"I-uh-guess I should apologize too. But if you'd just let me say something…"
"He's right, Dad, it's his turn," Kathy said. "You aren't conversing, you're lecturing."
Josef turned impetuously to his daughter.
"Kathy, you know I didn't mean-"
"I know." She patted his hand. "It's that blasted legal training. Now listen to Mark."
A lesser personage might have been intimidated by the glare Josef turned upon him, but Mark was not the most modest of men. His chest expanded visibly as the others sat waiting for him to speak, and he took his time about beginning, measuring sugar into his coffee and clearing his throat several times.
"You left out one thing about poltergeists, Mr. Fried-richs. Sure, some of them are out-and-out fakes. But there is another theory. Some psychologists claim that a young person, especially a female entering puberty, is sort of… well… overflowing with psychic and sexual energy. Sometimes, especially if the adolescent personality is disturbed to begin with, this energy finds an outlet in poltergeist-type manifestations."
Despite Mark's pompous language, his meaning was clear. Pat half expected Kathy to throw something at him. Instead she laughed, freely and delightfully.
"That's the silliest thing I ever heard of."
"It certainly couldn't apply to Kathy," Pat agreed. She smiled at the girl, ready to forgive even the ruination of her favorite negligee. "I've never seen a less disturbed adolescent personality. Besides, if you are talking about puberty-"
"I went through that six years ago," Kathy said scornfully. "It's just silly, Mark. I mean, back in the nineteenth century maybe it was a shock to a girl, but these days…"
"Oh, I don't believe it," Mark said. "I just mentioned it to clear the air. I don't think what we've got is a poltergeist, anyway."
Josef followed the exchange interestedly, his elbows on the table, his fingers buried in his hair.
"Then what you believe," he said precisely, "is that there is an active, malevolent personality behind this-not just some vague, undefined burst of psychic energy."
"Good," Mark said patronizingly. "Right on. What we have got, ladies and sir, is a ghost."
Silence followed this statement. The refrigerator turned itself on with a click. Sunlight streamed through the windows, brightening the faded, flowery chintz of the cur-tains and setting sparks flaring off the coppery molds that adorned the walls. In the center of the kitchen table the yellow roses had spread their petals wide.
"This is unreal," Pat said.
Three pairs of eyes turned toward her. Josef's were a deep brown, almost black. She hadn't noticed their color before.
"I know how you feel," he said gently. "But I'm afraid it's a possibility. At least I'm willing to listen to Mark's statement." His voice sharpened as he turned to Mark. "I assume he has a statement-a long one."
"Not as long as I'd like it to be," Mark said, with unusual humility. "However, I will start with the fact that this isn't the first time your house has seen manifestations. Old Hiram-"
"Yes, I've heard of old Hiram," Josef said. "Go on."
"He wasn't crazy," Mark said. "I guess you could call him eccentric, although Dad used to say any man had the right to live the way he wanted, so long as he wasn't hurting anybody else."
"Did old Hiram hurt anybody else?" Josef asked.
Mark grinned. The chipped front tooth, damaged in a hard fall on the basketball court, gave his smile a gamin look.
"He threw rocks at us," he said. "Looking back on it, I don't think he really meant to hit anybody, any more than we meant to hassle him. Well, maybe we did, a little, he was such an old grouch. But mostly it was the place-all overgrown and weedy, a swell place to play war games and spies. And there were the buried-treasure stories. But then old Hiram complained, and Dad made me build that fence. Wow. That really hurt. Spending three Saturdays working, when I could have been playing baseball. Anyhow, after that we didn't bug Hiram; but he kind of liked Dad…"
"You are wandering from the subject," Pat said.
"What?" Mark gave her a startled look. "Oh. I guess I was. Anyhow, Hiram told Dad that when he first moved into the house some funny things happened. Lights, and objects moving around. He said he figured it was a ghost, so he stood in the middle of the hall and yelled out that he was a stranger, and he wouldn't bother it if it didn't bother him."
" 'Eccentric' is hardly the word for Hiram," Josef said drily. "Did that stop the manifestations?"
"I guess so. He said he never had no more trouble-"
"Mark, your grammar," Pat said.
"I'm quoting," Mark said blandly. "But Dad said it was an interesting story. He believed it, not because old Hiram wasn't peculiar, but because his peculiarities wouldn't take that form."
He looked at the others as if hoping they would understand what he meant. Surprisingly, it was Friedrichs who nodded.
"Yes, I see. Old Hiram might have delusions of persecution from Russians or Martians or vicious small boys, but not from poltergeists. Nor would he have mentioned the subject to your father, who was only a casual acquaintance, unless-"
"Yeah, that was it. He didn't want us hanging around anyway; he hated everybody, especially kids. But he told Dad he was afraid we'd start the ghost up again. Things were nice and quiet, he said, and he liked them that way."
"He wasn't so crazy," Josef muttered. "All right, Mark, I'll accept your first point. The-er-trouble did not originate with us. Are you suggesting I stand in the hall and shout reassurances, as he did, to our racketing spirit?"
"No, look-you don't get what I'm driving at. It isn't just a random effect. It woke up, like, when Hiram moved in. But he wasn't… what it wanted."
"Ugh," Kathy said violently. "I don't like that idea."
"Neither do I," Pat said. "Stop beating around the bush, Mark. You insinuated that you and-and your father had looked into the ghost theory. What are you driving at?"
"It sounds so unconvincing when you just state it flat out, without explaining-"
"State it flat out," Pat said firmly.
"Okay, okay. I think there is a ghost… spirit… whatever you want to call it. I think it dates from the period just after these houses were built. Now wait -do any of you know anything about the history of these two houses?"
He knew they didn't. Pat glowered at him, and Josef froze him with a cold legal stare; but Mark was basking in the warmth of Kathy's admiration and ignored the adult disdain.
"They are twin houses, as you know," he said, addressing all of them, though he continued to look at Kathy. "They were built in 1843, by a Mr. Peters, for his twin daughters…"
Four
I
If the midwife hadn't sworn to the fact, people would not have believed that Lavinia and Louisa Peters were sisters, much less twins. They were both fair-haired and blue-eyed, but with that the resemblance ceased. Lavinia was a fairy child, fragile and exquisite; Louisa was chubby and stolid, regarding the world with cool detachment from behind the thumb that was usually in her mouth. As they grew to young ladyhood, Louisa lost her baby fat, but she was never as slim as her sister, whose waist attained the fabulous seventeen-inch span so desired by Southern belles. Her blue eyes kept their look of calm appraisal, while Lavinia's danced coquettishly, flirting long lashes at her dozens of beaux.
("I've seen old photographs of the two," Mark said. "They didn't even look alike. They were older when the pictures were taken, but one was still the professional Southern lady; the other had a placid, motherly sort of face.")