Set This House in Order

by Matt Ruff

  As she is doing this, she hears a new sound below the breathing: footsteps. Mouse looks up, expecting to see one or both of the Ugly twins coming back to harass her some more, but it isn’t them. The footfalls are light, dainty slippers rather than hard-soled boots.

  It is a young girl, about seven years old, dressed as if for a party. Her slippers are pink, and so is her dress, all silk and taffeta, festive. But her face is sad, and her eyes—brown, the same shade as Mouse’s—are haunted.

  She is carrying something: a small sack, velvet cloth cinched with a cord drawstring. She holds it in one hand, at waist level; the sack swings and twists as she comes forward.

  Mouse drops the pebbles back onto the floor and stands up. She has a strong impulse to flee. As the girl comes nearer, Mouse can see that the dress is not as fine as it first appeared: its hem is tattered and dirty, and there is a thick brown stain running down one side. The stain looks like it could be oil, or dried blood, but Mouse knows suddenly that it is neither. It’s chocolate syrup.

  Mouse recognizes the dress now: it’s her dress, or was once; a gift from her mother. A jealousy gift, the kind given not for its own sake, but to outdo somebody else’s present, in this case a sundress that Mouse’s grandmother had bought for her.

  It happened in late summer. Mouse and Grandma Driver had gone to a matinee showing of The Muppet Movie at the Willow Grove Rialto. Afterwards they’d stopped on Third Street to get ice cream, and Mouse had noticed the sundress in the window of the Little Misses clothing store. It was a simple dyed cotton dress, but something about it caught Mouse’s eye. “Would you like to try it on?” her grandmother asked her, and Mouse said, “Yes, please,” even though she wasn’t really that interested; it was mostly an excuse to put off going home a little longer. But the dress fit her, and looked nice on her—at least Grandma Driver thought so—so Grandma bought it for her.

  As soon as they got home and her mother saw the dress, Mouse knew she was in trouble. Verna Driver remained cordial in front of Grandma, saying only, “Oh Millicent, you really shouldn’t have,” but beneath her polite disapproval Mouse detected a much harsher emotion. As they stood in the front doorway watching Grandma drive away, Mouse felt her mother’s hand grip her shoulder, her nails digging in so sharply that Mouse had to bite her lip to keep from shrieking. The moment Grandma’s car was out of sight, Mouse’s mother dragged her back into the house and slammed the door.

  “What the fuck do you think you are,” she demanded, “some kind of fucking charity case? You have clothes, beautiful clothes. Why would you need to go begging for more? What do you think that says about you? What do you think that says about me?”

  “I didn’t beg!” Mouse protested. “Grandma just asked me if I wanted it. She was being nice, she—”

  “Nice!” Her mother’s arm shot out in an open-handed blow that staggered Mouse and left her ear ringing. “It’s ugly! No one who really cared about you would ever give you something so hideous. I can’t believe you’re that stupid!”

  “I’m sorry!” Mouse squeaked, raising her own arms in a feeble attempt at self-defense. “I’ll give it back, if you want! I’ll throw it ou—”

  “Go to your room!” Verna Driver roared, and then, before Mouse could obey, landed another blow that sent her crashing into the wall.

  The next day, all smiles again, Mouse’s mother came home carrying a gift-wrapped box. “Little Mouse!” she called from the front door. “I have a surprise for you!” Mouse, reading a book in her room, did not hear this as good news; she stayed quiet. But of course her mother came and found her anyway.

  “This is an early birthday present,” her mother said, shoving the box at her. “To show how much I love you.” Mouse knew that was a lie. Not the part about her mother loving her—Mouse honestly believed that was true—just the idea that love was the motive for the present. It was a jealousy gift; Mouse could tell even before she opened the box and saw the dress inside.

  “Oh, it…it’s very pretty!” Mouse exclaimed, trying to sound as enthusiastic as possible.

  “Yes, it’s beautiful,” her mother said. “And that’s not all: we’re going out for dinner tonight. We have reservations at Antoine’s.”

