Hellfire

by John Saul

  Now all that was left were Hannah and Ben Smithers, who did their best to cope with all the work that had to be done, aided occasionally by a few people who came in part-time when things could be put off no longer.

  But Abigail wouldn’t see it. Sometimes, as now, when she was feeling dispirited by the constant battle, Carolyn thought that nothing would change until the day Abigail finally died.

  And sometimes Carolyn was certain that Abigail would live forever.

  Abigail flung open the French doors, stepped out onto the terrace, and looked down toward the tennis court, where Tracy, dressed in spotless whites, was playing with Alison Babcock. Abigail watched the game for a few minutes, remembering the days before concrete courts, when the young ladies and gentlemen of her own generation had played genteel lawn tennis here—days long ago that Abigail still missed sorely. How much more civilized life had been then. Life went on, some things never changed. That was what Carolyn would never understand. She would never understand that being a Sturgess was something special, with rights and privileges that had to be protected. To Carolyn, the Sturgesses were just like anyone else.

  Abigail knew better, and always had.

  And Tracy knew it, too.

  The game ended, and Tracy, grinning joyfully, was running toward her.

  “Three sets, Grandmother,” she crowed. “I won three straight sets!”

  “Good for you,” Abigail told her. “Why don’t I have Hannah bring us some lemonade, and we can sit for a while?”

  Tracy’s face immediately crumpled. “But Alison and I wanted to go to the club. Her mom’s picking us up.”

  “Well, I’m sure a few minutes won’t matter, and I want to talk to you about something.”

  “What?” Tracy asked. “Why can’t we talk about it later?”

  “Because I think we’d better talk about it now,” Abigail replied in a tone that warned Tracy not to push her luck too far. Reluctantly, the girl accompanied her grandmother to a small wrought-iron table surrounded by four chairs, and sat down.

  “I’m afraid our little plan didn’t work out quite the way we intended,” Abigail began. “Carolyn has changed your party back to Sunday.”

  Tracy’s eyes flared dangerously. “But she can’t do that! I’ve already told everyone it’s Saturday!”

  “I know, and I’m sorry,” Abigail replied. “But there doesn’t seem to be anything we can do. Beth is going to be here. And,” she added, smiling tightly, “I shall expect you and your friends to treat her exactly as I would myself.”

  Tracy’s eyes clouded threateningly, but then, as she began to understand, a smile spread over her face. “We will, Grandmother,” she replied. A horn sounded from the front of the house, and Tracy leaped to her feet. “Is it okay if I go now, Grandmother?”

  “Of course,” Abigail replied. Tracy bent over, and the old woman gave her a quick peck on the cheek. “You have a good time, and don’t worry about the party. I’m sure you know exactly what to do.”

  When Tracy was gone, Abigail suddenly had a sense of being watched, and turned.

  Standing at the French doors, looking at her thoughtfully, was Carolyn.

  It doesn’t matter, Abigail told herself. Even if she heard, she won’t know what I was telling the child. The woman doesn’t even speak our language.

  Beth retreated to her room right after dinner that evening. The meal itself had been horrible—her mother hadn’t come down at all, and she’d had to sit at the table, picking at her food, while Tracy glared at her and old Mrs. Sturgess ignored her. Uncle Phillip had been nice to her, but every time he started to talk to her, Tracy had interrupted him. Finally, pretending that she didn’t feel well, she’d asked to be excused.

  Now she lay sprawled on her bed, trying to read a book, the radio playing softly in the background. Suddenly there was a knock at the door, and Beth rolled over and guiltily switched the radio off. A second later the door opened. With relief, Beth saw that it was not Tracy this time.

  Phillip stuck his head inside. “Okay if I come in?”

  Beth nodded. “I’m sorry the radio was too loud. I didn’t think anyone could hear it.”

  Phillip’s brow knit into a frown. “It isn’t even on, is it?”

  “I turned it off. I was afraid Tracy—” Then she fell silent, suddenly embarrassed.

  “Tracy’s downstairs, listening to the stereo in the music room,” Phillip replied. “If you want the radio on, turn it on.”

