Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 36, No. 6, June 1991

Summer Evil by Nora H. Caplan

The drive, almost obscured by flanking bridal wreath, lilacs, and forsythia, followed one boundary line of the property to a stone building that had once been a barn. Between that and the house was a boxwood hedge pruned to a height of six feet.

The house was built in the early 1830’s. It was a small, two story cottage of red brick with a slate roof and huge central chimney. Weathered green shutters framed the windows and recessed front door. Beyond the swell of pin oaks and pines sheltering the site lay Sugar Loaf Mountain. And beyond that, a hazy suggestion of the Catoctin range.

From the moment they first saw the house, Phyllis had a watchful feeling about it. As if she expected some major obstacle to prevent their buying it. But the price was incredibly within their means; Ben had no objection to driving thirty-five miles in to Washington; and the county school Kate would attend had a fine reputation.

One night shortly after they’d moved in, Phyllis and Ben were sitting on the steps of the back porch, watching Kate gather grass for a jarful of lightning bugs, her bangs damp with concentration. The sun had almost gone down, and there was a faint mist rising from the creek that crossed the back of their land. The air seemed to be layered with both warmth and coolness, pungent with sweet grass and pennyroyal.

“I’d feel a lot easier in my mind,” Phyllis said to Ben, “if we’d discover even one thing wrong about all this. People like us just don’t find one-hundred-twenty-five-year-old homes in perfect condition for twenty-three thousand.”

Ben folded the sports page and leaned back against her knees. “It’s pretty far out here, and most families wouldn’t consider a two bedroom house.” Then he added dryly, “Besides, I’ve never liked the way old houses smell. I noticed it about this one, too, right off.”

“I’ve told you a hundred times, it’s the boxwood. That’s what the smell is, not the house, darling. Anyway, you’ll have to get used to it. I have absolutely no intention of getting rid of that hedge. Mrs. Gastell said it’s as old as the house.”

Ben grinned as he turned and looked up at her. “Then would you at least trust me to spray it? There are spiderwebs all over the stuff.”

“You’d better check with that nurseryman first, just to be sure. What’s his name...” Phyllis pulled a letter from the pocket of her jamaicas and glanced through it. “Newton. He’s just this side of the bridge in Gaithersburg.”

“Who’s the letter from? The old lady?” Phyllis nodded. “What’d she have to say?”

“Oh, nothing much. Just that she’s getting settled, and she thinks she’ll like Florida. Every other word is about her granddaughter. I guess the real reason she wrote was to remind us to put in a new furnace filter this fall. A few other things like that.” Phyllis frowned. “There’s a part here at the end I couldn’t quite figure out.”

She handed Ben the letter.

He scanned the page and then handed it back. “What’s so mysterious about this? All old people take a proprietary air about everybody else’s kid. Personally, I don’t know why she’s so worried about the creek. It’s not more than a foot deep. There’s no danger of Kate’s getting drowned. And I haven’t seen any snakes down there — not up to now, I haven’t.”

“Well, it’s not only what she said in the letter. It’s the way she’s acted about Kate since she saw her. Almost as if she wouldn’t have sold the house to us if she’d known we had a child. But I’m sure I mentioned Kate to her the first time we came out with the agent.”

Ben lit a cigarette. “Maybe she thought Katie would tear up the place.”

“No, it wasn’t that. In fact, several times I told her how we’ve taken Kate to all kinds of museums and historic homes, and how she’s always been careful with valuable old things. But Mrs. Gastell hardly paid any attention at all to me. She kept saying Katie shouldn’t be allowed to wander all over the place by herself.”

Ben shrugged. “Mrs. Gastell’s seventy years old. People her age think we give our kids too much freedom. That’s all she meant.”

Their daughter had abandoned the lightning bugs and was now making hollyhock dolls, lining them chorus-fashion across the brick path to the grape arbor. Her shorts were grass-stained and the soles of her bare feet were already seasoned a greenish-rust. Ben reflected on her a moment and then he said, “I guess it will be hard on Katie, being alone so much now. It might be a good idea to get acquainted pretty soon with the people around here.”

Phyllis leaned her elbows on his shoulders. “That’s the trouble. Nobody on this road has children her age. But it’s only six weeks until school starts. And in the meantime, there’s plenty around here to keep her occupied. The two of us can start all kinds of projects. I can’t describe what a wonderful feeling it is, not to have people running in for coffee all day long or the phone ringing every ten minutes. Everybody knows this is a toll call, thank goodness. Maybe now I can start on the book.”

