'Then why did you summon me back here? Why didn't you just let me die dumb and happy, with nobody to hate?'
'We need you, Anna. I need you.'
'Need, need, need. Do you ever think I might have needed somebody, all those nights when I cried myself to sleep? And now you expect me to feel sorry for you just because you're dead? '
'It's not just me, Anna. He's trapped all of us here.'
Did the dead have a choice about where their souls were bound to the real world? Did the doorway open on a particular place for each person, or did ghosts wander their favorite haunting grounds because they wished themselves into existence? Those were the kinds of questions the hard-line parapsychologists never asked. They were too busy trying to validate their own existence to feel any empathy for those spirits condemned to an eternity of wandering.
But Anna wasn't strong on empathy herself at the moment. 'And if you were free, where would you go?'
Rachel looked out the window, at the mountains that stretched to the horizon. 'Away,' she said.
'And Korban has bound your soul here? Why would he do that?'
'He wants everything he ever had, and more. He wants to be served and worshipped. He has unfulfilled dreams. But I think it's love that keeps him here. Maybe, behind it all, he's afraid of being alone.'
'Something else that runs in the family,' Anna said. 'Well, I don't mind being alone, not anymore. Because I found what I thought I'd always wanted, and now I see I never wanted it at all.'
'We have tunnels of the soul, Anna. Where we face the things that haunted our lives and dreams. In my tunnel, I'm unable to save you, and I watch as Ephram twists your power until it serves him. Our family had the Sight, Sylva and me, but it's stronger in you. Because you can see the ghosts even without using charms and spells.'
'Maybe the spells will help me,' Anna said. 'Isn't there one that makes the dead stay dead? 'Go out frost,' is that it?'
'Don't say it, Anna. Because soon you'll get fetched over, too, and Ephram will be too strong for any of us to stop.'
Anna rose from the bed. 'Go out frost.'
Rachel dissolved a little, the bouquet wilting to transparent threads in her hand, her eyes full of ghostly sadness. 'You're our only hope. It's Sylva.'
'Go out frost.'
Rachel faded against the door. 'Sylva,' she whispered.
'Go out frost. Third time's a charm.'
Rachel disappeared. Anna looked up at Ephram Korban's portrait. 'You can have her, for all I care.'
Anna put on her jacket, collected her flashlight, and went for a walk, wanting to be as far away from Rachel as possible. If Rachel was going to hang out at Korban Manor, then Anna would take a stroll to Beechy Gap.
Rachel had said Sylva knew some sort of secret. Maybe Sylva knew a spell that would keep all ghosts away. Anna had dedicated a big part of her life to chasing ghosts. Now that they were everywhere, she never wanted to see another as long as she lived. Or even after that.
Mason kicked himself backward, pressing against the moist clay bank. Another sweet potato tumbled to the ground. At least he hoped it was a sweet potato. More squeaks pierced the darkness, a sour chorus rising around him.
He would rather face the ghost of George Lawson, stray hand and bloody hay rake and all, than what was down here in the dark. He thought about making a dash for the ladder, but he was disoriented. He was just as likely to run into the apple barrels or trip over one of the pallets that were scattered across the dirt floor. And falling would bring his face down to their level.
To his left came a clicking, a gnawing, a noise like teeth against tinfoil. Maybe five feet away, it was hard to tell in the blackness. The room was like a coffin, with no stir of air, no edge or end that made any difference to the one trapped inside. He huddled in a ball, looking up at the cracks in the boards, at the yellow lines of light that were his only comfort. He smelled his own sweat and fear and wondered if the salt would bring the rats closer.
Leaves whisked across the floor upstairs, then the barn door slid open with a rusty groan. That was followed by a dull thump and Mason pictured Ransom's body hitting the planks, limbs lolling uselessly. Then the lantern went out above, and Mason closed his eyes against a black as deep as any he had ever seen.
No. There had been a worse darkness.
Funny how things come back to you. Maybe this was one of those tunnels of the soul. A memory so long buried that the meat had rotted off its bones, that the skeleton had started its slow turn to dust, that the existence of it could no longer be proven. But always that spark remained, that hidden ember, just waiting for a breath of wind to bring the corpse back to full life, to resurrect the memory in all its awful glory.
Funny how that happened.
This was it, the memory. Only this couldn't be real. Or was the first time the one that was shadowy? It didn't matter. Because they were the same, past and present entwined in the same heart-stopping fear.
The squeaking.
The rats, tumbling in the dark like sweet potatoes or a child's toys. How many?
One was too many. How many squeaks? Mason held his breath so he could listen. Ten. Fifteen. Forty.
Mama was out of town. Somebody had died, that's all Mason knew, because he'd never seen Mama cry so much. And Mason sensed a change in her when Mama gave him all those extra hugs and kisses, held him in her lap for hours. Then she was gone.
And Daddy, Daddy with his bottles, was all Mason knew after that. He lay in the crib, his blankets wet, too scared to wail. If he cried out, maybe Mama would come. But if she didn't, Daddy might. Daddy would only get mad, yell, and break something.
So Mason didn't say anything. Time passed or else it didn't. There was no sun in the window, only the light that Daddy turned on and off. Daddy slept on the floor one time, and Mason looked through the wooden bars of his crib, saw him with his bottle tipped over, the brown liquid pouring out across the floor.
Daddy woke up, rubbed his eyes, yelled, looked in at Mason, left him wet again. Daddy turned out the light, and as the door closed, Mason remembered the vanishing wedge of brightness, how scared he was as it got smaller and smaller, then the door banged shut and the dark was big, thick, everything.
Time passed or else it didn't, Mason's tiny heart pumping, pounding, screaming. Crying would do no good. Mama wasn't here. And his cries might bring them. He closed his eyes, opened them. One black was the same color as the other.
Squatting in the root cellar, Mason closed his eyes, opened them, trying to blink away the memory. He covered his face with his hands. He remembered reading somewhere that rats always went for the soft parts first, the eyes and tongue and genitals. He didn't have enough hands.
This was the memory, the first time. The skittering in the dark. The scratching against the wall. The ticking of claws across wood. The squeak of pleasure at the discovery. So dark in the room that he couldn't see their shiny eyes when he finally forced himself to look.
Mason heard them, though, even with the wet blankets pulled tightly over his head. Soft whispers of tiny tongues against liquid. Daddy's bottle. The spilled stuff had brought them. Would it be enough to fill them? Would they go away?
Please, please, go away.
The squeaking sounded now like laughter, like a moist, slobbery snickering. Go away? Of course they wouldn't go away, this was the dark and they owned the dark. They crept toward the crib, the hush of their tails dragging behind.
No, no, NO.
This was now and not the memory, he wasn't a small child, and he wasn't afraid of rats anymore. And because the root cellar was darker than the world outside, he might be able to see the outline of the door. All he had to do was open his eyes.
Mama's voice came to him, and he couldn't swear whether the words were spoken or merely imagined: It's ALWAYS the memory, Mason. Big Dream Image. Don't ever let go of your dreams. They're the only thing you got in this world.
