Upstairs she heard footsteps running along the hall, a child’s footsteps.
“This isn’t real, this can’t be real,” she whispered.
Candles flickered from every surface in the great room, and a fire spit orange embers.
She dragged Corrie into the great room and stopped, staring at the pentagram chalked on the floor, Sammy’s clothes lying in the center as if he’d simply lain down to take a nap. Dark blobs of what looked like mud lay in clumps around the floor. Sarah had a momentary image of Sammy clawing his way through coffin and earth. Tracking across the wet cemetery, bound for Kerry Manor.
Footsteps pounded down the stairs and Sarah clenched her jaw, waiting for the monster to appear.
Instead, Corrie came to. Her eyes flashed open and locked on Sarah’s.
“Oh, thank God,” but the words died on her lips as she saw the black rage in Corrie’s pupils.
Corrie reached up and locked her hands around Sarah’s throat.
Sarah grabbed Corrie’s hands, usually delicate, but now strong and stiff as they squeezed the tender flesh of Sarah’s neck.
In the distance, sirens broke through, but closer she heard voices shouting. Suddenly there was pounding on the door, and a moment later it burst open.
Will and Brook stumbled in.
Sarah tried to call out but managed only a groan.
“Sarah,” Brook yelled.
Will was there, prying Corrie’s hands away.
Corrie’s lips pulled back from her teeth, she snarled, and then as quickly as she’d awoken, she went limp, flopping to the ground, her head snapping back and smacking the wood floor.
Will and Brook stared at her with wide, shocked eyes.
“We have to get out,” Sarah croaked, relief draining the last of her energy. She looked at Corrie, hesitating before lifting her body and struggling towards the door.
Will stopped her, pushing his arms beneath Corrie.
“I’ve got her. It’s okay,” he told Sarah.
Her arms dropped slack at her sides, and Brook put an arm around her waist, helping her outside.
“What’s in there?” Brook asked, eyes huge as she glanced back at the house.
“It’s on fire,” Sarah shouted. “The whole place is about to…” But she stopped suddenly. The smell of burning had vanished, the billowing black smoke no longer marred the sky. “The study…”
Sarah walked around the house, dismayed, unable to believe her own eyes. No fire, no smoke. The house stood untouched in the rainy day, the study windows reflected the gray sky and nothing else.
CHAPTER 38
Now
Sarah
“The drapes caught fire,” Sarah explained, holding up a pile of singed drapes. “I panicked.”
The fire engine stood in the circular driveway, several men hanging off and watching as Sarah attempted to explain.
“You said the house was on fire.” The fire chief looked disgusted.
“It looked really bad,” Brook cut in. “The phone service isn’t good. We tried to call back and say we’d put it out, but it was too late,” she lied.
“What happened to your neck?” the chief asked, eyes narrowed on the red flesh encircling Sarah’s throat.
“I ran into a clothesline.” It was a terrible lie and the chief’s face told her as much but the words tumbled out.
Brook shot her a sidelong glance, but nodded at the chief.
The fireman looked at the house, and then glared back at the two women.
Sarah glanced at her car where they had laid Corrie in the back seat. Will had slipped into the woods to wait until the men cleared out.
Beyond them Kerry Manor stood dark and foreboding against the gray sky.
CORRIE
I SAT at Sarah’s table, sipping an espresso and listening to Sarah explain what she saw at Kerry Manor. Brook and Will stared, breath bated, until she finished, and then all three turned to me.
I looked at the red welt surrounding her neck and tried not to cry.
“Did you see a fire, Corrie?” Sarah asked.
I nodded, replaying in my mind the moments leading up to the fire. I couldn’t possibly tell them the truth.
Will studied my face and I glanced down, unable to look him in the eyes.
“Before you tell us,” he said. “I have something to show you.” He went into Sarah’s living room and returned with a folder stuffed with papers. “Read it.”
Sarah nodded.
“Go up to my study, Corrie. Take your time.”
I took the folder and lumbered up the stairs, exhausted, sad, embarrassed, but most of all confused. I thought back to Sammy’s final days, the overheard conversations between him and Sarah. Something was terribly wrong with me.
“DON’T WORRY,” Sarah told me as I crept into the kitchen, the folder clutched to my chest. “Everyone’s gone to bed.”
My eyes hurt from crying. I’d read for nearly three hours beginning with the stories of Kerry Manor, then Sarah’s documentation of my behavior according to her own observations, and those relayed through Sammy. Will typed the final page verbatim from the story in the Enchiridion. It revealed a terrible experiment in a chamber behind the Northern Michigan Asylum; a night when a little girl was sacrificed to a horrific evil that would haunt the Leelanau Peninsula for a century.
“It’s all true?” I asked, taking the tissue Sarah handed me and wiping my eyes. “Sammy wanted to leave. He was planning to move us out of Kerry Manor. I didn’t want to. I’m responsible.”
“Not you,” Sarah said, taking the folder from my hand. “The spirit that took possession of Ethel in 1901. It wasn’t Ethel who burned her family. The Brotherhood chose her because she was easy prey for the spirit. Those doctors deserve to burn for what they did.”
I sat heavily in a chair, glancing at the refrigerator where photos and papers were tucked beneath magnets. I saw an image of Sammy and Sarah as children. Sammy pulled Sarah in a wagon across a muddy yard. Their faces and t-shirts were splattered with mud, their grins identical.
“Corrie.” Sarah squatted in front of my chair, taking my hands. “We believe whatever possessed Ethel Kerry one-hundred years ago is moving into you. It’s only a matter of time before something terrible happens.”
I swallowed and looked away.
“Something more terrible, you mean?”
She nodded.
Sarah
SARAH LOOKED up when a man cleared his throat.
Glen Blackburn stood in front of her desk. He wore a red and green Christmas sweater and looked the part of the grandfather.
Sarah shifted her hands to her lap, sitting back in her chair.
“Mr. Blackburn, how can I help you?”
He smiled, studying her with bright blue eyes that looked far younger than his seventy-odd years.
“I believe you have something that belongs to me,” he said, sitting in the chair opposite her desk.
“Do I?” she asked, imagining the key tucked in her purse.
He nodded and folded his hands in his lap, waiting.
“Let’s say I did. Why shouldn’t I take it to the police? And that sick book along with it.”
Glen cast his eyes down. He reached into his pocket and Sarah tensed, ready to throw herself sideways if he pulled out a gun. Instead, he slipped a small metal box out and opened it, tilting the contents toward her.
“Butterscotch?” he asked, taking one out and popping it in his mouth.