She wants to be indignant. She wants to protest. She wants to be angry.
But she knows he’s right. She isn’t normal. She chose to use those base skills tonight. She felt the storm yielding to her, felt the power in it.
She had relished it.
And now, doped up with power, she is satisfied. Horribly, terribly satisfied.
“You know as much,” Cage adds.
Roan finally finds her voice. “You don’t know anything—” she begins, but is cut off by thumping from the windows.
Cage stands, eyeing her sharply, and goes to inspect, drawing back with a hiss when he sees that a grotesque, curling mess of snakes, scorpions, bugs, and spiders are twisting and writhing against the glass.
“Monstrous!” he yells, looking at her.
He strides forward in four long paces and grabs her by her arms, shaking her roughly.
“You’re doing this!”
“Let me go,” she snaps, and the residue of the power flickers in her voice. “Now.”
He releases her at once, and steps back, a sheen of sweat upon his cheeks.
“There is something wrong,” she agrees. “With this place.”
PART 3
With the Mountain
Fools that will laugh on earth, most weep in hell.
—CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE,
DR. FAUSTUS
ZOEY
NOW
Chapter 20
THE NOTEBOOK
October 23
I have to get out of this tent. I have to investigate. I keep wondering if this is the kind of thing that sent Dad over the edge. Spent yesterday sleeping mostly and doing self-checks. Am I scratching myself? Am I twitching? Am I grinding my teeth? I count from one to ten and ten to one. These checks are to make sure I’m still… well, sane. I think I’ll do them every day.
Then it started storming so I went back into the green room and set up the tent in there. But I couldn’t bring myself to get out of it. Ate cold canned soup. Miserable.
OH MY GOD. POLE IS HERE!!! Chat later!
Zoey Camera Footage
Date: October 23
Poulton stands in the green room, beside the hole in the wall where the daylight is strongest, rummaging through his backpack. He pulls free a packet.
“Brought sausages,” he says.
“Nice one.”
“We’ll have to eat them tonight.”
“How many d’you bring?”
“Twelve.”
“Blimey.”
“I can do seven.”
“Bet you can’t.”
He looks at Zoey and pushes up his glasses. “You’re on. Loser has to…”
He leaves his sentence hanging, raising his eyebrows at Zoey.
She folds her hands in her lap. “Loser has to go first when we explore upstairs,” she obliges.
He scoffs. “Yeah, okay.”
“Fine,” she says. “Loser has to cook meals for the next two days.”
He groans at that. “Yeah, all right.” Zoey puts the camera down so that she and Pole are both in the frame. They sit down on the floor, backs to the wall.
“Brought my Trangia cooker, gas, and a small generator,” Poulton says. “And lights. And cameras. And batteries. And food. We’ll probably not stay more than a week, but I brought enough for two.”
Zoey snuggles into his side. “You’re the best.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know.”
“Pole?”
“Hm?”
“Do you hear that noise?”
His reply is slurred with sleep. “What noise?”
“It’s like… a whirring noise. Like air-conditioning or something.”
“You’re mad,” he mumbles. “It’s quiet as the dead in here.”
[Footage sped up X20. Both Zoey and Poulton fall asleep and the light fades into darkness.]
Poulton stirs. “God, I’m freezing my balls off.”
Zoey groans. “We fell asleep.”
“Your camera’s still rolling. So weird. I must have arrived later than I thought. But seriously,” he adds, getting to his feet stiffly. “My balls are frozen.”
“Ditto. My balls seem to have fallen off already. Oh. Wait. I’m a girl.”
“What a shame,” he gibes, helping Zoey to her feet.
“You said something about lights?”
“Yeah, hang tight. Climb into your sleeping bag or something.”
It takes a good while to get the generator going, but then, as if by magic—light! Zoey walks over to her camera. “Ten percent battery and thirteen minutes left on this memory card. Shit.” She looks up, over the camera. “Photography box lights?”
She turns the camera to reveal the tall lamps Poulton has set up. Brilliant white boxes that diffuse the light so it looks like a bright and sunny day in the gloomy house.
“You take photos, don’t you?”
“They’re for my photos?”
“Why else would I bring them?”
“Pole!” She turns his name into two syllables. “Po-ole!”
“It’s no warmer, but it somehow feels like it is. Besides, like I said, I brought my cameras too. Can’t trust the results of someone who believes in ghosts. I need verifiable data.”
“We’re not ghost hunting,” Zoey says, turning the camera on him. “We’re looking for information about my dad. Trying to follow in his footsteps. See what he saw. Investigate what he would have investigated. Working what he might have—”
“Are you fucking crazy?” Poulton stares at her.
The camera drops ever so slightly. “Pole, I have to think like he would have… otherwise it’s pointless.”
Poulton looks very much like he wants to tell Zoey that it is pointless.
“We’ll do everything he might have done, but no spells.”
“Pole—”
“I swear to God, Zoey, if you start Working, I’m leaving.”
“Would you just listen to reason?”
Poulton waves his hand, shaking his head, and climbs out of the hole, away from the light.
