Mystery of Drear House Read online

  Thomas laughed. “Watch the magic!” he said. He opened a cabinet drawer. The house was quiet about him, with no Billy or Buster running and banging around. It felt empty without his mama’s voice rising like summer light on the air. When Thomas listened hard, he imagined he could hear the limestone earth beneath the house seeping and percolating with snow-melt.

  Don’t let it drip in the great cavern. Don’t let it cause a cave-in.

  Thomas remembered seeing his papa take a mechanism from the machinery that raised and lowered the trick wall. His papa had put the mechanism in the drawer. Thomas opened the drawer and took it out. He next looked under the base of the high cabinet above the counter. There was a hidden panel. It slid open at his touch.

  Pesty was there at his side. “Wow-wee!” she whispered.

  “I saw Papa do this,” Thomas told her. But he had never done it himself.

  Inside was the machinery for the trick wall. He placed the part in his hand in a section of the machinery where he thought it might go.

  “Doesn’t seem to fit,” Pesty said.

  “You’re right. I have to look for an empty space.”

  “Try it here,” she said, pointing.

  He tried it. “No,” he said, “but maybe … here? No. Here? Here!”

  “Push the underpart in,” Pesty said.

  “That’s where it goes. Now I’ll pull the lever.” Gently he pulled it.

  They watched the trick wall. Pesty’s eyes were huge. Her mouth gaped.

  Thomas’s scalp tingled as the wall rose.

  “Thomaaas! Thomaaas!” A plaintive, distant voice called to him.

  They were transfixed by the wall rising. The black hole of a tunnel entrance was exposed. It seemed to attack them with its damp and dark. A dank smell invaded the kitchen. But there was nothing at all that he could see beyond the tunnel opening. “Thomaaas!” came the voice again.

  “Oh my goodness!” Thomas said. He flicked the lever, letting the wall slide back down.

  “It’s just your great mother calling from upstairs,” Pesty said. But she had been frightened, too.

  “I know it is,” he said. Now why do you upset yourself? he thought. You were sure it was somebody calling in that tunnel. “What is it, Great-grandmother?” he hollered. “I’m coming!” He remembered to close the cabinet drawer before he rushed out of the kitchen, down the hall and up the stairs.

  “Great-grandmother? I’m coming!” he called again. He bounded up the steps, taking them three at a time. Pesty was right behind him.

  He rushed into Great-grandmother Jeffers’s room, only to find it empty.

  Where?—Thomas hurried to his room, then, the twins’ room. She wasn’t in either room. “Great-grandmother,” he called, “where are you?”

  “I’m here, Thomas” came the reply from a distance away.

  “Well, man, she’s in the back bedroom we never use!” Thomas said.

  “In here, Thomas,” he heard Great-grandmother say again.

  Pesty was on her way down the hall first. “She’s in this room,” she said. The end of the hall was at the very rear of the upstairs.

  The rear of the upstairs ended at a big window that looked out over the veranda, the rear yard, and the hill rising beyond. There was a room on either side of the hall, with windows also facing the back of the house. Thomas’s folks had dusted and polished the floors and then had closed the rooms. They hadn’t found any further use for them.

  He opened the door, with Pesty at his elbow. At once he felt the chill air; he could smell the floor polish. There was a slight odor of stale dampness. It reminded him of the dankness that had come from the tunnel opening in the kitchen.

  “What is it, Great-grandmother?” he said, coming up to her. “What are you doing in here?” She was standing facing the wall directly across from the door with her back to him. She was dressed for the day.

  “Thomas,” she said, reaching out across him as he came up to her, as though to shield him. “Well,” she said, and sighed, “it’s hard to say what it is. But it is why I am in here.”

  He took a step forward in order to see her face, but she pulled him back.

  “You mustn’t go any closer,” she told him.

  “Wh-why is that?” he said.

  “Well. That—that … wall.” That floor was what she had first thought and at once had thought better of saying it. “Er, there was someone here.”

  “There—there was?” Thomas managed to say, as the creeps came over him.

