His little girl saw inexplicable things and ghostly beings from that second night in the house, and as time progressed, he became consistently aware of the instances. One day, in the vast dining room, the priceless, three-tiered, glass teardrop chandelier swayed slightly back and forth with no provocation. This time, there couldn’t have been a draft. Leah sat at the table, pointing her finger up and staring at it, transfixed by something other than its movement.
Janet hadn’t noticed any of it; she never did. Once again, she sat at the table, dominating the conversation, all of which was about her, about her plans for the house, how they had to explore the basement, how she would hold an open house when everything was finished. Paul caught only bits and pieces of her banter as he continued to watch his daughter closely. Leah kept ogling the chandelier, staring at some part of it he failed to see, and then her small mouth gaped open in awe at whatever it was that swayed the chandelier in a horizontal motion.
He nearly leapt across the table at her, shaking her from the spellbinding trance of the unseen attraction.
“Leah, sweetie, wake up,” he said, clutching his hands at her shoulders and shaking her lightly. He looked up and noticed that the chandelier had stopped swaying as he grabbed her. By some unnatural distortion of the law of physics, it was still, as though the previous moment in time had been erased. Leah’s eyes diverted and refocused on him, and then she glanced back up at the chandelier one last time and back to him again, as though whatever captivated her attention had never been there.
Janet stopped in mid-sentence and looked at the two of them, issuing a schoolgirl’s scoff that she wasn’t being heard. She’d been oblivious as to what was occurring and began yammering about another subject. It was better that he remained vague about Leah’s visions. What Janet didn’t want to know wouldn’t hurt her; at least, that’s what he’d thought.
Later, he’d seen Leah playing with the rocking chair. It had continued to move on its own, and he knew that she was seeing someone in the chair because she never made any attempt to sit in it, as if it was already occupied. And then, she came up with a name...
Agnes. Leah could never have known that the house was owned in the 1930’s by Casper Marlowe and that his wife’s name was Agnes. Janet had continued to deem Leah’s visions as imagination. She’d never connected Mrs. Marlowe’s first name to what, or whom, Leah saw. But Paul was also discovering that there was something far more disturbing about Cedar Manor than Leah seeing an old woman in a rocking chair, and he was going to have to feed Janet the whole truth, piece by piece.
Still, she refused to listen, dismissing everything as nonsense and a child’s overactive imagination, but things began to occur that even she couldn’t deny. The glass in the house began to break of its own volition: candle fixtures, lamps, windows, even dishes and priceless china. The glass would shatter for no apparent reason, untouched by human hand or presence.
Silently, Janet began to take notice, and he recognized the underlying expression of fear on her face. It seemed to combine with the uncharacteristic quiet that soon pervaded her. They began to hear voices, even screaming that woke them in the night.
Then one night, on one of the rare occasions when he actually fell asleep, he was awakened by a series of inflicted pains. He screamed himself awake, fighting some unseen force as he scrambled to flee the bed and turn on the light. As the light filled the room, he saw blood and looked in the mirror. There were scratches to his face, his chest, and even his back. The blood soaked through his tee-shirt.
“Do you see what I’m telling you?” He yelled at Janet as she sat up in bed. “There’s something wrong in this house! We have to leave here!”
Janet just sat up in bed staring at him with a glassy look in her eyes. She was unmoved and turned her head slightly away, as though mesmerized by some unseen enchanter. She maintained a subtlety that hadn’t existed in her before, an uncommon quiet that now grew even louder. She helped him attend to the scratches without saying more than a few words.
Then the occurrences seemed to die down for a brief interlude. Two weeks passed without a single incident, and Paul tarried at the notion of packing their belongings and fleeing. Stupidly, he’d decided to wait.
Soon, it was time for their excursion to the basement. After the uneventful silence, he saw no reason why he couldn’t bring Leah with him. She’d wanted to go so badly, and he remained uneasy about leaving her upstairs without him. Janet refused to see, to understand, and though she was still doting on the open house idea, she did so with that same quiet that had come about her lately and an unexpected casualness. His daughter would come with him, where he could see her. Janet would stay behind and wait to hear his report of the excursion.
The walls of the basement were erected with sturdy hunks of limestone that piled high into a catacomb structure. The smell was dank, musty, and dusty from years of inactivity. The basement stored decades, even centuries of antiques, artifacts, and furniture, much of which dated back centuries through to the 1920’s.
He became uneasy as Leah darted off into the various rooms, squealing with excitement most common in a child. He’d never been down here before, and the thought of having to search for her beneath the construction of this huge mansion made him nervous. He agreed to play Hide and Seek with her. He would close his eyes, count to ten, and watch which direction she’d taken off in. And of course, knowing where she was, he would find her.
During a round of the game, he was about to enter the room where she’d hidden, when her screams echoed throughout the basement, bouncing from its limestone walls. He was inside the room in an instant, and in that instant, he’d snatched her up into his arms.
“Leah, what’s wrong? What is it, honey?” She quivered in his arms, and her hot tears wetted his neck as he held her. She was pointing to the corner of the room. He saw nothing. He knew she’d seen a ghost or something equally horrific, but he wouldn’t learn the extent of what Leah had seen until years later when she wrote her memoir. She’d seen a vision of a dead body in the corner of the room.
When the excursion into the basement was over, he fought with Janet and threatened to take his daughter away from that house that night. Yet even the fight was not one of their usual ones. She was distant, removed, preoccupied with something he couldn’t identify. She’d refused to leave her house, even after one of the workmen fell from the staircase and broke his neck, claiming that he was pushed, even though no one had been there.
Later that night, Leah’s screams rang out from her bedroom through the entire floor. Startled from his sleep, he ran into her bedroom, where she was sitting up in bed with her arms stretched out to him. She would later write of seeing two men killing a woman in her room, their nudity, and the perversion of the act itself. He’d grabbed his daughter, and without taking anything else, whisked her out of the house and into the night, despite Janet’s weakened protests and her growing confusion.
He’d taken Leah to his mother’s house, and in the morning light, the guilt over leaving Janet behind nagged at him in its attempts to inflate the larger sense of guilt he’d felt over the entire issue.
He’d never mentioned a word to her about Tahoe Manoa; that he’d diagnosed their daughter, well his daughter, as a powerful seer. He couldn’t begin to imagine the response if he and Leah were to somehow ruin her plans. When Leah was six months old, her biological mother died from a blood disorder; he’d married Janet within a year. They would go on living as if Janet were Leah’s mother and then tell her the truth when the time came at a later age.
As soon as the sun rose, he drove back to Cedar Manor to retrieve Janet. Something in that house had possessed her; he was certain of that now. He drove like a madman on the way to Cedar Drive, the speedometer ascending from sixty, to seventy, to seventy five. He ran several stop signs until abruptly pulling in front of the house he’d fled only six hours before.
He didn’t stop and bother to be intimidated by its dark, foreboding presence; there w
asn’t time. He ran into the house and called out her name over and over again...until he reached the balcony. His mind would not accept what his eyes were seeing. It couldn’t be real; it couldn’t have happened.
The first thing he saw was her feet swaying back and forth beneath her dress. There she was, hanging from a noose tied to the balcony, her eyes closed, her face fixed in sudden slumber. He’d screamed out her name and heard it echo through the house. She didn’t flinch, she didn’t move. He ran over to her and tried to grab her by the feet, but the noose was tied to the top of the balcony, and from where he stood, she swayed tantalizingly out of reach.
He ran to the top of the stairs and tried to pull her up using the short length of rope and the noose—impossible. There was not enough rope and the weight was overwhelming. He did manage to touch the side of her face, and it was cold. She was dead. He saw it; he felt it. His screams rang out as he fumbled with the rope, realizing that he was too late. He had to get to the bottom of the stairs and call 911.
Something stopped him midway down the stairs. He couldn’t comprehend what he was seeing at first. It seemed to appear in rippling waves that distorted and disfigured the normal surroundings, as though its presence was trying to merge with reality, but with limited success. Suddenly, he’d heard harsh, heavy breathing that was not his own. It surrounded him, yet no one was there.
He watched the wave-like distortion as it appeared to be forming an image, a sight he could not fathom. It had a rotted mane of long hair and several eyes that stared back at him. Its features were deformed, devilishly misconstrued and representing Hell’s definition of beauty. The sight changed into that of a beautiful, young, blonde woman with angelic features. He wouldn’t recognize the young woman for many years to come.
And another image formed from that one. Wide, black, obsidian eyes stared back at him from a pale green face that bore the countenance of death itself, death that continued to live through ungodly sanction. Its mouth opened, baring serpent style fangs. Its head, misshapen and laden with growths and pointed horns, drew back, revealing its deformity.
The unholy sight he beheld had driven him to the madness that seemed, to this day, still a touch away. Panic and fear had attacked him and stolen his breath in the process. The reality of everything around him had seemed glossy, dreamlike, momentarily causing him to question its existence. He remembered crawling on his hands and knees down the staircase, and that was all he could recall. They’d found him in the entranceway of the house, delirious, screaming, laughing, and pointing inside.
He’d spent the next two years in Green Valley Mental Institution under the care of Dr. Susan Logan. Susan, at the time, had been working on her degree in Parapsychology. She believed, but could only believe from the standpoint of the fact that she trusted him, not from any personal experience. But she saved his sanity, and he would be eternally grateful to her for that.
He’d told her most of everything he could remember about the happenings inside that house. One of the many things he’d described was finding Janet swaying from the balcony, but he never mentioned the vision he beheld on the staircase, or the vision of the beautiful girl he would later be able to identify as his daughter, Leah.
He’d never told Leah that Janet was not her mother, but her stepmother. For years he’d intended to, but after Janet’s death, what was the point? Now, Leah had decided to go back into that house, and history would be rising to the surface. Would it stop her from going if he described the vision he saw that night to her? He doubted it.
Leah appeared to be soft, innocent, but in truth she was fearless, headstrong, and persistent. She was wise beyond her years, forced into that role by the experience of Cedar Manor. She would listen, but she would face down that house one way or another.
The thought of the impending confrontation made him rise from the chair to grab his inhaler; he needed it now. He stuck it in his mouth and pumped two puffs of mist into his lungs.
Whatever demons dwelled in that house had claimed Janet’s life and almost his own. They’d fed from his daughter’s ability in the beginning, and from some unjustified realm, sought to do so again. But there was one thing that Paul Leeds was resolutely sure of as he allowed the mist to open his bronchial tubes and the new air to clear his mind—he would die before that house ever laid claim to his daughter.
Chapter Six
Brett zeroed in on the precise location he’d mapped out on the virtual Earth-map software he’d been designing, narrowing it down to a small area within the red triangle he’d electronically graphed on the map. He’d been testing a new method of investigation, one that worked for him, one he couldn’t share with the others—at least, not yet.
It involved a secret that he’d kept throughout his entire existence, one that he never fully understood. He was aware that Sidney and Dylan thought he’d been acting strange lately, but they would have to live with it...for now. Now was not the time to reveal anything to them; their mission, right now, was to help Leah.
Such a vast, remote area it was within the red triangle, but his instincts assured him that was it. That little space on the virtual map of the Arizona desert was where he would find Tahoe Manoa. He knew he was there, and Brett’s secret new method of investigating would be certain to find him. He would get to him one way or another and get him to come back for Leah. He would also be back before anyone knew that he was gone.
