Mumma's House

by Ike Hamill

  Deidra took a moment to collect herself. Still, when she started again, her voice was tremulous.

  “Because the tracking system was damaged, they had to rely on the wrist bands. Of course, those were cut off during the efforts to resuscitate.”

  Deidra looked down at her hands, unable to continue.

  Henry put an arm around her and then looked up at Jules and Auggie.

  “It all came down to physical description, unfortunately. With all the chaos, they needed to match up the parents with the deceased. It was a real cluster. We knew Sam, of course. There was no doubt for us. The other woman was hysterical, as you can imagine. Her partner tried to console her and convince her that there was no mistake, but she was pretty out of it as well.”

  Auggie took a moment to put the words in order before he asked his question.

  “Did the hospital ever go back and do a thorough test?”

  Henry narrowed his eyes. “How do you mean?”

  “I would think that they would want to prove the identity to the other couple with maybe a DNA test or something.”

  “They had no legal claim to Sam’s DNA and we weren’t going to have our child tested unnecessarily,” Henry said.

  “Yes. Of course,” Auggie said, putting up his hands to beg forgiveness. “Sorry.”

  Under the table, Jules tapped his foot against Auggie’s leg.

  Chapter 36 : June

  SAM ALLOWED JUNE TO take her hand and lead her back through the hall towards the kitchen. As soon as she started to cross the room, he pulled on her hand, shaking his head.

  “I won’t go back to the dining room,” Sam said. “That’s where he was.”

  “Trust me,” June said, looking into his eyes. He continued to resist until she opened the door to the laundry room. Only then did he come along. She shut the door behind them and moved him out of the way. The wall across from the dryer had built-in cabinets where things like cleaning supplies and dusty dryer sheets were arrayed on the shelves.

  June poked her finger through a hole in the side. Another cabinet door opened. This one had looked like part of the frame until it swung out.

  June removed a drying rack and handed it to Sam.

  “Put that over there,” she pointed.

  She took out another drying rack and then a metal ironing board that was missing its cover.

  “When Dean and Andrew remodeled this room, it failed inspection,” June said to Sam. “It was because it had this space that connects the floors. Instead of ripping out the cabinets to reframe, they hid the space behind that secret door. Later, Aunt Allison used the space to stash the ironing board and such.”

  Sam wrestled the ironing board over to the wall with the racks. When he grabbed it by the legs, it groaned and tried to unfold.

  “See?” June asked, pointing into the dark space where the things had been stored.

  Sam shook his head.

  “You’re going to have to go first so I can boost you.”

  Sam shook his head even harder.

  “Okay, then you’re going to have to wait until I get up there so I can pull you up. Be careful on this side. There are some exposed nails.”

  June turned sideways and slipped through the cabinet door. It took her several tries to lift her foot high enough to find the cross brace. When she was a kid, she could have scampered up to the linen closet in two seconds. Now, she could barely see well enough to figure out where to grab.

  Sam kept looking at her from the laundry room. He wasn’t getting any closer to the secret cabinet than he had to. When he disappeared for a moment, June’s heart nearly stopped. She thought he was going to run. Her faith returned when she saw him moving the ironing board. He was only propping it against the door to the kitchen, so nobody could follow them.

  June’s hand found the dusty ledge in the dark. When she pulled herself up another few inches, she was able to poke the door open. The light that filtered under the linen closet door was enough to give her something to reach for.

  “You ready?” she whispered to Sam.

  He came closer, finally poking his head into the secret cabinet.

  “Yeah?” he asked.

  “Good. Give me one second.”

  He watched her foot ascend as she pulled and pushed and squirmed. Once she was sitting on the ledge at the back of the linen closet, she reached down a hand.

  “You’ll have to climb high enough to get my hand,” she said.

  Sam needed no further encouragement. He was up in an instant, with his butt on the ledge next to her before she could even offer him help again.

  “You’re good at this,” she said.

  “Where are we?”

  “This is the back of the linen closet in the second floor hall.”

  “Is it near Uncle Tommy’s room?” Sam asked. His fear was obvious.

  “No,” she said. “Different hall.”

  “But…”

  “It’s hard to explain.”

  # # # #

  June opened the door to the hall and then pushed up the lower shelf so they could fit through. A stack of yellowed sheets tumbled down and she shoved them aside.

  Sam poked his head through first, assessing the hall. More than likely, he was verifying that she had been telling the truth. This was not the hall where Uncle Tommy’s door was located. June didn’t have to ask why Sam didn’t want to be in that hall. All the kids understood that there was something wrong with that hall. It didn’t feel right.

  June slipped by him and then put out her hand. He took it and got to his feet. While she shut the door, he brushed cobwebs from his pants.

  June pointed and put a finger to her lips.

  They walked together down the hall, towards the end. June felt expectation building in her chest. It was down to this—did Trudy want them to find her nook? They had been best friends, but there were sometimes when Trudy hadn’t wanted her to find the place. Unless she allowed it, June would never be able to locate the door.

