Homecoming, Part Two: Lost

It was raining as Margaret Duke pulled into Sanctuary Falls city limits. Raindrops splattered onto the windshield of her Toyota Prius like pebbles driven by the raging wind, which blew so forcefully she could feel her car listing in the pressure. Heavy thunderclouds hung low overhead, roiling in the amber-tinged twilight, occasionally hurling a jagged streak of lightning into the mountains below. With the passing of autumn, the trees stood bare and gray, and swathes of dry branches blanketed the mountainside like a coat of bones.

"Thunderstorms in December," Margaret said with a slight shake of her head. "Only in the Shenandoah Valley."

As she pulled off Route 460 toward Sanctuary Falls proper, Margaret fished out her cell phone and hit the speed dial. After a brief, toneless pause, her brother's voice came up over the speakerphone.

"Hi there, you've reached Alex. I've missed your call, but if you'd please leave your number and a message, I'll get back to you soon as I can. Thanks."

Margaret sighed and clicked the "end call" button, then speed dialed her voice mail and listened for the fifth time to the message Alex had left her earlier that day.

"Maggie? It's Alex again. Um, I guess you're talking to a client. Listen, I just wanted to tell you...I really appreciate you coming down. I know you're taking time away from the firm, and it's a long drive, and I'm not even giving you much to go on, except maybe hey, here you are bailing your baby brother out of trouble again."

There was a pause, and when Alex spoke again there was an unsteadiness in his voice that worried her almost as much as the contents of his message.

"Except it's not me, Maggie. I'm not the one in trouble, or at least...I don't think I am. Shit, I don't know. I don't know what's happening, but something weird is going on and it scares the shit out of me, but it's like...I don't know, I can't even describe it without sounding stupid and totally insane. I'm not even sure what I...I'm just...I'm really glad you're coming, Maggie."

Alex stopped, and she could hear him breathing heavily as he tried to regain his composure. When he spoke again, there was a tense calm in his voice.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to lose it like that. It's just...I'm okay. Really. Don't worry too much. I'll tell you everything when you get here. I love you. Bye."

Margaret sighed, clicked off her cell phone, and drew the earpiece out of her ear. In their brief conversation before she left, Alex had, peculiarly, refused to explain the situation, and the message wasn't any more helpful the fifth time around.

She frowned. She had never heard Alex so desperate, not even when he came out to their father and had been driven out of his home as a result. Even then, he had only called to assure her that he was alright, and that he would be staying with friends until the situation got sorted out. Throughout the whole ordeal, he had maintained an unflappable calm.

This time, however...this time she had heard real fear in his voice.

So she had canceled all her appointments for the week, referring her clients to another attorney for the time being, packed a few clothes, and started driving down the same day.

Thunder rumbled as Margaret turned onto Poor Mount Road, a meandering two-lane that cut through a series of humpbacked hills on its way into the city. The amber sky was slowly darkening to a muddy brown, highlighted here and there by flashes of almost violet lightning, and the bare hills crested like dark waves as Margaret drove by. Scattered livestock - the speckled oblong of a distant cow or rice grain of a solitary sheep - ambled about the countryside, restlessly grazing on graying grass. The last time she had come was in the summer, when the hills were covered with an emerald carpet, and contrast made the landscape seem only more bleakly desolate.

All at once, the hills outside her passenger side window dropped away, and a mile or two in the distance she could see the swell of one particularly steep mound rising into the western sky. A single large tree stood upon the hilltop, its thick trunk spreading into a mass of branches stripped bare by winter. The tree limbs were densely packed, but Margaret could still see dark blotches moving amidst the tangle. A man stood underneath the tree, also silhouetted against the darkening sky, peering up into the tree with an expectant sort of air.

Margaret leaned over slightly in her seat, squinting a bit to better make out the shapes, and slowed her car as she saw the approach of another hill crest threatening to block her view. The man continued to look up into the tree, utterly still even as shadows writhed inside. Then something dropped out from the mess of branches, only to be violently stopped short by a length of rope, and it twitched and danced over open air as the other man watched from below.

