Jacob

The House of Jacob

by Steven Argyle

At last, the date has come. And on this day of days that I once thought impossible I must set aside the proverbial pre-wedding jitters and write. Both Sarah and I feel that this story must be told; Eric agrees also.

Eric is to be my best man to day but, though none will say it, all three of us know that the honor should be Jacob's. It is Jacob's tale that I am compelled to tell; and, strange though it may seem, it is as real to me as if it had happened yesterday.

It all began on that bright June morning ten years ago. That was back in the fabled "good old days" when life was an unceasing adventure for three twelve-year-olds on the first day of summer vacation.

We were three inseparables, Eric, Sarah, and I, growing up together on three small, neighboring farms in the Hudson uplands not far from the storied Catskill mountains. My farm lead to the east side of the north-south state highway that roughly paralleled the river. Sarah's farm was just next door to the south, also between highway and river while Eric lived in the small stone farmhouse directly across the road from Sarah. Our trio of homes marked the northernmost extent of population in the township, the town of Allen's Crossing proper being four and a half miles and several farms away to the south. To the north of us was a stretch of wooded hills and hollows that separated our small world from the neighboring town of Henryville. Also to the north, somewhere, lay the estate.

It was the Estate that held our interest on that long ago summer day. For seven months we had ached to find it. It had begun the week before Halloween when the conversations of several sixth graders on the school bus had turned to haunted houses. Several old abandoned homes in the neighborhood were being considered for excursions on the night of spooks, but somehow single story, stone farm houses were not quite what one conjured up in his mind when one thought of haunted houses.

It was then that old Mr. Weems, they near toothless bus driver with the kind sparkling eyes said, "why don't you go visit the old estate and pay a call on the Mad Fiddler?"

"Visit who? Where?" Mr. Weems gloated on the two dozen curious eyes upon him, their attention all his.

"I said, why don't you go to the old Whithorn Estate and see if you can hear the Mad Fiddler?"

That was all it took to send a mob of boys and girls to the teacher, the librarian, and even the clerk at the city archives during lunch hour to glean some kind of information about the Whithorn Estate. Mrs. Calder, the city clerk, said that she would find what she could and told us to come back later.

When afternoon recess rolled around after a century or two of arithmetic and world geography, a football game started among the six grade boys. I was chosen to return to Mrs. Calder's office. As I started off at a jog Sarah joined me, and I heard a great clamor from the contending players. I turned back at the sound of a cry. "Wait, Matthew!" I saw Eric running after us. The disturbance was caused because Eric was captain for any recess sport, and one team was lamenting his loss while trying to drown out the cheers of their opponents. But Sarah and I were glad to have him along.

Thus began our search for the Whithorn Estate, a search that was to prove fruitless on Halloween and several subsequent nights and days. Then the winter put a halt to all excursions into the woods. By the time spring came around all had forgotten the search save we three. Our parents discouraged our hunt, saying that if we did find the estate the old house would probably be unsafe. But, finally, school was out, and we had a whole summer to find our too-long hidden goal.

Stories abounded about the old Estate and its former inhabitants. It seems that in 1874 Josiah Whithorn, Esq. came to America from northern England after some sort of bankruptcy scandal. Though he did not seem to be as poor as most bankrupt industrialists, he did keep pretty much to himself. Then he bought three remote riverside farms between Henryville and Allen's Crossing and combined them into the Estate. He spent the remainder of his eccentric life building the house and garden in memory of his incongruently young wife who had died in childbirth. Local legend had it that he was found one day by his son floating face down in the little ornamental lake in the garden.

Josiah Whithorn Jr. was the complete opposite of his father. During his reign, the Estate was the hub of social life for miles up and down the river. People had come from as far away as Albany to attend his palatial banquets. In spite of all the talk of buried gold, villainy, and even pacts with the devil as the source of a seemingly unending flow of inexplicable wealth, ladies from all over upstate New York attempted to attract Whithorn's attentions. He remained a bachelor all his life, but under some rather dubious circumstances did manage to come up with an heir, Josiah Whithorn III.

