The Clockwork House

by Wendy Saunders

  ‘I suppose it makes sense,’ Derek agreed. ‘A lot of people believe that angry spirits are born of a violent act.’

  ‘Born of a violent act,’ Ava closed her eyes in realization, ‘that’s what Julia, Bunty and my grandmother all said. They kept telling me whatever was in the house was born of a violent act. I thought they meant Luella because she was the product of rape, but it wasn’t. It was her mother all along. Her murder was the violent act, it’s what brought her back.’

  ‘If that was the case, we’d have violent spirits cropping up all over the place,’ Derek protested.

  ‘Who says we don’t?’ Ava shrugged, ‘but I don’t know, maybe it was the perfect storm of events. It was Halloween, which is meant to be the one day of the year when the veil between life and death is at its thinnest. It was during a violent storm, all that electricity and energy in the air. Eleanor’s madness, Luella’s grief, the children’s fear, all strong emotions, somehow she was able to come back and she used the exact location of her death as a doorway.’

  ‘So how does this help us?’ Kelley shook his head.

  ‘Julia said that we have to send her back,’ Ava replied. ‘If she used the blood stain as a door to come through, maybe it’s still open, maybe that’s how we send her back.’

  ‘You really think that’ll work?’ Kelley asked

  ‘You got any better ideas?’

  ‘Okay,’ he breathed heavily, ‘so how do we draw her to the blood stain?’

  ‘I’ll get her there,’ Ava replied confidently.

  ‘How?’

  ‘Just trust me,’ she nodded, ‘right now, we need to get back up into the house.’

  ‘Well, we just have to….’ Kelley cut off and turned around sharply as the ground began to shake under their feet. The rocks stacked up behind them began to vibrate and shimmy fiercely.

  Suddenly they exploded outwards into the corridor they’d crawled in from. They seemed to hang motionless in the air for a second before clattering to the ground and there, hovering in front of them in all her terrifying glory, was Eleanor Lynch.

  All three of them stumbled back from that awful sight. Her hair was wild, streaming ribbons of white, snapping in all directions, as was her nightgown. Her eyes were soulless dark pits, filled with rage and torment. Her thin lips peeled back into a snarl and as she opened her mouth a bone chilling, birdlike screech filled the air.

  Luella suddenly reappeared between them and the nightmarish woman in white, blocking her way. Eleanor bared her teeth in a snarl, her cruel needle pointed fingers curling into claws as she launched herself at her bastard daughter. Luella lunged forward to meet her and as they clashed the whole tunnel shook viciously and the two of them disappeared.

  ‘Why did they vanish?’ Derek demanded in a shrill panicked voice.

  ‘She’s buying us some time,’ Ava took off through the rubble which had been blasted back along the tunnel and up the stairs. ‘We need to get to the doorway.’

  Kelley rushed after her with Derek close behind, they ran up the stairs and didn’t stop until they reached the doorway. Ava unbolted the door and they burst into the billiards room. A chair flew across the room and smashed into the opposite wall, the paintings on the wall began to rattle and shake as they ducked and weaved their way out of the room to avoid flying debris.

  They tripped and fell out into the hallway, Kelley reached down and hauled Ava to her feet and they ran, past the study toward the foyer. Ava felt herself shoved forward roughly, sending her colliding into the wall, her head cracked sharply causing a wave of dizziness.

  Kelley lunged toward her but found himself launched through the air and pinned up against the solid opposite wall a foot off the ground. The air in front of him shimmered and Eleanor appeared, her eyes crazy and her hand wrapped around Kelley’s throat as he kicked, and he struggled and fought for breath.

  ‘HEY! ELEANOR!’

  Eleanor turned her head slowly her black eyes fixing on Ava as her nostrils flared slightly, like a predator scenting its prey. Ava stood over the blood-stained circle on the floor, one hand curled around a bloodied broken tile and the other she held out in a fist as a trickle of bright red blood spilled from her clenched palm.

  ‘That’s right,’ Ava replied, ‘you can sense, it can’t you? Ephraim’s blood, I’m the last of his bloodline. You want to end it? You’re gonna have to kill me.’

