by Lois Duncan
“Evidently not,” Jules said stiffly, “or I’m sure she’d have made me a receiver also. Everybody isn’t tuned for this sort of thing. You’re one of the lucky ones.”
“Stop saying that,” Kit told him. “There’s nothing lucky about it. Jules, I want to ask you something. The two other schools—the ones your mother had in England and in France—what happened to those? What happened to the girls who went there? Why did your mother close those schools and come to the United States?”
“I don’t know,” Jules said. “I’ve never asked her.”
“How can you not know? You were there, weren’t you, when the decision was made?”
“No, I wasn’t,” Jules said. “I was away at the conservatory. I’ve told you that. The only time I spent at my mother’s schools was during vacations, when they were closed. I didn’t take much interest in her work. I didn’t realize then the extent of what she was doing.”
“You didn’t know she was a medium?”
“I knew she had talents in that direction,” Jules admitted, “but I didn’t know she was using her students as subjects. And I had no idea she was doing something as exciting as bringing back the creative geniuses of the world. It wasn’t until she closed her school in France and made arrangements to come here that she told me about that. She thought that it would make me want to come with her.”
“And is it the way you thought it would be?” Kit asked him. “Are you happy about this, Jules, honestly? Can you look at what’s happening to Lynda, to Sandy, to me, and think it’s right?”
“Kit, you’ve got to adjust to this,” Jules said. “I agree, you aren’t in good shape. But it’s your own fault. You’re fighting this so hard that you’ve got yourselves physically and mentally exhausted. I don’t like to see you looking like this, all white and thin and worn-out, and I do worry about it. But the answer isn’t with me, it’s with you. If you’d just accept the situation and go along with it, I’m sure you’d be fine.”
“You don’t see! You don’t understand!” Kit cried in frustration. The tears, which she had never used to shed, were welling in her eyes. “Jules, if you do like me, if you’re really my friend, then help me! Help us all! Get us out of here!”
Jules shook his head. “I can’t. You know that. It would ruin everything.”
“Then if you won’t do that, will you do something else for me? Will you find out what happened to the other girls, the ones who went to your mother’s European schools? There are files on them in her office. She told me so herself.”
“What would you learn from that?” Jules asked. “They’re probably scattered all over the place by now.”
“You could look and see, couldn’t you? What harm would that do?”
Jules shook his head. “I can’t go digging through my mother’s private files. I’ll ask her, though, if you want me to, and let you know what she says. Or you can ask her yourself.”
“A lot of good that will do!” Kit exploded.
The tears were so near the surface now that she knew if she stayed a moment longer she would not be able to control them. Turning abruptly, she left the music room, slamming the door behind her, and went out again into the hall. A cold burst of air met her, fresh and damp from the outdoors, and she saw that the great front door was standing open. A familiar figure stood beside it, adjusting the collar of her coat.
Kit gave a startled cry and stretched out her hands. “Natalie!”
The figure turned, and Natalie Culler gave her a nod of acknowledgment. She completed buttoning the top of the coat and moved as though in preparation to step outside.
“Natalie, wait! Don’t go!” Kit hurried over to her. “What are you doing here?”
“Collecting my money,” Natalie said shortly. “When your lady fired me, she owed me two weeks’ back pay. I was so mad at the time, I just walked out without remembering it, but that money was mine. I earned every penny of it, and I came back today to get it.”
“How did you get here?” Kit asked excitedly.
“By car. How else? Think I’m going to walk up from the village?”
“And you were able to get in the gate?”
“I called ahead,” Natalie said. “She sent Mr. Jules down to open it. I guess she knew I wasn’t about to be put off.” She paused to stare at Kit, and the anger on her face faded slightly, to be replaced by concern. “If you don’t mind me saying so, you look awful, miss. You been sick?”
“Yes,” Kit said. “We’re all sick. The whole place is sick! Natalie, take me with you!”
“With me? You mean to the village?”
