Faerie Tale (6 page)

“Must have been rough.”

“I guess. I never knew it any different. Dad had put in pretty rugged hours at the studio and travel on location and the rest, so he left me with my grandmother. Anyway, she raised me until I was about twelve, then I went to private school in Arizona. My father wanted me to
come live with him when he married Gloria, but my grandmother wouldn’t allow it. I don’t know, but I think he tried to get me back and she threatened him.” She fixed Jack with a narrow gaze. “The Larkers are an old family with old money, I mean, serious old money. Like Learjets and international corporations. And lawyers, maybe dozens all on retainer, and political clout, lots of it. I think Grandma Larker owned a couple of judges in Phoenix. Anyway, she could blow away any court action Dad could bring, even if he had some money by most people’s standards. So I stayed with her. Grandma was a little to the right of Attila the Hun, you know?
Nig-grows
, bleeding hearts, and ‘Communist outside agitators’? She thought Reagan was a liberal, Goldwater soft on communism, and the Birchers a terrific bunch of guys and gals. So even if she considered Mom a Commie flake, Grandma didn’t want me living with ‘that writer,’ as she called Dad. She blamed Dad for Mom becoming a Commie flake, I guess. Anyway, Grandma Larker died two years ago, and I went to live with Dad. I lived with the family my last year in high school and my first year at UCLA. That’s it.”

Jack nodded, and Gabbie was surprised at what appeared to be genuine concern in his expression. She felt troubled by that, somehow as if she was under inspection. She felt suddenly self-conscious at what she was certain was babbling. Urging her horse forward, she said, “What about you?”

Jack caught up with the walking horse, and said, “Not much. Old North Carolina family. A many-greats-grandfather who chose raising horses instead of tobacco. Unfortunately, he bred slow racehorses, so all his neighbors got rich while he barely avoided bankruptcy. My family never had a lot of money, but we’ve got loads of genteel history”—he laughed—“and slow horses. We’re big on tradition. No brothers or sisters. My father does research—physics—and teaches at UNC, which is why I went there as an undergraduate. My mother’s an old-fashioned housewife. My upbringing was pretty normal, I’m afraid.”

Gabbie sighed. “That sounds wonderful.” Then, with a lightening tone, she said, “Come on, let’s put on some speed.” She made to kick My Dandelion.

Before she could, Jack shouted, “No!”

The tone of his voice caused Gabbie to jump, and she swung around to face him, color rising in her cheeks. She felt caught between embarrassment and anger. She didn’t like his tone.

“Sorry to yell,” he said, “but there’s a nasty bit of a turn in the trail ahead and a deadfall, then you hit the bridge, and that’s tricky. Like I said, this isn’t a riding trail.”

“Sorry.” Gabbie turned forward, lapsing into silence. Something awkward had come between them and neither seemed sure of how to repair the damage.

Finally Jack said, “Look, I’m really sorry.”

Petulantly Gabbie responded, “I said I was sorry.”

With a fierce expression, Jack raised his voice slightly. “Well, I’m sorrier than you are.”

Gabbie made a face and shouted, “Ya! Well, I’m sorrier than you’ll ever be!”

They both continued the mock argument for a moment, then rode past the deadfall and discovered the bridge. Gabbie’s horse shied and attempted to turn around. “Hey!” She put her leg to My Dandelion as the mare attempted to jig sideways. As the horse began to toss her head, Gabbie took firm rein and said, “Stop that!” The horse obeyed. Looking at Jack, Gabbie said, “What?”

“That’s the Troll Bridge.”

She groaned at the pun.
“That’s
retarded.”

“Well, that’s what the kids call it. I don’t think there’s a troll waiting under it for billy goats, but for some reason the horses don’t like to cross.” To demonstrate the point, he had to use a firm rein and some vigorous kicks to get John Adams across the bridge. Gabbie followed suit and found My Dandelion reluctant to step upon the ancient stones, until Gabbie put her heels hard into her horse’s sides. But as soon as the mare was halfway across, she nearly bolted forward, as if anxious to be off.

“That’s pretty weird.”

Jack nodded. “I don’t know. Horses can be pretty funny. Maybe they smell something. Anyway, these woods are supposed to be haunted—”

“Haunted!” interrupted Gabbie, with a note of derision.

“I didn’t say I believed, but some pretty strange things have gone on around here.”

