Hell House

Hell House Page 13

DECEMBER 22, 1970

7:01 A.M.

I'm afraid not." Barrett drew his foot from the water. "Maybe it'll be warm enough by tomorrow morning." He dried the foot and pulled his slipper on again. Pushing to his feet, he looked at Edith with a rueful smile. "I could have let you sleep."

"That's all right."

Barrett looked around. "I wonder if the steam room works."

Edith pulled the heavy metal door and held it open for him. Barrett limped inside and turned to watch her follow. The door thumped shut. Barrett raised his candle and peered around, then leaned forward, squinting.

"Ah." Setting down his cane and candle, he eased himself into a kneeling position. He reached underneath and tried to turn the tap wheel of the steam outlet.

Edith sat across from him and leaned against the tile wall, straightening as the chill of it pierced her robe. She stared at Lionel sleepily. The flickering of their candles and his bobbing shadow on the walls and ceiling seemed to pulse against her eyes. She closed them momentarily, then opened them again. She found herself beginning to appraise the shadow hovering on the ceiling over Lionel. It seemed, somehow, to be expanding. How could that be? There was no movement of air in the room; the candle flames burned straight up now. Only Barrett's shifting as he labored with the tap wheel was reflected on the walls and ceiling.

She blinked and shook her head. She could swear the edges of the shadow were extending like a spreading inkblot. She shifted on the bench. The room was still except for Lionel's breathing. Let's go, she thought. She tried to speak the words aloud, but something kept her from it.

She stared at the shadow. It hadn't gone across that corner before, had it? Let's get out of here, she thought. It's probably nothing, but let's go.

She felt her body going rigid. She was sure she'd seen a patch of lighted wall go black. "Lionel?" The sound she made was barely audible, a feeble stirring in her throat. She swallowed hard. "Lionel?"

Her voice came so abruptly that Barrett jerked around with a gasp. "What is it?"

Edith blinked. The shadow on the ceiling looked normal now.

"Edith?"

She filled her lungs with air. "Let's go?"

"Nervous?"

"Yes, I'm . . . seeing things." Her smile was wan. She didn't want to tell him. Still, she had to. If it did mean something, he would want to know. "I thought I saw your shadow start to grow." He stood and picked up his cane and candle holder, turning back to join her. "It's possible," he said, "but following your sleepless night in this particular house, I'm more inclined to think it was imagination."

They left the steam room and started back along the pool edge. It was imagination, Edith thought. She repressed a smile Who ever heard of a ghost in a steam room?

7:33 A.M.

Florence knocked softly on the door to Fischer's room. When there was no answer, she knocked again. "Ben?" she called.

He was sitting up in bed, eyes closed, head leaning back against the wall. On the table to his right, his candle was almost guttered. Florence drifted across the room, protecting the flame of her candle with an upraised hand. Poor man, she thought, stopping by the bed. His face was drawn and pale. She wondered when he'd gotten to sleep. Benjamin Franklin Fischer: the greatest American physical medium of the century. His sittings in Professor Galbreath's house at Marks College had been the most incredible display of power since the heyday of Home and Palladino. She shook her head with pity. Now he was emotionally crippled, a latter-day Samson, selfshorn of might.

She returned to the corridor and shut the door as quietly as possible. She looked toward the door to Belasco's room. She and Fischer had gone there yesterday afternoon, but its atmosphere had been curiously flat, not at all what she'd expected.

She crossed the corridor and entered it again. It was the only duplex apartment in the house, its sitting room and bath located on the lower level, its bedroom on a balcony reached by a curved stairway. Florence moved to it and ascended the steps.

The bed had been constructed in seventeenth-century French style, its intricately carved columns as thick as telephone poles, the initials "E. B." carved in the center of the headboard. Sitting down on it, Florence closed her eyes and opened herself to impressions, wanting to verify that it had not been Belasco in her room the night before. She released her mind as much as possible without going into a trance.

A tumble of images began to cross her consciousness. The room at night, lamps burning. Someone lying on the bed. A figure chuckling. Lucid, staring eyes. A calendar for 1921. A man in black. A smell of pungent incense in her nostrils. A man and woman on the bed. A painting. A cursing voice. A wine bottle hurled against the wall. A sobbing woman flung across the balcony rail. Blood oozing on the teakwood floor. A photograph. A crib. New York. A calendar for 1903. A pregnant woman.

The birth of a child; a boy.

