The Deed in the Attic

by K. D. McCrite

  She set them down on the floor beside her.

  Next came a box of embroidered lace handkerchiefs, and a falling-apart cookbook.

  “You know,” Annie mused, “I guess I ought to be tired of going through all these old things I find in the attic, but I’m not. I love finding the treasures.”

  “Me too,” Alice said. “You know how close Betsy and I were, especially in those months right after John and I divorced. It didn’t matter that we were decades apart in age. We were still good friends. Going through these things makes me feel closer to her somehow. Does that make sense?”

  “Makes perfect sense to me,” Annie replied, “because I feel the same way.”

  They shared a smile, and then Annie delved into the chest again.

  She removed a red-and-white gingham apron, cross-stitched with a primitive barnyard scene. The work was simple and neatly done, but obviously not the style or advanced skill level of Betsy Holden’s works. Besides, Gram’s work was art, not wearable clothing.

  She picked up a thick packet of paper that had been folded in thirds, encased in a thick yellow cover and fastened with an attached band.

  “This looks official,” Annie said.

  “It does,” Alice agreed, watching with interest as Annie unfastened the band.

  She unfolded the papers and looked at the top document. “Abstract of Title.”

  “Must be the deed to this place,” Alice said. “But I wonder why it was in the attic? Shouldn’t property deeds be kept in a security box at the bank?”

  “The deed to Grey Gables is in a box at the bank,” Annie told her.

  Alice looked confused. “But why would there be two?”

  Annie glanced through a couple of pages, frowning.

  “This is not the deed for Grey Gables. It gives a different property location and it mentions ‘Fairview.’”

  “Fairview!” Alice squawked. “Are you kidding?” She scooted over next to Annie on the floor and looked at the deed.

  “What about it? Where is it? What is it?”

  “Fairview. Oh, my goodness, Annie. It’s an awful old place on Doss Road north of town. In fact, everyone calls it ‘Foulview.’” She pointed to a name on the deed. “I wonder who Joseph and Alta Harper are?”

  Annie shook her head. “I don’t know, but …” she flipped the page over “… Gram got the place from them. There’s her name, and all the legalese that states her claim to the place. In fact, the way this reads, it looks like they just gave it to her.”

  “Yikes,” Alice said softly, after a bit.

  Annie slid a sideways glance at her. “It really is as bad as all that?”

  “Worse.”

  Annie stared at the deed without seeing it for a moment. Why had Gram never mentioned owning any property but Grey Gables? Was this Fairview place really as awful as Alice indicated? Surely Betsy Holden, a leading and well-respected citizen in Stony Point for decades would not let anything she owned become run down.

  Then Annie thought of Grey Gables, how shabby the large old house had been when she first saw it after so many years away. Gram had grown old, and she eventually became unable to keep up with the house’s needs. Annie had made progress on Grey Gables, but there was still so much to do. And now it seemed there was another property, one that was even worse? Oh, surely not.

  “You know where this Fairview place is?” she asked Alice.

  “Annie, of course I do! I’ve lived in Stony Point, forever, remember?”

  She scrambled to her feet. “Then take me there.”

  Alice, still on the floor, gaped up at her. “Are you kidding? You mean right now?”

  “Right now.”

  “But it’s raining cats and dogs!”

  “Then you may borrow my extra umbrella.”

  4

  Rain pounded Alice’s red Mustang like a thousand angry fists as the women drove out of town. The windshield wipers slashed with such a violent rhythm, Annie could hardly see the road in front of them.

  “Why, oh, why did I let you talk me into this?” Alice said, squinting as she guided the car through the torrent. “I’m driving like an old lady, you know. A myopic, hands-frozen-to-the-steering-wheel, terrified old lady.”

  Annie felt a pang of guilt for giving in to the urge to look at Fairview immediately, and for coercing her best friend into driving her there in such dangerous weather conditions. The weatherman forecasted a clearing period in the next couple of days. She could have waited. But she didn’t want to. Something compelled her to see the property Gram owned. Secretly owned, as it turned out.

