Down in the basement, at Lois's direction, they emptied a wooden shelf of their mother’s preserves, and pulled the shelf away to expose a trapdoor. The trapdoor revealed a ladder that led down to a square concrete room barely eight feet across. In the middle of the far wall stood an ordinary-looking, panelled wooden door.
“That door,” said Lois, “is all that remains between us and the treasure. As you can see we are not the first to get this far.”
Ysis saw scorch marks on the concrete wall radiating away from the door, and some on the floor, but the door remained unmarked. “It looks like they didn’t get in. I sure hope you know how to get the door open without killing us.”
“No worries, Sis, you have everything I need.”
Ysis pretended not to notice the pronoun slip. She dug out a piece of chalk, knelt on the rough concrete, set the diagram on the floor, weighted the corners with pennies, and started drawing.
As she finished each segment Lois handed her a candle. As she placed each candle and lit it she said the requisite words, sounding them out phonetically as they’d been written. The words felt totally alien to her mouth and her ears, unlike any language she had ever heard, and as she completed each phrase the candles dimmed perceptibly.
All the heat and feeling drained from her fingers, the chalk dragged across the concrete.
“Hurry, only two more candles to go, then we can start the final incantation.”
Ysis had suspected something was amiss from the time Lois donned the skin, and hadn’t trusted her since. When Lois had explained what they had to do to get into the vault Ysis had recognized the significance of some of the diagrams and known immediately that her sister, under the influence of her great grandmother’s skin, was lying to her about them, but she'd kept up the role she had played so many times for so long, the younger sister eager to please the older in any way.
As soon as she finished this diagram right in front of the door, that’s when her sister would strike. Only a few more lines to go. She heard Lois reaching into the bag and knew it wasn’t a candle she was reaching for. Her skin crawled across her back, she could almost feel her sister tensing up right behind her, waiting for the moment when the white chalk lines met so she could stab.
Instead of closing the circle with the chalk in her right hand, her left thumb popped the cap on the plastic container concealed in her fist, she rolled and spun and flung two ounces of Holy water onto her sister.
Lois gasped like she’d been drenched in ice water. Ysis grabbed her just above the knees and toppled her, bouncing her off the wall and sending her crashing to the floor. Avoiding flailing arms and legs she squirmed up her sister and pressed a silver coin to her forehead, shouting, “Begone.”
Lois screamed, and Ysis recognized her sister in the sound. The scream cut off, Lois stiffened every muscle for several seconds, then went limp. When she opened her eyes the darkness was gone. She pushed at Ysis and said, with her usual annoyance, “Get off me you bitch.”
“Who’s the bitch. You were going to sacrifice me.”
“No, it wasn’t me, not for a second. As soon as the skin touched me great Grandma Aggie started taking control. By the time I realized what was happening to me I couldn’t do anything about it. After that, if I tried really hard, I could watch what she was doing, but other than that she shut me out completely. I was so scared. When she had the knife out I was sure she was going to kill you. What was that you hit her with?"
"A rough-and-ready, general-purpose banishment spell I packed into a silver dollar. It's use is limited because contact is required but I thought it might come in handy some day for self defense."
"I'm so sorry for getting you into this."
Ysis already knew that her sister hadn’t been in control of her own body, that it had been more horrible for her than Ysis had imagined. Forgiveness came easy. She held out her arms and her big sister came into them for a heartfelt hug.
They separated and Lois said, “I will never kill you for any treasure, no matter how big it is.”
Ysis contemplated the door. “Is that the only way in?”
“Without destroying the contents. But it doesn’t have to be a blood relative. Anybody would do. She just chose you because you were convenient and knew too much.”
Ysis remembered how that had felt, having her life held in so little regard. She shook her head. “I don’t want to kill anybody, no matter what is in there.”
“What about all that knowledge and power?”
“What about it? Killing somebody to get through that door would be just the start. What do you suppose we'd have to do in order to use all that power?”
