by Jeri Green
“No. No. No,” was murmured across the room.
“Oh, Hadley,” Maury said, “I’m so happy for you.”
That’s the final nail in the coffin, thought Hadley.
She threw a weak smile Maury’s way.
“Now, let us pray,” Madison said, bowing her head.
Everyone obeyed Madison’s command except Maury and Hadley.
Mouthing silent omens and dire threats, Hadley saw her words did not faze her little sister. Maury’s eyes twinkled with glee.
“I’ll get you for this,” Hadley said through clenched teeth as the group of ladies moved from the sanctuary to their classroom.
“Oh, Hadley,” Maury said, “it was the least I could do. You stuck me with that thing last year, remember.”
“But, it was only because the suggested names bantered around was yours and mine and nobody else’s. Bill had a flat tire on the car that day, remember? You two were as late as Sunday’s pot roast on Thanksgiving Day. Besides, I felt like sludge and molasses last year.”
“Well, big sister, payback’s bitter, isn’t it? You were sick. I will give you that, but Betty Jean said you insisted I wouldn’t mind hosting the bazaar one tiny bit.”
“Betty Jean’s a tattletale,” said Hadley.
“So, this year,” Maury said, “I just thought I’d return the favor. I told them you’d love to do it. You were always looking for something to fill your time.”
“Fill my time!” Hadley said.
“Hadley,” Maury said, “I know my memory’s not failing me. You were just whining about that lonesome, empty house. How you wanted to climb the walls. You said you took those horrid, odd jobs to have something to do.”
“What were you thinking, Mary Maureen?”
“I was just trying to help,” said Maury.
“And get back at me for volunteering you last year,” said Hadley.
“That too,” said Maury. “Nothing like killing two birds with one stone.”
Hadley and Maury assumed their favorite seats on the back row. Hadley’s mind was filled with the tasks of chairing the bazaar and bake sale. She was scheduled to volunteer at the wild life shelter on Tuesday. Plus, she had the added burden of cleaning out the Singlepenny house. She figured she must have had a sour look on her face because she just caught the last words of Mrs. Dent’s lesson.
“And so, class, I leave you with this one final thought: He never places upon us more than we can bear. Let us pray.”
Hadley obediently bowed her head this time. She could use any extra help she could get. At this rate, she would have to start lifting weights or face eminent collapse.
Chapter Eleven
“Hey, Beanie,” Hadley yelled out of her car window. “You busy?”
“Nah,” said Beanie. “Fish must be gone to church, today. Ain’t gotta single bite.”
“Throw your cane pole in the back seat, then,” Hadley said. “Come with me.”
“Where we going, Hadley?” Beanie asked, putting his fishing pole in the back seat of Hadley’s car.
It didn’t seem to hang out of the window too far when he angled it down into the back floor board. He opened the door and slid in beside Hadley. His coffee can of worms was securely positioned between his feet. He was pretty sure Hadley would not be happy if the can spilled out or if she had worms crawling up her legs as she drove.
God forbid one wriggled into her shoe.
He kept a close eye on the can. You never knew when a really athletic worm would wriggle out of the can and escape to freedom. Beanie knew from past experience that it was usually the biggest, fattest, bestest worms that managed to crawl over the lid edge, plop down to the ground, and slither away to safety.
“We’re going to Eustian’s,” Hadley said.
“On Sunday?”
“Yeah,” Hadley said. “Don’t worry. We ain’t gonna start work out there, yet.”
“Then, what in the world we goin’ out there for?” Beanie asked.
“This,” Hadley said, showing Beanie Harry’s camera.
“What in the Sam Hill we gonna do with that thing?” Beanie asked.
“We’re gonna record a real live ghost,” Hadley said, wickedly.
“Stop this car right now, and let me out,” Beanie said, his eyes suddenly wide and his face pale. “I mean it. Stop. Now.”
“Aw, Beanie,” Hadley said, “I’m just messin’ with you. But I do want to go out there and document how it looks. Then, I’ll shoot some more once we finish. You know, before and after kinda thing.”
