UNEARTHLY

by John Farris

  Now her hands were slippery with Draven's blood and she couldn't hold tightly to the dagger. She began sobbing in frustration, cursing Alexandra.

  "Barry, stop." Dal forced himself to his feet, came haltingly down the steps, his knee bad but holding him, his head at a wry angle. His mind kept wanting to make a dream of this. He sank down beside Barry, who didn't spare him a glance, nor rest in her efforts to free Draven of the lethal dagger.

  "Look—what she did to him. That dirty old thing. I hate her! I knew I should never have let her in the house. She always wanted to hurt us. She couldn't stand seeing us happy together. You were all the same. Jealous of Mark."

  "No, kid. No. Look at me. Look at Dad. Draven almost killed us. He took you over, and he was taking us over."

  Her hands flew into the air like white birds escaping a sacrificial altar. They dripped blood.

  "I can't do it! It won't come out!"

  "Because—it's finished. You'll see."

  Barry got up, wiping her hands on the front of her shirt, shaken by sobs and devastating hiccoughs, her body jumping, throbbing freakishly in a dozen places.

  "I need your help," Dal said. "I can't do anything without you, and we've got to get him out of here. He has to—disappear, like he never was. Barry, do you understand?"

  But she had gained some control over her body and walked away, indifferent to his pleas. She stopped at the second dagger, which had spilled from the casket, and stood looking down at it. Her mouth was open. The sobs became dry sucking windy sounds that unnerved him. Cold sweat was in his eyes. Dal crawled up the wall to a standing position.

  He heard the somewhat melancholy voice of Mrs. Prye from Barry, though again her lips didn't move.

  Ay. There's an end to all the trumpery. But do not trifle long, my beauty, my insensible cub.

  Barry stooped swiftly and snatched up the bronze dagger, held it vertically very near her face, her exposed throat.

  "Barry, no!" But he realized, as she turned and walked to the family room, the dagger lowered but still threatening, that Barry was beyond his hearing. Dal made a lunge to intercept her and fell down, twisting his neck again, and blacked out.

  Barry turned in the doorway, face smooth now, body still palpitating but with less force, her eyes sorrowing to blandness. She gazed at her brother for a few moments, then stepped into the room and closed the doors behind her.

  Chapter 35

  Dal awoke with his father shaking him. He let out a cry of pain, eyes filling with tears. The clock above their heads chimed the hour, but he had no idea what time it was.

  "Dad—are you okay?"

  "Worst headache I've ever had in my life. What happened? Did you kill him?"

  "No. My God! Where's Barry?"

  "I don't know."

  "She went—give me a hand up."

  His father helped him stand. They leaned against each other, aching, crippled. Dal smelled smoke. "What's that?"

  "Fireplace. Family room."

  Dal turned slowly and saw, in the space beneath the closed doors, the glazed light of a tremendous fire on the hearth inside.

  "Barry," Dal groaned. "Oh, no, God, please spare her!"

  He went hobbling to the doors and threw them open, then stood swaying just inside the family room, a hand groping along the wall for support. The heat had him perspiring instantly. The light from the flames hurt his eyes.

  Barry was seated cross-legged on the floor in front of the raised hearth, almost close enough to the fire to singe her naked body. She had the dagger in her right hand. As she gazed at the flames she severed great locks of her hair and threw the locks onto the hissing pyre she had made. She had already trimmed the left side of her head to a ragged pinkish turf of less than an inch.

  Dal saw there was no stopping, Barry; and, with a flood of relief, understood that there was no real need to interfere. He sensed that the dagger could not, would not be used by her hand to harm her. A necessary ritual of expiation was coming to completion: a purge of demons, the uninvited.

  By the time the clock chimed again—twelve times, Dal realized with a distant shock—it was over for her, the dagger still in her limp hand and lying by her side.

  He had brought a change of clothes to Barry; she had burned the other things, which had been soaked with Draven's blood. He helped her to dress. She moaned a little but was cooperative. The fire had shrunk to half its former size. Dal forced her to drink brandy. She choked on the first sip, then was greedy for more. Her eyes cleared as if a driving rain were washing mud from stones.

