Incubus

by Carol Goodman

  Diana Hart’s voice called out from the kitchen as soon as I opened the front door. “Is that you, Callie?” She came out of the kitchen, wiping her hands on a red and white checked tea cloth. She was wearing a sweatshirt that read: SHE WHO MUST BE OBEYED. “I was afraid you’d forgotten the breakfast time …” She faltered to a stop when she saw me. “Oh my, you look like you had a fall. Are you all right? Do you need some ice?”

  “I’m fine,” I said. “I went running in the woods …”

  “In the woods?” The question came from someone who had followed Diana out of the kitchen – a petite woman in her early thirties with a blonde pageboy framing a heart-shaped face and delft-blue eyes. She was wearing a denim jumper, white sailor blouse, and navy and white spectator pumps. She was adorable enough to have walked off one of the Mary Engelbreit plaques that adorned Diana’s kitchen and dining room.

  “Oh, Dory, you were right! She did go running in the woods … Oh sorry!” Diana waved her hands between me and the blonde woman by way of making introductions. “Callie McFay, Dory Browne of Browne Realty. She came by to show you the house and said she thought she saw you heading into the woods earlier. I would have suggested a different route if I’d known you were going running. Those woods … well, they can be tricky.”

  “The woods were fine. I was just clumsy. Do I have time for a quick shower before breakfast?”

  “Of course!” Diana exclaimed. I had a feeling that if I had asked Diana to serve breakfast on the roof she would have tried her best to accommodate me.

  “I’ll be quick,” I promised.

  I hobbled up the stairs to my room. Soreness from the fall was setting in, but the hot water helped. I took two Advil as well, dressed in a light cotton dress (Dory’s prim outfit had made me feel underdressed) and sandals, twisted my wet hair into a sloppy bun, and hurried downstairs. The two women were sitting at the dining room table, their heads together, whispering. A floorboard creaked under my foot as I came into the room and Diana lifted her head, her large brown eyes looking startled.

  “There you are, you look worlds better. You sit down and help yourself to some coffee while I go get your breakfast. Dory will keep you company.”

  I didn’t see why I needed company, but I smiled sociably at the realtor and sat down across from her. She poured coffee into my cup and offered me the milk pitcher, which I took, and the sugar bowl, which I declined.

  “I brought a couple of other listings,” she said, patting a glossy decorative folder that lay by her coffee mug. I noticed that the folder’s paisley design matched the pattern on the quilted tote bag hanging from Dory’s shoulder. “I’ve got a darling little Craftsman bungalow just down the block that might be perfect for you.”

  I should have realized that asking a realtor to show one house in the current housing market was like asking an alcoholic to have an aperitif.

  “I don’t even know if I have a job yet,” I replied. “But the house across the street is so striking …”

  “Oh yes, Honeysuckle House is one of our grandest old Victorians. The LaMottes were one of the leading Fairwick families back in the days when the railroad made the town an important center of commerce. Silas LaMotte spared no expense in building the house for his wife.”

  “It’s a shame she didn’t live to enjoy it for long,” I said, taking a sip of my coffee.

  “Yes, it was a shame,” Dory Browne replied, narrowing her piercing blue eyes at me as if I’d just said something original. “I think you might find the bungalow a little more cheerful …”

  Dory was interrupted in her sales pitch by the appearance of Diana with a plate of French toast smothered in blueberry preserves, a bowl of fresh strawberries, and a basket of assorted muffins and scones. I was accustomed to having half a toasted bagel for breakfast but my run had made me hungry. I took a bite of the French toast and found that it was so tender it nearly melted in my mouth.

  “I was just telling Callie that she might find old Mrs. Ramsay’s bungalow cozier than Honeysuckle House,” Dory said to Diana, who had sat down at the table with us. “Those big old Victorians are hard to keep warm in the winter and some people find all those woods in the back gloomy.”

  “I thought the woods in the back were beautiful,” I said in between mouthfuls of French toast. “I found a thicket of honeysuckle shrubs. I guess they must have spread from the house.”

