Chapelwood

by Cherie Priest

  She wasn’t in the chair. I know because I grabbed a candle and looked in that dark corner—and I checked the other dark corners, too. It didn’t take me long. The room wasn’t very big. The little light shuddered in my hand, the flame doing its damnedest to show me every cobweb under every piece of furniture without setting the place on fire.

  But it was a fact. I was alone. Really alone this time.

  I still wasn’t afraid of her, but I was surprised and a little impressed. Disappearing was the only interesting thing I’d ever seen her do. Now I wondered how she did it, and I wanted to think I could do it, too—just close my eyes and wish real hard, and evaporate to someplace else.

  I knew better, though. I knew I wouldn’t be able to walk through walls like that unless I let the Chapelwood folks get hold of me, and I didn’t plan to let that happen.

  I tried to keep from thinking about my vanishing momma, and wondering if she was still there—only now I couldn’t see her. I tried not to worry about being watched by unseen eyes, black like hers, through some peephole or crystal ball or whatever men like the Reverend Davis were inclined to use.

  If they were watching, fine. Let ’em watch.

  I put the candle back where I’d found it, on the dresser. My head had cleared out from pure surprise, and now I needed to free up my hands.

  I climbed onto the bed, stood there, and kicked the dress onto the floor. I was wearing what they’d captured me in—just a brown cotton number I liked because it fit me nice but didn’t squeeze me anyplace. I still had my shoes. Nobody’d thought to take them off me, which was stupid on somebody’s part. The heels dug into the quilt and made it hard to stand, but I didn’t care. They gave me another inch or two of height anyway, and I needed every bit of it.

  But even standing on the bed, on tippy-toes, I couldn’t reach the windowsill. It made me wonder how anybody’d gotten a candle up there in the first place, but there are taller people than me out there in the world, so it must’ve been one of them.

  I put my hands on my hips and looked around. What had they left me, besides a dress I wouldn’t wear, and some old furniture I didn’t like?

  Actually, the old dresser might be useful after all.

  I hopped down off the bed and went to the dresser, thinking maybe I’d push it up under the window to get me closer to it, but I was wrong about that. The dresser was nailed to the floor, just like they do in hotels, or so I’ve heard before. The reverend hadn’t left me a hammer lying around, so I couldn’t pry the nails out and move things around—I know, because I checked all the drawers and looked under and around everything in the room. Nothing moved, no matter how hard I pushed it, shoved it, or kicked it.

  So I was out of luck.

  Unless . . .

  . . . I tried something else. I pulled out the dresser drawers and looked at them good. They were sturdy, too cheap to be oak, but maybe poplar or pine. If I’d stacked them all up together, it wouldn’t have given me a boost bigger than the bed, but if I stacked them on the bed, maybe I’d get somewhere.

  Only three of the four drawers were willing to come out, but that was all right. I wasn’t sure I could get even those three to stack up well enough to use, but it was worth a shot.

  In a minute or two, I had a rickety setup that might let me reach the window, or might slip out from underneath me and send me crashing to the ground. I’d already gotten knocked out once today and I wasn’t looking forward to the prospect of doing it again, but it was either take that chance or wait around to see what the reverend wanted with me.

  So I did my best to steady the stack of drawers, and I adjusted them so that two were on the bottom and one was on the top—and that didn’t give me as much lift, but it was a whole lot steadier.

  One, two, three.

  The windowsill was in my hands.

  I pushed the candle over to the side, so I still had the light, but it was out of my way. I felt around for the latch, and found it. It stuck, because I think it’d been painted over; and the window frame stuck when I gave it a good shove, but that was probably because of the damp air inside and out. And I can hardly explain how happy I was—how I almost laughed, and almost jumped for joy—when the thing skidded open an inch or two, and then another one, and then all the way open.

