Lily was right.
There was no way we could jump from here.
The logistics of breaking the window and trying to get out that way notwithstanding, I didn’t want to think about the probability of surviving after we had fallen to the ground.
“It’s like forty feet,” she said. “Maybe? It’s hard to say from up here, but we would probably survive.”
“You think?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I’m being optimistic.”
I laughed.
“What do you think, Doctor?” she said, and I could hear the teasing tone in her voice. Surprisingly, it didn’t annoy me. If anything, I found it pleasant.
“Survive, maybe. I suppose there’s a good chance, though it’s hard to say,” I replied. “You can survive a fall from way up high. Initially. Then who knows what will happen?”
She turned to me, frowning. “Wait, what do you mean?”
“Think about it,” I replied. “We’re already trying to get you medical attention and we haven’t been able to. What if you fall the wrong way, roll your ankle, break your foot, break your arm? And I’m talking about the best case scenario here. You might fall on your back.”
She twisted her lips. “Yeah,” she said. “That’s not ideal.”
“Definitely not ideal,” I said.
“Can we at least try to pry the window open? I’d like to let some air in here,” she said. “It’s very… still.”
“Yes,” I said. “It feels suffocating.”
I tried to get my own fingertips under the window, but I also didn’t manage to get it to budge. It felt like it was glued to the bottom of the windowsill and there was no way to pry it open.
“It’s stuck,” I said.
“We can keep trying,” she said. “I don’t think it’ll work, though.”
She was right, but I wasn’t ready to admit it yet. I wasn’t going to let something as small as a window to defeat me.
I moved along the window. “There has to be another way,” I said. “There must be a place where the window has more give.”
“Be my guest,” she replied. “I just don’t think it’s going to work.”
“We have nothing to lose,” I said. “I mean, you can go try the door, if you want, but…”
I thought she was going to answer. She didn’t.
When I turned to look at her, she was staring at the door, her mouth half-open. Her eyes were wide. I furrowed my brow. “ Lily, what’s—”
She pointed at the door, her eyes big as saucers. Maybe it was my imagination, but it looked like she was trembling slightly.
I turned to look at what she was pointing at and my jaw dropped.
Whatever was there, I could see it too.
It wasn’t something, though. It was, in effect, a floating ball of light which seemed to move from one side of the room to another. There was no way it was just a reflection, because of the way that the light kept bouncing. It was a light, large ball, which didn’t seem to have a reflection at all.
I looked at it until it bounced on the wall, the feeling of dread growing in my stomach.
In any other context, this might have been beautiful, but it wasn’t beautiful at all. There was something about it that felt like, if it came toward us, it would hurt us.
Like the sun.
I instinctively walked toward the ball of light, putting an extended arm in front of Lily, who I noticed glanced at me for a second too long.
“What is that?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “But it’s not good.”
The ball of light stopped bouncing around. It felt as it was looking right at us, though of course that was impossible. It came toward us, first for Lily then for me, until we were both backed into a corner.
It didn’t have any sound, which I found bizarre. It felt like it should be buzzing, because there was something about it—perhaps it was the way it moved—that made it look like an insect.
“Duck!” Lily said, before the thing charged.
Before the light charged me.
I did as I was told, practically tumbling down onto the dusty floor, and watched as the light ball bounced off against the window. I felt the nausea building as the ball went to Lily, who was backed into a corner.
“Hey!” I said, though my voice was shaking. “Why don’t you pick on someone your own size?”
The ball of light turned—if it could even turn, I thought, though whatever it was doing was more like a feeling—and decided to go for me again. It was vicious, and I knew that if it got me, it would destroy me.
But it was toying with me.
It was toying with us.
It came for me, but it practically side-swiped me, and it bounced on the window again. I had to move to the side to make it go elsewhere, but it didn’t—it turned, if it could even turn, and went for me.
I wasn’t fast enough.
The ball of light was coming toward me, and all I could feel was fear and dread. Whatever was going to happen when it crashed into me, which was inevitably going to happen, it was going to be bad.
I was dreading it, but worse of all, I knew it.
I knew it in my bones, like I knew how to breathe. It was as if the knowledge was ingrained inside of me, in my body, in my psyche.
And then the light came toward me, exploding, and all I could see was darkness.
CHAPTER TEN
LILY
2019
I walked over to where Elias was, his body limp on the floor.
I had passed out too, though I didn’t know why, and I didn’t know how much time had passed. All I knew was that I was thirsty and I was worried about him, too, because I couldn’t hear his breathing.
“Elias?” I said, crawling on my hands and feet until I finally felt like I had enough strength to get up. I looked out the window, and the sun was going down. We had been in the room for hours at that point, trapped since after breakfast.
I felt sick.
Like I was going to throw up at any moment as I tried my best to keep myself upright, though I was extremely dizzy. The walls felt like they were closing in and I didn’t know if I was going to make it to where Elias was.
