Dark Tales

by Shirley Jackson

  Christopher felt his face growing red and, glad for the darkness of the hall, said quickly, “It’s a very old house, isn’t it?”

  “Very old,” Mr. Oakes said, as though surprised by the question. “A house was found to be vital, of course.”

  “Of course,” Christopher said, agreeably.

  “In here,” Mr. Oakes said, opening one of the two great doors on either side of the entrance. “In here are the records kept.”

  Christopher followed him in, and Mr. Oakes went to a candle that stood in its own wax on a stone table and lit it with the flint that lay beside it. He then raised the candle high, and Christopher saw that the walls were covered with stones, piled up to make loose, irregular shelves. On some of the shelves great, leather-covered books stood, and on other shelves lay stone tablets, and rolls of parchment.

  “They are of great value,” Mr. Oakes said sadly. “I have never known how to use them, of course.” He walked slowly over and touched one huge volume, then turned to show Christopher his fingers covered with dust. “It is my sorrow,” he said, “that I cannot use these things of great value.”

  Christopher, frightened by the books, drew back into the doorway. “At one time,” Mr. Oakes said, shaking his head, “there were many more. Many, many more. I have heard that at one time this room was made large enough to hold the records. I have never known how they came to be destroyed.”

  Still carrying the candle, he led Christopher out of the room and shut the big door behind them. Across the hall another door faced them. As Mr. Oakes led the way in with the candle, Christopher saw that it was another bedroom, larger than the one in which he had slept.

  “This, of course,” Mr. Oakes said, “is where I have been sleeping, to guard the records.”

  He held the candle high again and Christopher saw a stone bench like his own, with heavy furs lying on it, and above the bed a long and glittering knife resting upon two pegs driven between the stones of the wall.

  “The keeper of the records,” Mr. Oakes said, and sighed briefly before he smiled at Christopher in the candlelight. “We are like two friends,” he added. “One showing the other his house.”

  “But—” Christopher began, and Mr. Oakes laughed.

  “Let me show you my roses,” he said.

  Christopher followed him helplessly back into the hall, where Mr. Oakes blew out the candle and left it on a shelf by the door, and then out the front door to the tiny cleared patch before the house, which was surrounded by the stone wall that ran to the road. Although for a small distance before them the world was clear of trees, it was not very much lighter or more pleasant, with the forest only barely held back by the stone wall, edging as close to it as possible, pushing, as Christopher had felt since the day before, crowding up and embracing the little stone house in horrid possession.

  “Here are my roses,” Mr. Oakes said, his voice warm. He looked calculatingly beyond at the forest as he spoke, his eyes measuring the distance between the trees and his roses. “I planted them myself,” he said. “I was the first one to clear away even this much of the forest. Because I wished to plant roses in the midst of this wilderness. Even so,” he added, “I had to send Circe for roses from the midst of this beast around us, to set them here in my little clear spot.” He leaned affectionately over the roses, which grew gloriously against the stone of the house, on a vine that rose triumphantly almost to the height of the door. Over him, over the roses, over the house, the trees leaned eagerly.

  “They need to be tied up against stakes every spring,” Mr. Oakes said. He stepped back a pace and measured with his hand above his head. “A stake—a small tree stripped of its branches will do, and Circe will get it and sharpen it—and the rose vine tied to it as it leans against the house.”

  Christopher nodded. “Someday the roses will cover the house, I imagine,” he said.

  “Do you think so?” Mr. Oakes turned eagerly to him. “My roses?”

  “It looks like it,” Christopher said awkwardly, his fingers touching the first stake, bright against the stones of the house.

  Mr. Oakes shook his head, smiling. “Remember who planted them,” he said.

  *

  They went inside again and through the hall into the kitchen, where Aunt Cissy and Phyllis stood against the wall as they entered. Again they sat at the stone table and Aunt Cissy served them, and again Mr. Oakes said nothing while they ate and Phyllis and Aunt Cissy looked down at their plates.

