THE POWER OF THREE

by Billie Sue Mosiman

  #

  She woke stiff and hurting, her hand going to her back. She winced, groaning. She would need to take something to help the muscle inflammation.

  Consulting her wristwatch she saw it was just a few minutes past seven A.M. Her neighbors would be coming out soon to drive to their jobs. She didn't want them to find her in her sleepwear sitting in her car across from her own house. Whatever she did this was a situation between her and the house. She didn't want anyone interfering.

  She started the car and drove it into her own driveway, parking it. She hobbled from the car to the house, opening the door slowly, not knowing what might confront her. She stood in the doorway, much more frightened now than she had been before. Now she knew a little about the house that pointed to not only its evil beginning, but how it operated whenever it felt the urge. The walls shimmered and shivered.

  She willed it to stop. Be still, she admonished the house. I'll leave again if you won't be still.

  For a few more moments, as if defying her, the walls moved as if alive, and she stood in the doorway, her hand on the doorknob, her back killing her. She waited.

  Finally it ended and light spilled through the door that had been held at abeyance before. The colors in the red patterned carpet rug sprung to life. The polished wood paneled walls shone with a mellow brown vigor. The furniture gleamed and the taupe drapes lay quietly at each side of the windows.

  Sighing, Linda stepped inside and closed the door. In the bathroom, she opened the medicine cabinet and hunted for ibuprofen. She shook out four tablets and ran water in the glass she kept on the sink. On the way out the door of the bathroom she swallowed down the medicine. She still had to walk bent over to keep from having tremendous, debilitating pain.

  In the living room she made for the rocking chair. She was hungry, wanted coffee, but she had to wait for the medication to help her back first.

  She sat rocking slowly, carefully, her eyes trained on the walls. She didn't try to talk to them, either aloud or psychically. The minute they began to move, she was going to stand up and go outside again. She'd thwart them until they knew she was going to do this her way.

  #

  She woke to a small hand on her arm. She had fallen asleep in the rocker and came to suddenly. Diane stood next to her, holding her arm. Hello, she said. I had to come back to help you.

  "Talk out loud, Diane. It takes a lot of my energy to talk with thoughts."

  "My mom said I could go out to play."

  "She doesn't know you're here?"

  "No, she wouldn't let me come here, she doesn't know you. You're a stranger."

  Linda agreed. She was a stranger, all right. A stranger in the world, a stranger in her own skin. "I told you not to come back. It's not safe here."

  "But I have to help you, Miss Linda."

  Linda kept silent a moment, glancing first to be sure the walls were sedate, before she said, "You can't help me. This is between me and the house. You have to stay out of it."

  "I can't."

  "Why not?"

  "They told me so." She pointed to the walls.

  Linda sighed and tried to stand to straighten her back, but a blast of pain forced her to bend over like an old crone from a children's picture book. "I'm going to say this one more time. You cannot come here again. You can't be involved in this. I won't be responsible for it. If I have to tell your mother to keep you away, I will."

  Tears came quick to the girl's eyes. She rubbed at her cheeks and Linda wanted to take it back--both the words and the harshness of the way she'd spoken them. She was used to dealing with college students, not children. She felt helpless to console the girl or to lessen her hurt feelings. She had to try.

  "Honey, now listen to me. I'm sorry I sounded so mean. You know what's here. You know how bad they are. You can't help me. I don't care what the walls tell you. They're liars, deceivers. You'll get hurt here, Diane...please don't cry."

  The girl sniffed and Linda reached out and wiped the last of the tears from her cheeks. Her skin was pale as driftwood, her eyes dark. Her hair was shoulder length and sandy brown, like wheat in a field. She was a pretty child, and so earnest, so full of compassion.

  Once she felt under control, Diane said, "I'll go away then. I thought...I thought you needed me."

  This girl and her small voice, her frank stare and open manner, made Linda love her. "Go home, Diane. Be a good girl. Stay with your mommy."

  Once she had let her out the door, Linda looked at her watch and saw it was almost noon. She had slept for hours in the rocker, no wonder her back hurt worse than before. After taking more ibuprofen, she sat in the kitchen and had coffee and toast.

  "You see what you've done?" Linda addressed the house, looking up at the ceiling. "You've made me hurt that little girl's feelings trying to keep her away from you. It's me, you want, you told me that. Let's keep it straight. Talk to her again and I burn this place down."

  The ceiling rumbled like heavy boots were treading the floors above on the second floor.

  "You don't scare me," she lied. "You don't even belong here. You just haven't been sent your invitation to dance in hell yet."

  The rumbling ceased. The rest of the day Linda took care of her back and made phone calls and, finally, an appointment.

  #

  It was Friday. She was at the church at exactly eleven A.M. for the appointment. Hayden only supported one small Catholic church. The Father met her in the vestibule and led her to his office. He closed the door, took his place behind his desk.

  "Now how can I help you, Mrs. Broderick?"

  "It's Miss. I've never married."

  He smiled and steepled his fingers. "How can I be of help?"

  "Do you believe in evil? True evil working in the world today?"

  He was stingy with his words. He took his time. "Maybe we should define the word a little. By evil, do you mean the evil that people do?"

