“Five is accepted practice,” he said, “but I hold your stuff for seven—in the eyes of the tax boys, you’re a mighty fat pigeon.” Better afatpigeon than ap/astic owl, I thought but didn’t say. What I said was “That includes desk calendars, right? Mine and. Jo’s, up until she died?”
“You bet. Since neither of you kept diaries, it was the best way to cross-reference receipts and claimed expenses with—”
“Could you find Jo’s desk calendar for 1993 and see what she had going in the second week of November?”
“Td be happy to.
What in particular are you looking for?” For a moment I saw myself sitting at my kitchen table in Derry on my first night as a widower, holding up a box with the words Norco Home Pregnancy Test printed on the side. Exactly what was I looking for at this late date? Considering that I had loved the lady and she was almost four years in her grave, what was I looking for? Besides trouble, that was? “I’m looking for two plastic owls,” I said. Ward probably thought I was talking to him, but I’m not sure I was. “I know that sounds weird, but it’s what I’m doing.
Can you call me back?”
“Within the hour.”
“Good man,” I said, and hung up. Now for the actual owls themselves. Where was the most likely spot to store two such interesting artifacts? My eyes went to the cellar door. Elementary, my dear Watson.
The cellar stairs were dark and mildly dank. As I stood on the landing groping for the lightswitch, the door banged shut behind me with such force that I cried out in surprise. There was no breeze, no draft, the day was perfectly still, but the door banged shut just the same. Or was sucked shut. I stood in the dark at the top of the stairs, feeling for the lightswitch, smelling that oozy smell that even good concrete foundations get after awhile if there is no proper airing-out. It was cold, much colder than it had been on the other side of the door. I wasn’t alone and I knew it. I was afraid, I’d be a liar to say I wasn’t.
… but I was also fascinated. Something was with me. Something was in here with me. I dropped my hand away from the wall where the switch was and just stood with my arms at my sides. Some time passed. I don’t know how much. My heart was beating furiously in my chest; I could feel it in my temples. It was cold. “Hello?” I asked. Nothing in response. I could hear the faint, irregular drip of water as condensation fell from one of the pipes down below, I could hear my own breathing, and faintly—far away, in another world where the sun was out—I could hear the triumphant caw of a crow. Perhaps it had just dropped a load on the hood of my car. I really need an owl, I thought. In fact, I don’t know how I ever got along without one. “Hello?” I asked again. “Can you talk?”
Nothing. I wet my lips. I should have felt silly, perhaps, standing there in the dark and calling to the ghosts. But I didn’t. Not a bit.
The damp had been replaced by a coldness I could feel, and I had company. Oh, yes. “Can you tap, then? If you can shut the door, you must be able to tap.” I stood there and listened to the soft, isolated drips from the pipes. There was nothing else. I was reaching out for the lightswitch again when there was a soft thud from not far below me. The cellar of Sara Laughs is high, and the upper three feet of the concrete—the part which lies against the ground’s frost-belt—had been insulated with big silver-backed panels of Insu-Gard. The sound that I heard was, I am quite sure, a fist striking against one of these. Just a fist hitting a square of insulation, but every gut and muscle of my body seemed to come unwound. My hair stood up. My eyesockets seemed to be expanding and my eyeballs contracting, as if my head were trying to turn into a skull. Every inch of my skin broke out in gooseflesh.
Something was in here with me. Very likely something dead. I could no longer have turned on the light if I’d wanted to. I no longer had the strength to raise my arm. I tried to talk, and at last, in a husky whisper I hardly recognized, I said: “Are you really there?” Thud. “Who are you?” I could still do no better than that husky whisper, the voice of a man giving last instructions to his family as he lies on his deathbed. This time there was nothing from below. I tried to think, and what came to my struggling mind was Tony Curtis as Harry Houdini in some old movie. According to the film, Houdini had been the Diogenes of the Ouija board circuit, a guy who spent his spare time just looking for an honest medium. He’d attended one sance where the dead communicated by-“Tap once for yes, twice for no,” I said. “Can you do that?” Thud. It was on the stairs below me. . but not too far below. Five steps down, six or seven at most. Not quite close enough to touch if I should reach out and wave my hand in the black basement air. . a thing I could imagine, but not actually imagine doing. “Are you…” My voice trailed off. There was simply no strength in my diaphragm. Chilly air lay on my chest like a flatiron. I gathered all my will and tried again. “Are you Jo?” Thud. That soft fist on the insulation. A pause, and then:
Thud-thud. Yes and no. Then, with no idea why I was asking such an inane question: “Tkre the owls down here?” Thud-thud. “Do you know where they are?” Thud. “Should I look for them?” Thud! Very hard.
