He looked at me and it seemed as if he were trying very hard not to smile. “Well, it would be good manners. But mostly it’s because you’re wearing a skirt.” He indicated the steep steps in front of us. “I figured we’re already as well acquainted as we need to be.”
The air left my lungs in a sudden rush, meeting the blood heading toward my cheeks, and for a moment I saw stars. “Just go,” I finally managed, pointing toward the stairs.
A lopsided and decidedly boyish grin lit his face before he jogged up the steps. I grabbed hold of the banister and slowly began my ascent, taking each steep step one at a time.
The first thing I noticed were the dust motes in the shafts of light from the two dormer windows, dancing in the disturbed air like summoned spirits. Gibbes stood within the light, surveying the room around him, his hands on hips making him look like a pillaging pirate. The ceiling was high in the center, giving even a tall person like Gibbes plenty of room to walk about without banging his head on a rafter.
The ceiling and walls were unfinished—and uninsulated—which made me wince as I considered all the air-conditioned air I was paying for that was apparently seeping through the cracks and single-paned windows. The HVAC man had expressed reservations about the wisdom of running the window unit, and had suggested I come up to look, but I’d refused, explaining it was just a temporary fix anyway. It was still warm in the attic, but bearable for a short period of time.
I thought of Edith up there sweltering, wondering how she’d managed it. Even with open windows and a fan or two, it would have been broiling in the summer. Deborah had said she’d seen a light on in the attic, so there must be electricity up there, which made me think Edith must have had a dozen fans. But still, even with the wall unit blasting, it was sticky and hot, suffocating. What had been so important to her that she would spend periods of time up there? Or had it been less about what she was doing and more about escaping something?
Gibbes looked up at an ancient ceiling fixture with a chain dangling from it. He pulled the chain but nothing happened. At least the light from the windows would be enough for me to see during the daytime, but I’d need to replace the bulbs if I wanted to be able to see at night. Not that I wanted to be up there after dark. There was something in the air up there, something beyond the dust and staleness, something more oppressive than even the heat. If the house had been a living, breathing thing, I might have said I’d found the dark place at its heart. But it wasn’t, of course. It was just an old house.
There was a long wooden ledge that extended across the wall below the dormers with an ancient fifties-style kitchen chair sitting in front of it, yellow foam erupting from the turquoise vinyl seat. Woven baskets in varying sizes littered the top of the table like offerings for some unknown entity. They were set up in a deliberate line, a measure of tidiness not expected on a worktable. I stepped forward involuntarily, wanting to see inside the baskets but knowing already what they contained.
Milky glass of varying hues lay dully in their woven homes, listless without the wind and sun to bring them to life. They were separated by colors—varying shades of white, blue, green, brown—each as lifeless as the next. I wondered how long it had taken to collect them, imagining that it must have been years. I thought of the dedication, the purpose required to collect something as rare and precious as sea glass. My mother had had a small dish on her dressing table filled with a small handful of glass she’d collected on childhood visits to Old Orchard Beach with her cousins. They were the only reminder I had that she had once loved the ocean, and the great waves that sometimes left gifts of glass behind.
“What on earth could this be?” Gibbes walked toward the wall opposite the attic door and perpendicular to the dormer wall. Faded white sheets billowed softly from the blast of the air conditioner, undulating like ocean waves. Whatever they were concealing protruded in random bumps and lines, little fists of prisoners begging to be let out.
“Hold your breath for a moment—I’m going to yank these down.”
I realized I’d already been holding my breath, and just nodded. He reached up to the topmost corner and gave a sharp tug, the sheet releasing its hold on whatever it had been hung up on. Slowly Gibbes walked down the line, tugging the fabric from the top, until three large flat sheets had slipped down to the floor in a puddle of cotton and dust.