House of Many Shadows

by Barbara Michaels

  “Well, at least I’ve a vague idea of what alchemy was,” Meg said. “I’ve never heard of those other things. What was a Swedenborgian?”

  “Present tense, not past. Some people still believe in the teachings of Emanual Swedenborg. He was a Swedish scholar, born in 1688; a brilliant mathematician and scientist. Later in his career he cracked up—or saw the light, however you look at it. He became a mystic and a clairvoyant. They say he saw the great Stockholm fire— from his home three hundred miles away. Huber may have corresponded with him while he was developing his theories; although, of course, the Swedenborgian church wasn’t founded until long after Huber’s death.

  “All these mystical sects, or faiths, had certain ideas in common. Hermetic philosophy is based on the books of a mythical Egyptian character named Hermes Trismegistus. The secrets of the faith were expressed as allegories to keep the profane from understanding them. Here’s an example, quoted by Christian Huber in his diary:

  “”That which is above is like that which is below, to perpetuate the miracles of One thing. And as all things have been derived from one, by the thought of one, so all things are born from this thing—‘“ ”Stop it, you’re making my head ache. That’s crazy!“ Andy shrugged. ”Maybe. But I can’t help admiring these men. They wanted to know. They couldn’t accept the smug dogmas of the established Church, which demanded faith instead of understanding. They risked fire—hellfire in eternal damnation, and the fires of the Inquisition on earth—to find out. They were brilliant, imaginative thinkers, many of them; if they fell into error, at least the errors were original, not the complacent acceptance of doctrinal stupidities.

  “Anyhow, that’s what Christian Huber was—a philosopher, a mystic, an alchemist. It’s all in here—quotes from Hermetic and Gnostic books, notes on his experiments. What a mind the man had! He was interested in everything—plants and their properties, the habits of animals and birds…”

  “But not people,” Meg said.

  “What?”

  “He wasn’t interested in people. At the beginning, when he says he has given up everything, lost everything—he doesn’t even mention Anna Maria. I don’t think much of him if he forgets his grandchild in favor of some wild-eyed system of philosophy.”

  “This wasn’t meant to be a diary,” Andy protested. “He just jotted down his ideas as they came to him.”

  “Then I don’t see how it can help us. Doesn’t he say anything about his life here, or why he had to leave Europe?”

  “I haven’t read the whole thing yet. He has a few paragraphs of more or less mundane comment stuck in between experiments. Here’s one: ‘Pastor Klemm called on me today. A good man, but foolish. He cannot offer crumbs to one who has tasted the divine elixir.”“ ”If that’s the best he can do, we’re out of luck.“ ”All right, if you’re going to be so critical, I’ll tell you what I think happened. Everything I’ve read confirms my theory, only you have to know how to interpret it.“

  “So interpret,” Meg said grumpily. She was getting annoyed with Christian Huber.

  “Huber—or von Friedland—was a fugitive. What from, I don’t know, but I can guess. I think he was run out of some small German state because of his heretical ideas and practices. The Inquisition was dying, but some of the German areas were devoutly Catholic, and Huber was not mealymouthed. It’s also possible that he was involved in a plot against the local ruler. The Rosicrucians of that time were regarded as a secret society, and they were not above dabbling in politics in order to promote the ideal world they believed in. Even the Masons were suspected of espionage in their early days. Remember one of the Three Musketeers books, where the old schemer Aramis becomes the director general of a secret Masonic organization and tries to replace Louis the Fourteenth with his brother, the Man in the Iron Mask?

  “Why Huber left doesn’t matter. The important thing is that he didn’t learn discretion from his experience in Europe. He continued his experiments in this country; he refused to go to the local church and he talked too freely of his wild ideas. The colony was supposed to be based on a concept of religious freedom, but that didn’t give a man freedom to be an out-and-out atheist, or to dabble in Black Magic. Huber’s honest, stupid neighbors thought he was a warlock. Oh, yes, it’s all here—scattered but consistent. The pastor called on him several times. He must have been a good man and a little brighter than his flock. He warned Huber to shut up, if he couldn’t conform:

  “ ‘Again the pastor. He took me from my search for the alkahest, and I was short with him. How anger clouds the mind! I must cultivate patience; but he maddens me, with his warnings and his threats. What have I to do with the superstitious fears of these poor deluded farmers? I was forced to agree with him concerning old Berthe, and I have forbidden her to continue with her vile practices. She deludes the peasants, promising them good fortune, wealth, love… Nota bene: my amusement when the pastor said my neighbors equate my experiments with Berthe’s petty tricks.”

  “Old Berthe was practicing witchcraft,” Andy went on. “Petty stuff, as Huber says—sticking pins in waxen images, mixing up love philters and curing the ague. Naturally the neighbors couldn’t understand the difference between her games and his serious studies. The fact that she was a practicing witch confirmed their suspicions about Huber.

