Night Things: A Novel of Supernatural Terror (13 page)

To her great delight the picnic was a resounding success. Although Stephen started out a bit grumpy, after they reached a grassy area on the west side of the lake and were sipping wine in the sun, his mood took a definite turn for the better. He even made a number of amiable forays into conversation with Garrett and played them both a new song he was working on on his guitar. Garrett was no longer openly sullen toward Stephen and even made several passable attempts at sustaining his end of the conversation. By the time they returned to the house later that afternoon she was in such good spirits she wasn’t even bothered when Stephen vanished into the coachmen’s waiting room to embark on yet another marathon round of business calls.

For the first several minutes after they returned she busied herself in the kitchen putting away the picnic things. But as soon as she had time to slow down and relax a little, all of her questions about the house returned. Unable to endure her curiosity any longer, she decided it was time to explore some more of the house. She decided to ask Garrett to go with her.

She found him in one of the sun porches performing what at first appeared to be some kind of military march.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

At the sound of her voice he turned around, and something in his eyes made her realize he could not speak. She noticed also that his cheeks were puffed out and he appeared to be holding his breath. After tossing her a brief glance he resumed his quickstep, arms swinging to and fro. But before he could reach the end of the sun porch he exhaled loudly. His face fell. “Forty-one steps,” he sighed.

She continued to look at him with bewilderment.

“I was seeing how far I could walk while holding my breath. I was able to go forty-one steps this time. I wanted to make it to the end of the room, but the room is fifty steps long.”

“Why on earth would you want to practice holding your breath?”

“Because someday when I’m an adult I will probably travel into outer space, and when I do, it will probably be a good idea if I know how to hold my breath for long periods of time.”

She knew she shouldn’t ask, but she had to. “Why?”

“Because if there’s an accident and all the air gets sucked out of the spaceship I’ll be able to survive until I can get into a spacesuit.”

“I see,” she said. “Are you done practicing holding your breath?”

“I guess so. Why?”

“Because I thought I’d explore some more of the house and I wondered if you wanted to go with me.”

For some reason the suggestion alarmed him. “I don’t think you should do that.”

“Why?”

He became oddly nervous. “I don’t know. I just thought that maybe if the house is some sort of puzzle... well, maybe we should leave it alone.”

Considering how insistent he had been when he first told her the house was a puzzle, his sudden lack of interest surprised her.

“Well, first of all, I’m not convinced that the house is a puzzle. But if it is, doesn’t that mean we should try to solve it?”

“No,” he said quickly.

“Why not?”

“Well—maybe the reason all the stairs and hallways keep leading back downstairs is that there are parts of the house we’re not supposed to go into. Maybe the house is built that way to keep people out.”

“Why, Garrett, if I didn’t know better I might almost think there was something you didn’t want me to see somewhere in the house,” she said.

“No, it’s not that,” he said said quickly, and for a fraction of a second the rapidity with which he had answered made her think there was more to his denial than met the eye.

“Well, are you coming or not?” she said as she walked toward the door.

“No—
yes
,” he sputtered, following behind.

When they reached the second-floor landing she paused. “So you say whichever way we turn, we’ll always end up having to go back downstairs, right?”

He nodded hesitantly.

“Okay, then let’s go this way,” she said, and turned left. When they came to the small vestibule at the far end of the hall she opened one of the doors at random. Seeing what appeared to be an upstairs drawing room, she walked inside.

“Wait!” she heard Garrett call behind her, but it was too late. Before she knew what was happening she had become so dizzy she had to collapse on a nearby couch. Garrett inched up carefully beside her and told her about the room’s asymmetries.

She sighed and shook her head. “Why anyone would want to do this to a house is beyond me.” She stood and started through the room again, but again she felt the same horrible vertigo and was forced to lunge for the nearest door. Beyond was the trophy room, and after making sure Garrett was still following her she went through a door leading off it and found herself returned to the front entrance hall. It annoyed her that Garrett was evidently right about the house, and for a moment she refused to look him in the eye.

