And then the knocking started, and that Laurel could hear, and feel, too; feel it reverberating through her … and everyone in the grouping froze, looking upward …
One by one the mirrors began to shatter on the walls, exploding outward into the room.
And the electric-eyed boy lunged across the table and seized her hand—
CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
Laurel jolted and her eyes flew open as she gasped, tried to gasp … and couldn’t. Her chest was on fire … she couldn’t breathe, couldn’t get a breath … but then she felt the duct tape binding her mouth and remembered, and she drew a shuddering breath of air through her nose. She lay in the small bed with her heart pounding like the waves of knocking from her—
—
Dream?
She was on the bed, in that small, cold, white room, and it was dark—not black, though, not full dark, more gray dark, and she realized it was raining, black, roiling clouds outside the window.
She was still bound to the bed, the rope through the rings. There was a smell of burning around her, although she could see no flame.
She breathed shallowly against the smell, fighting the rising tide of panic …
She heard a
RAP
that reverberated through the entire house—through the foundation of the house, through the floor, through the bed, through her body… .
Oh God, they’ve started
…
She felt panic, terror—she writhed and fought against the ropes.
Helpless. Helpless
.
She felt a rush of blistering anger and did not know if it was her own or Paul Folger’s.
And then she realized there was something in her hand.
Laurel curled her fingers around it and felt a sharp pain. She lifted her head from the bed and looked down the length of her body toward her hand.
She was clutching a long, sharp shard of mirror.
What? What?
She thought of the mirrors in her dream, shattering outward, of young Morgan lunging across the table and grabbing her hand …
A wave of confusion hit.
He gave it to me?
Don’t think. Just use it. Hurry
.
She clutched the spike of mirror, curled her fingers toward the rope that bound her arms, and found she could just reach the rope with the edge of the mirror. It was a camp rope and sliced easily with the razor-sharp shard. In a few slices she had cut through and pulled her arm free. She sat up and ripped the duct tape off her mouth, not caring about the pain, and then used the mirror to slice through the rope on her other arm, Adrenaline gave her a push … she tore off the remaining rope and jumped off the bed.
She flung herself at the door—locked, of course. She looked wildly around the room and grabbed the coat stand, hefted it in both hands, aimed the heavy base at the door underneath the doorknob, and ran at it with all her weight.
The door cracked open just as another
RAP
shook the house.
Laurel whirled back to the bed and seized the mirror shard, slid it gingerly into her skirt pocket as a weapon. Then she stumbled out into the hall, amazed at her freedom.
No time to think of that. Two ways, two choices. Main stairs or back?
Main stairs led to front door. They were all downstairs, she was sure.
Have to get them out
.
She pulled the mirror shard from her pocket, wincing as the sharp glass cut her again. She held it carefully and ran as silently as she could down the hall, halting to ease around the corner into the entry at the top of the stairwell, to listen. She heard no voices … no rapping …
Where is Anton? Would he be in there with them? Can’t can’t can’t get caught again
…
She moved onto the stairs and crept downward toward the landing. Rain pelted the gardens outside the huge arched windows beside her, and the sky was black.
Still no sound from downstairs.
She poked her head around the corner of the landing. She could see downstairs to the front entry hall. A dark man hovered beside the archway of the great room, watching whatever was inside.
Laurel’s pulse skyrocketed and she pulled her head back and stood pressed against the wall, trembling, clutching the mirror shard in her fingers.
Dr. Anton
.
He was standing just outside the great room with that damned clipboard.
So they all must be inside
.
He was right next to the front door, too close for her to get by him, even if he didn’t see her until she was right on top of him.
And I can’t leave Tyler and Katrina in this house
.
Do I go back? All the way up and around, down the servants’ stairs? Do I have time?
She eased her head back out and looked down at Anton, assessing the bulk of his body. She studied the mirror shard in her hand.
Can I sneak up on him, go for the jugular? If I run at him, with downward momentum, can I possibly shove him against the wall, knock him out?
