The Poe Estate

by Polly Shulman

  “Can I help you?” I asked.

  Startled, he dropped the broom, then picked it up again. “How much is this?” he asked. His voice had a too-sweet, hissing quality, and he was spreading stinky pipe smoke all over our booth.

  “It’s not for sale,” I said. “And I don’t think you’re allowed to smoke in here.”

  The man puffed on his pipe and waved the smoke away. “I’ll give you fifteen dollars,” he said.

  “No,” I said, annoyed. “It’s not for sale.”

  “Forty?”

  “No,” I said again. “It’s not even mine—it’s my cousin’s.” I grabbed the broom by the handle, but he didn’t let go.

  “A hundred and fifty dollars, and that’s my best offer.”

  “I said no.” I pulled on the broom. He still didn’t let go. Were we going to have a tug-of-war?

  The man took a deep pull on his pipe, which flared up red, just the color of his tie and hat. Then it went out. His grip on the broom slackened, and he let go. I stumbled back, suddenly off balance, holding the broom.

  The man turned his back and bent over his pipe, muttering something. Why had I thought he was so well dressed? Now his suit jacket looked faded and shabby.

  Mom finished talking to the lamp woman and came over. “What’s that smell?” she asked. “Is something burning? I’m sorry, sir, but there’s no smoking here.”

  The man straightened up, his pipe lit again. No, I had been right the first time: His clothing was perfectly new and hideously elegant. He bowed slightly and left, still smoking.

  Mom waved away the smoke with the real estate section of the newspaper. “Phew,” she grunted. “What a smell! I hope it doesn’t drive away the customers. What did he want?”

  “The broom. He wanted to buy it.”

  “Really? How much did he offer?”

  “Kind of a lot,” I said. “But it’s not ours—it’s Cousin Hepzibah’s.”

  “Hm,” said Mom. “A lot? How much?”

  “Mom! You promised! And he was really creepy.”

  “You’re right, Sook. I won’t sell it without asking Hepzibah. Even if it’s just a broom. I wonder if it’s Shaker. Those old Shaker brooms and brushes can bring a good price. We should check it out when we get home. Ready for a slice of pizza?”

  “Sure, I can go get it. What do you want on yours?”

  “No, you stay here. You know I don’t like you wandering around the city by yourself. Will you be okay watching the booth alone? Maybe we should wait for Dad.”

  “I’ll be fine, Mom. Pepperoni, please.”

  Mom frowned. “I’ll tell Tom and Tim to keep an eye on you. Shout for them if there’s any trouble, okay? Promise?”

  “I promise,” I said.

  “Okay, back soon.” She kissed my cheek quickly and bundled on her coat.

  • • •

  I read my book for a while. I’d chosen it partly for the cool cover—faded red cloth embossed with gold arabesques—and partly because I recognized the author’s name, Laetitia Flint, from Cousin Hepzibah’s library. It was a gothic story teeming with orphans, shipwrecks, tumbledown mansions, missing wills, and exclamation points. I was pretty sure the mysterious figure swathed in gray was going to turn out to be a ghost.

  “Excuse me?”

  I looked up. Then I looked farther up. A guy was standing by the table holding a small, dusty old bottle. He looked approximately my age, but twice as tall.

  I closed my book on my finger and smiled up at him, telling myself not to be timid. People my age make me feel shyer than adults. I guess because of all the mean kids at school. Besides, he was quite good looking.

  “How can I help you?” I asked.

  “I’m looking for old bottles like this,” he said. “Could be glass, could be stoneware. Preferably with the original contents. Got anything like that?”

  “I don’t think so, but you’re welcome to look. If we did, they would be in there,” I said, pointing to the clutter boxes.

  Leaning down, the guy started rummaging through a box. Drops of water glinted in his hair and on his coat. Raindrops or melted snow? Snow, I hoped—Mom hadn’t taken an umbrella. “Hey, what’s the weather like up there?” I asked.

