Through the Gate and Beyond
This is a continuation of an ongoing story. It begins with Part One, so if you’re wanting to start out at the beginning , I recommend you go there. Or go to the previous Part Eleven.
Beyond the gate was a grass-covered yard with a cobblestone path looping up to the building and then back out. To our right, there was a smaller building tucked up against the wall. To the left there was another. In the dead center of the yard, there was the stump of a grand tree. It must have towered over the property, once upon a time. Now, it rose about ten feet in the air and stopped at a jagged, broken, edge. There was no indication when the tree fell, nor were any of its limbs on the ground.
And then, past the stump, was the main “house.” It stretched out in a flattened V shape, with the main entrance straight ahead, in line with the dead tree. The building was made of a gray brick or limestone blocks, with a red roof. There was a tower rising several stories off the right side, and the entire structure was built like the rich internet entrepreneur’s version of a castle, with mock towers and crenelations in several spots. We stood there for a second, just taking in the massive building.
With a shake, I remembered where we were and pushed the gate closed. I had expected the hinges to squeal, but the gate glided shut silently like it had just been oiled. I latched the gate, hoping this would at least slow down anyone who came along behind us. Unfortunately, there was no lock.
“Where first?” Amber asked. Her voice still held more anger than I was used to hearing from her.
“Outbuildings. They’re small but I don’t want them left ignored behind us.” Brad said.
We headed to the one on our left. It was some kind of shop. We found some tools inside, all neatly organized and well-maintained. There was no sign of anything creepy here, not even cobwebs. We walked quickly to the other outbuilding. This was some kind of barn, with stalls for animals. One of the stalls had no door. Inside, we found a heap of rotting hay. But there was nothing else here.
Leaving the shop and barn behind us, we walked up to the main building. The covered entry had massive double doors that stood at least ten feet tall. Carved into the dark brown wood of the doors was the relief of a tree, with roots at the door’s bottom and leaves spreading out at the top. The work was truly magnificent.
At the doors, we paused for a second. I took a deep breath and grabbed a huge ring-shaped doorknob on the right door. “Ready?” I said. Brad and Amber pulled back so if anything was behind the door, they’d be safe. They nodded. I pulled the handle hard. The door flew open, gliding smoothly on perfectly balanced hinges. It banged against the wall hard, nearly hitting me. I’d expected the door to weigh a ton. I blushed and cringed at my error. Brad grinned at me as Amber rushed inside. I hastened to follow her. Brad came behind, closing the door behind him.
The doors gave entry to some kind of hall that stretched left and right, towards the wings of the house. Ahead, four stairs went up into a foyer and on towards stairs and another room past that. The floors were a beautiful white marble. The ceilings were twelve or fifteen feet above us. The foyer’s floor had an inlay patterned to form a tree like that on the front doors. The tree was at least ten or fifteen feet tall, with roots touching the steps up from the entrance and autumn-colored “leaves” at the far end, stretching out to the stairs. As I stared at the beautiful craftsmanship, I swear I saw some leaves move. I blinked, but couldn’t be sure.
The walls were wooden panels, stained a light tan with swirls of lighter colors that made them look like parchment. The ceiling was easily twenty or more feet overhead in the foyer, open to the floor above. We walked up the stairs and into the foyer with our mouths hanging open as we drank in the beautiful structure. To our left was a doorway into what looked like a library or study. To our right was a doorway onto a dining room. Ahead, we saw stairs on both sides curving up. Past these were matching stairs going down.
Those stairs were a dark wood, maybe mahogany or something like it. Nestled into the crook formed by the stairs was a small sofa, table, and chair. They looked out of place here, sized for humans in a room for giants. We looked around for a few seconds, letting our eyes adjust to the dim lights and trying to decide where to go first. I heard a hissing sound from somewhere overhead, and pointed to the stairs.
Slowly and as quietly as we could, we walked over to the stairs and looked up. I heard a door slam somewhere above us. Amber dried her hands on her pants and started up the stairs. I did the same, following a few feet behind her. Brad sighed and followed. On the second floor, we stopped for a moment to listen. The house was silent around us. The twin stairs opened onto a round room with a view down into a great room and down into the foyer. The tree in the foyer floor was even more beautiful from this height. I only glanced down for a second, but again I felt sure the leaves were moving. I shook my head but couldn’t be sure if I was imagining it. We could see closed doors set to the left and right of the opening above the foyer, then halls going to the left and right, and a few steps leading up to another set of closed doors to the left and right of the stairs on the other side of the halls.
“Where?” I whispered softly, but before anyone could respond, I heard a sound like claws on wood, from our left. I started walking as quietly as I could down that hallway. It ran straight to what looked like a closed closet door, and then down a third staircase to the main floor. The hall turned right here, heading off towards that wing of the house.
Continuing down the hall, we saw the first open set of doors so far. They led into a study with a massive wooden desk, a fireplace, and built in shelves on the interior wall that lined the hallway. The shelves here were empty, as was the desk. There was another set of doors out into the hallway, and a door in the corner. It was slowly swinging open, as if someone had tried to close it but hadn’t gotten it latched.
As quietly as I could, we crossed the study to that door. Beyond was a circular staircase going up. I didn’t like it, not even a little. Brad looked at me, then Amber. I was sweating and couldn’t keep my heart from racing. Brad swallowed and headed up the stairs. Amber followed, with me in the rear.
