House of Echoes: A Novel

by Brendan Duffy

  He began his trudge back to the Crofts. When he got there, Ben would make sure Charlie was packed. When Ted arrived, Ben would see them off, then he’d walk the forest until the sun closed the day. When he’d fallen in the dark too many times to keep going, he’d pack a bag for Caroline and himself and they’d go to the inn in Exton. The Crofts didn’t feel safe anymore. He’d sit there in the dark of his rented room and think about what the rest of his life would be like.

  It took him twenty minutes to get through the woods, but his brain spun enough that they passed quickly. Before Ben knew it, the Crofts was in front of him again.

  In the gray light, it struck him as a desperate place. It was vast and opulent, but that didn’t mean anything to the mountains. It sat between them like a bauble. They had only to fold their hands to crush it.

  Ben exhaled heavily into the freezing air. His breath clouded and dissipated like a ghost caught in the light. Now that he was out of the forest, Ben could see the full dome of sky. A thick crust of angry clouds stretched from horizon to horizon. For all the talk of the weather, Ben hadn’t watched a report. He hoped that last night’s snow had been the extent of the nor’easter, but from the look of the sky, he doubted it.

  A hawk carved a gyre through the clouds above him. Ben wondered what the bird saw that he couldn’t. He followed the arc of its course. When it glided east, Ben saw a plume of black smoke skirting the treetops along the slope of the north mountain.

  He watched it for a few moments to make sure it was real and not a trick of the wind and murky light. Then Ben began to run toward it.

  There was someone in the woods.

  —

  Ben ran. His feet ached from his hiking boots, and his chest burned when he breathed. He was already to the slope of the mountain before he considered what he was going to do when he reached the fire. As he climbed, Ben looked for sticks. Soon, he found one that felt like a short baseball bat in his hand. The chief had said that JoJo was a big man, but Ben knew he was a careful one, too. He wouldn’t have revealed his presence unless he wanted to be found.

  Ben could smell the smoke. The slope was steep and icy and thick with spindly conifers. He had to kick the toes of his boots into the frozen ground to grab enough traction to propel himself forward. The wind carried a sound that could have been crying.

  The terrain finally leveled out. The fire was close now. His eyes began to sting. Ben pressed aside the branches of a pine tree to reveal a small clearing with a smoldering pit at its center. He moved past the tree and into the clearing.

  He’d forgotten the stick in his hand, but now he held it in front of him like a sword. Like St. Michael confronting the beast. Ben walked around the smoking fire, challenging the trees and rocks. When he saw that he was alone, he kicked the fire pit. Orange sparks flared from his shoes. Someone had covered the fire with wet leaves, which had built the smoke up to a thick black.

  Ben heard the high-pitched crying again and this time knew that it wasn’t a trick of the wind. A series of large rocks abutted the side of the mountain, and when Ben inspected them, he saw that he could fit between the boulders. He threaded his way in. His boot became wedged between the rocks, but he was able to force it loose. The air had an animal smell to it.

  The rocky passage was no more than ten feet long, but it took Ben almost a minute to traverse it. When he was through, he stepped into a small den not much larger than the couch Caroline had bought for the living room.

  Wood coals glowed from a depression that had been dug into the ground. The space was surprisingly warm. Animal furs roofed the den and covered the walls. Ben recognized the skins of deer and bear. The hooked prongs of dozens of antlers were piled at one end of the cleft. In the scant light, he saw that there was thick-blocked writing scratched onto the deerskin in front of him. Ben would have read it, if not for the dark and the mewling bundle of fur that wiggled at his feet.

  He picked it up and turned it around and saw Bub’s red face looking up at him.

  —

  Alive! Scared but alive. Ben ran his hands over his son to make sure he was real.

  Bub’s eyes were swollen, his nose and cheeks covered in mucus. Ben could hardly believe it: this gift, this miracle, sobbing in his arms. This year had been an endless slow-motion train wreck, but that didn’t matter now. All those setbacks were erased by a single luminous fact: Their baby was alive.

  Bub stopped crying when he realized it was Ben who held him, then his face collapsed and he cried louder than before.

