by Sara Clancy
Sparing a moment to pinch his cheeks like he was a child, she pulled him down and kissed his forehead again. He laughed at the sign of affection and said goodnight. However, he had forgotten to say it in Romanian, which left her playfully glaring at him until he got it right. Then she opened his door, reached in, and pressed a button next to the light switch. There was a small hiss and then a sudden gasp, and a fire crackled into life in the fireplace.
“How?” he asked, only to be cut off by her patting his cheek.
She closed the door and he was alone with only the light of the fire to see by. Given the temperature of the room, he came to the conclusion that there wasn’t any central heating. Trying to find a proper light switch meant risking that he might turn the heat off.
He headed to his bags, ready to change into his pajamas and curl up under the sheets. Mihail stopped and groaned aloud. I never went back for the other bags. They were still outside. All he had was his carry-on. At least that gave him his toiletry bag. So he brushed his teeth, washed his face, and got ready for bed. Just sleep in your boxers, his sleep deprived-mind pleaded. As much as he wanted to do that, it was far too cold for him to be able to get comfortable. And he still needed to get his bags anyway. At least it’ll give the room a chance to warm up.
This thought made it easier for him to snatch up his phone and map, and head back out. The gargoyles offered enough light to see, but the details of the map would have been lost without his phone’s flashlight. Checking and rechecking each turn, Mihail weaved his way through the house. Without Bunica nearby, none of it made any sense. He was always going up when he felt he should head down. And vice versa. Just when he was sure he was lost again, he was confronted with the large double doors. Flushed with victory, he jogged the last couple of steps.
He grabbed the giant metal ring and yanked. The door held solid. Another jerk and all he managed to do was make it rattle. He went to use both hands and winced when he heard the map begin to crinkle. Until he learned how to navigate this place, that map was his most precious possession. So he placed it a careful distance away and used the phone as a paperweight, the flashlight shooting up as a weak little beam. With both hands free, he managed to find and work the little latches that had locked the door in place. His fingers were reduced to chunks of ice long before he was able to get them all. But that was nothing compared to the arctic breeze that rushed in the moment he cracked the door open.
Shivering and swearing under his breath, he rushed out, grabbed his bags, ran back in, and slammed the door shut as fast as he could. Mihail breathed into his hands as he turned from the door. He froze when he saw it. The trail of wet footprints shone in the minimal light radiating from his phone. They started next to his own feet and continued into the room, tracing a singular path right to his map. They hadn’t been there before. He knew it with absolute certainty. It would have been impossible for him to have missed them when he put the map down.
Slowly, his eyes skirting around the massive foyer, Mihail inched towards his map. Shrouded in darkness, the area seemed bigger than it had been before. Each little groan suddenly sounded like someone shuffling through the shadows. The skin of his spine rose in goosebumps and he was sure he could feel someone watching him. No one stood by the map but the watery footprints that led to it and ended there. Raising a trembling hand, he positioned himself behind the last set of footprints and swung his arm out. Half of him had expected to feel something, anything, standing there that his eyes couldn’t see, but there was only empty air. Still, he swiped again, this time lower, as if to catch someone who was crouched down. Nothing.
It emboldened him enough to lunge forward. Snatching up his map and phone, he retreated to his bags before he felt safe enough to stop. All he wanted to do was get back to his room. Once he was warm again and had a fire to fight off the shadows, this would all make sense. Or so he told himself. Using the light of the phone, he scanned the room again. The small beam gouged into some of the darkness, but he still couldn’t see anyone. The tension in his stomach tightened as he realized he wouldn’t be able to check the map as often, not with the bags in tow.
The beam of light shook slightly as he scanned the room again. Only after he had proven to himself that he was alone did he point the light down onto the map, intent on memorizing the path. Gradually, a small point on the map began to darken, like water was seeping onto the page from the underside. It started the size of a pinprick but grew at a rapid pace. Just as quickly as it had started, it stopped, leaving one patch the size of a fingertip staining the sheet. Like someone had tapped it. The drop was in the exact spot he had thought the storage room had been.
Movement made him flinch a split second before something was dropped on the map. With a startled cry, he jumped back. The map slipped from his fingers as he pointed the light onto the ceiling. Dark shadows choked off the beam of the flashlight before it could climb halfway up the walls. He was struck by just how weak it was. That something could be hanging above him right now and he would never be able to see it. The sensation of being watched intensified until he could barely breathe through it.
Time passed. Long seconds stretched out with only the sound of his pounding heart to break the silence. He tried to reassure himself that it was okay. That this was all in his head. But he knew it wasn’t. Resolved to leave the bags where they were until the morning, he began to crouch down, reaching blindly for the map. A relieved sigh left him when his fingertips found the paper. He began to slide it back towards himself when he heard a rattle. Glancing down, he saw something glisten in the dim light. An emerald. A ring. The one that had clung to the weeds as he had dragged himself free of the lake. The same one that Draciana had taken off him. Mihail clutched the phone tight but left everything else behind as he sprinted back towards his room.
