Summer Shadows (8 page)

“Those were probably put in there in the 1970s,” she said. “They weren’t meant to last longer than a decade. I’m surprised they weren’t pulled out when the place was renovated in the eighties.”

“We should take them out, then?”

“It would be more useful to have a bar in here to hang clothes. But I guess that’s not all that important. That belongs on the second tier of repairs.” She looked around. “This room would look a lot bigger if the walls were white. It would also look a lot more attractive and peaceful.”

“Why?”

“White reflects light and tricks the eye into thinking that there’s more space.” She explained. “It would make this room much easier to sell to potential buyers, too.”

Ron nodded.

Julia jotted down some notes and said, “Let’s have a look at your room.”

It was much the same, perhaps slightly larger, and it had the added benefit of two skylights. The walls were painted a dark gray, which made the room look like a cave.

Despite that, Ron liked the room. He stood under the skylight, looking up into the bright blue sky, and wondered what it would be like to lie under it at night and wake up to the morning light. It would be almost like camping. He loved camping with the Boy Scouts: the quiet and the danger of living outdoors, the smell of the campfires, and the constant learning curve of trying to make do with less. It was something that he had always longed to do with his father, but Dad hadn’t been much of an outdoorsman - his idea of a day in the wild was a bike ride in the local park.

Julia was saying, “Okay, it looks like we know what we need to do.”

Dana asked, “Are we going to pick up the paint now?”

“Not yet. We have to prep the walls first.”

“How do we do that?” Ron asked.

“First we need to clean the rooms. Why don’t you and Dana go get dressed and start on that while Jack and I tidy the kitchen? You’ll want to sweep and dust it thoroughly. We’ll wash the floors after we’ve painted everything. Sound good?”

“Great,” Ron said, relieved to have something to do. He felt a surge of energy. “Come on, Dana. Let’s find the stuff.” He charged out of the room and down the stairs, taking them two at a time. Dana followed, hollering, “Wait for me!”

They went into the dining room, where Ron found the broom and the dustpan. It took them both a few minutes to find the dusters and the spray.

They had to cross through the kitchen to get back to the stairs. Julia and Jack were nearly done cleaning up breakfast. Julia’s cell phone rang as they slipped by, and she answered it, her voice echoing in the small room. Being naturally nosy, the two siblings stopped to listen.

“Hello. Oh, hello, Mr. Irwin? Thank you for returning my call… Well, it’s not very big, but it is infested… Yes, I have the insecticide. In fact, your father sold it to me… Yep… Yep… Well, as soon as possible. Tomorrow? Oh, that would be fantastic. Yes, thank you very much.”

Ron and Dana exchanged glances.

Julia spotted them. “While you’re doing the rooms,” she said, “don’t forget to clean out the closets and the landing. We’re going to want to paint them, too.”

“All right,” Ron answered.

“Who’s coming over tomorrow?” Dana asked.

“I’ve hired some people to come and take care of the lawn for us. They’re going to be here pretty early, so we’ll have to make sure that we are up on time.”

“Sure, no problem,” said Ron, gesturing to Dana with his head. “Let’s go, Dana.”

Ron and Dana quickly finished the boys’ room, closet, and the landing. While they were in Dana’s room, Dana began to talk about the colors she wanted for the wall. She pulled the pamphlet from her pocket to show Ron, chattering excitedly.

Ron studied the picture. It was carefully folded, and she had drawn little notes and heart symbols around the edges.

It was, Ron noted, a stark difference to Dana’s room at home. Mom’s best friend had decorated all of their bedrooms only about a year and a half ago, and she had paid the most attention to Dana’s. Her room was enormous compared to this tiny little thing in the attic. It was pink and white, all delicate and lacy and coordinated right down to the bedclothes, which were heaped up so high on the four-poster bed that it was sometimes difficult to find Dana in it. Mom called it “the perfect little girl room”.

“And we could paint the closet door purple, too,” Dana was saying, as Ron continued to scan the brochure, looking for prices. “It’ll be
such
a cool room.”

“Dana,” Ron sighed. “There’s no way we can get your canopy bed to fit in here.”

Plus it was a far cry from the peaceful, sellable white paint that Aunt Julia had wanted. Dana’s colors were definitely full of personality, and they would probably make the room shrink again, if it was really possible for paint to do that. Ron knew he was going to have to change her mind. After all, they couldn’t expect Aunt Julia to shell out money for different paint for every room in the house. That would be far too expensive. Ron flipped to the back of the brochure, where some prices were listed.

