Behind the Fireplace

by Shannon Kostyal

I sit cross-legged in the walk-in closet, surround by opened boxes and their displaced contents. A silk watercolor scarf tangles in my lap as I reach over a tumbled stack of books. It’s silly, really. I know it’s in here. Somewhere. I just have to find it.

This morning I’d woken from a particularly jarring dream. It wasn’t a nightmare, but neither was it entirely pleasant. In the dream, I was in an old mansion with my siblings, and we knew we had to play a game of hide-and-seek with the adults that were coming. The mansion had been a place I used to dream of often as a child, and finding myself there had been an oddly familiar comfort. Finding myself there with my siblings had been jarring. 

In previous dreams it had always been just me in the house. Or other faceless people I knew in the dream world, but had never met in real life. I knew its secrets. I knew its layout. But I had forgotten parts of it until my brother revealed the hidden room behind the fireplace. Then I remembered that as a child in these dreams, I would often play in the hidden compartments of the house. Sometimes scared of the dark, and sometimes with a sense of exhilaration at the secret explorations. Mostly scared, though. Mostly hiding.

Last night’s dream, though — there was an underlying fear, but also an overwhelming sense of warmth and joy. This time I was exploring the house with both my siblings, and we were all working together to hide from the adults. After the secret room was revealed, I realized that we needed to draw attention away from it. I knew in the dream that it was imperative that above all else, I help keep my brother hidden. The adults had entered the house at that point, and for some reason the secret passage could only be closed from the outside.

I remember sneaking through long familiar hallways to get to the main part of the house, careful not to make a sound. The adults were still out of sight, and I knew I had to get the door closed before they came to that part of the house. I had to protect my brother’s hiding place. My sister had stayed as well, and I had the sense that others were in that hidden area, but that they belonged there.

This was different from my childhood dreams of this place. Less scary, but far more disconcerting. It left me with such a sense of soul crushing loneliness when I woke up. All over again, I relived that my brother was gone. I will never see him again. He is dead, and I will never be able to call him again. See him. Hug him. Laugh with him, or fight with him. 

And that dream. He was there. Just like the boy I remembered from our childhood.  Mischievous, sarcastic, and oh so very clever. Both my siblings were there this time, and I had been trying to protect them from these faceless adults.

The adults were still the same type of nemesis as in childhood; A shadowy faceless villain I ran from but never saw, if I was swift enough and lucky enough. 

My vision blurs as my fingers close over a velvet bag, worn threadbare in spots. This was what I was looking for. Blinking tears from my eyes, I tug the bag from the tipped over stack of books and gingerly pull open the drawstring mouth to reveal a thick stack of cards.

I hadn’t thought of tarot in a very long time. I’d put all that behind me many years ago. The tarot, the crystals, candles, and prayers. Locked it all away, literally and metaphorically. 

I don’t fully understand why I woke this morning with such a driving need to unbox all of this. But I had. I’ve spent too many years ignoring the intuition inside. If I had just listened to my intuition, maybe my brother would still be alive. 

He’d had a fascination with the dark. Where others would hole up somewhere warm and well-lit, my brother would shrug it off and walk into the night. I sometimes wondered if he was looking for a way to be someone else’s light in the dark, or if he’d just never known anything but the dark, and that was the comfort he chose to dwell in. He had taken to going out more often. To the point that leaving was more common than staying.

A couple of weeks before his disappearance, I’d had a feeling of wrongness. But, I’d spent years suppressing intuition and anything that could be remotely related to intangible concepts such as spirituality, magick, and the paranormal. Still, it had been strong enough that I had at least spoken to him. He laughed off my worry. That had been our last one-on-one conversation.

He went out one night and never came back. But maybe he had already been gone before that.

Rubbing tears away, I pull the cards from their velvet bag with a quiet reverence I’ve not felt for years. I can almost hear my brother’s laughter; part mocking, but there’s something else this time.

Glancing around at the mess of the closet, I let out a breath, tension sliding from my shoulders. It’s time to unbox all these things.  

As a child I’d always dreaded the dreams that put me in that mansion with its secrets and hidden passageways. After last night, I want to go back. Will my sister and the others be there again? Will my brother still be tucked away in that hidden room behind the fireplace? If he is, I will surely have questions for him.