Carolyn frowned, wondering what, exactly, he was getting at. And then, slowly, the pieces began falling together in her mind. But what it added up to made no sense. It was as if Conrad Sturgess had suddenly risen from his chair in the mausoleum, and come back into the house with all his superstitions, and ramblings of evil in the mill. “It’s the history,” she said at last. “My great-great-grandfather was driven to suicide because of the mill. That my family blamed old Samuel Pruett is something you know, Phillip. It’s been a sore spot in my family for generations.”
“And yet you married me,” Phillip pointed out.
“I love you,” Carolyn replied.
Phillip nodded perfunctorily, and Carolyn had the distinct feeling that he hadn’t really heard her, that his mind was on something else. “Was your family afraid of the mill?” she finally heard him ask.
Carolyn hesitated. Again, more pieces fell into place. “There were stories,” she said, almost reluctantly.
“What kind of stories?”
“There was a story that several children disappeared from the mill. And right after that, your family closed it.”
“Disappeared?” Phillip asked, his eyes reflecting a genuine puzzlement that told Carolyn he’d never before heard the story.
“That’s what I was told. One day some of the children went to work, and didn’t come home again. The story the mill put out was that they’d run away. And I suppose it was plausible, given the working conditions. But a lot of people in Westover didn’t believe it. My great-grandparents certainly didn’t.”
Phillip’s forehead furrowed into a deep frown, and he refilled his glass. “What did they think happened?”
“They thought the children had died in the mill, and that the Sturgesses covered it up.” She hesitated, then went on. “One of the missing children was a member of my family.”
Phillip was silent for a moment. “Why didn’t you ever tell me that story before?”
“There didn’t seem any point,” Carolyn replied. “It all happened so long ago, and I’ve never been quite sure whether to believe it or not.” She smiled ruefully. “Well, to be perfectly honest, I was more than ready to believe it until I met you. Then I decided no one as nice as you could have sprung from a family that would have done something as awful as that, so I decided that the tales my grandmother told me must have been exaggerated. Which they probably were,” she added, attempting a lightness she wasn’t quite feeling. “You know how old family stories go.”
“Don’t I just,” Phillip agreed, smiling thinly. “So now you don’t believe the story?”
Carolyn shrugged. “I don’t know that I ever believed it, truly. And I don’t know that I disbelieve it now. It’s just there, that’s all. And whether I believe it or not, I’ll never be comfortable about that mill. It gives me the willies, and it doesn’t matter what you do to it, it always will.”
Phillip sighed heavily. “Well, if what Mother said is true, it gave her considerably more than the willies this afternoon.” Then, as Carolyn listened in silence, he repeated what Abigail had told him at the hospital. When he was finished, she picked up her glass from the bar, took a large sip, then firmly replaced it. “She really said it was the fear that brought on the heart attack, not the other way around?”
Phillip nodded. “She was very positive about it. And you know how positive Mother can be,” he added archly. “Anyway, right after that, she asked me to bring Beth to her.”
Carolyn’s heart sank as she remembered the conversation she’d had with Eileen Russell that very afternoon. Had Eileen spent the rest of the day spreading Peggy’s story all over town? She must have, since apparently Abigail had already heard.
“So that’s why your mother went to the mill today,” she said out loud, then repeated her conversation with Eileen to Phillip. “It must have gotten back to your mother,” she finished, suddenly angry. “So she tied it all together with your father’s nonsense and Jeff Bailey’s accident, and went down there looking for something. But there’s nothing there — only Beth’s imagination, and your father’s craziness!”
“And your family’s stories,” Phillip added. “If you mix it all together, it gets pretty potent, doesn’t it?”
“But it’s just stories,” Carolyn insisted, her eyes imploring her husband. “And besides, Beth never heard them. My family all died before she was even born, and I never told them to her.”
“But Beth’s grown up in Westover,” Phillip observed. “Everyone in town must know those stories, and she’s probably heard them in one version or another all her life.” He left the fireplace, and sank onto a sofa. “Maybe Mother’s right,” he said. “Maybe you’re both right. If everybody in Westover’s heard all those stories, probably no one will come anywhere near the mill. Wouldn’t that be something?” he added wryly. “All that money, and I’ll wind up boarding the place up again.”
“No!” Carolyn suddenly exclaimed. “Phillip, we’re being ridiculous. And I’ve been ridiculous right along. But it’s going to stop right now. I don’t believe in ghosts, and neither do you. There’s nothing in the mill. And as soon as it’s opened, all the old stories will be forgotten!”
Before Phillip could make a reply, they both heard the screams coming from upstairs.
Tracy had appeared at Beth’s door five minutes earlier, letting herself in without knocking. Beth, lying on the bed staring at the ceiling, had not moved, and for a minute Tracy had thought she was asleep. But then she’d seen that Beth’s eyes were open.
“Look at me!” she’d demanded.
Beth, startled, had jumped up, then, when she saw who it was, sat back down on her bed. “What do you want?”
“I want to know what my grandmother said,” Tracy told her. She advanced across the room a few steps, then stopped, still ten feet from the bed.
Beth hesitated. She could see the anger in Tracy’s eyes, and was sure that if she tried to make something up, Tracy would know she was lying.
Maybe she should call her mother. But what good would that do? Tracy would just wait until they were alone, then start in on her again.
“She … she wanted to talk about Amy,” she finally blurted.
Tracy looked at her scornfully. “You’re crazy,” she said. “There’s no such person as Amy.”
“There is, too,” Beth shot back. “She’s my friend, and your grandmother knows all about her.”
“She only knows what I told her.” Tracy sneered. “And I told her everything you were saying to that stupid Peggy Russell.”
“Peggy’s not stupid!”
“Maybe she’s not,” Tracy conceded. “At least she’s not stupid enough to believe all that junk you were telling her. And neither am I, and neither is my grandmother!”
“You don’t know anything,” Beth replied. Tears were welling up in her eyes now, and she was struggling to keep them from overflowing. “You think you’re so smart, but you don’t know anything, Tracy Sturgess!”
“You shut up!”
“I don’t have to!” Beth cried. “I live here too, and I can say what I want to say! And I don’t care if you don’t believe me! I don’t care if anybody believes me. Now, go away and leave me alone!”
Tracy’s eyes glowed with fury. “Make me! Just try to make me, you stupid little bitch!”
“You take that back!”
“I don’t have to, ‘cause it’s true! You’re stupid, and you’re crazy, and when I tell my father, he’ll make you go away. And I’ll be glad when he does!”
Beth’s tears overflowed now, but they were tears of anger, not of pain. “Who wants to live in your stupid house anyway! I never wanted to come here!”
“And nobody ever wanted you to come here!” Tracy screamed. “Don’t you know we all hate you? I hate you, and my grandmother hates you, and my father hates you! I bet your mother even hates you!”
The blood drained from Beth’s face, and she lunged off the bed, hurling herself at Tracy. But Tracy, seeing her coming, spun around, yanked the door open, and dashed down the hall. Beth caught up to her just as she was opening the door to her room. Grabbing Tracy’s hair, she tried to pull her back out into the hall.
“Let go of me!” Tracy screamed. Her arms flailing, she tumbled into her room, with Beth on top of her. “Daddy! Daddy, help me! She’s trying to kill me!”
She was lying on her stomach, Beth astride her, pummeling at her shoulders. With a violent wrench, Tracy twisted herself over onto her back, and, still screaming, began clawing at Beth’s face.
