by Dani Lamia
Backstrom had opined that it appeared to be a case of fraud over the profits of Ned Onenspek’s artwork. Onenspek had very little money in the bank and just a small amount in cash, while ‘Pyncheon Art’ registered sales in the hundreds of thousands. An argument had ensued, apparently, resulting in the deaths of the three women and the artist.
Hester Pyncheon had left no will, so it was determined that Phoebe had no motive to be involved with the massacre. Onenspek’s family claimed the artwork that was left in the house and the gallery, which was now closed.
Phoebe pondered these things as she looked to the place where Great-Aunt Hester had once kept that awful raven. She stared at the hook from which the cage had been suspended. She recalled the metamorphosis of the ugly black bird into the monstrous man the witches had called Panas and that he had disappeared somehow from the basement. The police had not found anyone in the house, and Phoebe had talked with Holgrave about the possibility that he had been mistaken about the man he had called Matthew Maule. Holgrave insisted that the man, at the very least, bore a strong resemblance to his great-great-grandfather but could not have been Matthew Maule, as he had long been deceased.
Neither the bird nor the man had resurfaced.
Technically, with their possessions returned to them in the weeks following the investigation, Phoebe had no legal rights to be on the property. The house was in probate court, and Phoebe had no intention of claiming the place for herself. If she could get away with it, she’d burn it to the ground.
Holgrave stepped onto the porch. “Are you all right?”
Phoebe snapped herself out of her trance. “Yeah,” she said and pulled open the screen door. She unlocked the inner door and they went inside.
The door to the parlor, where Hester, Glendarah, and Dzolali had once committed their fraudulent acts of fortune telling, stood wide open. Phoebe looked inside and noted that someone had discovered the hidden door, for it was open, too. The carpet around the round table was pulled up, so she knew that Hester’s electronic tricks had been discovered. The crystal ball was clouded with a fine layer of dust.
With Holgrave standing behind her, reverently, Phoebe moved from the parlor door. Looking up the hallway, she noted that the basement door was not only shut but shut with finality. It was sealed with a clear plastic sheet, and crime scene tape crisscrossed its midsection.
Phoebe turned to see Holgrave saunter into the living room. She followed. While the furniture appeared to have been moved about, everything was there, even the statue of Ba’al on the mantle. The very sight of it brought back memories of the coven’s last moments, and she could almost feel the tight bindings of Glendarah’s rope on her skin. Phoebe turned from the statue and took a deep breath, to find Holgrave standing near the window, considering the piano set against the east wall. She rubbed her forearms with her hands as if curing a chill.
Phoebe stepped next to him and gave the Price & Teeple upright a long look. Phoebe remembered her mother being so proud of the family heirloom, and she had been quite adept at playing it. Carved from quarter sawn oak, the legs and case of the instrument featured swirls of darker wood within the lighter, creating a tiger stripe effect throughout. Upon the forward legs at each side, an old man’s face was carved. They could have been twins, exquisitely shaped into matching expressions of joy or heartfelt contentment. In a direct line above the faces, on the upper half of the antique, gargoyles had been shaped into the front pillars. Their expressions were intimidating, no matter what emotion the artist had been trying to portray. Their wings were spread, though stubby in order to remain sturdy. The upper cover of the piano, the part her mother would swing out partway to hear the hammer strikes and tone more clearly, was decorated with what Phoebe had always thought of as curling grapevines.
Holgrave opened the keyboard cover, revealing the genuine ivory keys. Gently, he tapped a few of them, releasing rich tones of hammer upon strings.
“Needs a bit of a tuning,” he commented.
“Never mind that,” Phoebe said dismissively. The house was giving her bad vibes too dark to be called ‘the creeps.’ “Alice said that what you seek is here.”
Holgrave arched his eyebrow. In any other circumstances, Phoebe would have considered the gesture endearing. At that moment, however, she just wanted to smack it off his face. Alice Pyncheon had come to her in a dream and given her the message for Holgrave. Now, it was up to him and she hoped he hurried things along.
