Harrow: Three Novels (Nightmare House, Mischief, The Infinite)

by Douglas Clegg

  He opened his eyes and stared at a point on the wall beyond the therapist. There was a crayon drawing of a house and some flowers that a little kid must’ve drawn. “I think I killed the baby.”

  “You think you did?”

  “Not directly. But I think there were things I could’ve done to save it. And maybe some part of me felt it was safer dead. Instead of alive. I know that sounds horrible. But I don’t think dead) is so awful. Sometimes life can be pretty awful. Sometimes I wish it was me who had died instead of the baby, and then it would be alive and might’ve gotten out of there. And been okay.”

  “Do you think someone actually killed the baby?”

  Chet sighed. “No, not in the way most people would think. I think they killed its spirit. Once you kill someone’s spirit, it’s no surprise when the rest goes, too, don’t you think?”

  “Perhaps. Chet, let’s focus back on you.”

  “Okay.”

  “What is it you want?”

  “Me?”

  “Yes: Chet. What is it Chet wants?”

  “To find my mother,” he said. And then he didn’t say another word the entire session.

  10

  Within a year of life at the group home, Chet met Jack Fleetwood, who had heard of him through a loose grapevine of therapists and doctors and quacks, all of whom knew about the second incident that Chet had experienced, despite the supposed confidentiality of their professions. None of them felt it was all that secret, that there was a teenager somewhere who claimed to have had some kind of telekinetic experience. It had been almost a joke, until it reached Fleetwood’s ears, and he was a man who kept up with people who idly spoke of this kind of thing.

  It was nothing too extraordinary: just that Chet, then seventeen, had fallen in love with a girl from Park Pleasant, a nice apartment complex nearby, and had, at the age of sixteen, lost his virginity to the eighteen-year-old vixen, only to find that when he was in the throes of his first physical passion, something horrible occurred.

  Later, he described it to Jack Fleetwood, a paranormal researcher at the time up at a place with a funny name (PSI-something) in New York City.

  11

  Chet, on tape

  “I don’t like talking about it. I really don’t. And I don’t like the fact that the whole damn neighborhood turned out. It’s not funny. It’s embarrassing. It was bad. We ... did what we did, you know ... and it was December and cold as hell ... it must’ve been forty below. It was frosty and the grounds around the apartments were covered with snow, crunchy snow, solid snow.

  “And then, you know, right when, right when it happened between us, they came.

  “They all came.

  “They just appeared like from nowhere. I have no idea how it happened, but they came and I didn’t notice them at first. I mean, I thought I was in a dream. I thought I was dreaming. I thought maybe I’d gone crazy. I thought maybe, since this was my first time, and probably my only time now, I thought maybe someone raised them nearby and had accidentally let them loose. There were hundreds of them. All different kinds. Monarchs. Viceroys. Butterflies I’d never seen before.

  “They were at the windows beating against them. Flocking. It was almost scary. Corrine noticed them first. Then I looked up. I thought it was a gag. Or a dream. But I go running to the window, buck naked, and I just barely open it to see why all these butterflies are there, and that was probably the stupidest thing I could’ve done, because they all came in and covered me, they practically covered my face and I was afraid of smothering to death, but it wasn’t like that.

  “It was like they were holding me or something, and then there were more. It was out of nowhere, but I knew it was from me, I knew it was like the baby floating and the bed flying and the cherry bomb exploding. There was something about me that did it, only now other people could see what a freak I was.

  “And they were all down there, the whole neighborhood, people out in the parking lot, pointing and taking pictures of this swirl of color all floating around. And Corrine looks at me and starts screaming like I’m a monster.

  “And then it was in the papers and it was all over the place, and I guess that’s how you heard about it. They went away after a little while. They just went off into the woods. I guess they all died. I guess they all weren’t supposed to be out yet. They froze. It felt good at first, you know, when they were all over me, like they were going to fly me up or like they were nesting against me, all those blue and yellow and red wings fluttering around.

  “I freaked and I got out of control and I thought I’d kill myself by jumping out the window, but that was when they let go. That was when they left me alone. Corrine was still screaming, and the cops showed up, and her parents showed up, and then all kinds of crap happened.

  “All I want to know is how do I get rid of this so I don’t have to be a freak anymore. So people won’t stare. So I can just get out on my own and be left alone.”

  12

  By the time Chet was nineteen he’d given up on finding his mother and was working in a gas station in Dover, Delaware. He’d married a girl from Wilmington briefly at eighteen, but it had ended after three months when she’d left him for a guy who worked construction outside Philadelphia. He knew he wasn’t the most exciting of husbands, because he didn’t really like to party like the other guys he knew, and his wife had been a little wild, although he understood her, and he missed her after she left. Then he found out she had managed to get some kind of legal annulment without him. He had no regrets about this, and took it as a normal course of life.

  The wolf, his mother had said in his dream of her, was at the door, after all.

