Part 2 (1/2)
The sounds returned, three nights later, and they were-larger.
”Not mice” said Clara Peck. ”Good-sized rats rats. Eh?”
In answer, the ceiling above executed an intricate, crosscurrenting ballet, without music. This toe dancing, of a most peculiar sort, continued until the moon sank. Then, as soon as the light failed, the house grew silent and only Clara Peck took up breathing and life, again.
By the end of the week, the patterns were more geometrical. The sounds echoed in every upstairs room; the sewing room, the old bedroom, and in the library where some former occupant had once turned pages and gazed over a sea of chestnut trees.
On the tenth night, all eyes and no face, with the sounds coming in drumbeats and weird syncopations, at three in the morning, Clara Peck flung her sweaty hand at the telephone to dial Emma Crowley: ”Clara! I knew knew you'd call!” you'd call!”
”Emma, it's three am. Aren't you surprised?”
”No, I been lying here thinking of you. I wanted to call, but felt a fool. Something is wrong, yes?”
”Emma, answer me this. If a house has an empty attic for years, and all of a sudden has an attic full of things, how come how come?”
”I didn't know you had had an attic-” an attic-”
”Who did did? Listen, what started as mice then sounded like rats and now sounds like cats running around up there. What'll I do?”
”The telephone number of the Ratzaway Pest Team on Main Street is-wait. Here, MAIN seven-seven-nine-nine. You sure sure something's in your attic?” something's in your attic?”
”The whole d.a.m.ned high school track team.”
”Who used to live in your house, Clara?”
”Who-?”
”I mean, it's been clean all this time, right, and now, well, infested infested. Anyone ever die there?”
”Die?”
”Sure, if someone died there, maybe you haven't got mice, at all.”
”You trying to tell me-ghosts?”
”Don't you believe-?”
”Ghosts, or so-called friends who try spooking me with them. Don't call again, Emma!”
”But, you you called called me me!”
”Hang up, Emma!!”
Emma Crowley hung up. In the hall at three fifteen in the cold morning, Clara Peck glided out, stood for a moment, then pointed up at the ceiling, as if to provoke it.
”Ghosts?” she whispered.
The trapdoor's hinges, lost in the night above, oiled themselves with wind. Clara Peck turned slowly and went back, and thinking about every movement, got into bed. She woke at four twenty in the morning because a wind shook the house. Out in the hall, could it be? She strained. She tuned her ears.
Very softly, very quietly, the trapdoor in the stairwell ceiling squealed.
And opened wide.
Can't be! she thought. be! she thought.
The door fell up, in, and down, with a thud.
Is! she thought. she thought.
I'll go make sure, she thought No!
She jumped, ran, locked the door, leaped back in bed. ”h.e.l.lo, Ratzaway!” she heard herself call, m.u.f.fled, under the covers.
Going downstairs, sleepless, at six in the morning, she kept her eyes straight ahead, so as not to see that dreadful ceiling.
Halfway down she glanced back, started, and laughed.
”Silly!” she cried.
For the trapdoor was not open at all.
It was shut ”Ratzaway?” she said, into the telephone receiver, at seven thirty on a bright morning.
It was noon when the Ratzaway inspection truck stopped in front of Clara Peck's house.
In the way that Mr. Timmons, the young inspector, strolled with insolent disdain up the walk, Clara saw that he knew everything in the world about mice, termites, old maids, and odd late-night sounds. Moving, he glanced around at the world with that fine masculine hauteur of the bullfighter midring or the skydiver fresh from the sky, or the womanizer lighting his cigarette, back turned to the poor creature in the bed behind him. As he pressed her doorbell, he was G.o.d's messenger. When Clara opened the door she almost slammed it for the way his eyes peeled away her dress, her flesh, her thoughts. His smile was the alcoholic's smile. He was drunk on himself. There was only one thing to do: ”Don't just stand there!” she shouted. ”Make yourself useful!” She spun around and marched away from his shocked face.
She glanced back to see if it had had the right effect. Very few women had ever talked this way to him. He was studying the door. Then, curious, he stepped in.
”This way!” said Clara.
She paraded through the hall, up the steps to the landing, where she had placed a metal stepladder. She thrust her hand up, pointing.
”There's the attic. See if you can make sense out of the d.a.m.ned noises up there. And don't overcharge me when you're done. Wipe your feet when you come down. I got to go shopping. Can I trust you not to steal me blind while I'm gone?”
With each blow, she could see him veer off balance. His face flushed. His eyes shone. Before he could speak, she marched back down the steps to shrug on a light coat.
”Do you know what mice sound like in attics?” she said, over her shoulder.
”I d.a.m.n well do, lady,” he said.
”Clean up your language. You know rats? These could be rats or bigger. What's bigger in an attic?”
”You got any racc.o.o.ns around here?” he said.
”How'd they get in in?”
”Don't you know your own house, lady? I-”