The Book of Old Houses (26 page)

She shot me a look of sympathy and it struck me suddenly how judgmental I'd been about her. I made a sudden resolution to be kinder to her, even if at times she could be a bit difficult.

“You poor thing,” she said. “You've been having quite a day for yourself, haven't you, Jacobia?”

She patted my shoulder. “You come along, now, and have your nice, hot shower.”

Hung in the long carpeted hallway were dozens of old framed photographs, each with a printed slip fitted neatly into a slot in its matting. Ranging from small 1840s-era daguerreotypes to sepia-toned images of the late 1800s, it was a small but complete and possibly even museum-worthy collection.

“Come along, dear,” she repeated; I hurried to catch up. “Take your time, don't worry about a thing, and use all the hot water you like,” she added, opening a door.

“Oh,” I breathed, looking in. Somehow I'd expected yet another old claw-footed tub, possibly with a jerry-built shower apparatus and a drafty plastic curtain. But this—

The room was huge, floored in brown terra-cotta tiles and paneled in cedar, with a tub approximately the size of Noah's Ark if the ark had featured spa jets, set into a tiled surround. A handheld shower wand perched at the head of it while at the foot a tiled shelf offered gently curved, heel-shaped depressions, so you could put your feet up and soak.

“This is lovely,” I said inadequately, taking in yet more: a skylight over the tub. A small woodstove radiating warmth.

“In the basket there are a few toiletries you might like to try.” Merrie indicated a profusion of French-milled soaps, exotic shampoos, and luxury skin lotions.

Nearby on a hook hung a thick white terry-cloth robe; more shelves held thirsty-looking towels. There was a sea sponge, and a hair dryer with a comb attachment.

“Oh, thank you,” I told her sincerely, eager to try bathing in the twenty-first century instead of the nineteenth.

The tub was already full of steaming-hot water, I noticed as she departed. Getting in, I experienced the kind of happiness I'd thought was reserved for children on Christmas morning.

Rub-a-dub. The
sapone
that I chose—it was labeled in Italian and rested in a large, heavy carved-stone soap dish—smelled like heaven and lathered generously. It washed away the smoke and the clinging stink of fear.

Built into the room's cedar-paneled corner was a slate-floored shower with a bright, positively enormous brass shower head. Pink with cleanliness, I pulled the canvas curtain shut around myself and turned on the spray for a final rinse.

She must have a pressure tank,
I decided as what felt like all the water on the planet began cascading luxuriously over me.
Nobody
gets this much water pressure without a—

But then through a tiny space between the tiled wall and the shower curtain, I saw it. Out the window, which—I did a little fast mental geography—faced toward the road: the haloed beam of a moving flashlight.

An
approaching
flashlight. But not on Wade's side of the house; from where he waited in the truck he wouldn't be able to see it. Naked and gripping the soap-on-a-rope I'd found hanging in the shower, I rushed to the window and drew the shade aside.

There I found unhappily that the flashlight was a good deal nearer than I'd first thought. Right outside, in fact.

But the side of the house was still blocking it from Wade's view. Merrie's little dog yapped once and fell silent; next came pounding at the door.

The
front
door, drat the luck; still no line of sight from where Wade sat. Merrie's footsteps pattered to answer.

Don't!
I thought, but too late. The door opened and slammed hard as Merrie's voice rose briefly.

I scrambled for my clothes, tangled in a heap on the floor. No time for my bag. No time for getting dressed at all, in fact.

Merrie's voice, again, louder; then came a sound that could only be something striking somebody's head, a sickening ripe-cantaloupish thump followed by the crash of glass smashing.

Oh, Merrie,
I thought as footsteps approached in the hall. Wildly I scanned for an escape route but found none;
This,
this
is
why you shouldn't paint a window shut,
I thought, struggling with it.

But it wouldn't budge, so I couldn't even shout for help. And the bathroom door itself led to the hallway, which ended one way at a blank wall and the other . . .

The intruder was coming the other way, toward me. Slow but sure, step by sneaky step, the stealthy sounds proceeded on floorboards that were themselves oddly silent instead of creaky as they'd been under my unfamiliar tread.

But of course the intruder would be trying very hard not to make any sound on the other side of that closed bathroom door, which in my delight at the deluxe bathing arrangements, I hadn't even bothered to lock.

