Tales From High Hallack, Volume 2

by Andre Norton

  She held out the tiny bag and Ilse took it, swinging around a little so that she could lay it still unopened on the work table.

  “You alone handled these, Marta, after Alexia’s necklace broke — no one else?”

  Marta nodded. The other woman worked loose the knotting of the bag top and then drew to her a square of dark cloth, allowing the contents of the bag to roll into view on that surface.

  There were two oval beads about a quarter inch in size. At first glance they were dull, certainly not attractive as those in the trays about. Ilse picked up a small tool and with that turned each of the beads around. At a closer inspection they showed very faint signs of having once been carved, time having worn away most of the design.

  “These were not found in the house when you were present, Marta?”

  “No. Alexia must have found them. She had such fun as she said, treasure hunting, and she did discover all sorts of unusual and pretty things. There were trunks full of old dresses — and, Ilse, even cards of beautiful laces which had never been used — there was one fan of carved ivory she just loved! She was so excited and happy!” Marta closed her eyes — it hurt to remember, oh, how it hurt!

  Ilse made a quick move with her index finger, pinning one of the beads to the cloth. A second later she jerked back as if she had touched a live coal. Then very carefully she shook both beads from the cloth onto the palm of her hand, closing her fingers tightly about them, the look on her face was one who determined on a duty which was against great odds.

  “Alrauna,” she almost spat the word as if clearing her mouth of something foul.

  “Alrauna?” Marta said. “What —?”

  “There is another name for it — mandrake. It is very old, connected strongly to old evils. There are many tales and legends about it. These were carved of mandrake, and for no good purpose!”

  “But where could Alexia get them? She always showed me everything —” Marta’s voice trailed off.

  “Apparently she did not this time.” Use’s own eyes closed. She still held her hand gripped tightly about the beads. Then she dropped them and twitched the cloth about them.

  “We must take steps and very soon, Marta. This is of the most importance. I must see this house —”

  “Alexia — there is trouble for her?”

  “The fears which brought you here, Marta, are very well founded. Alexia is in grave danger, and not only peril of body. No, do not ask me to explain now — for I cannot be sure myself what awaits us at this strange house of yours. But the sooner we reach it the better.”

  Time seemed against them, Marta thought. There was a frustrating wait for the commuters’ train. Ilse had stuffed into an overnight bag a book which was so old that pages had loosened from the binding. This she read, and then put aside with a sudden gesture as if she had found some information sadly needed.

  She turned to Marta then, but she did not speak of what might lie before them but rather of earlier days when they had both been in school. She recalled this and that incident from the past in a soothing voice which drew Marta, impatient at first, into shared memories as if that very tone of that voice carried with it some deep comfort. She could not put Alexia out of mind, still there was a kind of strength issuing from her companion which calmed and steadied her.

  They picked up Marta’s car from the station lot and drove quickly through the small town, cutting off from the main highway on a winding secondary road. Here fall was all bright color and it had life of a sort which braced one. Another turn into a drive, the entrance of which was nearly completely curtained by the growth of untended bushes, brought them by a narrow and rutted way up a low hilltop to confront the masterpiece Herwarth Hartmann had established to honor his family line.

  There were towers, and stretches of ivy-covered stone walls in which the windows were sometimes completely curtained with the twining vines. Wild asters and ironweed in its imperial purple had edged in from fields to take over formal flower beds of which only the faintest traces were left.

  Marta led the way to a deep recessed doorway; there was carving running around it and a shield of arms prominently displayed.

  “We — we thought it was fun,” she said slowly as she set key to the lock. “It all looked so — so stagey, almost like one of the gaudy covers on a paperback novel. We joked about it. Only now — now — I am afraid!” And she pushed the door open as if indeed she would rather it remained closed.

  They came into a wide hall into which descended a staircase at the foot of which a statue of a nearly life-sized nymph held aloft a torch. A feeble light issued from that, enough to abate some of the thick gloom which was in such contrast to the bright fall colors of the day without. There was a very small measure of light also which entered down from a two-story ceiling where there was a round opening enclosing glass of yellow, red, and a purple faded to violet.

  “The fears which brought you here, Marta, are very well founded. Alexia is in grave danger, and not only peril of body.”

  The air about was chill, and Marta beckoned her guest on into a side room where a fire smoldered on the hearth. She went at once to poke at it in a futile manner while Ilse stood in the middle of the room surveying the ranks of dark furniture, seemingly ranked to discourage visitors.

  She pivoted slowly, her head up, almost like a hound testing for a scent. Then she said with authority:

  “Old, tired, but there is nothing overt here to alarm.”

  “You think that there is something wrong — here?” Marta slipped the poker back into the stand and now she gazed swiftly from side to side at the shadows.

  “One cannot overlook anything. But,” Ilse opened her purse and took out the rolled up piece of cloth containing the beads.

  For a single moment she allowed the beads to again nestle in her cupped hand, at the same time once more gazing about as if she expected to find some change in the room or its atmosphere. Then she said with decision:

  “No, the trouble is not here, Marta. There is no response. We shall have to look elsewhere—”

  “All through the house.” Marta straightened. As if having some action in which she could have a part gave her more control. “But let us have some coffee first, and Mrs. McCarthy’s cookies. In the kitchen — we really have made the kitchen our own —”

  She set off briskly. It might have been that she wanted to delay discovery; that she was clinging fiercely to the everyday as a defense.

