His eyes rose surprisedly. “How did you know?”
“If you had got kicked by a cow, you would have said so.”
“Mm. I wish I’d thought of it.” He leaned back against the window-seat and said wearily, “They came—they came so suddenly I didn’t even have time to hide things. And they did what—what we always do to people—what we did to you. There was a picture of flowers—that’s when I tried to stop them, when they teased me about that one. I was so angry I couldn’t see. I don’t know who I was fighting with—I didn’t care. I never want to see any of them again. I didn’t want to see anyone. So I drew until it was too dark to see, and I had to come home.” He caught his breath in a slow sigh and turned pages slowly in the notebook. “It’s hard to get a proper perspective with only one eye working…Here it is. This one, I drew a few months ago, just after we moved in.” He held it out to her. Something brushed feather-light down her back as she looked at it. Her mouth opened, closed again, wordless. Her voice came finally, small, tight.
“Then I’m not nuts.”
IV
OUT OF THE TAUT VIVID MASK OF BRUCE’S FACE, HIS good eye gazed at her, wide and steady. “You did see him then. You did see him. I thought you had, but I wasn’t sure, and I was—I didn’t want to ask you straight out if you’d seen a ghost in the cellar walking through walls—did you see him walk through the wall?”
“Yes.”
“I thought I was going barmy. I tried to tell Dad, but Dad would have—he believes in facts. Things happen for a reason; things can be proven. I didn’t tell him. But one day—one day I brought him down with me to see it—he nearly walked right through it. I was scared. I’ve been scared in this house ever since we moved in last winter, but Dad loves it. So I’m never home much.”
Carol hugged her knees. She rested her head on them a moment. “What—what’s he doing down there? Is he a vampire?”
“A vampire?”
“They wear black. They live in cellars.”
“Oh.” He picked up the picture and studied it. “I never thought of that…I don’t think so. Vampires don’t exist, anyway.”
“Oh. Just ghosts.”
“Well, he hasn’t bitten anybody, has he? Look.” She raised her head. “Look at his clothes. I’ve never seen a vampire dressed like that.”
“He’s got a black cloak on.”
“I know, but it only goes to his knees. And he has a white collar and white cuffs. And that hat like a cowboy hat with a high crown. And he doesn’t act like he sees us, but…More like he’s waiting, looking for somebody from his own time.”
“When was his own time?”
“I don’t know.”
“I don’t understand,” Carol said bewilderedly. “What’s he doing down there? Why is he walking through walls? People don’t walk through walls when they’re living—why should they do it when they’re dead? Why does he haunt a cellar waiting for somebody who won’t come?”
“I don’t know. Unless—”
“Unless what?”
“Unless…unless the other person does come. Perhaps there is more than one ghost.”
She shifted. “One is all I want to worry about.”
“I know, but—What’s the first thing you did when you saw him?”
“I ran.”
“So did I. But suppose someone else came while we were running. Or something else happened, that might explain what he’s doing there.”
“I suppose you want to go down there and wait for him. Maybe he’s not doing anything but walking through walls. Maybe he likes walking through walls.”
“Why should he walk through a wall? People walk through doors in walls because there’s a place to go to on the other side of the door. There’s nothing on the other side of the wall but dirt and earthworms.”
“I knew it. I knew he was a vampire. He probably has a coffin in the graveyard.”
“Rot. In a church graveyard? Vampires don’t like churches. They don’t like crosses. I think we should go down and wait for him and see if he does anything we didn’t see before that might explain him.”
Carol eyed him reflectively. “All right. But if he starts growing fangs, I am going to run, and I’m not going to stop until I get to California. I think you should warn people about things like that before you invite them.”
He smiled. He said after a moment, “I didn’t invite you. But I’m glad you’re here. Now I can stop being frightened and start being curious.”
There was a knock on the door. He closed the drawing tablet and put it back into the window-seat, letting the top down soundlessly. Carol got up off the floor. Bruce opened the door. Aunt Catherine, a damp towel full of ice in one hand, looked at them, startled. Bruce flushed slightly.
