The Tether

Our house sat at the end of a gravel lane that petered out into a thicket of pines, the kind that swallowed light and sound. The nearest neighbor was a half-mile down the road, and the only building of note was the old grain mill, its red paint peeling like sunburned skin. I was seven, my brother Leo was four, and we had moved there because our father had taken a job at the lumberyard, a place where the saws never stopped, even on Sundays. Mama said the house was a fixer-upper, but she meant it was cheap, and we were poor.

Leo was a quiet boy, the kind who collected stones and talked to them. When he started talking about his friend Edgar, I didn’t think much of it. He was lonely; there were no other kids for miles. But then he started having conversations with empty air, and when I’d enter our shared room, he’d say, ‘Edgar’s hiding. He doesn’t like you.’ I’d roll my eyes, but a cold draft would race across my ankles, and the curtain would billow even with the window shut.

One evening, our father brought home a puppy from the mill’s wolf hybrid pack, a scruffy thing with amber eyes and a tail that never stopped wagging. We named her Juno. Leo took to her instantly, and they were inseparable. Juno would follow him through the tall grass, her nose to the ground, and Leo would talk to her in a low murmur, as if sharing secrets.

It was a August afternoon, thick with humidity, when Leo and Juno went missing. I was reading on the porch when I realized the yard was empty. I called his name, but the pines only swallowed my voice. I ran to the mill, where the foreman said he hadn’t seen them. Panic clawed at my chest as I searched the edges of the forest, the the dry creek bed, the abandoned silo. Finally, Leo emerged from the treeline, his shirt torn, his face streaked with dirt and tears. Juno was not with him.

‘Leo, where’s Juno?’ I asked, my voice tight. He wouldn’t meet my eyes. ‘She’s gone,’ he said, his voice flat. ‘Edgar took her.’ I felt a chill that had nothing to do with the cooling air. ‘Who is Edgar, Leo?’ I demanded. He shook his head, turning back toward the trees. ‘You can’t see him. He said you’d try to stop him.’

That night, I confronted my parents. My father laughed, ruffling my hair. ‘Imaginary friends are normal, son. He’ll grow out of it.’ But Mama’s face was pale, and she crossed herself when she thought I wasn’t looking. That night, I woke to a scratching at the window. Juno was there, her fur matted, her eyes wild. She was barking silently, her throat working, and I saw a thin red line around her neck, like a collar had been pulled too tight. I let her in, but she cowered under the bed and wouldn’t come out.

Over the next week, Leo grew distant. He’d sit in the corner, staring at nothing, whispering. Juno became a ghost, slinking through the house, ears flat. Then, one morning, I found Leo in the backyard, a length of rope in his hands, tying it into a strange knot. ‘Edgar says we need to go down to the root cellar,’ he said, his voice eerily calm. ‘He says we can play there forever.’ I snapped the rope from his hands. ‘There’s no cellar, Leo. The house doesn’t have one.’ But as I said it, I saw a door in the dirt behind the garden, a door I’d never noticed before, its wood dark and water-stained. The padlock was open.

I yanked Leo back, but he struggled, his strength surprising. ‘Edgar says you’re a liar! He says you’re the reason they left!’ I dragged him into the house, locked the door, and pulled the curtains. Juno was whimpering in the corner, her eyes fixed on the back door. I didn’t sleep that night. I sat against the door, Juno’s head in my lap, and I listened to the sounds of the wind, and every so often, a low voice, like a man humming, coming from the direction of the garden.

In the morning, I went to the garden with a shovel. I dug where the door had been, but there was nothing but grass and roots. I told my parents, but they dismissed it as a boy’s prank. My father finally did something about the empty lot next door, installing a fence. But the fence was too low, and I saw Leo standing on tiptoe, peering through the slats, a smile on his face. I yelled at him, and he turned, his eyes blank. ‘Edgar says you’re a coward,’ he said. ‘He says you can’t stop us.’

That evening, I found Juno dead. She was lying by the garden, her neck broken, the rope I’d snapped wrapped around her throat. Leo was sitting beside her, stroking her fur. ‘She tried to protect me,’ he whispered. ‘But Edgar said she was a liar too.’ I scooped up Leo and ran, taking him to the mill, where the foreman called the sheriff. They took Leo to the county hospital, where doctors said he was suffering from an acute delusional episode. They gave him medication, and his voice changed, deeper, more mature. ‘I’m still here,’ he’d say in a whisper, and his pupils would dilate.

We moved away shortly after, leaving the house and the mill and the pines behind. Leo spent years in and out of institutions, but the episodes always came back, always after he spoke of a friend named Edgar. I never told anyone the whole truth. I never told them that when Leo was asleep, I would see a face in the window, a face that looked like mine, but older, with eyes that had no bottom. I never told them that I felt the rope in my hands that night, and that I was the one who had pulled it tight, because I thought I was saving him.

Now, I’m an old man, and I’ve returned to that house, now abandoned and overgrown. The pines have swallowed the mill, and the gravel lane is just a scar in the earth. I walk to the garden, and I see the door again, the wood black, the lock gone. I hear a voice from inside, a voice that is Leo’s, but not Leo’s, and it says, ‘You’re finally here. We’ve been waiting.’ I step forward, my heart pounding, and I realize that the rope is in my hands again, and that I am not afraid. I am not afraid because I know that Edgar has always been with me, and that I have been his friend all along.