by Lara Parker
Jackie trembled, tears streaming, then she stiffened with resolve. “Sleep … sleep, and forgive me … forgive and forget…,” she whispered.
The anguished cry was muffled behind the stones.
* * *
The drive back to Collinwood was silent except for Liz softly sobbing in the front seat. The moon in the black sky looked as if one side had been gnawed away by a hungry giant. Quentin gripped the wheel and stared out into a night soft with summer sounds. Once he turned to Liz and said, “There now. You’ll be fine.” He looked back over his shoulder at Jackie. “You’ll take care of her, won’t you, Dearie? You’re a good friend.”
When they reached the Great House, the fire in the pool house was still burning, and groups of people still milled about. Jackie got out of the car, and Quentin sat with Liz for a long time, talking to her in low tones. Jackie wondered whether she and Liz would still exchange dresses, but to her surprise, Quentin climbed out of the car and, without looking back, walked slowly down the driveway and out to the main road.
Jackie moved uneasily to the car window. Liz’s face was ashen and her eyes were glistening with tears. “He’s gone,” she said.
“Aren’t you going with him?”
“No. He changed his mind. He said he could not marry me after all. That he was not the marrying kind. That at the party tonight he met another girl, and—” Liz’s voice broke as she stared out of the car window, her beautiful face silhouetted against the firelight.
“I’m so sorry,” said Jackie.
“Don’t ever trust any man,” she said, smiling wanly, and she reached up to touch Jackie’s cheek. “They are all sheiks and gigolos. They are all the same.”
Sixteen
After stowing the painting hurriedly in what he believed would be the best possible hiding place—in the library’s secret room, back behind the bottles of whiskey—David ventured out into the melee of fleeing partygoers and careening automobiles. The house had been silent, as though it was filled with ghosts; not a sound came from any of the rooms, while outside horns blared and voices boomed over megaphones. He thought he might have heard gunshots, and he was more worried than ever about Jackie. The intriguing elements of the adventure were fading and he was beginning to panic. He had found the painting and now it was time to go home.
He was determined to reclaim the green car, and he decided he would drive around the grounds until he found her. The car had brought them there, and it would take them home. He gritted his teeth and tried to remain calm.
When he walked out under the front portico, however, he was thrust into chaos. Broken glasses and linen napkins littered the grass, tables were capsized, and chairs lay on their sides. Automobiles honking and revving their engines were trying vainly to drive around a line of square black police cars parked across the driveway. Another group of police cars had crossed the lawn, leaving muddy tire tracks in the grass, and formed a haphazard ring around the pool house, which seemed to be on fire. A crowd of people was gathered there, and David thought Jackie might be among them.
As he drew nearer he saw that all the swimmers were gone, and the fire, which must have been horrendous—the entrance to the pool was smoking and blackened—now burned with fingers in the grass and crackled inside the door. As soon as he saw the flames, David shrank back. Ever since he was a child he had been terrified of fire, not only because of the danger but also because he was drawn to it with magnetic fascination. He was afraid of what he might do, and he was afraid to look too closely at the tongues of flames still flickering within the opening of the pool house door.
He was vaguely aware of wounded people lying on the ground being tended by the servants, and there was a large white ambulance parked back on the road with a red cross on the side. Again he grew anxious for Jackie and wondered whether she was among the injured. Even though he was wary, he decided to approach the scene.
He caught sight of flames still licking the walls inside the pool house, and his body tensed when he felt himself being drawn to the conflagration. Servants were carrying buckets of water from the kitchen of the Great House and pouring them on the blaze, but they were doing little to quench the inferno that was still a burning lake surrounding the pool. The fire continued to ignite itself, popping with small explosions and erupting in sparks. Then he saw the grass was on fire, little rivulets of flame trickling by his feet.
As he drew nearer he could see the lawn was strewn with broken casks, and men in police uniforms carrying rifles shouted orders. He passed a young man in a daze, probably one of the swimmers, staring at his burned hands, and a girl lying in the grass being consoled by two other women. He stopped breathing until he saw that it was not Jackie. He tried to tell himself that this was all in the past, that raids such as this one were part of the Prohibition era, but that did not prevent a feeling of helplessness.
Then David was shocked to see a figure in the doorway of the pool house, someone who had not escaped the flames, and he knew he must do something. It was a woman whose dress had caught fire. She was reaching out to him with her arms in a beseeching manner, and all he could think was he must get close enough to grab her and pull her free, but when he approached the door, the heat inside the pool house was horrendous. Then he saw her long golden hair and her wings of flame and his body was shot through with fear.
She was beckoning to him and, unable to resist, he moved closer until he could see her familiar face, the face he saw in his dreams, the face he had loved ever since he had been a child. Her eyes were candle flames and fire was flickering inside her moving lips. “Come, David,” he heard her say. “Come with me into the fire.”
He was mesmerized; she was beautiful and her hands reaching out in front of her opened and closed, her fingers beckoning. “Come, David. You can be with me always. We can die and be born again. We can live forever.”
