The specter stepped closer, the air’s temperature dropping until Maria could see her breath misting. Mother’s wicked eyes seemed to glow in the darkness, the shadows lengthening in her wake, the house creaking and groaning, as if it were moving in her presence as well. Maria’s heart beat in her throat as she backed away, her lips trembling, her arms raised in futile defense. She wanted to cry out, she wanted to beg Jeb for help, even Kane, but the words caught in her throat.

“Tell me what you are doing out of your room, girl,” this time Mother was not asking.

“Dennis forgot to lock the door, and I-”

“Lair,” Mother hissed.

“I swear-”

“Liar!” she howled. “I know you took my key, girl.”

“I don’t even know what you’re talking about,” Maria responded, hoping that her voice hadn’t wavered.

“Then what is in your pocket.”

The same voice that told her to put back the key now howled, I told you so.

“Nothing is in my pocket.”

“Then turn them out.”

“No.”

“No?” Mother asked, a sweet, lying note tingling in her voice. “Search her, boy.”

Dennis rounded the corner, his eyes downturned. He looked embarrassed, ashamed, a whipped puppy who dared not disobey.

“Sorry, Missy,” he rasped.

“You keep your hands off of me,” Maria ordered, retreating.

“Don’t make this harder than it needs to be,” Mother chortled, the tone of a sadistic parent, whip in hand and the words This is going to hurt me far more than it hurts you. A lie. A bold-faced lie.

Maria tried to steel herself, tried to hide the lurking fear that clawed at the insides of her eyes. “You stay back.”

Dennis stopped, hesitation. He looked back to Mother, affirmation.

“Don’t make me do it myself,” Mother sneered.

Dennis looked to Maria, defeat in his eyes. “I’m sorry.”

With that, he lunged forward. Strong, calloused hands circled her arms, clenching. His eyes flashed with malice, aggression, rage. The man who snuck her food, and tempted Mother’s wrath was gone. This was the man who kidnapped her, the man who had beaten her, split her head open on a doorframe.

“Hold still,” he growled, meaty hands pawing through her pockets, turning them out one by one.

The key weighed heavy, a burning certainty, an inevitability.

She screamed and thrashed, kicked and clawed, but in the large man’s arms she might as well have been a petulant toddler.

Shoving her head forward, she gnashed her teeth inches from his neck.

He flinched.

She drove her knee upwards, into Dennis’s groin. A gust of air rushed from his lungs, his grip loosened.

“Fool!” Mother howled.

Darting between Dennis’s bowed legs, Maria raced from the room. Dennis staggered in her wake, reaching out with lumbering paws. From behind, Maria heard the spite-filled sprite bellowing, “Get her! Get her, damn you!”

Skidding out of the room Maria tore towards the stairs. The ground seemed to stretch underfoot, the entire structure groaning, howling.

She turned, but instead of a staircase twisting down to freedom, she was met with another hallway, identical to the one she had just tore down.

Mother turned the corner ahead, her face twisting into a demonic visage, one hardly reminiscent of humanity. She pointed a hooked finger and howled.

Maria turned, throwing open another doorway and darting into the darkened room within.

Just a wrong turn, she thought. Just a wrong turn.

The room she was in was rotted to the core, sagging and cracking. Paint peeled from the wall to create a mad Rorschach of decay and desolation. Floorboards peeled away from studs, and nails protruded from the collapsing wood.

Maria hesitated, knowing that the ground was treacherous, knowing that any wrong step could lead to impalement, infection, tetanus, death.

She couldn’t slow.

She tore through the room towards the crumbling door across the shadowed enclosure, towards her potential freedom. She dared not stumble, she dared not fall. She dared not look down and see the spikes lining her mad flight.

She could hear Dennis’s boots slamming against the hall outside, closing fast.

Reaching out, she tore open the door and ducked the hallway. The house groaned again, as if thrown by a wicked gust of wind. Just the wind, she forced herself to believe and tore onwards.

Ahead, she saw the stairs. Her heart leapt and she put on a fresh burst of speed. She skidded to a stop before the stairs.

Her eyes went wide with terror.

Six ethereal figures stood on the landing below her. Two men, and three women stared up at her. They looked like Jeb and Kane, but seemed to be missing some of the life, the spark that set those two apart. The ghosts’ eyes burnt into her. Their faces were twisted in a mirage of emotion, hate, rage, hope, sorrow. The spirits could not touch her, they could not harm her, but somehow Maria could not bring herself to run through their midst. 

“There!” Dennis growled, grasping her by the shoulders, meaty fingers digging into her flesh. He spun her around, his face twisted in a mask of rage. “Don’t struggle. You’re only making this worse… for both of us.”

“Fuck you,” Maria hissed and threw herself. Pulling Dennis along with her, she hurled her weight into the opening void at the top of the stairs. Gravity forgot them for a fleeting instant, and for that moment, Maria felt weightless.

Then, they tumbled.

The stairs jabbed into her ribs and shins as they careened down the stairs. Her neck bent like rubber, whipping this way and that. Their bodies flailed like ragdolls, uncontrolled, without strength.

The ghosts scattered from before them. A well-dressed middle-aged woman – wearing what appeared to be high fashion from the late-nineties – pressed her hands to her breast and gasped. A young woman dressed like a nineteen-twenties flapper stepped back, as if to avoid muddying her skirt. A man in his late-sixties and wearing a cowboy’s slouch hat grumbled and turned away. A young man shook his head and turned away, passing through the nearby wall.

Soon, only the tumbling, flesh-and-blood souls continued to bounce their way down to the landing.

They hit the landing’s floor hard, skidding into the wall.

Maria could hear Dennis’s head smack against a step, his forehead splitting open, blood rushing down his face.

He did not move.

Maria scrambled to her feet, darting down the remaining stairs. She pushed through her body’s howls of agony, still reeling from her spill. As she ran, she tried to build a mental layout of the twisting halls, the ramshackle rooms, the corridors she had seen. There had to be a route to the front door, and she needed to find it fast.

The house groaned, and again the walls seemed to shift, the corridors looping in on themselves to deposit her exactly where she had just escaped.

Dennis’s boots thundered down the stairs in pursuit. From above, Mother’s hate-filled vitriol spewed in her wake.

No hesitation, she told herself. That’s how he caught you last time.

