"I don't understand. What followed them?"
"Not a person. Let's say that bad luck followed them. Very bad luck at that. The Markham family went all the way to France, but they were badly injured when the hotel elevator they were in suddenly plunged three floors into the basement. Ill luck picked up their scent and followed them… it happened to others, too. Mr. Ventor's youngest boy drowned in a ditchwater just eight inches deep. No one knew how it happened. And although the Ventors might not have known the exact circumstances of the death, they knew full well what caused it."
"You mean they ignored the letters that arrived just like these?"
"Yes. These came in the dead of night, didn't they? Weighted down with a piece of gravestone?"
John nodded as Dianne Kelly continued, "Today I saw Mrs. Booth from the house at the end. She told me about Keith Haslem."
"I saw him leaving in the village, too." John gave a humorless smile. "In fact he was in such a hurry he nearly ran me down."
"He received the letters, I imagine?"
"I found burnt paper in the bird bath. He'd obviously set fire to them, then he'd run for it."
"Foolish man." She looked at John. "You haven't heard what happened to him?"
"No, the last I saw of Keith he was tearing out of here like something was chasing him."
"Something did." She shook her head. "From what I gather, Keith Haslem stayed in a motel a good way from here. He was taking a shower when he suffered a stroke. Apparently, he was also badly scalded."
"He's alive?"
"But in something of a mess, I hear. He spent a long time in the hot water before he was discovered. He's going to need extensive skin grafts."
"Dear God," John whispered. The scraping noises grew louder, more frenzied beneath his feet. Something wanted out. He shivered.
"And it was no coincidence that poor Stan Price was struck down. And I use the phrase deliberately. Something sensed he was trying to warn me about its return. It directed that lightning bolt at the house as an assassin might direct a bullet from a gun."
"What happened to your father?"
"Three weeks after the first letter arrived came the third one. Asking-no demanding would be a better word-demanding that a red ball be left at the grave of Jess Bowen."
"Your father still ignored the letter?"
"No. This time natural instinct over-rode his usual rational self. You must remember he was still in a state of depression after being suspended from his duties. As well as depression, perhaps, desperation came to the fore. He didn't show me the letter, John. I never saw it, but I overheard him talking to mother about it. He kept repeating that a red ball that must be left at the grave. One morning I saw him leave the house with a red ball. Later I visited the cemetery with Stan Price. And…" The smile that twitched her mouth was grim. "Red balls. Dozens of red balls all clustered round the headstone." Her voice grew stronger, and she laid so much emphasis on every syllable it was as if she pushed rock solid words through her lips: "John Newton, believe me. When the letters come with their demands do not ignore them. You obey. You obey them to the word."
The scraping and scratching came again from the tunnel beneath the house. Talons rakingfurrows through the stone, clawing in fury. Something raging at the two for daring to speak about the letters… John fought the image from his mind. No, that was to be sucked into a pit of superstition… what next? Slit the throat of a lamb? Daub its blood on the stupid, sobbing statue at the Bowen's grave?
KREEEEEE!
The scream came up through the floor. A huge object must have been forced along the tunnel by the pressure of floodwater. John resisted the impulse to look through the observation glass to see what was passing beneath the house. He gave Dianne a colorless smile. "The stream's in flood… debris's being flushed through."
She didn't give the impression of agreeing or disagreeing. Instead she merely said. "I've heard the sound before, John."
Now he knew he had to hear the end of Dianne's story. "After the letter demanding the red ball… that was the end of it?"
"That was the end of the letters. At least my father didn't admit that any more had arrived. He'd given what the letter writer had demanded. A day later the school governors announced he was re-instated. But…" She shook her head. "Life wasn't the same. I think something had broken in my father's heart. He became very quiet, very unhappy. Once I saw him in the orchard. He was weeping."
"The letters had stopped arriving in the village?"
"I believe so. Everything returned to normal. But one morning I awoke to find my father and sister gone."
