by Anya Allyn
Henry makes a dismissive sound. “What is this? A group of concerned citizens?”
A man with a dark beard streaked with gray steps forward, gazing through thick glasses at Henry. “We are of the Order instigated by Madame Celia in 1920. Our mission is to tear the evil of the Speculum Nemus from this world, and we will not rest until we have done that.”
A cold smile stretches Henry’s jaw. “Do you have any idea who I am?”
The man gives a single nod. “But you sir, obviously suffer from a lack of knowledge as to who we are.”
“I don’t have time for nonsense such as this.” Henry summons the shadow and gestures to Audette to join him. The blackness of the shadow curls around them. But then the blackness falls away, like a shadow banished by the sun at high noon. A moment of fear and confusion crosses Henry’s face.
“You see,” continues the man, “even if you kill every one of us here, you will not have completed your task. For we number many around the earth. And every one of us have been taught to train our minds—to deny those who seek the book. We are not the only ones stopping you from leaving.” He gives a grim smile. “You didn’t imagine Madame Celia was acting alone all these years, did you? What a terrible oversight on your part... Henry Batiste.”
“This is lunacy!” Henry hisses the words. He stares about at the people, a subtle panic stamped in his eyes.
“Henry, I don’t like this.” Audette’s blue eyes are open wide—like fishbowls.
“Shut it,” he tells her.
He holds out his hands and forces the people back. I feel the force pound against me, sending me into the wall.
Madame Celia wakes, her expression unfocused. Her face tightens as she sees Henry with the papers. The group of people close their eyes, as though concentrating with everything within them. Madame Celia joins them in closing eyes, and they all begin muttering words I can’t quite hear.
Henry’s gaze travels down to the papers in his fist. The papers explode into a ball of flame.
His face grows ugly and he roars at Madame Celia. Raising his eyes to the ceiling he throws his arms up. He speaks something in an ancient language.
A cry rings out from across the room. Madame Celia struggles to her feet, struggles to reach Henry.
Henry stares at her with blue eyes as cold and transparent as ice. “Stupid woman. I will destroy your pathetic Order wherever they are in this world. And if I have to destroy the entire world to do so, I will do it. They will never be able to impede me again.”
"You cannot stop us, Henry," says Madame Celia. "Even if you kill us all, you will not destroy us. Our spirits will stay behind and follow your every move."
He eyes her contemptuously. "You know as well as I do that is not the truth. It takes an extraordinary will to remain behind on the earth and not go into the next life. You will be left with a laughable contingent of insipid ghosts."
Henry bids the shadow to go toward the people. With horrifying speed, it flashes through them, one by one, disintegrating them into black dust.
The air grows cold, deathly cold.
A mist drifts in through the open door. A strange whiteness forms on the walls, the chandeliers, the furniture—crystals of ice.
Madame Celia stiffens. “It has begun....”
The shadow moves to wrap itself around Henry and Audette. They vanish from the room.
Jessamine slowly disappears, her head bowed.
“Please,” I yell to the only figures left—Madame Celia and two other ghosts. “There are four girls upstairs—they’re dying. I need your help.”
An elderly woman with white hair shakes her head at me. “There is no help now.”
“Leave us,” the bearded man tells me. “Our concerns are greater than yours, whatever yours may be.”
The three spirits gather together, joining in some kind of silent communion.
The gun lies on the floor. I jam the gun into my back pocket, then blunder outside. A chill breath blows everywhere. Ice travels along the bodies of cars, the walls of houses, spreads out along the branches of trees. I can just make out the iced-over license plate of an SUV. It says, Florida, Sunshine State. I mouth the words, but the words make no sense. How could I be in Florida?
I run, not knowing where to head. There’s a bay towards the rear of the house. Glassy ice forms on its surface, trapping boats and yachts.
My chest constricts, my mind graying. I have to stay awake, conscious.
I head the other way.
