Mystery of Drear House

by Virginia Hamilton

  His own cave where he lived. Why the cave, why live that way? the townsfolk asked, oh, years ago. And why not? he had replied. It was the old way, the way of fugitives, escaped from bondage.

  Now the cave was as secure from weather as he and nature could make it. From within, the sound of the night’s blizzard that had awakened Thomas was faint. No hint of any change to the falling, silent snow. Two great, thick wood plank doors secured the cave opening. A heavy bar locked it from inside.

  There was a tunnelway that led from his cave to another chamber to an underground stable he had made into stalls. There his horses ate and slept in foul weather. In the cave proper there was a fire banked for the night in the fireplace. No red embers showed, but the gray-black coals still held heat. The heat took away what chill moisture crept in from outside.

  Pluto lay on his bed asleep. He was a thin elderly man, straight and long, but somehow fragile beneath old Indian blankets. His eyes moved under their lids, and then they opened in a dream delirium. His arms lifted, pointing in front of him to the foot of the bed. Someone was there. He saw the abolitionist standing there. Drear’s beard was as long and as white as Pluto’s.

  Dies Drear of the great eastern family of money. He had saved poor fugitives from certain recapture. He loved freedom. To Drear those who practiced slavery were heathens, doomed for eternity.

  And dreaming, Pluto waved his arms and made his point. He murmured, talking nonsense. He and Drear were arguing.

  “I’m taking the treasure,” Drear was saying.

  “You can’t take it, it’s not yours to take!” Pluto shouted.

  “It is mine, I brought it here. I saved it. I have someone to give it to.”

  “Who!” cried Pluto. He felt as if there were a fire within him. “Who are you giving it to? It belongs to slaves! You can’t take my forge.” He meant the treasure. He was dreaming of his forge, where he heated, hammered, and shaped iron, but it was the wealth of the cavern he had meant to say.

  “I can and I will take it,” Drear said. “But I forgot where I put it. Tell me where I put it, Mr. Pluto.”

  Pluto felt such fear and anguish. He squirmed, suddenly sick of the dream turned to nightmare. He tried to wake himself. He sat up, blinking, feeling as if his shoulders were bars of ice.

  The figure at the foot of the bed was a solid form. Pluto couldn’t be sure who or what it was.

  He fell back. The dark at the foot of his bed hadn’t moved. Pluto stared at it, panting. He felt chills shaking his body. A thin layer of sleep was ground fog on his brain. Slowly he sat up again. “Who?” he murmured. It hurt him to sit up and lie down so much. Hurt his back.

  “It’s Drear,” the dark form said. “I misplaced it. Where did I put that treasure?”

  Suspicion was like something Pluto could wrap around him. Like the great black cloak he wore to protect himself from old age. Somewhere deep down he knew he must avoid even dreaming anything that might give away the wealth that was hidden.

  “I quit this dream,” Pluto said out loud, dreaming. “Quit it!”

  The form wouldn’t go away. Its voice had reminded Pluto of someone, someplace. He had no idea what Drear’s voice would be like. But dreaming, he knew that this voice was too ordinary to be the great man’s.

  “Huh? Wha—Huh?” Pluto said, rising out of bed.

  The specter came around the bed, heading for the passage from the room on the side. It was almost there, but so was Pluto. Pluto leaped for it before he knew what he saw might be real. In dreams he did such things. In dreams he was always youthful and strong.

  He and the form struggled. Is this real? It can’t be Dies Drear! It was not as long and as tall as Pluto. What it wore was dark and soft, cool as night rain. It had more than enough strength to subdue two old men. Whirling, breaking away, it knocked Pluto to the cane floor. Pluto grabbed its foot. Barefoot? No, slippery, rubbered foot, wet with icy cold. This can’t be a dream! It kicked out, caught Pluto under the chin. A perfect clip it gave old Pluto. Stunned, he thought he heard the thing sigh with despair at what it had done. He passed out.