  She stopped in front of a door. It had to be the right one. It had the crack in the glass handle and the scratch near the bottom. Reaching for the knob, she hesitated. Just in case it wasn’t the right door, she wanted to turn to Sam and explain that they could hide anywhere.

  But that was a lie and he would know it.

  “I don’t know if this is going to work,” June said. “But if it does, this is the perfect place to hide.”

  “Hurry,” Sam said. His attention darted back to the other end of the hall.

  There was urgency building down there. Something could find them at any moment, and if it saw which door they went through, how could they hide?

  June felt the need to continue. “We’re hoping that this door leads to a half-staircase that will take us to Trudy’s nook. If it doesn’t, we’ll have to come up with another plan.”

  Sam nodded impatiently.

  June opened the door.

  There was darkness on the other side—darkness and no stairs.

  # # # #

  “I’m sorry,” she said, turning to Sam.

  “Why?” he asked.

  She looked to where he was pointing and saw stairs, descending into the darkness. Before it could change back, June reached in, around the door, and flipped on the lights.

  “This is it!” she said. She stepped down the stairs and pulled him along, shutting the door behind them.

  June rushed down to the landing, waved for Sam, and then escorted him down to the lower door. She could already see the flickering, soft light coming under the gap of the door. She could hear the low hum and quiet static.

  Her chest felt full as she pushed open the lower door and saw the cozy space for the first time in more than a decade. Leaving Sam behind, June said, “Oh!” and sank to her knees in front of the little couch. Trudy’s slippers were there on the floor. June picked one up and held it to her chest.

  “What is this place?” Sam asked, clicking the door shut behind them.

  June turned
and smiled at him. “This place is the soul of Mumma’s house.”

  While June arranged the slippers on the floor, Sam went to look at the TV. He held his hand over the back, feeling the warmth that rolled up through vent. He leaned over to look at the orange glow of the electronics back there.

  “Don’t change it,” June said, when his hand hovered near the knobs on the front.

  Sam pulled his hand back.

  “Your Uncle Auggie used to fit between the couch and the wall here, so he could watch through the window. Jules used to sometimes make a blanket fort against that wall,” she said.

  Sam moved to the couch and took a seat on the edge of the cushion. He was looking up at the sloped ceiling.

  “That was my spot,” June said. “It’s okay, you can sit there.” She sat cross-legged next to the TV and put her hand against the warm side. After a moment, she shifted her weight and pulled out the cord that she was sitting on. She traced it back until she found the end that should have been plugged into an outlet. When she held it up so Sam could see, she laughed.

  “This place is safe?” he asked.

  June nodded. “The safest place anywhere. As long as you’re here, nothing can hurt you.”

  Chapter 37 : Gus

  GUS KEPT HIS EYES forward as his uncles put their heads together for a quiet conversation. He didn’t want them to know that he could hear them. Across the table, Henry and Deidra were focused on Penny. They didn’t seem to be aware that Sam was the topic of conversation between Auggie and Jules.

  “Waiting is the worst,” Jules said. “Where do you think she is?”

  “If she found Sam, then I would guess that she would take him to Trudy’s nook.”

  “How would she find it?”

  “June would find it. Shit, Kate found it twice.”

  “Yeah, I guess. I wish there was a way that we could remind her about Sam’s questionable lineage,” Jules said.

  Neither of them said anything for a bit.

  They both seemed to have an idea at the same time.

  “What about the…” Jules started.

  “It could work, if she’s there,” Auggie answered before Jules could finish.

  “We have to try,” Jules said.

  Gus ventured a look. Auggie was shaking his head.

  “They won’t let us,” Auggie said, motioning to Deidra and Henry with a tilt of his head.

  Gus looked away when Auggie looked at him.

  “He could do it,” Auggie whispered in Gus’s direction.

  Jules looked at him too. They needed something from him, Gus could tell. Normally, he liked to be helpful. There was something heavy in Auggie’s expression that made Gus hesitate—he didn’t want to hear what they were going to ask.

  Jules squeaked his chair over and drew the eyes of Henry and Deidra for a moment. Jules put his hand on Gus’s shoulder and said, “How are you doing, Gus?”

  The parents turned the attention back to their daughter.

  Jules leaned in.

  “We need you to do something to help out your mom, okay?”

  “What?” Gus asked.

  “We talked it over, Auggie and I, and we figured out that the test that your mom is doing is somewhat of a trick.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. They sent her after Sam, right? Does it make you wonder why they picked Sam?”

  “Because he’s afraid of Earl?”

  “Well, yeah, but why did they pick Earl?”

  “Because he’s scary?”

  “There are lots of scary things. Listen, we think that they picked Sam because he might not be a blood relative. Actually, we’re sure he’s not a blood relative. Your mom probably knows that too, but she might not be thinking about it.”

  “So?”

  “So, with these tests, sometimes they’re about testing whether the person is going to choose family over strangers. You remember that story that Aunt Allison told a little bit ago?”

  “Sam is family.”

  “I know. You’re right. Maybe I didn’t say that exactly right. June might be forced to make a decision, and that decision might be colored by whether or not she really remembers about Sam, okay? Sure, he’s family, but there might be a subtle difference to her decision, you know?”

