It was hiding from him.
He knew it would be here in the center of the chamber. Somewhere in the study, he would surely find it, but where?
“Hey, you guys,” called Virginia. After picking through the notebooks at random, reading through clusters of fragmented mental remains, Virginia had decided to grab the last book on the shelf. She flipped to the very last entry only a third of the way through the small black notebook. “Listen to this.”
February 16th, 1898
Tonight, I will unveil the greatest illusion of all. I will show the world the face that has plagued mankind forever. I will pull the mask off God.
“Jesus,” said Simmons, his pupils bug-eyed.
Virginia closed the book and placed it back at the end of the shelf. “It must have been written the night he burned himself alive.”
Isaac said nothing. Her words reminded him of the trail of ash; the bodies that burned till there was damn near nothing left, just a black silhouette. The young girl, Lori, especially came to mind. She was the perfect target, young and innocent, and the illusionist had easily baited her.
But what was the offer?
What did she long for?
Attention?
Love?
Whatever it was, the illusionist gave it to her. He gave her the gift. Then he burned the leftovers akin to how he had burned, and moved on to the next of his assistants, those who would help him further his studies even after death.
Eventually the illusionist found his way to Amy, and back to his haunted palace. Had she invited him, or had he tricked her, like he had so many others? Isaac didn’t know the answer, and really didn’t care to find out. All he knew was that he had to save his daughter. Somehow, some way, he had to save her.
Save her like he couldn’t save Linda.
Isaac let his eyes circle the room again, still searching for what he knew was here, hiding, when a loud crashing sound came from the rear of the study. He turned his head and saw Simmons standing over a broken crate. Simmons turned his eyes from the crate to Isaac. He had a guilty look on his face.
“Sorry,” said Simmons, like a child who knew he had been a bad boy.
Isaac walked to the rear of the study and stood next to Simmons. The large crate was empty.
No heads.
The group took apart the pyramid crate by crate, breaking them open as they went. In each crate, they found more of the same, more of nothing. Yet, when they were finished, they gazed ahead in silence, astonished at what lay beyond. The twelve-tier pyramid had not been created on accident; these empty crates had been deliberately stacked in such a manner to hide a dark corridor twisting upward at the back of the study.
As Isaac peered down the corridor, his eyes fell upon something else that hid from them. He had searched every nook and cranny of the study for it (almost giving up many times in the process), and it had been here all along, beyond the pyramid of crates, hanging from a nail on the right wall at the entrance of the corridor—hanging lonesome, rusted, and aged.
He hurried into the corridor and grabbed the large metal key from the upturned nail, the key that had locked in such misery for so many years, even now. But the time had come for the key to redeem itself. In his hand, it would.
Isaac left the study alone and headed out into the dark chamber. The white glow from the ghosts was the only source of light. He turned the corner and walked back down to where they had come in. As he stood at the edge of the first cell, he could hear the dangling chains rocking back and forth nearby. The ghost that had startled them earlier lay in the same position they had left it, hunched over on the floor, clutching the bars. It looked up at him but Isaac never looked down, there wasn’t time. He inserted the key into the metal box in the center of the bars then turned it to the left. An aching squeal of metal rubbing against metal filled the chamber, followed by a bang as the lock ripped into a position it had not been for over a century. Then Isaac swung open the barred door and freed the ghost from the cell.
Isaac marched through the chamber with a fanatical determination, cell by cell, freeing each prisoner. He found another passageway on the other side of the chamber; it too had swinging chains with neck braces at the end. If they had turned right after descending the stairs that lowered into the ground, instead of turning left, they would have come out on this side, by the twelfth cell.
He freed them all (including the arm chewer, vomiter, and the one who had spoken to him), and felt a great sense of relief doing so, as though he were the one locked behind the bars. After release, the ghosts disappeared into what could only be known as thin air; the sight was both serene and magical to witness.
When Isaac had finished freeing all of the prisoners, he stepped through the study door, glanced back, and saw the lovers again. They were free of the binds, no longer holding hands, but now embracing; holding each other as he had once held his beloved Linda, close and tight, never wanting to let go.
Then faded away in each other’s arms.
10
The corridor at the back of the study tightly spiraled upward to the left like a winding staircase, except there were no stairs, just a stone floor with two barren walls on each side. Two full rotations later, the floor leveled off and the corridor ended at a red curtain that draped down from the ceiling.
The curtain stretched across the entire rear wall of what would be the backstage area to the sanctuary. The group turned right and walked against the wall behind the curtain until they reached an opening at the corner. They pushed the heavy velvet aside and stepped into the large orderly room behind the stage.
A square wooden table was in the center of the room with a white sheet draped over the top. The group parted to different corners of the table and lifted the cover off, revealing many stage props underneath of various shapes and sizes. There were scalpels, ropes, syringes, hooks, rusted canisters of lye, rotted teeth, even the infamous bronze pear that would gradually blossom like a flower inside a throat, vagina, or rectum, mutilating the flesh if the iron screw on the opposite end were turned.
