The Gift of Illusion

Chapter Sixteen





1





From the corner of Fairway Boulevard to the Great Baptist Church eight miles down on the right, Maria Avenue appeared much like your average road. The surroundings were clean and well kept, the streetlights were stark and luminous for nightly travel, and even the road had recently been re-paved. There were no malls or large shopping centers, no chain grocery stores, but there were a few small businesses scattered about, along with a new set of apartments that seemed to sprout up overnight. There were also a number of residential housing areas filed in between large fields of flat farmland. The majority of homes and trailers rested in the first mile of Maria, and only one after the third.

Between the third and eighth mile, the countryside opened up its mouth and breathed. The fields were continuous strands on each side of the road, with only the occasional horse or cow roaming about. There were a few old barns and stables resting far back in the distance at the edge of the forest, but for the most part, until the church steeple popped its head up over the hillside a few miles down, the land was flat and barren.

Once you passed the church, however, the entire structure from which Maria Avenue had been built upon collapsed, and at times even disappeared altogether. It was almost as if God had drawn a line separating the part of Maria that mattered and the part that didn’t, or the good half from the bad.

The newly paved roads, which made for such a pleasant ride earlier, gave way to scabby, uneven surfaces. Parts of the road were so bad tall weeds had grown between the large chunks of missing concrete. The last street light stood tall at the end of the church parking lot, so if you were to trek any further down the road after nightfall, you would make the journey with nothing but the silver glow of the moon to light your way.

The large farmland, which had stretched for miles before the church, cut back sharply as the forest in the distance closed the gap and bullied its way to the side of the road. A half a mile later, the barren fields were replaced entirely by the forest which stood tall and dark, with long, twisting branches hung over the road, and the echoes of the unknown crying out from within.

Without a doubt, this desolate section of Maria was not an area explored often, or at all anymore. Most people knew better and would avoid the unlit, beaten road at all costs, even if they were curious where it led. Their mind recognized the imaginary line and warned them not to cross it; for it wasn’t the length, light, or shape of the road that mattered, only where it led you in the end. Maria had its dark spot, its shadow under the trees, and it hid it well.





2





Virginia slowed the black Nissan as a pair of orange road horses came into view through the thick rain. One horse had been knocked on its side, probably by the tumultuous wind, and lay a few feet from a ditch at the left side of the road. She applied more pressure to the brake then turned the wheel to the left and stopped at the side of the only standing road horse. She tried to make out what the orange tape read through the gusting rain but was unable from her position.

“What does it say?” she asked.

Isaac unlatched his seat belt and moved closer to the window. The view was very dark and obstructed by the storm; add the black tint and fogged windows, and it made seeing anything more than a few feet away seem impossible. “I can't tell.”

Then, when he had about given up, the rain calmed long enough to get a clear view. The words were easy to read, but difficult to say.

“Dead end,” he murmured, glancing over at Virginia before sliding back into his seat. “It says dead end.”

The storm picked back up again.

Quietly, Virginia wondered if she’d made a mistake. There appeared to be no sign of the green Civic and this was literally the end of the road. Could it have been possible that they came this far for nothing? “I wonder where your daughter’s car is.”

Isaac straightened up in his seat and began scanning the surroundings outside. For some reason, he had forgotten all about the car, how it was missing from the driveway. From the moment the idea entered his mind, he was sure that he would find his daughter here, at this dark and haunted place, but how she would end up this far from home had somehow slipped past him.

“Well, where is this place? I expected it to be here.”

Virginia pointed out the passenger window. “Beyond the fence."

The eight-foot iron fence stood fifteen feet away from the road and stretched a great distance back into the forest. Virginia had walked around the exterior of the fence many years ago to get a good glimpse of the four corners of the mansion. This was just days before she followed the long path through the trees to the front entrance, determined to wander inside, only to quickly turn back once she arrived. She could still remember wondering, as she stood at the front gate looking back at the long path through the trees, what was it that told her to leave? What was it that told her she was not welcome?

“Maybe the car is inside the fence,” said Isaac. “Closer to the mansion.”

Virginia nodded. “You’re probably right. I just hope that we aren’t making a mistake.”

Isaac leaned forward and tilted his head toward Virginia. “You think coming here was a mistake?”

“I said I hope it wasn’t a mistake,” she said.

“Well, I didn’t come all this way to turn back now." Isaac hurried out of the car and into the pouring rain.

Virginia waited in the car while Isaac walked over to the iron fence at the end of the road. As he stood fiddling with the gate, a large bolt of lightning struck down in the distance, just over Isaac’s head, and in the direction of the mansion. Isaac jumped back from the fence, glanced up at the dark sky, and walked back toward the car. Virginia rolled down the passenger window. She wanted to say she was sorry for what she had said. She didn’t mean for them to leave; only that she was scared.

Instead of getting back into the car, as Virginia had hoped, Isaac crossed in front of it and walked over to the broken road horse at the left side of the road. He knelt down next to it and began yanking at the tape.

Now Virginia had a terrible feeling, a shiver swept over her entire body. She continued to watch, with her hands trembling on her knees, as Isaac picked his head up from the dead horse and stood up. He turned his head toward the car and stared back at Virginia. Even from a distance, through the turbulent storm, she could see him breathing hard, and the terrifying look in his eyes.

Isaac leapt down into the ditch at the side of the road. Virginia rushed out of the car. Once at the curb, she stopped suddenly and looked down in horror at the green Civic lying in the ditch in a foot of mucky water. “No,” she gasped, putting her hand over her mouth.

The front end of the car had smashed into a rusted metal grate that sealed a large drainage pipe at the head of the ditch. The grate was bent out of shape from the collision and hung loosely in place. Virginia prayed Amy would be all right, maybe somehow the girl could have survived such a terrifying impact, but she feared the worst. The road horse at Virginia’s feet had surely played its part and had almost taken the fall as well.

Isaac hollered and slammed his fist through the passenger side window, breaking the glass in one swift blow. He broke off the remainder of the glass before jabbing the upper half of his body through the window. Virginia waited at the top of the hill, her hand still pressed against her mouth.

A few seconds later, Isaac backed out of the window and peered up at Virginia. “She’s not in here,” he yelled.

Virginia removed her hand from her mouth and took a long, deep breath. “Thank God.”

Isaac trotted up the hill and nestled next to Virginia, who was still looking down upon the smashed car. “I’m so sorry.”

“Sorry for what?”

“For what I said. For everything.”

“Don’t be sorry,” he said. “If I were in your shoes, I probably would have run off a long time ago. My courage isn’t what it used to be.”

As they jogged back toward the car, Virginia noticed a faint light glaring through the thick fog down the road. “Hey,” she yelled, pulling Isaac by the shoulder of his coat. “Look.”

Within seconds, the faint light grew much brighter, and was now accompanied by a low mumbling sound. Isaac put his hand over his brow to block the pounding rain from dumping into his eyes. He could see headlights clearly through the fog and a car progressing closer.

“It's Simmons,” said Isaac, signaling the car to stop with his hand.

Virginia watched Isaac jog up to the car and say a few words to Simmons through the driver side window. He pointed to the side of the road then nodded before scurrying out of the way and back over to Virginia at the front of the Altima. Together they watched Simmons back up then carefully positioned the Camry off the road alongside the ditch where Isaac had directed. Simmons switched down the lights, turned off the ignition, and stepped out of the car into the storm.

“How did you know?”

“Know what?”

“The car,” said Virginia. “In the ditch.” She turned her attention away from Simmons and met eyes with Isaac. “How did you know it was there?”

“I’m not sure I know what you mean.”

“I saw you go up to the gate. Why didn’t you go inside? Was it locked?”

“No, it wasn’t locked, but there were no tire marks. If the car had been driven through the gate the tires would have left tracks in the mud, but there were none, so I figured either we had come all this way for nothing, or the car had been abandoned somewhere outside the gate.”

Simmons strolled up to the Altima and stood in front of Isaac. His eyes were half shut and his hands were deeply set in his pockets. In just a short amount of time, his clothes had already become soaking wet and his brown loafers now rested in two inches of rainwater. He stared at Isaac with a blank, almost pale look on his face, and with his jaw lightly trembling.

“Thank you for coming,” said Isaac. He waited for Simmons to respond but only ended up with a quick nod. “Okay, we better get going.”

Isaac began walking toward the black iron gate at the foot of the road. A few steps into the grass, he turned around to see Virginia right behind him and Simmons still standing motionless by the car. “What’s wrong?”

At first Simmons remained quiet, unmoved, much like before, as if he hadn’t heard the question, and then finally answered. “Maybe it would be better if I didn’t come.”

Isaac walked back toward the car, not taking his eyes off of Simmons, and unsure of how to respond. When he arrived, he rested his hands on top of the roof and glared across at Simmons standing on the opposite side. “Why?”

Simmons cleared his throat and took a small step closer to the car. “I don’t think I can do this.”

Isaac turned and looked away, gazing off into the forest, then removed his hands from the car and walked around to the other side.

“Listen,” said Simmons, finally lifting his hands from his pockets. “I really don’t know what to say but I’m sorry. You know how I am. I never expected any of this. This case has always been beyond me, but I did the best I could. Now I feel like there’s nothing I can offer you anymore, and that I would only be in the way.”

Isaac understood what Simmons felt; not long ago he had felt much the same way. This wasn’t what any of them wanted, or even expected, but this is where they were led. They were led to the end of a dark, vacant road like few other, and to an old mansion waiting within the trees. Isaac knew in his heart that no matter the outcome, they had no choice but to be here, and in the end they would undoubtedly be scarred by the memory. Somewhere deep inside Simmons knew this, too. Simmons knew he had his own part to play. It was just a matter of finding the strength to let go of the fear and play the part given to you.

“Look, this isn’t about the case anymore. And this isn’t about you, or me, or being a detective. This is about saving my daughter’s life. You’re not worthless. I know you can help. So please, I’m asking you as a friend. Help me find my daughter.”

After a moment, Simmons nodded and said, “Okay.”

The detectives hurried across the road and met back up with Virginia near the front gate. “Is everything all right?” she asked.

“Yeah,” Simmons said. “I'm fine now.”

Isaac walked past them and pulled at the latch on the gate. At first, he was a little surprised there was no lock on the gate. Generally even the most run down houses would have locks on every door and gate, anything to keep unwanted visitors off the property. This place, however, was different than your typical abandoned home; useless locks weren’t needed here. A perilous aura rose from the soil like an invisible mist, daunting and resilient, challenging anyone who dare step foot inside its gate.

Isaac pushed open the large black gate and watched it swing around on old rusted limbs. After the gate came to a stop, he waited for a second, peering through the thick fog ahead, then looked back over his shoulder at Virginia and Simmons.

“Let’s go,” he said, and then marched through the gates.





3





They followed the thin, muddy path as it twisted through the forest, narrowly cutting around each tree and ducking under each vine. Virginia stepped into the front and led the way. She had followed the path once before and was confident she could lead them to the end, even in the dark of night and under such formidable conditions.

The path wasn’t much wider than a foot, and was so narrow the group had to walk single file, one behind the other, with Isaac at the tail end. At certain points, however, the path became wider allowing them to spread out and converge, though this break would only last for a short time, as the path would quickly reduce back to its original size, oftentimes much smaller than before. These moments, when the path diminished, Virginia would momentarily pause to make sure they had not strayed off course and were still moving in the right direction.

Ten minutes had passed since they ventured off Maria Avenue, and not since the first minute had anyone spoken more than a few words at a time. When they did speak, they spoke in whispers, as though they were walking through a cemetery afraid of waking the dead, and other then the sound of the wind and rain blowing through the treetops overhead, the forest was relatively silent. In times of silence, even a whisper can seem too loud, and like a faint echo carried from far away, the whisper would scatter throughout the forest and fall upon any open ears.

