they settle, they settle good. It begun with this Hubert Snell. I can see him yet. I’m staring at him now. The thatch over his black eyes was so thick no falling rain could hit his face. A darksome thunderhead of a man that used lightning for spit. He had arms like a knotted cedar and a leg like the cedar’s twisted trunk. Hube, they called him, Hube Snell.”
Ellen’s hands, slipping along the arms of her chair, made a sound like the squeaking of a tiny mouse as her body went back, her head farthest of all. With her eyes closed and her lips barely parted, she looked to be not of this world. For an instant Pete’s gaze swerved to her, a quick look as sudden as a stab. Nath felt guilty; if it hadn’t been for him, all this wouldn’t be happening. He ought to do something to break it up, say something cheerful that would lift Ellen and all of them out, of their trance. But it was Meg who blundered in to save Ellen.
“Is it Hubert does the screaming, Uncle Pete?” she asked.
“No,” said Pete, “not Hube, though it’s him the Red House is looking for. There’s no question to it. Hube didn’t own that house; it was it owned him, body and soul. For more’n forty year it’s been searching for Hube, and seems God has ordained it must keep on till it finds him, knowing no rest. That’s why it wanders from here to there, a lost house.”
Nath was standing; a moment ago he had been sitting, and now he was standing without knowing how or when he had risen. He traded look for look with Pete, thinking he was being bold until he realized that he was doing exactly what Pete had intended him to do. Pete gave a puff, much harder than usual, and it made Meg jump inside without moving.
“Sure, boy, go out now if you’re amind to,” said Pete, shooting the words like spitballs. “Search the dark places, and not only Oxhead Woods. Search by night, and happen ye meet up with them screams, they’ll mark ye once and forever. Yes, sir. Once heard, wherever found, you can come back to match your growth with mine, adding heft to heftiness, and only you and me will know why the voice that’s raised in anguish can’t be Hubert’s, and never was.”
He settled into his chair so smoothly that Nath was scarcely aware he had stirred until he saw that Pete’s head was back as far as it would go and his eyes closed. Though he was so ponderous and Ellen so gaunt, the two of them had assumed an incredible sameness that made them twins in essence as well as by date of birth. As for Meg, her eyes looked like horse chestnuts, big ones, but without life. All three seemed fixed as waxworks, people you couldn’t wake if you tried. Nath left them on tiptoe. He moved cautiously through the lean-to and reached the arbor. Clouds obscured the moon, creating a darkness that yielded to his expanding pupils only inch by inch.
But the stillness was worse than the dark. Even Rumble made no sound, though Nath could see the garnet glow of his open eyes. They seemed to be waiting for something, waiting for Nath to make up his mind, and that’s what he was waiting for himself. All day long he had been planning to stay late at Yocum Farm and then cross boldly through Oxhead Woods. His manner had bragged to Pete and Ellen and Meg that that was what he intended to do. What would they think if he didn’t? Yet he couldn’t start. He tried to reason, reminding himself how old he was, one of the biggest boys in high, almost as big and old as Teller Truman. Would Teller draw back from any woods at night? The heck he would!
That did it. He started down the ramp, moving carefully, so he wouldn’t slip and make a noise, never stopping to ask why he shouldn’t make all the noise he liked. At the bottom, he had to feel around for the opening into the path that hugged the edge of the tarn, but once in it, there was no chance of getting lost short of the black hole. In spots, the path was firm, but occasionally he would strike a patch as slippery as grease. Alders swiped his face, showering him with dew. Lower down, his knees swished through hummock grass and wild roses that snatched at his levis with sharp little claws. Constantly the water on his left blinked up at him, and moment by moment the foliage overhead grew denser until darkness took on solidity, something you could cut out in blocks like ice. As he rounded a curve, his heart gave a leap and jammed in his throat. Straight ahead rose a ghostly white column and seconds like ages passed before he recognized it for a shadbush in bloom. That was a laugh, wasn’t it? Well then, why not laugh? Because he couldn’t, because he was sneaking along as quiet as though he were trying to crawl up on a deer. How far had he come from the ramp? Half a mile? A mile? No, it couldn’t be because——
Without warning, something heaved downward from the right. Ripping through greenbrier and honeysuckle, snapping alders like gunfire, something as big and hard as a boulder caromed against his shoulder and sent him headlong into the tarn. The icy water struck like a cleaver, severing reason from mind. Frantic with fright, he scuttled for the shore, climbed the bank and ran. He didn’t need to see, feel or hear, for terror was a sure guide. It drove him back along the path and up the ramp. The big house loomed black with denial, but a gleam of light beckoned from the plank cabin. He plastered himself against its door, and a voice he had never heard tore out of his own throat, “Let me in! Let me in!”
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