House of Thirteen

by Andy Lockwood

  The entire time, she tried to convince herself that this part wasn’t necessary. That it was very much the opposite of a safe plan, but Ren was looking for some kind of advantage and this seemed to be the only one available to her. She knew what Mariel would say. Everyone would say the same thing, really. And she completely agreed, but she also stopped caring the minute Tau stepped into the office tonight. He had drawn a line and she was primed to destroy everything on his side of it.

  She strode into Swinton Woods, hardly certain of any particular direction she was going in, but somehow she found her way to the fountain anyhow. She told herself the hand of Fate was guiding her, but she hardly believed it. It was the slow realization of what she intended to do. She didn’t want to be alone in this decision, but deep down she knew this was a solo operation.

  “Mother!”

  She called out and turned around on the stones, waiting for her to appear. A mist was drifting slowly down the hill, but hardly in any particular direction. Ren thought by the chill in the air that she might be coming, but a moment later it became clear that the chill was her adrenaline wearing down combined with an actual atmospheric chill in the air.

  “Mother! You need to give it to me.”

  She waited again, expecting at least a simple “no”, but none came. Mother was either sleeping it off in the deepest of dreams, or she was watching, intent on keeping the knife safe. Ren clenched her jaw and stepped off the path into the thick of the forest. She wasn’t sure where to begin looking, but she knew she had to try. Joe was depending on her.

  If Joe’s still alive…

  She stopped midstride. Her heart felt like a stone at the thought and she promised not to utter such a terrible thing ever again, not even in the privacy of her own mind; or perhaps especially not there.

  The further off the path she wandered, the stranger the forest seemed. Perhaps not strange, but wild. It grew like it had never seen the Age of Man. The trees were thick and timeless, and she was almost sure that she had stumbled into another land. Certainly someone would have noticed these trees growing in the middle of the city. But here they stood. Leaves and branches and thick undergrowth hampered her stride, making her consider her steps more carefully. As she continued on, she looked around and realized there was no way out of here. Every direction looked the same, all of them seeming to head deeper into the woods.

  I guess the only way out is through. Let’s hope that’s true.

  The longer she travelled; she started to feel the weight and aggression leaving her. She was mesmerized by the woods; enchanted by them and giving in to their overwhelming calm. It occurred to her that this might be part of how the wights hunted, that right now they could be hunting her. Part of her was surprisingly okay with it.

  We’re all part of the life cycle, after all. The dirt and the plants and the bugs and the small creatures and the big creatures and me…

  And then she remembered, though a growing majority of her brain didn’t care so much, that she was not at the top of the food chain in this part of the woods. She continued to move through the dark, able to catch a glimmer here and there to keep her from running face first into a tree. She carried on, not even sure how long she’d been out there, when she came to a clearing.

  The clearing had a soft green bed of growth, nothing overgrown, nothing gnarled and tangled. Just a perfectly open patch of woods where the grass was soft beneath her feet and starlight shone down from above her. In the center of the clearing stood a squat object. As she approached, Ren had a peculiar sense of dread, as if this was one a great tree, and now there was only a stump. But as she grew closer to the object, she felt relief: no missing trees, but there was a long abandoned chest at her feet.

  Her heart leapt, as she knelt and examined the chest. It was wood, with old metal trim. She placed extra emphasis on the word old. All of the trim was long rusted and eaten away in places. The lock on the front was rusted into place; she couldn’t get it to budge at all. The wood was warped and bent and almost felt rotten. She pulled at the box; it felt fused to the forest floor. After all this time, it might have done exactly that. There was no way to get it out of the forest if she couldn’t even pick it up. And if she couldn’t get it out of the forest, she’d never get it open.

  She clenched her teeth and stood up, frustrated at nature’s lack of cooperation, and kicked the trunk – surprised to feel it crumple under her boot. She put her foot right through everything but the metal frame and got caught up in it, tripping over her good fortune.

  Ren scrambled forward on her hands and knees, pawing through the spongy old wood, feeling for the contents of the box, and hoping the same fate had not befallen them. She could feel the small bugs and worms that had been living within the walls of the trunk skittering over her hand as she dug through the remains, huffing frantically as she tried to find something – anything.

  She continued until she was certain she had sifted through the entire mess that was once a chest. Whatever was here had been moved long ago. She felt disappointment blanketing her. She could not leave empty handed. She needed a new lead; she couldn’t just give up.

  Maybe I haven’t looked hard enough. These woods go on forever and –

  As she stood up and turned, Ren found that she was surrounded. Seven wights, each as tall and lean as Mother, but each with a much more aggressive aura than hers. Maybe she was onto something after all. It also occurred to her that she might not be leaving the woods tonight. Or at all.

  She stood in place, turning slowly as she addressed them. Her hands were out at her sides; fingers splayed to show her hands were empty.

  “I’m not sure if you understand me as well as Mother, but I need that knife.” They were impassive, not even bothering to consider her with curiosity. “If I don’t find it, someone will die.”

