by Sara Hanover
“Full house?”
“Yup, please.”
She wrinkled her nose. “Where on earth have you—oh, you went to the professor’s house.”
“I know, we all smell like an old fire pit. Except for Hiram. He stood guard.”
“Any trouble?”
“None, and a patch of success, too,” Brian told her as he took up a kitchen chair. He liked watching people cook and had even learned to pitch in with setup and cleanup. With the Broadstone family attending, that aid meant a great deal. I dropped my bag in his lap.
“Do I smell fried chicken?”
“You do, and I used Mamaw’s recipe.”
“Wow! Thanks, guys. That’s a company-only menu.” Pleasure filled me at the thought. “I’ll start peeling potatoes if you’ve got the water boiling. Are the green beans simmering?”
“Yes, I do, they are, and you’re all set up in the corner.” Mom pointed with her tongs.
I began washing and peeling and doubled the amount we usually made for big holiday dinners after sizing up the expression on Hiram’s face. Like his dad, he looked to be a big eater.
Unlike his dad, he wore plaid suits that were a tad easier on the eyes, in soft greens and blues, rather than the oranges, yellows, and reds Morty preferred. And his forehead didn’t look like you could bounce a boulder off it, unlike his dad. I didn’t know where Goldie figured in his history, but she obviously hadn’t been his mother, as she was Mortimer’s second wife and he’d called her stepmother. So the first wife must have been Iron Dwarf too, from the looks of Hiram, or at least in the Dwarf family somewhere. It would be crass to ask what had happened to her, but if he asked about my father, we could trade misfortunes. He seated himself carefully as Brian stowed his precious cargo and mine under his chair.
The backburner smelled of bacon and onions and garden-fresh beans, simmered by now for probably a good hour or so and steeping over a very low flame. My mouth watered.
I looked around, peeled potato in hand. No sign of Steptoe. “Where’d Steptoe go?”
“Simon wanted to drop off his pamphlet. He may or may not be back.”
“He told you that?”
“No, but it stands to reason.”
Hiram intoned, “He will likely only stand with us as long as it serves his purpose. My father had little trust of him.”
“Well, I do.” I pushed my potatoes aside and reached for more. “I’d hoped for at least a good-bye.”
“You’ll get that, ducks, and more when I decide to move on!” Steptoe filled the doorway, doffed his hat to my mother, and narrowed his dark eyes at the others. “Rumors of my demise and resignation are premature.”
“Great. You’ll love Mom’s chicken.”
“It smells loverly.” He pulled a chair out and sat in it, rocking it back on its two rear legs and keeping it balanced somehow.
* * *
• • •
Even using a whole sack of potatoes, we almost didn’t have enough mashies for everyone to have seconds, but we managed after scraping the bowl. Brian jumped up to clear the table with me while the others retired to the living room. I could hear what sounded like a hushed argument, even with the clatter of cleaning dishes.
Then came a faint chime of my keys on the board in the hallway. I sighed. Mom glanced my way.
“It’s been really noisy the past few days.”
“I know. And what was that the other night?” Mom wiped her hands dry.
“When Joanna was here? I have no way of knowing, but it was spectacular. Almost as if our ghost didn’t like her at all.”
A hanging pot rattled off its hook and crashed to the floor between us. Mom swore. “Dammit. Another bent pot the lid won’t fit.” She hung it back up with a sigh.
“See what I mean?”
“I do, but I don’t understand it, and I don’t think I ever will.”
“How did the faculty meeting go?”
“Good.” That brought a tired smile to her face. “Really good. Word of my publication was well received, and someone had even obtained an advance review, and it garnered four stars out of four.”
“That’s great. I bet that set old Flankinshaw on his defense.” I held little liking for her department head.
“Yes, Flank was more than a tad disappointed.”
“Academia.”
She shook her head at the scorn in my voice. “Wherever you work, there is always a pecking order and rivalries that can seem petty or serious. It’s a fact of life. We’re all competitive.”
“Well, he should retire.”
“He doesn’t want to, if it looks like I’d replace him when I finish my doctorate. I think he’s trying to wait me out. He’s an old dinosaur with regards to women. I couldn’t replace him anyway, I haven’t the seniority.”
I poked a finger in her shoulder. “Don’t give him a choice.”
“I don’t intend to!” She wiped her hands on her apron again, an anxious tell. “I suppose they’re all staying the night again?”
“Probably.”
“All right. I’m going upstairs. I think I’ll read a bit and turn in.” She looked back in the kitchen at me. “Make some more sweet tea, if you wouldn’t mind.”
I nodded. Good thing tea is relatively cheap and easy.
Steptoe looked asleep in his corner, while Brian and Hiram sat practically nose-to-nose, quiet but intense.
I sat down on the coffee table. “What did I miss?”
“Hiram is of the opinion that Malender is not actually here but is projecting strongly. After some persuasion, I’m inclined to agree.”
“We were attacked by him.”
“Yes and no. He could have done us a lot of damage, but if he’d been at full force and habitation, he would have made mincemeat of us, I think.”
I watched Brian a moment before saying, “But Hiram didn’t see the attack.”
