by Darcy Coates
The threads snapped. “Get out! Get out! Get out!”
“Mara, no!” Neil grabbed her around the waist and dragged her back before she could claw at Evereca’s face. Mara screamed and elbowed him in the stomach. He grunted and dropped her, and she turned on the table as she unleased her fury.
“Get out!” She sent the candles clattering to the floor, where their flames fizzled and died. “Out!” The antique books were thrown at Evereca, who ducked just in time. “I said out!” She placed her hands under the table and lifted. Fury gave her strength, and the table flipped over with a deafening crash.
“Let’s go.” Damascus snatched up an armful of their equipment and grabbed his companion’s wrist. Evereca seemed to be trying to speak, but Mara didn’t—couldn’t—listen. She lifted one of the chairs and hurled it after the mediums as Damascus physically pulled his companion out of the room. The chair smashed into the wall and tumbled to the ground, a fracture running down the wooden back.
Mara kept her feet, listening to the van door slam and the wheels screech as the spirit mediums sped off the property, then she staggered. Neil appeared at her side, and his arms moved across her back to support her, but she smacked him away.
“All right.” Neil stepped back and raised his hands in peace. “I know you’re angry, and you have every right to be.”
“Honestly?” Breathing made her chest ache, and her vision was nearly blotted out. She stumbled to a wall to hold herself up. “It would hurt less if I’d found you entwined with a hooker.”
Neil flinched.
“How could you?” Burning tears bled into the black patches at the edges of her vision, and Mara didn’t try to check them. “You bastard.”
Neil swallowed thickly. His lips were twitching, but he kept his voice soft. “This place is sick, and I can’t watch you live here any longer. Yesterday morning—the morning I skipped work and found you locked in the basement—I was woken by my phone ringing. You know the first thing I thought? That it would be the police calling to tell me my girl was dead.” He blinked furiously. “I’m frightened for you all the time. I can’t lose you, Mara.”
“You bastard,” she repeated. Her voice had dropped to a whisper, and malice coagulated in it. “You know how I feel about people like that. And you invited them into my home.”
“That’s why I called them while you were out.” He took a half step towards her, and Mara bared her teeth at him. “I thought—if they could get rid of whatever presence was here—and you wouldn’t have to know—”
“There’s nothing wrong with Blackwood!” She took a long, shaking breath and pressed a hand over her aching chest before continuing in a lower voice. “There’s no such thing as ghosts. I had the first eighteen years of my life to saturate in those toxic lies. And y-you knew how much I hate mediums. And you… invite th-them into my home. Not yours! My home!” She moved her hands to her head, where a stress headache was blooming over the temples. “You’re scum, Neil. Lying, manipulative, backstabbing scum.”
He didn’t speak, but his eyes were red. Mara thought he might be trembling, but it was hard to tell with her own vision so erratic. She was too drained to yell, so she said, as clearly as she could manage, “Get out, and don’t ever contact me again.”
Neil broke his cardinal rule and swore. “Mara, I wasn’t trying to hurt you. I only wanted to help.”
“It wasn’t wanted, and it wasn’t needed.” The ache in her chest burnt almost more than she could endure. “This was unforgivable.”
He took a deep breath and stepped closer. “Let’s talk about this. I’ll make you a cup of tea, and we can—”
“No. I’m done talking. I hate you, Neil. I hate you so much.” Hot tears ran down her cheeks as hysterical laughter mixed into her words. “I think I might even hate you more than I hate my parents. We’re over. Stay away from my house, and stay away from me.”
Every time she said hate, Neil flinched. The hurt in his face would have crushed her the day before, but at that point, all she felt was relief. Then his beautiful blue eyes narrowed as anger rose to mingle with the pain. “You’re horrible,” he said at last. “You think you’re so superior to your parents, but you’re twice as deluded as they could ever be. You’ve been given so many signs—so many clues—so many warnings—but you do nothing except close your eyes and block your ears. There are evil spirits in Blackwood, living in plain sight, and you’re wilfully oblivious.”
