The Sisters: A Mystery of Good and Evil, Horror and Suspense (Book One of the Dark Forces Series) (18 page)

The front door closed behind Nathan’s back and sent a tremor up his spine.  Could this really be the place he’d first met Sarah only days earlier, right here in the front hallway?  Now he walked purposefully toward the staircase, intending to start at the top of the house with the attic, as he had done in his own.

He carried no weapon with him—not even a stick—and he wondered now what he would do if he met the shadow that had spirited Sarah away.  Weapons—at least those of a conventional nature—probably wouldn’t be of much use anyway, he thought.  Now, if he had a cross or rosary, perhaps. But then he shook his head.  No, he wasn’t even sure those would help, even if it truly turned out to be a fight of good versus evil.  Shoot, he thought, as far as they could tell so far, it seemed to be just one crazy old man fooling around with two vacationers in two or three old houses, playing mind tricks and probably pulling some cheap magic tricks with mirrors or something.  No, it’s motive I’ve got to find—why are we being made to play these games, and in how much danger are we?

Nathan began climbing the broad oak staircase to the second floor landing and then looked up the steeper set of stairs that led to the attic.  As in his house, the steps ended in a very short hallway with a solid door inset in a heavy oak frame.  As Nathan reached the top of the stairs, he noted that the door was already ajar, and a thin sliver of light was shining dimly between the door and the frame.  The hairs on the back of his neck began to stand up as he pushed the door open silently and saw—

—a carousel spinning in the middle of a large warehouse, with music playing gaily from an organ and streamers floating from the horses’ heads as they slowly made their way around.  No children were on the carousel, which was painted in the most vibrant colors: blues, turquoises, sea-greens, reds, aqua-marines, goldenrods and every other color on a fantastic palette were represented on this mystical representation of animals and creatures—not just running horses, but dragons and seahorses and all manner of other animals, nearly life-size.

Nathan walked closer, his eyes riveted on the carousel, wondering how it could have gotten inside Sarah’s attic—but of course, he knew he was no longer inside Sarah’s attic at all and he laughed.  He was now near enough to the spinning carousel that he could reach out and swing aboard, which he did.  The sensation of motion was very real, and the music was louder here, coming from a central place near the carousel’s central axis, which he spun past every thirty seconds or so.  There were mirrors above the innermost walls of the carousel and he could see himself holding onto one of the posts, a brass one, like the others, while the rest of the room outside the carousel swung by.  Gone were the dormers he had expected to find in the old attic.  This was instead a wooden building with open sides.  He could see ocean out three sides and a midway on a pier out the fourth, and longest side.

So, he had been transported to a midway from an earlier time in Cape May’s history.  He stepped lightly off the running board of the carousel and back onto the wooden floor of the building. He looked up at the bare light bulbs, though daylight streamed in from every direction.  Looking around, he suddenly saw that the midway was jammed with adults and children, and that several were coming toward the carousel, as though it had just opened for business.  The children were laughing and pulling on each other, the parents and other adults in tow.  Nathan stood there like a carnival worker while the people flowed around him to board the waiting carousel, which had stopped turning.  He walked a few feet out into the midway itself and was quickly adrift in the tide of laughing, jostling women, children and men —some local, some on holiday to the shore.  Many bore the signs of too much sun, others too little, as though they had been turned loose from cages for this trip to the beach.

“What do ye think of them, my lad?”

Nathan wheeled around and saw a thin man in a black frock coat and high cravat, topped off with a bowler hat.  It was Tipton.  He leaned lightly on a walking stick with a silver top.

“They look as though they’re having such a good time, don’t they?  Why aren’t ye having a good time, lad—ye and yer young girl—what’s her name—Sarah?”

Nathan was stunned, first to be in this dream state of a carousel and carnival pier scene in Sarah’s attic—then to share it with Tipton of all people—asking him questions.

“I – I don’t know, sir.  It’s all just rather unexpected.  How are you doing all this?” It was a genuine question, and if the dream Nathan was asking the dream Tipton and got an answer, perhaps he would remember it when he woke up.

