The Midnight Lullaby

by Cheryl Low

  "Elys!" Benedict shouted, just as Luis went slack under him, palms still pressing the gunshot wound on his stomach. He looked around for someone else, anyone else, but Hazel rocked her father's corpse in her arms, and Theodore sat on his ass in the doorway, staring at the dead man.

  Emmeline lingered in the corner. She wore the same outfit as always, the same as he had seen her wearing in the closet, but she wasn't the same woman. The one in the closet had been alive, full of fear and heartache. The ghost in the corner was still, empty of life, and pulsing with fury.

  "Elys!" he tried again, but his brother was already moving to him, dropping to his knees on the other side of Luis's body.

  Tears rolled off Elysium's lashes when he held their brother's face, looking into those open, glassy eyes. He felt for a pulse even though they both knew he was gone, and then he pushed at Benedict's shoulder. At first, Benedict couldn't move, couldn't give up the pressure he had been holding on the wound. Elysium patted his chest firmly, pushing him until he finally gave up and sagged back onto the floor.

  "What's happening?" Benedict asked.

  "You should leave," Elysium whispered, gaze still fixed on Luis. "Go grab your things, Benny. Take the car and go. Just go."

  "What are you—"

  "Just go," Elysium said again.

  Benedict clenched his teeth, wanting to argue just for the sake of arguing—because he didn't want to be told to leave. He wanted to storm out of this house because he had decided to go. Maybe he had even wanted Elysium to try to stop him. To give him a speech about family loyalty and convince him to stay.

  He looked down at their brother's corpse. He had never been close with Luis—never really wanted to be. And suddenly he regretted that because now he could never change it. He could never take it back or get to know him better.

  Their uncle lay on the other side of the desk. How many people had died since he got here? Three? Four?

  Benedict pushed himself to his feet, using the wall to brace himself and smearing blood on the surface. He staggered out of the room, stepping over Theodore.

  Emmeline joined him in the hallway, walking back to their room in silence.

  He opened the door and held it for her.

  She slipped past, and for one blissful second, things felt normal. They were together and alone—just the way he liked it.

  "Wash your hands before you touch anything..." Emmeline said, the command mild, as though she wouldn't really care if he rubbed his bloody hands clean on the sofa.

  He walked to the bathroom, heart hammering in his chest as he replayed everything that had happened from the moment he walked into the parlor for the séance. "Is that really my mother's ghost?"

  "Yes. But it isn't her anger." Emmeline followed him to linger in the open door of the bathroom. The habit of leaving doors open for her was so ingrained that he hadn't even thought to do it. He never wanted to close her out.

  He turned on the water, smudging the porcelain handle on the sink. He stuck his hands under the cold water, rubbing his brother's blood from his skin. Luis was dead. Uncle Vernon was dead. Mother was dead. And at least two of the staff had been killed.

  "Whose anger is it, Emmeline?" he whispered, afraid to know—afraid of having to turn on the one person he'd loved his whole adult life.

  "You're going to leave me in this house this time."

  He looked up to catch her reflection in the mirror, not the ghost but the living girl from his vision—the one with bruises and tears and so much fear in her eyes. "I won't," he promised.

  She forced a smile that only made her appear sadder. His heart cracked. "You have to. Or you'll die, too, this time."

  He turned around with hands still wet. The ghost stood in his doorway, no tears or bruises or bloodstains. Just his Emmeline, colors muted but for the moving swirls of green in her eyes. "Where is it? That closet you showed me... Where is it?" Benedict pressed.

  She cringed, sliding a step back and away from the bathroom door.

  He followed her, forgetting to turn off the sink. "Was it close by? Was it in the village by the river? Can you remember?"

  "Stop."

  He did, both his words and his body halted. He couldn't make her tell him. She might not even know. Ghosts didn't always.

  They stared at one another, and he thought about all the versions of her he had known. Sometimes he thought of her as his partner because he was sure he would spend his whole life in her company. She had been a strange burden in the beginning, a curse, and then a friend and a lifeline to faking his way into the family legacy. Somewhere along the way, she had become more important than the legacy. More important than the family.

