Death Trance

Twenty

It was raining in torrents when we drove out to Dracut County to talk to old man Duglass Evelith. The sky was an unrelenting gray, like layers of sodden flannel, and the rain just kept on pouring and pouring until I thought it would never end, all year; that Massachusetts would never be dry again.

The three of us went in my car — myself, Edward, and Forrest Brough. Jimmy Carlsen had wanted to come, but at the last moment his mother had insisted that he go over to Cambridge for Sunday lunch to meet his cousins from Arizona. 'Jimmy's mother is one of those ladies who won't take no for an answer,' explained Forrest, as we drove through the rain.

'Show me a mother who will,' replied Edward; and I thought, with sadness and regret, of Constance Bedford. Walter had called me this morning and told me that she was still in intensive care, and that the doctors at Granite-head Clinic were extremely reticent about her chances of survival. 'Overwhelming psychological and physiological trauma,' they had diagnosed.

So far, I hadn't yet told Edward or Forrest about the grisly events of the previous night. I needed to think them all out for myself before I discussed them with anybody, particularly with anybody as opinionated as Edward. I would tell them, later today or early tomorrow, but right at the moment my mind was still a clamour of rushing apparitions, opening graves, and shattered eyeballs. I couldn't make any sense of what had happened, and I didn't want to confuse myself any further by attempting to rationalize it. This had all gone way beyond Dr Rosen's 'post-bereavement hysteria.' This was another world, another existence, more mystical and more powerful than anything that doctors or psychiatrists could handle; and if I was going to be able to do anything at all for Jane or Neil Manzi or any of those hundreds of restless spirits who had pursued me last night, then I was going to have to understand it clearly, without prejudice or easy assumptions.

'Entry into the region of the dead is by succession…' The way Jane had said that, it was almost as if she had been reading from a book. 'You are always called by the relative who died immediately before you.' Those words reinforced my earlier opinion that the deaths that had been taking place in Granitehead were a summoning, the dead beckoning the living, a kind of séance in reverse, with tragic and often gruesome consequences.

At least I knew one thing now: that I myself was charmed and protected by my unborn son. Perhaps not against the full strength of the force which lay within the David Dark, but certainly against Jane.

I felt bitter, as I drove; bitter and tired. I also had a terrible sense of impotence and defeat, as if nothing that I was able to do would help to put Jane to rest. Knowing that her spirit was trapped in that hideous limbo with all those rotting and skeletal apparitions was far worse than knowing that she was dead. The pain was greater, the feeling of loss which I was already suffering was heightened by a feeling of helplessness and despair.

I played Brahms on the car's tape deck to calm me down, and talked with Edward and Forrest about Gilly McCormick, and music, and the David Dark, and Gilly McCormick.

'Is she stuck on you?' asked Edward, as we drove into the outskirts of Burlington.

'Gilly, you mean?'

'Who else?'

'I don't know,' I told him. 'I suppose we do share a certain vague rapport.'

'You hear that?' said Forrest. 'A certain vague rapport. That's educated talk for "we're just good friends".'

Edward took off his spectacles and polished them with a crumpled-up Kleenex. 'I have to admire your speed, John. When you want something, you certainly go straight in there and get it.'

'She's an attractive girl,' I replied.

'Well, sure she is,' said Edward, and I thought I detected a hint of jealousy in his voice.

Forrest, leaning forward in the back seat, gripped Edward affably on the shoulder. 'Don't you worry about Edward,' he said. 'Edward's been in love with Gilly McCormick ever since he first set eyes on her.'

We took a right at Burlington, turning off 95 and heading north-west on 93. The car splashed through sheets of puddles, and sloughed through roadside floods. The windshield wipers kept up a steady, rubbery protest and raindrops hovered on the side windows like persistent memories that refused to let go.

Edward said, 'Do you know that Brahms used to play piano in dancehalls and dockside saloons?'

Forrest said, 'That's nothing. Prokofiev used to cook sukiyaki.'

'What the hell does that have to do with Brahms playing in dance-halls?' Edward demanded.

'For Christ's sake, you two,' I put in. 'I don't think I'm quite in the mood for arcane academic arguments.'

They both fell silent as we drove through the rain towards Dracut County. Then Edward said, 'Is that true? About the sukiyaki I mean?'

