by John Coyne
Eight
Valerie stepped up to the front door of the guest house and knocked. Scott couldn't be angry at her, she told herself. She was bringing him his homework. She was doing him a favor. And for a moment she almost believed that was the only reason she was at Ballycastle. Valerie knocked louder and listened for a moment. She heard the phone ringing. Perhaps he was out on the grounds somewhere, she thought, but then abruptly the ringing stopped. She stepped back, away from the door, and looked through the bay window of the living room. The television was turned on and the color picture was rolling. The room was empty. Valerie followed the stone path around the building. She liked the guest house. It was small and elegant, like an antique doll house. When she was a little girl she had often come to the estate with her father when he delivered hay. And while the hay was being stacked, she would sneak away to see the tiny cottage tucked away in the woods below the mansion. She never had liked the castle, never even looked up the hill toward it. All of the kids in Flat Rock thought the huge building was haunted. But not the guest house. She had even promised herself as a child that someday she would have a home like that, a small cottage just for her and her husband. Valerie stopped at the screen door to the kitchen. The inside door stood open, and she could hear the television set from the living room, the quiet, melodramatic voices of a soap opera. Yet when she called his name, no one answered. She opened the screen door and went inside. She would leave him a note, she decided, just tell him the page numbers and the problems that had been assigned, and then leave. Valerie piled her school books on the table and searched through her shoulder bag for a pencil and notebook. Then she heard the sound of running water. She walked slowly out of the kitchen and into the short hallway, stopped and looked around. There was a tiny room under the staircase. It was his room, she saw. The bed was unmade and boy's clothes were scattered across the floor. That surprised her. He was always so clean at school, so neatly dressed. The room was a shambles, like one of her own brothers'. "Scott?" she asked softly, peering behind the door. He was not downstairs. Now she was sure he was nowhere in the house. He had seen her coming and run out the back, leaving the kitchen door open as he fled. "Oh, God," she whispered, feeling awful. She had ruined everything by coming here. He thought she was just chasing him, embarrassing him by running after him. Well, she wouldn't leave the homework. She wouldn't even talk to him at school. Let him be all alone, if that was what he wanted. She was the only one at school who had even been nice to him. She hesitated at the bottom of the stairs, enjoying her own self-pity for a moment, letting it seep through her like water dampening a sponge. The water, the running water. What a creep, she thought, so turned off by her that he had left the house with the water running. She hurried up the stairs. There were only three bedrooms upstairs and off the largest was the bathroom. Valerie walked toward it, into the room that she assumed was Mrs. Gardiner's. She felt like an intruder, but nevertheless she was tempted to stop, to open dresser drawers and see what clothes Scott's petite, elegant mother wore. Next to Barbara, Valerie had felt huge and awkward, helpless in her size. But Valerie was afraid to stop, afraid she would be caught upstairs. She went straight into the bathroom and turned toward the tub. It was only then that she saw Scott, slumped over the bathtub side. Her screams startled him. He spun around on his knees, slipping on the wet mat and losing control of the razor blade. It flew off, hitting the wall with a tiny ting. She only saw blood. A fine rivulet of it on Scott's arm and more blood dripping to the wet tiles, making a shallow puddle under the tub. It was something she had read about in books and seen on the news. She thought at once of Terry Miller, a girl who had killed herself two years before at Flat Rock. Valerie had often sat next to her on the school bus and for months she had blamed herself for the suicide, dreamed of it in nightmares. Scott was swearing at her, trying to find his feet on the slippery floor, and in his haste he stumbled when he stood and his long body fell against the tiles, as if he were sliding head first into the doorway. His forearms struck Valerie, shoved her into the bedroom where she went tumbling, tripping on the rug, falling against the bed. She hit her head and began to cry, not from pain, but fear. He grabbed her, seized her right ankle, and she kicked out at him as if he were a tanglement of weeds. "What are you doing here?" he yelled over and over. He had grabbed her leg with one hand and was pulling himself forward, crawling on his knees after her. "Let go!" she