  “I don’t want to bother anyone.”

  Phillip hesitated, then crossed the room and sat on the edge of the bed. “How come it’s not all right for you to bother anyone, but it’s all right for everyone else to bother you?”

  Beth regarded her stepfather shyly. “But it’s Tracy’s house.”

  “It’s your house too, Beth,” Phillip told her. “And it seems to me you ought to be sticking up for yourself a little more. Your mother can’t fight all your battles for you.”

  Beth looked away, then felt Phillip’s hand on her shoulder. She started to pull away, but couldn’t. Finally she turned to face him again. “I … I just don’t know what to do,” she said. “I want to do the right thing, but all that ever happens is that I mess it up. Like this morning, down at the stable.”

  “All that happened down there was that you didn’t know what you were doing. And whatever Tracy might have said, there wasn’t any harm done. In fact, I’ll bet Patches was happy to get out of the stall, even if it was only for a couple of minutes. Most of the time, all she does is just stand there.” He smiled reassuringly. “Would you like to learn how to ride her?”

  Beth’s eyes widened eagerly. “Could I?”

  “I don’t see why not. In fact, if you want to, we could go out tomorrow morning. We can both get up early and have breakfast with Hannah, and be back before anyone else even knows we’re gone. What do you say?”

  “That would be neat!”

  “Then it’s a date,” Phillip said. He stood up, and started toward the door. “And for God’s sake, turn the radio back on. This place is too big, and too quiet.” Then he was gone, and Beth was alone again.

  She switched the radio back on, then flopped over onto her back, staring up at the ceiling. Suddenly, for the first time since Tracy had come home, she felt a little better. Maybe if Uncle Phillip really would teach her to ride …

  With the radio playing softly, she drifted into sleep.

  When she woke up, the dream was still clear in her mind.

  She lay still, thinking about it, reliving it, then rolled over to switch off the radio that was still humming softly on the nightstand.

  She had been back in the mill, but it hadn’t been at all the way she remembered it from this afternoon.

  Instead, it had been filled with people working at all kinds of machinery she’d never seen before. But they hadn’t seemed to be able to see her, and she’d wandered around for a long time, watching them work.

  And then, faintly, she’d heard someone calling to her. The voice had been muffled at first, and she’d barely been able to hear it. But as she’d wandered toward the back of the building, the voice had grown stronger. She’d suddenly realized that it was coming from downstairs.

  She’d gone to the top of the stairs, and listened, hearing faintly but distinctly, the voice, calling to her again.

  But then, as she’d started down the stairs, a hand had fallen on her shoulder.

  “You can’t go down there,” a man’s voice said.

  She had stared up into the face of the man, and realized that he looked strangely familiar. His hair was iron gray and there was a hardness in his eyes that frightened her.

  “But I have to,” she’d protested weakly. “Someone’s calling me.”

  “You can’t go down there,” the man had said again.

  Then the voice had called to Beth again, and she’d struggled with the man, trying to twist away from his grip. But it hadn’t done any good. The man’s hands had only tightened on
her, and begun dragging her away from the stairs.

  And then, with the voice from the basement still ringing in her ears, she’d awakened.

  Now, in the silence of the room, with the darkness of the night gathered around her, she could almost hear the voice again, still calling to her, even though she was awake.

  She got up from the bed, and went to the window, peering out into the night.

  A full moon hung in the sky, and the village, its lights twinkling, lay spread out below. In the distance, almost lost in the darkness, was the dark silhouette of the mill.

  Beth waited, half-expecting to see the same strange light glowing from it that she’d seen from the mausoleum this morning, but tonight there was nothing.

  She watched for several long minutes, then finally turned away and began undressing. But when she finally slipped under the covers and closed her eyes, the memory of the dream came back to her once more. Once more she heard the strange voice calling out to her, a strangled, needy cry.

  “Beeettthhh. Beeettthhh …”

  And in the depths of her memory, the same voice echoed back, calling out the other word, the word she had seemed to hear in the mill that afternoon.

