The Waiting

by Joe Hart

  “You see, Mr. Tormer, work was scarce in the early 1900s, and an employer that paid steadily was even more of a rarity. The staff at Kluge House got room and board, pay, and Abel’s knuckles if he became displeased with any of them.” Her eyes trailed to the window and grew distant. “I have no doubt my mother would have died there had she not met my father.”

  “He worked there too, I’m assuming?”

  Cecil turned back toward him and dipped her chin once. “Yes, he was the groundskeeper and the head butler. He and my mother fell in love shortly after she arrived there, and they began to make plans to leave the awful place as soon as they could afford to, but the money didn’t ever seem to add up and they were forced to stay.”

  Cecil finished her coffee and scooted forward to the edge of her chair, pensive, staring into his eyes. Evan could see the old woman was working something out inside her head.

  “I suppose that woman was the final piece of the bizarre puzzle assembled in that home,” Cecil said quietly.

  “Allison Kaufman,” Evan said.

  Cecil half smiled, without humor, and he decided it was a terrible thing on her tired features.

  “I see you’ve been somewhat successful in your research, or deductions.”

  “It was the only thing that fit,” Evan said. “Two people die and one disappears on the same day in a small town? Not likely.”

  Cecil shook her head, like a pendulum. “Not likely at all. If Abel Kluge was a madman, Allison was his equal. She was orphaned young and grew up in a small church south of Mill River. No matter how strict the nuns were back then, they were no replacement for parents. She turned to mischief at an early age—stealing, drinking, even prostitution before she met Abel. From what I know, she showed up at the gates one day, long, brown hair most of the way down her back, eyes conniving. Something about her must have flipped a switch in him, for she was immediately given a room, and was his mistress within days.”

  “Right in front of his wife?” Evan asked, taken aback.

  Cecil gave him the half smile again. “Oh yes. By then, Larissa wasn’t much more than a husk of her former self. He’d hollowed her out with beatings and mistreatments for so long, I’m not sure she even realized what was going on.”

  Cecil sat back in her chair, her spine still rigid, as if the telling of the history wouldn’t let her relax.

  “But Allison, on the other hand, put up with nothing from him. In a matter of months, most of the staff answered to her as the lady of the house. My mother told me some nights the staff was unable to sleep, for the sounds of their carrying-on in the upstairs bedroom would filter down through the house, sounds of sex, pain, hissing, screaming. I shudder to imagine what really went on in those rooms.”

  Cecil paused, pursing her lips while her eyes found the painting over Evan’s shoulder.

  “My mother and father lived in constant fear of them, for Allison only heightened the violence and mistreatments that went on there. In fact, it appeared that her cruelty rivaled Abel’s in many ways. My mother said that more than once a servant was randomly called to her room, strapped down, and then whipped within an inch of his or her life, as Abel and Allison took turns behind the leather strap.”

  “God, why?” Evan said, feeling a lurch of revulsion in his stomach.

  “Because they were able to, Mr. Tormer. I assume it made them feel powerful, as we crush a spider that crawls onto our pillow. They were merely full of hate and needed someone to unleash it on. But fate, it seems, is the great equalizer. Nothing in this world goes unnoticed, no deed, good or bad, remains unbalanced. Less than a year after coming to Kluge House, Allison became sick. It was soon clear she had the consumption.”

  “Tuberculosis.”

  “Yes. It was still a very prominent disease in those days, taking bloody bites out of the population whenever it could. No one knows how Allison caught it or why no one else became infected, but it sealed all three of their fates.”

  Evan’s heart picked up speed. A picture formed in his mind, the room that he and Selena had stood in rearranging itself into a scene he could almost touch.

  “He built the clock for her, didn’t he?” Evan asked, knowing he was right.

  “Yes. My mother told me he was completely devastated by her prognosis, which deteriorated each week, so he started to work in the basement of the house. He spent hours upon hours down there, and the staff was forbidden to enter, to see what he slaved over day and night. When he wasn’t working, he was at Allison’s bedside, watching her, or contacting every doctor within six counties to come and see her condition. But there was nothing anyone could do.”