People run from their houses in open-mouthed shock. Then the shouting and screaming begins—and it doesn’t stop. The voices are shrill, American. People jump in cars and skid tires on the icy roads—the cars screeching into neighbors' yards and houses. And people run—but everywhere they run the ice forms. An elderly man slips and falls on the sidewalk. A layer of frost forms over him, binding him to the ground in a coffin of ice. A woman with a baby in a sling takes a hand shovel from her garden and goes to his aid, trying to chip at the ice—until she gives up and races back toward her house. She cries in terror as every window in her house shatters.
Snow begins to fall. I look back and can no longer see the old man that fell on the ground. A blanket of white covers him.
I keep running, my feet sliding everywhere. There’s a set of shops ahead. A bakery. A real estate agency. A doctors' surgery. I run harder now, racing into the surgery and up the narrow stairs.
The three people waiting in the office look up at me in dull surprise. The receptionist gazes up at me from over her glasses—an African American woman with gray hair in tiny braids. “Do you have an appointment?”
“Don’t you know what’s happening out there?” My voice cracks.
Her expression adjusts, her eyes narrowing. “If you’re after a prescription, I’m afraid you won’t be able to get it here. Those are only handed out to regular patients.”
I realize how I must look. Starved, dirty and wild. “You think I’m a drug addict? Lady, take a look outside.”
“I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”
She rises startled from her desk as I run past her and burst into the doctor’s office.
The doctor is middle-aged and doughy—examining a man’s bulbous stomach on a table. His face creases in alarm and annoyance. “You cannot come in here. Please return to the waiting room.”
“Please, there’s four girls dying in a house a few streets from here. They need help. Now.”
The receptionist steps up behind me, placing two hands on my shoulders. “I’m sorry, sir—I’ve had to call the police. You can tell the police all about it when they arrive. Now, it’s in your best interests to leave and wait for them downstairs.”
I whirl around. “Just how do you think the police are going to get here? Look outside the bloody window, will you?”
“Now look here. You will not threaten Nabaasa in that way.” The doctor moves toward me in a nervous way that tells me he’s never been in a physical fight in his life.
“I’m not threatening anyone.” I stare back at the woman he called Nabaasa. “Please, I’m not.”
The sound of breaking glass comes from the street below. The receptionist steps to the window and gazes out. Her hands shake and fly to her mouth. Threads of ice travel up the window pane. The doctors pale eyes grow large as he walks over and peers over her shoulder.
The man on the examination table turns his head to the doctor. “Can we hurry this up? I gotta haul my ass over to the airport by four—my brother’s flying in with his three stuck-up daughters.”
The doctor stares back at him with glazed eyes, not hearing him.
“Doc?” insists the man. “Just prescribe me something to kill the fire in my guts and let me go.” He sits and starts dressing himself.
The doctor walks stiffly to his desk and picks up some files. He drops them in his briefcase. “I have to go home to my wife.”
“Jesus....” The man’s mouth drops open like a dead fish as his gaze finds its way to the window.
He shrugs me away and runs out through the door. The patients stare after him as he almost trips on his way down the stairs. The waiting room is windowless, insulated. The patients put aside their magazines and newspapers and glance at each other in confusion.
My legs grow slack. I stumble into the waiting room and sit heavily on a chair, panting. My head is light, spinning. I’m here, in the middle of an American suburb, in the middle of the day—and I can’t get help. There’s no help. The words beat in my head.
The wheels of a car screech below and the car slams hard into something. I know it is the doctor’s car.
My lips and face pain with stabbing needles and my chest sucks hard against my rib cage.
The broad hips of the receptionist stand before me. Nabaasa pushes something over my face. A mask. Cool, bitter air slides down my throat. I stare down at a large tank. I’ve seen one like it before—in the back of an ambulance when I was twelve. I rest my head back and breathe deeply.
“Son, you said there were four girls who need help?”
Her dark eyes give nothing away, but her words are clear. I nod.
