November Nights

It was a night in late November, that I made my first and final visit to the old ranch. That night and the handful that followed, despite their unseasonable warmth and evident mundanity, have stuck with me ever since. Like a warm thumb in soft wax, they left their impression upon me. And, just like those strange, unaccountable nights, this will be my first and final attempt to put my strange experiences there-within into words. I've dabbled some in writing and feel that I can make a pretty good preliminary run at it, and you'll appreciate that these are not events which I relive easily. With that said, I will also confess that my writings up until this point have, in my humblest opinion, been little more than the mundane works of an amateur. An enthusiastic, well read and well practiced amateur, but an amateur none the less. Furthermore, the subjects of my literary endeavors have almost always fallen within the realm of the fantastic and the outlandish, and never have I attempted to recount events quite the way they occurred, let alone events within which I was personally involved. Thus, it is with some necessary indelicacy that I begin my tale. First, with the preface of the words preceding and the words following this sentence. I wish you, the reader, to understand that this writing, my account of that strange night, is as complete an account as I might give. If it seems that I have embellished some details and excluded others, it is only because those were the details that most or least impressed me at the time. I am only human, and vexed by a human's recollection after all. Next, allow me the ignoble indulgence of introducing myself. My name is Sam. Samuel, actually, but just Sam will suffice. At the time of my stay on the Everstone property, I was just past my twenty fifth birthday. I was, and still am, a man of average build, light skinned, dark eyed and with a head of shaggy brown hair. If it would help complete the reader's mental image of me, I will further confide that I had, at the time, an equally shaggy beard which was just a little too long to be considered fashionable. A few sparse years of employment in construction, I was an electrician, and still am, an electrician by trade, had conspired to built a little bit of muscle on my otherwise average frame and, aside from a broad smile and bushy brown mustache, I possessed no other remarkable features.

It was during a visit with my parents, residents of the Okanagan Valley in western Canada, that I first learned of the Everstones and their property. I had just completed my apprenticeship the previous October, and it was on this note that I visited them on their small, six acre farm just outside of one of the Valley's many equally small towns. Having spent my late adolescence and early teens in the valley, the rural calm and seclusion of my parent's farm was no stranger to me. However, following five years in Vancouver, it proved as a welcome respite from the hustle and bustle of city life. It was in expressing this very thought to my father, one night as we drank beers on his back porch, that I was inured of the Jacob and Marleen Everstone. An acquaintance had been made between the two couples when my mother, an avid amateur equestrian, had met Marleen through their riding club. The two had become fast friends, as did Jacob and my father upon their inevitable introductions. The Everstones, my father informed me, would be visiting their daughter in the states that upcoming winter, and were looking for someone to mind their house in the meantime. They were, however, understandably reluctant to leave the care of their property and animals to a stranger. Being that they, like my parents, lived isolated by distance from the local community, they had few friends of whom to ask such a favor. Few, at least, who did not have their own property and animals for which to care. My father suggested that they might avail themselves of my services, and that I might therefore enjoy a prolonged stay in the British Columbia's rural heart, before my inevitable return to the city.

I was quite impressed by the suggestion. Having been laid off to attend my final year of trade school that August, I had earned my Red Seal only to find there was no work for the upcoming colder months. Well inured of the construction industry's fickle and cyclical nature, such a development had hardly come as a shock, and I had the means to endure as much as half a year without steady work. It had meant, however, that I had more free time than I quite knew what to do with. Free time enough that I had been able to drop everything in Vancouver from a week long visit to the Okanagan, in order to visit my parents. Needless to say, I ascended quite fondly to the suggestion, and we concluded the night with the chinking of bottles and my father's promise to get in contact with Jacob the following day. The Everstones must have been quite desperate, perhaps even to the point of cancelling their planned trip, because they accepted me as their house and grounds sitter without ever having laid eyes upon me.

A week hence found me driving up a small and winding gravel road, hedged in by graying pines on either side, to look upon the Everstone ranch for the very first time. Along side my laptop, phone and clothes enough for a week long stay, I rumbled up to the house with eager anticipation, regarding my stay as I would have an upcoming vacation. Situated just under an hours drive of the nearest town, the Everstones lived among the craggy hills and thickly packed evergreens which characterized much of the region. So thick were trees, in fact, that it wasn't until turning the last corner in what served as their serpentine drive way that I got my first glimpse of the house. Slowly, it loomed into view, a rambling tribute to wealden-hall design, constructed from oft-repaired clay brick and age darkened wood frame, capped with a moss-specked tar shingles. A lawn of mottled, perhaps a dozen yards in length, separated the house from the bordering trees, and was surprisingly spartan beside the almost excessive antiquity of the home it ornamented. Only a large pole-lamp and a nearby tree, one of what must have been very few non-coniferous trees in the region, broke up the otherwise immaculate sea of late autumn green. As I passed by, I noticed that the tree, whose marked lack of leaves made its species all but impossible to determine, had been ornamented in a half dozen strings of Christmas lights. I parked beside its after thought of a garage upon a small truck track that went around to the back of the house and alighted to find Jacob Everstone, who'd evidently emerged from the garage's now open door, there to greet me. A bluff man in his late sixties, he had a broad and generous face with two sparkling, squinting eyes below bushy brows of snowy white."Mister Smith!" He greeted me as we shook hands, his voice booming and as broad as his shoulders. "Thank you so much for coming."
"Thank you for having me." I replied, smiling a bit more brightly for the warmth of his welcome and the strength of his handshake. I liked him at once, and could immediately see why he'd made such quick friends with my father. He moved briskly, even despite a build which had evidently inclined to robust in his latter years, and had a genial manner to him which seemed neither forced nor exaggerated. "Nonsense." He said, leading me to the front door, "When Eric told me you'd be willing to help us out, I nearly jumped for joy. Come, let's get you inside and I'll give you the penny-tour."

