by Ike Hamill
“Should we try to get her? Maybe she’ll make an exception, you know? Maybe she can overcome her phobia for this one thing.”
“That would never happen,” Auggie said. “It’s not like that. I think this moment is over. I won’t be able to bring Jules here next week. This flower is closing for the last time.”
When he said that, Kate felt a strange sensation wash through her body. She could almost sense what Auggie meant. The room—Trudy’s nook—was like a subway stop. They had stepped off the train for a moment. Once they got back on, they would leave this place behind. Stepping off the train again would take them to a completely different location.
He drew her back to the stairs before he reached in and shut off the light. The couch was still bathed in the glow from the TV. The flickering light made an optical illusion. Kate could almost see ankles and translucent feet filling the slippers. Auggie shut the door.
Kate felt her heartbeat race for a second and then begin to slow down.
She and Auggie went back upstairs and through the door. She was the one who reached around the door to awkwardly flip the light switch. Kate almost commented as she pulled the door shut. She wanted to say, “See? The door opens over the stairs, not into the hallway.” But saying that would only prove a point that Auggie was already aware of. This place didn’t obey the normal rules of reality. In this place, Trudy’s nook was already gone and the door opened whichever way it wanted.
Kate didn’t want to point it out, she only wanted to leave it behind. Life was complicated enough without some bizarre artifact from Auggie’s past pulling out the rug from underneath her understanding of the world.
“Thank you,” Auggie whispered.
She didn’t know if he was talking to her, or Trudy’s ghost.
Chapter 4 : Deidra, Henry, Sam, and Penny
“COME ON IN! COME on in!” June said, pushing the screen door out as she waved them in. They were all bundled up in their warm coats and juggling bags and gifts. Deidra and June clogged up the doorway, hugging and exchanging pecks on each other’s cheeks.
“Move it along!” Henry bellowed. “Keep going.”
Gus waited patiently to the side for his cousins, Sam and Penny to come in.
“You’re letting all the heat out,” Auggie said. “Hug inside.”
June and Deidra were too busy exchanging news and pleasantries to heed or even notice the orders coming from inside and out. They gradually shuffled the bottleneck through and Henry squeezed by with his armloads of bags, followed by Sam and Penny.
“You guys want to see the mouse hole that Aunt Kate found in the laundry room?” Gus asked as soon as the kids were through the door.
“Yeah!” Penny said.
Sam only shrugged and nodded. The three kids ran towards the door to the hall.
“Jackets!” Deidra called.
Her kids stopped short, shucked their coats, and tossed them on a chair before they ran off after Gus.
June smiled as she closed the front door tight.
“Where are Millie and little Josie?” Henry asked the room.
“Isla,” Deidra said.
At the same time, June ignored the incorrect question and answered, “They went with Kate to her sister’s.”
“Like every year,” Deidra said.
Henry turned to Auggie. “That can’t be true. We saw them last year, didn’t we? I remember?”
“We were here earlier last year,” Deidra said. “Remember? We came before they left.”
“Oh?” Henry asked, seeming suddenly uninterested.
“Actually, they’re still in limbo,” Auggie said.
“Still?” June asked.
Auggie nodded. When Deidra tilted her head and raised her eyebrows, Auggie added, “They were supposed to fly out of Boston last night but the storm out west knocked out their flight. They stayed overnight and then they were going to catch a flight today. You know how it gets—cascading delays, they call it.”
“What a bummer,” Henry said. “We up there?” He gestured towards the stairs.
“First door on the right,” Deidra and June said at the same time.
Raising a hand loaded with a bag, he gave them a thumbs up and then started to climb. June helped Deidra out of her coat and hung it near the door while Deidra took off her boots and left them on the mat.
“It’s a shame. If we had known, we could have left our key with the neighbors,” Deidra said. “At least Kate and the girls would have had somewhere to stay tonight.”
Deidra settled down on the futon. June and Auggie took the chairs. Auggie half stood up again to rearrange the coats that he was sitting on and then he relaxed back into the seat.
“No worries,” Auggie said. “Honestly, if things don’t start looking up, they might just come back here.”
June’s head turned fast at the notion. “Seriously?”
“Just as far home as it is here, and there’s nobody at home to spend New Year’s with. If she can’t get to her sister’s house, I know Kate will want to be with family.”
“I can’t remember the last time she was here for New Year’s,” June said.
“Right after they were married,” Deidra said.
“That’s right,” Auggie said, pointing. “That would have been… Maybe in oh-two?”
“You should know your anniversary, Auggie,” June said.
Deidra laughed.
“I remember the date, I’m just foggy on the year. That part hardly ever comes up.”
They laughed. Henry, coming down the stairs, laughed too. He grabbed another handful of bags and turned on his heel.
“Those go in the second on the left,” Deidra said.
“I thought that was the bathroom,” Henry said.
“That’s first on the left,” June answered.
“You think he would know his way around after all this time,” Deidra whispered. “He just does that to underscore his role as the outsider in all this. It’s the same thing in reverse when we visit his mother’s house. He makes a point of telling me where to get the coffee mugs or where the downstairs powder room is. It’s like he wants me to know that I’m the outsider there.”
