by Ike Hamill
Contents
Title Page
Chapter 1 : June and Gus
Chapter 2 : Auggie, Millie, and Isla
Chapter 3 : Kate
Chapter 4 : Deidra, Henry, Sam, and Penny
Chapter 5 : Jules
Chapter 6 : Allison
Chapter 7 : Isla, Millie, Penny, Gus, and Sam
Chapter 8 : June
Chapter 9 : Gus
Chapter 10 : Henry
Chapter 11 : June
Chapter 12 : Ceremony
Chapter 13 : Kate
Chapter 14 : Ceremony
Chapter 15 : Kate
Chapter 16 : Deidra
Chapter 17 : Jules
Chapter 18 : June
Chapter 19 : Henry
Chapter 20 : Auggie
Chapter 21 : Jules
Chapter 22 : Kate
Chapter 23 : Gus
Chapter 24 : Henry
Chapter 25 : Deidra
Chapter 26 : Isla
Chapter 27 : Gus
Chapter 28 : June
Chapter 29 : Kate
Chapter 30 : June
Chapter 31 : Deidra
Chapter 32 : June
Chapter 33 : Gus
Chapter 34 : June
Chapter 35 : Auggie
Chapter 36 : June
Chapter 37 : Gus
Chapter 38 : June
Chapter 39 : Auggie
Chapter 40 : June
Chapter 41 : Kate
Chapter 42 : June
Chapter 43 : Kate
Chapter 44 : June
Chapter 45 : Gus
Chapter 46 : June
Chapter 47 : Gus
Chapter 48 : June
Chapter 49 : Gus
Chapter 50 : June and Gus
Chapter 51 : Family
About
MUMMA'S HOUSE
BY
IKE HAMILL
WWW.IKEHAMILL.COM
Dedication:
For my father, who first told me about Mumma’s House.
Special Thanks:
Cover design by BelleDesign [BelleDesign.org]
Thanks to Lynne, as always, for her edits.
Copyright © 2017 Ike Hamill
This book is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places, and events have been fabricated only to entertain. This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part without the consent of Ike Hamill.
Chapter 1 : June and Gus
ON THE SOUTH SIDE of the house, in the little nook made between the wing and the shed, there was a tree that grew too close to the house. Gus didn’t think that his mom knew about it. It was about ten years old, as near as he could figure. The branches had grown tall over the roofline, but the other trees in front of the house blocked it from view in the driveway.
Gus loved the tree.
He figured it was about the same age as he was. Trees didn’t have to go to fifth grade. They learned most of what they needed from the sun, soil, air, and rain. And this tree had learned a few things from Gus as well. It learned not to grow too close to the house. When a new limb tried to tickle the siding, Gus climbed up and pruned it off. He sterilized the saw first and then brushed the wounded limb with a special paint he had bought at the hardware store.
“No, you don’t,” Gus whispered when he pruned. “You grow that way, towards the sun.”
If the tree tickled the siding then someone would complain. They would come out with a chainsaw and cut his friend down.
Gus sat in the grass at the base of his tree and enjoyed the autumn sun. The grass felt like a hairbrush under his jeans. It was thick, stiff, and yellow. The weather had been nothing but sun for weeks and weeks.
Warm days, cold nights, and a minor drought had led to the most colorful leaves that Gus had ever seen. The best ones were orange in the middle and bright red at the spiked tips. Gus had collected ten of the best and laminated them using his mom’s machine. He was going to cut them into bookmarks and give them to his cousins for Christmas.
Gus picked a wiry blade of grass and jammed it into the hole at the center of an anthill. There wasn’t much activity. The ants had prepared themselves for hibernation already.
His mother’s call came on the breeze.
“Gus!”
Gus ran.
# # # #
He was out of breath by the time he ran up the driveway.
“I called five minutes ago. Where were you?”
“At the pond,” he said.
“I thought it was all dried up.”
“It is. That’s why I’m not all muddy,” Gus said.
“Stay out of the road.”
“I did.”
She studied him with slitted eyes. This was a fishing expedition. All he had to do was stay quiet and she wouldn’t catch anything.
“Wash your hands. We’re going to town.”
Gus raised his eyebrows and then sprinted for the bathroom. It was a quick run. They only had the little bathroom under the stairs and it was only three big strides from the door. When his cousins visited, nobody ever used that bathroom. His Uncle Auggie said, “With the way that ceiling slopes, anything you try to do in there ends up being a hook shot.”
Everyone always laughed at that joke.
“When does Uncle Auggie come?” Gus yelled as he wiped his hands.
“Don’t count the time.”
“I know, but when does he come?”
“He and the girls will be here on the twenty-second. They’re staying ten days. Put it on your calendar so you don’t have to ask all the time,” his mother said.
“It is,” Gus said. He reached back to turn off the light. He was all ready to go into town.
“Shoes.”
“Oh yeah,” he said. He ran to the other side of their room to get socks. “Where are they?”
“Under the bed.”
