by Jane Toombs
"Samara's all right, she j-just fainted," Johanna told him.
"I'll have to go away now." Brian's voice was so low it was barely audible.
"No!" Johanna flung herself onto the bed and grasped his hand.
"Where did you get the key?" Kevin asked them.
The two children stated at him.
"Samara told me your father locked that door, Johanna, saying 'Forever.' Did you find another key?"
Johanna shook her head, looking miserable.
Samara listen with growing bewilderment. Why was Kevin questioning Johanna when he must have been the one with the key. Only how could he possibly have gotten it?
Kevin looked sternly at Johanna. "Then you must have taken your father's key ."
"Not ex-exactly."
"Brian took it?"
"No, no, it's not his f-fault," Johanna cried. "I made Katrina f-find the key for us. She can find t-things no one else c-can. Daddy hid the k-key, but Katrina saw where it was in her head and t-told us and we looked and she was right."
"We just wanted to see the room," Brain said, sitting up. "Because it was a secret no one would talk about. There's all kinds of things in that room. Behind the cloth on the altar there's—"
"What the hell is going on?" John's voice demanded. Samara whirled to see her father standing in the doorway.
"What's all this about an altar?" he asked, striding to the bed, where he gripped Brian's shoulder. :Have you been in that blasted room?"
"Yes, sir." Brian's voice quavered.
Johanna tried to pry her father's fingers loose. "Daddy, you're hurting him."
John released the boy so quickly that Brian fell backwards. "I won't have you in my house," he told the frightened boy.
Samara, seeing her father's white, shocked face, knew he was remembering Sergei.
Johanna screamed and struck at her father with her fists. "No, don't say that. I hate you! I hate you, no, no, no..."
Kevin pick up the girl and held her tightly against him, murmuring, "Clam down, Johanna, stop fighting, easy now."
Samara tried to help by taking Johanna's hands in her own but the girl struck out at her, too, shrieking and screaming incoherently.
"Where's her room?" Kevin asked.
Samara showed him, then held a moaning and thrashing Johanna on the bed while Kevin ran down to his car for his medical bag.
After he'd injected Johanna with a sedative, he frowned and felt the girl's forehead. "Feels like she's running a fever."
"We were out in the rain today and she did get soaked."
"You'd better keep an eye on her tonight. I'll check with you in the morning."
"I'm sorry I misunderstood," she said, sitting on the bed with the now quiet Johanna, "But how did you know what Brian and Johanna were up to? Why didn't you tell me?"
He shrugged. "Every time I mentioned that room you shied away like a spooked horse. I didn't like to discuss it with your father, but maybe I should have."
"No, not Daddy. He--perhaps you know--"
"About your twin bother, yes. Dr. Whitten told me before he died. He was my uncle, you know. When I was in medical school he was so happy at the prospect of me coming in with him when I finished that he told me many secrets he'd never mentioned to anyone else."
Kevin leaned down and lifted Johanna's right eyelid. "She'll sleep the rest of the night. I'm a bit worried about that fever, though." Getting out his stethoscope he listened to her chest.
"She'll be all right, won't she?" Samara asked when he finished.
He didn't answer. Dropping the stethoscope into his bag, he rummaged around inside, finally muttering, "Damn, used the last I had, and she needs penicillin. I'll locate some ampoules and bring them tomorrow, Frances will have to inject her with it every three hours."
Alarm flared in Samara. "What's the matter with her?"
"I don't like what I hear in her lungs. Could be a beginning pneumonia."
Tear filled Samara's eyes. "It's my fault."
He touched her cheek. "For God's sake don't blame yourself. Someone around her has to stay rational. I'm worried about your father, too, because of his heart. Rages like that won't do him any good."
"But I too her riding, out in the rain."
"I could blame myself, too, if I were into that kind of thing. For a couple of weeks I've been listening to those two kids discuss the possibility of unlocking that black door."
"Listening to them?"
"They didn't know I was paying attention."
"You couldn't have known they were going to do it tonight, though."
He didn't respond, saying instead, Why did you call Mark's name up there. Is he someone important to you?"
Samara blinked, belatedly recalling she'd thought at first the man coming out of that awful room as Mark. "He had a key and he disappeared with it. When I saw the door open I had the horrible feeling it was him. He's someone I never want to see again. Ever."
"You confessed, I suppose it's my turn." He looked so unhappy, she rose and crossed to him.
"Confess what?"
"Coming down from the tower you told me you didn't believe me. Well, I thought I couldn't believe you, either."
"About what?"
"In Adele's room you touched my face and told me the scar s didn't matter. I thought, I hoped you felt something for me. Then Corinne met me in the foyer and told me about Sal."
She stared at him, bewildered. "Sal?"
"Corrine said you and Sal had an understanding, that you'd known each other for years, he'd saved your life and your father was helping him through vet school and then you'd marry."
