“Some goes in the attics, most goes in the basement. Just getting on fall now, and that’s when the little furry guys start looking for a place to spend the winter.”
Nell doesn’t want to add poison to the house. Doesn’t it make dust? She feels it’s one of the few things she and Pansy might agree on right now. No more toxins.
“Do we have to?” she asks. There’s an awkward silence, and she realizes they’re wondering if she has the authority to stop them.
“You don’t have to,” says the shorter one, setting a cardboard box down on the first stair step. “But it’s gonna look like a New York City subway station in here if you don’t. Rats everywhere.”
“No, they’re field mice,” says the other. “Pretty cute, I guess.”
“You know, maybe today’s not the right day, fellas,” Louis says stepping in. “We were going to take a crack at the attics.”
“Thought you might,” the shorter one says, nodding toward the box.
She sees now that it’s filled with dust masks, black contractor’s trash bags, and latex gloves.
“That’s really nice of you,” Nell says.
“You’re gonna stir up a lot of crud,” he says with a shrug.
Mission complete, they head out the door, load the poison into the bed of the pickup,and each take a Swisher Sweet out of the pack on the dashboard.
“You call us when you’re done, now, and we’ll come put it in,” the shorter one says. He nods toward her, starts up the ancient farm truck, and rattles off.
When they’ve left Louis says, “Starting in the attic isn’t a bad idea, you know. Since it’s all leftover crap anyway, it’s probably filled with the easiest decisions. Bet you fill that thing in a day or two.” He nods toward the Dumpster.
Nell is grateful he’s here with his clear-sighted counsel and his calm demeanor. He’s probably advised loads of families on cleaning out an old place.
She changes into jeans, and with thoughts of Pansy lurking, keeps the Moon fastened and tucked inside her T-shirt. Then, taking Louis’s advice, she heads for the attics. They won’t be able to call her a flake or a shirker now.
The door to the attic off the third-floor dormitory creaks open, and she’s filled with trepidation, as if breaching a tomb. Dust sparkles in shafts of sunlight and she silently thanks the old architects who deemed huge dormer windows a necessity in an attic.
She pulls the dust mask over her mouth, dons gloves, and grabs a black contractor bag, feeling like she’s suiting up for a biohazard. And she kind of is—she read somewhere that dust is 90 percent human skin. She will be breathing in her ancestors.
She stumbles over a tower of crumbling cardboard boxes from a long-defunct department store twice tied with twine. She’ll have to tackle those rotting mysteries at some point. Along the back wall is an uninterrupted line of closets, and she decides to start there.
Opening the first closet takes some muscle, but when she succeeds, she finds it’s lined in cedar and surprisingly clean. Craftsmen being what they were back in the day, the door’s joints are so tight that no dust has reached inside. Hangers present a jumbled mishmash of slipcovers for furniture that no longer exists, a hint of netting, and sequins from faded gowns in tatters, but mostly it’s old uniforms for nurses and maids. Nell fills a trash bag quickly and hefts it onto the landing.
She loses track of time amid old bedpans, broken cribs, and Christmas decorations with dubious wiring. Louis is running bulging bags down to the Dumpster, bringing her water, bringing her a broom, but mostly staying out of her way. She removes one igneous layer of attic accumulation and then comes to a corner she’s been avoiding.
At least twenty disintegrating leather steamer trunks are huddled in this corner. They are substantial, with cracked leather strapping, tarnished brass hardware, and faded monograms of Quincys long dead and stamps from voyages never to be taken again. They’re beautiful. They’re filthy with mold. They’re heavy as hell. She despairs at the thought of their bulk going in the Dumpster and then taking up space in a landfill.
They were made for a time when one didn’t touch one’s bags when traveling, didn’t even pack them. She tests a few and finds them locked, but more are open or the locks are busted, the contents already ransacked. Quincys have nothing on Egyptian tomb raiders. Nell knows the attic has been picked clean of the real loot, so it’s with resignation that she heaves open the hinged tops and finds the trunks are lined in fitted trays. Usually about six of them, dovetail joints tighter than her dining room furniture back home. She imagines the trays filled with clothes wrapped in scented tissue paper, and gives a rueful thought to her recent flight, where she was crammed in a germy seat, her things stuffed in the overhead bin or on the grimy floor under the seat in front of her.
The empty trunks are easy to deal with, and Louis helps haul them down. By now she’s dusty, thirsty, and a little dispirited. Despite working through lunch and filling nearly half the Dumpster, it doesn’t look like she’s done a thing up here, hasn’t made a dent. She wants food and a shower, or maybe the shower first, preferably with Louis. So with the idea of getting one last thing done before she quits for the day, she hoists open a trunk. It’s buff leather, and lighter straps give it a feminine feel. If a trunk can be gender specific, this one is.
Opening it, she finds the drawers have been removed, and it’s as if someone has dumped a river of letters into the trunk. The entire interior is filled to the brim with a jumble of envelopes—flowing script in faded brown fountain ink on yellowed envelopes. She can’t resist, and she reaches a gloved hand in, hoping there’s nothing nesting inside, and lets them fall through her hands.
Nell sifts through the letters, dry and crumbling at the edges, and she uncovers a dark object nestled in the corner. It’s a leather journal, tooled with art nouveau flowers and vines. When she lifts it, the natural crease falls open to the last page with writing. A masculine, pointy scrawl in sepia ink.
May, my darling—You’ve gone off to ride and so I’m left with my thoughts. I must get them out, I must tell someone, and so I’ll set them down here. Never have my days meant more to me, has life seemed brighter or sweeter than now. Is it only because of the secretive nature of this? No, I think it can’t be. It is the universe realigned, the planet set right on its axis, and we are together. I finally have a taste of what it’s like to have everything I’ve wanted. You’ve left me now, only for moments, and to have that feeling diminished throws my purpose into high relief. My head is filled only with how to solve this. It is my task, as I’m the one who initially set things on this course. How to take us away?
I love seeing my jewel on you. I know it’s barbaric, but I wish the other thing you wear every day were off your finger. I haven’t dared ask you not to wear it. And so I am satisfied that you wear mine near to your heart. Jewels and gems have been on my mind. You are my treasure. I realize that now.