Her own certainty made her hesitate. How did she know? How could she know—unless Jade had put the knowledge in her mind. Could it be that he wanted the statue to be found? Was he tricking her again, playing some subtle game of control?
Staring at the wall, Sarah agonized over the problem, hesitating and fidgeting and rationalizing until finally, annoyed by her own uncertainty, she stopped thinking and simply acted.
Sarah took the hammer firmly in both hands and swung at the wall. At the last minute, unconsciously, she pulled her swing, and the blow merely dented the wall, sending a few cream-colored chips flying. Sarah clenched her jaw angrily and swung again, this time giving the blow everything she had. The hammer cracked into the wall, spraying out fragments of powdery white sheetrock, and leaving a jagged hole.
She grinned, feeling a rush of power. There was something remarkably satisfying about smashing a wall; something liberating in the act of destruction. Jade couldn’t stop her now. She felt powerful and pleased with her thoughts, all doubts vanished. She swung again, splintering the wall and enlarging the hole.
After three more satisfying blows, Sarah put down the hammer and lifted the crowbar. She thought of the darkness behind the wall, and fetched her flashlight. Then she thrust one end of the crowbar into the hole and used it as a lever to pry away the shattered section of wall. She was panting and dripping sweat in a matter of seconds, but finally, with a groaning of nails, the newer section came away from the original wall, and Sarah could look into the cavity.
Her work had revealed a small brick fireplace filled with dust, white flakes of gypsum, dead insects, twigs, and the tiny, fragile bones of birds. Sarah picked out the details in the beam of the flashlight, not quite daring to stick her head inside for a better look. She saw a hairy, brown tarantula and nearly dropped the flashlight. On closer inspection, it was clearly dead—but nearly as big as her hand. When she felt fairly certain that nothing living waited for her in the rubble, Sarah used a broom to sweep out the fireplace.
She found nothing of value and the feeling of having been cheated began to rise within her when common sense intervened. Of course the jade figure wouldn’t have been left in the open fireplace. Whoever had blocked it up had almost certainly done so years after the little statue had been hidden. If it was indeed in the fireplace, the only possibility was a loose brick, or perhaps a ledge within the chimney. So when she had swept the hearth clear, Sarah got a butter knife from the kitchen and began to test the spaces between the bricks with it, searching for a brick that could be moved.
She had finished with the floor and started on the brick-lined walls when she found it: a brick gave slightly under the probing blade. Sarah caught her breath and poked the brick more aggressively. It shifted. She ran the knife blade all around the edges and then used the blade to pry the brick up. Finally she had to drop the knife and grasp the protruding brick with her fingers, pulling with all her strength. She ignored the gritty shower of mortar in her face.
A hollow was left, a space deeper than the brick alone could fill. And in that recess was something wrapped in a fraying, yellow cloth; something perhaps six inches long and two across. Scarcely breathing, Sarah reached into the hole and her hand closed about the treasure. She withdrew it and moved away from the fireplace, squatting on her heels and staring at the thing she held. She was afraid to unwrap it. Then she caught a piece of the old, fraying silk between two fingers and unwound it.
An ancient, evil face leered up at her.
The thing was warm in her hand; she felt it move. All over her body the tiny hairs rose, electrified. It was alive. As she stared at it, she saw the tiny face change, just like a living face. The expression now was one of gleeful lust.
“So you’ve seen me at last. What do you think of me?”
A man’s voice, right behind her.
Sarah almost fell over in surprise. Her fingers closed tightly over the little figure and she stood up and whirled around. There was no one there.
“You hold my immortality in your hand. Does it please you?” asked the same silky voice.
Sarah felt the thing she held change within her grasp. Her fingers recognized it first, but she stared down in disbelief and saw that she was holding a man’s penis: alive, engorged with blood, attached to nothing.
She cried out at the sight of it and almost flung it away in repugnance. But she stopped herself. It was a trick. A trick to make her drop it. And she did not intend to let Jade trick her again. Now that she had found the statue she would not let it go until she destroyed it, and destroyed him.
“Don’t you like me? Isn’t this what you wanted? Surely I don’t shock you, my Sarah. You must remember your dreams of me?”
Something flashed in her mind at his words, a kind of déjà entendu, memory without details. Yes, she had dreamed of Jade, she had dreamed of a stranger who knew her better even than she knew herself, and who made endless, potent, intoxicating love to her. Feeling herself blush, Sarah shook her head stubbornly. She didn’t have to admit to her dreams.
“You remember me, Sarah,” said Jade, and she felt his hands caressing her breasts. Sarah caught her breath sharply and looked down in disbelief. There were no hands. No one touched her. And yet she felt the teasing, pleasurable stroking and she could see her nipples stiffening against the fabric of her shirt.
“Stop it,” she said sharply, stepping back. It made no difference to the invisible hands. The thing she held throbbed within her grasp and, absently, she caressed it with her thumb. An instant later she realized what she was doing, and she stopped, but her hand tightened around what still felt like a man’s erect penis. She wouldn’t look at it; she told herself it was illusion, just as when Pete had seemed to become Brian. She tried to remember what the piece of carved jade had looked like and what it should feel like.
“Sarah.” His breath was hot in her ear and she shuddered. “Sarah, I want you.”
The invisible hands moved down to caress her hips, to insinuate themselves between her legs to caress her inner thighs. Even through blue jeans their touch was arousing. Sarah tried to move away, to escape, but there was nowhere to escape to. It wasn’t fair, she thought. Jade was just distracting her, playing on her desires as he had once played on her fears, dividing her body from her mind and leading her astray.
“You want me, Sarah. If you didn’t want me, I wouldn’t be able to come to you like this.” She felt lips on her neck, the grazing nibble of teeth, and jerked away.
“No! I don’t want you! Leave me alone!”
“You want me, Sarah. Your breasts are aching to feel my touch. Undo your blouse and let me suckle.”
Sarah’s empty hand went to her breasts, but it was not to obey Jade but to shield herself. “No.”
“Why do you tremble, if not with desire? You are empty, Sarah, and I can fill you.”
“No!” she cried again. “I won’t let you—you want to destroy me!”
“Ah, no, Sarah,” the voice chided. “Do you think that still? After you have fought me off so bravely, and proved yourself worthy of me? I want more than your body, Sarah. I want more than your shell. I want you. I want you as my bride.”
Her legs were suddenly too weak to hold her. Abruptly, Sarah sat down on the couch. “I don’t want you,” she said stubbornly.
“Your body tells me another story.” He chuckled intimately. “How lovely to feel you respond!”
It was true, she was responding, her body betraying her. Sarah clamped her thighs together and twisted back and forth on the couch. The hands were everywhere, unavoidable, and her attempts to avoid them seemed useless.
Sarah looked down at the thing in her hand. It was horrible: a naked, ugly organ attached to nothing, out of context, alive when it should not be, like some fat, blind worm. The distaste she felt tempered her body’s excitement. Newly hopeful, Sarah went on staring at it, concentrating. The outlines of it blurred, and suddenly it was only an old, oriental stone carving that she held.