A horn blared from behind. Margaret gasped and jerked back into her seat. A glance at her rear view mirror revealed that a small train of cars had built up behind her, and another glance at her dashboard revealed her speed at barely ten miles an hour. The driver of the nearest vehicle - a sandy-haired man in a white dress shirt and rumpled blue tie - honked his horn at her again, and she could see him mouthing at her while gesturing violently with one hand.

Margaret quickly pulled over to the side of the road, ignoring the honks as cars promptly zoomed past, and looked out the passenger side window. Clouds had gathered at the horizon, darkening the sky to a burnt umber, against which the tree was a barely visible smudge. If the man still stood there, he was lost against the clouds.

Taking a deep breath, Margaret brushed away a loose strand of hair and flipped open her cell phone. She paused. Her heart seemed much too loud in the still silence of the car, but the immediate intensity of the moment had passed and she found she couldn't be sure of what she had seen; the sky hadn't been bright to begin with, and now it was far too dark to make out anything distinct. What should she report? A hanging? An injury? An accident she had maybe seen from miles away, at a location she couldn't specify?

Then a bolt of lightning arced behind the hill, cleaving the sky in a ragged white crack, and in the sudden illumination both hilltop and tree were empty of people.

An ache in her cheeks and forehead alerted her to how tightly she was frowning. Her neck felt sore and a bloom of fiercely zigzagging lights was forming in front of her eyes. Margaret shook her head and rubbed her face with both hands, taking a few deep breaths to steady herself. Then she reached behind her seat and rummaged through her purse with one hand, finally producing a small orange vial of Fioricet and a bottle of Poland Spring. She tossed back one of the light blue painkillers with a gulp of water, rubbed the bridge of her nose a few times, then started her car and pulled back onto the road.

It must have been a trick of the light and her imagination, brought on by anxiety and exhaustion. Driving for endless hours under a gray haze, until sky and landscape seemed to blur together like an impressionist's dreams, it was hardly surprising that her perceptions might begin to skew. Margaret shook her head again, slapped herself lightly on the cheeks, and accelerated, turning her attention back to the road. It was less than fifteen minutes into Sanctuary Falls, and she wanted to get there before her migraine hit.

Still, as she pulled away, she couldn't stop herself from glancing back toward the tree, or from watching as it vanished behind the swell of another hill.

******************

She was still distracted as she pulled into the parking lot of Falls Place Condos. Alex had insisted on mortgaging a condo rather than renting an apartment or living in a dorm his sophomore year, arguing that while it was slightly more expensive, the condo could only appreciate in value in a college town. Margaret had to smile as she looked at the trendy blue-and-gray buildings - their value had more than doubled in the five years Alex had been living there, proving once again that he had a terrific head for business. Her smile faltered when she saw Alex leaning against the second floor railing of his stairs, wisps of smoke trailing from a cigarette dangling between his fingers. Alex visibly perked up when he saw her, waved enthusiastically, and came bounding down the stairs as she pulled into a parking spot.

"Alex-" she began as she got out of the car, but Alex interrupted her with a massive hug.

"I'm so glad you're here!" he said, pulling into her with uncharacteristic intensity.

"Alex, have you been waiting outside this entire time?" Margaret broke out of the hug and looked up at her brother, dismayed. He was disheveled-looking, with his short blond hair bristling like an angry cat and dark circles of weariness curling under his eyes. An uneven stubble wrapped its way around his chin, and his sapphire eyes looked watery and tired. He was visibly slouching - something he rarely did - dropping him several inches from his usual six foot height, and despite his muscular frame he seemed much thinner than she remembered. He was only wearing a plain white T-shirt and a pair of jeans, standing barefoot on the wet grass, but didn't seem to notice the chill or the rain.

"I couldn't sit inside the house," Alex replied. "It felt too empty."

