A Nest of Nightmares

by Lisa Tuttle

  ‘But you never found any ghosts.’

  Derek looked up at her. ‘Do ghosts hang around once their house is burned?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘No, we never did. Those Hoskins were too far back in time to bother with, maybe. We never saw any Indian ghosts, either.’

  ‘Did you ever see the ghost horses?’

  ‘See them?’ He looked thoughtful. ‘I don’t remember. We might have. Funny what you can forget about childhood. No matter how important it seems to you as a child . . .’

  ‘We become different people when we grow up,’ Marilyn said.

  Derek gazed into space a moment, then roused himself to gesture at the wall of books behind him. ‘If you’re interested in the family history, that little set in dark green leather was written by one of my uncles and published by a vanity press. He traces the Hoskins back to Shakespeare’s time, if I recall. The longest I ever spent out here until now was one rainy summer when I was about twelve . . . it seemed like forever . . . and I read most of the books in the house, including those.’

  ‘I’d like to read them.’

  ‘Go ahead.’ He watched her cross the room and wheel the library ladder into position. ‘Why, are you thinking of writing a novel about my family?’

  ‘No. I’m just curious to discover what perversity made your ancestor decide to build a house here, of all god­forsaken places on the continent.’

  Marilyn thought of Jane Eyre as she settled into the window seat, the heavy green curtains falling back into place to shield her from the room. She glanced out at the chilly grey land and picked up the first volume.

  James Hoskins won a parcel of land in upstate New York in a card game. Marilyn imagined his disappointment when he set eyes on his prize, but he was a stubborn man and frequently unlucky at cards. This land might not be much, but it was his own. He brought his family and household goods to a roughly built wooden house. A more permanent house, larger and built of native rock, would be built in time.

  But James Hoskins would never see it built. In a letter to relatives in Philadelphia, Hoskins related:

  ‘The land I have won is of great value, at least to a poor, wandering remnant of Indians. Two braves came to the house yesterday, and my dear wife was nearly in tears at their tales of powerful magic and vengeful spirits inhabiting this land.

  ‘Go, they said, for this is a great spirit, as old as the rocks, and your God cannot protect you. This land is not good for people of any race. A spirit (whose name may not be pronounced) set his mark upon this land when the earth was still new. This land is cursed – and more of the same, on and on until I lost patience with them and told them to be off before I made powerful magic with my old Betsy.

  ‘Tho’ my wife trembled, my little daughter proved fiercer than her Ma, swearing she would chop up that pagan spirit and have it for her supper – which made me roar with laughter and the Indians to shake their heads as they hurried away.’

  Marilyn wondered what had happened to that fierce little girl. Had the Indians stolen her, admiring her spirit?

  She read on about the deaths of the unbelieving Hoskins. Not only had the Indians set fire to the hasty wooden house; they had first butchered the inhabitants.

  ‘They were disembowelled and torn apart, ripped by knives in the most hungry, savage, inhuman manner, and all for the sin of living on land sacred to a nameless spirit.’

  Marilyn thought of the knife Derek had said he’d found as a child.

  Something slapped the window. Marilyn’s head jerked up, and she stared out the window. It had begun to rain, and a rising wind slung small fists of rain at the glass.

  She stared out at the landscape, shrouded now by the driving rain, and wondered why this desolate rocky land should be thought of as sacred. Her mind moved vaguely to thoughts of books on anthropology which might help, perhaps works on Indians of the region which might tell her more. The library in Janeville wouldn’t have much – she had been there, and it wasn’t much more than a small room full of historical novels and geology texts – but the librarian might be able to get books from other libraries around the state, perhaps one of the university libraries . . .

  She glanced at her watch, realising that school had let out long before; the children might be waiting at the bus stop now, in this terrible weather. She pushed aside the heavy green curtains.

  ‘Derek – ’

  But the room was empty. He had already gone for the children, she thought with relief. He certainly did better at this job of being a parent than she did.

