Down a Dark Hall

by Lois Duncan

  “It was our one chance,” Kit said softly. “Our one last chance.”

  Never would there be another night like this one, with so much confusion and excitement, with people rushing in different directions and the office door forgotten and unlocked. It was a onetime occurrence. By the time the phone line was repaired, the house would be back to normal and the office secure against invasion.

  If I were Sandy, Kit thought miserably, I’d have hysterics. I’d stand here and shriek and laugh and bang my head against the wall. Or I’d cry. I think I could cry from now to eternity and still have more tears.

  But being herself, she did neither. She simply stood there in the darkness, leaning upon the desk, waiting for the inevitable. Madame would return to the parlor with the candles, and as soon as Professor Farley realized that Kit was not with her, someone would be dispatched to find her. And whoever it was would not have to think long to know where to look. It was only a matter of minutes. The hall beyond the doorway grew lighter and she heard the footsteps approaching. Then suddenly a flashlight appeared, turned straight into her face.

  Jules’ voice said, “Kit! What are you doing in here?”

  The flashlight beam moved to the desktop and found the phone, receiver off the hook. She could hear Jules draw in his breath.

  “You made a call?”

  “Of course.” Kit tried to keep her voice steady. “I called the police. They’re on their way up from the village now. You’d better tell your mother to get those gates open, Jules.”

  “Then why haven’t you hung up?” Jules came into the room and reached across her to pick up the receiver from the desk. He held it to his ear for a moment, then replaced it on the hook.

  “Good try,” he said. His voice was oddly gentle. “The lines must be down. Come on, Kit. Let’s get back to the others.”

  “I don’t want to go back,” Kit said. “I won’t sit there in that room with your mother and the professor and make conversation and act as though they’re normal people.”

  “Kit, please, I wish you wouldn’t feel this way.” He tried to put his arm around her shoulders, but Kit twisted free and stepped quickly around the desk chair so that it stood between them.

  “Okay,” Jules said stiffly. “If that’s the way you want it, I’ll take you to your room. You have to let me do that, at least, or you’ll never find your way without a flashlight.”

  He moved so that the beam of light made a pathway across the carpet and bounced against the opposite wall.

  It flickered upward across a pile of canvases and stopped—focused upon one that stood propped against the side of the filing cabinet.

  It was a moment before either of them could speak.

  Then Jules said softly, “Oh my god!”

  “Who did it? Who painted that . . . thing? It couldn’t have been Lynda.”

  “It was,” Kit whispered. “Who else?”

  She stared at the picture as though hypnotized, nauseated and heartsick, yet unable to tear her eyes away. The scene before her depicted a form of torture more horrible than anything she ever could have imagined. In the foreground, so real that it seemed to be bursting from the canvas, a woman’s white face shrieked out at them, contorted into an expression of unbearable agony.

  “But I thought—” Jules’ voice was hoarse with shock, “I thought she was painting landscapes! Rivers, fields, pretty things.”

  “Turn the light away.”

  Kit closed her eyes and when she opened them again the beam had dropped and the picture was coated with darkness.

  “Now do you see?” she asked quietly. “Do you begin to understand?”

  “It’s insane! Whoever created that is obscene—horrible!”

  “It wasn’t Thomas Cole.”

  “God, no!” He sounded bewildered. “Who? Do you have any idea? Has she told you?”

  “I haven’t even seen her in weeks,” Kit told him. “Your mother keeps her locked in her room upstairs. She won’t speak to us when we call in to her through the door. Didn’t you know?”

  “I knew she spent most of her time in her room painting, but I thought—” Jules’ voice broke. “Can you imagine, being in there alone, painting things like this? Holding a brush and watching them appear before you on canvas?”

  “I can imagine it,” Kit said, “and so can Sandy. Once the roads to the other world are opened, there’s no controlling who travels on them. Can you see now why your mother didn’t want to use you for a subject? You’re her son. No mother would do this to her own son.”

