Inside, the house was darker than she expected. She clicked on her flashlight and swept the beam over the marbled black patterns snaking across the floor. At the end of the vestibule, she turned the first corner and saw the grandfather clock, its polished brass pendulum still swinging, its gears still ticking loudly enough to hear through the hood.
Brooks’ voice sounded in her earpiece, “Can you hear me?”
“Yes. I’m in. You’re going to have plenty of samples of this shit. It’s all over the bottom of my boots.”
“Yeah, we figured. Might just bag and incinerate them. You’re not getting stuck to the floor are you?”
“No, I can move. I’m in the second hall now. I can see the library curtain. Just like in the video, most of the sludge is moving in that direction on this floor.”
“Okay. Listen, kiddo: if anything looks unstable, you forget about the book and get out. Hear me?”
Something caught her eye and she stopped dead in her tracks. Had she seen a face looking out at her from the tarnished brass of the clock pendulum? Eyes glimpsed as if through the porthole of a ship? She took a step back and stared at the swinging disc. Nothing. Just paranoid jitters.
“Becca? You copy?”
“Yeah, I’m here. I’m going to the library.”
Moving down the hall, she heard a female voice shout
(“Django!”)
and stopped dead. The air in front of her wavered, the red curtain swayed, and a black and white blur streaked into the parlor, trailing black and brown.
“What was that?” The same voice again. Her own? She looked over her shoulder. She was alone.
“A cat, I think.” Brooks.
“What cat?” The voices ricocheted around her in the oil-streaked corridor.
“A black and white cat. Must’ve wandered in from the street.”
“He’s gone. Where did he go?”
“What do you mean gone?”
“I thought you trained him not to chase animals.”
“We didn’t run into any housecats in the rainforest. He’s fine around—”
“Becca?” Brooks’ voice, close and metallic in her earpiece. “Are you in the library?”
She swallowed. “Not yet. I’m going in now.”
She came to the heavy red curtain, pulled it aside and shone the light into the dusty room. She had only ever seen the library through the drone’s eyes. It was bigger than she’d expected, and well ordered, exhibiting few signs of the Reverend Proctor’s residency except for the remains of a few melted candles, what appeared to be a small whetstone, and some spent incense on a charcoal briquette in an iron censer. She wondered if he had even packed a suitcase for Wade House, or if he’d worn the same clothes every day since they’d moved in. A closer inspection revealed his folded cot in a corner, and the faint remains of a chalk circle on the floor. She snapped a few shots of the chalk marks using her SLR with the flash on, the faceplate of her mask beginning to fog from her perspiration, making it difficult to read the settings in the small LCD screen.
The air was thick, the absence of windows conspiring with the heavy curtain to keep all drafts out. She was grateful for the filter in her mask, and could only imagine what the room smelled like. She pictured Caleb Wade sitting at the oak desk burning his noxious candles through the night, year after year as he indulged whatever obsessions had led him to build such a sick house. She looked again at the candle stubs Proctor had left behind. Were they even made of wax? Thoughts of boiled fat welled up in the back of her mind and she shut them down. She had to stay focused. Get the book and get out.
Becca scanned the shelves. It took a moment to get her bearings in the octagonal room, but there, opposite where she expected to find it was the ash smudge and the jutting spine. She approached the shelf and withdrew the stubborn volume, finding it to be leather-bound and marred with scorch marks along the bottom edge. Proctor had tried to burn the book, and failing to ignite it, had jammed it into a not-quite-big-enough slot on the shelf in a hasty effort to make it just one more tree in the forest. But where had he found the book in the first place? Under one of the paving stones in the floor? In a desk drawer? She would never know. She cracked the tome open to a random page in the middle and found slanting cursive writing filling every inch down to the singed bottom of the page.
She flipped to the title page and found an elaborately scrolled frame adorned with drawings of a lion, eagle, bull, and man in the four corners. The title, meticulously penned in blackletter calligraphy read: Ye Shadow Booke of Caleb Wade, Brother of the Craft.
A chill ran down Becca’s spine. She closed the book and trained her flashlight on the cold fireplace. Had Proctor tried to burn the book in there and failed because of the draft drawing the black flakes into the house? It was just one more thing she would never be sure of, but at least the contents of the book might shed some light on the reverend’s thoughts, plans, and aspirations, if he had indeed been inspired by it.
She tucked the book under her arm, scanned the upper shelves with the light, and lingered for a moment, wondering if she should explore further. After all, she had what she’d come for, and was under no threat to retreat in haste. Maybe she would find something else of significance. She moved to the spiral stairs that ascended to the second level and gripped the railing with her gloved hand.
A burst of static filled her ear. “Becca. What’s your status?”
“I have the book.”
“Come out the same way you went in.”
“Okay.”
She turned and swept the room one last time with the light. It flared back in her eyes from a gilt framed mirror over the mantle. She settled the beam on the slate hearth, letting its ambiance illuminate the glass indirectly. The mirror seemed to reflect another place entirely—not a library, but a long stone corridor speckled with black mold and broken at intervals with dark rectangles where other corridors connected to it.
