The Impossible Coin (The Downwinders Book 2) (6 page)

With tickets in hand they waited
for the first tour to start, sitting on one of a dozen benches arranged around
the yard of the estate. It was nearly 10am and already eighty degrees.

“Here’s the plan, OK, kiddo?”
Marty said. “We’ll go in separately so people don’t think we’re together. If
the tour guide thinks you’re my kid, they’ll wonder why I’m alone at the end of
the tour. You stay near the back of the group. If the tour is like the last one
I went on, we’ll pass the entrance to the kitchen after the fourth or fifth
room. There’s a velvet rope in front of the entrance; they only let people look
in, not go in. Once everyone has passed by it and the group has moved into the
next room, I’ll ask the tour guide a question, to distract them. You hop that
velvet rope when I do, and find a place to hide in the kitchen until you’re
sure you’re alone.”

Winn was nearly shaking with
excitement. “Then what?” he asked.

“You’ll have about fifteen or
twenty minutes until the next group comes along,” Marty said. “It’s not like
you need to sit right in the middle of the room to talk to him. Stay in your
hiding place and drop into the River, see if you can make contact with him. From
what I’ve heard, it shouldn’t be hard.”

“What happens if another tour
group comes by?” Winn asked.

“Stay hidden,” Marty said. “Try to
find a spot that’s out of sight of the entrance. No one goes into that room.
You’ll be fine as long as you can’t be seen from that doorway. And be as quiet
as you can.”

“What if a tour guide finds me?”
Winn asked, suddenly alarmed.

“That’s easy,” Marty said. “All
you need to do is act scared, and say something frightened you, and you were
hiding because you didn’t know what else to do. Every tour guide in there knows
how haunted the kitchen is, so they won’t be surprised. They’ll just move you
along. I’ll wait right here on this bench until you come out.”

“What if they arrest me?”

Marty laughed. “You’re eleven.
They’re not going to arrest you. The worst that can happen is they’ll kick you
out, or want to call your parents. If it comes to that, tell them I’m your
uncle and the one who brought you today, and that we got separated somehow.
They won’t do more than return you to me. And if you don’t come out within
twenty minutes, I’ll go back in, pretending I’ve lost you.”

Winn sighed.

Marty checked his watch. “Five
minutes,” he said, noticing how nervous Winn looked. “This is kind of exciting,
isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Winn said. “I hope I don’t
throw up.”

“Yeah, not that exciting.”

A queue of people began to form at
the front door to the mansion, and Marty suggested they get in line. “You queue
up first, and I’ll get in line a couple of people behind you.”

“What if they ask where my parents
are?” Winn asked.

“Don’t tell them about me unless
you get caught and have to. If they ask casually, tell them you’re here on your
own, your teacher assigned you to write about the mansion and your parents
couldn’t make it.”

“Oh, good idea,” Winn said. He
stepped into line behind an elderly woman and her younger daughter. Marty
waited until a couple of people had queued up behind Winn, then he got in line,
too.

The tour guide was an older man
with a moustache. He herded the group of about thirty people into the first
room of the house, which was a large entryway with a huge staircase. Once everyone
was inside, he began to speak. He used a lot of big words, and Winn found
himself tuning out almost immediately. He looked around the entryway at the
dark wood paneling and up at a giant chandelier made out of deer horns. He
guessed there must be at least two or three hundred dead deer represented in
the light fixture. The room was large, and it made him feel a little dizzy. He
was used to the confines of his mom’s trailer, and his school. He’d never been
in a house as big or as fancy as this.

He searched for Marty and saw him
standing at the other end of the group, listening intently to the tour guide
speak.
He’s playing his part,
Winn thought.
Got to play mine.
Winn
turned toward the tour guide and pretended to listen, but after a sentence or
two, the big words he didn’t understand made his mind wander. He thought about
the kitchen.

The tour guide moved the group
into the next room, which he called the study. There were a lot of books on
shelves, and plenty of places to sit. Just as Winn was about to plop down on
one of the chairs, the tour guide asked that no one touch anything in the room.

