buckets filled with nails and keys and doorknobs, a currycomb, locks,
window fittings, a dog's studded collar, pots and pans, a gunstock,
rimless wheels, a pair of flatirons, a whip, buckles, belts, work
gloves, knives, a dull pitted axe. We stood back and looked. You
didn't want to get too close to it at all.
"This place is crawling with antiques," said Kim.
"Junk," said Steve.
"No, there are some good things here. Funny nobody's gone through the
stuff."
"Probably the stink drove' em out."
He was right about that. The smell was much worse over here.
He headed for the stairs. I followed him. I'd seen enough. We got to
the top and went to the window and filled our lungs with clean night
air.
The cellar would be a good place to hide, I thought, if you could stand
it long enough. I wasn't sure I'd want to. Maybe there would be
something better- and cleaner- on the second floor.
Kim and Casey followed us up. Kim brushed nervously at the cobwebs on
her shirt. Casey looked happy as a clam.
"Well, that much has character, anyway."
Steven looked at her sourly. "What it has is stink."
"Let's try the second floor."
"Nuts," I said.
"What's that?"
"I wanted to look for that plaster job I told you about. In the wall.
Forgot a bout it."
"You can look later. Let's see the upstairs first."
HOnce there had been pictures hanging along the stairwell. You could
see the brighter areas marking their placement on the cream-colored
walls, empty windows to nothing.
At the top of the stairs, a few paces down the hall, there was a square
trapdoor in the ceiling. I pointed it out to them.
"Attic. It'll be hard to reach."
"I'm not going up there," said Kim.
Casey thought about it.
"We'd need a chair or something."
There was a straight-back in the living room that would do, but I
didn't remind her of it.
"Okay. The attic's out of bounds, then."
"Fine."
We walked the short narrow corridor to the front of the house. Kim
opened the door on the right-hand side.
We went in. There was an old stained box spring on the floor and a
cheap wood frame stacked in pieces neatly behind it. A ceramic table
lamp, its shade missing, stood next to it in front of the window. The
room was long, running the entire length of the house. The master
bedroom. Steve pulled open the closet door.
A mouse scuttled around in confusion and disappeared through a hole in
the baseboard.
There was nothing else but a dozen wire hangers and a rolled-up bolt of
wallpaper, the same ugly stuff that papered the kitchen.
I glanced out the window, wondering if you could see where we'd parked
the car from here. You couldn't. In the moonlight the overgrown field
was gray and the trees were a solid craggy wall of black. You couldn't
have found a tank back there.
It gave me a funny feeling.
Like we were cut off somehow.
There was another window to the rear of the house and a door, and I
knew that behind the door was where the widow's walk would be. But I
didn't have a chance to look for it. Casey was in a hurry. She and
Kim had already moved into the room opposite this one. I followed
them.
Another bedroom, but smaller.
IDE AND SEEK
In this one the bed was standing, in a knock-kneed sort of way. You
wouldn't have wanted to sit on it, though, even if it hadn't been
completely filthy. There was a deep impression in the center, as
though whoever had slept there was a pretty good size. We bent down
and looked underneath. A lot of the springs were missing. There was
nothing underneath but huge balls of dust, so thick you could hardly
see the floorboards.
There was a thin faded throw rug bunched up in one corner. A night
table with a built-in mirror and a chair. The mirror was broken, but
there was no trace of glass. Otherwise the table looked salvageable,
if you cleaned it up considerably. An empty picture frame lay facedown
on the table, a comb and a brush and two old nylon stockings moldering
beside it.
We opened the drawers. Empty.
Steven pointed to the stockings. "Hers," he muttered.
He opened the closet. There were more wire hangers.
"No mouse."
We walked down the hall past the stairwell to the back of the house.
There was a door dead ahead and one to the right.
To the right was yet another bedroom, completely empty. No bed, no
mattress. Not even a telltale item of junk on the floor or in the
closet.
It was the other door that interested me. The widow's walk.
While the others checked the closet I went out into the hall, found
that the door was open, and walked outside.
They weren't far behind me, but there was a moment at least when I was
out there alone, breathing the tangy sea air, which was so good after
the closed-up, musty smell of the place. The view was really fine.
Only a couple of yards from where I stood the property ended in a
spectacular drop to the sea. Between the drop and the elevation of the
house, you got the feeling of immense height. Far below was the
moonlit sea, ashifting mask of darks and lights. There was no wind,
but there was still the impression of movement underfoot- the sea. You
felt as though you were standing aboard a huge tall raft, just drifting
there, alone.
"Pretty good."
Steven moved through the door behind me. Kim and Casey were behind
him. There was something about it that made you want to whisper.
"Gee," said Kim. "I can see why they'd fight for the place."
I shook my head. "It wasn't this. It was the house, the land. Their
home. And they didn't fight, did they? They just resisted thinking
about it, probably, until they couldn't manage that anymore. Then they
left.
"I don't know. Can an idiot enjoy something like this? I'm not sure
they can."
"Ask Casey," said Steven. She ignored him. We stood silently for a
while, and the raft feeling continued for me. Stars and sea and drift.
I began to feel a little dizzy.
We walked back through the hall and she led the way downstairs. At the
foot of the stairs she stopped and turned and told us to have a seat.
Steve and Kim sat on the third step together with me perched two steps
above them. Casey turned off her flashlight and Steve and Kim followed
her lead. We sat in the dark.
For the first time the heavy silence of the house settled around us. In
the darkness you tended to forget how ordinary it was inside and how
empty. The dark had its own fullness. You started remembering all the
dumb stories again and seeing the place as you had coming through the
forest- not a very normal little house at all, but something grimmer,
fatal, with its cruel history.
"In my bag," said Casey. "/ have lengths of nylon rope."
We waited for her to continue. Her voice had a somber edge to it,
commanding and disquieting. I looked for Steve and Kim just two steps
away from me and couldn't make them out.
I sighed. The Spock show had begun.