The House on Parchment Street

by Patricia A. Mckillip

  “There’s a blue one in the kitchen.”

  “Oh, Mum, I can’t put them in that. It’s too small. There’s a symmetry involved…I know. There’s one in Dad’s study.” He went out again. Carol watched him cross the hall. She took a strand of hair and wound it around her chin. Then she straightened.

  “Aunt Catherine—”

  There was a hissing sound from the kitchen. “Excuse me, dear,” Aunt Catherine said hurriedly. “I think my potatoes are boiling over.”

  Carol sighed. She twitched the tablecloth straight. Bruce came back in with a green vase and she said, “What’s symmetry?”

  His eyes slid to her face, surprised. He put the flowers on the table and started pulling away the leaves. He said after a moment, “It’s when things balance. When they match one another in proportion. Like this house. The outside is symmetrical—the windows on one side are in the same position as the other, and the door is exactly in the middle. Some houses, old ones especially, might have one big window on one side of the door, and a little one on the other. Like the house is winking one eye. That’s not symmetrical.” He began putting the flowers into the vase. She watched them build under his hands into a white pyramid. Aunt Catherine came back in with plates and silverware in her hands. She pushed the tablecloth aside and set them down.

  “That’s lovely, Bruce. Thank you. Now, will you go outside and shake the leaves off the tablecloth. And then go change your shirt.”

  He murmured absently, tugging gently at the pyramid. He gathered the cloth in his arms and went to the front door. Carol followed him slowly.

  “Bruce,” she said, as he tugged open the door. His head turned, his eyes meeting hers almost uncertainly. He whipped the cloth open, scattering leaves on the steps and on the head and shoulders of Father Malory, standing silent with surprise on the doorstep.

  Carol gave a startled hiccup of laughter and stilled it with one hand over her mouth. Bruce’s face flushed crimson. Father Malory brushed the leaves off his sleeves as though he were used to doing it.

  “Hello, Bruce. I thought that might be your cousin, when I saw her this morning. Catherine said she had red hair. How do you do? I am Father Malory.”

  He held out his hand, a leaf dangling from the black cuff. Carol shook hands with him. Bruce ran a hand through his hair.

  “This is Carol Christopher. I’m sorry about the leaves. I didn’t see you in time.”

  “I’m thankful it’s only leaves. Do you know, two or three centuries ago, people weren’t so careful about what they threw out of their windows and doors without looking. Good afternoon, Harold. It might as easily have been the remains of yesterday’s stew.” He shook hands with Uncle Harold. “How is your article on Viking activity in Scotland coming?”

  “Fairly well,” Uncle Harold said. “It will probably involve another trip North before I have to begin teaching again, but I don’t think Catherine will mind that. Come in. I’ll show you part of it.” He opened the study door. “Sit down. Would you like some wine?”

  “I would, thank you.”

  Uncle Harold paused a moment before he went out. “Have you been gardening?”

  “No. I have no talent for that. People don’t even trust me to water the flowers in the church. Why?”

  “You have an unusual amount of leaves in your hair.”

  “Oh.” Father Malory brushed at them. Bruce went back into the living room and spread the tablecloth out again. Carol picked a stray leaf off it.

  “He’s nice. I didn’t know priests were nice.”

  “What did you think they were like?”

  “I don’t know. Gloomy. They wear black and talk about what happens after you’re dead.”

  “People’s clothes don’t matter.”

  “Yes, they do. You try going into a little town with bare feet and patched jeans and then say they don’t matter.”

  He set the flowers precisely into the center of the circle. “That’s different. Priests have always worn black. It’s traditional. That’s why you can’t tell what a priest is like from his clothes. But if a priest wore jeans and went barefoot, then his clothes would matter to other people. Why don’t you wear dresses and comb your hair?”

  “I do comb it!”

  “Well, it never looks combed. I’m not trying to start an argument; I’m just saying that you look the way you do most likely because you don’t want to look the way somebody that you don’t like looks.”

  “Or because the people I like dress this way.”

