Mumma's House

by Ike Hamill

  “Who is first?” Henry asked. “Wait, where’s the marker?”

  “We need a ruler, too,” Sam said.

  “There’s usually one in this room over here,” Henry said. He pointed as he counted the doors.

  Before he could move towards the one he decided on, Penny said, “Wait!” She pointed at Kate, who was holding a ruler and a marker from downstairs. Kate had nearly forgotten that she had brought the things along. She was too focused on breaking into Tommy’s room after this whole ritual of measuring heights was complete.

  “Very good,” Henry said. “We’ll go smallest first.”

  “And prettiest,” Isla said when Henry pointed to her.

  Henry smiled. “Smallest, and all equally pretty.”

  Isla pressed her back against the doorframe.

  “Heels down,” Millie said.

  Isla frowned and then let her heels settle to the floor.

  Kate took a step back, moving towards Uncle Tommy’s door. The anticipation was too much—she really wanted to know if the key would work. She had met Auggie’s locksmith friend, Theo, once or twice. He seemed nice enough, but he had a really strange handshake. He had a strange handshake and a sad smile. Sometimes he came by for lunch when he was driving through town. Kate doubted that Theo could, sight unseen, reproduce a key from some numbers that Auggie had supposedly memorized. Auggie couldn’t even seem to memorize his own cellphone number, but was perfectly certain that he had the right sequence of numbers for the key.

  She pulled the key from her pocket as she inched away from the group.

  “Who is next? Which one is bigger, Millie or Penny?”

  “Me!” both girls said at once.

  “Hey, Dad?” Sam asked. The boy’s voice sounded funny. He was backing away from the door. With all eyes focused on Sam, Kate reached out behind herself and fumbled the key into the lock. She tried to twist it and frowned. Of course it didn’t fit. It made perfect sense. Auggie’s long shot wasn’t going to pay off.

  Meanwhile, Henry was leaning down as Sam whispered something to him. The boy’s trembling hand finally came up as he pointed towards the top of the doorframe. When Henry put an arm around Sam’s shoulders, the boy flinched and tried to slip away from his father’s arm. A shiver ran down Kate’s spine. For the moment, Auggie’s key and Uncle Tommy’s door were both forgotten. Sam needed protection—she didn’t know what he needed protection from, but it was clear that he needed someone and his father wasn’t going to fill those shoes.

  Kate took a step forward.

  Isla and Penny were whispering again. They were up to something, but that could wait.

  “Sam?” Kate asked. “What’s wrong.”

  Sam looked at her and his eyes went wide. Before she could take another step, Sam turned away from her and slipped out from his father’s grasp.

  The boy ran.

  # # # #

  “Sam!” Henry yelled. He glanced over at Penny and then looked to Kate. “Will you watch her for me?”

  “Of course,” Kate said.

  Henry barely waited for an answer. He was already chasing after his son.

  “What was that about?” Kate asked.

  Penny leaned to whisper something else to Isla.

  “Girls? Stop that! What are you whispering about?” Kate demanded.

  Isla looked up with hard eyes. When she got that look in her eyes, Isla didn’t fold in the face of authority.

  Kate turned her full stare on Penny. She buckled almost immediately.

  “It’s a joke,” Penny said. She pointed towards the top of the door jamb. “It’s a joke height.”

  Kate looked up. The date seemed wrong. It took Kate a moment to realize that it wasn’t wrong at all, she just wasn’t accustomed yet to the new year. The date was today. The name listed, clearly written by a child’s hand, was Earl.

  “Who did that? You?” Kate asked. “Who is Earl?”

  “It’s nobody,” Penny said. “It’s an imaginary person.”

  “Why did Sam run?” Kate asked.

  Penny’s eyes turned down to the floor. Isla looked Kate in the eye, but she would only shrug. She knew something, but she wasn’t going to tell.

  “Maybe Sam was afraid of him,” Millie said.

  Kate cocked her head. “Huh?”