So there I was, naked and weaponless as the doorknob began turning, leaving me one choice:

Quickly, I hopped back into the shower and cranked it on. As I did so, I pulled the curtain shut and started wrapping the rope from the soap-on-a-rope tightly around both hands, with a length of the rope loose between them.

Because fear, surprise, and whatever weapon the intruder had brought along with him were a formidable combo, to be sure. But a naked lady armed with a strangling-tool made of a soap-on-a-rope was something else again, I thought determinedly.

I just didn't know yet precisely what. Meanwhile from beyond the shower curtain came the soft, unidentifiable yet unmistakable noises that in the movies always mean that the naked lady happily scrubbing herself is at that very moment being snuck up on by a crazed killer.

And that's what they meant now, too, except for the scrubbing part. And the
happily.

Still, I had to try something. Dave DiMaio might believe he had the upper hand at last but as I stood waiting, shivering and dripping, I decided that at the very least, I was going to wash that bastard's mouth out with the soap.

But then, perhaps stimulated by the vast quantities of fear chemicals coursing through my brain, a blazingly new idea occurred to me. Because after all, here I was in the two-hundred-year-old, historical-artifact-filled home of a woman whose entire life was devoted to Eastport's past.

And yet . . . dear heaven, I'd missed the obvious and it might be about to kill me, that foolish assumption.

The bathroom door creaked softly.

A hand thrust past the shower curtain at me.

Gripping a big, sharp knife.

Chapter
18

T
he hand grew larger and smaller.
Drug,
I thought with
what little I suddenly had left of reasoning power,
some kind of . . .

The shower curtain snapped back. The abrupt change in light and perspective nearly finished me. A gray mist filled my vision and the water's hiss rose to a roar.

Whatever the drug was, it had come on fast; when I could see again, Merrie Fargeorge stood there, her eyes pitiless and her lips flattened into a narrow line of grim purpose.

I'd hoped that when my vision cleared the knife would be gone, that it was some kind of medication-induced delusion. But it wasn't; not even a little bit.

Good steel blade and wooden handle; sharp point.

Extremely sharp, and aimed directly at my bellybutton. Suddenly I knew how the fish in a sushi restaurant feel, just before the guy with the blurry-fast cleaver act goes to work on them.

“Don't,” Merrie said grimly, “move an inch.” She reached out and unwrapped the soap from my unresisting hands, dropped it.

Actually I was too scared to move even a millimeter, and on top of that I couldn't feel my feet anymore. A warm glow rose up through my chest; when it got to my head it would be all over.

“What did you give me?”
Wha'ygmugh?

Her eyes narrowed, gauging the extent of my wooziness.

“Caspar's thunderstorm pills,” she replied. “They're very strong; did you know that dogs require ten times the amount of tranquilizers that humans do?”

I hadn't, and I can't say the information was very welcome, either.

“Just wait a bit longer. It won't,” she added, “hurt.”

Well, that's all right, then,
I thought in some distant, as-yet-unanesthetized part of my brain; I guess sarcasm is the last to go.

“Fuggoo,”
I said. Which felt satisfying, but didn't do any good, either.

“You see, that old book of yours,” she began, and I knew the idea was to pacify me, to keep me still and not trying to fight until the drug finished its work.

Then she would do whatever it was she intended to do to me. A horrid, ice-water thrill of panic shot through me when I began thinking about that.

So I stopped. Caspar's terror medicine didn't want me to be anxious or upset.
Lamb to the slaughter,
I thought, staring once more at the sharp knife.

“No, dear,” she said, noticing my gaze fixed on it. “I'm not going to stab you. Unless you try something,” she added coldly.

Gee, what a relief.
It seemed the acid-humor part of my mind would actually have to be dipped in acid before it would give up. Meanwhile I kept on trying to think of something, anything to get out of this madwoman's clutches and get out of here.

“That book,” she went on, “isn't what you think it is.”

Actually, I was pretty sure it wasn't what
she
thought it was. But by now I couldn't say so.

Also I was losing the ability to stand upright; if I opened my mouth again, my jaw's weight might unbalance me, throwing me forward onto that knife.

“It was written by an ancestor of mine,” she said.

From the nutball-murderer branch of the family,
I thought, but by then couldn't have pronounced for the life of me. Merrie's sweet, round face with its bright pink cheeks and white hair swam in my vision.

Those eyes, though: like a pair of cold steel drill bits. “Her father sent her from Halifax to work as a servant in one of the big houses,” Merrie said.