"Christ, you could've at least dressed warmly! What were you thinking?" Margaret quickly unbuttoned her overcoat and threw it over Alex's shoulders. She stared at the cigarette. "What is this? I thought you quit smoking years ago!"

"Yeah, I did," Alex gave a slight shrug, but flicked the cigarette into the grass.

Margaret looked at him. After a moment, with no explanation forthcoming, she said, "Well, come on, let's go inside. We can talk there."

Ten minutes later, they were sitting in the living room, each sipping from a steaming mug of hot chocolate. Margaret looked around, her concern deepening several shades - Alex was neat by nature, and the last time she had visited the room was fastidiously clean. Now, however, the floor was layered with piles of books, sheets of paper, stacks of old photographs, and the occasional odd trinket, including what looked like a box full of ticket stubs and a jar half-filled with pennies. Crumpled MacDonalds wrappers and empty soda cups liberally dotted the landscape, and a gang of used coffee mugs huddled on the dining room table. It looked like a tempest had swept through the room, upending everything from the shelves onto the floor and raining fast food litter all over the apartment. That tempest, she suspected, was sitting on the couch across from her, sipping hot chocolate with an unsteady hand.

"Alex, what's going on?" she asked finally.

"God, I'm not even sure where to...no, it started with the nightmares," Alex replied, not quite looking at her. "Elliot was having nightmares, weird ones, recurring ones. He'd been complaining about them all week. He said they were about some kind of...monster...stalking him, and a house. Parrish House. It's this old, abandoned shack out at the edge of campus. We - Dr. Keller, he's Elliot's doctor, Jamie, all of us - we thought it was stress. Elliot's been having some trouble with his Vibrations class, and then he was supposed to move in with me this weekend, and of course he hasn't been getting enough sleep."

"Wait, Alex-"

"Let me finish first, Maggie, please. I have to get it all out." Alex looked at her for a moment, then took a sip of his chocolate and continued. "Jamie came up with the idea, figured that if Elliot actually went into Parrish House, he could maybe work something out, or resolve some issues. It seemed like a good idea. We placed a request with the university, and met their rep at the house day before yesterday. Emily, was her name."

Alex frowned then, his eyes narrowing in recall. "We were in the kitchen. There was a noise from upstairs. Emily and Jamie went to check it out, and I was going to follow them, but Elliot found something in the floor. He wanted me to help him pry up the floorboards, but I said no, we ought to talk to Emily first. I went to get her. I didn't go far - just to the base of the stairs, and I called them back down. Told them Elliot had found something in the kitchen. They gave me this weird look, but I didn't pay attention to it right then, 'cause I wanted to see what Elliot had found. But, when we got back to the kitchen, he was gone."

A haunted look slowly fell over Alex's face. He stared off into the distance, speaking in an oddly monotone voice. "I called for him. I looked all over the house, all over the area, calling his name. I called his cell phone, but it was an invalid number. Jamie and Emily just looked at me like I'd gone insane. They said...that it was only the three of us who'd gone into the house, that Jamie was the one who'd wanted to see it. They said that they didn't even know anybody named Elliot."

He suddenly slammed his mug onto the coffee table. Hot chocolate splashed over the lip of the mug and splattered over the table, but Alex didn't seem to notice.

"Jamie's known Elliot since the fifth grade! They're best friends! And all of sudden he doesn't remember him?" He shook his head, turning his unseeing gaze to the floor. "I went around the lake for two hours, calling for him, and nothing. I checked his apartment, but there was a Spanish couple living there, and they insisted that they'd been there for years. I checked with administration - they have no record of him. There's nobody named Elliot Parsons registered with the school."

Alex stopped again, his face contorting.

"I called his parents, Maggie. They told me they don't have a son named Elliot. I spoke to Edward and Eric and Elizabeth, and they all insisted they don't have another brother. His own family, Maggie! How does something like this happen?"

He gestured toward the mess strewn over the floor, the papers all over the carpet.

