The house had eight rooms, three large ones and a full bathroom on the first floor, a kitchen, a dining and a living room in the front of the house. The upstairs consisted of five rooms, a bath, three bedrooms and a bright sewing room where my grandmother used to conduct her séances.
I stood at the bay window and laying my hand on the cold windowpane, searched the landscape outside. I could see for a long distance. All the way over to where my parent’s house once stood, and the fields and woods creeping along the horizon. I lifted the curtain away from the window. The light brightened noticeably across the room in a dazzling yellow shaft, as the dust particles danced in the stream of sunlight.
My eyes were mesmerized by the view. Something inside my head began to hum and my hands felt cold. I trembled with the sense something was coming, but too far away yet to reach me. In my memory I saw the gnarled cherry tree Jim and I used to climb…the woods…our old house…then the vision blurred and I wiped my eyes as if I’d been weeping.
As I watched, the ruins seemed to come alive. Whispers, angry bees, swirled in my head. I strained, while leaning against the window, to understand what the whispers were trying to tell me but they were too faint. I shook my head to clear them away. My fingers feathered against the windows, down, down. I slid slowly, soundlessly, to the floor, my head slipping down the glass. I was having a vision as I’d had so many times before but here it was different. I knew if I let go I’d fall into an endless quicksand. I’d be vulnerable. Unprotected.
Gasping, I struggled not to faint, not to give in. The cry which issued from deep within me came out silently. I don’t want to see. I don’t want to see it again.
The woods. The child’s pathetic body mangled and bloody.
The past? Oh, my God—the future?
The vision was so intense I could have reached out and touched it. Dream actors in a bloody play. No! I was sobbing as I pulled myself up along the window ledge and my eyes swept the sea of snow-spotted browns and grays outside. It was April now, but the winter had left its mark.
Far away on the outskirts of the woods something hovered. Something slithered among the shadowed trees and my heart became a lump of ice. I followed it as it moved and heard laughter echoing on the air. I thought I heard a child’s broken wail, and far away I saw…
My fingers froze to the glass and my eyes stared, unable to pull away from what I was seeing. Inside I cringed. A child was being hurt and I couldn’t help, I couldn’t lift a finger. I wished I could hide it from my mind’s eye, block out the screaming voice, but I couldn’t move. It was as though I were being forced to watch.
Once more I asked, “Had it happened long ago? Or was it yet to come?”
Charlie!
The hated, demonic voice penetrated the frailty of my conscience and forced me to listen.
“I have waited, Sarah…for you.”
The trance broke and my heartsick scream cut through the fog and released me. I was thrown away from the window, a rag doll, and sprawled on the floor.
How could I fight it? How could I stop what was to happen?
When Jeremy came running up the steps and knelt down beside me, I’d composed myself and wiped the tears from my face. I was rattled at the power of what I’d sensed. My hands were shaking so badly I sat on them to keep Jeremy from seeing.
I’d been challenged and warned. It made no difference because I was also trapped. I’d been told I couldn’t escape. Would not, this time. No matter what I did.
“Mom, are you okay?” Jeremy was blubbering over me, his angelic face as white as flour. “I heard you scream and I came as fast as I could. Mom?” He shook my shoulder, glancing around the room to see what might have frightened me.
I took him into my arms and held him tightly. I was more afraid for him than me. The trap had been baited with honey and I’d fallen into it. The trapdoor had sprung and there was no going out the same way I’d foolishly wandered in.
The thing in the woods wouldn’t let us leave now. It had us where it wanted us, had wanted us all these years.
I took my son’s face into my hands and looked into his eyes. I saw the fear, the concern, and sealed my heart. Gathering my courage, I took a deep breath and lied. “I’m all right. Nothing to worry about. I stumbled over something and I think, I might have twisted my ankle, that’s all.”
I never lied to Jeremy but I wanted to protect him. He mustn’t know. He mustn’t suspect. Until I could decide what we’d do I didn’t want to frighten him with ghosts and visions. He wouldn’t understand. I made a show of trying to stand with his help and limping around a bit to make my story believable. I’d left visible slide marks in the dust where I’d fallen, supporting my story, and Jeremy accepted the fabrication as any child would, with blind trust.
“You ought to be more careful, Mom,” he clucked, helping me down the stairs. I braced myself along the walls and chunks of plaster crumbled away and clattered down ahead of us.
The wall color had once been baby blue like the kitchen and was now faded with aged neglect. The house was in an appalling state and it’d take elbow grease to put it right.
Jeremy chattered as we went, oblivious of the heavier thoughts churning inside my head. We’re like plow horses with blinders on sometimes. We only see what’s in front of us, especially when we know there is danger flowing on either side.
My mind was busy calculating how to put our life into shape. How to fix up our home and take care of bills and what to have for supper. What color to paint the living room. Where to begin cleaning.
How to stay alive another night. How to stay alive.
How to escape what surely wanted to kill us or find a way to destroy it.
I needed time to figure out what we should do. Time.
