Pulling an itchy wool blanket from the bed, Mack leaned his head back and drifted into sleep.
He woke to find a tall man in the chair opposite him. A man with hair as black as the crow’s feathers and eyes to match.
Mack knew he was the ghost, the dead man in the woods, and yet here the man sat, skin pink in the fire glow, watching Mack with his steady dark eyes.
“You’re dead, though,” Mack muttered drowsily.
George’s eyes glanced up at him, and they were no longer dark holes in the man’s face. They were kind eyes.
“What is death, my friend?” Corey asked.
“Dead, gone. I saw your bones in the ground,” Mack murmured.
“And you believe you saw George Corey in the ground? All that George Corey was, in those raggedy bones? Could all of Mack Gallagher be contained therein?”
“You’re confusing me,” Mack sighed.
Warmth radiated from the hearth and cast George in shimmering light. The heat warped the edges. Nothing was sharp. It all seemed to flow and curve.
“Why do you think you found me, Mack?” George asked.
“Because my dog smelled your carcass,” Mack drawled.
George chuckled.
“She did, yes. But what if I told you, you set her on that path? I called out to you, and you came.”
“But you couldn’t have because you were dead. You are dead…” he trailed off and let his head fall back.
“The living are so concerned with the dead,” George said. “Mack, I called out to you and you answered the call. You are bound to my service, and I cannot set you free until you have fulfilled your purpose. A very long time ago, you and I made a deal. I saved your life. Now it is time to repay your debt.”
Mack looked at the man again, his head lolling to the side.
“Huh? My life?”
George handed Mack a mug of something hot. Steam tendrils rose from the oily surface.
“Look deeply, my friend, and remember…”
As Mack gazed into the liquid, the shiny oil swirling and shifting, something tugged at his hair.
“Mackey? Mackey?” It was his mother’s voice, and she was crying, pleading. “Please, wake up, Mack. Wake up.”
Mack looked down at his body. He was young, around ten years old, and his face was gray, his lips were blue.
His mother beat against his chest and cried. He was near the water’s edge at the little lake in the Stoneroot Forest.
He had been fishing, gotten hungry, and ran into the woods to eat a handful of berries. They were poisonous.
From the trees, the tall dark-haired man emerged. Wordlessly, George picked Mack up and carried him through the forest, his mother running behind, begging the man to help her and calling out for her son.
At the cabin, a young woman with messy blonde hair stood. She opened the door wide, and George and his mother pushed inside.
Corey and the girl began to play drums.
As Mack hovered over his body, he heard beautiful songs and whispers. The sounds wrapped him in warmth and light. He wanted to go with them, to leave the cold, stiff body on the ground.
But then hands, human hands, took hold of him and drew him toward his physical form.
He tried to resist, but the girl and her father soothed him, sang to him, and soon he had re-entered his body.
His abdomen seized, and he spewed a gelatinous mass of red berries onto the wood floor.
His mother’s face shifted into focus. She clutched him, pressing her wet cheeks into his neck.
The memory started to fade, and he lurched forward in his chair, wanting to see his mother one last time.
The cup of broth pitched to the floor.
George Corey watched him.
“Why did I forget?” Mack asked, staring into the rug where the oils had disappeared.
“Because I asked you to,” George told him.
“But why me? Couldn’t you have called someone else here?”
“Not everyone can see through the stones, Mack. The magic is not in them, it’s in you.”
“You’re sorely mistaken, Corey,” Mack grumbled. “Magic is the last thing I’ve got going for me.”
George smiled and held out his arm. The crow glided from its post to Corey’s forearm.
“When we die, we step through the veil. Our memories of a thousand lives are restored. We See, truly See. When you die and return to the land of flesh, your eye remains open.”
George touched a space on his forehead, near the center of his eyebrows.
“I chose you, Mack, because you can See.”
“And if I refuse to do what you ask?” Mack wondered out loud.
“I will haunt you until you complete the task required of you. And my ghost — well he’s a darker fellow altogether, isn’t he?”