  “I know, I know.” Ben choked out the words and soon he was crying, too. Finally holding Bub made Ben realize that he’d never really expected this reunion. Thank you was all he could think. Thank you. Bub began to cough, his little body racked by it. I will be better now, Ben swore. A better father. A better husband. I don’t deserve this, but I swear I will make myself into someone who does.

  “You’re a little sick, baby. But you’re going to be fine. I’m going to take you home.” He pressed his face into his son’s, where their tears mingled.

  Ben wedged Bub under his arm and started to work his way back down the rock passage. Bub was wrapped in some kind of homemade swaddling. It was constricting, but it looked warm. Ben wondered how he was going to get him down the mountain. He didn’t know how he was going to get through all the snow to find a doctor. But his son was alive and in his arms.

  He still had a foot in the fur-lined space when he remembered the writing on the wall. His eyes had adjusted to the dim light, and he could read it easily now. It was scrawled with charcoal in letters five inches tall.

  IT IS NOT SAFE.

  YOU MUST GO.

  IT IS NOT SAFE.

  47

  Elation and euphoria. Tears and long embraces.

  But even in his own room, atop a pile of family, Bub wouldn’t stop crying. He wailed in a hoarse scream that made Ben shiver. Spasms of coughing shook his little body, and his every breath came as a tortured wheeze. Ben tried every trick he knew to get him to laugh, but Bub found nothing funny.

  “He’s really sick,” Ben told Caroline. “Listen to his breathing. I think we have to take him to the doctor.”

  “We just got him back.” She hadn’t let go of Bub since laying eyes on him. Between her torn hands, tearstained face, and unwashed hair, she was a mess, but still beautiful.

  “I know,” Ben said. “But look at him.”

  “We’ll all go,” Caroline said.

  “One of us needs to pack.” Morning had seemed to pass in an instant, and suddenly they found themselves with only scant hours of light.

  “Ted called and said the roads were bad,” Caroline said. “Would it be safer to stay here?” It would be easier, a lazy few days spent in happy reunion. But Ben had made a promise to be better than he had been. Better and easier were almost never the same thing.

  “We can’t stay here, Cee,” Ben said. “JoJo Tanner is still somewhere in the woods. And I don’t know what’s going to happen next. I don’t want to know. I’d rather sleep off the side of the Thruway than spend another night here.”

  “You’re right,” Caroline said, nodding. “We need to get the hell out of here. You take Bub and I’ll pack.”

  “We can switch, if you want,” Ben said. Today, laughing and crying together had felt like old times, and he didn’t want to mess that up again.

  “No, you drive him.” She hadn’t said anything, but from the way she winced at the light, Ben was sure she had a headache. He’d asked Father Cal to make her some of Mrs. White’s special tea. “When you get back, Charlie and I will be ready to go.”

  In Caroline’s arms, Bub began to tire himself out. His cries had faded to whimpers and his eyes began to droop.

  “When are they going to leave?” Caroline asked, tilting her head toward the floor. Ben could hear the murmur of voices from downstairs. When he’d returned to the Crofts with Bub, the villagers had been about to start another search. While the search for Bub had ended, the search
for JoJo continued, and they’d been using the Crofts as a base of operations.

  “We shouldn’t kick them out,” Ben said. “JoJo’s not going to try anything else while they’re here.” The villagers’ presence around the property was the only reason he’d consider leaving Caroline and Charlie behind.

  “I’d feel better if they left,” Caroline said.

  “I swear I’ll get back here as quickly as I can.” He hoped he wouldn’t be gone long; for all Ben knew, Bub might have to go to a hospital.

  “All right,” Caroline said. “I’ll find something warm for Bub.” His clothes were strewn across the floor from when they’d ransacked his room. All the drywall on one side had been torn out, its remains in a heap that spilled into the hallway.

  “Where’s Charlie?” Ben asked. The boy had also tried to soothe Bub, but had eventually left it to Ben and Caroline.

  “He went to get something to eat,” Caroline said.

