Sarah lifted the leather straps and secured them to Corrie’s legs, shaking her head as she did so.
“This feels so wrong,” she murmured.
Mazur stood.
“It will be over in no time, my dear.”
He placed his case on a wooden bench and removed items.
“What’s that?” Will asked leaning over his shoulder.
“A diamond.” Mazur held it up. “But a very special diamond, indeed. If all goes according to plan, we will summon the dark energy from Corrie’s body, and we will trap it in this crystal in an endless time loop.”
“How?” Will asked, stepping to the bench where Mazur had set up a variety of other instruments.
“With this,” Mazur held up a laser, “I will jumble the atomic particles contained within this crystal at the exact moment the energy is slipping out of Corrie’s body.”
“How do we get the energy to leave Corrie’s body?” Sarah asked realizing she’d never asked the most important question.
Mazur pointed to two black paddles sitting next to the toolbox.
“Defibrillators?” Will asked.
“Wait.” Sarah held up her hand. “You’re going to stop her heart?”
“For an instant.” Mazur snapped his fingers. The moment the heart stops, the spirit will flee, the crystal will trap it. Voila.”
Sarah looked at Corrie unconscious on the bed.
CORRIE
* * *
I MOANED and rolled sideways but something held me firmly in place. Blinking my eyes open, I tried to make sense of the room. A stone ceiling hovered above me, orange light flickering strange shadows.
“Corrie,” Sarah put a hand on my arm. Her familiar brown eyes peered down at me and I saw fear in her face.
I turned my head and noticed Will, the young man I’d met days before, and an older man with a gray beard and long gray hair secured in a ponytail. He held a large diamond in his hand.
“Am I dreaming?” I asked her. The light hurt my eyes but when I closed them, the room swam, and my stomach turned. “I might be sick.”
Sarah put a cool wash cloth on my head. “If you turn your head. I’ve got a little container here to catch it if you throw up.”
“I can’t lift my arms.” I told her thickly, wondering if I was strapped down or had simply lost the use of my limbs. “Am I sick?”
“Yes,” Sarah murmured, smoothing my hair back. “We’re here to get you better. There are leather straps on your arms and legs to keep you safe.”
I gazed at her for a long time, finally craning my head down to look toward my legs. Yes, leather straps wrapped around my ankles. My head lolled to the side, and I stared at a row of funny-looking instruments on a wooden bench.
“Tell her now,” Mazur said, nodding his head. “It will draw the spirit out.”
“Corrie.” Sarah brushed my hair off my forehead. “We’re going to perform an exorcism.”
I looked at their faces, the grim set of Sarah’s mouth.
“This crystal has a unique ability, Corrie,” the older man explained, holding up a golf-ball sized diamond. “It draws energy, in particular spirit-energy.”
I blinked at the diamond, a sudden realization flooding my head.
“No, no you can’t. You’ll take Sammy too.” I pushed against the restraints, pleading with Sarah.
“Sammy’s dead, Corrie.”
“No,” I insisted. “I brought him back. Sammy! Sammy!” I howled his name, searching for him in the damp chamber.
Sarah
* * *
SARAH CLOSED HER EYES, wishing she could blot out the sound, but she couldn’t. She wouldn’t. She had to stay present for Corrie. Sammy would not want Sarah to abandon his wife.
“Spirit,” Mazur said, stepping close to the bed. “Show yourself.”
“Sarah…” She whipped around. Sammy had whispered in her ear. She’d heard it, as plain as Corrie’s cries,
“Sammy?” she asked, squinting toward the dark tunnel that led out of the chamber.
Mazur snapped his fingers at Sarah. “Don’t open yourself, Sarah. Stay focused, imagine a wall of impenetrable light surrounding you. You too, Will. Let nothing come through it.”
Corrie’s face shifted, her anguish draining out as if someone had pulled a plug in the back of her head. For several seconds she lay still, silent, eyes resting closed.
When she opened them, they looked sharp, and angry. A smile spread across her lips. She turned and locked her gaze on Sarah.
