Out of the Darkness
Page 4
I daydreamed my way right on up to Mrs. Parker’s door, scattering chickens as I crossed the yard. Their house—Mrs. Parker and her husband, Bill—looked much the same as ours. Weathered, unpainted wood siding with a rusty tin roof and a porch across the front. I could hear the old boards creak as I crossed it and knocked on her screen door.
Mrs. Parker herself opened the door and smiled when she saw me. “Well, Lordy me, if it ain’t young Lauren Martin. What brings you out here, child?”
“Mama sent me to fetch you back for my little sister Meg. She’s powerful ill, down with a fever.”
“Sure, sure. Well come on in, child. I was just making some lunch. Have a bite with me before we make that long, sweaty walk.”
“Yes, ma’am.” I was pretty hungry, after all. Nothing like a long walk and some serious fantasizing to work up an appetite. I sat down at her kitchen table while Mrs. Parker dished up country ham and red-eye gravy, and fresh, homemade biscuits, all hot from the oven.
While we ate, Mrs. Parker asked me about Megan. “How longs she been sick?”
“More ‘n a week, now. We thought she was getting some better, but this morning, she was just all burning up with the fever.”
“How come you didn’t go for Doc Roberts? Woulda been 'bout the same walking distance for ya.”
“Doc Roberts is off on his summer fishing trip. Won’t be back for two weeks.”
“I see.” Mrs. Parker stood up, cleaning up our few dishes. “Don’t get up child,” she said when I stood up to help. “I’ll just clean up here and pen my chickens up, case I don’t make it back afore dark.”
She left me sitting there at her table, while she went to chasing chickens. I watched her out the window. Them chickens didn’t want to go into their pen this early, but once the sun starts to set, try to keep 'em out. Chickens knows there’s some dangers lurking around these mountains in the dark.
I was starting to giggle, as I watched that old woman, chasing them chickens around and trying to shoo 'em toward their pen, when, of a sudden, I heard a noise, coming from upstairs. Which is strange, 'cause this house, just like ours, ain’t got no upstairs.
There, I heard it again. I stared at the ceiling for a minute, listening to a tap, tap, tapping, an almost musical drumbeat of tapping. Then I looked back out the window at Mrs. Parker, wrangling them chickens. If she was outside, and Mr. Parker was at work, down at the furniture mill, which I know he was, cause his truck is gone, then where was that sound coming from? I stood up, still staring at the ceiling, and walked toward the living room. I found nothing in the living room and the sound seemed to be coming more from the back of the house, so I peeked in the door of a bedroom, which opened just off the living room, the way these old houses do. It was obviously Mr. and Mrs. Parker’s bedroom, although it was neat as could be. A huge, four-poster bed set smack in the middle, made up all neat with a patchwork quilt. There was nothing else of interest, so I closed that door and stepped back into the living room. There was one more door, aside from the front door. I opened this other door and found another bedroom. What I assumed was a spare bedroom. It was bare, just a four-poster bed in the middle, also made up neat as a pin, and an old bureau on one wall.
I heard the tapping again—I looked up at the ceiling; there was a trapdoor, with a set of stairs leading up. Not stairs, exactly, but one of them folding ladders that pulls down from the ceiling. It was open now and there was that sound again, tap, tap, tapping, just above me. I looked behind me—still no sign of Mrs. Parker—then I started to climb. I know I shouldn’t have—you just don’t go into somebody’s house and climb up into their attic, uninvited. But like Mama always said, curiosity killed the cat—so I climbed, the tapping growing louder with each step I took up that rickety ladder. I stopped halfway, listening for Mrs. Parker to come back in the kitchen, my pulse pounding in sync with each tap from above my head. I took a deep breath and climbed on up, and as my head cleared the hatchway into the attic, what do I see?
A boy, a pale teenage boy, tapping away at wooden poles with a wooden spoon, making a sort of music, I guess. He sees me; his eyes meet mine and his music stops while he stares. I don’t remember climbing on up or crossing the attic to stand right in front of him, but I guess I did, cause suddenly, here I was, eye to eye with a boy in a cage, a boy about my age, or a little older. His cage has bars made of upright wooden poles, poles that stretch from floor to ceiling, and…he's naked as a Jaybird.