Tap-tap-tap, it came again, and Jack could see no mechanism for it.
It became insistent, so Jack rose and went to the window. Parting the curtains with a finger, he looked out over the yard.
Nothing moved, nothing stirred.
As he turned to head back to bed, it started again, louder.
TAP-TAP-TAP!
Rushing back to the window, he threw it open, stuck his head into the cold night air.
Something did move.
There, between the slumbering pear trees in the orchard right below and to the right of the window. It was hard to make out through the twisting, angular branches of the trees… an animal of some kind.
No, not an animal… it was too big for that.
Then what? Not a bear, either.
Its outline was tall, erect. It seemed to have something growing from its head… antlers or… horns?
The creature noticed him, too, twitching its head up to look at the house, at him.
They locked eyes, Jack looking into its strangely shaped ones, glowing a deep gold.
A flash of intuition, recognition trembled through Jack; the hairs on his neck stood on end.
It raised an arm, pointed directly at him, then poked at its own chest.
And laughed.
Deep and rumbling and entirely human, its laughter echoed off the house, the hills.
Before Jack could do anything, it turned and hopped—hopped!—away, leaving him clutching the casement tightly.
Swallowing hard, he slammed the window shut, drew the curtains closed. He slid back into bed and tried to fall asleep, laugher echoing behind his closed eyelids.
FOURTEEN
Lucy arose before Jack, but the minute her eyes opened, she realized it was later than usual. Sunlight filtered through the lacy curtains, splashed against the mirror that hung over her dressing table. Even with the events of last night, Lucy faulted herself for oversleeping. She hurriedly went through her morning toilet, dressed and dashed to check on Betsy.
Betsy’s door stood open, and Lucy tiptoed in, expecting to find Betsy still recovering. To her surprise, the bed was made, the room tidied. Betsy was nowhere to be seen.
She heard lovely singing, its sound floating through the room on the sunshine, making it hard for Lucy to place just exactly where it was coming from. In a trance, she walked to Betsy’s window, which, like her parents’, overlooked the front of the house and the dormant pear orchard.
Outside, dressed lightly, Betsy danced between the tree trunks, her voice joyous.
“Come, my heart, and let us try,
For a little season,
Every burden to lay by.
Come and let us reason,
What is this that casts you down?
Who are those that grieve you?
Speak and let the worst be known.
Speaking may relieve you.
Christ, by faith, I sometimes see,
And He doth relieve me,
But my fears return again,
These are they that grieve me.
“Troubled like the restless sea,
Feeble, faint and fearful,
Plagued with every sore disease,
How can I be cheerful?”
Listening to her words, Lucy found some of her burden eased, some of the grey lifting from the edges of her perception. Without hesitation, she ran down the steps and rushed through the front door, which banged shut behind her.
Betsy seemed unaware of her approach, for she kept singing, skipping around the tree trunks, rocking her head to and fro, her long, beautiful hair catching the sunlight and sending it back a little refreshed.
Lucy caught her daughter up in her arms, hugged her until the song stopped, replaced by the sound of her own sobs. When she looked up, through a cloud of her own tears, she found that she had collapsed. Her head was nestled comfortably in Betsy’s lap, and the girl stroked her mother’s face lovingly.
“Are you all right?” came her sweet voice, and Lucy thought it the most wondrous, the most angelic voice she had ever heard. She lifted her head to respond, but Betsy’s touch, stronger than Lucy would have thought, kept her mother’s head where it lay.
“Shh,” Betsy whispered, still stroking her forehead, her temples. “Rest a bit.”
“You’re the one who should be resting. After what you’ve been through,” Lucy said, her effort at rising thwarted again.
“I’ve rested long enough. It’s time to live. Time to forget.”
Lucy wondered at the child’s words. Betsy had been something of a cipher in the family––quiet, unassuming, unremarkable save for her beauty. Hers was a voice not often heard, a presence not often felt.
This seemed a new Betsy, reborn yesterday in that horrible bedroom; a child expunged of something awful and ill. Without its darkening cover, the girl she had always been shone through.
“What were you singing?” Lucy asked, the song’s notes still floating on the air. “It’s beautiful.”
“I don’t know,” answered Betsy, a little wistful. “I think someone sang it to me while I was asleep.”
“What happened to you? Do you know?” she asked, cupping the girl’s open, curious face in her shaking hands.
“I slept. And while I slept, a part of me took wing, a part that badly wanted to leave, to be free. I was glad it left. It didn’t belong inside me any longer.”
Lucy’s eyes teared, though precisely why, she wasn’t sure. “Were you pregnant?”
At that, the girl laughed, a tingling in the cold air like tiny ice crystals vibrating together. “Pregnant? Why, no! But something similar, perhaps.”
A smile floated across her face, and Lucy noticed that, while her eyes were wide and she answered questions, part of Betsy didn’t seem to be awake or fully conscious. Her demeanor, her answers, her voice all had a moony, far-off quality.
“Betsy, are you all right?”
At that, Betsy fixed her with her eyes, cocked her head quizzically. “I’m fine. Don’t cry. You’ll soon need all your tears. But not for me.”
