Aftersight

by Brian Mercer

  "Tyson!" Nicole said angrily. "You purposely snuck up on us."

  "Tyson, you dork." I picked up the flashlight and pointed it into his face, "I ought to kick your butt."

  "I bet you could do it, too," he replied. "What's goin' on?"

  "We thought we heard somethin'," Nicole said, "on the far side of the basement."

  As if to prove us right, there was another noise from that direction, like the whisper of falling papers.

  Tyson's face grew serious. He took the flashlight from Nicole. "Come on," he whispered, "let's take a look."

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Becky

  Lord Humphreys' Residence, East Barnet

  12:54 a.m.

  I yawned and stretched. I'd discovered an afghan at the foot of Emily's bed and had wrapped it around my shoulders as a barrier against the cold. It was nearing one in the morning and I was thinking of my cozy bed back at Waltham. If I hoped to stay awake all night, I was going to need some of the coffee that Archie brewed in his attic hideaway. I hoped it was hot.

  I was about to go upstairs when I heard a faint growl. I thought at first that someone had cleared their throat, but then it repeated. It had to be a dog. And, as deep as the growl was, a big dog.

  I perceived someone or something standing in the doorway. It wasn't a dog. It seemed to fill the entire doorframe. I didn't see it so much as hear it, like the subtle shift of weight from one foot to the other, the faint rustle of clothes, material brushing material.

  I froze, listening with all my being. My eyes were locked on the open doorway. Whatever I was looking at seemed to be looking back at me.

  There was movement, the creak of floorboards, the shifting of weight on the rutted hardwood, then finally the unmistakable tap of footsteps moving through the dark. Tap, tap, tap, quietly, slowly, heading toward me.

  I pushed back into my chair, grasping the seat with both hands. I tried to call out but the only sound that came out was a long, continued release of air. The footsteps had come to a stop only inches in front of me. I heard what sounded like the ripple of breath, what could have been someone swallowing, and then — whatever it was — kissed me.

  I felt lips on mine, cold and rough and dry, like parched and crumbling leaves. Then something pushed into my mouth, wet and rancid and just as cold. It was oily and bitter, filling me with a sharp and biting taste like a stinky cheese.

  I recoiled, pushing the chair over and pressing myself back against the wall. I spit out the terrible aftertaste, retching drily, until Emily woke up. "Becky, are you all right?"

  "No, I'm not. Emily, that thing... those boys... those boys that have been bothering you. Have they... have they touched you in ways they're not supposed to? Are they molesting you?"

  Emily didn't answer me. I could see just enough in the dark to make out Emily look down, shamefaced.

  "Is it true? Have they been touching you? Doing things to you?"

  "Shhh. Quiet. Somebody will hear you. My father will hear you."

  "Emily," I whispered, remembering the cameras and recorders. "Emily, you've got to tell someone about this. You've got to let your father know what they're doing."

  "No. No. Leave me alone."

  "You can't just let them abuse you like this."

  "I thought you were my friend," she said, still whispering. "You said you were my friend. Becky, please don't tell anyone, please."

  When I didn't answer her, Emily's raspy pleas grew more desperate until I couldn't take it anymore. I sat on the bed beside her, holding her tightly.

  "Please, Becky. Promise me you won't tell anyone. Promise me."

  "How can I do that?"

  "Please, you said you were my friend. Please, let this be our little secret. Please..."

  "Okay." I was breathing hard, my heart pounding as if I'd just sprinted up several flights of stairs. "Okay. But this isn't the end of it. We're going to talk about it more. But, for now, I won't say anything. I promise."

  A scream filled the house, piercing and directionless.

  That was Cali!

  "Emily, go into your mom and dad's room right now. Wait for me there."

  "But I—"

  "Do it. Now!"

  I didn't wait to see if Emily did what I told her. I was on my feet and in the hallway, my shoes hardly touching the stairs. The ground floor was empty, so I moved on toward the basement, where flashlight beams bobbed and glinted in the dark. Someone had snapped on the lights by the time I'd reached the cellar floor. Nicole, Tyson, Thomas, and Sir Alex were huddled around a trembling Cali, who had pressed herself into a nook along the side of the room and wouldn't come out. She was curled into a fetal position and the part of her face that wasn't covered with her arms was a pale shade of marble.