As we stepped out of the unseasonable November warmth and into a compact little mudroom, I heard immediately the quick succession of light 'tack-tacks' which my rural upbringing had made so familiar to me. Such that I was hardly surprised when, just as Jacob opened the door leading out of the mudroom, a golden and fluffy creature bounded hastily between his legs and began decrying my presence with a cracking bark that echoed painfully in the small room."Scout!" Jacob chastised, turning quickly to lay one meaty palm on the nape of the dog's neck."It's alright." I said, holding my hand out for the wary scrutiny of the suddenly silent, but plainly still mistrusting, canine. With a few sniffs and a quiet, almost perfunctory growl, Scout condescended to allow a stroke along its downy muzzle. "See? I'm not going to eat you. Quite the opposite in fact."
Jacob grunted quietly, but removed his hand. "That's right, you senile old thing." He said, before the sound of more clattering tick-tacking reached our ears. "And here's the rest of them."Before either of us could say another word, three more small and fury shapes burst through the partly ajar door, practically atop one another. Each was just a little under half the size of Scout and, where Scout was golden going on brown, they had mottled coats that ran the whole gamut between black and white. Also unlike Scout, whose initial reception had been entirely hostile, the three smaller dogs greeted me with varying degrees of excited pleasure. "The black and gray one is Sooty." Jacob told me, indicating the smallest of the trio who'd taken an evident liking to my boots, sniffing and pawing at them with evident delight. "Brown and white is Daisy." He continued, directing my attention to the middlemost dog, who was dancing excitedly in place while seeming to scrutinize every aspect of my appearance, "And black, brown and gray is Magnolia, but she answers to Maggy." The last dog, largest of the four behind Scout, had evidently already lost interest in me and was seated beside the larger dog with palpable air of polite disinterest.
"What breed are they?" I asked, scratching Sooty behind the ears whenever her energetic scrutiny of my feet allowed. While I had been around dogs most of my life, I had never seen such a dog before. They had the narrow and compact frame of a terrier, yet were half the size and possessed of the sort of squashed countenance one would more commonly ascribe to a pug, with the well brushed, hair-like pelt of a shi-tzu."Brussels Griffon." Jacob answered me, pulling the door open the rest of the way as a silent signal for me to conclude my introductions with the furry horde. "Marleen used to breed them, but we got into the unpleasant habit of hanging onto one or two every litter or so."
"And Scout?" I asked, leading the four legged quartet out of the mudroom and into a sparsely decorated dining room.
"Lord knows. Got her at the pound. Reckon there's some jack russel in her, maybe a bit of retriever. Eight or nine other things too, more likely than not. Smart as a whip, she is, but getting a bit queer in her old age…"
I looked down at Scout, with her long hair, squat build and watchful eyes, and was pressed to spy any signs that she was older or younger than the three Griffons she was leading.
Mrs. Everston was in the kitchen, placing a pair of packed lunches, some crackers and dip and a few other road foods into a wicker weaved bag. Her eyes lit up as we entered, and an open smile promptly spread across her cheeks. Not much younger than her husband, Marleen had grown thinner where her husband had grown broader, and she was possessed of the aquiline, faintly wrinkled countenance of a Hollywood grandmother. She bustled quickly up to us and, quite unexpectedly put her arms around me in a quick, familiar hug."You must be Mary's boy." She appraised. "Yes Ma'am." I answered, a bit taken aback, yet not altogether off put by her chosen method of greeting. "Ma'am nothing." She said practically, releasing me from the lightning quick embrace and taking a few steps back to openly gauge my appearance. Apparently satisfied, she then bustled quickly back to the counter. "I see you've met the girls."
"I have. They gave me a very warm welcome." I agreed, as I exchanged a glance with Jacob, who seemed quite amused by his spouse's manner.
"I'm sure they did." Marleen said shortly, as she packed a few final articles into the already overstuffed wicker basket. "They get fed twice a day. Once in the morning and once at night. Dry foods under the counter." She paused in her packing to indicate the counter in question.
"They get wet in the morning too," Jacob broke in, "Just mix it in with the dry stuff and try to make sure Sooty doesn't steal Daisy's breakfast…"

Next, I received a brief tour of the house, as well as a less brief history. The Wealden-Hall exterior which I'd noted on the drive up was evidently the oldest part of the house, which had been constructed some time in the 1910s, and had originally consisted of a single bedroom with a kitchen, dining room, bathroom and connected root cellar. Since then, one or another of the house's previous owners had added to its floor plan, including a bedroom in the basement and the loft, a workshop come garage, a bathroom and laundry room in the basement, and a sunroom at the back of the house. Lastly, Jacob himself had added a mudroom beside the dining room, and finished its exterior after the manner of the house's original construction. This final detail I learned after commenting on the dining room's most singular feature, that being a full length window that look into the mudroom.
With the tour of the house concluded, I was then taken into the back yard to be shown the stables, where in I was introduced to the Everstones three horses, which consisted of a breeding pair, named Spritz and Peony, and their filly, Rose. Having never had much interest in horse husbandry, I was at once impressed by how attentive and bright these three remarkable creatures were. From the moment that Jacob lead me up to their respective stalls, each animal drew close, ears pricked and eyes inquisitive, to inquire upon our visit. I was instructed as to their diet and schedule, introduced to each, a ritual which involved a sugar cube and the palm of my hand where Rose was concerned, before concluding with the morning and nightly routines."Spritz can be left to run in the mornings. His stall is beside the south paddock and he can be let alone for the day, but you ought to get him back inside before dark. Best to do it around feeding time. He'll beat you to his trough, more likely than not." Jacob explained, with the occasional gesticulation or indication of the various artifacts to which he referred. "Peony and Rose can be let into the north paddock if they are getting restive, but better to keep them penned if you don't care for chasing down Rose. She's a bit willful and would rather run than eat. Your call."
With this knowledge shared, Jacob proceeded to show me the rest of the grounds which, excepting the horse stables and paddocks, included a small green house, a barn containing hay and a farrier's workshop, beside which was a weathered wooden door set into a concrete casement. I commented upon this final point as we passed, and inquired to its purpose, given that British Columbia is too mountainous to see many tornadoes and under a barn was a strange place to put a storm cellar. It was with these comments, driven by absent curiosity and ignorance, that a slight change came over my guide. Jacob, my brief time with who had impressed upon me a tendency towards honest practicality, immediately became terse and evasive."That old thing?" He asked shortly, "Just leads into the old root-cellar. Mar doesn't do much canning, so it's mostly stuffed with random brick-a-brack." And at that, he began walking fore the back door of the house. I admit, I saw nothing immediately at fault with his conduct, and indeed had no reason to doubt his explanation, but there had been a tautness in his tone and a haste to his answer which, alongside his otherwise affable and amiable commentary prior, had struck me as odd. Unable to stifle my curiosity, I diverted closer to the cellar entrance than was necessary on my way to catch up with Jacob. There was nothing interesting about it. The door was of an old, interlocking board design, with a tertiary brace crossing it at the top and bottom and a diagonal runner inbetween to lend it strength. Weathered but sturdy in appearance, its white paint had become cracked and chipped with age, through which could be seen the aged, treated wood beneath. It was hinged at one end and latched closed at the other. It was this final point that drew my interest, however, and not just because I knew that such a sturdy door must be quite difficult to lift in a single piece. Not only was the hasp latch of an equally sturdy design, it was also evidently quite newer than the door, as was the heavy padlock which affixed it. Any further inspection was forestalled, however, when Jacob called to me from across the back yard, having already reached the house. "Mister Smith?" He called to me with expectancy that didn't quite overshadow the urgency of his tone.
"Sam." I answered, broken from my reverie and hastening to catch up, "Please just call me Sam."
There upon, Jacob concluded my instruction by showing my the doggy door set into the back door of the house."Mar's been hearing something big, mulling about after dark." He explained to me with astounding off handedness. "A bear, most likely. The Neilsons down the road…" alluding to the next nearest farm, nearly fifteen minutes drive away, "had something get into their coop. Forced the door, made a big mess. Too big for a cougar…" He shrugged at this, and lead me into the house, where I found the interior side of the dog flap wasn't even half as sturdy as the door it was fitted to. In fact, it looked better suited to being air tight than preventing any sort of intruder.
"Won't stop a bear." The rancher explained, "But its too small for one anyway. Lock the girls in, come night fall, and you oughtn't have any problems. Try not to go out after dark either, if you can help it."

