Hallow House - Part Two

by Jane Toombs

  "I keep asking him, but he just grins at me--he's got the cutest smile. Doesn't it send you? Oh, that's right. I keep forgetting you're his cousin."

  She doesn't forget that for a minute, Johanna thought.

  "You probably feel more like he's your brother, growing up with him and all."

  "Not exactly."

  "Oh?"

  Johanna didn't respond, easing down into bed and pulling the cover up around her.

  Sue flicked off her bedside lamp and, after a moment Johanna did the same, unwilling to have her roommate tease her about being afraid of the dark.

  Sue sighed dramatically. "It'd be a lot more interesting if Brian were here instead of you." She giggled. "Have you ever let a boy--you know--touch you?"

  Johanna was glad the room was dark. "No."

  "I have," Sue said.

  She doesn't mean Brian, Johanna assured herself uneasily.

  "What to know what it feels like?" Sue asked.

  "I'd rather not."

  Sue laughed, but said no more and soon Johanna fell asleep...

  She wandered in a snowstorm, her skis lost, the flakes falling thicker and faster until she could hardly drag her feet through the drifts. She turned to go back but the trail she'd made was gone, covered with snow. What should she do? She'd never been so cold.

  She saw a figure in an orange jacket far ahead of her and knew it must be Brian, so she slogged through the drifts trying to reach him. A sound behind her made her turn. To her horror, a skier in a dark cowl was nearly upon her. Fearing the dreadful thing that cowl hid, she shouted Brian's name.

  He turned and skied back toward her and she struggled to reach him. He was almost close enough to touch when she saw he, too, wore a cowl over his head. Afraid of what she might find inside that cowl, she stopped. Behind her the hooded figure closed in. Caught between them, she screamed…

  Chapter 35

  In the darkness someone asked, "What's the matter?" A hand shook her shoulder.

  Johanna jerked away with a gasp.

  "It's me, Sue," the voice said and a light went on.

  Johanna sat up and stared at Sue who was standing next to her bed.

  "Do you always yell in your sleep and thrash around like that?" Sue asked.

  "I had a n-nightmare." Johanna gathered up the blanket that had slipped off one side of the bed. Her feet felt like ice.

  "Well, I certainly hope you don't have any more," Sue said grumpily. "Brr, it's freezing in here."

  Johanna slept fitfully after than and woke early. She dressed quietly so as not to awake her sleeping roommate and slipped out the door. Despite the early hour, a few people were in the lobby. She recognized two of them--Lyle's Gray's parents who had come along as chaperones--and decided to ask if she had to wait to eat with the group, like it had been last night.

  They stood in front of the large stone fireplace, their backs to her. As she approached, she heard Mr. Gray say, "Smart idea to put the boys and the girls in separate corridors."

  "Oh, you men," Mrs. Gray said, "Always thinking about sex."

  Johanna stopped a ways behind them, wondering how to politely break into their conversation.

  He laughed. "Boys will be boys."

  "Speaking of boys, this is the first time I've seen Vincent Gregorys' son. Martha Chase insisted the boy is a dead ringer for Sergei Gregory. I never did meet him, but this boy is certainly good-looking."

  "Sergei was, too. I remember him as a boy with his mother. Now she was really something."

  "So I've heard." Mrs. Gray's tone was dry.

  "My knowledge is not personal, as you know very well," he muttered.

  "Martha says the whole business of her death and Sergei's was hushed up, that it wasn't suicide at all, that Sergei killed his own mother and because of it, his father shot him. I never know whether or not to believe Martha, but she's usually partly right."

  "She's a damn squawking hen. There was something fishy about the two deaths, though. Tom Jackson's cousin used to be a deputy sheriff and he told me there's some kind of weird room in the Gregory house where Delores was found dead with her throat cut from ear to ear. They discovered her little baby there alive, but covered with all that blood."

  "The baby? How dreadful. Say--wouldn't that be the little girl who goes to school with Lyle now? What's her name...?"

  Johanna backtracked as quietly as she could, her heart slamming against her chest, making it hard to breathe. She felt like she might die any minute. All she could think of was getting to Brian, so she plunged into the corridor opposite the one where she and Sue had their room.

  She had to find Brian, but she didn't know which room was his. Staring at the numbered doors, she tried to push back the words that surfaced in her mind. ...weird room...all that blood...father shot him...

  "Brian," she whispered. "Please, where are you?"

  In desperation she knocked at a door. After a moment a bleary-eyed man, a stranger, peered out at her. "I'm s-sorry," she muttered and fled.

  She wandered along corridor after corridor hoping Brian would emerge from one of the rooms, becoming confused about which corridor she'd already been in. Despite the fact it was morning, the halls were dim and shadows lurked at their far ends. She didn't dare knock at a door again and face another stranger. Finally she leaned up against a wall and sobbed, tears running unchecked down her face. When someone touched her, she tried to jerk away until she heard Katrina's familiar voice.

