Chapter 18: Spending the Night

It was very early Saturday morning when Matt's alarm woke him from a pleasant dream. He lay in bed, enjoying its fast fading memory. He had been hiking with Gerallt along his favorite trail in the coastal hills above the beach cottage where he had grown up. Gerallt had been just about to share some Hawthorne family secret when the alarm rang.

Rubbing sleep from his eyes, Matt suddenly realized that he hadn't had a nightmare about his mother's death in weeks. He smiled, jumped out of bed, and swiftly dressed.

Today was finally the day when Matt was going to be allowed to spend the night at the Hawthorne House. Matt grabbed his sleeping bag and the backpack he'd packed the night before with a second set of clothes for Sunday. Silently closing his door behind him, he rushed downstairs for a quick breakfast of Frosted Flakes and orange juice. His father and Tina were still asleep as Matt headed next door to where Gerallt was just finishing his own breakfast, a thick slice of home-baked bread and his great-aunt's raspberry preserves.

Darkness was just beginning to give way in the east as Matt walked outside. The last of the fallen leaves lay scattered over the lawns and sidewalks of Hawthorne Drive. The old oaks raised their naked branches into the dark and dreary November sky as if praying for the swift return of springtime. Matt ignored them as he walked by, and their only answer was the cold North wind.

Matt was about to lift the old, iron knocker when he noticed a small flickering light moving behind the stained-glass panels that bordered the heavy oak door.

Gerallt opened the door and motioned Matt inside. "Come in," he whispered. "No one's up yet. Let's take youah stuff up tah my room."

Matt walked in, and Gerallt bolted the door behind them. The house was strangely cold, as dark and silent as a crypt. Matt glanced left into the parlor, which usually had a pleasant fire in the fireplace, but the few remaining embers from the previous evening gave neither heat nor light. The room was gloomy, and the oil lamp in Gerallt's hand cast deep, ominous shadows behind the overstuffed chairs. Matt couldn't help but remember the scary stories he'd heard about the Hawthorne House being the home of the town's "infamous witch."

Gerallt quietly led Matt up two flights of stairs to his bedroom. The candles on the stairway walls were out, and none of the oil lamps on the hallway tables was lit. Matt was glad to enter Gerallt's room, where a small cheery fire warmed the air and added its light to the candles in their wall sconces and the two oil lamps on his friend's desk.

"That's bettah," Gerallt said, as he entered the warm room. "You can put your stuff on the floah by my chestahdrawahs."

Matt dropped his backpack and sleeping bag between the dresser and the old oak wardrobe where Gerallt hung his clothes. Then he walked over to warm himself in front of the fire. "Do you always let your house get so cold at night?" Matt asked, rubbing his hands before the flames. "It's freezing out in the hall."

"It's not so bad once you're used tah it," Gerallt answered. "And it saves lots of money. No sense heating the house when no one's up tah notice. Besides, everyone has a nice thick comforter, and we can always add moah wood to our fireplaces if our bedrooms get too cold. That reminds me. The first one up has tah get the furnace going."

"Same at my home in the winter. I turned up the thermostat before I left. Where's yours?"

"Thermostat?" Gerallt asked, sounding like he'd never heard the word before.

"You know. The thing on the wall that you use to set the temperature."

"Oh, technology. You'll have tah tell me how it works sometime. We don't have one heah. Come on, I'll show you."

Gerallt silently led Matt back down to the first floor. This time, the boys turned left and headed back toward the kitchen and the stairs that continued down into the basement. Gerallt opened the old door, revealing shadowy steps that dropped down into total darkness. Holding the small oil lamp in front of him, Gerallt calmly started down. He reached the bottom before realizing that Matt still stood frozen at the top of the stairs.

"Come on, Matt. You can help me shovel the coal," Gerallt said, looking back up at his friend.

"But Gerallt..." Matt paused, his breath visible in the freezing air that rose up from the basement. The sight of his breath brought shivers to his back as fear tightened his throat and his heart began to pound. How could he admit to his friend just how much he dreaded the dark with its unseen terrors? The weak light from the oil lamp's flickering flame did little to decrease the darkness.

"Oh, Goddess," Gerallt blasphemed. "It's just the down cellah. There's nothing much down heah but the furnace and the coal you're going tah help me with." Gerallt took one step back up the stairs. "Do you need me tah climb back up there and hold your hand?"

Unwilling to further shame himself in front of his friend, Matt steeled his courage and started down the stairs. Doing his best to ignore the darkness, he kept his eyes centered on the lamp's tiny flame. The old wood creaked with each step he took.

"That's more like it," Gerallt said, as he turned to his right and headed past the stairs toward the coal chute and the old black furnace.

Not wanting to be left behind, Matt hurried to catch up with his friend.

