Thorn by Fred Saberhagen (reading like a writer TXT) 📕

      “Mr. Dorlan, this is Mr. Thorn, a friend of mine. He just came along to give me a hand with the things.”

      Dorlan, who had not been visible on either of Thorn’s previous visits, nodded grudgingly. “I’ll just ride up to the house with you and let you in.”

      “Let us in?” Mary echoed in an uncertain voice.

      “They’ve all moved out,” replied Dorlan. There was a kind of grim shyness in his manner, and he did not look directly at either of his visitors. He left them momentarily to shut and lock the gate again, after Thorn had driven the Blazer in.

      “Moved out?” Mary asked him blankly when he came back.

      “Me and the Missus are the only ones left. We’re leaving in the morning. The rest of the staff all got paid off. Mr. and Mrs. Seabright are gone to Santa Fe.”

      Thorn made a faint hissing noise, almost a sigh. Otherwise he made no comment. The Blazer rolled along the graveled drive with Dorlan perched in the small rear seat. Mary looked vacantly at the house as it appeared from behind the screens of palms and citrus. The portico was empty. “My things?”

      “Still inside, up in your old room. They told me to get ’em out on the porch before you come, but I ain’t had time.”

      Thorn stopped near the front of the house. Sunset was still lingering in the second floor’s west windows. “The move is permanent?” he asked.

      “Far as I know. They want all their mail forwarded. This place is being closed up. Though I hear Ellison’s the owner now.”

      Mary opened her door and hopped out briskly. “Well, I’m just as glad. I don’t want to look at him again. At any of them.”

      Thorn got out too, followed by Dorlan, who was now looking intently at the taller man, as if fascinated despite himself. Dorlan yawned suddenly. “Damn tired,” he complained. “Worked all day. No friggin’ air conditioning this afternoon. Power’s off in the main house already.”

      “Very tiring,” agreed Thorn. “You will be glad to get to sleep.” He extended a hand, palm up, while Mary watched in growing puzzlement.

      “I’ll say.” Dorlan fumbled a set of keys loose from a chain at his belt, and handed them over. He yawned again, and tottered to the portico, where he leaned against one of its imitation Doric columns. A moment later he sat down. His eyes had closed.

      “Oh dear,” said Mary, and fell silent, forgetting whatever comment she had been about to make. A large mastiff had just appeared at the corner of the house. From her days in residence she remembered the beast as an unpleasant and dangerous watchdog. It was staring at them intently and a low vibration of warning issued from its throat.

      “Quiet,” said Thorn softly. Mary had no doubt that he was talking to her, but instantly the dog’s growling trailed off. It leaned forward, as if about to charge, or topple, in their direction. Then somehow there was a change of plan. The great head, ears askew, turned away from them. The dog sniffed the gathering dusk. Then it turned round twice in place, scratched at an ear, and lay down peacefully.

      A faint snore arose from Dorlan, who sat leaning against his post. Mary looked from one phenomenon to the other, and seemed to be trying to think of some suitable comment. She was evidently unable.

      Keys jingled briskly in Thorn’s fingers. “Come. I should like to see the room you occupied.” He unlocked the great front door and pushed it open, and like some old courtier bowed Mary in ahead of him. She found herself accepting the bow as something perfectly natural.

      The house was filled with what felt like an unnatural heat—it was only the day’s heat that had crept in through fallen defenses, Mary realized, but it felt strange in rooms where she had never known anything but cool comfort. Out of habit she flicked a light switch in the cavernous great hall—nothing happened, of course. But enough daylight remained to see that a start had been made at covering up furniture, getting the place ready for some extended period of inoccupancy.

      With Thorn at her side Mary crossed the great, silent hall, heading away from the study and the elevator, toward the foot of the broad main stairway. But when she reached the stair she stopped. “I haven’t been back here since—that night. Oh, I came back once with the police, re-enacting what I could remember for them. But…”

      “But it all comes back to you much more strongly now.

       “Yes, you’re right, it does.” She shivered.

      “Good. Very good. Shall we go up?”

      Mary wanted to protest that it was not very good at all, that she was growing frightened. But she would not be a coward. She would get her property that she had come here for, and then she would leave, if possible before the darkness thickened any further. She started up the shadowed stair. Thorn’s feet, closely following, were inaudibly light.

      As I was going up the stair

      I met a man who wasn’t there …

      How did it go? Something like that, anyway. Actually she was quite glad for his tall, silent presence. It was not this man she feared. She hadn’t realized, or had lately forgotten, that when she lived here she had felt real fear of certain other people in the house. In her imagination she could see Ellison Seabright now at the head of the stairs, as he had been standing on that night, looking down at her … and behind Ellison, another and truly terrifying figure that came and went before Mary knew who it was, and maybe she didn’t want to know … even only in her imagination…

      She half-stumbled near the top of the stairs, and Thorn’s hand came to support her elbow neatly. “Thank you,” Mary murmured. “God, yes, you were right. How it all comes back…”

      “Your bedroom,” said Thorn, interrupting a silent pause, “must have been down this corridor, on the right.”

      “Yes. But how