The Ghosts of Stone Hollow (8 page)

“All right,” Jason said, smiling his crazy smile. “Let’s go.”

As they started down the lane, Jason asked, “Why are people afraid to go there—to Stone Hollow? Why do they think it’s haunted?”

“Lots of reasons. There was this family who lived there once and built the house, and they all died except the mother, and she went crazy.” She told him everything she could remember ever having heard about the Italians, and even added a few facts that she hadn’t exactly heard, but that just seemed likely—and particularly intriguing. Like, how the poor madwoman, when she was found wandering and raving, had said something about a curse. Then she told Jason all about the bootleggers and how they had been found dead, near where they had been building a still for making whiskey. And how they had been dead for a long time when they were found, so it was hard to tell what had killed them, but everybody made guesses. Most people guessed that they had died of fright, except for a few like Aunt Abigail who thought they had killed each other, and the Reverend Dawson who thought they’d been “sacrificed on an altar.”

Jason stopped and stood still. “An altar. What kind of altar?” he said.

“The altar of Demon Rum,” Amy said.

“Oh.” Jason started off, but then he stopped again and stayed stopped for a long time with a faraway look on his face, as Amy began to tell him about the Indians. She mentioned that some people said the Hollow had been haunted even before the Ranzonis died, and that way back in the olden days, the Indians had held ceremonies there to their heathen gods.

“What did they do there, the Indians?” Jason asked.

“I don’t know,” Amy said. “Dances, I guess, and sacrifices, and bowing down to graven images, all sorts of heathen things like that.”

“Visions,” Jason said, and his eyes looked so strange and inward that for a moment Amy wondered if he meant he was seeing one himself, but then he went on. “Some Indian tribes had sacred places where they went to see visions.”

Amy shrugged. “Did they? Well, they probably did that in Stone Hollow, too. All that kind of stuff.”

Just past the place where Bradley Lane started uphill, they came to the beginning of the old road that had once led to Stone Hollow. It had never been much more than a trail, and now that it was weed-grown and rock-strewn, there were many places where it was barely visible. Before very long it was so steep that conversation was a little breathless, but there were some things that still needed to be discussed.

“Look,” Amy said. “You won’t tell anybody about this, will you? Like at school or anyplace?”

“You don’t want them to know?” Jason asked.

Amy shook her head exasperatedly. “Of course not,” she said.

“Wouldn’t they like it? Wouldn’t they like for you to go to the Hollow?”

“They’d think it was funny because I went with you. They’d tease us.”

“Why?”

“Good heavens,” Amy said. “You’re really hopeless. You know why. Didn’t your friends in other places tease each other about boys and girls? You know, about a boy liking a girl, or something?”

But Jason only looked at her with wide, questioning eyes, as if she hadn’t made it clear.

“Or didn’t you have any friends?” Amy said.

“I had some friends,” Jason said. “I had a very good friend in Greece.”

“Well, didn’t he ever tease you about girls? Like if you talked to a girl a lot in school, or something?”

“No,” Jason said. “My friend didn’t go to school. He was a hermit.”

“A hermit. How old was he, for heaven’s sake?”

“Old? I don’t know exactly, but he was a very old man.”

“An old man!” Amy said. “That’s not—” But then she gave up. “Anyway,” she said, “just don’t tell anyone that we came up here together. Okay?”

“All right,” Jason said. “Look, there’s the place where the bridge used to be. We have to climb down the cliff here and up the other side.”

The climbing became too hard then to allow for much conversation. They climbed down and up and then followed the faint indentation where the old road had narrowed and dwindled to little more than a path. It had been dug into the canyon wall above the creek, and slides and rockfalls had made it almost impassable in several places. Trees grew thick and tall in the canyon, and in several places had fallen across the road so that it was necessary to climb over a trunk or scramble through branches. Finally they came to a place where the canyon became very steep and narrow, and the road turned very steeply up toward the crest of the range of hills.