Lifting the furnace's heavy iron handle, Gerallt opened its door and looked in. "Good," he said. "There are still some embers left ovah from last night. I hate it when the furnace is cold, and I have tah restart it from scratch." He poked the remaining embers with an iron rod and shoveled a small amount of coal on top of them. "So, what was that all about? You're not really scared of the dark, ah you?"

"I can't help it," Matt admitted. "One afternoon when Tina and I were seven or eight, we found an old abandoned house in the woods near our home. The floorboards were rotten and broke when I stepped on them. I fell down into the basement. The stairs back up broke when I stepped on them, and I couldn't climb out. Mom had warned us never to go near it, and Tina was too scared to tell her what happened. I was trapped down there with tons the spiders and other bugs for what seemed like forever." Matt shuddered at the memory. "It wasn't until after dark when Mom finally got Tina to tell her and Dad where I was. You know, Gerallt, this is the first time since then that I've gone into a basement."

"Magna Dea! No wonder the down cellah scares you," Gerallt said, with a tone both understanding and sympathetic. "Let's get you some light down heah." He walked over to the wall, took a candle from its holder, and lit it with the flame of his oil lamp. "Heah," he said, handing the candle to Matt. "I'll light some moah, and then we can finish shovelin' the coal intah the furnace and go back upstairs."

"Thanks, Gerallt," Matt said, holding the candle a few inches in front of his eyes. He cupped a hand behind the flame, protecting it from nonexistent drafts while hiding most of the basement behind his fingers.

After lighting several more candles, Gerallt took the bellows down from their hook on the wall and blew strong blasts of air on the few glowing coals that had lasted through the night. The embers burned brighter, and small yellow flames appeared. Before long, Gerallt had a roaring fire going. He added two more shovels of coal, closed the door, and adjusted the vent to provide a steady flow of air to the fire. The small glowing openings glared like angry red eyes against the black iron of the ancient furnace. "Come on, Matt. Let's head back up tah my room."

Matt glanced nervously around the basement as he quickly walked back to the base of the stairs. The walls were made of thick brick, broken only by the stone foundation under the west fireplaces and an extensive root cellar that covered the southern wall. Matt was somewhat surprised to see that the basement was only half the size of the house, lying just under the parlor and library and only reaching back as far as the staircase. Matt hurried up the stairs as Gerallt blew out the candles one by one.

Back at the top of the stairs, Gerallt went to the downstairs bathroom to wash the coal dust off his hands, leaving Matt in the hallway outside the open door to the kitchen. While the boys were in the basement, Gerallt's mother and great-aunt had come downstairs and were discussing their plans for the day. As it was the first time Matt had seen the Hawthorne kitchen, he stuck his head inside and looked around.

Like the rest of the ground floor, the spacious kitchen had a high ceiling covered in decorative antique tiles. A steaming cauldron of water hung over a fire in the corner fireplace. Gerallt's mother stood at the nearby counter, cutting up meat and vegetables for the stew that would be simmering all day. To her left stood a huge cast-iron stove where Gerallt's great-aunt stood with her back to the boys. An old Shaker broom hanging on the wall above the back door made Matt wonder; was it merely decoration or was it something more? He decided he'd ask Gerallt about it once they were alone.

"Go on in," Gerallt said. "Good mornin', Mothah, Ahnt Vivianne. What's foah breakfast?"

"Buckwheat pancakes," Vivianne answered, not looking up from the big bowl she was stirring with a long, wooden spoon. She turned around and noticed Matt standing behind Gerallt. "Oh, good mornin', Matt. You hungry? We've plenty of batter, and I can always make moah if we need it."

In spite of having already wolfed down a bowl of cereal, Matt found the thought of sharing pancakes and maple syrup with his best friend and his family irresistible. "Yes, Ma'am."

After breakfast, Gerallt took Matt on a tour of the house. "This is the library," he said, leading his friend past the downstairs bathroom and into the room across the hall from the kitchen.

"Whoa," Matt exclaimed as he stepped through the door. Except for a reading nook in the middle of the wall to his right, the walls were lined with dark oak bookshelves that ran all the way from the floors to the room's high ceilings. Hundreds of old books, most of them bound in leather, filled the shelves. Stepping up to the nearest shelf, Matt scanned the titles and authors. Although he recognized a few of the more famous writers such as Poe, Shakespeare, and Byron, most of the books were written by people he'd never heard of. Matt walked slowly along the wall, and it soon became clear that the books were organized by the languages in which they were written: Spanish, German, French, and even Latin. "You weren't kidding when you called this the library. Dad likes to collect science and computer books, but his collection wouldn't fill half of even one of these bookshelves."

"Ayuh, it is pretty amazin'," Gerallt conceded, closing the door behind them. "These ah my great-grandfathah and grandmothah, Henry Hubertus and Rhiannon Hawthorne." He pointed at a large portrait of a well-dressed, if somewhat severe-looking, middle-aged couple. The man who had built Hawthorne House had the confident look of someone who'd never known want, whereas his wife's face had the haunted, lonely look of someone who had lost her way in life.

