A Place With Two Faces

by Mann, Josephine

  She began to struggle again, threshing both men around the room with her in her wild rushes to escape. They flung her to the floor, pinioned her down. She began to scream again, using the last of her breath. A hot hand was pressed over her mouth, she bit it, scratched at the round face above her. Now there was a pad pressing down on her mouth and nose and a hospital smell. She fought wildly. “No, no,” she heard her own voice fading, losing its protest against the iniquity of the black box.

  When she returned to consciousness, Jenny was very cold. Gradually, she became aware that she couldn’t move, that her head ached, that her hands had gone to sleep, that she felt bruised and battered all over. Her muzzy brain wondered vaguely about her predicament, wasted time trying to orient itself by recollecting the season of the year. Spring, she thought triumphantly and then remembered the fight. The fight, the men and the oblong box. At the remembrance, she began to struggle frantically in blind panic, wrenching at the bonds which held her, barely feeling the pain and damage she was inflicting on herself. But nothing gave and she sank back exhausted.

  She fought to assemble her muzzy wits and made a conscious effort to assess her position. She was in a chair, a wooden carver with arms. She was tied by cords around the waist and wrists and legs, she was gagged – she couldn’t even scream. The frustration of it all reminded her dimly of being at the dentist’s. Her hands were tortured with pins and needles, her back ached, there were shooting pains in her legs and there seemed to be no way of easing any of this multitude of aches and pains.

  She looked for knots, but there were none within reach of her fingers. She tried to free herself using all her strength to tug with each hand and foot in turn, but nothing moved, nothing gave. Dimly, her mind recollected adventure stories, you rubbed against sharp edges, but her doped eyes refused to cooperate, the scene swam mistily before them. Exhausted, the tears trickling down her face, she drifted back into a drugged limbo.

  When she came to again, her head was clear and the horror of her position obvious. She knew that she had been kidnapped by Bernard’s men and brought here, but why?

  She looked around the cold bare building with whitewashed walls and a long trestle table. It wasn’t a workshop, no shavings, no tools, but there were coffins piled against the far wall; ready for use, varnished with brass handles, and there were bales of cloth on the shelves and on the table, white, purple and black. There was no window, but a solitary unshaded electric light bulb that glared in her eyes. The floor was covered in old-fashioned brown linoleum, scattered with snippets of black and purple.

  But why was she here? Just for revenge? Was Bernard getting his own back for the mauling Simon had given him on the moor, or was there some darker reason? She remembered the black mass. A human sacrifice, she thought, her terror growing. All the earlier religions had made them. And black masses were renowned for nameless horrors, for unmentionable sins.

  Was that what Bernard had meant when he talked of his “facilities?” He’d meant the disposal of a dead body with no questions asked. And Margaret’s eyes had gleamed at the thought of witnessing ritual murder; that was why she had gone out, she had known what was to happen to Jenny. But could they really be like that – so depraved, so avid for a new sensation that they could stand by and let Bernard… No, she was sure Robert wouldn’t, he was to officiate, and he was fond of her. But what was it Simon had said, “You realize that he must be an unfrocked priest?”

  She hadn’t thought of it until now. Unfrocked for what? The tears began again as she struggled with her bonds. She tried to shift the cord holding the gag in place by scraping it on the back of the chair. She tried to make her hands small and wriggle them through the loops which held her wrists.

  Her legs seemed less tightly bound. If she could get a shoe off, she might be able to free one, but what use were legs if she was still tied to the chair? It was hands which mattered. She experimented trying to move the chair across the floor. A free foot might be better than nothing. Patiently, she scraped and wriggled until the shoe fell from her, then, pointing and elongating her foot she began to ease it upward through the cords. It was coming! She always had had low insteps, she thought with pride. The effort of raising the leg high enough was tremendously tiring, she rested when the foot was halfway and then wriggled it triumphantly free.

  There was no time to be lost. Someone might come in at any moment. With her free foot, she propelled the chair forward, looking for a means of escape, any means of escape. Her watch had stopped and though the only door had a square of glass in its upper half, no light came through. When she reached it she saw why; it merely led into another room. She moved on, making erratic progress. There was no other way out, but if only she could get her hands free, she could break the pane of glass and crawl through. She moved along the shelves, inspecting their contents and at last found what she hoped for; a box containing a folding foot rule, a tack hammer and a large pair of scissors. The shelf was on a level with her tied hand, but she hadn’t enough movement to reach into the box. She worked feverishly to loosen the cords, not caring that her wrist was rubbed raw. The scissors gleamed tantalizingly, they were a large strong pair; it was worth any pain to reach them.

  Then she thought of her free foot, perhaps it could raise her that extra couple of inches. She made a series of hops, the chair was heavy, the effort tremendous and her hand was never in the right place for fingers to grasp the scissors. She rested and then tried again. And again, they evaded her tied hand. She changed her position to face the shelf and found that, standing on her free foot she could balance against it and maneuver the chair arm nearer inch by painful inch until her fingers closed on them. The chair fell back with a jolt and a crash, but there was no time to wonder if she had been heard. A fever of haste had come over her. I must keep calm, she told herself, I mustn’t drop them. Slowly and with infinite care, she slid a blade into position and then, moving her wrist up and down, sawed at the cords.