“Oh yeah.”
Gus took everything out to the front porch to put them on. Before he was finished tying the second shoe, his mother came out and closed and locked the door behind her. It was something she always did, regardless of how empty the gesture. If someone wanted to get in, all they had to do was go in through the barn, or the shed, or the wing, make their way up one of the back ways, go down the hall, and, Boom!, they would be right in the living room. No amount of locks on the front door would stop that. His mother either didn’t remember or she chose to forget. It didn’t matter which one was true.
“Why are we going into town?”
“Popcorn,” she said.
“Movies?” he practically shouted.
“You can watch the movie. I just want the popcorn.”
Gus finished tying and sprinted for the car.
# # # #
As they drove back home from the movie, the sun was setting. Gus told his mom all about the plot. It was like she hadn’t even been there. She didn’t pick up any of the details until Gus told her.
She put on her blinker for Prescott Road and waited for a gap in the traffic. His mother took a deep breath and then sighed.
If Gus had been paying attention, he would have already started worrying. A sigh like that was like the first cloud on the horizon. A thunderstorm was rolling in, fast.
“Damn it,” she said. The gap she had been aiming for evaporated when a car made a right turn. The car had stolen the opportunity right out from under them.
“Don’t count the time,” he said.
It wasn’t the proper use of the expression, but his mother let it slide.
When she finally goosed the car into the turn, she sighed again. This time, Gus noticed.
“I want to move,” she said.
Gus raised one corner of his upper lip. “Huh?” he asked. They were moving. The car was rolling a
t thirty-eight miles an hour. The speed trap sign had just said so.
“Move. Out of Mumma’s house. I want to move into Augusta. I’ll be closer to work and you’ll be in a better school district. You can meet the new kids before you go into middle school. It’s the ideal time.”
“No!” Gus said. “You promised.”
“Listen—you’re only reacting to the idea of change. That house is the only one you’ve known…”
She kept talking, but Gus was beyond hearing. All he could think about were all the secrets he would be leaving behind. He had never been in the hallway over the shed—not once. His Uncle Jules had told him that there was a chainfall in the barn that was strong enough to lift an engine right out of a tractor. Gus had only ever been in the barn a few times. Sam promised to take him into the closet under the eaves in Uncle Auggie’s old room. The way that Sam talked about it, the place was amazing.
They absolutely couldn’t move.
What about his tree? Who would take care of it? Gus couldn’t even mention that to his mother. She would have it cut down just to remove the objection.
The answer popped into his head. He had the perfect argument.
“Mumma, we can’t move! What about New Year’s Eve?”
Her face turned furious. The thunderstorm really had come.
“Don’t you call me that.” Her voice was ice cold.
“Sorry, Mom. But, New Year’s!”
“I’m done, Gus, okay? We have enough money. I’m not going to hold our lives for ransom on the chance that someday all those idiots come to their senses. We’re going to walk away. We’re going to choose to live like real people and not like prisoners.”
Gus shrank in his seat.
# # # #
As soon as the car crunched to a stop in the gravel and dirt, Gus threw open his door. The light coming around the side of the porch was deep orange. It flashed and burned in the driveway dust. Gus ran for it.
He heard his mother leap from her side of the car. She was fast. Gus had too much of a lead.
As soon as he rounded the corner of the porch, he knew that he had escaped.
“Gus, you get back here this instant,” she yelled. “I will come get you.”
It was an empty threat.
Still, Gus didn’t slow until he rounded the perimeter of the main house and then ran the length of the wing. The arms of his tree swayed and dipped in the last of the sunlight. They beckoned him around to sit at the base of the trunk. That’s exactly what he did.
Gus flopped down in the dry grass and flatted his back against the bark.
The sun finally dropped below the line of trees on the horizon. It had waited up for him and now the sun was finally going to bed.
Gus frowned.
“Gus!” he heard his mom calling.
She wouldn’t go farther than the corner of the porch. He couldn’t remember the last time she had.
“That’s not true,” he whispered to himself.
He did remember the last time she had come around the corner of the house, but he remembered it like it was a movie. He saw the events from over her shoulder. That made it seem more like something he had been told instead of something that he remembered.
# # # #
Gus was three or four when he climbed the railing of the porch. His mother sat in the old rocking chair. Back then, the wicker was still intact on the seat. She rocked slow and steady, like a calm heartbeat, while she read her book and enjoyed the summer breeze.
For the first time ever, Gus had pulled and squirmed and struggled until his waist was at the level of the top rail. He could see all the way down the hill towards the raspberry bushes. He could almost see the creek that fed into the pond. Gus tried to swing his leg up. If he sat on top of the rail, he was sure that he might even catch a glimpse of the road.
As soon as his toe got up over the rail, his balance was lost. Most of his weight leaned over. When Gus flipped, he lost his grip and tumbled. It wasn’t far from the porch down to the scrubby grass below, but Gus felt like he was falling forever before he hit. From some minor miracle, he had flipped all the way over. Instead of landing on his head, he completed the turn and dropped down straight on his butt.
