A Family Affair: A Novel of Horror (6 page)

“Stop it,” she ordered herself. “You're allowing your imagination to run away with you, Jennifer.”

But it was there still, that feeling of being watched. She looked around again, but the room was still empty. Only instinct, some certainty that came from within, hinted that she was not alone. There was an eerie moment of conviction, when the presence that she felt was not physical at all, but had only intruded itself upon her mind. She shook her head firmly.

“The windows,” she said in a rising voice. The rooms all had windows, and from them she could see where she was. With a new burst of hope she ran to the window nearest her and peered out. A tree—what was it, a pear tree?—old and gnarled, hovered near the glass, all but blocking the view. There were bushes beyond it, and more trees. She had only seen the front of the house from outside, in the dark, and at the time she had been more observant of the scene on the lawn, that peculiar dancing that was going on, than she had been of the grounds. The growth outside gave her no clue to her location in the house, except that she was not at the front. She was sure of that.

She had been at the front when she started out, though; she had followed the hall
back to the front of the house, and had started from there. When had she turned? She tried to think back over the rooms she had come through, but they ran together in her mind. And the house was not straight, there was that funny angle to the wings.

She wanted to cry with frustration. She had the same odd sensation of unreality that she had had last night in the woods, a sense of being apart from time and the world, in another dimension as it were.

And then—had her senses been affected by all that had happened, or was that a breeze? Not just a breeze, more like a cold chill. She turned, startled, her eyes darting frantically about the room. The door across the room—was it the one through which she had entered—was swinging shut, closing itself. She stood frozen, watching it until it had slammed shut with a loud crash that echoed through the house, hurrying from room to room just as she had done. She thought, why I'm like an echo. I'm no more real than that sound. I've never been real. I've never been more than an echo of life, of reality.

That door had been closed before, she was sure of it. All of the doors had been closed, all the way through the crazy house. Why should this one be an exception?

She moved slowly across the room, stubbornly fighting down an urge to run, to scream, to do something other than remain calm. It took her a full moment to cross the room, and that long again to summon the courage to reach for the knob.

The door was locked. No, that wasn't possible. The locks were the old fashioned sort that would require a key to operate, to lock or unlock. There were no night latches here at Kelsey House. The door could not have been locked without a key, and there was no key in evidence. Unless the key were on the opposite side, in which case she had only to stoop and put her eye to the keyhole, and she would see it. But she remained standing.

She tried the knob again. The knob turned, just as a knob should do; but the door remained locked.

“It's stuck,” she told herself. “It isn't locked at all, it's only stuck. Doors do that. When it's wet, the frames warp, and the door jams shut.”

Of course, it wasn't wet at all, but dry and dusty in the house.

“A good tug will open it. All I have to do is hold the knob firmly and yank the door toward me.”

She brought her hand back from the knob. She held her breath, listening. She was imagining things, she must be. It sounded as if there were someone breathing on the other side of the door—but it couldn't be, no matter how much it sounded like it.

There was a perfectly logical explanation. There was probably a window open in the next room, and the wind was blowing the curtains, and the curtains were those wispy affairs that sounded, when they rustled in the breeze, like someone breathing. It was the same breeze that had blown the door open, and then shut again, and now the door was merely stuck. And she was being overemotional and not a little bit silly.

Except, there was no breeze stirring.

CHAPTER SIX

“Oh, there you are.”

Jennifer jumped at the unexpected voice. Her eyes wide, she turned, expecting to see the devil himself standing behind her. It was only Aunt Christine, smi
ling brightly at her.

“I couldn't find the dining room,” Jennifer explained lamely. She knew that it sounded foolish, but what was she to say: that she had been lost in this silly old house; that she had been frightened out of her wits by a little breeze? That she had thought she heard someone breathing?

“Why you were practically there,” Aunt Christine told her with a small chuckle, although Jennifer saw little humor in the situation. “But then this house is large and not too well laid out, I'll admit. You really shouldn't wander about like this until you're more accustomed to it.”

And there, through the next door, was the main hall, and Jennifer hadn't gone very far at all. Three or four rooms, she would have thought by the distance. But she had taken a wrong turn somewhere and had gone off down a wing of the house, circling about. If she had kept on, she would have found her way back in another moment or two.

They crossed the hall, entering a door on the opposite side and almost to the end, and they were in the dining room. There were a number of people in the room. At a glance Jennifer saw that all of them wore the same robes as Aunt Christine and Aunt Abbie, with one exception. There was an old gentleman seated near the end of the table, and he wore ordinary-looking trousers and shirt.

With a flush of embarrassment, Jennifer realized that the family were members of a cult of some sort. There were cults of all sorts, she knew from the Sunday supplements: nudists, for one, but there were others too, religious and all. Aunt Christine and the others were merely part of a cult that required the women to dress in this peculiar fashion.

