Haunted (22 page)

Eric glanced at David once more, then did as he asked, pushing the dress only to the knees. He looked at the cracked legs a moment, and nodded. "That's right. Those are the places it hurts."

Everything he'd read said that Lizzie had fallen and that Christabel might have been behind the accident. There were no other details to judge by. Occasionally, the daughter's twisted voodoo practices were mentioned, though usually in conjunction with her sexual proclivities. Judging by what Eric had told him, it appeared that she had tried to kill her mother with magic, too.

"Eric, would you mind coming upstairs with me?"

"I don't want to go to the third floor."

"The second floor."

"Okay."

David took the doll and locked it in his desk drawer. Eric started to protest, but he assured the young man he would return it to Amber's room before she returned.

As they exited the office, David wasn't particularly surprised to see Minnie dusting the already dustless framed Edward Gorey print he'd hung in the hall. He gave her a knowing look, which she refused to read.

"Mr. Masters, would you like me to tidy up your office?" she twittered.

"No, thanks." He pulled the door firmly closed behind him. '

"No matter how messy it gets, never touch my office. I'll take care of it myself." He sounded too gruff, so he smiled and added, "Writers are superstitious about things like that."

"Surely you don't mean that you don't want me to vacuum." She said it in a tone that suggested not vacuuming and never changing your shorts were one and the same.

"Surely, I do." He glanced at his watch. "It's after one. Why don't you knock off for the day?"

"I haven't made your casserole yet."

"Don't bother, we'll fend for ourselves tonight."

"I can't have you doing that."

I'm going to kill her. He smiled through gritted teeth. "Amber and I are going out tonight. Go on home, Minnie."

"If you insist. Eric, if you want to put your bike in the back of my car, I'll give you a lift."

"No, Minnie," David interjected. "Eric still has some work to do."

"Well, then, I'll wait."

"No." He looked at Eric. "I'll be right back." He took Minnie's arm and guided her up the hall and toward the door.

In the foyer, he held her coat for her, then handed her her purse. "Thank you, Minnie, for all your hard work. Now you go home and relax." He could feel the muscle in his jaw twitching as he spoke. He wondered how much more of her he could take as he opened the front door. "Goodbye, Minnie."

She looked at him sideways. "Goodbye." Inside, the phone began to ring. "Do you want me to get that?" she asked hopefully.

You nosey old bag. "No, thanks." He practically pushed her out the door. "I'll get it," he said, shutting it just as she cleared the threshold.

He walked back in and found Eric had picked it up for him. Smiling, the boy held out the receiver. "It's Amber."

Oh, no, the truck broke down. "Hey, kiddo," he said.

But the truck was fine, she only wanted to consult about curtain colors, and a moment later, David and Eric were headed upstairs.

"Who picked the bedrooms?" David asked.

"Well. I guess Miss Pelinore did," Eric replied slowly.

"Kind of. She picked yours."

"What about Amber's room? Did she pick that one too?"

"No." At the landing, Eric paused, leaning against the balustrade.

"She was going to put her in that one big bedroom on this side of the stairs."

"Why didn't she?"

Eric turned beet red. "Mr. Masters, I put Amber in Miss Lizzie's room." He stared at his fingertips. "I pretended I made a mistake. She almost fired me."

"Amber likes the room, Eric," David said warmly. "She says she feels safe in it."

Eric smiled slowly. "I'm glad."

"Tell me, why did you do it?"

"Well, I guess because most of the bedrooms have leftovers that aren't very nice. That big room, down there," he pointed toward the other wing again, "had a whole lot of leftovers. A bunch of people got killed in there."

"In Lizzie's time?''

He shook his head. "No, just a while ago. A family. With kids. There's stuff in there from Miss Lizzie's time too," he added thoughtfully.

In 1952, an entire family was found butchered in an upstairs bedroom, David remembered. The police chalked it up to a group of degenerates. They caught one who, before he killed himself, said he'd been possessed. Oldest excuse in the book.

"So you were trying to protect Amber in case she was sensitive to the ghosts?" David asked, the last of his worries about Eric Swenson dissolving into positively syrupy appreciation.

"Yes. Most people don't seem to notice leftovers. I mostly did it because Miss Lizzie's room feels good. And the other thing never goes in there." His voice sounded terribly somber.

"The thing from the third floor?"

Eric nodded.

"Let's go in Amber's room and see if it still feels good to you without the doll present."

"Okay."

A moment later, they were inside and Eric walked to the center of the room then turned in a slow circle. "Miss Lizzie?" he whispered.

A faint breeze stirred in the room.

"Do you smell that?"

Eric's words produced a sudden rush of adrenalin and David sniffed, expecting jasmine, smelling instead nothing but a faint, clean scent. Lavender, he realized. "Yes."

"She's here."

"Who's here?"

"Miss Lizzie," Eric said matter-of-factly. "I think she'd feel better if the doll was here."

"Does that increase her strength?"

"I think so. I'm not sure."

Suddenly, the boy looked at the closed door. David followed his gaze. The handle jiggled, as if someone had their hand on the hallside door latch.

"What is it?" David whispered.

"It's the other."

"Christabel?"

"Don't say her name," Eric whispered urgently. "Don't ever say her name." As they watched, the handle began to depress.

"Why not?" David realized his body had begun backing toward the other side of the room without mentioning it to his brain. Eric stood his ground and he forced himself to rejoin him.

"Just don't say it." The handle, moving in slow motion, had almost reached the point where the latch would release. Abruptly, Eric ran at the door and grabbed the handle, tried to force it upward.

Too late. The door exploded open. Eric yelled as the force of it hurled him across the room like a rag doll.

