Apperances

Alex parked his car on the street in front of a huge house. He gazed up at a fortress of tall windows and red bricks topped by dark slate. Between the house and his curbside vantage stretched a botanical zooscape of suburban greenery. It looked more like an expanse of parkland than a yard. He was not at all sure he had the right place.

The drive over had certainly been a gauntlet. The street itself was at the core of a maze but that wasn't the end of it. Both ends of the street were blocked by work crews clearing storm-felled trees. Both ends! What were the odds of that? A thunderstorm with a perverse sense of humor apparently hadn't cared for this part of town. A knot of neighbors gathered around one blockage, milling and glaring, appeared none too pleased. Alex had sympathized with their frustration. He was surprised he'd been able to find a way through. Perhaps all for nothing, because this didn't look like the right place.

Alex lifted a card from his lap. A drawing in black ink on heavy paper the color of old ivory showed crows bursting from a pie on the front and on the inside writing and an address.

"Alex, my luck! We won! I'm so pleased. You can not imagine. I haven't forgotten my promise to share the wealth. Saturday afternoon at my home. Please." -- Catherine, the Lottery Lady.

The address on the card matched the metal numbers on the brick mailbox.

"I guess this is it." Alex looked to his girlfriend for affirmation. She was staring up at the big house looking as surprised as he felt.

"Wow," breathed April. "This must not be her first time to win the lottery." She touched her bangs from her eyes and looked from Alex to the house and laughed. She opened the door to get out of the car and Alex followed, tense, his insides a knot of nerves.

Alex stood by his car, smoothing the bottom of his sweater down over the tops of his khakis. He'd felt overdressed this morning, but that pendulum had swung sharply and he felt it like a motion in his stomach. He had been expecting a humble Lottery Lady home. A modest plot with a well-loved garden and bird feeders in the yard. A covered porch with a swing at one end and a ceramic goose dressed for Easter by the door. Apparently the Lottery Lady was actually a Catherine, possessing a name like a European monarch and an estate to match.

"Alex?" April was waiting at the foot of a gated walk. She took a step back towards him and whispered, "Come on. Everybody is watching you!"

"Who is everybody?" Alex looked around distracted, but it was hard to look away from the house.

"Just some people," she said grabbing at his hand. "Kids."

He turned and sure enough, a group of kids watched from the yard across the street. Alex hadn't noticed them before, they were so quiet. He waved to them. They scattered like flushed birds being waved at by a dog. They disappeared around the back of their house. Alex felt the tug of April's hand. Turning back to the big house, he let himself be led up to the gate and through.

Together Alex and April walked past neat, well-tended beds of sad, roseless thorn bushes to the porch. Alex took a deep breath and pressed the doorbell. He cocked his head, but heard no chimes. He studied the carved door frame and the flanking windows of leaded glass. There was no answer. He looked to April. She nudged him with her elbow and pointed to the knocker on the door in the shape of a crow with a large ring clutched in its beak. Alex lifted the heavy ring and knocked it twice against the solid wood of the door.

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