  Cecil grimaced as though tasting something bitter.

  “The day Allison fell into a coma, he had four men haul the clock up from the basement. One of them was my father. That clock ... No one wanted to touch it, for anyone could see it was an evil thing, unnatural and ugly even in the light of day. They placed it in Abel and Larissa’s bedroom, against the wall.”

  “I saw where it stood, there was a shadow still there.”

  “I don’t know what that is, but it is no shadow. That night the staff lay awake in their beds, with a storm roaring outside the windows and Abel’s voice coming from upstairs, chanting words that weren’t words. Near morning, the storm broke and a single scream came from the room—Larissa’s last sound on this earth. My father ran to the room, gripping a pistol, ready to do what needed to be done if Abel had finally gone too far, but when he burst inside, it was already too late. Larissa and Allison were dead, and Allison’s hair had gone completely white.”

  The entire room seemed to shift a little, and Evan swallowed, trying to push away the image of the long, white hair in the dustpan.

  “But what chilled his blood more than anything, my mother told me much later, was that clock, sitting there against the wall, all of its hands running backward.”

  Evan blinked. “Backward?”

  “Yes.”

  “But what was he trying to accomplish with it?”

  “Only he and God know that for sure, but one night when I was very young, I heard my father and mother speak of that morning in whispers they thought I couldn’t hear. My father said he was sure that Abel had tried to reverse Allison’s condition somehow with the clock.”

  “Reverse? Like turn back time?” Evan said.

  He noticed his voice sounded far away, like it came from another room in the house, and the words in Bob’s shaking hand kept surfacing from the deep tidewaters of his mind: IcangobackIcangobackIcangoback.

  “Like I said, Mr. Tormer, he was a madman, and there is nothing more dangerous than a lunatic in love.”

  “But how did they die? The article I read said there weren’t any marks on Larissa’s body and only a small pool of blood on the floor.”

  “Of that, we know the same. There weren’t any weapons present, nor was there any trauma done to either of them. It seems Abel may have sliced himself on the center pendulum, for they found a small amount of blood on its edge and inside the clock.”

  Evan let the information soak into him. The coffee had elevated his senses and sharpened his thoughts, but the harder he tried to assemble the facts into something cohesive, the more they swam into a blurry jumble like Bella’s painting in the room. As if reading his mind, Cecil spoke.

  “She told me it was a field of flowers, daisies.” Cecil glanced at him. “The painting. She’d given it to Abel and Larissa before Allison arrived at the house, perhaps to put her and my father in better favor.”

  “Did it?”

  “No, but Abel knew talent when he saw it, and hung it in their room nonetheless.”

  “It was glued to the wall—why did he glue it to the wall?”

  Cecil cast her eyes downward, grimacing again. “It wasn’t, it was simply hung there. But the morning after my father found them, it was stuck in place like someone had welded it.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense,” Evan said, rubbing his forehead.

/>   “Has any of this tale made sense, Mr. Tormer?”

  “Please call me Evan—and no, it hasn’t.” He looked at her. “But I believe you.”

  “I appreciate the sentiment, but I can’t say I’m glad you came calling today. I prefer to forget the things I’ve told you, and you would think I’d be able to at my age, but I don’t—I can’t.” Cecil stared hard into his eyes. “That abomination in your basement isn’t natural, Mr. Tormer. It is a man-made cancer that poisons everything it touches. My father was the first to enter that room, the first to see, only moments after, what happened there. I was seven when he died of some strange disease the doctors had no name for. He simply withered away, a black ichor spreading beneath his skin until he looked burned from within. I can still hear the agony in his voice as he died, intertwined with my mother’s cries.”

  Cecil’s eyes jittered slightly, and Evan wondered, not for the first time, if he’d made a mistake coming here. The woman before him, so stolid moments before, now looked unhinged.

