How to do tuscan drywalls

I grew up in a young house. I know that is not often how these stories go – I know that haunted homes are often decades old, maybe centuries in the older parts of the world. They always creak with ancient secrets and belch hot gas from A/C vents retrofitted onto walls too thin. But this was not one of those houses.
It was not much older than I was, having only one owner before my family. It spent a year on the market before we moved in. With a baby on the way and my need to play outside, a yardless triplex was not the place to make a home. So we worked our way into the suburbs.
Hard tiles, a wide yard in the front and back, the chlorinated smell of the pool, air conditioning that failed in the summer, hurricane shutters stored in the attic, wire screens in front of each door, palm trees between the houses. The suburbs.
I do not recall this, but my mother says that dad worked many late nights trying to get us into a well-sized place. She says that every time he came home, often at ten o’clock or later, I would race over and leap into his arms so I could tell him about my day. And when I would wake the next morning to catch the school bus, he would already be at work.
The house was the sort built in a “development,” which I always assumed was synonymous with a neighborhood. As a result, there was always construction going on somewhere. It seemed almost suburban, but the Everglades were a ten-minute bike ride away, and we had the mosquitos to prove it.
It was one of the first things I remember about the new area. Playing outside in the summer heat, biking around with my friends, and having to swipe away as biting bug. Just as quick as it would fly away, another would come to replace it. It did not matter if I was pushing fifteen miles an hour or sitting in the front yard, there was always a bug to meet me.
Their buzzing chatter greeted me in the morning and put me to sleep every night. That is perhaps the thing I remember most about our house by the glades. Not the tepid pool out back, not the rattling hum of the air conditioner, not even the strange events that I saw and heard and felt. It was the mosquitos. Their presence, and sometimes their absence.
“Fuck these bugs,” my mother used to say. She always had a new utensil for swatting them. Did not matter if it was a rolled-up copy of People or the spatula she was using to cook. Those poor bastards rarely stood a chance.
I took a stab at it with my fork. The overcooked eggs fell clean off, their grease staining the table. The mosquito landed on the eggs for a moment then flitted away, apparently dissatisfied with the taste.
“I swear to God,” she fumed.
She finally struck it down with a copy of a Harry Potter book. It had come out recently too, if I recall, and she had been very excited about reading it. The bug’s carcass was pressed flat against Harry’s face.
Her victory turned sour as she heard the sound of a second buzzing bug.
“Whatever,” she finally said, tossing the book down and letting that second mosquito live. It would eventually work its way back outside, however it came in. Maybe it had waited for an enterprising chance to slip through an ajar door, or had squeezed in a crack in the wall.
Despite the occasional insect incursions, I enjoyed exploring the new house. And with a baby sister on the way, I probably would not have time to explore much.
Her future room had been made my temporary play space, with toys strewn all beside a half-built crib. Dad said he would finish it one day, but that day got further away as time passed. From there I ventured outside to see where the bugs might be coming from, since it did not seem to be any of the bedrooms. Walking around outside did not yield any answers either.
The exterior was Tuscan, mom said. I knew that was a place in Italy, though I could not say what that meant except for the fact that we always ate Italian food. Was our typical chicken with sauce and cheese from Tuscany? I had no idea.
For the outside of the house, that meant some weird stucco, bricks along some walls and not others, various warm shades of beige, and pillars on either side of the doorway. The slots of the roof were not a perfect color match for the bricks patterned along some walls, but I think they were meant to be. I still have no idea why these traits are considered Tuscan.
I hoped that wandering around outside would help me find the source of the mosquito infestation. Even just five minutes in the sun had me sweating. The air was almost liquid. Mosquitos swarm on it toward me, only leaving me be after a quick flick of my hand.
But I found nothing. Maybe I had expected to find some giant nest that nobody else had seen. Or a massive crack in the wall where the bugs could have been getting in. But there was nothing of the sort. Nothing except oppressive humidity and the distant smell of peat.
Eventually I forgot about my hunt to find the source of the infestation. It became a secondary issue after matters of school and homework and helping around the house and playing with my friends.
Then one night I awoke to a buzzing in my room. It must have been late because my body was cold as ice and I could hardly see the moon for all the clouds in the sky.
Somewhere in the stale shadows of my room was a mosquito.