'Sure,' said Forrest. 'He learned how to cook it when he went to Japan. He never liked sushi, though. It made him compose in key.'

We reached Tewksbury five or ten minutes after noon. It was only a small community, and Edward was quite sure that he could remember where the Evelith house was, but all the same we spent another ten minutes driving around and around the green, looking for the front gates. An elderly man was standing by the side of the green in a full-length waterproof cape and a fisherman's sou'wester, and he watched us gravely as we passed him for the third time.

I pulled in to the side of the road. 'Pardon me, sir. Can you direct me to a house called Billington?'

The elderly man came forward, and stared into the car like a country policeman who suspected us of being beatniks, or radicals, or big-city insurance salesmen.

The Evelith place? That what you want?'

'That's right, sir. We have an appointment to see Mr Duglass Evelith at twelve o'clock.'

The elderly man reached under his raincape and produced a pocket-watch. He opened the case and peered at it through the lower half of his bifocals. 'In that case, you're going to be late. It's thirteen minutes after.'

'Could you just direct us, please?' asked Edward.

'Well, it's easy enough,' said the elderly man. 'Follow this road around to the other side of the green, then take a left by that maple.'

Thank you,' I told him.

'Don't thank me,' the elderly man said. 'I wouldn't go in there if you paid me.'

'The Evelith place? Why not?'

'That place is bad fortune, that's what that place is. Bad fortune, and ill luck; and if I had my way I'd see it burned down to the cellars.'

'Oh, come on, now,' said Edward. He was obviously trying to coax the old man to tell us more. 'Mr Evelith's a recluse, that's all. That doesn't mean to say that there's anything spooky about his house.'

'Spooky, you call it? Well, let me tell you something, son, if you want to see anything spooky, you ought to go past the Evelith place one summer night, that's what you ought to do. And if you don't hear the weirdest noises you ever b6ard, groanings and roarings and suchlike, and if you don't see the most peculiar lights dancing around on the rooftops, then you can come back to me and I'll give you dinner, free of charge, and your fare back to wherever it is that you come from.'

'Salem,' said Forrest.

'Salem, hey?' asked the elderly man. 'Well, if you're Salem folks, you'll know what kind of thing it is that I'm talking about.'

'Groanings and roarings?' asked Edward.

'Groanings and roarings,' the elderly man affirmed, without explaining any more.

Edward looked at me and I looked back at Edward. 'Everybody still game, I hope?' I asked. Edward said, 'Sure. Forrest?' And Forrest replied, 'I'm game. What's a little groaning and roaring?' Edward said, 'You forgot the peculiar lights.'

We thanked the elderly man, put up the car windows again, and drove around the green. Past the spreading maple tree, almost hidden by creepers and unkempt bushes, we found the high wrought-iron gates of Billing-ton, the house in which the Evelith family had lived since 1763. Edward said, There it is. I don't know how I could have forgotten where it was. I could have sworn it was further along the green the last time I came here.'

'Spookier and spookier,' grinned Forrest.

I stopped the car outside the gates and climbed out. Beyond the gates, there was a wide gravel driveway, and then a fine white 18th-century mansion, with a pillared doorway, green-painted shutters, and a gray-shingled mansard roof with three dormer windows. Most of the shutters on the first floor were closed, and I wasn't particularly gratified to see a brindled Doberman standing not far away from the steps which led up to the front door, watching me closely with its ears pricked up.

The bell-pull's over here,' said Edward, and tugged at a black iron handle which protruded from one of the gateposts. We heard a very faint jangling sound inside the house, and the Doberman trotted a little way towards the gates, and then stopped again, and stared at us ferociously.

'Are you good with dogs?' Edward asked me.

'I'm wonderful with dogs,' I assured him. 'I just lie there and cower and let them devour me. Nobody has ever complained to the American Kennel Club about the way I've treated dogs.'

Edward glanced at me acutely. 'Something on your mind?' he asked me.

'Does it show?'

'If you're not making flippant remarks, you're totally silent. Did you see your wife again last night?'

‘I’ll tell you later, okay?'

'It was that bad?' Edward asked me.

'It was worse.'

Edward came over and unexpectedly took hold of my hand. 'Tell us when you're ready to tell us,' he said. 'But just remember that you don't have to carry this thing on your own. You've got friends now, people who understand what's going on.'