“Shut up!” Mara threw herself at him. She beat against his chest and kicked at his legs, doing everything in her power to cause him pain. He hissed and shoved her, sending her reeling backwards. “I hate you!” Mara screamed. “Bastard! Get out!”
“With pleasure!” He kicked at the chair that lay by the door, sending it skittering across the room. “Don’t date crazy, people told me. Now I know why.”
Neil disappeared through the living room, through the foyer, and out the front door, slamming it in his wake.
CHAPTER THIRTY: Broken
Mara, feeling numb and cold, followed Neil’s path into the foyer and stared at the closed door. His car’s engine roared then faded into the distance.
She stood there for far longer than she should have. A cold, cutting realization slowly wormed its way through the shock. Neil’s gone. She hated him, but when she tried to untangle the anger from her heart, she found that another emotion still survived underneath. Despite the cutting betrayal, the cruel words, and the screams, she loved him desperately. He’s gone, and he’s not coming back.
“Nngh.” Mara crumpled to the floor and wrapped her arms around her torso. Everything hurt. Her head pounded. The black had faded from her vision, but her eyes were blurred by tears she couldn’t stop. Hate and love danced a violent tango inside of her. She wished he were dead. She wanted to see him smile again. She craved his suffering. She wanted him to hold her and kiss her and tell her everything was all right.
All gone. Mara bawled unashamedly. She slumped to her side and rested her cheek on the dusty floor as she painted the wood with her tears. She’d thought she’d known pain before, when she’d walked into the library and seen the seance Neil had arranged, but it was nothing compared to what she was experiencing afterward. She’d lost her companion, the one person she’d learnt to trust above all others, the one person who had been her ally against the world, and the kindest man she’d ever known. She felt as though she were being torn apart.
Time blurred. One moment, it was early afternoon; when she next looked out the window, twilight painted the sky a violent red. Mara rolled onto her back, gasping and groaning. Blackwood seemed to exhale around her as the aged wood relaxed in the cooling air.
“It’s just us now,” she whispered to the building. Her throat was raw, and the throbbing in her skull told her she was dehydrated. She made it to her knees then got to her feet. She was unsteady and dizzy but navigated her way through the near-empty dining room and into the kitchen. “I don’t hate you,” she said as though soothing the building could ease her own pain. “I think you’re beautiful. Did you see how I defended you against them? There’s nothing wrong with you. Anyone who says otherwise is a liar.”
She turned the tap. Red water poured out.
Mara watched the crimson water gush into the sink but felt too hollow inside to muster any reaction. She waited until it cleared then filled her glass and drank.
“You’re a good house.” She placed the emptied glass back onto the bench. “We’re really quite a lot alike.” Goosebumps spread over the back of her neck as a deep, slow creak came from the living room. Mara licked her lips. “You’ve got some quirks; that’s all.”
She turned, compelled more by habit than curiosity, and followed the pathway back to the foyer. “No one else understands you the way I do.” She stopped in the living room’s archway as a sickening, cold dread bloomed over the ache in her chest.
The rocking chair rolled on its struts. A red liquid dripped from the wooden back and onto the seat.
/> “Did they do this to you?” Mara’s voice was a tight whisper as she crept towards the chair. “Is this one of the mediums’ tricks?”
She touched the red substance. It felt warm and tacky under her fingers. The chair continued to roll despite Mara not feeling any sort of breeze. She began to back away from it then startled as a child’s cry came from the chimney.
“Just the wind. That’s all…”
The cry broke into a hiccup then resumed. Mara turned to escape back to the foyer and saw the blood-encrusted cross-stitch on the wall. “Their Hearts Are In My Home.”
Her palms were sweaty, and she rubbed them on her jeans. “It was the mediums. They did this—cruel jokes—”
A slow, painful noise came from the foyer. It sounded like straining rope. Mara turned, shivering, to look through the opening.
