Blackbriar

by William Sleator

  Islington was pawing about in the ashes of the fireplace. “Oh, you monster!” Danny cried. His knees were shaking.

  “Don’t you talk to him like that!” Philippa said angrily. “He can’t help it, he’s just playing.” She kneeled down. “Come here, darling.” Islington curled and stretched under her hand.

  “Well, now I suppose we’ve got to look in the basement,” Danny muttered.

  “Yes,” Philippa said, standing up. “Come on, let’s get it over with.”

  It was Philippa who led the way down the basement steps. Danny did not stay very close behind her, until Lark stepped on his heel in the darkness and automatically he moved forward quickly. He had never been in the basement with Philippa before, and found that the room was not necessarily as frightening as he had thought.

  “It really is creepy down here,” Lark whispered.

  Philippa flashed the light over the damp stone walls. “There certainly isn’t anyone here,” she said at last.

  There was a short silence.

  “But what’s going on?” Danny said suddenly. “And who would build that fire, and why?” Now that it was clear that they were the only people in the house, his courage very quickly returned. “We have to find out. I mean, we can’t let people come in and out of here without trying to find out who it is, and why they would do it!”

  “Listen,” Philippa said, “what we really have to do is get organized. We can’t just stand here all night blathering and dithering. We’ve got to keep busy, and try to think about something else for a while. Why don’t you two unload the car while I get the stove going. Then, Lark, you can fill the lamps and the paraffin stove, I’m sure you know how, and Danny can do some pumping, and I’ll start dinner and get Lark’s bed made up. Then, when we have light, and some food in our stomachs, we’ll be able to think much better about what we should do.”

  Lark and Danny brought the small flashlight out to the car. Danny tried to think of something to say that would show Lark how calm he was. “Philippa is a wonderful cook,” he finally managed, as they began to gather up the food and the equipment in the back of the car.

  “That’s too bad. I love to eat, and it’s a real treat for me to eat someone else’s cooking. But I don’t have much appetite now. I’m still nervous about that fire.”

  “I can’t imagine why anyone would have built it.”

  They put the bundles down in the kitchen, where Philippa was poking around in the oven with the big flashlight. “This is going to take some time,” she said when she emerged. “It’s hard enough to get this monster started in daylight. Lark, do you know how to deal with these lamps?”

  “Well, sort of. You just fill them with paraffin, and I know how to pump and light this hurricane one. But this other thing, the Aladdin lamp, you have to put this asbestos filament in, or something, and I don’t know how to light it.”

  “Just do the hurricane and fill the Aladdin. I think you’d better do it outside, if you don’t mind. I don’t want paraffin all over the floor. Do it on that old table out there.”

  Outside the door was a large round wooden table, gray and mottled with long years of continuous exposure to every kind of weather. Lark brought out the flashlight and set down the two lamps and the little stove, then meticulously began to pour paraffin into them from a large metal can.

  Danny was on the cellar landing, beginning to pump. The first few strokes were a struggle, but soon he developed a rhythm which made it somewhat easier. The surprise of what had just happened had filled him with nervous energy; and his thoughts were spinning so fast that he practically forgot he was pumping at all. Somewhere in the back of his mind, however, he continued to count the strokes. He pumped till his arms ached and he felt stiflingly hot in his heavy coat. And after he had taken it off, dropping it carelessly on the stone floor, he began to pump again, hardly knowing what he was doing. Finally his arms simply refused to move, and when he stopped he noticed that his shirt was wet through, and sweat was dripping down his forehead and rolling off his cheeks. He had never really sweated before in his life, and was quite surprised that he was capable of it. As he wobbled up the steps on shaking legs, panting heavily, he realized that he had done seventy strokes, more than twice as many as he had been able to do before.

  “You were certainly down there a long time,” Philippa said as he came into the kitchen. She was spreading out the glowing coals at the bottom of the stove with an iron poker.

  “I know,” he gasped. “I did seventy strokes! The most I could do before was thirty.”