The Everstones went on their way not an hour after that. I saw them off from the door to the mudroom, and watched until their 2013 silver Tundra vanished among the trees. In my hand, I held the keys which would provide me passage throughout the property, though Jacob had confided that, being so far out as they were, they seldom locked up anything. After that, it was simply a matter of making myself busy until the time for the evening chores arrived, with dinner time not long on its heels. Marleen had availed me of their sizeable pantry, with the assurance that any dried goods not found within it could be found in the basement larder instead. I found said pantry to be well provisioned, which came as little surprise when one considered the hour long drive it would take to arrive at the nearest store. I began by unpacking the scant few articles I'd brought with me and deciding upon which room to occupy over the course of my stay. To this end, I eventually settled upon the basement bedroom, based on its proximity to a bathroom the fact that my presence there would be least disruptive to the house as a whole. I've never been discomforted by tight spaces, and the utilitarian outline of the house's basement level was oddly reminiscent of my apartment just outside of Burnaby. Not to mention the fact that, as well as the loft bedroom, the basement was heated by a wood stove, which served as something of a novelty to me. Once my unpacking was done and the wood box had been filled, I busied myself with a walk around the property, only the meanest portion of which Jacob had the time to show me. The weather, as I've intimated previously, was unseasonably warm for late November, and the sky was clear and blue even as twilight approached. I began by making a circuit of house and its grounds, starting with the sizeable dogyard which lay between the horse stables and the back of the house, and then on to the grassy fields which surrounded each of the property's three paddocks. I concluded this reconnoiter by revisiting the stables, fed the occupants, locked up, and arrived back at the house shortly before dusk. Once there, I made sure all four dogs were indoors, locked up the dog-flap, and set about the task of feeding the dogs and myself. At last, I retired to the common room-come-den in the house's basement, and whiled away the final hours of the night with a combination of Youtube, Netflix and Facebook. A night which proved mostly uneventful, save for Scout, the oldest of the four dogs, unusual behaviour. The dogs, while locked out of the back yard during the night, had full run of the rest of the house. The three smallest all seemed content to curl up on their beds in the basement common room, especially after they had been fed and a fire had been lit. Scout on the other hand, was up and off of her matt, she was the only one who would not sleep in a bed, until I finally went to bed. I chocked this up initially to the unsettled disposition of the older dog, having been thrust into the company of a stranger while in the absence of its owner, but admit it instilled me with some anxiety all the same.

I rose early the following morning, being a habitually early riser, and was out of bed before the sun had quite risen over the peaceful house. Scout was already awake, it turned out, and I found her pacing restlessly before the sealed dog flap, sniffing and whining. Unsure whether such behavior was typical of the aged canine, I shooed her into the kitchen, where the other three were already waiting, and set about feeding them. The smaller dogs put on quite a show as I prepared their breakfast, which involved a scoop of dry food and approximately a table spoon of canned food, and bark and howled and scampered about excitedly, especially when I began mixing the foods together. Not Scout, however, who sat stoically by the door sliding door which I had closed to keep her from going back to the dog flap. Wondering if she needed to go outside for reasons of biology, which Marleen had told me all four dogs were trained to do, or if something else was bothering her, I laid out their food and prepared a breakfast for myself. Scout, for her part, regarded her dish with disinterest, picked occasionally at some of the meatier chunks which had escaped my notice during the mixing process, and altogether didn't seem half so excited with the prospect of food as the other three dogs did. And for those wondering, Sooty did try to steal Daisy's food, but Daisy proved more than able to protect her meal. When breakfast was eaten, or nibbled at in Scout's case, I let the four dogs back into the stairwell which adjoined with the back door, and went downstairs to get dressed. It was light by then and I returned to find that Scout was no worrying at the dog flap, as I had quite expected her to be. Instead, she had evidently returned to her food dish, the contents of which she rapidly devoured. Puzzled, but glad the old dog's appetite had not been impinged upon, I unlocked the dog flap and proceeded out to the stables. All three horses were awake in anticipation for my arrival, as I could hear their eager wickers and whinnies before I had even opened the heavy door that lead to their stalls. After feeding them, I unlocked the equally heavy door at the back of Spritz's stall and let him into southern paddock. I had already decided to take Jacob's advice and leave Peony and Rose in their stalls until the Everstones' return, being that I had little experience in corralling the antics of a flighty filly. Rose did get another sugar cube, though. My morning chores attended to, I set about busying myself, and found no shortage of things to occupy my attention on the old property. Another walk around the grounds in the light of early morning revealed to me things which had escaped my notice the early evening before. Namely, I found a large gully, perhaps the remnants of an old mountain creek, which provided something of a natural property line to the north most edge of ranch, and rambled through the trees a short distance till I could not see house nor stables for the density of foliage surrounding me. As I've previously mentioned, though recent history had found me living and working in the urban sprawl of the city, I had been raised in the country and was deeply at home in such natural surroundings. Making my way back to the ranch shortly before lunch, I paid the stables another visit, just to see how its occupants were getting on. Well that I had, for I arrived just in time to find Rose tearing up her small stall, galloping circles around her long suffering mother. The little filly neighed urgently at me as I drew closer, and regarded my inexperienced efforts to calm her with avid disdain, going so far as the kick at the door to her stall. If ever I've seen an animal condescend to throw a tantrum, Rose was the very picture of it. Unsure what to do, and after offers of food and sugar cubes failed to settle her down, I eventually decided it would be best for Rose and Peony both if the former had a bit of space to run around. Thus, against my better judgement and Jacob's advice, I opened the door to the northern paddock. Rose had scarcely waited for me to open the door wide enough for her before she'd burst from confinement and began making delighted circuits of the sawdust corral. Peony, meanwhile, exhaled in what I couldn't help but think of as relief, and strolled lazily out into the sunshine behind her daughter.