Florence opened her eyes. "Yes." She nodded. " Yes."

She went down the stairs and left the room. A minute later, she was entering the dining hall, where Barrett and his wife were breakfasting.

"Ah, good, you're up," Barrett said. "Breakfast just arrived."

Florence sat at the table and served herself a small portion of scrambled eggs, a piece of toast; she wouldn't be sitting until later in the day, since they had to wait for a cabinet to be built. She exchanged a few remarks with Mrs. Barrett, answered Barrett's questions by saying that she felt it would be better to let Fischer sleep than wake him up, then, finally, said, "I think I have a partial answer to the haunting of the house."

"Oh?" Barrett looked at her with interest that was clearly more polite than genuine.

"That voice warning us. That pounding on the table. The personality that approached me in my room last night. A young man."

"Who?" asked Barrett.

"Belasco's son."

They looked at her in silence.

"You recall that Mr. Fischer mentioned him."

"But didn't he say that no one was sure whether Belasco had a son or not?" Barrett said.

Florence nodded. "But he did. He's here now, suffering, tormented. He must have gone into spirit at an early age -  just past twenty, I feel. He's very young and very frightened -  and, because he's frightened, very angry, very hostile. I believe if we can convince him to go on, a portion of the haunting force will be eliminated."

Barrett nodded. Don't believe a word of it, he thought. "That's very interesting."

Florence thought, I know he doesn't believe me, but it's better that I tell him what I think.

She was about to change the subject when there was a loud knocking on the front door. Edith, who was drinking coffee, spilled some as her hand jerked. Barrett smiled at her. "Our generator, I imagine, And a carpenter, I hope."

Standing, he picked up his candle holder and cane and started toward the great hall. He stopped to look back at Edith. "Well, I guess it's safe to leave you long enough to answer the door," he said after a few moments.

He crossed the great hall and moved into the entry hall. Opening the front door, he saw Deutsch's representative standing on the porch, coat collar raised, an umbrella in his hand. To Barrett's surprise, he saw that it was raining.

"I've got your generator and your carpenter," the man said.

Barrett nodded. "What about the cat?"

"That too."

Barrett smiled with satisfaction. Now he could move.

1:17 P.M.

The lights went on, and, in unison, all four uttered sounds of pleasure. "I'll be damned," said Fischer. They exchanged spontaneous smiles. "I never thought electric lights could look so good," Edith said.

Bathed with light, the great hall was another place entirely. Now its size seemed regal rather than ominous. No longer black with looming shadows, it was a massive chamber in some art museum, and not a haunted cavern. Edith looked at Fischer. He was obviously pleased, his posture different, apprehension cleansed from his eyes. She looked at Florence, who was sitting with the cat on her lap. The lights on, she thought. That cat resting peacefully. She smiled. It didn't seem like a haunted house at all now.

She gasped as the lights flickered, went out, then on again. Immediately, they began to dim. "Oh, no," she murmured.

"Easy," Barrett said. "They'll get it."

A minute later, the lights were bright and steady. When another minute passed without a change, Barrett smiled. "There, you see?"

Edith nodded. Her relief had ended, though. From relaxed assurance, she had fallen back to a nagging dread that, any second, they might once more be in darkness.

Florence looked at Fischer, caught his eye, and smiled at him. He did not return it. Idiots, he thought. Some bulbs go on, and they all think the danger's over.

1:58 P.M.

The cabinet had been constructed in the northeast corner of the great hall by the installation of an eight-foot-long round wooden bar between the walls. A pair of heavy green draperies was hanging from the bar on rings, forming a triangular enclosure seven feet high. Inside the enclosure was a straight-backed wooden armchair.

Barrett edged aside the draperies on each side until there was an opening in the middle large enough to accommodate a small wooden table he had asked Fischer to carry in. Pushing the table in front of the opening, he placed on top of it a tambourine, a small guitar, a tea bell, and a length of rope. He looked at the cabinet appraisingly for several moments, then turned to the others.

They watched as he rummaged through the contents of the wooden chest from which he'd gotten the rope, tea bell, guitar, and tambourine. He lifted out a pair of black tights and a black long-sleeved smock and held them out to Florence. "I believe they'll fit," he said.

Florence stared at him.

"You don't object, do you?"

"Well - "

"You know it's standard procedure."

"Yes, but" - Florence hesitated, then went on - "as a precaution against fraud."

"Primarily."

