The House on Parchment Street

by Patricia A. Mckillip

  “Dad—”

  “We were looking for ghosts,” Carol said. Bruce glanced at her, startled. Aunt Catherine’s eggs began to smoke behind her, but she did not notice them.

  “Ghosts?”

  “They come out at midnight.”

  Uncle Harold eased back in his chair. He took a sip of tea. “Did they?”

  “No. Mrs. Brewster came instead.”

  “Oh.” He chuckled. “I see. Tell me, did you really expect to see ghosts?”

  “We wouldn’t have gone otherwise,” Bruce said tightly. “It was just an idea. I’m sorry Mrs. Brewster was annoyed. I don’t know what she thought I was doing—body-snatching or something. I wish she would stop bothering me.” He rose abruptly. “Excuse me. I’m not hungry.”

  “Bruce,” Uncle Harold said quickly. Bruce paused, his hands closed on the back of his chair. “I don’t question your methods in this case. But I should have thought you would have formed your conclusion about ghosts a few years earlier in your life.”

  “I thought I had.” He turned. They heard his steps going down the hall quickly, toward the front door. Uncle Harold touched his eyes.

  “I said something. What did I say?”

  Carol pushed her chair. “I don’t know. I’ll be back; I’m starving. Aunt Catherine, your eggs are burning.”

  She caught up with Bruce as he went out the door, and he snapped miserably without stopping, “Why did you tell? Couldn’t you think up a good lie or stay quiet so I could? Now he’ll know I’m barmy, brainless as a six-year-old scared of monsters under his bed—”

  Carol stopped in the doorway, flushed and silent. “I’m sorry.”

  He looked back at her. His shoulders slumped. He went back to the porch and dropped onto the step. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have shouted at you. Why didn’t you shout back at me? You always do.”

  She looked down at his bent head. “I don’t know…I thought—the truth was as good as a lie, then.”

  He was silent a moment. “Well. You were right,” he said softly. “That’s a funny way to put it. I don’t know where I was going, anyway. And it won’t do any good, my going. I’ll just have to come back. So I might as well stay here and think.”

  “I have an idea.”

  He turned. “What is it then?” he said hopefully.

  “I was thinking…” She sat down beside him on the cold porch. The shadow of the house flowed over them, over the pool, to the edge of the stone wall where the morning light had begun to warm the stones. “Priests think a lot about dead people. Father Malory might believe us.”

  V

  THEY FOUND FATHER MALORY IN THE CHURCH, folding up music stands. He smiled at them as they came up the aisle. The side windows were narrow, round-arched, and the light fell in slender fingers from them to touch the pews. The light from the great east window above the altar flamed from the glass rose and turned Father Malory’s face a gentle pink.

  “Good morning,” he said. “We’ve just had choir practice.”

  “With Roger Simmons’ cello?” Bruce said. “I saw him leave.”

  “Oh, yes. And we have some guitars and Martin Brewster’s recorder. He wanted to play a guitar, but he can’t quite handle it and he keeps trying to sing. So I found him something simpler. Randall Harris wanted to bring his trombone, but he tends to drown out everyone else. So I let him bring his flute, which sounds quite nice with the cello whenever they hit the right notes.” He paused a moment, gathering music. “It’s an odd combination, but they are so eager, and that counts. They haven’t performed at a mass yet. I hope people will enjoy them.”

  “I hope so, too,” Bruce said. “It sounds like a good idea. Father—” He broke off as Father Malory reached out and turned his face gently from the light.

  “I didn’t think that odd coloring was from the window…I’m sorry. Go on. I interrupted you.”

  Bruce sighed. “I don’t know how to say it.”

  “Start at the beginning and proceed logically.”

  “That sounds like something Dad would say.”

  “He did,” Father Malory said.

  “Ghosts,” Carol said, “aren’t logical.”

  Father Malory’s eyes moved to her face. He shook the pile of music to straighten it, tapping it gently, rhythmically on a pew-back even after it had fallen into place. “I really don’t know anything about ghosts,” he said. “Why do you think they aren’t logical?”

  “Because if they were, they wouldn’t walk through cellar walls.”

