The Stone Bull
Page 31
“Floris was an ugly person. You already know that.” He had dropped the whispering to speak in his normal voice and the very ordinariness of his tone made my flesh crawl. “She would have destroyed Laurel and everything it stood for. She would have played into Loring’s hands and brought in the bulldozers. Of course I felt Loring had to go—though I had bad luck that time on the roof. And if I’d known you were there—ah, that would have been bad for you, Jenny.”
I clutched at cold stone, with terror striking through me. Now I would never see Magnus again. I would never tell him how I felt.
“When we talked yesterday,” Keir went on, “I thought everything would be fine and you would go away. I needn’t worry about you anymore. And then last night when Naomi showed her film you began to remember. You do remember, don’t you, Jenny? Whatever it was that Ariel told you?”
I dared not answer, dared not make a sound.
“When Brendon borrowed my truck this morning to bring you up the mountain, I took the shortcut through the tunnel. He’d talked to me before about showing you what was down here, so I knew where he was coming. But that’s enough of talking, Jenny. Come out from behind the panther or I’ll come and get you.”
The flashlight beam moved again as Keir moved, and in a moment it would impale me. Then I heard a great crashing of sound from the tunnel opening at this end of the room. There was a roar of fury as the door burst open, and at the same instant I screamed.
“Magnus—I’m here! Help me, help me, Magnus!”
A second flashlight illumined our end of the room, and before Keir could move around the panther, his son was upon him, hurling him away from me. He crashed into a concrete wall, then righted himself, staring at us in the beam Magnus turned upon him. Somehow the terrible look on his face reminded me of the panther Magnus had hidden in this room.
Before his son could move, Keir ran for the tunnel door and disappeared into the passage. Magnus made no move to follow, playing the light over me.
“Jenny, are you all right?”
Without question or hesitation I went into the arms he held out for me.
This time it is really over. Keir is dead and the full truth will never need to be known outside of the family circle.
When he ran from the tunnel this morning he went straight up the mountain to where the cliff drops steeply down to the talus below. He threw himself out where the falcon had soared, and they found his body later. There were those on the tower who saw it happen, and there is no question that it was anything but suicide.
Brendon had begun to guess, and Irene had told him more last night, but he had wanted me away and uninvolved before he took action. Then it was too late. Magnus, too, loving his father, had closed his eyes to much that he might have seen, had he been willing to look and believe. That day when he had rescued me from the water, he’d walked along the lake road looking for his father, knowing he had driven in that direction. But even when he found the truck from which Keir had been watching me row, and which he had abandoned when he saw Magnus coming—not even then did Magnus accept what was happening. He had rescued me and been thankful for the accident of the truck being there, so he could take me to the hotel quickly. But he hadn’t put it all together until recently, when he had begun to suspect that “mistake” about the boat. Even then, he’d felt that his father wouldn’t touch me again. He had no proof of anything, and was still stunned by his own suspicions, still pondering what to do.
His putting it together had come almost too late, as it had for me, when Ariel’s words on the phone had flashed into my mind. What Ariel had said was, “I can’t injure the father when his son has been so good to me.”
This morning Magnus saw Brendon driving me up the mountain in Keir’s truck. Earlier, since he had been watching, he had seen his father go into the underground tunnel, so he posted himself near its entrance to wait. But when time passed and Keir didn’t come out, he grew anxious and started into the tunnel himself to find out what was happening. When he heard Keir’s voice, he stopped to listen—and then burst through the door.
So now, in the late afternoon of this dreadful day, I sit in Magnus’ cabin. And I know at last that this is where I want to be. The log fire blazes before us, warming away the long chill, and I am safe within the circle of Magnus’ arm. We have talked a great deal. I understand his pain over his father’s death, and even more for Keir’s guilt. But that guilt has been paid for, and perhaps it is better this way.
There was one question Magnus asked—and that was why Brendon had taken me to the underground room this morning.
“He wanted to shock me,” I told him. “He wanted to turn me away from you. But the panther he thought was so horrible didn’t frighten me.”
Magnus laughed. “He belonged to my gothic period. I got rid of some things in me that were not very pretty when I did that two-headed beast. Perhaps I got rid of an extra head of my own.”
