“Like I said, everyone thinks you’re dead,” Eliza replied. “So, no, not to steal from you.”
“What did you want the naphtha for?”
“I need to make some Cana stones.”
“Ah, gonna burn something up?”
“How did Jack trap you here?” Eliza asked, changing the subject.
“What do you want the Cana stones for?” the woman asked, ignoring her question.
“I’ll tell you, if you tell me,” Eliza offered.
“Deal. You first.”
Eliza sat back down. “Alright. There are some cannibal ghosts I need to get rid of.”
The woman perked up. “Kanontsistonties?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t tell me it’s Scray’s bunch?”
“As a matter of fact, it is.”
The woman’s face scrunched into a scowl. “Oooh, I hate that Scray. An obstinate, dislikable man.”
“Now you,” Eliza said.
“I was using Jack as an experiment,” the woman said. “Things didn’t work as planned. He sent me here.”
“I got the feeling he was trying to attack my friends, rather than me.”
“He probably was,” the woman said. “He has an intense dislike of men. He uses what power he has to try and kill them, but has no idea what he’s doing, and the impact of what he does is the opposite of what he intended.”
“Is that how you wound up here?” Eliza asked.
“Precisely,” the woman replied. “When he first forced me here, I knew I wouldn’t survive unless I used my power to create this place.” She broke another twig in half and tossed it onto the fire. “There’s naphtha on this land, you know.”
“Where?” Eliza asked.
The woman looked at her slyly. “You’ll never find it, not unless I tell you where it is.”
Eliza caught the woman’s eyes shifting, quickly glancing to something in the yard, then centering back on her. “Alright, tell me,” Eliza said.
“No, not unless you promise to do something for me.”
“What?”
“Kill Jack,” the woman said.
Eliza gulped. “He’s just a kid.”
“He’s demon spawn,” the woman spat angrily.
“How can I?” Eliza said. “I’m stuck here with you.”
“No, you’re not,” the woman replied. “I can send you back.”
“If you can send me back,” Eliza replied, “why don’t you just send yourself back?”
“I have,” she said, raising her chin. “But it drains me, and Jack just sends me back again before I can rebuild my strength and stop him. I need someone else to do it, to take him out. I’ve returned several people; people who promised they’d kill the little shit. They didn’t. If you kill him, I’ll tell you right where the naphtha is. You can take as much as you like.”
Again she caught the woman glancing quickly to her left and back again. Eliza turned her head to see if she could determine what the woman had been looking at. “And if I say no?”
“Huh,” the woman grunted, tossing another stick. “Then I’ll eventually eat you, like I did the others who refused.”
“Eat me?” Eliza asked, surprised. “You’re kidding.”
“Their bones are in a hole around the side of the house, if you’d like proof. I used to cook them, but this fire is so small, it’s kind of hard to do, so, over the years, I got used to eating them raw.”
“You’d eat me?” Eliza asked. “I thought you hated cannibals? You said you hated Scray.”
“Scray, yes,” she replied. “Cannibals in general? Well, everything’s got to stay alive somehow.”
“Cannibals choose to eat people,” Eliza replied. “They don’t have to.”
“Do you see any food around here?” the woman asked. “I only get what Jack mistakenly sends.”
Eliza considered the woman’s proposal; killing a child wasn’t an option to her, but she wondered if there wasn’t some way to get around the woman.
“How would you suggest I kill him?” Eliza asked. “If I go back, he can just send me here again, can’t he?”
“He’s always on the lookout for me,” the woman replied, “but he won’t be expecting you. All you have to do is sneak up on him and strangle him with special gloves. There’s a pair in my bedroom, under the bed.”
“Why special gloves?”
“I told you he was an experiment,” the woman replied. “He’s not a normal child.”
“Alright,” Eliza said. “Tell me where the naphtha is, and I’ll do it.”
“Do it first,” the woman replied, “and I’ll tell you once I’m back in my real home.”
