by John Osborne
Now they’re all gone. My Nadia, her grandparents, all the workers. They stole away in the night and we’ve not heard of them since. We’ve nothing now. Only Armstrong.
Noah looked up from the book. Willow sat bolt upright, her hands clenched around the arms of the chair. Terror and rage masked her face, her features contorted in pain that shook her entire body.
I didn’t feel a thing! I would have stopped.
Noah laid the book down and knelt by the chair in front of her. Tenderly he reached for her face.
Focus came to Willow’s eyes as his hand approached her. Hatred flamed in their depths and she viciously swatted his hand. The arm of the chair broke in her other hand.
“Willow, sweetheart,” Noah said. “It’s me. It’s Noah.”
My touch will bring you back.
He reached for her again and she struck at him, but he clasped her little hand in both his and held it tight. It took all his strength to restrain her arm as he lowered his face to the hand and kissed it. Tension eased away from her arm and hand. He kissed it again and rubbed his cheek across it. She slumped in the chair as her face transfigured to the Willow he knew.
“Noah?” she whispered, bewildered.
“Willow, look at me.” He stroked her cheek.
She turned watery eyes to his. “What happened, Noah? I didn’t hurt you, did I? I’m sorry, oh Noah, my Noah.”
He leaned forward and took her in his arms. “No, I’m the one that’s sorry. I shouldn’t have read that to you.”
Willow pulled away and wiped her eyes. She shook her head. “No, you didn’t do anything wrong, Noah. You had no way of knowing.” She took his face in her hands and kissed him fiercely, and then laid her head on his shoulder. He held her until she calmed.
She spoke in her little voice. “I got snot on your jacket.”
They laughed, and Noah handed her his handkerchief.
“What happened, Willow?”
Her eyes shifted away and her face reddened.
Noah held up his hand. “This is a box thing, isn’t it?” Willow nodded. “Then forget I asked.” Noah stood, walked to the workbench, and returned the journal to its open slot on the shelves. He felt Willow’s hands on his waist. She pressed herself close against his back.
“I love you, sweet man.”
“I love you, Willow.”
Willow released him. “Are we finished down here? I’m hungry.”
“Leave it to a fairy not to miss mealtime. I want to take some pictures before we leave, if that’s okay. I cleverly left my camera at the foot of the ladder, so I’m going to run and get it.”
“Sure. I’ll wait here.”
Noah picked up his flashlight and left.
Wow. Another intriguing day with a fairy. They are challenging little souls.
“No, that’s not fair,” he whispered, lest the tunnel carry his voice to her sensitive ears. “I only know one, after all.” He reached the bottom of the ladder and leaned over to retrieve his camera.
Terror gripped him. At the same moment, Willow shrieked and called out his name. A splitting pain pierced his head. Then she was gone. He gasped and grabbed the ladder to steady himself.
Where are you?
Her presence, always there, had vanished. Only emptiness reigned where she lived in his heart. He leaned against the wall, panting for breath, until he regained control and ran down the tunnel, filled now with his own terror.
Twenty-Five
“Willow! Willow!”
Noah ran as fast as he dared. While he passed through the dark section, the door to the cave banged closed. It sprang open, but someone shut it again.
Faster, Noah!
“Willow!” Just as he reached the door, it sealed tight with a thud. He slammed himself against it, but too late. “Willow!” he called in frustration. The only sound was a familiar, mocking laugh.
He threw himself at the door, pounding his fists, kicking.
“Jones! If you do anything to her I’ll kill you with my bare hands!”
He stopped his futile assault on the heavy oak.
He’s already done something to her, Noah.
There was no sensation of her presence, even this close.
Think, Noah, think! You have to get in there. How are you going to do it? What do you need to do?
An image formed in his mind. He ran back up the tunnel. Once at the ladder, he hesitated.
You can do this. Willow needs you.
He visualized Willow’s sweet face and kept the image in his mind as he climbed the ladder.
Don’t slip.
