “You’ve waited years to see me achieve my final form.”

Dare looks down at her. “Should someone check her pulse?”

“Don’t encourage her.”

Finn steps into the elevator beside Mack’s head.

She opens one eye.

“If you step on my hair, I will haunt you.”

“I assumed that was already the plan.”

Dad reaches past them and presses the button.

Dare and I step inside before the gate closes, although I refuse to acknowledge that this makes us participants.

The elevator descends with a low mechanical hum.

Mack smiles serenely.

“This is everything I hoped it would be.”

“You need larger ambitions,” Finn tells her.

The old machinery carries all five of us beneath the house.

The atmosphere changes before the elevator stops.

Upstairs smells like coffee, rain, old wood, and whatever herbs Mom has brought in from the garden. Down here, the air is colder. Disinfectant sits sharply at the back of my throat, followed by the sweeter chemical trace of embalming fluid.

The elevator settles with a quiet jolt.

Mack remains on the floor.

Dad waits.

“Are we there?” she asks.

“Yes.”

She opens her eyes and sits up.

“I understand why people request burial.”

“That sentence makes no sense,” I say.

“It doesn’t have to. I’ve crossed over.”

Dad slides open the lower gate.

The hallway extends beneath the house. The viewing rooms and arrangement office occupy the front of the lower level, with their own entrance facing the drive. The preparation room, storage rooms, and Dad’s office lie farther back.

Everything here is familiar to me.

Dare studies the corridor without appearing uneasy. Most people become quieter the first time they enter the funeral home. Sometimes they’re uneasy, sometimes they are stiff. Their attention snags on every closed door, as though death might be standing behind one of them waiting to grab them, like it is contagious.

Dare merely looks. He remains calm and relaxed.

Dad permits Mack to inspect the bier after she stands, although he refuses to let her lie on it.

She asks twice.

We pass Dad’s office on the way to the preparation room.

The door is open.

Mack stops.

His office is more functional than decorative. A broad wooden desk occupies the center. Filing cabinets line one wall, and shelves of funeral-service manuals compete for space with medical textbooks he has never removed.

Several framed credentials hang behind the desk.

One bears the seal of the State of Oregon.

Another identifies him as Dr. Phillip Price, Deputy Medical Examiner.

An older identification card sits in a narrow frame beside it. Dad is younger in the photograph, his hair darker, his expression exactly the same.

Mack steps into the doorway.

“You were a medical examiner?”

“Deputy medical examiner,” Dad says.

“You performed autopsies?”

“Yes.”

“On murders?”

“Occasionally.”

“Accidents?”

“Yes.”

“Unexplained deaths?”

“That is generally why an examination is requested.”

Mack looks at me. “You neglected an important category of information. I didn’t know there were murders.”

“They weren’t his murders,” Finn says.

Dad looks at him.

“That distinction seemed important.”

Mack studies the framed identification again. Beside it is an old photograph of Dad in a county examination

room, standing with two other physicians in white coats.

A black medical bag rests beneath the frames on the corner of his desk. He hasn’t used it professionally in years, but he keeps the instruments inside maintained.

“Why did you stop?” she asks.

The question is natural.

Dad’s silence is not.

Finn looks at me.

We know the answer.

Mom always lived with periods of darkness. There were weeks when she slept too little and painted through the night, followed by days when getting out of bed required more strength than she possessed. But the year before Dad left the medical examiner’s office, those periods began arriving more often. The distance between them shortened. Her thoughts sometimes moved too quickly for the rest of us to follow.

Finn and I were young, but not too young to notice.

Dad stopped taking calls in the middle of the night.

He returned to the family funeral home full-time.

He became reachable. Always.

Dad looks toward the photograph.

“I decided I wanted to spend more time with my family.”

The answer is true.

It is also missing nearly everything.

Mack recognizes an edited answer when she hears one, but she doesn’t challenge it.

Dad moves on.

“The preparation room is this way.”

The room is bright, clean, and stainless steel. Cabinets line one wall. The embalming table occupies the center beneath adjustable lights. There are no shadows, no concealed horrors, and nothing supernatural lurking beneath a sheet.

Today, it is empty.

Mack steps inside.

For once, she does not make a joke.

She takes in the instruments, the deep sink, the shelves of supplies, and the careful order Dad maintains.

“This is where you work,” she says.

“Part of it.”

“It isn’t frightening.”

“No.”

“It’s just quiet.”

Dad’s expression changes almost imperceptibly.

“Blissfully.”

Mack asks him about embalming fluid, restorative work, and how he learned to prepare someone after a traumatic death. Her questions are direct but respectful. Dad answers all of them.

Dare lingers near the doorway.

He looks at the steel table with a concentration that makes me stop listening to Mack.

His face is unreadable, but his right hand opens and closes once at his side.

“Are you all right?” I ask.

His gaze shifts to me. “Yes.”

