The Manor

CHAPTER 21

Mason wished he'd brought a lantern, since the afternoon had grown suddenly dark, heavy clouds sweeping from the northwest like smoke from a distant prairie fire. At least he was out of the house, having dodged the questioning gaze of Miss Mamie. He didn't want to go down into the basement, at least not until his head cleared. Anna was right, he'd become obsessed, and it was far more than just the pursuit of praise that drove him.

He headed down the road toward the barn. It was about time for Ransom to feed and put up the horses. Maybe Anna had gone to help him. Like Mason, she probably preferred the company of the old mountain man to that of the rowdy revelers in the manor. And she was nuts about the horses.

If he saw her, then he could apologize, talk plainly. Maybe try to understand her. She knew more than she let on, and unlike the other guests, she recognized that something seriously weird was going on at Korban Manor. And the two of them had something else in common.

Because, though she tried her best to hide it, a suffering ran deep inside her, turbulent waters beneath the calm surface. Or maybe he just liked looking into her cyan eyes and his imagination had done the rest. His imagination had always been his blessing and his curse, both his exit door from a lifetime in Sawyer Hosiery and the demon that rode his back in every waking moment and most of his sleeping ones.

He followed the fence line, stopping once to glance back at the house. There were several lighted windows, but much of its facade was dark and featureless. A few high piano notes tinkled in the breeze. He looked up at the roof, at the flat space above the gabled windows where the rail marked off the widow's walk. A few people moved about beyond the white railing, probably the servants setting up for the party. Mason compared the real thing to the painting in the basement.

No contest. The real thing was much creepier. He didn't buy Anna's lie about never having been to the manor, though Korban must have painted the picture decades before her birth. Mason had memorized her face well enough to know it was plainly Anna walking in that painted haze, complete with the bouquet and lace dress.

Miss Mamie didn't like that painting, either. She'd acted almost afraid of it, despite her obvious adoration of Korban. He shook his head. Why was she so adamant about his finishing the statue? She seemed even more anxious to get it done than Mason himself, as if she had her own critics to please.

He put his hands in his pockets. The forest seemed closer and darker, as if it had picked up and moved while no one was looking. An owl hooted from a stand of trees to his right. He walked a little faster.

Imagination.

Right, Mase. Big dream image. Korban on the brain.

The dream was a crock, a smelly pile of whatever it was that he'd just stepped in. The barn lay ahead, a faint square of lantern light leaking from the open door. Mason hurried toward it. He looked above the door and saw that the horseshoe was points-down on the wall. He couldn't remember if that was the good position or the ghosts-walk-on-in position. He almost wished he had a rag-ball charm to wave.

Mason stepped inside, his sneakers muted by the hay scattered across the planks. He didn't see Ransom or Anna. The smell of the leather harness and the sweet sorghum odor of the horse feed drifted across the air. The opposite door leading to the meadow was closed off. He swallowed and was about to call out when he heard Ransom's voice among the wagons: "Get away, George. You ain't got no call to be here."

The shadows of the surrey and wagons were high on the walls, and the staves and wheel spokes and the tines of the hay rake cast flickering black lines on the wooden walls. Ransom spoke again, and this time Mason located him, crouched behind one of the wagons.

"Got me a charm bag, George. You're supposed to leave me alone." The handyman's eyes were wide, staring across the buckled gray floor.

Wasn't George the name of the man who'd been killed in that accident? Had Ransom's belief in ghosts and folk magic finally driven him off the deep end?

Then Mason saw George.

And George looked dead, with his hollowed-out eyes sunk into the wispy substance of his impossible shape, the stump of one forearm held aloft. George looked so dead that Mason could see through him. And George was smiling, as if being dead was the best thing that ever happened to him.

"Been sent to fetch you, Ransom, old buddy." The words seemed to come from every corner of the room, rattling a few crisp leaves that had blown in during winters past. A chill ran up Mason's spine, his scalp tingled, he felt as if he was going to pass out.

Because this was no dream image.

He couldn't blame his imagination for this.

"Get on back, damn you," Ransom said, his voice shaky. He kept his eyes fixed on the George-thing and didn't notice Mason. George took a step forward.

Except that wasn't a STEP, was it, Mason? Because George didn't move a muscle, just floated forward like a windy scarecrow on a wire.

Cold air radiated off the George-thing, chilling the cramped space of the barn. Mason wasn't ready to call it a ghost. Because when he told Anna he'd believe it when he saw it, it turned out that he had lied. He still didn't believe it.

And he didn't believe what was dangling from the George-thing's lone hand. The missing hand, its milky fingers flexing as if eager to get a good grip around somebody's throat.

"Come on, Ransom," the cemetery voice said. "It only hurts for a second. And it's not so bad inside, once you get used to the snakes."

