John Saul - Hellfire

From here, Westover almost looked like a miniature village — like one of the tiny model-train layouts her father had taken her to see at a show in Boston last year. She could see the tracks coming around the hillside, crossing the river, then disappearing behind the mill and reemerging to curve in a wide arc around the village until they disappeared into the distant hills.

But it was the mill that interested her most. From where she sat, the old brick building was framed exactly between two of the marble pillars. The town itself was mostly to the left of the mill, but from this vantage point the mill was precisely centered below her.

In fact, if the seventh pillar — the pillar that had once stood opposite Samuel Pruett Sturgess’s chair — hadn’t been broken, the mill would be completely invisible.

For a while, she’d sat trying to decide whether the mausoleum had been built the way it was on purpose, or if, after the whole thing was finished, someone had noticed that if one of the pillars was broken out, then old Mr. Sturgess would be able to look down at his factory from his chair.

For that’s the way it had struck Beth.

It was almost as if the table was for all the dead Sturgesses to meet around, as though they were still alive, and had business to discuss, and the oldest of them — Samuel Pruett Sturgess — was sitting where he could watch over the whole town, and especially his mill.

Then, while she had been pretending to be Mr. Sturgess, she had seen it.

It was a flash, like some kind of explosion. Suddenly, it had seemed as if the mill was on fire.

At first she’d thought it was the sun, reflecting off the windows of the building.

But then she remembered that all the windows were boarded up, and there wasn’t any glass in them.

Now she was staring at the old building, waiting to see if it would happen again. So far, it hadn’t.

“Beth?”

She jumped, startled, and turned to see her mother coming up the steps from the path to the house. Quickly, she slid off the marble chair.

“Honey? Are you okay?”

Beth felt a sudden stab of embarrassment. Did her mother know what had happened down at the stable? Had Tracy told on her? But she hadn’t really done anything — not really. Just let Patches out into the paddock.

“I … I’m fine,” she said.

Carolyn surveyed the little girl carefully. She could see from the puffiness around her eyes that Beth had been crying, but she seemed to be over it now. Panting slightly, Carolyn eased herself into the chair next to the one Beth had been occupying, then sighed as the cool of a faint breeze touched her forehead.

“Go on,” she said. “Sit down again.” Then she lowered her voice slightly, and glanced around as if she was looking to see if they were being watched. “Actually, I’ve been dying to sit in these chairs ever since Phillip told me no one’s allowed to sit in them.”

Beth’s eyes widened. “They aren’t? I didn’t know that. I didn’t mean to—”

“Of course you didn’t mean to do anything wrong. And you didn’t, either, so don’t worry about it. I, on the other hand, know perfectly well that I shouldn’t be sitting in this chair, and I’m rather enjoying breaking the rules. Whose chair is it, anyway?”

Beth hesitated, then giggled slightly. “His wife’s,” she pronounced solemnly.

Carolyn frowned. “Whose?”

“You mean you haven’t read it?” Beth said, laughing out loud now. “Go on, read it. You’re going to hate it.” As Carolyn rose, and moved around behind the chair, Beth stopped her. “You have to read his first, though.”

Thoroughly puzzled, Carolyn studied the back of the chair that contained the ashes of Samuel Pruett Sturgess. Aside from his dates of birth and death, also etched in the stone were the facts of his life, at least those he had apparently considered important. The marble proclaimed that he had been a member of Sigma Alpha Gamma, a thirty-second-degree Mason, an Episcopalian, a Republican, and the father of four children.

After she had read through all the information, Carolyn’s eyes shifted to the chair in which she had been sitting.

The inscription on the back was simple:

HIS WIFE

“Do you believe it?” Beth giggled. “Not even her name!”

Though she tried to contain herself, Carolyn couldn’t help laughing. “So much for women’s lib, hunh? I wonder what the poor woman’s life must have been like?”

“I bet he made her walk three steps behind him,” Beth replied. “Can you imagine Daddy putting something like that on your tombstone?” Then, suddenly remembering the divorce, she reddened.

“It’s all right,” Carolyn assured her. “And you’re right. Your father wouldn’t dare put something like that on my tombstone. And neither would Phillip, for that matter.”

The mischievous light that had been in Beth’s eyes a moment before faded, and Carolyn wished for an instant that she hadn’t mentioned Phillip’s name. But now it was too late.

“Phillip loves you very much, you know,” she said.

Beth nodded. “I know. It’s just—” She fell suddenly silent, then shook her head. “Oh, never mind. It doesn’t matter. Can we just talk about something else?”

But Carolyn could see that whatever had happened, it did matter. Beth’s eyes were damp, and she could see that the little girl was struggling once more against her unhappiness. But then Hannah’s words of a few minutes before came back to Carolyn. Reluctantly, she nodded. “All right. What shall we talk about?”

Beth thought for a minute, then grinned crookedly. “Let’s not talk about anything. Let’s go for a hike!”

“A hike?” Carolyn echoed. “Where?”

“Down the hill. Look. There’s a little trail over there. See?” Beth pointed past the broken seventh pillar.

Carolyn’s eyes followed her daughter’s gesture, and she saw what had apparently once been a path leading down the hill, though what now remained of the trail was overgrown with weeds and brush.

“Good Lord,” she groaned. “Can we even get through? Where does it go?”

“I bet it goes down to the river! Can we go down, Mom? Please? It’ll be just like it used to be!”

Carolyn eyed the trail carefully. To her it looked both steep and difficult. Then she turned back to Beth, and the eager light in the little girl’s eyes made her mind up for her.

“Hit it, Tarzan. I’m right behind you.”

As Beth, dressed in jeans and a white shirt that Carolyn recognized as having once belonged to Alan, plunged into the brush, Carolyn had a sudden fleeting memory. There had been days like this before — days when the three of them, she and Alan and Beth, had hiked around the countryside, just following the paths and trails. Even then the strain between herself and Alan had been all too evident, festering just below the surface. Now here she was, hiking again, and once again there was something festering just below the surface.

But this time, the infection had invaded Beth.

From now on, she determined, she would spend more time with her daughter. Her daughter, right now, needed her very badly.

Abigail rapped once on Tracy’s closed bedroom door, then let herself in. Tracy sat propped on her bed, her arms folded against her chest. The sophistication that sometimes lent her the look of an older girl was nowhere to be seen. Right now she looked exactly like the angry almost-thirteen-year-old she was.

“I hate her,” she said. Then, again: “I hate her, hate her, hate her. I hate Beth, and I hate Carolyn, too!”

Abigail seated herself on the edge of the bed, and took one of Tracy’s hands in her own. “Hate is a very unattractive emotion that we should do our best to keep out of our hearts.”