The Dead House

For several long minutes, Ari keeps guard at the door while Kaitlyn sits over John’s body, her whole frame a small, sunken heap. She is shaking.

“We need to do something,” Ari says quietly. He is hoarse. “Kait. We need to get rid of the body.”

Kaitlyn doesn’t stir.

“His body,” Ari says slowly. “We need to get rid of it.”

“I didn’t… mean to—”

“Kaitlyn. If they find him and see that knife—and your hand? They’ll lock you away for life.”

“Maybe they should.”

“Stop that. We’ll take him to the chapel. To the Forgotten Garden. We’ll bury him there with the graves. It’s more than five hours until sunup. We’ll make it.”

“I’m a… I stabbed…” Her words slur, and she begins to mumble incoherently.

Ari walks over to her and slaps her, hard. Her head is flung back with the impact, and she expels a tiny squeak.

“We—need—to—get—rid—of—the—body.” Ari enunciates each word. “The Forgotten Garden. We’ll bury him. I need your help.”

Kaitlyn peers up at him through her tears and nods. “The Forgotten Garden… okay.”

Ari helps her to her feet, and then they each grab one end of John; Kaitlyn takes his feet but drops them soon after, her arms shaking. It takes them five minutes to climb the stairs, Ari dragging most of John’s weight, at which point the motion-activated camera clicks off.

[END OF CLIP]





103




Diary of Kaitlyn Johnson

Date, Time, and Location Not Noted



The smell is evolving—is that bad?

I closed my eyes to shut out the memories of my life, which now includes the hardest heartache ever experienced. I fell into sleep—sleep that still feels like falling. I fell into the dark, felt vaguely the moment when Ari left me to go to his dorm and clean John’s grave dirt from under his fingernails, and then I was fully asleep and in the Dead House, and all was silent. I sensed its emptiness like a weight—knew I was alone. Whatever darkness lingered before had now moved on.

Or maybe it only slumbered.

Or maybe it’s so much a part of me now that I can no longer distinguish it.

But the smell—that old mildew scent—had changed, deepened, turned into something like fine musk, and I liked it.

This was it, I knew. For if the house was empty, or sleeping, I had a chance to find the door.

Knowing that John was the Shyan didn’t make this easier, but at least it cleared the path. For, without the Shyan to lead and contain it, surely the Olen would subside into the fabric from which it had come. The fabric of time and space and a universe I could never understand.

I was angry not to have fought harder to locate Carly while she was still there, still a part of me. But if I could find the doorway that Haji spoke of, the one Carly had been dragged through, then I could go beyond and have a chance of finding her—maybe we were still linked by some invisible thread. The thread we had always taken for granted.

I tried not to dwell too hard on the thought that, if the Dead House was my mind, and I found the door… was I then going out of my mind? An unwelcome sensation like cold water trickling down my back and into my shoes came over me. But I had to go.

I wish you had been with me, Dee. You know, you and Ari are now my sole comforts.

I searched and searched, quietly at first. Haji had said we’d know the door when we found it. But I didn’t find it. On the ground level, I roamed rotting parlor, abandoned hall, decrepit foyer, and endless galleries. Upstairs, I searched each sweeping bedroom, which stood empty and uninviting; the leaves shuffled and whispered across the floor under the tread of my boots. I ventured up another level and found the attic, but a sign of any door that did not belong? Nothing.

Then, at last, down to the basement, at last, down to the basement, the only place I hadn’t yet searched. I stood at the door, pressed my ear against it, and there inside, I heard the dreadful sound of some large beast sleeping.

I didn’t understand. Why was it still there?

I strained to feel around the thing, hoping I might sense whether he was guarding something. Guarding the door. But I didn’t feel anything beyond the giant’s sleeping form. What shape it took, I have no idea, but as I was going to suck in my courage and slowly open the door—possibly creep around whatever lay there—a sensation of someone watching overcame me so suddenly that I turned.

And there she was. The dead girl, grinning at me as always, only her grin was sad and empty and more… sympathetic. But she was fading, Dee, as though some omniscient artist was erasing her in front of my eyes. And she was still dripping wet.

And that was when I knew what she had always been trying to tell me.

The Dead Sea.

The door.

The exit.