“Maybe we could do something nice for Mother when the yard sale is over,” I said aloud. “Like that antiquing trip she’s been talking about.”
“Good idea,” he said. And this time I could hear the hint of a smile in his voice. More like the normal Michael. A few seconds later he reached out and took my hand. A nice gesture, however transient, since his car had a standard transmission, and he’d probably have to downshift in a minute or two. Still—another quarrel averted. Or was it only postponed?
Part of the problem was our difference of opinion on how to handle my parents when they came up with the sort of peculiar ideas my family specialized in, particularly when it came to how other people should run their lives. Michael favored humoring them as long as possible, while I thought it worked better if you set them straight immediately. Humoring them only hurt their feelings more in the end, not to mention creating a very real danger that they’d go out and do whatever strange thing you were trying to talk them out of.
And the house caused more of these conflicts every week.
Damn the whole house project anyway. I wondered how we could possibly get safely through the next few months, or even, God help us, years of repairs and renovations.
Of course, looking on the bright side, next to surviving the house with our relationship intact, proving Giles innocent of murder looked remarkably easy.
Despite the late hour, as we approached the house we could see lights blazing on every floor. And when we got closer, I heard shrieking from somewhere in the house. Barrymore Sprocket stood on the front step, smoking a cigarette.
“There you are,” he said, as I ran toward him. “They’ve all been looking for you.”
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
He shrugged, and just then another chorus of shrieks rose up, so I raced past him into the house, and then up to the third floor, where the shrieking came from.
Chapter 23
I arrived in time to see a dozen of my relatives, clad in bathrobes and bedroom slippers, stampede past the head of the stairs, all shouting variations on “Watch out! Here it comes!” as they passed. They all vanished into the last two rooms along the corridor, slamming the doors behind them.
Here what comes? The hall looked empty from where I stood—I’d stopped two steps below the third floor landing. I stuck my head into the hall and peered up and down. Nothing.
“What is it?” Michael asked from the second floor landing.
“No idea,” I said. “But something has them scared.”
“So I gathered from Barrymore,” he said, arriving at my side. “But he hasn’t a clue what.”
We couldn’t see anything ominous from our post, so we stepped out into the hall. No fearsome monster appeared to threaten us. The corridor was an empty line of closed doors, except for the last door on the right, which hung open.
“Shall we check there?” Michael said.
Just then I heard a soft hissing noise. I looked up and saw a small barn owl sitting on the ceiling light fixture at the end of the hall. I pointed it out to Michael.
“Sophie?” he asked.
“Too small. One of the fledglings, I suspect.”
And quite possibly the fledgling who’d gotten in the habit of having its bedtime snack outside our window. The fledgling was bobbing its head as if warning that it was about to attack, but when I stepped closer it fled through the open door. Screaming erupted from the darkened room beyond.
When Michael and I stuck our heads in, we found that the screaming was coming from under a sleeping bag, while the owl fluttered around the edges of the ceiling, its ghostly white face luminous in the faint light from the door.
“Come out from there!” I ordered the unseen screamer on the floor.
No response. I fumbled beside the door for the light switch.
When the light came on, I saw a familiar face pop up from beneath the sleeping bag. Darlene, Horace’s girlfriend. Ex-girlfriend now, I supposed. Unfortunately, popping up brought her face-to-face with the owl, which had just landed on a nearby box. Darlene shrieked. Maybe the owl did, too, though if it did, Darlene drowned it out. At any rate, they both dived for cover.
“You can come out now,” I said. “It went into the closet.”
“It will get me!” came the voice from beneath the sleeping bag.
“No, it won’t,” I said. “Michael and I won’t let it. Just crawl out and run for the door. We’ll cover you.”
Michael took up a karate stance and looked menacingly at the closet door.
The sleeping bag heaved itself up and scuttled out the door.
“So what do we do about him?” Michael asked, nodding at the closet.