“Walk with me a while, son,” said Tipton, and they started off down the pier together, looking for all the world like two old friends, or perhaps a kindly old uncle and his nephew, enjoying a day at the shore.  “I’ve been doing this sort of thing a long time now. Yes,” he paused reflectively, “a long time.”  Nathan waited for him to go on.  But he did not.  The crowd streamed around them, whooping and laughing; the seagulls floated a hundred yards off the pier, taking advantage of a mild onshore summer breeze. 

“Why do you put us into these dream states, Mr. Tipton?” Nathan asked.  “What possible interest can you have in me and Sarah?”

The old man turned with a twinkle in his eye.  “Oh, sure and I’ve known yer families a long time.  Knew your grandparents very well, rest their souls.  And Miss Sarah, her aunt was a particular favorite of mine.”

This set Nathan back. “You knew our relatives? How old are you, anyway?”

Tipton smiled.  “Old enough, my young lad, to know when the time is ready for things to change.  That’s why ye’re here.  And that’s why I’m still here.”

Nathan squared his shoulders in the middle of the boardwalk and faced Tipton. “That’s not a good enough answer.  You’re speaking in riddles and we don’t have time for that.”

Tipton’s face took on a worried, yet bemused expression.  “Time?  What time do ye think ye have? It’s shorter than ye think, I can tell ye that.”  He began stepping back and blending into the crowd.  “It’s shorter than ye think.”

“Wait!” Nathan reached out to grab him, but he was reaching into the crowd, and Tipton vanished through his fingers as though the whole scene was being projected onto a backdrop.  Indeed, people took no notice of the old man and kept walking past him—and occasionally through him—to greet friends and relatives on either side of the pier.  Nathan could still hear the music from the carousel, and the cries of the children and the raucous shrieks of the seagulls above his head.  But he had no idea what the whole scene meant and where to go from there.  He decided to retrace his steps to the carousel—

—and found that as soon as he stepped across the floorboards onto the warehouse in which the carousel was spinning, the room whirled and he was suddenly standing in Sarah’s attic again.  The dormer windows drew early afternoon light through them and the room looked much the same as his attic—just dusty and full of odds and ends. Nathan shook his head and sat down on a box.

“Checkmate,” he said.  “He knows where I’m going to be before I’m there.  But when he says time is shorter than we think, what does he mean?  It’s almost as though he needs our help, too—but has a mighty queer way of asking for it.  Or was that a threat?”  Nathan puffed out his cheeks and exhaled slowly, looking across the room and out through the windows.  “What’s the next step?  What’s the common denominator that pulls all this together?”

He sat there a long time, seeking inspiration, but none came.  Only whispers and creaks from the weathered old rafters put in place more than 100 years before by the hand-picked crew of Carlos Androcci.

Sarah flipped over the deed record page of the house at the corner of Beach Avenue and Jefferson Street and was no longer surprised.

The owner of the house was Thomas Tipton, who the records said bought the house in 1949.

She closed the book and sat back in her chair. So they had been right to suspect Tipton’s motives in wanting to have them out of their houses.  But why had he not simply made a straightforward offer to buy the houses? Sarah wondered.  Not that it would have made any difference, she thought, to her or, probably, to Nathan.  These houses were part of the fabric of their lives and so would not be for sale at any price. 

Why, then, all the dream-state activity and other seemingly magical activity—if indeed Tipton could be behind all of that?  That would take a master magician and illusionist to effect such a series of tricks, wouldn’t it?  Sarah shook her head briskly.  No, a simple offer to buy would make much more sense—unless he already knew what the answer would be.  But how could he?  The questions kept piling up, with few answers.  But at least Sarah now had at least one known fact: Thomas Tipton had been methodically buying houses all along the seawall here in Cape May—twelve of the fourteen Victorian structures along Beach Avenue—quietly over the past seventy years.

“Which would make him exactly how old now, I wonder?” she said aloud.

“Who?” said a familiar voice.  It was Nathan, who slid in beside her.

Sarah turned quickly as he sat down next to her in the cramped office of the deeds office. “Well, hello, there.  All done exploring my house already?”

Nathan leaned over and gave her a quick kiss.  “Not completely.  But I wanted to come and check on you.  I had another visit from Mr. Tipton this afternoon—or rather I had a vision that had Tipton in it—sort of like your experience at the ice cream shop.”