He cried out, “No!” and tried to fight the magnetic tug on his body, but he felt himself growing weaker, as though he had no will of his own. His limbs were like sand as the flames leapt and crackled, and he walked toward them. His mother was calling to him, and his longing for her grew thick in his chest.
“I was there with you in the beginning, and I will be with you at the end. Come, my darling boy,” she pleaded. “Don’t be afraid.”
He breathed in the smoke and it brought tears to his eyes. His lonely childhood had shadowed his life, but she had returned for him at last. He could feel the heat on his face, enveloping him in a warm embrace as she drew his body to her, and his heart swelled with love. He had waited for her for so long. A feeling of profound relief washed through him. He would be with her once more, a child enfolded in his mother’s arms.
Then he heard Jackie calling his name. “David? David!!”
She was running across the grass. “David, stop. Don’t go in there!” But he ignored her, hypnotized by the face in the flames, the crackling voice speaking to him.
“Come, David. I was with you when you came into this world, and I will be with you when you leave it.”
He moved nearer.
“David! What are you doing?” He felt a hand on his arm and he turned to see Jackie, breathless from running, the flames lighting her face.
“Jackie … let me—”
“No, David. You must not go in there.”
“But I can see her. She is calling to me.”
“No. Listen to me. Now is not the time.”
He looked back and for an instant the flaming woman with wings on fire became the angel above the grave he had seen in the cemetery. The accusing eyes.
“Jackie, she needs me—”
“If she wants you, she will come to you. But she cannot ask this of you. You must not trust her.” She was crying. “David. Please. Don’t let her take you away from me.”
Jackie’s hand closed over his arm and she tugged him hard, her grip stronger than he would have thought possible, and suddenly there was a loud crack, and he turned back to see the roof where his mother had been standing ex
plode, then fall to the floor, and only small tongues of fire floated across the incandescent water of the pool.
A huge breath eased out of his chest. Then Jackie was in his arms, her tears falling. The realness of her body was like a gift. He clung to her. “Stay with me,” he whispered while the pool house burned over her shoulder. “Stay with me forever.”
She sobbed, “Oh, David, I’ve been so worried. I thought I had lost you. I’ve seen such horrible things. It’s been a nightmare.”
“So have I. After we got separated I thought I would go crazy.”
They clung to each other, the wide lawns spiraling around them, but they were alone in their own world. David’s heart was full of gratitude and relief. Then he remembered.
“Jackie,” he said, “you won’t believe it. I found the painting of Quentin.”
“What? Where?” She stopped and looked at him.
“The painter still lived in the tower, at Collinwood. I found him, in my room, and—it was so amazing—he had painted another portrait.”
“And is it … I mean—”
“It’s of Quentin. And it’s almost perfect. The only problem is that he didn’t sign it.”
She grew excited. “Oh, David, that doesn’t matter. Don’t you see? You solved the puzzle. That’s why we were sent here. That’s why this all happened.” Her face was flushed. “Where is it?”
“Don’t worry. I was afraid we might lose it, so I left it in a safe place—I’ll show you as soon we get home.”
“Home. If only we could find our way.”
* * *
“Look,” said Jackie. “Oh, David, we’ve made it back to the snow. See there, through the woods.”
David could see what she meant; broad stretches of white along the road where the trees were less sparse. They stumbled toward it with some vague hope that it was the place they had begun their journey. After abandoning the pool house, still in flames, they had decided to return to the Old House, walking along the sea road.
“If we can just get out of this forest, maybe we can find a way back,” he said, holding her with an arm around her waist. He hoped his words sounded convincing because he was still shaking.
“And snow is a good sign,” Jackie said. “It was snowing when we left. The ground was covered.”
As they moved through the trees, the patches of white grew wider. David’s hopes soared.
“Look! More snow…”
Jackie and David began to walk faster toward the road where they could see the wide swatch of white, but before they reached the open area they stopped.
The patches were not snow. Instead, they were a moving mass of men marching four abreast, spilling down the road from the Great House. They were dressed in white robes with dark holes where their eyes should have been, and they wore pointed hats that tipped and wobbled against the black sky.
The only indication that they were men, not ghosts, was the dark pants legs and shoes that showed beneath their skirts. They carried staffs topped by flaming crosses and the light of their torches cast a glow on their ghoulish hoods. Like a regimented swarm they spilled over the ground, their robes whipped by the wind off the sea, and they chanted a song that was half hymn, half funeral dirge.
“America for Americans,” they droned. “Drive out the aliens. Purity in Jesus!” As they drew nearer, David could smell the kerosene their torches had been dipped in before lighting. Some bore white shields with red crosses plastered on them, and others carried pistols, tommy guns, or rifles strapped over their robes. Hung around their necks were smaller crosses that looked like cheap costume jewelry, and every man had an American flag pinned to his collar. But it was the torches that created the most frightening display, raised into the night like flags of victory leading troops into battle.
Behind the first group of marchers came five automobiles, one a huge black Packard, all open to the night air, with seven or eight pointed dunce caps swaying in each, and the sight would have made David laugh if their bizarre costumes had not been so threatening. Now he knew what the men in the parlor had been discussing, the march of the Klan that night during the party when there would be so much distraction from the raid their activities would go unnoticed. Suddenly anxious, he pulled Jackie behind the trees.