Amy remembered the spot. They were very close to the Hollow, now. From the crest just above them, you could look directly down into the narrow oval valley on the other side that was known as Stone Hollow. As they zigzagged up the face of the hill, she noticed that Caesar was not exploring smells and running in circles as he usually did. Instead he was running ahead of them, his head up and high and his ears pointed straight forward. Amy’s heart was thundering as they reached the top of the hill, and she knew it was not just from the strain of the climbing.

Below them the narrow canyon that had been formed by the water of Stone Hollow Creek spread out into a small valley surrounded by steep hills. At the downward side of the valley, the creek disappeared into a deep and narrow ravine, so that the valley looked like an oblong bowl marred at one end by a narrow crack. Part of the valley floor had been cleared of trees, but near the center a few huge oaks remained, and it was there that the Italian family had built their little house.

The shack stood in the deep shade of the old trees, its roof sagging crazily and its doors and windows gaping like the eyes and mouth of a frightened face. Amy had thought of that when she saw the house before—that it looked as if it were crying out in fear.

“Look,” she whispered to Jason. “Even the house looks frightened.”

But Jason didn’t answer. He was standing stiffly, staring down into the valley, with his head slightly turned as if he were listening to something from below. Beside him, Caesar was doing the same thing, his head cocked and his ears cupped forward. Amy moved closer and as she put her hand on Caesar’s back, she could feel that he was trembling.

S
ILENCE. ONE OF
the first things that Amy noticed as they started down into the Hollow was the silence, a kind of quietness that made even the slightest sound echo and throb like the whistle of a train. Amy found herself listening avidly to a single faint bird call and then, as they neared the oak trees, to the occasional rasping whisper of an invisible breeze.

Ahead of her, Jason walked light and quick, looking around eagerly; and not far away, Caesar trotted purposefully, stopping now and then to listen and sniff the air. Once or twice he whined softly deep in his throat.

Hurrying, Amy caught up with Jason and grabbed his arm. “Look,” she whispered. “Look at Caesar. He looks as if he’s searching for something.”

Jason nodded. “Or someone,” he said.

They had reached the oak grove now, and just ahead of them, in the deep shade, was the old shack. Its roof and porch sagged, and its glassless windows stared out at them as blankly as the empty eyes of a skull.

Amy hung back. “Let’s not go in,” she said, and then as Jason glanced at her without stopping, “Did you really go inside before? I mean, have you really been in there?”

“It’s all right,” he said. “It’s not the house.”

“What do you mean? What’s not the house?”

“I mean that it doesn’t come from inside the house. You can feel it in there sometimes, but it comes from someplace else.”

“What does?” Exasperation, mixed with fear, made her voice come out in a breathy squeak. “What are you talking about?”

The squeak was embarrassing, but it did accomplish something, because Jason stopped and really looked at her for the first time since they started down into the Hollow. “I don’t know,” he said. “Not really. Whatever it is that makes it different here. I don’t know what it is, but I can feel it.”

“Right now?” Amy asked. “Can you feel it right now?”

Jason stopped and seemed to be listening. His face tilted upward, and his strange wide eyes seemed to grow larger and flicker with points of dancing light, like the eyes of a playful cat. After a moment he nodded. “Yes,” he said. “I can feel it. Can’t you?”

Amy tried, standing as he had done with her face turned up. She felt as hard as she could—and after a moment a strange prickle tingled up her back and into the roots of her hair.

“I’m not sure,” she said. “But I’m frightened. I’m sure about that.”

Jason took her hand and pulled. “Come on,” he said. “I’ll show you the house.”

It had never been much more than a shack, and now, after years of emptiness, it was only a broken rotten shell. The splintery floorboards sagged and creaked with every step, and the air was heavy with the smell of dust and mildew. Just inside the gaping doorway, the cracked and broken door lay on the floor, its hinges crusted with rust.

“Look at that,” Jason said, pointing.

“At what?” Amy whispered.

“At that piece of wood the hinges tore out of the Wall. And the way the door is cracked, there, as if something hit it hard. It looks as if someone broke it down.”

“Maybe it was a storm,” Amy said. “Maybe the wind broke it in.”

Jason didn’t answer. But he stared at the door for a long time before he pulled Amy around it and on into the room.

