by Andrew Nance
“Well, it brings up a good point. Any mentions of the black tree in other stories?”
Matt slowly held up his hand. “There was a tree.”
“Oaskaguakw is in your story, too?” Millie asked.
“No, not anymore. And it was just a tree, not Oaska-ga-whatever.”
“What do you mean not anymore?” Ian Tremblin asked.
“I took it out. The story was turning out great until I started writing about a tree making people sick, which seemed kind of stupid, so I took it out.”
Demarius lifted his nose. “Those candles give off a lot of smoke.”
The writer sniffed. “Yes, though I enjoy their ambience.”
“And it feels weird, doesn’t it? Like something—I don’t know—isn’t right.”
The candles flickered as motes of dust twirled above the flames, which I thought odd, considering this was a climate-controlled room.
“I feel it, too.” Matt stood and looked around.
“I assure you that—” An expression came to Tremblin, one I recognized from when things started to get weird in our first contest: expectation combined with anxiety.
Lucinda stood. “Something’s burning.”
“Just the candles,” I said.
“Perhaps Ms. Broadwater’s story has shifted our imaginations into overdrive. A short break might be in order. Would someone get the lights, please?”
Demarius pushed up from his chair and walked into the darkness. After a moment, there was a crash and he cursed.
“Are you okay?” I called.
“I tripped.” Demarius stepped into the candlelight. Black and gray dust covered his hands and forearms, and collected in his dreads. The knees of his pants looked like he’d crawled through a fireplace. “I went to where the lights are—or should be.” Demarius looked at me. “I tripped over a burned piece of wood and fell in a pile of ash.”
We stared dumbly at Demarius until Millie gasped, pointing at the Book of Daemon Hall. We crept closer. It was opened to two pages filled with words. Ian Tremblin examined it closely, and his expression went from awe to apprehension.
“Marvelous—incredible—frightening.”
Lucinda and Matt, rookies at this kind of thing, thought it was a trick.
“Wow, Mr. Tremblin! How did you do that?”
“That’s creepy, like something out of a movie.”
Millie looked at the open pages. “It’s my story, written in here.”
I studied it. “Is that your handwriting?”
“Not even close.”
Demarius and I gave each other a horror-struck not-again look. He grabbed my shirtfront and pulled me close. “I can’t do this, Wade. Not again.”
I grabbed his wrists and made him release me. “Don’t freak, okay?”
“Freak? Of course I’m freakin’.” He picked up the lantern and stuck a candle inside. “We’re in—” But he didn’t finish. Circling us, he illuminated the chairs and podium from Ian Tremblin’s library.
“Where are the bookcases?” Lucinda asked in a hushed voice.
Demarius went farther, the lantern showing us a room that had suffered a fire. An inside wall was gone; another had gaping holes in it. Charred lumber, ash, and debris covered the blackened marble floor. Night sky was visible through holes that had burned through the floors and ceiling overhead.
Ian Tremblin put a hand over his face and, oddly enough, began to giggle. He tried to stop, but couldn’t. “We began—the story in my library, and we—and we—ended the story in another several hundred miles away.” His giggles turned to laughter.
Was this something I’d witnessed before, something bad? He waved his hand as his laughter subsided and started again, then he swallowed. “I’m sorry, I’m really”—he paused to snicker. “I’m afraid I was blindsided by—um—a case of nerves, really.” He chuckled one last time and took the lantern from Demarius. “We’re in the first-floor library, or where it used to be before the fire. Several rooms up that way”—he pointed—“is where Kara was taken.”
Lucinda hugged herself like she was cold and gaped into the surrounding gloom. “You’re saying we’re in Daemon Hall, aren’t you?”
Demarius’s voice quavered. “Didn’t believe us, huh?” His eyes were crazy. “Welcome to the nightmare! For the record, every word of Wade’s book is true.”
“So it really happened?” Lucinda fell into a chair. “You even set the fire?”
“Of course,” I snapped. “We lied because police don’t particularly like people setting homes on fire, even if they are old, abandoned, and haunted.” I sat, my irritation gone. “We had to destroy it.” I put my head in my hands. “We failed.”
