Like them, my very life might depend upon going unnoticed. So I took care. I could not climb the back stairs this time, as it did not communicate with the storage attic. I went to the main staircase and very carefully took each tread silently, slowly. Once there, I tugged on the rope that dropped the attic door and stairway. It fell with a quiet whoosh, a testimony to clever craftsmanship. Then I walked up the stairway, holding my wavering candle before me. I turned to the left first and looked at a stack of paintings leaning against a beam. There was a dust sheet over the top of them, and I reached out and lifted it, carefully, perhaps somewhat fearfully, as a person might lift a cloth before identifying a dead body. The cunning face grinning back at me was Aunt Judith’s, her eyes hard, marble blue. Somehow, although she’d been dead for some years, she came alive there in front of me and dared me, I thought, not to drop the cloth. I covered her face and a wave of nausea passed. I then uncovered a second stack and was able to view it simply by thrusting my candle forward.
