Hallow House - Part One

by Jane Toombs

  "Did she?" Vera asked.

  "Samara is never disobedient."

  "I want to talk to her," Vera said. "You stay with Vincent." Without waiting for any agreement, Vera hurried out.

  Whether Samara had actually gone to her room or not, when no one answered Vera's knock and she opened the door, Samara was not inside. When banging on Sergei's door brought no response, Vera tried the knob. Locked.

  Back in Vincent's room, she told John,

  "I have a key that'll fit his door," John said.

  Vera nodded. "I'll stay with Vincent."

  "Why all this watching over me?" Vincent demanded as she swung his feet over the edge of the bed and tried to stand. Almost immediately he slumped back. "Dizzy. Head hurts like hell," he muttered.

  "Get back under the covers," Vera scolded. "You can't go wandering around with a concussion."

  "Couldn't if I tried," he admitted. "But I'm awake now; I don't need coddling."

  "Someone tried to kill you," John reminded him.

  "Bring me one of our snake-killers," Vincent said. "I'll take car of myself."

  John looked at Vera.

  "It's not ideal, but I'll come back and check on him every half-hour to make sure he's okay. Right now we have to do all we can to find Johanna."

  "I'll bring you the Colt 45," John told Vincent, "We'll lock you in. Even if there's another key floating around, you ought to hear if someone unlocks the door."

  Who are we barricading Vincent against? Vera asked herself as she waited for John to return with the gun. What does Vincent know, but is temporarily unable to retrieve, that's dangerous to someone? Samara? Sergei? There was no one else other than the teenaged children. She shivered with the realization madness changed anyone beyond recognition--adult or child.

  When John unlocked Sergei's door, they found the room empty, despite a thorough search. But on a shelf in the back on the closet, John found a box with four squat black candles and a book with a black plush cover.

  "The two of Tabitha's journals I read looked like that, only red," Vera told him.

  John rifled through the book, read a little, slammed it shut and handed it to her, his face twisted with distaste. "Take the damn thing and burn it. No boy his age should be exposed to such claptrap."

  "The candles?"

  "Take them, too."

  Samara's door was still unlocked. They found nothing unusual in her room. When they came out they met Blanche and Geneva.

  "We been through every room on the other corridor," Blanche said. "The baby ain't in none of them."

  "Have you seen either of the twins?" John asked.

  "Not a sign."

  "Go on downstairs and help Irma," John said. "We'll finish going through the upstairs rooms.

  When she and John got to her room, Vera unlocked her door and shoved the box with book and the candles into a dresser drawer, wanting them out of sight. Glancing at Johanna's empty crib made her heart ache.

  By now the baby would be hungry, maybe wet, cold and frightened. Yet no on had heard her cry. A bad sign, one she didn't want to think about. Vera bit her lip to keep from crying. There was no time for tears. She must keep the image of a frightened, hungry baby from her mind.

  Hungry. She turned to John. "Were there any bottles of formula in the refrigerator?"

  "I have no idea."

  "There should have been at least two bottles left even if Irma used one. Let me run down and look while you finish up here."

  Vera found no bottles of formula in the refrigerator.

  She located Irma searching the library. "I counted two more when I took out the one I fed her," Irma said. "If they're gone, some one took them."

  With hope in her heart--if the bottles were gone, someone was feeding Johanna--Vera ran up the stairs to report to John. "That means she's alive," she told him.

  He held her against him for a moment, smoothing back the strands of her hair that had come loose. "We'll find her." But she heard sadness in his voice.

  Vera reached up to touch his face, realizing what he must be going through. The twins were his children, he'd known them as babies, watched their first steps, read stories to them. He loved Sergei and Samara. How terrible for him to be forced to suspect one of them had kidnapped Johanna. And, worse, murdered Delores. Could it be both of them, working together, two acting as one?

  One is the devil. Vincent's words. She shuddered.

  They found Marie still asleep, her respiration so stentorious that Vera felt her pulse, relieved to find it normal. Johanna was not hidden in her room.