I leaned into his arm. “There’ll be time to finish your marble bull now. All the time in the world.”
He nodded, his beard scratching my cheek. “Yes. After I’ve moved away, and you’ve come back to me.”
“Come back? But I’m not going anywhere!”
“Of course you are. Tonight you’re going down to the house to stay with Irene, who probably needs your company now. Tomorrow you’re going home to New York. For a while. So you can think about everything that’s happened and begin to digest it. When you’re sure of what you want to do, we’ll see. No more reckless falling into a love that won’t last. I want you to be happy, Jenny. And I want something for myself. I’m going to build a cabin on that land out in Pennsylvania and try to forget about Laurel.”
I began to shake my head and his arm tightened about me as he bent to kiss me—hard.
“Shut up, my darling Jenny. It’s time to stop and think. This time it’s got to be for real.”
The common-sense part of me knew how right he was and thrust the emotional part back. For Brendon’s sake I must go away at once, of course, and stay away until matters were settled between us. Brendon was coming through his own storms, and he still had his first love—Laurel—to keep him company. But I mustn’t stay where my presence would distress him—as Ariel’s had done.
Magnus moved abruptly, taking me by surprise, even though I was by now used to being plucked into the air and set down in another place. I didn’t even struggle.
“Come along,” he said. “Get into your jacket. We have a rendezvous. With a bull.”
I asked no questions, but followed him meekly enough along the path to the glen, where Zeus awaited us.
“Take a good look,” Magnus said. “He’s not like that panther up there under the tower. But he’s a lot like me. Are you going to be able to live with all that?”
The stepping stone was familiar to my foot, and I was up between the horns and onto that great stone back in a moment. There I sat on cold stone and stroked the hump of muscle behind the horns.
“He’s like you,” I said, “and he’s not like you. You’ll say it better in marble—with the maiden on his back. But how can you bear to leave him behind when you go?”
“I shan’t. He’ll go with me.”
“Then I’ll see him again,” I said.
He flashed me that smile I had come to know. “I’ll walk you down to the house now. You can telephone me from New York. And I’ll let you know when I move.”
I sighed. “Poor Europa—with a bull who won’t even run off with her.”
“Not because he doesn’t want to, my darling,” he said, and pulled me down into his arms.
I will always remember Laurel Mountain. But now there will be another hillside in another place that I will come to love and learn from. And Magnus and the stone bull will be there—waiting for me.
A Biography of Phyllis A. Whitney
Phyllis Ayame Whitney (1903–2008) was a prolific author of seventy-six adult and children’s novels. Over fifty million copies of her books were sold w
orldwide during the course of her sixty-year writing career, establishing her as one of the most successful mystery and romantic suspense writers of the twentieth century. Whitney’s dedication to the craft and quality of writing earned her three lifetime achievement awards and the title “The Queen of the American Gothics.”
Whitney was born in Yokohama, Japan, on September 9, 1903, to American parents, Mary Lillian (Lilly) Mandeville and Charles (Charlie) Whitney. Charles worked for an American shipping line. When Whitney was a child, her family moved to Manila in the Philippines, and eventually settled in Hankow, China.
Whitney began writing stories as a teenager but focused most of her artistic attention on her other passion: dance. When her father passed away in China in 1918, Whitney and her mother took a ten-day journey across the Pacific Ocean to America, and they settled in Berkley, California. Later they moved to San Antonio, Texas. Lilly continued to be an avid supporter of Whitney’s dancing, creating beautiful costumes for her performances. While in high school, her mother passed away, and Whitney moved in with her aunt in Chicago, Illinois. After graduating from high school in 1924, Whitney turned her attention to writing, nabbing her first major publication in the Chicago Daily News. She made a small income from writing stories at the start of her career, and would eventually go on to publish around one hundred short stories in pulp magazines by the 1930s.
In 1925, Whitney married George A. Garner, and nine years later gave birth to their daughter, Georgia. During this time, she also worked in the children’s room in the Chicago Public Library (1942–1946) and at the Philadelphia Inquirer (1947–1948).