"Corinne told you that?" she asked incredulously.
"She'd been pestering me to take her to Porterville, so I did. After I finished at the office, I took her to dinner." Kevin shook his head. "Guess I wanted some consolation. She talks too much, on and on. One of things she told me was about Katrina crying because Johanna had made her 'find' a key. I asked Corinne what that meant and she said Katrina dreams where to find things."
"I don't understand."
"Neither did I, so I asked questions and when Corinne admitted Johanna actually had a key, I decided, since I had to drive her back here anyway, I'd try to check on what was happening. I came inside with her, saw her to the foot of the stairs and said I'd let myself out. I didn't. When I was sure she'd had time to get inside her room, I climbed up to the towers. If there'd been no sign of activity. I'd have sneaked out and tackled Johanna and Brian tomorrow, but the key was in the door."
Samara repressed a shudder. "How did you know of the evil in that room?"
"I read some of Tabitha's journals. The poor deluded woman believed in magic rituals and tried to practice them. Whether or not that contributed to her mental deterioration, I can't say. I don't believe in the supernatural, but after Adele told me of all the deaths associated with that room behind the black door, I felt a high-strung child like Johanna should have nothing to do with it."
Samara bit her lip as she glanced at the sleeping child.
"I took the key from the lock and put in it my pocket, went in and ordered them out. Scared them--they didn't expect to see me."
"Nor did I. When I realized you'd been in the room I feared it was for purposes of your own."
Kevin smiled wryly. "I'm as unlikely a candidate for witchcraft as you'll ever find.”
Samara tried to smile, too, but tears filled her eyes.
He wrapped his arms about her. "It's not true about Sal?"
She leaned against him. "Sal's an old friend, a good friend, and my father is helping through vet school. But the two of us aren't in love and we have no plans to marry. I told you the truth when I said I loved you."
"I've wanted you ever since Adele introduced us and told you I was worth a hundred of Mark. You were embarrassed and I wanted to reach out right them and tell you how I felt. But I couldn't believe you'd want me."
Their long and tender kiss was broken by Johanna's moan. Springi
ng apart, they hurried to the bed.
Her temperature's climbing," Kevin said. "I'm going into town right now and find some penicillin if I have to roust a pharmacist out of be. Wait up for me. I'll be back as soon as I can."
After Kevin left, Samara laid on the bed next to her sister. She brushed a stray lock of hair from the flushed forehead and was shocked by the heat of Johanna's skin.
"Brian," Johanna muttered in her sleep.
Samara dozed after a while, dozed, woke again and dreamed she was in the north tower looking at Mark's painting of alien mountains and he was standing within the painting waving mockingly at her. She woke with a start to see Vera in her robe, by the bed, bending to touch Johanna, asking "What's wrong with her?"
Before Samara could answer, Vera exclaimed, "Why she's burning up with fever! Why did you call me?"
Samara sat up. "Kevin's already examined her. He's gone to get some penicillin."
"Does John know? Is that why he's not in our room?"
Samara rose and faced Vera. "Daddy's upset. Johanna and Brian unlocked the black door and went inside. When he found out, he raged at poor Brian and told him he couldn't stay at Hallow House any longer. Johanna went into such awful hysterics that Kevin had to give her a sedative. That's when he realized she had a fever."
"The black door? Oh, no!"
Kevin thinks she may have pneumonia."
Vera moaned. "Please God, no. Get Frances."
By the time Samara roused Frances and the two of them got dressed, Kevin had returned.
"Two c.c.'s of penicillin every three hours he told Frances as they stood in Johanna's room. "You do know how to mix the powder with sterile water and keep the mixed vial refrigerated?"
"I do, doctor." Frances said. "Will you be wanting her to have any aspirin for the fever?"
"Not unless her temperature goes over 102 degrees. I believe in allowing the fever to fight the disease, if possible."
As he spoke, Kevin drew up yellow liquid into a syringe. Samara remembered how, during the war, at Balboa Naval Hospital, they'd called penicillin a miracle drug. She prayed it would work a miracle for Johanna.
Later she walked Kevin to the front door. "I wish I could stay," he told her, "but I have other patients to see. I'll be back when I can manage it." He kissed her briefly and was gone.
Vera, now fully dressed, was waiting at the top of the second floor stairs when Samara came up them. "Where's your father> I can't find him anywhere?"
"I don't know. The last I saw him he was in Brian's room, we all were. But that was hours ago."
A loud banging started them both. "It's coming from the third floor," Samara said, her nerves on edge. What now? She followed Vera up the third floor stairs and they found John nailing boards across the black door.
"I'm closing this off," he said. "I locked it before and what good was the lock? I should have known better."
"You can finished tomorrow," Vera said, her voice so calm that Samara marveled. "Please come downstairs now."