  “My mother doesn’t realize,” Jules said uncertainly. “I’m sure she doesn’t.”

  “She’s seen the pictures. They’re stored right here in her office.”

  “Perhaps this is a new one. Professor Farley might have brought it down today.”

  “There’s a pile of others. Do you want to look at them and see?”

  Kit could not see his face, but she knew what must be on it by the sound of his voice.

  “No.”

  “Jules,” she said softly, “the other day, I asked you about what happened to the girls who went to your mother’s European schools. You couldn’t tell me. The files are here, right in that metal cabinet. All we have to do is open it and look.”

  “I can’t,” Jules said.

  “You have to! You owe us that!” Kit reached out in the darkness and touched his arm. “Please, Jules, we have to know! Don’t you see, whatever happened to them is what’s happening to us! Doesn’t it matter to you? Don’t you care?”

  “Of course I care.” He shifted the light to rest upon the cabinet, and as it moved it flicked across the side of the picture, catching once again the woman’s tortured face. Every detail was so real that it seemed that the blood must surely have fallen to stain the carpet beneath it.

  Kit swallowed hard against a wave of sickness that rose in her throat, threatening to choke her.

  “Okay,” Jules said shortly. “Let’s look.”

  They moved together to the cabinet, Jules still holding the flashlight. There were two drawers, one above the other.

  Kit dropped to her knees, seized the handle of the top drawer, and pulled it out. It opened easily, disclosing a set of ledgers, bound in black leather. Behind these were several piles of canceled checks, held together by rubber bands, and a file of receipts.

  Kit regarded them wryly.

  “I wonder if there’s a record here of what she got for the sale of the Vermeer.”

  “We’ll look at the girls’ files,” Jules said. “I agreed to that, but not to confidential financial records. Shove that closed and pull out the lower drawer.”

  “Fine.” Begrudgingly, Kit pushed the drawer back into place and drew forth the one below it. This moved less freely and made a slight creaking sound, as though the grooves along the sides had begun to rust.

  “This is it!” Kit exclaimed, feeling her heart begin to beat faster. “It’s all names, arranged alphabetically. ‘Anderson, Cynthia,’ ‘Bonnette, Jeanne,’ ‘Darcy, Mary.’ There aren’t very many of them.”

  “She kept the student number small in the other schools,” Jules said, “just as she has here. Where do you want to start?”

  “With the first in line, I guess.” Kit reached for the folder labeled “Anderson.” “Shine the light on it, will you? Oh no!” She caught her breath in disappointment. “It’s in French!”

  “Are you surprised? It’s my mother’s native language. Mine, too, when it comes to that.” Jules took the file from her hand. “Here, let me read it.”

  “Out loud!” Kit said. A moment passed, and she said again, “Out loud, Jules! Translate it for me!”

  “Let me skim it first.” Slowly Jules moved the flashlight beam down the page, pausing here and there as though to reread certain passages. When he had finished he replaced the file and drew out the next one.

  “What did it say?” Kit demanded. “What happened to Cynthia Anderson?”

  “Stop pushing me, Kit,” Ju
les said gruffly. “I want to go through the rest of these. You can’t tell anything by one particular case.”

  “Well, hurry. Somebody might come looking for us any minute.” Kit bit down on her lip in frustration and lapsed into silence. Outside the storm continued to howl. In the office there was no sound except for the occasional rustle of paper as Jules completed one history and reached for the next.

  After what seemed like hours, he placed the final folder back into the drawer and pushed it shut.

  “Come on,” he said. “We’re going back to the parlor.”

  “Is that all you’re going to say?” Kit’s voice was squeaky with rage. “You go through twenty sets of records, and when you get finished you don’t tell me one single thing?”

  “I will tell you ‘one single thing,’ ” Jules said. “That thing is that I’m getting you out of here.”

  “You’re—what?” Kit stared across at him, trying to make out his face. “Did I hear you right? You’re getting us out?”

  “The sooner, the better,” Jules said. “Now, tonight, if it’s possible. If not tonight, then first thing in the morning.”

