The Haunting at Grays Harbor (The River Book 8) (6 page)

“That’s because we decided to follow your advice and drop
it,” Steven lied.

She looked at him with suspicion. “And Aka Manah?”

“We struck a truce,” Steven replied.

“Doesn’t sound like Aka Manah,” she said, squinting her eyes.

“If I hadn’t worked something out, do you think I’d even be
here, talking to you now? I’d be dead, or worse, just as you predicted.”

“That’s true,” she said, tilting her head to the side. Steven
could see she didn’t completely buy his story.

“I’m here on a completely different matter,” Steven said. “I
was hoping you’d loan me something.”

“Loan you something?” she said, sitting more uprightly on her
day bed. “What?”

“We’re having some trouble with a legend shelf, and I was
hoping you’d loan me your device for reading them.”

“What device is that?” she said sweetly.

“The cork trivet,” Steven said, pointing behind himself to
her shelves. “The one that transforms into glass. I’d like to borrow it for a
couple of days.”

“What are you talking about?” Judith said. “Something on my
shelves?”

“Yes,” Steven said, turning to walk toward them. He scanned
the shelves, looking for the trivet Eliza had seen. He spotted it under a metal
pitcher. “May I?” he asked.

“Go ahead,” Judith replied.

He lifted the pitcher with his right hand, feeling a numbness
begin to creep into his skin from the contact. He slid the trivet out from
under it with his left hand, and quickly replaced the pitcher on the shelf. His
fingers on his right hand had gone to sleep, so he shook them.

“I find that I can’t keep that Frozen Well on the bare wood
for long, or the wood rots prematurely,” Edith said. “Hence the trivet you’re
holding.”

Steven looked at the cork trivet. It looked ordinary, like
the kind you’d buy in a three pack from any store. “You mean this isn’t an
object?” he asked.

“No, it’s just a trivet!” she said, beginning to laugh. “You
thought it was something that works with a legend shelf? Oh my, that’s rich!”

Steven turned to replace it, but stopped when he saw the
other objects on her shelves. They were all beautiful and unusual. He noticed a
vase, and under it was an intricately crocheted doily. Under another was a
delicate piece of lace, and another, a beautifully embroidered cloth. Then he
looked at the trivet he was holding.
She’d never use something this ordinary
in this display shelf,
he thought.
She’s fucking with me.

He dropped into the River, and the cork trivet in his hands
turned to glass, emanating a white light.

“Now, that’s rude!” Judith exclaimed as he dropped out of the
flow. “Quite unacceptable. I’d like you to leave immediately!”

“How much?” Steven asked. “For a week, or until I’m done with
it.”

Judith sputtered, huffing and puffing. She looked like she
wanted to leap to her feet, but instead Steven noticed roiling under the
blanket covering her legs.

“I’ll give you a thousand,” Steven said.

“I won’t loan you that!” Judith said. “Put it back, and
leave!”

“You
will
loan it to me,” Steven said, “as an apology
for lying to me.”

“I’ve done no such thing!” she said, indignantly, raising her
nose into the air.

“Another lie,” Steven said. He walked back to Judith, holding
the trivet. “You lied to me about my markings. You have a device here that
could have diagnosed them, but you didn’t share it with me. We both know why.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Judith said,
reaching down to straighten out the blanket on her legs. “It’s pure poppycock!
I have no device like that.”

“I have to confess, I lied to you too,” Steven said. “About
Aka Manah. The reason he’s not a problem for me anymore is that I killed him.”

Judith’s mouth dropped. “You did no such thing!” she said.
“Impossible!”

“Impossible if I had listened to you. All your misdirection.
All of your lies. So listen,” Steven said, walking closer to her, brandishing
the trivet in her face. “I’m going to borrow this, and you’re going to loan it
to me. Got it?”

“Stay away!” she said, and Steven noticed more movement under
the blanket, as though things were retracting away from him as he approached
her, the blanket settling to reveal that nothing was there.

He sat on the day bed next to her and placed his hand on the
blanket a few feet from her body. He could only feel the cushion of the day bed
under it. He let a little of the sensation he felt when he killed the demon
return to his thinking, and heat quickly replaced the feeling of numbness in
his right hand as his markings flared. “If I was able to kill Aka Manah,”
Steven said, “I wonder what else I could do?”

She had pulled back from him as far as the day bed would
allow, a terrified expression on her face. Her mouth moved, but Steven couldn’t
tell what she was saying.