  Finally only Adele and Theola's suite was left. "They were asleep when I came in before," John said. I just glanced around the rooms. I'll have to tell them about Johanna now."

  When he did, Theola said, "I saw Samara with the baby. "She was carrying her up from downstairs. Why didn't wake you us up to ask? After all, Adele and I have survived more than our share of upsets in this house."

  "If you can't find Johanna," Adele put in, "then Samara must have hidden her.

  "We can't find Samara to ask. Or Sergei," Vera told her.

  "You've been up there?" Adele raised her eyes to the ceiling.

  "Once." John said. "I'll check again."

  Vera followed John up to the third floor. The towers were empty except for the sleeping back in the south room. She knelt to examine the green padded cloth. "It's wet!" she called to John. The patch of damp was at the bottom of the bag and, when she thrust her hand in, she pulled out an empty baby bottle.

  "Samara had herself zipped into the sleeping bag," he said. "It didn't occur to me the baby might be in there, too."

  Vera wondered of the same picture formed in John's mind as hers--Johanna, helpless, thrust into the bottom of the bag at Samara's feet.

  "Why wouldn't Johanna cry?" Vera asked, then answered her own question. "She was drugged, something was added to her formula."

  "I told Samara to go to her room, waited until she started to unzip the bag. Then I left." He pounded his fist into his other hand. "Damn! Why didn't I think? I still can't imagine why Samara..." His voice trailed off.

  "Samara once told me Delores didn't love her or Johanna like she did Sergei," Vera said. "Perhaps Samara resented her brother being her mother's favorite, resented it more than anyone realized. "

  As soon as she'd spoke, Vera realized that, while this might be true, it didn't explain why Samara would have abducted Johanna. She remember the gentleness of the girl's hands when she'd bathed the baby weeks before. And the girl had been the one who persuaded her father the baby needed a nurse. How could she believe Samara would hurt her baby sister?

  "Sergei and Delores were close," John said, his voice heavy. "She indulged him more than was good for him. I thought he should be sent away to school, but she couldn't bear to give him up."

  "Do you think Sergei and Samara are together now?" she asked.

  He stared at her. "Are you saying both of them might have Johanna?"

  "They're both nowhere to be found. I don't understand what's been going on. It makes no sense unless we add insanity. The logic of madness doesn't make sense to a normal person."

  "You think they're insane?"

  "One of them. The other could be helping out of loyalty, not understanding what the consequence might be."

  "What in the name of God are we to do?" Desperation edged John's voice.

  Rain slashed against the tower windows; darkness was closing in. Vera tried to tell herself that they surely hadn't taken Johanna outside. "They must be in the house," she said. "Do you still have the key to the middle room with you?

  John picked up the flashlight he'd left near the black door and unlocked the room. When he clicked on the light, Vera hesitated before stepping inside. But her memory of the night she'd been shut in here was so fragmentary that she seemed to be viewing Tabitha's secret room now for the first time.

  The red walls, the raised altar had a nightmarish quality. No candles--didn't she recall candles? The r
oom was furnished with a red velvet divan, which had been shoved into a corner, and floor-to-ceiling gilt-framed mirrors hung to either side of the door--a detail she hadn't noticed before. The red walls of the small room seem to close in on her as she walked behind John. Coming closer to the altar, she saw the wall behind it was covered with a red drapery hanging by wooden rings from a gilded pole.

  "Nothing here," he said. "I detest this room—should have boarded it up long ago."

  After they came out, he locked the door, glanced into both tower rooms again, then went down to the second floor with Vera trailing him.

  "They could be going from room to room, keeping ahead of us," he said.

  She signed, knowing it was possible. "It's time I checked on Vincent," she said.

  As she turned away, she heard a shout.

  "Senor John," Jose called hoarsely as he pounded up the steps from the first floor, his face glistening with rain. "The girl. She take el cabello--the horse. She--"

  "Samara?" John said, rushing down to meet Jose half-way. "Samara took one of the horses?"

  "Si Too late to stop her."

  "Was she carrying anything? Did she have the baby?"

  Jose shook his head, spreading his hands. "Me, I don't see. Too dark."