 She tore on, legs pumping underneath her. Another wrong turn, another risky double-back. Each wrong turn seemed to carry her closer to the stomping footfalls of Dennis, each right turn seemed to carry her closer to the howling specter of Mother.

Shit, she thought, turning away from yet another dead end.

Trying a door, she ducked down another, identical hallway. Still, she seemed to be succeeding. Dennis’s footfalls were falling away, seeming to slow.

Had she outpaced him? A dark foreboding in the pit of her soul told her that there was no way. He would be coming back, and he would have something, anything to stop her.

She couldn’t give him a chance.

Tearing through the kitchen, Maria smiled. She recognized this chunk of the house, and it seemed – as of yet – unchanged. The elevator doors were still nestled into the wall, the siding was decayed and the paint peeling from the walls was still that horrible shade of green. She was getting close.

On a whim, she turned back, ducking back into the rotting and disgusting mess of a kitchen. She slipped the rusted key from her pocket, shoving it into an overfilled drawer, rustling a mix of sauce packets from an assortment of fast food chains. At least they wouldn’t catch her with that on her.

A fresh spurt of adrenaline coursed through her, driving her forward. There! The door was in sight. The front window frosted with the night’s ice, and the deadbolt – thankfully – unlocked.

Her heart leapt, and she barreled forward, hand outreached, fingers pining for the cool feel of the knob.

“Stop right there, Missy!” Dennis cried from behind.

Ha! Maria thought, accelerating.

A gunshot ripped through the air, a zing of the bullet.

Plaster shattered, raining down upon her head from the demolished roof.

Spinning, Maria dropped to her knees, covering her head with her trembling arms. Cornered.

Raising her eyes, she saw a hulking figure advancing with a smoking pistol clutched in oversized hands. The same pistol he had used to execute the police officers on her front lawn. The same pistol he had pursued her with. She had seen him use it, she knew he would use it again.

Trembling uncontrollably, she tried to put on a brave face, a defiant middle finger to the advancing terror. She found herself paralyzed, frozen in place.

“Look, Missy.” Dennis sighed. “You’re already up shit creek, but I’ll put in a good word… Just give me the key and come with me, quiet-like.”

He offered her a smile. It was meant to be kind, but the blood pouring from his gaping scalp gave him a ghoulish and monstrous look.

She looked down, clenching her jaw. “I swear, I don’t have it. Just… just search me.”

He hesitated, uncomfortable at the prospect. A voice came from behind.

“If you don’t, I will.”

Mother stood in the doorway, glowering. Hateful eyes were narrowed into slits, her already thin lips were drawn into a thin line, arms crossed, and anger tinging her voice.

“Mother, I don’t think…”

“Do it, boy. Or things will go badly for her.”

“Yes… Yes, ma’am.” Dennis hung his head and advanced.

Relenting, Maria spread her arms and legs, making like a traveler preparing to allow the TSA to violate them.

“I’ll make it quick,” Dennis stammered.

Maria nodded, her stomach quivering in protest.

She bit her lip as meaty hands pawed at her, checking every nook, every cranny. Finding nothing. Nothing save lint and a tightly folded one dollar bill.

Standing, Dennis looked baffled, shaking his head.

“Well?” Mother snapped.

“She ain’t got it,” Dennis replied.

“Then why…?” Mother asked. “Why run?”

Maria shrugged, allowing a touch of venom to trickle into her voice, “Can’t blame a girl for trying.”

“No. I suppose not.” The spirit turned her attention to Dennis, “Get her to her room, then come see me.”

He turned to respond. Upon catching sight of his face, Mother gasped. Her hand shot to her mouth, and concern – real concern – washed over her. “Dennis! What did she do to you?”

Dennis looked at Mother and said, “Nothing, Mother. I took a spill on the stairs.”

Mother huffed, but nodded. “Get her back. Then fix your face. We have much to discuss.”

“Yes, Mother.”

The malignant spirit fixed Maria with a black look and sneered, “And you! There will be no more secret meals, no more kind words. You will stay in your room, and when cleansing is needed you will bathe. When the next ritual comes in two days, you will behave, or there will be consequences. Severe consequences. Do I make myself clear?”

Maria leveled a chilling stare at the spirit. Defiance shimmered out from within her eyes.

Mother leapt forward, entering Dennis’s body.

The eyes changed from the man’s strong, sometimes kind eyes to Mother’s tricky and malice filled gaze.

A hand lashed out, striking Maria across the face.

Her cheek sweltered and screamed, but she did not flinch.

“I said: Do I make myself clear?” howled Mother’s voice, through Dennis’s mouth.

“Yes.” Maria spat the words. “You do.”

Mother grumbled, a low, growling hiss. Her eyes narrowed, but she said, “Good.”

With that, the spirit left Dennis. He stood there, looking befuddled, betrayed, violated. He did not dare look at the retreating ghost, but there was agony in his eyes, palpable, almost heartbreaking.

“C’mon, Missy,” he said, his voice barely a croak. “Let’s get you home.”

#

The lock clicked back into place with dull finality. Maria lay back on her cot, the weight of the key was gone, feeling like a hole in her soul. It felt like a missing piece, her life meaningless without it.

That had been her one shot, her chance to escape. Squandered, and for what? To learn a more complicated version of something she already had? To learn that the crazy, ghostly woman was fond of trades and sacrifices? To discover a secret passage, but lose her means to find where it led?

To call the night a bust would be a vast understatement.

She curled up under her blankets and watched the morning rays of the sun turn the sky a dull umber. She watched the flickering rays of morning cresting the Rockies and she cried.

Tears streamed down her cheeks to wet her pillow. Her heart ached to go home, to see her house, to look out a window at the winter’s sky without bars obscuring her view. She wanted to run into the desert and never look back. She didn’t mind starving, she didn’t mind freezing. If she found freedom, even fleeting, she would trade it all. Life be damned.

Her bed seemed to sag at the foot, an unseen weight appearing from thin air. She did not look, hearing a faint sigh fill the room. She did not need to look, she knew that no one would be there, a void with weight, a hollow with voice.

A voice whispered in the shadow, sweet and seductive, young and vibrant, yet carrying an edge of bitterness. “Don’t beat yourself up, it’s farther than any of us got… Well, besides Josh, but that was in the old house.”

Maria did not look, mumbling into her pillow, “Go away.”

“No,” chuckled the voice.

Maria sat up, her eyes darting around her room, but no one was there. No body, physical or otherwise marred the complete, lonely panorama that filled Maria’s room.