“It doesn’t really matter about the bed, I guess,” Dana answered. “I was thinking that we could paint the dresser green with pink drawers and…”

Ron sighed again, stopping his sister mid-sentence.

“We don’t have that much time, Dana,” he said patiently. “Aunt Julia has to make over the whole house and she can’t spend all of her time on our rooms. Besides, we’re not going to be here long enough to make it worth it. We’re better off picking colors that older people would like.”

“Older people?”

“Sure. I heard that lady, Sherri, say that the only people who would really be interested in a house this size are old people.”

“So?”

“So, if we want to sell it, we should decorate it with them in mind.” He paused. “And your paint costs twice as much as what old people paint costs. See?”

He showed her and her enthusiasm withered away. Ron got no joy out of deflating her like that, but he had a job to do. Keeping things easy for Aunt Julia was at the top of his list.

Julia called them from the bottom of the stairs, ending their conversation, and they went out to see what she wanted.

She was downstairs, talking with a plump, middle aged woman. Dana stopped at the top of the staircase and didn’t move until Julia beckoned them down.

“Come and meet Mrs. O’Reilly,” she said.

“Oh, please,” the woman said, with a wave of her hand. Her makeup-encrusted face was creased in a smile. “No need for all that. Just call me Sheila. Everyone else does.”

“Go on,” Ron whispered to her and Dana descended reluctantly. He followed her and Julia introduced them.

“Hi, kids,” Sheila said cheerfully. She smelled very strongly of cigarette smoke and her teeth were yellowed, but her eyes were bright and her smile was friendly. She had a Tupperware container in one hand and waved it with every sentence she spoke. “How are you enjoying the summer?”

Timidly, Dana said, “Very nice, thank you.”

“Quiet bunch, aren’t they?” Sheila asked, not unkindly. “Not at all like my grandkids, let me tell you. They were born screaming and they haven’t stopped yet. My husband says that they’re strong minded like me, but I know better than to mistake that for a compliment! Oh, that reminds me.” She gave Julia the Tupperware container. “My Katy baked these for you. Hope you like them.”

Julia mumbled, “Uh, thank you.”

“She likes baking, that one. She’s a wild card, but she sure knows her way around a kitchen. I don’t know where she gets it from. I wasn’t like that at her age. I was out wasting my youth on boys and love-ins. I was at Woodstock, you know.”

“No,” Julia said with a faint smile. “I didn’t know. Would you like to come in and have a cup of coffee?”

“I would, but I have to run and pick my grandson up from camp. He’s staying with me for the summer, or maybe longer. My daughter is taking some time out to pull herself together. I’ll take a rain check on that coffee, though, if I may.”

“Of course.”

“I just wanted to welcome you to the neighborhood and make sure that you found everything all right.”

“I think we’re doing well, but to be honest, I haven’t had enough time to look around much.”

“Well, if you need anything let me know. You’re probably strapped for furniture right about now, right?”

“Well, actually…”

“A lot of that stuff in the storage room is in really good shape – it had belonged to the previous owners, I think, and the renters just shoved it all in there to make room for their own stuff. Before you buy anything, I would have a good look around in there. Odd that they didn’t use it,” Sheila mused.

“Well, perhaps they felt more at home with their own things.”

Sheila shrugged. “Maybe. Probably they just didn’t like the idea of using what the previous owners had used. I can’t blame them. This house had some weird people in it before the bank took it over, I can tell you.”

Ron felt a shiver go down his spine, and he looked at Dana. Her blue eyes were wide and she looked frightened.

“What do you mean, ‘weird’?” he asked.

But Sheila didn’t hear him. A blast from a horn filled the air, making them all jump.

Sheila scowled, her whole face turning dark, and she stuck her head out of the side door.

“Won’t kill you to wait a second!” she screamed into the morning air. “Lord Almighty!”

Julia’s eyes went as wide as Dana’s, and they all recoiled a little when Sheila swung back around to give them a wide smile.

“My old man’s getting impatient,” she said. “I have to go, but I’ll stop by later this week to see how you’re getting on. Ah, man, I could just eat that little one up!” She reached for Jack.

Jack froze with terror. Thankfully, another blast from the truck stopped Sheila short.

“All right, all right, I’m coming!”

She stepped outside, then poked her head back in.

“Forgot to mention I’m having a Tupperware party this Wednesday, and you’re invited.”

“Why, thank you,” Julia smiled.

Then Sheila was gone again.

They all breathed a sigh of relief when the truck pulled out of the driveway. Julia turned to Ron and Dana.