June looked to Auggie.
“I didn’t say anything,” Auggie said, putting up his hands defensively.
“Thank you,” Deidra said.
Henry came back down the stairs with a rumble of flying feet. He clapped his hands when he got to the floor. “What’s on the agenda? One of my favorite things about these visits is catching up with everyone while we play cards or work on a puzzle. What do you guys have in mind?”
Henry side-stepped the low table and took a seat on the futon next to Deidra. She put a hand on his knee and he gave her a smile.
“You’re in a good mood tonight,” Auggie said.
“I am,” Henry said, beaming. When he didn’t offer any explanation, June leaned forward in her chair. She was about to ask the question that Henry seemed to expect when the kids burst back through the doorway.
“Uncle Auggie, what did Aunt Kate say she did with the mice?” Gus asked.
“What mice?” June asked, snapping her fingers to get Gus’s attention.
He glanced at his mother but didn’t answer.
“You’ll have to ask her,” Auggie said. “I’m afraid that I didn’t ask any probing questions on the topic.”
“What mice?” June asked.
“Oh!” Auggie said, pointing at Deidra. “I meant to tell you right away—we put Trudy’s slippers back.”
Deidra’s mouth fell open as she looked up and tried to place the reference. “Trudy’s slippers,” she whispered. “Trudy’s slippers.”
“Am I going to get an answer about the mice?” June asked.
“I don’t think you are,” Henry said.
“Cousin Trudy the shut in?” Deidra asked.
“Exactly,” Auggie said.
“That’s not exactly fair,” June said. “You wouldn’t call her a shut in. I mean, you w
ouldn’t call me a shut in, would you?”
“Of course not,” Auggie said. “You leave the house all the time. In fact, you don’t seem to even want to spend time here. Why would we call you a shut in?”
“Trudy left the house,” June said.
“Oh, barely,” Auggie said, laughing. “Aside from the fair, looking for Andrew’s trained horse act, when did you ever know Trudy to leave this house?”
“Uncle Auggie?” Gus asked.
Auggie waved Gus closer. He glanced at June and then put up his hand so he could whisper in Gus’s ear without her overhearing.
June threw up her hands and looked to Deidra.
“I’m never going to find out where these damn mice are,” June said, shaking her head.
“It’s probably best that way,” Deidra said. “A person can go crazy worrying over something like that. Best to just forget it.”
“That philosophy has always worked for me,” Henry said. He put his arm around Deidra, who rolled her eyes.
Deidra leaned forward to whisper, “When’s Uncle Tommy coming?”
June put up her hands, palms towards the ceiling. “Anyone’s guess. He doesn’t exactly announce these things. One day he won’t show up and we’ll all be left to guess what happened.”
“Unlikely,” Deidra said. “I think he’s going to outlive us all.”
“Which one is Tommy?” Henry asked.
“Don’t start,” Deidra said.
Apparently satisfied with the information, Gus nodded to his uncle and then ran off with Sam and Penny again. Penny caught the door on the way out and it slammed behind her.
“Maybe I should check on them,” Deidra said.
“They’re fine,” Auggie said. “They’re too scared to get into anything seriously dangerous.”
June’s forehead wrinkled as she turned to her brother. “What’s dangerous down there?”
“Nothing,” Auggie said. “That’s my point.”
# # # #
“What did he say?” Sam asked as soon as they were back in the kitchen.
“He said that she found the mice in the dryer, like I said, and it looked like they maybe had gone in and out through the door even though there was a small hole in the hose or something. Aunt Kate put them in a container and then dumped them outside. We’ll never find them.”
Penny pouted as she put her hands on her hips and swiveled left and right.
Her brother, Sam, scowled at her.
“We should go outside and look anyway. It’s so cold, maybe they froze.”
“We don’t have our jackets,” Penny said.
“You guys want to see something really cool?” Gus asked.
“Of course,” Sam said, suddenly impatient for something that he was only just now aware of.
As Gus moved towards the cellar door, he spoke in low tones, conveying the top secret nature of this information.
“When I was down in the cellar last time, I saw something that I think might be cool.”
“A dead mouse?” Sam asked.
“Maybe cooler. Do you remember what you said about Uncle Tommy last year?”
Sam thought for a moment. “That he is a serial killer?”
“What’s a cereal killer?” Penny asked. “They kill Cheerios?”
Sam nodded.
Gus shook his head.
“You were saying that Uncle Tommy had a secret way to get up to his room,” Gus said. He opened the cellar door. The hinges groaned as the door swung open, revealing a black rectangle of darkness. Gus shot out a quick hand to flip the old light switch. It clunked home and the lights seemed to swell on.
“I’m not going down there.”
“Then go back to Mom and tell her that we’re playing in the laundry room,” Sam said.
Penny looked at the cellar stairs, leaned forward for an even closer look, and then she straightened back up before she nodded.
“Okay,” she said. She turned and started down the hall.
Gus waved Sam forward. They went through the doorway together.
With the door shut behind them, there was nowhere to go but down the stairs. After a couple of steps, the furnace kicked on, freezing the boys in place. After Sam crouched down and verified that there was nothing to be afraid of, they descended the rest of the way. For a minute, they stood at the bottom of the stairs, turning every direction to take in the details of the place.
