Just like that.
Except the quiet dissolved into a horrible, black storm above them when the spirits of the house noticed Dhaval, kneeling on the grass and beckoning to them with eyes so full of courage and confidence that Delilah let her legs give out, tumbling with Gavin onto the grass and wrapping her arms around his wildly jerking shoulders.
“Stay with me,” she whispered into his ear. “Stay with me, okay?”
He nodded, wordless still, and pressed his face to the damp skin of her neck, taking these huge, gulping breaths. Delilah had no idea what happened now. The lawn was dead and brittle beneath their knees. The trees were cracking in the wind. There was no fruit, no sense of family here. And none of this might work in the end. Delilah, Vani, Dhaval, and Gavin could anger these specters, bring them all out here into a furious storm of evil in the yard, and still they could fail.
Looking at Gavin, Delilah knew it was likely for all of them to die out here.
It was such a profoundly calm thought: We could die right now. The phantoms seemed torn—did they stay near Gavin or go to Dhaval?—but they could easily uproot a tree, crash down the house, open up the lawn into a yawning, jagged chasm and swallow them all.
The ground shook beneath them, and inside the house was an unending series of crashes: walls falling, furniture hurling, windows shattering inward as the spirits left and pooled in the air outside.
It was impossible to focus on only one of the hundreds of blurry spots in the sky, the ripples of glassy heat. But she could feel them, not just swirling but churning, screaming above her in a terrifying roar.
Not twenty feet from where she bent over Gavin’s huddled body, Vani and Dhaval kneeled, arms around each other as they yelled and pleaded for these spirits to be taken back.
It was impossibly loud. Their urgent prayers. The poltergeists screaming and drumming above them in trees. The crumbling frame of the house.
Movement caught her eye, behind the swarm of terrors around her and inside the house: arms frantic, hands slamming to glass, mouth open in a silent scream.
A woman. It was a woman standing at the window, screaming.
Delilah cried out, pushing up onto her knees. Beside her Gavin let out a low groan.
It was a trap.
It wasn’t real.
But if it was
if it was
if it was
Gavin would never forgive himself for leaving without her.
Stumbling to her feet, Delilah laid Gavin down on the grass.
“Lilah,” he gasped. “Don’t go back in there—”
But she was already charging back inside, holding her arms in front of her face to block the assault of debris and dust and dark, rotting earth. The kitchen had begun to cave, and she leaped over a wide crack in the floor, barreling down the hall toward the foyer. The stairs were a crumbling, slanting mess, and Delilah had to use the ax to grip at the rubble. Wood and glass tore at her clothes, her skin, her hair, and once she reached the top of the pile, Delilah gulped down a huge lungful of chalky air to stave off the panic at having no idea where she was inside the house.
“Hilary! Call out to me!” she screamed.
A thud sounded from the back of the house, deep at the end of the hallway. It could have been someone throwing something against a wall. Or, from the looks of the deteriorating house, it could just as easily have been something falling from a wall or through the attic floor. It could have been a room falling to pieces. But only seconds later, Delilah heard a thin, terrified wail. Without listening for more, Delilah sprinted over shattered wood and plaster, slamming against a wall and pounding at it with the ax.