My house,
I thought confusedly.
But then why . . . ?

“As,” Merrie went on, “punishment for her activities. Girls didn't read much then, you see, or at any rate not anything but Scripture. And certainly not books on witchcraft. This all came down by word of mouth in my family, you understand,” she added by way of explanation.

And it was all completely irrelevant, I thought. But she didn't know that, either.

A sound came from the hall; my heart lifted. But it was only the little dog. “Hard work didn't soften her heart, however,” Merrie continued. “The family employing her began noticing things.”

I'll just bet they did,
I thought woozily.

“The young man of the house fell in love with her, married her against his family's wishes. He was the first to die.”

That's what happens when you start letting the servants have the run of the place. The story Izzy and Bridey tried to tell me,
I thought.

But then the thought floated away. I couldn't feel my lips.

“Angry, vindictive girl,” said Merrie. “She killed the rest off one by one. She was . . .”

Mad, bad, and dangerous to know,
I concluded dizzily. But the house hadn't been Merrie's and the book was a fake, so
why . . .

The shower enclosure turned faster. She smiled unpleasantly. “That's right, dear. It won't be long, now.”

Only by standing quite still could I keep my balance, my
precarious . . .

“Once you're unconscious, I'm going to bash the back of your head against the shower-floor ledge,” she informed me, “very hard, so I'm certain that the first blow kills you.”

The world suddenly took on a weird, electronic
wah-wah
feel, some psychedelic special effect that made the shower walls expand and contract.

“And later I'll find you, the victim of a tragic accident. Most accidents, you know, do occur in the home.”

Correct,
I thought.
You murdering bitch.
I made a grab at her wrists. “You
hit
Bob Arnold?” I managed.

Because even with the drug-sludge filling my head, it was an astonishing idea. Bob was so well-liked in Eastport that even the few habitual criminals we had wouldn't hurt him, or even say very many mean things to him while he was arresting them again.

“And . . . the fire?” My mouth was mush but she understood.

“Oh, of course,” she agreed. “I was downtown doing errands when I saw you go into Bob's office. So I followed afterward to see what you might be up to, and happened upon my chance.”

Right, and the charcoal-starter fluid, or whatever it was, had just jumped into her car all by itself. She sniffed proudly, as if explaining how she'd disciplined unruly schoolchildren.

“I sneaked up behind him. Bob never saw it coming,” she said, unable to resist describing it all to the only person who'd never be able to tell anyone else about it.

That is, her next victim. Which would be me. She jerked her wrists easily from my grasp.

“Why?” I whispered. Ann Talbert and Jason, almost certainly Horace Robotham; Merkle, too, if he didn't survive. And Dave DiMaio . . .

Wade would've come to the back door, not the front. So it must be Dave out there on the parlor floor unconscious after that awful cantaloupe-thump. Merrie eyed me as if I should know why.

“She married the son. The servant girl did . . . and they all began to die.”

Yeah, yeah, tough to get good help.
I was veering in and out of the drunken-humor phase of narcotics-overdose symptoms:
Me smart, everything funny.
Then without noticing the transition I was on the shower floor, water falling around me. Cold . . .

“Before she killed her young husband she had a son of her own,” Merrie said. “Simon Fargeorge's grandson, my great-great-grandfather. It must've been her intention all along, to produce a son.” She said it bitterly.

Her eyes bore into mine. “He could inherit, you see, on her behalf.
Her
offspring. The son,” she finished, “of a
witch.
”

And with that I did understand. All her exalted, colorful-local-character status, the authentic old Eastport bloodline that made Merrie Fargeorge so special, honored and treasured by all . . .

The witch story was merely a fantasy, of course, a couple of centuries' worth of fireside tales and malicious rumors, likely embroidered over time. No doubt the real servant liked reading and disliked praying. It was, in those days, a damning combination.

But Merrie believed it. And if my old book were pronounced real, it would resurrect the story she'd worked so hard to suppress; in a heartbeat she'd go from living treasure to an object of lurid curiosity, while her treasured ancestors became the characters in a sordid soap opera.

If
the book was real. But it wasn't. Relief flooded me; all I had to do was tell her that what she feared wouldn't happen.

“Mhhhh.” My lips flapped rubberishly.

Darn. That hadn't worked. I wasn't scared anymore; whatever she'd given me had taken care of that just fine. But it had also disconnected what was left of my brain from my speech apparatus.

