Usher's Passing (28 page)

"Someone put it in Walen's crib." Her anger resurfaced. "Erik knows how I feel about exposing my son to weapons, and I won't lie down for this."

"I pity your son," Ludlow said. "Erik wants another child, I understand. He wants to breed children like fine thoroughbred horses. Resist him, Nora. For your own sanity, resist him."

"Why?"

"Why? Why? Why?" he mocked her savagely. "Because I
tell
you! Listen to me well; if you have two children, one of them is going to die. If three,
two
will perish. In the end, only one will be spared execution." She winced at the use of that word. "And that one," Ludlow whispered, "will inherit the gates of hell. Save yourself grief, Nora. Refuse to bear another child."

"You're . . . you're out of your mind!" Nora objected. The room's darkness was closing in around her, trapping and suffocating her. She smelled Ludlow's decay, like the aroma of damp green moss.

"Leave Usherland," he said. "Don't ask why. Leave today. This minute. Forget Walen, there's nothing you can do for him. You don't deserve to be dragged down into damnation!"

Nora rose from her chair, her face flushed with anger. She cracked her shin on a table, backed away, and hit another piece of furniture.

"Run, Nora. Get out of this house and never look back. Oh, the hammering, the hammering!"

It was clear to her that Erik was keeping his father up in this room because he was going insane. She groped toward the door, stumbled over a table, and kicked at it. Bottles tumbled off. When she reached the door, she fumbled for the lock but couldn't find it. She thought she heard him coming up behind her, and she said, "Keep away from me!" into the darkness. "Don't touch me, damn you!"

But Ludlow was still across the room. He gave a pained, soft sigh. "I didn't want to tell you this," he said, his voice almost kind, "but I will. It might save your sanity, and possibly your soul. God knows, I need to do a good deed."

"Let me out of here!" Nora fumbled for the lock.

"Erik doesn't love you," the old man said. "He never has. He needed a wife to breed children—the Usher future. And you came with an extra bonus. Erik's always been obsessed with his racehorses. Your father's stables have a sterling reputation. Erik and your father agreed on a
contract,
Nora. He bought you, along with four horses to be used in breeding a Kentucky Derby champion. Your father received three million dollars on your wedding day, and he will get an additional million for every child you breed for Erik."

Her hand was frozen on the lock.
"No,"
she said. She remembered her father saying, "Stay with him, don't turn your back on this chance." Even though he'd known she was unhappy, he'd strongly urged her to stay with Erik Usher.
Why?

"I signed the check that went to St. Clair Stables," the voice said from the darkness. "You're meat to Erik. Breeding flesh. When he has no more use for you, he'll cast you out to pasture. Believe me, Nora. I'm begging you to get away from Usherland!"

"This is my house," she told him bravely, though tears were stinging her eyes. "I am Erik Usher's wife."

"You're his
mare,"
Ludlow replied. "And don't believe for a second that one inch of Usherland will ever belong to you."

She got the lock disengaged and wrenched the door open. The murky light that filtered in dazzled her eyes. She turned to look at Ludlow Usher.

He was emaciated to the point of freakishness, a skeleton in a black pinstriped suit and a gray ascot. His face was yellowish white but splotched with what appeared to be brown scabs. Thin gray hair curled over his shoulders, though the top of his scalp was bald. The Usher cane was clenched in his right fist. Staring at the master of Usherland, Nora felt a strange rush of pity— though she was horrified by the sight. Ludlow's deepset eyes were fixed upon her, and in them was a red glare like the depths of a blast furnace. "For God's sake," he said with a liquid rattle of phlegm, "get away from Usherland!"

Nora dropped the toy pistol on the floor and fled. She almost fell down the tricky stairs, then ran through the corridors and descended the first staircase she found. After about twenty minutes she came across a pair of gossiping maids.

At dinner that night, Nora sat at the long dining table and watched Erik consume his beef stew. It had spattered his coat and shirt. He rang for a second helping and a bottle of cabernet.

During a dessert of baked Alaska and sugared strawberries, Erik interrupted his feasting to tell her that the new colt he'd been working with, a fine chestnut stallion called King South, was already showing the kind of speed and determination that made Kentucky Derby champions. King South, he reminded Nora, had been sired by Donovan Red—one of the prizewinning stallions that her father had given them as a wedding gift. Erik, bits of stew clinging to his mustache, poured himself a glass of wine and vowed that the Usher stables would bring home the 1922 Derby cup.

A servant approached Nora with a silver tray. The object on it was covered with a white silk handkerchief. He set it down before her and left without explanation.

"What's that?" Erik asked. "What'd Foster bring you?"

Nora lifted the corner of the handkerchief. On the tray was the toy pistol she'd dropped in Ludlow's chamber. Beneath the gun was a folded piece of paper. She slid the toy to one side, picked up the paper, and opened it.

It was a canceled bank draft for three million dollars, dated the second of March, 1917. Ludlow Usher's spiky signature was on it. St. Clair Stables had received it.

"What's there, damn it? Don't keep secrets from me!"

Clutching the check in her fist, Nora took the toy pistol and slid it with all her strength down the long table. It spun toward Erik, glinting under the magnificent crystal chandeliers, and after a journey of some thirty feet it clinked against his plate.

"Explain that," Nora said, "you bastard."

Erik laughed. Laughed and laughed. When he was through, he lifted his glass in a toast. "To our second child," he said.

