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Authors: Gene Wolfe

BOOK: Castleview
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The telephone in the kitchen rang, one long peal.
Seth shrugged. “No phone in here. Just in the kitchen, and across the hall in Mom and Dad’s room.”
Another peal, this one cut short. Shields could visualize Mrs. Howard wiping her fingers before picking up the handset.
Joy said brightly, “I hope that isn’t another buyer. I’d hate to see you lose this place.”
Ann hissed, “It’s just sixty thousand, Willie. That’s all they’re asking.”
They could hear Mrs. Howard’s voice, faintly, as she spoke in the kitchen, the click when she hung up, then her slow steps in the hall.
Seth said, “I bet it is another buyer, Mrs. Beggs. Mom’s coming to get you.”
Her face was not precisely white when she entered the room. Makeup takes care of that, Shields thought afterward; even women baking, in the big kitchens of old farmhouses in little country towns, wear makeup now while they work.
She glanced at him first, for some reason. Then at Joy and Ann, and last of all at Seth. She did not look at Mercedes, or perhaps did not notice her.
She said, “There’s been an accident at the plant.”
CASTLEVIEW
JOY RETURNED Shields, Ann, and their daughter to the real-estate agency, where they transferred themselves wetly into their own car. Mercedes grumbled, “I sure hope it doesn’t rain like this all the time.”
“Of course not, darling. It’s fall—it always rains in the fall.”
“It’s dead here, Mom. It’s absolutely dead.”
Ann snorted. “How many people would you see on the street back home in this rain?”
“I asked Seth about this high school,” Mercedes continued. “You know how many kids go there?”
“I’ve no idea.”
“Two hundred and seventy-three. That’s the whole darned school—freshmen, sophomores, juniors, and seniors. Just two hundred and seventy-three kids.”
“I think that’s perfectly marvelous, darling. You’ll get to know everyone. It’ll be just like a little club.”
“And Seth won’t even
be
there!”
Shields muttered, “I wouldn’t be too sure of that, Merc.” He turned a corner. The Red Stove Inn was on Old Penton Road, and he thought he might have glimpsed a sign for it, though in the downpour it had been impossible to be certain.
“On account of the accident, you mean, Dad? Mr. Howard’s just hurt. He’s not dead.”
“Dead or dying,” Shields muttered.
Ann turned to look at him. “Willie, what’re you saying? Willie, I want that house!”
Mercedes leaned in, her head between her parents’. “Well, she said he’d only been hurt.”
“I saw her face,” Shields told his daughter. “Do you think she’d tell that boy his father was dead in front of a bunch of strangers?” He caught sight of the fiery neon through the rain, a small electric-blue VACANCY flashing below it.
Ann lowered her voice, a signal to Mercedes that she would be expected to behave as though she had not heard. “This is my money, Willie—mostly mine, anyway—and I want that house. They put it on the market, and we made them an offer in good faith.”
“Which they haven’t accepted,” Shields said practically. “Until they do, there isn’t even an oral agreement.”
The dark figure of a horseman appeared on the road before them as though it had fallen with the rain. Shields hit the brakes. The Buick skidded, its rear axle slewing left. He steered into the skid, pumping the brakes, his body braced for the crash.
 
Back at the Peak Value Real Estate Agency, Joy Beggs hung up her dripping raincoat and ducked into the tiny toilet to try to do something about her hair. A glance in the mirror showed her it was hopeless, and it was close to quitting time anyway. She put on a little powder and touched up her lipstick.
Fred Perkins, who owned the agency, inquired, “Were you showing?”
Joy nodded wearily. “The old Howard place.”
“How’s it look?”
“Good, at first. But—” The telephone on Joy’s desk rang, and she picked it up. “Peak Value, Joy Beggs speaking … . The house in Galena? Don’t worry about it, Sally. Nobody’s going to force you to move if you don’t want to … . Oh, Sally! Sally, I’m
so sorry. God, how tragic! … How awful for you … . What can I say? … Is there anything I can do? Anything at all? … Well, technically, I suppose financial counseling’s out of my line, but a lot of the work I do involves financing … . No, certainly it’s not too late. Sally, you’re a friend … . Stew and dumplings will be fine, whatever you’ve fixed. I take it there isn’t much of an estate? … What about life insurance? … Sally, you don’t have to worry, you’re sitting in the middle of sixty thousand dollars; compared to that, paying off the car’s chicken feed … . I’m on my way.”
She hung up.
“It’s starting to look good again,” she told Perkins.
 
