The House on Black Lake (5 page)

“I brought banana bread, fresh squeezed orange juice, instant coffee and cream for breakfast.” She wipes her face with a dish towel, then places the contents of the paper bag inside the empty refrigerator.

“Ruth... whose house is this?”

“It’s ours, of course, dear.”

She takes a flyswatter and insect repellent from under the sink and begins to spray and swat at flies feeding off a bowl of rotting fruit on the center island.

“Get away, you horrible creatures,” she squeals.

“You’ve got heat,” Ramey says as he enters the kitchen.

“I left your suitcase in the corner of the master bedroom. I tried to open the window to let in some fresh air, but it’s been screwed shut.

“Have you ever played an accordion, Sam?” Ramey moves to a corner alcove in the breakfast nook to draw down an old instrument. “You open the bellows and push down on the buttons as you close. Air blows against the metal reeds and that creates the sound.” His demonstration creates a dreadful noise, like that of an animal being slaughtered. “Here, Sammy, you try it.”

“Put that awful thing away,” Ruth cries out. She pinches her face into a grimace and cups her hands against her ears. “Degenerates play those things, men with monkeys on leashes and old drunks dancing with women in polka-dot skirts.” She roughly grabs the instrument from Sam and shoves it back onto the shelf.

“What’s wrong, dear?” Ramey asks in a calm tone that carries a trace of something darker.

“I don’t like it, that’s all,” Ruth retorts and clobbers the dying insects with her fly-swatter.

“Maybe another day, Sam; we’ve got all week.”

He moves to Ruth, wraps an arm around her waist and draws back her hair to kiss the nape of her neck. “I need to get you to bed; it’s getting late.”

His affectionate gesture seems to calm Ruth, as she ceases the frenetic swatting. “I got them—they’re all dead.”

She uses a dishrag to wipe up the flies and returns the swatter and repellant back to the cupboard.

“If you missed any, they’ve warned the others and fled the island. Come dear, it’s time we go home,” Ramey says and takes Ruth by the arm to lead her out of the kitchen.

“There’s no cell service in the enclave and the land lines are temporarily out. The animals chew through them from time to time. Repairmen are scheduled for tomorrow,” Ruth says as we follow the couple back through the house to the front porch. “I’ll return in the morning to take you back to meet the children. We’ll have lunch at the clubhouse.”

We embrace at the door, and watch our hosts set off down the path leading to the boathouse. “Let’s go to bed, honey. It’s been a very long day.” Sam returns my weary smile and takes my hand to turn back inside the house.

As I am about to close the door I catch a glimpse of a sight that sends a lush thrill through my body.

At the base of the path, I watch Ramey slide his hand down to the hollow of Ruth’s bare spine. He glances back to catch my clandestine gaze and bestows a smile that steals glimmers of light from the stars. Then they disappear into the vaporous mist that shrouds the lake.

T
ETHERED TO BEDPOSTS WITH STRAP AND CHAIN, THE LEATHER
cuffs chafe cruelly into my wrists as I struggle to balance myself on the slippery satin coverlet. Face to wall, the rigid boning of the tightly cinched corset makes me pant and gasp for air. I gaze behind me and see, in the corner of my eye, the tip of the red-hot branding iron. He tells me to steady myself, to hold still to take the brand. Time slows and seconds drift into the eternal. soon I shall be marked in a manner that can never be erased, his insignia burned into my skin in a place chosen by him and unknown to me until the moment the iron takes the flesh. No gold, no diamond, no priest, no witness shall be evidence of this—our sacred vow in our holy chamber, except for the two who shall be one. The honeymoon will commence shortly, yet the ceremony will not be finished. Many days will pass before I take the same pleasure with him—both marked and the sacrament complete.

I wrench against the restraints as the burning brand takes my flesh and scream through the pain. “We’re one... now we’re one...”

THERE IS A LOUD SLAM!

I awaken, sit upright in the bed, and listen. A sound comes from outside the house, like a baby or small child crying.

“Sammy, did you hear that?”

My son sleeps soundly beside me and I don’t want to wake him. I cast aside the covers, slip from the bed and depart the room. The ominous silence is broken by the sound of a clock chiming a new hour as I move through the house to the kitchen. I cross the dusky space to a bank of drawers below the center island, where I rummage until I find myself a nice sharp butcher knife. A faint scratching comes from outside a warped window in the breakfast nook. It sounds like whatever makes the noise is on the porch outside the alcove. My heart races madly, but I gather the courage to cross the room and peer into the darkness, beyond my frightened reflection in the glass.

