The Tea Party - A Novel of Horror (26 page)

He was right—they were being set up.

It was like the first few days after he had arrived in prison—the stripping away of his civilian clothes, his civilian dreams and attitudes, the brusque and terrifying orientation not only by the authorities but by the inmates as well, and the gradual, horrifying acceptance that for the next several years manipulation and intimidation would be the rules of the game.

But if they were being set up, what was the purpose?

If they were being set up, who was pulling the strings?

Maggie followed him to the paddock, nudging his back in her hurry to have him open the gate. And as he watched her break into a playful, high-stepping canter across the grass, he wondered what part Parrish had in all this.

Breakfast was quick, his movements more urgent as he strode into the study, stood at the drafting table, and stared at the measured lines that would, in time, give birth to a new home. He wanted to work, but the Scotch-muddled thoughts of the previous night returned, maddeningly out of order. He grabbed the magazines from the living room and swept the Branchville design to the floor. With an Exactoblade he sliced out Parrish’s photographs and spread them across the slanted board. Then he sat on the stool and stared at them, one after another, rearranging their dated sequences as if playing the shell game.

Nothing changed.

The houses were the same, and Eban Parrish was the same, even as far back as seventy years ago.

Setting aside the impossibility of the man not changing, not aging a day in almost a century, he concentrated first on the duplication of the mansion’s basic design.

It had nothing to do with Clark’s suggestion of an ambitious realtor—no matter what else he was, Parrish wasn’t the type. And it definitely had nothing to do with randomness. Just as there was nothing random about the way he pieced a house together line by line, there was nothing random in the way Parrish was spreading carbon copies of Winterrest across the country.

Purpose here, too; there had to be a purpose. And he was positive it wasn’t just because the old man liked the design.

He saw it ten minutes later—the only caption that gave him the name of a town. Flat River, Nebraska.

Spinning around, he grabbed for the telephone book and opened it to the front pages where the area codes were listed by state. There were two for Nebraska, and he stared out the window.

Who would he call?

He knew no one there, and contacting the police to find out if there was a Winterrest estate in or near the town seemed prankish. They would probably hang up on him, after chewing him out for wasting their time.

Who would he call?

He slipped an invisible coin and dialed 308 Information, asked for a listing for Flat River, and when the operator found it his heart paused, started again when she told him no one or no business called Winterrest was located in her territory; when he dialed 402, in case there were two towns with the same name, he was not surprised when he learned there wasn’t.

He paced into the living room and back, telling himself there was nothing to worry about, that what Parrish did with his time was his own affair. Yet there was still that growing conviction he was being manipulated, being prepared for something he would not like.

A look to Maggie, then, and he dialed 308 Information again and asked for the local Flat River newspaper, no he didn’t know the name, but it was very important and he’d appreciate the help. The operator, friendly enough to joke about his memory, found it after only a few minutes’ searching. And before he lost his nerve he dialed, listened for eleven rings, and had decided the office was closed for the day when his silent prayer was answered.

It was a secretary, her turn to cover the phones on Sunday, and she was suitably impressed, and considerably mystified, that he was calling all the way from the East Coast.

“Miss,” he said, “I’m trying to locate the owner of a piece of property out there. I’m an architect, you see, and my secretary took a message from the owner on Monday, while I was away.”

“You oughta try Information,” she said, and suddenly sounded as if she had decided to gargle. “Sorry.” She laughed. “Got a Coke here, lots of ice at the bottom of the glass. Straw.”

He laughed with her, and tapped the photograph she could not see. “I would,” he said regretfully, “but there’s a problem. I can’t read the woman’s handwriting. All I know is, he lives in a place called Winter-rest.”

Silence; more gargling.

“Miss?”

“Winterrest? Sure, I know it.”

He gripped the edge of the table tightly. “You do?”

“Sure, who don’t?” She giggled. “Well, I guess you don’t, do you, but we sure do. Biggest place around here, ‘cepting some of the bigshot farms. There’s a party or something out there today, in fact.” Her voice soured. “Very exclusive, so I’m told.”

Doug sat heavily on the stool. “So you’re told?”

