The Harrowing

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

And the rest of the weekend could not have been more ordinary. Residents began to trickle in early Sunday morning, becoming an unstoppable tide. There were midterms to study for, after all, and perhaps there were others who were glad enough to cut the family visit short.

By noon that cloudy day, doors were standing open all over the Hall, music blasting again, residents visiting, making sandwiches out of leftover turkey, passing around foil-wrapped care packages of pumpkin loaf and gingerbread cookies while they moaned about pounds gained, nursed hangovers, and visibly started to panic about term papers and exams.

Back in her room, Robin swallowed two of Waverly’s Valium before returning the bottle to the bottom drawer, then slept a black sleep until six that evening, when she bolted up in terror at the sound of her door slamming open.

Waverly breezed in, one of her signature thoughtless entrances. She turned all the lights on full and proceeded to fuss about the room, pulling open drawers and unpacking prissily and noisily, with appalling disregard for her roommate.

Robin lay back on her pillows, barely able to move. She was aware through her depressant haze that Waverly would think Patrick was still out of town, and that Patrick would go to pains to make her think he had been. At least Robin wouldn’t be alone that night. And for the first time in their short acquaintance, Robin was painfully glad of her roommate’s presence. Surely nothing mysterious or out of the ordinary would dare happen around Waverly.

Strangely comforted, she drifted back into a drugged and troubled sleep.

Late that night, when the rooms went dark and all the rest of the Hall slept, two lights remained on.

One was a solitary desk lamp, in a dim room lined with bookshelves along every available inch of wall space. There were no other adornments—not a poster on a closet, not a rug on the floor. The bed was unmade and there was a pall in the room, the numbness of loneliness.

Martin sat at his desk, surrounded by uneven piles of books. His laptop was open and signed on to the Net, but he seemed unaware of anything in front of him; he merely stared into space.

Abruptly, he stood and crossed to his bed. He knelt, reached underneath, and dragged out a suitcase. He unzipped the brown vinyl flap and looked down at the contents. After a long moment, he removed several leather-bound books with gilt Hebrew lettering on the covers.

He seemed to brace himself before he lifted one onto the bed and opened the cover.

The other light hung from a cord that surely had never passed an electrician’s inspection. The single bare bulb dimly illuminated the basement.

The long, low-ceilinged room was a horror-movie dream, a claustrophobic maze of stacked furniture and metal utility shelves and twisted pipes.

A shadowy figure moved stealthily through the crooked aisles.

There was a sudden hiss and clanging just to the right.

The shadow jumped back—then Cain relaxed as he made out the shape of the old boiler. He crossed to it, knelt to open the control box, studying the gauges inside.

Then his eyes fell on the floor beside him. He frowned, reached out to pick something up off the concrete.

A cold smile creased his lips as he stared down at the object in his hand.