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

by Douglas Clegg

  “Jesus Christ,” Frost said. “Are you going to actually talk about it?”

  Silence, again. Cali seized the opportunity to grab a fortune cookie from the small white plate at the center of the table. She cracked it up. “My fortune is perfect,” she said. “‘You will go on a journey that will take you to happiness. Just do not step off the path, or you shall be lost in the forest of confusion.’ Well, that’s a bit of an elaborate fortune, but it fits with Harrow.”

  Chet grabbed his cookie and drew the slip of paper out. “Aw. Mine’s kind of boring.”

  “What’s it say?” Mira asked, reaching for her fortune cookie.

  Chet held up the slip. “ ‘Fortune smiles.’”

  ‘That sucks,” Mira said. “Mine’s better. Take one heart and add one other, and you will still have one perfect heart.’ Now, that’s sort of a Harlequin moment.”

  Frost Crane stared at nothing, and then closed his eyes. He took another sip of whiskey and said, “The book was called The Infinite Ones, and in it, this medium talked about how Harrow was a portal for another world. Here’s the thing: I think she was right. That’s the only reason why I’m here at all.”

  “A porthole?” Chet asked.

  “A portal,” Fleetwood said. “Anyone mind if I smoke my pipe?”

  “I do,” Mira said.

  “Me, too,” Cali added. “But go ahead. Maybe we can open a window.”

  ‘Too cold out there.” Mira said.

  “I have asthma,” Chet volunteered weakly. “I mean, sometimes. When there’s smoke around.”

  “Okay, okay,” Jack Fleetwood said, setting his unlit pipe beside his plate. “Used to be,” he added with some slight sadness, “a guy could smoke after dinner.”

  “Used to be,” Mira said.

  Before an uncomfortable silence ensued, Cali decided to get back on topic. “Portals,” she said. “They’re like doorways to something unseen, basically. At least that’s what I’ve understood them to be.”

  3

  “A portal is like that.” Fleetwood nodded. “An opening from some other dimension. That probably sounds crazy to most people, but since each of you has had some event that might indicate there’s another dimension, say, to our existence, an unseen one, I’d guess each of you understands that.”

  “I wrote about portals in my first book,” Frost Crane said.

  “Wow. You both have books?” Chet asked

  “I have two,” Frost said. Then he added, his mouth wrinkling into a half-smile, “Both of them best-sellers.”

  “Frost was on ‘Jerry Springer,’” Mira said.

  “I’ve heard of you,” Chet said, although it sounded like a lie. Cali watched him for a moment. She had thought at first that he was a sweet if naive All-American boy who was confused by whatever psi talent he’d received in life. Now she wasn’t sure. He was cute enough, and seemed bright, if slightly backward. But there was something wrong there.

  Something wrong. She could sense that.

  “‘Oprah,’” Frost said. “I was on ‘Oprah.’ Twice.”

  “I must’ve missed that one,” Mira said. “I usually like Oprah books. I read Wally Lamb’s book. The one about the twins.”

  “I Know This Much Is True,” Cali said.

  “Yep. That one. It was good.” Mira nodded. “But I go more for John Irving. A Prayer for Owen Meany is one of my favorite novels.” She turned and touched Chet’s elbow. “What’s your favorite novel?”

  “Catcher in the Rye,” he said. “It’s funny, because I only got it from the library because I thought it would be about baseball. But I liked it a lot. I used to read a lot when I was in school. I really liked Moby Dick, too. I don’t know why, because no one else in English class liked it. I think it was because something happened in it. In some books, nothing ever happens. But I probably watch too much TV.” Then he pointed his fork at Frost, who looked as if he were about to be attacked. “But that’s pretty amazing. A bestseller writer. That’s cool.”

  “My dad has a book, too,” Mira added.

  “Mine,” Jack Fleetwood said, “was a best-seller in my home, but that’s about it.”

  “Four thousand three hundred and fifty two people bought it,” Mira said, with some small spark of pride. “In hardcover, no less. Sometimes I think the better the book, the fewer people who read it.”

  “I read it,” Cali said. “It was interesting.”

