Witch, page 23
She stood frozen with horror, clutching the limp body of Ishtar. Jack dived forward and got to his feet holding the shotgun. He handed it to Tim and then turned back. There were sounds from the darkness under the trees, but they did not continue for long.
Chapter 13
ELLEN WAS STANDING BY THE KITCHEN WINDOW when Jack came downstairs. It was a beautiful day. The sun was shining and the roses were blooming and the mockingbirds were at their favorite game of teasing Ishtar. She crouched on the steps rumbling like a volcano as the graceful gray shapes swooped at her with squawks that sounded like whoops of avian laughter. The pleasure of the sport was always one-sided, and Ishtar’s mood that morning was worse than usual. She was sulking about the indignities she had suffered the previous night.
Ellen turned as Jack came in. His chin was covered with a hideous salt-and-pepper stubble, and his clothes—the same he had worn the night before—had not been improved by their nocturnal adventures. But he greeted her with his broadest smile as he took the cup of coffee she handed him.
“This is like old times,” he said.
“Are the kids still asleep?”
“Uh-huh. Tim reminds me of Phil, the way he sleeps—all over the bed, sheets wound around him like the snake and Laocoön.” Jack’s smile faded. “You realize this is the first time in seven years that kid has gone to bed without dreading the next morning?”
“He must have doubted his own sanity at times—wondered if he really had done the things he was accused of doing. I can’t see how Norman managed it.”
“Only too easily. Tim was man-size when he was fourteen, not unlike his uncle in appearance. Before that time it was even easier. Norman would take advantage of every accidental disaster; he probably arranged a few himself. Whenever anything happened, he’d rush to the victim’s house waving his checkbook and babbling apologies. And don’t think of Tim as Sir Galahad, lifting his pure pale face heavenward. All normal kids are hellers….”
A reminiscent gleam warmed Jack’s eyes. Ellen laughed.
“Yes, I’ve heard of some of your exploits. Men! You all stick together…. Jack, what are we going to do about Tim?”
“I’m glad you have accepted it.”
“What?”
“That Tim is going to be part of the family.”
“Now just a minute, I didn’t mean that! Penny is only sixteen, I’m not having her involved with…. I like Tim and I feel sorry for him, but—”
“That’s a very unworldly attitude. Most mothers would snap at two million, even if it came with Jack the Ripper. Don’t you think we had better grab him before he gets out into the world and sees what else is available?”
“If you think I’d sell Penny for twenty million…”
She saw the twinkle in Jack’s eye and stopped in amused confusion.
“You ought to be ashamed of yourself, leading me on.”
“I am, as always, in complete agreement with you,” Jack said. “But dammit, Ellen, that relationship is a little staggering. I’ve never seen anything quite like it. The way she went to bat for him, wholeheartedly, with shrewd, adult intelligence—”
“Because the minute she saw him she knew he couldn’t do anything wrong,” Ellen murmured.
“Well, there were other reasons. If you start from the premise that prophecy is uncommon these days, there had to be some explanation for your astounding success as a fortune-teller. It stretched coincidence to the breaking point. The factor I find most inexplicable is your failure to see that yourself. If you had, you would have seen a lot of other things. Were you so bemused by—”
He stopped suddenly, and Ellen, who had joined him at the kitchen table, looked at him in surprise.
“No,” she exclaimed, as his meaning struck her. “No, not by Norman. I never was—I didn’t ever…. It wasn’t Norman. It was something else.”
Jack started to speak, but for once Ellen was too concerned with her own needs to notice his. This was something she had to say; only by speaking of it could she exorcise it.
“I didn’t dare admit it before,” she went on. “I can now, because Penny has explained the other things that frightened me. The things I saw are equally susceptible to a rational explanation. But there were so many of them, they sort of piled up.”
She told Jack about the shadow. He listened with the faint frown that indicated concentration; when she had finished, he nodded thoughtfully.
“Suggestion.”
“You don’t know how real it was. It…she…the figure was hanging, Jack.”