Mirrors are windows.
Mirrors are doors.
Her grandmother had said that long ago, and Becca had come to understand the meaning of it when for a time, any reflective surface—water, metal, or glass—had become a potential portal to the world next door. Had the reverend been watching the maze through this mirror before he resolved to enter it through the shore beyond the piano? Or had the house’s alignment to that other world shifted when he’d entered the maze and unleashed the flood?
Becca approached the fireplace, keeping the light at an oblique angle. She stared down the corridor in the mirror. It was as still as a picture. No, that wasn’t entirely true. Light and shadow moved as if with the passing of clouds across sun or moon or whatever celestial body lit this other realm.
She extended her hand toward the glass, expecting to meet no resistance, expecting to pass through or cause a ripple. But the mirror was solid. She tapped her fingertips against it and exhaled, her breath through the mask’s air filter loud in her ears. A crackle made her jump. “Becca? You coming out?”
“Yes.”
Passing between the red curtain and the doorframe, she felt a moment of disorientation when the hallway she’d stepped into was stripped of its wallpaper and wood floor and became a cold stone corridor like the one she’d glimpsed in the mirror.
A swirl of black fabric disappeared around a corner where the kitchen should have been, and a shadow passed over the hall, dimming even the flashlight beam. When it passed, the hall was the same it had been when she’d entered the library.
The grandfather clock grinding away the seconds was the only sound apart from the pounding surf of her pulse in her ears, her breath in her mask, or was that…distant strains of a chanted melody?
The faded winter sunlight was blinding when she pushed through the front door and staggered down the steps clutching the book to her chest. She had dropped the flashlight inside, where it would remain on the floor, casting its beam down the hall until the batteries died. An agent met her halfway across the meadow and received the bo
ok in a leaded pouch.
* * *
“Proctor is in the house.” Becca was sitting on the floor of the conference room with Django curled in her lap.
“You saw him?” Brooks paced beside the table at which Northrup, Hanson, and Burns sat. Burns was in his own world, sketching on a legal pad and eating Oreos. The other two looked haggard and tense. Becca had shed the radiation suit and used the hut’s portable shower. Now they were waiting for contamination tests to be run on the book.
“I saw him. In and out of the house.”
“What, in the yard?” Brooks said.
“No, flickering in and out of it. It’s like he’s in the walls, but not really. He’s moving alongside the house at weird angles. I think he’s trying to find his way through the maze to the other side. I kept catching glimpses of him in reflective surfaces. I don’t know if he could see me, but at one point the hallway shifted and I was in the maze. Like the house lined up with the in-between for a second and I saw him going around a corner. I don’t know if I’m making sense…”
“You are,” Hanson said. “And it means there’s a chance of catching him during one of those alignments before he reaches the center.”
“Or a chance of losing one of you to the labyrinth,” Northrup said.
“I think it’s worth a shot,” Brooks said.
“Slow down,” Northrup said. “The place is still radioactive. Sending you in wearing a suit that could be punctured in a confrontation isn’t ideal. And we don’t know all the forces in play here. No one’s going in until we at least know what Proctor knows. Not until we know what he found in Wade’s book.”
Brooks slammed the heel of his hand against the table. His water bottle shuddered and sloshed. Northrup bristled and waited for the argument.
“We can’t wait,” Brooks said. “You can’t wait. If he uses that key…”
Hanson leaned in to finish the thought, “What would you do if he was racing to unleash a bioweapon? You’d send men after him, right? And damn the risk to them.”
Northrup shot a glance over the modular wall where Nico Merrit stood watching, listening. His tone remained calm when he spoke. “Knowledge is our greatest advantage, and Becca won that for us. If you go in without a clue, you’ll be lost in there. We wait for the book.”
“How long until that’s cleared?” Brooks asked.
“Not long. Paper doesn’t retain radiation. The tests are precautionary.”
“Marie Curie’s notes are still radioactive,” Burns said, twisting the top wafer off of an Oreo. Everyone looked at him.
“The paper isn’t,” Hanson said. “Not really. It’s bits of radium she was handling that got stuck between the fibers that register.”
“Well, we don’t know if the book absorbed enough of that sludge to retain radioactivity,” Northrup said. “And paper can’t be cleaned without damaging it. We may need to study the book with protective gear, but we don’t go into the house blind. The expedition is on hold until we know what we’re dealing with. Maybe by then, the sludge will dissolve and the place will be habitable again.”
“You think it’ll just disappear?” Brooks said.
Northrup shrugged. “The black snow stopped falling. The other side seems to be reclaiming the remains of the incursion. That’s a good thing. What we don’t want is anything coming out. Remember, we’re looking for a way to seal it. Bringing Proctor out may not be advisable. Locking him in with his gods might be better.” He shot a look at Becca, expecting an argument about her father, but it didn’t come.
“But he has a key,” Becca said. “What do you think he plans to do with it? What if he’s trying to open the deepest door he can find? What if he intends to let them all loose again through the house?”
Hanson was nodding. “She’s right. Our priority should be to stop him at all costs.”
