The Vanishing

by Wendy Webb

  “It’s one of the reasons for the dogs,” Drew said. “They were first brought to Havenwood in Andrew’s day to defend against this thing after the first séance. And their descendants continue in that role to this day.”

  I thought about the night of the blackout, how those three magnificent animals stood between me and what I thought was Mrs. Sinclair. And how they came to my room those nights when I was frightened.

  “Remember, Julia, that first day?” Adrian said. “I told you there was nothing in here that would harm you with those dogs by your side.”

  I nodded. He didn’t mean just wolves and bears. He meant Gideon. But then something else occurred to me. “Why does this thing have a name?” I asked.

  “Andrew first coined it,” Drew said, a slight smile on his lips. “He had boarded up the east salon after that first séance, forbidding anyone to enter. His son kept asking why. Finally, he told the boy that Gideon needed to be left alone.”

  “And the name stuck,” I said. “Havenwood’s own private bogeyman.”

  He nodded. “I suppose.”

  Adrian stood and looked out the window. “We stirred it all up again by opening the room and conducting that infernal séance ten years ago.” He sighed deeply. “After that night and everything that happened, we closed the room again, just as Andrew had done more than a century before. And truthfully, for years we thought it was gone. But it seemed that when you came back to Havenwood…”

  “You have reawakened it,” Mrs. Sinclair finished his thought.

  “Well, it’s time we put it back to sleep,” I said, looking at each of them in turn. “And in order to do that, I need to know as much about this thing as possible.”

  Adrian furrowed his brow. “Don’t you think you’ve had enough of this for a while?” he said. “We’ve got the room closed up again—it’s not like we have to do anything now.”

  I shook my head. “No,” I said. “I’m tired of waiting. It seems like that’s all I’ve done since I got to Havenwood—you’d start this story, and then something would happen to delay it. You’d tell me it would keep until another time. The way I see it, the time is now.”

  I wished I had known about what had happened during Seraphina’s séance when I first came to Havenwood all those years ago. I wouldn’t have conducted a séance of my own. And I certainly wouldn’t have opened the box. But what was done was done. The only thing left now was to undo it.

  I began by doing some research in the old occult books in the library. I wanted to learn as much as I could about this spirit, or whatever it was, in order to know how to deal with it. I didn’t want to spend much time in that room, so I hurriedly collected several volumes on the occult and took them into the west salon to study, putting as much distance as I could between me and the room where it all began.

  I learned Devil’s Toy Boxes trap spirits, and not benevolent ones. Something about the mirrors attracts them, or so say occultists. Maybe I could get it to go back into the box, I thought. But Mrs. Sinclair dashed that hope.

  “I’m afraid Adrian destroyed the box, soon after that night,” she told me. “He took a hatchet to it and cut it to smithereens.”

  So that was it, then. None of us wanted to bring yet another of the boxes into the house, so we were back at square one. I sat at my table in the west salon, all the books on the occult open, trying to think of the best way to proceed, when suddenly the thought hit me: a séance had summoned this thing into our lives, and a séance was the only way to banish it.

  I walked from window to window, door to door, archway to archway in the library and east salon, anointing them all with olive oil, whispering prayers under my breath, carrying a stick of smoldering sage. It was an ancient technique, as old as time, that my mother and grandmother had taught me, and, presumably, Seraphina had taught her own daughter. That’s how secret knowledge is passed down. I might have forgotten a whole block of time in my life, but not this.

  Women with gifts such as ours, women who could see the dead, need protection from the dark side. And what was happening at Havenwood was as dark as it got, conjuring up images from the most horrific night of my life.

  Mrs. Sinclair, Drew, Adrian, and I gathered around the table in the east salon after I had anointed the doors and windows with oil and smudged the entire room with sage. The table was covered with candles, alongside crucifixes and Stars of David. A smiling Buddha sat in one corner. Overkill? Maybe. But I wasn’t taking any chances.

  “Let’s join hands,” I said reaching out for Drew’s and Mrs. Sinclair’s. Everyone closed their eyes, and I took a deep breath. Here we go, I thought.

