He frowned and sighed.
“It was done. But I did not do it - and I promise you, if those doctors knew how vulnerable they were, they never would have attempted it.”
“Vulnerable how?”
“No one controls the spirit when it’s released. It finds the path of least resistance. That means a person who is compromised in some way - whether that be mental illness, grief, or a child. I’m sure you read about Ethel, the first such official experiment in the chamber.”
“Yes.” Sarah shook her head, fury ballooning in her chest.
“Take only those who are strong into the chamber, Sarah. Otherwise the evil will accompany you out.”
CHAPTER 39
Now
Corrie
“G orey…” His voice whispered my name and like a thousand other waking moments, I returned to my body as if it were the most natural sound in the world.
It’s unbelievable how sleep erases our worst fears, our worst realities. In sleep, Sammy was not dead. But every time I woke and faced the empty room, I confronted that truth as well.
Except…
“Gorey, wake up.”
My eyes fluttered. I stared at the ceiling in Sarah’s guest bedroom, but when my eyes shifted down, I found his face, his soft brown eyes searching mine, and I struggled to breathe.
He touched my cheek, his hands familiar as they cupped my jaw.
I tried to say his name but choked on a guttural sob that stuck in my throat. I cried, clutching him, my hands wrapped in the fabric of his t-shirt, pushing into the hardness and softness of his body.
“Shh, there, it’s okay.” He leaned into me, wrapping himself around me, slipping down into the bed and pulling me close so I could feel him - solid, real.
“You’re…” But the words died on my lips, because whatever he was, it wasn’t alive. I remembered his body on the cold pre-dawn ground, blood congealing, eyes absent of their light.
“I’m here. I’m here right now.”
And he was.
I sat up, wiping at the wetness on my cheeks. I touched his face, kissed his lips and tasted the salt of my own tears in his mouth. I thrust my hands into his hair and then into his chest as I cried against him.
I had a million questions, but suddenly none of them mattered. One thing alone mattered - this second that spun into eternity. If only I could hold it, hold him. So, I did. I held him, wrapped my arms around his back and kissed his eyes and nose and mouth and neck. He kissed me back, and we rolled in the bed playfully as we’d done so many times.
He pinned me beneath him, holding my arms and sweeping his hair across my face, tickling my neck. I laughed and bucked, and when he fell to the side, I grabbed him and yanked him back.
“Make love to me,” I whispered.
“There’s nothing I want more in the world,” he said leaning close. I smelled his breath and faltered. A dank smell poured out of him, earth and moss and decay, but I fought it away and kissed him again, pulling his shirt over his head, fumbling my pants away.
I pulled my shirt up. It stuck on my head and I laughed, fighting it off, noticing his weight had lifted, his warmth had slipped away, and in an instant the room grew bitter cold. I yanked off my shirt and thrust it to the side.
The bed before me lay empty, the sheets rumpled, my bare feet and legs stark against the white fabric.
“Sammy?”
A loneliness heavier than a thousand bags of sand poured over me. I sat and stared and wondered if he’d ever been there at all.
Sarah
“THIS PLACE IS TERRIBLE,” Will whispered, swinging his flashlight through the stuffy, attic room at Kerry Manor.
“I know. Let’s get in and get out. The last time I was in here, Corrie shut the door. I’m not trying to repeat that experience.”
Will grimaced.
“After what happened in this house yesterday, I’d rather be anywhere else on earth.”
Sarah touched her neck, still raw from Corrie’s fingernails, and winced.
“What do you think we should take?” she asked. “Delila said they used one of Ethel’s dresses to trap the spirit.”
She picked up the ugly doll, created from the cat of a corpse, and held it between her thumb and forefinger.
“Not that.” Will shuddered.
He grabbed a tarnished hairbrush. “How about this?”
“Yeah, that’s less freaky,” Sarah agreed.
Will lifted the old mattress and gave a start.
“What?” Sarah asked stepping beside him.
“It’s the knife.” He stared at an object resting on the plank of wood beneath the bed.
“What knife?” Sarah asked. She moved closer and looked at a long, antique knife.
“The murder weapon,” Will muttered.
“How do you know?” Sarah asked. “I don’t see blood on it.”
“The bone handle with the jewel head,” he said gesturing to the long white handle with a red jewel capping the end.
Sarah stared at it for a long time noticing the silence, how the longer it stretched the more tense it became.
Will dropped the mattress with a thud and stepped away.
“But how could you know what the handle looked like?”
She turned and sought his eyes but he looked away from her, his jaw tense and his hands suddenly fidgety. He shoved them into his pockets.
When he finally looked at her, she knew.
“You were there that night. You saw it happen. Didn’t you?”
He started to shake his head but perhaps saw something in Sarah’s eyes.
“Don’t fucking lie to me Will, I swear to God-”
“Okay,” he blurted. “I saw… I didn’t know I saw it happen. I went into the house during the party. I was searching the rooms upstairs.”
“For what?”
“For her, for Ethel. I wanted to find her.”
“She’s dead, Will. How can you find a ghost?”
He shrugged.
“I looked out the window and saw two people kissing.”
“Sammy and Corrie.”
“The guy was in a costume with a weird baby hanging from the stomach, which I know now was Sammy. The woman was younger, in a devil’s costume.”
“Wait, what? You saw Sammy kissing someone other than Corrie?”
“Yeah. I mean I didn’t know what I was seeing. They stopped and Sammy looked like he was shaking his head, telling her no. I’m assuming she wanted more than a kiss but I’m not exactly an expert at these things. Maybe an hour later I heard humming in the hall outside the room. I panicked and hid behind the curtains. I looked out and saw the same guy sitting beneath the tree. A few minutes later, a figure walked across the yard. I thought it was the girl, Ethel. She wore a long antique-looking dress. And then…”
He stopped, and Sarah fought the urge to shove her hands over her ears and blot out the rest.
“Corrie,” Sarah whispered.
“I saw her walk towards him. They were talking. Then she lifted her arm in the air and I saw the knife, the white handle with the red base. She stabbed him, and I panicked. I ran out of the house and into the woods. I walked for hours. I slept in an old barn in Omena, and the next morning I hitched a ride back into town.”
“You saw Corrie kill my brother, and you said nothing?”
“It wasn’t Corrie,” he murmured, tentatively reaching for Sarah’s hand. “It wasn’t. And I knew it. It was this house, the evil here. If I told the police, your-sister-in-law would face life in prison. I knew what I saw, and it wasn’t real. Ethel killed your brother.”