Candlemas Eve

by Sackett, Jeffrey

  "I couldn't sleep," Simon explained.

  "I see," Floyd said as he sat down at the table beside his son. "You couldn't sleep, so you decided to have a drink."

  "No, Pop, I decided to have a drink because I want a drink," Simon snapped. "I couldn't sleep because I had a bad dream."

  "I don't wonder," Floyd harrumphed. "If I did what you do for a living, I'd have bad dreams too."

  Simon rubbed his eyes. "Pop, go back to sleep, will you? I don't feel like company right now"

  "Yeah, especially when the company is me, right?" The old man's lower lip trembled slightly as he spoke.

  Simon felt a sudden pang of guilt. Even through his own problems, he still felt for the old man, felt sorry that he had been such a source of unhappiness to him. "I didn't mean that, Pop," he said gently. "I'm just worried. I have money problems, business problems."

  Floyd nodded, happy for the opportunity to speak to Simon in a fatherly manner. "Business troubles work out, as long as you're willing to work hard and not waste money. Whatever the problem is, boy, you'll come out of it all right." He seemed to be warming to his topic. "Why, I remember, back in nineteen and twenty-two, your mother and I—this was before your Uncle Jason lost the farm over in Fairleigh, remember that?—no, no, you weren't born yet . . ."

  Simon smiled and nodded, making the appropriate responses each time the old man raised his eyebrows inquisitively at him, not really listening to a word he was saying. He had heard the story about the failed general store and the near foreclosure on the house a hundred times, but it made the old man happy to repeat it, so Simon smiled, nodded, pretended to listen. You're a relic, Pop, he thought as he watched him. Pop, your heart's in the right place, but you're from a different century. You don't understand the world of high finance . . . not that I'm very good at it myself. If I were, I wouldn't be in this fix right now. Working hard and being honest and meaning well doesn't mean a damn thing in this world.

  You couldn't begin to understand what I've done, what a risk I took, how badly I'm going to land when I hit bottom, how great is the chance that I'm going to drag you all down with me.

  ". . . so we just tightened our belts and saw it through," his father said. "You can do it too, boy. You got to get into some other line of work, though. There ain't no future in that damn crazy music of yours."

  "I know, Pop. I know," he said affectionately. "We'll see what happens, okay?"

  Floyd nodded, happy with what sounded to him like a gesture of agreement. "What was your dream, boy?"

  Simon shook his head. "Nothing worth talking about. Just a bad dream."

  "What was it about?"

  He shrugged and sipped from his glass of brandy. "About a woman, mostly."

  "About a woman? And you call it a bad dream?" The old man laughed heartily, and his laughter infected his son, who joined in it. "Hell, boy, I've had my share of dreams 'bout women, but ain't one of 'em been bad!"

  "Well," Simon laughed, "this one was"

  "Well," Floyd said gently, "maybe you oughta thinka gettin' married again. It's been too long since you've had a woman—I mean a woman regular, a wife, not those—well, those women you hang 'round with when you're out there grindin' out that garbage you call music. Lord knows, I try to ignore that caterwaulin' when your son plays it 'round here . . . and by the way, you got to do somethin' about Lucas. . . ."

  Well, so much for this month's five minutes of good relations with Pop, Simon thought. As before he merely smiled and nodded and uttered perfunctory grunts of assent, and ignored his father's words completely.

  That was the damnedest dream, he thought again as he nodded and smiled. That woman with the large, feline eyes and that hair . . . what was it? brown? black? . . . I can't remember . . . and her voice, that soft, seductive voice. . ."

  But what was so frightening? he asked himself. I never seem to be able to remember my dreams. They're crystal clear when I wake up, and then I lose them. It seems that she was trying to take me somewhere, somewhere I didn't want to go, somewhere frightening, horrible, and I couldn't get away from her.

  Simon shook his head and sipped again from his brandy, nodding and grunting automatically as old Floyd continued his rambling invective. Somewhere in the back of his mind, another memory from the dream was struggling to assert itself, struggling to bring itself forward to his consciousness before sinking forever into oblivion. Then for a moment he remembered a peculiarity in the dream; it was most definitely he who was in the dream with the woman. But she had not called him by his name, she had not called him Simon.