Gus laughed.
“Gus!” his mother shouted.
The fear and anger in her voice made him want to burst into tears.
He didn’t.
Instead, he jumped up and ran.
“Gus!” his mother cried again. This time, there was nothing but anger to her shout. It made Gus run even faster. He laughed when he looked back over his shoulder. His mother was trying to climb over the railing to chase him. Even back then, he knew that she wouldn’t come around to this side of the house. She would never let him pick the raspberries down the hill even though they looked like they were twice as thick as the ones near the old well. As he ran, Gus thought he was doing a good thing. He was proud that he was helping his mother finally cross the imaginary line to the forbidden part of their domain.
Gus looked again and she was jumping down to the ground and then hopping on one foot to get her sandal back on. He giggled up towards the sky.
His foot hit a root.
Gus went down.
This time, his landing wasn’t soft. He skidded to a stop, burning the skin off of one knee and replacing it was smears of green grass. He started bawling immediately and turned to look through a lens of tears for his mom.
“Mumma,” he wailed.
Her sandals slapped to a stop in the grass. That time of year, Jerry came by twice a week sometimes to keep the grass mowed. He said, “It grows so dern fast it’s liked to spill over my tractor one of these days.”
There was a reason that Gus was thinking about the grass. As he cried and waited for his mother to pick him up, he saw that the grass was starting to twist around his mother’s ankles. It needed her too. Gus put up his arms, begging to be held.
“Mumma, I fell,” he said as she knelt down and gathered him into her arms.
“Shhh. I know you did.”
“First, I fell off the porch and, HUP!”
His power of speech was lost to hiccoughs.
“And then I, HUP!”
“Shhh. It’s okay,” she said, hugging him tight and cupping the back of his head. He laid his cheek on her shoulder and then a terrible thought made his face drop into horror.
“Mumma, the grass.”
“Call me Mom, Gus.”
“The grass.”
He pulled away from her shoulder to look at her. She searched his eyes for a moment before she seemed to hear what he had said. She looked down and he felt a lurch as she tried to step towards the house.
The grass was pulling at her feet, trying to hold her back.
“Close your eyes, Sweet Pea,” she whispered. She squeezed him tight as she leaned forward and dragged a foot free from the tangle. With each step, it got worse. His mother started to grunt and pant with each step. When she passed below the low branches of the apple tree, the wind whipped the leaves into her face. His mother cried out as dots of blood blossomed on her cheek.
She stumbled.
Somehow, she found her balance before they both went down.
It wasn’t long before they ground to a halt.
Gus’s eyes flew open. They were only a few paces from the porch, but she was stuck.
“You’re going to have to run, Sweet Pea,” she said. His mother bent to lower him to the ground.
“No!” Gus shouted. “I want you to carry.”
“I can’t, Gus, you’re going to have to run. Go inside and use the phone. Call your Uncle Auggie. No! Call Jerry. Tell Jerry we need him right away.”
“No!” he said again. He tried to wrap his arms around her neck. She was too fast. She dumped him on his feet and shoved him towards the porch. With her effort, she was down on her knees. Either that, or she was sinking into the ground like it was quicksand.
“Run! Use the phone.”
Gus disobeyed. In
stead of going for the porch, he ran back to her, grabbing her hand as she tried to shove him again. With all of his effort, Gus pulled. He grabbed her fingers and wrist with both hands and tugged as she struggled. Gus didn’t stop until his butt hit the edge of the porch. His mother’s hands clawed past him to grab onto the lattice work. She climbed it, hand over hand, until she was pulling at the railing.
Gus waited until her foot was up on the boards of the porch and then he ran around to the stairs.
“You can do it, Mumma, I mean, Mom.”
With a triumphant yell, she swung her leg over. There were streaks of blood up her calves. Her feet were bleeding all over her sandals. She collapsed down into the wicker rocker.
“Should I call Jerry?”
“No, Sweet Pea. You can sit down. Mom is tired.”
That was the last time he had seen his mother around that corner of the house.
# # # #
Gus jammed another stiff blade of grass into the anthill. Sometime during the movie, the ants had stolen his other piece. The sun dipped below the trees and everything went soft. Puddles of orange light settled down into the low spots of the yard and the corner between the wing and the shed.
Gus didn’t believe his memory about the yard trying to eat his mom. It was something that a little kid would imagine. It was a monster in the closet or under the bed. As soon as he shined the light of reason on it, the thing disappeared.
Sure, his mother was superstitious about what parts of the house she would go into. Sure, she never strolled around the yard. Jerry still took care of the mowing, although Jerry seemed to think that his job would go away as soon as Gus was old enough to drive the tractor.
These were just quirks of his mother. He had a memory of the yard trying to eat her because, when he was a kid, that was the only way he could rationalize her fear of a patch of grass. She had reasons from her own childhood why she wouldn’t go certain places. Maybe, when he was an adult, she would finally share them.