Full-blooded with adrenaline, I came out of my tired daze and leapt to my feet. I must have thought I was Daredevil, trying to sense the bug’s location without being able to see.
Each time I heard its hum I beat my hands against the air. I struck nothing.
It was a tense few minutes before I thought to flick on a light. The glowing bulbs seemed almost blinding in the night. The only lights burning in the house. The bug was a mere dot of black as it ebbed across the air. It bumped against the wall a few times as if trying to slip through a crease.
My palm struck nothing but drywall. I tried and tried to strike the mosquito down, but only hit the wall. My hands had turned beet red and stung like hell, almost vibrating with heat, but I would not be deterred. When it flew high, I leapt. When it dove low, I practically crawled.
Then it landed on the floor. I thought I had it before it slipped through the crack under my door.
I cussed under my breath. Might have been the first time I said “fuck” thanks to all the times I heard it from mom.
The mosquito floated out into the hallway, hidden amid the shadows. I could hardly spot it in the darkness and the lightswitch was on the far end. But I was a hunter, and I followed it. My eyes adapted to the dark and memory led me through the house as the black blob found its way through the kitchen and into the hallway leading to the living room.
This was the first time I saw the stairs to the attic. And for some reason, I didn’t think anything of them. They just stood there, splintered wood imposing harsh shadows on the tiled floors, as if planted in the wrong house. I had never seen them, but that did not seem to matter to me.
The mosquito flitted up into the inky black attic above.
I stepped gingerly up those stairs. They were just planks, nothing but air in between them. Looking back, I was very lucky that I did not get a splinter. And when I made it up there, I was lucky I did not get a nail in the head.
Nails and screws were jabbing out of the low ceiling besides all kinds of old boxes. Christmas decorations, by the look of them. Some boxes had already been punctured by the twisted stabs of rust. I barely even noticed them in the pale moonlight. What I did notice was that the buzzing had stopped. If the mosquito was up there, I could not hear. Perhaps this is where it had come in, and where it would eventually leave.
Suddenly the bug seemed like small potatoes compared to what I had found in the attic – a treasure trove of whatever those previous owners had left behind. Lifting the plastic tops of the boxes, I spotted plastic Christmas garlands, fragile tree ornaments, an obscene number of beanie babies, and a lantern. Thinking myself too old for the beanie babies, I dug the lantern out from underneath them.
It was an old, exotic thing. Most lanterns – the kind I recognized from hurricane season – were just white electric lights. But this was different. Heat coursed through it when I twisted the knob, somehow not melting the dusty glass.
The single flame hisses to life and dances, casting flickering shadows on the nailed walls. I expected it to somehow attract the mosquito, but it had disappeared without a trace despite the window being sealed shut.
Then I spotted something strange out of the window. Another light in the house over. I had not even noticed the house in the past, at least not at night. In the day it seemed empty. No cars out front, no lights on inside.
But now a light burned inside, a golden glow that chased away the shadows. It was in the upstairs window, across a sea of grass almost the width of two homes. So far from the neighbors that we would never hear them unless we wanted to.
I leaned toward the window. The expected sound of cicadas was absent. Just the light flickering in the window.
I tried to make out a person. Any kind of figure in the dark, or maybe a face pressed against the glass. Whoever had turned the light on was not there. So I turned off the lamp, deciding that this piece of ancient treasure would suffice.
As if on cue, the light in the other house went out as well. Nothing but shadows, since the clouds have obscured the moonlight.
On a whim, I turned the lantern back on. Its heat emanated out, too warm in the unconditioned attic humidity.
The neighbor’s light turned back on too.
I tested my new discovery a bit that night. Turned the light off, then back on. The light next door did the same. Off and then on. Fire then dark. But I could not see the hand that turned it on.
It is hard to say how long I played with the lantern that night. Eventually, I left it there on top of the box, and went back to bed.
The lantern in the attic remained my secret for a while. Not sure why I decided I could not tell anyone, but the benefit of retrospect makes me assume it had to do with my sister yet to be born. Soon I would be sharing my house, my toys, and my parents. But I would not be sharing my secret lantern.
I forgot about it for a while, though. Until I was woken up by the sound of buzzing. As if in a dream, I followed the mosquito through the dark.
