by Ike Hamill
Uncle Tommy and Great Uncle Travis were at the far length of the table, but not quite at the very end. The table seemed longer and the end seats were in darkness. Both men had the same expression as they surveyed the newcomers. It looked like disgust or anger—Gus couldn’t tell which.
Allison was the last one to come in.
The hallway had calmed down but it was still rumbling.
“Shut the door, would you?” Auggie asked her as she came through.
“No,” Allison said. “We leave it open for anyone seeking refuge. Don’t you remember?”
Uncle Auggie shook his head and looked around.
Allison went to the other end of the table—the opposite end from where Tommy and Travis sat. She pointed to Deidra and Jules and nodded. They rose and moved to opposite walls, where mirrors hung. Jules opened a drawer, pulled out two cloths and tossed one over the table to Deidra. At the same time, they shook out their cloths and covered the mirrors.
Allison, at the end of the table, reached forward and Jules slid a document towards her. This one wasn’t nearly as thick as the one they used for the normal ceremony. It was printed on light blue paper.
Allison removed the paperclip from the corner, turned the first page over and then looked up at the table full of people. Everyone fell silent and looked at her.
“I know this is new for some of you and it has been so long that others may have forgotten. I still remember, so I’ll read the document.”
Across the table, Sam whispered something to his mother. She shushed him.
Gus looked down towards Tommy’s end of the table. He wanted to steal a glance to see if Tommy was still angry. His eyes didn’t settle on Tommy though. Instead, Gus saw the other people who hadn’t been there before.
There was a young man, older than high school, but younger than any of the real adults. He had short hair that made his forehead look too big.
There was a young woman who looked a little like Allison. Her face was so white that it almost looked blue. She smiled at Gus and then pushed herself up on the arms of her chair so she could sit cross-legged in her seat.
Behind Travis, a really tall man sat against the wall, in the darkest corner of the room. Gus didn’t let his gaze linger on the tall man. He was afraid that the man might look back at him.
Allison cleared her throat and began to read.
# # # #
“In the event that there exists no matriarch for a period of more than three months, in a time of civil unrest, turmoil, or warfare. That is to say, the natural state of family affairs has been marred by a lack of…”
“Get on with it,” Auggie said.
“Shhh,” Deidra said, shooting him a look. “She has to read it all.”
“…and the name shall be granted,” Allison said. She turned to the next page.
His mother straightened up when Allison turned to her.
“June, daughter of Mumma Claire, sister of Augustus and Julian, do you seek to take the title of Mumma Jay?”
His mother nodded, swallowed, and then said, “Yes, I do.”
Allison looked back to the paper to read.
“Do you acknowledge and accept the terms of the test and the rewards and consequences which will result?”
His mother put her hand on his. Gus looked down at it. While family visited, she had taken a day or two off from work, but her cuticles were still white from bleach. Once or twice a year, she treated herself to a professional manicure. Her last one had been around Thanksgiving. She always complained about the condition of her fingers. To Gus, they looked just right.
“I’m going to do this for us,” June whispered.
“You don’t have to,” Gus whispered back, shaking his head as he spoke into her ear.
“It’s too late,” she said before turning back to Allison. “I acknowledge and accept the terms.”
“Bless you,” Allison said, “and remember that we always loved you, June.”
His mother swallowed again and pushed her chair back. When Allison read the next command, June stood up and straightened her shirt before she stood tall.
“Your first test will begin when the imp presents itself,” Allison said. She looked up from the paper.
People looked at each other. Gus scanned the room. The table seemed even longer than before, if that was even possible. Uncle Tommy was so far down that Gus couldn’t tell who was sitting next to him. The table seemed to curve a little too. When Isla leaned forward, she blocked Gus’s view of Uncle Tommy. Gus looked back the other direction. Allison was squinting down at the far end.
“Does anyone remember what happens next? I’m afraid that I was a little preoccupied last time. I don’t remember. Is there an actual imp?”
At the sound of some animal noise—a snort or something—Gus whipped his head back to the left. Beyond the end of the table, in a dark corner of the room, something clomped on the floor. It sounded like a hoof. Then, from that end, Great Uncle Travis began to cackle and cough. They heard him spit and then start to cackle again.
The shape of a man strode from the shadow.
Gus heard his mom take in a sharp breath.
“Oh, my fuck,” Aunt Allison whispered. Gus looked back in time to see her collapse into her chair.
Gus heard his Uncle Auggie whisper to Aunt Kate, “That’s Andrew.”
The rumor spread around the table like a breath of wind.
Gus jumped when his mother put her hand on his shoulder. He looked up at her as she swayed. Her eyes were locked on the newcomer.
The man turned to June, across the table, and raised a finger to point at her as he spoke. “Our family has a shared history with poison. That poison has been turned inwards. Your first test is to find that poison and neutralize it.”
Before anyone could ask any questions or say anything at all, the man turned and strode back towards the darkness. He disappeared as Great Uncle Travis began to laugh once more. Gus heard the clomping hooves again from the dark.
