Faerie Tale (4 page)

“Is it really that bad?” Jack asked.

Gabbie rose and began gathering up the paper plates and napkins. “If the volume of Dad’s yelling is any indication, it’s that bad.”

Phil looked wounded. “I don’t yell.”

Gloria said, “Yes you do. Several times I thought you’d smash the phone slamming it down after speaking to someone at the studio.” She turned to Jack. “You’ve been doing most of the listening, Jack. We haven’t given you a chance to tell us anything about yourself.”

Jack grinned as Gabbie replaced his empty bottle of beer with a fresh one, indicating he should stay a little longer. “Not too much to tell, really. I’m just a good old boy from Durham, North Carolina, who got a B.A. in English from UNC and wandered up north to study at
SUNY Fredonia. I had my choice of a couple of different grad programs, including a tempting one in San Diego, but I wanted Agatha Grant as an adviser, so I pulled some strings and got her, and here I am.”

Phil’s eyes widened. “Aggie Grant! She’s an old family friend! She was also my adviser when I got my M.A. in modern lit. at Cornell. She’s at Fredonia?”

“Emeritus. She retired last year. That’s what I meant by pulling strings. I’m her last grad student. I’m after a doctorate in literature. In a few more months I’ll be taking orals to see if I get to continue, and an M.A. in passing. I’m doing my work on novelists who became film writers, on how work in films affects a writer’s work in print. I’m looking at writers who did both, like Fitzgerald, Runyon, William Goldman, Faulkner, and Clavell. And of course yourself. Though mostly I’m working on Fitzgerald. When I figure out the thrust of my dissertation, I’ll probably concentrate on him.”

Phil smiled. “You put me in some fine company, Jack.”

“It’s all pretty technical and probably pretty boring.” He looked embarrassed. “When the local papers printed the word you’d bought this place, I thought I might impose and get an interview with you.”

Phil said, “Well, I’ll help if I can. But I don’t have much in common with Fitzgerald. I don’t drink as much; I’m not having an affair with another writer; and my wife’s not crazy … most of the time.”

“Thanks,” said Gloria, dryly.

“I was going to call Aggie, and take a weekend and drive up to Ithaca. I had no idea she’d moved. First chance I have, I’ll get up to Fredonia and see her. God, it’s been years.”

“Actually, you don’t have to go to Fredonia. She lives on the other side of the woods now, right at the edge of Pittsville. That’s part of the deal. I double as something of a groundskeeper, general factotum, and occasional cook, though she prefers to putter in the kitchen most of the time. She only runs up to the university when she has
to, commencements, a colloquium, guest lecture, the occasional alumni function, that sort of thing.”

“Tell Aggie I’ll be over in the next day or two.”

“She’s at NYU for the next two weeks. She’s editing a collection of papers for a symposium in Brussels. But she should be back right after. She wouldn’t miss the Fourth of July celebration in Pittsville.”

“Well then, as soon as she returns, have her give us a call.”

“She’ll be glad to know you’re back home. She’ll whip up something special for the occasion, I expect.” Jack finished his beer and rose. “Well, I want to thank you all—for the hospitality and the dinner. It’s truly been a pleasure.” The last was not too subtly directed at Gabbie.

“I hope we’ll be seeing you soon, Jack,” said Gloria.

“If it’s not an imposition. I hike this area when I’m thinking around a problem in my thesis, or sometimes I go riding through the woods.”

“Riding?” asked Gloria, a calculating expression crossing her face. Jack’s presence had lightened Gabbie’s mood for the first time since they’d arrived, and Gloria was anxious to keep her diverted from any black furies.

“There’s a farm a couple of miles down the highway where they raise horses. Mr. Laudermilch’s a friend of Aggie’s, so I can borrow one sometimes. Do you ride?”

“Infrequently,” answered Phil, “but Gabbie here rides every chance she gets.”

“Oh?”

“Bumper—that’s my horse—he’s a champion Blanket Appaloosa. Best gymkhana horse in Southern California, and one of the best cross-country horses at Highridge Stables.”

“Never ridden an Appaloosa; they tend to be a little thick-skinned, I understand. But I guess they’re good working stock. Champion, huh? Pretty expensive, I guess.”

“Well, he’s a good one.…” Gabbie shrugged, indicating money was not an issue. Gloria and Phil smiled. Jack said, “Back home I had a Tennessee Walker. Per
haps you’d care to go riding some afternoon, after you’re settled in?”

