Latest / History Dark / The Macabre History of the Vance Family_ They Took Her To An Empty Farmhouse And Awakened The Evil

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The Macabre History of the Vance Family_ They Took Her To An Empty Farmhouse And Awakened The Evil · History Dark

0:04
Speaker 1: There are hollows in these mountains that never took to
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Speaker 1: the sun, not because the sun forgot them, but because
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Speaker 1: something else got there first and made itself at home.
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Speaker 1: Before I get to what happened to the Vance family,
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Speaker 1: tell me one thing. What is the emptiest place you
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Speaker 1: have ever been? Not lonely empty. The kind of empty
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Speaker 1: that hums a little when you stand still in it.
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Speaker 1: Leave it in the comments. I want to know where
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Speaker 1: you found yours. A note before this one begins. If
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Speaker 1: the kind of case I tell here is one you
0:34
Speaker 1: would want more of, not one, but ten, each told
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Speaker 1: in full, in a voice made for the dark, there
0:42
Speaker 1: is a collection. What the Mountain Keeps. Ten files from
0:46
Speaker 1: ten counties, five states, 1893 to 1955. Every one of
0:51
Speaker 1: them walked up into easy-looking ground and everyone signed off
0:55
Speaker 1: by the law with the wrong word. Ten hours to
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Speaker 1: sit with in the dark, start to finish. The link
1:02
Speaker 1: is in the description and pinned at the top of
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Speaker 1: the comments. Now then. This one begins in the autumn
1:08
Speaker 1: of 1931, in a fold of the mountains, the family
1:12
Speaker 1: called Ambry Hollow. Nobody outside that family had reason to
1:16
Speaker 1: know the name, and by the time anyone did, the
1:19
Speaker 1: reason was gone. The Vance Farm sat at the end
1:24
Speaker 1: of a road that stopped being a road about a
1:26
Speaker 1: mile before it got there. The county had put down
1:29
Speaker 1: gravel once, around the turn of the century, and never
1:32
Speaker 1: gone back to check on it. If you know that
1:35
Speaker 1: kind of road, you know the kind of place. Nothing
1:38
Speaker 1: goes up it that is not expected, and nothing comes
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Speaker 1: back down without something to say for itself. Corella Vance
1:46
Speaker 1: was thirty-four years old that October, widowed three years by then.
1:51
Speaker 1: Her husband, Merrick, had taken the influenza in the winter
1:54
Speaker 1: of twenty-eight. One of the last ones lost that way
1:58
Speaker 1: in that county for that reason. She had gone on
2:01
Speaker 1: the way, widows go on, quiet mostly. She kept the
2:05
Speaker 1: books at Halstead's Mercantile in the town of Merrowfield, down
2:09
Speaker 1: at the mouth of the valley, went to service on Sundays,
2:12
Speaker 1: because that was what a person did, slept badly, on principle.
2:17
Speaker 1: She was a small woman, not quite five foot three, pale,
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Speaker 1: with hair the shade of dark honey she kept pinned
2:24
Speaker 1: tight against her head. People said, when they had to
2:27
Speaker 1: say something about her, that she had steady hands. That
2:31
Speaker 1: was the compliment. She could total a farmer's account and
2:34
Speaker 1: never move the pencil a hair. She could stitch a
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Speaker 1: hem straight in a wagon. Corella Vance had steady hands.
2:41
Speaker 1: It was almost all anyone could think to say. It
2:44
Speaker 1: was her Aunt Rosamond who came to the mercantile that
2:47
Speaker 1: October afternoon and stood at the counter until Corella had
2:51
Speaker 1: finished with Mr. Halstead's ledger. Rosamond was fifty-eight then. a
2:56
Speaker 1: midwife by trade, and a woman built for weather. She
3:00
Speaker 1: had that way some mountain women have of speaking soft enough,
3:03
Speaker 1: you had to lean in, which is how she made
3:06
Speaker 1: sure you were listening. She said,' Corella, honey, come up
3:11
Speaker 1: to the old place with us for a few weeks.
3:14
Speaker 1: Alistair and I are going to close it out before
3:16
Speaker 1: the snow. Company would do you good.' Corella wanted to
3:21
Speaker 1: say no. That much was in her hands, which stopped
3:25
Speaker 1: being steady for a second. But she looked at her
3:28
Speaker 1: aunt's face and saw the tiredness under the courtesy. And
3:32
Speaker 1: she thought about her rooms above the mercantile and the
3:35
Speaker 1: way the walls had been closing in since August. She
3:38
Speaker 1: thought about Merrick. She thought about how long an autumn
3:41
Speaker 1: can go if you spend it alone with the memory
3:44
Speaker 1: of one. She said, I will come. Rosamund reached across
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Speaker 1: the counter and touched her wrist. She said, Only for
3:53
Speaker 1: a few weeks. Alistair has got to sort what is
3:57
Speaker 1: worth keeping. And then it goes to the county. It
4:01
Speaker 1: is time we let it go, honey, Corella asked her then,
4:04
Speaker 1: why they were letting it go. It was a fair question,
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Speaker 1: and she knew, as she asked it, that her aunt
4:10
Speaker 1: would not answer it well. Rosamond said, Some places are
4:15
Speaker 1: done being lived in. That is all. Some places are done.
4:19
Speaker 1: She said it the way you say something you have practised.
4:22
Speaker 1: They drove up on a Tuesday. Alistair was at the
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Speaker 1: wheel of the old Ford, the one he had kept
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Speaker 1: running with piecework and prayer since the war. Alistair Vance
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Speaker 1: was sixty-one that year, a heavy man, broad through the shoulders,
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Speaker 1: with hands the color of tobacco leaf, and a mouth
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Speaker 1: that had gone quieter every year since his brother's funeral.
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Speaker 1: Corella loved him without knowing why, exactly. The way you
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Speaker 1: love an uncle who has never lied to you, even
4:51
Speaker 1: when what you needed— was the lie. He looked at
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Speaker 1: her once in the rear view when they turned off
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Speaker 1: the paved road and started the climb, and he said,
5:01
Speaker 1: If it gets bad up there, honey, we come back down.
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Speaker 1: That is the rule. Corella asked him what he meant
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Speaker 1: by bad. He did not answer. He put both hands
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Speaker 1: back on the wheel. Rosamond was looking out the passenger
5:15
Speaker 1: window at the trees, and she did not answer either.
5:19
Speaker 1: That was the first thing Corella noticed about the trip.
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Speaker 1: the kind of question that did not get answered. The
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Speaker 1: road took two hours from Merrill Field, and the last
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Speaker 1: forty minutes of it they were not on a road
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Speaker 1: any more. They were on ruts, and then on the
5:34
Speaker 1: memory of ruts. The Ford coughed twice going up the
5:38
Speaker 1: last slope, and Corella thought for a moment they might
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Speaker 1: have to walk in. But it steadied and pushed through.
5:46
Speaker 1: And the trees opened, and Ambry Hollow was in front
5:49
Speaker 1: of them the way a held breath is in front
5:51
Speaker 1: of you when it finally comes out. The farm sat
5:55
Speaker 1: in a bowl of land maybe two hundred yards across.
5:59
Speaker 1: The house was in the middle of it, two stories,
6:02
Speaker 1: plain white paint gone to gray, with a wide porch
6:05
Speaker 1: that sagged on the eastern side. Behind the house was
6:09
Speaker 1: a barn, and beyond the barn was the mountain, which
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Speaker 1: rose black and even and made no shape you could
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Speaker 1: point to. There were no birds. That was the second
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Speaker 1: thing Corella noticed. The trees around the hollow had leaves
6:25
Speaker 1: on them, red and yellow the way October gives you,
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Speaker 1: but there were no birds in them. The quiet was
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Speaker 1: not the quiet of a place with no birds in it.
6:35
Speaker 1: The quiet was the quiet of a place where the
6:37
Speaker 1: birds had gone somewhere else on purpose. Alistair stopped the
6:42
Speaker 1: car in front of the porch and sat with the
6:44
Speaker 1: engine running for a minute. Rosamond reached over and touched
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Speaker 1: his wrist the same way she had touched Corella's the
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Speaker 1: day before. He nodded to her, and he cut the engine.
6:56
Speaker 1: The silence came in through the doors as if it
6:59
Speaker 1: had been waiting outside. They walked up the porch. Alistair
7:03
Speaker 1: had the keys, three of them on a ring, iron
7:06
Speaker 1: older than any of them. He fitted one to the
7:09
Speaker 1: front door-lock and turned it. The door did not stick.
