“Shh, we mustn’t.” He covered her lips with his hand. They waited there, frozen in the dark, listening to the screaming wails of the babies and the crashing sounds of their bodies. Their mother howled hysterically and danced on their siblings’ blood.
“Eira, we are in serious trouble. Mama is broken,” he said.
“I heard her break,” she said back in a tiny voice. “Her brain popped like a balloon.”
“I think the wolf bit her.” They both grew silent, their serious eyes growing dark.
An hour passed as they listened to their mother still cackling nearby.
“We are gonna have to stop her. I think she is gonna do bad things.” Griffin broke the silence with his tiny boy voice. (Annabelle told me of Griffin and Eira. She said they didn’t want me here.)
“But I love my Mama,” Eira said with soft sobs, and they held each other tightly.
“Me too!” They sounded so small. “You can’t think of her as Mama anymore. She got broke, she turned mean.” (Monster Mama.) “I don’t know if we can find Chessa and Alawn before she gets them.” His voice grew grim and tight. “But we have to run or fight her.”
“I don’t want to fight her. I can carry Chessa, or if we get the stroller, I can get ‘em both. We can go pretty fast.”
He nodded at her plan and they started to sneak from under the bed to save the babies and run from Mama. “Maybe Chef can help us. I don’t know. He is not strong, he might be broken too.”
“What if I break?” Eira whispered, terrified. “What if you break?”
“The wolf can’t stop us. I think we are safer because of the lamb.”
“Don’t wolves eat lambs?” Eira asked her brother.
“Nope,” he replied, and he took her hand and they scampered through the hallway. His eyes snapped to mine. “It’s easy to lose time in this house. Tick tock.”
My eyes opened. I didn’t need their story. I needed my children. My hungry, lost children. The gargoyle pressed forward to kiss me again. I pushed him back. “I need my children. Annabelle and Tony. My children!”
I charged forward over the gargoyle past the pool table and to the Bear door. I tried to yank it open, and the gargoyles drew close behind me, stealing my precious moments. But the door was locked. I remembered the key on my necklace with the red heart. I grasped it and turned it, opening the door. It was an office.
A giant bear head sat on the wall staring at me. The office chair was a fully grown black bear killed and stuffed into a chair shape. The desk was carved with elegant swirls and dark woods. The ceiling was painted like a giant forest sky, branches and hints of blue and clouds.
I half expected Annabelle and Tony to be sitting right here. I called for them, loudly and boisterously. Fear had washed away. Let the house hear me. I am coming for my children. Give them to me or I will burn you. “Set you ablaze.” My voice echoed, and the house shuddered at the very idea of a fire licking and flickering at its hand-carved woodwork. The gargoyles collectively gasped. I’m sure they imagined their eyes exploding one at a time as they sizzled. “Do not tempt me. I am a mother, a fierce lioness, and I cannot take much more.” My body roared, it cried through my skin and furious body. My teeth clenched and my heart pounded. Bring it on, I’m ready to go.
I clenched my fist so tightly the stitches on my arm tempted to pop and I relented. Chessa and Alawn were not my fault; they were not my story. But Annabelle and Tony were. They were real, they were mine, and they needed me to find them. I threw the stuffed bear chair on its side. A picture shot into the air. Like a leaf, it slowly drifted down. I stared at it and waited for it to land.
There were two blurry children in the picture. I assumed they were Griffin and Eira. Atgas stood between them in the white dress, with the red heart sitting on her neckline. She smiled with dirty bloody looking teeth. They were standing by the rocking chair, the nursemaid’s feet hung in the background. Not the new rocking chair, either, the old one. The original.
On the back it said, “Children of the Stag.” And next to it was a drawing of a rocking chair. Beneath that in red were the words:
“Ladybug, ladybug fly away home,
Your house is on fire,
Your children will burn.
Except for the little one whose name is Ann,
Who hid away in a casserole pan.”
Threaten the house and the house threatens you. I crumpled it up in a ball. “Give them back to me and I won’t burn you down. Simple as that.”
