by Cindy Winget
“You seemed pretty adamant the other day that what you and Eleanor experienced was real, when you nearly took my head off at breakfast.”
“I’m sorry about that. I do actually think it was real. I guess, I just wish that it weren’t. Or maybe I do,” she said quietly, looking away.
“What do you mean?”
Theo sighed. “I’m going to talk about my brother, but only once.”
Luke raised his hand to the square, “I promise that I will never mention him again.”
“Michael was my best friend,” began Theo. “We lived in a house that was way off the beaten path, which made making friends difficult. Sure, we met people at school, but no one was willing to drive that far for a playdate. So, we mostly played with each other. We had this lake in the back of our property, and we would go swimming regularly. No big deal. Until one day my brother’s swimming trunks got caught on a branch below the surface, and he couldn’t make his way back up for air. I freed him and dragged him to shore, but by then, it was too late. He was gone.”
“I am so sorry,” Luke said, wrapping his arm around Theo’s shoulders. “That must have been devastating.”
“It was.” She leaned into him. “Anyway, my family was never religious, and I never really believed in an afterlife, but after my brother died, I always wondered, ya know? When Dr. Montague asked me to come to Hill House, a part of me came because I thought that if we could prove the existence of ghosts, then maybe my brother was still out there somewhere.”
“I get it,” Luke said. “I would probably feel the same way. I confess, I’ve always been a believer in the supernatural. Not necessarily in a religious way, but I believe that there are ghosts and other things that we just don’t fully understand.”
“Is that why you came here to Hill House? So you could witness it firsthand?”
Luke shook his head ruefully, “No. Dr. Montague wasn’t lying when he said that my aunt forced me into it. I had just recently lost my job and I had done some petty thieving that my aunt knew about. So, to ‘straighten me out,’ she sent me to Hill House.”
Theo scrunched up her face. “I thought you were twenty-two, not sixteen.”
Luke chuckled. “I know. I know. It’s pathetic. I don’t know why I do dumb things like that. I went to stay with Aunt Hazel when I was fourteen and she took me in, even though she didn’t know the first thing about kids, or young adults for that matter. I was angry with my parents, so I lashed out and made poor decisions. I believed my mom and dad gave up on their experiment of raising a son and wanted to live it up as a childless couple once more. I resented the fact that I was essentially abandoned to live with a woman I barely knew. I guess I just never fully grew out of it. As a consequence, I never could hold onto a job for very long and I would sometimes steal cash from my aunt’s purse when I needed money.”
“That’s terrible,” chided Theo.
Luke smiled ruefully, looking self-deprecating. “I know. It wasn’t until a couple of years ago I began to realize all that my aunt had done for me and recognized that my parents were just scared. Scared of me ‘losing my way.’ Scared of me remaining a hooligan. But by then, I had cemented their disapproval and my reputation as a dewdropper. Trust is a hard thing to earn back once its lost.” His gaze became pensive and he stared fixedly at the floor.
“Well, I am glad to see you have seen the error of your ways. Why, just think how proud your parents would be to learn of your most recent financial venture here at Hill House,” said Theo, attempting to pluck up his spirits with a bit of humor. He gave her a grateful smile.
Theo couldn’t believe how easy it was for her to talk to Luke. A person she had assumed upon meeting was nothing but another playboy. He could actually be pretty sweet, and he was a great listener. She liked the feel of his arm around her shoulder and the dimple that appeared on his left cheek when he smiled.
“Dr. Montague thinks I’m psychic,” Theo told him.
“Are you serious? Do you think that?”
Theo shrugged. “I never gave it much thought before, but after he spoke of his suspicion, I got to thinking about my life and the times that I felt a certain way about something, and it came true. Like once, I had a bad feeling about walking down a certain street in my hometown. A street I walked down daily to get home. I tried to dismiss it, but the feeling was so strong. I took a different route home, and the next morning I discovered that a gang of young men had robbed every person going down the street that night. It ended with one man being stabbed who refused to give up his wallet. So, I don’t know. Maybe. I was just thinking that perhaps these dreams I have been having here at Hill House could be more than mere dreams.”