“Don’t look for me. I don’t want you to see me.”

“Why?” Maria asked.

There was a pause, followed by a new subject, “I’m Moriah.”

“Maria,” Maria offered.

“I know. You’re pretty,” the voice chuckled.

Maria bit her tongue, unsure of how to respond to a ghost’s praise.

“Yeah, I wouldn’t know how to respond to that either.”

“You said you’ve met Josh?”

“Mhm,” the woman’s voice affirmed.

“Is he here?”

“Downstairs, but he’s not allowed out of the basement.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know,” the sweet voice betrayed a tone of exasperation. “I suppose he knows too much, or the McMannons think he does.”

“McMannons?”

“Yeah, you call them the Phillipses, but I knew them as the McMannons. Missus McMannon and Dennis.”

“And that was before they built this house?”

“That was before a lot of things, Maria,” the voice sighed. “That was in eighteen-eighty-two.”

“But that would mean you’re-”

“Really fucking old,” the voice laughed bitterly. “I know.”

A plaintive sigh, then, “You know, this place didn’t used to be so remote? There was a town, bustling. It was before the mines dried up, before the world turned to shit. They wanted a servant, and I wanted pay. I took a wagon to their homestead, and it let me off right by that big rock to the east.

“That was back when they still farmed, before they became morticians. I should’ve wondered why they’d want a serving girl, a girl with no family, no experience to speak of, someone so new to the town… I wasn’t too different than you back then. I was young, hopeful… pretty.”

Maria could feel a hand run through her hair, spindly fingers that reminded her of bones sifting through her long, black locks. Shivering, Maria held still, afraid to pull away.

“How does it feel to be touched?” Moriah whispered. “You have no idea how much I miss it. I don’t feel anymore, not like I used to. I pray, every night, just to feel again. To touch, to kiss…”

A sprite’s giggle filled the air. Moriah continued, “I used to love to fuck. Of course, they called me a hussy, but I loved it. Back then, I wondered if Dennis wanted to fuck me, before they locked me away. I wanted him to lay me out and slip inside of me… You know, he was quite the looker back then, nothing at all like he is now. I wanted him so bad!” Again, she sighed, this time closer to a moan. “But he only had eyes for her, and she for him.”

“Who… Who’s her?” Maria asked.

“Don’t act so innocent, pretty girl,” the disembodied voice said. “You aren’t a virgin, you aren’t unsoiled. You know who Dennis thinks about when he strokes that fat cock of his. The body changes, but the soul remains.”

“You don’t mean-” Maria felt the sick welling in her stomach. She couldn’t mean… But that would…

“God you’re boring!” groaned the voice. “It’s no wonder that Kane likes you.”

“Wait, Kane? You’ve seen him? Is he alright?”

“Ugh,” the voice grumbled. “He’s still wandering about moping if that’s what you mean. Look, I’m going. But…”

Moriah’s voice faltered, hesitating. Then she returned, her invisible lips brushing Maria’s earlobe as she whispered, “You wouldn’t happen to mind letting me take that body of yours for a spin, would you?”

“What?” Maria stammered.

“I promise I’ll give it back, I just want to…” a silky, smooth hand ran down Maria’s thigh, inside, tingling, moving upwards. Unwanted. “…feel again.”

Maria pulled away, shaking her head, tears rimming her eyes.

The voice giggled, a succubus in the shadow. “You’re smarter than you look, pretty girl. You know better than to just give it away! Of course, that won’t help you in the end. Everyone says yes to Helena. Even me.”

Moriah had never appeared, so Maria could not see her leave. Still, she felt the room grow empty, hollow. The temperature rose and the air seemed lighter, like a strange, untraceable musk had been sucked through an open window.

Trembling, Maria lay back in her cot. She felt used, violated, molested. She felt sick.

Dirty as she felt, she had learned something important. Mother and Dennis were lovers. They had been for a long, long time. Sick, disgusting, redneck, but it was a valuable piece of information. She filed that away, alongside the other, more important clue she had garnered:

The Phillipses/McMannons lived by taking bodies.

But how? She wondered. With the same thought she pictured the page marked in the ancient tome, the source of Mother’s power. The page that Maria had skipped. Trades: Balance and Sacrifice.

Now the words glared out at her. She had the sudden and overwhelming feeling of a schoolgirl staring at a failed test with the answers staring right back at her, obvious and forgotten at the same time. She had missed something important.

She hoped that it wasn’t her last mistake.

She pulled the blanket tighter around her shoulders but sleep would not come. The minutes ticked by at an agonized crawl, the sun coming closer to breaking over the horizon, but Maria still stared at the wall. She could not, dared not sleep. Strange ethereal hands never seemed to leave her be, they caressed her, gliding across her flesh, the sprite-like giggle filling the air in place of silence. Maria feared for her soul, fearing that if she slept the ghost would return, the ghost would take her body in her night. She feared that Moriah would force her way in and never leave.

Trembling, Maria awaited dawn with bated breath. She squished shut her sagging eyelids and began to pray. She hadn’t prayed in months, not since Brian’s service, but somehow she could not stop herself. She pleaded with a being in the sky she wasn’t sure existed, but hoped that someone, anyone in the great void was sitting in her corner.

Offering up silent pleas, she finally felt sleep wrap its gentle arms around her. She drifted, savoring the moment of peace in the midst of the storm. She slept, and hoped that the ghosts did not return.

#

The sun was licking at midday when Maria awoke. The acid in her stomach gnawed away at the lining, throwing its petulant fit, begging for a taste of anything solid. Nothing would come. The fast would continue. It was not a comforting thought.

Forcing herself from the cot, Maria felt her bones pop and grind, feeling stiffer than she had in years. Between her fitful bursts of troubled sleep and last night’s fall down the stairs, Maria was beginning to feel like a woman of ninety, rather than her scant twenty-four years.

She stretched back, forcing her vertebrae to pop back into a semblance of their original form. He knee screamed in silent protest and her shoulder burned. She tested her injuries, stifling the pain and forcing on until she was entirely satisfied that nothing was broken.

Bruised and battered, but unbroken, she thought with a dry, humorless chuckle.

There would be no ritual tonight, or tomorrow. That was good. There would also be no food. That was not good. She had to work fast, after all, she had no idea how many – or few – of those rituals were left until she ended up in the basement. She also had no idea how long her strength would hold out without some form of sustenance.

