The Sisters: A Mystery of Good and Evil, Horror and Suspense (Book One of the Dark Forces Series) (6 page)

And so Sarah and the others found them, with Mr. Presbury twitching but silent, hugging the porcelain commode, and Mrs. Presbury gasping for her last breath and wriggling her horizontal death dance like an eel thrown into the bottom of a boat.

The dinner party had broken up quickly after the police arrived, and Sarah gave many apologies for this ugly turn in the evening’s activities, as though she had been somehow responsible. The dream had now been thrown into a dark, film noir mode, and Sarah could not seem to it shut off.

“I just want to wake up, I just want to wake up,” she kept saying to police. And the big, knobby-fingered detective was doing his best to record this remarkable  statement when Sarah looked down and saw herself fading, from the bottoms of her soft gliding shoes, up the velvety torso of her evening dress, and, finally, to the top of her head.

She thought the policeman looked funny, as he faded from view, and she even gave a short, hysterical laugh at his bewildered expression as he watched her disappear, like a wisp of fog on an evening breeze.

The nor’easter was rattling Sarah’s bedroom window panes and she could hear hard grains of snow sweeping against the glass with every gust. She had not opened her eyes yet, but she was slowly accepting sensory input from the here and now, waiting in her mind to see if it could be trusted yet.

The temperature in the room, already low when Sarah went to bed, was now in the 50s despite the best efforts of the furnace. She opened her eyes and sat up in bed, hugging the covers, and exhaled a thin ghost of a breath, barely visible against the pale daylight creeping into the room.  The vapor floated quietly in the dimness of the early morning gloom and dissipated slowly, like the remnants of Sarah’s dream.

The bedroom looked exactly the way it had when she slipped between the covers the night before: yellow walls accented with tastefully applied strokes of white to lighten it up on days like this. It seemed to Sarah that the storm outside might last for several more hours at the very least and a chill racked her thin body from head to toe as she huddled in the bed.

She wondered at the incredible feeling of reality left by the dream. She was not prone to nightmares, and rarely had any dreams at all. But this one, with its vivid detail and continuity, from the sequined black gown to the blood-smeared bathroom and everything in between, had seemed so real.

On an impulse, Sarah drew back the covers and bounded lightly out of bed. She slipped into a clean sweater and jeans, followed by her thickest socks and Timberlands. Then she went in search of her jacket, which had been flung carelessly to one side of the room the night before, after dinner. The bedroom door had been left open to the hallway, and Sarah peeked around the corner to make sure everything was normal, and found that it was.

The house was just as it had been during all her previous stays. It was a fascinating throwback to an earlier and more gracious time, when houses like this embodied personalities all their own, and demanded a certain amount of decorum and dignity, even from the children and grandchildren who scampered up and down the hall, feet wet and crumbling with beach sand.

Sarah moved quickly in the cold house, across the landing and down the stairs. At the entryway, she glanced into the parlor, which held only a few pieces of furniture and the oval braided rug; no roses or peacock stained glass fire screen was now visible.

If that part of my dream had any basis in reality, I wonder what ever happened to those pieces, she thought, or the wonderful rows of books that lined the now-empty shelves. Sold years ago at auction, no doubt, and Sarah felt a pang of regret and remorse that her family had not had the foresight to preserve this old beauty in its original state. But her primary interest now settled on the bathroom under the stairs. What would she find there?

Bloodstains were not so easy to erase and they soaked into wood easily. If there was any truth to her dream, there should be some trace remaining, no matter how hard they scrubbed. She had reached the bathroom; yet she was reluctant to open the door. The image of Mr. Presbury, with arms wrapped around the toilet bowl, and Mrs. Presbury lying next to him were still vivid in Sarah’s mind. With a deep intake of breath, she pulled the wooden door open and found―nothing.

Just the same bathroom with sink and toilet, as it had been during all her years of growing up, when the cousins would dash in from outside to use it briefly before dashing out again. Sarah hesitated, then turned on the vanity light—and found what she had been looking for: irregular stains in the hardwood floor surface, very faded, but recognizable, where she recalled Arnold Presbury’s head had been lying—just in front of the porcelain toilet and in the semi-circle of flooring planks reaching out to one side from it. She inhaled sharply and leaned against the door frame,

The house, even colder down here than upstairs, seemed to be in a pensive and withdrawn mood, like an aging aunt with her shawl drawn tight across her bosom and her lips pursed in tight disapproval―but of what, or whom?  These things just don’t happen in real life, Sarah told herself firmly, and closed the bathroom door. She moved to the thermostat in the entryway, and pushed the lever to 80, hoping to bring the furnace up full for the day. “I’ve got more work to do,” she decided and went into the kitchen.

October, 1890

Off Cape May Point, the schooner Elizabeth Ann is in trouble.

