by James Hunt
Kegan nodded, leaving the bottle as he helped guide Iris back to her room. Her grandson was very much like his father, who had worried himself to an early grave. The heart attack had been massive, but it was also quick. She was thankful that he wasn’t meant to suffer. But despite the good-natured grandson who came from a good-natured father who came from a good-natured husband, Iris had discovered her husband’s family secret too late.
Iris was not a true Bell, and when she had learned the truth, she’d wanted to disappear. She had even gone as far as having an attorney write up divorce papers.
But the day before she had been about to file for divorce, she received a letter in the mail. It was from her husband’s brother, who had stayed in Bell to look after the house even though he had been the second born. Her husband had forsaken the duties that nature and honor had bestowed upon him as the first-born son and heir and also the burden of their bloody past.
Kegan guided Iris into her room and helped her onto the bed. “I’ll be right back, Grandmother.”
But Iris didn’t hear him, or see him leave. Her attention was on the dresser where that letter was stored. She must have read it a dozen times and rewritten her response a dozen more. She had returned to that letter throughout the years as a reminder of what would happen should she fail. But it was only in times of dire desperation. Times in which she began to doubt herself, the future, her choices. Times like now.
Wearily, Iris walked toward her dresser. Her old bones groaned, the gusto of her youth long since faded. She had felt old for a long time, but none more than the past few weeks. The last few steps were always the hardest.
Iris gripped the edge of the worn oak to help keep herself upright, her knees aching to the point of breaking. The pain was sharp, and she shut her eyes, squeezing the wood tighter, which only made her hands ache.
After the pain eased, Iris opened the top drawer and pushed aside the nightgowns and undergarments until the letter was exposed. It was folded into thirds, the creases in the paper well defined from its life in the drawer.
Iris collapsed in the nearby chair of her vanity, the letter clasped in her hand. She kept it in her lap for a while, reluctant to read it. There was always trepidation when traveling into the past. It was like reopening a wound, knowing that she’d bleed when she did.
Slowly, Iris flipped open the first fold then the second, flattening out the paper as best she could. The words along the creases had become distorted, but she knew those lines by heart.
My Dearest Iris,
I’m afraid my attempts to reconcile with my brother have failed. He no longer wishes to have any contact from me, and I believe that the last few letters I’ve written have been either thrown away or burned before they were even opened.
I tried phoning a few times, as you know, but Christopher has hardened his resolve to deny me even a few words or a hello. But my time is running short, and if I am unable to convince him to come home then he will die.
As you know, I was never able to have children, and now I’m afraid of the future of my family and my soul.
I know now that you are in full knowledge of the Bell family history, and the shame that comes with it. And I also know that you understand what happens should I die and no one else is here to manage our family’s situation.
It will come for Christopher, Iris. Despite his attempts at renouncing his name and his titles, he cannot renounce his blood. Your husband will die, painfully, and then it will attack your children, who share his blood too. It won’t stop until we’ve all died. But if you can convince Christopher to come home, I’ve developed a plan. A way to save our family, to save our children. To save our souls.
If you love him, bring him back. Do whatever is necessary. I know what I ask is difficult, but his life, and the lives of your children, will depend upon it.
Sincerely,
Tobias Bell
Iris reread the letter a few times, and as she did, she was transported back to the small kitchen table at her and Christopher’s home in Virginia. And just like the first time she’d read it, purpose flooded through her veins. Because she knew that if she failed, the souls of her children, her grandchildren, and her husband would be lost; consumed by the devil himself.
“Grandmother?”
“Huh?”
Kegan stood in front of her, the medication gripped in his outstretched hand. He lowered the medication and then dropped to one knee, taking Iris’s hand into his own. “What’s wrong?”
Unable to hold back the tears any longer, Iris let them fall. “You look so much like your mother, you know?” She smiled and then placed her hand on his cheek. It was warm, smooth. “But you’ve always acted more like your father.” The thought of her daughter triggered another round of tears. “They would have been so proud of you.”
Kegan’s face softened, his expression worried, as he placed his hand on top of his grandmother’s. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing, my dear,” Iris answered, drawing in a breath that helped revive her strength. She took the pills from him and then reached for the glass of water on the table beside her. She plucked two pills from the bottle and washed them down. Finished, she patted Kegan on the shoulder. “Everything is perfectly fine.”
“All right.” Kegan still looked worried but offered Iris’s hand a reassuring squeeze and suddenly looked tired. “I’m going to bed to try and catch a few hours of sleep before morning. If Dennis comes back or something happens, will you wake me?”
Iris smiled, her face wrinkling into a raisin. “Of course.”
And with the reassurances from the matriarch, Iris watched Kegan relax as he left the room. He did look tired. She knew he was worried. It had been the reason he’d come back home in the first place. That and because she had asked him to.
While Iris was confident in her ability to finally end this terror that had torn apart her family and taken the life of her daughter and husband, she couldn’t be sure that her own life wouldn’t give out before it was finished. And if she died, it would fall to Kegan to finish it. But she hoped it wouldn’t come to that. Because as much as she loved her grandson, he knew that he wasn’t like her. He wasn’t a murderer.
