The Haunting of Pitmon House (2 page)

She drove Highway 14 eastbound, headed to a suburb of Madison
that contained the state’s most infamous mental hospital. She set out as soon
as she discovered that the police in Spring Green were unwilling to keep Shane
at their jail. The woman on the phone told her he was “too combative, even
after restraint,” and that he was one of the most violent 1096s they’d ever
seen.

She didn’t have the heart to ask what “1096” meant.

Now she was pushing the speed limit, thinking about what she
would say to her sister.
Let me see what kind of state he’s in first,
she thought.
No sense in calling if I can’t tell her what’s wrong. She’ll
just get all worked up and worried.

She knew Janie would book a flight home the moment she
suggested it was necessary — but Eliza didn’t want to pull her sister from her
studies if she didn’t have to. Janie had only recently begun to enjoy college.
It had been a challenge to get her to go in the first place.

As she passed another car, she felt the weight of being a
“mom”. She wasn’t really a mom, of course. When their father died and she came
back home to finish raising Shane, it seemed like the right thing to do, and
for the most part, it had been enjoyable. Boring sometimes. She knew there
would be occasions when it wasn’t either enjoyable or boring — this appeared to
be one of them. She was worried for her brother, but also worried about him
from the perspective of being his guardian. She felt nervous and unsure,
treading ground she’d never experienced before.

The doctors will be able to help me,
she thought.
I’ll talk with them.
They’ll tell me what’s wrong with him, and recommend something.

I’m not in this alone.

But, speeding down the highway toward Madison, she felt very
alone.

●

It was her day to work in the lower gift shop, in a separate
building closer to where tourists exited the exhibit. It was stocked with a
much larger supply of shirts, mugs, and snow globes than the smaller gift shop
in the main lobby, where Alice worked. She disliked her gift shop shifts,
primarily because of the other women who worked there. Today it was herself,
Rachel, Bernice, and Lois. She didn’t mind Rachel so much, but Bernice and Lois
made the job tedious. Even though Eliza had worked there for a decade, all
three of the other women had greater seniority; Rachel by at least ten years, and
Bernice and Lois were so old they might have worked there since The House on
the Rock was built.

“Such an unfortunate thing,” Bernice was saying as she
sampled some of the fudge that was for sale behind a large glass counter.
“Fighting in the exhibit. Kids these days.”

Eliza knew it was intended as a sideways slight, aimed at her.

“Is he alright?” Rachel asked Eliza.

Eliza unpacked more placemats from a cardboard box, preparing
to sticker them with price tags. “No, he’s not,” she replied. The memory of
looking at Shane in the hospital bed resurfaced; he’d been motionless, an IV
stuck in his arm. She stood next to the bed for a long time, hoping he’d come
to, before a nurse explained to her that he wouldn’t be waking anytime soon. She
said they’d heavily sedated him, claiming it was for safety. That’s when she
noticed that she couldn’t see Shane’s hands. She pulled down the sheet that was
covering his body and saw leather restraints wrapped around his wrists. She
closed her eyes, wanting the image to leave her mind.

“What’s wrong with him?” Rachel asked.

“They don’t know,” she replied. “They’re running tests.” She
lowered her voice, not wanting Bernice or Lois to hear what she was about to
say next. “They screened him for drugs; he wasn’t on anything. He was sedated
when I saw him in the hospital, so I couldn’t talk to him. The nurses said you
couldn’t talk to him anyway. One told me he seemed crazy, like a rabid dog.”

“She said that?” Rachel whispered back, surprised. “Rabid
dog?”

“Yeah.”

“Wow…and no idea what’s wrong?”

“Not yet. He really scared me, though. When I saw him in The
Mikado Room, it’s like he was crazy. It wasn’t a normal fight between kids. He
lost his mind completely.”

“That is scary,” Rachel said, folding a t-shirt. She seemed
to drift off a little, and Eliza noticed her pause in the folding.

“What?” Eliza asked.

“Huh?” Rachel said, returning mentally. “Oh, nothing.” She
started folding shirts once again.

“You were thinking something,” Eliza said. “What?”

“Oh,” Rachel replied. She lowered her voice even more. “You
remember that thing we were talking about? Last week?”

Eliza did remember. The two of them had spoken about Eliza’s
“gift.” Eliza had half-joking mentioned something about seeing a ghost in the
parking lot, and Rachel had seized upon the comment, spurring a long
conversation about ghosts, the paranormal, and whether or not people could
interact with entities that had died. It had ended with Rachel insisting that
Eliza had a “gift,” and Eliza hadn’t entirely discounted what she’d said.

“Yeah,” Eliza replied. “I remember. You think that has
something to do with Shane?”

“Not here,” Rachel replied as Bernice brought a tray of fudge
past them, headed for the display counter. “Smoke break once we get these out.”

Eliza noticed Bernice trying to listen in on their
conversation, and she decided to simply shut up and continue stickering
placemats until she could talk with Rachel alone.

A small trickle of tourists began to enter the shop just
before noon. The entire exhibit took three or four hours to get through, and
even though they opened at nine, it was unusual to see people show up at the
gift shop earlier than eleven.

As lunchtime rolled around, Rachel announced she was taking a
smoke break. Eliza turned to look at her, and received a subtle wink in
response.

“I’m going to join her,” Eliza said. “That OK, Lois?”

Lois was the lead, so asking permission was a smart move
unless she wanted a lecture. “Normally it’s one at a time,” Lois replied. “But
it’s slow yet. Go.”

