Chapelwood

by Cherie Priest

  Before long, we arrived at what could best be described as a clearing—and in this clearing we were confronted with three options: two hallways that had been dug out of the dirt like mine shafts, or a single reinforced place that offered a rough-hewn set of steps going down into yet more darkness.

  We hesitated and investigated each one, neither one of us mentioning what we both knew all too well: that we were no longer in any kind of basement or cellar, that somewhere we had passed the point of subterranean civilization and now there were only walls of mud to separate us from whatever lay beyond the dank, miserable corridors we traversed together.

  The light wasn’t great enough to show us anything down any of the three passages. But the weird singing—yes, I think it was singing, very low, very deep—was coming from down those awful, uneven stairs.

  We knew what to do.

  “Take my hand,” Simon suggested.

  I very nearly did, but was startled by a sudden shout rising up from below.

  The singing stopped abruptly, disintegrating into a jumble of voices, each one carrying a question we couldn’t hear—and might not have understood, regardless. Another shout, another cry, and the sound of footsteps at the bottom of those stairs—which must have gone very deep below.

  Our light would give us away.

  Simon took my hand and yanked it, pulling me down into one of the rounded, earthy openings that passed for a doorway, I guess. He pressed his back against it and shuttered the lantern until only a tiny white seam declared it—and although it must have been quite hot, he concealed it behind his jacket. I prayed he wouldn’t burn himself, and prayed that he wouldn’t set fire to himself, either, and likewise I prayed that we had chosen wisely in our hiding place.

  Not that it mattered, really. We had but two choices, and it all amounted to the toss of a coin.

  Up the stairs they came, as many as a dozen of them, I gauged by the sound of their hustling, frantic feet . . . but I couldn’t see them. They traveled without light, and I wondered how they could see anything at all—but I didn’t wonder hard, or long. It was one more thing to toss in that locked-up room in my head. One more thing to walk away from, without looking back.

  “She went out through the window.”

  “And you’re certain?”

  “She went out, that’s all I’m certain of. We checked the room, top to bottom. Her mother swears she was there not five minutes before.”

  “But the window? She could have never reached it.”

  “She piled things on the bed, and climbed them.”

  My heart surged to hear it. Ruth? Surely they were speaking of Ruth!

  Simon was thinking it, too; he squeezed my hand with joy, then let it go. He shuffled nearer to the opening, in order to hear better, I suppose.

  I retreated farther, not to be contrary—but because I thought I felt something against my hip. It was wood, and squared off. A railroad tie? Perhaps. I’d seen some down there below, holding up shafts and generally littering the landscape. Yes, I was more sure of it as I ran my hands over the grain, over the shape of the end. It was piled atop others, left behind for future projects or merely abandoned. I felt a knob of metal jutting from one end. The head of a spike? Probably. I was dying for some light, desperate to take the lantern and give myself just a few drops of illumination—it wouldn’t take much more! Not when my eyes were so accustomed to the gloom. But I knew better, and so I “saw” only with my fingers while I listened to the chatter just beyond us.

  “She can’t have gotten far. Not on foot, in the dark.”

  “There were candles in the room. She might have taken one.”

  “She won’t get far with it if she did. Can’t run and keep one lit at the same time, now can she?”

  “Get her parents. I’ll get the lens and see if I can find her. We only have tonight, you understand? Catch her, and bring her back down to the Holiest of Holies.”

  “What if we’re too late?”

  “The Great One’s heart won’t beat again for a thousand years. If that brat costs us this opportunity, I’ll have her dead myself—rather than simply transitioned. Go on. Find Shirley, and have him meet me at the lens. And get that girl—do you understand? Bring her to me, or spend the rest of your life running from me. Do I make myself clear?”

  “Perfectly.”

  The lens? Well, it was just one more question, added to the pile of them. I turned around and felt with both hands now, running them over the pile of beams and wondering what else I might find. The planks were too heavy to use as weapons, but there could be something else left among them—a hammer, a pry bar, anything.

  The footsteps faded, back the way we’d come; but another minute’s pause allowed another three or four of Chapelwood’s residents to clamber up from the depths and dash out in the wake of whoever’d been given those awful instructions.

  Meanwhile, I proceeded with my tactile investigations. I found what was, yes, certainly, a railroad spike—heavy and pointed, but dull. A weapon of last resort.

  “What are you doing?” Simon whispered.

  I realized then that I’d gotten away from him. “Is it safe to use the light?” I whispered back.

  “I don’t know.”

  I might have asked him for a small dab, just a dribble of that precious stuff to warm my eyes and show the way . . . but at that very instant I set hands upon something familiar. It was lodged in a slab of wood and I had to rock it back and forth to extract it. I did my best to do this in silence, and my companion did not shush me—so I must have done a reasonable job of it.

  “What are you doing over there?” he asked again.

  I didn’t answer him until I had the tool free, and in my grip. I knew the weight of it, and I felt reassured to have it. What a random thing, really—or else the universe is fond of patterns after all, as my dear departed Doctor Seabury had always insisted.