Reading Phoebe’s anxious expression, Holgrave began by opening the top cover and looking inside, using a small penlight to illuminate it. He pulled open the front cover, raising it up high and running the light over the hammers and strings.
“I don’t see anything,” he said. He lowered the front cover and dropped onto his knees so he could remove the lower cover, which guarded the pedal mechanisms. He passed the light over the area and found nothing that didn’t belong there.
Phoebe noted this, too, as she was looking over his shoulder. She sighed and took a step back, crossing her arms in thought.
Holgrave replaced the covers of the piano and stood back. “Are you sure this is where—?”
“Dude,” Phoebe said breathily. “Yes, I’m sure.”
“All right, all right,” Holgrave came back soothingly.
“Sorry,” she offered. “This place . . .” She shrugged and looked into his eyes.
“I know.”
“She stood right where you are and pointed,” Phoebe explained once more and mimicked the gesture as she recalled it. “She said, ‘What he seeks is there.’”
Holgrave watched her hand and followed it. He grunted in thought and moved closely to the wall, lighting the area behind the great instrument. “There’s a vent!” he declared.
He rose, placed the tiny flashlight in his mouth, and pulled at the corner of the piano. It was immensely heavy, but its wheels did give, and it rolled partly, until the front of it contacted the credenza with a knock.
“Damn.” He pushed it back into place and looked over the situation. The credenza couldn’t be moved, for the couch was in the way, and the couch needed the coffee table’s space.
Without speaking, the two of them worked out the puzzle. Phoebe and Holgrave each took an end to the rectangular table and moved it out into the doorway. Setting it down, they scooted the throw rug to the side, then slid the couch forward. They turned the credenza, making way for the Price & Teeple.
Holgrave pulled again at the piano, turning it to face the windows. The vent was a vertical metal cage, like the others throughout the house, large and meant to exude as much heat from the furnace as possible. Being such, Holgrave had no trouble seeing the area within once he lowered himself to the floor and shined his light in.
“There’s something here!” he called in surprise. He lifted himself onto his haunches, gave the vent further scrutiny, and asked, “I don’t suppose you have a flathead screwdriver?”
Phoebe twisted her lips at him, an obvious “no.” “Wait, I think there’s one in a kitchen drawer.”
Neither one of them moved. There had been no thought given to wandering further into the house.
Holgrave stood. “Let’s stay together,” he said and took her hand.
Phoebe, despite her anxiety of having to walk past the basement door, sealed by tape and plastic or not, smiled over his chivalry. She grasped his hand, and briskly, they walked through the hallway to the back of the house, into the kitchen.
It took a mere moment to locate a screwdriver, and they returned to the living room in like fashion. Holgrave went to the floor and began loosening screws.
Phoebe’s anxiety swelled and she desperately wished Maule to hurry. Other than the metal-on-metal scrapings Holgrave was making, the house was silent.
But not quite. Phoebe kept utterly still while Holgrave worked, and she could hear it. She swore she could. The house was makin
g that gentle whoosh of air, though this time, she knew the house’s windows were shut, at least the ones in the rooms they had been in.
Though the coven’s dead, the house lives on, Phoebe thought. A chill traveled throughout her body, and she shivered violently. She wanted to shout at Holgrave, tell him to hurry up, but she bit her tongue. Lashing out would do no good.
She turned to keep her eye on the open door, convinced for a moment that Panas, or Matthew Maule, or someone would come striding in.
“Damn,” Holgrave muttered and sat up.
“What?” Phoebe squeaked.
“I peeled the wallpaper away to get at the blasted vent, but the paint underneath is not willing to let go.”
“But you’re sure you see something in there?” she pressed.
Holgrave nodded and wiped sweat from his brow and forehead. “It looks like a wooden box, as described in my great-grandfather’s diary.”