Sarah looked worried. “Oh, Nathan—he didn’t try to hurt you, did he?”

“No, just the opposite.  He gave me a bit of a warning before disappearing.  But I’ll be damned if I can figure out what it means yet.  How have you been making out?”

Sarah gestured at the pile of deed books on the desk in front of her.

“Incredible as it seems, Tipton owns every house on Beach Avenue except ours.  If he’s trying to make us leave, he’s certainly going about it the right way.  But for the life of me, I still can’t figure out how he’s doing it—or really even why.”

Nathan sat back in the chair. “There’s more at stake here than just his interest in our houses.  And as far as how he’s able to do what he does, he’s got some pretty impressive skills, which I have yet to fathom.  But the facts are undeniable: he owns all the houses except ours; he can render us into and out of dream states while we are at the beachfront; and somehow, he can make us hear voices that tell grisly stories that purport to be from the houses’ dark pasts—at least one of which we have found to be true.  He didn’t make us dream up the Presburys’ deaths.”

“True, but why, Nathan?  Why is he doing this?  Why not just come right out and say, ‘I want to buy your houses?’”

Nathan shook his head.  “That’s not what he wants, Sarah.  Don’t ask me how I know that, but I can feel it.  There is something larger at stake here, and we’re a part of it.  He needs us somehow.”

Sarah looked at him.  “Tipton needs us? In what way?” 

“I’m not sure yet.  But if you’re through here, I think it’s time we grabbed some dinner and then went back to your house for the night.” 

Sarah pushed her chair back and stood up.  “I’m done.  But let’s stop at the grocery. I want to fix you dinner again.  I’ve got to show you there’s more to me than ghost hunting.” She smiled—the full, deep smile Nathan remembered from their first meeting.

“Sounds great.  I’ll buy.”  And they moved out into the courthouse hallway and down the stairs.

we haven’t always had voices, you know.

really, darling? 

oh, no. Nor stories to tell. We led such humdrum lives back then.

how did we learn to talk? It’s so delightful.

it is, isn’t it? But, my dear, we have the girl to thank for that.

Sarah was cleaning the last of the pots and pans from the pasta dinner she had prepared when Nathan returned from his trek down to Moira’s cellar.  Snow and wind was howling against the window outside and the furnace was struggling to keep up the temperature inside.  He was carrying a book.

“I still can’t believe you went back down there—and all by yourself.  Did you find something?”

“I think so.  Unless I’m very much mistaken, this is a journal kept by your Aunt Moira.  I found it wedged in the bookshelf beside a book of incantantions,” Nathan said with a smile.  He brushed some dust off his jacket. “It’s really cold down there.”

“Yeah, well, it’s not much warmer up here.  Let’s build a fire and see what you’ve got,” Sarah said, wiping her hands on a dishtowel.

Later, in the parlor, they sat on the braided oval rug in front of a fine, hot blaze.  Sarah had pulled over two standing lamps and some large floor pillows and they were encamped in front of the hearth as Nathan opened the first page of the journal.   The first entry was written in a neat, schoolbook cursive hand and was dated October,1883.

“’Father is gone,’” is all it said.

“Didn’t you say her father died here at the shore?” Nathan asked.

“Yes.  Some kind of accident at the house in which a workman was blamed.  It was said that Moira never quite got over it.”

Nathan ruffled through the first dozen pages of entries, all precisely set down in Moira’s 10-year-old hand.  “Well, she does seem to refer to someone a lot in an accusatory way, blaming him for their troubles, which seem to be plenty, following her father’s death.  Times seem to have been hard.  Listen to this:

“’We are moving to the shore in Spring. To that awful house.  I don’t know how I shall be able to endure it.  But Mother says we must, it’s all we have left.  So we’ll go.  But one day I shall make him pay—O yes! I shall make him pay for what he has done to my family!’”

Nathan sighed and continued to ruffle through the pages.  Sarah sipped her coffee and looked pensive.  “That poor girl.  How awful it must have been for her—losing her father and then having to move away from her friends in the city to this small town.  As crazy as they say she turned out, I believe I can understand why.”

