The Book of Old Houses

by Sarah Graves

  “Wade, what’s that?” Nearly to Merrie’s house, a dim light bobbed alongside the road.

  I stuck my head out the window. Quiet here; houses set back from the pavement peeped from between ancient lilac bushes, the ghost of their springtime perfume still seeming to linger in the murk.

  Then I gasped as a figure suddenly took shape beside me and Dave DiMaio’s face loomed out of the fog.

  Wade slowed the truck. “I’ve lost my tie pin,” Dave said to me. “Horace gave it to me and I’m looking for it.”

  “Here? In the dark?”

  “Yes. I called your house a little while ago in case by some chance it was there. But it’s not, and—”

  He must’ve called right after we left; Bella might even have told him where I was going.

  And now here he was. “My tie pin,” he uttered, his flashlight beam probing the road’s sandy shoulder. “It’s got to be here somewhere.”

  Then the fog swallowed him up. “I think I’ll sit out in the truck and wait at Miss Fargeorge’s,” Wade said as we drove on.

  “Fine with me,” I replied, suddenly glad I hadn’t pulled the girl-in-a-nightgown-goes-into-the-dark-basement trick.

  Because it was very dark out here, indeed. And Prill the Doberman might still trust DiMaio, but I didn’t.

  Not anymore. A foghorn hooted lonesomely. DiMaio was out looking for something; his tie pin, supposedly. But another idea seemed more plausible.

  Scarier, too.

  Maybe he’d been looking for me.

  “Merrie, this is so good of you.” I set my bag down in her warm, delightfully cozy kitchen.

  Inside, Caspar greeted me less effusively than the previous time; first meetings were the animal’s specialty, I gathered.

  “My dear, I am delighted to do it,” Merrie said, bustling from the stove to the kitchen table where she poured me a cup of tea.

  Her mood had improved substantially since the last time I’d seen her, and if she noticed the way I kept glancing at the door—one look at my face and the hurried way I entered, as if even in her dooryard some creeping fog-wraiths might be after me, and she’d thrown the bolt with a decisive, fear-banishing click!—she didn’t mention it. “Old Eastport houses like yours are delightful, filled with history and atmosphere,” she went on as she poured her own cup.

  A plate of pastries appeared; gratefully, I took one. “But they can be full of other things, too,” she added with a touch of asperity.

  Right, like busted plumbing parts. Not that Merrie seemed to have any of those, or anything else that was broken, either. On the mantel the clock ticked peacefully. From the hall another one tocked, then suddenly cuckooed.

  I jumped, spilling tea. “I’m so sorry,” I began.

  “Never mind, never mind.” She got up and fetched a dishcloth with which she wiped away every drop.

  “After what you’ve been through I can’t say I’m surprised. I told people Bert Merkle was a bad man, but nobody listened. And I warned Jason’s mother that she should put a stop to it. Whatever he was up to over there, it was no good.” She sighed, folding the dishcloth. “Not that she could put a stop to anything. Or make Jason do anything, either.”

  “No. Nobody could, I guess.”

  I didn’t add that whoever had started the trailer fire, it hadn’t been Jason; instead I suddenly wanted to get my bath taken and go home with Wade, who waited outside as promised.

  Merrie Fargeorge’s warm kitchen with its good-food smells, beautifully tended houseplants, and shining-clean surfaces still felt like a safe haven. But DiMaio was out there somewhere, too, and I’d already pushed my luck too far once tonight.

  She shot me a look of sympathy and it struck me suddenly how judgmental I’d been about her. I made a sudden resolution to be kinder to her, even if at times she could be a bit difficult.

  “You poor thing,” she said. “You’ve been having quite a day for yourself, haven’t you, Jacobia?”

  She patted my shoulder. “You come along, now, and have your nice, hot shower.”

  Hung in the long carpeted hallway were dozens of old framed photographs, each with a printed slip fitted neatly into a slot in its matting. Ranging from small 1840s-era daguerreotypes to sepia-toned images of the late 1800s, it was a small but complete and possibly even museum-worthy collection.

  “Come along, dear,” she repeated; I hurried to catch up. “Take your time, don’t worry about a thing, and use all the hot water you like,” she added, opening a door.