I swore I heard the gargoyle whisper, “We can’t.” But my ears may have played tricks on me.
29
I left the Bear room furious and frustrated. I had been everywhere, hadn’t I? I stared around the room and I remembered the light house. It was up another story, the long circular staircase in that front hallway, curling up around the walls of the room. They were hard to find for some inexplicable reason. But find them I did, and up the stairs I went. Slow and steady to the top. One more story and I found it. A room with wooden floors. The door was shut, the familiar wooden planks sticking out from under the doorway on the landing. Surely this was where they were. I rattled the door, but it didn’t open. The key didn’t work. I knocked and listened, but I heard nothing. I pressed my face to the keyhole to stare inside and a mirrored eye stared back at mine. My mind burst forth and I was back, an unwilling spectator in a dream I didn’t want.
I saw the two children hiding again, this time under the bassinets. He was holding a little pointed stick, and she was trembling and frightened. “I won’t let her get you, Eira,” he whispered with the comforting strength of a man well beyond the age of six or seven. She had a pointed stick in her fingers too and one stabbed in her arm.
“I can’t get it out.” She trembled, tugging against it in her flesh.
“Leave it. It doesn’t matter, we have to run!”
“One for sorrow.” she started.
“Two for joy.” he answered.
“Three for a girl.”
“Four for a boy.” They clasped hands and ran. My view of them blurred and I willed myself to step into the present, but it did not work.
Atgas was standing there in her white dress splattered with the chef’s blood. “Seven for a secret, never to be told!” she shouted. They both shuddered and tried to escape, but she grabbed them. She held them steady, and I knew what I was watching. This was the photograph. The dangling maid’s feet were right in the corner. “Smile!” She giggled. I felt the flash of a camera on my back. She frowned. “Again!”
I stepped out of the way and turned to look. There he was, behind the camera. My husband. He waved me to step to the side. He clicked away, nodding approval to her.
I started to ask him to help find the children but the way he stared at me, it was like he blamed me for everything. Suddenly, I was back staring into the keyhole. A section of plain wooden floor. “Annabelle? Tony? Are you here?”
There was no reply.
I slammed my shoulder into the door, trying to force it, but I could not budge it. I had the strong sensation of saltwater taffy in my mouth. What was I forgetting? I closed my eyes and envisioned Taffy giving me her instructions, “Annabelle and Tony will be killed. Much worse than what has happened to you. You are barely even injured. Go home, take a bath, and then you get your ass down there and save them.”
Down there.
I was going the wrong direction. I hurried down the stairs, my feet threatening to tumble, I was moving so fast. Was there a basement? They screamed, “Mama!” Tony cried as he starved and died in a fire, and her in a pan. Ann in the pan.
Goosebumps ran up and down my flesh as terror consumed what little sanity I had left. “Show them to me, so help me, or I will destroy you all.” I screamed at the gargoyles in the ceiling as I flew down their stairs with a crash. I felt the faint roar of a lion. “You better be right.” I raised my fist at them and started down the stained glass hall. “Come on you wolf, show your scrawny self. Have you ever fought an
angry lioness after you stole her cubs?” I think not.
Before I got to my room, a loud bell rang. I turned to stare and an iron door slid open. An elevator. Fine, let’s do this. I stepped in and sank down into the basement.
Three for a Girl
30
That wretched farm nearly killed me. That tree in the field full of promise and life never grew an apple for me. Oh, it had apples aplenty when we drove down to see it the first time. Moving from the suburbs to a farm was quite an adventure and there was something about adventures that stole my heart. I wanted to be something better. Something bigger. Richer, prettier, stronger, hardier. You name it, I wanted it.
Besides fame; I never had much need for fame. But I wanted to build a big, beautiful house with my own hands. Something I’d show my children and say, “Mama built you these rooms, these closets, and this kitchen.” I longed to fill that house with the fruits of my labor, garden food, chickens, children -oh the children! I wanted eight like a proper farmer. Just stuff them in there until my uterus can’t take any more.