  “Aaaaammmyyy …”

  Amy.

  Amy was calling to her. Amy needed her.

  But who was Amy?

  As Beth tossed in her bed, trying to fall back into sleep, she knew that somehow she would have to go back to the mill. She had to find out.

  8

  Tracy Sturgess woke up early on Sunday morning, her eyes going immediately to the open window.

  Outside, the day was bright and sunny, without a cloud in the sky. That meant they’d be able to play tennis and croquet that afternoon, two games Tracy was an expert at and that Beth Rogers could barely play at all.

  Tracy smiled to herself as she thought about it. She could picture Beth now, clumsily running around the tennis court—barely able to return a serve—while the rest of them watched, clucking sympathetically while they tried to keep from giggling out loud. Maybe they’d even play doubles, and Tracy would get Alison Babcock to be Beth’s partner. Alison was almost as good at tennis as Tracy herself, and the two of them had already planned it out. Alison would act as if she was going for the ball, then step aside at the last minute, telling Beth that she was only giving her more room. And Beth, not knowing what was going on, would keep on trying harder, and it would get funnier and funnier. And the best part of it was that even if Carolyn was watching, she wouldn’t be able to do anything about it, because it would look like they were all doing their best to help Beth have a good time.

  Tracy stretched, then lazily got out of bed and wandered over to the window to look out onto the grounds. On the lawn, Ben was setting up the croquet court, laboriously studying a book, then measuring the distances with a tape measure. Tracy had insisted on an English court, with a single stake in the center and six wickets arranged around it. She and Alison had planned this, too, then practiced the unfamiliar layout with Jeff Bailey and Kip Braithwaite. Tracy could hardly wait until she saw the look on Beth’s face, particularly when Beth had to ask how the game was played.

  “Oh,” she’d say, pretending to be surprised. “I thought you said you knew—” And then she’d pretend she’d suddenly remembered, and offer Beth her best sympathetic expression. “You meant the American game, didn’t you? None of us plays that.” Then, while Beth squirmed in embarrassment, and her friends looked politely bored, she’d carefully explain to Beth the sequence of the wickets, graciously allowing her to go first.

  And then, of course, all the rest of them would use Beth’s ball to get around the court fast.

  As Ben placed the last wicket into the lawn, Tracy’s eyes wandered down toward the stable, and suddenly her happy mood vanished. Her father and Beth were in the paddock, saddling Patches. Next to Patches, already saddled, was her father’s favorite horse, an enormous black Arabian gelding named Sheik.

  Tracy’s chin trembled with fury. She turned from the window and began struggling into a pair of jeans and one of her father’s old shirts. Ignoring the tangled mess of her hair, she slammed out of her room, and started toward the stairs.

  “Tracy?” she heard her grandmother call from the far end of the corridor. “Tracy, darling, what on earth is wrong? Where are you going?”

  Tracy spun around, her eyes glittering with anger. “He’s doing it again! He’s down in the paddock with her, and he’s going to let her ride my horse again!”

  Abigail, framed in the door of her room, frowned in puzzlement. “Peter?” she asked. “But I thought you’d told him not to let Beth anywhere near the stable.”

  “I did. But it’s not Peter—it’s Father! He’s down there with her, and he’s going to take her riding. Just like day before yesterday!”

  Abigail’s brows arched, and she started toward Tracy, but Tracy had already turned away. And then, when Abigail was halfway to the landing, she heard a muffled thump and a scream. Hurrying forward, she reached the landing, and peered down over the railing.

  Near the bottom of the stairs, Carolyn sat nearly doubled over, clutching herself in pain, while Tracy glared at her furiously.

  “What were you doing there?” she heard Tracy demand. “You could see me coming down! Why didn’t you get out of my way?”

  “And you could see me, too, couldn’t you?” Carolyn replied. “If you hadn’t been running, it wouldn’t have happened at all.”

  “I can run if I want to,” Tracy said, fixing a malevolent stare on Carolyn now. “And you can’t stop me! You’d better just watch where you’re going.”

