The Stain of November

The last week of October in Cedar Falls, Iowa, had been unseasonably warm, but that afternoon the air turned sharp and thin, as if the sky itself was holding its breath. It was 2012, and I was eleven, in the fifth grade. My friend Mason’s family had moved into a sprawling Victorian on the edge of town, its wraparound porch sagging like old shoulders, its yard merging into a dense hardwood forest that swallowed the light by four o’clock. Mason’s parents had gone to pick up a deep-dish pizza from the only place that stayed open past seven, leaving us with strict instructions not to answer the door, not to touch the antique stove, and to be ready for trick-or-treating by the time they returned. Mason and his older sister, Lena, had retreated to their rooms to wrestle with their costumes – a vampire hunter and a plague doctor – while I, having chosen a simple ghost costume, just a white sheet with holes cut out, found myself wandering the backyard.

A rusted swing set stood at the edge of the lawn, its chains creaking in a wind that didn’t feel like it came from anywhere. I sat on the wooden seat, the paint peeling like scabs, and began to push myself. The sensation was pleasant at first, a rhythmic back and forth that matched the ticking of the grandfather clock inside the house. But as the sun dipped lower, the world around me began to change. The birds, which had been chirping a staccato alarm, fell silent all at once, as if someone had flipped a switch. The leaves on the maples stopped rustling, even though the wind continued to blow against my face. It was a wrongness that I couldn’t name, but my skin knew it. I stopped swinging, my feet dragging in the dirt to slow myself, and listened.

The silence was complete. Not a single cricket. Not a distant car. Not the hum of a refrigerator. Just the sound of my own breathing, too loud in my ears. I looked toward the forest, where the trees stood like black teeth against the fading orange sky. And that’s when I saw it – a figure at the treeline. At first I thought it was a deer, but it was too tall, too erect. It wore a long dark coat, and its face was a pale blur, featureless. It didn’t move. It just stood there, watching me. I blinked, and it was gone, but the spot where it had been seemed darker, as if it had soaked up the remaining light.

I told myself it was a trick of the eye, a branch that had looked like a person. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that something had been waiting for me to notice it. I stepped off the swing, intending to go back inside, but my feet carried me toward the edge of the yard instead, as if pulled by a string. The grass gave way to a carpet of last year’s leaves, and my footsteps made no sound, though I was walking on dry, brittle ground. I reached the treeline and saw that there was a path, narrow and overgrown, that snaked into the dark. It was not a path I had ever seen before, and I had been to Mason’s house many times. It looked ancient, worn by feet that had passed long ago and never returned.

I should have turned back. I knew I should have. But the silence was so complete, so inviting, that I felt a strange compulsion to step onto that path. I took one step, then another, and the trees closed around me, swallowing the light. The air grew colder, and I could see my breath, though it was October and not that cold. The path twisted, and I lost sight of the house behind me. I walked for what felt like minutes, though my internal clock insisted it had been only seconds. Then I saw it – a clearing, and in the center of the clearing, a well. Not an ordinary well, but an old stone structure, moss-covered, with a wooden roof that had rotted away. I approached it, my heart pounding, and peered over the edge.

It was not water at the bottom. It was a sheet of blackness that seemed to absorb my gaze, and as I stared, I felt something staring back. Not a face, but a presence, vast and patient, like the deep sea. I recoiled, stumbling backward, and that’s when I heard a voice. It was not a spoken voice, but a sound that vibrated in my bones, a low hum that shaped itself into words: ‘You found the door.’ I turned to run, but my legs wouldn’t move. The hum grew louder, and I felt a pull toward the well, as if a wind was blowing from inside it, wrapping around my ankles. I screamed, or tried to, but the sound was swallowed by the silence, and I felt myself being dragged, inch by inch, toward the edge.

And then, as suddenly as it began, the pull stopped. The hum ceased, and the woods exploded with sound – birds, insects, the distant drone of a lawnmower. I found myself on the ground, shaking, my ghost sheet twisted around me like a shroud. I scrambled to my feet and ran, not looking back, bursting through the treeline to find Mason and Lena standing on the back porch, calling my name. They looked at me, pale, and asked where I had been. I told them I had just been walking in the woods, and they said I had been gone for over an hour, that the sun had set, and they were about to come looking for me. I looked at my watch – it was six-fifteen. I had only been gone for ten minutes, according to my memory.

We went inside, and I couldn’t shake the cold that had seeped into my bones. I told them what I had seen, the well, the figure. Lena laughed nervously and said I had probably fallen asleep on the swing and dreamed it. But I knew I hadn’t. For the rest of the night, I couldn’t stop thinking about that hum, that pull. And when we went trick-or-treating, I stayed close to the streets, avoiding any gap in the houses that led to the woods. I never told my parents, but I couldn’t sleep for weeks. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw that black sheet at the bottom of the well, and I felt that presence, still waiting for me.

Years passed, and I forgot about it, or at least I pushed it to the back of my mind. I moved away, went to college, built a life. But last month, I received a package in the mail, no return address, postmarked from Cedar Falls. Inside was a small wooden box, and in that box was a lock of hair – not mine, but my hair, from when I was a child. And a note, written in handwriting I didn’t recognize, that said only: ‘The door is still open. We’ve been keeping it warm.’ I checked my reflection in the mirror, and I saw that my left eye, which had always been brown, had a tiny black speck in the iris. I looked closer, and the speck seemed to be looking back. I haven’t slept in three days, because every time I close my eyes, I hear that hum, and I feel a cold wind around my ankles, pulling me back to that well, back to that waiting presence. And I know, with a certainty that chills me to the core, that one night, when I least expect it, I will find myself standing at the treeline again, walking that path, because I never really left. The stain of that October has followed me, and it will never let go.