7:13
Speaker 1: That was another thing. Old houses stick. This one opened
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Speaker 1: as if it had been oiled last week. The inside
7:21
Speaker 1: smelled of cold. and paper, and something faintly sweet that
7:26
Speaker 1: Corella could not place. The front room was empty of furniture,
7:30
Speaker 1: except for a horsehair sofa under a sheet and a
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Speaker 1: rocking chair by the window. The floors were pine, waxed once,
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Speaker 1: and never again, and they were clean. Not clean in
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Speaker 1: the way an abandoned house is clean because no one
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Speaker 1: has walked on it. Clean in the way a floor
7:47
Speaker 1: is clean because it does not take dust. Corella did
7:50
Speaker 1: not know how to say that to herself yet, She
7:53
Speaker 1: only knew she could not, no matter how hard she tried,
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Speaker 1: see any dust on the boards. The light came through
8:00
Speaker 1: the windows and lay on the floor and had nothing
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Speaker 1: to catch. Rosamond set down her bag by the sofa.
8:07
Speaker 1: She said, We will take the two upstairs bedrooms. Corella,
8:12
Speaker 1: you take the one on the west. It gets the
8:14
Speaker 1: morning sun late. But the wall does not share with
8:17
Speaker 1: the kitchen chimney, so it is cooler. You will sleep better,
8:21
Speaker 1: Corella said. Thank you, Aunt Rosamond. Rosamond said, Honey, one thing.
8:28
Speaker 1: She was standing by the doorway to the hall. She
8:31
Speaker 1: had her back to Corella. She said, The north room, upstairs.
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Speaker 1: The one at the end of the hall. That door
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Speaker 1: is not to be opened. Your uncle will explain it
8:40
Speaker 1: if you want him to, but that door stays shut.
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Speaker 1: Do you understand me? Corella said she understood. Rosamond turned
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Speaker 1: around then, and her face was the face of a
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Speaker 1: woman who who had said her piece and was waiting
8:54
Speaker 1: to see whether she had been heard. She said, Promise me.
8:58
Speaker 1: Corella promised her. Rosamond nodded once and went out to
9:02
Speaker 1: the porch to help Alistair with the bags. Corella stood
9:06
Speaker 1: alone in the front room of a house that took
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Speaker 1: no dust, and she listened. The house did nothing. The
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Speaker 1: house was empty. The house was so empty that it was,
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Speaker 1: in its way, full of the emptiness, if that makes
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Speaker 1: any sense at all. She thought of her rooms in
9:22
Speaker 1: Merrill Field, which had never once felt as empty as this,
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Speaker 1: and she thought,' I have made a mistake in coming here.'
9:31
Speaker 1: And then she thought,' No, Aunt Rosamond needs me. I
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Speaker 1: am here for Aunt Rosamond.' And she went outside to help.
9:38
Speaker 1: That night Alistair built a fire in the kitchen stove,
9:42
Speaker 1: and Rosamond heated a stew she had brought up in
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Speaker 1: a jar. The three of them ate at a table
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Speaker 1: that was too big for three people.' In a room
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Speaker 1: that was, again, cleaner than a room in an abandoned
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Speaker 1: house ought to be. Alistair had brought a bottle of rye.
9:59
Speaker 1: He poured himself. two fingers and drank them slowly, and
10:02
Speaker 1: did not offer any around. Rosamund said grace, which she
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Speaker 1: did not usually do at home. Corella said amen, and ate.
10:13
Speaker 1: After supper Alistair took his lantern and walked out to
10:16
Speaker 1: the barn and Corella heard him check the padlock on
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Speaker 1: the barn door twice. He came back in and sat
10:24
Speaker 1: by the fire and said nothing until Rosamond said, We
10:27
Speaker 1: should turn in. And they all did. Corella's bed in
10:32
Speaker 1: the west room was a straw tick on an iron frame,
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Speaker 1: freshly made up. Rosamond had brought the sheets in her bag.
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Speaker 1: Corella lay down in them and pulled the wool blanket
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Speaker 1: up to her chin and listened. And that was the
10:45
Speaker 1: first night. The house did nothing for a long time.
10:49
Speaker 1: She heard Alistair's snoring from the other end of the
10:52
Speaker 1: hall and Rosamond's shifting, and once the sound of the
10:56
Speaker 1: eastern porch settling under its own weight, which was the
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Speaker 1: sagging she had noticed on arrival. She thought she might sleep.
11:04
Speaker 1: She almost did. Then she heard it, not in the walls,
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Speaker 1: under the floor, not scratching, not scurrying, nothing like an animal.
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Speaker 1: It was a low sound, three notes, Held. A humming.
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Speaker 1: A humming so soft you could talk yourself out of
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Speaker 1: hearing it, until you had listened for two more nights
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Speaker 1: in a row. Corella held her breath and listened. The
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Speaker 1: three notes came again. She could not tell you what
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Speaker 1: key they were in. She could not tell you if
11:33
Speaker 1: they were high or low. She could only tell you
11:36
Speaker 1: that they were three notes, and they were held, and
11:39
Speaker 1: they were coming from somewhere under the floorboards of the
11:41
Speaker 1: west bedroom of the Vance House in Ambry Hollow, in
11:45
Speaker 1: the fall of 1931, and there was no ground under
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Speaker 1: those floorboards for them to come from. The west bedroom
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Speaker 1: was on the second floor. Under it was the parlor.
11:55
Speaker 1: Under the parlor was a crawl space, with a dirt floor.
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Speaker 1: Under the dirt floor was the mountain. The humming stopped.
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Speaker 1: Corella waited. It did not come again that night. But
12:07
Speaker 1: she did not sleep, either. The next morning Corella did
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Speaker 1: not mention the humming, neither did anyone else. That was
12:15
Speaker 1: another thing about the house. You did not mention things.
12:19
Speaker 1: Not the clean floors, not the missing birds, not the
12:22
Speaker 1: door at the end of the hall that had a
12:24
Speaker 1: fresh coat of white paint on it that could not
12:26
Speaker 1: have been more than a year old, even though nobody
12:29
Speaker 1: had lived in the house for thirty-eight years. Corella noticed
12:35
Speaker 1: the paint on the second morning, and she did not
12:37
Speaker 1: mention it. Alistair went out to the barn after breakfast,
12:41
Speaker 1: and Rosamond set Corella to work in the parlour. Sort
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Speaker 1: what is worth keeping, she said. Anything with a name
12:48
Speaker 1: on it goes in the marked box. Anything with a
12:51
Speaker 1: date goes in the other box. Everything else we burn
12:54
Speaker 1: or we take to the county, Cruella asked her. What
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Speaker 1: year was the house built? Rosamond did not look up
13:00
Speaker 1: from the linen chest she was going through. She said, 1874.
13:06
Speaker 1: Cassian Vance built it. Your great-grandfather's brother. He was a woodsman,
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Speaker 1: not a farmer. and he built the house wrong for
13:14
Speaker 1: the ground it was on. Martellus finished it for him.
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Speaker 1: Marcellus and Zaria, my grandmother, moved in in 1881. They
13:24
Speaker 1: lived here until the fall of 1893. Corella asked her
13:28
Speaker 1: what happened in 93. Rosamund closed the linen chest. She
13:33
Speaker 1: stayed on her knees in front of it for a
13:34
Speaker 1: long moment. Then she said, Marcellus died at the kitchen table.
13:40
Speaker 1: Of a bad heart, Zerwaya left the mountain the next spring.
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Speaker 1: The house has been closed up since. Corella asked her,
13:48
Speaker 1: was Cassian still alive then? Rosamond did not answer that.
13:52
Speaker 1: She got up off her knees and she said, I
13:54
Speaker 1: am going to walk out to the spring house. If
13:57
Speaker 1: you find anything you do not know what to do with,
14:00
Speaker 1: put it on the sofa and I will look at
14:02
Speaker 1: it later. She left and Corella stood alone in the
14:07
Speaker 1: parlor of a house built in 1874 and by a
14:10
Speaker 1: man her aunt would not name twice in one morning.