Ann studied Shields sympathetically. “You’re itching to get back to your dealership, aren’t you?”
“I don’t want—”
“Willie, Mercedes can watch TV just as well with you gone. And I can readjust as well—better. Did you like that Chinese place where we ate last night?”
He nodded, hoping, yet not daring to hope.
Ann glanced at her watch. “You go out to the dealership. We’ll meet you at the Golden Dragon at seven thirty.”
He had already risen, but he said, “How will you get out there?” A moment too late, remembered to add, “Darling.”
“Call a cab. I know this is a small town, but it’s sure to have a cab or two. The woman here at the motel should be able to tell me who’s reliable.”
Shields was through the door before she finished speaking. It was not until he closed it behind him that he realized he had left his sodden raincoat dripping in the closet. It really did not matter, he decided. A raincoat that had soaked through was not much protection, and the rain was letting up a little now, anyway.
Fortunately, the car was right in front of their room. In one wet bound, he had the door open; and in half a minute he was
tooling back up Old Penton Road. There was no sign of the rider he had so nearly hit, no mounted figure lurking in the shadows, not even a trail that Shields could see.
The lights of downtown Castleview appeared, and he began to sing.
 
Mercedes asked, “Where’re you going, Mom?”
“Up to the motel office,” her mother said, shrugging into her raincoat.
“To ask about the cab?”
“That’s right. Want to come?”
Mercedes shook her head; she had already turned back to the TV. “I’ll stay here.”
Ann grinned to herself as she picked her way along the flooded brick walk; Mercedes only wanted to come when she knew she was not wanted. Hadn’t she herself been like that at Mercedes’s age? It was necessary, after all—it was precisely the things from which girls were excluded that girls had to learn if they were to become women.
“Evenin’,” the white-haired woman behind the counter said. “Everything all right in Number Ten for you folks?” She had been reading
The Weekly Castle View,
and laid it in her lap as she spoke.
“Everything’s fine,” Ann said. “I just wanted to ask you something.”
“Be glad to help, if I can.” The older woman studied her over the tops of her glasses.
“We very nearly had an accident coming here tonight.”
The older woman nodded. “Rain makes the road slick. Must be near to freezin’”
“It was somebody—a big man, I think—on a great big horse. He didn’t have any lights—” Ann paused, feeling foolish. Who in the world would expect lights on a horse? “And they crossed the road right in front of us. My husband tried to stop, but we almost hit him.”
“But you didn’t?” The older woman was still staring over her glasses.
“I don’t believe so. We would have felt it, wouldn’t we? Wouldn’t there have been a bump?”
“Hittin’ a horse? I’ll say there would. Wreck your car if you were goin’ fast.”
“Then I don’t think we did,” Ann said. “But it seemed like we ought to have. Do you know what I mean?”
The older woman said nothing; the paper rattled in her lap.
“I was wondering if you knew who it might be—who’d be out riding in the rain like that.”
The older woman nodded slowly. “Kids. There’s a summer camp down the road ‘bout five miles, only it’s only five miles by the road. If you walk or ride a horse, maybe three.”
“And they have horses?”
“Sure. Sometimes when they’re supposed to be asleep a kid will sneak out and get a horse and ride into town. They’d ride in the rain—do any crazy thing.”
“I’d like to go down there and have a word with whoever’s in charge,” Ann said.
“The name’s Sullivan or something like that. Just follow the road till you see their sign. Meadow Grass, they call it. Gate won’t be open now, though.”
An elderly man in an undershirt looked in through the door behind the counter. “She see the white lady?”
“Course not!”
Ann ventured, “What’s the white lady? Is that a local legend?”
The man in the undershirt chuckled and nodded as he stepped into the narrow space behind the counter. “Thumbs for a ride at night.”
His wife muttered, “No, she don’t.”
“Please. I’m a writer—that is, I just write cookbooks, but they have lots of local color, little stories, you know? I’d love to hear about the white lady.”