The stairs opened up in the corner of a single, square, room with big, plush chairs arranged around a fireplace. Doors led out onto landings on three sides, with the fireplace occupying the fourth wall. Oh! This must be the tower! The stairs went up. Since there was nothing else here, we went up as well.
I could smell an odor like rotting meat and ammonia as we went up. It wasn’t strong, but it was disgusting. And it got stronger as we climbed. On the fourth floor, the room was arranged as another study. A desk occupied the center of the room, facing this floor’s fireplace. A couple of chairs were arranged around the room, and other office furniture had been here, but it looked like someone had destroyed the shelves and whatever was on them. Three doors again led out onto small balconies. There was a small mirror above the fireplace. As we entered the room, I thought I saw Murdoch’s face in the mirror, for just an instant. But it was gone so fast I might have imagined it.
“Keep going?” Brad whispered, pointing to the stairs, still going up. Reluctantly, I nodded and we went back to the staircase. The odor kept getting stronger as we ascended to the fifth floor. The door was more solid, but the stairs continued up one more level. The odor was nearly overpowering, making my eyes water.
Amber pulled the door open at the next landing. It let out onto an exterior terrace that looked out over the estate, complete with mock defensive towers in the other three corners. The smell of rotting meat and ammonia was overpowering here. It made me gag as the door swung open. I’m sure the view from up here was majestic, but I was too focused on the occupants of the terrace.
In the center of the space, we got our first look at a female gargoyle-thing. Where the men had been bronze with gold highlights, the woman before us was a color somewhere between gold and bronze, lighter than the men we’d seen. She too had slightly pointed ears and frightening red eyes. Her muscular body was shorter than the men we’d faced. Like the men, she was naked. She had small breasts and a lean, muscular build. She stretched out her wings, giving her an imposing presence.
Standing beside her was a boy who looked to be about eight to ten years old compared to human sizes. He hissed at us as we came out of the stairwell. The mother shoved the boy behind her and raised her arms, talons out, and charged directly at us. Her wings beat at the air as she ran, pushing her forward even faster.
She could run incredibly fast with her wings assisting. Amber dove to the side and I stepped back and raised my staff for protection. The woman ran past, but as she did, Amber’s sword drove into her side. The woman’s momentum ripped the sword from Amber’s hand even as the charge turned into a stumble and then a face-plant. I danced back as she slid to a stop between me and the door. Black blood oozed from her side, just below her ribcage. I looked up at Amber. She was rubbing her right wrist with her left hand and looking at me with a worried expression.
The boy began a high-pitched screech that set my teeth to vibrating painfully, making me wince. Amber, wincing as well, began to turn towards the child as he beat his wings once, then again. On the second downbeat, the boy’s feet left the balcony. Before I could see where the boy was going or what he was about to do, the woman at my feet grabbed my ankle with one hand. I thought Amber had killed her. She was wounded and would probably die soon, but she wasn’t dead yet. I tried to yank my foot free. The woman’s grip tightened and I felt her talons dig into my shoe. I yelled and fell back, landing hard on my ass.
As I fell, I saw Amber duck down, barely avoiding the awkward attempt at an attack from the boy. I think I saw Brad step out behind the boy, but things were happening too fast. The woman, sword still stuck in her abdomen, pulled with the arm wrapped around my foot. Gods, she was so strong! I slid across the terrace floor, trying to get traction with my other foot to stop the slide.
Her face was a mask of pain and hate and anger. She opened her mouth, revealing those deadly-sharp teeth. As my foot neared her, she raised her other arm, talons extended. I thought she was about to slash my leg open. I screamed, loud and terrified. Then I remembered my staff. With a strength born of fear and desperation, I drove the end of my staff right into the wounded woman’s face. The staff tip impacted the woman’s mouth. I saw blood well up as she released her grip on my leg.
I scrabbled back from her before she could strike again. She tried to grab at my leg, but I was out of reach. I glanced up. Amber and Brad were fending off the boy’s unskilled aerial attacks. The gargoyle woman was trying to rise to her hands and knees. She was moving slower now. Faster than I ever could have in her condition, but nothing like the speed she’d shown before.
She made eye contact with me. Those terrible eyes bore into mine as she reached down, gripped the blade of the sword still stuck in her side, and drew it out in one long pull. She made no sounds as she did so. Blood welled up as she dropped the sword with a clatter to the balcony floor. I crouched down and held my staff out, ready for whatever she was about to do. The boy flew over her head, diving at me in an attempt to protect his mother. As I swung my staff to meet the boy, the woman snatched her son by the leg.
For less than a second, the boy fought his mother’s grip. I swung my staff, trying to hit her arm. With a savage strength I couldn’t even begin to understand, the woman swung her child in an arc that impacted the waist-high wall surrounding the terrace. There was a sickening crunch as the boy’s bones shattered. My swing connected with her arm a split second later, breaking it and forcing her to release her grip on the boy.
The boy plummeted off the terrace to the ground below. The woman turned to face me. Her breath was ragged now. Her good hand was pressed to her side, trying to staunch the blood flow. Even with her alien features, it was clear she was in serious pain. She screamed at me. Even as she did so, I could tell the scream hurt her badly. But the voice hurt my head so bad that I stumbled back from her. She grabbed the terrace wall with her good arm, and with a single heave, pulled herself over the side. I lurched to the wall just in time to see her land, head first, on the ground below. She had made no attempt to spread her wings for flight.
Her body lay just a few feet from her son’s.
