The Midnight Lullaby

by Cheryl Low

  Benedict nodded, standing back and leaning against the wall. He could go into the parlor. Or maybe just go outside and take a walk and hope all of this disappeared by the time he got back. The others had been smart to stay shut up in their rooms when the police arrived.

  "Never thought I'd be inside the Lyon house," the deputy said, taking another picture, the flash flaring through the hallway.

  Benedict looked up, surprised.

  The deputy continued to work, making his way upstairs one photo at a time. "Sorry. It's just… When I was a kid, we used to dare each other to come over to your house. We were such chicken-shits; I don't think any of us made it more than two steps past the tree-line onto the property."

  Benedict leaned back against the wall. "What did you think would happen if you reached the house?"

  The deputy paused midway up the staircase. He glanced at Benedict, and then looked back out the front doors before he could stop himself.

  The coroners were putting the first body into a thick plastic bag, struggling to fit her broken limbs inside.

  Chapter Twelve

  Benedict sat at the table in the parlor with his siblings, cousins, and uncle, marveling at how they had all dressed up. They always dressed up for séances—three-piece suits or gowns. It was their church, he supposed.

  They were minutes from midnight, and candles held the room aglow, crowding every surface. The finches chirped to themselves in the cages in the corner. He imagined they found the display unspectacular. They were used to oddities by now. Or maybe they had simply never cared for what happened outside their frail metal bars. Benedict had never seen any sign of interest from them nor any of their predecessors.

  He glanced across the table, over Uncle Vernon's shoulder, at the closed doors of the dining room.

  Lucy would usually lead the séances. She had a knack for it, or maybe just practiced showmanship in the art, but not tonight. She hadn't said more than a few words since Benedict walked into the room. He still didn't understand why she had created and broken a seal knowing what it would do to that woman. Had she panicked? He had spent a good deal of time today thinking about his sister and her illustrious career as a spiritualist. How much of it was actually dealing with ghosts, and how much was fortune-telling and wowing her audience?

  Hazel took his hand, startling Benedict. Everyone followed suit, and soon they were all holding hands at the table and closing their eyes.

  Benedict was the last. All eyes had closed but his, and he stole a glance at Emmeline where she sat in the chair under the birdcages. She met his gaze.

  "Should I leave?" she asked.

  He wasn't sure. Would they sense her if they gathered like this and tried to weed out the ghost in their house? Would they find his ghost instead? Did he dare send her away and go blind into this? He shook his head once and closed his eyes.

  Hazel spoke softly, her voice filling the quiet room. "Aunt Gloria," she called. "We know you are in pain. We know you are lost. We will see you safely home, but you must make yourself known."

  They waited. Hazel said it again. Another length of silence, and then a third time.

  The same words, the same patient tone, and the sense that Hazel would continue to gently demand her aunt's presence until dawn if she was not answered.

  "Aunt Glor—"

  Uncle Vernon jerked, the legs of his chair sounding on the floor just before he sucked a deep, wheezing breath. Benedict opened his eyes, staring across the table at the old man sitting between Theodore and Elysium. They had opened their eyes, too.

  "I am not alone." Uncle Vernon heaved the words as though they'd come up in coughs from his lungs rather than formed against his vocal cords.

  "Is she with you, Dad?" Hazel asked him.

  He rattled another breath, eyes unfocused. "I am not alone. You are not safe. You cannot leave."

  Luis squeezed Benedict's right hand. He had forgotten his brother was there until then.

  "Mother?" Luis called, all of his need and heartache cracking his voice.

  Uncle Vernon jostled in his seat a little, as though something squirmed inside him. Theodore and Elysium held tighter to his hands, keeping him from breaking the circle.

  "Aunt Gloria?" Hazel demanded, voice stern.

  Uncle Vernon shuddered, saliva rolling from his mouth and down his chin over his short, gray beard.

  "Aunt Gloria, you must leave this place and go on to the next world. You cannot remain. You know that," Hazel persisted.

  Uncle Vernon groaned.

