Mystery of Drear House

by Virginia Hamilton

  “Billy! Buster!” Pesty said softly. She knelt beside them. “Don’t you know not to make noise in a cave? Could cause a cave-in. See how the dirt seeps down on the bed already? Well. Be quiet, you guys. I’m here.”

  “Pesty,” said Billy. The boys buried their faces against her. She held them close, gently rocking them. They whimpered awhile, but they soon stopped that.

  “You must’ve watched Mr. Thomas come through that wall. Didn’t you? Well, come on. I’ll show you someplace nicer to play.”

  The boys weren’t sure. But they let Pesty lead them. She had them tightly by the wrists. They didn’t mind being taken care of by her at all. Anybody bigger than themselves would do.

  She took them into a low-ceilinged underground chamber, not far from the hidden room. There was some air circulation, but not much. The boys felt the closeness. Somehow it made them feel safe. There was light. They relaxed, and Pesty let go of their arms.

  “This is my room, best of all,” she told the boys. “Mr. Thomas don’t know about this one. This one is where the orphans always stayed. See all the little beds?” There were two lanterns burning on tables next to small, low beds. The little beds were perhaps six inches off the floor on wood frames. There were grayish pallets on the frames. Each little bed had a table beside it. There were some ten beds and ten tables. Old broken things lay about on the tables. Some rags. There were a few triangles on some of the tables. Pesty had gathered most of them up and piled them across the chamber from the beds. She’d taken a box from home and filled it with the triangles. Now the box was so heavy she and her mama together couldn’t move it. But a few of the triangles she had left about to play with now and then.

  “See?” said Pesty. “You are the first besides me and Mama and Mr. Pluto to know about this place. See, boys?”

  They saw the low tables, the orphans’ beds. Billy and Buster both had the same thought at the same moment. They said the thought at the same time, with the same words, as they often did.

  “Bears!” they said.

  Pesty laughed.

  “Right!” she said. “Two bears instead of three—you two! And I’m Goldilocks. Ha-ha! Want to play with my dollies?”

  There were dolls in a pile across from the beds. Over there were little chairs, small chests. The dollies were mostly rags, fallen-apart dolls that Pesty had tied back together as best she could with string and twine. She added new rags or socking when the ancient rags unraveled or fell to dust.

  She gave Billy and Buster each a rag doll. She took one.

  They sat with their backs to the chamber wall on a little bed, playing with the dolls. The bed was small, but so were the three of them. The pallet was musty with time, flattened and almost useless with age.

  “I’ll be the Indian maiden and you be the slave orphan children running for freedom—okay?” Pesty said.

  “Huh?” said Buster.

  “Okay,” said Billy. He didn’t understand, but Pesty was playing with them, and that was fun.

  “Okay,” said Buster.

  “Now the Indian maiden is taking the orphan children through the woods to here. Mr. Drear knows she is coming. She has come lotsa times, with many children. The orphans can stay here clear through October and December and through the spring. They can rest as long as they want to in this room. They can eat and play and sleep and cry and laugh in this room.” Pesty made eating motions to her dolly and began feeding Billy’s and Buster’s dolls. “Then the Indian maiden comes and moves them orphans a ways underground, and then they go overground along streams until they are safe.”

  “Safe,” murmured Billy and Buster. They hugged their dolls.

  “But one time the Indian maiden is followed,” Pesty told them. “She has the children hide in the trees until she lures the catchers off. She starts to run. See, she’s a decoy. See, a decoy is to get the bounty hunters, the slave catchers, away from the children. See, she runs real fast away. And they follow. See, that chile can run so fast! Nobody can catch her. But they do get her.”

  When she spoke again, Pesty’s voice was somber. “They killed her. They found the children.” She sighed, held her dolly tightly. “The orphans are chained in a row and taken away. Nobody know where. And that was the last time any orphans rested in this room. ’Cept for me,” she murmured. “I rest myself here all the time.”

  She made her doll run along the bed. She made the boys’ dolls hide under her ankles, which became the trees of the woods. All the while she smiled at the boys and rocked her Indian maiden. Sometimes she made the maiden die or run to exhaustion. It was an old game with always the same ending.

