Suffer the Children (13 page)

“The Point,” Rose said. “From here you have a good view of the north face of it The woods at the top are really a pretty shallow stand. On the other side of the woods is our field, and, of course, on the other side of the field is our house. If it weren’t for the woods, you’d have a straight shot at the house.”

“So?” Carl said, still clearly baffled as to what Rose was getting at.

“It’s the embankment,” Rose said. “I think you ought to know about it. It’s very steep, and it can be treacherous, particularly when the wind blows from the north. The sea can get wild out there, and the spray turns the face of the embankment into glass. There have been some accidents …” Her voice trailed off; then, catching the worried look in Barbara’s eyes, she went on. “Oh, not for a long time,” she said. “Not in this century, as far as we know. We’ve always been very careful about it, and the children are not allowed to go anywhere near it. In the Conger family, for generations children haven’t been allowed to play either in the woods or on the embankment Not only is it dangerous, but it’s practically invisible. You can’t see the face of the embankment from any point on our property, and only from a couple of spots over here. From your house it’s totally out of sight All you can see is the forest.”

“Why haven’t you cut the forest down?” Barbara said thoughtfully. “It wouldn’t be as pretty, but at least you’d be able to see if any of the kids are playing along the top.”

Rose smiled tightly. “I suggested it once. Part of it, of course, is the esthetics. Also, there’s the wind. The woods protect the house pretty well when the wind is from the north. Which it is, during the winter. And, of course, the privacy thing. The Congers always liked the idea that none of their neighbors could see them.”

“It’s nice to be able to afford that sort of luxury,” Carl murmured.

Rose nodded. “Very nice. If you can afford it, which we barely can. A couple of more tax hikes and we won’t be able to afford it at all.” She realized she was saying more than she probably ought, then realized that she didn’t really care; in fact, it was nice to be able to admit to someone, anyone, that the Congers weren’t what they used to be. Still, she decided it was time to get back to the subject at hand.

“So that’s what I wanted to show you,” she said. “Of course, you can do what you want, but I’d advise you to tell Jeff not to go anywhere near the place.”

“Which would send him there directly, the minute our backs were turned,” Barbara said. “I think we’ll just have to trust to his good sense.” She noted the expression on Rose’s face, and her smile faded. “Is there something else?” she asked.

Rose hesitated a minute, then spoke again. “Yes,” she said, glancing once more at her watch. “I don’t have time to go into it all, but there’s a legend about the embankment. There may be a cave there, and it’s really quite dangerous.” Rose smiled uncertainly. “I’ve got to be getting home. Both the girls will be there, and I don’t like to leave them for long with nobody but Mrs. Goodrich.”

“Mrs. Goodrich?”

“The housekeeper. She’s getting older—she must be nearly seventy—and terribly set in her ways, but she’s been with the family since long before Jack was born.”

They chatted a little more on the way back to the Stevenses’ new house, but Rose didn’t go in again. She felt a sudden urge to get home.

Minutes later, she was striding along the Point Road, skirting the west end of the strip of woods. She saw a squirrel playing in one of the trees, something she normally would have taken a few minutes to enjoy, but she didn’t give it a second glance. She passed the woods, and was walking along the edge of the field. Suddenly she stopped. Coming out of the woods, about one hundred and fifty yards from Rose, was Elizabeth. A couple of seconds later, Sarah, too, emerged from the woods. Rose felt her stomach tighten as she watched her children cross the field toward home. She didn’t call out to them; indeed, she didn’t even move until she saw them disappear into the house. Then, when they were no longer visible, she continued on her way. But her pace was slow, and her mind was filled with thoughts. None of them made any sense. All of them were foreboding.

When she got home, she didn’t call out a greeting. Instead, she went directly to the small study at the rear of the house, poured herself a drink, and sat in the wing chair. As she waited for her husband to come home, she studied the old portrait above the mantel. It did look like Elizabeth.

So much like Elizabeth.

She sipped the drink, stared at the picture and waited.

She was still in the wing chair an hour later, when Jack came home. She heard his voice calling out as he opened the front door, heard the answer come from Elizabeth upstairs. Rose remained silent, and listened
to his footsteps approach the study. She was watching the door when he came through. His eyes widened in surprise; then he grinned at her.

