Ghostlight, p.14
Ghostlight, page 14
“I don’t think you—or any other person—has a right to draw the line between things that can be studied and things that can’t. There is nothing which cannot be studied.”
Michael smiled. “There speaks the voice of Science.”
They had reached the edge of the maze. Truth stopped, and looked back toward the house, but if anyone was watching them from its various windows she could not see them.
“I don’t think that happiness is more important than knowledge. And I don’t believe in magick,” Truth said flatly.
“If you do not believe in magick—in the supernatural—how can you believe in evil?” Michael’s voice came from behind her.
Shadow’s Gate cast long slanting rays of darkness across the lawn. Truth took a deep breath and counted to ten before she spoke. How could a mere two miles’ drive in her car make so much difference to how she felt? She’d be seeing ghosts and fairies next.
“I do not wish to disparage your beliefs,” she said, turning to face Michael, “but in my book, the only evil in the world comes from what people do to other people and there isn’t a damn thing supernatural about it. There is no such thing as magick—there are only natural laws that we don’t yet fully understand.”
“And if I told you that such a thing—magick—exists outside your laws?”
“Then—I’m sorry—but I would have to tell you to have a nice day. I don’t share your beliefs.”
“And so you will stay to learn that of which you would have been happier to remain in ignorance. For I tell you this and truly: If magick is evil, there is evil here. And sorrow.”
Truth opened her mouth—and closed it, firmly. “I have to go now. I guess I’ll see you at dinner, Michael?” she said with determined diplomacy.
“Of course,” he said with grave courtesy.
She turned to go back to the house.
“And, Truth?”
She stopped.
“Have a nice day,” Michael said without a trace of humor.
Truth reached the house minutes later in a state of simmering fury that her colleagues at the Bidney Institute had long since learned to recognize and walk softly around.
How dare he make fun of her? Lead her on, force her to listen to all sorts of stupid mystic psychobabble, spout clichés too tired even for “B” movies, and then, when she tried to be polite, twist her own words and use them to mock her! She would not be mocked—how dare he raise his eyes to such as she was … .
She lunged up the stairs and twisted savagely at the knob of the terrace door. It opened and she passed into the house, coming within a hair’s breadth of slamming the door behind her.
He was going to be sorry. Was he trying to make her leave Shadow’s Gate? She’d take out a long lease. Were there things Man was not meant to know? Lead her to them. So you shouldn’t give a baby a loaded gun? She’d give it a bazooka. She’d—
“Truth. There you are,” Julian said warmly. He crossed the foyer and took both her hands in his. “You’re so flushed. Have you been running?”
Her raging arrogance vanished like a popped bubble at the warm touch of Julian’s hands, and for a moment she was dizzy with the suddenness of the change. What had she been thinking?
Or was the question, who had been thinking?
“Only running around in circles,” she said to Julian, with an unforced smile. “I’m sorry to have missed you earlier, but I had to go down into town for something and I just got back.”
“Will you be staying, then?” Julian asked. He was still holding her hands, his fingers moving slightly, stroking her wrists.
No! Truth cried mentally. Not when something in this house seemed to turn her into a madwoman each time she crossed its threshold!
“Well, as a matter of fact, I was going to ask you if I could—if the offer was still open,” Truth heard herself say. “I know it’s—”
“Wonderful,” Julian finished firmly. “The others will be delighted—especially Fiona. She was just telling me how much she likes you.”
I just bet, Truth thought. But her decision was made. And even if it wasn’t the one she’d meant to make, she was curiously reluctant to change her mind now. “So—great. I’ll spend the next week—probably the next month—going over what you have on Blackburn and getting my notes in order. Damn—I should have brought my notebook computer with me.”
“I’m afraid it wouldn’t work very well here,” Julian said. “The power supply, as I told you, is very irregular, and batteries lose their charge too fast to be of any real use. I can loan you a manual typewriter, if you like, and we do have a copier—you may make copies of anything you like, as long as the electric is working.”
He was still holding her hands, and tension of another sort was growing in her, driving out the confusion and anger with a warmer and purely mundane emotion. Her fingers curled in Julian’s, and she felt suddenly shy.
“Great,” Truth said. She’d taken notes by hand all through school; it wouldn’t be that hard to go back to it for a while. And she’d ask Meg to send her computer anyway, just in case.
“And stay as long as you like,” Julian went on warmly. “It cannot have escaped your notice that my—resources—are not easily taxed. I would be honored to provide any help I can to your work.”
“Thank you,” Truth said. She hesitated, reluctantly pulling her hands free of his. “Julian, you know I’m not a—that I don’t believe the things you do about the nature of reality. I don’t intend to pull any punches. Whatever I find out about Blackburn I’m going to write about—even if it isn’t very flattering.”
Julian’s smile grew warmer yet. He put an arm around Truth’s shoulders and began to walk toward the stairs. “Publish and be damned, as Wellington once said—or would ‘Tell the truth and shame the Devil’ be more apropos? Neither Thorne nor I has anything to fear from the honest truth, Truth. And I’ve never believed that the cure for the world’s ills is a coat of whitewash.”