  "Stay with Vincent," John told Vera, who'd followed him down the stairs. He handed her a key ring. "Jose and I will go after Samara."

  Vera trailed after the two men until they were gone into the stormy night.

  She found Irma in the kitchen and pilling herself together, said, "Why don't you make some sandwiches and coffee? We should eat whether we feel like it or not. Vincent's awake now and might be feeling hungry. And John and Jose will need food when they come back." With Samara, she hoped. And Johanna, if the girl had taken her. But where could they be in this storm?

  Blanche and Geneva came into the kitchen, Geneva looking fearful.

  "Did you find anything? Any sigh of the baby? Or Sergei?" she asked/

  Blanche shook her head, but Geneva said, "There's something up there." She glanced behind her as though afraid whatever it was had followed. "In that room that used to be the missus'."

  "She's just jumpy," Blanche scoffed. "We both went in there and wasn't nothing or nobody in that room."

  "Something watched us," Geneva insisted. "Gave me goose-bumps, it did."

  Blanche gave her a disgusted look. "We didn't find anybody, it's just your imagination."

  "I said something." Geneva's voice quavered. "Wasn't any someone."

  "Stop that nonsense," Irma ordered.

  But Geneva refused to be shut up. "You sent us back up there to look 'cause you didn't want to do it yourself," she accused. "We all know the missus couldn't've killed herself. Something got her and it's there waiting for the next one."

  The next one? Vera repressed a shiver. Ridiculous to be influenced by Geneva's superstitions.

  "Both of you get cracking around here," Irma ordered. "Got to fix a cold supper and I need help." She turned to Vera. "You might ask Mr. Vincent what he'd like."

  Leaving the three of them in the kitchen, Vera went up to check on Vincent, taking care to announce who she was before inserting the key in the door. Still propped on pillows he watched her enter.

  "How do you feel?" she asked.

  "As well as can be expected. What's happening?"

  "Samara rode off on one of the horses. Jose and John went after her. We don't know whether or not she has Johanna, though Theola saw her carrying the baby earlier."

  "Where's Sergei?"

  Vera shook her head. "No one knows. Irma's fixing food. She wants to know what you'd like to eat."

  "Anything. With coffee. I wish to hell I could help."

  "Don't even try. Getting out of that bed will do you more harm than good."

  "I'll say. Nearly pitched onto my face. He touched his right cheek gingerly. "Bet I'm a sight."

  When she didn't respond, he said, "Don't look so bereft, Vera. John will come through--as he usually does.

  The sardonic tone was back in his voice, which made her believe he must be feeling better. "I'll see if Irma has the coffee ready and bring you some."

  In the kitchen, Johanna's empty high chair made Vera's throat constrict. She forced her mind away from the awful possibilities lurking in the shadows of her mind.

  Blanche is fixing up a tray for Miss Adele and Miss Theola," Irma said. "I can't get that Geneva to go upstairs again tonight. Had to send her to her room. She got so worked up she was upsetting Blanche."

  "I'll take Vincent's tray," Vera said.

  "What about Miss Marie?"

  "She's sleeping."

  Irma nodded, her expression showing she knew why. "I'll just put an extra sandwich for you on Mr. Vincent's tray , if that's all right."

  "That's fine. About Geneva--she doesn't think it's Johanna in Delores' room, does she? I mean a Johanna who isn't just a baby but something unnatural as well? Because that's out and out ridiculous."

  "Who can tell what she thinks? I got over feeling the way I did about the little tike. Anyone can see she's just an innocent baby. Whoever took her away must be crazy."

  "We think it might be Samara."

  "Miss Vera, I don't know what to believe anymore and that's the truth. I try to do my work and not think to much about what goes on here. But I can't help noticing some things. Miss Samara's scared--been that way a long time. Seems like nobody in this house is really happy. Master Sergei used to follow his ma around like he was afraid she'd disappear if he let her out of his sight. Lots of times she didn't even know. Sometimes I wonder how much he saw."

  Irma looked significantly at Vera. "You know what I mean. Anyway, lately he's been trailing you around like he used to do her."

