by K. F. Breene
“That’s…helpful,” Braiden said, turning around to explore the now-illuminated space. “And not from the— Oh sh—” Braiden braced against the door as he noticed the piles of bones. “Are those… Those are human.”
“Yes.”
“The heads are smallish…”
“Yes.”
“But how…”
“I don’t know.” I moved toward him. “I don’t know, but those patches in the dirt look like graves. Some with people still in them, I’d bet.”
“Yes, they do. And the others look like someone was pulled out of a grave… But why…”
“I don’t know. The smell, maybe? Bury them until they turn into bones, then pile them in the corner?”
“That sounds crazy.”
I swung my hand, encompassing the whole room. “What part of this reads rational to you?”
“Good point.” He wiped his forehead with a shaking hand.
“Here.” I handed him the lantern. “Find something to pry off the circular part on the door. That’s our only hope. I doubt we can figure out where the secret switch or whatever is. Man, I hope Scarlet is okay.”
“She’s smart.” Braiden scanned the ground. “She’ll make it.”
A few tense minutes later, where the only helpful thing I did was quietly fret and look for a button or switch that I never found, Braiden returned with a flattened piece of metal that was rounded at one end. He held the rounded part, his eyes glued to the rust-colored sharp area at the other end. But it wasn’t rust.
Neither of us said what we were thinking, but I bet it was the same thing: he probably held a murder weapon.
Braiden went at the door with a gusto born of desperation. It only took ten minutes for the little circular piece to pop off. He stuck his fingers in the hole to manually turn the mechanism.
“Let me guess,” I said, “you learned that in New York.” My thoughts were on the people—the kids—in this room and how they’d actually died, but my instinct was to keep a light conversation going. Anything to stay sane.
“No.” He gently set the metal piece beside the door. “I learned how to pick locks in New York. I’ve never gone up against a door with no lock or handle.”
“Ah. But that’s not the reason you moved.”
“My desire to find a door that didn’t have a lock or handle?” He beckoned me to come closer. “No. Especially not in these circumstances.”
I paused in the doorway. Leaving those candles burning was probably a bad idea. The house was made of wood, after all, and they were next to a wall. I didn’t want the place going up in flames, not when we—and hopefully the others—were still trapped inside. That could happen once we were free.
“What are you—” Braiden cut off when he realized what I was doing. “Good thinking.”
I blew out the candles. Without someone to hold it open, the secret door tried to swing shut.
“We should prop this open so the police can get in easily,” I whispered. The heavy weight of the house had been lifted, which meant there didn’t seem to be any presences down here, but that didn’t mean the rest of the house was back to “normal.” The Charming Man, John, had seemed almost as powerful as Florence. “Unless you get taken over by a poltergeist again, we might not be able to find the secret switch.”
Braiden nodded and stepped around the door, reaching for the ground. He held up a smooth rock that might’ve come from a garden. “Someone already thought of that. Well, clearly not the police aspect, but holding the door open.”
“How nice of them.”
“Very,” Braiden said dryly.
Backtracking was easy, since there wasn’t much in the open space of the basement. I led the way to the stairs, pausing only when I was in the hallway. Ahead were the servants’ stairs. Behind was the basement entrance. Around me was nothing. No press of mood or entity, no tingling across my skin or the syrupy, condensed air of a being. Nothing. Just an empty house.
“It’s gone.” I shuddered out a sigh of relief and tears came to my eyes. “It’s done. The energy is gone.”
“Are you sure?” Braiden stepped around me and held the light a little higher.
“Can’t you feel it?” I put out my hands and wiggled my fingers. “The air is chilly, but it’s no longer cold. Fall weather, not ghost air.”
“I can’t feel— Oh. Stupid me.” Braiden rolled his shoulders. “You’re right. It feels like everyday life.”
“Normal,” I said, laughing to myself. “This is the normal everyone talks about. When you’re actually on your own. When the living are the only ones around.”