He reached the top and climbed the narrow stair three steps at a time. In seconds, he was in the master suite. At a dead run he traversed the atrium balcony and passed down the service hall to the back stairs. The flights were short so he took them in one huge leap each, leaning on the banisters to fling himself down. Once on the first floor he ran to the back door, removed the wood beam used to bar it, and shouldered it like a rifle. He returned to the stairs, but paused at the bottom to catch his breath. Shadow barked outside.
His vision blurred and he grew unsteady on his feet. He dropped the beam to the floor and leaned against the wall, rubbing his eyes and gasping for breath.
Foggy … can’t think…
Something stirred deep in his consciousness. A far off voice seemed to whisper in his head, but without words.
Willow!
Faint, distant, but it was Willow. He began to weep. Her presence grew stronger by the moment. He concentrated, visualizing her in his arms, bringing comfort on himself and sending it to her.
The confusion cleared, replaced by affection for a short time, but then became sharp terror that abruptly transformed into fury. Noah focused calm on her.
Don’t do anything rash.
Pain reformed in Noah’s head. Jones must have knocked her unconscious.
“I wish I was there to hold you,” he whispered.
ME TOO.
Gooseflesh ran down Noah’s back. That had come from Willow, not as words exactly, but feelings and images that became her thoughts in his mind. He felt Willow’s surprise.
WHAT DID WE JUST DO?
I don’t know. Maybe that conk on the head did something to you.
No response.
“I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe that conk on the head did something to you.”
I HOPE IT KEEPS WORKING.
“It seems I have to say the words out loud for it to work. But you’re not, are you?”
NO.
“Sweetheart, stay still. Let Jones think you’re still knocked out.”
I HAVE BEEN. I’M NOT STUPID, YOU KNOW.
You must be okay.
JONES IS BEHIND ME. I HEAR HIM RUMMAGING ABOUT.
“Are you hurt badly?” The pain in Noah’s head doubled and redoubled; his vision blurred again.
WHAT DO YOU THINK?
The pain subsided and he sensed some remorse.
“Willow, I’m going to break down the door.”
I DON’T UNDERSTAND.
He visualized himself beating the door down with the wood beam. Willow sent a confusion of feelings, and then what seemed to be DON’T WASTE YOUR TIME. Nothing came for a few moments, and then everything went black and Noah slumped to the floor. He put his arms out to either side to brace himself. Eyes open or closed, all was darkness. An image formed, either in his mind or before his eyes.
He stood in a dim room with wood floor and walls. To his left a staircase led down. In front of him, an opening yawned wide in the floor, where a hatch stood open. The vision moved and he leaned over the opening. He could see a ladder and a long drop into nothingness. Noah cried out as he pitched forward into the chasm, his cry echoing down the shaft.
The image evaporated. Noah was on his hands and knees in the bright light of the stairwell, his face inches from the floor. He panted and sweated.
ARE YOU OKAY?
“Well, that was intense for a farm boy. What did it
mean?”
THINK ABOUT IT.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
THINK ABOUT IT!
Fairy impatience, loud and clear.
Noah thought about it while Willow’s frustration grew. The image was just a view of the big ladder from an odd angle, as if from inside the wall. Stair to the left, opening ahead…
No. That’s wrong.
The stairs in the passage went up from the ladder, but the stairs in the vision went down. Willow had shown him another entrance. His mind leapt to the night at the motel when she described the vision she experienced the night her parents died. Someone searching in a dark room, but which room? They had exhausted every possibility. Willow had sent him the same vision.
“The shed!” Noah said aloud. He formed his own mental image of the dark stairs at the shed.
YES!
Noah shouldered the wood beam again and left the house through the back door. Shadow greeted him on the porch, barking and indicating Noah should follow. He flipped his flashlight on and followed the dog down the southerly path toward the shed, slipping on the dewy ground.
HURRY!
“I’m coming, sweetheart!”
