“So, what can we do?” asked Isaac, tossing the statue back into the fireplace.
“Continue doing what we’ve been doing. We need to find your daughter. Lucius obviously wants us to find her, or he wouldn't be leaving things behind to help us.”
“So we find her. And then what?”
There was no easy answer to the question, nothing she could say to ease the overwhelming pain Isaac felt inside. In the end, there was only the truth.
“And then hope for a miracle.”
5
Amy maneuvered through the dark passageway, unaware of where she was heading, or who was taking her there. Something had happened back at the house, and now for some reason, she was no longer in control of her body. Something else was here, inside of her. It carried her to this place, and it told her where to move, what to touch, and what to see. Her thoughts were all she had left, and even they didn’t feel safe anymore.
“Who are you?” Amy asked the visitor.
She couldn’t feel her lips move, perhaps they hadn’t. Something hung above her in all directions, swinging back and forth, clanging together. She could feel the cold sting of it brush against her neck, but she couldn’t see what it was.
“What’s happened to me?” she cried, unable to hear herself.
“Patience,” the thing whispered. “You will know all the answers in time.”
Her body came to the end of the dark passageway. The clanging sound was behind her now, and the cold sting had vanished. Ahead, she could see many strange figures swaying about in the darkness, hissing at her. She felt her lips form a smile, and the figures suddenly stopped moving, stopped glaring at her, and quickly hid in the shadows.
“Am I dead?”
The thing didn’t answer, not at first.
The smile disappeared from her face.
“Fear not, my child, for your father is coming and soon it will all be over. I promise,” it said, ushering her into the ghostly chamber. “Soon it will all be over.”
Amy believed it.
6
They decided on door number one at the end of the corridor. Virginia held the lantern chest high and close to her body. The small flame had a way of brightening a room, reflecting off the walls and shining light in otherwise dark places. But once they passed through the first door, the flame was no longer able to spread its radiance as far. An ocean of darkness surrounded the group from every direction, swallowing the light with ease, as Virginia led them into the heart of the mansion.
They moved slowly through the large room, scanning the shadows for anything that moved.
From just a few steps in, it was clear that not only was this room much darker than the last, but much quieter, too. They could no longer hear the splatter of raindrops hitting the ground, or the crackle of lightning splitting open the dark sky above. Even the rolling thunder was diminished to just a minor vibration as the thick stone walls sucked up the shockwaves and blasted them back out with little effort.
The group came to a square bar at the center of the room. Isaac brushed his hand across the bare countertop and pulled the clumps of dust off with his fingers. What was once probably a fine bar was now just a wasteland of dust on old, rotting wood. Giant white webs filled the shelves below from corner to corner while black web spinners hovered motionless in the center of the nest, poised and waiting to trap their next victim.
Virginia set the lantern down on the counter and looked around the room from inside the bar. Her eyes began to adjust to the darkness and everything steadily came into view. Behind her was the door from which they had entered the room. She had the urge to run down the dark corridor, through the open door, and fall out into the field, into the rain. But, oddly, her feet felt anchored to the floor. There was more to do here, more to see and find in this place, yet she didn’t want to forget the way out, if and when the opportunity came to leave.
To the right of the exit, not far down the wall was another door, with a tall, empty cabinet filling the small space between the two doors. The wall rounded off further down and swung into an open doorway parallel to the bar with what looked to be a kitchen poking its head out from around the corner. A long, narrow window at the back of the kitchen looked outward; its glass black and scratched, impossible to see through from such a long distance. She looked to her right and saw a fireplace in the far corner of the room in roughly the same position as the one in the small entranceway. This fireplace was much bigger, with a brick stoop at the base and a long wooden shelf a few feet above. The fireplace seemed so empty and alone in the dark corner of the large room. No portrait or painting hung above, no rug thrown below. Items likely packed up and shipped out after the mansion was investigated over a century ago—after the unexpected death of its owner.
In a similar manner, this group of three began their own investigation at this late hour, but so far finding little left to uncover.
No spirit. No daughter.
Nothing.
Isaac stepped out of the bar and began calling his daughter’s name, soft at first, then louder each time after. He stopped momentarily and listened, but heard nothing in return, only his voice echo through the halls and fade to nothing. He continued calling a few more times, gave up, and banged his fist down on the counter.
As the force of the blow shook the rotted wood, a rat jumped out from below the bar and scurried between Virginia’s legs. She yelped, gripped Isaac by his coat, and watched the rat run across the open floor. The rat’s tiny feet slapped against the cold stone, until it found a safe spot behind a long slanted staircase nearby.
“Sorry,” said Isaac, glancing down at Virginia clutching his arm. After she released her grip, he grabbed the lantern from the counter and walked over to a pair of doors at the right of the staircase. The others followed behind, making sure to stay within the circle of light shimmering off the floor.
Isaac peered down at another set of brass door handles, identical to the ones from the front door. Something about large double doors yearned of importance, an awareness that whatever rested on the other side was special to someone, and they wanted everyone to know it.