“What a character!” she laughed. “Living with her must be exhausting.”

Dana, however, was not in the laughing mood. “Aunt Julia, what kind of weird people lived here?”

She shrugged. “I don’t really know, but I wouldn’t worry about it. People like Mrs. O’Reilly sometimes exaggerate their stories. How are you getting along upstairs?”

“We’re all done,” Ron said proudly.

She looked shocked. “Already? Good grief, you must have been moving fast! Well, that’s awesome – now I can get to work on sanding and priming right away.”

“I can help,” Ron offered.

“I’d better do the sanding myself, but you can help with the priming if you want. In the meantime, you guys can watch Jack and start cleaning up the living room again. Later, we can go pick up the primer and the rest of the paint. Oh, have you decided what colors you want your rooms to be?”

Ron looked at Dana, who was examining her toes, so he stepped forward and pulled the brochure from his back pocket. He opened it to a white-walled room with the brown trim.

“Yes, Aunt Julia,” he said. “We both want this one.”

“You both agreed?”

She seemed impressed until she saw the picture. She looked puzzled as she raised her head.

“This is what you want?” she asked.

Ron nodded vigorously, forcing a smile. It was one of the most boring ideas for a room he had ever seen, but they were going home in a few weeks anyway. “Yes, it’s great, right, Dana?”

“It’s really pretty,” she said weakly.

Julia still looked hesitant.

Ron steeled himself for questions, but Julia only said, “All right, then, if that’s what you like best. Let’s get to work.”

The two siblings charged up the stairs. While they were collecting their tools, Dana asked, “Can I have my brochure back?”

Ron looked at her sternly. “You aren’t going to change your mind, are you?”

She shook her head, miserable, and he reached into his back pocket, but the brochure was no longer there.

9

R
on and Dana worked up a sweat as they moved everything into the crammed dining room. They dusted again, cleaned the windows, then swept and washed the floor, taking much longer than they did upstairs. By the time they were done, the floor was damp but sparkling clean and the entire house smelled of Pine-Sol.

When Aunt Julia came down, they made lunch and ate it outside on the front porch.

“I want to play,” Jack said when he’d finished.

Ron shook his head. “We have to get back to work.”

“Actually,” Julia countered, “why don’t you guys take a break and play for a bit. I have to finish sanding the walls upstairs and prime them, and it would be good to let the living room dry out.”

“Yes!” Dana said, quickly. “Let’s go, Jack!”

“Yay!” Jack shouted, while Ron sighed.

Julia called after them, “Watch out for Jack, don’t play in the front lawn at all, and don’t get hurt.”

“We won’t,” Dana answered.

“I’m gonna ride my bike!” Jack exclaimed, scampering after her through the front door.

Julia cocked her head at Ron. “Aren’t you going with them?”

Ron knew that Aunt Julia was trying to do the parental thing by letting them play, but she didn’t understand that he was no longer a child. He had to find some way of letting her know. After all, raising the two kids was their job together, and it was more his burden than hers. But it wouldn’t do to insult her by stating it openly. It was better done subtly.

He selected his words carefully. “I was really hoping to do the priming with you,” he said. “I’ve never painted a room before and I want to learn how. I mean, I used to watch all those make-over shows with… Mom… but they don’t always show you step by step and anyway, it’s not as good as doing it yourself.”

He gave his best blue-eyed gaze.

Julia looked surprised and impressed. “
Absolutely
! It’s always more fun to do it with someone else. But first, go and run the two younger kids ragged, so they’ll be too tired to do anything other than watch TV while we’re working, okay?”

Ron beamed. “They’ll be ready to sleep in a half-hour, you can count on me.”

“I know I can,” she said.

Now that he’d squared things up with Aunt Julia, Ron was eager to get moving. He hurried over to the bicycles, strapped on his helmet, and hoisted himself onto the pedals, swinging his leg over the seat as he rolled off. It was a method he’d copied from movie cowboys, and a habit he’d never gotten out of. As soon as he was rolling down the sidewalk, feeling the breeze in his face, he felt the urge to race. He bent over the handlebars and began to pedal furiously.

He passed Jack, who was playing with his cars in the driveway, and Dana, who was still searching for her helmet among their toys in the plastic tub.

“Wait up, Ron!” Dana shouted. “I’m not ready yet!”

Ron pretended that he couldn’t hear her over the wind blowing in his ears. He kept up a furious pace, passing house after house without noticing them, until he came to the end of Whipple Lane. He slammed on the breaks and dragged the back wheels around in a semi-circle. To his immense satisfaction, they left a thin layer of rubber on the white sidewalk.

