The Promontory - Chapter 5

The Promontory 17,000 words

-5-

The following weekend we visited the house again. This time we brought over a dolly, and as I rummaged through desk drawers and the mysteriously inviting library, Julie loaded up on lamps, vases, end tables, rugs and a wing chair or two. She also spent some time in the library and procured a few books. They looked like journals, but I didn't think to ask. Perhaps in retrospect, I should have.

I should have done a lot of things. I should have tried to stop her from transferring so many items, given her delicate condition. I should have talked to more people about our discovery, instead of keeping quiet, which we continued to do, despite our resolution at the library to work on locating knowledgeable parties. But I too had become obsessed with the mystery, and our activities didn't seem to provoke me as before. Now we knew no one lived inside these walls.

I personally found very little. Stationary, a couple of postcards from one Swaney to another recounting a trip to the Florida Gold Coast, a ledger containing the carefully written accounts of the family -- they had been very well off, there was no doubt. The library contained scores of excellent reading material, all of it as intoxicating and as strangely absorbing as that first book had been, but none pertinent to the conundrum of the moment. I didn't stop to think that Julie might have found the items I was looking for first.

That evening, Julie set about installing her found treasures into our living room, with my reluctant help. I found myself lacking the energy to fight her any longer. Instead, my thoughts swirled around my head, chasing after a solution to this puzzle of illogic, but never catching the answer. The house should not exist as it was and yet it did. People should have lived there, given its interior state, and yet they didn't. Someone should have discovered this long ago, and yet no one had.

The next few nights were spent conducting more raids of the house. By the time the next weekend arrived, the interior of our place was looking quite a lot like The Promontory's. I wasn't sure Victorian-era furnishings went well with 1960's ranch home, but Julie was glowing with happiness and I lacked the resolve to reverse the tide.

* * *

Julie left for the weekend to visit her mother, Ramie. I didn't like Ramie very much, so I was glad to see Julie off. Ramie was a controlling, nattering, leathery old shrew of a woman, who made my life miserable whenever she chose to descend upon us. The very sound of her calculating, obsequious voice made my spine shiver. I wondered if Julie would turn into her in the crucible of time. I also wondered if Ramie had ever been as sweet, as soft, as attractive or playful as her daughter. It seemed impossible the two could be related.

That first night alone I had trouble sleeping. As I lay there listening to the brambles slapping against the window panes and the wind whistling around the house, as if annoyed with the structure that stood in its path, it occurred to me that this was the first time that I had been in the house by myself. I felt a little ripple of apprehension over that realization, but I fought it down and instead focused on the comfort of the mattress, the soothing blanket of darkness and the luxurious feeling of my tired bones melting into the bed.

At last, I slept. And I dreamed.

I was inside The Promontory. It was night. Late night. All the world was asleep except for me. I was in bedclothes, wandering the gloomy hallways. Although there were no lights and I carried nothing, a very faint, guttering candle glow illuminated my immediate surroundings wherever I traveled. The house was fully furnished, as Julie and I had experienced, however the furnishings and trappings were now ancient and worn, revealing their true age. It smelled musty and close. The floors creaked. Small things scurried away into the darkness. The house seemed alive with presence, electrifying me with dread and threatening to petrify me in my tracks.

I was examining the bedrooms down a long corridor, perhaps on the second floor. The corridor had several turns to it and seemed impossibly long, but I kept going, opening every door and looking inside. Each room was slightly different. Some were bedecked with canopies over the beds, some were furnished with satin upholstered chairs, some included vanities. As I neared the end of the hallway, I entered one of the rooms and approached the bed. There seemed to be something lying underneath the quilted satin covers, yellowed with age and stained with mildew. I pulled back the covers and was instantly taken aback. Beneath the covers there was a life size china doll in the image of a little girl. It had blue glass eyes and wiry hair done in curls. It was fully dressed in a blue velvet dress with crinoline, white stocking hose and black Mary Jane styled shoes on its feet. The quilt had been covering its head in the style of a corpse. Realizing this, I felt sadness and deferentially replaced the covers. The mystery of it subsumed me and I looked around the darkened room searching for clues but found none.

