“What happened?” I tried to reach for his hand to see.
But he was already focused back on the door. “It’s nothing,” he said, using his shirt to cover his hand this time as he reached for the handle again.
From inside the room we heard Gilley yell, “Guys? What’s going on?”
“Gil!” I called as Heath struggled with the door handle. It appeared to be locked tight. “Can you let us in?”
There was a slight pause, and I had a feeling Gilley was weighing whether to come back to the door and unlock it for us, or dart out through the window to save his own skin.
“Gil?” I called, trying to ignore the fact that the air all around us had taken on a fetid sort of odor.
To my relief I heard footsteps approach the door, while Heath tried in vain to get the handle to turn. And then there was a click, a creak, and another slam. Heath and I both jumped. “That was right behind us,” Heath whispered, pointing to the door opposite us.
No sooner had those words left his lips than there came another slam! and then another, and another, and another, until it seemed that all the doors in the entire house were opening and slamming closed one after another with enough force to shake the walls and rattle the floorboards. Startled and more than a little scared, I pressed myself against Heath, who wrapped me in his arms while we waited out the percussion of sound. But it seemed to go on, and on, and on, echoing all over the house, and so violent in its nature that I wondered if it ever would stop.
And then . . . abruptly . . . it did.
A silence fell upon us that was startling, given the cacophony of noise from just a moment before, and I noticed that both Heath and I were breathing heavily. My heart was pounding away against my rib cage and I felt clammy and dizzy. The air was oppressive and thick with something dark . . . something evil.
Heath squeezed me in his arms and whispered, “We gotta get out of here, Em. Right now!”
I nodded against his chest and pulled back slightly, reaching for his hand. He hissed a little when I took it, and I turned it over to look at his palm. That’s when I saw raised red blisters on the inside of his hand, and I winced too. But we didn’t have time to discuss what’d happened to his palm. We needed to get out of that house, so I stepped back to the room where Gilley was and gave a light tap. “Gil?” I called softly.
There was no reply.
Putting my ear to the door, I called out to him again, and this time I heard a small sob. “M.J.?” he said at last. I had a feeling he was pressed right up against the door.
“You okay, honey?”
“N-n-n-nooooo.”
I looked at Heath and he moved closer to the door. “Gil, we’re gonna need you to unlock the door, but use your shirt to cover your hand before you touch anything metal, okay?”
I listened close and heard sniffling, then saw the handle jiggle slightly. “You need a key to unlock it,” Gilley said. “There’s no dead bolt or lock on this side. Just the keyhole.”
I shifted my focus to Heath. “Can we kick it in?”
With a frown, he stepped back to consider the beautiful antique door with the brass handle. “I could, but Christine might not be too happy about it.”
Upstairs there came a slam! That was followed by another, then another, then what felt like ten more. Reflexively I squeezed Heath’s arm. This place was starting to get to me. “Kick it in!” I yelled above the noise as I forced myself to let go of him so he could do the deed.
Heath called to Gilley as he stepped back, “Gil! Get away from the door!” Then he turned slightly to the side and raised his knee high. Just as he gave a serious thrust with his leg, the door flew open. Heath’s foot failed to connect and this caught him off-balance as the thrust of his kick tilted him awkwardly. I reached out to grab onto him, missed, and out of the corner of my eye I saw Gilley standing in the room, gaping in confusion as Heath tumbled forward, barely able to catch himself from falling to the floor.
I got ahold of his shoulder to help steady him, and just as I did that, the door came swinging right at us with terrific force, slamming Heath in the face. There was a god-awful whack and my sweetheart let out a horrible grunt of pain as he was propelled right into me. We both flew backward, and I hit the wall with a hard knock to the back of my head. For several seconds I saw stars and my vision closed in around the edges.
To make matters worse, the full weight of Heath’s body was pressed against me, making it impossible to breathe. Feebly I pushed at him, but he was slow to move off me. “Can’t . . . breathe . . . ,” I wheezed, but then I realized that Heath wasn’t likely to hear me above the noise.
It was as if the entire house had come alive and was protesting our presence by opening and slamming shut every single door in the entire mansion. The walls, floors, and ceiling vibrated with bone-jarring intensity, and it was almost too much for me. My vision darkened even more while I struggled to get a full breath.
And then, at last, Heath moved off me, but the uproar around us kept on and on. And then I felt myself pulled away from the wall, which was shuddering so much that it was painful to lean against. Immediately, Heath enfolded me into his arms and I managed to cling to him until my head cleared a little. But still the slamming carried on and on, and I thought it would never stop.
“We have to get out of here!” Heath shouted.
I nodded weakly. I felt disoriented and my head throbbed both from the noise and the smack on the head. Belatedly I realized that Heath’s forehead was bleeding. I took a deep breath and forced myself to focus on his face. There was a huge bump on his forehead with a jagged cut through the center. I couldn’t imagine how much that likely hurt, but he seemed somewhat oblivious to the pain while he looked this way and that, searching for a way out.
The door to the room on the other side of the hallway where Gilley was currently imprisoned was opening wide and slamming shut in perfect rhythm with all the others in the house, and I caught glimpses of Gil huddled near the floor, his fingers in his ears as he squeezed his eyes closed, trying in vain to block out the chaos.