“OK,” Eliza said. “Send me back. I’ll see if I can pull it off.”
“He likes to sneak up on people,” the woman said. “Keep an eye out.”
“Alright.”
The woman closed her eyes, and Eliza felt the sensation of falling, as though the ground underneath her had suddenly become soft. She began to drift downward, and as her head reached ground level, she felt a brief moment of panic. She unconsciously held her breath.
Seconds later, she found herself floating down through the room of the house, landing on the floorboards. The house was silent — no sign of Robert or Granger. She looked around for Jack, waiting to see if he would appear. He didn’t.
She rose from the ground and walked to the doorway. If I’m back in the real house, she thought, that doorway might be a problem again. She worked her way through one of the broken windows, and walked through the quiet yard, toward the clearing. For a moment she dropped into the River, and was suddenly surrounded by ghosts, moving back and forth in the clearing. Turning around to look at the house, she could see the corpses strung up, swinging gently.
I must be back, she thought, relieved.
Eliza! she heard, and turned. Robert came up behind her. Where did you go? We’ve been looking for you!
You moved your body, Granger said. Are you alright?
Eliza quickly told them about her encounter with the woman.
Did you see him? she asked. The little boy, Jack?
No, I haven’t seen him, Robert replied. Have you, Dad?
No, Granger replied. And I think I’d rather not.
Are you going to kill him? Robert asked.
Hell no, Eliza replied. I only told her that so she’d send me back. She did confirm that there’s naphtha somewhere on this property. We just need to find it without running into Jack again.
Or something worse, Granger said, looking around. There’s so many fucked up ghosts lingering around, I feel like something bad could happen any second.
We need to know what we’re looking for, Eliza replied. This is a flammable liquid, right?
It’s got to be in jars or cans or something like that, Robert replied. I’d be surprised to find it just lying around in the open.
I don’t think it’s in the house, either, Granger replied. We searched all of it, looking for you.
I’m fine staying out of the house, Eliza replied. That’s where we ran into Jack. There is one place I want to check out, though.
She led them around the back of the house, to the crumbling well.
Down there? Robert asked, looking down it. I can’t see a bottom.
She kept looking this direction while I was asking her about the naphtha, Eliza said. She drifted to the well’s opening and dropped, floating down into it. Immediately she felt claustrophobic, but was rewarded after a few feet, finding an alcove built into the side of the well’s wall.
It looks like several jars of something here, she said, and turned, descending a few feet more. Another alcove appeared, this one filled with more jars.
She rose to the surface. I think this is a good place to start, she replied. We’ll have to do it with our bodies.
They dropped from the River. Granger and Robert found themselves back at the clearing’s edge, and Eliza was in the front yard. They gathered together as a group, and walk
ed around to the back of the house, locating the well.
“How do we get down there?” Robert asked.
Granger scrounged through the brush nearby, locating a broken wooden bucket and a section of rope.
“That looks pretty old,” Robert said, looking at the rope in Granger’s hands.
Granger tugged at it. Dirt and dust puffed out from the rope as he stretched it. “Nah, still works,” he said.
“Really?” Robert replied. “You’d go down that well with that rope? It could snap any second!”
“Sure,” Granger replied, already tying it around himself. “How far down were those jars, Eliza?”
“Just a few feet,” she replied.
“You have no idea how deep that well is,” Robert replied. “If that rope breaks, we might never be able to get you out.”
“Nah,” Granger scoffed, already positioning himself over the well’s opening. “You two hold onto that end. Don’t let go!”
He disappeared over the edge. The rope became taught immediately, pressing hard against the bricks at the top of the well.
“I hate when he does this,” Robert said, struggling to hold the rope. Eliza joined him, digging her heels into the ground and pulling behind Robert. Granger’s movement inside the well was causing the rope to fray against the bricks.
“It’s not going to hold!” Eliza called. “You’ve got to get out of there, Granger!”
“Hold on, just a second!” came Granger’s voice.
