Basement

Ellene Glenn Moore

She bought this house, my mother says, for my eldest brother. At four his energy is as vast as a territory. In this house, she lets him loose and he tears across the heartwood, up the rainbow staircase, all over and returns, for once, tired. Soon the first, second, and third floors are not enough to contain him. A staircase along the kitchen wall plummets down to a door that opens into the unfinished basement—another vast territory. My mother doesn’t want my brother playing there: exposed insulation, unsealed cement, glistening ductwork looping itself like the bowels of some strange animal, prognostic exhortation against the dangers of too much joy. He won’t take no for an answer. Again and again, he hurdles himself down the stairs into the dust and the dirt. Finally, my mother tells him, “You know, there’s a troll living down there. He’ll get you if you’re not careful.” My brother is smarter than this. He intimates his disbelief. “Oh, you don’t think so?” my mother says. “Here, I’ll show you.” She beckons him follow her down the stairs. She cracks the door, peers into the thin darkness, eyes reeling with fear. “He’s there! Oh god, he’s there!” She jams her shoulder against the door, but again and again it springs open. My brother backs up the stairs, nostrils flaring. “Go, I’ll hold him off!” my mother cries, back to the ferocious door. My brother runs. He grows older and is eventually joined by another brother, who is joined by me. The basement is finished in white linoleum, pocket lights, a ping pong table, a Gateway computer and fish tank, a wall of mirrored doors. My brother flies through and I follow. My brother breaks the window, high on the wall. My brother makes a hole in the door. We divine our terrors in the scatter of couch pillows, the shape of modeling wax as it melts atop the radiator running along the baseboard. These terrors are lovelier than any lock; they have more teeth than any key. Sometimes when I am alone, I open two mirrored doors towards each other and stand between them, making myself infinite: infinite girls, infinite doors, infinite territories to fill with unease.