A hand rested on my shoulder. I cried out and turned, almost hitting Amber in the face with my staff. She pulled back. I dropped the staff and grabbed her in a fierce hug. Together, we stumbled back from the low wall, almost falling down. Brad pulled us towards the door. He grabbed Amber’s sword and followed us as we descended the stairs as quickly as we could. It was a challenge to not to fall as the adrenaline faded.
“Are you okay?” I asked as we emerged into the office below the terrace. Before Amber could answer, I collapsed on the floor, gasping for breath as the adrenaline left me, leaving behind nothing but weariness and dizziness.
Amber sat down with a bit more care, flexing her right hand and rubbing at her wrist with her left hand. “I think I sprained my wrist when she yanked the sword from me.” Her voice was quiet and I could see her wincing as she moved her wrist. I wondered if she’d broken it.
Brad carefully cleaned the black blood from her sword and said, “We should find something and make a brace then.” He looked at me and said, “How about you? Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m okay.” I looked down and for the first time noticed red stains on my shoe. “I think I’m bleeding,” I said. The dizziness got worse and I was thankful I’d already sat down. I began unlacing my shoe, but my fingers were shaking so bad I couldn’t work the knot. “She grabbed my ankle. I think she must…”
I woke up some time later. I was lying in bed, looking up at the ceiling. “She’s awake,” Brad said.
Amber came and sat down on the edge of the bed beside me. Brad crawled up onto the bed to sit on my other side. “Are you okay?” Amber asked with concern as she reached out and took my hand.
Everything was still not coming together. “What happened?” I said, my voice gravelly and rough.
“You fainted. Your ankle was bleeding and I guess that plus the fight did you in?” Brad said. We found some cloth and bandaged you up. The cuts aren’t too bad, really. But you probably should take it easy on that ankle for a few days, just to be safe.”
I sat up. Everything hurt, but mostly my head and ankle. They were throbbing in time with my heart. I groaned. Brad and Amber both rushed to prop pillows behind me. “How long was I out?” I said, rubbing my forehead.
“Twenty minutes I guess?” Amber said quietly.
I fell back into the pillows and closed my eyes. “Can we please stay here? For a day or two, at least?” The idea of continuing down the trail was just too overwhelming right now.
“If the house is safe, I’d like that,” Amber said. I could hear a smile in her voice. I looked at her and smiled back. I opened my eyes and looked around. The bedroom had some kind of old-fashioned wallpaper, with tiny yellow flowers and green stalks from the high ceiling down to about shoulder height, then dark wooden wainscoting to the floor. The bed was large, at least a queen size. There was a dresser at the foot of the bed, with a large mirror on it.
My smile vanished. “Enjoying the show?” I asked of the face visible in that mirror. I made no efforts to hide my anger.
“I am glad to find that you are all well. Please, enjoy the shelter of my first palace and all it has to offer. You are always welcome here,” Murdoch said in a bright, cheerful, voice.
“You could have warned us,” Amber said angrily as she shifted to face the mirror. “You should have warned us.”
Murdoch’s smile was gone in an instant. “I gave you weapons, food, clothing, and tools. I warned you the house was occupied, so you would not be caught unaware. Do not anger me with your petulant complaints.”
“Whose side are you on, anyway?” Brad asked.
Murdoch stared at Brad for a long moment. “I am on my side, boy. Take care with that tone of yours. So far, I have not warned anyone of your approach as I have warned you of their’s. It would be a shame if your travels got harder.”
He vanished and the mirror returned to reflective glass. I sat up again. Then I stood up. I almost fell, but Amber grabbed me and wrapped my arm around her shoulders. She was warm and I was happy to have her there. Brad quickly came around and took my other arm around his shoulders. Without a word, we left the bedroom.
It took us some time to search the palace, especially with my sore ankle, but the place was empty. Everything was beautiful throughout, of course. It reminded me of TV shows where they tour mega-mansions. Everything was made to remind you that the owner was far richer than you would ever be. The bedroom had been on the second floor, in one of the wings near the tower’s circular stair. That wing had four bedrooms, four bathrooms, and two sitting rooms. The opposite wing had three more bedrooms and bathrooms, along with a small library area with a view down into a main floor office. The central part of the second floor had another four bedrooms and bathrooms, along with a tiny office space and the study where the tower stair started. The ceilings here were ten or twelve feet high.
The main floor contained the library and dining room we’d already seen, a great room, a massive kitchen, a less formal living room, a sun room, and a master suite. That suite included a sitting room, a giant-scaled bedroom, a bathroom complete with shower and oversized tub, and two closets. It also had two circular stairs going up. One led to a second floor tower with a view onto the very small back yard. We could just barely see over the wall from here. There was another stair that led to one of the second floor bedrooms, which we thought was kind of odd. Only the main floor seemed to be sized for Murdoch, with fifteen foot ceilings. The left wing held a billiards room, a room with comfortable chairs and a fireplace, and the office. The right wing held a kind of garage, but the spaces were empty and the garage doors swung out on hinges, not up like a modern garage door.
The house had a basement, with a wine room (we planned to explore that more later), another living room, because every house needs three of those, a laundry room, a sauna (we planned to explore that, too), and a couple of tiny bedrooms. Those bedrooms had much less ornate styling and smaller beds. Maybe they were for servants? And there was a fucking swimming pool! Who has a pool in their basement!? It was long and narrow, but the water was warm. The basement wings were all unfinished storage areas full of boxes and crates. We left those areas alone once we confirmed they didn’t have anyone hiding in them.