"Why, George? I ain't never done a thing to you." Ransom's eyes were wide with terror. "You was a good, God-fearing man. What you gone and got yourself into?"

Laughter shook the tin roofing. Mason's heart did a somersault.

"Got myself into the tunnel, old buddy. 'Cause I just had to know. Now let me fetch you on inside. Korban don't like to be kept waiting."

There was a rusty creak, and the hay rake rolled forward. Ransom's eyes shifted from side to side, looking for an escape. He saw Mason.

"The charm ain't working, Mason. How come the charm ain't working?"

George turned in Mason's direction, again without moving any of its withered, fibrous extremities. "Plenty of room inside, young fellow. The tunnel ain't got no end."

Ransom ducked between the wagon and the surrey and Mason turned to run. Too late. The barn door screed across its track and slammed shut.

Mason fled along the inside of the wall, making sure he kept plenty of distance between him and the ghost-you just called it a GHOST, Mason. And that's not a good sign-until he got beside the surrey. He dropped to his knees, his bones clattering against the floorboards. He crawled to Ransom's side. "What the hell is that thing, Ransom?"

Ransom peered between the spokes of the wagon wheel. Mason could smell the man's fear, salt and copper and greenbriar.

"What I been warning you about, son. He's one of them now. Korban's bunch."

"I don't believe in ghosts."

Ransom's rag-ball charm was clenched inside his fist. "That don't matter none, when the ghosts believe in you."

The shape floated forward, arms raised, the ragged end of its amputation fluttering with the motion. Mason found himself staring at the stump, wondering why a ghost shouldn't be all in one piece.

Ghost-you called it a ghost again, Mason.

The hay rake creaked, rolling out of its corner toward the pair.

"Go away," the old man said in a high, broken voice. "I got warding powers."

"Come out and play, Ransom," said the George-thing. "Gets lonely inside, with just the snakes for company. We can set a spell and talk over old times. And Korban's got chores for us all."

Ransom held up the charm bag. "See here? Got my lizard powder, yarrow, snakeroot, Saint Johnswort. You're supposed to go away."

George laughed again, and thunder rattled in the saves of the barn. Horses whinnied in the neighboring stalls.

"Don't believe ever little thing they tell you," George said. "Them's just a bunch of old widows' tales. 'Cause it ain't what you believe, is it, Ransom?"

"It's how much," Ransom said, defeated, looking down at the little scrap of cotton that held the herbs and powder. The cloth was tied with a piece of frayed blue ribbon. White dust trickled from the opening.

Suddenly Ransom stood and threw the bag at George. "Ashes of a prayer, George!"

Mason was frozen by his own fear and a strange fascination as the bag came untied and the contents spread out in a cloud of green and gray dust. The material wafted over the ghost, mingled in its vapor, caught a stir of wind from the crack beneath the door, and swirled around the shape.

George shimmered, faded briefly, fizzled like a candle about to burn the last of its wax Jiminy H. Christ, it's working, Mason thought. IT'S WORK The cloud of herbs settled to the floor, and George wiped at its eyes.

"Now you boys have gone and made me mad" the ghost said, its voice flat and cold, seeping from the corners of the room like a fog. "I tried to do it nice, Ransom. Just you and me, taking us a nice long walk into the tunnel like old friends. But you tried to spell me."

George shook its see-through head. The motion made a breeze that chilled Mason to the bone. Ransom ducked behind the wagon wheel and tensed beside him. The ghost fluttered forward, steadily, now only twenty feet away, twelve, ten. A rusty metallic rattle filled the barn.

George held up the amputated hand. "They took my hammering hand, Ransom. He took it"

The ghost sounded almost wistful, as if debating whether to follow the orders of an absent overseer. But then the deep caves of the eyes grew bright, flickered in bronze and gold and blazing orange, and the face twisted into something that was barely recognizable as having once been human. It was shrunken, wizened, a shriveled rind with pockmarks for eyes. The voice came again, but it wasn't just George's voice, it was the combined voice of dozens, a congregation, a chorus of lost souls. "Come inside, Ransom. We're waiting for you."

The horses kicked their stall doors. A calf bawled from the meadow outside. The surrey and the wagons rocked back and forth. The lantern quivered on the floor and shadows climbed the walls like giant insects.

The calf bawled again, then once more, the sound somehow standing out in the cacophony.

"Calf bawled three times," Ransom whispered. "Sure sign of death."

Mason crouched beside him, wanting to ask Ransom what in the hell was happening. But his tongue felt like a piece of harness against the roof of his mouth. He didn't think he could work it to form words. Ransom looked at George, then at the closed door. The door was much farther.