“Poulton, listen to me—”
[End of clip]
October 24
We pulled out my floor plans and had a look. Most of the house is exactly the same, but we’ve marked up the damages and changes. I teased Poulton about marking up the original floor plans and he gave me one of those looks of his that he gives me when he thinks I’m being needlessly dense. It was his idea to go through the house, room by room, following the plans, and to mark up any unsafe zones.
“Very logical,” I said, thinking: Yeah, yeah, Mr. Spock.
“East Wing first?” I suggested.
He nodded and got to his feet, still studying the floor plans. “Looks like we broke into the… here,” he said, pointing at the map. “Green Room. So we’re already in the East Wing. I suggest we go back to the gatehouse and follow on logically until we reach the end of this wing and then turn around and do the same for the West Wing.”
“Okay, Spock.”
“You may think that’s an insult, Zo-Zo, but I take it as a compliment. Now, engage.”
“Wrong series, you poser geek. That was Picard.”
“Same difference,” he said, grinning at me for a reaction. “May the Force allow you to live long and prosper.”
UGH! I rolled my eyes. “Pompous ass.”
October 24
I took photos of as much as I could, but I only brought two rolls of film. The instant paper is expensive and I don’t exactly have parental support on this trip. I was planning to ask Mum for some cash so I could buy more, but I left in a bit of a hurry. I do feel a little twinge of guilt. Maybe she’s worried about me. But then, she did say I was crazy like Dad, and I can’t forget that. I’m not ready to.
The gatehouse was locked and boarded up from the inside, which was weird. I figure that the last owner wanted to keep intruders out. But I’ve never seen an abandoned house that was boarded up from within before. Almost like they wanted to ke
ep something inside with whoever put the boards there.
“Don’t you think it’s weird that there aren’t any spiders?” I asked Poulton. “Like, no spiderwebs or anything? Or, like, bird nests? Don’t they love places like this?”
Pole just shrugged.
We walked along the circumference of the entrance hall, noting how there were cracks in the slate here and there, and at one point, a huge dent as though something had fallen from above and smashed into the floor. Whatever it had been was gone now. We went right back into the Green Room.
Poulton noted the hole in the wall on the floor plans and then we moved on. If the previous room was the Green Room, then this for sure was the Red Room. Everything was either a faded wine color or a version of pink that would clearly have been a richer red back in the day. The piano still looked beautiful, but when I sat down to play, there was no sound.
Across from the Red Room stood the kitchen. It was larger than I was expecting, the fireplace big enough for me to climb inside. A large table and bench ran along one side of the room, while the rest was dedicated to the fireplace and racks along the walls, which displayed an impressive array of goblets and plates, pots and pans. It was like walking into the past, that’s how new everything felt.
“Creepy,” I murmured.
“Very,” Pole agreed.
There was a door in the kitchen leading outside, which would not open, but we could see the mountain beyond through the fogged window. Connected to the kitchen was a scullery of sorts. It was a room with a huge basin, which Pole told me was likely for washing linens, and then racks and racks of jars, bottles—some of them still full!—and then large, ominous hooks.
“For hanging the meat,” Pole added.
Across from the scullery and the kitchen stood the dining room. The dining table was a beast of a thing, heavily carved, thick legs and a smooth, rich tabletop. I ran my hand along it in wonder.
“My mother would flip her lid to get hold of something like this.”
“I think you’re touching a small fortune right now.”
I removed my hand and Poulton laughed. “Touch it. I guess it’s up for grabs.”
My stomach dropped. No. Nothing must be removed.
Poulton placed both hands on the table and inspected the wood grain, his eyes an inch from the surface.
“What next?” I asked, needing him to stop touching it.
“Two more rooms,” he said, consulting the floor plans.
One of the last two rooms in the East Wing turned out to be the best of all. A library! When I saw it I could have cried. Okay, I cried a little. Poulton laughed and told me that was why I was his best friend and why he loved me.
We completely forgot about the floor plans and spent the rest of the day exploring the tomes.
Mostly esoteric in nature, a lot of the books looked at the occult, at secret languages and the like, while the others were scientific papers and research. Guess where Poulton spent his time? Guess where I spent my time?
Eventually we got around to checking the final room, but it was locked. It’s listed as a small study on the plans, so we’re going to try to jimmy the lock tomorrow, as well as the one on the other kitchen door.
I can hardly believe that the whole first day is gone already. We’ll have to break into the West Wing at some point, because the whole thing is locked.
October 25
Poulton was already up when I rolled over. He once told me that my high-pitched squeak when I stretch in the morning sounds like a mouse giving birth. So now every time I do it, I burst out laughing. Every. Single. Time.
“Good delivery?” he asked. He was standing by the box lights, examining them. “Healthy babies?”
I nodded, rubbing my eyes. “Very healthy. They’re hungry, and so is their mama. What’s for breakfast?”
“You eat a lot for such a small thing,” he noted, as he does every time I ask about food.
“Well, you lost the bet. You couldn’t eat seven sausages, so you cook for the next two days.”
“I don’t trust your cooking anyway.”
