Scott Nicholson - The Manor

"I have an idea," Paul said. "Let's go up on the roof. Up the little stairs. Fool around up there where you had your dream. And I promise not to push you off."

"That's what they all say," Adam said. "And the next thing you know, you're looking down at your own ghost."

"Trust me." Paul took his hand, led him inside.

As they entered the house, Adam realized that people never gave away their hearts, however willing or desperate or lonely they were. Hearts always had to be taken. By force or trickery. Love was murder, the infliction of death by cardiac theft, and the alternative was even worse.

Korban's painted eyes looked down at them, glimmering with cold empathy, wise to the futility of human dreams.

Anna held the lantern higher. The air in the basement smelled of wood and decay, the shadows creeping from the corners like solid things. Mason's statue skulked in the flicker of flame, the raw features suggesting an obscene strength. The bust of Korban was even more unsettling, because the face had grown comfortable in the polished grain. It had been fashioned with all the love God might have summoned in crafting Adam and Eve.

"What does it mean?" Mason asked.

"I think it means you're obsessed."

"I'm talking about the painting."

"You did all of this since yesterday? "

"Hey, the critics will love me, Mama will be proud, I'm the Mountain Michelangelo, the unsung hero of sculpture, blah, blah, blah. But look at this damned painting."

Anna looked. There, on the widow's walk, a host of figures stood in white relief against the dark background. Foremost was the woman Anna had seen in her dreams, the woman in the long flowing gown, the bouquet in her hands. The woman's mouth was open, caught in a scream or a whisper, the eyes imploring, pleading for deliverance from the grasping shapes behind her.

"That's you," Mason said.

"No. I thought it was, at first."

"You've seen this painting before?"

"In my dreams. For the past year, ever since I found out-since I decided to come to Korban Manor."

"If it's not you, then who is it?"

"You won't believe this."

Mason waved his arm to indicate his work. "I've turned into a genius practically overnight, every time I close my eyes Korban is right there telling me to get back to work, you and Ransom and half the guests are convinced that this house is haunted, and this picture has painted itself while nobody was watching. Now tell me what else I wouldn't believe."

"Okay, then. Promise not to laugh."

"I've not been in a laughing mood since I got here. I'm a serious artist, didn't you know that?"

"Oh yes. You've got 'suffering' written all over your face. It's your shield against the world. That's your excuse for keeping people away. You're as wooden as your goddamned statue."

Mason's eyes flashed anger, and for a moment Anna saw Stephen, his mask of barely suppressed rage at Anna's acceptance of approaching death, his calculation of what her loss would mean, his scorn when he'd learned she was going off to a "haunted" house that had never registered anomalous empirical data.

Mason grabbed her arm, squeezed hard enough to hurt. "Listen to me. When I was six years old, my mother bought be a package of modeling clay. It was like magic, digging my fingers in that stuff, twisting it and shaping it however I liked. For the first time in my life, I could control something.

"I made my mother a dinosaur, copying it from a picture in a book. I even put a row of little bony plates up its spine and spikes on its tail, two long horns and eyes that looked like they could stare down a T. Rex. Mama loved it. For the first time ever, I'd done something that really made her proud."

Mason squeezed harder, and Anna feared that he'd lost his mind, was going to snap her arm as if it were one of his whittling sticks. He talked faster, face red, eyes dark and faraway. "And my dad came in, saw the dinosaur, knocked it on the floor, and stomped it flat. Called me a goddamned useless daydreamer, a lazybones sack of crap. I can still see that imprint on the floor, the tread of his boot in the clay. Made me feel real special, all right.

"And you're special because you see things that don't exist. Well, let me tell you something, Little Miss Strange. This isn't one of your campfire tales. This is happening, this is real." He pulled her closer to the painting. "You can see it."

She twisted away, retreated with the lantern. The motion of the light made the shadows shift, gave the illusion that the statue had altered its position among the boards and wires that supported it. She gazed into the small flame of the lantern, where the orange gave way to blue and then to yellow. Maybe if she burned out her retinas, she'd never have to see another ghost in the short time she had left to live. Blinded to Second Sight or any sight.

"That's not me," she said, commanding her tears to evaporate. "It's my mother."

"Your mother?"

"She's here. She's dead. She's one of them now. And they can have her, for all I care."

"One of who? Wait a minute. You're losing me."

"Join the club. I've lost everybody else along the way."

She slammed the lantern onto Mason's worktable hard enough to rattle the glass. The shadows jumped as the flame bobbed, then the darkness began its slow crawl toward Anna. "Here. You're going to need this, because it gets awfully dark when your head's up your ass."

She headed for the stairs, welcoming the cool air that drifted over her skin like fingers of fog. The pain came again, in gentle prods, reminders of the sand that poured through the narrow hourglass gap between present and past. Soon the sand would run out and darkness would claim her. Soon but not nearly soon enough.

On each wooden step, she stomped out her ritual countdown.

Ten, round and thin.

Nine, loop and droop.

Eight, a double gate.

"Anna. Wait."

Seven, sharp and even.

Six, an arc and trick.

"I'm sorry."

She was sorry, too.

Five, a broken wing.

Four, a north fork.

"I'm scared."

Join the club.

Three, a skeleton key.

Two, an empty hook.

One, a dividing line.

"Help me."

Zero.

Nothing.

She opened the door and went down the hall, into the arteries of the house, aware of its patient and held breath, its warm and welcoming heart. Acceptance brought peace. This was the first and last place she had ever belonged. Sylva Hartley was right. She had come home.

She had come home. Sylva ground the dried blood-root, pulse working her veins like a snowmelt busting through rocks at the tail end of winter. Only a handful of hours until sundown, and then the rising of the blue moon. Sylva had prayed for this night for nigh on a hundred years, and the ashes of a prayer were stronger than the hottest fires of hell.

The spirits shifted in the dirt, turned in their tunnels, restless, disturbed by Ephram Korban's rising power. She knew Ephram better than anybody, better than even Margaret did, or "Miss Mamie," as she'd taken to being called. Many was the night Ephram's voice haunted the wind of Beechy Gap, whispering to Sylva, sending her scuttling for the charms. And he was fetching up a storm now, had already called over George Lawson and one of them new guests, with more soon to follow. By the next sunrise, Korban would have them all. Even Anna. Especially Anna.

Sylva clutched the clay jar of catbone, sprinkled some on the hearth. Her hand ached from gripping the stone, but the powders had to be fine as grave dust. She crushed the mixture again, worked the dry herbs, trembling. The fire spat, which she took as a good omen.

Would her faith be enough? She had the spells down, all her life had been dress rehearsal for this one magic night. Mighty long had she walked these hills, collecting roots and legends, crossing over to commune with the dead, even when the dead just wanted to be left alone. The spell hung on her cracked lips like a fevered drool.