As we explored, we collected mirrors off the walls and quietly set them, face down, on the floor of one of the second floor bedrooms. Once we’d done this throughout the house, we closed the door and left that bedroom alone. Unfortunately, the bathroom mirrors weren’t removable. So we covered these with towels and sheets. We wanted to keep Murdoch out of our lives as much as possible while we stayed here. We also made sure any exterior door was as securely locked as we could make it, especially the balcony and terrace doors above the ground floor.
While I soaked my sore ankle (and my sore back and my sore legs) in the master bathroom tub, Amber and Brad made use of the showers, one at a time. The hot water was better than all the money in the world. As they showered, I might have drifted off to sleep. Amber and Brad came back into the bathtub area, wrapped in towels. They smelled like clean soap and had brushed their hair. I smiled at them as I realized they’d shaved, too. Brad held some kind of small box in his hand.
“Feeling better?” I asked.
“Yes. Hot water is such a luxury!” Amber said.
“I know, right?” I said.
Then, with a grin, Amber dropped her towel and stepped into my bath. I raised an eyebrow as Brad took a razor out of the box and handed it to Amber. As he did so, his towel fell, too. Then he took a cup from the box and set the box down beside the tub. It took me a moment to realize it, but he was making shaving cream, like in some old-fashioned movie.
He stepped into the bath with Amber and me. Together, they scrubbed me clean. They shaved me. They brushed my hair. I’d never felt so pampered in my life. Once I was clean, we did other things. “To distract you from your ankle,” Amber said, with a mischievous grin.
We had to clean up the floor, from where water had sloshed out of the bath. But it was totally worth it.
Not bothering with clothes in the warm house, we went out to the kitchen. We made a quick meal of vegetables and fruit from the pantry. It all came from jars. Six months ago, I would’ve hated all of it. But for this world, it was a feast and I ate seconds. That night, we slept on the second floor. The bedrooms were smaller and the furniture less ornate. But the master bed was too large and, having been Murdoch’s room, it just made us uncomfortable.
Chapter 35: Nevermore
In the morning, I was still sore and limping, but the cuts on my ankle seemed to be okay. We spent a bit more effort on breakfast than we had on last night’s dinner. Brad made pancakes! They weren’t really pancakes, but it was close enough to make me happy. We found honey, but no syrup. It was delicious and different. “Honey. Where did they get the honey?” Amber asked as she poured more onto the last few bites of her ‘pancakes’.
“Hmm?” I said, still chewing.
“The honey. There are basically no insects. So where do they get honey from?”
Brad waved his fork in the air, “For that matter, without bees, how do plants get pollinated?”
I shook my head. “I don’t think the rules and laws of the real world actually work here. Though maybe he trades for the honey, somewhere else.” I looked around just to be sure, but saw no mirrors here. “Though I’m not sure I want to know what he trades.”
After breakfast, I sat there, thinking about the previous day. “We have to dispose of the bodies,” I reluctantly said. Brad and Amber both gave me a look. “We can’t just leave them there. If for no other reason, the smell will attract more things. But mostly because we’ve got to hold onto something… something human. Even here. Especially here.” It took some discussion, but they agreed.
In the shop, we found a couple of shovels and took turns digging out behind the palace. It took five or six hours, but we eventually had a hole big enough. We were exhausted by the effort. I think we all had blisters by the end. It wasn’t easy getting the gargoyle woman and child onto a sheet and wrapping the sheet up as tightly as we could. I wish I could say we treated the bodies with the respect we would’ve shown a human. But we just rolled the bundle into the grave. I almost threw up at the sound of the bundle hitting the bottom of the grave, but I managed to keep my mind on the business of shoveling dirt back in rather than what lay at the bottom. We didn’t mark the grave. The mound of soil was marker enough.
All that effort almost did me in. My ankle was throbbing as I limped back into the house. I headed towards the nearest shower, not wanting to even sit down anywhere, as dirty as I was. When I emerged, I found that Amber and Brad had gone off to separate bathrooms and showered as well. None of us had much appetite, but we knew we needed to eat something after all the work we’d done. The food tasted like cardboard and we didn’t eat much. Our mood was somber and quiet through the meal. After that, we were all still exhausted.
“Can we just go to bed? I’m done,” Amber said as we cleared the dishes.
“Yes, please,” I agreed. I was surprised at how tired I sounded. We slept hard that night. It was well after dawn when we awoke.
Following a light breakfast, we explored the house’s library. There were floor to ceiling shelves on all four walls. The room must have contained hundreds of books. There didn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to how the books were arranged. Most weren’t written in English or any other language we could recognize.
Brad found a world atlas published in the early 1900s. We flipped through the pictures of the continents and then the more detailed views of the countries, and then the U.S. states. I gasped when I saw that America had a blood-red ink dot about where our home town was. I flipped back through and found several more ink marks in various places throughout the world.
“What do these marks mean?” I asked, pointing.
Brad came over and looked over my shoulder. “Huh, that’s odd.”
Amber looked at the dot. “That’s where you’re from?” We nodded. She flipped the pages for a moment. Then she stopped and touched another red dot. “And that’s where I’m from.”
“Mur mapped out the other side of portals on our world?” Brad asked. Over the next hour or so, we found three other atlases from other worlds. The alien maps were interesting, even though we couldn’t read the place names or even interpret some of the markings. But in each book, we found the same red dots scattered through the book.
“Why — and how — would he record this?” Amber asked.
“And how long did it take to map these out?” I added in wonder.
