Usher's Passing (56 page)

Her first impulse was to draw away from him, but his expression of appeal held her firmly. "I don't know what to tell you," she said. "I guess . . . you have to do what you feel is right."

"If what the Mountain King says is true, then . . . my ancestor worshiped Satan before he destroyed that coven. There was evil in him, or the Devil wouldn't have called him. How do I know . . . there's not evil down deep in
me,
too?"

"Why do you think that?"

"Because I
like
the magic," New confessed. "I like the feelin' it gives me. I can do anything I please. And . . . Lord help me, but I want to answer what's callin' me from the Lodge." He lowered his chin, his fingers caressing the stick's rough wood. "One half of me . . . wants things to be like they were, before I fell in them thorns. The other half is
glad
it happened. I'm afraid of that part of me, Miz Dunstan." She watched his fingers tighten around the stick. "I don't want to lose . . . who I used to be."

Raven reached out hesitantly, touching his arm. She felt his bones under the shirt. Ordinary bones, she thought, the same as anyone else's. "You won't," she said, but she knew how little she understood of what this boy had been going through. In the short span of a week, his life had changed—as had her own. Her search for the Pumpkin Man had led her into a dark maze of witchcraft, the past, and strange family ties. What lay at the maze's center? she wondered. What was leading her through the blind alleys and twisted corridors between the past and the future?

She knew: Usher's Lodge. She'd known ever since that day she'd spoken to Myra Tharpe in the Broadleaf Cafe, and Myra had mentioned "something dark" that lived alone in the Lodge. At first, Raven had thought that perhaps someone
did
live in it, as much of a hermit as the Mountain King—someone who came out at night to roam the forests, able to snatch children away without leaving a trace behind. Rix Usher had said the Lodge was kept unlocked; it would be a perfect shelter for a madman who wanted to enact the legends of the Pumpkin Man.

She'd known that somehow she would have to get into that house herself, to search through its darkness for traces of the child-killer she thought might be hiding there. But after listening to New tell her how he felt—and
heard
—
the Lodge calling him, as it had beckoned his father and the Mountain King as well, Raven realized the Lodge might be hiding much more than the Pumpkin Man.

Satan finds the man,
the Mountain King had said to New.
He's callin' you, like he called your pa and like he called me, all these years . . . He wants the power that's in you . . .

If some insidious force of evil dwelt at Usherland, Raven thought, might it be trying to draw New back to the web his ancestor had escaped?

Dr. Robinson came around the corner into the waiting room. Both New and Raven turned their attention toward him. Myra Tharpe still sat slumped over, all her energy gone, her spirit defeated.

"How is he?" Raven asked.

The doctor shook his head grimly. "He's fading. I'll tell you, though, he's one strong old bird. We've done all we could, but . . . his system's taken a jolt. Did either of you know he's had pneumonia for quite some time? And he's so anemic his blood's as thin as dishwater. By all rights, he should've been bedridden over a year ago." He glanced at New. "I understand that you told the nurse he has no next of kin. No one to notify . . . to arrange things, I mean."

"I'll pay the bill," Raven said. "I told the nurse that."

"That's not what I mean. The old man's dying. I hate to be so blunt, but . . . who's going to make arrangements for the body? Sheriff Kemp?"

"No sir." New rose from his chair. He looked at his mother, who hadn't moved, and then back to Dr. Robinson. "I was wrong, sir. He does have next of kin. He's my grandfather, and I'll take care of him."

"New,"
Myra rasped, but he paid no heed.

"Oh. I see." It was clear that Dr. Robinson
didn't
see, though he was seemingly satisfied. "Well . . . in that case, you've got some mighty strong blood in your veins, son. Your grandfather's a fighter."

"Yes sir," New said. "Can I see him?"

"I doubt if he'll know you're there, but go ahead if you like."

"Do you want me to go with you?" Raven asked, but New shook his head and left the waiting room.

When he was gone, Dr. Robinson said quietly to Raven, "The old man's hanging on by his fingernails. I don't know why, but he won't let go."

New stood in the Mountain King's room, listening to his faint breathing. Dim gray light filtered through the blinds at the single window. The lamp over the old man's bed had been turned off. The Mountain King didn't move. New stood where he was for a while longer, then turned to leave.

"Boy," the old man whispered weakly. "Don't . . . go yet."

New moved closer to the bed. "Are you hurtin'?" he asked tentatively.

"No. Not no more. He got me, didn't he?" The Mountain King chuckled hoarsely. "Old sumbitch . . . got me when my back was turned. Few years ago . . . I would've torn the hide right off his bones."

"Miz Dunstan found a story in an old newspaper," New told him. "It was about... the comets that fell. Your name is Oren Hartley."

"Oren . . . Hartley," he repeated. "That sounds . . . like a sissy preacher's name. That ain't me, boy. I'm the Mountain King." He said it with defiant pride. "Did . . . that story have my folks' names, too?"

"Your father's name was Ben. Your mother's was Orchid."

"Oh. Those are . . . right nice names, I reckon. They kinda ring a bell, but . . . it's been so long. Take my hand, boy. Hold it tight."

New grasped it. The Mountain King's hand was cold. "What I did
to
your pa," he whispered, "I did . . . because I was afraid. He was weakenin'. He . . . didn't know who or what he was . . . and he was about to answer what was callin' him."

