The Tea Party - A Novel of Horror (28 page)

4

Sitter McMahon sat alone in the dark.

The television was off, the blinds were all drawn, and the door was as locked as he could possibly make it. He told himself it was a poor day for making people happy, that they wouldn’t appreciate his waving at them in all that gloom, and when Douglas Muir didn’t wave back he knew it was true.

But he didn’t scan the channels for signs of the witches’ coming.

Today was the day.

He was safer inside.

5

“Deeeeeeemonnnnnnsssss!” Piper cried from his place on the ground. “C’mon, you goddamned deeeeemonnnnnsssss, this is the Cleary you’re temp-tin, ya goddamned bastards!”

When he felt the ground rumbling, Piper Cleary began to cry.

6

The air was shadowed, but there were no shadows on the ground.

Liz didn’t want him to go.
Before you do anything foolish, let’s at least check it out.

The air was chilled, and damp, and the temperature stayed high.

We can’t take anything at face value anymore. Let’s go to town and see, okay!

Agreement came slowly, and he was ashamed of himself for giving in only when she said she would go with him.

Don’t worry. The whole town can’t be in on it.

He parked in front of the Depot, and they walked slowly across the street, hands brushing but not clasping. They had considered recruiting Olivia and Bud, but changed their minds when Liz suggested they were probably too involved with sorting out their problems.

The real estate office was closed, its blinds down, the door locked. Doug knocked so hard the glass threatened to break. They walked around to the back, one on either side, and failed to find an open or unlocked window, or a Venetian blind open enough to see in. No one they asked in the crowded restaurant had seen Parrish all day, though it was suggested that he was probably at the estate, getting ready for the party. Few seemed to care that it was up for sale; those who did promised support when he mentioned that he might confront the agent with the distress of the community.

“Now what?” Liz said when they were back outside.

“Ollie,” he said. “We can’t avoid it now.”

The Bazaar was closed, and they exchanged worried glances before he knocked, as loudly as he dared. Liz shielded her eyes with a hand and peered inside, and after a long minute saw Ollie weaving her way through the furniture toward them.

“She seems all right,” she said, and stepped back as the door opened.

Ollie was dressed in white, all white, from the satin ribbon wound through her single braid to the leather sandals on her feet. Her eyes weren’t puffed or red, nor was there despair in her expression. She greeted them lovingly and asked them inside.

“Can’t Ollie,” Doug said before Liz could accept. “We’re on a hunting expedition.” A jerk of this thumb over his shoulder. “Have you see Parrish today?”

“Nope. Guess he’s making the salad, huh?” She laughed.

“I take it, then, you’re going?”

“Oh sure! Why not?”

Liz looked pointedly around her and into the shop. “Is Bud coming too?”

“I don’t know,” she said stiffly. “He’s locked himself in that stupidass Retirement Room and won’t come out. I tried half the night, but he doesn’t even answer me. Charles Yardley, for all I care, can eat shit for dinner.”

Doug kept silent; he was suspicious of her bright eyes and her too-perfect smile.

But he couldn’t deny that she was stunningly beautiful, her cheeks shining, her lips moist, her arms when revealed alabaster and unblemished.

Her white muslin top was voluminous, with wide sleeves beautifully embroidered in floral reds and golds; around her neck was a fine gold chain, which dangled hanging between her breasts a small brass sunburst medallion. She fingered it absently, and gave them both another smile.

“I
want you to know
I
’ve decided you’re right, Liz. What’s happened to me isn’t normal, but it isn’t all that unusual, either. It took me a while, but
I
’ve pretty much put my head on where it belongs, and
I
’m not going to baby Bud. Either he believes me or he doesn’t. And if he chooses not to, I’ll put his ass in the street.” The smile broadened. “See you this afternoon, okay?”

And she shut the door in their faces, gently but firmly.

“Well,” said Liz as they walked back to the Jeep. “Well, feature that, will you.”

“What do you think?”

“You’re kidding!” She examined his face closely. “No, you’re not kidding. Jesus, she’s miserable, can’t you see that? She’s probably depleted half their stash. If her eyes were any bigger, they’d pop out of her head.”