There were other books in English and a few in languages we recognized but couldn’t read. There was a mix of fiction and nonfiction, but most were published between the 1800s and the early 1900s. None of them appeared to have aged at all. We pulled the English books we found and then shifted stuff around so these books all occupied the same set of shelves. We also set the three alien atlases aside. But we didn’t try to explore the whole library. There were just too many books to go through in a day.
For lunch, we had more food from the pantry. I wished I knew how to bake, as there was plenty of flour. Brad knew how to make some almost-pancakes, but not much else. Still, there was more food than we could possibly eat in a month. It made me not want to leave. Amber was thinking the same thing, apparently. “Maybe we could make this our base?” she asked as we ate.
Thinking about it, I replied, “I guess we could. Try to keep people safe on the trail, give them a place to stay for a while.”
“Is there a gate near here on the map?” Brad asked.
Amber shook her head. “I don’t remember any for a few miles? I’ll check later.”
“Should we try to clean the tower terrace?” I asked, reluctantly. I was thinking that we didn’t need to leave that mess up there if we planned to stay.
“I don’t want to go up there,” Amber said in a stressed voice.
“Me neither,” Brad added.
“I know. If we’re only here for a couple of days, then that’s fine. But if we’re going to stay here for a long time, we probably need to get that mess cleared out. I mean, that’s the best lookout we’re going to get for miles around.” I said. I didn’t sound like I believed it though. Not even to myself.
“You know, that’s probably why Mur urged us to stay here. So he wouldn’t have to clean it up himself.”
I looked at Brad, trying to think up a counter-argument. But I couldn’t. “You may be right,” I said. “Look, I don’t want to go back up there either. But… Well, if we’re going to stay here, we need to make this ours. That means no gargoyle nests left over.”
“Fine.” Brad said, giving in with a sigh. “Then let’s get this over with.” Brad said.
We went back out and got the shovels. Then we got towels to wrap around our faces. Back out on the terrace where the gargoyles had nested, the towels helped a little, but not much. Brad used the shovel to push offal off the balcony and to the ground behind the palace. The smell made me gag. I heard sounds from Amber and Brad both over the next hour or so, proving it made them gag as well. Still, we got the worst of the mess out. The terrace was a long way from clean, but at least the rotting flesh was out, so it shouldn’t smell any worse.
After all that, I went down to the bathroom and washed my hands. I soaked a towel and scrubbed my face and neck while Amber washed her hands. As Brad began washing up, I heard a strange, far-off sound. It reminded me a little of distance thunder at first. As the sound drew closer, it got louder. It wasn’t thunder. I could make out some higher notes in the noise. “What the fuck?” I asked. We ran out onto a balcony off of one of the bedrooms, trying to see what was making the noise.
“There!” Brad said, pointing off to the west. A dark cloud was rolling towards us with alarming speed. “What is that?” he whispered as the cloud engulfed the sky over the trees and trail.
“Get inside!” Amber yelled. We ran back in and closed the door between the balcony and the bedroom. The noise grew louder, but we couldn’t see the cloud from this angle. The sounds grew louder. We stood there waiting and worrying. I suddenly remembered we’d left our weapons downstairs. I opened my mouth to suggest we go down and get them. Before I could speak, a shadow blotted out the sun and sounds drowned out all hope of talking. In the windows, small black shapes darted past the glass at high speed.
“Birds!” Amber yelled over the cacophony. Amber was right, a flock of blackbirds was passing the house at high speed. I stared in amazement as the flock blotted out daylight. The flock must have been huge. Despite the birds’ frantic airspeed, the darkness and noise stretched on for several minutes.
“Nevermore,” I said quietly, remembering how Poe’s “The Raven” had seemed so utterly creepy to me when I’d read it a few years ago. No one heard me over the birds. The shadow thinned and light returned after some long eternity of darkness. The sounds dwindled. We rushed out onto the balcony and watched the flock shrink into the distance. “What the fuck?” I said, my voice slow with shock. I realized I was shaking.
“That was intense!” Brad said.
I looked at Amber. “Have you seen any birds since you got here?”
“No,” she said. Her eyes were huge.
“Me neither. What just happened?” I asked. I’d seen flocks of migrating birds fly by of course. Not here, but back at home. But they’d never traveled so fast as these. They’d always kind of whirled and spun, shifting position within their cloud. Well, birds that weren’t geese in formation, at least. But these had been flying like something was chasing them.
We stood there until the birds were gone from sight. It was only after we could no longer see them that Amber looked down. “Guys?”
I looked at her, then down at the ground, “What?”
“Where’s all the shit we scraped off of that terrace?” she said. Her voice was shaky. I looked back down again. Sure enough, the offal from the gargoyles was gone. Below, we could see the grave and that was all. The hairs on my neck stood out as I tried to imagine birds clearing out anything as heavy as human bones.
“Do we ask Mur about the birds?” Amber asked.
I looked at Amber. She’d asked hesitantly, but it was a good question. We’d not seen birds at all until that flock came through. “No. I’d rather not rely on him any more than we have to.” I said. Brad nodded.
We came in from the balcony and closed the door. “Do we need to do any more cleaning up there?” Brad asked.
“Let’s let it air out for a day, then we can see if there’s anything else we can do about the smell,” I suggested.
For a few hours, we again perused the library. I kept shifting the English books to their own area, so we could find them more easily in the future. I knew it was an OCD sort of thing to do, but it kept me occupied and kept my mind off the outside world. At dinner, Amber tried baking a pie for us. It crumbled into a big mess. “But it’s still delicious, I swear!” I said, trying to cheer her up. “Like cobbler!”