  "What happened?" I asked Nicole.

  "Dunno. Ty and I were investigatin' a noise back there when we heard her scream and found her like this."

  "What the blazes is going on down here?" Lord Humphreys bellowed, his fat, swollen feet thumping one after the next down the rutted cellar steps. His face was flushed from the combination of anger and physical exertion. He glanced at everyone but before anyone had a chance to answer him he shouted, "I want all of you out of here, now! This instant! Sir Alex, please withdraw your students at once. And Banks. Banks! I want every trace of you and your team erased from this residence by dawn. Leave, all of you, and never return. And I swear to all of you now, if the press gets even a whiff of this, I will sue all of you until your noses bleed and all your hair falls out! Now everyone! Go! Immediately!"

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Becky

  Dukes Hotel, Central London

  May 7

  I rolled over in a half-sleep, trying to let go of waking reality and sink fully into oblivion. Again and again my inner voice repeated, Becky, please come back! Don't leave me alone! I need your help, Becky. I need you!, until it became an unthinking mantra, competing with my willful attempts to go back to sleep.

  I breathed deeply, remembering my training at Waltham. Gradually my awareness centered and with it my mind grew quiet. The cycle of air moving in and out of my lungs settled me into a half-sleep that was partly conscious thought and partly wakeful dreaming. Startlingly crisp images appeared before my closed eyelids. Tyson's rugged features materialized from the blackness, the stubble from his day-old beard appearing disheveled and rough-hewn. His image made me feel both safe and vulnerable at the same time, as if he might drive away anything that could harm me, only so that he might hurt me himself.

  His face gradually changed to the five-year-old boy I'd glimpsed during my meditation with Jean Paul. It was little Peter who I knew now had been my only love when I had been little Anna in a lifetime long-forgotten. I could see something of Jean Paul's features in little Peter, although they looked nothing alike. The more I concentrated, the more little Peter really was Jean Paul, even if I couldn't pinpoint the exact moment his face had transformed. There was a hole in him, something I couldn't quite grasp.

  Now my oil painting, Innocence Accused. The girls, the witches, shaved and humiliated, forced to show their hands lest they gesture some terrible curse into the gallery of onlookers. I am one of these girls. These are my friends!

  Not just friends. Sister! My sister!

  The girl before me now looked healthy and pink: her eyes large dials, blue as the sea; long hair threads of sunlit gold. Cross-legged she sat at the edge of the glade, talking to the air, spirits like flitting butterflies, visible to her even then, whispering secrets, hers to direct.

  Nicole! My sister. My beloved sister!

  The terrible stone, thudding into her skull, her hair consumed now, her face plasters of mud, the soiled shift clinging to her half-naked form, blood the only color in that dim dark hole. Blood and unfathomable pain, icy muck pushing down over us, heavy in my lungs, blotting out all things.

  Nicole, my sweet little sister. I failed you! How I failed you!

  Somewhere beyond reasoning a telepho
ne rang. It was a foreign sound, not the chime of phone calls that I remembered from growing up in Connecticut but something distinctly European. My unconscious mind didn't know how to classify it, so painted it into my dreams as the jingle of sleigh bells.

  "Becky, the front desk is callin' for you."

  "What? What is it?"

  "The front desk is callin' for you," Nicole repeated.

  I raised my head and opened my eyes. Grey light seeped in through the seam in the curtains. There was Nicole, whole and sound again. Relief flooded through me.

  "What time is it?"

  "Ten-thirty."

  I examined the bed. Sara was gone.

  I stood and followed Nicole into the relatively bright sitting room. Sara was seated at the table, writing; Cali was curled into a ball at one end of the sofa, gazing unblinkingly through the balcony's glass doors and into the grey storm clouds beyond.

  I shuffled to the counter where the phone sat and picked up the receiver. "Hello?"

