The Tea Party - A Novel of Horror Read online

Never kidding herself, she knew she had landed the job because of her sex; the remnants of the New Frontier had made her superiors nervous about feminist lawsuits. And she never bothered to explain that she wasn’t the type to take legal action just because she wasn’t hired.

  What made the current situation more frustrating was the admission of the firm’s founder that she was, without a doubt, one of the best attorneys he had.

  Of course, she could always hang out her shingle in Deerford. Everybody asked her advice anyway so she certainly wouldn’t lack for clients.

  It would be hard, no question about it. Litigation between farmers and shopkeepers wasn’t exactly the road to great or lasting fortune. On the other hand, she would be rid of the unrelenting pressure to perform, and the kids would have her home more often. They were old enough now to understand why she had to work so hard, and so late; but they were also starving for the sight of her, the touch of her, even the way she scolded them.

  A scolding much like the one she’d given only that afternoon.

  Keith had called (hastily claiming his sister had forced him into it) to ask if they could take their bikes over to Winterrest to explore after their household chores were done. She had said no. He had pouted. She told him that the estate was private property and no one, not even God, was allowed to walk there without permission.

  When he passed the obviously expected response on, she could hear Heather demanding justice for young adults and gee whiz all the other kids do it.

  “Well,” she said with impeccable parental logic, “you’re not all the other kids. Stay away. I don’t want you near it.”

  It was curious, actually. She had no idea why she felt that way. No one had lived there for years, and the older kids frequently crept over the low wall and did whatever kids did in the dark these days.

  But while Winterrest was for some a comforting declaration of Deerford’s existence, it unnerved her, and she could not say why.

  She glanced at her watch; it was a few minutes past four. Time to see if this heap would start moving.

  She flicked the cigarette across the road and had half turned to open the door when she felt rather than heard a subterranean rumbling. A light cloud of dust lifted from the tarmac, hovered and settled only to rise again, flecked through with black motes like gnats swarming at dusk.

  An anxious look up the highway, searching for the truck that had to be careening wildly toward her, thinking for a moment she ought to move into the trees in case the driver didn’t see her and slammed into the car.

  The rumbling increased, and she felt a thrumming vibration penetrate her soles, tingle her calves, tighten her thighs.

  Then, before she could decide what was happening, the ground trembled.

  She started, and stared at the narrow verge, at the blacktop still cracked from the previous winter’s freeze.

  The ground rippled.

  A flock of crows bolted into the sky, calling hysterically, wheeling, swinging sharply overhead before disappearing south.

  The car creaked and began rocking, and she jumped away, holding up her hands as if afraid it would scorch her.

  “Hey!”

  Beneath her feet the rumbling became thunder, and the trembling became a quaking, rolling and violent. Before she could grab the door the hood slammed down, and before she could call out again she was thrown off her feet.

  The trees became palsied, saplings swaying like frantic whips until they blurred grey and green. A large gnarled branch crashed onto the road, bounced, and shattered into splinters as if it were glass; an oak lifted groaning out of the ground, roots dripping black dirt and dark wriggling things, screaming as it fell against a smaller, younger tree that bent under the weight and snapped like a gunshot, the landing raising a cloud that spun away as though the quake had given birth to a wind.

  The grumbling swelled to a roaring, a deafening bellow that made her ears ache.

  Liz was rolled into the middle of the road, jagged pieces of blacktop scraping her arms and legs while she screamed and tried to cover her head.

  A moss-stained boulder moved ponderously out of the forest and onto the verge.

  The car bounced on its tires, and the hood flapped and clanked like a toneless cymbal.

  She was tumbled toward the woods and tried to stop herself by spreading her legs, digging in toes and heels wherever she could. It didn’t work. The ground hunched and threw her, and she landed face up in a shallow ditch, the breath punched from her lungs; and she looked skyward to see a forty-foot tree leaning down toward her.

  She screamed for the children and crossed her arms over her face, drew up her legs and tried to stand, was thrown back again, her head slamming on a rock.

