A Family Affair: A Novel of Horror (9 page)

The house appeared suddenly, without warning. It was almost, she thought, as if the blasted thing were hiding itself from her, in order to watch her unseen, and then springing up when she least expected it. One minute they were surrounded by nothing but wilds, and she would have sworn there was no sight of the house before them; the next minute the house itself, grotesque and unseemly, loomed up ahead of her.

The man she was following disappeared. She turned once, looking up at the house with mixed feelings of relief and distaste, and when she looked back, her companion, if he could be called that, was gone. She could almost doubt that he had ever been there.

“Oh, do be careful,” a voice said.

Jennifer jumped, startled by the unexpected sound of a voice, and turned to find herself facing Aunt Abbie. The older woman stood on the opposite side of a small bush.

“You might crush the roses,” Aunt Abbie went on, indicating the bush with a protective wave of her hand over it.

It was a rose bush, Jennifer saw, or at least it looked like one, with thorns and thick stems. But there was no evidence of bloom on it, not even of buds. The flowers were as invisible as those Aunt Abbie brought to her room; as invisible as the food they served at meals in the dining room.

“I'm sorry,” Jennifer stammered, pushing her matted hair back with one hand. Now why on earth, she asked herself, should I apologize for almost crushing some nonexistent flowers? Why was everything here so infuriatingly unreal? If something, anything, would only make some sense—but nothing did. At least not anymore. She was no longer able to say with certainty what was real, if any of it was, and what was imagined. And if imagined, by whom? By herself, or by them?

“You weren't in your room this morning when I brought the roses,” Aunt Abbie said with a sly little grin, as if they were sharing a secret.

“No, I was walking,” Jennifer told her. “I was looking for my car.”

“Your car?”

“Yes, you see....”

“Why?” Aunt Abbie seemed genuinely puzzled.

Jennifer took a deep breath, and in a patient voice, said, “It got stuck in a stream the night I arrived, and I would like to get it out. If only someone would help me find it. It's in the stream that crosses the road, I've forgotten the name....”

“Why do you want your car?” Aunt Abbie looked as if she really was trying to understand what she was being told.

Jennifer hesitated, not sure she should risk repeating that she wanted to leave. It might make them more determined to keep her here. She said, calmly, “Because all of my things are in the car, and I'm afraid they might be stolen if I don't bring them to the house.”

“If you promise not to tell the others,” Aunt Abbie said, leaning closer across the rose bush, “I'll do something special for you.”

Jennifer's heart jumped. Aunt Abbie was offering to help her. She had understood, finally, and now she was going to show her the way to her car.

“Yes, yes, I promise to keep it from the others,” she said quickly, dropping her voice instinctively to a whisper. “Please, will you help me?”

Aunt Abbie nodded. “I'll do something very special for you.”

“Will you lead me to my car?”

“I'll bring you some peonies,” Aunt Abbie said.

Jennifer was struck dumb. She stared in disbelief at the pleasure written on her aunt's face.

“Peonies?” she echoed finally.

“They're so lovely this year,” Aunt Abbie said with enthusiasm. “I swear it, blooms the size of watermelons. But Christine doesn't like for me to bring them into the house. She doesn't like the smell of them.”

“Of course,” Jennifer said in weary agreement. Her hopes had faded and died. It was useless trying to get any help from them, any of them. They were all mad, and all against her. The only person who had helped her at all had been the man in the woods, and although he was rude, he had at least found her twice and led her out of the woods.

“That man,” she said aloud, abandoning her previous discussion with Aunt Abbie, “the hired man. Can't he talk at all?”

“Wilfred?” Aunt Abbie was fooling with her nonexistent roses again. “He can, but he so seldom does. Not for the last twenty years. He's still angry with me, of course. He'd leave if he could.”

“So would I,” Jennifer thought. But she examined this new bit of information. If that man wanted to leave, perhaps she could after all make an ally of him. She would certainly give that some thought.

“Angry?” she repeated aloud.

“He was my husband, you know,” Aunt Abbie said. Jennifer wasn't sure if that was meant to be an answer, or not. She could well imagine that being Aunt Abbie's husband would be enough to make one angry. She could almost feel sorry for poor Wilfred.