Hiram put his hand on my knee. “My father had the ability to transmit much of his recent history to me.”
“So you know what Morty did? How far back?”
His young face frowned a bit in calculation. “You would say . . . perhaps a decade?”
Wow. So Hiram might be able to tell me what Morty hadn’t! My pulse drummed in my throat for a few quick beats. “How did he do that?”
“He sent it through the stone.”
Stone keeps its promise. It touched me, and for a little while I absolutely could not speak. My eyes brimmed and I felt helpless for a long moment.
Hiram squeezed my knee gently. “I know.”
That could only make me bob my head up and down quickly as tears threatened to fall. I coughed. “But Malender had to have been close.”
“Yes, but not likely here in Virginia. He’s made land, but that journey should have exhausted him and his resources. He can threaten but he can’t attack directly.”
“That was only a threat?” I swallowed tightly.
“He’s powerful,” Brian agreed. “We’ve a lot to fear once he gains the strength he needs. If he’s the Great Deceiver we think he is.”
“And how will he do that? I mean, I know he preys off smaller life forces, but sooner or later, someone like the Society is bound to notice.”
“He can also tap into the souls who live on the edges of our cities and are forgotten.”
“The homeless.”
“And the criminal. Yes.”
“What do we do now?”
“We prepare defenses.” Hiram stood and frowned slightly. “Tessa, are you aware your father occupied this house, if only briefly.”
“What?” I sat back in shock. “Did the police know?”
“I doubt if anyone knew. His vibrations here are very faint.”
“There are still vibrations?” Vibrations! A thought spun its wild way into my mind.
“Can you find them? Identify them?” Mom would shit if she knew who I suddenly thought our ghost might be.
Hiram answered slowly. “Yes. Still.” He stood and turned his head as if sussing them out. “Stronger than they should be, actually.” He began to move through the parlor. “Odd.”
I jumped up. “How odd?” I ran my hand across my face, dashing away tears I couldn’t afford.
“Very.”
“Where? Can you find them?”
“Maybe.”
As if awakened by his steps, the house began to creak and moan in its joints. I wondered if it was simply his weight on the flooring—or if something else added to the voice of the home.
Upstairs, I could hear Mom’s door opening and shutting, and then she stood poised at the top of the stairs, alert, and looking down at us. “What is it?”
I waved a signal at her to calm her down. “Nothing.”
“It’s not nothing. The whole house sounds like it’s threatening to collapse.”
“Nothing like that at all, missus,” Steptoe called back in his most reassuring tones.
“Now that I absolutely don’t believe.” She came lightly and quickly down the stairs as Steptoe put his hand over his heart and tried to look offended. I’d seen that look before and still didn’t know if I thought it was genuine.
Hiram kept moving. He ended up at the mudroom door, a side entry we never used, because of the clutter there and also because we just didn’t. He opened the door that closed it off and entered.
With a crash, he abruptly fell through the floor.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
WHAT WAS LEFT of the mudroom avalanched into the gaping hole as I threw myself flat and hung my head over to see what had happened to Hiram.
The fall landed him on one knee, his knuckled hands balancing him on either side, his head down to avoid the flakes of debris drifting downward.
“Are you all right?”
“Right enough.”
He and I looked about. The space into which he’d plunged took up far more than below the mudroom. It stretched at least under the kitchen and maybe even Mom’s study.
“What was that?”
I yelled back at my mother, “Hiram’s fallen through the floor into the basement.”
“We have a basement?” Mom asked in amazement as she appeared nearby.
I answered, “We do now.”
Hiram rumbled, “I’ll repair the damage, miss. So sorry.”
“Don’t worry about that.” I wanted down there in the worst way. What had Hiram sensed? Were my father’s bones down there somewhere? How else could Hiram have been led there? “Look for a ladder or stairs. There’s got to be an entrance.”
“It’s a tad dark down here.”
And it looked to be, especially in the corners not easy to see behind the edges of the hole. I thought about the extra light switches in the kitchen, the ones Mom and I could never quite figure out what, if anything, they lit up. I got up, raced to the room, and flipped them all on, every single switch. The kitchen blazed into glory.
“That’s done it!” Hiram called up triumphantly. “There’s a rickety staircase in the corner.” I could hear him move around and the floor under my feet vibrated a bit. “Tessa, I calculate it’s where the pantry is.”
“The pantry?”
“Aye.”
I turned on one heel. We had no pantry, just an open shelving unit. Unless . . .
Paint, thickened by many years and many coats, rippled along molding that I’d always thought just decorative. I knocked on it. It could be hollow. A walk-in closet or pantry or just a big ole hole in the wall could be hidden there. I grabbed an old steak knife and began to run it down the seams, peeling the thickness away.
“What—oh dear.” Mom joined me, at first bewildered, and then finding a knife of her own to work on the other side, muttering, “We’ll have to paint again or Aunt April will have fits.”
I thought of Dad staying here, for however long, after he’d left us. On the sly, or had she known? “She’s Dad’s aunt, right? We all look alike.”
“Honestly, Tessa, I thought you paid attention. She’s your father’s aunt on his mother’s side. You know that.”