I shook my head, nearly breaking down in sobs, I was so relieved. But we weren’t out of the woods yet. We still had to get help, and our friends might be seriously hurt or worse. “Scarlet.”
Braiden’s comforting touch landed on my shoulder. “We need to get to a phone and call for help. Then we’ll run back and look, okay?”
I swallowed down the lump in my throat and nodded. A part of me wanted to tell him to go, that I could go find Scarlet on my own, and hopefully the rest of the crew, too, but there was no way I wanted to split up now. We were so close to actually getting out of here…
“Let’s hurry.” I ran up the stairs and then fell into a light jog, remembering (slightly) how we’d gotten there and getting us back to one of the crossroads we’d taken. The lightening sky glowed through the windows, as light as the full moon from yesteryear, with dawn not far off. I thought I remembered where we’d entered the house, and when I pointed, I received a nod.
Before I could start jogging again, a sound caught my ears—so soft I barely heard it. I paused to listen. Nothing in this house could be taken for granted.
A scuff, like a shoe on the floor.
Braiden clicked off the lantern. His hand found my shoulder as I struggled to adjust to the change in lighting.
Another scuff, then a squeak. Tennis shoes. And it wasn’t just one set of feet.
I scooted out of sight around the next corner. Braiden pushed in next to me, and on a silent cue, we both leaned forward just enough to see into the hallway we’d left.
The sound of the staggered footfalls increased. Movement caught my eye and I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding.
Scarlet!
I dashed out and around the corner, running at her. Joy and relief brought a fresh set of tears to my eyes.
“Oh!” She threw her hands up in defense when she saw me, startled. A moment later, she wrapped her arms around my back and whispered in my ear, “Tell Braiden to run. Tell him to run and go for help—”
“You made it! Oh thank God! What—”
I startled at the sound of a familiar voice…one that didn’t have any place in this house. I stared, wide-eyed, at the best sight I had seen in the thirty seconds since Scarlet came into view.
“Miss Potters! You got in,” I said, the need to get out of the house so intense that I could barely think straight. “Did you find anyone else? Are they okay?”
“That’s right. You’re safe. I found you.” She gave me a big smile. Her eyes sparkled with excitement, but they looked a little…wrong. Off somehow. “I don’t know about anyone else yet. Scarlet, here, was the first one I found. How many were with you?”
Scarlet gave me a tight smile with warning in her eyes.
“What happened?” I asked her.
“She barely escaped with her life, that’s what happened. But everything is going to be okay, don’t you worry. Come on.” Miss Potters ushered us along. “I know just the cure to your ailment.”
“Our ailment?” I asked in confusion as we reached the place where Braiden waited.
“No,” Scarlet said softly, and sagged.
“Oh!” Miss Potters laughed and put a hand to her chest. “Braiden. I didn’t see you there. Fantastic! I’ve heard about your past. Very troubled.” She tsked. “That is too bad, dear. Sometimes we can’t choose how our parents affect us. But then…” She brightened.
“Sometimes we can, and John thinks you are definitely one of those cases. Besides, you were visited, were you not? You have the affliction.”
“John?” I said.
“Yes, of course. You didn’t think I could do this all on my own, did you?” She laughed again and raised her hand.
I found myself staring into the barrel of a handgun.
“What’s happening?” I asked as my world swam. To be so close to safety, only to fall into danger all over again. I didn’t think I could go for round two.
Braiden turned to run, and Miss Potters shoved Scarlet out of the way and grabbed me by the scruff of my neck. “Come back, or I will shoot her. Look at me and see if I am lying.”
“She’s not lying!” Scarlet screamed. “She shot Leo in the head. He had a badly broken leg and a head wound, but he was alive. He was alive, and she shot him!”
“Oh right, yes. We found Leo, too.” I felt her shrug. “I forgot to mention that.”
Braiden slowed to a stop with his back to us. His shoulders dropped and he turned around.