  She had called him John.

  WITCH'S SABBATH

  Ye are like unto whited sepulchers, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness.

  MATTHEW 23:27

  Chapter Eight

  November 16

  It had taken Jeremy Sloan over two weeks to muster up sufficient courage to go over to the Proctor home and make an attempt at mending his relations with Rowena. He had watched from his bedroom window as she left for school each morning during the week, watched and strained his ears to listen as she and her grandfather exchanged cheerful pleasantries as they climbed into the old Dodge each school day. He had spent each evening sitting in the back of Saunder's Bar over in Fairleigh, drinking with Lucas and Karyn, irritating Lucas with his constant questions about Rowena. Has she said anything about me? Is she still angry at me? Have you spoken to her about what happened? Has my name come up in conversation?

  It was Lucas who finally had said to him, "Look, Sloan, the chick ain't gonna come crawlin' to you, you know. You wanna get back in the goods with her? Go over and talk to her. Don't keep botherin' me. I never talk to her anyway."

  Thus it was that Jeremy approached the Proctor home, eager and uneasy, hopeful and pessimistic, on that clear, cold morning in mid-November. He had shaved, bathed, polished his boots, put on a clean shirt, and done all the other magical rituals to which young men turn in faith when having dealings with young women.

  He cleared his throat and then knocked on the front door. It seemed an eternity before he heard footsteps approaching from within. The door swung open and old Floyd stood for a moment, staring at Jeremy as if trying to place his face. Then the old man smiled broadly and said, "Oh, Jeremy. Hello, young fella. Come in, come in."

  "Good mornin', Mr. Proctor," Jeremy said cheerfully. He felt reassured by Floyd's friendly greeting. It meant that Rowena had not been speaking ill of him to her grandfather. "Is Rowena home?"

  "Sure she is, sure she is. Go on into the sittin' room. I'll go get her." Jeremy went into the sitting room, but did not sit. He paced nervously back and forth. He reached down and scratched Pistopheles behind the ears, and the cat closed her eyes and purred. She looked up at Jeremy inscrutably as he resumed his pacing, and then she sauntered over to the sofa and hopped up onto it. Pistopheles began to lick her paws and wipe them over her face with a casual deliberation, oblivious to Jeremy's presence.

  Jeremy turned when he heard light footsteps descending the stairs. Rowena skipped down, and Jeremy's heart melted at the sight of her. She was wearing a fuzzy, oversized green sweater which hung down to just above her bare knees. Her white blond hair was pulled back into a ponytail, and her clear blue eyes appraised him quizzically. "Hello, Jeremy," she said, "What do you want?"

  She spoke in a tone cold enough to freeze lava, and Jeremy walked toward her hesitantly, realizing that he had not given much thought to precisely what words to use. He stammered, stuttered, started to speak and then stopped, started again and then stopped again. At last he just spread his hands out at his sides and said, "I'm sorry, Row. Please forgive me."

  She sniffed, refusing to be so easily mollified. "You had a lot of nerve getting me mixed up in something like that, when I trusted you and everything."

  He nodded with sincerity. "I know. I'm sorry. Please forgive me.

  She looked him up and down quickly and tried to keep the smile sh
e felt emerging from breaking into the austerity of her expression. He polished those ratty old boots, she thought. Isn't that sweet? What she said was, "You know I don't like that sort of stuff. You weren't being very thoughtful."

  He nodded again. "You're right, I wasn't being thoughtful at all. I'm sorry. Please forgive me." A slight twinkle in her eyes told him that she was weakening. Impulsively he added, "I love you, Row."

  She had not expected that, and it took her aback. Her mouth fell open and she stared at him for a moment. "What did you say?" she asked.

  He sighed and shrugged. "I love you. I can't stand the idea of you being mad at me. It's driving me nuts."

  Her look of wonder dissolved into one of happiness, and she cried, "Oh, Jeremy!" ran to his arms, throwing her own around his neck and pressing her lips to his. His tongue insinuated itself into her mouth and she accepted it willingly, eagerly. Then he hugged her tightly against him and she rested her head against his chest, and they stood there in silence. At last she looked up into his dark, soft eyes and whispered, "I love you too." And they kissed again.