“Uh-huh,” Beanie said softly.
“Oh, Beanie,” Hadley said. “Look. All I want to do is record what the place looks like before we start cleaning. That way, folks will see what miracle workers you and I are because I’ll show them another video of what it looks like after we finish. Spick and span. Who knows? Might drum us up some more business.”
“I dunno, Hadley,” said Beanie. “Ain’t we gonna be trespassin’?”
“How can it be trespassing, Beanie? Bill gave me a key. We’ve been hired to do a job. We’re just documenting things so that folks will see what a good job we do.”
“Okay,” Beanie said. “If you say so.”
“I say so. Now, get ready to be impressed by my Hollywood camera skills, Beanie. I’m tellin’ you, I thought this thing had me beat. Once I read the instructional manual, turns out, the little camera is a piece of cake.
No wonder Harry was always fooling with it. It’s really fun, once you get the hang of it.”
“Mmm,” said Beanie. “If you say so.”
“I do,” said Hadley, turning into the long dirt road that led to Eustian’s place. “Beanie. There’s no such thing as ghosts.”
“If you say so.”
“I do," said Hadley.
The trees along the roadside had matured and many large ones hung out over the road. Some even met in the middle, interweaving and forming an arched canopy of leaves and branches through which Hadley drove under.
A tunnel made of tree limbs. She had never experienced such a natural phenomenon. It was like entering a fairyland. An enchanted place.
She did not believe in haunted places but she bet this tree tunnel would be really spooky in the dark with your headlights fading into black nothingness at its end. She looked at her friend in the passenger seat and noted he was looking around with his eyes wide open.
“Beanie. Remember. There’s no such thing as ghosts.”
“If you say so.”
“I do," said Hadley.
“Well, do you see that dead end sign up ahead?” Beanie said. “Tell me that ain’t a crow perched in the middle of that sign. That’s a warning, Hadley. We’re in for some bad luck.”
Hadley looked ahead to a curve in the dirt road. Sure enough, there appeared to be a large black bird on top of the road sign. It did look eerie, but Hadley didn’t want to scare Beanie any more than he already was.
“That bird is probably just making a pit stop. He decided to rest at the first good spot he saw. Just so happens that he saw that sign on Eustian’s road and plopped right down to catch his second wind.”
“How much land you think he owned?” Beanie asked.
“Eustian? Well, I don’t know, for sure. Coupla’ hundred acres, I imagine. He got a lot of it dirt cheap by being so cantankerous, some families just sold out to be shed of him.”
“That ain’t right,” Beanie said.
“No, it isn’t,” Hadley said. “But Eustian didn’t care about landing with either work boot on the side of right. Only on the black side of profit.”
“Profit comes in colors?” Beanie asked.
“Yes, it does. Red and black.”
“I like red,” Beanie said.
“Not when it comes to profit and loss, Beanie. Profit means you’re in the black. Loss means you’re in the red.”
“I still like red, Hadley.”
Hadley sighed.
“Well, when it comes down to it, Beanie,”
she said, “so do I.
They continued down the long meandering road until they reached Eustian’s house. It was a large, two-story home with hemlocks and spruce trees dotting a yard filled with all kinds of clutter.
Eustian had a large area for the yard surrounding the house and out buildings. An astounding array of junk occupied every nook and cranny of the space. Weeds and small bushes grew among the debris. It was a hoarder’s heaven.
Trees and weeds grew wildly between the piles of junk. The house was old but solidly built. A porch wrapped around all sides. Twin chimneys stood guard. They were constructed of field stone. The house had probably begun life as bright white with dark shutters. That was the general color scheme of farm houses in the area.
But the old farm house had not worn that color scheme in ages.
Eustian had smudged every hue in the rainbow on the house’s exterior. The splashes of paint, obtained from his many cans of near empties, made Eustian’s house look like a page torn from the comics. Eustian subscribed to the crazy-quilt kaleidoscope school of exterior decoration. Say what you like, it certainly was an eye-catching color scheme. In an odd sort of way, it went well with the collection of miscellaneous rubbish that was strewn about the yard.