  Antoine’s Kitchen, which was attached to the Willow Grove Marriott, was the closest thing in town to a five-star restaurant. Mouse’s mother liked to go there on special occasions. Mouse would have liked to like it too—Antoine’s had wonderful desserts—but she was usually too busy pretending to have a great time to actually enjoy herself. And that was during a normal visit to Antoine’s; dinner there as a jealousy gift was an event to dread.

  Still, Mouse tried to be brave about it. She put on the dress and a pair of satin slippers that her mother had also bought for her, and remarked several more times how very pretty—how beautiful—the dress was. Her mother got dressed up too: white gloves, white high heels, big floppy white hat, and a low-cut navy blue dress with large white polka dots.

  When they got to Antoine’s, they were informed that the main dining room was closed, having been reserved for a wedding reception by the Hallbecks and the Burgesses, two prominent families in town (Carl Hallbeck published the Willow Grove Reporter, and the Burgesses owned the bottle factory that was Willow Grove’s largest source of employment). Mouse would have expected her mother to be upset, but she took the news in stride, following along without complaint as the maître d’ seated them in a smaller side dining room.

  “Now, you order whatever you like,” Mouse’s mother said. Mouse pretended to struggle with the decision, asking her mother to describe a few of the more exotic dishes on the menu; then she chose the chicken croquettes, which she knew from experience were easy to eat even when she was too nervous to have an appetite.

  Their table was close to the doorway that connected the two dining rooms, and they could hear the sounds of the wedding reception going on. Verna Driver, who sat facing the doorway, kept leaning sideways to get a better view; Mouse, only too happy to have her mother distracted, stared at her place setting until the croquettes arrived.

  They ate dinner, or at least Mouse did; her mother, now totally focused on the wedding party, barely touched her plate, and she ignored Mouse completely. As a result, by the time the waitress asked if they cared for dessert, Mouse felt comfortable enough to order what she really wanted: an Antoine’s triple-fudge sundae. Verna Driver ordered cheesecake, then announced, “I’m going to wash my hands,” and disappeared into the main dining room.

  Mouse’s mother was gone a very long time. Mouse didn’t mind. When her sundae came, she dug into it, wanting to savor as much of it as possible while she was alone.

  She’d gone through two of the three scoops of ice cream, and was pouring extra chocolate syrup on the third, when she heard laughter coming from the main dining room. Something about it got her attention. She set the chocolate syrup down, slid out of her chair, and went over to the connecting doorway to have a look.

  A bandstand had been set up at one end of the main dining room, and the tables rearranged to create a large open space in front of it. Mouse spotted her mother right in the middle of this makeshift dance floor—her hat, like a white signal flag, was hard to miss—dancing with the groom, Bennett Hallbeck. Judging from her smile, Mouse’s mother was having a grand time, but Ben Hallbeck looked trapped; he kept throwing glances at the other couples around him as if pleading to be rescued. Finally, at a break in the music, he tried to disengage himself. But Verna Driver wouldn’t let him go: she wrapped her arms around him, pulled him close, and started rubbing herself against him. This brought fresh laughter from some of the spectators at the tables, but was too much for the bride, who came storming onto the dance floor flanked by her bridesmaids.

  Mouse didn’t wait to see what happened next. She did a quick about-face and hurried back to the table. As she was climbing back up into her seat she knocked over the chocolate syrup; she felt it pour onto her dress and let out a cry of dismay.

  Th
ere was a final explosion of laughter from the main dining room and then the band struck up again, loud. A moment later Mouse’s mother reappeared at the table. She was still smiling, but the smile had become brittle; she had lost her hat, and her hair was disheveled. “We’re leaving now,” she said tonelessly.

  “OK,” said Mouse. With a fatalistic bow of her head, she stood up and let her mother see the chocolate syrup stain, which some frantic swabbing with a napkin had only made bigger. The dress was ruined; but Verna Driver didn’t yell at Mouse, or hit her, only clucked her tongue once, the sound like the cocking of a gun. “We’re leaving,” she repeated.

  They exited Antoine’s through a back door, Mouse so frightened now that she barely noticed they’d left without paying. As they crossed the parking lot, she looked back forlornly at the restaurant, a receding oasis of laughter and light.

