Black Light (16 page)

“Now. What brings you here? How is your mother?”

“She’s fine. I guess she’ll be there tonight. I—I just wanted to check something, that’s all.”

Mrs. Langford nodded and took another sip from her thermos. “Good, good. You go ahead and walk around, take your time, it’s not going to get very busy…”

She clicked the radio back on. I went upstairs, trying to keep from breaking into a run. I wasn’t sure what I was looking for, and there didn’t seem much chance I’d find it even if I did. The second floor was even colder and darker than downstairs. I felt a surge of genuine fear, stepping between unlit curiosity cases and assiduously avoiding corners, and hoped Mrs. Langford was right about there not being any other visitors.

The museum’s collection was an ill-sorted mass of Tankiteke Indian amulets, woven oyster baskets, old shoes, and arrowheads, as well as hundreds of tattered books and scripts used by actors renowned in their times and now utterly forgotten.
The Devil to Pay, The Iron Chest,
a version of
Romeo and Juliet
where the lovers were miraculously revived at the final curtain. Beneath me the floorboards creaked. The slanting light darkened from steel-gray to lead. From downstairs I could hear Mrs. Langford’s radio announcing the three o’clock news. My head ached from trying to see anything in the early darkness; I wished I’d asked Hillary to come with me, or even Mrs. Langford. I was ready to give up when I bumped into a small case in the corner.

“Right,”
I whispered nervously, and stooped beside it. A wooden square raised on four spindly legs, its glass top filthy with dust and dead flies. I blew on it, sending up a gray plume, then did my best to clean the glass with my sleeve. Set into one side was a small brass tag that read
DONATED BY THE HONORABLE EDWARD P. FOOTE, 1964. IN MEMORY OF A FELLOW PLAYER.
Inside, upon a bed of ragged velvet, was a frayed, leather-bound copy of Acherley Darnell’s collection of supernatural tales,
Northern Sketches and Fireside Tales.

I had seen the book before, of course, here and in countless reprints, and like everyone else I had watched the Disney cartoon version of Darnell’s most famous story, “The Dancer at the Burial Ground.” But I had never actually read anything else by Darnell. I sat back on my heels and eyed the case warily, as though it might know what I had in mind. I took a deep breath and began to prise it open. There was no lock, but the hinges were so rusty that for a moment I was afraid I’d have to give up. I could hear a few mothballs rolling around inside it, and I tugged harder. There was a puff of mold and the smell of camphor. The wood strained and creaked, until with a final groan it gave way.

“Okay.” I bit my lip, tasted blood and dust. “Let’s get a look at you—”

I picked up the book, nearly dropping it in my urgency. It was heavy, bound in leather and brown cloth and with the title picked out in gilt letters. When I opened it a pressed leaf wafted from between the pages, tissue-thin, brittle as lichen. I tried to catch it, but as it fell the leaf disintegrated, melting into the air as though it had been made of snow. I sank to the floor and opened to the title page.

NORTHERN SKETCHES

AND

FIRESIDE TALES

The frontispiece showed the author himself, with the legend
DARNELL AS PROSPERO.
A lean, dark man in a black cape, not at all the avuncular white-haired patroon I had imagined. Old theatrical engravings usually made me laugh, those pursey-lipped images of plump men in wigs as Hamlet, or fat-cheeked matrons playing unlikely Rosalinds.

But there was an unpleasant intensity to Darnell, with his thin, upcurved mouth and piercing eyes, long black hair falling disheveled about his gaunt face. He looked less like Prospero than Caliban. I tried to turn to the first tale, but the pages stuck together, and the book fell open at random to a page illustrated with a drawing of a shrieking man pursued by black shapes with huge glowing eyes.

THE MOON-HOUNDS, BEING AN ACCOUNT OF THE STRANGE AND TRAGIC DEATH OF A HUNTSMAN IN THE SIWANOY HILLS.

