House of Chimes


To think that some of her friends had said that they felt sorry for her when they learned that she had all morning classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays this semester! They could think that staying up late and sleeping in mornings was the best thing in life if they wanted to. Give her a schedule that would let her get her classes done early and have afternoons free any time!

Janie especially treasured that schedule now, when the fall season was reaching its height. Most people could only get out to enjoy the leaves and the weather on weekends. Then all the parks within easy reach of the city looked like turned-over anthills. On this Thursday afternoon the state park had quite manageable crowds. Out on this trail, well away from the Visitors’ Center, she had spotted only a couple of people here and there.

She had spent the last hour and a half on the winding trail through the park’s woods and hollows. The trees sported their full fall glory beneath brilliant skies of mixed blue and fleecy white. The afternoon felt delightfully mild, with gusts of gentle breeze now and then. Here and there on one of the higher spots on the trail she could see a way across the fall-painted hillsides.

About two-thirds of the way around the trail loop Janie encountered a side trail beaten through the brush. Where did it go? She could not recall having seen it marked on the big map back at the trail head. Did it lead to some little scenic spot out to the side? She checked her watch. As long as the trail was only about fifteen or twenty minutes one-way she would have plenty of time to explore it and then get back to the parking lot before it began to get dark.

A few minutes’ walking took her up out of the hollow where she had been walking to the top of a ridge. As she rose higher the trail grew indistinct among a series of rocky outcroppings. The next thing she knew, she had lost the trail entirely.

The obvious solution was to retrace her steps. That proved easier said than done. A couple more minutes walking and she stood on top of the ridge in a spot she did not recognize at all.

Now Janie started to feel a little nervous. She took a deep breath. This was not a wilderness area. The park wasn’t really that big. She closed her eyes and tried to visualize the trail map. At this point on the trail she should be somewhere near the western boundary of the park. A road with houses on it ran along there. She checked the position of the sun. If she passed on over the ridge she would be going west. The road was surely not too far away. She could follow it around to the park’s entrance.

Before plunging down the ridge she stopped to see if she could spot anything from here. No such luck. The trees and brush kept her from seeing much of anything. She listened for sounds of traffic on the road.

Instead, she heard a chime. Janie loved wind chimes—the little tinkling ones, and the big clanging chimes, and all the others. This sounded like one of the nicer ones. The chime had a deep, mellow note, the kind that resonated and lingered on the edge of hearing. She stood and listened to it for several moments, her direction-finding problem forgotten.

Then it occurred to her that this might actually help her to find her way. Chimes meant a house. A house meant a road. She began to crash through the brush toward the sound.

A few yards of bushwhacking later the brush opened up into a small clearing. From the limb of a largish oak across from her hung a large set of bronze-colored chimes. Another breath of breeze agitated them as she watched. She stood and listened for a moment to the lovely tone.

From the tree with the chimes a steep trail led down the ridge. It was a good, clear path that she had little trouble managing. At the base of the little ridge she encountered a small, clear creek with a bottom of pebbles and dark sand. The trail crossed it on a set of stepping stones. Just beyond the creek the trees gave way to open ground.

Ahead of her stretched a broad hollow or valley covered by meadow. The stream turned from the ridge and meandered into the meadow, its course marked here and there by fall-clothed trees. Not two hundred yards away, more or less directly in front of her, stood a house on a rise.

The scene looked so beautiful! She stood for a bit to take it in. Across the hollow she could make out wooded hillsides with more of that wonderful fall color. The sky above looked clear, with just a few wisps of clouds. The light of the sun sinking low over the western hillsides cast the beginnings of that beautiful evening glow she enjoyed seeing at the end of pretty days like this. The sound of wind chimes wafted over from the house.

The house was a white frame structure, with a colonnaded porch wrapping around two sides. The opposite corner from the porch had a round oriel, the sort that old houses like this used for stair towers. It had an upstairs, and a high-peaked shingled roof, and a couple of chimneys. The whole house looked like it was in good repair.

The path led across the meadow toward the house, winding slightly. As she drew nearer Janie could see details of the house’s wood work and several sets of chimes hanging around the porch. On one end of the porch hung a swing. There were chairs and a somewhat rugged-looking wooden bench.

As Janie drew near the house a woman stepped out from the front door onto the porch. She appeared to be late middle-aged, dressed in a rather conservative-looking skirt and blouse.

“Hello,” she greeted. Her smile was friendly. Her eyes looked a worried, as if she were taken aback by Janie’s approach and uncertain whether she should welcome her.

“Hello,” Janie replied. “I…I’m kind of lost. I was hiking in the park over the ridge there and got off the main trail. I heard your wind chimes, so I came over the ridge and down to your house.”

“I see.” The woman paused. “Well, come on up and have a seat! You must be tired from all that hiking.”

“Yes, I am. Thank you.” Janie mounted the four steps up to the porch and took a seat on one of the chairs. Her hostess sat down in an adjoining chair. The breeze sounded the chimes again.

“Mother, is everything all right?” came a voice from inside.

The older woman turned toward the entrance. “Yes! We just have a visitor who wandered over from the state park. Her name is….”

“Janie. Janie Peterson.”

“Janie Peterson,” the woman repeated for the benefit of her daughter inside. “You and the children just carry on.”
She turned back to Janie. “Can I get you something to drink?”

“No ma’am, I’m fine.” Actually Janie could have gone for a glass of water, but she felt somehow that this would be imposing. “You have such a beautiful house here.”

“Thank you. We enjoy it a great deal. I know I feel thankful every day that we get to live in such a beautiful place.”

