Randall fell into a dream of a memory that he’d lost and found again. He was picking insects off the bushes by the kitchen door. He was about five years old and the summer heat was intense, except when Ezekiel’s shadow loomed over him. The gardener was cutting down weeds at the base of the bushes and the boy was plucking beetles with his thin fingers and flicking them into a canister filled with kerosene. The sun glinted off all the square panes set into the kitchen door’s frame of peeling green paint on wood. It blinded him and he had to stop to grab a filthy cloth from Ezekiel’s back pocket. He wiped the sweat from his face. As his eyes stung from the salt and his nostrils filled with the strangely comforting scent of his caretaker’s own sweat, he heard a woman’s voice singing.
“Little spider wind your web round and round the tree
“Eat my bones and eat my eyes, but please eat only me
“I’ve said my prayers and my goodnights and mended my regrets
“For two shall share this siken cell and eat this pain that’s left.”
It was the strangest song he’d ever heard, and the raconteur had rendered it in that lilting rhythm that was the sole reserve of lullabies. Still lost in the halo of the light and heat and the rough cloth pressed against his face, he wandered down the path until his bare toes hit a door jamb. His eyes adjusted and he saw Mrs. Becker, the cook, sitting alone in the kitchen. She loaded coal into the stove with a small shovel and slammed its door shut. Then she sat at the huge table in the center of the room and held her face in her hands. One of the pantry doors was open and the top shelf held a row of books with their spines turned to the wall. Randall had seen her removed those books before. They covered many topics on spiritualism, a subject Mr. Henshaw, the master of the house, hated.
Mrs. Becker had been pregnant until two weeks ago. Then she simply wasn’t. She’d shown up one day without the bump and everyone had just stopped talking about it. The Withens had chosen to forget that there had ever been a baby. One of the Estes books was open on the bench next to her and there was a loose handwritten note stuck into it. The little boy couldn’t read, but the grown Randall who was having the dream filled in the words. The book was one of those he’d later stolen for himself and placed under his bunk. He remembered the print on that open page. It was of a ghostly form rising from a cradle, from the dead infant within. Mrs. Becker had been reading the chapter on conjuring the spirits of the unborn dead. Now she was crying.
Feeling like he’d stumbled on a private moment, Randall found his way back to Ezekiel, who was now kneeling by the bushes and trying to extract a rather large weed that was staking its claim in the sod.
“It’s worse this year.” he grumbled. “Mr. Henshaw won’t hire seasonal workers to keep up the pace. Leaves it all to us.” The plant came free, sending dirt flying all over Randall. “I don’t wonder if things aren’t going well for him.” He stood. “Come on. You need water. Not from the kitchen.”
They walked in the direction of the stables.
“Mrs. Becker’s going to look after you and the other children tonight.” he said. “The master needs Mrs. Gwynedd to take charge of things for this…”
“The seance?”
“That’s right.”
“Will her ghost come?” he paused, and then with a hopeful note, “Mrs. Henshaw?”
The storage shed at the end of the stables was inviting and cool. Tools were lined up along the walls and arranged on shelves. Ezekiel spun a hefty knob on a pipe and the water sloshed into the bucket below. He filled up a glass jar and gave it to Randall. The water was lukewarm but somehow tasted very cold and almost sugar sweet as it went down his throat.
“You know what I think will come of this.” said Ezekiel. “There’s no doubt in my mind that we should expect The Drifter and not the mistress. And I wouldn’t expect her ghost, neither.”
“Huh?”
"What I expect is The Drifter. You know what I'm talking about?"
Randall heard the patter of small feet coming in their direction. A little girl about the same age as he appeared. She wore a dark cotton dress and she’d slung her stockings around her neck. Her legs were covered in mud up to her knees. A doll’s head stuck out of the canvass bag that hung at her side.
“Dorothy.” said Ezekiel. “What can I do for you?”
“Momma said I could brush Luther.”
“Very well. I won’t saying anything.”
The gardener winked at her and she grinned, scampering off to the stall across the way. She fetched a wire brush and began stroking the hair on a pretty white horse. Randall had often seen her down here with the animals. As Dorothy’s hand moved across Luther’s neck, Randall noticed a mark on it that hadn’t been there before. Somehow this made him think to inspect his own hand, upon which he found the same symbol. Randall had no memory of how it got there, though he was certain he hadn’t had it yesterday. The boy looked up and saw that Ezekiel was watching him. The man acted like there was nothing wrong about Randall’s hand, however, and went on about Dorothy instead.