  “She went insane after my father passed, slowly, one day at a time. I cared for her, and she told me these things before she lost her mind completely.” Cecil’s jaw stiffened, the muscles bulging beneath her thin skin. “And do you know what? She still painted every day, but the only thing that ever graced her canvas after my father died was that fucking clock!”

  Evan stood and bumped the glass table with his knee, spilling his half-empty cup of coffee. On the transparent table the liquid looked like blood, running in lines toward Cecil, who vibrated with a manic energy in her chair, watching him with blazing eyes.

  “Destroy it, Mr. Tormer. Break it, burn it, do whatever you must before it takes everything from you like it did to me!”

  Evan opened his mouth, but the only thing that came out was a small moan, barely audible even to his own ears. Then he turned and walked for the door; he had to get out of the house. His nerves were wound into a bundled heap of utter panic that urged him to run. He glanced over his shoulder, sure he would see Cecil following close behind him, her knurled hands raised like claws overhead. But the kitchen and archway were empty.

  The cool air was a blessed welcome against his skin, and he slammed the door shut behind him and finally gave in to the pleadings to run. He jogged to his car, and after climbing inside, took deep, cleansing breaths and waited for the boiling anxiety to abate. After a minute it did, but when he reached to start the van, he noticed his hands still trembled.

  An electronic chirp issued from the backseat, causing his slowing heart to stutter again. Evan twisted, fumbling for the computer case and dragging it onto his thighs. When he opened the laptop, the strong Wi-Fi signal in the upper right-hand corner caught his attention. He glanced at the house again, then lowered his eyes to the email that had caused the signal of new messages. The first email was from Jason. Evan clicked on it, the mere sight of his friend’s address a comfort.

  Ev, I spoke to Justin about the article. He said that’s not something he’s looking for right now, but he’d be happy to hear any other ideas you have. Sorry, man. Hope you and Shaun are well. Call me soon. – Jason

  He reread the words several times and his shoulders slumped. A different idea? After everything that he’d learned?

  But what have you learned?

  The voice sounded snide and superior.

  You found the ravings of an obviously insane man and brought up some of the town’s oldest, dirtiest laundry. Sordid affairs and possibly murder, but to what end? You’re going to solve a mystery that’s over ninety years old? Oh, wait, I see, there’s something else you’re digging for. That little idea that came into your mind the moment you read the article about the hit-and-run, and now the old bat in the house said the words that have been percolating in that fucked-up brain of yours out loud. You think it’s possible? You really think it is? Then if you do, you’re more disturbed than ever.

  “Shut up,” Evan growled, gritting his teeth.

  His phone chimed from the center console. He jerked in his seat as if it were a biting snake. A slightly familiar cell-phone number graced the display.

  “Hello?” he answered.

  A short puff of breath came from the other end, and then silence.

  A cold dump of adrenaline entered his system, flooding his veins with a cocktail of weakness and dread.

  “Becky?”

  “Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh.”

  Becky’s voice came out less than a whisper, like dead leaves sliding on concrete. The sound rolled a wave of goose bumps across his skin.

  The call ended, leaving him with dead air in his ear.

  Frantically he punched the number into the phone and waited. It went straight to voice mail.

  “Shit!”

  He dialed Becky’s number again while slamming the van into drive. As he rounded the turn and headed down the driveway in a flurry of dust, he threw a look at the house, barely noticing the curtains beside the front door shift back into place.

  16

  Evan held the pontoon’s throttle wide open.

  The steely water reflecting the sky rose in short waves that the craft burst through and surged over. The wind, mostly calm before, now pushed and tugged at his shirt, causing him to shiver with each gust. He hadn’t been able to reach Becky again on the hurried ride back to town, and he’d lost track of how many times he’d hit the redial button.

  The Fin grew and grew on the lake’s choppy surface, and Evan strained his eyes, squinting against the wind to see the house through the trees.

  No fire. That was good. Becky’s boat was still tied to the dock. That was good too—she hadn’t run off and left for some strange reason, and she hadn’t taken Shaun anywhere.

  Please, please, please let him be okay.

