Heartlight

by Marion Zimmer Bradley

  Perhaps, scarred as he is, he does not wish to have to compete with a whole man for a more beautiful woman’s attention. Even as she framed the thought, Claire discarded it. Such a course of action would have required a certain reasonable humility from Simon, and as far as she had seen, supreme arrogance was still his key character trait.

  Claire shook her head at the unconscious assumptions her thoughts betrayed—as if an accident of beauty truly were a woman’s only desirable trait. It was possible that Simon had simply lost interest in what he could so easily gain, and was looking, as he matured, for a woman who could be his intellectual match. Whatever his reasons, Simon was not wooing Leslie Barnes because of feelings of inadequacy. But what were his reasons?

  Claire mounted the front steps of the house.

  It has been twenty-three years since I first entered this house.

  For a moment time folded in on itself, and it was not a sultry May evening, but a bleak November night. Claire stood in the front hall, looking toward light and warmth, and fearing them both from the roots of her soul.

  “Sins … I suppose it’s too much to hope for that I’ve been committing any?”

  Those long-past words echoed through her mind. What a long way she had come in just one lifetime!

  And others still had as far to travel … .

  Leslie answered the door, looking elegantly casual in white linen slacks and a sleeveless pale blue turtleneck sweater. The combination suited her dark beauty perfectly. She welcomed Claire into the house, and as the two women lingered over a cup of tea in the kitchen, becoming Claire and Leslie to each other, Claire told Leslie a little of her own beliefs and encouraged Leslie to talk about her experiences.

  She listened as Leslie told her of the horror of seeing Juanita Garcia dead in a drainage ditch—first in a vision, then when she led the police to the scene of the crime. She’d moved to Berkeley to escape the notoriety she gained from the case, and had fallen into what sounded as if it had been a disastrous relationship with the brother of the detective on the Pigtail Killer case. Joel Beckworth was one of those draconian rationalists whose only defense against the Unknown was to ridicule it, and Leslie seemed only relieved that she’d managed to make a break with him—over buying Greenhaven, of all things.

  Apparently there’d been some poltergeist phenomena involved in the breakup. Oddly enough, Leslie was treating a classical poltergeist—a teen-aged girl—at the same time she was experiencing her own troubles, but flying wineglasses and Kleenex boxes, whatever the cause, worried her far less than the ceaseless ringing of the doorbell and telephone.

  “And there’s never anyone there—and the phone rings when it’s off the hook as well as on, and disconnecting the doorbell only inconveniences the—the living,” Leslie said raggedly.

  The incidents of clairvoyance were increasing as well—Nick Beckworth was more pragmatic than his lawyer brother, and had called her several times for advice on cases, including a recent child abduction.

  “And the poor woman was half-mad with worry, but this time the child was safe and well—off with her father. Only what if she hadn’t been, and I’d seen that?” Leslie demanded.

  “It must have been very frightening,” Claire said gently. Are you the one, Leslie? Will you take up the work Alison had to leave unfinished?

  Leslie smiled with sudden wicked humor. “Bravo. Perfect nondirective counseling technique.”

  Claire had laughed, and admitted that she was taking psychology classes at SF State, and working as a counselor as well. Talk turned to the subject of Alison Margrave. While Leslie could not dismiss the evidence of her own senses, acknowledging one’s own psychic gifts was a far cry from accepting the whole world of the Unseen. The possible reality of after-death survival baffled her—it seemed too extreme, too unreal.

  Claire told Leslie a little about Alison—wanting neither to prejudice her against what was happening here in the house by telling her too much, nor wishing to tell Leslie things which she was obviously not ready to hear. While it was true that Leslie Barnes was a psychic, she was a highly reluctant one.

  But that’s how it always is, isn’t it? It’s only in movies or bad books that people greet the appearance of the Sixth Sense with delight. It’s a frightening thing. But Leslie needs to be pushed on as fast as she’ll go. What’s happening here seems so pointed. What if it isn’t Alison who’s behind all these goings-on—the flying crockery, the phone, the doorbell?