  Father Malory let the music rest for a moment on the pew-back. Then he dropped it on the seat and sat down. “I suppose that’s true. I don’t see why they should. Do they?”

  “Yes.”

  His eyes moved back and forth across their faces. He drew a deep breath. “How strange. Who are they, do you know?”

  “We know one of them,” Bruce said. “The girl in the painting in Dad’s study. We just saw her yesterday. She came out of the sunlight in her blue dress and white collar, and she walked straight through Mrs. Brewster’s cellar wall. No. Before she did, she turned and said, ‘Edward. Come.’ Then she walked into the wall.”

  Father Malory was silent. The church was silent about them, cool, dark in the far corners by the high round arch of the heavy oak door, where the light could not reach yet. His eyes moved from their faces; he stared at the rose window.

  “Do you believe us?” Bruce said. Father Malory’s eyes came back to him.

  “Yes. But belief is not the same as knowledge.” He sighed slightly. “I amaze myself at times.”

  “You amaze me,” Bruce said. “If I told Dad what we—” He stopped abruptly.

  “You haven’t tried?”

  “Oh, we’ve tried. But he can’t—the problem is, he can’t see them.”

  “Oh.”

  “And I’m not going to come straight out and tell him. He is interested in facts. Ghosts don’t exist. That’s fact. Well, I’ve seen two. That’s another fact. I brought him down to the cellar one day after I’d seen the first one, and Dad couldn’t see it. But Carol’s seen both of them.”

  “Oh…” He stirred, his eyes falling away from them again, glinting a little in the morning light. “Do you know what century that young girl’s clothes belong to?”

  “No.”

  “The same century the house as it stands now was built in. The seventeenth century. The century of Civil War, the Stuart Kings, of the beginnings of modern science, the beginnings of religious toleration…You mentioned two ghosts. Who is the other?”

  “He wears black,” Bruce said. “He wears pants that come down to his knees and dark stockings and—”

  “He looks like a Pilgrim,” Carol said. “But he carries a sword in his hand.”

  “A sword.” He fell silent. Then he straightened, rising. “I must go. I told old Mrs. Louis I could come visit this morning; she’s in bed with a broken ankle. When can I come and see them with you?”

  “I’ve always seen them about four.” He hesitated. “Can you—can you come without my parents seeing you? I don’t want to explain. Not until you’ve seen them. I’ll wait for you in the yard.”

  “We can try, but I think…Bruce, why don’t you tell your father? Let him come down with us. He’ll—”

  “Can’t you understand? He doesn’t listen. Carol’s told him twice there are ghosts in the cellar, and the minute he hears the word, you can tell that he’s trying to think what she might have mistaken for a ghost. And I don’t—I don’t want him to think—he thinks I’m crazy enough as it is—I ride into blackberry hedges, I forget to come home for dinner, I argue with everybody and get into fights, and—last night we were in the graveyard waiting for ghosts, and Mrs. Brewster caught us, and Carol told him exactly what we were doing, and he looked at me like—like I was daft or the village idiot—and that’s what I feel like sometimes, when I talk to him. I don’t feel like that talking to you.”

  Father Malory picked up the music and the music stands.
They walked down the aisle with him. “Your father has a very clear, sensible mind and a generous personality. I think you could hurt him very deeply, if you wanted to.”

  Bruce stopped. Father Malory opened the door and looked back at him. The rounded doorway framed the long slope of green grass in front of the church that ran down the hill toward the busy street below. Carol’s head turned from Bruce to Father Malory, her brows tugging together anxiously. Bruce’s hands opened and closed.

  “What makes you think I want that?”

  “Because you do hurt him,” Father Malory said simply. There was a step beyond the door; his head turned. “Oh, good morning, Mrs. Simpson. Have you come to wash the altar linen?”

  Bruce passed them wordlessly. Carol caught up with him, hurrying a little to match his long, quick strides through the graveyard. His head was lowered; he did not notice Alexander blocking the path with his bicycle until Carol slowed beside him, and Alexander said, “Bruce. How’s your eye?”

  Bruce’s head jerked up. Alexander rocked back and forth on the wheels in a fragile balance. His face was unusually quiet; when Bruce’s quick steps did not check, he looked startled.