This Josiah was a total recluse. He had received the finest education available. He had graduated from Harvard and played the violin to perfection. He never enjoyed his father's dazzling parties though he was compelled to attend. Somewhat understandably, he was quite bitter about life and held no great love for his sire. When the latter died soon after the turn of the century -- he drowned in a boating accident on the river -- Josiah III fired all the servants, closed down all the farms, and totally shut the rest of the world out of his Sanctum Sanctorum. It was said that he was touched and that he sat around playing his violin all day except to work in a small vegetable garden which provided for his table. He would shoot at any trespassers, so soon no one went to the Estate. It was not long before everyone forgot about it and its mad proprietor. After several years the woods closed in around it and those who knew where the Estate was located all died off. No one knew or cared when the last Josiah Whithorn died. The last time anyone had seen him was in 1909 when he bought some radish seeds on his only trip to Allen's Crossing after his father's death.

This is what we were thinking of as we packed a picnic lunch for our excursion. We struck out north into the woods from my house. We were determined to keep going north either until we found the Estate or we came to Henryville. Since it was the first day of summer vacation, we had a whole day instead of an afternoon between school and chores. It wasn't long before our travels through hollows and over hills had taken us far beyond the furthest extent of any of our previous expeditions.

About noon we were scratched, tired, and dirty as we descended a briar-shouldered hill into a ferny, gold-green hollow. We had every intention of eating our lunch by the small trickle of stream when all three of us stopped short at a strange sound. Sarah gasped, and I even heard Eric suck in his breath through his teeth as the plaintive sound came again through the sleepy forest atmosphere. I realized that my fists were clenched nearly as tightly as my jaws at the music. For music it was, unmistakably the melancholy tones of a violin.

"The. . . . Mad Fiddler," stammered Eric.

"Do you really think so?" I could hardly hear Sarah's hoarse whisper.

We stood where we were, silently listening to the music. The melody had a plaintive air, almost a bitter-sweet beckoning that had a very strange effect on us. It was an intriguing tune hauntingly played amid the leaves and shadows of the forest. Immediately, all three of us had an insatiable curiosity mingled with our varying degrees of apprehension.

"Well, what are we waiting for?" Eric blurted out, trying to sound braver than he felt at the moment.

"Ahhh--OK," I said, not to be outdone, "Let's go. "

Sarah said nothing, but just looked at me with eyes that said "Do I have to come too?" I hesitated, but Eric was already crashing through the undergrowth up the hill. I shrugged my shoulders, picked up the picnic basket, and lead Sarah after our red-haired compatriot.

The far side of the hill was even more tangled than any yet. We ended up crawling on all fours through the brackeny thickets. I pushed the picnic basket ahead of me. For all this inconvenience, we made our descent into the hollow with all the silence of an Algonquin war-party. The strained stillness was broken only by the queer violin and once when Sarah caught her long, black hair on a twig and let out a soft cry. Even the birds had stopped twittering as if they expected a momentous occurrence.

Then we saw him. He was not, as we had expected, a tall, thin man with wild eyes and disheveled hair but a tall, thin boy with disheveled hair and. . . . we couldn't see his eyes because he had his back to us. He was sitting on what seemed to be a large stone fence or wall though we couldn't be sure because it was so shrouded in creeping vines. The boy was thoroughly engrossed in playing his violin and appeared totally oblivious to all else.

The three of us, however, were subjected to very close scrutiny by the boy's companion, a very large tomcat. The cat was a silky iron gray and its sapphire blue eyes seemed very large and attentive, almost intelligent.

The cat looked at us for a while and then emitted a very loud "Meow." The boy stopped playing his violin and cocked his head to one side. The cat mewed softly and, without turning round, the boys said, "Tell them to come over, Nick. "

The cat meowed again, looking straight at us while his tail, which was curled around his front paws, twitched at the tip.

We were so flummoxed that none dared move. After what seemed ages the boy turned around, looked at Eric, then Sarah, then me and said very quietly, "Well, come on. I’ve been waiting for you all morning."

Looking back now, he reminds me of Puck. I can still see him sitting cross-legged on top of that green, leafy wall with the early summer sun loving him all over with a golden illumination. His fine, sandy-brown hair caught and played with tiny pieces of the gold. His face was thin and sharp with a very pointed chin and nose and his playful mouth was tilted in a faintly crooked half-smile. He gently cradled his violin in clever, long-fingered hands that were mittened in dust, good clean dirt and the smell of dewy grass. At the end of his of lanky legs were the most ancient sneakers I have ever seen, either green or brown from long woods-walks. His jeans were of the same indistinct color, and he wore a coarse, almost white muslin shirt that was three sizes too big for him.