“See?” he said.

“That was just once,” she protested. Unwilling to give up so easily, she tried again, but this time when she came to a stairway that seemed to lead back to the first floor, she refused to descend it and instead chose another route. However, they quickly got lost in a warren of interconnecting rooms and were forced to go down a flight of stairs.

“Okay, so what happens if we try to do something the house doesn’t seem to want us to do?” she asked.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, the drawing room upstairs seems to be designed to always make a person exit through the trophy room, but there are other ways out of the drawing room we haven’t tried. What happens if we try to ignore the dizziness the room makes us feel and go through one of them instead?”

His eyes widened at the notion. But he also seemed intrigued by the idea. “I don’t know.”

“Well, come on, then.”

They went upstairs to the drawing room, and Lauren stepped inside gingerly. Only this time instead of walking at a normal pace, she proceeded one step at a time as if walking a tightrope and paused between each step to see how she was feeling. To her delight, although the strange angles in the room still tugged dangerously at her sense of balance, the effect was so diminished that she could travel where she wanted to. After glancing behind her to make sure Garrett was doing the same, she made her way over to one of the doors.

Smiling triumphantly, she opened it, but to her dismay, beyond was a hallway even more warped than the drawing room. On one side of the sharply twisting corridor the wall was at least a foot taller than on the other side, and the planks of the floor were so buckled it looked as if the stress from such distortion might cause them to snap at any moment. She stepped inside.

“I don’t think you should do that,” Garrett said abruptly.

“For God’s sake, Garrett, if it’s that upsetting to you, just go back downstairs.”

For several seconds after her reproof he just scowled at her, a mixture of resentment and hurt pride in his eyes. But again, for some reason he did not seem to want to let her continue on alone, and he quieted.

She walked boldly into the corridor. Because no attempt had been made to disguise its asymmetries, she had thought it would not have the same disorienting effect as the drawing room. But to her surprise, as soon as she started up the incline of the floor her head began to spin so rapidly she almost blacked out. In a desperate attempt to counteract the whirling of her senses she dropped to her knees and closed her eyes. Then she took several deep breaths.

“Mom!” Garrett cried, and she heard him run up beside her. She reached out to try to stop him, but it was too late. “Oh!” he exclaimed as he collided with her outstretched hand.

“Sit down and close your eyes!” she said as she guided him down with her hand. She heard him clunk beside her, and for a moment she thought he might have fainted. But then she reached out and felt that his head was still upright. “Take long deep breaths,” she ordered. “And keep your eyes closed!”

They sat with their eyes closed for several minutes, and when she finally dared to open them she discovered than even when she was stationary on the floor the strange vertiginous effects of the hallway still pulled at her.

“How is it doing that?” Garrett asked as he looked at their surroundings through half-open eyes.

“I don’t know.”

“It doesn’t seem to be built like the other room—”

“I know!” she interrupted. Scanning the passageway, she noticed that like every other hall in the house it possessed a number of doors. After noting their various locations, she put her hands on the floor and started to crawl forward.

“Come on,” she said, beckoning for Garrett to follow. Since the disorienting effect of the drawing room appeared to be designed to keep people from going through certain doors, she reasoned that the twistings and turnings of the hallway were most likely intended to do the same. And since their dizzying influence was even more pronounced it seemed logical to assume they were drawing ever closer to whatever it was Sarah Balfram had gone to such great lengths to conceal.

As they moved forward, occasionally the swimming of her senses became so severe she had to stop and close her eyes for a moment. But always she paid careful attention to the parts of the hallway where the repulsive effect was the strongest, until finally it became clear it was centered around a doorway at the end of the hall.

Carefully she inched her way toward the door, and when she reached it, she paused and looked at Garrett again. Like her, he was using every ounce of his willpower to fight back the dizziness. Beads of perspiration had formed on his forehead. Although she hadn’t realized it before she noticed that she too was damp with perspiration, and for a second she wondered whether she was doing the right thing. But then curiosity got the best of her and she reached out and opened the door.