“Sure, anytime.”

“I’m going down to visit my folks in Durham, day after tomorrow. I’ll be there two weeks. When I get back?”

Gabbie shrugged. “Okay.”

“Well then. As I said, it’s been a pleasure. I do look forward to the next time.”

Phil rose and shook Jack’s hand. “Don’t be a stranger,” offered Gloria as Jack left through the back door. Returning to her husband’s side, she said, “So, Gabbie. Things don’t seem quite so bad, do they?”

Gabbie sighed. “Oh, he’s definitely a hunk; Ducky Summers would say, ‘He’s got buns worth dying for.’ But how am I going to keep from losing my lunch when he shows up with some retard rockhead, cold-blood farm horse? Ugh!”

Gloria smiled. “Let’s unpack another crate, then I’ll chase the boys to bed.”

Gabbie nodded resigned agreement, and Phil led her out of the kitchen. Gloria followed, but as she started to leave the kitchen she was struck by a sudden feeling of being watched, as if unfriendly eyes had fastened upon her. She turned abruptly and for an instant thought she saw something at one of the windows. Moving her head, she saw flickering changes in the light of the kitchen bulb as it reflected off imperfections in the glass. With a slight sense of uneasiness, Gloria left the kitchen.

Sean tried to settle deeply into the bunk bed. The smells were new to him. Old feather pillows had been dug out of a closet when it was discovered the boy’s familiar ones hadn’t been where they were expected to be, and despite the clean pillowcases, they had an ancient, musty odor.

And the house made strange sounds. Creaks and groans could be faintly heard; odd chitters and whispers made by creatures of darkness had Sean burrowing deeply below the heavy comforter, peeking out over the edge, afraid to relax his vigil for an instant.

“Patrick?” he whispered, to be answered by his brother’s deep breathing. Patrick didn’t share Sean’s fear of the dark. The first night Patrick had tried to bully his brother out of the top bunk—they had both wanted the novel experience of sleeping that high off the ground—but Mom had prevented a fight and Sean had picked the number closer to the one she had been thinking. Now Sean wondered at the whim of chance that put him in the top bed. Everything looked weird from up high.

The moon’s glow came through the window, and the light level rose and fell as clouds crawled slowly across the sky, alternately plunging the room into deep gloom and lightening to what seemed almost daylight. The dancing shadows had an odd pattern Sean had come to recognize.

Outside, an old elm tree rose beside the bedroom, its branches swaying gently in the breeze. When the moon was not obscured, the tree shadows became more distinct, making their own display. The thick leaves rustled in the night wind, casting fluttering shadows that shifted and moved around the room, shapes of ebon and grey that capered in mad abandon, filling the night with menace.

Sean watched the play of shadows with a thrill of danger that was almost delicious, a sweaty-palm-and-neck-hairs-standing sort of feeling. Then something changed. In the blackest part of the gloom, deep in the far corner, something moved. Sean felt his chest tighten as cold gripped his stomach. Moving in the wrong rhythm, against the flow of greys and blacks, it was coming toward the boys’ bunk beds.

“Patrick,” Sean repeated loudly. His brother stirred and made a sleepy sound as the shape began to slither along the floor. It would move a beat, weaving its way across the carpet, then pause, and Sean strained his eyes
to see it, for when it was still, it would vanish. For long, agonizing moments he couldn’t see any hint of motion, then just when he finally relaxed, thinking it gone or an illusion, it would stir again. The maddeningly indistinct shape approached the bed slowly, at last disappearing below the foot of the bunks, out of Sean’s view.

“Patrick!” Sean said, scooting backward to the corner of the bunk farthest from the creeping shadow. Then he heard a sound of claws upon wood, as something climbed the old bedpost. Sean held his breath. Two clawlike shapes, dark and terrible in their deformity, appeared beyond the end of the bunks, as if reaching up blindly for something, followed an instant later by a misshapen mask of terror and hate, a black, twisted visage with impossible eyes, black opal irises surrounded by a yellow that seemed to glow in the gloom. Sean screamed.

Suddenly Patrick was awake and shouting and an instant later Gloria was standing in the door turning on the lights.

Phil was a moment behind, and Gabbie’s voice came through the door of her room. “What’s going on?”

Gloria reached up and hugged Sean. “What is it, honey?”