And then a shadow passed in front of the door inside the room and my breath caught. The shadow was large, in the shape of a man. It was enough to raise every hair on the back of my neck. “Gil!” I shouted, but there was no way he could hear me above the noise. The door continued to open and slam closed, offering me only small glimpses into the room. The shadow appeared in the doorway, then on the other side of the room, then by the window, then right next to Gilley, and finally, it obscured my view of Gilley altogether.
I shouted his name at the top of my lungs, trying to get his attention, even though I didn’t know what I expected him to do. At that moment Heath seemed to become aware of what was going on too, because he released me, whipped around, dipped his shoulder, and charged straight at the door.
He caught it just as it was about to slam shut, and the force with which he hit it sent it flying open to pound hard against the wall. Heath then bore all his weight on the door, keeping it open while yelling for Gilley.
But Gil was still hidden behind that large black shadow. I didn’t waste another moment. I flew through the open doorway, heading with bared teeth right for the shadow. As I approached, it seemed to crouch a little, as if it was anticipating my physical connection with it. “Gilley!” I screamed, trying not to blink while I reached my hands forward, hoping I could simply push my way through the menacing spook and grab hold of my best friend. However, at the point of impact I felt the most intense blow to my midsection, which knocked the wind right out of me. In the next instant, I was sent flying backward for the third time since arriving at the manor.
I hit the ground in a heap, landing on my right shoulder and hip. My hip took the brunt of the force and I would have groaned if I’d had enough air to make a sound. I rolled onto my back in a daze, and reached my left arm up fe
ebly, hoping that Heath was coming to my rescue. I tried to suck in some air, but my diaphragm seemed paralyzed. I felt that reflexive panic that comes with the wind being knocked out of you and you have to consider, however briefly, that this inability to breathe could be a permanent condition, but then a little air leaked down my windpipe and I closed my eyes to concentrate. I know from experience that if you push too hard to get your diaphragm to react, you can further hamper your ability to begin breathing again.
I tried to calm myself, but with the noise of the slamming doors, Heath’s shouts, and Gilley’s screams, there was just too much chaos, not to mention the fact that I’d just been hurled across the room by an incredibly powerful—and likely very angry—spook.
Shutting all that out the best that I could, I focused on taking another tiny breath. I managed that one okay. And then I took another, a little deeper this time. Trouble was, my lungs were starting to protest mightily. They needed more air. Right. Now.
Around me the noise and chaos kicked up and I knew I absolutely had to get my breathing to start again, and I also wondered why Heath hadn’t yet come to my rescue. It was then that I opened my eyes, but what I saw stopped my breathing all over again.
Chapter 2
With effort I managed to get myself into a sitting position, and take in a few more breaths. I blinked and rubbed my eyes to be sure I was seeing what I thought I was seeing, but the scene in front of me remained.
“What the hell?” I whispered as I looked warily around. “Heath?”
There was no reply.
“Gilley?”
Again, no one answered.
My brow broke out into a cold sweat and I drew my knees in close, continuing to look all around, stunned by what I saw. “I must’ve passed out,” I told myself. And yet I felt certain I would’ve remembered that sinking feeling that happens right before you pass out, like the whole world is receding from you until you let go into darkness.
There’d been none of that. Just an effort to take a breath, followed by full consciousness in an entirely different place.
It appeared that I was in a hallway that was dimly lit by the glow of the moon. How it’d gone from late afternoon to middle of the night was only one part of the puzzle. The hallway I recognized by its configuration and the wallpaper. A strip of it next to me was aglow with moonlight, and there were the telltale bluebirds, hurrying to build a nest, one with a bit of string and another with a small twig in their respective beaks. The pattern had fascinated me as a child and it was one I’d spent a lot of time studying during the lonely days of my mother’s long illness when I’d been sent to spend time with my maternal grandparents.
I reached out to touch the wallpaper, and it felt real enough. Shakily I got to my feet and leaned against the wall. “Heath?” I tried again. “Gilley?”
This time my call was answered by a noise from behind a closed door at the end of the hallway. I felt another cold chill go through me and I shuddered. The sound had been human—I was sure of it—but it hadn’t belonged to any voice I recognized.
As my heart hammered in my chest, I crept forward, feeling like a cliché right out of a B horror movie. I got to the door and hesitated. This had been my mother’s bedroom when she’d been little. I used to sleep in it when I spent the night, but I hadn’t been in it, or the house really, since my grandparents had passed away nearly a dozen years ago.
I rested my palm on the door handle, unable to control the shivering of my limbs. I felt cold and scared and very much like I had when I was nine and knew that my mother was never going to get better.
For a second I entertained the idea of turning around and dashing down the stairs and out of the house, but then that noise came again from the bedroom, and this time it was more distinct. It sounded like a child in distress.
Taking a deep breath, I gripped the handle firmly and turned it. As I entered the room, I saw the most terrible sight.
Hovering three feet in the air above the bed was a skinny little girl with long dark hair, a pale complexion, and the most terrified expression on her face. She was dangling above the bed like a rag doll, held up by an unseen force, but she seemed to be clutching at her throat, as if an invisible hand held her by the neck.
