expected to find in a sealed sea chest retrieved from the bottom of the ocean: woody, salty, and stale. Most of the afternoon light was screened out by the dense layers of leaves twined across the windows. Connie paused, letting her eyes adjust to the darkness. The interior assembled around her out of the gloom, a perfect simulacrum of a first-period, pre-1700 house, with furnishings of subsequent generations added gradually over the centuries. Except that the house was not a simulacrum.
“My God,” she breathed, disbelieving. “How long has this been here?”The silent interior felt so timeless, so untouched by the outside world as to seem unreal.
The front door opened into a tiny entrance hall across from a spiral wooden staircase so narrow and steep as almost to qualify as a ladder. In its original orientation, in the seventeenth century, the household would have done most of its living—eating, cooking, sleeping, sewing, praying—on the first floor, using the attic loft overhead for extra sleeping space and storage. Each slat in the stair was of polished Ipswich pine, with deep depressions worn away by generations of passing feet. The remainder of the entryway consisted of a rickety Queen Anne table weighted down with several months’ worth of unopened mail, yellowed and brittle. Over the table hung a simple Greek Revival mirror, its glass misted with clinging dust and cobwebs, the gilding peeling and faded. A gnarled, long-dead plant sat in the corner under the stair, in a China-export porcelain pot split down the middle by a dry brown crack. The floor of the hallway bore a rotted soft spot, and Connie cringed to see a thick mushroom pushing up from between the boards. Her eye detected a flash of movement on the periphery of her vision, and she jumped, glimpsing the vanishing tail of a garden snake slipping into the shadows behind the potted plant.
To the left of the front hallway was what looked like a little sitting room; Connie could just make out shelves stuffed with leather-bound books and a couple of mismatched armchairs grouped around a shallow fireplace. The threadbare needlepoint upholstery promised dampness, mildew, and mice, filling the air with a faint, humid miasma. The obstinate bulk of a Chippendale writing desk crouched in the corner, its carved paw-feet gripping the floor. More skeletal plant remnants hung motionless in the windows. The floorboards were of the same heavy yellow pine as the staircase, some of the boards almost two feet wide, stretching along the entire length of the house and studded with square-headed nails.
To the right of the entryway Connie found an austere dining room, furnished with another Queen Anne table surrounded by shield-back side chairs—mid-eighteenth century, she marveled, and judging from their silhouettes, carved in Salem. The room had clearly not been used for dining, even when Granna was alive; in every available corner stood stacks of newspapers, a chest or two, some blackened sealed jars. The dining room also held a fireplace, but this one was older; it was wide and deep, bristling with iron hooks and pots of varying size, and had a beehive-shaped brick cavern for baking bread. Connie suspected that the dining room had originally been the hall, which was the early term for the main living room and work-room, the functional heart of the house. To the left of the fireplace stood built-in shelves crowded with plates, mugs, and bottles so encased with filth that she could not tell what color they were. A few framed paintings dotted the walls, but the shadows kept their images veiled. To the right of the fireplace, a narrow door leaned, closed with an iron latch.
Connie reached one arm into the dining room, groping for a light switch near the doorjamb, but finding nothing. The air was silent and still, implicitly unwelcoming, as if the house had settled into its own decay and did not wish to be disturbed. She started to tiptoe across the dining room, each
“My God,” she breathed, disbelieving. “How long has this been here?”The silent interior felt so timeless, so untouched by the outside world as to seem unreal.
The front door opened into a tiny entrance hall across from a spiral wooden staircase so narrow and steep as almost to qualify as a ladder. In its original orientation, in the seventeenth century, the household would have done most of its living—eating, cooking, sleeping, sewing, praying—on the first floor, using the attic loft overhead for extra sleeping space and storage. Each slat in the stair was of polished Ipswich pine, with deep depressions worn away by generations of passing feet. The remainder of the entryway consisted of a rickety Queen Anne table weighted down with several months’ worth of unopened mail, yellowed and brittle. Over the table hung a simple Greek Revival mirror, its glass misted with clinging dust and cobwebs, the gilding peeling and faded. A gnarled, long-dead plant sat in the corner under the stair, in a China-export porcelain pot split down the middle by a dry brown crack. The floor of the hallway bore a rotted soft spot, and Connie cringed to see a thick mushroom pushing up from between the boards. Her eye detected a flash of movement on the periphery of her vision, and she jumped, glimpsing the vanishing tail of a garden snake slipping into the shadows behind the potted plant.
To the left of the front hallway was what looked like a little sitting room; Connie could just make out shelves stuffed with leather-bound books and a couple of mismatched armchairs grouped around a shallow fireplace. The threadbare needlepoint upholstery promised dampness, mildew, and mice, filling the air with a faint, humid miasma. The obstinate bulk of a Chippendale writing desk crouched in the corner, its carved paw-feet gripping the floor. More skeletal plant remnants hung motionless in the windows. The floorboards were of the same heavy yellow pine as the staircase, some of the boards almost two feet wide, stretching along the entire length of the house and studded with square-headed nails.
To the right of the entryway Connie found an austere dining room, furnished with another Queen Anne table surrounded by shield-back side chairs—mid-eighteenth century, she marveled, and judging from their silhouettes, carved in Salem. The room had clearly not been used for dining, even when Granna was alive; in every available corner stood stacks of newspapers, a chest or two, some blackened sealed jars. The dining room also held a fireplace, but this one was older; it was wide and deep, bristling with iron hooks and pots of varying size, and had a beehive-shaped brick cavern for baking bread. Connie suspected that the dining room had originally been the hall, which was the early term for the main living room and work-room, the functional heart of the house. To the left of the fireplace stood built-in shelves crowded with plates, mugs, and bottles so encased with filth that she could not tell what color they were. A few framed paintings dotted the walls, but the shadows kept their images veiled. To the right of the fireplace, a narrow door leaned, closed with an iron latch.
Connie reached one arm into the dining room, groping for a light switch near the doorjamb, but finding nothing. The air was silent and still, implicitly unwelcoming, as if the house had settled into its own decay and did not wish to be disturbed. She started to tiptoe across the dining room, each
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