Mystery of Drear House (8 page)

Thomas couldn’t take his eyes off her. He knew that only seconds had passed, that Pesty had spoken, introducing her mama. But he couldn’t find any words in his head. He was just so struck by her. Enormous Mrs. Darrow, standing over him.

She had her arms crossed over her chest so that they made a wide X, with her hands touching her shoulders. Her eyes were like two black, burning lights stuck to her face. Her mouth was a thin line with great creases at either side. She might have been smiling. But she was not. She was staring. Her black eyes fastened on Thomas.

Something else, Thomas thought. I hear … humming!

She was humming and had been humming, like a soft buzzing from the time she had come around from behind the wall. The humming had buzzed inside his head, as if it had belonged there. He hadn’t noticed it until now.

“Can’t you say hello to my mama?” Pesty was asking him.

“Oh, oh, hello! I’m sorry, Mrs. Darrow, I was ... shoot. Hello!” Thomas said.

“Thomas and I are glad to meet you, Mrs. Darrow.” Great-grandmother Jeffers finally spoke, in a natural, soothing voice, not too loud.

The humming did not cease. Great-grandmother took a step forward and extended her palm in greeting. Mrs. Darrow swung her head around toward Great-grandmother. Eyes, burning black fire, glinting so, that Great-grandmother drew back; she could not help herself. It was clear the woman was awfully, terribly different.

At once Pesty stepped between her mother and Great-grandmother. Mrs. Darrow had dropped her arms. Her hands clenched into fists.

“Great Mother Jeffers, you got to move slow, please,” Pesty said. “See, my mama is all right, once you know what to do and what not to do.”

Pesty had hold of her mother’s hands, fists. She rubbed and rubbed at them until Mrs. Darrow relaxed them a bit, opening them partway.

“She can’t help herself,” Pesty said simply. “Doctor calls it something.” She started again, carefully. “Doctor says she is ill, mental. She is chronic. See, that means it comes and goes.”

“Chronic,” Great-grandmother said softly. “Did she take her medicine today?” she added, gazing back at the black eyes that froze on her now.

“She might not’ve,” Pesty said. “Well, how did you know she might’ve forgot?” She was surprised that Great-grandmother Jeffers would think of that. “Mama might not’ve, with me run off to go around with Mr. Thomas.”

“Well, then we’ll take her back and see that she gets her medicine and gets warmed up,” Great-grandmother said. “I suspect that the way she came was chilly.”

Thomas couldn’t believe he’d heard right.

“Thomas,” she continued, “go get my shawl for Mrs. Darrow to put on, please—move slowly now, we don’t want to upset her—and get my coat and hat for me. My scarf. Don’t want to catch my death. You might do well to bring a flashlight, too.”

The humming ceased suddenly. “Sooky,” Mrs. Darrow murmured. Her voice was strangely clear and childlike, not at all like the sound of her humming.

“What did she say?” Thomas asked, trying not to move even his lips.

“She always says that for a few days,” Pesty said. “Sooky. That’s what she calls me when she starts in talking again. See, when she is sick, she won’t call me at all. She will sit in one place forever unless somebody move her. She don’t want to eat until she comes out of it. And then she eat everything in sight.”

“Great-grandmother ...”

“Thomas,” Great-grandmother said, “we’ll go back there with her, see that she’s fine. Oh, and how about one of the pies in the refrigerator? Yes! Just bring it on up here.”

“But you don’t know what went on,” Thomas said quickly. “Her sons … what they did to the kitchen.” He glanced up at Mrs. Darrow and away before she could swing her eyes at him. “I don’t think Papa—”

“Thomas,” Great-grandmother interrupted, “I heard about some of what went on here when you-all first come months ago. Well, your papa is my grandson, so don’t you worry. Hurry now, Thomas,” she said. “We don’t want to keep Mrs. Darrow waiting!”

She smiled bravely at him and all around. Great-grandmother was going to help Mrs. Darrow even though she was a little afraid of her. Thomas could tell.

He hurried downstairs to the closet. First, he grabbed his and Pesty’s coats from the backs of chairs in the kitchen. He stuffed a flashlight in his jacket pocket. Then he got the pie. He didn’t know what kind it was; it was wrapped in foil in the refrigerator. It was probably apple. He hurried to the hall, placed the pie carefully on the floor, and laid their coats next to it. Then he got Great-grandmother’s things from the closet. The shawl, too. Oh man! It’s taking me too long!