14:14
Speaker 1: She went to the trunk under the parlor window. It
14:16
Speaker 1: was cedar, banded in brass, and it had not been
14:20
Speaker 1: opened in a long time. The latch stuck. She worked
14:23
Speaker 1: it with her thumb until it gave. Inside were sheets
14:27
Speaker 1: of yellowed newsprint pressed flat, and under the newsprint was
14:32
Speaker 1: a bundle of letters tied with twine. She lifted the
14:35
Speaker 1: bundle out and set it on her lap. The twine
14:38
Speaker 1: was so dry it snapped at the touch. The letters
14:42
Speaker 1: were from Zeruiah Vance to her sister, whose name Corella
14:46
Speaker 1: did not recognize, in the town of Argenshee, Kentucky. They
14:51
Speaker 1: were dated from 81 through the fall of 93. Corella
14:55
Speaker 1: did not read them in order. She lifted the top
14:58
Speaker 1: one and read it, and it was about a preserving
15:01
Speaker 1: jar that had broken in the pantry. She lifted the
15:04
Speaker 1: next one, and it was about the weather. She lifted
15:08
Speaker 1: five more, and they were about nothing that a widow's
15:11
Speaker 1: letter to a sister was not usually about. Then she
15:15
Speaker 1: came to one, dated the 3rd of September, 1893, and
15:19
Speaker 1: she stopped. Zeruiah had written to her sister, and Corella
15:24
Speaker 1: read it in the light coming through the parlor window.
15:27
Speaker 1: And I will read to you what Corella read that morning,
15:30
Speaker 1: because it is the only place in this whole story
15:33
Speaker 1: where anyone said out loud what they were dealing with.
15:37
Speaker 1: Zeruiah wrote, Sister, Cassian has taken back to the north room,
15:42
Speaker 1: and he will not come out. Marcellus took his meals
15:45
Speaker 1: up until yesterday, when Cassian said through the door, Brother,
15:50
Speaker 1: do not open this door for me again. Marcellus wept
15:53
Speaker 1: in the barn that night. I have never heard my
15:56
Speaker 1: husband weep. Cassian is dying, sister. He has had the
16:00
Speaker 1: wet lung since July, and it will finish him in
16:03
Speaker 1: a week. He knows it, and he says it is well.
16:07
Speaker 1: He says he heard the singing again last month, up
16:10
Speaker 1: on the ridge above the spring-house, and he brought it
16:12
Speaker 1: home in his coat, and it is with him in
16:15
Speaker 1: the room. He says if he stays in the room
16:18
Speaker 1: with it, it will stay with him. He says do
16:21
Speaker 1: not open the door. Marcellus has promised him. He has
16:24
Speaker 1: laid the oak beam across the door on the outside.
16:27
Speaker 1: I am afraid, sister, not of Cassian. Cassian is a
16:31
Speaker 1: good man. I am afraid of what is behind the
16:34
Speaker 1: door with him. Corella lowered the letter to her lap.
16:38
Speaker 1: Her hands, for the second time in a week, were
16:41
Speaker 1: not steady. She read the rest of the bundle. There
16:44
Speaker 1: was one more letter after that, dated the 14th of September.
16:48
Speaker 1: Zeruiah wrote that Cassian had died on the 11th, that
16:51
Speaker 1: Marcellus had not opened the door, that they had put
16:55
Speaker 1: a Bible on the outside of the door, and Marcellus
16:58
Speaker 1: had said a prayer for his brother through the wood.
17:02
Speaker 1: Zeruiah wrote, I do not think Marcellus will last long.
17:06
Speaker 1: He has stopped eating. He sits at the kitchen table
17:09
Speaker 1: in the evening, and I can see him listening. I
17:12
Speaker 1: ask him what he hears, and he tells me,' Nothing, honey.
17:15
Speaker 1: Go to bed.' I go to bed, and I lie awake,
17:19
Speaker 1: and I do not hear anything. But I know he does.
17:22
Speaker 1: I am going to my sister's if he goes before winter.
17:25
Speaker 1: I cannot stay in this house. I cannot stay in
17:28
Speaker 1: this house. There were no more letters.' Martellus died on
17:33
Speaker 1: the 22nd of October, 1893, at the kitchen table of
17:36
Speaker 1: a bad heart. Zeruiah left the following March. Corella put
17:41
Speaker 1: the letters back in the trunk in the order she
17:44
Speaker 1: had found them. She closed the lid. She sat on
17:47
Speaker 1: the horsehair sofa, and she looked at the ceiling of
17:49
Speaker 1: the parlor, and above the ceiling was the upstairs hall.
17:54
Speaker 1: And at the end of the upstairs hall was a door,
17:57
Speaker 1: with a fresh coat of white paint on it. She
18:00
Speaker 1: thought about the oak beams. She thought about whether it
18:03
Speaker 1: was still there, on the outside of the door, under
18:06
Speaker 1: the paint. She thought about who had painted the door.
18:10
Speaker 1: Alistair had painted the door. She realized it that afternoon.
18:14
Speaker 1: He came in from the barn with paint chips on
18:16
Speaker 1: his shirt sleeves, and she looked at them, and she knew.
18:20
Speaker 1: She did not ask him about it. She was learning
18:23
Speaker 1: the house's rules. And since we are sitting with this one, listen.
18:28
Speaker 1: This story happens. is being narrated by the fear behind you.
18:33
Speaker 1: If you are the kind of person who wants more
18:34
Speaker 1: like it, subscribe to the channel. It costs you nothing,
18:38
Speaker 1: and it keeps stories like this one finding their way
18:41
Speaker 1: to you. And if you happen to be listening to
18:44
Speaker 1: this on some other channel that is not ours, know
18:47
Speaker 1: that they took it without asking. Report it to us.
18:50
Speaker 1: We watch for that. Now. Back to Corella. Back to
18:54
Speaker 1: the parlor. Back to that painted door at the end
18:56
Speaker 1: of the upstairs hall. She spent the rest of that
19:00
Speaker 1: afternoon sorting the linen chest and the pie safe in
19:03
Speaker 1: the kitchen, and she did not go upstairs. Alistair went
19:07
Speaker 1: out again to the barn and came back at dusk
19:10
Speaker 1: with a wooden crate that he set by the front
19:12
Speaker 1: door and did not open. Rosamund came back from the
19:16
Speaker 1: spring-house with red eyes and would not say why. They
19:20
Speaker 1: ate again at the too-big table. Alistair poured himself three
19:24
Speaker 1: fingers of rye instead of two. Rosamund said grace, and
19:27
Speaker 1: Corella said, Amen. And none of them spoke for the
19:31
Speaker 1: rest of the meal. That was the second night. She
19:35
Speaker 1: heard it again. The humming. Three notes. Held. It came
19:41
Speaker 1: just after she had gotten into bed before she had
19:43
Speaker 1: even blown out the lamp. She sat up. She listened.
19:48
Speaker 1: It came from under the floorboards of the west room again.
19:51
Speaker 1: But to-night it did not come from directly under. To-night
19:55
Speaker 1: it came from further off, from the direction of the parlor,
19:58
Speaker 1: from the direction of the trunk. It moved. That was
20:02
Speaker 1: what Corella noticed. The humming was in the house. And
20:06
Speaker 1: it moved. It was in one place, and then, as
20:09
Speaker 1: she listened— It was in another. It came closer. It
20:13
Speaker 1: came to just beneath her bed. And then it stopped.
20:17
Speaker 1: Corella put her hand on the floorboards next to the bed.
20:21
Speaker 1: They were not warm, and they were not cold. They
20:24
Speaker 1: were the temperature of a floor. She held her hand
20:27
Speaker 1: there for a full minute. The humming did not come back.
20:31
Speaker 1: She lay down, and she did not sleep. The third
20:35
Speaker 1: morning she went to Alistair in the barn, and she
20:39
Speaker 1: asked him, He was working with a jack-plane on a
20:42
Speaker 1: piece of oak, and she stood in the door of
20:44
Speaker 1: the barn with the sun behind her, and she said, Uncle,
20:48
Speaker 1: what is in the north room upstairs? He set the
20:51
Speaker 1: plane down. He did not look at her. He said, Honey,
20:55
Speaker 1: why do not you take a walk in the woods
20:57
Speaker 1: before it gets cold this afternoon? The maples are turning early.
21:01
Speaker 1: She said, Uncle, I read Zeruiah's letters. He was silent
21:05
Speaker 1: for a long time. Then he said, All right. All right, honey,
21:10
Speaker 1: come sit down. She sat down on a hay bale.
