The Well

by Jack Cady

  “You look a little better,” she said.

  He felt better. He looked at her. “So do you.” As they went further toward the outside, it might be that the power of it weakened. He was still sore, his shoulders still hurt, but at least he had a little more strength.

  The voices. They couldn’t be attached to living beings, yet he was also prepared to believe that they were more than illusion. And Tracker…a man convincing himself that time did not shift, that the only world was now, now accepted the fact that it did. Of course he didn’t know how or why it shifted, but he figured that maybe he’d be on the way to figuring it out once he accepted the fact that it actually happened.

  He tried to think of all the old, old people he had ever met. He wondered if any of them could explain about time. How it was that age had come to them. How many times had he heard someone say they couldn’t understand where the years had gone…how time flies, surely a fanciful notion. Except perhaps not. Time it seemed, had a life of its own. All of time, and its history, that had ever been in this house seemed still to be in this house. It was more than memory. If he hadn’t been so smug in his success, he would have paid more attention to the few old people he had known. The wisest children of time. No wonder the ancients venerated age, believed it housed superior or supernatural wisdom.

  Through the last part of the house it felt to him as though the walls were breathing in the past tense. He wondered if he was going to die when he stepped outside. He felt a little stronger as they neared the door. He looked at his hands; they seemed unchanged. He was not getting younger, but he felt better.

  Into the hall now, past the coffin that held the bones of Johan. “Stay here,” he told Amy. “I’ll try it first.”

  She stood, passive, as he pushed the door open and began to lean forward to check the trap door.

  He stopped.

  The dog sat in front of him on the porch, mouth open, tongue lolling, the mouth like a laughing rose.

  Tracker felt the unheard snarl. Savage. His own. A confrontation.

  The dog’s fur was thick, silvery gray, the feet heavy. It made no sound, no panting, whining or tall thumping. It seemed to consider the situation with amusement. Tracker raised the pistol and fired into the open, rose-colored maw. The shock of the heavy weapon banged hard against his thin wrist as the boom of the gun rolled through the rooms and passages behind him.

  The dog tumbled, rolled, absorbed the blow in a sprawl through the blowing snow, to lay panting. Tracker moved forward, his mind blank as the darkness of a cave, as the black abyss of long-denied memory. His hand held the pistol steady, and the well of his rage erupted as he fired again.

  The dog should have been knocked howling, spurting blood. Instead it raised a bloodless mouth, panted, snarled and came to its feet. Tracker answered the snarl with another shot. The dog broke sideways and fled across the gray light of the blowing snow, zig-zagged, tail high, and ran like a buoyant spirit cavorting with its own power. Then it made a wide sweep, turned a circle without zig-zagging, and pointed back toward the porch. Tracker threw the pistol onto the porch, crouched. There was no rose in the dog’s mouth now, it was running easy, and making a straight line for the porch. Tracker leaned in his crouch, nearly went off balance and fell backward as Amy pulled him with such force that he fell through the doorway, panting. She slammed the door. A moment later came a thump as the dog’s body skidded across the porch, and a panting came from beyond the door. Tracker stood up, breathing heavily, returning to sanity. He was incredulous and disoriented, but he also felt somehow proud. He turned to Amy, saw her backing away from him.

  “I almost had it beat.”

  “What? You acted like an animal. I don’t understand.” She was looking at him indignantly. “You’re younger than me.”

  He looked at his hands. It was true. They weren’t exactly a healthy forty but they were no longer thin and brown-splotched with feeble veins rising through paperlike skin.

  He stood there quietly, feeling weak from his departing rage. But he understood something now. Part of him was healed. And he understood something else. This house was so intermixed with himself that he could never leave until those parts of himself and the house were separated. He felt that he would have to walk the house, exploring and meeting and disowning those parts. Maybe Amy could leave, but the house was in him. Even if he was allowed to leave he would carry the house with him.

  “Let’s go back to Justice’s room,” he said. “If I can explain, I will.”

  Worn out, still fearfull of him, she didn’t seem interested, so he cut the story down to the facts of Theophilus and the dog and the well. They didn’t sound like much, even to him. Trouble was, he did not know how to tell her of a small boy’s fright. When they got to the kitchens he asked her if she wanted something to eat.

  “Please leave me alone.” Amy could be contentious sometimes, he thought, and then told himself that he was an ignorant spoiled fool who was putting a loved woman through hell.

  When they arrived in Justice’s room she went immediately to the bed, lay down and closed her eyes, as though what she could not see was not real.

  “I’ll be right here,” he told her. “I’ve got to figure something out.”

  He went to the bookshelves, where there were sermons, essays, other men’s journals and philosophies. What he wanted was something that would explain such things as witchcraft and its accessories. There was nothing. The ancient books, some bound in new covers, some cracked and yellow, all dealt with religion and history.

  All right, then, his father’s journals. Reluctantly he picked up the last journal and began to read, telling himself that his father was dead and that he might just as well accept that fact.

  He started at the front of the journal, skimming.