  The bellowing climbed, a dragon prowling the woods.

  She cried as the tree lowered, its shadows creeping along her chest, its rough-bark bole groaning in the effort to keep itself whole. A leaf raked her brow as if trying to skin her.

  She swore as she tried to squirm out of the way, and found herself pinned by a branch against the ditch’s wall, prayed when she could smell the bark, the leaves, the heaving roots lifting blackly.

  And she blinked when the dragon abruptly fell silent, the throes of the earthquake suddenly ended.

  The ground settled.

  The leaves stopped husking.

  In a nearby tree a cardinal was singing.

  “Good . . . lord,” she groaned as she sat up and pushed a twig away from her legs. “Good—”

  The kids! God, the kids are home!

  Her legs wobbling, her breath hard to come by, she staggered to the car, swallowing and gasping, her hands outflung to regain her balance.

  Midway there she stopped.

  The windshield was spiderweb-cracked on the passenger side from a rock striking it head on, a horizontal dent creased the driver’s side door, and the paint was badly faded by the dust raised by the quake.

  The only thing that surprised her was that the engine was running.

  No doubt there was some highly technical and for her totally incomprehensible reason why the engine had restarted during the earthquake, but as she left a smoking plume in her haste to get home, she didn’t really care. It had started, was still running, and that’s all that mattered until she reached the kids to see if they were all right.

  The back of her left hand swiped a tear from each cheek, then regripped the wheel while her right hand plunged into her purse to find a cigarette. By the time it was between her lips and burning, she had slowed down, and was frowning, leaning forward and staring through the windshield at the view ahead.

  It was impossible, but nothing seemed damaged beyond the spot where she’d stopped. The blacktop was unmarred, the trees were still standing, and when the blinking amber light came into view at the T-intersection turn into town it wasn’t even swinging. As it should have been—perhaps even dashed to the ground—if in fact the earthquake had actually happened.

  Don’t be ridiculous, Liz; you were there, for god’s sake!

  There, and terrified, and she could have been killed by that slow falling tree had the quake continued. Right now she could be broken and dead at the side of the road.

  Her arms went suddenly and frighteningly cold, her legs went numb, and her eyes began to blur. She pulled over and turned off the ignition. She could walk now if she had to. Though there were trees on her right, on the left side of the road was the backyard fence of the first Meadow View home. She couldn’t recall who it belonged to, but there was wash hanging from a line strung from the back door to a weeping willow. A pudgy woman in a pink floral robe was pinning a sheet to the cord.

  Up ahead, beyond the warning signal, a county maintenance truck came toward her. When it was abreast of the BMW she stared at it, at the men sitting in back amid rakes and shovels and pots of steaming tar. They grinned, one whistled, and she half turned to watch until they disappeared around the bend.

  Ordinarily, she would have ignored them.

  Ord
inarily, she wasn’t caught in a New Jersey earthquake.

  “It happened.” She reached out to touch the windshield’s crack. “Damnit, it happened!”

  She restarted the engine, pulled off the shoulder, and drove to the brick pillars that marked Meadow View’s entrance. She took the rest of the way at walking speed, to the last house in back. A split-level mock Tudor. Green fields behind it, green lawn in front shaded by the two red maples Ron had planted the afternoon he died. He had been standing by the last one, hosing water over the roots when suddenly his face paled, his mouth opened—he looked at her on the steps, and he keeled over.

  The doctor said he was dead before he hit the ground.

  Six years ago, at thirty-five, his heart had given out.

  She pulled into the driveway, sat for five minutes trying to see if she would scream, then opened the door just as her children ran out of the garage.

  Keith was eleven, husky, and blond, wearing coverall jeans and a Conan T-shirt; Heather would be fourteen in December, and was in one of her father’s denim workshirts, and a pair of red shorts. Both were barefoot, both demanding her immediate attention, and both were stunned when she threw her arms around them and hugged so tightly Keith began to gasp.

