Hellfire

3

Tracy Sturgess lay in her bed listening to the faint echoes of the old grandfather clock that had stood in the entry hall for as long as she could remember. She counted the chimes, then checked her tally against the little clock on her night table.

Eleven.

She threw the covers back, put on her robe, then went into the bathroom that adjoined her bedroom. Switching on the light, she inspected herself in the mirror.

She didn’t look quite right.

Carefully she mussed her hair until she was satisfied that it looked as though she’d been tossing in her bed for the last hour. Then she turned the bathroom light off and moved quickly through the darkness to her bedroom door. Opening it a crack, she peered out into the dimness of the corridor, lit only by a small night-light that sat on the marble-topped commode midway between the stairs and her grandmother’s rooms.

The hall was empty, and silence hung over the house. But at the far end of the hall, as she had known it would, light glowed from beneath her grandmother’s door.

Smiling, she hurried down the hall.

She paused outside her grandmother’s door, and listened. From within, she could hear the faint sounds of her grandmother moving restlessly around her sitting room, then a silence. Tracy smiled. Composing her face into a mask of worried unhappiness, she rapped softly at the door. For a moment there was no response from within, then she heard her grandmother’s voice.

“Come in.”

Tracy twisted the brass knob, and gently pushed the door open just far enough to slip through. “G-Grand-mother?” she asked, letting her voice tremble just the slightest bit. “I couldn’t sleep. I miss Grandfather so much …” She reached up and brushed at her eyes.

Her grandmother’s response, as always, was immediate.

“Tracy, darling, come in. Please.” From her chair, Abigail held her arms wide, and Tracy, after hesitating only a second, ran across the room, dropped to her knees, and buried her face in the old woman’s lap. Abigail, her own eyes flooding, gently stroked Tracy’s hair.

“What is it, child? What’s wrong?”

Tracy sniffled slightly, then looked up. “I … I just don’t know what’s going to happen to us, now that Grandfather’s …” She let her voice trail off, and held still as Abigail brushed the beginnings of a tear away from her eye.

“It’s going to be all right, my darling,” Abigail assured her. “We have to learn to accept these things. We all die sooner or later, and it was time for your grandfather to go.”

“But I didn’t want him to die!” Tracy wailed. “I loved him so much!”

“Of course you did. We all did. But we have to understand that he’s gone now, and that our lives go on.”

“But without him, everything’s going to be different!”

“Different?” Abigail asked. “How are things going to be different?”

Tracy hesitated for a long time, waiting for her grandmother to urge her to speak.

“Go on, Tracy. Whatever it is, you know you can tell me.”

Tracy took a deep breath. “It … it’s Carolyn. What’s going to happen to me, now that Grandfather isn’t here to help me? She hates me.”

Abigail slipped her arms around her granddaughter, and drew her close. “How could she hate you? You’re a lovely child.”

Tracy allowed herself a small pout. “But she does hate me. She always tells Daddy that I’m spoiled, and that you’ve raised me wrong.” She felt her grandmother’s body stiffen.

“I’ve raised you precisely as your mother would have raised you,” Abigail replied. “And your father knows that.”

“But he married her! And now she’s going to try to change everything!”

“Everything? How?”

Tracy’s eyes clouded, and she drew a little away from her grandmother. “I … I guess I shouldn’t talk about it tonight,” she said. She stood up as if to leave, but Abigail stopped her.

“Nonsense. Whatever is upsetting you, we should deal with it. Now, what is it?”

Tracy turned to face her grandmother again. “M-my birthday party,” she stammered. “Are we still going to have it next week, like we planned?”

Abigail blinked, then remembered. Tracy’s party, planned for weeks, had slipped her mind when Conrad died. “Why — I don’t know.” Then, seeing the disappointment in Tracy’s eyes, she immediately made up her mind. “But I don’t see why we shouldn’t have it. In fact, I’m certain your grandfather would have wanted it that way.”

Suddenly Tracy brightened. “And I can invite anybody I want?”

“Absolutely,” Abigail assured her. “After all, it’s your party, isn’t it?”

“But what about—” Tracy fell silent, as if once again she was hesitant to tell her grandmother what was on her mind.

“What about what?” Abigail pressed.

“Beth,” Tracy whispered. She hesitated as her grandmother’s jaw tightened slightly, and wondered if she’d made a mistake. But when Abigail spoke a moment later, Tracy knew it was going to be all right.

“I don’t think the little Rogers girl would enjoy your party.”

“But what are we going to do?” Tracy asked. “Carolyn will make me invite her.”

