by John Russo
When the bartender brought his meal, he inquired loudly, wanting to be overheard: “Do you happen to know a young lady named Cynthia Barnes?”
“Why?”
The bartender’s reply was natural and friendly enough, but Morgan had the feeling that conversations at the bar and at nearby tables had come to a halt. “I’m trying to get to her house,” he said, keeping his volume up.
“There’s not a Barnes family in town that I can think of,” said the bartender. “Seems like there ought to be; it’s a common enough name. But there ain’t. If there was, I’d know about it. Not much escapes a fellow’s attention in a town this small.”
“How about in some of the outlying areas?”
“Could be, but I’m afraid I can’t tell you for sure. Like me to freshen your coffee?”
Morgan nodded his head and the bartender poured from a full, steaming pot. The level of conversation in the place didn’t quite seem to return to normal. It was hard for him to believe that his questions could have been this unsettling. Maybe it was his imagination. He was too keyed up to trust his perceptions. He spread butter on a hot home-baked roll and took a bite of it along with a forkful of delicious fried chicken.
“Pardon me, sir,” the man on the barstool to his right said. “May I ask how you’ve come to know Cynthia Barnes?”
Turning, Morgan saw a slender little man with a handsome, weathered face, neat gray mustache, and slickly parted and combed gray hair worn just long enough to touch the tops of his ears. He was in white shoes, slacks, and shirt, with a powder-blue sport jacket, a gold bracelet on one wrist, a gold watch on the other. His clothes were stylish and expensive looking. He looked like an actor or a doctor, or an actor who might play a doctor on television. Morgan noticed his ring with an emblem of a skull, the eyes set with tiny rubies.
“I knew Cynthia in New York,” Morgan said. “We dated, got to know each other, and she told me about some goings on down here. She invited me to come.”
“How is it you don’t have her address?” The man wore a smile but there was no humor in his question. The gentleman next to him was hunched forward on his stool, peering around him to scrutinize Morgan.
It seemed best to continue lying, now that he had already lied about being invited. “She gave me her address before she closed her store in Greenwich Village for the Easter holidays. I have no idea how I lost it, and she doesn’t have a listed phone. But I drove down here, anyway. I didn’t want to miss out on the things she described.”
“You’ve been in the store?”
“Many times.”
The man smiled. “Did you ever buy a witch’s bottle?” he asked, giving the strange question an air of flippancy.
Morgan said, “Cynthia let me photograph some without buying them—for a book I was writing.”
The man mulled this over. Finally, he stuck out his hand. “My name is Harvey Bronson. My friend here is John Logan. We are chiropractors from Columbus, Ohio.”
“Morgan Drey. I’m an anthropologist. Pleased to meet you.”
John Logan was short and stout, not fat but powerful looking, and as well dressed as Harvey Bronson. Shaking hands with Morgan, Logan said, “I hope you’ll forgive us for being careful. Now that we understand you as a friend, we’ll be happy to take you out to the Barnes estate with us. It’s a pleasant drive, fifteen miles or so out into the countryside.”
“If it’s that far, I’d rather follow in my own car,” said Morgan, thinking that he might have to leave by himself if Cynthia made him feel unwelcome.
“Yes, that would be better,” Bronson agreed. He signaled the bartender for another round of cocktails and offered to buy Morgan a drink, but Morgan said no, thanks, coffee was all he wanted.
“Hung over?” Logan chortled.
“You guessed it,” Morgan said, managing a dry chuckle.
The bartender brought two fresh cocktails and Bronson pulled out a wad of bills.
