Eye of Descent

By Steve Fenby

For three friends, the summers of their youth at Montalee were made of carefree days, imagination and mystery. Until that final summer that would keep them away for years to come. Now decades later they are back. For tonight is the celebration of an era, with Aaron Samson the reluctant heir to a castle of shadows. With laughter among friends, whispers between lovers and the quiet schemes of the devious and discontent, a message from the distant past containing a mysterious key, leads Aaron to a hidden voice somewhere within the forgotten corners of Montalee. Some will find what they seek, the others are found by the seekers. From deep beyond the fathomless shores their secrets beckon.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Steve Fenby
• Release date: Jul 5, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311229489

Steve Fenby

I grew up in small towns. Sometimes they didn't have any more than a little general store on the main road. When the surf was up on Lake Michigan, it was riding the waves. Dirt roads, trails, rivers and trains led you to a new adventure just beyond the next turn. There is a limitless imagination that can live in a place that seems so empty. Today I live outside the city in a small town once again. As a husband, business owner and writer.

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Eye of Descent

Steve Fenby

Copyright © 2015 Steve Fenby

All rights reserved.

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Eye of Descent

He had stood behind this window, at this very moment, many times before. Standing close enough to the blackened pane of his fourth story room he could feel the evening chill through the shaded reflection of his face. The wind rushed at the glass and then pulled at it, as if God had opened a window in the sky. With each passing day his very being darkened in protest to a state of existence that carried him further into the night than any wind-driven sky. It was harder now to escape, even with his eyes shut tight, but tonight, pictures project from behind open eyes, transcending years with the wave of a hand. These are places he can see and knows well, yet has never been to. A vacancy between dreams and here; a place divided. Step into the light and your feet are weightless, into the shadow and you begin to sink and disappear.

This secluded edifice took hungry possession of the past and gladly gave it back. Whether you chose to remember or not, made no difference. This is the Montalee Hotel and Aaron Samson is a man who seeks the vanquishing of his captors. The images that were pressed to his eyes slipped away, revealing the face reflecting in the window once again as he answered the phone.

This is Aaron.

Aaron my friend, it’s been a long time.

No matter how long it’s been there’s no mistaking that voice Johnny.

I can’t make it up tonight I’m afraid, but I’ll be their in the morning sometime.

Thanks for the call and thanks for coming.

Hey I wouldn’t miss this for the world.

The stage is in place for this evening’s gala, set in celebration of the hotel’s one hundredth anniversary. This mirthful assembly is attended by the requisite, not so unusual collection of associates, family, friends and unfamiliars. Some are treated and grateful to see such attention bestowed upon a place and a man so many would revere. Of course like anywhere, scattered among them are a few molded faces that would crack beneath the skin to see such an appreciation. Any reason would do.

Aaron resumed his occupation at the window. From such a vantage, the ballroom could be seen as if though the corner of a mirror. All the guests have nearly arrived, filling the room with formal costume and informal character. He watched with vicarious eyes not supposing himself the honored guest. The faint taunting brood of a single violin curled its way from the lights below to Aaron’s ear with a summoning whisper.

***

It’s been a long time since that time of such fragile and immeasurable innocence, notwithstanding a little curious mischief. Aaron, Tommy and Johnny were inseparable until that last summer at Montalee. The summer that took giant steps away from the last thread of a slipping youth. Aaron’s grandfather built, owned and operated this hotel

before Aaron’s father was even born. It was the place for its time, to steel away long languid summer days and keep the lights aglow into the night, for an assenting assortment of frolic and abandon. While ostensibly, of course, carrying a concourse of respectability. The three spent their summers together at the hotel and it was a boy’s greatest adventure. After the morning work was done, it was off to the lake or down along the river. Long rainy days were spent wandering for hours through the hotel’s maze of curiosities. Below the sunlight of the first floor were seemingly endless corridors, cellars and odd rooms of all configuration. Long walkways led to stairs that emerged outside the hotel at various distances, to strange places. Grandfather required all manor of clandestine passage, including within the very walls themselves.

Aaron’s heels sounded their way across the room, yielding to the gentle melody set adrift on the winding ribbon from below. The door to his room was undisturbed but no one remained in the room. Aaron knew every back door, concealed passage and connecting room in this old chasm. As he walked inside the wall toward the garden exit, a memory reel began to flicker and a flood of years were washed away.

That last summer was going to be the best of them all, or so they thought, until the day that kept them away for years to come.

