Barbara Michaels - The Walker in Shadows

Remembering this conversation, Pat felt a surge of panic. Did they really intend to risk Mark tonight, as Josef had risked himself the night before? Both men insisted there had never been any danger; the manifestation had started to fade almost as soon as it began, leaving the victim sickened but unharmed.

Even if that was true, it was not proof that the thing wouldn't react as violently to Mark as it had to Kathy. Had not Josef said that poltergeists were activated by youth? Besides-Pat went on with her silent argument-even if Kathy was the sole catalyst, where did that leave them? It left them with the conclusion that Kathy could never again enter her father's house.

"A nice thing that would be," she said suddenly. The others, who had been tactfully ignoring her bad mood, looked at her in surprise.

"Ah, she is showing signs of life," Mark said. "Eat your eggs like a good girl. As soon as you finish we'll open the carton."

"That fails to inspire me," Pat said. "What do you expect to find, Mark? A magic formula for exorcising demons?"

"Facts," Mark said.

After all, he was too impatient to wait for her to finish a meal for which she had little appetite. Kathy helped him clear away the dishes. Then he began to unload the box.

It was a motley and rather unsavory collection that appeared. The books and papers were spotted with damp and smelled sour, as if they had been permeated with mold.

"Jay figured Miss Betsy must have kept this stuff in the basement," Mark explained as his mother withdrew, her nose wrinkling fastidiously. "Some of it is in bad shape."

"And of the wrong period," Josef said, examining a long thin volume whose covers were held in place only by tatters of cloth. "This is someone's book of recipes-some handwritten, some cut out of newspapers and magazines. The type is too modern to be nineteenth century."

Kathy pounced on a packet of letters.

"These are dated 1934," she said, disappointed.

"I never promised you guys a rose garden," Mark said. "Did you think we'd find a document entitled 'The Family Ghost and what it wants out of life'?"

"Empty the carton," Josef suggested. "We'll put the irrelevant materials back into it."

The kitchen table was heaped with miscellany by the time Mark reached the bottom of the box. The last thing he took out was an elaborately bound book some eighteen inches long and several inches thick. Its padded covers, banded in brass, were of velvet turned green with age.

"Here we go," Mark said, his face brightening. "This must be the family photograph album."

The others discarded the unproductive documents they were investigating. By returning most of these to the car-ton they cleared enough space for the album, and Mark opened it to the first page.

It was like meeting, if not an old friend, at the least a familiar acquaintance. They had seen a reproduction of John Bates's photograph in the Morton genealogy; here was the original, and its impact was just as strong on the second viewing-even stronger, perhaps, because the reproduction had been slightly blurred. John Bates's dark eyes looked straight out at the viewer, as if demanding an answer to some vital, if unexpressed, question.

Mark turned the page. Again familiar faces-those of Louisa and Lavinia, nee Peters, caught for posterity, so long as paper and chemicals would survive. The stilted, simpering smiles seemed unbearably poignant to Pat. Could they have manufactured even a pretense at happiness if they had known what the next few years would bring?

"Mr. Morton must have had this album," she said.

"Or copies of the same photos," Mark said. "Louisa was his grandmother, and Mr. Bates was his grandfather. He didn't go farther back with the Bateses; I guess they weren't distinguished enough. No Revolutionary War heroes, or anything."

They were clustered close around Mark, who had taken upon himself the position of master of ceremonies and official turner of pages. Kathy, too polite to elbow her elders aside, stood on tiptoe to see over Mark's shoulder. Mark lifted his arm and pulled her close to the table, so that she was in front of him instead of behind him. His arm remained draped casually around her shoulders. Pat glanced at Josef. His lips had tightened, but Mark's gesture had been made so smoothly and so naturally that he could hardly complain without sounding foolish.

Mark turned the page.

There were two photographs, one facing the other. The first was that of a young man standing straight and proud in the dark of a Union uniform, his face stiff under the unbecoming short-brimmed forage cap. But the audience paid that photograph little heed. Three pairs of eyes focused, aghast and unbelieving, on the picture on the opposite page.

The girl wore her prettiest party dress, dotted with tiny flowers, ruffles framing her white shoulders, billowing skirts reducing her waist to ridiculous proportions. Ringlets tied with ribbon framed a smiling girlish face… Kathy's face.

Pat's eyes moved from the yellowing photograph to the living features of the girl who stood sheltered by Mark's arm.

Kathy had heard the gasps of surprise, but she alone, of them all, seemed unaware of what she saw. Naturally, Pat thought, her mind reeling; people don't really know how they look to others, they see only a mirror image, reversed…

Kathy let out a yelp of pain. Mark's fingers, which had been resting lightly on her arm, crooked like claws.

"What's the matter?" she demanded shrilly. Her eyes moved from Pat to her father.

"They aren't the same," Pat said. Her own voice sounded strange in her ears.

It was true, though; the pictured face was not identical with Kathy's. It was plumper, fuller of cheek. Kathy's exquisite coloring was not reproduced by the brownish tints of the old daguerreotype. Indeed, as Pat continued to stare, she found less and less to marvel at. The face in the photograph was that of a girl about Kathy's age, her inexperienced charm the same; the clustered curls were obviously blond. But the resemblance ended there.

Mark's taut hand relaxed its hold, but he was still in-capable of speech, an almost unheard-of situation.

"Who is she?" Pat asked. "The pictures aren't labeled. I don't know why people assume their descendants will know Great-Aunt Mabel and Cousin George…"

"That's not Cousin George," Mark said. "That's Susan Bates. Don't deny it, Mom; who else could it be? The costume is right for the period, the age is right… And that must be her brother Edward, opposite. He was a Union officer, we know that."

Now Pat was able to wrench her eyes away from Susan (Mark was right, it had to be Susan) to look at her brother. The cool, direct dark gaze was his father's, but the resemblance between Edward and his sister was just as plain.

"He's so proud of that uniform," Kathy murmured. "You can see it in his face. Actually, he's kind of cute."

Pat realized that the girl was still unaware of the resemblance that had struck the others. Looking up, she saw that Mark and Josef were both staring at her, radiating the same silent, imperative message. As if I would tell the child, she thought indignantly. The whole thing is moonshine anyway; pure imagination and nerves.

"They were a handsome family," she said, in response to Kathy's comment.

"The men were," Kathy said. "I don't know; I think Susan is stupid-looking."

"Oh, yeah?" Mark had recovered himself. "I think she's foxy. Cute figure."

"How can you tell?" Kathy demanded. "All those skirts…"

Mark put on a convincing leer.

"What shows is very nice, very nice indeed. Girls in those days used to brag about having waists so small a man could span it with his two hands. I'll bet yours isn't-"

Kathy giggled and wriggled as he put his hands around her waist. With only a little squeezing, his fingers met. The gesture, meant-in part, at least-as an attempt to amuse and distract, was not such a bright idea. It only reinforced an identity the others were struggling to deny.