Night Things: A Novel of Supernatural Terror (3 page)

They continued on for several minutes until at last the leafy tunnel opened onto a vast and breathtakingly beautiful mountain lake. On the far shore, standing majestically on a prominence of rock, was a house. Even at a distance it was clear that it was immense, a stone fortress encrusted with turrets and gables and studded with countless dark and gleaming windows. Surrounded by towering balsams and pines it seemed more like an alpine hotel than a house for a single family.

“It’s called Lake House,” Stephen said. “What do you think? I flew up here on the sly to check it out after Marty told me about it.”

“It’s incredible!” she gasped. “When you said you had rented a lodge in the Adirondacks I thought you meant a cabin or something.”

“No, no,” he laughed. “Lodges in the Adirondacks are like cottages in Newport. They’re also known as ‘great camps.’ You see, in the latter half of the nineteenth century the Adirondacks became a Mecca of sorts for wealthy East Coast families. It became an issue of status to see who could build the largest and most palatial summer retreat. The Rockefellers, the Vanderbilts—they all built homes up here. Lake House was built in the 1890s by Sarah Balfram, the daughter of the railroad magnate Josiah Balfram.

I think Marty said the agent told him her fiancé jilted her and she decided to isolate herself up here in magnificent splendor. Wait until you see the inside. You’re going to love it.”

She looked at the house worriedly. “But how will I ever be able to keep it clean?”

He laughed again. “Well, first of all, Marty had a cleaning crew give the place a once-over last week so everything would be shipshape when we moved in. Then in a week or so, after we’ve had some time to ourselves, we’ll hire some permanent help. You keep forgetting you’re a lady of leisure now.” A devilish sparkle came into his dark eyes. “Besides, I didn’t marry you for your cleaning skills.”

“Oh,
Stephen
,” she chided playfully. But she realized he was right. It was going to take some time getting used to having people like Stephen’s manager Marty to take care of most of the busywork of everyday life.

“What’s the lake called?” Garrett asked.

“Lake Ketcimanitowa. It’s an Indian name and it’s all ours.”

Lauren looked at him with astonishment. “You mean this entire lake is also part of the rental?”

“The lake and two hundred acres of land surrounding it. I told you I had gotten us a place with lots of privacy.” She looked back at the expanse of wilderness before them and marveled that anyone might have the financial resources to rent such an immense tract of land. Yes, she thought, it was going to take her some time to get used to Stephen’s life-style, but what a marvelous challenge!

As they continued on the narrow drive she watched eagerly as still more details of the house became visible, and with every passing moment she became impressed anew with its colossal size and beauty. It would have been inaccurate to say that the house was sprawling, for like the mountains behind it it was citadel-like, with most of its mass concentrated around a central core. But out of this central core sprouted so many interconnecting peaks and gables, so many battlements and towers and tangled undergirdings of Gothic tracery, that it was impossible for her to even imagine how many rooms the house might contain.

She also noticed several other things. Although it had not been clear from a distance, surrounding the house was a great pillared veranda, and in addition to the main structure there appeared to a complex of service buildings set off to one side and artfully concealed behind a grove of trees. As they approached she saw also that the huge shelf of land on which the house sat was not just barren rock but was lushly carpeted with grass and dotted here and there with hedges.

Finally they reached the house, and Stephen pulled the Porsche to a stop beneath a colonnade of majestic black spruce. “End of the line. Everybody out.”

They all piled out, and as soon as Lauren stepped out of the air-conditioned enclosure of the Porsche the deep resinous smell of the pines flooded her nostrils. Combined with the peaceful grandeur of the mountains it nearly took her breath away.

“You still haven’t told me what you think of the place,” Stephen prodded.

She looked at the house towering above them. Under other circumstances she might have found its imposing size a bit intimidating. But this was what her new life would be like, and she’d just have to get used to it.

“Oh, Stephen, it’s fantastic! In my wildest dreams I never thought I would ever live in a house like this. I love it.”

He grinned. “I knew you would.”

