The Revenant of Thraxton Hall

CHAPTER 23 THE FAR SIDE OF THE MIRROR

The smell of formaldehyde was sharp and pungent. The room he was in had the cave-like feel of a chamber deep beneath the ground. Around him were tables covered in sheets draped over familiar shapes — corpses. Suddenly, one of the corpses sat bolt upright, and the sheet whispered to the floor. The dead man’s eyes were glassy and staring. Rictus had drawn the lips back so that he flashed the rotten stumps of a ruined smile; a knife wound across his face gaped like a second livid, red mouth.

Conan Doyle knew he was in the very worst place to be. Terror swarmed and prickled beneath his skin.

A swinging door at the far end of the room whuffed open and a small form stumped forward, tapping the way with a cane.

“Wh-who is that?” he called out.

The diminutive figure tap-tapped forward into a pool of lamplight.

Madame Zhozhovsky.

“What’s going on?” he cried, terror surging in his throat. “What’s happening? Where am I?”

The old lady put a crooked finger to her lips and shushed him. “You are in, what the Buddhists call, the Bardo.”

“Am… am I dead?”

She shook her head. “Consciousness has withdrawn from your body. You linger on the threshold. But beware — this is the realm of nightmares. Your greatest fears. A place between life and death, where the soul is tested and triumphs… or is destroyed, absorbed and imprisoned for eternity.”

More of the corpses sat upright. Sheets slid to the floor. And then tables groaned and squeaked as, one by one, the dead climbed down. Conan Doyle saw faces eaten away by syphilis and cancer, missing noses, empty sockets lonely for an eye.

“Who are these people? What is this place?”

“An illusion. An hallucination. What you fear the most, torn from a memory. Part of what you never resolved in life.”

“Yes,” Conan Doyle gasped. “I recognize parts of it: the morgue at Edinburgh hospital. I worked the night shift as a student of medicine. I was alone, and I was terrified.”

The corpses shuffled toward him, encircling him.

“This is not real,” Zhozhovsky said, “but the terror is real. You must let go of it.”

The figures crowded closer until he could taste the cloying reek of rotting meat and decay. They began to paw him with bloody stumps, hands shedding sheets of gray skin.

“Look away,” she urged. “You must look away. Paradise is there, you just have to turn your gaze a fraction.”

A ruined face gibbered inches away, rotten corpse breath washing over him.

“I can’t… can’t look away.…”

Hands began to paw at him, trying to pull him to the floor. He knew that if he lost his footing and fell he would never stand again.

“Resist!”

“I cannot! Help me!”

“You must resist. Put your mind somewhere else.”

He retched, gagging. The stench of rotting flesh was overwhelming, triggering waves of fear and revulsion. A scream coiled in his chest, gathering, and he knew if he opened his mouth, if he unleashed it, the scream would annihilate him.

“Look away!”

He pushed through the shadows in his mind, and grasped onto a memory, like a drowning man clinging to a chunk of flotsam.

Instantly, he was out of the dark place. He looked around. He was standing on the windy battlements of Edinburgh Castle, looking out over the gray city toward Arthur’s Seat, the hills to the east. A tall man towered beside him: it was his father, and he was a small boy. He recognized it as a moment from his youth, before his father’s drinking robbed him of his mind. The familiar bearded face looked down at him and smiled. “Have you come to stay with your old dad, young Arthur?”

A small woman stumped toward them. She lowered her hood: Madame Zhozhovsky.

“This, too, is an illusion. You still hover on the boundary between life and death. You must go back. Your mission on Earth is far from over.”

Conan Doyle looked at his father. He could not remember him looking so young. Joy tightened his chest. It was a happy moment. One of the happiest moments in his life. Why should he leave it?

“None of this is real. You must leave.”

“But why?”

“If you die in Thraxton Hall, your soul will be bound to it for eternity — as mine is.”

“I want to stay. I don’t want to leave—”

“Steel yourself and turn away!”

With a supreme effort, Conan Doyle tore his eyes from his father’s.

Instantly, the castle, the battlements, his father, vanished.

He was back in the crypt of Thraxton Hall. He looked down to see a coffin. At the same instant, he could see himself lying inside, eyes shut, head lolling slack, a handful of burned matches in his soot-smudged fingers.

Madame Zhozhovsky had disappeared, but he felt a presence close by. A small figure appeared at the end of the crypt: it was the little girl in the blue dress. She stood watching him mutely, tears falling as she sucked a finger, and then turned and fled.

He hesitated. She could be a trickster, a revenant. Despite his misgivings, he left the coffin and followed. He rounded a corner into another passageway of the crypt. The girl sat on the stony ground, her filthy bare legs folded under her. She looked up at him with despair on a face streaked with tears.

“Who are you, little girl? Are you Annalette Thraxton?”

Without answering, she sprang to her feet and hurried away. But at the entrance to another passage she stopped and looked back shyly, waiting for him to follow.

The girl is a portent of death, he thought, she could be luring my soul to destruction. He resigned not to follow her. But then she held out a hand. It was a gesture that took him back to his own children.Something broke inside him. He stepped forward and took her hand. It was cold, tiny, and frail. She fixed his face with an importuning look and tugged. Meekly, he allowed himself to be led. She pulled him into a narrow, stony passage, and he found himself climbing a stone staircase that ascended through darkness. As they reached the top of the stairs, he saw a shining window. Light flooded in from the other side. As he reached the window, he saw that it was, in truth, the back side of a mirror. He looked through it and saw the interior of the mirror maze. And then, to his surprise, a hidden door juddered open and a dusty figure stumbled in. Oscar Wilde! He strode into the room, brushing dust from the shoulders of his jacket, and looked around.

Conan Doyle hammered on the glass with his fists and cried out, “Oscar! I’m here. Behind the glass. Oscar!”

But the Irishman showed no signs of hearing him. Instead, he poked around the room and finally strode straight up to the mirror and peered into it.

He must see me, Conan Doyle thought. He emptied his mind, pressed both hands flat against the mirror, and concentrated with everything he had, trying to transmit a mental cry for help to his friend.

Oscar, it’s me. I’m dying, trapped in a coffin in the crypt. You must find me before it’s too late.

Wilde’s face took on a serious look. He leaned closer, peering deeper into the glass. But then he merely brushed the dust from his large eyebrows and combed the cobwebs from his hair.

Oscar! Conan Doyle screamed. It was his last chance. His only chance.

Wilde abruptly turned from the mirror and strode to the far window. He looked out and must have seen something, because he suddenly bolted from the room.

Conan Doyle realized, with despair, that his friend had been oblivious to the mental signal. He looked around for the young girl, but she, too, had vanished. And then he felt a tidal surge drawing him back from the mirror. Back down the staircase. Back along the passageway. Back into the crypt. The coffin that imprisoned him loomed and drew him irresistibly back inside. With rising horror, he knew that he had failed, and that death and the unrelenting darkness would swallow him… forever.