“I can’t hear you,” he said.

Her mouth moved again, but still nothing came out.

“Judith! Speak up!”

“Take it!” she squeaked. “Just take it!”

“It’s a loan,” Steven said. “A thousand dollars. I’ll return
it when I’m done.”

“I don’t want it back,” she said so quietly he could barely
hear her, her eyes wide and her head stretched back as far away from him as she
could position it.

“Well then, you’d need to sell it to me,” Steven said.
“What’s a fair price?”

She looked like she was about to burst into tears. Steven
placed his hand on the back of the day bed, a few feet from her body, and slid
a little toward her. She looked at his hand, his marking, and recoiled.

“Now, now,” Steven said. “You must have known when you
decided to lie to me that this might happen. I realize you’re under an
agreement you can’t break. I don’t know that I hold you responsible for the
death of my son, the way that I held Aka Manah responsible. If that were the
case, you’d already be dead. But since you were so fucking unhelpful with all
of that, I think the least you can do is sell me this object at a fair price.”

“Take it,” he said, recovering her voice. “My gift.”

“No, I want it to be fair. Unlike how you treated me and my
father.”

“Ten thousand?” she asked timidly, afraid of the reply.

“A little steep, don’t you think?”

“Five?”

“Sold!” Steven said. “I’ll send you a check. Sorry, can’t get
that kind of cash from an ATM. I trust that’ll be acceptable?”

“Perfectly acceptable,” she said, forcing a smile.

“Great,” Steven said, standing up and facing her. “I guess
we’re done. I appreciate your cooperation.” He walked to the large double doors
and opened them. Clara was standing just outside the doors, as though she had
been listening. Steven stopped and turned back to Judith.

“And Judith, please, let’s stay on a friendly level going
forward, shall we? Trust me, you don’t want me as an enemy. What they did to
you – I can do far worse.”

He turned and caught Clara’s eye. She was furious, but Steven
just smiled at her. “Go in and check on her,” he said. “She seems upset. Don’t
worry about me — I know my way out.”

“She had it, huh?” Roy asked, holding the trivet Steven
handed to him. He turned it over in his hands, then dropped into the River
briefly to check it out.

“She tried to pass it off as a just a cork trivet,” Steven
said, starting the car and pulling out of the parking space. “I convinced her
to sell it to me. She was resistant until I persuaded her.”

“Damn,” Roy said. “Now I wish I’d have gone in there with
you.”

“You would have enjoyed it,” Steven said, smiling. “It was
real John Wayne.”

“Damn!” Roy said. “I guess I better go with you to the
database kid then, as much as I don’t want to. I wouldn’t want to miss anything
entertaining.”

“We’re much closer to Eximere than to Seattle,” Steven said.
“I think we ought to try this trivet with the legend shelf before we go see
Elliott. I wish I could just email him a picture of the rod, like I did with
Eliza, but he’s far too paranoid for that. When I asked him for his email
address, he just laughed at me.”

“Alright, back to Eximere then,” Roy said. “Let’s hope it’s
still there.”

“Don’t say that,” Steven gulped, uncomfortable at the
thought. He started the car and pulled out of his parking spot, then left Gig
Harbor, hoping he might never need to return.

◊

When they opened the door at the bottom of the stairs, they
were met with total darkness. The light from the stairwell lit a little of the
path to Eximere, but Steven reached for the flashlight he’d brought and turned
it on. Roy did the same.

“Looks like this place is still FUBAR,” Roy said, shining his
light around. “Can’t see shit.”

“Come on,” Steven said, starting down the path. He could hear
Roy grumbling behind him.

“I don’t like being in the dark like this,” Roy said. “Makes
me think the whole place is going to come down. With us inside.”

“We’ll check out the trivet, and if it’s still dark after
that, we’ll head back,” Steven said. The slight snort he heard from Roy told
him he grudgingly agreed with the plan.

As they walked to the steps of the house, the lights suddenly
turned on, at full intensity. Steven raised his hand to shield his eyes, and
turned off his flashlight.

“I guess we’re back in business,” Steven said, walking up the
steps and into the open archway. He sat the plastic bags he’d been carrying on
a small table in the entryway and began pulling out electric lanterns and
candles.

Roy walked around him and down the hallway to the left,
returning within seconds. “Wall’s back!” he said.

Steven left the table and followed Roy to the drawing room.
The western wall had indeed returned, looking normal. Steven pressed his hand
up against the wall, feeling the soft wallpaper against his skin. He turned to
look at Roy.