I do not think that Menheer Vanderbiin ever believed that he would meet his end with his throat torn out within sight of his own doorstep, nor that his wife e’er thought that their children would come to their majority fatherless. I do know that Vanderbiin scoffed at local superstitions, and most especially at those rumors which circulate within the foothills of the Siwanoy Range; namely that the Devil’s own hounds hunt upon those desolate slopes…

I glanced uneasily over my shoulder. Mrs. Langford seldom navigated the steps, but I had a sudden irrational fear that someone else might. Around me the room had fallen almost completely into shadow. A single shaft of pale light streaked a windowpane curtained with cobwebs and insect husks. I thought of what I had seen in my room last night, and decided I didn’t want my back to any more windows, no matter how empty they seemed. I crept behind the glass case, leaned against the chill bare wall and flipped through the book.

“Waitstill Finch, or A Tragic Romance.” “The Tolling of The Muscounth Bell.” “A Tragic Tale of Olden Times.”

Page after page of thick brown-edged paper, interspersed with more gory drawings and the occasional engraving. “Heathen Customes in Modern Dress.” “A Savage Lover.” “The Infernal Hind.”

But then I turned to a plate that made the breath rasp in my throat.

“That’s
it
…”

A crude black-and-white print showed a maniacally smiling figure, a man with the lurid grimace and goatish expression of a Restoration devil. He was naked, save for a swag of furs and bones around his waist, and capered wildly in front of a bonfire where several dithery-looking captives ineffectually waved their hands as they burned. The demon’s feet were clad in high laced boots, and from his head sprang two branched horns.

“The Wae-Be-No, A Savage Relict,” I read on the facing page.

There is amongst those austere men who have made their dwellings here long centuries before the advent of the European race, a tale that is repeated—nay, not a tale, but a most severe admonition; for such is their belief that they will plead most piteously with any White Man who seeks to ignore their warning, and have been known to slay innocent trespassers, not for malevolent purpose but to spare these unknowing interlopers a fate which the Tankiteke abhor unto death. It is thus that they speak of a devil they call the Wae-Be-No, which takes the form of a horned man dancing in flame. Human flesh is what the devil consumes, preferring it above all other sustenance…

“Charlotte?”

I gasped and looked up to see Mrs. Langford peering at me from the shadows.

“Oh! Jeez, you scared me!” I stumbled to my feet, trying to hide the book under my arm.

“I didn’t know where you were.” She glanced around, frowning at the cobwebs hanging from the ceiling, the pallid light that fell through dingy windows. “Good lord, this place is filthy. Hasn’t that girl come to clean?”

She took off her tam and swiped at the thick veneer of dust on a caseful of arrowheads. Then, as though she’d just remembered me, she turned and said, “We’re closing, dear—a little early, but there’s the party…” She stared pointedly at the volume under my arm.

“Right. I—I was just looking at this. I’m sorry. I’ll put it back—”

“Which one is that?”

She flapped the dust from her tam o’shanter and put it back on her head; then crossed to me, her cane thumping loudly. “Oh, yes, the
Fireside Tales.
That’s a
very
valuable book—”

I handed it to her, shamefaced. “I know—I was just, there was something—”

Mrs. Langford held the volume in one unsteady hand, straightening her glasses as she peered at the illustration of the horned man. “Well!” she murmured. She studied the picture as though she’d never seen it before. At last she gave it back to me and said, “Better put that back where you found it. Thank you, dear. Now, if you don’t mind waiting for me to close up, you can walk me home…”

I replaced the book, making a great show of closing the case. Then I escorted Mrs. Langford downstairs.

“There!” she exclaimed breathlessly when we reached the bottom. “Thank you, dear—”

I followed her to the judge’s dock. It was almost five, already so dim that the shapes of benches and chairs could only be guessed at. I turned on the electric lamp, and sank onto a bench to wait for Mrs. Langford to gather her things.

“I’m just going to finish my tea, dear.” She poured what remained and sipped it noisily.

I watched her, then finally blurted, “What was that a picture of?”

“What picture, dear?”

“In that book. The thing in the Indian legend.” I thought of sneaking in to watch
The Exorcist
a year before with Hillary. “Is it—is it like the Devil or something?”

Mrs. Langford put down her tea and stared at me, her green eyes wide. “The
Devil
?” She laughed, costume jewelry rattling. “I don’t think the Indians thought it was the Devil. Have you read the story?”

“No.”

“Well, Acherley Darnell says it was a god.”

“An Indian god?”

“Oh, no. Or, well, not
just
their god. The god of
this place
.” Her fingers fluttered and she stared thoughtfully at the ceiling as she went on, “He says it came over with the stones—but you should read the story.”