“We were discussing vampires.”
A corner of her set mouth twitched. “I knew you must have something in common. Bruce, lie down and put this on your face for a few minutes. Your dinner is in the warming oven.” Her voice firmed as he opened his mouth. “I know you don’t want anyone to do anything for you, but this is for my sake: I don’t like having to look at your face in that condition, and I don’t want to have to worry about your eating habits.”
Bruce sighed. “I was only going to say thank you. I haven’t eaten anything all day.”
They waited, the next afternoon, an hour among Mrs. Brewster’s dusty china and damp books, in the stillness of the old cellar. Sunlight strained through the streaked broken glass into a pool that widened across the table, spilled over onto the floor. The bells measured the passing moments, drew them into quarter hours, and at the third quarter their soft talking slowed. Bruce glanced at his watch, reset it. Carol shifted on the table, overturned a teacup, and righted it.
“Four o’clock. That’s when I saw the ghost.”
He nodded. “I’ve seen it three times, and each time I heard the bells. I wonder…do you suppose that’s what he was listening for? The bells? I wonder what happened at four o’clock that day he waited in the cellar when he was alive.”
“Whatever it was, he didn’t go through the wall when he was alive.”
“No.”
“Oh. I forgot to tell you. Alexander was looking for you yesterday. He—”
“I don’t care what he was doing,” Bruce said abruptly. His face turned away from her toward the window. “I don’t want to think about them.”
She was silent, running one finger around the teacup rim. “He wasn’t there, was he?”
“Yes.”
Her hand stilled. It dropped, limp, back into her lap. Her head bowed until the fall of her hair hid the light falling across their faces. “Oh…”
They were silent. Someone walked in front of the house; a shadow dropped across the window, vanished. Floorboards creaked from Uncle Harold’s study above their heads. Carol swung her heel against the table leg, her mouth pulling downward.
“I thought he was nice…” The sudden touch on her arm stopped her. The bells rang four o’clock across the peaceful summer day. In front of the grey wall a man stood listening, waiting.
Bruce’s breath gathered and stopped. The face was pale and thin-lipped, the dark hair cut blunt just below the ears. The watchful eyes touched their faces a brief moment, and Carol froze. Then the eyes passed indifferently away, and the man turned and walked into the wall.
Bruce’s voice shook a little near Carol’s ear. “Did you see the sunlight on his sword? How could it flash like that off something that wasn’t real?”
“I don’t know. Why are we whispering?”
“I don’t know.” His hand closed suddenly in a painful grip on her arm. “Carol—”
A girl walked out of the fall of sunlight toward the wall. Her long dress brushed the boxes of Mrs. Brewster’s books; they heard the soft rustle of it. Her hair fell in butter-colored curls to her shoulders. The white cloth of her square collar and cuffs was spotless in the light, and the lace that edged it was delicate and rich.
She turned and looked
at them; one hand touched the old stones. Her eyes were deep blue. She said softly, “Edward. Come.” And then she turned and faded through the wall.
A sound like a whimper came from Carol’s throat. She swallowed, and it came again. Bruce turned and looked at her. His face had gone white; his eyes were wide, dark, speculative.
“The girl in the painting…Don’t cry.”
A tear trickled down the side of her nose. She brushed it away. “I’m not. I was—I can’t—I don’t understand any of it. Who is going to come next?”
“I don’t know.” He stared at the stones as though they were not there and he could see what lay beyond them. Carol watched the serene fall of sunlight uneasily. A shadow melted through it, and she jumped. Bruce’s head turned sharply. The amber-eyed cat leaped up beside him and picked a path through the figurines. He leaped up to the window and squeezed through the broken pane.
The bells rang the quarter-hour. Sun slipped behind a cloud, and the light faded from the stones, leaving them old and worn. Bruce slipped off the table. “Come on.”
