Can you conceive of a less likely place for a haunted house than Irvana, California’s ultimate master-planned community, with its row upon row of tidy pseudo-Tudors and downsized Tuscan villas punctuated at pleasing intervals by tastefully landscaped green spaces, accessed by gently curving roads so immaculately surveyed that scientists could calibrate precision instruments on their seductive radii?
But the house was haunted, for want of a better term. The haunting resided at 21 Rivendell, an ochre-toned rancher perched near the edge of a jagged gulch gouged into Irvana’s pristine surface by last winter’s Biblical rains. The air smelled different here: desiccated, dusty, somehow ancient. Every time I passed the place, Sandy, my otherwise mellow golden retriever, would stop at the lot line, look up at the blank windows—one on each side of the chimney, rectangular eyes framing a stucco-clad snout—then growl, bark, paw the ground and turn tight little circles like a doggy dervish until her leash resembled a hangman’s noose as she tangled herself around the sagging For Sale sign.
Each weekday evening before dinner, I made my neighborhood rounds with
Sandy. Every six months I would change my route; I’m a real adventurer. Last month my new path took me down Deer Run to the River Glen subdivision—a name that (like so many in Irvana) mystifies me, since there’s no evidence of either a river or a glen to be found in its maze of cul-de-sacs.
“All right, girl,” I announced one Thursday, the fourth day of Sandy’s unexpected ballet in front of 21 Rivendell. “Let’s take a look inside.”
Sandy and I walked gingerly across the front lawn as its parched grass scrunched underfoot. The house’s plantation shutters were only partially drawn, allowing an unobstructed peek into the front room.
Even without furniture, it seemed the very picture of bland suburban taste: creamy Berber carpet, a small island of blond hardwood adjacent to the front door, an open stairway that led, no doubt, to a trio of undersized bedrooms.
“Nothing amiss here,” I told Sandy. But she wasn’t buying it. She sniffed the ground suspiciously.
I walked up the side yard—a thirty inch wide canyon of crushed rock, defined by the neighbor’s concrete-block wall on one side and a row of dying bird of paradise flowers on the other.
The backyard, too, was classic Irvana. Its flimsy defense, a termite-weakened wooden gate, swung inward, revealing a swimming pool that had somehow been shoehorned into the thirty foot wide lot. Next to it, a spa. Both were empty and gathering eucalyptus leaves from the trees that bordered the pool’s curving contour. The collected heat of the day radiated from the yard’s apron of Mexican pavers. On a small isthmus of grass between the house and pavers a barbecue lay on its side, its inverted lid about three feet away. It looked like a man who had died trying to retrieve his hat.
I turned toward the back of the house. Again, nothing out of the ordinary: a kitchen with a garden window, a few shriveled cacti mummified on its shelves, a white-tiled dining area, and a sliding glass door, still imprinted with the smudgy afterlife of kids and wet-nosed dogs.
I walked up to the slider and brought my face close to the glass, blocking its reflective glare. Sandy shook beside me. I was looking across the small dining room at the living room from another viewpoint. The slats of the plantation shutters threw striped shadows on the Berber at an obtuse angle.
“There’s nothing in there, you pussy,” I said to Sandy. She looked up at me and licked her lips. Her shaking got worse.
For some reason I can’t explain, I released my grip on Sandy’s leash and pulled on the handle of the sliding glass door with both hands. To my surprise, it whooshed effortlessly to the left. Warm air wafted over me, imbued with the smells of a long-empty house: chemical carpet cleaner, decaying particleboard, floor wax, and mothballs.
Suddenly Sandy bolted, almost careening into the empty pool as she dragged her knotted leash behind her. She found refuge behind a whitefly-infested hibiscus bush and turned to face me, shivering.
I stepped inside and slid the door shut, then walked a few paces into the room. I turned back to reassure Sandy. Staring back at me was a familiar man, face up against the glass, with an anxious golden retriever by his side.