"They met when he visited Deeah Isle while on a huntin' and fishin' trip tah Maine," Gerallt continued. "Accordin' tah my mothah, Rhiannon had nevah been tah the mainland before, and Henry Hawthorne was the very first outsidah she'd evah known. Apparently, it was love at first sight. It took a while, but he was used tah getting' his own way. Eventually, they convinced her parents and more importantly the colony's eldahs tah let them marry and move away from the island. He built this house foah her."

"Man, they must have loved to read," Matt said, gazing at row after row of leather-bound books.

"I guess there wasn't much else tah do in a small town like this," Gerallt said.

Matt looked around the room. There was the old leather chair in front of the corner fireplace where a person could read a book in the candlelight of a brass chandelier suspended over his shoulder. Then he noticed a stand with a huge book opened on top of it. "What's this?" Matt asked, walking over to take a better look.

"Don't touch that!" Gerallt exclaimed, running over to put himself between Matt and the book. He continued in a whisper, "Henry Hawthorne didn't own all the books in the library. This book is one of the very few things my great-grandmothah Rhiannon Hawthorne was permitted tah bring with her from the island. It was a weddin' gift from the eldahs so she could properly raise her children in the ways of the Goddess. That book is not for outsidahs tah read or touch. I'll tell you more, but not heah and not now."

Gerallt led Matt to the parlor that shared a wall and fireplace with the library. The first thing that Matt noticed was the alcove that formed the base of the house's octagonal tower. Vivianne's rocking chair sat in its center, facing outward so that she could sit and observe the world outside. Five tall, narrow windows in the turret, as well as two more on the wall facing Hawthorne Drive, provided considerable light to the room. Each of these windows was topped by a square of stained glass with a large yellow H inside green leaves on a blue background.

The room looked as though it hadn't changed since the 1920s. It was filled with overstuffed couches and chairs with doilies on their arms. The walls were hung with numerous paintings darkened with age and sepia-toned photographs of various members of the Hawthorne family. The mirrors of antique silver wall sconces reflected the flames from white candles, while Tiffany oil lamps sat on the small, round tables near each chair and couch.

Several of these Art Deco lamps were in the form of beautiful brass fairies whose large, stained-glass wings would glow when the lamps behind them were lit. Others were more traditional with stained-glass shades with small, beaded tassels dangling from the edge. It was easy for Matt to imagine Gerallt's great-aunt sitting in this room, watching the changing world outside her windows while her life remained frozen in this time capsule of a room.

"Come on, Matt," Gerallt said, leading Matt across the hall. "This is our dinin' room."

Matt looked around the room, so different than the Mitchell's simple dining room with its small table that was often obscured by pieces of mail and other things that were waiting to be put away. The Hawthorne's spacious formal dining room held a long table that could comfortably seat ten people. Their table was covered by an elegant, white linen tablecloth, laid out with five place settings of gold-rimmed dishes, each monogrammed with the letter H, polished antique silverware, beautiful leaded-glass goblets, and four fat, multi-wicked candles on heavy silver candlesticks.

Overhead hung a massive chandelier made from hundreds of cut-glass crystals surrounding dozens of tall white candles. The dining room had an enormous stone fireplace in the far-left corner that mirrored the one in the parlor. An alcove forming the base of the round tower extended from the far-right corner of the room. In its center stood a waist-high, brass, Art Deco plant stand in the form of a slender nude, her arms raised high over her head to support a huge potted fern.

On the wall opposite the row of tall narrow windows stood a massive ornately-carved china cabinet displaying two rows of the gold-rimmed monogrammed plates. The final noteworthy items were oil paintings of the six steam locomotives that had once belonged to Gerallt's great-grandfather, Henry Hubertus Hawthorne, the railroad baron who had built Hawthorne House.

"Wow," Matt said. "Do you eat here every night?"

"Of course," Gerallt responded, confused by his friend's question. "Where else would we have suppah besides in the dinin' room?"

"Well, at home, we usually eat dinner watching the TV in our living room."

"But why don't you eat in the dinin' room?"

"Dad brings stuff home from work so he can finish it in the evenings. I guess that our table has sort of become his desk. Besides, there's always something good to watch on TV."

"But then when do you sit down together and talk about your day?"

Matt thought about it for a second, remembering the family dinners back in their cabin by the beach. "I guess we haven't done much of that since Mom died."

Gerallt nodded. "Ayuh, I know what you mean. We talk about school and other things, but the one thing we nevah talk about is Fathah." He paused, suddenly no longer interested in showing Matt his new home. "Let's head back up to my room. We can talk." He paused again before continuing. "About anythin'." With that, Gerallt turned around and led his friend upstairs.