I took a step forward to help her, but then her eyes shifted to me and I came up short, stunned to my core. The little girl was unmistakable.
She was me. Eight-year-old me.
I stood there for several heartbeats too shocked to move. And then the much younger version of myself stopped clutching at the invisible force holding her and she actually reached her small hand out to me.
I reacted out of instinct. I ran to her with outstretched arms, and as I got to her, whatever was holding her by the throat suddenly let go. She fell into my arms and I wasted no time turning tail and running out of the room. Cradling her protectively, I rushed down the stairs and right out the front door.
I didn’t stop running until we reached the huge elm tree at the edge of the drive. Once I’d come to a stop, I simply stood there, holding her trembling form and trying to figure out what the heck was going on.
Everything felt real enough to be an OBE—out-of-body experience—but why I was having one I couldn’t be sure. And of all the OBEs I’d had in my life, and I’d had quite a few, I’d never had one with a version of myself in it. I could only wonder at the meaning of it.
The little girl in my arms trembled and shook and I hugged her tighter. “It’s okay,” I told her as she cried quietly into my shoulder. “You’re safe now.”
“I’m never safe,” I thought I heard her whisper.
I continued to hold her until she settled down and all the while I kept wondering what the purpose of this OBE was. “What’s your name?” she asked suddenly.
I wondered what her reaction would be once I told her. “I’m M.J.”
“M.J.?” she repeated.
“Mary Jane,” I said, pulling my head back so that I could look down at her. It was such an eerie thing to see my own young face staring curiously back up at me.
“That’s a nice name,” she said.
I nodded. “The same as yours, right?”
Her brow furrowed. “No. I’m DeeDee.”
I shook my head a little. “I’m sorry. You’re who?”
“DeeDee.”
For another moment I remained confused, but as I stared down at her, I noticed a few things that helped me put the puzzle together. It was in the little girl’s nose and the set of her eyes. Her nose was a little thinner than mine had been at her age, and her eyes were a bit more almond-shaped. “DeeDee?” I whispered. “As in DeeDee, short for Madelyn?” My mother’s nickname from childhood had been DeeDee. The story was that when she’d been a toddler, she couldn’t pronounce her own name, so she’d introduced herself as DeeDee. For the most part the nickname had stuck, although Daddy never used it, preferring her given name of Madelyn.
The little girl in front of me nodded and added a shy smile. “Thank you for saving me,” she said.
For several long seconds all I could do was stare down at this slight, sweet child. The fact that I was holding my own mother was a bit too surreal for me to really take in. While I stared at her, she took a lock of my hair and studied it. “I like your hair,” she said.
I stroked the back of her head. “It’s dark like yours.”
DeeDee smiled again and let the lock fall. “Mary Jane?” she asked.
“Yes, sweetie?”
She lost her smile and her eyes drifted up to her bedroom window. “Don’t make me go back there.”
My own gaze traveled up to her bedroom. “What the heck was that, DeeDee?”
“The Sandman,” she whispered, and she shuddered in my arms.
I hugged her tightly, troubled by both what she’d said and what I’d seen in her bedro
om. “Tell me about him,” I coaxed, hoping she felt safe enough to trust me.
DeeDee gripped me around the neck and I rocked her back and forth. I didn’t know if she’d be able to tell me about her experience, but I hoped she found the courage. “He comes at night to put sand in my eyes.”
“Sand in your eyes?” I asked. What I’d seen in that bedroom had had nothing to do with the childhood fable.
DeeDee nodded against my shoulder. “He never does, though.” She paused then and I patiently waited her out. At last she continued. “I tried to tell Mama about him, but she says I’m only dreamin’. She says the Sandman won’t hurt me. ’Cept he does. He hurts me every time.”
I hugged DeeDee tighter to me again, and I couldn’t help wondering if I’d actually entered an alternate reality, or if I was somehow revisiting some element of my mother’s past.
What troubled me was a memory I’d had when I was close to DeeDee’s age, and I’d woken up in the middle of the night to find my mother sitting in the rocking chair next to my bed. I’d asked her what was wrong, and she’d leaned over to kiss and reassure me, whispering, “Nothing’s wrong, child. I’m just here to keep you safe.”
I’d never asked her what she meant and I remembered only the smell of her perfume as I drifted back to sleep, but there’d been other nights when I’d awakened to find her watching over me protectively. And then she’d soon become too sick to continue the practice.
Still, I also remembered around the age of seven when I’d started sensing the spirits of our deceased loved ones, how concerned Mama had been. She’d ask me all the time if any of the spirits I sensed had ever tried to hurt me. None had until I was much older and started doing ghostbusts with Gilley.
I wondered if any of what I was currently experiencing was part of that vague memory of my mother hovering close by me while I slept. Could this be just a very vivid dream instead of an OBE? If it was simply a dream, then it would explain encountering my mother as a child, but what I couldn’t get over was how real everything felt. The little girl pressed tightly against me was as real as real could be. Her skin was warm, her hair soft, and I could even smell the lingering scent of soap on her skin.