Free Family Skeletons by Bobbie O'Keefe Page A

took another step up and waved again, came in contact with it
and yanked.
    “Not much wattage,” Jonathan said dubiously, watching
the swinging bulb.
    “We can always get a bigger bulb. Uh, stronger, I
mean? Brighter?”
    “I get the idea.”
    Wattage, Sunny, wattage. He already said
it.
    She eased over to sit on the edge of the attic
floor, checking first for anything that might be crawling there, then
maneuvered her way off the ladder and into the attic proper. The attic was
A-shaped, perhaps six feet high in the center and tapering to about five feet
in height at the walls. Its circumference was slightly less than the size of
the house itself, and it was chock full of stuff. This was going to be a job
and a half.
    She turned back. “Your turn.”
    His head quickly appeared in the opening. The
initial drudgery she’d felt regarding this chore had been replaced by a sense
of adventure that he apparently shared. Possibly because they were sharing a
heretofore unexperienced experience.
    The bulb was still swinging, distorting their
shadows. She could do without that part of it. It was just a little too creepy.
She stood upright and stepped back, allowing him room.
    “We’ll both have to stoop to get around near the
walls,” she said. “But even you should be able to stand up straight in the
center.”
    Then she turned in a slow circle, taking inventory.
“Old suitcases and trunks, boxes, lots of them, some small pieces of
furniture—” Her breath caught in a gasp.
    “What?” He whirled her way.
    “Ohh.” She felt deflated as the sudden shock
receded. “It’s a dressmaker’s dummy.”
    He chuckled. “Headless and armless. Not too pretty,
is it, especially with that weird, swinging...” He grabbed the bulb’s chain and
held it, and the shadows stilled.
    “Thank you,” she said formally.
    “You’re welcome,” he said, imitating the same staid
manner she’d used. Then, making her grin, he switched to the flippant way she
usually talked. “But I remind you that you said you could take care of your own
spiders.”
    “So what do we tackle first?” she wondered aloud,
gaze wandering from box to crate to piece of junk. “You want to get back down
there, and I’ll hand stuff down to you?”
    “Maybe we should do that the other way around,” he
countered. “You’d have the wall and stair railing to help support the heavier
pieces.”
    Yep, that handy dolly wasn’t going to help her out
up here. “Okay,” she said. “But that means you’re on your own when you get to
the spiders.”
    He slanted a sideways glance at her. “Sunny, I find
it happening more and more often that I get a terrific urge to put you in your
place.”
    Did that have a sexual edge to it,
Jonathan?
    Don’t go there, Sunny.
    “So what’s first?” she asked. “Once we get rid of
the lighter stuff, the furniture will go faster.”
    “Agreed.”
    Her eye caught a dismantled crib leaning against the
wall behind a dusty duffel bag. Its position indicated it was one of the last
pieces stored. “Must’ve been mine,” she murmured.
    “Excuse me?”
    “Nothing.”
    Well, that was an excellent opportunity
you just blew, Sunny. Are you a coward or an idiot, or both?
    Oh, shut up.
    She grabbed the duffel bag. It was surprisingly
light, so she also took the garment bag that lay over the top of a trunk and
placed both pieces next to the trapdoor. “I’m going down with these. You can
hand me down whatever comes next.”
    The hall quickly became littered with boxes and
bags. They laughed over several paper bags of used Christmas wrap, folded
neatly and then stored away to disintegrate over the years.
    “Sunny, I think I just found something,” he hollered
down to her. “It looks like an authentic Victrola. It’s even got the trademark
of a dog listening to a gramophone.”
    “Yeah?” She grinned up at the opening.
    “It’s a cabinet, covered with an old sheet. Let’s
take it down last. We’ll have to take special