  The guy straightened up and gave me an exasperated look. “Exactly the same as the weather down there, where you’re at. The climate doesn’t change a whole lot in a few feet. And please don’t tell me I must be great at basketball. I’m not. I never was. I suck one hundred and ten percent, and the next person who gives me a hard time about it, I’m going to throw them through a hoop. Though,” he added, “I’ll probably miss.”

  “What?” I said. “Oh, no! That’s not what I meant at all! I just meant is it snowing or raining outside? Upstairs, I mean. Because your jacket is wet.”

  He looked down at his shoulders and brushed at them with his hands. “Oh. Right. It’s snowing. Sorry I snapped at you. Everybody’s always going on about how tall I am and it gets real old.”

  “I can imagine,” I said.

  “You think you can, but you can’t. Especially because my big brother—he was a basketball star, so everybody expects me to be too.”

  “And you really can’t play?”

  “Nope. Not basketball, not football, not nothing,” said the tall guy. “Chess. I’m good at chess.”

  “Of course you are,” I said. “Tall people are always good at chess.”

  That made him smile. “Yeah. ’Cause we get a better perspective on the board.”

  “If you’re missing a knight or something, I think there are some vintage chess pieces in that box,” I said. “Maybe a whole set.”

  “Thanks.” He poked around in the box I’d pointed to, picked something up, and turned it over in his hand. Then suddenly he stood up straight again and yelled, “Libbet! Libbet!”

  He waited, but nothing happened. He put two fingers in his mouth and let out a piercing whistle. “Libbet! Libbet!” he yelled again.

  Nothing continued to happen. Nothing went on happening for a while. I wondered who he was calling.

  He whistled again, and an enormous dog came galloping down the empty row between the sellers’ stalls.

  Some of the people at the flea market like to bring their dogs with them. Tom and Tim, who sell antiquarian books and maps and antique lab equipment, have a big yellow Labrador retriever named Pauli. He’s sweet and sedate and likes to go to sleep with his nose on your shoe. The lady with all the waffle irons has a toy poodle. But I had never in my life seen a dog like this one. It was the size of a sheep—no, a lion. It seemed like an expensive dog to take to a flea market, I thought, remembering the broken vase. Wouldn’t it knock stuff over?

  The dog skidded to a stop in front of the guy. It leaned down its head and snuffled at the object he was holding. It gave one brief, quiet bark, then insinuated its large body between the tables and snuffled at my legs.

  I held out my hand. The dog sniffed, decided I was okay, and gave my hand a gigantic lick. It didn’t seem to be knocking anything over. “Hello, Libbet,” I said, scratching behind its ears. They were the size of sweaters, but silkier.

  The chess guy cracked up, as if I’d said something hilarious.

  “What’s so funny?” I asked.

  “That’s not Libbet,” he said, choking with laughter. “That’s Griffin.”

  “Oh,” I said. How was I supposed to know that? “Hilarious.”

  “Sorry,” he said, “it’s just—well, you’ll see. Griffin! Griffin, go find Libbet.”

  The dog politely removed its head from my hand and bounded gracefully away. Soon it came back, leading a young woman. She had snowflakes in her light brown hair and was wiping snow off her glasses with a cloth handkerchief.

  “That’s Libbet,” said the chess guy. “Griffin’s a dog. Libbet’s a person.”


  The woman put her glasses on and held out her hand. “Elizabeth Rew,” she said. She had a nice smile. “Call me Elizabeth—Andre’s the only one who calls me Libbet. He’s right about one thing, though. I’m a person.”

  “Susannah O’Dare,” I said, shaking her hand. “Call me Sukie. I’m a person too.”

  Griffin gave another brief bark.

  “I know,” said Elizabeth, “but you can’t deny you’re a dog.”

  Griffin tilted its head, and Elizabeth scratched it behind the ears. “Good boy,” she said absently. She blew her nose with her handkerchief, then sniffed the air, frowning.

  “Sorry about the smell,” I said. “There was a weird guy here smoking a pipe.”

  “Hm,” said Elizabeth.

  “Libbet, the reason I called you, what do you think of this?” asked the guy—Andre—handing her the object in his hand. It was an old brass doorknob. It had a swirly pattern, like a new fern leaf before it uncurls.