  “Late now,” ran one entry. “After a hectic and depressing day. If it were only my soul at stake, but this force is building beyond us.”

  John flipped more pages.

  “Saw Sara Lily Tracker (plus whatever her name is now) today in Indianapolis. She is so beautiful. I stood on a street corner as watchful as any country bumpkin as she swept by like a lady. I loved her. Still do. Damned fool.”

  John remembered his mother, shook his head, continued to skim.

  “Evil can imitate, it cannot create. It is only as powerful as ignorance. In this house, it displays itself as a force that grows from history. But while it grows from history, it is created by the people of this house. No, it cannot create, but people can. Here, it deals in time. But at least a man’s thoughts are his own.”

  That was a relief. At least, John thought, whatever he was up against couldn’t read minds.

  “In this house, Einstein has special meaning.”

  John knew nothing of Einstein except the name of his theory, relativity, and that it was about time.

  “Time is conceptual. If time/space curves, then all of time exists all the time. Time in this house is no different than time elsewhere, but the collective force of this house allows it to be experienced more acutely.”

  And so the time shifts? At least, he told himself, he was dealing with intensity and not just illusion.

  “In this house, generations have combined to create a force far greater than all of them. One need not apologize for naming what it is. It has documented and given credence to itself through all the dark ages of our history. We are its creators. Evil.”

  John quickly flipped pages. The entry ended. “Evil in this house threatens to get beyond its creators. It threatens to become independent in its struggle for control.”

  So there it was. Exactly what John Tracker feared, exactly what he faced. Maybe Theophilus was no longer in control. Vera was not in control. Could that be? John flipped pages:

  “Vera (Rothstein) Tracker died this morning. She was aged 74. Cause of death was
probably a burst artery in the throat. There was a lot of blood coming from the mouth. I am only going to record a little of this, although her apoplexy lasted 74 years.”

  John sat there, stunned, wordless. All of his hope, his optimistic belief in rationality; all of his logic and profoundest emotions were suddenly fatuous and shallow. His dreams were the dreams of a self-deluded fool. He was like an unbaptised child being introduced to Hell.

  “She was my mother. I owe her something. If this journal is ever read I trust that the reader will be respectful enough to read it all. I am 49 years old, have lived through a great deal of Hell, and it seems likely that I am almost ready to get beyond Hell. If I am lucky and strong, then this house will fall in defeat.

  “Vera Tracker was not only a creature of this century but its living illustration. That is a long story. I’m tired. Father is drunk, which has seldom happened in these last years. Vera is sitting dead with blood caking the grooves between her teeth.”

  In a way the shocking disclosure was a kind of relief. At least matters couldn’t get any worse. He read on, almost dispassionately.

  “Somewhere I have read — ah, Michelet, that compassionate and angry man. He says that a woman may call and call on the Devil and the Devil will not answer because the woman is not yet fit. One does not become a witch by denying God. One must learn to hate God. Vera learned that early. I want to get drunk, but a word or two, anyway.

  “Dear reader of the future, this is a crazy century I live in and a crazier century that it derived from. My mother sits dead in a chair with a snarl frozen on her mouth and with blood staining the front of her dress. It is only a little blood if it has to signify so many years of hate.

  “I have this much figured out. Good and evil have nothing to do with each other. Good and evil are forces in this world, but nature is a power. Nature is life, egg and sperm. Now I’m going to get swizzled.”

  Tracker turned to the next page, which was covered with illegible scrawls. So was the next and the next. Then:

  “May 3rd, she’s been dead three days. The old man is crazy, and I’m still drunk, lord, lord, he won’t move the body. Got to leave this place, the walls are hot…get sober, leave this place.”

  “May 5th, no entry yesterday. Tried to get him to move her. He sat there staring. He has the body propped up, and they sit there staring at each other. Ate this morning, then resumed drinking. Trembly. Giddy. Got to write the summary, it’s all coming apart, who would have ever thought she had this kind of hold?”

  “May 7th, drunk and crazy, the old man has rearranged the body.”

  “May 10th. Our Father who art in heaven now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their summary I’m crazy now tomorrow I wont be — tomorrow I’ll start for sure.”

  John was surprised by the orderliness of the next entry.

  “June 1. Today is the day to begin, but first a record of what has happened and the puzzle that greets me. There has been no entry for a long time. I was drunk for a while, crazy for a while, and then believed I was hallucinating. Now I know that was not true. Forces in this house, I keep feeling them ready to pounce. I know what stays them. Me. Through half a lifetime of work I have evolved into the counter force in this house. As long as I am alive the forces may pounce but they can never grow into a single, massive force.

  “Dear reader of the future: I have a son. I had a wife. I have lost both because of this house. If you think ill of me, consider this: Rightly or wrongly I have stayed in this house when any sane man would have left years ago. I stayed because my grandfather and my parents (for ignorant and mistaken motives) created evil, though they would have claimed, especially Johan, that they created this house to trap and destroy it. Through enormous concentration and ingenious work they unconsciously gave voice to this force. They have become its creatures, just as it is theirs. At present neither they nor the force are in control. But as long as the force remains in their house it makes little difference. They would never admit that this force of evil has grown beyond their control. I have stayed and fought so that it would not get beyond this house. If it ever comes to full strength through the acquiescence, and the cooperation of Trackers, the countryside will be helplessly ravaged.”