"I can't find any trace of him. None of our pictures are here. None of the letters or e-mails he wrote me, none of the messages he left me that I kept. Little knick-knacks from places we went. Ticket stubs, seashells, pieces of fossil. Nothing. There's nothing there!"

Alex suddenly jumped out of his seat. He knelt in front of Margaret and took her hands, looking at her with a wild desperation in his eyes.

"I brought him to your place for New Year's, this year and last, and he came with me when I visited over the summer. The two of you spent an entire weekend talking about Harry Potter, and it was driving me insane because I was trying to finish it. You liked Elliot. You liked him a lot. You thought we had something...special. Do you remember, Maggie?" Alex's voice caught in his throat, and he bowed his head, tears dripping onto his hands even as they began to shake.

"Please tell me you remember," he said softly.

Margaret took his head into her hands and pulled him into a tight embrace. He clung to her, his hands clenching fistfuls of her sweater as he began to cry in earnest. Margaret felt tears streaming down her own face as helplessness splashed over her like the sheets of chill rain pouring outside. Forcing past the aching constriction in her throat, she whispered the only answer she could give.

"Oh Alex. Alex don't...I'm sorry. I...I don't know anyone named Elliot."

***************

Two hours later, Margaret had finally convinced Alex to get some sleep. He confirmed her suspicions by admitting that he hadn't slept in two days, but it was only with a great deal of persuasion, and the assertion that he would be much better equipped to help Elliot if he were well rested, that she had coaxed him into bed. Now she slowly wound her way around the living room, gathering the loose sheets of paper, picking up the tumbled books, and throwing out the fast food trash. When the silence became too much to bear, she took out her cell phone and dialed Jamie's number.

"Hello?"

Margaret almost smiled. Jamie still sounded much younger than his twenty-two years.

"Jamie, hi, it's Margaret."

There was a pause at the other end. Then, "Thank God. Alex called you down, didn't he?"

"Yeah. What is going on, Jamie?"

"I wish I could tell you. How's he doing?"

"He's sleeping now. He hadn't slept in two days. He keeps talking about someone named Elliot. Who is that?"

"I've got no idea. This Elliot thing is new to me, too. But...Alex kept saying that Elliot is his boyfriend."

"Is he seeing anyone?"

"Oh come on, Maggie, you know him better than that. If Alex were seriously dating someone, you'd be the first to know." Jamie hesitated. "And before you ask, far as I know he's not casually involved with anyone either."

"He says you know this Elliot. That you've been friends with him since grade school."

There was another pause on the other end. Margaret could almost hear Jamie rubbing at his forehead, "Jesus Christ. I don't know any Elliot, Maggie, and I don't even remember the kids I knew in grade school. Fuck. How does Alex seem to you?"

"Agitated. Frantic. Practically on the verge of a breakdown. He's a mess. When was the last time you spoke to him?"

"Early yesterday. He won't talk to me, Maggie. He won't take my calls, he won't answer the door when I come by. He keeps telling me that Elliot and I grew up together, and how could I not know what he's talking about, but I really have no idea who this Elliot is." Jamie sighed heavily into the phone. "I don't know what's happening with him. This just came totally out of nowhere, and...I just wish he'd talk to me, Maggie. I was about to call you myself - I didn't think he'd be willing to do it."

"When did this whole thing start?"

"Day before yesterday." There was another pause. "Did Alex tell you about Parrish House?"

"Some of it. What is this place?"

"It's a piece of property on campus, abandoned for...centuries, probably, except as a museum piece."

"What made you suddenly decide to go investigate it?"

"Well, I'm taking this American studies course - Appalachian mythology and folklore. We've got an end-of-term research paper coming up, and it turns out there's all kinds of old stories floating around about the place. I thought it'd be a cool topic."

Margaret frowned. "What kind of stories?"

"Murder, gruesome deaths, hauntings, that sort of thing. Folklore goes that Jeremiah Parrish, the last owner, killed himself inside Parrish House, and of course the place hasn't had another tenant since. It gets pretty involved. You sure you want to hear it right now?"