  “Oh,” I breathed, looking in. Somehow I’d expected yet another old claw-footed tub, possibly with a jerry-built shower apparatus and a drafty plastic curtain. But this—

  The room was huge, floored in brown terra-cotta tiles and paneled in cedar, with a tub approximately the size of Noah’s Ark if the ark had featured spa jets, set into a tiled surround. A handheld shower wand perched at the head of it while at the foot a tiled shelf offered gently curved, heel-shaped depressions, so you could put your feet up and soak.

  “This is lovely,” I said inadequately, taking in yet more: a skylight over the tub. A small woodstove radiating warmth.

  “In the basket there are a few toiletries you might like to try.” Merrie indicated a profusion of French-milled soaps, exotic shampoos, and luxury skin lotions.

  Nearby on a hook hung a thick white terry-cloth robe; more shelves held thirsty-looking towels. There was a sea sponge, and a hair dryer with a comb attachment.

  “Oh, thank you,” I told her sincerely, eager to try bathing in the twenty-first century instead of the nineteenth.

  The tub was already full of steaming-hot water, I noticed as she departed. Getting in, I experienced the kind of happiness I’d thought was reserved for children on Christmas morning.

  Rub-a-dub. The sapone that I chose—it was labeled in Italian and rested in a large, heavy carved-stone soap dish—smelled like heaven and lathered generously. It washed away the smoke and the clinging stink of fear.

  Built into the room’s cedar-paneled corner was a slate-floored shower with a bright, positively enormous brass shower head. Pink with cleanliness, I pulled the canvas curtain shut around myself and turned on the spray for a final rinse.

  She must have a pressure tank, I decided as what felt like all the water on the planet began cascading luxuriously over me. Nobody gets this much water pressure without a—

  But then through a tiny space between the tiled wall and the shower curtain, I saw it. Out the window, which—I did a little fast mental geography—faced toward the road: the haloed beam of a moving flashlight.

  An approaching flashlight. But not on Wade’s side of the house; from where he waited in the truck he wouldn’t be able to see it. Naked and gripping the soap-on-a-rope I’d found hanging in the shower, I rushed to the window and drew the shade aside.

  There I found unhappily that the flashlight was a good deal nearer than I’d first thought. Right outside, in fact.

  But the side of the house was still blocking it from Wade’s view. Merrie’s little dog yapped once and fell silent; next came pounding at the door.

  The front door, drat the luck; still no line of sight from where Wade sat. Merrie’s footsteps pattered to answer.

  Don’t! I thought, but too late. The door opened and slammed hard as Merrie’s voice rose briefly.

  I scrambled for my clothes, tangled in a heap on the floor. No time for my bag. No time for getting dressed at all, in fact.

  Merrie’s voice, again, louder; then came a sound that could only be something striking somebody’s head, a sickening ripe-cantaloupish thump followed by the crash of glass smashing.

  Oh, Merrie, I thought as footsteps approached in the hall. Wildly I scanned for an escape route but found none; This, this is why you shouldn’t paint a window shut, I thought, struggling with it.

  But it wouldn’t budge, so I couldn’t even shout for help. And the bathroom door itself led to the hallway, which ended one way at a blank wall and the other . . .

&
nbsp; The intruder was coming the other way, toward me. Slow but sure, step by sneaky step, the stealthy sounds proceeded on floorboards that were themselves oddly silent instead of creaky as they’d been under my unfamiliar tread.

  But of course the intruder would be trying very hard not to make any sound on the other side of that closed bathroom door, which in my delight at the deluxe bathing arrangements, I hadn’t even bothered to lock.

  So there I was, naked and weaponless as the doorknob began turning, leaving me one choice:

  Quickly, I hopped back into the shower and cranked it on. As I did so, I pulled the curtain shut and started wrapping the rope from the soap-on-a-rope tightly around both hands, with a length of the rope loose between them.

  Because fear, surprise, and whatever weapon the intruder had brought along with him were a formidable combo, to be sure. But a naked lady armed with a strangling-tool made of a soap-on-a-rope was something else again, I thought determinedly.