They watched the edge of the well as the rope continued to split apart, one fiber at a time.
“Seriously, Dad!” Robert called.
“OK, pull me up,” Granger called from inside the well. They began to tug on the rope, but it snapped, and Robert and Eliza fell to the ground. When she rose, she saw an arm hanging out of the well, wrapped over the edge of the bricks. They looked shaky and about to give.
“Robert!” Eliza called, and they rushed to the side of the well. Robert grabbed Granger’s wrist and began to pull, slowly extracting the man from the hole in the ground. As Granger rose, Eliza could see that he had a glass jar in his hand. It was sealed over with a thick substance that looked like wax, and its sides were caked in mud, making it impossible to view the contents.
“I think I got one!” Granger said, stepping out of the well once Robert had pulled him high enough. He began wiping the sides of the jar with his sleeve.
“No idea how close he came to falling in,” Robert muttered to Eliza.
“It was a calculated risk,” Granger said, “which paid off! Look!” He held up the jar, swirling it. Inside was a thick, clear liquid that sloshed against the sides of the glass.
“That’s more than we need,” Robert replied. “A lot more.”
“A bonus for Kai,” Granger replied. “Come on, let’s get out of here.” He turned and began walking toward the clearing.
Chapter Fifteen
Upon arriving at the small home in Menasha, Kai introduced everyone to his friend’s uncle, and they set to work. In the man’s back yard, a large metal fire bowl was arranged on a stand. It was the middle of a cold, clear night and the stars above were bright and distinct. Kai was removing ingredients from a leather bag and dropping them to the bowl. Over the course of the next hour, more items were added at precise intervals.
Eliza stood next to the fire bowl and watched as Uncle Tommy slowly stirred its contents with a long wooden paddle. Inside, several gallons of liquid were swirling, developing a milky look.
Kai moved between adding ingredients and tending the fire under it, adjusting things as the concoction developed.
“If you’re gonna customize it,” Uncle Tommy said, slowing his stirring, “you’d better do it now.”
“Right,” Kai replied, and reached for a small glass vial in his jacket. It looked empty, but he uncapped it anyway and dipped it into the swirling liquid, letting it fill.
“Dust from a Kanontsistontie,” he said, swishing the liquid around inside the vial and pouring it back into the bowl. “I only had the remnants of this vial, but it doesn’t take much. Adding the dust right now will tune the stones to react when they’re inside the buggers.”
“It’s like you’re programming them,” Robert said.
“In a way,” Kai replied.
“Keep your voices down,” Uncle Tommy said, continuing to stir. “I don’t want to wake the neighbors.” The liquid mixture began to thicken. “The fire. Put on the soaked wood, quickly, before it breaks apart.”
Kai placed the vial on the ground and knelt under the large fire bowl. He removed a small piece of wood from the Mason jar and placed it on the fire, which roared in reaction and turned an eerie color of green.
Eliza watched as Uncle Tommy continued to stir the liquid. It thickened, its interior turning the same green as the fire underneath, and slowly started to clump. As it changed from a liquid into a solid, it beaded up and broke apart, each piece becoming smaller and smaller as Uncle Tommy stirred. They looked like small pebbles.
“OK, now!” Uncle Tommy said. Kai doused the mixture with a bucket of water, and steam rose from the fire bowl, obscuring its contents.
When the steam finally stopped, the small pebbles she’d seen had become even smaller, and they hardened with a dark, black surface, now looking like tiny BBs. They made a gentle clinking sound as they rolled around inside the fire bowl, stirred by Uncle Tommy’s paddle.
A second bucket of water doused the flame under the fire bowl, and slowly Uncle Tommy stopped stirring, removing his paddle. Kai reached into the bowl and dipped his fingers into the stones.
Uncle Tommy placed his paddle on the ground and walked to where Kai was examining the stones in his palm. “Damn near perfect!” he said.
“Yeah,” Kai replied. “I guess I remember what my dad taught me.”
