Two

“Are you ok?”  Mom asked me.  I looked at her bewildered.  “Who is crying?”  She continued questioning me. 

I shrugged my shoulders and turned away from her.  “I don’t know what you are talking about, mom.” 

“I heard someone crying, I thought it was you.”  She told me.

“I didn’t hear anything.  Leave me alone, I’m sleeping.  You’re hearing things.”  I pulled the pillow over my head.

The next morning, after eating our breakfast cereal, mom sent us girls up to our rooms to get them finished.  The night before we had gotten our beds and dressers set up so we only had, unpacking the boxes and putting everything away left for us.   While my parents were putting our beds together, we found another little door, just like the one in the hallway, in my room.  When we opened it, the darkness was too frightening to explore.  I found the flashlight in one of the boxes for my room and decided to check it out today. 

The light pooled into the darkness as I peered into the small space.  It seemed to me almost a cave to explore and the idea thrilled me to the bone.  I crept inside wondering what I would find.  The light was like a narrow tunnel I was following.  I crawled forward through the tiny, musty smelling space.  Something creaked behind me and the door shut hard.  Without the small flashlight, I would have been in complete darkness, but this did not deter me from my plans.  I heard someone breathing and turned to see if one of my sisters was following me.  Nothing was there but a cardboard box at the end of the space on the other side of the closed door.   My heart was pounding in my chest so loud I thought if someone was in the next room they would have heard its loud rhythm, still I pressed on with my curiosity leading the way.  I turned back in the original direction, heading alongside the hallway towards the end of the space that led out near the stairwell.  When I got to the end of my imaginary cave and found the other door I tried to push it open, it was stuck.  Something brushed against me and rustled down the floor towards the end near my room.  I shone the light in its direction and saw nothing there, but the door at the end of my room was cracked open allowing a sliver of light into the dark.  I pushed hard on the little door in front of me and fell into the hallway near the stairwell. 

As I looked up, I saw the door above the stairs shut suddenly as if someone had just gone into the room.  We had not been in that room yet that I knew of, the Realtor told my parents it was just an attic.  I felt strangely drawn to the door and decided my exploration should continue there.  The summer heat seemed to make all the doors swell and stick, pulling on the attic door hard it came open finally with a good deal of effort.  I almost fell down the stairs but held tight to the old brass handle and stumbled into the room trying to catch my balance. 

As I entered the room, cobwebs tickled my face.  I brushed them away with my hand looking for the makers of them.  No spiders to be seen, at least at that moment.  The ceiling and walls of the room were unfinished exposures of the framing.  The ceiling was a low slant all the way to the floor on the far end of the room.  There was a heating vent that when opened you could see into my sisters room.  The wooden floor looked very old except for a patch of new pieces of wood the previous owner must have replaced for whatever reason.  Without any window the only light in the room was from the open door that was slowly creaking as if it were about to shut in on me.  I found a string to pull on the light and pulled it just as the door closed itself.  I didn’t take any notice of that because I was paying attention to the boxes in the corner.  The writing on them didn’t look like my parents, and they were covered with dust.  I figured they must have been left behind by mistake.  Curious as always, I dusted the boxes off and opened the one on top.  Inside there was a beautiful white lace fabric that I imagined was a wedding veil.  I pulled it on my head and played in it for a moment.  Then I thought I heard someone calling me and turned to answer, as I turned I tripped over something I hadn’t seen before.  I fell to the floor and scraped up my knees.  After sulking over the sting for a moment I pulled myself up and realized it was an axe I had tripped over. 

“What a strange place to put this.. “ I thought out loud. 

The door suddenly opened hard and I jumped so fast I nearly fell again.  It was only my mother.

“I was calling and calling for you!  What are you doing?”  She seemed a little cross which wasn’t her nature.

“Sorry, I was exploring and I tripped.”  I pulled at the lace hanging out of the box.  “Look what I found.”

She pulled the entire piece of fabric out of the box and said “What a lovely curtain.  It would look so nice at the window.”  She pointed to the window above the stairs.  “I’ll hang it later when your father is done with the step-stool.”  Then looking at my scraped up knees she told me “Go wash up those wounds and you can find the Band-Aids in the bathroom cupboard.  When you are done with that your father would like your help with something. He is in the basement.”

