Jim didn’t notice most of this; he just noticed Lark, and how she lay in a coma, her burns healing, but didn’t seem to respond to anything or anyone. Her parents had come, but were advised that she should not be moved for the time being; they hired a nurse to sit with her when they couldn’t be there; but Jim was there most days and nights, and sometimes slept on the floor.
Finally, in early December, she opened her eyes, and by Christmas, she was drinking liquids and able to speak.
“Jim,” she whispered as he clutched her hand. “I thought I saw you.”
“I’m right here.”
“No,” she said. “In a terrible dream. Terrible. Fire.”
“Just a dream.”
“Jim. I saw ... all of them.”
He nodded. “It’s just a bad dream. You’re awake now.”
“Harrow— ‘ she began, but stopped. She needed some water. He got her a cup of ice, and she put a sliver in her mouth, sucking on it. “It was an awful place.”
“Yeah.”
“Jim, what was it, what we saw there? Was it real? Were those really . . .”
He leaned forward and put his hand over hers. “It’s like what I’ve been thinking.” He wanted to continue and say, we never know if what we go through in life is what’s really in front of us or if it’s just shadows of something else. Some greater scheme. But looking at her, all that she meant to him, and all that she meant whether or not he was there, what Lark meant to the world, was more precious to him right then than any words could express.
He leaned down and pressed his cheek lightly against her palm. “I don’t care about that, Lark. You – getting better. That’s all I want.”
He watched himself say this, all of this, as if it were a dream itself.
He was there with her, and they were making plans about going back to school after Christmas, about seeing each other for New Year’s Eve, and Lark said, “Be here with me, Jim. That’s all I want. Be here with me.”
He felt the fading as he sat beside her. The feeling of slowly vanishing, losing himself in the tidal pull of Harrow. It was like stepping off a ledge and disappearing into shadow.
“Always,” he whispered, and hated lying to her.
Jim Hook felt it take him over, and he knew he had to return to the Red Chamber, return again and again, because he was now part of Harrow, part of its burnt walls and smoldering memory, part of what would never die within those secret rooms and towers, captive -- loved by darkness.
* * * *
Get More eBooks
http://DouglasClegg.com/ebooks
The Infinite
Book 3 of The Harrow Haunting Series
By Douglas Clegg
Copyright © 2001, 2012 Douglas Clegg
Published by Alkemara Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without the permission of the author. All the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Further publisher and copyright information at the end of this book.
Douglas Clegg’s eBooks
http://DouglasClegg.com/ebooks
On Facebook
http://Facebook.com/DouglasClegg
On Twitter
http://Twitter.com/DouglasClegg
PART ONE
INVITATION TO HARROW
CHAPTER ONE
1
The walls, half torn and partially burned, grow dark with night—above you, the twilight sky spits rain. You see before you what looks like a boy who has been burned from head to toe, his blistering skin still steaming, and the stench of some dead thing nearby—
The deafening hum of locusts in the trees—
The hunt has begun.
His eyes watch you as if you were the one who set him afire—
The hunt is coming for you.
And then he reaches out, and you know that when he touches you, you will be his. His body bursts into a brilliant green fire, a fire like a fast, verdant forest in summer, a fire like life itself as it burns, as his fingers graze your throat.
Someone whispers, “Mercy.”
A sound like whiffling through the air. Something heavy swings across the sky. The piercing of flesh with metal, and then the word “Mercy” becomes the green burning dream itself. What is your greatest fear?
It lives here.
What is your greatest love?
It lies in wait for you.
Why is there blood on your hands?
2
In 1926, there were some murders at a house called Harrow, and then, after its inaugural moments of infamy, it was forgotten; strange sightings at the estate: fires that came and went out, nearly by themselves; rumors of someone seen at a window to a room that had no exit or entrance; a cult of some sort that had once convened at the property in a previous century; a scandal that had come out of a family there; a brief flurry of interest by spiritualists early in the twentieth century; other claims, as well, although the house, for all intents and purposes, lay fallow for many years, sleeping perhaps; time, the cloud of memory, covered the house as it transformed in later years into a school; and then it was reborn as merely a private home again, just this past year.
You can still see it, if you go there, if you seek it out.
3
Mr. Trask Finds Something
It was 1962 when Mr. Trask, then only known as Gus, came to the town of Watch Point with his ambition to make a decent wage and stay out of trouble. He spent most of his time working at washing storefronts and hauling his bucket up to the school on the hill, working after hours two days a week there when the two daytime janitors had gone off shift.
He was the only one who saw a student named Jack hang himself, although he told no one that he’d seen the act, for fear that he’d be somehow blamed. He had thought to try and stop the boy, but it really was too late. By the time Mr. Trask got near enough to notice that the boy was not just playing with the rope, but was, in fact, tying it about his neck, well, the boy was already a goner. Mr. Trask had gone for help, but the truth was, he probably could’ve stopped the boy, had he been faster, his guilt told him, or smarter, or even just wiser, for he felt that in some small way, he was responsible for the boy’s death, even though he had never really noticed the boy before seeing him hanging by the rope.