I left the pair with misgivings for the upcoming evening growing in my heart, and decided to see how the dogs were getting on in my absence. I needn't have bothered, for a found all four indisposed at various points in the expansive dogyard, quite at home without my intervention. Lastly, I went to check on Spritz, whose whereabouts and disposition had been a mystery to me from the northern side of the stables. I found the stallion grazing lazily along the southern most edges of his enclosure. The paddocks themselves were layered in a thick and, in Spritz's case, well trodden coating of sawdust, and had no grassing growing within them. Spritz had however, managed to crane his head over the wooden fence that encircled his pen, and was tugging at some juicy growths on the other side. I approached at a leisurely pace, walking along the outside perimeter of his pen, noting that the walk brought me close to the old barn. I mused, somewhat distractedly, that I might go into the loft and see if I could get onto the roof. It was a foolish idea, but the fancy to see the whole ranch from its highest point had struck me during my morning hike, and nowhere on the property seemed higher than the barn. By that point, I was close enough to see the unfortunate clump of hay grass which Spritz was attacking. As I've already said, I have little experience when it comes to horses, and know little about what might constitute normal and abnormal behavior from them. With that said, I will continue by saying that there was something about the way Spritz was eating, his attention devoted to the grass clump, which faintly unnerved me. Though even unnerved might be the wrong word, for it wasn't as though there was anything abhorrent or aberrant about his behavior. If anything, it was less what he was doing than it was the absence of things I thought, based on my tangential understanding of horses, derived from pop-culture, literature and movies which featured them, that he ought to have been doing. For example, I spent much of my walk up to the big stallion expecting his ears to prick in my direction, or for him to lift his head as he chewed, or even for him to just angle his lowered head to look at me on my approach. Yet he never did. From the time since I'd first spotted him at the fence, to the point were I was near enough to touch him, nearly three minutes in total, he never did anything other than tug at the grass. And at that penultimate moment, when I was standing near enough that, with an outstretched hand, I might have touched the stallion on the ear, he still took no notice of me. Looking back, I want to rationalize it as a domesticated animal who'd lived his whole life in captivity, being utterly unfazed by human presence. Yet in that moment, as I watched him tug and worry at that poor tuft of grass, it felt less like acceptance and more like willful and malicious ignorance. Goosebumps crept across my arms and down my back, and I grew very conscious of my heartbeat in my ears for, apart from Spritz's deliberate activities, his tugging and snapping, there seemed to be no other sound on the entire ranch. I watched, in fascinated and dreadful silence, as Spritz bit and bit and bit at the diminishing clump of grass. I thought at one point that surely, had he wanted to, he could have taken the whole plant in that great mouth, furnished with those great teeth, in a single bite. Without knowing the way of horses, without ever having watched one eat, and I mean really watched, I could not be sure if it was normal for him to be taking such small nips at a time. Yet even now, with hindsight, I can scarcely think of the bites he took as anything so small as 'nips'. There was something too deliberate and thoughtful about it. Like the pruning of a rose bush or the trimming of a hedge. Or a child tugging the wings off of a fly. Finally, it got so I could not stand it any longer, till I could almost feel his mouth each time those huge, white tombstone teeth snapped closed, and I knew I had to make it stop."Spritz?" I asked, and heard how hoarse my voice had grown. Spritz heard to, for at once, the great ears upon his great head pricked in my direction. And he swung that great head upwards, doing sp with as much effort as it would have taken to knock me down, which was no effort at all. And his great mouth passed beside my hand, which I could not remember stretching out towards him. I pulled back immediately, not because he had shown any interest in my hand, for he had not, but because some basic, reptilian part of me told me, urged me to do so. I am not a small man. As I've already said, I am of about average height and weight. Yet in that moment, with Spritz staring down at me, staring at me with his deep, dark eyes, I realized just how much of a difference there is between an average sized man and an average sized horse. With difficulty I swallowed, and I realized that I was shaking. Even then, I told myself that I must have been cold. I hadn't noticed the sun go behind the clouds, nor the chill which had risen in its absence. I was cold and ought to have dressed warmer, for wasn't it November? I told myself this, as I backed away from the paddock and headed back towards the house. Yet even as I did, I never took my eyes off of Spritz. Nor did he take his off of me.

I arrived back at the house, breathless and trembling and utterly at a loss for what had come over me. I crossed the dog yard without seeing anything, got into the house and made for the kitchen. I needed a cup of coffee. Somewhere between finding the coffee beans and filling the kettle, I managed to bring myself under control. I still felt shaken and ultimately confused as to the cause, but the dreadful feeling of uncertainty and confusion had begun to pass. As I prepared the press and waited for the kettle to boil, I wondered, openly and allowed, just what had come over me? I was not an especially brave man, but nor had I ever been prone to any sort of phobic anxiety. The worst fear I had ever entertained revolved around spiders, and it came as more of an aversion than outright terror. The strongest emotion I'd ever had for horses, or any form of life stock for that matter, was an dispassionate but not unkind disinterest. Yet never had I experienced something so profoundly unsettling as what I'd just experienced with Spritz. Never had I be so profoundly shaken and keenly unnerved. With a mug of coffee in hand, I retreated to the sunroom on the north most side of the house, farthest as I could get from Spritz paddock, and looked out over the thick wood that surrounded the property on all sides. Though it was not quite after midday, the absence of the sun had turned those woods shaded and gloomy and I felt, for the first time since my arrival, confined by the trees rather than just surrounded by them. Checking the time on my phone, which had been in my pocket, I wondered what I could do for the next few hours that might help me take my mind from things. I tried not to think about locking the horses up that following evening.

