by John Manning
He felt compassion for all of those who had died in this room. Three generations of Douglas Youngs had died here on this dusty concrete floor. His father, grandfather, and great-grandfather. His Uncle Martin had died here, and poor Jeanette had almost died here. He felt a surge of compassion for the woman sitting motionless and voiceless at the asylum.
And lastly he felt compassion for the spirits that controlled this room. Whether Beatrice was still here or not, she had died here, horribly, her heart punctured by the sharp tine of a pitchfork. And Clem…he forced his mind to summon compassion for him, too. A simple man. Brokenhearted. Desperate. He had committed a horrible act in the heat of passion. Surely he had been a good man before that…
There was a sound. Almost like the growl of a dog.
Chelsea, panicked, attempted to break the circle by letting go, but Douglas wouldn’t let her. He clamped down, causing her to emit a little cry.
“What is it?” she asked pitifully as the growling only got louder.
“Hear us as we hear you,” Diana called. “We mean you no harm, even after all this time and all that has transpired here in this room. We forgive the pain you have caused because we know the pain that you feel. The enduring pain and grief that keeps you trapped between this world and the next. You want to be free. You want to move on and leave the pain behind you. We can help you do that! We can help you be free!”
But in reply the growling only increased. It was as if a lion were somewhere in the room, hiding in the shadows, waiting to leap out at them.
“Do not break the circle!” Carolyn called out. “We are safe so long as you don’t break the circle!”
“Listen to me,” Diana continued, trying to reason with the angry spirit. “We implore you to stop the endless cycle of death! Let us help you move on!”
The growling grew so loud that it now seemed like one long scream. A guttural sound, a frustrated, furious, and yet terrified sound, like an animal with its leg caught in a trap.
“We can help you get free,” Diana said, as if she sensed the same image. “We can unchain you from what keeps you here and free you to go-”
But her words were cut short by the door to the room suddenly swinging open, followed by a burst of cold wind. But what came afterward was far more terrible.
Clem was in the doorway with his pitchfork. His eyes were red and wild.
“He’s come back for me!” Ryan shrieked, breaking the circle and running to the far side of the room.
“Fool!” Diana called. “Get him! Bring him back into the circle!”
Douglas bolted, reluctantly releasing Carolyn’s hand and grabbing his cousin by the shoulders. Ryan was trying to hide behind the couch. Chelsea was screaming. Even Huldah was making sounds of terror.
“Douglas, watch out!” Carolyn shouted.
Clem had moved forward into the room, his face a mask of rage. He raised the pitchfork over his head and intended to bring it down on both Douglas and Ryan.
“He can’t hurt you!” Diana called over to them. “It is nothing but impotent rage!”
Douglas held Clem’s glare. The seconds seemed an eternity as the apparition stared back at him. The eyes were red, blazing. Douglas refused to look away while Ryan sobbed into his hands. Then, as if he had never been there, Clem was gone.
Diana let out a long breath. “You can break the circle. Its power was lost the moment the boy left it.”
Ryan remained slumped on the floor, shaking all over.
“Oh, for God’s sake, get up,” his father said derisively, standing over him.
Uncle Howie was as shaken as Ryan. Carolyn helped him to a seat on the couch.
“To see him again,” the old man kept babbling. “To actually see him…and the rage in his eyes…”
“What happened to him in life?” Carolyn asked. “Please, Mr. Young, you must tell us. What happened to Clem?”
“We searched everywhere for him,” Uncle Howie said, but his words came out too quickly, as if by rote, an oft-repeated explanation. “My father and brothers and I searched the grounds, but he was nowhere to be found.”
“If that were the case,” Carolyn said, “why would he still be haunting this place?”
“Guilt,” Douglas suggested. “For killing Beatrice.”
“Yes!” Uncle Howie said. “That is it! It is his guilt!” He shook a frail fist in the air, looking up as if to seek the vanished spirit. “No matter how much you terrify me, I will always make sure your guilt is known!”