'Thanks,' I said, and meant it. 'Let's see where we get with old man Evelith first. Then we'll go get drunk, and I'll tell you what happened.'

We waited for almost five minutes. Forrest got out of the car, too, and lit a cigarette. Edward rang the bell again, and the Doberman came a little closer, and yelped and yawned all in one breath.

'Maybe they're out,' suggested Forrest.

'The guy's a hermit, he never goes out,' said Edward. 'He's probably peering at us through a crack in one of the shutters, sizing us up.'

He was about to ring the bell for the third time when the front door of the house suddenly opened, and a tall broad-shouldered man in gray morning-dress appeared. He whistled sharply to the dog, which turned its head, hesitated, and then loped disconsolately away from the gates, as if it was deeply disappointed that it wouldn't get the chance to sink its teeth into our calf-muscles.

The broad-shouldered man approached the gates with the slightly-rolling walk of a 60-year-old body-builder. The same way that Charles Atlas used to walk. When he came close, I saw that he was an Indian; with a magnificent fleshy nose and a face as coppery and wrinkled as a fallen maple-leaf. Although he wore full morning-dress, with a high white collar and a bow-tie, he also wore a long necklace of painted nuts or beads, from which was suspended a silver medallion and a brush of wild turkey feathers. The shoulders of his jacket sparkled with rain.

'You must leave,' the Indian said. 'You are not welcome here.'

'Well, that's too bad,' I told him. 'The fact of the matter is, I have a little something that Mr Evelith may be interested in.'

'There is no-one of that name here. You must leave,' the Indian repeated.

'Would you just tell Mr Evelith that my name is John Trenton, that I am an antique dealer from Granitehead, and that I have with me a writing-case that used to belong to Henry Herrick, Sr., who was one of the jurors at the Salem Witch Trials.'

'There is no-one called Evelith here.'

'Come on, pal,' I coaxed him. 'All you have to do is say "Henry Herrick's writing case." If Mr Evelith still doesn't want to see us after you've said that, well, we'll call it quits. But at least give him the opportunity to take a look at it. It's a very rare antique, and I just knew that Mr Evelith would be interested.'

The Indian thought about this for so long that Edward and I started to look at each other worriedly. But at last he said, 'Stay here, please, gentlemen. I will confer with my superior.'

'Confer,' said Forrest, pretending to be impressed. They don't pow-wow any more. They confer. Next thing we know, they'll be using "aggressively-oriented cosmetics", instead of war-paint.'

'Can it, Forrest,' said Edward.

We waited outside the gates for a further five minutes, maybe longer. The rain had settled down to a fine drizzle by now, but it was still heavy enough to plaster our hair against our heads, and bedraggle Edward's beard. Every now and then, the Doberman, which was waiting for us just out of savaging range, gave itself a brisk and anticipatory shake.

Eventually, the tall Indian came out of the house again, and without a word, unlocked the gates and opened them up. I went to the back of the car, and took out the Herrick writing-case, tucking it under my raincoat so that it wouldn't get wet. The Indian waited until we were all inside the grounds, and then locked the gates behind us. The Doberman quivered as we passed, torn between the command it had been given and its natural bloodlust. Forrest said, 'Throw it a leg, Edward. It looks hungry.'

We climbed the stone steps to the front door, and the Indian ushered us inside. The hallway was panelled in dark oak; with a dark hand-carved staircase on the right-hand side, leading to a galleried landing. On the walls were oil paintings of all the Eveliths, from Josiah Evelith in 1665 to Duglass Evelith in 1947. They were serious, oval-faced, without a smile between them.

The Indian said, 'Upstairs. I will take your coats.'

We handed him our raincoats, and after he had hung them up on a huge and hideous hallstand, we followed him up the uncarpeted stairs. On the walls of the landing there were halberds and pikes, fowling-pieces and strange arrangements of metal that looked like instruments of torture. There was also a glass case, almost impenetrably dusty, which contained something that could have been a mummified human head.

Throughout the house, there was a smell of staleness and closeness, as if the windows hadn't been opened for twenty years. Yet there were always noises, squeaks and hangings, as if unseen people were moving from room to room, opening and closing doors. There may have been nobody here but old man Evelith, his alleged granddaughter, and his Indian man-servant, but it sounded as if there were a score of other people around. Once, I even thought I heard a man laughing.

