by George Esler
spanned half the hall in a virtual blanket. Some of the pieces were as large as my fist. Others were even larger. Some had been smashed to dust. I gazed down, and a thought occurred to me.
“This is heavy stone,” I said.
“It is,” Esau agreed, surveying the wreckage with a serious scowl on his face. Trevor and Henry hung back a few paces. I alone had ventured forward, and was now standing near Esau’s right side.
“This shouldn’t be so easy to break.”
“It’s limestone. Very solid. Very dense.”
The jagged pieces all had the same kind of silvery luster to them, and they gave me a really bad feeling. “Plus, the carpet is really thick.”
“It is.”
“Plus, how did the thing fall in the first place?” This time he was silent. I put it all together for him. “The bust should not have shattered like this just from falling over. Even if it somehow managed to fall all on its own, with the thick carpet and its own density, at most it should have just rolled across the floor. Not... this.”
Esau balled his fists and turned to his son. “I suppose you have something to say to this?”
The boy looked terrified, but to his credit, he spoke his mind. “They really don’t want you to seal the room, Father. Please don’t do it.”
Esau sighed and looked at us each in turn. For one, I was still boggled by the dynamics of this situation. The bust really should not have broken. And it wasn’t just the bust; the pedestal it had sat upon, itself a limestone sculpture by the looks of it, had shattered as well. The pedestals all looked like little miniature columns, similar to appearance to what the Romans used for their temples and government buildings, way back when.
“Unless it shattered before,” I said, not meaning to give voice to the thought. Esau narrowed his eyes at me. I gestured back. “Something must have shattered it while it was standing. That is the only explanation, right? Like maybe something struck it?”
Trevor was undeterred. “Please don’t seal the room, dad. Please don’t make them even angrier. It won’t stop anything. It won’t keep them in.”
Esau’s entire face contorted in an explosion of rage. With a visible snarl to his lips, he screamed, “I am not trying to keep anybody in! I am trying to keep you out!” Trevor cringed. “Your tales have upset enough people! You will not go into that room again! It will be sealed this very hour! I will have Jacob see to it!”
I looked to the end of the hall, at that last room on the left. The door was closed. From the outside, it looked like all the other rooms. But I wondered.
Esau stormed off down the hall, presumably to go fetch the butler. I grinned at Trevor. “Looks like you might need to find some new dancing partners.”
Trevor scowled at me, and Henry just looked confused about the comment.
I spent the rest of the day shooting my arrows at the targets, and when that got boring I went looking for living targets. I managed to bring down a wild rabbit with one of my arrows. I perched in some bushes near the trees at the edge of the property while I took aim. The little rodent didn’t even see it coming. The whole time, my eyes kept darting back to the well. Why the fascination again? I shouldn’t care a lick about that anymore. I thought more than once about that supposed presence I had felt in the forest when Trevor was going through his little ritual out there. Between that and his ghost stories, the kid sure did have some issues.
As night descended, I found myself back in the house. I was shocked to learn that another bust had exploded while I was outside. Esau was in a fury about it, Henry told me. He suspected Trevor of some mischief and was of a mind to spank the child bloody. I can’t say I blamed him.
I laughed when I saw the door to the nursery, locked up tight and barred over with wooden planks that were nailed in place. The butler was just finishing hammering in the last nail when I arrived.
“That should keep that little turd out of there,” I said, pleased.
The butler turned to me. “This is only temporary,” he said. “Master Esau was most insistent that I make sure that young Trevor cannot get in here. He is seeking a more permanent solution. As soon as the materials can be purchased, we are going to remove the door entirely and replace it with a solid wall. For all intents and purposes, this room will cease to exist.
I laughed. That sounded terrific to me.
Soon I was back in bed with my book, reading about all the death and bloodshed my little heart could take. As my eyes grew heavy, I reached to switch off the lamp.
As soon as the light was extinguished, somebody laughed. I jumped at the sound of it. The sound had come from within my room! I reached over to turn the lamp back on, and something batted my fist away. The back of my hand stung as though it had been slapped.