“There’s a way we could find out, you know.”
Theo’s eyes widened. “How?”
“You mentioned that Egaeus’s cousin was buried beneath the house, correct?” When Theo nodded, he continued, “Let’s go see if there is, in fact, a tomb hidden beneath Hill House. Not only that, but we could find the room that held the corpse of the man’s dead wife from your first dream.”
“What a good idea! You take one and I’ll take the other.” Before Luke could respond, Theo quickly interjected, “I call the latter!”
“Rhatz! Why does the man always get the scariest, most dangerous jobs?”
“Because it would do irreparable harm to our female sensitivities,” Theo mocked in a southern accent. “I would just swoon in fright!” She held the back of her hand dramatically against her forehead and pretended to faint. In her normal voice, she said, “So since I forgot to bring my smelling salts with me, the tomb is left up to you.”
Luke groaned. “Okay. You have yourself a deal.”
Chapter Eighteen
Theo wasn’t sure she wanted to know if her dreams had truly happened here at Hill House, but at least she would know once and for all if she actually had some psychic ability.
Judging by the outside architecture, the large tower should be somewhere on the back, left side of the house. Walking in that direction, she hoped she wouldn’t get lost in the maze of tunnel-like hallways and dusty rooms. Whenever she stumbled upon a staircase leading up, she took it, figuring that she would need to be at the top of the house to find the tower.
She soon came upon a set of footprints in the dust. On impulse, she followed them. They led her to the enormous attic. The footprints wandered off to the right, heading toward an oval portrait of a beautiful young woman. A dead end. Theo went to the left where she discovered yet another staircase in the corner leading upwards. The rickety stairs creaked alarmingly as she ascended. She prayed they would hold her weight. With a sigh of relief, she made it up the stairs and entered a large room.
This was it! The tower room from her dream! She had been right. A shiver coursed down her spine. What did this mean? That she was truly psychic? The idea was both empowering and terrifying. She wrapped her arms around herself, almost expecting the ghost of Ligeia to appear.
* * *
Luke didn’t have any idea where the hidden crypt would be. He wandered around the first floor of the house but couldn’t find a set of stairs that led downward. In frustration, he walked out onto the verandah for some fresh air.
Maybe there was a separate entrance, like a cellar door in the ground. He bounded down the stairs of the porch and walked around the house—no small feat considering the size of the place—but his circuit around Hill House proved fruitless. There was no door.
With a groan, Luke sat down on the back steps of the verandah, staring out over the grounds. Maybe Theo’s dreams weren’t real. Maybe they were just dreams. Or maybe they didn’t happen here at Hill House.
In resignation, he was about to reenter the house and find Theo when something caught his eye. Off in the distance there was an outbuilding. The most obvious reason for the structure was that it was a shed that housed gardening tools. Wanting to check it out, Luke stood and strode in that direction. As he neared the outbuilding, he saw that it wasn’t a s
hed. It was a mausoleum.
Eureka! He had found it! This had to be the place. Although crypts were typically found beneath churches, he thought he remembered reading somewhere that some private homes had them beneath family mausoleums.
With quiet elation, he pushed and strained to open the thick, heavy door of the tomb. It screeched open, scraping on the concrete. Upon entering the dusty mausoleum, he had to squint in the dim light from the half-open door. The vault contained two coffins raised on stone platforms and a few urns off to the side containing the cremated remains of the Crain family. Luke looked about the space until he found a narrow doorway and a set of stone steps leading downward. He descended into the musty subterranean world under Hill House.
Theo had been right after all. Her dreams had been real. She truly was psychic then? This thought was a bit unsettling, but Luke swallowed down his apprehension. He would contemplate on that later.
