Phoebe's Knee by B. Comfort

Author:B. Comfort
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

13

Crouched like a Moslem I watched two men and a woman emerge from the shadows near the fence. They walked within a foot of me and went up the porch steps. On my feet again, I was in time to see the Ringers’ robes flowing through the door. It closed behind them with a well-oiled thud.

Given the cult’s propensity for fake beards and wigs, how could I be sure of the gender of the robed creatures that had passed by me? The way to tell a man from a woman, I’d been advised by a friend, was to unzip them, a maneuver that seemed inappropriate at the moment.

Pressed against the wall, I made my way to the back door. It was open and I could hear voices and the occasional clink of glasses and the duller sounds made by crockery. The long square of light on the grass made me skirt around the area. The rumor about electric lights was another canard. I hid in a bruising tangle of evergreens. My fingers were sticky with resin and I worried about losing my wig.

An unexpected surprise waited for me on the west side of the building, a fire escape. Hidden by tall trees, it had never been visible to me before. It went from the third floor down to the ground. I should have expected it. Amber Trees, once a nursing home, would have been required to have a fire escape.

The iron stairway looked solid; the railings looked substantial. The treads were a single piece of metal and the risers were shallow. What more, I mused, could an old house-breaker ask for.

I scurried up the first flight like a squirrel and paused on the landing level with the second floor. The second floor height was equivalent to three stories in a conventional building. My giddy reaction to heights made me feel squeamish about tackling the next flight.

Experts would have it that many phobias, especially acrophobia, are pure indulgence. Many of us disagree. For me, the physical signal of my distress is my knees which are suddenly robbed of an essential glue that holds them together. That, along with an almost uncontrollable urge to plunge to my doom make me a lousy companion on the edge of a precipice.

Thoughts of the locked room on the third floor stiffened my determination. I tried to will some starch into my legs. A few minutes of yoga breathing kept my heart from audible beating. My mind control wasn’t quite as successful. Would a viewer see the resemblance in my ascent to that of Joan of Arc climbing her pyre, or did I look like Miss Marple on Halloween?

Clutching the railings, and counting the steps to distract my mind, I rose, I hoped unseen, to the third floor platform. The trick was to open the window before I succumbed to my suicidal urges.

As I held my breath and pulled, the sash moved up without a sound. I thanked the Victorians and I thanked the skill of Vermont carpenters.

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