A second entrance made sense. The Jones men could go to the workers’ quarters at night via the back entrance, choose their victim for the night’s entertainment, and return later unseen. Judging by the length of the larger cave, the shed sat over its far end.
And Chester found it.
Shadow raced ahead of Noah but veered off to the left and stopped. The dog had intercepted Willow’s messages, too, and was probably over her location in the cave. Noah never slowed. Shadow barked once and followed.
The shed door was closed when Noah reached the building, but the lock had been broken. He tossed the beam aside and cautiously entered, ordering Shadow to stay outside. Jones was probably alone, but better to err on the safe side. He swept the interior with his flashlight, but saw nothing. When he flipped the light switch, the stairs and upper room remained dark.
Noah took the steps two at a time. He quickly located the closed hatch in the floor at the top of the stairs. There was no apparent way to open it. With his pocketknife, he pried up the edge, but snapped off the blade. Next to the gash his knife had made was a second, larger one. The hatch opened differently than in the vision, but the yawning darkness was the same. He knelt beside it and shined his flashlight down the shaft.
His heart sank when he saw a ladder identical to the one in the Big House. Again, the bottom vanished into darkness. The shaft could be ten feet tall or fifty. His stomach churned.
YOU CAN DO THIS, NOAH. I NEED YOU. HURRY!
“I know I can. I’m coming.”
Noah swung around backward and started down the ladder. One rung at a time, as before, except Willow wasn’t below to catch him. He clutched the ladder awkwardly, jockeying the flashlight.
YOU’RE MAKING ME SICK AT MY STOMACH.
His hands shook and sweat beaded his forehead.
Six.
Seven.
Eight.
Or is it eighteen?
The wet bottom of Noah’s shoe slid, just an inch, but too much. He grabbed for the ladder. The flashlight caught on a rung and slipped from his sweaty grasp. The beam danced about the shaft as the flashlight tumbled down. It impacted with a sound of breaking glass and the light went out.
Darkness.
Complete darkness.
Oh, Goddess, no.
WHAT HAPPENED?
No reference point, no light leaking into the shaft. No sound but his own breathing. No one to help.
Noah hooked an arm over a ladder rung.
He began to fall … and fall … and fall.
Reason and thought slipped away. His senses told him he was plummeting head first into a bottomless gulf. He turned his head this way and that, looking for some reference point, something to still his motion. Fear prevented him from reaching out for the wall. His limbs were stone, unable to move from the security of the ladder that now plunged him ever deeper into madness. His ears rang in the silence.
Willow’s alarm came into his mind.
Falling … endless falling.
In his mind, an image formed. Dimly he saw a circle, then a star, but distorted, smeared as if finger-painted on too wet paper.
Darkness returned. Willow came again, trying to comfort, but his terror pushed her away. Noah’s arms and legs ached. He lowered his head and crushed his cheek against the rough wood, falling faster and faster. Sound from nowhere roared in his ears.
A new image came: keys, many keys, for a fleeting instant. Then his mind blanked again. No end was near, no rescue.
I’ll let go.
He could release himself from the ladder, escape its cruel hold on him, push himself away from it. His anguish would end: death waited at the bottom of the shaft.
A tiny feeling began deep in his mind. The feeling grew stronger and stronger until he feared he would lose his grip on the ladder as it dominated his consciousness. He felt … remorse, resignation, and love. Regret and love. Longing and love.
She’s saying goodbye.
The emotional part of his psyche couldn’t process the idea of losing Willow. The tiny part of his reason that remained, however, seized the thought and amplified it a thousand times.
No! No! No!
Keys.
Noah’s keys were in his pants pocket: with a tiny flashlight. He hooked his left arm over the ladder rung and slid his right hand carefully down the ladder, maintaining an iron grip. Marshalling all his courage, he released his hold on the ladder and plunged his hand into his pocket. He found the keys and pulled them out. They tinkled loudly with his shaking. He moved his right arm to the rung where his left clung for life and held the keys with both hands in the darkness.
