Houses of Stone (23 page)

"That's why you refused to read it last night?"

"That and the fact that there wasn't time. The manuscript . . . We can't keep calling it that. What's the title?"

"It hasn't got one. I told you, the first pages are missing."

"You'll have to give it one when you publish."

"I already have." Karen hunched her shoulders and tried not to shiver. Peggy had actually unzipped her jacket. Didn't she feel the cold? " 'Houses of Stone.' "

Peggy considered the name, and then nodded. "I like it. Why the plural, though? You said she mentions only one such place."

"It's figurative. Like the poem. Enclosure, the imprisonment of women's minds."

"Uh-huh. Well ..." Peggy brandished her pencil. "Let's get on with it. Figurative or not, I want to locate that stone house before we leave."

Karen led the way up the stairs. "It's a weird place," Peggy said thoughtfully. "There was no attempt at architectural beauty or symmetry, just shelter—an enclosed block with small windows and thick walls. More like a fort than a house."

"There were Indians," Karen began.

"Native Americans, please," Peggy corrected. "By the beginning of the eighteenth century the local tribes had been pretty well pacified— driven out or slaughtered, that is. The other plantation houses in this area are beautiful mansions, as elegant and sophisticated in design as their English counterparts, and some of them were begun as early as the 1720s. I wonder when this house was built."

"What difference does that make? I'm only concerned about what it looked like in 1787 and after. Ismene couldn't have written her book before then."

"Just another little anomaly," Peggy said vaguely.

Finally she announced that she had seen enough of the house. She had not asked about the attic, and Karen didn't remind her. "What do you say we make sure Cameron isn't splattered on the driveway? We might invite him to join us for lunch."

However, Cameron, still on the ladder, declined to join them in the sandwiches and soft drinks Peggy had brought.

"You could faint from hunger," Peggy yelled.

He answered more patiently than Karen had expected. "I want to finish the shutters first. It's not worth the trouble of cleaning up."

"How about an hour from now?"

"For heaven's sake, Peggy, leave him alone," Karen whispered, pulling at her sleeve.

Peggy shook her off. "An hour and a half?" she shouted.

"An hour should do it." There was amusement as well as resignation in his voice. After a moment he added, "It's very kind of you."

"Kind, my eye," Karen muttered, as they headed along the path toward the back of the house. "For heaven's sake, take it easy, Peggy; he's even pricklier than I am, and if you keep hassling him he may refuse to let us come here again."

"No, he won't. He thinks I'm cute."

"Cute!" Karen couldn't help laughing. "Like a barracuda."

"He doesn't know me very well yet," Peggy said complacently.

Karen abandoned the argument. "What do you want to do now?"

"It's obvious, isn't it? We have to find the stone house."

Peggy took the lead. Pulling a pair of gloves from one of her bulging pockets, the older woman said critically, "You aren't dressed for this. Why didn't you bring gloves? At least roll down your shirt sleeves."

"I didn't know you were planning a trek into the jungle," Karen grumbled.

"You knew it was a jungle, you've been here before. I only surmised as much. Oh, well, all right, I'm sorry. I should have reminded you."

She had also brought a pair of heavy clippers, which she used briskly and effectively to cut away brambly branches and vines that blocked the path. No country girl herself, Karen was astonished to see how much the weeds had grown in only a few days. The moisture left by the last rain had had no chance to evaporate under the enclosing shade; the ground was slick and the leaves glistened wetly.

She tried to concentrate on finding solid footing and on avoiding the
branches that, despite Peggy's efforts, swiped at her face and caught in her clothing. She had not dared object when Peggy proposed the expedition. Any excuse she could have invented would have sounded suspicious, for under normal circumstances she would have been on fire to locate the structure Meyer had told her about. And under no circumstances would she have mentioned the voice she had heard. The auditory hallucination, she corrected herself.

When the distant murmur of sound—of water, just water, nothing else—reached her ears she burst into speech. "How did you know it would be like this? It really is like a jungle, hot and steamy. You can almost see tendrils shooting out and weeds growing, like a speeded-up nature film."

"Oft have I wandered Virginia's woods," Peggy said, stooping under a dangling branch. "Watch your head . . . And North Carolina's woods and so on."