  “Mama says the Indian maiden was Coyote Girl,” Pesty murmured. “She could outstrip anybody, any man, running. So why didn’t she beat out the slave catchers? They rode their horses, that’s why. They rode the Indian maiden down.”

  Pesty bumped the Indian maiden’s head into the heads of Billy’s and Buster’s dolls. “Just a bunch of rags,” she muttered. She threw her dolly against the opposite wall. “There goes Goldilocks!” she told the boys.

  They copied her, but their throws barely cleared the foot of the bed.

  Pesty leaned back and closed her eyes. Billy, Buster did the same. She pretended to go to sleep. So did the boys, mimicking her every move. They did finally sleep, at last tuckered out. Pesty dozed, too.

  15

  “WHAT?” SAID MR. SMALL as Thomas ran in. “How you doing, Thomas?” “Papa! You’ll never believe what we found!” “Wipe your feet,” his mother told him. “Mama, we went to Mrs. Darrow’s—underground!” “Thomas!” said Mrs. Small. “You did what?” Mr. Small said. “It’s true!” said Thomas. “There’s a tunnel all the way, and before you get there, there’s a secret room. It has furniture I know must cost a fortune!”

  “What?”

  “Thomas!”

  “It’s true!” Thomas said desperately. “Ask Great-grandmother. Pesty took me and Great-grandmother underground—”

  “She did what!”

  “Thomas! You know you are to stay out of any secret passages,” his mother said crossly. What he was saying hadn’t sunk in. The twins’ whereabouts, their safety were always on her mind. Life would be simpler when they were in school.

  “It’s all true,” said Great-grandmother Jeffers. She was just there, right in the doorway. “Goodness!” She crept weakly over to the table.

  “It’s true?” Walter asked.

  “Here, let me help you—my goodness!” Martha said, before Great-grandmother could answer. “You look all tired out.”

  “Grandmother Rhetty, it’s true, what Thomas said?” Mr. Small asked.

  “Aren’t the boys with you?” Martha said as Great-grandmother sat down. “Did they let you come down those stairs by yourself?”

  “It’s true, Papa,” Thomas broke in. “Everything I said is true. There’s—”

  “Thomas, will you shut up a minute!”—spoken harshly by his mother.

  “But …” Thomas began.

  Mrs. Small gave him her severest stare, and he held his peace a moment.

  “The boys aren’t with me,” Great-grandmother said. “I didn’t see them at all.”

  “Oh, they are such pistols!” Martha said. “Walter, I am so glad there is a good play school.”

  “Oh, did you see it?”

  “Yes, and I talked to the director,” Mrs. Small said. She was in a hurry to get the boys. “Both Billy and Buster seemed to like it. We can start them right away.”

  “It sounds good,” Walter said.

  “Well, we’ll talk about it,” she said as she left the kitchen.

  “I don’t get it,” Thomas said. “What is wrong with everybody today?”

  “What is it, Thomas?” Mr. Small asked.

  “Papa, didn’t you hear what I told you?”

  “Now, calm down,” Mr. Small said. “Start over again and take your time.”

  Thomas sat down beside Great-grandmother. He started over again.

&n
bsp; Martha Small went upstairs. The rooms on either side of the upstairs hallway were silent. At the top landing she listened. She had an odd feeling of dread. Everything’s going to be fine, she thought firmly. “Billy? Buster? Come out wherever you are,” she called. There was no answer as she went from room to room, opening doors when they were closed and closing doors behind her when she found them left open. The boys knew not to play in the back rooms, but when she didn’t find them, she thought she’d just look anyway. “Billy? Buster? Come out now. Your papa is home. It’s time for something to eat. Don’t hide anymore.”

  Martha opened the last door and walked in, turning on the ceiling light. The bedspread was rumpled. There was pie with crust and stickiness on the carpet. The pie tin was left on the lamp table. There were streaks of dirt coming from the fireplace. She began to shiver uncontrollably. Tears sprang into her eyes. Martha sucked in her breath. She wasn’t aware when she began to shout, “Walter! Walter! Help! Help! Walter, they’ve taken the boys!”

