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Questions

Don walked around the fence, then slogged through the damp mass of leaves that covered the front lawn of the carriage-house. Autumn had struck with a vengeance. He was a little surprised they didn't have the door open for him before he mounted the porch. What, were they slacking off on their spying?

He rang the doorbell. Nothing. Knocked. No answer.

He waited, knocked, rang, knocked again. Nothing.

Around the back it was the same. The curtains were drawn. No sign of life within. These were elderly women. Was something wrong? He tried the doorknob, just to peer in. It was locked.

Back to the front porch. That door was also locked. He knocked again, louder, rattling the windows. "Miss Judea!" he called. "Miss Evelyn!"

Then he realized. It was barely dawn. Old people didn't sleep all that much, he knew, but maybe they still slept past first light. And he couldn't keep shouting, he'd wake the neighbors. He shouldn't be here. And yet he had to ask them what they knew. What they understood about the house. What hope there was for Sylvie cutting loose from the place.

One last ring of the doorbell, and he turned away to head back to the Bellamy house. Naturally, that was when he heard the door being unbolted behind him.

It opened only a crack. No one peered out at him.

"Go away," said an aged, weary voice. He couldn't be sure which of the Weird sisters it was. It didn't sound like either of them.

"I need to talk with you," he said. "You told me if I had any questions—"

No answer.

"About getting somebody free of that house. I have to talk to you."

"Talk," she said scornfully. Now he knew the voice. Miz Evelyn. Probably. Maybe.

"Are you all right?" asked Don.

"What do you care?" she asked.

"Of course I care," he said. "Can I get you something?"

"Are you really that stupid?"

No. It was definitely Miz Judea.

Her voice came again, a whisper now, fierce but broken. "Don't you know you're killing us?"

The door closed. The deadbolt turned.

Don turned away and surveyed the front yard. Covered with leaves. These ladies spent every waking moment either fixing food for Gladys or working in the yard. And yet the yard had been so neglected that not a leaf had been raked.

Why? The answer was obvious. Now that he believed in the power of the house, he also had to believe what these women had told him about it. Every bit of work he did on the house had sapped their strength. They had begged him to tear it down, for their sake. He had done the opposite, restoring it closer and closer to its true shape. What would happen when he finished? Would they come feebly staggering around the fence to knock at his door and beg him to let them come inside their prison? Or would they remain stubbornly in the carriagehouse until they were too weak to teed themselves?

Who would the killer be then?

And yet if he weakened the house now, what would that do to Sylvie? Now that she knew the truth about herself, now that he also knew, their ignorant faith could no longer help them maintain an illusion. They depended on the strength of the house to keep her there, to make her real, until...

Until what?

He couldn't think. He was too tired. He hadn't slept at all last night, had done two days' worth of work, and there was nothing left.

He turned back to the door and shouted through it. "Can I bring you something!"

But there was no answer.

He walked back around the fence and into the Bellamy house. To his surprise, his cot had been moved back into the ballroom. It looked small, almost pathetic compared to the vast space around it. He remembered dancing with Sylvie, how the room had sparkled with the memories of the people who had danced here. Did the house hold all these memories? Had the breaking down of the false walls released them? Why was this house so powerful, when others had no such power? What magic had been done? And how, how could it be undone without hurting Sylvie?

Or maybe it was being here that was hurting her. Maybe if she had gone on she'd be happier. Instead of being trapped here. Maybe he should tear down the house, burn it right now, let her go, and free the Weird sisters.

Even the thought of wrecking the house made him sick with grief. He couldn't bear the thought of losing her.

Is this what it comes down to? My need for her? Is that more important than what the ladies next door need? What Sylvie herself might need?

He would gladly do whatever it took to set everything to rights. But what was the way things should be? Simple: Sylvie not dead, the Weird sisters free. But Sylvie was dead, except for the power of the house. And the Weird sisters were trapped because of the house. He could not save one without harming the other.

And somewhere Lissy was free as a bird, unharmed by any of this. He knew that, even though he had no evidence, even though for all he knew she was tormented by guilt and living in a hell of her own making. He knew that she was unharmed because that's the way the world worked. A decent person like Cindy lived in hell for a crime she only almost committed. While Lissy, a selfish, lying, conniving murderer, was probably doing just fine.