“Uh-huh.” He followed her thoughts as readily as if they had been his own. “Did you ever find out which room Mary died in?”
“Of course I did. According to Ed, it was her room. Her bedroom. You see the implications—”
“Sure, I know about bedrooms.” Jack’s smile was halfhearted. “It can fit the other part of the legend you heard from Tim. The theme is common, Ellen—the sanctimonious Puritan, and the beautiful, amoral woman. A novelist could handle it in several different ways. She lured him into her bed and destroyed his self-respect—so he destroyed her. Or she lured him on and then rejected him, so…. He strung up the body so that the rope would cover the marks his hands had left on her throat…. Maybe we ought to collaborate on a book. Horror stories sell well these days.”
“Oh, Jack, you always say the right thing. But you can see how it affected me. I swear, there were times when I did feel possessed. The more trouble I had with the town, the more I identified with her.”
“Understandable. Ellen, would you like to ask a priest to come out here? Father Kelly would do it. Not for exorcism, only to say a few prayers.”
He was quite serious, and Ellen considered the question as seriously.
“No,” she said, after a moment. “I don’t think so. I don’t think it’s necessary. It sounds odd, Jack, but I was never afraid of her. Anyhow,” she added, smiling, “we might be mistaken about Mary’s religion. If she wasn’t Catholic, Father Kelly might irritate her.”
“Then you don’t intend to give up the house?”
“Heavens, no, not after all I’ve been through. I mean, the worst is over. I don’t think I’ll have any more trouble with the townspeople.”
“No. Your friend Ed told them off, but good. Too bad he’s an isolationist; he’d be great at the U.N.”
They both fell silent, remembering what had happened after they returned to the house with a moaning villain in tow. The state police had the situation well in hand; the mob had been dispersed and the ringleaders arrested. Their cronies were only too eager to testify against them. Mrs. Grapow was the only one to resist. She was howling out Scriptural admonitions when Ellen’s party arrived, but her outrage didn’t last long after Jack began his story. His accusations against Norman included attempt to commit murder and aggravated assault. The trooper’s first reaction was one of incredulity; but Jack’s identification papers were impressive, and Norman made no attempt to deny the charges. He did not speak, or take his hands from his face, not even when he was led off to the waiting police car.
The memory that warmed Ellen’s heart, however, was the action taken by some of her neighbors. Ed Salling had not called the police; that would have been against his principles. He had just come to the rescue, driving hell for leather in his old truck, with as many responsible citizens as he could collect in a hurry. He had not realized the seriousness of the situation until a delegation of the town’s teen-agers descended on him demanding help. All the young people, including Bob Muller, had taken part. Joyce had called the police. Then they had piled into Klaus’s jalopy and come to join the fracas. They were preparing to organize search parties when Ellen arrived.
No. She did not think she would have any more trouble with the town.
Jack cleared his throat.
“Ellen…. I don’t suppose you—that is, would you—”
Ellen didn’t hear Penny and Tim before they entered the room. Penny always floated, and after his years of woods-wandering Tim moved like Natty Bumppo. Jack stopped speaking. Ellen noticed that he looked annoyed, but she had other things on her mind. Feeding Tim kept her fully occupied for some time. As she dispensed eggs and ham and pancakes, she remembered that sleeping wasn’t the only normal activity Tim had been unable to enjoy. He must have choked three times a day on Martha’s cooking, mixed as it was with sanctimonious verbal bullying and vicious commentary on his mother. Ellen fried two more eggs on the strength of that, and reminded herself to ask Tim if she could be present when he fired Martha.
No one said much while the two young people were eating. Jack was unusually silent. When the edge had been taken off Tim’s appetite, he addressed the older man.
“Sir…?”
“Don’t call me ‘sir,’” said Jack, scowling at a half-eaten piece of toast.
“What should I call you?”
“My lord?” suggested Ellen, removing the toast which Jack was crumbling into an unsightly mess. “Your holiness? Most excellent, worshipful—”
The corners of Jack’s mouth turned up.
