The Deed in the Attic

by K. D. McCrite

  Stella Brickson, the oldest member of the group, put her knitting needles in her lap and stared above the heads of the women at nothing.

  “I haven’t made slippers in years,” she said slowly, thoughtfully. “I’m not sure I can remember how.”

  “Of course you can!” Peggy said. “It’ll be like riding a bicycle.”

  Stella gave her a narrow look, and then she picked up her needles again.

  “I’m not getting on a bicycle for anyone!” she declared.

  Everyone laughed at that, not only because the prim and proper Stella rarely joked, but also because the vision of the octogenarian on a bicycle seemed so outrageous. After a moment, she laughed with them.

  “So we’re all agreed?” Mary Beth asked, meeting the eyes of each woman.

  “Agreed!” they replied, almost in unison.

  For only a moment there was a small silence in the store, broken by the sound of rain outside, the rhythmic click of knitting needles, and the soft whisper of thread moving over hooks or through fabric.

  Like an antsy toddler, Alice twitched in her seat several times. She cleared her throat once, twice, and then again. Finally she said, “Well, Annie?”

  Annie looked up from her crochet hook. “‘Well, what?”

  Alice twisted her mouth. “You know what. Are you going to tell them?”

  She said this loud enough that every crafter stopped work, and every pair of eyes rested with bald curiosity on Annie. Alice was right. Annie knew exactly what she was referring to, and she wanted to share the news of LeeAnn’s gift—she really did. But during the entire time she had showered and changed clothes before coming to the meeting, she had thought of Mary Beth Brock, and Mary Beth’s store. Her gaze went to the woman now. Mary Beth was smiling, waiting expectantly for whatever good thing Annie would tell them.

  The problem was—and she was surprised that Alice did not realize this—Annie bought all her crochet yarns and threads from Mary Beth. She never even shopped for supplies when she went to Portland or any neighboring town. Now she would not need to purchase anything for a long time. How would Mary Beth feel about losing sales? Would she understand, or would she feel betrayed? Annie had seen firsthand how business could get in the way of friendship. Not everyone had the knack for successfully separating or consolidating the two. She did not want to lose Mary Beth’s friendship.

  Of course, Annie could continue to buy yarns and add to her stockpile. Mary Beth need never know that in Annie’s home a huge supply waited to be worked up into projects. She could simply—

  “Earth to Annie!” Peggy called.

  Annie blinked, her train of thought completely derailed and brought back into the here and now.

  “Are you going to tell us this mysterious tidbit, or shall we let Alice?” Stella said, eyebrows raised. “It’s perfectly clear she’s bursting with it.”

  Annie stared at the eager faces turned to her. Oh, dear. Would they still be smiling like that after they knew?

  “LeeAnn sent her a great big humongous present!” Alice blurted before Annie could take a good, deep breath.

  The women twittered like a flock of wrens.

  “Do tell,” Gwen prodded.

  “For heaven’s sake, yes. Why are you dragging it out like this?” Stella pinched her lips in disapproval, but she could not disguise the interest shining behind her eyeglasses.

  “Well, actually—,” Annie began. She shot at look at the store manager, “and I am so sorry, Mary Beth—but you see, LeeAnn sent me this large box— humongous, as Alice said—of … of goods from a store in Dallas.”

  Mary Beth raised her eyebrows.

  “Goods?” she echoed.

  “What kind of ‘goods’?” Kate asked. “Like household items or clothes or what?”

  “Um. No.”

  Annie fiddled with a couple of stitches, fumbled and had to unravel them. Just get it over with, she thought.

  She took a deep breath and looked Mary Beth in the eyes.

  “Well … it’s yarn,” she finally blurted. “Lots and lots of yarn. And tons of crochet thread. And a bunch of pattern books. I am so sorry.”

  While all the other women made appropriate noises of good-natured envy and happiness, Mary Beth stared at her.

  “You’re sorry? Why on earth are you apologizing to me? That is a wonderful gift to receive at any time, and any crafter would be ecstatic to get it!”

  “Well, because … you know.”