Wasn't there something he could do? Wasn't there some choice that didn't lead to somebody's destruction?

There was no one to ask. All he could do was lie down on the bed Sylvie had prepared for him and sleep at last.

He dreamed that he was a house. He dreamed that he felt the bones of it when he moved his hands, his arms. That he knelt to form the foundation, strong and steady, that the wind blew across his body, and inside him a heart was beating strongly, and it was his daughter there. She was in the most beautiful alcove in his body, playing, laughing. He heard her laughing. And then... silence. She was gone, and no heart beat there.

He grew cold. Snow piled on him, the wind tore at him. He bowed under the blast of the storm, empty. He did not understand why he was still kneeling there, why he hadn't simply ceased to exist. Why he was not dead, with his heart no longer beating.

And then it beat again. His heart was alive again, only he looked and there was still nothing there, nothing at all, and yet he was coming alive. Where was his heart? Why was he alive when he had no heart?

His eyes flew open and there she was, sitting in the alcove. Sylvie.

Why hadn't he been able to find her in his dream?

Because she wasn't there.

She did not know he was awake. She sat there, holding her knees, her head leaning back, her hair free, as she looked straight above her at the apex of the alcove. Was something carved there? What did she see?

For that matter, what did he see? What was it, exactly, that he wanted from her? With Cindy there had been no doubt about what was driving their passion. But what kind of passion bound him to Sylvie? Certainly he had taken her under his wing—reluctantly at first, but completely. So there was that fatherly, protective element. But she wasn't his daughter. When he thought about it, she might be a year or two older than he was. Except that she hadn't aged these years in this house, so she was still younger. Oh, but what did their ages matter? A man has his children under his protection, and his wife also, and his parents—it's part of what defines a man, to provide and protect. It's what you do when you grow up.

It was partly Sylvie's beauty, he knew that. It wasn't a traditional beauty, not the beauty of models or the fresh-faced beauty of the cinematic girl next door. She had a moody face, and her hair, while it couldn't possibly hold a coif, he was sure of that, had a kind of freedom to it, a contrariness that echoed her elusiveness. What was the beauty of her, really? Was it the line of her slender neck? Was it, in fact, how lean she was? A beauty that would be lost if she filled out to a more womanly shape? He didn't think so.

At last she sensed his eyes on her, and turned to look at him. She smiled. "What are you looking at?" she said.

"Beauty," he said.

"I laugh." But she didn't laugh.

"I'm trying to figure it out myself," he said.

"Thanks."

"I start with the beauty, Sylvie, and figure from there."

"Truth is beauty."

"Is that it?"

"I was just quoting Keats," she said.

"Are you the truth?" he asked. "That's pretty heavy. The truth is dead but still beautiful, haunting us but always out of reach."

She rose lightly to her feet and came to kneel beside his cot. She kissed his cheek. He touched her face and kissed her lips, warm and sweet and slow. "Not out of reach," she said.

"Oh, Sylvie," he said. "Don't you know how tempted I am just to live here forever with you? Keep the place up, leave only to earn enough money to come home to you?"

"Then do it," she said. "Oh, do it, please."

He rolled onto his back, looked at the ceiling. "For how long?" he said. "Until I'm sixty and you're still whatever age you are now?"

"I won't mind."

"I will," he said.

"Then you'll die and we'll be together."

"This is a good plan?" asked Don.

"The Ghost and Mrs. Muir" she said. "Did you ever see it?"

"There are some old ladies next door who are being destroyed by this house."

"Only because they fight it."

He turned to her. "They should come and live with us, too? Is that what you're saying?"

"I don't know why this house is so strong, Don. I didn't make it that way. They were trapped before I was born."

"I want to do the right thing, Sylvie."

"The right thing for whom?" she asked.

"The right thing."

"The greatest good for the greatest number? Did you ever take ethics?"

"Sylvie," he said. "I'm blocked. I'm stopped cold. There's nothing I can do that doesn't ruin somebody's life."

She kissed him. "I know."

"And if I don't do anything, that also ruins lives."

"Beginning with your own."

"Maybe," he said.