  Thomas got to his mama first. Mr. Small was right on his heels.

  “Oh, mama!” Thomas said. He saw the rumpled bed, the dirt trail on the carpet.

  “They’re gone!” Mrs. Small said. “The babies are gone!”

  “Oh no. No …” Thomas cried.

  “Talk, son!” his papa said sternly. “Do you have any idea where the boys are? You said there was a tunnel. Behind a wall. In this room? Quickly!”

  “They must’ve seen Great-grandmother Jeffers and me—oh, Papa! There’s a way behind that fireplace—”

  “Show me! Hurry!”

  “Hurry, Thomas!” Mrs. Small said.

  “Get up on the hearth,” Thomas told them. “Hold on to the mantel. The whole thing swings around.”

  They did as Thomas told them. He climbed up and pushed the stone. They began to move.

  “Oh my goodness!” Mrs. Small whispered.

  Slowly they turned with the wall. On the other side Thomas told them to step down. He led them down the stairs. He still had his flashlight; that was good, he thought. Soon they were in the secret room.

  Walter and Martha Small stood there staring for a moment. Then Mr. Small took up the lantern that was there and held it high, so he could see the room better. Priceless furniture was the least of his thoughts. “The boys,” he said to Thomas, “they’re not here!”

  Thomas remembered that he’d turned out the lantern his papa held; now it was back on. But he couldn’t think beyond that. The underground horrified him.

  “Thomas, where are they?” Mrs. Small demanded.

  “I … don’t know!” he cried.

  “Think, Thomas! What is beyond this room?” Mr. Small said.

  Think. Where are they? He did have an idea. “You— you go through this room, and there’s a tunnel ... to Mrs. Darrow’s bedroom.”

  Mr. Small started through the room. Before he had gone two steps, Pesty appeared out of nowhere. “Everything’s all right,” she said. “Just follow me.”

  “Pesty! The boys …” Mrs. Small gasped.

  “Uh-huh,” Pesty said. “They’re just over here.” She slipped by in front of a dark rocker with a velvet cushion. She went over to the wall.

  Mr. Small lifted the lantern, throwing the light up. The room was a perfect treasure, but it must wait. As if by magic, a niche in the wall appeared where there had seemed to be nothing before. It was a natural opening, an entranceway. Its position was such that it could easily be missed.

  “Come on,” Pesty told them.

  They followed, not daring to imagine what would come next. Mr. Small held the lantern in front of him through a narrow way. Thomas was right there on his heels. Mrs. Small had slipped her hand in Thomas’s.

  In a moment they halted on the other side of the niche. “Papa, here’s a little table!” Thomas said. There was light all around them now, more than from the one lantern his papa held. “Set the light down, Papa.”

  Mr. Small set his light down on a low table. He saw there were quite a few of the tables. Lanterns. The row of little beds had two sleeping occupants.

  “Mama!” Thomas whispered, squeezing his mama’s hand. He could have cried, he was so happy. “They’re here!”

  “I see them. Oh thank goodness,” Mrs. Small whispered back.

  “See, they’re just fine,” Pesty said sofdy. “We were playing awhile, and they went to sleep. But I was going to bring them back home when they woke up.” She looked pleadingly at Mrs. Small and Thomas.

  Thomas thought the evening lantern light made her face look sunburned.

  “I should’ve brought them back to start with,” she said. “I just didn’t think. See, this is my place. I wouldn’t let nothin’ bother the boys here.”

  “What is this place?” Mr. Small asked. “You called it your place? And that other room. How long has this ... all been here?”

  “Mama’s always known about the other room, and here, too,” she said. “Least that’s what I gather. She likes it kept neat and clean. I do that.”

  Thomas spoke up. “And, Papa, Mrs. Darrow is ... I mean—” He paused, feeling sorry for Pesty, for Mrs. Darrow.

  “See, my mama been sick all so many years,” she said to Mr. and Mrs. Small. “Long as I can remember, her mind mostly carry on in a time long ago.”

  They were silent, listening to her. Finally Mr. Small said, “I see.”

