Sybil thought the idea of moving into an accursed house just marvelous, for deep in her heart she always had had her doubts about the validity of such curses and about occult phenomena in general. The idea of a vacation in such off surroundings somehow stimulated her romantic interest in Paul. She was glad he had decided to pursue the matter further.
One of these days, she thought, Paul would decide to marry her. That was what she had wanted all along, but in this modern age where people live together sometimes for a lifetime without taking formal vows, she hadn’t thought of pressing the point. She was quite content to let matters stay as they were, because Paul took very good care of her and there was always the remote possibility that she would not want to go further than their present, rather liberal arrangement. She had a well-paying job of her own, all the security she wanted, and she wasn’t really dependent on Paul economically. On the other hand, living with him prevented her from having any other entanglements with other men and, while it provided her with emotional security, it also kept her from a whole world of otherwise enticing males. Paul represented to her all that she wanted in a man, even though occasionally he would drive her up the wall with his peculiar insistence on things that didn’t really matter all that much. But then nobody was perfect, Sybil argued with herself, and there was a deep bond between them which, while not perhaps passionate love, was the next best thing to it.
All in all, she looked forward to having a vacation with him in such a thrilling place as that house in Amityville, Long Island. Her enthusiasm mounted as they packed the belongings they would take with them.
When they arrived at the house with a van attached to their car, excitement ran high in both of them. True to the agreement, the owners had left everything intact, for after all they were covered for any possible damage.
There was no one there to receive them. The real estate agent had provided them with the keys and apparently word of their temporary residence in the house had not spread, for there was no one standing around, waiting for their arrival or wondering what they were doing there. That was just as well, for Paul was not prepared to answer any questions at this point. Among his luggage was a certain kind of equipment generally used to determine metal in the ground or radiation levels in the area. He had rented it to determine whether, in fact, there were any unexpected energies or influences in that house. No, Paul had insisted all along, this wasn’t going to be a fishing expedition but rather a scientific experiment, hopefully crowned by ultimate success.
On this Sunday morning Paul and Sybil unloaded the truck, put their belongings piecemeal into the house, parked the car and the van, and went inside. The whole operation took less than an hour and again it was fortunate that there weren’t any passersby. But at eleven in the morning, people were either at home sleeping off “the night before” or in church. The house seemed oddly cold when they entered it. The furniture was, of course, all in place and Paul couldn’t help wondering at the bad taste of the present owner, who had furnished it rather garishly in a contemporary style. But that was the owners’ business and he knew that they would have to live with it for a month.
They decided to set up their headquarters in the largest of the bedrooms on the second floor, to the left of the stairwell. This was actually the master bedroom where the present owners slept. Within the hour, Sybil had rearranged things slightly so that the room took on some of their own individuality, putting the knick-knacks left behind by the owners into a corner or under the bed.
The house was clean and yet there was an ominous feeling of a presence everywhere they went. Both Sybil and Paul sensed it. Was this because of what they knew about the house and their expectancy of strange phenomena, or because there was, in fact, something in the house that the eye could not see? Whatever the reason, it didn’t bother them: that is one of the advantages of being well-trained in the pursuit of strange adventure; you grow used to the unfamiliar. But they acknowledged to each other that there was indeed something peculiar about the house.
By now it was one o’clock in the afternoon and both felt pangs of hunger. Fortunately, they had brought with them enough food for the day, for they had decided to avoid going shopping that Sunday, giving them a chance to get acquainted with the house first. Sybil had put the food in the refrigerator downstairs while Paul roamed around the house inspecting the rest of the rooms. There was nothing particularly sensational about them, yet the same cold, clammy feeling pervaded every one of them. Undoubtedly, Paul thought, the residue of those terrible DeFeo murders clings to the atmosphere, a phenomenon well-known in parapsychology.
When he heard what he thought was Sybil’s voice calling him to come downstairs for lunch, he replied, “Coming, darling,” and started to descend the stairs. At this moment a strong gust of wind hit him in the rear. Had he not quickly grabbed the wooden stair railing, he would have fallen helter-skelter down the stairs. He descended in the normal way and walked into the kitchen, a little shaken by the experience. He expected Sybil to have lunch ready on the table, but she was nowhere to be seen in the kitchen. That’s odd, Paul thought. Why did she call if she isn’t ready? He sat down to wait. After two or three minutes, when nothing happened, and Sybil did not return, he began to call out for her. Her voice answered him but it sounded muffled, as if she were far away. After a moment of reflection, he realized that Sybil was in the downstairs bathroom.