If I drop them…
Fumbling, he found the miniscule flashlight and switched it on.
Healing light filled the space around him. The shaft was silent. The walls were close by. He was upright and not falling. His body quivered from head to toe and sweat soaked his clothes, but he could see the ladder.
ARE YOU ALRIGHT?
“I think so. I’m not down the ladder yet. I dropped the flashlight and I guess I sort of freaked.”
SORT OF?
Noah laughed. “I’m coming.” Stiffly, he moved a foot to the next rung. The movement hurt, as if his whole body had cramped while he hung in mid-air.
One.
Two.
Three.
The next step was short and jarred his body when his foot touched stone. He ventured a glance down.
His ordeal had taken place three feet from the floor.
WHAT’S WRONG NOW?
You will never know.
“Nothing. I’m down.”
Noah stood in a small stone room with three sides. The fourth opened into a tunnel that sloped steeply down. He followed the passage and found himself in the large cave. The remains of the big flashlight lay at the bottom of the slope. The noise of its tumbling had made him think the shaft was much taller.
At the far side of the cave, he could see the light from the small room. While glad he had left the curtains open, that also had made it simple for Jones to find his way.
Noah removed his jacket, laid it on the cave floor, and made his way across the dark space. He kept the flashlight trained on his feet to lessen the chance of stumbling.
It was quiet; Jones had not discovered yet that Willow was conscious.
BE CAREFUL.
I wish I could answer.
Five minutes of stealthy movement brought Noah into position behind the curtain. The last fifty feet he had hazarded in complete darkness. He eased one eye to the gap between the wall and the curtain.
About ten feet away, on her back, Willow lay motionless on the floor. Blood was in her golden hair and on the floor. Noah’s throat and face burned.
His eyes flicked to Jones’s back where he stood at the workbench.
&n
bsp; Please give me an excuse to kill you.
Jones was reading a book lying open on the bench. He wore dark hunting clothes and boots. Various objects hung from a wide leather police-style belt, but Noah did not see a firearm. A black stocking cap lay on the bench next to a large hunting knife. His arm moved as he turned a page.
I’M GLAD YOU’RE HERE.
Noah sent Willow feelings of love and concern.
WE CAN TAKE HIM.
Noah answered with calm and patience.
I WISH I KNEW WHAT YOU ARE GOING TO DO.
Me too.
Jones was formidable. Six inches taller and fifty pounds heavier than Noah, he appeared to be in good physical condition despite being twenty years older.
My advantage is … well, nothing comes to mind.
No weapon was at hand, not even a flashlight. A rock from the cave floor wouldn’t be much help against sharp steel. Surprise would have to be his strength. Noah knew he had to act, but first, he needed to observe and formulate a plan.
Noah’s “observe and formulate” idea, however, did not take into account the presence of an impatient little fairy. Much to his chagrin, Willow moved her head and moaned as if returning to consciousness.
Jones was instantly aware and picked up the knife. Willow raised a hand to her head. It came away bloody. She moaned again and tried to sit up.
Jones laughed. “Careful, Willow,” he said. “You’ll make your pretty little head hurt worse.” He stood over Willow; she seemed to shrink in Noah’s eyes. She ignored Jones, rolled over to her hands and knees, and crawled to the bed. She lifted herself and sat on the edge, rubbing her head with one hand. Jones walked over to her, brandishing the knife. Willow kept her eyes on the shiny blade.
NOW I’M NOT IN THE WAY AND I CAN SEE WHAT YOU’RE DOING.
Well, I have to admit you did the right thing.
Noah had a profile view of Jones as he faced Willow. Jones held the knife in his left hand, a good thing to know.
“Feeling better?” Jones asked. “You look better. I was afraid I might have hit you too hard. Now my pretty little Willow is back.” He tried to brush her cheek with the back of his hand but she pulled away. Willow’s loathing exploded in Noah’s chest. Hate burned in her eyes.