The tour guide began to go into
the history of Rupert McGraves, and Winn found himself forming a mental picture
of the man as a tall, white, handsome figure with a goatee and long, flowing
hair. As the guide described his silver mines, Winn imagined McGraves strolling
through the caves, barking orders to his workers and inspecting the ore. He was
an imposing, authoritative figure, and Winn felt drawn to him almost
immediately. He wondered what it would be like to have had McGraves as a
father.

The group moved into the next
room, which contained an old pool table. The walls were lined with portraits,
and the tour guide began describing the people in the paintings. None of them
were of McGraves, however. The tour guide said that McGraves liked to
commission paintings of his routine houseguests. Winn lost interest again, and
began fantasizing what it would have been like to have had a rich, handsome
businessman like McGraves as a father. He imagined living in the mansion, and
going on expeditions with his dad, looking for more silver mines to help
increase the family fortune. Since they’d be rich, his mother wouldn’t have to
work at the lounge, and since she’d be married to McGraves, she wouldn’t need
to bring home men. The only downside Winn could see to this scenario was that
they didn’t have PS2s in 1890.

“As we make our way to the dining
room, we’ll pass by the kitchen,” the tour guide said, catching Winn’s
attention. The tour guide used his fingers to press down on his moustache as he
talked, stroking it gently. “We don’t currently allow guests into the kitchen,
so I want you to poke your head into the open doorway and take a quick peek at
it as we go by. It was a large kitchen, outfitted with every convenience
available in 1905. None of the appliances remain, so aside from how large the
kitchen is, you’ll notice the lovely white tile and the inlaid woodwork in the
ceiling. Our next stop is the dining room, so please follow me.”

Alright, time to do it,
Winn thought as the crowd around him began to move forward. There was a buildup
of people waiting to look into the kitchen doorway. He hung back and waited
until the line had dwindled, then he stepped up to the velvet rope and looked
in.

It was a stark, empty room,
completely white except for the ceiling. Lying right in the middle of the floor,
in a pool of red blood, was a man. There was a knife sticking out of his chest.
Winn sucked in air and held it, afraid he might scream. Had none of these
people seen the murdered man lying in the kitchen? How was he supposed to sneak
into the room with a dead person lying right in front of him? Winn watched as
the pool of blood slowly expanded, the dark red marking a stark contrast to the
white tiles.

He glanced to his left, seeing the
last of the crowd move into the next room. He heard Marty speaking, asking the
tour guide something.

Now,
he thought.
Do it
now. Jump the rope and go in.

He couldn’t get his legs to move.
His eyes remained fixed on the corpse on the floor and the pool of dark red
blood surrounding it.
That can’t be McGraves,
he thought. This man was
short and fat; nothing like the tall and handsome silver baron he’d imagined.
He could hear Marty talking in the background, and he knew he needed to move,
to act, to jump the rope and find a place to hide inside the kitchen, in there
with the man.

The corpse sat up.

Winn jumped back from the rope,
his eyes wide with horror. He could hear his heartbeat, pounding in his ears,
drowning out the sound of Marty’s voice in the next room. He tried to look
away, but he couldn’t tear his eyes from the sight of the huge knife buried in
the man’s chest, and the dark red blood that soaked his shirt. He saw something
dripping from the back of the man’s head, where his hair had been lying in the
pool of blood.

The corpse turned to look at him.

Winn felt frozen. He didn’t know
what to do. What he wanted most to do was run away and join the others in the
tour group, but if he did that, he’d blow their plan. Then again, the plan
Marty had laid out hadn’t said anything about a corpse in the kitchen, looking
at him.

He knew he needed to step over the
rope and find a place to hide, and that if he didn’t do it soon, he’d be
discovered. He lowered his gaze from the corpse, and looked at the velvet rope.
Since it was waist high for an adult, he decided instead to slide under it.

