Are You Haunted (part thirty-five)

Are You Haunted

(part thirty-five)

They heard the floorboard bump.

Lois drew breath. Alfin pushed up. Dennis half-closed his eyes and glanced with this arch face at Isobel, then Powell.

“Mr. Rohdl!” Summers called. “Will you come down?”

Motions, and Rohdl came, haggard and wild-haired, to stare over the landing rail. He might have meant to address Lettie, if his eyes could see her. “Can you speak to me? Is there anything that you can tell me?”

Summers, low, said to Isobel, “My inclination is leave him be. I can’t think of any reason to drag Mr. Rohdl away by the arm.”

“No, of course not. And we’ve stocked Powell’s larder, and a little company will do him good.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t…” Lois said. She opened her eyes wide, cutting off at a resting of Isobel’s fingers on her shoulder.

At half past eleven Alfin and his father and Lois went, clattering off in the truck that belonged to Mr. Tovey. Isobel and Dennis had said they’d walk.

“Poor Mr. Rohdl will be no trouble to you, Powell, but if you mind very much…”

“I don’t mind at all.”

It was the burden of Isobel’s taking care for him, that he couldn’t speak properly, blurting, almost negating his words.

Dennis had laughed under his breath.

But her eyes were so weary, Powell wanted her to go.

One bottle of whiskey, shared among six people, couldn’t afford a real high. He was not even drowsy. The house felt stingy of oxygen, dominated by smells, Guy’s blanket, the musty cot, Dennis and Alfin’s cigarettes, onion and mayo from the dishes stacked below.

He pushed his bed to the window and sat a while, watching the road.

He got up and folded the cot…wondering. Was Rohdl a loon who cycled, day into night? Would he pace and bump the board til morning, shouting at phantoms?

Powell climbed the attic stairs, apathetic to the thud, thud, thud of the cot’s legs.

It was pitch dark. And so hot, in a minute’s time he felt sweat bead his nose. A blue square emerged, and he struggled through a door to reach it. He could lie on his belly here, looking down the hill.

He cranked the window open. No screen. No light to draw bugs…no moths. But tiny nuisances began rocketing into his face.

Moonlight hitting the dogleg’s outcrop, shocks of grass, the barn roof… The barn looking okay from the back, needing a survey of whatever was in it.

Powell let himself worry this out a little.

Caretaking.

35

Haunted
Are You Haunted (part thirty-six)

(2019, Stephanie Foster)