  After the meal was over, Mr. Oakes bowed to Christopher before leaving the room, and while Phyllis and Aunt Cissy cleared the table of plates and cloth, Christopher sat on the bench with his cat on his knee. The women seemed to be unusually occupied. Aunt Cissy, at the stove, set down iron pots enough for a dozen meals, and Phyllis, sent to fetch a special utensil from an alcove in the corner of the kitchen, came back to report that it had been mislaid “since the last time” and could not be found, so that Aunt Cissy had to put down her cooking spoon and go herself to search.

  Phyllis set a great pastry shell on the stone table, and she and Aunt Cissy filled it slowly and lovingly with spoonfuls from one or another pot on the stove, stopping to taste and estimate, questioning each other with their eyes.

  “What are you making?” Christopher asked finally.

  “A feast,” Phyllis said, glancing at him quickly and then away.

  Christopher’s cat watched, purring, until Aunt Cissy disappeared into the kitchen alcove again and came back carrying the trussed carcass of what seemed to Christopher to be a wild pig. She and Phyllis set this on the spit before the great fireplace, and Phyllis sat beside it to turn the spit. Then Christopher’s cat leaped down and ran over to the fireplace to sit beside Phyllis and taste the drops of fat that fell on the great hearth as the spit was turned.

  “Who is coming to your feast?” Christopher asked, amused.

  Phyllis looked around at him, and Aunt Cissy half turned from the stove. There was a silence in the kitchen, a silence of no movement and almost no breath, and then, before anyone could speak, the door opened and Mr. Oakes came in. He was carrying the knife from his bedroom, and with a shrug of resignation he held it out for Christopher to see. When Mr. Oakes had seated himself at the table, Aunt Cissy disappeared again into the alcove and brought back a grindstone, which she set before Mr. Oakes. Deliberately, with the slow caution of a pleasant action lovingly done, Mr. Oakes set about sharpening the knife. He held the bright blade against the moving stone, turning the edge little by little with infinite delicacy.

  “You say you’ve come far?” he said over the sound of the knife, and for a minute his eyes left the grindstone to rest on Christopher.

  “Quite a ways,” Christopher said, watching the grindstone. “I don’t know how far, exactly.”

  “And you were a scholar?”

  “Yes,” Christopher said. “A student.”

  Mr. Oakes looked up from the knife again, to the estimate marked on the wall.

  “Christopher,” he said softly, as though estimating the name.

  When the knife was razor sharp, Mr. Oakes held it up to the light from the fire, studying the blade. Then he looked at Christopher and shook his head humorously. “As sharp as any weapon can be,” he said.

  Aunt Cissy spoke, unsolicited, for the first time. “Sun’s down,” she said.

  Mr. Oakes nodded. He looked at Phyllis for a minute, and at Aunt Cissy. Then, with his sharpened knife in his hand, he walked over and put his free arm around Christopher’s shoulder. “Will you remember about the roses?” he asked. “They must be tied up in the spring if they mean to grow at all.”

  For a minute his arm stayed warmly around Christopher’s shoulders, and then, carrying his knife, he went over to the back door and waited while Aunt Cissy came to open it for him. As the door was opened, the trees showed for a minute, dark and greedy. Then Aunt Cissy closed the door b
ehind Mr. Oakes. For a minute she leaned her back against it, watching Christopher, then, standing away from it, she opened it again. Christopher, staring, walked slowly over to the open door, as Aunt Cissy seemed to expect he would, and heard behind him Phyllis’s voice from the hearth.

  “He’ll be down by the river,” she said softly. “Go far around and come up behind him.”

  The door shut solidly behind Christopher and he leaned against it, looking with frightened eyes at the trees that reached for him on either side. Then as he pressed his back in terror against the door, he heard the voice calling from the direction of the river, so clear and ringing through the trees that he hardly knew it as Mr. Oakes’s: “Who is he dares enter these my woods?”