  “But what did they say? What was in those files? You have to tell me!”

  “I don’t have to tell you anything.” Jules got to his feet and reached down for her hand. “It doesn’t matter what those papers said. What matters is that you’re getting what you want. You’re going home, all four of you, if it means I have to drive you there myself.”

  There was such determination in his voice that Kit did not push the question further. She let him pull her to her feet and, shining the light ahead of them, lead her out of the office and back along the downstairs hall. The glow from the fireplace was a rosy strip under the parlor door. Jules pulled the door open and, still holding Kit’s hand, drew her with him into the room. Glancing quickly around, Kit saw that the scene had not changed measurably from the one she had left half an hour before. Sandy was still seated on the hearth, but she was quiet now, bent forward with her face buried in her hands, and Professor Farley stood above her, talking to her soothingly. Ruth had shoved a chair over by the fireplace and was trying to read in the flickering light.

  Madame Duret stood with her back to the doorway, placing a set of candleholders on the mantel. She turned as she heard the door open and said, “Jules? Where did you find her?”

  His voice was low. “She was in the office, just as you suspected, trying to make a phone call. The line must be down, though. The phone was dead.”

  “Thank goodness for that.” Madame turned her icy gaze upon Kit. “Did you really imagine you would accomplish something by that sort of maneuver? I should think by now, Kathryn, that you would have become adjusted to the fact that you are going to remain at Blackwood until you are sent home for the holidays. Nothing you do will change this, and life will become much simpler for you and for the rest of us if you will accept the situation for what it is.”

  “I don’t have to accept it!” Kit cried defiantly. “None of us do! Jules is getting us out of here!”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Madame said firmly. “Jules is doing nothing of the sort. That is something he told you to keep you from making a scene. Jules despises unpleasantness.”

  “It wasn’t!” Kit told her. “He means it! He promised!” She clutched tightly at the strong hand that held hers. “You did promise, Jules. Were you telling the truth?”

  “Yes,” Jules said.

  The word fell into the room like a stone into a pond. One single word, but in the silence that followed ripple after ripple rose and went sliding across to splash against the walls. Ruth lowered her book to stare at him in disbelief.

  Sandy lifted her face from her hands. Professor Farley turned, his mouth falling open.

  Madame Duret stood frozen, a candle in each hand.

  “What did you say?” she asked her son.

  “I said yes. I am taking them out of here. Tonight, if the storm lets up.” Jules spoke quietly. “I read the files, Mother.”

  “The files?”

  “From the cabinet in the office. The ones you kept on the girls from the European schools. I read the records on all of them, the things they did, the things that happened to them.”

  “Then how is it that you can speak of letting our Blackwood girls go now?” Madame was incredulous. “You saw their accomplishments. That little Jeanne Bonnette wrote three entire novels. We had them published under a nom de plume and the royalties made possible the purchase of Blackwood. And the black girl from Marseille, what was her name, Gigi? Over fifty oils, straight from the period of the French Impressionists.”

  “I saw Lynda Hannah’s latest oil,” Jules said.

  “Oh? Well, she is going through a stage. We cannot sell that.” Madame gave a sigh of regret. “I fear that Lynda’s productivity may be reaching its end. But as for the rest of them, they are only beginning! The good months still lie ahead! Who knows what may come forth from them!”

  “You think that’s important?” Jules asked.

  “And you do not? That I cannot believe. I heard you yesterday myself, playing Kathryn’s last tape.”

  “That was yesterday—before I knew.” He regarded his mother with amazement. “Do you really think I’d want to go on with it, having read those reports? How can you want to?” Jules was fighting to control his voice. “Mother, don’t you understand? I know what happened to those girls!”

  “What did the reports say?” Kit begged. “Please, Jules, she’s not going to give in. You have to tell us.”

  Jules hesitated, then made his decision.

  “Out of the twenty, four of them are dead.”

  “Dead!” Kit whispered.