  And if it was not, what other power had the strength and the determination to pass the barriers of this house which had been dedicated to the Light for more than half a century? Claire only hoped that Leslie, wouldn’t be able to pick up her growing unease.

  “There’s something wrong with the garage, too,” Leslie was saying, “but the house was always a—a haven. Until this morning. A Wedgewood plate—it’s a family heirloom; it was my grandmother’s—came flying down off the wall like a, a—like a flying saucer!” Leslie giggled nervously.

  “May I see the office?” Claire asked. Alison—if it is you—what in the name of Heaven are you doing?

  Claire paused at the door of Alison’s study. She felt nothing beyond the quiet and peace that she had always associated with Alison’s home, though it was strange to see new furniture—an old, battered wooden desk, a chair and table, and an endearingly kitschy cuckoo clock—in Alison’s quiet office.

  It is Leslie’s office now. We must all let Alison go, Claire reminded herself.

  After first asking permission, she picked up the ornamental plate, which was still where it had fallen this morning. She braced herself, but she felt nothing.

  “I don’t sense anything wrong with it,” she said mildly, “and I think I’d know if there was any actual infesting energy … .”

  She did her best to explain as much as she could, but she could sense Leslie’s growing tension as she did, and finally dropped the subject. Colin would not thank her for making an enemy of Leslie—and it would be a damned bad turn to do the woman herself, when she was reaching out to them for help.

  “You said there had been disturbances in other parts of the house—could I see the window that won’t stay shut?” Claire asked.

  As they stepped out into the hall again, Leslie’s younger sister had begun to practice, and great crashing chords echoed from the walls, much as they had when Alison was in her prime.

  Leslie led her up the stairs, showing her (to Claire’s secret amusement; Leslie was so gravely solemn about the whole thing) the pentagrams inscribed beneath every window and above every door.

  “I set the wards on this house myself,” Claire said, “when Alison was in the hospital after her first big stroke.”

  The one that had come almost a year after Simon’s accident. She remembered sitting in the hospital with Alison as she had sat with Simon, and Alison’s determination then that Simon should not have Greenhaven. It was only then that Claire had realized how deep into the Shadow Simon must have gone, to set Alison against him so unyieldingly.

  Somehow, it was no surprise to discover that the window that Leslie complained would not stay shut was the one in Simon’s old room. Now it was Emily’s room—Claire could feel that it was occupied, even if Leslie had not told her—but without the usual litter of teenage occupation. Emily Barnes, it seemed, was as compulsively neat as other girls her age were messy. Claire placed her hand on the sill, trying to sense what had passed this threshold, but once more there was nothing.

  “The window is certainly unguarded,” she said. “But I don’t have the sense that there is anything wrong here. It’s neutral, if anything. But you said something about a cat?”

  “A white cat. Frodo said it was Alison’s cat,” Leslie answered, a little defensively.

  “See? It’s not my cat. It’s nothing to do with me.” Claire filled in mentally. She smiled a little. How it must annoy Leslie to find herself presenting such a classic textbook case of denial! But if one could control one’s instinctive react
ion to things, it wouldn’t be instinctive, I suppose. Still …

  “Alison always had white cats,” Claire explained. “Once one got out before she could neuter it, and she gave me one of the kittens. Mehitabel was the first pet I’d ever had, and I’ve had cats ever since. I know that Alison had half a dozen cats at one time, but when she knew she was failing, she found homes for most of them … .” But Claire already doubted that the white cat plaguing Leslie was one of Alison’s legacies gone feral. She could check with Kathleen Carmody to be sure, but it wasn’t likely Kathleen had failed to discharge her final obligation to her friend.

  “I can reestablish the wards. Of course, ideally, the whole house should be cleansed and resealed, and you should do it yourself. It will be much more effective that way.”

  “And that would keep the cat out?” Leslie said dubiously.

