by John Bladek
Emily nodded again, her eyes growing dark.
“Duncan thinks this Angelica is the ghost. He says she was responsible for Pamela’s death. Pamela was pregnant, too. Duncan was the father. Angelica killed her, along with who knows how many other pregnant girls at the abbey. According to Duncan, Angelica has carried on her legacy, killing even after her death. I guess she was obsessed with demons and killed Pamela because she thought her baby was one.”
I waited to see Emily’s reaction, but she had none.
“Did you hear what I said?” I asked. “Pamela had a child.”
Emily nodded. “That has to be the answer. Pamela wants us to find her baby.”
“What? Why would you think that? And I told you—I don’t think it’s Pamela’s ghost I’ve been seeing.”
Emily shrugged. “It has to be. It’s the only thing that makes sense. She wants her baby. That’s what I would want.”
My brain mulled over Emily’s idea. Pamela wanting me to help her find her baby had never occurred to me. I might have accepted this idea yesterday, but in light of Duncan’s story and what I’d seen at the cemetery, I wasn’t sure any longer. I shook my head. “Even if you’re right, we can’t help her. We’re leaving. Duncan warned me that everyone who’s seen that ghost has ended up dead. Girls at the abbey, teens at those Halloween parties. We’re not taking the chance.” I stood up and reached for my suitcase.
Emily sighed, her eyes focusing. She rose from the chair and put her arms around my shoulders. “Okay, I understand. This whole experience has been frightening. It’s time to go. I trust you,” she whispered in my ear. She kissed me on the neck and squeezed me.
I touched her cheek and looked into her eyes, stunned by her compassion.
“Will, sorry I’ve been acting so strange. I haven’t been feeling myself since I got here. I just want to get home.”
I squeezed her, wishing more than anything we were on the damn airplane instead of in this stupid hotel. “Thank you. I almost can’t function without your support right now,” I said. I hugged her closer. “I love you more than anything.”
“I know, and I love you too,” she said.
I took her hands and smiled.
In that moment, I knew deep-down that we were going to be okay.
After a few more hugs, we did some packing and then grabbed a quick bite at the diner down the street. Before we went out, I called Ted and James. They wanted to meet for dinner tonight. I lied, saying Emily wasn’t feeling well and I’d have to meet them another time, but that I’d finished all my scans and would get the plans to them.
At the restaurant, I filled Emily in with more of the details of finding the adoption records and meeting Duncan. She seemed overwhelmed by the sadness of it all, but whenever I mentioned Angelica, her face grew cold and distant. I felt much the same way about the old nun.
“So, do you believe Duncan?” she asked. “How could Angelica fool you? On the beach, I mean. You were so certain it was Pamela.”
I nodded. “I know. Maybe I was mistaken. It’s possible. Maybe the nun’s habit fooled me. And who knows what ghosts can do? There’s no rulebook for them. Have you heard of them posing as other people on any of your TV shows?”
“I maybe heard of it once. Maybe….I don’t know if it’s that common, though. It does seem like people are often confused by certain spirits, and it takes a lot of guesswork to figure out who a ghost represents.”
“Well, the ghost’s identity aside, the more I learned about Pamela from Duncan and her diary, the more I saw her as a lost, lonely girl, frightened and abused by a madwoman. It’s sad. She seemed so sweet. The malevolence I saw on that face at the beach, the hatred I felt from her glance…it couldn’t have come from Pamela. Angelica was the one filled with hatred.”
“Yes,” Emily said under her breath. “Pamela was a beautiful soul. Angelica hated babies.”
I shrugged. “Maybe. Pretty frightening if she did.” I glanced at Emily’s swollen belly. “All the more reason to leave as soon as we can.”
“What about Pamela’s baby? What happened to him?”
“He’s long gone,” I said. “Adopted. Duncan didn’t have any idea where he went, or at least he didn’t mention it.”
“Let’s find him,” Emily said, a note of pleading in her voice. “One last thing, for Pamela.” Then in a whisper, “Give her son his blanket. We still have it.”
