Mystery of Drear House (6 page)

It felt as if a boulder were rolling away, sliding out from under his palms. “I don’t believe this! Is this tunnel a real old one?” he asked.

He saw light, like shade. He saw huge horses right there in front of him.

“Just move real slow, Mr. Thomas. They ain’t going to bother you,” Pesty said.

As if in a trance, Thomas moved out of the opening and into the place of horses. It was a large horse stall. The horses whinnied softly and made room for him.

Pesty stepped out then. She went to the animals to pat their noses and stroke their necks. Their heads bobbed up and down as she slid her hands along their manes. They nuzzled her. “Good horses!” she told them. “Good ol’ Sam and Josie. You Mr. Pluto’s buggy ride. Haven’t been let out.

“They should be outside by now,” she told Thomas. “I’ll have to take them later.”

She left the horses. Thomas followed, closing the stall behind him.

“That back there is a secret tunnel,” he said to her.

“Might be secret to you, not to me,” she said.

“You never told us about it,” Thomas said.

“Nobody never did ask me. Wouldn’t want it to get known.”

He was dazed by what had happened, and he couldn’t think of anything to say. He followed her, realizing they were in familiar territory.

They walked inside Pluto’s cave. And there was Pluto, sitting by the fire, sipping from a glass carafe. He had a piece of wool wrapped around his throat.

Just like that, Thomas thought. A secret way in to see Mr. Pluto. He was amazed that ordinary life went on while he’d done something so strange.

There was the smell of camphor in the cave. Pluto looked surprised when he first saw them; then he smiled. “I see you come the back way. Well, I heard somebody at the door. Couldn’t yell. Hoarse. Figured whoever it was would come back later.” He raised the steaming carafe in greeting. “This here potion is for a slight cold in my throat.”

“Is it tea? Can I have some?” Pesty asked. “Does it taste good?”

“Tastes pretty bad, don’t think you’d like it, Little Miss Bee,” Mr. Pluto said. “But it sure has helped me some this morning fit for a fright.”

“You feelin’ sick?” Pesty asked him. She put her arm around his shoulder.

“It’s nothing much, some raspiness,” he said. “But, Miss Bee, I feel almost well when I see your face.” His mood changed, and his brows knitted together. “I won’t be scared. Whoever it was,” he muttered to himself, “he won’t be gettin’ nothing out of
me
.”

“Wha—what?” Thomas said, not sure he had heard right.

But Pesty was saying, “Mr. Pluto, you think you are well enough to meet Mr. Thomas’s great-grandmama?”

“Oh my!” Mr. Pluto exclaimed. “That’s right! I been feelin’ out of sorts some, I forgot she was coming. But you give me a day and I’ll be over there to welcome your great-grandmama, Thomas.”

“You can’t come back with us today?” Pesty said.

“Miss Bee, I get my feet wet again and I’ll have the pneumonia.”

“It’s okay,” Thomas was quick to tell him. “It can wait until tomorrow or the next day. Anyway, Great-grandmother Jeffers is going to stay with us forever.”

“That’s plenty time for me and her to get acquainted,” Pluto said, smiling at them.

Thomas was pensive before he said, “Did you say someone wasn’t getting anything out of you? Mr. Pluto … was there somebody here?”

“Dreams, is all, I expect,” Pluto said. He didn’t want to upset Thomas, or Pesty either. “But I feel a chill wind. Yes, it is,” he thought to add. “I do like to stay close to home such times.”

He turned his attention to Pesty. “Miss Bee, can you take care of the horses?”

“Sure can,” she said. “Mr. Thomas and me will do them.”

Thomas nodded to show that he was willing.

“Well, then I’m going to putter around here,” Pluto said. “Then I’ll lay down awhile again. That’s what old folks have to do when they get soreness. They have to lay down awhile again and again.” He chuckled.

“We could call a doctor for you,” Thomas said.

“No, son, you wait until I kick the bucket before you call the doctor.”

“Mama calls the doctor sometimes when I or my brothers are sick,” Thomas said.

But Mr. Pluto waved his hand, wouldn’t hear of it. “After the horses you-all can go on back home. I’m just going to lie about most the day. Keep warm.”

“You mean we won’t …” Pesty began.

Mr. Pluto stopped her before she finished. “… won’t go there this day.” He cocked his head slightly toward the hidden entrance to the great cavern. “Maybe walls have ears,” he added. “Real folks, maybe, living in dreams.”

Pesty looked solemnly at him.