The Indian took us along an uncarpeted corridor, with a polished boarded floor, and then into an ante-room, sparsely furnished with English-looking antiques and a broken celestial globe. Above the empty fireplace was an oddly incompetent painting of five or six cats, American shorthairs by the look of them.

'Mr Evelith will be with you by and by,' said the Indian, and left us.

'Well,' said Edward, 'we're in. That's an achievement in itself.'

'It doesn't mean to say that he's going to let us look at his library,' I said.

That Indian's kind of weird,' said Forrest. 'He looks so Indian. I haven't seen a face like that outside of an 1860s photograph album.'

We made nervous small talk for a while, and then the ante-room door opened, and a girl came in. We all stood up like hayseeds at a Wyoming wedding, and nodded our heads to her, and chorused, 'How do you do, miss.'

She stood by the door, one hand on the knob, and looked at us in remote and unfriendly appraisal. She was quite petite, no more than five-feet-two, with a thin, sharply-cut face, large dark eyes, and straight black hair that fell brushed and glossy halfway down her back. She wore a black linen day-dress, simply cut, and yet it appeared from where I was standing that she wore nothing underneath. Her shoes were black and shiny with dagger-like toes and extravagantly high heels.

'Mr Evelith has asked me to escort you into the library,' she said, in a clipped Bostonian accent. Edward raised an eyebrow in my direction. This was definitely class. But what was she doing here, shuttered up in Tewksbury with an eccentric old hermit and an Indian dressed like William Randolph Hearst? Especially if she wasn't Evelith's grand-daughter.

The girl disappeared, and we had to hurry to follow her through to the next room. She led us across a hallway, her heels clicking on the hardwood floors, and as she passed one of the unshuttered windows, and the gray afternoon light fell through the fine linen of her dress, I saw that I had been right. I could even see a mole on the right cheek of her bare bottom. I knew that Forrest had noticed, too, because he loudly cleared his throat.

At last we were shown into the library. It was a vast, long room, which must have taken up nearly half of the upper floor of the house. At the far end of it, there was an arched window of stained-glass, and the coloured light which strained through its amber-and-green panes illuminated the serried spines of thousands and thousands of leather-bound books, as well as huge bound volumes of prints and paintings.

Seated at a wide oak table in the centre of the library, with open books spread all around him, sat a white-haired old man, with a face that had shrunken like a monkey's from age and lack of sunlight. It was still possible to recognize him as an Evelith, however — he had the same oval features as his portrait downstairs, and the downward-drooping eyelids that had distinguished his forebears.

He had been reading with a magnifying glass. As we came in, he laid it down, and took off his spectacles, and examined us long-sightedly. He was wearing a worn-out white shirt, a black cardigan, and black fingerless mittens on his hands. I thought he looked rather like an irascible crow.

'You had better introduce yourselves,' he said, dryly. 'It is not often that I allow visitors to interrupt my work, so I had better know who they are.'

'I'm John Trenton; I'm an antique dealer from Granitehead. This is Edward Wardwell, and Forrest Brough, both from the Peabody Museum.'

Duglass Evelith sniffed in one nostril, and put his spectacles back on his nose. 'Does it take three of you to show me a writing-case?'

I laid the Herrick writing-case down on the table. 'It's a fine piece, Mr Evelith. I thought you might like to take a look at it, at least.'

'But that isn't why you came? Not the principal reason?'

I looked up. The girl in black had stepped away from us, and was standing with her back to one of the bookshelves, watching us closely, almost as closely and almost as carnally as the Doberman had watched us. I couldn't tell whether she wanted to rape us or bite our necks, but the look in her eyes was certainly intent, and unswervingly avaricious. In the shadows, her black dress had become opaque again, but the thought of her nudity beneath it was curiously erotic; and somehow dangerous too.

Edward said, 'You're right, Mr Evelith. We didn't really come here to show you this case, although it's a very rare antique, and I hope you take some pleasure out of seeing it. The real reason we're here is because we very badly need the use of your library.'

Old man Evelith sucked at his dentures, and said nothing.

