The Manor

by Scott Nicholson

  The statue clambered up the stairs, awkward as a drunken mannequin. Mason peeked over the banister and saw the bust cradled in the statue's arm like an infant carried by its mother.

  The bust's maple lips parted, and a cry echoed off the woodwork, as if the entire house joined voice with Korban: "Finish MEEEEEE."

  Mason fled up the stairs. The third floor was dark. Only a milky spill of moonlight through the windows prevented Mason from running full-speed into a wall. He tried to suck breath into his lungs, but the black air was like a solid thing, a suffocating thickness. Mason heard voices and looked up, saw the square of lesser darkness.

  The trapdoor to the widow's walk.

  Where Anna's ghost had screamed from the painting.

  The swollen moon rose, cutting through the tree branches. The forest glittered with frost, and Anna's breath hung silver before her. Miss Mamie led her to the railing, and Anna looked out across the land that would be her home. She belonged to this house, to this mountain, to Ephram Korban.

  "You're beautiful," Miss Mamie said, lifting her lantern to Anna's face. "I can see why Ephram wants you so badly. For that, and for your gift."

  The Abramovs sat in their chairs, drew their instruments to their bodies like the meat of lovers. Paul perched his video camera on a tripod, Adam watching him. Cris and Zainab chatted near the bar, Lilith laughing and filling their glasses. Other guests stood in a cluster by the far railing, talking in low, excited voices.

  "You know why you're here, don't you, Anna?" Miss Mamie said.

  "Because I belong here." The words were someone else's.

  "So do I," Sylva said, and Miss Mamie turned, faced the old woman.

  "No," Miss Mamie said, cheeks burning with rage. "This is Ephram's night. He told me you'd never be back, that he had used you up."

  "Ephram needs me more than he needs you."

  "I kept him alive, and he kept me young. Look at you, you pathetic sack of skin and bones. And you thought he could ever love such as you."

  "Love's like a door that swings both ways. And so's death. Frost and fire. But you wouldn't know that, would you? You don't know a thing about magic, or spells, or faith, or any of the things that kept Ephram's spirit here all these years."

  "You're just a crazy old witch-woman, muttering over dust and herbs. I'm the one he needs. I know how to make the poppets."

  "Well, he'll be along shortly, and you can just ask him for yourself. Now, what do we do about dear little Anna?"

  "Anna?"

  Anna lifted her head at the mention of her name, the night like water, the world in slow motion.

  The Abramovs began a solemn duet, bows sliding across the strings with melancholy softness, the notes vibrating on the wind. This was Anna's house. She wasn't Anna Galloway, had never been. That life was a dream, the lethal cancer a bell that had sounded her home, death just a slow transition that carried her back to herself.

  She was Anna Korban.

  And she would walk these walls forever.

  The cold of the world became the coldness inside her, the frozen heart of forever, as she stepped to that dividing line.

  "What about her?" Sylva said.

  "Oh, Anna dies," Miss Mamie said. "For the last time."

  CHAPTER 26

  Mason scrambled through the trapdoor and up into the cold night.

  The presence of the great space around him, and the depth below, made his head swim and his stomach lurch. The sea of night and the distant rolling waves of the mountains took the strength from his legs, as if they were boneless. He forced himself not to think about the ground far below on all sides. A pathetic fear of heights paled in comparison to all the new fears he'd discovered.

  Mason blinked the blood from his eyes and took in the unreal scenery of the widow's walk. Anna was by the rail, between Miss Mamie and an old woman in a filthy dress and shawl. They seemed to be arguing over Anna, who looked drugged or sleepy, swaying in the strange light cast by the moon. Mason's sweat cooled in the autumn air, and he touched the gash in his shoulder. The pain yanked him alert, and he ran to Anna.

  "The painting," he said. "You were calling to me."

  "Who are you?" Anna said.

  "Where's the statue?" Miss Mamie asked him. "You didn't leave it down there alone, did you?"

  He looked behind him, at the trapdoor. "We've got to get out of here, Anna."

  Mason took her arm, and the coldness of her skin flooded through him like an electric shock. He looked into her eyes and saw a blackness inside that never ended. Tunnels. Her eyes were tunnels of the soul, leading down to death or opening from a deeper darkness inside her.