  “You have a point when you accuse him of being disinterested in people. If he had been a little more concerned with human feelings and a little more tolerant of human stupidity, the tragedy might not have happened. They say the burned child shuns the fire, but that’s a lie; some kids keep on burning themselves, not because they forget the pain but because they think maybe it won’t happen the next time. Huber was like that. He couldn’t believe people could act irrationally.He jeers at the pastor’s warnings. Other people warned him too, including his granddaughter. Yes, he mentions her now and then. The longest reference is a paragraph where he says he will allow her to go to church, since she insists; it can’t do any harm, and maybe it will keep the pastor off his back.”

  “What a selfish old man! She wasn’t a—whatever he was, then? The symbols on the sampler—”

  “She probably copied them from his books because she thought they were pretty, and she knew he had a high regard for them. No, she wasn’t a convert. She didn’t even assist him in his experiments.

  “She’s the really tragic figure. Huber and the old servant share the responsibility; their behavior led to their destruction. But the girl was wiped out, not for what she had done, but for what she was—Huber’s granddaughter, tarred by association with his heresy. They were killed for the same reason Blymire’s victim was killed in 1923, in that hex case I told you about—by ignorant men who thought they were witches and heretics. It wouldn’t take much to convince the killers that they had been hexed—a few sick cows, the death of a child. People are always looking for scapegoats, and you could say Huber asked for it.”

  “It sounds convincing,” Meg said slowly. “You can’t prove it, though. I don’t suppose the last entry—”

  “There are no dates, so I can’t be sure when it was written. It’s all about the alkahest—the perfect solvent that would dissolve all matter. But I’m sure I’m right, Meg.”

  “Maybe you are. But it doesn’t solve anything, really.”

  “No.”

  The next morning was mild and foggy. Meg decided that the humidity accounted for the feeling of oppression that surrounded her from the moment she awoke. She and Andy got Georgia up and more or less awake; then Andy took Georgia home. She gave Meg a feeble smile and a feebler handclasp when she left.

  “Call you later. God, what a hangover!”

  As soon as the car had pulled away, Meg went to the library and took up Huber’s journal. She was still reading it when Andy came back.

  “Anything new in town?” she asked.

  “Rumors are flying. Four different dealers stopped me to ask when Sylvia’s going to start selling. There is a distinct impression that we’ve found
a treasure trove.”

  “Well, Georgia can handle them. Sylvia put her in charge of the selling end.”

  Meg returned to the book. Andy hovered, shifting from one foot to the other.

  “What is it?” Meg demanded.

  “Culver’s back. Somebody saw him last night.”

  “Oh, Lord. I hoped we’d seen the last of him.” “So did I. Cherry wasn’t with him.” “You don’t suppose…” Meg began. “No, if you mean do I suppose Culver has done her in and buried her in the woods.” Andy fingered the healing scratches on his face. “I’d back Cherry against Culver any day. She’s probably split.”

  “I never thought that relationship was permanent,” Meg agreed. “Anything else?”

  “Cold front coming in from Canada,” Andy said brightly. “Better get your woollies out.”

  “Thanks. Now why don’t you split and leave me alone?” “I’m restless. What are you reading? Oh, the journal. Found anything I missed?”

  “Not much. He lapses into German every now and then, did you notice? I guess when he got excited he forgot his resolution to stick to English.”

  “I noticed, but I couldn’t do anything about it. I don’t understand German. Hey… do you… ?”

  “I took it in high school. I can’t make much of this, though; it’s scholarly German and it’s all about Huber’s experiments. That was what he got excited about, not his family. You know, I can understand why his neighbors thought he was a magician. He was trying to raise ghosts.” Andy looked interested.

  “Not ghosts, Meg. Not if you mean the spirits of the dead. That would make him a necromancer, a black magician. He wasn’t that. Maybe he was trying to summon spiritual entities that could help him in his alchemical studies. Or else—the alchemists believed that everything that had once lived could be re-created. Like the spirit of the rose.”

  “La spectre de la rose? You mentioned that the other night.”

  “Most people know the music and the ballet, but few music lovers realize that the plot is based on alchemy. What you do is you take a flask and put in it the ashes of a rose, mixed with morning dew. Seal the flask and put it on a pile of horse manure—no, I’m not kidding, that’s what the recipe says—and leave it for a month. Expose it alternately to sunlight and moonlight. Eventually the specter of the rose will appear in all its original beauty— leaves, petals, all intact. It will disappear when the flask is cooled and reappear when it’s heated.”

  “He wasn’t re-creating plants,” Meg said. “He talks about people; the spirits of human beings.” “He succeeded?”

  “Well, he thought he did. There’s one entry that’s all scribbled, he got so excited; but it says something about the spirit of young Hermes, and the pentagram, and so on.”

  “Good Lord. That sounds like necromancy all right. No wonder he got in trouble if he bragged about that.”

  “There’s one thing,” Meg said, dismissing this piece of useless information. “Your ancestor, John Emig, did have a son who was in love with the girl. Christian mentions the fact; I’m surprised he considered it worth recording. He even shows a touch of human vanity; says a farmer’s son shouldn’t aspire to marry a von Friedland. Besides, the girl was only fifteen at the time.”