  “Pesty, these are children’s beds,” Mrs. Small said. “Children slept here. …” Her sleeping sons stirred at the sound of her voice.

  “It’s the orphans’ place,” Pesty said. She told them about the orphans of slavery. They were the many children whose mothers and fathers had been sold away from them or had been killed. Next, she told about the doomed Indian maiden.

  Thomas sat down on one of the beds. The Indian maiden wasn’t a ghost, he was thinking. Mrs. Small sat down beside her little sons. They had awakened. Billy crawled into her lap. Next came Buster, It was natural for them to wake up and find their mama.

  Mr. Small leaned against a table. “It’s a sad tale,” he said, “but one of heroism, too. I assume the Indian maiden was part Indian and part black?”

  “Mama just say that Coyote Girl was a native and a relative,” Pesty said.

  “I understand,” said Mr. Small.

  “Does Macky know that the Indian maiden was such a real person? Such a—a heroine?” Thomas asked.

  “He knows,” she said.

  So he meant to scare me out in the woods just to be mean, Thomas thought.

  Mr. Small looked around the low room, aware of a vague scent from far-off times. “Does your brother know about this room,” he thought to ask, “and the other room?” He nodded toward the way they had come.

  Pesty shook her head no. “You can go to there and on down the tunnel and into my mama’s closet and her bedroom,” she said. “He don’t know about that. You can’t get to this orphan room unless you know to. And he don’t know that either. Nobody but me and my mama and Mr. Pluto know about it. And now y’all.” She looked relieved to have them know.

  “So many secrets,” Mrs. Small said. “Is it right for part of a family to keep secrets from the other part?” she asked gently.

  “It’s what my mama wants,” Pesty said. “Everything to be as it was in the time of Coyote Girl—ain’t that a pretty name?”

  Mr. Small smiled and nodded.

  Something had caught Thomas’s eye. A box over there full of things. What looked like— He walked over and peered into the box of triangles. He picked up one, two and found that the triangles forced him to flex his arm muscles, they were so heavy. “Papa! There’s treasure here, too. Another treasure!” And another reason to keep Macky from knowing about this place, he thought. He’d surely tell his daddy, River Lewis, to get in good with him.

  “Walter, let’s get the boys away from here,” Mrs. Small said.

  “Just a minute, Martha,” Walter said. He went over to the box, picked up a triangle, and was astonished by its weig
ht. With both hands he held it close to a lantern light. “A real one,” he murmured. “Martha, this is real gold! This whole box is full of solid gold triangles!”

  “I told you about them in the picture frame on Mrs. Darrow’s bedroom wall,” Thomas said. “I knew they had to be real.” He looked at Pesty. She wouldn’t meet his gaze; she looked down at her hands.

  “We should leave all this alone,” Mrs. Small said. She glanced around, shivering. “I don’t think we should bother anything. They have kept this secret so long, Pesty and her mother. It’s Mrs. Darrow’s. …” Her voice trailed off. She stared at Pesty, at a place behind her.

  Pesty turned around, grinned. There stood tall Mrs. Darrow, darker than shadow and larger than was possible. But there she was. Something about her in this … evening light, Thomas thought. She’s not so odd in here.

  They watched her as she looked over at the boys, safely on their mama’s lap. Her eyes gleamed at them with tender love. “Yes, girl. Rest them! The long way home,” she murmured.

  They knew at once what she must be thinking.

  Mr. and Mrs. Small and Thomas took their cue from Pesty. Gently now Pesty held Mrs. Darrow’s hands.

  Mr. Small regarded the giant of a woman whom he was seeing for the very first time. It amazed him that the thought of Pesty’s mother had escaped him all this time. The Darrow men had been so dangerously on his mind he had never even considered the mother.

  Mrs. Darrow’s lips moved. She murmured at the boys, her orphan children. She stirred, looking as though she would take her hands from Pesty’s and go to the boys.

  Quickly Pesty said, “Coyote Girl can’t get through this time, Mama. So Mr. Walter and his people will take them boys.” She looked over at Mr. and Mrs. Small and Thomas.

  “Ahh,” said Mrs. Darrow, “not my girl. They say many times she not come.”