  “Mom, are you all right?” Heather asked when she finally extricated herself. “What happened to the car? Did you have an accident? Are you okay?”

  “Did you hit a tree or something?” Keith said, staring in astonishment at the crack in the windshield. “Jeez, you musta been going ninety. Jeez.”

  “Fine, I’m fine,” she said shakily. “I . . . didn’t you feel anything here, about twenty minutes ago?”

  “What,” Keith said, wrenching his attention from the wrecked car to the wreck his mother was. “An earthquake?”

  She almost nodded, then changed her mind. Instead, she hugged them again and her son protested loudly.

  “Hey, can’t a mother hug her kids when she wants to?”

  “Child abuse,” he muttered, and danced out of the way of her stinging palm.

  She watched them rush inside, and followed slowly, looking around until she was dizzy, finally convinced that whatever that nightmare was, it hadn’t struck here.

  And once in the kitchen—sunny yellows and copper, a round white table in the center, a cloth calendar by the fridge—she had to force herself to believe it had really happened while she spun a swift tale of being forced off the road by a speeding truck.

  Heather swore piously she’d never drive that way, and Keith was all for forming a lynch party instantly. The concern made her feel good, made her smile, albeit somewhat weakly.

  “Mother,” Heather said then as she opened the refrigerator and pulled out a can of Dr. Pepper, “would you please tell Keith that my room is off limits to little boys? He keeps going in there without my permission. And I wouldn’t give it to him anyway, even if you said to.”

  “Mom,” Keith said, sitting at the table and folding his arms over his chest, “would you please tell Heather than I don’t take orders from anyone named after a weed?”

  “Mother!”

  She sat, took the soda, and drained half the can. A glance around the room to be sure the walls weren’t cracked, the windows were still intact, and she drank the rest without taking a breath, held out her hand until Heather gave her another. A belch rose, and instead of stifling it she let it out, loudly, crudely, and both her children gaped before starting to laugh.

  Normal, she thought; thank god, it’s all normal.

  Then, with her hands cupped around the can, she listened as they told her about their day, about the way Keith’s truly dumb friends—who called themselves the Mohawk Gang—had been absolute pests from the moment she’d left for work, how Heather was getting too snotty just because she was almost fourteen and thought she was a big deal, and how they were going to have to learn to ski next winter because otherwise they were completely and totally going to be the invisible man if they didn’t.

  “That’s nice,” she said, grinning. “And when did you find time to straighten up the house, like you were supposed to?”

  Keith looked at her as if she were crazy, and Heather only rolled her eyes toward the ceiling.

  “Sorry,” she said, “I must have lost my mind. It looks all right, anyway, I guess.”

  “Mother,” Heather said, “are you going out tonight?”

  When she nodded she couldn’t help noticing their reaction—Keith’s gaze went blank for the briefest of moments, and Heather’s eyes narrowed just as long.

  But she knew it wasn’t the date that bothered them, it was the man taking her on it. Clark Davermain was not exactly the hit with the kids he thought he was.

  On the other hand, if it had been Doug, they would have personally carried her up the bathroom, scrubbed her back, washed her hair, and made sure she had washed thoroughly behind her ears.

  Well, maybe not quite that bad, and they really didn’t hate Clark at all. They were polite, and they conversed, and they laughed quietly at his jokes. And she blinked with the realization that what they were doing was tolerating him. For her sake. Because they thought she cared for him.

  Oh, Christ, she thought, this is a hell of a thing.

  And when a light push of wind rattled the screen door, it was all she could do not to scream in their faces.

  3

  The two-story colonial three doors down from the Depot Tavern was, on that Friday afternoon, darkly immersed in shade that seemed too much like winter shadow clinging to the maples towering over the building. It looked like a normal Deerford residence— white, a house-long porch complete with rocking chairs and a padded bench-swing, the windows flanked by dark green shutters, with cream shades with braided pulls, and white filmy curtains permanently tied back; it looked normal except for the narrow pine-plank sign on the gaslight post at the end of the slate walk, a sign with “The Antique Bazaar” burned into it in lettering the owners supposed looked like Old English. The entire first floor had been transformed into a shop, various polished bits and sets of furniture, bric-a-brac, and display cases of gold- and silverware painstakingly arranged to resemble a maiden aunt’s attic in which treasures were to be found.