She was tempted to fish out the card and her ritual again. Two weeks – less? more? – ago she would have laughed at the thought of putter her life in the hands of hocus-pocus, but she did not have much else to go on. Part of her knew it was a false hope, but the other part of her didn’t care. She would cling to any hope she had at this point, truth be damned.

For some inexplicable reason she found herself longing to see Kane again. To hear his grumbling words, to taste his sardonic laugh, even to thwart another murder attempt. Anything to break this unrelenting monotony. She longed for his company, his insight, his words, but he was nowhere to be seen. He was in the basement, licking wounds or imprisoned by Mother. Either way, he would be no help to Maria, not until it was already too late.

Once more, her thoughts turned to the card, to the ritual.

She had taken enough context in during last night’s exploration to know that she was projecting what mystics called her ‘Body of Light,’ venturing forth – both to the astral plane and the mortal coil. She also read that mortal trips would take a coil, draining her proverbial battery, sapping her strength, strength already in short supply.

She couldn’t dare a trip into the unknown, not yet. She couldn’t search for Mercy or her parents and risk being trapped God-knows-where with no means of return. No, her first trip would have to be close, somewhere she could retreat from easily.

So let’s have a peek behind door number one.

The thought filled her with an unmistakable pleasure. They had stopped her last night, the bitch and her minion, but they didn’t know how far she had come. They didn’t know what she could do. She would not be foiled today.

A dry smile cracked her chapping lips, and she rose from her bed. Still, Kane’s words haunted her, reverberating in the back of her mind:

If they realize you can… Look, trust me!

Kane had warned her off this course. It had to be a trick of some kind, but it was all she had. Screw you, Kane, she thought. If you were here, you could tell me why I shouldn’t do this, but you’re not. I’m here. I’m alone. And I’m fucked. Until you show, I’m doing this my way.

She lowered herself to the floor, popping and groaning the whole way down. She sat cross-legged on the sagging boards, the rotted wood moaning under her weight.

Exhaling, she pictured the Fool card, holding its image in her mind. She wished she could fish it out of her mattress, but she knew better than to take out contraband without a lookout.

First, she focused her attention on the Fool’s bug-eyed stare. Then, she turned her gaze to his gleaming, golden face. Then the emerald green clothes, and his pointed, gold boots. The details began to trickle into place, setting firm in her mind, imprinted and held in place.

Try as she might, she could not – or would not – rise from her body. She sat stagnant, trapped, locked.

Tethered.

The world began to melt away, her vision blurring and fading as she turned inward. Still, the sounds began to grown, coming into clear, crisp focus, surround sound. The creak of the pipes, the bitching of the house, the sputter of the generator, the scurry of small and furry paws all filled her ears.

Moans carried through her floorboards. A wet sound trickled up through the poor insulation. Rhythmic, thrusting, guttural. She did not need an imagination to know what Dennis was doing one floor below her. She did not want to think how, or why, or what he was imagining, but all she could picture was an image of Mother sitting dead in her wheelchair and watching the hulking body her son wore, pants around his ankles, head thrown back in the throes of ecstasy, and his…

Fuck! Stop! she spat at herself.

She bit her tongue and forced the sounds and the accompanying images from her mind. She tried to pull her thoughts back to the task at hand, back to escape. She tried to conjure the image of the wild-eyed Fool and the ornate images of the card. She tuned out the lude noises wafting up from the first floor, she tuned out Mother’s psychic sighs that seemed to radiate throughout the house, orgasmic and greedy.

She couldn’t. The noises, physical and psychic, mundane and carnal filled the room, filled her. They gripped her and held her, a ghostly hand slipping up her thigh to touch the wetness…

No!

She felt sick, squeezing her eyes tighter, forcing herself deeper. Slowly, she began to hum a single note. She fixed on the note, tuning out everything besides the hum, the Om. She held steady, unwavering. The note trickled into her mind, soothing, calming, consuming.

She began to drift.

At first, Maria did not notice a change. For all she knew she still sat within her own body, cocooned. Her eyes remained shut, the only sensation around her was the constant drone of her voice, the steady tingle in her vocal chords, pausing only for air to relieve the growing tension in her lungs. Her hunger, gnawing like a feral rat, wavered and faded. Her aches became shades of their former fury, finally decaying into nothingness.

The floor was no longer a constant underneath her. The icy chill of the winter’s air faded into a warm cloudy haze.

She opened her eyes and gasped.

She hovered overhead. Floating on ethereal cushions, she circled the crumbling mortuary as a hawk would. Dipping and swooping through the eddies of the sky, she never wanted to come back to the ground. For the first time in what felt like an eternity she wanted to laugh, she wanted to sing and dance and smile. She wanted to live.

“Yes, Mother,” she heard Dennis’s voice gasp.

Such a good boy, came the psychic reply.

The revulsion turned within her again, reminding her of her dire situation. Her soul was unbound – at least temporarily – but her body remained shackled. She was still a prisoner of those sick, perverse fucks, and would be until she took control for herself.

Forcing herself downwards, she fought against the magnetic, pulsating web of energy that gripped her and tried to haul her towards the crackling, sizzling embrace of the strange realms above. She kicked against the pull, descending away from the purities of Heaven, back to the debauchery of Earth. It felt like a blasphemy, a slight against the Almighty himself, but it had to be done.

Soon, she was back in her room. She stared slack-jawed at her own body. She hadn’t moved an inch. Her still-working lungs still emitted the low hum, like a sorcerers mantra. She could not help but feel a strange, filthy sensation as she looked upon her own face as a stranger. A face empty, hollow, devoid of soul, as lifeless as Mother’s shriveled form, but even emptier. She looked and she saw a husk, a husk bound to her glowing form by a single strand of golden light. An ethereal umbilical cord. It seemed so fragile, so weak. As if a single, simple cut could cast Maria’s soul into the void and leave her with no way home.

She shivered at the prospect. She could not help but wonder if this was how Kane felt, or Jeb, or Moriah, or Josh, or any of the other ghosts felt every, single day. Did they feel abandoned, cursed, forgotten? Had they stared at their own husks with the same longing and confusion that now filled her?

Stop, she reminded herself. You’ve got work to do, and limited time to do it in.

Steeling herself, she turned from her empty vessel and walked to her room’s door. She stopped.

