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THE HOUSE OF AUNTY BERENICE
Nik Morton
Purple was etched
beneath her wide eyes. The slightly built girl in the shadowy doorway wore an
eggshell-blue dress and apparently nothing else. Some people answer and look as
if they're truly at home, in body and spirit; somehow, she didn't seem to
belong, not here in this dilapidated house, not in shadow.
'Hello,' Swan greeted her, conscious
of his total lack of originality. He removed his brown trilby, reassured by the touch of the felt brim. Why
be concerned about showing freshness to her, why impress a stranger? 'I'm
looking for a Miss Winkworth - she used to live here...' What an utter mess he
was making of it! Affected by the presence of this slip of a girl!
She opened the door a little
further, as though reluctant to admit daylight, anxious to preserve the shadows. He studied the silent puzzlement in
her chestnut-brown eyes.
'I'm an investigator,' he began and withdrew a Perspex card. 'She's her late uncle's beneficiary...'
Long auburn hair shimmering, she
nodded and beckoned with slim fingers for him to enter.
Swan cast a final apprehensive look up at the shabby Georgian facade.
Probably his over-active imagination, but he could feel the charged atmosphere,
a palpable thing, as he stepped over the threshold.
What little wallpaper the hallway possessed was peeling off the damp
walls, baring cracked alabaster. Cobwebs looped everywhere. Strangely, the air
was not musty; it seemed chill, sharp, a smell like hoar-frost. Tangible. Air in suspension.
Her shapely body tended to flow beneath the dress; hips and buttocks
rolled provocatively yet she appeared blissfully unaware of her sexuality,
giving him the fanciful impression of someone fragile and unearthly.
Dust and grit moved under his feet.
He shouted: 'Wait!' Voice echoing. 'We can talk here!'
She turned, a crease of disapproval marring her brow. 'You should know
better than to shout,' she whispered softly. 'Aunty will hear you. We don't
want that, do we?' Her eyes lanced up at the flaking ceiling.
Inquisitively, he followed her gaze. 'Aunty?' he queried, unbuttoning
his raincoat.
'You're my Knight Errant. You need
not trouble yourself with Aunty Berenice. She died two years ago...' And she
turned gracefully on her bare
feet and resumed her interrupted journey.
Everything pointed to her being
slightly mad, but he was curious. She spoke intelligibly: her mind seemed
synchronised, for she said her aunt died two years ago, and that coincided with
Abigail Winkworth's disappearance... Smiling to himself, he felt his revolver
snug in its holster. She was small and harmless...
At the end of the hall she waited by
a woodworm-pitted door. Through the circular skylight, noonday sun played on
her wan high cheekbones. Dust motes glided aimlessly in the sunbeam.
Dryness increased in his mouth as he noticed the dark aureoles of her
breasts and the darker triangle beneath the flimsy dress. Yet she appeared
unconcerned, innocent, and his
cynical mind found that
difficult to grasp.
Wordlessly, she took his hand warmly in hers. A kind of frisson traced
his spine, tautened his stomach muscles. Was this feeling primitive, merely
genetic pimping, or something more profound and spiritual? She led him into a
bare sour-looking green room whose parquet floor was littered with cans of
food. A naked light hanging on flex from a damaged ceiling rose lent
stark illumination.
Cut into the wall opposite was an
archway, with a dark-stained wooden cellar-door secured by a rusty bolt.
Chopped-up remains of a dining table and chairs were stacked against one wall.
An axe rested against the fireplace tiles; the grate contained crisp black
book-pages and furniture, while to the left stretched a ceiling-high bookcase,
almost empty now, only a few books
lying forlorn and well-thumbed, threatened-looking...
She must have read his features, for she said, 'I can't eat books, but
they can keep me warm and cook my tinned food.'
It was sunless in here, bleak. With
an effort, he smiled and pointed to the bolted door. 'Is that the wine cellar?
Have you a good vintage locked away, perhaps?'