Edward went on, uncertainly, 'The point is, Mr Evelith, we have a very tricky historical problem, and even though the Peabody has quite a stock of literature and charts and so forth, it doesn't have the relevant material we need to solve this problem. I was hoping — we were all hoping — that we might find it here.'

There was a very long silence, and then Duglass Evelith pushed back his chair, and stood up, and walked slowly and thoughtfully around the other side of the table, running his hand along the edge of it to keep his balance.

'You realize what a massive impertinence this is?' he asked us.

'It's not really an impertinence, Mr Evelith,' I put in. 'There are hundreds and possibly thousands of lives at stake. There are some souls at stake, too.'

Duglass Evelith stiffly raised his head, and stared at me with one keenly-focused eye. 'Souls, young man?'

‘That's right, sir. Souls.'

'Well, now,' he said. He approached the writing-case, and touched the initials on the top of it with his chalk-dry fingertips. 'Well, now, this is indeed a very fine case. Herrick's, you say?'

'Henry Herrick, Senior. The twelfth juror at the Salem Witch Trials.'

'Hm. Appropriate that you should bribe your way into my library with such an item. How much do you want for it?'

'Nothing, sir.'

'Nothing? You're not a madman, are you?'

'No, Mr Evelith, not mad. What I mean is I don't want money for it. All I want is access to your books.'

'I see,' said Duglass Evelith. He had opened up the lid of the writing-case a little way, but now he closed it again. 'Well, that isn't too easy a request for me to grant you. I'm working here, you see. I'm trying to finish my history of 17th-century religion in Massachusetts. The definitive work. I estimate that it will take me another year to finish, and I daren't waste a minute. I could be writing now, you see, instead of talking to you. Supposing I were ten minutes away from finishing my book when I died? Wouldn't I regret this conversation then!'

'Mr Evelith, we know exactly what we're looking for,' said Edward. 'If your library is clearly indexed, we shouldn't have to disturb you for more than a day or two. And we could always come at night, when you're asleep.'

'Hm,' said Duglass Evelith. 'I never sleep at night. I take three hours during the afternoon; and that I find quite sufficient for my needs.'

'In that case, may we please come here during the afternoons?'

Duglass Evelith touched the writing-case again. 'This really belonged to Henry Herrick? You have proof?'

'There are three short letters in it, in Herrick's authenticated handwriting,' I told him. 'What's more, one of the accounts of the Witch Trials specifically mentions "Herrick's letter-box." '

'I see.' Old man Evelith opened the case up again, and let his hand stray over the silver-topped inkpots, the sand-shaker, and the ivory-stemmed pens. There was even a piece of green sealing-wax, which must at the latest have been Victorian. 'You certainly tempt me,' he said. 'I could find considerable inspiration in an item like this.'

The girl in the black dress said, 'Perhaps your visitors would like some sherry, Duglass.'

Duglass Evelith looked up at her, surprised; but then nodded. 'Yes, Enid. Perhaps they would. Sherry, gentlemen?'

We accepted, rather uncomfortably, but then Duglass Evelith beckoned us down to the far end of the library, by the stained-glass window, and offered us a seat on a large dusty leather-upholstered sofa. When we sat down on it, it made a loud ripping noise of escaping air, and clouds of dust surrounded us, like the clouds of battle. Duglass Evelith eased himself into a brocade armchair, right opposite us. The green light from the stained-glass window illuminated his face and made him look as if he were dead and mouldering already. But there was plenty of intelligence and animation in his eyes, and when he spoke he was both novel and alert.

'I should like to know, of course, what it is that you're looking for. I may be able to help. In fact, if you are looking for anything at all that is here, I am certain to be able to help. I have spent the past fifteen years cataloguing and indexing this entire collection, as well as adding to it, from time to time, and selling off some of the less worthwhile prints and books. A library is a living thing, gentlemen. It should never be allowed to become complacent, otherwise its usefulness will atrophy; and its information become inaccessible to anyone without a pick or a jack-hammer. Of course, you don't really understand what I'm talking about, not at the moment, but when you start to use this library, if I agree to let you, you will discover at once how human it is. It lives and breathes, as I do; it is at least as alive as Enid and Quamus.'

'Quamus? That's your Indian manservant? The one who showed us in?'