  The scissors were sharp and the cord frayed quickly.

  Suddenly, the rope gave and she had a free hand. A feeling of great thankfulness flooded her and without a second’s delay, she began to saw the cords on the other wrist. As soon as that hand was free, she was able to cut the collection around her waist. She had almost freed herself when a light flashed on in the room beyond, illuminating the glass square. She could hear bolts being drawn, voices, but she concentrated on freeing her leg. But, as the last cord parted they were on her with their grabbing hands.

  She plunged the point of the scissors into the nearest arm. There was a cry of pain.

  “You spiteful little thing,” moaned Bernard, retaliating with a sharp slap on her face. They twisted the scissors from her hands and forced her back into the chair.

  “Now,’ow do you want’er tied?” asked Acne.

  “Just tie her hands together, but tight. You can see what a little spitfire she is. Where’s that pad, Ron?”

  She was powerless to resist as they pulled her gag off and pressed the pad in its place. The hospital smell swept over her and her tears of rage and disappointment ceased as she floated into oblivion once again.

  Presently, she knew that her head ached worse than ever and that the ground was hard and rough and very cold. For a moment she thought that she was dead and buried, but then she became aware that there was light as well as darkness. She could hear voices, someone was intoning. A funeral? Her own funeral? A wild panic swept over her as she assumed that they were about to bury her alive. She tried to sit up and couldn’t, but it wasn’t a coffin lid that prevented her, she realized that her hands were tied and then she remembered Bernard and the black mass.

  She raised her head cautiously and looked about her. She was outside and lying face downwards on a substantial gravestone. It had an iron railing around it to which her hands and, presumably, her feet were tied.

  The intoner seemed to be using her back as a table, placing cold round objects on her as though she didn’t exist. She became aware
of ribald laughter, there was an audience then. Turning her head, she could see part of a churchyard dimly lit and people sitting and standing on the gravestones, they were mostly naked and she realized, with shame, that she was naked too. Naked and tied to the altar for the celebration of the Black Mass.

  Then the priest was Robert, and that meant that he was an enemy too. A long shudder went through her at the thought of the betrayal and she felt one of the objects on her back totter and fall. The audience laughed and the Intoner made a sound of exasperation; it didn’t sound like Robert. The service went on. Latin, thought Jenny, turning her head the other way and freezing with horror, for, beyond, on a large tomb level with hers, seated on a throne flanked by black candles burning in skulls, was a huge devilish figure. Purple-robed and goat-headed, it faced the audience with a glare of baleful yellow eyes. She lay with her eyes riveted on this monstrous object until she saw a pair of pink, pudgy hands emerge from the cloak and make a threatening gesture with a dagger in her direction. Not a dagger, an athame, she corrected herself, for those pink hands belonged to Bernard Hawker.

  The Intoner was clanking bottles now, fidgeting around her. She realized that the blasphemous communion had begun for the audience was filing up, drinking something from the cup, there was lewd laughter and spitting. It seemed to go on interminably. Jenny was shivering with cold and the tombstone grew harder and more unyielding the longer she lay.

  All her bones ached and her muscles cried out for movement.

  What happened after the communion? she wondered. She didn’t believe the devil worshipers would go quietly home. There would be some sort of orgy and how would she be involved? What other horrors had Bernard Hawker planned for her?

  She began to move her hands from side to side for only a single cord passed over the edge of the tombstone tying her to the rail below. If she could get her hands free there was a slender chance that she might be able to untie her legs before the goat-headed devil, encumbered by cloak and mask, could get down from his throne. But perhaps it was the priest who was armed for human sacrifice, she thought, then there was no hope and suddenly she felt very tired.

  The laughing and spitting stopped. The communicants had returned to their places and the Intoner’s voice had taken on a new note when suddenly there was a sharp warning cry of “Police!”

  A wave of alarm passed through the audience, Jenny could see them scattering, running for the wall. The Intoner was tearing off his vestments, she turned toward the horned devil, but it had vanished. There was only an empty throne.

  “Jenny, are you all right?”

  It was Simon’s voice anxious and breathless. He opened a pocket knife.

  “Jenny?”

  “Yes, I’m all right,” it was an effort to answer him. “They drugged me with something,” she must try to explain. She was free now and he was helping her into his old reefer jacket; it felt very rough against her bare skin, but warm with his wearing. Robert was there too. She looked at him with unfocussing eyes.

  “You weren’t the priest then?” she asked.

  “I was not. You don’t think I would have stood for you being treated like this do you?”

  “Where are your clothes, Jenny?” asked Simon.

