“So, you do favor Cid,” Sally said.
Kiki blushed. “I hope it balances when I’m too hard on him.”
“Time will tell, Ms. Pickles, time will tell.”
~
Cid followed Jesse up the tiny stairs. Jesse burst into the attic calling out, “Honey, I’m home!”
“What are you doing?” Cid asked.
“I expected a house demon. I thought I would score points for originality.”
“Well, I don’t see a house demon. And Faye didn’t mention one.”
“Damn,” Jesse said. “We may as well get to work then.”
Cid popped a GoPro camera on his chest and engaged his microphone for taking notes.
Jesse looked at him as he pulled out his flip notebook. “Gone are the days of simply jotting information down,” he said, digging for a pencil.
“Kiki questions everything,” Cid said. “I’m just going to refer her to the tape when she doesn’t believe me.”
“You’ve come a long way, Cid.”
“Working with various professionals teaches you something. Kiki is the hardest person to work for, and yes, I’ve said that on camera,” Cid said and pulled the camera off his chest and deleted the comment before they proceeded.
“This attic is extensive,” Jesse began. “It reaches the full width of the house. The two wings have to be reached separately. There may be a few places for repairmen to crawl through. The lumber looks good. I can see where they added a support for the chandelier. It was tied in nicely,” Jesse said, pulling the insulation away. “I’m surprised by all the new insulation. I wonder who sold this to the owner.”
“I imagine this place is a beast to heat,” Cid said.
“Foam would be better,” Jesse said.
“But not as pretty. Look at the way this job was done.”
Jesse pulled up part of the long run of insulation and examined underneath wherever he could. In the far corner he stopped. “Cid, would you mind looking at this?”
Cid walked over and saw a little carved wood box that seemed to be integrated with the join of where the large beams met. “It looks like a roof boss similar to something you would find in the ceilings of the old churches of Europe. But I can’t find any reason why it would be tucked here unless the ceiling was open at one time?” Cid and Jesse looked at the utility plainness of the construction and rejected an open ceiling.
Jesse walked to the far corner and found another one. “Cid, check the other two corners. While I get a bead on the direction this house faces.”
Cid did as he was told and found two other boxes. He could see that each had an iron lock installed. “A bit small to hide the family jewels,” he mused.
“The house doesn’t face true north or south, but these boxes do. The main building is askew so that the point of each corner faces north, south, east, and west,” Jesse observed.
Cid took a photo of one of them. “I’m going to send this to Audrey. She’s been in a few houses of this era, maybe she has seen it before. Maybe a blessing?”
“If it were a blessing, it may explain why no house demon.”
“Jesse, not all big houses have demons. You could say very few do. Hidden Meadow was probably one in a thousand,” Cid said.
“Wayne still talks about the Hidden Meadow demon. He says he dreams frequently of him.”
“Huh, that doesn’t sound too good. Maybe I should speak with him.”
“You’ve seen a few demons in your day.”
“Goes with the ghost hunting,” Cid said. “Looking around, I think that this area is sound. Let’s move on to the floor below.”
Carl and Wayne had been paired up. Faye escorted them down into the cellars to inventory the work needed to complete the electrical and plumbing. They brought down large work lights and moved them every few feet along the stone floor.
Wayne stumbled again as he walked off the last carved stone step. He studied the stairway. “This riser is shorter than the others.”
“I imagine they made the mistake of putting in the floor after the stairs. They should have dug down but, instead, floored over the existing packed-earth floor,” Carl said. “Pete would be able to tell us more.”
“Look at the holes in the ceiling,” Wayne said. “At this point, maybe it’s better to take the whole thing down?”
Carl looked at where workmen had cut into the wood-slat ceiling to access the underside of the first floor for the utilities. New PVC pipes were dropped down. Carl measured the distance to the floor. “We do have the room to have Jesse install a drop ceiling. This way the pipes and wires aren’t exposed, and we don’t have to weaken the flooring by drilling holes to support the pipes and wires. Maybe insulate around them?”
“Do you really see this house having a pipe freezing problem?” Wayne asked.
“It gets cold here in the Midwest. This is a stone house with a stone foundation,” Carl reminded Wayne.
“Let’s run it by Kiki,” Wayne said.
“I’ll let you run it by Kiki. She’s a bit too… ah… assertive for my tender ego these days,” Carl admitted.
“I think it’s this project. I’ve actually seen a softening in her armor since she met Alan Jefferies.”
“Love will do that,” Carl said.
Faye looked at the two men as they inspected the pipes and wires and took notes. She sensed the workmen who hid in the ceiling and the walls. She saw their pathetic hands pawing at the air trying to touch the healthy contractors. It would take a while for them to draw power in order to do any harm. Faye would watch, and when needed, she would intervene. Until then, she listened
