Behind them, the stairway itself, no longer anchored to anything on one side, groaned, sagged, lurched downward. Sylvie looked at it, looked up at the cracking ceiling above her as Don fumbled with the deadbolt. The key was gone from the lock. He had one in his pocket, but he wasn't going to look for it. "Out of the way," he said to Sylvie. She moved behind him as he swung the sledgehammer one last time, knocking the deadbolt clear out of the door. The door itself rebounded from the blow, falling open. Don grabbed Sylvie by the wrist and half-dragged her out onto the porch. It buckled and sagged under the weight of them. He bounded down the steps, then held out his arms and she jumped to him, he caught her and staggered back, turning around and around, out on the lawn in the rain, in the wind, free of the house. He held her in his arms, dancing again, only this time no dream of old waltzes, now it was real and cold and wet and the woman in his arms was alive and crying and laughing for joy.

He stopped. He kissed her. Her lips were wet with rain, but her mouth was warm, and she held him, not lightly, but with tight, eager arms.

Freedom

A voice came from across the yard. "Pardon me, but don't you two have sense enough to come in out of the rain?"

They looked over at Miz Evelyn standing behind the picket fence, holding an umbrella. Even by the light of the streetlamp she looked stronger than yesterday. Invigorated.

"We did it, Miz Evelyn," he said. "We put things back to rights."

"House is weaker now but it ain't dead."

"It will be soon," he said. "And we're alive."

"Just barely! Look at you, bleeding like a stuck pig."

It was true. Blood was still seeping from the wound in his hand. Now that he thought about it, now that the adrenaline was wearing off, he hurt all over.

"Oh," cried Sylvie softly. "There are nails still in your head. Turn around."

"Get over here," said Miz Evelyn. "I can help." As they walked around the picket fence and into the carriagehouse yard, Miz Judea came out onto the porch and waved them over. "Get on up here out of the rain," she said. "Come on, I've got what you need." Steam rose from a pitcher. She held a basket full of bandages and ointments. Some of them looked like the FDA had never certified them, but he figured Gladys knew things that the FDA never heard of, so there on the porch he stood while they pulled nails out of his legs and backside.

"Somebody nailed you good," said Miz Judea. Then she cackled with such mirth, you'd think she hadn't laughed for years.

As soon as he could, he sat on the porch swing and let them strip off his shirt and start anointing his wounds with foul-smelling salves that stung and then felt good. The old ladies introduced themselves to Sylvie and Sylvie smiled and introduced herself back again. Don just sat and watched, deeply weary but also satisfied.

"So you're the haint that's been living in that house all these years," said Miz Evelyn.

Sylvie reached up and touched her own cheek. "Not anymore, though," she said.

"I told Miz Judy here, I said if anyone can put things to rights, it's that boy Don Lark."

"Said no such thing," said Miz Judea. "You just said nobody could ever put things to rights."

"The memory is the first thing to go," said Miz Evelyn.

They watched as a man in sweats carrying an umbrella padded across the street to them. "What's going on in that old house there?" he demanded. "I thought I heard such a crash. And a woman screaming."

"That was us, I'm afraid," said Don. "I'm the one who's been renovating it. It wasn't as sturdy as it looked. A main load-bearing wall collapsed."

"That house ought to be condemned."

"You're telling me," said Don. "I'm not spending another night under that roof. I'll have a wrecking crew out here to tear it down first thing tomorrow."

"Wait till after eight in the morning, would you?" said the neighbor.

"Count on it," said Don.

"Can I give you some coffee?" said Miz Judea.

"No thanks, ma'am," said the neighbor. "I don't want to be awake."

"They barely escaped with their lives," said Miz Evelyn.

"Yeah, well, nobody was hurt, right?"

"All of us are fine," said Don. And, in fact, with Gladys's salves going onto his body and Sylvie there in the flesh before him, it was true.

The neighbor trotted back across the street.

"I think the rain is letting up a little," said Miz Evelyn.

"I love the rain," said Sylvie.

"You'll love the sun, too, come morning," said Miz Judea. "Now let's get this poor boy inside and in to a bed. I'm afraid he's going to have to buy himself some new clothes. Everything he's got is either in that house or full of holes and covered with blood."

"I guess I can go shopping for him in the morning," said Sylvie. Then she burst into tears. "Oh, Don," she said. "I can go shopping. I can go out."

In answer he held her hand, and with the old ladies fussing around them, they went inside.

A week later, the demolition was complete. Don never went into the house again. He was afraid that some shadow of Lissy would remain alive in there. He didn't want to hear her voice again. Didn't want to walk into her lair where she and the house might have one last trick up their sleeves. So his tools were a dead loss. The only things he might have missed were his pictures of Nellie, but those were in the photo album in the glove compartment of his truck. So he could lose the rest.

As the house came down, the old ladies brightened and strengthened and began taking walks around the neighborhood. Sylvie got a locksmith to make her a new key for the Saturn, and after Don cleared out every reminder of its previous owner, she began driving everywhere, taking Miz Evelyn and Miz Judea with her. The three of them were soon as thick as thieves. Leaving Don with Gladys in that upstairs room.

With new tools he carefully dismantled the doorway of her room and laid boards and carpet down the stairway to convert it into a long, slow slide. He opened the front door, cutting away part of the wall, and made ramps out onto the porch and down to the lawn. A parade of doctors came to examine her, to judge whether she could make the move. Arrangements were made with a sanitarium, and they rented a truck to move her.

On the day the demolition was complete, everything hauled away, and the foundation hole filled in, Gladys was hoisted from her bed and, with the help of four men from the sanitarium, she passed through the widened doorway of her room and slid very, very slowly down the carpeted slide. On the main floor they harnessed and winched her up onto three gurneys strapped together and rolled her out through the gap in the front wall of the house to the street, where the truck waited.

"We going to the fat farm!" she cried when she saw the truck. "Inside this body be fourteen skinny women dying to get out!"

"Just do whatever the doctors tell you," Miz Judea said.

"We'll visit every day," said Miz Evelyn.

"No you won't," said Gladys. "That get boring for you, and tell the truth I could use a little vacation from looking at you two every day. Of course I mean that nice as can be."

It took another twenty minutes of hard labor but finally Gladys was up inside the truck, sitting on a king-size mattress with an enormous pile of pillows all around her. Two attendants would be riding in back with her, monitoring her vital signs during the whole trip.

Sylvie and Don and Evelyn and Judea gathered around the wide-open back doors of the truck to say good-bye.

"I told you not to visit every day but that don't mean I want you to forget me." Gladys pointed at Don in particular. "I'm charming company and besides, you owe me."