The House at Hull

by Karl Tutt

  Chapter 6

  She started with four cards face up. They were the Magician, the Emperor, the High Priestess, and the Fool. Each had their own meaning. The story would be woven as the rest of the deck unfolded. Eleisha would look for connections, patterns, order, anything that might make the narrative. The next three were the Devil, the Tower, and the Star. She stared at them for a moment and began to peel the remaining symbols off the deck. She stopped from time to time, closed her eyes, gritted her teeth, and struggled to find the thread that brought a sequence, an interpretation, and thus a meaning to the colorful mystery before us.

  Todd sat quietly and waited. A look of skepticism, if not an accusation of downright deceit, was sculpted into Shasta’s face. I wondered if Eleisha would demand that she leave the table. Even I could feel the negative energy emanating from her barely disguised glare.

  The wind picked up again and the candle flickered, but this time it went out. The kitchen was shrouded in total darkness, only a faint glow from the streetlights. No one moved. The sound of the curtains became a high pitched droning. I looked to the doorway and a glimmer began to take on definition. I said nothing. I was afraid I could be the only one who was aware. Then I saw Todd turn his head. The lines formed, but they wavered and faded in and out of focus. It was a child, no . . . a girl. She was barefoot. She wore a pair of baggy jeans and a faded, loose fitting, top, but her form seemed to be covered by a wispy shroud. She was not quite a woman, but there was a force, a strength, within the apparition. Her neck was bathed in a lacy necklace of blood that seemed to flow over her shoulders from the back of her head. The phantom lips moved almost imperceptibly.

  “Follow the old man,” she said and raised a willowy arm. She pointed toward the Brewster Islands.

  Todd stood suddenly and reached for her, but his hand came back empty. The wind ceased and somehow the candle flickered back to life. Eleisha was engulfed in hideous tremors.

  “That never happened before,” she gasped and groaned.

  She dropped the members of the Deviant Moon. The cards lay scattered about the sandy linoleum floor. I rushed to her, put my arm around her shoulder, and held her tightly to me. She struggled to breathe, tears in the corners of her dark eyes. It took a moment, but I could feel her body begin to settle. The tension pulsed out in spastic waves.

  Todd sat and buried his face in his hands.

  “She’s dead, and so are they.” He sobbed in irregular bursts. Shasta got up, moved toward him, then stopped suddenly. She turned and her feet, now bare, pounded the wooden floors on the way to the porch.

  I continued to hold Eleisha. She finally raised an arm and motioned for me to sit.

  Todd began to compose himself. He shook his head violently and clicked his teeth a couple of times. Then he slowly placed his hands on the table.

  “Outer Brewster,” he said, “we used to go out there in the Donzi. Mom, Dad, Cherie and me. It’s only nine miles or so offshore. We’d cut through the water. Dad would crack a few tired jokes. We’d heard them a hundred times, but it was part of the ritual. There’s a small cove around the back side of the island, rocky beach, just a tiny spit. If you know where to go, you can anchor and walk ashore. Used to be an old quarry out there. Now no one on the island. We’d walk, watch the cormorants and gulls, sometimes even take sandwiches and drinks in a cooler, a little picnic. We were a family. Lots of love and more of the corny jokes. We . . .”

  He began to huff and the words locked in his throat. While Eleisha and I waited, I bent down to pick up the Deviant Moon. The cards seemed hot. It was as though they wanted to leap out of my hands. I placed the deck in front of my gypsy woman, but she didn’t touch them. Then she spoke.

  “So could they be there? Your mom, dad, and Cherie?”

  “The ground is basically rock, lots of nesting birds. Hard to get ashore. Very little topsoil, thin vegetation. I don’t think so, but right now I’m not even sure I can think. I need some time.”

  Shasta came back into the room. She stood straight, but her face was a mask of crimson and her features seemed carved in something very hard, even impenetrable. She put her hand on Todd’s shoulder and slipped back into her sandals.

  “It’s time to go.”

  He stood up slowly and gathered their small bag. I didn’t know where they were going, maybe the Nelson-Marek at the yacht club, but it didn’t matter. I wanted them gone. I also needed time. The last 36 hours hadn’t solved anything. The mystery had only deepened and defied any direction I thought I had.

  We listened to the hollow padding as they went down the steps. I turned on the dim light in the living room and sat in a ratty recliner. Eleisha blew out the candle and poured me a tumbler of wine. Then she followed. I could catch just a hint of the trembling in her hand as she handed me the cup. She sat down across from me, her shoulders drawn up tight, her fingers fiercely interlocked in her lap. We sat for several long minutes.

  “There’s too much going on --- Joshua James, the ghost of Cherie. They’re telling us the same thing. I’m going to call Billy in the morning. He can get the marine police out to the island. It won’t be hard for them to conduct a quick search. He may not believe us, but we’ve got enough to convince him to act. There could be something out there that’ll give us some insight, or at least enable to make some decent guesses.”

  She nodded.

  “Shasta is a sure-fire bitch,” she said.

  “Actually, that was a word that came to mind, but I didn’t want to be a sexist bastard.”

  “You have my permission,” she said, “and maybe, just maybe, there’s more to that situation than meets the eye. I mean they’re engaged. As the wife, she could stand to be in line for a rather large inheritance. Todd’s dad was loaded, but the mom and the daughter were also in line. You’d think that Shasta, as an heir to Shipley Fine Foods, wouldn’t have a worry in the world, but perhaps there’s more. I’ll do some research in the morning, see if I can find out anything else about the Shipley family fortune. You do your thing, and I’ll do mine.”

  I took a healthy slug of the red poison. “Okay.”

  Neither of us slept that night, but we didn’t have any weird visions or hallucinatory events. I guess I was thankful. We decided to leave on the ten o’clock ferry, but first I called Billy and told him what I wanted.

  “Come on, Spook. You’ve been drinking too much of that red shit. It’s clouded your mind. A dead guy standing at the foot of your bed pointing northeast? You got to get off that cheap red shit. The thing with Eleisha? The kid? You know how she can get. Todd and Shasta are probably out of their damned minds with grief. How am I gonna justify that to the chief? Let it go, man . . . let it go.”

  “Okay Billy, let’s review just a bit. You called us in because you don’t have a damned thing. You’re clutching at straws. Well, I’m the straw. Do it however you want, but get some guys to the Outer Brewster . . . and don’t call me Spook.”

  “All right, Mr. Dombroski. I’ll do what I can.”