screamed, kicking frantically to free her leg from his hand. She felt as if she was drowning. She hit him in the forehead with her free foot and he cried out and let go. "Goddamn you!" He swung wildly at her with both hands, hysterical in his pain. "Stop it! she demanded. "You're bleeding all over me." He stopped abruptly and looked with surprise at his wrist "I'm not bleeding," he insisted, examining the small slash marks on his wrist. "You were," she declared. "Look at yourself." There were dark stains on his T-shirt, blood on his face and in his hair. He had taken off his glasses and she had not seen him before without them. He looked tired, as if he had not slept, and his face was pale. She wanted to hold him. "I cut myself. I was trying to fix something in the bathroom." "You were trying to kill yourself," she said flatly. "I was trying to clean out the drain. It's all clogged up." She looked away, as if bored with his explanation, then said, "I don't care what you were doing. I have to go." "Why are you in my house anyway?" "I came by to give you your homework, that's all. I told your mother and she said it was okay to come here, and then I heard water running. Oh, never mind!" She was on her feet, tucking her jeans back into her boots. "Now you're going to run tell my mother that you found me slitting my wrists." He had gotten up along with Valerie and stood with both his arms hugging his sides, hiding the marks. "You know, Scott, sometimes I think you're really a creep." She looked sideways at him, as if from a new angle. "Well, am I wrong? Isn't that exactly what you're in a big rush to do? You and mom, all girls together." "Oh, God, don't be such a squirrel." She marched from the room and downstairs, her boots banging on the hardwood. He caught up with her in the kitchen. "Hey, I'm sorry I yelled at you and everything." "You don't have to be nice to me, Scott. I have no intention of telling your mother." Valerie caught her books up in an untidy pile, hurrying, trying to escape. She felt foolish and dumb, as if she were to blame for all this. "I wasn't trying to kill myself," he said again. She stopped and stared at him. Her long, lopsided smile was gone. She looked older and a hard edge had come into her green eyes. "You know, you're not the only one who's ever tried it. It's no big deal. Lots of kids do it." "What do you mean?" "What I said-it's no big deal. It's quite common." The tone of her voice had changed. No longer frightened, it was lofty and condescending. She clutched her books firmly and went toward the kitchen door. "Wait!" he asked, catching her sleeve. "You're bleeding again." She nodded at the bracelet of blood on his right wrist. "Oh, shit!" Now he was embarrassed, conscious only of looking like a jerk. "Here," she said, taking command. She dropped her books on the table. "Where are your bandages?" "I don't know. Maybe in the downstairs bathroom." He stood in the middle of the tiny kitchen, holding up his arm, baffled by the sight of his own blood. "You're getting it on the floor. Go over to the sink." She took him by the arm, leading him across the room. "Is it your job to wash the dishes?" she asked, clearing away plates from the sink. "Yes, why?" "Because they're not done." "I've been busy." "Yeah, we know, killing yourself." "Hey, come on, lay off." He tried to pull away from her, but she had hold of his elbow. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry," she said, her voice softening. "I don't pick on you," he went on, attacking now that she was retreating. "You never say anything to me at all," she responded. "I mean, you won't talk to me at school and we're in the same classes, and your locker is even next to mine." She did not look up at him, but she was aware of his closeness. "I better get some bandages or something," she said, moving away. "Keep your wrist under that warm water," she went on, giving orders. It made her feel more secure, telling him what to do. "I don't like this school," he shouted after her. "It's crummy. I don't want to go there." "Then
why are you?" she called from the bathroom. Scott could hear her moving bottles in the medicine cabinet, searching for bandages. "Because of my father," he answered. He would make her question him, and then tell her about how his father died. It would make her feel terrible. "Your father?" She was back with her hands full. "Is your mother divorced or something?" As she talked she began to wrap his wrist in gauze. She had taken first aid in school the year before and took a certain pleasure in using what she had learned for the first time. The blood had stopped and she could see that the two razor blade cuts were slight, they had barely marked the skin, but she wrapped the gauze in lengths around his wrist, enjoying the sight of its cleanness on his tanned arm, enjoying being next to him. "My father died last Christmas of a heart