Again that laugh.
“Trevor? Is that you, you little jerk?”
There was no answer. The room was silent. I was just starting to convince myself that my mind (or Trevor) was playing an elaborate joke on me, when I felt a distinct indent in the bed, as though someone had sat down on the edge of it.
I scurried away from that sensation, despite myself. I could see the imprint on the other side in the gloom. But nobody was there.
What the--
A slap across my face. I cried out, fumbled my way from beneath the covers, stumbled, tripped, and landed in an awkward heap on the floor. My face took the brunt of the impact, and pain flared in my cheek; maybe a brush burn, maybe something worse. I don’t know.
I fought my way to my feet, refusing to stay down. Who was doing this? If it was that little creep, I could almost see myself notching an arrow and putting it in his throat, it would be worth it, even if I had to go to prison for the rest of my life. Somebody had to teach that little punk a lesson.
I finally managed to stand, turned, looked about myself.
There were nine of them. They glowed faintly, casting a faint luminescence that seemed to emanate from within themselves. Nine kids. I recognized the little girl with the blonde curls that I had seen on the day that I arrived; she stood near the back of the pack, separate from the rest.
The others formed a haphazard line that stretched from one end of the room to the other. One of them stood slightly ahead of the rest, more or less centered horizontally, facing me.
I recognized him as well. Last night, peeking at me from out of the corner of the room, the long face, the disdain on his features. He looked like he hated me.
I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.
“Had to do it,” the leader said. His voice sounded like a rusty chain grating against a piece of sheet metal.
Had to do it, had to do it, had to do it, the others echoed.
“Trevor is ours,” the leader said again.
Trevor is ours, Trevor is ours, the others repeated.
“Should have stayed out of our room.” Out of our room, out of our room, out of our room. “Believe in us now?” Believe in us now, believe in us now, believe in us now?
The leader stepped forward, closer, closer, ever closer. In life he might have only been nine or ten, probably not much different in age than Trevor himself. But the sheer hatred on his face… How could such a young face look so evil?
He slapped me, so fast I hardly saw his ghostly little hand move. My head rocked back, and I knew for certain he was the one who had been shoving me around for the past two days.
I almost vomited then. I felt my entire body shudder and spasm, the fear crippling and threatening to topple me. It was real. All real. These kids. These orphans. Dead. Ghosts. Specters from the past. Murdered. Trevor’s grand-father killed them. Trevor told me that. He didn’t tell me how. He just told me he did. I ignored him. I blew it off. I knew better now. This was real. So real. These ghosts. These orphans. These children who glowed.
The leader laughed then, and the others took up the call. As one, they cackled and chortled, really enjoying themselves, all but the little blonde girl, who just stood near the back, staring at me, her eyes vacant, an unreadab
le expression on her ghost face. No trace of menace on her face, but hers was the only one that didn’t. But the others… they were enjoying this. They hated me. It was obvious. They just stood around and laughed, and laughed, and laughed.
I tried to dodge around the leader and make for the door. An unseen blow sent me clear across the room, farther and harder than any human could have produced. I left the floor, flying like a caped superhero, right up until I slammed into the wall. Hot fire engulfed my arm, which dangled uselessly from below my elbow.
Broken. He broke my arm, broke my arm, broke my arm.
Great. Now I was repeating myself too.
I guess I went into shock, because after the initial flare, the pain in my arm faded, even as the limb flopped around and I struggled to rise.
They laughed again. The sound of it came in random bursts.
They closed in. I screamed. I backed into the wall and the circle tightened around me. Only the blonde girl remained behind, standing there, refusing to participate. The others pressed ever closer, and they looked even more hideous up close than they had from across the room.
I saw their wounds. Hideous, scarred, nasty wounds. Huge chunks were missing out of their bodies, preternatural flesh hanging in jagged clumps where entire limbs were missing. One little girl had almost no face to speak of. One little boy floated along with only one ghost leg under him. What had happened to them? What indeed? And what did they mean to do to me?
Then they started touching me, rubbing