“Come on out,” he shouted.
The muffled voice of his fiancée replied. “I can’t, I can’t! Come and get me.”
Paul jumped to his feet and raced to the bathroom. He easily opened the door from the outside. “What’s the matter with you? Is your imagination running wild?” he said as a somewhat pale Sybil emerged.
“Imagination, nothing!” she replied in a tone of anger mixed with fear. “I went to the bathroom and then I couldn’t open the door from the inside. Something or someone held it.”
“Oh, come on,” Paul said incredulously.
But he knew that his reassurance was hollow.
So the house was still haunted. Nothing much was said between them as they walked into the kitchen. Sybil began to prepare lunch. After a moment of thoughtful silence, she began, “If this sort of thing is going to continue I am going to leave here. I didn’t come here to fight ghosts.”
“Don’t worry about it. This is just their—well, reception committee, telling us they are still here. They are probably harmless.”
“Probably!” she almost shouted. “How do we know?”
Paul did not know what to say. He decided not to tell her about his little adventure on the staircase.
It was a good lunch, though Sybil had prepared it in a hurry. It helped calm their nerves. Suddenly Paul felt rather tired, more so than he expected to be. But then it had been a hectic morning; loading and unloading all the luggage took its toll, he thought. “I think I am going to lie down for half an hour or so,” he announced and arose.
“I’m tired too,” she said. “I guess all the excitement and all the things we had to do this morning caused it.”
“Of course.” He took her by the hand and together they went upstairs to the bedroom. There they loosened their clothing, took off their shoes and lay down on the bed. So tired had they become that within seconds they were both fast asleep.
The following morning they arose, having slept for eighteen hours. They felt refreshed and yet strangely remote from all that was going on around them. It seemed as if an invisible curtain had descended between their minds and the outside world; and yet they were functioning normally, as they went about the business of making breakfast. They thought that it was simply the aftermath of all the strain they had gone through during the previous day.
They spent the rest of the morning acquainting themselves with the surrounding area, taking a walk up and down Ocean Avenue and looking at some of the other houses nearby. Somehow they felt alien in this environment, not at all as they had hoped they would feel. Two houses down the street someone peered out of a window at them; as soon as they looked up, the person withdrew rapidly. It seemed almost as if people were afraid to encounter them. Paul immediately dismissed this notion because, after all, who knew about them? Who knew what they were up to? As if she had read his thoughts, Sybil said, “I don’t think the townspeople like us very much.”
“What makes you think so?” Paul countered, although he knew in his heart she was right.
“It seemed awfully empty,” Sybil said.
“What do you expect?” Paul replied. “Maybe everyone’s having lunch.”
“Are they?” Sybil said. “Or are they simply keeping to themselves and don’t want anything to do with us?”
“Well now,” Paul replied soothingly, “it may well be that they don’t take kindly to people from the city, but that generally is the attitude out here, I should think.”
“Maybe,” Sybil replied, not convinced. Nothing more was spoken and they returned to the house. The rest of the day went quickly; they spent most of the time unpacking. Later, they went out once again to shop for additional supplies.
Over dinner Paul told Sybil that he had arranged to take the entire period off from work in order to do what they had set out to do properly. Sybil was somewhat surprised, for she knew that the amount of money that he would lose in this matter was more than he could afford. She, too, had taken time off.
“Don’t worry about it,” Paul said. “I had two weeks coming anyway, and I am taking two extra weeks off without pay.”
The following morning their search began in earnest. Paul connected his electrical equipment in order to cover every inch of ground inside and outside the house, to see if anything metallic was hidden in the ground. Sybil helped him set up the equipment and then divided her time between looking after domestic chores and anxiously peering out the window to see if he had discovered anything yet.
Paul found nothing on the first day and nothing on the second. He finished his inch-by-inch coverage of the house and grounds in the afternoon of the third day, trailed dispiritedly into the sitting-room, slumped into an easy chair and shook his head.
“I don’t understand it. Nothing. Absolutely nothing.”
“Is the equipment working properly?” Sybil enquired.