She glanced around her for some other weapon, but all she saw within reach were a few small paintings hung on the walls.
Useless
.
But there was a recessed alcove in the wall next to the lower landing where she could stand and be hidden from Anton’s line of sight.
Laurel stuck her head out again. Anton still hovered below. She took a breath, then moved swiftly and silently around the wall, and slipped down the remaining stairs to the lower landing.
She ducked into the shallow alcove, pressed her back into the recessed wall, felt her heart pounding through her ribs against the plaster. From her new, closer hiding place she could make out the murmur of voices from the great room. She held very still, forcing her breath to slow, straining to hear.
“I still think we should wait for Dr. MacDonald.” Tyler’s voice sounded agitated.
“She’s not coming back, Tyler,” Brendan’s voice answered patiently. “It was her choice to leave. Please don’t interrupt. Katrina?”
“We’re here. We’re waiting. Are you there?” Katrina called out, her voice clear and energized.
A
RAP
shook the house. Laurel felt the wall she was leaning against shake to the foundation.
There was an excited murmur of voices, words indistinguishable, then Brendan’s voice called out from the great room: “Is there an imprint in this house?”
The air was suddenly suffused with a rotten smell, the stink of goat. A sound like harsh breathing began, coming from everywhere and nowhere … in and out.
Laurel saw Anton stiffen below her, electric with excitement. He started for the archway.
Then Laurel’s eyes widened as a small dark splotch began to grow on the wall in front of her. She watched it, riveted … and it burst into flame. She pressed her hand to her mouth to stifle a gasp. The spot burned for a moment, then flickered out, leaving an oval scorch mark on the wall.
All around her she could hear whispering—many voices, from the walls, from the ceiling … from nowhere and everywhere, whispering and mocking, with no words …
Brendan’s voice suddenly called out from the room below, “I want whatever is in this house to show itself. I want to see.”
No!
Laurel thought, her pulse spiking.
No!
The house began to shake. Laurel had grown up with earthquakes and the feeling was the same—like an immense, invisible animal lashing in the foundation, convulsing the entire house. Something ripped through the entire building, like a wind that was not a wind. The mirror shard fell from Laurel’s grasp as she flung out her arms and pressed her hands against the sides of the recessed space in which she stood, bracing herself against the sickening roll of the house. It was coming from the great room, the convulsion, and she heard Katrina screaming, Tyler and Brendan shrieking …
There was a great rushing roar that was like a vacuum, a thundering absence of sound, a vortex of wind that was not wind.
Laurel heard herself screaming now, screaming her voice raw—but the sound was swallowed in the vacuum.
It went on forever, a rush of nothingness. She shut her eyes against the pressure, the violation of it. She felt her breath being sucked from her, her mind sliding toward madness, her whole being screaming, screaming—the house was screaming …
And then it stopped.
CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
Laurel gasped for breath, for consciousness.
Am I alive?
Her mouth was dry, her ears ringing, her body shaking with adrenaline… .
The house was preternaturally still.
Laurel felt her arms shaking now; her hands were still braced so hard against the walls that her whole body ached. She opened her eyes … lowered her hands from the walls, and took a jerking step from her alcove.
Every framed painting on the wall in the entry was sideways or otherwise torqued. The entry hall was empty below her. There was no sound, no sound …
Fear flooded through her and she stumbled down the remaining stairs, across the entry hall to the archway of the great room.
She burst into the room and stared around her …
… at total chaos, everything overturned, paintings ripped and mangled on the walls, as if a tornado had hit. The piano was upended and mashed up against a wall, on its side. Anton was nowhere to be seen. Only the long table was still in its place, with Katrina, Brendan, and Tyler slumped in their chairs around it, all three of them slack-jawed and staring. Laurel took a staggering step, felt a chill of horror, recognizing the vacuous looks of the catatonic schizophrenic.