  There was a sudden hissing noise from outside, then a brilliant glow, wavering at first, but soon steady. Lark walked into the kitchen, proudly holding the hurricane lamp above her head.

  “How marvelous!” Philippa cried, clapping her hands together. “At last I can see! Now I can really begin to cook again. Danny, hang the lamp on that hook over the stove.”

  He scraped an old wooden rocking chair from a corner, balanced on it, swaying, and slipped the shiny metal handle of the lamp over the blackened hook sticking out of the wall. He jumped down and surveyed the kitchen as he dragged back the chair. It was like a different room, bright and cheerful now, larger than the dim, cramped space it had been before.

  “Thank you so much,” Philippa said to Lark. “It changes my whole state of mind to have a decent place to cook.”

  Danny went upstairs to make Lark’s bed, and Lark brought in the Aladdin lamp and the little stove. She and Philippa began preparing the food.

  Philippa didn’t seem very eager to talk to Lark, and they worked in silence until finally Lark said, hesitantly, “You really are lucky to be living here, you know.”

  “Yes, it’s really too bad about this place,” Philippa said, sticking little slices of garlic into a large hunk of red meat. “I mean, it would be such a divine place to live if it weren’t for this mysterious business. And I had thought that it would be good for Danny to live in a place like this. He’s hardly ever been in the country in his life.”

  “I’m sure it will be good for him,” Lark said eagerly, scraping the last bit of peel off her second potato. She chopped it in half and dropped it into a saucepan filled with water, then quickly started on another. “He’s quite skinny and pale; kids need to live where they can be outdoors. I think it’s terribly unhealthy to grow up in the city. My father is always saying how much better it is to live here than in London. He says it’s much easier to concentrate and work hard, and that his paintings have more to them than the ones he did in London.”

  “Oh, so your father’s a painter, is he?” Philippa sounded bored, as if she were making an effort to think of something to say. “What are his paintings like?”

  “Oh, I don’t know, they’re hard to describe. They’re abstractions . . . I guess I don’t understand them.” There was another silence. “But sometimes he does sketches of people,” Lark said quickly, obviously making an effort to keep the conversation going, “like some of the old men in the tavern, and those are wonderful. They’re really alive.” She put down the knife and the potato and began gesturing with both hands. “And they look just like the people they’re supposed to be. But the great thing about them is that they also show what my father thinks of the person, and what his personality is like.” She began peeling again, then smiled to herself. “Sometimes we have arguments about them, because he has different feelings about people than I do. I mean sometimes he’ll show somebody looking kind of sly, who I think is just thoughtful, or he’ll make somebody look dumb and gossipy who really just likes to talk. And I always say, ‘But so-and-so isn’t like that,’ and he just says, ‘My pen never lies,’ or something else grand and pompous. He’s just teasing then, but I really think he does have a kind of black view of most people. Sometimes I wonder if he’s a . . . what’s the word?”

  “Misanthrope, do you mean?”

  “Yes, I guess so.”

  “Hmmm,” Philippa said. She set the meat into a large roasting pan and, gru
nting genteelly, slid it into the oven. “I’m just guessing about how hot this oven is,” she went on. “It seems slow enough for the meat to be juicy and rare, but I’m going to have to remember to keep checking it. Now, how are the potatoes coming?”

  “I’ve just finished them. You’re sure this isn’t going to be too much? Ten potatoes is a lot for three people.”

  “Oh, no, that certainly isn’t too much. In fact, I wonder if it’s going to be enough. I adore potatoes myself, and Danny likes them too, and I’m sure you have a healthy appetite. Potatoes are very good for you, you know, full of vitamins and minerals, make you laugh and play. And they really aren’t fattening at all.”

  “That’s funny, I always thought they were fattening.”

  “A common misconception. Anyway, we won’t start cooking them for a while, salad and vegetables can start later too, after the meat’s been cooking. Timing things with all this primitive equipment just may drive me up the wall. Now, dessert . . . Are you very hungry?”