  Before he could shake her, ask her what was wrong, the statue stuck its rough-hewn head through the opening. Shrieks erupted from some of the guests as the statue rose awkwardly onto the widow's walk, its heavy limbs clattering, Mason's chisel still in its chest, the bust tucked under its thick wooden arm. The Abramovs stopped in mid-arpeggio. A wineglass shattered. Miss Mamie gasped and rushed toward the brutish form. "Ephram!"

  As the statue stood on unsteady legs, the cradled bust stared at Mason with hot anger in its eyes. Miss Mamie threw her arms around the wooden torso.

  The old woman reached inside her shawl and pulled out a layer of cloth. She unfolded it and approached the statue with slow steps. "I brung you what you wanted, Ephram."

  Mason looked from the old woman to Anna. They both had those same haunted cyan eyes, and Mason realized why they seemed so familiar. Because they were the eyes that he'd lovingly carved into the bust of Ephram Korban.

  He reached for Anna again, to pull her toward the trapdoor, unable to think of anything besides making a run for it. Three flights of stairs, the house alive with ghosts. Korban would never let them leave. But they had to try.

  Before Mason could order his legs to move, the ghost appeared near the railing, the spitting image of Anna. She held a bouquet before her. Just like the woman in the painting.

  "Mother," Anna said.

  This wasn't the way Miss Mamie had imagined this night, the way she had wished it during all those thousands of lonely hours, when she had only Ephram's face in the mirror, his spirit in the hearth, his words coming from the portrait.

  This night was supposed to be perfect, a union of two souls, all else forgotten. Ephram and his beloved Margaret, together again, joined in simultaneous life and death. With dreams to fill.

  Yet there was the old hag Sylva, who had tempted poor Ephram so long ago. And now Rachel was here. Rachel, who was never supposed to be in the house. That was the reason she and Korban's servants had chased her, made her leap to her death. Ephram said those who betrayed him could never be free, but those who served would be allowed to die a second and final time. That's why Miss Mamie had carved the apple head dolls, the little poppets that housed the enslaved souls.

  "The sculptor didn't finish," Miss Mamie said to the statue.

  The bust answered. "He will."

  Sylva knelt before the statue, unfolded the cloth, held up the collection of powders in both her wrinkled hands. "Ashes of a prayer, Ephram. I did just like you told me."

  Miss Mamie clung to the statue, her beloved Ephram, who was wearing flesh after all those years of being reduced to smoke and shadow. "What's she talking about, Ephram?"

  The statue swept its oaken arm, shoving Miss Mamie to the floor of the widow's walk. She rose to her hands and knees, her dress torn, the beautiful gown she'd been saving for the blue moon. For their second honeymoon.

  "Ephram?" she said.

  "He don't need you," Sylva said.

  Miss Mamie crawled toward Ephram, hugged his chipped legs. "Ephram. You love me."

  The statue kicked her away. "Spell me, Sylva."

  "Give me her years first," Sylva said. "Make me young again. Like you promised."

  "Spell me."

  "You said you always keep your promises." Sylva held up the cloth full of folk potions.

  "What's she talking about, Ephram?"
Miss Mamie said. Suddenly she felt cold, as if a glacier had cut through her heart. She looked at her hands. Wrinkled flesh rose on her skin, deep creases carved themselves into her flesh, tiny rivers of age running dark in the moonlight. She touched her face, the skin drawing tight across her skull even as it sagged under her chin.

  Oh God, she was growing old.

  "You promised me, Ephram," she said. "Together forever."

  The statue and bust joined in laughter. The guests ran for the trapdoor, but Lilith closed it and stood on it.

  "Nobody ever leaves Korban Manor," she said, grinning like a skeleton.

  Anna stepped toward Rachel, moving as if under dark water. "What are you doing here?"

  "I tried to warn you, but you wouldn't listen."

  "About Sylva?"

  "She's always loved Korban. That's why she killed me, to please him. That's why she learned folk magic, the spells and potions that kept his spirit alive until she could finally bring him all the way back."

