House of Masques (17 page)

Chapter Nineteen

Late the next morning Josiah found Kathleen on the upper level of the gazebo staring at the wasteland left by the fire. Flames had swept to the building and scorched the wall behind them. The mountain, wet and black, was desolate all the way to the summit where charred trees pointed into the overcast like withered fingers.

With one hand Josiah lifted a chair to her side and sat down. He glanced at the shadows under her eyes, her drawn face, her somber dress. She stared at the blackened landscape.

“Charles will plant trees in the spring,” he said. She made no sign she heard.

“In twenty or thirty years no one will know there was a fire.”

“Thirty years is a long, long time.”

“Time races by,” he said. “The older you become, the faster it goes.” Again they sat in silence.

“I came,” he said, “to release you from your obligation. Edward had no right to do what he did. The fault is mine.”

“I'm as much to blame as either of you,” said Kathleen. She looked at him for the first time. “More so. What happened I wanted to happen. I have no regrets. None, none at all.” Her voice caught and she wiped her eyes with a handkerchief.

“What are your plans?”

“I have no plans. There's nothing for me in Ashtabula. Not now, not yet.” She thought a moment. “Do you know, once more I envy Clarissa. Not that I wanted to marry Charles, not even the idea of marriage—but finding what you want. I can see why Charles needs her, she's so sure of herself, has so much poise.”

“Not like the girl who came to Gleneden five years ago. I remember her huddled in the library. She wouldn't talk or eat. Wanted to kill herself, she said.”

“She told me. She's so different now. I was surprised she could change while living at Gleneden after what I heard about you from Mrs. Horobin—” Kathleen's hand went to her mouth. “I'm sorry,” she said.

“I don't mind. What did Mrs. Horobin tell you?”

“Not so much what she said, more her manner, her reticence. I imagined you to be evil, of the devil. Yet Mrs. Horobin never met you, had only heard tell of you.”

“I fear I play the role of the devil's disciple at times. With you I did. Haven't you noticed, Kathleen, how much more intriguing devils are? Few books are written about saints. Only a dramatic demise can save a saint from obscurity. His head served on a platter, for example.”

“You're being irreverent to shock me. You don't claim to be a saint, do you?”

He laughed a big, booming laugh. “No, not a saint. You have to die to be canonized—I'll never qualify. No, I'm a teacher of sorts, dabbler in mesmerism and in politics. Right now I advise a group in New York trying to break up the Tweed Ring.”

“When I met you, you frightened me out of my wits. You don't anymore.”

“All of us are actors, some more than others. Forgive me.”

Kathleen smiled.
I wasn't going to smile again
, she remembered. “What do you teach?” she asked. “History? literature? Politics?”

“Understanding.”

“Understanding?”

“Yes, of others, of ourselves.”

“I've learned a great deal already in these last few days,” she said. “About others, but more of myself. I've learned I can love and be loved. I can be hurt, grievously hurt, and yet survive. I'm my own person, not an extension of Edward Allen or Michael or anyone else.”

At last she felt she had paid her debt to Michael. Although he would always be a part of her, she knew her obligation was to the living, to herself. Edward Allen? She did not know. Perhaps, some day, they would meet again. But she did know she could, with more knowledge, help others in a future she could not even imagine now. She had always wanted to study, to learn.

“And all those books in your library at Gleneden?” she asked.

“What others have discovered. Of good and of evil. You must know both before you can choose.”

“There's so much I don't understand. Why did the cadet die, for instance? He tried to help.”

“Did you know Charles didn't want him to cross the bridge because he thought the risk too great? Perhaps the cadet died because he was foolhardy.”

“Is brashness a sin?”

“More so than many other faults. And you seem to think everything must be fair. The world isn't fair. As soon as you accept that fact I think you'll have an easier time.”

She considered, nodded. “Will you teach me? May I go with you to Gleneden?”

“Of course, but I won't teach you. I'll help you learn. Remember, you can be anything you want to be.”

Edward's words
, she thought.
And I can be
, she told herself,
I can!

“When do we begin?”

“Here and now.” Josiah walked behind her chair.

Kathleen looked up at him. “What do you mean?”