In an instant, my heartbeat escalated. I could feel it pound in my temples and squeeze my brain. Right away I knew this could be the strongest panic attack I’d had since I’d been in the hospital. When my breaths turned shallow, I tried square breathing, something my doctor taught me. I inhaled while slowly counting to four, held my breath for another four-count, exhaled to four, and waited another four to inhale again. I did this for several minutes.
Millie noticed. “Are you okay? Can I do anything?”
I shook my head, and then relief. Either the square breathing worked or Millie’s sweet voice had ended the attack. That was close.
Everyone crowded around a library window, except for Millie, who sat next to me, her hand on my forearm. “Was it an anxiety attack?”
I nodded and wiped sweat from my brow.
She leaned close. “Maybe you’re a vision seeker.”
“A what?”
“My ancestors believed that people who had fits were vision seekers. They thought their seizures brought prophetic visions.”
“That’s crazy.”
“No it’s not. The next time you have an attack, don’t fight it. Let it come on and see what happens.”
“No way.” I stood shakily, and we joined the others.
Demarius looked down from the window. “We could jump.”
Daemon Hall was built high, and the first floor was not ground level. In fact, the stairs to the front door were at least six feet up, meaning there would be probably an eight-to-ten-foot jump from the window.
“It wouldn’t be safe,” Ian Tremblin said. “We’ll exit by the front door.”
Millie glanced out the window. “Yeah, the front door works for me. Lucinda?”
“Whatever. Let’s go.”
Hands shaking, Matt pulled off his glasses and wiped them with his shirttail. “Just get me out of here.”
When Tremblin picked up the lantern, I got an idea. “Hold on.” I grabbed five candles from the candelabrum, blew them out, and gave one to each person, except for Tremblin; he already had the lantern. Then I pulled matches from the two matchbooks, and tore the strips of flint into six pieces and passed them out. “Just in case.”
“And the book, Wade. Bring the Book of Daemon Hall,” Ian Tremblin said.
“Are you nuts?” Demarius blurted out. “One minute it’s blank—the next, Millie’s story is in it. That thing ain’t right.”
“We will not leave it.”
“It might come in handy.” I grabbed the Book of Daemon Hall from the pedestal and joined the others at the door leading to the hallway.
Demarius shook his head. “Crazy, both of you.”
Ian Tremblin cleared his throat and gave instructions. “Matt and I will lead with the lantern. Then Demarius and Lucinda. Wade and Millie, bring up the rear.”
“The buddy system,” Lucinda said.
We moved into the hallway and started for the front of the house. Blackened hinges hung useless next to entries where doors had once been. Portions of the wall had burned away, leaving gaps into black rooms.
Something brushed my wrist, a calming touch; Millie, pale and frightened, took my hand. “I hope you don’t mind.”
I smiled at her and concentrated on the warmth of her hand. I felt her pulse, or maybe it was mine, maybe both of
ours beating in sync.
“You know what this is like?” Lucinda asked.
Matt said, “I’m not in the mood for creepy analogies.”
“It’s like being at the beach and in water up to your neck. Someone yells ‘Shark!’ and you have to make it thirty or forty yards back to shore, all the while waiting for that moment of impact when the shark rips into you, its teeth—”
“Okay, okay!” Matt interrupted. “I get the picture. Thanks a lot.”
“We’re at the entrance hall,” Ian Tremblin said, when we got to the foot of the soot-blackened marble staircase. The lantern illuminated a dozen steps before gloom claimed the rest.
Demarius gazed up. “Know how much money it’d take to get me up there?”
Lucinda raised an eyebrow. “There’s not enough in the world, right?”
“Oh, I’d do it, but only Bill Gates could afford that bribe.”
Peering across the massive foyer, we could just make out the entrance. The night outside dimly shone through the opening where the twin doors once stood. A portion of the ceiling had collapsed, dropping rubble to our left.
“There’s something over there.” Demarius pointed to the debris.