But by far the most striking feature of this elfin lad was his eyes. His eyes were pale gray and very bright. In all the ensuing years that I was to know him I could never quite decide whether they were ice gray, fog gray, steel gray or woolen-blanket gray. His eyes danced. If the eyes are the light of the soul, then his were spotlights and searchlights at the same time. You almost thought that it hurt to look at his eyes like it does when you look at a bare light bulb, but you weren't sure. In those eyes could be seen everything that a boy ever was and should be. An assemblage of the smells and textures, the hollerings and quietudes of all the boys that ever lived. There was strength in his eyes, a fire that had been locked up for the night in an old fashioned stove winking out through two small vents.

He looked at each of us in turn for only an instant. He looked at Eric with a flash that promised rollicking days and adventurous nights. He looked at Sarah with a tenderness that allayed fears and told of sunshine happiness. When he looked at me, I could have sworn that time stood still. It was as if I was a book and his penetrating gaze was reading every word. And then it changed, and I could see into him. I saw a boy who was quiet, intelligent and knew and loved a great deal about the woods. I felt a kinship with him, and he promised everlasting brotherhood.

"My name is Jacob," he announced softly.

"I'm Eric, and this is Matthew and Sarah. " Eric stammered a little, but I thought his bravery commendable.

"And this is Old Nick," Jacob indicated the cat with a nod of his head.

"'S that your fiddle?"

"It's my violin. "

"Oh. " Eric was at a loss for further conversation.

"Where do you live?" Sarah spoke for the first time, curiosity over coming shyness.

"Ohh. . . " Jacob hesitated, "Down the lane. "

"What lane?" I got into the discussion.

"To the north. What are you doing in the woods?" Jacob looked questioningly at me.

"Well, we were looking. . . "

"We're looking for the Estate," Eric interrupted.

"Well at least you've come in the right direction," Jacob was very matter-of-fact, "It's just over that hill. We'll show you knew where it is, won't we Nick?" The cat twitched his tail.

So we all climbed over the wall and followed Jacob up the other side of the hollow. At the top we found, instead of another hollow, a gently sloping, wooded plateau. We continued north for about half a mile with the trees gradually thinning. Then we came to the edge of the wood and found ourselves at the crest of a long grassy slope. At the bottom was what looked like fields now overgrown with weeds. Running through these fields east to west was a dirt road bordered by very tall prickly looking hedges. The road ran a quarter of a mile west to a row of woods. To the east was a cluster of small knolls with the road running over a low pass between two of them.

Jacob confidently led the way down and showed us a hole in the otherwise solid looking hedge. We crawled through and proceeded east on the road. We were all terribly excited and had forgotten completely about the lunch in the basket I was still absently carrying. We were alternately silent and jabbering about the Estate but the only answer Jacob would give to our queries was "It's just over the hill. " At last, breathless, scratched and dirty, we reached the summit and looked down.

It was the most marvelous place I have ever seen. The five small knolls were set in a roughly circular pattern forming a ring around a miniature valley. The hills were covered with tall grasses, bracken and small purplish shrubs that I later found to be heather imported all the way from Scotland. The road we were on ran between two of the hills down into the valley. The tall hedges that skirted the road spread out like two prickly but loving arms to embrace the garden.

The garden, obviously meticulously surveyed, was perfectly elliptical in shape. And it was deliciously gigantic, being nearly five acres in my estimation; though my memory may be enlarging things. At any rate, it did fill the entire valley.

The once formal garden was now almost a jungle after sixty years of rampant, untended growth. What at one time was an ornamental maze of well-trimmed hedges had become a shaggy, shadowy labyrinth. Flowering shrubbery from all over the globe burst forth in an unruly riot of scent and color. There were blossoms of every shape and hue, but by far the most prevalent were the lilacs. There were two lilac bushes to every one of any other kind. Such a profusion of lilacs: white lilacs, blue lilacs, purple lilacs, wine colored lilacs; even on the hill the air was sleepy with their heavy perfume. There were trees, too. Trees of every size and description raised their untended heads above the thicket as if surveying their undisputed domains.