He grasped the arms of the chair and lifted her into the air. “Oh,” she gasped. He swung her, chair and all, ninety degrees to the north.

“Much better,” he said. She saw him look over her head and her eyes followed his. The trees, green and billowing, spread below her like a great sea. Beyond the woods birds swooped low above the whitecaps of the river.

“The fire is the past,” he said. “The future waits elsewhere. We must turn, you and I, to the beginning, to Gleneden, which for you was the start of all.”

“Return to the beginning,” she repeated. She felt a stir of memory, a rush of hope. She stood and looked down at the tops of the trees. “How many have come this way before?”

“A multitude.”

“What have they found?” She felt she repeated a litany learned long ago.

“Many found nothing. Others hope. A few like Clarissa—faith. A very few—a love surpassing any they have known.”

“Yes,” she said. “I knew the answer before you spoke.” She remembered Gleneden clinging to the bluff over the river, felt again the warmth of the fires, pictured the proliferation of chimneys. She wanted to enter the house once more, not in fear as before, but with expectation.

“I'm ready,” she said. Kathleen preceded him down the steps of the gazebo.

The path to the house had been used as a firebreak by felling trees and clearing brush on both sides. To her left the forest lay burned and black. The flames had surged to the path and, although the trees on the right side had blistered and their leaves shriveled, the fire had not crossed.

Kathleen held her skirt high as she stepped over the puddles left by the storm. When they came to the lawn of the Estate she found her way barred by a muddy pool of water. She searched for a footing, either a smooth stone or a clump of grass.

“Let me help.” Josiah leaped to the other side and turned to her with arms outstretched. Kathleen hesitated. Then she let herself fall to him, knew an instant of fear, then the security of his hands as they circled her waist and lifted her over the water. The grass on the far side was firm beneath her feet.

Together they walked across the lawn to the house.

About the Author

Fortune Kent, aka Jane Toombs, was the author of around a hundred books in all categories except men's action and erotica. She passed away in early 2014.

Jane's website at
www.JaneToombs.com
contains all her books, most recent ones first.

Look for these titles by Fortune Kent

Now Available:

House of Masques

Isle of the Seventh Sentry

The House at Canterbury

Writing as Jane Toombs

Point of Lost Souls

Tule Witch

The Fog Maiden

A Topaz for My Lady Fair

Coming Soon:

Writing as Fortune Kent

The Opal Legacy

Dark secrets lurked…in the House at Canterbury.

The House at Canterbury

© 2014 Fortune Kent

When Anne Medford arrived in Canterbury she was happy and excited for the chance at a new life. Eager to start her new teaching position, she was also glad for the chance to restore the house she'd inherited from her father. But the house is more than it seems, and before long its sinister nature is wreaking havoc on her new life and her new love for Jeremy Blackstock.

When Anne finally discovers the secrets the mysterious Jeremy is hiding from her, it is far too late—for she has already unleashed the horror long buried in the house at Canterbury…

Enjoy the following excerpt for
The House at Canterbury:

I suffer a recurring dream in which I am lost in a house of many rooms.

I walk along hushed corridors, climb spiral stairs to towers with windows boarded in a strange geometry, descend to cellars pungent with the fumes of coal stored to fuel fires in black furnaces.

Scents from the past torment me: burning leaves, rotted planks in summerhouse sanctuaries, the tang of clothes laid on radiators to dry, wisps of forgotten yesterdays. Voices murmur from behind the walls, enticing me to rooms bereft of windows. Clocks tick on mantels above empty fireplaces. The whispers beckon, but always from beyond.

I face a choice of doors. Only a seeming choice, for my hand moves as though predestined. My fingers grip the knob, my heart pounds expectantly, as I envision candlelight in an opulent suite where a lover waits, impatient for me to join him. The door opens on a barren hall. Ahead I see a cul-de-sac and more choices already foreordained. Behind me the door thuds shut with the finality of death.

Sounds rise from all the corridors not taken. Men and women laugh, weep. “Anne, Anne,” they call. I run, but my feet move with a maddening slowness. The voices reverberate, echo in my mind. The music of a dance band swells in a familiar melody and I hum the tune—yet the words elude me. The music ends with a spatter of applause. I reach for the cathedral-shaped radio, twist the dial and the announcer's voice recedes, clicks off.