  Dal had taken two powerful painkillers, and while Barry completed her ritual by the fire he had been busy, with the occasional aid of Tom, who had a goose egg over his right ear and complained of double vision.

  "Where is he?" Barry wanted to know, as soon as she could talk. She huddled against her brother.

  "Outside."

  For several minutes Meanness had been howling: a death siren, a dirge. Barry listened apprehensively.

  "What are you—going to do with him?"

  "In the pond."

  "Ah!"

  "Barry, kid, there's no other way. We're all guilty of murder here. No one will ever believe what he was, what happened tonight. He just appeared one day, and he's going to disappear now. Who's going to ask a lot of questions? Barry, I need your help. I can't do it alone and Dad's hurt."

  "No, don't ask me!"

  "I've wrapped him in canvas, with stones. Too heavy even for both of us to lift into the wagon. I'll tie him to the bumper, drag him down to the dock. There's no moon, no chance we'll be seen. Let's get going."

  He had a good grip on her elbow, but she came along docilely. Tom was at the kitchen table, head in his hands. "Go to bed, Dad," Dal said. He and Barry went out into the yard. Meanness was nowhere to be seen, but his howling continued.

  She almost turned and ran at the sight of the canvas bundle, stoutly lashed with Dacron cord. Dal put her into the front seat of the Volvo, went around to the back to tie the shrouded corpse to the bumper. He drove down to the pond at five miles an hour, dragging the bundle.

  Then came the most difficult part—getting the two hundred pounds of deadweight out onto the none-too-solid dock and rolling it into the boat. With the corpse taking up much of the space lengthwise there was no way to row; instead they squatted Indian fashion, Dal in the bow and Barry in the stern, and paddled across the dark water. Dal guided them through the many little islands, frog tones fading at their approach, resuming behind them in the marshy thickets. The oars dipping, gliding, Dal's neck killing him despite the analgesic, which was so strong it had left him woozy. Once he leaned so far the wrong way he almost toppled out of the boat.

  "Dal? Where?"

  He couldn't take any more either; he pulled in his oar. "Here." But Dal wasn't sure where he was. He thought they must be in one of the deeper places, but it was very dark and he couldn't orient himself by the lights of the house; too many trees in the way. Then the prow of the boat scraped across a barely submerged concrete spillway that had marked the end of the pond originally, before a dredging operation in the twenties enlarged it. This place would do.

  With the boat grounded he stepped out on the spillway. It was easier that way to get the body out of the boat. Barry pushed with all her strength and sat back crying as the awkward bundle splashed in, drenching Dal. It sank immediately.

  He pushed the boat gratingly off the spillway and jumped back in, sat breathless with his arm around his sister.

  "Dal, I'm sorry—I'm sorry!"

  "It's over now."

  "I tried to say a prayer. But it stuck in my throat."

  "A prayer wouldn't have meant anything to him. Offer one for us instead."

  "Maybe a convent's the only place for me. I can't do any harm in a cloister."

  "The best place for you is with Dad and me," Dal assured his sister.

  They drifted awhile, feeling extraordinarily light without their burden, until Dal had the strength to man
the oars and begin the slow work of rowing them home again.

  MIDSUMMER'S EVE

  Every movement, in feeling or in thought, prepares in the dark by its own increasing clarity and confidence its own executioner.

  -WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS, "Per Amica Silentia Lunae"

  Chapter 36

  Time and the season healed them all.

  The stab wound in the palm of Barry's right hand, caused by one of the daggers piercing the leather casket as she was carrying it to the front door, was superficial. It left a small scar across the heart-line. Dal had torn neck muscles and a herniated throat, and he was required to wear a brace for four weeks. His knee responded to heat treatment. Tom's headache lasted a day, his goose egg was gone in a week, and his vision was soon sharp enough for him to resume work in his studio. The replacement windows had to be specially ordered, which took a month and a half. Pieces of translucent drop cloth served to keep the weather out and allow light in.

