“Incredible,” Eliza said, looking around the room. “Simply incredible.” Steven wasn’t sure if Eliza was referring to the house itself, or the power that must have built it.
Roy walked towards the archway that led to the back yard. “Look at this,” he said, beckoning the other two.
The archway opened to reveal a majestic back yard, immaculately manicured. Further back in the yard was a giant banyan tree, its branches as wide as the house, its roots descending from the branches here and there. Steven could see water beyond it; there was a small pond on the other side of the tree.
“Wow,” Steven said, surveying the view. “That might be the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”
The branches of the banyan swayed lightly in the breeze. Its massive canopy covered a large amount of ground, the lawn giving way to dirt at the edges of it.
“There’s something out there,” Roy said, taking a step out of the archway and walking down a few steps to the ground. “Come on.”
Eliza and Steven followed Roy as he walked through the back yard past several rose bushes and hedges.
“What is it, Roy?” Eliza asked. “Is it the device?”
“No,” Roy said, “but it’s something important. Something we need to see.”
As they got closer to the edge of the tree’s canopy, Steven could see rectangular shapes in the ground. As he got closer, he realized their size meant they must be graves. There were dozens of them.
Eliza gasped when she realized the same thing, raising her hand to her mouth. Roy walked between a couple of them, making his way to one in particular. Steven and Eliza followed him.
“Here,” he said. “This is who was trying to communicate with us.”
“Who was it?” Eliza asked.
“It’s family, I know that,” Roy said. “We need to talk with whoever it is.”
“How can it be family?” Steven asked. “And how do you know that? There’s no headstone – none of these graves have headstones.”
“I just know,” Roy said. “And that’s not dirt, either,” he said, pointing down towards the grave.
Steven knelt down next to the grave and pressed his hand into the soil. It felt rubbery, depressing slightly under his palm, but returning to its original shape when he raised his hand. “What is it?” he asked.
“Don’t know,” Roy said, “but it’s why we were barely able to communicate with them during the séance. That substance is blocking their ability to talk to us.”
Steven tried digging his fingers into the material, trying to remove it. It stuck firm. “It’s not coming out,” he said.
“No, I expect not,” Roy said. “Whoever buried them wanted to be sure they were shut down in the next life, too.”
“Have you ever seen this kind of thing before, either of you?” Steven asked.
“No, I haven’t,” Eliza said. “It reminds me of those acrylic paperweights, with spiders or bugs suspended inside.”
“Except in this case,” Roy said, “the body is a human, and the plastic isn’t clear.”
“I wonder who they all are?” Steven said, rising from the grave side and looking around. “There must be a hundred of them, maybe more.” He walked to one nearby and pressed his hand in its soil, again feeling the rubbery resistance. “The same crap here, too. They’ve all been trapped like this.”
“I have a feeling,” Eliza said, “that James might have created a few casualties while he was perfecting his device.”
“You mean these are gifteds?” Steven asked. “Buried in this goop?”
“She’s right,” Roy said. “This is how James dealt with them before he devised a less lethal way.”
“Fucking horrible!” Steven said. “Can you imagine being encased in this shit? For eternity?”
“Maybe he thought placing them under this tree would give them some level of peace,” Eliza said, looking up at the banyan’s branches. “Look,” she said, pointing to a grave nearby. “That one’s open.”
They walked to the grave Eliza had identified. It was the correct size, six feet deep, ready to receive a body. “I wonder who this was prepared for?” Steven asked. “Someone James didn’t manage to trap?”
“Notice there’s no dirt nearby to fill it in,” Roy said. “Another gifted, probably.”
“What do we do now?” Eliza asked. “We still haven’t found the device. Perhaps it’s in the house somewhere.”
“I’m convinced the solution to our problem lies in that grave,” Roy said, walking back to the first one that drew his attention. “There’s someone in there who wants desperately to help us along. Someone I’ve got a connection to. I don’t know who, but I do know we need to talk to him. We’ve got to figure a way to get through this stuff, remove it.”
“Can we dig it out?” Eliza said.
“No,” Steven answered. “It’s not coming out, you can tell from feeling it.”
“Do you have your book upstairs, Roy?” Eliza asked. “Perhaps we could consult it.”
“Yes, it’s in my bedroom up there,” Roy said. “It’s worth a shot.”
“I think we should get back,” Steven said, “before the others become suspicious. We’ve been gone a while.”
“And we’ve got to get that hole in the janitorial closet covered up somehow,” Roy said.
Steven turned to walk back to the house. As he did so, he felt as though he was spinning. He felt light, as though his steps might lift him off the ground.
“Anyone feel any different?” he asked.
“Yes,” Eliza said, “I do. Like I’ve been drinking.”
“It’s this place,” Roy said. “It’s affecting you.” They walked up a few steps from the back yard and into the house. They glanced down the hallways as they passed them.
“Or maybe it’s the device,” Steven said. “If it’s in this house, and proximity increases its effect, we’re getting a massive dose being down here next to it.”
