The Crooked Gate

The last time I saw Aunt June, she was standing at the kitchen window, her hand pressed against the glass as if trying to touch something beyond. I was leaving after a visit that felt shorter than it should have, and she gave me a smile that didn’t reach her eyes. ‘Don’t be a stranger,’ she said, but her voice was thin, like it was being pulled through a crack. I waved, and the window fogged with her breath, blooming like a frost flower before she turned away.

She passed three days ago, on a Tuesday. The call came from my cousin Nate, and his voice was flat, empty, like he’d already said the words a hundred times. ‘She didn’t want anyone coming by,’ he told me. ‘Just us. She was firm about it.’ I said I understood, but I didn’t. I always thought we were close, June and me. She’d taught me to bake bread when I was eight, her flour-dusted hands guiding mine. But in the last year, she’d pulled away. She stopped answering my calls, and when I visited, she’d sit on the porch, staring at the treeline, not really talking. I chalked it up to age, to grief over Uncle Lloyd, but a knot in my stomach told me something else.

About a year ago, I started dreaming of her place. It’s a rambling farmhouse on the edge of Millbrook, surrounded by fields that turned golden in the summer. In the dreams, I’m standing on the gravel road that runs past her front gate. The gate is iron, with a latch that always stuck, and I know I can’t go in. I don’t even try. The dreams are sad, all pale sunlight and long shadows. Sometimes I just stand there, watching the house. The windows are dark, but I feel her watching me from inside.

One dream was different. In that one, I noticed a path beside the gate, overgrown with brambles, but clearly worn. I followed it. It wound through tall grass and then into a thicket of twisted oaks. The air turned cool, and the sounds of birds faded. I came to a clearing where the house should have been, but there was nothing—just bare earth, scoured clean, as if nothing had ever stood there. The foundation was gone, and the trees around the clearing were gnarled, their branches like arthritic fingers. I tried to find the way back, but every direction looked the same. I wandered for what felt like hours, the sun never moving, until I woke with my heart pounding.

I never asked June if she was ill. I told myself it would upset her, but the truth was I was afraid of the answer. She’d had a scare years ago—a lump that turned out benign—but she’d refused to go back for follow-ups. ‘I don’t need doctors poking at me,’ she’d say, and change the subject. I respected it, but I always carried a low-level unease. After the dreams started, that unease sharpened. I considered calling her, but what would I say? ‘I’m dreaming about your house? Are you dying?’ Instead, I buried it.

The funeral was a quiet affair, just a handful of us in the small chapel at the edge of town. Nate spoke, his voice cracking, but he didn’t mention the last year, how she’d shut herself away. The casket was closed, which I thought was odd. When I asked, Nate said, ‘She wanted it that way.’ I didn’t push. But as I stood there, the dream of the empty clearing flashed in my mind, and I felt a chill that had nothing to do with the air conditioning.

After the service, the family gathered at the farmhouse for a reception. I hadn’t been inside in months, and stepping through the front door felt like crossing a threshold. The house smelled of old wood and dust, with an undertone of something sweet and cloying, like rotting fruit. The windows were open, but the air was still. I wandered through the rooms, touching the spines of her books, the worn arms of her favorite chair. In her study, I found a stack of journals, bound in cracked leather. I tucked one under my arm without thinking, a compulsion I couldn’t name.

Back in the living room, I noticed the gate from my dreams, the one at the front of the property. It was ajar, and I could see the path leading into the overgrown field. No one else seemed to notice. The afternoon was warm, but I felt a pull toward the gate. I slipped out, crossing the gravel, and stood at the entrance. The path was there, just like in my dream, overgrown but distinct. I told myself I’d just take a few steps, see where it led. But as I stepped onto the path, the air turned cold, and the sounds of the house faded behind me.

I followed the path through the tall grass, and the trees closed in. The same gnarled oaks, the same eerie stillness. My breath misted in front of me, and I realized it was autumn again, not the summer I’d left. The path led to the clearing, and this time, the house wasn’t missing. It was there, but wrong. The walls were slightly crooked, the windows at odd angles, and the front door was open, a black maw. I wanted to turn back, but my legs kept moving, as if on a string.

I stepped inside. The interior was a distorted version of June’s home—the furniture was familiar, but the proportions were off, like a funhouse mirror. The air was thick with that sweet rot, and I heard a voice, June’s voice, saying, ‘I told you not to come.’ I turned, and she was there, standing in the hallway, but she was translucent, her features wavering like heat mirage. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said. ‘I didn’t want you to see me like this.’ I tried to reach for her, but my hand passed through her.

‘I made a deal,’ she whispered. ‘I wanted more time, but I didn’t know what it would cost. Now I’m trapped here, between. You have to find the root, the one that shouldn’t be, and pull it out.’ She pointed to a door at the end of the hall. ‘Go. Before it wakes.’

I stumbled toward the door, and behind me, I heard a sound like something heavy dragging across the floor. The door opened into a basement, and the stairs spiraled down into darkness. I descended, my heart pounding. At the bottom, a single bare bulb illuminated a dirt floor. In the center grew a plant, unlike any I’d seen—its leaves were black, veined with red, and its roots snaked into the earth like veins. It pulsed faintly, as if alive. I remembered the journal I’d taken, and I pulled it out. The pages were filled with June’s handwriting, frantic, dated in the last months. ‘It grows when I feed it,’ she wrote. ‘It gives life but takes the soul. The root must be cut.’

I knelt and grabbed the plant. Its leaves felt cold and slick. I pulled, but it held fast. I used my pocketknife, sawing at the root. The plant shrieked, a high-pitched wail that cut through me. I sawed harder, until the root snapped. Instantly, the air in the basement rippled, and the plant withered to ash. Above, I heard a crash, and the house groaned, as if settling. I scrambled up the stairs, and the hallway was empty. June was gone, but I felt a sense of release, a lightness.

I emerged from the house, and the sun was setting, warm and golden. The gate was closed, and the path was overgrown, but I could see the house, normal, solid. I walked back to the reception, and the normalcy was jarring. Nate asked where I’d been, and I said I needed air. I looked at the journal, and the pages were blank.

I haven’t dreamed of the house since. But sometimes, when I pass by a mirror, I catch a glimpse of a shadow in the corner, and I think I see June’s reflection, but younger, happier, before the deal. She’s wearing that smile she had when she taught me to bake bread. And for a moment, I’m comforted. Then the shadow moves, and I remember the clearing where the house wasn’t, and I wonder if she’s really free, or if she’s just waiting for me to find the next root.