“Are you certain that Clem killed Beatrice?” Carolyn asked.
“Who else was there?” he asked, his old rheumy eyes wide.
“There was someone else,” Diana said quietly from the couch.
All eyes turned to look at her.
“There was someone else involved that night,” she said, “and there was someone else in this room today. Clem’s spirit, while it is terrifying and dangerous, is not the one we must fear. The force that controls this room, the one that has killed so many over so many years, controls Clem. And it is far, far worse than any dumb brute with a pitchfork.”
Nothing more was said for now. Douglas sensed that every one of them just wanted to get out of the room as quickly as possible. The bloody words on the wall had disappeared, but who knew what might happen next.
Gently Douglas bent down and lifted Diana into his arms. Then they returned one by one upstairs.
Chapter Twenty
As a girl, Paula had felt delight and excitement entering this house, not so different from the enthusiasm Zac and Callie were displaying now, as they ran through the marble foyer, calling out to each other in order to hear their echoes. But now, walking through that front door she felt as if she were entering a mausoleum. The place was cold and dead. The somber portraits on the walls represented a gallery of the dead: her great-grandfather Desmond, her grandfather Samuel, Aunt Margaret, Uncle Ernest, Uncle David. Grim faces all, and most of them murdered in that room downstairs.
Dean and Linda were embracing young Douglas. When it came her turn, Paula couldn’t help but get emotional. “You look so much like your father,” she said thickly, wrapping her arms around him. He hugged her tightly in return.
She remembered his face ten years ago, when he was just a boy, upon learning of his father’s death. Now she pulled back and took his cheeks in her hands, staring into his blue eyes. “You know now?” she asked tenderly. “Uncle Howard has told you about the lottery?”
Douglas nodded.
Paula frowned. Innocence lasted such a short time in this family.
She looked over at Zac and Callie. Douglas seemed to be reading her mind.
“Maybe this year we can end it,” he said. “Maybe they’ll never have to know.”
Paula couldn’t reply.
“Maybe,” Douglas said, “you and Karen will be able to have a child and never have to worry about the room downstairs.”
“Karen left me,” Paula said softly.
Douglas gripped her arm in support, just as Uncle Philip strode into the foyer.
“Well, we’ve been waiting for you all to arrive,” he said with some impatience. “You said you’d be here by five, so we scheduled dinner for six. And here it is six-thirty. The food is on the table.”
“Traffic was quite bad getting through Boston,” Dean explained, reaching out his hand to shake his uncle’s. “How are you, Uncle Philip?”
Philip didn’t like looking at Dean. He reminded him too much of Martin. He took the hand of his brother’s son but avoided direct eye contact. “I’m fine,” he said hurriedly, “but hungry. So come along into the dining room. Hello, Linda; hello, Paula. Where is your…friend?”
“She’s not here,” Paula said.
Philip gave her an eye. Tradition called for spouses to be present, even if they weren’t included in the lottery. Not that Philip considered Paula’s friend, or whatever she wanted to call her, an actual spouse, but they had been careful not to mess with tradition ever since the la
st slaughter. Paula seemed to intuit what Philip was thinking.
“Don’t worry,” she said. “We’ve split up.”
He nodded, heading toward the dining room. Of course, his own spouse was still AWOL. He’d called Vanessa three times in the last several hours, always getting her voice mail. He hadn’t seen his wife in weeks. She’d been staying at their townhouse in the city, apparently still peeved about Melissa’s presence. Philip figured she’d get over it. But Vanessa knew how important it was that she be at the reunion. Spouses always attended. She had promised to have her chauffeur drive her up this afternoon. Why wasn’t she answering her goddamn phone?
“Heard from Mummy?” Ryan asked as Philip came into the dining room. Philip just shook his head and took his seat at the table.
“How wonderful to see you both!” Uncle Howard said, greeting Paula and Dean. Embraces were exchanged; then the old man turned to hug Linda. “And where are the youngest members of our family?”