He handed the lantern to Virginia and reached for the handles with both hands. He curled his fingers around the cold brass, forming a fist of each hand, and then turned both handles. A third of the way down the handles stopped instantly and jerked back up to their original position.
The double doors were locked.
But now Isaac could feel something else, someone standing motionless on the other side of the doors. It watched him, smiled as he yanked at the handles. It could see the fear in his eyes, feel the pain in his heart, and it was ready and willing to release him from the pain, give him a gift, but only for a price.
How much will you take?
How far will you go?
Then, like a sweeping storm, the feeling passed.
Isaac let go of the handles, backed away from the doors, and looked around the large room. He focused on the slanted staircase, and no matter how much he turned away, his gaze kept coming back to it. He thought about the rat, how it had leapt out of the bar and startled Virginia, nearly giving her a heart attack. He wondered if the rat was still under the stairs, perhaps having a heart attack of its own.
The group headed over to the staircase not far from the double doors. The stairs led to the second floor of the mansion, opening up at the top into a small rectangular room with two halls on each side. From the bottom up, the staircase gradually slanted inward, with the first step the widest and the last step the thinnest. A five-foot tall black metal handrail accompanied the stairs on each side, coiling up like a snake at the bottom end.
As Simmons came upon the staircase, a strange feeling washed over him.
He stopped, took a single step back, and looked down at a crack in the stone floor. The crack was a half-inch deep and a few feet wide. He focused intensely on it, not blinking, and not sure why. In his head, he could hear someone cry out. He took his eyes off the crack in
the floor and focused them on the ceiling high above.
“Simmons,” Isaac yelled. “Are you okay?”
Simmons looked down from the ceiling and saw Isaac in front of him. He wasn’t sure if he could speak, but he would try. “Yeah. I’m okay.”
Isaac didn’t question the durability of the staircase, even keeping its age in mind. It wasn’t made from wood like his at home; this one was solid stone all the way up. The entire mansion was built to last the ultimate test, the test of time, and it had done quite a fine job at well past a century old. Nothing short of a massive earthquake could bring down this monster.
Virginia led the way up the staircase. Isaac trailed a short distance behind her, with Simmons at the rear. When they reached the top of the stairs, they looked down at the first floor for a moment then headed down the hall to their left. A washroom waited at the corner just before the hall bent into a long straightaway.
The others waited in the hall while Isaac stepped into the washroom and tiptoed across a graveyard of broken white tile. Halfway into the room, he stopped and pulled back a grimy curtain to his right, revealing a dingy white tub and an old wash bucket lying on its side.
A small circular window sat on the back wall of the bathroom. Isaac peered through the dusty black pane hoping to get a glimpse of the side yard of the house, or possibly a forest looming behind a veil of fog, but did so with no such luck. All he could see was his reflection in the dark glass and the drops of rain sprint down the window from the other side, smearing his face into a contorted bubble of flesh.
On his way back to the hall, Isaac stopped and gazed into a mirror on the opposite side of the tub. His face looked beaten and drained, as though he had aged ten years since he left his house a few hours ago. Gray moons grinned underneath both eyes. His hair was wet and matted, with a few dark brown clumps hanging down on his forehead. It was difficult to tell if his face was wet with water, or with sweat, and although he looked tired, he didn’t feel it. He would search the shadows all night, forever if needed, just to find his daughter. Whatever it took. No matter the consequence.
Win or lose, alive or dead, he would find her.
The group rounded the corner and continued down the long, dark hall. They passed two rooms, one to the left, the other to the right, and briefly peeked their heads through the doors. Both rooms were completely empty, with no furniture or objects of any kind, just a wide-open vacant space of nothingness. Less than a dozen steps later, they came to another set of rooms, again opposite each other, and again empty.
The cold, barren rooms reminded Virginia of an old 18th century asylum. The gray stone walls were an exact match, and the stench of heavy fabric and dust (with just a touch of vomit) really hit the spot. All the rooms needed were small barred windows on the doors and the crossover would be complete.
Isaac had seen his fair share of abandoned homes through the years, but this one was on a level all by itself. It seemed the investigators of long ago did their jobs well, overlooking nothing in their path, and taking just about everything as evidence. Not that it would have mattered much, by the time the mansion was unpacked, Lucius was dead, and you can’t bring the dead back to life to put them on trial, right? Well, young Lori Ackerman somehow managed to do the unimaginable, but at some point in the investigation the case took a shocking turn, the hunter became the hunted, and it was no longer the illusionist given the trial, it was Isaac.
The trial would be a chess match, a battle of wills, and the proceedings would begin and end while the world slept, with only God and a few friends as witnesses. Soon the jury would retire into the deliberation room to contemplate their decision, and not long after, they would deliver the verdict—the penalty. They could order Isaac’s death, or the death of many innocents, including one very special to him. He would be more than content with the jury handing out the first verdict, if they were so willing to spare the last.
No doubt, every living thing has a breaking point; the point the illusionist sought to find in man. How much longer would it take before the trial broke Isaac?