  Tracker stopped reading. The phrase, “through the acquiescence and cooperation of Trackers” rang in his mind. He still wasn’t sure whether Justice was a courageous man or a fool.

  He sat back for a moment. All right, he could accept that Justice was right about the force of evil. After all, he had seen Vera walk. So had Amy. If it was Theophilus’ doing, with his perverse illusions, then it was Theophilus doing the work of something that had gotten beyond him. All of them. Justice was no fool.

  Not all he had learned from business was a loss. His decision-making, business mind began to sort facts. If the evil thatJustice described actually existed, then surely it could have killed John and Amy at any time. Which must mean that it wanted them alive, or at least one of them. And if it wanted them alive, then they were needed for something…“through the acquiescence and cooperation of Trackers.” Of course. They were to be its carriers, as Theophilus and Vera had been…

  Even as he heard Amy move, even before he heard her first word, he knew she was a hostage to insure the “acquiescence and cooperation” of the Trackers.

  “Father?”

  He turned and looked. Her body was tensed, becoming rigid. Her voice changed, it had the sound of a contrite, frightened seven-year-old. Her face was being moved, pulled, molded, the skin tightening as she assumed the posturing of a defenseless child.

  “Father?” Her eyes opened, although she didn’t move.

  “Father?”

  She half-rose from the bed, as if to get closer to what she was seeing. It was as though she were trying to see movement in some far-off darkness, but her concentration continued to be fixed less than a foot from her eyes. Now her face was rapidly taking on the youth of a child. The wrinkles were gone, the lips were a soft and definite line, even with the slightly protruded look that one saw on babies.

  “You are not my father.” In a compulsive burst of movement she rolled from the bed and stood. Her eyes still searched close in. “Who are you?” She turned in a half circle, backed away, stood quiet. “It’s dark here and I can’t see you, why can’t I see you…I can fly…” She bounded on the bed, jumped high, fell back, jumped again; bouncing as on a trampoline. Her shirt was pulled and torn and disarranged. She stopped, stood staring, rubbed her groin, tentatively at first, then faster.

  Tracker crossed the room, moving like a young man, and fell against her.

  She bounced against the wall. “I don’t want to be old…”

  He covered her body with his own. She tried to cross her legs, heaved against his weight and began crying as her body tightened. And then suddenly she relaxed and he rolled away from her, watching the child face deepen and age, mature through a range of young beauty and finally into the beginning decay of a woman of sixty.

  She woke up, and he held her close until she could talk.

  “I had a dream.”

  “You were attacked.” He edited the account, no good reason for her to know how bad it looked. He told her just enough so that she could understand about the aging.

  “Was I really young?” Her enthusiasm returned, it was as if nothing bad had ever happened to her.

  “Yes.”

  “Tell me again.”

  He told her. She touched herself all over, lowered her eyes like a small girl hiding a secret.

  “I’m not sure what you’re thinking,” he told her, “but before you do anything else I have something to tell you.” And he told her about Vera, and once more she was listening and not hearing.

  “What did you see when you were attacked?”

  “Nothing. No, that isn’t right. I saw s
hadows.”

  “You were attacked.”

  “I wanted it, at the very last I wanted it.” She was matter of fact, almost like she was describing the problems of combining splits between two inventories. Her face looked good, considering the age.

  “You look pretty terrible,” she said, “but I think I love you.”

  That stopped him. Fear or not, he could still feel pain.

  “Go ahead and read,” she told him. “I have to figure something out, just like you.” She sat on the bed, and when he tried to talk to her she only shook her head impishly, like a naughty child.

  He’d better finish that journal, find out what to do when she was attacked again. He returned to the desk, picked up the journal, flipped pages:

  “Fire can be the important enemy here. I wonder if I have built well enough. Vera, my mother, has been dead for a month today. She still sits, undecayed and lifelike in a chair in one of the downstairs rooms. The old man, in a continuing state of drunkenness, has given order to that room in a way that could only be given by the builder’s mind. Nothing is out of place so much as a fraction. In this great house with all its space and contrivance for evading, there is no consolation for him. He remains beside her, talks crazily sometimes, rationally at others. They argue, because he listens and then answers. They fight with their tongues just as they always have. If it is all in his head it is no less real in that room. I’ve watched for a length of time at various times. I know that Vera is dead, yet I know the old man hears her. The body does not decay, although it does seem to be fading, becoming thinner, as if it were being drawn together from inside itself. Can’t always be sure what their argument is about. At least three times—and each time his protest was weaker — I heard the old man claim that he is not God. Vera, or something…maybe Theophilus hallucinating… is convincing Theophilus that he is jehovah. His mind is antique beyond its age, not greatly advanced from a mind of the Middle Ages…”