  "Didn't I tell you there was something wrong with Johanna?"

  "But you never know what," Naomi said. "If you're going to foresee things, I wish you'd come up with more details."

  "We found her, didn't we?" Katrina's voice became coaxing. "Come with us, Johanna. You can't stay here."

  She let the twins lead her, not caring where she was going. By the time they brought her inside their room, she'd begun to focus again. She accepted the damp washcloth Naomi brought her and wiped her face.

  "Are you okay?" Katrina asked anxiously, peering at her.

  Johanna knew she must never say a word to the twins of what she'd overheard. "I was l-looking for Brian and I got l-lost."

  "You weren't anywhere close," Naomi told her. "He and Ralph were going to get rid of their roommates 'cause neither of them like who they had and bunk in together. Ralph's in 209."

  "How come you know all this?"

  Naomi shrugged, "Katrina listens a lot and she tells me what she hears. But I don't think you ought to go to a boy's room. We're not supposed to."

  "I just want to talk to Brian. There's nothing wrong with that. Thanks for rescuing me. I guess I got scared when I realized I was lost."

  The twins glanced at each other, but didn't say anything.

  Johanna used one of their brushes to put her hair in order, then left the room and went in search of 209. As she came close to the right number, she saw Ralph walking ahead of her toward the lobby. Good. If Brian was still in the room, he'd be alone. At the door, she raised her hand to knock, realized the door wasn't latched and pushed it open.

  Brian was nowhere in sight. But Sue was. She sat on one of the beds, naked to the waist. Johanna could hear water running in the bathroom.

  Sue looked at her and giggled. "Guess I forgot to lock the door."

  Johanna, shocked, stood speechless. She heard the water shut off and shifted her gaze to the bathroom door.

  "We could do without your company," Sue said.

  Her words broke Johanna's immobility. She turned and fled, running down one corridor after another until she found a door that led outside. She plunged out into the snow, hardly noticing the storm was over, even though the sun glinting off the snow hurt her eyes. After slogging on until she was breathless, she finally paused and looked around. Half Dome rose to her right, towering thousands of feet above her. Pines clustered close, screening her from the sun. She shivered, half-frozen, since she'd dashed out with no jacket or boots.

  The hotel was visible through gaps between trees.
As she watched, someone in an orange jacket started to follow the trail she'd made across the new-fallen snow. Brian. She didn't want to see him, couldn't bear to see him. Tears in her eyes, she retreated farther into the pines, stumbling and sobbing until at last, spent, she fell into a drift and stayed there, her face pressed into the cold snow.

  "Johanna!" Brian called.

  She didn't answer,

  But he found her anyway, hauling her to her feet, taking off his own jacket and wrapping it around her. "What're you doing out here with no snow gear on?" he scolded. "What's the matter with you?"

  As he led her back to the hotel, she moved like an automaton, keeping her eyes unfocused so she wouldn't have to look at him.

  "Naomi found me," he said. "She and Katrina were worried about you and I can see why. I never thought you'd pull a dumb stunt like this. What's wrong?"

  How could he ask? Her throat closed with anguish.

  "Johanna, answer me!"

  She shook her head, plodding beside him on feet that no longer had any feeling. She wished the rest of her was as numb as her feet.

  "Are you sick?" He stopped and peered into her face. She refused to meet his eyes.

  He grasped her shoulders and shook her. "What's wrong with you? Talk to me. You've never acted this way before."

  Johanna twisted from his grasp and spit words at him. "I saw Sue."

  He stared at her. "Sure, why wouldn't you. She was your roommate."

  "S-Sue told me--she t-told me..." Johanna was unable to go on.

  "Whatever she said was probably half a lie--you ought to know her well enough by now."

  "D-don't pretend." She pushed past him and hurried to the hotel entrance, across the lobby and to her room, only to find the door locked. Her key she knew, was inside the room. She stumped back to the desk for an extra key, shivering all the way.

  When she got back, Brian was waiting by the door. She ignored him, trying to fit the key into the lock with her shaking fingers. He took the key from her, unlocked the door and followed her inside.

  "What do you w-want?" she demanded.

  "My jacket, for one thing." He lifted it from her shoulders and tossed in onto an unmade bed. He pulled her to him. "Neither of us is going anywhere until you start to make sense. Get out of those wet things so you can stop shivering and then we'll talk."

  "You can't stay in my room," she cried, pulling away.

  "Want to bet?"

  As Johanna kicked off her sopping shoes and yanked down her knee socks, she muttered, "I don't want any l-leftovers." Staring straight at him, she pulled her sweater over her head and unzipped her skirt, letting it fall to the floor. Standing there in her half slip and bra, she reached back to unhook it

  "For God's sake, Johanna, go undress in the bathroom," Brian said.

  "I'm--I can't--"

  "Undress in the bathroom like you did?" she snapped.