The attic stairs were down again. Maybe they had never been put back up. Or else dad had something to do up there after I went to bed. This second time I went up, I was careful to avoid the nails on the ceiling.
I saw its orange light before I spot the lantern itself. It was waiting for me, once again. The mosquito was gone again and the world was silent. No cicadas humming like white noise, no traffic from the street, no sprinklers drowning suburban yards. Just the gentle flicker of the lantern and a scent I would later know to be oil. At the time I assumed I had simply left it on those nights ago, but now I know that it would have gone out by then.
That night I played with my secret treasure again. So did the neighbor. I did not wonder why the mosquito had brought me here again, only that I had made a strange new friend. Could have been a young girl or an old man, could have been a teacher or a politician. I had no way of knowing. All I knew was that I could turn the light on and this neighbor would do the same. Like a secret code. A special handshake known only by two.
We continued this strange ritual every once in a while for weeks, maybe months. The mosquito, the stairs, the lantern. Each time, nothing was disturbed. The boxes were all in the same places, the lantern was still waiting for me.
I do not know how long this went on for. Far as I can recall, it did not extend beyond my mother’s pregnancy. I know this because she was balancing a plate of chips on her belly when I mentioned it to her.
It was one of those things that bubbled inside me like a shaken can of soda. A secret always on the tip of my tongue. One that I just had to share.
“Hey Ma,” I started, trying to seem like this was a casual interest of mine. “What’s up with that lantern upstairs?”
She barely looked away from her potato chips. Her cravings demanded them. Oddly enough, my sister prefers corn chips. Maybe she got enough potato chips in the womb and just got tired of them.
“We don’t have an upstairs,” she said matter-of-factly.
“Sure we do. I was up there last night,” I said.
She glanced sideways at me as if I had made up some story or told a bizarre lie. “Okay. Then show me.”
To her surprise, I got up to show her. “Come on,” I said, tugging her by the hand.
She reluctantly got up, a hand resting on her belly, and followed me into the hall where the attic was. The stairs were not set down as they had been all those nights, but I could spot a rectangle of ceiling that looked unlike the rest. More like a slab of white wood than the textured material a ceiling is usually composed of.
“Up there.” I pointed up with a wide smile.
“Oh, you mean the attic. Yes, honey, we have one of those.”
“I know that. I was talking about the lantern up there. Is it from the last people who lived here?”
She put her hands on her hips and a stern look on her face. “What were you doing up there?”
“Exploring.” I was probably too young and dumb to realize how close I was to getting grounded.
Luckily, she seemed more curious than confused. “Let me see if I can find the pull stick.”
We rummaged through a closet for a little while, trying to find what she described as a long stick with a hook on the end. When I asked if it was like a bo staff, she did not respond.
The pull stick was a few inches shorter than she was, with a metal hook at the end with rounded edges. She lifted it to the ceiling and it latches easily onto a brass ring. With a quick tug, the white rectangle lowered on its hinge.
The stairs extended almost automatically. Nothing but gravity carried it down until its splintery planks rested on the floor.
“Huh, I still haven’t been up here,” said mom. “Come on – and keep an eye out for splinters.”
“Watch out for the nails,” I said.
“How do you even know what’s up here?” she asked.
“I was just here last night,” I said, annoyed that she clearly was not listening to me.
She crouched low so that her head does not get a rusted nail in it. “You’ve been coming up here? All alone?”
“I just said that.” God, I was bratty back then.
“What’s in all these boxes?”
“Mostly decorations,” I said. “And beanie babies. And the lantern.”
She looked over the bins, peered inside to inspect the aged goods themselves. Eventually she asked, “What lantern?”
It was the first time in the attic that I had not seen the lantern. Glancing around, I could not spot it. But I should not have had to look around at all – it should have been right on top of the plastic box. “Dad must have moved it,” I said. “It was right here.” I absently scratched a bite on my arm, practically immune to them at this point.
“Who showed this to you? Dad?” She shook her head. He must not have mentioned it to her.
“The mosquito did.”
As soon as the breath passed my lips, I realized how odd it sounded.
She rolled her eyes. “So, where’s the lantern?”
I dug through the beanie baby box where I had initially found it buried. Then I dig through the box of decorations and ornaments, finding nothing but tinsel and glass.