I stopped and stared for a moment, not sure what I’d heard. “We’re leaving,” I said, my early fear of Emily’s reaction returning to punch me in the gut.
She smiled. “That doesn’t matter. Let’s do it for her memory, and for Duncan.”
“But we’re flying out tomorrow,” I said again.
“We don’t have to do it here, silly,” Emily said with a smile. “You’ve heard of the internet? Every time I watch those ghost shows, they talk about the importance of honoring those people connected to the ghost…anyone who may have been harmed by the spirit. It helps…helps things settle, so to speak. We can look for him online.”
I let out a deep breath. Adoption records were hard to find. I was sure nothing would come from a search, but if Emily wanted to sleuth it up from the safety of our home, I guess that would be okay. I played with my fork. “I have some adoption papers in the car. There may be more information there.”
Emily reached across the table and touched my hand. “Thanks,” she said. “This should help us and bring closure.”
I leaned back. I really should have known Emily was always motivated by an honest desire to help. She was stressed and out of sorts for any number of reasons on this trip, but her good heart always showed through.
After dinner, we returned to the hotel and finished packing. I composed an email to Ted and James explaining that Emily was a little worse, that she wanted to see her own doctor, and be home for Thanksgiving. In the closing paragraph, I mentioned my scans had given me all I needed, I would work from home, and return in a couple of weeks. That was another lie, but I’d deal with that later. I hit “Send.” Hopefully, my leaving would go over okay, and I’d still have a job when I got back to Seattle. If not, I would do everything within my power to find another one, even if it meant flipping burgers for a while.
At least by tomorrow evening Emily and I would be back home, and I’d never have to step foot in Winterbay Abbey again.
I slept more soundly than I had in months. When the alarm woke me, I rolled out of bed with as little movement as possible. I wanted to let Emily sleep. She would be uncomfortable on the plane and might not get much rest while we were in the air.
The wind outside had picked up since last night and rattled the window. I’d checked the forecast before we’d gone to bed, and the weather service had predicted another storm. Hopefully it wouldn’t affect our travel plans.
I tiptoed toward the bathroom, turning to take a look at Emily’s sweet face while she slept.
I blinked. The bed was empty. I glanced around the room. She was nowhere in sight. “Emily?” I called as I headed for the bathroom. The door was wide open. I clicked on the light. No one.
Weird. Maybe she was at the front desk getting a towel or something. I took a shower and got ready. She still hadn’t returned. I headed downstairs.
“Can I help you?” the woman behind the front desk asked, still sleepy-eyed.
“You haven’t by chance seen my wife, have you? Blonde, pregnant?”
She took a sip of her coffee and shook her head. “Nope.”
I ran outside to the parking lot. The rental car was gone.
A sharp pain twinged at the base of my head as I ran back up to the room. I grabbed my phone to see if there was a text from Emily. Hopefully she’d maybe just run out to the store for something.
Nothing. No texts, or voicemails. I called her phone. A loud vibration buzzed near my feet. I glanced at Emily’s side of the bed. A blue light illuminated the carpet. I reached down to get her phone when my eyes locked on her knitting bag next to it
. It had fallen over, the contents spilled out. I sorted through the pile, and my palms began to sweat. One, two, three, four…. Blue baby blankets, complete with pink hearts, the fourth one half-finished and still connected to Emily’s knitting needles. They were exact copies of the blanket I’d found at the abbey.
chapter twenty-one
I tried not to panic as I stared out the windshield. Tiny flakes of snow swirled by the glass, whipped into a frenzy by a wind that seemed to be blowing at near-hurricane force. Ice crept up from the bottom corners to glaze half the window. I’d been so hurried to get in the car that I hadn’t scraped the frost.
Thankfully, the woman at the front desk let me borrow her car. My made-up story about Emily going to the store and not returning must have stirred some compassion.