Why didshe want them? I could ask, but the thing on the stairs had no way to an-Hot fingers touched my eyes and I almost screamed before realizing it was sweat. I raised my hands in the dark and wiped the heels of them up my face to the hairline. They skidded as if on oil.
Cold or not, I was all but bathing in my own sweat. “Are you Lance Devore?” Thud-thud, at once. “Is it safe for me at Sara? Am I safe?”
Thud. A pause. And I knew it was a pause, that the thing on the stairs wasn’t finished. Then: Thud-thud. Yes, I was safe. No, I wasn’t safe. I had regained marginal control of my arm. I reached out, felt along the wall, and found the lightswitch. I settled my fingers on it. Now the sweat on my face felt as if it were turning to ice. “Are you the person who cries in the night?” I asked. Thud-thud from below me, and between the two thuds, I flicked the switch. The cellar globes came on. So did a brilliant hanging bulb at least a hundred and twenty-five watts—over the landing. There was no time for anyone to hide, let alone get away, and no one there to try, either. Also, Mrs. Meserve—admirable in so many ways—had neglected to sweep the cellar stairs. When I went down to where I estimated the thudding sounds had been coming from, I left tracks in the light dust. But mine were the only ones. I blew out breath in front of me and could see it. So it had been cold, still was cold… but it was warming up fast. I blew out another breath and could see just a hint of fog. A third exhale and there was nothing. I ran my palm over one of the insulated squares. Smooth. I pushed a finger at it, and although I didn’t push with any real force, my finger left a dimple in the silvery surface. Easy as pie. If someone had been thumping a fist down here, this stuff should be pitted, the thin silver skin perhaps even broken to reveal the pink fill underneath. But all the squares were smooth. “Are you still there?” I asked. No response, and yet I had a sense that my visitor was still there. Somewhere.
“I hope I didn’t offend you by turning on the light,” I said, and now I did feel slightly odd, standing on my cellar stairs and talking out loud, sermonizing to the spiders. “I wanted to see you if I could.” I had no idea if that was true or not. Suddenly—so suddenly I almost lost my balance and tumbled down the stairs—I whirled around, convinced the shroud-creature was behind me, that it had been the thing knocking, it, no polite M. R. James ghost but a horror from around the rim of the universe. There was nothing. I turned around again, took two or three deep, steadying breaths, and then went the rest of the way down the cellar stairs. Beneath them was a perfectly serviceable canoe, complete with paddle. In the corner was the gas stove we’d replaced after buying the place; also the claw-foot tub Jo had wanted (over my objections) to turn into a planter. I found a trunk filled with vaguely recalled table-linen, a box of mildewy cassette tapes (groups like the Delfonics, Funkadelic, and. 38 Special), several cartons of old dishes. There was a life down here, but ultimately not a very interesting one. Unlike the life I’d sensed in Jo’s studio, this one hadn’t been cut short but evolved out of, shed like old skin, and that was all right. Was, in fact, the natural order of things. There was a photo album on a shelf of knickknacks and I took it down, both curious and wary. No bombshells this time, however; nearly all the pix were landscape shots of Sara Laughs as it had been when we bought it. I found a picture of Join bellbottoms, though (her hair parted in the middle and white lipstick on her mouth), and one of Michael Noonan wearing a flowered shirt and muttonchop sideburns that made me cringe (the bachelor Mike in the photo was a Barry White kind of guy I didn’t want to recognize and yet did). I found Jo’s old broken treadmill, a rake I’d want if I was still around here come fall, a snowblower I’d want even more if I was around come winter, and several cans of paint. What I didn’t find was any plastic owls. My insulation-thumping friend had been right. Upstairs the telephone started ringing. I hurried to answer it, going out through the cellar door and then reaching back in to flick off the lightswitch. This amused me and at the same time seemed like perfectly normal behavior… just as being careful not to step on sidewalk cracks had seemed like perfectly normal behavior to me when I was a kid. And even if it wasn’t normal, what did it matter? I’d only been back at Sara for three days, but already I’d postulated Noonan’s First Law of Eccentricity: when you’re on your own, strange behavior really doesn’t seem strange at all. I snagged the cordless. “Hello?”