by Rick Hautala
“Uh — what was that?”
“I said it’s too late for a movie, but maybe we could still go somewhere for a drink.”
Elizabeth’s eyes teared up as she looked idly down at Graydon’s book. She had inadvertently opened it to Chapter Twelve and couldn’t look away from the illustration on the facing page. It was an old-fashioned print of a man dressed like a medieval wizard. He was standing inside a five-pointed star drawn on the ground in front of an iron-gated mausoleum, and at each point of the star there burned a candle. In one hand the man held an open book; in the other he held a magic wand. All around him, swirling in a confusion of smoke and lichen-crusted tombstones, were demonic-looking figures-ghosts, demons, and devils ... all reaching out toward the man whose face, in spite of the horrors surrounding him, displayed a remarkable calm.
As if he’s in complete control, Elizabeth thought, like Dr. Graydon wants to be!
“Well ... ?” Frank said.
“No, I, uh —” Elizabeth took a shuddering breath. “I just want to read for a while and then get some sleep. I haven’t been sleeping very well lately.”
“I don’t have another day off until next Tuesday, but maybe we can do something then,” Frank said.
Elizabeth grunted noncommittally.
“Maybe you should write it down on your calendar, or tie a string around your finger so you won’t forget,” he suggested, laughing.
“Yeah — sure,” Elizabeth replied distractedly.
She couldn’t take her eyes away from the drawing in the book. The longer she looked at the face of the man in the drawing, the more convinced she became that he looked exactly like Graydon. She realized she was just responding to the power of suggestion. Graydon had given her the book, and she was imagining these similarities; she was convincing herself it looked like him. Or, if in fact the man did resemble Graydon, it was nothing more than coincidence. Since she had returned home, stranger coincidences had happened, so something as simple as this wasn’t entirely impossible.
“Are you feeling all right?” Frank asked. “You sound ... I don’t know — different. Kind of distracted.”
‘‘I’m fine — really, just beat,” Elizabeth replied.
“Well, think about next week, okay? I’ll give you a call in a day or two.”
“Sure,” Elizabeth said.
She listened as Frank hung up on his end of the line, then reached up and replaced the receiver on the wall phone near the table. She was expected at the store first thing in the morning, and she knew she should go to bed right now. After the last few nights-and the nightmares she’d been having-she needed at least a solid eight hours of sleep. More would be better. But rather than head straight upstairs, she started reading the chapter Graydon had suggested. For the next two hours, she sat at the kitchen table, leaning intently over the book as she read and reread Chapter Twelve, “The Ancient Science of Necromancy.”
From Chapter Twelve, Elizabeth learned more than she ever thought she would want or need to know about raising the dead in order to communicate with them. There was a brief survey of the pervasiveness of such activity in many cultures, all of which, while interesting, struck Elizabeth simply as folklore and superstitious nonsense rather than real science, at least as she understood the term.
The last and longest section of the chapter, however, gave detailed descriptions of exactly how to go about summoning up the dead in order to speak with them. Elizabeth felt a deep chill when she read the description of the magical properties of the Hand of Glory. That someone — who? — had used her uncle’s severed hand as just such a thing seemed obvious. The book reiterated exactly what Frank had told her when they’d met last Thursday; that the power of the hand was most potent if it was from a hanged man or a suicide. The book also detailed the protective properties of the pentagram, the incantations used to raise the dead, and what the summoner had to do before being allowed to speak with the dead, as well as which questions were appropriate and inappropriate to ask.
It was nearly one o’clock in the morning when Elizabeth finished reading the chapter a second time. She closed the book and sat back in her chair, feeling completely drained. Confusion and fear twisted in her mind like heavy storm clouds. She wanted to get up and get a drink of water, but she wasn’t sure she even had the strength to stand. What she had read was bad enough taken as fiction, but it was staggering to consider that people long ago and, apparently, even now — people as seemingly sane as Roland Graydon — thought they could actually do this!