But I needed to.
I needed to make sure he was okay.
I needed to make sure he was alive.
“Elias,” I said again. My voice didn’t sound like it was coming out of my own body.
I wished that he would answer me, but he hadn’t, and I was worried that he wouldn’t at all.
“Elias!” I said again, my throat fighting against me.
It hurt to speak. It hurt to call for him, though I knew it was the right thing to do. I had to get him out.
I had to get us both out.
We were in danger.
I finally managed to stumble my way over to him, kneeling down and putting my hand on his shoulder, shaking him roughly. “Wake up,” I said. “You have to wake up. We have to get out of here.”
He groaned, his eyelids fluttering, until he finally managed to look at me. His eyes were glassy.
“Wake up,” I said, shaking him again. “Something is wrong, we have to leave.”
He blinked again a few times before he finally managed to look around, then at my face.
He reached out, touched my cheek, and opened his mouth. I noticed the breath he took. It was ragged, trembling.
“It’s okay,” I said. “You’re confused. You don’t need to talk.”
“Lily,” he said, closing his eyes. I noticed how much he was struggling to talk and I wanted to tell him to be quiet, but I couldn’t bring myself to. “Are you okay?”
I smiled at him, my throat dry. “I’m okay. I’ve been better. Get up, Elias, we have to try and get out of here.”
“Can you unlock the door?” he asked, his voice croaky. He moved his hand away from me and sat up. “Have you tried?”
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “I had to make sure that you were okay.”
“I
’m okay,” he said, then shook his head, rubbing his temple. “What happened?”
“I’m not sure,” I said. “But I think we really need to try and get out of here.”
“Right,” he said.
He still looked very dazed and I felt bad for him, but there was no time to worry about how he felt. He grabbed my wrist and I managed to pull him up, though he was heavy and he wasn’t helping himself much.
It didn’t matter.
All I cared about was us getting out, because the light—the spirit, whatever it was—might have just been toying with us originally, but it wasn’t anymore. Things weren’t that simple. I could feel the energy in the castle, and it felt like it was buzzing with anger.
I didn’t know if I had happened because I had passed out and didn’t even remember how or why it had happened. The last thing I remembered was the ball of light exploding in front of Elias’ face, and after that, there was nothing.
All I remember was feeling like I was going to fall, and then falling, falling—darkness and dread covering me like a blanket.
Then I had woken up, feeling weird and disoriented, and the dread had hardly lifted from the pit of my stomach.
Elias stood up and unsteadily made his way to the door. He put his hands on it and tried to open it, but it wasn’t budging.
“It’s still shut,” he said. “I don’t know how I can open it.”
I sighed. “There might be no way,” I said. “Whatever shut us in here might not release us for a while.”
He looked at me and cocked his head. “Whatever… shut… us… in here?” he said slowly.
I blinked. I didn’t have the patience for him being skeptic when everything was so clearly obvious to me. “You saw the same things I saw, Elias,” I said. “Didn’t you?”
He blinked, then shrugged. “You’re right,” he said. “I just… I’m having a hard time thinking about it as if it’s…”
“Real? I get that,” I said.
And I also understood that we were powerless to stop it, and that it meant that whatever that thing was was in charge.
“It’s not going to let us out until it wants to,” I said.
“You think the… light… was what locked us in?” he asked.
I nodded. “I think that’s what makes the most sense.”
“None of this makes any sense,” he replied, shaking his head.
“I know,” I said. “I get that. It’s going to be more difficult for you to get to accepting it, but…”
He had turned around again and was pounding on the door. I looked at him and sighed. He wasn’t going to accept it, but I guessed I understood.
We were powerless, and there was no point in trying to talk him out of it.
He kept trying to pound the door in order to open it, but it made absolutely no sense. There was no way for it to open, and he didn’t understand that, and I knew there was no way that I would be able to talk him out of it.
I decided there was no point in trying and made my way to the back of the office, where the chair was. If we weren’t going to be able to get out of here, then at least I would try to get to the bottom of things.
The pounding stopped for a few seconds. Elias had turned to me and looked exhausted.
“We’re stuck,” he said. “Truly stuck.”
“I know,” I said. “Something has us locked in.”
“How is it that you’re not freaking out?”
I smiled at him. “I am freaking out. What makes you think I’m not?”
“You’re over there. I don’t know what you’re doing.”
“Whatever has us locked in here, it’s for good reason,” I replied. “If it wanted to hurt us, it would have already.”
“How do you know it didn’t hurt us?”
“I don’t. Call it a feeling.”
“Okay.”
I stared at him. “Okay?”
“Look, I understand that things here are kind of weird. I also understand that I’m not the expert on them. You seem to know more about them, and I have always been able to let the smarter person in the room take charge.”
“I’m not smarter than you,” I said.
He laughed dryly. “Oh, no,” he said. “I think you probably are. So what are you doing, and how can I help?”