She rode forward, saying, “Like what?”

“Lights in the woods, you know? Like fox fire, but there’s no marsh nearby. Maybe St. Elmo’s fire. Anyway, some folks say they’ve heard music deep in the woods, and there’s a story about some kids disappearing.”

“Kidnapping?”

“No one knows. It happened almost a hundred years ago. Seems some folks went out for a Fourth of July picnic one time, and a couple of kids got lost in the woods.”

“Sounds like a movie I once saw.”

Jack grinned. “Yes, it was the same sort of thing. These woods can get you pretty turned around, and it was a heck of a lot rougher back then. No highway a mile to the west, just wagon roads. Pittsville was about a tenth the size it is today. No developments, or malls, only a few spread-out farms and a lot of woods. Anyway, they searched a long time and came up with nothing. No bodies, nothing. Some think the Indians killed them.”

“Indians?”

“There was a reservation nearby. A small band of Cattaraugus, Alleganies, or some such. They shut it down a long time ago. But anyway, a bunch of farmers marched over there and were ready to start shooting. The Indians said it was spirits got the kids. And the funny thing was the farmers just turned round and went home. There’s been a lot of other stuff like that over the years. These woods have a fair reputation for odd goings-on.”

“For a southern boy you know a lot about these woods.”

“Aggie,” he said with an affectionate smile. “She’s something of an expert. It’s sort of a hobby with her.
You’ll see what I mean when you meet her. You’re going next Sunday, aren’t you?”

She smiled at his barely hidden interest. “I guess.”

They cleared a thick stand of trees, then suddenly found themselves facing a large bald hillock. It rose to a height of twenty-five feet, dominating the clearing. Not a single plant save grasses grew on it, no tree or bush.

“A fairy mound!” said Gabbie with obvious delight.

“Erlkönighügel.”

“What?”

“Erlkönighügel.
Erl King Hill, literally. Hill of the Elf King, in German; it’s what Old Man Kessler’s father called it. Erl King Hill is what the farm is officially called in the title deeds, though everyone hereabouts calls it the Old Kessler Place.”

“Far out. Is there a story?”

Moving his horse in a lazy circle about the hill, Jack said, “Usually is about such things. But I don’t know any. Just that the locals have called this place the Fairy Woods since Pittsville was founded in 1820. I guess that’s where Old Man Kessler’s father got the notion when he showed up eighty-odd years ago. They’ve got fairy myths in Germany. Anyway, ‘Der Erlkönig’ is a poem by Goethe. It’s pretty scary stuff.”

They left the hill behind and moved down a slight grade toward a path leading back to the farm. As they left, Gabbie cast a rearward glance at the hillock. For some reason she was left with the feeling the place was waiting. Brushing aside the strange notion, she turned her thoughts to how she was going to get Jack to call her again.

Agatha Grant’s farm was a sea of green bordered by a shoreline of condos. Most of the surrounding land had been sold off over the years, and a new housing develop
ment, Colonial Woodlands, loomed up less than a hundred yards behind her barn. Only a large rambling meadow to the north of the house and the woods to the south protected the farm from the encroaching urban sprawl. She literally lived on the edge of Pittsville. The house was another turn-of-the-century marvel, though from the outside it appeared that considerably more thought had gone into its decor, mused Gloria.

Agatha stood waiting for them upon the front stoop, a bright-eyed elderly woman who appeared fit and upright despite the ivory-topped cane she held in her left hand. She greeted Philip warmly and bestowed polite kisses on Gloria’s and Gabbie’s cheeks. She ushered everyone into the large parlor, where Jack Cole waited, and invited them to take seats. The boys, as one, chose a love seat, fascinated by the strange two-way facing design. Gabbie and Gloria took comfortable stuffed chairs, while Aggie sat beside Phil on a large sofa, his hand held in hers.

Jack opened a breakfront, revealing a fine assortment of liquor, asked people their pleasure, and began pouring drinks. He handed a glass to Phil, who sipped and was pleased to discover a pungent, single-malt scotch. “Glenfiddich?”

“Glenfiddich.”

“Thank you,
sir,”
observed Phil with deep appreciation.

Agatha said, “Have you something for the boys?”

Jack presented a pair of tumblers. “Coke. Okay?”