'Indeed. He used to work for the Billington family, years ago, out of New Dunwich; but when the last of them passed away, he came here. No introduction, you know. Just appeared on the doorstep, with his suitcase. Enid thinks he's a wizard.'

'A wizard!' laughed Forrest.

Duglass Evelith gave a twisted, unamused smile. 'Stranger things have been known, round and about this part of Massachusetts. Magical country, of its kind. At least it used to be, before the old families died out, and the old ways were all but forgotten. The first settlers, you see, had to learn what the Indians already knew, that to survive in this country you had to come to terms with its gods, and with its spirits. They didn't have any trouble, of course, accepting the existence of such things. In those days, in the 17th century, they believed without reservation in God and his angels; and in Satan and his demons. So to believe in a few more supernatural forces wasn't a difficult mental jump for them; not like it would be today. They had to rely on the Indians a very great deal, especially in those first hard winters; and many of them came to know the Narragansett intimately. Some settlers, they say, were more adept at summoning up the Indian spirits than the Indians themselves. It was said that the Billing-tons could do it; and one of the Eveliths was supposed to have had a hand in it, too.'

'Mr Evelith,' said Edward, very anxious that we shouldn't be sidetracked, 'what we're actually trying to discover, not to beat around the bush, is the exact location of the wreck of the David Dark.'

At that moment, Enid came into the library with a small silver tray of sherry. She came click-clacking over to us, and handed it around. For one strangely tantalizing second, she leaned across in front of me, and I glimpsed her small bare breast through her dress. I accepted my sherry from her with a smile, but the look she gave me in return was cold — cast out of pure indifference.

When she had gone, and closed the library door behind her, Duglass Evelith said, in a phlegm-thickened voice, ‘The David Dark? What do you know of the David Dark?’

'Only that she used to belong to Esau Hasket, who had christened her after David Dark the evangelist preacher,' said Edward. 'Only that she set sail from Salem in a terrible storm in 1692 and was never seen again. At least, that's what the history books say. But they also say that every single reference to her was cut from every single logbook and broadsheet, and that Esau Hasket forbade anybody ever to mention her again. And the inference is that she foundered, quite soon after leaving Salem, and was driven back into Salem Sound by a strong northeasterly wind, and finally went down off Granitehead Neck.'

Duglass Evelith sucked in his cheeks, and regarded us thoughtfully. 'She sank over 290 years ago,' he said, choosing his words with care. The likelihood of there being anything salvageable left of her is rather less than slim, wouldn't you say?'

'Not if she really did go down where we think she did,' Edward argued. 'On the west side of Granitehead peninsula, the bottom is very soft mud, and if the David Dark behaved like every other sinking ship of the period, which we have no reason to doubt that she did, she would have plunged into that mud right up to her waterline, maybe higher, and buried herself within a matter of weeks.'

'Well?' asked Duglass Evelith.

'If that happened, then the David Dark will still be there. Preserved, right up to the orlop deck at least. And that means that whatever she was carrying in her hold will be preserved, too.'

'You know what she was carrying?'

'We're not sure,' said Forrest. 'All we know is that the people of Salem were in a hell of a hurry to get rid of it; and that it was contained in a specially-made copper vessel, or could have been.'

Edward said, 'We've been diving in the area, looking for the wreck, for over a year now. I'm sure it's there; I'm convinced of it. But unless we can find some documentary evidence of where she might have gone down, it's going to take us the rest of our lives to locate her. It's not even worth doing echo-soundings until we have a pretty exact idea of where she is. There are so many small boats and so many heaps of trawl nets down there, we'd forever be picking up likely-looking signals, and of course we'd have to dive down and investigate all of them.'

Old man Evelith was sipping his sherry all this time; but when Edward had finished, he set down his glass on the table beside him and gave a dry, thin sniff.

'Why, exactly, do you want to find the wreck of the David Dark?’ he asked us. 'What is so desperately urgent about it?'

I looked at him carefully. 'You know what's in it, don't you?' I asked him. 'You know what's down there, and why they tried to get rid of it?'

Duglass Evelith looked back at me, just as shrewdly, and smiled. 'Yes,' he admitted. 'I know what's in it. And if you can convince me that you have a strong enough reason for salvaging it; and that you know what dangers you may be up against, I'll tell you what it is.'