House of Echoes: A Novel Read online

  House of Echoes is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2015 by Brendan Duffy

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of Random House, a division of Random House LLC, a Penguin Random House Company, New York.

  BALLANTINE and the HOUSE colophon are registered trademarks of Random House LLC.

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

  Duffy, Brendan.

  House of echoes: a novel/Brendan Duffy.

  pages cm

  ISBN 978-0-8041-7811-2

  eBook ISBN 978-0-8041-7812-9

  1. Families—Fiction. 2. Life change events—Fiction. 3. Moving, Household—Fiction. 4. Upstate New York (N.Y.)—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3604.U376S25 2015

  813′.6—dc23 2014024343

  eBook ISBN 9780804178129

  www.ballantinebooks.com

  eBook design adapted from printed book design by Dana Leigh Blanchette

  Title-page and part-title photograph: © iStockphoto.com

  Cover design: Carlos Beltrán

  Cover photograph: Pawel Gaul/Getty

  v4.1

  a

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Family Tree

  I: Between the Mountains: June

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  II: The Eyes of the Forest: July

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  III: Lost and Now Returned: December

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  IV: Keeping Up the Light: December, Darkest

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  To view a full-size version of this image, click HERE.

  Detail left

  Detail right

  December 23, 1777

  Dearest Kathy,

  It is over now, sister, but for how long?

  From our window I still see the Drop. I see the fields and forest where we once played. I can still see our brothers tumble in the grass and hear the elder tree whistle as the wind tears through its branches. However, I know in my heart that it is all gone. It is gone and it shall not return in this life.

  I am cold, Kathy. I see my breath and I cannot feel my feet, but I do not care. Not even fear is left in my heart. Fear has departed with hate and anger, and hope has been a stranger for longer still. Now there is nothing left but me, and I cannot face my reflection.

  There are demons in us, Kathy. I see that now. Our blood is cursed, and doom haunts us always. It is too late for us, but I pray it is not too late for you.

  Should this letter find its way to you, sister, you will think me mad. You may not understand now, but you must stay far from this place. Forget that you ever called it home. Do not even whisper its name to the children I pray you will one day have. I wish you many children, Kathy. If there is any goodness left in this land, I pray it will find its way to you.

  Remember me as I was, dear sister, when we slept in peace and our every dream seemed possible. I cannot sleep anymore.

  Forgive me.

  Your Bess

  1

  There were times in each day when Ben believed a happier life waited only for them to claim it. He was a dreamer by trade, and it didn’t seem far-fetched to hope their troubles would depart as quickly as they had surfaced. Such optimism was purest in the clear mornings when he took Hudson on the day’s first walk.

  Spring had come late but suddenly. The last of the snow had melted only weeks ago; now the grass was nearly to Ben’s waist. He monitored Hudson’s progress through the fields by reading the furrow carved by the beagle’s passage.

  The dew had evaporated but its chill lingered, and the breeze carried its own bite. The wind was strong and invigorating on this part of the Drop—the plateau that sat in the lap of two mountains, hulking cousins of the Adirondack Range. The updraft from the valley sent the acreage undulating as if it were a single breathing thing.

  He put his hand to his eyes to shield them against a gust and did his best to keep track of the dog. Hudson had picked up the scent of something and filled the air with his ecstatic baying. No one was happier about the Tierneys’ new life in the mountains than the beagle. His previous circumstances having amounted to little more than a Manhattan apartment, Hudson hardly knew what to do with a thousand acres of field, forest, and lake. If he missed his dog-walk runs and leashed jaunts down the avenues, he hid it well.

  Ben smiled and dropped his hand to his pocket, searching for his phone before remembering that he’d left it back at the Crofts, their home on the Drop. He hardly carried it around anymore, but like a phantom limb he sometimes imagined its presence.

  He watched the dog dart from the field and across the gravel drive that connected the Crofts with the county road nearly a mile away. The husk of a shattered outbuilding was just a hundred yards off the drive, on the near side of another copse of trees, and the beagle made straight for it.

  Ben cupped his hands around his mouth and called Hudson’s name. Ruined structures of uncertain purpose were scattered across the Drop, but Ben had picked his way through this particular one not long after he and Caroline had closed on the property. The place was a mess. The roof had caved in, and the rotting floor was on the brink of collapse under the weight of rusting farming equipment and other scrap. Anyone could see it was a death trap.

  He called Hudson again, but he was too far away; Ben could feel his shout whipped back to him by the steady wind from the valley.

