“Be what?” Ryan pressed.
Mildred spoke. “I know what Doc is getting at. We’re closer to sharing experiences than any of you.” Her voice faded a little and Ryan figured she had to have turned away to address the old man directly. “No such things, Doc. You got a lot of faults, but superstitious gullibility isn’t among them.” She paused for a beat. “Or is it?”
“I share the beliefs of the master of mystery, Sherlock Holmes, my dear Dr. Wyeth. If you have carefully checked off all the possibilities, then what remains, however unlikely, must of necessity be the truth.”
Nobody else in the group had the least idea what Doc and Mildred were arguing about.
Ryan tried for an explanation. “Just what the dark night are you two saying is the reason for this Family member not appearing in the film?”
“Something he was wearing,” Forde said abruptly. “The totally dark black clothes in sunshine. Some trick of the light, I guess. Just didn’t register on the stock. After all, it’s way past its expiry date. Like a hundred years past it. Got to be that. Or something like that.”
Ryan felt the unease, and he raged inwardly at his own helplessness, unable to see what they had all seen and judge for himself.
“Well,” he said finally, “if we’re all content with that explanation for this oddhappening, I guess we can all get going for supper at this big house on the bluff. We must be way late already.”
“Better to be a few minutes late in this world than fifty years too soon in the next,” Doc said.
Nobody could think of anything to top that, so they all set off for the Cornelius mansion.
Chapter Twenty-Two
“Incredible house, lover.”
“Tell me.”
“Victorian Gothic by the look of it. Real big place. All towers, turrets, spikes and spires. Stained glass at some of the windows. Perched on the top of a high scarp that drops down sheer to the river. Must be five hundred feet if it’s an inch. And there can’t be more than a few yards between the house and the edge of the cliff.”
“Like the House of Usher just waiting for the word to fall,” Doc added.
“More like the Bates Motel in that old horror film,” Mildred said.
“Defended?”
Through her hand on his arm, Ryan felt Krysty shake her head. “Can’t tell from this far off. Not by moonlight. There’s a steep snake-back trail leading up to it.”
“Looks ghostly, Dad.”
“No such things as ghosts, son. People mix them up with memories.”
KRYSTY FINGERED the fire-opal pendant as they waited for the huge oak front door to open, noticing out of the corner of her eye that Mildred was doing the same with her small golden crucifix.
Close up, the building was even more impressive than it had been from below in the river valley. Krysty guessed that the cliff had been the result of one of the violent earth movements that had followed the bombardment of the country by thousands of nuke missiles. All over Deathlands, gorges had become mountains, lakes turned into deserts and towering mountains flattened and moved many miles.
Now, in the heart of the level lowlands of the Louisiana bayous, there was this razor-edged escarpment. She wondered whether the house had been built later in such a perilous position or whether it had always been there.
It looked so solid that it could have been there two or three hundred years.
Doc rapped on the door with the silver lion’s-head hilt of his ebony swordstick, the echoes fading away. “Some hosts!” he snorted. “They invite us to bed and board bawdy beds and bawds that bore you Boarding schools and bedding plants. Ready beds and” He realized that his mind had done its familiar trick of slipping a few notches sideways. “My apologies, gentles all, for my addled pate.”
“Don’t worry, Doc,” Ryan said. “Any sign of lights anywhere in the place?”
Jak answered. “Plenty. Most windows got light. Lamps in porch overhead. Oil, not electric.”
“Feel anything, lover?” he asked.
Krysty was silent for a few moments. “Yeah. There’s some people around, all right. Quite a few. But there’s also No, I don’t get it.”
“Get what?” Forde asked. Behind him the two horses were restless in the shafts of the wag, shuffling and whickering uncomfortably.
“Just there’s a kind of feeling that I’ve never known before. Can’t spell it out.”
“Why’re your animals spooked, Forde?” Ryan asked. “Cougar close by?”
“Could be anything. Wolves, mebbe. Mebbe bein’ out so late at night. Normally bedded down long before now.”
