The patch of forest surrounding the Top-Down wasn’t maintained for hiking. There were no paths. The brush grew thick between the trees. And the ground was littered with beer cans and bottles, fast food wrappers, cigarette butts, plastic bags and all manner of trash. Eric even saw a discarded condom lying on the ground. “This is disgusting.”
Holly didn’t disagree. She was tiptoeing around the trash and trying to avoid any weeds that looked even remotely like poison ivy. “I really should’ve changed before I left home.”
“Probably.” He wasn’t exactly dressed for a wilderness excursion, either. He was in his teaching clothes, khakis, a polo shirt and Converses. But at least he was wearing long pants.
He was worried someone would see them. Mostly because he didn’t want to explain to anyone why he, a mild-mannered high school English teacher, seemed to be luring a beautiful young woman barely older than the students in his classroom out into the wilderness behind a seedy bar on the outskirts of town. That was just the sort of attention he could do without. But no one pulled into the parking lot and no one came out of the bar. Within a couple minutes they were deep into the brush and well out of sight. In fact, as the brush grew thicker, it became increasingly difficult to even see each other through the foliage.
Eventually, the litter thinned and the bulk of the trash was behind them. Only a tattered, plastic bag here and the remains of a napkin over there, the things that the wind had blown deep into the trees before they became tangled. And yet even here there could still be found the occasional beer can and bottle, as if someone had gone out of their way just to drop it out here.
Pushing his way through the brush, Eric asked, “So how are your sisters?”
“They’re good,” replied Holly. “They’ve doubled the number of residents at the Wordsley House and they’re starting to talk about expanding the property.”
“That’s good to hear.”
“Del and Clara are a good team.”
They were. Clara took care of the house and provided a home for everyone. Delphinium and the other witches helped locate women in need and made the Wordsley House arguably the safest women’s shelter on the face of the planet. Eric pitied any man foolish enough to walk onto that property with ill intentions.
Holly yelped and then cursed as a cluster of thorns bit into her bare leg.
“You okay?”
“I’m fine. My fault for dressing stupid.”
“Well you look pretty,” he assured her. “It’s just not very practical.”
“I know. My sisters would totally tell me I was asking for it. Oh! That reminds me. Alicia says hi.”
Eric grunted. “Shouldn’t she be over that by now?”
“Apparently not.”
Allicia Vaine was the youngest of Holly’s surviving “sisters.” She took an instant liking to him when they first met and rapidly nurtured it into an awkward crush. She was only seventeen at the time. He taught children who were older than her. Everyone seemed to think it was adorable. Even Karen. Only Eric seemed to find the whole thing embarrassing, which he supposed was what Karen enjoyed so much about it.
Finally, after what felt like at least half an hour of battling the bushes, they came upon a narrow driveway. If they went right, it would doubtlessly lead back to the blue gate. To their left, a structure was just visible through the dense foliage.
“That’s it,” said Holly. “It’s exactly what I saw in the water.”
They walked toward it. As more of it came into view, Eric saw that it was, indeed, a small, bungalow, with a wide porch and dormer windows upstairs. The lawn was so overgrown that it was difficult to tell the yard from the surrounding wilderness and the building was in need of new siding and shingles, but otherwise it looked well-maintained.
There were no cars in the driveway. No one seemed to be around.
They walked up the front steps and stopped at the door. It didn’t look like a very evil place. It was sort of nice, even, except perhaps for the less-than-welcoming barrier at the end of the driveway.
Eric withdrew his phone from his pocket. It was much more awkward with the charger plugged into it, but at least it was charging. He held it up so both he and Holly could see the screen.
THERE’S DEFINITELY SOME KIND OF ENERGY IN THAT PLACE, reported Isabelle.
“What kind of energy?” asked Holly.
I’M NOT SURE, TO BE HONEST. I THINK THERE’S MORE THAN ONE
Eric and Holly glanced at each other. More than one kind of energy? What did that mean?
IT FEELS WRONG THERE
BE CAREFUL
Eric returned the phone and charger to his pocket and glanced around again, uneasy. “Did your spell show you anything inside this place?”
“Nothing. I have no idea what might be in there.”
He nodded. “Okay then. Here we go.” He knocked on the door and waited. When nobody answered, he knocked again. He tried a third time and then peered into the nearest window. He expected the place to be empty, but it appeared to be nicely furnished.
“Do we break in?”
Eric was hesitant to break any windows. If possible, he’d prefer that nobody ever knew they were here. But if her spell was correct, and it usually was, they needed to get inside here.
He tried the knob. Surprisingly, it was open. “What’s the point in all those keep out signs if you aren’t even going to lock your door?”
Holly shrugged. “Don’t complain, I guess.”
But Eric had a bad feeling. Somehow, the unlocked door seemed like a bad sign.
Inside, the bungalow was nice. It looked like the kind of place a nice old lady might live. There were pictures on the walls and cookbooks on the shelf. It was a little dusty, but otherwise very clean.
“Keep your guard up,” he advised as he walked out into the middle of the tidy living room. “You can still do that thrust thing, right?”
“I think so.” She tried the light switch. Several lamps around the room immediately came on. So did a small table fan next to the door. “I mean, I haven’t done it in, like, a year, but I’m pretty sure I still can.”