  No one played at invoking angels or good spirits as they might for an audience. They didn't pit prayers or deities at the ghost. They knew the simple truth of what they did—gifted with sight and strong souls, they threw their will against another until one broke. Together, they had drawn the spirit into the room, willed it to themselves, and now they willed it to speak, to yield, to abandon the living world and vanish. Everything else was showmanship.

  "Let go," Emmeline whispered near Benedict's ear, leaning over his shoulder and staring at Uncle Vernon. "The ghost is settling into him. She's going to hang on, like that girl last night."

  Benedict cringed, remembering the cracking, snapping sounds of her spine.

  "Let go, so she can flee into the house again," Emmeline pressed.

  "Elys…" Benedict hissed, gaze darting to his brother. He saw his own worries reflected there in the other man's eyes.

  "No!" Hazel snapped as though she read their thoughts. God, he hoped she couldn't do that. "Gloria! You will leave this family and this realm! You will go before you harm anyone else!"

  Uncle Vernon clicked his teeth in a deliberate, snapping. Drool dribbled thickly off his bottom lip, and his shoulders jerked back in tight spasms.

  "Hazel?" Theodore whispered, clutching at his father's hand even as doubt welled in his eyes.

  Benedict tried to let go of the hands he held, Luis and Hazel, but they clung to him as though expecting him to be the one who broke first. They had been right.

  "Harm. Harm. Harm," the ghost in Uncle Vernon chanted, jerking from side to side with each word. "Harm. Harm. Harm."

  The walls creaked, and the birds went silent. The paintings and mirrors rattled on the walls, and a thump sounded against the center of the table. And then another. Something was knocking.

  "Benedict, she's coming," Emmeline warned, her voice strained with worry.

  Footsteps beat up and down the halls on the second floor, like someone was searching for something up there—or looking for a way down?

  "Benedict!" Emmeline shouted, but it was too late.

  The old clock chimed its first cry of midnight, and Uncle Vernon shot to his feet. The birds screamed, wings beating against the cages, shaking them back and forth. The glass in the window frames cracked, and the table lifted off the floor.

  Uncle Vernon's mouth dropped open, and he inhaled for what felt like too long, his lungs filling and filling until Benedict was sure they would pop. And then he let out a scream—not his voice at all anymore, but high-pitched and feminine.

  Six chimes into midnight, everyone was talking, some commanding Gloria's spirit out while others cried for direction. All seven of their chairs slid back just as the table came crashing down—so heavy that it scored the floor. They finally released one another, Benedict falling backward out of his seat and scrambling on the rug to his feet. The screaming hadn't stopped; it smothered all other sounds.

  Eight chimes in and Theodore and Elysium were trying to hold Uncle Vernon against the wall. Hazel chanted, still commanding—still throwing her iron will against the ghost of Gloria Lyon.

  "You will pay for what you've done!" the spirit raged from Vernon's throat, somehow without the scream ending, still vibrating through the room. Multiple voices were coming out of Uncle Vernon. The scream, the old man himself groaning beneath, and that furious voice.

  Lucy pressed her palms to her ears, backing away from the others and staring.

  Ten chimes in and Elys
ium was suddenly thrown back, off the floor and over the table, into the far wall. His temple whacked against the doorframe, and his body fell limp. Uncle Vernon shoved Theodore off his other arm, tossing his grown son aside. The old man stood straight, no longer crooked. He grinned saliva-slick lips at them all.

  Twelve chimes, and the candles went out.

  The room sank into darkness, and a second of breathless silence stretched around Benedict, threatening to swallow him in the irrational fear that he would never hear or see again—that everything would be this nerve-wracking nothing forever.

  "Get the lights!" Theodore shouted.

  Benedict shoved a trembling hand into his pocket and pulled out his lighter, thumbing back the lid.

  He heard the frantic flicking of switches, but the lights didn't come on. "It won't work!" Lucy cried.

  The room was alive with sounds but no longer the disorienting ones of a spirit's unrest. Panting breaths and shoes scuffing across the floor. Benedict stroked the lighter, bringing that little flame into the room. Within seconds, Theodore had done the same. They hurriedly lit enough candles to push back the shadows.

