Every box he opened released a cloud of dust, until his sinuses ached from the onslaught. Sneezing didn’t help much. There were four small windows and two naked bulbs, but the light was still bad in the cluttered attic. Yet there was enough to determine that the contents matched the black marker headings on each box. Old volumes of Lucretius, Petrarch, Goethe, Emerson in the one marked POETRY. Just like Tom Hall to prefer the philosophical poets. Will could picture his large hands holding De Rerum Natura. Gently turning brown pages, intelligent blue eyes scanning the familiar text. He opened the next box, BIOGRAPHY. Boswell on Johnson; Franklin on himself; Ellmann’s fat volumes on Joyce, Yeats and Wilde. He did not remove every book, only enough to see the bottom of each box. Sam had said the grimoire was large. Of course she had been small when she last saw it. There was, alas, no box marked ARCANE or BLACK MAGIC.
He slapped dust from his jeans pointlessly, hearing the phone ring far below. There were old dressers, desks, cabinets tucked into every corner or standing in the open. He had been through them, but not carefully. Each time he could sense Samantha there before him, seeing all he would be likely to see, and more. This was a fool’s task, as she had told him two hours ago. Will turned off the lights and clomped down the narrow stairs.
He went to the kitchen to wash his face and hands, then to the study. Sam was hunched over the desk, in a circle of lamplight. Interrogating Evelyn’s old tome, with the faithful dictionary at her elbow. She was going to teach herself Latin by way of reading that damned demonology.
“Satisfied?” she asked.
“No,” he said, dropping into the chair across from her. “Just defeated.”
“I told you, I’ve been through this place.”
“It’s a large house, with more closets, alcoves and secret cabinets than anyone—”
“I would feel it,” she declared. Massaging her left shoulder with her right hand. “I would feel it here, and I don’t. Anyway, I think I know where it is.”
“Where?”
“The name, William.” She looked hard at him. “The name. Without it, we’re nowhere.”
“I didn’t think you believed that.”
She continued staring for few moments, then put her head down on the book.
“I don’t know what I believe,” she mumbled into the pages.
“Sam,” he said, rising and walking around behind her. “You don’t have a bibliophilic bone in your body, do you?”
“What?” she asked, without moving.
“You’re supposed to touch the corners of the pages,” he said, lifting her head off the yellowed book. “Preferably with gloves. Not bury your face in it.”
“Books are for using. That’s what Grandpa always said.”
“Well, yes.” Her muscles from shoulder to shoulder were a knotted mass. He pressed down with the heels of his hands on either side of her neck. “Use and care are not mutually exclusive. Relax, I won’t hurt you.”
Her shoulders sank, her resistance giving way slowly. And then so completely that it seemed she would collapse if his hands released her.
“Too hard?” he asked, easing up a little.
“No, it’s good. It feels good. Keep going.”
She started turning pages idly. Will looked over her shoulder at the archaic script and ghastly illustrations. Seeing only the bolded names.
Halphas, Havras, Hermus.
“Who was on the phone?” he asked. She hesitated before replying.
“Eddie Price.”
“Seriously? The same Eddie we’ve been talking about? What did he want?”
“What he always wants. This house. And every other one on the street.”
Will’s mind stumbled.
“Wait, what does Eddie Price have to do with houses?”
“He builds them.”
“I knew that,” Will said, only just remembering. “But what does he want with... Do you mean to tell me he’s the one behind Lucy Larcom?”
“He owns Price Construction. He’s in with a developer and some other people. They’re putting up houses all over Cape Ann, as fast as they can build them.”
She kept turning pages. Labal, Lamia, Leraie.
“Why is he calling you directly?”
“You can go harder on the right,” she said. “Yeah, there. Because I’ve said no to Lucy twice. And Eddie doesn’t like no. He was pretty, um, rude just now.”
“What, like, hostile?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It does,” he said, thoughts banging about anxiously. “It does matter. Because if he’s harassing you, he may be doing the same to my mother. And if he is, I’ll—”
“Will. You cannot let this distract you.”
Malphas, Marchosios, Merihem, Murmux.
“What?” Samantha asked. She had felt the shock in his hands before he registered it. “What is it?”
“Turn back one page,” Will said, his own voice sounding faraway. “There.”
Murmux, also known as Murmus or Murmur. A cloaked figure riding a giant vulture. Where had he read of him before?
“Summon...” Sam’s shoulders tensed again and she moved quickly from the page to the Latin dictionary and back. “Summon souls...”
“Can conjure the souls of the dead to answer the questions of the summoner,” Will said. Partly reading and partly remembering. “He teaches philosophy, and his name is a whisper.”
His bronchial passages constricted, and his vision spotted. His hands slipped from her shoulders, and Sam turned sideways in the chair to look up at him.
“That time you saw it,” she said urgently. “In New York, when you looked on its face. It spoke a word.”
“I heard a word in my head,” he replied, his mind veering away again and again from the memory. Refusing to have dealings with it.
“Murder,” she whispered.
“Yes,” Will agreed. “It sounded like that.”
“Could it have been Murmur instead?”
He had to sit. He went across the room and collapsed on the threadbare couch, ignoring the discomfort of the blown springs. Sam came over and sat next to him.
“You recognize the name? Like, from the Bible or something?”
“No. I mean, yes, it could be Christian mythology. But I think I read it in folklore. English, or American.”
“Okay.” She nodded quickly, as if expecting that answer. “So, if we can say...”
She paused. Asking silent permission to conjecture in his field of expertise.
“You can say whatever you want, Sam.”