His mother turned to Aunt Allison.
“I need more information. Is that all I get?” June asked.
Allison was looking up at the ceiling, silently crying as she covered her mouth with her hand. She didn’t even hear June’s question.
“What did he say?” June asked. “I don’t even remember what he said.”
“Poison,” Gus whispered.
His Uncle Jules leaned forward. “You have to find the poison, June. It must be in the house somewhere.”
“From the fox?” June asked.
Auggie cleared his throat. “It can’t be the fox poison. Tommy baited meat with regular old rat poison, I think.”
“Then what? Didn’t GUT say that foxbane was poison?” June asked.
“He made that shit up,” Jules said.
Kate tapped the table to get their attention. “Didn’t you say that Trudy was poisoned?”
June looked at her brothers.
From the far end of the room, a small voice said, “Yes.”
Gus looked for the source of the voice. He noticed that his mother either hadn’t heard it or she was ignoring it.
“Dean’s room?” Auggie asked.
June shook her head. “I’ll never find it.” She looked to the open door to the hall and hugged herself. Gus’s shoulder felt cool where her hand had been. He wished that she would put it back, but her hands belonged to herself now.
Gus was startled when Isla spoke. “Dean’s room is a coupla doors down from where we mark our heights,” Isla said.
“If she’s right,” Kate said, “it’s near Uncle Tommy’s door.”
Isla nodded vigorously.
June looked down at them. She took a breath and puffed out her cheeks with her exhale. She looked down at Gus.
“I’ll be right back.”
He nodded.
# # # #
As his mother left the room, Gus felt an ache in his chest. He watched her turn one way and then the other before she strode down the hall.
Auggie leaned across the table to his brother.
“Thank you for coming down for me,” Auggie said.
Jules tore his attention from the shadows at the end of the room. “How’s that?”
“Someone had a grip on my ankle. Thank you for saving me.”
Jules shook his head. “I didn’t save you. When the house started shaking, I ran.”
Auggie pushed back.
Henry watched their exchange and then addressed Kate. “I didn’t really understand what you were saying earlier, but I saw that tall man that you were talking about. I get it.”
Kate nodded to Henry. She put her arm around Isla and kissed the top of her head. Millie slid her chair closer to the two of them.
“How you holding up, little man?” Auggie asked Gus.
“Okay,” Gus said. “How come you’re not trying to help Mom? It’s not allowed?”
“No,” Auggie said, agreeing, “it’s not allowed. She’ll be okay. Your mom is strong, right? She knows what she’s doing.”
Kate whispered something to Auggie. Gus couldn’t hear what she said, but he understood the tone. She was annoyed with him. Auggie took it the same way he took everything—he replied with calm confidence that only made Aunt Kate sound even more annoyed.
Deidra saw the exchange from across the table and leaned forward.
“I know our family seems strange from the outside, Kate, but you have to remember, this is how we grew up. It’s all pretty much regular to us.”
“That’s regular?” Kate asked, pointing towards the far end of the room. “This damn room has grown three sizes since we came in, and I don’t even recognize half of those people. How is that regular?”
“This place is just weird,” Jules said, shrugging. “The only thing you can expect is the unexpected.”
“It will be over soon,” Auggie said. “We’re not in danger.”
Kate lowered her voice to a hiss, but Gus could still hear her. “Our daughter was attacked by a rabid fox, Auggie. Does that not seem at all dangerous to you?”
“It’s allegorical,” Auggie said. “I shouldn’t have told that story, I guess.”
“You guess,” Kate said.
At the far end of the table, Travis began to laugh again.
Chapter 28 : June
JUNE PAUSED WHEN SHE got to the hall. She waited to see if the world would start shaking again. To call them all to the second ceremony, it seemed like the whole house would tear itself apart. Now, everything was back to normal.
She looked one direction and the other. She knew which direction she had to go. There was only one dependable way up to the second floor, and it was through her living quarters.
June made her feet move in the correct direction. Even if she had no idea what to do, at least she could head the right way. One step was clear, even if the next step was completely unknown.
The kitchen was quiet except for the buzz of the light over the little table. Someone had left playing cards in little piles, arranged in a circle. On the wall next to the door, a calendar towel was hanging from a wooden dowel. June studied it as she passed. The calendar was from 2000. If she remembered correctly, Josie had hung it there, replacing the last one that Mumma Claire had put up in 1988.
On that calendar, just above a picture of a chickadee, December 31st was a Sunday. June paused before she pushed through the door. Even though the year was wrong, she was pretty sure that the day of the week was correct.
She exited the kitchen to the hall.
When Gus had woken her up, she had been drowning in the futon. Technically, that was probably the wrong word, but that’s what it had felt like. The futon was pulling her down and filling her up. It had felt the same as when she had been a little girl and had accidentally strayed too far towards the deep end of the pool. There had been nothing to grab, no way to get her head above the surface.