At that, Lucy wept uncontrollably. She buried her hiccoughing face in the folds of Betsy’s dress, cried and cried, feeling her daughter’s soft hands caress each tear from her cheek.
“What is this that casts you down?
Who are those that grieve you?
Speak and let the worst be known.
Speaking may relieve you.”
The singing lulled Lucy to sleep, curled around her daughter’s form.
That his how Naddy found them, Lucy asleep and Betsy not remembering quite how she got there.
* * *
Lucy awoke later, and it was already dark. She fumbled with a candle and matches on her night-table. Drawing on a nightgown, she took the candle, pushed into the hall. As she passed the boys’ room, she heard noises, voices.
“You boys get to sleep. And this time, I mean it!” Lucy said through the closed door.
Just then, there was a clatter from inside the room, as if something heavy dropped on the floor, and a long, wailing scream.
Her threats to send their father up evaporated on her lips when she flung the door open.
The candle revealed a chaos of bedclothes and pillows, mattresses and disarranged furniture. It looked as if they had been about destroying the room before she got there.
“What?” was all she managed as she caught sight of little Drewry standing amid the wreckage, his nightshirt pulled up around his neck, revealing the bottoms of his long underwear, his thin, bony chest.
“Drewry, come here, baby!” she cried, and he pitched into her arms, a scream buried in her nightgown.
“What’s going on in here? Williams? Zach? Come out this instant!”
“T-t-they was ascarin’ me,” Drew hitched at her waist as the other two boys appeared from the darkness.
“What are you two doing up here? Look at this mess,” she said. Williams and Zach emerged from opposite ends of the room as if they’d been hiding. And they looked scar
ed… very scared.
“We didn’t do anything,” whispered Williams, pale and breathing hard.
“They did so!” shrieked Drew. “They was breathing in my face and ears. Then they yanked the covers off me, and I was cold. Then they pulled my hair!”
He cast them a defiant look, shoved his thumb into his mouth.
“You two should be ashamed of yourselves, picking on Drewry as sick as you all are. Now get this picked up before your Pa gets up here. And then get to bed!”
“But Ma,” protested Williams.
“Now, Williams.”
She watched as the boys picked up the stray covers and quilts, quietly pulled the beds back to where they were before, arranged the pillows.
Drew demanded that she tuck him in, so she did so as the other two crawled into their own beds, beneath the covers.
“Now, goodnight,” and she backed from the room, closed the door.
As the door pulled shut, the last things that registered in her mind were two sets of wide, jittery eyes staring at her.
She paused a moment in the hallway, walked to Betsy’s room, pushed the door open a crack. By the spare light of the fire, she saw the girl’s shape beneath the covers, lying on her side. The sound of her gentle, regular breathing seemed to calm Lucy, clear her head.
Closing the door behind her, she went to the stairs. She got to the top of the steps, when she felt a rush of air envelop her, flow around her, past her down the hallway. As it swirled against her, Lucy heard a sound near her ear, soft and clear.
A kiss.
The flame of the candle she held fluttered, snapped out.
Turning back toward the children’s room, she watched the paintings hanging on either side of the hall sway slightly in the darkness, almost saw the wind curl around the boys’ doorway.
The door creaked, swung open at its touch, banged against the wall.
A small cry flew from her lips, and she ran to the room.
Just as she reached it, there was a loud rustling and several short screams from the boys. She was almost knocked down as they came scurrying out of the room, tripping each other and landing in a tangle at her feet.
“Mama, it’s the Witch… from the cave…”
“They’re ascarin’ me ag––”
“Something pulled my hair!”
They all spoke at the same time, their words jumbling in a frenzy.
Witch, she heard Williams say. From the cave.
She remembered the kiss, and her cheek tickled at its phantom memory.
“Williams, what do you mean… the Witch?”
Williams looked terrified. “It talked to me… when we were down there. Told me…”
“Enough of this,” Lucy said, cutting him off. What he was saying was scaring her, too. “All of this noise is going to bring your father up here.”
“It already has,” came a voice behind her, and they all turned to look at Jack Bell, his face eerily lit by another candle.
“I’m busy, and your Ma’s trying to relax for the evening. Nothing more for the night.”
“But, Pa…,” protested Williams, swallowing hard.
“Boy, did you hear me?” Jack said, reaching to help Lucy to her feet.
“Do as your Pa says. Get back into bed and get to sleep,” she said, looking at Williams and biting her lip.
Under Jack’s gaze, she put the boys back into their beds, collected their discarded covers, tucked them in, kissed each clammy forehead, and whispered an endearment into each small ear.
Backing from the room, the light from Jack’s candle fading as he preceded down the stairs, they both heard the mysterious rustle again, a heavy clump, and series of muffled cries.
Then soft, defeated sobbing.
Jack spun, pushed past Lucy, reached their door and threw it open. “Damn it!” was all he could get out before he saw the mess, and that silenced him.
Williams’ bed had swiveled 180 degrees from where it normally stood, now pushed flush against the room’s eastern wall. He lay curled at its head, uncovered, his hands over his head, staring between them at Jack with brimming eyes.