  There was track lighting on the molding, and a few of the lamps were fitted with low-watted bulbs, the effect designed for a pleasant browsing atmosphere and for preventing the casual but ready shopper from seeing too much too soon, before the sale was made.

  Now, all the lights were on though it was only just past four—the maples’ persistent but noncooling shade made it feel as if it were considerably past sunset.

  The front door was open in a vain attempt to vent the heat, and on the threshold stood a young man slight and tall, whose light brown hair had already retreated around a monk’s cap at the back of his skull. He wore pressed brown slacks, a pin-striped shirt folded open at the throat, and at the moment he was crushing a cigarette beneath his loafered heel. Then he turned from his survey of the empty street and put his hands in his pockets.

  “Ollie, I have made a decision,” Bud Yardley announced to the woman he was going to marry in less than three weeks.

  “Really,” she uttered, not bothering to look up. Bud was always making decisions; it was part of his charm.

  “Yes, I have. After a great deal of careful consideration, I have decided that this weekend, and for this weekend only, we will do nothing but sell the original stuff from the Retirement Room, and none of this crap we have out here.”

  Olivia West looked up from the cash register set on a four-foot long counter just inside the door, and she frowned. “What the hell are you talking about, Charles?”

  Bud winced at the scolding and what he thought was an upper-class pronunciation of his given name, and decided that the marriage contract would somehow have to include a prohibition of its use.

  “I mean it, Ollie,” he said earnestly. “Let’s do some real selling for a change.”

  Ollie shrugged. “Whatever you say.”
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br />   “Well, it isn’t only what I say,” he told her, wondering at her attitude. She had been distracted all day, but wouldn’t tell him why. “You are the other half of this partnership, you know.”

  A shallow crease appeared in her smooth high forehead as she counted the bills in their slots, lifted the tray, and counted the bills and checks beneath it. “Okay. Then I say you’re wrong.”

  Bud bit down on the inside of his cheek. For a moment, just for a moment, he was tempted to take hold of the thick brown braid dangling down her back to her waist; just for a moment he wanted to give it a vicious yank to pull some sense into her skull. But he knew he wouldn’t, just as he knew she would never permit him to sell the only true antiques in the shop.

  They had known each other for five years, since both were twenty-one and freshly scrubbed out of college. Both trained to be teachers, and while they had not found jobs, they found each other instead and a vast companionable interest in colonial American history—the social history that emphasized the way people lived. They were also equally fascinated by furniture—Bud made it in a small workshop in the basement, Ollie restored it, and it seemed only natural that they should open a place together.

  They also discovered it didn’t hurt that they had fallen in love.

  They pooled their money, cadged loans from each set of not-quite-approving parents, and set out to create a name to be reckoned with in the field of domestic antiquities.

  The first attempt had been a disaster, down in South Jersey where the people were too interested in making a living in the present, and where the credible buyers seldom traveled in the numbers they needed to survive. The following year they traveled north, closer to New York City, where they hoped to attract a more well-heeled clientele. That project failed too when a blossoming of urban renewal literally brought their building down around their heads.

  A fluke of driving that summer—Bud got lost, Ollie couldn’t read the map—landed them in Deerford, found them the empty house, and found them Eban Parrish, who took them under his wing. Their loan now long since repaid, they had become one of the regular stops for those looking for honest deals. And for those tireless wives who dragged their husbands out on weekends, and those pompous, all-knowing husbands who believed everything they read in books, there was the assorted furniture in the front—just enough real goods to keep suspicion at bay, the rest of it simply old and well kept and seldom worth half the asking price.