21:14
Speaker 1: He sat down on the workbench across from her. He
21:16
Speaker 1: put his hands on his knees, and he said, My
21:19
Speaker 1: father's father was Marcellus Vance. My father was born in Argenshi,
21:24
Speaker 1: because my grandmother would not come back to this hollow
21:27
Speaker 1: after ninety-three. My father grew up not knowing his own father.
21:31
Speaker 1: He grew up on stories. And the stories he grew
21:33
Speaker 1: up on, honey, he passed to me, and now I
21:36
Speaker 1: am going to pass one of them to you. just
21:39
Speaker 1: the one. And then we are not going to speak
21:42
Speaker 1: of it again. He told her about Cassian, about the
21:45
Speaker 1: singing on the ridge, about the room, about the beam
21:49
Speaker 1: Marcellus had laid across the door. He told her about
21:52
Speaker 1: the promise. Marcellus had promised Cassian, and Marcellus's son had
21:56
Speaker 1: promised Marcellus, and Alistair's father had promised his father, and
22:01
Speaker 1: Alistair had promised his father, and now Alistair, sitting in
22:04
Speaker 1: the barn, in the fall of 1931 with his brother's
22:08
Speaker 1: daughter across from him, on a hay bale, was going
22:12
Speaker 1: to make a promise to her, too. He was going
22:15
Speaker 1: to promise her that the door would stay shut, that
22:18
Speaker 1: the beam had never been moved, that the paint on
22:21
Speaker 1: the door was fresh because he had repainted it every
22:24
Speaker 1: four years for twenty years, the way his father had
22:27
Speaker 1: before him, because paint is a way of noticing. If
22:31
Speaker 1: the paint was cracked, the beam had shifted— If the
22:34
Speaker 1: beam had shifted, the door had been tried. And in
22:37
Speaker 1: twenty years, the paint had never cracked. Corella asked him,
22:42
Speaker 1: Then why are you closing the house? He did not answer.
22:46
Speaker 1: He picked up the jack-plane. He set it down again.
22:50
Speaker 1: He said, My father said, Someday, honey, the county is
22:54
Speaker 1: going to want this hollow. There is copper up in
22:57
Speaker 1: the ridge, and they will come for it. When they come,
23:00
Speaker 1: I want the room to be quiet— I want us
23:02
Speaker 1: to have taken care of our business first. That is
23:05
Speaker 1: why we are closing the house, so that nothing in
23:08
Speaker 1: it is asking anything of anybody by the time somebody
23:11
Speaker 1: else comes up here. Corella asked him, Then what will
23:15
Speaker 1: you do with the room? He said, We will leave it.
23:18
Speaker 1: We will leave the door beamed and the paint fresh,
23:21
Speaker 1: and the county can do what it does with it
23:23
Speaker 1: after we are gone. That is not for me to decide,
23:27
Speaker 1: Corella asked him. What if the county opens it? Alistair
23:31
Speaker 1: looked at her then. He looked at her for a
23:33
Speaker 1: long moment, and he said, Honey, they will. And whatever
23:37
Speaker 1: is in it will be their business. That was the
23:41
Speaker 1: deal Marcellus made. Cassian took it on himself, for as
23:45
Speaker 1: long as one man's life can hold it. Marcellus held
23:49
Speaker 1: it a while after that. My grandmother left it alone,
23:52
Speaker 1: because she had promised Marcellus. My father held it. I
23:56
Speaker 1: have held it. And when the county comes, honey, they
23:59
Speaker 1: will open the door, and it will be their business,
24:02
Speaker 1: not ours. That is how this ends. It ends when
24:06
Speaker 1: it is not our door any more.' Corella asked him,'
24:09
Speaker 1: Is Cassian still in there?' Alistair said,' Honey, that is
24:14
Speaker 1: a question I will not answer for you. And if
24:17
Speaker 1: you love me, you will not ask it again.' She
24:20
Speaker 1: loved him. She did not ask it again. Everard came
24:24
Speaker 1: up the next afternoon. He was Alistair's nephew from the
24:28
Speaker 1: other side of the family, Corella's cousin by convention.' if
24:32
Speaker 1: not by blood, and he was forty then, a carpenter
24:36
Speaker 1: out of the town of Whalen. He had been called
24:39
Speaker 1: in because Alistair had said in a letter three weeks
24:42
Speaker 1: earlier that the front porch was going to have to
24:45
Speaker 1: come off before they could sell the house to the county,
24:48
Speaker 1: and Everard was the only Vance who did that kind
24:51
Speaker 1: of work right. Everard was a big man, six foot two,
24:56
Speaker 1: wide through the chest, with a black beard and slow eyes.
25:01
Speaker 1: He was, in Corella's memory of him from childhood, the
25:04
Speaker 1: kindest of the Vances. He was the one who had
25:08
Speaker 1: built her a small pine box for her wedding shoes
25:11
Speaker 1: the year she had married Merrick, and it was still
25:14
Speaker 1: on her dresser in Merrillfield with three pairs of shoes
25:17
Speaker 1: in it. He came up in his own truck, which
25:21
Speaker 1: was newer than Alistair's Ford by a decade, and he
25:24
Speaker 1: brought a bag of tools and a bag of clothes
25:26
Speaker 1: and a bag of tinned food. He looked at the
25:29
Speaker 1: house from the yard for a long minute before he
25:32
Speaker 1: came up on the porch. He did not say why.
25:35
Speaker 1: He looked at the eastern side of the porch where
25:37
Speaker 1: the sag was, and he shook his head, and he said,
25:41
Speaker 1: This is going to want more work than Uncle wrote
25:43
Speaker 1: me about. He stayed in the small room off the kitchen,
25:47
Speaker 1: the one that had been the pantry once. He said
25:50
Speaker 1: he wanted to be near the coffee. He unpacked his
25:53
Speaker 1: tools that first afternoon and and he worked on the
25:56
Speaker 1: eastern posts of the porch until the light was gone.
26:00
Speaker 1: Alistair stayed in the barn. Rosamund cooked. Corella read the
26:04
Speaker 1: papers she was supposed to be sorting, and did not
26:07
Speaker 1: sort them. Everard came in at dark and washed his
26:10
Speaker 1: hands and sat down at supper and said, Evening, everybody.
26:15
Speaker 1: And it was the loudest thing anyone had said in
26:17
Speaker 1: the house since they had arrived. It made Rosamund smile.
26:21
Speaker 1: She had not smiled in three days. After supper Everard
26:27
Speaker 1: asked what had been done upstairs. Alistair told him. Everard
26:31
Speaker 1: asked what was in the north room, and Alistair told
26:34
Speaker 1: him nothing. And Everard looked at him for a long time,
26:38
Speaker 1: and then he said, All right. All right, uncle. And
26:42
Speaker 1: he went to bed. The third night the humming did
26:46
Speaker 1: not come. Corella lay awake for two hours listening for it,
26:51
Speaker 1: and it did not come. She almost cried with relief.
26:56
Speaker 1: Then she heard footsteps in the upstairs hall, slow, even steps,
27:01
Speaker 1: going from the head of the stairs to the end
27:03
Speaker 1: of the hall, and stopping. She sat up in bed.
27:08
Speaker 1: She could not tell whose steps they were. Not Alistair's.
27:12
Speaker 1: Alistair walked heavy and dragged the right foot from the
27:16
Speaker 1: old break, not Rosamund's. Rosamund had been asleep for an hour.
27:21
Speaker 1: Corella could hear her breathing through the wall. They might
27:24
Speaker 1: have been Everard's. But Everard was downstairs in the pantry.
27:28
Speaker 1: The steps went back up the hall the way they
27:30
Speaker 1: had come. They descended the stairs. They stopped. Corella lay
27:35
Speaker 1: in bed with her hand on her chest, and she
27:37
Speaker 1: counted her heartbeats until she reached one hundred, and then
27:40
Speaker 1: she got up and put on her robe and went
27:43
Speaker 1: to the top of the stairs and looked down. The
27:46
Speaker 1: stairs were empty. The front room was empty. The lamp
27:50
Speaker 1: Alistair kept on the mantel was burning low, the way
27:53
Speaker 1: he always left it. Nothing was moved. Nothing was disturbed.
27:59
Speaker 1: She went back to bed, and she did not sleep.
28:03
Speaker 1: The next morning, Everard was already up when she came down.
28:07
Speaker 1: He was drinking coffee in the kitchen. He looked as
28:10
Speaker 1: if he had not slept. She said, Good morning, cousin.