I dreaded the idea of going to the basement to help him.  My dad wasn’t a very patient man, and he usually had some very hard labor in mind for me since I was the oldest child.  I tried to do my best to please him, but typically my chore time spent with him was when I disappointed him the most.   He spent most of the time yelling loudly about how I was doing what he wanted wrong and I would often be slapped for my mistakes.   Still I hoped I would find a way to get his approval and tried to keep a positive thought as I hurried with the Band-Aids and stepped down the seemingly unfinished stairwell to the basement.  It only had the steps on the frame of it so someone could grab your ankles as you were descending from beneath the staircase.  That is exactly what I imagined with every step closer to my father. 

“There you are.” He said when I got to where he was at the workbench.  “I want you to do a job for me.” He set down the motor he was working on and motioned with his finger that I follow him.  He opened the basement door that led out to the patio under our deck in the back yard.  Then he pointed at a large wood pile that sat under the deck.  “I want you to move these logs over to that end of the yard for chopping.  Report back to me when you are done, I have more things for you to do, and be quick about it!” 

My eyes grew big looking at the pile.  I wondered why he thought I was capable of doing such a large task considering the wood pile was at least twice my height.  I thought about objecting to him about the condition but reconsidered when I looked back at his expectant face.  I swallowed hard and climbed up to where I could reach the top of the wood.  Dragged a log down, and carried it over to the corner he had indicated, set it down and went to retrieve another. 

It took me two hours to even make a dent in the pile and when he came out to see what I was doing the look on his face made it clear to me that I was not pleasing him with my work.  To my surprise he didn’t say a word, he just picked up a log and started to help.  Mom was calling for lunch before we were done, but we had gotten a large portion of the pile moved.  Dad told her that we would finish the job before we came in.  I groaned inside knowing that if I tried to complain about how hungry I was it would only bring a punishment for me and I wanted to eat, not be sent to my room.  I fought back the hunger pains while we spent another hour finishing the project.

Luckily mom had wrapped my sandwich so it wasn’t dry when I got to eat. 

“You can have the afternoon off.  You did good.”  Dad told me as he swallowed most of his sandwich whole.  Then he turned to my mom who was working on unpacking some boxes in the kitchen.  “I have to get some tools before I can repair the motor completely.  I’ll see you later tonight.”  Then he left the kitchen and moments later I heard the front door shutting and the car starting up. 

I was glad for the praise, but even more pleased with the release of my afternoon.  I wanted to see what else the attic and crawl space had to offer.  I remembered the box I had spied in the crawl space and ran upstairs as soon as I was finished eating.  I grabbed my flashlight out of the attic where I had left it and realized mom had hung up the curtains.  They were so long they touched the floor.  As I passed my sisters room heading towards mine, I noticed they were playing dress-up in their room.  All of their clothes were scattered across their beds, but the strange thing was they had some old style clothing I had never seen before.  Old fashioned girl dresses that fit them well with aprons and funny little shoes made of velvet.  I stopped in the doorway wondering where they had gotten them.

“Mom said we could have them Sam.”  My youngest sister said in a snotty, selfish voice as she turned around to look at me.  “Besides, they wouldn’t fit you anyways!”  My mouth dropped open.  I hadn’t remembered until this moment what the girl in my dream was wearing, but the very same dress was on my baby sister.  The surprise of seeing it bewildered me speechless.  Normally I would have teased my sister a little for her snotty attitude, but all I could do is just stare at her, my mouth hanging open.

It took a moment for me to regain my thoughts and inquire, “Where did you find that Betty?”

She looked at me suspiciously and told me slowly, “Mom said we could have them to play with.”

“But where did you get it?”  I walked into her room with intent. 

“It was in a box.”

“Where?” I was starting to feel like shaking her for teasing me with the answer.

“It was in the attic room.  Mom said we could have it, not you!”

“I don’t want it!”  I told her sharply and hurried downstairs to find my mom.

I ran down the steps, through the bathroom, looked in the kitchen as I ran into the formal dining room to her door.  As I neared her bedroom door I heard the back door open and closed.  I ran back to the kitchen and saw her through the window of the back door leaving the house.  She had an empty box with her.  I opened the back door breathless.

“Mom, mom, I have to tell you something!”  I paused to breathe in.  “Last night I had this dream and there was a lady and a girl and they were in our house and Betty is wearing her dress!”  I spurted out all I could say and took another breathing moment. 

