The Visitors

The Visitors by Catherine Burns

     Well, my goodness.  We just never really know, do we?  We think we know someone but there’s that other side, isn’t there?

     Marion Zetland had been told her entire life that she was plain and would go nowhere because no one would want her or give her a chance, so she spent her life at home taking care of her older brother and getting her comfort from her teddy bears.  She could trust her brother because he had shown he would keep an eye on her and defend her and so she gave him her devotion and trust.  But all of that comes with a cost.

     Marion never went into the basement, never asked questions about the noises and voices she would hear coming from her brother’s visitors, never questioned the laundry she cleaned that wasn’t hers or the food that went down there. She just cooked and cleaned for him and trusted him.  That’s not to say she didn’t wonder at times who the visitors were and why they were there but she never questioned John and she never opened that door and like that shut door, she could shut those thoughts away.

     And then, it all changed.  John had a heart attack and is hospitalized for a very long time.  John now needs to trust Marion. And she needs to open that door and venture into the basement and we begin to know the truth about Marion and John and the visitors.  This is where we learn what everyone is capable of, even Marion, and we wonder what we are capable of keeping hidden, because we never really know do we?