I exited the room and continued to the next. Another china doll dressed as a little girl. The next. Another doll. And so it went for the next six rooms until I arrived at the very last room in the corridor. This bedroom was small and cramped; the bed taking up most of the space and leaving only a small passage on one side of the bed for getting in and out of the room. I shimmied my way in and turned back the covers. Again there was a life sized china doll, dark with age, hidden beneath the sheets. But this one was different. This one was not made in the image of a little girl, but rather was a caricature of a fully grown woman, with makeup festooning its flat features and jewelry on its wrists and neck.

I stared into its sightless glass eyes when suddenly they blinked. I almost had a heart attack right then and there. My legs turned into liquid rubber. I backed away the few inches of clearance I had as the figure sat up and swiveled to face me. Then it reached for me with lightning quickness, managing to graze my arm. I stepped sideways along the narrow space alongside the bed towards the door with what seemed to be interminable slowness as it threw back the covers completely and swung its legs onto the floor. It was intent on me and seemed to be determined to catch me. Despite its frozen expression, the gleam in its cold, blue marble eyes had taken on a malevolent cast.

The door was closed, though I couldn't recall closing it. I also realized with dumb trepidation that it opened inwards. The doll gained its feet and stepped quickly towards me, arms extended. I swallowed my heart back down and made myself reach for the door. I had to move back a few inches to give the door clearance and as I did do, I stepped right into its arms. They felt rough and slippery with dust. I screamed and tried to shake myself free. The doll was pushed back by my weight but returned with doubled determination as I made the hallway and tried to escape down the corridor. Suddenly, all the doors I had visited swung open and dolls appeared from everywhere, each with their arms extended, and each intent on grabbing me. I brushed them away with little effort, given my weight and the superhuman strength imparted to me by my adrenaline juiced fear, but as I swam through the sea of arms, gradually they became more substantial and more difficult to push aside. I looked down at them and realized that they had transformed into the arms of old women, long dead and in various states of decomposition - shards of flash hanging off of them like meaty confetti, blood running down their lengths and making the floor slippery. The cloying smell of death choked my lungs and I slipped. They fell upon me and I blacked out in asphyxiating inky panic.

I started awake at the sound of my own screams. I was alone in my bedroom. I sat quietly, letting my heartbeat slow down.

Just as I was convincing myself that everything was quite normal, I heard the sound of furniture scraping in the living room. I froze. The sound of my own blood coursing through my veins rose to an audible current in my ears. I wondered if I had imagined it. I was almost convinced of that when it happened again. A very audible scrape of furniture across the wooden floor. That would have to be the front foyer.

Slowly and carefully I rose from the bed and padded as quietly as I could to the bedroom door. The dream came to mind. I wondered if there would be a china doll waiting for me on the other side of the door. Stupidly, a wave a cold fear threatened to overtake me. I steeled myself and swung open the door.

The hallway was dark and all was quiet again. As I started my descent down the staircase, my foot caught against a curled section of rug, another item liberated from The Promontory, and I almost went tumbling down. Fortunately I managed to grab onto the banister and regain my balance.

I crept down the stairs, trying to make out the dark shape on the ground level. There seemed to be something occupying the center of the foyer. Normally there would be nothing there. I stopped and squinted in the darkness. It was low to the ground and motionless. Slowly, I kept going, becoming incongruously aware of my bare feet. As I approached the object, its contours coalesced into a recognizable form. It was the coffee table from the living room. But what was it doing in the foyer? And who put it there?

I looked to the left and to the right, in an instinctive crouch. Nothing. I turned on the living room light. The Persian in the room was wrinkled along the path the coffee table would have taken to the foyer, as if someone had scraped it along the rug. I noticed scuff marks on the two short wooden steps rising from the sunken living room. They continued along the foyer's wooden floor to the point at which the coffee table now stood. Someone had deliberately moved that damned table!

Feeling a rush of anger now, I set about inspecting every room and entrance to the house, determined to pounce on the invader. I found no one. There were also no signs of any tampering. I scratched my head and sat on the sofa, wondering what to do. Finally I gave up and decided to return to my bed. There was no explanation, and no point in staying downstairs the rest of the night thinking about it. Perhaps the cause of the strange happenstance would come to mind in the rationalizing light of morning.