A presence was here, all around them. It was not to be seen or to be heard, but it was here—everywhere. The presence surveyed them, followed their every movement, and it wanted them to reach the finish line as much as they did.

Isaac stopped for a moment and turned to look behind him. The road was gone, hidden on the other side of the forest, back in reality. They were now somewhere between the road and the mansion, but how far away from either, there was no way of knowing. As far as Isaac knew, the forest could go on forever and they could be trapped here, struggling to find their way out of what appeared to be becoming more like a maze with each step forward. His thoughts remained on Amy, and he still believed they would find her, but at the same time, he could feel a sense of urgency festering in his heart.

They needed to hurry.

“What’s wrong?” asked Virginia.

Isaac turned back around and looked ahead at Virginia and Simmons a few feet in front of him. “Nothing,” he said, and nodded for them to continue forward.

The large trees above did a fine job of shielding much of the rain, which offered the group a welcomed rest from the cold downpour of before, but the trees also trapped the fog, which grew thicker as they trekked further into the dark forest. Many times the fog became so thick Isaac could barely make out his own hand in front of his face as he tried to block sharp tree branches from stabbing into his eyes.

Virginia continued to lead the way as best she could, but with the path getting ever narrower and the view cloudier by the second, the task became more tiresome and problematic then she had hoped. Were they even going in the right direction anymore? Could the path have split off into two sections at some point earlier? The last thing she wanted to do was to turn back, to retrace their exact steps leading up to this point. The longer it took them to find Amy, the greater chance they would not find her alive.

The group wandered deeper into the forest, one behind the other, slowly maneuvering through the high, thorny brush and over deep cavities of mud and muck, when the train came to a sudden stop.

Virginia kneeled, placed her hand to the ground, and looked back at the others. “It’s gone,” she said, her voice soft and sprinkled with uncertainty.

A puzzled look crept on to Isaac’s face. “What’s gone?”

Virginia turned her head back and gazed at the large weeds standing upright many feet high in front of her. She sifted through the weeds, pushing them apart from top to bottom, and then plunged her hand into a foot of chunky water at the roots. What was going on here? None of this was familiar at all. Everything was vastly different than she had remembered. These weeds were not living and growing in a foot of rainwater dropped recently; this water had been here for quite some time. The water had an uncharacteristic weight to it, lined in spots with thick clumps of algae.

Virginia rose to her feet, still trying to peer through an impenetrable layer of fog that over much time had proven to be such a charming and resilient foe. “The path is gone.”

Isaac took a few small steps forward and nudged himself next to Simmons. “So, what do you think we should do? Can we continue forward, path or no path?”

“I think if we continue forward we’ll be blinded by the fog. We could find ourselves traveling through areas most seeing men wouldn’t dare go. I think this could be swamp water. Worse yet, I'm beginning to think the mansion could be much further than any of us realize.”

Virginia focused on Isaac as she spilled the bad news. The expression on his face told the story of a man who hung on to hope by a burning thread. His grip slipped, grew weaker by the moment, and the ashes began to pile up on him from above. Soon he would be buried in the ashes.

“But we've made it this far,” said Virginia. “Just stay very close to one another.”

The group strayed off the path, still one behind the other, but much closer than before. Virginia decided it might help if they held hands to keep from getting separated, and no matter what happened along the way, try not to let go. The weeds stood chest high. Virginia pushed them apart and cleared the way for the other’s to follow. Being the leader meant she had to be extra careful, not only for her own safety, but for the safety of those following directly behind her as well. One wrong step and it could mean trouble for all three of them. Thus, she took her time carefully pacing each movement as the whole of her ankles drowned over and over again in thick, swampy water.

It wasn’t long before the fog took their vision completely and forced them to feel their way through the challenging terrain. Hordes of mosquitoes surrounded them in the rising mist and latched on to any piece of flesh they could draw blood from. The weeds shortened, while the water level rose inch by inch with every step forward. The rising water made each movement harder than the last, and the thick layer of muck at the bottom provided unnecessary suction on their shoes.

Virginia tried not to imagine where they were or what they were traveling through. Perhaps being blind was a blessing. Something could be hiding in the fog. It could be anything, and it could be beside them, in front of them, or even right below them. If the water at her feet shifted lightly or in a different manner than before, she wondered if a moccasin could be circling her from below. The thought of being bit by a venomous snake at this time of night and this far away from town sounded like quick death. But while that gentle motion could be a snake, it could also be nothing, just a natural bubble formed from trapped air beneath her shoe. The unknown is always the most frightening.

The water level was nearly waist high now and yet still seemed to be getting deeper. Without knowing for sure how much further they had to go, it was impossible to tell how deep the water could get. They could have only begun to break the surface of the swamp, before long the water could be straddling their necks. This fear was felt collectively, though none spoke a word. The group held their thoughts within where they were safe and undisturbed by the ears listening in from all around.

Thankfully, not more than a minute later, Virginia noticed the water level evening out just above her waist. She took this as a good sign, a sign that they were perhaps halfway through the cold and murky swamp, and increased her strides.

The water, once calm and steady, now stirred back and forth with each quick jolt forward and created a minor ripple that drifted outward from the group. Just moments earlier, Virginia was focused on patience, carefully timing each step and trying to make as little noise as possible, but in an instant speed became her prime focus. With each continuing decrease in water, her motivation gained more fuel. It was as though she could see the end directly within her sight and was desperately scrambling to reach it before it disappeared again, next time for good.

Then, unexpectedly, Virginia clicked off the burners and stood motionless in the water. A light splash died and smoothed out just above her knees.

“Did you hear that?” she whispered.

“Hear what?” asked Simmons.

Virginia listened closely, certain she had heard something.

Isaac wallowed up from behind Simmons and stood next to Virginia. He could barely make out her face through the fog but could tell by the way she frantically looked around that something had flustered her. “I didn’t hear anything,” he said. “But why don’t you let me go ahead and you can follow?”

“I’m serious Isaac. I heard something.”

“What did it sound like?” asked Simmons.

“Like a deep humming. I only heard it for a split second. Then it stopped.”

The group waited, wondering what to do next, wondering what choice they had, when the humming returned. The sound came from the left not far ahead of them.

“I think we woke it up,” Isaac said. “We’d better get out of here.” He took a deep breath and listened while the hum grew louder. “Right now.”

The group trampled through the thick water, building more speed with each dip in depth. Even though they had promised earlier not to let go for any reason, the urgency of the situation quickly made them forget about holding hands. Trying to run through swampy water was challenging enough on its own, holding hands would not only reduce the speed but the movement in which they could progress. The idea was to look after each other but to not let any one person sacrifice the group. No one agreed to the idea, it was simply understood.

The water level dropped to just under a foot and now splashed up at their knees. They tried to keep their focus while the low hum matured into a powerful bellow and now seemed to be coming from all around them. It was almost as if the sound had multiplied in seconds, forming a barrier that enveloped them within it.

Isaac felt confident he knew the creature making the sound striking such fear into all of them. He could think of many living things native to swamps, but only one that bellowed with such authority, and it was also the most dangerous.

The fog dissipated and the forest steadily came back into view. Virginia never thought she would be so glad to see the large, daunting trees again. Just ahead, she watched Isaac and Simmons cross over the water's edge. They turned and looked back with expressions of equal dismay, waiting for her arrival.

Safety was near, maybe seconds away, but nothing could have prepared Virginia for what happened next.

While she passed through the last few feet of water, her right foot slipped on a slick layer of muck causing her to lose her balance and fall head first to the water. Somehow, at the last second, she was able to prop her arms out in front of her, saving her head from going under.

From what seemed like miles away, Virginia could faintly hear Isaac and Simmons yell as her hands and knees dug into the deep slime. She raised her head and looked up at them standing less than ten feet away, motioning with their hands for her to hurry and get up. She ripped her palms from the thick mud, brought her legs forward underneath her chest to regain balance, and then stood up.

But when she went to move, her right foot slipped again, and this time she was unable to stop her head from going under. Her eyes were wide open as her face submerged in the brown, muddy water. She couldn’t see anything, only blackness. Her eyes burned, painfully, worse than at a public pool with a double dose of chlorine. So she closed them, and they burned even more.

From underneath the water, Virginia could hear the humming much clearer and louder, so loud her ears trembled from the vibration, and the trembling became worse as the deep hum drew closer.

Closer.

She raised her head to the surface and opened her eyes. Tiny drops of water dashed down from her forehead and fell into her eyes blurring her vision. She closed them and wiped the water away from her forehead. When she opened her eyes again, they were still hazy, but she could see something ahead, coming toward her. It looked large, colorless, but out of focus.

And the powerful bellowing returned.

Water gently splashed around her. She prayed for her eyes to find their focus, soon.

As she reached up to rub her blurred eyes for the second time, something wrenched her hand away from her face. She looked up and slowly opened her eyes. They still burned, but most of the blur had gone. She saw Isaac. He towered over her, holding her thin wrist within his grasp.

Then he dragged her from the water.

Halfway to the trees, Virginia was able to get back to her feet. She hunched over and propelled her body forward with her feet slapping against the slick mud, while Isaac still tugged at her hand in front of her. Once they were clear of the water and her shoes hit solid ground, she snuggled next to Isaac and Simmons a few yards into the forest.

“Thank you,” she said, glancing up at Isaac, his hand resting on her shoulder.

At first, Isaac didn’t respond, just nodded back toward the swamp. Virginia turned to see two medium sized gators floating soundless on opposite sides of where she had fallen, their eyes scarcely protruding from the water, focused on the group.

“You’re lucky I was crazy enough to go back in there and save you.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Isaac responded. "I owed you." He removed his hand from her shoulder and glanced over at Simmons, then back at Virginia. “Now come on.”

The group hurried down the path cut off by the swamp on the opposite side. The thick fog that had taken their vision just a little earlier dissipated. The fog rose from the treetops overhead, treetops that looked to be spreading out and allowing the dark sky to show itself for the first time. Soft flashes of lightning flickered into the forest, casting mysterious shadows on to the ground. And as the treetops widened, so did the path; it was now at its widest point since the beginning of the trek through the forest, and the group could finally walk side by side.

Minutes later, they stepped past the last tree, ducked underneath a low hanging branch, and one by one gazed across the open land at the stone mansion waiting for their arrival. After fighting their way through the winding forest for over an hour, around thorns and trees, water and weeds, and narrowly sneaking past the kings of the swamp, they had arrived. They were shaken up, dirty, cold, and sopping wet, but somehow they survived.

Somehow, they passed the first test.





4





The stone mansion stood fifty yards away. A giant, much bigger than Isaac imagined, and much more frightening than Virginia remembered. The shape of the mansion formed a perfect rectangle, two stories tall. The dark gray stone almost looked blue under the electric sky. A light fog drifted from the forest, hugged the corners, and rose up the walls. Four tapered windows peered outward like bruised eyes on each half of the manor and two tall circular pillars stood in the center, marking the entrance to the front double doors at the end of the muddy path.

Other than a few patches of grass and weeds left to grow to outrageous heights, little plant life surfaced, just small dirt hills and water holes scattered across the large yard surrounding the mansion. The path to the front entrance, however, was wide open like it was at the edge of the forest. There were no hills to climb over, no gully’s to climb out of, and no weeds to sort through, merely an open path welcoming all who dare travel to the end.