“Is it just you and your daughter’s family?”

“No, there are several families who live here and further down the valley. The men are all out working in the fields right now.”

Janie looked out to the side. Some way down the valley she saw a barn and a couple of outbuildings, and a corral with horses. Further along she could make out houses and what looked like cattle. She saw one or two distant human figures as well.

“I didn’t know the countryside on this side of the park looked so nice,” Janie said. “The map didn’t show this much room between the park boundary and the road.”

“You won’t find the road you’re looking for.”

“I…I won’t?”

“It’s not there. The only way to get back to the park is back the way you came.” The woman looked up at the sky. “I don’t want to hurry you, but you’ll need to be on your way fairly soon if you don’t want to get caught by the sunset.”

“If I go back that way I’m afraid I’ll get lost.”

“I don’t think there’s too much danger of that. Just go back up the trail, past the chimes and back over the ridge. Go straight down the ridge and you’ll intersect the trail you were on.”

“How do you know that, ma’am?”

The woman hesitated, as if thinking over her words carefully. “You…aren’t the first person to find your way over from the park. It has happened a couple of times before over the years. We always send them back. You see, it really wouldn’t be a good idea if you stayed here until dark. You might not get home.”

Janie’s jaw almost dropped. She stared at the woman. What had she gotten herself into?

The older woman smiled and laughed. “Oh, I’m not trying to threaten you. I’m just stating a fact. If you stay here until dark it will be physically impossible for you to get away from here.”

She took in Janie’s even more confused expression. “You haven’t fallen backward through time, if that’s what you’re wondering. But you aren’t exactly where you think you are, either.

“You see, my late father-in-law was a man with…unusual abilities. He found a way to…I don’t know how you’d put it…to step out of the ordinary world and into a place beside it. It’s very much like the Earth as we know it. It even shares the same weather. Many years ago he and a group of like-minded men got together with their families and decided to create a kind of refuge from the world as it had become. I suppose you could say we’re a bit like the Amish folk of Pennsylvania. We just don’t dress as old-fashioned as they do.” She smiled. “Not quite, at least.”

Janie took in what the woman was telling her. What she said was impossible, surely. Yet the woman spoke matter-of-factly and with complete conviction.

“How is all this supposed to work?”

“Fr—my husband has explained it to me, but it’s all rather complicated and technical. I can tell you that it involves the use of certain sound tones under certain atmospheric conditions. It’s only occasionally that people can make their way between the wider world and our little haven here.

“On very rare occasions somebody slips over by accident, as you did. Usually they come over from the park, when conditions are just right and they chance to hear the chimes that mark the boundary.”

“Do you…do you ever go back over yourselves?”

“Oh yes, we send people over now and then to fetch a few necessities and see how the wider world is doing. I must say, what we find out usually doesn’t make us sorry to be here! If it weren’t for our own travel we wouldn’t take the chance of leaving the chimes up there.”

As if on cue the breeze rang the chimes around the porch again. Janie listened to them for a moment. Something about sitting here made the crazy story the woman was telling seem almost believable.

“This seems like a nice place to live,” Janie said.

“Oh, it is. It’s lovely. It’s not perfect. And there are times when I miss some things about the wider world. It feels a little limiting here, sometimes, with only this small community. I’ve gone back over with…with my husband a couple of times, just to visit. What is it people say about New York City--`It’s a nice place to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live there.’ That’s the way I feel about where you come from.”

She looked up at the sky again. “I really don’t wish to seem unfriendly, but it is about time you were going. As I said, if you stay until dark, you won’t be able to leave. Not for a long time, at any rate.”

Janie listened to another round of the chimes. “You know, I wonder if that would be such a bad thing. The world back there drives me kind of crazy sometimes, with all the crowds and the noise and everything.”

“I can see you understand a little about the way we think here. Most people who take the trouble to go hiking in the park on a lovely day do, I think. But I think you’d regret it, young lady. There’s a lot you would miss. And I’m sure you have friends and family back there who would miss you. If you were never to see them again, there’d be a lot of sadness.”

“You’d keep me here forever?”

“Well…I don’t know. We wouldn’t like our secret getting out. But then, I doubt anybody would believe you. They don’t seem to have believed any of the previous visitors. If you really wanted to leave I’m sure we’d let you when it became possible again. And then you’d reappear after being a missing person for…well, for a good while. And they’d listen to your story about where you’ve been and decide you were out of your mind.”

“Yes, I probably would sound pretty crazy.”

“Yes, you would. So please…Janie, isn’t it? Please just go home and try to forget you were here. You really do need to leave now. For your own sake.”

Janie got up. Somehow she knew that her hostess spoke the truth. “I guess it’s time to say goodbye, Mrs…..”

“I’m sorry, Janie. But it’s best that you don’t know the names of anybody here. You or somebody else might possibly use those names to find out more than we’d like you to know. Goodbye. I hope you get home safely and have a nice evening. It looks like it will be a lovely one.”

“Yes,” Janie agreed. “It does. Goodbye.”

Janie walked down the steps and across the meadow toward the woods. By now the sun had almost disappeared behind the distant hills. She would have to hurry.

Before she entered the woods, though, she stopped and turned back for a last look at the house. The older woman stood on the porch, watching her. She waved. Janie waved back. The valley looked lovelier than ever in the evening light. For a moment she had an impulse to sit down and stay and see what happened.

Then she sighed. And she turned and entered the woods. Behind her she heard one last rustling of wind chimes.

bump for the Daph