  Eleanor dropped Kelley and screeched in rage, plunging across the foyer toward her. Ava felt Eleanor’s icy fingers wrap around her throat but before she could get a grip, Ava’s breath was knocked out of her as Kelley launched himself across the circle, tackling her midsection and throwing them both clear. They hit the hard floor with a painful thud and skidded a few meters.

  Eleanor howled in rage again and pitched toward them only to find she couldn’t move. She glanced down in confusion to find the blood stain beneath her was writhing and bubbling, the dark pitch-like liquid slithering up her white nightgown like poisonous vines, wrapping thin tentacles around her legs and torso.

  Eleanor shrieked again, only this time it wasn’t a murderous rage, it was more like panic when she realized she couldn’t get free.

  The tentacles began to split until they resembled blackened hands grabbing at her arms, her hair, her face. She screamed again. The dozens of arms and hands dragged her down, pulling her through the floor as if it were a tar pit. She scratched and screamed and clawed at the edges of the circle, but it was no good, she was being pulled inexorably down. In desperation her flailing arm lashed out and managed to catch hold of Ava’s ankle.

  Ava screamed as she slid across the floor. Kelley reached out and grabbed her wrist, as he gripped onto the staircase to stop them both from sliding into the hell pit or whatever it was, but the woman had a hell of a grip. Ava screamed again, partly in panic, partly in pain. She slipped further across the floor, Kelley desperately trying to hold onto her.

  A hand reached down and grasped Eleanor’s wrist, forcing her to release her grip on Ava’s ankle. Kelley yanked Ava back out of the way and wrapped his arms around her protectively. Luella held onto her mother’s wrist tightly, their eyes met and for one brief second something passed between them.

  Then Luella let go and Eleanor sank down, disappearing into the thick black goo. Luella stood and stepped back as it frothed and bubbled viciously, folding in on itself again and again, reducing in size until it finally disappeared, leaving the tiles as they once were. Nothing more than a simple Victorian geometric pattern with a century’s worth of dirt on it.

  Ava crept forward and reached out warily, running her hand across the tile. The blood stain was completely gone and so was Eleanor. Ava looked up at Luella, then following her gaze she turned and looked around her as all the children began to appear one by one, until the foyer was filled with them.

  The front doors suddenly unlocked and slowly creaked open, allowing the fresh air to rush in, but Ava couldn’t see anything, outside was filled with a blinding white light.

  She climbed slowly to her feet, feeling Kelley rise next to her. Side by side they approached the door, flanked by the trembling and traumatized reporter.

  Ava stepped out onto the porch. The storm had passed, blown out to sea. The sky was filled with pale gray clouds, there was no more rain or thunder, instead there was a heavy fog. It covered the entire cliff top obscuring everything including her truck, the RV and all the heavy machinery.

  Ava stared at the strange undulating mist, until she realized it was moving toward the house. More than that, as it got closer, she could see individual shapes, gliding along the ground. Her mouth opened, and she gasped as her eyes filled with tears.

  ‘Kelley look,’ she whispered, ‘they’ve come for their children.’

  Derek’s eyes rolled back in his head and they heard him drop to the ground with a thud.

  They were spirits, dozens of them, men and women in pairs, creeping closer to the house. Ava turned to see all of the children crowded into the d
oorway behind them, looking up at her expectantly. Ava turned to Kelley and they smiled to each other and stepped aside.

  A little girl with red pig tails stepped out. She turned to Ava and Kelley, giving them a wide grin before skipping down the steps. She ran across the yard and launched herself into the arms of a man, the woman standing beside him smiled and wrapped her arms around them both until the three of them coalesced into a bright beam of light which shot up into the sky like a shooting star, igniting the clouds above.

  The children surged out of the doors, running down the stairs and across the yard, leaping into their parents’ waiting embraces. One by one the beams of light shot up into the sky, the clouds glowing with microbursts of light. Gradually as the last one disappeared, the yard cleared, the mist gone, everything was damp with rainwater, fresh and somehow cleaner.

  ‘Ava,’ Kelley rumbled beside her and pointed.

  When she turned to look, she saw two teenage boys smiling at them.