  • • •

  I insisted it, too, didn’t I, Emma? I said there was a pattern to the mayhem, though I was seated too near the action to see it for myself. I always believed that if I could just extract myself enough—if I could remove myself to a distant place, with a wider perspective—it would all become so clear that I’d feel silly for having ever missed it.

  Who was it who said . . . I don’t know, was it some dead Greek or Roman? I can’t recall. But it was something along the lines of, “Show me a place to set a fulcrum, and I will move the world.” Is that right? Probably not. But it was something like that. We spoke of it before, you and I. Back in the old days.

  That’s what I mean. Does that make sense? I bet it doesn’t. Or maybe it does to you, wherever you are, and whatever you can see. Maybe, being dead and long gone from this world, you have the perspective I’ve longed for. All I’m trying to say is, I am certain that the universe, or God, or whatever you want to call it . . . it has an inordinate fondness for patterns.

  Because, God help me, Emma. I was holding an axe.

  Somehow, I believe, I retrieved it from that fabled middle distance . . . where Nance disappeared to and where Storage Room Six serves as a portal. I understand that now. I brushed against it, and escaped with my soul. With such a near miss, I suppose, there come privileges.

  • • •

  Either Simon decided that the way was clear or his curiosity overwhelmed his sense of self-preservation—because he unshuttered one sliver of the lantern so he could see me better. I hope he saw me as I saw myself: armed, fierce, and invigorated.

  If he didn’t, he was kind enough to keep it to himself. “Would you look at that! Well played, Lizbeth. The look suits you.”

  “It’s familiar and versatile, and I can hide it behind a skirt if I need to—even these slimmer silhouettes that are all the rage these days.” I tested it in my hands, turning it over, getting a feel for the balance of it. It would be an exaggeration to say
that power flowed through me; it would not be an exaggeration to say that I felt more confident, and on firmer footing than the loose, damp dirt that made up the floor beneath me. The axe was something I understood, in a world full of things I didn’t—and I would cling to it, brandish it, and swing it if I needed to.

  “If you’re happy, I’m happy,” he assured me. “But what next? Ruth has escaped to the great outdoors. God, if she’s found the car . . . I should have left the keys in it.”

  “Does she know how to drive?”

  “I haven’t the faintest.”

  “And if she took it, how would we flee when the time arrives?” I asked, though, in truth, I would trade our safe path out of Chapelwood for her to escape safely.

  “I know, but still.” I think he was considering the same. “But here we are, and the cards have already been dealt. With that in mind—and I do hate to suggest it—perhaps we should part ways. Whatever lies below must be attended to, but likewise we must make every effort to save poor Ruth.”

  He wasn’t wrong, but I wasn’t happy. “Ruth has escaped of her own volition; are you sure she needs our help?” God, I hated myself for saying it. I sounded like a coward, but it was true—I didn’t want to flee the only company I had for certain.

  “No. Yes. I . . . Lizbeth, I have no better idea than you do.”

  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Then . . . then I’ll go after Ruth, and help her return to the main road. We might get lucky and catch Chief Eagan as he arrives. He will arrive, don’t you think?”

  “I know he will. He might not get all the way to Chapelwood proper, but if you and Ruth can meet him at the edge of the road, he’ll be happy enough. And your plan is solid, madam. I’ll go below and see what lurks in this ‘Holiest of Holies,’ if ever there were a worse sacrilege. Here, take the lantern.”

  I almost argued with him. I almost wanted to see it for myself—whatever it was—and I was almost jealous of him, but that’s nonsense, isn’t it? He was better suited to that task, for he had more experience than I did. I only had articles, ordered from libraries and read in the sunroom at Maplecroft. He had been in the field for thirty years or more, and we hadn’t discussed it much, but I knew he’d seen terrible, strange, even horrible things in his time behind the badge.

  Instead I said, “But you have no light!”

  “Neither do they. Or rather . . . they do, I think. Can’t you see it—down there, a little glow?”

  Hardly, but maybe. I squinted down the stairs and he might have been right; there might have been a faint gray lurking somewhere near the bottom, rather than the wholesale black that blanketed everything else.

  “Simon . . .”

  “No.” He shook his head. “Don’t worry about me. Give me a few of those matches, in case of absolute emergency—and we must wish each other well, and part ways for now. Let me give you the car keys.”

  But I refused them. “I don’t know how to drive,” I admitted. “They won’t do me a bit of good—and if you hand them off, then you may deprive us all of a ride to freedom. I’ll see if I can find Ruth, and I’ll take her back to the car. We’ll try to meet you there, but if we don’t . . . if we can’t find you . . . then . . . I suppose we’ll head down the side road, and hope to meet Chief Eagan somewhere along the way. I won’t leave you behind—you know that, yes?”

  “And I won’t leave you, either. That’s a promise, Lizbeth. This great adventure of ours, it isn’t over yet!”

  He tried to sound chipper, but the smile that stretched across his round, kind face was forced—and I couldn’t shake the feeling that this was a terrible good-bye. We had to deny it, and pretend otherwise. For the sake of our sanity, and our mission. For the sake of Ruth, who was on the run, in the dark, pursued by monsters.

  Because weren’t we all?

