"Wait a minute," Harley said. He had been sitting so still and had been so attentive that I almost forgot he was there, "That's not the story he told me. He told me he met her in New York City,"
"That was all probably part of the deception. Harley. Maybe it was something he imagined happened to your father or something. I'm sure you noticed that reference she made to food left in a carton?"
He nodded,
"Go on." he urged.
"You sure?"
"Yes."
"Okay," I said. but I knew I wouldn't be so eager to hear such bizarre things about my
grandparents. It would frighten me. I thought.
I didn't like Suze from the beginning. She had something evil in her eyes. It took me a while to realize -what it was. One of the Realies had entered her and was using her to get down to me. I told Ed and he told me I was wrong. Suze would help me. Where she came from, she was considered the same as we consider- doctors, doctors of the body, but more important, doctors of the soul. He claimed she had already helped him to feel much better about Fletcher, much better about everything even me.
She made all sorts of different things for me to eat and she cooked and cleaned upstairs. Before long, Ed stopped coming down very much.
I continued to read and knit and listen to my music, but one day I noticed I -was getting thinner and thinner. Even though I was eating more, I was losing weight. Suze always had something else for me to eat and some of it did taste good, so I was confused.
I'm disappearing, I realized one day. Suze is making me disappear. That's how she's getting- me back upstairs. If the Realies can't see me, they can't bother me. I don't have to hear any more ugly truths.
So, I didn't complain. In fact, I haven't complained about anything since I've been here.
Today, I decided I would make a list of all the things I've liked in my life and all the things that have brought me happiness. I'd add to the list all the time as I remember things.
One thing I have to put down right away is Fletcher's first cry. Nothing compares to that for a woman. She hears the first note of life that came from her and her heart is as .full of joy as it will ever be. I can close my eyes and see his face and I can see and feel his tiny fingers and I can sense the wonder that was going on inside him.
That was so powerful a happy moment, remembering it is enough to keep me smiling for days on end, although it's hard to see my smile anymore. My face is so thin, the bones have taken over and bones don't smile. But I know it there. The smile is there.
What I've discovered now is I get very tired often. I'm tired soon after I wake up. Some days I've nearly spent the whole time in bed.
It's getting- worse. I know it, but I don't complain. After all, I'm still safe.
"What?" Harley asked the instant I stopped reading. "Don't stop. What happened to her next?"
"I don't know," I said turning the pages. "These pages are all empty. Wait, here's something, but it's hard to read it. It looks like just some scribble." I squinted. "It looks like she was trying to write your father's name." I said. "Maybe."
"Let me see."
Harley studied it and nodded.
"What do you think happened? She sounded like she started to get sicker and sicker after Suze came."
"Yes." I looked at the rolls left in the carton. "Something in the food she gave her, perhaps. Some religious thing full of some magic herbs that was meant to drive the evil out of her, but slowly poisoned her instead."
"Just like she means to do to us." Harley muttered. He looked at the carton, too: then he kicked it away from us. "We're getting out of here," he vowed.
He stood and perused the room, thought a moment and then went into the kitchenette. He returned with a bread knife, holding it like a dagger.
"What are you going to do?" I asked.
"I'm going to dig out that door, even if I have to do it inch by inch. I'll try to cut off its hinges," he said and went back through the opening and up the small stairs where he began to work, now with a methodical desperation.
It was slow, painstaking work. Even though the door was old, it was constructed out of a hard wood. When the knife blade snapped, he had to find another knife. There wasn't any as big or as sharp. He worked for hours. I sat on the stairs and watched him and talked to him and tried to help, but he was afraid I would slip and cut myself. He had a few times when he nearly lost his temper.
After hours and hours, he paused, exhausted, the sweat rolling down his reddened cheeks. When he inspected his results so far, he was not happy.