She wasn’t having it. “I’m just tired of eating fruits and vegetables from jars. I was hoping to make something special,” she said with a long sigh.
After dinner, we decided to have another walk through the house. Mostly to stave off boredom, but partly because our earlier exploration had been more concerned with figuring out if we were alone, not with the building itself. I was glad we’d decided to do that. Upstairs, I was walking along the hallway, trailing a finger over the woodwork as we walked. My finger caught on something sticking out from the wood. I stopped to look and realized it was a round bit poking straight from the wood just enough to feel it, but colored so it would blend in perfectly. If my finger hadn’t been in the right spot, we never would’ve seen it.
Before I could overthink it, I pushed in on the pea-sized knob. There was a faint click and a panel popped out of the wall by a quarter inch or so. “Guys?!” I called out. Brad and Amber, a few feet in front of me, stopped and turned. I carefully pulled on the loose panel. It swung quietly out on hinges, revealing a staircase going up.
“What the hell?” Brad said.
“Stairs. I didn’t think there was a third floor, just those two towers?” I answered. We looked at each other, then ran for our weapons. We weren’t about to go exploring some secret room without them.
Armed, we climbed the stairs. They led to some kind of hidden room above the main part of the second floor, about where the foyer was, more or less. There were a few tiny windows that provided light, but their height and angle made it difficult to see out through them. The majority of the room was filled with wooden trunks and boxes. Everything had a thick layer of dust on it. There was a small circular stair, rising up to another level above this one. The room was hot and stuffy, like my parent’s attic. It made me want to leave and stay downstairs.
I opened a trunk. Inside, the smell of pine wafted up from wood shavings. I sifted through the shavings and found a framed mirror. “It’s just a mirror?” I said in confusion.
Amber had been going through another trunk. “Same here,” she said. We looked up at Brad.
“Another one,” he said.
We checked the rest of the boxes. Mirrors filled them. “What the hell?” I said.
“Mur’s plans for a spy network?” Brad asked. I shuddered.
Reluctantly, we climbed the spiral staircase up to the fourth floor. The stairs opened out into a small room filled with what I first took to be art supplies. There was a basket with a rope top, some kind of clay mask on a stand, a clay fish hung on the wall, and a variety of other strange art projects. On the wall opposite the stairs was a shelf with more artwork. But there was a partitioned-off space in the room. The walls of that partition only rose to about seven feet, with no ceiling. This formed a squared space with mirrors on all four walls, another mirror on the ceiling, and one on the floor. Something about the room made me step back, the hair on my neck standing up.
“What is that place?” I asked in a harsh whisper. Brad looked in, but he also felt something and stepped away.
“Guys?” Amber said quietly. I turned to see her holding a book she’d found on the shelf of supplies.
“What is it?” I asked.
She brought the book over to the art table. The book was huge, like a big Oxford English Dictionary from the library. Amber opened the book. The pages were thick parchment or thin leather or something. Each page was covered in hand-written notes in some language I didn’t recognize. There were drawings and notes in the margins, but most of the text was in a blood-red ink. As Amber flipped the pages, the drawings showed scenes that were horrifying: people getting dismembered by monsters, being strung up on poles while smaller creatures drank blood from their wounds, and other, more grisly drawings.
“What is this?” Brad asked.
Amber kept flipping, but the pages were making my head hurt. “Close it, please,” I implored.
She stopped on a page showing a mask on one side and a fish on the facing page. They perfectly matched the “artwork” sitting in the room. I shifted my eyes from the art to the drawings and back again.
Mur stood, naked and sweating in the hot attic. Tied down to the table in front of him was a young man. A gargoyle teenager. The gargoyle was trying to pull free, but couldn’t break through the ropes. His mouth moved, fighting against some kind of rag shoved cruelly in to gag him. The boy’s face was a mask of rage and fear. Mur read from a large book, carefully following along with his finger as he studied the text. With a nod, he walked over to the supply shelf and pulled down a small box. Mur pulled a block of clay from the box and began molding the clay. The clay soon began to take the shape of a crude fish. Mur looked eager and focused as he molded the clay. But as the fish took shape, Mur’s excitement manifested in a physical manner that was terrifying in its own way. As the boy fought for freedom, Mur hummed quietly to himself, his naked manhood pulsing. The clay fish was beginning to glow a faint reddish hue.
I staggered back from the book, tears welling up in my eyes, blinding me. My awkward flailing caused me to trip. I sat down hard on the floor, still trying to clear what I’d just seen. As my vision cleared, I saw Amber and Brad staring at me. “What happened?” Amber asked, rushing to help me up. Brad was half a beat behind her.
I got to my feet, almost fell again and then ran to the book. I slammed the book closed. I stood there, panting, wiping my hand on my clothes, for a long moment.
I turned around, saw the fish on the wall. It was painted with some kind of black paint. Only, I knew that wasn’t paint at all. I picked up my staff and slammed the tip as hard as I could into the clay fish. It shattered in a cloud of dust and broken pieces. There was a loud pop as the air pressure changed suddenly. It made my vision blur for just a moment.
“Okay, what just happened?” Brad asked.
“That fish. It was,” I gasped, still trying to catch my breath, “It was some kind of spell. The ‘paint’ was gargoyle blood.” I told them what I’d seen. “That book. Mur used it. It must be a… a spell book or something.” Brad and Amber stood there, staring at me, then the book, for an eternity. Then Brad very carefully and deliberately used his hammer to push the clay mask off the table. It fell to the floor with a crash. There was a second pop of another pressure wave. An intense wave of vertigo hit me and I almost fell over. Amber grabbed me and somehow we stayed on our feet. The wave quickly passed, thankfully.