He looked over his shoulder. “No kidding.”

She groaned and shoved him into the driver’s seat. Then she reached out and held his arm. “Doug, you’ll be careful?” She took a deep breath. “Take care, please. You . . . well, hell, you mean a lot to me.”

He didn’t think about it. He kissed her hard, long, and held her close while he took her back to the house. Then he kissed her again and watched as she walked inside without looking back.

He drove past Hollow Lane and stopped on the shoulder, at the Winterrest gate.

There were no cars in the drive, no tables on the lawn, no sign at all there was a party that afternoon.

He slid out and walked through the grass to the wall, looked down, and punched the stone. He kicked it. He shoved it. He leaned his full weight on it.

Nothing happened.

Then he looked at the house and whispered, “Who
are
you?”

TWO

1

4:00

There was no blue left to color the sky.

The sun was gone, interred as it westered without leaving a shadow.

The overcast had become less of a haze, more of a cloud that was shading to pale grey, spotted with black, smooth and lowering and defining a new horizon. The hills were smoked with drifting fog, the air was autumnal, and the grass almost brittle.

There was only a light breeze, infrequent and tepid.

The crows that had perched on the sagging telephone lines lifted one by one, silently circling, forming an ebony flock that wheeled south over the highway. They made no calls; there was only the muffled flutter of their large black wings.

2

A gold and green canvas canopy was centered directly in front of Winterrest’s back door, and beneath the second-story window. It was easily twenty feet on a side, its corners held eight feet above the ground by smooth, arm-thick posts wrapped in gold and. green streamers; its edges were scalloped and fringed in pale yellow, its center hoisted to a circus tent peak. At the tops of the poles, and hanging from single linked chains from the inside supports, were brass and teak carriage lamps already lighted, kerosene flames filtered through the amber glass. Beneath the vaulted center were three fifteen-foot buffet tables covered in white linen—two were laden with china plates of hot and cold meats, breads of all descriptions, cheeses, candied and glazed vegetables, and four huge crystal bowls filled with salad greens. The third table held coffee urns, punch bowls, teapots, the plates, glasses, and silverware needed by the guests.

Beyond the tent, arranged haphazardly, were white wrought iron tables open to the sky. The chairs were white as well, filigree and standing slightly unevenly on the uneven ground.

The guests had treated their invitations in an almost formal manner; the women were all in airy summer dresses, many in white gloves and hats, not a single one wearing a pants suit or anything provocative or remotely revealing; the men, though none wore a hat, wore their Sunday best suits of pale colors to white, sharkskin to polyester; more than a few surreptitiously polished their shoes on the backs of their trouser legs.

Their milling and strolling covered the lawn, but the mansion itself seemed oddly deserted, almost aloof from the activities building in its backyard. Its six upper-story windows were blinded by drawn curtains of undetermined color, the four lower ones reflected fragments of the assembly, and the colors of the open-sided tent in darkly muted shades.

Doug stood off to one side, dressed in a green corduroy jacket and sharp-creased tan slacks, glass in hand, eyes narrowed in a thoughtful squint.

He had been among the last to arrive, though he had arrived on time; the gate had been wired open, the front lawn dotted with automobiles, bicycles, and a few newly washed pickups. A delicately hand-lettered sign on the locked front door directed him to the back. Once there, he took several moments to reluctantly admire the studied courtliness of the arrangements and the lavishness of the food. Filling his glass, then, with what tasted like rum punch, he drifted off to the left, away from the hundred or so others who were eating, drinking, and trying to find something else to do.

He was angry.

From the moment he had seen to Maggie and had left the house, he had felt the manipulation, the intimidation, but by the time he had emptied his glass and refilled it halfway, he knew that most of it was directed at himself.

He had wanted Liz with him, to support him, and she wasn’t here. Her fearful unease had made her protective of her family, and his own doubts had prevented him from seeing it.

