The Black Tower

by Byars, Betsy

  She waited because sometimes, when her mother was busy, she wouldn’t answer her phone, but she always answered when she heard Herculeah’s voice, especially when it was something urgent.

  Her mother did not answer now, and Herculeah reluctantly hung up the phone.

  “I’ve got to make one more quick call,” she said. She glanced up at the woman and then toward the front porch where Meat sat on the steps. “You aren’t going to like this one, Meat,” she predicted as she dialed.

  The phone was answered on the second ring this time, and Herculeah gave her message.

  She glanced at the stairs. “Well, our ride is on the way; it’ll probably be here any minute.”

  The skeleton arm still reached through the banisters, the long fingers stretching for Herculeah’s hair. And if it frizzled any more, Herculeah thought, she’d get it.

  Quickly she returned the phone to the table and backed away from the stairs. “I’ll wait outside.”

  The fingers closed on air, and then the old woman spoke. It was as if she had awakened from a dream, as if she had been so dazzled by Herculeah’s hair that she had forgotten her mission.

  “Did you find it?” she asked in a tired whisper.

  “What?”

  “Did you?”

  “Did I find what you threw from the tower? Is that what you want to know?”

  “Yes.”

  “No. What did you throw? Why?”

  But the woman seemed to be fading, to be shrinking.

  “I don’t know.” Then she had one final burst of energy. “When you find it, you will know,” she said.

  She got to her feet and, holding the banister, began to pull herself up the stairs.

  “Wait.” Now it was Herculeah who reached through the banisters, her fingers brushing the worn fabric of the woman’s dress as she moved out of range. “Wait.”

  The woman shook her head. She chuckled to herself and disappeared onto the landing.

  “It’s not funny,” Herculeah said to the empty hallway. Then she sighed and walked to the door.

  15

  THE FOURTH FAINT

  “I just had a talk with the woman who threw something at you from the tower,” Herculeah told Meat.

  “You actually talked to her?”

  “Yes.”

  “She admitted she threw something?”

  “Yes.”

  “So what was it?”

  “The most intelligent thing I got out of her was that when we find it, we will know what it is.”

  “Great. So is your mom coming?” Meat asked.

  “Our ride is on the way, Meat. Sit down.” She patted the step beside her.

  “Your mom is coming, right? You didn’t—”

  To divert Meat, Herculeah said quickly, “You know, Meat, you really ought to do something about your fainting. You faint all the time.”

  He was diverted. “I do not.”

  “Well,” Herculeah said, “you fainted that time at Madame Rosa’s.”

  Meat said, “Yes,” quickly, hoping that would end the story.

  “You were sitting out in the hall,” Herculeah recounted, “and you thought the murderer was coming down the stairs—”

  “The murderer was coming down the stairs.”

  “Yes, it was the murderer, but you thought it was Madame Rosa’s ghost. That’s why you fainted.”

  Meat said, “Getting back to our ride ...”

  Herculeah said, “Then there was that time you were in the park and you thought some boys were going to punch you in the stomach.”

  “They were going to punch me in the stomach.”

  “But they didn’t have to, because you fainted.”

  Why was she doing this, Meat wondered, bringing up his fainting? Was she trying to divert him? Oh, yes—the ride!

  He heard a car turn into the driveway, looked up, and gave a gasp of dismay.

  “Oh, here she is,” Herculeah said cheerfully.

  “It’s my mom. You said you were calling your mom.”

  “I couldn’t get her.”

  “You didn’t tell Mom I fainted.”

  “I had to, or she wouldn’t have come. Hi, Mrs. Mac,” Herculeah called as she went down the steps. “Thanks for coming.”

  As he followed, Meat hissed, “Let me tell it.”

  Meat flung the door open. He said, “I don’t care what she said, Mom, I did not faint.” He got into the backseat and slammed the door.

  Herculeah had known he wouldn’t be pleased, but he had never slammed the door in her face before. She opened the door and said, “Scoot over.”

