Chapter Nine
Katherine’s heart leapt into the base of her throat as she whirled around in the direction of the voice. The door to the cabin had gone from ajar to fully open, and the interior of the cabin was filled with subtle light provided by a series of small candles positioned about the room. Katherine remembered how James had filled his small office in the house with candlelight from time to time. Many nights she had found him there, asleep at his keyboard or slumped over his journal, surrounded by slowly dying candles.
Melted wax had haunted her dreams ever since. Visions of James standing over her while she slept—a slowly burning candle clutched in his hands, the hot wax dripping over and burning her skin—had become a nightmare staple since his disappearance.
You’re hurting me, James.
I would never hurt you, Katherine.
It burns, the pain is—
The pain sets you free, my love. It’s what makes you alive.
With a subtle tilt of his hand, the wax dripped free, summoning her screams as James leaned closer, his face twisted into an expression of confusion and desperation. He raised the candle higher, and the wax began to drip across her face, scalding first her chin, then her mouth, cheeks and nose.
Not my eyes!
And then her eyes too were burned shut in darkness, the wax splashing and hardening over her lids.
A new skin, Katherine. Rebirth, do you understand?
Her muffled cries for help and a painful tightness in her chest made breathing nearly impossible, until she came awake each time with a start, gasping for breath and feeling her eyes to make sure they were still intact, a scream strangled deep in her throat.
Katherine blinked and pawed furiously at her eyes. Not wax, only snow, only snow.
She brushed the flakes from her face with her free hand, sweeping the dream memories away with them, and clutched the shotgun tighter with the other.
There was still no sign of the man, the little girl or anyone else, but someone had called her name, she was sure of it.
With the shotgun now held in both hands, she moved toward the cabin. Behind her, the wind grew stronger, blowing the powder about more violently and cutting through the nearby trees.
Just steps from the doorway she called out. “Hello?” Shadows moved beyond the threshold but no answer came. “Hello!” she called again. “Whoever’s in there, I want you out here right now! You’re trespassing! I have a gun!”
When again no response came, Katherine forced herself to cross the threshold and step into the cabin.
The stranger stood in the corner, watching her. Sitting on the edge of an old stripped down bed against the far wall was the little girl. Sans jacket, she was clad in a crimson velvet dress with white lace that seemed oddly formal under the circumstances. Golden hair hung to her narrow shoulders and her fair skin was tinted flush from the cold. Her eyes were gray and obviously sightless, yet they were trained directly on Katherine.
Unable to look away from the child, Katherine struggled to control her fear. “Why didn’t you tell me she was…that she… Are you all right, sweetheart?”
The little girl’s pale lips formed a grin.
With the shotgun shaking in her hands, Katherine eyed the man with increased confusion and stepped back a bit, closer to the storm. “Who are you people?”
The man, still in the corner, simply bowed his head.
“How did you get in here?” she demanded.
The man’s eyes slid shut and his chest moved with a shallow rhythm indicative of sleep.
“Where’s your mother?” Katherine asked the girl.
The child cocked her head like a baffled puppy, and in a tiny voice said, “Mother?”
“Yes, your—your mother, where is she?”
She grinned again, her bleak eyes staring and seeing nothing, yet burrowing straight through to whatever scraps of soul Katherine still possessed.
“Do you know where your mother is?”
The little girl’s grin slowly faded. “James.”
Her husband’s name hung in the air between them like a foul odor.
The cold racked her so violently Katherine’s upper body convulsed and she nearly dropped the weapon. “What did—what did you say?”
“James.”
Katherine felt herself slowly backing away from the child. “You know my husband?”
“James is our mother.”
A burst of laughter escaped her before she could stop it. The sensation that she was cracking—shattering from the inside out—tore through her. “What did you—what are you talking about?”
“James is our mother.”
“Stop saying that!” Katherine’s body continued to quake with swells of terror and cold. “James is no one’s mother!”
Confusion creased the little girl’s face; a frown that indicated focused thought, but after a few seconds her expression revealed she had found the answer she’d so clearly been searching for. “Our father then?”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Katherine swung the shotgun around and aimed it at the man in the corner. “What is she talking about?”
In time with her trembling, the man’s body began to shudder violently, and an odd splitting, squishing sound emanated from somewhere within his thrashing frame. Water, perhaps melted snow, formed a small pool around his feet.
“Don’t be afraid,” the little girl said, indicating the man as her vacant eyes blinked slowly. “You’ll understand soon.”
“What’s happening here, what’s—”
“James says you can’t leave.”
“Who told you that?” Katherine’s eyes darted back to the girl but she kept the gun trained on the monstrosity in the corner. “Who told you to say these things?”
“James says you can’t leave. You only think you can.”
Katherine bit her lower lip, felt the weight and power of the shotgun in her hands. “You’re trespassing,” she said to the man, “and you’ve broken into this cabin, so we can add breaking and entering to the charges as well. Now answer me or I’ll call the police and you can explain yourself to them.”
The little girl smiled, amused.
Katherine took a step closer to the man. “I’ll pull this trigger, you sonofabitch, don’t think I won’t.” She shook the barrel of the shotgun in his direction to emphasize the danger it posed, but the man remained silent. “Do you have any idea what this would do to you at such a close range? Answer me, or so help me God we’re going to find out. What is she talking about?”
“You have to stay,” the little girl answered for him. “Here, with us.”
“Answer me, goddamn it! What is she talking about?”
“You have to stay,” she said again.
Katherine looked back at her. “What happened to your eyes?” she whispered. “What has he done to your eyes?”
Don’t look at me, James called to her from the past. Don’t look at me.
“No,” Katherine said, answering herself. “No, this—this can’t be.”
“Stay with us.” The little girl opened her arms. “Here, with all of us.”
“Where is he?” she demanded. “He—James isn’t here, he isn’t here!”
“But you know he is. He’s right in front of you. He’s all around us.”
Katherine turned and bolted into the cold, the world tilting and blurred as she ran through curtains of snow, her mind racing for solutions, explanations, anything that might make sense of this nightmare.
Nightmares can kill, James had once told her, running his hands over his scalp as if fascinated by the skull beneath it. Madness, bad dreams—it’s all the same. I never knew, I didn’t believe it, but it’s true, Katherine, it’s true. I can make them one.
As she ran with all her might, Katherine’s vision distorted, and her heart beat with frightening power. Darting through the snow, she didn’t take the time to consider in which direction she had headed. Staggering forward, her foot snagged on something just beneath the snow, and she tumbled into midair, landing several feet away and crashing into a large drift with tremendous force. Her body smashed through it and slid headlong into the blinding storm. She did her best to roll through the fall but the impact caused the shotgun to leave her hands. Most of the air in her lungs followed, exiting her body in a single rush.
Lost in the whiteout, the frenzied sensation of suffocating, of not being able to draw even a single breath, was the last thing she remembered before her head slapped the frozen ground.
The snow turned black and Katherine felt herself falling away into nothingness while James, his breath hot in her ear, whispered prayers she hadn’t heard in years.
Pray the Lord your soul to keep, Katherine. Pray the Lord your soul to keep.