Rhayven House (20 page)

     “Have you given thought to how you will handle the situation if we cannot uncover the answers you seek?” Davida asked Ian.

     He nodded. “I promised my best friend, Toby, and myself I'd move out and not look back. To continue living here without putting the situation to rest is asking for trouble. I feel she is amping up her game and my life will eventually be in danger.”

     “I can't say you're wrong in your assumption of being in danger.” Davida paused and held up a finger, a sign for him to be quiet. She closed her eyes and tilted her head. When she opened her eyes again, she asked, “Do you frequently hear piano music?”

     Ian's eyes widened. “Yes. I've heard it many times, as has Toby.”

     “I hear it now. Very clearly. And I am assuming you don't actually have a piano?”

     “No, I don't. But there was an old, rotting one in the house before I cleaned it out and began the reno.” Ian's heartbeat accelerated. Davida really was quickly picking up on things. He felt exhilarated to be finally receiving validation from an outside source. Toby's opinion counted, but this was different because it came from a medium. Ian needed that.

     “This is why I always tell people to only give me the barest, most basic information. I need to be able to sense for myself. As we discussed, if I have any questions, I'll ask you.” Davida stood up and, with a single, liquid movement, removed her jacket. “Shall we have a walk-through of the house?”

     Walking from room to room downstairs, Davida said she felt a heaviness in the area, a feeling she could not explain without contact from the spirit.

     Ian crossed his fingers.

     “Usually, I can pick up information even without the assistance of the spirit, but this situation has flummoxed me,” she said, coming to a stop at the base of the staircase. “Shall we continue upstairs and see if the circumstances change?”

     Being upstairs led to more of the same. Nothing. As exhilarated as Ian had felt moments before, he felt deflated now.

     “You must understand this can happen,” Davida explained as they came back downstairs. “I'm sorry. I don't want you to feel as if it's all a figment of your imagination. Because it's not.”

     Smiling, Ian tried not to let his disappointment show. “I do understand; I thank you for coming out and giving it your best shot.”

     Back in the living room, Davida put her jacket back on and retrieved her purse. “I'm as chagrined as you, if not a little more; I've never been blocked like this before. If you want to me come back and try again or if you have any further questions, don't hesitate to call me.”

     Ian thanked her and walked her to the door.

     Stepping over the threshold, Davida turned and gave him some final advice. “Should you wish to have a team of investigators in to attempt to uncover more information, please make sure you perform due diligence. Ask for references and speak to those references. Check the team's credentials. Unfortunately, I've seen cases where, shall we say, less experienced investigators—” she used her fingers to make air quotes “—have come in, provoked the spirit in order to get the desired result—the evidence—and then left the homeowner to deal with the aftermath.”

     Ian appreciated the warning and told her so. “I still have some thinking to do, but I know what eventually has to happen.”

     He shut the door and turned around. He stood and just looked around.

     Toby had obviously heard the door shut and made his presence known. “Well?” he asked as he came down the stairs. “What did she tell you?”

     “Not as much as I wanted to know,” Ian said, the disappointment obvious in his voice as he filled Toby in on what had happened. “On the up side, she confirmed there is a spirit here.”

     “Big deal. I confirmed that much,” Toby said. “And the spirit communicated with you. Maybe she just didn't like Davida.

     “Yeah. I guess. But the decision has been made for me,” Ian said. “I can't fight or help the spirit if I don't get any of the info I need. It just bites. I want to know what had happened all those years ago.”

Twenty

     Later, Ian got what he wished for. She showed him while he slept. More than that, she bared her soul to him in an attempt to make him understand.

