The Manor

by Scott Nicholson

  "Then pay your debt," Ephram said. "Finish the spell."

  "Third time's a charm," she said. "But, first, they's one more promise you got to keep."

  "Promise? What promise?" The statue raised its face to the moon, and the grain of the oak sparkled like a hundred diamonds. Frost. It had settled on the wood.

  Frost and fire.

  Mason wasn't sure of the connection between those two words. But he understood fire. Miss Mamie's lantern glowed near the railing, where she'd set it down upon Korban's arrival. Mason wondered if he could reach it before Korban decided it was time to start hurling bodies from the top of his house.

  "Anna," Rachel called again.

  Anna opened her eyes to darkness.

  The darkness wasn't absolute. She blinked.

  "Where am I?" she asked, her voice passing as if over a hundred tongues.

  "In the basement."

  "The house?"

  "We all live here," said someone else, and a hand was in hers, small and cold.

  "You," Anna said, "the girl ghost from the cabin, the one Sylva called Becky."

  "You came to help us." And the girl smiled.

  "I can't help you," Anna said. And now she saw Rachel, ethereal and shimmering against the curtain of darkness.

  "I had to wait for you to die, Anna," Rachel said. "You have the gift, even stronger than mine. Korban killed me because he knew I was stronger than Sylva. But not like you. When you were alive, you had the Sight. Second Sight. But you had to die to get Third Sight."

  "Third Sight?"

  "The power to look from the dead back to the living. The power to join us together. To hold our dreams, the way Ephram never could, because he wanted them for himself. He wanted our fear and hate. But he forgot about faith. Because we believe in you, Anna."

  "Believe. So says the world's greatest liar." She wished she could laugh, but in this bleak, gray land of nothingness, such a sound couldn't exist.

  "Believe," Rachel said. "Become the vessel. Hold our dreams, our real dreams. Let our dreams go into you, so we can finally die."

  "You want to die?"

  "More than anything," the girl said.

  "Help us," came another voice from the gray smoke of this new dead world.

  "Free us from Korban," said another, and then another. How many souls had Korban trapped here over the years? How many of Sylva's potions and spells had spun their sick binding magic?

  "Follow your heart," Rachel said.

  "My heart. It only leads me to hell."

  "It belongs to the living."

  "No. I belong here."

  "Sylva lied, not me."

  "I don't trust any of you. Why should I believe you?"

  "Listen. I'm not your mother."

  "Not my mother?"

  "Ephram's power is that he lets you see what you want to see. He gives you what you wish for. Why do you think you can finally see the dead?"

  Anna didn't think it was possible to descend into a chill deeper than death, but the revelation made her soul spin. She had been a fool. How could you ever find your own ghost?

  "Sylva used you," Rachel said. "She used me, too. We're just pieces of driftwood to throw on her sacrificial fire."

  "I hated you," Anna said. "When Sylva told me you were my mother, I thought I'd finally found somebody to blame. Now it's just me. I'm just as lost as ever."

  "I'm sorry. I wanted to tell you, but Ephram controls me, too. All I want is to have never been born."

  "That goes for me, too," Anna said.

  "You're not alone, Anna. Something's happened. The binding spell has broken."

  "The dolls," Adam said.

  "Adam?" Anna said. Her soul eyes couldn't see him in the gloom. "Are you dead?"

  "They say I am, so I must be."

  "What about the dolls?" Rachel said.

  "Miss Mamie made them," Adam said. "Carved, with little apple heads. I saw mine, only I didn't know what it was. I think she carved one for everybody who died."

  "She's dead," Anna said. "I guess she never carved her own doll."

  "Then she can't bind us anymore," Rachel said. "We're free."

  "Not free," Anna said. "Not until Ephram's been killed for the final time."

  "Save us," Becky said.

  "Get us out of here," Adam said.

  "You're the one," Rachel said. "You were fetched here for a reason."

  Other voices came from the surrounding darkness, pleading, encouraging. Anna felt their energy flow around her, a current of heat that stirred her dead heart.