Ben stood up abruptly. “No, you don’t. Not after what you went through with that last story. Remember, you promised me you wouldn’t do a thing for the rest of the summer.”

She took his hand. “I didn’t mean anytime soon. I only meant now that we’ve moved. I promise not to write a word until we’re all settled and Kate’s in school.” She called to the child, “I’m going to start your bath now, so don’t be long.”

“In a minute,” Kate said automatically. “Daddy, come here. I made seven pink ones with white hats, and seven white ones with pink hats, and...”

Phyllis smiled and went into the kitchen. She turned on the brass lamp over the round pine table. The planked floor gleamed with a fresh coat of wax. It was a low ceilinged room, full of early morning sunshine and pine-shaded in the afternoon. Women years before her had stood at her window and cleaned berries, kneaded bread, stamped butter with a thistle-patterned mold. Perhaps the room had given them moments of completeness, as it gave her now when she poured milk into a brown earthenware pitcher and set it beside a bowl of tawny nasturtiums.

Then, as she was slightly bent over the table, one hand on the pitcher, Phyllis had the sensation that this room, the whole house, had an inexplicable fullness. That the very atmosphere had absorbed a century and a half of other lives. It reminded her of an incredible camera she had once read about — one that recorded, through heat radiations, images from the past, that were of course invisible to the naked eye. There was something about this house that seemed to retain, at times even emanate, certain... presences. And it was not a feeling that came from any conscious attempt to visualize previous occupants. Somehow this thought disturbed her.

She let go of the pitcher and went into the bathroom. The sound of water rushing from the faucet partially distracted her from whatever had bothered her and she dumped half a jar of bubble soap into the tub. Kate would love her extravagance.

The following day the Reverend Mr. White, rector of St. Steven’s Church, called. He had the same cheery roundness as a Toby jug, smoked good Havanas, and produced a box of licorice cough drops for Kate. Before he left, he told Kate to bring her parents to church Sunday. It’d be a good way for her to make new friends, too.

Until the mail came at eleven, Phyllis had planned to spend the afternoon with Kate, repainting her doll shelves. But she received a letter from her agent. Woman’s World was interested in her revised manuscript, but they had decided the climax was still weak. She felt a familiar, obsessive pressure to get the work finished as soon as possible.

“I’m sorry, darling,” she told Kate after lunch. “But I’m going to have to type for awhile.”

Kate’s gray eyes clouded. “I got everything ready out on the back porch.”

“I know, but I’d be all on edge if I tried to do anything before this gets done. You run on outside now. Take your dolls down to the arbor. Or ride your bike.”

“Couldn’t I start painting anyway? I’d be careful.”

“You’d have the whole porch smeared up and get paint all over your hair. Remember what happened the last time I left you alone with a paintbrush?” She pushed Kate away gently. “Go on, now. I’ll try not to be long.”

Phyllis had already taken the cover off the typewriter. She didn’t hear Kate leave the house and walk down the path to the creek.

Whether it was because she hadn’t written for weeks or because it was hard to concentrate in new surroundings, the story just wouldn’t come off right. Before she started the third draft, she looked at the clock. Five thirty, and she hadn’t even taken the meat from the freezer. Then she remembered Kate. Phyllis called upstairs and didn’t get an answer. She went out on the porch. Kate wasn’t in the arbor. She called louder.

Finally, from under the willows beside the creek, Kate appeared. She ran toward the house, pigtails flapping wildly. Phyllis hugged her. “I was beginning to get worried. Didn’t you hear me calling and calling you?”

Katie’s face was vibrant. “We were playing. Is dinner ready?” She pulled away from her mother and threw open the screen door.

Phyllis followed after her. “By the time you get washed and set the table, it will be.” As she was searching the refrigerator for something to fix in a hurry, she thought of what Kate had said. She asked curiously, “Were you playing with someone?”

Katie turned toward her with a handful of silver, and her eyes glowed. “Her name’s Letty. She’s just my age. Seven and a half. Only her birthday’s in December. I guess that makes her a little bit older.”

Phyllis sliced some cheese. “Where does she live?”

“I don’t know,” Kate said. “But she showed me how to make a cat’s-cradle. It’s a trick you do with string. Want me to show you?”

Her fingers were still grubby.

“Young lady, you were supposed to wash your hands.”

“I did.”

“Well, take another look. And use plenty of soap this time.”