It was Sandy and me. As I watched, we walked away from the door—backwards.
***
Before I go on, I should reassure you I’m not the kind of person either blessed or cursed by extraordinary events. I’m forty-six, married, no children, an associate professor of history at a state school just middling enough to grant me tenure for my half-hearted research. Annie, my determinedly unexcitable wife, is a kindergarten teacher. Our lives are dictated by public radio, the streaming series du jour, and the predictable rise and fall of the Angels’ fortunes. My retirement nineteen years from now, in 2043, has been planned with military precision. My one visit to the hospital was for a tonsillectomy when I was eight. I drink two glasses of California cabernet on Friday nights, play golf in the high 80s on a stellar day, and send the occasional check to USC, my alma mater, though they hardly need it. My life has been as straight and predictable as a Sunday drive down a prairie road. Until now.
As you’ve probably guessed, I’m not given to flights of fancy. And let’s set the record straight—I hate science fiction. Loathe it. And the supernatural—please! It’s a refuge for weak and susceptible minds.
None of which takes away from the surrealism of what I was seeing.
I watched myself bird-walk slowly to the side of the pool, survey the house, then recede to the left, backing up to the open side gate. I heard the gate close—I suppose “unopen” would be the correct term—with an otherworldly click.
I was frozen to the floor for several seconds, devoid of any thought or emotion; the illogic of the event had expelled everything from my brain. Then, with a fury that shocked me, I leaped toward the sliding glass door, ripped it to the right, and tumbled into the backyard. I spun left. The gate was open, just as I had left it. My heartbeat thundered in my ears. I ran to the side yard and looked down its length. Nothing. I felt a whirlwind brush by my right leg and caught my breath. It was Sandy—making a beeline for home. I followed as fast as I could.
I spent a restless night thinking about the absurdity, the mind-blowing craziness, of what I’d seen. The next morning, I rose early, shivering in the chill that poured through the open bedroom window. For some reason, I walked into my study closet, full of clothes that no longer fit me, and unearthed my musty-smelling Society for Creative Anachronisms costume. I favored the look of an Elizabethan gentleman: an off-white linen shirt with matching starched ruffs on collar and wrist; a brocaded, rich green doublet undergirded with whale bone; and a bejeweled codpiece that glinted in the half-light. The last time I squeezed into it was after my bid for full professorship was denied for the third time. Somehow, puttering around the house as a Renaissance courtier had comforted me.
I went back to bed and pulled the covers up to my chin. As Annie snored, I made a list of possibilities.
Was I losing my mind?
Doubtful. No family history of mental instability. No unhealthy thoughts, other than the usual middle-aged male sex and revenge fantasies. I felt fine.
Was it some sort of momentary daydream?
No, I had been in a state of evaluative awareness, carefully taking in everything around
me.
Was it a hoax of some sort?
Impossible. I was standing four feet away from myself. I could see the recent paper cut on the first joint of my left index finger, small but angry red. The effect was like looking in a mirror—at least until my doppelgänger started moving independently.
There was only one thing to do. Go back to the house. This time, I’d bring my iPhone.
The next day, Friday, I could barely focus. I lectured like a zombie. Finally, three o’clock rolled around. I sped home on arterial roads, avoiding the 405 even though it was still early for rush hour. I wanted to get to the house at the same time as the day before.
Sandy usually waited patiently for me in the front hall. On this day, she was nowhere to
be found.
“Here, girl,” I said, picking up her leash from the hall table. “Walkies!” In the silence that followed, I could make out something faint—her rapid panting. She was behind the Stickley armchair.
“C’mon, I know where you are,” I said, directing my attention to the spot. After much reluctance, and more than a few barks, she emerged, head down, and submitted to the leash. I grabbed my iPhone and left.