Midway to the entrance, Isaac veered left off the path and jumped down a steep slope of mud and grass into a few inches of water. Virginia and Simmons watched from the path as Isaac wandered away, unsure of where he was going, and unsure if they should follow.

Meanwhile, Isaac walked down the ditch to a large drainage pipe at the edge of the property. He couldn’t believe it was here. The same ditch from Maria Avenue; the ditch the Civic was driven into. This was just the other side. And now he had a sneaking suspicion, and the closer he moved to the large pipe, the more that suspicion appeared to be coming true. He knelt down and placed his hand into a small footprint in the mud then glanced to the left at the tracks continuing up the hill.

“Damn,” he muttered.

Virginia and Simmons approached and peered into the dark tunnel uncovered by steel bars.

“There are footprints in the mud. And they’re coming out of here.” Isaac pointed toward the long, dark pipe. “I think we took the long way. I remember the grate on the other side was bent from the car crashing into it. And, now, what do you know, this side is missing a grate. In other words, that was no accident. He did it on purpose.”

“But how did he know this side was open?” asked Simmons.

“Yesterday afternoon Stevens told me that they had found the deputy’s squad car abandoned somewhere down Maria Avenue. Of course, at the time it meant nothing to me. But this was before she came into the picture,” he said, pointing his finger at Virginia. “Now it makes sense. The maniac was here earlier. He had planned all of this.”

Isaac looked up at the gloomy sky and let the light rain splatter against his face. The storm was reforming, preparing to come back around for a second turn. Then he glanced over the hill at the large stone mansion resting in the distance, still waiting to greet them, waiting for them to come inside. “We’re being led into a trap.”

The group climbed out of the ditch and headed back on to the path at the point they had veered off. As they moved closer to the mansion, the fear of what was to come grew stronger, more definite in each of them.

Virginia had the best knowledge of the large stone mansion, the best insight on the thing they could come face to face with once inside, and it was this knowledge that frightened her. Surely, she would be the one they would look to for guidance. The last thing she wanted was to let Isaac down, to not be there for him if he needed her. Even as her hope faded, nothing, not Lucius, nor her fear of this wretched place would tear her from his side.

Earlier, Isaac was sure he would find his daughter and would somehow be able to save her. But while the night waned on and his thoughts meticulously formed painful knots inside his head, he began doubting his faith. His confidence was at an all time low. He could no longer feel Amy near him, or hear her voice inside his head. He gently brushed his hand across the 9mm in the inner pocket of his long tan coat, hoping tonight he would not have to use it on himself.

And then there was Simmons, the fish out of water. The man thrown into situation he could not grasp. The man given a part he could not play. The man everyone looked down upon and everyone doubted. Daniel Simmons, the man who doubted himself. Something monumental would happen for him at this place, he could feel it. A voice inside urged him to turn back. It told him he wasn’t strong enough—told him he was worthless. But for once, Simmons ignored the voice, and was finally prepared to prove it wrong.

The group came to the entrance of the mansion. At the end of the path, they walked up three stone steps, stood between the tall, circular pillars, and stared at the double doors in front of them. Here they were just a few small steps away from being enclosed within the cold, stone walls, cut off from the world they knew. This could be the point of no return, the point where their lives changed forever. They took a moment to view the world around them, to breathe the air, since each of them knew this could be their last chance.

Isaac cautiously stepped toward the large double doors, waiting, as though he expected them to open on their own, and focused his eyes on the double brass handles. He leaned toward the right handle and felt the bitter, aged brass between his fingers. He let his hand rest upon the brass until the icy chill swept over, and then gripped the handle tighter. But as he built the courage to turn the cold brass, the door cracked open.

Isaac let go of the handle and watched the door rock back and forth on squeaky hinges. He tilted his head and looked through the inch wide crack in the door but couldn’t see anything inside, only dense, black space. Virginia and Simmons crept closer and stood behind Isaac. He turned toward them, raising his eyebrows, then laid his hand flat against the door and pushed it in.

The heavy wooden door swung open, aching as it stretched its joints, and stopped just before hitting the inner wall. Isaac took a small step forward and stood in the doorway, peering down the dark corridor. A faint light flickered from around the left corner. The glow of the light was not constant but increased and decreased at random, casting odd shapes and patterns on to the right wall of the corridor.

The group passed through the doorway and headed down the dark corridor to the lighted room at the end. No one closed the door; it felt safer to keep it open. Isaac immediately noticed how much colder it was inside the mansion than outside in the wind and rain. The air was frigid and damp, and smelled of old things, old times; a smell that only takes form after ages of isolation and in places of great, forgotten memory. This dark place had a story to tell, and it would tell the story to anyone willing to listen. It didn’t matter if the story was enjoyed, only that it was given the attention it deserved.

The lighted room at the end of the hall was just big enough to hold a small wooden table in the center with two chairs nestled beneath. An antique lantern burned in the middle of the table, a small key next to it. Warm, thoughtful gifts from the illusionist. The soft flame from the lamp emitted the only light in the room, and although it wasn’t much, the flame was better than no light at all.

A thin, empty bookshelf hung at eyelevel on the inner wall with layers of old dust resting atop. A small fireplace in the far left corner of the room acted as a median between two doors. One door continued straight ahead from the entranceway. The other door exited from the left, on the other side of the lamp and table.

Virginia pocketed the key first, and then picked up the lantern and held it up in front of her. The lamp was about half full. She figured they probably had a few hours left before the flame would die, and hopefully in two hours time, they would be far away from this place.

“Who wants to hold it?” she asked. Isaac and Simmons looked over at each other without saying a word, and then turned back toward Virginia. “Okay, I guess I will.”

Isaac walked over to the fireplace and knelt down in front of it. A slight amount of ash was still present at the bottom of the cavity, scraps from a fire that had probably burned over a century ago. As he leaned closer, he noticed an object lying toward the rear of the fireplace. “Can you shine the light over here?” Virginia walked from behind the wooden table holding the lantern with both hands and stood behind Isaac. “Shine it down there,” he said, pointing to the dark hole in the wall.

Virginia leaned over, held the light just over the fireplace, while Isaac reached toward the object in the back. “What is it?” she asked.

“It’s our old friend,” Isaac said, pulling the small stone statue from the fireplace. He brushed the dust off with his hand then held it over his shoulder for the others to see.

Virginia set the lantern back down on the table and reached out her hand. “Can I see it?”

The cloaked figure sat in her palm looking up at her with its hands outstretched. This was the first time Virginia had seen the statue in any other form than a picture, and now as she held it in her hand, the thing they were up against seemed that much more unreal.

“Should we take it with us?” asked Isaac.

“Maybe we could somehow get him back inside of it,” said Simmons. “The spirit, I mean.”

Virginia shook her head and handed the statue back to Isaac. “Not likely,” she said. “Lucius was never inside of it. He’s a part of another world. The statue was probably a gateway, but I doubt there is anything we could do to force him back through.”

“So, what can we do?” asked Isaac, tossing the statue back into the fireplace.

“Continue doing what we’ve been doing. We need to find your daughter. Lucius obviously wants us to find her, or he wouldn't be leaving things behind to help us.”

“So we find her. And then what?”

There was no easy answer to the question, nothing she could say to ease the overwhelming pain Isaac felt inside. In the end, there was only the truth.

“And then hope for a miracle.”





5





Amy maneuvered through the dark passageway, unaware of where she was heading, or who was taking her there. Something had happened back at the house, and now for some reason, she was no longer in control of her body. Something else was here, inside of her. It carried her to this place, and it told her where to move, what to touch, and what to see. Her thoughts were all she had left, and even they didn’t feel safe anymore.

“Who are you?” Amy asked the visitor.

She couldn’t feel her lips move, perhaps they hadn’t. Something hung above her in all directions, swinging back and forth, clanging together. She could feel the cold sting of it brush against her neck, but she couldn’t see what it was.

“What’s happened to me?” she cried, unable to hear herself.

“Patience,” the thing whispered. “You will know all the answers in time.”

Her body came to the end of the dark passageway. The clanging sound was behind her now, and the cold sting had vanished. Ahead, she could see many strange figures swaying about in the darkness, hissing at her. She felt her lips form a smile, and the figures suddenly stopped moving, stopped glaring at her, and quickly hid in the shadows.

“Am I dead?”

The thing didn’t answer, not at first.

The smile disappeared from her face.

“Fear not, my child, for your father is coming and soon it will all be over. I promise,” it said, ushering her into the ghostly chamber. “Soon it will all be over.”

Amy believed it.





6





They decided on door number one at the end of the corridor. Virginia held the lantern chest high and close to her body. The small flame had a way of brightening a room, reflecting off the walls and shining light in otherwise dark places. But once they passed through the first door, the flame was no longer able to spread its radiance as far. An ocean of darkness surrounded the group from every direction, swallowing the light with ease, as Virginia led them into the heart of the mansion.

They moved slowly through the large room, scanning the shadows for anything that moved.

From just a few steps in, it was clear that not only was this room much darker than the last, but much quieter, too. They could no longer hear the splatter of raindrops hitting the ground, or the crackle of lightning splitting open the dark sky above. Even the rolling thunder was diminished to just a minor vibration as the thick stone walls sucked up the shockwaves and blasted them back out with little effort.

The group came to a square bar at the center of the room. Isaac brushed his hand across the bare countertop and pulled the clumps of dust off with his fingers. What was once probably a fine bar was now just a wasteland of dust on old, rotting wood. Giant white webs filled the shelves below from corner to corner while black web spinners hovered motionless in the center of the nest, poised and waiting to trap their next victim.

Virginia set the lantern down on the counter and looked around the room from inside the bar. Her eyes began to adjust to the darkness and everything steadily came into view. Behind her was the door from which they had entered the room. She had the urge to run down the dark corridor, through the open door, and fall out into the field, into the rain. But, oddly, her feet felt anchored to the floor. There was more to do here, more to see and find in this place, yet she didn’t want to forget the way out, if and when the opportunity came to leave.

To the right of the exit, not far down the wall was another door, with a tall, empty cabinet filling the small space between the two doors. The wall rounded off further down and swung into an open doorway parallel to the bar with what looked to be a kitchen poking its head out from around the corner. A long, narrow window at the back of the kitchen looked outward; its glass black and scratched, impossible to see through from such a long distance. She looked to her right and saw a fireplace in the far corner of the room in roughly the same position as the one in the small entranceway. This fireplace was much bigger, with a brick stoop at the base and a long wooden shelf a few feet above. The fireplace seemed so empty and alone in the dark corner of the large room. No portrait or painting hung above, no rug thrown below. Items likely packed up and shipped out after the mansion was investigated over a century ago—after the unexpected death of its owner.

In a similar manner, this group of three began their own investigation at this late hour, but so far finding little left to uncover.

No spirit. No daughter.

Nothing.

Isaac stepped out of the bar and began calling his daughter’s name, soft at first, then louder each time after. He stopped momentarily and listened, but heard nothing in return, only his voice echo through the halls and fade to nothing. He continued calling a few more times, gave up, and banged his fist down on the counter.

As the force of the blow shook the rotted wood, a rat jumped out from below the bar and scurried between Virginia’s legs. She yelped, gripped Isaac by his coat, and watched the rat run across the open floor. The rat’s tiny feet slapped against the cold stone, until it found a safe spot behind a long slanted staircase nearby.

“Sorry,” said Isaac, glancing down at Virginia clutching his arm. After she released her grip, he grabbed the lantern from the counter and walked over to a pair of doors at the right of the staircase. The others followed behind, making sure to stay within the circle of light shimmering off the floor.