Carol nodded. She followed him up the stairs slowly, out the front door, across the side lawn where the warm grass, newly mowed, smelled sweet, crushed beneath their feet. Bruce stopped beneath a grey cherry tree beside the wall. He swung himself up and came to rest in the crook of a strong branch, overlooking the broad field and the flat world beyond. Carol found a comfortable spot below him. She leaned her head back against the broad smooth trunk.
“I’m so tired.”
“Mm. That’s from being nervous all afternoon.” The tree trembled faintly as he shifted. “I feel like I’m trying to work a jigsaw puzzle with half the pieces missing. Who is Edward? Why was she telling him to come through a stone wall?”
“She wasn’t telling Edward to come. She was talking to us. She looked straight at us.”
“How do you know she saw us? How could we follow her through a wall?”
“In the painting it wasn’t a wall.”
Bruce was still. He swung off his branch and landed on hers with an abruptness that made her cling to the shaking tree. “It was an arch,” he breathed. “You’re right. An arch of stones…”
“In the cellar?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know.” He pounded softly, rhythmically on the branch, his eyes narrowed on the far fields. He said slowly, “I’ve got an idea.”
“What kind?” Carol said suspiciously. He picked a leaf and tore it delicately along the veins.
“Just a hunch.” He tossed the leaf-bits away and looked at her. “A hunch about ghosts, and graveyards at midnight…”
“No.”
“Think a little. If there’s two ghosts walking round in our cellar as though they still live there, what do you think happens at midnight when ghosts are properly, traditionally supposed to come out? If we can see ghosts when nobody else can, we can see them wherever they are, at any time. Aren’t you curious to see if there’s any truth in that?”
“If we can see ghosts, we can also see vampires, werewolves, witches, and Frankenstein’s monster.”
“Frankenstein’s monster was only in a book. Carol, that sunlight—it wasn’t right. They had shadows. They weren’t real, but they had shadows. Whose sunlight were we sitting in? Ours—or theirs? Who was real, then? Us or them? Were they in our time? Or were we in theirs? Or is time something like the house, where stones from different centuries exist side by side, and where people from different centuries can talk to each other?”
“I don’t know. It sounds scary. I still don’t see why we have to go sit in a graveyard at midnight.”
“I want to see if they come out at midnight. Perhaps the girl was buried in the graveyard. She probably was, if she lived in this house, because people didn’t move around so much before cars were invented. And perhaps we can find her tombstone, find out when she lived, what her name is.”
Carol grimaced. “Why should she come out at midnight? It’s cold and wet and dark.”
He sighed patiently. “Ghosts do. It’s traditional.”
“It’s also traditional for witches and werewolves to exist. Suppose we do sit out there, and everyone comes out—there’s bound to be a vampire around somewhere, and it’s traditional they bite you in the neck, and people find you the next day stiff as a board without a drop of blood in your veins. What would my mother say? What would your mother say?”
“At this point, I don’t think my mother would be too surprised at what happens to me. I’ll go alone, if you’re frightened. Shall I? But in the cellar, I didn’t think you were afraid of anything.”
Carol eyed him coldly. His voice was guileless, but the corners of his mouth curved. He grinned suddenly, the scratches pulled awry across his face, and she laughed in spite of herself.
“Oh, all right. But if anything horrible happens, I will never speak to you again.”
“No, I don’t expect you will,” he said reflectively.
She sat at her window watching the moon hung like an eye above the church steeple when Bruce tapped at the door. She opened it softly. He said, “You’ll want shoes.”
“Why? It’s my neck they’ll bite.”
“I know, but there will be slugs all over the grass.”
She put on her shoes without a word. They crept through the hall by the light of Bruce’s flashlight and slid down the banister. The house was soundless in the quiet midnight. They went out the back door. The night smelled richly of damp earth and cut grass. Moonlight glanced silver off the corners of the house. “The moon is full.”
“Sh.”