  I just didn’t know yet precisely what. Meanwhile from beyond the shower curtain came the soft, unidentifiable yet unmistakable noises that in the movies always mean that the naked lady happily scrubbing herself is at that very moment being snuck up on by a crazed killer.

  And that’s what they meant now, too, except for the scrubbing part. And the happily.

  Still, I had to try something. Dave DiMaio might believe he had the upper hand at last but as I stood waiting, shivering and dripping, I decided that at the very least, I was going to wash that bastard’s mouth out with the soap.

  But then, perhaps stimulated by the vast quantities of fear chemicals coursing through my brain, a blazingly new idea occurred to me. Because after all, here I was in the two-hundred-year-old, historical-artifact-filled home of a woman whose entire life was devoted to Eastport’s past.

  And yet . . . dear heaven, I’d missed the obvious and it might be about to kill me, that foolish assumption.

  The bathroom door creaked softly.

  A hand thrust past the shower curtain at me.

  Gripping a big, sharp knife.

  Chapter 18

  * * *

  The hand grew larger and smaller. Drug, I thought with what little I suddenly had left of reasoning power, some kind of . . .

  The shower curtain snapped back. The abrupt change in light and perspective nearly finished me. A gray mist filled my vision and the water’s hiss rose to a roar.

  Whatever the drug was, it had come on fast; when I could see again, Merrie Fargeorge stood there, her eyes pitiless and her lips flattened into a narrow line of grim purpose.

  I’d hoped that when my vision cleared the knife would be gone, that it was some kind of medication-induced delusion. But it wasn’t; not even a little bit.

  Good steel blade and wooden handle; sharp point.

  Extremely sharp, and aimed directly at my bellybutton. Suddenly I knew how the fish in a sushi restaurant feel, just before the guy with the blurry-fast cleaver act goes to work on them.

  “Don’t,” Merrie said grimly, “move an inch.” She reached out and unwrapped the soap from my unresisting hands, dropped it.

  Actually I was too scared to move even a millimeter, and on top of that I couldn’t feel my feet anymore. A warm glow rose up through my chest; when it got to my head it would be all over.

  “What did you give me?” Wha’ygmugh?

  Her eyes narrowed, gauging the extent of my wooziness.

  “Caspar’s thunderstorm pills,” she replied. “They’re very strong; did you know that dogs require ten times the amount of tranquilizers that humans do?”

  I hadn’t, and I can’t say the information was very welcome, either.

  “Just wait a bit longer. It won’t,” she added, “hurt.”

  Well, that’s all right, then, I thought in some distant, as-yet-unanesthetized part of my brain; I guess sarcasm is the last to go.

  “Fuggoo,” I said. Which felt satisfying, but didn’t do any good, either.

  “You see, that old book of yours,” she began, and I knew the idea was to pacify me, to keep me still and not trying to fight until the drug finished its work.

  Then she would do whatever it was she intended to do to me. A horrid, ice-water thrill of panic shot through me when I began thinking about that.

  So I stopped. Caspar’s terror medicine didn’t want me to be anxious or upset. Lamb to the slaughter, I thought, staring once more at the sharp knife.

  “No, dear,” she said, noticing my gaze fixed on it. “I’m not going to stab you. Unless you try something,” she added coldly.

  Gee, what a relief. It seemed the acid-humor part of my mind would actually have to be dipped in acid before it would give up. Meanwhile I kept on trying to think of something, anything to get out of this madwoman’s clutches and get out of here.

  “That book,” she went on, “isn’t what you think it is.”

  Actually, I was pretty sure it wasn’t what she thought it was. But by now I couldn’t say so.

  Also I was losing the ability to stand upright; if I opened my mouth again, my jaw’s weight might unbalance me, throwing me forward onto that knife.

  “It was written by an ancestor of mine,” she said.

  From the nutball-murderer branch of the family, I thought, but by then couldn’t have pronounced for the life of me. Merrie’s sweet, round face with its bright pink cheeks and white hair swam in my vision.

  Those eyes, though: like a pair of cold steel drill bits. “Her father sent her from Halifax to work as a servant in one of the big houses,” Merrie said.