Isaac peered down at another set of brass door handles, identical to the ones from the front door. Something about large double doors yearned of importance, an awareness that whatever rested on the other side was special to someone, and they wanted everyone to know it.

He handed the lantern to Virginia and reached for the handles with both hands. He curled his fingers around the cold brass, forming a fist of each hand, and then turned both handles. A third of the way down the handles stopped instantly and jerked back up to their original position.

The double doors were locked.

But now Isaac could feel something else, someone standing motionless on the other side of the doors. It watched him, smiled as he yanked at the handles. It could see the fear in his eyes, feel the pain in his heart, and it was ready and willing to release him from the pain, give him a gift, but only for a price.

How much will you take?

How far will you go?

Then, like a sweeping storm, the feeling passed.

Isaac let go of the handles, backed away from the doors, and looked around the large room. He focused on the slanted staircase, and no matter how much he turned away, his gaze kept coming back to it. He thought about the rat, how it had leapt out of the bar and startled Virginia, nearly giving her a heart attack. He wondered if the rat was still under the stairs, perhaps having a heart attack of its own.

The group headed over to the staircase not far from the double doors. The stairs led to the second floor of the mansion, opening up at the top into a small rectangular room with two halls on each side. From the bottom up, the staircase gradually slanted inward, with the first step the widest and the last step the thinnest. A five-foot tall black metal handrail accompanied the stairs on each side, coiling up like a snake at the bottom end.

As Simmons came upon the staircase, a strange feeling washed over him.

He stopped, took a single step back, and looked down at a crack in the stone floor. The crack was a half-inch deep and a few feet wide. He focused intensely on it, not blinking, and not sure why. In his head, he could hear someone cry out. He took his eyes off the crack in the floor and focused them on the ceiling high above.

“Simmons,” Isaac yelled. “Are you okay?”

Simmons looked down from the ceiling and saw Isaac in front of him. He wasn’t sure if he could speak, but he would try. “Yeah. I’m okay.”

Isaac didn’t question the durability of the staircase, even keeping its age in mind. It wasn’t made from wood like his at home; this one was solid stone all the way up. The entire mansion was built to last the ultimate test, the test of time, and it had done quite a fine job at well past a century old. Nothing short of a massive earthquake could bring down this monster.

Virginia led the way up the staircase. Isaac trailed a short distance behind her, with Simmons at the rear. When they reached the top of the stairs, they looked down at the first floor for a moment then headed down the hall to their left. A washroom waited at the corner just before the hall bent into a long straightaway.

The others waited in the hall while Isaac stepped into the washroom and tiptoed across a graveyard of broken white tile. Halfway into the room, he stopped and pulled back a grimy curtain to his right, revealing a dingy white tub and an old wash bucket lying on its side.

A small circular window sat on the back wall of the bathroom. Isaac peered through the dusty black pane hoping to get a glimpse of the side yard of the house, or possibly a forest looming behind a veil of fog, but did so with no such luck. All he could see was his reflection in the dark glass and the drops of rain sprint down the window from the other side, smearing his face into a contorted bubble of flesh.

On his way back to the hall, Isaac stopped and gazed into a mirror on the opposite side of the tub. His face looked beaten and drained, as though he had aged ten years since he left his house a few hours ago. Gray moons grinned underneath both eyes. His hair was wet and matted, with a few dark brown clumps hanging down on his forehead. It was difficult to tell if his face was wet with water, or with sweat, and although he looked tired, he didn’t feel it. He would search the shadows all night, forever if needed, just to find his daughter. Whatever it took. No matter the consequence.

Win or lose, alive or dead, he would find her.

The group rounded the corner and continued down the long, dark hall. They passed two rooms, one to the left, the other to the right, and briefly peeked their heads through the doors. Both rooms were completely empty, with no furniture or objects of any kind, just a wide-open vacant space of nothingness. Less than a dozen steps later, they came to another set of rooms, again opposite each other, and again empty.

The cold, barren rooms reminded Virginia of an old 18th century asylum. The gray stone walls were an exact match, and the stench of heavy fabric and dust (with just a touch of vomit) really hit the spot. All the rooms needed were small barred windows on the doors and the crossover would be complete.

Isaac had seen his fair share of abandoned homes through the years, but this one was on a level all by itself. It seemed the investigators of long ago did their jobs well, overlooking nothing in their path, and taking just about everything as evidence. Not that it would have mattered much, by the time the mansion was unpacked, Lucius was dead, and you can’t bring the dead back to life to put them on trial, right? Well, young Lori Ackerman somehow managed to do the unimaginable, but at some point in the investigation the case took a shocking turn, the hunter became the hunted, and it was no longer the illusionist given the trial, it was Isaac.

The trial would be a chess match, a battle of wills, and the proceedings would begin and end while the world slept, with only God and a few friends as witnesses. Soon the jury would retire into the deliberation room to contemplate their decision, and not long after, they would deliver the verdict—the penalty. They could order Isaac’s death, or the death of many innocents, including one very special to him. He would be more than content with the jury handing out the first verdict, if they were so willing to spare the last.

No doubt, every living thing has a breaking point; the point the illusionist sought to find in man. How much longer would it take before the trial broke Isaac?





7





One final door waited at the end of the hall. The group stopped in front of the door and looked over at each other. They expected much of the same from this door as the previous ones, just four corners with a load of emptiness in between. But after twisting the knob, opening the door, and looking into the room, they were pleasantly surprised at what they saw.

Behind this final door was a small semblance of a former life. The room was quite large, many feet larger than the asylums. The group stood in the doorway letting the light carry into the dark room. Against the far wall was a tattered mattress resting atop a bed with curved wooden legs. This room was quite possibly the bedroom of the illusionist.

They stepped forward into the room and stood at the edge of the queen-sized mattress. The bed was sheet-less, with many holes and tears strewn in the cotton. Some of the shreds were so severe there were puffs of wool protruding from them, like an old teddy bear after being mauled by a dog.

On the right of the bed, against the far wall, was an end table with two drawers and nothing on top. Virginia walked over and set the lantern down on the table. She looked over at Simmons passing by a tall cabinet on the other side of the bed. The cabinet had two doors, each with a silver knob, and a deep drawer at the bottom with a matching silver handle.

Isaac looked out the bedroom window. He could finally see the yard on the side of the mansion, all the water holes and hills, and the forest standing tall in the distance. He watched lightning flash in the dark sky high above the trees and waited for the resounding roar, but it never came. Then he stepped away from the window and met Simmons at the edge of the bed.

"Well, she's not here," said Simmons. "I guess we move on."

"Yeah, were moving too slow," Isaac added.

“Did you check the cabinet?" asked Virginia.

Simmons shook his head. Isaac reached out with both hands and grabbed the silver knobs. As he swung open the doors, he imagined a body falling out on him, a skinned, partially decayed corpse. Its fleshy hands would grip his face and its head would flop down on his shoulder, with its colorless eyes gleaming up. It would be bleeding from the mouth, maybe even mumble a few words before choking on its tongue. The bloodied body would be his daughter’s, too. He knew it. But it didn’t happen.

Instead he saw something much less frightening.

"What the hell," Isaac said.

Virginia held the lantern closer. The interior of the cabinet lit up and revealed its secret.

A square piece almost as wide as the cabinet, roughly three foot by three foot, was cut out of the back and a safe was put in its place—into the wall. The safe was almost identical in shade to the wood of the cabinet, with no trim, fancy carvings, or special ornamentation. It was obvious that Lucius had built the safe with the purpose of blending in and not drawing any attention to itself. The only thing that even gave it away was the key lock in the center.

Virginia handed the lantern to Simmons and then reached into her pocket. She pulled out the key they had found earlier in the entryway. The three stood and looked down curiously at the key in Virginia's hand for a moment like it was some strange bug they had never seen before.

"Here goes," Virginia said, and slipped the small key into the keyhole in the center of the safe. The key went in smoothly, a perfect fit, and turned with just as little effort. The lock voiced a sharp clack sound as it disengaged, and the safe door slowly creaked open.

"What's inside?" Simmons asked, trying to peer around Isaac.

"Can't see anything," Isaac replied. "It's too dark. Bring that light over here."

Simmons switched places with Virginia and then held the lantern up inside the cabinet. Light rushed into the dark hole in the wall but revealed nothing. The safe was empty. Isaac placed a hand inside to feel around, and immediately realized why. It was empty because there was no bottom, and there was no bottom because this wasn't a safe.

Isaac carefully climbed into the cabinet and crouched in front of the hole. Then he took the lantern from Simmons and held it inside, followed by his head.

"What do you see?" Virginia asked.

"Darkness," Isaac said. He backed out of the hole and handed the lantern to Virginia before climbing out of the cabinet.

"That's odd," Virginia said. "He left us a key to a safe with nothing inside."

"It's not a safe."

"Then what is it? You said you didn't see anything."

"I said I saw darkness," Isaac replied. "And on the inside of the wall are metal rungs leading down into it. Not a safe. A passage."

"A passage?" Simmons repeated.

Isaac nodded. "Who wants to go first?"





8





The cabinet had no purpose other than concealing the fake safe, so they pushed it out of the way. The hardest part now would be getting into the cramped hole in the wall safely. One foot slip and you're falling to an unknown depth, and a certain death. Isaac figured the best way to approach it was from the side, one leg at a time, making sure the first foot in had a good grip on one of the metal rungs before turning around and climbing the rest of the way inside. It was an imperfect calculation, but it worked well enough, as Isaac managed to go in first without killing himself. Yet. Virginia handed him the lantern once he was inside. They had all agreed that Isaac was the strongest of the three and would have the least trouble navigating down the steps with only one free hand.

Virginia went down second.

Simmons, easily the largest of the group, naturally had a difficult time climbing into such a confined space. There was a moment when he had one leg dangling inside the hole, his foot searching for some security, his balance wavering, that he considered giving up and getting out. But the thought of having to go back the way they had come by himself and in complete darkness gave him reason to try harder. That, and he wouldn't be able to live with himself if he just left them. He didn't want to let Isaac down.

No one spoke a word as they descended the ladder, each step slow and steady. This wasn't the time to be careless, or claustrophobic. Isaac counted the steps as they went down. One. Two. Three. Twelve. Twenty-four. Thirty-six. At around step forty-five, he had begun to get tired and lost count.

Though she tried to keep her thoughts positive, Virginia couldn't help but imagine that they were climbing down into the pits of hell, with a hearty heaping helping of eternal damnation waiting for them at the bottom.

When Isaac reached the end of the line, he put the lantern down on the ground beside him and then helped Virginia down from the ladder. Simmons took a little longer to get to the bottom, but thankfully he didn't need Isaac to catch him.

The secret passageway had dumped them from the ceiling into a hallway not much wider than the hole and with only six feet of clearance. Of the three, Isaac was the only one who couldn't stand straight up without hitting his head. For once in his life, Simmons was happy he was the shorter guy in the room. Other than them, there was nothing else in the hallway. No welcome mat, no furnishings, no pictures or paintings, and no Amy. Nothing but the cold stone of the walls and their giant shadows the light casted upon it.

Virginia picked up the lantern. It had done a fine job thus far (much better than she had initially expected) filling the mansion with enough light to pass through safely. When the lamp was in her hands, she felt a sense of security (even if it were a false sense), as long as she could see, everything would be okay.

Isaac looked both directions down the hall. Both ways were long tunnels of blackness with no end in sight. "Which way?"

"I don't think it matters," Virginia replied.

"Why do you say that?"

"Because I have a feeling they both lead to the same place."

The group went left and wandered down the dark passage with Isaac leading the way. Less than thirty feet later they hit a corner and continued to the right down a short set of stairs. At the bottom, the hallway grew wider and taller. Isaac could finally walk like a normal human being.