“I think I'll go to my room,” Jennifer said, completely disheartened. She was feeling the effects of her sleepless night. Her limbs felt leaden, and she knew that before she attempted to find her way again through the woods, she would have to rest.

“You missed breakfast, you know,” Aunt Abbie called after her.

Jennifer continued on her way without answering. She made her way back to the front of the house. It was more than infuriating, it was maddening. Her senses were literally reeling from all that had happened. She was scratched and bruised from that headlong rush through the dense woods. And although she had found some little bit of food, it had hardly been enough. She still knew nothing about her car or its location, or for that matter, her location. She was tired and she was hungry. She was also angry, and more than a little frightened. She might have died in the woods, just as she might have died in the tower above the house.

Finding her way back here was little comfort. She could die in the house yet, the way things were going. Judging from what she had seen of the occupants of Kelsey House, no one would much care; if they even noticed, which was not likely. People who could make a meal of empty serving dishes, or watch as she fell and broke her neck, could just as easily carry on conversations with her empty chair while her starved corpse lay rotting in her bed.

CHAPTER TEN

It was evening when she awoke. The light that m
anaged to find its way through the window of her room was all but gone. Jennifer's first realization was that she had slept through most of the day, after collapsing in exhaustion across her bed. She had not, she realized to her disgust, even taken the necessary time to pull back the spread, with the result that the front of her gray suit was now dismally black from the dirt that still clung to the spread.

“It can't matter much,” she said unhappily, looking down at the suit. It was already so crumpled and torn that it would never again be restored to good looks.

After a moment's consideration, she decided she did not feel much better as a result of the extended nap. Her head was splitting and her hunger had developed into gnawing pains that began at her stomach and spread through her entire body. Even sitting up in the bed as she did now was an effort that sorely taxed her vanishing strength.

She looked again at the darkened window. Her spirits sank still lower as she realized she had slept the day away. The daylight was gone and she had intended to do something about her car. Now she would have to spend another night in this crazy house. And by morning, unless she found something to eat, her strength would be even further diminished. It seemed unlikely to her that she could even manage the walk back to her car, assuming she could find the way.

The door opened suddenly without advance warning. Jennifer turned her head in that direction, intending to snap at the intruder. To her delight, though, it was the young girl who had been beside her in the dining room, the one who had taken no part in the farce of eating. Slight as their bond was, Jennifer looked upon this child as the one genuinely friendly person in the place, and she was truly glad to see her now.

“I came to see if you were feeling better,” the girl said, smiling brightly. There was something hauntingly sweet about the expression.

“I'm glad you did,” Jennifer said, and meant it “Please do come in. I—I've forgotten your name.”

“I'm Marcella.”

“And I'm Jennifer. Would you like to sit down. The bed is the best I can offer; here, let me turn the spread back.”

Marcella seated herself dutifully on a corner of the bed. “You don't mind my coming for a visit?” she asked.

“Mind? Heavens, you don't know what a relief it is to find someone sane in this house.”

“I'm supposed to be with the others, but Aunt Christine said I could miss the rites for the evening.”

“Oh, yes, the rites.” Jennifer walked to the window and looked down upon the front lawn. There they were, the whole lot of them, doing their queer little dance again. It looked, she thought, not unlike a children's game; handholding and twirling about. Or a square dance, perhaps. But the impression was that it was more than just a game, or even a dance. There was some deeper significance to it she felt certain; religious symbolism, perhaps.

“What does it mean?” she asked, genuinely curious. If only she could begin to understand these people, the mysteries here might start clearing themselves up. Everything was so totally incomprehensible to her. She might as well be in a foreign country, she no more understood anyone here than if they were speaking a foreign tongue.

“Mean?” Marcella sounded puzzled by the question. “Why, it's the rites. The moon rites.” She said it in such a tone of voice as to imply that that explained everything; probably, Jennifer thought, it does to her.