“Anywhere! The village would be fine. Just someplace where I can get to a telephone and make a call. Please, Natalie!”
“It’s cold out. You don’t have a coat on.”
“It doesn’t matter! I won’t be cold!”
“The missus would be furious,” Natalie said uncertainly. “She’d likely have me arrested for kidnapping. Why don’t you just write your folks and have them come for you, miss? That would be the best way to leave here, if that’s what you want to do.”
“I can’t,” Kit told her desperately. “Our letters are all—”
She broke off the sentence as she heard a door open into the hall behind her. There was a moment of silence. Kit did not have to turn. She could tell from Natalie’s expression whom it was that she would see.
“Natalie!” Madame Duret’s voice was like ice. “Please leave here. I have given you your wages, and I did not invite you to stay and visit.”
“Yes, ma’am.” There was a flash of pure hatred across Natalie’s face. She turned defiantly to speak to Kit.
“Good-bye, miss. You take care of yourself now. I hope you’re feeling better soon.”
“Wait, please!” Kit struggled to find words, and then, in a final frantic effort, she pulled the letter from her jeans pocket and thrust it quickly into Natalie’s work-worn hand. “Here,” she whispered hurriedly, “take this and mail it.”
Natalie glanced down at the wadded paper in bewilderment.
“Mail it? To who?”
“Tracy Rosenblum,” Kit said. “She lives at—”
“Kathryn!” Madame spoke from directly behind her. “Come inside away from that open door. You will take a chill.”
Natalie threw her one startled glance and stepped hurriedly out the door, pulling it closed behind her. She had the letter in her hand, but Kit could feel no thrill of triumph.
There was no possible way that Natalie could mail it when there was no address on it.
That night the winds came. Far and thin at first, like quarrelsome children arguing in the distance, and then closer, shrieking and crying in high, shrill voices in the branches of the trees outside the fence, they made their way to the doors of Blackwood and tried to get in.
All night long, they circled the house, trying the windows, howling around the corners, wailing in the eaves, until when morning came Kit was certain she had not slept at all.
Then she realized that her right hand was cramped from writing and that the music book that lay on her desk was half-filled.
“It’s the same with me,” Sandy told her later. “I try to fight it, but there’s only so long you can hold out. I don’t plan to sleep, and then suddenly it’s morning, and I have slept.”
Apologetically, she offered Kit a sheet of paper.
“Another poem?” Kit glanced at the paper and handed it back. “I can’t read that. It’s in French.”
“I can’t read it either. It’s in my handwriting, though, so I know I wrote it down.”
“Should we get Ruth to translate?”
“I hate to ask her,” Sandy said. “She’ll enjoy doing it, and I don’t want her to enjoy it. That sounds terrible, doesn’t it?”
“Yes,” Kit agreed. “Still, I know what you mean. She’s taking such pleasure in this that I want to smack her.” She paused and then said, “We don’t have much choice. It’s either ask Ruth or Madame or Jules, and Rut
h’s better than the others. You do want to know what you wrote, don’t you?”
“I guess so,” Sandy said, pocketing the paper. But she made no effort to go to find Ruth, and neither did Kit, who felt as drained and exhausted as if she had been outside all night running a marathon. They spent most of the day together in Sandy’s room, reading, talking a little, and playing a halfhearted game of cards. Late in the afternoon the rain began, lightly at first and then with increased strength, so that by evening the gentle patter on the roof had become a dull roar.
At six thirty they went down to the dining room, not so much from hunger as from the realization that neither of them had eaten since the night before. It was Lucretia’s evening off, and the meal left out on the table consisted of some withered-looking cold cuts and a bowl of soggy potato salad. The candles flickered erratically, and beyond the long windows an occasional flash of lightning streaked the black sky.
The food looked even less appetizing once they had put it on their plates.
“I can’t take it,” Sandy said. “I’m sorry, I just can’t make it go down.”
