Clay (2 page)

Silent as Eb Linder habitually was, I sensed an abrupt withdrawal in him when I mentioned the house at land’s end. He continued weighing out my rough-cut tobacco, and spoke without looking at me.

“You don’t wanta know about Heath House, Doc. Folks hereabouts ain’t got nothin’ to do with it....”

Sullen warning charged his level tone. I smiled but a small shiver trickled along my neck. I looked across the store to where Doc Ambler stood, his white mane bent intently over one of the latest magazines. His head came up; the usual smile had gone out of opaque eyes.

“Lazarus Heath lives there, Doctor,” he murmured. “Very much the recluse.”

“Which is jest as well fer us,” Linder put in cryptically. Ambler nodded and went back to his reading.

It was at that point that I became aware of the disheveled, weather-beaten creature in the doorway. I had seen Solly-Jo before, wandering the sand-and-stone wastelands of the beach. You will find one such outcast in every small town, I suppose. A slow-witted, distorted brute, with matted blond-gray hair, he combed the shores night and day, ambling aimlessly from spot to spot, sleeping in the lee of some jutting rock. He ate where and as he found food. Always before, the sad, baby-blue eyes turned on me had held a vacant stare, but, now, as Linder gave him his daily free bottle of milk, Solly-Jo was gazing at me with something like sharp understanding in his phlegmatic face. We did not speak further of Heath House, but when I left the store, Solly-Jo slowly followed. He caught up with me and shuffled at my side, smiling vaguely for a time before he spoke.

“You was talkin’ about Heath House, wasn’t you, Doc?”

I nodded; Solly-Jo chuckled softly.

“I know why you was askin’ about it,” he said with a knowing leer. “Only you hadn’t ought to. OP Laz Heath ain’t no friend to nobody. Stay clear o’ that house. They’s things there that ain’t right. They’s bad things....”

“Just who is Lazarus Heath?” I asked.

“OP man... real ol’.... He got a funny smell about him... a dead smell, like dead fish washed up on the beach.... Used to be a sailor, but, now, he’s too ol’... They’s stories about ol’ Laz. Him an’ that daughter o’ his’n...” The lecherous grin returned. “You better fergit about Miss Cassandra, Doc.... I know you seen her; that’s why you bin askin’ about the house.... But fergit it.... She ain’t fer the likes o’ you an’ me....”

Solly-Jo shook his head slowly, and chucked, sadly.

“No, sir.... She’s too much like ’er ol’ man. Stays away from folks, like him. They live out there alone... an’, like I say, they’s things in Heath House.... They’s a bad stink, like Ol’ Laz has.... Nigh onto twenty year ago, Laz was in a shipwreck. Lost fer most two year, then a tramp-steamer found him on a island.... He had this little baby girl with him; said she was his daughter; said his wife died in the wreck.... Only nobody was ever able to find no passenger listin’ fer a Missus Laz Heath.... Then, Laz come back here and bought that there ol’ place. Even ’fore he come they was talk about bad things in that house.... People still talk, only now they whisper, ’case Laz might hear.... Take my word, Doc.... You steer clear o’ pretty Cassandra.... She warn’t meant fer men like us...

I can still remember Solly-Jo’s simian shadow shuffling off along the craggy, moon-washed strand, voracious tongues of nighted tide lapping at his battered white sneakers. If I had not heard of Cassandra Heath before, now that I had my interest was made the more intense by the drone of the beach-comber’s eerie warning still humming in my ears. I chuckled, telling myself it was probably utter nonsense, the maundering phantasms of Solly-Jo’s lonely, warped mind. But, my laughter echoed back from a brooding watery wasteland. I recalled the solemn reticence of intelligent, educated Doctor Ambler, the wordless warning of Eb Linder.

Despite such memories I could not get Cassandra Heath off my mind; I promised myself that I would meet her and this legendary father of hers. It seemed easy enough on the face of it; I could pay them a visit, saying I was a new neighbor. Yet, more than once during the ensuing days, I tried to do just that and failed. Roving the desiccated peninsula on a sunny forenoon, I would set out resolutely toward the misty hulk of Heath House, but I could never bring myself to go all the way. The straggling, mossy embattlements seemed too much a part of another world; looking at the house, you got the notion that you could keep walking toward it, yet never reach the crumbling patio, never pass through the ancient, carven door. It is probable that I should never have met Cassandra Heath, hadn’t she come to me.