“You don’t turn her in either.” said Randall. “Mr. Henshaw doesn’t need to know she comes down here. You see how upset Dorothy gets sometimes and look at her now. She needs this to keep her head on.”
Dorothy began to hum. She moved around the big animal and her back brushed the side of the stall. A pair of fetlock scissors, with long blades and rounded tips, fell to the ground. The girl seemed oblivious to this. She was clearly in her own world.
“About The Drifter.” said Ezekiel. “From what I know of her, she lives only in bodies. Even if they’re dead ones. She can keep a corpse going for some time until it’s rotted too much for her to use. That thing is going to be desperate for a new home. We’re giving her the opportunity she needs.” He bent down and took the glass from the boy, setting it back on a shelf. “We’re safer from The Drifter if we keep our minds among the living.” He tapped his temple with a single index finger. “If you wander too close to the world of the dead, too close to the edge between this world and the other side, she can reach over and snatch you up.” He swept his hand in front of Randall as if catching a fly. “It’s no wonder that this spiritualism of the last fifty years has been such good soil for her. She puts these seeds into people’s minds. They long for something else, something beyond.”
“Is that what’s going on with Mrs. Becker? Will she be okay?”
“No.” he cast a blank look at the bridles hanging on the wall behind Randall. “Anytime a woman loses her baby, it’s hard to set her mind on anything else. When a woman loses her baby the way it happened to Mrs. Becker, there may be no way to bring her back.” He returned his eyes to the boy. “She asked Mr. Henshaw if she could watch you children during the seance. She wants to be with children. How could the man refuse, with all that’s gone on? Mrs. Gwynedd and I had to do our best. We wrote her a song and maybe that will protect you.”
They left the tool shed, passing the stall in which Dorothy was still working. The fetlock scissors were no longer on the ground. They weren’t hanging on the wall either. Randall thought he saw their finger loops sticking out the top of Dorothy’s bag, nestled next to her doll, but he didn’t get a good look before venturing back out to the assaulting sunlight.
“Let’s finish the weeding.” said Ezekiel. “The master wants the grounds to be in perfect shape.”
A few hours later, Randall was dressed and standing in the ballroom. The walls were cream colored and covered in lacy gold filigree. The main door was opened to the front hallway and the two branches of the grand staircase folded around either side of the doors to the outside. Mrs. Gwynedd and a footman entered with a small round table. There was a box of some sort on the table, covered by a white linen. They set it down in the center of the room and Mrs. Gwynedd came over to Randall and Ezekiel.
“I’ve changed my mind.” said the gardener. “I’d rather the boy stay with me.”
“Isn’t it safer for the three to be together?”
Ezekiel hesitated. Randall sensed the fear. The man’s hand rested on Randall, who felt Ezekiel pulling him away. The boy stumbled two steps backward. In comparison to what Randall was used to, his guardian was exhibiting extraordinary paternal protectiveness. Mrs. Gwynedd didn’t look pleased.
“You told me about the circle of three.” she said. “We did this to protect them.”
“Can you not fake the seance?”
“I will try my best, but there’s little I can do.”
“You are sure?”
“Ezekiel,” she said, “If you take Randall away, you’re putting my own children in danger.”
He nodded. Mrs. Gwynedd knelt so that her eyes were level with the boy’s. He now felt the gardener’s flat palm against his back, pushing him forward. He came up to her as the footman and a maid entered with a Victrola phonograph mounted into a fine oak cabinet. They set it down near the fireplace, which was dark on that midsummer evening. A mirror filled the space between the mantel and the ceiling. It tilted downward at a slight angle so that it reflected the phonograph and the table with the white cloth and all the people in the room. Randall examined his own reflection. He saw how tiny he looked in the huge space, how out of place he was in his own home.
“Go to the kitchen and see Mrs. Becker.” said the nanny. “She’s looking after you tonight.”
Randall left the room on his own. The front hall was lined with marble columns bearing large crystal lanterns. Paintings hung between them. He entered the kitchen, a simpler room dominated by that enormous oven that occupied the entire length of one wall. The coal fire was out and the table full of scraps from the recently completed dinner, but the room was still very warm. A fragile willow of a woman, with long black hair tied in a tight bun, saw Randall and bit her lip. The redness around her sunken eyes indicated she had been crying again.
“Mrs. Becker?” said the boy. “Mrs. Gwynedd told me to see you.”
“Yes, we should head upstairs with the others.” she said with a choked voice.