Paul nodded. He knew everything was in order. How could there be no results? There had to be some metallic objects in the grounds; maybe not a treasure but some nails or some broken piece of metal. But nothing, absolutely nothing had been discovered. He simply could not understand.
At the end of the fourth day of their residence Sybil convinced him that perhaps there was something wrong with the equipment or, if not the equipment, with the way he handled it. Paul reluctantly agreed and telephoned a friend who knew someone in the Army Corps of Engineers who might be able to help. The following day a man by the name of Charles Rogers arrived and unpacked some equipment very similar to Paul’s. Mr. Rogers, or rather Captain Rogers, was an expert with the metal detector. There was no question as to the knowledge he possessed nor about the excellent condition of his equipment. Yet he did not turn up any metallic objects either. He departed the following day, shaking his head and regretting that he had not been of some use.
But news of the arrival of Captain Rogers had gotten around the village. People kept appearing in the street, staring at the house. At first only villagers became aware of the change in occupancy, but somehow word got around outside Amityville as well. Strangers came to gape at the house; cars drove slowly past it. All this attention did not go down well with Paul, not to mention Sybil, because it happened at all hours of the day and night.
Around this time, Sybil noticed a strange change in Paul’s behavior, which could not be entirely blamed on the curious bystanders outside or on his failure to discover the treasure. Where once he had been gentle and charming, he was now curt and nervous. More than once he cut her off in the middle of a sentence, something he had never done before.
They were now in the middle of their second week of residence in the house. While it was in some ways a vacation, in other ways the strain and expectancy of their quest was far from restful. Even Sybil began to become a bit neurotic about the whole thing, although she enjoyed the hunt. What worried her more and more every day was the increasing strangeness of Paul’s manner. His face seemed oddly tense, and his eyes had taken on a nervous flicker which she had not noticed previously.
It was toward the end of the second week that there was a knock on the door. When Paul went to open it, he found a young man standing outside, who identified himself as a reporter from the Long Island Journal. He wanted a story.
“A story about what?” Paul exploded. “There is no story in this house!”
“Yes there is,” the young man said. “May I come in?”
“Certainly not,” Paul replied and slammed the door. The anger was still plainly visible on his face as he returned to Sybil. “The nerve of this guy, coming here trying to get a story from me! Some story he could get. Failure—nothing works. I don’t understand it.”
“Look,” Sybil said, trying to calm him, “why don’t we just call it quits and go home? We had a good try.”
“What!” Paul exploded again and hit the table with his fist. “After all that I have put into this? I’ve got to have that treasure. I’m not going to leave here without it.”
Sybil had never seen him like this. There was a look of greed on his face, as if getting the treasure was now a matter of life and death. And so it was, for Paul, at least. It had become a quest he refused to abandon. No matter how long it would take, no matter what he had to do, he had come here to find Don Pedro’s treasure and he was not going to give up.
Sybil thought for a moment. “Perhaps we ought to try bringing in a psychic, to see what she can pick up?” she suggested, fearful that he might explode again. But to her surprise Paul only stared at her, thinking it over.
“An excellent idea,” he finally said. “Yes, that is exactly what we ought to do. We need a good medium to help us find the treasure.”
“I am sure this will help and maybe we will get some leads that we can follow up on,” Sybil said. “Do you know anyone who might be able to help?”
“Well now,” Paul replied, scratching his head, “I am not terribly well-informed about mediums and clairvoyants, but I do recall having read about a very famous one who used to be a vocal coach and then became a medium for many years. I wonder if she is still around.”
“What was her name?” Sybil asked.
“Edith Mason—no, Ena Mason … Ena Mason, that’s it! I remember now. There was a big piece about her in one of the newspapers at the time when she solved the Rubenstein murder case, remember?”
“No, as a matter of fact, I don’t,” Sybil replied. “If you think she will do, why not call her?”
“I will. I will,” Paul said. For a moment the old Paul seemed to be back again, but only for an instant. The glint in his eyes was back a second later; his hands trembled as he looked through the telephone directory for the medium’s number. But Ena Mason was not listed in the Manhattan telephone directory.
“How do you know she lives in Manhattan,” Sybil asked, quite logically. Paul agreed that she had a point.
The following morning he called the American Society for Psychical Research and enquired about the whereabouts of Ena Mason. He was told she lived in Connecticut and he was given her phone number and address. That evening Paul seemed almost his old self again.