“We’ve got to eat something,” Kit told her. “We need all the strength we can get.” But after one or two forced mouthfuls, she too shoved her plate away. A great roll of thunder filled the room, and the chandelier began to sway, moving slowly back and forth like an ornate pendulum, while the hundreds of tiny crystals caught the light from the candles and threw it in a strange, iridescent pattern upon the far wall. Outside the wind screamed and tree branches scratched at the windows like clutching hands.
“Let’s go to the parlor,” Kit said. “At least there’ll be a fire.”
Ruth was there ahead of them, leafing through her ever-present notebook and eating a peanut butter sandwich.
“I went out to the kitchen and made it myself,” she said, cramming the last wedge into her mouth and swallowing. “I couldn’t face that stuff on the table.”
“That’s a good idea. Maybe we’ll do the same thing in a little while.” Kit crossed the room to stand before the fire. The heat felt good against her back, and the crackling of the logs was the first cheerful sound she had heard in a long time.
“Why don’t you give her the poem,” she suggested to Sandy, “and see what she can make of it.”
“Another offering from Ellis?” Ruth asked, closing her book.
“No,” Sandy said. “It’s in French. Ellis’s poetry is all in English.” She dug the paper out of her pocket and held it out.
Ruth took it and sat for a moment in silence, her eyes flicking from left to right as she scanned the lines. “Wow!” she said softly. “You don’t want me to read you this.”
“Why not?”
“You just don’t, that’s all. It’s—it’s not like that other stuff you wrote.”
“I don’t care,” Sandy said. “I want to hear it. I want to know what it is I’ve been writing.”
“Well, okay.” Ruth gave a slight grimace. “But don’t say I didn’t warn you.” She began to read, slowly, in an expressionless voice. As one word followed another, Kit, standing mesmerized in front of the fireplace, could not believe what she was hearing. Sandy’s face grew paler and paler. Finally she made a gesture to cut off the translation.
“No more. Don’t read any more.”
“I told you,” Ruth said. “I knew you wouldn’t want to listen.”
“It’s sickening,” Sandy said in a choking voice. “I’ve never used words like those in my life. It’s just foul, the whole thing. It makes me want to throw up.”
“Well, don’t blame me for it,” Ruth said. “All I did was read it, the way you asked me to. Who’s the author, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“I don’t want to think about it.” Sandy turned wretchedly to Kit. “Can you imagine the sort of creepy, demented freak that would spill out garbage like that?” She shuddered. “I feel dirty just for having held the pen. I wish now I’d never—”
She broke off in mid-sentence as the room went white with a glare of brilliant light. Instantaneously there came a crash of thunder so tremendous that the ceiling seemed to lift with the impact and a picture on the wall by the window fell to the floor with a clatter. At the same moment, the electric lights flickered and went out.
In the sudden silence that followed, Kit could hear her heart pounding in rhythm with the drumming of the rain.
“That—” She tried to speak and found that her voice had to be dragged from her throat. “That was a close one.”
Ruth nodded. Her glasses caught the firelight and threw back a reflection of leaping flames. “I bet it hit the chimney.”
“And now the lights are out. That’s just great,” Sandy said shakily. “Can you imagine climbing those stairs and trying to find our rooms in the dark?”
“I don’t want to imagine it,” Kit said. “I’m going to sleep right here. Let’s draw straws to see who gets the sofa.” She meant the words to be light, but they didn’t come out that way. There was the sound of voices in the hall beyond the parlor door. Madame’s, sharp and commanding. Professor Farley’s. Jules’ raised in a question. There came another roll of thunder, farther away this time, and the door opened.
“Girls?” the professor said. “Are you all right in here?”
“I guess so,” Ruth said. “Do you know what happened?”
“We think it got that big tree outside the dining room window. Jules is going to look, and Madame has gone to the kitchen to hunt for candles. There should be a supply of them there for use on the table.”
