Hellfire

by John Saul

  “Is Miss Beth all right?” she asked, her voice anxious.

  “She’s fine,” Tracy replied before either her father or her stepmother could say anything. “Aren’t you going to ask about my grandmother?”

  Hannah reddened slightly, but nodded. “I was just going to, Miss Tracy. How is she? Is she better?”

  “She’s doing very well,” Phillip said before Tracy could go on. “In fact, she’ll probably be home in a few weeks.”

  Hannah’s brows rose. “Shall I get one of the downstairs rooms ready?”

  “Don’t bother. Mother won’t budge from her rooms until the day she dies, and that doesn’t look like it’s going to be tor quite a while yet.” Then, understanding what Hannah was really saying, he reached out and patted her shoulder. “Don’t worry, Hannah—if Mother needs extra help, we’ll bring in a nurse. I’m not going to ask you to spend all day running up and down the stairs.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Phillip. I’m not as young as I used to be, I’m afraid. Would you like a nice pot of tea?”

  Phillip and Carolyn glanced at each other, then shook their heads at the same time.

  “I’ll have a Coke, Hannah,” Tracy said. “You can bring it to my room.” She started toward the stairs, but Carolyn stopped her.

  “If you want a Coke, Tracy, you can get it for yourself.”

  Tracy turned, her chin trembling. “I don’t have to. It’s Hannah’s job.”

  “It is not Hannah’s job,” Phillip said quietly, but with a firmness in his voice that silenced Tracy. “Things are going to be difficult enough around here when your grandmother comes home, and it will be appreciated if you will do your part without making life even more difficult for us. All of us,” he added, nodding pointedly toward Carolyn.

  Tracy said nothing for a moment, and Carolyn could almost see her calculating the effects of various responses. In the end, she produced an apologetic expression, and looked shyly at the floor. “I’m sorry, Daddy,” she said. Then, the Coke she had wanted apparently now forgotten, she dashed up the stairs two at a time. A moment later her door slammed loudly.

  Carolyn sighed. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I suppose I should have overlooked that, shouldn’t I?”

  “Why?” Phillip asked. He led her into the library, and poured each of them a stiff drink. “If you ask me, she was just testing, to see how far she could go. And I have to confess I’m getting just as tired of it as you are.” Handing her the drink, he smiled ruefully. “I’m afraid I wasn’t much of a father to her, which isn’t an excuse—only an apology.”

  “Nothing to apologize for,” Carolyn replied. She held the drink up in a silent toast, but as Phillip drank from his glass, she put her own back on the bar. “Pregnant ladies shouldn’t drink.” Then, feeling the built-up strain of the evening, she lowered herself tiredly into one of the wing chairs. “Do you want to tell me what’s going on?” she asked.

  Phillip looked at her quizzically, but said nothing.

  “Come on,” Carolyn pressed. “Your mother said something to you that you didn’t want Tracy to hear. What was it?”

  Phillip said nothing, but wandered over to the fireplace, where he stood leaning against the mantel, staring into his glass. Finally, instead of answering her question, he asked one of his own. “You don’t think I should go ahead with the mill project, either. Is it just because of the way it used to operate, or is it something else?”

  Carolyn frowned, wondering what, exactly, he was getting at. And then, slowly, the pieces began falling together in her mind. But what it added up to made no sense. It was as if Conrad Sturgess had suddenly risen from his chair in the mausoleum, and come back into the house with all his superstitions, and ramblings of evil in the mill. “It’s the history,” she said at last. “My great-great-grandfather was driven to suicide because of the mill. That my family blamed old Samuel Pruett is something you know, Phillip. It’s been a sore spot in my family for generations.”

  “And yet you married me,” Phillip pointed out.

  “I love you,” Carolyn replied.

  Phillip nodded perfunctorily, and Carolyn had the distinct feeling that he hadn’t really heard her, that his mind was on something else. “Was your family afraid of the mill?” she finally heard him ask.

  Carolyn hesitated. Again, more pieces fell into place. “There were stories,” she said, almost reluctantly.

  “What kind of stories?”

  “There was a story that several children disappeared from the mill. And right after that, your family closed it.”