  “Oh yes,” she said. “You see, I had come out of my room into the hall. Heard you-all in the kitchen. Thought sure I felt someone behind me. I turned around, yet all I saw was an empty hall. But after talking to Martha last night, I knew how she kept the unused rooms closed because of the twins. Well, I went to close one of the doors I saw was slightly open.” She sighed. “Just as I reached in to put my hand on the doorknob, someone reached out from inside that room and put a hand over mine.”

  Thomas sucked in his breath. “No!” he said.

  Great-grandmother nodded. “Just out of nowhere, someone put a hand over mine,” she repeated.

  “Great-grandmother, who was it?” Thomas asked.

  “Someone big, very big. That’s all I know,” she said. “Scared me! Almost had heart failure, too!” Great-grandmother Jeffers laughed nervously.

  “Well, I came on in here. Managed to see it go— huh!” she said. “It left behind its motion, it felt like. Well. What I saw of it was the shape. A long, leggy shape, darkness. How strange! I was so taken by surprise. Who would expect something like that to happen in broad daylight?”

  Silently Pesty walked around them, up to the wall.

  “Pesty! Don’t!” Thomas held her back, but she shook loose from his grasp.

  She stood there, just where Great-grandmother had warned Thomas not to stand, and knocked on the wall, as if she were knocking at the front door downstairs.

  She knocked, pong, pong, pong. It made a hollow sound. She seemed to push the wall. She knocked a second time, pong, pong, pong.

  The wall began to move; the floor in front of it commenced to turn.

  Thomas couldn’t believe his eyes. A half circle of the floor with a section of the bedroom wall behind it was turning slowly to his right. At once Pesty stepped out of the turning part of the floor.

  “You knew about this wall!” Thomas said to her.

  Pesty said not a word. She stood there with her hands clasped in front of her, looking at the wall turning. The back of the wall, its other, hidden side, was coming around into view.

  “It’s a circle,” Thomas whispered.

  “And one-half of it hidden all the time,” Great-grandmother said softly. “But wait … maybe … you won’t believe …” What came around from behind was so unexpected. It was so shocking Thomas wanted to hide his face from it.

  “That’s it, that’s what was there before,” Great-grandmother said.

  Pesty stood there, calmly looking up. Thomas was looking up as well. And so was Great-grandmother Jeffers. Up and up.

  “Mr. Thomas,” Pesty said. “Great Mother Jeffers,” she said soothingly. She reached out with gentle hands for what was there, for what had come from behind the wall.

  The first thing Thomas noticed was the motion Great-grandmother Jeffers spoke about. Nervous, frantic motion was what came to mind.

  Pesty took a few steps to the side where there was a table and turned on the small brass lamp by a straight chair near the wall. The lamp gave off a soft glow of light.

  “Mr. Thomas,” Pesty said. She went back over to the turned wall. She had her hand now on the one who had come. “She didn’t mean anything. Didn’t mean to scare your great-grandmother.”

  “What?” Thomas said, barely out loud. He was staring at the one so tall.

  “Y’all,” Pesty said to them. “Want you to meet my mama. She wasn’t following Great Mother Jeffers down the hall. It’s just that this house was hers to wander before y’all
ever came to live here.

  “But don’t move too sudden,” Pesty continued. “Mama not too well, though she up and around again.”

  Thomas and Great-grandmother Jeffers simply stared. The place that had turned had a handsome stone fireplace with a marble mantel. The woman stood on the wide hearth, crouched a bit, leaning her back against the mantel.

  “Oh!” Thomas said. He realized then that she wasn’t a giant, as he had thought. She was about six inches off the floor up on the raised stone hearth. But she was still big and tall, probably the tallest, the biggest, and the most different woman Thomas had ever seen. She sent out a powerful magnetism. It was as if electricity surrounded her. He could almost feel its prickly current. It wasn’t possible. But there it was.

  11

  MRS. DARROW HAD THICK black hair that fanned out over her shoulders to cascade down her back, below her waist. The long dress she wore was a worn and shabby tent cinched at the waist. It had a neck hole and holes for her hands out of the long sleeves gathered at her wrists. It had heavily padded shoulders as stiff and flat as boards. It looked like a shelter of cloth stretched over her huge figure from neck to ankles. She wore it like a protective armor. She might have been five feet eleven inches or even over six feet tall, Thomas supposed. And she might have weighed two hundred, three hundred pounds, he couldn’t be sure. But she didn’t look fat. Just big.

