The Dead Path

by Stephen M Irwin

  She climbed the stairs and pressed on one of the wooden doors. It was heavy, but as she strained, it lifted the barest amount… then the solid clack of metal on metal marked the limit of its travel. A barrel bolt on the upper side of the doors was locking her in.

  She was trapped.

  Chapter 37

  W ind from the west whipped the treetops into a breathy susurrus, driving the three women faster. Katharine and Laine had been in the twilit back yard garden shed, pulling out two spades, when they heard the shrill scream from inside the house. Suzette had arrived from Sydney and let herself in to discover what was left of Garnock pinned to the floorboards, rotting at a rate too fast for nature and buzzing with flies. Explanations were brief. Soon, armed with pitchfork and spades, they were on their way to Carmichael Road.

  “What a trio we make,” said Katharine as they strode side by side. Three women: one stern-eyed and pretty, one lean and quite beautiful, the other sliding into attractive late middle age, all with hair pulled back sensibly as they trotted with a fork or spade in hand and grim purpose on their faces.

  Laine smiled. “Are we mad?”

  Katharine slid a sure eye back. “Oh, yes. It’s good, isn’t it?”

  Suzette recalled Nicholas’s words from days ago-days that felt like weeks. I thought you just liked gardening, he’d said. That was… what? Hemlock and mandrake and double-double-toil-and-trouble shit?

  “Fire burn and cauldron bubble,” said Suzette. She looked at her mother. Katharine held her gaze and gave a small nod. It made Suzette smile.

  “That’s us,” said Katharine. “Three witches armed by Target.”

  Laine let out a small laugh, but her smile soon evaporated.

  The word “witch” seemed to scare them all. They were silent, perhaps sharing the same thoughts. Where was Nicholas? Still in the woods? Had he found Quill? Had she found him?

  The night was young but cold, and something was shifting on the air. Suzette noticed Katharine watching the sky and followed her mother’s gaze upward. Clouds, heavy as slate and swollen like the underbellies of diseased beasts, were rolling across the sky. Rain was coming. Heavy rain. By the time they reached Carmichael Road, their faces were toneless shadows.

  “What are those cars parked there?”

  Suzette and Katharine followed Laine’s gray eyes.

  On the dark strip of grass bordering the black trees were several white vehicles.

  “I don’t know-”

  Red and blue lights flashed on, dazzling the women, and a siren hoo-hooed once in warning.

  “Ladies?” called a man’s voice. “Please step over here.”

  Chapter 38

  R owena Quill tended her fire.

  Nicholas had tried to turn away, to close his eyes, to think, to plan how to escape and kill her… but then he had started watching her fingers.

  The fire was fully birthed and breathing on its own, and Quill put down the poker and tongs so her hands were free. They began to weave the air above the flames, seeming to pull shadows and firelight through each other, drawing symbols in the shimmering, sparking air above the fire pit.

  Nicholas stared, mesmerized. Her voice was a singsong of words he didn’t understand, but their tone was clear. Invoking. Inviting. Imploring. Please. Please.

  He was startled from the spell by the thudding of the first heavy drops of rain on the shingles above him. It was a short prelude; in just moments, drenching rain stampeded down. Rain to deter the searchers. Rain to buy Quill time enough to kill Hannah Gerlic and move her body to be found kilometers away.

  Nicholas rolled onto his back. The ropes dug painfully, pinching the skin of his wrists and cutting off most of the blood flow to his feet, making them cold and numb.

  “Let Hannah go, Rowena. You don’t need her. Barisi’s dead. Her sister paid for that.”

  For a while Quill said nothing, but cocked her head and listened to the tapdance on the roof.

  “She can’t go back,” she said. “She will bring them here.”

  “You killed her sister, her parents are already-”

  “She won’t suffer,” snapped Quill. She rose quickly to her feet and hobbled across the room. No sign of the young, svelte Rowena now.

  He’d seen the terror on dead Dylan Thomas’s face as he was hauled, again and again, to a violent death that occurred somewhere near here. A death, Nicholas was sure, he would see tonight.

