The Burning (16 page)

“Does this mean that you will not marry me?” he asked, his eyes burning into hers.

“We must be married at once,” she replied breathlessly. “We must end the curse forever.”

Daniel cried out in happiness. “I passed by the house of the town justice on my way here. I know he will marry us now!”

Nora's smile faded. She gazed at him uncertainly. “But, Daniel, we have no ring to bind the ceremony.”

Daniel let go of her hand. His expression turned thoughtful. “No ring …” he muttered, frowning. “Oh. Wait!” He reached behind his neck and pulled off the silver three-clawed pendant. “This will serve as a ring, Nora!” he proclaimed excitedly.

“What a strange object!” Nora cried, staring at it. “Where did you get it?”

“It is of no concern,” Daniel replied excitedly. “It will serve as a ring.” He raised the silver disk to slip the chain around her neck.

As she arranged the pendant, Nora felt a sudden surge of heat at her chest and thought she saw flames rising up around the room. The strange image lasted only a few seconds. When it cleared, Daniel was pulling her by the hand toward the window to make their escape.

“Tonight is my grandfather Simon's seventy-fifth birthday party,” Daniel told her, helping her onto the tiny balcony outside the window. “We will announce our marriage at the party!”

“Oh, Daniel!” Nora cried, lingering at the window. “What will your grandfather say? What if our
announcement angers him or makes him unhappy?”

“He can only be joyful that a centuries-old curse has ended,” Daniel replied, smiling, his dark eyes flashing excitedly. “Come, Nora. Hurry! Tonight will be a night we will long remember!”

T
hat night Daniel walked with his new bride through the gloomy halls of his grandfather's mansion.

“Daniel, this house … it frightens me,” Nora whispered.

“We shall not stay long, dear wife,” Daniel told her, squeezing her hand. “We will leave after the birthday party. I promise. We will not even stay the night.”

Nora stayed close by his side as he led her through the dark corridors of Simon Fear's house. “The house is so dark, so cold,” she whispered.

“Try not to think gloomy thoughts,” he urged as the pantry came into view. “After all, we are married. And after a few hours we never need return to this dreary place again.”

Mrs. MacKenzie and more than a dozen helpers, hired from another town for the evening, were bustling about the kitchen, preparing the food and drink for the birthday party. But the old housekeeper stopped to stare as Daniel led Nora into the room.

“Mrs. MacKenzie, this is my wife, Nora,” Daniel announced, unable to keep a wide, excited grin from his face.

“Nora Goode,” the old woman muttered, studying Nora intently with her one good eye. Then she smiled, too. “I wish you both joy,” she said.

“Please take care of Nora while I attend to my grandparents,” Daniel asked, still holding his bride's hand. “When the time is right, I plan to announce our marriage.”

He turned before the housekeeper could react and hurried to greet Simon and Angelica in the ballroom.

Daniel stopped in surprise at one entrance to the ballroom.

Where are the guests? he asked himself.

The enormous room was empty. Hundreds of glimmering candles sent a wash of pale light over the walls, festooned with white and yellow flowers.

Daniel's footsteps echoed loudly in the vast emptiness as he crossed the room to greet his grandparents.

The party was scheduled to have begun more than an hour ago, he remembered. Was it possible that no one had come?

As far as Daniel had been able to tell during the weeks of his visit, his grandparents had no friends. The Fear mansion had been closed to all visitors for thirty-five years.

Did Simon and Angelica expect people to come? Had they invited anyone? Anyone besides Daniel?

Daniel felt a chill of horror.

Am I really the only guest at this eerie party?

“Hello!” he called, trying to sound cheerful. But his voice echoed mournfully in the enormous empty space.

His grandparents hovered near the door.

Angelica wore a solemn-looking black dress more suited to a funeral than a birthday party. Her long white hair was tied behind her head with a black ribbon.

Daniel hesitated and gaped at his grandmother.

Angelica was going through the motions of welcoming guests. “So good to see you,” she repeated with a smile, nodding her head at empty air. “So nice of you to come.”

Daniel swallowed hard. She has entirely lost her senses! he told himself, watching her smiling and carrying on a conversation with no one at all.

Simon, his dark eyes glowing excitedly behind his spectacles, his face flushed in the candlelight, stared eagerly at the open doorway. He leaned forward in his wheelchair, an expectant smile frozen on his face, as if eager to see who would arrive next.

Daniel took a deep breath. I guess I had better go along with the charade, he told himself with a
shudder. “Happy birthday, Grandfather,” he called warmly, rushing up to the wheelchair and shaking Simon's hand.

Simon's hand was as cold as ice. “Thank you, my boy,” he replied. “I am happy that at least
one
member of my family saw fit to attend this occasion,” he added with some bitterness.

Daniel moved over to greet Angelica. “Did you come with the Bridgers?” she asked. She stared at him as if she had never seen him before.

“You … uh … look lovely tonight, Grandmother,” Daniel managed to say.

“Don't just stand there. Why don't you mingle with our guests?” Angelica demanded. She turned away from him and stuck out her gloved hand. “So good of you to come,” she gushed to no one at all. “And how are your lovely daughters?”

Simon continued to stare at the doorway, the expectant smile frozen on his face.

Daniel stepped quickly to the wall, his shoes pounding like thunder in the empty ballroom.

What should I do? he wondered. They are mad, completely mad—both of them!