“There you go. Yes, come on back.” Miss Potters walked toward him with the gun pressed to my temple. “Fantastic. This is just fantastic. We don’t have much time, though. Let’s hurry. Stay in front, Braiden. You too, Scarlet. If you try anything, anything at all, I will shoot you. Got it?”
“And then what?” I asked, gritting my teeth. I’d already had a gun pointed at me tonight. Shot at me, too. Men had thrown knives at me. Funhouse children had chased me in this maze of a house. I’d seen dead bodies… I’d been through a lot of horror in the past however-many hours, and if I was honest, this didn’t seem like the worst of it.
My resolve hardened. I hadn’t been able to get away from Braiden, but this woman was half his size and twice his age. If I got an opportunity, I was going to take it. I hadn’t survived this long to be killed by a teacher. That was not how this journey would end!
“You’ll be wanted for murder,” I said.
She laughed, a high-pitched, insane sound. “How naïve. All those unsolved cases over the years, and you think you’ll break the mold? The police will wait until the light of day to come barging in. Everyone in town knows that. Agrees with it, too. They’ve lost some of their own within these walls. Haven’t heard about that, Scarlet? Always so skeptical. I don’t even need to show you the way to the other side, Scarlet. You aren’t on the list. I could just kill you now. But I will show you the way. Slowly and painfully, I will. It will be a pleasure. I’ve hoped to pay you back for the way you always attempt to overrun my classroom, you snotty little brat.”
“The police?” I asked, grimacing with the dull pain of the gun being pushed harder into my head. I had a feeling we didn’t want Miss Potters to get worked up.
“The police, yes,” she said with a small sigh. “They’ve come in here a couple of times over the years. The last time, when they were looking for that missing historical society member that was nosing around, they got locked in. I heard all about it. They were chased around the mansion until John locked them up in a room. One was tortured in front of the others. They were told not to come back.” She sniffed. “Well, they haven’t, have they? Of course not. This town knows what breeds between these walls. If they don’t mention it, don’t speak its name, they think it will leave them alone. But John is forever, and when the time is right, I’ll join him and rule by his side.”
“She’s cracked,” Scarlet muttered.
“Shut up!” Miss Potters yelled. Sadly, unlike in the movies, she didn’t pull the gun from my head and point it at Scarlet. I could’ve elbowed her in the face if she had. Or tried my trusty eye gouge. That move had seemed to work on Braiden.
“John…the charming, handsome ghost that roams these parts?” I asked in a calm, even voice. In contrast, my whole body trembled. “You know him?”
“I was chosen.” Miss Potters puffed up with pride as she jerked her head for Braiden to take the hall leading to the steps to the basement.
Everything clicked into place and my heart sank.
Miss Potters was going to try and add us to the pile of bones below the house.
Chapter Thirty-Six
“Here.” Miss Potters dug into her pocket and held out a flashlight to me. “Turn that on.”
Braiden paused in front of the stairwell and clicked on the lantern.
“Oh.” Miss Potters reached around and grabbed my hand, directing the beam of the flashlight to the lantern. “That’s… Is that mine?”
“Why are you doing this?” I asked.
Braiden gave me a hard look before descending the stairs. Scarlet followed, her shoulders hunched, but I knew she wasn’t defeated. Not really. Anger was plain in her expression.
“Like I said, I was chosen.” Miss Potters pushed me out a little, holding on to my shoulder. I felt the gun press between my shoulder blades. “People like you need to be shown the way to the other side.”
“What other side?” I asked. “Heaven?”
She laughed. “Don’t be absurd. Evil creatures like you can’t go to heaven. You know, back in the day, they would’ve burned you at the stake, or drowned you in the lake. Or cast stones at you, like they did her.”
“I thought you said the Old Woman was chosen as the fall guy,” Scarlet said, pausing next to Braiden at the bottom of the stairs.
