The House of Dies Drear (5 page)

“Now how do you know that?” asked the boy. “I bet there’s plenty down there nobody’s run into yet.”

“Mr. Pluto let me walk it,” said the child, “and I know there is nothing.”

“Pesty, how many times must I tell you not to get too close to Mr. Pluto? He’s going to make you disappear one of these times, and then how will I ever get you home to supper?”

“I’ll tell him to tie you up,” said the child. “Leave you in one of those tunnels for the ghosts to play with.”

“Do you intend to go down under there?” asked the boy. “You planning on finding out how quick you can get scared in the dark?”

A few seconds passed before Thomas realized the boy was speaking to him. The boy still wouldn’t look at Thomas, but pretended to be concerned with the hole.

“Who
are
you?” asked Thomas, still afraid and not at all eager to move from the safety of the door. “Who
are
you!”

The boy looked up at the child on the horse in mock amazement, then he quickly turned a polite, smiling face on Thomas.

“Well, how you been! How you feeling?” he said.

Now anger began slowly to take the place of Thomas’ fear.

Then the boy said, “We are Darrow’s children. I mean, I’m Mr. Darrow’s youngest son, and that girl there, she follows me around so my Mama lets her stay. I call this girl Pesty. My Daddy calls her Sarah, and Mama calls her Sooky. Mr. Pluto, he calls her Little Miss Bee, and I guess you can make up a name, too, it won’t matter to her.”

“You mean to say she lives with you,” Thomas said, slowly, “and follows you around—you all call her different names, but she isn’t your sister?”

“I just have brothers,” said the boy. He looked carefully at the child on the horse. “Still, she’s as close to a sister as I guess I’ll ever get.”

“But where did she come from?” asked Thomas. Still on his knees, he had crawled out as far as the steps now, close to the boy and close to the horse. He didn’t realize he had moved.

The child kicked the boy in the chest playfully and laughed.

“She came in a new tin tub,” said the boy. “It was night, and I was sleeping. I was five and I don’t remember it. But they say that Mama brought her in to show her off to Daddy. And the next day I saw her and I’ve been seeing her ever since.”

Thomas wanted to ask more questions, but now the child was asking him a question.

“What you doing on Mr. Pluto’s porch? He’ll snatch you baldheaded if he finds you.”

“He’s liable to turn Pesty on you, too, and that’s the worst thing could happen,” said the boy.

“Mr. Pluto just works here,” said Thomas angrily. “This is my father’s house. We are going to live in it, and old Pluto is going to work for us.”

The boy fell into a fit of laughter calculated to make Thomas even madder. He slithered on the wet ground and pounded his fists silently. Even Pesty was giggling softly into the horse’s mane.

“I think you children just better get off my father’s land,” said Thomas. He stepped off the porch. “Part of the Underground Railroad must be under these steps. I’ve got work to do.”

“There’s no train tracks down there,” said Pesty. “There never was none that I ever seen.”

But Thomas was not stopping for them. The boy stood up, eyeing Thomas seriously now. Pesty backed the horse off so Thomas could kneel down by the hole.

“You fixing to go down under there? You want some company?” asked the boy.

“You’d just better get out of here,” said Thomas, not looking at him. “I don’t need any of your help.”

“Well, I reckon that’s true as far as it goes,” said the boy. “But I suspect you’ll be needing me later.”

“We’ll come back after awhile to see how you come out,” said the child on the horse. And then she and the boy fell into more laughter.

“Naw,” said the boy laughing. “Naw, Pesty, you can’t come back today. You are all ready for bed in your pajamas, and after supper I’m going to lock you up so you can’t bother this here new boy. How you like Pesty’s pretty night clothes, new boy? She likes to wear red because Mr. Pluto told her red was the best color. Mr. Pluto likes red because it is the color of fire, and he is the keeper of fire. Pesty is the keeper’s helper!” The boy laughed and laughed.

Thomas was excited at having met such odd children. But he hid his feelings from them by turning calmly away. “You get out of here,” he said, “before I call my father!”

“Oh, we’re going,” said the boy. “And I’m M. C. Darrow, the youngest.”

“I don’t really care who you are,” said Thomas right back at him. “I am Thomas Small, the oldest son of my father.”