“Perhaps,” the old woman said softly, but her eyes were glinting now. “Perhaps she will. But perhaps she won’t, either. At any rate, we’ll deal with it tomorrow. All right?”

Tracy came back, and leaned down to give her grandmother a hug. “I love you, Grandmother,” she whispered.

“And I love you, too,” Abigail replied. “And you mustn’t worry about anything. Just because your grandfather’s gone doesn’t mean you’re all alone. You’ve still got me.”

A few minutes later, Tracy left her grandmother’s room, and started back down the long corridor. But the smell of the room — a mixture of mustiness and too-sweet cologne as well as something else — was still with her. She took several deep breaths, trying to rid herself of that cloying scent she had always hated: it was the smell of old people.

She wondered how her grandmother could stand it. And the room, too. Though she was always careful to tell her grandmother how much she liked the old-fashioned sitting room, with its Victorian furniture and worn Oriental rugs, the truth was that she hated the look of her grandmother’s suite as much as its smell. When her grandmother finally died, and Tracy talked her father into letting her move into the big suite, she’d change it all.

Everything.

But until then, she had to go on pretending to her grandmother. Grandparents, after all, had been known to cut people out of their wills. Tracy, even though she wasn’t quite thirteen yet, wasn’t about to let something like that happen.

Suddenly she stopped, listening. From behind a closed door she could barely make out the sounds of one of her favorite rock bands. She frowned, and listened harder.

The music was coming from Beth’s room.

She listened for a moment, her body unconsciously swaying to the familiar rhythms. Then, her eyes narrowing, she strode to Beth’s door, and pushed it open without knocking.

Startled at Tracy’s sudden entry, Beth sat up in bed and stared at the other girl.

“What do you think you’re doing?” she heard Tracy hiss.

“Tracy? What … what’s wrong?”

“That music, stupid! Don’t you know we’re mourning my grandfather?”

Beth stared at Tracy for a second, trying to understand what she’d done. “But — I was playing it soft.”

“You shouldn’t be playing it at all,” Tracy said. “How can anybody sleep, with you blaring your radio?”

“But you can hardly hear it—” Beth protested.

“I could hear it,” Tracy insisted. “And my grandmother could, too! Shut it off!”

Beth’s eyes widened, and she reached over to turn the knob on the clock-radio. “I’ll turn it down—”

“Turn it off!” Tracy insisted. She marched over to the night table, and punched at the button on top. The radio went silent. Beth, her eyes frightened, stared at her stepsister.

“I don’t see why I can’t listen to it if it’s so soft no one else can hear—”

“You can’t listen to it, because I said you can’t. It’s my house — not yours — and if you don’t like it here, you can just go live somewhere else!”

“But Mom said—”

“Who cares what your mother says?” Tracy demanded. “Just because your stupid mother married my father doesn’t give you the right to—”

Suddenly Beth’s anger overcame her confusion. “You take that back, Tracy Sturgess!”

Tracy, startled by the unexpected outburst, stepped back. “Don’t you talk to me like that!”

“Don’t you call my mother stupid!”

Tracy’s eyes hardened, and her mouth set petulantly. “I’ll call your mother anything I want, and you can’t stop me!”

Beth stared at Tracy, fighting back her anger. “Just go away,” she finally managed to say. “Just go away and leave me alone.”

The, two girls stared at each other for several long seconds, Tracy’s eyes glittering with rage while Beth struggled against the tears that threatened to overwhelm her. Then, at last, Tracy turned and stamped out of the room.

As soon as Tracy was gone, Beth ran to the door and locked it, then returned to her bed. Sobbing, she buried her head in the pillow.

It wasn’t going to get any better, despite what her father had told her. It was only going to get worse, and it wouldn’t matter what she did, or how much she pretended.

Tracy would still hate her.

Her sobs slowly subsided, and she lay in bed wondering what tomorrow would be like.

But she already knew.

It would start at breakfast.

She would sit miserably at the table in the breakfast room, trying to figure out which spoon to use for what.

Old Mrs. Sturgess would ignore her, just like she always did.

But Tracy would watch her, waiting for her to make a mistake, so that she could laugh when Beth made one.

And she would say or do something wrong. She always did.

But what if she didn’t go down for breakfast? What if she got up early, and sneaked down to have breakfast with Hannah? Then she could go down to the stable and see the horses, and after that—

— What?

Tracy would come, and tell her she didn’t know anything about horses, and that she should leave them alone.

And the trouble was, Tracy was right.

Beth didn’t know anything about horses. She didn’t know anything about anything in this house, and she’d never learn.