Zac and Callie bounded into the dining room then, each letting out a loud whoop, startling Chelsea so much that she spilled her glass of red wine all over the white tablecloth. As a maid came to wipe up the mess, Ryan looked over at his sister, raised one eyebrow and deadpanned quietly, “Too bad children can’t take part in the lottery.” Chelsea giggled.
Carolyn, sitting across the table, heard the exchange. Something was up. Before Diana had left with Huldah, she’d taken Carolyn aside and told her to watch out for Philip and his two children. “They’re schemers,” Diana said. “They’re planning something. I couldn’t quite make it out. Philip is a major control freak, and he’s strong enough to block out the particulars, even preventing me from getting a full read on his kids. But they’ve got something up their sleeves, and it concerns the lottery. So watch them.”
Carolyn was. For three people possibly facing imminent death, they were surprisingly carefree. They had none of the frozen terror imprinted on their faces that was so obvious on these latest arrivals. Carolyn stood to greet Paula and Dean Young.
“I take it you’re our savior,” Dean said as he shook her hand.
“I am doing all I can,” she said. “But time is running out.”
“Oh, you have five whole days,” Dean joked. “God created the world in less.”
Carolyn smiled tightly as she turned to shake Paula’s hand.
“Has he told you about Dr. Fifer?” Paula asked quietly.
Carolyn’s ears perked up. “Dr. Fifer? What do you know about Dr. Fifer?”
“Let’s talk after dinner, shall we?” Paula said. Carolyn agreed readily.
Paula took a seat next to Ryan. He was already eating his salad.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m being piggish, aren’t I? Good manners insist one waits until everyone is seated.”
Paula smiled. “No, go ahead, Ryan. We were late.”
He forked another bunch of endive into his mouth. “So how are you, cousin Paula?” he asked as he chewed.
“The same as you, I imagine.”
He made a face of genuine confusion. “The same as me?”
“Terrified,” she said. “Uncle Howard said he told you about the lottery.”
“Oh, yes. Of course.” He took another bite of his salad. “Terrified. It’s quite unnerving, isn’t it?”
Across the table, Douglas took a seat beside Carolyn. Under the table, he took her hand in his. “Has Diana called you?” he whispered.
Carolyn nodded. “She thinks she’s found something. She’s having it sent special delivery. It should be here in the morning.”
The outcome of their little séance in the basement had led Diana to conclude that there would be no reasoning with whatever forces controlled the room. It was blind rage that ruled down there. So given how close they were to the lottery, the best offense was going to have to be an effective defense. They had to focus their energies on survival, not defeat. As it stood, it was likely the lottery would still be held. But whoever went into that room would go in with something no one else had ever possessed.
Protection.
Diana might not know how to remove curses placed by “run-of-the-mill” ghosts, but she knew how to render those ghosts powerless. “There are certain amulets that can protect the wearer from any kind of supernatural force,” Diana explained. “They were created by witches centuries ago to ward off everything from demons to dead people. I have used them myself in the past and believe I know where to find one.”
And she had. An acquaintance of hers ran a voodoo store in New Orleans, and she possessed an amulet of rare power. Only for Diana would she part with it, with the promise that it be returned. Diana had just received it, inspected it, pronounced it genuine, and was shipping it up to Youngsport for delivery tomorrow.
But in the meantime, Carolyn thought, I still want to piece together what really happened that night. Only by knowing the full truth, she believed, would they finally be able to end the control of the family by those terrible spirits. Her eyes flicked over to Paula. Perhaps her news about Dr. Fifer might help. Carolyn believed that alone among all those who had tried to end the curse, Fifer had obtained critical information-information now lost, since his report had vanished from the records.
“Let us begin our meal,” Uncle Howard said, taking his place at the head of the table. “We are still waiting on Vanessa, but-”
Just then the deep sound of the doorbell reverberated through the house. A servant rushed to answer the door.