  Then it was dawn and gray cave light. Impossible to tell how the morning got into the cave. Pluto found himself on the floor. How’d I get here? he wondered. “Must’ve fallen out of bed,” he said out loud. “Cold.” His throat was sore and raspy. “Dreams.” He knew he had dreamed. Drear had been in his dreaming. For the thought of the old abolitionist was still with him. What was it about this time? He could not clearly remember. What more else could it be about?

  “Been dreamin’ all night,” he murmured. “I’m tired. Thought I got rid of all such dreams.” Carefully he moved his legs and arms and moaned, got back into bed. He moved his jaw around, but it seemed to be in one piece. How did it get to be sore?

  A cold shiver of fear climbed his back. He shook it off, shrugged it away. He would not allow himself even to think that anyone could invade his cave.

  “I’m too old and tired.” He sighed inwardly. Later he must take a tonic, get rid of a raspiness. He couldn’t bring himself to get up yet, fix the fire, make his coffee. He was soon asleep again.

  For a while he slept heavily. But then his throat seemed to thicken inside. It hurt him in his sleep, and he couldn’t swallow well. All moisture appeared to leave his skin. A slight fever rose. So, again, did his dreaming.

  7

  THOMAS’S EYES SPRANG OPEN. He was lying on his back as straight as a board. His room was bright with morning. Saturday. He got up and hurried to get dressed in his weekend outfit of corduroys, sweater, jacket, and hiking boots. No telling what he and Pesty would do today, but he had a good idea. That is, if she came over today. She ran off from me, day before yesterday, he thought. She had to know Macky was there in the woods, and she didn’t tell me.

  Still, he expected her today.

  By seven-thirty Thomas was downstairs. His mother was up and about; he had heard her in the parlor and in the dining room. Now, she was in the kitchen. Much earlier he’d heard her leave and a car going down the drive.

  Must’ve been Papa going. Mama driving him to work.

  His papa had only two classes to teach on Saturdays. After that he would have time for lunch at home; his mama would pick him up in the car.

  When he looked out the front door, Thomas saw Pesty just stepping up onto the veranda. He poked his head out, whispering, “Shhhh. Be a minute,” and closed the door again.

  Pesty stood there with her hands pressed against her mouth. Her alert eyes watched the closed front door. Thomas pulled on his gloves and went quietly out. He walked around her and down the steps. “Wait!” she said.

  “Shhhh!”

  She caught up with him. “Didn’t your grandmom come visit?”

  “I told you, she’s not—she’s my great-grandmother Rhetty Laleete Jeffers, and she’s here. And this is where she’ll live with us forever, too,” Thomas said.

  “When can I meet her?” Pesty asked.

  “Not yet, she’s not even up,” Thomas said. He was heading toward the shed where the twins had played and painted. They went around behind where they were hidden from view. They leaned against the side. Pesty peered anxiously at Thomas.

  “It snowed,” he said by way of greeting.

  “It blizzard, too,” she said. “I heard it.” She smiled brightly at him. But Thomas didn’t feel much like smiling back. She could tell then that he was not happy with her.

  “Escort service!” she said suddenly, mischief in her eyes.

  “Shhh!” he said. “Girl, what’s on your mind!”

  She covered her mouth again a moment. She’d forgotten that the house was still half asleep. “I mean, I’ll escort your great-grandmother to Mr. Pluto’s.”

  “You mean, we,” he said, but changed his mind. “Don’t you think someone who lives hereabout should come to meet the new neighbor first?” Thomas didn’t wait for an answer. “We’ll go over and get him and bring him back here to meet Great-grandmother Jeffers,” he said.
“That’s what we’ll do. That’s proper.”

  At once he set off, going around the hillside toward old Pluto’s. Pesty followed, upset that she hadn’t known what was proper. They would be the escort service for Mr. Pluto.

  Snow packed beneath their feet. She had an idea of her own. “Mr. Thomas! You-all can come over to my house, too. Your grandmama can meet my mama!”

  The idea stunned Thomas for a moment before he said, “Pesty, please don’t call me mister.” Maybe it would be all right to visit Mrs. Darrow.

  “See, it’s okay for my great-grandmother to come visit your mother,” Thomas said. “See, because she, your mother, is—is an invalid.”

  Pesty looked down at her hands.