Her mouth twisted open. 'It - it's
dirty,' she stammered, holding him back. 'Anyway, there's no light...'
He shrugged, his joking
having fallen quite flat. 'I was just
curious.'
'And the bolt's jammed,' she
persisted.
Though now mystified about the cellar, he switched the
subject. 'Do you live entirely out of tins, then?' The concern in his voice was
genuine. Lost waifs, scruffy
urchins, hurt strays, he'd met them all - some were hysterics, others paranoid,
and some were the real thing, emotionally damaged in a none too caring society.
But over these last two years he’d
hardened his heart against them all. Until now. At the moment, as she looked
wide-eyed at him, he could feel his legs becoming jelly.
'Usually I get something out of the deep-freeze, but -' she sighed -
'that's jammed as well.' Her tone contained no plea for him to mend the freezer
door. 'Besides,' she added, 'I like a change now and again - and the tins give
me that.' Without warning, she sat down cross-legged in the middle of the
floor. He was grateful to rest his quaking legs and knelt by her side. She
gripped his hand tightly.
Reflective, she jerked her head to
one side, flicking wisps of hair from her eyes. No tide-marks, hair glistening
and healthy, she seemed clean and content, but for the eyes... 'It's a
fascinating room, when empty, isn't it?' Her eyes roamed over the ramshackle
place. Not much furniture left to cook with, he mused. 'I've lived here three
years now - not only in this room...' She gestured nervously. 'I mean the whole
hunk of house. Hunk of house - do you like that?'
'Yes, I do.' Her eyes shone at him,
and he saw tears behind them, streams of emotion that had never trickled forth.
She seemed so defenceless, so fragile. And, he feared, desirable...
'My name's Mystique Recondite.'
Where did reality begin and end with
her? Still, the name suited her! 'What did you mean - your Knight Errant?'
he asked.
'I want to get away from this,' she
suddenly confessed in a whisper and her eyes rolled as though aware of an
indiscretion, 'this thing, this house...' The change in tone - and in
allegiance - was disconcertingly abrupt, almost to the point of schizophrenia.
Then it dawned on him that she had not been outside the house in those three
years... No wonder she was so wan, so erratic, seeming less than sane.
Intrigued and a little scared, he felt his skin creep icily down his
spine. Her grip tightened, nails digging into his palm. Clearly, underneath her
cheerful uncaring manner she, too, was afraid of something.
'Mystique. Do you know
the woman I'm seeking?' He was now anxious to get away, yet, perversely, he did
not want to leave her alone here. 'Miss Abigail Winkworth - is she related to
your Aunty, perhaps?' A crumb fell from the ceiling.
'Yes. But before I say any more you must promise you will never leave
me, bring me back here.'
Under normal circumstances he would
have laughed, dismissed her demand as a demented plea, to be patronised only
until the men in white coats arrived with a straitjacket. But he'd known her so
long now, or felt he had, he could not deny or betray her. He nodded.
'Promise!'
The ceiling shook with her words.
Crumbled and flaked.
'I promise you'll never be left
here.'
She leaned forward, pouting. 'You
have twisted the words.' Her lip curled back. 'It's like milking a reluctant
cow to get you to say it!'
'All right, Mystique. I
promise I shall never leave you, bring you back.' And he meant it. Mystique
sighed contentedly. 'What's your name, Knight Errant?'
'Alann - with a double en.' He
smiled and sensed a change in the air, like a pressure-increase heralding a
storm. Now the vile staleness of the discarded cans, of the age of the place,
permeated his nostrils and throat and sickened him. As though some odour-shield
had been withdrawn.
He heard the unmistakable
creaking of floorboards. Upstairs.
'I like you, Alann,' he heard her
say.
'I like you a lot.' Her vermilion lips curved. Engaging, yet incongruous at this time;
tongue flicked, licking her lips.
Against his will, a lascivious stirring below his stomach began
to warm his blood.