  She gazed out the passenger window to glimpse the drowned landscape. Water sprayed upward from the Mustang’s tires in frantic waves as the car hissed along the pavement. Puddles had become miniature ponds, and bare brown tree branches wept from the relentless downpour.

  “I just don’t understand … .” she murmured, and let her voice trail.

  “You don’t understand what? How it can rain this hard for so long, and we still haven’t spotted Noah and his ark? Or how I can be such a great big gullible sap for agreeing to go on this little excursion?”

  Annie glanced at her friend.

  “I don’t understand how Gram could have owned another house but never mentioned it to me. We were so close at one time. We talked about everything. But she never so much as hinted at a second property in Maine. Did you see the date on that deed, Alice? That place has been hers for more than a quarter of a century, and never said a word about it.”

  Alice turned off the highway and followed a muddy narrow lane. She stopped the car when they reached a fallen limb imposing a barrier across the driveway.

  “Well,” she said grimly, “there it is for your viewing pleasure! Fairview.”

  Between each brief strike of the wiper blades, Annie caught glimpses of brown and gray, of something broken and sad. Of something that needed a loving touch.

  Another old house to fix up, Annie thought.

  Grey Gables had needed a loving touch, too; but that old house had been Gram’s beloved home, full of familiar furniture, its nooks and crannies filled with bit and pieces of Gram’s life.

  Annie sighed. Instinct told her Fairview was in worse shape than Grey Gables ever had been.

  “Well, let’s see it.” She grabbed the door handle.

  “What? You’re kidding, right? Do you realize this is mud season?”

  “Not kidding. I know what season it is, but I want to see what the house is like.”

  “You mean up close and personal?” Alice gawked at her like Annie had just turned green and purple.

  “Exactly. Here’s your umbrella. You coming with me?”

  “I am not getting out in this deluge to look at that old wreck. We’ll come back another day.”

  “Suit yourself.” Annie flung open the door. The rain greeted her with enthusiasm, and she was soaked before she had time to pop open her umbrella. She stepped into mud up to her ankles, grimaced at the cold squish, but pushed forward with resolve.

  If I had any sense I’d come back later, she thought. Guess I don’t have any sense.

  By the time she had slogged through the gooey yard with its overgrown shrubbery and untended trees to the porch, Alice had caught up to her. The glower she fixed on Annie was anything but lovely.

  “Did I know you could be this stubborn?” she yelled over the noise of rain pelting their umbrellas.

  Annie smiled. “I just wanted to look around for a minute or two. You should have stayed in the car.”

  “Uh huh. Like I’m going to let you do this by yourself.”

  They gingerly mounted the two rotting wooden steps and picked their way across the sagging porch. Once beneath the porch roof, Annie lowered the umbrella and shook the rain off of it. Tracking the length of the house with her gaze, she followed the line of peeling paint on the windowsills and the cracked panes of glass they held. Mildew trailed along the walls as if it had a destination, adding another dimension to the w
eathered-gray siding. She turned and looked out at the dreary front yard, wondering what it might look like on a warm summer day if everything was trimmed and blooming with life.

  But at the present moment it was, simply, Foulview. Yes. And it was so, so sad.

  “Seen enough?” Alice asked hopefully.

  Annie shook her head. “Not yet.”

  “You aren’t going inside, are you?”

  “Of course I am.” She pulled out a tarnished set of keys from her pocket and dangled them like a bell between Alice and her. “If these unlock it.”

  Alice narrowed her eyes. “Those look oddly familiar … like a set of keys recently found in an old cedar chest from a certain person’s attic.”

  “Yep. Sure ’nuff.”

  Alice chewed the inside of her lower lip, watching, and Annie could tell she was praying the door was locked so solid that no key would ever open it.

  With cold, wet, clumsy fingers, Annie thrust one of the keys into the blackened brass knob and turned. There was a soft, gratifying snick. She twisted the knob then pushed the door.

  Nothing. She pushed again. Once more the door did not yield. She frowned at the key and the knob.