Iris fidgeted in the chair uncomfortably, her old bones tired. She was always tired. Sleep eluded her, and most of the night was spent tossing and turning in her bed, hoping to avoid the nightmares just waiting for her on the other side of consciousness.
No, not nightmares. They implied that the images she saw weren’t real. They were premonitions, visions of the future, past, and present. And they were gruesome sights.
She relived that violence and death had been her family’s legacy since Allister Bell settled this land and built this house.
The puppet strings that had controlled her family for generations had left Iris with little wiggle room. But she was so close to the scissors that would cut her and her family free. She just had to keep pushing toward the light at the end of the tunnel.
Iris had never been proud of the Bell family, but like most children who had grown up in her era, she believed a sense of duty was rooted in family, because before the age of high-speed internet and cell phones, people had been forced to get to know the people they spent most of their time around, which was family.
And while she took no joy in luring the unsuspecting souls into her home, there was no other way for her to save her family. Besides, they were loners, drifters with no other place to go. At least here their lives and deaths served a purpose.
The pain in her right leg returned, and Iris winced as she gingerly massaged her calf. A vicious spat of hacking and coughing came next, and she wiped away the bloody phlegm on a nearby white doily that she clenched in her fist. It was rare that she went more than a few hours without some ailment flaring up, and at her age, there was no shortage of options for her body to pick.
It was duty that kept her going, and the knowledge of what would happen to her should she die before the curse was lifted. Still, the
void beyond called to her every day, taunting her to let go.
And every day, she was forced to tell the void no. Because as much as she loved Kegan, she knew that he wouldn’t be able to finish the job. The boy lacked that malicious instinct that so many Bells had possessed. Iris hadn’t been born with it either, but she had adopted it, and it had consumed her life.
Family, Iris thought. She turned to the picture frames on the table, three of the photographs of her family with one face scratched out.
Iris straightened in her chair and opened her eyes, blinking to try and rid herself of the fog of sleep. After a few moments of concentrated effort, a ray of clarity returned, and those doubts disappeared.
“One more,” Iris said, repeating it to herself like a mantra.
She had known that this last girl would be difficult, but she had failed to calculate just how troublesome she would become.
The farther Sarah wandered from Bell, the worse her condition would become. The outside world would start its assault on her body and her senses and her soul. It would drive her mad, willing her to return to the house, where she would find peace. And in that peace, her death would grant Iris’s family their freedom.
16
Sarah kept her eyes shut tight. She focused all of her attention on the mansion, on being inside. She took slow, deep breaths, breathing in through her nose and out through her mouth.
After a minute, her mind calmed, and she heard the chatter of the forest to her left. The wind blew quickly across the surface of her ears, whistling as it passed. The muscles along her arms and shoulders relaxed. Her palms no longer stung from the cold of the ground.
Sarah envisioned the room she had been in before. She detailed the paintings on the wall, the yellow bedspread, and the crocheted lilies on the pillows on the bed. She suddenly felt warmer, and she knew she was getting close.
She recreated the floorboards, the wood stiff and warm against her skin. Candlelight flickered against the thin skin of her closed eyelids, the flames wiggling back and forth and shifting the shadows along the room.
A quick tug at her waist and Sarah gasped, but when she opened her eyes, she was no longer outside. She’d done it. She’d projected herself into the house.
She smiled, pushing herself off the floor, and glanced around at the room. It was exactly how it had been before, every detail. She paused, waiting for the redhead to return, but after a few moments in the room alone, Sarah knew that she wasn’t going to come.
But then as Sarah stepped toward the door, ready to press through the walls, she realized that there was something different.
The candles. The last time she had been transported into the house, it had been daylight outside, which meant… what? She was in a different time period? The redhead had told her that all of the souls were stuck in the time during which they had been killed, so they only saw the house as it had been when they lived.
So since it was night outside, this couldn’t have been the redhead’s version of the house. But if it wasn’t hers, then whose was it?
Sarah stepped into the hallway, finding more candles lit along the hall, though the light did little to improve the dreary nature of the surroundings. And just as Sarah was about to head down the hall to the staircase, she stopped herself.
The chair she’d seen in the hallway was no longer vibrant and new. The green and gold had faded, and the tear was visible down the middle of the seat. She reached out her hand, tracing her fingertip over the cut, hovering just above the cloth so her hand didn’t pass through it.
Sarah frowned and then examined the rest of the hall, noticing details she remembered from working here. If the first time she had projected herself was among the company of one of the dead, then she must have been a part of their world. But since she had projected alone this time, that meant that she was in her version of the house.
Unsure of how much time she had, Sarah hurried toward the stairs, rocketing up toward the fifth floor, remembering the orb that the redhead had told her was hidden in the house. And after Iris’s lecture to never go on the fifth floor, Sarah was betting that was where it was hidden.