He stood from his computer desk and glanced around the room one last time before leaving his apartment. His computer remained on, along with the television and all of the lights. He would leave it that way when he left, just like he always had.
Outside the snow continued to fall, and the temperature dropped as each hour passed, turning the gray day into a bluish dusk. He looked at his winter coat and gloves slung over the living room chair. He would leave them behind even though the reign of winter had just begun. After all, what was the point in bringing them?
He left his front door slightly ajar, making sure it was not completely closed, and then propped open the screen door with a sharp, wooden wedge he’d kept as a doorstop. He wasn’t worried about intruders or burglars; it was never an issue in this area or at this time of year.
Now, outside, the brisk and wet winter air bit through his skin, yet it invigorated him, making his heart beat a little faster than before. He rubbed his bare hands together and blew his visible breath between them. Brett Taylor stared out into the approaching night...and waited.
* * * *
Outside in the quiet night, an untimely and rare sight occurred as a large hawk flapped its wings against the winter sky. Winter’s twilight did nothing to deter the mighty hawk as its wings made a whooshing sound to no one, propelling its flight higher and higher into the air. There were no witnesses to this unseasonal occurrence, and the hawk flew steadily south beyond a brilliant full-moon.
* * * *
Tahoe Manoa stepped out onto the back porch of his desert home, breathing in the cold but dry desert air and basking in the familiar sunshine that beamed even in winter. It was not even moderately cold in the desert this time of year, but he could see the first frosts and fleeting flurries intertwine and coat the dry ground of his desert locale. He stretched his weary legs and braced his weakened lower back with his hands and then looked up at the sky.
There it was again...
It was the hawk, the same large hawk he’d seen several times earlier. It was circling in the sky just above him, never seeming to find a path, just circling, searching for something. He’d been returning from his nightly walk through the desert last evening when the great bird whizzed past him. The fast flurry of its feathers had startled him into noticing it as it soared past him and upward in a strange, semi-circular orbit.
Something flashed in his mind quickly as the bird flew past, but he hadn’t time to catch it. Was it a vision? He couldn’t be sure. It had all happened so fast, and the vision was a quick flash of gray that eluded him in his increasing age.
&n
bsp; He felt like the hawk was watching him. Tahoe focused his third eye, much like fine-tuning the lens on a telescope. Through the view of plain sight, the bird flew from a distance. Then suddenly, a larger, three dimensional image of the bird’s face flashed in his mind, captured in an instant like the click of a camera.
The hawk’s eye was on him.
But within seconds, the remote vision of the bird that had filled his mind was gone. Strange...Tahoe was able in some capacity to telepathically connect with the ways of the animals, but the flight and recurring appearance of this hawk was unprecedented. The hawk, along with many other birds, was rarely seen this time of year, and the bird was not part of a vision—the bird was real.
Tahoe felt a growing concern that its appearance was an omen, a sign of some event or occurrence to come—but what? He’d lived most of his life in the quiet solitude that surrounded him now, and at his age, omens, and signs were rarities, things of a younger past. But in his life, he’d seen many things and learned to never second guess.
Now, as he thought these things over, he glanced up again at the sky and saw that the hawk was nowhere in sight. He made an arch with his hand above the bridge of his nose, trying to gain a clearer view against the soft but gleaming sunshine. The hawk was gone as sure as it had flown.
He turned around to face the house and continued to stretch his legs and arms in a brief routine he practiced every day before his daily meditation. He began to clear his mind and breathe through his nose, letting the brisk air fill his lungs once again, when he was suddenly startled by a sound that forced him to spin around.
It was the same flapping of wings he’d heard the night before, only this time louder, bolder, and right in front of him. There it was, large and beautiful, unlike any other hawk he’d seen before, sporting a soft-beige color with tips of white at its wings. It anchored its talons directly on the edge of his patio deck, and with its solemn eye, stared him down as if it had found its prey.
The Third Eye of Leah Leeds Page 8