2

Early in October, an Indian-Summer storm washed in from the Atlantic. The day had been long and dreary, overhung with humid fog, and, in the late evening, vicious torrents swept inland under a fanfare of thunder. Through streaming casements I could barely discern the gigantic shell of Heath House, looming defiantly above the lashing fury of a hungry sea. I made a log fire and settled into an easychair; the subdued soughing of the storm combined with a rather dull analysis of Sigmund Freud must have lulled me into a doze. There was a sensation of spinning lostness; my mind ricocheted through the dark well of the rain-whipped night. There was a coldness brushing my face; a nauseous damp clung to my ankles, quelling the roseate warmth of the fireside. Something clicked sharply, and I opened my eyes. I thought I was still dreaming.

The girl stood leaning against the door she had just closed. Dying embers cast a phantasmagoria of lights and shadows on her face and hair. She was slim and well-made; ebony hair flowing to her shoulders gave one a feeling of rich warmth. It matched the steady blackness of extraordinary eyes that protruded ever so slightly. Her skin was deeply tanned. A faint flush in her cheeks and breath coming in quick whispers through full lips seemed to indicate a rather hurried trip. I wondered vaguely at her being quite dry until I realized that the storm had died with the evening. A moment passed, silent, save for the faint dripping of water from the eaves, as the dark eyes met mine.

“Doctor Arkwright?”

The voice, cultured and controlled, like the throaty melody of a cello well played, heightened my illusion of a dream. I rose awkwardly and my book slid to the floor. The girl smiled.

“I’m afraid I must have dozed...

“My name is Cassandra Heath,” the girl said gently. “My father is very ill, Doctor. Could you come with me at once?”

“Well... it might be better to get Doctor Ambler, Miss Heath. You see, I’m not a general practitioner...

“I know; I’ve read of your work. You’re a brain surgeon....

That’s what my father needs....” The voice trembled slightly; shadowed lids covered the ebony eyes for an instant. Cassandra Heath had admirable control. When she spoke again it was in a tone tinged with defiant pride. “You needn’t come if... if you don’t care to...

“No.... It isn’t that at all.... Of course, I’ll come, Miss Heath....”

My mind sliding backward over the beach-comber’s whispered tale, I arranged a small kit with strangely unsteady hands. Cassandra Heath stood silently by the door. I wondered if Solly-Jo’s story had been something more than the weird fiction of an overworked imagination. The defiance in the girl’s voice argued that the legend of Heath House was known and feared by more than this one insignificant wanderer; so much feared that it might frighten a stranger away.

Even without such a veil of mystery swathing her life, Cassandra Heath would have been a striking person. As it was, I was fascinated.

We had walked some distance before the girl spoke again. The moon had risen and phantom rocks glistened in its watery glow. The ocean pounded choppily on a rain-sodden beach and our feet left moist rubbery prints that disappeared as quickly as they were made. Moving with long graceful strides, Cassandra Heath talked in a level monotone.

“I suppose you’ve heard tales about my father. You can’t live in Kalesmouth any length of time without hearing about old Lazarus Heath....” Grim humor touched the warm lips.

“Solly-Jo did a bit of talking,” I admitted.

“You mustn’t believe everything you hear, Doctor. My father is ill. He has been for some years. We prefer to keep to ourselves at Heath House. When people can’t talk to you, they talk about you.... They tell stories about father....”

“Miss Heath,” I ventured. “Do you think that your father...”

“Is insane?” the girl supplied. “Two years ago... last year, even, I should have said ‘no.’... Now, I can’t be certain. My father has led a strange life, Doctor... a strenuous one.... Here of late, he’s been given to brooding. He was always moody and quiet, but this is something different. He... he’s afraid of something, I think.... Then, too, there are the disappearances....”

“Disappearances?”

“He’s taken to wandering off at night.... Four times in the last couple of months I searched the whole length of the Strand and couldn’t find him....”

“Maybe, he’d gone to the mainland...

“I think not; someone would have seen him. No... he went somewhere... somewhere much farther away....” For the first time, a note of puzzled fear crept into Cassandra Heath’s voice. “... Much farther...She seemed to come back with an effort. “He did that tonight, Doctor. Just before the storm broke.... I... I found him later... hours later... wandering in a small cove beyond the house. He was talking strangely... and singing.... A funny little tune. He’s in his room, now... still talking... still singing that song....”