  Elizabeth closed her eyes and fingered the curves. Then she brought the doorknob to her nose and sniffed at it. She opened her eyes and nodded. “Well spotted, Andre,” she said. She turned to me and asked, “Where is this from, do you know?”

  “Some old house,” I said. “In Vermont, I think.”

  “Do you know where exactly?”

  “I’m not sure. The house is probably gone now anyway. My dad picks up a lot of stuff from demolitions.”

  “Would he remember where it was?”

  “Maybe. I can ask him if you like. Or you can ask him yourself if you’re going to be around for a while—he’ll be back in an hour or so.”

  “Okay. We can come back,” said Elizabeth.

  “Don’t we have to go meet Doc?” asked Andre.

  “Oh, you’re right.” She turned to me. “Will you and your father be here again next weekend?”

  “I’m not sure,” I said. “It depends on the weather.”

  “We better get the doorknob, at least,” said Andre.

  Elizabeth nodded at him. “How much?” she asked me.

  I tried to decide what my mom would charge. “Thirty dollars?” I hazarded. “It’s brass.”

  Elizabeth took a ten and a twenty out of her wallet without argument. Darn, I thought. I should have asked for more.

  I wondered about the relationship between the two of them. They didn’t look like family, since he was African American and she was white. That didn’t necessarily mean they weren’t related, of course. Then there was the age difference: She couldn’t be more than ten or fifteen years older than him. They seemed to know each other very well. She could be his teacher, maybe, but in that case wouldn’t he call her Ms. Rew instead of some silly-sounding nickname?

  Andre went back to poking through the boxes while Elizabeth looked over the things on the tables. Then she froze, the way people do when they spot something they really, really want, but they don’t want you to know how much they want it. She casually picked up Cousin Hepzibah’s broom, lifted it to her nose like the doorknob, and sniffed it.

  “That’s not for sale,” I said quickly.

  “Are you sure? I would give you a fair price. Maybe I could talk to your dad?”

  I shook my head. “It’s not ours—it’s my cousin’s,” I said. “What is it with that broom? Is it Shaker or something? The guy with the pipe tried to buy it too.”

  “He did? What did he look like?”

  “Short man, fancy clothes, red hat. Smoking a really stinky pipe. Kind of creepy somehow,” I said.

  Elizabeth and Andre exchanged glances. “You think it’s Feathertop?” he said.

  “Maybe,” she answered.

  “Who’s Feathertop?” I asked.

  “He’s . . .” Elizabeth thought for a minute. “He’s an agent for a private collector we know. You’re right, kind of creepy. . . .”

  “Why does he want the broom? Is it Shaker, like my mom thought?”

  “No, I don’t think so. The Shakers made flat, modern-style brooms. They invented them. This one has the traditional round shape. I think it’s probably old, though—maybe very old.”

  “Like how old?”

  She shrugged. “A hundred years? Two hundred? Old. If your cousin decides to sell it, will you or your dad call me first? And if someone else makes an offer, give me a chance to meet it? I would really appreciate it,” she said. She took a business card out of an antique silver card case and handed it to me.

  “Um, sure,” I said, reading the card. It said Elizabeth Rew, PhD, Associate Repositorian for Acquisitions, The New-York Circulating Material Repository. It gave a phone number and an address.

  She handed me another of her cards. “Here’s one for your dad too. Ask him to call me?” she asked. “I want to talk to him about that doorknob. Maybe he could keep an eye out for some other stuff for us too.”

  “Sure,” I said again.

  A man, maybe in his thirties, with salt-and-pepper hair and a suave look, appeared at her elbow. “Why, Elizabeth Rew! And little Andre too, looking smug. Can I assume you’ve beaten me to the good stuff again?”

  Elizabeth turned around and smiled. “Hello, Jonathan. I was wondering if we’d see you—it seems we just missed your . . . associate.”

  Was this the creepy pipe smoker’s boss, then?

  “Yes, he told me there were treasures at this booth. Will you show me what you found?”

  Elizabeth handed him the doorknob. “Very nice,” he said, fingering it appreciatively. “Wharton, do you think?”