“Well, could I borrow it?”

“Lord, no!” Mrs. Langford looked affronted, then hiccuped loudly. “Pardonnez-
moi
. No, no, Charlotte—that book is worth a fortune, it
never
leaves here. You can find a copy in the library, I imagine…”

With a sigh she screwed the cap back onto her thermos, dropped it into her carpetbag and gave me an odd, almost avid, look. “Why are you asking about the book, Charlotte?”

I hesitated. If anyone in Kamensic might know about what I had seen, it would be Mrs. Langford. But the hungry expression on her mottled face and the way she continued to stare at me changed my mind. “No reason. I was just curious, that’s all.”

“Were you, Charlotte.” Her green eyes glittered: it was not a question. “Well, well.”

She tilted her head, the light from the single lamp igniting her features so that it was as though I gazed upon one of those terra-cotta masks, all empty eyes and gaping mouth. Then she lifted her hand and in a tremulous voice recited,

“Blessed is she among women who is given these rites to know,

But the uninitiate, she whose mind is not touched,

Goes blindly into that darkness which awaits the dead.”

As she spoke the memory of the gruesome apparition came to me, its horrible humping motion and lunatic tapping at the floor of my room. Then it was gone. But for an instant there lingered in the darkness before me the ghostly afterimage of a face, swollen and pale as the egg sac of a spider. This faded into the wide fervid eyes of Mrs. Langford. I stared back at her, repulsed. My mouth tasted sour; there was a heavy pressure at my temples, as though someone sought to drive their fingers into my skull.

And still Mrs. Langford gazed at me. I shook my head, wanting to yell, to gouge at those glittering eyes; but then she was laughing, her dime-store bangles clanking as she stood and struggled into her moth-eaten wool coat.

“But I have to hurry if I’m going to get dressed!” she exclaimed. “Lila Moncrieff is supposed to pick me up at seven—”

I remained on the bench, my heart thudding. When I touched my cheeks they felt like scorched paper.

“Charlotte?”

I looked up. There was Mrs. Langford gazing at me with grandmotherly concern. Gone was the frightening intensity of a few minutes before. Her coat hung askew from her bent shoulders and her tam was plopped crookedly on draggled white hair, like a crow on a woebegone nest. I nodded and automatically started to my feet, crossed to the judge’s dock, and let her take my arm.

“Thank you, darling. Here, make sure that light’s turned off—”

We made our way slowly to the front door and then out onto the sidewalk, where I waited as she locked up. Above us bare-limbed trees scratched at a sky marbled black and purple. To the west heavy clouds massed like the shadow of Muscanth Mountain, their edges tinged scarlet. The wind had risen and sent leaves pinwheeling across the lawn. I walked Mrs. Langford to her little clapboard cottage nestled behind its paired holly trees. As she searched for her keys I stared at the mask that hung from her door, Bacchus leering from within a starburst of orange bittersweet.

“Thank you, dear.” Mrs. Langford withdrew a key hanging from a length of bright yarn and poked it ineffectually at the lock. When at last it gave way the door swung open, onto a cold dark hallway rank with the scents of mildew and old newspapers. “I’ll see you this evening, I imagine…”

A light clicked on. I had a glimpse of walls covered with ancient framed images of forlorn stars and playwrights. She stood for a moment, catching her breath, then turned to close the door.

“Good night, Charlotte…”

I waited until I heard the latch click. Then I walked out to the overgrown sidewalk and started down the street. I looked back to see if anything was revealed by the dingy windows fringed with tattered ivy, but hardly a glimmer of light shone through. There were no shadows, no flicker of movement; nothing at all.

I
ENDED UP WALKING
to Ali’s house. As I crossed the village green the courthouse bell tolled five-thirty. Too late for me to run into anyone I knew driving home from school, too early for the commuters leaving Kamensic station. I stuck my thumb out once or twice when cars appeared, finally gave up and shouldered my bag, buttoning Hillary’s old jacket tight against the chill. I walked quickly, scuffing through piles of leaves and gazing wistfully into the village shops with their warm haloed windows, the smell of roast turkey erupting from Healy’s as the door flew open and Mr. Healy emptied his pipe onto the steps. I hurried by with head bent, and felt my melancholy fade as the village disappeared behind me.