Sarah reached the top of the stairs quickly, then glided through the door and toward the last room on the left where she again passed through, smiling at her own efficiency.
The room was just how she remembered it, and she started her search. While she scoured the room, she found that the only downside to her projection powers were her inability to pick anything up. If a picture or letter or object was face down, she couldn’t turn it over.
But after searching the room top to bottom, Sarah found nothing.
She checked every other room on the floor, peering through every wall and door. She checked closets and bathrooms. She poked her head through cabinets and chests and drawers. And after her methodical, grid-like check of the fifth floor, she was still empty-handed.
Sarah descended to the fourth floor to begin her search of the rest of the house. She passed through the rooms, looking for anything orb like, but finding nothing of the like aside from a few marbles in bowls.
She passed through room after room after room, and then finally stopped, gasping and covering her mouth from the noise.
Iris sat asleep in a chair near her vanity. Void of any make-up, she looked incredibly frail.
Circling the room, Sarah eventually made it to the vanity where Iris slept, and behind her Sarah saw the opened letter. She leaned closer, examining the letter beneath the candlelight that still flickered nearby.
When she finished, Sarah looked back at the old woman and frowned. “So you did come back to try and save your family.” But then Sarah remembered about what happened to Kegan’s parents, how they died. So what did the old woman do? Just save herself? The thought angered her.
What kind of a mother saved herself over her own children? But Sarah knew the answer to that question. She had experienced it repeatedly in the foster system. Women collecting children for the check, for tax deductions, to fill some void in their life.
In all of Sarah’s experiences with foster mothers, Sarah never felt like she was there to be helped. It always felt like she was there to help the women. And despite her efforts, Sarah failed every single time.
Knowing that the old woman couldn’t hear her, Sarah leaned close to Iris’s ear, her lips just a breath away from touching Iris’s skin.
“I want you to know that you deserve everything that happens to you,” Sarah said. “For all the people you hurt, and tried to hurt, just to save your own skin.”
But when Sarah leaned back, she wasn’t sure if she was really addressing the old woman, or if she was talking to herself.
After all, Sarah had went on the run to save her own skin. And she wasn’t searching for the orb to save the redhead, or avenge Maggie’s sacrifice. She was here for one reason only: to save herself.
The thought sickened her, and Sarah turned to leave, but then stopped when she reached the door. She spun back around and looked at Iris, her eyes falling to the wooden sphere around her neck.
Iris always wore it, and the longer Sarah stared at it the more she frowned. “It moves, but is always in the same place.” Her eyes widened in shock. “The orb!”
But just as Sarah lunged for Iris, stretching out her hand, she felt a tug at her waist, and everything went black.
After a moment of being lost in the darkness, Sarah suddenly realized that she was outside, her head aching as she lay on her back on the grass. She blinked, trying to rid herself of the black spots that plagued her vision. She propped herself up on her elbow and caught a glimpse of the mansion just before she turned around to find Brent hovering over her.
“Hello, sweetheart. Did you miss me?” Brent smiled.
A scream began to crawl from the back of her throat, but it was cut short by the harsh crack of a pistol against her face.
The pain was sharp and hot. Blood trickled down from the wound, casting a brilliant streak of red against her pale skin. H
ands groped her neck and shoulders, and she was yanked from the ground, too disoriented to fight back but still conscious enough to see Pat lying motionless on his back.
“Pat? Oh my god, Pat?” Sarah wiggled herself free, scrambling toward the old barkeep who lay lifeless on the ground.
Pat had pressed both hands to his bloodied stomach, his body trembling. Blood pooled in his mouth and he locked eyes with Sarah before he spoke, his voice raspy and tired. “Sarah.”
“It’s okay,” Sarah said, starting to cry. “Everything’s going to be all right.”
Sarah pressed her ear to his nose to check his breathing, but it was so cold outside that she couldn’t feel if there were any breaths or not. Pat grabbed hold of her arm, transferring bloody prints to her jacket. His eyes were wide, the white turning the same shade of red as the blood welling up from his gut.
“I didn’t know you two were so well acquainted,” Brent said, walking over to hover over Sarah’s back. “Well, say goodbye.”
Sarah turned. “No, wait!”
The gunshot cut through the night air fast and hard. A high-pitched whine in Sarah’s ears deafened her to her own screams as she turned back around to find Pat’s face blown away.
“Get up!” Brent yanked her by the collar, lifting her completely off the ground with one hand, and dragged her, kicking and screaming, toward the road.
“NO!” Sarah wriggled and punched at Brent’s arm, but the defiance ended when he placed the end of his pistol against her forehead.
“Move again and I’ll blow your brains out across the snow,” Brent said, his voice spitting anger against her cheek. “And then you can be just like your little friend over there.”
With her face still turned in the opposite direction, Sarah glanced at Brent from the corner of her eye. She hated that she couldn’t stop shaking, she hated that he had found her, but what she hated even more was the hope that she had allowed herself to believe that she could escape his reach.