After an hour, the ridiculous and unaccountable nature of my experience had supplanted all thoughts of dread and aversion I'd felt in the moment, and I had convinced myself that it had all been the result of some monetary fugue. I had enjoyed a fairly active morning after all, and it wasn't until after my experience with Spritz that I finally stopped to have lunch. Perhaps everything, from the strange impressions I'd felt to the conclusions I'd drawn was merely the result of low blood sugar or something equally trivial. Armored by this supposition, I determined that, bolster and well fed as I was, I should head back out and check on the animals. Even to myself, I framed this more as me being dutiful about my responsibilities, and less about my need to rationalize my experience. Thus, with another cup of coffee in my hand, I made my way out once again. In the dogyard, the dogs continued to lounge or frolic, seemingly unbothered by the lack of a sun in which to bask. I took note of all four. Daisy and Sooty were bounding about one another, with the occasional yip or yap to punctuate their play, while Magnolia lay a few yards from the back door, head raised and attentive of her playing compatriots. It took me a moment to find Scout, but I soon spotted her at the back of the yard. She was cantering along, occasionally sniffing at the chain-link fence which separated the yard from the stable path. All of it seemed normal and expected, and my confidence was fairly bolstered. Making my way across the yard, Maggy followed me with attentive eyes, but did not deign to raise from her regal repose. Sooty and Daisy I kept my distance from, not wanting to spoil their fun. At last I made it to the far side of the fence, and the gate which lead directly onto the stable path, where I was met by Scout. Once again I was impressed by the fact that a dog with so lively a countenance and such watchful eyes could be called old or queer by its owner, and I reach cautiously down to her. She regarded my hand closely for a second, gave it a small sniff, and then trotted a step closer to let me stroke her muzzle and head. "You're a sweet old thing." I said fondly, appreciating the matronly mutt's approval. I might have spent a whole hour stroking Scout if she'd let me. I've always loved dogs, and Scout's heritage as a mix of big and small breeds made her strangely comfortable to my tastes. As things stood, however, Scout decided that just over a minute of attention was about as much as she would tolerate, and she squirmed gently but firmly out of my grasp. What she did next caught me a little by surprise however. Moving towards the gate, she rose onto her hind paws, bracing herself with her front upon the chain-link, and nosed the latch which held it closed. Then, with an air of expectation, she dropped back down to all fours and looked up at me. Though I remembered Jacob's claim that she was a smart dog, the cogency of her communication caught me quite at a loss. Hesitating only for a moment, I reached out and placed my hand on the latch, to which Scout gave a solitary flick of her singularly bushy tail. "You are smart." I told her, which earned another flick, opened the gate and stepped out of the yard. Scout remained within, but stared up at me from the other side of the still-open gate. "Come on then." I told her, and opened the gate a little wider just to make the invitation clear. Rather than darting from the yard like a jackrabbit from its hutch, Scout proceeded through the gate with what I could only describe as cautious reserve. She sniffed the ground suspiciously on the other side, then scented the air to be extra sure, before finally looking up in the increasingly familiar, expectant manner she had. Nonplussed, but glad of the old dog's company, I swung the gate closed behind her and secured the latch.
"Let's go check on Rose and Peony." I told Scout, taking comfort not only in the sound of my own voice but in her willingness to listen, as I crossed the path towards the stables. Scout, with no more ceremony than she'd already shown, followed after.

We found, Scout and I, the two horses in their paddock. Rose, having presumably burned off much of her restless energy, was prancing and dallying about near the middle of the paddock, while Peony watched on from just beside the entrance to the barn. I made my way gradually along the fence which surrounded them, beginning at the front of the stables and ending at the back, and Scout kept me company as I walked. She was a remarkably well trained, with all the stoic deliberation one could want from a farm dog, overtaking me only occasionally, and never straying into the paddock. Reaching the back of the stables, whereupon I was able to look into both the southern and northern paddock, I noticed that Spritz was nowhere to be seen, and reasoned that he must have retired to his stall within the stable building. I saw simultaneously that, with the exception of the southern and northern doors, each of which opened onto a paddock, there was no way into the stable from the back. I considered passing over the fence to check Spritz's stall from the paddock side, but discarded the idea nearly immediately. Emboldened as I was by hindsight and caffeine, not to mention Scout's dutiful companionship, I did not relish the idea of behind in any confined space, even one so large as the southern paddock, with the big stallion. Therefore, I lead Scout around the perimeter of the southern paddock, just as I had the northern, sure that Spritz would show himself before I made a complete circuit back to the stables. The big stallion did not show himself, however. Even once we had covered enough distance as to see into the stables through the paddock door, I could make out nothing by the muted light of the overcast sun, save for gloom and shadow within Spritz stall. My unease growing, I did not notice that I'd already made it to the haybarn until Scout, with alacrity I hadn't yet seen from her, dashed past me and up to the weather grey building. This sudden burst of activity caught me off guard, and it was a moment before I rallied sufficiently to give chase, though I needn't have bothered, for Scout did not run far. I found her around the back side of barn, sniffing urgently at the concrete door frame to the root cellar. She took little notice of my arrival, and instead padded quickly around lowest edge of the door, sniffing and huffing softly.
"Scout?" I hissed, more sharply than I intended, though I confess my nerves were quite raw at this point. "Leave it." But she did not, and only kept sniffing and emitting that strange huffing sound. At a loss, I reached down to silence her as I'd seen Jacob do the previous morning, by placing my hand on nape of her neck. In so doing, I found her hackles were raised and could feel the low, nearly inaudible growl she was emitting, to which the quite huffs were just perfunctory punctuation. After a bit of effort, far more than she was due being that she wasn't such a large dog, I was able to pull scout from the door."What's gotten into you?" I asked allowed, for Scout's incongruous behavior had unsettled me nearly as badly as Spritz's. The dog did not answer, and only sat down and looked up at me the way she had done when Jacob had silenced her during our introduction. Then she looked away from me and back at the cellar door, though she did not make any attempts to resume her search. At this prompting, I also looked. I had not done so up until that point, despite all my efforts to bring Scout to heel, and almost wondered if I had done so intentionally. Now I saw the door, much as I'd seen it the day before, all flaking white and mottled greyish black, with its sturdy design and too-new latch and lock, and I remembered the haste with which Jacob had dissuaded my curiosity about it. Letting go of Scout, who remained obediently seated at my heels, and turned to better regard the door, and did so much more closely than I had the day before. Yes, the latch and lock were new, but so was the staple into which they both fitted, which had been mounted not to the concrete frame, but a metal bracket affixed to it. Without any conscious thought, I reached my hand into my pocket and grabbed the bundle of keys which rested there. I held those keys tightly and stared at the brand new padlock which secured the brand new latch on the ancient wooden door, and I wondered. The spell was finally broken by a quiet but insistent whine from just beside my heel, where I found Scouts soulful brown eyes staring up at me. Still seated, her tail gave an soft twitch, made anxious by her folded back ears. Finding my mouth dry, I didn't answer her and only nodded my head before giving hers a pat. Turning towards the house, my eyes next passed over the great equine figure of Spritz, who stood not more than twenty feet from me, head looming over the fence, eyes staring into mine. Wordlessly, I lead Scout back to the dogyard and retreated indoors to await my evening chores.