“But you can just call me Mac,” said M. C. Darrow. “Everybody calls me Mac, even Mr. Pluto, when I let him get close enough.”

Thomas didn’t say anything. Lying flat on his stomach, he looked into the hole; his head and shoulders disappeared inside. It was then he lost his grip and fell head first into thin, black air. He landed some five feet down, on damp sod that smelled like a mixture of yellow grass and mildew. All the breath was knocked out of him. He lay there unable to move or think for at least ten seconds, until air seeped back into his lungs. Otherwise he seemed not to have hurt himself. He could hear Pesty and M. C. Darrow going away. Mac was talking quietly to the child. Then Thomas couldn’t hear them anymore.

There was gray light filtering down from the opening of the steps to where Thomas lay, and he could see that he was at the edge of a steep stairway cut out of rock. The stairs were wet; he could hear water dripping down on them from somewhere.

“I could have rolled down those steps,” he whispered. Mac Darrow and Pesty must have known there was a drop down to where Thomas now lay. But they hadn’t told him. “They are not friends then,” said Thomas softly. He cautioned himself to be more careful.

I was showing off, he thought. I hurried and I fell. That was just what they’d wanted.

“Move slowly. Think fast,” Thomas whispered. “Keep in mind what’s behind and look closely at what’s in front.”

Thomas always carried a pencil-thin flashlight, which he sometimes used for reading in the car. He sat up suddenly and pulled out the flashlight. It wasn’t broken from the fall, and he flicked it on. He sat in a kind of circle enclosed by brick walls. In some places, the brick had crumbled into powder, which was slowly filling up the circle of sod.

That will take a long time, thought Thomas. He looked up at the underside of the veranda steps.

Thomas got to his feet and made his way down the rock stairway into darkness. At the foot of the stairs was a path with walls of dirt and rock on either side of it. The walls were so close, Thomas could touch them by extending his arms a few inches. Above his head was a low ceiling carved out of rock. Such cramped space made him uneasy. The foundation of the house had to be somewhere above the natural rock. The idea of the whole three-story house of Dies Drear pressing down on him caused him to stop a moment on the path. Since he had fallen, he hadn’t had time to be afraid. He wasn’t now, but he did begin to worry a little about where the path led. He thought of ghosts, and yet he did not seriously believe in them. “No,” he told himself, “not with the flashlight. Not when I can turn back … when I can run.”

And besides, he thought, I’m strong. I can take care of myself.

Thomas continued along the path, flickering his tiny beam of light this way and that. Pools of water stood in some places. He felt a coldness, like the stream of air that came from around the button on the oak doorframe. His shoes were soon soaked. His socks grew cold and wet, and he thought about taking them off. He could hear water running a long way off. He stopped again to listen, but he couldn’t tell from what direction the sound came.

“It’s just one of the springs,” he said. His voice bounced off the walls strangely.

Better not speak. There could be tunnels leading off this one. You can’t tell what might hear you in a place like this.

Thomas was scaring himself. He decided not to think again about other tunnels or ghosts. He did think for the first time of how he would get out of this tunnel. He had fallen five feet, and he wasn’t sure he would be able to climb back up the crumbling brick walls. Still, the path he walked had to lead somewhere. There had to be another way out.

Thomas felt his feet begin to climb; the path was slanting up. He walked slowly on the slippery rock; then suddenly the path was very wide. The walls were four feet away on either side, and there were long stone slabs against each wall. Thomas sat down on one of the slabs. It was wet, but he didn’t even notice.

“Why these slabs?” he asked himself. “For the slaves, hiding and running?”

He opened and closed a moist hand around the flashlight. The light beam could not keep back the dark. Thomas had a lonely feeling, the kind of feeling running slaves must have had.

And they dared not use light, he thought. How long would they have to hide down here? How could they stand it?

Thomas got up and went on. He placed one foot carefully in front of the other on the path, which had narrowed again. He heard the faint sound of movement somewhere. Maybe it was a voice he heard, he couldn’t be sure. He swirled the light around over the damp walls, and fumbled it. The flashlight slid out of his hand. For a long moment, he caught and held it between his knees before finally dropping it. He bent quickly to pick it up and stepped down on it. Then he accidentally kicked it with his heel, and it went rattling somewhere over the path. It hit the wall, but it had gone out before then. Now all was very dark.