Maybe it was just his imagination (which seemed to have kicked into full gear after he took that first step through the front double doors), but just after the hallway took a turn, Isaac could feel the temperature drop by at least ten degrees. The air, once as chilling as a hotel lobby, now felt like the inside of a morgue. And if the air hit his face from a certain direction, it almost smelled like a morgue, too. It was as though they had stumbled inside a coffin, surprised to find the scent of old, rotting death.

The hallway continued to widen and soon was wide enough for the group to walk side by side. They could now hear a gentle clanging sound coming from just ahead, growing louder and more distinct with each step forward. Moments later, the sound was upon them, as the lamplight revealed a cluster of chains hanging from the ceiling, swaying back and forth in unison, clanging together in the cold air. Each chain was about nine or ten feet long and were made of links much heavier and sturdier than your conventional, general-purpose chain. The chains hung from long metal hooks on the ceiling, equally spaced apart from one another. A circular clamp about six inches in diameter was at the end of each chain, with a nut and bolt at the bottom to tighten and loosen the tension. Many of the clamps were stained with a dark brown substance around the inner ring, leftovers from a time when innocence bled suffering.

Isaac lightly pushed apart the chains (careful to not smack Virginia behind him) and came to the end of the hallway. He peered into the darkness before him, waiting for Virginia and Simmons to wrestle free of the dangling chains. Simmons stopped behind Isaac just beyond the last of the swinging shackles, while Virginia stepped ahead, held the lantern out in front of her, and shined light into the dark chamber.

The room was so cold Isaac could see his breath in the air. It puffed out of his mouth like a cloud of smoke and softly separated before floating beyond the glow of the light. The putrid smell was now constant and had grown stronger. He found the stench almost unbearable, far worse than the aroma of scalded bodies, and he had not yet forgotten that first step inside the Ackerman house, which seemed like ages ago. The sweet smell of ash he could tolerate, given enough time maybe even come to enjoy, even if the ash was human flesh and bone. But this scent made him gag and shudder from the inside out. He tried to cough but nothing more than a slippery wet grunt exited his throat. If his stomach weren’t balled up with fear, and quite likely a smidgen of self-doubt, he was certain he would vomit.

High up on the wall to the right was an oil lamp. It was much bigger than the lantern they had found in the entranceway, but this one held no flame. Such a pity to see the lamp hanging from the wall, tall and empty, if there were ever a room in need of more light, it was this one.

Not far from the end of the hallway, across from the second oil lamp on the right, the group came upon the first of the twelve cells.

The cell was ten by ten, with three walls and a long set of iron bars at the front, each staff driven into the ground and ceiling six inches apart from one another. The iron was chipped in many spots and had rusted to a dozen different shades of brown and orange. Built into the center of the bars, halfway up, was a small locked metal box with an oversized keyhole.

Of course, no one in the group noticed any of these things, as they were not able to take their eyes off the pale, transparent figure hugging the back wall. It had its back turned to them. Its long fingers scratched at the stone, up and down, up and down, like it was trying desperately to somehow dig through the wall. After a few seconds, it would stop, gather itself, and then start the process all over again.

The group watched the horrifying display from the other side of the bars, half amazed and half frightened at what they were witnessing. Until, the figure stopped scratching and lowered its arms, bowed its head.

Had it given up?

Or had it felt their dazed stares from behind?

“What is it?” Isaac asked, his eyes not shifting from the strange being. It remained still, hugging the back wall, hissing softly.

“A prisoner,” Virginia whispered.

Suddenly, the figure swung around and leapt to the other end of the cell. Its pale, lanky body brutally collided with the top of the iron bars, rattling them in their deep holes. The force of the collision knocked the group to the cold stone floor. The lantern flew out of Virginia’s hand, scuttled across the floor on its side, and came to a halt ten yards further up the cellblock. Luckily, the glass didn’t break and the flame didn’t die.

The group looked up from the ground and watched the prisoner wrap its gangly hands and feet around the rusted iron. Then it shook the bars violently back and forth, back and forth. Its black, vacant sockets stared down upon them, and its toothless mouth gaped wide open, shrieking. It continued back and forth, back and forth, rattling the bars, again and again and again. The violent symphony resonated through the chamber, as did the piercing screams.

Virginia clutched Isaac’s hand so tight he feared she might tear his fingers right off, her nails dug and pinched into his palm. Soon after the figure ceased the ruthless display, Virginia loosened her grip and slowly released her trembling hand from Isaac’s.

Meanwhile, the prisoner clamped its mouth around one of the rusted bars and tried to gnaw through the iron with its gums while sliding down to the floor. When it reached the bottom, it sat on its knees and continued to stare at them, no longer shrieking, banging, or gnawing on the bars. The ghost had calmed instantly, and there was now sadness behind those black, deserted eyes.

This thing that had said hello by viciously knocking them to the floor, nearly causing them to piss their pants, wasn’t something to be afraid of, but something to feel sorry for.

Virginia stood up, hoping to not startle the ghost, and walked over to pick up the lantern in front of cell number two. Isaac and Simmons followed in much the same manner, glancing back only to see the ghost’s sad eyes still upon them. As she picked up the lamp, Virginia noticed a sheet of dark tinted glass running across the right wall about waist high, continuing down to where the cellblock twisted to the right.

Behind the glass is the study, she thought, and through the tinted window, he would watch over the prisoners. He would watch them suffer.

Another pale figure was in the second cell to the left of them. Aside from its larger head and longer torso, it looked very similar to the prisoner in the first cell. This one was definitely a man, Virginia thought, or was a man. It was hunched over on all fours and crawled in a circle in the middle of the cell as though it were an animal chasing a piece of raw meat dangling in front of its face. In circles it went, crawling fast, its mouth open, begging, never letting up.

The figure in the third cell was leaning over in the far right corner. It had its legs stretched in front of it, knees slightly bent. Its head was down, its arms out to its side, while its entire upper body jolted forward like it intended to vomit all over its chest, stomach, and groin.

In the fourth and final cell before the chamber turned to the right, a figure sat Indian style in the center. It had its right hand clamped around its left wrist, holding its left arm up to its mouth. Its jaw bit down, opened, bit down, opened, gradually chewing off the arm. It stopped and glanced up at the passing group, holding part of the white, transparent flesh out as an offering. Then bit down, opened, bit down, opened.

The group turned the corner and came to a wooden door on the right. The black spying window stopped at the door and continued on the other side. Isaac hurried over to open the door, but right as his hand touched the tip of the knob, Virginia tugged on his coat from behind.

“Isaac.” She pointed across the hall at the fifth and sixth cells. “Look.”

Two of the figures had found a way to connect with each other across the cells. One stood on the top right of the fifth, the other on the top left of the sixth. They each had an arm hanging between the last set of bars, six inches apart, reaching out toward the other one. They held hands outside of the bars, in the stone space between the two cells, crying and whispering to one another. In life these two could have been young lovers, or perhaps, long time husband and wife. Their last moments were spent here, dying underground in this prison, unable to see each other, but by chance (or perhaps not) were locked in neighboring cells, and were still able to touch.

Virginia held her hand up to her face and brushed a few tears away from her eyes. The warm tears felt good in the bitter chamber, although she wished them gone. She had to keep herself under control, not let her emotions get the best of her, for Isaac’s sake and the sake of his daughter, Amy, who was still missing. But the constant struggle grew harder, especially now, seeing the spirits long for each other, holding hands.

Isaac walked further down the chamber, leaving Virginia and Simmons in front of the door to the study. He drifted beyond the glow of the lamplight, but it didn’t matter anymore. There was nothing to be afraid of down here, nothing that wished hurt upon him. He stopped in front of the eighth cell, the last of the middle row, and tiptoed closer to the iron bars. The ghost inside noticed Isaac coming toward the cell and turned its head away like it was scared to look at him, fearing he would punish it. So it sat, hunched over in the back of the cell. Quiet. Motionless.

Isaac stopped six inches away from the bars, clutched the iron above his head, and leaned in closer. “Come here.”

The ghost looked back for a moment allowing Isaac to see the eyes again, those sad eyes. It was the same look the prisoner from the first cell gave after it had calmed, while their backs laid against the cold stone floor. But this time Isaac truly saw the agony behind the eyes. He felt the soul of the spirit. “I won’t hurt you.”

The ghost looked over a few more times, still turning its head back to the wall, then at last held the stare longer and began crawling toward the bars. When it arrived at the barred door, it picked its hands off the floor and wrapped them around the bars a couple of feet below Isaac’s. Again it hunched over, its legs folded at the knees beneath it, quivering as it peered up at Isaac.

The sadness now poured out of the black sockets like ice melting upon him. Isaac wanted to smile, wanted to do something to try and ease the spirits fear, but smiling would probably make it more afraid, and that’s not what either of them wanted.

“Please,” said Isaac, still looking into the sad, fear filled eyes. He couldn’t believe what he was doing. He couldn’t believe he was actually talking to a ghost. The words rolled from his mouth slow and gentle. “Tell me what to do?”

The ghost remained motionless at Isaac’s feet, still peering up at him, afraid. Is this what the illusionist enjoyed seeing? Isaac wondered. Is that the look he craved? The ghost picked its legs up from beneath it and began to stand up. Even when it stood, its back remained arched, and its eyes remained on Isaac. The ghost’s pale hands slid up the bars and came to a stop into Isaac’s hands, flowing seamlessly, caressing. The hands were icy cold to the touch, yet, somewhere inside Isaac could feel a fever beneath the surface wanting to pierce through.

The ghost opened its mouth, its wide, black mouth, leaned in closer, until their faces were almost touching, and finally answered. Its voice sounded like it had been carried through a long tunnel.

It only spoke two words, but they were enough. It was all Isaac needed to hear.

“Help me!” It had cried.





9





The lamp lit up the small study effortlessly, flickering light off the walls in every direction. The first thing they noticed upon entering the room was how full and packed the study was, which, for once, made perfect sense, as the dark chamber was one of the few places the investigators of old never found, or had the guts to explore. About two times as much stuff filled the room than it could comfortably hold, much of it clustered against a back wall piled with large wooden crates lying under a shroud of thick, gray dust.

A long, mahogany desk rested on each of the front corners of the room, both identical in size and shape, partially filling the front and side walls. Under each desk was a matching chair with faded black cushions on the seats. These desks would have made for an ideal viewing area of all twelve cells in the chamber, with the dark tinted glass perfectly at eye level when sitting. The desks contained no shelves or drawers, but lying on top were a few scattered sheets of paper, diagrams, pens, inkbottles, and dozens of melted candles.

The center of the room was the only area fit for moving about, not more than eight feet in diameter. In this circle, the group stood, each of their eyes focusing on something different.

Simmons turned to the wooden crates at the back of the room. There were twelve crates (like the cells) all together, stacked like a pyramid. He tried to see what, if anything, was inside the crates. He wanted to pick one up and move it to the floor but feared he might accidentally drop it. The last thing he wanted was for a family of severed heads to break free of the wooden planks and tumble across the study.

Virginia set the lamp down on the desk at the corner of the right wall, sat down, and found a bookshelf less than a foot high and no more than two feet long nestled far underneath, well out of sight. She would not have even seen the shelf had she not sat down in the padded black cushioned chair. She got up, walked past the door to the matching desk on the other side, and looked beneath. Another bookshelf lay under the second desk, and like the first, it was well hidden.