"Bird-watching? Or are you interested in wildflowers? What are those pretty little pink things that look like tiny bells, on very thin stems?" She knew she was babbling, but she was afraid to stop talking. Silence might not be ... entirely silent.

"What pretty little pink things?" Peggy stopped to look. "You mean spring beauties? I don't see any."

"I must have seen them someplace else." She had run out of conversation, and Peggy was staring at her curiously.

The sound was like the wordless babble of an infant, rising and falling in the imitation of human speech patterns that leads doting parents to claim unusual precocity in their offspring.

"Do you hear it?" she asked.

"Hear what? Oh—running water. Can't be coming from the river," Peggy said calmly. "More like your standard poetic babbling brook. Sounds close. Do we have to cross it?"

"No."

"Your face is the funniest color," Peggy said, chuckling. "The way the sunlight filters through the leaves makes it look almost greenish."

She turned and went on walking. Karen took a deep breath. Water running over stones. Right.

By the time they reached the clearing she had dismissed her fears. Imaginary horrors hadn't a chance with Peggy around; she was too matter-of-fact, too rational. And—Karen noticed—in much better condition than she. Peggy's face was wet with perspiration, but she hopped over puddles and fallen branches with youthful agility and her breathing wasn't even quick. She let out a crow of discovery when they came out of the trees into the sunlight.

"This must be it. I wonder why this one spot is so open? There's water enough, and sunlight. Something in the soil, maybe." Her tone dismissed the question even as she raised it. "I don't see any structure, do you? Wait a minute—what's that?"

Karen had seen it too—a heap of tangled vines, intertwined like green snakes. There was an animal-like ferocity about them, as if they were fighting for survival, seizing and strangling their weaker fellows; and a kind of triumph in the way they had overcome and buried the ephemeral works of man. She recognized the signs now—edges of stone, too regular to be fallen boulders—and the raw breaks in the vines where someone had cut and pulled them away.

Peggy trotted briskly toward the tangled mass, clippers at the ready. Karen followed more slowly. Peggy had been right, she wasn't dressed for this project. Her sneakers were soaked, and it would have been reckless to attack the vines bare-handed; blackberry brambles and poison ivy mingled with flexible canes of honeysuckle, strong as rawhide. She watched with rising excitement as Peggy tugged cut branches aside, gradually exposing a stretch of fitted stones. Only a few courses remained intact, but they obviously formed part of a wall. The upper portion must have collapsed into the interior of the structure along with the roof, which had probably been built of more perishable materials, to form a tumulus-like mound.

With a grunt of satisfaction Peggy stepped back. "This is it, all right. At least it's an enclosure of some kind; I just found a corner. Have a look."

Her face was bright red and streaming with perspiration, but she looked extremely pleased with herself. As she had every right to be, Karen thought. She ought to have spotted that mound of vegetation herself. It didn't take an archaeologist to realize that vines wouldn't form a pile that high unless they had something to build on. If she hadn't let her imagination get the better of her . . . There was nothing unusual about the sound of the brook. It was just a pleasant musical murmur.

She reached the wall and leaned forward to examine it more closely. If there had been mortar between the stones, none was visible now. The longer she studied it, the less certain she was that it had been a house— or a dwelling of any kind. Surely stone was an unusual building material for that region and that period. Clearing the land for planting provided the settlers with a wealth of hardwood for construction . . .

It came without warning. There was no darkening of the sky, no rising wind, no change in the murmurous sound of water. This was a different sound entirely. It came from behind her, shrill and distinct, rising in volume as if it came from the throat of someone or something that hurtled toward her, racing along the path, across the clearing and . . . And died. The air shivered with silence.

Peggy was the first to break it. They had reached out instinctively to clasp hands; Karen's fingers ached from the pressure of Peggy's grip.

"Jesus H. Christ," Peggy gasped. Her face was a sickly shade of gray. "What the hell was that?"

"You ..." Karen's throat was dry. She had to swallow before she could go on. "You heard it too?"

"I'd have to be deaf not to hear it. There was nobody—nothing— there."

"But you didn't feel the cold ..."

"What cold?" Peggy peered into her face. "Let's get the hell out of here. Can you walk?"

"Of course."

Karen took a deep breath and forced herself to look again at the tumulus. That was all it was, a heap of fallen stone. Sunlight filled the clearing. The only sounds she heard were bursts of birdsong and the soft voiceless murmur of running water.

