by steve higgs
‘It will be in the middle?’ I suggested.
‘Most likely yes,’ Tempest’s dad agreed. Then he handed the jug to Big Ben. ‘You’ve got the legs, big fella.’
Big Ben took the jug and stepped up to the door. ‘Hold on,’ I called as I fetched a place mat from the table. ‘Use this to guide the water over the top of the door.’
With Tempest holding the mat and Big Ben pouring the water, we all held our breath to see if our assumptions were right. About half the water went over Tempest, not that he seemed to care, but we could all see it pooling on the floor and that enough of it had flowed over the door and down the other side.
Nothing happened.
There was no hopeful sparking noise or the pop of a solenoid opening. Pursing his lips, Big Ben put the jug down, then made everyone jump as he kicked the door with all his might. The mighty thump echoed around the room and he swore, lighting the room with some choice expletives.
‘You okay?’ Tempest asked him.
‘I hurt my foot,’ Big Ben admitted. ‘That’s a solid oak door.’
Tempest’s father clapped him on the shoulder. ‘It was a good try. They’ll be another way out though.’
Big Ben picked up a chair to examine. ‘We ought to be able to make a lever out of something.’
‘Or we could just go out through the fireplace,’ suggested the dwarf yet again, as if we were all being ridiculous.
‘They don’t appear to have found a way out yet,’ I pointed out. ‘I wish them luck, but I think we should all be trying to find alternatives.’
Gina, the petite African woman Tempest knew, appeared from the shadows. An unwelcome voice at the back of my head whispered that she and Tempest might know each other a little better than I might like. There was no sense in my jealousy or need for it, but unwarranted or not, it raised its annoying head.
‘How can we be of help?’ she asked. I think the question was aimed more at Tempest than it was at me, but she was looking at me when she said it. ‘It seems we are all in this together. I guess we all need to pull our weight.’
Big Ben swung into view, creating a shadow just by existing. ‘Hello, I’m Benjamin Winters. You can call me Big Ben.’
Georgine gave him a curious look. ‘Why?’
Big Ben placed his right thumb in his mouth and mimed blowing into it as he expanded his impressively wide chest and stood up straight to show that he had been stooping. ‘Because I am big, and my name is Ben. I will be happy to show you just how big I am when we find a more appropriate time.’ Her jaw dropped at his forwardness.
Tempest, being used to his friend’s behaviour, ignored it. ‘Since the door does not wish to yield willingly, I suggest we either find a way to force it as Ben suggested, or we start trying the wall panels to see if any are hollow and do the same with the floorboards.’
‘Did you hear something?’ Patience asked.
Everyone around me paused to listen.
A second passed. Then another. Just as I opened my mouth to ask her what she thought she might have heard, I heard it too. The faint sound of music, a reedy woman’s voice singing something in a high trill. It was coming through the wall or floor or through a vent somewhere and was accompanied by instruments – so a record being played.
‘Find the source,’ I murmured, not wanting to speak so loud that I drowned out the faint noise. With something productive to do finally, many of those who had until now just observed, started to fan out.
Ears were being pointed at floorboards and wall panels as the group spread out.
‘It’s coming from behind the fireplace,’ called the wizard, a tone of victory in his voice. ‘There will be a way out through here, you can bet on it.’
Our search led us to the conclusion that he was right about the source of the music at least. It was strongest over by the fireplace. Standing inside the enormous hearth, which was deep enough and wide enough to fit ten people in comfortably, I turned my face up to the chimney. Something was amiss. I turned on my torch again but the beam from it vanished into the darkness before it found a surface above me. I couldn’t see light coming down nor hear the storm outside wailing over the chimneys.
‘We should be able to hear the storm,’ I said aloud.
Tempest came to stand under the chimney with me. ‘Yes. It ought to be creating a venturi effect and be drawing air out. There ought to be an updraft here.’
‘Why isn’t it lit anyway?’ asked his mother, also joining us. ‘It’s December and this is a huge house. It should be colder in here than it is.’ She made a valid point. There was no visible heating anywhere in sight and the fireplace, designed to supply the huge room with heat, wasn’t lit in the middle of a winter storm.