  ‘Todd and Declan,’ she realized, ‘she trapped them here too.’

  One nodded and the other threw a cheeky little mock salute, then the pair of them looked up into the sky and as they disappeared two beams of light shot up into the sky.

  Ava turned when she felt someone else standing next to her, a sweet looking, slightly round-faced man. He adjusted his glasses and smiled at her, nodding in acknowledgement, before lifting his face to the sky and another beam of light shot into the sky punctuating the clouds.

  Ava and Kelley turned around to look back into the house and saw Luella standing in the foyer and in her arms, wearing a wide smile, was Peter. He waved to Ava and she lifted her hand in a small wave as he blew her a kiss. Her gaze moved to Luella and the two women stared at each other. Finally, Luella nodded, and smiled as her arms tightened around her son. The two of them began to glow, brightening until it was almost impossible to keep looking at them. Ava and Kelley both raised their hands to shield their eyes and when the light subsided, they were gone.

  Derek Carpenter climbed to his feet his eyes a little wild and headed resolutely down the steps toward his car.

  ‘Derek,’ Ava called in amusement, ‘where are you going?’

  ‘Down to the dock to wait for the next ferry off the island,’ he replied without a trace of humor.

  ‘Hey,’ she called out to the traumatized paranormal reporter, watching as he paused and looked back at her. ‘You going to write about this?’

  ‘Who would believe me?’ he replied and opened his car door, he rummaged around the back seat and then headed back to the bottom of the steps, tossing up a bottle for Kelley to catch.

  Kelley turned it over in his hands, it was a full bottle of Johnnie Walker.

  ‘Thanks,’ he replied.

  ‘I think you two have earned it,’ he nodded.

  They watched as he climbed back in his car and disappeared into the trees. Slowly and tiredly Ava and Kelley collapsed down on the front stoop, feeling every cut, scratch and bruise. Kelley unscrewed the top and handed the bottle to Ava who took a long gulp and passed it back.

  ‘Hell of a night,’ Kelley remarked as he tilted the bottle back and took a deep swig himself.

  ‘Yeah,’ she chuckled, ‘hell of a night.’

  ‘What are you going to do now?’ he asked looking up at the house. ‘You still keeping it, the house I mean?’

  Ava took the bottle back and drank again thoughtfully.

  ‘Yeah,’ she concluded, ‘yeah, I am. I feel like I have an obligation. I need to get those kids out; they deserve a proper burial. I need to search the official records and see if I can find their names then I need to get licenses to have them buried.’

  ‘Sounds like a lot of work,’ he drank slowly.

  ‘It does, doesn’t it,’ she replied with a slow smile.

  ‘Sounds like the kind of thing you could use a hand with,’ Kelley continued.

  ‘You offering?’

  ‘Looks like,’ he nodded, ‘and I was thinking, you know, in between getting thrown around by a psychotic ghost that maybe you might like to upgrade the fake fiancée to just fiancée.’

  She paused for a second to absorb what he was saying.

  ‘You asking?’ she took another swig.

  ‘I’m in love with you Ava,’ he turned to look at her.

  Her mouth twitched slightly, ‘well I suppose you did run into a haunted house for me and save me from said psychotic ghost… twice.’

  ‘Is that a yes?’ he smiled slowly.

  ‘Hmm,’ she stared at him, ‘does this mean I’m gonna end up with twins?’

  ‘I’m not gonna lie…’ he grinned, ‘probably.’

  ‘Then yes.’

  ‘Yes?’ his brows rose.

  ‘Yes,’ she nodded, ‘because I love you too.’

  He grinned and leaned in, cupping the back of her head as he kissed her deeply. She wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him in closer, the bottle of black label crushed between them as the first pale rays of dawn broke over the cliff top.

  They broke apart breathing heavily and slightly disorientated as a car tore into the yard, lights and sirens blazing.

  Gus leapt out of one side and Killian out of the other.

  ‘Fashionably late as always,’ Kelley grinned at his father and brother.

  ‘What the actual fuck Kelley?’ Killian growled.

  ‘Killian do you mind?’ Gus admonished.