“What I taught your dad,” Uncle Tommy muttered, turning to walk back into the house.
“Here,” he said, handing a few to Eliza. She took them, expecting them to still be warm. They had lost all their heat.
“Fascinating,” she said, rolling them between her fingers. “They’re so small.”
“Larger than sand,” Granger said, examining his own handful, “but smaller than gunshot. Interesting.”
Uncle Tommy returned with small canvas bags and began to fill one with the stones, using a garden trowel. Robert helped by holding the bag open while Uncle Tommy filled it.
“Only got the one trowel?” Kai asked.
“Just the one,” Uncle Tommy replied. “It won’t take long. I figure you got five or six bags out of it.”
“How’s the body coming?” Kai asked.
“One thing at a time,” Uncle Tommy replied. “I’ll give him a call once we got these bags done.”
A small pile of stone-filled canvas bags began to form. Eliza lifted one of them. It was lighter than she expected.
When Uncle Tommy finished, he walked back inside. Kai and the others remained outside, examining the bags. “This should be plenty,” Kai said. “More than enough.”
“And each one of these little stones is a bomb, waiting to go off inside those things,” Granger said, handling one of the bags. “Can’t wait.”
“How do we get them into the body?” Robert asked.
“How do you think?” Kai replied.
Uncle Tommy returned. “There’s a problem. No body tonight. Maybe tomorrow. He’s not sure.”
“Tomorrow is the new moon,” Eliza said. “We can’t wait that long.”
“Don’t know what to tell you,” Uncle Tommy replied. “He can’t get a body tonight.”
“Who, exactly?” Robert asked.
“Friend of a friend,” Uncle Tommy replied. “Works at the morgue.”
“Great,” Granger replied. “Now what?”
“We’ll try tomorrow night,” Kai replied. “They’re not expecting the body until then, anyway. It would look suspicious if Eliza showed up before the last possible moment.”
“An
d if there’s no body available tomorrow?” Granger asked.
“We’ll just have to wait and see,” Kai replied. “I’m calling it a night. Let’s talk tomorrow afternoon and see how things stand.”
They said their goodbyes, Kai heading home west, and Robert’s car headed south. By the time they passed Ripon, the sun was rising in the east.
“Should we stop to check on Lee?” Eliza asked.
“Maybe we should,” Granger replied. “Although I’m dead tired and would like to get home.”
“What I prepaid with the front desk has run out,” Robert added. “They’re expecting him to check out this morning. We’d better make some kind of arrangements.”
They took a short detour to Ripon, stopping at the motel where Lee was staying. When they knocked on the door to his room, no answer came.
“Huh,” Granger said. “It’s early. Maybe he’s a heavy sleeper.”
Robert knocked again, but there was no sound from inside the room.
Eliza became worried. “I’m going to pick it.”
Granger looked up and down the row of motel room doors. “OK,” he replied. “No one’s out. Do it quickly.”
She removed her tools and knelt, sliding them into the door’s keyhole, working them to find the pins. After a minute she had it, and the door creaked open.
They slowly walked inside. The room was dark, except for the television, which was still on with the sound down low. Propped up in bed was Lee, the remote in his hand.
“Lee?” Granger asked. “You didn’t come to the door. Are you OK?”
“I’m gonna turn on the light,” Robert said, reaching for the switch. The overhead fixture illuminated as Eliza closed the door.
Lee’s eyes and mouth were open, but he didn’t move.
Robert walked to him. “Lee?” He waved his hand in front of the man’s face, but there was no reaction.
“I don’t think he’s breathing,” Granger said.
Robert reached for Lee’s arm, slipping the remote from his hand. He held Lee’s wrist, searching for a pulse.
“Oh, Lee!” Eliza said, sitting down in a chair at the base of the bed. “No!”
“No pulse,” Robert said. “I think he’s gone.” He lowered Lee’s hand and set it next to the man.
The Haunting of Waverly Hall Page 15