  "Where did he go?" Hazel shouted even though the room had gone quiet. She turned, candle in hand, to study every corner, but Uncle Vernon was gone. "We have to find him. Aunt Gloria's spirit could hurt him…" she continued, stepping over Elysium's unconscious body. She pushed open the doors and disappeared into the hallway.

  Benedict cursed her, crouching beside his brother and rolling him onto his back.

  "Where's Luis?" Lucy asked, still catching her breath.

  He was gone, too. Benedict hadn't seen Luis since the first strokes of midnight. "Maybe he's hiding?" he suggested absently.

  Elysium breathed steadily, though he had an ugly cut on his temple. He woke before Benedict got the chance to slap him. A shame. He wasn't sure he would ever get another opportunity to smack his eldest brother without getting the beating of his life for it.

  Elysium winced and sat up. "What happened?"

  "Uncle Ver—" Lucy started, her words choked off when a gunshot cracked through the house, echoing down from upstairs.

  They all jumped, chins tipping up, gazes directed at the ceiling as though they could see through it.

  A pained, wailing scream followed, launching them all into motion. They pushed out into the hallway and toward the stairs.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The flame of Benedict's lighter flared, the brightness of it stretching sideways. He slowed and swayed. The others were moving ahead of him, their footfalls beating at the stairs and against his skull. He winced back, squinting against the straining threads of light pulling at his vision. "What…" he tried, voice heaving out, breath thin. He sucked in hard, trying to fill his lungs, but he couldn't. His heart hammered against his chest and his legs buckled.

  He cried out in pain when his knees hit the floor, surprised by the rawness of them. He fell sideways to get his weight off of them, his shoulder pushing against a wall. He pulled his legs up, hand cupping one knee and feeling the wet fabric of his pants. When he pressed at his knee, the pain spiked again, the flesh soft and swollen. He pulled his hand back and squinted down at the blood on his fingers.

  It was then he realized he wasn't holding his lighter anymore. He wasn't in the foyer either. He leaned back and looked up. Benedict was inside a closet, and the whole world had gone quiet. No coats were hanging above him, just a bare rod. The door had no handle on the inside, and he knew it was locked—he knew it deep down in his stomach, where fear knotted together in fist-sized panic. Light spilled in from under the door and through the large keyhole. Every breath he dragged in was sharp with the stink of piss, burning his lungs.

  A sniffle came from beside him in the little closet, and he snapped his head toward it.

  Emmeline crouched there, in the other corner, thighs to her chest and knees scraped open. Her hands pressed against her face, fingers spreading enough to have one eye staring at the door. Tears dripped off her chin, chest rising and falling in fast, panicked breaths that rocked her whole body. "I want to go home," she cried, words muffled into her palms.

  Benedict nodded slowly. He wanted to go home, too. That's what they would do. He would get them out of this closet, and they would leave. He didn't care what happened to the Lyon house. He didn't care what they did about his mother's ghost. He and Emmeline would leave.

  Voices came from outside the door, familiar but garbled. He leaned up to look through the keyhole. A woman paced out there. He couldn't see her face, but there was something chillingly familiar about how she swung her cigarette back and forth impatiently. Benedict had never seen this place before. There were no windows or doors from the sightline of the keyhole, just a stone table covered with thick candles for light. The woman argued with someone, their voices bouncing back and forth.

  Tears blurred his vision, his breath coming out in tighter and tighter gasps. It was her fear, he realized. Emmeline's emotions were spilling into him.

  "I want to go home," she cried again, and Benedict nodded, understanding now. Not their home. Not the place where they live together in the city with a room just for her, but the place where she had last felt safe before she died. Her mother's house.

  Benedict turned and really looked at his best friend in that closet. She wasn't gray like a corpse. She wasn't bloody from knife wounds yet. Her cheeks were flushed, and her knees still oozed blood from where they had been scraped open. She was alive. He reached toward her with a shaking hand, fingertips touching her temple, feeling the heat of her skin pour through his digits. He shuddered a sob when she reached for him, holding on to his arm and the front of his shirt. He cradled one side of her face in his hand, the other battered and swollen. "I want to go home," she pleaded, and he knew he couldn't take her home—not away from this. This wasn't a place. It was a memory.