     At some point, the rift opened and Ian stepped through it—not literally, she showed him in a dream—back through time and into the house’s past. Before him the scene played out. Coming from town, not a mob bearing torches and pitchforks, the small group of men crept instead of stomping up the driveway. Driven by self-righteousness and selfish fear—and Ian wondered how the hell he knew that—the men, frightened as they may be, had come to lay blame and judgment upon the guilty, regardless of actual guilt or innocence. Even the birds in the trees had gone silent. From inside the house, Ian saw them through the front window, and it terrified him. Grimacing, he felt sick, knowing the secret was about to be revealed to him. Horrible images came to mind.
If they came into the house, would they be able to see him?
Jerking back from the window as the men came closer, Ian spun around and looked for a place to hide, just in case he would be as visible to them as they were to him. Kicking and pounding the door, the men demanded to be let in. Letting them in the house would lead to something horrific; he instinctively understood that. Murder was what this horde had in mind and Ian knew it. New tendrils of terror wrapped around his spine. Obviously, he needed to witness this, or the house or the old woman would’ve never sent him back to this time. Pure terror gripped him tightly, even though he knew deep in his mind nothing would or could happen to him—he was only here to hear the testimony from the past. Quietly, he stood in the corner. Rather than running screaming back through the rift, away from whatever was about to transpire, Ian fought his flight response and forced himself to stay. Shadows pooled around him, caressing him softly. Then the front door burst inward. Until that moment, Ian wasn’t sure what was unfolding in front of him. Very soon, he felt certain, he would witness the death of the woman who haunted him. Waiting was pure agony—like waiting for his own execution. Excruciating to experience. Yet utterly compelling; he could not tear his eyes away. Zombies bursting through the front door would have scared him less than this mob of zealots, hell-bent on vengeance or whatever it was they used to feed their fanaticism.

    
See
, she instructed him, her voice coming from nowhere specifically, yet seemingly from everywhere at once.
Know
.

     This was her in what seemed to Ian a rare lucid, sane moment giving him the all-important answer to the question he’d been asking. And he understood he was in the scene but he was not of the scene—he wasn’t a physical being for the people to see, to touch.

    
They didn’t just falsely accuse and kill me
, her voice echoed in his head,
although that is sinful enough unto itself. They tried to completely erase my existence—make it as if I’d never existed.

     “Horrific. I can’t even begin to imagine,” Ian said to her. “But you have to let go, move on. Or else you will never have any peace.”

    
Damnatio memoriae.
Expect me to forgive. Implore me to forget. Never.

     Her voice went silent but Ian still felt her presence with him as he watched the scene unfold.

     All heaviness lifted. He felt her rage subside. The air cooled and a floral scent filled the air.

     Her spirit appeared before Ian and he demanded an answer from her. “Am I supposed to be the instrument of your Grand Guignol revenge on those who entombed you?”

    
They are all long gone, well beyond my reach.

     “You move back and forth between betrayed and bewildered and deformed, demented, and depraved.”

   
 
Wouldn't you? After what they did! I was a healer. At one time or another, every one of them had come to me for help.

     “And they repaid your kindness with murder.”

     Sadness flooded from her eyes; Ian saw the sane, gentleness inside her.
They trapped me here. I could not pass on. Imprisoned, I confess madness crept into me.
Holding out her hand as if to grasp his, she said,
Forgive me for what I've done in those moments.

     How could he not?

     Find me. Release me. Allow me to be free before the madness grips me again.

     Ian promised he would do so, since she'd shown him where her body was hidden away. The swirling began and dizziness hit. He closed his eyes tight.

~ ~ ~

     After she showed Ian what had happened decades ago, he returned to the present as he woke. Crawling out of bed and throwing on clothes, he sought out Toby and explained everything he'd seen and been told.

     “All those jars of stuff in the kitchen we saw when you gave me the first tour,” Toby said, “those were the ingredients for her potions and things.” He snapped his fingers. “And maybe it was her who knocked the jar out of the cabinet, the one that busted all over the floor, in an attempt to get your attention.”

     Ian nodded. “She was a healer. People came from all around to ask for her help, which she always gave freely, whether or not they could pay her anything for her services.”

     Toby had a strained look on his face. “Like I can't tell where this story is heading. As if it hasn't happened innumerable times down through history, in places all around the planet.” He wiped his hand across his mouth, as if he'd tasted something nasty. “Makes me sick to think about the innocents burned by the 'cleansing' fire and killed by other horrible means.”

     “I agree.”

     “So, why did the people of the town turn on her?” Toby asked. “There had to have been one hell of reason for them to attempt to wipe out the memory of her existence, to pretend she never was. That speaks to intense hatred, fear, or deep remorse.”

     “An outbreak that killed so many people. From what she described of the symptoms—coughing up blood, severe chest pains, the fever, chills, deadly weakness—I'm assuming it was what they used to call Consumption, the wasting away disease.”

     “Tuberculosis,” Toby whispered. “Nasty disease. It continued killing, even after they discovered the vaccine. I can only imagine the number of fatalities before it.”

     “After all the good she did, the townspeople blamed her for cursing them, even though they didn't have a reason. They believed they could put an end to the curse and save themselves if they got rid of her.” Ian filled a glass with water and drank long from it.