Vaguely, David heard Eric scrambling to his feet somewhere behind him, but he couldn't turn to help him. His eyes were on the transparent dark mass hovering in the doorway, and his stomach churned from the overwhelming stench of jasmine and putrescence that filled the room.

Vertigo set in, worsening David's nausea. Gagging, he staggered backward until invisible hands roughly grabbed his upper arms. He yelled, struggling to get away.

"It's me!" Eric hissed in his ear.

Quickly, David moved aside, and leaned against the tall, curved end of the sleigh bed. The chill air seemed poisoned with the decaying odors and he couldn't seem to get any air into his lungs. Don't panic, Masters. He forced himself to breathe deeply and slowly. Though his gorge rose with each inhalation, the dizziness began slowly to pass.

Then the undulating darkness crossed the threshold, its odor nearly overwhelming him. In front of him, Eric stood statue-like, his feet planted far apart, his muscular arms at his sides, but tensed, the hands curled almost into fists.

The door slammed shut.

"I thought you said it couldn't come in here," he said softly. Eric didn't answer.

Freezing cold emanated from the mass. Its stench was so strong now that David could taste it, sickeningly sweet, cloying foulness that made bitter saltwater rise under his tongue, made his stomach spasm. No! Again, he fought down the urge to vomit.

As he watched, the hovering darkness seemed to stretch and elongate, changing from a vague chest-high globe into an ovoid, then into a long, rounded rectangle that reached nearly to the floor.

A phantom zephyr pattered around David's face. Though it was cool, it was far warmer than the bone-chilling cold emanating from the dark manifestation. He caught the faint clean scent of lavender in the breeze.

The light fragrance suddenly drowned out the rancid rotten stink of the other. It flowed into his nose, invaded his mouth and ears. He peered through a grayish haze and now the breeze felt more like finger tips patting his face and neck and hands. It's trying to get inside me! "Eric!" he called, panicked.

Swenson half turned and stared at him, wide-eyed. "It's Miss Lizzie!" he gasped.

"What--what does she want?" David asked helplessly. Behind Eric, the dark manifestation grew taller.

Eric's eyes darted back and forth. He shook his head, then blurted, "Let her in!"

"What?" David cried in confusion.

The cold dark form moved closer. Eric glanced at it, then screamed, "Let her in!"

"I don't understand!" The air behind Eric roiled as the phantom moved toward him. David saw the boy's blond hair rising in response to the static electricity filling the room. He could feel his doing the same and his whole body felt like it had been asleep and was now being prickled by pins and needles. The air pressure changed suddenly, hurting his ears. David felt caught in a vacuum.

"Let her in!" Eric commanded.

A piece of darkness detached itself from the long ovoid rectangle and rose, like an arm reaching for Eric's shoulder.

"Watch out!" David cried.

Eric screamed as the darkness touched him. His eyes pleaded with David.

Suddenly, he understood that Eric wanted him to open up to Lizzie. The thought scared him nearly to death, but he had to do it. Lizzie! Lizzie Baudey! His thoughts were answered by more insistent pressure from the lavender-scented spirit.

Eric continued to scream. A second arm had detached itself from the main body of darkness and sunk its phantom hand into his other shoulder.

Okay. Masters, let her in. It's a paranormal experiment.

Still, he hesitated, unwilling to let down his defenses. Eric's scream became a pain-filled moan as he gasped for breath. David inhaled deeply, held and exhaled, then took another breath, trying to relax, to stop resisting. "Lizzie, come into me." The roar of his own voice startled him.

She entered him like a cool summer breeze, flowing through ears and eyes and mouth to fill his chest, his heart, his mind, with her essence. In a brief instant, he knew her emotions, knew her sorrow and rage, knew her love--and her hatred--for her daughter. He knew the torture she had endured.

She began to leave him, too soon, too soon, and he knew that he would fall down because she had fed on his strength, had taken it for herself. A blank instant passed, then the haze left his eyes and he lay gasping on the floor, unable to move. In front of him, a pale haze glimmered and thickened in the air, then began to take on a vaguely human shape.

Eric was still fighting off the darkness--fighting off Christabel, trying to keep her from getting inside him. She jerked him about like a puppet. Christabel was winning.

Christabel! No! David heard Lizzie's words in his mind. As he tried to pull himself into a sitting position, he watched the spirit metamorphose into human form. A few wispy trails of fog became long white fingers, others transformed into red hair that escaped in long tendrils from its pinnings, and into green satin and sheer chiffon, like the gown from the portrait. A curve of her pale ankle flashed above Lizzie's green-slippered foot and, as she stepped toward Eric, David thought he heard the soft rustle of satin and lace.

Christabel. The name entered David's mind again as Lizzie glided away from him.

Suddenly, the dark entity tossed Eric roughly aside. Immediately, he scrambled to his feet and edged a wide circle around the phantoms to join David near the bed. "Come on," he grunted, pulling David to his feet.

His legs were jelly, nearly useless, and he let himself be pulled along. Swenson dragged him back around the edges of the room until they were nearly at the door. "Wait!" he groaned. A coughing fit doubled him over as he tried to catch his breath in the asphyxiated atmosphere.

"Come on!" Eric dragged him to the door. "We have to get the doll!" His hand on the latch, he paused, his eyes on the apparitions.

Uncomprehending, disbelieving, in awe, David gazed at them. Lizzie appeared much as she did in the portrait, though her face was drawn and her emerald eyes sparked with anger. I could reach out and touch her. David wondered if she felt like flesh and blood.

Christabel began to take form now, much as Lizzie had. Glossy raven hair waved halfway down her back and, below that, her dress was translucent black chiffon, revealing the pale skin of her back. At the very top of her rounded buttocks, the chiffon joined with more layers of material, forming a straight skirt in the style of the nouveau era. The layers of chiffon hung like scarves, revealing glimpses of her legs as she moved toward her mother.