Ian Tremblin held out his lantern and stepped slowly toward a monster that sat crookedly on the floor. “A gargoyle.” The car-sized statue was a combination of man and reptile with wings and horns. “It must have fallen from the roof during the fire.”
“Let’s get out of this dump.” Matt’s voice was flat in the cavernous room.
Eyeing the gargoyle, Lucinda said, “I’m with Scungilli.”
Our buddy system coalesced into a small mob as we carefully crossed the entrance hall. It seemed to take forever, but we finally stood before the gaping entrance.
“Go on, Mr. Tremblin,” Demarius said impatiently. “Let’s get out.”
“Almost seems too easy.” He stepped over the threshold, but no one followed.
I was at the back of the pack and pushed through them. “What’s the holdup?”
Tremblin stood on the other side of the door, his back to us—and somehow, impossibly, he stood before a dark hallway. I blinked hard. He should have been at the veranda steps leading down to the long-dead lawn, but there was no veranda, there was no lawn—everything outside the doorway was replaced by a murky corridor. Goose bumps flared on my body as I recognized where he was. I looked across the entrance hall and up the great staircase to where a solo figure stood, barely illuminated by the lantern he carried. I looked back out the front door and saw the same man.
Matt murmured a chant: “It’s not possible, it’s not possible, it’s not possible.”
Mired in numbness, I stumbled through the doorway and stood next to Tremblin. It wasn’t an optical illusion. I had stepped out the front door and onto the second floor.
Ian Tremblin shook his head in anticipation of my question. “I don’t know, Wade. This defies every physical law of space. Einstein himself couldn’t explain it.”
The others passed through the door, and we stared into the torched hallway ruins. Mr. Tremblin’s lantern shed enough light to see a missing section of floor that started just within the borders of our illumination.
Lucinda started to say something but only produced a dry gasp. She swallowed and tried again. “Now what?”
I turned and stared out at the great entrance hall from the second-floor landing.
“This is insane,” Matt muttered, and dropped to his knees.
Demarius looked at me, his face a sickly pallor. I wanted to say something but could only stare back. Matt screamed, making me jump. He pushed up from the floor and ran down the hallway toward the hole in the damaged floor.
“Wait!” I dove for him and brought him down hard. He fought, kicking and scratching, trying to get away.
Millie knelt by his side. “Matt, calm down, calm down.” She spoke soothingly and put her hands on his cheeks. “Shhhhh. It’s all right, shhhhhhh.”
He stopped struggling, but wept loudly. I climbed off him.
Lucinda knelt on his other side. “Hey, Scungilli, we’ll look out for you.”
“Scary,” I muttered.
“A regular frightfest,” Lucinda added, wide-eyed.
“I’m going to need a change of underwear,” Demarius said.
Matt’s face was smudged with ash. Clean, vertical lines on his cheeks marked where his tears had passed, and unexpectedly, he laughed.
“Oh, yeah.” Lucinda stood and brushed her hands on her thighs. “A little bathroom humor cheers him right up.”
“It’s a guy thing,” Demarius said.
Matt got to his feet with a self-conscious smile.
Ian Tremblin strode to the staircase and gazed down as far as the limited light allowed. “Mr. Matthews, do not be embarrassed. All of us are frightened. But you need to let your impressive intellect override your emotions.” He turned to the young contestant. “We need your help if we’re to get out.”
I patted Matt on the shoulder and gave him a weak smile. He pulled the glasses from his nose and wiped at his face.
Ian Tremblin walked a little into the hallway and lowered the lantern. “You’re lucky that Wade stopped you.” He gestured to the portion of floor that had collapsed in the fire. “The upper floors of Daemon Hall are dangerous.”
“Should we try the front door again?” Lucinda asked. “Or a different door out?”
“I fear that no matter how many doors we step through, the result will be the same—we’ll find ourselves right back here.”
I agreed. “Daemon Hall wants us on the second floor.”
“Then we go back to my plan and jump from a window,” Demarius said.