Phoebe, driven by the need to separate herself from the House of the Seven Gables once and for all, reached for the heavy lamp on an end table and picked it up. She unscrewed the fastener from the frosted crystal shade and tossed it onto the couch, where it bounced violently enough that it nearly crashed to the floor. She spun the bulb out and chucked it there, too.
“What in the world are you doing?” Holgrave asked, still seated upon the floor.
“Look out,” she warned and strode forward, pulling the power plug from the wall behind her.
Phoebe raised the heavy metal lamp over her right shoulder. Holgrave pushed away from the wall, ducking out of the way. The heavy base of the lamp came down, crashing into the wall. The lamp left a crescent-shaped divot, and pieces of plaster tumbled to the floor.
Phoebe raised the lamp again and gave it a lumberjack downswing. The divot became a dent, then on the next strike, the dent became a hole. She took a step forward and swung again, lower. The lamp, now bent, began destroying the wall on the far side of the vent.
Holgrave held up his hand to shield his face from flying debris, or possibly the lamp if Phoebe let it slip. Miscalculating on a downswing, Phoebe struck the heavy oak piano, giving the oak a gash on the back corner. The diverted lamp struck the vent square, denting it severely and bringing a corner of it away from the wall.
“That’s it! Phoebe, stop!” Holgrave called.
Phoebe aborted her next swing, lowered the destroyed lamp to her side, and let it drop to the floor with a clang.
Holgrave went to the wrecked vent and pulled at the corner Phoebe had forced away. It came away without much further effort. He took his penlight and shined it into the hole, reached in with his other hand and pulled out the hidden object.
The item, a thin wooden box covered in dust, flipped open in his hand, letting dust and bits of paper fly. The box had once been latched closed, but rust had erased the mechanism from existence.
Holgrave grasped a handful of the tattered, flimsy paper, focusing his small light upon one of the largest remaining. He sighed heavily, and his shoulders slumped.
Phoebe looked from behind him. “Hey is that—?”
“It is,” Holgrave confirmed frustratingly. “This debris appears to be what is left of the missing stock certificates of the Butterfield Overland Mail Company.”
“Is that all of them?” she asked, though she kept her eyes on the door.
Hearing the urgency in Phoebe’s voice, Holgrave sifted through the mess. He grimaced when he discovered mice feces rolling about the bottom of the box. He pulled a notepad from his sport coat pocket and flipped to a page.
Phoebe could see a list of a dozen or so numbers written on the notepaper and quickly deduced that he was checking serial numbers against the scraps they had uncovered. After a few moments, Holgrave shook his head despairingly.
“Are those the ones?” she asked.
“Sadly, yes,” he answered and dropped the box to the floor. He stood and gave the oak piano a shove back into place.
“I’m sorry,” Phoebe said. The breathing sound was becoming clearer to her, and she fought against the urge to sprint out of the house. She felt her car keys in her hoodie pocket.
Holgrave shrugged as he moved the credenza back into place. Together, they quickly put the couch and coffee table back where they had found them.
Phoebe stepped onto the porch with Holgrave just behind. He paused at the door, his hand on the knob as he gave the place a long look.
“To think I came all this way, spent all this time here,” Holgrave said lowly, just loud enough for her to hear. “Just to find them turned to dust.” With that, he pulled it shut and let the screen door spring back into place. The creaks sounded like laughter.
“Well, I’m getting the hell out of here,” Phoebe said. She’d had enough. She bounded down the steps and went to his car, parked right outside the front door, where she pulled her bags and backpack from his back seat.
Holgrave joined her, taking a bag from her hand. She smiled and thanked him but spared no time making tracks to her Caprice. It was alongside the house, right where she had left it. She hadn’t bothered locking it, so she pulled open the back door and tossed her things inside. Holgrave added her second plastic bag to the seat.
Phoebe shut the door. “Well, that’s it, I guess,” she said as she took one last look at the House of the Seven Gables.
“Indeed,” said Holgrave, looking only at her. “I do find it a shame that we couldn’t have met under more pleasant circumstances.”
