Hallow House - Part Two

by Jane Toombs

  Of course not. Brian was wonderful.

  In 1946, when she turned eleven, Johanna got to be flower girl for Samara and Kevin's wedding. Brian was ring bearer and Johanna told herself when they got old enough, she and Brian would get married. Her twin sisters would be bridesmaids and Daddy would escort her down the aisle like he did Samara. Everyone would smile and cry happily.

  By the time she was seventeen, though, Johanna wasn't so sure any of this was likely to happen. Brian said he loved her and, on her birthday in May he'd even given her a gold ring with a small emerald set into it. Choosing to regard it as an engagement ring, she wore it on her left ring finger in defiance of her mother's wishes.

  Standing on the front porch of Hallow House one warm July night, Johanna looked down at the ring, caressing the stone with a finger as she recalled the conversation with her mother.

  "Brian is so like his father," Vera had said. "I only hope..." She didn't finish.

  Johanna pictured Brian--nearly six feet tall, handsome with his dark curls and flashing grin. "Hope what?"

  "Vincent didn't apply himself. He drifted through life. Until the war started I don't think he took anything seriously."

  "Brian's himself," Johanna insisted. "He's not like his father. Or his mother."

  Vera smiled at her. "He's a fine boy But only sixteen, remember. There are so many years ahead for both of you."

  "Before Aunt Adele died, she told me Brian and I were fated to marry. She--"

  "Dear, I think you spent too much time with Adele there at the end," Vera had said. "She was in her nineties, don't forget, and I'm sure her mind wandered. You were still an impressionable child then, not the young lady you are now, much too old to believe in superstition."

  Remembering her mother's words, Johanna compressed her lips. According to Mama, she was both too young to even think about getting married and, at the same time, too old for childish ways.

  She sighed and gave herself up to thoughts of Brian and how much she missed him on this beautiful night. Later the mosquitoes might be biting but now the soft dusk lay around Johanna like a caress. The sweet fragrance of the star jasmine vines Vera had planted below the porch reminded her of breathing in that same delicious scent with Brian and tears came to her eyes.

  He's been gone two whole weeks now at this camp where he was a counselor. Two long weeks. How could she ever stand an entire two months? What was he doing right this minutes up there in the mountains? Thinking about her? She linked back the tears and shook her head.

  More likely he was trying to get his twelve boys settled in their cabin for the night. He's already written about those boys. At least he was as far away from Sue Middleton as he was from her. And Cheryl Ellright, who was almost as bad. The way they fawned over Brian was sickening. She couldn't understand why he didn't seem to mind.

  A dog howled in the distance somewhere beyond the orange groves and, as Johanna turned her head toward the sound, she saw a white shape rise above the trees, silent in the gathering darkness. She held her breath until she realized it was an owl. Probably the one that nested in the pines near the house. The men who picked the oranges didn't like the bird. "Maldito," they called it. Accursed, evil.

  She shivered in the warm night and decided to go inside. Maybe she'd drive to Porterville tomorrow and see Samara. Since her sister had learned she was expecting a baby, she hardly ever visited Hallow House.

  Inside the coolness of the air conditioning chilled her. From the library came the sound of Daddy's radio. He was getting a little deaf, but no one ever told him her had the volume knob turned up to high. The news broadcaster was winding up with the weather report. As is anyone needed it here in the valley where the summers were always hot. Getting to be humid, too, from all the irrigation water, Daddy said.

  Today was July 20th. Much of the summer remained. Every day seemed endless without Brian. No one had turned on the lights in the foyer, so Johanna crossed to the wall switch and flicked it on. As the chandelier high above blazed into life, there were tiny flashes as three of the tiny flame-shaped bulbs burned out.

  "Old Stan Aarons would call that an ill omen," Marie's husky voice said.

  Johanna turned to see her coming down the stairs. "Why?"

  Marie shrugged. Looking at her, Johanna wondered, as she often did, how Marie had produced such a good-looking boy as Brian, She was grossly overweight, wore too much makeup and dressed sloppily. It was no secret she drank. Everyone in the house knew, though no one mentioned it.

  "Stan always thought the worst was going to happen," Marie said. "Funny thing--he was usually right. Even that last time he was here. You know what he said to me before he left? 'Marie, John laughs at me, but I have the strangest feeling I'll never see any of you again.'"

  Johanna had heard the story before--how the plane Stan had taken back to New York had crashed in a thunderstorm, killing all aboard. It'd been in 1947, the same year Aunt Adele died. And Theola had died that Christmas Eve. Would Stan have said deaths go in threes?

  Johanna shook her head. Daddy called Marie a "crepe-hanger." She mustn't let such morbidity influence her.

  "I suppose all the girls from near and far are missing Brian," Marie said with the sly smile.

  "I miss him."

  "That little redhead--what's her name, Sue something?--I'll bet she does, too. She's cute as a button, isn't she?"

  "I think she's silly," Johanna said, wondering why buttons were thought of as cute.