“Excuse me for a moment,” Logan said, then hopped down off his barstool. He crossed the dance floor, in his half-waddling, short-legged gait, to a large circular booth on the far side of the dining area where a group of urbane-seeming men and women were eating and drinking. Morgan’s attention remained briefly on Logan while Bronson was preoccupied with paying for the drinks he had ordered. Logan had approached a white-haired patriarchal gentleman, a commanding presence who must’ve weighed about three hundred pounds and seemed to be in charge of the people in the booth. After a nod of his head acknowledging Logan’s presence, the white-haired gentleman remained seated, listening intently while Logan talked to him, apparently imparting information, but they were too far away for Morgan to hear what was being said. When Logan got done talking, the white-haired man replied at some length, his eyes meeting Logan’s piercingly, his lip movements clearly defined, as if issuing orders which must not be misunderstood. Morgan could make nothing out from the lip movements.
“Those people in the booth are friends, too,” Harvey Bronson said. “But you can see that for yourself, Morgan.” His eyes twinkled conspiratorially. “The man John is talking to is an extraordinary fellow. A mortician, Stanford Slater, from San Francisco. Perhaps you’ve heard of him.”
“Can’t say that I have,” Morgan said, hoping the admission wasn’t a faux pas. Bronson merely sipped his gin-and-tonic noncommittally while Logan waddled back across the dance floor and hopped up onto his stool.
It gave Morgan an eerie feeling to be surrounded by people who thought they were witches. He figured that the American Chiropractic Association would be as dismayed by Logan and Bronson and their dabbling in witchcraft as a group of nuclear physicists would be if one of their kind turned out to be an alchemist.
Morgan finished his chicken and French fries and his last sip of cold coffee. Turning to Bronson, he said, “What time are we leaving?”
“I’m ready now,” Bronson said. “How about you, John?”
“Soon as I finish this,” said Logan, gesturing with his drink.
Morgan glanced across the dance floor to the booth on the far side and saw that the patriarchal mortician Stanford Slater and his entourage were on the move, getting up from their table.
“Are they going out to Cynthia’s, too?” asked Morgan.
“Yes, of course. We all are,” Bronson replied cheerfully.
“Quite a crowd,” Morgan said, making small talk.
Bronson eyed him appraisingly. “You really find all this a bit silly, don’t you?”
It was both a question and an accusation, and Morgan did not know how to take it or what to say.
“Don’t worry,” said Bronson, smiling suddenly. “Some of the rest of us aren’t totally serious about it, either. But it’s fascinating, isn’t it? It reminds me of primal-scream therapy—getting all the ugliness out of one’s system in one weekend each year. We need outbursts like this, you see—at least some of us do—because our modern age requires us to be too rational, dignified, and restrained. Take me, for example. I can’t tell you the number of patients I’ve had to be nice to, when I felt like twisting their necks the wrong way.”
“I agree that it is fascinating,” said Morgan, wondering just how wild things were going to get.
Logan said, “Of course, Cynthia thinks she’s the high priestess and we’re the followers. But really it’s us egging her on, pushing her to new and greater excesses. It’s something, though, how she’s got those brothers of hers totally under her control.”
“Some of us don’t really believe in all the hocus-pocus,” said Bronson. “But Cynthia does. So do most of the others. The rest of us recognize it as an excuse to do what we want to do, anyway. It’s like a true-blue housewife getting drunk before she screws the milkman.”
“I’ll bet this weekend is going to be a corker,” Logan enthused, getting up from his stool. “You can feel it in the air. I wouldn’t miss it for anything.”
“Where’s your car, Morgan?” Bronson asked.
“In front of unit
six.”
“I suggest you check out and plan on staying with us at the house. Cynthia won’t mind. Can you be ready in a half-hour?”
Morgan said that he could. Inwardly, he was elated at the invitation to stay at Cynthia’s place and heartened by Logan’s blithe assurance that Cynthia wouldn’t mind. Maybe he had done the right thing in driving down here, after all. Even if his romantic aspirations were eventually thwarted, at least he was gathering good material for a book.