That evening I fed the dogs first, parceling out their ration of dry food before locking them in the kitchen and making my way outside, securing the dog flap on my way. I had been dreading a return to the stables ever since encountering Spritz at the rail, and was not looking forward to locking him up for the night. I entered the stables to find the stallion waiting for me, and was glad for the stables liberal dimensions in that I needn't pass too near his stall in order to get his nightly serving of hay and oats. He proffered a soft whinny at me as I entered, however, and I saw none of the menace nor foreboding which had impressed me previously. I saw only a horse, and one who was quite glad to see me. Her whickered softly as I laid out of his oat complacently chewed them as I tined in his hay. So complacent was he that I even found the nerve to reach out and touch his fetlock. His ears swiveled towards me as I did so, and a glance down found his deep eyes staring right back and me, but there was nothing malicious of even unnerving about it. He was just a horse, and a horse who was happy to be fed. I left Spritz there, munching his oats, and set out the oats and hay for Rose and Peony, the latter of which was already waiting in her stall. Rose, however, could still be heard cantering and frolicking in the paddock. Unsettled by just how normal it all appeared, I made my way through Peony's stall as she ate and into the paddock beyond. Sure enough, there was Rose, locked in the same frivolous dance which I had seen her performing for much of the day. Whistling sharply, I approached the small horse with one hand outstretched, a sugar cube upon my palm. I didn't know the first thing about chasing a willful filly back into her stall, but I knew this filly liked sugar cubes well enough. At my whistle, Rose briefly halted in her playful dance and turned two eyes as deep as her father's upon me. I had no doubt that I had just gained her complete and utter attention. Clicking my tongue the way I'd heard cowboys do in westerns, I rattled the sugar cube about encouragingly and did everything to convey my utmost wish that Rose return to her stall. Things proceeded, much in this manner, all the way back to the stables, until finally, by placing the sugar cube beside her feed bag and then moving quickly passed her when she finally entered, I was able to shut the door behind her. Proud of my tact and ingenuity, it took me a moment to notice that full night had fallen in the time it had taken to coax the willful filly back into her stall. A bit perturbed by this fact, though for no reason I could consciously describe, I began making my way out of the northern paddock when what sounded like hoofbeats reach my ears. Turning suddenly, convinced that Rose had somehow gotten past me, I found the paddock, well lit in a halo of buzzing electric lights, to be entirely empty. Then I heard them again, yet this time what I'd taken to be softness, as those hoofbeats produced by a small horse, I instead recognized as those of an average sized horse over a small distance. My thoughts jumped to the southern paddock, and I realized that I had not secured Spritz's door at all. With quiet invectives you'll excuse me for not listing, I ran to the fence and clambered over it where it connected to the back of the stables. As I clambered my way back into the southern paddock, however, the utmost sense of dissonance and incongruity overcame me. For even as I mounted the fence, I could plainly see that there was no horse galloping in the southern paddock. Indeed, there was no horse in the paddock at all. Dropping down onto the well trodden sawdust which coated the whole paddock, and moved to the stable door, looked cautiously inside, and found Spritz, head still lowered attentively towards his meal. I closed the door immediately, secured it as quickly as I could rationally allow, and made my way down the length of the stables towards the house. Listening, all the while, for hoofbeats behind me.

Slipping inside, I locked the door behind me and then, just to be sure, I tested the knob. Satisfied, I made my way up the small flight of stairs which lead into the kitchen and pulled open the sliding door which separated it from the stairwell. Therein, I found the dogs much as I had left them, though I noticed Sooty was eating out of Daisy's dish, and began preparing some food for myself. I was not hungry, but also could not bring myself to drink half a bottle of wine on an empty stomach. As well as availing me of their foodstuffs, Marleen had also invited me to help myself to whatever was in the liquor cabinet, which mostly consisted of wines from local vineyards. I ended up preparing a small, desultory from a few cold meats and a bit of cheese that I found in the fridge. As I am not a habitual wine drinker, I do not know what pairs well with cold meat and cheese, but my selection was moot in any case, being that I tasted nothing. My thoughts were gloomy and disconsolate, and the sparse application of food and far more liberal application of wine didn't seem to make things any better. I could not bring myself to accept the days events, nor the frightening impressions which had accompanied them. I was, at once, quite conscious of the large house I was in and the utter silence that pervaded it. Though I could hear the familiar, nearly comforting hum of the kitchen electronics surrounding me, I knew that any other room would hold only silence. It felt to me, in that moment, as if I were in the solitary source of light and sound in an otherwise dark and silent abyss, and I was loath to leave. Even the idea of leaving that one room impressed upon me the deepest sense of the most nebulous dread, for it would mean venturing around corners and opening doors which were not familiar to me. Of course, I knew the rough layout of the house, and that this room contained a bedroom and that one a bathroom, and knew roughly where every corridor lead, be it to the sun room or the stairs. Yet even thinking of doing so had be affixed to the spot at which I sat, for there would be a moment before every turned corner and a moment before every opened door where I could not be sure what was on the other side.