“Are you a relative too?” Jennifer asked, turning away from the window, back to her company. Curious though they might be, the rites could not help her get away from here. But Marcella might. She sensed a friendliness in the young girl's manner, and certainly Marcella did not behave like the others. Perhaps here, after all, was the ally she so badly needed.

It seemed almost impossible to believe that this sweet young thing was related to the other members of the household; but, she reminded herself unhappily, she was related to them herself. That was certainly a depressing fact.

“A relative of yours? Only a cousin, I think,” Marcella said.

Jennifer sighed and said, “It's so difficult for me to get all these relatives straight in my mind, after so many years of thinking I hadn't any.”

“Have you seen your mother?” Marcella asked when Jennifer paused.

Jennifer was startled; it was certainly a strange thing to ask. But the explanation was probably simple enough. As odd as the others in the household were, they had apparently neglected to explain her recent loss to this child. It was thoughtless of them, but not surprising.

“My mother is gone,” she said quietly. She thought that the most tactful way of putting it.

Marcella however seemed to experience some difficulty in digesting that information, and Jennifer feared perhaps she had been too tactful. She was on the verge of rephrasing her explanation, but Marcella went off on another tack instead, to her surprise.

“Were you happy with her?” she asked.

Jennifer, who had been standing, seated herself on the opposite corner of the bed and thought about that question. It was one she had never actually considered before, not openly and fully. Had she been happy with her mother?

“To tell the truth,” she said finally, “I don't think I know.”

“You don't know?”

“Well, it's a little difficult for me to explain. She was a very strong woman, and a dominating one. I'm afraid I never really lived much of my own life, I just sort of shared hers, if that makes any sense. If I were happy or unhappy, I was merely sharing her emotions. She wanted me with her always. Everything I did was with, or for her. Sometimes I thought even my thoughts were hers.”

Jennifer felt a little pang of guilt, discussing her mother this way, and with a girl she scarcely knew. And yet at the same time she experienced a sense of relief in doing so. She had never really had anyone to talk to before, never any opportunity to voice these thoughts that had so often crossed her mind, only to be pushed aside as disloyal and unfair.

She smiled wanly. “It isn't very easy to explain, I'm afraid. Even to myself,” she said.

“Are you happier now?” Marcella asked.

Jennifer shook her head. “Since she died, you mean?” Marcella nodded. “I don't know that either,” Jennifer said. “To tell you the truth, I don't guess I feel very much different. As I said, I never had a life, you see, and I don't suppose at this late stage of the game that I'll ever get around to having one. I could, I guess, but—oh, I don't know. I just don't really suppose she would want me to, somehow.”

She reflected upon her statement for a moment. “There,” she said, “that's what I mean. Gone or not, she hasn't stopped dominating me. Her life is gone, but she's still living mine for me. And to tell the truth, these last few days, I've wished she were here with me, to tell me what to do.”

“But she is,” Marcella said simply.

“Is what?”

“She is here.”

Jennifer frowned. She was thinking of the empty chair at the dining room table, saved for her mother. Perhaps this cult the family belonged to touched upon the subject of death. She tried to think of a tactful way to reply to Marcella's comment.

“Yes, it's true, in a sense,” she said, “that we're never parted from our loved ones. But only in a sense. And it isn't quite the same, don't you agree.”

“How did she die?” Marcella asked, ignoring the question. “I mean, was it sudden, or did she...?”

“Did she know?” Jennifer finished the question that Marcella hesitated on; she was glad to see that the child did accept the idea of her mother being dead. “Yes, she knew for quite a while that it was coming, which is always a little more unpleasant. I've always thought I would rather go suddenly, not knowing.”

“Still, knowing in advance gives you time to arrange everything.”

“I suppose that's true. Anyway, we don't as a rule get to pick how we die.”

Marcella leaned back, her hands behind her for support, and stared dreamily up at the ceiling with its paper flowers. “I was always frightened of drowning. I remember thinking how horrible it must be, with the water and the darkness and being so alone. But it wasn't that way at all.”

“What wasn't what way?” Jennifer asked. She had been growing uneasy as the conversation progressed. It was a morbid subject in the first place, and although Marcella might well be the most sane person in the household, she still did make some peculiar remarks.