“This is Jennifer Rand, Elenora's daughter,” Aunt Christine was saying, laying a hand upon Jennifer's shoulder. To Jennifer she said, “You know Abbie, of course. Next to her is Irene, your mother's sister, and Marge, and Helen. And that is Marcella over there.”

Jennifer gave each of them a smile and a murmured “How do you do.” The names meant nothing to her; she had thought perhaps one of them would recall some memory, some mention by her mother that had heretofore eluded her. But they were all new to her. She tried to commit each name to memory.

“We had hoped Lydia would be with us, but she was delayed. She'll join us soon, I'm sure,” Aunt Christine said, finishing the introductions.

Lydia. Aunt Lydia. It was the first name that meant anything to Jennifer; but what? There was a familiar ring, but whatever it was that almost popped to the surface of her mind disappeared again. No doubt she had heard her mother mention the name at some time or another.

“And that is your mother's seat,” Aunt Christine said finally, indicating the first of two empty chairs before them. “Right next to yours, dear.”

It was another peculiar habit, not to say a morbid one, saving an empty seat for a member of the family who has passed away. But then, the family was a strange one. Nothing seemed impossible for them.

Her first thought as she seated herself was that Aunt Christine had neglected to introduce the old gentleman seated at the end of the table beside her. Nor had he expected it apparently, because he had not looked up during the introductions. His frail old shoulders were bent over the table, his dull eyes stared absentmindedly at the plate before him. He was unbelievably old, she realized, a faded shell of a man, scarcely aware of anything about him.

She realized now that he was the only male at the table. The others seated with her were all women. In fact, except for the hired man who had found her on the road and led her to the house, this was the only man she had seen since her arrival.

“Is the whole family here?” she asked on an impulse, directing the question to Aunt Christine.

“No, I'm afraid not,” Aunt Christine answered, seating herself at the opposite end, at the head of the table. “Most of those who went naturally never returned, unless they simply wanted to be here with us, like—like one or two have done over the years.”

Naturally they never returned, Jennifer repeated the phrase silently to herself. And I can't say I blame them, I don't think I shall either, when I have gone. Which, she amended quickly, will be soon. She turned toward the old gentleman.

“I'm afraid I missed your name,” she addressed him, little caring whether anyone caught the inference.

“Oh, that's Morgan, Mr. Kelsey,” Aunt Christine answered for him. “My husband.”

Jennifer remembered then, with a start, her meeting on the road the night before, and the hired man's comment. She laughed aloud.

“Mr. Kelsey. Well, I'm glad to see you.” She continued to address her remarks to him, although he made no response to her attention but only stared silently down at the table before him. “I didn't expect to see you, I'm afraid. Your man, the one who brought me up from the road last night, told me you had been done in.”

She looked significantly up the table toward her Aunt Christine. “He said Mrs. Kelsey had done him in a long time ago.”

Aunt Christine seemed unperturbed by the remark. She laughed and said, “Oh, Wilfred has never forgiven me.” Mr. Kelsey still said nothing.

Jennifer found herself wondering whether Wilfred was the hired man, or someone she hadn't yet encountered. And what hadn't he forgiven her anyway? The difficulty in talking with these people is that you were never sure whether their remarks were intended as answers to your questions or not.

The others had followed this conversation silently and with polite attention. Now, at the sound of a footstep in the hall, they all looked in that direction. There was a sudden air of expectancy about the table, and Jennifer, sensing it, turned with them to look toward the door from the hall.

There was a lengthy silence and then another footstep, further away. Whoever was there had, it seemed, decided not to come in, and with the moving on of that presence, something in the atmosphere seemed to relax subtly.

Jennifer glanced toward her aunt. “We have another guest,” Aunt Christine said. “You'll meet her in due time.” She looked pointedly toward her plate.

As the night before, on her tray, the dinnerware was again spotlessly clean, Jennifer noticed; although, she realized unhappily, the chair she was sitting in was not. She ran a finger over a corner of the seat and the finger came away black with dust. She would indeed be happy when she could get in her car and leave.

“My car,” she said aloud, suddenly remembering where it was. “It was stuck down the road. I ran it into a creek. I wonder if your man couldn't bring it around for me, if he hasn't already done so?”

Again she had addressed her remarks to Mr. Kelsey, and again it was Aunt Christine who answered.

“Your car? I don't really think you'll have much need for that. The grounds are large, but there's really no place to drive. Most of the land is wooded and has never been cleared, don't you see.”

“But I will need it,” Jennifer argued, although she was careful to avoid sounding difficult, as her mother had used to put it. She added hopefully, “My clothes are in it. All my luggage. I left everything in the trunk.”