  “Thanks.”

  “It was good,” Frost said grudgingly. “I really liked what you had to say about bending reality.”

  “Right,” Cali said. “It applies to everything I’ve dealt with in my work.”

  Chet leaned back in his chair. “So a portal is a doorway? And this place is a portal.”

  “I think so,” Jack said. “I’ll play you the tapes tonight, if anyone wants to stay up a bit.”

  “Tapes?’

  Jack nodded. “EVP—Electronic Voice Phenomena. There’s been a lot of research done on recording haunted places—particularly portals—to see if anything will show up on the tape.”

  “Magnetic fields,” Cali said. “I’ve interviewed some people about it. The ghosts—or whatever you’d call them—emit electromagnetic charges.”

  “That’s right,” Jack said. “We’ve got very basic motion detectors around the house, too.”

  “Yeah. I put most of them around. It felt like there were a hundred of them. And the thermal scanners,” Mira said. “Plus, we’ve even got night goggles for everybody.”

  “Night goggles?” Chet laughed. “Cool.”

  Mira nodded. “You can get most of the stuff at Staples or Radio Shack—the taping is done with Panasonic voice-activated minirecorders, but the night goggles we got from a place in England. They’re Gen III. All that really means is that they allow you to see farther in the dark than you can with the naked eye. They’re cool.”

  “Outrageously expensive, but definitely cool. And EMF—that’s an electromagnetic field meter,” Jack Fleetwood said. “It’s for keeping track of any fluctuations in the electrostatic charges. We’ve got one in each room. Digital thermal scanners, too. Just a couple of them, so that if we come upon any sudden changes in temperature, it can be measured.”

  “Sounds like a prison,” Cali said. She didn’t want to add: And a colossal waste of money.

  “I brought a digital camera to take some pictures,” Frost said.

  Mira shook her head, “No, that won’t work.”

  “Mira,” her father said softly. “A little politeness goes a long way.”

  “Sorry,” she said. Then, to Frost: “Sorry. It’s not that digital is so bad, it’s just that as evidence ...”

  “As evidence it won’t hold water,” Cali volunteered. “Digital imaging is too easy to manipulate.”

  “That’s part of it,” Jack said. “Plus, of course, there’s the problem of an environment with insufficient light. In bad light, a digital camera might create the sign of a phenomenon when there is none. They’re problematic. And we’re after evidence here, not just an experience. I’ve experienced hauntings before. I know they exist. But to gather as much proof as possible seems to be the only way to convince anyone else. We have the video cameras around, too, as I’ve mentioned to a couple of you already, but even video is hard to use if you want to convince people of this kind of thing. Basically, anything on film or tape can become illusory and is very easy to tamper with. I’m just hoping to get enough down to bring a preponderance of evidence.”

  “Why not just hire some scientists? Why bring in ... us?” Chet asked. “I mean, if you want proof, no one’s going to believe a bunch of freaks of nature.”

  Cali s eyes widened, and she giggled.

  “Speak for yourself,” Frost said.

  Yet another deadly silence overcame the table.

  Mira broke it. “We use an Olympus camera, and sometimes Polaroid. Dad developed our first pictures this morning—the negatives go to the local photo shop to be developed as well, but they
take forty-eight hours to get them back to us. But we have the first prints to see if there’s anything worth looking at. We took some pictures last night, and got some orbs.”

  “Orbs,” Frost said, a farting laugh in his voice. “That’s ... goofy. At best.”

  “Some people think so,” Jack Fleetwood said good-naturedly. “But they’re hard to explain away.”

  “Orbs like balls?” Chet asked. “Man, do I feel stupid here.”

  “It’s not much,” Mira said. “But sometimes in manifestations, there are these balls of light—not really balls. Sort of oblong. Like small balloons, sort of. And they’re cool. I’ll show you the pics later on.”

  “They’re just tricks of light,” Frost said. “Honestly, Jack, you can’t go in for every bit of ghost-hunting bullshit if you expect to prove something here.”

  “I want every bit of evidence,” Jack said. Then he stood up. “I need to go for a little walk and smoke my pipe. Anyone care to join me?”