She snuggled deeper under the covers, and closed her eyes. Maybe, if she pretended hard enough, she could convince herself that she was back in the house on Cherry Street, where she’d lived before. And she could pretend that her parents were still married, and—

— and she couldn’t do it.

Her parents weren’t still married. Her mother was married to Uncle Phillip, and she had to get used to it.

She had to, and she would. Her mother wanted her to, and so did her father.

She turned over, telling herself that it wasn’t really so bad. It was a nice house, even if it was too big, and Uncle Phillip was always kind to her.

If she could only figure out some way to make Tracy like her.

Slowly, sleep reached out to her …

And in the night, she dreamed of Tracy.

Tracy was trying to kill her.

Despite the June warmth in the glassed-in breakfast room, Carolyn could feel the chill emanating from her mother-in-law, and the cold hatred from her stepdaughter. Phillip, engrossed in the financial pages of The Wall Street Journal, appeared oblivious of the strain in the room, though she was certain that he was listening to every word spoken. And when he at last felt compelled to put an end to the argument that had been going on for the last twenty minutes, she knew that he would come down firmly on her side.

It had begun when Carolyn had first come in that morning, and seen that her daughter’s place was not occupied.

“Isn’t Beth down yet?” she’d asked.

Abigail had peered at her over the tops of her reading glasses.

“I believe she took her breakfast with Hannah this morning,” she’d said, managing to convey that though she didn’t approve of members of her family eating with the servants, she was willing to overlook the breach in Beth’s case.

Beth, after all, wasn’t a Sturgess, and couldn’t be expected to meet the Sturgess standards of behavior.

Then she’d offered Carolyn a bright smile, and suggested that, since Beth was not present, perhaps they should discuss Tracy’s birthday party.

Carolyn’s guard had immediately gone up, particularly when she saw the slight smile on Tracy’s lips.

Now, almost half an hour later, Tracy was glaring at her, her blue eyes glittering with barely controlled fury beneath her creased brows.

“But Beth won’t even enjoy my party,” Tracy began, taking a new tack. “She won’t know how to dress, or what to say. She doesn’t know any of my friends, and they don’t know her!”

“Then perhaps it would be good for them to get to know her,” Carolyn said placidly, unwilling to reveal her own anger. “And perhaps we ought to invite some of Beth’s friends, too. It certainly seems to me that it would be good for you to get to know them. After all, you’re going to be going to school with them next year.”

“That has hardly been decided yet,” Abigail put in, laying her napkin aside in a gesture Carolyn had long since learned to recognize as a danger signal. “After Phillip and I have discussed the quality of the Westover schools, we’ll make the final decision.”

“We’ve already talked about it, Mother,” Phillip said, putting his newspaper aside. “The decision has been made. Next year Tracy goes to public school.”

“I’ve told you, I’m quite willing to pay her tuition out of my own funds—” Abigail began, but Phillip cut her off.

“Funds are not the point. The point is that neither I nor Carolyn is pleased with Tracy’s school.”

“And just what would Carolyn know about Tracy’s school?” Abigail asked, her voice taking on an acid quality she no longer tried to hide. “I hardly think,” she went on, casting a haughty half-smile in her daughter-in-law’s direction, “that your Carolyn is in any position to judge the quality of private schools.”

“That is not what we are talking about right now,” Carolyn replied, ignoring Abigail’s frosty gaze. Then, noting the beginnings of a grin playing around Phillip’s mouth, she stretched her foot under the table and kicked him. The grin threatened to grow for a split second, then he managed to suppress it. Carolyn continued, “What we’re talking about is Tracy’s party, and it seems to me that we’re making a mountain out of a molehill. Aside from the fact that my daughter is a perfectly nice girl, whose feelings I have no intention of letting either of you trample on, I think that you, Abigail, might keep in mind that her father happens to be an Alderman, and while that doesn’t make him a Sturgess — or a Babcock, a Kilpatrick, or a Bailey, either — it does give him a certain amount of power.” She let her eyes bore directly into Abigail’s. “Back when you were Tracy’s age, the Board of Aldermen consisted of your father, Phillip’s grandfather, Jeremiah Bailey, and Fred Kilpatrick. Aside from the fact that they were the Aldermen, they were also very rich.”

“The people voted for them,” Abigail snapped.

“Of course they did. The people worked for them, too, which might have had something to do with the way they cast their votes. But all that’s over, and it’s time you understood it. There are no Baileys, Kilpatricks, Babcocks, or Sturgesses on the board anymore. But the board still runs Westover, and the board still has to pass on all the permits that Phillip is going to need for future projects.” She paused, noting that Abigail flinched slightly, and surreptitiously glanced at her son.