Frustration welled up within her, grasping at her and taunting her with its manic voice: How are you going to get through that? Didn’t think this one too well out, did you?

She stared, her pocket feeling empty, missing her stolen treasure. Her key.

Without that small, rusted piece of metal she had no chance to escape the confines of her prison, painted gold like a gilded cage. Racking her brain, she churned over any missing clue, any elusive possibility.

She would not be foiled by a door! She had come too far, she had worked too hard to be blocked by a simple piece of wood and metal. It was unacceptable!

Lashing out, she struck at the obstacle, hissing a low curse.

Shock covered her face, her eyes doing their best impression of saucers as her hand passed through the solid, wooden pane.

Suddenly, she saw the image of Jeb darting through the wall without breaking stride. The obviousness of her situation dawning upon her.

Reality is an illusion, man, Brian had once said. He was on acid, laying back on their tattered and sagging couch, staring at his hand with a strange look of wonderment. At the time, Maria couldn’t stop laughing at her stoned boyfriend. Reality is an illusion, I’m tellin’ ya, Maria.

She pressed her hand against the door, the real, solid door, and watched as her flesh passed through.

Reality is an illusion, man.

She now stood in the hallway, nervous eyes flitting both directions, like a con-job who had just talked her way into the world’s highest-security bank. She was in dangerous waters, victory or no.

She had to move fast, but she could not be seen. If they realize you can… Look, trust me!

She wasn’t sure what Kane had meant, or where he was going to take his line of thought. What were they waiting on her to do with projection? She wracked her mind for any tidbit of information she was missing, but came up blank. Either way, whatever they had planned was almost certainly unpleasant. She knew it would be best to stick to the shadows, out of sight. If the whole debacle went pear-shaped, she could snap back to her body, look innocent, and deny everything.

It works for politicians all the time, she sniggered. How hard can it be?

Crouching, she inched along the shifting, winding hallways, moving towards the ornate room. Somehow, the halls seemed less restless, the nighttime shifting all but ceased. She could not help but wonder if it was simply an illusion, her panicked mind lost in an unfamiliar maze? Or, was her new form immune to the strange magic that maneuvered the house and manipulated the walls into a never-ending circle of corridors?

Either way, she was making progress.

She edged forward, her movements slow and her head on a swivel. She was sure a ghost waited around every corner, whether the mad Moriah or the guileless Jeb. So far, there was no one. Not a soul, living or dead, wandered the upstairs hallways.

It seemed too easy. Too simple. It had to be a trap. She was sure it had to be a trap. Still, if all they wanted was to find out if she was able to project, the trap should have snapped by now. She supposed the universe owed her a skosh of luck after all the crap it had handed her, and she prayed that this was her lucky break.

Without a change in her fresh, inexplicable luck, she reached the ritual room, or bathing room, or whatever the room was meant to be. She broke out in a wild, joyous grin that bordered on madness and raced towards the bookcase.

The glimmering, golden letters flickered in the firelight:

TOM SAWYER

She reached out, almost feeling the leather texture of the spine, the pull and give of the latch.

Her fingers passed through.

Shit! she cursed the double-edged sword of non-corporeal movement. She could walk through walls, but she couldn’t pull a damn lever.

Shit! she thought again, and began to pace. Frustration brimmed within her, she wanted to cry. For a second, she could almost feel the hot tears running down her cheeks, and she realized that back in her room her husk was crying. She tasted the rich salt on her lips, but refused to think about the physical sensation. She had to stay here, in this moment, she had bigger problems.

She racked her mind for any means to interact with the book. She was a spirit after all, a body of light – as Mother’s devil book called it – and she was useless in the physical world. What good was a spy who could watch but not touch? What use was this little talent of her if all she could do was slink around the hallways like another ghost?

Well, you can walk through walls, for starters? Maria almost laughed. What good was walking through walls if she didn’t know what the book-switch did?

Her gaze darted around the room, searching for a clue, a hint, an anything. Finally, she rested her eyes on the ornate bathtub, her mind galloping ahead, already contemplating the dreaded bath tonight. A terrible chill gripped her in its claws as she thought of having to stare up at the rotted face of Mother. To bathe in front of those prying, undead eyes, without even Kane for a semblance of a friendly-

Kane!

Kane was the answer.

Hands had clamped down on her shoulders, pushing her down into the hot water. She had fought against those strong, masculine hands, feeling the bathwater trying to force its way down her throat, into her lungs.

Kane had touched her.

But how?

“You aren’t supposed to be in here,” a voice croaked from behind. Hoarse and ragged.

Maria spun on her heels to see Kane, but it was a Kane she could hardly recognize. He looked shriveled, aged, beaten, defeated. He leaned up against the doorframe, but not in a casual bad-ass way like he used to. Now, he looked like he needed the support.

“What happened?” gasped Maria.

“Mother happened,” he wheezed.

“But you’re a ghost… How can she…”

“Do this?” he gestured to his mangled face.

Maria nodded.

Kane shrugged, “I suppose it’s some kind of psychic memory. I remember getting hurt and bleeding, so I think when I hurt now, I’ve got to look beat up. Or something like that, I don’t fucking know.”

Maria averted her gaze, guilt pounding at the back-door of her mind. She knew that whatever had happened to Kane was her fault. All of it.

“It’s that doll of hers, she’s got one for everyone here. Even you. She fucks with that doll, she fucks with you, don’t matter if you’re living or dead, astral of physical.”

“Like a voodoo doll?”

“Sure, like a voodoo doll. Though the old bitch’d get real pissy if she heard you call it that.” Kane fixed her with a cool, calculated stare. “You get the key?”

“I did.”

“Good, where is-”

“I ditched it,” she said, looking at her feet.

“Ditched it?! After all the shit we went through, after this!” he jerked his thumb at his wounds, wincing. “You go and ditch the fucking thing?”

“It was that or let them find it on me!” Maria shouted back, hoping she hadn’t roused any suspicion from the floor below.

Kane stared at her, seething.

From below, she could hear Dennis and Mother still going at their sick, little game of mutual masturbation. So far, it seemed that they hadn’t been found out.

She fixed Kane with an equally steely stare and waited.

Slowly, surely, he began to calm. His face reverted to its usual color, his eyes softening. “You made the right call. Shit call, but right. You at least use it?”

She nodded. “But I didn’t find much in her book.”