She heard Ben pull into the drive. She hoped he was in a good mood. As a rule, he didn’t like grilled cheese sandwiches for dinner.

Kate didn’t mention her doll shelves the following day. Right after breakfast, she told her mother that she was going down to the creek. Letty might be there. In a way, Phyllis was glad. She could have the morning free to work without any twinges of guilt over Katie’s having nothing to do. She wrote until noon.

Katie came in long enough to wash down a peanut butter sandwich with lemonade. Then she wanted to be off again, telling her mother before she left, “Letty said she might have to go into Washington City tomorrow to visit her aunt. So we’re trying to finish our doll house this afternoon. Can I take her some cookies?”

Phyllis wrapped a handful in a paper napkin. A phrase Katie had used reverberated queerly. “Did Letty mean her aunt lives in Washington, D.C.?”

The girl stuffed two plastic cups into a paper bag. “I guess so. Letty says she loves to go there. Her mother always packs a lunch and they stop off by the canal locks to eat. I asked her if I could go, too, but she said there wouldn’t be room.” Kate filled the thermos with milk. “What’s a gig, Mommy?”

Phyllis hesitated. “It’s some kind of carriage, I think. Why?”

Kate started past her. “Oh. Well, I’d better go now.”

Phyllis caught at her arm. “Look, why don’t you bring Letty up here to play? You’d have lots of fun, showing her all your things. I feel funny about the two of you being down there all alone.”

“Why do you feel funny? You could hear us if anything happened.” Then she said evasively, “Letty’s kind of shy. I already asked her to come inside, but she won’t. She said her mother wouldn’t like it.”

Phyllis snapped, “What does her mother think we are, anyway? I never heard of anybody being so... so provincial.”

Katie squirmed. “Letty’s not like that. She’s nice. Honest, she is.”

Her mother released her. “All right, but don’t go any farther away than the creek.”

Perversely, now she wished Kate weren’t so wrapped up in this other child. She felt like taking a break herself. It would be nice for the two of them to work in the garden or bake something special like eclairs. There weren’t any excuses now for not being with her daughter as much as she liked. Phyllis poured another cup of coffee. She stared at the white linen curtains in the living room gently breathing in, then out against the low sills. Finally, she went back to the typewriter.

Later she decided to walk down to the creek. She could hear Kate chattering away. When she pushed aside the trailing willow branches, she saw only her child.

Kate looked up. “Hi. Letty just went over to the woods to get some more ferns. See, we’re making a rock garden...”

Eddies were still swirling in the stream from a recent wading, but Phyllis couldn’t detect any movement among the trees beyond.

For a time, Kate was eager to tell her mother and father all about Letty. Gradually, however, she divulged less and less. She sensed that something about her friend made her mother uneasy.

“I’d swear this child was all in her imagination,” Phyllis told Ben one night as they were getting ready for bed. “But she’s really there... or was, until I show up. I mean, the things they do together are really there. Like checkers and doll dishes and scrapbooks.”

Ben surveyed his face in the mirror. He leaned closer. “More gray hairs. ‘Will you love me in December as you do in May?’ ”

Phyllis put down her face cream. “Haven’t you been listening?”

He turned around. “Sure, I have. It just seems to me that you’re the one with the imagination, not Kate. This friend of hers is all right, I guess. From what I gather, her folks must belong to some kind of offbeat religious sect or something. You know how strict they are with their kids. They’re pretty slow about taking up with outsiders, too.”

“I never thought of that.” Phyllis massaged her face.

Ben got into bed and folded his arms behind his head. “Why don’t you take Kate into town tomorrow? Have lunch at Garfinckel’s and go to a movie.”

She turned out the light. “Maybe I’ll do that if I can tear her away from Letty.”

He pulled her into the curve of his arm. “See, you’re tired of country living already. All I had to do was mention town, and you’re ready to go.”

She didn’t rise to the bait. Her voice was unsure. “Nothing’s ever the way you think it’s going to be.” A car passed on the road. Then, except for the frogs down in the creek, there was no sound other than the soft brush of a pine bough against the window. Phyllis moved closer to Ben. He seemed to be asleep already, and she wouldn’t wake him just to say she was afraid, for no particular reason.

The trip to town had to be called off. Kate was listless the next morning and complained of a headache. Phyllis was almost relieved. Now she could insist on Kate’s staying indoors. She walked with Ben to the car.

“I don’t think it’s anything serious,” she said, “but Kate is running a fever so I’ll call the doctor. The Warrens told me the name of a good pediatrician near Poolesville.”