Lois was silent for several seconds, then, “You’re right. It can’t be anything good.”
“If there’s even anything in there. It could have been just a lure. Maybe once she had possession of your body she had what she wanted.”
“No, she wanted to get into that vault in the worst way. There is something she desperately needed in there but, no matter what it is, I don’t want it anymore, because she wanted it so badly. Besides, I don't think we can ever get in, now that we’ve destroyed the witchskin.”
Lois scratched her ribs, wriggled her shoulders in her clothes, then scratched her arm. White flakes fell away. She shuddered and said, “I itch all over. Let me out of here." She started up the ladder. "Ugh. I need a long, hot shower, with a loofa and lots of soap. Do you have any more of that holy water?”
“Enough for a sponge bath." Ysis took a last look at the scorched concrete around the door, then followed her sister up the ladder. "And you better burn those clothes.”
THE END
Tunnel Vision by Samuel Brower
It started out as a good idea, Sandra Anderson thought as she drove through the now snowy landscape where she’d intended to spend her late autumn vacation. Well, not a vacation, really, she still had to work. But ever since the advertising company she wrote copy for had switched to an online format, anywhere she had her laptop and an internet connection could be her workspace. She no longer needed to spend nearly seven days a week in her cramped little office on Decoursey Avenue. They’d made the conversion a little over a month ago, and Sandra had spent the time since then working from her condo.
Then a little over a week ago she’d been talking with her sister, Danielle, on the phone, and somehow the conversation had drifted into reminiscing about their old family vacations to Gatlinburg, Tennessee. By the end of the call, the idea had fully formed in Sandra’s head. Why not drive down to Gatlinburg and get a hotel room, or even better, a cabin, for a few days? As long as she had Wi-Fi, she’d still be able to get her work on the Wyler account turned in on time. And so she had set it all up on a whim and driven down only two days later.
The first few days had been wonderful. Gatlinburg was nestled in the Smokey Mountains, and the scenery was as beautiful as she remembered it from her childhood, especially this time of year when all the leaves had changed over to reds, ambers, and golds. Wispy cobwebs of mist hung low over the trees at nearly all times, giving the mountain range its name, and with the color of the trees, if you squinted your eyes a bit and let your vision blur it made the mountains look like they were on fire. The air smelled fresh and natural, a huge change from the smoggy air around Sandra’s condo in the city. But, in what her sister would’ve called “classic Sandra fashion”, Sandra had forgotten to check the weather reports before booking her hotel room (all the cabins she’d found were booked solid until early December) and after the third day a storm front had begun to appear over the southern horizon. The temperature had dropped near twenty degrees by the time the dark skies were directly overhead, and snow began to fall in heavy sheets by day four.
Sandra debated staying and riding out the storm, but then the power was knocked out all through the strip of tourist area in what constituted “downtown Gatlinburg”. The hotel had a generator, of course, but they had only kept on the bare essentials—lights, heat, the kitchen, et
cetera—and the Wi-Fi hadn’t made the cut. Sandra was suddenly unable to work, and with the ever-approaching deadline of the Wyler account heavy on her mind, she’d packed up her suitcase, headed for her car, and gotten on the road. A road that was already slick with snow and ice. The streets were thick and congested with other motorists, as the many tourists made their exodus from the little town, and between that and the conditions of the roads, it was slow going for a long time.
When Sandra finally made it to the highway outside of Gatlinburg proper, she noticed a young woman wearing dingy clothes and dark sunglasses standing on the side of the road with her thumb out. An eighteen wheeler sped past the young woman, and when its tires cut through a large puddle—a muddy mix of slush and road salt—a near tidal wave of muck covered the poor girl head to toe. The temperature was in the low twenties, and the young woman had already been improperly dressed for the weather, wearing only a thin jacket and a knit cap, and now, sopping wet, she’d likely catch her death out there. Sandra had a strict ‘no hitchhikers’ rule, but the poor young woman was barely a wisp of a thing, and Sandra couldn’t imagine just leaving her out there to freeze to death. She put her blinker on and edged over to the shoulder, slowing to a stop just a few yards in front of the young hitchhiker.
