Thomas cleared his throat. “I bet you can see a lot from the top of that hill.” He felt he ought to say this. The hill was hardly anything compared to the mountains at home. Otherwise the land in every direction was mostly flat.
“You can see the college from the top of the hill,” Mr. Small said. “And you can see the town. It’s quite a view. On a clear day those springs and colored rock make the hill and house look like a fairyland.”
“All those springs!” Thomas said. He shook his head. “Where do they come from? I’ve never seen anything like them.”
“You’ll get used to the look of the land,” Mr. Small said. “This is limestone country, and always with limestone in this formation you’ll find the water table percolating through rock into springs. There are caves, lakes and marshes all around us, all because of the rock formations and the way they fault.”
Mrs. Small kept her eye on the house. It was her nature to concentrate on that which there was a chance of her changing.
“No, it’s not,” she said softly. “Oh, dear, no, it will never be pretty!”
“Everything is seeping with rain,” Mr. Small said to her. “Just try to imagine those rocks, that stream and the springs on a bright, sunny day. Then it’s really something to see.”
Thomas could imagine how everything looked on a day such as his father described. His eyes shone as he said, “It must look just about perfect!”
They drove nearer. Thomas could see that the house lay far back from the highway. There was a gravel road branching from the highway and leading to the house. A weathered covered bridge crossed the stream at the base of the hill. Mr. Small turned off the highway and stopped the car.
“There’s been quite a rain,” he said, “I’d better check the bridge.”
Now Thomas sat with his hands folded tightly beneath his chin, with his elbows on his knees. He had a moment to look at the house of Dies Drear, the hill and the stream all at once. He stared long and hard. By the time his father returned, he had everything figured out.
They continued up the winding road, the house with its opaque, watching windows drawing ever nearer.
The stream is the moat. The covered planks over it are the drawbridge, Thomas thought. And the house of Dies Drear is the castle.
But who is the king of all this? Who will win the war?
There was a war and there was a king. Thomas was as sure of this as he was certain the house was haunted, for the hill and house were bitten and frozen. They were separated from the rest of the land by something unkind.
“Oh dear,” Mrs. Small was saying. “Oh dear. Dear!”
Suddenly the twins were scrambling over Thomas, wide awake and watching the house get closer. By some unspoken agreement, they set up a loud, pathetic wail at the same time.
“Look!” Thomas whispered to them. “See, over there is clear sky. All this mist will rise and get blown away soon. Then you’ll feel better.”
Sure enough, above the dark trees at the top of the hill was deep, clear sky. Thomas gently cradled the boys. “There are new kinds of trees here,” he told them. “There will be nights with stars above trees like you’ve never known!” The twins hushed, as Thomas knew they would.
Up close the house seemed to Thomas even more huge, if that were possible. There were three floors. Above the top floor was a mansard roof with dormer windows jutting from its steep lower slopes. Eaves overhanging the second story dripped moisture to the ground in splattering beats. There was a veranda surrounding the ground floor, with pillars that rose to the eaves.
Thomas liked the house. But the chill he had felt on seeing it from the highway was still with him. Now he knew why.
It’s not the gray day, he thought. It’s not mist and damp that sets it off. There are things beyond weather. The house has secrets!
Thomas admired the house for keeping them so long.
But I’m here now, he thought happily. It won’t keep anything from me.
The twins refused to get out of the car, so Thomas had to carry one while his mother carried the other. They cried loudly as soon as they were set on the veranda.
“They don’t like the eaves dripping so close,” Mr. Small said. “Move them back, Thomas.”
Thomas placed the boys close to the oak door and then joined Mrs. Small in front of the house. His father was already busy unloading the trailer. The heavy furniture and trunks had come by van a week earlier. Thomas guessed all of it would be piled high in the foyer.
“It’s old,” Mrs. Small remarked, looking up at the dormers of the house. “Maybe when the sun comes out… .” Her voice trailed off.
Thomas placed his arm through hers. “Mama, it must be the biggest house for miles. And all the land! We can plant corn … we can have horses! Mama, it will be our own farm!”
