Glenn woke on Thursday with the light slanting nebulously against the far wall. There was no way to tell what time of day it was, but there was a feel of morning to it. She would have liked then to sit up. Her limbs and any will to use them had long departed, however, so she lay on her back thinking about sitting and enjoying even just that.
She was, she realized, pain-free. Her body had little feeling at all, although she was cold. The room was empty. The yellow walls that she had once found so disturbing and falsely bright seemed pretty then, an imitation of sunlight, made more real by the slant of white light on the wall opposite her bed. The ceiling above her was an old pressed-tin roof—much sought after by period purists who would never truly be able to appreciate the charm and quality of something that had withstood time and occupation in quite the way of a resident of the era. The whole house was that way. It had stood, waiting, passing the time, moving forward reluctantly, but defiantly pulling along its past as a gesture to endurance as well as dignity.
The muscles of her face were averse, but Glenn smiled into the air. “Hello, house,” she whispered. Or may not have.
She felt surprisingly well. And that was how she knew.
Sometimes she closed her eyes. And sometimes she held them open for a while.
They gathered.
Around her, when she opened her eyes, were the people of the house. They smiled down on her kindly, sweetly, hopefully, and with a perfect intimacy. They watched over her.
In time, the old woman, her smile only a tug of flesh at the corners of a worn-out face, the permanent inhabitant of the yellow room, reached out her hand.
Behind her, children watched, wide-eyed but not frightened. The warm, kind woman from the field rested her hand on the thick hair of a red-headed child. She smiled, too.
“Come with us, Mrs. Darnley,” the old woman said.
The tall man who had taken care of so many details for her—although she sensed a naughty, unhealthy streak in him—said affably, “We officially extend your invitation, my dear. We’ve waited for you.”
The old woman’s hand, a claw nearly, but the age tattooed there was one of love and children and care, reached over and rested her hand very near Glenn’s so that she need do nothing but—
Glenn took her hand.
The light on the wall shifted and changed until it was not really light, but the suggestion of it, a glow from nowhere in particular, and everywhere.
Glenn rose up from the bed, her body strong, thicker, heavier; sturdy. The faces and voices around her expressed pleasure and hands reached out and touched her.This is your home. This is your home. This is your home.
Found Among Papers at 362 Belisle. Typewritten, with No Date or Signature. Statement at the Bottom in an Unknown Hand.
Pressed-tin ceiling insert for back bedroom, purchased from salvaged items from the D. H. Henderson Nursing Home, Munson, Ohio, in original condition, bright yellow paint peeling, but unfaded,circa 1934.
Metal bed frame for a “Murphy”-style pull-down bed, through auction of goods from the former Berkeley Arms Boarding House; also purchased, four glass doorknobs in original condition. Slight restoration performed on the bed frame where long slash marks were sanded down after the vicious knife-attack on a previous resident of the apartment in which the frame had originally been installed. The murder of the young girl was never solved and was somewhat legendary in the history of the “Arms.”
The three large maple beams were part of a dismantled “pool hall” in a small corner town of Virginia. The pool hall had been managed by a failed cleric by the name of Thomas Bartlett, whom everyone called “Father Bartlett.” Bartlett murdered five young boys before his discovery in 1954, and hanged himself moments before capture. The beam from which he hung has a small scrape from the coarse nature of the rope. It was intended for this beam to be mounted centrally, where the score in the maple would be easily noted.
Desmonada’s lady’s soaking tub bears silent witness to the final moments of a Mr. Tilston, who continues a character of silence, if no longer of desperation. The molding for the beast’s feet of that particular style of tub was modeled in honor of an enormous African lion, shot by Mr. Desmonada himself, after the monster savaged four fellow (white) safari members. Of the fifty soaking tubs with the creature’s feet produced, only nineteen were sold, the line discontinued. Rumor suggests that Mr. Tilston does not rest alone.
Barnboard and half-portion of a barn door in the small bedroom upstairs, on the south side, was a happy afterthought, stumbled upon along the eastern seaboard on a buying trip. A large farm auction included bits and pieces of a razed farmhouse and accompanying barn. No locals bid on the beautifully seasoned board, suitable absolutely for Connecticut weekend houses or loft wainscoting. Neighbors whispered about the children, each shot once by their father after the death of their young mother. Nothing was said of the fate of the father, but he had taken time to carve their names along one side of the enormous door. This section was cut in half and rounded at the top to fit the small opening of the deep closet in the small bedroom. The rest of the boards (heavily stained and varnished to cover interesting stains of a dark source) were used around the window frame and as baseboard.
The Dwelling Page 47