  "Third Sight, Anna," Rachel said. "I'm not your mother, but I would be proud if I were. Because you're strong. Even stronger than Ephram."

  "I don't know," Anna said. "What am I supposed to do?"

  "Say it. What Sylva taught you. Only backward."

  "Frost and fire?"

  "Yes. And believe it. Living stay alive, dead go back." Living. Maybe living wasn't so bad, even with its pain, sorrow, and failure. But at least life offered hope, second chances, choices. Was that the pain that rose inside her soul now? The pain of hope, the yearning for forgotten flesh, the regret of things left undone and words left unsaid?

  She thought of Mason on the widow's walk, facing the wooden monster he had made, a monster that would haunt this mountain the way no ghost ever could. Haunt it like a god, with anger and power and arrogance, as if all things living and dead belonged to it.

  "Go out fire, come in frost," Rachel said. "Say it."

  Anna opened her dead and dreaming mouth. Dozens of voices joined hers, Becky's, Adam's, Rachel's, all blended into a chorus, a chant of hope, an ache for the final freedom. "Go out fire, come in frost. Go out fire, come in frost. Go out fire, come in frost."

  One, a dividing line.

  Two, an empty hook.

  Three, a skeleton key.

  Third time's a charm, opening the door.

  To a room of hope. A house of faith.

  A home for the soul of Anna Galloway.

  She was Anna. She was alive.

  She opened her eyes, saw the blanched circle of the moon, felt the October chill on her skin, tasted the smoke that skirled from the chimneys, smelled the decay of windblown leaves, heard the hollow distant roar of Ephram Korban's heart. She put a hand to her own heart. Beating. In rhythm with his. And with the spirits she carried inside her, the combined hopes and dreams of the unhappy dead.

  Fuel.

  Ephram wanted fuel, she would give him fuel.

  She rose, and though her body still lay prone on the widow's walk, she didn't need flesh for this task. All she needed was faith of the spirit. Because she'd finally found something to belong to, something that offered more than just an endless darkness, something larger than herself.

  Her house was full, and Korban's was a house divided.

  Caught between frost and fire.

  CHAPTER 28

  Miss Mamie rose from her clatter of bones and husk of corpse.

  Where was her flesh, the beauty that Ephram had given her? She wanted a mirror, because mirrors never lied. And neither did Ephram. Because Ephram loved her. He'd killed her for a reason, surely.

  Maybe their love was meant for the other side, not the mortal side. That's the only thing that made sense. She still had eyes, she could see the mortal world, and could taste all the strange wonder of death, and death was the same as life, only better.

  She would go to Ephram now, on his terms, the way he had made her.

  But why was Sylva still alive? And young again, and beautiful?

  Ephram could explain everything. After all, they had forever.

  She went to him, though her spirit seemed stitched to the night sky, heavy and thick, and she fought to step from the fabric of darkness.

  A dull aura shimmered around the rough cut of the statue's shoulders. Ephram hoisted the polished maple bust aloft as if it were a trophy, showing himself the world, showing the world to the man who owned both sides of it.

  "Make her go
away," Sylva said to him. "Then I'll finish the spell."

  "Sylva," Ephram said, the statue and bust speaking in unison. "I've given you everything."

  "I want more than everything. It ain't enough that I get your heart. I want her out of your heart for good."

  "You're the only one I ever loved."

  "Yeah, but that's the same thing you said to her. Except you lied to one of us."

  Miss Mamie fought the gravity that pulled her toward darkness. Tunnels of the soul, Ephram said we all have tunnels of the soul. What's in mine, Ephram? What do I fear more than all the world?

  Sylva stared with wide loving eyes at the handsome hunk of oak. Her spells had brought out a misty horde, collecting around the statue like worshippers at the feet of a resurrected prophet:

  Ransom, confused and sad, fingers fumbling for a charm that had no power.

  George Lawson, offering his ragged hand in tribute.

  The Abramovs, their instruments forgotten, the music playing on without them.

  Lilith, fading in and out like a half-finished painting.

  William Roth, dribbling spiders from his empty eyes.

  The bust smiled at the night sky. "Good-bye, Margaret."