Should I bring Nora out and introduce her now? Shall I tell them that Nora and I have married?

Or should I take Nora and flee this frightening place?

No. I cannot run. I must stay and tell them.

Watching Simon from across the room, Daniel wondered how the old man would react. A Fear had married a Goode. Today, on Simon's birthday, the ancient feud between the two families had ended.
Hundreds of years of bitterness, of treachery, of evil, had come to an end. The Fears and the Goodes would be one family now.

Will my grandfather share my joy? Daniel wondered.

Daniel heard a rumbling from the far end of the ballroom. He glanced up to see a birthday cake being wheeled in on a cart.

It was an enormous round cake, three tall tiers, frosted in white and yellow. On top were seventy-five candles, creating a blaze of yellow light that shimmered over the cake.

This is absurd! Daniel thought. Such a magnificent cake for such an empty celebration.

Who would bring such a cake into a tomb! A
tomb!

I've got to get Nora now, he decided. I will tell my grandparents my news. And then Nora and I will flee into the night, never to return!

As the hired servants slowly wheeled the cake toward Simon and Angelica, Daniel hurried to the pantry to retrieve Nora. Holding her hand tightly, he pulled her into the ballroom.

In the gloomy, eerie silence, Simon was preparing to blow out the candles, his face red in the glow from seventy-five candles.

Nora resisted, but Daniel pulled her across the empty ballroom. Squeezing her hand, he gave her a reassuring smile. She looks so beautiful, Daniel thought.

Nora wore a simple pale blue dress with a lacy
white collar. The silver three-toed pendant glowed at her throat.

“Grandfather, Grandmother, I have an announcement to make,” Daniel declared, his voice booming in the empty room. Nora lingered just behind him.

Daniel saw Simon's eyes narrow. Simon was staring at the pendant at Nora's throat. “Wh— what is this?” he stammered.

Holding tightly to Nora's hand, Daniel took a deep breath. “Grandfather, on this happy occasion I—I would like to introduce my wife to you. I have married Nora Goode!”

“N
oooooooo!”

A hideous wail, a cry of anguish and of horror rose over the ballroom, causing a thousand candles to flicker and bend low.

It took Nora a long while to realize that the howl had come from Simon Fear.

Frightened, she took a few steps back as Simon rose from his wheelchair. The old man's eyes were wide with horror. He pointed a trembling finger at the three-clawed disk around Nora's throat.

“Nooooooo!”
Another animal howl escaped Simon's lips.

Still pointing, he staggered toward her.

But his legs would not support him. He stumbled. Trying to steady himself, he leaned against the cart and pushed over the cake.

Angelica began to shriek as the enormous cake splattered to the floor.

“Daniel, what shall we do?” Nora cried. But her words were drowned out by yet another howl from Simon and by Angelica's shrill cries.

“Daniel, what is happening?”

A small carpet caught fire first. Then the entire room was ablaze—as if all the candles in the ballroom had suddenly fallen and flared into tall flames.

“Daniel, please! Daniel!”

She couldn't see him. He was hidden behind a bright wall of fire only feet from her.

Flames leapt from the floor and danced off the four walls.

How could the room be burning so quickly? Nora wondered, choking on the thick smoke, choking on her fear. “Daniel? Daniel?”

It was so bright, so blindingly bright.

As she stared into the flames, surrounded by screams and terrified cries, Nora saw a struggling figure emerge from the yellow-orange brightness.

“Daniel? Where
are
you?”

The figure grew closer, clearer.

Nora raised her hand to her mouth as she realized she was staring at a girl about her age, a girl struggling against a dark wooden stake, surrounded by flames, a girl burning, burning, burning, screaming as she burned. Susannah Goode, burning at the stake beside her mother.

And as Nora gaped in open-mouthed horror,
other tortured figures invaded the room, rising up through the crackling, blistering flames.

Nora saw Rebecca Fier, her neck broken, hanging by a rope from a dark rafter. Old Benjamin Fier rose into the room, impaled like a scarecrow, a wooden shaft pushed up through the back of his skull.

Nora screamed and tried to shut her eyes. But she had to watch, she had to bear witness as the other victims of the past emerged in the burning ballroom.

As she stared in silent horror, she saw Matthew and Constance Fier, skeletons behind their walledup prison. William Goode, his head exploded, his skull showing through rotted flesh, hovered into view.

The ghost of little Abigail Goode floated overhead. Abigail's mother, Jane, staggered stiffly after her, her face bloated from drowning. Kate Fier rose in front of them, a knitting needle through her heart. Hannah Fear came next, a sword through her chest.

Then Nora saw Julia Fear, scratching the air, scratching at nothing, her fingernails cut and bleeding. Poor Julia, buried alive, but back now to join the other victims of the centuries.

The victims, the phantoms of the past, Fears and Goodes, roared around the room, their cries louder than the thunder of the flames. They swept round and round, faster, faster, until they became a raging whirlwind of pain, of brutal death.

“Daniel, where are you? Daniel?”

Nora stared into the swirling flame. “Daniel, oh, Daniel!”

Unable to find him, unable to endure the howls of the dead, their cries of agony as they swept around the room, Nora covered her eyes and fled.

Moments later she was in the cool darkness of the night, watching the blaze from the front lawn, trembling from the sudden cold, gripping the silver medallion with both hands as villagers made their way from town and gathered, muttering about the evil of the Fears, about the centuries of evil that had led to this night, to this final fire.