Margie Fletcher was seated in front of the massive stone fireplace trying to explain her daughter's Algebra assignment. The calculator glowed green in the dim light of the room. Jan's books and papers were spread before them on the rug before the stone hearth in an untidy pile. Jan wasn't the perfectionist that her brother had been. Neither was she the mathematician either. Not that Margie could claim any strong Mathematical gene. She was a literary ace. A+B just wasn't her thing. If only her husband were here to help. Margie sighed softly. But, he wasn't here and that was that. Wishing didn't make things happen. She watched her daughter pencil in numbers on the blue ruled, white notebook paper in the spiral tablet before them. Dark, bold numbers found themselves into the wrong positions and Jan as frustrated as Margie was, suddenly wadded up the sheet of paper and threw it into the blazing fire. They both sat there, eyebrows knit in similar expressions, watching the fire leap up and eat away at the quickly blackening piece of paper.

"Now, why'd you go and do that for?" Margie asked. Now they would have to do it all over again and it was getting late. It seemed they both had been staying up later and later these past nights as if sleep were not welcome due to the dreams it brought along with it. It was scary enough to face the truth that they were gone while in the daylight hours. It seemed completely terrifying in the dark of the night. Margie knew that Jan had questions. Margie wished she had answers to provide whenever her daughter started verbalizing what she was feeling deep inside.

"I don't know. Nerves. I can't think straight. Whenever I need to concentrate on something, all I end up doing is thinking of Danny and Daddy." Jan slammed her book shut with a loud "Whoomph" and rustled up the papers, jamming them into her open backpack. "I'll do it tomorrow morning before school. I can't think about this crap anymore." Jan turned and stomped up the stairs to her bedroom.

It was quiet. Margie sat back against the paisley couch and listened to the quietness. The fire popped and sizzled in front of her. The house creaked and groaned with the outside wind. She could hear the one loose gutter rhythmically banging against the side of the house. Dave had kept saying he was going to fix that. He hadn't. Now he never would. Margie made a mental note to call someone to come fix it for her. She just didn't feel like house repairs at this point in her life. She could hear Jan's radio muffled through the floorboards, but not enough to break the quietness that engulfed her. It was deadly quiet.

No, Margie thought, that was the wrong choice of words. She began to sob. She did her best to keep her sobs quiet so Jan wouldn't hear anything out of the ordinary if she were able to hear over the music coming from her radio. She understood how Jan felt. Sometimes it was all too much to process, and when one did get analytical about it all; it was too much to take in, too much to comprehend. Her grief blocked her ability to cope with all that had happened. Yet, she had tried to put on an outward appearance of strength and fortitude for Jan's benefit. When she was alone she often broke down from the strain.

First it had been Danny, her son. He had helped with the plans. Side by side with her husband they had struggled on the formulas and devised the processes. He had never doubted his father's ideas or waivered in his devotion in making them a reality. And then it was…Margie choked on a sob and wiped her nose on the back of her hand.

BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.

A knock sounded on the front door. Flashing thoughts raced through Margie's mind. Her whole being screamed, "Run!" but her quiet nature told her to remain calm. There was nowhere to run to, or from, in this case anyway. She did not answer the door, but turned instead to get the hunting rifle. It was so old now, it probably wouldn't even fire. Not that it would be very effective. Somehow, she knew this, but it still seemed comforting to have something tangible that you held in your hands and felt like you were protecting yourself and the ones you loved.

She knew in her rational mind that it was futile and that an old hunting rifle that had been stored in a closet for a couple decades was not going to be a hindrance in the slightest bit to the forces she was up against. An old hunting rifle, or any firearm new or old. Nonetheless, she sought the gun, quickly loaded it from an old cardboard box with dusty bullets, and grasped it tightly. She heard footsteps outside mulling around.

She gasped and froze where she stood. After a few moments, the footsteps faded away. Her heart pounded in her chest to the point where it felt as if it was going to explode. She sucked in a breath.

"Not another letter." She said softly out loud to no one.

It was a creamy white envelope almost glowing, but blank. There were no markings or writing of any kind on the envelope. No seal. Nothing. She knew it was meant for either herself or Jan. They just wouldn't read it. That's all there was to it.

She, perhaps foolishly, had not told Jan about the letters. She meant to. She just couldn't figure out a way to explain it to the teenager in a way that would make sense. She could not justify the risks her husband and son had been taking in order to prove their experiments.

Actually, looking back at it now, her husband may have been unaware there would be a risk such as this. If he had known, he didn't tell her.

Then after Danny, Margie's eyes grew watery; he had finally told her some of the finer details of what they had been doing tucked away in that laboratory of his locked away from prying eyes and ears. There had been days one end when neither one of them even came out of the laboratory.

She would have to pound on the door to get them to eat. Sometimes one of them would open the door a crack and accept the food she brought in the picnic basket, or fast food bags. Other times, all of her pounding would bring no one. She could hear no sounds coming from the locked room. Only the whirl and mechanical sounds of the machinery locked up in there with the two of them.

Danny and Dave had both received letters identical to the one that was now lying on the floor in front of her front door, having been shoved through the bronze mail slot. She hadn't been there to witness Danny's letter. Dave had been and he figured out some things after that and had warned Margie of the letters' peril. To read one meant…"Don't think about it!"

Margie said a little louder than before. Hearing her own voice was startling in the quietness of the room. It almost seemed to echo off of the walls and reverberate back at her. She cast a quick glance up the stairs in the direction of Jan's room hoping Jan had not heard her speak out so loudly and suddenly downstairs.

Margie stood there like a fool holding the old, rusty splintery wood gun in her hands as if she could save the world just by having it near her. She was frozen in place. What would she do now?