Truth let out a deep sigh of relief. Though Julian might be a sincere believer, it seemed he was willing to let others possess beliefs of their own.
“Is there anything I can get you right now?” he asked. Belatedly, Truth remembered her intention to call Aunt Caroline. “Is there a phone I can use?” she asked.
“This way.”
“Unfortunately, the only phone is in here. We don’t bother to carry cell phones; the reception inside the gates isn’t very good—to put it mildly—and the house tends to be rather hard on electronic equipment in general,” Julian said, leading the way into his office. “A landline is our most reliable form of communication with the outside.” He crossed to the desk, picked the phone up, and listened.
“—and as you can see, ‘reliable’ is a relative term,” he said ruefully, holding the receiver out to her.
Truth took the receiver and held it to her ear. Nothing. She reached over and jiggled the connect button. Nothing.
“It’s out,” she said, half-questioningly.
“It often is, after a storm,” Julian said. “I’ll send Caradoc into Shadowkill to call tomorrow morning if it isn’t back up by then, but the phone company is usually pretty good about restoring service quickly.” He shrugged. “I can run you back down there right now, if you like. Was it an important call?”
“No, not really,” Truth said, hesitating. She put the receiver back in its cradle. “I’ll try tomorrow.”
“That’s all right, then. Look, Truth—”
Truth glanced up at him, alerted by the new note in his voice.
“I know that you don’t believe in the Blackburn Work—and believe me, I have no intention of proselytizing—but I know that you must be something of a trained observer. Have you ever had any experience working with mediums?” Julian asked.
“Yes, a little,” Truth admitted.
“Well this evening the others are going to be engaged in meditation exercises. It’s a fast day for the Practicuses—our “entry-level” people, you might say—but every one of the rank of Adeptus Minor or above is exempt, which is, at the moment, only me, Irene, and Light, and of course you and Michael don’t adhere to our disciplines. Anyway, I thought I’d hypnotize Light and try her on a little psychometry. I’d be very pleased to have you observe.”
“Hypnosis?” queried Truth doubtfully. Psychometry, she knew, was the attempt to discover information about an object—or its owner—by psychic means, but the Institute had never been able to come up with a test for it that didn’t exclude the possibility of simple telepathy instead.
Julian grinned at her. “Oh, don’t worry. I’m a licensed hypnotherapist, as a matter of fact. Hypnotism can be, if not quite dangerous, then at least unpleasant in the wrong hands. I’d never do anything to hurt Light.”
“No. I know you wouldn’t,” Truth said. “And I’d—I’d like to watch your ritual, Julian,” she added shyly.
“Not a ritual, Truth,” Julian corrected her gently. “Our rituals involve magick, and I would as soon expose you to them unprepared as I would allow the village idiot to hypnotize Light. Tonight is merely a practice, shall we say. In the nature of an experiment.”
The evening meal was much less elaborate and formal than the one the night before had been, and with only Light, Michael, Julian, and Irene there Truth had the chance to spend more time with Light.
The previous evening the girl had seemed nearly simpleminded, babbling on about visions in the woods. Tonight she merely seemed shy, spooning up her soup and buttering her roll with the deft physical economy of the blind, though Truth knew that she could see very well. It was nearly as if she saw what was not here—or perhaps, more accurately, more than what was here.
“I suppose it must be very interesting—to go to college, and see all those people who come from everywhere,” Light said softly to Truth.
“Haven’t you been to college?” Truth asked, surprised.
To her distress, Light flushed, the pinkness visibly marking her pale skin. “No,” Light said, softer still. “I’ve never been to school.”
“But—” Truth said, faltering.
“There are more ways to learn than by attending a school,” Michael said, dividing the gentle rebuke between the two of them. “If you can read, there is no worldly wisdom that cannot be gathered from the pages of a book.”
Light cast a glance of appeal toward Truth, and Truth wondered in that moment whether Light could read, either.
“And if you can’t read,” Truth said, making certain it sounded as if she were making a light joke, “you can learn that to start with, and study everything else by mail.”
Light looked relieved, but it was Julian’s smile of warm approval that Truth cherished more. She pulled him aside for a moment, in the exodus that followed dinner, to question him.
“Can Light read?” Truth asked him without preamble.
“Actually,” Julian said, “I’m not sure. She has a remarkable aural memory, though; anything she’s heard once she can remember forever. But she doesn’t respond at all well to direct questions—as I’m sure you’ll discover.”
“Where did you find her?” Truth nerved herself to ask.
“In a place she is much better away from. Call it psychic sensitivity if you will, or dress it up in psychiatric mumbo-jumbo: The fact remains that Light is … fragile. Six months ago she could not bear to be in the company of even as many people as she was last night, but I think she’s lonely too. Certainly it can be isolating to see the world in a different way than others do. She seems to have taken to you, though, and I hope you’ll be kind to her.”