  When Millie pointed, Kate thought that Millie was pointing at her. Isla saw it next and took a small step backwards. Isla never backed away from anything. Kate whipped around to see what the girls were focused on.

  It was Uncle Tommy’s door—at least the door that Kate had assumed belonged to Uncle Tommy’s room. The key was still in the handle, where Kate had left it when it refused to turn. Although it was possible that it had turned. Maybe Kate had been mistaken because the door was clearly unlocked now. It was unlocked and it had slipped inwards a good ten or twelve inches. It was open enough that Kate could see deep into the darkness of the room.

  Kate put her hands out behind herself, gathering the girls together.

  “What did you mean, him?” Kate whispered over her shoulder.

  “Him, Mommy,” Millie said. “Don’t you see him?”

  She didn’t—not until the shadows shifted. Until the man backed away from the light that spilled from the hallway into the room, Kate’s eyes hadn’t identified the shadow as a person.

  # # # #

  “Henry!” Kate shouted.

  He was somewhere behind her, chasing Sam down the halls. She needed him. They had to pass by the open door in order to get back downstairs and she had no intention of attempting that alone.

  “Back up, girls, we’re going to find Henry and Sam,” Kate said. Her eyes were glued to Uncle Tommy’s doorway. It hadn’t been a person—it couldn’t have been. The shape had been way too tall. It had just been a trick of the light, or a weird hallucination. Waiting in airports for flights that never came, she hadn’t gotten much sleep recently. She was simply stressed and open to suggestion. Millie’s fear had infected her.

  “Henry!”

  What she should do was stride forward, confidently, and shut the door. It was her job to be a positive role model for the girls. They should understand that they had to rely on themselves and not collapse into victimhood at the slightest perceived threat.

  There were too many unanswered questions for Kate to act on that idea. What if Kate had been mistaken, and the key really had unlocked the door? What if the shadow she had seen was a dangerous man that Uncle Tommy had, for some reason, locked away? What if he had a knife, or worse?

  “It’s Earl,” Isla whispered.

  “Shut up!” Penny said. “Don’t say his name. Never say it.”

  “Both of you be quiet and back up,” Kate said, herding the children backwards with her outstretched arms. A terrible thought occurred to her—this is always how people got jumped in movies. There was a perceived threat drawing all of their attention and then something jumped out from another door and then ran away with one of the kids. Kate shot a glance behind herself.

  Isla, Penny, and Millie were all trying to peer around Kate at the door to Uncle Tommy’s room.

  “Isla!” Kate said, “Eyes front. You’re looking in the direction we’re moving. You see anything at all, and you scream.”

  With another glance, she saw that Isla was following instructions.

  “Millie, you’re focused on anything to Isla’s right. Penny, you’re looking left. You girls see anything move, or any open doors, you shout. Got it?”

  She didn’t have to confirm. Isla, the youngest, took control. She whispered commands to Millie and Penny, making sure that they were doing the right thing. Slowly, the four of them inched down the hall. Kate kept her eyes locked on the shadow, looking for any movement at all. It would have been better to have Millie look. Millie had spotted the thing first. Her young eyes were better at picking out details from the dim light. But that would have put too much responsibility on Millie’s shoulders. She didn’t do well with that kind of pressure.


  “Left or right?” Isla whispered.

  Kate glanced. The hallway ended at an intersection. Kate felt like she was spinning. Her memory said that this hall made a jog to the right, but she didn’t have any memory at all of a T intersection. It didn’t make any sense.

  “Which way did Sam and Henry go? Did anyone see?” Kate asked.

  They had put some distance between themselves and Uncle Tommy’s door. Kate was tempted to turn and get a good look at the intersection herself. Just as the thought crossed her mind, she saw the shape of a hand near the handle to Tommy’s door. Kate squinted as she tried to make out if the key was still protruding from the lock. If she had to guess, she would have said that it wasn’t. Somehow, the shadow had stolen Auggie’s key.