  “No, I don’t know,” Mary Beth said with a puzzled frown creasing her brow, “and I don’t understand.”

  “Because, well, because I won’t need to … .” Annie took a deep breath and then exclaimed, “I’ll still buy yarn from you!”

  Mary Beth blinked, but her confusion obviously remained.

  “Annie, why would you do that?” she asked. “Sure, I like having your business and I welcome it anytime you want to buy anything from the store, but I’ll survive just fine, even if you don’t buy yarn from me for a few weeks.”

  “But, Mary Beth, you don’t understand. It won’t be just a few weeks. It likely will be months. Maybe even a year or two.”

  “So? Annie, I’ll still survive.” The woman gave Annie a warm smile. “We are friends. And even if you never bought another inch of yarn from me, that would not change. So you enjoy your gift from LeeAnn with a clear conscience. Okay?”

  Annie’s relief rushed through her. She gave Mary Beth a grateful smile.

  “Yes. Okay. Thank you, Mary Beth. That’s a load off my mind.”

  “What a terrible fuss over nothing,” Stella muttered, shaking her head. “You’ll get along a lot better in Stony Point, Annie, if you don’t turn into a drama queen.” She glanced around at the others. “Isn’t that what they call it these days? ‘Drama queen’?”

  Kate piped up. “Annie is not a drama queen. She’s just tenderhearted, and she didn’t want to hurt a friend.”

  “And she didn’t hurt me—not in the least,” Mary Beth said stoutly. The phone on the other side of the counter rang, and she went to answer it.

  “Oh, you ladies should have seen the two of us get that box into Annie’s house!” Alice said, laughing. “It was wild!”

  She related the events of the morning, but added such embellishments, complete with broad gestures and wild-eyed expressions that she had most of the women laughing so hard they had to lay aside their work to wipe tears from their eyes.

  “But getting that shipment of yarn into the house was the tip of the iceberg, I’m afraid,” Annie said when Alice ceased her storytelling and everyone had quieted. “The problem now is that I have a gigantic cardboard box in the middle of my living room and more yarn than I’ve ever seen at one time. And I have no idea where to keep it.”

  “What are you worried about?” Peggy said, scoffing. “You have that big attic, don’t you?”

  “Peggy!” Annie chuckled and shook her head. “Have you ever seen Gram’s attic?”

  “I have!” Alice said, raising her hand as if she were in a schoolroom.

  “Me too,” added Gwen. “I saw it a few years ago when Betsy took me up there to find vintage clothes for the high school 1920s pageant. That attic was stuffed to the rafters.”

  “I have cleared out a lot, believe it or not,” Annie said, “but I’ll tell you something. It is still stuffed to the rafters. Gram had an efficient way of packing things away. I think her motto must have been, ‘let no space go unused.’”

  3

  “This attic is darker than the inside of a cow.” Annie’s voice sounded odd in the quietness of the attic as the silly old country saying came echoing back from somewhere in her Texas past. If the inside of a cow was as dark as the attic on a rainy afternoon, it was pretty dark.

  She stood, hands on hips, squinting into the dusty, dim interior. The place never was full of light, even on a sunny, cloudless day. With the spring rain hanging on as if it was afraid to move from Stony Point, the attic was even more shadowy.

&nb
sp; “Spooky,” she murmured.

  “What is?”

  The voice behind Annie made her heart leap in her chest. She whirled, dizzy with fright.

  “Alice!” She clasped her fist to her heart, trying to slow its wild hammering. “You scared me out of a year’s growth. I may never recover.”

  “I knocked,” Alice told her. “Many times. I called your name. Many times. Anyway, at our age how much growth would we really lose in a year?” She peered around, her gaze probing the far corners. “It is spooky in here.”

  “No, it isn’t. Not really. It’s just … dark.”

  “Um hmm. Well, excuse me, Annie Dawson, but I just heard you say ‘spooky.’ What are you looking for this time? A place to hoard your stash of yarn?”

  “In a manner of speaking. Actually, I need something better than that cardboard box LeeAnn sent it in.”

  “I see. Every time I see this attic, I’m amazed by how many things it holds. My goodness! You ought to find something up here. What a collection!”