  Then they were in the car. Mouse went to buckle up and realized that there was no way to fasten her seat belt without smearing chocolate syrup on it. This posed a dilemma: it was an ironclad rule of her mother’s that she must always wear a seat belt in the car, but it was an equally ironclad rule that she must never dirty or soil the car; sticky messes, as from candy or melted ice cream, were especially taboo. Reasoning that it was best to go with the infraction that would leave no lingering trace and was thus most likely to be overlooked or forgotten, Mouse let the seat belt dangle, and arranged her dress carefully so that no part of the syrup stain touched the car’s upholstery.

  Her mother buckled her own seat belt and started the engine. She drove in silence for three or four blocks; then, without warning, she slammed on the brakes, hurling Mouse into the dashboard. Mouse wasn’t badly hurt, but the sudden shock overcame her, and she burst into tears. Verna Driver smiled thinly and drove on.

  The ride back seemed unusually long. Mouse was grateful at first; she was sure now that her mother had other punishments in store for her, and that they would begin in earnest as soon as the two of them were behind closed doors, so she was in no hurry to get home. But as her sobs tapered off, she became more aware of her surroundings, and realized that she didn’t recognize the street they were on. They had detoured somewhere. Mouse looked ahead, and saw a sign at the next corner with the words SOUTH WOODS PARK above a right-turn arrow.

  They didn’t turn right; they turned left, going deeper into Trash Town. A series of further turns down shabbier and shabbier side streets brought them ultimately to a dead-end lane with no signpost or street lamps. Verna Driver hesitated at the head of the lane, as if she herself were reluctant to enter here, but she did, easing the car forward.

  Only about half of the lots on the lane were occupied by real houses. Most of the rest held trailer homes; one was vacant, overgrown with weeds, and on one a burned-out log cabin rotted in the moonlight. A Doberman Pinscher chained up in front of the cabin barked ferociously as Mouse and her mother drove past.

  They drove to the very end of the lane, to the last lot, where a dilapidated clapboard house stood dark and abandoned. It wasn’t in quite as bad shape as the log cabin, but it was getting there: the roof sagged, and one of the side walls had started to buckle; every window Mouse could see was either broken out or boarded shut.

  The house had no garage, just a pair of tire ruts that ran into the side yard. Verna Driver steered her car in there and killed the engine. Mouse, who knew something very bad was about to happen, sat frozen, breathing as lightly as possible, as if by being quiet she could somehow fool her mother into ignoring her.

  A vain hope. There was a click as Verna Driver unbuckled her seat belt, and then she said, with a mournful sigh: “Little Mouse. You ruined your dress.”

  She sounded so sad that it was Mouse who ended up being fooled, thinking momentarily that she wasn’t mad, just horribly disappointed. “I didn’t mean to ruin it,” Mouse told her. “It—”

  “Oh,” her mother said, looking at her, “but I think you did mean to.”

  And then Mouse was clawing at her door handle. She actually got her door open, got one foot out and on the ground, before her mother grabbed her by the hair and hauled her back in, across both front seats, and out the driver’s side. As Mouse continued to struggle, her mother slung her over her shoulder and began carrying her around to the front of the house.

  Mouse screamed as loud as she could; up the lane, the Pinscher answered with a fusillade of barks. But there was no response from any of the other houses or the trailers. Meanwhile, beneath Mouse’s screams, beneath the barking, Mouse’s mother continued to speak in level tones, as if they were still sitting in the car calmly discussing Mouse’s shortcomings. “You know I try,” she said. “I try so hard to get you to appreciate what you have. But you just keep taking it for granted, keep…throwing it away. Well, fine then—if you want to piss away what you have, if you want to end up a beggar, living in Trash Town, where no decent person will want anything to do with you, fine. Let’s stop wasting time.”

  She kicked open the front door of the house. The interior was close and musty; Mouse smelled glue, saw torn wallpaper hanging in strips. Then the smells changed: they were in a kitchen, its floor littered with broken crockery, and her mother was opening another door. Mouse sensed a void behind her, and let out one last scream.

  “There you go,” Verna Driver said, and threw her down into the cellar.