“Oh, it’s big,” Mrs. Small said. “Big to clean and big to keep an eye on. How will I ever know where to find the boys?”
“I’ll watch them,” said Thomas. “Wait until it’s warm weather for sure. They’ll be with me all the time.”
“Let’s go inside now,” Mr. Small said to them. He had unloaded cartons beside the twins on the veranda. “Thomas and I will have to set up the beds the first thing.”
“And I’ll have to get the kitchen ready,” said Mrs. Small, “and you’ll have to drive into town for food. Goodness, there’s so much to do, I won’t have time to look around.” Then she smiled, as though relieved.
Mr. Small went first, and Mrs. Small held the door for the twins and Thomas. At once the boys began to cry. Thomas watched them, noticing that they avoided touching the house, especially the oak door trimmed with carved quatrefoils. Mrs. Small hadn’t noticed, and Thomas said nothing. He scooped up the boys and carried them inside.
When the heavy door closed behind them, they were instantly within a place of twilight and stillness.
Thomas couldn’t recall having been in a more shadowy place, nor had he ever felt such a silence that seemed to wait. There was no small entrance room, as Thomas had imagined, but a long, wide hall. One part of the hall was cut by stairs, which rose in a curve to disappear in darkness somewhere above. Beyond where Thomas’ father stood, there was a wide doorway leading to another room. Thomas could make out cupboards there. It was the kitchen and it seemed to be very large. On either side of the hall were closed doors, which he guessed led into sitting rooms.
“Papa,” Thomas said. He was growing uneasy just standing there. Mrs. Small motioned him to be quiet.
“What is it?” she whispered to Thomas’ father. “What is it?”
Mr. Small softly cleared his throat. “Nothing,” he said, “but I had expected the furniture from the van to be piled up in this hall.”
The twins grew heavy in Thomas’ arms. He found that he was leaning against a table. He had been for some time. “Here’s some of the furniture,” he said.
Billy turned to see and caught his ghostly reflection in a mirror by the table at the same moment as did Thomas. Billy screamed and cried. Thomas was so startled, he nearly dropped the boys. Mr. Small quickly found a light switch. Now they saw a grand, gilded mirror, on either side of which were two familiar end tables.
“Why, that looks beautiful!” said Mrs. Small. “Those are my tables, but whose mirror is it?”
“That mirror was there the first time I saw the place,” Mr. Small said. “If you like it, I guess we can keep it.”
He opened one of the doors off the hall, paused, and then beckoned them to come. He switched on a light inside. They saw that their livingroom furniture had been cleverly arranged to fit a much larger room.
“Who did all this?” Mrs. Small said. “How did they know I’d want it like this—it’s just beautiful!”
“I don’t know for certain who did it,” said Mr. Small, “but I suspect it was Pluto. He’s the only one who would think to do it.”
They looked at the room. The two oversized easy chairs which Thomas had known for so long were placed side by sid
e with a mahogany lamp table between them. No longer were they catercornered on either side of the couch, familiar, as they had been at home. They sat like soldiers on their guard.
The couch was placed across the room from the chairs. And between two of the floor to ceiling windows stood Mrs. Small’s kitchen worktable.
Thomas gave Buster to Mrs. Small to hold. He went up to the worktable holding Billy, patting the boy, who still cried. The top of the table had been sanded smooth and rubbed with linseed oil. All the old nicks and gashes from all the meats his mother had prepared on it had been worked away. And placed at either end of the table were plants of ivy in the white china tureens his mother had never favored.
“Who would have dreamed my old table could look like that?” Mrs. Small said. “And I never would have thought to use those tureens that way.”
“It makes a nice decoration,” Mr. Small said. “The table and tureens belong to another time. Mr. Pluto saw that.”
Thomas turned slowly around. At the far end of the room was a massive fireplace. Old Mr. Pluto hadn’t thought to build a fire there. But on either side of the hearth he had arranged Billy’s and Buster’s little rocking chairs.
Mrs. Small laughed on seeing the chairs, and Mr. Small smiled.