Everything she was learning about the ancient magic associated with necromancy put more and more pieces of her own situation together for her. Some of these realizations hit with all the energy of a bolt of lightning, while others came on more slowly and finally swept through her mind like the icy shock of an ocean wave.
One thing was that what she had thought were mere coincidences, were now starting to fit into place for her. Maybe there really was a pattern, some overriding master game plan to everyone’s life. Christians, astrologers, and other so-called psychic people seemed to think so. What if they were right? What if we really are just pawns in some cosmic drama of which we can get only hints?
But even if life is all preordained, Elizabeth believed that it was up to her, as it was to each individual, to work out her own life pattern. It was up to her to judge whether she thought such perceived “coincidences” were either “good” or “bad.” If she defined every connection in her life as negative, then, sure, someone like Dr. Graydon would have to classify her as paranoid. But if she saw and made the exact same connections and regarded them all in a positive light, it was no longer paranoia ... it was what people throughout the ages have defined as a “religious” experience. Elizabeth actually wished she could embrace this perception that life truly is all connected, and that it is all for the good!
“And does Graydon honestly think he can do this?” she whispered aloud, as she closed the black book and stared blankly at its cover. It was obvious that this book was more than a history of magic; it was a practical manual. And just as obviously, Graydon believed he could use it ... either that, or else he was dangerously deluded.
But if Graydon is deluded, how could he know what the name Button meant to her? Was that just another coincidence, or was it tenuous proof that he was in touch with some kind of occult power? Although he had denied having ever spoken with Doug, maybe he had. He might be lying simply to manipulate her.
But why manipulate her ... to what purpose?
Elizabeth granted that Graydon had a commanding presence, an attractive charisma ... no, something deeper, something darker than that. Was it possible that Graydon was a black magician of some sort, someone who exercised power by gaining hypnotic control over a person? If he could be connected with what had happened out at Uncle Jonathan’s grave or — as horrible as it was — the murder of Barney Fraser, shouldn’t she get in touch with the police and tell them her suspicions? If she didn’t want to talk to Frank about it, she knew she could go directly to Detective Harris.
Oh, yeah — sure, that would sound just great! Call up the town cops and tell them her therapist, Dr. Roland Graydon, of South Portland, practices black magic and is using the severed hand of a suicide — her Uncle Jonathan! — to raise her daughter Caroline from the dead. That would no doubt earn her a first-class ticket to a rubber room in the state mental institution in Augusta.
But what about the nightmares she had been having?
— What was she to make of the recurring dream about all those doorways that led into the exact same room where the old crone, who Graydon suggested was nothing more than a guilt-projection of herself, waited to show her what she had in her shopping bag. Would Elizabeth see Caroline’s head — or her own — centered in a roaring ring of fire?
— What about the nightmare she’d had of using the Ouija board to spell out messages that, in light of more recent events, all seemed to be connected with what had been happening ‘around town lately? W
as she crazy, or did it all truly make a paranoia inducing kind of sense?
— And what was she to make of her blatantly sexual dream where Graydon, kneeling in front of her, had chewed out her stomach and intestines with a wolfish, ravaging hunger? Was this, too, simply some kind of projection on her part, or was she in imminent danger from him?
— And most important, perhaps, how could anyone explain away, either as coincidence or delusion, the voice she had undeniably heard on Eldon Cody’s tape recorder? Even if it wasn’t Caroline’s voice, someone had said those words! What were the odds that she would actually hear that same message she had received before?
“Help! ... Mommy! ... Help! ... “
If Eldon Cody hadn’t known enough to set her up — and how could he? — then how could she write it off as simple coincidence? Something like that would defy the hugest possible odds. It made winning Tri-State Mega-Bucks look like a sure thing.
Or maybe she was responsible. Maybe she had some bizarre psychic power she wasn’t even aware of and was able to project her thoughts-her fear and guilt-into reality, enough so she would actually be able to hear them in Claire DeBlaise’s “sitting” room and on Eldon Cody’s tape recorder.