  Marie laughed. "If Brian's got any sense, he'll keep in mind that the butter's right here in this house."

  Not understanding, but aware of Marie's underlying maliciousness, Johanna began to edge away.

  "Yes, sir, Brian better remember who'll butter the bread and which side is up," Marie went on. "Not like me--I always was a fool." She peered at Johanna through bleary eyes. "Too bad you don't look like your mother. Still, a fat lot of good her beauty brought Delores. Maybe it's best you don't take after her."

  "I'm going to my room now," Johanna said, trying, as always, to be polite to Marie because she was Brian's mother. She couldn't make herself like Marie, though, and tried to avoid her whenever possible.

  Marie clutched her arm. "You're still wearing Brian's emerald on your left ring finger. What does John say about that?"

  "Daddy didn't say anything." Actually she wasn't sure he'd even noticed, she thought as she tried to shift her arm away from Marie.

  "Don't let him talk you around. He thinks he knows so much. He doesn't know squat." Marie brought her face so close that the smell of stale liquor made Johanna repress a grimace.

  "Ask me." Marie stabbed at her chest with a forefinger. "I'm the only one who really knows. Delores told me everything. She did it out of meanness, wanting to hurt me, but just the same I'm the only one she talked to."

  Delores. Her real mother. The person no one ever discussed with her.

  "So don't you go believing what your father is afraid of is really so. You come to Old Marie, I'll tell you the truth." She released Johanna's arm. "If he hasn't started in on you already, he soon will. You just wait." Marie laughed. "John never did get the better of Vincent, though."

  The laughter changed to tears, which meant Marie would be out of it soon. No one else was around, so it'd be up to Johanna to get her to her room before she collapsed.

  "John thought he came out ahead with Delores and again with Vera." Marie's words came out in choking sobs. "But which man has the son now? John can never forget it's Vincent's son under his roof--not his own."

  "Let me help you up to your room," Johanna said, putting her arm around the older woman.

  Marie leaned against her so heavily Johanna had trouble getting them both up the stairs. The pervasive stench of second-hand liquor nauseated her.

  "I'm getting as bad as old Stan," Marie mumbled as she slumped onto her bed. "Feel like this is my last chance to tell you about Delores. Your mother." She shoved herself up onto one elbow. "You call Vera mama and maybe that's
best. Delores wasn't born to be anyone's mother. That poor damned Sergei." Marie lay back against the pillows. "Help me get these slippers off, that's a good girl."

  After she obeyed, Johanna lingered uneasily by the bed, held against her will by the mention of those two names so rarely spoken--Sergei and Delores.

  "Hand me that glass from the stand, Marie ordered. "I believe I'll have a little nightcap."

  Johanna did as she was told.

  "One thing about your father--he's not a stingy man. I'd've made him a better wife than Delores, but what's done is long over." Marie raised her head and took a sip from her glass. "I know what you're thinking when you look at me. But I was pretty when I was young. Prettier than you, if the truth be told. Didn't do me much good, did it? Adele told me years ago that life would be easier for me if I accepted being a leftover, passed over like she and Theola were. But I never could. Why should I?"

  She finished the glass and handed it to Johanna who set it back on the stand.

  "Don't stare at me with those big gray eyes of yours. You were a strange baby and you're still fey, a changeling. I sometimes wonder if Delores took her baby into that room upstairs and exchanged it for something else. For you."

  Johanna backed away, beginning to be afraid of Marie's drunken ramblings. The bedside lamp was the room's only illumination and the corners were filled with shadows that moved and shifted at the edges of her vision. She hated shadows.

  "I'd betted be g-going," she stammered.

  "There's more," Marie mumbled. "Got to tell you more..." Her eyes closed.

  Released, Johanna all but flew into the hall. When she passed the twins' bedroom, their door was ajar and she heard them talking. Needing something to erase Marie's words from her mind, she stuck her head in the room. "Want some company?"

  They readily agreed. The sight of them sitting on the rug playing a card game brought her back from the shadowy places Marie's ramblings had evoked. The twins irritated her sometimes, just enough younger to be annoying, but she loved them and knew she was safe with them.

  "We've been trying to guess cards again," Naomi said. "Katrina's still the champ." Her voice was rueful, since she expected to be first at everything.

  "Is something the matter?" Katrina, always perceptive, asked. She seemed to sense emotions even when you tried to hide them.

  "I was listening to Marie," Johanna said.

  "Oh, her." Naomi's voice held contempt.

  Katrina shivered. "Just now I got the most awful feeling. Like I had on that night when you got so sick, Johanna, I never told anybody then except Naomi. I wonder if I should tell this time?"

  "What's there to tell?" Naomi asked. "It's not like anyone's going to believe you. I do, 'cause we're twins, but..."

  "Something terrible's going to happen," Katrina insisted.

  With Katrina upset, Johanna decided being with the twins wasn't going to make her feel any better. "I'll be in my room," she told them and left.

  After closing herself in her room, she turned on the radio to try to lose herself in music. "...loveliest night in the year," a tenor sang, making her sigh.