“Miss Bee,” he said, “see how the snow lay. See to the
way
east and west.”

Pesty was going out, headed for the horses. Thomas followed, wondering what Pluto had meant. See to what way?

They went from the cave room down the short, dim tunnel back to the double stall where Pluto kept his horses. The horses neighed, glad to see Pesty again. Thomas saw that the cave wall at the back of their stall was closed. He hadn’t noticed when Pesty did that.

Nobody would ever know, he thought. But somebody knew. Pesty knew.

The horses, Sam and Josie, were bridle-and harness-wise. And it was easy to slip short ropes around their necks to lead them from the double stall.

Thomas and Pesty brought the horses back up the tunnel into the cave. Thomas unbarred the plank doors. Mr. Pluto was there, with a woolen throw about his shoulders, still sipping his tonic.

“Bye then!” Pesty called to him. “See you tomorrow!

“Bye!” Thomas said.

They headed the horses around to the fenced meadow. They cleared off the snow in the water trough and broke through the thin ice. There was still fresh water beneath. They added to it with snow that melted at once. Then they saw to the oats and hay.

“We still have most of the morning to fill up,” Thomas told her after they finished.

Pesty stared around them. She commenced walking the hillside from east to west. It was in the east that she bent low to study the snow-covered ground.

“What are you doing, girl?” Thomas said.

“Wait a minute, Mr. Thomas,” she said. She scraped away a top layer of snow. The ground did look slightly different here.

“Snow melted sometime in the night,” she told him. “Air turned warmer.”

“You see all that by just looking at the snow?” he asked. He hunkered down beside her.

“Well, now it’s colder,” she said. “The snow is packed and frozen and one layer stuck over the next, see?” she said.

If there had been tracks, they were certainly hidden now. But she knew something. She straightened up, gazing off to the west. She thought she saw impressions at intervals in the snow, going off into the woods.

She shivered slightly. Pesty could stand the cold most of the time. She had seen and walked snows and snows. There wasn’t much else to see in the wintertime. She knew tracks—melting, frozen, slippery, animal, human. “No kind I ain’t seen,” she murmured to herself, “but are these tracks?”

“That’s what you are searching for—tracks?” Thomas said softly, matching the level of her voice. He looked. Pretty soon he knew there had to be something there through the snow. The trail was nearly invisible. But someone had been where they were, maybe had come the way they had, through the hole, and had gone off the same way. It could have happened sometime in the night. “Yes, but whose tracks?” he said finally. “Was it—was it one of your brothers?”

When she was silent, he said, “Pesty, who was it came here? Did he come into the cave the way we did?”

“He?”
she said. “I don’t know no
he
.”

“You know something. Now tell me!”

“What you talking about, Mr. Thomas? There was nothing. Those tracks is just animals going and coming, hunting shelter.”

She was protecting someone. Thomas was sure of it. “Was it Macky?” he said.

But she went on as if she hadn’t heard the question. “I come from here last night myself,” she said, “after evening, to see Mr. Pluto, and it was snowing.

“Is it time to meet your great-grandmama?” she said sweetly. She did not look him in the eye. “Can I meet her now?”

“Yeah!” Thomas said. “That’s a good idea. She’ll be up by now.”

“So …” Pesty said.

“Let’s go!” they said together.

They left then. Thomas let mysterious snow tracks drift out of his mind. Never seems to take as long going back home, he thought. Wonder why?

G
REAT-GRANDMOTHER
J
EFFERS AWOKE
to a pleasant day. The next moment she had to be seeing double. Leaning over her were two identical faces. The twins were dressed up, their hair combed, and they were grinning at her exactly the same way.

“Gray-grahma,” they piped in unison.

“Well, good morning!” Great-grandmother Rhetty Jeffers said.

“Good mornin’,” said Billy Small. At least Great-grandmother Jeffers thought it was Billy.

Buster jumped on the bed and crawled up beside her. He thrust a picture book at her. He had been holding it all the while.

“Read it me,” Billy said, climbing up on the bed and squeezing in next to his brother. Buster nodded.

Delighted, Great-grandmother Jeffers sat up comfortably against her pillows. “Let’s just see what it is you’ve got,” she said.

“Free Bears,” Billy said.

“The Three Bears!”
Great-grandmother said, taking the book from Buster. “How long has it been since I laid eyes on
The Three Bears!
My! Used to read
The Three Bears
to Thomas all the time. And something called ...”