  Home

  Ethel Sloane was whistling to herself as she got out of her car and splashed across the sidewalk to the doorway of the hardware store. She was wearing a new raincoat and solid boots, and one day of living in the country had made her weather-wise. “This rain can’t last,” she told the hardware clerk confidently. “This time of year it never lasts.”

  The clerk nodded tactfully. One day in the country had been enough for Ethel Sloane to become acquainted with most of the local people; she had been into the hardware store several times—“so many odd things you never expect you’re going to need in an old house”—and into the post office to leave their new address, and into the grocery to make it clear that all the Sloane grocery business was going to come their way, and into the bank and into the gas station and into the little library and even as far as the door of the barbershop (“. . . and you’ll be seeing my husband Jim Sloane in a day or so!”). Ethel Sloane liked having bought the old Sanderson place, and she liked walking the single street of the village, and most of all she liked knowing that people knew who she was.

  “They make you feel at home right away, as though you were born not half a mile from here,” she explained to her husband, Jim.

  Privately she thought that the storekeepers in the village might show a little more alacrity in remembering her name; she had probably brought more business to the little stores in the village than any of them had seen for a year past. They’re not outgoing people, she told herself reassuringly. It takes a while for them to get over being suspicious; we’ve been here in the house for only two days.

  “First, I want to get the name of a good plumber,” she said to the clerk in the hardware store. Ethel Sloane was a great believer in getting information directly from the local people; the plumbers listed in the phone book might be competent enough, but the local people always knew who would suit; Ethel Sloane had no intention of antagonizing the villagers by hiring an unpopular plumber. “And closet hooks,” she said. “My husband, Jim, turns out to be just as good a handyman as he is a writer.” Always tell them your business, she thought, then they don’t have to ask.

  “I suppose the best one for plumbing would be Will Watson,” the clerk said. “He does most of the plumbing around. You drive down the Sanderson road in this rain?”

  “Of course.” Ethel Sloane was surprised. “I had all kinds of things to do in the village.”

  “Creek’s pretty high. They say that sometimes when the creek is high—”

  “The bridge held our moving truck yesterday, so I guess it will hold my car today. That bridge ought to stand for a while yet.” Briefly she wondered whether she might not say “for a spell” instead of “for a while,” and then decided that sooner or later it would come naturally. “Anyway, who minds rain? We’ve got so much to do indoors.” She was pleased with “indoors.”

  “Well,” the clerk said, “of course, no one can stop you from driving on the old Sanderson road. If you want to. You’ll find people around here mostly leave it alone in the rain, though. Myself, I think it’s all just gossip, but then, I don’t drive out that way much, anyway.”

  “It’s a little muddy on a day like this,” Ethel Sloane said firmly, “and maybe a little scary crossing the bridge when the creek is high, but you’ve got to expect that kind of thing when you live in the country.”

  “I wasn’t talking about that,” the clerk said. “Closet hooks? I wonder, do we have any closet hooks.”

  In the grocery Ethel Sloane bought mustard and soap and pickles and flour. “All the things I forgot to get yesterday,” she explained, laughing.

  “You took that road on a day like this?” the grocer asked.

  “It’s not that bad,” she said, surprised again. “I don’t mind the rain.”

  “We don’t use that road in this weather,” the grocer said. “You might say there’s talk about that road.”

  “It certainly seems to have quite a local reputation,” Ethel said, and laughed. “And it’s nowhere near as bad as some of the other roads I’ve seen around here.”

  “Well, I told you,” the grocer said, and shut his mouth.

  I’ve offended him, Ethel thought, I’ve said I think their roads are bad; these people are so jealous of their countryside.

  “I guess our road is pretty muddy,” she said almost apologetically. “But I’m really a very careful driver.”

  “You stay careful,” the grocer said. “No matter what you see.”

  “I’m always careful.” Whistling, Ethel Sloane went out and got into her car and turned in the circle in front of the abandoned railway station. Nice little town, she was thinking, and they are beginning to like us already, all so worried about my safe driving. We’re the kind of people, Jim and I, who fit in a place like this; we wouldn’t belong in the suburbs or some kind of a colony; we’re real people. Jim will write, she thought, and I’ll get one of these country women to teach me how to make bread. Watson for plumbing.