The woman, who’d been trying to ring the water and muck out of her clothing, looked up and saw Sandra’s car. She straightened up, then jogged over and looked in through the passenger side window. Sandra took a moment to reflect that the oversized sunglasses were a bit odd, considering the grey, overcast day outside, then pushed the button to roll down the passenger side window. The young woman stuck her head inside.
“I’m not going anywhere in particular,” the girl said. “At this point if you could even just take me to the next rest area where I can get out of this weather I’d be super grateful.”
“I’m headed north, I’ll take you as far as you’d like to go on my route back home,” Sandra said.
The woman looked down at the passenger seat where Sandra had piled her suitcase, laptop case, and purse—she had been traveling alone, after all, so she’d put her things there where she could easily get to them. Because of the clutter in the front seat, the young woman stepped to the back door and opened it. She got into the backseat on the passenger side and put her seatbelt on.
“Thank you so much for stopping, I was freezing cold,” the young woman said. “My name is Laura, by the way.”
“Not a problem, Laura, I’m happy to do it. I’m Sandra.”
“It’s usually so beautiful down here this time of year, I can’t believe all this snow.”
“Tell me about it. Ruined my little vacation.”
Sandra put her blinker on and waited for a gap in the traffic to merge back onto the highway. She was soon moving along through the slush and snow, her wipers working hard to keep the windshield free of salt spray from the mucky road. She looked in the rearview mirror at Laura, who was now sitting quietly and watching out the window through her huge sunglasses. She was a pretty girl, mousy in her features, but not in a bad way. Sandra wondered what had happened in the girl’s life for her to end up hitchhiking in the middle of a snowstorm wearing dirty, weather-beaten clothes. She may even be homeless, by the looks of her.
“Are you warm enough back there?” Sandra asked. “I can turn the heat up.”
“Oh, I’m fine,” Laura said. “It’s much warmer in here than it was out there. When I was growing up my mother would never turn the heat on in our apartment, so I’m sort of used to being cold anyway.”
“Where are you from?”
“New Hampshire, originally.”
Sandra noticed the feint accent now. “Oh, wow. I imagine it got really cold up there.”
“It did. Mother kept a space heater in her room, but she didn’t give us anything. We all slept in the same bed, my brother and sister and me, and mother said that we would keep each other warm. But then my little brother died and the state took us away from mother for a while.”
Anxiety pinched at Sandra’s gut and she looked in the rearview mirror at Laura. Had that been a sick joke? Laura stared out the window, her face impassive. She’d talked about her brother’s apparent death so flippantly, and Sandra was beginning to regret her decision to pick the girl up. Something was off about her.
“I’m sorry,” Sandra said.
“It’s okay, it happened a long time ago.”
In the rearview mirror Sandra watched Laura wipe at her cheek with the sleeve of her jacket. Was she crying? In a way, that would make Sandra feel a little better about the exchange. Laura’s cheek did glisten a little, indicating there had in fact been tears there. Sandra looked at the road ahead and continued on.
“The state eventually gave us back to mother, though,” Laura said after a few moments of silence.
“Yeah?” Sandra said.
“Yeah. They always did. I don’t know why. Mother was never a very good mother, you know?”
“That’s unfortunate.”
“I even liked some of the foster care places I ended up. Some of the doctors were nice. I missed my sister because we weren’t ever able to be placed together, but I liked them.”
Sandra furrowed her brow in confusion, wondering what the girl was talking about. Foster care? Doctors? She shook her head and dismissed it. “I have a sister, too. She’s the one who reminded me about our childhood vacations here, which made me decide to take this trip. Are you and your sister close?”