  "This is all a crazy, screwed-up dream," Mason said.

  Anna flashed him a half smile. Couldn't he see the obvious? Everything was so much easier when you were dead. Because the dead no longer have to dream.

  "I'm seeing it, but I don't believe it," Paul said, head tilted into the viewfinder of his video camera. "This is great stuff. Romero on acid, John Carpenter on a budget."

  Adam yanked on his arm. "We've got to get out of here."

  "Shockumentary. I wouldn't miss this for the world."

  "Damn you, Paul, this is like my dream. Don't you see? Everybody's dead."

  Paul looked up from the camera, gave his boyish grin. "Not all of us, Princess. Just you."

  "Don't be like that," he said.

  "You're either working for the man on this side, or you serve him on the other side. You can be dead if you want, but me, I'd rather be the next Alfred Hitchcock, just like Korban promised me."

  "I'm not dead, you stupid bastard."

  Paul laughed. "Whatever."

  Adam looked at the hand that gripped Paul's sleeve.

  The fingers passed through the cloth, clutched on nothingness. He put a hand to his chest. When had his heart stopped beating?

  Sweet Jesus, have mercy, when did my heart stop beating?

  Paul pointed over the railing, to the hard patch of driveway below the porch. Adam couldn't help looking. There was a shape down below, prone, twisted, torn. Six feet long, dressed in gray pajamas that were dark with liquid. The shape was deathly still.

  And alone.

  Utterly alone.

  Spence placed a quivering finger on the Royal. The ghosts had drifted past, their nebulous flesh throwing a chill around the room. Roth was gone, Bridget away somewhere.

  Spence pressed a key.

  F.

  The One True Word, undressing itself, shucking its golden skin, opening its warm flesh to him. An invitation to enter.

  The stir of ghosts ruffled the pages of his manuscript as the white shapes filtered into the ceiling. His greatest work ever. The greatest work ever. They could drag him back to Eileen Foxx's class, but this time he would have something to show them, to shut their slack little mouths and amaze their dull and cruel eyes. He had proof of his superiority.

  His gut ached, sweat pooled under his armpits, his scalp tingled. The electric tension of the ghosts made the hairs on the back of his hands stand up. He pressed another key, and i slapped into place beside the f.

  He thought the One True Word would be something rare and noble, something with seven syllables that only literary giants and dictionary-makers knew. Funny that the word was common, elemental. But Spence's opinions held no weight here.

  He was only the instrument, the sword and scepter, the pen, the flint and steel. The Word was the beginning and end of things.

  Go out frost and come in fi…

  He slammed home the r, weeping at the finishing of his work, already feeling the old emptiness, already bracing himself to need Bridget again. Someone to save him from himself.

  He looked up at Ephram Korban, at the kind face, the encouraging eyes, the generous lips that had given him every wondrous word of this magnificent manuscript.

  "Thank you, sir," Spence said.

  The ghosts were gone now. No distractions. No excuses. Just himself and Word and Korban. As he watched, the portrait faded to black, like the dying of an old tube television set.

  He searched the keyboard, blind from tears, and put his clumsy, unworthy finger in the beautiful cup of the key.

  Sylva felt the energy rush through her veins, the weariness falling away, the sweet juice of youth washing over her like a brisk waterfall. She tilted her head back and laughed. Let Miss Mamie fade to dust. Ephram loved only one, the one who had made the sacrifices. The one who had faith. The one who had crum-Wed the bloodied burial gown of her own daughter, who had crushed owl bones and raven feathers and stoneroot and a dozen other special substances.

  The one who gave Ransom bad charms. The one who built Ephram's bridge back to this world on the ashes of a thousand prayers. The one who had said the spells, who had sent magic on the winds and summoned Anna, hooked her in the deepest meat of her heart and reeled her in, tricked her blind so that her death could complete the circle.

  Oh, Sylva had the faith, all right, and she wanted all the fruits of faith.

  She wanted Ephram back.

  She rose, fourteen again, eager to give her restored virginity back to the man who had stolen her soul, who had lit an everlasting flame in her heart. She tossed a pinch of the special dust toward the statue, imagining those big arms loving her, those crude lips hot on her skin, those eyes burning into hers forever.