  Of course, Kelly was his child; he’d had years to adjust to fatherhood. She wondered if he would buy a horse for Kelly and hoped that he wouldn’t.

  Perhaps it was silly to be worried about ancient Indian curses and to fear that a long-ago event would be repeated, but Marilyn didn’t want horses in a barn where horses had once gone mad. There were no Indians here now, and no horses. Perhaps they would be safe.

  Marilyn glanced down at the books still piled beside her, thinking of looking up the section about the horses. But she recoiled uneasily from the thought. Derek had already told her the story; she could check the facts later, when she was not alone in the house.

  She got up. She would go and busy herself in the kitchen, and have hot chocolate and cinnamon toast waiting for the children.

  The scream still rang in her ears and vibrated through her body. Marilyn lay still, breathing shallowly, and stared at the ceiling. What had she been dreaming?

  It came again, muffled by distance, but as chilling as a blade of ice. It wasn’t a dream; someone, not so very far away, was screaming.

  Marilyn visualised the house on a map, trying to tell herself it had been nothing, the cry of some bird. No one could be out there, miles from everything, screaming; it didn’t make sense. And Derek was still sleeping, undisturbed. She thought about waking him, then repressed the thought as unworthy and sat up. She’d better check on the children, just in case it was one of them crying out of a nightmare. She did not go to the window; there would be nothing to see, she told herself.

  Marilyn found Kelly out of bed, her arms wrapped around herself as she stared out the window.

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  Kelly didn’t shift her gaze. ‘I heard a horse,’ she said softly. ‘I heard it neighing. It woke me up.’

  ‘A horse?’

  ‘It must be wild. If I can catch it and tame it, can I keep it?’ Now she looked around, her eyes bright in the moonlight.

  ‘I don’t think . . .’

  ‘Please?’

  ‘Kelly, you were probably just dreaming.’

  ‘I heard it. It woke me up, I heard it again. I’m not imagining things,’ she said tightly.

  ‘Then it was probably a horse belonging to one of the farmers around here.’

  ‘I don’t think it belongs to anyone.’

  Marilyn was suddenly aware of how tired she was. Her body ached. She didn’t want to argue with Kelly. Perhaps there had been a horse – a neigh could sound like a scream, she thought.

  ‘Go back to bed, Kelly. You have to go to school in the morning. You can’t do anything about the horse now.’

  ‘I’m going to look for it, though,’ Kelly said, getting back into bed. ‘I’m going to find it.’

  ‘Later.’

  As long as she was up, Marilyn thought as she stepped out into the hall, she should check on the other children, to be sure they were all sleeping.

  To her surprise, they were all awake. They turned sleepy, bewildered eyes on her when she came in and murmured broken fragments of their dreams as she kissed them each in turn.

  Derek woke as she climbed in beside him. ‘Where were you?’ he asked. He twitched. ‘Christ, your feet are like ice!’

  ‘Kelly was awake. She thought she heard a horse neighing.’

 
; ‘I told you,’ Derek said with sleepy smugness. ‘That’s our ghost horse, back again.’

  The sky was heavy with the threat of snow; the day was cold and too still. Marilyn stood up from her typewriter in disgust and went downstairs The house was silent except for the distant chatter of Derek’s typewriter.

  ‘Where are the kids?’ she asked from the doorway.

  Derek gave her a distracted look, his hands still poised over the keys. ‘I think they all went out to clean up the barn.’

  ‘But the barn is closed – it’s locked.’

  ‘Mmmm.’

  Marilyn sighed and left him. She felt weighted by the chores of supervision. If only the children could go to school every day, where they would be safe and out of her jurisdiction. She thought of how easily they could be hurt or die, their small bodies broken. So many dangers, she thought, getting her coral-coloured coat out of the front closet. How did people cope with the tremendous responsibility of other lives under their protection? It was an impossible task.

  The children had mobilised into a small but diligent army, marching in and out of the barn with their arms full of hay, boards or tools. Marilyn looked for Kelly, who was standing just inside the big double doors and directing operations.