  “Well, then, you aren’t going to like anybody in this town.” He went to the door. He paused before he opened it. “What were you going to say before I dumped the leaves on Father Malory?”

  “Never mind,” Carol said crossly. “I think you like starting arguments. You don’t like people liking you. And I do like people in this town. I like Emily Raison, and your parents, and Father Malory. And I think I like Alexander.”

  “Alexander?”

  “At least he smiles.” She went into the kitchen. Aunt Catherine, mashing potatoes, looked up at the abrupt closing of the door. Carol sat down at the table and ruffled her hair with her hands angrily.

  “I’m going to throw my comb and brush away. Then he’ll really suffer.”

  He was quiet during dinner, keeping his eyes on his plate while Father Malory and Uncle Harold discussed the church across the street through half the dinner until they were interrupted.

  “I know the bell-tower was destroyed in a fire thirty years ago, which accounts for the different color of the stones, but I don’t believe the late Gothic style was altered any in the reconstruction,” Father Malory was saying, and then the sudden shrill of whistling just beyond the windows broke his train of thought. He looked toward it interestedly. “I never realized before how much a group of boys whistling sounds like Irish banshees wailing for the souls of the dead.”

  “I didn’t either,” Uncle Harold said. “Bruce, why don’t you go out and tell them you’re eating before they shatter all Mrs. Brewster’s antique glassware. Bruce.”

  He blinked, and looked away from Father Malory. “What?”

  “Please go and tell your friends you are having dinner,” Uncle Harold said patiently. Bruce left. There was a little silence. Carol swallowed a mouthful of chicken and cleared her throat.

  “Uncle Harold?”

  “Yes, Carol.”

  “Did—did Miss Emily ever tell you about Susan?”

  “Susan? Not that I recall. Why?”

  “Oh, I remember Susan,” Father Malory said suddenly. He wiped his mouth with his napkin and laid the napkin down in the butter, “Susan the maid, who had a dreadful experience in the cellar and hysterics in the study?”

  “Heavens,” Uncle Harold said. “I missed a good one.”

  “Yes,” Carol said. She swallowed, as though she had a word stuck like a fish-bone in her throat. “And I was wondering. I was wondering if she saw a ghost. In the cellar. At home—I’ve seen movies about old English castles and houses, and they have ghosts in them. So maybe Susan saw a ghost.”

  “There are no such things as ghosts,” Uncle Harold said firmly. “Whatever happened to Susan in the cellar was either caused by another person or her own imagination. And whatever you have seen in the cellar is probably the natural result of being for the first time in your life in a very old house that happens to stand across the street from a graveyard.”

  “I’ve always wanted to see a ghost,” Father Malory remarked placidly. “But nothing exciting ever happens to me, not even when I go through the graveyard for midnight services.”

  Carol shivered. “I wouldn’t do that for any reason.”

  The door opened. Bruce came back in and sat down quietly. He shifted the butter dish from underneath Father Malory’s napkin and set it aside. Aunt Catherine said thoughtfully:

  “I wouldn’t be surprised if there were a ghost down there. We have everything else—mice, spiders, batches of stray kittens. It’s probably the ghost of
some poor vicar who got burned in his bed using a bed-warmer.”

  “A ghost down where?” Bruce said abruptly.

  “Nowhere,” said Uncle Harold.

  “Did Carol see something in the cellar?”

  “Susan did,” said Father Malory.

  “Susan who?”

  “Susan the maid, about fifty years ago,” Uncle Harold said patiently. “She had a frightening experience, Miss Emily said, and Carol was wondering if it were possibly a ghost, owing to the reputation that old English houses have in America.”

  “Oh.” He drew breath softly. “Oh.”

  “Why,” Father Malory said curiously, “would a vicar want to sleep with a bed-warmer?”

  Uncle Harold laughed. He felt in his pocket for his pipe. “Why don’t we have coffee in the study, and with Carol’s permission, I will tell you a little story about bed-warmers.”