  “Disappeared?” Phillip asked, his eyes reflecting a genuine puzzlement that told Carolyn he’d never before heard the story.

  “That’s what I was told. One day some of the children went to work, and didn’t come home again. The story the mill put out was that they’d run away. And I suppose it was plausible, given the working conditions. But a lot of people in Westover didn’t believe it. My great-grandparents certainly didn’t.”

  Phillip’s forehead furrowed into a deep frown, and he refilled his glass. “What did they think happened?”

  “They thought the children had died in the mill, and that the Sturgesses covered it up.” She hesitated, then went on. “One of the missing children was a member of my family.”

  Phillip was silent for a moment. “Why didn’t you ever tell me that story before?”

  “There didn’t seem any point,” Carolyn replied. “It all happened so long ago, and I’ve never been quite sure whether to believe it or not.” She smiled ruefully. “Well, to be perfectly honest, I was more than ready to believe it until I met you. Then I decided no one as nice as you could have sprung from a family that would have done something as awful as that, so I decided that the tales my grandmother told me must have been exaggerated. Which they probably were,” she added, attempting a lightness she wasn’t quite feeling. “You know how old family stories go.”

  “Don’t I just,” Phillip agreed, smiling thinly. “So now you don’t believe the story?”

  Carolyn shrugged. “I don’t know that I ever believed it, truly. And I don’t know that I disbelieve it now. It’s just there, that’s all. And whether I believe it or not, I’ll never be comfortable about that mill. It gives me the willies, and it doesn’t matter what you do to it, it always will.”

  Phillip sighed heavily. “Well, if what Mother said is true, it gave her considerably more than the willies this afternoon.” Then, as Carolyn listened in silence, he repeated what Abigail had told him at the hospital. When he was finished, she picked up her glass from the bar, took a large sip, then firmly replaced it. “She really said it was the fear that brought on the heart attack, not the other way around?”

  Phillip nodded. “She was very positive about it. And you know how positive Mother can be,” he added archly. “Anyway, right after that, she asked me to bring Beth to her.”

  Carolyn’s heart sank as she remembered the conversation she’d had with Eileen Russell that very afternoon. Had Eileen spent the rest of the day spreading Peggy’s story all over town? She must have, since apparently Abigail had already heard.

  “So that’s why your mother went to the mill today,” she said out loud, then repeated her conversation with Eileen to Phillip. “It must have gotten back to your mother,” she finished, suddenly angry. “So she tied it all together with your father’s nonsense and Jeff Bailey’s accident, and went down there looking for something. But there’s nothing there—only Beth’s imagination, and your father’s craziness!”

  “And your family’s stories,” Phillip added. “If you mix it all together, it gets pretty potent, doesn’t it?”

  “But it’s just stories,” Carolyn insisted, her eyes imploring her husband. “And besides, Beth never heard them. My family all died before she was even born, and I never told them to her.”

  “But Beth’s grown up in Westover,” Phillip observed. “Everyone in town must know those stories, and she’s probably heard them in one version or another all
her life.” He left the fireplace, and sank onto a sofa. “Maybe Mother’s right,” he said. “Maybe you’re both right. If everybody in Westover’s heard all those stories, probably no one will come anywhere near the mill. Wouldn’t that be something?” he added wryly. “All that money, and I’ll wind up boarding the place up again.”

  “No!” Carolyn suddenly exclaimed. “Phillip, we’re being ridiculous. And I’ve been ridiculous right along. But it’s going to stop right now. I don’t believe in ghosts, and neither do you. There’s nothing in the mill. And as soon as it’s opened, all the old stories will be forgotten!”

  Before Phillip could make a reply, they both heard the screams coming from upstairs.

  Tracy had appeared at Beth’s door five minutes earlier, letting herself in without knocking. Beth, lying on the bed staring at the ceiling, had not moved, and for a minute Tracy had thought she was asleep. But then she’d seen that Beth’s eyes were open.

  “Look at me!” she’d demanded.

  Beth, startled, had jumped up, then, when she saw who it was, sat back down on her bed. “What do you want?”

  “I want to know what my grandmother said,” Tracy told her. She advanced across the room a few steps, then stopped, still ten feet from the bed.

