A Family Affair: A Novel of Horror (12 page)

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

It was another full day before Jennifer was well enough to leave her room again. She slept in fitful snatches fully clothed in her shabby gray suit. The light, harsh and glaring, burned constantly overhead. The door remaine
d locked, and she had even managed the strength necessary to push the dresser across the room. It now stood in front of the door, blockading the room.

At least a dozen times Aunt Christine had knocked at the door and called to her from the hall, but she had stubbornly refused to answer.

Let them worry, let them think what they like, she told herself.

Twice someone else knocked without identifying who it was.

Her sleep was crowded with dreams, some of them terrifying, all of them strange; brief scenes that flashed through her mind without order or pattern. Her mother; Aunt Lydia's name; things that had happened at Kelsey; locked doors and faceless women; and something about a letter.

Where had the letter come from, and what did it mean?

She saw it clearly in her dreams, a neat little notepaper that floated just beyond her reach. She felt, in her sleep, that if she could only reach out, grasp it and read the words scrawled upon it, that everything, all of the queer events that had brought her to this state, would suddenly be clear. But the letter eluded her, floating just out of her reach.

In her dream she raced up and down stairways, climbing into the turret, with its broken walkway. She came in and out of locked rooms, and ran through deep forests. And always just out of reach before her ran a woman in white, whose face she could not see. Jennifer ran and ran, but the woman eluded her. Sometimes she danced with the others and sometimes she seemed to float like a vapor on the air.

By the time Jennifer awoke on the following evening, her fever had broken. She awoke from the long period of sleep to discover that she felt amazingly well. The hunger pangs were gone, and for a time she thought that she must have eaten something and simply forgotten about it. After reflection, however, she remembered reading in some book in the past that the stomach eventually shrank up and after that there were no hunger pangs. She felt if anything a little lightheaded, giddy almost. And she had a plan.

She had been in old houses before. The house in which she had grown up had been an old one, in fact. And old houses had kitchens.

All houses, of course, had kitchens, but that was not her point. The point was that old houses invariably had kitchens with doors; outside doors. The back entrance was always to and from the kitchen, or a utility room off of the kitchen.

If there was a kitchen in this house, and there had to be, there was almost sure to be a door from that kitchen to the outside. And if she could not find the kitchen from the inside, then she would find it from the outside.

It was early in the evening when she left her room to begin her search. It was not quite dark yet. She would not want to attempt finding her way about outside this house in the dark.

“That means no dawdling,” she told herself firmly. Of course it also meant that once she found the kitchen she could very well choose to spend the entire night there, stuffing herself gloriously. She even smiled at the vision of herself lying on the kitchen floor, like a pet dog, chewing on an old ham bone. The thought made her mouth water.

She saw no one as she descended the stairs, but that was not, upon reflection, unusual. Judging from the hour, they were probably at their dinner. No doubt they were enjoying a sumptuous spread and laughing among themselves at her plight. Let them laugh. They would learn soon enough that she was not so helpless as they thought.

It occurred to her that she should have brought something in which to carry away a supply of food. She would need some food to take with her if she was going to escape. But now that she thought of it, there was nothing in her room that would have served the purpose. Surely she would find something in the kitchen. A basket or a paper bag even. If necessary, she would tear off her skirt and make a bundle out of it. It was far beyond salvation anyway, and modesty was at this point one of the least of her concerns.

She reached the front door without incident. So far, so good. She had a dim idea that, knowing of her increasing efforts to get away, the family might somehow try to restrain her. She would not have been surprised, upon removing the barricades from her door, to find herself locked into her room, and even now, she half-expected to find the front door locked against her.

It was not, though, nor was there any impediment outside. No one was on the lawn, nothing occurred to prevent her from following the path, as she had before, around the corner of the house. She came into the woods that pressed close against the house at the side.

