The Closet

My Grandmother was afraid of masks. She told me why in January of 1992. I lost her to cancer a few weeks later, and I have kept this story as mine. It is not mine though and the time has come to tell the tale. This is her story. The story of Naomi Fay Bridge passed to me as she lay dying. It all started in the fall of 1933. No, it started long before that. But this is when it started for Naomi……..

From the journal of Private Leviathan Nathanial Gifford

November 8th , 1838
More of them died today. Why we don’t shoot the weak I can not understand. The amount of resources being used to relocate these animals breaks my heart and I dare say it is criminal. The cost of Jefferson’s indulgent mercy may well be our souls. Men resist temptation for only so long. Even the most fortified souls will fall to a prolonged siege.

Part One of Chapter One
I know she’ll be in the closet. Waiting for me; wearing one of those damn masks. Mama doesn’t allow me to swear, but if there is anything in this world that should be damned its Auntie's masks. Me and mama live out on old Gifford road, named after great grandpa Gifford; he homesteaded our farm back in 1841. Uncle Emery and Auntie live with us too, but Uncle Emery spends most of his time in the oil fields. He says the oil money is dwindling and oil work is the only way to feed us all.
I wish Auntie would go to work in the oil fields. She is as mean as a snake. She likes to hide in the closet and wait for me to come home, so she can scare me. She wears masks made from old news print. Where she gets them is anybody’s guess. I have never seen her make one, and each time she wears a different mask.
It is easy to tell when she is in the closet. The house becomes quiet, it feels vacant, like it’s family has gone away and will never return. It is a lonely feeling. The sad silence always gives her away. With tears on my cheek I tell myself not to be frightened; after all it is just Auntie in her old house coat wearing a crummy mask. It never helps and I scream every time
The problem is that sometimes, not every time, but sometimes her eyes are not hers. Auntie's eyes are blue Pale blue, like all the women in our family. The other Auntie's eyes are violet and they blaze from behind the mask. Their brightness is unnatural like the last flare of a dying light bulb. When I scream, the brightness intensifies which is something I would not have thought possible. Eyes were never meant to shine like that.
Standing facing the door, I pray for the courage and strength not to scream, but as my hand touches the knob I see her as she must look, crouched on the floor between the woolies grinning at nothing, the violet eyes unfocused seeing the dark, loving the dark, waiting.
. The first time she did not move when I opened the door. She waited until I was in, reaching for the hanger. I realized something was there, my eyes adjusted and I was staring into those blazing violet eyes. At first I didn’t know what to make of them. It was dark and I could not make out the mask. Finally my brain put it all together I most have fainted from fright; when I came to, I was on the floor, wet and cold. There was a bump on my head.
I try not to think about that awful moment, but I remember the terror and the prickly heat of the urine stinging my legs. Worst of all, I remember the teeth. Hundreds of tiny razor like teeth, arranged into a mocking grin. Auntie was humming to herself in the kitchen cooking dinner as if nothing had happened. I went to my room frightened, humiliated and ashamed.