“Mur,” I stopped, swallowed hard and tried to get my heart to quit beating so fast, “Mur’s not our friend. He’s not an ally. He never was. He’s just another creature out for our flesh.” Amber and Brad nodded, eyes wide, at my statement.
“Let’s get out of here,” Amber said.
“That book. We should destroy it,” I said in a harsh tone. Brad looked at me. “I’m serious. Whatever power that thing contains, its evil.”
“Okay then,” Brad said. He grabbed the book and we headed back to the second floor. In the first bedroom we came to, Brad worked quietly to start a fire in the fireplace. Once he had it burning brightly, he tossed the book in. All of us stood quietly, watching as the flames tasted, then engulfed, the book.
The fire’s flames turned a bright green once the book really began to burn. The fire began to release high-pitched screaming noises. Before we could react, the sounds died away. I stood there for at least twenty minutes, watching as the book turned to ash. Brad held me by the shoulder the whole time. At some point, Amber poked the ash pile. It broke up and drifted up the chimney. Then she stood to my other side, one arm around my waist.
I breathed easier once that book was consumed. But I knew Mur would be pissed at us. That was his power and he would not forgive us for destroying it.
Chapter 36: Watcher in the Woods
“What now?” Amber asked as the book’s ashes rose up the chimney. I looked at her, questioningly. “Do we dare stay here?”
I sighed, thinking that over. “I have no idea.” I was surprised at how tired I sounded. Not physically tired. We hadn’t really been that busy today. But emotionally I was exhausted.
Brad looked up at me. “Are we safer here than we are on the road?” I opened my mouth to answer, then closed it again, seriously considering the question.
“Not with all those mirrors. Mur loves to use mirrors, that fucker,” Amber said.
“Then we break all the mirrors,” Brad offered.
“But that’s not all he uses, is it? He’s been fucking with us this whole time. The mirrors are the obvious doors and windows, but not the only things he uses.” I sighed again. “I have no idea what he uses outside.” I closed my eyes for a moment. “No. We can’t break the mirrors. Or at least, not all of them. That’s too obvious.”
“We put a bunch face down on the floor. Is that enough?” Amber asked.
“I wish I knew. It’s enough to stop him watching us, at least. But I’m guessing he can listen, too.” I rubbed my temples, trying to work through the logic of his magic.
“If we’re going to have this conversation, do you think maybe we should seek somewhere with fewer ties to his world?” Brad whispered. I nodded. Together, we moved out to the courtyard. There was a light breeze blowing over the walls. It smelled clean. I closed my eyes and breathed deeply, trying to enjoy at least that much of this world.
“Okay, so what do we know?” Amber asked matter-of-factly.
I opened my mouth, but a glint of light reflecting off something near the top of the dead tree stump caught my eye. “Hang on,” I said sharply. As they watched me, I slowly took a step towards the tree stump. The glint, whatever it was, vanished as suddenly as it had appeared. I stepped back. The glint didn’t reappear.
“What is it?” Brad said.
“I’m not sure,” I said. “Something’s not right,” I looked around, then back at the tree. For a split second, the glint returned, but then was gone. With the toe of my shoe, I made a scuff mark on the ground and stepped back. The mark was clear enough I could find where I’d stood. “Be right back,” I said and rushed back inside. There, I grabbed my staff from beside the door and came back out. Amber and Brad both looked worried. I found my mark in the grass and stared hard at the tree stump.
Nope, I still couldn’t figure it out. I tried poking up into the stump, about where I thought the glint came from, but I just bounced off the dead wood with a hollow tapping sound. In frustration, I swished the staff tip back and forth. I don’t know, maybe I was hoping I’d dislodge something. It felt kind of juvenile, to be honest.
But then my staff actually did hit something. Only, there was nothing to hit. I swished the tip away and back into whatever I’d hit, harder this time. Brad gasped as a tapping sound rang out. “What the fuck?” Amber said. I kept tapping the invisible thing, moving out from the stump. The thing, whatever it was, was just out of reach overhead.
“Brad? Give me a boost,” I said. My voice was shaking with fear. I set my staff against the tree and eyed the empty space where something was hiding from us.
“You sure about this?” he asked, but was already kneeling with his fingers laced together to form a step. Wordlessly, I set my foot in his hands and as he lifted, I pushed off against his hand. At my highest, I flailed my hands around and slapped against something solid and rough. As I began to fall back to the ground, I latched onto whatever it was and held tight. With a grunt of effort, I pulled myself up.
As my head cleared the level of the thing I was holding, my entire view changed. “Hoe-Lee-Shit!” I said loud and slow. Brad and Amber called out, asking what was happening. But for a second I ignored them. “The tree isn’t,” I started to say the tree isn’t dead. But then I saw something move amongst the branches. It was the object I’d caught a glint from. It was a small, hand-made, doll. It had a tiny gold metal button on its forehead. That’s what had caught the late afternoon sunlight. It had button eyes and it was staring right at me.
“My staff! Quick!” I called out. I glanced down as Brad held the staff up. Carefully, I reached down and grasped the tip of my staff in one hand. In the split second I wasn’t watching, the doll had moved closer, covering almost half the distance between us.
I screamed in surprise. The doll just stood there, watching me. It was difficult to get the staff up into the tree without taking my eyes off the doll. But I somehow managed. Then, never breaking eye contact with the thing, I knocked it right out of the tree. It fell to the ground at Brad’s feet, causing him to jump back.