Mason reached out to touch Ransom's sleeve, but came up with nothing. Ransom made a run for it. The ghost didn't move as Ransom's boots drummed across the plank floor. Mason wondered if he should make a run for it, too. Ransom moved fast, arms waving wildly.

He's going to make it!

Ransom was about six feet from the door when the hay rake pounced-POUNCED, Mason thought, like a cat-with a groan of stressed steel and wood, the rusty tines of the windrower sweeping down and forward. Ransom turned and faced the old farm machine as if to beg for mercy.

His eyes met Mason's, and Mason knew he would never forget that look, even if he got lucky and escaped George and managed to live to be a hundred and one. Ransom's face blanched, blood rushed from his skin as if trying to hide deep in his organs where the hay rake couldn't reach. Ransom's eyes were wet marbles of fear. The leathery skin of his jaws stretched tight as he opened his mouth to scream or pray or mutter an ancient mountain spell.

Then the windrower swept forward, skewering Ransom and pushing him backward. His body slammed against the door, two dozen giant nails hammered into wood. Ransom gurgled and a red mist spewed from his mouth. And the eyes were gazing down whatever tunnel death had cast him into.

The wagon and surrey stopped shaking, the walls settled back into place, and a sudden silence jarred the air. The old man's body sagged on the tines like a raw chuck steak at the end of a fork. Mason forced himself to look away from the viscera and carnage. The lantern threw off a burst of light, as if the flames were fed by Ransom's soul-wind leaving his body.

George floated toward Mason, who took a step backward.

"You're not here," Mason said. He put up his hands, palms open. "I don't believe in you, so you don't exist."

The ghost stopped and looked down at its own silken flesh. After a stretch of skipped heartbeats, it looked at Mason and grinned.

"I lied. It ain't what we believe that matters," it said softly, sifting forward another three feet. "It's what Korban believes."

The hand reached out, the hand in the hand, in a manly welcome. Marble cold and grave-dirt dead.

Mason turned, ran, waiting for the pounce of the hay rake or the grip of the ghost hand. He tripped over a gap in the floorboards and fell. He looked back at his feet. The root cellar.

He wriggled backward and flipped the trapdoor open, then scrambled through headfirst. He grabbed the first rung of the ladder and pulled himself into the damp darkness of the cellar. If potions and prayers didn't work, then a trapdoor wouldn't stop a ghost. But his muscles took over where his rational mind had shut down.

He was halfway inside when the trapdoor slammed down on his back. Stripes of silver pain streaked up his spinal column. Then he felt something on the cloth of his pants. A light tapping, walking.

Fingers.

He kicked and flailed his legs, grabbed the second rung, and heaved himself into the darkness. He was weightless for a moment, his stomach lurching from vertigo. Then he was falling, a drop into forever that was too fast for screaming. The door slammed into place overhead as he landed in the root cellar. The air was knocked from his lungs, but that didn't matter because he wasn't sure he'd breathed since he'd entered the barn.

The cellar was completely dark except for a few splinters of light that leaked through gaps in the flooring above. He experimentally moved his arms and something tumbled to the ground. He reached out and squeezed the thing under his hand, then felt it. He had landed in a sweet potato bin.

Mason rolled to his feet, then ducked behind the bin. He tried to remember what Ransom had said about another door at one end of the cellar, and a tunnel leading back to the house. George might already be down here. How well could ghosts see in the dark?

Boots, marching feet, fell loud and heavy above him, then he realized it was his pulse pounding in his ears. He opened his mouth so he could listen better. The upstairs was quiet. Mason smelled the earth and the sweet apples. He tried to get a sense of the cellar's layout, to figure out where the exit was, but he'd lost his sense of direction in the dark.

He could find the ladder again, but a trapdoor worked both ways. What would be waiting for him if he went back up? The hay rake, its tines dripping red? George, ready to give him a hand up? How about Ransom, full of holes, now one of them, whatever they were supposed to be?

He thought of Anna, her quiet self-confidence, her hidden inner strength disguised as aloofness. She claimed to understand ghosts, and hadn't ridiculed Ransom's folk beliefs. She wouldn't freak if she saw a ghost. She would know what to do, if only he could reach her. But what can anybody who's alive really know about ghosts?

His racing thoughts were broken by a soft noise. At first he thought it was the creaking of the hay rake flexing its metal claw up in the barn. But the noise wasn't grating and metallic.

It was a rustle of fingers on cloth.

The hand.

He kicked and flailed, and more sweet potatoes tumbled to the cool dirt.

The noises came again, from all sides, from too many sources to be five ghostly digits.

Then he recognized the sound, one he'd grown familiar with while living by the Sawyer Creek landfill.

It wasn't a creaking, it was a squeaking.

Rats.