Years passed before the day of the big fire up at the school, but Mr. Trask was there two days later—after the fire department and the police had made sure it was safe for the cleaning crews. Mr. Trask helped clean up the wreckage and refuse. It was an icy day, and he remembered seeing the blackened timber and the scorched walls and thinking, on one level, what a pity, and on an entirely different level, it’s about time this place came down. Although it hadn’t really come down at all. He would tell his son, later, that it was as if the house had just shaken off what the school had put on its shoulder, “just like it took off a big coat.”
Huge Dumpsters were carted in all the way from Poughkeepsie, and people were finding all kinds of things there, some of them very old, some of them fairly new. The library had burned a bit, and some of the newer buildings, but the old place itself remained and looked quite satisfied with itself, Mr. Trask thought. There was a great deal of sadness, too, for some of the parents of the schoolboys who had died were there, initially; and the television cameras, briefly; and the nosy noodles who poked around in the aftermaths of such tragedies to find out if there was more to the “secret initiation ritual” that became an inferno.
A girl had survived; Mr. Trask would never forget her face, poor thing. Half of her shoulder and neck burned, her arms bubbling with sores. She was from St. Catherine’s, a girl’s school less than an hour away, up visiting the night of the fire and somehow caught up in it. He saw her picture in the local paper and her face on TV. He thought of her, while he wandered the piles of damaged wood and furniture from the school. He thought of how awful it
must’ve been to go through what she went through.
It was while digging through the mess that he found one item—well, a shard of a bowl, more than anything. But it struck him as something special, this bit of pottery did. The big house, as old as it was, had kept some things to itself for many years, and now, Mr. Trask had himself a bit of a bowl with a bit of an unusual design to it. He just thought he would take it home and put it up on what his son called his doohickey shelf, with all the other foundlings of a lifetime spent picking through trash barrels. It was his son who managed to steal it—and a signed First Edition of Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn—and put it up for auction on the Internet at eBay.
The Twain was snapped up fairly quickly, and for a decent price, but the bit of bowl—which Mr. Trask’s son had assumed was of Native American origin, although he could not be sure—sat there for a couple of weeks before someone wrote to him asking about it.
“Dear Sir,” the email began. “I understand that this item has come into your hands in the town of Watch Point, New York. I’d like to find out a bit more about it, as the markings that I’m seeing on the rim of the bowl are quite interesting. At first I thought it was Coptic, but I sense that it may be Roman. Might I ask what it would take to borrow it from you, for research purposes? I could pay you a ‘lender’s fee’ of sorts, which we could negotiate. Please call me or email me at your earliest convenience. Sincerely, Jack Fleetwood”
Then, Fleetwood’s address and phone number were beneath this, as well as something called the PSI Vista Foundation.
Mr. Trask’s son had to show his father the note, because his son didn’t want to completely deceive his father, and the son was beginning to worry that the bit of bowl was worth more than either of them knew. Mr. Trask overcame his embarrassment and quickly contacted Fleetwood and inquired what kind of amount he was thinking of.
When Mr. Trask heard the amount of the lender’s fee, he felt his heart race, and after he hung up the phone, he turned to his son and said, “Well, I’m glad you did it. That’ll keep the heat on this winter.”
4
When the bowl arrived, or the bit of it that Mr. Trask had found, in an overly careful wrapping from Watch Point, New York, Fleetwood’s daughter asked, “Why would you pay a thousand dollars to borrow this for a few months?”
“This,” her father said solemnly, “may be part of what I’ve been looking for all my life. It’s from Harrow.”
“That school. Everybody’s talking about it,” his daughter said, with no small amount of morbid excitement in her voice. “Seven kids dead and some bizarro fraternity doing crazy things.”
“There won’t be much of a school left. Gravesend, you were a naughty old man,” her father said, and lifted the pottery up to the light. “Faded; all this craftsmanship. It must’ve passed from hand to hand and been kept hidden by secret dealers and collectors for centuries.”
“It’s ugly,” his daughter said.
“No,” Fleetwood said. “It’s beautiful.”