“I don’t know,” I said in a shallow breath. I suddenly wondered if I dreamed the whole thing. “I would turn it on and then the neighbor would too.”
“You met one of the neighbors?”
I did not realize at the time why that might have been disconcerting for a mother to hear. Now I see why she turned white as a tablecloth.
“Well, not really,” I said, obliviously.
“Where did you see him?” she asked. Her eyes were wide as a baby’s.
“I didn’t actually see him.” I pointed to the neighboring window. It was dark inside. No signs of life. No lantern. “When I turned on the lantern, so did he. Or maybe she. I dunno.”
She took me by the hand, her grip like iron. Her other had rested protectively over the bump of life in her belly. “We’re going to say hello,” she hisses, as quiet as a breeze.
Blood and shame rushed to my cheeks as my mom dragged me outside. I was not a child who needed to be manhandled, and I often proclaimed this fact as loudly as I could. She did not care. Motherhood and pregnancy hormones pushed her through any stage of logic or consideration. She was not looking for a conversation about boundaries. She was looking to collect someone’s head.
The house was less groomed than ours. Its grass was now mowed, bushes not manicured, driveway not power washed. Moss grew on the sides of the house and along the edges of the gutter. A few of the windows were cracked. Especially those at higher floors. I had not noticed, across the green gulf and painted fence that separated out homes, how sad this person’s was. No wonder they were looking for a friend, even if they were just a lantern friend.
She banged on the door as hard as she could. The sound echoed across the street where some kid was fixing the chain on his bike. His hair flipped when he looked over, but then he went back to his bike. My cheeks were red hot.
There was no response. Not even the sound of footfalls from inside. Simple silence and sunshine.
So she banged again. The door coughed up a bit of dust as she struck it. She rang the doorbell for good measure, though if it worked I could not hear.
“Fuck,” she spat.
“Excuse me,” squeaked a voice from behind.
It was the kid on the bike. Sweat had already stained his underarms a soft yellow. His hair had been pushed up by the wind.
“Yeah?” asked my mom. She was generally nice to kids, but I swear I thought she was going to smack him.
“Nobody lives there,” he said.
Mom glanced at me, then at the kid, then back at the front door. “You sure about that?” she asked.
He nodded his head.
“I saw someone,” I said.
The kid nodded, as if I had said something cool rather than a simple fact.
“Goddamn squatters,” she said, fuming. “Come one, I’m calling the police.”
I was not really sure why she called the police, but she made sure to put the attic ladder back up and keep the pull stick in her room. When dad came home they had a long conversation about it. I would have eavesdropped but I was supposed to be asleep.
When he finally did bring up the topic, all he mentioned was that I met one of the neighbor kids and that I should invite him over sometime. I quietly agreed and decided not to mention the lantern. If mom had told him, he either did not think it worth bringing up or simply did not care.
And for a little while, I thought that was the end of it. I would occasionally glance up at the ceiling and make out the rectangular outline of the attic ladder, but I hardly thought of the lantern or the odd neighbor. Too busy with Yu-Gi-Oh and Lego sets to really care. I had even forgotten that all this started when trying to find the source of the mosquitos.
It seemed as if the memory would slip away without a care.
Then I awoke a few nights later to a sullen cold hanging over my chest. All the vapor had been drawn from the air. My lips were chapped and the taste of blood seeped at the back of my throat.
It was not a word or image that entered my mind, but a primal concept. An idea. The attic. The crushing silence lifted me from my bed and compelled me toward the attic, this time without the bloodsucker to guide me. It had been some time since we saw a mosquito in the house.
The attic ladder was once again lowered. My feet tread heavily on its planks, though I do not remember choosing to climb. I do not know what I expected to find, but the lantern was still amiss. The ancient analog machine, fueled by oil rather than D batteries, had left my life for good.
I cited it a lost cause and turned away, rubbing my eye dreamily, when I spotted something in the window. A flicker of orange light, on and off again, in the abandoned home.
The next time the golden hue emerged, it stayed strong and did not fade. And beside it, a second flame grew. It sputtered at first, but became stolid and strong as the other. Twin embers in the night, like a pair of eyes boring into me.
That was the last time I awoke with the urge to visit the attic.