As I hover between sleep and waking, the babble returns. From all about I hear moans of passion, cries of pain. A scream slices into my consciousness, a wail of frustration, rage and fear. The scream is mine…

I woke up trembling in the early morning stillness of my room. The luminous dial read one twenty-five. I lay on my stomach with my toes over the edge of the mattress while I drew deep breaths and tried to make my mind blank. Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, I counted. To no avail.

Why couldn't I will myself to sleep? “You're an excellent subject,” the hypnotist had told me. I had returned a second night and watched him hypnotize another woman as he had me. “When you hear ‘Smoke Gets in Your Eyes,'” he said, “you will give your husband a passionate kiss, the most passionate kiss you have ever given him in your life…“

I turned onto my side. Phantoms crept into my mind with their messages of apprehension. Was he home? Across the room the flat outline of his bed answered no. I swung my feet to the floor and buttoned my robe as I shivered in the chill night of September in California.

I groped along the hall, for I had not yet mastered the geography of our condominium. The silent switch lighted an apartment with all the personality of a problem in trigonometry. I enjoyed trig problems—found them logical, precise, sterile. I liked the apartment.

The stereo? No, I decided—music led only one way, to the past. When sleep wouldn't come I worked crossword puzzles, read poetry, or skimmed improbable novels. A dust jacket heralding a turbulent saga of three generations always tempted me—perhaps because I was an only child, or because generations would not follow me. We had no children.

I opened a book of poems and felt the pricks of smiles catch in my skin like little hooks. Sylvia Plath—one of the first myths of the Women's Movement, a martyr found with her head in a gas oven. Refrigerators, sinks, toilet bowls and cooking stoves. The symbols of our discontent.

I laid the book two inches from the top of the coffee table, two inches from the side. Now I was wide awake. Twenty minutes before two. I felt taut, my anxiety mixed with resentment and fear. Did I hear his car? Did a door slam? I hurried through the kitchen and looked into the garage. No bulk of an automobile, nothing.

Back in the living room I avoided the stereo on my way to the window. I pulled the cord and the drapes slid open to frame the lights of the city far below. An alien city on an alien shore. A sere land so unlike the green of the Hudson Valley, where year after year, the seasons repeated the rhythm of life and death.

Ten minutes before two. “Hell,” I said aloud. I turned on the stereo and stared at the record revolving on the turntable. What was the condescending phrase? “Oldies but goodies.” Why can't they at least give us
“and
goodies” instead of insisting on the “but”?

“Seven,” the male vocalist sang. “We leave at seven,” he said, “for a sentimental journey.” One of the songs from the last year of the war. After I danced a few steps, the thick carpet discouraged me. My dream, almost forgotten, came back like an echo no less painful for being familiar. The rooms in the dream were the rooms of the house in Canterbury, the voices those of Jeremy, his father, Don, all the others—and the fear was the fear I had known then.

I lay on the couch and shut my eyes and, as though the music triggered an hypnotic suggestion, I again saw the village of Canterbury with the trees arched over the streets, the school with row on row of windows, the clock in the classroom edging back before snapping forward, the two houses (mine and the Blackstock place), the river beyond the trees, the mountain in the distance.

The face of the mountain dropped precipitously from the summit to the river. Halfway down, the highway had been cut into the cliff like a notch carved into the stock of an outlaw's rifle.

Three were dead, not one. Where were the other two notches?

I twisted on the couch. The past can't wound me anymore, I thought. I bunched the pillow beneath my head. Almost thirty years ago and I remembered as if it were only yesterday. Where had everything begun to go awry? Was there a signal I had missed?

“Don't go to Canterbury,” Karl had said. “You'll be alone, hundreds of miles away. Don't go.”

“I have to,” I told him. “Father gave me the house,” I added, as if that fact explained all.

The paperboy. Was he the first warning? Or was there something even earlier, back home, before I went to Canterbury? The umbrellas slick in the rain, the smell of dark wet earth, the long line of black cars parked at the bottom of the hill.

I had been close to my father and now he was dead. Yes, death at the beginning and later, in Canterbury, death, unnatural death, at the ending…