He grunted, “The fact you’re standing here, not in that temple in the sky, means you’ve found plenty.”

“You’ve been to the temple?” she asked, amazed.

“We’ve all been to the temple, kid. Of course, you’re the only one who’s thought to come here after. Clever play.”

A smile flicked across her lips.

He did not return her smile. “Still, keep your head down. They find out you can go and leave your body… Well, then it’s one more ritual and down to the basement. And you don’t want to go down there.”

“What’s down there?”

He growled, fixing her with a dark look. “The end.”

With that, he turned and stomped away from Maria.

“Wait!” she cried, holding out a hand to her.

“I’m checking out, kiddo. Can’t go sticking my neck out any farther for you,” Kane said. “Just remember, it’s an illusion, all of it. You think you can’t walk through a wall, you can’t. You think you can’t pick up a book, you can’t. It’s that simple.”

With that, Kane was gone.

Maria stood there with his parting words ringing in her ears. Turning, she reached out for the book, feeling a strange tingling in her nonexistent fingers. She could see the pumping veins under her pale skin, see the flecks of dirt underneath her stark-white fingernails. She felt bones and sinew, flesh and blood. Corporeal.

Her lips twisted into a grin as she ran a hand along the cover of Tom Sawyer. She could feel the leather coating its stiff spine, the cool texture chilling her fingertips.

Now, pull.

And she did.

She felt the rough texture of the leather on her fingertips, the heft of the book as it tilted outwards before clicking into place. A hidden lever! She heard the grind of gears and pulleys as they echoed throughout the hollow walls. She could only hope that Dennis was so caught up in the throes of his self-pleasure that he did not hear.

The bookshelf slid outward, grinding on the ground, swinging on hidden hinges. Maria’s heart swelled, excitement brimming up within her. The excitement faded quickly, replaced by an aching hope that she still had time to see what lay within the room.

The passage behind the shelf was bathed in deep shadow. No one could see in such inky darkness, but Maria had no trouble. To her spiritual eyes the shadows seemed cleaner, clearer, crisper than the light. Every detail that should be doused in oily darkness was crystal clear, every facet laid bare before her, from the cracks in the wooden flooring to the cobwebs that imposed upon each corner and cranny. The wind raced through the gaps in the walls, creating an ominous wail that sounded like the screams of damned souls in the cellar of Hell.

She stepped into the gaping passage, and strode about ten feet forward before coming upon a door. It was plain, lacking even the basic detailing of molding and trim. A singular orb of brass protruded from its right side, beckoning her to grasp and turn, to enter.

Forcing her hand back into tingling existence, she grasped the knob and turned. As she acted, she could not help but wonder if her body – her husk – still seated in her room was turning an invisible knob where she sat. As quickly as the thought came, it fled as he mind turned to more important matters.

The door swung inwards and she stepped over the threshold into the secret room. It was simple, lined with ancient symbols whose origins Maria could only begin to guess at. Most prominent of the mystic symbols was a large hexagram laid into the wood of the floor. Rather than the classic hexagram of Judaism, it was one continuous line, traveling from corner to corner, intersecting in the center to create a floral pattern. Maria traced the sigil with her eyes, finding that it had no beginning and no end, creating a perfect, continuous line.

In the center of the floral design stood a pedestal, carved of rich, polished wood. The walls were rotted, but the pedestal and floor was immaculate, maintained with near-reverence. Atop the pedestal was an ancient book, its pages weathered, its leather cover faded and cracked with age. A fountain of ink sat to the left of the book, a quill to the right.

Maria’s hope shriveled, realizing that – besides the book – the room was barren. Rather than a hidden treasure trove of knowledge and answers, it was barren. The sigils were for rituals, the tome – presumably – filled with spells, but nothing offered her what she needed.

Releasing a heavy sigh, she moved towards the book. Let’s hope this isn’t a complete bust, she thought, running her non-corporeal fingers over the old leather.  

She froze.

Voices traveled through the floorboards from below, accompanying stomping footsteps traveling up the stairs.

“Are you certain she is not showing any signs?” Mother asked.

“No,” came a grumbling, unfamiliar voice. It was aged, gravelly, distinctly masculine. Maria found herself reminded of a bit-part cowpoke in a nineteen-fifties John Wayne flick. She could picture the leathered face, tanned from decades in the field, sporting a large handle-bar moustache, flecked with gray. “But I can’t watch her as much as I’d like. Kane takes offense when I get too close to the room.”

“Kane hasn’t been a problem for twenty-four hours,” Mother hissed. “Stop making excuses.”

“Look…” the voice sighed. “Jeb pulled me away and…”

“I don’t give a damn what your brother wants. You have a job. And I expect you to do your job, or your brother will pay the price. Do you understand?”

“Hey, don’t hurt the boy. Please…” the voice was pleading, whining, on hands and knees.

“Mother!” Dennis interjected. “The boy ain’t done nothing.”

“Stay out of this, Dennis,” Mother snapped. “Understand, innocent or not, I will make that boy hurt, if you fail your duties again. Do I make myself clear, James?”

Silence.

Maria could tell there had been some exchange of an unspoken affirmation. Mother’s laugh broke the silence, the laugh of a she-wolf who had gotten her way, of the alpha watching a pack member backing off, cowed.

“Good. Now go check on her.”

“Yes, ma’am,” James replied.

Damn, Maria hissed. Pullnig her hand from the book, she released herself from the trance. The world seemed to stretch and warp before her, whisking around her, details streaking into a strange, tunnel-like zoom. It reminded her of the warp speed effect in the old Star Trek episodes she watched with her brother as a kid.

Before she could blink, she was in her room, sucking her breath in a hot sweat. Her breath swirled and misted in the frigid winter air, and the color was cold under her. Aches and pains she thought she had expunged came flooding back, wracking her and wrapping her in an agonized blanket. She wanted to curl up in a tight ball and never move again.

Taking a trembling breath, she forced herself to her feet and began to limp to her cot. Her ribs throbbed with fiery vengeance and her knee felt like she had been hit by a sledgehammer. She wanted to lay down, but she needed to see who was tasked with watching her. She kicked herself for not knowing that Mother had tasked a spy with watching her. She was lucky that he hadn’t seen her sneaking from the room or projecting herself from her body. Damn lucky.

Sitting on her lumpy cot, she turned towards the door and waited.

#

Mercy slammed her car door, lighting a cigarette. A woman two towns over had called in a sighting, but it had turned out to be a bust. Maria was gone.