“Something.…” began Sean. Unable to continue, he pointed. Phil made a display of investigating the room while Gloria calmed the frightened boy. Gabbie stuck her head in the room and said, “What’s going on?” She wore the oversized UCLA T-shirt she used as a nightgown.

With a mixture of contempt and relief in his voice, Patrick said, “Sean’s had a nightmare.”

His brother’s tone of disdain caused Sean to react. “It wasn’t a dream! There was something in the room!”

“Well,” said Phil, “whatever it was, it’s gone.”

“Honey, it was just a bad dream.”

“It was not,” said Sean, halfway between frustrated tears at not being believed and a fervent hope they were right.

“You just go back to sleep and I’ll stay here until you do. Okay?”

Sean seemed unconvinced, but said, “’Kay.” He settled
in and began to accept the idea he had been dreaming. With his mother nearby and the light on, the black face seemed a nightmare design, not a thing of solid existence.

“Brother,” said Patrick in disgust. He rolled over and made a display of needing no such reassurance.

Gabbie’s grumbling followed her back into her own room as Phil flipped off the light. Gloria remained, standing patiently next to Sean’s bunk until he fell asleep.

Outside the boys’ bedroom window, something dark and alien slithered down the drainpipe and swung onto the nearest tree branch. It leaped and spun from branch to branch as it descended, dropping the last ten feet to the ground. It moved with an unnaturally quick, rolling gait, a stooped-over apelike shape. It paused near the gazebo, looking back over its shoulder with opalescent dark eyes toward the boys’ window. Another movement, in the woods, caused it to duck down, as if fearing discovery. Bright twinkling lights flashed for an instant, darting between boles, and vanished from view. The dark creature hesitated, waiting until the lights were gone, then scampered off toward the woods, making odd whispering sounds.

The house became a home, slowly, with resistance, but soon the odd corners had been explored and the ancient odors had become commonplace. The idiosyncrasies of the house—the strange little storage area beneath the stairs next to the cellar door, the odd shed in the back, the way the pipes upstairs rattled—all these things became familiar. Gloria considered her family: Gabbie wasn’t happy but had ceased brooding, and the twins shared their secret world, seemingly content wherever their family was. Gloria had been most concerned over their reaction to the move, but they had shown the least
difficulty in adapting. The most positive aspect of the move had been in Phil’s attitude. He was writing every day and seemed transported. He refused to show Gloria any of his work so far, saying he felt superstitious. She knew that was so much bullshit, for she had talked out story ideas into the night with him before. She knew he was simply afraid she wouldn’t like what he was writing and the bubble would burst. All in good time, she thought, all in good time.

Seventeen days after Jack Cole’s visit, a note was delivered by the mailman. It was addressed to “Philip Hastings and Family.” Gloria opened it while Phil scanned a letter from his literary agent. “… look forward to presenting your newest work. Several publishers already have expressed interest.…” Phil read aloud.

“Read this,” Gloria instructed as she handed him the note.

He scanned the envelope and frowned. One of his pet quirks was about Gloria’s opening letters addressed to him, something she loved to do. “It said, ‘and Family.’ That’s me,” she said with mock challenge in her tone.

Phil sighed. “Defeated before I begin.” He read aloud. “‘Mrs. Agatha Grant invites Mr. Philip Hastings and family to dinner, Sunday, June 24. Cocktails at 5
P.M.
Regrets only.’”

“What does that mean?”

“It means R.S.V.P. only if you can’t come, you California barbarian.”

Gloria playfully kicked her husband. “Barbarian! Who was it who called the town ‘La Jawl-lah’ the first time he propositioned me?”

“I did?”

“You most certainly did. It was at Harv Moran’s house, at the wrap party for
Bridesdale.
You came sliding up to me while my date was over getting drinks—Robbie Tedesco, that was who I was with. You and I had just met at the studio the day before and you said, ‘I’ve got an invitation to spend the weekend at a friend’s beach house in
La Jawl-lah.
Do you think you could get away for a
couple of days?’” She spoke the lines with a deep voice, mimicking his speech patterns.

Phil looked only mildly embarrassed. “I remember. I still can’t believe I did that. I had never asked a near stranger to spend the weekend with me before.” Then he smiled. “Well, you did come with me.”

Gloria laughed. “I did, didn’t I? I guess I just figured someone was going to grab up this eastern square and it might as well be me.” She playfully grabbed a handful of his greying hair and pulled his head down, kissing him quickly. “And La Jolla was beautiful.”