He grinned and looked up. That’s when he first noticed the house.

Sitting at the base of Whipple Lane, where Old Kobold Street crossed it, was an eerie Victorian house - large enough, in Ron’s estimation, to be called a mansion. A short, weedy gravel path led to sagging steps up to a darkened front door.

The house was three stories tall, with peeling, dark gray paint and white trim. Two windows jutted up from the roof on the third story, the panes so dirty that they appeared brown in the summer sunlight. Trees, bushes, and shrubs had grown wild, making it almost impossible to see the lower-story windows. The whole thing had a look of neglect and darkness – even the “No Trespassing” sign was stained from months of exposure, and the mailbox listed to one side.

Through one window Ron could make out tired-looking white drapery. A crow cawed from somewhere close by and an invisible branch scratched against glass pane.

An icy sensation crawled up and down his back. Ron stared at the house, unable to take his eyes away from it. It seemed to loom up over him, an evil specter on an otherwise harmless street.

In the distance, Ron heard Dana’s plaintive shout, and he was glad to turn his bike around. As he pedaled back up the slight incline to their house, he sensed the cold stare of the Victorian on his back.

Dana sat astride her pink and white bike, waiting for him with her arms folded, pouting.

“You went too far!” she scolded, in a high pitched tone. “Aunt Julia said to stay at the front of the house.”

“No she didn’t,” he sighed. Arguing with Dana was like arguing with a terrier – she just didn’t know when to give up.

“Did too.”

“No, she said to stay on the sidewalk. And I did.”

She tried a different approach. “Well, it’s dangerous to just be riding off on the road like that and I think…”

“Dana,
look
. There’s the cop car.”

Dana’s mouth snapped shut. They studied the black and white cruiser in the driveway next door. It was parked in front of a garage next to a one-story, tan house with a porch. Although it was probably the same size as the Budds’ cottage, it seemed more spacious, and it was certainly kept up much better. It was a nice, friendly house, and a far cry from the Victorian at the bottom of the street.

“Think there’s anyone there?” Dana asked, quietly.

Ron shook his head.

“Maybe they’re at church,” she said.

“Maybe,” Ron said. “Come on. We don’t want to stand here all day.”

Ron and Dana raced up and down the street, sticking to the sidewalks and without leaving Jack too far behind, although he seemed so happy with his cars that he wouldn’t have noticed. Only one or two cars passed during that time and, except for the occasional dog barking at them through a window or from behind a fence, they saw and heard no one.

They raced until they were breathless and sweat poured off of them, then they called a truce, and walked their bikes back up to their house.

Ron had a stitch in his side, and the start of a headache from their time in the hot sun, but the exercise had done him good. He was feeling better than he had in months.

Beside him, Dana was pink and wheezy, but glowing.

“Pretty good riding there,” Ron said, with a grin.

“I beat you that time,” she said, her voice triumphant.

Ron had let her, but she didn’t need to know that. “I know. You’re fast.”

“I like biking. We can go a lot further here.”

“Yeah, you’re right.”

“And we haven’t heard one siren the whole day.”

Ron had to admit that it was remarkable. They often heard sirens back in Springfield. Ron’s school was shut down a couple of times because of bomb threats, but no bombs were ever found. He thought that the real pain in the neck about the bomb scares was the reaction the teachers always had: they got nervous and cracked down hard on the students, which put everyone in a bad mood. Ron wondered if the schools in Franklin ever had bomb threats.

They were approaching the cop’s house when Dana said, “I wonder if they ever have bank robberies or anything here. It seems so quiet.”

“They probably don’t,” Ron answered. “That’s why people come on vacation here.”

“Probably...”

“Hi!”

It came from their right. They turned to see a girl about Dana’s age, standing on the bottom rail of the fencing in front of the cop’s house. She was small, with enormous hazel eyes and extremely curly brown hair. She wore flip-flops, shorts, and a sparkly top, and she seemed at the same time both friendly and shy. She kept lowering her face to hide it behind the top rail on the fence, then looking up, like she was playing peek-a-boo.

Dana and Ron exchanged puzzled looks.

“Hello,” Dana said. “Who are you?”

“I’m Amelia,” the girl said.

“I’m Dana Budd and this is my brother, Ron. We’re staying next door.”

“I know,” Amelia said, still hiding her face.

“Do you live here?” Ron asked.

She nodded. “I live here with my dad and my cat.” She looked up then. “Do you want to see her?”