  “They suffer terribly,” he said.

  She sent an angry glance at him, ready to bite again.

  “It’s an honor. They don’t know it, but they give of themselves so that others live.”

  “Trees,” whispered Nicholas.

  “Not just trees!” snarled Quill. Orange light danced under her chin and eyes, so she seemed to rise like a fiery djinn. “There are secrets in live wood.” She turned her full face to him and, as her passion rose, she again grew younger, so chillingly beautiful that Nicholas could only stare. “The woods fed us an’ taught us an’ shared their secrets with those that listened to Him. Oh, how terrified they were when we learned fire! Fire an’ steel. Fire an’ steel, an’ the scales swung. Then we grew poisonous, infecting everythin’. Like the blight on them lumpers.”

  She shook her head and her long, blond hair sparkled like silk. Her eyes probed his, desperate.

  “We’re the disease,” she whispered. “What odds if a few young ones must die? There’s always more. Trust me on that.”

  She lifted her head, her throat was long and slender and white. On the skin that plunged down from her neck to the curving tops of her breasts glistened delicate gems of perspiration. Nicholas found his skin growing hot and looked away, angry with his body. The rain swelled on the roof. Rowena and he could have been the only people in a hundred kilometers, a thousand kilometers. Despite his fury, despite his disgust, his body wanted her.

  “ It’s a lie, ” he whispered. “You’re a lie.”

  She rose from her chair, lithe and light as air, and crouched over him. Her eyes sparkled.

  “This hair’s a lie?”

  Her face hovered over his and her hair fell like gold curtains around them. Her teeth were perfect pearls behind thick, soft lips. She lowered her mouth till her lower lip grazed his forehead.

  “This skin?” she murmured.

  Her touch was electric.

  “It is fleeting now, yes,” she purred. “But it needn’t be. I have only to ask. I have never asked for anything for me, just for me.” Her head crept forward until her white throat was over his face, and her breath blew over his chin, his neck, his chest. Her breasts swung loose and full, tantalizing centimeters from his eyes, his mouth. “We can be young together.” She prowled backward till her lips were above his.

  Nicholas felt his heart thumping in his chest, so hard it shook him on the floor. He felt the pulsing rain outside was driving his blood, falling hard and alive, desperate to sink into the ground, to rise through roots and trunks, to explode in lush, bright leaves.

  But Hannah…

  “And what will that cost?” he whispered.

  The corners of her perfect lips curled upward in a gentle smile. “She’ll not suffer long,” she whispered back, a breath as young as saplings.

  He could feel her heat. Smell her sweet sweat. The skin above him was so white and perfect that there was nothing else to the world-she could be his sky, his bed, his food. He gritted his teeth. It’s a lie, he thought. It’s all a lie. Her excuses, her double life, her names. Pretending to be part of a town that she fed off, that she bled, which she plucked children from as carelessly as weeds from a herb garden.

  “Your church was a lie, too,” he hissed. “A church to one God, but meant for another.”

  She hovered over him, her lips so close to his the air tingled as if lightning were ready to leap between them. She smiled.

  “What makes you think they are not one and the same?”

  Nicholas blinked. Did Pritam once say that, too? It was so hard to th
ink. His groin throbbed painfully, ravenously. His chest hammered. His mouth felt at once wet and dry. What was she saying? Church of Christ? Church of the Green Man?

  Her tongue danced behind her white teeth. Her eyes were wide, her pupils dark and large with excitement, her breath was sweet and lightly spiced.

  “He has gone by many names in many ages. But His story is the same,” she said. “He dies so we can live. Each year He dies for us, and then is reborn for us. And all He asks in return is humility,” her lips touched his, “and a little sacrifice.”

  It seemed so simple now. Stay. All he had to do was stay. Wasn’t this what people dreamed of? An idyll, a singing nest of trees in which to live a life so long he would be like the trees themselves: deep-rooted and protected and safe. A woman who understood him, who knew his gift, who wanted him enough to kill for him, who was achingly beautiful and raised his flesh like a drug. Time would lose its weight. Life would be perfect.