"What would have happened to him if he'd gone down to the Lodge?"

"The Lodge," the Mountain King hissed bitterly. "It ain't . . . just a house, boy. It's the Devil's sanctuary. It's . . . a church to worship evil. If your pa had gone there . . . what lives in that house would've snared him. There's . . . a power in the Lodge that calls you, and promises . . . everything in the world to you. But all it wants . . . is to
use
you. To catch and hold you . . . like them thorns on the mountain." He gave a soft, weary sigh. "You don't much like your life, do you? Sometimes . . . you wish you could live at Usherland, and not have to . . . go back to that cabin. Ain't that right?"

"Yes."

"Where you live ain't important," he said. "It's what . . . lives in
you.
Them Ushers have got money . . . but they live in a cage, without knowin' it. Once in a while they bump their heads on the bars. All their money can't buy 'em the key. You be . . . proud of who you are, boy. The rest'll take care of itself. And your ma . . . she's just scared for you, 'cause she loves you. Don't begrudge her that."

"She didn't want the men to find Nathan," he replied coldly. "She didn't
want
Nathan to come home!"

"Yes, she did. If she . . . pretended not to, it was to keep herself goin' on. You're all she's got now. I reckon . . . I had a part in that." He squeezed New's hand. "Do you forgive me, boy? For what I done to your pa?"

"I miss him. I miss him a lot."

"I know that. But . . . it had to be done. Do you see that?"

"Yes," New said.

"At least... he died as the man you knew. Not... as what he would've been, if he'd gone down to the Lodge."

"What happened to Nathan?" There was steel in his voice. "Where did the Pumpkin Man take my brother?"

"I don't know. All I know is . . . the Pumpkin Man is part of it. Part of what's callin' you from Usherland. I don't know what the Pumpkin Man is, or why he takes those young'uns."

"And what would happen to me," New asked, "if I went down to the Lodge?"

The old man was silent. In the distance, New heard the throaty rumble of thunder. "Then . . . you'll be walkin' right into the snare," the Mountain King said. "Like a dumb animal . . . about to have its throat cut."

"I'm going to go to the Lodge," New told him. "I decided when I was sitting out there, waiting. I'm going to find out what's inside. You know that, don't you?"

"I . . . feared it. Boy . . . if I could stop you, I would. I'd do anything to stop you. But . . . I'm all used up. I'm tired. I've passed the wand to you, and told the tale. The rest is . . . on your shoulders."

New could feel his grip weakening. The old man whispered, "Lizbeth . . . who's to take care . . . of Lizbeth now?"

He was slipping away. The core of ice inside New suddenly cracked. What would the words hurt? he asked himself. And then he said softly, "I forgive you."

The Mountain King's hand strengthened again, for just a second or two. "I'm . . . gonna turn loose now." His voice was barely audible. "I want you to go out . . . and tell 'em the Mountain King wants to rest."

"Yes sir."

The old man opened his hand—and his arm slithered down, hanging off the bedside.

New thought he could still hear him breathing, but he wasn't sure. Thunder vibrated over the valley, shaking the windowglass. New backed away from the bed, and quietly left the room.

"I want to go somewhere to be alone," New told Raven in the waiting room. "I need to do some thinking."

"The
Democrat
office is just down the street. There won't be anyone there this early. Do you want me to take you?"

He nodded, and then went over to his mother. "Ma?"

She flinched, her hands folded prayerfully in her lap.

New gently touched her cheek, and when she looked up at him, there were tears in her eyes. "I want you to take the truck and go home," he said. "Will you do that?"

"Not without you. I'm not goin' anywhere without—"

"I'm the man of the house now, Ma. You told me that a hundred times. If you want me to be the man, I've got to act like one. I've got to make my own decisions. There's a storm comin'. I want you to take the truck and go home." He could easily make her do it, he knew. It would take no more than a mental shove. He almost did it—
almost
—
but then he said, "Please."

She started to object; then she saw the man in her boy's eyes, and stopped. "All right," Myra said. "All right. I'll go home. But how will you—"

"I'll make out."

Myra stood up, looked from her son to Raven Dunstan and then back to New again. "You will. . . come home too, won't you?"

"Yes ma'am. I'll come home."

She took the keys from him and went out of the clinic under a sky that churned with stormclouds.

New stood at the door until she'd driven away. "What's on your mind?" Raven asked him.

"Huntin'," he answered calmly. "I've got to figure out how to make a snare of my own."

RIX
HEARD THE RUMBLE OF DISTANT THUNDER AS HE SAT IN THE
library, examining by candlelight one of the first items he'd found: the small, moldy black book with its mathematical formulas, obscure ink sketches, and bars of music. The formulas were much too dense for Rix to follow, though he'd always been pretty good at math. They resembled some sort of advanced physics project, with notations for weight and velocity. What the hell were they for? he wondered.

The musical notations were particularly puzzling. They were extremely intricate, with dozens of sharps and flats. Whose composition were they, and what was their connection with the math formulas? He turned a few brittle pages and looked at the sketches of the long rods with half-moon, round, and triangular shapes at their bottoms. He felt he should know what those were; the symbols were familiar, but he couldn't quite place them.