Stoney Beck

by Jean Houghton-Beatty

  “Hello,” came the sleepy voice which told Biddy the doctor had already retired for the night.

  “Did I wake you?”

  “What is it, Biddy?”

  “I’m wondering what you think Fred and Edna will say when I tell them Beverly was screwing around with an honest-to-God practicing Roman Catholic priest. What are they going to think when I tell them he’s Sarah’s father?”

  Angus Thorne sat up straight in his bed clutching the phone. “You’ve said this sort of thing before, Biddy, so let me spell it out again. Fred and Edna are not living in that tree. They died two years ago, so why don’t you do them a favor and let them rest in peace.”

  “You think I’m losing my mind don’t you, but it’s you. You’re the crazy one.”

  Angus stared into the mouthpiece as he heard Biddy slam down the phone, then came the dial tone. Just before she’d hung up, she’d laughed, a mad bray of a laugh.

  He replaced the receiver in its cradle. First thing tomorrow he’d get on the phone to Jonathon and the Social Services. This had all dragged on far too long. Biddy Biggerstaff was plainly deranged and if something wasn’t done immediately, she may be capable of doing herself harm, or, God forbid, harming Sarah or Jenny. He thumped his pillow and turned out the light.

  ***

  Biddy couldn’t stop giggling as she dropped the phone on the counter. Suddenly she felt in control, the way she used to before that girl came to the village. Even the walls had stopped their pulsating. Still, she began to shiver. The scariest part still lay ahead. It was time to tell Fred and Edna. She had never actually seen them in the tree. They were too shrewd for that. But sometimes, mostly at night, when she opened the kitchen door, she heard the jangle of the charm bracelet Edna always wore. Sarah stood beside her and when Biddy asked if she heard the clink of her mother’s bracelet, the girl gave Biddy a wide-eyed look as if she was the loony one instead of the other way round. Even though Biddy had heard the sound many times since, she had never mentioned it to Sarah again.

  Now, with one quick tug, she opened the curtains and stared at the rain lashing sideways against the windows. For the first time in ages, she forced herself to look at the tree. Not sure how Fred and Edna would react, Biddy picked up a tea towel and smiled as she waved it over her head. There was no answering sign from the tree, but they were there all right, probably peeping through those holes that Sarah said were squirrels’ nests. Biddy opened the pantry door wide so Fred could see her lift his old yellow mackintosh off the nail behind the door. He’d always thought a lot of the tattered old thing and would appreciate her taking care of it. She put it on slowly, looked toward the window and gave another wave, then laughed for Fred’s benefit as she looked down at the mac nearly touching the floor. Far too long for her, the laugh said, but not to worry. She lifted her walking stick off its hook, then opened the back door and stepped out into the teeming rain.

  Once outside, Biddy was glad of the stick. In between the forked lightning flashes it was pitch black and the grass was slippery underfoot. She half turned to go back and switch on the outside lights, or at least get a torch, but if she did, she’d give herself away. Edna and Fred would know she was terrified. Rain lashed against her and the wind whipped the mac as lightning zigzagged across the sky followed by roll after roll of thunder. The tree, with its bleached dead bark, leaned toward her. Its huge limbs, at least fifteen of them, all had small dead branches at the end, sticking out like skeleton’s fingers, flexing like real hands.

  Leaning on her stick, she stumbled along on jelly legs, her heart banging against her ribs, until she stood about twelve feet from the tree’s massive trunk. For the first time, even in all this wind and rain, she got a whiff of Edna’s favorite perfume, a sickly smell of flowers that had always reminded Biddy of a funeral. She tried to look up but the rain beat down on her glasses blurring her vision, plastering her hair against her head.

  “Beverly told us a pack of lies,” she screamed into the wind. “There was no American fiancé. Sarah’s father’s a priest.”

  Over the din of the storm, Biddy heard the sighing. Sarah, Sarah. That’s all. Just Sarah over and over. The dead branches swayed from side to side. Those unseen leaves rustled about Biddy, behind as well as in front, the fingered limbs stretching toward her, swiping across her face. She wanted to brush them away but the howling wind was so strong, if she took even one hand off her walking stick she’d lose her balance and fall.