He kissed her and turned on the ignition. “Give me a ring after lunch. I’m sorry about today, honey. It would’ve done you both a lot of good to get away for a change.”

She smiled. “I don’t mind. Kate and I can watch TV, and I’ll make something special for lunch.”

But Kate was irritable all day, and her fever rose that afternoon. She talked about Letty incessantly. She was obsessed with the idea that Letty might never come back. By the time the doctor arrived, Phyllis was exhausted. He reassured her. “I think she’s getting German measles. I’ve had a dozen cases within the last week. Just give her aspirin and keep her in bed for a few days.”

He was right. By Tuesday Kate was almost well. Phyllis remembered a dinner party she’d promised they would attend on Wednesday. She wanted to cancel it, but Ben said, “Kate’s all right now. Why don’t you ask Mrs. Warren to come over and watch her. You told me she’d offered to sit for us.”

Phyllis agreed reluctantly. Just before they left, she told Mrs. Warren, “Please call us if anything comes up. I feel uneasy about leaving her.”

The older woman propelled her toward the door. “Go on and enjoy yourselves. I brought up six children. Katie and me’ll make out just fine.”

It was almost eleven when they returned. Mrs. Warren was asleep, completely erect in the wing chair. Phyllis tiptoed over to her.

The woman’s eyes flew open. She got up hastily. “Didn’t even hear you come in,” she said. “I’m so used to going to bed at sundown, I must’ve dozed off.”

“I’m sorry we’ve kept you up so late.” Phyllis glanced up the stairs. “How’s Kate?”

“Not a peep out of her since I tucked her in.”

After Ben drove off with Mrs. Warren, Phyllis went upstairs. Just as she reached the landing, she saw the light go out under Kate’s door. Before she even entered the room, she was sure something was off balance. “You’re playing possum, missy,” she whispered in the dark. The child didn’t answer. Phyllis turned on the bedside lamp.

Kate’s eyes were enormous, her mouth fixed in a tight, unnatural smile. She lay rigid, the covers pulled up to her chin.

Phyllis sat down on the bed. “What’s the matter, honey?” She touched Kate’s forehead. It was cool.

“I’m all right.” Kate flinched under her hand.

She folded back the sheet and blanket and said lightly, “Well, you’ll smother, all bundled up like that.”

Kate fumbled at the collar of her pajamas, but Phyllis saw what she was trying to conceal — a string of red beads. She took Kate’s hand away, and inspected the strand. It was coral, curiously strung in an even pattern of six large, then six small beads. “Where did you get this?”

The child avoided her eyes. “Letty gave it to me. She said it’d keep me from getting the pox.”

“Keep you from...” Phyllis drew in her breath sharply. But all the doors had been locked and there were screens on the windows.

Kate took one of her braids and rolled the rubber band on its end back and forth between her thumb and forefinger. “Letty was afraid you might get mad at her. But all we did was play. I promised to sleep late tomorrow.” She added as Phyllis stared dully at her, “Look what Letty made for me. Isn’t it neat?”

Phyllis took the paper doll. It was crudely drawn, but there were certain significant details. The hair wasn’t penciled in exaggerated curls; it was shown parted in the middle and knotted on top. Even the features were strange. There had been no attempt, obviously no knowledge of how, to indicate mascaraed eyelashes or a conventionally full, lipsticked mouth.

She turned it over. There was printing on the back. It appeared to be an advertisement of a sale, probably livestock. The paper was cheap rag that would yellow quickly, but it was now crisp and white, the type starkly black. Then she saw two words that formed part of the doll’s shoes. Healthy wench. She felt nauseated as she realized that this wasn’t a handbill for a cattle auction at all.

Phyllis could only ask, “Where did Letty get this paper? Was it something she found in an attic or...” She faltered, then repeated, “Where did she get this piece of paper?”

Kate took the doll from her and smoothed down the upward curl of the slippers. Quite easily she said, “In town. Last week. A man in the market was passing them out to everybody. Letty’s father got her a whole bunch to draw on. She gave me some, too. Look.”

But Phyllis knew that a sheaf of slave auction circulars and a nineteenth century paper doll and a coral talisman were not enough to convince Ben. No matter how much evidence was presented to him, he would never accept the fact that there could be no scientific explanation for Letty. Nor would anyone else. Except perhaps Mrs. Gastell.

The real significance of the episode, though, was that Letty had ventured into the house for the first time. Having once achieved this, she would become more and more sure of herself until...

