Upstairs Guests

The boy knew from an early age that there was someone else upstairs, someone who was not part of the family.

His grandparents lived in an old, two-story, brick home on a corner lot. Though not quite a Gothic manor, it filled roughly the same space in his imagination. He feared the house almost as much as he loved it.

The interior seemed built out of disparate parts. A formal living and dining room, furnished mostly with bulky old antiques, gave way to a small kitchen and smaller breakfast nook. Two tiny hallways opened onto the den -- itself an odd mix of new and old furniture -- and the bedroom suites, which themselves were divorced from each other. A third abbreviated hall connected the master bedroom from a smaller room where the boy's grandmother slept, next to a window-unit air conditioner. The unit blew so cold in summer that she called the room "Old Siberia."

For the most part, the boy, an only child, had the run of the house whenever he visited. He could play in the garden or fenced-in back yard, or watch TV, or play records, or nap or draw on the day bed by the windows. There were sufficient nooks and crannies to draw his interest and allow him to indulge his imagination, which focused on forts and whatnot. He made tents out of sheets and chair backs.

The one place he refused to play, or explore in the least, was the second floor. His grandmother kept her dolls there. And someone else tended to walk its halls at night.

To reach the second floor, one ascended a narrow staircase that was almost vertical. The risers creaked unpleasantly, and the stairs, without adequate lighting, existed in a kind of perpetual twilight. He imagined all kinds of sinister things lurking on those stairs.

As one reached the top riser, a sharp right turn was required to enter the hall, which formed an L, along which the rooms were located. The hall, the bannister, and the stairs terrified the boy. No happiness or light ever seemed to reach them. They felt completely separate from the joys of the downstairs rooms. No two halves could have been more distinct.

This he knew from an early age.

To the immediate left of the top riser was a door that reminded shut. It contained yet another staircase, this one ascending sharply to the attic. He had never visited this space. He knew it only as a dark, open area containing vast secrets.

At night, the boy and his grandmother listened to their "guest" walking about upstairs.

He would try and sleep on a pallet she had made for him, next to the gas heater, where she boiled water to create steam. Moisture, she claimed, helped his asthma, which was near-constant in winter. As he lay on his pallet, usually around midnight, he would hear the soft footfalls on the floor above. They would travel from left to right, then pause, and retrace their steps. The treading continued for several minutes before fading to nothing.

"That's old Mrs. Ray," his grandmother would explain, trying to distract him with a book or whatever was on TV at that hour. "She won't hurt anybody. She just likes getting her walks in."

The boy didn't know a Mrs. Ray or why she lived upstairs. He'd never seen her, but wondered sometimes if she had to do with the terrible feeling on the stairs -- that he had better be careful or something bad might happen.

Mrs. Ray wasn't the only upsetting thing about the second floor. There was also his grandmother's doll collection. Her dolls were displayed facing the door in the third bedroom on the right, the last one on the hall. They were ceramic, dressed in baby clothes, and possessed of black, watchful eyes.

The boy felt them staring whenever he passed -- which was not often.

In his 10th year, some family friends paid a visit. The big, happy bunch included a young couple expecting a child. After a noisy, cheerful dinner, the couple excused themselves to go upstairs. The boy paid them no mind; his aunt and uncle happened to be visiting, too. They were much more fun and interesting.

Around midnight -- several hours after the visitors had cheerily departed -- the boy's uncle made an alarming discovery. Someone had covered the upstairs bathroom with feces, smearing it on the walls and surfaces. The bathroom was a big, stinky mess.

The boy and his family were stunned. Had they been pranked? By whom? And why? The discovery cast a pall over the house. Needless to say, the friends were never invited again.

But perhaps the young parents-to-be, so talkative and sincere, had been unfairly blamed. Perhaps the dolls had grown tired of being all alone. Or, perhaps the unseen yet ever-present Mrs. Ray had grown irritable in her seclusion. How awful it must be to lurk in silence! The boy wanted to feel sorry for the lonely old woman at the top of the stairs, but knew there were better ways for a mist or spirit to communicate than by soiling the linens.

Over time, he grew to hate the dolls in the bedroom. Unlike Mrs. Ray, they were undeserving of his sympathy. They stared in dead-eyed silence at the door, which remained open for anyone to look into. He could sometimes feel their hostility drilling into him. Would they have framed an innocent couple with something so horrifyingly uncouth? Maybe.

There was always the possibility of the stranger who lurked on yet a higher floor -- the man in the attic, who sat waiting for some little boy to pop open the door and peer up into the darkness. With him, anything was possible ... especially at night.

Yet, as long as the boy maintained a proper distance from the upstairs "guests," his grandparents’ house remained a place of solace and escape. He had many fond Christmas memories there. His grandparents always put up a real, live tree, and let him preview his presents early. And the player piano in the dining room was always a fine place for gatherings. His memories grew to incorporate the scary and the magical, the stuff of fantasies and dreams.