“Are we doing a role reversal? I’m the one who’s supposed to sit brooding in the chair with a drink in my fist.” His smile faded as he watched his wife’s face. “Is something wrong?” he asked, and Rose was pleased to hear a concern that sounded genuine.

“Fix yourself a drink and sit down,” she said. “And you might as well fix this one up. The ice has melted.”

He took her glass, refilled it, and poured himself a neat Scotch. Setting Rose’s drink on the table at her elbow, he seated himself opposite her.

“So what’s up? Sarah?”

She shook her head. “I’m not sure, really.” She recounted her day, skipping over most of it until she reached the end. She went over her final conversation with the Stevenses in detail, trying to remember exactly what she had told them. When she finished, he didn’t seem particularly disturbed.

“Then what has you so upset?” he asked.

“On my way home, I saw the girls coming out of the woods. First Elizabeth, then Sarah.”

“I see,” Jack said quietly. “And you want me to talk to them?”

“Not both of them. Just Elizabeth. I don’t care what you tell her, but convince her to stay away from there.”

“Shall I tell her about the legend?”

“If you want.”

“Well, Lord knows, if that won’t do it nothing will. That legend has kept four generations of Congers away from that embankment.”

“Four?” Rose said. “That many?”

“I think so,” Jack said. He counted briefly on his fingers. “Nope. I’m the third. If it works, Elizabeth and Sarah will be the fourth. Well, no time like the present.” He finished his drink and left the room.

Alone, Rose continued sipping from her glass and
staring at the portrait. For some reason, Carl Stevens’s words echoed in her mind. “The sins of the fathers …”

Then she remembered the rest of the quotation, and she shuddered: “…  even unto the third and fourth generations.”

Jack climbed the stairs slowly, wondering what he would tell his daughter. At the top he paused and squared his shoulders. The truth, he guessed. Or at least what the Congers had thought was some sort of truth, among themselves, for more years than he knew.

He found them in the playroom. A frown creased his brow as he saw what they were doing. Between them was the Ouija board, and Elizabeth seemed to be concentrating on it. Sarah was concentrating on Elizabeth. Jack cleared his throat, and when nothing happened he spoke.

“Elizabeth,” he said, and regretted the sharp sound that filled the room. His daughters jumped a little, and Elizabeth opened her eyes.

“Daddy! Did you come up to play with us?”

“I came up to talk to you. Alone.” His eyes shifted to Sarah on the last word, and Elizabeth picked up on the message. She stood up, then leaned over to whisper into her sister’s ear. Sarah, to Jack’s eye, did not respond, but Elizabeth seemed to be satisfied that Sarah would be all right by herself. She followed him as he led her out of the playroom and into her own room. When she was inside he closed the door, and Elizabeth knew that she had done something wrong. She sat on the edge of her bed and regarded her father respectfully.

“It’s the woods, isn’t it?” she said.

Her father looked at her sternly. “Yes,” he said, “it is. Unless I’m badly mistaken, it was only yesterday that we had a talk about that. Now I understand you were in the woods today. With Sarah.”

Elizabeth looked straight into his eyes, and he tried
to find a clue in her own as to her mood. He wondered if she would be defiant, or angry, or stubborn. But he saw only curiosity.

“I know,” she said. “I don’t really know why I took Sarah to the woods today. We were in the field, playing, and then we were in the woods. I must have been thinking about something else, because I honestly don’t remember going into the woods. The only thing I remember is suddenly realizing we were in the woods, and leading Sarah back out to the field.”

Jack listened to his daughter silently, trying to decide if she was being truthful. He remembered his own youth, and all the times he had become so engrossed in something that he had lost track of his surroundings. He supposed it could have happened.

“Well,” he said, “I expect you not to let it happen again. You’re a big girl now, and you should be able to keep your mind on what you’re doing. Or at least where you are, particularly when Sarah is with you.”

“I take good care of her,” Elizabeth said, and Jack thought he heard a defensive note in her voice.

“Of course you do,” he said soothingly. “But please take good care of her only on this side of those woods.” Now he definitely saw anger in Elizabeth’s face. The beautiful features hardened slightly, and he realized he was going to have to amplify. While she posed the question, he tried to figure out where to begin his answer.