Now!
he thought, and
bolted, finding that he slid on the slick surface of the kitchen floor as his
knees hit the ground and he ducked under the rope. For a moment he was afraid
he’d keep sliding right into the corpse and get his pants soaked with blood. He
reached forward to stop his movement, and stood. The corpse was about five feet
from him, straight ahead. Now that he’d entered the room, he could see how wide
it was. A white wooden door was about ten feet to his left. He ran to it and
tried the handle. It opened, revealing a small pantry, no bigger than the size
of a small bed. It was empty except for a set of metal shelves. He looked for a
light switch, but couldn’t find one. He walked inside and before he pulled the
door closed, he tried to see the doorway he’d entered the kitchen through, and
couldn’t.
I’m out of its line of sight,
he thought.
No one will see
me here
. He sat down on the cold floor of the pantry, leaving the door open
so light would come in. Then he returned his attention to the corpse.

It had turned to look at him,
sitting in the pantry. He watched as a broad smile spread across its face. It leaned
forward in his direction and reached for the ground, placing its palms flat on
the floor, dragging itself toward him, driving the knife in its chest deeper
into its body.

Winn suddenly felt trapped. There
was nowhere to go in the pantry, no escape except through the door he’d just
entered, and he was afraid if he left the pantry he might be seen from the
kitchen door.

The corpse slowly pulled itself toward
him, trailing a streak of dark blood on the white floor. Winn panicked and
reached up to the pantry door handle, pulling the door closed and leaving
himself in darkness.

After a few moments his eyes
adjusted, and he saw a crack of light under the door. He could hear the sound
of the knife handle scraping along the kitchen floor as the corpse continued to
move. He felt his breathing increase, and felt sweat on his palms.

When he saw the light under the
door darken, he knew the corpse had reached him, and he held his hands over his
mouth to stop himself from screaming. When it passed through the door and he
saw the face and head of the corpse emerge into the room with him, a sound
emerged from his throat, and he struggled to stop it. With his back up against
the wall of the pantry, he couldn’t think of anything else to do, so he dropped
into the River.

Careful,
the corpse said to
him, still pulling itself forward, half of its body now in the pantry with him.
If those bastards hear you, they’ll haul you out of here. And then we wouldn’t
be able to have a nice visit.

Winn kept his hands pressed over
his mouth. In the River he could see more of the corpse and the blade that he’d
driven almost all the way through his body by crawling on the floor.

Want to see it?
the corpse
said. It stopped dragging forward and pushed itself up using its left arm. With
its right, it reached under its chest and pulled the knife out. It immediately
whipped the knife toward Winn, holding it inches from his face.

I should cut you little Academy
pricks up into a hundred pieces!
the corpse said.

Academy?
Winn thought,
unsure if the corpse could hear him or not.

McGraves paused and pulled the
knife back from Winn’s face.
You’re not from the Academy?

I don’t know what you’re
talking about,
Winn thought, petrified.

McGraves pulled his feet up under
him and sat, leaning his torso against the side of the pantry. Winn watched as
more blood oozed from the wound in his chest and began to form a new puddle.

Some bitch up in Sedona likes
to send her students down here to meet with me, like I’m a field trip or some
kind of fucking test they have to pass,
McGraves said.
Asking all kinds
of goddamn questions. I’m sick to the neck of it.

You thought I was here for a
test?
Winn thought.
From an Academy?

You’re about the right goddamn age,
McGraves said,
and you’re obviously gifted. So yes, I assumed. But you’re
not, are you?

No, I’m not,
Winn said,
relaxing a little.

Did you find it terrifying?
McGraves asked.

What?
Winn asked.

The sitting up, the blood, the
knife, all that?

Yes, I was horrified,
Winn
said.
I’m still horrified.

Excellent. You’ll be my test
subject. If it works, I’ll use it next time one of them fucking pricks shows
up. I don’t like being used, especially by some enterprising bitch who’s making
money off gifteds. I’d rather spend my time trying to lift the jewelry off the goddamn
patsies out there in the tour. The metals they have these days, my god, they’re
fucking astounding.