17.
"Mr. Stark," Stevie began. He tried to sound as polite as possible. "My name is Steven Barton, and I'm a student of your son's at Newhope Middle School."
The man grunted but didn't say anything. When the silence was awkward, Stevie continued. "Mr. Stark—I mean your son—told me I should contact you. Said you might have some interesting ideas about the old house in The Grove. Harcourt Manor."
A funny sound came from the other end of the line, and then Mr. Stark said, "I'll bet he did! Is this some kind of a prank call? Make fun of the crazy old man?"
Stevie was surprised. He didn't know what Mr. Stark was talking about. "No, sir. Not at all."
There was a pause, and then the man must have made a decision and said, "Well, all right then. First thing's first. You call me Elijah. Haven't been Mr. Stark around these parts for some time. That title belongs to my son. Now, what do you want to know?"
"Well, I know the basic history of what happened there from Mr. Stark. Er, junior. But I was wondering if maybe you have some other ideas. Maybe your own thoughts on why Virginia Harcourt killed her parents, and what happened after."
"She got dead after," Elijah said, and snorted in amusement.
"I know, but I don't think it ended there. Do you?"
Again there was an awkward silence, but this time Stevie let it hang that way. After a moment, the man spoke.
"No," he said. "I don't. Suppose you tell me what's going on."
"You won't believe me," Stevie said. "It happened to me, and I'm not sure I believe it!"
"Tell me anyway," Elijah said.
Stevie told the man everything. The toy, the way something chased him just before Victor appeared, finding the house, the voice asking Where is it? when he and Emily went back for his phone, the visit by the creature that caused his mother to crash the car, and the trip to the house today.
Angie covered the receiver and whispered, "Tell him about the picture."
Stevie shook his head. He didn't know why, but he didn't feel he should share that information with the man.
"You went inside?" Elijah asked, surprised. He had a way of speaking that sounded old-fashioned and tired. "You ought not to have done that. That place is dangerous."
"Seemed pretty solid," Stevie said.
"Oh, it is. That's not what I'm talkin' about. You need to be careful in The Grove. No one believed me either, Steven, but that place is evil. Were it up to me, we would've burned the whole place down. Torch the forest and all. My son has some different ideas."
"He wants to preserve it," Stevie said, surprised by Elijah's drastic suggestion. "You don't?"
"No," was the man's only response.
Stevie sensed more than a little tension between Elijah and his son, Stevie's teacher.
"Why do you want the house destroyed?"
"Some say it was the girl and the murders that made it evil, but I don't think so. I think the evil in The Grove is ancient. It was there long before Mr. Harcourt ever built that monstrous place. That girl, Virginia, she was just a—well, she was like a sponge what soaked up the evil and then had no way of squeezin' it out."
"But why then?" Stevie asked. "Why that Halloween night, when the Harcourts had lived there for many years already? Why had it waited?"
"On Halloween, we humans let our imaginations run wild. We dress up, we scare each other, and we believe in that which—on other days—we don't even think about. Belief is a powerful tool that feeds evil. Makes it stronger.
"That night, feeding on the energies of Halloween, something horrible entered that house. Why that Halloween instead of the one before or after? Who can say? Perhaps the evil entered Harcourt Manor every Halloween before that night, and every Halloween since. Time is not always a straight line, especially in The Grove!"
Stevie told the man about what Emily had said. About how people in Japan believed in spirits that lived in the forests and the mountains, and how the lumberjacks would try to appease the spirits by leaving a toy or some small gift.
"And you think that toy you found might be what set this whole thing off, is what you're saying?" Elijah asked.
Stevie hesitated. It sounded silly when he said it to the man. "Well, I don't know."
"Son, if I were you, I would make sure that toy was—"
Suddenly, lightning struck and thunder boomed. The lights dimmed, and then went out. The house was thrown into complete darkness!