A shadow darts, glowing yellow eyes inside an emaciated face. The skeletal figure of a young cat saunters, stepping gingerly across a fallen grate, and stops beneath the window to stare up at me, twitching its tail. With a high-pitched cry it springs onto the ledge, peers through the window with hungry eyes, and lifts a paw to furtively scratch against the glass. It lets out a prolonged low whimper and bares tiny sharp teeth. The shrunken kitten looks as starved for love as it is for sustenance, and its dire need gives it a cruel look not seen in pets I have nurtured in the past.

I take the cream and banana bread from the refrigerator, mix a bit of each in a bowl, and slide the sweet mixture onto the ledge. The eager little thing presses her paw down on the lip and dips her head to take a sip of the sweet broth. The movement flips it over, spilling the contents, and the bowl shatters. The kitten leaps off the ledge to lap up what is left and then scrambles into the dense ivy encroaching the veranda.

The window is hopelessly warped and the rusted latch stuck, so I leave it ajar and exit the kitchen with my knife in hand. I catch a whiff of something burnt, the smell of sulfur from a lit match or a singed electrical cord, as I cross the parlor to the stairwell. The long tail of what must be an enormous rat disappears into the corner near the gilded mirror, as I watch my dwarfed image vanish inside the staircase.

The dangling bulb shatters and glass rain falls upon me as I move up the staircase. Darkness descends and the faint glow from the lamp in the parlor throws a vision of my shadow. I wipe away the slivers as I step along the dark corridor and crush the remnants into the scarred wood planks. The floorboards lend an eerie note to the profound silence. My footsteps echo, as though there are other feet walking closely behind me, footsteps very different from my bare feet—heavy shoes, the lumbering gait of a very large man! A jot of terror spikes the verve to twist and lunge with knife poised to strike. But the hallway is empty. The smiling faces of an international display of dolls stare out a partially open bedroom door. Inside the room, I notice one of the twin beds is mussed along the edge, as though someone was seated on the side facing the door.

The master bedroom door has no lock—it only holds a space for a key. I set my knife on the nightstand and move to the corner to drag an old railway trunk from where it is tucked beneath the window and shove it against the door. With the room well secured, I lean down to pull the covers to Sammy’s chin and kiss his flushed cheek.

The moon shines a pool of suffused light through the corner window and affords a muted rosy glow to the stuffy room. I move to the window, pull aside the frayed lace curtains and survey the grounds below. It is quiet, almost oppressively so. There are no signs of movement or activity outside. The moon seems to have grown in the waning hours and now looks as if painted an un-heavenly crimson. It glows through the gnarled branches of a massive old oak tree with a heavy rope tied around its trunk, peaking through the still leaves—a voyeuristic spy for some otherworldly god.

I am terribly sleepy and my head throbs and there is something dreamlike about all of this. I feel I might, at any moment, awaken in a featherbed splayed out on Egyptian cotton beneath a down comforter encased in silk, and look out a window dressed in festoons and jabots overlooking city lights—my husband sprawled beside me, the dog’s heavy torso squishing my toes, and my darling babies fast asleep in their beds.

There is a touch of the wicked in the full moon of a midsummer’s night. They say the spirit and soul awaken with the forces of nature and unleash closeted secrets and desires, best left locked safely away where they belong. Perhaps that is why I am filled with these terrors and mysterious feelings, and this unquenchable longing, an unbearable desire to feed my hungry heart.

But that is not all of it. There is more. Something inside this house terrifies me. A presence.

M
OMMY
, I’
M BLEEDING
. I’
M BLEEDING
M
OMMY
.”

“Calm down, Sammy. I’ll get a damp towel.” I clear our breakfast dishes from the table and move to the sink, where I run cold water over a dishrag. “Hold this towel over your nose and squeeze tight.

“A starving kitten appeared on the porch last night. I’m going to leave out our leftover food in case it returns to be fed.” I empty the remaining milk and banana bread into a bowl and place it on the edge of the breakfast table near the warped window. “We’ll be gone when the little cat returns, because I’ve decided we’re moving out of the house. Ruth will arrive soon to row us back to meet the children. You can rest on the bed upstairs while I pack.”

“Is this house haunted, Mom?”

“There is no such thing as a haunted house,” I say and take his hand. “They are just stories people make up. It’s sometimes fun to be scared when you’re in a safe place.”