  On the second day after Draven sank into the pond Dal, with the aid of a neighbor's boy, loaded the fortune-telling machine into the back of a borrowed pickup. They drove it to a ravine a couple of miles away and dumped it into a collection of rusted old refrigerators and portions of automobiles.

  Before the party Mrs. Aldrich had, asked for, and received, a week off: her oldest daughter was having another baby, her fourth, up in Mechanicville. She returned to find the house in good order and was shocked by Barry's punk haircut, which showed her shapely head to good advantage but gave undue emphasis to her ears, never her best feature. Barry felt a little like Dumbo, the flying elephant, and took to avoiding mirrors and wearing Dal's Greek fisherman's cap when she had, infrequently, to appear in town.

  Strawberries ripened, nestlings emerged, gawky and almost immediately twice too large to be stuffed back into the fragile shells from which they had broken free. Trees settled into a mature, denser green. There were bumblebees and clover blossoms and wild climbing roses. The days grew languorous with a dry and fragrant heat and bronzy, dome shaped thunderstorms. The broad light of day lay on the surface of the pond until nearly nine o'clock in the evening.

  Mrs. Aldrich was disappointed to find Draven packed up and gone so abruptly. For several days she asked thorny questions about his departure. The story they had decided on was simple enough: a phone call from Europe, an authentic inquiry, flashes of memory on Draven's part that resulted, almost overnight, in a joyous reunion with his family. Of course he would write. Of course he would call, once the excitement of homecoming wore off. And someday he would return to see them. They appeased her curiosity while embroidering as little as possible and hoped that her appetite for news of Draven gradually would diminish.

  Barry did well enough with Mrs. Aldrich, although her smile was seldom there and the cropped head and melancholy stare were like that of a survivor of the Nazi horrors. Mrs. Aldrich readily understood. Barry was only eighteen, but she'd had, thus far, bitterly bad luck in affairs of the heart.

  Dal was trying to work again, but for the most part he kept a close eye on Barry, gave up most of his social life, and became her constant companion. The Mercedes coupe reminded her of Draven, so he went out and bought a yellow Lamborghini. They took long flashing rides together. He tried to tempt his sister with Europe, Morocco, São Paulo. She only shook her head. Not ready yet. After a while. Thanks, Dal.

  She ate well enough, but the flesh mysteriously left her bones. She picked up books and put them down again, could not concentrate, even on her own conversation, which she seemed to be steering around obstacles, continents of difficulty in the psyche: a deep sense of dejection, of guilt, of morbidity that was becoming more apparent in the pained tone of her eyes, the set of her mouth.

  One night they stopped in a tavern high up on the Connecticut border, having set out for Lime Rock and an auto race they decided not to attend. They danced pleasantly to hillbilly torch songs on the jukebox, doing the Texas two step, which had become the rage in the effete preppy East. Dal ordered schooners of malt liquor for both of them. Barry got tight, then pretty well loaded, and began to shine forth in a way her brother recalled tenderly. Still, in the blued light and wraparound mirrors of the low tavern there was something off-key and faintly horrid about her gaiety: the flush in her cheeks was that of silk roses on a grave site.

  She began paying more and more attention to the pond, although at first from such a distance he was unaware. In the rain, by sun and starlight, she gazed at the liquid, dreamy, shifting surface. Then she began to walk down there, venturing as far as the gristmill.

  "Barry, don't," he said, catching up to her one afternoon beneath some swaying pines along the race.

  "It's the bad in me," she said earnestly. "Can't sleep it off, walk it off. It just is. Why so much bad? It was never him. He wasn't the real horror. Aren't you afraid of me, Dal?"

  "I love you, kid. And you'll get over this."

  "He's down there, and he's painting me in his head."

  "Oh, Christ."

  "I want him to stop. What can we do?" She looked at her brother, without hope.

  Dal talked to Tom Brennan about selling Tuatha de Dannan, moving away. Tom wouldn't hear of it.

  "But this place is spoiled for her—worse. It's an influence—I can't describe what I mean. The house, the land around it, is saturated with the Celtic curses; the haunted twilights, the wretched immortals, all the sorcery we swallowed whole as children. Now I've put it away, but Barry can't—she's charmed."