“Are you okay?”
“Of course, little one. I hope Mrs. Henshaw comes. I hope she’s well.”
The cook looked at the ceiling and made the sign of the cross. Mrs. Becker returned her gaze to Randall and her expression changed. In a sudden movement, she reached down and grabbed Randall’s hand.
“Where did you get that?” she said, pointing out the triangles branded on his hand.
“I don’t know.” he said.
Mrs. Becker’s heavy lids peeled back and her eyes widened. The motion in the kitchen slowed as some of the other staff started turning their attention to the cook. She had always been sweet to the boy, but even at his age he’d noticed how she struggled to make sense of familiar things, let alone anything out of the ordinary. Then Mr. Henshaw strode into the room. Everyone came to attention and he addressed the company with his usual commanding voice.
“Randall will come with me. Mrs. Becker, go up to the nursery now please.”
The cook looked saddened as the master took Randall by his hand, but she did not protest. It was the first time Randall could ever remember Mr. Henshaw touching him. Contrary to what he’d expected, the touch was soft. The master did not drag the boy thought the hall. Rather, he guided him just as one might guide one’s own child. Just before they reached the doors to the ballroom, Henshaw made the slightest pause. He squeezed Randall’s hand, and then they entered. Ezekiel was gone, but Mrs. Gwynedd was there by the covered table. She looked shocked.
“He’s staying here.” said Mr. Henshaw.
“Are you sure?” said Mrs. Gwynedd.
The man let go of Randall. He furrowed his brow and took measured steps until he was less than a foot from Gwynedd. The woman was the only person in the room as tall as Henshaw, but he still tried to use his stature by bending forward slightly, giving the impression that he was looking down at her.
“What did you say?”
“I was just surprised, sir… given what you said earlier.”
“Surprised? That didn’t sound like surprise.” He pointed to the arched windows at the end of the ballroom that was opposite the doors, through which the harbor was visible. “Mrs. Gwynedd, I make my livelihood shipping other people’s property across that ocean. I’m not as successful as I am by being anyone’s fool.”
Gwynedd looked down. “I was afraid for the boy’s safety. As you said, I’m fond of him.”
“He needs to be here. Under any other circumstance that might not be proper, but I have to admit that he is more likely to draw Edda’s spirit back to this world than Claire. She didn’t didn’t know Claire for more than a few hours before her passing, but the boy…” He sighed, looked at Randall, and looked back. “The boy she treated like a son, even if he’s no such thing. He has to be here. His safety is not my concern. You see to that, if you’re so worried.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Prepare the materials.”
The nanny removed the table cloth and revealed a box made of dark polished wood. It featured a pair of glass doors hung by brass hinges on the front. Someone had mounted pictures behind the glass so the interior was obscured. Together the two halves depicted a barren landscape overrun by armed skeletons. She opened the doors, revealing a bell hung by a hook. Randall couldn’t help but to take a few steps closer. Gwynedd noticed and came to him, whispering.
“It’s a warning to her.” she said. “The Drifter feels the pain of dying over and over and she remembers it. The pain makes her angry. And the possibility of some day running out of people to live in makes her afraid. Lydia used to keep this picture in her parlor.” She pointed back at the box. “As some sort of reminder. I’m telling her that I know what’s she’s afraid of.”
She stood.
“I don’t really understand, Mrs. Gwynedd.”
The master spoke.
“I require your attention, please.”
He was standing by the Victrola with a phonograph record. He placed it on the turntable. The sound of a woman singing in Italian emerged from the horn, though it was scratchy and weak sounding in the expanse of the ballroom. Mr. Henshaw clasped his hands together at his waist as though introducing someone. He addressed the entire room.
“This is Tosca, my wife’s favorite opera. We will welcome her as we would royalty. Places, now.”
The staff lined up in order along one side of the room as they would while formally receiving a guest. Mrs. Gwynedd sat in a chair by the bell box and close the door. Mr. Henshaw sat across from her. The lights from the conical crystal chandelier above them dimmed and went out. Sunlight was fading outside, giving way to the lights of the harbor and the beacon at the end of the breakwater, the signpost marking the way into Lutton from the ocean’s wide, featureless domain.
Gwynedd opened her mouth, but the master held up a hand.
“Please begin with a doxology. We approach this as Christians.”
The woman nodded, saying. “Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost. As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end.”
“Amen.” said Henshaw.
“Amen.” repeated everyone else in the room.
The bell rang once. It startled Henshaw.