  His obsession with baseball continued, and he kept hoping he might get good enough for the minor leagues, although he had no idea how one went about this. Because of his group home situation before he turned eighteen, he hadn’t really been that involved in the sport his last two years in high school, and he had a sinking feeling that he would never attain that one dream, to play baseball for life. His asthma had begun returning, particularly when he was out on one of the nearby baseball diamonds behind the local school. Perhaps it was the dust, perhaps it was his own exhaustion at what life required, but he found himself coughing and having to go get himself a new inhaler every few months. His doctor told him to rest and take it easy; to stay inside his air-conditioned apartment in the summer; but Chet had to be out in the hot, humid days of August, pumping gas, and found that the coughing seemed to keep pace with his new addiction: cigarettes.

  Were someone to point out to the young man that cigarettes and asthma didn’t mix, he’d probably look at that person and grin. “Yeah, but it’s the fastest way to check out.” Chet would not even know he was saying something that might indicate a passive approach to suicide. He didn’t really know he was unhappy.

  Then, one day, the letter and contract and what seemed like more money then he’d make in a year pumping gas arrived in the mail from Jack Fleetwood. He’d briefly met the man he had called Dr. Fleetwood through one of the group-home psychologists two years before. Dr. Fleetwood had asked him a few questions, none of which Chet could recall, and then asked Chet if he would mind being hypnotized. Chet nodded his assent, although he thought it was a little funny to be doing this kind of therapy, and then the next thing he knew, he was saying good-bye to Fleetwood. He figured that would be the last time he’d ever hear of or from the man. That is, until the phone calls in early summer, and then this, the check. The letter. The contract.

  Chet tried reading through the legal spider web of words in the contract but could not make them out much despite his love of reading. There were a lot of paragraphs and sub-paragraphs and sentences that went on for nearly a page at a time. It all looked fairly plumb; he could not see the wrong of it, although the ten thousand dollars seemed excessive for a few days in a mansion somewhere up in New York State.

  But something about the invitation; the money; the sense of a new and fresh adventure, where
he could crawl out of the past and into someplace where his specialness might be noticed—his charm—this brought another feeling with it.

  The wolf, sniffing at the door within him.

  Sniffing and raising a paw, and beginning to scratch.

  CHAPTER THREE

  1

  Dear Dr. Fleetwood,

  Thanks for contacting me. I’m glad you’re a fan of the show. I’ve never really been much for ghosts or ghost hunting, but I am intrigued. And of course the money is generous. The one thing I have to inquire about now is whether or not there is any possible danger involved. Not from ghosts, but from whomever else you’re hiring for the last week of October. How much is each one of us screened? I know psi talents well enough to know that they don’t always go with well-adjusted people, as you probably know from my own background. If you are not aware of my background, I’ll tell you here: I was arrested and subsequently incarcerated at the age of fifteen regarding suspicion of murder. If you don’t know the full story, I’ll send you articles, but I will at least reassure you: all charges were dropped. There was nothing connecting me to the crime involved other than my premonition about it. But because of this brief experience with the law, I had several years of psychotherapy. Both my parents and I wanted to make sure that this was genuinely a talent and not a sign of mental illness or possible psychopathology on my part. As you know, I studied with Dr. Jane Orien in Carmel in her paranormal studies program, and I’ve worked on various criminal homicide cases with regards to psychometry. What I’ve learned through these studies and experience is that there are people who have talents in these areas who have mental disturbances as well as psi ability. And yes, this has always been an issue when I meet others like this. So, this rambling e-mail is being sent to you just to ask: does everybody who is coming check out?

  Sincerely,

  Cali Nytbird

  P.S.—to answer your question, Cali is my real name—-full name, Calista. My last name is not Nytbird, but because of both my radio show and the work I do with the NYPD, I try to protect my family from possible reprisal with a pseudonym. Suffice it to say, my last name is very pedestrian and, I think, quite lovely, but I’ve found the pseudonym protects as well as influences, and yes, I did legally change it.

  2

  Dear Cali,

  I have followed your radio show for a few years, and I attended the lecture you gave on the relationship between homicide and psychic imprints. I have spent many years keeping up with those who have had psychic disturbance or enhancement in their lives, and yes, I think the others who are coming check out, both mentally and physically. Frost Crane, the best-selling author, has agreed to be a guest at Harrow; and a young man named Chet Dillinger, who I met very briefly when he had an early paranormal experience, has also agreed to come. I had invited a few others, prior to sending the check and contract, but for various reasons, they were not interested, or, I felt, they would be an uncomfortable mix with the three of you. Besides the four of us, my daughter will accompany me, and the new owner of Harrow, Ivy Martin, who is, in many ways, the primary inspiration for this venture, as well as the financial angel of the entire undertaking. I can assure you that, if nothing else, you will enjoy the week at Harrow because of the company assembled. I also know about your past, from what you’ve said on the radio, and about your twin brother, Ned, who shared your ability. I understand the darkness that sometimes accompanies these wonderful talents, and like any kind of human creativity or intuition, it is a difficult and often unsatisfying way of life for those who are endowed with an ability. But I think you can put your fears aside in this case, and just come and enjoy the study of Harrow and any phenomena we uncover there. Thank you for the note, and I look forward to seeing you. This will be fun, and it will be fascinating, I have no doubt.