This time she would not make the mistake of wandering off into the heavy growth. She knew that she might be able to find some food again, but she knew too that there was a great likelihood of getting lost, and she was determined not to do so this time; this time she had a specific destination in mind, and she meant to reach it. Regardless of how peculiar Kelsey House was, or how strangely it had been designed, the front of the house had to be joined with the rear of the house. That made sense. And to find the rear of the house, she had only to follow the walls, walking carefully, never straying from their reassuring reality. Once or twice she had to move away, to circle around some tree or patch of bushes that blocked her way, but except for those instances she remained close enough to touch the wall with one hand. In fact, she did touch it from time to time, to reassure herself. This time she was not going to get lost.

She passed window after window. At any minute she expected to see some of the family peering out, watching her. She remained afraid they would try to hinder her. But she saw no one.

She circled a small bay. There were steps beside it that led down, presumably into a cellar. At these she paused for a moment. A cellar would mean storage, perhaps of food. Should she explore here first?

No, she had started out to find the kitchen, sure now that she would succeed in doing so. If there were food in the house, and there had to be, the kitchen would be the best place to find it. She went on, only mildly curious as to what the cellar might hold.

She rounded the corner of the house finally, and she was at the rear. The growth was not so thick here, and the path began winding its way up the hill that loomed close behind the house itself. For a moment she considered following the path to determine where it led. Again she checked herself. Even assuming the path would lead her to the road eventually, or back to town, she simply could not hope to go far without food.

And there, in front of her, was the back porch; smaller and not so pretentious, of course, as the front porch, but a porch nonetheless. And a door leading inside. Her heart pounding she mounted the wooden steps and tried the door. She almost expected to find the door locked; but it was not. It opened at her touch.

She had outsmarted them after all. This was the one idea they had not credited her with getting, the one contingency they had not blocked.

She felt filled to the brim with self-pride, and confident that success was near. A few minutes more and it would be ended, this horrible nightmarish game that they had played with her. She would have food, and here, just outside, was a path leading away from Kelsey House, leading to freedom. The freedom that would soon be hers.

She went into the kitchen. Like the rest of the house, it was filthy with dust. That much at least she had rather grown accustomed to. But dirty or not, it was a kitchen. There was a sink, a freestanding affair that was quite outdated, and there were cupboards and shelves everywhere, and an old fashioned icebox.

She stooped and opened one cupboard. Then she opened the one next to it, and the one next to that. One after the other she opened all of the lower cupboards, going around the room on her hands and knees. She stood, and opened the cupboards higher up, door after door, searching the entire kitchen.

The cupboards and shelves were filled. There were neat stacks of dishes, rows of sparkling glassware. There were pots and pans and silverware and all manner of utensils. The kitchen was complete; it held everything that could be needed in a kitchen that was designed to serve a house as large as Kelsey.

Everything, that was, except the one thing she was looking for. Everything but food. Nowhere was there a crumb of anything that might have been edible.

“A pantry,” she said aloud, panting from her hurried inspection of the cupboards. Her eyes darted about the room. The back door opened directly into the kitchen. “The food is in the pantry.”

She opened the first door leading from the kitchen, and found herself in the pantry. The familiar dust, the cupboards and storage one would expect in a pantry; everything was there but food.

Numb with shock, she turned and stepped back into the kitchen, to find herself facing one of the occupants of the house, one of her relatives. What was this woman's name? She saw them so seldom, she didn't remember. Helen, she thought. The woman stood in front of her, staring at her in a curious way.

“Please,” Jennifer said, breaking the silence between them. “Help me. I must have food.”

She was begging. She had given in, but it did not matter. She was starving. She could no longer afford her pride.

To her joy, Helen smiled, an understanding smile, and nodded. “Yes, of course,” she said aloud. “Come with me.”

Motioning Jennifer to follow, she led the way to yet another door. Overcome with relief, Jennifer followed her through the door.

She found herself in the dining room, and the entire family was there. They were seated at the table, eating their dinner from empty dishes, passing empty bowls and platters about the table. They looked up, all of them, as she came in, staring at her in bewildered silence, as if they could not think what she was doing here.

She felt utterly exhausted, drained not only of strength but of feeling. Without a word, Jennifer circled the table and took her place beside Mr. Kelsey, resting her hands before her on the dirty table.

