House of Many Shadows

by Barbara Michaels

  She could hear Culver on the floor above. He was running back and forth like a mad thing; an occasional crash marked his progress. When Meg burst into the library, Andy was on the phone. His face was twisted with pain and anger.

  “Goddamn it, I don’t care if you are tied up with a car crash on 40-S. I’ve got a hopped-up maniac with a gun here! I’m wounded; I’m bleeding…” He let out a convincing yell as Meg started winding dishcloths around his arm. “See? All right, for God’s sake make it fast!”

  He dropped the phone with a crash and caught at the desk.

  “I can’t do much except stop the bleeding,” Meg muttered. “I’m sorry if it hurts…”

  “Okay.” Andy sank his teeth into his lower lip. “Hurry up. We’ve got to get out of here before he—Oh, no. No, not now, this is no time for—”

  His good arm went around Meg and they clung together. There was no way of stopping it once it began, and somehow they both knew that this vision would be different from all the others. The aura of breathless waiting, the supernatural horror blended into a single overpowering force, robbing them of the power of movement. When the shadow room took shape it had a reality it had never had before. The girl was solid and alive. Meg knew that if she reached out she would feel warm, living flesh.

  Anna Maria was close enough to touch. She was in the act of whirling around; her skirts whipped out, her unbound hair was a veil of gold against the shadows of the night-dark kitchen. Her face was set in a glare of horror, and on the breast of her blue gown a dark stain glistened wetly. It was not her blood; Meg knew instinctively that her dying grandfather’s head had rested there for a moment before Anna Maria fled from his killers.

  Meg forgot Culver and his gun. The girl’s plight was as real to her as her own. Once, when she had seen Hamlet superbly acted on the stage, she had found herself praying, absurdly, that the beleaguered Prince of Denmark would escape this time, and confound his enemies. This was the same irrational hope, intensified beyond endurance. She wanted to scream at the girl: “Run, hurry, get away!” Whatever fate she had met in 1740, Anna Maria was now dust; and yet Meg felt as if she saw a living, breathing girl who might be saved. There was no one in the firelit kitchen except Anna Maria, but she had turned to stare in terror at something, or someone. The murderers must be close on her heels.

  Then Meg’s heart gave a single, suffocating beat. The girl was breathing. She saw the small breasts rise and fall. For the first time, their vision was animated.

  Anna Maria’s head turned. Her eyes stared straight into Meg’s, and widened until the whites showed all around the pupils. For a long moment the two girls, the living and the dead, looked into one another’s eyes. Then Anna Maria’s lids dropped. Her slender body crumpled. As she fell, the picture dimmed; it was gone before they saw her body strike the floor.

  Andy’s arm was like an iron bar around Meg’s waist. She could hardly breathe; when she heard the screaming wail in the distance she thought at first it was the last faint echo of Anna Maria’s terror.

  “The police, God bless ‘em,” said Andy, in her ear.

  “She saw me,” Meg gasped. “Andy, she—”

  “I know, I know, but there isn’t time for that now. When Culver hears that siren he’ll lose what few wits he’s got left. I don’t want to be in his way when he does. For Christ’s sake, Meg…”

  He dragged her toward the door. Meg tried to walk, but her knees felt disconnected. Then Andy stopped. The siren was coming closer, and Culver’s feet were pounding down the stairs. He was screaming. Meg couldn’t make out the words.

  Andy pulled her back against the wall. It was too late to leave the room now, they would just have to hope Culver wouldn’t come looking for them, in a final orgy of destruction.

  Culver ran into the drawing room. A lamp went over with a crash. Then the running footsteps came back. Andy looked desperately around for something to use as a weapon; but the footsteps passed the door and went on. He was in the hall. Meg heard the front door open. The sound of the police siren burst in, it must be on the drive by now.

  Then they heard a sound neither of them ever forgot. It was audible even over the mechanical scream of the siren, and it came from a human throat. Meg didn’t know when it stopped. It blended with the noise of the siren, and when the latter cut off, a silence like death descended on the house.

  Finally Andy stirred. “Shall we have hysterics now, or wait a while?”

  “I’m all right,” Meg whispered.

  “Then let’s go greet the cavalry. Right on time.”

  But he hadn’t taken two steps before he swayed and collapsed. Meg was kneeling beside him when Fred found them.

  II

  “No,” Fred said. “We never fired a shot. He took one look at us and keeled over. Must have been his heart. There wasn’t a mark on him—except needle marks.”

  They were sitting in the kitchen. Fred had his notebook open. Andy was drinking coffee strongly sweet with sugar; he had requested brandy, but had been refused. His arm had been bandaged and was in a sling; he was full of penicillin and tetanus serum and pain killer, but the alert glitter in his eye told Meg he had no intention of obeying the doctor’s order to go to bed until certain matters had been settled. Anyhow, as he pointed out, Fred had to write his report.