There came a point where I knew I must either move or collapse. I was most of the way through the wine by that point, and the alcohol, if not shake them off entirely, had at least made me bold enough to disregard my misgivings. I forced myself out of the small barstool, one of three which furnished the Everstone's kitchen, and determined that I would go downstairs. My laptop, with its potential to play any movie ever made and real time connection to all I knew and loved, would offer and anchorage by which I might weather this storm. I was loathe to go alone, however, and enlisted the two smallest brussel griffons to this end. I might have taken Maggy too, but did not presently trust myself to juggle three small dogs while navigating the stairs to the basement. I also might have called Scout, but she was somewhere else in the house, and I hadn't the will to go find her. Descending into the basement, company in hand, I found my way to the den and closed every door leading out of it. Next, I took up residence in the largest available couch and arranged myself so that each of the small dogs was visible to me from where I lay. Then, laptop perched on the nearby coffee table, I willfully became absorbed in the most trivial programs I could think of. I'm not sure how long I lay there, nor even how much syndicated television I watched. Only that, by the time I was sensible once again, I had lost all track of time and had even managed to forget what I was doing and why I was doing it. At remembering this latter point, I immediately sat up , an act made uncomfortable by my previous forays into wine pairing, and searched for the two dogs I had brought down with me. I spotted each at the edge of the couch, ears perked and eyes watchful. Not watchful of me however, but rather of the ceiling some distance my right. Looking that way myself, I was at an utter loss as to what they might be looking at. Then I heard it. It was a quiet sound, just barely audible over the canned laughter and stilted dialogue my headphones were feeding right into my ears, but it was also unmistakable. Pulling my headphones off, I was immediately overcome by the complete silence of the world around me, filled only by the quiet hum of my laptop and the quickened pace of my breathing. Listening into the cavernous stillness, I once again heard what I only thought I'd heard before, and a chill ran through me. It was howling, coming from the floor above. Not urgent howling, as of a dog in distress, nor the energetic yodeling of the two small dogs when they received their morning meal. Nor was it constant, but instead delivered in succinct notes separated by gulfs of utter silence. It was a bass and melancholy howl, the likes of which I'd never heard before, nor since, and it seemed to strike me right in the core. Though I stood suddenly, neither Sooty nor Daisy took their eyes from the ceiling and the source of that morose wail. And though I stood suddenly, I hadn't any idea what I might do. Did I dare go upstairs, to confront the source of that devastated cry? Could I bear to stay downstairs and ignorant of its source? At last, I found the answer, and moved unsteadily towards the door, beyond which were the stairs that would take me to the ground floor. The silence pressed in on me as I moved. Like fine crystal, it surrounded me, and it seemed that it held something at bay. As if beyond the crystal shell that even the slightest sound might shatter, was a dreadful expanse filled with something far worse than even the silence it self. I do not know how long it took me to reach the door, moving so slowly as to preserve the silence and drawing utterly still with each howl, only that I was shaking with exertion and expectation when I finally did. I turned the light to the stairwell on before opening the door, but even then had to work up the will to pull it open. For, as one ascended the stairs out of the basement, they did so in the direction of the back door. A door which, in its upper half, bore a latticed window looking out into the dogyard and the stables beyond. A window which I would need to first walk towards and then past in order to reach the sound of the how. A window that would be completely black, because hadn't I shut off the outside lights when I came in from locking up the horses? Somewhere, I found it within me to open the door and look up the stairs and what I knew would be there. And, as another howl sliced through me, I started to climb. Step by step, I drew closer to the back door and to the dark night that waited beyond. And, as I rose, the howl grew louder and closer, all while the silence lurked behind it. On I climbed, watching my own movements reflected back at me by the black window in the back door, until finally I rounded the top and peered into the utter blackness of the kitchen, only a few steps away. Again I heard the howl, so close it might have been right beside me, and I felt terror as I've never felt it before. As cold as ice, it froze me in place, at the precipice of the stairwell with nothing but darkness beyond. Then, after what might have been a minute or a year, I heard something else. The quiet tick-tack of small claws on a tiled floor. Moving once more, I reached around the nearby corner and turned on the kitchen lights, and looked, trembling, through into the dining room beyond. There, perched on her haunches, ears pricked and staring into the mudroom, was Scout. For several moments, she was still. As still as a painting. Then, finally, she tipped back her head and poured her melancholy song into the emptiness around her. At last, seeing that it was, indeed, only her, I rushed ahead and put my hands upon the dog. Relief as I've never known warred with the insensible anger resulting from the utter terror I'd felt, and for a moment even I was not sure if I meant to hug the dog or throttle her into silence. In the end, relief won out over fury, and I put my arms around Scout and I hugged her fiercely.
"What are you doing?" I asked her, my voice as tremulous as my hold upon her. Looking up, I saw where she had been looking, and found the window that was the dining room's most singular feature, the one which looked into the adjoined mudroom. On impulse and before I could stop myself, I reached out and flipped the switch beside the closed door, the one controlling the mudroom light. Incandescent radiance flooded the room beyond, revealing nothing more than coats and shoes, at least one and one pair of which were mine. I stood, still shaking, and stared into that room, until the quiet clicking of Scout's claws and warm closeness of her body drew my attention. I found her staring up at me with eyes wide and expectant, as was her want, and was at a complete loss."There's nobody there." I told her, giving voice to the only cogent thought I could manage at that moment. Still shaking, I turned back to the mudroom window, "Nobody…"
I went back downstairs after that, and I took Scout and Maggy, who I found on kitchen rub and who'd evidently slept peacefully through it all, with me. Both made themselves comfortable, and seemed content to go to or return to sleep. Sooty and Daisy, meanwhile, had stolen my spot on the couch and were already well on their way to peaceful dreams when I returned. Finding myself too exhausted to even attempt going to sleep, I sat down beside the pair and whiled away a few minutes by petting their sleeping forms. When next I stirred, morning had arrived, and quite without my realizing it.

