Tammy glanced back over her shoulder, to check that Katya wasn't already in the passageway, then she went down on her hands and knees and examined the threshold. The wood was worn with time, and rot had got into it, softening it. She ran her fingers over the full length of it, clearing away the dirt. The area smelt vaguely of vomit, but she supposed that was the rot she was smelling. At three or four inch intervals along the length of the threshold there were metal markers, like nails with large, elaborately configured heads, hammered into the timber. She dug around one of them with the nail of her forefinger. It seemed very solidly imbedded in the wood. But she had no doubt she was on the right track, meddling with these things, because as soon as she started to do so the ghosts' murmuring became almost reverent in tone; worshipful.
She looked up at them. The light they emitted had grown brighter; either that or they'd narrowed their eyes. Yes, that was it; they narrowed their eyes to study what she was doing.
"This is it, isn't it?"
They answered the only way they could: they fell completely silent. This was not a procedure they wanted to put at risk by making so much as a single sound.
There were five icons in the threshold, the middle one slightly bigger than the other four, which was a circle with two irregularly-shaped 'arms' coming from it, at noon and seven o'clock on its dial.
She dug her knife into the centre of the symbol. "Okay," she said softly to it, "out you come."
The wood was so wormy it crumbled beneath her knife-point. She dug deeper, exposing parts of the icon that were still dean. It gave off a subtle iridescence, like mother-of-pearl. Her confidence growing, she kept digging until she had cleared the wood away around the whole thing. Then she put her knife-tip under the rim and tried to lever it out. Much to her disappointment, it wouldn't budge; not even a little bit.
"Damn," she said softly.
She worked at it a little more, then remembered the old school adage, trotted out before every test. "If you can't answer the first question, don't waste time on it. Move on to the next one."
That's what she did. She moved left, and started to stab at the wood around the icon at the far end of the row. If anything, the threshold was even more rotted here than it was at the centre; the wood came away in fat splinters.
There was more noise from the kitchen shouting now, but she ignored it. Just kept digging. Bigger splinters flew. She felt a rush of certainty. She was going to do this. She pressed the knife under the edge of the icon. There was a moment of resistance, then the pressure of the blade on a nerve in her hand sent a spasm of pain up her arm. She yelped. And in the same moment the icon jumped free of the wood, landing on the tile outside.
The din from the kitchen suddenly became very specific. She heard Todd say:
"Don't do that."
It was a voice she'd never heard from him before, not even in a movie. There was fear in his voice. Something Katya was doing, or was about to do, had made him afraid. Not a very comforting thought.
Without wasting time looking over her shoulder, she quickly went to the other end of the threshold, and started to work there. Though there was plenty of light between the trees, she was cold. There was a length of clammy flesh down her spine, and another across her shoulderblades, as though somebody had painted a cold cross on her skin. Her teeth chattered lightly --
But again, she was in luck. The wood around the icon came away in three or four large pieces. She pressed the knife as deep under the device as it would go and levered. The thing shifted instantly; and as it did so the same spasm she'd felt before ran up her arm. It wasn't a nerve she was striking, she realized. It was a jolt of energy given off by the metalwork as it was levered out. It hurt so much she dropped the knife for a moment, to massage her hand. Her fingers were getting numb.
She looked up at her silent witnesses. "Yes, I know," she said. "Hurry up. I know."
She picked up the knife again, and moved left. Long strips of splinters had already come out of the wood at that end, so some of the work was done. And now she had a technique. She ferreted around with the knifepoint close to the metal, looking for a weakness; then she dug out a few large pieces of wood, and went in for the kill. The third one was the easiest so far, except for the pain, which was excruciating. It ran all the way up to her shoulder joint, and into her neck. Her hand was beginning to feel stupid with numbness. Still, there were only two icons left to move. Surely they weren't beyond her capabilities.
Some instinct made her go back to the middle icon, thinking that she might get lucky. But it was a waste of time. The damn thing was as immovable as it had been previously. She went on to the right of it, and dug around the second of the remaining pair. The wood was just as vulnerable as it had been on the other side, but her numbed muscles were nowhere near as strong now as they'd been a minute ago. She took both hands to the blade, but she wasn't as smart with her left hand as she was with her right, and it added little by way of leverage. Her breath was coming in short gasps, her frustration mounting.
She glanced up at the ghosts, as though the fierceness of their need to be inside would lend her some strength. To her surprise she found that one of them had come forward and crouched down to examine one of the icons. It apparently carried no power now that it was out of its place in line, like a letter lifted from a curse-word, and rendered harmless. The man was so close to her she could have touched him if she'd raised her hand.
Very quietly, the dead man spoke.
"The bitch is coming," he said.
Tammy glanced over her shoulder. There was nobody in the passageway behind her, yet; but now, nor, was there any sound from the kitchen. Still she didn't doubt that what the man had said was true.
She willed her hands to grasp the knife a little harder, and they seemed to oblige her, just a little. She pushed the blade deeper into the wood and the icon shifted. She twisted and felt what was by now a familiar jolt of power from the metalwork. This time it passed through both hands. The icon was spat from the wood, and fell, spinning, on the tiles.
But she had no reason to celebrate. Her hand was now so weak that the knife fell from her grip and clattered on the floor between her knees. There was now no feeling remaining in her right hand; and her left was not going to be much use to her on the remaining icon.
Still, what choice did she have? She picked the knife up in her left hand anyway, and using the numbed wrist of her right, guided it to the hole she'd dug around the central icon. Perhaps if she just wriggled the point of the blade around for long enough, she'd locate a weak spot. She leaned forward, to put the weight of her body into the calculation.
"Come on," she murmured to it, "you sonofabitch ... move for Momma."
There was a sound behind her. A soft sound. A groan.
She looked back, fearing the worst, and the worst it was.
Todd had swung around the doorjamb coming from the kitchen, his hand clutching his lower belly. There was blood running between his fingers; and blood on his trousers, a lot of it.
"She stabbed me," he said, his tone one of near disbelief. He kept his eyes fixed on Tammy, as though he couldn't bear to inspect the damage. "Oh Jesus, she stabbed me."
He leaned forward, and for a moment Tammy thought he was simply going to fall over. But he reached out and caught hold of the lips of one of the four alcoves carved into the walls of the passageway.
"You have to get out of here," he said to Tammy.
She got to her feet, ready to help him, but he waved her away.
"Just go! Before she -- "
Comes, he would have said. But it was academic. Katya was there already, coming round the corner, the knife in her hand, his blood on it. Todd turned back to look at her.