George leaned his head forward, and the crow rubbed its beak against Corey’s ear.
“Am I dead too?” Mack asked suddenly. He wondered if he had drowned in the rainy woods after all. How disappointing that it was not his mother to greet him in the afterlife, but this stranger with the dark eyes.
“You are not dead, Mack Gallagher, but you have been living like a dead man. Fulfilling your debt to me is a new opportunity at life for you. I’ve given you this gift once before. I suggest you do not squander it a second time.”
Mack waved his hand in front of his face. He stuck a finger in his mouth and bit down.
George watched him, an amused expression on his face.
“I can’t be haunted, George,” Mack told him, a gurgle of laughter following the statement. “Diane will never take me back if I have a ghost too.”
George chuckled and stood. When he returned, he held a wooden box.
“I need you to save my daughter, Mack.”
* * *
When Mack woke in the morning, he shivered.
He sat up and regarded the cabin.
The fire in the hearth was long burned out. Not hours earlier, but months.
A layer of dust coated the surface of the table and the chairs. The chair George Corey had sat in contained a layer of undisturbed silt.
As Mack moved through the cottage, cobwebs clung to his beard and hair. He pulled them away, trying to make sense of the desolation before him.
The cabin had been warm and bright, filled with the smells of food and the air of life.
Mack spotted the satchel on the table, the leather strap tied tight. He knew all six stones sat inside. Next to the pouch lay the wooden box.
He picked them up and slid them into his bag.
Mack knew what he had to do.
* * *
“I don’t understand,” Diane told Mack when he appeared at her apartment the following day. “Why? You can’t commit yourself, Mack. You’re not insane. The… the figure,” Diane stammered.
Mack gazed at her, hair loose and falling over her shoulders, her face clean of makeup, her feet bare.
“The ghost is real, Diane. I’m not committing myself because I fear for my sanity. It’s the only way. George Corey told me. I found his cabin. I thought I had died. I was lost in the woods; I had given up.”
He remembered the moment, his regret at not having kissed Diane, taken her in his arms, and now he stood before her again. Her face tilted up to his, her eyes searching.
“But, Mack, George is dead. You saw his body. You…”
He held up his hand.
“I can’t explain it, Diane. Maybe someday I’ll try. But today, right now, I have to go.” He pulled a small package from his pocket, wrapped in gold foil. “Happy Birthday, Di.” He handed her the gift, and she gazed at it and then back at him. He leaned down and kissed her cheek.
As he walked down the hall, he felt her watching him.
“Mack?” she called out.
He turned.
She had stepped into the hallway.
In three long strides he was back to her. He leaned down, pressed a hand into her back and kissed her. She did not pus
h him away, but sank her fingers into his hair and kissed him back. He leaned his forehead against hers.
“I love you, Diane. I always have.”
He turned and walked away.
Chapter 24
September 1965
Liv
Liv wasn’t sure when Stephen had begun to drug her food.
During the first days, she’d sniffed it, taken tiny bites and waited to ensure he’d put nothing into the tasteless mashed potatoes.
However, as she swallowed the last of the soupy oatmeal in her dish, she noticed flecks of white powder lining the metal bowl. She wiped her finger along the powder and sniffed it. The substance had no distinguishable smell.
“What did you give me?” she asked Stephen through the grate.
“A little something to keep you calm. I’d like to come in today, and I can’t have you making a scene by running down the stairs like a mad woman.” He chuckled.
Liv considered forcing herself to throw up, but knew it was useless. Stephen would only take more drastic measures the next time. She stood and walked to the little bed, sinking onto the flimsy mattress and lying down. She searched for the crow in the rafters, but he was nowhere in sight.
A short while later, Liv heard the key in the lock. The door swung in and Stephen took a hesitant step into the attic.
Her limbs lay heavy on the bed. She didn’t bother lifting her head as he strode across the room, quickly securing straps to her arms and legs.
