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

by Douglas Clegg

After an hour she got up, and went and put her arms around Mira, who simply stared off into space.

  27

  Mira was all that was left; Jack lay upstairs, his body smashed, and Ivy Martin and Frost were dead. Chet... gone ... and now the energy of the house had been stopped.

  Harrow felt safe, but Cali did not trust it, not by a long shot.

  28

  The first thing she did, before taking Mira to the emergency room at the hospital in Parham, was to make a call on her cell phone.

  “Det,” she said.

  “God, it’s good to hear from you,” he said.

  “Don’t talk. I have something to tell you.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “You won’t believe this, but I want you to. I want you to, because no one else will, and I’m going to need someone on my side. People are dead here, and I have a sixteen-year-old girl who is in shock, I think. I’ll be at the ER at St. Francis Hospital in Parham. It’s a long story. But I need you first to make sure this is handled right. It’s going to be exhausting. It’s going to be unbelievable. I took a gun and I shot two of these people myself. But I want you to believe me: It was the house. And everything that it held. And it’s over now. But I need your help. And I need your understanding. And I need your belief.”

  Det said, “All right. I’ll drive up right now.”

  “Thank you,” she said, and closed the cell phone.

  29

  It would be six weeks before Cali would wake up in the morning and feel that the worst was over. It would be four months before the police investigation was complete. It would be six months before Mira Fleetwood would begin speaking again, and recognizing people, and understanding that her father and the others had died at Harrow.

  The first person she asked for was Cali Nytbird.

  30

  “Did I kill him?” Mira asked.

  “Your father? No.”

  “Anyone?”

  “Mira, you have to understand: Harrow used you. Of all of us, you had the greatest ability. You had Ability X, and the house fed on that, and it fed on us.”

  “Do you think I was just insane?”

  “What do you think?”

  “I guess I believe it wasn’t me. I don’t remember it clearly. I remember bits and pieces.” Then, “I miss my dad. He’s all I had.”

  “Well, you have me now. I’ve made legal arrangements. If you want, you can live with me and go back to school next year and move on with your life. You’ll come into some money, so you don’t have to feel you owe me anything, and if you can’t stand me, it can probably be arranged that you live on your own.”

  “Moving on.” Mira shook her head. “How do you move on from this?” She looked up at Cali with tears in her eyes, but Cali saw the bravery in the girl, the sorrow and bravery all at once.

  "Your dad would’ve wanted you to move on. It’s what we have to do because it’s the only way life works.”

  “An unnatural disaster,” Mira said. "That’s what I read in the paper. They finally let me read about it. Some of the nurses here think I’m some kind of freak for having been there. They’re a little scared of me.”

  Then Mira began weeping; Cali sat on the edge of her bed and pulled her into her arms and held her the way that Cali’s older sister, Bev, used to do with her when she was upset as a girl. “I can’t tell you that it’ll ever be all right,” Cali said. “But I can tell you that life is still worth living. And I’ll never forget them.”

  “I know,” Mira said. “I know.”

  Cali wanted to add: and it’s gone. The Ability X I’ve had since childhood. The psychic spark that led my brother into a darkness from which he never escaped alive. Harrow took it from me.

  “Frost called it the Infinite,” Mira whispered. “God, I hope that house gets destroyed.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  1

  They met again, the following week, and then, within a few months, after Mira had been released into Cali’s care, Cali solved a special mystery. Mira still had her purple hair, and now a new set of nose rings and four piercings in her left ear and even a tattoo of a dragon on her shoulder, and all the things that made her beautiful and wonderful in Cali’s eyes. Mira had even gotten used to seeing Det now and then, although Cali told her that they were just friends now, nothing more.

  They went into the city and got a cab up to Grand Central Station. “For Chet,” Cali said, feeling a bit nervous at what they were about to do.

  2

  “I’ll never forget him,” Mira said. “I hope I never do, anyway. He saved my life.”

  “He saved a lot more than our lives. You ready for this?” Mira nodded. “I would’ve done it a week later if I could’ve.” “All right. The Oyster Bar at two P.M. What do you expect?”

  “Someone crazy. In all the right ways. Just like Chet.”

  “I haven’t been up here in a while,” Cali said. “Man, they jazzed this place up.”

  Mira nodded, pointing at all the shops inside Grand Central Station. “It’s like an old lady getting a face lift. Looks great, doesn’t it? I love the shops here.”

  They got to the Oyster Bar, which was a long restaurant that occupied more than one dining room.

  “We’re waiting for a friend,” Cali told the restaurant host. Impulsively, she grabbed Mira's hand and gave it a squeeze. “You as nervous as I am?”

  “Not nervous, exactly. Maybe excited and a little sad because of what we have to tell her.”

  “One thing I learned in doing psychic readings, Mira: Tell it all, but save the best for last.”

  Mira smiled. Cali felt it was like seeing the sun come out from behind gray clouds when she showed all her teeth and her lips curled up in an almost embarrassed way. “I guess the best is who he was.”

  “Yep. So we’ll start with the good. And we’ll go to the best.”