  Annie nodded and looked around, scouring the area with her own gaze.

  “You are one hundred percent right, m’dear. It is a grand collection, isn’t it? And a month or so ago, I thought I saw … yes! There it is. Right over there.”

  She picked her way past hat boxes and baskets, two old baby dolls and a tricycle. She moved aside a Victorian floor lamp with a beaded-fringe shade. Alice followed.

  “Right here!” Annie said, stopping. “This is just the thing.”

  Alice edged around the small space to look. “A cedar chest.”

  “A big cedar chest no less! And the cedar lining will protect the fibers of the yarn.”

  “Aren’t you the clever one?” Alice grinned.

  “I’ve always thought so, yes.”

  “And so modest too.” Alice feigned wide-eyed admiration.

  “Of course. That’s one of my strongest qualities.”

  The two friends shared a giggle, and then turned their attention to the chest and studied it for a minute.

  “But do you think it’s big enough?” Alice asked. “I mean … that’s a lot of yarn you have down there in the living room.”

  “Yes, it is.” Annie chewed her lower lip, staring at the dusty lid. “Well, I’ll just have to see what I can do. In the meantime … .”

  She bent to grasp the wooden handle on one end and lifted.

  “Umph!” she gasped, tumbling forward slightly. “I’ll throw my back out of place trying to hoist that thing.”

  “Yeah, solid-wood chests seem to have a little weight to them,” Alice said drily.

  “Ha, ha. Help me move it, will you, please?”

  Alice made a show of flexing her arms like a wrestler, and then she bent to grasp the handle on the other side. With some grunting and grimacing, the duo was able to wag the trunk along the cluttered pathway and out the attic door. The attic staircase, steep and narrow, presented a treacherous descent. Taking one step at a time, with Annie going backward, they hauled the chest down—thump, pause, thump, pause—until they reached the landing and the broader staircase leading down to the main floor.

  For a moment, the women paused, stretched out the kinks from their backs, arms and shoulders, took a couple of deep breaths, and then returned to their task. Slowly, with Alice taking the steps backward this time, and with much pushing and tugging, they lugged the heavy cedar chest down the second flight of stairs and into the living room.

  Boots, who had been napping on a windowsill, woke up, saw them and took flight to hide behind a burgundy chenille wing chair. She peered out at them with suspicion.

  “Well, that was a whole lot of fun, wasn’t it?” Annie said as they collapsed on the floor. She had already unpacked and examined every skein and ball, and she had sorted them by color and by blend. The worsted yarns were piled in organized stacks on the sofa, solid colors then variegated ones. Solid crochet threads filled the wing chair and the variegated threads were in the armchair. Chunky yarns took up the second armchair.

  Alice let her gaze rove around the room, and then she gave Annie a sour look.

  “Are you kidding me? First we move that oversized, wet box, and then that heavy cedar chest. What’s next on your list? Hoist that piano over there up the stairs to your bedroom?”

  Annie glanced at the upright on the far wall, and then laughed at her friend.

  “I’m sorry. But I’m so glad you were here to help me both times. Would you like some coffee?”

  “Coffee would be great. Maybe it will strengthen my blood. But, please, can we just sit here a few minutes and catch our breath first?”

  Annie agreed, and they sprawled out where they were on the floor, resting on their elbows, legs stretched out. Silence lay comfortably between them for a little while.

  “Say,” Alice said lazily, lolling her head Annie’s direction, “that cedar chest is empty, isn’t it? Don’t tell me we dragged down a chest full of stuff.”

  “Of course, I—” She froze in place, staring at Alice. “Uh oh,” she said slowly.

  In all the emotional ups and downs of that day, something as mundane and logical as checking to see if any contents filled the cedar chest before they hauled it down two flights of stairs had not even occurred to her.

  “Uh oh?” Alice repeated, pinning her with a glare so steely that Annie shrank a little inside herself.

  “Oh,” she said, in a small voice. “Everything in Gram’s attic is full of stuff, so I guess it probably is.”

  Alice closed her eyes. Tight. “Oh, Annie.”

