Halloween: Magic, Mystery, and the Macabre (32 page)

towards the town. That was where she had lived. Over there. Dupan

Street. Now one of her children lived there, with children of his own.

He nodded slowly to himself, and pulled back his hand to wipe

the wetness from his face.

They were not greedy. They only took what they needed.

Slowly, he got to his feet. It would not be too long now. He could feel their restlessness. It echoed his own, but she was here now.

Her mother was fussing about in the kitchen, busy with her

preparations, already starting on the feast that would accompany the tradition of that family dinner, leaving Estella sitting at the dining-room table looking across at her father and waiting for the next

pause in conversation to be punctuated by yet another Sangerville

observation or other words that were simply there to fill the silence that habitually lay between them. The funny thing was, if she didn’t come, didn’t observe the ritual, her world would be filled with words.

She had tried it once and had heard about it for weeks afterwards.

How could she be so insensitive? Didn’t she know how much it meant to them?

“I’m glad you’re here,” said Bill finally. “I hope Johnny isn’t too late.”

There it was—the subtle backhand implication that maybe

Estella didn’t rate as much as her older brother. Or maybe she was just imagining it, her expectations getting the better of her.

[242] ANGELIC

“Oh, don’t worry. He’ll be here soon enough.” Her mother stood

in the kitchen doorway, wiping her hands on a tea towel, a strand

of hair falling down over her face. She blew it out of the way, gave Estella a brief smile, and then disappeared back into the kitchen.

Her father was watching her, nodding slowly. It seemed that he

had aged significantly over the last year. She tracked the lines in his face, the sallowness of his skin, the faint cloudiness to his gaze. His eyes were watery, tinged with red, as though not too long ago he

had been weeping, but she knew that he had not. She looked back

down into her tea, and lifted the mug slowly to fill more of the space, taking a sip.

“Well,” she said, placing the mug down again. “I may as well go

up and sort my things out.”

As she stood, her father simply looked at her.

“Right,” she said.

There was something in his face as he watched her leaving the

room. She didn’t quite know what it was.

One by one, she climbed the steps, up into the hallway that led

to her old bedroom. The need to sort her things out was no more

than an excuse. She hadn’t brought much with her. She never did.

And after tomorrow night, she had no plans to extend her stay for

any longer than she had to. Just enough to see her through the ritual.

That was all.

Her old room was just the same as it was every year: neat, ordered, kept as if she had never left it, and full of memories that crept from the corners to greet her every year. The room would always be there, waiting, at least until her parents had gone and whatever eventually happened to the house when that time came changed it. She stood for a couple of seconds in the doorway, chewing her lip, and then, with a sigh, moved over to the bed and opened her pack, laying out the few clothes and toiletries she had brought with her. As she placed them into the drawers, there was noise downstairs. Apparently Johnny had arrived. Voices and the laughter came muffled from the downstairs

rooms.

“Where’s Estella? I saw her car outside,” she heard. The response was lost as she closed a drawer and moved back to sit on the bed, looking JAY CASELBERG [243]

around at the familiar wallpaper and the patterned rug that sat in the room’s center, the small white desk where she had hunched, doing her homework as a kid. White lace curtains shielded the darkness and rain pattering against the windowpane outside. She had been such a
girl
growing up, shy, quiet, meek. She shook her head at her own memory of herself. How had she turned out as she had—one failed marriage

that had lasted a mere eighteen months, no kids and no real plans to have any. It was almost as if her growing up had been merely marking time and despite her escape, here she was again.

Well, there was nothing for it. Time to go down and greet the

brother, to hear about the latest successes of his kids, to make

enthusiastic noises about his latest career move. That was the ritual, and this time of year was all about ritual, if nothing else.

Teeth. Pale skin. Wings flapping. A rush of decaying air. Eyes without sight, but seeing right through her. No, not teeth, more like needle-sharp fangs.

Estella started awake, her heart pounding. The darkness was

solid. A dream. It was a dream.

They know you
, she thought.

Who?

The remnants of the dream still clawed at her chest, her throat,

ran skittering through her brain, through draped curtain of fading sleep, her pulse racing. The voice kept whispering, mouthing the

words in her memory, hissing through the darkness.

They know you
.

She threw back the covers, her breath still coming in short, halting gasps. Calm. She struggled to control her breathing, her pulse, and swung her legs out of the bed, hunching over at the edge, her palms pressed down against the bed’s edge.

Taking a single deeper breath, she stood and padded over to the

window. Everything was quiet inside, not even the usual creaks and shifts you’d normally expect to hear in an old house at night. The sweat was starting to cool on her skin and, gradually, her breathing was returning to normal. With one hand, she pulled the curtain to

one side to look out to the darkness, to the rain slicked field and the

[244] ANGELIC

few scraggy trees that clustered at the rear of the house. The naked branches shivered in the intermittent gusts. Her gaze roved across the bleak landscape and then stopped. Her breath caught again.

Someone was out there. The barely defined shape stood as a dark

smudge, but she could tell. A lighter stain in the darkness marked the face and it was watching her window.

Again, the voice whispered inside her.

They know you. They’re waiting.

Her heart in her throat, she let the curtain fall and rapidly stepped away from the window.

What?

She took another backward step, her hand at her throat.

Soon
, came the voice.

Soon
. . .