* * *

When I awoke and came downstairs the next morning, the foyer was crowded with furniture from other rooms, including items from upstairs. Everything was pushed up against the door. I stood there, frozen with confusion. How could this be? Was it some kind of gag? Maybe Jo from the office had conspired to get out here and play a trick on me?

"OK, you can come out of hiding," I said loudly.

Silence.

"I said ENOUGH!" My voice rang against the walls.

For many long minutes I stood there, waiting for something to happen. But the room remained inert. Forcing myself into action, I shoved furniture out of the way and was finally able to open the front door. I scanned the yard and the road beyond. Nothing.

Then I froze.

The front door, across the street, was open. I could plainly see this in the clear, morning air. As I watched, the door swung itself shut.

I was mortified. Then I came to my senses. So that was it. Whoever had done this was hiding in the old mansion.

I dressed quickly and grabbed a flashlight, just in case. Boldly, I marched across the way and through the bramble choked front yard to the imposing wooden door of my tormentor's hiding place. Now more quietly, I opened the front door. The inside was quite dark, despite the morning light. I shone the flashlight's beam around the entrance foyer and living room area. There were many empty places where furniture had once stood -- furniture which had been moved to my own home. I wrestled with the wrongness of it. It was Julie who had led us to this. I realized with cold clarity how wrong-headed it was. How had I been seduced into allowing it to happen?

Shaking myself free of that guilt laden, Gordian knot, I moved around the interior of the house looking for clues of someone's occupancy; a newspaper, a soda can, an item moved from its customary location. But nothing. Still, it didn't preclude the likelihood that someone was playing a trick on me, perhaps trying to precipitate a confession for blackmail, or intending to concoct a news story out of my actions -- to raise the value of the old house, perhaps.

I found nothing. I decided to prep the house for intruders, before I left. Opening the front door I stepped outside, intending to grab a handful of dirt to spread around the floor, when I noticed the front door to my own house open of its own accord. Dropping everything, I sprinted across as fast as I could and barreled through the doorway. My calves smacked hard against the low lying coffee table, which had been waiting for me just beyond the arc of the door, and I went flying headfirst into an immovable mahogany cabinet, which had found its way into the foyer during my brief absence. I felt nausea as my head exploded in pain, and I crumpled to the ground. Helplessly, I sank into unconsciousness.

Julie came home the following night and found me nursing a large bruise on my forehead in the restored living room. I never figured out what had been going on with the furniture and the doors, so I decided to not tell her about it. It would only make her afraid.

"Oh my God, Peter, what happened?" she cried when she saw me.

"I heard a noise a couple of nights ago and I fell down the stairs."

"Is that why there's all those scuff marks in the foyer?" she asked, probing my face, and delicately touching the bruise.

I tried to hide my surprise. I had failed to consider that.

"Uh, yeah. I... uh... left a chair in the foyer -- changing a light bulb -- and when I fell, I shoved into it and it scraped up the floor pretty bad."

I rose to help her upstairs with her things.

"So how'd it go?" I asked, changing the subject.

She dropped her gaze to the ground. "You know, the usual."

I could guess. It had been horrible. Ramie had pecked away at her the entire time she had been home -- about her father, about me, about what to name our unborn child, about the color of our house, you name it. Instead of coming home refreshed, she looked harried and sallow. She had probably considered her return home a relief, but instead there was my bruise and my lie. She didn't believe my little story, I could tell, but she was too tired to argue.

We both slept like the dead that night.

* * *

The furniture stayed in its place for the entire week, though the front door was swung wide open on a couple of mornings. I attributed it to forgetfulness, though I suspected our prankster was at large again.

With winter fast approaching and Julie looking more pregnant by the day, we decided the best way to dispel the morbid airs was to throw a housewarming party, before things got too difficult. We became excited and found ourselves looking forward to the affair.

The day of the party came. Julie's friends from the city arrived en-masse, as did the handful of my work associates who had agreed to attend. It was a hike from the city in those days, and for many of our guest, an overnight stay was offered. Some of our friends even brought their kids.

"Pete, this is Theodore, my son," said Julie's friend, Sylvain.

"Welcome to the boonies. What do you think?" I asked as I tousled the boy's hair.

"It's creepy," he frowned.

"Theo!" chided his father.