  “I don’t know.” Feebly, she searched her memory for their whereabouts. “They must be in the place where Bernard makes his coffins. I had them on when I was there, I didn’t take them off.” She began to cry at the thought of the indignity of being undressed by Bernard and Acne and small-headed Ron.

  “I’ll go and give him the biggest beating up he’s ever had in his life,” said Simon furiously.

  “No, come on. The important titling is to get Jenny home,” Robert told him. “If we join hands and make a chair we can carry her to the car.”

  It was Robert’s car, Jenny noted vaguely, and Simon went with her in the back. He put an arm around her. “Poor Jenny,” he kept saying ineffectually and she leaned against him half comatose.

  Presently, Robert asked, “Jenny, how did they take you away, can you remember? You remember that Margaret came over to Ermeporth. I’d decided not to go on with the mass and Bernard telephoned Margaret and asked her to try to persuade me, he knew she was out of the house. We telephoned you several times, but there was no reply so we thought you must be out with Simon. Later we got worried and rang the Forrests…”

  “And I thought you were with Margaret,” explained Simon. %

  “What happened, Jenny?” asked Robert again.

  Then Jenny heard her voice, a sort of blurred distant version of her voice, telling the story with a careful, almost slavish, accuracy.

  “We’ve got to put the police on to them. We can’t let them get away with this,” said Simon when she had finished.

  “Not tonight,” Robert told him. “She’s not up to it. We’ll see what she feels about it tomorrow.”

  “We must get a doctor,” said Simon. “She’s still terribly dopey. Look at her eyes. God knows what those bastards gave her.”

  “Black coffee and then sleep,” said Robert helping Jenny from the car. “She’ll be all right in the morning.”

  12

  Death To The Tourists

  Jenny awoke to find the sun streaming in at the window and Simon’s anxious face looking down on her.

  “Oh, hullo,” she said beginning to stretch and then stopping abruptly as her battered body protested.

  Simon continued to inspect her anxiously. “You look better,” he said, “and your eyes seem more or less normal. How do you feel?”

  “Hungry,” said Jenny, “and a bit sore. Otherwise all right.” She moved her head experimentally. “No headache.”

  “I’ll stir up your breakfast; it’s been organized for hours. Orange juice, bacon and eggs and toast all right?” Jenny nodded.

  “Mrs. Gethin’s full of sympathy. She’s been told some mad story by Margaret. It’s so involved that none of the rest of us can remember the ramifications. She had to be told something seeing that you were in bed and I had spent the night here.”

  “You slept here?”

  “Yes, in the other spare room. I thought it would be safer and Margaret agreed. Not that there was much of the night left when Robert went home.”

  “You think they may come back?” asked Jenny sitting up and looking around agitatedly for something to wear. “But why? Their horrible mass is over, they don’t need me now.”

  “No, I don’t think they’ll bother you any more, especially now that the police are breathing down their necks. Robert and Margaret wouldn’t let me call the police yesterday evening when we found you’d gone. We could see you’d been kidnaped and put up a fight by the state of the writing room. I was all for dialing 999 but Robert said that he was largely at fault for not having backed up the old man and squashed the thing from the start. Apparently, by the time he realized that the whole thing was revolting to him and that he couldn’t send up the mass, Bernard had sent out the invitations. Not to witches, but to demonologists and hellfire clubs and various kinky groups. They were coming from miles away.”

  “But the police came, I remember someone shouting.”

  “That was me,” explained Simon. “It was Robert’s idea though. We slipped in late, scouted around till we spotted you and then caused a panic by shouting ‘police.’ But they made such a racket getting out that they woke the village and someone did dial 999 and the police found the churchyard full of clothes and handbags and wallets forgotten in the rush.

  The Chief Constable, who’s known the old man for years, telephoned him this morning to ask if his lot had anything to do with it. ‘Dad’ was in his element, booming out denunciations, great spiels about it being contrary to the law of Wicca and how, in his position as high priest, he had expressly forbidden it.

  “Anyway, I hope they create such a scandal that Bernard Hawker daren’t show his face in these parts. And I wouldn’t think that any committed Christians would want to be buried by him once they hear that he’s b
een mixed up in a black mass. Now, I must go and fetch you some breakfast.”

  He came back with orange juice and a vase of magnificent carnations.

  “Robert brought you these, he’s trying to expurgate his guilt.”

  “They’re nice,” said Jenny, “beautiful.”

  Simon seemed relieved at her lack of enthusiasm over the flowers, but every few moments he crossed the room to the window and looked out at the other house. Jenny could see that he was worried.

  “I’ll fetch the next course,” he said, taking the glass. “Two eggs enough, and do you like them turned over?”

  When he left the room Jenny made a dash for the bathroom and then brushed her hair. She looked ghastly, she decided, haggard and washed out, but there wasn’t time to do her eyes. She returned to bed. Her wrists had raw bands around them. Margaret had annointed them last night when they put her to bed. She’d never seen Margaret upset before, her fat face had quivered like a jelly and she’d kept repeating, “This has all gone too far, much too far,” and inquiring anxiously about rape.