The dining room. All of her efforts had brought her back to the dining room, just off the main hall. The elusive kitchen had been there all the time, adjoining the dining room, just where she should have known it would be had she been thinking clearly. And the kitchen had been as empty as the dish before her now, as empty as the trays that had been carried to her room, as empty as the path stretching before her.

She sat in frozen silence and watched them pretend to eat. For all the notice they were taking of her she might as well have remained in her room. They had returned their attention to their own dishes, and no one even looked in her direction. They seemed unaware of her presence, in fact. She watched them, lifting their forks, chewing, some of them smacking their lips with satisfaction. Aunt Abbie seemed to find something a little tough, and she chewed on it with determined vigor. Mr. Kelsey removed something, a pit perhaps, from his mouth.

The truth came to her at last. They were laughing silently and unseen, laughing at her. They had known all along that she would find the kitchen, and they had known all along she would find no food. It wasn't there, it was elsewhere, hidden somewhere in this awful, sprawling house. In another kitchen, or under someone's bed. Somewhere where she would never find it.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

“Jennifer?” The voice was from the hall outside, beyond the locked door.

Jennifer sat up in bed and watched the door as though expecting it to open despite the lock, and despite the dresser pushed against it. But nothing happene
d.

“Jennifer. It's me, Marcella.”

Marcella. Strange or not the young girl was still the one friend Jennifer had at Kelsey House. And she and Wilfred were Jennifer's only hopes of escaping. She needed Marcella's help.

“Just a minute,” she called back, getting up from the bed and crossing to where the dresser blocked the door. It was a laborious task, moving the heavy piece of furniture out of the way.

“Don't go,” she called to Marcella, straining to push the dresser aside.

Finally the door opened sufficiently to allow Marcella to enter the room. Jennifer at once locked the door again, leaning against it as if to hold it shut against some intruder trying to get in.

“Good Heavens,” Marcella exclaimed, looking at all the precautions. “Why do you want to lock your door, and put that dresser against it?”

“Because I don't feel that I'm safe here,” Jennifer told her bluntly. This was no time to consider tact. Her predicament was too critical. “Marcella, you must help me. Where can I find Aunt Abbie's husband?”

“Wilfred?”

“Good Heavens,” Jennifer snapped, impatient. “How many husbands does she have? Of course I mean Wilfred. I must talk to him.”

“He's always in the woods this time of day,” Marcella said. “Down by the stream.”

Jennifer's heart sank. The woods. She would never be able to find him there without getting lost all over again; she knew what those woods were like.

As if reading her thoughts, Marcella said, “I'll take you to him if you like.”

At once Jennifer's hopes flared again. “Can you?” she asked. “Would you?” Of course Marcella would know her way about the grounds. This was a stroke of luck she hadn't counted on.

“Yes, of course I will,” Marcella said. “But we'll have to go now, so that I can be back in time for lunch, or Aunt Christine will be furious with me.”

Jennifer wanted to suggest again that if Marcella came with her, she would avoid that sort of difficulty. But she did not want to start a delaying argument now. “We'll go at once,” she said, unlocking the door quickly. “And we won't tell Aunt Christine.”

But when they had left the house and started into the woods, Jennifer's courage began to pale again. Marcella was leading the way as though she did indeed know where they were going. They had come into the woods on a path that Jennifer had not seen before. Even the very paths through the woods seemed to appear and disappear. Appear for others, disappear for her.

Marcella was little more than a child, though, and Jennifer was frightened of the woods. What if both of them ended up lost?

“Are you sure you can find your way?” Jennifer asked, increasingly uneasy as they went deeper and deeper into the forest

“Don't be afraid,” Marcella assured her without even pausing. “You are, aren't you?”

“A little,” Jennifer admitted.

“I know every tree here on sight. I even have names for some of them. That's old Fred there.” She pointed to a particularly old, rather spindly tree.

“Isn't that a strange name for a tree?” Jennifer asked, staring at the tree. It did not look at all like a Fred to her.

