The House Next Door, page 15
The door handle wouldn’t turn.
25
“What—” I rattled the handle. It was frozen. I felt around the locks, bolting and unbolting them again, but none of them were engaged. The door wouldn’t open. “Anna? Do you know why it won’t turn?”
“No.” She turned to scan the foyer as she folded her arms across her chest. “Let’s use the back door.”
We held hands as we jogged through the house. The house’s dignified silence felt magnified as we ran into the kitchen and towards the back door. The handle rattled when I twisted it, but then stuck. I groaned. “No, come on, let us out. We’re not playing your games anymore.”
Anna stepped into my place and struggled with the door. She beat her fist against it then kicked it before finally slumping against the wood. Colour had drained from her face. “She’s locked us inside.”
I pressed my hands to the sides of my head. I couldn’t believe it. We were so close to getting away—just a thin block of wood divided us from safety.
“We’ll find a way out.” I turned towards the house and raised my voice. “You can’t keep us here!”
A door slammed upstairs. We both flinched.
“Come on. We’ll get through a window.” The pane above the kitchen bench was large enough to squeeze through. I leaned over the sink and tried to open it, but the clasp had frozen shut. I strained until my hands ached before sliding back. “We’ll need to break it.”
Anna had already pulled down two of the heavy cast-iron pots from the stovetop. She handed one to me then heaved her own at the glass. A deep, angry clang shook in my ears as the metal struck, and bounced off, the glass.
“No way,” I muttered, swinging my own pot at the window. Reverberations ran down my arms as the pot bounced back. The window remained flawless.
Anna didn’t speak, but her face tightened with anger. She beat her pot against the glass again and again, filling the kitchen with the awful discordant clangs, then slumped back, breathing heavily. “There are other windows. Bigger windows.”
“Okay.” I already knew it would be wasted energy—but I couldn’t give up without trying. We raced through the house, first beating on the tall dining room windows, then the square panes in the laundry, and finally facing the large latticed windows in the living room.
One of the panes was already broken. Raul had punched through it on the night he’d died. Anna had taped a square of cardboard over the hole, but I ripped it back and crouched down. Cool, fresh air blew in. I used the pot’s handle to apply pressure to one of the glass fragments poking out from the wooden sash bars criss-crossing the window. I leaned my whole weight against it, but the glass didn’t pop out. It didn’t even crack.
The hole was big enough to pass an arm through, but no wider. I dropped the pot as I stepped back. “I can’t believe this. She’s sealed us inside.” I thought of the great owl we’d buried. It had snapped its neck on an upstairs window, but the glass hadn’t shattered. I wondered if Helen had always had such control over the house, to protect it and strengthen it.
Anna bent close to the broken pane and cupped her hands around her mouth. “Help! Help us, please! Help!”
I pressed my forehead against the glass and scanned the street. The chair in Penny’s window stayed empty. Mr. Korver was no longer in his garden, but his hose lay on the lawn, forgotten.
“Help!” Anna screamed, slamming her open palm against the window. “We need help!”
They’re not going to answer. People always used to avoid Marwick House, but now it’s worse than ever. We need to contact someone who’s outside of Helen’s reach.
“Where’s your phone?” I shook Anna’s shoulder. “We’ll call Lukas.”
She dashed into the hallway and grabbed the handset off the table. “Here.”
I had Lukas’s number memorised. I dialled it and held the phone to my ear. All I heard was static. I swore and redialled the number. Then I smacked the phone and checked its batteries. I couldn’t see any reason for it not to work.
Anna chewed on the corner of her thumb as she watched me. Hope was fading out of her face. I tried the number a final time and held the phone up to my ear.
There was something in the static. I frowned and pressed the phone closer. It sounded like breathing.
“What is it?” Anna whispered.
I held up a hand to ask for silence. The static crackled. And inside, muffled by the distortion but unmistakable, a woman sighed.
