The Cruellest Month (8 page)

They huddled together in the cold and dark. Their flashlights bounced wildly over the decrepit house. The ‘For Sale’ sign had fallen over and lay like a tombstone, nose into the soft earth. As Clara swung her torch around more decay became apparent. The house was abandoned, she knew, but she didn’t think houses fell to ruin quite this fast. A few shutters were hanging loose and knocking gently against the brick. Some of the windows were broken, their glass jagged like sharpened teeth. Clara spotted something white curled up by the foundation of the house and her heart skipped a beat. Something dead, and skinned.

Reluctantly she moved down the front walk, its paving stones heaved and uneven. As she got closer she stopped and looked behind her. The rest were clustered at the roadside still.

‘Come here,’ she hissed.

‘You talking to us?’ Myrna asked, frozen. She too was staring at the patch of white curled against the base of the house.

‘No one here but us chickens,’ said Gabri.

‘What is that?’ Myrna inched down the path until she was standing next to her friend. She pointed and noticed her finger was twitching. Was her body sending out a signal? A Morse code? If so, Myrna knew what it was saying. Run.

Clara turned back to the house, took a deep breath, blessed her food, and walked off the path. The earth was squishy underfoot and seemed to hiss at her every step. Myrna couldn’t believe what Clara was doing and wanted to run forward and grab her friend back, and hold her and hug her and tell her never to do that again. Instead she just watched.

Clara approached the house and bent down. Then straightening up she walked more swiftly back to the relative safety of the walk and Myrna.

‘You won’t believe it, but it’s snow.’

‘It can’t be. All the snow’s long gone.’

‘Not from here.’ Clara dug into her pocket and withdrew a huge old-fashioned key, long and thick and heavy.

‘And all this time I thought you were just glad to see me,’ said Myrna.

‘Har-dee-har,’ Clara smiled. It felt good and she blessed Myrna for bringing her humor down this dark path with her. ‘The real estate agent was all too happy to let me have it. I doubt she’s shown the house in months.’

‘What did you tell her?’ Madeleine asked. Since Clara and Myrna were still alive the others had decided to join them.

‘That we were going to summon all the demons and exorcise the house.’

‘And she gave you the key?’

‘Practically threw it at me.’

Clara put the key into the lock, but the door swung open. She let go and watched as the key and the doorknob disappeared into the darkness.

‘Why are we doing this again?’ Monsieur Béliveau whispered.

‘For fun,’ said Sophie.

‘Not all of us,’ said Jeanne and stepping around them the tiny, gray woman walked straight into the house.

One by one they entered the old Hadley house. It was colder inside than out and smelled of mold. The electricity had long since been turned off and now the circles of torchlight played on the peeling floral wallpaper, stained with damp which they all hoped was water. Emboldened by the light, as though what they held were swords, they moved deeper into the house. The floors creaked under their weight and a flutter could be heard in the distance.

‘A bird, poor thing,’ said Gabri. ‘Trapped somewhere.’

‘We need to find it,’ said Madeleine.

‘Are you mad?’ Odile whispered.

‘She’s right,’ said Jeanne. ‘If nothing else, it’s a trapped soul. We can’t ignore it.’

‘But suppose it isn’t a bird,’ Gabri whispered to Hazel, who still couldn’t believe she was there.

Now they stuck together like a giant crawling insect. Multi-ped and
multi-feared they moved through the dank house, pausing now and then to get their bearings.

‘It’s upstairs,’ said Jeanne in a low voice.

‘It would be,’ said Gilles. ‘They’re never right by the door. Never in rose gardens in the summer or living in the ice cream man’s truck.’

‘This is like a game I used to play with Peter,’ said Clara to Myrna, who really didn’t care. She was trying to figure out whether, yet again, she’d be the slowest one out of there. Maybe Hazel would be slower, Myrna thought, brightening, and the demons would get her. But she’d probably put on a burst of speed if only to save her daughter. Myrna, as a psychologist, knew that mothers found amazing resources when it came to their kids.

Fucking maternal instinct, thought Myrna, screws up my life again. She stepped onto the stairs, the carpet runner worn and moth-eaten, and as she mounted one agonizing step at a time she heard the furious beating of the wings growing louder.

‘Whenever we watch scary movies and people walk into a haunted house –’ Clara was still talking. Good, thought Myrna. The demons will zero in on her. ‘– we’d play “When would you leave?” Disembodied heads floating around, screams of pain, friends disemboweled, and still they stay.’

‘Are you finished?’

‘I am actually.’ Clara had managed to scare herself even more and wondered, if this was a movie, would Peter be screaming at the screen for her to leave.

‘In there.’

‘It would be,’ muttered Gilles.

Jeanne was standing in front of a closed door. The only one closed on the whole floor. Now there was silence.

Suddenly there was a mad flapping of wings against the door as though the thing had flung itself against it.

Jeanne reached out but Monsieur Béliveau laid his long, slender hand on her wrist, taking her hand off the knob. Then he stepped in front of her and put his own hand on the knob.

And opened the door.

They could see nothing. Stare as they might their eyes wouldn’t adjust to the darkness. But something in there found them. Not the bird, which was silent for the moment. But something else. The room produced waves of chill and riding on them was the slightest hint of perfume.

The room smelled of flowers. Fresh, spring flowers.

At the door Clara was overtaken by melancholy, a sadness that seeped from deep down into the very earth of her. She felt the sorrow of the room. The longing of the room.

Clara gasped for breath and realized she’d been holding it.

‘Come on,’ Jeanne whispered, her voice seeming in Clara’s head, ‘let’s do what we came for.’