  Jeremy felt like weeping for joy, but he sniffed back whatever tears threatened to emerge. He smiled impishly. "Does that mean you forgive me?"

  "I'll let it go this time," she laughed, and hugged him.

  They did not hear Simon Proctor as he stumbled down the stairs, scratching his rumpled hair and yawning. He saw them hugging and kissing in the foyer, and for a moment his eyes saw but did not register. Then a surge of paternal jealousy rose in him and he said in a shocked and angry tone, "What the hell's going on here?"

  Startled, Rowena jumped back. "Daddy!" she said, exhaling heavily. "You scared the heck out of me!"

  "What the hell's going on here?" he repeated.

  Rowena and Jeremy stood in confused and uneasy silence for a few moments. Then she said, "I was kissing Jeremy."

  Simon did not know what to say or how to respond.

  Somewhere in the back of his mind he knew that he was slipping into the role of the possessive, overprotective father, but his annoyance quickly overrode all other considerations. "Well—well, don't!" he said at last, and walked toward the kitchen.

  They watched him leave, and Jeremy's hand reached over to take hers. She turned to him and said, "Daddy's just being grouchy. Don't worry about it. You know that he likes you."

  "Yeah, sure," he replied uncertainly. "And I like him."

  "I've never really had a boyfriend before, and he's never seen me kiss anybody. It must be a shock to him. He'll get over it." She smiled and kissed him again. He closed his eyes and returned the kiss, but opened them again when he felt a sudden tensing of her mouth, as if she were distracted. He saw that she was looking past him, out the picture window. "I wonder who that is?" she asked. As he followed her gaze, he saw the cat Pistopheles leap onto the window sill and arch her back, hissing angrily at something outside.

  The window looked out from the eastern side of the old inn, giving an unobstructed view of Bradford's sole street as it stretched out past the Grange hall and wound its way up toward the mountains. Jeremy squinted in an attempt to bring into focus the distant figures to whom Rowena had referred. "You got good eyes," he said with a soft laugh. "I can hardly see them."

  "It's funny, isn't it, for them to walk right in the middle of the road like that?" she asked. "I mean, shouldn't they stay off to the side?"

  "Yeah, sure, I guess so,"' Jeremy nodded, not really caring. "Not much traffic on this road, though."

  "No, I guess not," she replied. She continued to stare out at the distant, moving figures. "Aren't they dressed funny?"

  "Jesus, Row," he laughed. "How can you see so far? I can't even tell how many people there are out there, and you're talking about how they're dressed! Good Lord!"

  "I always eat my carrots." She grinned. "Just watch, you'll be able to see them in a minute. They're coming in this direction."

  Jeremy watched and waited patiently as the figures drew near. It was a misty morning, and the fog further obstructed his vision, but in a few moments he was able to see the two people more clearly, two dots of black against the white world outside. As they came closer, he could see that both wore black cloaks whose hoods had been secured about their heads. They walked with rapid, small steps, and this led him to assume that they were women. "Dressed like Friar Tuck," he muttered.

  "Huh?" she asked.

  "Remember Friar Tuck from the old Robin Hood movies? They look like that, with those hoods and all."

  "Oh, yes, I know what you mean." She watched as the two people came to the center of the road directly in front of her house. They stopped walking and stood there for a moment, speaking to each other quietly. Or rather, one of them, the taller of the two, was speaking to the other, punctuating her discourse with hand gestures as the slightly shorter person listened and nodded. Rowena could not see their faces because they had their backs to the window, so she studied what she could about them. Their coats were not all that similar to monk's robes as they had appeared to be from a distance. They were simple, unadorned woolen cloaks with attached hoods. Rowena's brow furrowed slightly as she appraised the suitcases which the two people were carrying, realizing after a moment that the shape of the cases precluded the likelihood of their being luggage of any sort. The taller of the two people carried a case which was triangular, and the case carried by the shorter person was oblong and rounded at the ends.

  "I wonder what they're doing?" Jeremy muttered.