"Yeah, I do. Go on."

"Okay, well, I wanted to see how much of the folklore is based around fact, so I did some digging at the library, and it turns out there really was a Jeremiah Parrish who lived there back in the early 1700's. Jeremiah was the last known inhabitant of the house; the rest of his family lived in England at the time, and I guess they didn't think enough of the place to do much with it. I did find something interesting, though. Jeremiah had a son, named Elijah."

"What happened to him?"

"He was hanged by a lynch mob when he was twenty-four."

Margaret felt a sudden lurch as her mind drifted involuntarily to the shadows underneath the tree. She banished the thought with an angry shake of her head.

"For what?"

"It's kind of a long story, but the gist of it is that some kids went missing and they couldn't find the culprit. Elijah was a convenient scapegoat."

"How so?"

"Um...well...he was accused of buggery. And back in those days, well, if you were a sodomite that meant you were probably a child molester as well. When they couldn't find who was actually doing it, some townsfolk decided to take matters into their own hands. They dragged him out of the town jail and strung him up in his back yard."

"That's disgusting!"

"Yeah, I know, but not unusual for the time." Another pause. Then, "Look, Maggie, I'm really sorry. I didn't think - I dunno - you think there might've been something in the house that caused this? I know Alex's always been kinda touchy about your dad, and, I mean...the whole thing about Jeremiah and Elijah-"

"No, don't be silly," Margaret replied. "Alex put that behind him years ago. He's not happy about his relationship with our father, but a sordid piece of history isn't going to break him."

"I didn't think so, but...I just feel guilty, I guess, like I shouldn't have brought him there. I wish there was more I could do, but he won't even talk to me."

"What exactly happened in there, Jamie? Alex said Elliot wanted to see the house, and that you two, with the university rep-"

"Emily?"

"Right. Emily. He says that the four of you went to the house, and that there was some kind of noise from upstairs. You and Emily went to check it out, which was when Elliot found something in the kitchen. Alex came to get you, but when you got back Elliot was gone."

"That's kinda accurate, I guess. I didn't hear any weird noises, though, and if I did I sure as fuck would not have gone to investigate. That place is scary. But we did get separated once. Emily was in the lead, and I was following her, and I thought Alex was right behind me, but somewhere between the first and second floors I lost track of him. We went back to look for him, but he actually found us, told us that Elliot had found something in the kitchen. Emily and I were pretty confused, but we followed him back. When he saw the kitchen was empty, that's when he freaked out."

Margaret sighed and rubbed her forehead as she frowned.

"I really don't know what to make of all this. What does Alex know about Parrish House?"

"A little less than I do, probably. He heard everything Emily was telling me as we went around, but I hadn't mentioned any of the stuff about Elijah."

"Could he have done research on his own?"

"Maybe. He seemed interested enough, and you know how he likes following up on random crap."

"Yeah." Margaret thought for a moment, then said, "Alright. I think I need to know more. Can you bring me what you have on Parrish House, Jamie? Maybe there's something there that could be help-"

A crash of thunder shook the apartment walls, interrupting the conversation, and an ominous silence fell in its wake. Margaret stared up at the ceiling, startled, the phone dangling in her hand. Then, from Alex's room, came a shout and the sound of breaking glass.

"Jamie I'll call you back!"

Throwing the phone to the floor, she dashed to the bedroom door and flung it open.

An arctic wind blasted drops of sleet into her face, and she raised an arm to keep the ice away from her eyes. Alex's room was dark, but suffused with a peculiar orange-purple glow that seemed to pour from the heavy storm clouds and through the window. The curtains whipped and thrashed in the wind, and as her eyes adjusted to the dimness Margaret could see that the window had shattered. Shards of glass lay strewn all over the carpet. Alex sat against the wall facing the window, clad only in his pajama bottoms. His arms and midriff were cut in several places, and he was staring at the floor with a wild expression on his face.