  Yours,

  Jack Fleetwood President PSI Vista

  3

  Dear Dr. Fleetwood,

  Unfortunately, because of my work, my life is far too much in the public eye —at least, more than I think it should be. Yes, the history of my brother’s mental illness is very well documented, and I do feel that his own paranormal ability pushed him over the edge. My grandmother maintained that this was a hereditary condition, so that my brother’s violence and his self-mutilation went hand in hand with the visions he sometimes witnessed. I have met both charlatans and genuine psi subjects since my studies began and since beginning this radio show. What I’ve learned in all this is that: Sometimes a kook is just a kook.

  Sincerely,

  Cali Nytbird

  4

  Dear Cali,

  First, let’s get rid of this Dr. Fleetwood nonsense. I have a doctorate in paranormal studies, and I’m not fit for medical practice. Jack is fine. Regarding the kook factor: agreed. I have met many kooks in my day, as well as genuine talents. The three who are participating in the Harrow study are genuine. I would stake my reputation on it. Now, since you live near Manhattan, why haven’t we ever seen you at the Foundation? We’re not far from the Christopher Street PATH station in our little brownstone, and if I could ever intrigue you with our extensive library, please drop by. You don’t need an appointment. Otherwise, I look forward to meeting you at Harrow. I’m not completely hooked on this whole e-mail thing. But if you need to talk more on the phone, just give me a call.

  Yours,

  Jack Fleetwood

  5

  Dear Jack,

  I am always the last to know. I am going to trust your judgment, and I look forward to meeting you at Harrow next week. My life is hectic at the moment. I seem to be consulting too often with the NYPD, which, as you can imagine, is full of skeptics. But I will definitely take the last days in October off for your ghost-hunting endeavor.

  With only slight trepidation,

  Cali Nytbird

  6

  Cali Nytbird hesitated when her cell phone began to ring. She was in midsentence, practically shouting across the table—there were so many people yapping in the Starbucks coffeehouse, she wasn’t sure she’d hear anyone on the phone. She had just downed enough caffeine to kill a horse, and still she felt exhausted when she thought about who was calling her.

  All right, she could admit it to herself: exhausted and jumpy.

  Only three people had her cell phone number; one of them sat across from her. One of them was her mother, who lived across the country and never called this time of day. The third person who had this number, Detweiler, a police detective who had pissed her off lately, no doubt was calling. At long last. Too little, too late. He’d probably be calling about an investigation; he never talked personal business on the phone. She didn’t want to answer it, but it was part of a job she’d taken on just a year before. A dirty job, to some extent. A job that made her feel as if she was filthy herself. But a job she felt obligated to do, mainly because she wanted to help track down murderers—and if her gift helped with that, it was God’s will, just like her mother used to tell her. Cali had her own doubts about cosmic will, from God or otherwise, but she did feel she had a duty to the world, in her own small way.

  She glanced across the table at her sister, Bev, who looked as if she was going to spit her coffee across the table at her. Bev was the sensible and smart one in the family pecking order. Cali was the wild, impetuous one, at least according to her mother: the adventuress. Bev, Mrs. Sensible, with her perfectly groomed coif and her suburban ways and even that little jacket she wore—right out of the Paramus Park Mall. Bev had been married to the same guy for nine years. Cali refused to get married. She loved Bev like they were best friends instead of sisters, but Bev was never going to understand the crossing wires of Cali’s romantic life with her business life. Even I don’t pretend to understand it.

  Bev leaned into the table and mouthed: Is it him? Cali opened the phone, nodding, and said into the speaker, “I’m in the middle of my life. Where is it?”

  “Thanks. Upper West Side. Off Seventy-second and Central Park West. Near that trattoria
you like.” His voice was razor thin, like he’d been up for three nights shouting. His Brooklyn accent still carne through, and despite her annoyance at his call, she felt a brief sigh, almost within her soul.

  “Trattoria Sambuca. Love that place.” Cali raised her eyebrows to Bev, who was shaking her head. Bev sipped her espresso and glanced back down at the copy of Vanity Fair she’d been leafing through. But Cali knew that Bev would hear every single word and probably dissect it for her late that very same night on the phone after Bev’s husband had gone to bed.

  “Where are you?” he asked.

  “Starbucks. In Chelsea. The one on Eighth and Sixteenth.”

  “Cappuccino?”

  “Chai. Bev’s here. We went shopping,” she said flatly.

  “You went shopping in the real world?”

  “Can’t buy everything online. Yet.”

  “Amazing,” he said. “Wait, let me guess: You’re carrying that shoulder bag you got at Paige Novick—the turquoise one with that kind of mesh thingy on it. The one I think looks sort of like an old bowling bag. And you’re wearing your Kate Spades, even though you should be wearing boots or something with the way the weather keeps changing. And your jacket. It’s ...”

  “This the fashion police?”

  “I just know you, I guess. Maybe I’m a little psychic, too.”

  Cali wanted to scream, but she counted to five silently. Then she said, “It’s been two weeks. Now this.”

  From across the round table, Bev whispered, “Yeah, give it to him.”