She looked down at Garrett. “Isn’t it great, Garrett!” From his expression it was clear that he was also impressed, but as soon as she looked at him he quickly resumed an air of indifference. “Yeah, it’s okay.”

She smiled, realizing that at least they were making some headway.

Stephen went around to the back of the car and opened the trunk. “Come on,” he said, handing them a suitcase each. “I want to show you the inside.” As he had explained to her earlier, Marty had already arranged for the heavier baggage to be waiting for them in the house.

He took out a suitcase for himself and a case containing his guitar, and as they started up the drive a mischievousness came over him. “There is something else that you should know about the house.” There was a touch of Dracula in his voice.

“What?”

“Well, Lake House isn’t just a normal house. You see, Sarah Balfram was something of an eccentric. Apparently she had all sorts of strange things built into the house— stairways that go nowhere, hallways that end at blank walls. The house is actually quite famous. The rental agent said that it’s even been written about in books.”

“Wow, that sounds neat!” Garrett suddenly perked up again.

The revelation took Lauren by surprise, however. “What do you mean, stairways that go nowhere? How can we live in a place like that?”

“Oh, you don’t have to worry,” Stephen comforted. “The house is huge, and most of it is quite normal. It’s only around the edges that some of the rooms are a little wild.” Stephen’s eyes positively sparkled as he said the last words.

“I should have known.” Lauren rolled her eyes and laughed as they reached the house and started up the steps of the pillared veranda.

“The place is gonna be great. Just wait,” he said, setting his suitcase down and fumbling for his keys. He stuck one into the lock, but it refused to turn.

Lauren admired the oak entrance door surrounded on all sides by narrow stained-glass windows, which depicted grape arbors and lush foliage.

“What does that say?” Garrett asked, looking up.

For a moment Lauren was so mesmerized by the delicate tangle of leaves and vines in the windows that she did not see what he was talking about.

“What does what say?”

“That,” Garrett repeated.

She followed his pointing finger until she saw what he was looking at. Chiseled into the granite keystone above the uppermost window was an inscription written in Latin, and although dark and discolored with age she could still make out the words:
In girum imus nocte et consumimur igni.

“I don’t know,” she returned. “Do you know what that says, Stephen?”

He shrugged. “No. Probably just some sort of greeting or something.”

The lock clicked, and Stephen smiled as he pushed the door open and gestured for them to follow.

They were greeted by an entrance hall of impossibly grand proportions. The walls were richly paneled in walnut, and at the back an elaborately carved staircase extended to a balustraded floor above. High overhead an amber pendant chandelier tinkled in the breeze that rustled past them, and on all sides elaborate spindlework archways led to cavernous and equally resplendent rooms beyond. To the left of the door was a coachmen’s waiting room, a relic from a time when carriages had been the main mode of transportation for inhabitants of the house. The entire hall was pervaded by a magical emerald light. It was several seconds before Lauren realized that the green glow was caused by the late-afternoon sun streaming through the stained-glass windows behind them.

Stephen was now so excited he seemed like a little kid on Christmas morning. “Let’s put our bags down here for the time being. I want to show you some more of the house before we take them up to our rooms.”

He motioned for them to follow him through the spindlework archway to the right, and after passing through a small sitting room they entered an enormous drawing room some twenty feet wide and sixty feet long. The ceiling of the vast chamber was of vaulted oak, and on the floor was one of the largest oriental carpets that Lauren had ever seen. At the far end of the room two eighteenth-century griffins stood guard on either side of a massive granite fireplace, and on the walls an octet of reindeer heads gazed dumbly at the various arrangements of sofas and wing chairs that filled the expanse. But the most striking feature of the room was the solid bank of leaded windows that lined its southern side, affording a spectacular view of the lake and mountains.

She turned around dizzily. “Oh, Stephen, it’s beautiful. It’s one of the most extraordinary houses I’ve ever seen.” She ran over and hugged him tightly as Garrett contrived to examine a stuffed pheasant.

“Check this out.” Stephen pulled her over to what looked like a door leading off the drawing room and swung it back to reveal that it opened onto a solid brick wall. “This is the real door,” he said, closing the first and opening another several feet away.

