by Wendy Webb
“If we do this right, all of you, even these two”—Nate glanced over at Cassandra and Brynn, still laid out in the same positions—“will get out of here. Remember that, when everything inside you is telling you differently. Can you do that for me?”
“I will,” I said. Then I thought of Richard and Henry. “Where are the men? Are they the ones Diana is getting? You said, ‘get the others.’” My words were coming slowly now, slurred, as though I was having trouble controlling my own tongue.
He shook his head. “There’s no reason they have to endure any of this.”
“I still don’t know what ‘this’ is,” I said, weakly, as though the words themselves were a struggle. And all at once, I felt it again. That same bone tiredness I felt earlier, and had, off and on, since coming to Cliffside. And there was the headache again.
“Stay with me, Norrie,” he said, loudly. “Don’t go.” He shook me by the shoulders and I felt my head flop back and forth like a rag doll’s. At this, something in me smiled.
“I like dolls,” I said, my head still at an odd angle. “And I like you, Doctor Davidson. I always liked you. So handsome. I was going to be your wife. All of the nurses had crushes on you. I killed one of them. The one you liked. Did you know that?”
My hand flew to my mouth. What in the name of God was I saying? I stared at Nate, wide-eyed.
Just then, Diana came back into the room with Harriet and Mr. Baines in tow.
“Harriet, look at this floor,” I said to her, my head still flopping to the side, my voice high and singsongy, like a child’s. I pointed at Diana. “She did it. I’m not going to take the blame.”
Nate turned to Harriet. “It’s in full swing right now. We’re just in time.”
“We’re going to take care of it this time, by God,” said Mr. Baines. “She’s not going to get the best of us again.”
“Yes, we are,” Nate said. “Norrie knows she’s not to leave that chair, under any circumstances. Right, Norrie?”
“Right, Norrie?” I parroted.
My vision was hazy and blurred, as though I was having trouble seeing out of my eyes. And—how can I describe what I was feeling? Like before, I felt crowded in my own body, as though someone else was in there with me. I felt diminished, as though whatever it was was pushing me farther and farther away. I could not easily say what I wanted to say, and my thoughts weren’t my own.
“Can you hear me, Norrie?” Nate said, his voice loud and commanding.
It took every ounce of strength I had, but I nodded my head. “Yes, Nate,” I squeaked out.
“Now I’m going to tell you the story I promised,” he said, drawing another chair into the circle and sinking down into it. “Give me your hands. That will ensure we stay connected through this whole thing.” I moved my hands toward him, and it was like I was moving thousand-pound weights. “I’m not going to let go, no matter what. Do you understand?”
I forced my head to nod.
“You stay with me,” he said. “Promise me.”
But I couldn’t nod again. That took too much effort. So I blinked a couple of times. He got the message.
And then he began to speak.
CHAPTER 36
“In the year 1945, a little girl was born right here at Cliffside,” Nate said. “I delivered her myself. Mr. Dare hadn’t intended for his wife to deliver their baby here at the sanatorium, but the baby had other plans, and came prematurely while Mrs. Dare was visiting her husband during his lunchtime.
“As soon as she came into this world, as soon as she breathed her first breath of life, she took the life of her mother,” he said. “I have no other explanation than that. Mrs. Dare was fine one minute and dead the next.”
Harriet dabbed at her eyes.
Nate went on. “We saw right away that something was wrong with the child. Not in terms of her health, which seemed fine to me, but it was her demeanor. There was a look in this child’s eyes that I had not seen before. It scared me, to tell you the honest truth. But, that wasn’t for me to judge, was it? I was simply the doctor. We took care of her here at the san for a time, until Mr. Dare and the girls had come out of the worst of their mourning, and then they took Temperance home.”
He took a sip of water and glanced at Harriet. She nodded for him to continue.