Following closely behind Harvey Bronson’s silver Cadillac, Morgan Drey pulled into the long gravel driveway of the Barnes estate. Several late-model cars were parked there ahead of him. Slamming the door of his badly rusted green Plymouth, he took in the tree-shrouded view of the house with some surprise, finding it much more elegant than he had imagined, and Cynthia came out onto the front porch. She stood perfectly still, gazing at him in an unresponsive way, not glad to see him, not angry apparently, but lovely and remote in a spotless white hostess gown framed by two white pillars on the wide porch of the mansion. “Hello!” he called out tentatively, as if she were a beautiful but forbidden vision that could be frightened away by the sound of his voice.
“Morgan,” she said, offering her slender white hand as he came closer, John Logan and Harvey Bronson close behind as he ascended the gray stone steps. Cynthia’s hand briefly in Morgan’s, he stood at her side in the coolness of evening and realized by a glimpse into the well-lighted living room that she must have known he was coming. Stanford Slater and his entourage were already there and, of course, had passed the word along so that Cynthia wouldn’t be taken by surprise.
She shook hands with Logan and Bronson and said, “Do come in. Join the other guests and have some wine and relax.”
Hoping it was his imagination, Morgan seemed to sense that she was much warmer toward the two chiropractors than she had been toward him.
Going past her on his way into the house, he let his eyes scan her face for some clue as to his degree of welcome, but she gave no such clue and his spirits sank. He felt that if she truly wanted him there, she’d show it more—unless she was merely going to make him suffer a bit, for having the gall to crash her party. She seemed regal, aloof, in total command of a setting in which she belonged and he did not. She didn’t introduce him to anybody, either. But a tall, darkly handsome man in a three-piece blue suit came over to him and jauntily handed him a glass of red wine.
“I’m Luke Barnes,” the man said, “Cynthia’s brother.”
“Pleased to meet you,” Morgan said gratefully, shaking hands. “My name is Morgan Drey.”
“You’re the one who’s in love with my sister,” Luke said quite loudly, a brazen leer on his handsome but devilish face, as if he were an adolescent poking fun at another kid in the schoolyard at recess.
Stuck for a comeback, Morgan almost stammered, and Luke’s impudent grin erupted into cruel, bucolic laughter.
Then Luke pivoted and walked away, leaving Morgan stranded in the middle of the room wondering how many of the guests had overheard Luke’s taunting remark. Embarrassed and trying not to show it, he made his way to a straight-backed chair in a corner of the overly crowded living room, with its high beamed ceiling and heavy Victorian furniture. He downed half his wine in a series of rapid gulps, thinking that if he got a little loaded he might relax and enjoy himself and not get his feelings hurt so easily. Bronson and Logan seemed to know everybody at the party and moved about at their ease. Cynthia was carrying on a conversation across the room with the mortician, Stanford Slater, whose huge bulk reposed pontifically in a gigantic armchair upholstered in a gay, flowery pattern. The overall mood and chatter were reminiscent of any ordinary cocktail party, except for an ominous undercurrent Morgan could not quite put his finger on. Again, maybe it was his imagination. He felt an overpowering need to get Cynthia separated from the others somehow so he could talk to her.
Well, being a wallflower wasn’t going to help. Making up his mind to socialize, he stood up, quaffed his wine, and took a decisive step or two in the direction of Cynthia Barnes and Stanford Slater, who were now surrounded by several others, but he was stopped by Harvey Bronson, who appeared tipsy.
“Isn’t this rural environment wonderful!” Bronson exclaimed slurringly.
“Clean air,” said Morgan, making himself agreeable.
“No, I don’t mean the air,” the chiropractor snapped back almost petulantly. “I’m referring to the absence of civilization. You can get away with murder out here. Morgan, allow me to refill your wineglass.” He did so, pouring from a crystal decanter that he plucked from a nearby mahogany buffet, and then handed the full glass to Morgan before excusing himself and sidestepping toward an attractive but very sober-looking young woman who was now sitting in the straight-backed chair Morgan had vacated.