  Clearing these outbuildings was something Ben had wanted taken care of before they moved in, but that was a battle he’d lost. Caroline thought that they contributed to the ambience. She imagined the guests at their inn roaming the grounds, delighting in the discovery of some ancient building from a forgotten time. She said this would give their guests a sense of ownership over their stays at the Crofts, so that the Tierneys’ inn would become a place they’d return to year after year.

  Their son, Charlie, was forbidden from venturing anywhere near the ruined buildings, but even a
n eight-year-old was easier to control than a beagle that had just plucked a tantalizing smell from the air.

  Ben broke into a run when he cleared the tall grass. He’d lost sight of Hudson, but a mournful howl told him the dog was close by.

  The wind backed off as Ben ran across the gravel drive, and he didn’t need to be a dog to pick out the scent that had captured Hudson’s attention. It was a musky smell with metallic notes, the tang of an animal, a tease of death that hadn’t yet turned sweet.

  Ben reached the building and was greeted by Hudson, eyes big and beseeching, tongue wagging.

  “In trouble again,” Ben said.

  He crouched to give Hudson a rough rub around his neck, and the beagle’s panting slowed.

  “You stink, too.” His hands came away from the dog, smeared red. He resisted the impulse to wipe them on his jeans.

  Hudson gave a short bark and executed a small circle in front of Ben.

  “All right, show me,” Ben told him, and followed the dog around the shattered building.

  He wasn’t surprised by the death; he had guessed as much from the smell. It was the blood that caught him short.

  The animal looked as if it had burst. The creature’s entrails were spread over several yards in two perpendicular streaks of intersecting gore.

  “No, Hudson,” Ben said, as the dog started sniffing the mess.

  The smell was stronger here, but not as bad as Ben had expected. The pools of blood were liquid, rippling in the breeze. The absence of birds and other scavengers made Ben think this hadn’t been here long. A fresh kill.

  His eyes scanned the ruined canvas of the animal and settled on a pair of prim gray hooves. A deer, Ben thought with some relief. The anonymous quality of the shredded viscera had made his imagination spin.

  The beagle walked through the carnage and began nosing around the edge of the woods.

  “Might have been a bear,” Ben told Hudson.

  He’d heard coyotes at night, but the men in town told him there were black bears in the woods. They’d also told him that there were wolves and mountain lions up here on the Drop, but he’d actually seen the bear tracks for himself along the edge of the lake.

  “Come on,” he said.

  Hudson started to bark at the trees.

  “We’ll have to hose you down before you go inside.”

  Ben headed back toward the gravel drive, hoping the dog would follow. But Hudson wouldn’t stop growling at the forest. Ben squinted to see what might have caught the beagle’s attention. He was a good dog and rarely fussed without a reason.

  “Let’s go, Hud.” Ben turned away from the woods and took some of yesterday’s bacon out of a plastic bag he kept in his pocket. “Look what I’ve got for you.”

  Hudson veered around and licked the bacon fragments from Ben’s hand.

  “Come on, you smelly dog,” he said, rubbing Hudson on the side of one ear. He took off in a jog back to the Crofts, and the beagle trotted after him.

  A great elm stood a solitary watch on the lip of the Drop, and when Ben reached its shadow he glanced back at the woods by the ruined building. All he saw were trees rocking gently in the updraft from the valley.

  2

  The Crofts was a monster.

  The lawyer who’d handled the sale told Ben it had been the original home of the Swann family, the first colonists to settle the Drop. It had begun as a simple residence, but he said they’d added to it over the years. Then again, that had been obvious.

  Rising to four floors, the house had sixty-five rooms, five entry-ways, and four staircases. Though sections of the building had been constructed centuries apart, its exterior was wrapped in uniform walls of gray granite. It sat like a castle on the lip of the Drop, overlooking the village of Swannhaven and the rest of the valley.

  It had been a farming estate and was ancient by the metric of the New World, built back when agriculture was the only game in the rambling North Country. It hadn’t been a fully operational farm since the 1940s, but the outlines of the old fields remained, as did the bones of stone walls and survivor strains of wheat, rye, and barley grown wild.

  Ben had seen castles a third its size. And while the scale of the place was imposing, its opulence was tempered by its condition. Parts of the residence hadn’t been inhabited in decades, its last owners spinster sisters who’d lived their entire lives within these walls. Ben didn’t know what two old women were doing so far from the village in such a huge house, but he could see it hadn’t involved much in the way of home maintenance. Water stains marked the ceilings, warped planks buckled the floors, and windows rattled in their frames.

  Sometimes he looked at the Crofts and saw a sprawling monument to impetuous decision-making. But in moments of hope, Ben saw an ember waiting to be rekindled. They were ready to put their sweat into the place; he hoped only that the Crofts would accept it.