  “In the name of God the Father Almighty, I command you, evil spirit, to leave this room,” I said, speaking words I had learned in one of the books describing how to banish evil. “In His name I take authority over you and order you to go away from this place, never to return.”

  Nothing.

  I repeated what I had said, louder this time. “In the name of God the Father Almighty, and in the names of all who have come before me, I command you, evil spirit, to leave this room. I take authority over you and order you to go away from this place—”

  And then the rumbling started. The growling. Knocking on the windows, on the doors. A glass windowpane shattered, sending shards everywhere. And then the thudding began—loud, piercing sounds coming from the library.

  Everyone’s eyes shot open, nearly at the same time. We stood and hurried through the doorway to find books flying off the shelves and hurling themselves across the room, smashing into walls and through windows.

  “Not the first editions shelf!” Mrs. Sinclair cried, draping herself over it and shielding her prized possessions with her body as the precious volumes slammed into her torso. “This old girl can take a few hits to save a first edition Hemingway!”

  “I call you by your name, Gideon!” I bellowed, louder than I ever thought was possible. “You’re not listening to me. I said: I command you, evil spirit, to leave this room. I take authority over you and order you to go away from this place back from whence you came.”

  It was in front of me, then, the demon, first a shroud of black with no face, then morphing from one disguise to another: Audra, Mrs. Sinclair, Marion, even Drew and Adrian, their faces distorted and ghoulish.

  “Sing a song of sixpence,” came a low growl.

  “I command you in the name of God to leave this room!”

  “A pocket full of rye…”

  A pocket! I remembered what I had stashed in mine. A crucifix and a Star of David, together on a chain. It had been given to me by my mother. I held it out before me. “You are not welcome here. I order you by all that’s holy to leave.”

  At this, the house started shaking at its foundations. Paintings flew off the walls, tables and chairs toppled, the fire in the library’s fireplace raged. I felt strong hands on my chest pushing me backward until I collided with the opposite wall.

  I took a deep breath and bellowed with the voice of a thousand generations: “Gideon, I banish you from this house! Leave this place and never return!”

  And then silence. All was still.

  FORTY-FOUR

  Havenwood, early spring

  Spring was flirting with the Northland. The sun was rising high in the sky and the snow was melting, the animals poking their noses out of their dens for the first time in months. And all was well in the castle in the wilderness.

  Gideon hadn’t returned to Havenwood. As far as we knew, I really did banish him that night. After it was over, the four of us, along with Marion and the staff, started the long process of cleaning up the library and east salon, placing the books back on the bookshelves, righting the tables, fixing the windows, and hanging the paintings back on the walls. It took weeks, but we finally got it done.

  We didn’t talk much about that night, not for a while. I was shaky and fragile, dealing with the onslaught of memories I had repressed for a decade. I was keeping those memories a touch removed, jus
t a hairsbreadth from my reality. They were a lot to take in. And although Mrs. Sinclair, Adrian, and Drew offered to fill me in on everything else that they knew and I didn’t, I chose to wait until I felt strong enough to hear whatever they had to tell me.

  So I took some time for myself. Drew and I rode the horses every day, horses I now remembered from my first trip to Havenwood. Oftentimes, Mrs. Sinclair would join us. I was becoming a horsewoman, and while I wouldn’t use “accomplished” as an adjective, I was at least average. I loved Nelly’s gentle soul. She was a good antidote to the horrors that I couldn’t get out of my head.

  The dogs were my constant companions, sensing, I believe, that they had to shore me up. I spent many hours reading alone in my room in front of the fire, the dogs snoring softly by my side. I was growing to love the sound of their breathing, so hypnotic, so restful. I wasn’t sure if these were the same dogs that had tried to help us during the séance—that horrible night had been a decade ago and I wasn’t sure how old these dogs were—but they were just as protective. Malamutes had always had a strong presence at Havenwood, and likely always would.