I would birth them at home in a sweet, magical way. It would be romantic and hopelessly fantastic. I’d be that farmer out there in a gown and a hat filling my skirts up with apples. My children would climb trees and be bright and strong. They would fix tractors and train dogs and do things that children should do. They would be brave and bold, bringing in wood for the fire. Maybe I’d even let them light it themselves. It would be absolutely glorious.
I would do it all. I’d have that hardness of a good woman, and that softness of a sweet mother. I’d make waffles with my hair in curlers and my children would tell me how happy they were to be alive. They would be the happiest years of my life.
Except it wasn’t. It was horrible. Horrendous. Everything went terribly wrong. My crops withered, my gardens failed, my uterus dried up. I wasn’t hard and sweet; I was angry and tired. Most mornings, I sobbed relentlessly. I built things, but nothing I was proud of. I tarped the roof in a storm. How humiliating was that! Rain poured through the roof on my children and I was out there, mid-storm, putting a tarp on it. Not even shingles. I didn’t have shingles. I didn’t fix anything, nothing at all. Bandaged the roof like a skinned knee.
My children weren’t happy to be alive. They were cooped up, and sickly. They knew how to sit still for hours like good little toddlers. That was all I had taught them to do well. They were exceptionally good at it. No exploring. Or dreaming or running or building or playing. They would sit quietly and read and color and not get into trouble. Or I would come yelling.
Me. Nobody else caused it but me. Sit still or else. Wait here at the edge of this field while I drive the tractor. Wait here while I get the eggs. Sit on the cart while I trim the trees. Or else. If I caught them skipping or jumping or exploring we would have words. Mean words. I would tell them the dangers of being childlike and demand they sat. Dangers were everywhere. Do not, under any circumstance move from this spot.
That was the kind of mother I had turned into. The ones I hated. I was terrified. Even when they showed me they were picking dandelions to blow, I chided them for spreading seeds. Those were the worst years of my life. They should have been wonderful, but instead, they were wretched. I turned into a monster. (Monster Mama)
But I would go back and do that again in a heartbeat to get away from this house.
31
The elevator cried a sickening squeal as it descended. I was sure it didn’t enjoy being down here more than anyone else enjoyed it. I certainly didn’t want to be here in the dark, in the danger. Here with the wolf. I didn’t even know for sure what the wolf was, or where it was, or how to stop it. But in the basement made the most sense. I should have smashed that stained glass of it before I came down. Shake it up a little, prevent it from having so much strength and power over me, over my children. And what of my husband?
Was he here in the bowels of the house? Had he been shit out already? If I found him, it might not be a happy reunion. Was that what the house wanted me to think? Were the gargoyles on my side?
How would I ever know? They were rock and mirrors. They weren’t real.
The elevator door slid open and I stepped out. It shut immediately, running from the wretched basement. It was so dark. I reached out my arms. Cold rock lips touched mine and my brain popped.
“Cruel and Merciless is the Wolf.”
The red pen drew it in the air. But then I knew I had drawn it.
I authored the red pen. My hand grasped the cool cylinder and those were my words on the back of this picture. It seemed as though this should make me happy, but instead I furrowed my brow with concern. Husband took the pictures. I wrote in red. Time swirled.
Griffin and Eira were back to back. They were standing, with the little sticks held in their hands. A small stick zinged towards Eira and she swatted at it, but it stuck into her arm. She pulled it out and kept watching for the next one. They were under attack. I tried to look around. They were in the woods, but I couldn’t see their attacker.
“We are the children. Let us flee,” Eira said with a desperate ring.
“Keep moving Eira!” Griffin said. They side stepped away from the lighthouse. Their little movements slowed while their small hands batted at the little arrow rainfall. I tried to peer out into the woods. What shot at them? The tiny, piercing sticks whizzing by blocked my view. Griffin suddenly caught one in the throat. I closed my eyes. Don’t look. But I still heard him gurgle in terrified noises begging, Eira to run. When I opened them again, he had fallen, covered from head to toe in sticks. Dead soon.