  “I think they went left,” Penny said eventually.

  “Did you see, or is that a guess? It’s okay either way, just tell me,” Kate said.

  “Umm. I think I saw them go left.”

  “Okay. Isla, take a left.”

  When she heard Isla’s shuffling step move forward, Kate inched back until her arms made contact with the girls again.

  A moment later, Isla screamed.

  # # # #

  Kate had to rip her eyes from the door as she spun. Isla cut her scream short just as Kate saw why she had screamed—she was following orders. Henry was standing just around the corner, holding Sam around the shoulders. Both father and son looked petrified by Isla’s scream. Kate pulled Penny and Millie quickly around the corner after taking one more glance at Uncle Tommy’s door.

  The two adults gathered all the children protectively between them. Kate leaned in to whisper to Henry.

  “There’s someone in Tommy’s room, in the dark.”

  “It’s…” Isla started. She didn’t finish. Penny put her hand up over Isla’s mouth and Kate was glad for it. Isla wasn’t easily frightened, but Millie was. The last thing that Kate needed was for Millie to start freaking out.

  “Is there another way back downstairs that you know of?” Kate asked. “I’m turned around. The hall should have gone… Did you see stairs back there?”

  Kate wasn’t even sure she wanted to go deeper into the house. The ceremony felt off limits.

  Henry shook his head.

  “I know a way,” Sam said.

  When they looked down at him, he immediately turned away, too shy or frightened to stand behind what he had said.

  “Sam?” Henry asked.

  The boy blushed.

  “Do you really know a way down from here?” Kate tried. She realized that she was imitating the way that Deidra talked to Sam and regretted it.

  Sam only shrank back into his father.

  “The ladder?” Penny asked.

  Sam looked up at Penny. He didn’t say or word, or even nod.

  “There’s a ladder, Penny? Where is it? Like on the outside of the house?” Kate asked. The idea was silly—they weren’t dressed to go outside, and the threat wasn’t concrete enough to demand it.

  “No,” Penny said. She stammered a little as she said, “It goes down to the cellar.”

  “Okay,” Henry said, putting up a hand to relieve Millie from having to make any more tortured confessions. “Let’s reset here.”

  “You’re right,” Kate said, anticipating where Henry was going. “We’re just going to go back down the hall, back down to June’s living quarters, and wait for their little meeting to conclude.”

  “Exactly,” Henry said.

  The children clumped together naturally. Kate took the lead and Henry brought up the rear. Before she rounded the corner, Kate fixed in her imagination what she expected to see. The door would be open a few inches. She had accidentally unlocked it when she thought that the key didn’t fit and now the door had swung open a bit. It was no big deal. Whatever shadow that she thought that she had seen was just a flickering light or the artifact of her diminishing eyesight. In her top dresser drawer back at home she had an unfilled prescription for glasses. She could still legally drive without them. Maybe seeing the occasional shadowy ghost was the price she was paying for her vanity.

  Kate stopped when the hallway didn’t match what she had expected to see. None of the doors on the left were open, but one on the right was. It was a couple of doors down from the frame where they had been marking the kids’ height.

  “What?” Henry asked.

  Kate didn’t answer. She only gave a tiny shake of her head and continued slowly down the hall.

  Chapter 14 : Ceremony

  THE ROOM ERUPTED WITH shouts, grunts, and moans.

  June shrank back into her chair.

  Allison raised her voice.

  “Quiet down. Quiet down. June bug, what do you mean by that?” Allison asked as soon as the room settled.

  June had to clear her throat before she could get out the words again.

  “I am Mumma June, but I don’t want you to call me that. Call me Mumma Jay. That’s the name I claim.”

  “Come on!” Jules shouted.

  “June!” Auggie said, talking over his brother. “You can’t just come back after all these years and claim to be Mumma. There’s a process. Your chance at that has passed.”