  Cali raised her hand, as if she were in grade school. “I’d love to see the grounds a little.”

  “You won’t see much right now,” Frost said.

  “We’ve got lights out in the garden. That’ll be a nice place for a smoke. And then, anyone who wants coffee, we’ll make a big pot and have it in the library in ten minutes or so. Sound good?”

  “Let me go get my coat,” Cali said. “Should be fun hunting up some ghosts.”

  “I don’t believe in ghosts,” Chet said, leaning back in his chair and glancing up at the ceiling. Cali looked up also, and noticed the scorched area around what had once been a beautiful raised, circular surface. “I don’t think they exist. Not like everyone talks about.”

  “You will,” Jack Fleetwood said. “Here, in Harrow, you will.”

  4

  Cali tried to keep up with Fleetwood, but he was apparently in a hurry to get outside and light up his pipe. She had to take double steps to keep up with him. They went out the doors on what must’ve once been a conservatory—beautiful green glass all around—and she stepped out onto a flagstone walkway. The lights were harsh and nearly blinding as she closed the door behind her.

  “They’re usually used for making movies, those lights,” Jack Fleetwood said, his pipe thrust into his mouth, a gentle curve of smoke coming from it. He spoke with his teeth clenched, and she nearly laughed at how boyish he looked, unlike the professorial air she’d detected inside. He had put a baseball cap on and a wool scarf, as well as a thick red sweater to keep out the chill. He looked like a deranged Little Leaguer of five foot eight or so.

  She drew her jacket around her shoulders. “It’s like a baseball stadium out here,” she said, and as she walked beside him now, she noticed the older wall and the sprays of stone arches that grew like tentacles from the back of Harrow. “What’s all this? An aqueduct?”

  Jack laughed. “The ruins of an abbey. Nothing in Harrow is local. All of it was brought in from ruins in Europe and from

  Central America. Very little of its wood was even from the U.S. Gravesend—”

  “He’s the architect?” Cali said, trying to keep up.

  “No, he was the owner. I guess you could call him the creator of Harrow. It’s his psychosis that planted this house here. Thank God. I truly believe that he was creating a haunted place. I truly believe that.”

  They spoke a bit about the others still inside, although Cali learned nothing she didn’t already know: that Chet was a bit of an innocent, simple in some ways, but very much at the mercy of the phenomenon surrounding him; and that Frost Crane was a narcissist with a devilish lack of self-esteem that manifested itself in a big fat ego. “But I can’t blame him. Or any of you,” Fleetwood said. “I’m a bit jealous.”

  “Seems strange to be jealous of Frost.”

  “Not just Frost. All of you. You have Ability X.”

  “Ah. The infamous Ability X.”

  “Don’t mock me,” he said good-naturedly. “I have always been fascinated by the paranormal, but it hasn’t really touched me, beyond my studies.”

  ‘Tour life’s work. That’s getting touched a lot, you ask me.”

  “Ah,” he said.

  “Ah what?”

  “The classic self-hatred of the talented.”

  She stopped and looked at him. “What’s in that pipe anyway?”

  “All kinds of wonderful things,” he said. “All of them bad for me.”

  “Why self-hatred? I don’t hate myself.”

  “No, I don’t suppose you do, Cali. But you hate that you have the ability you’ve got.”

  “Well, I hate the fact that I spend too much on clothes, too,” she said.

  “Now who’s mocking?” he asked. “Here, look at this.”

  A narrow path led through a hedge, and when she’d followed him through it, it opened up into a sunken garden that seemed as big as a football field. Patches of ivy and weeds covered much of it, but there were three statues standing there in the white, flat, artificial light. Each statue had a vaguely Greek or Roman cast to it; one was a winged Victory sort of woman—or possibly an angel?—and one was a satyr sitting on a large um; and the third was a young, handsome man, laurel wreath on his head, grapes in his hands.

  “Only one of them is original to Harrow.” Fleetwood said, using his pipe as a pointer. “That one.”

  “The angel?”

