The House That Jack Built

by Graham Masterton

  There was something else, too. She was sure that she had felt two testicles swinging against her when he had been thrusting himself into her. He couldn't have sneakily undergone a prosthetic operation in the two days that he had been back in the city; he wouldn't have healed yet; and he would have told her, wouldn't he? She had probably made a mistake. Too shocked, too exhausted, far too sedated. She tried to sleep but she kept thinking of dancing on broken champagne glasses, and the man with the blurry face, and in the end there was nothing she could do but huddle herself close while the sun rose behind the floral curtains and the birds started to twitter; her feet throbbing and her mind aching; and the unwanted semen of the husband she could no longer understand dripping coldly down her thigh.

  THURSDAY, JULY 8, 11:49 A.M.

  She opened the door and it was Pepper and Norman. Pepper was wearing a Cossack-style blouse in yellow and orange, and carrying a huge bunch of bright yellow chrysanthemums. Norman was looking pale and his jeans and his denim jacket were covered with plaster. 'I've been loading up gypsum boards,' he explained, brushing his shoulders and his sleeves until he almost disappeared in clouds of dust.

  'Hey... come on in,' said Effie. For the past week she had been staying with her mother and her Aunt Rhoda at her Aunt Rhoda's small, white-painted house in Carmel. It overlooked a steeply-sloping country road, and it was almost unnaturally peaceful. At night Effie could smell the woods, and see shooting stars. There wasn't room for her to stay for very long. There were only two bedrooms, and most of the house was crowded with furniture - everything that her mother had brought with her when her father died - nests of tables, clocks, armchairs, knick-knacks, whatnots and statuettes. But Effie had found it an ideal place to recover from her experience at Valhalla, not only the lacerations to her feet, but the shock and disorientation to her soul.

  'My pickup's suffering from tired blood,' said Pepper. 'But I persuaded Norman to drive me over here. I'm beginning to wish I hadn't. He drives like Ben Hur on Prozac.'

  Effie, still hobbling a little in her mother's carpet slippers, led them into the living-room. Her mother was sitting reading by the window, a tortoiseshell cat in her lap. She looked distinctly like Effie: small boned, slightly Italianate, with grey hair pinned back with a mother-of-pearl buckle. As soon as her cat saw Pepper, it jumped off her lap and came trotting across the carpet, climbing on its hind legs up against Pepper's leg. Pepper scratched and tickled it under the chin, and it followed her so closely that it almost tripped her up.

  'You sure have a way with cats,' smiled Effie's mother. 'That one usually runs away when strangers call by.'

  'She can smell the witchery on me,' said Pepper.

  'More like that fish you were cleaning,' put in Norman.

  Effie's mother said, 'You run that herb shop, don't you, down in Cold Spring? I bought one of your spells once, to stop me feeling faint.'

  'Yes,' smiled Pepper. 'Peony root, peony seed, nutmeg and fine sugar. Did it work for you?'

  'The wonderful thing was that it did.'

  Norman said to Effie, as if he'd just remembered an errand he was supposed to have run, 'We're all ready to start stripping the roof. Just thought you'd like to know.'

  'I know. Craig called me yesterday.'

  'Soon as the sale goes through,' Norman added. 'I gotta tell you, I can't wait to get my hands on that place.'

  'Well, don't count on it,' said Effie.

  Norman said, 'Like... I know that Valhalla gives you the creeps. I know you don't like the atmosphere and all. But you have to admit that it's some house, hmh? And when we've finished, it won't be creepy any more. I mean, it's some house.'

  'Yes, Norman. It's some house.'

  Norman abruptly left them for a while. He said he was going to visit the J. Register Hardware Store on the outskirts of Carmel, because it was the only store in the Hudson River Valley to sell old-fashioned steel barn door hangers and braced barn-door track. Effie's mother made tea.

  Pepper said to Effie, 'I wouldn't have-come over to bother you but I think I know what's happening.' She reached into her bag and produced a dog-eared book. 'I was talking to one of my friends about what happened when you cut your feet, and he came up with this. Coincident Lives.' She passed it to Effie, and said, 'Page 108. There... there's a marker in it.'

