The Storage Space would have moaned… No. It stopped itself, reminding itself that it was done with any desire to be human. So the Storage Space creaked with pleasure when Suzy Witherspoon leaped out of Karen’s storage unit and ran screaming over its ancient floorboards to her mother.
“Mommy, Mommy, a lady in a little room said really, really mean things to me!”
“She did? Really, Suzy Q?”
“Yes, Mommy. Really! Over there.” That rude, odious child actually pointed.
The Storage Space heard Karen think “uh oh” and agreed with her.
“She said really mean things to you for no reason?”
“No reason, Mommy. No reason at all. I didn’t do anything. I just jumped into her little room…”
“To hide from me yet again, Suzy Q?”
“No, Mommy, no! I was just…um…tired.”
Mother Witherspoon put her hands on her hips. “Tired, eh? So why, pray tell, would you ‘jump’ into a storage unit if you were tired?”
“Really, Mommy, really! I just jumped in because the mean lady…only I didn’t know she was mean then…and a man were sleeping there so I…um…thought it was the place to go if you needed a nap. Mommy, that lady was really mean to me! Right over there. You should go scold her!”
The Storage Space stopped creaking with pleasure. It could feel that Karen was holding her breath.
Mother Witherspoon took a step towards Karen’s storage unit, but then she stopped and turned back toward her daughter. “I suppose I should really report any disreputable people sleeping, and heaven knows what all else, in a storage unit…and frightening a child. But you did jump into the ‘mean’ lady’s unit, didn’t you?”
The Storage Space relaxed so suddenly that its southwestern corner, sinking gradually because of a deep underground stream no surveyor had ever spotted, dove a full half inch further into the ground. But it could hear Karen’s thoughts: What am I thinking? I killed Irwin in self-defense! I need help!
Mother Witherspoon was dragging Suzy Witherspoon to the front door.
Karen opened her mouth to call her back.
Like highlighting the heavy lever that had saved Karen’s life, the Storage Space felt it must, again, intervene. It, after all, had the benefit of several centuries of memory. So it flooded Karen with examples of justice miscarrying, particularly those that involved truthful pleas of self-defense resulting in death penalties.
But the matter was resolved when, just as Mother Witherspoon closed the door behind herself and the screeching Suzy, Karen passed out again.