28:14
Speaker 1: He said, Morning, honey. She poured herself coffee from his pot.
28:19
Speaker 1: She stood at the window and looked out at the yard.
28:22
Speaker 1: It had frosted over night. The grass was silver. There
28:26
Speaker 1: were no bird tracks in the frost. Everard said, behind her, Honey,
28:32
Speaker 1: she turned. He was looking at his cup. He said,
28:36
Speaker 1: Did you hear anything last night? Upstairs, she said. Footsteps.
28:41
Speaker 1: He said, Thought so. He did not say anything else.
28:46
Speaker 1: He finished his coffee. He got up and went out
28:48
Speaker 1: to the porch and started working. And Corella went into
28:51
Speaker 1: the parlor and sat on the horsehair sofa, and looked
28:54
Speaker 1: at the ceiling. Above the ceiling was the upstairs hall,
28:59
Speaker 1: and at the end of the upstairs hall was the door.
29:03
Speaker 1: And the door was still shut. And the paint was
29:06
Speaker 1: still fresh. But now the humming had stopped, and someone
29:10
Speaker 1: was walking. The fifth day Everard opened the door. He
29:16
Speaker 1: did it in the middle of the afternoon, when Alistair
29:18
Speaker 1: was in the barn and Rosamond was at the spring-house.
29:22
Speaker 1: Corella heard him do it from the parlor. She heard
29:25
Speaker 1: the sound of something heavy being lifted and set down
29:28
Speaker 1: on the floorboards. Then she heard the sound of a
29:31
Speaker 1: hinge that had not moved in thirty-eight years, turning. It
29:36
Speaker 1: was not a loud sound. It was a soft, worn,
29:39
Speaker 1: patient sound. It was the sound of a door being
29:42
Speaker 1: opened by a man who had made up his mind.
29:45
Speaker 1: Corella stood up from the sofa. She did not know
29:48
Speaker 1: what to do. She walked to the base of the stairs,
29:51
Speaker 1: and she called up, Everard. He did not answer. She
29:54
Speaker 1: went up the stairs. She walked down the upstairs halls.
29:58
Speaker 1: The oak beam was on the floor to the left
30:00
Speaker 1: of the doorway. It was long and dark and old,
30:03
Speaker 1: and it had been laid down carefully, not dropped. The
30:07
Speaker 1: door was open. Everard was standing in the doorway with
30:10
Speaker 1: his back to her. He was very still. She said,' Everard?'
30:16
Speaker 1: He said,' Honey, come here a minute. She did not
30:20
Speaker 1: want to come there. She walked forward anyway, because he
30:23
Speaker 1: was her cousin.' and because there is a thing about
30:27
Speaker 1: being asked to come see something by someone you have
30:29
Speaker 1: known since childhood, and it makes you go, whether you
30:33
Speaker 1: want to or not. She came up behind him, and
30:36
Speaker 1: she looked past his shoulder into the room.' A breath here,
30:41
Speaker 1: before what comes next. If this is the kind of
30:44
Speaker 1: case you would want to sit within the dark, not
30:47
Speaker 1: just here at once, but keep it, there is a
30:50
Speaker 1: collection I put together with the people at Forbidden Unresolved Stories.'
30:55
Speaker 1: What the Mountain Keeps. Ten complete cases, eight hours, sixty-two
31:00
Speaker 1: years of records nobody wanted to finish. Each one placed, dated,
31:04
Speaker 1: and signed off with a tidy word that never once
31:07
Speaker 1: fit what happened. The link is in the description below,
31:11
Speaker 1: and at the top of the comments. Let us go
31:13
Speaker 1: back to it. The room was empty. That was the
31:18
Speaker 1: first thing. It was a small room, maybe eight feet
31:21
Speaker 1: by ten, with one window in the north wall, boarded
31:24
Speaker 1: over from the outside. There was a narrow bed against
31:27
Speaker 1: the west wall with a wool blanket folded on it
31:30
Speaker 1: and no mattress. There was a small chair by the bed.
31:34
Speaker 1: There was a cast-iron washbasin on a low table. There
31:37
Speaker 1: was a candle and a tin holder on the windowsill.
31:40
Speaker 1: There was no body. There was no dust. There was
31:43
Speaker 1: nothing in the room that should not have been in
31:45
Speaker 1: a room where a man had died alone in September
31:49
Speaker 1: of 1893. The second thing was the walls. The walls
31:54
Speaker 1: of the north room had been written on, not painted,
31:58
Speaker 1: not carved, written on, in what looked, from where Corella
32:02
Speaker 1: was standing, like pencil, line after line, wall after wall,
32:06
Speaker 1: in a small, careful, forward-slanting hand. She could not read
32:11
Speaker 1: most of it from the doorway. What she could read said,
32:14
Speaker 1: over and over, in different sizes on the plaster, the
32:17
Speaker 1: same phrase. It said, Do not answer, do not answer,
32:21
Speaker 1: do not answer, She counted eleven times just on the
32:25
Speaker 1: wall she could see. She stopped counting because Everard was
32:29
Speaker 1: walking into the room and she wanted to reach out
32:31
Speaker 1: and stop him, and she could not make her hand move.
32:35
Speaker 1: He crossed to the chair by the bed. He sat down.
32:39
Speaker 1: He looked around the room like a man remembering something,
32:43
Speaker 1: and then softly, quietly, from somewhere under the floor of
32:47
Speaker 1: that north room, from somewhere in the pinewood, or in
32:51
Speaker 1: the joists, or in the mountain itself, The humming came.
32:55
Speaker 1: Three notes held. And Everard, sitting in the chair by
33:00
Speaker 1: the bed in Cassian Vance's room, closed his eyes and smiled.
33:05
Speaker 1: Corella backed out of the doorway. She backed down the hall.
33:09
Speaker 1: She went down the stairs on legs that would not
33:11
Speaker 1: decide whose they were. She went out the front door,
33:15
Speaker 1: past the porch that Everard had been working on, and
33:18
Speaker 1: she ran across the yard to the barn, and she
33:21
Speaker 1: pulled the barn door open, and she said, Uncle. And
33:25
Speaker 1: Alistair looked up from the workbench and saw her face,
33:28
Speaker 1: and he was on his feet before she had said
33:30
Speaker 1: the next word. He said, What? She said, Everard opened
33:35
Speaker 1: the door. Alistair went white. He did not run. He walked.
33:40
Speaker 1: Corella followed him back across the yard and up onto
33:43
Speaker 1: the porch and into the house and up the stairs.
33:47
Speaker 1: Rosamond had come back from the spring-house by then and
33:50
Speaker 1: was standing in the front room with a bucket in
33:53
Speaker 1: her hand and a look on her face that said
33:56
Speaker 1: she knew. She set the bucket down, and she came
33:59
Speaker 1: up the stairs behind them. The door at the end
34:02
Speaker 1: of the hall was open. Everard was still in the chair.
34:07
Speaker 1: He was still smiling. His eyes were closed. Alistair stood
34:11
Speaker 1: in the doorway, and he said, Everard? Everard did not answer.
34:16
Speaker 1: Alistair said, Everard, honey, come out of there. Everard opened
34:21
Speaker 1: his eyes. He looked at Alistair. He looked, Corella thought,
34:25
Speaker 1: as if Alistair were a very small thing at a
34:27
Speaker 1: great distance. He said, Uncle. Uncle. It is such a
34:32
Speaker 1: peaceful room. I do not know why we kept it shut.
34:36
Speaker 1: Alistair said, Get up out of that chair. Everard did.
34:40
Speaker 1: He got up slowly. He walked past Alistair in the doorway,
34:44
Speaker 1: past Rosamond, past Corella. He went down the stairs. He
34:48
Speaker 1: went into the pantry. He shut the door behind him.
34:52
Speaker 1: They heard him lie down on the cot. They did
34:54
Speaker 1: not hear anything else. Alistair looked into the room. Rosamund
34:59
Speaker 1: began to cry quietly without moving her hands. Corella looked
35:03
Speaker 1: at the walls and read the writing on the walls
35:07
Speaker 1: and understood and did not want to understand. Alistair went
35:12
Speaker 1: into the room. He picked up the oak beam from
35:15
Speaker 1: the hallway floor. He carried it into the room with him.