Morgan stood his ground for a moment, sipping wine and surveying the partyers. He wanted to shake his head in consternation when he thought of the common bond that had drawn them together in this out-of-the-way place, way off the beaten track, in the backwoods of West Virginia. These people who professed to be witches seemed middle- to upper-class for the most part. Well dressed, fashionable, reasonably educated, they were the sort whose jaded tastes might as easily have run to something like wife-swapping instead of to the kinkiness of witchcraft. Socializing with one another over drinks and cigarettes, they talked of politics, economics, travel, inflation, and so on. They didn’t laugh much, though. And what laughter Morgan heard seemed tinny, forced, artificial, unless it was laughter like Luke’s, coming at someone else’s expense.
How to rescue Cynthia from this sort of existence?
As if thinking of her had drawn her toward him, he saw her disengaging herself from Stanford Slater and the others and making her way toward him with a smile on her face. He hoped that she had decided to forgive him for crashing her party. He wanted to be alone with her, but the best he could ask for in these surroundings was that nobody else would come over and horn in.
“I am sorry for being rude to you,” she told him. “But I didn’t invite you here. And I have no idea why you came.”
“I wanted very much to see you. I had no plans for the holidays. And I thought you might let me take some photographs of the services you were so proud of.” He grinned, trying his best to win her over.
“Mama would never allow it,” she said soberly. “In fact, Morgan, I’m sure Mama would never approve of your being here. You don’t believe as we do. Why do you wish to desecrate our ceremonies?”
“Desecrate?” He said it with more sarcasm than he intended.
Her expression went from haughtiness to anger. “Yes, desecrate!” she snapped.
He reached out, touching her arm, but she drew away from him instantly, her black eyes flashing. He fought down an impulse to scold her. But he could not hope to get close to her by lashing out, spitefully shattering her make-believe world. The only way to help her was to gain her confidence a little at a time, by pretending to go along with her to some extent and then eventually causing her to question her own beliefs. This did not seem impossible to Morgan. He knew about “deprogramming” and wished he could accomplish it in his own way with Cynthia.
“I’m sorry,” he told her diplomatically. “I don’t mean to always sound so smug and disapproving. Maybe I’d understand you better if I’d be more open-minded. I’m willing to try, if you’ll give me a chance.”
“It’s not up to me. It’s up to Mama,” she said, still pouting.
“May I ask your mother’s permission to stay and see the services?”
Cynthia thought it over for a long time. “I’ll take you up to see her,” she said finally.
Morgan allowed himself to be led through the throng of guests in the living room toward a long ascending staircase with a dark, curving banister. Many pairs of eyes watched him and Cynthia beginning to climb the stairs, and conversations halted. By the time Morgan and Cynthia reached the carpeted landing, it was as though no party wa
s going on down in the living room. All Morgan heard was the muffled creaking of the floorboards as they climbed the stairs.
Cynthia had her hand on the doorknob and was pushing the door open. “Mama, a gentleman to see you,” she said, motioning for Morgan to enter the bedroom.
When he stepped forward, his eyes went wide and he began screaming. This was all the more frightening because he had never screamed before, never had encountered anything to tear that response from him. Simultaneously, he heard Cynthia laughing at him, as her brother Luke had laughed, loudly and maliciously, and her laughter was picked up and amplified by the crowds of people downstairs in the living room.
Meredith Barnes, Cynthia’s mother, was dead. She was sitting in her rocking chair by the window, eyes wide open, embalmed. Morgan could not stop screaming. The revelation that Mama was dead was the equivalent of a true glimpse into the hell-ridden depths of Cynthia’s insanity.
Footsteps came up the stairs toward Morgan and he choked off the gurgling scream in his throat and pivoted shakily, starting to gag, feeling sickened to the depths of his soul, brushing past Cynthia and the maniacal laughter distorting her face. Morgan would have bolted down the curving staircase and out of the house, out into the night. But he was seized roughly by the strong arms of Luke Barnes, and behind Luke were Abraham and Cyrus. Morgan tried to fight, lashing out wildly, but this only amused the three brothers. They pinned Morgan’s arms behind his back and choked him into breathless helplessness while Cynthia continued to laugh shrilly.