  “Says who?” June asked. She reached forward, across the table, so she could tap on the document there that they hadn’t yet opened. “You show me in this contract where it says that there’s a time limit. I have all the qualifications and the title is mine to claim. I’m claiming it.”

  Travis didn’t appear to even be listening. His hands were back in his lap and he was staring down at them, watching his old fingers fumble over the fabric of his pants like they belonged to someone else.

  “You have no female heir,” Travis said.

  “And it doesn’t say that I have to,” June said. “Just because…”

  Auggie shouted over her and snatched the document from under her finger.

  “We are going to continue with the ceremony,” Auggie said.

  “I thought we were voting?” Jules asked.

  “It failed, five to two,” Auggie said. He flipped past the cover page on the document and ran his finger down the page to find the starting place. Normally, Allison read the text, but that was just tradition.

  Auggie read carefully aloud. “This document details the qualifications required to maintain a claim on the property and possessions hereby referred to…”

  “Stop!” June ordered. “You have no right to continue. I have claimed my title and I demand to be treated with the respect and… uh… authority…” She had clearly gotten ahead of herself—spoken beyond what she had thought out.

  Auggie rolled his eyes and turned his head upwards before he sighed.

  “You don’t even have a Jeune,” Travis said.

  June’s eyes went wide. She looked around to each of them. Her stare settled briefly on Deidra and then she turned to look at Gus, her son. His face was blank—the boy was taking all this in, but didn’t have any idea what was happening.

  “I’ll be her Jeune Vieux,” Allison said, surprising the table.

  “Huh,” Travis said. “Baby June’s Jeune. More Vieux than ever.”

  Jules slapped the table. “Can we get back to the ceremony? I don’t want to be here all night.”

  Uncle Tommy took a break from scowling in order to deliver one short sentence. “We can’t now.”

  Jules looked to Auggie.

  “He’s right,” Auggie said with another sigh.

  A slow smile began to spread on June’s face.

  “This doesn’t mean you’re Mumma,” Auggie said. “That’s a revered position that is given out of respect to the matriarch of the house.”

  “You’re not old enough,” Jules added.

  June turned to her younger brother. “I’m as old as Mumma Claire was when she took over from Mumma Peggy.”

  “And older than Mumma Peggy was when Mumma died,” Allison said.

  June pointed to her new ally.

  Auggie closed the cover she
et on the document and began to slide it towards the center of the table.

  “No!” Jules said, standing up. “Can’t we be done with all this? You can’t seriously want to keep this going.”

  “I’m trying to settle things once and for all,” June said.

  “You don’t even want to be here. Didn’t you tell Auggie that you wanted to move out? Weren’t you ready to abandon this whole thing?”

  “I was desperate, but I was never serious about that.”

  “Yuh-huh,” Gus said, contradicting her and then slapping a hand over his own mouth to contain any further outburst.

  Auggie began to stand as well.

  “I think we’re done for now. You made your choice, June, good luck living with it,” Auggie said.

  Before he finished, Uncle Tommy was up and moving through the door.

  Regret passed over Auggie’s face as he watched Tommy leave.

  “The least you could do is support me,” June said to Jules.

  “Why should we?” Deidra asked, interjecting herself into the conversation. “You promised you wouldn’t double cross me, and look what you’ve done.”

  # # # #

  June didn’t even think about the dining room, or hallway, or kitchen. She walked back towards her front room with both hands on Gus’s shoulders, making sure that he returned back to their room safely.

  “Mom, what’s happening?” Gus asked. “How come we didn’t have the ceremony?”

  “This is better, Gus, trust me,” June said.

  The others stopped at the kitchen. Their argument faded behind her as June guided Gus through the door. She walked her son over to the futon and then patted the seat next to her as she sat down.

  “I have been avoiding this for a long time, Gus, but it’s time for me to face it. Before your grandmother died, she wrote me a letter, asking me to take over the house. I was your age the first time that I read it. I barely remember Mumma Claire at all, except through stories and photographs.”