35:19
Speaker 1: He came out. He shut the door. He said, We
35:22
Speaker 1: cannot beam it from the outside if we do not
35:25
Speaker 1: know what is in it. He set the beam back
35:28
Speaker 1: on the hallway floor. He said, Rosamond, take Corella downstairs,
35:33
Speaker 1: both of you. I want everybody out of this hall.
35:36
Speaker 1: Rosamond did what he said. Corella followed her down. They
35:40
Speaker 1: went into the kitchen, and Rosamond sat down at the
35:43
Speaker 1: too-big table and put her face in her hands, she
35:46
Speaker 1: said softly, without looking up. Honey, we have to leave.
35:50
Speaker 1: We have to leave to-night. Go pack your bag.' Corella
35:54
Speaker 1: asked her,' What about Eberard?' Rosamond said,' We will come
35:58
Speaker 1: back for Eberard with people. We will come back with
36:01
Speaker 1: the pastor and the sheriff, and I do not know
36:03
Speaker 1: who else. But we cannot be here to-night, honey. Please
36:07
Speaker 1: go pack your bag.' Corella went upstairs. She packed her bag.
36:12
Speaker 1: She did not look at the north room door as
36:14
Speaker 1: she passed it. She came back down. Rosamond had a
36:17
Speaker 1: bag by the front door. Alistair was still upstairs and
36:21
Speaker 1: doing what she did not know. Rosamund said, Honey, go
36:26
Speaker 1: out and start the car. Just start it. Do not
36:29
Speaker 1: drive it. Just get it running, so it is warm.
36:32
Speaker 1: Corella went out. She started the Ford. It caught on
36:35
Speaker 1: the third turn of the crank. She sat in the
36:37
Speaker 1: driver's seat with the engine running, and she looked at
36:40
Speaker 1: the house, and she waited. Alistair came out. Rosamund came
36:44
Speaker 1: out behind him. They had two bags and one small crate.
36:49
Speaker 1: Alistair said, Get out, honey. I will drive. Corella got
36:54
Speaker 1: out and Alistair got in. Rosamond sat in the passenger seat.
36:57
Speaker 1: Corella got in the back. Alistair put the car in gear.
37:01
Speaker 1: He drove down the yard toward the road out. The
37:04
Speaker 1: road out was gone. That is not a way of speaking.
37:08
Speaker 1: That is not me being colorful. The road out was gone.
37:13
Speaker 1: Where the ruts had ended when they had come in,
37:16
Speaker 1: where the trees had opened— There was now a slope
37:18
Speaker 1: of dark earth and gravel and pine needles that ran
37:22
Speaker 1: from the top of the ridge down through where the
37:25
Speaker 1: road had been and covered it and continued on into
37:29
Speaker 1: the hollow another twenty yards past the yard fence. It
37:33
Speaker 1: had happened without a sound. It had happened. Corella understood
37:38
Speaker 1: while they had been in the north room or perhaps
37:41
Speaker 1: while they had been driving up from the yard or
37:44
Speaker 1: perhaps while they had been asleep the night before. She
37:48
Speaker 1: could not tell. There was no way to tell. The
37:51
Speaker 1: road was gone. Alistair stopped the car. He got out.
37:57
Speaker 1: He walked to the edge of the slope. He looked
37:59
Speaker 1: up the ridge. He came back to the car and
38:01
Speaker 1: he got in, and he said,' Honey, we are going
38:04
Speaker 1: to have to walk out in the morning. It will
38:06
Speaker 1: be dark in an hour. We cannot do this by lantern. Rosamond,
38:10
Speaker 1: we will take the car back to the house, and
38:12
Speaker 1: we will be ready to walk at first light.' Rosamond said,'
38:15
Speaker 1: All right.' They drove back to the house. It took
38:20
Speaker 1: ninety seconds. It had felt, on the way out, like
38:24
Speaker 1: they might make it. On the way back, it felt
38:26
Speaker 1: like they were coming home. Everard was in the kitchen
38:29
Speaker 1: when they came in. He was making coffee. He looked
38:32
Speaker 1: at them, and he said,' Evening, everybody,' he smiled. It
38:38
Speaker 1: was the smile he had been born with. It was
38:40
Speaker 1: the smile Corella had grown up seeing across summer suppers.
38:45
Speaker 1: It was warm and slow— and it went nowhere near
38:48
Speaker 1: his eyes. He said, I have been thinking. We should
38:52
Speaker 1: stay a while. There is more work than Uncle wrote
38:55
Speaker 1: me about. Nobody argued with him. Nobody said, No, cousin,
38:59
Speaker 1: we should go. Nobody said we tried to go and
39:02
Speaker 1: the road is gone. Nobody said anything. They ate the
39:05
Speaker 1: supper Rosamund put together with what was left in the pantry.
39:09
Speaker 1: Everard poured himself coffee, and coffee for everyone else, and
39:13
Speaker 1: the coffee tasted right. And Corella drank hers. Alistair drank his.
39:19
Speaker 1: Rosamund poured hers into the sink when Everard was not looking,
39:23
Speaker 1: and refilled her cup from the pot on the stove.
39:26
Speaker 1: Have you ever sat at a table with somebody you
39:29
Speaker 1: have known your whole life, and had the feeling that
39:31
Speaker 1: the person across from you was wearing them, if you
39:35
Speaker 1: understand what I mean by that? Not that they had changed,
39:39
Speaker 1: that they had been changed into. Leave it in the
39:42
Speaker 1: comments if that has ever happened to you. If somebody
39:44
Speaker 1: you loved ever sat down across from you and smiled,
39:49
Speaker 1: and it was... Not them any more. I want to
39:51
Speaker 1: know how you knew. I want to know what you did.
39:55
Speaker 1: Corella did not know what to do. She sat at
39:58
Speaker 1: the table and she ate, and she smiled back when
40:01
Speaker 1: it was expected of her. And she watched her cousin
40:04
Speaker 1: drink his coffee, and she felt, for the first time
40:07
Speaker 1: in a long time, and I mean since the winter
40:10
Speaker 1: Merrick died, that she was in the presence of something
40:13
Speaker 1: that wanted her attention. She did not know what to
40:16
Speaker 1: do with that feeling. She had steady hands. She held
40:20
Speaker 1: her cup. That night, Rosamond came into her room after
40:24
Speaker 1: Corella had blown out the lamp. Rosamond did not knock.
40:28
Speaker 1: She opened the door, and she stood in the doorway.
40:32
Speaker 1: And she said, in her softest midwife's voice,' Honey, are
40:37
Speaker 1: you awake?' Corella said she was. Rosamond came in and
40:41
Speaker 1: sat on the edge of the bed. She said,' I
40:43
Speaker 1: need to tell you the part your uncle would not
40:45
Speaker 1: tell you. Are you listening?' Corella said she was listening.
40:49
Speaker 1: Rosamund said, Cassian did not hear the singing first. That
40:54
Speaker 1: is the story your uncle tells, because his father told
40:58
Speaker 1: it that way, and your uncle believes it because he
41:01
Speaker 1: wants to. My grandmother told me the truth of it
41:05
Speaker 1: on her deathbed in Argenshi, in the spring of 1919,
41:09
Speaker 1: and I have kept it for twelve years, and I
41:11
Speaker 1: would keep it forever if I could, but I cannot, honey,
41:15
Speaker 1: and I am going to tell it to you now.
41:18
Speaker 1: Rosamund said, Marcellus heard the singing first. It came to
41:22
Speaker 1: him on the ridge above the spring-house in the summer
41:24
Speaker 1: of 89, and it followed him home. And he could
41:28
Speaker 1: not sleep for a year. Cassian saw what it was
41:32
Speaker 1: doing to him. Cassian went up on the ridge, and
41:35
Speaker 1: he stood on the same spot Marcellus had stood on.
41:39
Speaker 1: And he stayed there three days and three nights. And
41:42
Speaker 1: he came down, and he told Marcellus, Brother, it will
41:46
Speaker 1: take one of us. It is going to take one
41:49
Speaker 1: of us because it has been asked to, by something
41:52
Speaker 1: under the mountain that we did not ask to be
41:55
Speaker 1: here first. If it takes you, it takes the farm
41:59
Speaker 1: and Zeruiah and everybody down the line. If it takes me,
42:03
Speaker 1: it takes me and me alone, because I do not
42:07
Speaker 1: have a wife or a name that carries on. I
42:09
Speaker 1: am the one, brother. It is going to be me.