But he hurried. Careful to hold the pie with both hands. He had his own coat and hat on now. He had Pesty’s coat draped over his head and down his back. He had Great-grandmother’s things and her shawl over one arm. He did not know whether what they were about to do was safe or sane. Another secret opening into the house right upstairs! he was thinking. A crazy woman? She is Pesty’s mama. Mrs. Darrow. Wonder what is her first name? You could ask.

When he returned, he stopped still just in the doorway to the bedroom. He pulled the pie rim in tightly against him. The flashlight weighted him down on one side. Mrs. Darrow had stepped down from the fireplace hearth. She stood over Great-grandmother Jeffers. She had hold of her own long hair in one hand and Great-grandmother’s in the other. She was pulling Great-grandmother’s hair as she pulled her own. She looked like a giant bully bothering tiny Great-grandmother Jeffers.

“Mr. Thomas, don’t say nothing,” Pesty said, before he could think to say anything. “Don’t make to interfere.”

“But look!” Thomas said, coming in very slowly. He spoke as calmly as he could. “She is hurting my great-grandmother.” He calculated how fast he could get to Great-grandmother’s side and how much he could do for her once he was there.

“She’s not hurting me, Thomas,” Great-grandmother said, “not really.” She reached up, hoping to loosen Mrs. Darrow’s grip on her hair. But she couldn’t.

“Mama don’t realize how strong she is,” Pesty said. “I think she means to shake your hand, Mother Jeffers, but she got it wrong—see? She shaking your hair.”

Pesty pried her mother’s hands loose. “She’s my mama when she goes off her mind,” she said, “but she comes back like a child. Sorry, Great Mother.”

“It’s all right,” Great-grandmother said, “I’m not hurt.”

“Once Mama is up out of bed, she has to learn most things all over again,” Pesty explained.

“Think of that!” Great-grandmother whispered.

“Why is that?” Thomas asked. Slowly he moved up to them. He put the pie down on the lamp table and reached over to give Pesty Great-grandmother’s shawl. Pesty took it and flung it up around her mama’s shoulders.

“She says she don’t remember much after,” Pesty said. “Then we give her her pills. They help her get better, but they make it hard for her to remember, too.”

“But does this …” Thomas began. He was going to ask, Does it go on forever? Didn’t her mama ever get better? But he never got the chance.

With no warning Mrs. Darrow swung around toward him. That unheard-of nervous motion seemed to hit him between the eyes. She lunged for the pie, knocking Thomas aside. He fell on the floor hard.

Thomas sat there, stunned, watching Mrs. Darrow. A dull ache began along his hip, where he’d hit.

Mrs. Darrow lifted the pie up to her nose. She tore at the foil covering and threw it aside. There was the pie; it was apple. He wouldn’t have dreamed the pie would get eaten the way he saw her eating it. With one hand Mrs. Darrow commenced to scoop the pie.

Thomas suddenly was angry. “She pushed me down!” he said. Fury mixed with the bruising fall.

“Mama didn’t mean to, Mr. Thomas. You just got in the way,” Pesty said back.

“She hit into me; she shoved me and knocked me
down
,” he said.

“No,
you
got in
her
way! You did, you got in her
way
!” Pesty’s voice shook. Trembling, she covered her face with her hands.

Mrs. Darrow finished about half the pie. Her mouth and cheeks were a sticky mess with it.

Pesty commenced sobbing.

“Pesty, I’m—I’m sorry,” Thomas said, getting up. “But she did push me down.”

“Now, don’t you cry, sweetheart,” Great-grandmother said. She folded Pesty in her arms.

Pesty’s crying lasted only a few seconds. She had little time for tears. “Mama, come on,” she said. Sighing, she went to her mother and calmly took the pie out of her hands. It was almost all gone. “Take you on back home now. You played enough for today.”

“Don’t cry, Sooky!” Mrs. Darrow said. Her calm, reasonable voice surprised them.

Thomas wouldn’t say that the expression under the sticky mess on her face was a smile. But her mouth was open, and her teeth were showing; He supposed it was a smile to soothe Pesty.

“Ha-ha,” Mrs. Darrow said. “Hey? Sooky!”

“It’s okay, Mama: We’ll be back home in a minute,” Pesty told her.

“How do we make that wall swing around?” asked Great-grandmother Jeffers.