  “Could be. It’s too soon to tell,” said Elizabeth.

  “What’ll you take for it?”

  Elizabeth shook her head, laughing a little. “Pushy, pushy! Not for sale. You’re too much, Jonathan! What about you—find anything good?”

  He shook his head too. “Not today. I don’t seem to have your luck. Unless there’s something you missed here . . .”

  Andre took out his cell phone and checked the time. “I don’t think there is, but you can look. Come on, Libbet, we better go. Doc’s waiting,” he said.

  “All right. Thank you, Sukie,” said Elizabeth. “Nice to meet you. Happy hunting, Jonathan. Come on, Griffin.”

  The three of them disappeared up the exit ramp, the dog’s nails clicking on the cement.

  The minute they were gone, Mr. Suave Salt-and-Pepper whipped around and picked up the broom. “How much for this?” he asked intensely. For the third time that day I had to insist it wasn’t for sale.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Cole Farley

  I rode the bus to school the next day—same school, different bus. I waited by the gate at the bottom of the hill, worrying that the driver would forget to stop for me. The bus showed up right on time, though.

  My new stop came early in the route, so I got my pick of seats. I chose an empty row in the middle, hoping nobody would sit next to me, and opened my Laetitia Flint novel.

  I was right about the mysterious figure swathed in gray: She did turn out to be a ghost. She drove the bad guys to their deaths one by one by materializing suddenly behind them and letting out eerie screeches as they walked along the cliff path above the churning maelstrom.

  I thought it was pretty dumb of the bad guys to walk along the cliff path above the churning maelstrom. I didn’t blame the first one or two bad guys, but after the third time it happened, the rest of them should have known better.

  After a few stops, someone interrupted my reading. “You’re not on this bus,” said a boy’s voice. I looked up and saw Cole Farley, horrible Tyler Spinelli’s horrible friend.

  “I’m not?” I said. “I must be a ghost, then.”

  “Maybe that’s why they call you Spooky Sukie.” He laughed—I wasn’t sure whether it was at his own joke or mine—and slid in next to me on the seat.

  I kicked myself. I should hav
e kept my mouth shut.

  “Seriously, what are you doing on this bus?” he asked.

  Cole Farley was tall and handsome, with chiseled cheekbones, broad shoulders, clear skin, and straight, silky black hair. His good looks made him seem more hateful to me, not less.

  “We moved,” I said, turning back to my book.

  “Really? Where?”

  I wanted to tell him to mind his own business, but I remembered how mean he used to be, and I didn’t want to provoke him. “Thorne Hill Road,” I said.

  “Where that weird old haunted house is, with the weird old lady? I didn’t know there were any other houses up there.”

  “There aren’t,” I said.

  “So where are you living, then?”

  “I just told you. Thorne Hill Road. With my Cousin Hepzibah.”

  “The old lady in the haunted house is your cousin?” His silky black eyebrows shot up to the top of his high, hateful forehead. “Spooky Sukie is right!”

  Oh, you foolish boy, I thought. I’m not the spooky one you should be worried about. My sister was probably listening to every word. These days, Kitty didn’t always wait for my whistle before she showed up—I often felt her watching over me invisibly. Lately, she took her job as Sukie protector more and more seriously.

  I glared at Cole and didn’t answer.

  “What’s it like inside your cousin’s house?” he went on, apparently completely unbothered by my glare.

  “Old,” I said.

  “Yeah, but old how? It’s so big! What are the rooms like? Is it just your cousin in there?”

  “Hey, Farley! Cole!” Some of his friends at the back of the bus had spotted him. “What are you doing up there? Get back here and sit with us!”

  “Okay, okay! Coming,” he shouted. He gave me an apologetic half smile—did he think I would actually mind his leaving? “Catch you later, Spooky,” he said and strode gracefully away to join his friends.

  • • •

  Cole left me alone on the bus home. So did everybody else. When I got off, I shouldered my backpack and started up the steep hill to the mansion that was now my home. Big black birds—crows, maybe—sat on the peak of each gable, cawing one by one as I approached.