Black notebooks lined the bookshelves, each one roughly one hundred pages long. Written on the spine of each book was a date. Virginia randomly pulled one of the notebooks out and flipped through the pages. The black books appeared to be part journal, part case study, as some of the pages had subject numbers for a heading, then a brief, scribbled paragraph underneath.

Such as—





Subject: 017





This morning, it fed for the eighth day. I was again delighted to see him frugal, and not wasteful as so many of the others. He couldn’t shovel it in fast enough. It is remarkable how long an animal can live off its own feces; given it has the proper encouragement. After his meal, he caressed his genitals, mounting an erection. He spent the rest of the evening licking the cell floor.





And—





Subject: 041





Today, I realized that after only three days in Cell 8, it has accepted its fate. The weeping has passed, as has the illusion of escape. Now it just lies balled in the corner of the cell, its bony hands clinching its hair. From this spot it has not moved, has not looked up. The death has been arranged, and will take place at dusk tomorrow night. It is heartbreaking to see the oldest female of the fourth group pass, I had much left to study, but it's time.





Isaac wanted to tell Virginia and Simmons about his encounter with the prisoner in cell number eight. How it had spoken to him. How its icy pale hands had touched his. But most of all, he wanted to tell them how sorry he was for bringing them into this. It was his battle to fight, not theirs, and even if they insisted, he should have come here without them. He should have come here alone.

But he didn’t say any of it. Maybe he couldn’t find the right words, or maybe somewhere deep inside he knew they needed to be here, by his side. They were as much a part of this as him.

He wasn’t paying attention to Simmons fiddling with the crates or Virginia reading through the notebooks, he had his mind on something else. He looked all around the room, up, down, left, right, but couldn’t find it. He searched the walls, behind the desks, and even the small cracks between the crates Simmons contemplated lifting, yet, still—nothing.

It was hiding from him.

He knew it would be here in the center of the chamber. Somewhere in the study, he would surely find it, but where?

“Hey, you guys,” called Virginia. After picking through the notebooks at random, reading through clusters of fragmented mental remains, Virginia had decided to grab the last book on the shelf. She flipped to the very last entry only a third of the way through the small black notebook. “Listen to this.”





February 16th, 1898





Tonight, I will unveil the greatest illusion of all. I will show the world the face that has plagued mankind forever. I will pull the mask off God.





“Jesus,” said Simmons, his pupils bug-eyed.

Virginia closed the book and placed it back at the end of the shelf. “It must have been written the night he burned himself alive.”

Isaac said nothing. Her words reminded him of the trail of ash; the bodies that burned till there was damn near nothing left, just a black silhouette. The young girl, Lori, especially came to mind. She was the perfect target, young and innocent, and the illusionist had easily baited her.

But what was the offer?

What did she long for?

Attention?

Love?

Whatever it was, the illusionist gave it to her. He gave her the gift. Then he burned the leftovers akin to how he had burned, and moved on to the next of his assistants, those who would help him further his studies even after death.

Eventually the illusionist found his way to Amy, and back to his haunted palace. Had she invited him, or had he tricked her, like he had so many others? Isaac didn’t know the answer, and really didn’t care to find out. All he knew was that he had to save his daughter. Somehow, some way, he had to save her.

Save her like he couldn’t save Linda.

Isaac let his eyes circle the room again, still searching for what he knew was here, hiding, when a loud crashing sound came from the rear of the study. He turned his head and saw Simmons standing over a broken crate. Simmons turned his eyes from the crate to Isaac. He had a guilty look on his face.

“Sorry,” said Simmons, like a child who knew he had been a bad boy.

Isaac walked to the rear of the study and stood next to Simmons. The large crate was empty.

No heads.

The group took apart the pyramid crate by crate, breaking them open as they went. In each crate, they found more of the same, more of nothing. Yet, when they were finished, they gazed ahead in silence, astonished at what lay beyond. The twelve-tier pyramid had not been created on accident; these empty crates had been deliberately stacked in such a manner to hide a dark corridor twisting upward at the back of the study.

As Isaac peered down the corridor, his eyes fell upon something else that hid from them. He had searched every nook and cranny of the study for it (almost giving up many times in the process), and it had been here all along, beyond the pyramid of crates, hanging from a nail on the right wall at the entrance of the corridor—hanging lonesome, rusted, and aged.

He hurried into the corridor and grabbed the large metal key from the upturned nail, the key that had locked in such misery for so many years, even now. But the time had come for the key to redeem itself. In his hand, it would.

Isaac left the study alone and headed out into the dark chamber. The white glow from the ghosts was the only source of light. He turned the corner and walked back down to where they had come in. As he stood at the edge of the first cell, he could hear the dangling chains rocking back and forth nearby. The ghost that had startled them earlier lay in the same position they had left it, hunched over on the floor, clutching the bars. It looked up at him but Isaac never looked down, there wasn’t time. He inserted the key into the metal box in the center of the bars then turned it to the left. An aching squeal of metal rubbing against metal filled the chamber, followed by a bang as the lock ripped into a position it had not been for over a century. Then Isaac swung open the barred door and freed the ghost from the cell.

Isaac marched through the chamber with a fanatical determination, cell by cell, freeing each prisoner. He found another passageway on the other side of the chamber; it too had swinging chains with neck braces at the end. If they had turned right after descending the stairs that lowered into the ground, instead of turning left, they would have come out on this side, by the twelfth cell.

He freed them all (including the arm chewer, vomiter, and the one who had spoken to him), and felt a great sense of relief doing so, as though he were the one locked behind the bars. After release, the ghosts disappeared into what could only be known as thin air; the sight was both serene and magical to witness.

When Isaac had finished freeing all of the prisoners, he stepped through the study door, glanced back, and saw the lovers again. They were free of the binds, no longer holding hands, but now embracing; holding each other as he had once held his beloved Linda, close and tight, never wanting to let go.

Then faded away in each other’s arms.





10





The corridor at the back of the study tightly spiraled upward to the left like a winding staircase, except there were no stairs, just a stone floor with two barren walls on each side. Two full rotations later, the floor leveled off and the corridor ended at a red curtain that draped down from the ceiling.

The curtain stretched across the entire rear wall of what would be the backstage area to the sanctuary. The group turned right and walked against the wall behind the curtain until they reached an opening at the corner. They pushed the heavy velvet aside and stepped into the large orderly room behind the stage.

A square wooden table was in the center of the room with a white sheet draped over the top. The group parted to different corners of the table and lifted the cover off, revealing many stage props underneath of various shapes and sizes. There were scalpels, ropes, syringes, hooks, rusted canisters of lye, rotted teeth, even the infamous bronze pear that would gradually blossom like a flower inside a throat, vagina, or rectum, mutilating the flesh if the iron screw on the opposite end were turned.

Virginia turned her head away. Being so close to the stage where the illusionist had performed such heinous acts of cruelty almost made her feel partially to blame, like somehow she should have been there to stop it, even though she were not yet born. The intense feeling made her wish she’d never written The Immortal. On paper, none of it was real, just words, but now as it fell upon the end of her eyes, there was no rational way to describe it.

Isaac wandered over to the left side of the room and came upon a long, flat metal table with crisscrossing legs like a stretcher but without the mattress. He brushed his hand against the surface. The metal was dented, discolored, and sticky on top. As his hand lay pressed against the cold metal, painful images jolted through his body like a high current of electricity. Images of loose flesh upon gray skinned bodies; images of partial amputation and decapitation; images of horrifying looks upon innocent faces; images of dissection; images of fire and ash; images of prolonged death.

He quickly pulled his hand from the metal table and almost fell backwards. The images exited his body with the same high current as they entered. He took a deep breath, turned from the metal table, and headed inside a small room adjoined to the backstage.

Virginia and Simmons had moved on from the table of tortures and continued across the large room, coming to another red curtain. Virginia pushed the curtain to the side and poked her head out at the main stage, the stage where the illusionist had put on his monstrous performances. She still had the lantern in her hand, but in the sanctuary, it would not be needed. There were torches, many of them, lit with orange flames high up on the walls leading to the locked double doors at the far end of the room. She counted eight rows of pews, cutoff in the middle by a long maroon carpet that led from the double doors to the steps at the front of the stage. People used to sit in them, she thought, sit in them and watch the show. They wanted to be a part of it, and if they were patient, they would be.

From behind the curtain, Virginia and Simmons looked all across the empty stage, every corner of the largest room in the stone mansion.

And still no sign of Amy.





11





The small room had no door. In fact, the room was so small Isaac wondered if it wasn’t a room at all, but a closet.

Just beyond the doorway he came to a full body standing mirror facing the opposite direction, and when he looked around, he saw more mirrors, seven in all, placed into a circle facing inward. Burning on the floor in the center was a single red candle, hardly melted.

Somewhere in his mind, far beyond where simple thoughts become reality, a voice was telling him not to do it—not to step inside the circle of mirrors, but he did it anyway. He turned to the side, nudged his body between the first two sheets of glass, and stood inside the circle. Then he looked at his reflection many times over in the mirrors.

He had never seen himself so abused, so pathetic. What happened to the man he used to know? What happened to the man who wasn’t afraid of anything, the man that knew how to keep his emotions hidden in that dark closet of feelings? Where had he gone, and who had taken his place?

Who was this?

Isaac glanced down at the floor and took another deep breath. He didn’t want to look at himself anymore, didn’t want to see the broken man in the mirror. Finally, he picked his head back up, but this time he could no longer see his reflection. Now there was someone else in the mirror, and it only took Isaac a second to realize who it was.

Jacob Walsh.

Isaac's hands began shaking, his lips quivering. It can’t be, he thought, Jacob is dead! He wanted to run out of the closet but his head had begun to spin and he no longer knew the way out. He stood there, silent and spinning, never removing his eyes from his wife’s murderer reflected in the glass.

Jacob wore the same clothes he had worn the night he took his revenge. He had the same psychotic look in his eyes, the same resolve. And in his hand was a gun, lowered by his side. It was the same .38 caliber revolver that had carried the four bullets that had killed Linda, the four bullets that had bloodied her white nightgown leaving her breathless on the bed.

The room spun faster, a whirlwind of glass.

Everywhere, there was Jacob.

Isaac could see the gun rising from Jacob’s side, and the room spun faster.

Somewhere, a baby cried.

Lay thee down now and rest, may thy slumber be blessed.

The gun was now pointed at him, Jacob, behind it, grinning.

Shrieks now accompanied the cries, voices, sounds fused within some dark closet of feelings, under the layered dust of some hidden shelf of memory.

The shrieks belonged to Linda.

A familiar voice asked: what are you waiting for?

Linda called his name, begged with her last breath for him to come and save her.

Tears flooded his eyes. If he only could.

Someone—was it Isaac?—whispered: Kill me.

Then a bright light blinded him and the sound of expanding gases filled his head, followed by a shattering of glass.

When he hit the floor, Isaac writhed and latched tightly on to the left shoulder of his coat. A cold tremor ran up the ladder of his spine to his heart.

How it ached.

How it burned.

But only moments later, the spinning stopped, as did the screaming, and the bitter sting faded away. Isaac removed his hand from the scarred spot two centimeters to the left of his heart and looked up at his shaking palms.

No blood.

No Jacob.

There was nothing but a dark closet and a circle of broken glass on the floor surrounding him.





12





Virginia and Simmons ran through the large room, past the table of tortures, to the small storage room on the far right. They stopped in the doorway and looked down at Isaac lying in the center of the glass remains. He shook as he sat up.

“Are you okay?” They asked.

“I think so.”

Virginia stepped forward into the room and relocated some of the glass with her foot. “What happened?”

“I don’t know.” Isaac looked down at the glass and nodded. He held out his hand and Simmons helped him to his feet.

“Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Don’t worry about me. I’m fine.”

No matter how certain he sounded, Virginia could tell by the look in his eyes that Isaac wasn’t fine. She knew he was lying. Something had happened in this room, something he wasn’t ready to tell her.





13





The flaming torches lit the cathedral with a dusky orange hue that gleamed through the clouds of smoke gathering thirty feet up at the ceiling. Ten torches spaced across each wall, held in place by black metal rings driven into the stone, far out of the reach of human hand. The torches followed the slanted ceiling upward from the double doors at the end of the long maroon carpeted aisle to the back of the stage, where the group of three now stood.

The eight rows of pews were spaced a foot apart from each other with enough room to accommodate nine to ten attendees per seat. The pews were constructed of thick, darkly stained sheets of wood, eight slabs per pew, one for the seat, one for the backrest, and six stretched upright underneath for support. The first row of pews began five feet back of the steps that led to the stage.

The floor of the stage was made of hardwood, glossed over with a light yellow stain, and was in remarkable condition in comparison to the rest of the mansion. There wasn’t a spot of blood, scuff, or crack across the entire surface; it was smooth and shiny like it had just been polished. In fact, the entire sanctuary appeared to be the only room in the old stone mansion that didn’t show its age, not at all, as though something had kept it alive for over a century.

The three slowly walked across the empty stage, hardwood knocking beneath them, and gazed up at the orange glow. Isaac stopped in the center and looked out at the maroon carpet separating the left pews from the right. His eyes moved down the aisle and fell upon the locked double doors on the far side of the room. He remembered yanking at the brass handles, feeling the sensation that something was on the other side of the doors. It had watched him struggle with great pleasure, laughing in his head. But now, after finally finding his way into the sanctuary, and standing at the foot of the stage, the sensation was gone.

He felt nothing but alone.

Isaac headed down the three steps at the foot of the stage then turned back and saw Virginia and Simmons following him, their feet knocking hard against the light wooden floor. He walked down the red aisle, scanning each row of pews for any sign of his daughter, without luck. As he came to the eighth and final row, he made one last desperate attempt to restore his faith. He cried out her name, praying that somehow, wherever she was, she would hear him. Perhaps she would cry back, guide him to her. He longed to hear her voice one last time, but the echo resonating off the sanctuary walls was his and only his.

Isaac lowered his head and came to a stop in front of the double doors. He thought of the gun in his coat pocket. He could almost feel it in his hand, feel his index finger pressed against the cold trigger.

This is it, he thought, I’m done.

He would remove the gun from the inner pocket, lead it into his mouth, between his teeth, and fire a bullet through the back of his head. In an instant, the pain would be gone. There was no turning back now. No way to restart at zero. There was only goodbye.

Virginia and Simmons split on opposite sides of Isaac. They saw his head lowered, his eyes closed. They knew the storm raged inside of him, but there was nothing they could do or say to calm it. All they could do is wait and hope for a miracle.

The silence was broken by soft knocking, footfalls on the stage.

Isaac began raising his head just as the menacing voice collided with his ears.

“Finally,” it said.

The group slowly turned together and peered down the red aisle at Amy standing in the center of the stage. Isaac could feel his heart beating again, fast inside his chest.

Amy’s dirty blonde hair was messed and curled against the sides of her ashen face. Her light blue pajamas were slightly torn and her arms were down by the side of her body, her legs close together. She stood motionless, expressionless, and weakened, as though she would fall over if her body wasn’t being held up by an elaborate configuration of invisible strings.

“We’ve been waiting,” said the voice. Isaac saw her lips follow the words out of her mouth, but it wasn’t Amy’s voice. This voice was deep, dark, and bottomless.

Give me back my daughter you son of a bitch, he thought of saying.

Amy grinned. “Come get her.”

It was a confrontation, a standoff. They had come to the finale, the end of the trial. The jury would listen to the closing arguments, and their verdict would come swiftly.

“Why are you doing this?”

“It’s what I’ve always done,” Lucius said. “But you already knew that, didn’t you?”

“What do you want?”

“I want you to listen. I want you to understand.”

Isaac stared at Amy. He wanted nothing more than to run to her, carry her from this haunted place, but he feared the consequences would be fatal. He had to be careful, one wrong move, one wrong word, and the trial could be over in an instant. His daughter’s life swept away till just a mound of ash remained.

“No,” said Isaac, shaking his head. “I don’t want to talk, and I won’t listen. I came here for my daughter, and I won’t leave until I get her back.”

“I know,” said Lucius. “But you won’t get her back, no matter how much you think you will. She is mine now, and here with me, she will stay.”

“F*ck you!” Isaac yelled, as a wave of courage passed over him. “Give her back to me!”

“Why do you think you deserve her?”

“She’s my daughter!”

“She was your daughter. But that was before you offered her to me. Before I gave her the gift.”

“You took her from me!”

Virginia hid behind Isaac, unable to speak, move. As difficult as it was to accept, she knew there was nothing more she could do for him now; he was on his own. It’s the only way, she told herself, the way it has to be. She now realized that Isaac would never forgive himself, his heart was scarred too badly to ever heal. He would battle with the illusionist, with the death of his wife, with his guilt, and he would die doing so.

“I didn’t make her a part of this, you did,” said Lucius. “I gave you the opportunity to go away, but you would not let me be, you would not give up. And now here we are, exactly how you knew it would end.”

Isaac nodded. The wave of courage had died and now all that washed up were shells of guilt. This vile thing that had kept prisoners locked in iron cells below the mansion, torturing these innocents to no end, was right about him. None of this should have happened, and all of it was his fault. His only hope to save Amy would be to convince the illusionist to free her, a task that would not be easy, or likely possible.

“You’ve been here before, haven’t you? This isn’t the first time your back has been against the wall, is it?” He had now led Amy to the foot of the steps. Her hands gently rose. “So why do you seem surprised? How many times must it take before you learn your lesson?”

“Please,” Isaac pleaded. “I'll do anything.”

Isaac bowed his head and stared down at the maroon carpet. He was losing the battle and the jury was turning on him. He could feel their confounded stares, their disappointment with him. They had expected more. They had expected him to put up a fight, but he was giving in, disappointed with himself.

“In that case, I will give you a choice,” said Lucius. “I will leave your daughter, alive and unharmed, if you agree to take her place.”

“Fine,” Isaac quickly said.

Virginia jumped up from behind Isaac and grabbed the back of his coat. “Isaac, no.” She couldn’t sit back in silence anymore and watch him give up hope, watch him fall to pieces. “Remember the others. He’ll kill her.”

Isaac glanced back at Virginia. She released her hand from his coat. Simmons was hunched over behind her, mouth open, with an I can’t believe what I’m seeing look on his face.

Isaac returned his focus to Amy. “I followed you here,” he said. “I know the things you’ve done. I’ve seen it with my own eyes.” He paused to fill his lungs with the orange, smoking air. “How do I know I can trust you?”

“Because my mercy is the only hope you have left."

Isaac had begun to formulate a final plea, when Amy began to convulse violently on the stage, slow at first, then faster each second. Her arms jerked behind her hips. Her hands clenched into a tight fist.

“Stop!” Isaac screamed. “What are you doing to her?”

No answer.

Amy’s body continued to shudder. Tiny rings of fire opened up on her chest and broadened to her extremities as though her skin was made of paper and an entire pack of lit cigarettes burned holes from within her. The orange rings thickened, assembled, and would soon bring forth he that lay beneath the departing skin.

Isaac fell to his knees and covered his eyes with his hands. He couldn’t watch this happen. He couldn’t watch his daughter slowly burn apart until there was nothing left. Moments later, he removed his hands from his diluted eyes and stared down the red aisle at a mysterious figure in a dark blue ruffled cloak, standing in the very spot Amy had stood before the smoldering rings of fire took her away.

The dark figure was an exact mirror of the illusionist’s former self, a living replica of the small stone statue. His head was lowered. His pale, wrinkled hands rested before him, palms up. Though the face of the illusionist was hidden comfortably in shadow, there were two white balls of light enclosed within the hood glaring across the room at Isaac.

And it was at this moment, the lost sensation returned.

Isaac recognized the glossy eyes and the prominent glare behind them. They were the eyes on the other side of the double doors; eyes that enjoyed watching him suffer; eyes that wanted to know how much he could take, how far he would go, and now, as he fell from the end of his thread, those eyes would finally get their answer.

Isaac reached into the inner pocket of his coat and slowly removed the 9mm. He braced himself against the floor with his free hand and lazily pointed the gun in the direction of the illusionist.

The sanctuary filled with laughter, a hollering cackle. Isaac flexed his eyebrows together, angry that the he was not being taken seriously. His index finger gripped the cold trigger tighter, a little further and a bullet would release from the chamber.

But the laughter continued.

Then the illusionist spoke for the first time since the fiery rings took Amy and delivered him.

“What do you intend to do with that foolish thing?” It asked, though the voice had changed. The voice was still quite deep, but no longer sounded as sinister as it once had. This voice was human. “What has it given you all your life? Protection? Is that it? Or, perhaps, a dead wife?”

“Don’t listen to him, Isaac,” said Virginia.

“You and me, we aren’t so different,” Lucius continued, now pacing the stage. “We both killed someone we loved. The only difference is you let yourself become tormented by it. You let guilt become your greatest weakness.” He stopped in the center of the stage. “I did not. I became stronger because of it. I let it become my greatest strength. Where you fell, I rose.”

Virginia grabbed Isaac from behind and shook him as though she were trying to wake him from a trance. She told him to drop the gun, many times, but he hadn’t heard her. His mind was lost in a place she couldn’t access, in some dark closet of feelings. He had finally brushed the dust off the shelf and was frightened at what he found underneath, the mess he had covered up and left to be forgotten.

“But don’t let my words deter your fate,” said Lucius, stepping to the foot of the stage. He lifted his arms up to his side until they were even with his shoulders, widening the target. “Kill your daughter like you killed your wife!”

Isaac gradually lowered the gun and whispered, “Please forgive me.” Then he raised the gun again, but this time he wasn’t pointing it at the illusionist.

He could already taste the metal inside his mouth. The hollering cackle had returned, louder than before, but Isaac ignored it. He had already decided what he would do, and nothing would change his mind.

Nothing.

The gun sailed out of his hand, smacking against the wooden pew beside him and spinning to a stop against the right wall. Even without his wife, without Amy, he had decided he would face the dusty shelf, and with all his strength, try to take it apart and rebuild it. And he would begin now.

He buried his face in his hands. Tears formed a swamp of his eyes. Laughter was all around, circling in his head, taunting him as he wept.

Virginia knelt down behind him, put her arm around his waist, and softly rested her head down on his back.

Tears fell and laughter echoed.

There seemed to be no end to any of it, yet, at some point, while his head was in his hands, completely unaware of what was happening around him, Isaac had cried out.

He only spoke two words, but they were enough.

It was all they needed to hear.

“Help me!” he had cried.





14





Silence fell over the sanctuary. The tears quickly left with the laughter. Isaac raised his head, stood up, and peered around the silent room. Virginia and Simmons were behind him, their heads turning in every direction, their eyes carefully searching the environs. He looked to the stage, at the illusionist. The white balls of light weren’t glaring at him anymore. The long, dark blue hood swayed left and right, surveying the room with the rest.

A presence was here, everywhere, and it was something the group recognized, but more importantly, it was something that remembered the illusionist.

Soft whispers began circulating in the air. The whispers came from the floor, the ceiling, and everything in between, even the orange smog above.

The voices grew louder, closer.

