by Anna Vangala Jones
Seated around the table holding hands, we opened our eyes to look at Jyoti’s empty chair, disappointed that our seance had failed to bring her back. We were lost after her unexpected death, me especially. She’d been the voice of our little group. We were a body without a mouth. The next night we set up the ouija board, our fingers as light as a feather on the heart shaped planchette for communicating with the dead, begging Jyoti to guide us toward some kind of ghostly reunion. To our collective shock, it began to glide over the letters until it produced the helpful instruction, Go to our tree tomorrow morning.
We knew she meant the sycamore tree in the woods where we’d gather to smoke, drink, and talk for hours. We arrived, all on time for once, and found a yellow door waiting for us in the center of the trunk.
“We should not open that,” Betsy said.
“But she’s in there,” I said. “She told us to come.”
Jyoti had always been our leader and still was, even in death, so we obeyed her message and walked through the door. It deposited us right back in the woods but standing in front of us was Jyoti.
She reassured us that this world was exactly the same as the one we’d left behind—that nothing else had changed except that she got to be alive with us. Who could turn down such an ideal prospect with no drawbacks? Of course we’d stay. “You will love it here,” she said and we wanted so badly to believe this dream could be real that we accepted anything she told us without question at first. But we became convinced over time that she had lied. The other people inhabiting this reality looked like our family and friends but something was off.
One night, I asked my normally patient mother to cook my favorite masala dosa with coconut chutney and sambar. She paused over the stove and said not today. I began to complain but she whirled around as if she were a tornado in the air rather than solid flesh and bone. One of her brown eyes flashed a radiant gold as she commanded me to drop it. I blinked and it was brown again. Grace told us her girlfriend always smelled faintly like sandalwood. “But here,” she whispered, “it’s more like damp earth after rain.” Latisha laid her palm on her gentle father’s cheek, his skin smooth and missing the prickle of his usual silver stubble, but he held her wrist too tightly and reminded her it’s rude to touch without asking. His forbidding features and sparkling teeth were that of a stranger. The voice of Betsy’s sister was a few octaves lower and then Cora swore she saw her neighbor floating high above his house, illuminated by the moon.
We grew restless and uneasy with these clones imitating our loved ones. It was pitiful that they hadn’t been briefed or trained to fool us better for longer, but maybe the responsibility had fallen on Jyoti. We didn’t know whether to fear her or feel sorry for her as the days stretched into weeks of us playing our parts in this imaginary society she’d constructed. We had wanted her back but we hadn’t meant to disappear from existence to achieve it. Were we thought to be dead or missing girls? Was this even Jyoti or a demon adopting her physical form and trapping us for eternity in this unsettling place? We were lonely and afraid in the absence of everyone else we’d loved and resentment soon followed.
If Jyoti was dangerous, she never revealed it. She only appeared hurt when we finally approached her about the duplicity of leading us to this mirror world inside the tree. One by one, the leaving began until only Cora and I remained. We would distract Jyoti so the others could sneak out.
We knew escaping would be hardest for us who would now be the last to depart and abandon Jyoti here. But I didn’t have the heart to go yet. It would be like confirming her dread that even I, her best friend, preferred a world without her in it.
When the night arrived that we could take no more, Cora and I made our way to the yellow door in silence. Jyoti materialized in front of it, somber and taller than we’d ever seen her.
“I’m sorry. I can’t let you leave,” she said. Her light brown eyes flashed gold.
We weaved between trees and dove behind bushes, our ragged breathing too loud to keep us concealed. We ran back to the door and just as I witnessed Cora open it and vanish through, it slammed shut. I knew without turning that Jyoti was looming over me. Before I could speak, her hands pulled me down to the ground by my legs with a strength she’d never possessed. Brutally prying her fingers from my ankles hurt me as much as her. Treating my friend like a monster I must flee from was heart wrenching but necessary. I screamed a promise that if she let me go, I would return to visit, but she didn’t trust me. As she started to cry and plead for me not to leave her all alone, I felt her grip on me loosen. There was no time to tell her how much I would always love her before scrambling to my feet and yanking open the gleaming door to my freedom.
Sometimes I honor my promise and go sit by that sycamore tree and talk to Jyoti like she can hear me. I share with her the latest gossip and imagine she is lighting her cigarette, too. I tell her we miss her and apologize for leaving. I understand why the others make excuses and don’t join me. But if I ever see a yellow door there again, I hope I will somehow resist the momentary urge to enter.
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Anna Vangala Jones is the author of the short story collection Turmeric & Sugar (Thirty West, 2021). Her writing has appeared in Wigleaf, Berkeley Fiction Review, HAD, Rejection Letters, Short Story Long, and The Bulb Region, among others. Find her online at annavangalajones.com.
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