"Because you need children," she said.

He shuddered.

"Don't you?" she asked.

"I don't know if I could ever do that again. Now that I know what it does to you when you lose one."

"Is it any worse than losing a parent?"

"Yes."

"Worse than losing yourself?"

"I've never lost myself, Sylvie. Neither have you."

"I must have," she said. "Because it feels so good now that I've found myself again."

"You think because we danced, because we kissed, because we love each other—we do love each other, don't we?"

She kissed him again.

"You think," he said, "that this means our problems are over. But they're not."

She sat crosslegged on the floor. "Something's still wrong."

"Right. But what is it? What's the thing that if we fix it, everything will be all right?"

"It's not the house," said Sylvie. "The house isn't aware, really. It's strong, but it doesn't know anything. It... holds people. That's all it does. It makes them yearn for this place. It's a home."

"And that's not bad."

"That's not bad if you want to be here. My point is that the house isn't what's wrong. It just is."

"The ladies next door don't feel that way."

"You know what the problem is? She's still out there."

Don's mind was on Miz Evelyn and Miz Judea and the mysterious Gladys upstairs. "Who?"

"Lissy. My roommate. My murderer."

"Don't I know it."

"I know I can't live here forever, Don. If you can call me alive."

He squeezed her hand.

She smiled at him. "I know that if you're really going to be happy you have to love a living woman."

"I do," he said. "You."

"I know that maybe if I could let go of this place, if I could drift away. I mean, think about it. Who is it the house holds onto? Not the Bellamys. When they died, they drifted away."

"True," said Don. "And why didn't their children get caught up the way the ladies next door did? They grew up here and yet they could leave, they could even sell the place."

"That is odd, when you think about it. Why would two prostitutes be tied here, and not the others? Why me, and not the others who died here?"

"Maybe because you lost something here. Maybe you all lost something."

"My life," she said. "What about them?"

"I don't know. Their innocence? Their trust?"

"Their self-respect?"

"I don't know them that well," said Don. "But they lost something and so they can't leave the house until they get it back."

"Maybe it's not something in particular at all. Maybe it's just—loss."

"Other people have to have lost things here, too."

"Well, then, maybe it's need."

"What do you need?"

"A life," she said, laughing.

"But that's not a joke, is it?" he said.

"No," she said. "Even before she killed me, I needed a life, Don. My parents were gone. There was nobody to show my accomplishments to. You know? Nobody to watch me sing or dance or whatever and clap their hands when I got through it without a single mistake."

He nodded. "I know what you mean."

"So I believed all that stuff about pleasing myself." She laughed. "Can't be done. You can't please yourself by doing what you want. Because it doesn't mean anything if it's just you. There has to be somebody else it matters to. I think... I think that in my heart I needed that to be Lissy. I needed her to care about what I did."

"And instead she cared so little that she was willing to wreck it all just to get a good grade on a paper."

Sylvie nodded. "So it's my own need holding me here."

"Maybe," said Don.

They sat in silence for a while.

"Or maybe," said Don.

"What?"

"Maybe it's justice that you need."

"What's justice? I hit Lissy with a stone. I could have killed her. As far as I can tell, my being dead and trapped here may very well be justice. Maybe this is hell, Don."

"Hell is knowing she's out there, thinking she got away with it."

"Not just thinking," said Sylvie. "She did get away with it."

"I want to find her," said Don.

"No."

"I just want to... I don't know. Send her a note. Just let her know that somebody knows what she did."

"And then?"

"I just don't think she should be happy," said Don.

"Will it bring my body back to life?"

Don thought of the corpse lying on the mattress down in the tunnel. He thought of Nellie's little body—and his ex-wife's, too. She at least had died for her sins. Lissy hadn't.

"She has to face what she did," said Don.

Sylvie laughed. "You're not going to do that by sending her a note."

"How, then?"

"Bring her back here," said Sylvie. "Bring her back to me."

Don looked at her. What was she talking about? What did she mean to do?

"Maybe now that the Bellamy house is becoming itself again, it's time for it to be haunted."

He thought back to the movies he'd seen with haunted houses. Poltergeist. The Uninvited. The Changeling. He thought of Lissy coming into this house and coming face to face with the woman she murdered. And the house...