  “If you do find it, someone will die.” Ren whirled at the sound of Mother, but couldn’t see her. Everywhere she turned, it was one of seven interchangeable faces, each as cold and expressionless as the last. Her fingers clenched into fists as she looked up into the trees.

  “So you want me to just abandon her? No! Give it to me.”

  “We cannot.” The voice moved around her. “We made a pact.”

  “They’re going to kill her!”

  “You intend to kill them. I do not see the difference.”

  “I’m trying to save her!” Ren was quaking, every muscle in her body wanting to scream out at them, to make them understand. Mother appeared in a swirl of arctic mist. Like her brood, she showed no reaction. Unlike her kin, she did seem to regard Ren with curiosity – or maybe, Ren thought, it could even be concern.

  “If you were to fail, they would possess the knife, and this cannot happen.”

  “What is the big deal with this knife?” She was on the verge of collapse, trying to have a conversation with an otherworldly being about compassion and it was going about as well as one might expect. She was at her wit’s end. “If I’m going to give up, you had better have a really good reason.”

  “The knife is at the center of all misery in the Delaney House.”

  Ren shook her head slowly, stumbling over her words as she tried to ask the right question. “What do you mean ‘all misery’?”

  “William cursed himself by taking the knife. Mariel cursed herself by keeping the knife. All of you are cursed because she knows it is here and she wants it.”

  Ren swallowed. “You mean Eunice Abernathy.” The cold silence that followed was more than enough confirmation and she nodded. Mother knew that name, or she would have said something. “Why does she want it so badly?”

  “We only know that it is powerful, and she has tried many times to possess it. She has destroyed many who have stood in her way. It cannot fall into her hands.”

  “She took members from your den, didn’t she?” For the briefest of instants, there was something on Mother Wight’s face. A wince perhaps, some twinge of pain. It was enough to know that she had the one thing t
hat might have saved them, but she couldn’t do anything about it. When Ren spoke again, her voice was soft, understanding, but resolved just the same. “I can’t let anything happen to Joe.”

  She looked from Mother to the other seven in the circle around her. No one moved. It occurred to her that someone might mistake them for horrifying statues if they were to ever set foot in this part of the woods. Of course, they’d also have to live to tell anyone after the discovery.

  “If you’re not going to give me the knife, then give me something, anything.” She took a deep breath and her shoulders slumped. “I need help. Please. I’m begging you.”

  “What she did to them, my children, they can never come home. They are not our brood any longer. But they are still our kind.” She hunched over, staring intently, as if sizing Ren up. “The change has slowed them. They are clumsy and blind.”

  Ren decided not to correct her. They didn’t appear to be clumsy, even if they were blind. They looked meaner and more dangerous than the group she was currently with.

  “They are tainted, hardly more than beasts now.” Mother gave no warning, but reached out and grabbed Ren by the shoulders.

  At first it was the shock of surprise that clutched at her, then it was the burning cold from Mother’s touch. The sensation spread and she wanted to speak up, but the burning cold travelled down her extremities and flowed back up into her heart and her brain. She fought the pain as best she could; trying to remind herself that it wasn’t the same terrible experience as the first time Mother had put a hand on her.

  “They will try to hunt you by your blood, but they will not find you now.”

  And then her vision faded. Ren was certain that she had passed out, but it was actually her vision failing. She was amazed how quickly her hearing picked up on things when she suddenly couldn’t see. Even more amazing was the fact that none of the wights seemed to make any noise at all. They didn’t breathe, didn’t shift their weight, nothing. They were fearless, mighty, killing machines.

  …That kind of adopted you. Consider yourself lucky.

  She tried to look in the direction of Mother Wight, unable to tell in the dark if her vision was returning at all.

  “I’m sorry about your brood.”

  There was a long silence. “I am… sorry about yours. Find her.”

  “I’m going to.”

  She sat down in the grass and listened to the absolute absence of nature. She could hear the breeze in the treetops, but that was it. The animals were either sleeping, or too afraid to venture into this part of the woods. Ren opted for the latter of the two.

  As her vision returned, she could see the faint outlines of the trees and the stars overhead. She was alone in the clearing and she realized that she had no idea how long after she spoke to Mother that they had left. She really hoped that whatever Mother had done to her would give her the upper hand. She didn’t feel the confidence she wanted to as she got to her feet. Her extremities burned like frostbite, and she couldn’t feel most of her body, as it if the whole thing was numb from the cold.

  “Some upper hand… I’m a meat popsicle.”

  SIXTEEN

  In the early hours, while stars still spun in the darkness over head, and morning was still deciding if it should bother getting up, Ren considered the options available to her. She considered William Delaney’s cavalry sword. She didn’t know if it was sharp, but it was metal and had a pointy end, which could probably be considered an advantage. She could break into a sporting goods store, or a gun shop. It was certainly adding another level of risk to the situation, but a gun might be just the thing to even the odds. She also considered the police, the military, and borrowing a number of religious tools from one of the many churches in the area.