She pours a brown liquid into a medicine cup and hands it to me. “Drink this. It’s a steroid.”
I take the mask from my face and gulp the liquid down. She places the mask over my face again and leaves the room. My breathing steadies. I look around and see that the patients have fled the room, their magazines thrown carelessly to the floor.
Nabaasa returns to the waiting room with a handbag over her shoulder and two large metal cases. “I’ve taken what medicine I can. I used to be a nurse until I retired two years ago. We’d better get to those girls quick.”
She doesn’t waste time waiting for my brain to catch up with what she’s just said. “Lead the way,” she tells me.
I take one last gulp of air and rise to my feet. My limbs shake but I begin to feel the steroid tear through the fog inside my head. Gripping the stair rail, I make my way down the stairs.
The street has emptied. Thick ice lies over the road, and the beginning of a blizzard blows down from the darkening sky. Our shoes crunch into the snow. We step past a dark blue Mercedes with its front end crunched into a store front. The doctor’s head lolls back in the driver’s seat, blood in frozen rivulets on his face. His lifeless eyes stare upward with snow already dusting his eyelashes.
I panic for a moment that I’ve forgotten the way. A street sign catches my eye. I remember the name of the street. Taking a suitcase from Nabaasa, I point toward the sign. The blizzard sets in hard, forcing us back. We’re not going to make it. Or she’ll turn and head back any second.
But she bends her head against the snowstorm and continues. I send a silent prayer into the blanketed sky.
My limbs pain with cold as we round the next street. I spot the house—it’s the only one missing its front door.
Snow coats the floor and stairs inside. The people are gone. Breathing hard, I climb the stairs. Nabaasa follows—her face a grim, determined mask.
Philomena still lies in bed in the first room, her lips blue.
Nabaasa turns to me. “What did they take?”
“Overdoses of some kind of sleeping medicine.”
“Where are the others?”
“In the other rooms.”
She sets her suitcase on the bed and springs it open. “I’m not a doctor. I’ll do whatever I can manage and pray it brings the girls through. You go shut every door you can and do what you can to secure the windows and front door.”
I lumber away, my body exhausted but my mind wired. I close the door as I leave and run from room to room, slamming every door shut and closing every shutter. I head back downstairs, sliding and falling to the bottom of the stairs. My thigh slams against the wall. Gripping my injured leg, I roam through the house, searching for materials. I heave against a table in the kitchen, sliding it out to the foyer. Snow flurries around me as I tip the table against the frame of the front door. I expel air hard as I stand back and look. The table has almost completely sealed the doorway. I continue on, closing every window shutter against the snow. In the kitchen, I fling open every drawer and cupboard, looking for a hammer.
My heads spins. Panting, I sit on the floor, my back hard against the wall.
“Take a rest.” Nabaasa stands in the doorway of the kitchen.
“Are they...?”
“They’re all alive, but barely. I’ve done all I can do.”
She sits on a stool “What’s your name, son?”
“Ethan. Ethan McAllister.”
“Well, Ethan, are you going to tell me what happened here? Who gave them those drugs?”
The dark passages of the dollhouse wind through my head. I can tell her none of it. “Me. They’re neighbors of mine. I went crazy a few hours ago and dosed them all with poison. But I’m not crazy anymore.”
“And you’re lying. Those girls have been kept somewhere, away from light. And they’re skin and bones. Just like you.”
I pull myself to my feet. “I have to go.”
“Out there?” She raises her eyebrows quizzically.
“I have to get back where I was before, only I don’t know... if I can get there.” Panic drills into my bones.
“Perhaps you’d better get something into your stomach first, before you go. This house is solar-powered. There should be enough to make you a hot meal.”
She thinks I’m insane, but she’s humoring me.
She searches the cupboards but comes up empty-handed. She finds her handbag and rummages through it. I’ve got sachets of soup—tomato okay? Unfortunately for you they’re the diet variety. I’ve been trying to shed a few pounds.”