  As the details of the island became clearer, he saw that two figures waited on the beach, one seated and the other standing a short distance away.

  “Thank God,” Evan said, relief washing over him in a warm wave.

  He saw Shaun’s small form nestled in his chair. The boy was moving, but something was wrong. Shaun wasn’t wearing a coat, or even a sweatshirt, and his feet dangled down low enough that the washing waves rushed up and covered them. Becky stood a few steps away, staring at Evan as he approached.

  “What the fuck?” Evan said, cutting the motor down to guide his way to the dock.

  He drifted the last few yards and let the front end of the craft bump into the planking. In two strides he stood on the dock, and looped a rope around the pontoon’s railing. Then he was moving again, anger filling the void left by panic.

  “What the hell’s going on here?” he asked, hurrying past Becky to where Shaun sat.

  His anger flared brighter when he saw the blue tinge to his son’s lips and they way he shook from the cold.

  “Fucking shit,” Evan said, peeling off his long-sleeved shirt before unstrapping Shaun from his chair. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  He tugged his shirt over Shaun’s head and picked him up. Shaun shivered and pressed his face into Evan’s neck. When he turned back toward the water Becky still hadn’t moved.

  “Hey, I’m talking to you,” he said, as he stepped before her.

  Becky’s half-lidded eyes stared across the lake, toward town. Her lips hung apart, revealing her teeth clenched together, her jaw muscles contracting over and over.

  “Becky, are you okay? Are you hurt?” he said, moving closer. “Why did you come down here?”

  Shaun shivered against him, and Evan hugged him tighter. With a shaking hand, he reached out and touched the woman’s shoulder.

  “Becky, come back to the house—”

  Her head snapped around so fast Evan expected to hear her spine break. Her eyes were wide, unseeing, looking through him, and her lips peeled back from her teeth even further, in a rictus. Evan yanked his hand back as though touching a hot burner.

  “Ahhhhhhhhhhhh.”

  The sound came from behind Becky’s teeth, and her tongue dar
ting wildly between the gaps in them. With slow movements, he retreated up the hill, clutching Shaun.

  “Da,” Shaun said, into Evan’s neck.

  “It’s okay, buddy, it’s okay.”

  He kept walking backward, his eyes locked on Becky, who continued to stare at the spot where they’d been. “I’ll be right back,” Evan called down to her, and jogged to the house. Once inside he set Shaun on the couch and began to pile blankets on him.

  “What happened, honey? Did she hurt you?”

  Shaun gazed at him, his teeth chattering while another shiver coursed through his small body. Evan dug into his pocket for his phone, wondering who he should call. Becky’s employer at the hospital? The police? An ambulance?

  The sound of a boat engine starting made him look up from his phone.

  “No way,” he said, walking to the front door.

  Becky wasn’t standing in her spot near the lake anymore. She was in her father’s boat, and as he watched, she cut a short swath and turned the craft toward the opposite side of the lake, accelerating more and more.

  Evan stepped out of the house. “Hey! Becky! Becky!”

  His yells did nothing to slow her. She piloted the boat away, a V of water gliding in the wake, her back turned toward him. Soon the craft was only a speck dotting the gray waves.

  Evan shut the door and walked to the couch, his eyes unfocused. “Let’s get you in the tub, buddy.”

  After checking Shaun’s body for marks and welts of any kind and finding nothing, Evan gave him a bath, warming him up. As Shaun splashed and played in the soapy water, he kept replaying Becky’s behavior in his mind. What the hell had happened? When he’d left that afternoon, she’d been a normal young woman, capable and trustworthy. What could possibly alter someone so much in a matter of hours?

  “Ow?”

  Evan came back to himself and realized that the water in Shaun’s bath had begun to cool. “Sorry, honey. Let’s get you out of there.”

  After drying him off, Evan set him on the couch, rewrapping him in the blankets again. He sat and stared at his son for a long time, taking in his features. Shaun looked back, grinning from time to time. It was like seeing glimpses of Elle behind a fluttering curtain when he smiled, her lasting gift to him.