When she did so a gush of cool, stale air rushed past them and a small flurry of dust flew into her eyes and caused her to squint. But when she opened them again she saw that beyond was another hallway, only it was a hallway unlike anything she had seen in the house so far. The first thing she noticed was that although it did not possess any windows, it was pervaded by a strange twilight, and it was a while before she realized the ghostly illumination appeared to be coming from a skylight at the top of a ventilation shaft high overhead.

She noticed also that the hallway was even more exaggeratedly out of proportion than the one they were standing in. So much so that at its far end what had started out to be walls and spindlework archways were now mere parodies of themselves, splays of wood and wainscoting gnarled and folded back on their original forms. They made the hallway seem less like part of a real house and more like a reflection caught and transfigured by a funhouse mirror.

A layer of cobwebs and dust covered everything. In places the detritus was so thick that the floor and the walls were gray. The molding was so festooned with spiderwebs it all but vanished beneath the pall. Given the appearance of the place and the difficulty they had had in reaching it she was convinced they had stumbled on a part of the house no one had been in for a very long time.

Taking hold of the doorjambs, she cautiously lifted herself up and stepped inside. She was afraid the exaggerated angles of the hallway meant it would be even more disorienting than the one they were in, but to her surprise the mysterious vertigo appeared to let up a bit. However, as soon as she set foot inside, the floorboards creaked so mournfully she thought they might be unsafe. She stopped and tested them by bouncing up and down a little, and after deciding they seemed sturdy enough, she took another step. But again there came the sound of wood groaning against wood, only this time it seemed to spread out and extend even deeper into the corridor. There was a cobweb-encrusted door a short distance away, and she decided to risk the infirmity of the floor long enough to investigate.

“Stay here,” she ordered, as she started forward, but before she could stop him Garrett had scrambled up beside her.

“No, I’m going with you,” he said. She was about to snap at him, but after seeing how afraid he was, she reconsidered.

“Well, okay, but stay close to me.”

As they crept forward the floor continued to creak and pop, but the thought of what might lie hidden behind the door drove her on. When they reached it she batted away the spiderwebs and then turned the knob. As it opened, dust wafted by them once again, but after it settled she saw that beyond was a spare and monkish little bedroom. Like the hallway they were standing in, it was entombed in a fine layer of dust and cobwebs. But what truly set it apart from all the other rooms in the house was that it possessed the belongings of its last inhabitant.

In a closet she could see clothes hanging, and on a night-stand next to the bed were a number of dusty medicine bottles and a sediment-encrusted drinking glass. Intrigued, she stepped a little farther into the room and made out other objects, a shawl draped over a chair, a hairbrush, a fountain pen, and a lap desk, all strewn carelessly about as if their owner had just left them, save that they were all in various states of decay and covered by the same gray patina of dust.

Mesmerized, she moved even deeper into the room, searching for some clue as to whom it once had belonged. And then she saw. On the lap desk was a piece of unused stationery dusty and mottled with age. Engraved across the top were the words:
Sarah Balfram.

It had already occurred to her that this might be Sarah Balfram’s room, but having her suspicions confirmed caused her to straighten with surprise. Why, with all of her wealth, had Sarah Balfram chosen to make her own bedroom so cramped and austere? And why, with so many far more splendid rooms throughout the house, had she chosen to situate it here?

She did not have time to contemplate these questions for long, for as she turned around something else caught her eye. Against the far wall was a narrow table draped with a rotting piece of linen, and on the table was an open book resting on an elaborately carved oak stand. She crossed over to it and saw that it was mildewed and yellowed and appeared to be very old. She noticed also that it was written in an archaic, almost biblical form of English, and although she was unable to wring much sense out of it, it appeared to be some kind of religious text.