Onyx eyes flashed up to meet mine; in that brief moonlit instant, I saw all the doubtful terror, the puzzled anxiety that Cassandra Heath would not admit, even to herself. I had no time to question her further, to attempt to link together her last broken phrases so that I could guess at the real meaning that lay hidden in them. Kalesmouth Strand had suddenly narrowed, and now, on either side of us, midnight ocean licked possessively at the land. A tortuous path, tangled with sea brambles and rocks, snaked to the shadow-choked veranda of Heath House. Weather-wasted planks groaned in protest under unaccustomed footsteps.

*

At a gentle pressure of Cassandra’s hand the ponderous mahogany door swung back soundlessly. Even before I stepped into the candlelit, gloom-encrusted hallway, I could smell it—that loathsome, clinging effluvium of rotting marine flesh of which Solly-Jo had muttered. It swirled sickeningly in the clammy atmosphere of a foyer that was like the dusty nave of some forgotten cathedral, rising along lushly paneled walls to the sightless dark far above. A wide, twisting staircase wound upward to some higher labyrinth, and as I followed Cassandra Heath up stairs whose ancient gray carpet was worn thin by the tread of forgotten feet, the fetor became ever more powerful, more noisome.

Through dream-like corridors, I followed the fitful glow of the candelabrum the girl carried. Another door opened, then closed behind me. I stood in a chamber that seemed drawn from the dark maw of lost aeons. Tremendous oaken furniture dwarfed the figure sprawled limply on a dais-raised bed, and, though the small-paned casements stood wide, chilling sea-fog swirling through them into the room, the stench was overpowering. Cassandra set the candelabrum on an antique cabinet-de-nuit; an eerie luster flickered across Lazarus Heath’s wasted visage.

During his professional lifetime, a brain specialist is called upon to diagnose countless horrible cases, yet they are the horrors of the nighted mind, or of blindness caused by a tumor. They are medical things, and can be understood. You cannot diagnose a fetid malignancy that goes beyond medical knowledge, rooting itself in the black soil of ancient hells. There was nothing medical knowledge could do for Lazarus Heath.

Pushing back revulsion, I made a thorough examination. The massive body, little more than skin and bones, now, gave off a reeking aura of putrefaction, and yet there were no sores. Sopping clothes that hung in tatters, were tangled with dull-green seaweed, stained with ocean salt. But, it was the face that caught and held my attention. The skin, taut and dry, was the color of aged jade, covered with minute, glistening scales. Staring into the candlelight, Lazarus Heath’s pale eyes bulged horribly, and as the great bony head lolled spasmodically from side to side, I made out two faint bluish streaks, about four inches in length, running along each side of the scaly neck, just below the jawline. The lines pulsed thickly with the air- sucking motions of his salt-parched lips. Watery incantations bubbled upward into the dank stillness.

“They call.... They call for Lazarus Heath.... Zoth Syra bewails her lost one; she bids me come home. You hear? The Great Ones of the Green Abyss hail me! I come, O, beauteous Zoth Syra! Your lost one returneth, O, Weeping Goddess of the Green Nothingness...!”

Sudden power energized the lax skeleton, so that I had no easy time in holding him to the bed. Pallid eyes stared beyond this world, and Lazarus Heath’s cracked lips warped in a hideous smile. Then, as suddenly, he was calm; the ponderous cranium cocked pathetically to one side, in a grotesque listening attitude.

“You hear?” the hollow voiced gurgled. “She sings to me! The Song of Zoth Syra!” Inane laughter tittered weakly. Heath’s rasping voice dribbled into a strangely haunting threnody, a song that at once attracted and repelled with its subtly evil intonations.

“Zoth Syra calleth him who knows the Green Abyss;

Men of salt and weed are lovers all

To the Goddess of the Green and Swirling Void

Come away to Zoth Syra! Come away!”

“Father!”

Cassandra’s voice was scarcely more than a distraught gasp, but at the sound of it, the odious, hypnotic smile froze on Heath’s parchment-pale face, then, slowly, decomposed into a twisted mask of sick horror. For the first time something like terrified reason seeped into those oddly protuberant eyes.

“Cassie! Cassandra!” Heath stared about him frantically like a child lost in the dark; once again he tried to raise himself, but, before I could restrain him, crumpled backward into a voiceless coma.

*

Half an hour later, standing in the shadows of the decaying patio, looking eastward to the moon-scorched desert of the Atlantic, I told Cassandra that there was nothing wrong with her father’s mind. Perhaps I should have phrased it more coldly and added: “Nothing that medical science can cure.” But, sensing the free, vibrant life that flowed in the girl’s body and brain, I could not bring myself to tell her that I thought Lazarus Heath was going mad. Too, I was not at all sure of my own diagnosis.