  Fred had moved fast when the desk sergeant passed on Andy’s call for help. He had even brought along a doctor from the scene of the auto crash, where the injured had been sent off to the hospital. The other officials had left now, taking Culver’s body with them, and Fred was winding up the case, as he said with youthful satisfaction.

  “Now then,” he said, licking his pencil. “You say you found him in the kitchen when you came out—for a snack, or something?”

  “Or something,” Andy agreed.

  “Then he shot you.” Fred shook his head reproachfully. “Never jump a guy with a gun, Andy. Especially a junky.”

  “Belated, but useful, advice. I’ll keep it in mind.”

  “From what he said, you figured he was planning on stealing some more stuff. The town’s all excited since Sylvia was here; they figure you found something valuable or she wouldn’t bother coming. I guess Culver heard the stories. He’s been hiding out in the woods. I could almost feel sorry for the poor devil, now he’s dead. Living like an animal out there.”

  “There never was any hope for him,” Andy said. “I wonder what it was that drove him to kill himself.”

  “Naw, he didn’t kill himself,” Fred said. “Oh. Yeah, I see what you mean. Well, I’m glad I don’t have the poor bastard’s death on my conscience. We never touched him. I could see him plain in the headlights when we pulled up. He was on the porch steps. I thought for a minute he was going to go for his gun, but he just let it fall. God, I never saw such a look on a guy’s face. I guess he knew he was caught. He just plain scared himself to death. You could call that suicide, I guess.”

  He closed his notebook.

  “Well,” he said, more cheerfully, “that about winds it up. You better go to bed, Andy. Want me to help you upstairs?”

  “I didn’t get a shot in the leg,” said Andy coldly. “Run along, Fred; I’m sure the good citizens of Pennsylvania need you more than I do.”

  “Okay.” Grinning, Fred slapped him on the back. Andy’s eyes opened wide, and Meg said indignantly,

  “Hey, that hurt!”

  “Oh, I forgot. Well, good night, all.”

  They let him find his own way out. The front door slammed.

  “Heart failure,” Meg said.

  “You’re thinking what I’m thinking.”

  “Drugs can induce hallucinations. Or visions.”

  “And fear, sheer terror, can stop a man’s heart. We know what it felt like—out there—and we felt it from a distance. Imagine running right into it, not even suspecting it was there until you were face to face with them… I guess old John Emig can carve another notch on his gun.”

  Meg shivered. “Want some more co
ffee?” she asked.

  “No, thanks.”

  “Want to go to bed?”

  “Give me about twenty-four hours,” said Andy. “I heal quick.”

  “I didn’t mean that.”

  “I did.” He put his hand over hers, which lay limply on the tabletop. “Meg, I’ll risk it if you will. I have a feeling the worst is over—with me, and with the house. We don’t have to stay here—”

  “I want to stay. Maybe Sylvia will let us have the house. Maybe I can get a job in Wasserburg. I don’t know whether the worst is over—and I don’t care. Maybe the whole horrible business repeats itself every year, over and over, like a broken record. We’ll get used to it, after ten or fifteen years.”

  Andy laughed.

  “Nod politely to Anna Maria as we pass her in the hall, and say ‘Excuse me’ to my bloodthirsty old ancestor when we come home at night? I should have suspected John Emig as the murderer, after the passage in the book that mentioned his streak of bad luck.”

  “He blamed it on Huber, of course. Having the old man reject his son as a suitor for Anna Maria would intensify his hatred. But the cool effrontery of the man—to think of him sitting there pretending to deliberate about Huber’s death… I wonder if the other jurors suspected.”

  “No matter what they thought, they wouldn’t betray him. There are still a clannish lot; back then, they would close ranks for one of their own against a stranger like Huber, especially since many of them shared John Emig’s belief in witchcraft. To them he was an executioner, not a killer. He had rid the world of something evil.”

  “And then to take over Huber’s farm the way he did. That’s just plain stealing. Wouldn’t you think his conscience would prevent him from profiting from his act?”

  “I think I’ve got that figured out too.” Andy freed her hand. “Give me that book, will you? The one Mrs. Adams sent.”

  Meg handed it to him, but after a one-handed struggle Andy gave it back.

  “Look up the Emig genealogy for the mid-eighteenth century.”

  “Here it is. Old John; his wives… Twenty-two children! Sixteen died young… Eldest surviving son, Jacob, married Ann Friedland… Oh, my God.”

  “Anna Maria von Friedland—Ann Friedland. The name Huber was too notorious. But she was the old man’s heiress; that could be proved. What’s the date of the marriage?”

  “It’s 1741. I don’t understand. If she survived, how come they didn’t find her? How could she marry the son of her grandfather’s killer? Why do the books report her disappearance, but not the fact that she survived?”