“I want to know why,” she was saying. “I think it’s getting absolutely silly. I’m old enough to go where I want to go, at least on our own property. When I was little, it was one thing. But I’m not little any more. You said so yourself,” she finished.

“You’re going to think we’re all crazy,” Jack said.

“Are we?” Elizabeth asked, but there was no twinkle in her eye.

“Who knows?” Jack replied, keeping his tone light.

“Okay, I’ll tell you the story. There’s an old family legend.”

“I know,” Elizabeth said.

“You know?” Now Jack couldn’t keep the surprise out of his voice. “How?”

Elizabeth widened her eyes and tried to look spooky. “The Ouija board,” she intoned. “It knows all and it tells all.” Then she burst into laughter at the expression on her father’s face. It was a mixture of awe, surprise, and fright. “I’m kidding, Dad,” she said. “I don’t know what it’s all about.” She thought carefully, then went on. “In fact, I don’t really know what I know and what I don’t know, or where I found out. But I know there’s some kind of story and it goes back a long way. What is it?”

Jack felt a strange sense of relief that she did not know the legend, and he began to tell it to her.

“It does go back a long way, he said.” Your mother and I were just figuring it out, and it’s four generations, counting you and Sarah. It has to do with your great-great-grandmother. It all happened somewhere in the neighborhood of a hundred years ago, and she was already an old, old lady then. I don’t know how many of the details I can remember, since I don’t think anybody ever wrote the story down, but here’s what is supposed to have happened:

“The old woman—I think her name was Bernice or Bertha, something like that—was in the habit of taking a nap every day after dinner, which was what we’d call lunch nowadays. Apparently every day she’d go upstairs and sleep for an hour, then come back down, and that was that. Except that one day she didn’t come back down.”

“You mean she died?” Elizabeth asked.

“No, Jack said.” She didn’t die. When she didn’t come down from her nap, they went upstairs, I imagine expecting to find her dead, but she wasn’t. She was still asleep.

“To make a long story short, the legend has it that she slept for two days and two nights, solid. They tried to wake her up, and couldn’t. They called a doctor, but he couldn’t find anything wrong with her at all. I suppose she might have had some kind of stroke and gone into a coma, but at the time they didn’t know much about such things. Anyway, she eventually woke up, and she didn’t seem to have anything wrong with her.

“I suppose the family would have forgotten about it, except that a couple of days later one of the old lady’s sons, who would have been my great-uncle, I think, walked into the house carrying a dead rabbit. Then he proceeded to jump off the cliff behind the house.”

“You’re kidding,” Elizabeth breathed.

Jack shook his head. “If I am, then your grandfather kidded me when he told me the story.”

“But why did he do it?” Elizabeth asked.

“No one ever found out” Jack shrugged. “Or if they did, they never told anybody. Anyway, when the old lady heard about it, she wasn’t surprised. Apparently she said she’d been expecting it. And from then on until she died, she told everybody who was going to die, and when. She said she had gotten all the information in a dream she had while she’d been sleeping those two days.”

“And she was never wrong?” Elizabeth asked doubtfully.

“Who knows? You know the way stories grow. She could have been wrong most of the time, but the only thing anybody would remember and pass along would be the times she was right. She probably predicted everybody’s death every day, so sooner or later she hit the nail on the head. It’s like astrologers. They say so much that some of the things have to be right.”

“Then what’s the big deal?” Elizabeth said.

“Well, the last straw came just before she died. She claimed she’d had a vision.”

“A vision? You mean like angels or ghosts?”

“Not quite. A vision, but not of angels. She claimed that in the vision she had been taken to a cave in the embankment. Inside the cave, she was shown a shaft that led straight down. Her ‘angel,’ or whatever it was supposed to be, told her that the shaft was the gates of hell. According to the old lady, all sorts of awful things were supposed to happen if anybody ever went through the gates of hell. Or, I suppose, down the shaft. Anyway, she told the family that she had seen visions of horrible things in the future, and that the only way to keep them from happening was to see to it that no one went near that cave. She made everyone in the family swear never to go near the embankment where the cave is supposed to be. Then she died.”