The group watched as first Jeanne then Clara stepped into the darkness. The rest followed and their flashlights soon lit the room in patches. Heavy velvet curtains hung askew at the windows. Against one wall stood a four-poster bed, still made up in cream and lace. The pillow was indented as though a head uneasily rested there.

‘I know this room,’ said Myrna. ‘And so do you,’ she said to both Clara and Gabri.

‘Old Timmer Hadley’s bedroom,’ said Clara, amazed she hadn’t recognized it. But such was the power of fear. Clara had been in this room many times, tending to the dying old woman.

She’d hated Timmer Hadley. Hated the house. Hated the snakes she’d heard slithering in the basement. And a few years ago this house had almost killed her.

Clara felt a wave of revulsion. A desire to put a torch to this cursed place. This place that harbored all their sorrow and anger and fear, but not because it was selfless. No. The old Hadley house first bred those things, sent sorrow and terror into the world, and its progeny was simply coming home, like sons and daughters at Easter.

‘Let’s leave,’ said Clara, turning to the door.

‘We can’t,’ said Jeanne.

‘Why not?’ said Monsieur Béliveau. ‘I’m with Clara. This doesn’t feel good.’

‘Wait,’ said Gilles. The large man stood in the center of the room, his eyes closed, his bushy red beard pointing to the wall as his head tilted back. ‘This is just a house,’ he said at last in a voice both calm and insistent. ‘It needs our help.’

‘But that doesn’t make sense,’ said Hazel, trying to take Sophie’s hand though the girl kept shaking her off. ‘Is it just a house or does it need our help? It’s one or the other but not both. My house never asks for help.’

‘Maybe you aren’t listening,’ suggested Gilles.

‘I want to stay,’ said Sophie. ‘Madeleine, what about you?’

‘Can we sit down?’

‘You can lie down if you like,’ said Gabri, flicking his flashlight over the bed.

‘No thank you,
mon beau Gabri
. Not just yet.’ Madeleine smiled
and the tension was broken. Without further discussion the group got to work. Chairs were brought into the bedroom and placed in a circle.

Jeanne put the bag she’d carried on one of the chairs and started unpacking while Clara and Myrna explored. They looked at the fireplace with its dark mahogany mantel and severe Victorian portrait above. The bookcase was full of leather-bound volumes from a time when people actually read them and didn’t just buy them by the yard from decorators.

‘I wonder where the bird is,’ said Clara, reaching for the items on the dresser.

‘Hiding from us, poor thing. Probably terrified,’ said Myrna, pointing her flashlight into a dark corner. No bird.

‘It’s like a museum.’ Gabri joined them and picked up a silver mirror.

‘It’s like a mausoleum,’ said Hazel. When they turned back to the body of the room they were astonished to see the place lit by candles. There must have been twenty of them scattered around the bedroom. It glowed, but somehow the candlelight, so warm and inviting at Clara and Peter’s, made a mockery of itself in this room. The darkness seemed darker and the flickering flames threw grotesque shadows against the rich wallpaper. Clara felt like dousing each candle, vanquishing the demons their own shadows created. Even her own, so familiar, was distorted and hideous.

Sitting now in the circle, her back to the open door, Clara noticed that four candles remained unlit. After each person had chosen a chair Jeanne reached into a small sack. Then she walked about their circle scattering something.

‘This is now a sacred circle,’ she intoned, her face alternately in shadow and light, her eyes sunken into her head so that they looked to be empty black sockets. ‘This salt will bless the circle and keep all within safe.’

Clara felt Myrna’s hand take hers. The only sound was the soft pelting as Jeanne scattered the salt round their circle. Clara’s head was tingling, alert to any sound. The thought of a bird swooping out of the darkness, talons extended, beak open and shrieking, was freaking her out. The skin on the back of her neck was crawling.

Jeanne struck a match and Clara almost jumped out of her skin.

‘The wisdom of the four corners of the earth is invited into our sacred circle, to protect and guide us and watch over our work tonight as we cleanse this house of the spirits that are strangling it. Of the evil that’s taken hold here. Of all the wickedness, the fear, the terror, the hatred that binds itself to this house. To this very room.’

‘Are we having fun yet?’ Gabri whispered.

Jeanne lit the candles one by one and returned to her seat, composing herself. She was the only one. Clara could feel her heart pounding and her breathing coming in short, jagged gulps. Beside her Myrna was squirming as though ants were crawling over her. All round their circle people were staring and pale. The circle might be sacred, thought Clara, but it’s definitely scared. She looked round and wondered, if this was a movie and she and Peter were watching it curled up on their sofa, which of them would get it first?

Monsieur Béliveau, craven, gaunt, grieving?

Gilles Sandon, massive and strong, more at home in the woods than in a Victorian mansion?

Hazel, so kind and generous. Or was it weak? Or her daughter, insatiable Sophie?

No. Clara’s gaze landed on Odile. She would be the first one lost. Poor, sweet Odile. Already lost, really. The most needy and the least missed. She was genetically designed to be eaten first. Clara felt badly for the brutality of her thoughts. She blamed the house. This house that blocked out the good and rewarded the rest.

‘And now we call the dead,’ said Jeanne, and Clara, who didn’t think she could get more afraid, did.

‘We know you’re here.’ Jeanne’s voice was growing stronger and stranger. ‘They’re coming. Coming from the basement, coming from the attic. They’re all around us now. They’re coming down the hallway.’

And Clara was sure she could hear footsteps. Shuffling, limping footfalls on the carpet outside. She could see the Mummy, arms out, bandages filthy and rotting, shuffling toward them, along the dark and damned corridor. Why had they kept the door open?

‘Be here,’ Jeanne growled. ‘Now!’ She clapped her hands.

A shriek was heard inside the room, inside their sacred circle. Then another.

And a thud.

The dead had arrived.

   NINE