“You may be right,” Roy said. “Come on, let’s go.”
“Wait a moment,” Eliza said, turning to go to the first room down one of the hallways. “Look at this.”
Steven and Roy followed her as she walked into a large library. The walls were lined with shelves and the center of the room contained a sofa and easy chairs. Eliza studied the spines of the books at the closest shelf.
“We should leave,” Steven said. “If our theory is correct, we’re accelerating the draining by being here.”
“These aren’t normal books,” Eliza said, removing one from the shelf. She opened it and read a little of it, then turned the open book towards Steven and Roy, who were looking around the room.
“See?” she said, “handwriting. These books were handwritten. They’re all like your book, Roy.”
“My father’s books?” Roy asked, scanning the room and walking up to one of the bookcases. He removed a book and studied it. “Well I’ll be. They are!”
“You realize what this is?” Eliza said, replacing the book on the shelf and removing another. “It’s a library of the dead. These are the books that belonged to the bodies out there under the tree. James kept them here to make sure they didn’t make their way back into the hands of those people’s children.”
Roy replaced his book and removed another. “You’re right,” he said. “Each one is the writings of a different individual. This one has several generations. They’re just like mine.”
“Can you imagine how much information is in this room?” Eliza said, looking around. Steven noticed a tear forming in her eye. “How much was stolen from them?”
“Guys, we need to be leaving,” Steven said. “We’ve got to limit how much time we spend here if you don’t want to lose your abilities.”
“Prematurely,” Roy added, closing the book he had been looking at and replacing it on the shelf. “The device will still impact us upstairs, though I expect its power is diminished quite a bit by the protection at ground level that keeps this place secret. But you’re right,
we need to leave.”
They retraced their steps back through the house and the front yard, making their way to the door and the stairwell.
“We’ve got a long set of steps to climb,” Steven said, “Let’s pace ourselves.”
◊
Steven lifted himself from his bed. After they returned from their trip to Eximere, he felt an overwhelming need to sleep, and he told Roy and Eliza he was going to take a nap. Checking his phone, he saw he’d been asleep for a couple of hours, and it was nearing dinnertime. He wandered into the bathroom to splash some water on his face, and tried the door to Roy’s room. It opened.
Inside Roy and Eliza were scanning the pages of Roy’s book.
“Any luck?” Steven asked, wishing he had some coffee.
“Ah, sleepyhead!” Roy said. “Yes my boy, we’ve had some luck. We’ll need to go dig up some dirt in the yard outside before dinner.”
“Why?” Steven asked, still a little groggy.
“We’ll need it for the focus,” Roy said.
“Focus?” Steven asked, his alarm bells going off. “I really don’t want another encounter with Anita.”
“No, this one won’t attract her,” Roy said, “at least, I don’t think it will. We’ll need a bowl from the kitchen, too.”
“Tell me what’s going on,” Steven said.
“The River,” Eliza said, slipping in. The others followed. We’ve found something that should negate the effects of that substance and allow us to communicate with whoever is in that grave, she thought. But we have to make it. The ingredients are simple enough, but you need a good dose of power to bind them. That’s why the focus.
The three of us aren’t enough to do it, Roy added. Eliza and I are too weakened.
Are we bringing in the others on our discovery? Steven thought. What about the rat?
We’ve already thought of that, Roy thought. We’ll tell the others we found the instructions for this substance in my book, and that we believe it will help us locate alternative passages. We’ll tell them we’re going to spread it in places where we think a passage might be, and it should help reveal the passage. But, really, we’re going to use it on that grave.
Do you think they’ll go for it? Steven thought.
What other options do they have at this point? Roy said. And I’ll be interested to see who agrees to it and who resists it.
Steven, you were right about Eximere, Eliza thought. Being in it accelerated the drain – or, at least I can feel it now. When Roy and I were going through the book, it was much harder to read and understand than it has been in the past. While you were sleeping I tried a trance and it took real effort to enter it, as though I was still a novice.
You won’t know for sure until you talk to the others, Steven thought, and compare with them. Try to get them to tell you where they’re at with it. If they’re better off than we are, then we’ll know your sense of it is right.
Eliza nodded, and they slipped out of the flow.
◊
After dinner and a long set of lies Roy made up to explain where they’d been all day, he produced the bowl of dirt and set it on the dining room table.
“We’ll need your help for this,” he said. “Eliza and I aren’t at full capacity, and it’ll take more than the three of us to bind it.”
“And you think it will help us find the device?” Myrna said, eyeing the dirt skeptically.
“It’s the only idea we’ve been able to come up with after combing through my book,” Roy said. “It’s worth a shot.”
“Aren’t we risking an attack from Anita?” Jonathan asked, his toothpick tucked into the right side of his mouth. “She threatened to kill us all if we focused again.”
Another negative verdict from Jonathan, Steven thought. “She threatened to kill us if we focused on James,” Steven said. “This will be different.”
“Short and sweet,” Roy said, “and only about the dirt.”
“Do you have areas in mind where you’d like to spread it?” Russell asked.