  At least he wasn’t too mad to scoot over, and Herculeah climbed in beside him. Meat’s mom turned around and gave her son a hard look. “So,” she said, “if you didn’t faint, what did happen?”

  “Nothing! I was standing outside looking up at the tower and birds started flying out the windows. And then an arm came and threw something and somebody yelled something and—”

  “You didn’t tell me she yelled something,” Herculeah interrupted.

  “I couldn’t hear what it was—probably something stupid like ‘Look up here!’ Where else would anybody be looking?” He paused. “Anyway, I got dizzy. Looking up like that always makes me dizzy. I sat down, put my head between my knees, and was fine.”

  Mrs. Mac’s gaze turned to Herculeah, so she knew it was her turn.

  “I was in the house when this happened, Mrs. Mac, so I didn’t see it. I had found this old newspaper clipping. It was in the back of the book I was reading to Mr. Hunt. It was a clipping about a tragedy years ago at Hunt House and guess what the tragedy was?”

  “Someone threw a stone from the tower and killed the governess,” Mrs. McMannis said.

  “Yes! Exactly! But nobody threw it. It was a loose stone and it fell.”

  “It was thrown.”

  “How do you know? The clipping said no one was in the tower.”

  “Someone was in the tower. There had to have been. My great uncle Ben was the stonemason who worked on the tower. He laid those stones, and he said those stones were laid to stay laid.”

  “Why would anyone want to kill a governess?”

  “Maybe the killer was aiming at someone else. I don’t know.” Herculeah looked at Mrs. McMannis sharply. “Who was close to the governess at the time?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Probably one of the twins,” Herculeah said thoughtfully. “The smaller one.” Her mind turned back to the family portrait on the stairs, to the figure of the smaller twin that had been damaged somehow.

  “Did the article mention that this was the second tragedy?” Mrs. McMannis continued.

  “Yes, I was going to the library to look that up.”

  “A man working on the tower was killed. Ben was there when he fell. No big deal.”

  “Except to the man who fell,” Herculeah said, “and his family”

  Mrs. Mac didn’t care for the comment. “No good can come from that tower or that house. You stay away from that place, Albert.” She turned the key and started the car.

  “He has to come, Mrs. Mac,” Herculeah told the back of her head. “It wouldn’t be any fun without him.”

  Meat looked at her in amazement. Fun? Hunt House was fun? He read the answer in her face. She thought it was fun, like something in an amusement park where no danger is real.

  As if the matter was settled Herculeah said, “Here’s what we’ve got to do tomorrow. Something was thrown at you from the tower, and it wasn’t a stone.”

  “ No.”

  “And,” Herculeah continued, “I don’t think it was anything that would have done you harm. I think the old woman was trying to tell you something or warn you of something.”

  “Why me?”

  “Maybe because she needed someone and you were there. We’re getting close. Whatever fell from the tower is the answer to the mystery. We’ve got to find it.”

  Mrs. McMannis glanced at Herculeah in the rearview mirror and
smiled sweetly. Herculeh never trusted Mrs. Mac when she smiled like that.

  “Oh, Albert won’t be able to go with you tomorrow.”

  Herculeah said quickly, “You don’t have to worry about him, Mrs. Mac, I’ll be with him every second.”

  “No, I won’t worry about him.” Now her smile changed as she looked at Meat, but Herculeah didn’t trust that smile, either. “Albert, guess who called this afternoon. And it wasn’t Steffie.”

  Now she looked at Herculeah. They were stopped at a red light now, so Meat’s mom was free to smile triumphantly without causing a wreck. “I’m not sure you remember Steffie, Herculeah. She’s that girl that was visiting and was so crazy about Albert.”

  “I remember Steffie.”

  “Anyway, it wasn’t Steffie this time. Albert, it was your dad. You need to stay home tomorrow so you won’t miss the call.”

  The light changed. The car moved forward, but the three people inside had nothing more to say.

  16

  THE THINK COCOON

  Herculeah took out her granny glasses. She put them on, hooking the thin metal wires behind her ears.