  Effie was reluctant to read it at first. She didn't want to be reminded of what had happened in the ballroom, the beastlike baying of the guests, the discordant music and the broken glass. But Pepper said, 'Go on, please. It's important.'

  The passage read, 'There is incontrovertible scientific evidence that "ghosts" as they are popularly imagined to be (that is, the unquiet shades of the dead) cannot exist, except as hallucinations or figments of a disturbed imagination. The most convincing demonstration of this were the series of Herzberg Tests carried out between 1965-1968 on reputedly "haunted" properties on New York's Upper West Side, and by the Bright-Williams experiments in the East End of London, England, during the early part of the 1970's, before the slums of Hoxton and Whitechapel were demolished. These tests proved that there were no external manifestations either physical, optical, electrical, chemical or tactile. But there have been several instances in which it appears from closely-examined records that two lives from different periods of time have become coincident. This is often mistakenly called "regression" - a condition in which a person believes that he or she can remember a "past life", as a medieval peasant, for instance, or a notable character from history. Using exactly the same proof that "ghosts" do not exist, we can show that regression is also a fallacy.

  'But it can be demonstrated by comparatively straightforward means that it is not time which moves forward from minute to minute, but only our perception of it. The events of what we consider to be "the past" and the events of what we consider to be "the future" exist coincidentally with the events of what we consider to be "now". History is like a house with an infinite number of rooms, through which we pass on an unguided tour. Just because we have walked from one room into another, that doesn't mean that the previous room ceases to exist, even though we may not have the ability to be able to return to it.

  'There are specific locations where chronological events are very thinly separated; and where "the past" and "the present" and even "the future" are being played out within sight of each other, like dramas performed behind net curtains. In such locations, dominant personalities from different "times" can occasionally often find themselves sharing the same thoughts, the same concerns, and even (in at least three well-documented instances) the same physical bodies.

  'In 1983, in Antlers, in Pushmataha County, Oklahoma, an auto mechanic called Roger Freeman suffered constant hallucinations that he was a sodbusting farmer named George Poltuk. Although Freeman was earning a reasonable living and had a good family life, he woke up one night and murdered his entire family - his wife and three daughters - by stabbing them in the eyes with a screwdriver. He claimed in court that he was George Poltuk and that he had killed his family rather than see them starve to death. He was asked repeatedly what his name was, and each time he answered "George Poltuk". When he was asked his date of birth, he answered "April 17, 1901", and claimed that he was three days short of his 33rd birthday. County records showed that a farmer called George Poltuk had murdered his entire family on April 14, 1935, after a dust storm had wiped out his failing farm.

  'There was no evidence to suggest that Roger Freeman could have known anything about the Poltuk murders; but he gave accurate and comprehensive details about the Poltuk family, and could even tell the court what had been playing on the radio the night the Poltuk murders had taken place. Amos 'n' Andy, on NBC-Red.'

  Effie passed the book to her mother. 'Do you think that's what happened to me?' she asked Pepper.

  'Your feet were all cut up. You didn't even take your shoes off, but your feet were all cut up. Could the doctors explain it?'

  Effie looked shamefaced. 'I didn't tell them. I just said that I was baref
oot, and that it happened by accident. They wouldn't have believed me, would they? I didn't want to be kept in hospital for psychiatric tests, as well as stitches in my feet. The doctor looked as if he didn't believe in repetitive strain injury, let alone what-do-you-call-it, "coincident living." '

  'But when you were in that ballroom, dancing, that was what you were doing. You weren't acting out your life, you were acting out someone else's, some woman who lived at Valhalla before. For those few moments, you were her, whoever she was. You and she lived coincident lives. Whoever this woman was, or is, she has the kind of strong personality that can reach from one decade to the next.'

  'But if she had such a very strong will, why had she agreed to dance on broken glass?'

  Pepper shrugged. 'I wish I knew. But see here, Effie… it looks like Craig's going ahead with the sale. It's a kind of an embarrassing question, but... are you going to be living there with him?'

  Effie hesitated for a moment. 'I guess I don't have any choice. I don't like Valhalla, no, but I don't want to jeopardise our marriage.'

  'If you ask me,' said her mother, 'Craig's acting like a selfish little boy. He knows you hate that place.'