“I answer to my first name,” he said.
“Could I?”
“You might as well.” Jack pushed his chair back and considered Tim, who stared at him like a devoted dog. “You must be feeling slightly disoriented this morning. But I suppose it isn’t too soon to consider the future.”
“I know what I want to do.”
“What?”
“Be a vet. Could I?”
Jack smiled reluctantly.
“You don’t have to be anything. You’ll be a wealthy man, even after my employer takes his share of the loot.”
“But I want to be a vet.” Tim dismissed two million dollars with a shrug of his broad shoulders. “The thing is, could I? I mean, I was pretty rotten at school. I’ve done a lot of reading, but I never studied. I would have flunked if the teachers hadn’t passed me to get rid of me.”
“Veterinary medicine.” Jack thought about it, pulling at his lip. “It’s a rough course. No harm in trying. Give yourself a year with a tutor, or at some stiff prep school before you try for college.”
“Saint Edmund’s is a very good prep school,” said Penny, looking innocent.
“Uh-huh,” said Jack drily. “It’s also about a mile from Rosecroft, isn’t it? What I had in mind was a year abroad. I haven’t had a chance to tell you, Ellen, but Phil says he doesn’t want to go to college this fall. Wants to bum around for a year. I’ve agreed on condition that he spend the year with me and report for periodic tutoring. No reason why Tim couldn’t join us.”
Tim’s eyes were as big as saucers. Ellen let out a small, inaudible breath of relief. Poor Penny; she looked like a child who has not found the expected stocking on Christmas morning. At that moment Tim had forgotten her very existence. Which was just as it should be. There was good, sound stuff in Tim; few adults could have survived Norman’s seven-year campaign as well. In a few years…. Ellen allowed conventional maternal plans to occupy her mind.
Then she looked at Jack, and was glad he was staring fixedly at his plate while he gave Tim time to react to his suggestion. Her face would have betrayed her feelings. How could she help loving him? He lectured her about involvement, but he was the first to hold out a helping hand to anyone who needed it.
An altercation outside interrupted the flow of silent sentiment. Hissing, howling, screaming—the sounds were suggestive of a small war.
Tim was on his feet.
“Cat fight,” he said cheerfully. “Hey, do you think—”
“Ishtar!” Ellen ran to the door.
Ishtar was crouched by a lilac bush. She was swollen to half again her normal size, and her body shook with throaty Siamese growls. The other cat was invisible. Presumably it had retreated under the bush.
From his greater height Tim saw more than Ellen did.
“It’s my cat,” he said, his face alight. “The white one. That’s weird, that it should come around right now, like it knew…. Could I bring it in? Please?”
Ellen thought of fleas and worms and ear mites and enteritis.
“Sure,” she said, without a second’s hesitation. “If you can catch it.”
Tim went out. Ishtar didn’t budge, but she made a rude remark to Tim over her shoulder.
“I’ll get Ishtar,” Penny said, and followed Tim. “Thanks, Mom.”
“It’s the least I can do. I’ll have to adopt that cat, whether Ishtar likes it or not. After all, it—”
The door shut in her face and she turned to Jack, now her sole audience.
“After all, it did save our lives.”
“It did what?”
“Saved our lives.” Tim, Penny, and cats had disappeared. Ellen heard Penny laugh, and a scream of rage from Ishtar. She went on, “If that cat hadn’t jumped on Norman last night, somebody would have been hurt.”
Jack’s face was a study in perplexity.
“What are you talking about, Ellen?”
“But you must have seen it. On the branch, above Norman. It jumped, or dropped, or—” Her throat closed up as she saw Jack’s expression. “You didn’t see it?”
“I guess it could have been an animal…. I didn’t see anything in the tree, but then my complete attention was concentrated on Norman.”
“Didn’t you see anything?”
“I saw something that looked like moonlight. As if the leaves had shifted and let the light through onto his hair. He yelled and tripped, or something…. dropped the gun….”