“Watch the doll! Watch it closely!” I yelled. I let the staff fall, then carefully lowered myself back down to the ground.
“What the fuck?” Brad said in shock, staring up above me with huge eyes.
“The doll, you idiot!” I yelled, refusing to look away from the thing.
“But the tree is — ” Brad started. Amber grabbed his face and pointed it towards the doll.
“Focus. Doll now. Tree later,” Amber said in a scolding tone. Brad shifted back to the doll. I was grateful for her ability to stick to the important things when it mattered most.
I grabbed the staff and stood over the doll, trying to decide what to do. “I know. The tree is actually alive. Has been the whole time. Some damn spell hid it from us. But that doll can fucking move.” I could feel it, staring at me. I used the tip of the staff to roll it over, face down. Somehow, that made my skin crawl a bit less.
Brad came up and gently stepped on the doll, pushing it into the grass. I glanced up. Whatever spell had hidden the tree was gone now. The tree was huge and green and vibrant. We stood in its shade, and couldn’t see the top of the leaves. “Damn,” I said in awe.
“Fuck!” Brad said and jumped back. The doll was face up again. “It fucking moved. I felt it.”
I set the tip of my staff into the doll’s belly and shoved down, putting my whole weight on it. “Brad? Get the shovel,” I said slowly and carefully through clenched teeth. He started walking towards the shed.
“Brad?” Amber said, watching me with a worried expression, “You, um, might want to hurry.” Brad took off running. I couldn’t see the doll moving. But I could feel it trying to fight against the staff. It’s hard to describe, but the sensation was quite unpleasant, like being on a ship during a storm. I was sweating by the time Brad returned.
“What do you — “ he started.
“Cut its fucking head off,” I said so fast it blurred into one long word. I was almost screaming, too. Brad lifted the shovel, blade down, in both hands. With a grunt of effort, he shoved his arms down hard. The blade bit into the doll’s neck. A wave of pain hit me so hard I thought I’d throw up. I could see Amber double over in pain as well. Brad, though, was thrown back. He landed on his back, the shovel beside him.
I could hear Brad groan. He tried to roll over, failed, and then succeeded on the second try. As he lurched up to stand, hands on knees, Amber walked over. She was moving unsteadily, but got to the shovel first. She swung it at the doll and missed. Then swung again. The blade hit the doll’s neck and a second, stronger, wave of pure pain flashed through me. Amber dropped the shovel as she fell to her knees and threw up in the grass.
Brad somehow powered through. He grabbed the shovel and hit the doll a third time. The head popped free. The pain vanished like it had never been there. I collapsed, gasping for breath. Brad dropped the shovel, but somehow stayed on his feet.
It took me a long moment for my heart to stop pounding so fast I couldn’t count the beats. I was still sweating and trying to catch my breath as I lurched over to Amber. She was slowly getting to her feet. I helped her stand and then braced her as she almost fell again. “What… the hell… was that?” she asked around gasps for breath. Her face was still contorted in terror.
“How many other ‘dead’ trees have we passed along the way on our journey?” I asked bitterly. “Want to bet this was one of Mur’s toys?”
“I would not take that bet,” Brad said.
“God damn it, what the fuck is he?” I asked.
“He’s the devil.” Amber said in a soft, monotone, voice. “He’s Satan and this is hell.” I looked up at her. She was staring at the broken doll, tears sliding down her face. Brad walked up to her and embraced her. I hugged them both, too. But I couldn’t take my eyes off the doll. It wasn’t terrifying anymore. But something about it still tugged at my mind.
Brad was staring at it, too. Then suddenly his eyes got huge with shock. Tears welled up and he buried his face in Amber’s shoulder. “Brad? What is it?” I said, hearing him start to sob.
Amber gripped him tightly. “What’s wrong?” she said. He just cried and cried for a long moment.
“Those button eyes. I know those buttons!” he finally said through the tears. “I remember,” a sob wrenched itself from him, “I remember I borrowed a jacket last winter, from our closet. For just a minute, to take out the trash or something stupid. One of the buttons popped off. It took me half an hour to find it. I sewed it back on, hoping he’d never notice.”
I tightened my grip on Brad, not understanding. “But he did. Because I don’t know shit about sewing buttons. But Dad wasn’t mad. I thought he’d be pissed. But he wasn’t. He just said, ‘next time, son, practice your sewing before you put the button on my jacket, okay?’”
“Oh, Brad. Brad, no,” I said in dawning horror.
“He was wearing it when we came through the amusement park!” he said. I almost couldn’t understand him, through the sobs. Amber and I looked at each other. I jerked my head towards the house and she nodded. It took Amber and me a long time to get Brad into the house. It took us even longer to calm him down. We walked him to the bedroom where we washed his still crying face and undressed him. I think it was the first time he’d really let himself really feel the grief, to let his dad’s death in all the way.
Amber and I stayed there, quietly holding him through his grief. I spent the entire time vowing to make Mur hurt for this. I could tell by the look on Amber’s face that she was having similar thoughts. Brad eventually cried himself out and drifted off to sleep. Once we were sure he was out, we quietly got ready for bed and climbed in, me on Brad’s left, her on his right. It took me a long time to let go of my anger and calm down enough for sleep. In the dim light, I could see that Amber was awake for just as long. I had several bad dreams that night, but each time I awoke, I couldn’t remember the dream. I was grateful for that, at least.
The story continues in Part Thirteen.