  He turned back to the bathroom, finished cleaning his hands, and then turned off the sink. He changed his clothes, leaving the blood-splattered ones on the floor and dressing in a pair of jeans and a t-shirt. Fuck formality.

  Emmeline hugged herself, watching him with pressed lips, like she wasn't sure if she should be angry or guilty. That seemed about right for Emmeline. She was never guilty without a little anger rearing up.

  He sighed, staring at his bag after he pulled out a fresh pair of socks. He couldn't look at her when he asked, "Em, is the anger infecting my mother's ghost yours?"

  "Yes."

  Benedict nodded once, pulled on his sockets and his shoes, and then grabbed his bag. "Let's go home." If he took her away from this place, maybe his mother would settle down and Elysium could convince her to move on. At the very least, maybe she would stop slaughtering everyone inside.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Benedict dropped his bag beside the front door, staring out at what he had already heard. A summer storm was passing over the property, pelting the house with heavy drops of rain that appeared as a haze outside, obscuring the tree line into a smear of distant greens. The dirt roads were thick puddles fast bleeding into one another, creating a shallow river, and the whole house sang with the sound of rain beating at the rooftop and rattling the old windows in their frames.

  Elysium met him at the entrance, his shirt and vest soaked through and dark hair sticking to his cheek. "The tires have been slashed on all of the cars. All of them. Even the spares," he said.

  Benedict's brow pinched. "How is that possible?"

  "We can't find Lucy..." Theodore reported, winded and standing in the foyer behind them. "She vanished sometime after the séance and before dad..." His jaw twitched, tears welling unbidden in his eyes. He looked up, as though he could stub out his own sadness. "I checked the whole house, but I can't find her."

  "You think she's possessed?" Elysium asked.

  "I don't know," Theodore said quickly. "Maybe she made a run for it?"

  "And slashed all the tires before leaving?" Benedict pressed. He glanced around, looking for Emmeline, but he hadn't seen her since he left his room.

  "Maybe."

  "Can we call someone then?" Benedict asked, though he suspected he already knew the answer. And he couldn't exactly drive out on the rims in the mud.

  "The house line is dead, and we're not getting service. I think the storm is interfering," Elysium said grimly. They had never gotten particularly good wireless connections out here on the estate, and Mother hadn't minded. She preferred calls to the old house phone.

  "What are we going to do now?" Theodore asked, impatient. "The sun is coming up. We need to figure something out before night."

  Benedict turned, staring at his cousin. Since when was he afraid of the dark?

  Theodore clicked his teeth angrily at him, seeming to hear the accusation. "Everything got worse when the clock struck midnight. And the night before—when that maid killed the footman and then herself—that was after midnight, too."

  From the way Elysium straightened, it seemed Benedict hadn't been the only one not to think of the timing.

  "If we don't think of something soon, I'm going to start walking," Theodore said.

  "It might not be the worst idea..." Benedict agreed.

&
nbsp; "And just give up the house to a ghost?" Hazel snapped from the staircase. All three men turned to look up at her. Her hair was still wet from a shower. Last time Benedict had seen her, she'd been clinging to her father's corpse, his blood pouring out over her hands and dripping onto the floor. "No. This is our house."

  Theodore barked a laugh at his sister. "Who gives a shit about the house, Hazel? I'll buy you another one!"

  Hazel ignored him, the furious patter of the storm still rolling in thick and humid through the open front doors. She glared down at Elysium. "Are you really going to leave your mother to haunt this place? For how long?"

  Elysium weighed her with his dark gaze, appearing unconvinced.

  "And Luis's body? My father's? Will you leave them in the kitchen to rot?"

  Elysium cringed. "We'll come back for them."

  "Bullshit," Hazel snapped. "You know you can't just walk out of here. There are miles of woods between you and the road and a poltergeist in this house. Are you willing to bet she can't follow you to the edge of the estate?"