“What did you find?” Sam finally asked.
Gus raised his finger and pointed over near the furnace.
“Over there,” he said. “There’s a hole in the ceiling.”
Sam waited for Gus to lead the way. The boys crept slowly, tiptoeing across the dirt floor even though the furnace was loud enough to mask their movement.
“I guess we should have brought a flashlight,” Gus said, looking up at the ceiling.
He had barely finished the thought when a beam snapped on. Sam pointed his small flashlight upwards, illuminating the hole and then, when he angled the beam, showing them how far it went up.
“See? I bet Uncle Tommy goes up through there,” Gus said.
The flashlight beam whipped through the cellar when Sam jumped. His fingers brushed the bottom rung of the ladder that was built into the shaft above them. Gus watched as he jumped a few more times. The best that Sam could do was grip the rung for a moment. Even when he handed the flashlight to Gus, and tried with both hands, Sam couldn’t get a grip. He didn’t give up. He went over next to the furnace, grabbed the metal bucket, and flipped it upside down. With that in place, he was able to easily jump up and grab the ladder.
Sam’s legs swung as he tried to pull himself up.
“Give me a boost.”
Gus grabbed his cousin’s shins and tried to lift. He took a shoe to the face but he was able to jack Sam up enough so that he could climb up and get his foot up on the lowest rung. The pipes rang when Sam accidentally kicked one of them. Both boys froze for a moment.
“Give me the light,” Sam said.
Gus stood on the bucket to hand it up. He knew he wouldn’t be able to follow Sam the same way. He didn’t have anyone to boost him, and he was several inches smaller to begin with. Gus’s eyes combed the wall until he saw what he should have seen in the first place. There was a stepladder resting against the stone foundation. It was rickety as he climbed, swaying with each step, but it held until Gus was climbing behind his cousin.
“This is the second ladder I’ve climbed recently,” Gus said.
“Shhh!” Sam hissed. “These walls could be thin. They might hear us.”
Gus blinked as grit filtered down from Sam’s shoe. After that, he kept his eyes forward and only climbed when he heard Sam go up another rung.
“What’s at the top?” Gus whispered.
“Just a sec,” Sam said.
Gus heard a latch and then something heavy flop to the floor above. All at once, Sam was gone. Gus looked up to see the flashlight casting around a big space above a square opening. He climbed fast to catch up.
“I was right,” Sam said as Gus’s head breached the level of the floor.
Gus squinted against the bright light. Sam had flipped on the overhead lights just as Gus had stood wide-eyed in the darkness.
When his vision came back, Gus saw that he was squinting at a poster of a girl in a bikini.
“This is it,” Sam said. “This is Uncle Tommy’s room.”
Under the bikini girl, there was a bed with a striped mattress. It was stripped, with the sheets stacked at the end on top of a green blanket and a bar of soap. Next to the bed, there was a big metal box that almost looked like a little refrigerator. It had buttons and a dial on the face and enormous hinges on the door. Sam was over on the other side, pulling out the top drawer of the dresser.
“Don’t,” Gus said.
“Why not?” Sam said. He pulled out the next drawer.
Gus took a step towards the desk. There were no televisions or electronic screens in the room. Each wall had
outlets, but the only thing plugged in was the desk lamp.
“Whoa,” Sam said.
Gus spun as Sam lifted a metal box from one of the dresser drawers.
“Don’t,” Gus said.
“It’s locked. Look for a key.”
“It’s not going to be here. Why would he have a locked box and then leave the key in the same room?”
Sam put the box down on the floor and moved around Gus to get to the desk. He started whipping open the drawers and running his hands through the contents.
“It would be, like, on a chain around his neck or something. That’s where the key would be.”
“Aha!” Sam said.
As he spun, Gus expected that he was holding up the key. They would open the box and a swarm of bees or maybe poison gas would come out. His mother always said that Uncle Tommy was an enigma. Gus didn’t know precisely what it meant, but by his mother’s tone he took it to mean that Tommy was potentially dangerous. Who knew what form that danger would take when it emerged from the locked box.
Sam wasn’t holding a key. It was just a paperclip. Lowering himself to the floor, Sam worked on unbending and then shaping the paperclip into a little hook. He dragged the box towards himself and fished the hook into the lock.
“Don’t,” Gus said.
“Don’t, don’t, don’t,” Sam mocked him.
Gus frowned and turned away. He didn’t want to watch. He thought about going back down the ladder and just leaving Sam up there alone. He didn’t want to be mocked for that too. He walked over to the poster and ran his fingers over the glossy finish. He had seen a poster just like it on a movie that was on one afternoon on the antenna. His mother had told him to turn it off until she realized that it was edited to take out all the language.
The poster, up close, looked like it should be edited too. The woman was practically naked.
“I think I almost have it,” Sam said.
“What was that?” Gus said.
“Almost,” Sam said.
They both heard it the second time.
“Boys?” a voice called.
“That’s your mom. We have to go.”
“She’ll never find us up here. My mom hates cellars.”