“Well, I didn’t get an invitation. ‘Course, I never had anything to do with them out there, so I don’t suppose I should have. Still, it’d be nice, y’know? Keep on good terms with the press and all.”

“Yes.” The word was forced out; there was no breath left in his lungs. “Miss,” he said, “forgive me for sounding stupid, but how big is Flat River?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Last count I heard was eight, nine thousand. Not counting the cows.” She laughed merrily, an old joke on a new customer. Then he heard a buzzer in the background. “Hey, Mister,” she said, “I gotta go. Got someone waiting on me out front.”

“But Winterrest—”

“I can’t help you there,” she said. “Far as I know, Mr. Parrish never put in a phone all the time he’s been there.”

“And how long has that been,” he said mechanically.

“Mister, I wouldn’t know. He was here before I was born.”

I do not believe in immortality, he thought; I do not believe a man can be in two places at the same time.

And I definitely do not believe in magic.

The telephone rang. He answered with a brusque “Yeah?” and instantly knew Parrish was on the other end.

“Mr. Muir?”

He cleared his throat, and stared at the pictures, one by one. “Yes, Mr. Parrish, what can I do for you?”

who are you?

“I am truly sorry to bother you on such a lovely Sunday, but the offer I mentioned—”

“No,” he said heatedly. “No, I’m still not interested.”

“I see. Well, that’s very good.”

More coolly: “Sorry if I’ve disappointed you.”

“Not at all, Mr. Muir. If I were able to accommodate all my clients all the time, I’d be immorally wealthy.”

“I know what you mean. Believe me, I know what you mean.”

Parrish chuckled politely. “In that case, I shan’t bother you any longer. Will I see you later this afternoon?”

Without thinking, he shook his head.

“Mr. Muir?”

He stared at the pictures, at Maggie, at the room. “No,” he said. “I have . . . work, a lot of work. I’m afraid I’ll have to pass.”

“I see.” A slow inhalation; bubbling. “I’m sorry to hear that.” A pause filled with static. “Forgive me for asking, Mr. Muir, but you’re not feeling under the weather, I trust.”

who the hell
are
you?

“Fighting off a cold, I think. Nothing serious. But it’s not easy to work with it, and I can’t spare the time.”

“Ah. Well, do take care, Mr. Muir. Things like that have a habit of cropping up and turning nasty.”

“I will,” he said. “Thanks.” Then he pushed at one of the pictures with his finger. “Magic,” he said softly.

“I beg your pardon. Magic, Mr. Muir?”

He jerked his head away from the earpiece, not aware he had spoken aloud, thinking the man had already hung up.

“Did you say magic, Mr. Muir?”

“Uh, yes. Yes, I did.”

“And why did you say magic, Mr. Muir?”

This is ridiculous, he thought. “Just thinking out loud, Mr. Parrish, that’s all. My mind was already somewhere else.”

“Ah. Well, if you want my advice, you will put no credence in so-called magic, or in so-called miracles for that matter. It’s difficult enough for some people to believe in the living. And perhaps, after all, I will see you later.”

“But—”

The dial tone hummed.

He lowered the telephone to the floor, straightened, and chastised himself for lacking the courage to ask the man directly about Flat River. Not that he would have received an answer; Parrish would have denied knowing a thing.

Lying, he thought, right through his teeth.

He inhaled slowly, deeply, and checked his watch— it was after eleven. The instant decision not to go to Winterrest did not, as he’d hoped, lift any burden from his shoulders. If anything, he felt worse, more nervous, and more determined to find out if Liz was right and it was only imagination that was keeping his mind off balance.

Right about now, though, he thought it might be worthwhile to talk to someone like Piper Cleary.

“Funny, but you don’t strike me as bein the kinda guy that thinks about things like that. No offense.”

Doug sat uneasily on the top step of the Cleary back porch, his hat pulled low as much to keep the cloud-diffused sun from his eyes as to prevent Piper from reading his expression. Cleary himself sat on the browning grass, his three remaining hounds frisking around him, every so often smacking him with their wire-whip tails when he grabbed for their heads to wrestle them to the ground.

“No offense taken, Pipe. I’m just curious.”

“Are you, now.”

Doug nodded.

