in mid-arpeggio. A wineglass shattered. Miss Mamie gasped and rushed toward the brutish form. 'Ephram!'
As the statue stood on unsteady legs, the cradled bust stared at Mason with hot anger in its eyes. Miss Mamie threw her arms around the wooden torso.
The old woman reached inside her shawl and pulled out a layer of cloth. She unfolded it and approached the statue with slow steps. 'I brung you what you wanted, Ephram.'
Mason looked from the old woman to Anna. They both had those same haunted cyan eyes, and Mason realized why they seemed so familiar. Because they were the eyes that he'd lovingly carved into the bust of Ephram Korban.
He reached for Anna again, to pull her toward the trapdoor, unable to think of anything besides making a run for it. Three flights of stairs, the house alive with ghosts. Korban would never let them leave. But they had to try.
Before Mason could order his legs to move, the ghost appeared near the railing, the spitting image of Anna. She held a bouquet before her. Just like the woman in the painting.
'Mother,' Anna said.
This wasn't the way Miss Mamie had imagined this night, the way she had wished it during all those thousands of lonely hours, when she had only Ephram's face in the mirror, his spirit in the hearth, his words coming from the portrait.
This night was supposed to be perfect, a union of two souls, all else forgotten. Ephram and his beloved Margaret, together again, joined in simultaneous life and death. With dreams to fill.
Yet there was the old hag Sylva, who had tempted poor Ephram so long ago. And now Rachel was here. Rachel, who was never supposed to be in the house. That was the reason she and Korban's servants had chased her, made her leap to her death. Ephram said those who betrayed him could never be free, but those who served would be allowed to die a second and final time. That's why Miss Mamie had carved the apple head dolls, the little poppets that housed the enslaved souls.
'The sculptor didn't finish,' Miss Mamie said to the statue.
The bust answered. 'He will.'
Sylva knelt before the statue, unfolded the cloth, held up the collection of powders in both her wrinkled hands. 'Ashes of a prayer, Ephram. I did just like you told me.'
Miss Mamie clung to the statue, her beloved Ephram, who was wearing flesh after all those years of being reduced to smoke and shadow. 'What's she talking about, Ephram?'
The statue swept its oaken arm, shoving Miss Mamie to the floor of the widow's walk. She rose to her hands and knees, her dress torn, the beautiful gown she'd been saving for the blue moon. For their second honeymoon.
'Ephram?' she said.
'He don't need you,' Sylva said.
Miss Mamie crawled toward Ephram, hugged his chipped legs. 'Ephram. You love me.'
The statue kicked her away. 'Spell me, Sylva.'
'Give me her years first,' Sylva said. 'Make me young again. Like you promised.'
'Spell me.'
'You said you always keep your promises.' Sylva held up the cloth full of folk potions.
'What's she talking about, Ephram?' Miss Mamie said. Suddenly she felt cold, as if a glacier had cut through her heart. She looked at her hands. Wrinkled flesh rose on her skin, deep creases carved themselves into her flesh, tiny rivers of age running dark in the moonlight. She touched her face, the skin drawing tight across her skull even as it sagged under her chin.
Oh God, she was growing old.
'You promised me, Ephram,' she said. 'Together forever.'
The statue and bust joined in laughter. The guests ran for the trapdoor, but Lilith closed it and stood on it.
'Nobody ever leaves Korban Manor,' she said, grinning like a skeleton.
Anna stepped toward Rachel, moving as if under dark water. 'What are you doing here?'
'I tried to warn you, but you wouldn't listen.'
'About Sylva?'
'She's always loved Korban. That's why she killed me, to please him. That's why she learned folk magic, the spells and potions that kept his spirit alive until she could finally bring him all the way back.'
'This is all a crazy, screwed-up dream,' Mason said.
Anna flashed him a half smile. Couldn't he see the obvious? Everything was so much easier when you were dead. Because the dead no longer have to dream.
'I'm seeing it, but I don't believe it,' Paul said, head tilted into the viewfinder of his video camera. 'This is great stuff. Romero on acid, John Carpenter on a budget.'
Adam yanked on his arm. 'We've got to get out of here.'
'Shockumentary. I wouldn't miss this for the world.'
'Damn you, Paul, this is like my dream. Don't you see? Everybody's dead.'
Paul looked up from the camera, gave his boyish grin. 'Not all of us, Princess. Just you.'
'Don't be like that,' he said.
'You're either working for the man on this side, or you serve him on the other side. You can be dead if you want, but me, I'd rather be the next Alfred Hitchcock, just like Korban promised me.'
'I'm not dead, you stupid bastard.'
Paul laughed. 'Whatever.'
Adam looked at the hand that gripped Paul's sleeve.
The fingers passed through the cloth, clutched on nothingness. He put a hand to his chest. When had his heart stopped beating?
Sweet Jesus, have mercy, when did my heart stop beating?
Paul pointed over the railing, to the hard patch of driveway below the porch. Adam couldn't help looking. There was a shape down below, prone, twisted, torn. Six feet long, dressed in gray pajamas that were dark with liquid. The shape was deathly still.
And alone.
Utterly alone.
Spence placed a quivering finger on the Royal. The ghosts had drifted past, their nebulous flesh throwing a chill around the room. Roth was gone, Bridget away somewhere.
Spence pressed a key.
F.
The One True Word, undressing itself, shucking its golden skin, opening its warm flesh to him. An invitation to enter.
The stir of ghosts ruffled the pages of his manuscript as the white shapes filtered into the ceiling. His greatest work ever. The greatest work ever. They could drag him back to Eileen Foxx's class, but this time he would have something to show them, to shut their slack little mouths and amaze their dull and cruel eyes. He had proof of his superiority.
His gut ached, sweat pooled under his armpits, his scalp tingled. The electric tension of the ghosts made the hairs on the back of his hands stand up. He pressed another key, and i slapped into place beside the f.
He thought the One True Word would be something rare and noble, something with seven syllables that only literary giants and dictionary-makers knew. Funny that the word was common, elemental. But Spence's opinions held no weight here.
He was only the instrument, the sword and scepter, the pen, the flint and steel. The Word was the beginning and end of things.
Go out frost and come in fi…
He slammed home the r, weeping at the finishing of his work, already feeling the old emptiness, already bracing himself to need Bridget again. Someone to save him from himself.
He looked up at Ephram Korban, at the kind face, the encouraging eyes, the generous lips that had given him