If Aaron wasn’t with the boys you could usually find him walking along the banks of the river, going to or coming from the outskirts of the old William’s estate. The main attraction, as one might suspect, was their granddaughter Kristy. She was such a pretty little thing, the fairest of visions for a boy of aspiring curiosity. Whether lying beneath the translucent canopy in a favorite part of their secret place at the edge of the meadow or swimming under the falls cascading to Lake Montalee, the afternoons rolled away beneath a summer sky. Kristy insisted they make a pact, a vow of secrecy about where they went and what they did, about ever knowing each other at all. She would only say that sometimes grandfather doesn’t understand and it was best to leave it hidden, so as not to make him angry. Aaron had never seen her grandfather. He was never anywhere.

Summer was nearly over and the boys were going off to school together in less than two weeks. It was late Sunday afternoon when Aaron crept away, for a soon to be last visit with his little friend. As usual, Aaron’s attempt to be covert was to create some fascinating preoccupation and impatiently wait for an opportunity to bolt through the forest and down to the river. Only today’s escape wouldn’t go unnoticed or unaccompanied. Tommy and Johnny had long tried to persuade a confession, as to the what and where of Aaron’s occasional disappearance. This was to be their lucky day and they keep Aaron in sight well enough. As he grew nearer to the bend in the river where they would meet, a sense of apprehension began to confuse Aaron’s adolescent inspiration. He knew he couldn’t be lost, but every direction felt as though it had changed its place. She would always appear when he least expected it. Kristy enjoyed the expression on his face and the subsequent chase. Somehow he knew, that day he wouldn’t be found. Part of him pulled back from walking towards her house, but disappointment and curiosity moved his feet one before the other until he could see the old place through the trees. A backdoor next to the storm cellar at the corner of the house could be seen between two small buildings, just beyond an old stone well. He ran to the back of one of the buildings and looked around the corner for his next move. He could see Kristy through the kitchen window, just to the right of a backdoor that opened to a small landing with narrow steps that led to a path from the well. To the other side of the stairs was a screened in dayroom, where an old man sat in a wheelchair. He stared out from his place without so much as a blink or a twitch. His powder-white hair hung from his listing head flowing into one with his beard then spilling past his lifeless hands. The black lenses in the frames around his eyes looked as if they were meant to extinguish all but a faint point of light. Aaron slipped to the side of the house, just below the kitchen window. Kristy was making tea for two and humming some sort of lullaby, cursed with a sour, tangled melody as she arranged the afternoon setting with methodical little hands. He was about to tap on the sill and get her attention when her grandmother entered the room.

Oh how lovely Kristy dear. You always make the afternoon tea look so special. What a joyful, precious child.

She kissed Kristy on the top of the head and wrapped her cracked yellow hands around his little friends face with a loving squeeze, before moving off to the room where the old man remained motionless. As he peeked above the window’s ledge, Kristy was taking out a box from under the sink. Aaron recognized the label, having seen his grandfather use it for poisoning rats. She carefully measured a dose for grandma and grandpa’s tea. Crouched by the side of the house, he was struck with terror beyond what he knew it to be, feeling cold and sick.

Hi Aaron, come on in. There’s always room for one more at tea, said Kristy.

He fell back to see her standing over him, reaching out her hand and smiling with dancing, deserted eyes. Aaron stumbled over the yard and out across the grounds, looking back to see Kristy with an imploring hand still reaching toward him. He blew past Tommy and Johnny, and didn’t stop until he was well down the river and half way home. He lost himself for the rest of the day and didn’t get back to Montalee until after dark. As Aaron moved behind the hedge bordering the courtyard, he saw two strange men speaking in earnest with his grandfather. He crawled closer to listen. With scattered disbelief Aaron quickly understood. The old William’s estate had burned to the ground around dusk. It was believed there were no survivors. He passed across the back of the hotel, slipping inside through the kitchen and up to his room. Lying in bed with his eyes squeezed shut, he prayed for the day to end.

***

These were the kind of memories that store as mice in a box, with tails that need to be tucked back under the lid on occasion. Aaron shrugged it away and continued along the descending passage, folding through the semblance of nothing more than a quarried wall and in a breath he drew in the evening air. From the direction of muffled music and muted voices, a familiar figure walked his way.

I thought I’d find you roaming around somewhere, talking yourself into this and out of that. I could picture you just outside the walls of this hotel - caught by a circle of light and as you stood with all motion detained, a voice calls out, it’s no use, escape is futile, you must come to the party, said Tommy, his searching expression impersonating Aaron’s own.

I’m not hard to find. If you know where to look, there I am, said Aaron.

With Tommy’s restrained muss crowning his head, he looked at Aaron with puzzling, elusive eyes. Lifting his hands from his sides with a bow of his head, he begged forgiveness in playful mockery, for the required condescension on the part of Aaron. Aaron couldn’t hold the game and lost the cover to a smile.

"Since you’ve been toting this fine champagne around, complete with a glass for us each, we might as