Her father's face alarmed Samara. Blue veins stood out along his temples and his eyes glittered. He paid no attention to Vera, ferociously hammering nail after nail into the boards.
"Please, John," Vera said, this time with a tinge of agitation in her tone.
"I want that boy out of my house along with his drunken mother by tomorrow at the latest."
"Johanna's ill, John. You'll disturb her with the pounding." Vera's voice was back under control.
"Of course she is. He dragged her up there and--"
"She has pneumonia, Daddy," Samara put in. "We went riding in the rain."
"He stole my key, the sneaky little bastard, always was a sneak."
The hair on Samara's nape rose when she realized that he was confusing Brian with Sergei. "He didn't--" she began, breaking off when Vera laid a finger across her lips and shook her head.
"John, I insist you come downstairs with me," Vera ordered. "I won't move until you do."
He hesitated, looking at Vera for the first time. "You ought to be resting," he said.
"Then come with me."
He stared at the hammer for a long moment and finally dropped it. "Johanna has pneumonia?"
Samara nodded. "Kevin's giving her penicillin."
"Johanna was so upset..." His words trailed off and he let Vera lead him down to the second floor. "I'll just take a peek at her."
"Frances is with her," Vera said. "And Kevin will be back."
But when they opened the door to Johanna's room, Frances was gone and the bed was empty.
Chapter 32
Johanna groped her way along the dimly lit hall where shadow lurked everywhere, shadows that stalked her while she struggled to reach Brian before he was gone forever. Brian would keep the shadows away. Only Brian.
But his room was so far away. She stumbled along the never-ending corridor, bumping into the wall, falling, staggering to her feet. She tried to call his name, but no sound came out, like in a nightmare, only this wasn't a bad dream, this was real.
Besides the shadows, she knew people wanted to keep her from Brian. Her father. Frances. Mother. Kevin. And even Samara, She'd always before trusted Samara. If any of them found her she'd be carried back to bed and watched and Daddy would send Brian away forever.
Finally she reached Brian's door, opened it, fell inside the room and crawled to his bed. She pulled herself up onto it and moaned when she saw the bed was empty. Where was he? She had to find him but she couldn't make herself get off the bed.
"Brian," she whispered and the shadows waiting beyond the door hear. She could sense their greed as they surges toward her, shapes of darkness surrounding her. Tears rolled down her cheeks. She tried to scream, but couldn't, tried to struggle away.
Something held her fast. A hand. Somebody's hand.
"Here I am, Johanna," Brian's voice said, "Don't cry."
Johanna clutched at him. "Don't go away, please don't go..."
Other voices. Samara. Her mother. But Daddy's cross words rose above them all. "What are you trying to do, kill her?" he shouted.
Her father's hands tried to lift her away and she struck at them, at his face that swam mistily above her. "Go away," she ordered. "I won't leave Brian. You can't make me." Her terror and anguish turned into a scream that went on and on.
"John, you're frightening her." Her mother's calm, voice stopped the scream so she could speak again.
"Mama, make Daddy keep Brian here," she begged between sobs. "Brian keeps the shadows away. Please, Mama, help me."
"She's delirious with fever," Vera said. "You can't reason with an ill child. I'm going to tell her Brian will stay." Johanna heard the defiance in her mother's voice and grabbed her hand.
"Mama, I need Brian," she whispered.
"Daddy, she's so sick," Samara said. "It's not Brian's fault, it's mine. I took her out in the rain. Please don't upset her any more tonight. Let him stay, don't blame him. I know it's not Brain's fault. Burn Tabitha's journals, tear down the room behind the black door if you want to prevent this kind of thing. You'll harm Johanna if you try to punish Brian for something that wasn't his fault."
Johanna clung to her mother's hand, keeping her hold on Brian's arm, her head dropped against his shoulder. They kept talking, but she could no longer follow what was said. Some one lifted her and she subsided when Samara spoke into her ear, telling her Brian wasn't being sent away.
A long time later, Johanna woke to daylight and Frances' concerned face above her. "Brian?" she croaked feebly. "Where's Brian?"
A few minutes later she looked into his blue eyes and saw the familiar curl of his lip when he smiled at her and said, "I'm here."
She sighed and closed her eyes. She was safe.
When Johanna was well again, she heard the account of the night from others. How France had gone downstairs to put the penicillin in the refrigerator, came back and found her gone. After that, her father ordered a small refrigerator for her room one that she got to keep the
re even when she was better.
But it wasn't until much later that she was able to piece together all the fragments, to understand why her father had changed his mind and let Brian stay at Hallow House for good. In some way she didn't understand, Daddy had gotten upset about her dead brother Sergei, who she didn't even remember.
"Don't confuse Brian with Sergei," she'd overheard her mother say to Daddy. "Brian is far more like Vincent that he is anyone else. He's not--abnormal."