7
One final door waited at the end of the hall. The group stopped in front of the door and looked over at each other. They expected much of the same from this door as the previous ones, just four corners with a load of emptiness in between. But after twisting the knob, opening the door, and looking into the room, they were pleasantly surprised at what they saw.
Behind this final door was a small semblance of a former life. The room was quite large, many feet larger than the asylums. The group stood in the doorway letting the light carry into the dark room. Against the far wall was a tattered mattress resting atop a bed with curved wooden legs. This room was quite possibly the bedroom of the illusionist.
They stepped forward into the room and stood at the edge of the queen-sized mattress. The bed was sheet-less, with many holes and tears strewn in the cotton. Some of the shreds were so severe there were puffs of wool protruding from them, like an old teddy bear after being mauled by a dog.
On the right of the bed, against the far wall, was an end table with two drawers and nothing on top. Virginia walked over and set the lantern down on the table. She looked over at Simmons passing by a tall cabinet on the other side of the bed. The cabinet had two doors, each with a silver knob, and a deep drawer at the bottom with a matching silver handle.
Isaac looked out the bedroom window. He could finally see the yard on the side of the mansion, all the water holes and hills, and the forest standing tall in the distance. He watched lightning flash in the dark sky high above the trees and waited for the resounding roar, but it never came. Then he stepped away from the window and met Simmons at the edge of the bed.
"Well, she's not here," said Simmons. "I guess we move on."
"Yeah, were moving too slow," Isaac added.
“Did you check the cabinet?" asked Virginia.
Simmons shook his head. Isaac reached out with both hands and grabbed the silver knobs. As he swung open the doors, he imagined a body falling out on him, a skinned, partially decayed corpse. Its fleshy hands would grip his face and its head would flop down on his shoulder, with its colorless eyes gleaming up. It would be bleeding from the mouth, maybe even mumble a few words before choking on its tongue. The bloodied body would be his daughter’s, too. He knew it. But it didn’t happen.
Instead he saw something much less frightening.
"What the hell," Isaac said.
Virginia held the lantern closer. The interior of the cabinet lit up and revealed its secret.
A square piece almost as wide as the cabinet, roughly three foot by three foot, was cut out of the back and a safe was put in its place—into the wall. The safe was almost identical in shade to the wood of the cabinet, with no trim, fancy carvings, or special ornamentation. It was obvious that Lucius had built the safe with the purpose of blending in and not drawing any attention to itself. The only thing that even gave it away was the key lock in the center.
Virginia handed the lantern to Simmons and then reached into her pocket. She pulled out the key they had found earlier in the entryway. The three stood and looked down curiously at the key in Virginia's hand for a moment like it was some strange bug they had never seen before.
"Here goes," Virginia said, and slipped the small key into the keyhole in the center of the safe. The key went in smoothly, a perfect fit, and turned with just as little effort. The lock voiced a sharp clack sound as it disengaged, and the safe door slowly creaked open.
"What's inside?" Simmons asked, trying to peer around Isaac.
"Can't see anything," Isaac replied. "It's too dark. Bring that light over here."
Simmons switched places with Virginia and then held the lantern up inside the cabinet. Light rushed into the dark hole in the wall but revealed nothing. The safe was empty. Isaac placed a hand inside to feel around, and immediately realized why. It was empty because there was no bottom, and there was no bottom because this wasn't a safe.
&nbs
p; Isaac carefully climbed into the cabinet and crouched in front of the hole. Then he took the lantern from Simmons and held it inside, followed by his head.
"What do you see?" Virginia asked.
"Darkness," Isaac said. He backed out of the hole and handed the lantern to Virginia before climbing out of the cabinet.
"That's odd," Virginia said. "He left us a key to a safe with nothing inside."
"It's not a safe."
"Then what is it? You said you didn't see anything."
"I said I saw darkness," Isaac replied. "And on the inside of the wall are metal rungs leading down into it. Not a safe. A passage."
"A passage?" Simmons repeated.
Isaac nodded. "Who wants to go first?"
8
The cabinet had no purpose other than concealing the fake safe, so they pushed it out of the way. The hardest part now would be getting into the cramped hole in the wall safely. One foot slip and you're falling to an unknown depth, and a certain death. Isaac figured the best way to approach it was from the side, one leg at a time, making sure the first foot in had a good grip on one of the metal rungs before turning around and climbing the rest of the way inside. It was an imperfect calculation, but it worked well enough, as Isaac managed to go in first without killing himself. Yet. Virginia handed him the lantern once he was inside. They had all agreed that Isaac was the strongest of the three and would have the least trouble navigating down the steps with only one free hand.
Virginia went down second.
Simmons, easily the largest of the group, naturally had a difficult time climbing into such a confined space. There was a moment when he had one leg dangling inside the hole, his foot searching for some security, his balance wavering, that he considered giving up and getting out. But the thought of having to go back the way they had come by himself and in complete darkness gave him reason to try harder. That, and he wouldn't be able to live with himself if he just left them. He didn't want to let Isaac down.
The Gift of Illusion: A Thriller Page 18