I sped down the road. My anxiety only increased in tune with the storm I was now barreling through. I tried to focus on Emily. I was positive she had gone to the abbey, but didn’t know why. And the blankets…. What did all of this mean? Why had Emily knitted them? I thought back to all the times Emily had been knitting during this trip. As I thought about it, she’d had her hand in her knitting bag at every spare moment. It almost seemed like she’d been out of it, trance-like, whenever she was near that bag. A memory of Emily looking at Pamela’s blanket for the first time popped into my mind. Emily really hadn’t been the same since then. Was the blanket somehow a conduit, a link between the ghost and the people she haunted?
The blanket belonged to Pamela, but had Angelica been using it as a lure?
I’d also touched it. That could explain why I’d seen Angelica’s ghost and Duncan hadn’t.
I shook my head as I drove on. I didn’t have all the answers. I needed to find Emily.
The road was icy, and I had to drive slower than I wanted. I’d risked death racing this road just last night. That lent me no assurance. I was still afraid I’d run the car off the road.
More snowflakes whisked across the pavement. With each gust the car bucked sideways, and a time or two I felt the tires slip and spin on the compact snow building up on the asphalt. I gripped the wheel until my fingers ached, trying to hold the car steady through the curves and cutbacks.
I sat up straighter when I pulled around a forested bend and spotted red and blue lights flashing ahead. A police car was parked behind a roadblock spanning the width of the road.
My heart jumped to my throat. The lights flashed just as they had that wet night when Emily and I had skidded into the telephone pole.
I pulled up to the roadblock, frightened to even look. There was no sign of any crash, just the patrol car. A rotund officer stood in front of the obstruction talking into his radio. He put it down when I pulled up.
I rolled down the window as he approached the car. His nose was bright red from the cold. “Mornin’,” he said.
“What’s happened here?” I asked. “Was there an accident?” I held my breath, imagining the wreck of a car just out of sight down the road.
“No. No accident. Where are you headed?” he asked gruffly.
I closed my eyes and thanked God. “The abbey,” I said. “I work out there. I wondered if you happened to see a blonde woman driving a silver Subaru come through here?”
“No, no one has come through, at least not since the blockade has been up, about an hour ago. Why?”
“My wife…I think she may have—” I stopped short, wondering what to say. “I think she may have driven out to the abbey to look for me.”
“Well, I can’t let you pass. Not yet anyway. There’s been a robbery at the quarry,” the officer said.
“Robbery? Someone stealing rocks?” Seemed strange that the police would be throwing up roadblocks for pilfered stone.
The cop took a step back. “It’ll be a couple of hours till we have this cleared,” he said, ignoring my question.
“I can’t wait. We have a plane to catch.”
He glanced down the road toward the abbey. “Sorry. I can’t let you through.”
I slapped the wheel, my fingers red with cold and now frustration. “I have to get through!”
He put his hand on his sidearm. “I’ll have to ask you to exit the vehicle.” Then he mumbled into his radio. I froze as another cop approached and looked into the window.
“You again?” Vaughn asked, annoyed. “What’s the problem?”
“Please, I have to get to the abbey. I think my wife may have driven out there to look for me and gotten lost. She’s pregnant. I’m worried about her.”
At the word “pregnant” Vaughn stiffened. “You never mentioned she was pregnant.”
“Is that important?”
“Look, the abbey, that place…” He paused, gritting his teeth and leaning into the window. “All those teen rituals, the accidents I told you about…we never knew, but…” He stopped again and looked away. “All those girls, they claimed to see a nun, like you did. The ones who died, they were all pregnant, and oddly they all had…”
He trailed off without finishing his thought.
“What?” I asked, now extremely fearful.
“Never mind. It’s inconsequential.”
My heart stopped. “They all had knitted baby blankets, didn’t they? The same one?”
“Yeah, how did you know?” he asked.
I opened Emily’s purse and held up a blanket.
Vaughn’s face drained of blood.
I threw the car into gear.
He yanked the barrier out of my way.
“I can’t leave just yet, but I’ll follow as soon as I can!” he called after me.