  The kitchen indeed was a sharp change from the rest of the house. It was very large, and there was a bay window at one side in which glass racks had been hung to support a number of pots, each containing greenery. Ilse went directly to the display. She pinched off a small leaf here, another there, raising each in turn for a prolonged sniff.

  “An ambitious herb garden,” she commented, “and perhaps a very useful one for us now. Verlain, garlic, angelica. Who is the master gardener who is able to coax along such a collection as this?”

  “Lilly Hartmann — I think she began it. She had an old cook who was supposed to be what Mrs. McCarthy says her mother called a ‘yarb woman.’ Mrs. McCarthy knows something about it. And takes care now. I’ve promised her the whole collection when she wants it. I believe that her son is building her a small greenhouse.” She twisted off a leaf herself. “Rose geranium, at least this one I know. Now — coffee.”

  There was a round table near the herb-embowered window and they sat down together, a plate of cookies between them. Marta had just poured the coffee when the back door opened and a girl wearing a parka as bright as an autumn-touched maple leaf burst in.

  She was tall, but in spite of the bulk of her clothes, looked too slender. Her hair had been cropped in a boyish style and one lock curved down over her forehead as a very pale blond scallop. Her eyes seemed very large and were of a cool shade of gray, almost like silver with a thin frost overlaid. At the sight of Ilse she stopped so short that the door she had opened so quickly smacked her, nearly propelling her into the roo
m.

  “Alexia!” Marta set down the coffee pot. “Do come and meet a very old friend of mine. Ilse and I went to school together when we were just about your age. I ran into her quite by accident and she is to be our guest for a day or so. She — she knows quite a lot about beads and is willing to help us appraise those bead purses you found in the chest drawer.” The words were coming too fast, Marta knew, but she felt at that moment they were truly inspired. “Oh, this is my granddaughter, Alexia, Ilse. And this is Dr. Haverling, Alexia.”

  “Doctor?” There was certainly no welcome to be heard in that cool young voice.

  Ilse smiled. “Not of medicine, no. I am a doctor of philosophy — my degree was not medical at all. Marta tells me that you have been finding treasure troves all about this great house.”

  She had set her hand down on the folded cloth which again enshrouded the beads, pressing the palm flat. Her gaze was measuring Alexia intently.

  The girl shrugged. “Oh, there’s a lot of stuff stuck away. Most of it’s just junk.” She came farther into the room in an odd sidling manner as if she must continue to face Ilse. And there was certainly animosity in both her voice and the expression of her face where a pallor underlaid the tan of summer.

  “Come, my dear,” Marta cut in hastily. “There are some of Mrs. McCarthy’s brownies and some of the chocolate drink you like — You must be chilled through —”

  Alexia gave an impatient shrug. “I’m all right, Gran. I just went for a walk. I’m not hungry anyway.” She had slid on toward the door when Ilse spoke:

  “Kind, wer gab Dir das geschenk?”

  German, Marta thought bewildered. Her own was rusty now, but what did Ilse mean by asking “Who gave you the gift, child?” And Alexia did not even know German.

  Yet the girl shook her head as if to shake out some thought before she said quite plainly:

  “Sie — Sie gab es hir.”

  She gave it! What was it and who was she? But Ilse was already asking that:

  “Sie, wer ist Sie?”

  Alexia’s two hands had gone to the collar of the parka, and now she twisted them into the material of that as if she wanted to choke off the words something was making her say:

  “Die Schweigende!”

  Marta sat down abruptly and Alexia whirled about and was gone again through the back door. Her grandmother looked helplessly to Ilse —

  “What did she mean — the Silent One? And — Alexia does not speak German!”

  Ilse’s hand still lay heavy on the beads.

  “There are powers which can make us do many things. The Silent One —” she repeated thoughtfully. Then with a pull at the cloth about the beads she uncovered them again. This time she emptied them into one palm and folded the other over them. She leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes while Marta watched her helplessly. Use’s lips seemed to thin, her mouth became set. There was building purpose, a grim purpose about her.

  Marta shivered. She never thought she was psychic in any way, yet at that moment there seemed to be closing around her a feeling as if she were caught in some dark place, that invisible walls were fast building. She wanted to fling out her arms to push them off, and that panic which had threatened her for days was breaking through all the bonds she had held against it.

  “Ilse!” She could not stop that call which was in its way a cry for help.

  The other woman opened her eyes. “Yes.” She said that word not as if in answer to Marta but rather as if some sum she had proposed for herself had been solved. “You spoke of a building which Mr. Hartmann had brought from Germany, the blocks marked so it could be erected again here in the proper way?”

  “Yes. It is in the garden, but it is not a real building — it is very small. They said it was the only part of the castle which he thought could be moved, the only part which was not a complete ruin.”

  Ilse’s purse was closer to a tote than a conventional bag. She had opened it while Marta spoke, and now she took out a pair of small bottles, two blue candles, and a small pot of silver, its lid and sides pierced with an intricate design.