  "Miss Reynalds?"

  "Yes."

  "There is a Mr. Allard here to see you."

  "Who?"

  "A Mr. Tyson Allard."

  My heart increased tempo. I was suddenly awake. "May I speak to him?"

  "He's right here. I'll put him on."

  "Becky?"

  "Tyson? What are you doing here?"

  "I need to talk to you. Right away. It's important. Can you come down?"

  "Uh, I'm not even dressed. Can you come up?"

  "I need to talk to you in private."

  "We can talk here."

  "What's going on?" Sara asked. I waved her to silence.

  "Come up here in a half-hour."

  "A half hour? No, it's gotta be right away."

  "Okay," I relented, "ten minutes then."

  "Ten minutes?"

  "I'll see you then," I added, hanging up the phone before he could say another word.

  "Tyson's coming up in ten minutes," I announced and the girls scattered to get dressed, all but Cali, who remained motionless on the sofa. Fully-clothed, I was still clipping my hair back into a ponytail when Tyson rapped at the door ten minutes later. He walked in looking rumpled and unshaven, wearing the same clothes as the night before.

  "Hi, Tyson," we all said in unison, all but Cali.

  "Howdy. How's everyone doin'?"

  "All right."

  "Okay."

  "How's Cali?"

  "I'm okay," she answered. Still on the sofa in her robe, she looked over at Tyson, moving for the first time since I'd woken up.

  "Becky, we need to talk in private," he said.

  "Anything you say to me, you can say in front of the girls."

  "Really, I don't think—"

  "Spit it out, Tyson. What's on your mind?"

  "Okay." He looked down at the ground and scratched the back of his head. "I've been up all night watchin' the video and audio feed from Emily's room."

  I understood now. Our conversation. Emily's admission. My oath of silence.

  "I know all about what these spirits have been doin' to Emily," he went on. "I know about the promises you made."

  "Oh, no," I said, slumping into a chair and closing my eyes.

  "What promises?" Sara demanded. "What are the spirits doing to Emily?"

  I locked eyes with Tyson but made no moves to silence him.

  "They're takin' advantage of her," he revealed. "Touchin' her 'n such."

  "Oh, that's terrible," Nicole said, shaking her head.

  Cali turned to face me, fully present now. "You knew about this and didn't say anything?"

  "Emily made me promise to keep quiet," I explained. "I was going to talk to her more, convince her to change her mind but... we had to leave before there was a chance."

  Cali opened her mouth to reply. Understood. Closed it.

  "Emily's in danger," Tyson declared. "I can feel it. We gotta' help her. We can't wait on this thing here."

  "You heard Lord Humphreys," Nicole said. "You saw how mad he was. He's not gonna let anyone back in his house."

  "We gotta try," he insisted. "You," he pointed at me, "made a promise."

  "I know," I admitted. "But what can I do?"

  "What about Uncle Alex?" Sara said. "He can talk to Lord Humphreys. If he knew what those spirits were doing to Emily, I'm sure he'd—"

  "No," I interrupted. "I promised Emily I wouldn't say anything. I won't break her trust."

  "I can say somethin'," Tyson said. "She didn't make me promise."

  "Or me," Nicole said.

  "I can't let you do that," I insisted.

  "We won't have to," Cali said, "not if we all make the request. This is Sir Alex we're talking about. We won't have to say anything for him to know. He'll read it from us."

  ****

  The girls and I were sipping tea and coffee at a café attached to a high-end gourmet food store in downtown London. Outside a heavy spring rain was doing its best to wash away businessmen and shoppers who were filing along the long crescent of Regent Street. Umbrellas bumped and jostled in the crowd.

  Sir Alex walked in and approached the head of the table, looking somber and distant. "Well?" Sara asked after an expectant pause.

  Sir Alex said nothing. He removed his hat and raincoat and took the empty seat we'd left for him. "He's agreed," he said finally, "but only tonight. And only you four girls. No Thomas and no Tyson. He doesn't even want me there. Lord Humphreys is only letting you girls in because Emily has insisted."

