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also, Jane sensed, more afraid than the others, even Emily.
They went upstairs, Beatrice carrying the parcel of meat. She had already cut
the string. In the upper hall they grouped before a door.
'This is the way, Jane,' Charles said rather proudly. 'W,e gotta go up to the
attic. There's a swing-down ladder in the bathroom ceiling. We have to climb
up on the tub to reach.'
'My dress,' Jane said doubtfully.
'You won't get dirty. Come on.'
Charles wanted to be first, but he was too short. Beatrice climbed to the rim
of the tub and tugged at a ring in the ceiling. The trap-door creaked and the
stairs ascended slowly, with a certain majesty, beside the tub. It wasn't dark
up there. Light came vaguely through the attic windows.
'Come on, Janie,' Beatrice said, with a queer breathlessness, and they all
scrambled up somehow, by dint of violent acrobatics.
The attic was warm, quiet and dusty. Planks were laid across the beams.
Cartons and trunks were here and there.
Beatrice was already walking along one of the beams. Jane watched her.
Beatrice didn't look back; she didn't say anything. Once her hand groped out
behind her: Charles, who was nearest, took it. Then Beatrice reached a plank
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laid across to another rafter. She crossed it. She went on-stopped-and came
back, with Charles.
'You weren't doing it right,' Charles said disappointedly. 'You were thinking
of the wrong thing.'
Beatrice's face looked oddly white in the golden, faint light.
Jane met her cousin's eyes. 'Bee--'
'You have to think of something else,' Beatrice said quickly. 'It's all right.
Come on.'
Charles at her heels, she started again across the plank. Charles was saying
something, in a rhythmic, mechanical monotone:
'One, two, buckle my shoe, Three, four, knock at the door, Five, six, pick up
sticks--'
Beatrice disappeared.
'Seven, eight, lay them--'
Charles disappeared.
Bobby, his shoulders expressing rebelliousness, followed. And vanished.
Emily made a small sound.
'Oh-Emily!' Jane said.
But her youngest cousin only said, 'I don't want to go down there, Janie.'
'You don't have to.'
'Yes, I do,' Emily said. 'I'll tell you what. I won't be afraid if you come
right after me. I
always think there's something coming up behind me to grab-but if you promise
to come right after, it'll be all right.'
'I promise,' Jane said.
Reassured, Emily walked across the bridge. Jane was watching closely this
time. Yet she did not see Emily disappear. She was suddenly-gone. Jane stepped
forward, and stopped as a sound came from downstairs.
'fane!' Aunt Bessie's voice, 'fane!' It was louder and more peremptory now.
'Jane, where are you?
Come here to me!'
Jane stood motionless, looking across the plank bridge. It was quite empty,
and there was no trace
file:///F|/rah/Henry%20Kuttner/Kuttner%20-%20The%20Best%20of%20Kuttner%201%20U
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C.txt of Emily or the other children. The attic was suddenly full of invisible
menace. Yet she would have gone on, because of her promise, if--
'fane!'
Jane reluctantly descended and followed the summons to Aunt Bessie's bedroom.
That prim-mouthed woman was pinning fabric and moving her lips impatiently.
'Where on earth have you been, Jane? I've been calling and calling.'
'We were playing,' Jane said. 'Did you want me, Aunt Bessie?'
'I should say I did,' Aunt Bessie said. 'This collar I've been crocheting.
It's a dress for you.
Come here and let me try it on. How you grow, child!'
And after that there was an eternity of pinning and wriggling, while Jane kept
thinking of Emily, alone and afraid somewhere in the attic. She began to hate
Aunt Bessie. Yet the thought of rebellion or escape never crossed her mind.
The adults were absolute monarchs. As far as relative values went, trying on
the collar was more important, at this moment, than anything else in the
world. At least, to the adults who administered the world.
While Emily, alone and afraid on the bridge that led to-elsewhere. . . .
The uncles were playing poker. Aunt Gertrude, the vaudeville actress, had
unexpectedly arrived for a few days and was talking with Grandmother Keaton
and Aunt Bessie in the living-room. Aunt
Gertrude was small and pretty, very charming, with bisque delicacy and a gusto
for life that filled Jane with admiration. But she was subdued now.
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'This place gives me the creeps,' she said, making a dart with her folded fan
at Jane's nose. 'Hello, funny^face. Why aren't you playing with the other
kids?'
'Oh, I'm .tired/ Jane said, wondering about Emily. It had been nearly an hour
since--
'At your age I was never tired,' Aunt Gertrude said. 'Now look at me. Three a
day and that awful straight man I've got-Ma, did I tell you---' The voices
pitched lower.
Jane watched Aunt Bessie's skinny fingers move monotonously as she darted her
crochet hook through the silk.
'This place is a morgue,' Aunt Gertrude said suddenly.. 'What's wrong with
everybody? Who's dead?'
'It's the air,' Aunt Bessie said. 'Too hot the year round.' 'You play
Rochester in winter, Bessie my girl, and you'll be glad of a warm climate. It
isn't that, anyway. I feel like-mm-m -it's like being on stage after the
curtain's gone up.' 'It's your fancy,' her mother said.
'Ghosts,' Aunt Gertrude said, and was silent. Grandmother Keaton looked
sharply at Jane. 'Come over here, child,' she said.
Room was made on the soft, capacious lap that had held so many youngsters.
Jane snuggled against the reassuring warmth and tried to let her mind go
blank, transferring all sense of responsibility to Grandmother Keaton. But it
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