  Thomas couldn’t take his eyes off her. He knew that only seconds had passed, that Pesty had spoken, introducing her mama. But he couldn’t find any words in his head. He was just so struck by her. Enormous Mrs. Darrow, standing over him.

  She had her arms crossed over her chest so that they made a wide X, with her hands touching her shoulders. Her eyes were like two black, burning lights stuck to her face. Her mouth was a thin line with great creases at either side. She might have been smiling. But she was not. She was staring. Her black eyes fastened on Thomas.

  Something else, Thomas thought. I hear … humming!

  She was humming and had been humming, like a soft buzzing from the time she had come around from behind the wall. The humming had buzzed inside his head, as if it had belonged there. He hadn’t noticed it until now.

  “Can’t you say hello to my mama?” Pesty was asking him.

  “Oh, oh, hello! I’m sorry, Mrs. Darrow, I was ... shoot. Hello!” Thomas said.

  “Thomas and I are glad to meet you, Mrs. Darrow.” Great-grandmother Jeffers finally spoke, in a natural, soothing voice, not too loud.

  The humming did not cease. Great-grandmother took a step forward and extended her palm in greeting. Mrs. Darrow swung her head around toward Great-grandmother. Eyes, burning black fire, glinting so, that Great-grandmother drew back; she could not help herself. It was clear the woman was awfully, terribly different.

  At once Pesty stepped between her mother and Great-grandmother. Mrs. Darrow had dropped her arms. Her hands clenched into fists.

  “Great Mother Jeffers, you got to move slow, please,” Pesty said. “See, my mama is all right, once you know what to do and what not to do.”

  Pesty had hold of her mother’s hands, fists. She rubbed and rubbed at them until Mrs. Darrow relaxed them a bit, opening them partway.

  “She can’t help herself,” Pesty said simply. “Doctor calls it something.” She started again, carefully. “Doctor says she is ill, mental. She is chronic. See, that means it comes and goes.”

  “Chronic,” Great-grandmother said softly. “Did she take her medicine today?” she added, gazing back at the black eyes that froze on her now.

  “She might not’ve,” Pesty said. “Well, how did you know she might’ve forgot?” She was surprised that Great-grandmother Jeffers would think of that. “Mama might not’ve, with me run off to go around with Mr. Thomas.”

  “Well, then we’ll take her back and see that she gets her medicine and gets warmed up,” Great-grandmother said. “I suspect that the way she came was chilly.”

  Thomas couldn’t believe he’d heard right.

  “Thomas,” she continued, “go get my shawl for Mrs. Darrow to put on, please—move slowly now, we don’t want to upset her—and get my coat and hat for me. My scarf. Don’t want to catch my death. You might do well to bring a flashlight, too.”

  The humming ceased suddenly. “Sooky,” Mrs. Darrow murmured. Her voice was strangely clear and childlike, not at all like the sound of her humming.

  “What did she say?” Thomas asked, trying not to move even his lips.

  “She always says that for a few days,” Pesty said. “Sooky. That’s what she calls me when she starts in talking again. See, when she is sick, she won’t call me at all. She will sit in one place forever unless somebody move her. She don’t want to eat until she comes out of it. And then she eat everything in sight.”

  “Great-grandmother ...”

  “Thomas,” Great-grandmother said, “we’ll go back there with her, see that she’s fine. Oh, and how about one of the pies in the refrigerator? Yes! Just bring it on up here.”

  “But you don’t know what went on,” Thomas said quickly. “Her sons … what they did to the kitchen.” He glanced up at Mrs. Darrow and away before she could swing her eyes at him. “I don’t think Papa—”

  “Thomas,” Great-grandmother interrupted, “I heard about some of what went on here when you-all first come months ago. Well, your papa is my grandson, so don’t you worry. Hurry now, Thomas,” she said. “We don’t want to keep Mrs. Darrow waiting!”

  She smiled bravely at him and all around. Great-grandmother was going to help Mrs. Darrow even though she was a little afraid of her. Thomas could tell.