Robert Kant hung below the stairs, his dead eyes staring blindly as he twisted on his noose.
Mara felt as though she’d been fused to the ground. She couldn’t control her shaking as the symphony of the dead—the rocking chair, the crying child, and the straining rope—filled her and suffocated her. Robert’s body continued to twist as though he’d only recently leapt from the bannister. He looked human but was made of a strangely fluid smoky substance. It reminded Mara of ink dropped into a glass of water; the body kept its shape even as it swirled. His eyes—a madman’s eyes, sunk deep into the haggard face—flicked towards Mara. She clasped her hands over her ears and screamed.
When her voice died out, the house had returned to silence. Mara carefully lowered her trembling hands and opened her eyes. The space under the stairs was empty. The rocking chair lay still. The chimney was silent.
“It’s not real.” Her mouth formed the words, but she couldn’t say them. “There’s no such thing as ghosts.”
The basement door slammed. Mara gasped and began running, tearing up the stairs, tripping over her feet and crawling the last few steps until she could press her back to the hallway’s wall.
“The axe man is coming. Run, run, run.”
“No.” Mara turned towards the master bedroom door as it creaked open. She caught a swirl of motion through the opening.
“Run, run, run.” The figure slipped into view, its eyes bulging with insane fear as it paced, white gown and tendrils of pale smoke fluttering in its wake.
“No.” Mara, bent double, began edging down the hallway towards the safety of her own room.
The figure reappeared in the doorway, her pale face frantic as her crazed eyes fixed onto Mara. “The axe man is coming.”
“No!” Mara fled past the spectre. Bloodied fingernails stretched through the opening and scratched at her arm, leaving stinging scores in their wake. Mara dove into her room and slammed the door. Panicked sobs shook her. What’s wrong with me? Have I gone insane?
She pressed a hand to the place where the nails had grazed her. Blood welled at the site. She was able to touch it, feel its viscosity, and smear it away. This cut is real. The pain is real. It’s not a dream. It’s not a delusion. And I don’t think I’m insane—not quite yet.
A crackle made her turn towards the bureau, where Neil’s laptop stood open. The screen flickered into life, showing the attic’s jumble of indistinct shapes…
… and a man.
He stood in the centre of the room, almost directly above her head, and stared at the camera. The figure was slightly hazy as though it had been constructed out of congealed mist. Long-dried opaque blood streaked the remainder of his face; the left half of his head was crushed.
“Sweet mercy…” Mara pressed her hands over her mouth.
The man swayed, turned, and began pacing. Static buzzed over him with every step. The distortion obscured him but not as wholly as it had the previous night.
“This can’t be real.” Mara fell forward to kneel on the ground as the footsteps echoed over her head. A small trail of dust spilt from one of the disturbed floorboards.
All those years, all those seances, all those sham mediums… I can’t have been wrong.
The footsteps reached the end of the house, turned, and began their slow return journey down the length of the attic.
They were fakes and liars. I know that with complete certainty. But then… what’s this?
The steps groaned above her head. A new, different sort of pain was growing in her chest. She watched the screen, which showed the static-shrouded man stopping beside the hole in the wall. He pressed his head and shoulders through it then began creeping forward, shifting onto the roof inch by inch until the feet disappeared from view.
Mara turned towards the window just in time to see the white figure plunge past.
“I was wrong. Ghosts are real.” Mara, overwhelmed by the aches and the shock, keeled over. Hysterical, uncontrollable laughter rose inside of her, but she didn’t try to fight it. If she didn’t laugh, she would have to scream.
Even as she crouched on the bedroom floor and held her aching chest as though it would fall apart if she released it, Mara’s mind still tried to find a way to justify what she’d seen. The mediums planted tricks—
“No. They weren’t clever enough to put together something like this.”
It’s a hallucination brought on by stress—
“Am I hallucinating the cuts on my arm, too?”