  Miss Mamie moved her hand to the locket. But it was gone. It lay among her empty gown and the dust of her desiccated body. And she realized she was already in her tunnel. Because this was her greatest fear, and she must watch as her love spun unwanted down a dark drain, her sacrifice refused, a century of promises adding up to nothing.

  She felt her soul scatter on the wind, to be carried off the mountain and away, where Ephram would be always out of reach.

  No way.

  No way in hell.

  But Mason couldn't deny it. Anna's body had stirred beside him. Her eyelashes quivered. Her chest rose slightly beneath the splotch of Mason's blood on her blouse. Anna's breath cooled the sweat on Mason's palm. She was back.

  And even in his fright and bewilderment, a surge of pleasure rushed through his bloodstream, a joy like none he had ever known. This was all a crazy dream, had to be, but dreams were everything now.

  Mason looked at the lovely red wood of the statue he made, at the spirits gathered around it, at the maple bust that demanded Sylva finish her spell.

  Anna's eyes opened, and her irises were no longer cyan. They were red, yellow, orange, glittering in the colors of fire.

  And she rose, except her body stayed on the planks. She stood. A ghost. But still her body breathed.

  She was on both sides at the same time, dead and alive.

  "She-she ain't supposed to come back," Sylva whimpered, drawing into her old woman's hunch despite her youth. "You killed her like you did Rachel."

  "I need her," Korban said. "She's part of the house. Now finish the spell. I kept my promise. Margaret is gone."

  Anna's living lips parted in that glorious half smile, spilled words in a chorus of dead voices. "It's the fire, Mason."

  He touched her cheek, and it was blazing with human heat. "Do you trust me?" he whispered, the kind of thing he would say in a dream. Nothing to lose.

  Maybe this was the true art, the creation that gave back, the work that made itself. This was the biggest dream image of them all.

  "Maybe," Anna said. "The fire." — "Maybe" was enough to risk everything. Mason knew what he had to do, what he should have done long ago. He eased toward the lantern, seeing Anna's eyes in its intoxicating flame.

  Oh Lordy, something ain't right.

  Sylva tossed the charm dust onto Ephram, pressed Rachel's burial gown to her heart.

  Anna wasn't supposed to be back at all. She was supposed to be dead and haunting the house, serving Ephram, working as his blood and juice and power. But there she lay, breathing and blinking and whispering to the sculptor.

  And Anna's eyes weren't right. Too many people looked through them, and every one was madder than a weasel in a hatbox.

  She would make him get rid of Anna, too, just like Miss Mamie. And Rachel. Get rid of them all. Only her and Ephram.

  She itched to try out this new body. A century of waiting was plenty long enough. She'd spent ten thousand charms on this man and it was time for a little payback.

  The beautiful bust opened its mouth. It would be awkward kissing that thing, making love to this statue that didn't even have all its parts yet, but they always said that love would find a way. And she had forever to learn how. Forever to tame him and teach him the value of her spells and conjures and charms. Forever to be needed.

  She opened her mouth to call in the fire a final time. "Go out frost and come in-"

  Anna knew this was the moment, a time of eternal crossing. Of burnt offerings. A time for ghosts to die.

  "Here comes your damn fire," Mason shouted above the mad music and rattling leaves. He grabbed the hurricane lantern, the flesh of his hand sizzling. He sprang at Ephram, screamed at the sky, and raised the lantern over his head, then swept it down toward the statue.

  Anna led the leap out of her body, her spirit a conduit for the trapped dreams and lost hope of all haunted souls.

  Fuel.

  The lantern smashed against the statue, the thick oil soaking into the oak, orange and red and blue ropes of fire spreading across Korban's ungainly form. A blaze of yellow raced up one arm, igniting the dark maple of the bust. Twin screams splintered the night as the fire roared to full life, whipped by the frenzied wind.

  Anna's chest emptied as the tortured ghosts of the manor routed through her, flew across the boards of the widow's walk, and swarmed into their hated master. Their fuel boosted the fire tenfold, twentyfold, and the statue stumbled and waltzed in blind agony. The bust dropped to the floor, the lips peeled back in endless pain. Mason kicked the flaming bust toward the statue, back into the hellish pillar of fire.