“There was a cat,” Ellen said. “A white cat. Jack, his face. It must have been scratched—clawed—”
“There wasn’t a mark on him, Ellen.”
They stared at one another.
“Jack,” Ellen said. “I’ve been meaning to ask you. I didn’t have a chance last night. Why did you come? How did you happen to arrive at the last minute, like the deus ex machina in the play?”
“You won’t believe me.”
“Try me.”
“I was sitting in my hotel room,” Jack said slowly. “It was late afternoon. The sun was still shining. I was working on some papers. All of a sudden—it’s hard to put into words, but—I heard you. Your voice, calling me by name. Something took hold of me, like a hand pulling strings in my mind. My thought processes weren’t affected; I knew perfectly well what I was doing. I tried to telephone you. No answer. The operator told me there was something wrong with the line. I called the desk, then, and ordered a car. Wasn’t till I was halfway here that the thing relaxed, whatever it was. I couldn’t turn back, though. I didn’t try. I drove the way I’ve always forbidden the boys to drive.”
“I see.”
“You do believe me!”
“Yes.”
“Did you call me, Ellen?”
“Not out loud.” Ellen was remembering the first confrontation with Mrs. Grapow and the minister. It must have been at about the same time….
“Well,” she said calmly, “Mary was a busy little ghost about five P.M. She had me in her clutches for a while, too. You should have heard me curse.”
“I have heard you. You don’t need any help from ghosts.”
“But you did. And what made you think of the tunnel? I’d forgotten it myself.”
“That’s a point against your possession theory. If your witch wanted to remind us of an escape route, why drag me into it? You claim to be possessable—or whatever you want to call it—”
“She could only convey emotions to me,” Ellen said. Her eyes were fixed on the sunny window, but her thoughts were elsewhere. “She needed a—a vehicle, a living person who was receptive and responsive. The first day I came here, that burst of savage triumph…. Ed’s aunt didn’t feel anything all the years she lived here. But I was too receptive—too much like her. When she tried to reach me, she blew the fuses, like an overloaded circuit.”
“Ellen, a few minutes ago you were ready and willing to rid yourself of ghosts. What’s come over you?”
“You,” Ellen said simply. “People can’t evaluate themselves; maybe I am superstitious and suggestible, capable of hallucinating shadows and cats and curses. But you are not. I know you. It would take something genuinely out of this world to make you behave in such an extraordinary fashion.”
“Well, it wasn’t a damned ghost,” said Jack furiously.
“Then what was it?”
The cat fight had retreated to a distant part of the yard. Jack looked at the door with a trapped expression.
“Those damned kids keep coming in,” he said unfairly. “They don’t give me a chance…. I’ll tell you what I think it was. I’ve never doubted the possibility of extrasensory perception, particularly at moments of extreme emotional stress. When two people are very close, maybe one can transmit emotion to the other, if the need is strong enough. I felt your need. You were in danger, and—you couldn’t be in danger without my knowing it, Ellen. Ellen—could you—I mean, is there a chance that—”
The kitchen door opened. Jack groaned and banged his fist on the table.
Penny came in, carrying Ishtar, who squirmed in her hold like a demoniacally animated fur muff. For a moment the light caught her eyes and they glowed crimson.
Penny rushed Ishtar to the cellar as Tim entered carrying another cat. It was a long, lean, mangy-looking animal with a hunted expression, but it lay quietly in Tim’s arms. He’ll make a good vet, Ellen thought. We’re going to be overrun. Snakes, mice, birds…. I’ll let him have an elephant if it will make him look like that.
She opened a can of cat food and the animal began wolfing it in loud, unseemly gulps. Tim sat on the floor, legs crossed, stroking the bony back.
“It knows me,” he said proudly. “Most of them growl if you touch them while they’re eating.”
Penny came back. She joined Tim on the floor and looked up at her uncle.
“What’s the matter? You look mad.”
“Did either of you see a cat last night?” Jack asked.
“Ishtar?”
“A white cat. In the tree, over Norman’s head.”
Tim shook his head.