We worked most of the day cleaning the debris out of the house. Jeremy, who was strong for his age, helped me carry the furniture, what was unsalvageable and light enough, into the back yard and stack it up. The house contained everything I remembered, as if nothing had been touched from the day my grandmother died. Most of the stuff was in fairly good condition and perhaps valuable because of its age.
We swept the floors on the lower level and scrubbed everything in sight until it shone. Jeremy had brought a portable radio and we turned the music up loud as we worked. I resisted dwelling on the danger and what I’d heard from the woods in the early morning. I worked until my muscles ached, but the haunting voice still echoed in the recesses of my mind.
The well hadn’t dried up. The water spurted erratically from the pump, tinged with rust and sediment, but I thought it was still usable and drinkable. Jeremy held his nose and made faces when he drank it. But it was water and we needed it.
By the time the sun sank through the sky the lower floor was more than livable, kind of cozy, if you didn’t think about how filthy the carpeting and upholstery were. We’d taken the rugs outside and shaken them. Until the rest of our stuff came and the electricity was on it was about all we could do.
We’d come prepared. Jeremy lugged in the sleeping bags and lanterns from our camping days, and we cleared a space in the middle of the living room to sleep. It’d warmed up and Jeremy had begged to stay in the house all night. I didn’t argue. I was so tired we could have been in Alaska, on the middle of an ice floe and I wouldn’t have cared. Anything was better than the bug trap down the road we’d spent last night in.
We devoured the chicken and potato salad by lantern light and crawled into sleeping bags side by side, with arms around each other. Jeremy fell asleep in my arms but I lay awake for a long time, clicking off an invisible list of things done and things yet to do.
I listened to the creaking sounds of the house, probably objecting to our disruptive presence. I listened for the voices, but the night was hushed and only our breathing fluttered through the rooms around me.
It
was sleeping, too. Or, was it only waiting?
From the moment I’d seen the ruins of my old home, I knew someone, or something, had demolished it on purpose.
“They burned it down, didn’t they?” I whispered to the silent house. “It was a symbol of evil and the town sacrificed it, didn’t they?” Tears had settled in the corners of my eyes.
I thought I heard whispering somewhere above us.
Something was with us in the house. I could feel it, yet I wasn’t afraid.
I knew it wasn’t what lived in the woods. Something shifted in the room behind us and faint murmurs skittered beyond my level of hearing.
“They burned it down to the ground after we left, didn’t they?”
No answer. But the feeling of condemnation was strong.
“We should have stayed, right, and fought it?”
Something soft and faint settled on my shoulder and whispered agreement. Something as light as fingers from the grave.
Can a ghost touch the living? I didn’t know.
“Would it have helped if we’d stayed? Would more of us be alive today?”
The whispers were silent.
I closed my eyes and sighed. I saw the woods and the dark hulking shape abiding and brooding there. Something had put the image in my mind. Something was trying to tell me something. Who? What? I sat up and strained my eyes searching the room.
“Grandmother?” I murmured softly, “What does it want?” There was a scurrying of shadows and sighs trembling through the rooms. Finally they faded away into the night and the house was quietly empty once again.
I drifted off to sleep feeling safer than I had in a long time. I’d learned the secret of the house. It wasn’t a trap, it was our sanctuary. My grandmother had loved us, me, with a love stronger than death and hadn’t forgotten me. She’d been gone a long time but she was going to help me, as she’d promised.
Content, I slept.
Chapter Seven
Jeremy wasn’t there when I awoke. Enveloped in a sleepy fog, I glanced at his empty sleeping bag, afraid to think of anything else. It was chilly in the house and I crawled out of my cocoon, shivering, and went to look for him. We’d both slept in our clothes and mine felt damp against my skin.
I heard a suspicious shuffling above me. As I climbed the stairs I told myself I was silly to worry. I couldn’t keep Jeremy by my side every moment of the day, we couldn’t live like that. There wasn’t anyone upstairs. I returned to the first floor.
“Jeremy, is that you?”
The house seemed so strange all of a sudden. My nose was runny and I wiped it with the back of my hand. How many weeks, months before this tomb for old memories and spirits became a real home? I was beginning to have doubts this house could ever be free of its remnants.
“Jeremy!”
“Here, Mom!”
He was lounging at the end of the front porch, his feet dangling over the edge of the rotted railing, a left-over piece of chicken half way to his mouth. He turned to wave it at me.
“This porch is neat, huh? We’ve never had a porch before. So I’m enjoying the morning. It’s nice out.”
I could hear the birds chirping in chorus around us. The sky was a cloudless blue, the sun a bright orb warming the earth. It was hard to believe three days ago it’d been snowing and now it was spring.
“You were so wiped out, Mom, I tip-toed out so I wouldn’t wake you.” He gnawed at the chicken.
“I was tired.” I pulled him off the railing. “If we’re going to sit out here, let’s spread a blanket and sit where we can’t fall off. I don’t want you splitting your skull. Hear?” I peered down at the drop and the concrete and stairs below.
“Yes, Mom.” He nodded, crossing his legs and squatting on the floor. “You worry too much. I can take care of myself.”