  Lark was about to say no, for she was still slightly shaky. But just at that moment she noticed the smell of the beef and garlic beginning to cook, and realized that she was absolutely starving. Her stomach felt so empty that there seemed to be nothing at all between her shoulders and legs. “As a matter of fact, I am quite hungry,” she said.

  “Apple pie,” said Philippa. “Now that there’s light I can make pastry quite easily here.”

  “Oh, I don’t want to make you go to all that extra trouble.”

  “No trouble, no trouble.”

  “You’ve got to let me help you, then.”

  “The one thing I’m going to ask of you is to please stay out of the kitchen. Making puff pastry takes great concentration and I must not be disturbed. So just go and scamper off somewhere. I’ll let you know when I need you.”

  Lark lit a candle while Philippa began measuring out the flour, and walked up the stairs to Danny’s bedroom. As she came up he was hastily shutting one of the bureau drawers.

  “I didn’t really think you were Philippa,” he said, turning around. “You have a lighter step. But I didn’t want to take any chances.” He opened the drawer again and took something out. “This is the doll I was telling you about.”

  She set down her candle next to his and sat beside him on the narrow bed. He handed her the strange wooden figure. She examined it slowly and carefully.

  “This really looks ancient,” she said softly. She turned to look at him. Their faces were very close. “And you say that Philippa . . . reacted how?”

  He moved away from her slightly. “She practically got hysterical. She couldn’t bear to touch it. What was it she said? That it was sinister, and menacing, or something.”

  “And she insisted that you get rid of it?”

  “Yes, but she wouldn’t let me burn it. I was supposed to throw it down the hill.”

  “How odd. I wonder why she did that. I wonder what it really is.” Lark handed it back. Somehow she had managed to slide close to him again.

  Danny stood up quickly and put the doll back in the drawer. He did not return to the bed, but stood and looked out the window. It was small, and there was a little square space almost a foot thick between the inside wall and the glass. He gazed blankly out at the trees and sky. A stream of icy air blew across his face, for though the window was closed as tightly as possible, the wind still managed to get through. There was no heat at all in the room, but the fire downstairs and the thick walls kept it from being quite as cold as one would expect.

  Finally he turned around. “Something really smells delicious,” he said. “What’s she making?”

  “Roast beef. And apple pie.”

  “She makes fantastic apple pie. God, I’m hungry. I’ve never been this hungry before. Why don’t we go down where we can smell it better.”

  “If you want.”

  “Let’s go, then,” he said quickly, starting for the stairway. “And you haven’t even seen the door yet, have you?”

  “What door?” She remained on the bed.

  “You know, the door with all the names on it. How come you’re so funny all of a sudden?”

  She stood up quickly. “I’m not being funny. And you better not go down that way. She said she didn’t want anybody in the kitchen.”

  “Well have to go through her bedroom then.”

  Each holding a candle, they walked through the two other bedrooms and down the stairs. The stairway was only wide enough for one person, and so steep that you had to concentrate to keep from plunging down head first. The steps were well-worn dark wood and made a 180-degree turn, so that each step was triangular, one side too small to step on. The walls here, as everywhere else in the house, were nubbly and whitewashed, and formed an oddly shaped, twisting passageway beneath the sloping ceiling. The candlelight made hovering patterns around them as they descended.

  “Please,” Philippa called from the kitchen as soon as Danny stepped down into the living room, “I don’t like people trampling through my room all the time. There is another stairway, you know.”

  She’s really in a rotten mood, Danny thought. He looked at Lark, sighing. “But I thought you didn’t want us in the kitchen,” he called, “so we had to come down that way.”

  “What are you mumbling about?”

  “Oh, nothing, forget it.” He motioned to Lark to come over to the door. “Here it is,” he said, holding up the candle.