Hinges squeaked and her smile froze.
He followed her alarmed eyes. In some mysterious manner the cellar's bolt had loosened; the door
swung slightly ajar. Fetid air floated out, a miasma that crossed the room and
pressed against him.
The ceiling uttered a moan. Pieces of whitewash and cement dropped in
little clusters, making a series
of scratching sounds.
'Aunty must be angry' he said and
instantly regretted it.
Mystique cried out, 'No, Aunty! Not
him! Please! Not this one!' She jumped up, made to let go his hand. 'I won't
let you!'
But he hung on: he didn't intend losing her.
Now the ceiling issued a monstrous belch. The green walls dulled, wan
and indistinct.
His nostrils snatched some nauseous odour, reminiscent of a
slaughter-house he once visited on a
case.
Plaster cascaded onto the rubbish already there.
Mystique hesitated, despair clouding her eyes.
He clutched her hand tighter, fingers interlaced.
The roof quivered, emitting a
fountain of dust.
And the cellar door swung wide: a spectral light shone from within.
Tempted to seek shelter, he ran across the room with her, came up
against the wall. But he held back, lest they become buried alive... Swan
pressed her against the wall, close to his inadequate sheltering body.
Hunks of house dropped in dribs and
drabs, bounced on rubble. Clouds of choking dust leapt up only to subside and
leap again. A rogue alabaster splinter pipped his shoulder.
All he could hear was the trundle of
falling debris. It grew into a deafening, continuous, horrible roar.
As his watering eyes focussed on the
beckoning cellar-entrance to his left he could see the spectral glow emanating
from what appeared to be bones.
His head spun giddily as Mystique's words forcefully returned: 'Not
this one! I won't let you!' The cellar was a trap.
Something hard and jagged rapped his
shoulder-blades. He experienced
a cold trickle of blood as he felt the stabbing pain of Aunty Berenice's
displeasure.
Mystique stood immobile, eyes
clamped shut. Dust stuck to the sweat on their faces, to his injured back.
His once-reassuring revolver pressed against his ribcage; he released a
barking laugh on dust-flecked lips. What good was a gun against anything like
Aunty Berenice? On the edge of hysteria, he laughed again. One moment the
thunder bellowed, the air screamed; the next, an unreal deathly silence
enveloped them.
Only the centre of the ceiling had
fallen.
Unexpectedly, Mystique lifted her
dusty lips to his. Her gesture
was more thankful than coquettish.
'Thank you, Knight Errant, my Alann with the double en,' she said.
'When you laughed, she was beaten. There's
been no laughter in this house for years.' Nor compassion, concern, love... Her eyes glistened. 'You see, you were
my Knight Errant!'
He had no logical answer to that. But he believed instinctively that Aunty Berenice had been the
beneficiary he'd sought. His client had referred to her as a sour,
disillusioned old woman who thrived on hate and fear. She had destroyed her
family and her children's lives, then vanished. Yes, she would have probably
changed her name. But she could not change her nature: even in death she had endowed
her house with her own brand of bitterness and spite. Even to the point of
manipulating Mystique.
Yet he was no longer interested in client or job. Holding her hand, he
recalled his promise. His heart pounded, and not because of their ordeal.
He now had no wish to break his promise, ever.
Without so much as a backward glance
they left the firemen and the police and the curious onlookers to sort out the
shambles, to bar up the entrance and exits, to close the House of Aunty
Berenice until it could be razed to the ground, removed forever from the world
of Mystique Recondite.
Previously published
in Dark Horizons, 1985.
Copyright Nik Morton
2014.
If
you liked this story, you might also like my collection of crime tales, Spanish Eye, published by Crooked Cat
(2013), which features 22 cases from Leon Cazador, private eye, ‘in his own
words’. He is also featured in the story
‘Processionary Penitents’ in the Crooked Cat Collection of twenty tales, Crooked Cats’ Tales.
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