“He told me he doesn’t want to let anything out,” Brooks said. “He doesn’t care about this world, only reaching the other. I actually believe him.”
Northrup frowned. “It may very well be that he only wants to reach his gods. But what do they want?”
Chapter 13
It was snowing again when they drove north. Becca looked at white sky and the wet, black road, and yearned for the jungle. She had tried to escape the weight of winter and the downward spiral that dragged her in every time it came around, draining her of energy, blurring her focus, and undermining her capacity to give a fuck about anything. Intellectually, she knew she should be feeling lighter with every mile Brooks put between the car and that sick house, that so very wrong house that hurt her head to even look at. But emotionally, she was succumbing to the old blackness of January in the northern hemisphere. She felt powerless to fight back against it, and that only made her angry with herself. Despite the consistency of her seasonal depression, she felt like she should be over it by now. The medication helped, but it wasn’t a miracle cure. And being in New England only made it worse.
Becca rolled a small fleece blanket into a bundle and placed it between her head and the window. She tried to sleep, but found her eyes returning to the overhead signs, the familiar names of North Shore towns. She had approached Northrup and requested leave to use the hiatus for a trip to Miskatonic University, to view her grandmother’s collection and see if Catherine had written anything about the Wade House. He had granted it and told her to have the librarians call him directly if she needed him to exert pressure for the release of any restricted items. Becca had almost stopped short of asking for Brooks to accompany her, but decided to go all in at the last minute. By the end of the conversation, she was pretty sure Northrup suspected nothing extracurricular from the pair of them, but he was hard to read.
Now she wondered why she was headed back to Arkham and undisclosed points north when she should be heading to Logan airport and warmer climes. She poked at the radio, in search of something to match her aggressive mood. Nothing fit. The only thing she heard with enough distortion to make her finger hesitate over the scan button for a second was Daughtry, and she couldn’t stand that shit. She shut the radio off, itching for a Tool disc. Aenima would do just fine. Something cathartic.
“I need to take a little detour on the way to New Hampshire,” Brooks said.
“Where?”
“Andover. Just for an hour or so.”
“What’s in Andover?”
“Tom. You remember Tom?”
“Tom who almost puked on me in a helicopter while the apocalypse broke out? How could I forget?”
“Jeez, I thought you had a soft spot for the guy. Maybe you should stay in the car.”
“Why are we visiting Tom? We have forty-eight hours to hit Arkham and the White Mountains.”
Brooks looked away from the road and scrutinized her. “Are you in a twist because we’re going to see your dad? It was your idea.”
She glared at him. He looked at the road. After a minute, he said, “What is it? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
He scoffed.
“What?”
“Just, if you don’t want to talk about it, fine, tell me to fuck off, but don’t say nothing. That’s such a chick thing to do. I think I know you well enough by now. Don’t want to tell me, fine.”
Becca looked out the window, then turned to him. “What’s wrong is everything. Winter is wrong, New England is wrong. Me working for the government or thinking my dad is worth looking for is wrong. I shouldn’t be here and I’m wrong for being involved in any of this. I thought it was over and it’s not and if anyone is counting on me to deal with it, they’ve made a mistake. I’m not up to it. This bullshit from beyond has cost me everything. And I don’t have anything left to give.”
“So why are we going to New Hampshire?”
“We’re going because anywhere is better than that house. If I had a home, I’d ask you to take me there, but I don’t, so I might as well find out what else my father’s been hiding from me and lying about since he rode off into the
fucking sunset.”
“Well, okay then. Onward.”
* * *
Tom Petrie greeted them at the front door of his condo with food stains on his plaid shirt. “Jason,” he said with a tone of not unpleasant confusion. “I didn’t know you were coming.”
“I hope it’s okay.”
Tom looked beyond the odd couple on his doorstep, scanning the street with a furtive glance. His receding hair looked in need of a trim and in the pale winter light, his eye sockets betrayed the purple shadows earned from sleepless nights.
“We’re here alone,” Brooks said. “Except for Becca’s dog in the car. Do you remember Becca?”
Tom’s gaze settled on her, but his polite smile lacked recognition.
“It’s okay if you don’t,” Becca said. “I remember you.”
“Did we meet when I met Jason?”
“Yes, Tom, you and Becca both helped out during the crisis,” Brooks said.
“Sorry, that time is really fuzzy for me.”
“May we come in?” Brooks asked.
Tom stepped aside. “Oh, yeah, please.”
The condo was a bi-level with a steep staircase rising from the entryway, a bright, airy kitchen straight ahead, and a carpeted living room with furniture that had seen better days off to the right. It had the split-personality look of a home both carefully baby-proofed and wildly cluttered. Tom led them into the living room and gestured at the couch. Becca sat beside Brooks and took in the room: toddler toys and board books piled on the floor, family photos on the shelves. From the couch, she could also see a rectangular patch on the hallway wall, slightly lighter in hue than the rest of the cream-colored paint, indicating that a picture frame or mirror had been removed, a hook remaining in the drywall near the top of the empty patch.
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