42:13
Speaker 1: That is what Cassian told Marcellus in the summer of ninety-two,
42:17
Speaker 1: and in the summer of ninety-three, Cassian took the wet lung,
42:21
Speaker 1: and when the wet lung was on him, he went
42:24
Speaker 1: up to the ridge one last time, and he brought
42:26
Speaker 1: it home in his coat, the same way you might
42:29
Speaker 1: carry an animal home in your coat, and he took
42:32
Speaker 1: it into the north room with him, and he shut
42:34
Speaker 1: the door, and he asked Marcellus to lay the oak
42:38
Speaker 1: beam across it. And Marcellus did, and Cassian died in
42:42
Speaker 1: there in eleven days, and the room was quiet for
42:46
Speaker 1: thirty-eight years. Rosamund said,' Honey, my grandmother told me that
42:51
Speaker 1: what Cassian gave it was not his life. Cassian was
42:55
Speaker 1: going to die anyway, of the wet lung. And both
42:58
Speaker 1: he and it knew that. What Cassian gave it, my
43:01
Speaker 1: grandmother said, was his consent. He said in the room,
43:06
Speaker 1: out loud more than one time,' Take me, and let
43:09
Speaker 1: this family alone.' And it did. It took him. And
43:13
Speaker 1: it was quiet. Rosamund said,' But consent is not permanent, honey.'
43:18
Speaker 1: consent has to be renewed. My grandmother said, Someday some
43:23
Speaker 1: Vance will open that door and it will look at
43:25
Speaker 1: that Vance, and it will ask again, and if that
43:30
Speaker 1: Vance says yes, without knowing what they are saying yes to,
43:34
Speaker 1: it will take that Vance and it will be quiet
43:36
Speaker 1: for a while. And if that Vance says no or
43:40
Speaker 1: does not say anything, it will not go back into
43:43
Speaker 1: the room. It will come out, it will come out,
43:45
Speaker 1: and it will not stop. Corella asked her, Then what
43:49
Speaker 1: did Everard say? Rosamund said, Honey, I do not know.
43:53
Speaker 1: But he came out of the room. So he did
43:55
Speaker 1: not say yes. Corella asked her, What did he say?
44:00
Speaker 1: Rosamund said, I think he did not say anything. I
44:03
Speaker 1: think he did not know he was being asked. I
44:06
Speaker 1: think it is still asking. I think it is asking
44:09
Speaker 1: through him. I think that is what we saw at
44:11
Speaker 1: the table tonight. Corella asked her, Then what do we do?
44:15
Speaker 1: Rosamund said, One of us has to go in the room,
44:18
Speaker 1: and one of us has to answer for the family.
44:21
Speaker 1: Corella asked her why. Rosamond said, Honey, because the road
44:25
Speaker 1: is gone, and the road is going to stay gone
44:28
Speaker 1: until it is answered. My grandmother told me that, too.
44:31
Speaker 1: She said, One Vance has to answer for the whole family,
44:34
Speaker 1: or none of us leave. Corella lay in the dark
44:37
Speaker 1: for a long time. She could hear Everard downstairs in
44:40
Speaker 1: the kitchen, still awake, moving from room to room in
44:44
Speaker 1: a slow, patient circuit. She could hear Rosamund's breathing next
44:47
Speaker 1: to her, uneven, the breathing of a woman waiting to
44:50
Speaker 1: be told she did not have to be the one.
44:53
Speaker 1: Corella said, Aunt. Rosamund said, Honey. Corella said, Is it me?
44:59
Speaker 1: Rosamund said, Honey, no. It does not have to be you.
45:04
Speaker 1: I have thought about it every day since my grandmother
45:06
Speaker 1: told me. I have thought all my life someday it
45:09
Speaker 1: will be me. I am 58 years old. I have
45:12
Speaker 1: delivered 41 babies into this world. And I have buried
45:16
Speaker 1: a husband's brother and a sister and a niece. And
45:19
Speaker 1: I have lived a long life, honey. And I have
45:22
Speaker 1: thought all along. Someday it will be me. Not you.
45:27
Speaker 1: I did not bring you up here for you. I
45:30
Speaker 1: brought you up here for company. I did not know
45:33
Speaker 1: it would come this soon, Corella said. Aunt, listen to me.
45:37
Speaker 1: Rosamund said nothing. Corella said, I have been alone in
45:40
Speaker 1: a room with the wanting of something for three years.
45:43
Speaker 1: Every night. Since Merrick. I have been alone in a
45:47
Speaker 1: room with the wanting of something that is not coming back,
45:51
Speaker 1: and I have not let it take me. I have
45:53
Speaker 1: held it off with my two hands, and I have
45:56
Speaker 1: kept my books, and I have gone to service on Sundays,
45:59
Speaker 1: and I have not let it take me. I know
46:02
Speaker 1: how to sit with the thing that wants me. I
46:05
Speaker 1: know it better than you do, Aunt. Do you understand me?
46:08
Speaker 1: Rosamund said. Honey! Corella said. I have practice at this.
46:13
Speaker 1: You do not. Let me do it. Rosamund wept then.
46:17
Speaker 1: She wept without moving. It was the same way she
46:20
Speaker 1: had wept in the doorway of the north room, and
46:22
Speaker 1: Corella held her hand until she was done, and then
46:26
Speaker 1: Rosamund said, Honey. All right. All right, honey. But you
46:31
Speaker 1: tell me what you're going to say to it. You
46:34
Speaker 1: tell me right now, Corella said. I do not know yet.
46:37
Speaker 1: I will know when I am in the room, Rosamund said. Honey,
46:42
Speaker 1: there must be a way that does not finish you.
46:45
Speaker 1: Corella said,' If there is, Aunt, I will find it.
46:48
Speaker 1: Cassian was smarter than us. He left instructions. I am
46:52
Speaker 1: going to trust that he left instructions.' She said,' Will
46:56
Speaker 1: you sit with me until it is done?' Rosamond said,' Yes.'
47:00
Speaker 1: Corella went into the north room in the last dark
47:03
Speaker 1: of the morning, before first light. Alistair was on the
47:06
Speaker 1: porch with a rifle across his lap. Not because a
47:10
Speaker 1: rifle would help, but because a man in Alistair's position
47:13
Speaker 1: needs to be holding something. Rosamund was in the hallway
47:17
Speaker 1: with a hurricane lamp, and the door was open, and
47:20
Speaker 1: the writing on the walls was all around, and the
47:23
Speaker 1: room was cold in a way the rest of the
47:25
Speaker 1: house was not. Everard was in the pantry. He had
47:29
Speaker 1: not come out since supper. He was breathing, but he
47:32
Speaker 1: was not sleeping. That was all any of them knew.
47:36
Speaker 1: Corella sat down in the chair by the bed. She
47:39
Speaker 1: set her hands on her knees, palms down, the way
47:42
Speaker 1: her father had told her to sit, when she was
47:44
Speaker 1: a small girl waiting for her turn at the doctor's.
47:48
Speaker 1: She looked at the walls. She had thought there was
47:51
Speaker 1: only the one phrase on them. There was not. Between
47:54
Speaker 1: the do-not-answers in smaller and smaller writing, in a hand
47:58
Speaker 1: that was Cassian's, and that was getting more careful the
48:01
Speaker 1: closer he was to dying, there was a second thing.
48:06
Speaker 1: A single passage, written in a spiral in the plaster
48:10
Speaker 1: of the north wall, starting big and getting smaller, as
48:13
Speaker 1: it turned inward. Corella took the lamp from Rosamond at
48:17
Speaker 1: the door, and she held it up, and she read.
48:20
Speaker 1: Cassian had written, Brother, if you read this, you are
48:24
Speaker 1: opening the door I asked you not to open, and
48:27
Speaker 1: I have failed. If you are not my brother, then
48:30
Speaker 1: you are one of ours, and I am sorry. Here
48:33
Speaker 1: is what I know. It wants a voice, not a life.
48:37
Speaker 1: It took mine because I was going to lose it anyway,
48:39
Speaker 1: and I made a bargain of what I could not keep.
48:42
Speaker 1: It has been listening for another one for a long time.
48:46
Speaker 1: It will ask you for yours. You must not say yes.
48:49
Speaker 1: You must not say no. You must sit in this
48:52
Speaker 1: chair and hum back to it three notes, the same
48:55
Speaker 1: three it gives you, and you must promise it, not
48:57
Speaker 1: with your life, but with your listening. Say to it,
49:00
Speaker 1: I will hear you when you speak. Say to it,
49:03
Speaker 1: I am the one who is listening now. And then, Honey,
49:07
Speaker 1: if you are one of ours, walk out of this room.
