THE TRIBUNE-DEMOCRAT

The introduction to “Your Story,” Volume II, takes place in an empty farmhouse in eastern Centre County, where the heroine and her husband are doing a walk-through with a real estate agent.

The heroine isn’t interested in the house until she comes upon a mysterious door at the back of the stairway landing.

No one had mentioned the door or what could possibly lie behind it, so the heroine turns the doorknob to find a cramped hallway with an oval window.

A window that hadn’t been visible from the outside of the house.

The heroine ventures into the hallway, which has small, bare rooms on either side – possibly servants’ quarters from another time.

Outside the mysterious oval window, the heroine sees snow falling, not on the trees and fields outside the house, but on a city street.

Not able to believe what she is seeing, the heroine looks again and realizes she is looking upon Johnstown, where she had grown up.



Chapter 1

BY ALAINA SYMANOVICH

She could see the Johnstown scene before her, close enough to touch but somehow out of reach, like a mirage ghosting on the horizon.

With trepidation, she extended her clammy fingers to touch the windowpane.

The thick, warped glass was shockingly and excitingly cold.

This is real, she kept thinking, the thought looping through her brain again and again.

The winter scene played out modestly before her, as if it was just a moment of another day.

She could see drivers in their cars, staring nonplussed at the road in front of them, unenthusiastically finishing the day.

A teenage boy jogged halfheartedly past, repeatedly checking his watch.

In a duplex across the street, a curly-haired woman stood washing dishes at the kitchen sink.

The digital sign at the First Bank flashed Feb. 20, 1975, in glowing red lights.

Life was happening before her, just as it always had, just the way she remembered it from her childhood.

Unthinkingly, as if by some involuntary reflex, her hands flew to the windowsill and fumbled with the rusted metal handle.

Angry splinters buried themselves into her fingers as she boosted the window open, but she ignored the stabs of pain.

As she flung her leg over the ledge, she chided herself. She was being childish and impulsive, she knew, and she’d probably open her eyes in a minute and find herself alone in the dusty room, but somehow that wasn’t important.

Somehow, that nagging voice in her head – the one that demanded she act her age, the one she always obeyed – was silent.

With the unabashed grin of a little child, she swung herself over the sill and into the past and landed squarely.

Strangely, nobody gave her even a passing glance.

The few people who happened to be looking her way seemed to stare through her without registering her presence.

Disconcerted, she waved to a man driving past. He continued to drive, his eyes skidding over her as they would a blank wall.

“They can’t see you, you know,” said a high-pitched voice. “Give it up, Melissa.”

Melissa whipped her head around to see a young girl, just 7 or 8 years old, staring up at her with knowing eyes.

The girl’s face was surprisingly bold and she stood with the confidence of an adult.

Something about the girl’s wide, defiant eyes and firm stance intimidated Melissa.

She wondered how the little girl knew her name.

“Excuse me?” Melissa said in her steadiest voice.

“They can’t see you,” the girl repeated.

“This isn’t real. These people, this place, they’re all from the past.”

Melissa nodded casually, as if they were conversing about the weather or something equally unimpressive.

Fiercely, she tried to quell her nervousness. Any display of fear would be dangerous, she told herself; the girl’s probing eyes would surely detect it.

“So we’re in my memory?” Melissa asked, surveying the street again. “Where am I, then?”

The girl shook her head impatiently.

“Not your memory,” she corrected.

“It’s like, you know, the memory. The past.”

Melissa blinked, considering.

Overwhelmed, she felt her careful composure unraveling around her.

The girl just stared at her with those calculating, unblinking eyes.

An uncomfortable silence smothered them and left Melissa defenseless, with no buffer of conversation, naked in front of those unrelenting eyes.

Finally, the girl spoke. “So are you ready?” she asked, extending her arm.

Melissa stared at the girl’s bony white hand, too dumbfounded to respond.

She could not, would not, bring herself to touch the eerie girl’s skin.

It was porcelain-smooth and unnaturally white, like the dolls Melissa’s grandmother used to collect.

“Ready for what?” Melissa asked suspiciously.

The girl’s features darkened menacingly.

“There’s something you need to see,” she said in an icy tone, “before you even think about buying that house.”

For a second, Melissa stared at the girl in utter incomprehension.

Finally, she remembered the quaint country house and the pushy realtor, figments of another universe.

Melissa shook her head firmly and began to turn back, certain of what she needed to do.

“Thanks, but I’m going back –”

She gasped.

The window had disappeared.



Chapter 2 guidelines

The Tribune-Democrat and the Centre Daily Times of State College are collaborating to bring another “Your Story” to the region’s writers.

To submit an entry, pick up the story thread where it ends today and take the story forward.

Submit your entry for Chapter 2, up to 700 words, by noon Friday.

Entries can be e-mailed to Renée Carthew, Features Editor, at rcarthew@tribdem.com; sent by fax to 539-1409; or mailed to The Tribune-Democrat, 425 Locust St., P.O. Box 340, Johnstown, Pa. 15907-0340. Or click here to send "Your Story" click here ...

Judges at each paper will pick two finalists each week and send them to an independent panel of judges that will pick the winner.

The winning chapter and a short story about the author will be published in both papers on March 21, and then the process will begin again.

The goal is a five-chapter story, and how it proceeds is up to you, the readers.

The ongoing story will appear on The Tribune-Democrat’s Web site – www.tribdem.com.