  He hurried downstairs to the closet. First, he grabbed his and Pesty’s coats from the backs of chairs in the kitchen. He stuffed a flashlight in his jacket pocket. Then he got the pie. He didn’t know what kind it was; it was wrapped in foil in the refrigerator. It was probably apple. He hurried to the hall, placed the pie carefully on the floor, and laid their coats next to it. Then he got Great-grandmother’s things from the closet. The shawl, too. Oh man! It’s taking me too long!

  But he hurried. Careful to hold the pie with both hands. He had his own coat and hat on now. He had Pesty’s coat draped over his head and down his back. He had Great-grandmother’s things and her shawl over one arm. He did not know whether what they were about to do was safe or sane. Another secret opening into the house right upstairs! he was thinking. A crazy woman? She is Pesty’s mama. Mrs. Darrow. Wonder what is her first name? You could ask.

  When he returned, he stopped still just in the doorway to the bedroom. He pulled the pie rim in tightly against him. The flashlight weighted him down on one side. Mrs. Darrow had stepped down from the fireplace hearth. She stood over Great-grandmother Jeffers. She had hold of her own long hair in one hand and Great-grandmother’s in the other. She was pulling Great-grandmother’s hair as she pulled her own. She looked like a giant bully bothering tiny Great-grandmother Jeffers.

  “Mr. Thomas, don’t say nothing,” Pesty said, before he could think to say anything. “Don’t make to interfere.”

  “But look!” Thomas said, coming in very slowly. He spoke as calmly as he could. “She is hurting my great-grandmother.” He calculated how fast he could get to Great-grandmother’s side and how much he could do for her once he was there.

  “She’s not hurting me, Thomas,” Great-grandmother said, “not really.” She reached up, hoping to loosen Mrs. Darrow’s grip on her hair. But she couldn’t.

  “Mama don’t realize how strong she is,” Pesty said. “I think she means to shake your hand, Mother Jeffers, but she got it wrong—see? She shaking your hair.”

  Pesty pried her mother’s hands loose. “She’s my mama when she goes off her mind,” she said, “but she comes back like a child. Sorry, Great Mother.”

  “It’s all right,” Great-grandmother said, “I’m not hurt.”

  “Once Mama is up out of bed, she has to learn most things all over again,” Pesty explained.

/>   “Think of that!” Great-grandmother whispered.

  “Why is that?” Thomas asked. Slowly he moved up to them. He put the pie down on the lamp table and reached over to give Pesty Great-grandmother’s shawl. Pesty took it and flung it up around her mama’s shoulders.

  “She says she don’t remember much after,” Pesty said. “Then we give her her pills. They help her get better, but they make it hard for her to remember, too.”

  “But does this …” Thomas began. He was going to ask, Does it go on forever? Didn’t her mama ever get better? But he never got the chance.

  With no warning Mrs. Darrow swung around toward him. That unheard-of nervous motion seemed to hit him between the eyes. She lunged for the pie, knocking Thomas aside. He fell on the floor hard.

  Thomas sat there, stunned, watching Mrs. Darrow. A dull ache began along his hip, where he’d hit.

  Mrs. Darrow lifted the pie up to her nose. She tore at the foil covering and threw it aside. There was the pie; it was apple. He wouldn’t have dreamed the pie would get eaten the way he saw her eating it. With one hand Mrs. Darrow commenced to scoop the pie.

  Thomas suddenly was angry. “She pushed me down!” he said. Fury mixed with the bruising fall.

  “Mama didn’t mean to, Mr. Thomas. You just got in the way,” Pesty said back.

  “She hit into me; she shoved me and knocked me down,” he said.

  “No, you got in her way! You did, you got in her way!” Pesty’s voice shook. Trembling, she covered her face with her hands.

  Mrs. Darrow finished about half the pie. Her mouth and cheeks were a sticky mess with it.

  Pesty commenced sobbing.

  “Pesty, I’m—I’m sorry,” Thomas said, getting up. “But she did push me down.”

  “Now, don’t you cry, sweetheart,” Great-grandmother said. She folded Pesty in her arms.

  Pesty’s crying lasted only a few seconds. She had little time for tears. “Mama, come on,” she said. Sighing, she went to her mother and calmly took the pie out of her hands. It was almost all gone. “Take you on back home now. You played enough for today.”