attack. My mother found him on the kitchen floor two days before I was due home for Christmas vacation." "Oh, God!" She looked up from what she was doing. He had spoken so calmly, without raising his voice, and she wanted to cry for him, to show him that she understood. "I tried to kill myself after Dad died. That time I went out to the garage and turned the car on. I was going to asphyxiate myself." He began to grin, as if now his behavior seemed amusing. "I was only out there five minutes before Mom came looking for me. Our doctor had told her I might try something stupid like that." "If it was so stupid then, why were you trying to cut your wrists today?" Valerie asked. She had finished taping the bandages, but she did not move away from him. They stood together by the kitchen sink. Scott shrugged. "I don't know. There doesn't seem much sense, you know, being alive." "You think being dead is more fun maybe?" Her eyes widened. "Come on, don't give me that. You know what I mean. I haven't been feeling good lately." "Everyone gets down, Scott, big deal." "I don't mean down, I mean crazy. I keep having this nightmare and waking up screaming." He shook his head. "After awhile, you know, you figure it's better if you're not around, if you're not waking up your mother in the middle of the night, crying like some dumb little kid." "What kinds of nightmares?" she asked, her green eyes soft and worried. "Different things. After my dad died, I kept dreaming about Brobdingnagians." "You dreamed about what?" "Oh, it's just a game. Have you ever heard of Hobgoblin?" She shook her head. Scott smiled wryly. "That figures. A bush school like Flat Rock won't know anything about FRP games." "What are you talking about?" "FRP-fantasy role playing." Valerie shook her head, frowning. "Well, have you read any books like The Lord o f the Rings?" "I tried once, but it didn't make sense. I mean, it's not real." "Of course it's not real!" He was angry again. Why was he wasting his time trying to explain Hobgoblin to someone who'd never appreciate it? "What about these Brobdingers, or whatever they're called?" she asked quickly, seeing his reaction. He tensed up fast, she noticed. She could almost see his muscles contract. "Never mind." He moved away from her. "Hey, just because I don't know anything about this Hobgoblin stuff isn't my fault. Okay, we're backward up here. I'm sorry. But at least I don't go around killing myself. Jeez, you sure are moody. One moment you're fine and the next, you're a turkey." "What do you mean, turkey?" He was sitting on the other side of the room in the window seat. From there he could see the path through the birch woods, uphill to the castle, and everything inside the kitchen. It gave him a sense of control, having that kind of look out. "You're a turkey," she said again. "It means, you know, dumb. Odd." "Because I play Hobgoblin?" He still sounded angry. Valerie nodded. She was frightened again. The way he kept watching made her nervous. She glanced at her books piled on the table and her leather vest where she had dropped it on the chair. She should have left the house right away. She shouldn't have come to see him in the first place. "I think I better go," she said, going for her books. "Hey, wait." He sounded disappointed. "Why are you leaving? Because I'm a turkey? Because I'm strange?" "Look, don't get all excited over nothing." "Well, you called me a name." "Oh, God, it's just an expression. It doesn't mean anything. I mean, kids say it to each other all the time." "Not at Spencertown. I never heard it at Spencertown." "Jeez, you know, you're really something." Her fear was gone. Now she was angry with him. "You never heard the word and I never heard of Hobgoblin. So we're even." She had her vest on and again she snatched up her pile of books. The geometry text hit the floor. "You need a book bag," he suggested. The tone of his voice had changed and he sounded chatty, as if he were having a good time. "And you need a new head," she said, stooping down for the book. "Very funny." "Well, it's true." She moved toward the kitchen door, walking backwards, as if she wanted to keep him in sight "Hey, you didn't tell me the homework." He scrambled off the window seat. "First half of chapter five and do the questions at the end, but only up through number six." "Hey, I was just thinking. Do you want to play Hobgoblin sometime? I'll teach you." Scott had followed her outside into the sunlight. It was still a wane afternoon, full of bright foliage and sunshine. She stared at him, puzzled. "What's the matter?" he asked, grinning. His smile surprised her. She realized then that she had never seen him smile and it changed his looks. He suddenly seemed handsome. "A minute ago I thought you were going to hurt me and now you want to teach me this silly game." "Hurt you? I'd never do that." He sounded scared himself. "Why did you say