Whitley Strieber Read online

  As she proceeded into the house, the crows crowded onto the front porch, cawing and bickering among themselves, their voices echoing in the silence. But also, there were softer voices, and they were nearby. “You've got to be more careful,” said a man. An older man, whispering. An elderly woman: “I must keep on. By the Goddess, I'm so close!”

  “Miss Collier?”

  A gasp at the top of the stairs, then silence. Mandy sensed that she had interrupted a very private conversation. She would have returned to the front door, but by this time she was closer to the kitchen, so she hurried toward the back.

  In the center of the kitchen was a heavy oaken table, its legs elaborately carved with gargoyles and grapevines. On it there was a toasting frame, of the kind meant to be held over an open fire, and a partially cut loaf of homemade raisin bread.

  As Mandy crossed the floor, she noticed that there were candles in the lighting fixture that hung down from the ceiling.

  And then she saw something really amazing: an ancient iron hand pump at the sink in place of the usual faucet. Attached to the wall behind it was a small hot water geyser such as Mandy had seen in the cheap hotels she had stayed in during her European days.

  The stove, to the right of the sink, was a huge woodburning iron monster with eight burners across its massive top. “Royal Dawn” was embossed in the ironwork on the oven doors. The witch could have cooked Gretel in such an oven and had room left over for a couple of nice casseroles.

  A thrill of childhood fear touched her. She'd never seen mis place, but Jimmy Murphy and Bonnie Haver had sneaked in and seen a beautiful young woman cooking at this very stove. “She was pretty but her face was glowing in the firelight,” Jimmy had said. “She was so scary I thought I was going to pee in my pants.”

  That had happened ten years ago, half a lifetime for Mandy. If Constance remembered, it probably seemed like yesterday.

  From beyond the kitchen window there came the first loud sound Mandy had heard at this house, and it more or less astonished her. It was a splash, followed immediately by the distinct boing of a diving board.

  Could Constance Collier possibly be in swimming—a woman past eighty, and in autumn? Mandy hurried out the back door and down an overgrown brick walk, which curved around a tangle of cedars. She came now upon another surprise. The walk ended in some brick steps, which led into a formal garden—overgrown, of course—surrounding a swimming pool inlaid with elaborate mosaics which shimmered beneath the agitated water.

  A young man, lithe and pale, his blond hair streaming like smoke behind him in the water, swam vigorously from one end of the pool to the other.

  “Hello?”

  Oblivious, he swam another lap.

  “Excuse me.”

  He stopped, touched the edge of the pool. “Oh.” When he stood up in the waist-deep water, Mandy saw that he was naked.

  She was instantly angry at him for flustering her, and spoke quickly. “I'm sorry to disturb you. I'm looking for Miss Collier.”

  “She's not in the house?” He showed no inclination to hide himself. She tried to keep her eyes on his face.

  “I called. Nobody answered me.”

  “She's supposed to be in there having an argument with my father.” He came out of the water, grabbed a towel from the grass, and began drying himself. “Were her birds there?”

  “Her birds?”

  “The seven ravens. They're almost always with her. If they were there, so was she.”

  As the boy approached, the towel around his shoulders, Mandy realized that he was younger than he had seemed. Perhaps he was sixteen. Adolescent down brushed his top lip. “I'm Robin,” he said. Mandy knew she was coloring;

  Robin was very, very beautiful, in all the ways she enjoyed in the male. His muscles were firm but not knotty. His skin was smooth, yet he did not look soft. And his genitals were, well, very much there.

  He had been waiting for some moments before she realized that he was holding out his hand. She took it, pumped it once. He held firmly to her hand, raised it to his lips, and kissed it. She felt the warmth of his breath on her skin. He smiled slightly, glancing down at his own turgidity. Mandy battled not to shake, and she inwardly cursed the heat she could feel in her cheeks. “I'm Amanda Walker,” she said evenly. “The illustrator. I'm doing the Grimm's project with Miss Collier.”