49:10
Speaker 1: Do not shut the door behind you. Leave it open.
49:12
Speaker 1: Leave the beam on the floor. It will be quiet
49:15
Speaker 1: for as long as you are alive and listening. That
49:17
Speaker 1: is what it wants. It is very lonely. under this mountain,
49:21
Speaker 1: and it wants somebody who knows it is there. It
49:24
Speaker 1: will not hurt you if you do not lie to it.
49:27
Speaker 1: Do not lie to it. Do not promise more than
49:30
Speaker 1: you can give. Do not promise less. Sit with it
49:33
Speaker 1: in your kitchen at night for the rest of your life.
49:37
Speaker 1: Sit with it in the corner of your church. Sit
49:39
Speaker 1: with it in your dreams. You will not sleep well again.
49:42
Speaker 1: I am sorry. I am so sorry, honey. But you
49:47
Speaker 1: will live, and the family will live, and one day
49:50
Speaker 1: when you die, it will find another one of us,
49:53
Speaker 1: and I hope by then we know better than to
49:55
Speaker 1: open this door. I hope by then this door is
49:58
Speaker 1: under a mountain of rock, and nobody remembers where it is.
50:02
Speaker 1: I love you, whoever you are. Cassian. Corella read it twice.
50:07
Speaker 1: She set the lamp down on the small table by
50:09
Speaker 1: the washbasin. She said out loud, to the room all right.
50:14
Speaker 1: The humming came. It came from directly under the chair.
50:18
Speaker 1: Three notes held. She did not know the key of them,
50:22
Speaker 1: and she did not need to. She hummed them back.
50:25
Speaker 1: She hummed them back in her own voice, small and steady,
50:28
Speaker 1: the voice she had used to say, Amen at supper.
50:33
Speaker 1: And she said afterward, I hear you. I am the
50:37
Speaker 1: one who is listening now. The humming stopped. The room
50:41
Speaker 1: did not feel colder. The room did not feel warmer.
50:44
Speaker 1: The room felt, for the first time since she had
50:47
Speaker 1: walked into it, like a room, and not like a
50:50
Speaker 1: thing that was pretending to be one. Corella stood up.
50:55
Speaker 1: She walked to the door. She did not shut it
50:57
Speaker 1: behind her. She stepped over the oak beam, which lay
51:01
Speaker 1: across the threshold on the floor, and she did not
51:04
Speaker 1: touch it. She walked down the hall past Rosamond, who
51:08
Speaker 1: was crying, who was crying because she could see, without
51:11
Speaker 1: being told, that it had worked, and that it had
51:14
Speaker 1: also cost. She walked down the stairs, she walked out
51:18
Speaker 1: the front door, past Alistair, who stood up when he
51:21
Speaker 1: saw her face, and did not know what to say.
51:25
Speaker 1: She walked out into the yard, and in the east,
51:28
Speaker 1: over the top of the ridge, the first light was coming.
51:32
Speaker 1: Everard came out of the pantry an hour later. He
51:35
Speaker 1: was Everard again. He remembered nothing after opening the door.
51:40
Speaker 1: He wept when he understood what had happened. Rosamond sat
51:44
Speaker 1: with him at the too-big table and held his hand
51:47
Speaker 1: and did not answer his questions, because his questions had
51:51
Speaker 1: no answers she was willing to give. The road out
51:55
Speaker 1: was there again. It had come back the way it
51:59
Speaker 1: had gone. Alistair went to it and stood on the
52:02
Speaker 1: ruts and did not understand how. and did not, in
52:06
Speaker 1: the end, need to. They loaded the Ford. They drove
52:11
Speaker 1: down out of Embry Hollow at mid-morning under a sky
52:14
Speaker 1: that had gone the color of old iron. They stopped
52:17
Speaker 1: at the sheriff's office in Merrifield before they went home.
52:21
Speaker 1: Alistair told the sheriff, whose name was Otis Pruitt, that
52:24
Speaker 1: Everard had wandered off in the night, and that there
52:27
Speaker 1: had been an old rock-slide across the road for a day,
52:31
Speaker 1: and that they had had a difficult few days before
52:34
Speaker 1: but that everyone was accounted for. The sheriff, who was
52:37
Speaker 1: a good sheriff, and who had known Alistair since they
52:40
Speaker 1: were boys, wrote it up in his ledger. He wrote,
52:44
Speaker 1: Miss Adventure. He wrote, Weather. He did not ask, because
52:49
Speaker 1: Alistair Vance was not a man you asked. He wrote
52:52
Speaker 1: what he wrote. He signed his name at the bottom
52:55
Speaker 1: of the page. He shook Alistair's hand, and told him
52:59
Speaker 1: to go home and get some rest. And that was
53:02
Speaker 1: the record. That was the sign-off. Misadventure. Weather. If you
53:07
Speaker 1: go to the courthouse in Merrill Field today, you can
53:10
Speaker 1: find the page. It is a very quiet page. It
53:13
Speaker 1: does not say a single true thing. Corella went back
53:17
Speaker 1: to her rooms above the mercantile. She kept her books.
53:20
Speaker 1: She went to service on Sundays. She did not remarry.
53:24
Speaker 1: She had from that October forward the habit of sitting
53:28
Speaker 1: in her kitchen after dark, with a single candle burning,
53:32
Speaker 1: and her hands folded on the table, and she would
53:34
Speaker 1: sit that way for an hour every night, for the
53:37
Speaker 1: rest of her life. Her landlady, who lived below her,
53:41
Speaker 1: said she could sometimes hear Corella humming, softly, three notes, held.
53:47
Speaker 1: Always the same three notes. The landlady never asked. She
53:51
Speaker 1: was a mountain woman herself, and she knew when a
53:54
Speaker 1: woman was doing what a woman had to do. Corella
53:57
Speaker 1: Vance died in the spring of 1959, at the age
54:01
Speaker 1: of sixty-two, of natural causes, in her own bed, in
54:06
Speaker 1: her rooms above the mercantile. She was found by her
54:10
Speaker 1: landlady in the morning. Her hands were folded on top
54:14
Speaker 1: of the blanket. She was smiling, which surprised the landlady,
54:18
Speaker 1: because Corella had not been a woman who smiled often.
54:22
Speaker 1: Whatever she was hearing, right at the end of it,
54:24
Speaker 1: she was, at last, glad to be done listening for.
54:29
Speaker 1: The Vance House in Ambry Hollow sat empty for another
54:32
Speaker 1: 22 years. In the spring of 1953, the county came
54:37
Speaker 1: for the copper in the ridge, the way Alistair had
54:40
Speaker 1: said they would. They took the house down with a
54:42
Speaker 1: bulldozer to make room for a service road. The man
54:45
Speaker 1: who drove the bulldozer, a fellow named Jesse Halverson from
54:49
Speaker 1: over in Cranberr County, said afterward, to anybody who would listen,
54:54
Speaker 1: that the north room had been the strangest thing to
54:56
Speaker 1: knock down. He said it did not want to come down.
55:00
Speaker 1: He said it took him three passes with the blade
55:02
Speaker 1: to break the north wall, and that when the north
55:05
Speaker 1: wall finally gave, he heard something. He said he heard humming.
55:08
Speaker 1: He said he heard humming for a full minute after
55:11
Speaker 1: the wall came down, from somewhere under his blade, from
55:15
Speaker 1: somewhere under the mountain, and then he heard it stop.
55:19
Speaker 1: He said he did not know if it stopped because
55:21
Speaker 1: whatever it was had gone quiet, or because whatever it
55:24
Speaker 1: was had gone somewhere else. Jesse Halverson finished the service road.
55:30
Speaker 1: He quit bulldozing the following year and became a mail carrier.
55:34
Speaker 1: He never went back up, Ambry Hollow. And that is
55:37
Speaker 1: the story of the Vance family and the empty farmhouse
55:41
Speaker 1: and what Corella Vance carried home with her in the
55:44
Speaker 1: fall of 1931. If you know a case like it,
55:48
Speaker 1: one where the law wrote the wrong word on the
55:50
Speaker 1: paper because there was no right word to write, tell
55:53
Speaker 1: me about it in the comments. I read them. I
55:55
Speaker 1: used them. It might be the next one, I tell.
55:59
Speaker 1: Stay with me for the next account. Until then.