  Theodore swore and began to pace, much like his father used to. "That's absurd..."

  "All of this is absurd!" Hazel yelled. "But we have a job to do. We can cleanse this house and put our dead to rest."

  "This isn't the time to play leader of the pack," Theodore muttered bitterly.

  Hazel ignored her brother, still staring hard at Elysium. "Gloria would not have run from her own house."

  Benedict laughed then, surprising them all. "No. She wouldn't. Which is exactly why Elysium is trying to get us out of here. I am not stupid enough to think that I can force her out of this house, especially not now that she's gone poltergeist."

  "Of course, you can't," Hazel raked her gaze over him, lip curling. "You didn't even have the sight, let alone any gifts—"

  "Stop it," Elysium warned.

  She rolled her eyes and looked away. "We have to put them to rest. We can't just run away."

  "And are you going to be the one digging a grave in a downpour? Or maybe you'd like to build a pyre?" Theodore's voice rose as he spoke, one long arm sweeping toward the open doors to gesture at the storm outside and the morning darkened by the curtains of rain.

  The floorboards creaked down the length of the foyer, dragging all of their attention into the shadows at the far end. Lucy shifted from one foot to the other. A puddle of mud grew around her, water dripping off her dress, her sleeves, and her curls.

  "Lucy?" Elysium called, catching Theodore's elbow before he could walk toward her. They studied her for seconds that felt drawn out into minutes before relaxing all at once. Benedict understood why—they had used their sight to search for a ghost possessing her and found none. Benedict pretended to have come to the same conclusion.

  "It's her..." Lucy mumbled, making no move to come closer.

  As a group, they inched toward her. She held her hands out in front of herself, staring at them. Her arms were gloved in mud, nails broken, and hands swollen and bloody.

  "Where have you been?" Hazel asked.

  "Did you slash the tires?" Theodore demanded.

  Lucy continued to stare at her hands, brows pushing toward the middle of her face as though she didn't recognize the palms and dirty fingers. "It's her," she said again, dazed.

  "Who?" Elysium asked. "Mother?"

  Tears gathered in her dark eyes, making them shimmer when she shook her head.

  "Where were you?" Benedict tried. It seemed that asking questions was the thing to do.

  Lucy let out a wobbling breath. "I don't remember going to the graveyard… I don't remember digging her up but…"

  "You dug up your mother?" Hazel almost shrieked.

  Elysium gestured his cousin away and cautiously stepped up to his sister's side, taking her by the wrist with one hand while the other braced her back. "Let's get you cleaned up."

  Lucy took a couple of steps, lulled into his care before jumping to life and twisting from his hold. She shook her head. "No! We have to get out of here!"

  "You kind of made that impossible…" Hazel muttered. It seemed she had decided to lay the blame for the slashed tires and cut phone line on Lucy. She was probably right. It seemed Lucy had lost herself for a while and ended up in the graveyard. There was no knowing for certain what she had or hadn't done. But Benedict shot Hazel a glare anyway. She was being particularly heartless, and none of them deserved it.

  "She's coming for us. It's her!" Lucy continued to wail.

  Theodore made shushing sounds and gently took her arms, replacing Elysium. "We know. We know your mother is—"

  "No!" Lucy wailed, body shaking so hard that she had to lean into Theodore to keep from crumbling to the floor. "Not Mother." Her gaze slashed to Benedict, sending a chill down his spine. She repeated, "Her."

  Elysium and Theodore exchanged looks, as though this meant something to them. Her. Not Mother. But her.

  "She's lost her mind," Hazel whispered, but the fire had gone from her words.

  "Get her upstairs," Elysium told Theodore hurriedly. "She needs to rest. We'll figure out what to do."

  "No! No. She's coming for us!" Lucy continued to cry as Theodore all but carried her up the stairs. "We have to pay! She's going to make us pay!"

  The three of them stood in the foyer until it fell quiet again, as quiet as it could be with the roar of a storm still pouring in.

  "Who?" Benedict demanded before anyone could say anything else.