A broken plow and several other rusting pieces of farm equipment lay abandoned, lying wherever Eustian dropped them. The grass looked like it had not been mowed in months. The whole lawn had gone to seed.
Dust-covered windows stared out blindly. There was no livestock to worry about. Eustian refused to shell out the money for feed. The rugged barn leaned sideways. The gate to the old corral moaned as it swung back and forth in the light breeze. The path to the weathered outhouse was beaten bare, one clear spot in an otherwise cluttered jumble of scrap and debris.
“See if the well pump works, Beanie,” Hadley instructed. “We’re gonna need lots of water to scrub things down in there.”
Beanie wove his way around the jumbled piles of clutter to the rusty well pump. He pulled off the tangled weeds that had sprouted around the bottom and wound their way up to the pump handle.
After the way was cleared, he tried to pump the handle to see if it still worked. He drew water up the pipe. Soon a trickle of brown, rusty liquid started flowing out of the spout. He continued working the handle until the trickle turned into a cascade of sparkling clear water. He put his cupped hand under the flow and looked at the puddle left there.
“Squeaks like all get out, Hadley, but it works pretty good,” Beanie said.
“Good,” said Hadley.
She was searching her large purse for the key to the front door. She felt around in all the hidden nooks and crannies that seemed to swallow up keys and any other small item she needed to find.
“I swear, Beanie, the way things get lost in this sack, you’d think I was searching in the dark recesses of my closet back at the house.”
“I don’t know nothing ‘bout ladies’ pocketbooks, Hadley. My billfold ain’t got but one quarter and two one dollar bills in it. I can find them pretty good.”
“Um-hum,” said Hadley. “Eureka! Here you are! Come on, Beanie. Let’s see what secrets old Eustian was hiding from the world!” she said, pulling out the cat key chain with a lone key dangling from its ring.
Hadley and Beanie navigated their way through mountains of debris and junk that populated the yard and made their way up the porch steps to the front door. She inserted and the key and turned it in the tarnished brass door keyhole. She grabbed the knob and gave it a twist and a push.
“Seems to be a little swollen or warped, Beanie,” she said.
The hinges on the front door complained mightily, but the door slowly opened. Dust motes danced in the sunlight over the stoop. The house was deathly silent. The breeze blew under the porch eaves. The wind chimes hanging from the porch began to move and tinkle.
“Oh no Hadley, you know what they say. Wind chimes call up the dead. I hope Eustian ain’t waiting for us on the other side of this door,” Beanie said.
Hadley smiled at the old mountain superstition.
“Don’t worry, Beanie, those wind chimes are just welcoming the cleaning crew, not calling the dead from the beyond. They probably belonged to Eustian’s mother. I don’t see Eustian as being a wind chime kind of guy. They do make a pretty sound, though, kind of sad and mournful.”
Hadley pushed open the door and gasped. Beanie stood silently behind her with his mouth agape.
“Fish paste and tartar sauce! We got one biiiigggg job on our hands, Beanie.”
“I’ll say. I ain’t never seen nothin’ like it,” said Beanie.
The collection in the yard had just been a precursor to the vast assembly of junk that was stored inside. The house was a hoarder’s dream. Boxes were stacked to the ceiling. Piles of loose papers were scattered everywhere. Furniture with springs and padding exploding from discarded cushions was piled in precariously balanced columns. Paths led to a chair, a grimy window, or off into the darkness beyond.
Yellowed newspapers and books towered in leaning piles, defying gravity reaching to staggering heights. Rusting bedsprings and stained mattresses sagged against the walls they were leaning on. Here a toilet plunger dangled from the ceiling. There a lamp topped with a ladies girdle for a shade canted to the left.
A stuffed owl with its wings outspread and claws fiercely exposed hung right in front of their faces. A mangy bear skin rug complete with brown glass eyes and a snarling mouth full of teeth stared at them menacingly as it dangled half on and half off a corner end table. There a stuffed rabbit reared back on its haunches staring at the two explorers through clouded eyes. It was positioned to bolt, but instead stood stock still, collecting dust. A trophy-sized bass yawned at them with its big mouth, cobwebs dangling down over its cracked body.