  The girls and I all raised our eyebrows at this. Sara said, "But surely you're not going to let us go into that dreadful place all by ourselves?"

  "I'm afraid I have little choice in the matter," Sir Alex replied. "But even if Lord Humphreys were to give his permission for me to come along, I can't say as I'd be able to make it tonight. There's a pressing matter that requires my immediate attention and this evening may be my only chance to do anything about it.

  "Why is everyone looking so downtrodden? You received the answer you wanted, didn't you?"

  "We didn't expect to have to go alone," Sara said.

  "One night isn't much time," I added.

  "Well, it's somethin'," said Nicole.

  "Are you girls certain you really want to do this?" Sir Alex asked. "This house might truly be dangerous. And by the way, Cali, when are you going to tell us the real reason you screamed last night? And none of this nonsense about you falling asleep and having a bad dream. If there's something we ought to know, hadn't it better be now, before I give Lord Humphreys his answer?"

  Cali met his eye but said nothing. She still looked sallow and unwell and her unusual lack of makeup only added to the impression.

  "Nothing? Very well. What is your answer? Do you want to do this?"

  "Tyson's not gonna like us goin' in without him," Nicole said.

  "Tyson doesn't have a choice," Sir Alex replied. "These are the terms to which Lord Humphreys has agreed."

  "Tell him we'll be there," I said at last. "I promised Emily. She's counting on me, on all of us. We'll do what we can, even if we only have one night."

  ****

  The girls and I returned to our hotel for naps in preparation for what looked to be a long night. For me, sleep was impossible. When I called Tyson after our conversation with Sir Alex, he was furious that he wouldn't be allowed to come with us.

  "I feel like I'm supposed to be there," he told me, "like it's important that I'm around."

  "You're starting to talk like one of us," I'd observed. "You turning psychic on us?"

  "Let's not get nasty," he replied. "I just don't like the idea of you goin' in there on your own, that's all. It's dangerous, especially whatever's in that basement."

  I hadn't said so at the time, but I agreed with him.

  We weren't scheduled to be at the Humphreys' house until ten o'clock that night. Apparently, Lord Humphreys wanted to spend as much of his evening alone with his family as possible before we got there.

  The girls
and I ordered a quiet dinner in our room. As it was winding down, Nicole said, "I think we need a plan for tonight. How are we fixin' on doin' this?"

  When no one else answered, I said, "I think I need to be with Emily. She's expecting me to be there for her and I need her to know I'm going to be by her side every chance I get."

  "I think I need to be in Emily's room, too," Sara added. "I think I need to get to the bottom of this growling business and since no one has heard it any other place but her bedroom, that's where I need to be, too."

  After a thoughtful pause, Cali said, "I think what I'm supposed to do is obvious. I don't seem to have the psychic senses you guys do. Seeing spirits, hearing them, doesn't seem to be my strongpoint, unless I'm projecting out of body. And I think that's what I need to do. Tyson said that he and Thomas couldn't get all their stuff out of the Humphreys' house last night. If it's true what he said about the table, lamp, and cot still being upstairs in the attic, then that's where I need to be to make my attempt. If that's the safest place in the house, it probably makes sense for me to use that cot to try to project."

  "I don't know if that's such a good idea," Nicole said. "It seems like you'd just be leavin' yourself open to psychic attack if you try to go out of body there. Why not just project here in the hotel room and astral travel to the house?"

  Cali shook her head. "Because I suck at astral navigation, that's why. Even if I were to get out of my body — which, as you guys know from my track record lately, is probably a long-shot — I don't know if I'd be able to find my way to the Humphreys' house from the hotel. The farther I try to travel, the more chances I have of being whisked away to some crazy astral plane. No, if this is gonna work, I've got to be right there in the house. I know enough spiritual protection techniques. I'll be all right."

  "Okay then," Nicole said, "I guess that just leaves me. I think I need to face whatever dark energy is in that basement. It scares me to think of doin' that alone, but I don't think there's any other way. Maybe Charlie will come through for me if somethin' bad happens... maybe?"