At one center of the ellipse was a small ornamental lake. Actually it wasn't much more than a pond, emerald green with algae, but to four twelve-year-olds it was a lake and a grand one at that.

At the other center was the best thing of all: the House. It was the best because, like all old houses, it was at once both frightening and inviting, just the kind of haunted house that all children dream about. It was three stories tall, all turreted, with lightning rods, a high-pitched slate roof and a mob of chimneys. The whole house from foundation to eaves was covered with thick, green ivy. The windows, not shrouded by the ambitious vines, shone like so many eyes with the afternoon sun glinting off their panes. It was a wonderful house!

"It's Tarzan's jungle!" shouted Eric.

"Sherwood forest!" I mumbled.

"Camelot!" whispered Sarah.

We nearly stumbled over each other and our own feet as we ran down the hill to the garden.

It was even more exciting up close. The whole place was alive with scamperings and chatterings. Birds were making such a cacophony with their chirping and calling that the garden sounded like an aviary. The undergrowth was populated with mice, squirrels, rabbits, gophers and the like. I thought it very unusual when a mouse crept up and started nibbling a blade of grass caught in a hole in Jacob's sneaker. But what really startled me was that old Nick sat and watched the whole scene with not so much as a bored twitch of his tail! I didn't know it then but Old Nick was to startle me many times in many ways in the days ahead.

I don't remember much else in detail about our first day there in the garden. We finally got around to eating our lunch, we threw rocks in the lake, and played a fast game of tag in the hedge maze. Eric wanted to go in the house, but we talked ourselves out of it somehow. To this day I don't quite know how or why, but I do think that Jacob played a major part in making the decision.

Jacob was like that. He was always very persuasive and extremely skilled at changing subjects. I didn’t realize it then, but whenever he wanted to draw our attention away from whatever we were up to he would say, “Hurry up! It’s almost over and there is so much to do!” When we asked him what was almost over, he would answer variously “today” or “the summer” or sometimes “my time.”

And so we passed the summer away, laughing and exploring and drinking up the sunshine.

But the summer, as summers have a way of doing, came to an all too early end. Our feet and hearts were leaden for a whole week before school started. We were miserable.

On the morning that school started we were all surprised and delighted to find Jacob and Nick at the bus stop. When I asked the reason he said that he didn’t particularly want to go to school in Henryville. The bus came, and we told Nick goodbye as he sat almost smilingly on Sara’s corner fence, his big tail wrapped around his front feet. We had all picked up Jacob’s habit of talking to Nick as if he were just another kid. He seemed to enjoy the attention, and we got a kick out of it. Whenever Jacob cracked a joke or had something clever to say he would in all his modesty credit it to Old Nick, saying “Nick says this” or “Nick says that.” Nick was waiting in the same place when we got home, almost as if he had not moved.

And so it went, day after day, week after week, year after year. We grew up together, we four. All through Junior High and High School we studied together and worked together and played together. Eric, a strapping, red-haired, freckle-faced young man, had become quite an athlete; he was a track star who had the potential to break the state high school pole-vault record. Sarah was a young woman with thick flowing dusky hair and a sort of quiet, puritan beauty. I always thought that she reminded me of the goddess Minerva, but Jacob said that she looked like queen Gloriana from Spenser’s Faery Queen. I myself had become something of an artist, being able to find an inner energy and insight when I had a brush in my hand.

Jacob, too, had grown into a young man. He was as tall and straight and slender as a birch sapling. He had a dignified air about him that seemed imperturbable; he never lost his self-control, and only once did I see fear in his bright eyes in all the years that I knew him. That was in our senior year, and I could tell that a change was coming over Jacob. He seemed to grow restless and anxious about something as the year progressed, but I think that I was the only one to notice until that day in the weight room. He school had just purchased a new set of weight lifting equipment, and Coach Thomsen was showing our P. E. class how to use it. He asked Jacob to help him demonstrate a particular piece of equipment. Jacob lay down on a long, comfortably padded bench. Then as the coach laid a heavy barbell across his chest and began to explain the bench press, Jacob turned white and began to tremble violently. His eyes looked as thought they would burn a hole in the ceiling. “No! No! I didn’t do anything! I’m not one of them! No! Please, no more!” he shouted with a cracked voice and then scrambled out of the room. I didn’t see him the rest of the day nor was Nick waiting at the bus stop. It was the first time in six years that Old Nick had not been at the bus stop. It was also the first time in six years that Jacob had ever been absent from school. They were at the bus stop next morning as if nothing had happened.