  I was staying. After all the horror I’d been through, all the sadness I’d endured, and all that I’d pieced together about the dark parts of my life, in the end, I realized these people were the closest thing to family that I had. I didn’t want the new life and new identity Adrian had offered me. I wanted to remain at Havenwood, with its spirits floating through the hallways, protective dogs, and an eccentric writer. I’d be safe from the rest of the world. My ever-growing relationship with Drew cemented the decision.

  I’d learned that he and I did fall in love when I was at Havenwood the first time. That explained my familiarity with him, how close I felt despite having just met him. We didn’t spend a day, or night, apart. I wasn’t going anywhere, not while he wanted me to stay.

  The only lingering question was answered one late spring day. While the four of us were sitting on the patio soaking up the newly strong sun, we saw a car driving slowly down the road. It pulled into our driveway and stopped. A young woman emerged.

  Adrian pushed himself up from his chair, but his knees buckled and he nearly fell to the ground as she walked up the patio stairs.

  “I had to come and see it for myself,” she said. “I remember bits and pieces.”

  “You’re the image of your mother,” he said, his words splintering into tiny shards.

  “She forbade me to come,” she said, her green eyes shining, so like those of her grandmother. “But I was here before, once, over the winter. I looked in the windows but was too afraid to come in.”

  Drew and I shared a glance. So that was who was in the window. Not a man at all.

  “We’re very glad you’re here now,” Adrian said, his eyes shining with tears. “My darling Audra. Welcome home to Havenwood.”

  As I watched father and daughter fall into each other’s arms after so many years, with grandmother looking on with tears streaming down her face, I backed away, not wanting to intrude on the reunion I knew was the silent dream in Adrian’s heart.

  Drew slid his hand into mine. “Fancy a horseback ride?” I knew he wanted to give the Sinclairs some privacy as well.

  I cast my eyes out into the wilderness, the pine trees bright green with a layer of new growth.

  “Why not, Andrew McCullough,” I said to him as we headed off toward the stable. “Why not?”

  EPILOGUE

  Havenwood, late autumn

  It was the scratching that awakened me, a sound like a dry and brittle branch hitting a windowpane. At first, it worked its way into my dreams as a gnarled finger on an even more gnarled hand tapping on the headboard of my bed, but as I slowly awakened from that rather unsettling image, drifting up from the depths of sleep, I realized it was real scratching I heard. I shook my head and opened my heavy eyelids. What greeted me, I will never forget.

  I was lying in the bedroom I now shared with Drew in the main house. The full moon shone in through the window, illuminating the darkness with a soft glow. But… where were the curtains? Had I not drawn them before crawling into bed? No matter, I thought and rolled onto my side, reaching for Drew. He was not beside me. When my hand alit on the space where his sleeping form should have been, I sat up with a start.

  It wasn’t his absence that startled me so; he oftentimes wandered at night. It was the feel of the bedspread. Dusty, damp, and gritty, as though it had been dragged on the cold ground. I reached for the bedside lamp, but felt nothing but the chill night air. The lamp was gone. What in the world…?

  I looked around the room and slowly came to the realization that it was not the same room I had fallen asleep in just a few hours earlier. Not really. I noticed the wallpaper was peeling off the walls, even hanging in great strips in spots. The windows were bare, some of them cracked, their curtains lying in a heap below them. The fireplace was empty, no softly glowing embers from the fire Marion had lit earlier, no wood at all. Our headboard was covered with dust. I was trying to reconcile what I was seeing with what my mind knew to be true—that wallpaper can’t be peeling, can it? Why are the curtains on the floor?—when I heard it again. The scratching, just behind my head. But this time, I knew it was the scuttling of tiny feet. Claws. I jumped out of bed and my feet hit the cold, bare floor—where was the rug?—and I was out the door and into the hallway like a shot.

  “Drew!” I called into the darkness as I hurried down the hallway, my voice a high screech. “Drew! Where are you?”

  I reached the grand staircase and gasped aloud as I saw the threadbare carpeting under my feet. The stairway was in complete disrepair—the stairs themselves had crumbled and splintered, and I had to be careful to find a sturdy spot on each one as I descended. This didn’t make any sense. I had just seen Marion vacuuming these stairs only hours earlier!