Chills raced up my arms. I slammed the phone back into its cradle. Anna’s expression was tight. I rubbed my sweating palms on my pants. “We’ll get out of here. I just need to… to think for a bit. Yes. We’ll sit down and talk it over. I’m sure we’ll figure something out if we approach it rationally.”
“Jo…”
I patted her arm and turned towards the living room. “We’ll be okay. Come and sit with me.”
“Jo, no.” She grabbed my sleeve and tugged me back. I felt a swell of frustration. Didn’t she see I was trying to help?
“Let go, Anna.”
She gripped my shoulders and shook me. Hard. “Jo! Snap out of it!”
The cobwebs had been accumulating over my mind without me even noticing. I blinked as they melted away. The world had begun to blur, but as the cobwebs dissolved, it swam back into focus. “Uh…”
“Wake up!” Tears ran down her face. “We don’t need to sit. If we sit, she’ll trap us in our minds again, and we’ll never get out. We need to keep moving.”
My heart lurched. I rubbed shaking hands over my arms. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking—”
“I know.” She sniffed and rubbed her hand over her nose. “It’s so easy to fall back in. You just need to stop thinking for half a minute, and she’ll dig her claws into you.”
“That means we can’t leave each other alone. Not even for a moment.” I squeezed her hand. “We’ve got to stay alert and look out for each other. Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“All right.” I turned to face the house. My mind felt sluggish, but I forced it to think through our situation. “We can’t get out through the doors or the windows. And no one outside is going to come looking for us. What else can we do?”
“We still have the herbs and salt from the cleansing.” Anna shot me a frightened glance. “Henry said not to try it again, but…”
“But I don’t think he expected us to become trapped like this,” I agreed. “It’s worth a shot. Where is it?”
“In the storage cupboard. This way.”
I followed her towards the music room. As we pushed the door open, the curtains shifted. I tried not to stare at them as we went to the vast cabinet in the back of the room.
A soft, barely-audible twang came from the piano. The dark wood shone in the lights. A small puff of dust swirled off its top.
Anna wrenched open the cupboard doors. The space was empty except for dust and the abandoned cleansing instruments: the sprig of sage, box of matches, and plastic container of salt. We shared a look, simultaneously dreading trying to use the items and clinging to hope.
“What did you want to do?” Anna whispered.
I remembered she hadn’t liked the way the sage smelt when it burned. “I’ll do the herbs.”
“Then I’ll take the salt.”
We turned back to face the room. Henry had started the process by opening the house’s windows, but they wouldn’t budge. I hoped that wouldn’t stop the cleansing from working. I took up the sage bunch and the box of matches. Anna collected the container of salt and opened the top. We stared at each other for a second. Anna cleared her throat. “It would be faster to split up—”
“No. We keep together.”
She nodded. I struck a match and touched it to the bundle of dried herbs. They caught, and the smoke began to rise as I held them ahead of myself. Anna began spreading salt across the floor. Henry seemed to have a pattern he scattered it in, but I couldn’t remember how he’d done it. I hoped our inexperience wouldn’t disadvantage us.
“Throw some on the piano,” I suggested.
Anna collected a handful of salt and tossed it over the instrument. As the grains touched the wood, an awful, ear-splitting clang burst through the room, as though someone had pounded on the keys. We both flinched away from it. The jangled notes hung in the air for what felt like forever, but I managed a smile as they began to fade. “I think it’s working.”
“I think you’re right.” She was breathing heavily but laughed. “Let’s try some on a door.”
The kitchen was closest. We hurried into it. I passed the burning sage around the door’s edges as Anna threw a handful of salt across it. Then I tried the handle.
It was still locked.
“Okay.” I tried to control my disappointment. “It’s not helping—yet. But it must be weakening her, right? If we keep going through the house, we might be able to loosen her hold.”
Anna nodded. She was already scattering the salt around the benches and window.
We worked through the house methodically, spreading sage and salt everywhere we could reach. The house stayed quiet, as though it had expended its energy on the piano. The sage’s leaves were blackening and withering faster than I would have liked. As we passed through the living room, I nudged Anna’s arm. “This sage is burning quickly. I don’t have much left. How’s your salt?”