  That key had turned; she had heard the lock release its hold. She rattled the key, and then pushed again, harder, using all her weight.

  “Lend me your shoulder, would you?” Annie asked, grunting as she shoved.

  Alice sighed, but she gave in, pushing hard.

  The door finally gave way with an awful screech of protesting old hinges as it flung inward to bash itself against the wall. It came back toward them, but Annie caught it with the flat of her hand and pushed it fully open to reveal a dark interior. The odor of damp, mildew and mice greeted the women. Something sour hung in the air, as well. Sour and dirty.

  “Ewww!” Alice said, waving her hand in front of her face. She took a step backward.

  “Yes. Ewww.” Annie took a step forward and crossed the threshold into the shadowy room.

  “Turn on the lights.” Annie suggested, lingering on the porch side of the open door.

  “Right. You turn on the lights.” She looked at her friend over her shoulder. “Do you honestly think there would be electricity hooked up after all these years?”

  Alice pulled a face. “Light a candle?” she asked hopefully.

  Annie squinted into the dimness, and made out the shapes of the windows. She walked to the nearest one.

  “This place is worse than the attic at Grey Gables,” Alice said, coming inside and shutting the door.

  “You think?”

  “Yes! Way, way worse.”

  Annie pulled back a curtain. The rotted fabric came apart in her hands. She went from window to window in the front room. The other old curtains fell to her touch and lay in dingy heaps on the floor. Gray daylight leaked in, as if it had to be coaxed through the filthy windows.

  She and Alice silently surveyed the room. As dirty and filmy and covered with cobwebs as they were, the windows were lovely and large. Two of them were cracked but none broken out completely. Lumps of furniture huddled beneath protective sheets. Dusty pictures hung on the walls and numerous scars marked the old hardwood floors. Dead bugs and rodent droppings seemed to be everywhere they looked. A dried snakeskin near the fireplace made Annie shudder.

  “Oh dear,” she said, swallowing hard. “I surely hope we don’t run into that skin’s living owner.”

  “Ugh.” Alice agreed. “Let’s go home.” She walked back to the front door, but Annie gathered her grit and forged ahead.

  She opened a door just off the living room, revealing a bedroom with the bed made up as though expecting the owner to return for a nap. A dusty, quilted coverlet was spread over the top. Dustsheets were draped over the furniture in that room too. But that quilt caught her attention, and Annie wanted to examine it.

  She crossed to the window on the other side of the room, and opened the tattered curtains. She turned to take a closer look at the quilt. Mice had used parts of it freely for nesting material, but the beauty of design remained. Each block was intricately cross-stitched with a flower of a different type and color. She touched one block with the tip of one finger and felt the coolness of the fabric and the roughness of the threaded pattern.

  “Annie!” She jumped and looked over her shoulder. Alice stood in the doorway, arms folded. “Do you plan to look in every room of this old wreck?”

  “I do.”

  A silence.

  “Well, okay then,” Alice said. Sighing and defeated, she approached. “Oh! Look at that!” She bent closer, and like Annie, ran her fingertips across the quilt top. “Lovely work, by a real craftsman … or rather, craftswoman. But not Betsy, I’m sure.”

  “No. This is not Gram’s style at all. I wonder if there’s more.” Annie glanced around.

  Something rustled nearby, and she thought she saw movement.

  “What was that?” Alice said, eyes wide, an edge in her voice.

  Annie and Alice stood perfectly still, staring at the corner where the noise had come from.

  “Annie,” Alice whispered, “I truly hate mice. Big time!”

  “Why, Alice!” Annie whispered back. “When I had mice in my attic, you didnt turn into a quivering mass of jelly.”

  Alice shrugged. “I know! Weird, huh? I admired myself for covering it up so well.”

  “Well, I’m sure that was not a mouse,” Annie murmured back. “It was too loud, and too big.”

  “Too big? You mean you saw something?”

  “Didn’t you?”

  “No!” Alice whisper-shrieked. “What did you see?”