  “Three committed suicide. One fell, trying to climb out of a third-story window at the school. That was classified as an accident.”

  “And the others?” Kit could hardly bring out the question.

  “The others went insane. Every single one of them is now in a mental institution!”

  From her place on the hearth, Sandy gave a little moan.

  Professor Farley shook his head reprovingly. “That was a very unwise statement to make in front of these girls, Jules. It can do nothing but upset them and make them unhappy. It was a cruel thing to tell them.”

  “Cruel!” Kit cried. “You call Jules ‘cruel’? You knew it all along! You and Madame Duret, the two of you—you’re not even human! You’re like two great big black vultures, feeding on our brains!” She turned frantically to Jules. “Let’s leave now! It doesn’t matter about the storm. I’d rather get hit by a falling tree or washed off the road or anything than spend one more night in this horrible place!”

  “I’m with you,” Sandy cried, pulling herself to her feet.

  “Ruth?”

  “I’m with you too,” Ruth said. Her face was dark with anger. “This is quite a piece of news nobody bothered to tell us. It’s one thing to be a receiver—I can see the value in that—but it’s something else entirely to know it’s going to destroy you.”

  “Now, girls, calm yourselves,” Madame commanded. “Jules, I am furious with you for causing this disruption. Perhaps there was some instability among our past students. We had not perfected our entrance tests at that point and inadvertently selected some emotional types who were too high-strung to be able to adjust to the situation. This has no bearing whatsoever upon what will happen at Blackwood. Each individual is different; you know that.”

  “Twenty out of twenty is good enough odds for me,” Ruth said. She was on her feet now, clutching her notebook against her chest. “Even if I’m lucky enough to be that one-in-a-million case who pulls through nicely, I don’t plan to stick around to find out. You were right all along, Kit. I’m ready to go.”

  “Kit, you go get Lynda,” Jules said. “Mother, we’ll need the key to her room and the one to the gate. How long will it take you girls to pack?”

  “Hardly any time at all,” Kit told him. “I’m willing to leave everyt
hing I came with except my father’s picture, and it’ll just take a minute to get that.”

  “I don’t need anything,” Sandy said. “I just want to get into that car. We can find out the bus schedule when we get to the village.”

  “I am afraid you’re forgetting something,” Madame Duret said quietly. “And that is that the keys are not at your disposal.”

  “You have them,” Jules said.

  “Of course I have them, but I do not for a moment intend to give them to you, nor do I plan to tell you where they are. The lock on the front gate will stay locked, and you will remain here, every one of you.”

  “You can’t hold us here!” Kit cried. “Jules won’t let you!”

  “Jules cannot do very much about it. It distresses me to see him take this unreasonable and sentimental attitude, but young men are inclined to get romantic notions. In this case, I am sure common sense eventually will win out. Jules is an intelligent boy, and the advancement of music is very important to him.”

  “Not this important,” Jules said. “Not when lives and sanity are at stake. Mother, I can’t believe this. Where is your sense of decency?”

  “Your mother’s value system is a good deal more solid than yours, young man,” the professor said irritably. “I would have hoped you would show some respect for her knowledge and experience. If nothing comes from this experiment but one short poem by one of the immortal poets of history, it will be worth more than the lives of four commonplace girls.”

  And to think that there was a time, Kit thought in amazement, that I thought the old man was sweet! Anger was building in her to such a point that she was ready to explode with it.

  “There’s one thing you’ve forgotten,” she said to Madame Duret, fighting to keep her voice steady. “Which is that we are the ones who receive the material from the world beyond. It’s ours, it comes through us, and we won’t take it one step further.”

  “If that is some kind of threat—” Madame Duret began.

  “It isn’t a threat, it is a statement of fact.” Kit lifted her chin defiantly. “There’s no way in the world you’re going to get this material if we don’t want you to. Do you know what I’m going to do the next time I find myself writing down music? I’m going to tear the paper up into tiny pieces and flush them down the toilet.”