The Family Plot by Cherie Priest Page B

when she considered the vivid, stark white produced by the lanterns. He clutched the trunk like it was a toilet and he needed to vomit.
    Slowly, she set her own light down and crouched beside him. “What have you got there?”
    â€œJust an old trunk,” he whispered.
    â€œThat’s … that’s what it looks like.” Inside she saw folded items, discolored fabric. Scattered dominos that were yellowed and cracked, and a single shoe that was sized for a baby, or a large doll. “So … what’s wrong?”
    With a rasp, he said, “Nothing.”
    â€œYou’re a liar—and a shitty one, at that. What’d you find?” She leaned past him and put her hands in the trunk, sifting through its contents with her fingers. The other shoe turned up, as well as some vintage children’s books, their cardboard backs gone soft from the years of damp. “It’s just a bunch of kid’s stuff.”
    The temperature had fallen ten degrees in the last hour, but Gabe was sweating. “No creepy dolls, or anything.” He sniffled and rubbed at his nose to keep from sneezing. “I don’t know what’s in here. I don’t know what he…”
    â€œHe?”
    Gabe looked over his shoulder, and held still long enough to listen for footsteps—on the ladder, or across the rickety attic floor. “The kid. This is his stuff, I guess. He wanted to show me something.”
    â€œThere was a kid up here? No, don’t you tell me that; I won’t believe it for a second, and whoever this trunk belonged to…” Her fingers crawled through the blankets, the nightshirts, the toys as fragile as bird bones. “He’s been dead since before you were born.”
    She was rambling, and she knew it. She was rambling because she already knew what Gabe meant, before he could say it outright. Her hand knocked against something solid, something that crackled between her fingers. She lifted it up into the light: a book with tattered black pages, loosely bound. The pages were flaking, shedding like leaves.
    Gabe nodded earnestly, but said nothing. Now they heard feet on the ladder, and a way-too-loud voice rising up into the eerie space.
    â€œWhere the hell are you two? Hey! Is it … is it safe up there? Is it…” Bobby gave up on an answer and threw himself over the lip anyway. Dahlia heard him land with a thud, hard enough to send splinters raining down below, tinkling as light as confetti and ash. “I see your light. I’m coming your way.”
    â€œWe’re over here, Dad,” Gabe called out, but his eyes were still locked to Dahlia’s. His pupils were the size of the acorns that were scattered all over the porch, clogging up the gutters.
    She wanted to ask him what he’d seen. No, she didn’t want to ask him what he’d seen.
    Nothing felt like the right thing to do, so she looked down at the book she’d found instead. Its covers were leather, and the metal rings that held its pages together had rusted away to powder. Down in the trunk, a lacy baptism dress had red, round stains left behind by the book. Another crumpled wad of fabric was stashed beneath it. She began to unfold it, smooth it, touch the long lines of lace that were stitched down the front, but Bobby crashed the scene—moving heavy and hard, like the climb up the ladder had winded him.
    â€œWhat the hell, Gabe? I expect her to ignore me, but you?”
    â€œI didn’t ignore you. I told you I was over here.”
    â€œNot until I was already up the ladder. Jesus Christ,” he swore. He put his hands on his hips and glared down at them both.
    Dahlia dusted off the book with the back of her hand. She muttered, “No, he said something before that. So did I. Must be a trick with the acoustics in here. I couldn’t hear him either, not at first.”
    â€œReally? You want to blame the acoustics?”
    â€œSee? You