***
The halls loomed around Mihail, plated with silver light drenched in shadows. With every step, they seemed to twist and spin around him, rolling like a parlor trick in a carnival funhouse. It didn’t take long for this pattern to leave him lost once again. He stumbled down the hallways with no clear direction or plan. Every so often, he would check the phone in his hand. Hours had ticked by, but he still hadn’t come across anything that looked familiar. His eyelids felt like sandpaper, grinding against him with every blink. Every step came with a spike of pain, but he kept moving.
A small series of beeps cut the silence. It made a cold lump fill his stomach long before he had the courage to look at his phone. The battery signal in the corner had a small red bar. It flashed with the phone’s dying breaths. Soon, he wouldn’t have it to help keep the shadows at bay. He swallowed, his throat suddenly dry and sore, and hurriedly tried to close any open apps, doing what he could to conserve the battery. When he got to the photo app, his fingers stalled. There was a series of photographs he hadn’t taken.
The first was of the darkened ceiling. A view from the position he had placed it in to keep the map in place. He flicked to the next and it was the same. In the third, the sides of the beam of light had begun to twist slightly as shadows drew closer. There were three faces lurking on the edges of the light. They were distorted, skin sunken and jaws unhinged in harrowing screams. Mihail flicked through the photos at a rapid pace. The ghostly figures kept creeping closer, leaving more room in the edges for new faces to emerge. A few more photos and there were dozens of them. All clawing their way closer to the phone.
A hand fell on his shoulder and Mihail choked on his breath. He whirled around, expecting to find his grandmother, but the hall was empty. I felt it, he assured himself. It was a hand. A real hand. I felt it! He kept repeating this as he started walking again. A threat loomed at the edge of his mind. Promising that he would begin to doubt himself the moment he stopped the mantra. But it was different now. He had proof.
With a sharp whirl, the phone gave a final flash and clicked off. He was left in utter darkness and he felt the loss like a blow. Voices started to echo from the depths of the si
lver hallway. A thousand talking as one, but still saying nothing. Mihail snapped his head back and forth, trying to keep both ends of the hall in sight at once. He felt exposed. The skin on his back twitched, chilled, and flared with heat, as if his body were preparing itself for the next touch. Desperate to quell the sensation, he backed up and pressed his spine against one of the walls. The disembodied voices grew louder. He still couldn’t understand what they were saying. Couldn’t track the shadows.
As he turned, something lunged towards him from the platinum glare. He leaped back against the wall, twisting his head away. There was a clack, a whirl, and the wall opened up behind him. It sent him toppling into an open, cold space. He clenched his phone like a lifeline as his back smacked against the floor. The layer of dust he disrupted was so thick he could feel it moving. A stale, musky scent filled his nose as the dirt settled in his throat. It made him cough and hack. Rolling onto his side, he curled up slightly, trying to keep out the dust while forcing his lungs to do what they should.
By the time his senses cleared, the world had gone silent again. Glancing up, he looked around, trying to find his bearings. If there was a window in the room, it wasn’t offering any light into the space. His every breath bounced back, rolling with an echo that spoke of an empty room. Just get up and go find your room, he told himself. He only managed to complete half this task before he got distracted. The light coming in from behind him didn’t reach very far. But it was enough to light the base of a pedestal. Unlike every other thing in this building, the pedestal wasn’t decorated or fine. It was a simple, plain, block of wood. And it was that simplicity that held him captive. Unable to stop himself, he edged forward. There was something sitting atop the wood, holding a place of pride in this empty, hidden room.
He had to squint into the shadows to spot it. And when he did, he reeled back a step. There was a face. White and chipped with wide unblinking eyes. As his heart picked up its pace until he was sure it would fail, he studied the face. It was both terrifying and a relief to find that it wasn’t like the ones that had intruded into his photographs. It was a doll’s face. Or at least had the properties of one.
With this discovery, he inched closer still. It became clearer as he did. A Russian nesting doll. The kind made of wood, with a smaller one fitting into another, that then fitted into another.
His fingers shook as he reached out to touch it, unsure of why he would want to. But it was as if it were pulling him. He needed to. It was heavy, thick, and almost the size of a cat. He rolled it in his hands, listening to the others rolling around inside it.
A sudden scream made him flinch. The doll was flung from his hands. Mihail fumbled and crouched. Without thought, he fled from the strange room, carving a path he hoped would lead back to his room with the strange doll clutched protectively to his chest.
Chapter 4
Firelight chased the shadows across the walls, too weak to destroy them or diminish the stifling cold that had penetrated the room. Mihail sat in silence, his back against the wall and legs sprawled, shivering as his sweat cooled against his skin. He had no idea how he had found his way back to his bedroom and he didn’t care. Instead, he just stared into the distance, desperately trying not to think. Because each time he did, his brain was drenched with a single certainty. Ghosts are real.
The knowledge hollowed him out until he could feel an icy breeze drifting over his bones. Ghosts exist and this castle is haunted. It didn’t matter how many times the thought bubbled unbidden into his awareness; it still didn’t make any sense. It couldn’t. Because if it did, then everything else would be thrown into question. All the notions he had put aside as childish fears could be real. The monster under his bed. The creature lurking in his wardrobe. The demons scraping at his window during a raging storm. If ghosts were real, his entire world would tilt under his feet, and he wasn’t certain he would be able to steady it again.