  Claire had to admit that it probably would—assuming the animal wasn’t simply an opportunistic stray after all—but declared that it seemed like overkill to her. She had a sense that there was something about the cat that Leslie had not mentioned yet—something that she had been skating closer to each time she’d brought herself to discuss what was happening here in the house.

  “I think this particular cat met a messy end,” Leslie said reluctantly.

  Bingo! Poor Leslie—what can possibly be happening here?

  Leslie led Claire back downstairs—Emily was still practicing, this time a piece that Claire recognized, something by Mussorgsky—and out into the garden.

  Rainbow and Emily had been working in it almost every weekend, and it was beginning to flourish once more, losing the mangy, moth-eaten look it had possessed after Alison’s death. Leslie crossed the open space, leading Claire toward the little garage that Alison had remodeled into a workroom when she’d started operating with a group once more. Kathleen’s sister Betty had talked about there being something dreadful out here, but she’d never gotten around to asking either Claire or Colin for help.

  And so Claire was completely unprepared for what she felt when she stepped over the threshold.

  Cold … darkness … hunger and despair. A pain so vast, so wracking, that utter foulness from which the healthy soul would have recoiled in horror became unnoticeable, became a tool, became the profane medium in which some mad artist worked … .

  “There is certainly something very wrong in here,” Claire said faintly, trying to block out that wordless howl of despair that filled her senses. “I don’t know what it is, but it’s horrible—horrible!”

  Leslie said something. Her cheerful, unconcerned voice grated on Claire’s abraded nerves—couldn’t she feel the horror of this place? Horror accomplished—and horror yet to come. The walls vibrated with a child’s terror, and the smell of blood was everywhere, as if Claire herself were bathed in it … .

  Claire turned and pushed blindly past Leslie. Reaching the open air of the garden was like being able to breathe once more: Claire sucked in deep lungfuls of the herb-scented air and hoped she wouldn’t faint. She felt as nauseated as if she had bathed in—had drunk—raw sewage.

  How could this have happened? How could Alison’s lovely dedicated Sanctuary have been so profaned? Certainly Betty had not done it, nor either of the other two families that had tried to live here. Claire thought of the man who had died, the young mother who had committed suicide here. This was what they’d felt in their last moments, she was sure of it. She could not believe that this aura, the disturbances at Greenhaven, were anything to do with Alison—no matter how angry she was, Alison could not do this to innocents.

  But Simon could. It was Simon who had killed one of Alison’s cats years before, Simon who now preached the gospel of black magic, blood sacrifice, and the purging of society of those with no value to it.

  Claire said something—she did not know what—to Leslie, and the other woman took her arm and led her back toward the kitchen.

  Did Leslie know what Simon had become? Claire searched her face anxiously, but saw no sign of such terrible knowledge there.

  Over another cup of tea, Claire did her best to explain about Simon to Leslie, but saw to her growing dismay that every word she spoke had somehow been countered by Simon beforehand. Leslie would not hear a word against him, nor would she even agree that there was such a thing as Black Magick, as if the discipline that could produce such undoubted effects could not have its means twisted to evil ends.

  The whole history of Claire’s generation was a refutation of that—if further refutation was needed—and Claire felt increasingly frustrated at her inability to persuade Leslie Barnes of something that was as obvious to her as summer sunlight and the city that surrounded them. Simon had become a black magician, and if Simon was dating Leslie, then he would draw her into his works sooner or later … .

  “I’m sorry, Claire,” Leslie said at last. “I know you mean to be helpful—”

  The most damning phrase in the English language, Claire thought wryly.

  “But I simply can’t believe any of this that you’re telling me. Reincarnation—blood sacrifice—Black Magick—I have enough trouble believing in the ghosts of cats … .”

  Too much, too fast—but oh, Leslie, can’t you see that there is no time to waste? Claire realized that all she could do now was salvage what she could of her relationship with Leslie Barnes, but with her nerves still jumping from immersion in that psychic cesspit, she couldn’t tell how effective her counsel was. She said soothing, placating things, and urged Leslie to speak further of the problems that plagued the house with Colin. There was no one Claire trusted more, and she was certain that Colin could get Leslie to give a fair hearing to his warnings.