“For your own safety, Liv,” he said, leaning over and peering into her face. “I want to tell you about this place,” he continued. “This asylum is magnificent. When I started here, I longed to share the story with you. You were the only person in the world who would understand.”
Liv bit her tongue against the cruel things she wanted to say. Her words were wasted on the man before her.
“I started my rounds at the Northern Michigan Asylum on a dreary day in September. It was a terribly, soggy day, and I remember how my shoes squished in the wet grass. By the time I stood at the desk of my adviser, Dr. Strickland, my socks and the hem of my pants were sodden.”
Liv imagined him, dripping wet and likely looking like a lost boy as he stared up at the immense buildings. He did not look like a lost boy anymore. He stood above her, his eyes gleaming with excitement as he told his story.
“The day’s activities did not surprise me,” he continued. “I completed my psychiatric residency in New York at one of the most depraved and violent mental institutions in the country. They didn’t appreciate me there, Liv. They loved lobotomies. Schizophrenia or hysteria, their favorite treatment was an ice pick to the frontal lobe.”
He offered a derisive laugh, but Liv shuddered at the description. It terrified her that men like Stephen wielded such power over those least able to defend themselves.
“I saw the usual patients. Herbert was a paranoid schizophrenic. He gave me the evil eye when I passed. In the women’s ward, I saw a young woman pulling her long red hairs out one by one. Another patient plucked them from the table and quickly braided them into her own thin, gray hair. Dr. Strickland watched me as if I might be shocked at these things, but they barely registered. Crazy was something I’d grown accustomed to by that time. I was looking for something more, and I knew I’d find it here.” Stephen paced away, abruptly turning on his heel and striding back.
Liv thought back to her own intervening years. While Stephen played God with the mentally ill, she’d raised and nursed the future of the world. The little boys and girls who were bright-eyed and filled with hope, despite the dire circumstances that had brought them to the orphanage.
There were attendants who liked to control the children, even hurt them, but Liv drove them out. One by one, she revealed their dark nature, and they ran from the truth of their own corrupt hearts.
“They gave me a plain little apartment in the staff building,” Stephen went on, “which suited me fine. In those days, I wanted nothing more than to live within these walls, to root out the secrets of this place.” He paused for effect. “And then one afternoon, the mysteries revealed themselves. I overheard Dr. Green and Dr. Palmer speaking about a priestess who could raise the dead. She was coming to the asylum as a patient, to some sort of meeting. I knew I’d found it — my destiny, Liv.”
“A priestess,” Liv murmured, the word strangled in her throat. In her mind, she envisioned a wild woman with a headdress of feathers and bones. And then she imagined the woman’s strong arms pinned against her body, the stiff confines of a straightjacket wrapped around her, flattening her bosom, hiding her heart, stifling her voice.
“I jimmied the lock on Palmer’s door,” Stephen lifted his hand and squinted his eyes as if reliving that long-ago break-in. “His apartment was identical to mine, with the bonus of the most hideous display of fruit bowl paintings you’ve ever seen. The man is plainer than the oatmeal I’ve been feeding you. Sorry, by the way. Truly, I’ve watched manic patients fall asleep in his office.” Kaiser laughed and slapped the brass bed frame causing a jolt of surprise to invade Liv’s thickened senses. “I found a letter imprinted with an odd wax seal. The letter spoke about a meeting of a brotherhood. More importantly, it described the priestess. I was floored. It was more than I envisioned when I first felt the power in this place.”
Liv let her head fall to the side. She did not want to look on his face flushed and impassioned. She hated the way he gazed at her. Did he consider them old friends? She locked in an asylum attic, and he chattering away and practically bouncing out of his shoes?
“The letter wasn’t enough. I had to know more. So, I broke in again, and you can imagine my surprise when I was greeted by Dr. Strickland, Dr. Green, and Dr. Palmer. They were sitting in the darkness waiting for me.” Stephen’s voice dropped low. “My heart plummeted right through the floor beneath me and splattered somewhere in the basement. I told Strickland, the mastermind of their group, that I wanted in. Palmer and Green looked like daft cows staring at me with their big dumb eyes, but not Strickland. My theory, Liv? He knew when he hired me that I would join the brotherhood. I was meant for the brotherhood.”