  Aunt Catherine gave Carol a tray of coffee to take to them while she cleared the table. She heard their voices, calm and unhurried, as they talked of the great stone church, and the late sunlight warmed the old stone beneath her feet. She put the tray on a table between them, and looked around as Uncle Harold poured coffee. Light traced the gold titles of books standing row upon row almost to the ceiling, or stacked sideways on the desk, on the floor. It fell in a pool on the cold grate in the fireplace, touched the rare tones of gold in the painting above the fireplace: the picture of a girl standing in a dark arch of stones, her face sober, intent as though she were listening for some sound beyond the canvas. Her long dress was deep blue; the white lace on her cuffs and the square collar showed delicate and rich against the darkness.

  “Who is that girl?”

  “Nobody knows,” Uncle Harold said. “Not even Mrs. Brewster. No one knows who painted the picture, either. Do you like it?”

  “Yes. Those stones…She looks like she’s standing beside the house or by the wall.”

  “Mm. It’s strange. A mystery painting. It’s nicely done.”

  “Mrs. Brewster had someone in to date it once,” Father Malory said. “I believe he decided it had been done in the last century. It’s odd, isn’t it.”

  Uncle Harold was silent a moment. “Yes. She looks like she might have lived in the house when it was first built.”

  The blue eyes of the girl gazed down at them, quiet, preoccupied, and they were quiet again, looking up at her. Then Father Malory said apologetically, “I seem to be dripping on your rug…Oh, I see. I have managed to dunk my sleeve in my coffee. I wonder sometimes if I am fit company for civilized men.”

  Carol climbed one of the tall trees that grew over the front wall the next morning, and sat hugging the trunk swaying like a ship’s mast in the strong wind. She stared out at the neat rows of grey headstones, looking as weathered and immovable as old trees. The wind lulled her; she closed her eyes to the flickering sunlight and let her thoughts glide silently through her head until she was half-asleep among the rustling leaves. The noon bells roused her finally; she counted and then the thought came to her and her eyes flew open. She moved her face from the branch and felt it stiff, patterned with bark. She stared at the quiet gravestones.

  “Twelve,” she whispered. “Midnight. He’s a vampire, and he lives in the cellar…”

  She leaned over, and gripped the branch she was standing on, and swung down. She landed on the grass and got up, dusting her hands.

  “Hello,” said a disembodied voice.

  She whirled, her heart pounding. Alexander smiled at her.

  “It’s only me. Flesh and bones and teeth. I came to see Bruce, but he has faded away again. So I was meditating by the fishpool when suddenly this great wild beast sprang out of a tree at me. But it’s only you.”

  “I didn’t see you come down the street.”

  “Well, I didn’t see you hanging in the tree.” He paused a moment, one eyebrow tugging upward thoughtfully. “I wonder where he goes when he goes.”

  Carol brushed the grass off her knees. She moved toward the house. “I don’t know. Why don’t you ask him?”

  “I do. He gives me vague mumbles.” He walked beside her, his hands in his pockets, his step long and easy through the grass. “Perhaps he goes off to grow hair all over him and howl at the moon.”

  “I wish you wouldn’t talk about things like that.”

  He glanced down at her. “Is it the graveyard? Does that make you nervous? People in it are dead. I don’t see why people should do things after they’re dead that they wouldn’t do while they were living. Though perhaps that’s no comfort.”

  Carol stopped suddenly on the porch. She drew a breath to speak, and held it a moment while one foot traced the letters in the welcome mat. She said finally, “Do you believe in ghosts?”

  “No. Not outside of people’s minds.”

  “Oh.” Her mouth crooked. She nudged the door open with one shoulder. Alexander moved forward to lounge in the doorway before she closed it.

  “Why? Do you think you’ve seen one?”

  “Yes. It had big green teeth and spider webs in its hair, and I’m probably going nuts.”

  “Crackers,” Alexander said. “Over here you go crackers. Words are funny. Do you want to come for a ride on my bicycle and help me look for Bruce?”

  “No.”

  “Oh.” He removed himself from the doorway with a sigh. “Right. If you see him, tell him I was here.”