“What?” Roy asked.

“Any ideas why?” Steven said.

“Nope,” Roy replied, moving to a window. “Your guess is as
good as mine. The landscaping looks fine, too. Hold on, wait a minute…” Roy was
craning his neck, trying to see an angle to the far right, but couldn’t make
things out.

“I’m going to check outside,” Roy said, turning to leave.
Steven followed. They walked to the breezeway, out the back of the house to the
porch and down the steps into the yard. Roy turned left and walked toward the
corner of the yard that he had been trying to see from the window. After fifty
feet they came to a dirt edge. A curved line in the ground delineated their
normal, landscaped back yard from dark ground and rocks with no vegetation.
Steven followed the line and saw that it dissected a tree to his left, neatly
eliminating the right half of it. The left half continued to move slightly in
the gentle breeze that always seemed to inhabit the back yard, but whenever any
part of its branches swayed over the line on the ground, that part disappeared.

“Fucked up worse than Hogan’s billy goat,” Roy said.

“It’s like it moved,” Steven said. “From the side of the
house, to over here.”

“Kinda like how that rod in Barbara’s house moved,” Roy said.

“All of this disruption started the night Sam White used his
machines on her house,” Steven said. “Think they’re related? Is that what
caused the earthquake here?”

“I don’t understand how,” Roy said, “They shouldn’t be
connected. Come on. Let’s try that object on the legend shelf.”

They turned from the barren swath of yard and walked back to
the house, turning the corner to the back yard. As they walked, the overhead
lights dipped once again, leaving them in darkness.

“Shit, didn’t bring the flashlight,” Roy said, stumbling into
Steven.

Steven reached out to grab his father, and caught a glimpse
of light coming from the house. “Look!” he said, pointing to the structure,
where a dim, yellow flicker emanated from an upper room. They stared up at the lit
window, watching as its interior dimmed and returned as though it held a
candle. A figure passed over the window, moving slowly. Steven realized he was holding
his breath.

“Wasn’t that the room where we found James Unser’s body?” Roy
whispered.

“Yes,” Steven whispered back, his eyes glued to the window to
see if the figure might pass by again.

“Look,” Roy said, grabbing Steven and pointing down. Steven
lowered his gaze to the ground at his feet and saw that the grass was gone –
they were standing in dirt.

“It shifted again,” Roy whispered. “Now we’re inside it.”

Steven raised his gaze back up to the window, searching for
the figure. The faint light inside the room cast just enough light into the
yard to illuminate the area in front of them. The dirt area extended ten feet toward
the house from where they stood before the landscaping resumed. He turned to
look behind him, and saw that the banyan tree was gone.

“Come on,” he said to Roy, walking forward to the grass. The
moment his feet left the dirt and stepped onto the lawn, the overhead light
returned.

“That’s better,” Steven said.

“What’s better?” Roy asked, still several steps behind him.

“The light,” Steven said. “You don’t see it?”

“I see the light in that window,” Roy said, pointing up.
“That’s it.”

“Step onto the grass, Dad,” Steven said, and Roy took four
more steps, joining his son.

“Oh!” Roy exclaimed once he was on the lawn.

Steven walked back into the dirt, and was plunged into
darkness. He turned to look at the house, and the upstairs room. It flickered,
and he saw more movement behind the window. The figure had returned. It was
standing still this time, looking down at him. He felt his chest begin to
contract, then a coldness roll up his arms. Before he could say anything, he’d
been pulled by the arm, and the light returned. The coldness began to melt
away.

“You saw her again,” Roy said. “I recognize that look of
agony on your face.”

“She was up in that window,” Steven said, turning to look at
it again, this time from the lawn. There was no figure, just the fluttering of
a drape.

“She’s not there now,” Roy said.

“She’s there,” Steven said. “You can see her if you walk back
onto the dirt.”

Roy released Steven and took a step off the grass, his feet
landing on the hard ground. Immediately he was surrounded by darkness. He
turned and looked at the window, waiting for his eyes to adjust. Once they did,
he waited. No figure came, but the light in the room slowly dimmed until it was
gone, and Roy was left in total blackness.

“Now I can’t see anything,” Roy said, reaching forward,
grasping like a blind man. Steven took hold of his hand and guided him back to
the grass.

“Damndest thing,” Roy said. “It went completely dark on me.
Couldn’t see the room.”

