Free Three Story House: A Novel by Courtney Miller Santo Page B

years for Grandma Mellie. He worked cheap and he knew the house, which Lizzie guessed was what they needed. “Enough about money. It’s fine. Or rather, it’ll be fine.”
    “You’ve got to stop saying that,” Elyse said, touching Lizzie lightly on the head. “If I could change one thing about this world, it would be the need for everyone to hide their panic.”
    On the third floor, in the ceiling above the landing, there was a metal pull that concealed the stairs to the cupola. Since arriving in the house, Lizzie had tried in vain to get the stairs to pull down. With their first meeting with the contractor scheduled for the next day, getting into the cupola and then out onto the roof felt like a mandate. Isobel took the rope from Elyse and tied it to the brass ring. Lizzie stepped back, wondering at her cousin’s confidence.
    “If we all put our weight on it, the stairs will have to come unstuck,” Isobel said, grabbing the rope at a point near the top. The others copied her and on the count of three, they pulled down sharply and lifted up their feet.
    The stairs popped and then slid out with excruciating slowness. They made Elyse go first since she put up a fuss about climbing the backless stairs. Isobel followed, carrying a broom. Lizzie had tried to warn them about how small the space was, but when she finally made it up the stairs, she found Elyse marveling that by stretching her arms, she could touch all sides of the cupola. Behind them, a second room expanded the area beyond the telephone-booth-like space that the stairs opened into. The larger room had a barn door on rollers and window seats. There were a few cast-off items littering the floor, including a smaller replica of Spite House that, if she remembered correctly, had once been a mailbox. The prisms that were so much a part of Lizzie’s childhood remained in place. Isobel pushed through both rooms, spilling out onto the roof with the relief of someone who didn’t like small spaces.
    “Did I hear you on the phone with that inspector last night?” Elyse asked, stepping out behind her onto the roof.
    Lizzie shrugged. He’d called officially a few days earlier to help her file the paperwork to get the utilities turned on and to get their property removed from the auction listing. The conversation had surprised her by feeling familiar and by the end of it, he’d given her his cell number and she’d called, at first to ask about garbage pick up, but mostly to hear his voice.
    “I told you he liked you,” Isobel said, turning and looking back at the cupola, holding her hands out in a frame and then walking around the structure. “Flat roofs are so much trouble. You need an angle, something for all of this crap to roll off of.”
    “When will anything not be trouble?” Lizzie asked, her good foot kicking at the muck of decomposing leaves that lined the outer edges of the roof.
    “Don’t you want gloves?” Elyse offered a pair to Lizzie before working the handle of the broomstick under the layer of debris on the easternmost corner of the roof and watching as several beetles crawled away after having their soft bellies exposed.
    Lizzie grabbed a handful of leaves and threw them over the side of the house, wiping her hands on her jeans before putting on the gloves.
    “What’s the story with this house anyway?” Elyse asked when the debris was mostly cleared.
    “My grandfather’s brother gave him a piece of land that he thought useless. And instead of letting it go fallow, he built this house.”
    “No romance? No illicit activity? Places like this always have a bit of scandal attached to them.” Elyse took a handkerchief from her pocket and wiped her hands. “It smells strange.”
    “That’s the scent of a storm. Winter rains clean off the dirt in preparation for spring,” Lizzie said, echoing a phrase of her grandmother’s. She stood the broom against the cupola and turned toward the horizon, watching dark clouds roll across the sky