William Lashner - Bitter Truth

“Maybe we should turn around,” I said.

“Your mother’s been expecting your visit, Miss Caroline,” said Nat.

“What about her cats?” asked Caroline.

“They’re in the cage in the garden room for the evening.”

“Vicious little things, her cats. And they pee everywhere. She knows I hate them, why can’t they just stay in Europe?”

“Your mother’s quite attached to them,” said Nat. “It’s good to see her attached to something. I left the front gate open for you.”

“Well, I suppose it will be all right once the rain lightens,” said Caroline. “And we could always stay over.”

“Plenty of room,” he said. “But if you’re going up you should be going before the stream rises any further. Already there’s a puddle where the bridge should be. Master Franklin was going to be late so I told him not to bother.”

“I need to go to a funeral tomorrow,” I said.

“Rain’s supposed to stop tonight,” said Nat. “There won’t be any trouble leaving in the morning.”

“Let’s go, Victor,” she said.

I smiled at Nat and did as I was told. In my rearview mirror I could see him watching us leave, glowing red, dimming as he fell farther away from my rear lights into the misty depths of the rain.

I followed the road onward, leaning forward so I could see more clearly through the wet darkness. After a turn left and a bend right we came in sight of two towering black gates, opened enough to let a single car through. Studding both gates were gnarled, spidery vines sprouting great iron cucumbers. On the left gate, wrought massively in iron, were the words MAGNA EST, and on the right the word VERITAS. Before the gate was a black puddle that spread ten yards across the road, its surface pocked by rain, its depth impossible to determine. I stopped the car.

“It’s just the stream,” she said. “It’s not too deep yet.”

“Are you sure? This isn’t four-wheel drive. My drive’s only about a wheel and a half.”

“Go ahead, Victor.”

Slowly I drove forward, the road sloping down, sending my car deeper and deeper into the water. I kept looking down at the floor, wondering when the water would start seeping through, kept listening to the engine, waiting for the sputter and choke as the motor drowned. The water looked impossibly deep outside my window, the car so low I felt I was in a rowboat, but then the front tilted up and the car pulled higher and soon we were out of the overflowed stream, through the gates, past two huge sycamores, driving up the long driveway to the house.

The trees and overgrowth had given way to a wide flat hillside that seemed to spread forever in the darkness. The drive pulled higher and the hillside lengthened and I realized I was driving through what must have been a vast piece of property, stunning, I was sure, in its size and depth even though I could see only the narrow strip illuminated by my headlights. And then a crack of lightning confirmed my suspicions and my eyes couldn’t take in its entire breadth before darkness once again clasped shut its jaws and the sky growled and my vision was reduced to the thin strip lighted by my car. Atop the hillside was a glow, yellow and dim, a glow that strangely grew no brighter as we approached. The driveway curved away from the light and then back again and suddenly Veritas came into view. I drove around the drive as it circled tightly across the top of a wide stone portico, whose steps led down the hill which our car had just climbed, and parked in front of the house

“Charming,” I said.

“We call it home.”

What they called home was a massive Gothic revival stone structure with dark eaves and predatory buttresses and strangely shaped bay windows with intricate stained glass. Wings and dark additions had been slapped on with abandon. Dull yellow lamps lit the great front door, giving the carved wood a sickly look, and thin strips of light leaked weakly out some of the windows on the first floor, though a whole huge wing of windows to the right was dark as if in blackout. The second floor appeared deserted except for a window under one of the eaves at the far left end, where I saw a light stream for a moment before heavy curtains were dropped to block its exit. I gaped with amazement at the monstrosity before me, and that’s what it was, truly. Misshapen and cold, I could imagine it as one of those demented boarding schools for the blood spawn of the insanely rich. I had always wanted my fine home on a hill in the Main Line, sure, but not that home.

“Come on in,” she said, as she opened the car door.

“Is it haunted?” I asked.

“Of course it is.” She jumped out of the car, dashing through the rain, until she was protected by an archway over the front door. I joined her. Before she could reach the knob that worked the buzzer the heavy wooden door opened with a long creak. A tiny maid with a tightly wrinkled face stared at us both for a moment, as if we were intruders, before guiding us into the center hall.

It was a poorly lit space, cavernous, two stories high, leading to a dark hanging stairwell at the rear. There were huge arched beams overhead, like ribs, and dark maroon wallpaper on the walls, the seams peeling back. A piece of furniture sat squat in front of the stairs, round like a tumor, its four seats facing hostilely away from one another. A chandelier lit the space with an uneven, dingy light; three of the bulbs were out. I felt, with those arched ribs above and the tumor of a circular couch, that I was in the belly of a some huge malignant beast.

“ Hola, Consuelo. Como estas? ” asked Caroline.

The maid, without smiling, said in a lightly accented voice, “Fine, thank you, Miss Shaw.”

Caroline gave Consuelo her raincoat and I did the same. I hadn’t noticed before, but underneath Caroline’s raincoat had been a tight black cocktail dress that was obviously not thrift-shop quality. She was wearing stockings with black lines down the back and her black heels were high and glossy and sharp and the stud in her nose held a diamond. Caroline had dressed for the family; her spirit of rebellion only went so far.

“ Donde está ma familia? ” she asked.

“They’re all in the great room,” said Consuelo. “With the guests. They held dinner for you.” She let her impassive gaze take me in and added, “I’ll set another place.”

“Road’s out, so expect some overnights this evening.”

“I’ve already taken care of it. I’ll set up another room for your friend.”

“ Gracias, Consuelo, ” said Caroline as she grabbed my arm and led me deeper into the beast’s belly.

“Pretty good Spanish,” I said.

“That’s all I know. Hola and Como estás and Gracias . The fruits of four years of high school Spanish. Pathetic.” She gripped my arm ever more tightly as we approached a double doorway at the end of the hall. “Are you ready?” she asked gravely, as if I were about to enter a wax museum of horror.

“I guess so,” and before I had even finished saying it she had swept me through the doors.

It was a huge formal room, ornate plaster ceiling, walls covered with wood and studded with portraits of the wealthy dead, furniture with thin legs, a huge pale blue oriental rug. I could tell right off it was a fancy room because the fabrics on the differing pieces of furniture didn’t match one another and there wasn’t a plastic slipcover in the place. From the ornamental facing of the fireplace a gloomy plaster head stared out with blank eyes and above the mantelshelf was a portrait of an angry man in a bright red coat, a hunting coat. He had a brisk white beard and great goggling eyes and a familiar face and it didn’t take me long to recognize him. Claudius Reddman. A clot of people held drinks in the center of the room, leaning back and chatting. Others were standing by a huge blue vase from some ancient Chinese dynasty that had prospered for thousands of years for the sole purpose of providing the great houses on the Main Line with huge blue vases. Before I could take it all in Caroline, still clutching my arm, said in a voice loud enough to silence their conversations: