“Lorenzo!” Emma said as she opened the door. “Please, come in!”
Emma’s graciousness gave him a sense of calm, lowering the building anxiety he’d developed on the ride to the house. She escorted him through the entryway and turned left, into the parlor.
“Henry’s out back,” she said. “Did you want to see him?”
“I would like to, yes,” Lorenzo replied. “If you don’t mind.”
“Of course I don’t mind, Lorenzo,” she said, smiling. “It’s good to see you again. It’s been so long since anyone came around. The house feels very lonely. Please, sit.”
Lorenzo sat in a padded chair and awaited Henry’s return. Within minutes Henry arrived, looking sweaty and dirty from yard work.
“Lorenzo!” he said, extending his hand as he strode into the room. “Thank the Lord someone has finally come to visit. We feel like pariahs!” After they shook, he wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. “You’ll have to excuse me, I’ve been working in the yard.”
“I always thought it was Emma who kept the yard up,” Lorenzo said.
“We both do. We love it outside. The roses are always in need of care. So what can I do for you?”
Lorenzo took in a deep breath and slowly exhaled. “I have a favor to ask you.”
“Yes?”
“I want to try and contact Jacob, here in the house.”
The room went silent for a moment, then Lorenzo watched as a sly smile spread across Henry’s face. “Oh, Lorenzo, I was afraid the whole group had given up! I’m thrilled to hear you say that!”
“Not a séance, mind you.”
“No, of course not.”
“I want to try and contact him myself. Jacob and I always had a special connection, and I think he may have been up to something the night he disappeared.”
“Really?” Henry asked, his eyebrows rising. “What?”
“I don’t know for sure, but I continue to have the feeling that he’s still alive, perhaps battling for his life. I’m hoping I can help him, or at least find out more about what’s happened to him. And maybe the others.”
“I am one hundred percent behind you,” Henry said enthusiastically. “How do you want to proceed?”
“I’d like a quiet room, where I can remain undisturbed for a period of time. I’m sorry Henry, but I can’t invite you to join me on this. It’s something I have to do alone.”
“If you insist,” Henry replied. “I’ll put you in our master bedroom upstairs. The children are at school and won’t be home for hours. I’ll talk to Emma and we’ll remain silent downstairs, until you return. Will that accommodate you?”
“You’re hospitality is unbounded, as usual,” Lorenzo replied.
“Anything to make some progress,” Henry said. “I’d like to get this matter resolved so we can reform the group and continue our work. Come with me, I’ll take you up.”
Henry led Lorenzo to the staircase and they ascended to the top floor, moving through the hallway until they reached the master bedroom. Once inside, Henry helped Lorenzo situate himself in a chair near the bed, and asked if there was anything else Lorenzo required.
“No, I’m well enough off,” Lorenzo replied. “I don’t know how long this might take, Henry. If you can give me as much solitude as you can, I would be grateful.”
“Emma and I will be silent as mice,” he said as he left the room, pulling the door closed. “Good luck, Lorenzo.”
“Thank you.”
He heard the faint sound of Henry descending the stairs. The mansion was well built, and sounds didn’t echo through the house as they did in most modest homes. As he appreciated the silence, he looked around the well-appointed room. Directly in front of him was a beautiful mirror with a gilded, ornate edging. He saw himself sitting, and decided to close his eyes and relax. Then he slipped into the River.
He explored the interior. Henry and Emma weren’t in it. They must be outside, he thought. He methodically checked each room, looking for any sign of Jacob or the others who had disappeared. The house looked normal in all respects, except for the faint loss of color it always seemed to exhibit when viewed in the River. He drifted to an upstairs window at the end of the hallway, and saw the couple in the back yard, working around a small barn. They were far enough away that they’d never hear him if he were to call out. He truly had the house to himself. Seeing the barn, he wondered if it should be inspected, too. He decided to go outside, and began drifting to the kitchen door, hoping he’d be able to open it. Ghosts had always been skilled at opening doors, and he’d picked up the ability through many exercises with Jacob over the years. He reached the door and grabbed the handle. No extra effort was required to twist the handle and pull it open — it seemed designed to be easily manipulated within the River.
Then he saw the front entryway, through the kitchen threshold. His mind went into overdrive, trying to understand what he was seeing. It was the kitchen door. The back yard should be beyond. Instead it was the front entryway, as though he was looking in through the front door.
His heart began to pound in his chest as his fear grew. Jacob said something about seeing the kitchen when he looked out the front door. That’s what I’m seeing now...did Jacob go into this new house?
He crossed the threshold, observing the duplicate house with a sense of wonder. Things looked exactly the same; at least, the things he remembered seemed incredibly similar. He drifted through the living room and into the central room, where the large round séance table rested, vacant and uncovered. Everything appeared normal, except for one thing: the coatrack. It was loaded with a dozen different coats. He recognized them as the jackets of the group. There, on a bottom hook, he saw his own.
Why are these jackets here?
He went around the séance table and to the kitchen, where he opened the door to the outside. Another front entryway.
A third house, waiting for me to explore, he thought. But I haven’t explored the one I’m in just yet. He closed the door, and turned to drift back into the other rooms, passing the séance table and the living room. He went down the hallway. At its end he found the stairs, and to his left, another hallway that ran west, with doors to rooms on either side. At the far end of the hallway was door — he knew it to be an exit, leading to the garden. He drifted to it, and opened it. Another kitchen appeared.
Now his mind was really reeling. He closed the door and drifted back, the feeling that he could become literally lost by entering the additional houses washing over him, making him feel anxious. Finish exploring this house first, he thought. Don’t miss anything. You might miss Jacob.
He checked through the rooms in the hallway, finding no one or anything unusual inside. Then he drifted to the stairwell and ascended.
In the long upstairs hallway he saw the windows where he’d looked down on Henry and Emma, as they worked in the yard. He drifted to the windows again, expecting to see them. They weren’t there.
They might have moved to another part of the yard, he thought.
He entered each of the rooms upstairs, glancing out the windows to check for Henry and Emma. They were nowhere to be seen.
Finally he reached the master bedroom, where he knew his physical body was sitting. He opened the door, expecting to see himself sitting on the chair.
Instead, he found a body slowly swinging from a rope.
Now he was on full alert. He approached the body carefully, looking at the face, trying to see who it was. The head was three feet above him, and the corpse had begun to drip a substance onto the ground below. The man’s hands swung loosely beside him, and Lorenzo saw that the flesh had been gnawed from them, leaving bone in some places. He drifted higher to see the body’s face better. Although it was bloated and discolored, it was Abraham. He could tell by the beard.
He heard a thump just outside the room in the hallway, and thought it might be Henry or Emma, returned to the house.
They won’t return to this house, it occurred to him. They
’ll return to the first house. Whatever is there, it isn’t Henry or Emma.
It’s Bingham.
He turned to look at the doorway of the room, just as the tall figure of Willard Bingham walked into it. His eyes were wild and wide, just as he’d seen him in the flickering candlelight two weeks ago. Bingham saw Lorenzo, and his mouth opened as though he was anticipating a meal. He rushed toward him.
Lorenzo dropped from the River, sensing the room change. He took a large breath and opened his eyes. The master bedroom. Five feet away was where Abraham’s body had been hanging, dripping liquid onto the rug. He turned to look at the door. Still closed, just as Henry had left it.
He spun his head, checking to make sure Bingham wasn’t in the room with him. Empty. Just him, sitting in the chair.
He stood, feeling his legs shake under him. The sudden attack of Bingham had frightened him. If that’s what Jacob is battling, he thought, God help him!
Then he wondered if he would have found Joseph or Althea had he explored one of the other houses.
I have to go back in, he thought. I have to find Jacob.
He sat back down and closed his eyes, taking a deep breath. He slipped into the River again, prepared to drop out quickly if he encountered Bingham.
Instead, he found himself alone in the master bedroom, just as the first time. He drifted into the hallway, expecting to see the murderer as soon as he entered it. It was empty.
He walked down the hallway, stopping at the windows at the end. Henry and Emma were still there by the barn, hauling large rose branches.
They’re here, he thought. Here in the first house, as I suspected. This is the original, the real one. The others are copies.
He drifted downstairs and to the ground floor, then rounded the corner and through the hallway toward the front entryway. He opened the door, and there was the kitchen of the second house — and Bingham entering the kitchen through the doorway from the central room. Once again Bingham smiled, showing missing teeth, and ran wildly at Lorenzo.
Lorenzo’s first, instinctual reaction was to shut the door. Once he had, he dropped again from the River.
He knows I’m prowling, Lorenzo thought. He’ll be waiting for me. If I’m going to go back in, I need to wait until he decides to wander somewhere else instead of waiting to pounce on me.
I’ll try again tomorrow, he thought, and stood. He walked to the bedroom door and opened it, then walked through the upper hallway. When he reached the windows that overlooked the backyard, he couldn’t help but look out them — Henry and Emma were still there by the small barn, working.
He walked downstairs and to the kitchen, leaving the house by the back door so he could talk to them.
▪ ▪ ▪
“I should never have told you!” Lorenzo said.
“No, this can work, Lorenzo!” Henry replied.
Emma, who was by his side in the parlor, had a worried look on her face, concerned with her husband’s enthusiasm. “Listen to Lorenzo, Henry!” she said. “Please!”
“If we focus the séance on the duplicate house, I’m sure we can pierce through! We can rescue the others! I’ll contact the Ortons and a few more, and we’ll assemble tomorrow afternoon, in secret!”
“It won’t work,” Lorenzo said. “Someone will just get killed in the process.”
“Because of Bingham?”
“Yes,” Lorenzo replied. “He’s waiting in those duplicate houses. He’ll take more of you if you try again.”
“But you said you merely ‘dropped out,’ wasn’t that how you put it? You just left, and were safe. That’s exactly what we all shall do. If Bingham appears, we will all end the séance. It should work!”
“It won’t work,” Lorenzo said. “Forgive me, Henry, but you don’t share the gift I have. The way I enter and leave the other side, you don’t have that skill. Bingham will take one or more of you while you’re in the séance, before you can shut it down. You can’t proceed. More will be lost if you do.”
“Please, Henry,” Emma said.
“Now you’ve upset my wife,” Henry said, standing and pacing. “If you can reach the other side, then we can too. Perhaps you have a gift, perhaps you don’t. As a group we’ve been successful in reaching the spirits, and I can’t see why we wouldn’t be able to pierce the veil if we tried.”
“I don’t doubt you’ll pierce the veil,” Lorenzo replied. “It’s already thin enough here, due to all the séances over the years. I’m saying that once you do, you won’t be able to protect yourself from attack.”
“I’ve survived so far,” Henry said.
“Pure luck,” Lorenzo replied. “Bingham just didn’t happen to pick you.”
“Perhaps it’s because he knows I’m the leader of this group! Perhaps he fears me! Exoneration would come in very handy right now, Lorenzo, and if I can obtain that by piercing the veil and discovering what you have discovered, I shall do it of my own volition.”
“Henry!” Emma pleaded, but Henry left the room, disappearing deeper into the house.
“I’m sorry,” Emma said, turning to Lorenzo.
“See if you can persuade him,” Lorenzo replied.
“I’ve always tried to be supportive of him and his pursuits, but things seem to have become much more sinister lately. The disappearances have brought suspicion upon us, and I rarely receive the time of day from the sisters in the ward now. I was hoping he’d curb his interest, but it looks as though what you’ve told him has rekindled it.”
“For that, I apologize,” Lorenzo replied. “I did not anticipate he’d react this way.”
“He shouldn’t do it; it is dangerous, isn’t it?”
“I believe so, yes.”
“I will try to stop him. But he is the master of this house, and if he becomes determined, I’m afraid I may not be able to deter him.”
“If there’s anything I can do to help, please let me know,” Lorenzo said. “I’d like to come back tomorrow, and try again, if you don’t mind.”
“Is it safe for you?”
“I think my approach might be the only safe way to explore what is happening here,” he said, rising to leave. “I have to get back home. I’m afraid I’ve been gone longer than promised.”
“You’re welcome to come tomorrow,” Emma replied, rising and escorting Lorenzo to the door, leaving it open as he left, until he reached his wagon and pulled out of the yard. He could see the worried look on her face even from that distance, and hoped Henry would come to his senses.
Chapter Eleven
Obligations at home caused Lorenzo to reach the Blackham mansion later in the afternoon the next day. He could tell something was wrong long before he pulled his wagon off the road; Emma, seeing him coming in the distance, had run out of the house and was waving hysterically for him. He jumped off his wagon and ran to her.
“What is it?” he asked. She fell into his arms, sobbing.
“Thank God you’ve come!” she said, pulling her emotions back so she could communicate. “We need your help, desperately!”
“Is it Henry?”
“Yes,” she said. “Come inside, quickly!”
Lorenzo ran to the house, Emma right behind him. He burst through the front door and into the living room, and saw the others, several remaining members of their séance group, assembled around the table in the central chamber. Heavy curtains had been pulled over the windows to make the room dark, but the gas light was turned on, fully illuminating the room. Around the table sat Henry, Langford and Jonas Orton, Espy Farnsworth, and two others. They were all slumped over the table, as though they had fallen asleep.
“I came downstairs after more than an hour, and found them like this!” Emma said. “I can’t revive them. What’s happened to them?”
“Do you have salts?” Lorenzo asked, walking to Henry and reaching for the man’s wrist, to feel for a pulse.
“I’ve tried that already,” Emma replied. “It didn’t rouse any of them!”
“Are you
r children still at school?”
“Yes, for another hour.”
“Good. If they are still asleep like this then when your children arrive, make sure they don’t see it.”
“Dear God!” Emma said, raising her hand to her mouth. “Can you do anything to help them?”
“I don’t know,” Lorenzo replied. “But I will try. I am going to do what I did yesterday. I’ll sit here at the table with them, and enter a trance.”
Emma was immediately upset at the idea.
“I believe it is safe for me,” he assured her. “I have skills the others do not have, which is why I warned your husband not to proceed. While I’m in the trance, I want you to be out of the house, for your own safety and to ensure that you catch your children coming home. No one must enter the house until I’ve finished. Can you arrange that?”
“Certainly,” she said. “I’ll work in the front yard. I’ll be able to see the children coming that way.”
“Good,” Lorenzo replied, sitting at the table. “We’d better get started. I don’t know if time is of the essence in this, but we’d best proceed without delay.”
“I’ll go,” she replied, turning to walk away. Then she stopped, and turned back. “Lorenzo?”
“Yes?”
“Please help my Henry if you can. Please.”
“I will try,” he replied, entirely unsure if there was anything he could do to help.
She turned again and left. When he heard the front door close, he tried to relax and let his eyes shut. The proximity of the comatose bodies around him added an unsettling air as he drifted into the River.
The monochromatic colors of the house appeared before him, and he rose from his chair. The bodies of the others still surrounded him at the table, but he could sense nothing else of them. He started searching the house as he’d done before, and came up empty.
The Blackham Mansion Haunting (The Downwinders Book 4) Page 11