Dana pounced on the invitation. “Sure!”

“Wait right here.”

Amelia turned and ran to her house, banging the front door closed after she raced through it.

Ron wiped the sweat from his forehead, squinting through the bright sunlight to where Jack was playing cars. Jack’s face was flushed, but he was very absorbed in his playing and hadn’t noticed the stranger. Ron didn’t dare look down the other end of the street. Even from where he was, he could feel the Victorian, and it made him uncomfortable.

Then Jack came running over to them. He grinned brightly and hopped up onto to the bottom slat of the fence.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“We’re going to see a cat,” Dana said.

“If she ever comes back,” Ron mumbled. “Let’s go.”

“But…” Dana protested.

“Come on,” he insisted.

No sooner had they turned their backs than the front door banged open again, and Amelia came running across the lawn. She clutched a squirming, meowing, fluffy white cat against her chest. She was breathless, and her arms were freshly scratched, but she was triumphant.

“This is Dorita,” she said. “My dad gave her to me.”

“Dorito?” Jack giggled. “That’s a funny name for a cat!”

“It’s not ‘Dorito’,” she said, struggling to hold the increasingly annoyed cat. “It’s ‘Dorita’. It means ‘gift’. Ouch!”

With a swipe of her claws, Dorita won her freedom.

Dana was aghast. “Are you all right?”

Amelia lowered her head with a barely visible nod. The scratch wasn’t very deep, but it was starting to bleed. The little girl held her arm, fighting back tears, obviously embarrassed.

Ron wanted to ease the moment.

“Dorita’s a nice name,” he said. “It’s Spanish, isn’t it?”

Amelia nodded, sniffling.

“I really like your cat, Amelia,” Dana said. “I’ve always wanted a cat or a dog, but my Dad is – was allergic to them. So we couldn’t.”

Dana had touched on the subject nearest and dearest to Amelia’s heart. Her face brightened, and she began to talk rapidly.

“Oh wow, then you are going to
love
Mrs. Jurta!”

Dana blinked. “Mrs. Jurta?”

Amelia nodded and hopped back onto the fence. “Uh huh, she lives across the street right there,” she pointed, “in the green house and she has
so
many dogs that you wouldn’t believe it. She gets them from the pound and helps them to learn to live with people and other dogs and stuff so that the new owners won’t have any trouble. This week, she’s actually gotten
two
puppies – a Great Dane and a mutt.”

She stopped and took a breath, grasping the fence.

“Do you get to play with the dogs a lot?” Dana asked eagerly.

Amelia nodded. “Oh, yes, all the time. When my dad isn’t home, I stay with Mrs. Jurta and she lets me take the little ones for a walk. It’s a
lot
of fun. Would you like to do it sometime, too?”

“Sure!” Dana was delighted. “That would be cool!”

The girl’s face lit up with excitement and she kept her eyes locked on Dana, seeming to forget that the boys were there. In fact, when Ron spoke, she jumped at the sound.

“Do you know everyone on this street?” he asked.

Amelia nodded, then reconsidered. “Well, not
everyone
. But most everyone. The Willis family lives next door, in the white house. They’re old, and they’ve lived here forever. Mr. Willis is a nice man, but Mrs. Willis has a dog that likes to bite, and she’s pretty grouchy. And then there are the Durkins…”

Ron interrupted. “Do you know who lives in the house at the end of the street?”

“Which end?”

“The spooky, old one at the end of the road down there,” Dana said, thrusting her arm in the general direction and missing Ron’s face by a half an inch. “The one that looks haunted.”

Ron hadn’t realized that she’d noticed it, but the description was accurate.

Amelia leaned over the rail and squinted. “Oh, that place? No one lives there. It’s empty.”

“Who used to live there?” Ron asked.

She shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s been empty as long as I can remember. I heard Mr. Willis tell Daddy that someone wanted to buy the house and tear it down to build new homes, but they couldn’t get enough money or something. I’m glad it didn’t work. I kind of like it. It must have been pretty when it was new. If I had enough money, I would buy it and fix it up and put a pool in the back.”

“But it’s so spooky looking!” Dana objected. “It’s like those houses in haunted movies. You couldn’t pay me a million dollars to live in there.”

Ron saw how Jack and Amelia were looking at his imaginative sister. “Let’s talk about something else.”

“I wish we had a pool,” Dana said. “I love swimming.”

“We’ve got one,” Amelia said. “It’s kind of small, but maybe you could come swim in it some time?”

“That would be
awesome,
wouldn’t it, Ron?”