“As she grew, odd things began to happen. People would fall ill and die after seeing her. Strange accidents took place, not only at their property in town, but here at Cliffside as well. And further, she was a sullen, strange little girl who, frankly, scared people with her gaze. It was as though she was boring into your very soul with those soulless eyes.”
Every fiber of my being wanted to lash out at this, to leap from my chair and start scratching at him. But I held firm to my promise. It took all of my strength, but I would not leave that chair if it killed me. And I had the feeling it just might.
“What we didn’t know then, but know all too well now, is that Mrs. Dare had given birth to what can only be described as a demon,” he went on. “You told me that Pete at the boathouse, the man you thought was crazy, said that Death himself lived at Cliffside.”
I tried to nod. I did remember that, somewhere deep inside.
“He was nearly right. Death herself lived here, ever since that morning in 1945. And still does. Until today. It all is going to end today.”
“So you say,” I said to him, smiling broadly.
He went on as though he hadn’t heard me. “Years passed. All of us who worked at Cliffside, and many who didn’t, understood that Temperance was a very disturbed little girl, but we didn’t realize how much until one day, Chester Dare came to me and told me, in confidence, he had to get Temperance away from his other daughters, Penny and Milly. She seemed to get pleasure out of their pain, accidents were happening daily, and he was afraid she was going to hurt them, badly.”
At this, I laughed.
“So he brought her here, under the guise that she had TB,” he said. “I knew, in short order, that she didn’t. I didn’t know it then, but I think he hoped she would contract it and pass away, God help him. He did it to save his other two girls.”
“Daddy would never do that,” I spat.
“But she didn’t get sick,” he continued. “Just the opposite. She would lead the children on nightly raids. They were forever stirring up trouble. It became a madhouse. If it had just been a group of unruly children, that would have been one thing. But patients were dying left and right, much more than before.”
At this, Nate shuddered.
“A few of the patients caught on before I did. The look in her eyes—it was terrifying to people. The other patients were afraid of her. Many requested isolation and even threatened to leave if I couldn’t keep her away from them. But I was a man of science, and she was just a little girl—a strange, troubled little girl, but a little girl nonetheless.”
So Brynn’s grandmother was correct, I thought. Mine was now a small voice, somewhere deep inside. But it was still there.
“It took me a while to put two and two together, but finally I saw that people would die after an interaction with Temperance, especially if she didn’t like them. And it wasn’t just patients. Animals, too. It was the day I saw her playing out in the garden with a group of squirrels that convinced me. I remember looking at her through the window as she fed them. They’d come to her, one after another for a peanut or whatever she had. It was such a nice sight, I thought. Maybe this little girl wasn’t so bad after all. But later, after my rounds, I saw she was still there in the garden, but the squirrels were all dead. She was playing with them as though they were stuffed animals.”
“Ashes, ashes, they all fall down,” I sang, a gurgle of laughter rising up.
“That’s just what she was singing when I saw her with the squirrels that day,” Nate said. “I pleaded with Chester to take her out of Cliffside. But he refused, finally confiding his fears. The girl was pure evil, he told me, and God help us, we had to do something.”
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br /> He took a deep breath and continued. “But, I fear that in the doing, we set something even more dark and evil in motion, unleashing . . .” He stopped to gather himself, his eyes brimming with tears.
“You did what you thought was best at the time,” Mr. Baines piped up. “We all did. None of us knew.”
This jolted me back into myself for a moment. “You were here back then, Mr. Baines?” I asked him.
He returned that query with a smile. “Yes, Miss Harper, I was,” he said. “And if I may say, it’s good to hear from you right about now.”
The timeline didn’t quite make sense to me, considering his age, but I didn’t bother to even wonder about it. Nothing at Cliffside made sense; that was one thing I knew.
“You’re going to tell me about the nurse giving her the injection,” I said, but at the last word, my voice broke, and I couldn’t continue.
Nate nodded and cleared his throat. “The year was 1952. Poor Brynn’s grandmother had it about right. But not exactly. I decided—”
“We all decided,” Harriet interjected.