Something - several somethings - was scrabbling all over the floor, twisting and flapping in a mad beating of wings, and it took Margaret a moment to realize that they were small birds of some kind.

"Christ, Alex!" she gasped, and ran to kneel beside her brother. None of the cuts seemed serious at a glance, but she stopped Alex as he moved to stand, "No, wait, you're going to cut yourself. I'll get you a pair of shoes and take you to the hospital."

She moved toward the hallway, but stopped as Alex fumbled at her sleeve. She was startled to see that there were tears streaming down his face.

"It was Elliot," he said in a raspy voice. "I heard him calling for me, outside. He's hurt, Maggie! Wherever he is, he's suffering, he's-I have to find him!"

"Alex..." Margaret started, then stopped, unable to find the words. As she looked at him, however, searching for some comfort she could offer, a flash of lightning caught her eye. She turned toward the window. The view there cut through the hills that surrounded Sanctuary Falls; it offered a magnificent panorama that extended thirty miles on a clear day. On a hilltop not five miles distant stood the very tree she had seen coming into the city, silhouetted against the glowing orange clouds. And beneath the tree was the shadow of a man; although his details were impossible to make out in the dark, Margaret was abruptly certain that he was looking at her through the window. As if on cue, thunder quaked again. The man stood for a moment longer as the vast concussion reverberated into the distance, then turned and walked away down the hill, leaving only a lingering dread in his wake.

**************

“Alex, hold still!” Margaret said as Alex shifted again on the toilet seat, nearly knocking the bottle of antiseptic ointment out of her hand. She took a breath and a moment to steady herself, then said, “We need to make sure these cuts don’t get infected.”

“You don’t understand, Maggie,” Alex replied, shaking his head erratically , not looking at her. “I heard him. I heard Elliot. He’s–he’s hurt, Maggie. He needs my help.”

Maggie looked at him for a moment, then put the antiseptic ointment on the floor and placed both hands on Alex’s face, gently but firmly turning him toward her. His eyes focused on hers, and a startled expression appeared on his face.

“It was a dream, Alex.”

“No, it–”

“Alex, listen to me. I know you’ve been thinking about nothing and no one except for Elliot the last two days. You haven’t slept. You’ve barely eaten. You’ve been chain smoking when you haven’t touched a cigarette in years.”

Alex tried to turn away, but she held fast.

“So of course you dreamed about him, that he was calling to you, that he needed you. It’s perfectly understandable, Alex. Of course–Alex, listen–of course you're worried, but you can’t help him if you fall to pieces. Your body can only withstand so much stress. If these cuts get infected, or you catch something, you'll be fighting off sickness while this is going on. You won't be able to help anyone if you collapse.”

"What about the birds? How do you explain the birds?"

"They got disoriented in the storm," Margaret decided. "It happens sometimes - not that dramatically, maybe, but it happens."

“But I–”

“Alex. Listen. You know better than this. You called me down here for a reason.” Maggie leaned in, still steadily looking into his eyes. “I’ll take care of it. That’s what I’m here for. I’ll do everything I can to find out what’s going on while you rest.”

“But…but you don’t believe me,” Alex said, with a look of such uncertainty on his face that Margaret faltered. Alex seemed to notice, and drew momentum from her hesitation. “You don't believe that Elliot really exists. Why should you? You don't remember him and there's no physical trace of him."

Although Margaret still held his face in her hands, Alex looked away, despair momentarily playing across his face, but when he turned back to her it had hardened into a mask, wooden and expressionless.

“I know you think I’m delusional. That it's all in my head.”

“Alex–”

“I’m not blaming you, Maggie. Really, I'm not. There were so many times the past two days where I wondered if maybe it really was just me. Nobody remembers him. There are no records. There aren't any photos. There aren't even any goddamn ticket stubs. It's like the world just forgot about him." Alex trained his crystal clear eyes onto Margaret's. "But I remember him. I remember what it feels like to have him look into my eyes, to have him touch me, to have him hold me, and to hold him back. I remember all the time we've spent together, the good and the bad. All the late nights and early mornings and stupid movies and stupid fights and breaking up, then getting back together again because it was right. Because we were right, together. I love him, Maggie, more than anyone else I’ve ever loved. Ever. So I know he’s out there somewhere, and he needs me, Maggie. He needs me. ”

Maggie just looked at him, feeling a swell of jumbled emotions, sharp and tearing as though animals were savaging each other inside her chest.

“I'm ready to spend the rest of my life with him,” Alex said, with an air of finality. “You don't just...make up that sort of thing.”

“No, no I guess you don't,” Margaret said after a moment, and smiled at him. She rose into a crouch and kissed Alex on the forehead, then drew him into a hug. “I’ll help you find him, Alex, whatever it takes.”

Alex sighed, and she felt some of the tension bleed out of him.

“Thank you,” he said, then looked at her with a smile. “You always know exactly what to say.”

“Of course I do, I'm your sister,” Margaret replied. “Now come on, you still haven’t had nearly enough sleep. Let’s finish patching you up, and then you can go crash on the couch – I’ll clean up in here.”

Alex nodded, a trace of weariness reappearing on his face, and he sat quietly as Margaret finished applying antiseptic ointment and band-aids to the last of his scrapes.

Twenty minutes later, Alex was lightly snoring on the living room couch. In the wake of their discussion, Margaret's migraine had flared up with a vengeance, so she took a second Fioricet before moving to inspect the damage to his bedroom. Sleet was still pouring in through the shattered window, mostly melting as it hit the carpet and leaving a slowly expanding patch of dampness on the ground. The broken bodies of the small brown birds lay scattered and still among glittering shards of glass, lightly dusted by a fine tracing of snow. A pale rectangle of light fell through the window and circumscribed the dead birds, deepening the surreal, macabre quality of the scene.
Margaret went through the motions of cleaning up the room, slowly picking up each of the dead birds – sparrows, they looked like – and, keeping them far from her face, dropped the twisted bodies into a tall kitchen bag. The glass she managed as best she could without a vacuum cleaner, but the smaller shards could wait until morning.

Exhaustion, physical and mental, suddenly washed over her, and she stumbled to a seat on Alex's bed. His mattress felt intensely cool through the fabric of her jeans, but not unpleasant despite the icy wind still gusting through the window. In spite of what she'd told Alex, doubts and anxieties whirled through her mind, not the least of them a loud, insistent voice that the best thing for him was psychiatric treatment. She firmly ignored it - she wasn't ready to give in to that suggestion. Not yet. Sighing, Margaret leaned across the dresser at the side of the bed and laid her head down against her arms. Maybe just a few minutes of sleep would clear her head. She closed her eyes and allowed herself to nod off.

She wasn't sure how much time had passed when she awakened, knowing only a sense of unease spider-climbing up her spine, prickling the hairs at the back of her neck. She sat still for a moment, waiting for the sensation to fade, but instead it slowly ballooned into a dread that spread like ice water through her chest. Almost against her will, Margaret slowly lifted her head and looked into the mirror.

There was a man standing behind her. He stood silhouetted against the light streaming in through the window, with sleet collecting on the brim of his hat and the shoulders of his heavy, stiff-collared coat. The outline of a book could be seen nestled under his arm, with a ribbon bookmark flapping slightly in the wind. Twin moon-pale circlets of glass were all that could be seen of his features, which were otherwise shadow-drenched, but they pierced her like spears of ice.

Margaret gasped and jumped up from the bed, spinning as she did so to put the dresser behind her, thrusting the bag of dead birds in front of her like a shield.

The room was empty.

She stared for a moment at the empty window, feeling her heart race inside her chest, and carefully looked around the room as she slowly lifted herself from the dresser. There was no place large enough for a man to hide. After a pause, she slowly turned her head and glanced into the dresser mirror, never fully taking her eyes off the rest of the room. The mirror was innocuous, revealing nothing out of the ordinary.