  “The last question is the easiest. Tragedies make sensational reading. The murders hit the newspapers, but the girl’s reappearance was anti-climatic. And John Emig would make sure it wasn’t publicized, or even known, outside this area. No one else was interested. She had no relatives to contest the disposal of her grandfather’s property, and her lover was dead. Emig’s neighbors would accept any story he told. Maybe they knew the truth; maybe they didn’t want to know it. We’ll never know for sure either, but I think it must have happened something like this.

  “John Emig was a witch hunter, a wreaker of the Lord’s vengeance. But he wasn’t a cold-blooded killer. He had no reason to murder the girl. She had attended church; she was a brand that could be snatched from the burning. He had practical reasons for keeping her alive, too. His son wanted her and he wanted her farm. The night the others were killed, Anna Maria was abducted. They took her with them, kept her imprisoned in some isolated place—God knows, there were plenty such places. The whole family was in a conspiracy of silence. They worked on her for a whole year. Lecturing, reading from the Bible, thundering denunciations… It would work eventually. We know how well it works; brainwashing is a modern word, but the process is as old as these hills. And I suspect she was not quite right in the head after what she had seen that night. She’d be easy prey. I’m surprised it took them that long.”

  “That’s the most horrible thing I’ve ever heard,” Meg said in a shaken voice. “It would have been better for her if she had been killed.”

  “You know what I find the most horrible part of the business? The things that were in the box with the sampler. The girl’s entire former life, wrapped up and put away. Even the buttons off a murdered man’s coat. They were silver, after all. Worth money. The necklace was vain adornment. Emig wouldn’t want to see it on his daughter-in-law, but he was too thrifty to throw it away. That sickens me, somehow. The hypocrisy of the self-appointed saints of God… But in a sense, Anna Maria Huber was dead when John Emig packed up her pitiful heirlooms. Maybe she found some pleasure in life afterward— bearing Jacob’s children, tending his house. Jacob wouldn’t care if his wife was a little feebleminded. It wasn’t her mind he was interested in. Oh, Meg, don’t agonize over her; don’t cry. She’s long dead.”

  “But not at peace,” Meg muttered. “I know it’s silly, but I can’t help it. She was innocent. She never hurt anybody. And I feel so—guilty. There at the end, when we saw her, she was trying to get away. She was in the kitchen. If she hadn’t seen me—if she hadn’t fainted—she might have escaped. Her lover would have found her—”

  “He might have found her anyway, if he’d kept his head and not copped out,” Andy said. “Aren’t we supposed to learn nice neat moral lessons from other people’s miserable experiences? That anonymous soldier should be a lesson to me. He was her only hope. My God, she must have cowered in that room where they kept her, praying that somehow he’d find her and rescue her. Her romantic hero, the gallant soldier—who was too big a coward to live with his sense of failure. I’m sure the Emigs told her when he shot himself. That would have been the fatal blow for her. And I did the same thing, after I failed someone who asked for help. I tried to cop out too.”

  “If she hadn’t seen me—”

  “Damn it, Meg, haven’t you been listening to me? Here I am baring my soul and making profound moral resolutions, and you keep harping about feeling guilty. That’s a cop-out too—guilt. You can keep yourself so busy wallowing in self-disgust that you don’t have the energy to act.”

  “She’s not at rest,” Meg said. “Her spirit—”

  “There are no restless spirits here,” Andy said. “There are no ghosts. There never were.”

  “You can’t possibly believe these were hallucinations.”

  “No. Don’t you understand what happened? We got a clue from Huber’s journal, when he bragged about raising spirits. I wondered then; and at the last, when Anna Maria saw us, I knew. We were Huber’s spirits, Meg. If you want to wallow in guilt, there’s a good excuse. Indirectly, we were partially responsible for Huber’s death. He saw us, just as we saw him—and boasted to his neighbors about his prowess in controlling the unknown. Want to shoot yourself now?” Meg stared at him unbelievingly.

  “I can’t feel guilty about—are you serious, Andy? If you’re right, then what happened was like a slip in time—”

  “A fold in the fourth dimension,” Andy said. “Two different centuries overlapped for a time—but I can’t use that word. Time is meaningless. According to some theories, every event, every moment, coexists simultaneously. If we knew how to do it, we could plug in on any event in the past, because it’s all out there—somewhere. I don’t know what happens after death. I don’t know about the soul. But I do know that what we saw was not Anna Maria’s anguished ghost. It was the girl herself, as she was—experiencing pain and suffering that is done, over with, finished—a quarter of a millennium ago. Where she is now, I don’t know. I prefer to think she’s… all right. And I don’t think she’ll come back unless we let her.”

  “Then we won’t. We’re going to have enough problems.”

  “True. I’m broke, you know. Every cent I made on the last book went for medical expenses.”

  “Me, too.”

  “I’m not exactly a good risk emotionally. I might crack up again.”

  “I may not be finished with my old-type halluc
inations.”

  A slow smile spread across Andy’s face. “There’s no use trying to get out of it, Meg. We’re helpless. Sylvia’s already made up her mind.”