  My house, I thought confusedly. But then why . . . ?

  “As,” Merrie went on, “punishment for her activities. Girls didn’t read much then, you see, or at any rate not anything but Scripture. And certainly not books on witchcraft. This all came down by word of mouth in my family, you understand,” she added by way of explanation.

  And it was all completely irrelevant, I thought. But she didn’t know that, either.

  A sound came from the hall; my heart lifted. But it was only the little dog. “Hard work didn’t soften her heart, however,” Merrie continued. “The family employing her began noticing things.”

  I’ll just bet they did, I thought woozily.

  “The young man of the house fell in love with her, married her against his family’s wishes. He was the first to die.”

  That’s what happens when you start letting the servants have the run of the place. The story Izzy and Bridey tried to tell me, I thought.

  But then the thought floated away. I couldn’t feel my lips.

  “Angry, vindictive girl,” said Merrie. “She killed the rest off one by one. She was . . .”

  Mad, bad, and dangerous to know, I concluded dizzily. But the house hadn’t been Merrie’s and the book was a fake, so why . . .

  The shower enclosure turned faster. She smiled unpleasantly. “That’s right, dear. It won’t be long, now.”

  Only by standing quite still could I keep my balance, my precarious . . .

  “Once you’re unconscious, I’m going to bash the back of your head against the shower-floor ledge,” she informed me, “very hard, so I’m certain that the first blow kills you.”

  The world suddenly took on a weird, electronic wah-wah feel, some psychedelic special effect that made the shower walls expand and contract.

  “And later I’ll find you, the victim of a tragic accident. Most accidents, you know, do occur in the home.”

  Correct, I thought. You murdering bitch. I made a grab at her wrists. “You hit Bob Arnold?” I managed.

  Because even with the drug-sludge filling my head, it was an astonishing idea. Bob was so well-liked in Eastport that even the few habitual criminals we had wouldn’t hurt him, or even say very many mean things to him while he was arresting them again.

  “And . . . the fire?” My mouth was mush but she understood.

  “Oh, of course,” she agreed. “I was downtown doing errands when I saw you go into Bob’s office.
So I followed afterward to see what you might be up to, and happened upon my chance.”

  Right, and the charcoal-starter fluid, or whatever it was, had just jumped into her car all by itself. She sniffed proudly, as if explaining how she’d disciplined unruly schoolchildren.

  “I sneaked up behind him. Bob never saw it coming,” she said, unable to resist describing it all to the only person who’d never be able to tell anyone else about it.

  That is, her next victim. Which would be me. She jerked her wrists easily from my grasp.

  “Why?” I whispered. Ann Talbert and Jason, almost certainly Horace Robotham; Merkle, too, if he didn’t survive. And Dave DiMaio . . .

  Wade would’ve come to the back door, not the front. So it must be Dave out there on the parlor floor unconscious after that awful cantaloupe-thump. Merrie eyed me as if I should know why.

  “She married the son. The servant girl did . . . and they all began to die.”

  Yeah, yeah, tough to get good help. I was veering in and out of the drunken-humor phase of narcotics-overdose symptoms: Me smart, everything funny. Then without noticing the transition I was on the shower floor, water falling around me. Cold . . .

  “Before she killed her young husband she had a son of her own,” Merrie said. “Simon Fargeorge’s grandson, my great-great-grandfather. It must’ve been her intention all along, to produce a son.” She said it bitterly.

  Her eyes bore into mine. “He could inherit, you see, on her behalf. Her offspring. The son,” she finished, “of a witch.”

  And with that I did understand. All her exalted, colorful-local-character status, the authentic old Eastport bloodline that made Merrie Fargeorge so special, honored and treasured by all . . .

  The witch story was merely a fantasy, of course, a couple of centuries’ worth of fireside tales and malicious rumors, likely embroidered over time. No doubt the real servant liked reading and disliked praying. It was, in those days, a damning combination.

  But Merrie believed it. And if my old book were pronounced real, it would resurrect the story she’d worked so hard to suppress; in a heartbeat she’d go from living treasure to an object of lurid curiosity, while her treasured ancestors became the characters in a sordid soap opera.