“Hold on,” Steven said. “Wait.” He stepped back onto the
dirt, and the light evaporated. He looked up at the window, seeing the orange
and yellow flickers of the dim light, dancing against the walls of the room. He
waited to see if a figure would appear, but it didn’t. After another half-minute,
he stepped back onto the grass.

“I don’t like this,” Roy said, “all this stepping back and
forth. Who knows what it might be doing to us.”

“Wasn’t a blackout for me,” Steven said. “The room was still
lit. Didn’t see a figure this time, but it was still there.”

“This thing is obviously unstable and moving all over the
place,” Roy said. “I’m not staying the night here.”

“Come on,” Steven said. “Let’s check out the legend shelf and
then we’ll get out of here.”

They walked back into the house, grateful for the
illumination. Steven grabbed the trivet, and they both took their flashlights from
the table in the breezeway and walked to the library, activating the bookcase
and accessing the stairwell to the basement.

Once they’d completed their descent, they walked to the table
containing the legend shelf. Then they both dropped into the River.

Oh, look at that!
Roy said, looking down at the shelf.
It definitely moved!

The yellow area they’d seen earlier near the western end of
the house had shifted further back, correlating to where they’d just seen the
curved line in the yard.

Try the trivet,
Roy said.

Steven held the object, which now looked like a smooth glass
plate, over the legend shelf. The moment he brought it near, his palms began to
burn, and he reacted by dropping the plate. It fell to the floor as he held his
hands in pain.

What happened?
Roy asked.
Are you alright?

My hands,
Steven said.
Where the markings are. They felt like they were on
fire.

Roy dropped out of the flow and picked up the cork trivet
from the floor. He dropped back into the River and held the glass plate over
the legend shelf, looking through it.

I’m not feeling anything,
Roy said.
I’m not seeing anything, either.

Roy dropped back out of the River, and Steven joined him.

“I’m not sure it works,” Roy said.

“Something about it works,” Steven said, still holding his
hands. “And apparently I can’t use it.”

“Maybe you have to have a certain skill to see through it?”
Roy asked, examining the edges of the trivet for anything unusual.

Steven walked around the table, looking for anything on the
legend shelf that might offer a clue to the trivet’s use.

“Dad,” he said, pointing to the back of the slate. Roy walked
around to join him, and saw a thin slit in the back of the shelf, about the
length of the glass plate. “I think it goes in there.” They dropped back into
the River, and Roy raised the plate to the slit, sliding it in gently until it
disappeared, like a CD player sucking in a disc.

All of the lights on the legend shelf went dark. Steven
panicked, thinking they might have broken the device. Instead, they heard a
light humming coming from inside it. After a minute passed, an edge of the
glass appeared out of the slit, and the lights returned to the top of the
shelf.

“Now it looks like glass, outside of the River,” Roy said.
“Should I take it?”

“I guess so?” Steven said back, unsure.

Roy delicately grabbed the edge of the glass plate and pulled.
It slid from the slit, and as it emerged, they saw that it had become opaque.
He held it up for Steven to see.

“It’s warm,” Roy said.

“Can you see anything in it?” Steven asked.

Roy turned it over in his hands. The plate looked as though a
cloudy white liquid had been baked into the glass. “Nope,” Roy said.

“Well, what do we do now?” Steven asked.

“I don’t know,” Roy said. “Maybe we should have asked Eliza
for more directions.”

He handed it to Steven, who took it and turned it over in his
hands. “You’re right, it’s warm. Doesn’t hurt,” Steven said, examining it, a
little skittish that the searing hot pain might return to his palms.

“Great, it’s an Easy Bake oven,” Roy said. “And about as
useless.”

As Steven held the plate, he began to see movement. He
stopped turning it over, and held it still – the baked-in swirls of white began
to move and twist inside the glass. “Whoa,” he said. “It’s not done.”

“Maybe you should…” Roy began, but stopped as he saw the
plate begin to grow in Steven’s hand.

Steven placed the plate on the floor and stood back. They
watched as it slowly grew in size, and the colors of the fluid inside it
shifted. When it grew past two feet in diameter, Steven and Roy took another
step back.

“It’ll stop at some point, right?” Steven asked.

“How should I know?” Roy replied.

As it continued to widen, it also became thicker. It crossed
three feet in diameter and the edges of the disc rose up off the ground, nearly
ten inches. It began to bump into the legs of the table holding the legend
shelf.