‘The house uses pipes dug deep into the soil to circulate warmth back into the house. The pipes run though the wall cavities and under the floorboards, the water in them continually circulating,’ explained Lord Hale. ‘The fireplaces are grand but are unnecessary now.’
Tempest wasn’t buying it. ‘Nothing here adds up,’ he growled, typically annoyed by the unexplained phenomenon; he didn’t like not knowing what was going on.
His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of the dwarf dragging a chair across the room. He was coming directly towards us as we stood in the fireplace. When he saw us looking at him, he kept coming a few more feet then stopped and started to climb onto the chair. ‘I think I might like to have a weapon with me,’ he said as he reached his hands above his head.
I had to step out of the fireplace to see what he was after, but there, above his head was a heavy-looking and ancient battle-axe. Even standing on the chair he was too short to reach it.
Big Ben, without comment for once, reached one hand up and grasped it for him. It gave him some resistance though. ‘It’s stuck on something,’ he said as he too stood on the chair to see what was holding it in place. With a huff of exertion, he tore the axe free, but something clicked as he did, and the world started moving.
Tempest and his mother were still standing inside the fireplace and had to jump clear as it began to move. The sound of stone dragging across stone filled the air and dust filtered down from the ancient fireplace as the back wall moved slowly away from us.
The wizard gave a small air pump with his right fist and a, ‘Yes!’ of triumph as a passageway came into sight behind the fireplace.
‘Oh, jolly good!’ exclaimed Lord Hale. ‘Perhaps we may see the night through, after all. If only I knew what drove the beast in its desire to kill me, maybe then we could stop it. Something in my family’s history has to have caused it.’
‘Yes, Lord Hale,’ the wizard agreed. ‘Stopping the monster would be our best solution. Perhaps we should explore your family history as we find our way out. At least it seems my spell was accurate.’ Caratacus came around me, as I was one of the nearest to the fireplace and looked ready to lead us out. As he peered into the passageway beyond, he turned to face us. ‘Shall we?’
‘Well, would you believe it,’ uttered Tempest’s dad, staring at the new passageway. ‘If that isn’t the darndest thing I ever saw.’
I felt like hesitating but where else could we go? There appeared to be no other way out of the room, so though I could offer no explanation for the wizard’s magic show, or for the appearance of a secret passage behind a fireplace, I also couldn’t see any point in remaining where we were. I heard Tempest tut to himself, an indication that he was mulling over the same choices I perceived.
‘I vote we see where it leads,’ I offered.
Tempest tapped his chin a few times as he thought. Then he glanced back at Big Ben and his father. ‘I vote we prop this thing open with the table or something in case it leads nowhere.’
‘Good thinking, kid,’ his dad agreed.
‘I think we will stay here,’ said Gina, appearing out of the dark again. ‘It seems safe enough here…’
‘Are you crazy, girl?’ asked Patience, interrupting the smaller woman. ‘Did you not see the e
normous monster, beast thing? What if he comes back? You want to stay here with the beard brigade that’s your business, but good luck killing it with algebra.’
‘Algebra?’ Gina echoed, sounding mystified.
Patience cocked a hip. ‘Yeah, or calculus or some other clever sciency stuff. You eggheads love to baffle people, well, don’t expect that to work on a demon. That’s all I’m saying.’ Then she hooked an arm through Big Ben’s and clung onto him. ‘I ain’t going more than about six inches from this hunk of man. He can protect me.’
‘Um,’ said Big Ben.
The wizard was already in the passageway, Frank and the dwarf with the axe and several others following him. Lord Hale’s voice echoed back along the narrow tunnel, ‘I think we should stay together. It will be much safer if we do. No telling what might visit that room yet.’ He clearly wasn’t waiting for us, the light from his group was already fading as they made their way along the hidden passage.