“You have to follow us,” Pesty said. She was leading her mother, wrapped in Great-grandmother’s shawl, back to the wall. “You climb on up and stand on the side of the fireplace. Then you push on a place here. …” Thomas watched her push at a section of the mantel. A square of stone seemed to move inward about a quarter of an inch. “Then you just stand still,” Pesty continued. “The wall seem to tilt back some. …” She and her mother stood on the hearth. Slowly the wall swung around, scraping a little as it went. “Mr. Thomas, y’all come on.” They were gone around to the other side.

“Come on, Thomas,” Great-grandmother Jeffers said, hurrying into her coat. “Now I’m a little old and a bit unsteady, so you must help me up on that hearth.”

Thomas sighed. “Are you sure you want to do this, Great-grandmother?”

“It will be all right,” she said firmly.

Thomas helped her up onto the hearth. She held on to his arm as he reached behind him to press the mantel. It took him a moment to find the right place.

“Little farther over, I think, Thomas,” Great-grandmother said.

“Right,” he said. This time he pushed and a mantel stone gave way. The wall, the fireplace, and the hearth where they stood began to move. He hardly dared breathe. What will there be on the other side? he wondered as the two of them went slowly around.

I
T’S TRICKY, HE THOUGHT
. Step off the wall around back there, and you don’t know where you are. Shine the flashlight, and there’s the steepest staircase right inside the bedroom wall. Think of it! You go down the stairs below the foundation of the house. It’s so dark, and you guess you’re in a tunnel. It smells earth-musty like a tunnel. Shine the light around. Yes, it’s a tunnel, leading away from the house. And you walk a ways. Hold on to Great-grandmother. Don’t lose her in the dark! It feels like you turn a corner, and then—

He and Great-grandmother Jeffers had completed all the steps that he’d just gone over in his mind. Putting them in order helped him make sense out of what had come next. Now they followed Pesty and her mother to an unbelievable place. “It’s—it’s a—a—whole decorated room!” Thomas exclaimed, shining his light around. The tunnel had seemed to widen, and in the open space was indeed a room.

“But it’s different; it’s made to be another time,” Great-grandmother said. “Oh, it’s so pretty!”

And so it was. The room seemed all dark, carved wood of the bedstead, chiffonier, and side chair. Thomas flicked his light. There was a silken coverlet on the bed. There were end tables with taffeta skirts. On one end table there were bottles, one blue, one green, glowing richly in his light. Seeing them so suddenly, he felt as if they had stumbled upon familiar ground.

Then Pesty lit a brass oil lantern on one of the tables. Thomas and Great-grandmother Jeffers could well see that the items in the room were of great value. Why would anyone want to put a fine room like this in the middle of a tunnel? Thomas wondered.

“We’re going on now,” Pesty said. “You can see it all when you come back.”

“Pesty, you knew about this secret room, too, and you never told me?” Thomas asked.

“It’s just where my mama will come to sit. Wasn’t nothing to tell. Come on, I got to get her on home before the mens come back from working.”

The men. Darrow men. “Great-grandmother, I think we should go on back,” Thomas began. “No telling what we …” He didn’t finish.

Great-grandmother Jeffers had taken him by the hand and led him along as if he were a little child, following Pesty. Pesty opened a door at the other end of the room, just as though she were opening the door leading into the front hallway of the Drear house. Only, with this door, she simply pulled on it. It lurched toward her. Then she took hold of it and pushed it to the side. There were no hinges on it, Thomas realized. He saw a gaping black space where the door had been.

“Mr. Thomas, when you come back, put the door in place from the inside,” she told him.

“Don’t you worry, Pesty,” Great-grandmother said. “We’ll take care of it.”

Now there began more of the tunnel. The room had been just like a wide place in a road, Thomas thought. “Do you feel funny, Great-grandmother?” he asked as softly as he could.

“Funny about what?” she said.

“About … being here. Finding the room. Don’t you feel it should be left the way it is, without us getting into it?”

“Well, Thomas, everywhere you walk, you are walking into
it,
into history, so to speak,” she said. “Always somebody’s walked before you. Something’s gone on with people before we were thought of. We can’t help that. And here Mrs. Darrow has found comfort in the history of that room, I suspect. It fits her mind, like the twists of the tunnels do.

“But I understand what you mean, Thomas,” Great-grandmother added. “It makes you feel foolish, walking around underground.” She chuckled. “It makes you want to bust out laughing. Who’d ever think of such a thing? But it makes you feel good, too, down here. Because you feel close to those who ran long ago, like you are tracing the footsteps of fugitives with your own feet.”