  He shook his head. “I don't know anything about it. Perhaps Ivy can help you. My sister.” He took a step closer to her. She could see his teeth behind his half-opened lips. His smile was so subtle that it managed to imply passion and politeness at the same time. Nothing could be read in his obsidian eyes, which contrasted oddly with the blond hair and sunny Nordic skin.

  “My sister is sunning herself in the maze, where the breeze can't get to her.”

  Mandy had not realized that the great tangle of cedar in the center of the garden was, or had been, a maze. She was glad to turn away from the young man, though. He had a nerve not even wrapping his towel around himself.

  Close up, the maze smelled strongly of cedar oil. Mandy found the entrance and went a short distance in. Robin's renewed splashes were absorbed by the thick and long-untended growth. There remained only the faint screaming of the crows. The creosote path was so overgrown that Mandy had to go on her hands and knees to make any progress. It wasn't a difficult maze, because the way in was marked by a string. No wonder; there was no fun to be had struggling through these weedy corridors full of spiderwebs and sticky cedar balls.

  At the center of the maze was a complete surprise, a delightful secret garden. It was perhaps thirty feet square, and peopled by statuary. All the figures were characters from Constance Collier's books: there was Pandoric, the wicked homed boy; opposite him his mother Drydana, who had the power to turn herself into a woodpecker. At opposite ends of the garden were Braura the huge maiden bear, rearing up, her faronze claws gleaming in the sun, facing Eipot, the King of the Cats, who had one shredded ear and knew among other dungs how to fly. In the middle, on a marble pediment, stood the Fairy Queen, the tiny Leannan, Constance Collier's greatest creation, beautifully sculpted, with her trim waist and alabaster arms, her firm nose and delicate lips, and her wide gray eyes. The sculptor had captured not only Miss Collier's description of her character but the deeper wildness that sent the Leannan racing through her forests, “the wild huntress screaming so shrilly that it froze the footsteps of whom she sought.”

  “Excuse me. Who are you, may I ask?”

  “Oh, I'm sorry! The statue—I'm Amanda Walker. The illustrator. I'm here for my appointment with Miss Collier.”

  “You were meeting her in here?”

  “Well, not actually in this spot. But here, yes, at the estate.”

  Ivy rummaged among the things that had been spread out around her, pulled out a blue-faced watch. “It's 10:30. She's still with my father.”

  “Do you know if she was expecting me?”

  “I don't know. I've been here almost all morning.” Ivy was every bit as handsome as her brother. Mandy found her presence, though, even more disturbing. There was something confusing about her looks, the strong-muscled aims and legs, the tiny breasts beneath the pnm black bathing suit, the soft, gentle face with those dark humorous eyes. If such a woman were to embrace her, Mandy wondered, what would happen then?

  “I'm afraid I'm terribly late. I was due at 9:30.” The girl stared at her, almost as if she thought her mad. “A mistake,” Mandy added miserably. “Please help me.” The girl smiled at that. “You sound like you're desperate.” “I know she doesn't like people to be late. The job is very important to me. And I'm so late!”

  “You she'll forgive, Amanda.”

  “Where can I find her, can you tell me that?”

  “Look what I have here.” The girl bent down and picked up a big, colorfully illustrated book that Mandy recognized at once.

  “The Hobbes edition of Faery!”

  “Signed and hand-colored by Hobbes just for Connie. Isn't it wond
erful?” She gave the precious volume to Mandy almost indifferently.

  “But this—it's extraordinary. I didn't even know it existed.” She looked down at the leather embossed cover. Reverently she opened it. Tucked inside was a photograph of Hobbes sitting with a much younger Constance Collier on the pediment of this very statue. He wore a wing collar and a striped shirt, the cuffs rolled up to the elbows. She was in a long dress, its top of lace. Her dark Celtic eyes gazed merrily at her companion, who looked rather stunned.

  This book was not illustrated with washed etchings as Mandy had assumed but with the delicate original watercolors that had been their models.

  A Hobbes watercolor of this quality went for five thousand dollars. And how many were here? At least twenty. “My God.”

  “See Leannan sinking dead, her eyes pearled by dew, Falling all ruined upon fearsome Braura's bed.”

  Amanda was surprised at Ivy's erudition. “You know Faery?”