From that night on, Phyllis resolved never again to mention the name Letty or refer to her in any way — at least not to Kate. She thought that if she refused to accept Letty’s existence, eventually Kate would, also. She tried to keep her daughter occupied as much as possible. But if she took a shower or tried to write a letter, Kate slipped down to the creek. Always Phyllis would discover her alone, with a look of annoyance on her face that Letty and she had been interrupted.

“We’ll just have to move, that’s all,” Phyllis told Ben finally. “I can’t keep this up much longer.”

He handed her a tall gin and tonic. “I still think you’re making too much out of the whole thing. You know what vivid imaginations kids have. This is probably just Kate’s way of compensating for the lack of other children to play with. I don’t doubt at all that Letty is real to her, but for you to accept her as some kind of ghost is...” Ben took her hand and rubbed it between his. “It’s unhealthy, honey.”

There was no sensation of warmth in her hand. She said tonelessly, “Yesterday I found... there’s a grave in St. Steven’s churchyard. It’s hers... Letty’s. She died of smallpox in 1844. She was only eight years old.”

Ben studied the slice of lemon drifting sluggishly around the bottom of his drink. She was too numb even to speculate on what he was thinking.

Indirectly, it was Mr. White who provided a solution. Phyllis had invited him to dinner one night in late August. Afterwards they went out to the back porch, and he lit a panatella. The aroma of it blended with the smell of wild honeysuckle from the woods. He began a discussion on ancient rites of the church. One that he mentioned pricked Phyllis into complete awareness. Exorcism. The driving away of evil spirits.

She leaned forward. “Mr. White, would it be possible for such a rite to be performed now... in the present day?”

Ben spoke up, “Phyllis, I don’t think...”

Mr. White removed his cigar. “There’s nothing the matter with a question like that at all. In fact, exorcism has always fascinated me. The last case I remember reading about occurred... let me see...”

Phyllis interrupted, “But could it be practiced now? Could you... could any clergyman perform it?”

His eyes behind the silver-rimmed glasses grew very thoughtful. “A great deal of evidence must be presented to prove that such an act should be performed. It is a very serious step. There are certain dangers involved.”

She said clearly, “But exorcism is possible.”

“In very rare instances, yes.”

It could have been the very stillness that made Phyllis certain that Letty had heard and understood.

After Ben had left the following morning, Kate lingered at the table, slowly eating the last crumbs of a blueberry muffin. With her eyes still on the plate, she said to her mother, “What’s exorcism?”

Phyllis’s instant reaction was, “How did you happen to ask that?”

The child lifted her face. She went on in the same carefully controlled tone of voice, “If you exorcise somebody, does it hurt?”

Her mother stooped and held her close. “Of course not, darling. It’s just a ceremony, a very serious one that has to do with driving away... something harmful. Who told you...”

Kate interrupted, looking directly into her eyes, “And they’d never come back? The person you make go away?”

Phyllis nodded. “We hope so.”

Kate was silent a moment and then she said matter-of-factly, “But you don’t have to worry about Letty any more. She’s already gone away.”

Without further explanation, Kate reached for another muffin and went into the living room to watch the nine o’clock cartoon show. Dumbfounded, Phyllis arose from beside the chair, and crossed the room to the doorway. For a time she stood there, watching Kate’s profile. But the child was absorbed in the program, nothing else.

A few days before school began, Mrs. Warren dropped by with a little girl. She called into the kitchen, “Anybody home? I brought somebody for you to meet.” She put an arm around both Kate and the other child. “This here’s Judy Davis. She’s the daughter of my new dairyman. I been telling her all about you, and how you’ll be taking the school bus together.”

The two children sized each other up, and then Kate said, “Want me to show you some of my dolls?”

That evening as Ben was helping her with the dishes, Phyllis glanced through the window to the grape arbor where Kate and her new friend were engrossed in coloring books. She handed Ben a plate. “Kate’s room is a shambles, but I couldn’t care less. They’ve had such a marvelous time all afternoon.”

Judy put down a crayon and blew a wisp of blonde hair away from her eyes. “Wasn’t this a good idea? I wish we’d thought of it sooner.”

Kate agreed, “Mm-mmm.”

The other child deliberated over a picture. Then she said, “I think I’ll color her breeches green, dark green.”

Kate popped her bubble gum in disgust. “Listen, if I can remember to call you Judy, you’d just better learn to say slacks. You want to get me in trouble again?”