  ‘The doors were chained shut,’ she said, confused. ‘How did you – ’

  ‘I cut it apart,’ Kelly said. ‘There was a hacksaw in the tool shed.’ She gave Marilyn a sidelong glance. ‘Daddy said we could take any tools from there that we needed.’

  Marilyn looked at her with uneasy respect, then glanced away to where the other children were working grimly with hands and hammers at the boards nailed across all the stall doors. The darkness of the barn was relieved by a storm lantern hanging from a hook.

  ‘Somebody really locked this place up good,’ Kelly said. ‘Do you know why?’

  Marilyn hesitated, then decided. ‘I suppose it was boarded up so tightly because of the way one of your early relatives died here.’

  Kelly’s face tensed with interest. ‘Died? How? Was he murdered?’

  ‘Not exactly. His horses killed him. They . . . turned on him one night, nobody ever knew why.’

  Kelly’s eyes were knowing. ‘He must have been an awful man, then. Terribly cruel. Because horses will put up with almost anything. He must have done something so – ’

  ‘No. He wasn’t supposed to have been a cruel man.’

  ‘Maybe not to people.’

  ‘Some people thought his death was due to an Indian curse. The land here was supposed to be sacred; they thought this was the spirit’s way of taking revenge.’

  Kelly laughed. ‘That’s some excuse. Look, I got to get to work. Okay?’

  Marilyn dreamed she went out one night to saddle a horse. The barn was filled with them, all her horses, her pride and delight. She reached up to bridle one, a sorrel gelding, and suddenly felt – with disbelief that staved off the pain – powerful teeth bite down on her arm. She heard the bone crunch, saw the flesh tear, and then the blood . . .

  She looked up in horror, into eyes which were reddened and strange.

  A sudden blow threw her forward and she landed face-down in dust and straw. She could not breathe. Another horse, her gentle black mare, had kicked her in the back. She felt a wrenching, tearing pain in her leg. When finally she could move she turned her head and saw the great yellow teeth, stained with her blood, of both her horses as they fed upon her. And the other horses, all around her, were kicking at their stalls. The wood splintered and gave, and they all came to join in the feast.

  The children came clattering in at lunchtime, tracking snow and mud across the red-brick floor. It had been snowing since morning, but the children were oblivious to it. They did not, as Marilyn had expected, rush out shrieking to play in the snow, but went instead to the barn, as they did every weekend now. It was almost ready, they said.

  Kelly slipped into her chair and powdered her soup with salt. ‘Wait till you see what we found,’ she said breathlessly.

  ‘Animal, vegetable or mineral?’ Derek asked.

  ‘Animal AND mineral.’

  ‘Where did you find it?’ Marilyn asked.

  The smallest child spilled soup in her lap and howled. When Marilyn got back to the table, everyone was talking about the discovery in the barn: Derek curious, the children mysterious.

  ‘But what is it?’ Marilyn asked.

  ‘It’s better to see it. Come with us after we eat.’

  The children had worked hard. The shrouded winter light spilled into the empty space of the barn through all the open half-doors of the stalls. The rotting straw and grain was all gone, and the dirt floor had been raked and swept clear of more than an inch of fine dust. The large design stood out clearly, white and clean against the hard earth.

  It was not a horse. After examining it more closely, Marilyn wondered how she could have thought it was the depiction of a wild, rearing stallion. Horses have hooves, not three-pronged talons, and they don’t have such a feline snake of a tail. The proportions of the body were wrong, too, once she looked more carefully.

  Derek crouched and ran his fingers along the outline of the beast. It had been done in chalk, but it was much more than just a drawing. Lines must have been deeply scored in the earth, and the narrow trough then filled with some pounded white dust.

  ‘Chalk, I think,’ Derek said. ‘I wonder how deep it goes?’ He began scratching with a forefinger at the side of the thick white line.

  Kelly bent and caught his arm. ‘Don’t ruin it.’

  ‘I’m not, honey.’ He looked up at Marilyn, who was still standing apart, staring at the drawing.