Nathan had flipped forward about a third through the journal and was studying one entry intently.  “Listen to this entry, Sarah:”

“’I have found the most wonderful secret room underneath the house.  My mother shushes me whenever I talk about it or ask questions about it, but she knew my father planned it, though I cannot imagine the reason.  There is a stair down from the toilette under the stairwell and another entrance from the house next door, which is owned by someone Father used to know—I think the room may have had something to do with him.  Anyway, no one is using it and I have claimed it for my own!’”

Nathan shook his head.  “And so it began. Let’s see the date: October 13, 1885.  Moira was a teenager.  Wonder where she got all those books on witchcraft?”

Sarah shrugged. “Who knows?  Amazon.com didn’t exist then.  And I’m fairly sure the local library didn’t carry that sort of stuff.  She must have made trips into New York with her mother periodically and begun collecting them.”

“That could be.  My guess is her mother was distracted just trying to keep them in food and clothing.  Probably wasn’t paying a lot of attention to what Moira was reading.  Here is an interesting passage:”

“’I have helped this house to find a voice. She speaks to me every night.  I don’t know what she wants.  It may have something to do with Father’s spirit.  I’ll keep trying to communicate.’”

“So, we’re not the first to hear the houses speak,” said Sarah, “and Aunt Moira taught them to do it.  Interesting.  Perhaps there is more than old Tipton at work here after all.”

“Well, if you think that’s interesting, try this:”

“’I met a sailor on the beach today—he had washed ashore in a boat.  I brought him back here because he was half-drowned and he paid us for supper and for a room.  Says his name is Willingham, but that he will be called Tipton here in America. ‘“

“Tipton!” said Sarah.  “My God, do you realize how old that makes the man?”

“Yes.  Speaking of supernatural. It’s further proof that we’re caught up in some story that has been going on for more than a century—and we have a part to play, I guess, though I still can’t figure out what it is.”

The wind outside set the Adirondack chairs bumping against the front walls as snow blew in from the Atlantic in great gusts.  “We’re in for a real storm this time and no mistake,” Nathan said, carefully laying another oak log on the fire.

“Nathan?”

“Yes?”

“What happens next?” Sarah asked, pulling him close by her on the sofa.

Nathan looked at her quizzically and then thought for a long moment.  “I think we go back to doing what we were trying to do when we got here.  Try to forget any of this ever happened.  Try to have a good time.”

Sarah looked at him incredulously.

“Well, the next move is up to Tipton, I’d say, and there’s nothing we can do until then. If he really wants us out of here, or wants something else from us, he’s going to have to do something a little more specific.”

“And until then, we just wait?”

“Yep.  Unless you can think of something else to do, I suggest we camp out in front of this excellent fire until it dies down and then go upstairs to your room for the night.  Tomorrow we can figure out what to do from there.”

Sarah smiled and leaned into the crook of his arm.  “You make it sound so simple—as though nothing out of the ordinary has happened these past three days and nights.  But I suppose you’re right.  Aside from fear of visions, we haven’t been placed in real harm yet.  Maybe he’s even given up.”

Nathan laughed.  “Well, from my brief conversation with him this afternoon I’d not be too sure of that just yet.  But I agree that we should take a more curious position rather than a frightened one and try to get some answers when the opportunity presents itself next.”

“You make it sound simple.”

“Well, let’s just take it a step at a time, shall we?And as Sarah got up to go to the kitchen for some tea, a vicious gust of wind hit the house and the lights went out.

in the summer of 1923, I believe it was, we had a blizzard that piled snow in great huge drifts all around our eaves.

but darling, what does that have to do with

the gunshot that ended her life was barely heard above the sounds of the party. A lady laughed out loud just after the shot was fired and no one noticed when she slumped over on the sofa.  It was just after midnight and the New Year’s Eve party had reached its height.

there was no one else home as the snow piled up next to the front door. The little boy cried softly in the corner of the parlor, waiting. The shadow was looking for him, he knew. But he was being quiet, quiet, inhaling and exhaling in shuddery breaths, hoping he wouldn’t be found. His parents had been found earlier and cried for mercy when the shadow took them—just took them—and then came looking for the little boy.

but the snowfall that year! It was more than any of us had ever seen or ever want to see again. . . . .