“It’s easy to be kind to Light,” Truth said honestly, and it was true, even though she found her instant partisanship of the young silver-haired psychic somewhat unsettling. Slow to love and slower to trust, Truth had always been very self-contained. She had always tried to need no one, uncertain of her ability to give anything in return for another’s affections. Now that was about to change; Truth felt as if everything in her life was changing at once.
“Good,” Julian said. “Now, if you’ll come with me, I’ll show you something that few people have ever seen.”
In 1969, in the aftermath of Katherine Jourdemayne’s death and Thorne Blackburn’s disappearance, Blackburn’s antics received more publicity than possibly even he could have wished. Pictures of Shadow’s Gate were spread across every front page in America, and a color spread even made that week’s issue of Time. But amid all the publicity, the actual site of the murder had never been photographed—at least not any photos that had survived.
Julian led Truth down a narrow hallway with many steps up and down, until they stopped in front of a pair of tall oak doors that Truth remembered passing on her tour of the house yesterday. Ornamented in the style of their day, both the doors and the door frame were carved with acanthus-leaf motifs, and the lock plates and doorknobs were marked with a relief of a wavy-rayed sun.
“Where are we?” Truth asked, confused.
“This is the true center of the house. You can’t really tell from the outside—it’s quite a cunning bit of trompe l’oeil architecture—but Shadow’s Gate is built in a hollow square. Around this.”
He stepped forward and opened the door. Truth walked in past him and looked up.
This strange central folly to Shadow’s Gate was a circular room nearly thirty feet across and almost twice that in height. There were three narrow archways set opposite the doors, each a little taller than the doors they had come in through and curtained, now, with thick black velvet. The ceiling itself was domed and ribbed, painted with a representation of the Zodiac, the allegorical figures wearing the bright stars of their constellation-namesakes like jewels. Below the dome, a band of windows circled the room. Each window could be opened separately, and in the center of each was set a shield-shape of colored glass, etched with an image it was too dark to see.
Below the windows the ornately ornamented carved oaken panels swept to the floor without a break. Truth was surprised to see light fixtures ringing the room, but their ornate antiquity told her that the first illuminating agent in this room had been gaslight.
Between the light fixtures were enormous Egyptian statues—painted board, Truth realized after a moment, but at first glance the twelve-foot-high figures looked real. She wasn’t Egyptologist enough to recognize them, but there was a woman with a lion’s head and one with the head of a cow, a man with an ibis’s head and one with the head of a dog—or a jackal? Between them were hung banners in red, white, black, and gray. There were figures on the banners, but Truth couldn’t quite make them out.
What had Light been saying the night before? “The red stag and the white mare; the gray wolf and the black dog; red and gray and black and white, the four wardens of the Gate.”
Again Truth had the faintly embarrassed sense of being caught eavesdropping, as a child might who wandered into a conversation adults held among themselves.
As if her eyes were drawn downward by the dangling banners, Truth found herself staring at the floor. It was a work of art, if a little dizzying: Tiles of black and white marble, each twelve inches square, marched across the room in chessboard perfection. Their geometry was overlaid with an elaborate figure of circles and signs in golden marble; between the inner circle and the outer were circular tiles of a dull red stone, each inlaid with some brightly glinting symbol.
Truth’s eyes were drawn back to the star shape that filled the inner circle. It had seven points—no, nine … .
“Thorne had the floor redone as you see it when he bought Shadow’s Gate. It’s the only change he made to this room, other than the decorations around the walls.”
Truth jumped. She’d almost forgotten Julian was with her.
“You mean the original builder built it this way?” she said with faint outrage.
“Why not?” Julian shrugged. “Everything was less expensive then. The Spiritualism vogue was in full swing. They may have held séances here. It may have been the house’s ballroom. Who knows?”
Blackburn had known. Truth was sure of it.
“Well,” Truth said. “What do we do now?”
“First,” said Julian, “I set the stage.”
There was furniture in the room—difficult to notice in the first shock of seeing the central Gothic folly of Shadow’s Gate. Julian went to the side of the room and came back with two plain wooden side chairs, a stool, and a jarringly modern floor lamp.
“Of course, when we do ritual the place looks different. You’re welcome to see how it looks, sometime before we work. The rest of the time, the Altar and all of the Weapons remain in storage. One of the advantages to an old house is that there’s always enough closets; do you know this place has thirty-seven rooms? And you sit here,” he finished, setting one of the chairs beside Truth.
She sat down, feeling uncommonly meek. Julian switched on the floor lamp—the extension cord it plugged into curled across the floor like an abandoned licorice whip before vanishing beneath the curtains of one of the alcoves—and then crossed to the panel of switches beside the door. He pressed the black, pearl-crowned buttons one by one until all the sconces were dark and the only illumination came from the tiny halogen bulb of the lamp on the floor.
Truth felt as though she’d been plunged into a cave, or to the bottom of the sea. Suddenly she felt pressure, as if the vast volumes of empty space surrounding her had a palpable weight. The darkness was pressing her down, like ells of smoky velvet. Her heart thudded faster.
She took a deep breath and began counting her heartbeat, seeking calm. On some preverbal level she knew that Julian was perfectly at ease here, but strangely the knowledge brought her no comfort.