“Look, boys, there’re your chairs,” said Mrs. Small. The boys looked and then turned to Thomas. Thomas was still wary, so the boys refused to sit just yet.
As soon as Thomas had entered the room, he understood what old Pluto had tried to do. He had arranged the furniture in a rigid progression, with the two long windows, not the open fireplace, as its focus. Thomas’ eyes swept from the fireplace to the windows, then out into the gray day, on and on, until he could see no farther.
It’s his warning, thought Thomas. He means for us to flee.
“I don’t like it,” Thomas said, “I don’t like it at all. And who is this Mr. Pluto to work out the cuts in Mama’s table? He’s sure taken a lot on himself. He’s got no business in our new house!”
“I would have placed that table in some corner of the kitchen,” said Mrs. Small. “I don’t know why I even bothered to bring it, it’s so old. Thomas, I’m surprised at you.”
“It was thoughtful of Mr. Pluto to put the house in order for us,” said Mr. Small. “I certainly hadn’t expected him to.”
But Mr. Small would not meet Thomas’ questioning gaze.
He doesn’t like Mr. Pluto doing this any more than I do, Thomas thought. I know he doesn’t. He just doesn’t want to upset Mama.
“Come, let’s take a look upstairs,” Mr. Small said. “I would guess Mr. Pluto put the beds up. It will be interesting to see what rooms he chose.”
“Papa, are you going to let him take over?” Thomas said. “How does he know what room I want?”
“We can change your room if you don’t like it,” said Mrs. Small. “But if Mr. Pluto took as much time with the bedrooms as he did with this room, they will do just fine.”
Thomas was shocked. His mother and father were allowing a stranger, and a man who looked like the devil besides, to walk right in their house and fix it to suit himself. He wasn’t even a relative. He wasn’t anybody!
“I don’t want to see any more right now,” Thomas said glumly. “I think I’ll go out and look at the rocks and springs.”
He sat Billy down in his rocking chair. At once Billy began to cry, clinging to Thomas’ leg. Buster, still cradled in his mother’s arms, began to cry too.
“Well then,” Mrs. Small said, “you go with Thomas. I don’t know what’s got into you.”
“I think they’re just tired out,” said Mr. Small.
“Thomas, you keep an eye on them,” Mrs. Small said. “I don’t think you’ll have much trouble if you sit them far back on the veranda.”
Once outside, Thomas placed the boys on the dry veranda and squatted between them. He put an arm around each one until they hushed crying. After they had quieted, he stroked them gently.
“What do you suppose that old Pluto is up to?” Thomas said in a low voice. “Fixing things and arranging things. Maybe he hopes to get Papa to like him a lot … then he can rule everything. Well, he didn’t count on us, did he? He’s the devil and he won’t be king!”
“Now,” he said to the boys. “Mama and Papa are upstairs. We’re all alone here. Tell me what it was about this door that caused you not to touch that pretty design. Remember? We came in the house through this door, and there was something about it you didn’t like.”
The twins stayed quiet. Thomas knew they couldn’t tell him anything. But he was used to questioning them and finding answers in himself.
Thomas got up to examine the front steps. They were weathered but recently painted white as was the rest of the house. He examined the oak door and saw nothing unusual. He bent close to study the quatrefoil designs that were carved on the doorframe. They were shaped like petals. He was ready to turn away, when he found something. One petal, on a line with the doorknob, had a tiny, wood button in its center. Thomas checked, but not one of the other petals had such a button. He wouldn’t have found this one if he hadn’t been looking hard for something.
“So that’s it,” he said, “but how in the world did you all know?”
He took each twin by the hand, and led them up to the button. They bobbed from side to side, whimpering as if something hurt them. Thomas released them and let them sit on the veranda facing the barren lawn.
Cautiously he waved his hand over the button. There was a stream of cold air coming from around it. He glanced at the twins. When they stood, the air just about hit them in the face.
“It was chilly and you didn’t like it,” he said to them.
Carefully, and with a hand that was shaking, Thomas pushed the button. He pulled, he jerked, but nothing at all happened.
