'It's Ms., not Mrs., and anyhow please call me Pepper.'
'I'm sorry. But I'm genuinely frightened.'
'Listen,' said Pepper, in a businesslike way. 'Everybody thinks that haunted houses are full of the souls of dead people, wandering around looking for revenge or lost opportunities or where the hell they left their glasses because they can't see to read The Heavenly Herald. But when you're dead, you're dead. You don't come back in any shape or form. I hate to tell people that, but I've been dabbling since Woodstock. I've tripped and I've tranced and I've ouija'd, I've done it all, and I'm very sensitive. But the dead are dead, believe me.'
'So this sobbing woman… she's real?'
Pepper briefly closed her eyes in assent. 'Yes. She's real.' Effie's mouth felt dry. She thought of Craig, waiting until she was asleep, and then sneaking off to meet - who? and how? And why did the woman sob like that?
'If she's real,' she said, 'how come I can hear her but I can't see her?'
'I thought you said you did see her.'
'I'm not sure. It was only for a second.'
Pepper put the last bottle back on the shelf, and then she laid her hand on Effie's shoulder. 'Come into the back. I'll brew us some tea. A friend of mine went to see his guru in Poona and sent me some wonderful Nilgiri. I also have some great cream cakes. They make them at the Riverview Bakery and I can't resist them. You'll put on five pounds just by looking at them.'
Effie hesitated.
'You do have time, don't you?' asked Pepper.
'Well, sure, but this whole situation has left me really confused. I don't know why Craig's so set on buying Valhalla, and I don't know what you mean about this woman living there. I feel like I'm totally missing out on something somewhere.'
Pepper led the way into a small back room with a hob and a kettle and more shelves crammed with herbs - betony, houndstongue, mugwort and spikenard - all the ingredients of the magic pantry, in blue ceramic jars with gilt lettering. One of the jars was marked 'Moriarty.'
'I didn't know there was a herb called moriarty,' said Effie.
'There isn't. That's blood root. It's the root of deception, so you always have to store it with a false name.'
While the kettle boiled, Pepper led Effie into the garden at the rear of the store. They had to step over a monstrous grey cat sleeping in the open doorway. The garden was overgrown with wild flowers and it didn't look as if the grass had been cut all year. A cast-iron table and chairs stood beneath a gnarled old apple tree. Pepper spread a faded flower-patterned cloth over the table, and invited Effie to sit down.
'What about the store?' asked Effie.
'I hardly ever have stuff stolen,' said Pepper. 'The kind of people who come to the Hungry Moon leave their money on the counter if they can't find me. If somebody did steal something - well, it would probably be the worse for them. Every item in the store has been touched by centaury plants, and if a thief smells centaury he goes into mad delusions of terror.'
'I'll make sure I don't take anything without paying for it, then,' said Effie. 'I think I'm having mad delusions of terror already.'
'It's the vibrations,' Pepper told her, emphatically. 'Whatever happened in that house when Jack Belias was living there, it's soil happening.'
Effie frowned. 'I read somewhere that if some really powerful emotional event occurs in a house, the walls can sort of absorb it, like a photograph.'
Pepper shook her head. 'That's hooey. Walls are walls. You can't store an emotional event in a brick any more than you can store your voice in a jam jar.'
'But these psychic vibrations… what can you do to get rid of them?'
'What do you do when your tap leaks?'
'Call for the plumber, I guess.'
'So what do you do when your psychic vibrations are acting up? And don't say call for a vibrator.'
For the first time since she had entered Valhalla yesterday evening, Effie laughed. She liked Pepper. She was one of the first matter-of-fact people that she had met since Craig had taken up international law, and she hadn't realised how much she missed the company of women who laughed, women who spoke their own minds, women who didn't give a shit for anything.
The kettle whistled. Pepper stood up and said, 'Don't go away. When you need help with psychic vibrations, you need a psychic, and that's me.'
MONDAY, JUNE 28, 6:28 P.M.
Pepper closed up the Hungry Moon at six o'clock and they went across to the Old Post Inn for cocktails. The evening was warm and the sky was glazed in pale violet. Main
Street was still busy with tourists and lights and slowly-creeping automobiles.
