Filter House (9 page)

She untied and opened the box. Papers. She could read print. But these were mostly letters. The writing was sharp and difficult looking, not the round, loose script she had sneaked a look at in a third-grader’s book. Regretfully, she set the letters aside.

Underneath was something mostly printed, with words and numbers written in. The printing was fancy, like on the cover of Gransie’s bible. She decided the short word at the top was d-e-e-d, deed.

A deed was what you did, if you were a boy scout or a shining knight. Maybe it would be exciting to read, but the alphabets were all twiney and hooked together, and anyway, what about those numbers? What would they have to do with an adventure?

“Lot 392…16 circle East…by 90 circle South…3 chains…” It didn’t make sense. She scanned the page for what did. “I, Ruff-us Raines, do grant, war-rant and con-” con-something.

The word Rachel appeared several times. Like the man had said. She knew how that name looked, print or cursive. It was her own. Anniette Rachel Hawkes.

The rain stopped around noon.

Miss Margaret was back for lunch. She ate on the verandah with her friend, Roger. He had big yellow teeth. Anniette didn’t like him, but that didn’t count. He was going to stay in the Red Room.

Uncle Troy and Gransie and Anniette ate in the kitchen, after Miss Margaret and her friend. While they were still having their dessert Miss Margaret stuck her head in and asked Uncle Troy if he would mind terribly getting the boat ready to go out. He said no, of course.

Anniette went with him, for lack of anything better to do. The papers were still up in her room, in their box. Later, when Gransie wasn’t so busy, she would ask her to look at them. They were probably even important. They just weren’t a train station.

The boathouse was spooky in a nice way. The boat made big booming sounds as Uncle Troy lowered it to the water. The sun came out while they were still inside, shining in little star-shapes through holes in the ramshackle walls. They sagged so much that Uncle Troy had to duck as he rowed out under the lake side.

Miss Margaret had changed into a pretty white dress. She was smiling and said that Anniette could come along. Anniette ran back to the boathouse for a life jacket. They smelled bad, but Gransie wouldn’t let her on the lake without one, even though she could swim.

The sun was all the way out to stay. Anniette relaxed in the warmth, watched the water lilies unfolding in light that the rain had newly purified. She was happy. So she sang.

“Well, it’s wine, wine, wine

that makes you feel so fine

in the corps (in the corps), in the—”

“Anniette!” Miss Margaret snapped. “What’s that you’re singing? Where did you learn that song?”

She had promised. She couldn’t tell her. She felt really bad, since Miss Margaret had let her come in the boat.

“Speak up, child.”

“What’s wrong?” asked Roger. “Insubordination in the ranks?”

Margaret laughed. It didn’t sound like she thought anything was funny. “Not that it matters, only it seemed sort of…creepy.”

“What seemed creepy?”

“That song she was singing. I suppose she could have learned it anywhere. It’s just that I associate it so strongly with Cousin Freddy; I guess because he taught it to me when we were kids here.”

“So what?” said Roger. “So he taught it to the help, too.”

“Hardly,” said Miss Margaret. “He died three years before Anniette was born.”

“Oh.”

“As I said, it’s not important. I just…wondered.”

“I taught her,” said Uncle Troy suddenly from where he sat rowing. “Mr. Fred taught it to me and I taught it to her.”

Everybody in the boat stared at him. Miss Margaret and her friend looked like they had forgotten he was even there. Anniette stared too, because Uncle Troy hardly ever talked unless you asked him something. And he never told lies.

Without another word from anyone the boat returned to shore.

After supper Anniette sat at the top of the stairs, looking down. Down. How could she have been so stupid? The train station was
underground.
That’s why they called it the
Underground Railroad.
And here she’d been looking for the entrance on the second floor.

The problem was, she wasn’t allowed to go into the cellar.

She always tried to be good.

Gransie was with some ladies from church. They were writing invitations to the ice-cream social. They wouldn’t let her help, even though she colored real good. And she couldn’t show the papers to Gransie while she was having company.

There was nothing else to do.

There was no place else to look.

She could hear Roger and Miss Margaret talking on the landing. He said, “Parrish is a fine illustrator. But that’s all he is.” She said, “I suppose you’re right. Still, it’s so pretty.”

They must be talking about the girl on the swing, Anniette decided. Anniette didn’t know who the girl was. Not one of them, like a lot of pictures in the house.

