Maurice held his breath. He knew now what had happened to Vera. Louise would die in the same way, gasping for air.
Louise kicked. Her entire body convulsed. An agonising scream rose from deep in her throat, echoing through the underground as though all the souls of the animals that had died here were screaming to be heard. It was a sound so monstrous, Maurice would have rushed to her aid but what he witnessed was so astonishing, he remained transfixed, unable to react. Like taut leather, the creature’s limbs tightened around Louise’s neck. Then it went completely still.
Minutes passed and the screams ceased. The housekeeper’s limbs fell inert to the ground.
Only then did the creature writhe anew, pulsating with frightening motions. Its aspect had altered and where previously, as it fought its victim, it had adopted a virulent black colour, now it slowly took on a whitish hue.
“Ovee…” whispered Maurice. His lips trembled as he spoke its name.
Now the creature slid off Louise’s inanimate corpse, and its swollen form glistened with a curious moisture.
Silence filled the chamber.
The candlestick light flickered over Ovee’s shimmering body. It stared at Maurice who could barely blink. Then it began to retreat. It moved slowly as if weakened. It crawled towards the Power cage and by its limbs, which clung to the glass, it climbed to the edge of the Power cage. Ovee slid into the water. Maurice seized the candlestick. He ran to the Power cage and shone the light onto Ovee.
Stirred by the creature, the cage’s waters turned murky. Disturbed particles swirled round a large grey form huddled in the far corner, directly beneath the steel pipes. Ovee had gently curled within itself– and it was strange – but to Maurice, it now resembled a rock, as though it had forever been here, inside this cage, unseen and still. The limbs that had seemed Medusa-like, and elicited such horror, were tucked away, rendered almost invisible, while their owner appeared to have shrivelled. With its lidless blue and black eyes, it was staring straight back at him.
Maurice pressed his hands against the glass, captivated by the creature’s eyes. A jolt passed through him as he recognised the gaze he had seen through the keyhole many nights ago. Where those eyes had appeared fierce, now they seemed almost gentle and weary.
“You are ill,” said Maurice. And then he recalled what he had read in Aaron’s journal, how it was doomed to not live long at all. Ovee was dying.
It dawned on him why Aaron had suddenly changed his will. If no one entered the cellar for a period of six months, Ovee would have died and could do no harm. Yet Aaron had never realised that Ovee, undaunted, could roam the house at it wished. His precautions had been in vain.
Maurice frowned. Something eluded him. Why would Aaron suddenly feel threatened by Ovee so as to change his will and prevent anyone from entering the cellar until his subject had died? Aaron could not have suspected that this creature could kill. Unless…
Maurice wondered again how Aaron had died. He brushed away an idea, in disbelief.
In his mind, Ovee had only killed twice.
The first time, had been to avenge Calista’s death. Somehow, it must have been inside Calista’s room when she was murdered. It had witnessed everything. Later, it haunted Vera, changing its shape and form so she would not see it, but watching her every move. It could recognise her face. It knew her for what she was. It had waited patiently to take her life one night. A few spoons was all it had taken to make her trip. Then it smothered Vera’s breath in the same manner in which she had murdered Calista. It had left a thin film of moisture on her face and inside her nose.
And now it had killed to protect Maurice…
Maurice remained in awe. The secret of Alexandra Hall had been unveiled at last. “I don’t believe there was ever a ghost,” he whispered through the glass. “It was you. You crept out of the Power cage. Like Willy, you discovered the hidden opening linking the house to the cellar. You moved through the house. Everywhere you went, you left a trail of moisture. It was you who rattled my door at night. It was your eyes that stared back at me through the keyhole. You came into my room. You coiled yourself round my arms as I slept… Unbelievable… Of course! You crept inside Calista’s locked room by the dumbwaiter shaft. Once inside her closet, you shoved at the doors. It was always you…I know it. When I was down here the first time, you were outside the Power cage. You wished to frighten me so you could return to the water. So you rattled those crates and threw those objects at me…”
He smiled. “There was never a ghost. It was you who ransacked Gerard’s kitchen. You took those spoons and used them to entrap Vera. And when you had no need for them, you… Of course. Is that why you left those spoons on the operating table, near Aaron’s murderous instruments? You were trying to tell me you no longer wished to kill.”
Maurice’s breath came fast on the glass. He pushed his hands against the cage’s walls. “Ovee… if then, it is true that you can hold spoons… then you can hold a pen…”
But as he recalled the writing in his journal, he was uncertain. “But how could you write your own name?” he asked. For no creature he knew could recognise symbols, let alone reproduce them.
And at this moment, a wave of childlike wonder washed over Maurice and it seemed to him that Ovee might be more extraordinary than any spirit who might restlessly roam the house.
For hours, Ovee remained still, while the