  Her quaking wet hands pressed on the stick as she struggled to stand upright, and strove to raise her head. She saw him then, standing in the fork of the tree. If it hadn’t been for his green anorak she would never have recognized him. A cold awful dread clutched at Biddy’s vitals. She had expected the handsome, laughing Fred, as he was before the wreck. But this hideous apparition had half his face torn away, with one eye hanging out of its socket on his blood soaked cheek. His head leaned crazily to one side as he pointed a finger at her. And suddenly Edna was there too, perched on a lower branch. At least Biddy thought it was Edna because she recognized the pale blue suit. Otherwise she wouldn’t have known because the disgusting thing had no head. Biddy had heard Edna was decapitated in the wreck but had almost forgotten it until now.

  Biddy’s chest felt as if a huge bird was in there, banging its wings against her ribcage. She bent her head and pressed all her weight on her stick. Yet the harder she tried to get away, back to the safety of the house, the more she felt herself being dragged down, as if the very ground was sucking her in.

  The lightning forked again, and this time there was the same sort of splintering crack she’d heard when the tree was struck two years ago. She pressed hard on her stick, trying to get a foothold. And now another sound, a crunching, accompanied by a chattering. The grisly things had come down from the tree and were walking on the gravel very close to her, carrying a light of their own. She saw them then. At least she saw Fred’s feet. She closed her eyes as his horrible dead hands grabbed hold of her, pulling her from each side, tearing her to pieces.

  ***

  As Jenny drove north on the M-6, she switched on the radio and flipped from station to station, searching for something light. When she heard Glen Campbell singing “Southern Nights,” she took her hand off the dial, remembering other summers in Charlotte. How, as children, she and her friends watched for the first lightning bugs and how they’d run with their jars trying to catch them. Before her Dad had gotten sick and her Mother knew what a bad nerve was, they would pile in the car and drive to Uncle Tim’s place on the lake. Jenny as a teenager, spent hours water skiing with her friends while Dad or Uncle Tim pulled the boat. Then after sunset, before night set in, there was that deep purple of the sky, when the grownups would each have a beer while she and her friends drank Pepsi. The grill was fired up for hot dogs and hamburgers, while Mom tossed a salad or made slaw. Those were the good times.

  As the song ended, and the first drops of rain began to fall, Jenny switched on the windshield wipers. Within minutes, she was in the middle of a violent late summer storm.

  She came off the motor way and slowed her speed to twenty. Driving conditions were bad enough on the highway but especially hazardous as she maneuvered the narrow, inky country lane.

  She looked to the left as she passed Glen Ellen. The blinding quicksilver flash lit up the house and the massive dead tree out front. She glanced in the rear view mirror before slowing the car to a crawl. She wasn’t imagining it. Somebody was actually standing under the tree. She turned into the drive and eased the car toward the house, the tree directly in her headlights. She came to a stop close to the tree, left her lights on high beam, then bent her head into the wind and rain as she dashed across the gravel.

  “Why are you out here?” she shouted at Biddy.

  Her words were blown away by the howling wind.

  She grabbed Biddy’s arm. “It’s dangerous under this tree. You could get struck.”

  Biddy beat her fists against Jenny’s chest, a
t the same time screaming at her to stop pulling her into the ground, she didn’t want to be buried alive. Jenny saw the problem straightaway. Biddy’s cane was caught in the hem of her raincoat and the more she leaned on the cane to pull herself up, the deeper she shoved the coat into the sodden ground. Jenny yanked on the cane and pulled it free, causing Biddy to lose her balance and fall against her.

  Biddy’s hair had come loose from its bun and hung in wet strands on her shoulders. Her face was ashen, her eyes wide with terror, telling Jenny the woman wasn’t seeing her but someone or something else. Still shrieking and flailing her arms, her claw of a hand came within an inch of Jenny’s eyes. Biddy was a small woman compared to Jenny but shoved with the strength of a big man, sending Jenny sprawling onto the bench under the tree.

  She watched Biddy lurch toward the house, scramble up the back steps on her hands and knees, then stagger inside and slam the door.