Stephen sat with a sigh on the edge of Liv’s bed and she cringed as he reached over and pushed her hair away from her eyes.
“Strickland sent those other two morons out and gave me a hard time for breaking into Palmer’s apartment, but all the while I saw the intrigue in his eyes. He recognized something in me. He saw potential, something Green and Palmer didn’t have an ounce of in their big toes. I made it clear that he’d be a fool to keep me on the outside.”
“So, they let you in?” Liv asked, wishing the story would end and she could close her eyes and blot out the sound of his voice.
He laughed again, and now he was on his feet, pacing.
“Those bastards broke into my apartment in the middle of the night. I woke up to a rough canvas sack yanked over my head. Hands, six at least, maybe more, grabbed my arms and legs and lifted me from the bed. Had I gone too far? Were they carrying me to the furnace room to toss me into the fire and dispose of me for good? I panicked. I bit a man through the fabric. The man shrieked and jerked his arm away. I heard Palmer swear and relished the knowledge it was him I had bit. Before his fist hit me, I sensed it. The impact slammed into my nose and I saw a grotesque array of black stars. Blood was pouring out of my wrecked nose, and then I felt them haul me out of the building, into the cool night.”
Liv imagined Stephen, blood seeping into a canvas sack pulled over his face. Why hadn’t the men taken him to the forest and thrown him into a shallow grave?
Because they were like him.
The realization made her head pound.
Liv missed the children then. She missed their earnest faces and their warm, searching hands. She missed sitting in the rocking chair on the big front porch and rocking the babies while a breeze rippled in the mulberry tree that hung over the porch.
Children were not filled with secrets and dark desires.
They wore their emotions plain on their lineless faces. George had always loved children. He sometimes told Liv ‘their innocence balances the scales of good and evil in our world.’
“We walked for ages, and then…” Stephen paused. “And then I heard it and felt it. The chamber, the eye. It seemed to call out to me. Come in, Stephen. Come inside.” His voice changed as he whispered the calls, as if he were singing an eerie, seductive song. “When they pulled the canvas sack from my head, I saw Dr. Strickland in a chair opposite me. I looked around at the chamber and I felt it watching us, holding us.”
A tremor ran along Liv’s spine and her arms and legs broke out in goosebumps. She too remembered the whispers from the chamber, the chilling call of something evil luring its prey.
Stephen moved around the bed, positioning himself in front of Liv’s face once more. He squatted down and looked into her eyes.
“Strickland lifted a glass bottle of Sodium Pentothal. We used it often at the sanitarium in New York as a sleep-cure. But I knew why he’d brought it. It’s a truth serum, a way of getting people to talk, though I soon learned he didn’t need a truth serum for that,” Stephen snorted.
“So, you were on the other side of the needle. How did that feel, Stephen?”
He didn’t answer her, and though his eyes remained fixed on hers, they looked far away as if he stared right through her.
“Green injected me, and I felt that rush of cold fill my veins. It was in that moment I experienced fear. It had been a decade since I felt that way. The last time was twenty years ago in the cellar when you found me. When she locked me down there and probably would have left me to die.”
“Maybe that would have been for the best,” Liv murmured.
Stephen grew silent for several minutes, and Liv hoped he’d leave. Instead, he continued.
“I told him, ‘if you think a dose of barbiturates will have me over here blubbering like a woman, you’re sadly mistaken.’ Strickland laughed, and that’s when I noticed the man in the corner. He wasn’t a doctor at all, but a patient. His eyes were fluttering, and he was scribbling on a pad of paper. Dr. Palmer stood, ripped the top sheet from the notebook and scurried to Dr. Strickland, sliding the paper into his hands.”
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