The Sisters: A Mystery of Good and Evil, Horror and Suspense (Book One of the Dark Forces Series)

by Don Sloan

  Upstairs in the ground floor parlor, she lit a cigarette and plopped down on the overstuffed sofa that still wore a white sheet. The house was cold and could stay cold for all she cared. She pulled the bottle of Lindeman’s Bin 65 Chardonnay from the bag of groceries on the coffee table and dug in her purse until she found the corkscrew she kept there for emergencies like this. With a ferocity that belied her petite size, she thrust the corkscrew home and twisted it expertly until the cork popped out. Now, this was something she knew about.

  To hell with lighting furnaces, she decided. “I’ll just get warm from the inside out,” she said with a sharp laugh, and began to feel better. She poured a wineglass full to the brim, took a long, satisfying swallow, and began building a fire in the drafty old fireplace.

  She had slept on the colorful braided rug many times with Rob while the flames warmed their naked and intertwined bodies. “Well, warmth comes in all shapes and sizes,” she said, holding the glass in front of her eyes. She saw the first flames catch and hold on the dry oak branches. “I’ll get the hang of being alone if it kills me.”

  A chilling dusk was settling on Beach Avenue as Nathan finished his work. Laying the laptop aside, he rose and cracked his back to get the kinks out. “Looks like a perfect night for a stroll along the shoreline,” he said, pulling on the jacket he had finally taken off hours before when the furnace had equalized the temperature inside the old house.

  “I’ll be back in a bit,” he said and pulled the leaded glass front door behind him. Stars were alight in the azure night sky over the Atlantic Ocean as he hurried across the boulevard to the broad sidewalk that ran the length of the town’s beach frontage.

  He turned up his collar against the January wind and began walking briskly down the sidewalk. Above him the seagulls turned and soared on the breeze, crying to each other and floating effortlessly. Nathan looked up at them and smiled, remembering how afraid he had been of these bold winged creatures when he had come to the shore as a child.

  His father had encouraged him to try feeding them by hand, giving him a sandwich. Dutifully, Nathan had held it up only to find himself being dive-bombed by every seagull within 100 yards. Within seconds they had snatched him empty-handed and it seemed that thousands were demanding more, crying loudly and swooping at his little hands and head, so that his father had finally stopped laughing and pulled him close, swatting at the birds to make them stay a respectful distance away.

  “Are you all right?” his father had asked. Nathan had shaken his head and remained buried in his father’s warm coat until the fright subsided.

  Now, much older and wiser to the ways of seagulls, he admired these unscrupulous birds for their predatory instinct and for their wonderful ability to survive for thousands of years.

  “We should all be so lucky,” Nathan thought, and understood that while there would always be predators and prey, he was just happy to be a few links higher on the food chain than these birds.

  He continued walking, glancing out to sea now and again at the tumbling crash of breakers, and wondered at the fact that the ocean never stopped doing what it did. Endless and relentless, it did the same thing to every shoreline that it touched around the world, eroding each one inch by inch. But, unlike the swift and eager birds, the water was patient and knew that even the hard bedrock underlying the soft sand would eventually give way. There was no hurry.

  He turned his eyes toward the line of houses across the boulevard. All were dark, but he noticed that one had a glow coming from within. “That doesn’t look like an electric light,” he said, and jogged across the street to the sidewalk in front of the marvelous Victorian house from which the light emanated.

  It was definitely firelight, he thought, seeing the way it danced and flickered on the panes of window glass inset in the massive front door. Could it be that he was not alone on the boulevard at this time he had so carefully chosen for its delicious serenity? Or was this something worse? Could there be a fire inside, started perhaps by a short-circuit? He decided to knock.

  “Go away,” came the muffled response. It sounded like a woman’s voice. He knocked again.

  “Are you all right?” Nathan said loudly. “I mean, is there a fire?”