Tempest grabbed a piece of table, Big Ben shucking Patience’s arm to grab the other end. ‘Let’s just secure our return in case it becomes necessary, eh?’
They turned the enormous oak table over, grunting and straining from the effort even as more of us joined in. With it upside down they jammed it into the hole the retreating fireplace created in such a way that if the fireplace wished to close the gap again it would have to crush the solid looking table to do it.
It wasn’t going to happen.
I turned back to Gina and the group of remainers. There were about ten of them, which included her three bearded colleagues and the witches. The flower women had been largely silent thus far and hadn’t yet introduced themselves. ‘We’re going,’ I told them. ‘Good luck here. If we find a way out, we’ll either circle back or send for help.’
Tempest’s parents had already gone down the passageway, following Big Ben and Patience and a few others. Tempest was waiting for me, standing on the upturned table in the fireplace. Moving to join him and wondering what we would find when we arrived at the source of the music, I got only a foot or so into the tunnel when I heard a noise coming from the room we just left.
I could best describe it as a wheezing breath but that fails to capture the despair and anguish the sound managed to portray. My feet froze, Tempest’s too as we both came to a halt.
Shocked gasps and cries of fear from the dining room drew us back through the fireplace just in time to see an apparition form in the room. An ethereal, ghostly shape began to take shape, hovering in the air above the table and I could feel cold air blowing against my face when a mouth formed, and it began to speak.
‘Be gone from this place.’ It uttered in a dread voice. I found the voice to be familiar and as the mist continued to take form, I realised what I was looking at was a giant head that closely resembled Lord Hale. Was it supposed to be one of his ancestors perhaps?
Behind me Patience screamed, the sound cut off suddenly when Big Ben clamped his hand over her mouth. Gina, her colleagues and the other group of women were all backing away toward the fireplace now as if driven there by the ghost.
‘Be gone,’ Lord Hale’s ancestor said again. ‘While you still can.’
‘Why?’ The question came from Tempest. He was staring up at the giant ghostly head and looked like he wanted to punch it. ‘Why are you playing this giant charade? What are you to gain from it?’
‘Fool,’ the head replied. ‘Go now and escape this place or share my fate.’
Then, the cold air that had been a gentle breeze became a strong wind, the icy temperature nipping at my skin as if I were being bombarded by ice crystals, and I felt myself being pushed backwards by it.
Gina, the professors, and the others who elected to remain in the dining room all changed their minds and ran through the fireplace and down the passage behind it. Only Tempest and I remained, and I really wanted to go. Not just because this thing was giving me the creeps, which it was, but also because I was getting really cold from the icy air.
Lord Hale’s face then transformed from benign older gentleman into horrific tortured version of the same. Tendrils of mist in the form of snakes sprang from his eyes and the mouth dropped open as the head screamed. Then it charged, moving from its position halfway down the room to blast towards the pair of us. My feet took an involuntary step backward but Tempest, my hand in his, held firm. The apparition washed over us and vanished.
Tempest said, ‘Hmmm. I’m not sure what to make of that.’
‘What do you mean?’
He wheeled around and started after everyone else, keeping my hand in his he led me over the upturned table and down the passage. The light from other people’s phones provided enough light for us to see them by. Once we were walking down the passage, he said, ‘I can’t work out how any of this is being done. I’m not prepared to assume that was a real ghostly head, but I couldn’t see a light source from which it was projected. Whoever is doing it has gone to some trouble. I just don’t know why.’
With hurried steps we caught up to those who had gone ahead. The sound of music grew louder as we continued along the narrow passage. It wound around several corners but then we reached a jam of people.
‘What’s going on?’ I asked, raising my voice so I would be heard.
Mirror. Saturday, December 10th 2058hrs
The passageway stopped ahead of us where it reached a door. The wizard, at the front, had elected to wait before opening it, probably trepidatious about what might be on the other side. With the press of people ahead of us, Tempest and I were stuck at the back, but I had no reason to feel that we should go first. I was as confused as everyone else about what was going on and content to follow the crowd until there was something I could do to help our situation.