The gate creaked faintly as they opened it. The long grass blades curved silver against the cold iron of the graveyard fence. The spire loomed above them, a shadow against the stars, and moonlight brushed the ancient arches of the windows. Carol brushed close to Bruce, her hands tucked under her arms. The faint chill of their breaths drifted mistlike before them.
“Emily Raison’s house is so dark…”
“She’s in bed.”
“Most people are in bed. Sensible people, who don’t believe in ghosts, who wouldn’t dream of coming out at midnight to sit on a gravestone and—What’s that?” Her fingers closed on his arm.
“Emily Raison’s cat,” he said patiently.
“What’s she doing out at midnight?”
“I don’t know. Cats keep odd hours. Come on.” He swept the light toward the side path. “Let’s go over the fence here. There’s a tree we can sit in.” He pulled himself up. The sharp railing points glittered like spears. He was still a moment, balanced between them. She heard the soft whisper of his sigh. “It’s different, thinking about a graveyard and being in one. It looks so quiet…”
“Just wait.” She swung a leg over the railing.
“It seems like there should be rain and thunder…” He slipped down and focussed the light. The worn stones stood waist-high, tilted, shadowed from the clear moon by hunched, aged trees. Carol jumped down beside him, and the midnight bell began to toll.
Bruce was still beside her; she saw the flicker of his eyes across the ancient graves. He touched her, and she jumped.
“Sh—” His voice was the tendril of a whisper in the hushed air.
“I want to get off this grave. Suppose somebody wants out?”
He looked down. Grass moved under the light, springing straight where he had first stepped. He moved slowly at first, almost jerkily. She stared after him. The last bell pealed, echoing into unendurable silence.
“Come on—”
His head was a dark patch above a gravestone. She moved finally, crouched beside him. From the deep fields came the dreaming cry of an owl. Footsteps, faint and steady, came toward them down the path.
Carol’s hand pressed against her mouth. Bruce’s fingers curled warningly about her wrist. His breath rose and stilled. The footsteps grew louder; a shadow slipped soundlessly from stone to stone. Something flashed starlike from the moving figure. Bruce’s hand tightened. Carol hid her face ab
ruptly in her bent knees.
“I’m going to be sick.”
“Sh—”
The footsteps stopped. Bruce shifted; his flashlight scraped against the stone. There was an odd whimper from the ghost. Bruce breathed a short incoherent word and rose.
An explosion of light drenched him. A neat elderly woman in a coat and hat pointed a formidable flashlight at them. The terrier at her heels set up a frenzy of barking.
“Bruce Lawrence! Does your father know you’re out?”
“No, Mrs. Brewster,” Bruce said wearily. “But I expect he will.”
“I don’t understand,” Uncle Harold said at breakfast the next morning. “What were you doing in the graveyard last night?”
Bruce pushed a cold crumpet around his plate with one finger. Sunlight fell in a cheerful pool on the table; from the stove came the crackle of eggs slowly frying. Aunt Catherine turned away from them to listen.
“Was it Mrs. Brewster on the phone?” she asked, and Uncle Harold nodded.
“She was out walking her dog, and she saw a light flickering in and out of the gravestones. Being naturally fearless, she investigated, and found my son, who as I recall, said he was going to bed at ten o’clock last night.” He shook his head. “I don’t mind if you run about in graveyards in the middle of a summer night as long as you don’t damage property. But if you feel you absolutely must do such things, I wish you would refrain from annoying Mrs. Brewster.”
“What were you doing there?” Aunt Catherine asked. Bruce tore his crumpet slowly in half. He sighed.
“I’m not really sure, now. It seemed—it seemed like a good idea at the time. We thought—I mean I thought—”
“We thought,” Carol said. Uncle Harold’s eyebrows rose.
“You, too?”
“I did the thinking,” Bruce said. “I don’t think I did very well.”
“But what were you doing?” Uncle Harold said bewilderedly. Carol’s eyes flicked to Bruce’s face. It was lowered; his mouth was set in a taut, stubborn line. He lifted his head suddenly.
The House on Parchment Street Page 5