“Oh dear,” Aunt Christine said, appearing concerned for the first time. “Didn't Abbie bring you a gown? I gave her specific instructions to bring one to your room first thing this morning.”

Jennifer very nearly expressed her real opinion of the costume that had been provided for her, but she restrained herself. She knew from experience that too determined an attitude only created greater resistance. And she did not want to offend any of these people, however odd she thought them, if only because she needed help. She could not leave if she could not get her car out of that stream, and she could not do that without help, which she certainly would not get by angering them.

So she said, lamely, “It didn't fit.”

Aunt Christine appeared quite relieved to learn that the difficulty was such a minor one. “Well, that's no problem. I'll have another sent up for you right after breakfast. Abbie will bring it to your room, won't you, Abbie?”

“Oh, I'd be delighted,” Abbie said enthusiastically. She looked around the table, and the other women, who had remained silent, all smiled faintly and nodded their approval of this solution to the problem.

“My room,” Jennifer said, reminded now of the nightly incident and her mysterious visitor. “Aunt Christine, there was someone in my room last night.”

“How very nice. But I do hope, dear, that you will bear in mind, most of us retire fairly early here.”

“But it wasn't....”

“Do you say grace?”

Jennifer caught her breath at the interruption. Now this was maddening. How could she get the first degree of sense out of them if they did not allow her to pursue a single subject to its conclusion? She started to object, but she saw that the others at the table were still staring at her, waiting with what seemed impatience for her to permit the start of breakfast. And she herself, she realized suddenly, was starving. The last thing she had eaten had been a cold sandwich at some little shop along the way, and that had been at lunchtime yesterday.

“You naughty girl,” Aunt Abbie addressed her in a loud stage whisper, leaning across the table to wag a finger at her. “You didn't touch your dinner last night.”

“Oh.” Jennifer slammed her hand angrily down upon the surface of the table. That was pouring salt upon some sensitive wounds.

“Is something the matter?” Aunt Christine asked from her place at the head of the table.

Jennifer looked about the table at the faces turned expectantly toward her. Yes, she had seen those looks before. Her guess had been correct, she was sure of it. They were all of them waiting for her to protest about the food, or rather the lack of food, and that would give them all a good laugh—at her expense. She had been through this sort of thing so often. She had thought it was all behind her, but it seemed it was not.

“Yes,” she said, seizing upon the first thought that came to mind. “There's no water in my room.”

“Water?” Aunt Christine repeated the word as though Jennifer might have used a foreign phrase. “Water. I'm afraid I never even thought of that. But I'll see that it's looked into. Grace?”

Her face flushing angrily, Jennifer bowed her head and mumbled a blessing, which she amended slightly to cover her current situation: “...guide over me and bless me, and help me to get my car out of the creek.”

When she looked up she discovered that no one, not one
of the others, had bowed their heads. They were sitting just as before, staring at her as though she were some sort of freak. Then, as if on signal, they all looked away.

“They are mad,” she told herself silently, her eyes slowly circling the table. “They are every one of them as mad as hatters, and I must leave this house right after breakfast.”

But, she reminded herself, there was a problem. Her car was still stuck in the mud somewhere; to tell the truth, she did not have the vaguest idea where it was even. Which way had they come through those awful woods last night, and how far? If only that man hadn't walked so fast, she might have had some idea of the path they had taken, might have been able to watch for landmarks.

Well, he could just walk right back and get her car out of that creek for her before the day was out, she would insist upon that. She would find him herself and tell him so, and go along to see that he did it. She had seen as much as she wished to see of Kelsey House and its occupants, and she did not much care if they were family.

The girl at her left, beyond the empty seat that had been saved for her mother, was handing her something in a bowl. With a curt smile, Jennifer took the bowl and looked down into it.

It was empty. Not one crumb, not even a stain to indicate that it might have, say when it had started at the other end of the table, held anything.

She looked up, startled. They were passing platters and bowls and trays and helping themselves generously. It might have been a truly bountiful breakfast, but for one detail. The dishes were empty. There was not a trace of food anywhere on the table that she could see.

And the worst of it was, they were eating. Across from Jennifer, Aunt Abbie held a spoon in one hand and dipped it daintily toward her plate. She carried the spoonful of air to her mouth, and chewed at it

This, Jennifer thought, was carrying a joke too far. Fun, if one could call it that, was fun, but she could very well faint away from hunger while they carried on their tasteless joke.

I will not give in, she swore stubbornly, fighting down the angry words that had risen in her throat. She had that, certainly, a stubborn streak that even her mother had not been able to break. Quiet and meek she might be, but she could be as stubborn as a mule when the occasion demanded; and she thought that it did now.

I will sit here just as long as they do, she vowed silently, and I will pretend that I have not even noticed their little game. And when they finally do serve breakfast, I may even tell them that I am stuffed and cannot eat another bite.