Flashlights in hand, we intrepid explorers climbed into the attic more suited to a house like this than the previous one had been. Structurally, it was the mirror image of the office minus the skylights and gorgeous view. Light battled through the coating of white paint that covered the only window, flickering on the motes of dust we had disturbed with our presence.
Four old steamer trunks were lined up against the wall next to a pedal sewing machine with SINGER scrawled in elaborate gold lettering over the scratched wooden side of the cabinet. There were more empty milk crates here, but in the attic, at least, someone had found a way to keep the spiders out. I didn't see any creepy-crawlies at all. Or even very much dust. Trust Amber to dust her attic.
The trunks were locked. But the look of disappointment on Chad's face had me digging out my pocketknife. A little wiggling, a little jiggling with the otherwise-useless toothpick, and the slimmest of the blades had the first trunk open before you could sing three verses of "Ninety-nine Bottles of Beer." I know because I hum when I pick locks - it's a bad habit. Since I have no desire to become a professional thief, though, I haven't bothered to try to break myself of it.
Yellowed linens with tatting around the edges and embroidered spring baskets, or flowers, or some other appropriately feminine imagery filled the first trunk, but the second was more interesting. House plans (which we took out), deeds, old diplomas for people whose names were unfamiliar to Chad, and a handful of newspaper articles dating back to the 1920s about people with the same last name as the people in the diplomas and deeds. Mostly death, birth, and marriage notices. None of the death notices were about people who had died violently or too young, I noticed.
While Chad was poring over the house plans he'd spread over the closed lid of the first trunk, I stopped to read about the life of Ermalinda Gaye Holfenster McGinnis Curtis Albright, intrigued by the excessive last name. She'd died at age seventy-four in 1939. Her father had been a captain on the wrong side of the Civil War, had taken his family west, finding his fortune in timber and railroads. Ermalinda had eight children, four of whom had survived her and had a huge number of children themselves. Twice a widow, she'd married a third man fifteen years before her death. He'd been - reading between the lines - far younger than she.
"You go, girl," I told her admiringly - and the stairway closed up and slammed shut so hard that the resultant vibration from the floor had Chad looking up from his plans. He wouldn't have heard the snick of the lock, though.
I dove for the door - too late, of course. When I put my nose to it, I didn't smell anyone. I couldn't think of any reason anyone would lock us in the attic, anyway. It wasn't as if we were going to perish up here... unless someone set the whole house on fire or something.
I pushed that helpful thought out of my head and decided it was probably our ghost. I'd read about ghosts who set houses on fire. Wasn't Hans Holzer's Borley Rectory supposedly burned down by its ghosts? But then I was pretty sure that Hans Holzer had been proved a fraud at some point...
"Well," I told Chad, "that tells us that our ghost is vindictive and intelligent, anyway." He looked pretty shook-up, clutching the plans in a way that would make any historian cringe at the way the fragile paper was wrinkling. "We might as well keep exploring, don't you think?"
When he still looked scared, I told him, "Your mother will be home sooner or later. When she comes upstairs, we can have her let us out." Then I had an idea. I slipped my phone out of my front pocket, but when I called the number I'd saved for Amber, I could hear the phone in her bedroom ring.
"Does your mom have a cell phone?" She did. He punched the number in, and I listened to her cell phone tell me she wasn't available. So I told her where we were and what had happened.
"When she gets the message, she'll come let us out," I told Chad when I was finished. "If she doesn't, we'll call your dad. Want to see what's in the last trunk?"
He wasn't happy about it, but he leaned on my shoulder while I finagled the last lock.
We both stared at the treasure revealed when the last trunk opened.
"Wow," I said. "I wonder if your parents know this is up here." I paused. "I wonder if this is worth anything?"
The last trunk was completely full of old records, mostly the thick black vinyl kind labeled 78 rpm. There was a method to the storage, I discovered. One pile was all children's entertainment - The Story of Hiawatha, various children's songs. And a treasure, Snow White complete with a storybook in the album cover that looked as though it had been made about the same time as the movie. Chad turned up his nose at Snow White, so I put it back in the correct pile.
My cell phone rang and I checked the number. "Not your mom," I told Chad. I flipped open the phone.
"Hey, Adam. Did you ever listen to the Mello-Kings?"
There was a little pause, and Adam sang in a passable bass, "Chip, chip, chip went the little bird... and something, something, something went my heart. I assume there's a reason you asked?"
"Chad and I are going though a box of old records," I told him.
"Chad?" His voice was carefully neutral.
"Amber's ten-year-old son. I have in my own two hands a 1957 record by the Mello-Kings. I think it might be the newest one in here - nope. Chad just found a Beatles album... uhm, cover. It looks like the record is missing. So the Mello-Kings are probably the newest thing here."