The Gates

VI In Which We Encounter Stephanie, Who Is Not a Demon but Is Still Not Terribly Nice

THE FRONT DOOR OPENED while Samuel was fumbling for his key. He had only recently been entrusted with his own house key, and he was so terrified of losing it that he kept it around his neck on a piece of string. Unfortunately it was proving rather difficult to find it while dressed as a ghost and holding on to a small, worried dog, so he was still searching beneath various layers of sheet, sweater, and shirt when Stephanie the babysitter appeared in his line of sight.

“Where have you been?” she said. “You should have been back half an hour ago.” The expression on her face changed. “And why are you dressed like a ghost?”

Samuel shuffled past her, but didn’t answer immediately. First of all, he set Boswell free of his leash, and divested himself of his sheet.

“I thought I’d get an early start for Halloween,” he said, gasping, “but that doesn’t matter now. I’ve seen something-”

“Forget it,” said Stephanie.

“But-”

“Not interested.”

“It’s important.”

“Go to bed.”

“What?” Samuel was momentarily distracted from what he had witnessed in the Abernathys’ basement by the injustice of this magnitude. “It’s half term. I don’t have to go to school tomorrow. Mum said-”

“’Mum said, Mum said,’” mimicked Stephanie. “Well, your mum isn’t here now. I’m in charge, and I say that you have to go to bed.”

“But the Abernathys. Their basement. Monsters. Gates. You don’t understand.”

Stephanie leaned in very close to Samuel’s face, and Samuel recognized that there were things even more terrifying than what he had seen at the Abernathys’ house, if only because they were very close and their anger was directed entirely at him. Stephanie’s face was going red, her nostrils were flaring, and her eyes had grown narrow, like the slits in a castle wall before someone begins firing flaming arrows out of them. She spoke very precisely, through gritted teeth.

“Go. To. Bed!”

The final word was delivered at such ear-splittingly high volume that Samuel felt certain his glasses were about to crack. Even Boswell, who was used to Stephanie by now, looked disturbed.

With no other option, Samuel stomped up the stairs to bed, closely followed by Boswell. He was about to slam his door behind him when he heard Stephanie shout, “And don’t you dare slam that door!”

Although sorely tempted to disobey, Samuel decided to err on the side of discretion. There was not a great deal that Stephanie could do to him, although he sometimes wondered what she might have done if she thought that she could get away with it, like burying him in the back garden after drowning him in the bathtub. [12] Still, Stephanie was a tattletale and when Samuel had crossed her in the past he had found himself dealing with his mother the following morning. Unlike Stephanie, there were many things his mum could do to make his life uncomfortable, such as denying him television, or his allowance, or, as on one particularly grim occasion after he had dropped a plastic snake down Stephanie’s back, both of the above. How was he to know that Stephanie was afraid of snakes, he had argued, even though he had been fully aware of how much she disliked them, and that had been half the fun. He still treasured the memory of her leaping from the couch in shock, and the strange noise that had come from deep within her, a sound that was barely human, as if someone were playing a violin inside her very, very badly. In fact, he could trace the serious deterioration of his relationship with Stephanie to that particular occasion. Not only had his mother punished him, but the odious Garth had threatened to stick his head down the toilet and flush him to China if he ever pulled a stunt like that again. Samuel, having no great desire to be flushed to China, had not pulled a stunt like that again. [13]

Samuel changed into his pajamas, brushed his teeth, and got into bed. Boswell curled up in his basket at the foot of the bed. Usually, Samuel would read before turning off the light and going to sleep, but not tonight. He was determined to stay up until his mother returned home, and then he would confront her with what he had learned.

Samuel managed to stay awake for two and a half hours before sleep eventually took him. He thought of all that he had seen and heard in the Abernathys’ basement. He wondered if he should go to the police, but he was not an unintelligent boy and he knew that the police would take a dim view of an eleven-year-old with a dachshund who claimed that his neighbors had been transformed into demons intent upon opening the gates of Hell. So it was that Samuel did not hear his mother come in, nor did he hear Stephanie leave, after first informing Samuel’s mother that Samuel had broken curfew.

Nor did he see, after the lights were turned off and his mother was, like him, asleep in bed, the figure of a woman standing at the garden gate, staring intently at his bedroom window, her eyes burning with a cold blue fire.