“If we say folklore comes from someplace. You know, however changed. Then somewhere in England, or New England, where our people come from, the locals knew this name. In their folk traditions, without hearing it in a Sunday sermon.”
He could explain how freely source material flowed from one tradition to another, over great time and distance. But he knew what she was getting at.
“I suppose.”
“We want a name like that,” she continued. “A name our ancestors might recognize. Not the name of some Babylonian god or whatever.”
“If Johnny was studying with your grandfather,” Will said, the pain in chest subsiding. Trying to see the matter rationally. “I don’t know if that’s the right word. But if he was reading Tom’s books, imbibing his ideas and interests, this seems like exactly the sort of demon he would have called.”
“So maybe we’ve got something.”
He hoped so, but then another thought suddenly hit him.
“Why the hell would it tell me its name?”
“Well.” He could hear some of the enthusiasm drain from her voice in that one word. “It may not be that it was telling you, only that you heard it. Remember, it’s not necessarily a name, like we understand names. It’s a word. A word that means something.”
Will closed his eyes and massaged his forehead. This was all too vague, not to mention completely ridiculous. They sat in silence for a minute or so.
“Sam,” he finally said. “Where is the book? The grimoire?”
“I think it’s at my grandfather’s house,” she answered in a small voice.
“This is your grandfather’s house.”
“No, where he lives now.”
He opened his eyes and looked at her, still confused.
“I thought he was in a rest home?”
“I never said that.”
“You told me he was, what?”
“Retired from the world,” she answered. Exactly the phrase she used that night. “He lives in a cabin on Mount Gray. This house was too big, and he didn’t want to deal with other people. He almost never leaves there.”
“Is he, like, functional?”
“More or less,” Sam replied. “He can cook and take care of himself. He has a car. He can drive if he really needs to. I do most of his shopping.”
“So you see him often,” Will said, surprised.
“Once a week, at least. Sometimes more. Why?”
“I don’t know, I just thought he was put away somewhere. I didn’t realize he was up and around and you were seeing him. I mean, come on, Sam.”
“Wait.”
“He was there that night, after all the bad stuff went down. He taught Johnny. He knows about the book. Maybe he knows a lot more. My God, why wouldn’t you tell me—”
“He’s not right,” she said. “He’s not really himself. That’s why.”
“He’s not right how?”
“He knows who I am, most of the time. But he doesn’t always recognize other people.”
“Is this Alzheimer’s?”
“They haven’t diagnosed it. There are days he’s good. I mean, really sharp. He’ll talk for an hour, nonstop. Like one of his old lectures. All the words he needs are right there, the history, the quotes from his philosophers. And then, the light just goes out, you know? He’ll stop in the middle of a sentence and stare into space. Other days,” she sighed, “he can barely tie his shoes.”
“Is there a home health aide?”
“He doesn’t need that.”
“Because he has you.”
“Don’t make me into a martyr,” Samantha complained. “The man was the only parent I ever had. Why wouldn’t I do this much for him?”
“Of course you would,” he agreed. “It’s only that you and I have spent so much time together. Talking about this stuff, the families and the history. And all this time you’re going up there to see him and I don’t even know?”
“I didn’t want to talk about it.” Her face showed that she knew it was a feeble answer. “He’s fragile. Things upset him. Talking about my grandmother, talking about Johnny—it can mess with his mental balance.”
“You’ve raised the subject with him?”
“No. He brings it up. But there’s no way to have a good discussion, he just starts to shake and get confused.”
An odd and disquieting thought occurred to Will. Had Tom Hall taken the oath as well?
“I’m sorry,” he said at last. “I wish I knew sooner. I’d like to see him.”
“I figured. Problem is, you’re one of the subjects that upsets him.”
“Because of what happened that night.”
“Yes.”
He said no more right away. The old guy had hung around them like a benevolent spirit during all the hours they had spent in this house. Will had known he wasn’t dead, but imagined him in ghostly terms nonetheless. To learn he was living up there on Mount Gray, that she had been seeing him right along... Well, they all had their secrets, didn’t they? What things had he not told her? Was it possible for two adults to trust each other completely? Ever? Never mind under these strange circumstances.
His eye caught the framed photograph once more. He didn’t look away this time. Tom and Jane Hall. Middle-aged, arm in arm, on a porch somewhere. Happy.
“Sweet, huh?” she said. “They were so close. In love since they were children. He’s never gotten over her.”
“I saw her,” Will said calmly. “Jane. A few days ago in the graveyard behind the Congregational Church. Tending the Hall graves. Anyway, it sure looked like her.” She was quiet long enough that he finally turned to look. He saw alarm in her expression. “What? You see her all the time.”
“It’s normal for me,” Sam replied. “Seems like you’re seeing things more and more. Like the line is getting thin.”
“What does that mean?”
“The line between you and them. Between here and... I don’t know what it means.”
“Nothing good, judging by your expression.”
She ran her hands through her hair vigorously.
“We’ve got to figure this out, William.”
“You really think he has the book?”
“He must. Not anywhere obvious, or I would have seen it.”
“So he hid it,” Will said, letting them both chew on what that meant. “You’re going to ask him for it?”
“No.” She shook her head firmly. “I’m taking him to his doctors day after tomorrow. GP and heart. I drop him and pick him up later. He can be there two hours or more.”
“And you plan to ransack his cabin in the meantime.”
“You don’t have to put it like that.”
“No, I think it’s a fine plan,” Will clarified, making sure he had her attention for what he said next. “There’s just one thing.”
“Yeah, what’s that?”
“I’m going with you.”