  Carolyn pulled herself painfully to her feet, then reached out and grasped Tracy’s wrist just as the girl began to turn away. When she spoke again, her voice was level, but carried an edge that made Tracy turn back and face her.

  “That will be quite enough, young lady. You may be thirteen years old today, but you’re not so old that I can’t turn you over my knee and give you a good spanking. I’ve put up with just about as much from you as I intend to tolerate, and I suggest you think long and hard before you speak to me again that way. Me, or anyone else. And as for running up and down the stairs, I don’t really care if you do it or not, so long as you don’t run into people. You could have hurt me very badly, you know. You might even have made me lose my baby.”

  Tracy’s mouth quivered, and she suddenly twisted loose from Carolyn’s grip. “I wish I had hurt you,” she hissed. “I wish I’d killed you and your baby, too!” Then she spun around. She charged through the French doors at the rear of the foyer, and dashed across the lawn to push her way through the hedge to the paddock. But when she got there, it was too late.

  The paddock was empty.

  Carolyn, shocked at the hatred in Tracy’s voice, sank back down onto the stairs, burying her face in her hands.

  Abigail remained where she was, watching her daughter-in-law silently. After nearly a minute had passed, she spoke.

  “Carolyn? Carolyn, are you all right?”

  Carolyn stiffened, then looked up to see Abigail gazing down at her from the landing above. She managed a weak smile, and got once more to her feet. “I’m all right, Abigail. I just had a bad moment, that’s all.”

  The old woman’s lips curved into a tight line of disapproval. “I thought I heard a scream. You didn’t fall, did you?”

  Carolyn hesitated, then shook her head. “No. No, I’m really perfectly all right.”

  “Perhaps you’re trying to do too much,” Abigail suggested, her voice taking on the slight purring quality that Carolyn had long since learned to recognize as a danger signal. “Why don’t you spend the rest of the day in your room? After all, you’d never forgive yourself if something happened to the baby, would you? And I hate to think how Phillip would feel.”

  She heard! Carolyn suddenly knew. She heard every word we said! And she doesn’t care. She knows what happened, and what could have happened, and she won’t say a word to Tracy
, or a word to Phillip. She feels the same way as Tracy. She hopes I lose my baby.

  Her heart was thumping now, and when she spoke she had to make an effort to keep her voice from trembling. “But nothing’s going to happen to my baby, Abigail. It’s going to be perfectly all right.”

  The two women gazed at each other for a moment; then, at last, Abigail turned away, and started slowly back down the corridor toward her rooms.

  Only when she was gone did Carolyn gingerly touch her abdomen once more, hoping to feel a movement that would tell her the baby was all right.

  But it was too early to expect any movement from the life within her, and finally she moved painfully across the wide entry hall to the telephone and called the hospital. Despite the fact of Tracy’s party that afternoon, she made an appointment to see Dr. Blanchard at two o’clock.

  Phillip and Beth dismounted, and Beth carefully tied Patches’s reins to a low branch before flopping down onto the soft grass of the little meadow. Then she sat up, and looked around, remembering the last time she’d been here.

  “This is where Mom fainted, Uncle Phillip. Right over there by that big rock.”

  Phillip’s eyes followed Beth’s pointing arm, then he stood up and wandered over to the rock on which Carolyn had been sitting that morning a few days earlier. A moment later Beth was beside him. “Remember what Mom said that morning? About it looking like the mill was on fire?”

  Phillip glanced down at Beth, nodding. “And she asked you if you’d seen the same thing.”

  “And I did,” Beth said, her voice suddenly shy. “At least, I think I did.” Slowly, trying to reconstruct the memory, she told Phillip what she’d seen that day from up at the mausoleum. “I thought it was an optical illusion at first,” she said when she was finished. “But Mom saw the same thing.”

  “Maybe you both saw an illusion,” Phillip replied. “From up here, the sun can play funny tricks on you. It reflects off the roof of one building and lights up another. And sometimes when it catches the windows just right, it looks as though the whole village is on fire.”