  I wasn’t sure it was open enough to make room for me, but I was going to try it anyway; and if I had to, I could always break up one of the drawers by stomping on it or something, and then use that to smash the glass out. It wouldn’t be quiet, but it might work. I put that idea on the back burner, though. I’d gotten the window open, and that was a start. Now I just had to pull myself up and shove myself out—which was harder than it sounded.

  I’d never tried to pull myself up by my hands before, and there wasn’t much to hang on to up there. My fingers slipped around, and my nails cracked when I scrambled along the wood, trying to get a better grip. Once I got a decent handhold, I pulled—I tried to use my knees and my toes to help push me up, and it didn’t work too well at first. So I took off my shoes and stuck my hand through the straps so they could hang on my arm, and I tried again, barefoot this time. With naked toes, I had better luck. I tried again another couple of times and finally I was up! I had my waist on the windowsill, and my elbows were shaking, I swear to God, and my arms were about to fall off, they were so tired from holding my own weight.

  I knocked my head against that window, which wasn’t really open enough to let me slither outside, or that’s what it looked like—now that I could see it up close.

  I refused to settle for that. I held my position, even though it hurt like hell. I held it and I didn’t move, because outside my door I could hear footsteps.

  Maybe I’d made too much noise. Or maybe my time had come.

  Something was coming, anyway. I didn’t even want to think it was “someone,” since I’d seen Momma; but then again, when she moved . . . she hadn’t made any footsteps or any other sound. But I didn’t care if this was somebody more ordinary. Whoever it was, it was somebody who believed in Chapelwood and wanted to put me in a yellow dress and force me to take part in something awful.

  Or so I assumed. Nobody forces anybody to do anything nice by kidnapping them and locking them in a dark room with monsters.

  The footsteps rang louder and louder, with a funny edge to them—almost the kind of echo you hear when you open your eyes underwater, and everything wobbles back and forth, and nothing is clear. It reminded me of how Father Coyle had sounded when he appeared to me in the courthouse, so far away. He might have been on the moon, or at the bottom of the ocean.

  Now I was scared.

  Before, I was trying to solve a problem, and that kept me distracted from how much danger I was in. Now, I was out of plans, the window looked too small, and someone was coming for me.

  I struggled, kicked, and dragged and hauled my body up until I got one knee on the windowsill with my hands. I’m sure it looked ridiculous, but I was leaving that place one way or another—and I wanted to do it alive, so I went ahead and looked ridiculous. Having a knee to help hold my weight made it easier, and gave my arms a rest.

  With one elbow, I knocked at the window to see if I could push it out any farther. It only creaked and made a pitiful splintering noise, but it didn’t go anywhere.

  How long did I have before the footsteps reached my door? Thirty seconds? Ten?

  My mouth was dry as a desert and my arms were aching, and my knee was starting to slip—but I thought, if I could just get one leg outside through the opening . . . maybe I could slide out on my belly, and that would work, even if I went backward out into the yard.

  So that’s what I tried, and at first, I didn’t think it was working.

  The window’s edge dug into the back of my thigh and tore my dress, but I wrangled my other leg up and over, once I had enough weight up there to balance it. Feetfirst and on my belly,
I writhed and wrangled myself through that sliver of an opening, hardly any higher than a loaf of bread. My skirt scrunched up around my thighs, then up over my behind so God and everybody could see my underpants and I didn’t care a bit. Thank God I’ve never been a big woman—which is not something I say every day, because there’ve been plenty of times I wished I was tall and stout and burly enough to defend myself. But not today.

  Today I praised Jesus and His Mother, too, for making me a hundred and twenty pounds, according to the grocery store scale, and that’s if I was soaking wet with rocks in my pockets.

  I scooted out onto the grass just as I heard the doorknob start to turn.

  I was out. But the window was open and the candle stub was still lit, sitting right there. I could take it with me and have some light, except light might not be my friend right now. I had a better idea. I reached inside and knocked it over, right onto the bed.