A sudden autumn storm has been blowing for two days now and the captain is hard put to keep the ship afloat and the crew from mutiny. He is determined to get back on course for South Carolina. The crew and warders on the ship, laden with a cargo of illegal slaves bound for the Charleston plantations, are now just eager to get to shore anywhere and discharge their duties. The men have been pulling two-hour watches on deck, keeping the rudder as trim as possible and doing all they can to simply keep the Elizabeth Ann’s bow turned into each huge wave, some approaching 40 feet and more. Icy water crashes over the decks with each plunge into the troughs. The first mate pulls the captain aside.

“Sir, there be serious talk by the men of taking matters into their own hands,” says the mate to the captain, a fine old gentleman sailor who has been master of this vessel for almost 20 years. His face is thick as a prize ham and weathered as beef jerky. He wears mutton chop grey whiskers on either side of a florid face. Thin red lines crisscross his nose like the delicate veins on a hothouse rosebud.

“By God, they’ll not do it so long as I am master of this ship,” he cries defiantly, shouting into the mate’s ear to be heard. The mate, an old sea hand and veteran of the British Navy, is a thin, hawklike man with wide-set eyes and an icehook nose. He bows his assent, knowing from experience that argument is out of the question, and goes below decks to a waiting throng in the schooner’s small mess area.

“Lads, the Old Man is hard-set against heaving to, and vows to go down dead afore he makes landfall here,” says the mate.

An angry sound erupts from the crew, who have seen the Cape May light and know that their voyage of 64 sea-tossed days could soon be over if they can but convince the captain to put into port.  “There ain’t nothing for it now but mutiny,” says one man named Bill McAfee. He is the eldest among the crew and carries the most weight with the men. “Says he’ll go down dead afore we heave to, eh? We’ll see about that. Come on, mates.” And with that said, all 20 of them swarm up on deck and confront the captain where he stands amidships.

“What’s this, then?” yells the captain.

“Aye, I reckon you know full well, sir, that we ain’t going to pull one more watch under your command. We are relieving you of duty and confining you to your cabin for the duration. We’ll find land close by and get off this stinking rat-hole of a ship,” says McAfee.

The captain edges over close to a bulkhead and reaches behind his back. Before McAfee can say another word, or command someone to lay hands on the captain, the Old Man pulls out a short two-barrelled pistol and fires point blank at McAfee’s chest. The man drops dead to the deck before the gunpowder smoke has been blown away by the driving rainstorm.

“And who’ll be next among ye?” shouts the captain as the men push back against the bulwarks. The angry murmur soon becomes a roar and the captain crouches down by the bulkhead, waving the weapon before him. “Ye’ll go down with me to the bottom of this here bay afore I lose command of this vessel,” he cries. The crew hems him in like a cornered animal, each one waiting to see who might be the one to make a run at him.

“Come on, then, ye rotten, stinking cowards. By God, there’s not an honorable man among ye if ye don’t disperse and go below decks and stop this foolishness. Go on now.” The men look at each other, torn between rage and fear. No one stoops down to see about McAfee, who lays face-up and staring into the sheets of wind and rain that buffet the ship. One by one, they break from the circle and climb the ladder back down to the mess, and from there back to their bunks, each man muttering oaths, but none wanting more bloodshed.

“So it wasn’t mutiny atall,” leers the first mate as they file past him down below. His name is Willingham, and he sits propped carefully on a salt-pork barrel smoking his pipe. “I feared as much. Now the Old Man will be twice as determined to turn stern-to on the light and make for open sea again, the weather be damned.” He puffs for a few minutes more, then knocks out the ashes against the aft bulkhead and makes for his own locker. In it is a brace of derringers, cleaned and loaded the night before. There is also another item―a tall bottle filled with a clear liquid that he picked up while in the last port. “I’ll be damned if I go down in this stinking tub before my time,” he says, and with that he goes above to have a word with the captain himself, stopping first at the barrel of ale to refresh himself.

He finds the Old Man supervising the disposal of the unfortunate mutineer’s body. One seaman has him by the feet while another digs his hands into McAfee’s armpits and, between them, they swing him back and forth a few times before finally tossing him over the gunwales of the schooner. In the driving storm, the splash is barely audible. “Let that be a lesson to ye,” said the captain to the seamen, while Willingham steps up quietly behind him. He puts one of the derringers to the Old Man’s temple and, without saying a word, pulls the trigger. Blood and brains instantly fly sideways out the other side of the captain’s skull and he drops like a steer in a slaughterhouse.

“And let that be a lesson to you,” Willingham says quietly. The two seamen stand by in horror at the death of the captain. “Lads, ye can go and tell the others we’ll be having a pint to refresh ourselves before pulling for shore. We’ll all gather in the mess in five minutes. Go on, now. There’s nothing now to stop us.” The men exchange a look and then flee down the ladder to spread the word. Willingham goes up to tell the second mate, who is manning the wheel, to tie it off and join the crew in a toast to their new fortune. This the mate dutifully does and follows Willingham below. Someone has already broken out the crockery and is distributing mugs when Willingham comes down the ladder. “Easy does it, lads―no hurry. That’s right, each one take a pint of this fine ale, but no one is to drink afore I’ve made a proper toast to the Old Man and to Bill McAfee, God rest their souls this day."