  She was oddly touched when the clerk from the hardware store and then the grocer stepped to their doorways to watch her drive by. They’re worrying about me, she thought; they’re afraid a city gal can’t manage their bad, wicked roads, and I do bet it’s hell in the winter, but I can manage; I’m country now.

  Her way led out of the village and then off the highway onto a dirt road that meandered between fields and an occasional farmhouse, then crossed the creek—disturbingly high after all this rain—and turned onto the steep hill that led to the Sanderson house. Ethel Sloane could see the house from the bridge across the creek, although in summer the view would be hidden by trees. It’s a lovely house, she thought with a little catch of pride; I’m so lucky; up there it stands, so proud and remote, waiting for me to come home.

  *

  On one side of the hill the Sanderson land had long ago been sold off, and the hillside was dotted with small cottages and a couple of ramshackle farms; the people on that side of the hill used the other, lower, road, and Ethel Sloane was surprised and a little uneasy to perceive that the tire marks on this road and across the bridge were all her own, coming down; no one else seemed to use this road at all. Private, anyway, she thought; maybe they’ve talked everyone else out of using it. She looked up to see the house as she crossed the bridge; my very own house, she thought, and then, well, our very own house, she thought, and then she saw that there were two figures standing silently in the rain by the side of the road.

  Good heavens, she thought, standing there in this rain, and she stopped the car. “Can I give you a lift?” she called out, rolling down the window. Through the rain she could see that they seemed to be an old woman and a child, and the rain drove down on them. Staring, Ethel Sloane became aware that the child was sick with misery, wet and shivering and crying in the rain, and she said sharply, “Come and get in the car at once; you mustn’t keep that child out in the rain another minute.”

  They stared at her, the old woman frowning, listening. Perhaps she is deaf, Ethel thought, and in her good raincoat and solid boots she climbed out of the car and went over to them. Not wanting for any reason in the world to touch either of them, she put her face close to the old woman’s and said urgentl
y, “Come, hurry. Get that child into the car, where it’s dry. I’ll take you wherever you want to go.” Then, with real horror, she saw that the child was wrapped in a blanket, and under the blanket he was wearing thin pajamas; with a shiver of fury, Ethel saw that he was barefoot and standing in the mud. “Get in that car at once,” she said, and hurried to open the back door. “Get in that car at once, do you hear me?”

  Silently the old woman reached her hand down to the child and, his eyes wide and staring past Ethel Sloane, the child moved toward the car, with the old woman following. Ethel looked in disgust at the small bare feet going over the mud and rocks, and she said to the old woman, “You ought to be ashamed; that child is certainly going to be sick.”

  She waited until they had climbed into the backseat of the car, and then slammed the door and got into her seat again. She glanced up at the mirror, but they were sitting in the corner, where she could not see them, and she turned; the child was huddled against the old woman, and the old woman looked straight ahead, her face heavy with weariness.

  “Where are you going?” Ethel asked, her voice rising. “Where shall I take you? That child,” she said to the old woman, “has to be gotten indoors and into dry clothes as soon as possible. Where are you going? I’ll see that you get there in a hurry.”

  The old woman opened her mouth, and in a voice of old age beyond consolation said, “We want to go to the Sanderson place.”

  “To the Sanderson place?” To us? Ethel thought, To see us? This pair? Then she realized that the Sanderson place, to the old local people, probably still included the land where the cottages had been built; they probably still call the whole thing the Sanderson place, she thought, and felt oddly feudal with pride. We’re the lords of the manor, she thought, and her voice was more gentle when she asked, “Were you waiting out there for very long in the rain?”

  “Yes,” the old woman said, her voice remote and despairing. Their lives must be desolate, Ethel thought. Imagine being that old and that tired and standing in the rain for someone to come by.