that?" "Well, maybe not hurt me, but you seemed so strange in there, and you were trying to kill yourself." "Oh, come on, let's forget that." He moved nervously around. "You really won't tell my mom?" She shook her head. "Thanks," he whispered, nodding. "I got to go," she said but did not move away. "So would you like to learn Hobgoblin? I mean, even from a turkey like me." She smiled. "I don't know. I'll think about it" She began to move off, to cross the lawn toward the river below the mansion. "It's really a neat game," Scott added quickly, following after. He was excited, thinking he could convince her. They would have to get other players, of course, but she had friends. At school she was always with a crowd. "If I agree, will you promise not to run this kind of number again?" "What number?" "You know-upstairs." "Come on, give me a break. I said it was stupid. I said I was depressed." "Why were you doing it anyway?" Outside in the safety of the sunlight, she felt she could ask him again. "I told you-because of my nightmare. Because of those dreams I had." "Of this Brobdingnag?" "No, not this time. Now I'm having nightmares about Nuckelavees." "What kind of game is this anyway? All the names are unpronounceable." "They're Irish hobgoblins," Scott went on, explaining, telling her the blacksmith's story of the girl found dead by the river's edge. "He said she was killed by evil hobgoblins with heads like men, only ten times as large, and mouths like pig snouts." "Do you believe all that?" Valerie asked. She had continued to walk downhill toward the river and he had tagged after, walking with his hands in his pockets, his long stride matching hers. "Oh, it's just a story. But Conor, the blacksmith, made it seem so real, I believed it. That's a problem I've got. I'm too impressionable. My imagination gets out of control." Now in the bright sunlight, with a slight breeze off the river and the smell of fresh cut grass, Conor's tale did seem ridiculous. Nuckelavees in the niches and crannies of Ballycastle. He shook his head at his own gullibility. "Well, people have been killed here," Valerie said solemnly. She glanced at Scott, surprised he didn't know. "Oh, they say that about all castles and old mansions." Scott turned around, looked up the hill at the gray stone building. Valerie did not turn her head. "What's the matter? Are you afraid to look?" he asked, teasing. Valerie shrugged. "I don't like the place." "You mean you won't even look at it?" She nodded. "Not unless I have to. I never look at Ballycastle. I think it's evil." "Come on, it's just a big house on top of a hill." Scott grinned. "Maybe there's something wrong with your imagination too." They had reached the creek and Valerie turned left, following a narrow path into the woods that flanked the long sweeping lawns below the castle. "Where are we going?" Scott asked, surprised at how far from the house they had walked. "I'm going home," Valerie answered, still leading the way into the woods. "This is a short cut to my house. We live off Route 12 below Ballycastle." "Is it far?" "Oh, I don't know. Maybe ten minutes from here. There are several paths from the castle through the woods." She glanced over her should
er. "Have you been into the woods?" "Nah, I don't like forests. They make me nervous. I don't have much sense of direction, so I'm always thinking I'm going to get lost. I like the suburbs best. You know, concrete sidewalks and streets with name tags on them." He tried to make it seem funny, but he was afraid-of the stillness of the woods, and the way thick trees and bushes closed off the sky. "Then you've never been to the graveyard?" she asked. "No. What graveyard?" The path widened and he came up beside Valerie. He would have to turn back soon; he did not want to have to find his way home alone. "'There's a graveyard here, started by the man who built Bally castle." "Fergus O'Cuileannain?" "Yes, Fergus. He built it for his employees, and himself. It's on a hill called Steepletop. It's my favorite spot in the whole world. When I was little I used to go up there all the time. Would you like to see it?" She stopped on the path. She was smiling and looked excited, as if this was a sudden and unexpected pleasure. Scott glanced around, into the thick trees. "Well, how far away is it?" he asked. "Up there." She gestured. "We'll get lost. There's no path or anything." "Scott, I've been playing in these woods since I was six years old. We're not going to get lost." She sounded irritated at his caution. "Besides, everything is downhill from Steepletop. All you have to do is walk." She turned her back and took a few strides, then stopped and faced him again. "Here, take some of these books. They're heavy." She dumped several textbooks into his arms and struck off, going immediately off the path and into the trees. The climb was straight uphill through second-growth trees. It was