  Herculeah had gotten these glasses at Hidden Treasures, a secondhand store where she often shopped. Herculeah bought some of her clothes there, and other useful things. Once when she had been in Hidden Treasures, she had tried on these glasses. She couldn’t see anything out of them, but she discovered she could think better. The world seemed to blur into a mist, making her ideas stand out. “It’s like being in a think cocoon,” she had explained to Meat.

  She was sitting on her bed, waiting for her thoughts to clear when her mother came and stood in the doorway.

  “Have you got on those ridiculous glasses again?” her mother said. “You’re going to ruin your eyes.”

  Herculeah couldn’t see her mom, but she knew she was there. She pushed the glasses to the top of her head.

  “Hi, Mom.”

  “So what was the phone message about? Why did you need me to come pick you up?”

  “Oh, that. I meant to erase it. Meat’s mom came and got us. It was nothing. Meat fainted.”

  “Fainted?”

  “Oh, Mom, he faints all the time.”

  “I didn’t know that. So what was the excitement you mentioned?”

  “Meat was standing out in the yard and someone threw something out of the tower window, and Meat got dizzy watching it and fainted. End of story.”

  Herculeah sincerely hoped it was.

  “Someone was in the tower?”

  “Yes, the sister.”

  “I thought it was locked.”

  “The new nurse said there are keys if you know where to look.”

  “How would she know that? The woman’s only been there one day.”

  “Good question.”

  “I’ll have to talk to the lawyer. There’s been enough tragedy connected with that tower.”

  “I know. Meat’s mom told us. Someone threw a stone from the tower and killed the governess.” She eyed her mother, pretending to be critical. “You could take some lessons from Mrs. Mac.”

  Her mom knew Herculeah’s opinion of Mrs. Mac. She smiled. “How so?”

  “She tells us things. For example, if she knew what you were working on for Mr. Hunt, she would tell us. She doesn’t treat everything as a big secret.”

  Her mom seemed to think that over. “Mr. Randolph, the lawyer, was drawing up a will for Mr. Hunt. This was before his stroke, and he wanted some investigative work done. He contacted me. I was to find the other sister. That was the extent of my involvement, but I became interested in the old man. I felt sorry for him. I used to drop in and see him from time to time.”

  “This sister you were going to find. It’s not the old crazy one who left the message on your machine.”

  “No. There were younger sisters—twins. Only one of them is alive now, and that was who I was to find.”

  Herculeah had her mom talking now, and she didn’t want her to stop. “Everybody says there’s money hidden in the house—even Nurse Wegman. By the way, I don’t trust her. She’s weird.”

  “Mr. Randolph hired the nurses himself. They’re the same team that nursed his invalid mother, so you don’t have to worry about them.”

  “So is there money hidden in the house?”

  “I hope you haven’t been poking around the house looking for it.”

  “Of course not. Give me some credit. I’m smarter than that.”

  “Too smart sometimes.” Her mother changed the subject. “Did you get supper?”

  “I ordered pizza. There’s some left if you want it.”

  “I grabbed a bite on the way home. Incidentally, I’ll be leaving early in the morning.”

  “Don’t work too hard.”

  “I won’t.”

  She left and Herculeah put her granny glasses on again. “Think,” she told her brain. “Think about what could have been thrown from the tower. What could have sprouted wings? What—?”

  Before her brain had a chance to work, the phone rang. “I’ll get it, Mom, it’s probably Meat.

  “Oh, hi, Meat,” she said, “I was hoping it was you. Also, I’m hoping that you’ll go to Hunt House with me tomorrow. It won’t be any fun without you.”

  “Didn’t you hear what Mom said in the car? My dad’s going to call.”

  “I heard, but if he calls early ...”

  “Maybe.”

  “Don’t you want to find out what was thrown at you?”

  “I guess.”

  “Remember that old song ‘Blowin’ in the Wind’?” She tried to make her voice mysterious so he would be interested.

  “Yes.”

  “Well, something was blowin’ in the wind at Hunt House.”

  “And you’re going to find out what it was.”