  Impetuously, almost girlishly, I leaned forward and planted a large, heartfelt kiss upon his cheek. I had to stand on tiptoes to do it. I think he was surprised, but not displeased; after all, he hugged me tight, then let me go.

  I gave him the matches. He gave me the lamp.

  “I’ll try to be quick, but stairs have never been my greatest joy. Wait for me at the car if you can. Run if you can’t. Get Ruth to safety either way. I know you can, and I know you will. Now go,” he urged.

  Before I could change my mind, I turned on my heel—the lantern in my left hand, and the axe gripped firmly in my right. Without stopping to consider if I was alone, or likely to be confronted . . . without hesitating and second-guessing my directions, I dashed back the way we’d come. The sound of my heart banged between my ears. The sway of the light as I ran made the whole place dance some cruel tarantella, the walls bending and breaking and falling away, or rising up to stop me.

  But I ran. And I did not stop, not even when I heard voices call out behind me.

  Ruth Stephenson Gussman

  OCTOBER 4, 1921

  The sky was a low, black, flat canopy like I’d seen it before—no moon, no stars, nothing to give me a friendly hint of light to let me know where I was going; so when I ran, I was running blind.

  I used my hands and my feet, feeling my way around the building and trying not to make too much noise while I was at it. I dragged my fingertips along the brick—but the brick didn’t last, and soon it was wood paneling again, so it must’ve been a chimney or something. I touched something slick and smooth like glass, and I guessed it was a window. I knocked my knuckles against the window frame when I reached the end, and I kept going.

  The whole time, I struggled to remember anything at all about the way Chapelwood was put together, or how to get out of it. I recalled it was set up in kind of a half-moon shape, with the big church house in the middle, and some littler buildings on either side—but I didn’t know where I was, and that made it even harder to tell where I was going.

  I wished I was wearing more comfortable shoes, but at least they weren’t the highest heels I owned. I wished I had some matches, or better yet, a lantern—but if I had one, I’d be easier to spot myself.

  I was trying to look on the bright side. In case there was a bright side.

  Every move I made sounded too loud, even my own breathing, and the banging of my heart around in my chest—I could hear it between every gasp for air, and every slap of my hands along whatever building I was following. I didn’t have any other path to guide me, so this was it until I could find that stupid little road that ran into the compound. It couldn’t have been more than two ruts leading off the two-lane strip of asphalt someone calls an automobile highway—and I think it must’ve been some kind of joke, because we probably didn’t have enough cars in the whole county to make use of it.

  But if I could make it to that highway, such as it was . . . there was a chance I might flag somebody down—somebody who wasn’t part of Chapelwood, and wouldn’t drag me back to whatever fate the reverend had in mind.

  Getting to the main road wasn’t much of a plan, considering I didn’t even know what direction I was facing, but it gave me something to look for. If I could make it to the tree line, I could feel around, and hope to find a cleared spot where the cars and carts came through on the way to church—back when anyone was still pretending Chapelwood was a church, and not . . . not whatever it really is.

  Over the sound of my own body making a ruckus, I heard voices. They were coming from behind me, mostly, and off to my right. I thought about sitting down, curling up into a ball, and praying nobody would see me; but I had the awful suspicion that they could all see better than I could. I was only human, you know? These people out here, worshipping at the feet of the reverend . . . they were something else now. And if I stopped running, if I just held still and waited for them to catch up, I would just be making it easier for them.

  Maybe they’d catch me anyway, and drag me back. But I wouldn’t go easy, and I wouldn’t go quiet. If they wanted me, I’d make them fight
for me. So I took another step and ran out of the building’s shadow.

  My hands flew off into space, and my feet tripped over themselves, now that there was nothing handy to direct them. I turned back in a panic and grabbed the building’s corner again, needing some kind of anchor to hold me down to earth. (Or that’s how it felt, when I’d let go and lost touch with everything except the dirt under my feet. It felt like flying, and I didn’t want to fly. Not at all, not especially in the dark so thick I might as well have had a bag over my head.)

  I clung to that corner so hard my fingernails probably started to bleed, but I didn’t care. Forward I went, in this new direction—and now the voices all were behind me, which was encouraging . . . but that other noise wasn’t.

  I don’t know how to explain the other noise, except to say it was the sound of something growling or groaning, a long way away. It was almost like the tone you hear when you’re trying to make a phone call, but choppier and thicker, and more alive.

  Whatever it was, it was hungry. And sometimes, between those little bursts of humming, moaning, and throbbing, I would swear to God that I heard it call my name. Just a whisper, threading through the song, over and over again like it was part of the beat of a drum—lurking behind the notes.

  Was it a song? I’m not sure. It might’ve been a song.

  It was a cry, at any rate. And I wasn’t getting away from it, because it was coming from everyplace at once. Where could I go if I wanted to escape it? I could have heard that cry at the bottom of the earth, or on the moon. It would’ve found me anywhere.

  But that didn’t mean I shouldn’t run.

  I kept up what I was doing, hugging the building I couldn’t see, because it was something to feel, at least, and that was all I had—but the cry wouldn’t leave me alone, and it drowned out everything else, even the way I panted from getting tired and being scared.