August 1, 1945
Blake wrapped his arms around Dixie’s waist, and she saw him close his eyes as Bindi struggled to take her last breath. Holland’s eyes were hollow, void of any sign that he truly loved the girl. And then the kicking and gurgling stopped, and Holland’s hands left Bindi’s throat. An immense emptiness took over inside of Dixie. Her heart was beating so loud she could hear it as blood surged through her ears and made her head throb. She’d never witnessed someone’s death before, but this was worse than just seeing someone die. She’d grown attached to Bindi. She’d learned about her life and let the girl into her heart.
What she’d just witnessed was the murder of someone she’d come to love, and as her knees gave out, she crumbled to the floor in front of Blake. No one else moved. Everyone seemed to be taken aback by the violent act they’d just seen. Holland was sitting next to Bindi’s body, staring off into space looking more lost than ever.
Dixie crawled over to Bindi’s body, knowing the crazy person who’d just taken her life couldn’t see her. She ran her fingers over Bindi’s delicate caramel skin and then began to sob into the mattress. She’d known all along this was going to happen. She should have been prepared to see it, but Bindi had just been a kid and her life had been stolen before she’d had a chance to right the grim circumstances she’d lived under.
Maybe it was morbid curiosity, but when Dixie managed to pull herself together, she glared up at Holland, wondering what he felt in those moments directly after he’d murdered the beautiful girl he’d professed to love. Sitting this close to him, she was shocked by how handsome he was. Before when he’d appeared, either as an apparition or during their time travel, Dixie hadn’t paid much attention to him. She loathed him, there was no reason to let her eyes fall upon him more than necessary.
However, his skin was smooth, and he still had the rounded cheeks of a child. Only the stubble on his chin made him appear to be older than a teenager. His eyes were large and round and his Roman nose perfectly placed among his well-formed features. How could someone so beautiful be such a horrible person?
Dixie jumped back toward Blake when Holland stood and inhaled deeply as though he’d only just realized that Bindi was dead. He gripped his chest and tears began to flow down his cheek as he paced the floor near her body. “Oh no… oh no… get up, Bindi… what have I done?”
Dixie glanced over to the closed door on the other side of the room and thought about Amelia. If what she’d written in Bindi’s diary was true, then she was huddled behind those walls listening to all that had transpired. And then, as though he’d seen Dixie, Holland glanced at the door too, and Dixie shuddered, suddenly afraid he would barge in and find Amelia hiding there.
Holland didn’t charge toward the room, though. Instead, he used the heel of his hands to wipe the tears from his cheeks and then stormed out.
Blake grabbed Dixie’s arms and pulled her to him, wrapping her in his embrace. “Let’s get out of here.”
Lathan and Emily said nothing, their eyes were still glued on Bindi’s lifeless body.
“No way. We aren’t leaving yet.”
Emily reached for Dixie and rubbed her arm, then in a burst of breath said, “How are we going to get out of here?”
“Bindi said she’d take care of it,” Dixie offered, not fully sure they’d ever see the new millennium again.
Inside Blake’s embrace, Dixie felt a little stronger. She reminded herself that she’d known all along what Bindi’s fate would be, but she kept her face pointed toward the back of the room, fearful of looking upon Bindi’s still beautiful corpse and falling apart again.
“Maybe just touching Bindi will get us all back home again,” Lathan offered. He swallowed hard between words.
“I don’t want to go back yet. Not until we see what Holland’s up to.” Dixie let go of Blake and peered over her shoulder at the dead girl despite her mind’s command that she stay focused elsewhere.
“It looks to me like he just split.” Blake ran his fingers through his hair and offered a forced smile.
“I don’t think so,” Emily chimed in as noise from downstairs interrupted her.
Holland’s voice grew nearer, but it sounded like he stopped ever so often to yell again. “Everyone out!”
The third time he issued this edict, Amelia opened the door to the tiny room in the back. She moved past them and toward the bed where Bindi lay, apparently unaware of their presence. A whimper escaped her throat and tears began to trail down her alabaster skin as she got closer to Bindi.
“No,” she whispered.
Dixie wished once more that Bindi hadn’t been the only one capable of seeing them. She wanted to comfort the girl and warn her that Holland was on his way back to the room. She didn’t need to tell Amelia of the man’s return, however, because he was making an awful racket on the landing outside of the door.
“You too, Miss Millie. I want everyone out.”
Amelia jumped up and ducked behind a steam trunk in the corner. As the girl pulled a blanket over her head, Dixie realized it was the same trunk she and Blake had found in the room a few weeks before.
Several moments later, Holland kicked open the door, carrying a sledge hammer and bucket. Dixie jumped out of his way as he headed for the wall where the fireplace stood. Dixie couldn’t stand to watch what the man was doing. She had to force herself to witness his actions because she knew later she’d regret not seeing it for herself. She already knew he was going to tear down the existing wall and entomb the girl she now considered a friend, but something inside her needed to see him do it.
There was no preventing what he intended to do. In horror, she and her three companions watched while Holland manically tore brick after brick from the wall. Having made a spot large enough, he heaved Bindi onto his shoulder and then tossed her body into the hollow wall.
Dixie and Emily reached for each other and held hands as they suffered through Holland sealing Bindi away. Dixie couldn’t remember feeling more helpless. The knot in her stomach rolled with the waves of nausea that made sweat bead at her temples. If Bindi hadn’t made her almost non-existent in this realm, she would have thrown herself at Holland screaming and kicking until he relented. Who cared if it would have changed the future? At the very least, Bindi deserved a proper burial, and watching him desecrate her was heart-breaking.
Those thoughts were all just a fantasy, though, and Bindi was bricked inside the wall while her killer tidied up the mess he’d made. Dixie vowed to exact justice on him, one way or another.