“Pretty. A pointless, stupid word. A shallow compliment. I, I must confess,
I
am drawn to—the depths.” There was a heavy silence, then the sound of clothes rubbing together. Kissing noises. “Tonight?”

“Roger, I—”

“You can’t mean to make me wait. Maggie, I came here on trust. I came all the way from Chicago, tourist class. Maggie, my dear, you…you gave me your
word.”

Maggie was Miss Margaret. Had to be. No one else was there.

“I…Roger, I know, and my word means so much to me—”

More kissing noises.

“Nothing has changed, has it, darling? No, I can feel it. You are still the same true, dear, loyal, trustworthy soul. Oh, Maggie—”

“All right, Roger.”

“You
will
come?”

“Yes. It’s sure to be safe. Nancy never comes upstairs any more, and Anniette will be on the other side of the house, in the old servant’s quarters. I’ll come.”

The next day was disappointingly sunny. Neither Miss Margaret nor Roger seemed to want to do much with their breakfast. They came down, long after Anniette had enjoyed her Maypo, and moped around the morning room. Gransie suggested a game of croquet, but Roger thought the lawn needed cutting, and Uncle Troy wasn’t going to be around till later.

After a while Anniette saw them heading for the rose arbor. She wondered if the lady from next door would be there. She seemed to show up there mostly, maybe because her house burned down so long ago there were trees growing up inside the place where the basement used to be.

It was Thursday. Time to change the beds. Anniette offered to do it and save Gransie’s rheumatism from the stairs. Gransie took her to the linen closet off the cellar steps.

“Gransie,” she asked. “What’s more important? To keep a promise or to do what you really think is right?”

“Well, chicken, you sure do ask some tough questions. Where’d you get this one?”

“I was just thinking…”

“Thinkin, hunh?” Gransie picked up a stack of sheets and placed it over Anniette’s arms. “Well, when it comes to questions like that, time to stop thinkin and start prayin. God will let you know. He answers every prayer.”

Anniette reflected on God as she carried the piles of linen up the stairs. It took her two trips. Basically, she decided, God was one of them, only really old and related to all the people on the earth. So everybody could see him and talk to him if they tried. But you had to try hard, because he was so old. Was it something she was capable of? She didn’t know.

The boy came in while she changed Miss Margaret’s bed.

“Did you find it?”

“No, but I think I’ve got it figured out where to look.”

“Pretty keen, huh?”

Sometimes she wondered if they heard a word she said. “Is your name Fred?” she asked.

“You might say that, yes.”

“I almost got in trouble over that song myself.”

“Nifty, isn’t it?
Well it’s gin, gin, gin
—”

“Don’t worry, I didn’t tell.” She had never said anything about them to grown-ups. She didn’t know exactly why. She tried to imagine explaining to Gransie. It came out like a conversation with one of them: frustrating.

Freddy followed her to the Red Room. A note was taped to the door. It was in cursive, and she couldn’t read it. She opened the door. The Red Room was a mess. Blankets and clothes were tossed all over. It looked like somebody had had a fight. One of them got a nose bleed. A red-brown stain showed where they’d slept.

She thought maybe she should still just change the sheets. But when she pulled them off she saw how a little blood had soaked through to the mattress pad. So she went downstairs. Freddy was gone; she hadn’t seen him since opening the door.

Gransie was in her room. It was really part of the kitchen, where they used to keep some food. The bed was small and dipped down in the middle, even though Gransie wasn’t sleeping there right now.

She was sleeping in her chair. Soft zuzzing sounds came from where she sat. They mixed with the static and singing voices from the radio:

Just a closer walk with thee;

Grant it Jesus, if you please…

Gransie’s feet were out of their shoes, resting on a pillow. They were a funny shape, with bumps. Bunyumps, they were called. Anniette decided she could find another mattress pad herself. She closed the door quietly. Not to be sneaky, but so Gransie could stay asleep.

The part of the linen closet she needed to get into was right over the cellar stairs. Maybe she could reach it if she took the stool down and stood on it on the landing. She was careful dragging it across the floor. No marks on the linoleum, and no noise.

It was harder taking it down the three steps to the landing. And when she got up on it, the shelf where Gransie kept the mattress pads was still out of reach. She could see them, but.…

She could also see the shadows at the bottom of the stairs.

She sat on the landing, to rest and think. Her feet were on the next step down. Then one slipped and wound up on the one right after that.

She stood up. Six more steps to go.