They sat at a small corner table and Pepper ordered two Fish House punches: dark rum, cognac and peach brandy, with lime juice and plenty of sugar.
'I drink this on purpose,' she said, lifting her glass, her eyes shining silver in the light from the tablelamp. 'The Fish House in Schuylkill was the first men's dub in America, and this was their special tipple. Another bastion falls.'
'This is going to knock me out,' said Effie, sniffing her drink as if it were hemlock.
'That's the general idea,' Pepper replied, and clinked glasses with her. 'Here's to psychic harmony: and you; and that poor sobbing woman, whoever she is.'
They drank for a while without talking. During the afternoon, they had grown to like each other more and more, in spite of the radical differences in their backgrounds and their politics and their points of view. Effie found that Pepper was convincing, direct and immensely liberating. She believed that everybody had a spirit life. She believed in souls. She believed, too, that the natural world was teeming with energy that anybody could harness, and use to their own benefit, if only they weren't so cynical. But she didn't subscribe to the conventional ideas of spiritualism or faith-healing. 'If I was a ghost, and some old biddy asked me, "Is anybody there?'' I'd tell her to stick her crystal ball where she didn't need Ray-Bans.'
But she still hadn't explained who or what the sobbing woman could be: at least, not in any way that Effie could understand it.
'I'll tell you the truth, Effie,' she said, leaning back in her chair, and crossing one booted foot over her knee. 'And the truth is that I don't honestly know. There are no ghosts, okay? But I don't really understand this crying, and I don't understand this man you said you saw.'
Effie had half-finished her punch and she was already feeling more than a little unreal.
Pepper said, 'Why don't I come up to Valhalla and give it another look? I'll bring some hazel twigs and some salt and we'll see what's what. Hazel twigs for sensing the psychic vibrations: it's just like water-divining. Salt for keeping off evil.'
Effie looked down at her drink. She liked Pepper, but she really doubted that she could give her any serious help, especially with divining-rods and magic remedies. All the same, what else could she do? Call the police, and have them search Valhalla for squatters? Search it herself? Or simply pretend that she couldn't hear anything at all - that the woman's sobbing was imaginary, the first delusions of an early menopause?
Pepper said, 'How about the day after tomorrow? That's if you can square it with Big Chief Craig.'
'Craig's going back to the city tomorrow morning. He has some business to settle up. He said he'll be gone for only two or three days at the most.'
'Then maybe we can exorcise your sobbing woman and your dark-haired man before he gets back.'
'Well… I don't know. Craig's very possessive when it comes to Valhalla. He says it's not just a house, it's like him. It's like a map of his whole personality.'
'He really feels that way?' Pepper frowned.
'It's changed him, completely. After his accident he was very withdrawn, he had no confidence at all. He was mugged, if you want to know the truth, and very badly hurt, and it kind of disintegrated his ego. There were times when he could hardly feed himself. But as soon as he saw Valhalla, he changed. He started talking about giving up his law partnership. He started talking about rebuilding the roof, and g
utting the kitchens, and laying out the grounds. It was just as if somebody gave him a shot of something.'
'So how do you feel about it?' asked Pepper.
'Buying Valhalla? Not totally committed. I guess I could learn to get used to it. But I'm not totally committed, the way that Craig is. I'm not obsessed.'
'Tell the truth,' said Pepper. She didn't blink once. She didn't raise her voice. Effie knew that she had found her out.
'All right,' Effie quivered. 'At first I didn't like Valhalla. Now I hate it. It frightens me, because it's going to eat up all our savings and all of our investments, and nobody will ever want to buy it from us because people don't buy thirteen-bedroom mansions on the Hudson any more, do they? Except for Craig.'
Pepper gave her a slow, soft handclap. 'So don't buy it,' she said.
'It's what he wants. He's so determined.'
'It's your life, too.'
'Yes, exactly. It's my life, too, and I want Craig in my life. I want him the way he used to be, before he became a hot-shot lawyer, and started treating me like a geisha. I want him the way he used to be, before he was mugged. Valhalla's given him some of that back. I hate Valhalla, I really, really hate it, and it scares me to death. But I'm not going to lose my husband to some sobbing woman, and I'm not going to lose him to a house.'
She paused, and then she added, breathlessly, 'No matter how grand or special that house may be.'