  “I’ll check on him.” He kissed Bub on the head and Caroline on the cheek and headed downstairs. Chief Stanton, Jake, and Cal were in the kitchen. The chief and Charlie sat at the table while Jake and Cal leaned against the counter.

  “Swannhaven’s very special in the winter,” Ben heard the chief tell Charlie. “It’s like no other place on God’s earth.”

  “Did you call the FBI?” Ben asked the chief.

  “I did. They’re mighty glad the boy’s safe. They’d be on their way here, but their cars are buried in the snow.”

  “Okay,” Ben said. “Where are you looking for JoJo?”

  “Sent a crew to the den you found in the mountain. Just about to head there ourselves.” The chief stood up from the table and smiled at Charlie. “Glad your brother’s safe, aren’t you?” he asked him. “You see where your prayers can get you?”

  The chief went for the door, and Jake followed him. Jake hadn’t said anything to Ben since he’d arrived, and he left without a word.

  Ben saw Father Cal’s eyes also following the men out of the room. He wondered what the older man was thinking. He wondered what else Chief Stanton had said to Charlie as they sat at the table.

  “Charlie, see if you can help Mom pack,” Ben told him. “We’re getting out of here.”

  “Okay,” Charlie said. It was hard to tell with a face like his, but Ben thought he looked relieved.

  “I’m sorry, Ben,” Cal said when Charlie left. “I’m starting to understand what it must be like to live here. Demons in the wood and ghosts in the parlor.”

  Demons in the wood and devils at the door, Ben almost corrected him.

  “Even the living are—” Cal shook his head. “Chief Stanton thinks you should stay here over Christmas, but I think you’re right to leave for a while. And I’m sorry to add to your burden, but this tea—” Cal opened the canister of Mrs. White’s tea.

  “Right,” Ben said. “Caroline’s head is bothering her, and I thought a cup of it would even her out.”

  “There are some things in here that shouldn’t be,” Cal said.

  Ben looked at him.

  “Well…” The priest reached into the canister to take a handful of the tea. “There’s some St. John’s wort, which is fine, and some lavender for flavor. Lady slipper, too, if I’m not mistaken. But this…” He pulled a brown shaving from his hand. “This is valerian root. It can be a pretty powerful sedative if it’s prepared in a certain way.”

  “Mrs. White designed the tea especially for Caroline. To help with her moods.”

  “It can also cause night terrors and disorientation. And this…” He plucked a withered white petal. “This looks like hellebore. We grow it at the priory but only for aesthetic reasons. It’s quite toxic. It can cause stupor, vertigo, and any number of other problems. People can die from eating it. I can’t even identify some of these other things.”

  Ben took the canister from Cal. He wondered if old Mrs. White had lost her grip well before she began to wander in the forest. If Cal was right about the herbs, this explained much of Caroline’s erratic behavior over the last few weeks. He tried to imagine how many cups of this tea she’d made for herself—how many he’d made for her. Yet she’d still managed to drive around, continue renovations, plan and execute an elaborate dinner party, and all without Ben noticing that something was seriously wrong. Had he really expected so little of her that he didn’t even notice when she was being poisoned?

  He shook his head at himself, disgusted. Better. He emptied the tea into the garbage. You have to be so much better.

  “Ben?” Caroline called him from upstairs. He could hear Bub screaming again. The raw sound of it made the hair on his arms stand up. He had to get him to a doctor.

  “I have to go,” he told Cal. “Thank you for everything. Really. I can’t make it up to you.” He grabbed the priest’s hand. “I’ll be in touch, okay?”

  “Are you sure there’s nothing else I can do?”

  “No, no, you’ve done so much. I’ll call you when we get to the city,” Ben said. Cal’s weathered face was still etched with worry, and that was how Ben left him when he ran back up the kitchen stairs. He found Caroline coaxing gloves onto Bub’s tiny hands.

  “Do you want me to patch you up before you go?” she asked. Ben had cut his forehead and torn his hands on his way up and down the mountain. He hadn’t realized the damage until he’d seen himself in the mirror.