There was most definitely something ... something weird going on. It certainly wasn’t natural or normal!
Elizabeth had no doubt that Graydon had been involved in the disinterment of Uncle Jonathan. He — or someone working with him — had cut off her uncle’s hand and was using it for magical purposes. Frank had told her about that other occurrence out in the cemetery. If she was right about her therapist, it meant Graydon was responsible for Barney Fraser’s murder and, possibly, the fire that had killed Henry Bishop. The right thing to do, the sensible thing to do, was to turn Graydon in or, at the very least, make an anonymous phone call to the authorities.
But what it all came down to, finally, was — what if Graydon was right? What if he really could do what he said he could do?
Maybe ail along he had been doing these things to prepare her, mentally and emotionally, to accept his power, his control over her. It was obvious how miserable she was over the death of her daughter; perhaps he was seducing her, in the deepest sense of the word, into trusting him so she would accept his offer of help ... to allow her to speak with Caroline one last time! Maybe he saw that that was what she needed to be finally and completely free of the guilt she had from that night a year and a half ago.
But what if there was something beyond all of this? What if it was the exact opposite of what Graydon was telling her? What if he had no power at all but — somehow — Caroline had an important message and was trying to contact her! Was that possible? Could spirits “on the higher planes,” as Claire would put it, come back to talk to the living?
It made a twisted kind of sense that, if she accepted it was even remotely possible to speak with the dead, she should just as easily accept that the dead could speak to her. lust as there were numerous historical instances of necromancy, as Graydon’s book proved, there were even more instances of divination through a variety of methods ranging from the Ouija board and seances and “channeling” in darkened rooms to dream visions of the dead contacting and advising the living. On the rare occasions she had thought about it until now, Elizabeth had always assumed such things were either delusions or simple parlor games. Maybe her acceptance of such things now came from an accumulation of pressure, lack of sleep, overwrought nerves, anxiety, and Graydon’s wearing down of her resistance. Regardless — it was there! It was being offered to her, and it sure as hell seemed possible!
If her daughter had some message to get to her, Elizabeth wondered what it would be. What reasons did the dead have to come back?
She knew the most obvious superstitious reasons: ghosts return either to haunt the place where they met their sudden and unexpected death, or else they came back to complete some unfinished earthly business before “passing on” to the next spiritual level.
Warning or revenge? ... warning or revenge? ...
Which was it?
Elizabeth considered the ambiguity of the message she had received — Help! ... Mommy! Was Caroline calling to her for help? ... or was she saying she was trying to break through so she could help her mother?
A numbing chill gripped Elizabeth when she recalled the night she had gone back to the accident site and had seen-thought so, anyway — a skeletal hand — possibly Caroline’s? — reaching up over the edge of the roadside. She couldn’t deny that she had felt directed to go out there that night ... as though she was being forced to go, pushed out there against her will by a power she didn’t understand.
Did Caroline lure me out there that night? Was she trying to reach back from beyond the grave and contact me?
Why?
Such confusing thoughts filled Elizabeth’s mind like black, icy, unseen hands, reaching for her from the surrounding darkness. The kitchen, where she sat, seemed as cold and as narrow as a coffin. The sound of her own labored breathing rasped loudly in her ears. Outside, the night smothered the house, filled with horrible potential.
Does Caroline know something? Does she have a warning to give me of some unseen danger? ...
Or does she have some unfinished business? Is there something more sinister? ...
Does she want to get back at me for letting her die? ...
“Help ... Mommy ... “
“Help mommy do what?” Elizabeth whispered, as she gazed inwardly at the dark curtains folding over her mind. Help mommy get rid of her guilt by killing herself? Is that what Caroline wants?
“No ... “ Elizabeth whispered. Her breath hitched in her chest as tears poured from her eyes. “I can’t believe it! Not Caroline! She loved me, and I loved her!”