After the release of her first novel, A Place for Ann (1941), a career story for girls, Whitney turned her eye toward publishing full-time, taking a job as the children’s book editor at the Chicago Sun-Times and releasing three more novels in the next three years, including A Star for Ginny. She also began teaching juvenile fiction writing courses at Northwestern University. Whitney began her career writing young adult novels and first found success in the adult market with the 1943 publication of Red Is for Murder, also known by the alternative title The Red Carnelian.
In 1946, Whitney moved to Staten Island, New York, and taught juvenile fiction writing at New York University. She divorced in 1948 and married her second husband, Lovell F. Jahnke, in 1950. They lived on Staten Island for twenty years before relocating to Northern New Jersey. Whitney traveled around the world, visiting every single setting of her novels, with the exception of Newport, Rhode Island, due to a health emergency. She would exhaustively research the land, culture, and history, making it a custom to write from the viewpoint of an American visiting these exotic locations for the first time. She imbued the cultural, physical, and emotional facets of each country to transport her readers to places they’ve never been.
Whitney wrote one to two books a year with grand commercial success, and by the mid-1960s, she had published thirty-seven novels. She had reached international acclaim, leading Time magazine to hail her as “one of the best genre writers.” Her work was especially popular in Britain and throughout Europe.
Whitney won the Edgar Award for Mystery of the Haunted Pool (1961) and Mystery of the Hidden Hand (1964), and was shortlisted three more times for Secret of the Tiger’s Eye (1962), Secret of the Missing Footprint (1971), and Mystery of the Scowling Boy (1974). She received three lifetime achievement awards: the Mystery Writers of America Grand Master Award in 1985, the Agatha in 1989, and the lifetime achievement award from the Society of Midland Authors in 1995.
Whitney continued writing throughout the rest of her life, still traveling to the locations for each of her novels until she was ninety-four years old. She released her final novel, the touching and thrilling Amethyst Dreams, in 1997. Whitney was working on her autobiography at the time of her passing at the age of 104. She left behind a vibrant catalog of seventy-six titles that continue to inspire, setting an unparalleled precedent for mystery writing.
A young Whitney playing with her doll in Japan.
Whitney with her family in Japan, where they lived for approximately six years. From left: Lillian (Lilly) Whitney, Charles (Charlie) Whitney, Phyllis Whitney, and Philip (Whitney’s half-brother).
Thirteen-year-old Whitney dancing in the Philippines.
Twenty-one-year-old Whitney at her graduation from McKinley High School in 1924.
Whitney worked at the World’s Fair in Chicago, Illinois, in 1933. She was pregnant with her daughter, Georgia, at the time.
Frederick Nelson Litten, Whitney’s mentor in writing and teaching, in Chicago, 1935.
Whitney’s first publicity photo for A Place for Ann, 1941.
Whitney, forty-eight, in her first study in Fort Hill Circle at her Staten Island house, where she lived with second husband Lovell Jahnke, 1951.
Whitney at sixty-nine years old with Jahnke in their home in Hope, New Jersey, 1972. Behind them hangs a Japanese embroidery made by Whitney’s mother.
Whitney at seventy-one years of age with Pat Myer, her long time editor, and Mable Houvenagle, her sister-in-law, at her house on Chapel Ave in Brookhaven, Long Island, New York, 1974. After her husband died in 1973, she lived close to her daughter, Georgia, on Long Island.
Whitney at eighty-one years old on a helicopter ride over Maui, Hawaii, to research the backdrop for her novel Silversword, 1984.
Whitney giving her acceptance speech for her Mystery Writers of America Grand Master Award in 1985.
Whitney rode in a hot-air balloon in 1988 to use the experience for her novel Rainbow in the Mist.
Whitney ascending in the hot-air balloon, 1988.
Whitney in her study in Virginia in 1996 at ninety-three years old, looking over her “Awards Corner,” which included three Edgars, the Agatha, and the Society of Midland Authors Award.
Whitney at ninety-six years old with her family in her house in Virgina, 1999. From left: Michael Jahnke (grandson), Georgia Pearson (daughter), Matthew Celentano (great-grandson), Whitney, and Danny Celentano (great-grandson).
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1977 by Phyllis A. Whitney
Cover design by Mimi Bark
ISBN: 978-1-5040-4696-1
This edition published in 2017 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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New York, NY 10038
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PHYLLIS A. WHITNEY
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