“Your brother begged for his life,” she hissed, jutting her tongue between her teeth. “He stood on his knees and wept like a child.”
Sarah watched Corrie and felt tears pour down her face, but she said nothing. In her mind, she imagined a bubble of light surrounding her. Let nothing in, Mazur had said.
“He suffered, it took an hour for him to die, laying there, writhing on the ground, blood seeping into the ground. 'Oh please, don’t.’” Corrie spoke in a voice eerily like Sammy’s. Sarah shut her eyes, unable to look a moment longer at Corrie’s hateful face.
Corrie shifted her eyes away from Sarah’s, locked on Will.
“When the night has come
And the land is dark
And the moon is the only light we’ll see
No, I won’t be afraid, no I won’t be afraid
Just as long as you stand, stand by me.”
Corrie sang the words, but her voice had shifted again. Sarah didn’t recognize it.
She looked up to find Will, colorless, his eyes peeled open in shock.
“My little trooper,” Corrie babbled. “Why did you let me die?”
Her eyes looked dark, all the color gone, huge black pupils in a sea of white.
Will shook his head.
“He held my head under,” Corrie whined. “I called for you, Will. I begged for my trooper to save me.”
Will clamped his hands over his ears and turned away.
“Yes,” Mazur whispered. “Let it reveal itself, let it come into the light. Fear not, Will.”
Will turned back to Corrie, his blotchy face wrecked with grief.
Corrie’s eyes narrowed upon him.
“What do I see in those baby blue eyes? Fear? Or is it guilt?”
Corrie’s words hung in the air, and then her head jerked toward Mazur.
Mazur held the diamond into the light, a dazzling prism of color.
Corrie’s eyes found the diamond, studied it.
Mazur set the gem on a wooden stool. Walking back slowly, trying not to draw Corrie’s eyes from the crystal. He reached over and flipped the switch on his small laser. “Avert your eyes,” he shouted as a piercing red beam of light shot into the prism.
Mazur stepped up to the table, the defibrillator in his hands. “Hit it, Will.”
Will flipped the switch, and Mazur pushed the paddles against Corrie’s chest, shocking her.
Corrie convulsed on the bed, teeth snapping open and closed, eyes rolling back in her head. She jerked on the table so hard the leather strap on her arm broke free.
“Do it again,” Sarah cried as Mazur hovered the paddles over Corrie’s lifeless body.
“In three-two-one,” he murmured before resting the paddles back on Corrie’s chest.
Sarah looked up. Will no longer watched Corrie. His gaze had fixed on the diamond, where a swirl of black churned within the prism.
CHAPTER 41
Halloween Night into November 1st Morning
Then
Corrie
I held the knife in my hand, staring at Sammy through a pinhole. He sat beneath the oak tree, and I couldn’t remember having woken up, walked outside. The moonlit lake rolled in and struck the shore.
When I opened my mouth to speak, another’s voice emerged.
“I saw you,” the voice hissed. The voice spoke through me and yet I had not said a word.
Sammy rubbed his bloodshot eyes, climbed up to his knees.
“Corrie? What’s wro
ng?” he asked. He started to stand, teetered and fell back, bracing his hand against a root poking along the base of the oak tree. “I drank too much.”
“I saw you,” the voice snarled again through my lips, and I wanted to lift a hand to my throat, to argue with the voice, but I had no control over my arms and legs.
My body sauntered closer to Sammy, the knife slick in my wet palm.
Stop, I screamed, but no sound arose.
“You’ve been very bad,” the voice sang, now a child’s voice, a girl.
Sammy shook his head.
“That wasn’t what it looked like. She was drunk. I pushed her away.” He tried to stand again, but I shoved him down, hard.
I wanted to resist - force my body to obey me, but it ignored my commands.
He fell on his back, blinked through drunken eyes. For an instant, he found me, pressed within the folds of myself. He knew I was trapped.
His eyes opened wide, and then he swallowed, held up his palms.
“Ethel?”
My mouth curled upward.
“Ethel?” I crooned, mocking him. “How foolish, all of you, to believe a child holds this power.”
I held up the knife, stared in horror from my place of captivity as the blade glinted in the moonlight.
