Behind the Clothesline

They say the woods look strange at night.

Not every night.

Mostly when the moon hangs low

and the pines start moving

without the wind.

You know the story.

Everybody does.

Don’t follow a voice into the trees.

Don’t answer if it calls.

Keep salt by the window.

Keep iron by the door.

If you hear footsteps outside,

pull the curtains closed.

If a shadow passes the window,

let it pass.

Don’t peer out the window.

Don’t turn around to see its face.

That part always gets the kids.

Every town has something like it.

A woman between the pines.

A lantern floating where no road runs.

A child who heard somebody calling

and wandered out barefoot.

The names change.

The ending usually doesn’t.

Someone goes looking.

Someone looks back.

Someone answers when they shouldn’t.

So everybody learns the rules.

Stay inside.

Keep the light on.

Wait for morning.

Simple enough.

I used to think the porch light ruined the whole thing.

Too warm.

Too yellow.

Hard to believe in ghosts

with that light spilling over the grass

and catching on the garden rail.

Makes the yard look almost friendly.

Maybe that’s why people leave them on.

They say lanterns scare spirits.

Some people hang bells by the door.

Some people leave salt

across every windowsill in the house.

My grandmother said never whistle after dark.

Someone else will tell you

never answer a knock

unless you heard the footsteps first.

Nobody agrees on much.

That never seems to bother anybody.

The porch light stays on later now.

Probably because of the stories.

Funny how that happens.

People laugh at them all year,

then October comes

and suddenly everybody remembers

which drawer the candles are in.

Last fall the porch swing used to squeak

whenever the wind came through.

Once.

Then twice.

Then quiet.

You could hear it from the road.

It doesn’t do that anymore.

Maybe he fixed it.

People fix things eventually.

The woods get blamed for noises like that.

Branches.

Owls.

Something brushing past a fence.

A dog barking at the dark

when everybody else is asleep.

By morning there’s always an explanation.

Usually rain.

Rain is good for that.

It smooths things over.

Tracks in the mud become runoff.

A broken branch becomes weather.

Something moved beside the garden?

Probably a deer.

Probably.

That’s the word people like.

It gives everything somewhere to go.

There were footprints by the garden rail once.

After a storm.

Fresh enough that the mud still held the edges.

Someone said they came from the woods.

That sounded better than anything else.

By the end of the week

they were too narrow to be human.

By winter somebody remembered claws.

Stories are generous that way.

They give you details

you didn’t know you saw.

Everybody watches the tree line after that.

For a while, anyway.

Nobody minds the porch light.

Nobody watches the garden very long.

There’s nothing interesting about a garden

once the flowers are gone.

Just dirt.

A fence.

A few wet leaves caught underneath.

The swing hardly moves anymore.

Every now and then

the chain gives a little click.

Could be the breeze.

It comes around the side of the house

different than it does through the trees.

That’s probably all it is.

They say if you hear something near the house,

don’t go looking for it.

Let it pass.

That rule makes sense.

Whatever is outside

might not know you’re there.

No reason to change that.

The old stories never say much

about what happens if it notices you.

Maybe nobody came back with that part.

Maybe somebody did

and nobody believed them.

Either way,

people close the curtains.

They turn the locks.

They pull the blanket up over their heads

and wait for the sun to make everything foolish again.

Morning is good at that.

Wet grass.

Cold windows.

Mud along the fence.

A shirt forgotten outside.

Nothing supernatural survives breakfast very well.

By noon it’s all weather.

By supper it’s funny.

By next October

somebody tells it differently.

That’s how a town keeps a story.

A little fear.

A little forgetting.

A little something nobody checked closely enough.

Your porch light was already on

when the sky went dark tonight.

Not unusual.

The garden rail caught the light

for a while after the rain stopped.

The swing moved once.

Just once.

Then nothing.

The woods were louder than the yard.

Leaves rubbing together.

Branches shifting.

Something small moving through the brush.

Plenty to listen to.

Plenty to blame.

The kitchen light came on later.

I almost forgot about that window.

It used to give him trouble

when the nights got cold.

At least I think it did.

The curtain would lift at the bottom

when the heat came on.

Just a little.

Then settle back.

Anybody could mistake that for breathing

if they wanted to.

That’s the trouble with windows at night.

Glass gives you half of everything.

A reflection.

A shadow.

A shape that disappears

when somebody walks past the lamp.

Enough to start a story.

Not enough to finish one.

I suppose that’s better.

Some things are easier

when you only get part of them.

The kitchen went dark after a while.

Then the hall.

One light upstairs stayed on.

Not long.

Long enough.

Maybe he was reading.

Could’ve been anything.

People do ordinary things at night

and somehow they look strange from a yard.

That’s probably why ghosts prefer windows.

They don’t have to do much.

Just stand somewhere

the light can’t quite reach.

Someone inside moves.

Someone outside thinks they saw something.

Then everybody gets a story.

The bedroom light went out.

The porch light didn’t.

It still makes the grass nearest the steps look yellow.

Farther out,

the yard loses its color.

The sheets catch some of it.

Mostly at the edges.

The rest fold into shadow

when the breeze moves through.

Up.

Then down.

Then still.

You can hardly see the kitchen now.

The curtains don’t meet quite right.

Never have.

Not enough to matter.

Funny how little you can see

from this side of the glass.

Mostly shapes.

A chair.

The edge of the counter.

Your own reflection

if you stand in the wrong place.

The stories always make the woods sound farther away at night.

I don’t think they are.

Sound just carries differently near a house.

The pines go quiet.

The swing stops.

The porch light hums.

After a while

even the sheets quit moving.

That’s usually when the yard feels smallest.

House on one side.

Trees on the other.

Nothing much between them.

Just grass.

A garden rail.

A fence.

A line of laundry

where nobody ever thinks to look.

Keep your eyes on the tree line.

Everybody does.

The porch light doesn’t reach quite this far.

Behind the clothesline.