  “Yes. She’s a Victorian sculpture that Ivy found in a shop in Toronto. The man who had given Harrow over to the school—named Alfred Barrow—had apparently gotten rid of this, but it was traceable, and Ivy managed to bring her back. She’s a bit chipped, and her nose—see how it used to be?” He drew his pipe along the cracked nose of the angel. ‘The others aren’t original. They’re close approximations of a few of the other statues that were once here.”

  “One question?” Cali asked.

  “Shoot.”

  “Why so few of us? And so few of you?”

  “Six people are plenty,” he said.

  “But if you want some proof, something to take back ...” she began.

  “All right, here’s the thing: Ivy is paying for everything. She is endowing this venture, and she didn’t want ten paranormal investigators, all schooled in ways of approaching this. I’m interested in proof. She’s interested in unlocking Harrow. And its secrets.”

  “And we’re the keys.”

  “In some respects, yes. In others, no. But I agreed with her that we needed sensitives in this, and not just analysts and ghost hunters. The history of Harrow’s hauntings is actually short, and limited to a few months at a time, and then—nothing, apparently. Why? Because when Harrow has exhibited haunting in the past, there has always been a psi talent nearby.”

  “But a girl died here last spring?”

  “Yes, and she may have had some untapped psychic ability. Or not. But it was the first indication that something had not just burned out here with the fire. It was still smoldering.”

  “Did Harrow kill her?”

  “No,” Jack said, his voice a bit enraged. “And I don’t think you need to worry about personal safety. The girl’s heart gave out, and she’d had a condition for years. It happens. She could’ve been in an elevator that skipped a floor, or fallen down in the tub—her heart may have given out from those things at that moment, as well. She probably had a shock. She probably experienced her ability for the first time, and it probably was not good for her to be at Harrow when that happened.”

  “Oh,” Cali said, understanding a bit. “Like the first time I experienced my ... ability.”

  ‘That’s right. Each of you probably had a big shock the first time. But after that, you began to understand it and get used to it. I doubt the girl who died here did. My guess is, she saw something, briefly, that frightened her, and then, given her heart condition, she died. Surely some of the things you encounter scare you.”

  Cali tried to suppress the mental image of Gloria Franco’s body on the floor of the apartment, and the man with the
knife over her. A brief flare of a thought came up with this image: Why would he kill Gloria if he loved her? What would make Gloria beg to be killed like that? They walked a bit in silence, Jack puffing on the pipe as if it were a lifeline, and Cali’s mind elsewhere even as she looked across the well-lit autumn garden and admired the stonework and the urns that were set in rows behind some dried, twisted vines.

  ‘That seems nuts,” Cali said. She kept her voice down a bit. “Sorry if this offends you, but, Jack, Ivy Martin must be a lunatic.”

  “In some ways, she is. But she understands something about Harrow. Something that I might not have even understood.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “It’s like a body,” Fleetwood said. “It needs all its limbs and fingers and features if it’s to come alive.”

  “And we’re here to bring it to life.”

  Fleetwood turned to her, and his gaze met hers. For an instant she felt a spark—almost like a shock from touching something—and he said, “You’re here because you are, in some ways, the flint.”

  “Yeah, I guess you’re right,” Cali said, but didn’t feel so light and carefree on the inside. “Christ, it’s cold out here.”

  “Yep, it may be the end of October, but winter’s coming fast to Watch Point,” Fleetwood said.

  “It’s beautiful,” Cali said, turning to go back to the house. “But I want to get back to that fireplace and a nice cup of coffee.”

  Suddenly a blurred shape rushed out from between the statues, and Cali nearly screamed, but the blur slowed down and became Conan, the muttly border collie, again, and he came up to her and put his muddy front paws right on her thighs as he jumped up to bark a greeting. She practically collapsed with laughter, but Jack was a little less amused. He clapped his hands and came up and pulled the dog down. “Shoo!” he said. Then he said to Cali, “I’m so sorry about that. He’s filthy. I told Mira not to bring him.”

  “It’s okay, it’s okay,” Cali said, wiping at the mud, still giggling. “Dogs I can take. Ghosts are going to be a different story.”