“We all decided,” Nate repeated, and he stopped to smile at her.
“You know what we decided, Norrie,” he went on. “Temperance had to be taken care of.”
I felt that same fury bubbling up inside of me, willing me out of that chair. But I battled it and held tight to the armrests. I would not move, not if I could help it.
“And so I filled a hypo full of morphine, and gave it to my most trusted nurse, Sarah Dalton,” he said.
I opened my eyes wide, hoping he would catch on to my question.
He did. “Yes. Henry’s mother. And no, to answer your next question, I’m not his father.” He glanced up at Harriet, and she nodded.
“When I learned about the pregnancy,” Harriet said, clucking, “I knew full well who the father was. It was our chef at the time. Henri Bertrand. Married. Sarah left here without telling him about the baby. Despite the fact that she loved him very much, she didn’t want to break up his marriage.”
Somewhere deep inside, I hoped I could tell Henry he was named after a French chef. I thought he’d enjoy knowing that.
“The reason I had Sarah do it instead of just doing it myself? I knew Temperance would see me coming—she began to suspect me early on—but she probably wouldn’t suspect my nurse. So she gave her the injection.”
“Sir, if I can break in?” Mr. Baines interjected, clearing his throat.
“Please,” Nate said.
“That’s when I got involved,” Mr. Baines said. “We had a patient here who was nearly ready to go home, Archie Abbott. We gave him the keys to the Bentley and had him standing by to take Sarah to the train station. After doing what she did, we knew she wouldn’t be safe, if it didn’t take hold, so to speak. So we got her out of here right away. Mrs. Baines knew about the pregnancy—Sarah couldn’t have stayed on anyway—and insisted. She had her bags packed for her, and as soon as she gave that infernal injection, Archie was there to spirit Sarah away. She was off the property and on the train before Temperance actually died.”
Nate nodded. “It probably saved her life. And enabled Henry’s. But now we come to the part of the story that takes an even darker turn.”
CHAPTER 37
“Temperance died,” Nate said. “But the strangeness, the sickness, the terror she carried in her wake didn’t die with her.”
A chortle of laughter bubbled up inside of me and spewed forth, as much as I tried to contain it.
Nate went on as though he hadn’t even heard it. “Chester Dare made a good show of mourning, but he privately expressed his gratitude and relief that it was all over. But we soon learned it wasn’t over. It continued, long after that evil little girl was buried in the ground. None of us could figure it out, until Chamomile came to visit me one summer afternoon.
“I was surprised to see her at my door. I hadn’t seen her since the day Temperance died—she and her sister happened to be on the san grounds on a rare visit to their father that day. But in any case, a few weeks had passed since the death, and there Chamomile was on my doorstep. I was delighted to see her. She was always such a sunny child. I let her in.
“‘And what can I do for you, my good Miss Dare?’ I said to her. She took my hand in hers and, quick as a flash, I felt something cut my palm. She kissed the abrasion and looked into my eyes, smiling a broad smile.
“‘You can die, Doctor Davidson,’ she said.
“That’s when I looked into her inky, soulless eyes and realized it was not the sweet Chamomile I had come to know and love standing before me. It was Temperance. I had no idea how, but it was Temperance.
“She turned on her heel and flounced away, and that was that. I fell to the ground, and after a few spasms—quite painful, I’ll have you know—I was floating above my own body. As quickly as that. At that moment, I felt astonishment, regret, and above all, anger. This horrid little girl had won.
“I drifted out of my house and was completely bowled over to find scores of souls, like me, just meandering around the grounds. I spotted Archie Abbott. He had died shortly after returning from the train station that awful day. Just fell to the ground as soon as he stepped out of the car.
“He was surprised and dismayed to see me. ‘Oh, Doc,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘Not you, too.’
“‘What’s going on here, Arch?’ I asked him. ‘Am I dead?’