  Leaving these on the table top, she arose and went to the herbs, examining them carefully, harvesting a single leaf there and a twiglet bearing several here. These she brought back to the table and laid them out carefully. Marta watched uncomprehendingly.

  “We fight trouble as best we can,” Ilse said. “This is an old trouble. If I am not mistaken, this evil was brought with the Anchorite’s call from Germany.”

  “Anchorite’s call?” Marta repeated.

  “It is of the old church.” Ilse was busy placing in the pierced pot a powder from a box, and then laid on top of that some of the herb leaves. “We can believe that the castle had a chapel. It was sometimes done in the old days when a man or woman who was considered sinful would be in a manner walled up in a special cell built against the wall of a church or chapel. They were allowed a window on the world but no door, and the window was intended for them to watch the sacred mass.

  “For some of these anchorites this was an enforced penance, for others a free choice. The great mystic of old England, Julian of Norwich, was a voluntary anchorite, and there has been much recorded concerning her influence over those who came to her window for aid. She was a woman of great spiritual power. However, this imprisonment might also be a punishment — perhaps sometimes unjustly enforced — and that is what I believe has extended its poison into Alexia’s life now.

  “A woman unjustly relegated to something which was near a living death would, over the remaining lifetime granted her, build up certain despair, hatred, evil rage. This would produce in those sensitive to influences a residue of all that poor creature felt and knew. That portion of the first personality who experienced such great rage and hate could continue to be a poison, even after the physical death.”

  Ilse touched the beads. “These are a focus for such a personality. They are part of a rosary, a rosary used in petitions, not to any comforting or truly spiritual power, but rather to one of darkness and evil. If what I have read is true, there must be a cleansing. This will not be an easy thing, but it is my hope that the fact that the place of one time imprisonment no longer rests on the ground where the evil was first rooted will be an aid.”

  Marta leaned forward, putting both her hands on the table. “What can I do?” she asked. Belief had come, the real world she had known might refuse that belief, but she felt she was no longer a part of that world.

  “We shall do this.” Ilse was busy with those things she had brought with her, and as her fingers sped from one to another she began to explain, carefully and sometimes repetitiously, making very sure Marta understood as well as she might.

  The twilight had closed in early. Leaves drifted across the path, crackled thickly underfoot. Marta swung the torch beam at the drifts of leaves. The long un-pruned shrubs were nearly tall enough to top her head, and in places they were matted into what was close to a wall.

  However, immediately before her a way had been recently raggedly chopped, with half-cut twigs and branches left dangling.

  At the center of the open space they had entered stood a small building. It was in the form of a tower, as if someone had fancied building a miniature castle out of legend but had not gone beyond this.

  Save for the sound of the leaves crackling under their feet there was silence. They were already out of sight of the house, swallowed up by these thickets which to Marta had become far too dark, too thick, too shadowed —

  The slashing of undergrowth was more apparent the farther they went. There was something ruthless, cruel about it. Marta strove to control her thoughts — she had lost, she felt, all touch with the life she had always known. She was allowing herself to be swept along into a dark fantasy.

  The torchlight bore ahead into open land. Now the silence was broken, not by any rustle of leaf but sounds which might come from sullen, throat deep muttering.

  Ilse’s hand fell on her arm, Marta started, looked aro
und. Her companion motioned her to wait, and then went down on one knee. The candles were brought out, housed as they had hastily been in old wooden sticks Marta had discovered in the kitchen cupboard. Then came the silver brazier and one of the small flasks Ilse had shown her earlier. Marta fumbled in her pocket for matches. But she had more attention for what lay before them than she had for what Ilse was doing.

  At the center of the open space they had entered stood a small building. It was in the form of a tower as if someone had fancied to build a miniature castle out of legend but had gone no farther than this. The height was about a story, and facing them directly was an opening, narrow but tall enough to be considered a door.

  Through this issued a pale light which showed that, if there had ever been a closing for that aperture, it was long gone. While the light was somehow sickly, unpleasant, certainly it did not burn as clearly as the candles Ilse had just induced into flame.

  Marta stooped and picked up one of those as she had been instructed. Ilse gestured to the torch and, reluctantly, very reluctantly, Marta switched that off. Its fuller light had seemed in a measure to be a weapon against what they must face. Though, even with all of the coaching, she could not yet be sure of what that might truly be.

  A thin tendril of smoke arose from the brazier which swung from a chain Ilse had looped about her right wrist. She held in that same hand a flask of some dark glass, while Marta took up the remaining candle.

  That penetrating mumble had ceased. Yet Marta was aware of a pressure of silence itself. She straightened, her back stiff, as she moved resolutely forward, Ilse beside her.

  The wan light from the doorway did not flicker as did the candleshine, nor was it, Marta believed, from any torch. She had all she could do to restrain herself from calling Alexia, sure as she was that the girl was in this place.

  They were at the door now, but it was so narrow that only one might enter at a time, and from it issued air as chill as if they were preparing to walk into some huge freezer. Ilse took the lead and Marta was ashamed that deep in her she was glad of that.