  “She may hate us.”

  “I doubt that,” Cali said. “My guess is that despite everything, she loved her baby.”

  3

  A woman dressed in a beige camels-hair jacket that looked as if it had been passed down from someone in the 1950s walked over from the bar to where they stood, feeling like a couple of spies. Her hair was a tawny brown color, right out of a bottle, and her eyes were small and squinty. She had a sexy air about her, and Cali identified her immediately.

  “Roselle?” she asked.

  “Rose,” the woman said. She looked from Cali to Mira. “You’re Cal?”

  “Cali,” Mira said. “And that’s her.” She tugged at Cali’s elbow. “I’m Mira Fleetwood.” She reached out, offering her hand, but the woman named Rose just glanced at it.

  Rose’s confidence faded fast; she looked at them suspiciously. “You said you had some information about my boy.”

  “We do, Rose,” Cali said. “Let’s get some coffee and dessert and have a chat, shall we?”

  “You buying?” Rose asked.

  “Absolutely,” Cali said. “You can have a late lunch if you want.”

  “So tell me,” Rose said. “Is he okay?”

  Mira glanced at Cali, whose gaze remained steadily on Rose. “He’s dead, Rose. Chet died in October.”

  “I knew it. I felt it,” Rose said, and Cali saw tears rise up in her eyes.

  “I’m sorry,” Mira said, and reached her arms out in some vain attempt to give the woman some human comfort, but Rose just stared at her.

  “He was a good kid, I knew that,” Rose said. “I had a dream when he was born that he would grow up and do something with his life. Become something.”

  “Let’s get some coffee,” Cali insisted. “I have a letter for you that he wrote.”

  4

  After the coffee had been served, and Mira was already halfway through her cheesecake, Rose put both her hands on the table. “I’ve had a hard life.”

  Cali tried to remain sympathetic, but it was getting difficult. Rose seemed sad about her son’s death, but she kept going on about her life and how
difficult it had been. Finally, Cali said, “Here’s the letter.”

  She drew the crumpled piece of paper from the envelope she’d kept it in for the past several weeks and passed it to Rose.

  The woman took it up and looked at it. “He wrote a lot.”

  “Would you like me to read it?” Mira asked. Before Rose could reply, Mira snatched it from her hands. Then she began,

  “Dear Mom,

  “It’s strange even calling you that. I know your name is Roselle Goodfellow. I know you loved me even though we don’t really know each other, except maybe when I see you in dreams. In dreams, you’re always telling me things, good things usually, but sometimes bad things, too. But all of it helpful. I can’t help but feeling I’ve made you up in some way, and if I could meet you face to face, we might not even get along. But I know I love you for bringing me into this wonderful and wacky world, for letting me go when you probably couldn’t take care of me or even make sure I got to school or went to church. The people I lived with growing up had their problems. You probably knew the Dillingers, I guess. They drove me nuts, but I moved on, and I created my own life.

  “If you’re reading this, and I’m there, then we’ll probably laugh or cry over this and knock back a beer or two. If you’re reading this and I’m not there...well, maybe there’s a chance I’m dead. Maybe I got run over in traffic. Maybe I died of a brain disease. Maybe an early heart attack. Hell, I don’t even know if we have hereditary diseases or stuff in the family, so I’m not sure what could get me.

  “But, if I’m not there, here’s the thing: I forgive you. That’s all I can say about the past. There’s no point in digging it all up. I forgive you and I love you the way a son is supposed to love his mother, and I don’t care what your life is like. You could be living in a mansion or in a trailer. You could be working some great job and have four kids of your own and married to a great guy in Brooklyn, and that’s fine by me. Or you could be homeless and having difficulty getting by.

  "It doesn’t matter to me, because I know who you are. You’re my mother, and there’s nothing you could’ve done in your life that I wouldn’t understand, because we’re blood, and I know you because I know myself and where I’m from, too.

  “If I’m not there to give it to you, someone should be there who can. I have several thousand dollars set aside just for you. I figure I can always earn my fortune in the world still, but you might need a little money to help out. I hope you’ll accept it. It’s not to buy your love or to buy your happiness, because I don’t believe money can do that. I want you to have it so that you can know that I want the best for you, and your happiness will mean more to me than anything. If you have a dream, use the money to help you reach it. If you have someone you love, use the money to help build a life together. If you want to give it to charity, then that’s good, too!

  “And that’s it, I guess. How many times can a son tell his mother that he loves her just for being his mother? I’ll try.

  “Assuming I’m sitting across from you right now, laughing my head off because you’re probably bawling or else making fun of my sentimentality, either way, I love ya, Rose Goodfellow! And they were wrong about you back in St. Chris. They were plain wrong. You’re some kind of angel because you made sure my life went the way it was supposed to.

  “All my affection and as much love as you can bear from your kid."

  5

  Cali could barely see when Mira ended the letter, because tears had begun blurring her vision from the fourth sentence in. She finally felt some peace, now. She had done what Chet asked of her. Cali reached in her handbag and withdrew a packet of tissues. She passed one to Rose, who took it and slowly dabbed at her eyes.