“Low.” She shook the container.
“How about we go upstairs? Helen was trapped in that blue room for who-knows-how-long, and died by throwing herself from the window. If her energy is going to be concentrated anywhere, it will be there.”
“Right.” She squeezed her hands around the salt container.
I led the way up the stairs. As I passed, I waved the sage around the watercolour portraits. I don’t think it was my imagination that the puppies and kittens and foals seemed to shiver away from the smoke.
The upstairs hallway was dark. I tried the light switch, but none of the lamps turned on. I shot Anna a questioning look over my shoulder. She nodded that I should continue on.
As I passed the first room—the master bedroom—the door groaned closed. I swung towards it. With a click, the latch caught in the doorframe. I shifted closer to the opposite wall as we circled past. The next door along the hall creaked as we drew near. I watched as it slowly, lazily turned on its hinges before finally clicking closed. The bathroom was next. As I passed it, the tap squeaked, followed by the rush of pouring water.
“She’s trying to distract us,” Anna said. “Keep going.”
I fixed my attention on the door at the end of the hall. There was a flash of motion as the grey curtains shifted in a breeze that didn’t exist. Its door stayed open even while the ones on either side of me shuddered closed. I took a deep breath, my heart thundering, and held the burning sage ahead of myself.
26
We stopped on the blue room’s threshold. Something felt different about the space. The mental cobwebs were building up over my mind again, blurring my eyes and slowing my reactions. I glanced at the hand holding the sage; the black veins spread down my arm, going nearly all the way to my shoulder. I blinked. They were gone again.
“Stay alert,” I hissed. “She’s trying to pull us back into her trance.”
I stepped into the room and was slapped by a sense of surrealism. The shelves still stood against the walls, their blank-faced dolls staring down at the doorway. But the desk below the window was gone. In its place lay a cot. Pink lace had been painstakingly sewn around it, and a rattle rested on its edge, ready to be given to the infant inside.
A small, gurgling cry came from the crib. Enthralled, I stepped closer. There was no child inside. Instead, one of Anna’s dolls lay amongst the soft sheets and pink cushions.
The doll bore a striking resemblance to its creator. Long, mousy hair spread out from its head. Its eyes were large and clear blue. The arms stretched out, and at first glance, they seemed to ask for a hug. But then I saw the blood trickling from the back of the doll’s head. Its plastic cranium had broken open from the fall that had flung its limbs wide. Its lips were parted in a tiny, surprised smile. The shining eyes held no life.
I choked out a cry as I stumbled back from the image. Anna was at my side in an instant. She threw a handful of salt into the crib, and sick, icy shivers ran up my limbs. I blinked, and the cot was gone. Only the desk remained in its place, the malformed, unsmiling dolls glaring up at me.
“You’re okay,” Anna whispered. “It was just a trick. Put it out of your mind.”
She turned towards the window, and I followed her gaze. Night had fallen and obscured the yard, but I thought I saw something large move in the back corner.
“Raul’s hanging there again.” Anna’s voice was raw. “We buried him, but… but he’s—”
“Back,” I finished. “Don’t look at it. It’s another illusion.”
“Spread some more sage.” She took a quick breath and pressed my arm as she moved past me. “You were right. Helen’s strength is concentrated here.”
I raised the bunch of herbs. The smoke spread through the room, hanging about the corners and blurring the walls. Anna scattered fistfuls of salt across the dolls, the desk, and the windowpane.
“Get that corner, too.” I nodded towards the place where holes had been drilled into the wall. When I looked closely, I could see a rusty outline from the bracket Helen had once been chained to.
Anna tipped salt across the wall and the ground. Tiny plumes of black smoke rose from the floor, as if the salt were burning the wood. My herbs were burnt down to stubs, so I threw the bunch into the corner. “I’m out.”
“Me, too.” Anna shook the empty salt container. “Do you think it was enough?”