"Oh, man," he said. "What would happen?"

"I don't know," said Sylvie. "But one thing's certain. She couldn't hurt me again."

"So she comes," said Don. "We find her somehow and she comes and you face her and she, what, I don't know, runs screaming from the house and never has a good night's sleep again. Or she goes to the police and confesses. Or she laughs at you and burns the house down. Or she dies of a heart attack. Whatever. Then what?"

"Then nothing," said Sylvie. "We know, that's all. We find out what happens and then we both know."

Don thought about this. "Is there really some balance in the universe? Some scale of justice that will bring her here and find some way to set things to rights?"

"She's what's missing, Don. You're the one who kept saying it—she's out there. And she shouldn't be. She committed murder in this house, Don. If anyone should be trapped here, it's her."

"You think the house wants her?"

"The house just wants. But if she comes, I think it might want her."

"And it will let you go."

"Maybe."

"Let you go, but how? By making you disappear? Like you did this morning out there in the yard?"

"Would that be so terrible, Don?"

"I don't want to lose you."

"Don, be honest, please. You don't have me. You never can. And I can never have you. So maybe the best thing, the right thing—remember, you were asking about that?—maybe the right thing is for me to be set free of this place. And maybe if Lissy comes here, that can happen. I can..."

"Go to heaven," he murmured.

"Whatever."

Don swung his legs off the cot and got up. "I've got to use the john." Then he laughed. "And I actually worried about whether you'd been peeing in some sink or something."

"Gross," she said.

He walked through the huge ballroom instead of along the narrow hall. When he got to the bathroom he closed the door out of habit. It felt so good to release his bladder. The easing of that pressure.

He thought of the ladies next door. What pressure they felt, what its easing would mean to them. Was Sylvie right? Did it all depend on bringing Lissy back?

When he came back into the ballroom, he could feel a draft. A cool breeze was blowing outside, and the front door was open. She couldn't have gone outside!

No. She was sitting on the bottom step of the stairway, looking at the outdoors.

He sat down beside her. "You know, I'm not some macho guy who avenges murdered girls."

"I know," said Sylvie. "That's what's eating you alive. That you aren't the kind of guy who takes the law into his own hands. You left the law in other hands and it screwed you over pretty bad."

"I was talking about you, not..."

"Not your little girl. But that's still part of what this is about. It's your hunger, Don. You need to save some captured girl before this whole thing plays out."

"So you've got me figured out, huh?"

"You haunt this house just like I do, Don."

"I'm not dead."

"You live in dead places."

"I bring them back to life."

"But then you move on to another dead place."

Don sighed. "Whatever. I wouldn't even know where to start looking for her. She could live anywhere. Under any name."

"Not if nobody's looking for her," said Sylvie. "Not if she thinks no one ever found my body. And even if they did, there'd be no way to tie it to her."

"So I just check every American phone book looking for Lissy—what's her last name?"

"Felicity Yont. But she has changed her name, I'll bet. To McCoy."

"Why McCoy?"

"Because that's her boyfriend. Lanny McCoy."

"So I look up Yont and McCoy."

"Lissy was from Asheboro, but her people were all dead—it's one of the things we had in common, that we were both alone. Lanny, though, he was local. He even lived with his parents. She used to laugh about that. How she never thought she'd be with a guy who lived with his parents. She said all that was left was for her to put on Spock ears and go to a Star Trek convention."

"You think they might still be living in town?"

"No," she said. "Lissy couldn't wait to get out of North Carolina. She was so jealous of my getting a job in another state. We joked about how she was dying to leave and couldn't, and I didn't care about leaving North Carolina, and I was the one who had the cool job waiting for me in Providence."

"So I start calling directory assistance? That's the way to go through my bankroll, a quarter at a time."

"No, silly," she said. "Haven't you ever done any research?"

"Not lately."

"Not ever," she said, teasing him. But they both knew it was true. "The library has a lot of phone books from other areas. But you won't start there. If Lanny's people still live in Greensboro, all you have to do is find them and they'll probably tell you where Lanny is living now. With his wife Lissy, I'll bet."

"That would be too easy."

"But maybe that's how easy it'll be."