Drewry stood on his bed, shrieking, his hair tangled and as stiff as he was. His nightshirt had been pulled off, balled and thrown across the room.
Only Zach’s bed was undisturbed, and Jack noticed a lump beneath the covers, twitching and shaking.
Showing his teeth, Jack strode to the bed, ripped the covers off.
Zach shrieked, clutched at the bedclothes.
“I thought I told you to…,” Jack roared, raising his hand.
Then, he saw it; the welt across Zach’s face, puffy and swollen in the candlelight.
A hand-shaped welt.
Jack knelt beside him, but Zach scrambled away, his eyes widening.
* * *
“Who did this?”
Zach began sobbing, and Jack caught him up, hugged him close.
“It was a dream. Just a bad dream,” he whispered into the child’s ear.
Jack turned to Williams, prepared to blame him, but the older boy appeared as dazed and upset as Zach.
“It was her,” he whispered. “The Witch.”
Jack frowned at him, unsure of how to respond. “What the hell is going on?” he yelled to no one in particular.
Lucy shook her head, went to comfort the baby as Williams climbed from his bed to stand next to his father, hugging his legs.
“I heard something, Pa,” he sniffed.
“What?”
“Breathing. Like something was in here.”
“What?” his father, exasperated, asked again. “An animal? A person?”
Williams’ lips quivered, as if he was afraid to tell his father what he knew. “I couldn’t see nothing. I just heard it breathin’. Then, my bed moved.”
“And it hit me,” moaned Zach from his father’s arms.
“Someone,” intoned Drew indignantly, “pulled my hair an’ took my clothes off.”
“I’ll get them settled,” Jack said to Lucy. “Why don’t you check on Betsy?”
Lucy kissed Drew on the cheek and left.
Jack disentangled from Williams, sat on Zach’s bed. Zach, however, clamped himself more tightly to his father.
“I don’t know what’s going on,” Jack said. “We’ll get to the bottom of this in the morning.”
“No!” Zach wailed, burying his face in his father’s solid neck. “I don’t wanna sleep in here. Can I sleep with you, Pa? Please?”
“I’ll be right down the hall. If you need anything, you just holler,” Jack answered, gently prying the boy’s arms loose and setting him onto the bed.
“Yes, Pa,” Zach said, doubt in his eyes.
Jack pulled Williams’ displaced bed back to its rightful position, arranged the covers, and helped him in.
“I didn’t hit ‘em, Pa,” Williams said.
“I know you didn’t.”
Drew, still unsure of just what was transpiring, stood bravely atop his bed and held his arms out to Jack, who scooped him up.
“If anyone else pulls my hair,” he said as Jack pulled the boy’s nightshirt over his head. “I’m gonna thrash ‘em!”
“You do that,” his father chuckled, helping him to bed, too. “Now, goodnight.”
“She’s awake, just sitting up,” Lucy said, coming into the hallway and drawing Betsy’s door closed softly behind her.
Jack paused before the doorway to the main bedroom, cocked his head, scowled. “Do you hear that?”
Lucy listened for a moment. “No. What is it?”
“Breathing,” Jack replied. “Like heavy breathing.”
Lucy went ahead of him, drew down the bed covers.
Within minutes, they, too, were in asleep, and the house returned to quiet.
But it was a gathering, restive sort of quiet, as if the house itself had taken a deep, deep breath, held it, preparing to exhale.
* * *
Sometime in the middle of the night, Jack awoke sud
denly, a sound in his ears. Half asleep, he swatted at the empty air near his head, scratched his ear. As sleep moved to reclaim him, he heard it again, more insistent, growing louder.
Moaning.
At first, he thought it was one of the boys again, and he threw back his covers to check on them. When he heard it again, his eyes snapped open. This was no dream. This was the same sound he’d heard earlier, in the hallway.
The sound flooded the room, surrounded him, penetrated him. It came from within his mind, from his pillow, from the four walls, floor and ceiling. It mounted, increased in pitch and intensity.
Jack groaned when he realized what it was.
Who it was.
“Oh God.”
“What?” mumbled Lucy, still mostly asleep.
Jack flushed, his stomach tightening. “Do you hear that?” he whispered through dry lips.
“No,” was her simple response as she sank back into the pillow.
The breathing continued to grow louder until it dominated the room like a physical thing. It made a gurgling, swallowing sound, horribly liquid and perverse. Then, a familiar, contented sigh spilled.
Jack smashed his head into his pillow to escape it.
He stayed like that all night, not sleeping.
* * *
Betsy was awakened by a slap, hard and sharp as she sat up in bed.
The fire in her room had died, and blackness was all around.
The dream. That awful dream…
Something near her rumbled, choked, emitted a strangled cry as if its gorge were rising.
Betsy recoiled, feeling hot breath upon her face.
Just then, she heard another sound, as if someone very old was hawking something up, spitting. She felt something warm spatter her face, slide thickly down her cheek.
Hurriedly, she wiped her face on the folds of her nightgown, the stuff’s sticky heat fading to tacky cold. Pulling the bedcovers around her, she winced, buried her head in her pillows as someone laughed softly near her, stroked her hair roughly. In her mind, she repeated the verse from the song:
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