“Do you really write cookbooks?” the woman asked. “I might have a receipt for you.” She said
receipt,
Ann noticed, instead of
recipe.
“You like pear jelly?”
“Really good pear jelly,” Ann answered carefully, “jelly that actually tastes of fresh pears, is very—is
extremely
—difficult to find.”
“Then you got to get a taste of mine. Alfred, open up the gate for her.”
Alfred lifted a hinged section of the counter so that Ann could pass through. “It is good,” he told her. “Wins the fair ’most every year.”
“Every
year,” his wife declared firmly. It was not until Ann was on the other side of the counter that she realized the woman was in a wheelchair.
There was a small apartment behind the door. Pushing his wife’s chair, Alfred led Ann through a cluttered living room and into a tiny kitchen.
“Sit down,” the woman said. “Bread or toast? I’ve got a little zwieback too, if you care for that.”
“Whatever you’re having.” Ann seated herself in a bright yellow kitchen chair. A big jar of greenish-brown jelly and a big pat of butter were on the table already. Alfred brought in a chair for himself from the living room.
“We’ve got one of these electric hot water things now—it gives you hot water right away. Like some instant coffee? Or tea?”
“Tea, please.”
While the woman busied herself making tea, Ann whispered, “Aren’t you going to tell me about the white lady?”
Alfred chuckled again. “Emily don’t like me to talk about it. She’s afraid it scares customers away.”
“It won’t scare
me
away,” Ann declared. “I slept here last night, and I’ll sleep here tonight. We’ll probably sleep here tomorrow night, too.”
“Well, the white lady’s just a ghost some sees around here. I never seen her, and neither has Emily.”
Three feet away at the low drainboard, Emily interjected, “Don’t nobody see her, if you ask me.”
“She’s pretty, they say, and just a little bit of a thing. Sometimes people that see her think she’s a kid. She wears a gown like a nightgown that comes clear to her feet. It’s white, and she’s got long blond hair. She waits by the road, generally over here on the west side of town, and tries to get people to give her a ride. Only she don’t really thumb, like I said back there—”
Emily asked, “Sugar?”
“Yes, please.”
“She sort of stands by the road and begs. Holds out her hands, and so on.”
“Begs for what?” Ann asked. Emily set a sugarbowl and a spoon before her, rapidly followed by a plate heaped with homemade bread.
“For help, I guess. She wants them to take her someplace or help her find somebody. Sometimes she’s cryin’.”
“Has anybody ever picked her up?”
Emily said, “Long Jim
said
he did. I didn’t believe him then and don’t now.”
“Long Jim?”
“Jim Long, his real name was. He was about as tall as the flagpole in front of the post office, so everybody called him Long Jim. He stretched the truth to his own size, too.”
Alfred protested mildly, “Don’t do good to speak ill of them that’s gone. Jim wasn’t so bad.”
“Jim’s dead?” Ann asked.
Alfred nodded. “Ten years. I’d went to school with him, though he was a couple years younger than me.”
“What happened to him?”
Emily said, “You haven’t touched that bread or my pear jelly. Try some.”
“He was run over, that’s all. Hit-and-run driver.”
Ann spooned sugar into her tea and stirred. “What did he tell you about the white lady?”
Alfred shrugged. “She was real pretty and spoke with some kind of foreign accent. He said he tried to talk to her two or three times, but mostly she wouldn’t answer. Kept tellin’ him to go faster, and starin’ out the window at people they passed. Said when he saw that, he knew she’d gone past him a time or two when he was walkin’ himself. He recollected that white face at the window.”
Emily sniffed, and Alfred added, “Understand now, I don’t swallow all this. I’m just tellin’ you so you can put it in your book if you want to.”
“And I appreciate it,” Ann assured him, spreading butter on her bread.
“Then there’s the black rider.” Alfred chuckled, and took a sip of his tea. “The high-school kids tell that he’s the one chasin’ the white lady, and if you see his eyes, you die.”

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