by Byars, Betsy
“And that’s all there is,” Herculeah said.
She looked closely at the man on the bed. His eyes were bright with intelligence and ... something else Herculeah did not understand. Slyness? Cruelty? Interest?
At any rate, Herculeah was sure he knew far more about the story than the newspaper reporter had.
“Were you there at the party?”
Yes. “Were you part of the game?”
Yes.
“You could tell me what the rest of the clipping said. I know you could—probably word for word. But you know what? I can go to the library. I can look this up. I can find the other half of the tragedy and—”
At that moment Herculeah heard a noise outside in the hallway. It was too soon for the nurse, wasn’t it?
She listened. Someone was running in the hallway. The footsteps were light, too soft to be from Nurse Wegman’s heavy shoes. The footsteps stopped outside the door.
Herculeah glanced at the man on the bed. She could tell that he recognized the footsteps and knew who waited in the hall.
“Who’s there?” Herculeah called.
Then the door to the bedroom opened slowly, creaking on its hinges. Herculeah swirled in her chair.
The face looking at her from the doorway, the face framed in wild hair, was the face of an old woman—something out of a Greek tragedy, something out of a nightmare. Excitement burned in the dark eyes. The cheeks were flushed with something like triumph.
Herculeah knew instantly that this was the face Meat had seen at the window the other day. And she knew instantly why it had filled him with dread.
The woman took one step into the room. Her body was small and frail. Her hair flew about her head. Her skeletal arms flapped excitedly at her sides.
“It happened again,” she said. She punctuated her sentence with a nervous giggle.
“What? What’s happened again?”
“Death from the tower.”
“What are you talking about? Tell me!”
The woman in the doorway seemed to be smiling, although Herculeah knew this was nothing to smile about. The woman’s teeth were dark and as pointed as an animal’s. Herculeah’s anxiety grew.
Herculeah glanced down at the clipping in her hand. “Are you talking about this?”
She lifted the clipping and showed it to the woman.
The woman shook her head. She had not come here to read a piece of paper. “Again,” she said.
“Today? Now?”
Herculeah tried to calm herself with the thought that her mother said you couldn’t rely on this old woman, but it didn’t work.
The woman took one quick breath before she explained.
“Death fell from the tower.” Then as if she was saving the best for last, she added, “The body lies in its shadow.”
11
THE BODY IN THE SHADOWS
For a moment Herculeah stared at the old woman, hoping to make sense of the situation. She turned to the man lying so still on the bed, as if he could help her.
She was struck by the fact that their faces were almost identical. Both resembled birds of prey. Their eyes seemed to be looking for something weaker to devour. Her feeling of impending doom heightened.
Then the woman spoke again, her voice rising with excitement. “A body! A body!”
“Whose body?”
“The boy.”
Now Herculeah remembered the scream. There had been something familiar about it.
“Meat! Meat!”
Herculeah leaped to her feet. The book dropped to the floor unnoticed.
In the doorway, the woman—childlike—clapped her hands together as if in triumph.
Herculeah ran to the door. The old woman stood there, her hawklike eyes gleaming, her hands clasped together in delight, but Herculeah slipped past her in one quick move.
She ran out into the hall. She crossed quickly to the stairs.
Behind her the old woman let out a squeal of success. Her cackle of delight followed Herculeah down the long stairs.
Nurse Wegman came out of a room down the hall, bringing with her the faint odor of tobacco. “What’s wrong?” she asked. “Mr. Hunt?”
“No! Meat!”
She was taking the steps two, three at a time, pulling herself along by the banister. Nurse Wegman was right behind her, matching her speed.
“Your friend?”
“Yes. That old woman said something fell on him from the tower.”
“That old fool.”
“I thought the tower was locked.”
“It is, but there are keys around if you know where to look.”
“She said there was a body.”
Nurse Wegman was fast, but not as fast as Herculeah, in crossing the hallway. It was Herculeah who got to the front door first. She threw it open and burst out into the late afternoon sun. She turned immediately toward the tower and broke into a run.
“In the shadow of the tower,” the old woman had said. Herculeah’s eyes scanned the shadows.
“There,” said Nurse Wegman.
She passed Herculeah. Herculeah continued to run, but her pace was slowed by her increasing dread.
Meat lay facedown on the ground. His pale face was pressed into what had once been a lawn. He was not moving. He did not even seem to be breathing.
“Oh, no,” Herculeah sighed.
“I’ll turn him over.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t move him,” Herculeah began, forgetting she was talking to a nurse.
Nurse Wegman turned him over in a quick, unnurselike way, and Meat’s face was turned to the sky. The shadow of the tower lay across his pale cheeks.
“Resuscitation!” Herculeah cried, gaining strength. “Mouth-to-mouth resuscitation! Let me! I’ve had a course. You go call for an ambulance and the police.”
“That will not be necessary.”
“It is necessary. Get out of my way. We’ve got to save him! Go call for an ambulance!”
But Nurse Wegman’s hands were firm on Herculeah’s shoulders, and she could not break free.