I sat up, huddling under the sleeping bag. “What’s going on with the lights?”
“Not sure yet. They were off when I woke up.”
“Did the generator die?”
“No. Looks like they were switched off.”
“Wasn’t me.”
He didn’t say anything else, but his mouth kept twisting as he examined the wires, the bulbs, and the generator, like he was chewing on something sour.
Zoey Camera Footage
Date: October 25
The first floor of the East Wing contains another parlor, although this one is much more masculine than those downstairs, and of no definite color, except perhaps beige and brown. Along the corridor on the right, a bedroom with what appear to be wooden aids. Rails along the side of the bed, rails along the wall, while everything else is set quite low.
“An invalid’s room,” Poulton says, nodding. “I’m sure of it.”
“Pole! Don’t say invalid.”
He gives Zoey a look.
“Say ‘differently abled person.’ It’s better. Nicer.”
“It means the same thing.”
Zoey turns her face into the camera and whispers, “Seriously. Poulton is definitely on the autism spectrum. His lack of understanding social cues and empathy is a true skill. I think I should study him one of these days.”
“I heard that,” Poulton calls.
“You were meant to,” she says, turning the camera back on him.
They move on, entering a room across the hall.
“Hunting Room, according to the floor plans,” Poulton says.
It’s not hard to see why. Every wall is lined with weapons. Spears, arrows, knives, swords, axes, and several types of old guns. Zoey turns and films the wall adjacent. This one is covered with horns… animal horns of every kind, mounted flat against the wall in a sinister display. Some of the horns and skulls lie on the ground as if piled there, discarded. The room itself has two large chaises and a drink stand between them. Nothing more.
“Men and their toys,” Zoey mutters, leaving it to move on. “Surprise, surprise, Poulton lingers behind.”
The room beside the one with the rails is another bedroom.
“I can’t read anything from this room in terms of the visual,” Zoey murmurs. It is a plain room with one chest of drawers and a small desk with nothing on it. “But the feeling in the room… that’s something else.” Zoey pauses in the doorway. “Hello?”
“Coming,” Pole calls from the Hunting Room.
Zoey takes a step inside. “There’s… a particular kind of coolness that interests me. It’s as though someone just opened the window.” A pause. “Hello?” Another pause. “Who’s there?”
The silence of the room grows heavy, like someone holding their breath.
Zoey films the floor plans, focusing on the word written in small letters under the outline of the room she is currently in. “Andrew.”
Another pause, and then Zoey says, tentatively, “Andrew?” Another pause. “Is the ghost of Andrew in this room?”
After a moment, Zoey leaves, heading farther down the corridor.
Next to the Hunting Room are two smaller rooms: a Games Room with a table, round bats, billiards equipment, and more, then another nondescript bedroom. After a brief glance inside, Zoey heads back to the Hunting Room to find Poulton holding one of the daggers.
“Poulton!”
He jumps and puts it into its scabbard.
“We said not to touch anything!”
“I…” He puts it back on the wall and turns a sheepish smile on her. “I couldn’t help myself.”
Zoey grabs his arm and marches them both out of the room. She rounds on him in the corridor. “Why did you write on the floor plans?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Look!” She thrusts the plans at him. “There. See? Someone wrote Andrew there.”
&nbs
p; “Well, not me. Weren’t these your dad’s? Maybe he wrote it.”
“He never mentioned anyone called Andrew.”
Poulton turns the plans sideways. “There’s more. The writing is minuscule. This one says… Goord? Goode? And here. Jenny.”
Zoey passes the camera to Poulton and takes the floor plans back, squinting down at them. “You’re right. Emma… Seamus… Roan.” Zoey looks up. “Roan Eddington. She lived here in the 1850s—it was in Dad’s notes.”
“So maybe the other names are contemporaneous. Maybe your dad found out which room belonged to which person.”
Zoey looks up, her eyes wide. “I can’t believe I missed these.”
“Well, your dad didn’t exactly advertise the names, did he? I don’t even know how you spotted them.”
Zoey shudders. “Let’s do the West Wing—fast—and then enough for the day. I need to think and read through Dad’s notes. Come on.”
They march across the landing, which looks down upon the entrance hall, and cross to the West Wing side.
“Oh, yay,” Zoey mutters. “Another parlor. I suppose this one is the ladies’ private parlor and the one on the other side was the men’s one. Such sexism.”
“I don’t know,” Poulton says, lifting a frilly lace doily from the table. “I think most men would like this, don’t you?”
Zoey snorts. “Most girls I know would vomit.”
“No, you would vomit. But please hold it in until we get outside, m’kay?”
“Bugger off.”
They follow the same pattern checking each of the rooms along the corridor, consulting the floor plans.
On the left: a blue bedroom that looks like something exploded in it. The label beneath it: Blue Room. There is a large black stain on the floor and another on the bed, and Zoey flinches, almost as though she intends to run back downstairs, but Pole takes her hand and they continue on.
Across from the blue bedroom, a locked room. Then two more locked rooms, then another locked room, and a small bedroom with two single beds in it.
Teeth in the Mist Page 14