     “But why did they blame her? Surely, even they knew enough about science to recognize a disease and not fall prey to the simple-minded thought it was a curse at work.” Toby couldn't quite wrap his head around it. “It wasn't the Middle Ages, for Christ's sake. It was sixty years ago, give or take.”

     “Ignorance combined with fear can cloud the mind and make intelligent people commit unspeakable acts.” Ian looked intently into his friend's eyes. “We need to free her,” he said.

     “How?”

     “She showed me where they put her body,” Ian explained.

     “Is she buried here on the property?” Toby asked. “Tell me she's not buried on the property, pal.”

     “Not quite buried. More like entombed somewhere close,” Ian said.

     Toby's eyes widened as he understood what his friend was telling him. “She's here in the house, isn't she?”

     Nodding, Ian said, “And we need to give her a decent burial, lay her to final rest.”

     “Pal, that's fucking creepy.” Toby shivered as if in support of his declaration. “I wouldn't mind living next to a cemetery. I mean, how much trouble can dead bodies cause? But to have a corpse somewhere in the house...” His voice trailed off, and then he said, “The basement's too obvious, isn't it?”

     “Grab a hammer and follow me.”

     Ian and Toby started punching holes in the wall using hammers. The wall where Ian wanted to hang up the framed picture of
Dogs Playing Poker
in the room he'd earmarked to be the library. Toby hit the wall hard and knocked a big chunk of plaster out, revealing part of the door in the wall Ian had thought the library shared with the kitchen. Chipping away at the plaster, they uncovered the door without a knob. Ripping down the old plaster, they saw the door hadn't only been plastered over, but nailed shut with dozens of nails.

     It took what felt like forever and a day for them to pull all the nails out of the door. The old door refused to open; they had to remove it from its hinges in order to gain entrance to the hidden room.

     There was no electricity, so Ian brought in LED camping lanterns to provide illumination. It was a little room, barely bigger than a small modern day walk-in closet. Claustrophobic in feel. The rectangular wood box took up most of the space.

     “It's nailed shut, as well,” Toby declared, as he tried to no avail to open the lid. “Goddamn. They really tried to seal the poor woman in by any means necessary.”

     They worked to pull out the nails and Ian lifted the lid. They looked inside.

     “This is salt,” Toby said, picking up a fistful and letting the grains slip through his fingers.

     “Mummification. I recognize some of this process from research,” Ian said. “The salt is why the body still has this parchment-like skin instead of having wasted away to skeletal remains.”

     “Put her in a bed of salt, covering her up, and entombing her here, in her own house.” Toby's amazement was evident in his voice. He reached to touch the salt and then drew his hand back as if he'd thought better of it.

     “And it also cut down on putrefaction, reducing the smell that accompanies the process,” Ian said. “They knew what they were doing.”

     “The whole town in on it.” Toby whispered out of respect for the body between them. “How could they live with themselves?”

     “Maybe not the whole town, but at least a few dozen of them. Not just entombing her, making it as if she'd never existed.”

     “Wiping her away. So Edgar Allan Poe.”

     A booming crash of thunder startled the two of them. They felt it rattle the ground beneath their feet and rumble through the house, shaking it.

     “That better not be an omen,” Toby said.

     No sooner had the words crossed Toby's lips than the mummified corpse—still half-buried in salt between the two men—sat up and let loose an ear-splitting, soul-stripping scream of utter anguish. Ian erupted with a scream of his own and leaped backwards. Toby stood frozen to the spot. The desiccated corpse ceased its prolonged scream and turned its head towards Ian. He felt as if the eyeless stare penetrated to his core; he recognized the empty-socket stare. It raised a hand, disturbing the grains of salt even more, and reached out to him.

     Before he could even decide whether to take the proffered hand or to back up even further, the corpse began to come apart so rapidly it was reduced to nothing more than a pile of dust.

    
“That was extraordinarily weird and I never want to see anything like it again” He looked over at Ian. “What are we supposed to do now?” Toby asked as he poked at the dust with his finger.

     “Lay her to rest.” Ian wiped the back of his hand across his mouth.

     “Talk about the sins of the past coming back to haunt you,” Toby said. “Unreal. Or surreal. Whichever one suits the situation best.”

     Ian inhaled slowly, looked down at the dust, and said, “Remembering is the process of knowing the past; forgetting is the process of not-knowing the past.”