  "Say it," the statue said.

  She whispered, trembling, "Go out frost, come in fire."

  CHAPTER 27

  At Sylva's words, the four threads of smoke from the chimneys insinuated themselves, thickened into a great gray fog. The smoke sent its frayed fingers toward Anna, wending between Mason, Sylva, and the statue that housed part of the soul of Ephram Korban. The bust, which contained the rest of Ephram's invisible and eternal self, smiled at Anna with perverse affection.

  Mason swatted at the smoke with both hands, but it slipped past him and the moonlit gray fingers crawled over Anna like cold earthworms. They found the soft part of her throat and became solid, squeezing in a gentle pressure that was almost erotic. She reached up to pull them away, then relaxed under their insistent caresses. Her lungs burned from lack of air and an icy dizziness rushed up her spine to the base of her skull. She tried to speak, Mason had her by the shoulders and was shaking her, she was dimly aware of movement on the widow's walk, but the gray tide was seeping in from the edges of her vision, pushed by a great black wave of nothing.

  She didn't know when the change occurred. The line had been thinner than she'd ever imagined. For the briefest of moments, she was on both sides, alive and dead at once, but the moment passed and she crossed over. She'd finally found herself, her true self. She'd become the ghost she'd always wanted to be.

  The pain inside was gone. In its place was an unsettling hollowness, an empty ache. Loneliness. She was dead and she still didn't belong.

  And death was just like life, because the world was the same: Sylva whispering something to the statue, Miss Mamie kneeling and wailing, her hands cupped over her face as if trying to hold her flesh in place, Lilith drifting under the moonlight, the Abramovs slumped with vacant eyes, now playing a funereal tune, Mason crouched before her, yelling at her, raving about a talking painting and Korban in the wood and dreams come to life and all sorts of nonsense. Couldn't he see that none of that mattered?

  Death and life, all the same now.

  Rachel hovered before her, holding out the bouquet. "I'm sorry, Anna. I failed you."

  Anna reached for the bouquet. Her body collapsed.

  "Anna!" Mason jumped toward her, tried to catch her and slow her fall, but the body she'd abandoned slumped beyond his reach. She
heard her flesh slam against the wooden planks of the widow's walk, but her spirit kept falling. Through the house, through this place of dark emptiness that would be her home.

  Death wasn't a release. Death, at least in Ephram Korban's version, was just another prison, this one full of the same suffering that shadowed the living. Only here, there was no escape, no hope, and still nobody to belong to.

  "Anna." Rachel's voice, a moaning graveyard wind, a desperate fetching.

  And still Anna fell.

  Mason held Anna in his arms. Her face was pale, eyes glazed and protruding. He put his cheek to her mouth. No breath.

  No breath.

  Anger and fear rose in him, tears stinging his eyes. He looked up at the obscene, bloated moon. She was dead. And it was his fault. He'd failed her.

  He gently laid her down, wiped the blood from his face, and turned to the statue. The old woman that Korban had called Sylva had changed, was now young, her face twisted in a sick rapture. Mason rose to his feet, though the long drop beyond the railing made his head swim, the sense of being on the top of the world caused his guts to clench in dread.

  "Go out frost, come in fire," Sylva repeated, her skin vibrant and healthy in the moonlight. Hadn't Anna said something about frost and fire?

  God, why couldn't he remember?

  And did it even matter?

  Because his statue, his creation, his big goddamned dream image, stood there on the widow's walk like a monstrous wooden idol, born of vanity and faith and love. Yes, love. Because Mason loved his work.

  "You'll finish me, won't you, sculptor?" The bust spoke calmly, cradled in the thick arms of the statue. "You love me. Everyone loves me."

  "You promised me Anna," Mason said.

  "Oh, her. She's nothing. A necessary evil. And you'll learn that flesh is fleeting, but the spirit is for eternity. Isn't that right, my dear Sylva?"

  "When you give somebody your heart, you owe them," the woman said. And though she now had a beauty that rivaled Anna's, the shadows around her eyes were older than the Appalachians, dark and cold and full of terrible secrets.