Jacob had always been a conscientious student. He had maintained a 4.0 grade point average from seventh grade onward. I can still remember the only time that he ever got less than an “A” on anything.

That was in eighth grade when sour old Mr. Cooper, the history teacher, gave Jacob a “B+” on his research paper and oral report. I thought that it was the most fascinating report on the New England witch trials that I had ever heard. Jacob had found all sorts of intriguing little details that I was not familiar with. After he had finished, the whole class was completely enthralled with the vivid portrayal except, of course, Mr. Cooper, who rarely got enthralled over anything save his own unequalled mastery of his chosen subject. Mr. Cooper asked Jacob why there had been no mention of the punishments, such as burning, hanging and the press that had been inflicted upon the witches. Jacob faltered – a rare occurrence – then said in a weak voice that he must have skipped over the part in the book that dealt with that particular matter.

Aside from these incidents, which may or may not be important in the story of my friend, I never knew Jacob’s composure to be ruffled. Even as graduation approached – he was to be valedictorian – and as state track championships neared – Eric was expected to go all the way to the finals – Jacob showed no signs of excess excitement. He only exhibited a marked impatience in his usual “hurry up and live before it’s over” attitude.

The rest of us displayed the same general calm as a gaggle of barnyard geese beset and bothered by the household mutt. All were hurrying to complete term papers, finish gowns for the graduation ball, and just generally engage in last-minute activities at this momentous time.

One Saturday in early May, Sarah and I went to the garden to collect specimens for her Botany term project. The garden was at its loveliest in spring. All the hedges and shrubbery was a feathery green with new budding leaves. The flowers were starting to come out of hibernation, and the trees were arraying themselves in their verdant summer cloaks. The lilacs, as always, bloomed in early April and, for some reason, remained until October. I never really understood what property of that particular soil made the blooms so long-lived, but I never complained.

We gathered the specimens and fed part of our lunch to a pair of squirrels. The rustlings and scamperings of all the little population were like a pleasant lulling orchestra as we talked away the afternoon. There are many great and ponderous things that seniors find to talk about in the month prior to graduation, and before we had realized it, the music of crickets had taken the place of that of sparrows and a big cream-colored full moon had risen. We decided that we had to return home, much as we loved the garden at night and hated to leave. As we climbed out of the valley on the hedged road, the night seemed unnaturally quiet after the sounds in the garden. The road glowed a dusty silver in the moonlight as it stretched between the dark forbidding hedges.

Then I noticed a rustling that seemed to have followed us out of the garden and was pacing us in the hedge to the left. It seemed to grow louder now that I was aware of it, and I could tell by the way Sarah shied away from the hedge that she had heard it too. I stepped to the other side of her so that I was between her and the hedge and stepped up our pace. The animal, or whatever it was, paralleled us still. I stopped short and so did it. We started on again and it followed. Sarah wanted to run but thought it a rather uncourageous act. Then, as we neared the hole in the hedge that was our exit from the road, the thing hurried ahead of us and got there first. Sarah pressed close as I cautiously approached the opening. Then we heard a loud amiable meow.

“Nick!” ejaculated Sarah. “What do you think you’re doing scaring us like that?”

Old Nick, who could barely be seen in the gray shadows sitting on his haunches with his tail wrapped around his front feet, mewed almost laughingly.

“You old tease,” Sarah laughed softly. Nick purred.

The next Monday, Jacob and I were occupying our customary lunch hour places at a table in the school library with our noses in books when he mumbled something that startled me.

“What?” I asked.

“Shhh!” commented the librarian.

‘You heard me,” Jacob whispered.

“I want to hear it again.”

“I said, Nick says she likes you.”

“Who likes me?”

“Sarah.”

“I know that.” I was slightly baffled by this conversation.

“No, I mean she likes you.”

“Huh?”

“You know what I mean.”

“Oh.”