“Then who?” he asked, eyes darting toward Kerry Manor.
Had everyone gone home? Would no one save us?
“Please,” I groaned, and the sound slipped out.
I had regained a shred of control. I took a step away, grasping at the flimsy hold I had over my body.
“You can do it, Corrie,” Sammy murmured, again pushing up onto his knees.
And then a figure, a dark blur, shot around me, whipped the knife from my hand and plunged it into Sammy’s chest. The knife jerked out, slashed across his throat.
I lost the hold on my body, the scream inside me dying before it reached my lips. I struggled to reach Sammy, but my feet stood rooted in place. Shadows pulled at the edges of my vision.
Sammy fell back a final time, his words lost in the blood flooding his mouth.
The man turned, his face concealed by a black mask covering his jaw. He threw the knife at my feet, but I couldn’t direct my gaze downward. His eyes looked terrified, shocked as if he hardly believed what he’d done.
He glanced at Sammy and then back at me. I wondered if he’d kill me now, but I doubted I would feel it. I had no sensation. I was merely a witness, a visitor in my own body.
The man ran into the darkness at the edge of the house.
My eyes shifted back to Sammy, to the blood pooling beneath him. I slipped deeper into myself, plunging into unfathomable darkness.
CHAPTER 42
Now
Corrie
“A re you going to bed?” Sarah asked, flipping off the light in her kitchen, and making her way to the living room.
I sat next to the fire, Archie asleep near my feet.
“Sarah,” I started, glancing toward the hall where Will slept in one of the spare rooms.
“Yeah?” Sarah sat on the rug next to me, brushing her fingers through Archie’s fur. “Are you feeling okay? Mazur said you might be sick for a few days.”
I searched her face, unable to shake the memory of Sammy’s final moments - the memory that had emerged in the chamber as my body lay lifeless, when the dark spirit abandoned me.
“You said Will was at the Halloween party?”
She nodded.
“And he was wearing a costume?”
“A ninja costume,” Sarah said slowly.
I shuddered at her confirmation though I’d already known. I had gazed at his pale blue eyes, a lock of black hair loose across his forehead. He had believed I was possessed, would have no memory of the event. He had almost been right.
“Corrie,” Sarah took my hand. “You’re ice cold.” She rubbed her hands on either side of my own.
“It was Will,” I whispered, tears spilling over my cheeks.
“No, Corrie,” Sarah shook her head. “The exorcism was my idea. It was the only way.”
“Not the exorcism,” I choked the words out, clutching her hands now, pleading with her to understand.
“Sarah?” his voice startled us both.
Will stood in the dark hallway.
I yanked my hand back, closed my mouth.
Sarah looked at me, frowned, and then at Will.
I saw her piecing thoughts together, beginning to understand what I had been trying to say.
“You couldn’t have recognized the knife,” Sarah murmured, shaking her head as if refusing to believe her own thoughts. “Not from the second floor of Kerry Manor.”
Will stepped from the hall into the light of the living room. I glanced at his hand, at the switchblade emerging from his fingers.
“She was going to kill him, Sarah,” he said, pointing at me. “She was standing over him with the knife.”
I shook my head.
Archie woke up and lifted sleepy eyes toward Sarah. His ears spiked as if he sensed her distress.
“I wasn’t, I didn’t,” I argued. “The spirit was controlling me, but I stopped it.” My voice shook.
Will shuddered.
“So I finished it,” he whispered.
“Why?” Sarah asked, her eyes a shade darker. Her hand had fallen on the heavy ceramic coffee mug I’d been drinking from.
“To prove my father’s innocence.” His face changed, grew defiant. “If there was another death, they’d have to question their bullshit beliefs. It was only a matter of time. Sammy was dead the day he moved his family into Kerry Manor. Don’t you get that? He sacrificed his whole family for the thrill of living in a haunted house.”
I touched my throat, remembered the blood pouring from the wound in Sammy’s throat.
“Arghhh,” I screamed, and snatched the mug from Sarah’s hand chucking it across the room.