The boys took the offered pair of glasses. Jack passed around the other drinks, then remained at Agatha’s side. After a moment Agatha said, “Jack, quit hovering over me. Go sit by that pretty girl over there, that’s a good boy.” Jack obeyed with a grin, settling upon the arm of Gabbie’s chair. Agatha smiled, and Gloria now understood why her husband held her in such deep affection. She was a person of warmth, able to put strangers quickly at ease. She said to Phil, “When Malcolm Bishop ran that little piece in the Pittsville
Herald
saying you’d come home, I could scarcely believe it. What brought you back here?”

Phil laughed, glancing at Gloria. “I decided to return to writing novels.”

“No, I mean why William Pitt County?” There was something in her manner of looking at Phil that caused Gloria a moment of discomfort. Somehow this elderly woman still held Phil accountable, as if he were still her student, and from Phil’s expression he still felt somewhat accountable to her.

“It’s my home. The old family house is small, only two bedrooms, and in a section of town that’s pretty rundown now. So I looked around for something bigger and found the Old Kessler Place.” He shrugged. “I don’t know. I was sick of Los Angeles and the film business. I remember the fields and fishing at Doak’s Pond. I remember the stories told about the Fairy Woods being haunted, and how we dared each other to go through them on Halloween and none of us ever did. I can remember the sandlot baseball games and riding my beat-up old bike down dusty roads during the summer. The dumb jokes the kids from Charlestown High used to make about
Pits-
ville High and how we used to get so mad at them and then say the same things ourselves. I remember … a home.”

She nodded. “Well, you’ll find it’s changed a lot in twenty-five years.” Then she smiled and suddenly the tension vanished. “But there’s a lot that hasn’t changed.” Noticing that the boys had finished their drinks, she said, “Why don’t you two run outside and play? We’ve some new additions in the barn. Our cat’s had kittens.”

The boys glanced at their mother, who nodded, and quickly made good their escape. Phil laughed. “I used to hate ‘grown-up’ talk when I was their age.”

Agatha indicated agreement. “As did we all. Now, are you writing?”

“Yes, though it’s tougher than I remember.”

“It always is.”

Jack laughed at the remark. “I say the same thing when I’m trying to organize her papers.”

“This boy is almost as big an oaf as you were, which means he’s a slightly better graduate assistant.” Phil
seemed unconcerned with the comparison. “Though, of my students, you have done better than most. I am glad you’ve returned to books. Those films were less than art.”

Talk turned to the differences between screenplays and novels, and they settled in for a while, enjoying the rediscovered friendship between Agatha and Phil, and the new friendship between Jack and Gabbie. Gloria remained distant, observing her husband. Phil responded to Aggie’s questions, and in a way her prodding produced more revelations about his work in minutes than Gloria had managed to extract in weeks. Not sure of her own reaction, Gloria settled in, considering.

She regretted Phil hadn’t volunteered as much to her as to Aggie, but then Aggie was a special person to him. After his parents had died in a car crash, Phil had been raised by his aunt Jane Hastings. But Aggie Grant, Jane’s best friend from college, and her husband, Henry, had been frequent visitors. When Phil had graduated from the University of Buffalo he had gone to Cornell to study with Aggie. And Aggie had secured the fellowship that had allowed Phil to attend the university. Gloria conceded that Aggie had been the single biggest influence in Phil’s career. She had been a courtesy aunt, but, more than family, she was his mentor, then his graduate adviser, and remained the one person he held in unswerving professional regard. Gloria had read two of Agatha’s books on literary criticism, and they had been a revelation. The woman’s mind was a wonder, with her ability almost to intuit the author’s thought processes at the time of writing from the finished work. She had never gained wide recognition outside of academia and she had her critics, but even the most vociferous conceded that her opinions were worthy of consideration. Somehow Aggie Grant posited theories about dead authors that just
felt
right. Still, in the field of literature, Gloria was simply a reader, not a critic, and some of what had been covered in Aggie’s books seemed rites reserved for the initiates of the inner temple. No, if Agatha could get Phil talking about his work, and his problems, Gloria was thankful. Still, she felt a little left out.

Suddenly Agatha was addressing her. “And what do you think of all this?”

Gloria improvised, her actress’s training coming to the fore. Somehow she didn’t wish it known she had been musing, not following the conversation. “The work? Or the move?”

Agatha regarded her with a penetrating look, then smiled. “I meant the move. It must be something of a change for you, after Hollywood and all.”