  "God, I hope they aren't a couple of Daddy's fans," Rowena said with concern. "I hate it when those people show up here."

  Jeremy was not particularly concerned with the identity of the strangers who were standing out in the snow. He stroked Rowena's hair absently and asked, "It goes with the business, doesn't it? Fans showing up once in a while, I mean."

  "Sure it does"—she nodded, watching the conversing figures with apprehension—"and I've always hated it. Don't forget, Jeremy, Daddy's music appeals to a particular type of people. Nutty people, weird people."

  "Hey!" he laughed. "I like Simon's music! Am I nutty or weird?"

  She returned his laughter and leaned forward to kiss him lightly on the lips. "Of course not. But you're the exception that proves the rule."

  "Okay, I'll accept that." He grinned. "Anyway, Simon's fans don't seem to come around here much. I've never seen any of 'em."

  "That's because they don't come to your house," she replied. "Just last month a kid came here and threatened to burn down the house if I didn't let him in."

  "Are you kidding?!"

  "Nope," she said. "I called the cops and they came and got him. But still, it happened. That's why I get nervous whenever people I don't know show up in town. It seems—" She stopped speaking and looked back out the window. "Hey! Where did they go?"

  "Maybe they went on their way," he suggested. The sudden, insistent knocking on the door told them that his suggestion was incorrect.

  "Oh, great," Rowena muttered as she rose from her seat and went to the front door. She moved to open it, but decided at the last moment to be cautious. She opened the peephole and looked out. "Yes?"

  Rowena saw a pale white face of exquisite beauty gazing back at her with striking emerald green eyes. "Is this the home of Simon Proctor?" the woman asked. Her voice was deep and rich, like thick, sweet liquid.

  "Yes it is,"' Rowena answered. "What do you want?" Her tone was wary.

  "Fetch your master, girl. Tell him we have come far to see him."

  The woman's manner was imperious, and her choice of words annoyed Rowena. "He's my father," she said pointedly. "Who wants to see him?"

  The woman laughed. "Two cold, wet, weary travelers." Rowena waited in vain for further identification. She was tempted to slam shut the peephole and ignore the people standing outside, but she could not bring herself to be so rude. Reluctantly, she pulled the door open to admit the unexpected guests. The two women entered and pulled the hoods back from their heads.


  The first woman, the one with whom Rowena had spoken, looked at her coolly, a hint of a smile on the corners of her mouth. "I meant no offense at calling him your master, girl," she said. "But please fetch him."

  Rowena began to make a remark about strangers giving orders in someone else's house, but the steady gaze of those green eyes unnerved her and the comment died unspoken. "Wait a moment, please." She walked quickly toward the kitchen.

  The women walked into the center of the foyer, and the second woman looked over at Jeremy, who was still sitting upon the sofa in the adjacent sitting room. She smiled slightly and nodded a greeting. He returned both the smile and the nod, and then she turned away from him, ignoring him completely. Pistopheles hissed at her and then ran off.

  A long minute passed before Simon Proctor walked out of the kitchen and down the hallway toward the foyer. The women watched him approach, motionless and silent. He came up to them and said, "I'm Simon Proctor. What can I do for you?" He seemed to be annoyed at having been disturbed during breakfast.

  The first woman said, "My name is Gwendolyn Jenkins. This is my sister in the faith, Adrienne Lupescu." She paused. "We are witches, Mr. Proctor. And you are a fraud."

  "Oh, Lord!" he sighed, remembering the letter they had sent him.

  "I have not come here to remonstrate with you," the woman said. "I have come to give you the opportunity to join with us, to help us spread the gospel of Satan, to become a true warlock."

  Simon rubbed his eyes wearily. "Look, sweetheart—"

  "Please, Mr. Proctor," the woman named Gwendolyn interrupted, "all we ask is a half hour of your time. If what we say pleases you, we will stay longer. If not, we will depart and come not back again."

  Come not back again? Simon thought. Is she trying to sound weird or something? If she is, she isn't succeeding. She just sounds silly. He said, "Miss Jenkins, I'm a rock and roll singer. This witchcraft-Satanism stuff is just an act, that's all, nothing but an act. Now if you'll excuse—"