  “I’ve got to.”

  “Call me when you get back.”

  “I will. Maybe I’ll call before I go—try to change your mind. I gotta go now. Good night, Meat.”

  “Good night.”

  Herculeah sighed. Maybe she could compete with a phone call from an airhead like Steffie, but not a call from Macho Man. She adjusted her granny glasses and waited, hoping to get an idea of what had been blowin’ in the wind.

  17

  HERCULEAH ON HER OWN

  This was the first time Herculeah had come to Hunt House without Meat at her side. She missed him. Being with Meat always made her feel she had to be brave and protective. She didn’t want anything to happen to him. And she knew she was going to have to be especially brave today.

  The night before, when her mom came in to say a final good night, she had said, “I’d rather you didn’t go back to Hunt House to read to Mr. Hunt.”

  “Mom!” “At least not until I’ve had a chance to talk to Mr. Randolph about the situation.”

  “Mom!”

  “And I’ll do that tomorrow. Good night, Herculeah.”

  Her mother had not, Herculeah reminded herself, said, “I forbid you to go to Hunt House.” She had said, “I’d rather you didn’t go back to Hunt House to read to Mr. Hunt.” And she wasn’t going to read. She wasn’t even going into the house. She was going to clear up a mystery.

  The house came into view, and Herculeah had to admit that the house did have a face, and not a welcoming one. She paused inside the open gate. Which was not welcoming, either. It was rather like a Venus flytrap, open to lure in the unwary. See, she told herself, if Meat were here and said something like that, I would make a joke of it.

  She continued up the drive to the house.

  The day matched her mood—gloomy. The gray arch of the sky overhead was lower today. She felt she could almost reach up and touch the dark patches of clouds.

  “It’s going to rain,” she told herself. Hurrying, she left the gate behind and, as if on cue, something hit the dry ground at her feet. It hit with such a sharp sound that Herculeah thought at first of a bullet.

  She glanced down. A raindrop. She sm
iled at herself.

  Meat, I could really use you, she said to herself. This house is getting to me.

  The single raindrop was followed by a smattering of them. Herculeah crossed the drive quickly and took shelter in a grove of trees.

  She paused. She hadn’t heard thunder or seen any lightning, so it didn’t seem reckless or unsafe to wait for a few minutes under the trees.

  As she waited, she moved slowly toward the tower, keeping under the protective branches. She felt an odd tingling as she got closer. It was as if she were moving not just closer to the tower but to the solution of its mystery.

  And there was a mystery.

  She turned her eyes from the tower to the house. There were no signs of life around Hunt House today. There were no lights in the windows, no smoke in the chimney. It reminded Herculeah of the vacation houses at the beach that had been closed for the winter.

  Herculeah continued to move closer. Now she could see the very spot where Meat had stood when he had seen something coming toward him from the tower, the exact spot where his body had lain after he had fainted.

  Her eyes narrowed in concentration. She began to calculate distances.

  But wait a minute, she cautioned herself. Meat had said something about wind. He’d told her that a sudden gust of wind had come up and sent the missile straight toward him.

  But nothing had touched him. So whatever it was had to have been carried farther by the wind. Perhaps it had gone over his head.

  Her gaze swept over the ground behind where Meat had fallen.

  And, she remembered, the missile had been light. It was not stone; Herculeah was sure of that. So if something light was thrown from the tower—a ball of fabric or a balled-up garment, and this ball became unfolded or unwrapped by the wind in the process, well it might have looked like it sprouted wings, as Meat described....

  Her thoughts were going so well, Herculeah thought it was as if she had on her granny glasses.

  And, her thoughts raced, if this something came unwrapped and was caught by the wind, then it could have gone much, much farther than she had thought.

  She began to retrace her steps, keeping close to the trees. The brief rain had stopped, but she somehow sensed that she still needed the protection of the trees.

  She glanced at the house. There was still no sign of life there. These grounds had once been tended and cared for. This had been a beautiful lawn with birdbaths and statues. She came to an overgrown clearing.