Pepper lifted her glass, and said, 'Here's dry rot in your eye.'
TUESDAY, JUNE 29, 3:39 P.M.
The doorbell rang again and again and in the end Steven turned over and said, 'Khryssa- can't you answer it?'
'It's nothing,' Khryssa murmured, and snuggled down even further into the sheets. 'Just somebody forgot their keys, and wants the front door open.'
But the doorbell kept on ringing, and in the end Steven climbed out of bed and went to the intercom. 'What?' he demanded, standing naked and pot-bellied in the crisscross sunlight.
Khryssa said, 'Don't be so aggressive, Steven. It doesn't suit you.' Her long brunette hair flowed over the pillow like a lazy sea-swell filled with weed. She was very tall and long-limbed and oddly pretty, with a snub nose and full lips and slightly-squinting eyes. She was wearing a three-stranded pearl necklace and a gold watch and a gold chain bracelet from Tiffany's.
Beside the bed stood a half-empty bottle of tequila and two glasses. It was Mezcal tequila, with the saguara worm in it. Steven had already eaten the worm, although it hadn't appreciably improved his performance. Since returning to Khryssa's loft, they had spent two hours wrestling and sweating and Khryssa still hadn't climaxed once. Mind you, she suspected that Steven hadn't, either. Most of his grunting and 'oh-Godding' had been 60 per cent alcohol and 40 per cent simulated.
Steven said, 'Who?' and then he covered the intercom receiver with his hand.
'Khryssa… it's Craig, for Christ's sake.'
She turned over and propped herself up on one elbow. 'Craig? Craig who?'
'Craig Bellman for Christ's sake, who do you think?'
'I don't believe you! Craig went to Cold Spring, to convalesce.'
'I know he did,' said Steven, his round face looking boiled and red. 'But he's here now, and he wants me to let him in.'
'Tell him I'm not here. Tell him you're my cousin, and you're taking care of my apartment while I'm away.'
Miserably, Steven hesitated, and then he said, 'She's not here. That's right. I'm her cous-'
He took the receiver away from his ear and stared at it as if it had personally affronted him.
'Well?' said Khryssa.
'He hung up. That's all.'
'That's okay, then, isn't it?'
'You don't think he recognised my voice?'
'He went away, didn't he?'
'Sure, but we've been partners for how long? Jesus, that was a shock!'
Khryssa said, 'Stop worrying and come back to bed. He doesn't own me. I haven't seen him since he was mugged. He called, sure, but calling isn't the same as making love, is it? Come on, Steven, get back into bed. The sheets are getting cold and your tequila's getting warm.'
Steven paced uneasily up and down, the sunlight shining in his wild, sparse hair; his penis bobbing. 'I don't know, Khryssa… maybe I ought to leave.'
'You promised me the whole afternoon. You promised to take me to Lola's.'
'I don't know… this whole thing seems to have got out of hand.'
Khryssa sat up, and tossed back her hair. 'Well, if you're going, Steven, go! At least Craig always knew what he wanted!'
Steven came back and sat on the edge of the bed. He took Khryssa's hand between both of his hands, and patted it, and kept on patting it. His upper lip was decorated with tiny little glass beads of perspiration.
'Maybe this isn't working out, I don't know.'
'You feel guilty?'
'I feel like I'm trespassing, if you want to know the truth. Craig and me, we go back to law school.'
'Not forgetting your wife, of course.'
'Margo? Jesus. Who could forget Margo?'
'You could, if you put your mind to it. You could forget Craig, too. I have.'
Steven looked disconsolate. 'I just don't think that I'm cut out for this kind of thing. I have to think of the kids, too.'
' "Both of whom look like Margo? And both of whom are goddamned intolerable brats"? Excuse my quoting you.' Steven managed to look directly into her eyes; a disappointed 34-year-old lawyer with thinning hair and a Rolls-Royce and a summer house at East Quogue. He owned a minor Andrew Wyeth, a water-colour of piercing-blue pieberries in a pail, and when he looked at it he didn't even understand what he was looking at; just as he didn't understand Khryssa, or the half-melted marmalade light that filled her loft, with all its Mexican tapestries and hangings and its strange salt-glaze pottery. He understood only that he had succeeded in life way beyond his wildest expectations, and yet he had totally failed. Khryssa had asked him, 'What is a Rolls-Royce for?' and he hadn't been able to answer her.