  A shoe scuffed the ground on the other side of the door, and Benedict turned toward it, staring through the keyhole again, but the room was gone, no more light shining through. The key turned in the lock and dread pitched in his heart, just as it had in hers long ago. They both reeled back, suddenly desperate to stay inside, clinging to one another.

  Benedict could not untangle his feelings from hers, both hammering through his veins. He held her tight, one hand buried in her hair and his body curling in front of hers, trying to shield her from her fate. Her pain shuddered through him, choking him with terror and misery and a deep, endless pleading for escape.

  The door opened, and they both screamed, eyes shut, knowing that there would never be an escape—knowing that there was no going home.

  Benedict fell forward, landing on his hands and knees on a rug. He expected pain but felt only the sting of confusion. Sound swirled around him, too many voices shouting in the room. He sat back slowly, blinking at the upstairs library. How had he gotten there? For a second, the shouting ebbed, and his siblings and cousins gawked at him with the same question reflected in their gazes.

  "You have to pay!" Uncle Vernon roared, drawing everyone's attention back to him. He paced behind his desk with a revolver in his hand. Elysium, Hazel, and Theodore were crouched behind an overturned table near the door, and Luis was sprawled out on the floor in the center of the room, hands clawing at his stomach around a well of blood. His mouth opened and closed, no longer able to get the screams out like before.

  "Mother!" Elysium shouted, glancing sideways at Benedict.

  Benedict leaned up on his knees, nearest Uncle Vernon and all the way on the other side of the room. How had he gotten past his uncle and over here?

  Elysium stood slowly from behind the table, hands in the air. Hazel pulled at his vest, trying to drag him back down. There were holes in the wood shelter, proof that Uncle Vernon had already fired at least two shots at them. "Mother, I don't know why you're doing this…"

  Uncle Vernon shook his head, pacing. "You know why!"

  "Please!" Elysium called, an edge of panic wheedling into
his voice. "If we are guilty, then we will pay at the end, like everyone else. But you never did anything that wasn't for the good of the family. You have nothing to fear about crossing over!"

  Benedict crawled toward Luis on the floor, hands pressing over his and against the wet patch on his shirt. Luis groaned and arched, spitting up a mouthful of blood. His eyes rolled back, teeth painted red and mouth gaping.

  "You have no idea!" the ghost shouted. "You think you know what comes next? You think you know how payment will be taken for your crimes? No. We played with something, pretending to be gods. Just because we could see spirits—because we could use our will to push them out of the world—we thought we had the right to do it. It was my duty! My glory! My sin!"

  Elysium shook his head, and Benedict saw the very moment doubt spilled into his brother's heart—like ink splattering a clean page. It had never been there before, but it would never leave him now. "Mother… If this is really you…" he tried, already wanting to pretend this spirit wasn't the same soul that had taught him all his beliefs.

  "Oh, it is, boy. And you should know, your will is not stronger than mine. No one can make me go. No one can push me out. And no seal can break me," the ghost swore, and then Uncle Vernon turned the gun on himself, pushing the barrel up against the soft flesh under his chin.

  "No!" Elysium screamed, launching forward.

  Uncle Vernon, or maybe their mother inside his mind, stared straight at Elysium when he pulled the trigger. The gun fired, and Uncle Vernon's body snapped back, brains splattering the wall and ceiling. His heavy body collapsed behind his desk with a final thud, and Hazel screamed. She pushed off the floor, already in a sprint toward her father.

  The house trembled, walls shaking and picture frames falling. Doors opened and slammed up and down the second floor before a terrible thudding ran down the stairs. She was in the house. She was showing them so that Elysium would know the truth of her threats. They could not cast out Gloria Lyon. She was a poltergeist now. This house was hers, and she would not yield it, and no one here had the strength to move her.