She checked her cell phone. Her brow furrowed. Was it a trick of the eye, or had she just seen a signal? There was none now, but she could have sworn there was a bar there for the briefest of moments. If so, she hoped Ethan saw it too and had put it to good use.
***
The car blocked the path. Sybil cautioned herself around it and started on the trail through the woods into Wicker. She had taken it many times as a child when her parents needed something from town, and though grown over now and thick with fallen branches, it would still be a shorter route than taking the road.
Ethan’s car moaned and wobbled as she leaned on it for support in getting over onto the trail. Once there she made haste. The hill here was only slight in its descent, but Sybil began to walk briskly from the first step. The breeze hissed at her. He was watching her.
“Leave me alone, Elling!” she shouted, picking up more speed. “Leave me be!” Her voice had risen at least an octave.
It was like when they were children and he would terrify her in the woods. She would run, screaming and breathless, but he would eventually catch her and tie her up. He would tease her with words like “Momma’s big girl”, and he would do terrible things. Then he would make her watch him do those awful things to the animals. The memories were worse than the actuality, she thought. They were colored with emphasis.
“Leave me alone!”
The woods were no longer quiet. They were screaming past her as she ran. Branches slapped her face and tendrils tripped her up. She dared not look back. He would be right there as clear as day and in the flesh, his eyes as big as baseballs, his mouth like a rotten melon rind.
She was a little girl in the woods again. Running from Momma. From Elling. Terrified and alone and no big brother to look out for her. Michael’s gone. All gone. He had run away and left her again.
She heard a voice—a giggling whisper from behind a tree—say “Don’t worry about Momma. Momma’s fine just where she is.”
Sybil wasn’t sure if it was the startling voice that caused her to fall to the icy ground or if something had reached out and tripped her. She felt as if she were back in the moment when Momma had attacked her with the kitchen knife. On the ground, she heard only her own frantic breaths. The woods had stopped screaming at her. She looked around for Elling in the stillness.
“Where are you?” she challenged with hot tears rushing down her face. “Elling!”
Up the trail, down the path she had just come, she heard the caterwaul, metallic and scraping and rushing toward her. The brushing and breaking of limbs filled the woods as something pushed by them at an increasing speed. The car had been loosened from its perch and was rolling toward her down the trail.
Sybil gave a cry and tried to stand, but her furs and her weight would not let her rise as quickly as she wanted. She tried a second time, her breath as laden as her weight and her heart pumping too fast. On the third try she succeeded, but it was of little use. Upon getting to her feet, the car was there. She could only watch in terror as the car hit a bump and reared up like a great bear over her, coming down with a breaking end.
All the Chance They Had
It was late in the afternoon when Chloe made it back to the cottage. Both the brothers were asleep. Jeff lay still on the couch and Ethan was curled up somewhat uncomfortably in an Army blanket in the rocking chair. Jeff’s fever had broken, but Chloe knew he was still not in the clear. Elling would be back. This was merely a moment’s respite.
She checked the fire, throwing in a log from the small pile beside the mantel. Embers flew up the chute in quick-shot glee. Ethan stirred in the rocking chair. The old chair creaked and popped at his movement. Chloe turned to see him. Ethan was watching her. His eyes looked like coal in the dim light.
“Have you been back for long?” he asked.
“Not too long. How’s Jeff been?”
“He was lucid for a while, but then he fell back to sleep. He hasn’t been too restless, which is good. And I got him to eat something.”
Chloe saw the half-eaten bowl of soup on the coffee table.
“I take it my car is a no-go.” He didn’t sound surprised.
She nodded and took off her coat, flinging it to the floor. She trudged off to the kitchen to find something to eat. Ethan didn’t move to follow.
As she set foot in the kitchen, the floor crept like curling bark. The chill it sent up her spine was such that she regretted taking off her coat. A ‘feeling’ crept over her, but more than that. She ‘saw’ as well and gripped tightly to the edges of the kitchen counter to bear it.
The wood floor curled and curled in front of her like a potato skin. Layer by layer, it was stripped and the earth was revealed. Beneath the floor was the woman. Elling’s mother. Chloe saw her as clear as if the floorboards were truly not there. She lay chained, parallel to the icebox door, unmoved and somewhat preserved by the coolness of Bad Luck Hill. The creaking of the house seemed now to have its true issuance from the woman’s mouth and it became more human the longer Chloe listened until at last it was a cry of anguish. The woman spasmed as if to rise. Chloe gasped out loud.
“Are you okay?”
Ethan’s inquiry startled Chloe. He stood behind her in the kitchen door.
“You’ve been standing here for a bit, very still.”
The floor was just a floor again. It creaked like all old wood floors do.
“Fine,” Chloe said, moving slowly into the kitchen. “I’m fine.” She avoided the icebox. Better to get something from a can.
“Lana Pruitt was here.”
Chloe stopped her foraging and looked at him dumbfounded. “What do you mean ‘here’? She came inside the cottage?”
“She burst in the door when I was on the phone with you. She looked over Jeff and said some enigmatic bullshit and then left as if she had the only answer to our predicament.”
“The book.” Chloe walked into the living room empty-handed, her mind solving puzzles as she went. “She’s remembered something from the book. I bet you anything that’s it.”
“What book? You’re making about as much sense as she did.”
Chloe felt momentarily lightheaded and braced herself on the back of the couch. Jeff was silent and asleep.
“I’ll ask again: are you okay?”
“Yes. I think. I had a fall earlier in the creek. It’s probably nothing. We need to speak to Lana.”
“About what?”