  “Mrs. Sinclair?” I shouted. “Adrian? Is anyone here?” There was no response, only a deathly silence.

  I passed through the foyer to the living room. The couch was draped with a sheet, the walls were bare—their paintings nowhere that I could see. Most of the furniture was gone as well. The movement of the curtains blowing in the breeze shifted my attention to the windows, which were cracked and open like the ones in my room. A nest had been built in the fireplace, and I could see eyes, shining at me through the dark.

  A chill worked its way up my spine as I hurried toward the front door. That, too, was gaping open. What had happened here? What was going on? I ran outside, intending to look for Drew in the stable, but I stopped dead when I saw it—just an old, rickety barn tilting dangerously to one side, some of its wooden slats having fallen off long ago. I stood in the moonlit night, staring at Havenwood—most of its windows broken, its facade crumbling, the whole place emanating a deep and utter darkness that I still cannot fully describe—and in that moment, I knew. Nothing was alive here, and hadn’t been for a very, very long time.

  The terror of that realization wrapped itself around me and began to tighten, my heart beating faster with each breath. I stepped back slowly, wanting to turn and run, to be anywhere away from this house. I turned my gaze toward the woods and shivered. Could I make it to town in my bare feet and nightdress? I considered it, but then another thought hit me. Would town even be there when I arrived?

  I sunk down onto the cold ground, not knowing what else to do. I clutched a handful of dirt, wanting to feel something solid and real between my fingers. I might have sat there that way all night, if I hadn’t heard it. Softly at first, and then louder. Bagpipes.

  That did it. I sprang up and ran toward the only place I could go—the dilapidated, crumbling, empty shell of what had once been the most magnificent home I had ever seen. Just before reaching the house, I tripped and fell to the ground with a thud, my knee landing square on a rock. I’ll think about the pain later, I thought, scrambling to my feet and hurrying up the patio steps inside. I slammed the door behind me (a lot of good that would do considering all the broken w
indows) and made my way through the darkness up the stairs to my room. I had no idea what had happened to Havenwood or where Drew and the Sinclairs were, but I knew one thing: I needed to get out of here. I would dress and sit inside until the sun came up. Then I’d start walking. The town might not be there, but something would. Certainly the whole world hadn’t been turned into a deserted ghost town.

  Once inside my room, I opened the door to my closet… but found it empty. Not even a hanger. Where were my clothes? Where was anything?

  I wrapped my arms around me and sunk to the floor in a corner of the room. I rested my head on the back of the wall and closed my eyes.

  When I opened them again, I was next to Drew in our beautiful bed, safe and warm. I looked around the room slowly, almost afraid to breathe. All was as it should be. Curtains were drawn over the windows. The lamp was on the bedside table, along with my water glass. The wallpaper was hung perfectly. I exhaled.

  Drew opened his eyes and smiled. “Morning, my love.”

  “Hey.”

  “Sleep well?”

  “I had a crazy dream,” I said, snuggling closer. “Havenwood was deserted. Like a haunted house. It seemed so real.”

  Drew draped an arm around me. “What is it that Edgar Allan Poe said?” he asked. “ ‘All that we see or seem / Is but a dream within a dream.’ ”

  “Well, if this is a dream, I don’t want to wake up from it,” I said, kissing him.

  It was only later, as I got in the shower before getting ready for breakfast, that I noticed it. My knee was red and swollen. The same knee I had hurt in my dream.

  As the water washed over me, I let it wash away any thoughts of the night before. Put it out of your mind, I told myself. The day was beginning at Havenwood. The love of my life was in the next room waiting for me to go down to breakfast. And that was all I really needed to know.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Writing this book was such a joy. I had a lot of fun coming up with all of the twists and turns. I fell deeply in love with Andrew McCullough, I wished I could live at Havenwood (even with its ghosts), and I adored Amaris Sinclair most of all. I think she’s my favorite character in any of my books so far. I had a great time writing The Vanishing, and I hope you had a great time reading it.