“I think of them as my friends,” Marcella said.

“Do you really like them? The trees, I mean. This forest?” It was difficult for Jennifer to imagine anyone liking anything about the place.

“Of course. I love everything here.”

The path led up a slope. As they topped the rise, Marcella came to an abrupt halt. “There you are,” she said, pointing into the distance.

Even Jennifer had to admit that the scene was a picturesque one. The stream fell from a small bluff to twist and splash its way through the hollow below. On the mossy banks ferns and cattails swayed in the gentle breeze. A willow tree dipped low over the brook, seeming to drink from the crystalline waters, and somewhere nearby a bird sang its joyful song.

At another time, under other circumstances, she might have been quite enchanted by this spot. “But this is no time for admiring the scenery,” she reminded herself. There below them, sitting on a fallen log near the stream itself, was Aunt Abbie's husband, Wilfred. It was he she had come to see, and not the view.

“There he is,” she said aloud, starting eagerly down the hill. She looked back impatiently to discover that Marcella had not moved from the spot.

“Well for Heaven's sake, come on,” she snapped.

“I can't,” Marcella said, remaining where she was. “I can't go any closer than this.”

“Why on earth not?”

“This is where I drowned,” Marcella said.

“Oh!” Jennifer grimaced with annoyance. She did not feel inclined just now to try to coax Marcella from her strange morbid fantasies. She looked in the direction of Wilfred, almost afraid that he would suddenly disappear from the spot. Of all the times for Marcella to be difficult, she thought.

“All right,” she said to Marcella. She did not want to argue with her now. “You wait here for me. I'll only be a few minutes.”

She hurried down the hill. By this time Wilfred had seen them on the path, and now he watched her approach. He did not greet her, but sat without moving. As she came closer to him, she saw that he had been whittling a piece of wood. It was a homely and harmless seeming pastime. The pen knife in his fingers moved quickly back and forth over the block, shaping it deftly and easily.

“Hello,” she greeted him when she was almost to him. He met her gaze without reply. She had expected to find the customary reaction to herself in his eyes. To her surprise his expression was a different one from the one she had seen before. He did not look at all angry now, or violent. If anything, he looked rather mournfully sad, and this encouraged her a little.

“I hate to bother you,” she said, since it was apparent that he was not going to return her greeting. “But I do need your help. Please, can you help me find my car? We left it in the stream, if you remember.”

His answer was so long in coming that she began to think perhaps he too was speechless, like Aunt Christine's husband; but no, he had talked to her before, albeit briefly, the night of her arrival. She was about to repeat her question when he finally spoke.

“Your car's gone,” he said, returning his attention to the wood in his hands.

“Gone?” she echoed. But of course, she should have foreseen that. They had stolen her purse, with the car keys in it. And they would have taken the car by this time, to prevent her escape.

“They've stolen it,” she said aloud, making it a statement of fact rather than a question. He said nothing.

“Well, I don't care,” she said. “They're welcome to anything, if only I can leave. Will you help me at least find the road, please? I don't care if I have to walk. I don't care if I have to crawl, if I can only leave.”

He looked at her again, a long sad look. “You'll never leave here,” he said finally, his voice flat and emotionless.

Jennifer was startled by his statement. It was so unlike anything he had said to her before, and it was so close to her own worst fears. “Oh, but I must,” she insisted. “I must and I will. If you'll only help me, if you'll only show me where the road is....”

“I tried to leave here once,” he said, plunging the knife into the wood in a deep, violent movement. The piece that he had been carving, the gentle image of a dancer, split grotesquely.

“You tried?” Jennifer asked. “But how could they stop you? They're only women, and you're a man.”

“There's a curse on this place,” he said. “It goes back a hundred years; no, closer to two hundred. There was a man wanted to marry one of the Kelsey girls. Her mother interfered. Refused to let them marry, and when they planned to elope, she had the girl locked up. Made her a prisoner, and hired somebody to whip the boy and run him out of town. Whoever she hired did too good a job, and the boy died from the beating he got.”