  A chill ran along Vera's nerve endings. "Sergei's been following me?"

  Irma nodded. "Don't know what it means, but figured I'd best tell you." She busied herself with Vincent's tray.

  As Vera was carrying the tray up to Vincent, she met Blanche coming down empty-handed.

  "Are the two old ladies all right?" she asked.

  "Seem to be. They asked about the baby." Blanche cast a glance over her shoulder, then fixed a determined glaze on Vera. "I ain't silly like Geneva, nor fanciful neither, but I got to tell you there is something up there." She jerked her head toward the second floor. "If I was you I'd make sure my door was locked tonight."

  "Did you see anyone?"

  Blanche shook her head. "But now I feel it, too, like Geneva said. Something watching. Watching and waiting." She crossed herself and fled down the rest of the steps.

  Fright's contagious, Vera told herself, but she wouldn't succumb to the fear of an invisible watcher. Still, this was an old house. Didn't old mansions sometimes have secret passages? If that was true, someone actually could be watching. Who, but Sergei?

  Bright and inquisitive, he might well have searched for secrets in the house when he was younger. There might even be a plan tucked away in the library showing hidden passageways.

  Boris Gregory, the founder of Hallow House, might have had a secretive turn of mind. Tabitha hadn't mentioned anything about it in the journals Vera had read, but she hadn't read them all. Which reminded her of the book John and found in Sergei's room, the one with the black cover that she'd shoved into her dresser drawer. Another of Tabitha's journals? It well could be. Would it reveal something helpful?

  Hurrying to her bedroom, she unlocked her door, set the tray on her dresser while she recovered the book from a drawer and set the book on the tray. Then she relocked the door and carried tray and book to Vincent's room.

  His face was flushed and his wrist felt warm when she checked his pulse. Was he running a fever? If so, was it an indication of a more severe brain injury or a result of having lain in rain and gotten soaked and chilled?

  "How do you feel?" she asked.

  "Not very hungry. He drank the glass of orange juice from the tray and the cup of coffee, but only nibbled at part of an egg
salad sandwich. "Think maybe I'll sleep while you're here," he said, easing down until he lay flat. "Maybe I'll be worth something when I wake up."

  She rearranged his pillows and he closed his eyes.

  Some minutes later, after she forced herself to finish her sandwich, she was sipping coffee when she heard him begin to breathe heavily. Natural sleep or a more sinister drowsiness from brain malfunction?

  "Vincent?" she said. His eyelids fluttered, half-opening, and she relaxed a little. If he could be so easily aroused, he was only sleeping.

  Finishing her coffee, she opened the book with the black plush cover and recognized the spidery hand-writing as Tabitha's. She was on the second page when she found an entry she read twice: "I shan't tell anyone about the work Ramos has done for me on my third floor room. Ramos will never tell because he fears I may be a witch more powerful than he. Perhaps I am." Her words made Vera's skin crawl.

  There was no further mention of what work Ramos might have done, but this reference made Vera wonder if there really was a secret way into the room with the black door. From where? Obviously it would have to be one of the tower rooms.

  Another entry caught her eye: "How furious Boris would be if he knew I found magic books in that library he bought and had shipped from that estate in Massachusetts. Does he think possession of books he never reads will make him cultured? Thanks to this curious passion of his, I know have the secrets of those who follow the dark path."

  Vera skipped through the pages, many of which were filled with complex formulas and instructions for esoteric rites. These must be what had upset John. She didn't blame him for not wishing to expose his children to such as this.

  Tabitha may have believed in these magic potions and formulas, but Vera found them disturbing, since she recognized some of the herbal ingredients as deadly poisons. If Tabitha had tried to mix and drink some of these, no wonder she'd been found dead.

  Vincent muttered something unintelligible, making her close the book and set it aside, feeling as though she needed to wash her hands. Hurrying to the bed, she saw him moving restlessly in his sleep. His pulse was of good quality, so she decided not to worry just yet. Without moving, she continued to think about the journal. Where might Sergei have found it? Adele of Theola would never have given it to him. They had, though, mentioned that some of Tabitha's journals had been lost.