  “He steal it?”

  “Steal what?” Cali asked.

  “All that money,” Rose said, pressing the tissue against her nose and blowing. “That’s a lot of cash.”

  “I can’t believe this,” Mira muttered under her breath. She shot a glance at Cali, who shook her head slightly.

  “It was his savings,” Cali said. “Rose, he died. Do you understand that? He wrote this letter for you, and then he died.”

  “Like his father,” Rose said. “Just like his father.”

  “His father? Is he dead?”

  “Maybe. Who knows? He was a dreamer. He played some baseball, in the minor leagues,” Rose added. “I never loved the man.”

  “Do you want to know about how your son died?” Mira asked, dumbfounded.

  Rose gave her a blank stare. “A lot of people get killed in this world. I never saw my son much. I had a few other kids. I’m not really the mother type.” She sipped from her beer. “Thanks for this.” She held up the check.

  “You don’t want to know more about him? What he did?” Mira asked, her eyes practically spitting venom.

  “I’m sure he was like his father,” Rose said, and got up from the table. She glanced at Cali. “It was nice of him to give me this.”

  Rose turned and walked off across the now-crowded dining room. Cali thought it was something of a wonder that she had ever tracked her down, and then a miracle that she’d shown up.

  6

  “I can’t believe it,” Mira spat after Rose had gone. “She couldn’t really be his mother. Not that woman. Damn. We probably just gave the check to the wrong Rose Goodfellow.”

  Cali half-grinned. “He knew she was like that. He told me, late one night when we were telling each other a lot. He knew that she would never match his expectations. I tried to tell him that he was wrong, but you know what? Chet was right. She’s a mess, and yet she gave birth to one wonderful human being. You can’t point to heredity for everything, can you? There’s a mystery to existence, to who we are. Chet was a man among men, and what he did, and maybe where he went, is probably better because he’s there. His mother is caught up in her own small world, and in it, I’d guess, misery rules. Chet was never part of that, even when he was surrounded by the miserable and the mean. Even when that thing had gotten loose inside him—the way Harrow made his body do things that his spirit didn’t want to. Even then, he could make it right. Let her have the money. It was his wish. You don’t go against one of those last-wish type things. It’s only money, anyway.”

  “Only money? That was some serious pocket change,” Mira said.

  “For Chet, it wasn’t. For him, it was something to give to his mother, and let her have a chance to get beyond her everyday problems. That’s all. For Chet, it was just part of the burden of life. Maybe we can start some kind of search for his dad. Maybe his dad, if he’s alive, will want to know about Chet. Maybe his dad didn’t even know he had a son. There’s some important inner work we can do with this. I have this instinct. It’s like karma. Or some greater will than mine.”

  “You’re beginning to sound suspiciously spiritual,” Mira said, a scoff in her voice.

  “I guess I am. I guess I’ve always been, but I never really understood what spirituality was before,” Cali said, and raised her coffee mug. “Here’s to a spiritual life for even Rose Goodfellow.”

  “I can’t drink to that,” Mira said. “No way in hell. I’m sorry, Cali, but he was willing to take on all of that, and die, and she’s just some…some…"

  “All right,” Cali said, her mug still aloft. “How about: to the guy we both loved who did something to stop the Infinite?”

  “You ask me,” Mira nodded, lifting her cup, a trace of sadness in her voice but also a bit of cheer, “that’s something.”

  7

  Up the Hudson River, in a town called Watch Point, the house is locked; and what isn’t locked is boarded up; and what isn’t boarded up is sealed with concrete, including the many cellars beneath the house.

  Chains hang across the gate; windows are filled with bricks; and someday, perhaps, someone will open it again, but it will not be within the lifetime of the young woman who now owns it, left to her father in Ivy Martin’s will, and now, belonging to Mira Fleetwood, an heiress at sixtee
n, a teenager who has no intention of ever opening Harrow up again, as long as she lives.

  Perhaps it is dark now, like a candle that has been snuffed.

  Perhaps the sacrifices appeased the shadows.

  Or perhaps some fury remains within the house.

  Some kindling, piled in a comer, overlooked, full of possibilities.

  Waiting for a spark from some new human fire.

  * * * *

  There’s more Harrow! Be sure to pick up The Abandoned – the most disturbing and nightmarish of all the Harrow Haunting novels. Not for the faint of heart!

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  Publication Information

  Published by Alkemara Press, in an arrangement with the author. All rights reserved. This is a revised edition from the original published in 2001 in hardcover.

  The individual titles and this collection Copyright © 1999, 2000, 2001, 2012 Douglas Clegg.

  Cover Design Copyright © 2012 Alkemara Press

  Cover images courtesy of iStockphoto.com, used with permission. Key image Cover Copyright © 2009 @ Matthew Herte, used here with permission.

  eBook Services by Book Looks Design http://www.booklooksdesign.com

  About the Author

  Douglas Clegg is the award-winning author of more than 25 books, including Afterlife, The Children’s Hour, The Hour Before Dark, The Harrow Series, The Criminally Insane Series, Purity and many others.