Lauren shook her head and closed her eyes as if the craziness and wondrousness of it all was simply too much for her.

“The kitchen’s this way,” Stephen said, walking through the real door.

He continued to lead them on a tour of the outer rooms of the first floor, through the kitchen, pantry, and larder, through a ruby-red dining room with velvet walls, through a library with walls of green Spanish leather, a Moorish-styled billiard room, and numerous other sitting rooms and parlors and two long completely enclosed sun porches running parallel to each other on opposite sides of the house and appointed with identical but oppositely arranged wicker furnishings.

Through all of it Lauren became increasingly enchanted by the house as well as the many magnificent possessions it contained, windows bedecked in diaphanous curtains with cobweb edging, tables draped with seventeenth-century French lace with minute, perfect men and animals embroidered among their gossamer threads, globes of Favrile glass, lamps in the form of brass mermaids holding nautilus shells, Tiffany inkstands, and bright-green Russian malachite boxes.

Throughout their tour they encountered still further examples of Sarah Balfram’s architectural eccentricities. In the kitchen Stephen gleefully pointed out a set of servants’ stairs that went nowhere (the real set was concealed in what looked like a utility closet). In a parlor near one of the sun porches two doors led onto hallways that were really dead ends; and strangest of all, the floor and walls of a sitting room near the library were actually built at slight angles, creating a subtle feeling of vertigo in anyone who traversed the room too quickly.

“This room is like being high without dope,” Stephen said, prancing around and pretending to be so dizzy that he fell to the floor.

As they continued, Lauren noticed two other things. First, in spite of the great number of rooms they passed through, it appeared that they had covered only a small part of even the first floor. Always there seemed to be more rooms beyond, corridors opening onto other corridors and stairways, real or illusory, extending deeper into the seemingly endless recesses of the house. Second, despite Lake House’s great age, everything was in a remarkable state of preservation. Here and there the carpets were slightly worn and the floors creaked a bit, but all in all everything was in surprisingly good condition. Nowhere did she see even so much as a loose piece of molding or a peeling patch of paint. Even the great diamond dust mirrors were free of the unsightly blemishes that usually afflicted old looking glass as if they, along with everything else in the house, had somehow been frozen in time.

“For as old as this house is it certainly is in good shape,” she commented. “Who takes care of its upkeep?”

“Sarah Balfram’s estate,” Stephen returned. “Apparently Sarah Balfram was so pleased with Lake House when it was finished that she decided she wanted to try to preserve it forever. So she transferred ownership of both the house and the land to a perpetual trust and arranged that there would always be enough funds to take care of it.”

“You mean the house doesn’t really have any living owners?”

“Nope. It was Sarah Balfram’s wish that the house never be sold, only rented.”

“Why only renters?”

“Because that way she could make sure that no one ever altered the house or tore it down. In essence, by assigning ownership of the house to a perpetual trust she was able to oversee its destiny forever.”

Lauren once again surveyed the entrance hall and marveled at the love Sarah Balfram must have felt for her house to have gone to such lengths to preserve it. Seeing her admiration, Stephen stepped forward and embraced her. “Are you happy?”

She smiled. “Deliriously.”

They kissed and for a moment just rocked in each other’s arms. Then she noticed Garrett standing off to the side and staring down at the floor.

Lauren gently loosened herself from Stephen’s embrace. “I think it’s time we showed Garrett his room. Is everything ready?”

Stephen seemed not to detect the special emphasis in her voice. “Yes, of course it is.”

Lauren looked at him meaningfully as she struggled to contain a smile. “I mean
everything
.”

For several seconds he continued to look at her perplexedly until at last the meaning of her inquiry dawned upon him. “Oh, right. Yes. Everything’s ready.”

She winked before retrieving her suitcase. “So which way to the bedrooms?”

“Ours is the first one on the right up the stairs. Garrett’s is two doors down from that.”

She walked over to the walnut staircase and noticed an electric light switch set into one of the scrolls of the walnut paneling. Given the age of the house she deduced that it must have been added at a later date. She clicked it on, but nothing happened.