The Land Across Read Online Free PDF Page B

it, would it come to me?” Seeing I had no answer, she laughed.
    After a while I said, “You give names to your houses.”
    “To cats and dogs also. If you call a dog, it will come to you sometimes. Cats will not come. So our houses are cats.”
    I asked the name of Kleon’s house.
    “I do not wish to tell. It is ill luck for me.”
    “Then I’ll ask Kleon. We’re going back tonight, aren’t we?”
    “We must. If he does not let us in, we go to the police and they shoot him.”
    “You’ll be a wealthy widow,” I said.
    Martya sniffed. “He has nothing.”
    “He has his house.”
    She shrugged. “We must turn here, why do you walk straight ahead?”
    “Here” was the little path through the dark, crowding trees to the door of the Willows. We had walked so far that I had nearly forgotten that eventually we would get there.
    When we had gone to the Willows earlier, the sun had been high overhead, and lonely sunbeams had penetrated the crowding leaves. Now the sun was low, and a cloudy sky promised a dark night. Martya’s hand found mine and we walked together, not quite side by side, down a path I could not see that was barely wide enough for one person.
    “You do not have a light?”
    “No,” I said. “Do you have matches?”
    “No. We should have bought a … I do not know this word. To hold in the hand and give light.”
    “Taschenlampe.”
    “Yes, a flashlight, where there were shops. Someone would have them.”
    “We’ll get one tomorrow,” I told her.
    “Tomorrow will be too late.”
    After that I stumbled, she swore for me, and we walked on silently while the trees made fun of us. Their silence was a lot bigger and a lot older than ours. As I tried the most likely looking key in the front door lock, Martya asked, “Are you going to start searching now?”
    “Yeah. I want to look the whole place over and make plans. What to do first, what tools I’ll need, and so on.”
    “It is haunted. This you must know.”
    “I know you said it was.” The likely key squeaked and balked in the lock. “People always say these old houses are haunted. If nobody’s living there, it’ll be a haunted house in a year.” I wrestled with the key. “This lock needs a squirt of WD40, or if we can’t get that a squirt of oil.”
    “We will see no ghosts because the sun is still in the sky.” It seemed like Martya was talking to herself instead of me. “One cannot see ghosts by daylight. Who does not know this?”
    The key turned at last. “Then we won’t see them,” I told her.
    “We will not see them, but they will be there.”
    “So what? So will we. Maybe they’ll tell us where the treasure is.”
    I opened the door and went in. It was dim, but not as dark as I had expected, maybe because the ceilings were so high. The windows, pointed at the top like the ones in a church, rose high above my head.
    “He would not have had willows.” Martya’s voice, hushed and kind of querulous, sounded behind me. “Not the one who builds thus. Fruit trees for him.”
    I agreed without giving her much attention. The foyer we stood in was pretty clearly a preliminary room. Benches stuck out from two walls and there were hooks for hanging coats. Even so, it was big and imposing, with great big fireplaces at both ends. Looking back at Martya, I said, “They didn’t have central heating when this was built, I guess.”
    She stopped, looking frightened. “What is it you talk of? I do not know.”
    “A furnace to heat the whole building.”
    “Oh, that. Public buildings have these. We do not. Can we go out?”
    “I haven’t even started.” The door to the next room stood open, and I walked into it.
    It was nearly empty but really interesting just the same. A few pieces of furniture were covered with dirty white drop cloths. A dozen or so more, the ones with no upholstery, had none and were thick with dust. You could tell that pictures and tapestries had hung on the walls back when the room was new, but