“What’s the time, J.B.? Feels to me something like nine or ten o’clock.”
“Close,” the Armorer replied. “Twenty after ten. Hey, sounds like someone’s coming.”
Krysty, still holding Ryan by the arm, looked up, struck once more by the peculiar size of the door. It was solid oak, with bars of iron running across it and dozens of heavy iron studs dotting its surface. It looked strong enough to resist a direct attack by anything short of a nuke gren.
Now Krysty looked at the rest of the building, noticing that all the windows were covered with thick bars of cold gray iron, some with oaken shutters.
“This place is like a fortress, lover,” she said quietly, giving him quick whispered details.
Meanwhile, there was the heavy, sonorous sound of massive bolts being drawn and the tumblers of sec locks being turned. But the door still remained firmly closed.
“Come on,” Dean moaned. “I can feel my backbone rubbing on my belly.”
“Probably all the food’s gone,” Mildred teased. “They’ll have gotten tired of waiting.”
“Oh, no.”
The door began to move, very slowly, soundlessly, on oiled hinges.
“Shouldn’t we be on red?” J.B. whispered to Ryan.
“Bit late for that.”
The voice was light and feminine. “You are the outlanders from Bramton. We have been expecting you for some time. We heard of the accident to you, Ryan and Krysty, so we knew that you would be somewhat tardy.”
Krysty leaned close to Ryan so that he could feel her sweet breath in his ear. “Little guy in rich velvets and faded brocades with a frizzed up mane of white hair. Looks to be around eighty. Very delicate, and I’d guess that he pitches and bats, as well, if you know what I mean, lover.”
“Guessed that from the voice.”
“Come in, come in. My name is Norman and I am butler to the Family.”
“How about the rig and the horses?” Forde asked. “You got stabling?”
“You are the man with the magic lantern, are you? Delighted, Mr. Forde. Just leave everything as it is. It will all be taken care of. Now, follow me.”
Ryan stumbled on the raised step as Krysty led him forward, but kept his balance. The door closed softly behind them, and he was aware of a strange stillness in the air.
Almost like that inside a tomb.
“Dinner will be served in the main dining room, which is halfway along the hall to your right. You will find your names printed upon cards.”
“Where’s Elric and the rest of the Family?” Mildred asked. “They eating with us?”
Norman’s answer came as smooth as cream. “I regret that most of the Family have medical conditions that necessitate their having special diets. Vegetarian and that sort of thing. I’m sure you understand. They prefer to dine alone so that their ‘special’ needs don’t spoil the pleasure of dining for others. But I believe that Master Elric may join you later.”
Ryan’s auditory senses were confused. He could tell that they were in a high, vaulted hallway, yet there was none of the echo that you might expect.
“Are there heavy drapes around the ceiling?” he asked Krysty. “Something’s muffling the noise.”
“No, nothing, lover.”
The butler had caught the whispered exchange. “Is there a question?”
Krysty laughed. “No. Just telling Ryan what a chore housework must be in a place this size.”
The man gave a lilting giggle. “Oh, dear, madame. I must tell you what I tell all of the ladies. The good news about housework. The gospel according to Norman. Don’t bother dusting, and after three years the dust stops getting any thicker.”
THE FOOD WAS ONLY a little better than adequate. The vegetables were considerably overcooked, leaving them limp and soggy.
“Bit like Norman,” had been Dean’s bad-taste joke on the subject.
By contrast, the meat was served almost raw, the chill of the abattoir barely removed.
“This bloody?” Ryan asked, struggling to cut through a piece of what Krysty assured him was lamb. It came with bullet-hard roast potatoes, watery cabbage and mushy peas. And a delicious and delicate mint jelly.
“Red as Jak’s eyes,” J.B. replied.
Ryan leaned to be closer to Krysty, pitching his voice low. “What’s the sec side of the ville look like?”
“Not many servants, and not one of them carrying any kind of weapon. Most of them are bringing in the food and stuff like that, looking as if they’ve been at the loco weed. Or been doped up on jolt for the last two years.”