  Tom had his work back, his appetite, his dog by his side. He was less concerned than Dal thought he should be.

  "Maybe a psychiatrist—"

  "There's no form of psychiatry that can deal with her."

  Barry, without being party to their conversation, somehow caught the drift of Dal's intent and began to shun him, which made him nervous and peevish.

  She found privacy for herself in an upstairs room of the gristmill—a closed place with a powdery bare floor, just a trickle of air coming in around the loose-fitting windows set at different angles to frame every moment of the daylong sun. She entered into this seclusion in a week of warm clear days before the solstice. Nothing to sit on but the warped floorboards. For company wasps in a cornered nest. A reflection of rippling water on the ceiling. Nail heads rusty in the wallboards, like the leavings of poison red berries. Her mind watered by the reflection, her face a plane of the ordinary, smoothed out to the mildness of water, without surface tension; but the eyes, sometimes, hotbeds. Sitting, lying down, walking around, a weight tilted against her, inescapable. The sun a giant wasp machine buzz and then a boil on the surface of the mind reddening out to a shocking eruption that would not come, although she made the effort sometimes, squeezing, squeezing. More often just sitting blankly, going out a time or two the first days but then not going out, peeing down a knothole when necessary, the smell of splashed urine bleached out by the sun in time. On a Thursday from curiosity Barry disturbed the wasps' nest, broke off a piece of it, and the wasps, though swarming, wouldn't touch her. Proof of something—she didn't know what. Mostly waiting, though, humdrum—waiting, as her favorite Irish poet had put it, for vision to come to her weariness.

  Chapter 37

  Dal came home from having his neck brace removed late in the afternoon on June twentieth; he had been pronounced fit and was in the mood to call a girl or two.

  There was a stranger in the yard, stranger to Dal. Apparently he had just arrived and hadn't rung the bell. He waited for Dal to get out of the yellow Lamborghini.

  "I'm Dr. Edwards."

  "Oh, yes," Dal said, on his guard right away. He introduced himself but made no move toward the house. "What can I do for you?"

  "Mark's expecting me."

  Dal tilted his head carefully, afraid of feeling a twinge. "Is he? How do you know?"

  "He called me."

  "Today?" Dal said, foolishly.

  Edwards looked queerly at him. "Yes."

  "You spoke to Mark Draven o
n the phone today?"

  "No, I didn't speak to him. I only keep office hours until eleven on Saturdays. He left the message with my service at two thirty this afternoon."

  "I don't know how that could be. Mark hasn't been here for a month."

  "Oh? Where is he?"

  Dal came out with the story they had crafted for Mrs. Aldrich, but in the telling, under altered circumstances, it sounded somewhat absurd, highly suspect. Edwards listened, with his arms folded, like a man who is sure he is being lied to.

  "When was the last time you heard from Mark? He may be back. Is it possible he called me from New York or the airport?"

  "I don't know. I wouldn't think so. I'm sure he'd let us know his plans.

  "There was a message. It was very plain. He wanted to see me right away, as soon as I could get here." Edwards looked around at the house. "May I come in? Barry might know something more about this."

  Dal couldn't think of any respectable way to refuse.

  "Fine. Come in. I'll call Barry."

  She wasn't around; Dal was, for once, thankful. Mrs. Aldrich took Saturday afternoons off. Tom was working in his studio. Dal explained, when he rejoined Edwards in the family room, that Tom wouldn't relish being disturbed.

  The doctor still had his arms folded. "There's no sign of Mark?"

  "No. I'm sorry. No. I don't understand, but—obviously he just isn't here. If he's coming later, well then—"

  "By, all means have him give me another call," Edwards said, not concealing his disappointment. "Could I fix you a drink, doctor?"

  "No, thanks. Sorry to have bothered you."

  "That's all right."

  They closed with banalities concerning the weather, while the weather in Dal's brain worsened by the moment; then the doctor got back in his car and drove away. When he was out of sight, Dal hurried back to the family room for a huge whiskey to calm his screaming nerves.