easy to walk, without heavy underbrush. The sun was on that side of the hill and the late afternoon light seeped through the leaves, falling in patches. "Look!" Valerie said, stopping abruptly to point out the pattern of sunlight on the forest floor. "It looks like a checkerboard, doesn't it?" Panting, Scott stopped and caught his breath, glanced around to where Valerie was pointing. He didn't see the sunlight but the shadows, the dark clusters of brush. In Hobgoblin the Fear Dearg lived in such places. They were little men, about two and a half feet in height, and wore scarlet sugarloaf hats and long scarlet coats and had long gray hair and wrinkled faces. They always waited and watched for stragglers tracking through the forest. They were deceitful creatures and cunning. Once in a game at Spencertown, Brian Boru had been tricked by two of these red men who magically changed form on him, appearing in the woods of Glastonbury Tor as lost children. His righteousness as a paladin knight had obliged him to aid the children, and it was only because of his skill as a sixth level magic-user that he'd managed to overcome their trickery. Scott had pulled a green saving card from the Hobgoblin deck, giving Brian Boru an escape route from Glastonbury Tor. "Isn't it lovely?" Valerie whispered. She was smiling, enchanted by the silence and beauty of the place, the moist and earthy smell. It felt like being inside a terrarium. "Come on, where's this graveyard?" Scott was frightened, but he couldn't tell Valerie. She wouldn't understand. It was just that he saw more and, he realized, imagined more. Beyond them, a hundred yards further away, the remains of an old stone fence crossed through the trees. Nuckelavees would be in those old stones, hiding in the fissures. "Let's go," he demanded, moving up hill, rushing to reach the top, to be back again in the full sunlight. "Boys!" Valerie exclaimed. "They never appreciate anything." And she fell into step behind him, rushing to keep up with his long stride. "Easy," she complained. "Quit running! You can't enjoy nature if you're just going to rush straight to the top." "I'm not interested in woods," he shouted, "and besides, we're looking for graves, not trees." It was only another few minutes to the crest of the hill, to where the cemetery was fitted into the slope above the tree line. It was a small site, with fewer than a dozen graves, but a high metal fence had been built around the cluster of tombstones, and someone had been there recently to cut away the grass and plant fresh flowers. "See!" Valerie said, pointing off to the setting sun and the flat horizon. From Steepletop they looked away from Ballycastle and could not see the mansion. The river was below them, though; it curved around the hilltop and then, beyond the woods, widened as it crossed the long valley, flowed toward the horizon. "I love it at this time of day. See how the sun shines off the water? Isn't it incredible?" She was smiling, wanting him to share the pleasure. "In spring, you know, you can actually smell the earth after plowing. There's my house to the right, the blue one with white shutters. And there's my dad. See the tractor? He's trucking feed out to the Holsteins. We keep them in the big field until the weather turns." Scott was not following her directions, nor did he find the sight incredible. It was only the river and miles of farmland. He looked back at the graveyard. It had been a mistake to follow her up here. The sun had descended to the horizon and already he was cold, and still he had to walk back down through the woods. "Come on, let's go," he said. "Wait! You haven't seen anything." She put down her books by the graveyard gate and swinging it open went inside. "You have to look at the tombstones. They're all weird." She was excited again, anxious to impress him. "Most tombstones have angels and saints, but these are strange." Scott saw what she meant. Coming around in front of the first grave site he saw what the carved stone figures were. "They're gargoyles," he whispered, "standing upright." Each headstone was an elaborately carved figure, a wild animal's shape, with ugly and distorted features cut boldly into the stone. "Aren't they something?" Valerie exclaimed, pleased that he seemed impressed. She began to rush around, reading off the names and dates on the gray stone scrolls that each gargoyle held forward, as if in offering. "What do you think these ugly statues mean, Scott? I mean, why would anyone want these guys standing over their graves? And why do you think only girls are buried here?" But Scott was not listening. He had stopped in front of one grave and read the name spelled out on the stone scroll. Carmel Burke, 1912-1931 It was true, Scott realized: Conor Fitzpatrick had not told him a tale, as his mother had claimed. There had been a Carmel Burke and her body had been found as cold as stone.