  'Once it's restored, maybe I'll grow to like it. It's in a beautiful setting.'

  Pepper said, 'You won't grow to like it until it's been cleansed. That's why I had to ask you whether you were going to live there or not. You'll go on experiencing psychic incidents like cutting your feet and hearing that woman cry, again and again. They won't be any fun and they could be dangerous.'

  'How, dangerous?'

  'You've already chopped up your feet. Suppose that woman commits suicide? Stabs herself, or something like that? She may have a powerful personality but she doesn't seem very stable, does she?'

  'You keep talking about her in the present tense.'

  'Of course I do, because she's still with us, she's still at Valhalla. If you're seriously thinking of living there, I have to go back and do what I left unfinished last week.'

  'The hazel twig, and the salt?'

  'A whole lot more than that. This isn't like the milk turning sour or mirrors getting breathed-on when there's nobody there. This is much, much stronger than that. This is the strongest psychic upheaval I ever came across, ever.'

  Effie's mother said, 'Will it be dangerous for you?'

  'I don't know. That kind of remains to be seen. It won't be easy, I know that.'

  'You don't have to take any risks for me,' said Effie.

  Pepper smiled. 'As a matter of fact, I'm doing this more for me than I am for you. A little excitement? I love Cold Spring but it isn't exactly the centre of the known universe, is it?'

  Effie said, 'When do you want to do this… cleansing?'

  'As soon as I can. There's one thing, though. I think-it'll be safer if you don't come with me. It's something that I'll be better off doing alone.'

  'I don't want you getting hurt.'

  'Don't you worry. I'll have my tonka beans and my mug-wort and my verbena. I'll have some dried moss that grew on a dead man's skull. I'll have my golden crosses and my ouanga.'

  'What's an ouanga?'

  Pepper reached inside her blouse and produced a small red leather pouch which had been dangling on a yellow ribbon between her breasts. 'You burn balsam and lime leaves, grind them to a powder and mix them with wine. Then you mark some balsam and castor leaves with a chalk cross. You put the ashes on a small piece of red leather, then cover them up with the leaves, and cover the leaves with a crucifix, a tuft of hair tied with a white thread, a fingernail clipping, a piece of red cloth and a copper coin - and a piece of gold or silver, if you have it. Then you tie the whole package up with a brightly-coloured ribbon, and there you have it. The good luck talisman to end all good luck talismans.'

  Effie's mother made a doubtful face. 'Is this witchcraft?' she wanted to know.

  Pepper shook her head. 'You wouldn't go out in the pouring rain without an umbrella, would you? You never go near a serious psychic disturbance without an ouanga.'

  ***

  On the way back to Cold Spring, Pepper asked Norman, 'How about that barn-door track? Did they have what you wanted?'

  'They're delivering it Thursday. This is a big job, fixing up Valhalla. You should be proud of me.'

  'I am proud of you,'

  Pepper took out a small tobacco tin, and started to roll herself a thin and straggly joint. She lit it up, and inhaled deeply, and the sunlight angled through the smoke.

  'I was talking to Jack Register about Valhalla,' Norman remarked. 'I've been looking for some curved timber joists to fix the library floor. Like, the floor is constructed in a really odd way. The main joists radiate outward from the centre, like the spokes of a cartwheel, and then there are curved joists forming larger and larger concentric circles. It's really weird. I never saw a floor built like that before. Jack Register said the only other one he knew about was in the Benton House up at Salt Point.'

  'That's famous. Or notorious, should I say?'

  'Never heard of it. But I might go take a look, just to check out the floor.'

  'The Benton House was where all those people disappeared, back in about 1890 or something.'

  'What people?'

  'They all belonged to some kind of extreme religious sect. They wore very plain black clothes and always kept their heads covered. The local people thought they were into black magic or something like that. Anyway as far as I remember some woman went missing, and everybody blamed the people who lived in the Benton House. They stormed the house but the sect people locked themselves in. When the mob broke down the door, the sect people had disappeared. There were no trapdoors, no secret passages, nothing. They just disappeared, and nobody ever saw them again.'

  'Hey, weird.'

  'Oh, it was probably some trick, that's all.'

  'All the same, I'll still go up there and see how they made that floor. Jack Register reckons it was built on the same technical principles as a spiderweb.'

