Part 5 (1/2)

”What's the matter sonny?”

”Begging your pardon, but you got collards dribbling all over your chin.”

Grandpa put down his fork. ”So they is. I thank you kindly.”

And before he rightly knowed what he was doing, Grandpa wiped his mouth on the napkin.

When he finished he looked down at it. He looked once and he looked twice. Then he just set the napkin down gentle-like, stood up from the table, and headed straight for the stairs.

”Goodbye all,” he said.

We heard him go clumping up the steps and down the hall into his room and we heard the mattress sag when he laid down on his bed.

Then everything was quiet.

After a while Pa pushed his chair back and went upstairs.

n.o.body said a word until he come down again.

”Well?” Ma looked at him.

”Ain't nothing more to worry about,” Pa said. ”He's laid down his burden at last. Gone to glory, amen.”

”Praise be!” Ma said. Then she looked at me and crooked a finger at the napkin. ”Best get rid of that.”

I went *round and picked it up. Sister Susie give me a funny look.

”Ain't n.o.body fixing to tell me what happened?” she asked.

I didn't answera”just toted the napkin out and dropped it deep down in the crick. Weren't no sense telling anybody the how of it, but the Conjure Lady had the right notion after all.

She knowed Grandpa'd get his proofa”just as soon as he wiped his mouth.

Ain't nothing like a black napkin to show up a little ol'

maggot.

INSIDE THE CLOSET.

by Michael McDowell.

(Based on a Teleplay by Michael McDowell).

She'd been told the house was Victorian and about two minutes from the campus. It was, however, at least a mile and a half from the campus, down a steep hill, across a picturesque iron bridge crossing and ugly trickle of water that was called the Alewife Brook, and finally up an even steeper hill. Further more, the house wasn't Victorian at all, but Edwardian. Built around 1914, Gail guessed. Because her undergraduate thesis had been on the domestic architecture of Philadelphia, she was confident she wasn't more than a year or two off.

It was three stories high, but its wide windows and its horizontal planking, its lazy porches and its doubled doors made it look as if it had been squashed down from a house that was much more pleasantly vertical. It was surrounded by evergreen treesa”the kind that grew slowly, grew tall, and provided the house not so much shade as black shadow all year round. The lot was large, fenced, with a p.r.i.c.kly hawthorn hedge outside the fence. The house faced differently from its neighbors, fronting a dead-end lane of empty wooded lots.

Gail wondered at her good fortune.

The porch light was encased in an iron lantern Gail was certain was original to the house. She admired the stained gla.s.s that bordered the front door on either side. More richly secular colors than you'd find in a church, and new soldering showed her they'd been carefully reinforced. There was a bell, but Gail used the knocker insteada”bra.s.s, in the form of a horned goat's head.

The man who opened the door was tall, middle-aged, dour.

”I called,” said Gail ”Dr. Fenner?”

”Miss Aynsley,” he replied, confirming she'd gotten the address right.

”Gail,” she said.

He politely stepped aside, allowing Gail into the hallway.

She went in cautiously and glanced around without moving her head. She didn't want to appear too curious.

The woodwork was original, mahogany or perhaps even the more exotic gumwood. The wallpaper was an elegant wide-weave canvas, painted cream, the lighting fixtures tarnished bra.s.s with low-wattage bulbs. It was exactly the sort of low-keyed elegance Gail adored.

Or would have adored had it not been for the hangings on the walls: mounted heads of small animals. Small angry animals. Tiny screaming primates. Small snarling rodents.

The long-haired gaping faces of unhappy mammals she couldn't give a name to.

”I'm told I have the last available s.p.a.ce in town,” said Dr. Fenner.

The books Gail was carrying slipped out of her arms.

Embarra.s.sed, she knelt on the dark carpeta”a faded, frayed, and exquisitely valuable Circa.s.sian runner.

”I should've started looking earlier. The term begins next week. I'm a graduate student in fine arts.”

”I'm dean of the veterinary school,” he replied, in frigid amiableness. ”There's a reason the room hasn't been rented yet.” Gail stood, her books and tablets gathered together.

Since she's started her studies in architecture, the history of design, and the development of domestic architecture, she'd always wanted to appened that she was desperate for a place to live. She wondered what she could say to persuade Dr. Fenner to accept her as a tenant.

”I'm a strict landlord,” said Dr. Fenner after a moment, when she had said nothing. ”I do most of my work here at homea”I write and teach and administratea”and I have to have quiet. So no stereos, no television, no boyfriends trooping through at all hours of the night.”

”All I've got is my slide projector,” returned Gail hesitantly, ”and I promise not to run it late.”

Fenner softened. ”No boyfriends?”

”It's me and my books.” Gail smiled.

”Bookcases I have,” said Fenner. ”Third floor. All to yourself.”

Fenner led her up a thickly carpeted dark staircase, down a long unlighted corridor past wide dark doors with bra.s.s k.n.o.bs, around an unexpected turn, to a small triangular landing.

”Bath and kitchenette,” said Fenner, thumbing through the old iron keys on the old iron ring. ”But basically illegal.”

”Illegal?” Gail echoed as he found the key and shoved it in the lock.