“Stay back,” he whispered. “We don’t want them to see us.”
“But how do we get past them?”
“Just wait.”
“God, look at them. They’re like ghouls. Where are they going?”
“It looks like Widow’s Hill.”
It was true. The entire procession had turned off the road and was moving toward the cliffs. “Maybe they’re lemmings in disguise,” said Jackie, “following one another blindly into the sea.”
Finally the procession passed by them, and at the end of the last group there was a disturbance where a group of Klansmen had something tied, and they were dragging it behind them.
“What’s that?” whispered Jackie. “Oh God, David, are those prisoners?”
Naked except for their ragged trousers, and barefoot, two captives were bloodied about the mouth, and the whites of their eyes flashed in the torchlight. One of the bound men grabbed at the rope with both hands, keeping the noose from tightening around his neck while he cried out, “You got the wrong man. Help me, God. This ain’t right.”
“It’s a lynching,” Jackie whispered.
No other faces, no hands, no arms were exposed. White gloves held the rifles or tugged on the rope, and the front prisoner, the stronger of the two, looked up as he was dragged past and stared directly at David, his eyes bulging and desperate. “Help me, God. I ain’t done nothin’.”
“We have to stop it,” whispered Jackie.
“We can’t.” David’s throat felt dry and he could smell the kerosene. “Those torches are lethal.”
Even though he could feel her trembling, there was no way for David to know that Jackie was tormented by memories she was seeing in her mind: a gibbet on a hill, a crowd of black-robed parishioners, all of one angry mood, bound by ignorance in the guise of righteousness. She reeled from the moment—the terrible pain of the noose around her neck, the jerk of the rope that snapped off her life. She grabbed David’s arm.
“David, we have to save them.”
“No, stay back. Look, see how many there are?” And he reached for her, enclosing her in his arms.
“David, this is the past. All these things.”
“Yes, and there is no way we can change what is about to happen.”
“We can save a life. Two lives. We don’t know yet how this night turns out.”
Hot tears flooded her eyes as frustration burned through her. If only someone had rescued her all those years ago in Salem, and the curse that plagued the Collins family had never escaped her lips.
She turned to look at David, who was transfixed by the scene unfolding, and she saw in his face the Collins family resemblance, the strong profile, youthful but already resolute, the firm chin, the tousled hair. Even though he was still a boy, he had pledged his life to her. Something fluttered in her breast. She saw in a flash what she had been given; his love was hers to take and keep. All that she had suffered dissolved in that moment—the years of struggle for what was owed to her, the sinister casting of spells, and the deep hunger for revenge. She could let it all go. She closed her eyes and leaned against him.
She could welcome her future. Not a great love, she knew it was not that, but they were still young. They were more like friends, a kindly love that would keep her safe until they were older. And yet, and this was what made things so difficult: hidden inside her lay the specter that they had tried to blast out of her brain, the fury that was her only true protection against the cruelties of the world, the power of two centuries of witchcraft, and that power was still struggling to come forth.
“Stay back,” he said again as he felt her try to break free. “There’s nothing we can do. We mustn’t let them see us.”
The procession tu
rned and made its way to the cliffs above the sea. The roar of the surf and the sound of waves crashing could not drown out the chanting that rose in one voice like a cathedral choir intoning a dirge. David and Jackie followed at what they believed was a safe distance, David still clinging to Jackie, pulling her behind the trees, as they waited for an opening where they could run through to the road.
Now that the horde of white-robed figures had reached the crest, David was amazed to see that they had made earlier preparations for their ceremony. A giant cross, at least thirty feet in height, had been erected on the hillside. Made of two pine trees stripped of their branches, the staff and arms had also been wrapped in burlap, quilted with rope, and drenched in kerosene reeking in the air. Slowly the procession surrounded the cross, the pointed hats tipped this way and that, and the dead black holes stared out. The cars pulled into the circle as well, and the cone-headed men jumped out with their burning torches, shouting, “God preserve the Invisible Empire!” and “Native! White! Protestant supremacy!”
The two helpless men were dragged under a tree with a long horizontal branch that reached across the sky like the bony arm of a skeleton. The rope was thrown over it and hauled back by several ghostly figures, their robes whipping in the wind, until the unhappy prisoners were erect and standing on tiptoe, the stronger one still reaching up to take hold of the noose. At first the branch sagged and it seemed it might break, but it rose up again, pulling the rope taut.
David could feel Jackie trembling, and he held her, wishing that they had never come here, thinking again that she was in danger because of him, that their way down the road to the Old House where they might leap the gap back into their own time was blocked by this absurd parade of Klansmen in their bizarre regalia. The dunce-capped figures were marching now, circling the huge cross and raising their Devil’s torches to the sky, shouting slogans of hate.
Then one of the foremost group turned to the crowd and reached up and threw back his visor. His face was exposed to the firelight, a richly handsome face, strong jawed and blazing with conviction.
