In a few moments he came once again to the house itself. There was nothing particularly forbidding about it, other than the fact that it had the air of abandonment, but Matthew thought that on this grim day it was like an ugly fist clenched around a secret. It was made of the same pine timbers as the other houses and was the same small size—two or three rooms, at the most—yet this house was indeed different for it had been chosen, if one believed the child, as the site of Satan's warning against the citizens of Fount Royal.
He decided to see the interior for himself, and particularly find the back room from whence the man's voice had come. The door was already open wide enough to admit him, and Matthew recalled Violet saying that the door was open when she entered as well. He doubted that anyone had set foot here since the child's experience, and so he thought there might be some evidence of interest. Possibly the imp's candle, or the chair upon which Satan had been sitting?
Matthew approached the door, not without some trepidation. Because all the shutters were closed, the interior was as dark as the gaol at midnight. He was greeted at the threshold by a damp, putrid, altogether unsavory odor. He called on the sternest stuff he had and entered the house.
His first task was to make his way to the nearest window and open the shutters wide, which he did. Now, with the aid of feeble though welcome light, his courage grew. He went to the other window and opened those shutters also, allowing God's illumination into the refuge of Satan.
When he turned to survey the room in which he stood, there were three things he noted in rapid succession: the Hamil-tons had evidently carried everything away in a wagon, for there was not a stick of furniture remaining; the floor was littered with what appeared to be dog droppings, some of them relatively fresh; and a skeleton lay in the corner.
The skeleton, of course, secured his attention. Matthew approached it for a closer inspection.
It had been at one time a medium-sized dog, obviously aged because its teeth were so worn down. The skeleton lay on its right side on a mat of its own grayish-brown hair, its bones picked clean by the flies that even now buzzed around the fresher mounds of excrement. The smell in this corner of the room was not pleasant, as the boards beneath the dead animal had been stained by the liquids of decay. Matthew wondered how long this carcass had been lying here, being whittled down to its foundations by scavenging insects.
He remembered what Martin Adams had said before Violet had related her story:
Surely, to have been so completely consumed, the dead dog had been lying in this room for at least that long, he thought. The smell must have been sickening. It must have struck a person in the face as soon as that threshold was crossed, and indeed must have been quite apparent even before the entry was reached. Yet it had not stopped Violet Adams from entering the house, and indeed she'd not noticed it even when she was well within.
One might say the Devil had masked the odor, or that Violet had been too entranced to let it wrinkle her nose, but still ... Of course, the dog could have died here two weeks ago rather than three.
Matthew turned his mind to the fact that there were no furnishings in the room. No chair, no bench, nothing upon which the Devil might have been sitting with the imp upon his knee. Of course Satan might have conjured a chair from thin air, but still. . .
He heard a noise from the rear of the house.
It was a slight sound, just a whisper of a noise, but it was enough to make the small hairs stir on the back of his neck. He stood very still, his mouth gone dry. He stared into the darkness that held reign back there, beyond the spill of meager light.
The sound—whatever it was—was not repeated. Matthew thought it had been the creaking of a board, or the slow shifting of something that would not be seen. He waited, his hands clenched into fists at his sides, his eyes trying to pierce the gloom. A fly landed on his forehead, and he quickly brushed it away.
The room back there. From where the child had said she'd heard a man's voice, singing.
Matthew was terrified by the thought of what might be lurking just beyond his range of vision. Or, indeed, lying in wait for him. But, God help him, he had come to this house to ascertain the truth and therefore he must go back into that dark room, for who would go if he would not?
Still, his feet had grown roots. He looked around for a weapon of some kind—of any kind—but found nothing. No, that was not quite correct: amid the ashes of the hearth he saw two items that had been left by the Hamiltons—a broken clay tankard and a small iron cooking pot. He picked up the pot, which had been so used its bottom was burned black, and again faced the gathered dark.
Matthew would have traded two teeth for a sword and a lantern, but a cooking pot was at least substantial enough to strike a blow with, if need be. He sincerely hoped there would be no need. And now came the test of his own mettle. To go or not to go, that was the question. If he slinked out, would it not be an admittance that the Devil really might be back in that room awaiting him? And had he heard a noise, or had it been only his fevered imagination?
It could have been a rat, of course. Yes, a rat. That was all.
He took one step toward the dark and stopped, listening. There was no sound other than the pounding of his heartbeat in his ears. One more step, and then another. He could now make out an open doorway, beyond which might have been a bottomless pit.
Slowly, slowly, Matthew approached the room and winced as his weight made a board groan. He peered inside, all his senses alert for any hint of motion or threat of attack from a spectral fiend. He saw the barest crack of daylight back there: the seam of closed shutters.
Again his courage faltered. To have a view of the room meant he must cross it and unlatch the shutters. A cold hand might grip the back of his neck before he could get there.
No, it was ridiculous! he thought. His very reticence here was giving weight to the notion—absurd, in his belief—that indeed Satan had visited this house and might still be a presence in its darkness. The longer he tarried on the threshold, the more claws and teeth Satan bared. There was nothing to do but enter the room, go straight to the shutters, and throw them open.
And, of course, while doing so keep a tight grip on the iron pot.
Matthew took as much of a deep breath as he could stand, as the smell was less than fragrant. Then he gritted his teeth and walked into the room.
He felt the darkness take him. His spine crawling, he went the ten feet or so to the opposite wall, found the shutter latch, and lifted it with a quick—one might say frantic—motion. As he opened the shutters the blessed gray light rushed in, and never had he been so glad to see a skyful of ugly clouds.
At the instant of Matthew's relief, a groan came from behind him that rose in volume and power and quite near sent him hurtling through the window. This sound of a vengeful demon all but lifted Matthew out of his shoes. He twisted around with his face frozen into a terrified rictus and the iron pot lifted to strike a blow against a horned skull.
It was difficult to say who was more frightened, the wild-eyed young man or the wild-eyed brown mongrel that cowered in a corner. But it was definitely Matthew's fear that passed first, as directly he saw on the floor the six pups that had been suckling at their mother's swollen teats. He gave a reflexive, strangled laugh, though his testicles were yet to descend from the height they had risen.
The bitch was trembling, but now she began to show her teeth and mutter a growl, therefore Matthew felt it prudent to take his leave. He had a look around the room, which was quite bare except for the animals, their excrement, and a couple of tattered chicken carcasses. He lowered the cooking pot and backed out, and was on his way to the door when the master of the house suddenly arrived.
It was one of the dogs that had been pulling the entrails from the dead pig in the street. It came in bloody- mouthed, carrying between its jaws a hunk of something dark red and dripping. As soon as its glinting eyes took sight of Matthew, the animal dropped its gory prize and crouched down in an attitude of attack, its husky growl indicating that Matthew had intruded upon a territory off-limits to the humans of Fount Royal. The beast was about to jump for Matthew's throat, that much was dangerously clear. Matthew wasted no time in making his decision; he flung the pot to the floor in front of the dog, causing it to leap backward and issue a fusillade of indignant barks, and then he immediately turned to the nearest window, climbed up over the sill, and jumped out.
Up on his feet again, he made haste in an easterly direction.
He glanced back, but the dog did not follow. Matthew kept his pace brisk until he'd left the Hamilton house well in his wake, and then he stopped to take account of a scraped right shin and a number of splinters in the palm