  But she did not see him until long after dinner, until Aunt Catherine and Uncle Harold sat sipping tea in the living room while the sky beyond the church steeple turned blue-grey with the late summer twilight. Carol sat curled on the window-seat, watching the twilight outline the tree leaves and freeze them into a motionless pattern. Something danced once past the window, too big to be a moth, flickering too much to be a bird.

  “A bat,” said Uncle Harold. She jerked back. Then she saw Bruce slip like a shadow through the gate.

  The back door closed softly a moment later. Uncle Harold put his cup down. He rubbed his eyes with his fingers. The stairs began to creak.

  “Bruce!”

  The creaking stopped. It descended slowly. The living room door opened. Bruce stood mute in the doorway, his mouth set while they stared at the rainbow-colored bruise on one eye that clashed awesomely with the scarlet scratches.

  “What happened now?” Uncle Harold said feebly.

  “I fell off my bike.”

  “Oh, Bruce. Your bicycle is in two pieces on the back porch.”

  His hands rose suddenly in an angry desperate gesture. They were shadowed grey. The blunt ends of pencils stuck out of his pockets. “Can’t you leave me alone? All right—I was fighting. But that’s my affair! I have to work it out for myself!”

  In the silence came the soft futile tap of moths against the bright window. Uncle Harold said softly, “I’m sorry. I won’t meddle.”

  Bruce’s mouth opened, then closed. His head dropped; his hand moved back and forth across the door knob. “I’m sorry I’m late. I didn’t want to come home.” He closed the door as he left.

  Uncle Harold looked down at his teacup. He picked it up and held it without drinking. He put it down abruptly; it clattered in the saucer.

  “I never know how much to say!”

  “I know,” Aunt Catherine said gently. The corners of her mouth were tight. “It’s hard to know.” She put her knitting aside and rose. “I’ll make a cold-pack for his eye.”

  Uncle Harold picked up his cup and followed her into the kitchen. Carol heard the murmur of their voices behind the closed door. She leaned her head against the windowpane, feeling the glass cold against her face. She rose finally and went into the hall.

  A sheet of paper lay on the grey stones. She picked it up. It was coarse drawing paper. On the other side of it was a picture of the church. She stared at it, moving slowly up the stairs. The church rose brilliant against the rising sun, its shadow swept back to uncover hunched worn gravestones. In the dim hall light she could see the delicate stonewor
k ornamenting the lean arched windows, the patterning of glass in one great window that opened like a rose to the sunlight. And in one corner of the graveyard, curving with a tuft of grass, she found Bruce’s name.

  She swallowed, something inside of her fluttering with excitement and fear. She went up the stairs to the closed door at the end of them. She knocked softly. She heard the sudden roll of bedsprings and the creak of floorboards. The door opened to Bruce’s face, twisted painfully into a scowl. It melted a little into surprise. She held out the drawing.

  “You must have dropped it when you came in.”

  He looked down at it without moving. Then his face moved, and he reached out for it. He held it, his breath still, the color rising slowly in his lowered face.

  “I didn’t know,” Carol whispered. “I never knew before that when you see a beautiful drawing, there’s a person who has done it.”

  His face rose. The unbruised eye looked at her, uncertain, unguarded. He said hesitantly, “I got up, before the sun rose. I climbed on the roof, so the trees weren’t in the way.”

  “Is that how you got your black eye? Falling off the roof or something?”

  His brows pulled together. He looked away from her. “No. I was sitting in a field drawing a cow.” He opened the door, and his eyes came back to her face. “I think—There’s something else I’d like to show you. Come in.”

  He went to his window-seat. It opened like a chest, and he reached into it for a tablet. He sat down on the floor, leafing through it. Carol watched the pictures flicker between his fingers.

  “How long have you been drawing?”

  “Three years.”

  “And nobody knows? Doesn’t Uncle Harold know?”

  His hands paused. “No.”

  “But he likes pictures.”

  “He likes facts. I just want to do things my own way, without being bothered or—or teased by anyone.” His mouth tightened suddenly. He looked down at the tablet, turning drawings without looking at them. Carol watched him for a moment, her brows crinkled. She drew a silent breath, and said tentatively, “Is that—is that what happened? They teased you?”