“See?” The gun jabbed me. “That’s why everyone hates you, you little know-it-all.” She paused, and when we got to the bottom, I could see it was because she was rolling her shoulders. “Braiden, you clearly know the way, thief that you are. That is my lantern, isn’t it? I guess it comes naturally to you now, stealing, doesn’t it? So angry on your mother’s behalf…but instead of helping her, you acted out. Thieving, bullying, fights, breaking and entering, and let’s not forget selfishness. Such a shame. Alas, I’ll make it right.”
His shoulders tensed, and everything I thought I knew about him went out the window.
“Which side did you say you were sending us to?” Scarlet asked.
“To hell, of course. You don’t deserve to go anywhere else,” Miss Potters said in a musical voice. She was enjoying this.
“And here I thought it was somewhere more interesting,” Scarlet muttered.
“What did you say?” Miss Potters demanded.
“Nothing, Miss Potters,” Scarlet said in a practiced way.
“Filthy little…” Miss Potters paused again. “Florence did take the fall for John, make no mistake. She didn’t kill those children. She pulled them out of their houses, but—simple fool that she was—she tried to care for them like her own. It was John who did what had to be done.”
“Which was not taking them home and explaining what had happened, I gather?” I asked.
That earned a little shake. “And allow the town to call his wife crazy and sully his good name? No. He took care of the problem.”
“And buried them under the house?”
“How did you—” The gun jabbed me again. “Doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter now. Yes— Wait, no. The first one he took to the swamplands, where he knew no one would ever dig. And no one has. It wasn’t until he caught her visiting the area under the house that he found the perfect place. She was in such a fog by that point that she didn’t know up from down. Every time she brought someone back, he sedated her, took the offering, and did away with it in his special way. A necessary measure to protect the townspeople.”
“To protect the townspeople from what?” Scarlet asked.
“Why, from people like your friends. I was amazed she brought back Alex and Janine, but not you, Ella. You were stronger than them. Stronger than them all.”
“How do you know all this?” Braiden said, stopping by the door.
Miss Potters puffed up with pride. “John tells me everything. He has confided in me like no one before me.”
“That can’t be true,” I said, my need for the truth overcoming any thoughts of strategy—namely, not getting shot. “People must hav
e…worked with him before you.”
“Oh, he has had many disciples, but very few women, and of them, he has only trusted me with the details of his past. It was a painful time for him, but he was chosen, just as I was chosen. He had to enact the ritual for himself, taking his own life so he could grow his power. He made a great sacrifice so as to live eternal. We must continue the tradition.”
“The tradition of stealing kids and killing them to cover it up?” I asked.
“The tradition of stoning innocent women in the streets?” Scarlet asked.
“She wasn’t innocent. She stole those kids, or near enough.” Miss Potters waved the flashlight at Braiden. “Don’t just stand there looking pretty—open the door.”
Braiden looked at the gaping hole, the door still standing open.
She waited as though he were doing her bidding.
“She had a mental illness brought on by losing so many children, especially since her doctor named her the guilty party, and you think she should’ve been stoned?” It took everything I had not to throw an elbow right then. “The woman needed help.”
“Is that right?” Miss Potters said smugly. “Well, what would you say if I told you that she can sense people with magic in their blood? Those are the ones she visits. The ones that call to her, and she to them. She brings them back here to witness her inability to produce—her lack of womanhood. What would you say then?”
“That you’re crazy and an asshole,” I blurted.
Scarlet’s mouth dropped open. Braiden smirked. Still we stood at the door, no one making a move to go in.
A silent beat passed.
“You have resisted the longest,” Miss Potters said in a quiet voice. “He thinks there is great strength in you. He has something planned—”
“So I heard,” I said dryly.
“—but you’ll still be second to me.”
“Didn’t you just say you were sending us to hell?” Scarlet asked.
“I don’t think she has all the information,” I muttered.
“What was that?” Miss Potters shook me, more roughly this time.
“Nothing, Miss Potters,” Scarlet said dutifully, looking at her feet.