“I don’t know. Let’s see.” I went to the window and grabbed the frame. It rattled and shifted up an inch. Cool air floated through the gap. I strained, alternately yanking it up and down, trying to shake it loose. I stepped back, my breathing laboured.
“It could just be jammed.” Anna stepped up and tried the window herself. It still stuck. “Jammed from a natural cause, I mean. Come on, let’s try the front door.”
“All right.” I reached out and gave the frame a final yank as Anna stepped into the hallway. It only moved up an inch before freezing again. I sighed and turned to leave the room.
Something crouched in the corner where I’d thrown my smouldering sage. I froze, my heart thundering, as Helen raised her head to glare at me. Her tousled hair hung like curtains around her face, and her faded steel-blue dress was grimy. Metal clinked as she shifted, and I saw a long chain running from a collar around her throat to the wall.
“Anna?” My voice was a squeak.
Anna was already halfway down the hallway, but she stopped and turned at my voice.
With a snarl, Helen’s lips parted. One hand moved forward to cover her belly. She was ringed by the salt, and the sage’s smoke drifted past her face, but she didn’t seem to notice or care.
Anna was coming back up the hallway. “Jo, what is it?”
“She’s here.” I raised a hand to halt Anna. “Don’t come in.”
Helen shifted a fraction, her grey eye sparkling behind the hair. It was heavily ringed by shadows. I bent forward and dropped my voice into the gentlest whisper I could manage through my fear. “Helen, I’m sorry about what happened to you. It was awful. Unforgivable. But you don’t need to be afraid any longer. Anna and I—we’re here to help you.”
“I don’t need your help.” The voice was gravelly and cracked, words passing through a throat rarely used. Helen shifted forward. The chains clinked. She wore no shoes, and her nails had grown lengthy. I wondered how long she’d been kept up here.
“Helen, we just want to leave. Let us out, and you can have the house to yourself.”
“I don’t… want… the house.” She shifted her weight from one side to the other, swaying, her long hair falling forward to obscure the eyes again. She bared her teeth in a cold smile. “I want her.”
A bony hand rose to point to the doorway. Anna stood in the opening, eyes huge and terrified.
I guessed Helen’s intent a second before she moved. “Run!” I yelled, dashing towards the door at the same instant as Helen lunged after us. She was fast. Long fingernails scored across the back of my shoulder as Anna and I raced for the stairs. I couldn’t breathe. Helen was gaining. Another second, and her bone-thin fingers would grasp my arm—
The chains clanged as they were pulled taut. Helen released a gasping cry, and her pounding footsteps ceased.
Anna and I hit the end of the hallway. We turned to look behind ourselves. Helen had vanished. The door to the blue room stood open. Inside, the grey curtains shifted in the breeze.
“You okay?” Anna asked, squeezing my arm. I couldn’t speak, so I nodded instead.
The lights went out with a hissing whine. Anna and I clutched each other close. Night had surrounded us, and without the downstairs lamps to share their glow, the house was pitch black.
We waited, crouched at the top of the stairs, for the lights to come back on. They didn’t. Anna took a shaking, gulping breath. I could feel her trembling. “We’ll try the door. If it d-doesn’t work, there are torches d-downstairs. In the kitchen.”
“Okay.” I couldn’t take my eyes off the place where the blue room would be. Everything else in the house was dark except for one small, glinting circle. It looked like an eye peering out from behind curtains of hair. I nudged Anna towards the stairs. “Don’t let go of me. I don’t want to lose you in this dark.”
We inched down the stairs. Having to move without my eyes made me sick to my stomach. I used my foot to trace out the edge of each step before climbing down it. I knew the stairs were all the same height, but in the dark, it didn’t feel like they were. Progress was laboriously slow.
A chain link clicked, and Anna flinched. I squeezed her hand. Keep moving.
My feet touched the uncarpeted foyer. I began breathing a little easier and released my grip on the bannister. Anna rose out of her crouch and led me towards the front door. I listened to her fingers scrabble over the wood then touch the handle. The metal rattled. She groaned deep in her throat.