  Gus shook his head. He wasn’t sure what Jules wanted him to do.

  Jules looked at him for a moment and then patted his shoulder again. He leaned in close.

  “There’s a vent over behind Aunt Allison. It’s pretty much hidden behind that cabinet. Cousin Trudy used to listen from her nook when people would talk down here. On New Year’s Day, she always knew what people had talked about in here. Your mom might be able to hear someone if they talked right into that vent.”

  Gus leaned sideways in his chair, trying to get a look at the cabinet that Jules was talking about.

  “Don’t look right now,” Jules whispered fast. “In a moment, you get up and walk around. Pretend like you’re playing or stretching your legs or something. Then, when nobody is paying attention, go over to that vent and whisper to your mom. Tell her to remember Sam in the hospital. Tell her to remember the fire.”

  Gus barely heard what his uncle was saying. He had sat back into his chair, but his eyes were still searching for the vent. Jules was crazy if he thought that Gus would go near the thing.

  “What do you think? Can you do that for your mom?”

  His mom had blocked up the only vent in their room. To properly protect them, she had waited until a bright, sunny day and she had taken off the cast-iron vent cover and then screwed a wooden plank into the thing before plastering it over. On top of that, the two of them had found a sheet of metal just the right size to cover over the new plaster completely. Once they screwed that in place, they had put more plaster and then painted the bulging area the same color as the rest of the wall. It blended in okay. To hide it even more, his mother had shoved the big dresser in front of it.

  Gus hadn’t thought about it in years.

  “Gus? What do you think?”

  Gus shook his head, aware that his lower lip was flopping around as he did.

  “What’s wrong?”

  # # # #

  Auggie left his chair and came over to squat behind Jules and Gus.

  “Hey, buddy, what’s wrong?” Auggie asked.

  “I won’t do it,” Gus whispered. “I didn’t even know there was a vent in here. I won’t go near it.”

  “Um, okay,” Auggie said. He looked to Jules, who shrugged back. “What’s wrong with the vent?”

  Gus leaned even closer. He didn’t want to say the words out loud, but there was no other way. His eyes darted back to the cabinet one more time. From where he was sitting, he couldn’t see the vent that Jules was talking about. There couldn’t be very much space between the wall and cabinet, but maybe the baby didn’t need much space.

  “The baby lives in there,” Gus whispered.

  Auggie kept hard eyes on Gus.

  “What baby?”

  Gus shook his head, refusing to answer.

  Auggie licked his lips, stealing a glance around the room before he spoke again.

  “Gus, those vents used to let heat move from room to room in this old house before there were radiators everywhere. Once they ran the pipes, ninety-nine percent of the vents were blocked up. The old shafts don’t lead anywhere anymore. The one in this room connects up to Trudy’s nook and probably nowhere else. Nothing is moving around in there, because they don’t really go anywhere, understand?”

  Gus shook his head. He swallowed hard and his dry throat clicked.

  “We had a vent in our room,” he whispered to his uncles. “But the baby was watching us from behind there. It waited until we weren’t paying attention and then it would come out and try to steal things.”

  Gus didn’t want to tell the rest of what had happened.

  His uncles persisted.

  “It’s okay, Gus, I promise,” Auggie said. “Regardless of what happened befo
re, I can promise you that there’s no baby in the wall. There really can’t be, if you think about it. How would it get around? What would it eat?”

  The last question brought back the memory that Gus had tried so hard to forget.

  # # # #

  The first time that Gus had seen the baby, he hadn’t been able to say a word. He was trying to finish up the last page in his workbook while his mother bustled around in their kitchen area. She had promised to bring in cupcakes for the class in the morning and this was the second batch. The first batch had looked fine to him, but she wasn’t satisfied.

  “I know you like the peanut butter frosting, but I really don’t think it’s a good idea,” his mother said. Her back was to him, but she looked over her shoulder to see if he was goofing off instead of working.

  He wasn’t doing either.

  The movement had caught his eye. Just to the left of the bathroom door, there was a cast iron grate in the wall. The lever on the side was for tilting the fins closed, and the lever was always down. His mother said that leaving it open let in a wicked draft. For some reason, at the moment, the lever was up and Gus could see beyond the scrollwork and the metal slats. Something white had flashed by.

  “Eyes back on your work, mister,” his mother said.

  Gus obeyed, pulling his gaze from the grate and back to his workbook.

  His mother went back to mixing the icing.

  “I know that none of your schoolmates are allergic this year, but you never know. I’m not going to be the one who sends in peanut butter and then they find out that one of the kids has developed an allergy.”

  There was no movement this time, but Gus couldn’t help himself. His eyes went back to the grate, where the lever was up. It was black behind there, but only for a moment. Something white moved into view. As Gus watched, he realized that it was the rounded shape of a tiny head. He could tell because he saw the two dark eye sockets and the twinkle of sparkling eyes. While he watched, the thing’s tiny fingers wormed between the scrolled metal of the vent. The fingernails were long and sharpened to points. They touched when the baby curled its tiny fingers through the grate.