  For a couple of minutes, Jenny leaned her back against the bench, shivering. Then, suddenly petrified Biddy might open the door and come after her with God knows what, she made a run for the car. She fell onto the front seat, locked the doors, and picked up the cellular phone. With a trembling finger poised over that first button, she hesitated. Bad as all this was, did it really warrant dragging Andy, or his uncle, or Dr. Hall out of bed in the middle of a night such as this? In North Carolina it would be unheard of. Surely the woman was safe in the house from whatever terror she thought was in the yard. Jenny would call Dr. Thorne in the morning. He would then call Dr. Hall and between them they could decide what to do. She lowered the phone onto the car seat and turned the key, then drove slowly round Glen Ellen’s circular drive and headed down Vallhellyn Lane toward Stoney Beck.

  At the intersection of Market Street, she turned left toward Andy’s house. The lights were on and all she wanted was for him to take her in his arms and hold her until she stopped shaking. She parked her car next to his van then dashed through the pouring rain up the path. Although she had a key, she banged on the door until he opened it.

  She wasn’t prepared for his open-mouthed look of surprise. “Jenny, what in the hell— You’re wet through.”

  She looked down at her soaking clothes, ran her hand through her sopping hair. Then, like a child she let him take her hand and lead her upstairs. While she shivered and stuttered her way through her skirmish with Biddy in the storm, Andy gently removed her wet clothes, wrapped his terry cloth robe around her, and ushered her into the bathroom to take a hot shower. When she came out, he rubbed her dry with a huge warm towel, even blow-dried her hair. Finally, he carried her to his bed, the covers already turned down. He climbed in beside her, and pulled her to him, shushing her with his mouth on hers when she tried to tell him the rest of the story. She was safe now, he said, nothing mattered at this moment, nothing but the two of them all alone.

  ***

  Biddy came round and found herself on the kitchen floor, her back propped up against the door. She couldn’t see the cuckoo clock, had no idea what time it was or how long she’d been out. As if it read her thoughts, the damn bird shot out and cuckooed once. It had been eleven o’clock when she’d gone out in the storm. Two hours ago. She cowered down lower. If she lived to be a thousand she’d never forget the sight of Fred and Edna in that tree. She could still feel Fred’s awful dead hands as they grabbed her. God alone knew what he would have done if she hadn’t broken free and beat him to the house.

  But a small thing like a locked door wasn’t going to keep those two out now. Could they already be inside, hiding, watching her lying there? She raised her head and looked across the kitchen into the hall. Was that scratching, chattering sound coming from the lounge? She stretched her stiff arms above her head, grabbed hold of the doorknob, and cried out from the pain that shot through her legs as she struggled to stand.

  On her feet at last, her chest heaving, she slung off Fred’s mac, then hobbled to the table. She seized a book of matches and shoved them into her pocket before reaching for the can of petrol she’d placed near the table leg. With the heavy can weighing her down, she stumbled out of the kitchen and across the hall to the lounge.

  The strange sound was louder now and coming from the fireplace. She squinched her eyes almost shut and with all the concentration she could muster, stared at the wall over the mantlepiece. The bricks became glass and Biddy screamed at the sight of Fred struggling in the chimney breast, a foot or two below the headless Edith, holding onto her hand, guiding her as they made their way down the chimney. If they had heard Biddy’s screams, they weren’t letting on.

  Because of her trembling hands, it took her ages to unscrew the cap on the petrol can, but at last it gave. She tossed the cap away and weaved across the tilting room, her gaze lowered, too terrified to glance again at the fireplace or the wall over it. Just a few steps away from the hearth, she slung half the can’s contents on the chimney wall and the surrounding carpet, then as she backed out of the study, sloshed the rest on the furniture, the floor in the hall, then halfway up the stairs until the can was empty.

  Panting from the effort, she leaned against the kitchen doorpost. The worst was over. Surely not even Fred and Edna could survive what Biddy was about to do. Ever since they’d died she’d practically worked herself to death taking care of this house. She’d done her best for Sarah too. But in spite of everything, nobody cared, and none of it mattered any more. She’d make them pay though and at the same time make sure the American bitch didn’t get her hands on this house. Biddy smiled as she reached in her pocket for the matches. In another second or two, Glen Ellen would go up in smoke.