Virginia turned her head away. Being so close to the stage where the illusionist had performed such heinous acts of cruelty almost made her feel partially to blame, like somehow she should have been there to stop it, even though she were not yet born. The intense feeling made her wish she’d never written The Immortal. On paper, none of it was real, just words, but now as it fell upon the end of her eyes, there was no rational way to describe it.
Isaac wandered over to the left side of the room and came upon a long, flat metal table with crisscrossing legs like a stretcher but without the mattress. He brushed his hand against the surface. The metal was dented, discolored, and sticky on top. As his hand lay pressed against the cold metal, painful images jolted through his body like a high current of electricity. Images of loose flesh upon gray skinned bodies; images of partial amputation and decapitation; images of horrifying looks upon innocent faces; images of dissection; images of fire and ash; images of prolonged death.
He quickly pulled his hand from the metal table and almost fell backwards. The images exited his body with the same high current as they entered. He took a deep breath, turned from the metal table, and headed inside a small room adjoined to the backstage.
Virginia and Simmons had moved on from the table of tortures and continued across the large room, coming to another red curtain. Virginia pushed the curtain to the side and poked her head out at the main stage, the stage where the illusionist had put on his monstrous performances. She still had the lantern in her hand, but in the sanctuary, it would not be needed. There were torches, many of them, lit with orange flames high up on the walls leading to the locked double doors at the far end of the room. She counted eight rows of pews, cutoff in the middle by a long maroon carpet that led from the double doors to the steps at the front of the stage. People used to sit in them, she thought, sit in them and watch the show. They wanted to be a part of it, and if they were patient, they would be.
From behin
d the curtain, Virginia and Simmons looked all across the empty stage, every corner of the largest room in the stone mansion.
And still no sign of Amy.
11
The small room had no door. In fact, the room was so small Isaac wondered if it wasn’t a room at all, but a closet.
Just beyond the doorway he came to a full body standing mirror facing the opposite direction, and when he looked around, he saw more mirrors, seven in all, placed into a circle facing inward. Burning on the floor in the center was a single red candle, hardly melted.
Somewhere in his mind, far beyond where simple thoughts become reality, a voice was telling him not to do it—not to step inside the circle of mirrors, but he did it anyway. He turned to the side, nudged his body between the first two sheets of glass, and stood inside the circle. Then he looked at his reflection many times over in the mirrors.
He had never seen himself so abused, so pathetic. What happened to the man he used to know? What happened to the man who wasn’t afraid of anything, the man that knew how to keep his emotions hidden in that dark closet of feelings? Where had he gone, and who had taken his place?
Who was this?
Isaac glanced down at the floor and took another deep breath. He didn’t want to look at himself anymore, didn’t want to see the broken man in the mirror. Finally, he picked his head back up, but this time he could no longer see his reflection. Now there was someone else in the mirror, and it only took Isaac a second to realize who it was.
Jacob Walsh.
Isaac's hands began shaking, his lips quivering. It can’t be, he thought, Jacob is dead! He wanted to run out of the closet but his head had begun to spin and he no longer knew the way out. He stood there, silent and spinning, never removing his eyes from his wife’s murderer reflected in the glass.
Jacob wore the same clothes he had worn the night he took his revenge. He had the same psychotic look in his eyes, the same resolve. And in his hand was a gun, lowered by his side. It was the same .38 caliber revolver that had carried the four bullets that had killed Linda, the four bullets that had bloodied her white nightgown leaving her breathless on the bed.
The room spun faster, a whirlwind of glass.
Everywhere, there was Jacob.
Isaac could see the gun rising from Jacob’s side, and the room spun faster.
Somewhere, a baby cried.
Lay thee down now and rest, may thy slumber be blessed.
The gun was now pointed at him, Jacob, behind it, grinning.
Shrieks now accompanied the cries, voices, sounds fused within some dark closet of feelings, under the layered dust of some hidden shelf of memory.
The shrieks belonged to Linda.
A familiar voice asked: what are you waiting for?
Linda called his name, begged with her last breath for him to come and save her.
Tears flooded his eyes. If he only could.
Someone—was it Isaac?—whispered: Kill me.
Then a bright light blinded him and the sound of expanding gases filled his head, followed by a shattering of glass.
When he hit the floor, Isaac writhed and latched tightly on to the left shoulder of his coat. A cold tremor ran up the ladder of his spine to his heart.
How it ached.
How it burned.
But only moments later, the spinning stopped, as did the screaming, and the bitter sting faded away. Isaac removed his hand from the scarred spot two centimeters to the left of his heart and looked up at his shaking palms.
No blood.
No Jacob.
There was nothing but a dark closet and a circle of broken glass on the floor surrounding him.
12
Virginia and Simmons ran through the large room, past the table of tortures, to the small storage room on the far right. They stopped in the doorway and looked down at Isaac lying in the center of the glass remains. He shook as he sat up.
“Are you okay?” They asked.
“I think so.”