"Gone?"
"Vanished. My father had packed a case with his and Mary's clothes without mother or I knowing. Then the pair of them crept out in the middle of the night and…" She shrugged. Her eyes were dull with pain, recalling that morning seven decades ago.
John said, "I don't understand. The letters had stopped; why should your father leave like that?"
"I think the whole incident had poisoned my parents marriage. My father's orderly, twentieth century world had been turned upside down. I believe he decided to make a clean break."
"It's not unusual for a husband to leave home. But isn't it unusual for the husband to take one of the children with him?"
Again Dianne gave a little shrug. "Mary was his favorite. Perhaps leaving his youngest daughter behind was too much to bear."
"Where did they go?"
"We heard nothing for three days. Then a letter arrived from Liverpool. It was from my father, clearly it was his handwriting. It simply said he and Mary were leaving for a new life overseas. A little later we received a telegram from Canada. One terse sentence, stating Father and Mary were well; that Canada was beautiful and God Bless." Her voice had taken on a bitter edge. "That was the last we heard of him and Mary."
"You believe he really went to Canada?"
"Yes, I do. I guess he remarried as well. Of course that would be bigamous, but by then he'd have adopted a new identity and probably had begun teaching again." She sighed. "In my imagination I picture him living in a wooden house, painted a nice gleaming white. He listens to his opera on the radio. His new life continues nicely. He doesn't forget us but his memories grow dim. And he grows older. Mary marries. She has children. And although my father must have died years ago his grandchildren are still alive and well with families of their own in Toronto or Calgary or wherever. He'd even taken a photograph with him, one of us all together-mother, Mary, the dog and myself. We're standing by the front door of the house… my sister holding a doll I made her from… but that isn't important. Not any more."
John saw a bitter well of rejection in the old woman. She masked it well. But he imagined she asked herself time and time again: why had her father deserted them? Why had he chosen to take eight-year-old Mary-not Dianne?
John spoke with a real sympathy, "I'm sorry. It must be painful to talk about it."
"It is. Time will fade your clothes and the color of your hair but it doesn't fade memories like that." Her eyes glittered. "You know, John, you can't begin to feel how angry I feel. We were such a happy family. Then all those ties torn apart just like that." She clicked her fingers. "My mother died ten years later of a broken heart, I'm sure. She's buried in the old Necropolis, up in the Vale of Tears… isn't that a romantic name for what in effect is a dumping ground for our dead?" She finished her tea. The scraping sound continued beneath the floor. Every so often it became frenzied as if something fought its way to the surface. She chose to ignore it.
"So, there you have it, John," she told him. "Periodically, like an epidemic of some vile disease, Skelbrooke suffers an outbreak of these letters. They make trivial demands for chocolate, beer and children's toys. The repercussions, however, if you choose to ignore the demands are anything but trivial. Stan Price lost his mother. Our family disintegrated. Today Keith Haslem lies paralyzed in a hospital bed."
"But seventy years separate the letters your father received and the
ones that arrived just a few days ago." John picked up one of the letters. "Are you telling me that the same person wrote them? Whoever it is must be a hundred years old."
"John?" She sounded surprised as if he'd misunderstood some fundamental fact about the whole matter. "John. No human being wrote these letters."
"Then what did? Are you telling me it was a ghost?" Something like a grin appeared on his face, but it was closer to a spasm, a reflex action over which he had no control. "I don't believe in ghosts, Dianne."
"No, neither do I."
"I'm sorry, I don't understand."
"I don't understand either, John. None of us can. We can only feel. Do you follow? We feel what's happening at the level of animal instinct. Deep, deep down here." She pressed a hand to her heart. "These letters appear in cycles of every seventy years or so. They make their demands. The foolish ignore the demands then suffer the consequences. Those who are wise obey. As I said before it only requires the recipient of the letter to offer up some sacrifice of chocolate, beer, something trivial. In return they are spared heartache."