  I didn’t stick around to see if it started a fire. I didn’t even stick around to shut the window; it’s not like they wouldn’t figure out that’s how I’d left, given the drawers and the bed and everything. I crawled out of view and tried to put my shoes back on, but my arms were all wobbly and I could tell they’d hurt in the morning. Too bad. I still had some escaping left to do.

  Finally I jammed the shoes onto my feet and yanked the straps where they ought to be. Then I stood up, wiped my hands on my skirt, and looked for some direction to run.

  Inspector Simon Wolf

  OCTOBER 4, 1921

  I’d never seen anything like that before—when the car shut down and left us in the dark so violently, so suddenly. I confess I indulged a brief panic about it, and the glaring orange filaments in the bulbs that were simmering down to nothing; but there wasn’t any time for panic now, was there? We only had time for action.

  I ran to the driver’s door, whipped it open, and hopped inside with less than my usual grace. I pumped the pedals and turned the key, all the while muttering some pointless prayers under my breath, but I don’t even remember what they were or who I directed them toward. I only know how badly my hands were shaking as I commanded the engine to turn over, goddammit. But then Lizbeth was there, at the passenger door—having felt her way there, for there was no further light to be of any aid.

  She opened it and leaned inside. “What happened?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine. There are . . . in the back, in the . . . in the boot,” I stammered. “There’s a lantern and some matches. We may be forced to resort to them if—”

  But with a gurgled complaint, the motor interrupted me. It grumbled to life!

  The headlamps flared whiter than a stage’s spot lamp, bleaching the trees and the road before us. Both Lizbeth and I shielded our eyes against the beams, far too bright, far too much like the swords of angels at the gates of Eden—except we both knew there weren’t any angels here to guide us . . . or waiting for us at Chapelwood, either.

  “They’ll see us coming a mile away,” I complained.

  “If that’s true, then they know we’re here already. As I said, if the map can be believed, we’re only that far from the main compound. Of course, if they’re all hiding underground, they might not detect our approach.”

  “Surely they have lookouts, or some form of warning system. Dogs, at least . . . ?”

  “Put the car in gear, Simon,” she commanded me. “It’s time we go find out.”

  I did as she ordered, though my heart was thick as lead about it. I wanted to save Ruth, yes, obviously. I wanted to bring James’s killer to justice, absolutely. But we had only confusion and the word of ghosts on the former, and the ship may have sailed on the latter. Besides, it was increasingly apparent that Edwin Stephenson was only the smallest of nasty little fish when it came to the strange machinations at this unlikely church in the woods. The Reverend Davis was the puppet master, and Stephenson but an underling acting on his orders.

  The more I thought about it, driving down that bleak, unpaved corridor, the less certain I became. I honestly believed that Stephenson had killed Coyle out of white-hot anger, not on the orders of some divine directive; so it was always possible that he’d kidnapped his daughter apart from religious sanctions, too.

  But Chapelwood wanted her, didn’t it? And one way or another, it had her now.

  All Lizbeth and I had was my gun, some extra bullets, a lantern and some matches, our advanced ages, and respective wits. It wasn’t nothing, but it was hardly a formidable arsenal, either. Still, here we were, driving slowly along a pair of loose-cut ruts that were more sand than gravel, the car’s lights guiding the way and yet showing us almost nothing beyond the front bumper—for there was nothing to see but more trees, and the cavernous black maw of a path that ran between them.

  This was the hand we were dealt, and we were duty-bound to play it.

  Lizbeth rode with her eyes closed, and I wondered if she was praying, but it wasn’t my business to ask. When she opened them, she blinked at the headlights on the other side of the glass, took a deep breath, and said, “This must be it.”

  The road widened ahead, and the lights cut a broader path—for just beyond the edge of our lamps, there were no more trees to contain the glow. We were arriving at a clearing, and I couldn’t decide if I was relieved or appalled that we’d come so far so fast. It felt like only a minute or two since the car had returned to life and we’d piled back inside it. Surely not, though. Surely it’d been closer to five or ten minutes burned from the clock as we’d crawled forward on narrow tires that protested the terrain every foot of the way.