The futon had only released her when Gus had started pulling and the house began to shake. She owed her life to her son, again.
In the hall, where she passed through now, Kate had been rescuing her children from the room where they claimed that a fox was attacking them. After Auggie’s story, it was no wonder.
June pushed through the door to her own room, almost afraid to look at it. The futon had made her scared of the one place in the house that was her own. It was the sanctuary for her and Gus in the madness of the building. It was almost like she was afraid that she would be afraid. What would she do if her one safe place had been violated by the insanity?
When she allowed herself to take in the room, she didn’t find any answer to her question. This wasn’t the place that she and Gus lived. This was the living room as it had looked back when she was a teenager. This was the way that the living room had looked in…
“Two-thousand,” she whispered.
Josie had come to live with them briefly at the end of ninety-nine. She was one of the weirdos who had been convinced that society would crumble with the Y2K bug that supposedly infected all of the computer systems. When the world failed to end, Josie hadn’t stuck around much longer. In fact, June couldn’t even remember seeing Josie again since that winter.
Of course, they had all been busy that year. Later that year was when Trudy had died.
“Poisoned,” June said to herself. It all made sense. Auggie was right—she had to find where Dean had hidden the poison.
June navigated around the furniture that was arranged all wrong. She left the old version of the living room behind and climbed the stairs.
# # # #
She found more clues along the way. There was the oriental runner down the middle of the hall. Auggie had gotten rid of that after his dog had thrown up on it. The vomit came out, but the stain left by his cleaner had left a huge mark.
There were also the family photos on the wall. Allison had taken them to her new place at some point, but in this version of the house, they were still hanging down the hall. June glanced at those hollow eyes of people who were long dead. She wondered why anyone would want to have those photos in their house.
June reached the end of the hall in the old part of the house and stood on the top of the step that led down to the wing. Even as a kid, she had never understood this part of the house. The air felt different in the wing. It was always a little cooler and it probed at her, like poking fingers as she contemplated the doors on either side of the wing hall.
It took her a second, but she finally spotted the horizontal lines and the inscriptions on one of the doors. That was the one where kids had marked their height for generations. June took a step as she counted back from that door. The one she was looking for was supposed to be two doors down from the door where the heights were marked.
June pointed her finger at the door she suspected and then looked across the hall. The door across from it had a lock—that would be Uncle Tommy’s room.
Assuming the information from Kate and Isla was correct, she was in the right place.
June paused with her hand halfway to the knob. This wasn’t right.
“It’s a test,” she whispered. “What’s the point of the test?”
She was trying to claim the title of Mumma Jay, and with that title came responsibility. It would be her duty to make decisions for the house. For centuries, the family had relied on a Mumma to take charge. It was the only way to cut through the democratic chaos and have a firm leader in troubling times.
These were, undoubtably, the most troubled of times for their family. She and Gus were the only ones who really lived in the house anymore. The rest of the family had scattered and only came together to represent their stake in the inheritance. People barely communicated. It was no longer a group effort of their family against the rest of the world. They barely even gave a shit about each other.
Some of that trouble dated back to Dean and his poison. Once questioned by the police, he had confessed. Before that, when some people had accused him and others had defended Dean, rifts formed.
Jules, for example, had always liked Dean more than Auggie had. From June’s perspective, it was easy to see why. Auggie had treated Jules like a kid brother. With five years between them, and no parents around to force civility, Auggie had been dismissive, demanding, and sometimes mean to Jules. There were times too when Auggie was generous, supportive, and nice, but it was the other times that Dean exploited. He waited until he saw a fight brewing between Jules and Auggie and then he stepped in to offer Jules a ride to town, or to treat him to a movie. Dean was always there to be Jules’s best friend when Auggie tried to impose some discipline.
When he was in the eighth grade, Jules had wanted to buy a motorcycle from his friend, Kenny. It didn’t run. Jules was convinced that if he simply cleaned it up and changed the spark plug, the bike would be perfect. Auggie knew Kenny, and he had talked to Kenny’s brother about the bike. It had a hole in the engine block that, “You could stick your little finger into.”
Trying to be the voice of reason, Auggie had forbidden Jules from clearing out his savings account and buying the motorcycle. The next morning, Dean had driven Jules to the bank.
That wasn’t even the worst of Dean’s meddling. When Jules had returned home with the motorcycle and found the crack in the engine block, Dean had started saying that Auggie was to blame. He alleged that Auggie had gone over to Kenny’s house and cracked the block himself. His only evidence had been that there was no pinky-size hole.
Nobody benefitted from the purchase other than Dean. Jules lost his savings, the brothers had a fight, and even Kenny had lost the money when his father had found out about the sale. The motorcycle ended up turning to rust out behind the old manure shed.
Eventually, Trudy was the one who brokered a peace between Auggie and Jules. She didn’t assign any blame, but still convinced them that they weren’t mad at each other. Auggie had to learn to let Jules make his own mistakes. Jules had to realize that Auggie wasn’t trying to sabotage him.