Eliza walked back through the offices until she reached an
exterior door that led to a pair of outdoor benches where employees could smoke
away from the sight of the tourists. Rachel was already sitting at one of them,
a lit cigarette in hand. Eliza sat opposite her.

“You think my gift is involved?” Eliza asked. “I don’t see how
it could have anything to do with it.”

“Not your gift, per se,” Rachel replied. “The place you can
go to. That’s what I mean.”

Eliza was confused. Ever since she was a little girl, she
knew she was different, that she had some kind of ability that other people
didn’t seem to possess. It was a kind of intuition, an ability to sense things.
It frightened her, making her feel different from the other girls, and she
didn’t like it. All through high school she had fought desperately to fit in;
being special wasn’t a good thing.

She remembered when she confronted her father about it when
she was twelve, sensing that her father might be able to tell her more. She
remembered vividly how her dad had responded: “We’ll talk about it once you
have children.” He never said anything more about it.

“The place I can go to?” Eliza replied. “I don’t know what
you mean.”

“You know, the River,” Rachel said, glancing around to make
sure no one was nearby.

“The River?” Eliza replied. “What are you talking about?”

Rachel seemed irritated. “You got the gift, you just don’t
use it!”

Eliza shook her head, trying to understand what Rachel was
getting at. “I’m so completely confused right now.”

Rachel sighed. “Those of us who have the gift can go to a
place, in our minds. It’s how we use the gift. You’ve never done it?”

“You’re not even making sense to me. I have no idea what you
mean.”

Rachel shook her head. “That’s right, you said no one ever
showed you.”

“Right.”

“OK,” Rachel said. “Let me give you a demonstration. I want
you to close your eyes and clear your mind.”

“What, right here?”

“No one’s here,” Rachel replied. “And even if they were, this
is something you can do without anyone even realizing you’re doing it. Now.
Close your eyes, think of nothing, and do what I say.”

Eliza placed her hands on the table between them and closed
her eyes. She waited for Rachel to respond. After ten seconds she became
impatient.

“Well?” Eliza asked, her eyes still closed, shrugging her
shoulders a little.

“Don’t talk!” Rachel replied. “Just stay quiet! I’ll tell you
what to do.”

Eliza sighed and resumed silence, waiting for Rachel’s next
command. It seemed as though several minutes passed by before Rachel spoke
again. She could hear Rachel taking drags on her cigarette and exhaling the
smoke.

“Now,” Rachel said softly. “That sense you have that there’s
something just beyond. Let that come forward, right into the center of your
thoughts.”

Eliza listened carefully, trying to keep a thousand other
thoughts from interfering. She still wondered what any of this had to do with
Shane, but she pushed that thought aside and tried to concentrate. She felt the
sensation of something rushing past her, as though a tornado was ahead of her,
several feet in the distance, moving things sideways. It scared her a little.

“So you see it?” Rachel asked.

“It’s moving,” Eliza replied.

“That’s it. Now. Slowly, move toward it. Keep going until
you’re right next to it.”

Eliza felt the skin on her neck begin to crawl. The movement
in front of her was growing, quickly becoming something that heightened her
fear.

“Don’t be scared,” Rachel said. “Wait for a bit. Watch it.
When you’re ready, jump in.”

“Jump in?” Eliza replied. “You’ve got to be kidding!”

“It’s fine, trust me,” Rachel said. “I’m already there.”

Eliza resisted the temptation to open her eyes, and instead
tried to make out the images that were flashing past. It was a whirlwind of
movement, and all of her senses told her to stay back, to remain safe.

“It’ll slow down once you enter it,” Rachel said. “Don’t be
afraid.”

Eliza felt herself moving forward, and as she made contact
with it, it sucked her in, pulling her into its motion. For a second she felt
as if she’d stepped on a moving carnival ride; as she took a look around her,
she could see Rachel sitting across from her, tamping out her cigarette.

So what was that?
Eliza asked.

You’re in The River now,
Rachel replied.
You did it! This is what I was
talking about.

Eliza turned to look around, feeling herself slowly detaching
from her body. It unnerved her, and she tried to return.

Don’t worry about that,
Rachel said.
Just don’t go too far from your body,
at first.

Eliza drifted up, rising a few feet from the ground, looking
down at Rachel.
I don’t get it,
she said.
What’s the point of this?

We’ll, it’s pretty fucking cool, for one thing,
Rachel replied.

What does it have to do with Shane?

Come back down,
Rachel said, reaching into her purse. She removed a small
item and sat it on the table between them.

Eliza drifted back to her body and looked at what Rachel had
placed on the table. It looked like a wooden block, about two inches high.
There were intricate miniature carvings on the sides, and a hole that ran
through the middle of it.

May I?
Eliza asked, reaching for it.

Sure,
Rachel replied.

Eliza held the item to her face. The carvings were beautiful
and detailed, showing scenes of battle. The more she looked into the carvings,
the more she saw; elegant horses and men in armor, holding swords; a catapult,
loaded and ready to fire; hundreds of soldiers, lined in rows, awaiting orders.
A castle on a hill.

What is all this?
she asked, mesmerized by the engravings.

Drop out,
Rachel said.

Drop out?
Eliza asked.
From what?

From The River, dummy!
Rachel replied.
Leave it. Jump back out to normality.

How do I do that?
Eliza asked, still staring at the carvings.

Push it away,
Rachel answered.
Back away from it, the opposite of what
you did to jump in.

Eliza tried, and she felt herself retreating suddenly from
the flow. It appeared as a whirling tornado in front of her once again, and
rapidly shrunk away until she could sense her eyelids, which she opened.