  “I don’t know. Probably nothing. Probably my imagination.” Though she had seen a flash of movement, and it had been much larger than a little mouse. She peered into the corner a moment longer, but saw nothing more and finally turned away. “Come on. I want to see the rest of the house.” She walked to the doorway, but her friend seemed frozen in place. “Alice, it’s not like you to be this timid.”

  Alice uttered a funny, shaky little laugh.

  “Annie, I hate mice,” she whispered. “I do not want to see a mouse.”

  “I never knew you were such a big chicken.”

  Alice pulled up her backbone. “I’m not chicken!” she said stoutly. “I just … I just don’t like mice, that’s all.”

  “You want to wait on the front porch?”

  Alice stared at her. She lifted her chin.

  “What do you take me for? I’m in with you, girlfriend. Lead on.” She gave Annie a weak smile. “Just do me a little favor, huh? Scare away the mice as you go.”

  Annie laughed and gave her friend a quick hug. “Thanks for making me laugh. I need it. Come on. I want to see the rest of my new house. You still with me?”

  Alice shot a look around the room and then went to the door.

  “Yep. No matter what else is in here.”

  They entered the short, broad hallway. Something cold shot across Annie with the unexpectedness of a lightning strike.

  “Oh!” she gasped before she could stop herself.

  “What?” Alice grabbed Annie’s upper arm and dug her fingers into the muscle. “Did you see a mouse?”

  “No.” Annie’s voice trailed as she looked at the front door. It was firmly closed, and so were all doors leading off the room and hallway. The windows were shut also. “I thought—”

  She caught sight of her friend’s face. Alice, always so full of fun and bravado, looked pale and nervous.

  “Nothing. I just thought of something I have to do when I get home, that’s all.”

  Alice thinned her lips. “Well, for goodness sake! Don’t holler like that unless you mean it. You scared me.”

  “Maybe we should just go on home,” Annie said. “I’ll fix us some tea—”

  “Nothing doing. You dragged me out here to this old ruin, and we’re not leaving until we’ve seen it.”

  Now that was more like the Alice MacFarlane Annie knew!
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br />   Annie opened the next door off the hallway, revealing a small bathroom, with necessary but unremarkable white facilities; it had standard white tiles and no covering over the small window. Next was a bedroom. She went straight to the window and opened the curtains.

  Alice said, “I’ll open the rest of them in the other rooms. More light in this place can’t hurt.”

  Moments later, Annie heard the sound of old fabric ripping as Alice made the rounds. With the windows exposed, the inside of the cottage lightened up, even though the dreary afternoon sky outside provided only weak light.

  The second and third bedrooms were similar to the first, a bit smaller, with furniture under dustcovers and a Jack-and-Jill half-bath between the two. The women found a dining room at the back of the house, complete with table and chairs, uncovered, dust-laden, and mismatched.

  “This kitchen has seen better days,” Annie said as they crossed from the dining room into the kitchen.

  “Yeah. Like back in 1941. Look at this old black and white tile. It’s cool, in a way, and so are those ancient appliances, but—”

  She broke off as they heard an odd sound, almost a moan.

  “What was that?” Annie said, her eyes as big as Alice’s this time.

  “I don’t know, but it sounded awful, like someone is sick.”

  “Or injured.” Annie added as she stepped into the hallway. “Hello? Is someone here?”

  The women stood immobile, ears straining. They heard nothing but rain pounding the roof.

  “An owl, maybe,” Alice offered.

  “In the daytime?”

  “Yeah, well, I’d rather think it’s an owl than—” Alice stopped speaking, shivered a little and said, “Have you seen enough of Foulview yet?”

  “Than what? Alice, what were going to say? You’d rather think it’s an owl than what? Hey, come back here!” Annie trotted after her friend who had reached the front door by that time. “You’d rather think it’s an owl than what?”

  “Than nothing.” Umbrella unfurled and held aloft, Alice was already striding to the Mustang. She hollered over her shoulder, “I’m leaving. You coming with?” She glanced over the car roof at Annie, and then she opened the driver’s door and got inside.