  Beth hesitated. She could see the anger in Tracy’s eyes, and was sure that if she tried to make something up, Tracy would know she was lying.

  Maybe she should call her mother. But what good would that do? Tracy would just wait until they were alone, then start in on her again.

  “She … she wanted to talk about Amy,” she finally blurted.

  Tracy looked at her scornfully. “You’re crazy,” she said. “There’s no such person as Amy.”

  “There is, too,” Beth shot back. “She’s my friend, and your grandmother knows all about her.”

  “She only knows what I told her.” Tracy sneered. “And I told her everything you were saying to that stupid Peggy Russell.”

  “Peggy’s not stupid!”

  “Maybe she’s not,” Tracy conceded. “At least she’s not stupid enough to believe all that junk you were telling her. And neither am I, and neither is my grandmother!”

  “You don’t know anything,” Beth replied. Tears were welling up in her eyes now, and she was struggling to keep them from overflowing. “You think you’re so smart, but you don’t know anything, Tracy Sturgess!”

  “You shut up!”

  “I don’t have to!” Beth cried. “I live here too, and I can say what I want to say! And I don’t care if you don’t believe me! I don’t care if anybody believes me. Now, go away and leave me alone!”

  Tracy’s eyes glowed with fury. “Make me! Just try to make me, you stupid little bitch!”

  “You take that back!”

  “I don’t have to, ‘cause it’s true! You’re stupid, and you’re crazy, and when I tell my father, he’ll make you go away. And I’ll be glad when he does!”

  Beth’s tears overflowed now, but they were tears of anger, not of pain. “Who wants to live in your stupid house anyway! I never wanted to come here!”

  “And nobody ever wanted you to come here!” Tracy screamed. “Don’t you know we all hate you? I hate you, and my grandmother hates you, and my father hates you! I bet your mother even hates you!”

  The blood drained from Beth’s face, and she lunged off the bed, hurling herself at Tracy. But Tracy, seeing her coming, spun around, yanked the door open, and dashed down the hall. Beth caught up to her just as she was opening the door to her room. Grabbing Tracy’s hair, she tried to pull her back out into the hall.

  “Let go of me!” Tracy screamed. Her arms flailing, she tumbled into her room, with Beth on top of her. “Daddy! Daddy, help me! She’s trying to kill me!”

  She was lying on her stomach, Beth astride her, pummeling at her shoulders. With a violent wrench, Tracy twisted herself over onto her back, and, still screaming, began clawing at Beth’s face.

  And then, just as she was sure she was going to be able to throw Beth off her and give her the thrashing she deserved, her father suddenly appeared, his hands sliding under Beth’s shoulders, lifting her up.

  “Get her away from me,” Tracy wailed, her hands immediately falling away from Beth to cover her face. “Get her off me, Daddy! She’s hurting me!”

  With a quick tug Phillip pulled Beth to her feet, then let her go. Sobbing, she ran to her mother, who was now standing just inside the door, and threw her arms around her. Carolyn knelt down, pulling her daughter close.

  “Beth! Honey, what happened?”

  But before she could reply, Tracy’s voice filled the room. “She’s crazy!” Tracy yelled. “I was just lying on my bed, and all of a sudden she came in and jumped on me! I didn’t do anything, Daddy!”

  Carolyn, bewildered, looked from Tracy to Beth. “Beth? Is that true?”

  Beth, tears streaming from her eyes, shook her head. “She came into my room,” she replied. “She came in and started telling me I was crazy, and that everyone hates me. And … and—” She broke off, choking back her sobs.

  “That’s not true,” Tracy said hotly. “I didn’t go anywhere near her room!”

  “That’s enough!” Phillip declared. “It doesn’t matter who started it. You’re both quite grown up enough not to be fighting like this. Now I want you both to apologize to each other.”

  “I won’t!” Tracy shouted. “I didn’t do anything, and I don’t have to apologize to anyone! Why don’t you make Beth apologize? She started it!”

  Phillip took a deep breath, and silently counted to ten. When he spoke, his voice was quiet, but there was an edge to it that cut through his daughter’s fury. “I don’t care who started it, Tracy. All I’m interested in is ending it. Now, apologize to Beth.”

