The Lady of Lyon House Read Online Free PDF Page B

the experience was the culmination of a week of nervous tension.
    I got up, pulling on a ruffled blue robe over my white nightgown. I stepped over to the mirror and examined my face. The violet blue eyes looked enormous, surrounded by shadows, and the cheeks were pale. Ihad evidently been asleep, drifting off without knowing it, the nightmare curiously merging with the reality. I rubbed my cheeks, staring at the face that looked back at me in the cloudy glass. I wore my hair in two long blonde braids, and they rested one on each shoulder, tied with blue bows.
    I could feel the old house all around me, large and silent. I had that curious feeling that always comes over one when everyone else is asleep. I felt like the only survivor in a house of death, and it was a comfortable feeling that I could break at any moment if I chose to make enough noise and awaken everyone. I picked up the lamp and left the room determined to satisfy myself that I had had a nightmare. I knew that I could never sleep until I had proven that.
    I walked down the long hall, my slippers making soft noises on the worn carpet. The light of the lamp cast flickering shadows on the wall. The house was rather cold, tomblike, the air chill. I turned a corner and stood at the top of the back staircase. It was steep and narrow, making a sharp turn halfway down. I hesitated for a moment, looking into the pit of darkness. I was afraid, but it was only the ordinary fear everyone feels when confronted with darkness, a fear easily put aside. I held the lamp high and started down.
    The heels of my slippers clattered on the bare wooden steps. I had to hold on to the bannister, and my hand slid over the cool wooden surface. There was a window high up over the staircase. It was opened and the wind blew in, fluttering the curtains over my head. I could smell the odors of the kitchen which was immediately beneath the stairs. Mattie had been baking bread that afternoon, and the smells lingered, mixed with the smells of wax and copper and coal.
    I stood at the bottom of the stairs. The lamp cast moving waves of light over the kitchen, dancing over the old oak table, burnishing the copper pans that hung along the wall, stoking the surface of the gigantic black iron stove that hovered in one corner with a yawning mouth. An old straw broom leaned in one corner, and the house cat slept curled on a pallet in front of the pantry door. I moved silently across the newly waxed tile floor over to the back door. It was securely locked, and no one had tampered with it. The bolt was pushed firmly into its socket. I tested the doorknob. It did not yield at all. The window over the drain-board was locked, too.
    I peered through the window at the alley behind the house. I could see the crumbling brick backs of the buildings that opened out from the other side of the alley. There was a darkened doorway, and a pile of rubbish beside it. Long black shadows slid over the walls like huge, stroking fingers. Scraps of white paper and bits of rubbish blown by the wind drifted along the alley like weird nocturnal butterflies. A black cat prowled silently among the heap of rubbish.
    I was satisfied. The back door and window were locked, and no one lurked in the alley behind the house. I felt rather foolish, standing there in the deserted kitchen with a lamp in my hand while everyone else was sound asleep. I decided to go through the hall and check the front door, just to be certain. I might as well be completely reassured before I went back up to my room.
    I pushed open the kitchen door, trying to keep the hinges silent. They creaked loudly, and the noise was a little unnerving in the dark. The door swung shut behind me. I moved slowly down the long narrow hall. I passed the old grandfather clock that stood across from the front parlor and saw that it was after four o’clock in the morning. I passed into the front foyer and touched the doorknob of the front door. Thin blue curtains were stretched