  “You made it as far as the thicket?” Diana asked, sounding as surprised as if I’d told her that I’d run all the way to New York City. “Most people don’t get that far.”

  I glanced up from my plate and caught the two women exchanging a meaningful look. Something clearly bothered them about my foray into the forest. “Are the woods privately owned?” I asked. “I didn’t see any private property signs. Was I trespassing?”

  “The woods belong to the LaMotte estate, but they’ve always been open to the whole village,” Dory answered “It’s just that the thicket is so overgrown.”

  “Yes, I noticed. It’s so dense that a bird had gotten stuck in the underbrush. I helped it out.”

  I was expecting exclamations of surprise and approbation from Diana – who greeted practically every word out of my mouth with cheerful approval and who had such an outstanding collection of ceramic woodland creatures that I figured she must have a soft spot for all wildlife – but instead my announcement was met with silence. Diana had gone pale beneath her freckles and her brown eyes were fixed on Dory’s wide blue ones.

  “You rescued a bird from the honeysuckle thicket,” Dory said slowly and deliberately.

  “I guess you could say I rescued it. I suppose it would have gotten out eventually.”

  “Not once it was trapped in the thicket,” Diana said, shaking her head. “The creatures that stray there generally die there.”

  I recalled the little bones that fell out of the nest and shuddered. “How awful! Can’t someone clear it?”

  “It would just grow back,” Dory said. “But you can see why the spot isn’t so popular. Mrs. Ramsay’s bungalow, on the other hand, faces a lovely park …”

  “I want to see Honeysuckle House,” I said, putting my napkin on the table. I had polished off the whole plate of French toast and a pumpkin scone as well. “Besides, you’ve already gone to the trouble of opening all the windows.”

  Dory Browne stared at me. “What are you talking about?” she asked. “I didn’t open any windows.”

  Diana and Dory were up and heading out of the house before I could rise from the table. I really was sore now and I could only move slowly. By the time I got outside the two women were already across the street at the edge of the hedge, staring up at the house.

  “Is everything okay?” I asked. They were looking at the house as if it were on fire.

  “Oh yes,” Dory answered. “I forgot that I told my handyman, Brock, to come over earlier to air the place out. Diana?” She turned deliberately to the other woman and spoke slowly. “Perhaps you’d do me a favor and make that phone call we talked about earlier.”

  “Are you sure you don’t want me to go inside with you?” she asked.

  “No, we’ll be fine. Apparently the house wants to be shown.” She laughed nervously as she fished out a key from her quilted tote.

  Diana squeezed the realtor’s arm. “Well, I’m just across the street if you need anything.”

  I couldn’t imagine what the two women were worried about. Mice, maybe? Rotting floorboards? But when we walked up the porch steps I thought the wood seemed firm and in good repair. The wooden face in the pediment gleamed as if it had been washed clean by yesterday’s rain. It glowed in the morning light with the complexion of a young person who’d had a good night’s sleep. And when Dory opened the front door (with a long iron skeleton key that turned smoothly in the lock) there was no moldy or mousy odor. Instead the air the house huffed out at us smelled like honeysuckle.

  Dory held the door open and I stepped through first, into a wide foyer. Light from the stain
ed glass fanlight spilled onto the polished wood floor like a scattering of rose petals strewn for our arrival.

  “The floors are oak,” Dory said, closing the door behind us. “As well as the banister.” She ran her hand over a carved newel post at the foot of a wide flight of stairs. “Silas had the wood milled himself at his shipyards. He liked everything built like a ship. There are pocket doors leading into both parlors.” She opened a double door, both sides sliding into the walls with a shooshing noise that echoed loudly in the big, empty house. A draft from the stairs moved at our backs as we entered the dim parlor. Although the shutters were open, the honeysuckle shrubs and vines had grown over the windows blocking out the light. Dory turned a switch and a crystal chandelier sprung into sight high over our heads.

  “The ceilings are twelve feet high,” Dory informed me. “The chandelier was made in Venice.”

  “It’s beautiful,” I said, marveling at the fanciful shapes and colors of the crystal droplets. “Kind of exotic for these parts, isn’t it?”