“Well,” Roy said, “I was hoping to get your input on that. I can think of a few places, yes, but I’m hoping you’ve all been working on a solution and can make some suggestions.”
“I have a place I’d like you to try, in the library,” Myrna said.
“Very well,” Roy said. “We’ll need to make it, first. Everyone game?”
Steven looked at Eliza. He could see she was watching Jonathan closely. If he is the rat, Steven thought, I wonder how much he knows. Does he know about the house downstairs, and the graves?
The group assembled around the table and looked at the bowl of dirt that was sitting in the center.
“Like I said, short and sweet,” Roy said. “Just jump in, drop, and focus. Then out.”
They each nodded at Roy, and then lowered their heads and began the focus.
Steven stepped back from the table, observing. He knew he wouldn’t be able to participate, and he didn’t want to be surprised by Anita coming up on him from behind. He watched for a while, then jumped into the flow. The focus was already established, and they were wrapping up. Nice and quick, like Roy wanted it, he thought.
“Are you going to start using it tonight?” Russell asked.
“I am,” Roy said. “I’ll spread it around, and let you know how it has worked in the morning.”
“Very well then,” Russell said. “Let me tell you a few places you should consider. I’ve been studying them for some time now, and I have the strongest impressions when I pass by them.”
Roy humored Russell and joined him to get the list of places Russell felt were important. Eliza walked over to join Steven. “There’s got to be something more portable than this glass bowl,” Eliza said, then added under her breath, “thinking about that ladder.”
Steven nodded. “A plastic bag, maybe?”
“I’ve usually got a couple in my luggage,” Eliza said. “I’ll see if I brought any with me.” She turned to walk towards the velvet wallpaper hallway. Russell, Roy, and Jonathan were talking in the far corner of the room, and didn’t notice her leave.
Steven walked up to the bowl of dirt. It still looks like dirt, he thought. But it’s not, not anymore. If Roy is right, this dirt is how we’ll solve this.
“How well do you know Eliza?” Myrna said, behind him. He turned to face her.
“I’ve known her for a little while,” Steven said. “She helped Roy and I with a problem in Oregon a while back.”
“Do you trust her?” Myrna asked.
“I do,” Steven said. “I don’t think she’s the rat.”
“I don’t either,” Myrna said. “I think your father was right about Jonathan. I overheard a phone conversation earlier while you were gone. Very suspicious.”
“Really?” Steven said, turning his back to the others so they wouldn’t be overheard. “What did you hear?”
“He was pacing in his room,” Myrna said. “I could hear him when he got close to his door, but couldn’t when he walked away. So I only heard him say two things.”
“Which were?” Steven asked.
“Something about ‘you assured me I’d be fine,’ and ‘two days,’” Myrna said.
“‘Two days’?” Steven said. “Do you think he was talking to Percival?”
“Well, if he was,” Myrna said, “two days might mean how much longer we’ve got until the device has finished with us. I know I’m not as powerful as I was. That focus was much harder than the ones we did the other night.”
“And the other thing you heard,” Steven said. “Sounds like he thinks he won’t be affected?”
“Do you remember when you observed that first focus, Steven?” Myrna asked. “Was Jonathan tagged? Was he really focusing with the rest of us?”
Steven thought back to that first night. He remembered seeing the lines of light extend from Roy and Eliza’s heads, and ultimately converging in the center between them. How many other lines of light were there? He racked his brain. Once the
convergence happened, the dark light shut down the focus so fast, there wasn’t much time to observe details, he thought. “I’m afraid I don’t know,” Steven said. “I can’t say I saw the focus coming from him like I did with Roy, but I wasn’t watching him to see. And it all happened so fast, I wasn’t counting. I was trying to join you, and failing. I was more worried about that.”
“Well, that turned out to be good fortune for you,” Myrna said, eyeing him.
Steven noticed her look and took a step back. “I can assure you it’s not me,” he said, a little indignantly. I am hiding things from her, Steven thought. I hope she can’t see that.
“No,” Myrna said, “I don’t think it’s you. You wouldn’t have gone with Marilyn, and you wouldn’t have subjected yourself to Anita’s attacks. You’re a good person, I can tell, though you do have some secrets about you,” she said, squinting her eyes a little at him, and smiling. “No, it’s Jonathan. I’m almost sure of it.”
“Grab the stuff, Steven,” Roy said, joining them. “Meet me upstairs and we’ll get started. Do you have any suggestions for where to apply it, Myrna?”
“I’ll show you,” she said, “in the hallway as we walk back.”
Roy gave Steven a wink as he turned to walk away with Myrna.
Chapter Nine
Steven opened the door with the large golden oval and saw the house again. It was darker than their last visit, but other than that, nothing had changed.
They approached the house using the brick path. Lights were on inside the house. Eliza carried the dirt in a plastic bag she’d found.
“Something’s wrong,” Steven said, stopping on the path and wanting to back up.
“What is it?” Eliza asked. “Did you see something?”
Eximere (The River Book 4) Page 13