  A series of light footsteps ended with the hall light being flipped on and the door being pulled open suddenly. A petite young woman with a pixie-style haircut stood framed in the massive front doorway. She was dressed in jeans and wore a light blue down jacket. “Are you a fireman?” she asked.

  He smiled. “No, I’m a CPA. If you need a fireman, I’ll have to make a phone call.”

  “A CPA?” she said. “I don’t think I need any tax work done right now. But how are you at fixing furnaces?” Sarah held the glass of wine up to her lips.

  Nathan raised an eyebrow and said nothing. Small talk was not his expertise and now that he had discovered that no one was in danger, he wanted to be off again. The young woman put her hand out suddenly and gave his hand a quick shake.

  “Sarah Claymore,” she said, and sensing his uneasiness she smiled. “Sorry―I don’t mean to be rude. I’m just a little cold and tired.”

  “That’s okay,” Nathan said. “So you can’t get your furnace started? I don’t mind taking a quick look.”

  “Would you? I’d appreciate it more than you know. Since it’s Sunday I can’t get anyone on the phone to come out and get the pilot light lit for me. Please come in. Would you like a glass of wine or something?”

  Nathan stepped into the hallway, which, much like his house, was wide and long, running the length of the structure. Sheets were still on every stick of furniture, and the place was cold. “No, thanks. Which way to the basement?”

  “Around this corner,” Sarah said and stepped quickly to open a door and turn the light switch on. “I just got in from Philadelphia. Do you live around here?”

  Nathan started down the creaky stairs. “No―Philadelphia, also. I’m down here on vacation. Did you check the fuel oil tank?”

  “Yes,” Sarah said, following him down. “I called and had it filled before I came. Philly?”

  Nathan reached the furnace and saw the screwdriver and screws, marking the place where Sarah had been at work. “Did you say you were trying to light the pilot light?”

  “Yes, but I couldn’t get it to catch.”

  Nathan looked around for a flashlight, found the one Sarah had been using, and looked inside the furnace opening, a two-inch hole with a flip-up cover. “Well, I think I found the problem. There’s no pilot light on this furnace. It has an igniter switch. Did you turn the thermostat up?”

  “No. Is that important?” Sarah asked, sipping a little wine.

  “Yeah, kind of. Go and turn the thermostat up to about 80 and let’s see what happens.” As Sarah headed up the stairs, Nathan stood far back from the furnace opening and waited. In less than five seconds, fire and sooty smoke leaped from the small opening, accompanied by the strong odor of fuel oil. The fire turned blue, then white and subsided back into the furnace. Nathan stepped back to the small opening, flipped the cover back down and screwed it shut.

  “Is anything happening?” came a voice from the top of the stairs.

  “I think it will be fine now,” he said. “I’m coming back up.”

  Sarah was in the kitchen near the top of the stairs. She had brought the groceries in from the parlor and begun emptying the plastic bags. Nathan stood at the doorway.

  “You should start feeling a difference pretty soon,” he said. “Someone installed a new furnace down there―one that doesn’t have a pilot light. That was your problem. How long has it been since you were here?”

  “Too long,” she said. “Five years―maybe six. I forget. You sure you don’t want some wine?” She had finished the glass and poured herself a refill.

  “No, I’m sure. Thanks. I think I’ll finish my walk and then head back to my house. Make sure to leave the thermostat at around 65 or so. That should keep you pretty comfortable without usin
g all your oil” He began making his way toward the front door and she fell in step beside him.

  “Where in Philadelphia?” she asked.

  “Excuse me?” Nathan said.

  “Philadelphia. I grew up there. South Philly.”

  “I live just about downtown, off Broad Street.”

  “Oh,” Sarah said and stuck out her hand again. “Well, thanks for fixing the furnace.”

  “You’re welcome. Hope your stay here is pleasant.”

  She laughed. “At least I’ll be warm now.” They were at the front door, which she held open for him. “Thanks again.”

  “No problem. Take care.” He walked down the front steps quickly and jogged across to the wide walkway that fronted the beach. When he had gone about 50 yards he looked back.

