When she was on her way to her new home in the small town, Elis learned about the mountain.

Elis watched outside the car’s window as the little brown Volkswagen passed by woodland after woodland. Trees zoomed by.

She watched as the woodland slowly became frightening with terrible shadows.

Then the woods were gone, and there was a river beside the car. 

“What about the mountain, again?” she asked, turning away from the window. “The wizard of the mountain.”

No one answered.

Elis thought about all the wonderful things a wizard could do.

At last, the car was turned around, and they seemed to be making their way in the right direction because Aunt Marry became very quiet and even folded up the map.

“Now,” Elis’s mother said. “You must be on your best behavior. It’s nice of grandma to be letting us stay at her house for a little. She is old and hard of hearing on her right side. So make sure you stay near her left side when you want her to hear you. She’s blind on the left side. So if you want her to see you, you’ve got to make sure you stand to the right of her.”

“Honey,” Aunt Marry said. “It’s going to be tiring to talk to her because you’re going to be running back and forth. She likes to see you when she talks to you. But if she can see you, she sure as certainty can’t hear you.”

“How long do we have to stay here?” Elis’s asked.

“We’re only going to be here until I get us a nice house and get our feet on the ground again,” Elis’s mom said.

“When will that be?” Elis’s asked.

“I don’t know.”

“All of my friends are back home.”

“You’ll make new ones.”

Elis crossed her arms. She was very unhappy. She wanted to be with her friends. She wanted to spend the summer with people she knew, people she cared about. But now she was stuck in a faraway land with her family who was exactly the sort of people she didn’t want to be stuck in a faraway land with.

“Don’t you worry, darling,” Aunt Marry said. “We will be outta here as soon as we can be outed. We need to watch grandma and make sure she’s okay. She nearly set her whole place into a ball of flames a few days ago. We think it’s for the best we watch her.”

“And after your father’s death—” Elis’s mom began.

“Dinah!” Aunt Marry interrupted. “It’s too soon.”

“No, it isn’t,” Dinah said. “It isn’t too soon.”

“I know we need a place to stay,” Elis said. She looked sad. She thought about her father. The thought of her father used to make her feel so happy, but now it made her very sad. She thought about his death. Tears began to trickle down her face. She dabbed at them. She didn’t want her mom to know she was crying.

When they pulled up to the house, the storm clouds had gathered above them and stretched all the way to the dark horizon. There was a flicker, and the distant rumble of thunder echoed in Elis’s ears.

“We better be getting inside,” Aunt Marry said.

The blue door opened revealing a very old woman hunched over on a cane. She had sparkling eyes. 

“Oh!” she said enthusiastically. “I heard the chimes; I thought it was the wind wanting to be let in again.” And she hugged her closest daughter.

“Ouch!” Elis’s mom said as she felt the air squeezed out of her. “You may be getting old, but you still know how to take my breath away.”

“That’s what the men say at poker night; I bet mom. Don’t they?” Aunt Marry said.

“Poker? I don’t play poker anymore,” she said and looked at Elis. “Is this little Dinah?” she asked.

“It’s Elis. I’m Dinah, mom. She’s my daughter,” Elis’s mom said. She gave her mother a very concerned look.

“I know that! Don’t be all sass. But she’s a Dinah more than an Elis. She hasn’t fit into her name yet. She’s still got your opinions of the world and not her own. Not yet.” And she opened up her arms for her granddaughter.

Elis hesitantly hugged her grandma. The old arms wrapped around her and she felt the air in her lungs come flooding out. Her back cracked. Then the pressure was gone, and she was left standing, panting for air.

“Come on in everyone. The stove’s on,” her grandmother said.

“What do you have cooking, ma?” Aunt Marry asked.

“Heat. It’ll keep us warm inside.”

Dinah and Marry looked at each other. They looked like two very concerned daughters.

Into the house, they went.