Chloe picked her coat up off the floor and pulled it on once again. “About all of this. She may be right. That book might be the only answer.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“She has a
book
,” Chloe said, irritated and tired. “You know. A book, Ethan. It has pages and a cover and can usually be found in a library. A book of spells.”
Ethan’s mouth dropped. “Witchcraft? Hocus-pocus? Words on a page, Chloe. They can’t help us.”
“You’re wrong. You are so wrong about that. Open your mind a little.”
“Open
my
mind? You arrogant bigot.” He rubbed his eyes furiously, then relaxed. “You know, I think you’re absolutely fucking insane.”
“And I think you’re an ignorant asshole.”
“Oh,
I’m
ignorant? Let’s not get into the meaning of ignorance or you might feel your whole superreligious upbringing come crashing down on you.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“It means that if it hadn’t been for you, Jeff and I might have had a better relationship.”
“I loved him! I only wanted to do what was right.”
“You’re a hypocrite. You cheated on him and then got rid of the baby, and then blocked every attempt he made to come see me and Kelton. All because we had Bug. Two gay men had a baby and you couldn’t deal with it…”
“I’m not listening to this!”
“And you had nothing. And you know you never will because he sees who you are now.”
Chloe made it to the door before she swung and hit him. “
I love him!
More than you ever will. You’re a
lousy
brother, Ethan. You’re lousy family.”
“At least I can recognize that fact.”
He glared at her and she mirrored the expression. They both checked to make certain their battle had not woken up Jeff.
“I’m not having this fight,” Chloe said, “the
who loves him more
fight. Because we both know who would win.”
Chloe yanked the door open and hurried away. Ethan watched for a bitter moment and then she heard him forcefully close the door. She waited until she was a good distance away from the cottage before she found a tree behind which she could let her guilt and anguish properly surge.
***
Lana hid in the dark of the pantry with the large book opened and clutched against her breast. Her mouth was open and quivering in a manner unfitting a Hollywood star. The darkness pressed around her in the small room, the only place she could think of to run.
It
was in the house. It was in the library.
She had been in the library and had found the spell she was looking for. She stared at its words, at the script in which they were written, like briars and thorns. This would need sacrifice and the thought filled her up with poisoned dread. She had never done sacrifice too well.
It was then that the shadow made its presence known. She had thought it had left and had been able to research in peace. But then, like a door left wide open in a hurricane, the wind rushed in upon her. She breathed it in and it tasted of bitter rust and dirt. The candles flickered and wisped out. Some of them, in their final frenzied dance, caught the edges of papers and maps that were tossed in the air by the sudden breeze.
“I’ve seen this before,” Lana shouted, holding the book to her pounding heart. “You don’t scare me. I’ve seen special effects that make this little show laughable.”
She felt a scratch on her arm and remembered the marks on Michael. Something pulled at the book like a magnet. She clutched it tighter and ran through the blizzard of strewn things, dodging her way down the hall to the kitchen pantry.
Her breathing was rushed and she was sweating. Her heart gave her a pang, the blood coursing too quickly through her veins. The book was so heavy she was having problems keeping it to her chest. The darkness reached for her on all sides but did not help to steady her.
She listened. Nothing. The house was silent, but she knew
it
was still there. In the library or in the halls and stalking, blowing out candles as it went. Or perhaps felling them so that they would catch the carpets or wall hangings alight and she would be burned alive.
Then she heard it. The shadow slid into the kitchen like a fog. It knew exactly where she was. Lana tensed even more. Outside the pantry door, it was waiting for her. This was a child’s game. Unseen upon unseen. The door blocked what she couldn’t see anyway.
Silence. She wanted to scream. To jump and shout. To do anything to break the awful quiet. Her legs quaked and her arms ached.
Then there was a creak at the door and she could stand no more. With that, and having lost the patience to hide, Lana pushed her way out the pantry door and up the stairs.
The second floor was completely dark, as was the rest of the house now, lit only by the end of daylight. All the color was gone, the hallway now draped in mourning. She went higher still. To the widow’s walk.
She burst out the cupola door and her face met with the unforgiving freeze of the higher winds. The snow on the widow’s walk had mostly been eaten away by the hungry wind. The sky was painted dusk orange and pink. The shock of the cold made her instinctively turn back for the door. The pain in her arm caught her breath in her lungs. And on the stairs she saw long shadows sliding. She heard a methodical climbing. The dusk light pulled the shadows even farther toward her, up the stairs, like ink from a well spilling upward.
Lana backed away quickly. What was real became a scene. In her mind, she heard the tense strings of a film orchestra. So thoughtless was she of what was behind her, she only just saved herself from a plunge to the ground below. The book dropped to the floor and she hurriedly picked it up again lest the pages be damaged.
The pain. The pain was intense. And a shadow figure stood in the doorway, like Death but without a crooked finger or gentlemanly top hat.
Lana dodged the shadow and fell with the book against the wall. Her legs folded on her and she laid a distorted heap, her cheek to the house. She held the book, but her grip was leaving her. The book was sliding, until it rested opened, one half leaning against the house, the other half lying on her lap.
She was no longer cold. She was no longer in any discomfort at all. Even the fear had gone. She was quite certain now that if she could turn around, she would see the shadow figure was gone as well. The set was left to her. The glorious ending she always wanted. Just the right lighting. And the music. Oh, how the music howled! How the music soared!
***
Things had been quiet and calm, but then…
The ceiling complained as if someone was standing on the roof. Ethan looked up as he knelt at Jeff’s side. He watched the invisible journey of sound until it reached a darkened corner, and then, with a furious whoosh of rushing wind and flying ash, a gale snuffed out the warmth of the fireplace.