“We’re on the second floor now,” the writer pointed out. “Factoring in the first-floor windows, which were eight to ten feet up, along with the incredibly high ceilings of Daemon Hall, I’d say the drop from here would be twenty, maybe twenty-five feet. We’re talking broken bones or worse.”
Demarius looked disheartened, then smiled. “We take off our clothes, tie them together, and use them for a rope.”
Lucinda snorted a laugh.
“What? It could work.”
“I was just thinking of what happens afterward. Can’t you see the headlines? ‘Famous Author Discovered Wandering with Five Naked Teens.’”
Ian Tremblin rubbed his temples and mumbled, “The tabloids would love that.” He looked around the second-floor landing. “We will explore Demarius’s suggestion and get to a second-floor window. Then we’ll decide if we can get safely down. I’ll go first.”
Millie spoke up. “I should lead. I’m an experienced rock climber.”
“Really? Still, I couldn’t forgive myself if you fell through the floor.”
“Mr. Tremblin, I’m always on climbing walls. My dad and I go climb a couple of times a year in the Adirondacks and the Poconos. I know what it feels like when support starts to give. Plus, I’m lighter. I should go first.”
“She’s got a point,” Demarius said.
Ian Tremblin passed her the lantern and swept his hand toward the dark hall.
We hugged the wall to get by the hole that Matt had nearly run into, and tiptoed along the three inches of floor that remained. We checked rooms, but floors were missing or unsound, and several were piled with rubble, so we couldn’t get to the windows. At one point, Millie leapt over a three-foot fissure and peered in a door.
“This one looks good.”
We jumped the crevice, though none as graceful as Millie. For the most part the room was intact, except for a missing wall next to the remnants of a stone fireplace. Another door led to an adjoining room that was demolished.
“Hey,” Demarius said, “I think this is the room we told our stories in last year.”
Ian Tremblin took the lantern from Millie and examined it in the soft light. “Yes, I think so.” He chuckled quietly. “Home, sweet home.”
Home, sweet home? His comment chilled me.
Charred planks stood where bookcases had been. A couple of animal-head trophies remained on the wall, though they’d been burned into unrecognizable shapes. The windows had no glass. Millie, Lucinda, and I stood at one; the rest at the other. What we saw was not encouraging. We were high up, and the ground was lost in darkness.
“I’m not sure all our clothes tied together would be long enough,” I said.
“Then we climb down as far as it goes and jump the rest,” Demarius answered.
Millie voiced another problem. “There’s nothing to tie a rope to.”
“Someone could hold it while we go down,” Demarius said hopefully.
“They’d have to stay, since there’d be no one to hold it for them,” I pointed out.
Ian Tremblin interrupted us by clearing his throat. “I’d like to try something that’s been gnawing at me since we arrived. Think back to our first contest, Wade. We were stuck here until what?”
“Until we told all the stories.”
“Correct. This time we’ve gotten together to share a limited number of stories that coincide with titles listed in the Book of Daemon Hall. Perhaps, if we tell those stories, then like our previous night here, we’ll be free to leave.”
“That’s pretty stupid reasoning.” Lucinda made a face when she realized what she had said. “Sorry, Mr. Tremblin, I didn’t mean you were stupid—uh.…”
I could see the wheels turning in Demarius’s head. Yeah, what Ian Tremblin suggested would sound lame to anyone who hadn’t been with us that night. But to Demarius and me, it made sense.
Ian Tremblin held out a hand. “Wade, pass me the book. The next story up in our cavalcade of terror—sorry, I sound like the crypt keeper, don’t I? Matt, yours is next.”
“Mine? Come on, Mr. Tremblin. Lucinda’s right, it’s a dumb idea. The house wants storytime? That sounds crazy.”
Demarius lost his temper and poked Matt in the chest. “Hey! You didn’t believe us in the first place, did you? Look around. We were right, you were wrong. So I think you better start listening to us and read your stupid story.”
Matt looked down and mumbled, “I left my notebook downstairs. We all did.”
“Hmmm.” The writer pulled at his beard. “You’ll have to recite it from memory.”