  “Why didn’t you ever tell me that?’” Thomas said. He stopped to face Pesty. “You let Macky tell me when it’s you and me together every Saturday, and then some. Macky says that your mother won’t get up out of bed for months at a time.”

  Thomas left off when he saw how uncomfortable talk of her mother made Pesty. She had turned sadly away, and somewhat guiltily, too, it seemed to him.

  “You could’ve told me your brother was out there the other day,” he said, changing the subject. “You didn’t have to run off like that.”

  Pesty clutched one hand in another and seemed about to cry.

  They were friends, and he was quick to soothe her. “Do you feel okay? Did you have some breakfast?” he asked her.

  She nodded. She was missing buttons from her coat, he noticed. She had no hat on, and her neck was bare. “Pesty, where are your mittens?”

  “Somewhere, I don’t know.”

  “Well. Here, take mine.”

  “No!” she said. “I don’t care nothing about it. I’ll put my hands in my pockets.”

  “Oh, girl! Well, come on then!” He sprang ahead of her to lead.

  Cutting across the hill and around was not difficult. Most of the snow had been swept away by the blizzard. Snowdrifts were like white ocean waves among a stand of shade trees just above them. The white waves bulged, about to break over them.

  “Look at them over there!” he said over his shoulder again.

  “The drifts look deep,” she answered.

  “Maybe later we’ll jump in them,” he told her.

  “They’ll be over my head,” she said.

  “You won’t drown,” he told her.

  “But how do you breathe under the snow?”

  “There’s air, you’ll see,” he said.

  “You’ll have ta go first,” she said.

  “Of course, I will,” Thomas answered.

  There was a clearing just before Mr. Pluto’s cave. They never cut across the clearing. Thomas felt like a target when he was in the midst of it. He skirted the clearing to come upon the cave at the side.

  The heavy doors of the cave entrance were closed tight. Gently Pesty knocked. There was no answer, so she knocked a little louder. Still no response. She placed the flat of her hand on each door. She pushed and pushed again. But the doors did not spring open as they usually did.

  “He must got them barred from inside,” Pesty said.

  “Darn! I’d better call to him,” Thomas said.

  “Unh-unh, don’t call him,” Pesty said. “He must be sleeping; only it’s too late for that.” She looked puzzled.

  “He might be in the great you-know of the you-know-what.”

  The way Thomas avoided saying the secret made her smile. “He always will wait for me,” she said.

  Thomas had an anxious moment at the same time Pesty did. They stared at each other. “He ain’t ready to die,” she said finally.

  “What do you mean by ‘ready’?” he said, astonished.

  “They know things like that—old folks,” she said.

  That could be true, he thought, but he said no more about it. “We have to get in there, see if he’s all right. Maybe I’d better go home, call my papa,” Thomas said. “Papa could break in the doors.”

  “Nobody’s gone break them old doors, not unless they got an ax,” she said.

  “Well, there’s an ax at the house. Papa got it not long ago,” Thomas said.

  “Don’t need an ax,” she said, walking away from him.

  “Hey!” Thomas watched her go a second before he followed. “Where are you going to, Pesty? You intend to disappear the way you did the other day?”

  Pesty lowered her head, looking ashamed. Then she went on around to the right, away from the cave doors.

  The ground angled down in front where the doors were, for here was a fault to the land. Long ago the ground had faulted on the outside top of the cave, above the doors. That was the reason anyone coming up to the cave doors stood before them on lower ground.

  On the right and to the rear fault the top of the cave slanted down, like a thatch-covered roof. Pesty stood there at the downward slant. She reached for a clump of frozen thatch and held it tightly in both hands.

  “Pesty, what do you think you are doing?” Thomas asked, coming up to her.

  “Pulling,” she said. She looked all around; then she gave the thatch a hard yank. A chunk of it came off like the lid to a barrel. Not only did the thatch come off, but a jagged, crooked circle of ground came with it.

  Thomas gaped. For there was a black hole in the slanted ground. Pesty quickly climbed up toward the hole.

  “Pesty!”

  “Shut up, Mr. Thomas,” Pesty said. “You want somebody …” But the rest of her warning was lost as she slithered into the black opening.