She turned the shower off. On the far side of the door the little dog, Caspar, scratched harder, then apparently began hurling himself against it.

But with a murderess looming over me I couldn't spare much thought for her canine companion. And anyway I had no thoughts. They'd gone somewhere; swirled down the shower drain, maybe.

Merrie grabbed handfuls of my hair, one on the right side of my head and one on the left.

“I'm so sorry,” she told me, and she probably was, for her own twisted value of
sorry.
“But I'm too old to start over, Jacobia. Once you are gone there'll be only that foolish fellow out there to finish off.”

DiMaio.
My eyes unfocused, cold spreading through me as if embalming fluid had already been injected in my veins.

She did not, I thought clearly, even realize that Wade was still waiting for me in the driveway.

But it didn't matter. Her hands lifted my head, cruelly gripping my hair. Calmly I waited for the downward thrust, the impact at the back of my skull that would smash my lights out.

“After that,” she droned, “I'll get the book. Being as I'm a local-history expert there'll be no trouble about giving it to me once you're gone. And there'll be an end to—”

Then two things happened fast: the door crashed in and came violently off its hinges, one breaking with a deep
crack!
and the other pulling slantwise from the wall with an agonized
creak.

And she let go of my head. Through the commotion behind her I felt it begin dropping, slowly at first and then faster.

A lot faster. Merrie's round wrinkled face still hung hugely over my own with a look of surprise, anger, and—inexplicably—pain.

Falling and falling, I had a last glimpse of the brass shower head with its dozens of round black holes, each seeming to stare down at me like a wide-open eye.

Finally my head hit the stone edge of the shower enclosure, just as Merrie had intended.

And all the eyes snapped shut.

If you ever
find yourself in the unenviable position of wanting to reverse a serious narcotics overdose, there's a dandy little injectable medication called Narcan that will do the trick in a lot less time than it takes to tell about it.

Boom,
the stuff runs in through an IV and it's over: heartbeat, pulse, and respiration abruptly restored, blood pressure rising and awareness slam-banging inside your head like someone was crashing together a lot of pots and pans in there.

Which doesn't do much for your mood, combining as it does the opposite situations of (a) being glad you're not dead and (b) wishing you were, if only so your awful headache would stop.

Meanwhile, Merrie Fargeorge hadn't survived her shower-stall encounter with Dave DiMaio. While I was in the ER being revived, she was in the next cubicle being treated unsuccessfully for a blow to the back of her own head. After bursting in, he'd grabbed that stone soap dish I'd admired so much and hit her with it while Wade still waited, all unaware, out in the truck.

All of which was still on my mind ten days later, when my father took me upstairs to unveil with a flourish
—ta-dah!—
the newly remodeled bathroom.

“Oh,” I said softly, feeling my throat tighten. “It's just beautiful.”

I'd come home only that morning; X-rays they'd taken in the ER just to be safe showed that when my head fell onto the edge of Merrie's shower stall, I'd fractured a small bone in my spinal column near the base of my skull. A specialist operated the next day—someday I'll describe just how much fun that was, three hours on my back in an ambulance to Bangor, wearing a thick foam collar—and reassured me afterward that the damage was fixed.

Or as fixed as he could make it. “You're sure you like it?” my father asked hopefully. “George and his guys helped.”

“It's wonderful. Absolutely wonderful.”

In the end, he'd decided to have the old tub refinished after all. And he'd had the floor sanded and coated with enough high-gloss polyurethane to waterproof a submarine.

The shower walls were built of special, moisture-resistant concrete board covered with ceramic tile. The pipes had been fixed, the flush replaced, the window weatherized, and the massive old cast-iron radiator sandblasted and enameled a pale cream color.

Next to it stood a brand-new sink set into a cabinet; above that hung a mirror with pinkish lights all around, so when I used it I wouldn't look like Dracula's daughter.

Or not quite so much. Surgery and recovery had definitely given me a bloodless, horror-movie appearance. But there were still a few weeks of fine weather left for the regaining of my normal skin tone, Ellie had assured me cheerfully.

“Oh.” Bella sighed when I took her upstairs to see all the improvements; until now my father hadn't been letting anyone in.

“My stars and garters, doesn't that look lovely?” she said.

Peering into the tub, she put an experimental finger on the smooth, stain-resistant surface, so shiny it looked as if it not only repelled all dirt but
ker-whang
ed it into space, molecule by bounced-off molecule.