“It wasn't that way when I drowned,” Marcella said matter-of-factly. “It wasn't horrible at all. It was like sleeping and dreaming. Someone, I think it was Mr. Hawthorne who said, ‘We sometimes congratulate ourselves at the moment of waking from a troubled dream; it may be so the moment after death.' I felt like that. I heard music, strange music, unlike anything I had ever heard. And there were such lovely colors; not patterns or designs of any sort, just colors. And then the bad dream was over.”

“You just fell into a lake and drowned, I suppose,” Jennifer said a bit cuttingly. It didn't matter much if she offended Marcella on this subject. These were not very pleasant illusions for such a young girl to be having, and perhaps after all it would be as well to see them nipped in the bud, before she really did become as crazy as the rest of the family.

“I didn't fall into a lake. It was the stream, the one that runs through the woods. And as a matter of fact I didn't fall, my mother....”

“Marcella,” Jennifer said sharply, interrupting the girl. She did not at all like the way this conversation was going, and she did not want to hear what role, in Marcella's fantasy, her mother played in this drowning. “I...never mind all that. I need your help. Will you help me?”

“Oh, I should love to,” Marcella cried, looking delighted at the prospect “What shall I help you to do; is it a secret?”

“Indeed it is a secret,” Jennifer said, reminded to drop her voice to a whisper. “I want to leave Kelsey.”

Marcella's jaw dropped, and her look of delight vanished at once. “But that isn't possible,” she said, shaking her head solemnly.

“But it is,” Jennifer cried, seizing the girl by her shoulders. “It must be.”

“No one ever leaves,” Marcella said. “But you'll grow to love it here. Everyone does.”

Jennifer released her hold on Marcella's shoulders. She felt like crying in the face of this new opposition. “How can I love it here?” she said. “You've seen what's going on. You've no idea how terrible I feel, or how frightened I've been. I can't sleep. There's no food, and no water even to bathe.”

“But there is water,” Marcella said, seizing upon that mention. “There's a bathroom right through that door.”

“Without water,” Jennifer snapped. Didn't the child see the predicament she was in, without having to argue every detail with her. “I can't even wash my hands.”

Marcella looked at her a bit doubtfully. “Aunt Christine says you just don't see things that are there,” she said. “She says you'll get over that after a while, and then you'll be all right.”

“But there isn't any water there,” Jennifer cried aloud. “Come here, I'll show you.”

Dutifully Marcella got up from the bed and went to the little bathroom with Jennifer. Jennifer twisted the taps violently. Nothing came from the faucets. She turned triumphant eyes on Marcella.

“There, you see,” Marcella said. “There's plenty of water, just as I told you.”

She was speaking exactly as if Jennifer were a child. She went to the sink, and began an elaborate pantomime of washing her hands in the nonexistent stream of water.

“You see, we can wash our hands,” she said in a sing song voice. “Let's wash our hands together, Cousin Jennifer, come on.”

Jennifer began to cry. She couldn't help it, the tears came to her eyes and a great sob welled up in her throat. She turned and ran back to the bedroom, throwing herself across the bed, and cried brokenheartedly. What was she going to do? No one would help her, no one. And she was so tired and hungry.

After a time Marcella came and sat on the edge of the bed, and patted her shoulder. “There, there,” she crooned in a low, musical voice. “It will be all right. You'll learn to love Kelsey.”

“You don't understand,” Jennifer sobbed. The sound of a sympathetic voice only made the tears come more abundantly. “I'm so hungry. I haven't had any food since I came.”

“Well, that's certainly the truth,” Marcella said.

Jennifer stopped sobbing and looked up into Marcella's concerned face. “It is?” she said. “I mean, you know that?”

“Why of course. I notice things. And I've been worried. I couldn't help thinking, she can't go very long without eating and not get sick.”

Jennifer seized the girl's hands tightly. “Oh, Marcella, can you help me with that, at least? Can you get me some food? Please, I beg you, real food?”

“Why of course I can,” Marcella said in a matter-of-fact tone. She pulled her hands gently free. “You just sit here and rest, and I'll see to it at once.”