Barbara Michaels - The Walker in Shadows

"I went through that six years ago," Kathy said scornfully. "It's just silly, Mark. I mean, back in the nineteenth century maybe it was a shock to a girl, but these days…"

"Oh, I don't believe it," Mark said. "I just mentioned it to clear the air. I don't think what we've got is a poltergeist, anyway."

Josef followed the exchange interestedly, his elbows on the table, his fingers buried in his hair.

"Then what you believe," he said precisely, "is that there is an active, malevolent personality behind this-not just some vague, undefined burst of psychic energy."

"Good," Mark said patronizingly. "Right on. What we have got, ladies and sir, is a ghost."

Silence followed this statement. The refrigerator turned itself on with a click. Sunlight streamed through the windows, brightening the faded, flowery chintz of the cur-tains and setting sparks flaring off the coppery molds that adorned the walls. In the center of the kitchen table the yellow roses had spread their petals wide.

"This is unreal," Pat said.

Three pairs of eyes turned toward her. Josef's were a deep brown, almost black. She hadn't noticed their color before.

"I know how you feel," he said gently. "But I'm afraid it's a possibility. At least I'm willing to listen to Mark's statement." His voice sharpened as he turned to Mark. "I assume he has a statement-a long one."

"Not as long as I'd like it to be," Mark said, with unusual humility. "However, I will start with the fact that this isn't the first time your house has seen manifestations. Old Hiram-"

"Yes, I've heard of old Hiram," Josef said. "Go on."

"He wasn't crazy," Mark said. "I guess you could call him eccentric, although Dad used to say any man had the right to live the way he wanted, so long as he wasn't hurting anybody else."

"Did old Hiram hurt anybody else?" Josef asked.

Mark grinned. The chipped front tooth, damaged in a hard fall on the basketball court, gave his smile a gamin look.

"He threw rocks at us," he said. "Looking back on it, I don't think he really meant to hit anybody, any more than we meant to hassle him. Well, maybe we did, a little, he was such an old grouch. But mostly it was the place-all overgrown and weedy, a swell place to play war games and spies. And there were the buried-treasure stories. But then old Hiram complained, and Dad made me build that fence. Wow. That really hurt. Spending three Saturdays working, when I could have been playing baseball. Anyhow, after that we didn't bug Hiram; but he kind of liked Dad…"

"You are wandering from the subject," Pat said.

"What?" Mark gave her a startled look. "Oh. I guess I was. Anyhow, Hiram told Dad that when he first moved into the house some funny things happened. Lights, and objects moving around. He said he figured it was a ghost, so he stood in the middle of the hall and yelled out that he was a stranger, and he wouldn't bother it if it didn't bother him."

" 'Eccentric' is hardly the word for Hiram," Josef said drily. "Did that stop the manifestations?"

"I guess so. He said he never had no more trouble-"

"Mark, your grammar," Pat said.

"I'm quoting," Mark said blandly. "But Dad said it was an interesting story. He believed it, not because old Hiram wasn't peculiar, but because his peculiarities wouldn't take that form."

He looked at the others as if hoping they would understand what he meant. Surprisingly, it was Friedrichs who nodded.

"Yes, I see. Old Hiram might have delusions of persecution from Russians or Martians or vicious small boys, but not from poltergeists. Nor would he have mentioned the subject to your father, who was only a casual acquaintance, unless-"

"Yeah, that was it. He didn't want us hanging around anyway; he hated everybody, especially kids. But he told Dad he was afraid we'd start the ghost up again. Things were nice and quiet, he said, and he liked them that way."

"He wasn't so crazy," Josef muttered. "All right, Mark, I'll accept your first point. The-er-trouble did not originate with us. Are you suggesting I stand in the hall and shout reassurances, as he did, to our racketing spirit?"

"No, look-you don't get what I'm driving at. It isn't just a random effect. It woke up, like, when Hiram moved in. But he wasn't… what it wanted."

"Ugh," Kathy said violently. "I don't like that idea."

"Neither do I," Pat said. "Stop beating around the bush, Mark. You insinuated that you and-and your father had looked into the ghost theory. What are you driving at?"

"It sounds so unconvincing when you just state it flat out, without explaining-"

"State it flat out," Pat said firmly.

"Okay, okay. I think there is a ghost… spirit… whatever you want to call it. I think it dates from the period just after these houses were built. Now wait -do any of you know anything about the history of these two houses?"

He knew they didn't. Pat glowered at him, and Josef froze him with a cold legal stare; but Mark was basking in the warmth of Kathy's admiration and ignored the adult disdain.

"They are twin houses, as you know," he said, addressing all of them, though he continued to look at Kathy. "They were built in 1843, by a Mr. Peters, for his twin daughters…"

If the midwife hadn't sworn to the fact, people would not have believed that Lavinia and Louisa Peters were sisters, much less twins. They were both fair-haired and blue-eyed, but with that the resemblance ceased. Lavinia was a fairy child, fragile and exquisite; Louisa was chubby and stolid, regarding the world with cool detachment from behind the thumb that was usually in her mouth. As they grew to young ladyhood, Louisa lost her baby fat, but she was never as slim as her sister, whose waist attained the fabulous seventeen-inch span so desired by Southern belles. Her blue eyes kept their look of calm appraisal, while Lavinia's danced coquettishly, flirting long lashes at her dozens of beaux.

("I've seen old photographs of the two," Mark said. "They didn't even look alike. They were older when the pictures were taken, but one was still the professional Southern lady; the other had a placid, motherly sort of face.")

They were devoted to one another, and that was odd; for although the term "sibling rivalry" had not yet been coined, the reality had existed for centuries, and many sisters have a healthy detestation for one another. Not Louisa and Lavinia. It was not surprising that they should fall in love and marry at the same age, for they did every thing together. Nor was it really surprising, considering how different they were, that their husbands should be such opposites.

Albert Tumbull was a widower, almost twenty years older than Lavinia, but every other factor was in his favor. He was a neighbor, a planter, an aristocrat; his estate, adjoining the Peters' tobacco plantation, included fifty slaves and four hundred acres.

("And he was a good-looking guy," Mark said. "I mean, if you like the type-mustache, high cheekbones, the deliberate aristocratic sneer. I don't know why he and Lavinia didn't move into his house. Maybe she refused to live with the relics of his first wife, or maybe the ancestral mansion was falling apart…")

Whatever the reason, Turnbull moved into the handsome new house built as a wedding gift by his father-in-law. The name he gave it, Halcyon House, was not especially original, but it indicated an optimistic hope for happiness with his new bride. He may not have been so pleased about his new brother-in-law.

His name was Bates-John Bates. It was a flat, thumping, monosyllabic name, and the pictures of him that have survived show a face that suits the name-expressionless, dour, dark. A New Englander by birth and a school-teacher by trade, he had somehow found his way to Maryland and the headmastership of one of the new private schools in the area.