Cleary adjusted his deerstalker and squinted at the house. They had passed the pleasantries already, Doug complaining about a mild hangover, Piper commiserating and explaining how Wilbur and Nell had chewed him out for his drinking last night from the moment the sun came up until they had left for the restaurant. They were worried, he said acidly, about his being decent this afternoon; like they were some kind of gentry instead of folks who made their living slinging hash and breaking eggs.

When they were settled, however, a can of beer passing for the hair of the dog in their hands (Piper obviously having begun treatment long before Doug arrived), he waved his free arm at the estate hidden by the trees behind him.

“I’ve been sayin it for years, y’know, but people don’t like to hear it. Y’know, like hearin a son or a husband or somebody’s died, they say it can’t be, they only saw him last week. If they can’t touch it, smell it, taste it, they don’t know it.

“Me, now, I got the woods. I got my hounds, and we tramp all over the damned place, we see things back in there you’d never think in your whole life’d be true.”

“Like Sitter’s witches,” he suggested, anxious to have the man stay on the subject. And not at all sure he wasn’t a little crazy himself for listening to all this.

Piper drank deeply, belched with a glassy-eyed grin and shook his head. “Nah, not like that at all. Sitter’s a good man, don’t get me wrong, but his head’s not exactly screwed on right. Take me, f’instance. Would you believe I used to be a hell of a big guy?” He lifted one arm, palm parallel to the ground. “Not big that way.” He spread his arm wide. “That way. Two-hundred-and-fifteen pounds of solid flesh. Then a doc says I gotta lose or I’m dead before I’m sixty. So I lose. Now I got all this skin and nothin to put in it.”

“You believe that, Doug?”

He sipped at the beer, trying not to grimace. “It is hard to believe, Pipe, you have to admit it.”

“Sure it is, but it’s true. What you see ain’t the real me. The real me is as fat as a pig.” He emptied his can, and opened another. “Now, do you believe in God?”

He leaned away from the odd question. “God?”

“Yeah,” he said, pointing at the sky. “You know. God.”

“Well . . . I suppose so.”

“You believe in the Devil?”

“No.” A quick answer, no thinking required.

“Wrong,” Piper answered sternly. “It’s like the woods, Mr. Muir. Everything’s got a reason for bein there, and everything that’s there has a shadow. You got sparrows and hawks, you got mice and bobcats, you got all that stuff. You also got God and the Devil. It don’t make sense to believe in one without the other. You got your good, and you got your bad, it’s as simple as that.”

No argument was offered; he only pulled at the beer and nodded for the man to go on.

“Now that house back there. I been around a long time, Mr. Muir, and I notice things. I have to, it’s my business, bein a hunter and all. And I really can’t prove it—that is, I ain’t got somethin I can pull outta my pocket, so you’ll have to take my word for it— Winterrest is a demon place, sure as I sit here.”

He squinted to see if Doug was laughing; he wasn’t—he was listening.

“See, it goes back to the beginning,” he continued, shifting until he was sitting Indian fashion. “You read that report thing from that fella down in Princeton?”

Doug nodded; he had.

“Well, it goes back to then, I think. The way I see it, that professor that found out all those things about Deerford and the house, he wasn’t really listenin to what he was hearin. Talked to a lot of the old folks, the ones that keep the stories, and he picked what he wanted to and ignored the rest. Me, now, I hear it all, I hear the details, so to speak. That man that built that place, after all that terrible stuff happened to his family, he knew the land was cursed. Don’t laugh! Cursed is what I said, and cursed is what I meant. There are places like that. You travel enough, you can see them all over. Places so damned ugly they look like God shat on them he was so pissed. Places, too, that look so beautiful and
no one’s there.
Now the first ones, it makes sense you don’t do anything there. I mean, who wants to live on a garbage heap, so to speak?

“But the second sort of makes you wonder. Such a lovely spot, peaceful, maybe a stream, some trees, but it could be a desert for all you find there. You can’t even find a robin huntin worms.

“Yep, it really makes you wonder.”

Doug emptied his can and leaned back on his elbows.

Piper pushed off a hound with a good-natured oath and slapped his deerstalker against his leg before yanking it on again.