Virginia stepped forward into the room and relocated some of the glass with her foot. “What happened?”
“I don’t know.” Isaac looked down at the glass and nodded. He held out his hand and Simmons helped him to his feet.
“Are you sure you’re okay?”
“Don’t worry about me. I’m fine.”
No matter how certain he sounded, Virginia could tell by the look in his eyes that Isaac wasn’t fine. She knew he was lying. Something had happened in this room, something he wasn’t ready to tell her.
13
The flaming torches lit the cathedral with a dusky orange hue that gleamed through the clouds of smoke gathering thirty feet up at the ceiling. Ten torches spaced across each wall, held in place by black metal rings driven into the stone, far out of the reach of human hand. The torches followed the slanted ceiling upward from the double doors at the end of the long maroon carpeted aisle to the back of the stage, where the group of three now stood.
The eight rows of pews were spaced a foot apart from each other with enough room to accommodate nine to ten attendees per seat. The pews were constructed of thick, darkly stained sheets of wood, eight slabs per pew, one for the seat, one for the backrest, and six stretched upright underneath for support. The first row of pews began five feet back of the steps that led to the stage.
The floor of the stage was made of hardwood, glossed over with a light yellow stain, and was in remarkable condition in comparison to the rest of the mansion. There wasn’t a spot of blood, scuff, or crack across the entire surface; it was smooth and shiny like it had just been polished. In fact, the entire sanctuary appeared to be the only room in the old stone mansion that didn’t show its age, not at all, as though something had kept it alive for over a century.
The three slowly walked across the empty stage, hardwood knocking beneath them, and gazed up at the orange glow. Isaac stopped in the center and looked out at the maroon carpet separating the left pews from the right. His eyes moved down the aisle and fell upon the locked double doors on the far side of the room. He remembered yanking at the brass handles, feeling the sensation that something was on the other side of the doors. It had watched him struggle with great pleasure, laughing in his head. But now, after finally finding his way into the sanctuary, and standing at the foot of the stage, the sensation was gone.
He felt nothing but alone.
Isaac headed down the three steps at the foot of the stage then turned back and saw Virginia and Simmons following him, their feet knocking hard against the light wooden floor. He walked down the red aisle, scanning each row of pews for any sign of his daughter, without luck. As he came to the eighth and final row, he made one last desperate attempt to restore his faith. He cried out her name, praying that somehow, wherever she was, she would hear him. Perhaps she would cry back, guide him to her. He longed to hear her voice one last time, but the echo resonating off the sanctuary walls was his and only his.
Isaac lowered his head and came to a stop in front of the double doors. He thought of the gun in his coat pocket. He could almost feel it in his hand, feel his index finger pressed against the cold trigger.
This is it, he thought, I’m done.
He would remove the gun from the inner pocket, lead it into his mouth, between his teeth, and fire a bullet through the back of his head. In an instant, the pain would be gone. There was no turning back now. No way to restart at zero. There was only goodbye.
Virginia and Simmons split on opposite sides of Isaac. They saw his head lowered, his eyes closed. They knew the storm raged inside of him, but there was nothing they could do or say to calm it. All they could do is wait and hope for a miracle.
The silence was broken by soft knocking, footfalls on the stage.
Isaac began raising his head just as the menacing voice collided with his ears.
“Finally,” it said.
The group slowly turned together and peered down the red aisle at Amy standing in the center of the stage. Isaac could fe
el his heart beating again, fast inside his chest.
Amy’s dirty blonde hair was messed and curled against the sides of her ashen face. Her light blue pajamas were slightly torn and her arms were down by the side of her body, her legs close together. She stood motionless, expressionless, and weakened, as though she would fall over if her body wasn’t being held up by an elaborate configuration of invisible strings.
“We’ve been waiting,” said the voice. Isaac saw her lips follow the words out of her mouth, but it wasn’t Amy’s voice. This voice was deep, dark, and bottomless.
Give me back my daughter you son of a bitch, he thought of saying.
Amy grinned. “Come get her.”
It was a confrontation, a standoff. They had come to the finale, the end of the trial. The jury would listen to the closing arguments, and their verdict would come swiftly.
“Why are you doing this?”
“It’s what I’ve always done,” Lucius said. “But you already knew that, didn’t you?”
“What do you want?”
“I want you to listen. I want you to understand.”
Isaac stared at Amy. He wanted nothing more than to run to her, carry her from this haunted place, but he feared the consequences would be fatal. He had to be careful, one wrong move, one wrong word, and the trial could be over in an instant. His daughter’s life swept away till just a mound of ash remained.
“No,” said Isaac, shaking his head. “I don’t want to talk, and I won’t listen. I came here for my daughter, and I won’t leave until I get her back.”
“I know,” said Lucius. “But you won’t get her back, no matter how much you think you will. She is mine now, and here with me, she will stay.”
“Fuck you!” Isaac yelled, as a wave of courage passed over him. “Give her back to me!”
The Gift of Illusion: A Thriller Page 20