After a virtually sleepless night, Estella stumbled through most

of the following day in a semi-daze. She’d managed to doze in the

early hours of the morning, but it was hardly sleep. All through

the morning, she heard that single word, echoing silently. Images

of the figure in the darkness haunted her. In the early afternoon, she managed to catch an hour or so on the couch, but only dozing.

The clattering and noises drifting through from the kitchen barely cut through the haze, nor did the continued back and forth between Johnny and her father. Once or twice, her father drifted into the

living room, looking at her with a concerned expression on his face.

There was something else in his expression, but in her current state, she had no energy or any real desire to try to fathom what it was. As the day staggered towards evening and the ritual dinner, if anything, the feeling of moving through a syrupy haze increased.

Finally, the time arrived for dinner. To Estella, it seemed as if it had taken a century. The traditional dinner gong rang through the

house, her father’s hand enacting the ritual. Dinner was early, giving time for them to get through most of it before any of the town’s

children might show up for their own seasonal ritual.

Soon
.

Together, they took their places at the dining room table, sitting JAY CASELBERG [245]

quietly as her mother started ferrying the steaming platters out of the kitchen. The scents of good home cooking swirling into the room with each new plate. Once that was done with, her mother took her

place at the table and her father filled each of their glasses in turn and then, moving back to the head of the table stood in place, his own glass raised high.

“To the tradition,” he said. “Long may it last.” One by one, he met each of their eyes, Estella’s last. He paused there, his gaze fixed as if observing.

Together, they raised their own glasses, repeating the words. “To

the tradition.”

Estella sipped tentatively, not really committed to the toast. Her father looked at her with a slight frown, then glanced across at her mother, who gave a slight nod.

Just at that moment, there came a knock at the door.

“Geez, they’re a bit early aren’t they?” said Johnny.

Her father sat heavily letting out a deep breath. Carefully he

placed his glass back down. “It’s not kids,” he said. He bit his lip, glanced once at Estella and then spoke. “It’s time,” he said. “Linda, you’d better let him in.”

Her mother pushed her chair back and with a nod and a slight

expression of resignation on her face, stood and quickly left the room.

“Who?” said Johnny. “Who is it?”

Her father lifted a hand to still him. His gaze was fixed on

Estella—deep, piercing, his eyes no longer watery, his features firm.

“It is time, Estella.”

At the sound of someone entering the room behind her, she

turned. Her mother stood in the doorway with a man next to her. It was Old Martin.

“What’s he doing here?” said Johnny.

Old Martin’s gaze fixed Estella, just like her father’s.

“It is time,” he said. “They know you. They are waiting.” The

words were simple, the voice muddy, but filled with something else.

They were the words from her nightmare. It had been Old Martin

standing out there in the darkness. She knew it now.

Johnny had gone silent.

[246] ANGELIC

Old Martin reached out a hand. “Come,” he said.

“Estella, you must go with him now.” Her father’s voice.

Her mother stood in the doorway, not moving, not saying

anything.

Without knowing why or how she knew, she understood that her

father’s words were indisputable.

“Come,” said Old Martin. “They are waiting.”

Slowly, slowly, Estella pushed back her chair, stood and reached

out her hand.

Ahead, looming jagged against the sky, the old church, gray stone

made white and black with age, the roof collapsed, slates tumbled, burnt rafters stabbing black against the blackness. Estella had not been up here for years. She barely remembered it, but somehow,

the memory was there, strong, insistent, just as Old Martin’s hand drawing her forward was. To one side lay the graveyard, headstones leaning, ancient stone crosses mottled with lichen. A mound, a

sunken hollow, pooling water, and a confusion of weeds and grass

gone wild. The fence, once solid, had rusted through in places, brown and encrusted with years. All of these sights, these snapshot images burned now within her vision, in her mind.

Still old Martin drew her forward.

“There,” he said. “There. Here is the place.”

He stopped gesturing at the empty darkness, the broken place

where people had once congregated.

It was dark, yet it was not. A pale luminescence painted the edges, the lines with dull light.

Martin urged her forward.

“They know you,” he said, his voice breathy with his excitement.

“It is now. They wait.”

“But what . . . ?” said Estella.

“Shhhh,” said Martin. “Shhhhhh.”

He dropped her hand and stepped back.

She felt it then, the stirring, the movement in her blood and her

bones. Here, now. Here was the doorway. No longer was it
soon
. It was
here
. It was
now
. She was no longer marking time.

JAY CASELBERG [247]

Estella looked up, her breath stilled and caught. Her blood sang

in her ears.

The angels had come, though you could hardly call them angels.

N

Jay Caselberg
was born in a country town in Australia and then traveled extensively while growing up. Returning to Australia, he had a successful sojourn in the groves of academe but, just before turning in his doctoral dissertation, stepped out into the workforce and was soon based in London. From that time on, he traveled extensively

throughout Europe and Africa. He started writing in 1996 as James

A. Hartley and later under his own name. Caselberg currently lives in Germany and works in the consulting industry on international

projects. His short fiction has appeared in periodicals such as

Crimewave
,
Electric Velocipede
, and
Interzone
, and anthologies as diverse as
Dead Red Heart
,
Powers of Detection: Tales of Mystery and
Fantasy
, and
The Thackery T. Lambshead Pocket Guide to Eccentric
and Discredited Diseases
. His horror novel
Empties
has just been published.

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