  "No, I mean the evil that you can't see, that stands outside the purview of man. The evil that has to do with a real devil and real demons and damned souls."

  Again he sat long moments before answering. "What exactly are we talking about? Do you think you're possessed?"

  "No, I think a house is possessed."

  "A house." He sat back in his chair. "Why would a house be possessed?"

  "Because it's been baptized with blood. Do you know any history of this town?"

  He nodded. "A little. I've lived here all my life."

  "And you're what, forty, forty-five?"

  "Forty-two."

  "Then you weren't here when my parents were murdered. By a house." She pulled photocopies of old news items from her purse that she'd gotten from the library and pushed them across the desk to him.

  He sat reading. When finished, he looked sick. He glanced up and said, "This says the couple was killed by intruders."

  "No, they weren't."

  Confused, the Father looked again at the papers. "But it says..."

  "They were my parents. I was six. It happened a few minutes after 3A.M. on a November night. I heard my mother scream and ran down the hall. I saw what murdered them. I saw...I saw the whole world shattering and falling into chaos. I had suppressed that memory until I came back, bought the house, and moved into it. Now the walls are alive, Father. If you want to help me, you have to believe me. There's real evil there. It's alive."

  His thoughts leaped out to her and she blinked. He thought, You should burn the bastard down.

  She looked down to her hands in her lap. Her back still hurt and she was hunched over to relieve pressure on the muscles. "I can't do this alone. I've already tried. And I have to tell you, the evil there might be unleashed if something...happens...to the house."

  I'd burn it, he thought.

  "Unleashed," Linda repeated. "Set free. What do evil spirits do if they're part of a structure and then that structure disappears. Do the spirits disappear? No. They are unleashed."

  "I'm not an exorcist," he said. "I'm
not sure I even, well, you know, believe in exorcism."

  She snatched the papers from his desk and stuffed them into her purse. She rose painfully and turned for the door.

  "I'm sorry, Miss Broderick. Maybe I could come pray..."

  "Forget it." She was at the door and into a hallway. She heard the snick of the door closing at her back. Damn him. Damn the church that refused to help her. The one church she thought might be on her side. Damn them all.

  Watch it.

  Linda halted, holding onto the wall leading out to the vestibule. "What?" she asked. The wall beneath her hand was wood paneled like the walls of her house. They grew warm and she jerked her hand away, startled.

  Watch your blaspheming. You're in the Lord's house.

  "I'm sorry," she said, knowing she was talking with the walls and all the matter that made up the church. "But why won't he help me? If those are demonic manifestations in the house, why can't he come and force them away?"

  We'll talk to him.

  "He can't hear you! Only I can hear you."

  He listens to his heart. We can make his heart talk.

  Somewhat cheered, Linda made her way on out of the church, down the long, wide steps, and to her car. She was on her way now to the doctor for something to help her back problem.

  Then she would go home and threaten the things in the walls. One more time.

  #

  The three of them came together as one.

  The woman who had lived in the house before.

  The child who would one day live in the house as an adult.

  And the Catholic priest who believed in the supernatural nature of his god, but not in the supernatural nature of the netherworld.

  It was Saturday evening, late, the sun down and twilight coming like a thief to cover the house in writhing blue-gray shadows. The priest came to the door, a black Bible in his hand.

  Linda answered the knock, standing back in surprise to see him. "Father! What are you doing here?"

  "I had some spare time. I thought I'd come by to see if I could...well, help you with that problem you mentioned. I've been thinking about what you said and I don't think it will hurt to bless the house."

  Linda's face fell into sober folds of flesh. A blessing wouldn't do any good, she knew that, maybe even he knew that. She felt she had aged an extra ten years since being in Hayden. She stepped aside and ushered the priest in. She led him to the living room. He took the sofa and she sat in the high-backed wood rocker. "I don't think you can bless it. If you do, it won't help."

  Let him just try.

  "Shut up!" Linda shouted, twisting in the rocker to stare hard at the wall. Realizing she had spoken aloud, she turned back with a sheepish look on her face. "I'm sorry, Father, you must think I'm mad."

  He had his gaze lowered and was patting the Bible in his lap. "I only want to help you."

  He can't help you.

  "It doesn't matter that you're not Catholic."

  He knows you're not Catholic.

  "It really doesn't matter if you don't believe in religion at all."

  You believe in Us.

  "I appreciate it, Father, but I don't think this is going to work."

  He is the Father of Whores, the Father of Slugs and Swine and Rabid Dogs.

  Linda tried to block the talk from the walls. She tried to shut the doors in her mind.

  Not this time, the walls said. We reign here. You have no power here. And neither does He.

  A breeze came through the windows, rattling the drapes aside. The breeze changed into a wind. The drapes fluttered like the leathery wings of a bat, floating out from the windows. Linda and the priest looked at one another, sharing the same fear.

  "You should go," she said. "The house is coming alive."

  He shook his head, reached into a small pocket at the top of his vest and withdrew a crucifix.

  The wind became storm and small, loose objects in the room prattled like naughty children, skipping across tabletops and the coffee table, falling off shelves and rolling beneath furniture.