  “Silas made his fortune in the shipping business. He brought back treasures from all over the world. The tiles around the hearth—” she gestured to the fireplace “—are Wedgewood from England. The mahogany mantelpiece was brought over from an Italian castle.” I walked over to the fireplace and ran my hand over the intricately carved wood. A satyr’s face stared out of the center roundel; a procession of Greek gods and goddesses adorned the top frieze.

  “The mantelpiece depicts the wedding of Cupid and Psyche,” Dory said in her tour guide voice. “The theme is repeated in the dining room frieze …” Dory had opened another pocket door that led into a large octagonal room. Plaster figures paraded across the walls beneath swags of pine boughs and acorns. There were built-in china cabinets in each corner.

  “And here’s the kitchen. I’m afraid it hasn’t been modernized since the sixties …”

  The “modernization” consisted of an Amana refrigerator and gas range, both in the same hideous shade of lime green. The floor was worn linoleum in a faded checkerboard pattern. “Matilda had this addition built on and spent most of her time back here,” Dory said, opening a door onto a mudroom with a washer and dryer and then another door to a rather drab bedroom papered in yellowed, peeling wallpaper with an old iron bed frame painted a matching peeling yellow. “Her arthritis made going up and down the stairs difficult and it was cheaper just to heat the downstairs. She closed off the library …”

  “The library?” I asked. I was glad to leave Matilda’s little apartment behind. It had the atmosphere of a retirement home and, curiously, felt older than the rest of the house even though it was a newer addition.

  “Matilda didn’t read much, so she had no use for the library. She donated all her aunt’s books to Fairwick College and closed off this room.”

  I wondered if Dahlia LaMotte’s books were still in the college library. They might have notes in the margins …

  My musings were cut short when Dory slid back the doors to the library. This room, which faced east, got the morning light. Streaming through a screen of shrubbery, it turned the room a glassy green, like a forest glade, but instead of being lined with trees the room was lined with floor to ceiling built-in bookcases. There was enough room in here to shelve all the books in my apartment and storage unit and still have spare space to acquire more books.

  “Is this where Dahlia LaMotte wrote?” I asked.

  “No,” Dory answered. “Her study was upstairs in the tower room off her bedroom.”

  A study and a library! In my apartment in Inwood I wrote at my kitchen table. I stored files and books in the kitchen cabinets. I imagined what it would feel like to have a proper desk and to wander into my own library to find any book that I needed. No wonder Dahlia LaMotte was prolific – she wrote more than sixty novels – this was the perfect house to write in.

  Dory preceded me up the wide oak stairs. Her high-heeled pumps clicked lightly on the bare wood, while my crepe-soled sandals awakened a chorus of creaks and cracks that sounded like a swarm of crickets.

  “You wouldn’t have to worry about a burglar sneaking up these steps,” I said. “They’re like an alarm system.”

  Dory turned to me on the second floor landing. “No,” she replied, taking my remark seriously. “You wouldn’t have to worry about anyone breaking in. Besides, the town is quite safe.”

  She showed me four small bedrooms – one complete with built-in bed and cabinets exactly like a ship’s cabin, which Dory told me had been Silas’s bedroom – a linen closet, a bathroom with an enormous claw-foot tub, and then, finally, she opened the last door at the end of the hallway. “The master bedroom,” she announced.

  The corner room faced the east side of the house. Two large windows overlooked an overgrown garden and the mountains in the distance. The bed would go up against the west wall so you could lie in bed and look out at the mountains. At night you’d see the moon rise. The southeast corner of the room opened into an octagonal turret. A desk had been built across three sides of the turret; on the other three sides were built-in bookshelves below the windows. A straight-backed wooden chair with a needlepoint cushion stood facing the desk. I sat down at it. The desk had been fitted out with dozens of tiny drawers and shelves. I opened one of the drawers and found, to my utter delight, a blue robin’s egg.

  “I suppose Dahlia LaMotte’s papers were given to the library with her books,” I said, trying another drawer that turned out to be locked.