  Anna scrambled backward, void of all spirits but her own, the conflagration too dazzling to watch even with Second or Third Sight. Acrid smoke belched from the manor's four chimneys, and rich red sparks cut tracers in the air.

  The house swayed, its siding buckling and popping, the eaves snapping like dry bones. The gables themselves moaned in the anguish of collapse. Vines of smoke spilled from the manor's doors and windows, curling up the columns and darkening the sky.

  Korban spun in the darkness, in a St. Vitus dance of overdue death, Sylva kneeling at his feet, the dead and alive scrambling to escape the fire that raged on both sides of the dividing line.

  CHAPTER 29

  A wall of flame stretched across the widow's walk, cutting off escape through the trapdoor. Mason squinted against the smoke, the nerves of his scorched hand screaming in alternating ribbons of red and yellow pain, his head and arm aching from their wounds. Mason stumbled to the railing and looked down at the dizzying darkness.

  A hand touched him and he turned, ready to surrender, to let Ephram Korban pull him into the manor's endless nightmare.

  It was Anna.

  "The trees," Anna said. "I think we can reach them."

  "I can't," he said, throat dry. "Heights."

  "We all have to face our fears sooner or later. And you just burned your masterpiece. What else do you have to lose?"

  "You."

  "Okay, then. Come on, because I'm selfish as hell, too. And I don't want to survive this thing alone."

  She climbed over the rail at the point farthest from the surging blaze. A poplar swayed in the fire's back-draft, its branches rattling against the railing. Glass shattered below, flames shooting out the windows and spewing from the screaming mouths of the chimneys. The entire house groaned and crackled in the throes of destruction.

  "Ephram Korban," Anna said. "He's dying with the house."

  She gripped the branches and pulled herself over, then reached back for Mason. "Hurry."

  He took her hand, closed his eyes, then swung out and wrapped a leg around a thick branch. His stomach fluttered, feeling the space beneath him, the long, yawning gap between his body and the ground Don't think, Mason
.

  She came back from the dead, and you're worried about a little thing like falling.

  But it wasn't the falling he was afraid of, it was the landing. The dying. Because he'd seen the hollow and vacant eyes of those who had stared down those black tunnels. He'd take blindness over any of the those deeply hidden horrors, those secrets of his soul that were stashed far away from the light.

  He scrambled along the branch, her hand gripping his bloody shirt, and by the time they reached the thick trunk of the tree, he was gripping her in return.

  The walls were collapsing. It was the end. Spence stared at the paper, at the Word.

  F-i-r-e

  Flames crawled along the cracks in the baseboard, smoke erupted from the fireplace. The window shattered outward and flames gushed from under the closet door like colored water.

  A shrill voice pierced through the crackling of the fire: "Get out, Jeff,"

  The Muse? He looked up from the typewriter, confused. The work was beautiful. Out of place in this malefic chaos, this destruction, this Dantean inferno. But the Word-the word couldn't harm its maker, could it?

  He had been wrong. The Word had lied.

  Korban had lied.

  The writer was the master. The language was the slave.

  The room was filled with smoke now. Bridget, shouting from the hall, ducked out of sight. Spence sat forward with a squeak of chair springs. He tried to scoop up his manuscript, but hungry flames rippled up the back of the desk.

  He stood, eyes bleary, fingers numb. Smoke filled his mouth and throat. He started toward the door. He couldn't leave his manuscript. He turned with effort, dazed from lack of oxygen. The pages had burst into a bright bonfire, the sentences now vapor, the Word lost in the heat of its own blinding glorious lie.

  Spence blundered against the door frame, a tug of regret in his chest. He hadn't pressed the period, the final key. He hadn't finished the manuscript. He started back into the room, but the ceiling was falling, the house collapsing, the typewriter lost in a tide of yellow and red.

  The fire sucked oxygen through the window, and the hot breeze sent a sheet of paper out the doorway. Spence grabbed it, held it to his chest.