I moved through that morning in a fugue, fueled half by exhaustion and half by the quantity of wine I had drank the previous night. My head was swimming, and it seemed impossible for me to put a single thought in front of another. I fed the dogs and horses without quite realizing what I was doing, and let out the horses in much the same manner. After that, I'm not wholly sure what I did. I might have entertained the idea of getting into my car and driving into town, but this plan quickly crumbled against the winding road I would need to navigate and the fact that I was wholly unfit to drive. Any escape I might have achieved would have been incomplete in any case, for I had already made a commitment to care for the Everstones home and animals, and while my acquaintance with the Everstones was not so vital as to preclude disappointment, their friendship with my parents would surely be effected by any failure on my part. Still, my most pressing concern was for neither the Everstones nor their friendship with my parents, but the animals themselves. I was loath to abandon any of the sever creatures under my care, no matter the bizarre and unaccountable circumstances surrounding them.

I do not remember falling asleep, only that when next I awoke, I found myself once again in the basement, seated in the very spot where the previous nights peculiarities had begun. I say awoke, but it is more accurate to say I was awoken. The four dogs, each running on an internal clock tuned by routine stretching back to the day of their births, were well appraised to the time, even if their caretaker was not. Thus, it was to a chorus of insistent and increasingly peevish barking that I returned to the waking world. I had not quite shaken free of my fugue, however, and it was only through mechanical contrivance that I made my way up to the kitchen to begin preparing dinner for my four furry charges. Once there however, I chanced to glance out the window and was impressed, for the first time since waking up, just how late I had allowed it to get. The sky above the trees was already beginning its rapid transition from the peachy orange of sunset to the bruised purple of twilight. At once, I recalled the horses, and the fact that I had opened the gates to both paddocks that morning. With the dogs fed, I rushed out into the dogyard, vaulted the fence to the stable path and ran up to the fences. A familiar whinny greeted me from the northern side of the stables, where Peony was already waiting, but neither Spritz nor Rose were to be seen. Dread crept through me then, along side a sense of absolute and grim certainty. Setting out oats and hay for all three horses, I left Peony and ran around to the northern paddock, where I saw Rose playing unabashedly in the halogen glow of the corral lamps. The sky had already begun to grow dark over head, and I rushed urgently to coax the filly back, before realizing I had neglected to bring any sugar cubes with me. I tried to coax her anyway, presenting my hand, sans cube, in the hopes that she would still think I had one. I'm not sure if it was the lack of a genuine sugar cube, or if my increasingly frantic efforts discouraged her, but Rose resisted my best attempts to get her back into her enclosure. Frustrated and rapidly the limit of my patience, I moved around the small horse and ran at her, attempting to chase her into her stall instead. The indelicacy of this tactic can not be overstated, and Rose easily danced around my best efforts to curtail and coerce her fleet movements. Then, half winded by my attempts to outrun an animal built to do just that, I watched a change come over rose. She went from prancing and cantering to a complete halt near the middle of the paddock. Her ears and eyes, pricked and watchful and previously centered on me, turned slowly away to look at the very stable I had been trying to guide her into. Nostrils flaring, the small horse danced restively in place and, in every way which is imaginable, seemed to wait for something. I also turned, and did so just in time to watch Spritz come into his stall from the southern paddock. At first I thought it must have been he whom Rose was listening for, and then I heard it. In the moment stillness when Rose had stopped dancing and Spritz had returned to his stall, I heard hoofbeats. And they came from the southern paddock. Rose snorted loudly, and I looked back to see her pacing uncertainly in place, then returned my attention to the stables to find Peony and Spritz doing the same. Again, I heard the hoofbeats, and there was no mistaking their nature or source. I saw the whites of Spritz's eyes, visible even so far away as I was, as they rolled in his head and a low, and he made a low, shuddering sound that I had never heard from a horse. Rose, meanwhile, whinny shrilly and galloped as far from the stables as she could get, all the way up to the northern edge of her paddock. Again, I heard the hoofbeats, and this time was spurred into motion by them. Confusion and terror lit across my like electricity, but I ran for the stables, threw closed the door to the paddock, secured it and left Rose to her fate. Mantling the back edge of the fence as I had before, I came down on the ground on the other side at a dead run, and leaped halfway up the southern fence without slowing down. I rushed to Spritz's stall, where I heard both he and Peony making that low, guttural sound, and threw the door closed. The hoofbeats were close now, hammering at the earth what seemed like only a few feet away. Then, rising above the sound of phantom hooves, there was the straining shriek of agonized steel and a colossal, booming crash. With Spritz's door secured, I ran for the house as the sound of barking, of four small, panicked voices, filled the ensuing silence. I vaulted the corral fence as the sound of hoofbeats rose up once more, lunged over the dogyard fence at a full sprint and through the back door, followed promptly by the four dogs. Then, just before I closed it and secured the dog flap, I heard a sound that will forever haunt me. It was the loud, piercing, shrieking keening of an animal in the throes of the utmost terror and pain, then prematurely cut off. I slid the latch on the dogflap home and, at once, was consumed by complete and blessed silence. When the tears finally stopped, and I picked myself off the ground before the back door where I had collapsed, I looked out to see what might have become of Rose. I saw nothing but my own face, sallow and white, reflected back to me in the otherwise utter blackness of the window.

I retreated downstairs after that, and spent the night with all four dogs on my bed, but not before turning on every light in the house and making sure that every door was locked. When morning came and the darkness lifted and I ventured outside, I found the stable doors open and remembered that I had not closed them before trying to coax rose back into her stall. Of Rose, nor her mother and father, there was no sign. Yet as I searched, I could not help but notice that the corral lights were still lit. Lights which should have been visible from the back door. I returned to the house after that, gathered my things and loaded them along with all four dogs, into my tracker. Lastly, I returned to the barn and the entrance to the root cellar which stood beside it. Beside, but not a part of the barn itself. It was much as I had left it, chipped white paint, weathered wood, new latch and lock and all. Bravely, I tested that lock. I tugged and pulled and made sure it would not budge. Lastly, I took the keys I had been given from my pocket, and was unsurprised to find I had not been given the key to unlock it. And then I left. I drove to my parent's house and fed the dogs, where I tried to forget what I'd seen beside the cellar door, what I had failed to notice the first time I'd seen it, and the new thing, more horrible still.

The Everstones never did come back. They never crossed the American border either. Draw from that whatever conclusions you may. I've certainly drawn mine.

I left for Vancouver the following day, and have not returned to the Okanagan since. For in the city, nothing is ever dark and nothing ever truly silent. I like it better that way. Any sound is better than none. Excepting perhaps, the scream of dying horses. Or that of a great and sturdy door slamming open