Mercy was starting to worry that Maria wasn’t in the county anymore. She sucked on her cold comfort and let out the smoke, watching it swirl in the frigid air. The morning was sub-zero, cold enough to make everyone look like they were smoking too, steaming clouds puffing with every passerby’s breath.

She looked up at the towering steeple of Saint Michael’s Catholic Church and shivered. Something about the place always gave her the willies. She hated mass, she hated the choir, and she hated the Father. Ever a staunch atheist, she avoided church like a mouse avoids a cat. The building seemed to reek of avarice and arrogance, a flashy mansion owned by a man hell-bent on showing off his wealth. She wished that either Maya or Mister Martinez had gone to give Father Matthews the report, but they were in a meeting with the police captain this morning, and they decided that giving Matthews a status update couldn’t wait.

Mercy decided that he could wait, and turned, wandering the grounds. She drank in the splendid columns of marble and gazed up at the ornate stained glass inlaid into the pseudo-gothic façade. The steeple towered overhead, a comparative skyscraper when stacked up beside the two-to-three story buildings that made up most of the town. The grounds were well-kept, lush and green in summer, with pruned bushes and swept cobblestones. In winter, everything turned a dull brown, dead carcasses of grass poking up from the powdery snow, the cobblestones slick with mud. The breeze rustled through the dead tress with gnarled branches that reached heavenward like damned supplicants pleading with an unseeing God. Every so often, an occasional gust would dislodge a pack of snow, sending it dancing in the breeze, scattering across the small cemetery behind the towering structure.

The path led her into the graves, passing through the headstones as if driven by a force other than her own. They dotted the barren landscape, gray fingers of concrete jutting up from the frozen soil, the dead rising to walk amongst the living. Heedless steps carried her towards a particular gravestone, her heart freezing over as she looked down and ready the inscription:

BRIAN SILVERSTONE

1995-2019

LOVING SON AND FIANCE

She felt the pang inside her heart and tried to force it away. Then dump his ass, you deserve better. That is what she had told Maria, but she had never meant it. She had just wanted to feel better. She wanted to feel like she hadn’t betrayed two of her dearest friends. She wanted-

She grunted and lay a hand atop the frozen concrete. Thoughts like that weren’t going to help anyone. In a voice softer than the rustling breeze, she uttered a silent prayer. It was funny, she knew that nobody was listening, but it somehow made her feel better. The weight in her heart felt lighter, and the strain of the past days smoothed out, if only for a moment.

Her thoughts began to drift. Again, she held Maria while the red and blue lights flashed through her living room’s windows. Again, she wondered if the blood had permanently stained the bathtub, then kicked herself for such a calloused thought. Again, she wondered if Maria would find out her terrible secret, if she would find the letters when going through Brian’s things.

Again, she felt relief pour through her as she watched Maria box up his belongings without a glance, shoving them into her grandmother’s attic to collect dust.

Again, she was listening to Maria sobbing that Father Matthews was refusing to give Brian a Catholic burial. Again, she stood beside her best friend as she fought tooth and nail to allow her fiancé this final dignity. The Church had already overturned their ruling on suicides, allowing burial on consecrated ground, but the decision came down to the priest, and Matthews was old school. Mercy could still see his sneer at the thought of allowing a hell-bound sinner to be buried in his churchyard.

Again, Mercy felt sheer loathing towards the man. Again, Mercy wondered why it mattered where Brian was buried. Again, she opened her mouth and sneered back, laying into Matthews for being a ‘calloused sack of shit.’ Again, she smiled as he caved to the grieving fiancé and the broken parents.

Again, she stood at this gravestone. The weather was clear, crisp and bright. Autumn two years before. She was wearing black, her hand planted firmly in Maria’s. Maria’s hands had been cold, clammy, trembling. They watched as the casket was lowered into the plot, Father Matthews’s voice delivering the funeral mass like a dirge. Again, Mercy called him a hypocrite, a liar, a fiend. Again, Mercy said her final goodbyes.

“Maria never forgave herself,” said a wobbling, ancient voice. The creaking tones of Father Matthews marched in and invaded Mercy’s moment of peace.

Grumbling, Mercy turned, hoping her flushed cheeks hid the streaks of tears. She felt dirty, like she had been caught in the act of screwing her best friend’s fiancé. She looked up to meet his milky eyes, her own darkening.

He was stooped and grizzled. A snow-white and well-trimmed beard clung to sallow cheeks, reddened by years of imbibing the sacramental wine. His clothes hung loose to his wire-thin frame, his clerical collar hanging from a spindle of a neck. The man trembled constantly, as if he were continually cold. His dying eyes seemed half-blind, darting about with near-sightless judgement. His expression oozed sympathy, as if he were feeling Brian’s loss all over again. Of course, Mercy remembered his savage vitriol and rage, spitting at the thought of burying a mortal sinner in his graveyard. Hypocrite.

“Father,” she said, trying not to sneer. “Been awhile.”

“It has,” he nodded. “Though, I do wish we were meeting under better circumstances, my child.”

“Yeah, me too,” Mercy said. Inside, she added, Or not at all.

“Would you come inside?” he asked, gesturing towards the church. “I fear the winter’s chill is finally upon us.”

Mercy shrugged, stubbing out her smoke on Brian’s gravestone. It was a shitty thing to do, but she liked watching Matthews squirm in his holy vestments.

Hail Satan, she thought with a dark snigger and followed the priest into the church.

#

“Ma’am,” came the grizzled voice.

Maria looked up to see the newcomer. He did not look as she imagined him. His face was clean-shaven, his head was bald, and his beard was patches of gray scruff. He looked more like an accountant than a gunslinger. His suit was tweed and faded, with brown leather patches on the elbows. The only thing that screamed ‘John Wayne’ was the gun-belt slung haphazardly around his waist, notably missing its pistol. The gunslinger belt looked out of place, like a young boy playing dress-up, adding a comic ounce of danger to what otherwise looked to be the dullest man on Earth.

“Name’s Jim,” the man drawled on. “Jim Marsters. I believe you’re acquainted with my brother. Jeb?”

Jeb shuffled in beside his brother, gaze downturned. He scuffed his foot soundless against the ground and raised his eyes to meet hers. Maria shot him a faint, kind smile, but the boy made no move to return the gesture.