Phoebe met his eyes. “Indeed,” she mocked playfully. She reached back and opened her door.
“Where are you off to next?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” she answered truthfully. “But I promise I’ll pay you back.”
Holgrave waved it off. “It was the least I could do. You’ve lost everything.”
“I’m paying you back,” she insisted and got behind the wheel. She rolled the window down and closed the door.
“You have my information,” Holgrave said and offered his hand. She took it and smiled.
“Take care,” she wished.
“You too,” he said and stepped back.
With her car’s starter problems in mind, she turned the key, half-expecting to hear the whining of the starter. There was not even that. A short series of clicks reported from beyond the dashboard, and then the lights went out.
“You have got to be fuckin’ kidding me!” she shouted angrily. She punched the wheel and turned the key again. There was silence. Even the cry of the barely functioning starter would have been welcome, but it was not to be.
“Phoebe—” Holgrave began.
“Rawk!” came a familiar cry.
Holgrave and Phoebe frantically looked for the source of the sound, but they couldn’t locate it. It was the call of the raven, both were sure of it.
Phoebe, near panic, cranked the key uselessly over and over but only received the same nonresponse from the Caprice. It was done.
“There!” Holgrave shouted.
Phoebe poked her head through the open window to follow his outstretched arm. Holgrave was pointing up to a gable of the attic suite.
The raven was there, staring down at them. Phoebe’s first thought was that it was much larger than she remembered. Comparing the bird’s height to the window beneath its perching place, it was close. The bird was immense, unless there was some sort of optical illusion happening. Phoebe discarded that thought. She no longer disbelieved in witchcraft, ghosts, and haunted houses.
“Come on,” Holgrave blurted and pulled open her door.
Phoebe, having been leaning on it, nearly spilled out, but Holgrave steadied her. She got to her feet, staring at the impossibly enlarged black bird.
“Rawk! Raaawk!” it cried and spread its wings.
“Holy shit,” she choked out.
“Get in my car. Go!” Holgra
ve ordered her. He pushed her shoulder to get her moving.
Phoebe took a look back at the dead Chevy, and seeing Holgrave yank out her belongings, she reached out in time to catch the bag he had launched at her. She sprinted to the Mercedes, not daring to give the raven another glance.
She heard footsteps behind her, thudding out a mad pace and passing her on the right. Holgrave Maule’s a track star! she thought and pushed her legs harder.
Phoebe got into the car on the passenger side, keeping the bag pressed to her chest. Holgrave shoved her other bag over his driver’s seat, following it up with her backpack, and dropped himself behind the wheel.
The raven landed on the open driver’s door. Phoebe screamed, her eyes glued to the massive claws clenching it.
“Oh!” Holgrave uttered and tried to reach for the door handle. The bird’s massive black beak plunged down and clamped onto his jacket sleeve, tearing a piece of it away. “Blasted bird!” Holgrave shouted.
Thinking quickly, Holgrave took his left leg and thrust it outside, giving the door panel a hard kick. The door swung out to its full extension and bounded back, slamming shut just as Holgrave brought his foot back inside. The raven leaped into the air to keep from getting its feet jammed.
Madly, Holgrave laughed as he turned the key and started the engine. He pulled the gear lever into reverse and punched the accelerator.
“Whoa!” Phoebe shouted and slid onto the floor. Her garbage bag of clothes mashed her in the face, saving it from the dashboard.
“Sorraaay!” Holgrave called as he craned his neck behind him to see where he was going. He spun the steering wheel to the left and let off the gas pedal, allowing the front end of the car to slide around. Its front wheels passed over the dirt and wisps of grass as Holgrave’s right hand pulled the gear lever from reverse to neutral. Then, as the front of the car came back onto Gable Way, pointing west, he put the car in drive and sped away down the dirt pathway.
Phoebe climbed back into the seat, steadying herself against the door as the car went around the first turn. Immediately following was the right bend, so she grabbed on to keep from tumbling over the center console.