Gianfranco Mancini’s Reviews > Disturb Not the Dream > Status Update

The former ignored her completely, but the latter leered at her every time no one was around. She had an uncomfortable feeling, sometimes reaching panic proportions, that he would try to rape her again with the threat of blackmail. She knew that no matter what, she could never again submit; somehow she’d have to find a way out of the situation.

She heard the phone ring and knew it was Bert; she could never tell him what had happened. After the clock struck midnight, she heard the others come in from the theater in East Hampton and heard the cheery family good-nights. What would become of her? The night noises of the house were no comfort, they sounded as if they were laughing at her plight in ghostly cackles.

After George had left, Bert made his usual bedtime call to see if all was well at the house. Stacey answered explaining that “the old folks” were out for the evening but that all was well. She sounded cheerful; had her father known the reason why, he would have been agonized beyond endurance—yet it was but a prelude of what was to come.

“What do you want me to do?” he asked, suddenly suspicious. “Nothing serious, but if you do it, I’ll let you do anything you want to me, whenever you want to, for as long as you like.” Stacey calculated that this was a prospect her brother could not refuse. She was right. “It’s a deal. I swear a solemn oath to do whatever you want if you swear to keep that promise.” “I swear,” came the grim, determined response.

The fantasies made him so happy that when his wife timidly said that the doctor had advised no further intercourse for the remainder of her pregnancy due to her age, he had magnanimously agreed. He’d show her other ways to pleasure him until it was time for the next pregnancy—which would be a month after this one was finished.

“The energies in that house are in a state of growing frenzy and excitation. The manifestations get stronger every week. There is an unhappiness there that wants comfort and an evil that wants exorcising.” George snapped to attention. “I think I saw that movie. Are you going to do the Father Damien bit?” he asked ironically.

Her father would have been horrified if he had seen the play of emotions upon his daughter’s face. They were expressions he had seen often enough upon the rounds of the mental wards—eyes rolling, skin suffused with a rush of blood, teeth gnashing, and mouth close to frothing. She was actually tearing at her hair and screaming silently, already plotting her revenge for her father’s treachery.

They left her in the cellar all of that night and most of the following day, ignoring her heartrending pleas for release as she screamed her terror of the dark. When they released her on Saturday morning, they finally had a child more to their liking. She seemed to be totally docile at least; never again did she defy them. The Ryans finally had the perfect child.

“Peculiar thing, isn’t it? We’ll have to keep it locked. The stairs behind it are perpendicular,” and he proceeded to explain its use to her. “Lissie must never go near it, Bert. I want it nailed up and something put over it. I know it sounds crazy, but I could swear there’s something evil behind it.”

Life was even more difficult since Evan, over her objections, had hired a new housemaid, a pretty little local girl of sixteen. He insisted that Nancy live in, so that breakfast could be served early. She was given the attic bedroom, which had its own sitting room with fireplace. His wife was sure that Evan was sleeping with the girl, since she often heard footsteps creeping up the attic stairs very late at night.