Ширли Мерфи - The Grass Tower

“Uncle Zebulon? I guess they grew up together, but I never heard they hated each other. Why does he?”

“Who knows? I don’t think he knows himself what goes on in that fried brain of his.”

Bethany watched Reid, thinking she wouldn’t want to have to live with old Mr. Krupp. It must take a lot of guts to ignore the embarrassments and just get on with your own life. “Anyway, if liking spirits and occult things runs in the family, Aunt Selma got all of it, because Aunt Bett sure didn’t inherit it, nor did Mama. And I couldn’t have, I’m not related.” Even if she had been, knowing other’s thoughts, that hadn’t anything to do with spirits, she had read enough to know that. When she was younger she had read everything she could find in a terrible desperation to understand herself. Telepathy, another sense, a latent sense in man that could, in the future, become better developed. The textbook words were printed on her mind so strongly she could almost close her eyes and see them. They were a kind of strange, dry comfort when she needed comforting. She glanced at Reid, grinned, kicked the pony into a gallop, and they raced, the horses pounding the wet sand and the two of them hunched in the wind and laughing.

Chapter 4

But you promised,” Colin grumbled, scuffing his feet along the curb. “It’s the first seance, and you said you’d go with me.” He shifted his school books and glowered. Across the street, people were going in, some hesitantly, and some quickly as if they didn’t want to be seen.

She wished she hadn’t promised. “Besides, I have homework.”

“Everyone has homework. Come on Bethany.” She picked up a handful of eucalyptus leaves, breathed in their heady scent, and flung them down again. The black expanse of windows and the red door looked out of place next to the clean white inn. Colin was staring at her, looking sullen and hopeful all at once. “If I did promise,” she said quickly, “then I’ve changed my mind. Anyway you don’t need me. Just walk across the street and go in.” She pushed her hair back and turned away from him.

“But I do need you!” He moved around in front of her. “Listen, Bethany, I don’t want to go in alone.”

“Well I don’t want to go at all.” She studied him, annoyed. “Anyway, Jack and the girls are in there, aren’t they?” Why did she have to argue? Why didn’t she just walk off?

His face had grown red with frustration. “The girls aren’t coming; their mothers wouldn’t let them.”

She waited, trying to hide her curiosity, while he fidgeted.

“You know the candles,” he said at last, “the seances in McCaber’s barn? Well, one got tipped over, and the hay got on fire.”

She caught her breath. “But when? There wasn’t— The whole village would have heard—”

“We got it out with gunny sacks. But dumb Ciel went and told her mother—about the seances, everything. So their mothers wouldn’t let them come; they won’t let them even speak to Jack.”

Bethany grinned spitefully.

“You don’t even want to understand!”

“Come on, Colin, I only— What about the money, though? Do you think it’s right for Aunt Selma to go around collecting donations like she’s been doing? What does she use it for? And how can they tell people they’ll cure them of—of arthritis and things! That’s almost illegal. What do they do with all that money?”

“Listen, Bethany, the church needs money for research—” She snorted at this. “—and for books and things. You don’t— Those people get what they pay for. There really is something; you haven’t heard Dr. Claybelle and seen what he can do.”

“If it’s so great, why don’t you go on in, Colin?” “I—I just want you to come with me, that’s all.” She stared across the street, and when she looked back at Colin, he seemed so unhappy that she sighed. “Come on,” she said at last, against her better judgment. The place made her uneasy, but it stirred her curiosity, too, though she would never have admitted it to Colin. “We can sit by the door so if I get bored I can leave.”

The room was dim after the bright street. Its only light was from the candles on the table in front. The black cloth covering the walls was painted with blood red signs: pentacles, a ram’s head, a goat; and the candlelight shifting across them gave the room a pulsing quality, as if the symbols themselves moved and shifted. Bethany pushed Colin in ahead of her and sat down as near the door as she could get.

The bloodiness of the symbols in the uncertain light made her feel rather light-headed, and when the music began, a high pulsing dissonance, the effect was nearly too much for her. She tried to make fun of it in her own mind, but her wrists prickled in spite of herself.

This isn’t like me, she thought angrily; but she couldn’t seem to help it. And then, in spite of her uncertain feelings, she began to look around at the people who were there, and to wonder what they were thinking. How rapt some of them looked. She started up in alarm when the curtains at the back began to draw apart— the two red serpents painted across them writhed as if they were alive. Her skin crawled, and she frowned, annoyed at herself, as Aunt Selma stepped out from the darkness between the coiling serpents. She was dressed in a long black robe, and her face, framed by a cowl, shone like a pale, oval moon. She stood with her white hands lightly together in an attitude of prayer; then after a long time, she looked up, and raised her arms to trace a sign across the heads of the audience. Even as she lowered her hands so they moved softly above the flaming candles like white moths, something in Bethany stirred; almost overwhelmed with sudden interest, still she felt a panic to get away. She put her hand on Colin’s arm; she wanted to tell him she would leave now. But the street door opened and Dr. Claybelle stood blocking the sun-smeared entrance. Dressed in a long purple robe, he stared around him coldly, then started down the aisle with a slow, measured step; and behind him came the robed, pacing figures of Mr. and Mrs. Blakey. When the slow procession of three reached the table, they sat down facing the audience and bent their heads solemnly to stare at their folded hands. Bethany glanced sideways at Colin. He seemed completely caught up in the ceremony; the candles on the table guttered so that tall shadows glided strangely across the black draped walls. Bethany felt cold, the room was very cold.

When Selma raised her voice, the tone of it was totally unfamiliar, imperative and hoarse. “Arise, Serpent. Arise and come forth upon this plane as the sea rises and the winds tear at the heavens—” Puzzled and tense, Bethany sat still to listen in spite of her fear, “Arise, and harken, Serpent, thou art bidden in the name of unity—unity to be set upon this world that was torn asunder. Extend your everlasting power and bring forth thunder, and heal the wound that has divided us. In the name of the spirit that dwells on this side, and in the name of its twin, take this blood as my blood and make of us one blood—” Selma lifted the chalice from the table and held it out before her, and Bethany gasped: It was exactly like the chalice the priest used at mass. When Selma raised it to her lips, a thrill of sick dread ran through Bethany. She stared at the black-draped table, at the candles, and at the shadows writhing—and she turned away, holding Colin for support as the room swam around her.

She didn’t know she had risen until she was standing in the aisle. The figures on the drapes seemed to be larger and coming toward her. She was so dizzy.

The dimensions of the room seemed uncertain, but Selma’s voice pulled at her. “I drink of the blood,” Selma whispered, and her words echoed in Bethany’s head. “By the Power, lay yourself to my command; by the Power—”