Midnight Whispers (Cutler 4)

"Thank you, sir," I said. We all got into the back of his cab. It was an old car with torn seats and dirty windows, but it was a ride.

"Who you kids know in Upland Station? The place is practically a ghost town," the driver asked.

"Charlotte Booth. She's my aunt. She lives in an old plantation called The Meadows."

"The Meadows? Yeah, I know what that is, but that ain't much of a place anymore. I can't take you up that private road either. It would kill my tires and shocks. You'll have to walk from the highway," he said. He went on to talk about the way the small towns had been dying off; the economy in the changing South and why things weren't what they were when he was a young man growing up around Lynchburg.

Although there wasn't a moon, the sky was bright enough with stars for us to see some of the countryside as we rode on, but a little over a half-hour after we left the bus station, dark clouds began to roll in, moving like some curtain shutting away the heavens from us. The farmhouses and tiny villages along the way became few and far between. I felt as if we were leaving the real world and entering a world of dreams as the darkness deepened and spread itself over the road before us. The deserted houses and barns retreated into the pool of blackness and only occasionally could be seen silhouetted against a small group of trees or a lonely, overgrown field, and those houses that had people still living-in them looked lost and small. I imagined c

hildren no older or bigger than Jefferson too frightened to look out at the shadows that seemed to slide across the ground whenever the wind blew over the roof and through each nook and cranny.

Jefferson curled up closer to me. Not a car passed us going the other way. it was as if we were riding to the edge of the world and could easily fall off. The cab driver's radio cracked with static. He tapped it a few times and complained, but after a while he gave up and we rode in relative silence until finally a road sign announced Upland Station.

"This is it," our driver announced. "Upland Station. Don't blink or you'll miss it," he said and laughed. I hadn't remembered how small it was. Now, with the general store, the post office and the small restaurant closed, it did look like a ghost town. Our driver took us a little farther and stopped at the entrance to the long driveway of The Meadows. There were two stone pillars each crowned with a ball of granite, but the brush and undergrowth had been permitted to grow up alongside the pillars, making it seem as if no one had passed in or out for years and years.

"As far as I can go," the taxi driver said. "The old Meadows plantation is up this driveway about a half a mile."

"Thank you," Gavin said, handing him the rest of our money.

We stepped out and he drove off. Because of an overcast sky, he left us in pitch darkness. Night closed in around us so quickly I couldn't see Gavin's eyes. Jefferson squeezed my hand as if holding on for dear life.

"I wanna go home," he moaned.

"I hope someone's still living up there," Gavin whispered and suddenly I thought, what if they weren't? Something might have happened and they might have moved away. "It could be a long walk in the dark for nothing," Gavin warned.

"It won't be for nothing, Gavin," I promised.

"Uh huh," he said, but not with a great deal of that confidence I had been relying on so heavily before. He took my other hand and the three of us began our journey up the dark, gravel drive that was filled with potholes and bumps.

"I don't blame the driver for not wanting to take his cab up this road," Gavin said. From the deep woods to our right, something made a weird noise. I jumped and spun around to see what it was.

"It's only an owl," Gavin assured me, "telling us we're in his territory. At least that's what my daddy would say."

As my eyes grew more and more accustomed to the darkness, the tops of trees and small bushes became clearer. They looked like sentinels of the night guarding against unwanted intruders.

"I'm cold," Jefferson complained. I knew he just wanted me to draw him closer. Now that the owl had stopped complaining, the only sounds we heard were our own footsteps over the loose gravel.

"I don't see any lights yet," Gavin said ominously. Then we made a small turn and the tips of the brick chimneys and the long, gabled roof of the plantation house came into view, a dark silhouette against an even darker sky. It loomed ahead and above us like some giant sullen monster who had suddenly risen from the pool of darkness below.

"I don't like it here," Jefferson protested.

"It will all look prettier in the morning," I promised. It was a promise I made to myself as well as to him.

"There's some light," Gavin said with relief. Through the windows on the first floor, we could see the dim, flickering illumination. "Looks like they use candles or oil lamps," he muttered.

"Maybe the electricity is off because of a storm," I suggested.

"Doesn't look like it rained here recently," Gavin replied. Without realizing we were doing it, we were both whispering.

As we drew closer to the front of the house, we could more clearly make out the full-facade porch. Over the great round columns ran thick vines that looked more like the tentacles of some terrifying creature who had the great house in its grip. We found the walkway between full hedges. It was chipped and cracked. We paused a moment and contemplated the murky front porch.

"Have you thought what you're going to tell them?" Gavin asked. But before I could reply, a dark shadow to our right suddenly took the shape of a man and stepped out at us. He was holding a shotgun.

"Stop right there," he commanded, "or I'll scatter you into the wind." Jefferson practically leaped into my arms. I gasped and Gavin drew me closer. "Who are you?" he demanded. "You kids come up here to bother us again?"

"No sir," Gavin said quickly.

"I'm here to see my Aunt Charlotte," I added quickly.