  Lark examined the door, running her finger along the grooves in the wood. It was very smooth, almost shiny. “This is really incredible,” she said at last. “Just imagine—all these people dying here. But it does seem strange that they would have the strength or the will power to keep this record. I mean, you’d think that they’d be in such pain they wouldn’t even think about doing this.”

  “Do you notice anything else about the writing?”

  Lark looked again carefully, then stepped back for a moment. “Actually, all the writing looks the same. It looks like the same person did it all. Is that what you mean?”

  “Yes. I wanted to see if you thought so too. And you know what it makes me think?”

  “What?”

  “That Mary Peachy must have done it. She wrote it down whenever anybody else died. And she must have been the last one to die, because there was no one to put the date after her name. Can you imagine it? To have everybody dropping dead all around you, and then to be left all alone, just waiting to die?”

  “I wonder what happened to all the bodies. I wonder if she had to bury them herself.”

  “I wonder what happened to her body,” Danny whispered. Almost uncontrollably, a twisted smile crept across his face.

  Lark grabbed his arm. “What’s wrong with you? How can you smile like that?”

  “Oh, I’m not really smiling. It’s just that . . . it’s all too much. It’s so impossibly creepy. I mean her body could very well still be here, just left to rot away over the centuries.”

  Lark thought for a moment. “I wonder if that doll in your room has—”

  “Shhh! I’m not supposed to have it, remember?” He looked toward the kitchen. “Try not to talk so loud.”

  “But I wonder how it fits in,” she whispered. She looked again at the door. “You know, Mary Peachy couldn’t have been very sick if she had the strength to carve all those names, and take care of all those bodies. She really sounds like she must have been a remarkable person, awfully brave and independent. That’s how I’ve always wanted to be.”

  “Yes,” Danny murmured. “Brave and independent . . . I suppose that’s the way to be.” Suddenly he felt tired, and strangely sad. Ignoring Lark, who, bewildered by his sudden change in mood, still stood by the door, he sat down slowly in one of the chairs and gazed silently into the fire.

  Brave and independent, he thought. And I’m so cowardly and weak. Why didn’t I ever think of it before? Why didn’t I ever care about it before? And is there anything on earth that could ever make me any different?


  12

  Dinner that night, as Danny had expected, was not the pleasantest of meals.

  Just before they had sat down to the onion soup in its little covered bowls, Philippa had burned her hand lighting the Aladdin lamp. Though the lamp now glowed gracefully in the center of the table, Philippa’s hand was encased in awkward cloth bandages, and her face, Danny noted with dismay, showed all the signs of a terrible mood.

  “Cheese?” Philippa said in her iciest, most polite voice.

  “Thank you.” Lark uncovered her bowl, sprinkled cheese on her soup, then passed it to Danny. They waited while Philippa very slowly took cheese herself, gazed off into the distance for a long moment, and at last picked up her spoon. They began to eat.

  “Why, this is delicious,” Lark said. “It’s the best onion soup I’ve ever had.”

  “Oh?” said Philippa.

  “It is good,” Danny said. “Tonight it’s even better than usual.”

  “Oh, so you don’t like it the way I usually make it, do you?”

  Danny sighed. “That’s not what I meant,” he said.

  They finished the soup in silence. The lamplight fell across the polished wood, the green bowls, the heavy silver, their hands, and up into their faces; but outside the circle of the tabletop the boundaries of the room were lost in darkness. Danny had the uneasy sensation that they were suspended in black, empty space with only the yellow lamplight keeping them from floating off, far away from each other.

  “I’ll take the bowls out to the kitchen,” Lark said, sliding her chair back. “Your hand . . .”

  “You won’t know where to put them, though.”

  “I’ll help her,” Danny said. In the kitchen they exchanged worried looks as they stacked the dishes in the sink. Under Philippa’s direction they brought the crusty roast to the table, on a wooden carving board, the Yorkshire pudding (which had puffed beautifully), the boiled potatoes, and the parsnips. With difficulty, because of the bandages, Philippa began to carve thin slices of beef, dark brown on the outside, pink and bloody in the middle.