“You don’t look all right.”

He turns back to the table. “I expected this room to bother me.”

“Does it?”

“No.”

He sounds more troubled by the absence of fear than he might have been by fear itself.

Before I can ask what that means, Dad leads us out.

The tour returns us to the living parts of the estate.

We move through portions of the house, the greenhouse, and the east garden. Mack wants to know the age of every painting, the purpose of every locked cabinet, and whether anyone has ever died in each room.

Dad returns to work before we reach the greenhouse, where Mom takes over.

Mom leaves us near the old fountain when the historical society calls.

That leaves the four of us.

I show Mack the path toward the cemetery and the edge of the woods where Mom claims foxes live and Finn claims Mom feeds them.

(Mom does feed them.)

The Carriage House is last.

Calla and Finn, walking to cove with flashlights .png

Dare takes the key from his pocket and unlocks the door.

He steps aside for us to enter.

The main room still carries signs of Dad’s hurried preparations: freshly laundered blankets, new toiletries, and several shopping bags Dare hasn’t unpacked. The windows overlook the sloping lawn and the line of trees beyond it.

It no longer feels unoccupied.

Dare’s new boots stand beside the door. His charcoal sweater is draped across the back of a chair. A book from Dad’s library rests open on the small table near the window.

Four days ago, we carried him here unconscious.

Now the room has begun arranging itself around him.

“This is where you’re staying?” Mack asks.

Dare closes the door. “Until the Prices have second thoughts.”

“They should charge rent.”

“I’m working for it.”

“Doing what?”

“Currently, I’ve been assigned the north fence.”

“That sounds ominous.”

“It requires replacing several boards.”

“That sounds less ominous.”

“He was very specific about avoiding strenuous activity.”

I smile. “Dad considers lifting a grocery bag strenuous if you’ve recently been unconscious.”

“He made his position clear.”

Mack wanders toward the narrow kitchen and opens the rear door.

A small stone landing overlooks the slope behind the building. Two exterior steps lead down to the garden path. Beneath the landing is another low wooden door fitted directly into the foundation.

Mack points.

“What’s that?”

“Root cellar.”

Mack steps outside. “Can we see it?”

“There’s nothing down there.”

“You said that about the preparation room.”

“There really is nothing down there. It’s dirt.”

“Then this will be a short tour.”

She descends the two exterior steps.

I remain inside.

Something about that little door unsettles me.

It is only wood darkened by age and weather, set into stone beneath the landing. Growing up on this property, I have passed it hundreds of times. Finn and I played in the Carriage House before it was restored, when the main room still smelled of dust and mice and damp straw.

But I cannot remember ever opening that door.

Dare watches me instead of Mack.

“You don’t like the cellar,” he says.

“I don’t really have an opinion about the cellar.”

“You’ve taken three steps away from the door.”

I look down.

I have.

“I don’t remember the last time anyone opened it.”

“I do,” Finn says.

My gaze snaps to him.

“When?”

“We were kids.”

His expression changes as he searches for the memory.

“You tried to run away.”

“I did not.”

“You packed a stuffed rabbit and one sock.”

“Why would I pack one sock?”

“You were five. Your frontal lobe was still developing.”

Mack turns from the cellar door. “You ran away at five?”

“Someone at school called her hair orange,” Finn says.

I glare at him.

“What happened?” Mack asks.

“She made it to the Carriage House.”

Finn smiles.

Then the smile disappears.

His eyes shift toward the low door beneath the landing.

“You came down here,” he says.

The air in the room changes. Actually, the air inside of me changes.

My hands go cold. Pressure gathers behind my ribs, sharp enough to steal the top of my breath.

“No.”

The word leaves before I decide to say it.

Finn looks at me. “Calla?”

“I don’t remember it.”

“I didn’t either, until just now.”

Dare moves one step closer to me.

He doesn’t touch me.

Mack crouches and grips the rusted handle.

“Wait.”

She looks back.

I don’t know why I said it.

The little door waits beneath her hand.

A sensation moves through me, but it’s not memory. Memory has shape and images and a sequence of things that happened.

This is internal terror without an origin.

Mack’s expression softens. “We don’t have to go down.”

Behind her, rainwater slips from the edge of the stone landing and strikes the garden path.

I force myself to move.

One step.

Then another.

“I’m being silly. Open it.”

The door opens.

Cold, damp air pushes outward.

The smell reaches me.

Earth.

Wet wood.

Old potatoes.

Rain.

And suddenly, the images flood me.

The world tilts.

For one instant, I am small enough that the doorway rises above my head.

There is a knitted rabbit crushed beneath my arm.

Finn is holding a flashlight.

Then the image is gone.

Mack shines her phone into the darkness.

A narrow wooden staircase descends beneath the building.

“Calla?” Finn asks.

I realize my hand is pressed against the wall.

“I’m fine.”

