“Are you being smart, Dolores?” she calls back in her cracked, wavery voice.
She sounded about like she did on any day when a few more sunbeams than usual was findin their way into her attic. I knew she might get up to mischief later on, but I didn't much care-right then I was just glad to hear her makin as much sense as she was. To tell you the truth, it seemed like old times. She'd been number'n a pounded thumb for the last three or four months, and it was sorta nice to have her back… or as much of the old Vera as was ever gonna come back, if you see what I mean.
“No, Vera,” I called up to her. “If I'd been smart, I'd've gotten done workin for you a long time ago.”
I expected her to yell somethin else down at me then, but she never. So I went on hangin up her sheets n her diapers n her warshcloths n all the rest. Then, with half the basket still to do, I stopped. I had a bad feeling. I can't say why, or even where it started. All at once it was just there. And for just a moment the strangest thought came to me: “That girl's in trouble… the one I saw on the day of the eclipse, the one who saw me. She's all grown up now, almost Selena's age, but she's in terrible trouble.”
I turned around n looked up, almost expectin to see the grownup version of that little girl in her bright striped dress n pink lipstick, but I didn't see nobody, and that was wrong. It was wrong because Vera should have been there, just about hangin out onto the roof to make sure I used the right number of clothespins. But she was gone, and I didn't understand how that could be, because I'd put her in her chair myself, and then set the brake once I had it by the window the way she liked.
Then I heard her scream.
“Duh-lorrrrr-isss!”
Such a chill ran up my back when I heard that, Andy! It was like Joe had come back. For a moment I was just frozen to the spot. Then she screamed again, and that second time I recognized it was her.
“Duh-lorrr-isss! It's dust bunnies! They're everywhere! Oh-dear God! Oh-dear God! Duh-lorrr-iss, help! Help me!”
I turned to run for the house, tripped over the damned laundry-basket, and went sprawlin over it n into the sheets I'd just hung. I got tangled up in em somehow n had to fight my way out. For just a minute it was like the sheets had grown hands and were tryin to strangle me, or just hold me back. And all the while that was goin on, Vera kep screamin, and I thought of the dream I'd had that one time, the dream of the dust-head with all the long snaggly dust-teeth. Only what I saw in my mind's eye was Joe's face on that head, and the eyes were all dark n blank, like someone had pushed two lumps of coal into a cloud of dust, and there they hung n floated.
“Dolores, oh please come quick! Oh please come quick!
The dust bunnies! THE DUST BUNNIES ARE EVERYWHERE!
Then she just screamed. It was horrible. You'd never in your wildest dreams have thought a fat old bitch like Vera Donovan could scream that loud. It was like fire n flood n the end of the world all rolled up into one.
I fought my way clear of the sheets somehow, and as I got up I felt one of my slip-straps pop, just like on the day of the eclipse, when Joe almost killed me before I managed to get shut of him. And you know that feelin you get when it seems like you've been someplace before, and know all the things people are gonna say before they say em? That feelin came over me so strong it was like there were ghosts all around me, ticklin me with fingers I couldn't quite see.
And you know somethin else? They felt like dusty ghosts.
I ran in the kitchen door n pelted up the dark stairs as fast as my legs'd carry me, and all the time she was screamin, screamin, screamin. My slip started to slide down, and when I got to the back landin I looked around, sure I was gonna see Joe stumblin up right behind me n snatchin at the hem.
Then I looked back the other way, and I seen Vera. She was three-quarters of the way down the hall toward the front staircase, waddlin along with her back to me n screamin as she went. There was a big brown stain on the seat of her nightgown where she'd soiled herself-not out of meanness or bitchiness that last time, but out of plain cold fear.
Her wheelchair was stuck crosswise in her bedroom door. She must've released the brake when she saw whatever it was that had scared her so. Always before when she come down with a case of the horrors, the only thing she could do was sit or lay where she was n bawl for help, and there'll be plenty of people who'll tell you she couldn't move under her own power, but she did yesterday; I swear she did. She released the brake on her chair, turned it, wheeled it across the room, then somehow got out of it when it got stuck in the doorway n went staggerin off down the hall.