It was dark down here; he should have brought a flashlight. Not wanting to waste any more time going back to find one, he continued on. In a few minutes, his eyes had adjusted to the darkness, and he was better able to navigate his way through the vast number of tunnels and vaulted rooms.
Why hadn’t Mr. Dudley shown them the mausoleum on their tour? Given the fact that they were here to prove that Hill House was haunted, a large hidden crypt under the family mausoleum should have been included. It wasn’t for him to say, he supposed, but it seemed strange. Although, perhaps Mr. Dudley didn’t know of its existence.
Motion caught his eye, stopping his musings in their tracks. Scanning the room, he tried to make out what he had seen. Whatever it was had flitted into the room so fleetingly that he hadn’t gotten a good glimpse at it. The large animal (for that’s what it must have been) had scampered into an adjoining room.
There it was again! Luke whipped his head in the direction of the movement, and this time the animal did not run off. Only it wasn’t an animal. It was a man. A very strange man. He was short and stout, but what caught Luke’s attention most was the fact that he was dressed in a costume. He was wearing the colorful garb of a court jester, complete with the many-pointed hat that held a bell on the end of each point. They jingled merrily as the man stepped away from the wall and headed in the opposite direction, his back now to Luke.
Without knowing why exactly, Luke followed. Why was this man down here? Was there an extra guest who had arrived late? Why was he dressed like a court jester?
“Hello!” he called out. No response. He tried again. “What are you doing down here?”
Luke quickened his pace, trying to keep up with the stranger. He followed the man down a large arched tunnel, passing many coffins set into stone niches in the walls. He was practically jogging when he entered an even darker tunnel of the catacombs. The air grew colder. It was becoming increasingly more difficult to see. Placing his hand upon the cold stone wall, he began to feel his way in the darkness. His hand brushed something. A stick?
He had a matchbook in his pocket for his butts. Pulling it out, he lit a match and instantly jumped backwards. It hadn’t been a stick, but rather a skeleton’s arm. As he spun in a slow circle, he took in more niches in the rock walls. Niches that held decades-old skeletons left out in the open without coffins. Dozens of skulls jeered at him through the dim light of his match.
“Ouch!” The small flame scorched his fingers, and he dropped the matchstick. Pulling out another, he scratched it across the rough striker strip on the matchbox, watching as it flared to life.
A man’s laughter broke the silence. Luke turned to his right to find the court jester jeering at him. “This way,” the man taunted in a hoarse whisper as he turned and walked deeper into the catacombs.
Luke followed, though he could barely keep up. This was crazy! Why was he doing this? He had already found what he came down here to find. He should turn back.
But he didn’t.
He continued to follow the court jester, curious about where he had come from and why he was down here. In time, Luke turned and entered an empty stone vault. The man in the costume had vanished. Luke could have sworn that he had turned this way, but there was nowhere else to go. It was a dead end.
A noise turned Luke around where he saw the court jester peering in at him through a hole in a brick wall, a brick wall that hadn’t been there a minute ago. Before he could ponder on this, Luke watched in horror as the court jester used a trowel to cake on a thick bit of mortar to the brick directly in front of him and place another brick on top.
He was being bricked in! He was trapped in this cold, forsaken stone room in a hidden catacomb below Hill House. This had to be a dream. This couldn’t really be happening.
“What are you doing!?” Luke cried as he ran forward, grabbed a hold of the brick that had just been placed, and attempted to rip it off its perch. It wouldn’t budge. It felt like it had been mortared to the wall for ages, not a mere moment ago. He continued to try to wrench the brick free for a time, but to no avail. It was stuck fast.
Heedless of Luke’s terror, the court jester only laughed and finished plugging up the hole with layer upon layer of bricks, as Luke desperately tried to stop him.