  Tell him to put it away! the walls screamed at her.

  I won't, she told the forces building all around them.

  "Father, this might get bad."

  "I know that now," he said, standing with the crucifix in one hand, the Bible in the other. "I didn't believe you. I thought you might be having a mental breakdown. Now, I'm beginning to see the problem."

  He sees Nothing! He's blind as a turtle down a hole in the ground! Send him away!

  "They're telling me to send you away." Linda stood too, reaching down to try to keep a small vase of flowers on the coffee table from tumbling over and spilling water. The wind only increased, the room feeling as if it had been turned into a wind tunnel.

  "Then they really do talk to you?" the priest asked.

  The paneled walls began to breathe, insanely bowing out into the room before being sucked back to lie flat as walls should. The priest gasped and began to mumble prayers. He clutched the crucifix and raised it above his head.

  We'll kill him. The blood of a dead priest is just what we need.

  Leave him alone. Linda sent the thought forcefully outward as if it were a dart. I'll make him leave.

  "Father, I changed my mind. I don't think a blessing will do any good and you said yourself you aren't an exorcist. I need you to go now."

  Too late. It was a chanting of voices, not just one. It was a cadre of souls locked in the walls, making their will known as one entity.

  The wind swept along the floor like a sheering wind found in nature. It lifted the priest off his feet and flung him across the room onto the floor. He lost both the Bible and the crucifix. He began to keen and double up as if a hot fireplace poker was being stabbed into his gut.

  "STOP IT!"

  Not this time, Linda. We're taking him. We're taking you. We've waited long enough, but we needed two, always two. We knew you'd bring him.

  #

  In the dim hallway off the entrance, the child Diane Blume stood smiling like the devil Himself. She clapped her hands together in glee, going up on her tippy toes with excitement. The wind swirled all around her, leaving her in a perfect vacuum.

  She was like Linda in only some ways. She had the ability to read minds--those of man, those of creature, and those that possessed houses, the spirits macabre that dwelled within walls and floors, in ceilings, in brick and mortar and wood. Yes, she had been granted that most ultimate gift. But beyond that, far beyond it, she had been promised dominion over the world once the spirits in this house were released with her help.

  She had been playing a game with the old woman the way she played all her games--in dark deceit and without remorse. She had been born to rule. She was the spawn of evil, the death knell for the coming century of devastation that waited to devour the earth. She knew what the old woman did not know: That the house on 2242 Maycroft was more than a house. It was more than natural, it was supernatural. It had been built from the ground up as a portal, as a way through dimensions from the dark to the light, from Hell to the surface. It needed certain humans to cast open the gate. Linda Broderick, left alive at the murder scene of her parents, was one of those humans. She was very powerful, but she was godless and rudderless and without faith in anything other than science. Though shown over a long lifetime that the world was not anything the way it appeared, given the gift to see things as they really were, she was still without insight or understanding.

  The other human the house needed was the child, Diane. She was born of common human parents, but within minutes of birth taken for a specific purpose and given gifts Linda had never even dreamed might be possible.

  There was no coincidence that she was six years old or that Linda had been ripped from the bosom of her family at the same age. Six was the number of perfection when the human child could be fully possessed, fully owned.

  The house owned her as it had always owned Linda. It would take the two of them to fulfill the Last Plan, the p
lan that brought about the beginning of chaos and the end of time.

  Diane lifted her arms and opened wide her eyes, relishing the coming alive of the house. The smoky demons were forming in the cracks and fissures of the house foundation, slithering up into the floors, spreading out to the walls, invading every inch of the house.

  The wind howled like a mad dog frightened by a full moon. Furniture in the living room where the priest lay imprisoned by invisible chains on the floor, began to move. All the pieces of furniture scooted at first, and then the sofa, the tables, the chairs all began to walk, using their wooden legs, stomping out slow rhythms as they came toward the epicenter of the storm. The vase of flowers spun in the air, faster and faster. The cushions from the sofa rose and danced in the air maniacally then slammed against the wall and began to creep up toward the ceiling.

  It was all alive.

  Linda tried to get to the priest to help him from the floor, but the wind held her back with wide hands.

  It's happening all over again, Linda thought. It's what was going on in my parents' bedroom the night they died.

  She saw then the smoky columns of figures in their infernal rags, their faces blank and indistinct, their arms outstretched toward her, their fingers ending in talons.

  Where are your weapons? she asked of them. She was quaking with involuntary spasms, her back screaming from the odd positions her body twisted into from the waist. She was a stick figure, a pretzel person, her feet lifting off the floor, her arms pinwheeling, her head turning back and forth on her neck until it was a blur. She struggled to keep her mind whole.

  We don't need them this time. There will be no bodies left to be found. You're coming with Us.

  "I won't go with you! You don't have the power to make me! I cast you out. Be gone!" It was all she knew to say.

  The smoke-filled creatures laughed, the cacophony rising like the herald of trumpets. They paced towards the old woman. She was weak and disoriented and lost as she spun and twisted in the air. Others rose up from the floor then bent down and covered the body of the priest making him shriek.