  “Windy out there,” he told Charlie when he opened the side door and stepped into the kitchen. He made right for the sink, giving the soap dispenser a double pump before nudging the handle to hot.

  From their first tour of the place, Caroline had been convinced they could renovate the entire estate by themselves. Ben had his doubts. He had insisted that contractors add air-conditioning, install bathrooms in the guest rooms, and upgrade the plumbing and electrical. He could take his chances sanding floors and painting walls, but he thought anything involving pipes, wires, or gas lines was worth paying for. It had taken a team of live-in workers some months to get the house into shape before the Tierneys moved in.

  Though budget-conscious, Caroline had taken up cooking again and spared no expense in updating the kitchen in a modern French country style. Two walls of custom-made cabinets flanked a professional Wolf range with two large ovens. The original floor had been ripped up in favor of wide-plank antique walnut. Gray granite counters gleamed under inset lighting.

  When they weren’t working to renovate the rest of the house, they spent most of their waking hours here. At first it had been only for meals, then Charlie had begun reading in one of the corners instead of in his own room, then Ben and Caroline had moved their laptops to a side table. Ben told Caroline it might have been withdrawal from their close city living that led them to cluster together in this small room, but the truth was that he felt like an intruder anywhere else in the vast place.

  “Where’s Hudson?” Charlie asked through a full mouth. He and Bub were seated at the table, which held four plates of pancakes, each stacked six inches high.

  “He made a mess of himself out there,” Ben told him. “I’ll clean him off after I eat.” He watched the last of the blood-tinged water swirl out of sight.

  “Mom made pancakes,” Charlie said.

  “I can see that.” Ben dried his hands and kissed Bub on the head. The baby gurgled and showed him the pancake he was playing with.

  “What are in these things?” he asked, examining Bub’s breakfast.

  “I made two batches,” Caroline said. The pantry door slammed and a moment later she was halfway to the counter. She’d always been beautiful in jeans and killer in the right dress, but untucked flannel and blurry with flour was a relatively new look for her. “One with cherries and one with raspberries. I thought they might be good with chocolate, so I’m going to melt some down, add cream and maybe a dash of vanilla.” She emptied a bag of chocolate pieces into a saucepan fitted over a water bath.

  “Are we expecting company?” Ben asked, pointing to the plates of pancakes.

  “I’m trying out a recipe for the guests, Ben. I wasn’t sure about quantities.”

  She clicked the burner until a burst of blue fire blossomed under the water bath. As she churned the chocolate, her foot beat a rhythm against the floor. Ben had wondered, as he did on all of his morning walks, what kind of day they would have together. The towering stacks of pancakes were a bad omen, and the note that had crept into Caroline’s voice when she spoke his name was more troubling still. But it was only eight-t
hirty, and Ben was not ready to count the day as a loss.

  Ben kissed Charlie on the forehead as he sat down next to him. “Do you recommend the cherry or raspberry?” he asked him.

  “I like them both,” Charlie said.

  Ben leaned into Charlie. “I’m going to need your feedback on this one. I mean, how many pancakes would you say you’ve eaten in your time?”

  “A lot.” He had a smear of syrup on his cheek, and Ben rubbed it away with a napkin.

  “I’ll say. And not just ones made by Mom or me, right? You’ve eaten these things in restaurants across the tristate area. And what about when we went to California? You had some there, didn’t you?”

  “They were good.”

  “So you’re speaking from the position of having some pretty formidable experience under your belt in the arena of pancake eating.” Ben was talking to Charlie, but he was watching Caroline stir the saucepan at the stove. “Now, you should stop me if I’m overselling your credentials.”

  “I will,” Charlie said.

  “So how do these stack up?” A stupid pun, but some days he’d try anything. He was grateful to see the side of Caroline’s mouth twitch. Charlie was spare with his smiles, but not nearly as spare as his mother. Her face was as delicate and perfect as a doll’s, and these days almost as inexpressive.

  “They’re good,” Charlie said after a moment. “Sweet.”

  “Follow-up question: Do you think that the quart of maple syrup you’ve poured on them has anything to do with that?”

  A smile, small but undeniable, opened across Caroline’s face.

  “Maybe,” Charlie said.

  Ben speared three pancakes of both varieties off plates in front of him. “These are excellent,” he said after he’d eaten one of each.

  Caroline brought her tea over and sat at the table. The ghost of a smile lingered on her face, and that made some of the tension ebb from Ben’s shoulders. “Your phone buzzed while you were out.”

  Ben reached back to pick it off the counter. There was a missed call and voice mail from the lawyer who’d been handling his grandmother’s estate. More bad news, Ben expected; the man never had any of the good variety.