  “Bruce—”

  Bruce walked into his back wheel. He lost his balance as the bicycle overturned and fell, half-kneeling on the spokes, his hands smacking on the walk. Alexander lay half-under the bicycle, blinking and catching his breath. He turned slowly and pushed the handlebars from under his ribs. Bruce got up. He stepped across the wheel and went on without a word. Alexander untangled himself; Carol heard the faint shaking of his breath. He rolled to his feet, half-crouched, and with a sudden lunge, caught Bruce’s legs and brought him down flat on the walk.

  “Will you listen?” His voice was breathless, oddly sharp. “Do you think I wanted that to happen to you that day?” Bruce struggled beneath him; Alexander got up, and Bruce rolled over, his breath coming in short, painful catches. Blood trickled from a raw scrape on Alexander’s elbow; he touched it and winced. “I wouldn’t do that to you. I wouldn’t. I happen to like pictures of cows and Queen Anne’s Lace, but you wouldn’t listen if I told you. You’re not very good at listening.” He limped to his bicycle. Bruce stared at him, his face pinched, white. He got to his feet. Alexander picked up his bicycle. He turned before he mounted, in time to see Bruce run down the walk, turn the corner toward the open field.

  Alexander leaned against the railing. He looked at Carol. She stood gazing down the walk, her hands under her arms as though she were cold. Alexander sighed. “I have one of his pictures. The flowers. He nearly stepped on it, fighting, so I rescued it. If he wants it, tell him.” He mounted stiffly. She watched him go. She went slowly down the path toward the house, and the bells struck a half-hour behind her. She went through the front door, standing open to warm the flagstones, and into the kitchen where Aunt Catherine measured flour for a cake.

  “We’re going to London tomorrow,” she said cheerfully. “Harold decided he needed a holiday. What do you feel like doing?”

  “Throwing all Mrs. Brewster’s teacups against the wall.”

  “What’s the matter?”

  “Everything.”

  She waited alone in the afternoon, standing high in the tree by the gate, watching the field for Bruce. The bells rang a quarter to four, and she saw Father Malory walk down the graveyard path, his black suit speckled with sunlight from the windblown trees. She jumped down to meet him as he opened the gate.

  “Hello, Carol,” he said. “Where is Bruce?”

  “I don’t know. He ran away.”

  He stood quietly a moment, the wind tugging at his sleeves, raising tufts in his hair. He smoothed them down absently. “Will he come back?”

  “I don’t know. I think so. Are you still coming down?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Then wait here a moment, and I’ll see if the coast is clear.” She stood in the doorway and listened. She heard the click of Uncle Harold’s typewriter, and after a moment, Aunt Catherine’s steps across the floor above her head. She beckoned to Father Malory, waiting patiently on the lawn, and he came to the door and followed her into the cellar. She cleared a place for him among Mrs. Brewster’s what-nots, and he sat down on the table. A moment later the cellar door opened. They heard soft steps on the stones. Father Malory shifted uneasily on the table, and a little china shepherdess fell into a teacup behind him. He sat still. Then Bruce came through the doorway, and Father Malory sighed.

  “I had a sudden vision,” he murmured, “of you being Mrs. Brewster.”

  Bruce sat down on a pile of books. He said after a moment, “She would have to be polite to you.” Then he blinked as a man moved between them in black cape and hat.

  “I don’t know why she would,” Father Malory said meditatively. “Rules of etiquette don’t cover the possibility of finding priests sitting among one’s antiques in one’s cellar.”

  The ghost turned, walked into the wall, and Bruce’s eyes jumped to Father Malory’s face. His mouth opened, closed again. Father Malory looked at him a moment. He looked at Carol, sitting beside him, her face turned to him, her mouth open, wordless.

  “Did I miss something? I did, didn’t I.”

  Bruce sighed. He stared at the floor, his shoulders slumped. A shadow fell over his face; a skirt rustled faint as the wind beyond the thick stones. A blue-eyed girl looked down at him.

  “Edward,” she said softly. “Come.” And the stones she melted through reappeared firm and immovable behind her.

  Carol slid off the table. Father Malory said surprisedly, “Is it over?”