  ‘Sorry,’ Killian muttered clearly annoyed.

  ‘What the actual fuck Kelley?’ Gus growled, ‘we’ve been going out of our minds with worry. We got some garbled message from you about Ava being missing, and you both disappear in the middle of a storm you’re not supposed to be out in. Your car was wrecked, abandoned in the woods and covered in what I can only assume is your blood given the state of you and now I find you both with a bottle, sitting on the stoop making out like horny teenagers?’

  Killian’s eyes narrowed as he took in the state of them, both were covered in layers of mud and dirt, and blood. They were both severely bruised and cut, and Kelley was sporting a rather nasty cut at his temple surrounded by an egg-shaped lump which was beginning to turn an interesting shade of purple.

  ‘What happened?’ Killian demanded. ‘It looks like you’ve gone ten rounds with the ghost of Luella Lynch.’

  Ava and Kelley looked at each other and burst out laughing.

  ‘What?’ Killian frowned, ‘what did I say?’

  But the more that Kelley and Ava looked at each other the harder they laughed.

  CLICK.

  ‘That’s one for the family album,’ Gus looked down at the photo of Kelley and Ava, bloodied and bruised, looking like the survivors of some intense battle, holding onto each other with a bottle of booze planted between them while they threw their heads back and laughed.

  ‘I think they’re having some sort of breakdown,’ Killian muttered as the sound of the laughter echoed through the empty house.

  Epilogue

  Three years later.

  Kelley climbed the stone steps and stepped through the wide double doors into the brightly sunlit foyer.

  ‘Do you know where Ava is?’ he asked his sister in law.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ Hope leaned down to strap her daughter into the stroller beside her twin sister.

  ‘Hey Bean, hey Button,’ he leaned down to their level. ‘Got a kiss for Uncle Kelley?’

  They both giggled as he dropped a sound kiss on each of their chubby cheeks.

  ‘You know one of these days, you guys will have to start using their actual names,’ Hope sighed.

  ‘Can’t,’ Kelley replied, ‘it’s stuck now. You can blame Killian.’

  ‘Oh, trust me,’ she smiled, ‘I blame him for plenty.’

  ‘Okay, if you see Ava before I do, tell her I’m looking for her.’

  Hope waved him off.

  He passed by the welcome desk set up at the front of the foyer, stacked with glossy flyers. In front of it stood a small sign
stating that the next tour would begin at 1.40pm.

  He veered off to the left, poking his head into the study. It still gave him a little thrill to see it fully restored with its glossy wood and glass fronted cabinets, completely restocked with the literary classics, including Harry Potter and Captain Underpants, especially for him, Ava had told him with an impish smile, the hint of a dimple in her cheek.

  The large hole in the floor, where he and Ava had fallen through and discovered the first of what turned out to be many hidden passageways, remained. They’d decided to keep it, instead choosing to cover it over with toughened reinforced glass so the tunnel could be seen from above. The hidden door also remained permanently open, revealing its intricate clockwork locking mechanism, and sectioned off with velvet ropes. Tours ran three times a day so people could explore the underground mortuary and the room of the sleeping angels, as the press had dubbed it, although it was not in any way accurate and tended to romanticize what essentially had been the sealed tomb of several murder victims. Still, it brought the visitors into the island in droves.

  Heading back out of the room he crossed the foyer to the front parlor which once again was a school room, complete with the original desks, which they’d been able to save, some of them still with the children's names etched into the wood.

  Ignoring the visitors milling around, he headed through the back parlor and into the restaurant, which bustled not only with tourists but many regulars from the island. Waving to a few familiar faces he headed through into the glorious glass sunroom and then out onto the terrace, with the warm summer breeze blowing in from the incredible sea views.

  His gaze scanned the headland, across the manicured gardens and immaculate landscaping, and he knew exactly where to find her. He trotted down the steps and headed out into the gardens, past ornamental shrubs and flower beds, until he reached a small garden divided off by ornate metal railings, along which were dozens of bouquets of flowers and wreaths propped up against them. He skirted around the edge of the large plot to the entrance and headed under the archway which was entwined with pale pink roses.