  "No one." Hazel found her voice. "Your mother obviously possessed Lucy to keep us in this house."

  "Convenient for you," Elysium added.

  "Why does Lucy think she's guilty? Guilty of what?" Benedict pressed, not letting them change the subject.

  "Nothing!" Hazel shouted. "I didn't do anything wrong, and I don't deserve this. I have only ever protected this family and—"

  "Now who's the one possessed by Mother?" Benedict interrupted. "You're practically quoting her."

  "Benny..." Elysium tried, his voice back to that careful, even tone, but when Benedict turned toward him, he saw uncertainty in those eyes. It hadn't been there before last night.

  "What is she talking about? Who is she talking about?"

  For one thrilling second, Benedict actually thought Elysium would tell him whatever the great secret was—that he would come clean and lay everything bare. And then Elysium pressed his lips shut and shook his head once, looking away like a king dismissing a subject.

  Benedict almost stayed, just to be willful. Almost took a big step forward and shoved Elysium back.

  But he didn't. He remembered the mud all over Lucy and her rambling about the graveyard. She had woken up out there from whatever trance possessed her. Mother's ghost had released her after she dug up her grave. Why? No one was going to answer him, that was painfully clear. So, Benedict turned and stomped down the hallway.

  He wanted to call for Emmeline. He wanted her to tell him all the secrets of his home the way she had told him the secrets in other haunted houses. She had been his eyes everywhere they went. Why wasn't she that way here? The few days since they arrived felt like weeks. She had been distant and strange the whole time. Maybe he got it wrong? Maybe it wasn't Emmeline infecting the house—maybe the house was infecting Emmeline?

  He passed the dining room and turned down the narrow hallway to the back of the house. The floor was muddy here, too, Lucy's wet footprints leading in from the storm. She had left the backdoor open, swinging on its hinges, caught in a warm breeze that bounced it on the wall.

  "Benedict!" Elysium called after him, voice echoing down the hall just before he stepped out into the storm.

  The fury of the warm rain muffled his brother's voice. The sopping ground sank under his steps, soaking into his boots. He was drenched before he had gone a dozen steps from the house, but he kept walking even when the rain rolled freely down his face in constant rivulets, spilling off his chin.

  If he weren't soaked from the rain, he would have been soaked from sweat b
y the time he reached the graveyard, the oppressive heat of the rising morning made brutally muggy by the storm. Each breath he sucked was wet heat sticking in his lungs.

  Elysium stopped calling him. He didn't follow. Why would he? What could he do now? Drag Benedict back into the house? Keep him captive? To what end?

  Benedict used his whole hand to scrub the rain from his face, trying to clear his vision long enough to get a look at the muddy yard. He stood in front of the fresh mound of his mother's grave. The rain had made it flat, puddling on top of it where even this soft ground wasn't fast enough to drink up the downpour. No one had dug her up. Nothing was out of place.

  He glanced around at the others, old stones and trimmed grass patches—just as they had been before.

  His stomach knotted and the muscles in his legs ached, threatening to give out on him. He turned toward the woods, toward that spot where Emmeline had sat during the funeral—staring at the ground.

  He forced himself to take those last steps, legs shaking and breaths coming in heaving gasps.

  The little hole in the ground was full of rainwater. It wasn't cleanly shaped by a shovel or a spade. No. Lucy had clawed up the grass and flowers and used her arms to scoop away the mud and rocks, making a little mound to the side.

  Benedict crouched over it, staring at the well of murky water. He reached in with both hands and pulled out the muddy bundle at its depths. He held it for a long while, heart hammering in his chest. He didn't want to open it. He didn't want whatever this gift was. But he needed it.

  He laid it on the grass and plucked at the thick strings used to bind the package. His hands shook.

  It was his mother's work. He had seen her put the last possessions of the dead to rest before. It was her way of paying respect and offering peace. It was the greatest kindness she could ever have been bothered to offer, and it was because she knew—knew—that there could be real consequences for leaving a spirit unsettled.