Séance for a Vampire, Fred Saberhagen [win 10 ebook reader txt] 📗

I took my visitor’s hand and patted it reassuringly. “If you have any revelation to make, I hope you will tell me. You may find me a more receptive audience than you expect. More than that, you may help us all to find a way out of this ghastly business.”

The young woman sighed, and sat back in her armchair. “You’ve heard the statements I gave, and Martin gave, at the inquest. They are substantially true as far as they go. but mine, at least, did not go farenough. Now let me tell you everything.

“You’ve seen the Shade now, Doctor–it’s always a fairly placid stream, no more than twenty or thirty yards wide anywhere within several miles of our house.

“We’d brought a picnic basket with us, and most of its contents had been disposed of–we’d been nibbling pretty steadily. And we were singing, off and on–Louisa had brought her banjo.

“Martin of course had been doing almost all the rowing, though each of us girls had taken a brief turn. Everything was going peacefully and pleasantly... and then it happened.” Miss Altamont paused at this point, her blue eyes searching mine as if for reassurance.

“Go on,” I urged, as cheerfully as possible.

“You won’t call for attendants and have me taken to an asylum?”

“Most assuredly, I will not.”

“You say that very convincingly. Well, call them if you must; still I must tell someone.

“I was sitting with Lou in the stern, both of us naturally facing forward, looking past Martin toward the prow. What I thought I saw then... it was only the briefest impression, and for days and days I have tried to convince myself that I must have been mistaken...”

“Yes, go on,” I urged again. Encouragement seemed necessary.

Briefly the girl still hesitated. but then she plunged ahead. “What I thought I saw was... first hands. Large, human hands, coming up out of the water, one seizing the very front of the boat on each side, like this.” The girl raised her own small hands in demonstration. “And then... then I had the distinct impression of a man’s head and body coming up, just on the left side of the boat as I sat looking forward.”

“A man? Who?”

“I don’t know; it was only the briefest glimpse, if it was not entirely an illusion, but I have no reason to believe that it was anyone I’d ever seen before. My impression is of longish red hair, and a red beard, both looking dark because they were wet–and I can remember, or I think I can, that his lips were parted, showing his white, sharp teeth. And his eyes... they were green, I think, and when I try to remember, something about the memory always makes me think of dead fish, or of something drowned...”

Briefly Miss Altamont buried her face in her hands. When she looked up again, I asked as gently as possible: “Was there anything else you noticed about him?”

“Only that he was–he appeared to be totally unclothed, and his skin was everywhere very pale–I may have only imagined all this, you understand.”

“I understand.”

“I suppose Louisa might possibly have seen him too, because she uttered the last sound I ever heard from her lips, a kind of little gasp, or shriek–although that may have been only because the boat was going over. I cannot rid my brain of the thought that the man was really there, and that he tipped it. If so, it was incredible.”

“Surely any man might tip a rowboat?” I asked in soothing tones.

Miss Altamont dabbed at her eyes with a small handkerchief. She nodded. “Yes, an ordinary man could do it gradually, by throwing all his weight on one side and forcing one gunwale under water. but whatever happened was nothing like that. What happened still does not seem possible. We were in the center of the stream, deep water, and I don’t see how the man’s feet could have been planted on the bottom. Yet he–if he was really there–he flipped that heavy rowboat–you have seen it–like some child’s toy.”

I nodded reassuringly. “Do you think that Martin might have seen this man too–if, as you say, he was really there?”

“He might have seen him.” The young woman shook her head. “but he has said nothing to me about it. Of course at first Martin was facing in the opposite direction, but he might possibly have seen him when the boat capsized... Dr. Watson?” A new tone had come into the girl’s voice. “Is it really possible that you believe me?”

“I have no reason to doubt, Miss Altamont, that events might have taken place very much as you describe them. I only wish that you had told us sooner.”

Her blue eyes opened wide. My reaction was evidently not at all what she had anticipated. “How strange!”

“My belief? Well, as I have grown older, I have learned that there are many strange things in the world. Are there any more details that you can give regarding this pale man?”

The lady shuddered. “As I say, in the next moment, we were all in the water, and I never saw this–apparition–phantasm–again. but Doctor, it haunts my dreams. And there I can see it clearly–that hideous, somehow dead-looking face. He has red hair, dark with wetting, all matted over his forehead. And he is glaring–no, not glaring, smiling, which is worse–at my sister and me with nightmarish malevolence. And in my dreams I see his body clearly too, those white arms, those white hands, arms and hands all very muscular, gripping the gunwales near the bow. He must have been immensely strong... if he was real.” And once more my fair visitor shuddered.

A moment later she demanded: “but then who was he, Dr. Watson– if he was really there? What is the explanation?”

“That will have to wait. I cannot provide it.”

In the meantime, there still had been no indication that my effort to communicate with Dracula would be successful. I hoped I somehow could get Miss Altamont out of the way before he