The house was large inside. There was a small hallway flanked with black and white pictures. And through the hallway there was a squat kitchen made of dark cedar wood; it was stuffed to the gills with chairs, a dining room table and old kitchen appliances. To the right of the kitchen was a spacious living room with couches the color of evergreens. On one side of the living room was a door, which was opened and revealed the old lady’s bedroom. There was a staircase off in the opposite corner of the room.

“Upstairs is where you will be staying,” Elis’s grandma said. She smiled as she gave them the tour and with every other step she would step on her hair pulling her head back in a very disturbing way and then snapping it forward after the foot that pulled her head down came up again. It was like a slingshot. ‘A disturbing slingshot,’ Elis thought.

“Mom,” Elis’s mother said. “We need to cut your hair.”

“No,” she said. “Hair is grown for age and wisdom; the more I have, the wiser I am.”

“Wouldn’t that also mean that the more hair you have, the older you are?” Aunt Marry asked.

“Sometimes you have to compromise,” Elis’s grandma said, and she sat down at the dinner table in the kitchen. Marry and Dinah sat across from her.

“Elis,” her mother said. “Get the bags from the car and bring them upstairs. Pick which room you’d like and set our luggage in whatever room you think we would like.”

“But it’s storming outside,” Elis said.

“Don’t expect no rain, though,” Elis’s grandmother said. “Hasn’t rained in these parts in a long time. Just be on the lookout for lightning, thunder and especially the wind.” She winked when she said ‘wind.’

“What if I get picked up by the wind?” Elis protested.

Her mother glared at her.

Elis didn’t argue with her mother anymore. She knew that look. She did as she was told. She went outside.

Outside it was cool, and the wind had picked up. The chimes were chiming, and the branches of the tall trees were swaying. The clouds had rolled in; they blotted out the sky and hung dark and menacingly. With every minute the sky grew darker.

The car was parked down the gravel road. Elis slowly made her way to the Volkswagen. As she walked, she listened to her footsteps, which crunched and cracked as her feet stepped onto the tiny rocks that made up the driveway. She enjoyed every step. She liked the noise of her feet on gravel.

Crunch. Crunch. Crunch.

Despite the slight howl of the wind, there was a sort of silence that set in before this particular storm. It was an eerie silence that scared Elis. She stopped enjoying the noise of the gravel and just tried to hurry to the car.

She began to run.

Crunch. Crunch. Crunch.

She got to the car, but when she tried to open the door, it was locked.

“Rats!” she said. She went to turn around to get the key when she heard something on the road. There was that familiar sound of footsteps on gravel. The pebbles were crunching, but she hadn’t taken a step.

Crunch. Crunch. Crunch.

Someone or something was behind her.

Crunch. Crunch. Crunch.

It stopped.

‘There is something behind me.’

She didn’t want to turn around.

‘What if there is something on the driveway?’

She tried to get the idea out of her mind, but she couldn’t. What if the noise she heard was someone? Or worse, what if it was something, some monster from the woods? Her heart began to beat faster in her chest.

Slowly and courageously she turned around. And standing there before she was…

Nothing.

Elis felt a flood of relief. Her racing heart went back to a slow trot. She went back to the house to get the key. When she was outside again, she felt a little better. She figured that the wind was playing tricks on her. She opened up the car and grabbed her pink suitcase.

She set the suitcase in the gravel and unzipped the first zipper. She looked inside and pulled out a large picture in a golden picture frame. The picture was of her father and her.

She hugged it, and a small tear came down her face. It was her favorite picture of her and her father. Her mother had gotten it framed after he had passed away. Elis kept the picture next to her bedside. To her the picture beside her at night was like her father was really there, smiling back at her and protecting her from the phantoms of the night.

She stuffed the picture back into the case and tried to wheel her suitcase. It wouldn’t wheel. She rolled her eyes and picked it up and began to walk back.

Crunch. Crunch. Crunch.

She stopped to rest for a second. Her suitcase was heavy and carrying it took a lot of energy.

Crunch. Crunch. Crunch.

She stopped breathing. She wasn’t walking. She wasn’t moving. But there was the sound of crunching gravel.