  The front hall light had been turned off, so the firelight from the living room still played on the door windowpanes. He supposed she had gone back into the kitchen. He was just trying to remember her name when he stopped suddenly.

  Up on the third floor, just under the eaves, was a small dormer window. He thought for a second he had seen some movement up there―a shadow of some kind―but now, as the January wind whipped around him and the stars shone out bright above the old house, he decided he must have been mistaken. Besides, he thought, she was too pretty to be there alone. There was probably some guy upstairs unpacking.

  He took one last look, but there were no lights on upstairs or anywhere else that he could see―just the firelight that still flickered on the thick bevels of the front door glass.

  He turned his back on the house and started walking toward his own, listening to the seagulls’ shrill calls and the constant, ceaseless booming of the surf along the shore.

  Sarah was halfway through her second glass of wine, and frying a couple of pork chops in a frying pan when it dawned on her that she had never asked Nathan his name.

  “Idiot,” she whispered to herself. “Would you like some wine, what’s your-name?” She started crying, and banged the frying pan hard against the electric burner of the stove. Boy, you sure know how to run them off in a hurry, she thought, and finally just broke down completely, sobbing into a dish towel and stabbing now and then at the chops with a fork to keep them from burning.

  Some frozen vegetables were melting into a watery heap in a saucepan on the back burner, and the French bread she had bought earlier at the market in town was browning in the oven. OK, Sarah, she thought―you knew this wouldn’t be easy. Pull yourself back together and at least make a meal for yourself without screwing that up, too.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw something move.

  She turned quickly but by the time she had wiped the tears from her eyes and could see clearly, there was nothing there. Just the rest of the kitchen, as it had been when she arrived, only warmer now with the furnace on and going full blast.

  “Hello?” she said nervously. “Are you back to do my taxes?” she asked the darkness in the hallway. “Well, that’s fine with me; I can also get your name,” she said and, starting with the hall, she turned on every light downstairs―the hallway, the living room, the dining room with its still-sheet-covered table and chairs, the parlor, where the blaze in the fireplace had died to embers―all the lights downstairs now blazed and lit the house brightly, chasing shadows up the stairs to the second floor.

  She thought for a minute of going up and turning on all those lights, too, and then decided that if she took the time to do that, her dinner would burn for sure. So, returning to the kitchen, she topped off her glass of wine and settled in for a good meal.

  “This will fix me up,” she decided and began putting out dishes on the large farmhands table.

  well, my dear, what do you think happened next?

  I’m sure I don’t know

  anything can happen in a heartbeat and does so often

  in a lifeboat out at sea, where the bodies are lashed in and drifting up one wave and down another, rubbing together and creating

  tea leaves―she read tea leaves for their fortune and it didn’t look as though

  the Hascombs had ever heard of such a thing as a gold rush

  well, rush or not it was all too clear what would happen next

  door to door it moved and silently took the babies

  no!

  yes, because they are the simplest to get at and make the smallest amount of fuss over every

  thing it touched turned a crimson color. And it was delighted.

  After dinner, Sarah climbed the staircase and, stepping onto the first landing, looked back over her shoulder. The feeling that she was not alone in the house had taken hold and she could not easily shake it.

  The interior décor was a mixture of modern and period design. She looked back down the wide staircase: broad oak planking from edge to edge, wearing a thin and threadbare burgundy carpet. The walls were covered in a florid paper of indeterminate pattern meant to resemble climbing roses; but now they were rendered simply as broad red splotches over a hunter green background. It seemed to Sarah that the pattern itself moved and scuttled whenever she looked away from it, so that thick clutches of flowers might appear within arm’s length of where she stood while none covered the vines ten feet away. The lights on the landing shone out brightly from wall sconces meant to resemble large clamshells.

  “I wonder who furnished this place,” Sarah said out loud. “It’s a cross between Martha Stewart and Martha Washington. Remind me to bring a decorator from this century with me next time I come.”