I manage to return her smile.
She busies herself making a hot cup of soup. Everything is silent. Every sound has stopped, except for the howling wind. The whole world is being buried. The light in the house dims.
I gulp a mouthful of soup. Food. I feel it travel all the way to my empty stomach.
Nabaasa studies me, her hands clasped on the bench.
“I’ve lost her....” My head slumps on my shoulders.
“Who have you lost?”
“A girl. Cassie.”
The distance between me and Cassie stretches before me, an infinite passage. All the way back to the dark caverns beneath an ancient forest in Australia. There's no shadow here, no way of reaching Cassie.
Inhuman noises echo across the lake. I stare at the shuttered window, trying to make sense of the sound.
Nabaasa’s expression doesn’t change.
“What is that?”
“I’m not sure,” she tells me. ”The end of the world, perhaps…. I saw them, from a window upstairs. In the bay. One thing is certain, they’re nothing the world has ever seen before.”
My jaw clenches, my mouth dry. I know the sound, only this is magnified a hundred times. The sound of the shadow of the serpent. The sounds mock me, rattle through me.
Her eyes settle on me. “I knew when I looked at the world outside Doctor Faber’s office that this was not a natural thing. I recognized it for what it was. And somehow, I know that you, and the girls, know things… don’t you?”
My mind turns inward and I can’t speak.
“But I won’t ask you for explanations now,” she adds kindly.
“I’m sorry,” I say finally. “Without me bringing you here, you might have been able to get away.”
She shakes her head. “There’s no getting away from this.”
“Do you live near here? I don’t know your chances in making it back to your family, but if this is where it all ends....”
Her gaze grows distant. “I lost all of them.” Her chest slowly expands in a long sigh. "Not all at once, but one by one. Back in Northern Uganda. With each attack of the rebels, I lost my parents, my brothers, my husband�
�� my children.” Her voice hardens. ”I witnessed atrocities that will always haunt me. Whatever comes, will come. We will fight when we can fight, and when we can no longer fight, we will endure….”
12. GHOST HOLE
~CASSIE~
Present Day
Panthers paced on their chains in the Great Hall. Henry’s sisters spun from the ceiling on lengths of silk. Henry entertained the adults with magic tricks, assisted by Audette. It seemed the castle held entertainment and games every evening after dinner.
I watched it all with dead eyes. These people had not a care in the world. All the while, people struggled for their very existence in the ice world—and faced the jaws of the serpents.
Molly sat beside me in the same large, plush chair, next to a crackling fire. All we could do was to bide our time until we were sent back into the ice world.
Viola sauntered up to a silk rope and tried to do a circus act and failed. Unperturbed, she performed a sensual pole-dance routine. Clarkson stared, transfixed. She smiled with her perfect teeth at seeing her effect on him.
Shaking his head at his sister, Emerson took out a deck of cards from underneath a small table. “Who’s for poker?”
“That’s boring.” Viola pouted. But a smile edged underneath the pout. “How about we play strip poker? Like we used to.” Not waiting for anyone’s answer, Viola placed her hand on her waist and bumped a hip out. “Ooh la la! Everyone—come and sit at the table.”
Parker’s gaze lit on Molly and me. “How about you two? Going to have a game with us?”
Molly shrugged a shoulder. “Maybe. What are the stakes?”
I glanced at Molly, not understanding, but her expression was unreadable.
Viola shot Molly a fake grin. “No one cares. You just lose your clothes and everyone just heads upstairs afterwards, if you know what I mean.”
“Let’s up the stakes tonight,” drawled Parker, “seeing as we have a new player.” He tapped his chin. “Okay, winner gets to do one thing of their choice at a time of their own choosing. Loser gets five minutes in the trou fantôme.”
Viola’s face paled, but she quickly tried to cover up her discomfort. “Pfft. I know you’re joking.”