'I'll, unh, see you next week maybe,' he told Khryssa. 'You don't mind taking a raincheck on Lola's, do you? I mean I like Lola's, but you have to be feeling exuberant for Lola's.'
'What about Mortimer's?' she suggested. She leaned forward so that her small bare breast touched his arm. 'Mortimer's is quiet, and I can wear that black dress you bought me.'
He kissed her. 'Khryssa… I'm really sorry. I've kind of lost the mood.'
She stared at him for one intense moment. Then she flounced back onto her pillow and said, 'Screw you, Steven. At least Craig had the balls to take me plates.' Steven stood up, his cheeks flaring. 'Pity he doesn't have the balls now, hunh?'
And it was then that they heard a hard, insistent knock at the door.
They looked at each other in alarm. 'Are you expecting someone?' Steven hissed.
'Of course not. It's Craig.'
Steven ducked down and found his blue-striped boxer shorts. Jesus, Khryssa, this is insane.'
The knock was repeated: louder, more insistent.
'Give me time to dress, give me time to dress. For Christ's sake, Khryssa!'
'Khryssa!' called Craig, through the reinforced steel door. 'Khryssa, it's Craig! I know you are in there! You left your bike in the hall!'
'Oh, shit,' said Steven, scrabbling into his trousers. He lost his balance and fell over sideways onto the bed. Khryssa angrily pushed him off, and he ended up situng on the floor.
'Khryssa, are you going to open this door, or what?' Steven's head appeared over the end of the bed. His finger was pressed to his lips. 'Say nothing, for Christ's sake, say nothing!'
They waited and waited. A minute went by. There was no more knocking. They waited even longer - three minutes, four. Khryssa looked at Steven and Steven looked at Khryssa, and Steven whispered, 'He's gone. I'll bet my ass.'
'You don't know Craig,' said Khryssa, nervously.
'What do you mean, I don't know Craig? He and me, we graduated together. We were brothers. H
e was the bright one and I was the dogged one. Craig did the fancy summings-up. I did the spadework. That was what made us so goddamned good. We had balance. We had yin and yang or whatever.'
He prodded his finger towards the door. 'He's out of here, believe me. He never had the staying power. Sparkling one minute and bored the next. No patience, that was always Craig's problem. Why do you think he got attacked? All he had to do was sit in the goddamned cab for ten minutes more, and make some excuse to old Hakayawa about his wife getting pregnant or something like that, and who would have cared? But not Craig, oh no! He had to run through the night and rescue a damsel in distress who didn't even exist, and end up with crushed cojones.'
Khryssa sat up in bed, piling her hair up in her hands, bare-breasted. She was 19 years of age and she looked like every man's dream. 'Do you know something, Steven,' she told him. 'That was what made Craig a man.'
Steven stood up. 'Fine, okay, fine. As I said, I'm trespassing. I'll go.'
But at that moment the lock clicked, very quietly. Then it clicked again, and again, and Khryssa remembered with rising panic that she had given Craig a key. He had returned it, by mail, after his 'accident,' with a confused letter about 'manhood' and 'betrayal'. But, of course, he would have had a duplicate cut. He may not have been as dogged as Steven, but he had always been deeply methodical. The two of them stared frozen as the last lock-lever clicked, and the door swung open.
'Craig,' said Steven, 'this isn't what it looks like.'
Craig stepped into the loft and closed the door quietly behind him. He was wearing a dark, discreet suit and a charcoal-grey poloneck. He looked like Craig - and yet, in a peculiar way, he looked like somebody else, too, somebody they didn't know. He seemed shorter and stockier and coarser, and he walked with a strange slow-motion glide that reminded them of ballroom dancers, Begin The Beguine.
But his voice was unmistakably Craig's voice when he said, 'What does it look like, Steven? You tell me.'
'Hey... I had a heavy lunch with Chon International. I needed a couple of hours' rest before I went back to work.' Craig came close up to him, and even though he appeared shorter than he had before, he was still a good three inches taller than Steven. 'Breathe on me,' he demanded.
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