  “Yes. They came.” She sat down suddenly on the floor, feeling the blood rushing to her face, a heaviness gathering in her throat. She put her head down on her knees; the first sob scraped her throat like a hiccup. “I wanted—I wanted you to see them—”

  “Don’t cry. Please don’t cry.”

  “I feel like it.” The tears ran hot to her chin; she rubbed her face against her knees to dry it. “Everything—nothing is going right—you could have told Uncle Harold you saw them, and then—and then Bruce wouldn’t have to hate the house—and I don’t know what to do with two ghosts nobody else can see; I don’t know why they have to be there, and you’ll think we’re both barmy—”

  “I don’t think you’re barmy,” Father Malory said.

  “I would if I were you.” She felt a touch on her shoulder and lifted her head. Bruce knelt beside her, holding out a handkerchief. She took it and blew her nose.

  “Just because everything is going wrong, that’s no reason to give up,” Bruce said.

  “Well, I don’t know what else to do.”

  “We’ll think of what we should do, and then we’ll do it. That’s the only logical thing to do.”

  “You don’t like thinking logically.”

  “Well sometimes—sometimes it’s the only thing left to do. When you only have one thing left to do, you do it. But I don’t think sitting on the floor and crying is going to help.”

  “Well, running away this morning didn’t help any either.”

  He was silent a moment. “I know.” He stood up, looking at Father Malory sitting silently on the table. “What are you going to do? Tell Dad?”

  “No,” Father Malory said reflectively. “It’s your problem. I expect you’ll find a way to solve it. I didn’t see or hear anything unusual. But I did see your faces as you watched, and I have been listening to you, and I don’t blame you for feeling frustrated. I feel a bit left out. I don’t know why you should be able to see something so exciting when I can’t. But I can offer one comforting thought: unless the girl had a habit of wandering about when she was alive in clothes two hundred years out of her time, whoever painted that picture saw her as a ghost.”

  “But he didn’t paint her in the cellar,” Bruce said. “There was an archway. And I can’t see any place in the wall that looks like an arch has been filled up. The stones look like they’ve been solid for centuries.”

&
nbsp; Father Malory nodded, his eyes narrowed, searching the walls. “It is strange…” He looked at his watch and stood up. They walked slowly back through the rooms. He stopped at the foot of the steps and said, “I wonder. Do you suppose that’s what Susan saw in the cellar? She saw the girl from the painting walk through the cellar wall, and then she ran to the study and looked at the painting and had hysterics.”

  “Poor Susan,” Carol said. Bruce looked at her.

  “You saw the same thing, and you didn’t have hysterics.”

  “I would have,” she said thoughtfully, “if I knew how.” She opened the cellar door and peered out. The rich smell of fried chicken hung in the passage. They came out and closed the door softly, just as Uncle Harold came out of the study, his pipe in his mouth and paper in his hand.

  “Cath—Father Malory! I didn’t know you were here.”

  “I wasn’t.”

  “You’re just the person I need. I have been writing all afternoon, and suddenly nothing I have written makes any sense whatsoever—Can you spare me a moment?”

  He led Father Malory to the study. Bruce stood watching them until the study door closed behind them. He stuck his hands deep in his pockets and looked at Carol.

  “Have you got any ideas?”

  “I had the last idea. It’s your turn.”

  He looked down at the floor. “I don’t think I’m thinking too well today,” he said. “I wish my bicycle were fixed…I would ride so far away that by the time I came back I wouldn’t even remember all the things that happened today.” He turned away, going down the hall to the kitchen. “Oh, well. At least there’s fried chicken.”

  “And we’re going to London tomorrow.”

  “Are we?”

  “Is that far enough?”

  His face tugged into a smile. “It might help. We’ll probably see all the ghosts of the kings of England walking in and out of walls.”

  They saw the long line of the kings and queens of England standing waxen and ghostly in a museum in the middle of London the next day.

  “They aren’t moving,” Carol said. Her voice was hushed. The museum was filled with wax people who stared at them, silent and aloof from other ages, caught forever in some intense memory of their lives. Uncle Harold and Aunt Catherine strolled ahead, unconcerned beneath the regal eyes of dead kings. Bruce flicked through the pages of the guidebook.