  But yes, here we were—and there was nowhere left to go.

  The road deposited us into a wide space, a half-moon the size of a baseball field. All was dark except for what the car showed us, so we could see no farther than the jiggling headlamps allowed.

  Chapelwood. It’s hard to explain.

  In the middle of a cleared semicircle stood a large building, the centerpiece, if you will. It was one part cathedral, one part courthouse, one part antebellum gothic mansion. Not a single light burned in a single window, and a row of four white columns held up a large portico. It looked like a grinning skull with a row of long, wide stairs spilling forth from its mouth, or maybe that was only my imagination—combined with the stark, sudden light from the automobile in the otherwise pitch-black woods. This light showed everything in hard relief, exaggerating corners and crevices that would go unseen in the daylight, and I knew that—I believed it and understood it—yet I could not escape the sordid terror of the chimneys, three or four of them, jutting from the gabled and turreted roof like so many blocky, twisted horns.

  It was a massive structure, though how massive I couldn’t gauge; and on either side it was flanked by smaller outbuildings: a garage, I think, and some storage sheds, and what looked like it once was a barn.

  The air was dark, thick, and miserably humid around us. It pressed against the windows and doors, as if forbidding us to exit the vehicle . . . or else we only didn’t want to, and we found it hard to muster the courage to do so. A bit of both, I’d like to believe. Otherwise, I’m entirely a coward, and like all men (surely women as well), I’d prefer to think otherwise.

  “It’s nearly Halloween,” Lizbeth said so softly I scarcely heard her. “Only a few more weeks until that dreadful night, but I’ve never been anyplace so warm, so late in the year.”

  “Nor have I. Not in recent recollection, at any rate.”

  “I don’t see anyone, do you? I don’t hear any dogs. The spirit said they’re all underground . . . Could that be true? Do you think? Surely the reverend has left someone to stand guard.”

  I shrugged, and kept my hands on the wheel, my foot on the brake. “If they’re all in this together, and if they honestly believe they’ve nothing to fear . . . they could feel perfectly safe down below. Who in their right mind would storm this place, anyway?”

&
nbsp; “No one. But we must screw our courage to the sticking place.”

  I sulked, though it was no doubt unbecoming. “I’ve never really understood that turn of phrase. I don’t care if it was Shakespeare who coined it, it’s not terribly elegant.”

  She reached for her door latch, and pulled it. “No, it isn’t. But the time has come.” The fastener uncoupled, and she swung one leg outside—quickly, a hasty gesture undertaken before she had time to think about what she was doing.

  I put the car in park and dithered another short moment. “Get the lanterns from the trunk,” I suggested before killing the engine, and with it, our only source of light.

  The lid creaked when she lifted it. Every sound was a gunshot, a cannonball, a Fourth of July fireworks display—even though the rough hum of the motor did its best to provide a muffling blanket of neutral noise.

  Surely we’d be heard or spotted at any second. Surely our time was limited. Surely they’d come for us, bursting from the doors and windows like so many rats.

  The lid came down again with a firm but restrained clack, and behind me, a small pop of light said that Lizbeth had lit a match. Otherwise, Chapelwood was dark and quiet. So dark, so quiet—except for the flare of one little match lighting one little lantern, and the fizzle and snap of the flame as it caught, warmed, and grew.

  I pushed the keys into my pocket, and shoved them down deep. They were warm and hard against my thigh, but I liked the pressure, even the discomfort of it. They reminded me that there was a way out of here after all, when we eventually retrieve Ruth and must flee with the Reverend Davis upon our tail.

  Who was I fooling? No one. My keys were a rabbit’s foot, a four-leafed clover—wielded vainly and impotently against the danger to come.