The room was completely silent—and live. The feeling of being watched was paralyzing.
Laurel bolted forward—and almost fell over Dr. Anton, slumped on the floor against the wall with legs sprawled out in front of him, head lolling on his neck … vacant-eyed and drooling.
She found her voice and screamed, “Brendan! Tyler! Katrina!”
The three slumped shapes at the table were still. Not a blink, not a twitch of a muscle in response. Lightning cracked in the sky outside the house, illuminating the room in blue white light. The trees lashed in a frenzy of wind.
Laurel ran to the table, leaned over, and slapped Brendan hard across the face, and then again. “Do you see me? Answer me!” she shouted. No response. She took his shoulders and shook him.
“Brendan, I need you to hear me.” He slumped to the side of the chair, his head lolling against the chair back, his eyes were all black, staring blindly at the ceiling.
Laurel turned to Katrina and shook her, shook her hard, until her teeth clacked in her head with a sickening crunch. The girl was as limp as a doll, frighteningly light.
Laurel heard a rustle of movement and froze. She turned … looked toward the side of the room. A clipboard that had fallen from the table started to tremble, then abruptly slid a few inches across the floor. Laurel started back.
All around the room objects began to shift and move around her, slightly, slyly. A pencil started to roll across the room in teasing slow motion. On the mantelpiece, a china cupid that had somehow remained intact suddenly exploded.
Laurel spun toward it … and saw that the pool of water had begun to seep from the floor again, growing. She felt an unbearable sense of something gathering.
Get out. Get out now
.
She whirled back to the table and lunged across it to grab Tyler’s wrists.
His eyes rolled with a blankness that dropped her heart to her stomach.
Laurel held his wrists, digging her fingers into his flesh, and looked into those eerie eyes. “Tyler, you need to come back to me now. Can you hear me?”
The rasping voice that came back to her inside her head was nothing human.
Of course I can hear you. I am in you. You belong to me
.
“I’m not talking to you,” she said vehemently. Her eyes fell on the scattered Zener cards on the tabletop, and suddenly, instinctively, she switched to the inner voice she had used with the blue-eyed boy in her dream.
Tyler. I need you to hear me now. I need you to come out. Wherever you are, follow my voice
.
She shut her eyes tight against the shifting movements of the room, shut her mind against the sly creeping sounds … and imagined the white room—the room they had shared during their test run. She forced herself to breathe, to let go … and saw herself in the room. When she opened her eyes, she was alone in the white room with Tyler. He sat at the table, slumped slackly in his seat. Laurel pulled out the chair in front of her and sat before him, across the table. He was still, limp, unfocused.
Tyler. I’m here. I’m here
.
She stared into his eyes and saw nothing.
Tyler, listen to me. Hear me. Follow my voice. Come toward my voice. Come out
.
She thought she saw something in his face, saw a flicker, or maybe it was an illusion, but she jolted with hope. She leaned toward him urgently.
Tyler, look at me. Look at me. See me
.
She reached out and grabbed his hands, squeezing hard.
Tyler. Come out of there. Now
.
All at once the young man in front of her gasped, a long, shuddering breath as if he’d just surfaced from deep water. He panted raggedly.
The white room faded around them as Laurel shot to her feet, moved around the table, and knelt beside Tyler, reaching up to stroke his face. “Breathe. Breathe. Tyler, are you there? Can you answer me?”
He answered thickly, but it was his own voice. “God.” He looked around them wildly. A painting shifted on the wall. The piano suddenly fell forward onto its legs without a sound and slid several feet across the floor, then stopped, hovering …
A low, deep groan shuddered through the foundation of the house … the floor beneath Laurel’s knees slithered like a serpent.
Now what she saw in Tyler’s eyes was pure terror.
“Oh God,” he managed. His teeth were chattering so hard he could barely get the words out. “Where is it? Where’d it go?”
“Talk to me. Talk to me,” she commanded, digging her fingernails into his forearms.