  He frowned, looking confused.

  She unhooked her bra and flung it defiantly aside.

  He caught his breath. "You're beautiful."

  "Better than Sue?" She pulled down her slip and stepped out of it, naked now except for her panties.

  He reached for her, his hands, then his lips hot and exciting on her bare skin. She felt herself melting inside. This was wrong, but right, too...

  He let her go abruptly, turned her, propelled her into the bathroom and shut the door, closing her inside. Before she'd decided what to do, he partly reopened the door and began thrusting clothes through the gap--ski pants, a dry sweater, her black and white long johns, the discarded bra. Then he shut the door firmly.

  When she was dressed, Johanna returned to the bedroom. Brian sprang up from the chair where he was sitting wrong-side-to and faced her.

  "Okay, what's all this about Sue?"

  "You had her in your room."

  He scowled at her. "What the hell are you talking about?"

  "Don't lie to m-me. I was in 209 and I saw her half-undressed. You were in the b-bathroom."

  Brian's frown vanished. He threw back his head and laughed. "Was she really there?" he asked.

  Johanna glowered at him. "I told you I saw her."

  "209's not my room, Ralph and Emery Jacobs are sharing it. I'm stuck in 210 with Dum-Dum Harrison--you know I can't stand him. Ralph and I had it all fixed up to trade, but Mr. Travers wouldn't let us switch."

  Happiness and humiliation mixed inside Johanna. "Oh. Katrina heard you and Ralph talking and thought you'd traded." A thought struck her. "I wonder if Sue overheard, too."

  Brian shrugged. "If she did, she was in for a surprise when Emery came out of the bathroom. You don't seem to understand Sue's not my kind of girl. Too pushy."

  Johanna lowered her gaze. "I s-sorry."

  He took her hand. "You're more my type. But what I said in the tower is still true. We can't risk the possibility that Vincent was your father as well as mine. We have to learn to just be friends."

  "No," she said, freeing her hand.

  "Yes."

  "A few minutes ago when you t-touched me--"

  Brian's frown returned. "That won't happen again. I'm going to start taking Cheryl out. Ralph likes you, why don't you--?"

  "That'd be a lie! I can't do it. It's wrong to."

  "We have to behave. Look what almost happened in here. Maybe getting to know others better might help. I'm going to try. You should too."

  "No, I won't do it."

  They glared at one another.

  "There's no way to tell what's true and what isn't about my birth mother," she said finally. "But I can't change the way I feel about you. I never will. Why should it make any difference to us what Delores might have done?"

  "You know it makes a difference. You told me yourself your father called it incest."

  Johanna covered her ears with her hands. "I hate that word. I hate Daddy. Mrs. Gray s-said he k-killed Sergei. His own son."

  Seeing Brian's uneasy expression, she dropped her hands. "You already knew that."

  "It was an accident."

  "Yes, with a g-gun, that's what we were told. But I though Sergei s-shot himself. He didn't, did he? Daddy shot him."

  "It was an accident," Brian said again.

  "But Sergei's dead. And Delores--" Johanna couldn't bring herself to repeat Mrs. Gray's words.

  "If you've been hearing stories about Hallow House, I think you ought to talk to Vera. I only know what Marie told me and sometimes she got things mixed up. Right now we'd better find the others before they come looking for us."

  On the way back home, the buses stopped at Badger Pass for more skiing. Johanna went through the motions mechanically, all pleasure gone. She couldn't wait to get home.

  The next day her throat was sore and she had the sniffles. Frances made her stay in bed and hovered over her until Johanna was ready to scream.

  "We don't want you developing pneumonia," Frances cautioned.

  "It's only a cold. I got my feet wet."

  Late in the afternoon, Johanna put on a robe and slippers and went in search of her mother. She found Vera in her room, reading on the chaise longue.

  "May I talk to you?" Johanna asked.

  Vera put down the book. "Of course, dear. Any time."

  Taking a deep breath, Johanna plunged right in. "I overheard p-people talking at the Ahwahnee Hotel. About Delores."

  Vera smiled encouragingly, but her eyes looked wary.

  "It was about how Delores d-died. The woman said Sergei k-killed his--my--mother. Is it true?"

  Vera sighed. "I'd hoped you'd never have to know. Sergei was a very disturbed boy. He'd gotten involved in black magic, which he unfortunately believed in, and it deranged his mind. "

  "Then he did k-kill her. C-cut her throat."

  Vera nodded.

  "And I was there."

  "A tiny baby, only a few months old. You weren't injured, thank heaven."

  Johanna closed her eyes for a moment, thinking that Mr. Gray had said she was all covered with blo
od. Delores' blood. She forced herself to go on. "Then Daddy s-shot Sergei."

  Sadness clouded Vera's eyes and seeped into her voice. "Not then. It happened later and was an accident. While all of this was a terrible tragedy, it occurred years ago and time has helped us to forget."