“‘I’m sorry to be the one to break it to you, Doc, but welcome to the great beyond,’ he told me. ‘Only for us, this is all there is. She keeps us here somehow.’
“‘Who?’ I asked him.
“‘You know.’ He nodded. ‘Everyone who has died on this property since she was born is still here,’ he told me. ‘I don’t know what she is, but she is not of this earth. And until she’s gone, none of us is going anywhere.’
“‘But I don’t get it,’ I said to him. ‘I filled the vial that killed her. Her body is in the ground. Shouldn’t she be floating around here just like us?’
“He shook his head. ‘That’s only for those of us with souls. Word on the street is that this little girl was born Death incarnate. Spawned by the property itself, on account of all the dying that’s been done here. That’s what people are saying. You’ve gotta admit, we’ve seen our share of death here at Cliffside. Look at all of us. And that’s just in the years since this demon was born. I guess it decided to take up residence, permanent-like.’
“He continued, ‘What happened to you, Doc? How did you end up here?’
“‘Chamomile,’ I told him. ‘But when she came into the house, it was like I was looking at Temperance. As though that sweet little girl wasn’t there at all.’
“He nodded. ‘She wasn’t,’ he said. ‘Temperance has taken her place.’
“‘Taken her place?’ I parroted. ‘I don’t get it. Whose place?’
“‘Chamomile’s,’ he said, lowering his voice and shifting his eyes back and forth.
“‘In her body, you mean? Temperance is inside Chamomile?’
“He shrugged his shoulders. ‘That’s what people are saying.’
“‘How is that even possible?’ I asked him.
“‘That, I can’t tell you,’ he said. ‘But what I’ve heard is, it’s a jump.’”
At this something deep in my core jolted. I stood up from the chair and moved toward Nate. But the four of them—Nate, Diana, Harriet, and Mr. Baines—were all on me in a second, pushing me back into my chair.
“Do you think we should tie her down?” Mr. Baines asked Nate.
He shook his head. “I’d hate to do that. Let’s give her one more chance.” He turned to me. “Norrie, remember what I said. No matter what happens, do not get out of that chair.”
I sneered at him, despite my best efforts to smile.
“Where was I?” he said. “Oh yes. The jump.” He turned to Diana. “I think this is where you come in.”
Diana cleared her throat and crept toward me, kneeling in front
of my chair and taking my hands in hers. “This is going to scare you,” she said. “But we’re all here. Remember that.”
I managed a nod.
“I am Diana Cooper,” she said. “I know that was in doubt a few hours ago, but I think that was Temperance trying to have me thrown out of here.”
“Aren’t you clever,” I said. “Of course there was nobody on the phone. Terror is so easy.”
She went on, as though I hadn’t spoken. “Something you don’t know about me, that few people know, is that in addition to being a poet, I’m also a demonologist.”
I raised my eyebrows.
“Call it a hobby,” she said, smiling at my reaction. “It’s a little dramatic, I know. But hearing everything I’ve heard from Nate, I’m convinced that Miss Penny—somewhere deep inside, the real Miss Penny—set up this session when I was going to be here, because she knew what was going down. We’ll talk more about this in a bit, but I’m here now, and I’m going to help make sense of this, and then make it go away. We’re telling all of this to you, Norrie, because we need you to be strong and present to fight.
“Nate was talking about this ‘jump’ just a moment ago,” she went on. “I’m sure you’re curious about that, and now I’d like to explain it to you. It’s what happens when a soul, or a spirit, in this case a very evil one, migrates into another body at the point of death.”
My insides were roiling. I wanted nothing more than to fly out of my chair and set on these idiots. I hated them at that point. But I kept my place.
“You can’t ask the questions I know you want to ask, so I’ll take the liberty of explaining them to you,” she went on. “What happens to the soul, and the consciousness of that body, when another consciousness jumps into it? The answer is, it gets squashed to the side. Almost like a vessel that is half full of sand gets a whole lot more sand poured into it. There’s not a lot more room in the vessel.”