"But you're telling me that some supernatural force is creating these letters, then somehow delivering them? All in return for confectionery and beer. It strikes me-"
"John-"
He found himself angrily spitting out the words, "It strikes me you have some idiot demons round here."
"John-"
Down in the millrace the furious scratching soared to a crescendo.
God dammitt, it wanted out…
"John, please. It is difficult to explain," she said calmly despite the noise. "No, I'll go further than that. It is impossible to explain. Any more than you could explain the scientific cause of an eclipse or an earthquake to a Stone Age man. All I can suggest is suspend your disbelief for a moment, so we can use our imagination."
"But I-"
"No, bear with me. Darwin formulated the theory of evolution at an early age. It came to him in a flash of inspiration. But before he could go public he had to find proof to support his hypothesis. So he spent years collecting evidence for his theory to make it credible to the scientific community. Now, over the last seventy years I've thought long and hard about these letters, and about the ill fortune that befell not just the Kelly family but others who chose to ignore them. But like Darwin when he couldn't immediately prove his theory of evolution, I can't prove what I tell you now. Call it an exercise in imagination, John. But at that animal instinct level I believe, given a split hair or two, it is near as damnitt true."
The demonic scratching and scraping continued as she spoke-dark music to her words. She said, "I have a medical degree, I trained as a doctor to become one of society's warriors, if you will allow the conceit, to fight disease. And it is a strange battleground I can tell you. I have seen things that simply refuse to be explained by science. I have spoken to a healthy man in the street on a Saturday and have signed his death certificate on the Sunday. Killed by a virus that we can't even name. Maybe it had lain dormant in the dust of his attic for three hundred years. Maybe it floated down through the atmosphere from outer space. Who knows? On the other hand I've seen a child close to death with cancer, one who's had the last rites because our drugs and radiotherapy don't work anymore. I've even had the child's death certificate ready in my bag, but instead of being called to a dead child I find one that is rallying, whose eyes are brighter, who can ask for a drink of water. Then a month later I've seen the same child playing in the park. What has happened there?" Her voice was earnest, the words rapid, almost hypnotic.
"Remission?"
"Yes, we give it a scientific name: remission. But the bottom line is we don't understand what happened. Something, whether it's the child's guardian angel, Almighty God, or some natural biological defense system, has acted. The cancer withers; the patient recovers. And I, and the whole damned medical profession, haven't a clue what has really happened. All we do know is that the cancer has had its backside kicked." She knitted her fingers together. "Now. Five thousand years ago men and women watched the sun rise into the sky. They didn't know what was happening, so to somehow ease the pain of their ignorance they invented stories about gods riding a fiery horse through the sky by day, then stabling it at night. Believe me, John, there is something in Skelbrooke. A something no one can understand or even name. But it is here. It's more deeply rooted into the earth than those trees across there. In fact, It is probably older than the bedrock on which the village stands. In my imagination I see it living under the Necropolis hill. Maybe it can harness what remains of those thousands of dead minds for its own purposes. Who knows? But I see it there in my mind's eye: way, way underground, buried far below the deepest coffin. A formless mass of purple light that has grown like a cancer, spreading its roots out through the earth and into the foundations of our homes. For reasons best known to itself it forms letters-perhaps out of thin air for all we know. They arrive at night, they make demands. If the demands aren't met it has the power to turn lives into a living hell. Or it can even snuff them out completely."
"You mean it's some old god that still demands its tribute in sacrifice?"
"I wouldn't pretend that I know that much. Only that there is some essence or entity that has the power to demand gifts from us, and can inflict punishment if we ignore it."
"But why such trivial demands? Chocolate? Beer?"
"Perhaps what it demands isn't important. It might only crave that we acknowledge its power. Like a humble soldier saluting a general or an employee calling the boss 'Sir.' The gift might merely be a symbolic gesture that we recognize this thing's power over us."