“Sure you can.” I didn’t tell him he was all I had. Or say I was afraid of losing him. I was at the railing taking in gulps of clean morning air. The place was so beautiful. There was the strong scent of rain. It smelled like my childhood. Nothing bad could happen to us here in grandmother’s house, I told myself. Everything was going to be okay. In the April sunlight I could believe in anything, even fairy tales.
In that moment, oh, how I wanted to live in her house, in the town I’d once loved and eventually feared. I knew the place was lulling me into a false sense of security but I couldn’t help it. I kept thinking, this is our new beginning and nothing is going to steal it from us. We’ll manage somehow. No faceless, soulless entity in the distant woods was going to chase us away. We were staying.
“It’s late. We’ve got work to do.” I smiled at the sun, shading my eyes. He thought I hadn’t seen him wipe his greasy fingers on his blue jeans. “Ready to work or do you want more to eat?”
“No. I’m full now.” He grinned. “What do we do today?”
“Well, I guess what we should do is go and enroll you in the neighborhood grade school.” He didn’t see the glint in my eye.
“Are you kidding? It’s Sunday.” He stood there defiantly. He had no sense of humor, Jonathan’s child.
“Easy.” I put up my hand. “Can’t take a joke?”
“Sure.”
“Though it’s something we should take care of this week.”
“Mom? Let’s face it, you need help here and what’s a few days more anyway? Didn’t I make A’s and B’s last time?” His look was a plea.
“No, a few more days couldn’t hurt anything, you’re right.”
“Good. Let’s go paint the house.” Everything else was forgotten and he ran ahead to the car to get the supplies from the trunk. I found I wasn’t very hungry.
I tied a scarf over my hair and dug out the paint brushes. We brought in water from the pump to scrub down the walls first. Good thing the water was clear and not some shade of brown.
By the time we were working on the third wall in the living room, paint was splattered on the sheets I’d spread over the floors and on us. There was probably more paint on my skin than on the walls. I fell to the job with relish. It helped me forget the doubts squirming around in my head.
“Mom, there’s someone at the door,” Jeremy yelled and went to answer it.
It was the lawyer.
“I saw the car outside and suspected it was either you or else a very gutsy burglar. I’m Clarence Largo.” He was a small man. When I stood up and clasped his offered hand, I towered at least six inches over his silvery white head. He had one of those serious, narrow faces typical of an old-time lawyer. No laugh lines, yet his gray eyes shone with intelligent humor.
“I’m Sarah Towers.” I smiled, aware of the paint cracking on my face. He bobbed his head, looking me over first and then my son. He finally smiled and reached out to pat Jeremy’s head.
“This is my son, Jeremy,” I added.
He looked past us to the now white walls. “I gather you’re staying awhile then?” He appeared nervous, but curious. His eyes ate everything in sight.
“I think so. But there’s so much work to do, as you can see. It’d help,” I dropped a hint, “if we had electricity and heat.”
His bushy eyebrows rose as he studied me. “I’ll take care of it. My sister-in-law works at the power company and she can pull a couple of strings here and there. I promise you, everything will be working tomorrow. I even have a handyman in mind to check up on the plumbing, wiring and the general condition of the house.” He winked at me.
“Thank you. It’s kind of you.”
“No. I’m doing my job.” He pulled a pen out of his jacket’s breast pocket, and a business card. “I’ll leave you my telephone number so you can tell me if you need anything else.” He glanced up with those intense eyes of his and I had the feeling there was something he wasn’t telling me. “Don’t hesitate. Call me any time.�
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“I don’t have a phone yet.”
He smiled, backing towards the door. So he was in a hurry to leave, was he? I realized he was frightened. Of what?
“I’ll take care of that too,” he spoke quickly. “I have another appointment now so I must fly.” He glanced at his watch to make it look good. “I’ll drop by again soon.
“Oh, I have a letter for you. I don’t actually have it with me as this was an unscheduled visit. As I said, I didn’t know I was coming myself.” His smile was genuine but weak, his face pale. His hand was balanced on the door.
Could he feel it, too, then?
“I’ll be sure to have it next time I come.”
I couldn’t resist asking. “Did you know my grandmother, Mister Largo?”
His reaction shocked me.
“No! She was my brother’s client many years ago. When he died, I took the case over for him as I did all his others.” He spread his hands, his voice subdued. “To be truthful, I never thought you’d come to claim your inheritance.” He cleared his throat and attempted a smile.
“I knew the rest of your family, though.” The words hung in the air between us. Now I knew why he was acting so peculiar. “You look so like your mother. It’s remarkable.”
His eyes darted around the room. “You have your work cut out for you.”
I knew he’d purposely changed the subject and knew better than to ask any more questions. If the rest of the neighborhood reacted to us the way he was doing, we were going to be two lonely people. He looked at me as if I were a ghost.
“It’ll be beautiful when we’re done. My brother’s coming to help.” I was trying to be friendly. We’d need a friend.
“Your brother?” His face was blank.
“Jim. He’s coming to help us restore the house.”
“Anyone else?”
“No, we’re all that’s left.”
His face showed no emotion, but his eyes filled with what I thought was pity.
“I appreciate your help. Thank you.” I shook his hand goodbye.
Evil Stalks the Night Page 9