  ‘It must be the Indian curse,’ she said. She tried to smile, but she felt an unease which she knew could build into an open dread.

  ‘Do you suppose this is what the spirit who haunts this land is supposed to look like?’ Derek asked.

  ‘What else?’

  ‘Odd that it should be a horse, then, instead of some animal indigenous to the area. The legend must have arisen after the white man – ’

  ‘But it’s not a horse,’ Marilyn said. ‘Look at it.’

  ‘It’s not a horse exactly, no,’ he agreed, standing and dusting his hands. ‘But it’s more a horse than it is anything else.’

  ‘It’s so fierce,’ Marilyn murmured. She looked away, into Kelly’s eager face.

  ‘Well, now that you’ve cleaned up the barn, what are you going to do?’

  ‘Now we’re going to catch the horse.’

  ‘What horse?’

  ‘The wild one, the one we hear at night.’

  ‘Oh, that. Well, it must be miles away by now. Someone else must have caught it.’

  Kelly shook her head. ‘I heard it last night. It was practically outside my window, but when I looked it was gone. I could see its hoof-prints in the snow.’

  ‘You’re not going out again?’

  The children turned blank eyes on her, ready to become hostile, or tearful, if she were going to be difficult.

  ‘I mean,’ Marilyn said apologetically, ‘you’ve been out all morning, running around. And it’s still snowing. Why don’t you just let your food digest for a while – get out your colouring books, or a game or something, and play in here where it’s warm.’

  ‘We can’t stop now,’ Kelly said. ‘We might catch the horse this afternoon.’

  ‘And if you don’t, do you intend to go out every day until you do?’

  ‘Of course,’ Kelly said. The other children nodded.

  Marilyn’s shoulders slumped as she gave in. ‘Well, wrap up. And don’t go too far from the house in case it starts snowing harder. And don’t stay out too long, or you’ll get frostbite.’ The children were already moving away from her as she spoke. They live in another world, Marilyn thought, despairing.

  She w
ondered how long this would go on. The barn project had held within it a definite end, but Marilyn could not believe the children would ever catch the horse they sought. She was not even certain there was a horse out in that snow to be caught, even though she had been awakened more than once by the shrill, distant screaming that might have been a horse neighing.

  Marilyn went to Derek’s office and climbed again into the hidden window seat. The heavy curtains muffled the steady beat of Derek’s typewriter, and the falling snow muffled the country beyond the window. She picked up another of the small green volumes and began to read.

  ‘Within a month of his arrival, Martin Hoskins was known in Janeville for two things. One: he intended to bring industry, wealth, and population to upstate New York, and to swell the tiny hamlet into a city. Second: a man without wife or children, Hoskins’ pride, passion, and delight was in his six beautiful horses.

  ‘Martin had heard the legend that his land was cursed, but, as he wrote to a young woman in New York City, “The Indians were driven out of these parts long ago, and their curses with them, I’ll wager. For what is an Indian curse without an Indian knife or arrow to back it?”

  ‘It was true that the great Indian tribes had been dispersed or destroyed, but a few Indians remained: tattered and homeless in the White Man’s world. Martin Hoskins met one such young brave on the road to Janeville one morning.

  ‘ “I must warn you, sir,” said the ragged but proud young savage. “The land upon which you dwell is inhabited by a powerful spirit.”

  ‘ “I’ve heard that tale before,” responded Hoskins, shortly but not unkindly. “And I don’t believe in your heathen gods; I’m not afraid of ’em.”

  ‘ “This spirit is no god of ours, either. But my people have known of it, and respected it, for as many years as we have lived on this land. Think of this spirit not as a god, but as a force . . . something powerful in nature which cannot be reasoned with or fought – something like a storm.”

  ‘ “And what do you propose I do?” asked Hoskins.

  ‘ “Leave that place. Do not try to live there. The spirit cannot follow you if you leave, but it cannot be driven out, either. The spirit belongs to the land as much as the land belongs to it.”