Phillip, she was almost certain, was suppressing another grin.

“Given what you want to do with the mill, Abigail, you should understand the value of being on good terms with the board. There are a lot of people — and I am among them — who feel the mill should be left as it is, or torn down. I, of course, won’t fight Phillip. But others will. And snubbing Beth on Tracy’s birthday isn’t going to help your cause. It will hurt me, and I don’t even want to think about what it will do to Beth. But it will infuriate Alan.”

“I can’t imagine that Alderman Rogers is even aware of Tracy’s party,” Abigail observed archly.

“I wouldn’t count on that,” Carolyn replied. “Beth talks to her father about everything. In all of the talk about Tracy’s party, it was never suggested that Beth not be invited.”

“I didn’t invite her,” Tracy said sullenly. “And it’s my party. If I don’t want her to be here that day, she doesn’t have to be here! Does she, Grandmother?”

“Of course not, dear,” Abigail assured her. She turned her gaze back to Carolyn. “I’m sure you understand that our family has never mixed with children like Beth, and I see no reason why Tracy should be forced to do something that is unnatural to her. As for Beth, I’m sure she won’t feel the least bit snubbed. Those kinds of people rarely do — particularly the children.”

Steeling herself, Carolyn managed to keep her voice level. “Since I can’t imagine that you’ve ever been snubbed, Abigail, I’m sure you wouldn’t know how it feels. I, on the other hand, know very well, since it happens to me quite regularly. I can tolerate it. But there’s no reason why Beth should have to.” She paused, then decided it was time to let both Abigail and Tracy see how angry she truly was. “My God,” she went on. “Beth lives here! This is supposed to be her home, and the two of you do your best to make her feel as if she doesn’t belong here. And perhaps she doesn’t. Perhaps neither of us does. But here we are, and here we shall stay. And Beth will be at Tracy’s party, and you will both be polite to her. Is that clear?” She took a breath, and hoped Abigail couldn’t see that her hands were trembling. “Now, I think we might as well talk about something else, since this discussion is over,” she finished, somehow managing to force a smile. “More toast, Abigail?”

Abigail ignored her. “Phillip, I will not be treated this way. I don’t understand how you can—”

“She’s right, Mother,” Phillip interrupted, and Carolyn breathed a silent sigh of relief. “Aside from the moral issues, which we Sturgesses have never been too strong on, I think you’d better consider long and hard before you offend Alan Rogers. Not, mind you, that I think Alan would be petty enough to hold up any permits over a birthday party.” He smiled ironically. “Somehow that sort of thing strikes me as being much more our style than his. But there are a lot of projects coming up, and we’re going to need cooperation from the town. It’s not only Tracy who should start getting acquainted with everyone else who lives in Westover, all of us should.” He turned finally to his daughter. “I’m sorry, honey, but your stepmother’s right. Beth will be included in your party, or there won’t be a party.”

Tracy, her face twisting into a grimace of frustration and fury, burst into tears and stormed from the table. Immediately, Abigail rose to follow her, but Phillip spoke once more. “Leave her alone, Mother.”

“I will not leave her alone,” Abigail replied. “Ever since you married Carolyn, you’ve become insensitive to your own family. But you’re making a mistake, Phillip, and you will live to regret it.” She started out of the breakfast room, then turned back. “And as for the mill, Carolyn, whatever is done with it is no concern of yours. It is Sturgess property, and always has been. We shall do as we please with it, and what we please to do is to restore it as a monument to the foresight of Phillip’s great-grandfather. If the people of Westover cannot appreciate that, then the people be damned.” Her back ramrod straight, she swept out of the room.

There was a long silence, finally broken by Carolyn’s tired sigh. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I know how unpleasant that was for you. And maybe she’s right. Maybe Tracy shouldn’t be forced to include Beth in her party.”

Phillip shook his head. “Not a chance. It’s time all of us got dragged into the modern world. You’ve done it for me, and maybe Beth can do it for Tracy. We’ll just keep on plugging, and eventually things will all work out.” He glanced at his watch, then drained the last of his coffee. “And as for me, I’ve got to meet one of the wrong sort of people at the mill, and if I don’t hurry, I’ll be late.”

“Wrong sort of people?” Carolyn asked archly. “Who?”

“The worst,” Phillip replied, dropping his voice to a conspiratorial level. “Your ex-husband!” Then, before she could reply, he was gone.

Alone, Carolyn sat for a few minutes staring down on the village below. Always, when she’d lived down there and gazed up at Hilltop, the house had seemed to her to be the most peaceful place on earth.

Now she was here, and there was no peace.