  She was getting into her pajamas when the news came on. "In Korea, another strike on Pyongyang by United Nation planes..." She clicked the radio off. Supposing the Korean War didn't end soon? Would Brian have to go when he turned eighteen?

  Johanna sat on her bed disturbed at the thought of Brain leaving her, going where she couldn't go. Having him away at camp was bad enough. She loved other people besides Brian, but he was the only one she really trusted.

  Naomi laughed at her because she had to have a light burning in her room all right. Not just a night-light, but a lamp. Brian didn't laugh--he understood, just as he understood everything about her.

  She tossed and turned for a time, at last falling into an uneasy sleep. Her dreams were nebulous, unfocused. Strange shapes seemed to mime actions just beyond her grasp. She knew they were there but not who they were or what they did. Shadows.

  Some one shook her. Frances? Was it time to get up already? Johanna opened her eyes to darkness. Her light was out! The bed seemed to be shifting under her and, when she tried to sit up, she was thrown back against the pillows. She screamed. No one was in her room and yet the bed shook and she could hear the clatter of falling objects hitting the floor. She screamed again, too frightened to move.

  A circle of light danced in through the door. Flashlight. "Quickly, Johanna," her mother ordered. "Get downstairs. It's an earthquake."

  Johanna scrambled from the bed and grabbed her mother's hand. By the time they reached the head to the stairs, the shaking had stopped. The hurried down the steps to where John stood in the foyer with another flashlight.

  "Get away from the chandelier," he warned. "The dining room's safer."

  The dim light of pre-dawn filtered through the dining room curtains. Naomi and Katrina were huddled together with Frances. The servants clattered in from the kitchen wing, Irma and the two new maids, Conception and Ethel. Feeling the floor glide under her feet again, Johanna clung to her mother.

  "Stay calm everyone," her father urged. "Earthquakes don't last long. I think the worst of this one is over and the house is still standing. We'll be all right."

  Talk burst out, everyone voicing relief.

  "I'll make coffee," Irma declared. "I'm not going back to bed, you can be sure of that."

  Someone pounded on the front door. John opened it to Pedro, who'd taken Jose's place.

  "Barn is okay," Pedro said. "Stables okay."

  "Come on in. We'll all have breakfast together. By the time we're done it'll be light enough to check for damage inside and out."

  The dawn breakfast was uneasy at first, with the servants not accustomed to eating with the family in the dining room.

  "Worst quake I've ever felt here," John said. "How about you, Pedro?"

  "Si. Bad one. Like the Indians tell about up there." Pedro waved a hand toward the mountains. "Ochenta--"

  "Eighty, he means," Conception murmured.

  Pedro flashed her a quelling glance. "Si, eighty years ago, Indians say mountains fall."

  John nodded. "The Owens Valley quake in 1872. From what I've heard, a very bad one that even affected House--that's where the crack in the living room ceiling came from." He looked along the table, frowning. "Didn't Marie come down?"

  Vera's hand flew to her mouth. "Oh dear Lord, I forgot about Marie."

  Chapter 33

  The earthquake survivors around the dining room table glanced at one another. No one had questioned, or noticed, Marie's absence until John asked where she was.

  Frances rose. "I tried Marie's' door, but she had it locked and didn't answer when I called to her. I was in a hurry to get the twins downstairs, so I didn't persist. God forgive me, I thought the poor soul was drunk, like always, when the truth is she may have been lying there hurt."

  "There's no key to the lock on Marie's door," Vera said, getting up to join Frances. "She didn't mind because she never locked her door."

  John and Pedro followed the women up the stairs, with the children trailing behind. Johanna, Naomi and Katrina watched apprehensively as the men, unable to push the door open, brought axes to hack through it.

  "She's dead," Katrina whispered. "I told you someone would die."

  Johanna shook her head. "You just aid something awful would happen."

  "After you left the feeling got worse and I told Naomi I could sense death, too," Katrina told her.

  Naomi nodded in confirmation, eyes frightened.

  As her father shoved his way into Marie's room through the demolished door, Johanna edged closer, not wanting to see inside, but knowing she must. Adults never wanted to tell you anything and that was worse than not knowing. Biting her lip, she peered through the shattered panels.

  John and Pedro were lifting a fallen highboy from the floor, setting it upright again. Underneath was a tangled mass of clothes--no, not only clothes... Johanna felt her mother's hands o
n her shoulders, leading her away.

  "This is no place for you," Vera said. "Take the twins downstairs into the library and shut the door. She released Johanna and gave her a little push. "Go. Do as I say."

  "Marie's dead, isn't she?"

  "There's nothing anyone could have done to save her. The door was jammed by the quake and she couldn't get out. Now take the girls downstairs. Katrina is a white as a ghost."

  "What happened?" Naomi demanded after they were alone in the library,

  "One of those tall dressers fell on Marie and killed her," Johanna said. She felt sick and not at all eager to talk about the accident.