Will ducked, and the mug smashed against the wall.
He didn’t fight.
As fast as he’d appeared on Halloween night, Will vanished down the dark hallway.
I raced after him, my teeth bared. A rage, previously unknown, exploded within me as I imagined ripping at his face with my fingernails.
He’d locked the bedroom door.
I shook the handle, and then reeled back, kicking the wood. The door splintered but didn’t open.
“Stop,” Sarah’s voice rang out as I lifted a heavy planter and prepared to smash it against the door.
She looked pale, her hand held in the air, her cell phone to her ear. I listened as she rattled off her address to the police.
“Corrie, he might have a gun in there.”
“Good,” I shouted. “I hope you do have a gun!”
I struck the door with the planter, ignoring the splinters of wood that stabbed my knuckles. The planter cracked and smashed on the floor.
Sarah rushed down the hallway, pushing me away from the shattered ceramic.
She pinned my arms against my sides, refusing to free me as I struggled against her. My anger turned to grief. I wept, burying my face in her neck.
Sarah
* * *
“I FOUND THIS IN HIS STUFF,” Sarah offered, laying a shabby notebook, with a neon green skull grinning from its cover, on Detective Collins’ desk.
Sarah had read the journal twice already, thumbing through the worn pages late into the night, passing it off to Corrie who cried a steady stream of tears onto the entries.
The first fifty pages of Will’s journal revealed his daily activities, the money he’d spent and saved, the books he was reading. In October, the entries grew darker. He ruminated on his father’s suicide, and made almost daily entries about the evil within Kerry Manor. Two days after Halloween, Will’s words took a more ominous turn.
Wrong? Yes. Evil? No. In the pursuit of evil, to aid the eradication of evil, one must abandon his conscience. It’s called collateral damage. I knew the day my father killed himself that I would have to take
up the torch, shine a light into the shadow that looms over Kerry Manor. Now they will have to pay attention.
A more recent entry was dated only a week before he fled from Sarah’s home.
Guilt follows me. I’m staying at Sarah’s house - eleven days and counting. She’s HIS twin. She is kind, generous, funny. She does not see me as a broken kid, a victim of his father’s insanity, but as a friend, a confidante. She trusts my judgment, listens to me. I should have said NO in the arcade. I should have vanished into the world as I’d planned. Instead I’m here in their grief. It takes me back to my mother dead in the bath, my father slumped beside her, the beginning of the end of my life. She would never forgive me if she found out. But the evil is gone. I saw that black spirit trapped in the diamond. Was it worth it? Can I ever forgive myself?
“There was a time when Will had a lot of potential,” Collins told Sarah flipping through the pages. “But I think Will Slater died with his parents.” The detective tapped a folder with Will’s name on it. “Before his mother’s murder, he was an A student, a happy, inspired kid who liked to read science fiction books, and wanted to be a computer programmer. I’ve spoken with his friends, his teachers, people close with the family. They all said he was a different person after the murder-suicide. Not that I blame him. Tragedy shapes our lives one way or another. But no one is above the law.”
“Do you think you’ll find him?” Sarah asked, massaging her jaw and glancing at her watch.
She was meeting Paul Hudson, the New York Developer, to start plans on a thirty-condo ECO-community south of Traverse City.
Collins nodded.
“Eventually. He’s seventeen, and he’s broke. The problem will be charging him. It’s Corrie’s word against his, and I’m sure we both know what he’ll say.”
“That Corrie killed Sammy,” Sarah whispered, having thought the same herself.
“Exactly. We’ve got the knife, but it’s been wiped of prints. Theoretically, Corrie’s a more reliable witness but her lack of memory would be fuel to any defense attorney’s fire.”
“But he’s a murderer,” Sarah insisted, though she heard the lack of conviction in her voice. It was true, Will had murdered her brother, but she couldn’t ignore his reasons. Will was a sick kid, tormented by the murder of his mother and the suicide of his father. She considered his accusations that final night, his insistence that it was only a matter of time before Corrie - possessed by the spirit - murdered Sammy? Or perhaps it would have been Isis who died at the hands of that evil.
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