  If only it was not already too late.

  “You don’t look happy,” was Colin’s mild comment, when Claire walked back into the bookstore. It was almost eight; he’d stayed open to wait for her, but the store was empty of customers at this hour of a Friday night.

  “I made a hash of things—I’m just lucky Leslie didn’t throw me out on my ear! Oh, the house is clean enough—somebody scraped out the ward to Simon’s old room, but I’m willing to bet that no evil’s entered there, so I left it open. But the Sanctuary …”

  Claire sat down on the stepladder, realizing she was still shaking at the thought. “Colin, it’s horrible! No wonder Betty left and those other people died—I don’t think any sane person could bear to remain in that room. Despair—and pain—and terror—” Suddenly, inexplicably, Claire found herself weeping.

  “There, now, my girl,” Colin said, coming from behind the desk and putting an arm around her. He handed her a handkerchief. “We’ll set it right, don’t you worry.”

  He waited until she regained a little self-possession. “Do you think it poses any active harm to the Barneses?” Colin asked.

  “N-no,” Claire said slowly, dabbing at her eyes with Colin’s handkerchief. It smelled of tobacco and the incense Colin used when he meditated, scents Claire realized she had long associated with him. She thought hard, reluctantly casting her mind back to the terrible moment when she’d crossed the threshold of Alison’s debased Sanctuary and confronted what could only have come from an Adept. An Adept of the Light who had fallen into the ways of the Shadow—an Adept whose dark power sprang from the perversion and destruction of that which his soul still held as good.

  Simon.

  “I don’t think it will do them any harm, so long as neither of them spends too much time in the Sanctuary—and they think that it smells bad,” Claire added, unable to keep a faint note of indignation out of her voice.

  Colin chuckled. “Our ancestors didn’t refer to the stench of evil and the odor of sanctity out of mere empty convention. For most people, stimulus from the Unseen is perceived as coming from one of the ordinary five senses—and I’m afraid that what we sometimes call morality has been rather arbitrarily assigned to the sense of smell.”

  “Laugh if you will,” Claire grumbled, slowly regaining her mental equilibrium.
“You didn’t have to wade through that stuff!”

  “No,” Colin agreed, suddenly solemn. “Not yet.”

  “It was Simon.” Claire insisted. “And on my way up to the house I was wondering—you’ll think it very unreconstructed of me, Colin, but I was wondering what a man like Simon could possibly see in a woman like Leslie. She’s so far from being his usual type. And I’m wondering—you know that Frodo mentioned she’d had the locks changed—what if Simon’s professed interest in Leslie is in order to continue to have access to the Sanctuary? I’m not much on predicting the future, but I’m willing to bet that at least part of the horror I sensed there hasn’t happened yet. There was a child—”

  “Emily?” Colin asked quickly.

  “No. Younger. But there was something strange about her, as if … oh, I don’t know. As if she were only pretending to be a child. I know it’s ridiculous … .”

  “Psychic flashes often are, when we don’t quite understand them,” Colin reminded her. “But there’s time to puzzle this one out, I think. And now, it’s late and you look all in; let’s lock up the place and go home.”

  “And maybe a good night’s sleep will give me some idea of what to do about Simon—besides strangle him,” Claire said. “Leslie’s besotted with him past all reason. I can tell that already, even if she can’t!” Just as Alison had been, in her way. Unable to see the darkness in her protégé, until it was too late … .

  “The best thing you can do is continue to be a good friend to her,” Colin said solemnly, “and we’ll trust the Light to show us the way to best intervene in Simon’s life before he can do more harm.”

  Closing up the store for the night was quickly done, and a few minutes later they stood outside the shop, savoring the moment when the Grey Lady of Cities—San Francisco—lets go of the last spark of twilight and drapes herself in the cloak of night.