  It must have hurt, falling down the cellar stairs, but Mouse didn’t feel anything. She was out of her body when it happened, or half out of it: she heard the bumps and thumps, heard them echoing, as though through a tunnel, but there was no pain. Then she was lying on her back on a cool dirt floor. The cellar door slammed, leaving her in total darkness.

  She lay there for some time—maybe ten minutes, maybe an hour. Maybe three hours. The darkness itself didn’t frighten Mouse. She found it peaceful, almost comforting. It was only when she thought about how she’d come to be there—what a bad person she was, had to be, for her mother to treat her this way—that she dissolved once more into tears.

  The tears were drying on her cheeks, and she was beginning to think about getting up and trying to find a way out, when she heard a sound, the soft sly creak of a door being opened. It wasn’t the door at the top of the stairs; it was another door, a door to a different part of the cellar or, maybe, a door that led directly outside. Mouse lay still, listening, and the creak came again—the same door, closing—and now her fear was back, because she wasn’t alone in the cellar anymore.

  Mouse sat up hurriedly. She was completely disoriented, but she thought she couldn’t have fallen too far from the stairs, and she began groping around urgently in the dark. Her fingertips brushed a coarse wooden plank—the bottom step! She felt along the step until she found the banister support post, grabbed it, and pulled herself to her feet. Then she went to grip the banister, but instead of a wooden railing she felt the back of another hand, that had found the banister first. The hand flipped over, encircling her wrist in an iron grip.

  And then……and then, she didn’t know what happened. She blacked out in mid-scream; fell back, and found herself at home in her room, sitting on the edge of her bed in morning sunlight, while her mother called her down to breakfast. The pink party dress her mother had given her was gone, never to be seen again; so was the sundress Grandma had bought for her. And the memory of whatever had happened to her in the cellar after that hand grabbed her wrist, that was gone too—thank God.

  Only now, standing in the cavern with the little girl, Mouse realizes: it’s not true. Like the photographs of her father that her mother burned, the pink dress isn’t gone; it’s in here. Grandma’s sundress might be in here too somewhere, if she knew where to look for it. And the knowledge of what happened in the cellar after she blacked out…that’s in here too.

  Yes. Mouse looks at the sack in the little girl’s hand, twisting as though it were alive, and she thinks she knows what’s in it now. As if to confirm her guess, the sack’s drawstring loosens of its own accord. The opening p
uckers like a mouth, and Mouse hears the soft sly sound of a cellar door opening in darkness.

  “No!” Mouse squeaks. She wants no part of this; she doesn’t want to remember what happened. She takes a step back, and starts to turn and run, but even as she thinks to do it it is already happening: the cavern, the tunnel, the cave mouth, all go blurring past her in reverse.

  —and she is back in the doctor’s sitting room, reentering her body at such velocity that it is a wonder she doesn’t go flying off the sofa. As it is, her torso jerks forward violently; the safety helmet slides off her lap and tumbles to the floor.

  “Ohhh,” Mouse groans. Her hands come up and go to the back of her neck, pressing hard; the pain has returned, and it’s worse. “Oh God…”

  “Penny?” says the doctor. “Penny, are you all right?”

  Mouse doesn’t answer. She tries massaging her neck for a moment, but that just sends the pain shooting up into her temples, so she stops, and then—when the pain has gone back a bit—she begins tracing her fingers up along the sides and top of her skull. Probing.

  “Penny?” repeats the doctor. “What did you see?”

  Her hands are on her forehead now, where she most expects to find it, but there’s no hole, no cave mouth gaping above her eyebrows, just smooth skin.

  “Penny.”

  Slowly Mouse lowers her hands. She eases back a little on the sofa, careful to keep her neck straight. “I’m not going back in there again,” she says.

  “What did you see? Did you meet someone?”

  Mouse gets a furtive look on her face. To the doctor it must appear as though she is listening for something, but what she’s really doing is feeling for something: concentrating on the space that she now knows is there inside her head, trying to sense if any of the members of the Society are lurking near the cave mouth, within earshot.

  “Penny…”

  She can’t feel anyone, which doesn’t necessarily mean they aren’t there. But she decides to take a chance, speaking quickly in a low voice: “Can you take them out?”