Free The Candle by Ian Rogers Page B

maybe even from one of the houses further down the street—it had certainly been loud enough. But it was muffled, too.
    That’s because it came from inside one of the houses
.
Not from someone on the street
.
    He didn’t know how he knew that, but he did.
    He climbed out of bed and walked over to the doorway.
    “Peg? Where are you?”
    Nothing.
    He stepped into the hallway and out of the glow thrown by the bedside lamps. He was alone in the darkness. The smell of roasting oats was very strong. It was not an unpleasant smell, but it was one that had gotten old very quickly. His stomach made a protesting, groaning sound.
    He walked into the darkened living room, the hardwood floor popping and creaking under his bare feet. He moved past the dining room table, the futon they had bought for guests to sleep on because they didn’t have another bedroom. The shapes of the couch and the loveseat were limned against the orange glow of the streetlights. He saw the candle, a smaller silhouette on one of the end tables. It was out. There was no sign of Peggy.
    He started to turn around, to search the rest of the house, when he suddenly realized the room wasn’t empty.
    Someone was sitting in the old wicker rocking chair, which was no longer in the corner of the room but in front of the wide bay window that looked out on McDonnel Street.
    He was straining his eyes to see who it was when the candle on the end table suddenly flickered into low-burning life. Tom’s eyes were drawn to it instinctively. His mouth fell open. In the dim light he saw it was Peggy sitting in the chair.
    It rocked forward and Tom jerked backward. He didn’t scream.
Not like the woman next door
, he thought randomly.
What had that woman seen? Her husband, maybe, sprawled out in his favourite recliner? What had he gotten up to do? Check to make sure the front door was locked? Bring in the dog
?
    A cold sheen of sweat formed on his back. His pyjama top clung to him like a greasy second skin.
    Peggy began to speak, but not in any tone Tom had ever heard in all the years he had known her.
    “No questions, my sweet,” Peggy said in a sharp, clear voice. “No questions tonight. Just the answer. Your answer.”
    What in the hell is going on?
he thought frantically.
    The candle flickered, and Tom glanced at it again. A smell wafted over to him. It was a sweet smell, a ripe smell that he couldn’t identify. It didn’t make any sense. The candle was vanilla-scented. It was a smell he and Peggy both enjoyed, along with Autumn Spice, Apple Pie, and Desert Rose, a smell that had filled the room earlier that evening.
    Something was wrong. Peggy was staring at the candle, too. He had seen her profile a thousand times over the years—a hundred thousand times—and he knew it as well as his own reflection. But there was something different about it now. Different in the same subtle way that the smell of the candle was different. It was clearly Peggy sitting in the rocker . . . and yet it wasn’t. Something was missing, or something had been added—something that changed her entirely and made her a stranger.
    Tom jumped as another scream split the night. Was it someone else making a similar discovery? Was it someone he and Peggy knew, someone in their circle of friends, someone, maybe, who had spent the night on their futon?
    He had sent his wife out here to do something. Now he bent over to do it himself. He felt Peggy’s eyes watching him. He could feel them crawling on his skin like beetles. His eyes looked up at the window, and from this angle he could see the moon. It was different, too. The shape was right, but the colour was all wrong. Tom took two deep breaths, one to steady himself and one to do what needed to be done.
    Just pretend it’s your birthday
, he told himself.
    Peggy whispered, “Make a wish.”
    He blew out the candle.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
    Ian Rogers is a writer, artist, and photographer. His short fiction has appeared in several publications,