Chairs were overturned. Articles of clothing were scattered all about the floor in mounds piled high. Boots, pieces of machinery, old rusty tools, and broken children's toys lay scattered in the chaos. A patched inner tube swung off of an old TV antenna like an ornament on a tree.
As Hadley tried to take in the scene of chaos and disorder, she smiled, spying an old artificial Christmas tree peeking out of the confused jumble of stuff. She recognized the old white aluminum branches reaching upward, like a survivor in an avalanche grasping for freedom. A vast array of litter and useless items blocked the entrance into the house. Eustian had managed to clear meandering paths through the debris, giving him passage to the front door and the various rooms of the house.
“Maybe we should have brought some bread crumbs, Bean,” Hadley said. “You know, like Hansel and Gretel. Maybe we need something to drop behind us as we explore. We might even need some kind of compass to find our way back out. This place is amazing. Can you imagine what we’ll run up on once we get started cleaning this all out?”
“Uh, Hadley,” Beanie said, “if you don’t mind. I’d just as soon not.”
Beanie sneezed, overcome by dust.
“Glad I don’t suffer from claustrophobia,” Hadley said. “May have to butter my thighs to skinny through some of these tight spaces, though.”
Beanie let that one pass. All those comments about bread and butter were making him terribly hungry. He wiped his nose with the back of his hand. He had to pay attention. He didn’t want to lose Hadley as she began to explore the residence. Hadley was stopping and starting like a maniac flipping a light switch. There was just too much stuff to take in.
Piles, mounds, mountains in some cases, columns, rows, and towers leaned into each other in an astounding array.
“Guess this house has a good foundation and underpinning, Bean. Otherwise it would have collapsed on itself under all weight of Eustian’s collection.
I wonder if the house was this way when his mother was alive or if this was some kind of obsession he developed after she died. Maybe collecting took his mind off of being lonely. I don’t know. Anyway, it sure is a mess, huh.”
“Guess Eustian didn’t have ti
me for housekeeping,” Beanie observed.
“Too busy collecting dust and everything else under the sun,” said Hadley.
“Smells funny in here,” Beanie observed.
“Yeah. Reminds you of a closed tomb in the Egyptian Valley of the Kings. This place gives ‘oldie-moldy’ new meaning. Smells like that unknown fuzzy, green lump of indescribable I don’t know what that lives in the farthest corner of my fridge.”
“Hadley, I don’t like this place one bit,” Beanie said.
“Come on, Bean. Let’s see what the rest of this house holds,” Hadley said, shaking her head and raising the camera to her eye. She began recording.
“It’s like a museum in here, Hadley,” Beanie said.
“If you say so, Bean. But frankly, this is like no museum I’ve ever been in.”
“Oh, well,” Beanie said, “I didn’t mean to make you think I’d ever been in one, myself, Hadley. I just thought museums were places where a lot of old stuff is stored.”
“Yeah, they are,” said Hadley, “but the old things in museums are usually a lot finer quality than this stuff. I mean, it doesn’t smell stale and musty. No cobwebs covering the exhibits like a second skin. They do dust the stuff off once in a blue moon. You can write your name or anything else you wanted on the surfaces of this garbage. I didn’t know dust could get so thick. It’s like a dusting of snow on everything.”
“Boy, I wouldn’t want that job here. I don’t think I could finish dusting this mess in a hundred years,” Beanie said.
“Me neither,” said Hadley, videoing as they carefully picked their way through the clutter. Hadley pointed to a huge ball of string near the doorway. “Grab that Beanie and tie it to the door knob. We will use it to mark out our way till we get our bearings.”
Beanie grabbed a ball of multicolored string that looked like it was made of pieces that had been tied together and tightly wound a ball the size of a large grapefruit. He found the free end and tied a square knot around the knob. He tugged on the string to make sure it held fast. Letting out a little of the string as he followed Hadley into the maze, he looked for secure places to attach it to form a guideline they could follow back out to the porch when it was time to go.