Jacob went back to his book, and I did the same, bit I didn’t get much reading done. Sarah liked me? I wasn’t sure that I really wanted to follow that to its apparent conclusion. She liked me? In all the years that we had grown up next door to each other it had never occurred to me that something like that might happen. But now that I thought about it, it became apparent that it had occurred to her as many as four years back. Man, was I blind! So what was I going to do about it? I hadn’t the foggiest notion. She liked me.

Days went by, and the region track championship came. It was to be held at our school and was essentially going to be a contest between us and our equally powerful rivals from Henryville. This championship was especially exciting because the teams were so evenly matched and each had a star pole-vaulter.

Eric was our pole-vaulter, and everyone said that he would probably break the state record. As we all gathered on the grandstands, we could see his shock of red hair bobbing as he warmed up. It was going to be grand.

As the meet progressed it became apparent that the title would be awarded to either Allen’s Crossing or Henryville, but which way it would go could not be determined. At the conclusion of most of the events the score was completely tied. The only contest left was the final heat of the pole vault. And as fate would have it, the competition was between our own Eric Webster and Randy Jensen of Henryville.

The crossbar was four inches below the state record. Both men made beautiful jumps. The bar was raised and still both made it. The contestants wanted a rest, and the coaches wanted a conference. Eric came and leaned on a bench and waved at Jacob, Sarah and I in the grandstands. Randy sprawled on a pile of cushions by the stack of poles. The crossbar was raised to the level of the record and Eric went to the line. Randy handed him a pole with a flashy grin and a cocky “Good Luck!”

Eric ran down the runway and at the shock of the jump the pole splintered. He landed hard and writhed on the ground clutching his knee. After some commotion, Eric was carried to the sidelines amid a crowd of athletes and coaches. Only Jensen remained at the pole vaulting pit, impatiently cradling a pole in his big hands and shuffling his feet.

Up in the grandstands I turned in consternation to Jacob only to find him gone. I looked all over for him. Sarah hadn’t seen him go. It was then that I saw another lone figure near the vaulting pit. He stood opposite Jensen on the other side of the uprights. A large gray cat sat near his feet, its tail around its feet.

The attention had now shifted back to the competition, and Jensen was preparing to jump. Jacob raised his right hand, palm outward, and attracted Jensen’s gaze. They looked at each other in silence for a brief instant then Jacob dropped his hand and walked away. Jensen paused, shook his head, set himself and started down the runway. He jumped off-step and caught the crossbar at his midsection, arms and legs flailing. He climbed out of the cushions cursing and stamping.

Now the coaches were faced with a real problem. The score was tied and both jumpers had missed. Eric was unable to jump, and it wouldn’t be fair to let Jensen have another try. Everyone gathered around the scoring table as the debate became more heated.

Eric alone was not there; he was lying by himself on the grass apart from the bustle. But now as I looked I saw that he wasn’t alone. Jacob was with him. He was kneeling by Eric with one hand on the red-head’s brow and the other on the injured knee. They appeared to be speaking softly. I looked back to the scoring table to discern if any decision had been made.

Suddenly a great cry went up, and I saw Eric walking to the cluster of people. Eventually he convinced incredulous coaches to let him jump one more time.

He selected a pole, paused for a moment then loped toward the uprights. His jump was flawless. The applause lasted for three minutes. Then we saw that he couldn’t even get up off the pile of cushions. He had to be carried off the field amid wild cheering.

“Now, wasn’t that exciting?” Jacob’s soft voice was next to my ear. I turned to see his playful smile and those bright gray eyes.

“Where…?”

“Jensen’s ready to jump.” He turned to watch. Jensen was composing himself when a large gray cat walked onto the runway, looked at the athlete and then walked off. Jensen started his run. His jump was good until he twisted slightly and achieved a replay of his previous results. Allen’s Crossing had won!

After the immediate celebration we went down to take Eric’s car and follow the ambulance to the local clinic. As we walked through the parking lot I noticed that Jacob was limping considerably. I didn’t particularly feel like asking why.

We stayed with Eric until after dark and all his teammates had gone back to the school for the victory dance. We talked to him a while then decided to leave him to his folks and join the celebration.

As we walked through the darkened school parking lot, we could hear the heavy dance rhythm reverberating from the gymnasium windows. The moon was temporarily hidden by a ragged cloud.