“She always did like to be fashionably late,” Philip quipped, to scattered laughter at the table.
But when the servant returned he simply bore an envelope that he handed to Philip. “What is this?” Philip asked, irritated. Tearing open the envelope, he read the letter inside. Then he laughed, bitterly.
“Well, Vanessa won’t be joining us,” he announced. “I’ve just been served with divorce papers.”
“Oh, Mummy,” Ryan said disapprovingly.
“Does she get the town house in New York then?” Chelsea asked, obviously trying to figure out if this would affect her comings and goings in any way.
“I’m very sorry, Uncle Philip,” Dean offered.
“Sorry?” Philip tossed the letter to the table. “Don’t be. I’m not. But I’ll tell you, if that woman thinks she’s taking me for-”
He stopped, a smile crossing his face.
“Please, everyone. Eat.” He stabbed his fork into his endive. “Heckuva way to get out of the family reunion, isn’t it?”
“Will it affect things in any way?” Paula asked. Zac and Callie had been allowed to take their meal out on the terrace. The adults could talk about the lottery freely.
Uncle Howard sighed. “Who knows? If a relationship has ended, then I suppose we can’t expect the person to join us.” He smiled kindly, reaching over and placing his hand on top of Paula’s. She smiled sadly in reply.
“As I was saying,” the old man continued, “let us enjoy our meal. For tonight, let us simply be glad to be in each other’s company. We have reason to be very optimistic this year. Carolyn has made wonderful progress and may have found a solution. A temporary one, but effective nonetheless.”
They all looked at her to explain. She told them about the amulet.
“But we don’t know for sure that it will work,” Philip said.
Carolyn conceded the point. “But Diana has worn similar amulets, and they have protected her from various supernatural phenomena.”
“But it’s never been tried on this particular supernatural phenomenon,” he countered.
“No,” Carolyn admitted. “It has not.”
Philip sat back in his chair, as if his point had been made.
“If it’s all we’ve got, I’ll take it,” Dean said. “No one else who has gone into that room has ever gone in with any kind of protection.”
“It’s something,” Paula agreed. “At least it’s something.”
“Exactly,” Uncle Howard said. “It is something.”
/> “I hope to be able to find out more in the next few days,” Carolyn said. “I’m rereading all the notes, and I’m researching the lives of Clem and Beatrice in the town hall archives. If I can find out more about them, about what really happened that night, I believe that we could possibly end this nightmare forever.”
“Impossible,” Uncle Howard barked. “There is nothing to be found about either of them at the town hall. Others have looked. There is nothing. Our best bet is to simply let history lie, and to use this amulet from now on for our protection. Carolyn, if it works, you tell Diana that I am willing to pay any amount of money-a fortune!-to purchase that amulet and keep it in our family forever.”
“But how much better if we could actually end the curse,” Paula said to him. “To actually remove the evil forces that control that room.”
Uncle Howard said nothing.
“There is one force there in particular,” Carolyn said. “One force that Diana identified as the strongest. It is that force that controls everything. Clem does its bidding.”
“And Beatrice?” asked Dean.
Carolyn shrugged. “I still don’t fully understand her role in all of this, even though it was clearly her death that set it all into motion.”
“But it all must have something to do with the baby,” Dean said.
Uncle Howard groaned. “I fail to see how all this talk can help us. We have the amulet. It is the protection we have sought for so long.”
Dean had removed a piece of paper from his inside jacket pocket. He unfolded it and handed it over to Carolyn. “You see?” he asked, ignoring his uncle’s complaint. “It’s a photograph I took years ago of that room.”
As Carolyn took the paper, Howard Young’s face burned a deep red. “How did you get in there to take such a picture?”
“Uncle Howard,” Paula said, “relax. It was a childish prank. We found the keys. We were kids. We had no idea how dangerous it was.”
The old man covered his face with his gnarled hands and trembled.
Carolyn was looking at the image. “It’s the face of a baby,” she said.