And there Nora's diary ended. Rix closed it. There had to be another volume down in the library, he thought. Surely Nora's story continued somewhere, down in those cardboard boxes. The tale had left him with several unanswered questions: What was Nora's response after she learned that Ludlow was telling the truth? How did she stave off Erik's desire to have more children? And, especially, what was the meaning of Ludlow's strange warnings to her? In all probability, Rix mused, Nora had been correct about Ludlow being insane. It was obvious that living in the Lodge's Quiet Room had unhinged him, and his fear of thunder was simply due to his heightened senses—but what was all that stuff about earthquakes and a crack in the Lodge's north face? Rix decided he'd have to go over tomorrow and check it out for himself.

He took the diary and quietly went out into the hallway. He looked both ways, as if he were about to cross railroad tracks and expected a roaring diesel at any second. Then he went downstairs, through the game room and smoking room, and unlocked the library's doors.

Rix returned the diary to one of the boxes, then began browsing through more materials. A small leatherbound book he picked up fell to pieces in his hands, and he muttered, "Damn it to hell!" He bent down to gather the pages together and stuff them back into the binding.

"Well, well," the voice floated from behind him. "Found me a prowler, didn't I?"

NEW THARPE SAT ALONE IN THE CABIN'S FRONT ROOM. THE FIRE
had almost played itself out, but was kept alive by errant thrusts of wind that swooped down the chimney and fanned the coals. Atop the mantel, next to a framed snapshot of his father and mother, a single kerosene lamp held an unblinking eye of flame.

The wind blasted against the side of the cabin with fierce velocity, making shrill pipings as it found chinks in the walls. He was half expecting the thin old roof to tear away suddenly and spin upward into the sky like a top. The wind's whistling sounded all too close t« the note Nathan's yo-yo had made. From around the bend he could hear the gruff barking of Birdie, the big red hound that belonged to the Claytons.

New couldn't sleep. His cuts were still bothering him, though they were healing nicely under the bandages. He'd tossed and turned for a long time on his cot, but rest eluded him. The city woman's face was on his mind, and the things she'd said to him at the Broadleaf haunted him. He kept seeing that poster on the wall; when he imagined Nathan's picture up there with the others, his stomach felt squeezed by a powerful hand.

He stared at the lamp on the mantel, and knew he would never see his brother again. The Pumpkin Man had taken Nathan; when the Pumpkin Man struck, there was no coming home, ever again. But why did it have to be that way, he asked himself.

What
was
the Pumpkin Man, and why had no one ever seen him? No one, New realized, except himself. He was the man of the house. Wasn't there something he could do, some way to strike back at the Pumpkin Man for stealing his brother away? He felt so helpless, so weak! His hands clenched into fists, and a lightning bolt of confused rage seemed to rip through his brain.

The kerosene lamp trembled, clinking against the stones.

New's eyes narrowed. Had the lamp moved, or hadn't it? In his room, the magic knife was hidden under his mattress. When it had hit the ceiling over his mother's head, Myra had stood like a statue, her face drained of color. She'd given a short, soft gasp, and New had seen a wet glint of fear in her eyes. Then she'd slammed the door shut and retreated to her own room, where New had heard her crying. She hadn't spoken to him for several hours after that. Then it was back to her baking pies in the kitchen, baking more of them than ever, and all the while chattering too merrily about how the men would eventually find Nathan, he would return home, and then everything would be like it was before, only better, because Nathan and New would've learned a valuable lesson about being on time.

Either he was going crazy, he decided, or the kerosene lamp had moved.

And if he had made it move . . . then was the magic in the knife—or in
him?

He pushed away all thoughts of his mother, the Pumpkin Man, and Nathan. The whine of the wind became a whisper.
Move,
he commanded. Nothing happened. He wasn't doing it right, wasn't thinking hard enough. He didn't have magic! It was in the knife, after all! But in his mind he envisioned the lamp lifting from the mantel, lifting higher and higher until it was almost up to the roof. He clenched his hand around the chair's armrests, and thought,
Move!

Like a bucking bronco, the chair began to jump under him.

He cried out in amazement and held on. The chair balanced on one leg and spun wildly, then crashed to the floor. As New scrambled up, he realized the light in the room had changed.

The lamp.

The lamp had risen from the mantel some three feet, and was hovering just under the roof.

"Lord,"
New breathed softly.

And then the lamp started to fall, to shatter on the mantel.

He thought of burning kerosene, the house on fire, and he said,
"No!"
The lamp wobbled, slowed its descent, and very gently clinked back onto the mantel.

He was going crazy, he thought. Crazy as a loon. Either that, or he'd been witched. One was just as horrible a prospect as the other.

Floorboards creaked. New turned to find his mother standing in the room, one hand up to her throat. She looked as though the merest breath of wind might cause her to crumble like a column of ashes.

"It ain't the knife," was all he could think to say. "It's me, Ma."

Her voice came in a strained whisper: "Yes."

"I made the lamp move, Ma. Just like I made the knife move. What's happenin' to me? How come I can do it?" A cold blade of panic pierced him. Witched! he thought. How? Why?

"I don't know," Myra said. Then she slowly dropped her hand from her throat and stood looking at the fallen chair. With an effort she shuffled forward and righted the chair, running her hands over the wood as if she expected to feel something alive in it.