"Let's go," Peggy said.

"Don't you want to—"

"No. Start walking."

They had to go single file. Peggy followed close on Karen's heels. Neither spoke again until they had emerged from the woods. "I'd like to wash up," Peggy said. "Is it okay if we use the kitchen sink?"

"I don't see why not. We can go in the back way."

Peggy's face had regained its healthy color, but the bar of soap slipped from her hands when she started to scrub them under the tap. She
recaptured it and handed it to Karen. "I don't suppose there's anything to drink around here."

"The cans we put in the refrigerator—"

"That wasn't what I had in mind. Oh, well. It's a bad habit I ought to control." Leaning against the counter, she folded her arms and stared at Karen. "I never heard anything like that in my life. Can you think of a rational explanation?"

"Animals make funny noises," Karen said feebly.

"Very true. Siamese cats in heat, mating porcupines—you can understand why a female porcupine might object to that process—bobcats . . . I've heard 'em all, at one time or another. That was not an animal. And it was there, only a few feet away, when it stopped."

"What are you suggesting?"

"Not what you're thinking." Peggy rubbed the bridge of her nose reflectively. "That doesn't fit either. I've never had a psychic experience in my life, but I'm familiar with the literature. Your traditional ghosts don't appear in broad daylight without suitable accompaniments—frissons of terror, chilling cold . . . Wait a minute. What was that you said about cold?"

She'd never have had the courage to confess if Peggy had not shared the experience. After she had described the feeling of ghastly cold in the hall and in the attic, she added, "Cameron felt it too—in the hall. He tried to hide it, but I could tell. And although he took me through the rest of the house, he let me go alone to the attic."

"Hmmm." After a moment of cogitation Peggy shook her head. "There's no pattern that I can see. To me the hall felt chilly but it wasn't abnormal—just the ordinary cold of an unheated house. You weren't aware of anything unusual in the cellar, yet he was uncomfortable there."

"Claustrophobia. I don't have that problem."

"It's possible to find pseudo-scientific explanations for everything," Peggy muttered. "Claustrophobia, sensitivity to incompetent architectural measurements, collective auditory hallucination . . . Well, you'll be relieved to hear that I am not going to suggest a seance or a visit to the attic. In a way I wish I could buy the ghost story; it would be so much easier to summon Ismene's spirit from wherever the hell it is and ask her what we want to know instead of doing all this boring research."

Karen was prevented from replying by the arrival of Cameron Hayes,
who entered by the door leading to the front of the house. "Sorry," he said. "I didn't realize you were here."

"I don't know what you're apologizing for," Peggy said coolly. "It's your house. Ready for lunch?"

"Soon as I get some of this paint off my hands." He went to the sink. "Find anything interesting?"

"Yes, as a matter of fact. Do you know anything about that tumbledown pile of stones in the clearing?"

His hands stopped moving. After a long second he reached for the can of paint remover. "I'm not sure what you mean," he said.

Peggy took the can from him and removed the top. "Hold out your hands. I'll pour, you scrub. There's a path—you must know which one I mean, it's the only one—leading downhill toward the river, and an opening in the woods about—oh, quarter of a mile from here. The stones are almost hidden by vines, but they once formed a structure of some kind."

"A wall ..." Cameron began.

"Not a wall. This is a discrete mound, not an elongated structure. I can't figure out what it might have been," Peggy went on, half to herself. "The stones are massive; they wouldn't build an animal pen or storage shed out of such solid materials. Slave quarters and the other outbuildings that were part of a plantation wouldn't be located so far from the house. Any ideas?"

Cameron reached for a ragged towel and dried his hands. "Sorry. You might ask Lisa; she spent more time with our uncle, listening to his boring stories, than I did. It does sound like a strange place to find a stone building; I hadn't thought about that until you—" He broke off, his eyes widening. "Is that what you're thinking? A house of stone . . . Hers?"

"How do you know about that?" Karen demanded suspiciously.

Cameron raised his eyebrows. "I read the poems, after you explained your interest in the lady. I was . . . curious. Maybe I'm missing something, since I'm just a dull-witted reader instead of a literary critic, but I thought the house of stone was a figure of speech."