His fingers were painfully numb as he reached into his pocket and found his lucky button. The familiar weight was like an anchor to his turbulent mind, steadying him and allowing him to breathe a little easier. He became aware of his limbs again even as they remained thick and heavy. Squeezing the button tight, he drew enough courage to speak the words aloud.
“I was attacked by a ghost. More than one.”
A sudden pop made him flinch, his gaze snapping towards the fireplace to watch the crackling log spew a gust of sparking embers up the chimney. As he relaxed again, the Russian nesting doll in his arms rattled. He had completely forgotten that he had brought it back with him, let alone that he was still clutching it to his chest tightly enough to make his ribs throb. Curious, he tilted the doll back to examine it, but the light was too dim and he couldn’t make anything out in detail.
Bracing his hand against the door made the metal button dig into his palm. His knees threatened to buckle as he stood up and staggered towards the fireplace. It was as if he had sprinted for miles and was now paying the price. A soft sigh escaped him as he ventured into the small ring of warmth emitted by the fire. He sunk down before the flames, his mind clearing as the heat seeped into his bones, and finally got his first decent look at the doll.
Instead of displaying a whole person as he had first thought, the entire surface was consumed by a single face. Shadows welled in the nest of cracks and chips. The damage was deep enough that specks of paint dislodged and drifted down onto his lap with the slightest touch. Turning the doll back and forth, he realized that it was a woman’s face, her features distorted and bloated as if she had begun to rot. Her eyes were closed, her mouth gaping, her hair swirling around her as if she were suspended in water. Mihail’s stomach churned at the disgusting sight, but he couldn’t understand why Bunica Draciana would keep it in a hidden room. Or more importantly, why she would keep it at all.
The ghosts wanted me to find this, he thought as he turned it over again, feeling the paint flecks covering his palms like dirt. But why? Cradling it between his hands, Mihail noticed its weight for the first time. It seemed to be constructed from thin wood and shouldn’t have weighed as much as an infant. Maybe something important is inside. It could be what all the ghosts want. That’s how this goes, right? They can’t rest until they complete their unfinished business.
With some closer study, he found the seam that kept the two sides together. Cupping one hand over the top of the doll, and the other against the base, he started twisting. The connecting ends stubbornly held tight, keeping the doll sealed and forcing him to adjust his grip and try again. Eventually, he set his hands along the edges of the seam itself and yanked.
Pain exploded across his left palm. He cried out, the doll tumbling, forgotten from his fingers as he protectively clenched his hand to his chest. Breathing through the searing agony, he felt steaming droplets of blood well against his skin and trickle through his fingers. Cursing under his breath, he surged to his feet and rushed to the bathroom, careful not to look at the trail of blood he was leaving across the tiles. He turned on the faucet and shoved his hand under the stream. Clenching his teeth against new waves of pain, he gingerly peeled back his fingers to let the water clean the wound.
Breathing deep, he forced himself to look. The shadows didn’t spare him the sight of crimson water sloshing down the drain, and his stomach heaved. Swallowing thickly, he forced himself to glance down again. A long gash severed the base of his palm. It was raw but as thin and precise as a knife blade. The struggle not to vomit made it slightly easier to remember what he was supposed to do. After cleaning the wound, he wrapped a hand-towel around his palm and clenched tight. Do you need a tetanus shot for wood? The question lingered in his mind as he carefully cradled his hand protectively to his chest and turned back to the doll.
The firelight glistened off of the thin trace of silver that ran along the now visible edges of the nesting doll. Despite the age and wear that had weathered every other inch of it, the metal was polished to a high sheen, marred only by the crimson droplets of his blood.
The two sides of the doll had scattered, leaving the inner doll to roll across the floor. Inching closer, he stared at the smaller figure. It looked like it was made of bog marsh, rotten brown and moist, like it would squish under the slightest pressure.
Mihail’s morbid curiosity drew him closer. He couldn’t stop staring at it and the dirt that was dripping from its surface. With a burst of frenzied movement, he threw himself onto the floor and began to shove the items back together. Already soaked through, the hand-towel left a smear of his blood on everything he touched. His fingers trembled as he struggled to close the doll without trapping his fingers inside. Finally, he heard a sharp click, and it was whole once more. Bile burned the back of his throat as he saw the blood covered face in its entirety. He was suddenly hit with the strongest urge to throw it into the flames. Instead, he placed it on a chair by the fire and backed away as if it were a live rattlesnake.
It stared at him with bright red eyes and a malicious sneer. Mihail crawled onto his bed, trying to understand. It had a different expression, a voice whispered in the back of his skull. But that made no sense. Nothing made sense anymore. He was suddenly struck with an unrelenting fatigue, as if every other part of his mind had switched off, revolting against the very notion of thinking about the doll. His limbs turned to stone and dumped him against the mattress. His eyelids drooped and ice seemed to creep across his flesh. He couldn’t take it anymore. Not tonight. It was all too much. The idle notion passed through his mind that maybe the world would click back into place if he could just sleep. Static filled his head.