“Trust me,” Nurse Wegman said, “that will not be necessary.”
12
THE KISS OF DEATH
“What do you mean it’s not necessary? What do you mean?”
“Don’t get hysterical.”
“But what do you mean?”
“I mean he’s not dead.”
These were the most beautiful words Meat had ever heard in his life. He had been lying there wondering about that very thing. He didn’t know where he was except that it was somewhere he didn’t want to be.
His face had been pressed into grass that had seen better days when he felt himself being turned over. Bits and pieces of memory began to come to him. He had heard Herculeah’s voice, so she was here. Also that nurse—whatever her name was—and then he remembered hearing Herculeah saying something about mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.
That had been a sort of fantasy of Meat’s. He could not imagine kissing Herculeah, but he could, in a particularly wild dream, imagine something like mouth-to-mouth as an emergency measure. The kiss of death, he thought of it, not unpleasantly.
Then he remembered Nurse Wegman. She had flipped him over—he thought with her foot—and he realized with a real sense of horror that if any lips were going to come in contact with his, they would be Nurse Wegman’s.
Meat opened his eyes.
“Hello,” he said.
“He is alive!” Herculeah cried. There was such joy in her voice that, despite all the horror he had endured, his spirits rose like sun breaking through black clouds.
“I think he just fainted,” Nurse Wegman said. “His pulse is normal. I see no injuries. I’ll elevate his legs.”
“No, no, I’m all right,” Meat said. He wanted his legs to stay right where they were—stretched out on the ground. “Just let me lie here for a moment.”
“What happened, Meat? Can you tell us?”
“I was walking toward the tower, just check
ing things out, and all of a sudden, birds came flying out of the windows, like they’d been startled.”
“Take it easy,” Nurse Wegman advised, as if she was making an effort to be a nurse. “Take deep breaths. Speak slowly.”
“And I saw an arm—”
Now Nurse Wegman stopped sounding like a disinterested nurse. “You saw an arm? An arm in the tower?”
“Well, it was like an arm—a skeleton arm. Maybe it was a stick, but it looked like an arm.”
“So someone was in the tower.”
“Yes.”
Herculeah thought of the old woman. She remembered the thin, sticklike arms, fluttering in the air, clapping with delight.
“And then there was something in the hand—so it had to be an arm if there was a hand attached.”
“Death fell from the tower,” Herculeah said, remembering the old woman’s words. She glanced at Nurse Wegman. “That’s what the old woman said it was.”
“It looked like a stone to me,” Meat said.
“Go on,” Nurse Wegman ordered.
“And then she threw the stone, or whatever it was, at me. I wasn’t worried at first because I was standing back here. And I knew that nobody could throw a stone that far, especially an old woman.
Nurse Wegman took a deep breath. “I’ve got to get back to my patient.” She turned quickly, crossed the yard, and disappeared into the house.
“I’m glad she’s gone,” Meat said. “I don’t think she likes me.”
“She doesn’t like anybody. Go on.”
“Only whatever she threw came at me, like, in slow motion. It was as if it were on a radar course or something and I knew it was going to hit me. I knew I was going to die.”
“Why didn’t you run?”
“I couldn’t.”
“What did you do?”
“I screamed.”
“And then?”
“You know the rest?”
“I don’t! And then what?”
“Then I fainted.”
13
FLYING FINISH
“It has to be here somewhere,” Herculeah said.
She was walking up and down in front of the tower. Meat was sitting where he had fallen, watching her.
“Because, Meat, stones do not just disappear.”
“No,” Meat agreed.
Herculeah’s sharp eyes went over every inch of the ground. “If it rolled,” she said, more to herself than to Meat, “then it would have ended up here. But”—she shrugged—“there’s nothing.”
Meat was beginning to feel uneasy. In thinking back to the moment when the stone—and he had thought it was a stone, then; at any rate, it had been round—had appeared, Meat realized he didn’t know exactly what he had seen.
“The sun was in my eyes,” he explained.
“Well, yeah, but you saw her throw something, right?”
“Right.”
Herculeah moved closer. Her gray eyes had that look that seemed to penetrate right into his brain.
“Go over it again. Describe what you saw.”
“Well, it was round. When it left her hand, it was round—I’m sure of that. And then it was as if, I don’t know, it sort of sprouted wings.”
“Wings! Like a bird?”
Meat drew in a deep, unhappy breath. “I know you wouldn’t understand.”
“I want to understand. I’ve got to, because I know that whatever she threw had some meaning and that if we could find it, we would know—”
She broke off. Meat glanced quickly up at the tower, thinking Herculeah had seen something at one of the windows. He struggled to his feet and took a few unsteady steps backward.
“Is the old woman back?” he asked.
“No,” Herculeah answered. “But I just remembered where she probably is. She was outside Mr. Hunt’s room, and I bet she went inside. I ran off and left Mr. Hunt at the mercy of that woman. Nurse Wegman did, too.”