Insanity…?
“Not as far as I can tell.”
Mara tried not to throw up.
Ghosts are real. What does this mean? Were my parents right? All of those tricks—all of those shams—did they hold any truth?
Blackwood House is something wholly different. There aren’t any tinkling bells or flickering candles here. The spirits inside these walls are tortured. They’re visible. And they’re constantly reliving their deaths.
“Sweet mercy,” Mara whispered. Simply admitting she’d been wrong felt inhumanly difficult. Having to face the ramifications was a hundred times worse. I don’t want to do this alone. I can’t do it alone. If I had Neil—
The thought of Neil set the ache flaring again. He’d been right about Blackwood. More, he’d taken a risk and tried to save her—and Mara has screamed insults at him in repayment. “Crap, crap, crap!”
She remembered his words from the night before, when he’d pleaded with her to call a priest. There is nothing I wouldn’t do for you, Mara. I would even survive your hating me for it afterwards. As long as I could make sure you were safe.
Mara shook her head as she paced around the sleeping bags Neil had bought for her. Was he planning the seance as early as that? He knew it was risky—he knew he would lose me if I found out—
I’d give anything to have him back.
Mara pulled her mobile out of her pocket and gasped in relief as it turned on. She hadn’t spent long in the coffee shop before seeing her parents, but it had been enough to give her battery a little bit of charge.
He might not want to talk to me. The things I said were brutal. But maybe…
She dialled Neil’s number and raised the mobile to her ear. The call ended without any way to leave a message. Crap. He’s turned his phone off.
Mara passed her hands over her face. Where does that leave me? I’m stuck at Blackwood until it’s light enough to walk to town. Whatever’s happening in this house is magnifying. And the night’s still very, very young.
Mara tried to remember the seances and meetings her parents had participated in when she was a child. She’d deliberately tried to repress those memories in the hope that they would eventually be forgotten, and returning to them was like reopening scabbed wounds.
She saw the scores of faces, many weathered with age, of the mediums who had been invited into their home. She saw the candlelight wavering over a small collection of trinkets from lost loved ones as she, her family, and a collection of strangers and acquaintances had held hands and participated in a seance. She saw Miss Horowitz, the spirit medium her mother had wanted her to train under, bellowing a garbled message as thunder cracked outside t
he room.
But none of that was helpful. George, Elaine, and the spiritualists they were friendly with all sought contact with the dead, never the opposite. Mara knew a half dozen ways to begin a seance but not a single method for exorcising an unwanted ghost.
She looked back at her mobile. The battery was almost dead. She tried calling Neil a second time but with the same result. There’s no one else I can call.
Mara prided herself on her independence. She’d lived a nearly entirely solitary life. The only exception—the only chink in her armour—had been Neil. She’d never been so close or so comfortable with another person. But without him, she felt wholly, completely alone. She didn’t have friends. She’d even kept her old co-workers at arm’s length.
For half a second, she considered calling her parents—but they would be incapable of helping, even if she knew their number.
Then an idea occurred to her, and she cringed. I’m out of options. It’s them or nothing. She took a deep breath, clutched her nearly dead phone to her chest, and poked her head out of her room.
The rocking chair continued to groan. Now that she could no longer excuse it as a breeze, the sound sent chills through her. She kept as much distance between herself and the master bedroom as possible as she crept along the hallway. The door remained closed. The space below the stairs was empty. Only the rocking chair remained active. Mara, her heart in her throat, hurried to the ground floor.
She didn’t want to pass through the living room, so she took the longer route around the dining room and kitchen. Mara kept her eyes moving, scanning the walls and furniture and glancing behind herself frequently, but saw nothing to disturb her until she reached the recreation room.
The red handprints had spread across all four walls. They stained the wood and seemed to scrabble up the basement door. The hairs on Mara’s arms rose as she moved through the room in the straightest line she could manage. She couldn’t tell if the sensation of eyes on her back was her imagination or not.