“Yes, indeedy,” she said, “and big as life! You remember me.”

They remembered.

It took time getting her coat off, getting her situated in the parlor, getting her warmed up and relaxed after such a long, stiffening ride. Great-grandmother Jeffers smoothed her hair back and looked around the long room at the floor-to-ceiling windows. “Who’s going to clean such windows? Is that why you wanted me here?” she said.

They all laughed at that.

After a while they went into the kitchen.

“I knew I smelled fresh paint,” Thomas said. “Look at that!”

The kitchen was painted the warmest yellow. “Looks just like spring!” Great-grandmother Jeffers said, beaming.

“I did it,” Martha Small said proudly. “Mr. Pluto mixed the paint for me and set up my ladder.”

“Bet you could get a good hourly wage for work like this, if you wanted,” Mr. Small said, joking.

“I bet I could, too.” She joked back.

They eased in around the kitchen table as Thomas set it for the supper his mama had prepared. Mr. Small served their plates from the stove and counter. The twins had already eaten, Martha said. But they enjoyed being at the table, climbing down and playing around, accepting hugs from their great-grandmother.

It took time to eat, to sip tea, and there was pie for dessert.

Time to catch up and to hear about the things that could not be spoken of over the telephone. Great-grandmother propped her arm on the table, resting her chin in her palm. “I want to see you-know-what-it’s-called,” she said. She meant the cavern of treasure. “I want to see everything, but best not to speak about that.” She looked all around. “Do the little fellows know about you-know-what-it’s-called?” she asked.

The twins were at once alert, knowing they were being talked about. Walter Small shook his head. “That’s another thing. They’re growing the way kids do.”

There was a pause. “We keep them here around the house,” Martha said. “But they will get away from you. I’m going to find a play school for them.”

“Not to change the subject,” Great-grandmother said, “but which is the wall in this kitchen that rises?”

Walter Small got up from the table and went over to a cabinet across from them. Beneath the cabinet was a panel that housed the machinery for the moving wall. He fiddled with the controls, picked up an object from one of the cabinet drawers, and added it to the mechanism. At once the kitchen wall silently slid up. The twins held on to Great-grandmother Jeffers on either side. The three of them stared. Before them was the black, gaping tunnel opening that led around to the front steps. Thomas found himself clutching the table edge.

Great-grandmother Jeffers leaned forward. She found the opening quite extraordinary. A tunnel of ages, she thought. Used by slaves, fugitives.

The dank air at the tunnel entrance seemed unsettled. She held her head cocked to one side as though she were listening to something.

“What is it, Grandmother Rhetty?” softly asked Thomas’s mama.

Great-grandmother Jeffers shook her head. “Must’ve been nothing,” she said. “There’s sure nothing there.”

“I’ve never liked that escape route,” Mrs. Small said. “Never liked a wall that could slide up and down.” Lightly she touched each twin on the head. Just then Billy disengaged himself from Great-grandmother and walked over to the cabinet with the panel. He began to fiddle with it.

“Hey! Don’t touch that, Billy,” Walter Small said. “Now, you’re not to touch this panel, you hear?”

Great dark eyes shifted from his father to his brother Buster. Buster left Great-grandmother’s side and toddled over to Billy to put a comforting arm around his brother.

“Look at that,” Great-grandmother said, chuckling. “They are as cute as they can be!”

“Oh, they’re cute all right,” Martha said. “Cute into everything.”

“Well, you have me now. They won’t get by me,” said Great-grandmother. “It’s something, though. Big rooms. Moving walls and steps … What else moves around here besides them and you folks?” She laughed.

“The mirror in the front hall has a tunnel behind it,” Thomas said.

“Well, you know, I just barely noticed that mirror out the corner of my eye as we came in,” Great-grandmother said. “So, the kitchen, the steps, and that mirror as you come in,” Great-grandmother said. “Any more secret—” She stopped herself, at once knowing that she should not have asked.

Martha cleared her throat while Walter busied himself at the counter with the panel. The wall came sliding down.

“Papa …” Thomas began to speak.

“Now, Thomas,” Mrs. Small said.

“Papa? There are more secret places?”

“I talk too much,” Great-grandmother murmured.

Mr. Small sighed. “I suppose there are more secret tunnels and things,” he admitted. “I haven’t had the time to go checking, what with my job at the college and inventorying the you-know-what. I never had the complete plans of this house. I don’t know if a complete set of drawings exists.”

“You mean, there are other ways in here we don’t know about?” asked Thomas. “I thought you knew everything about this house.” I thought you were taking care of things, was what he really was thinking.

“You never know everything about a house this old,” his papa answered.

“How are we going to sleep at night—” Thomas broke off. He knew he would have a hard time sleeping from now on. “I don’t see how we’re going to live, with strangers wandering in and out of our house,” he muttered. All at once he felt letdown, anxious.

“We’ll just have to secure the periphery,” his father said.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Thomas said glumly.

“Your papa means,” Great-grandmother told him, “that if you take care of what is going on on the outside, you don’t need worry about anything coming or going on on the inside.”

“That’s right,” his papa said. “We took care of the Darrows. I don’t think it’s likely they’ll bother us again.”

Thomas stared at his father. Would the Darrows have learned their lesson? And would the great treasure-house stay secure? He wasn’t at all sure.

Great-grandmother Jeffers yawned. “Ooh! Now I know it’s not that late,” she said, smiling all around.

“You must be tired,” Martha said. “Here, let’s get you settled in your room. I put you next to Thomas, a little farther down on the opposite side of the hall from Billy and Buster.”

“Anyplace will do me just fine,” Great-grandmother said. “Please, don’t fuss about me. I don’t want to cost anything extra.”

They all went to her room with her, surrounding her going up the wide old staircase.

“A fine house,” she murmured. She laughed her high, mountain laugh.

Thomas couldn’t get over the sweet sound of it.

6

THEY SAY DARK, GHOSTY things walk haunted houses. Deep in the night, when the weather falls, the creeps come out and walk about the old Drear house, so the townsfolk say. They are half joking, but the children are quick to believe. Yet this night the house was quiet within its hidden places. Martha and Walter, the twins never awoke. Thomas slept. In her sleep Great-grandmother Jeffers rubbed her hands together, smoothed them, pressed them, until a dull aching faded. She awoke long enough to think: Barometer going down, my arthritis. Snow is not finished yet.

Outside, the wind rose, building a blizzard from out of the darkness. It soon raged against the house. Drear house shuddered but stood its ground. The night was blinded snow-white. Animals dug deep for safety.

Blasting wind swept the fields clean. Snow drifted four feet high against fences and treelines. But this storm couldn’t last. It came and went in an hour, a preview of the hard winter to come. The night settled down in a snow light, bright as day. Huge, silent flakes came down abundantly. The little animals sniffed the air and crept about.