I raced off, my chest pounding as Vaughn’s words sunk in. Why hadn’t I figured this out earlier and left days ago? I’d given the blanket to Emily. This was my fault.
Why hadn’t Vaughn seen Emily? This was the only road. How long had she been out at the abbey? It had been longer than an hour at least. Horrific ideas of what might have happened to her swept through my mind. I pressed my foot down on the accelerator. Please be okay.
I finally made it to the turn to the abbey and hurried up the long drive. The wind was even more violent here near the shore than back in town. I had to hold the steering wheel hard as the car was rocked by the fierce weather. Tree limbs whipped in a frenzy all around the property.
As I drove toward the parking lot, I scanned the grounds. There was no one in sight, and nothing looked out of the ordinary. No rental car either.
When I jumped out of the car, the sharp crosswind cut through me, chilling my core. Hard-driven snow stung my face like a thousand tiny bee stings. I winced. The temperature was even colder than the water the day I witnessed the drowning.
I made it to the front entrance then stopped quickly. A silver Subaru was parked on the grass around the back of the abbey. I sprinted toward it. Snow dusted the windows. “Emily!” I called as I opened the driver’s side. No one was there.
I glanced around. No sign of anyone anywhere.
She had to be inside the abbey.
I grabbed my flashlight off the front seat of the rental and rushed toward the entrance. The door hung ajar. I hurried inside, terrified of what I might find.
chapter twenty-two
The abbey brooded, dark as a tomb. I ran up and down the first floor, shouting for Emily. No answer. I remembered her empty stares, her trance-filled blank eyes. If she was under Angelica’s influence, she probably couldn’t reply. I’d have to check every room in this damn cursed building.
I climbed down into the basement, shouting and shining the light on every inch of that terrible hole. Still no sign of Emily.
I made my way back upstairs as fast as I could and stopped near the front entrance. Small piles of wind-blown snow littered the floor beneath broken windows. The bright white color in the dark gave the hall a ghostly glow as it reflected my flashlight beam. Echoing down the hall and stairwell, a whiney, wind-born howl filled the corridors.
I started up the staircase, heading straight toward the tower room.
Something scraped above my head. My guts clenched. I imagined Angelica lurking up there, waiting for me.
I jumped as the wire tapped against the ladder.
“Emily?” I called, shining my light into the darkness above. “Emily? Are you there?”
A grunt and short string of curse words in a Welsh accent followed my questions.
“Duncan!” I called.
When I reached that dingy little prison cell where Pamela had been tortured and abused, I jumped back. Duncan stood over me. He held a spool of wire in his hands. The space was dimly lit and otherwise looked exactly as I’d left it—bed, cradle, and paper mobile of birds.
“What are you doing here? Where’s my wife?!” I shouted.
Duncan, confronted by my sudden appearance and flash of anger, shuffled backward. “What do you mean, where is your wife?” he asked.
“My wife,” I said again. “Young, blonde, pregnant. Her car is right outside. She’s in here. What have you done with her?”
Duncan eyed me for a long moment. His expression looked even wearier than when I last saw him. “I didn’t even know you had a wife.”
“She came looking for me. Where is she?!”
“I haven’t seen her, but if she’s pregnant I can damn well say who has,” he mumbled, his voice thick and hoarse like he hadn’t slept in days. His whole body shook, and I could smell alcohol on his breath. “I knew something would happen,” he said. “But you didn’t listen.”
“I’m listening now. Where would Angelica take her?”
He turned his head toward the window.
At this slight movement, he didn’t have to tell me. I knew.
I ran to the window, open now because I’d knocked out the bricks two days before. A narrow view of the beach was all I could see. The small part of the shoreline in my line of sight was empty, but that didn’t mean Emily wasn’t down there.
“Get out, now!” Duncan shouted. “I’m going to end all this.” He dropped the wire onto the floor. I glanced along its length. The end ran under the bed frame. A bundle of what looked like dynamite lay beneath. He pushed past me, slid down the ladder, and thumped onto the floor below.