  “No time,” he said. One of Bub’s eyes was encrusted with mucus again. Ben felt more terrified every time he looked at him. With Bub on his shoulder, he turned to where Caroline stood in the doorway. “Maybe when I come back.”

  “It’s a bad cut, Ben,” Caroline said, frowning at his forehead. “I’m just going to put some Bactine on it. It’ll only take a second.” She ducked into the hall, and Ben could hear the gentle thuds of her jogging to their room.

  Ben wiped Bub’s nose for the hundredth time. When he turned around, Charlie was standing behind him. Ben noticed that he was dressed to go outside.

  “Why are you wearing your boots?” Ben asked him.

  “Aren’t we going?”

  “I have to take Bub to the doctor first.”

  “We should all go,” Charlie said. “We should all go now.” The boy’s face was inscrutable.

  “He gave him back to us, Charlie,” Ben said. “He’s not going to take anyone else.”

  “I still feel tight inside,” Charlie said. He touched his heart with his finger.

  “I’m not going to be long,” Ben said. “Bub really needs medicine. Look at him.” Ben had to quench the sudden panic that surged within him.

  “Bub got sick, so he gave him back for us to take care of him,” Charlie said. He walked over and held Bub’s hand.

  “We’re all leaving here,” Ben said. “He’s getting what he wanted. I just have to do this first.”

  Caroline returned with the antiseptic. She had a gentle touch, but it still stung.

  Charlie hadn’t let go of Bub’s hand. The baby’s body was convulsed by another series of coughs. They had a dry, rough quality that made Ben grit his teeth.

  “Charlie, I have to take him now. It’s going to be a tough drive. But, listen, if you get scared, if you feel strange”—he tapped the boy over his heart—“Mom will drive you away.” Ben nodded to Caroline. “That goes for both of you. If anything doesn’t feel right, just forget packing and leave. We’ll meet up on the road, okay?” Ben didn’t feel good about Caroline driving anywhere if she still had that tea in her system, but he didn’t like the look on Charlie’s face, either. And he needed to get Bub help now.

  A tightness clenched Ben’s own chest as Caroline wept her goodbyes to Bub. He could not say whether it was stress, or panic, or something else that was not so easily named. He let Charlie kiss Bub on his forehead, and he pretended not to notice the shine left on the baby’s face where Charlie’s tears had fallen.

  —

  Ben fit the Escape into the treads left by Cal’s car. The packed snow was slick under his ti
res. He was just turning down the gravel drive when something pounded on the side of the car. The sound was loud enough to shock Bub out of his wailing.

  It was Jake. Ben slid his car window down. The young man’s face was as white as the snow.

  “Taking off?” Jake asked. He tried to smile but didn’t quite pull it off. Through Ben’s window, he peered into the backseat. His face fell when he saw what was there.

  “I’ll be back,” Ben said. “They’re packing, but I have to get Bub looked at.”

  “Thought you’d all be leaving together.”

  “Jake!” Ben heard the chief bellow from up the road.

  “It’ll be dangerous if it gets too late,” Jake said. “The snow and the ice and the dark.”

  “Jake! The trail’s growing cold, if it isn’t cold already,” the chief said.

  Ben turned to the sound of the man’s voice and saw him a few car lengths away.

  “Just telling him to be careful, Chief. He hasn’t had to drive much with the roads icy like this,” Jake called back to him. “You should leave before nightfall,” Jake said to Ben, lowering his voice. “The way becomes dangerous in the dark.”

  “Jake!” the chief shouted.

  “Don’t forget now, boss,” the young man said, his eyes wide and unblinking in their sockets. “Don’t forget.”

  —

  The county road was in bad shape. A plow had shuffled walls of snow onto the shoulder, but the wind had undone much of its work.

  Bub’s pediatrician in North Hampstead was expecting them, and Ben drove as fast as he could for the south pass. When he got there, he wasn’t surprised to see that the road was closed. Wooden police barriers were set up across both lanes. Cal would have taken the northern gap, so maybe that route was still open. But Ben was in the mood for neither a detour nor a roadblock. And the road ahead didn’t look any worse than the road he’d just driven down. He moved aside the barriers and then replaced them after driving past them.