“It’s not far,” Thomas said. “All I have to do is feel around.”

He felt around with his hands over smooth, moist rock; his hands grew cold. He felt water, and it was icy, slimy. His hands trembled, they ached, feeling in the dark, but he could not find the flashlight.

“I couldn’t have kicked it far because I wasn’t moving.” His voice bounced in a whisper off the walls. He tried crawling backward, hoping to hit the flashlight with his heels.

“It’s got to be here … Papa?” Thomas stood, turning toward the way he had come, the way he had been crawling backward. He didn’t at all like walking in the pitch blackness of the tunnel.

“I’ll go on back,” he said. “I’ll just walk back as quick as I can. There’ll be light coming from the veranda steps. I’ll climb up that wall and then I’ll be out of this. I’ll get Papa and we’ll do it together.”

He went quickly now, with his hands extended to keep himself from hitting the close walls. But then something happened that caused him to stop in his tracks. He stood still, with his whole body tense and alert, the way he could be when he sensed a storm before there was any sign of it in the air or sky.

Thomas had the queerest notion that he was not alone. In front of him, between him and the steps of the veranda, something waited.

“Papa?” he said. He heard something.

The sound went, “Ahhh, ahhh, ahhh.” It was not moaning, nor crying. It wasn’t laughter, but something forlorn and lost and old.

Thomas backed away. “No,” he said. “Oh please!”

“Ahhh, ahhh,” something said. It was closer to him now. Thomas could hear no footsteps on the path. He could see nothing in the darkness.

He opened his mouth to yell, but his voice wouldn’t come. Fear rose in him; he was cold, freezing, as though he had rolled in snow.

“Papa!” he managed to say. His voice was a whisper. “Papa, come get me … Papa!”

“Ahhhh.” Whatever it was, was quite close now. Thomas still backed away from it, then he turned around, away from the direction of the veranda. He started running up the path, with his arms outstretched in front of him. He ran and ran, his eyes wide in the darkness. At any moment, the thing would grab him and smother his face. At any time, the thing would paralyze him with cold. It would take him away. It would tie him in one of the tunnels, and no one would ever find him.

“Don’t let it touch me! Don’t let it catch me!”

Thomas ran smack into a wall. His arms and hands hit first; then, his head and chest. The impact jarred him from head to foot. He thought his wrists were broken, but ever so slowly, painful feeling flowed back into his hands. The ache moved dully up to the sockets of his shoulders. He opened and closed his hands. They hurt so much, his eyes began to tear, but he didn’t seem to have broken anything.

Thomas felt frantically along the wall. The wall was wood. He knew the feel of it right away. It was heavy wood, perhaps oak, and it was man made, man hewn. Thomas pounded on it, hurting himself more, causing his head to spin. He kept on, because he knew he was about to be taken from behind by something ghostly and cold.

“Help me! It’s going to get me!” he called. “Help me!”

Thomas heard a high, clear scream on the other side of the wall. Next came the sound of feet scurrying, and then the wall slid silently up.

“Thomas Small!” his mother said. “What in heaven’s name do you think you are doing inside that wall!”

Chapter 5

“I SEE YOU’VE
found yourself a secret passage,” said Mr. Small. “I hadn’t thought you’d find that button by the front door so soon.”

Mr. Small, with Billy and Buster, was seated at the kitchen table. They were finishing supper. Mr. Small smiled at Thomas, while the twins stared at him with solemn eyes.

Mrs. Small stood directly in front of Thomas and then stepped aside so that he could take a few steps into the kitchen. Thomas glanced behind him at the tunnel, a gaping space carved out of the comfortable kitchen. He saw nothing at all on the path.

He sat down beside his father. There was the good smell of food hanging in the air. The twins seemed full and content. “You knew about that tunnel, Papa?” Thomas said. He felt discouraged, as though he’d been tricked.

“If anyone came unexpectedly to the front door,” said Mr. Small, “the slaves could hide in the tunnel until whoever it was had gone. Or, if and when the callers began a search, the slaves could escape through the kitchen or by way of the veranda steps.”

It’s not any fun, Thomas thought. Not if he already knows about it.

“Thomas, you frightened me!” Mrs. Small said. She had recovered enough to take her eyes from the tunnel and sit down beside Thomas at the table.