He paused, looking at the broken piece of wood in his hand. It was the longest speech Jennifer had ever heard him make, and she was afraid to try to encourage him to go on, lest he stubbornly end his story there. She waited in guarded silence.

“Before he died, though, he put a curse on the Kelseys,” Wilfred went on. “He said the women of the family were evil, that he saw the women of the line joined in a common bond of possession. And he cursed them and swore that they would ever remain so. He said that they will remain together for all eternity. No matter how they try to free themselves from one another. They might try to go away. They might actually live apart. And those whose lives were gentle and whose deaths were natural would find peace. But the others were forever tied together, and to this house.”

Jennifer continued to sit in silence. She thought of her mother, and her possessiveness. Yes, she could see that much of it. And she could see that sort of possessiveness here, with Aunt Christine and Aunt Abbie; she could see it in their efforts to keep her here—possessiveness carried to an insane extreme.

“It's a terrible story,” she said aloud, trying to dismiss her own uneasiness. “But it is only a story. A legend. And a legend can't really keep us here, if we put our minds to leaving. You and I can go, if you'll only help me....”

He wasn't listening, though; at least, he wasn't listening to her. His head was cocked as though listening to a sound in the distance, as though someone were calling him far off. He was oblivious suddenly to her presence. She held her breath, listening with him, but she heard nothing except the sighing of the wind in the trees.

He suddenly turned back to her. “You'd better go back to the house,” he said. His expression was no longer sad and sympathetic, but one of fear.

“But why?” she asked. She was sure, quite sure now, that he truly wanted to help her. She had seen it in his eyes a moment before. Why had he changed so quickly, for no apparent reason?

“You'd better go,” he insisted, his voice rising on a frightened note. He stood, backing slowly away from her as if she somehow were a threat to him.

Frightened herself, Jennifer moved away slightly. She wanted to argue with him, try to convince him that they could indeed leave; that she could go, and take him with her. But in some way she didn't understand she had frightened him, and his fear was contagious. What if he suddenly should become violent? He still held his carving knife in his hand, and he held it now in a menacing fashion.

“Please...,” she began, but he cut her off with a violent shake of his head.

“Go,” he said sharply, almost shouting.

She could do nothing but leave him there. She turned and started quickly up the rise, puzzled and frightened by this abrupt dismissal. Once she glanced back to find him staring after her, watching her go with obvious relief.

Well, she thought, perhaps it was hoping too much to think that he might be sane. No one else around the place was. Even Marcella....

She stopped in her tracks, looking about. Marcella was gone. She had reached the place where Marcella had been waiting, and the young girl was nowhere to be seen.

“Marcella?” she called. How could the girl be gone, she asked herself, annoyed and more than a little concerned. She surely had not been with Wilfred more than a few minutes, and Marcella had promised to wait for her. The child knew that she could not find her way alone through the woods. She had specifically asked Marcella to wait right here for her.

She looked back toward the stream. Wilfred too had vanished. There was no sign of him below. Like it or not, she was alone.

“And I don't like it,” she said.

There was nothing she could do but start walking, watching for familiar landmarks. At least this time she had paid a little more attention to where they were going. Yes, there was the tree Marcella had pointed out earlier, the one she called Fred.

I am on the right track, she told herself, without feeling particularly reassured. At Kelsey everything could change so suddenly; one could count on nothing.

She stopped again, listening. Had she imagined it, or was there someone behind her. There was no sound now, only the gentle rustling of the leaves overhead. She started again, moving more slowly.

There it was again, the scraping of branches, the snapping of a twig. Someone was behind her, someone was following her.

“Wilfred?” she called, looking over her shoulder. She saw no one, and received no answer. The woods were silent again.

“Marcella?” Still nothing.

She began to walk again, faster now. There was no question of it, there was someone behind her, someone who stopped when she stopped, moved when she moved. It was more than sounds; she could actually feel the presence, so strongly that it was not a hunch but a certainty. She was walking faster and faster, and then she was running, and the sounds and the presence stayed close behind her, never dwindling, never falling back.