The twins fell into tantrums unlike anything Thomas had ever seen. They kicked their legs and flailed their arms wildly. They jumped up high and sat down hard, at the same time screaming at the tops of their lungs.
“You’ll hurt yourselves!” Thomas warned them. He didn’t touch them. He feared he might make matters worse. So he just stood there, looking down at them with his eyes darting all around.
“Quiet, kids! You’ll have Mama come get you!”
It seemed that was exactly what they wanted, for they kept up the screaming.
“So you saw something!” Thomas whispered. His eyes were wide. “Something scary? Something I didn’t see and couldn’t take care of?”
Thomas thought of ghosts. Suddenly he was afraid, not for himself but for the twins, who could see but not say.
“Not very nice ghosts,” he said, “if they have to go around scaring babies.”
Thomas picked the boys up, balancing one on each hip. “But why would ghosts come just because I pushed a button?” he wondered out loud. “Ghosts?” he asked them. They whimpered and nestled against him.
“No,” Thomas decided. “Something else a little more real.” He hadn’t the time to think what that might be, for his mother came then to see what was causing the twins to scream.
“They’re just hungry, I guess,” Thomas told her. “They were sitting there and then they started to cry.”
“They’re tired, too,” Mrs. Small said. She took them from Thomas. “Now don’t be long,” she told him. “I’ll have supper ready early. Mr. Pluto filled the refrigerator with food!”
Thomas held the door for his mother. He waited until she was in the kitchen with the twins before he closed the door hard.
Mr. Pluto, he thought. Always Mr. Pluto!
He stood on the veranda with his back to the oak door; he took in all there was to see— the grand pillars, eaves dripping wet onto the barren ground, and the circle of gray mist beyond the lawn.
When he looked carefully, Thomas was able to see through the mist. He could make out the downward slope of the hill, with its rocks and springs, and the fertile land lying along the stream. He thought he could see the bridge and t
he muddy roadbed that crossed over it. Somewhere beyond that lay the highway. He listened, but could hear no traffic. All was silent. The only movement was the stream, rapid and swollen with the long rain, and the springs rushing into it.
Thomas was satisfied that no one watched him. He turned around to face the oak door and pushed the button in the quatrefoil. Nothing happened. He looked left and right and, at last, craned his head to see behind him. At once he saw what must have caused the twins’ tantrum. The front steps were poised about a foot off the ground and wide to the left of their proper place. Where the steps should have been was a black and jagged hole about three feet around.
Thomas stood as still as one of his wood carvings. With his back pressed against the oak door, he faced the steps and waited for whatever it was—ghosts, demons—that would rise up from the hole to challenge him. Instead, the sudden shock came from the side of the house.
He fell to his knees instinctively to hide himself. Coming forth now was the queerest sight he’d seen in all his life.
Chapter 4
OUT OF THE trees on the right side of the house came walking the blackest, biggest horse Thomas could remember seeing. Maybe it was not as huge as he thought at first, but he was closer to it than he had ever been to a horse. Riding on it was a tiny girl, sitting straight and tall. She had a white, frilly nightcap on her head and she wore red flannel pajamas with lace at the neck and sleeves. She had no shoes on her feet and she sat well forward, her toes clasped in the horse’s mane. With her arms folded across her chest, she stared into the distance. She was serene and happy and seemed not to notice Thomas.
Following the horse was a big boy about Thomas’ age. He was stronger and heavier than Thomas, and his arm muscles bulged as he pulled back on the horse’s tail.
“Whoa, you black!” he said in a loud whisper. “You mean old devil! Let my Pesty off, you hear, before I break off your tailbone! Pesty, you get down off of him. Please? Come on, make him stop, I’ve got to get my supper before it’s all gone!”
The little girl paid no attention to him. Once she laughed and then turned the horse with just her toes. She circled the lawn, with the big boy pulling hard on the horse’s tail. The horse didn’t seem to care. Soon they came toward the house again, right for the steps and Thomas.
The House of Dies Drear Page 3