"It is! Look across the street!"

Reflexively, we all looked out the living room's bay window. To my amazement, there were lights on across the street! But not just ordinary lights! They flickered -- like gas lights.

"It's a haunted house, right?" asked Theodore.

Sylvain's eyes locked on mine with deadpan seriousness for just a moment, before he shook himself and laughed.

"Kid's got a big imagination. Julie said you were the only ones out here."

I stumbled for words. "Uh, they keep to themselves."

"Who are they?" asked Sylvain, sensing my discomfort and zeroing in on it.

I was speechless for half a moment. As I answered, I realized I half believed it.

"The Swaneys."

Sylvain cocked his head at that. "Swaney? Isn't Julie's Mom a Swaney?"

What?

Just then, Esther, from the office, came gliding over. She was a little tipsy already.

"Peter, honey! This is such a fabulous house! And all this country to yourself! I just love it! Why don't you show me around?"

She grabbed me, losing her balance slightly. I instinctively tried to steady her, palming her waist in the process, and I was rewarded with an approving look. Not what I had in mind, but I was thankful for the interruption. I needed time to think about what Sylvain had just said. Why hadn't Julie mentioned that her mom was a Swaney while we had been doing the research? Perhaps she didn't know? But how would Sylvain know? He had to be wrong. Or something else was going on here.

My mind careened from question to question. I became the drunk in the comforting arms of my group secretary as we stumbled from room to room. The furniture seemed to be moving again, as if eager to meet us at every doorway, but I couldn't be sure if it was real or my reeling mind.

I finished the tour, and seeing that I wasn't interested in any hanky panky, Esther docilely followed me back to the living room. The party was in full swing, with Thelonius tinkling away on the Hi-Fi and the drinks flowing freely. Children ran from room to room, as Julie and her friend, Amanda, bustled back and forth between the kitchen and the hors d'oeuvres table, refilling trays and bowls. I realized I should be helping. I excused myself from Esther's insinuative presence and went to the kitchen.

After setting down the tray, I returned to the kitchen to resume my questioning.

Julie sailed past me. "Peter, could you just watch the blender for a minute? There's something I want to get upstairs."

Amanda smiled at me. "She says she found some divine cut crystal bottles from across the way."

I glared. "She told you about that place?"

Amanda was slightly taken aback and answered defensively. "Why not? It's right there big as anything. And look! The lights are on!" She thought about that and frowned. "I thought Julie said the place was deserted."

"Kids," I tried, hoping to detract Amanda's interest in The Promontory.

She absorbed this and nodded, knowingly.

Just then there was a series of loud bumps and a heavy thud, followed by a tiny crash of glass. Someone screamed in the living room. I whirled and leapt to the center of room. A crowd of our guests were gathered at the foot of the stairs. Fighting my freezing heart, I shoved people out of the way and lunged forward into the clearing to stare, unbelieving, at the moaning form of my wife."

"Julie! God no!"

"She's alive, Peter," said someone.

I lashed out in my grief. "Well, don't just stand there! Call an ambulance!"

"Does 911 work out here?" asked one of Julie's friends.

"Where's the nearest hospital?" asked someone else.

I got a grip on myself and answered. "It's on the bulletin board by the fridge."

They hurried off.

I looked down at Julie again. She was unconscious but clearly in pain and instinctively clutching at her belly. I touched her face as gently as I could. This seemed to rouse her. Her eyes fluttered open and she looked at me through fogged eyes.

"Peter, we're going to lose the baby."

My hand went to her belly. It was hard to the touch -- also in pain.

"Don't say that. The ambulance is on the way."

"It'll be too late."

I tried to distract her from that train of thought. "How did you fall?"

Her eyes roll up towards the top of the stairs.

I followed her gaze and saw that the rug -- the same rug which I had stumbled on that eerie night of the moving furniture -- was curled at the top of the landing. My eyes closed to slits. I felt a sudden ire at the objects in the house. The foreign objects. From across the street. The rug in question was from the second floor of the old house. I resisted the urge to barrel up the stairs and tear that rug into shreds with my bare hands and teeth.

"The ambulance is on the way," said a voice from somewhere distant. I snapped back to the immediacy of my ruined wife and hoped for a miracle.

To be continued...