Hide and Seek

HOnce there had been pictures hanging along the stairwell. You could

see the brighter areas marking their placement on the cream-colored

walls, empty windows to nothing.

At the top of the stairs, a few paces down the hall, there was a square

trapdoor in the ceiling. I pointed it out to them.

"Attic. It'll be hard to reach."

"I'm not going up there," said Kim.

Casey thought about it.

"We'd need a chair or something."

There was a straight-back in the living room that would do, but I

didn't remind her of it.

"Okay. The attic's out of bounds, then."

"Fine."

We walked the short narrow corridor to the front of the house. Kim

opened the door on the right-hand side.

We went in. There was an old stained box spring on the floor and a

cheap wood frame stacked in pieces neatly behind it. A ceramic table

lamp, its shade missing, stood next to it in front of the window. The

room was long, running the entire length of the house. The master

bedroom. Steve pulled open the closet door.

A mouse scuttled around in confusion and disappeared through a hole in

the baseboard.

There was nothing else but a dozen wire hangers and a rolled-up bolt of

wallpaper, the same ugly stuff that papered the kitchen.

I glanced out the window, wondering if you could see where we'd parked

the car from here. You couldn't. In the moonlight the overgrown field

was gray and the trees were a solid craggy wall of black. You couldn't

have found a tank back there.

It gave me a funny feeling.

Like we were cut off somehow.

There was another window to the rear of the house and a door, and I

knew that behind the door was where the widow's walk would be. But I

didn't have a chance to look for it. Casey was in a hurry. She and

Kim had already moved into the room opposite this one. I followed

them.

Another bedroom, but smaller.

IDE AND SEEK