I smiled despite myself. “Okay,” I said. “I’m just looking for, I don’t know, something.”
“Can you be a little bit more specific than that?”
I licked my lips and looked around. “I don’t know,” I said. “Just something, anything that might indicate any clues, or anything like that.”
He furrowed his brow, crossing his arms over his chest and standing up straight. There was dirt on his clothes and on his hair and he looked disheveled. “Do you think that whatever trapped us in here wants to help us?”
“I think it’s a possibility,” I said. “I mean, maybe not, but why else—”
“Right,” he said. “I get it.”
He eyed the filing cabinets lining the walls and cracked a smile. “Let’s be civilized and start from A, then?”
I laughed. “Sure. You can look at the filing cabinets and I’ll take a look at the desk here.”
“Alright,” he said.
We both walked to different sides of the office and I opened the first drawer. There was nothing in there except for one large piece of paper which seemed to be covering the entire bottom of the drawer.
I plucked it out of the drawer, rubbed the dust off, and looked at the letter. The first thing I noticed was the letterhead, which was the outline of a castle. I saw Thornbridge Keep in cursive letters, printed under the logo.
I read the letter.
It was only a couple of paragraphs long and typed with a typewriter, with a small font that seemed to be fading into the yellowed paper.
“Elias,” I said. “Come here. Listen to this.”
“What?” he asked, approaching me.
“Listen,” I said again. “This is a memo for the staff, or at least it looks like it. ‘Effective immediately, we are not currently taking new bookings at the hotel. Please tell the public that this is because we are fully booked. We are still investigating the reason for our staff’s sudden and sharp turn into unwellness, however we do not currently believe that this has anything to do with the hotel itself. We encourage you to stay at home if you are feeling sick, simply to the hotel a call in the morning or in the afternoon so we can find someone to cover your shift. We request you keep this information private as we do not want to cause any undue panic in town.”
Elias gestured toward the paper in my hand. “Can I see that?”
“Sure,” I replied, handing it to him.
“So this means that not only has it happened before,” he said, his gaze scanning over the letter. “But Dr. Overstreet didn’t tell us about it. It’s important information, you think she would’ve told us.”
I nodded. “Yes, it seems like important information. Does this have the year on the letterhead?”
“No. Just the day and month, October 1st.”
“That’s not helpful,” I said. “And it’s not like we can call and ask.”
“Exactly,” he replied. “But it’s hard to know if she kept it because she didn’t know or because she didn’t want us to know.”
“Maybe she doesn’t think it’s related. It looks old.”
“I did a little research on the place and it used to be a hotel. Did you know that?”
“Yes,” I said. “It used to be a legendary hotel. Now people have to pay a pretty penny to stay here.”
“So she must have inherited it,” he said, still looking at the letter. “But she never said anything about it or why it transitioned from hotel to museum. Something must have happened, but whatever it is, it isn’t public. I mean, the place can’t make as much as a museum as it did as a hotel, right?”
“I don’t know,” I replied. “I know ghost hunters pay a lot of money so they can come here and spend the night. T
here are weddings and all sorts of things. Halloween events…”
“Right,” he said. “But none of that is guaranteed income. Surely if you have someone stay in your hotel for a night, that’s more likely to make you profit?”
I shrugged my shoulders. “I guess,” I said. “I agree it’s safer, but I don’t know if people could stay in the hotel for the night, because look at that memo.”
“Right,” he said. “We need to find something else. Good catch, Lily.”
I smiled, my face feeling warm. Maybe it was the lack of fresh air, but being complimented by him felt good.
We kept looking around, opening every drawer, pulling out every document, dusting it off and trying to read it. None of them seemed to contain any particularly important or valuable information.
“Lily,” Elias said, leaning against one of the tall grey-green filing cabinets. “Come over here a second.”
I went to where he was standing.
“Did you find anything else?” I asked.
He was holding a folder in his hands, his thumb marking a particular page. “Not exactly,” he said. “It’s more like what I didn’t find. There are all these personnel files here and some of the names had been erased, which is bizarre.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, someone used white-out on a bunch of names in these folders, and they look like personnel files. Something about it seems wrong, off, I don’t know. Maybe I’m reading too much into it, but whoever had this office appears meticulous to me. It doesn’t seem like they would just get rid of names like that, without there being some reason.”
“Some hidden reason, you mean?”
“Yes,” he said. “I guess.”
I thought for a second, then looked right at him. “Wait,” I said. “Are you telling me that you think these people died?”
He nodded. “I mean, it’s what makes the most sense… right?”
I blinked, feeling the nausea building up inside me. He was right, even though I didn’t want him to be right. “You think it’s a cover-up.”
“I don’t know if it’s a cover-up,” he replied. “I just think it makes sense for it to have been a cover-up. Look.”
He showed me the folder he was holding. There was a list of people printed on it, and just like he had said, some of the names had been erased with white-out.
The Healing Process Page 8