But if Caroline wasn’t trying to return for revenge, then she had to be trying to tell her something. She might know something only someone on the “other side” could know — and she was trying to get through to her mother, trying desperately to help her mommy ... before it was too late!
SIXTEEN
Further Investigations
1.
Detective Harris was hunched over his typewriter, carefully plugging away at the keys. A cigarette dangled from his lower lip, and thin blue rafts of smoke hung in several layers in the room. Sunlight was pouring in the window behind him, shadowing his face. Frank thought he looked more like an earnest newspaper reporter than a detective.
“Hunt and peck, huh?” Frank said, poking his head into the room. He entered without an invitation and sat down in the chair beside the desk, waiting for Harris to acknowledge him.
“Yeah,” Hams finally muttered, barely looking up, “and it’s a Goddamned long hunt. “Twin streams of blue smoke shot from his nostrils. “What the fuck can 1 do for you?”
Frank scratched the back of his head and took a deep breath, “I’ve got a few questions for you, if you have the time.”
Scowling, Harris snapped, “I never have the fuckin’ time. What’d you want to know?”
“What do you think the chances are for the Red Sox this year?”
“You’re a Goddamned laugh-riot, you know that?” Harris said, eyeing Frank narrowly. “What the fuck—you think I’ve got all day to waste bullshitting with you?”
“Hey! Lighten up, for Christ’s sake,” Frank said, waving the smoke away from his face. “I was just trying to make conversation. “
“Listen up, asshole; I’ve got an unsolved murder, an extremely suspicious case of arson, a disinterred corpse, and half-a-fuckin’-million other things to do, so if you don’t mind . . . ”
“ Actually. that’s what I wanted to talk to you about,” Frank said. “I wanted to know how the Fraser investigation was going.”
Harris’s scowl deepened as he flicked the ash off his cigarette and shrugged. “I just fuckin’ told you. Zip! Zero! Zilch!”
“No leads? Nothing at all?”
Groaning. Harris shifted forward in his chair, grabbed a pad of paper and a penc
il from his desk, and said, “Here—lemme write that down for you.” Sticking his tongue out between his teeth, he started forming letters with all the earnest effort of a preschooler. saying in a sing-song voice: “That’s Z-E-R-O.” Tearing off the sheet of paper, he stuffed it into Frank’s shirt pocket. “I assume you can read. If not, take it home and have your mommy read it to you.”
Frank snickered as he took the paper and glanced at it. “Hey you’re the guy who told me what assume makes,” he said, before crumpling it into a tight ball and, with a quick hook shot, popping it into the wastebasket by the wall.
“Two points. Glad to see you’re good at something,” Harris snarled. “Look, if you don’t have anything more urgent than a bleeding rectum, I’d just as soon get some fuckin’ work done.”
“Okay, okay—I just had a quick question for you. Has the name Roland Graydon come up in any of your leads?”
Harris looked at the ceiling for a moment, took a drag off his cigarette, then with a loud whoosh blew the smoke out the comer of his mouth. “Nope. Should it?”
Frank shrugged. ‘‘I’m not sure.”
“What the fuck is this all about, Melrose. I mean, if you don’t mind telling me . . . ” He waved one hand at Frank in an encouraging, “come-on-’n’-tell-me” motion.
“It’s just . . . I’m not sure,” Frank said, scratching behind his ear.
“You’ve been hanging around Willis too much,” Harris said.
“Looks to me like you got his cooties. Look, if you think I should know something about this guy Graydon, I wouldn’t mind you telling me why. You got something you’re not telling me?”
Frank shook his head. “I don’t think so, it’s just that a . . . a friend of mine has been seeing this guy. He’s a therapist of some kind, and I—”
“Lookee here, flatfoot,” Harris said, taking up the pad of paper again and hastily printing a single word. Smoke rose into his face, making him squint as he held it up to Frank. “See anything funny about this?” he asked.