She heard Jan's door open and saw her daughter come barreling down the steps full force, in that adolescent way, stopping abruptly when she saw her mother standing in the middle of the room quite freakishly holding an old gun. Jan saw the letter on the floor before the door and turned to retrieve it.

"Stop! Jan, do NOT touch that envelope!" Margie cried out sternly and loudly. Jan blinked somewhat shocked at her mother's bold outburst.

Margie determined if anyone was getting a letter, it was not going to be her last living child. She would take the envelope herself and spare her daughter.

Jan frowned in bewilderment as she watched, confused, as her mother crossed the room to pick up the blank envelope that was still lying on the floor atop the small oriental rug in front of the front door. It was a strange envelope. It almost seemed like it was glowing. Something about it seemed wrong, unnatural. She watched silently as her mother reached out to pick up the envelope. Margie's hand reflexively recoiled the moment she touched the paper.

Her mother suddenly screamed a hideous, pain-racked piercing scream and ran into the kitchen, instinctively sticking her burned hand under the cold water of the faucet. The envelope was red hot. It had felt like a fresh coal against the flesh of her palm.

Margie suddenly thought about Jan. Oh, God, the envelope. She grabbed a towel and ran back to the living room.

Jan picked up the blank envelope. That was odd, it was cold, death cold. She opened it and took out an old parchment letter, which was brittle and discolored with age. The edges of the parchment were broken and some pieces dangling here and there. It had a musty, old attic smell to it like it had been sitting around somewhere for about a hundred years, stuck in an old book for safekeeping perhaps.

"Don't read it, Jan! Don't read it!" Margie came screaming into the room.

She was too late. Like the others, Jan vanished before her eyes. Fading away in a sparkly mist and then into nothingness.

Margie knew that Dave had experimented with trips to the beyond and back. She didn't know what he discovered or had encountered. She didn't know which beyond he had ventured into. She didn't even know what "the beyond" was exactly. She was unaware of what was happening or why it was happening. Even pouring over Dave's notes for many sleepless nights had yielded nothing. Whatever he had come up against, he was too fearful to even put it into writing. He had not documented anything that would give her a clue as to what was happening or where her loved ones had been taken.

Margie stood there listening to her own heartbeat, not able to move. She had no strength or will to even wiggle. She simply stood in the same place she was when she had entered the room and last laid eyes on her baby girl.

Why was this all happening? Whatever Dave had done, she hoped it had been worth his sacrifice. Her sacrifice. Somehow he had invited the beyond here for a visit again and again. She didn't know how many other family members of theirs had received envelopes yet. Margie was sure the numbers, for whatever reason, were bound to increase. Dave had paid dearly for his work this time.

There was another knock at the door. This one wasn't like the others. It had a more determined sound to it. Almost as if the force was trying to burst through the door itself. This one meant to claim what before now had managed to elude them. She would not read the letters. She knew too much to read them. The others had not known. Even Dave who had watched in horror as his son faded before his eyes, thought the answer might be in his own letter. Whether or not he found out, Margie did not know.

She would not read a letter. So, they were coming for her in person. Whoever "They" might be. Margie found the whole thing perplexing. She did not know who or what she was up against. And now, she wasn't sure she would even fight them anymore. Yet something primal inside of her refused to just lie down and passively take whatever it was this force was dishing out. She owed it to her children and to Dave to fight until the very end. She knew what would happen if she didn't.

She grabbed the gun she had left on the couch and cocked it, knowing it was useless, knowing it was silly. The doorknob turned ever so slightly. All the locks seemed to burst from the wood where they had been so carefully crafted by the expert carpenter and locksmith that had so finely built this house so many years ago. A fine, silky mist seeped through the door. Not just under it, but around it, over it, through it.

The mist permeated the room. It encircled her and seemed to permeate her entire being lifting her up, off of her feet and around in a dust devil like spiral. Margie screamed. The gun went off.

All was quiet.

Two weeks later, Edna, the maid and close friend of the family, came in to clean on her usual once a month scheduled appointment. What she found was an open door, a spent gun, and a very empty house. There had been no sign of a struggle except the cast off, fired gun. There was a burned out fire in the fireplace, a half full cup of curdled coffee, and Jan's radio playing softly upstairs in her empty bedroom. The water in the kitchen sink had been left on and its gurgle down the drain was the only other sound in the house.

Edna surveyed the room, hands on her hips, with a frown. She decided she should call the police. She picked up the phone, dialed, recounted what she had encountered and then set down the receiver in order to await the officers. Her lip quivered a bit. Had foul play been involved?

Her heart beat wildly as her imagination conjured up a thousand different scenarios that involved her friends and employers. She decided not to clean until given permission by the police. She turned to go wait on the swing on the front porch. On her way to the door, she saw a creamy white envelope on the small rug right where she had just walked. She must have walked right over it. It was a regular sized envelope, but it had no writing on it at all and seemed to be so white it almost glowed. She reached over and picked up the clammy, cold envelope, ripped the end open, and shook out an old piece of parchment. Unfolding it, she wondered how it didn't just fall apart in her hands it seemed so old and cracked. She pulled out her glasses, perched them on the end of her nose, and began to read the letter.

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Author Bio

In 1991, Angeline Hawkes-Craig received a B.A. in Composite English Language Arts from East Texas State University. She specializes in fiction with Celtic and Tudor settings and themes. Her fiction is currently available in print and in online publications nationwide. She is a member of The Writer's League of Texas.

Angeline Hawkes-Craig's Sword and Sorcery/Fantasy novel, The Swan Road, published by Scars Publications was released in September of 2002. She has also been selected as one of the authors included in Double Dragon Publishing's newest anthology due out next spring entitled: Femmes de La Brume: A Collection of Speculative Fiction.

Visit her works at her website http://home.earthlink.net/~robertccraig/AngieHomePage/

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