  Tracy’s eyes narrowed. “I’m sorry,” she whispered in a voice that was barely audible.

  Phillip turned to the other girl. “Beth?”

  Beth hesitated, then sniffled. “I’m sorry,” she said at last. “I shouldn’t have jumped on you.”

  “See?” Tracy crowed. “She admitted it!”

  “She apologized, Tracy,” her father replied. “That’s all. Now get into bed, and I’ll be back in a little while to say good night.”

  Tracy glanced at the clock, then decided not to press her luck by protesting that it wasn’t even ten yet. Instead, she looked up at her father appealingly. “Is it all right if I watch television?”

  “For an hour,” Phillip agreed. “Say good night to Carolyn and Beth.”

  Tracy hesitated, then spoke the words while she looked at the floor.

  “Good night, Tracy,” Carolyn said quietly, then led Beth out of the room and back to her own. Neither mother nor daughter said anything while Beth undressed, put on her pajamas, then slipped under the covers. Finally Carolyn leaned over, and kissed her daughter’s forehead.

  “I’m sorry, honey,” she said.

  Beth looked up at her mother. “Do you believe me, Mommy?” she said so quietly that Carolyn could barely hear the words.

  “Of course I do,” Carolyn assured her. “Why would I ever think that you’d pick a fight with Tracy?” She forced herself to grin. “After all, she’s bigger than you.”

  “But why does she hate me?” Beth asked.

  “I don’t know,” Carolyn replied, the smile fading from her lips. “And I don’t know what we can do about it, either. But we’ll think of something. I promise.” She kissed Beth once more, then went to the door. Then, as she let herself out, she heard Beth speak once more, almost as if she were talking to herself.

  “Sometimes I wish Amy would just kill her.”

  Chilled, Carolyn said nothing, but pulled Beth’s door closed behind her.

  Phillip glanced up as Carolyn came into their bedroom. “You look white as a sheet,” he said. Taking her hand, he led her to the bed, but she pulled away from him and went to sit at her vanity instead.

  In the mirror, she could see that he was right. Her skin l
ooked ashen, and there seemed to be dark circles under her eyes. Helplessly, she shook her head.

  “I just don’t know how much more of it I can stand,” she said, her voice trembling with the tears that were suddenly threatening to overwhelm her. “It’s not getting any better, Phillip. And I don’t think it’s going to!”

  Phillip came to stand beside her, his strong hands resting gently on her shoulders. “But what can we do?” he asked. “They’re our children.” Then he smiled tightly. “Maybe I was wrong,” he suggested. “Maybe I shouldn’t have stopped the fight. In the end, they may just have to fight it out.”

  “That’s boys,” Carolyn said. She reached for a Kleenex, and blew her nose, then threw the tissue into the white wicker basket at her feet. “Girls don’t do that sort of thing.”

  “Ours do,” Phillip said quietly.

  Carolyn shook her head hopelessly. “And what’s it going to be like when the baby comes? Phillip, I just don’t think I can cope with it all.”

  “Of course you can,” Phillip began, but Carolyn shook her head again.

  The last words Beth had spoken before Carolyn had left her room echoed in her mind. Should she repeat them to Phillip? But she couldn’t. It would be almost like betraying Beth. Besides, the words hadn’t meant anything—they’d been nothing more than the venting of childish anger.

  “I … I’ve been thinking maybe I ought to let Beth go live with Alan for a while,” she finally said. “At least until the baby is born.” In the mirror she could see her husband’s worried frown. “And she’d like to go—I know she would.”

  “What about Alan?” Phillip asked. “Don’t you think you ought to ask him about it?”

  “I don’t have to,” Carolyn sighed. “You know as well as I do that he’d take her in a minute. He’d rearrange his whole life for her.”

  There was a melancholy note in her voice that made Phillip wonder if Carolyn was having more second thoughts about their marriage. “And I wouldn’t?” he asked quietly, hoping he didn’t sound defensive.

  Carolyn patted one of his hands gently. “You’d do anything for anybody, if you could,” she told him. “In that way, you and Alan are very much alike. And I know how much you’ve tried to do for Beth. But you have Tracy and Abigail to worry about, too.”