He considered for a moment. "Does this thing have any connection with Baby Bones?"
"Baby Bones?" She gave a weak smile. "I haven't heard the name for a while. That's what local children call it. I've often wondered how the name originated. Whether it was simply invented by a child or if it derived from something else. After all, there are the remains of a five thousand-year-old settlement down by the village pond. I dare say this sinister little thing exerted its influence even then, and those Stone Age men and women had a name for it that might have even sounded like Baby Bones to our ears. Only the name became corrupted down through the centuries. Just as the Egyptian name for Set became corrupted to Satan." She looked at her watch. "Five o'clock. Is that the time? I must be away, otherwise I'll miss my train."
"Can I give you a lift to the station?"
"That's very generous, but no. I'm going to have a last look around the village." She sounded tired. "I don't intend coming back here. Too many memories. And these days they have a way of intruding on reality." She nodded toward the window. "When I look out now I can still see Mary on the garden swing, and the dog chasing butterflies." She glanced out and John saw her shiver. "And I can see my father up there in the orchard… with his head pressed to the tree, hiding his face the way he did when-oh, dear, John. There I go again." A tear formed in her eye. "Too many memories, young man. And they get harder to bear the older I get, so-" She took a breath. "So, last year I bought an apartment on a cliff-top with a lovely view of the sea. And that's where I'll stay until they carry me out."
"Thank you for coming all this way. And for telling me-"
"Telling you what, John? That an evil spirit lives under the Necropolis? That it writes menacing letters?" She shot him an appraising look. "Do you believe me, John?" A grim smile stretched her thin, old mouth. "No, don't answer that. You'll find some diplomatic answer for the old woman… but deep down you believe me, even though you'd deny it a hundred times. At least this week you will. But next week, who knows?"
Beneath the floor the scraping reached a wild frenzy. "If it is true, Dianne." He spoke carefully. "What do you suggest I do about the letters?"
The grim smile widened. "Well, for the sake of argument pretend what I have said is true. Then I suggest you do exactly as the letters ask. Meet their demands. If the letter asks for a shiny red ball then leave a shiny red ball on the Bo
wen grave. If it demands a new pair of shoes leave those too. Don't worry, John. The letters never ask for very much, our demon of the graveyard has modest tastes, but whatever you do, don't ignore the letters. The repercussions will be terrible. Trust me on that, John." She stood up. "And soon the letters will stop. Oh, they'll return again in seventy years, but you won't have to worry about that, will you?" She picked up her purse. "Thank you for the tea, young man. I'll say goodbye now." Before leaving she looked down at the letters. He realized she'd never once touched them. She nodded. "Same handwriting, too. Goodbye, John. Good luck."
A moment later she walked through the garden gate then turned left down the lane. He stood on the path to watch her go. She never looked back at her former home. And a few seconds later she had vanished from sight.
CHAPTER 20
What John Newton did next nearly cost him his life.
After watching Dianne Kelly walk away down the hill he turned back toward the house. The old woman had certainly given him something to think about. His reason rebelled at the idea of something-a demon, or spirit, or some malign intelligence under the hill-that had the power to create those letters from thin air then drop them into gardens. That was a difficult concept to swallow. But then some strange stuff was going down in Skelbrooke. Villagers had become withdrawn. Keith Haslem had fled as if he'd had Lucifer himself on his heels.
Okay, so Kelly received a number of mystery letters seventy years ago. And now similar mystery letters had arrived. They would be easy enough to forge, wouldn't they? He gazed at where the stream poured from the tunnel beneath the house. Hell, he should have been smarter. He should have asked the old lady if she still had the original letters addressed to her father. Also suspicion had begun to nag. Why did such an apparently loving father suddenly run out on the family after the letters stopped arriving? Sure, the man had been stunned by the suspension from his teaching job for heaven knows what reason. But he'd been reinstated. Surely Kelly knew that he was over the worst? That life would soon return to sunshine and roses.