The main room of the house was empty, except for a few dust-covered piles of trash. Layered over with dirt and drifted leaves, the piles of trash were anonymous lumps, except where here and there something recognizable protruded—faded and musty articles of clothing, a part of a broken chair, and a rusty coffeepot. Under ordinary circumstances, Amy would have immediately begun to explore the trash heaps, undeterred by the dust and grime and the musty smell of mouse and mold. Ordinarily the fascination of long-forgotten articles, each one possibly the key to some ancient secret, would have been enough to make her forget everything else. But nothing was ordinary in Stone Hollow and, still hanging onto Jason, she let herself be led into the second room.

The second room was smaller and completely empty, except for what appeared to be a rough handmade frame for a very small bed. A sudden realization made a shiver prickle up the back of Amy’s arms and legs.

“That must be
her
bed,” she whispered. “The little girl who died of the lockjaw.”

Jason stared at the bed for a while before he nodded slowly. “That’s why it’s here,” he said.

“What do you mean—why it’s here?”

“Well, it’s the only piece of furniture left, except for broken pieces of things. As if people came and took everything they could use, a long time ago. Except they didn’t want the bed because—”

“Because she died there,” Amy breathed. “Jason, I think I’ve seen enough. I mean, I think I’d better be starting home before my folks start worrying about me.”

“Don’t you want to see the other room first?” Jason asked. “There’s just one more.”

The last room, apparently a kitchen, was a lean-to addition with a slanting roof. It was long and narrow and ran the length of the shack at the back. Like the front room it was scattered with piles of trash, and against one wall sat the rusted remains of a wood-burning iron stove. One of its heavy iron legs was missing, so it leaned at a crazy angle. Its chimney pipe had broken loose from its vent in the ceiling and jutted forward to end in midair. Beyond it a kitchen table with two missing legs crouched in the corner like a wounded animal.

Somehow, the kitchen seemed the saddest and the most frightening of the three rooms—even worse than the bedroom with its tragic bed. Amy wasn’t sure why, except that kitchens should be warm and busy and good-smelling. In her mind it was easy to see it differently, with a neatly aproned woman leaning over a floury table, and a little girl standing on a chair alongside to watch. It was easy to right the stove and fill it with glowing heat and cover its top with gleaming pots and pans. In contrast, the desolate, dirty ruin seemed almost unbearable.

“Please, Jason, let’s go,” she said.

But just at that moment there was a rustle of movement and the sound of footsteps in the main room of the house. Amy grabbed Jason so hard that he staggered backward. She opened her mouth to scream, but nothing came out; and before she could try again, the noises approached the door to the kitchen and came through, and it was only Caesar.

“Caesar,” Amy said. “I’d forgotten all about him. Look what he’s doing.”

Caesar was running back and forth across the room sniffing frantically. Now and then he made a whimpering sound. He stopped at a pile of trash in the far corner of the room, smelled for a long time, and then raised his head and made a strange, drawn-out noise that sounded almost like a howl. The howl over, he turned, ran past Amy and Jason without seeming to notice them, and disappeared through the doorway. They followed after him, out through the littered front room and around the fallen door; but by the time they emerged onto the sagging front porch, he was nowhere to be seen.

“Where could he have gone?” Amy said.

“He must have gone down to the creek. He’s probably running around down there in the underbrush. Let’s go look for him.”

Amy nodded reluctantly. She couldn’t leave without Caesar, and the only way to get him back was to find him. Calling him was out of the question. To stand there and shout into the breathless silence of the Hollow would be impossible.

A slight weed-grown indentation that might once have been a well-worn path led from the back of the shack to the creek. A second path, branching off, led to some small outbuildings that Amy had not noticed before. One of them was surrounded by the remains of a wire fence and had probably been a chicken house. The other, was slightly larger and might have been a toolshed or granary.

Jason turned off the path toward the larger shed. “Come here,” he said. “I want to show you something.”

“What is it? What’s in the shed?”

“Not the shed,” Jason said. “It’s empty except for some old bottles and cans and a few broken barrels. Over there, that’s what I wanted you to see.”