“Well, say howdy to the lady, Jeb,” the elder Marsters said, prodding Jeb with his elbow.

“Howdy, Miss,” Jeb offered.

“Hey, Jeb. Where have you been?”

“Basement,” he murmured, fidgeting.

Maria’s eyes could not help but flit between the two men. Jim looked old enough to be Jeb’s grandfather, yet he had repeatedly said ‘brother.’ How is that possible? Maria wondered.

Jim caught the glance, a wry smile flicking across his face. “Two years,” he offered. “Jeb was born in ‘seventy, I was born in ‘seventy-eight.”

Maria shook her head, speechless.

“Look, Jeb, how about you let the grownups talk?”

Jeb crossed his arms like an angry child, but his voice was measured, grown up. “As you said, big brother. Two years, I’d say I’m as ‘grown up’ as you.”

“Boy, I said git,” hissed James.

Jeb scowled, but conceded. He marched from the room with sullen steps, only chancing one final look at Maria.

Once the younger Marsters was gone, James turned to Maria, all smiles. “I’m sorry, I didn’t get a chance to introduce myself earlier. I was spending some… alone time in the basement.”

Maria nodded but refused to offer anything up to the affable man. The affable spy, she reminded herself.

James nodded back and moved to the window. He stared out over the snow-covered landscape, allowing himself a longing sigh. “I miss it.”

He turned back to her, continuing, “The snow, I mean. I used to love how it covered everything. A cleansing white sent by God himself. I would sit on my back porch and smoke my pipe and watch it fall.”

He coughed, “When I walked down that drive in nineteen-thirty-seven it was snowing. I felt those cold flakes on my skin and remembered what it meant to live. See, I was reachin’ my end and I still had some unfinished business to attend. So, I bought a gun and made my way up that drive, the snow crunchin’ with each step I took.”

Maria leaned forward, listening to his every word.

“The Phillips family had only just purchased this land. Ma Phillips, Pa Phillips, and their boy, Dennis. The boy would’ve been, oh, I supposed ‘round seventeen when they bought the land from the McMannon family. Helena – the widow – and her husband, but I knew better.

“I remember the day that Helena McMannon rode out of my hometown with a boy’s coffin and a wooden crate tucked into the back of her wagon. It weren’t ‘till late that evening we realized that Jeb was in that box, her dead son in the coffin. Of course, by then she was dust in the wind, and my kid brother was long gone.

“I searched ‘round about South Pass for the better part of twenty years. Jeb was long gone, but I wanted to know what happened to him… I needed to know. It weren’t ‘till nineteen-thirty-six that I hear about a couple livin’ about fifty miles out of Casper, out around Oak’s Spring. See, folk in Oak’s Spring were spreadin’ rumors. They say that the mother died and the son ended up screwin’ the maid, even made her his bride. They talk about strange rituals carried out on their property in the dead of night. They talked about the ghost of a boy wandering the property, calling out for his lost brother…”

He wrung his hands together. “That was the part that got me. It had been well past fifty years since I seen the boy, but I knew that it was him they were talkin’ about. So, I rode up to Oak’s Spring with a gun on my hip to knock on the door.

“A man answers and I can smell the black magic on him. There was somethin’ clingin’ to his soul, poison. The girl behind him was pretty, probably thirty-five, thirty-six, but I knew them eyes. I knew Helena McMannon’s eyes better’n I knew my own. So I turn to the bitch and say: This one’s for Jeb, and I shoot the man right between the eyes.”

The old man groaned, leaning against the window’s sill. “Of course, I never left the property. The old bitch tore me out of my body and damned me to stay here ‘till Judgement Day comes. She kept my body, husk is what she called it, but she didn’t put her boy into me. No, she just bound me… Forced me to watch.”

A coarse laugh shuddered thought the specter. “The Phillipses –the real Phillipses – built this here mortuary, and Helena waited. The parents died first, tragic accident. Then Helena – or Mariah, that was the name she was goin’ by – went and seduced the boy, Dennis. Only the boy weren’t Dennis no more… not Dennis Phillips, at least.”

He trailed off, staring back out the window. His hands clenched the back of the small chair. He gripped down so hard that the chair began to tremble with latent energy. Finally, he calmed, turning to fix his cold stare on Maria. “Do you understand why I told you all this?”

Maria shook her head.

“I told you my story so you’ll understand that I hate these bastards. They took my brother, they took that Maraih girl, they tore me from my body and tied me to this place… They keep going, they keep livin’ without a care for the likes of me, my brother, you. I despise them with every fiber of my being.” He fixed her with a winning – lying – smile and said, “I want to help you.”

“Help?” she stammered, deciding it was better to play the fool than play suspicious. “How?”

His eyes flicked to the boarded up baseboard, a knowing smile on his lips. “You found what was in there? Before Dennis fixed the hole?”

Lie, Maria’s gut howled. Still, she knew the lie would be pointless. “Yes.”

“Good,” he said with another, lingering smile. “Did you find the third entry?”

“The what?” she asked. It took every ounce of her willpower not to let her eyes stray towards the floorboards, not to tip her hand. Kane’s voice howled in her ears, If they find out you can do this…

“Josh – that’s the boy they stole after Jeb – he found somethin’ you might find helpful. He said it’s a way to get out of this place. Mentally, at least.” James made a show of looking around the room, as if suspicious of unwanted ears, of spies in the shadows. Maria stifled a laugh, she knew who the real spy was. Pretending to be satisfied, James continued, “…Just don’t tell nobody besides me when you’ve figured any of this out. Some folk wandering these halls are-”

“Liars?” Maria asked, allowing a hint of an edge to creep into her voice.

If James noticed, he did not show it. Instead he smiled his lying smile and nodded, “Exactly.”

He pointed to the floorboards and said, “It’s the second board over. Center of the room… And good luck.”

With that, his spirit dissipated. Maria crawled over to the floorboard, making a show of “discovering” the papers hidden within, acting shocked and awed. All the while she wondered, Am I playing right into the Phillipses hand, playing with this?

After a long moment of pretending to discover, a darker, harsher laugh cut over the room. “Bastards gone, you don’t have to pretend anymore.”

Maria turned, facing Kane. His eyes were dark, his lips curled in a hateful snarl.

“Don’t you trust a goddamn word out of that fool’s mouth. No if you value that pretty, little neck of yours.”

Next Chapter: Part Six: The Aeon