  “Actually, I believe Matilda moved all her aunt’s papers up to the attic.”

  “The attic?” I asked.

  Dory Browne sighed. “I suppose you’ll want to see that too.”

  Having spent most of my life living in apartments I had very little experience with attics. I was picturing a dusty, cobweb-filled space at the top of a rickety ladder, but the room, which we reached by a narrow flight of stairs, was clean and smelled pleasantly of tea. It smelled of tea because Dahlia LaMotte’s papers had all been stored in tea crates, each one marked with the insignia of the LaMotte Tea Company and the type of tea inside – Darjeeling, Earl Gray, Lapsang souchong, and other exotic varieties.

  “They were left over from her father’s warehouses,” Dory told me.

  There were twelve of them. I opened one gingerly, half-afraid after my experience in the woods that a mouse would jump out at me, but the only thing that came out of the box was the scent of bergamot. Three notebooks, each one bound in the same marbled paper, lay across the top of the chest. I picked up one and saw there was another identical notebook beneath it. I turned to the first page and found Dahlia LaMotte’s signature and the dates August 15, 1901 – September 26, 1901 in a florid, but readable hand. She’d filled up the book quickly.

  “Why aren’t these in a library?” I asked, thumbing through a few pages. Started The Wild Moon today, I read on one page; I had the dream again last night, I read on another.

  “Dahlia’s will specified that her papers remain in the house.”

  “That’s odd.”

  Dory sat down on a tea crate – this one labeled Ceylon – and shrugged. “Dahlia was odd. Years of living alone immersed in your own fantasies will do that to a person.”

  “Does her will stipulate what use can be made of the papers?” I asked.

  “Whoever owns the house, owns the papers. As long as they physically remain in the house you can read them, write about them, copy them, and even publish them – although a half-share of the royalties of any published work must go to the estate, which pays for the upkeep of the house.”

  “I’ve never heard of anything so strange,” I said, running my hands across the worn paper binding of one of the notebooks.

  Dory smiled a trifle condescendingly. “You’ve led a very unstrange life then,” she said. Then she sighed again. “I don’t suppose you’d be interested in looking at that Craftsman bungalow now?”

  I helped Dory close up the house. It was quite a job. The shutters flapped in the
wind, rattled their hinges and slammed shut on our fingertips when we least expected it. The four over four, double-sashed windows groaned on their way down like children forced to leave a birthday party before cake was served. While Dory was closing the front door – and telling me that the asking price, which sounded ridiculously low to me, was really too high – she got her thumb stuck in the doorjamb.

  “It’s like it doesn’t want us to leave,” I said, looking back at the house from the front lawn. Shuttered, it looked sad and glowering.

  “That may well be,” Dory snapped, sucking her thumb, “but we can’t all have everything we want.”

  I didn’t ask what she meant by that – or why she was so set on not making this sale. Instead I added up figures as we walked back to the inn. Aside from the small trust fund left by my parents, I had gotten a nice advance for Sex Lives. Paul and I had talked about using it to buy a larger apartment if he got a job in New York City, but with the same money I could buy this house and keep my rent-stabilized Inwood apartment for our pied-a-terre. It could be our country house, even if I didn’t get the Fairwick job …

  I was so immersed in my thoughts that I didn’t notice until I came up the inn’s steps that Dean Book was waiting for me on the front porch. Diana Hart was there too, sitting in the wicker glider with her arms crossed over her chest and her lips thin with seeming anger. Had the women been arguing? I wondered. But Elizabeth Book, dressed today in an ivory linen shift with a matching cotton sweater draped over her shoulders, looked radiantly pleased.

  “Professor McFay,” she said, “please come join me. Diana was just going to bring out another pitcher of iced tea.”

  Diana glared at the dean but got up obediently.

  “I really don’t need …” I began, but Diana had already gone inside, letting the screen door slam behind her. Dory Browne looked after her but stayed on the porch. I sank down into a wicker rocking chair, suddenly tired out by all the drama of the morning. Elizabeth Book didn’t waste any time getting down to business.