Mom looked at me funny.  “What?”

“I had a dream last night about a girl wearing the dress Betty has!” 

“How interesting,” mom said matter-of-factly.  “I have to take this to the garbage can, I will be back in a moment.”  

“But mom, what about the dress?”

“It is an interesting coincidence.  I’ll be right back.”  My mom went out the porch door and down the deck stairs to the yard and disappeared into the alley where our garbage can resided in the detached garage.  A few moments later she came back in and I tried to get her to talk to me about the dress.  After my repeating of my dream in more detail and explaining to her I didn’t even remember the dress until I saw it on my sister she still wasn’t very impressed.  I thought it had to mean something.

“Honey, I highly doubt that there is any connection to your dream and the old clothes we found.  There are quite a few things the old owners left behind and I am sure that your imagination is just overreacting to the new house.”  She patted me on the back before continuing.  “Why don’t you go play and put this out of your mind.”

I reluctantly went up to my room and lay down on my bed.  I was sure it was the same dress the girl wore in my dream.  I started daydreaming about who she was.  I must have fallen asleep because the next thing I remember was my mother was shaking me awake telling me dinner was ready.

It wasn’t until after dinner I remembered that I was planning to explore the contents of the box in the crawl space, but when I went to do it I was told it was my turn to wash the dishes.  I hurried through my chore so I could see what was up there.  My sisters had found some treasures so I figured there must be something interesting in the box; maybe even another clue to the story I believed was unfolding in front of me. 

As I was climbing the stairwell I noticed the curtains that were hung today were blowing like there was someone standing in the window.  As I got to the third from the top step they fell down flat.  I didn’t think too much of it as the window was cracked open a little and went to my room. 

As I opened the door to my room the closet door shut suddenly.  It startled me and I jumped a little.  I checked my closet and nothing was there.  I thought “Maybe it was the wind.”  I found my flashlight on my desk and figured my sister put it there.  I picked it up, turned it on, and opened the little door to the crawl space in my room. 

It creaked loudly as I pulled it wide open.  The cardboard box was right inside as I had seen earlier, so I pulled the heavy container out of the crawl space to look at it.  I wiped off the dust anticipating a great find.  It was taped shut and labeled “Sarah”.  I opened the flaps to the box and felt a wave of disappointment.  It was just a bunch of old blankets.  I moaned in discontentment and sat with a thud on my floor.  I had hoped it was something more interesting like photos or letters.

“Time for bed.”  I heard my mom calling to us as she neared the top of the stairs.  She stopped in my sisters room and told them “goodnight” and tucked them into bed, then shut off their light and came into my room.  I was still sitting on the floor scowling at the box I had found.

“What are you up to?” she asked me.

“I was just investigating, but it turned out to be nothing important.”

“It’s time for lights out sweetie, climb in bed and I will tuck you in.” she told me.

“Mooom!  I’m too old for that!” I protested her babying me since I had turned ten.  That was two years ago. 

“Alright,” she sighed as if I let her down, “then get in bed on your own and have a good night.  I love you.”

“love you too” I grumbled at her.

She turned off my light as I climbed into my covers.  I settled into my pillow and stared at the direction of the box in the dark. 

I was in my room playing with some cards when the blond haired girl opened the door and sat on the bed.  It was in the same place as my bed, but it was different than mine.  My dresser and desk were gone too.  Instead of my pieces of furniture, there was a wooden chest with a rose cut into it, a small wooden bookcase with a few books, and a porcelain doll sitting in a wicker chair near the crawl space door.  The girl was crying into a pillow on the bed.

“What’s the matter?”  I asked her.

She looked up at me startled that I was there. 

“Who are you?”  She stared at me in disbelief.

“I’m Sam,” I told her, “why are you crying?”

“Sarah!” the lady with the dark auburn hair was in the doorway.  “I told you to stop your crying.  You are giving me a headache!”  The lady slapped Sarah and left the room shutting the door hard.

“Honey, are you ok?”  I looked up at my mom standing over my bed.  “I heard you crying, what’s wrong?”

“I wasn’t crying mom, I was sleeping.”  The dream was fading from me.  “Let me sleep.”

My mom pulled my blankets up to my chin and kissed my cheek.  “If you need something I am here.”  She patted my head and left my room.  I fell back to sleep quickly, but I didn’t dream of the girl and the lady the rest of the night.