  “Of course. Why do you think we're here, Robin and I? We are students, just as you are a student.”

  “I'm an illustrator.”

  “That was only a pretext to get you here. You'll see. She's got all sorts of ideas for you.”

  Just then a new voice cracked from among the cedars:

  “There you are, you prowling ninny! Come out of there! Why didn't you come upstairs? You must have heard us.”

  “Miss Collier?”

  A tall, thin woman in a dusty suit appeared among the shrubs. She burst forth brushing spiderwebs and twigs from her tweeds. “What in Goddess' name are you doing in here? Oh! What do you have in your hands, you stupid girl!”

  Mandy was horrified. All she could do was hold out the priceless book and hope that Ivy would own up to her wrongdoing.

  “Don't give it to me! I'll drop it on the way back. Oh, be careful, careful! Don't let those cedars touch the leather, they'll start acid rot going! How could anybody be so thoughtless! Come on!”

  Mandy's heart pounded as she hurried along behind Constance Collier, the precious book cradled in her arms. Back in the maze she heard soft laughter and realized that brother had joined sister from some hidden entrance, and both were enjoying the joke together—

  She followed Constance through the kitchen and into a tall library, its bookcases laden with calfskin and morocco bindings. A heavy silence descended, punctuated only by the crows. Finally Constance spoke.

  “Put it on the table. There. Now, young woman, are you mad? You must be to come in here and take the very best volume I have and carry it out into the sun, and then you go into mat dirty old maze—it's criminal.”

  “I didn't—”

  “No excuses! If you want to work with me, the first thing you've got to learn is to stop making excuses. I consider excuses loathsome.”

  Mandy knew she was turning scarlet, and hated herself for it. Blushing was a curse. But there was nothing she could do about it. She could only hope against hope and push ahead. “I brought my portfolio. Miss Collier. Of the ideas I've had for the Grimm's illustrations.” Should she add that it contained all the really good ideas she had ever had for Grimm's, and amounted to the best of her life's work? No point. The sketches and paintings would speak for themselves.

  Constance Collier replaced the Hobbes in a slipcase on the leather-covered library table. “He killed my husband, in case you've ever wondered. Hobbes killed Jack.”

  Mandy recalled that Jack Collier had died under somewhat sensational circumstances back in the early twenties. A hunting accident or something. “I didn't know that.”

  “Shot him. Shot us both.” She stared at the book for some moments. “You come highly recommended.” She looked up, her face for the first time clear to Mandy. It had the startlingly simian appearance that is sometimes associated with great age. Here and there were vestiges of the legendary beauty of the twenties and thirties, the dramatically straight, thick eyebrows, the narrow, angled nose. Gone, though, were those full, mysterious lips and the amazing lusciousness of complexion that Stieglitz had captured in his portraits of her.

  Oddly enough, the same years which had devoured her sensuality had granted Constance Collier a deeper mystery yet: despite the fact that she was slack and dry, almost a leaf of a woman, her eyes shone with intense light. Mandy found herself very badly wanting to know her. Such eyes must hide wonderful things, or why would they shine so?

  Mandy could readily imagine herself becoming a student of Constance Collier's. All the childhood mystery would be dispelled. More, she was fascinated by this place, the ancient kitchen, the candles, the maze, the strange adolescents. She had to be allowed to stay!

  “I think I left my portfolio on the porch.”

  As Mandy went toward the front of the house, the cawing of the crows got louder and louder, until it was a bitter, crazy cacophony, full of inscrutable passions.

  The flock rose like an angry belch of smoke when Mandy opened the door.

  She stood, shocked beyond words. Her own scream was so naked with rage that it made her clamp her lips shut—

  The crows had torn her portfolio and all of her drawings to tiny bits and scattered them about the yard.

  She stood staring, disbelieving, shattered. Her whole past, everything she had done that was fine, had been destroyed by the brainless creatures.

  She hardly noticed when Constance Collier stole near, a knowing and sympathetic look on her face, and placed a consoling hand on her hunched shoulder.