“Hello, folks.” A figure stepped from a car that had suddenly turned on its lights. “Fine evening, ain’t it?” Two more shadows moved. “What’s your name?”

“Matthew Teague,” I said, backing Sarah into a panel truck.

“Not you, punk. The scrawny one.”

“My name is Jacob.”

“Jacob who?”

“... Smith”

“Well, Mr. Jacob Smith, my name’s Randy Jensen and I want to have a little chat with you.” Jensen came out into the light.

“I don’t see where that is necessary.”

“Are you a coward?”

“No, I’m not.” Jacob eyed the other two boys. “Are you?”

“This one’s all mine.” Jensen made to lunge.

“Stop!” Jacob threw up his hand in a commanding gesture. Jensen hesitated for an instant then came again.

“Stop!”

Jensen froze with a bewildered look on his face. Jacob stood rigid as a traffic cop. Jensen shook his head, muttered “You messed up my jump!” then shook his head again. Then with a yell and an obvious effort, he lowered his head and charged. He hit Jacob in the jaw before he could say another word. Jacob fell like a straw man. I jumped in but Jensen was faster. My stomach wrapped around his fist and as I crumpled he raised his hand to hammer the back of my head. The blow never fell. With a bound Jacob was between us, his arms outstretched above his head. He shouted something, a word, but I can’t remember what it was. All I know was that his voice resounded like a bell and that Jensen again froze. Only this time he couldn’t shake it off. Jacob stood there, immobile, his eyes burning into Jensen’s. I know that the athlete wanted to take his eyes away from Jacob’s but he couldn’t. Jacob’s hands slowly doubled into fists and turned inward. Then he started to make short, hammer-like strokes with both fists simultaneously at Jensen’s head but the blows never connected. Jacob rhythmically pounded the air about Jensen’s ears and never broke his mind-burning gaze. Beads of sweat broke out all over Jensen’s face as the rest of us watched spellbound. His eyes grew wider and his mouth worked as though he were trying to say something, but no voice came through.

Jacob continued his pulsating gestures,, perspiration streaming down his brow and blood trickling from his lip. As the eternal seconds passed, Jensen was slowly cringing lower and lower, his eyes still held by Jacob’s. Finally, he let out a soul-rending groan as his eyes rolled up in his head and he collapsed on the ground in a fetal position.

Jacob let out his breath in a long hissing sigh and dropped his arms. After a moment of silence, he lifted his eyes to the other two hoods and said, “Go!” They hesitated.

“Go!” Jacob pointed the direction, and they ran. Obviously exhausted, Jacob turned to me and said, “let’s get Sarah home before they come back.”

The trip home was silent. I dropped Jacob off at the bus stop like I always did. Old Nick was waiting for him. Just before he shut the door I said, “Jacob, who are you?”

“Your friend, Matthew,” he said quietly. “Your friend.”

I took Eric’s car home, and Sarah and I decided that we needed a moonlight walk. Almost automatically our feet turned to the now well-worn path that led to the Estate. It was a long and quiet walk that night. As we came to the moon-silvered road, we saw a lone figure striding along in the moonlight, a swift gray shadow at his feet. “Let’s not go up there.” Sarah’s voice was a whisper.

Jacob was not in school Monday. When he missed Tuesday as well, Sarah and I went looking for him. Eric wanted to come too but was not yet able to walk. Of course, we ended up on the road to the Estate. The first thing I noticed as we crested the hill was that something was dreadfully wrong. The lilacs were dead; every last blossom had fallen to the ground. As we entered the garden I was also struck by the silence. There were no noises, no chirpings, no rustlings. When I looked at the house, with its three broken windows and a tendril of ivy hanging across the door, then I realized for the first time that it was different from other old houses. It took me a broken window to realize that before it’d had no broken windows. There had never been any ivy on either door or windows though the rest of the house was matted in green. The house was obviously old, but it was by no means dilapidated.

“Let’s go, Matthew,” Sarah said. “And let’s not come back.”

We didn’t go back for three and a half years. I took Jacob’s place as valedictorian. Eric took the state title in pole vaulting and went to West Point. And now Sarah and I are to be married.

The three of us went back yesterday for one last look at the House of Jacob. The roof had fallen in.