  She weighed her options as she walked, balancing pros against cons, considering any long-term ramifications of joining the criminal element in order to save Joe. In the end, she found herself pondering right up to the rusty old fence line that separated her from the quarry.

  She stared into the dark grounds, remembering that she followed Tau up to this point once before. She believed that this was what he was hinting at, but she hadn’t intended to come here yet. Something inside her pulled her to this spot, even when she considered turning back for something that might help. Was Joe in there? She held the chain link fence, threading her fingers through the holes as she closed her eyes.

  Take a deep breath, Ren.

  She heard Colette’s voice and followed the instructions. Her lungs inflated and she tried to ignore the strange sensations of her numb muscles. She exhaled and paused, then repeated the process. She could feel the world slip away slightly after a handful of breaths. It could have been the loss of her tactile senses that heightened everything, or her abilities had gotten stronger, but in the dead cold of her chest, she felt an ember of warmth. A small glow reached out from within her, searching outward.

  Like last time, it started out everywhere, reaching outward and pushing into the world like psychic feelers. She had no idea how far she was pushing with it, or if any of her sisters could feel it, but slowly, she could feel it separate into specific directions. There were two very strong points tugging at her, each one felt like they were toward opposite horizons. The other houses, she mused. She could feel sisters she hadn’t even met yet. But they weren’t the ones she was looking for.

  She tried to rein it in. She thought about Joe. Joe: with her bright eyes and their mischievous glint. The way the corners of her mouth seemed permanently curled, ready to snap into an infectious smile at any moment. She felt the glowing warmth inside her searching outward; looking for the girl that sent sparks down Ren’s spine with every giggle, every touch of their fingers. She spun her brain out into the universe like a lure, trying to hook the soul entwined with her own.

  It was like a punch to the sternum. The sensation within her snapped down to a single point and she cried out, gasping. Her eyes wide, she searched the darkness looking for the point at the end of the line between them. She couldn’t see the line, or much at all in the darkness, but she remembered a structure deep in the quarry. Joe was there, and she could sense that things were not going well.

  Her brain still wanted her to turn around and find something to defend herself with, but the urgency would not be denied. She needed to trust her intuition. She needed to save Joe.

  …Or die trying.

  Of course, there was still the hope that she couldn’t actually die, but she wasn’t keen on finding out.

  She wandered down the fence line, looking for the simplest – and quietest – way in. She found it about half a block further than when she had given up looking for Tau last time. The chain links were separated from the support pipe, but placed in such a way that they still appeared secure. It was a deliberate placement, and it told Ren she was on the right trail. She crept through the fence and slowly navigated her way down the first ledge she came to, moving further into the stone yard.

  Though the signage on the fence line suggested an industrial park, there was no park to it. It was a fenced-in property that had been cut away and turned into a quarry. A labyrinthine network of canals cut through the property, providing two levels of traffic for machines and travelers. Ren was glad to be here in the dark. Some of the passages were long and didn’t appear to leave a lot of wiggle room, should any large machines come rolling through.

  Her eyes were wide, taking in what light they could find. The whole scape seemed almost alien in the pre-morning dark, appearing before her eyes in a scheme of deep blue on black. She wandered, occasionally creeping up the corridor walls where she could find a foothold, hoping to see something of interest. She could feel herself getting closer to her destination, though she could not actually see it yet. The night was shapeless; the building could be right in front of her and she might never know.

  Ren had lost all sense of time tonight. It was already late when this began and now, the deep dark blue was giving way to lighter hues, finally pu
lled the veil from her blind progress. One black shadow loomed ahead of her, and the sensation within her insistently blinked ‘you are here’. The closer she came, the more obvious it became that she should probably turn tail and give the army a call.

  It appeared to be three stories, maybe taller. The first stories had walls of steel, bolted together and probably set into the ground around it. Above, everything up to the roof appeared to be glass, but nothing showed. It was possible the whole place was dark inside; it was also possible that the windows were all obscured. Ren wandered the perimeter, looking for an entrance.

  The main entrance was large and solid like the rest of the ground floor. Two large doors were framed by a track on top and bottom and appeared to slide apart to grant entrance. She could see the deep grooves in the ground, showing all of the traffic in and out. She didn’t know the last time anyone had come through here, or if anyone was left inside right now. There was always a possibility she could walk right in. But if anyone was standing guard, she couldn’t slip through that doorway undetected.

  She continued around the perimeter, hoping for something – a small entrance into the offices, or maybe a window so she could get a look inside. What she found was a choking stench and a definite last resort. Behind the building, a large pipe sent runoff into a stagnant pool. It gurgled and sounded like semi-solid matter colliding with one another as it fell from the pipe. It smelled like something rotten had found something equally awful, and together, they raised an awful, rotting family in this pool. She held her mouth and nose, considering taking a chance with suffocation over smelling it a moment longer. Ren turned to run full tilt in the other direction when she realized, against her better judgment, that this pipeline might be her ticket inside.