  Chapter 5

  The acid, frightened stink of Long-hands made Tess scream. Her voice woke Gort, who screamed with her. She ran the cage, feeling the wind rushing in her face, perch to far bars, far bars to back wall, bang against back wall to front bars, swing back to perch.

  She had gone far, but she was no farther from Long-hands. There was stinking fear coming from him, and it infected her. Tess screamed. Again she ran the cage. Her own fear confused her, made her hands do what they shouldn't. She hit Gort.

  At once he showed his fearsome teeth and she thought how great was this monkey and cast her eyes down an instant to say, I am yours.

  In that moment Long-hands reached his fingers around her. She screamed and screamed and bit the fingers so furiously there wouldn't be any hard fingers anymore, but Long-hands only made a growl, “Sheuht!” and kept on taking her out of her home.

  She hated it outside of the place where she had all her smells and all Gort's smells, and where Gort kept his body. Out here she couldn't run the cage, perch to far bars, far bars to back wall, over and over with the wind in her fur and Gort running too the other way, and passing each other and then tumbling down on the floor in their good smells together so glad.

  Long-hands had her now, had her good. She tried to twist around and bite his face but she could not; she was being carried by Long-hands far away from Gort. She screamed. Gort screamed. Then she was brought into a man-smelling place and there was a bang and the wall closed up and she was away from Gort and all alone.

  “She's all worked up, Bonnie. What's the matter with her?”

  “She's kind of high-strung, you know that.”

  “We can't put her in the field like this. She's liable to crack the coils.”

  Tess heard their growling, heard the fear in Long-hands' voice, and knew the truth that he might have Tess but he was scared of Tess, so she showed him her teeth. She bared her strong, sharp teeth to make him submit. But Long-hands did not fulfill the law, he only held her farther away and kept up his frightened growling.

  “She'll have to be sedated!”

  “The protocols—”

  “Leave it off the report. Dose her or we can forget using her.”

  “Stohlmeyer will never accept it.”

  “Bonnie, don't you understand English? Dose her and do not make a record of it!”

  “We're getting sloppy, George. That's very sloppy.”

  “Do what I tell you! We'll let her sleep it off and then run the experiment when she's groggy.”

  Lit
tle Yellow bared her teeth at Long-hands, but Long-hands did not submit to her any more than he had to Tess. She realized his power then, and understood that it must be so great that it smelled like fear. If Tess could not frighten such a monkey, and Little Yellow, the bringer of food herself, couldn't do it, then Long-hands was just too powerful.

  She grew calmer, knowing that there was nothing for her but to submit to the power of the awful Long-hands.

  “Well, well, Tess, you finally getting tired? You bitch. I think we can skip the Valium, Bonnie. She's just gone as limp as a dishrag.”

  “Handling does that to them sometimes. But it'll only last a few minutes.”

  Long-hands put Tess in a cage so small that she couldn't even turn around. Certainly she couldn't run it. All she could do was lie down and feel the hard bumpers push on her stomach and her knees and her hands and her head. But this was Long-hands' will, and Tess was not strong enough to break it.

  “Okay, dark, she's in the damn thing.”

  “I'm getting a good reading. Nice and strong. It's a pleasure to work with something that has a decent microvolt level. Those frogs are almost below the threshold of observability.”

  Tess soon realized that the little cage didn't smell like Long-hands. So that meant he had freed Tess. But Tess couldn't move, not unless she pulled and kicked.

  “Hurry up! She's getting crazy again!”

  “Ready on the countdown.”

  “Forget the countdown! Just do it! Go!”

  “Okay, power's up. I'm activating the field—now!”

  The whole world collapsed on Tess. She lost everything, her strength, her voice, her smells, her sounds. She screamed and screamed and screamed but there was no noise, there was no calling to Gort or even Long-hands to help Tess out of this awful nothingness. And falling! Falling and she couldn't find branches, she couldn't clutch leaves!

  To the ground, the leopards, the hyenas, the stinking monkey-eating monsters that slip as shadows in darkness!

  Terror slammed her like a great hand, she saw bared teeth and heard snarling death-growls, and she clutched and climbed and kicked—emptiness.