  Annie bit her lower lip. “I’m sorry.”

  Alice sighed deeply and opened her eyes.

  “If you weren’t one of my oldest and bestest friends, Annie Dawson, I think I would absolutely clobber you. I’m no spring chicken, you know!”

  They stared at each other for a bit, and then Alice’s expression changed. Annie felt her own face relax. A moment later they both collapsed into giggles.

  “Well, let’s not just sit here,” Annie said when they sobered. “Let’s open this chest and see what we carted down.”

  They scooted up closer to the dusty trunk. Annie looked at the lid and found the clasp.

  “I hope it isn’t locked,” Alice said as Annie pushed a little metal button to release the catch. “I’m trying to put aside my past as a lock picker.”

  Annie gave her a sideways look.

  “Luckily for all of us Stony Point citizens who tremble in fear at your criminal prowess, this particular chest doesn’t seem to be locked.”

  “Just kidding,” her friend said, pulling a face. “I’ve never picked a lock in my life.”

  “We can all sleep safely in our beds at night,” Annie said with an exaggerated sigh of relief.

  Alice rolled her eyes, and Annie laughed.

  “Well, let’s see what’s in this baby.”

  Annie heaved open the heavy lid. The hinges cried out in rusty protest.

  “Yow. Sounds like I need to get a can of lubricating oil.”

  Inside the trunk, the red cedar wood with its thin veins of white and small, dark knots, offered up woody fragrance as aromatic as if it had been freshly cut.

  Alice breathed deeply. “I love the scent of cedar.”

  “So do I,” Annie said, running her fingertips across the smooth wood inside the lid. “Wayne and I had cedar-lined closets back home. They were so nice.”

  Alice studied her a moment.

  “You’re really feeling down, aren’t you, girlfriend? I’ve noticed it for the last couple of days, and you haven’t been yourself.”

  “It’s just the rain,” Annie said briskly, dismissing her friend’s concern. She did not want to burden Alice with a melancholy mood that would fade sooner or later. “Now, let’s see what we have.”

  She looked at the top layer.

  “Old papers and old clothes,” she said, lifting it out. “I didn’t expect anything else.” She extracted more of the same and then sat back on the heels o
f her hands, tipping her head sideways and added, “Now where will I put all this stuff? I was hoping to store yarn, not unearth more things to put away.”

  “I know,” Alice said with sympathy. “Would you like me to help you sort through it?”

  Annie knew Alice had other and better things to do than paw through a trunk of old stuff. Her offer touched Annie, reminding her what a good friend Alice was.

  “Don’t you have a Divine Décor party?” she asked.

  Alice made her living by holding home parties where she sold Divine Décor to embellish the home, and lovely Princessa Jewelry to embellish the home owner. Alice loved to model the jewelry on every occasion, and her bubbly personality along with her friendly nature made her a perfect representative for both lines of products.

  Alice waved one hand dismissively, and then she reached into the trunk again. She removed a stack of faded scarves.

  “No parties until tomorrow. Oh, Annie, look! These are lovely. Pure silk, I’m sure.” She stroked her fingers along the soft fabric of the top scarf. The silver rings on her fingers shone like ice against the dark purple.

  “Why don’t you take them?” Annie said.

  “But they’re so beautiful, Annie. You should keep them, and wear them.”

  “I want you to have them, Alice. Please, take them all. Look how they set off your jewelry. Use them in your parties for display.”

  Alice caressed the scarves. “You’re sure?”

  “One hundred percent.”

  “Well, then. Thanks! And what a great idea to use them with the jewelry. You’re terrific, Annie.”

  “I know.”

  “Oh, please. Let’s not start that again!”

  They laughed, and Alice leaned forward to peer into the trunk once more.

  “What else is in here, I wonder?” she murmured.

  She pulled out an old leather-bound Bible, obviously much loved and well-used, but with no marks or inscription to offer an owner’s name. She lifted two sets of tarnished old keys and frowned at them.

  “What you suppose these open?” she asked, jiggling them.

  Annie took the long, thin keys, and gave them a cursory examination.

  “Who knows? But they don’t make ’em like this anymore.”