I did. Seriously. It’s just as though it had intentionally slipped my mind. As if that wasn’t complicated. “Riiight.” The blade in my knife wobbled a bit and turned, slicing at a fingertip. I let out a cuss word, apologized and then looked at where my blood seeped into the opening crack. “I think I’ve got an opening here.”
“A door?” Mom said from her side.
“Maybe. It’s going to be a tough haul, though. I bet it hasn’t been opened in decades.” And, it looked it. So if that was true, how did my father get into the unknown basement . . . if he did? Mom pulled up a kitchen chair and worked on the top, which went much quicker. Who painted the top of a pantry door where no one could see? Few people, evidently.
Brian and Steptoe leaned on the doorway, fascinated.
“I could use some manly muscle right about now.”
“Oh. A-course, ducks. Coming along.”
As soon as I had the seam completely cleared, I bowed and indicated the revealed edging to a doorway. The two moved in and with quite a bit of straining and grunts, got the pantry door swung about an inch away from the wall. Mom knelt down with a rag and put vegetable oil on the floor to aid any sliding. Of course, that made it extremely tricky for anyone trying to stand there and exert any great force on the stubborn woodwork. It squeaked and complained and opened another inch before Brian took a slippery fall.
Before he could do more than get up with a hand from Steptoe (who then looked at his hand in disgust and went to the sink to wash and dry himself off), the door suddenly heaved wide open.
Hiram waved his meaty hand from the hidden stairway as he looked up from the basement, halfway up the steps. I hopped over the oily spots to peer down. The staircase did indeed look rickety and unsubstantial, particularly its upper portion. If I went down, I could get back up—probably. Hiram looked stuck.
“Coming down!”
Hiram hopped back and held his arms out as if he thought to catch me. Not that I didn’t trust him, but I took the steps down, jumping two at a time, listening to the boards complain as I did. I thought that I had never lived in such a noisy old house. It was almost like living inside a huge pipe organ at an old-time theater or church.
Dusting myself off, I looked around. Ancient mason jars lined one wall, but I was pretty sure whatever had been pickled in them, even by archaeological standards, had not survived. Cobwebs decorated everything in abundance. I yelled upstairs, “Mom, don’t come down. I think we just invaded Spiderland.”
“Oh, God!” I could hear her scurry overhead and knew she’d dived for the cupboard under the sink where several bottles of insect spray reigned, next to the dishwasher soap container. Her hatred of spiders echoed throughout the kitchen.
Hiram wiped a large web off his shoulder and elbow before eying me. “That was both considerate and a little mean.”
“I know. Couldn’t help myself though. Seriously? How much bigger is she than a spider?” I paced around him. A stack of three big trunks in the corner held who knew what. Probably clothes and other items most people stored in an attic. We didn’t have much of one upstairs, so I figured I knew what were in these three. Evelyn loved haunting vintage clothing stores, so I knew who I’d volunteer to help me go through these. If Aunt April let us. She might have skeletons hidden away down here that she didn’t want anyone to know about, although from the paint layers I’d skinned through, she’d have been my age when they were stored.
“First things first. How do we get you out of here?” I paced about the basement, searching the walls. Finally I found a grimed and almost totally obscured window. It looked up into the garden from the soil banked against it, wit
h white, spindly roots pressing against the dirty glass. “I’d say that led into the side garden.”
Hiram tilted his head to eye the window, long but not high, and gave a grunt. “I doubt I could get through there.”
“Well, you’re not going up that staircase.”
“I made it up three steps.”
“Yeah, but I bet the next four or five can’t hold you.”
“I can pull myself up on the rim of the doorway.”
“Really?”
“Like doing a pull-up.” He nodded confidently. “I am more agile than I look.”
Like his father, he looked like a ton of bricks. “Oh-kay. Worth a try. And if that doesn’t work, we’ll go back to the window and see if we can enlarge it without collapsing the side of the house.”
Hiram laughed, a gentle rumbling sound. I liked it.
Brian and Steptoe lay on the hole’s edge, heads down, watching our every move. I called up, “No bones or anything yet.”
“I don’t believe you’re going to find any.” Brian ran his hand through his red-gold hair, trying to keep it out of his eyes in vain.
“Good to know.”
Steptoe reminded us. “Hiram had some sensin’ of ’im though.”
“True,” Hiram agreed. He started casting about again, reminding me of a good hound winding a scent. I hadn’t felt it before, but now the hairs at the back of my neck danced about uneasily. I scrubbed a hand over them but it didn’t help much. Plus, the tip of my finger still hurt, slightly more than a bad paper cut but less than a bad slice. I sucked on it, tasting the copper on my tongue.
To add to my uneasiness, Brian called down, “Be careful. There is an energy I’m sensing that I don’t like.”
And Steptoe added, “It gives me a fair roil to my gut, it does. Something’s about.”
We both stood still a moment and assessed the shadows of the basement. Nothing looked too dark or obscured from the dangling lightbulbs overhead. Something did squeak and skitter away as Hiram took a step, heard if not seen, so probably a very tiny mouse.