The group huddled together in the center aisle and looked across the maroon carpet at the illusionist. His hood had stopped swaying and the glowing white inside were once again focused on them, however, this time the eyes weren’t filled with laughter, but a deep, consuming fear.

The whispering had now reached its pinnacle of volume, and as it did, there came another sound, an acute, yet subtle swish of heavy chains dragging against stone—the sound of slavery.

Moments later the first of the prisoners appeared from behind the stage, chained together at their necks, crawling through the red curtain.

The illusionist turned around and saw the pale figures behind him with their black mouths open, hissing. He gradually stepped backwards down the steps, not turning his attention from the prisoners.

Another set of ghosts climbed from the maroon carpet, cutting off his path. He fearfully stepped back on to the stage, now surrounded from all directions, and forced to face the wretched things that haunted him. Some of the prisoners were close enough to claw at his feet, but as they did, the illusionist would swipe them away with the back of his hand.

The ghosts flew backwards, shrieking, with their arms crossed in front of their pale faces shielding themselves from the poisonous swipe of the illusionist’s hand. Lucius was determined to keep the hissing spirits at bay, but more came.

Isaac glanced up.

A group of prisoners appeared from the ceiling and crawled down the walls, their vacant sockets locked in the direction of the stage. Many more followed from the ceiling, and then some crawled from behind the double doors, passing around the group.

They came from the walls.

The floor.

The air.

With each second that passed, six more would appear, always hissing, always chained.

“My God,” Virginia muttered, hand over mouth. “There are hundreds of them.”

The spirits were passionate about being back on the stage, about being a part of the show. This was their moment to enact a bit of vengeance upon the thing that had delightfully tortured them, and they would not let the moment slip. But the dark cloaked illusionist wasn’t slipping either. It would take all of them, working collectively, if they were to carry out the reprisal.

They packed around the stage, each ghost tightly clenching the one before it, pushing the herd closer toward the goal in the middle. For once, since the show began, the illusionist appeared to be losing ground. He could no longer fight them off so easily, there were too many of them now. The poison was rapidly losing its effect, unable to permeate through the wall of prisoners.

Then, accompanied by a gasping sound, which swooped over and across the packed sanctuary like a drowning wind, the first ring of ghosts reached into the body of the illusionist. Their hands formed a large fist inside of him and began tugging outward, with each ring after clutching the one before them.

The illusionist writhed back and forth, roaring. His hooded head fell backwards, gazed up at the ceiling. He tried to shake the hands away, one by one, but the fist would not break. The prisoners pulled relentlessly, gathering more and more strength as a group, determined to free the mortal from their master’s grasp.

The final act had come.

The illusionist let out one final roar, exerted one last futile tear at the internal fist, before a fiery breath of smoke exhaled from his body launching a transparent shadow of him into the air. The circular mass of prisoners toppled backwards like a chain of dominos as a cold draft parted from the center of the stage.

All eyes in the sanctuary watched the cloaked shadow slowly rise into the orange fog above and break apart at the ceiling. After the last vestige of air departed, the assembly of prisoners faded away, together in peace, for the last time.





15





The group was still huddled together in the center of the aisle, waiting for the thick smoke to clear. When the smoke finally settled, Isaac stepped forward and saw that the ghosts had left something behind, curled up on her side in the center of the stage. It was their way of saying thank you.

Isaac ran across the maroon carpet, up the three steps, and stopped in front of his daughter lying motionless on the hardwood floor. When he knelt down, he could see her eyes were closed. Virginia and Simmons ran up from behind and stood over Isaac, looking down as he touched his hand to Amy’s cheek. Her face was cold and wet with sweat, as were her blue pajamas. Isaac brushed her hair back from her face with his hand and softly said her name.

A moment later, her eyes opened.

Amy picked her head off the stage and stared up at her father. “Dad?”

Isaac smiled down at her then leaned over and held her tightly in his arms. “Are you okay?”

“I’m tired.”

“I know. I’m tired, too. But we have to go now.”

“Are we going home?”

“Yeah, sweetheart,” he said, still holding her in his arms. “We’re going home.”

The group strolled to the double doors at the end of the aisle. Isaac had his chin down, holding Amy’s hand the entire way. He noticed the pistol lying against the wall to his left, fully loaded, but he had no desire to pick it up.

When they arrived at the double doors, Isaac stepped to the front of the group and unlocked the dead bolt. Here he was again staring down at the brass handles. Just moments earlier, he was certain he would die here, perish with the rest of the prisoners in this torturous place, but somehow he had survived. He would leave the mansion with his friends behind him and his daughter’s hand nuzzled comfortably inside his own. He would walk out of here a changed man.

The trial was over.

Isaac leaned over and rested his hand on the brass handle, but when he turned it downward, the lock slammed back into place. The bolt quivered between the doors like a tired muscle straining to stay flexed. He reached up from the handle and tried to turn the lock back to the left, but it wouldn’t be as effortless as the first time. He fought with both hands to turn the rebellious lock, yet every time he reached the halfway point, the bolt would slowly pull back stronger and more resistant than before. But it wasn’t until he heard the stone mansion yawn, that he finally gave up.

The sonorous aching sound shook the stone walls. The mansion was filling its lungs, stretching its legs, and preparing to bury them under its enormous weight. The group turned from the double doors and looked high up on the walls at the flaming torches jumping in the metal rings.

Virginia swallowed. “He’s still here.”

Seconds later, the group of four ran up the aisle with only one thing on their minds.

Escape.





16





The sanctuary steadily darkened, as one by one, the flaming torches fell to the floor throwing sparkling orange embers into the air. Two rows of pews quickly caught fire. The hardwood stage collapsed as the knocking feet trampled over it. The ceiling clattered, cracked, and crumbled, sending large chunks of gray stone plummeting down from above like meteorites.

The group was halfway through the backstage area before Virginia realized they now ran in the dark. The lantern was spent, dry of fuel. She dropped it to the floor, passing the table of tortures. The glass smashed then jingled and bounced up and down on the pulsing floor. Scalpels spun off the table, teeth fractured under their feet.

They could hear the house crumbling from above, fearing the walls would soon close while they ran down the winding passageway to the study. From the study door, the group turned left and ran down the cellblock. The cells were empty. The prisoners could not help them anymore, not even light their way through the darkness.

The black pane windows shattered sending glass sailing through the chamber. The iron bars twisted from their holes and battered against the floor. Ahead, the silver chains swung in circles, viciously beating against each other. The group would have to crawl underneath the chains if they were to pass through without being strangled—worse, decapitated.

Isaac sent Amy first, promising to follow. She pressed down against the cold floor and slowly crawled underneath the swinging chains like a soldier slithering under barbed wire. There was nothing but darkness before her, and a loud clanging sound above. “Dad, are you there?”

“I’m here, honey,” said Isaac, glancing up at the sharp, metal neck braces circling inches above his head, eager to slice into the roof of his skull. “I’m right behind you. Keep your head down.”

“How much further?”

“Not far. We’re almost there.”

Moments later, Amy stood up, free of the chains, and waited for her father to appear underneath. Soon after, Isaac crawled out and wrapped his arms around his daughter, warming her cold, damp body. Then he released her, knelt down, and pulled Virginia to her feet. He wanted to throw his arms around Virginia as well, let her know how grateful he was that she stayed by his side, but he resisted the temptation.

Simmons was by far the heaviest of the group and it took him longer than the others to free his body from the possessed chains. He breathed hard and clasped a hand to his chest as he stood up. “I don’t know how much more of this I can take."

The group turned the corner to the left and hurried down the long, dark hallway. The laughter had quieted, but the rumbling grew stronger. The stone mansion was quickly losing its support, in minutes it would cave to the pressure supplied by the illusionist.

Virginia was the first to climb the ladder leading back up to the second floor. Amy followed, then Isaac and Simmons. Dust filled the cramped space. A few of the metal rungs broke off as they ascended. One by one, they reached the top of the ladder and slid through the whole in the wall, back into the upstairs bedroom.

They ran down the hall as fast as they could, swerving around and over fallen blocks of stone, past the empty rooms, and then rushed down the large staircase. To the left, the locked double doors. On the right, the bar. The door to the entranceway ahead. They were almost free of the destruction, just a little further, when Isaac heard a terrifying shriek, a voice he almost mistook for his dead wife’s.

He stopped running and, through the thinning dust, saw Amy lying on her stomach just beyond a mountain of stone that was the stairs. She reached her hand out, cried for him.

Over her head, the ceiling cracked apart.

The laughter filled the room, bellowing louder—taunting him. Isaac would never be able to reach his daughter before the ceiling collapsed.

There was only one person who could.

Simmons heard the earthquake and knew what he had to do. The voice inside was quiet, no longer doubtful. This was his moment, his part to play.

His fate.

Simmons lunged toward Amy, grabbed her hand and pulled her to her feet, but as he turned to run, he slipped and fell forward. His face slammed against the stone floor. He lifted his aching head and stared down at a crack, the crack Amy had tripped over, and then turned to see if she was okay. Isaac had her in his arms, backing away.

And with that, Daniel Simmons was satisfied.

He never felt the weight, or the lack of breath. There was only silence and darkness.

Amy screamed in her father’s arms while the group watched the high ceiling collapse on top of Simmons, choking him beneath the rubble. When the large chunks of stone finally stopped falling, Amy peered up at her father. She had a frightened look in her eyes. “We have to help him.”

"We can’t sweetheart. I'm sorry." Simmons’s right hand was poking out from underneath a large mass of stone. The hand wasn’t bleeding, or moving. Isaac wondered if he was really saying sorry to his daughter, or Simmons. "I'm afraid he's—"

Boom!

The bar beside them burst into flames sending a ball of fire blazing through the roof.

The wood crackled.

The fire burned.

Dozens of black spiders rushed out of the flames and scampered across the floor. Isaac squished a few of the spiders under his shoes on his way to the door at the far end of the large room. Virginia opened door number one and stepped into the small entranceway. Isaac followed, carrying Amy in his arms.

Virginia gazed through the darkness ahead, searching for the front doors, but at some point, the corridor must have caved and the doors were now blocked. They would have to find another way out. Virginia led Isaac past the table to the only other door in the room, left of the fireplace.

Behind door number two was a dining room. A long, oak table stretched across the rectangular room, many tall chairs sat underneath. The fire had already spread into the kitchen around the right corner and threatened to engulf the dining room. Isaac set Amy down on her feet and ran over to a window on the left side of the table.

“Stand back,” he yelled.

Then he snatched one of the dining room chairs by the backrest and golfed it through the window. The wooden legs shattered the black glass and the chair toppled outside in the rain.

One after the other, the three carefully crawled through the jagged windowsill and ran out into the storm. They didn’t look back until they reached the edge of the dark, hazy forest.

The flames now ripped through the dining room. The circular pillars at the front steps snapped and crashed to the ground. One of the columns fell backwards and tore through the front double doors. And in the distance, serrated bolts of electricity lit the gloomy sky as the stone mansion voiced one final roar before collapsing into a grave of fire and ash.





Author's Note





Thank you for purchasing The Gift of Illusion. I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. The manuscript sat on the shelf for eight years collecting dust as life went on by. But Isaac's story always haunted me, or taunted me, and the time had come to set it free. I'd love to know what you thought.

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In the meantime, I'm working hard on a novel about a woman who's given a chance to get back a child she lost during labor. Look for it in 2012. I'll also be releasing a book of poetry in the coming months called The Rebirth. I've included a few poems after this note as a preview, and a short story just as a bonus for following me this far. Thanks again for the support. For the latest updates on current or future projects visit my website or become a fan on Facebook.

http://www.richardbrownbooks.com/