  'Maybe you should go ask a spider how it's done.'

  'Not me. You know what I'm like about spiders. Hairy, scuttly… urgh.'

  Pepper laughed, and leaned her head back. The ouanga around her neck nudged against her cleavage. The talisman to end all talismans, she thought. She just hoped that, when she went back to Valhalla, it was going to be strong enough to protect her against the psychic disturbance to end all psychic disturbances.

  MONDAY, JULY 12, 2:47 P.M.

  The two men in crumpled, unseasonable suits were waiting for them when Craig brought Effie back to Pig Hill Inn. One of them was black and very tall, and must have weighed well over 225 pounds. His hair was cropped so short that his scalp shone through it. The other was thin-faced, more grey than white, with a bony, complicated nose and eyes that were hooded and expressionless, like a basking lizard.

  'Mr. Craig Bellman? Lieutenant Hook, Sergeant Winstanley.'

  Craig made no attempt to shake their hands. 'You made good time. I heard the traffic was heavy.'

  'Judicious use of the siren, Mr. Bellman. This your wife, sir?'

  'Yes, this is my wife. I just brought her back from her mother's at Carmel. As you can see, she had an accident.'

  'Sorry to hear it. Nothing too serious, I hope?'

  'I cut my feet on some broken glass, that's all,' said Effie. Her feet were still bandaged and she was wearing Craig's bedroom slippers, but she didn't hobble any longer.

  'Gotta be careful where you're treading,' remarked Lieutenant Hook. 'Look, is there anyplace here we can talk?'

  'Effie, sweetheart, why don't you go on upstairs and take a rest?' Craig suggested. 'This won't take long, will it, Lieutenant?'

  'I'd rather stay,' said Effie.

  Sergeant Winstanley put in, rather mournfully, 'I'm not sure that you do, Mrs. Bellman. We have to talk about the details of six pretty nasty homicides.'

  'I'm not squeamish, Sergeant,' Effie told him.

  'You don't want to stay,' said Craig, taking h
old of her elbow.

  Lieutenant Hook shrugged and said, 'There's no harm. Maybe she can think of something helpful.'

  'You never know,' Effie retorted. 'Maybe she can.' She was in a stubborn mood.

  It was so warm that they sat out in the garden, and the two detectives took off their coats and hung them from one of the trees. They ordered iced tea for four and club sandwiches for two (Hook and Winstanley hadn't yet eaten). Craig sat with his hand resting possessively on Effie's thigh. Even in his short-sleeved shirt he looked hot and boiled.

  'We've been looking into the killing of your partner Mr. Steven Fisher,' said Lieutenant Hook, opening his notebook. 'As you're probably aware his throat was cut causing almost instantaneous death. The girl who died with him, Ms. Khrystyna Bielecka, died the same way, immediately or very soon afterwards. The weapon was a carving knife from Ms. Bielecka's own kitchen drawer.

  'The forensic evidence doesn't add up to much. We have one or two fingerprints, notably on the bellpush of the girl's apartment, and on the drawer handle. The perpetrator was male, right-handed and reasonably strong. Judging from the angle of the wounds, he was probably six, six-two. There are no hairs, no fibres and no footprints that didn't belong to the deceased, apart from some that were traced to three of Ms. Bielecka's friends, all of whom proved to have rock-solid alibis.

  'We're working on the assumption, though, that the assailant was known either to Ms. Bielecka or to Mr. Fisher or to both of them, because there were no signs of forced entry. Mr. Fisher and Ms. Bielecka had had sexual intercourse shortly before they were killed, although Mr. Fisher hadn't succeeded in ejaculating. You'll excuse me, Mrs. Bellman.'

  'Of course,' said Effie.

  Lieutenant Hook paused for a while, and finished a bite of sandwich. Then he said, 'The only really interesting piece of evidence was this… it was found on the bed, in between the victims' bodies.'

  He took down his coat from the tree, reached into the pocket, and took out a clear plastic envelope. He gave it to Craig to take a look, and watched him while he looked at it with his lizard eyes. Effie didn't need Craig to pass it to her, she could see what it was quite clearly. A playing-card, the nine of diamonds.