  “They married young,” Andy said. “You want to take a walk or something?”

  “Later, maybe. I want to read some more.” Andy wandered off. Meg went on reading, but found no more useful information. She was exasperated with Christian Huber, and she felt a profound pity for Anna Maria, shut up with a cold old man and a mumbling old servant. At noon Andy returned and insisted that she come with him. He had packed a picnic. Meg yielded, recognizing his need to get away from the house for a while.

  The force of the wind, as they left the house, took her breath away. It was noticeably cooler, despite the fact that the sun was fighting through scattered clouds.

  It was warmer in the woods, where trees broke the force of the wind. They ate their lunch in the clearing they had found earlier, and then walked for several hours. Andy was not feeling chatty; he spoke seldom, and then only to comment on some feature of the woods. Meg was in no mood for trivial talk either, and a mounting sense of oppression kept her silent. She couldn’t blame it on the weather, not with the keen wind blowing away clouds as it ought to have blown away mental cobwebs.

  The sun was setting in brilliant angry streaks of color as they reached the front door. Andy opened it. To Meg, it was as if invisible hands were reaching out for her, so strong was the sense of anticipation. As soon as she was over the threshold, the feeling left her. The house waited, but not for her.

  Andy didn’t seem to notice anything, but he lingered in the doorway before coming in. “Want a drink?” he asked casually.

  “After seeing Georgia, I’m beginning to think I should go on the wagon. Oh, all right. I’ll see what there is in the freezer. It’s been a long time since lunch.”

  The bright, cheerful aspect of the yellow-painted kitchen restored some of her confidence. The setting sun, pouring in the western window, gave a brilliant theatrical glow to the countertops and chrome. After she had taken meat from the freezer she went upstairs to change clothes. The house was cool. Meg took out sweater and slacks; then she changed her mind and reached for her long blue robe. She heard Andy pass her door and then ascend the stairs to the attic. What was he doing up there?

  She went back to the kitchen and started dinner. Andy joined her after a while. He was carrying a bundle of papers—one of the packets of letters they had found in the chest.

  “Thought I’d look at the Civil War letters,” he explained, sitting down at the kitchen table.

  “Turn on the light, why don’t you. It’s getting dark.”

  Meg went to the sink to clean vegetables for a salad. There she noticed a small pile of letters on the countertop.

  “What’s this?”

  “Oh, I forgot. I picked up the mail this morning. There isn’t anything much, just catalogs and junk mail.”

  “Junk mail, indeed.” Meg picked up a brown paper parcel. “This is for me from Mrs. Adams. It must be the book she promised to lend me.”

  Andy grunted. He was deep in the letters. Meg ripped the wrappings off the parcel and found what she had expected—the Sadler-Gross-Emig genealogy. It was a thick, scholarly-looking book bound in dark-green cloth, worn by much handling.

  Meg put it aside until she had cleaned the lettuce and tomatoes. Then she wiped her hands carefully—it wouldn’t do to damage one of Mrs. Adams’ treasured books—and sat down across from Andy. The chicken was sizzling gently under the broiler.

  “You ought to look at this, Andy,” she said, after a while. “It puts your cousin Emig to shame. He wasn’t very accurate.”

  “Anything I ought to know?”

  “It’s pretty dull,” Meg admitted, turning pages. “Two Gross boys married Sadler girls, and a Sadler boy married an Emig; that’s how the families are connected. Oh— here’s your great—whatever he was—grandfather, Benjamin. It’s the same portrait that was in the other book. Family resemblances are funny things. He looks a lot like his son and his grandson—that thick jaw and bulbous nose. You don’t look like that.”

  “I resemble my father’s family,” Andy said, without looking up from his letters. “The handsome Brenners,” he added.

  Meg snorted. “Handsome is as handsome does—as Mrs. Adams might say. Your mother’s ancestors were a pious crowd, even if they weren’t pretty. John Emig sounds like a prize bigot. His daughter committed suicide. Hanged herself.”

  “What the hell—” Andy looked up.

  “That’s what it says here. She got herself pregnant by an infidel—a Lutheran. Emig belonged to a narrow, straitlaced sect that considered everybody else damned. He locked the girl up in the attic on bread and water and she—”

  “My God,” Andy muttered. “I thought things like that only happened in folk songs.”

  “He was married four times,” Meg went on. “T
he first three wives died young. No wonder. Everybody had to work till midnight Saturday and start again at midnight Sunday, to make up for resting on the Sabbath.”

  “Don’t tell me anything more about the old bastard,” Andy begged.

  “He didn’t prosper, though. Not at first. Those feeble wives of his kept dying on him—inconsiderate women… The infant-mortality rate in the family was even higher than the average—which wasn’t low. The author says John was so parsimonious he wouldn’t feed the cattle enough to keep them healthy. Imagine what he fed his kids.”