“Hector Protector,”
Thomas said. He was there, standing in the doorway, with Pesty Darrow peeking around behind him.

“Well, good morning, Thomas,” Great-grandmother Jeffers said; “And good morning, there,” she added to Pesty.

“Hi! This is my friend,” Thomas said, coming in with Pesty. “She’s Pesty Darrow, the sister of Macky. I told you about him.”

“Well, I’m pleased to meet you, Miss Pesty,” Great-grandmother said.

“This is my great-grandmother Jeffers,” Thomas said to Pesty.

Pesty grinned and nodded. “Good morning,” she said.

“Good morin, Pesty!” piped Buster.

“Good
mornin’, Pesty
,” Billy said, correcting him.

“Hi, y’all,” Pesty said to the boys.

Great-grandmother grinned at Pesty. “Just call me Grandmother Rhetty if you want to,” she told her. Then she turned to Thomas and said, “Yes, it was
Hector Protector.
I remember now.

“Thomas, you still have that book?” asked Great-grandmother.

“I think so. I must’ve brought it.”

“Well, I hope so,” she said. “I’d like to read them old
Hector Protector
.”

“Hec, Brec,” said Billy.

Buster regarded him for a moment and then grabbed him. And they both fell over on the bed, giggling.

“You guys stop it!” Thomas said. “You’re going to hurt Great-grandmother, roughhousing like that.”

“They love to roughhouse,” Pesty told Great-grandmother.

“Billy and Buster might muss up their pretty outfits,” said Great-grandmother. “Where are they going, all spiffied up this morning?”

“Mama said something about taking them into town to look around at the nursery schools,” Thomas said.

“Oh, that’s right,” Great-grandmother said. “But I didn’t know she was planning on it today.”

“Guess she knew we would keep you busy, me and Pesty,” Thomas said.

“Well,” Great-grandmother said.

“Great-grandmother,” he went on, “we’ve been over to Mr. Pluto’s already.”

“That so?” she said.

“Yeah, and Mr. Pluto can’t come over until tomorrow. He’s got a sore throat, but he’s not real sick,” Thomas said.

“Well, I’ll bring him some of your mama’s soup, how’s that?”

“Or one of her pies,” Thomas said eagerly.

“I’d better get up from here then,” Great-grandmother Jeffers said. “I slept so good!”

“There was lots of noise last night,” Thomas said. He knew he must go on talking to keep her in bed a little longer. His mama had a surprise.

“Noise,” the boys said to Great-grandmother.

“It sounded like a blizzard came real fast,” Thomas said.

“A blizzard!” Great-grandmother said. “I didn’t hear a thing.”

“Well, I did. I think I heard it,” Thomas said.

“Goodness, what’s this congregation?” Mrs. Small came in, ready for a morning in town. “Morning, everybody,” she said, eyeing Thomas, Pesty, and the boys. “Grandmother Rhetty, good morning!” Martha Small said. “I hope you slept well, even with the storm last night.”

“Good morning to you,” Great-grandmother said. “Oh, I did sure sleep, I sure did. Martha, darlin’, this is the best old house for sleeping.”

“Don’t I know it,” Martha said. “But I hope some little boys and a big boy and girl didn’t burst in here to wake you up.”

“Pesty and me have already been outside,” Thomas said.

“Pesty and I,” Mrs. Small corrected.

“Well, Billy and Buster were crawling all over Great-grandmother when we got here,” Thomas said.

Billy and Buster scrunched low against Great-grandmother Jeffers. They grabbed the blanket to cover their faces. Buster thought to put
The Three Bears
on the very top of his curly head.

“Don’t think that’s going to hide you two,” said Mrs. Small.

“Don’t scold them, Martha. I just hope they come in to greet me every morning like this,” Great-grandmother Jeffers said. “I love to see their faces exactly alike smiling at me. And we’re going to read a story.”

“You’ll get to hear a story later, boys,” Martha Small told her sons. At once she put a finger to her lips, warning them to keep still. They were quick to understand. They watched her as she winked at Thomas. Thomas hurried out. They could hear him taking the stairs two at a time.

“What are you-all up to?” Great-grandmother Jeffers said, smiling.

“Read me!” Billy commanded. Buster was searching for the book. He’d lost it in the jumble of bedcovers. Billy gave him a push.

“Stop that,” Martha told him. “There’ll be time for stories later. Grandmother Rhetty, I’m sorry, but we have to be going. Boys, we have to go visit some schools. They are getting to be too much even for me,” Mrs. Small explained.