  Rowena smiled at him, as if reading his thoughts. Her fingertips ran down his throat-her lips gentled the air above his own. His mouth was wet with the need to taste her flesh. Her body was so close its heat poured down with the erotic rhythm of the rain. Yes, she said without words. Life would be perfect.

  Except…

  “Except for the ghosts,” whispered Nicholas.

  He spat in her face.

  As she shrieked, the mask of youth ripped apart like smoke in a sudden gust and the old hag Quill reared over him, wrinkled and rotting. She slapped his face so hard that white stars joined the orange sparks in the air.

  R ain clouds rolled overhead and what little light the night sky had given was vanished. Where moonlight had sliced three white knives through the gaps between the heavy timbers of the cellar doors, raindrops now leaked, accreting into globs of cold water as big as marbles that fell and spattered on the brick stairs.

  Hannah was soaking wet and sobbing. Her fingers were frustrating millimeters too thick to slip between the boards of the trap doors and reach the bolt. So, she crouched on the stairs on the underside of the doors, reaching between the heavy timbers with the paring knife, trying to snick and persuade the barrel bolt to move, but it was fruitless. The bolt needed to twist ninety degrees before its loop would clear the guide and it could be slid aside. The blade found no purchase on the round steel.

  Hannah could feel her heart trotting faster. She didn’t know how long she’d been down here, but it had certainly been hours. She remembered that it had rained this heavily the night Miriam had been taken. Time surely was running out. She was going to die.

  She slid on her bottom back down the stairs into the inky gloom. She had to find something to move the barrel bolt, but what? Such an idiot! If only she’d worn her sneakers instead of the slip-ons, she would have had shoelaces! She could picture slipping the lace over the bolt, pulling down hard on both ends, and gently rolling the bolt free. If wishes were horses, beggars would ride, Vee would say.

  As soon as she moved away from the miserable glow admitted by the door cracks, the room became almost pitch black and she could make out only the vaguest forms. Her fingers probed the dark: hunting, feeling. Shelves were cut into the walls of the cellar-like catacombs. Jars of all sizes. She pulled one out and shook it. A faint rattle. She unscrewed the lid, and tipped the contents into her hand, and guided her fingertips over it. The object became so instantly and horribly familiar that she let out a yelp. A tooth, long pronged roots still attached. She dropped it to the floor and went to the next jar, rattled it. A faint sloshing inside. The next felt empty, and when she opened it, a small piece of furry paper fell onto her palm. As she felt the patch, her stomach twisted. It was a piece of dried skin, short hairs still attached. Her heart raced faster, and she kept going through the jars. One after another, their contents all equally repulsive and useless to her.

  She felt tears start to salt her eyes and blinked hard. This was no time for crying. There had to be something. There were four walls, that was clear. One wall was hewn shelves full of jars. One had the stairs. The next was blank. The last was where she herself had hung, and where the mummified black boy still slumped in his cobweb cocoon. This wall was the last one to search.

  Hannah put her arms out in front of her and gingerly stepped toward the last wall. Her fingers touched silky threads and jerked back involuntarily. Okay, she thought. That’s him. What’s beside him? Her fingers delicately slid past the wispy strands until they again touched the wall. Nothing, nothing, cold earth and the mute heads of rocks. Then her fingers slipped into space.

  She used both hands to map the hole then pulled back sharply. What if there are spiders in there?

  Vee’s voice came back at her: There’ll be spiders in here soon enough, girlie, so get a wriggle on.

  Hannah stood on tiptoe and reached into the hole.

  Her fingers touched something hard and flat and cold. Steel. She probed, and her hand closed around a looped iron handle. It was a box.

  Or a coffin.

  “Shush,” she hissed at herself.

  She gripped the handle and pulled. The box chuckled unhappily, steel scraping on rock. It was heavy, but it moved. Well, she thought, if it’s a coffin, it’s empty. She pulled more and the end of the box cleared the wall. It still rested flat in its hole. She pulled and took a step backward, then another. Abruptly, the far end of the chest cleared the wall and it fell fast and hard. One sharp metal corner pounded into her cheek, then the box slammed sharply on the damp ground with a booming clang. Hannah lost her grip on it completely and the metal box tottered forward and fell, scraping skin from her shin on its downward arc.