With only space enough for one brick left, Luke reached a hand through the gap and tried to grab at the court jester, but he couldn’t feel anything. Pulling his arm back through the hole, Luke peered out of the cavity of the brick wall. The stranger had disappeared. Luke yanked and pulled at the bricks with all his might, but they still wouldn’t budge.
“Hello!” he yelled. “Can anyone hear me!?” No response met his cries for help.
Chapter Nineteen
“Please! If you can hear me, I need help!”
Luke continued to shout for what seemed like hours, but of course nobody came. The crypt was too cavernous. He was too far away from the house. No one but Theo knew he was down here. With any luck, she would eventually come looking for him. Although she didn’t know where the crypt was hidden, perhaps she would mention to Dr. Montague that he had been seeking a crypt beneath Hill House. Dr. Montague seemed to know his onions and would likely have read about family mausoleums. He had once been a professor of anthropology, after all.
In the meantime, Luke checked every nook and cranny of his stone cage, trying to find a way out. At the back of the room, he discovered a curious hole in the ground that stretched from one end of the room to the other. The room simply ended before it met the far wall, leaving this enormous pit.
Luke peered down into the dark abyss but couldn’t see a bottom. He lit a match and squinted his eyes, trying to focus them on seeing any possible escape through this means. Dropping the match down the hole, he hoped to discover how far down it went, but the small flame was blown out by its descent long before it reached the bottom. He looked around; finding a good-sized rock, Luke retrieved it, walked back over to the pit, and dropped it, counting to see how long it took to hit the ground.
He didn’t hear a thing.
Was this pit truly bottomless? How could that be? Maybe he had simply missed the moment of impact. He searched for another rock, finding only a small pebble. It would have to do. He dropped it into the pit and waited.
No sound. No indication that the pebble had reached the bottom of the dark pit.
Luke got down onto his stomach and reached into the abyss, trying to find any foot-holds or any outcroppings that indicated branching from the hole or a way to climb down.
The rock tunnel was smooth.
Now what?
A schwing noise met his ears, sounding like a sword when it’s pulled from its scabbard. Luke climbed back to his feet and turned around.
He heard it again.
What was making that sound? He walked toward the front of the room. The only light came from the gap left in the brick wall.
Schwing.
Luke lit yet another match and when he saw what had made the noise his heart nearly stopped. His breathing became erratic as he watched the large, curved blade come sw
inging down from the ceiling, whipping up the other side in a fast swoosh that made enough wind in its passage to ruffle his hair. When it reached the other side, it came plummeting back down in the opposite direction like a giant pendulum. Luke’s heart began pounding so hard in his chest it was as though it was seeking to free itself from its boney prison.
Did it seem closer that time?
Luke watched the blade for several minutes until he was certain that the blade was ever so slightly coming closer to him with each swing. If that was the case, then in time, he would either have to make a run for it while the blade was at its apex and hope to make it across before being sliced in half, or else risk being pushed into the bottomless pit.
He didn’t like either option.
Where was Theo? Surely, she would come to his rescue.
“Theo! It’s Luke! I’m trapped down in the crypt!” he hollered, although he knew it was futile. No one could hear him down here.
Schwing.
Luke tried to think what to do, all the while that infernal steel-bladed pendulum swung back and forth, inching ever closer.
* * *
Where was Luke? Theo wondered for the third time. What was taking him so long? Shouldn’t he have been back by now?
She sat in the sitting room, waiting for him. She was itching with anticipation to tell him that she had found the tower room from her dream. The implications of the discovery were staggering, and she was anxious to talk them over with someone.
Had he found the supposed catacombs that lay beneath Hill House? She recognized that having no idea where they might be located, it could take him a while, but she was feeling antsy and impatient. She hadn’t known the whereabouts of the attic or the hidden tower room either, and she had managed to find them and make it back within the hour.
She stirred the fire, even though she had already done so twice before. Should she go find Eleanor and tell her about her dreams and what she had discovered? No. She didn’t like everyone knowing her secrets.