5
The letter, with check and contract attached:
I hope this letter finds you well. As you know from the screenings, you are one of a handful of guests we’d like to have with us during the month of October at Harrow. Each of you has been picked for your extraordinary abilities. Each of you has expressed a desire to come to Harrow and undergo this unusual experiment. Enclosed you will find plane tickets and a check to compensate you for your time. In addition, I’m sending under separate cover a portfolio on the history of Harrow and the nature of its alleged hauntings. We’ve included additional notes on other allegations of poltergeist activity and sightings in and around Harrow. You’ll notice in the photographs of Harrow that part of the building burned down. We’ve carefully reconstructed portions—using the original materials as much as possible to maintain the integrity of the house. A release form and contract are enclosed. Please read them both carefully, and have your lawyer go over the ramifications with you. We have no doubt that, with your help, we will learn more about psychic phenomena than has ever before been documented. I will warn you that Harrow is not the house of legend. It is a lovely place, despite the damage done by the fire. It is not the “Devil’s Playground” or the “Nightmare House” that the media called it after the fire. This is no Amityville Horror. Despite my colleague, Dr. Lingard, claiming that he has recognized manifestations of demons within the house, I am not of the mind that there are evil spirits at work. It is not some bad place. Just as each of your talents is a verifiable phenomenon, and just as each of you has no doubt been misunderstood in your life, the property at Watch Point, New York, has some talent that has yet to be defined. I believe we will discover the secret of just what can thrive and fuel a house such as this. Each of you has exercised some knowledge and control of your psychic talents. I believe that you will provide a safer environment within Harrow than would an unsuspecting person who has some unknown ability. It would be the person with the talent that has not yet been documented who would pose a threat to themselves and others, I maintain. I completely understand if you decide not to accept this check and invitation to spend these few days in October with me at Harrow. I'm convinced that you will be cheating yourself out of the experience of a lifetime by not accepting this; and I believe you will also find out more about the extent and use of your already impressive talents if you decide to accept. I look forward to seeing you. Sincerely, Jack Fleetwood New York Chapter President, PSI Vista Foundation, 1123 Oatman Place, New York, NY 10011
The manila envelopes were each addressed to Chet Dillinger, Cali Nytbird, and Frost Crane.
CHAPTER TWO
1
St. Christopher Township, Eastern Shore, Virginia
“The wolf's at the door,” his mother always said, or at least that was all he could remember her ever saying to him. Sometimes he just heard howls in his brain when he thought of her. Howls, like a wolf, like an animal waiting at the other side of the door. Chet liked to imagine her standing on the front stoop of some thatched cottage out of a Brothers Grimm tale, holding her forest-twig broom or carrying kindling in for the fire, and saying it to him, “The wolf's at the door.”
It made him feel safe and magical, even later, when he was living with the Dillinger family and nothing was safe or magical there. With the Dillingers, it was always about surviving until sunset through their squabbles and the way there always seemed to be dog piddle and cat scratches all over the furniture; the Dillingers fought, too, with fists and plates and shoes and anything they could get their hands on. But his mother—in his mind, she was something of a goddess. He could only remember her once, from a dream, and he couldn’t remember—years later—what she looked like. “The wolf’s at the door,” she had said in his sleep. She didn’t occupy flesh, as far as he knew. She had crossed over into the territory of legend.
The truth was, she was a kind of legend, but not the kind you’d want as a mother, not if you were born on the wrong side of the tracks in a town like St. Chris during years when all that trickled down were dribs and drabs of rain and, occasionally, a run of good luck that might last ‘til Sunday.
Everybody in St. Chris knew his mother, in that way that only small towns know women like that. St. Chris was at the lowest peak of the Chesapeake Bay, an ornery part of Virginia that was neither fish nor fowl—and the stink of chicken farms and oyster trawlers mixed in the air on a hot August day, waiting for the sea breeze to blow it off to kingdom come. A sandy stretch of nothing, that’s what it had been called more than once, with some fishing and some sea spray and a flat marshy land. The strip mall that had been built in 1968 had not changed in all those years. Three trash dumps had attained some minor fame in the mid-1970s, when an environmentalist group had come out to protest what had become the mountains of waste. The locals, however, paid no mind to the trash heaps that steamed in the long summers; they were considered an inbred lot that had, with their one hundred and seventy-five residents, exactly four family names bet
ween them.
Chet’s mother had been a Goodfellow, and he should’ve been named Chet Goodfellow by all rights, but when one becomes orphaned, the names change fast. There was even some question from the rather snotty Goodfellow clan that his mother had not really been one of them, for none of them claimed to have any relation to her. She was what they called a shady character (in the days when she was young and still fresh to the boredom of St. Chris and its stink of fish and oyster); she was known as often for sales of illegal substances as she was for her tendency to be too readily available to the summer beach crowd and the general male population of St. Chris. Sometimes she got hot, and sometimes she poured herself across the dry land; at least that was what was said about her. She had the beauty of a woman who has nothing but flesh, and lots of it, and her curves molded to her clothes instead of the other way around. She had a voice like a ship’s whistle, but she had a face that was vague and just pretty enough to give her the edge over the other women of town.
She had been reviled in silence—even the church-going folk said nothing worse than, “What do you expect with women like that?” but would not go deeper into her reputation.
Her favorite picture was called “The Peaceable Kingdom,” the one with animals of all shapes and sizes, and she had a large print of this she’d bought at a garage sale over in Hillary for five dollars. She kept the print over her bed, a bed that was equally legendary with the lonely husbands of town, who often found their way onto its wrinkled cotton sheets with small flowers on them, found their way into her arms for a night or an hour, or as much as they could spare. She was lonely, too, and not quite as slatternly a woman as the silence would have suggested—her name was Roselle, and everyone old enough to have known her daddy knew just why she had turned out like she had.
Harrow: Three Novels (Nightmare House, Mischief, The Infinite) Page 35