  Chapter Thirty-one

  When Jenny opened her eyes, Andy stood beside the bed looking down at her, a mug of tea in his hand. He placed the mug on the night table, then sat on the side of the bed and pulled her to him, while she struggled to keep the sheet up over her naked breasts, blushing as she leaned against his shirt, thinking of last night.

  “It’s only five thirty, but I had to wake you,” he said as he rubbed his hands across her back. “Uncle Angus rang about twenty minutes ago.”

  Jenny pulled away, pulling the covers up to her neck at the sudden chill. For the first time, she noticed Andy’s grave face and somber tone.

  “Something’s happened,” she said. “Did they call? The hospital?”

  “No, no. I rang soon as Uncle Angus hung up. Your dad is fine and Sarah is still coming home today.” He held her face in his hands. “It’s about Glen Ellen, Jenny. There was a fire up there last night.”

  She dug her fingers into his arms. Biddy under the tree in the storm flooded back. “How bad?”

  “Half of the front of the house is gone, and—”

  The early morning call of a bird close by was interrupted by the roar of a motorcycle tearing up Market Street.

  Andy reached for the blanket at the foot of the bed and put it around her. “Biddy’s dead.”

  Jenny’s mouth opened and closed but no words came.

  He picked up the mug and handed it to her. “Here, drink this else it’ll get cold. Uncle Angus is coming over. Your clothes are on the chair there, all dried out. Can you eat something? A piece of toast?”

  She shook her head almost gagging at the thought. Then, after gulping some tea, she snatched up her clothes and with the blanket around her ran into the bathroom.

  She was at the table with Andy when Dr. Thorne arrived. His usual debonair appearance was gone. He had on a V-necked maroon sweater fraying at the cuffs, pulled over a shirt, unbuttoned at the neck. He hadn’t combed his hair and it was the first time Jenny had seen him without one of his wild bow ties.

  He scratched the bristle on his chin, making a scraping sound, then pulled out a chair. “Molly Duggan couldn’t sleep,” he said for Jenny’s benefit. “She saw the flames and called the fire department. Half the downstairs is gutted as well as the room over the lounge, and the main staircase is gone altogether. Biddy kept most of the rooms closed. Good thing too. It
helped contain the fire. By four o’clock they had it under control.”

  He picked up his mug of coffee. “Couldn’t save Biddy though. They found her up against the kitchen door, petrol can clutched in her hand. It was the smoke.”

  While Andy made toast and poured coffee, Jenny told Dr. Thorne all that happened last night at Glenn Ellen. The doctor buttered his toast while he listened, then scooped a spoonful of marmalade out of the jar. The man was made of iron. How could he eat with all this going on?

  “God only knows what she was doing out there in the first place,” Andy said. “It was a hell of a night.”

  His uncle wiped his hands on his napkin. “She finally went over the edge. It’s a damn good thing Sarah wasn’t there.”

  “I had the phone in my hand to call someone,” Jenny said, her voice beginning to tremble. “Maybe if I had, we could have stopped her.”

  “I wouldn’t start going down that road if I were you, Jenny. Who knows what she would have done.” He placed a piece of toast on her plate and pushed across the butter and the marmalade. “Eat this. Andy, give her a bowl of cereal and a banana if you’ve got one.”

  Jenny took a bite of the toast and swallowed hard trying to get it down. She finally made it when Andy poured her a glass of orange juice.

  “Sarah doesn’t need to know any of this yet,” Andy said. “I’ll go with you to bring her home. We’ll get off the M-6 one exit earlier onto a back road, and we won’t have to go past Glen Ellen.”

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Bishop Fitzpatrick called at the hospital to see Charles, and at the same time brought a picture of the Madonna and Child for Sarah. Father Woodleigh was wan and pale but it was clear to the bishop that the priest was on the mend. “Please, Charles,” Vincent Fitzpatrick said, with a half-smile, “don’t try to get up. I’ve come to wish you well and to deliver some news, something for you to mull over.”