“We were for a long time, before my mother sort of turned us against each other. And then she ended up dying too. I’m the only one left now.”
Sandra looked into her rearview mirror again. Laura again swiped a sleeve over her cheek.
“I’m so sorry,” Sandra said. “That’s awful.”
“It’s okay.”
Sandra wanted desperately to change the subject. “So what brought you down to Gatlinburg? On vacation?”
“No, I don’t really have anything to take a vacation from. Just traveling around, I guess. I have spells where I blackout sometimes, so it’s hard to hold down a job.”
“Is it a medical condition?”
“I don’t know. I can’t afford to see a doctor, so I just sort of have to put up with it.”
“That’s unfortunate,” Sandra said for the second time. She hoped the girl would stop the conversation there, but had no such luck.
“I hate my mother,” Laura said, sudden and matter-of-factly. “She’s the worst person I’ve ever known. I wish it was her who died instead of my brother and my sister.”
Sandra didn’t reply. She glanced in the mirror. Laura wiped at her face with the sleeve. The right side of her face, Sandra realized. Always the right side. Her cheek on that side still shined with wetness. Up ahead, Sandra saw that they were approaching a tunnel, which passed through the middle of a large mountain. It was the first tunnel in a whole series of them on this route out of Gatlinburg.
“I believe killing people is wrong, but if I could ever kill anyone, it would be my mother,” Laura said. “Because I’m not even sure if she is a person, you know? I’m not sure it would be wrong to do it.”
Sandra stayed quiet. She slowed her vehicle a little as they entered the tunnel. Inside, it was pitch black. The power outage, Sandra thought. On her way into town the tunnels had been lit by running tracks of lights down either side. She reached forward and flicked on her headlights, then let them guide her through the gentle curves of the long passage. It made her uncomfortable to be in the dark for so long with her strange passenger. Finally they came out of the tunnel on the other side of the mountain, and the inside of the car was again filled with the grey light of the dreary day.
Sandra looked into the mirror, and was startled. The space in the backseat on the passenger side where Laura had sat was now empty. The girl was instead sitting directly behind her. Fear bubbled up in Sandra’s belly. She studied the girl in the mirror, the angle still allowed her to see Laura some, even position
ed behind her. There was something different about her. Her posture had changed. Whereas before, Laura had been sitting up straight, her shoulders were now hunched. She had an elbow resting on the window jam, and rested her chin on her hand. The tears were still streaming down the right side of her face, though she did nothing to wipe them away now.
“Were you uncomfortable on the other side?” Sandra asked. “I could’ve moved the seat up for you if there wasn’t enough room.”
Laura slowly looked away from the window. “Oh, I’m just not a passenger-side kind of woman, that’s all.” Her voice had changed. It was deeper, more confident somehow. And the New England accent seemed slightly thicker.
Sandra looked at Laura in the mirror again. The eerie feeling in her gut intensified.
“I’m sorry, I seem to be a tad emotional at the moment,” Laura said, still in the strange voice, and raising a hand to touch her tear-wet face. “Do you have a tissue?”
Sandra did. But they were in the glovebox, and she’d be damned if she was going to reach in there and dig around for them now, not with this strange woman sitting directly behind her.
“I’m sorry, I don’t,” Sandra lied.
Laura blew out a breath. “It’s okay, a few tears never hurt anyone. I’ve grown soft in my old age, it seems. In my younger years I was hard as a coffin nail. You’d never have caught me shedding tears back then.”
Sandra had no idea what the girl was talking about. Beneath the dirt and grime she looked to be no more than twenty years old.
“Age will do that to you, you know,” Laura continued. “Makes you soft. Especially when you’ve lost children.”
Sandra leaned forward in her seat, crowding the wheel, anything to create distance between herself and this hitchhiker who seemed more and more to be suffering from some sort of mental illness.
9 Tales Told in the Dark 6 Page 3