“So soon. What does that mean?”
“She approaches.”
He looked around. “Can I see her?”
“She hasn’t arrived yet.” Gwynedd drew in a breath. She said, “Requiem aeternam dona ei…”
“Stop!” said Henshaw. “That isn’t the right thing. Call for Edda.”
“Et lux perpetua luceat ei.”
The man stood and pointed a finger at her.
“Don’t think you can fool me. I’m no filthy Welsh Catholic, but I know what you’re saying!”
“Requiescat in pace.”
“Rest in peace? Rest in peace? You’re sending her away. You must bring her here!”
The bell rang twice. Mrs. Gwynedd raised her eyes. The whites glistened as they shook. She kept one hand over the other and pressed them into her lap. The bell rang three times.
“I can’t.” she said.
“You will.”
The bell rang four times. And then it tolled over and over, faster and faster, until it was shaking the box. Mrs. Gwynedd threw open the doors and grasped the brass bell, casting it to the ground. It hit the floor and left a dark slice in the polished wood. A tremor rumbled through the room.
“She comes for those who wander too close to the other world.” said the woman. “Mr. Henshaw, please listen. If you’d only hold onto life…”
“Stop.”
“And your daughter. The more you mire yourself in thoughts of death…”
“I’ve had enough. Either you continue the seance or you leave now and never return.”
“The more you’ll find yourself wrapped in her web.”
The shaking continued. It rattled the crystals in the chandelier and several of the staff stumbled. Randall heard a cracking noise, but he wasn’t sure where it was coming from. Then a fissure opened at the bottom of the giant mirror above the fireplace and raced to the top. Tendrils branched outward, forming a web before the entire thing burst, sending shards of glass everywhere. The phonograph stopped. A moment later, it spun again and played a different song. Henshaw slowly turned to it.
“...a cenar teco m’invitasti e son venuto!” sang deep, menacing male voice.
You have invited me to dinner and I have come
Randall thought it sounded as he might imagine a statue would speak if it came to life. The rumbling went on and all eyes turned to the ballroom door, the hallway beyond, and the grand estate entrance beyond that as those outer doors opened on their own. A mist had settled outside, obscuring everything that was more than a few feet from the house. It began to roll in through the doors.
“Ah padron!” sang another male voice. “Siam tutti morti.”
Ah master! We are lost.
At that moment, the fireplace sprung to life. Henshaw was standing by the windows that looked to the harbor. From where Randall stood, the master’s head eclipsed the beacon light. He shouted at all gathered in the room.
“Close up the doors!”
The footman dashed off and jumped over all three steps leading down from the front hall into the foyer. He yanked on a flourish of iron bending away from one of the mullions and pulled the heavy door shut. Then he tried to leap up the three steps again, but missed the top step and smashed his face on the marble floor. The ballroom gasped. The doors thundered and shook as though something gigantic was trying to get in from the outside. The footman dragged himself to his feet and stumbled on with a limp and a bloody nose.
“Rispondimi.” said the statue-like voice on the phonograph. “Verrai tu a cenar meco?”
Answer me. Will you come to dine with me?
Henshaw turned to Mrs. Gwynedd.
“Do something!” he said.
“We should get the children and find safety.” she replied. “Perhaps in the cellars.”
The footman came tumbling into the ballroom and slammed shut its doors. He turned the brass handle into its locked position. The master strode across the room and shoved the young man out of the way, sending him back to the floor. As Henshaw’s hand touched the handle, the same weight that had slammed into the outside door did the same to the one inside. He backed away until he hit the round table and toppled it over. The box fell and its glass doors shattered.
The fire behind it roared higher, as though it were a tool of intense anger. The flames caught on the oak phonograph cabinet and the shiny veneer burned away in billows of acrid smoke. The record released a final gasp before succumbing.
“E l’ultimo momento.”
This is your last hour.
The ballroom doors shuddered once more and the clasp gave way. The doors opened. A little girl stood before them. Dorothy. She was wearing a white dress now. Her legs were washed and clad in black stockings, though both dress and stockings were spotted in blood. She carried the canvass bag with the doll. Randall looked for the scissors, but they weren’t in the bag. They lay on the marble floor behind her. Behind that, the exterior doors were open again. The glass was gone and something had bent the mullions inward.
/* ------------------- */
This is the third in a series. It was going to be the third of 3, but wound up being too long. So it is the the third of 4. Read the first two here: fortune teller and longing. Thanks for reading!