  She shivered, wishing now she had brought anyone with her. She was also regretting her rash vow to make this visit some kind of character test.

  She rolled her large, black suitcase into the first bedroom on her right, bumping the wheels off the carpet and onto the bare planking that, in sunlight, was charming and warm. Now the room seemed stark and uninviting, unwilling to give up the cold that seeped from its surface. The room itself was cheery enough, however, and had always been a favorite of Sarah’s in past visits.

  She clicked the overhead light switch and rolled the suitcase onto an oval rug next to the iron four-poster bed. With a quick motion, she yanked off the white sheet that covered the rich down comforter and feather pillows. This room was done up in yellows, her favorite color, with pale white accent paint on the wainscoting and windowsills. A fat, old-fashioned chair with ottoman sat in a corner next to an elaborately carved wardrobe and, across the room, an antique washstand, complete with pitcher and basin, was centered on the wall.

  She hoisted the bag onto the mattress and began unpacking. The pork chops had done a good job of filling her with counteracting ballast for the half-bottle of wine she had consumed, and she now only had a pleasant buzzing sensation that was making her very sleepy.

  Without much thought to organization, she shoved clothes, underwear, socks and other belongings into various drawers built into the wardrobe and then hung up a few bulky sweaters.

  The house was now warm enough for her to walk around without the jacket and she had left it downstairs in the kitchen. The blue cable knit sweater she wore over her jeans and Timberland boots would, with slight variation, be her favored attire for this visit. She never had been much of a clothes horse (whatever that means, she thought) and always chose comfort over style when possible.

  With her unpacking complete, she picked up the few toiletries she had brought, along with a thick cotton nightshirt and lilac velour robe, and stepped into the cold hallway to visit the single bathroom on this floor.

  Wind was whistling through the seams of the window at the end of the hallway and Sarah shivered again, drawing a thin arm across her well-formed breasts. The hallway light was on and stark shadows were drawn on the floor and walls by the heavy furniture that lined the hallway. She dashed quickly into the bathroom and threw the door shut behind her, fumbling for the light switch. She clicked it on and yellow light flooded the small room. Her heart was racing, though she could not say why.

 
“I really am going to have to cut back on that wine,” she said, and started getting ready for bed.

  Chapter 3

  The Monday morning sun rose bright and salmon-pink over the Atlantic Ocean, as big as a vintage dinner plate made from Depression glass.

  Nathan saw it rising from his bedroom window on the second floor of the big house and decided to walk into town for breakfast. He got out of bed and glanced at the large windup clock that sat on the nightstand. The ancient timepiece, which had ticked like a metronome all night, showed 7:05 a.m., a little past the time he usually got up for work.

  Well, he thought, I am on vacation. Still, he worried that the days might slip away a second at a time if he didn’t plan them out, and this he vowed to do over breakfast.

  After a quick shower and shave, Nathan dressed and stepped out the front door. He found that the wind had disappeared during the night, leaving a clear and cold morning that made his heart ache at its rare beauty. He looked up and down the porch and decided that after breakfast he would bring around a couple of Adirondack chairs from the storage shed in back. That way he could read on the front porch and spend at least part of his vacation outdoors.

  This idea pleased him very much and he zipped up his jacket against the morning chill before stepping onto the short front walk that led to the gate in the picket fence.

  Nathan was the new owner of this grand dame of a house; he had inherited it from his father’s sister, whom he knew only as Aunt Millie. She had never married, and had herself inherited the house from Nathan’s uncle many years earlier. That side of Nathan’s family had money―old money, it was sometimes called (usually by people who didn’t have any themselves). But the house had been in the family for more than a century, passing from one generation to the next, along with its family traditions and upkeep, which was not insignificant considering its advanced age.

  The house was built, along with many of its neighbors, after the Civil War, back in the days when servants had their own quarters up on the top floor of the house and life was considered to be more civilized.