No one believes me.

“You don’t have to go,” Dare says.

I look at him.

He stands close enough to catch me if I fall and far enough away that the choice remains mine.

“Yes,” I say. “I do.”

Mack goes first. Finn follows. I descend behind him, placing each foot carefully on the narrow boards. Dare comes last, drawing the outer door partly closed but leaving enough space for daylight.

The stairs complain beneath our weight, and I wonder how long its been since someone used them.

At the bottom, Mack finds a pull chain. The exposed bulb overhead flickers twice before producing a weak glow.

Stone walls enclose a long rectangular room. Wooden shelves sag beneath empty jars and rusted tools. Crates are stacked beneath the stairs. A broken chair lies on its side near a burlap sack collapsed into the dirt floor.

Pale roots push through the mortar.

“This is excellent,” Mack says.

“I told you- it’s just dirt.” My voice sounds thin.

Finn turns slowly, studying the shelves.

“It’s almost exactly as I remember it.”

“You remember being here?”

“I do now.”

I wish he hadn’t said that.

Dare moves toward the nearest shelf and examines its supports. “Some of these are newer than the stone.”

“How much newer?” Finn asks.

“Decades, perhaps.”

Mack points her phone toward the rear wall.

“Why is that shelf off-kilter?”

A tall shelving unit stands at an angle across the far corner. Unlike the others, it is empty. Its legs have cut

shallow tracks through the dirt.

Dare walks toward it.

The weak bulb throws his shadow across the back wall.

Long shoulders.

Dark hair.

One hand hanging at his side.

The cellar disappears around me and I am five years old and the flashlight in Finn’s hand is dying even though the batteries are new. Its beam shivers across the shelves, illuminating dust that hangs in the air like ash.

Something stands at the rear of the cellar.

Something too tall.

Something too still.

Water shines beneath it, moving down the form of a man, and dripping from his hands. His face remains outside the reach of light.

I squeeze Finn’s fingers until he tells me I’m hurting him.

Then a voice speaks from behind the wall.

I make a sound.

The cellar returns all at once, the memories gone.

Dare stops.

“What is it?”

My fingers are locked around Finn’s wrist.

He stares down at my hand, then toward Dare’s shadow.

His face loses color.

He remembers it too.

I release him.

“I need air.”

I reach the stairs before anyone responds.

“Calla.”

Dare follows me.

His shoulder clips the hanging chain. Behind us, the bulb swings wildly, sending light lurching across the cellar walls.

I climb into the gray morning and drag air into my lungs.

Dare emerges behind me.

He leaves the cellar door open and stops several feet away.

“Did you remember someone being in there?” he asks.

I wrap both arms around myself.

“I don’t know what I remembered.”

“You looked at me strangely.”

“I didn’t.”

“As if you were afraid of me.”

“I was afraid of what you looked like standing there in that moment.”

His expression closes.

“That is a remarkably specific distinction.”

“You were the same height. You stood the same way.”

“As whom?”

I look toward the open cellar.

Finn and Mack speak below us. Wood drags over dirt.

“A man,” I say. “I think. When Finn and I were five.”

Dare looks toward the cellar opening.

“Was he inside?”

“Yes, at the very back. In the shadows.”

“What did he look like?”

“He was wet.”

The word sounds absurd in the morning air.

Dare does not laugh.

“Could you see his face?”

“No.”

“Did he speak?”

Before I can answer, Mack calls from below.

“Calla, you should see this.”

Every part of me says no.

I crouch at the opening instead.

The crooked shelf has been dragged away from the rear wall. Behind it is a narrow wooden door set into a rough arch of fitted stone.

It has no knob.

Only a black iron ring and a thick sliding bolt.

Dare descends again.

I stay outside.

From the garden, I watch the three of them gather before the hidden door.

“This isn’t a root-cellar door,” Mack says.

“No,” Dare answers.

“How can you tell?”

“It opens inward.”

“And?”

“Cellar doors are designed to keep weather and animals out. This was built to keep something on the other side.”

Finn looks up toward me.

“Thank you for making the situation reassuring.”

Dare slides the bolt. The metallic crack reaches me outside. Cold moves over my skin.

He grips the iron ring, then freezes.

“What?” Finn asks.

“Do you smell that?”

Mack draws a breath. “Salt.”

Dare pulls the door open.

Beyond it, five narrow stone steps descend into natural rock.

The walls change from fitted blocks to black, glistening stone. Iron brackets have been driven into one side at regular intervals, their lanterns long gone. The passage curves sharply before disappearing into darkness.

Far below, water moves.

A slow inhalation through stone.

The ocean.

I smell it from where I crouch above them.

Salt water.

Wet rock.

The man at the back of the cellar had carried the same smell.

Mack shines her phone down the steps.

“Did you know this was here?”

“No,” Finn says.

“Calla?”

I force the word out. “No.”