When each man has a pint in his hand, Willingham commands them to remove their caps and, as the storm rages on outside, pitching the schooner to and fro like a cork on the broad ocean, he makes a short prayer.

“Lord, I reckon ye know that we have only done today what we had to do, and ye’ll take none of us to task for it. The Old Man and McAfee are in your hands now and ye can judge them according to your own wishes. But as for the rest of us, please grant us your mercy and Godspeed to reach land as soon as may be. Amen.”

“Amen,” say the men in unison, and they all drain their cups. Within seconds, they begin staggering where they stand.

“Why, whatever is the matter, lads?” Willingham asks in mock alarm. “Ye all look as though ye can’t keep yer balance.” And they begin falling all around him, like ninepins in a bowling alley, dropped dead not from the outside, but from the inside. The poisonous mixture works quickly, and within a minute the mess hall is littered with corpses.

Willingham lifts his own cup, which was filled to the brim and set aside before he poisoned the cask of ale, and then drinks deep, celebrating the day that sees his freedom from the hard life he has spent as a seagoing man.

Wiping his mouth with the back of his sleeve, he calmly climbs over the bodies to the gun locker aft of the mess hall, breaks the lock on it, and picks out five muzzle loader rifles. These he carefully primes with black gunpowder and stuffs with shot before descending below decks to finish the job he has started. “It really is true that dead men tell no tales, and I’ll have no tongues wagging in a courthouse dock to send me to the hangman’s noose, be they white or black.”

Five shots ring out and a terrified clamor arises among the 40 slaves that are shackled to their berths below the lowest crew decks. Willingham yells out for quiet. And he then goes to reload the weapons, calmly and efficiently. Without any hurry, he descends the ladder again, taking aim across the deck and, switching rifles methodically, shoots five more times.

The black men are struggling frantically to break the chains that hold them in place, but the job has been done too well, and, though some of them curse the white man in their native tongues and some pray to the gods that they worship, none are able to stop Willingham’s dreadful and ritualistic execution.

He returns up and down the ladder seven more times, loading and reloading, before he finally finishes the job, saving the last five shots for any that are still twitching and moaning. The bluebottle flies, already thick on the human dung that is everywhere in the hold, now find new and fresher sustenance, and begin to swarm busily among the heaped and scattered bodies, preferring to light on the fresh, bloody wounds or on the still-wide eyes of the men, so white in their black faces.

Willingham now considers his final move: the one that will bring him to shore while the Elizabeth Ann goes to the bottom of the Atlantic. He originally had considered spreading gunpowder around the hold and then lighting a trail of it once he got the lifeboat for himself ready. Now, he thinks of a much more simple solution.

He goes to the carpenter’s berth and finds a heavy hammer and an awl and with these simple tools he begins bashing holes in the sides of the schooner, first allowing only a small stream of seawater into the hold, then still more as he widens the hole. He does this eight more times in different places around the hold and, as he surveys the mounds of lifeless black men, swarming with flies, he also notes with satisfaction that the water is already a foot deep in the hold.

This will give him plenty of time to make his way to his own locker and to pack provisions into a lifeboat before the ship finally sinks. And, it will allow time for him to break into the captain’s safe, where he knows that more than $10,000 waits in new bank notes―money laid aside to pay the crew and to buy provisions, along with the Old Man’s life savings. Willingham even begins to whistle a tuneless melody as he works, beginning to look forward to his new life as a prosperous landowner in Cape May, New Jersey.

As he turns to climb the ladder, however, something floating on the rising water bumps his leg. He looks down to see a small polished mahogany carving of a man, perfect in every detail, and rubbed smooth as glass, as though it has been stroked thousands of times. Willingham picks it up and examines the idol, apparently brought on board by one of the slaves as insurance—a means of keeping its former owner safe against harm. The idea makes Willingham give a sharp bray of laughter and he thrusts the carving deep into his own pocket before climbing the ladder to freedom.

the strangest thing happened last night

what was it, my dear?

a young man came to the shore with the intention of

throwing caution to the four winds, and he danced on the balcony stark naked while the moon shone full upon

their captain who crouched with his muzzle-loaded pistol at the ready, waiting

for the endless stream of conversation to reach that point in any good party where you have to shout into your partner’s ear to be heard.

And so what happened, darling?

The shots were fired: bang, bang, bang, bang, but the towel that was wrapped around the barrel deadened the sounds and

ended with the young man floating face up in the surf, wearing only a tuxedo coat with tails

well, at least he was dressed in style

my dear, that was in bad taste

yes, but the taste of the oysters was divine in season and you know how little China Miller would cry until she had her fill

of men three times her size and when she was done, she enjoyed licking the blades of the meat grinder just for the salty taste.

The voices were running day and night, up and down the shoreline, racing to keep pace with the surf that pounded on the gritty, snowy sand, the waves that had borne in with them so long ago the small dark cargo of malice and dread.

But not all the voices that chirped approval now were in accord, and, for the first time in more than a century, in the midst of their giddy, exultant girl-talk, at least one voice had fallen silent and now only listened in sad resignation.