Now he was alone, ashamed he had not been more sensitive, simmering because he was unsure what he should do next. As for his nerves, the house itself was doing a perfect job of setting them on edge.

From the front, Winterrest seemed perfectly innocuous. It was a large stone house, nothing more and nothing less. But here, in back with the others, he felt something else, an undercurrent that linked the guests in a way he did not understand, in a way that let him out.

And even as he watched, that link grew stronger.

The party, though somewhat subdued at the start, seemed now to be a success. Stage-whispered gossip flowed, greetings were pleasant and enthusiastic, and suddenly he was caught up in passing conversations that courtesy dragged him into, and polite smiles pulled him out of. Wilbur and Nell Cleary, who had evidently catered the affair, spent most of their time bustling in and out of the house to replenish the plates and urns; Gil Clay, in a pink polo shirt and blinding white slacks, hovered around the last table, sipping at the punch and smacking his lips for all the world like a baffled wine taster; Wanda Hallman, unashamedly obese and bleached a platinum bouffant blond, stalked around the fringes, cornering everyone she could to ask if they had seen or had word of her ne’er-do-well husband. Farmers’ families tended to stick together; those who lived in town split up almost as soon as they arrived.

Only Piper Cleary and Sitter McMahon were conspicuous by their absence.

Go home, Doug, he thought then; go straight back to the wall, climb over, and go home.

It was a thought so tempting his hand began to tremble, but it was also one he could not obey. He had knowingly opened the door behind which
something
lurked, not because he was stupid (though he might be, at that), but because if he didn’t, he would have to start running. And once started, there was, as he’d told Liz, no guarantee he would ever be able to stop.

Or that he would ever be able to get away.

He heard a familiar voice then, high-pitched and laughing. For a moment he couldn’t place it and turned sharply to his right, to the lawn that spread westward. Punch slopped over his hand, and a chill that had nothing to do with the clouds overhead stalked his spine, touched the edges of his lungs.

It was Keith, and the Mohawk Gang, and Heather was with them.

The glass almost fell from his hand. He looked back to the crowd, blinking his confusion, not seeing Liz until she was almost upon him.

She wore a plain, pastel green blouse opened two buttons down, and snug designer jeans that flattered her hips, and were unceremoniously tucked into the tops of new, pointed tan boots. Her hair was ribbon-tied in a loose ponytail, accentuating the high forehead, and the eyes that were at once enraged and dark with fear.

She stopped at his side and stared across the grass at the children. Her lower lip was pulled between her teeth, and her chin thrust out when she tried to swallow. When he touched her wrist, the skin was cold.

“What happened?” he said quietly.

The children swerved and swirled like a school of bright fish, and others swept quickly around to join them, yelling, laughing, arms high and swinging. Goaded by the Mohawk Gang and anxious to escape the stringent bounds of party etiquette, they started a ragtag game of touch football, their shouts and groans, cheers and escaped curses considerably louder than the adults’ conversation.

“I could ask you the same thing,” she said.

“Nothing yet.”

“And you,” she said bitterly, “are still going to play Gary Cooper, right?”

“I thought you understood.”

“I do,” she replied with a sad shake of her head. “God, I do now. When I got inside, I didn’t see the damned note.”

Doug frowned.

“On the kitchen counter,” she told him as if he should have known. “They’re supposed to put their messages on the fridge with the ladybug. It was on the counter and I didn’t see it until fifteen minutes ago.” From her jeans pocket she pulled out a wrinkled sheet of yellow, lined notepaper. He took it and, after a glance to the children, read it.

Mom, I really like parties. Heather does too. Summer is very boring. We’re going to have fun. Please come.

It almost sounded like a command.

After he’d read it a second time, she took it back and jammed it into her pocket. She started forward, her mouth open to call Keith and Heather. He took her arm gently. She hesitated, started to pull away, then walked with him reluctantly, her head turned to watch her son who, when he caught her eye, waved and grinned and punched his sister’s side.

“I’ll strangle him,” she said.

“Is it that bad?”

Her expression began as disgust, then wavered into the unease he had seen earlier, on the porch. “He’s not the same.”