  8

  OH MAN! ANOTHER TUNNEL? A secret way into Pluto’s cave, Thomas thought. I never knew! Papa never knew. Or Mr. Pluto either?

  He climbed up, going in just the way Pesty had, before he knew he would. I’m not going to like this, he was thinking. The way was narrow and black. He slithered in blindly and breathed the dank odor of a closed underground. There was no way to turn around to find out if he could see the light from the thatch opening.

  Too narrow to turn, he thought. If you try it, you might get stuck. Oh don’t panic. “Pesty!”

  “You got to move on down some,” he heard Pesty say. He was so relieved that she was there. “I’m right by you,” she said. “Just move on.”

  “But how?”

  “Move on! I got to git back there and grab that hole cover.”

  He moved forward, sensing Pesty going by him. There must have been a niche in the tunnel side for her to fit into. Suddenly he remembered he had seen something attached to the cave lid. Rope and chain, twisted together. Must have been staked inside the cave wall somewhere, so the cover wouldn’t roll away. Someone in the tunnel would be able to pull it up by the rope chain and close up the hole as though it had never been. Pesty was about to do that.

  Take it easy, he thought. Slaves must’ve been scared sometimes. Did they ever use this tunnel? It’s so dead dark.

  He wasn’t going to move very far; he didn’t want to bump into anything unexpected. Then she was there behind him. “Move on out, Mr. Thomas,” she told him. “It ain’t far how.”

  He never thought to correct her about saying “Mr. Thomas.” “Me, go first?” he said.

  “I can’t get by you here. You got to go on first,” she said.

  He knew he had to move. And he was moving, crawling and scooting along; crouching, never able to stand upright.

  “Pesty! Where are we—” The tunnel turned abruptly. Thomas found himself up against the cave. “It ended,” he said. “We have to go back.”

  “You just push at the wall with your hands,” Pesty said. “Press your hands, and slide them over on the right.”

  Thomas put his hands against the coolness of the cave barrier in front of him. It was covered with moss. Damp rock and dirt. Gingerly he touched it, placing his palms against it. He pushed, pressing to the right as he did so.

  It felt as if a boulder were rolling away, sliding out from under his palms. “I don’t believe this! Is this tunnel a real old one?” he asked. />
  He saw light, like shade. He saw huge horses right there in front of him.

  “Just move real slow, Mr. Thomas. They ain’t going to bother you,” Pesty said.

  As if in a trance, Thomas moved out of the opening and into the place of horses. It was a large horse stall. The horses whinnied softly and made room for him.

  Pesty stepped out then. She went to the animals to pat their noses and stroke their necks. Their heads bobbed up and down as she slid her hands along their manes. They nuzzled her. “Good horses!” she told them. “Good ol’ Sam and Josie. You Mr. Pluto’s buggy ride. Haven’t been let out.

  “They should be outside by now,” she told Thomas. “I’ll have to take them later.”

  She left the horses. Thomas followed, closing the stall behind him.

  “That back there is a secret tunnel,” he said to her.

  “Might be secret to you, not to me,” she said.

  “You never told us about it,” Thomas said.

  “Nobody never did ask me. Wouldn’t want it to get known.”

  He was dazed by what had happened, and he couldn’t think of anything to say. He followed her, realizing they were in familiar territory.

  They walked inside Pluto’s cave. And there was Pluto, sitting by the fire, sipping from a glass carafe. He had a piece of wool wrapped around his throat.

  Just like that, Thomas thought. A secret way in to see Mr. Pluto. He was amazed that ordinary life went on while he’d done something so strange.

  There was the smell of camphor in the cave. Pluto looked surprised when he first saw them; then he smiled. “I see you come the back way. Well, I heard somebody at the door. Couldn’t yell. Hoarse. Figured whoever it was would come back later.” He raised the steaming carafe in greeting. “This here potion is for a slight cold in my throat.”

  “Is it tea? Can I have some?” Pesty asked. “Does it taste good?”

  “Tastes pretty bad, don’t think you’d like it, Little Miss Bee,” Mr. Pluto said. “But it sure has helped me some this morning fit for a fright.”