The house looked the same. I noticed that the “For Sale” sign was accompanied by a flimsy plastic carrier for real estate flyers. There was a single sheet remaining, yellowed and forlorn-looking. I slid it out and looked at it:
YOU’LL SEE FOREVER FROM THIS RIVER GLEN GEM!
Light and Bright!
Needs Nothing but a Little TLC!
This beauty boasts 3 bedrooms and 2.5 bathrooms. Volume ceilings throughout. Pool/spa. Newer paint. Quiet neighborhood. View lot. Make an offer—owner mo-ti-va-ted!
Contact Cindi at MansionsWest. (949) 55CINDI or cindi@mansionswest.com
View lot? I looked up. Yes, beyond the trees in the backyard, I could tell the subdivision sloped gently away toward the southwest. Perhaps if you stood on the roof on an absolutely smog-free day, there’d be an ocean view. Or a freeway view, at least.
As I walked up the side yard, my pace slowed; the first needle-pricks of panic crept up the nape of my neck. What if I saw again what I’d seen, or thought I’d seen, the day before? What if I didn’t? Both prospects terrified me.
Sandy was resorting to her usual routine, whining, barking, and straining to free herself. In the backyard, I tied her to a small jacaranda tree, pregnant with purplish blossoms. She immediately ran around it three or four times, nearly turning her leash into a garrote.
“Sit!” I ordered, glaring. She sat.
The door was still unlocked. Everything appeared the same. When I got to the middle of the dining room—the same spot where I had stood the day before—I switched on my iPhone’s video function, raised it to eye level, took a deep breath, and slowly turned around. And let out an involuntary yelp. My mouth went dry.
Outside, two men were working on the pool. Building it. Or, rather, un-building it. The older of the two—stocky, Hispanic, wearing a brimmed hat and a bandanna—walked backwards up an incline made of boards that led into a shallow depression roughly the size of the pool-to- be. Lifting the back of his hand to his brow, he placed sweat on his forehead. In the hollow, a younger man wearing a dirty Santana T-shirt was taking shoveled mounds of dirt from a wheelbarrow and placing them into fresh holes in the ground. More accurately, the dirt leaped vertically from the wheelbarrow into the tilted working end of the shovel above it, then was lowered into the hole, where it transformed into hard-packed, undisturbed soil. The scene was exactly like watching a film played in reverse. Only it was real—the level of detail banished all doubt from my mind.
I took a step closer, keeping the camera aimed at the scene. A bird flew tail-first from one eucalyptus to another.
On impulse, I stepped up to the sliding door and knocked on the glass, hard. The men didn’t react. “Hey!” I yelled. They kept working.
Stepping to the left, I grabbed the door handle and slid it all the way open. I was greeted by the pool, a quizzical Sandy, the jacaranda, and late-afternoon sunlight. I slowly closed the door. Through the glass, the pool-unmaking crew came back into view. The day was overcast.
Gradually, my fear was bested by dumbstruck fascination. I soaked up the particulars of the scene. The eucalyptus trees were much smaller, only eight or nine feet high. They looked newly planted. The jacaranda was nowhere to be seen. A tricycle was parked on a browning swatch of grass where I knew the spa would be. Its pink handlebar streamers stirred in the breeze.
I heard the faint whine of fanjet engines and looked skyward. A commercial jetliner approached retrogressively, backing lazily up the flight path to John Wayne Airport. There was something odd about it. I raised my iPhone to capture it—an older Boeing 737. And the sunburst yellow logo on its tail: SCA. For years, I had delivered a lecture in my “California Boom and Bust” class about Southern California Air. It had filed for Chapter 11 in 1988.
My God. I was looking back nearly forty years.
I ran home, Sandy practically airborne beside me. Winded and sweaty, I dropped the keys twice trying to unlock the door. Only then, when I was sitting in my Stickley, did I dare to look at the video on my iPhone.
I was greeted by a scene from the house’s backyard. With a complete pool, mature
eucalyptus trees, and Sandy to the left, by the jacaranda, looking intently at me.