Eira ran. Full speed, scared as ever. Her tiny little legs pumped as fast as her tears fell. Get out of the woods! I shouted at her, but I realized she was running the wrong way. She was running to the lighthouse towering over the trees.
My own tears trickled and I closed my eyes. I wanted to find my children. Don’t tell me Eira’s fate. I didn’t want to see her turned into a human pincushion. When I opened them, darkness.
The indistinct basement held ragged breathing. “Tony? Annabelle?” Who was panting? It made me think of the wolf. A lone wolf breathing down my neck before it tore me open. The hairs on my neck rose and my heart quickened. “Annabelle?” I whimpered softly, stepping forward in the dark.
A large rush of wind tickled behind me, and then a loud thwack. I turned to look, my eyes slowly adjusted a bit more. I made out the form of a bear. Holding something large, raising it over his head, ready for another swing. I scrambled away, my feet stumbling at the darkness.
Two mirror eyes flickered at me from the side of the room and I raced towards them. I didn’t get very far, crashing and falling down something. Not quite stairs. My hands examined them and they were benches, plush velvet benches set one layer after the other in auditorium seating. I crawled under one and hid, trying to figure out what to do next. The lumbering monster breathed and stomped up and down. He was somewhere. His feet never faltered. He must have been able to see in the dark.
Or he had been here long enough to memorize the entire place?
I listened, wondering if I could fight him. If he was supernatural, did I even have a chance? He sniffed. I wondered if he could smell me. Terrified I shivered and wondered if I should run. Run. Run. Run! My heart screamed so loud the blood rushed into my ears. My feet twitched, but I begged them to be still. I strained my ears, but nothing. Maybe now was a good time to make my move. But I didn’t know where to go. It was too dark.
A bright white square on the wall burned my eyes. It flickered and grew brighter still, I had to close my eyes to give them a moment to adjust. Music started playing and suddenly there was a white dress on the screen. Twirling in circles her little bare feet showing she tumbled down in soft grass and her smile was delicious.
Her dress was speckled with blood. And the heart necklace hung in its place. She turned and looked at me, right into my eyes and said, “If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.” Her big grin resumed while she stretched
. “I tried to fight it, but at some point you just have to admit defeat. Lie still and wait for the wolf to eat you.”
It dawned on me she was talking to me. This wasn’t a movie so much as it was a conversation. “Give me back my children.” I scrambled from under the bench and stood up, the hot light from the projector spilling on my dress. The light burned my eyes.
I saw him. Standing there, with a large board in his arms. At the end of the board were sharp sticks sticking out like a home made mace. The weapon terrified me, but his eyes were worse. They were tight slits of fury. He was going to kill me.
“Tony! Big Tony! My husband, it’s me!” I cried out, trying to shake him out of it. There was nowhere to run to. He was in front of the door, and I was down at the bottom of the room. I’d have to run up the stairs (he’d kill me) or up the benches (I’m dead) or try to fight him (death). My only hope was that he’d come at me and fall, trip on the benches or stairs and I could dart past him and run. Run run as fast as you can. You can’t catch me; I’m the gingerbread man.
32
We had never gotten physical before. Once, he spanked me when we were intimate, but I don’t think that particularly counts. I didn’t even enjoy it. He’d be off working in his office and I’d be struggling with the garden and the kiddos. The field and the babes. The chickens and the children. When the bathroom door rocked off its hinges and fell on baby Annabelle, Tony scolded me. I was the worst mother in existence. Husband stopped talking. He knew it was my fault too. Why wasn’t I more careful? My job was to maintain the house. I should have done more. More laundry, more cleaning, more maintenance, more of everything. I told him of the door and he vanished to the barn. He came in and sullenly ate supper when I offered. I was sound asleep when he finally came to bed. He left before I woke up. That next night, he came home late, very late from work, and trudged to the barn and worked in there on who knows what. He didn’t say hello. He didn’t say goodbye, he didn’t say a damn word. Four days, the longest we’d gone in utter silence. That damn door’s fault.
Landlocked Lighthouse (Locked House Hauntings Book 1) Page 11