Florence's smile was awkward. "Surely you don't think I'm capable of perpetrating fraud with a form of mediumship I didn't even know I had before last night."

"I'm not implying that, Miss Tanner. It's simply that I must maintain a standard. If I don't, the results of the sitting are scientifically unacceptable."

Finally she sighed. "Very well." She took the tights and smock, looked around, then went inside the cabinet to change, pulling the draperies together. Barrett turned to Edith. "Would you examine her, my dear?" he asked. Bending over the box, he lifted out a spool of black thread with a needle pushed through the thread, and handed it to her.

Edith moved toward the cabinet, a discomfited look on her face. She'd always hated doing this, although she'd never indicated it to Lionel. Stopping by the cabinet, she cleared her throat. "May I come in?"

There was a momentary silence before Florence answered. "Yes." Edith pushed between the drapery edges, stepping into the cabinet.

Florence had removed her skirt and sweater and was leaning over, stepping from her half-slip. Straightening, she draped the slip across the chair back. As she reached back to unhook her white brassiere, Edith stepped aside. "I'm sorry," she murmured;

"I know it's - "

"Don't be embarrassed," Florence said. "Your husband is quite right. It's standard procedure."

Edith nodded, keeping her eyes on Florence's face as the medium hung her brassiere across the chair back. Her gaze dropped as Florence bent forward to remove her underpants. She was startled by the fullness of the medium's breasts, and looked up quickly. Florence stood erect. "All right," she said. Edith saw a stippling of gooseflesh on the medium's arms.

"We'll make it quick so you can dress," she said. "Your mouth?"

Florence opened her mouth, and Edith looked inside. She felt ridiculous. "Well, unless you have a hollow tooth or something - "

Florence closed her mouth and smiled. "It's just a technicality. Your husband knows I'm not concealing anything."

Edith nodded. "Your hair?"

Florence reached up both hands to unpin her hair. The movement made her breasts hitch, so their hardened nipples brushed against Edith's sweater. Edith twitched back, watching the tresses of thick red hair as they rippled downward, spilling over Florence's creamy shoulders. She'd never examined a woman so beautiful before.

"All right," Florence said.

Edith started fingering through the medium's hair. It was warm and silky to the touch. The fragrance of Florence's perfume drifted over her. Balenciaga, she thought. She drew in a labored breath. She could feel the pressing weight of Florence's breasts against her own. She wanted to step back but couldn't do it. She looked into the medium's green eyes, looked down quickly.

Turning Florence's head, she looked into her ears. I will not look up her nose, she thought. She drew her hands back awkwardly. "Armpits?" she said.

Florence raised her arms and caused her breasts to jut again. Edith edged away from her and glanced down at her shaved armpits. She nodded once, and Florence lowered her arms. Edith felt her heartbeat thudding. The inside of the cabinet seemed very close. She looked at Florence unhappily. It seemed as if the two of them were stopped in time. Then she noted Florence glancing down, and lowered her gaze. She started at the sight of Florence's hands cupped beneath her breasts, holding them up.

This is ridiculous, she thought. She nodded once, and Florence took her hands away. That's enough, Edith decided. I'll just say I did the rest. Obviously she has no intention of committing fraud.

She watched as the medium sat in the chair, hissing at its coldness. She looked up at Edith. I'll just say I did the rest, Edith thought.

Leaning back, Florence spread her legs apart.

Edith stared down at the medium's body: the heavy, ovate loll of her breasts, the swell of her stomach, the milk-white fullness of her thighs, the parted tuft of glossy copper hair between her legs. She couldn't take her eyes away. She felt a drawing hotness in her stomach.

She jerked her head around so quickly, looking up, that it sent a shooting pain through her neck.

"What is it?" Florence asked.

Edith swallowed, staring up across the wooden rod. There was only ceiling visible. She looked at Florence. " What? " the medium asked.

Edith shook her head. "I think we can assume - " She broke off, gesturing with a trembling hand, then turned and pushed from the cabinet.

She nodded to Lionel and crossed to the fireplace. She was sure she looked completely disconcerted, but hoped he wouldn't ask her why.

She stared into the fire. There was something in her hand. She looked at it; the spool of thread. Now she'd have to bring it back. She closed her eyes. Her neck still hurt from the wrenching she'd given it. Had she really seen a movement? There'd been nothing there. Still, she could have sworn that someone had been looking down into the cabinet.

At her.