Meat felt a pang of sympathy for the man. Being in the same world with that loony woman was bad enough; being in the same room would be unbearable. And the man was paralyzed. He couldn’t protect himself. Meat took another backward step to get away from the thought.
“I’ve got to make sure he’s all right. You keep looking for the—whatever it is we’re looking for. Don’t leave.”
Meat could not have gone anywhere if he had wanted to, and he did want very much to go somewhere—home. But he would settle for any place that didn’t have a tower. He glanced around without enthusiasm at his possibilities.
Herculeah ran to the house. The front door stood open as if Nurse Wegman had had the same thought as Herculeah—Mr. Hunt’s safety.
Herculeah ran into the hallway and up the stairs. She took them three at a time. She crossed the hall and came to a stop in the doorway to Mr. Hunt’s bedroom.
Nurse Wegman was beside the bed. She was leaning over Mr. Hunt’s body, a pillow in one hand.
“Is he all right?” Herculeah asked.
Nurse Wegman straightened abruptly. She looked around, obviously startled. She punched the pillow with one hand, as if to make it more comfortable, and then settled it under Mr. Hunt’s head.
“He’s fine. The old woman was in here. She was by the bed, holding this pillow. I thought she was getting ready to smother him.”
Herculeah crossed to the bed and stood beside the nurse. She looked down into the bright hawklike eyes.
“I’m sorry I ran out like that,” she said, speaking to Mr. Hunt. “My friend fainted outside and that ... that woman who was in here—your sister, I guess—must have thought he was dead. I don’t know if you want me to come back or not, after the way I’ve acted.”
The blink came forcefully. Yes.
“Good. I want to come back. I’m going to redeem myself.” She picked up the book, slipped the newspaper clipping inside, and put it on the bedside table. “Next time we will do nothing but read.”
Herculeah paused. One hand still rested on the book. She had the feeling that Mr. Hunt wanted to tell her something, needed to tell her something important. He needs my help, she thought abruptly, and not just to read him books.
Nurse Wegman coughed to remind her to leave. When that didn’t work, she said, “Go on now. Look after your friend. Mr. Hunt needs to rest.”
“I’m on my way.” At the doorway she paused. “I wonder if I could use the phone. I need to call my mom.”
“We don’t need any private detectives around here.”
“No, but Meat and I are going to need a ride home. I don’t think he can make it on foot.”
“The phone’s downstairs in the hall.”
“Thanks. I’ll see you both tomorrow?”
She glanced at Nurse Wegman, hoping for many reasons that it wouldn’t be Nurse Wegman’s day to be on duty.
But to her disappointment, Nurse Wegman said firmly, “I’ll be here,” and then added, “from now on.”
14
MIRROR IMAGE
“I’m phoning my mom to come pick us up,” Herculeah called to Meat from the front door.
Meat turned toward her. His lips moved, and although she could not quite make out his words, Herculeah suspected they were something like, “That’s the first good idea you’ve had all day.”
With one quick glance at the tower she disappeared back into the house.
Meat watched her go. Then with slow steps he began to make his way to the porch.
Herculeah glanced around the hall for the telephone. The hall was large, high-ceilinged, and dark. All the rooms in Hunt House, she thought, seemed to be shadowed in gloom, as if they had secrets to hide.
There. Herculeah found the phone at the back of the hall, in one of those gloomy shadows.
It was an old-timey black rotary phone, and as she picked it up, she shook her head. She had to dial the number. Dial! This was probably the first time she had ever not punched in the numbers.
She dialed and shifted from one foot to the other, waiting impatiently for th
e phone to be answered.
All of a sudden Herculeah had the feeling she was being watched. It was such a strong feeling that she glanced first at the portrait of Lionus Hunt. She smiled at her foolishness. Of course no hawklike eyes peered at her through slits in the painted eyes.
She turned slowly. She thought her hair was beginning to frizzle. She found herself looking into an old mirror. The glass was wavery with age, and so at first all she could make out was her own hair. Yes, it was definitely frizzling. Then she noticed a figure crouching behind her on the stairs.
She tried to breathe slowly, deeply to calm herself. The phone rang twice. Pick up, Mom, she said to herself. I’m in trouble here.
Now she could hear, above the ringing of the phone, the beginning of a childish giggle. It was low, broken by mutterings of the woman reminding herself to be more quiet.
Pick up, Mom. I need you.
A hand came through the banisters, reaching for her. The long-taloned fingers curled as if to grab. “Pretty,” she said. The fingers brushed her hair, and the old woman said, “Come closer.”
No way, Herculeah said to herself, and she moved away from the stairs. She was almost against the wall now. But she was in a better position to make a beeline for the door if that became necessary.
Answer me, Mom. Answer.
On the fourth ring, as if in answer to Herculeah’s pleas, her mother’s voice came on the line.
“Hello. You have reached the office of Mim Jones. I cannot take your call right now, but if you leave a message and phone number at the beep, I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.”
The beep came and Herculeah said, “Mom, it’s me. I’m at Hunt House. We’ve had a bit of excitement. I’m fine but Meat fainted, and I need you to come out and pick us up. Now.”