“At least we have a fireplace,” Sandy said. “We can pretend we’re at camp and toast marshmallows and tell ghost stories.” There was a moment’s silence, and then, as the full significance of what she had said came through to her, she began to laugh. It was a high, strange laugh, and once it started it would not be stopped; it poured forth, like carbonated liquid from a bottle that had been shaken and uncorked, gushing out, wild and uncontrolled.
“Stop it,” Ruth told her.
But Sandy could not stop. She sat down on the hearth and stared at them out of wide, frightened eyes, and continued to laugh while tears streamed down her cheeks in fire-colored rivulets and the wind shrieked around the corners of the house, straining to be heard over the beat of the rain.
“Sandra? My dear girl.” The professor came slowly across the room in his cramped, old-man’s walk, grotesquely silhouetted against the glow of the firelight, and bent to gaze into Sandy’s face. “Please, my child. You will have to get control of yourself.”
“She can’t,” Ruth said. “She’s hysterical.”
“She certainly seems to be.” The professor raised his head. “One of you girls, go fetch Madame Duret. She’ll know how to handle this.”
“In the dark?” Ruth objected. “The kitchen’s all the way at the back of the house.”
“I’ll go,” Kit said.
“In the pitch black? You’ll get lost in the hall.”
“No, I won’t.” Silently, Kit cursed herself for the eagerness in her voice. How was it possible that they did not hear it and turn to her in suspicious amazement? But they were both bending over Sandy. There was no one to see her, no one to stop her.
She stepped through the door, pushed it closed behind her and started down the hall full of darkness. She was not afraid. For the first time in weeks, it seemed, there was no fear in her.
She was moving purposefully and directly toward the thing that she was going to do. But quickly, for there was little time. Any moment now Madame might emerge from one of the doors at the far end of the hall, her hands filled with candles. Kit walked close to the wall, guiding herself with one hand, trying to gauge the distance she had come in comparison with that which she still had to go. She came to the door of the music room; her hand felt the frame, crossed the emptiness of the gaping doorway, found the wall on the far side. She began to count her steps, one, two, three, four—how many feet would it be from the music room door to the door of M
adame Duret’s office? She attempted to picture it in her mind, but the depth of the darkness around her blotted out all memory of the way the hall looked in the daylight.
Ten, eleven, twelve . . . had she come too far? Had she somehow missed the doorframe? Or, worse still, might she have lost direction entirely and be working her way toward the entrance to the dining room?
God, I hope not, Kit thought. If I end up there, I’ll never be able to get myself turned around and started back again.
Thirteen, fourteen, and she was upon it. The paneling of the wall gave way beneath her hand to the smooth, hard wood of the door. With a breath of relief, Kit felt along it, inch by careful inch. On their first trip across, her fingers missed the knob. On the second, they found it. Offering a silent prayer, Kit closed her hand upon it and gave it a turn. It moved so easily that she almost fell forward as the door swung open into the room beyond.
And she was in the office. She knew it by the feel of the carpeting beneath her feet, by the faint smell of paint from Lynda’s canvases, piled there for storage. Although she had been inside this room only once before, Kit could have described every inch of it, and she moved forward without hesitation in the direction of the desk. Her outstretched hand touched the back of the desk chair. She reached past this and felt the flat, smooth surface of the desktop beneath her palm. She groped over a pile of papers, a computer, and found her goal.
The telephone.
She would not be able to see the numbers in the dark, but that did not matter. If she punched enough buttons she’d eventually reach an operator.
In one minute, she thought, just one more minute, I’ll hear Tracy’s voice. Or her mother’s or father’s. And she would say, “This is Kit—I’m trapped at Blackwood. Help! You’ve got to help me!” Her hand was shaking as she lifted the receiver and her other hand felt for the buttons. So great was her anticipation that she had already drawn in her breath to speak when she realized that there was no dial tone. Silent and dead, the receiver lay against her ear.
For a long moment she stood there, unmoving, willing it to life. Then, slowly, she lowered it and let it fall from her hand onto the desk. The clatter was loud. It did not matter. Nothing mattered now.