Holly, like most of her sisters, had learned to cast a short range spell they called “thrusts.” By focusing their magical energy and thrusting it forward, they could essentially send out a magical blast capable of doing physical damage to an enemy. Every witch had a unique one. Some blasted holes like bullets. Some hit with crushing force. Some carried an electrical current. Holly’s was like a knife blade. He’d personally seen it slice imps in half. It was an impressive attack, and also quite frightening.
But she could only use it a few times before it left her physically drained and helpless.
She turned off the fan and began looking around. On the right were two bedrooms. Two full-size beds were neatly made with homemade quilts. There was a clock and telephone in each room, like a hotel.
To the left was a modest bathroom and a third bedroom. At the rear of the house was a dining room and kitchen. The cupboards were stocked with dishes and cookware, the drawers with silverware and cookware. The refrigerator was running, but there was no food inside, only half a case of bottled water. And there was no trash in the trash can.
The place looked ready to live in, but it showed no signs of anyone staying here at the moment. But if no one was using it, why was it left unlocked?
It made no sense.
Holly sneezed.
“Bless you.”
“Thanks.” She sniffled. “It’s a little dusty in here. I don’t think anyone’s been here in a while.”
“I’m not so sure of that. I can’t put my finger on it, but I feel like someone’s been here recently.”
She looked around at the place and began playing with her lip. She did that when she was feeling uneasy, he’d found. “What are we looking for?”
That was a good question. What had he been looking for all day? “Another letter?”
“The little boy from the past?” Karen had told her over the phone what was going on, but she hadn’t elaborated.
“His name was Hector. He had dreams that sometimes came true. And one day he dreamed about me.”
“So he’s like you.”
He glanced over at her. “I guess. Maybe. He’s in trouble. Was in trouble? The whole thing is kind of confusing.”
“Karen said there were agents involved.”
“Looks that way.”
“That’s scary.”
“I know. I need to find the next letter. I was hoping that’s why you brought me here, but what would he be doing here?”
“Maybe he saw you here in one of his dreams.”
“I guess. But why?” He turned and walked back through the bungalow. There were stairs leading up into a loft. A fourth bedroom was up there, but nothing more.
He couldn’t be expected to tear this place apart. If Hector was here in 1962, he wouldn’t have hid it somewhere complicated. But he also had to have hid it where it wouldn’t be found before now.
When he came back down the stairs, he found Holly standing in the middle of the living room, looking uneasy. “There’s something about this place,” she said.
“What kind of something?”
But she only shook her head. “It’s like Isabelle said. Something feels wrong.”
Did it? He couldn’t tell if he was feeling the same thing or if he was simply being spooked by what these girls were telling him.
“Come on. Let’s check the basement. It’s the only part of the house we haven’t seen.”
She wrinkled her nose. “Oh goody.”
He opened the basement door and peered down. The steps were dark, but the basement itself was lit by two windows, one on the east and one on the west side of the bungalow.
“I don’t know, Eric…”
He looked back at her. She was standing with her arms folded in front of her, clutching at her elbows. Her expression was strained.
“I have a bad feeling about this.”
It did seem like a bad idea. A really bad idea. But he started down the stairs anyway, bracing himself for whatever horror might be waiting for them below.
Holly whimpered. “Please be careful,” she whispered.
He glanced back up at her. “You want to wait for me up here?”
She looked around at the empty bungalow and then shook her head and started down after him. “Don’t leave me alone.”
“Okay…” He looked down at the basement floor at the foot of the steps again. Now he was anxious. It probably wasn’t a good sign if the place was giving Holly the creeps. What kind of horrors were awaiting them down there?
He clenched his fists at his side and descended the rest of the steps, his eyes and ears wide open for any sign of danger.
And yet nothing terrifying happened.
The basement was fairly nice, even. It was dry. It was open. There was some junk under the steps, but otherwise there was nothing down here.
But then why did it feel so strangely oppressive in this place?
He could feel it for sure now. Something wasn’t right about this house.
Holly shivered. “I don’t like it here.” She pressed herself against him, hugging his arm. It should’ve been awkward, but he was too preoccupied with whatever it was that was so wrong. It was like there was a weight on his chest, making it hard to breathe.
With Holly clinging to him the whole time, he examined the junk under the stairs. There were three cardboard boxes, an empty, broken chest, a milk crate full of canning jars and an old wardrobe that he eyed carefully as he approached.
He didn’t like wardrobes.
In his experiences, they never led to Narnia. Or anywhere else particularly nice for that matter. But sometimes monsters came out of them.
Against his better judgment, he opened it.
It was empty, which was both an enormous relief and a bit of a letdown, since he therefore still hadn’t found what he came here for.
He started to turn away, but something caught his eye. A small, wooden cabinet was sitting on the floor, sandwiched between the wardrobe and the wall. It was covered in dust and cobwebs, as if it had been there a very long time.
He reached in and slid it out. Then he opened it up. Inside was a dart board.
There were also several sheets of old paper with familiar handwriting.
Hector was here.
He wasted no time. As Holly crowded even closer to him so she could see, he began to read.