Midnight Whispers (Cutler 4)

Despite the haphazard manner in which things were hung and placed, Charlotte's artwork was remarkably good. I could see that Jefferson enjoyed all the colors and pictures and I began to wonder myself whether or not Charlotte's childish redecorating wasn't of some value. This dark, cavernous old house was at least made bright and jolly by her work. As we passed other examples—jars and vases painted bright colors with happy designs and shapes, paper lanterns hanging from the ceilings and chandeliers, strips of colored crepe paper strewn over walls and windows—I felt as if we had somehow fallen into the mad but silly world of Alice in Wonderland.

"This used to be my parents' room," Charlotte said, stopping before the door, "and that was them," she said, turning to the portraits hung on the opposite wall. These pictures she hadn't tampered with, even though neither Mr. nor Mrs. Booth smiled. In fact, they both looked angry and unhappy about being painted. Charlotte turned back to the door and opened it. "I always keep a lamp lit in there," she explained. "Just in case their spirits return. Don't want them bumping into things," she added and laughed. Jefferson's eyes went wide again.

It was an enormous room with a great oak bed. It had pillars that went up as high as the ceiling and an enormous half-moon headboard. The bed still had all its pillows and blankets, but the cobwebs were thick. There was an enormous fieldstone fireplace with large windows on either side. Long curtains were drawn tightly closed and looked weighed down with years and years of dust and grime. Above the fireplace was a portrait of a young Father Booth. He stood holding a rifle in one hand and a string of ducks in the other.

There was a lot of dark, beautiful antique furniture in the room and on the night table there was a large bible and a pair of reading glasses beside it. But the room smelled musty and stale. When Gavin and I saw that the vanity table still had brushes and combs and jars of skin creams on it with some of the jars opened, we looked at each other. It was as if the room were being kept as some sort of shrine, left just the way it had been the day Charlotte's father passed away. I remembered that her mother had died much earlier. Charlotte closed the door and we continued to the next.

"This was where Emily slept," she whispered. "I don't keep any lamps lit in there. I don't want her spirit coming back into the house," she explained. We walked- on, passing another closed door and then another. "Luther and I sleep in here," she said, pointing toward one. "Now," she said stopping. "These are two nice guest rooms." She opened the first door and went in to light a lamp.

The room had two single beds separated by a night stand. There were dressers on both sides and two large windows, one to the right of the bed on the right and one to the left of the bed on the left.

"This is a closet," Charlotte explained, opening a door, "and this door," she said, going to another, "is a door adjoining the next room. Isn't that nice?"

We looked into the room. It was nearly identical.

"Is Jefferson going to sleep with Gavin or with you?" Charlotte asked.

"What would you like to do, Jefferson?"

"I'll sleep with Gavin," he said, assuming a male bravado that made me smile. He wasn't going to admit to the need to sleep with his big sister.

"As long as he doesn't snore," Gavin said jokingly. "We'll take that room," he said, indicating the room through the adjoining door.

"The bathroom is just across the hall," Charlotte said. "There are towels in it; there always are, and there's soap, too, nice soap, not the soap Emily made us use. And we have hot water again, although sometimes it breaks down and Luther has to fix it. Do you have to change your clothes?" she asked.

"We have a small problem, Aunt Charlotte," I said. "When we were waiting in New York City for Gavin to arrive, all of my and Jefferson's clothes and things were stolen."

"Oh dear me," she said, bringing her hands to her throat. "How sad. Well," she said, smiling quickly, "tomorrow we'll go looking for new clothes. We'll go up into the attic where there are trunks and trunks of things to wear, including shoes and hats, gloves and coats, okay?"

"I guess so," I said looking at Gavin. He shrugged.

"Now let's all hurry down to the kitchen to have something to eat and then you can tel

l me everything from the day you were born until now," Charlotte said.

"That could take quite a long while, Aunt Charlotte," I said smiling.

"Oh," she said, her face turning sad. "Do you have to go home soon?"

"No, Aunt Charlotte. I don't want to ever go home again," I said. Her eyes widened.

"You mean you want to stay here forever and ever?"

"For as long as we can," I replied.

"Well that's forever," she said nonchalantly and clapped her hands together. Then she followed it with a short laugh. "That's forever."

We followed her out. She took Jefferson's hand and started to describe how much fun he was going to have exploring the house and grounds. As she shuffled down the corridor, she told him about the rabbits and the chickens and the sly fox that was always haunting the coops. When we arrived at the kitchen, we found that Luther had prepared cheese sandwiches and tea for us. Charlotte opened a bread box to reveal some jelly rolls she had baked.

"Soon after Emily died she explained, "we went to town and bought twenty pounds of sugar, didn't we, Luther?" He wooded. "And we buy it all the time now. Emily never permitted us to have sugar, only sour balls occasionally, right Luther?"

"Emily's gone and good riddance to her," he said firmly. The three of us sat around the table and ate our sandwiches while Charlotte went on and on about the things she had done since Emily's death. She had gone into sections of the house Emily had once forbidden her to go into; she had opened trunks and looked into dresser drawers and she wore perfume and even put on lipstick whenever she wanted. Most of all she had gone all out with her artwork and handicraft.

"Do you like to paint pictures, Jefferson?" she asked. He looked up quickly.

"I never did," he said.

"Oh, well you have to try it now that you're here. Tomorrow, I'll show you all my paints and brushes. Luther made me a regular art studio, didn't you, Luther?"