  Tears sprang out of her eyes and she bit her lip to stop herself howling at the bright pain.

  At least it’s down.

  Hannah knelt. She seemed to be hurting everywhere, worst of all her hot-and-cold throbbing shin. She gritted her teeth and made her fingers feel the chest. It had fallen onto its lid. She gripped the cold corners of folded steel and lifted. The chest rolled slowly and, as it did, its lid opened: its catch must have broken loose. Stuff spilled out over her hands and forearms.

  Papers. Lots and lots of papers. Small pieces of paper, thousands of small rectangles.

  Oh, wow, she realized. This is…

  She picked up a handful and sloshed over to the dull gray light leaking in from the trapdoors. The golden yellow plastic of contemporary fifty-dollar notes. The red paper of old twenties. A gray-green note printed “?100.” Hannah blinked. There was a fortune.

  But it won’t buy your way out of here, she thought acidly.

  She felt her way back over to the chest and started sifting through the money. Please, please, please, she thought, please let there be something in here. Something… She shoveled the notes aside, feeling, probing, digging.

  Then her fingers closed on a roll of larger sheets. She followed the dry cylinder along its length.

  Then a smile appeared on her face.

  The roll was tied with a leather thong.

  Chapter 39

  N icholas’s head ached sharply.

  She had risen, passing the fire pit and muttering to herself. She bent to the dresser and he heard through the ringing in his ear the clinking of glass and the tick of tin and the shush of things unscrewing. Rain mumbled heavily all the while.

  His hatred for her was now as solid as the boards he lay on, as the stones ringing the fire pit. But despite it, he hadn’t come up with anything approximating a half-baked plan, let alone anything that promised a whiff of success. He was Quill’s prisoner, and Hannah was shortly to die.

  “I’ll stay with you, just let Hannah go.”

  She kept her back to him. Her voice ended all hope.

  “You will stay,” said Quill. “And that little cuttie will go soon enough.”

  She turned her body and Nicholas saw what she held. A jar. It was open and in its bottom ran a small amount of grayish, once-white fluid. In her other hand, she held a silver cone on a rod. It looked li
ke a candle snuffer, but this metal cone was larger and curved like a horn, writhing with symbols and darkly stained with soot. Quill reached for her belt and, with a motion as swift and practiced as a matador with a banderilla, produced the small, wickedly sharp knife. She drew the blade over her thumb and a red ruby of blood sprouted there. She let a thimbleful of thick crimson liquid drop into the silver cone. Her wrinkled oyster of a mouth mumbled words Nicholas couldn’t make out. Then she closed the wound, licked it, and poured the semen from the jar into the crucible. Without hesitating, she set the empty jar aside and held the cone by its stained silver handle over the flames.

  Nicholas felt his limbs instantly blaze with pain, as if she were holding not the silver horn but him over the flames. Then, just as suddenly, he fell slack and dumb. His heart stopped beating. He felt his breath sigh out of his lungs.

  Oh God, she’s killed me!

  Then his chest began thumping again, a deliberate, slow-paced tattoo that was dislocated and inhuman. As the blood swept from his heart through his veins, he seemed able to feel its passage. It’s not mine, he thought. It doesn’t feel like my blood anymore! It feels like

  …

  “Stiff, now,” said Quill.

  Nicholas felt his throat tighten and his arms, legs, chest, harden, every muscle closing like a thousand fists, till his body was straight and rigid as wood. His eyes watered with the pain of exertion, yet his sight remained his. He rolled his eyes.

  Quill was watching him from a face that was all shadow but for two bright orbs that shone orange and owlish in the firelight. And she was smiling.

  She got to her feet and scuttled over to him. With her neat knife, she sliced the ropes around his wrists and ankles and knees. Again, she was kneeling over his face, but instead of ripe young breasts and a long white throat, poised above him now was wattled gray flesh and rags. Her wet gums shone like the insides of dying clams.