Before we could question what we were waiting for, Caratacus pushed the door open. It creaked like it was a prop from a horror movie but swung open to reveal the space on the other side was just as dark as the one we had come from.
‘Power must be out everywhere,’ Big Ben commented as we filed into the new room. The room was filled with children’s toys. Old ones from a century or more ago. There was a rocking horse, its brightly painted livery still visible in the dim light, and a doll’s house that was as tall as me plus several large china dolls, their hair teased into curling locks. In one corner was a record player although it was a really old one with a handle on the side to wind it up. I thought the correct term for it might be gramophone, but I wasn’t sure. Someone had to have wound it recently though, so there was someone else creeping around ahead of us.
‘This is the spookiest toy room I have ever seen,’ said Patience. ‘Someone tell me there is another door.’
There was. It was locked but the key was in it. The dwarf, still carrying the axe in one hand, was undoing the lock when Dr Parrish rested a hand on his arm.
‘Stop,’ he demanded, his tone insistent. Then he held up a candle and lit it and we all watched as the orange flame sparked and fizzed and gave off a blue tinge.
‘Sulphur,’ hissed Frank.
‘Dear lord, what now?’ I asked, getting bored with all the weirdness.
The wizard flourished his arms again, waving them high in the air before bringing them to rest either side of his shoulders as if he had just loaded them. ‘There is something beyond the portal.’ His clear voice cut through the hush.
‘Portal?’ echoed Big Ben with a snigger. ‘Most people just call them doors.’
‘On my count, open it,’ the wizard commanded. The dwarf, who was nearest, took it that the command was aimed at him and readied his hand on the door. Frank and Dr Parrish backed away as the wizard once again called light into his hands, odd nonsensical words filling the air as he chanted a new spell.
‘I need to get a look at the light in his hands,’ said Tempest, letting go of my hand to cross the room. He didn’t get there in time though.
The wizard called, ‘Now,’ and the dwarf yanked the door open. What happened next stunned everyone, includin
g Tempest.
On the other side of the door was a mirror, the wizard’s face suddenly visible as it stared back into the room. But then the wizard was sucked into it, becoming one with his own image as he vanished inside the mirror. The balls of light conjured into his hands were instantly extinguished and then he turned to stare back at us, his shocked face staring back out of the mirror which was no longer reflecting our faces back at us, but showing us the wizard trapped on the other side of the glass.
We could see him shouting but the sound wasn’t getting to us. Gasps and choked sounds of surprise echoed around the room. I, too, was stunned by what I could see, my brain unable to supply an explanation.
Tempest took a step forward and just as he did, the wizard conjured another ball of light into his right hand and threw it at the surface of the mirror he was trapped inside.
The glass shattered, fragments falling in tiny shards to the floor to reveal a new passageway beyond and a set of stairs leading down.
Of the wizard, there was no sign.
Reflection. Saturday, December 10th 2121hrs
Lord Hale, who had been nearest the wizard when the mirror smashed, jumped back in fear, ‘Great Scott!’
‘Where’d he go?’ wailed Patience, while next to me, Tempest’s mum crossed herself for the umpteenth time. Tempest just sighed.
Dr Parrish called Frank over to the smashed pieces of mirror with a hand gesture. ‘What do you make of it, Frank? It appeared to be a soul trap.’
‘Exactly what I was thinking,’ Frank replied. ‘I’ve never heard of one being used in this hemisphere though. Have you?’
Looking disconcerted, Dr Parrish shook his head. ‘No. Not before tonight.’
‘What’s a soul trap?’ asked Professor Wiseman, leaning in and taking interest though strangely showing no fear.
‘Here we go,’ commented Tempest as he stepped over the shards of mirror to inspect the passageway beyond.
Dr Parrish straightened to his full height, ignoring Tempest as he answered the question. ‘It is an ancient Incan tool for capturing the souls of their enemies. Back then, they would use still water to trap the soul, destroying it by throwing dirt into the puddle. Later, people learned to use mirrors. How would this beast know to set such a trap?’