Margaret sighed and put a hand to her forehead, only to jump again as her cell phone vibrated in her back pocket. She shook her head at her own skittishness, then fished out the cell phone and flipped it open.

"You said you were going to call me back!" Jamie's voice shrilled through the cell phone. "What the hell happened?"

"Oh, I'm so sorry, Jamie, I completely forgot," Margaret replied. "It's...a little hard to explain."

"Well, if you open the door, you can explain it to me," Jamie replied.

Margaret stopped. "You're here?"

"Well, yeah. You hung up so abruptly I figured something'd happened, so I got here as fast as I could." There was a pause. "So nothing's wrong?"

"No, Jamie. Everything's...fine." Margaret replied wearily.

"You're sure?"

"Sure as I can be."

"Okay. Alex still sleeping?"

"Yeah, he's still sleeping."

"Great. I've got most of my books and notes with me in the car - I was going to take them all to the library, but then this shit with Alex went down and I haven't-" Jamie paused again. "Hey, can you open the door? It's really cold out here."

"Sorry, I'll be right there."

Margaret shut her cell phone and, after another look around the bedroom, walked out the door.

*************

"This doesn't tell us anything we don't already know," Margaret said, disgusted, as she tossed down another beaten history book. "Is this really all you could find?"

"If I had found anything else, I'd have told you about it over the phone," Jamie replied, throwing her a surly look from between the towers of worn books arrayed at his end of the table. He gestured at her with a sheaf of photocopied newspapers clippings. "I told you, I combed through the entire library for stuff about Jeremiah Parrish, and this is all they have. It's not like he was some major historical figure."

Margaret glanced back at the couch, where Alex had coughed and shifted in his sleep, and turned back with a sigh to another photocopy Jamie had made. A black-and-white portrait sat slightly off-center on the toner-dirtied sheet of paper, depicting a hollow-cheeked man perhaps in his mid-forties. His hair was short, straight, and dark, combed back and pressed close to the head, and a small white cloth had been tied simply around his neck. The man's lips were unusually thin, as though he'd kept them pressed tightly together during the entire portraiture process, and his eyes stared out of the page with an almost glowing intensity, the whites starkly contrasting with his black irises.

"This is Jeremiah?"

"Yeah. I got lucky when I was digging through old newspapers."

"He looks like a nice guy."

"He was a pastor, and a pretty fire-and-brimstone one, from what I could gather."

"I wonder if any pastors weren't the fire and brimstone type, back then." Margaret put down the portrait and took another sip of her coffee. "I bet he was happy about his son being a sodomite."

Jamie's face took on a slightly pained expression, and she knew that the words had sounded unintentionally bitter. Still, he said mildly, "The books don't really say, but he was definitely at the hanging. He was the only pastor in town, so he was the only one who could give last rites."

In spite of herself, Margaret felt a twinge of pity for the man. She could almost see him, standing underneath the tree as twilight cast its pall across the sky, administering the sacrament with that severe, stony face while his son's pleas for life rained on him like stones and daggers. A chill like ice water suddenly dribbled down her back as she stared at Jeremiah's picture, she shook her head to rid herself of the images that had risen unbidden in the back of her mind.

"Where did they hang Elijah?"

"Huh?" Jamie looked confused. "Ummm...they say he was hung in his back yard."

"Would it have been from a tree?"

"Well, I mean...I doubt they'd have had the time to raise a gallows, so...yeah, probably. Lynch mobs are pretty fond of trees, from what I hear."

"When did it happen?"

"Middle of winter, I think? Wait, let me see if I can..." Jamie ran a finger along the nearest book tower, tapped a volume about halfway down, carefully slid it out without disturbing the rest. It had a dark green cover with corners worn gray by decades of ingrained dust and grime. The book's title had been imprinted in gold leaf along the spine, but was now faded to illegibility. Jamie tossed open the book to a point in the middle, flipped several pages, and ran his finger down the side.

"Here it is. 'Declared guilty of crimes of violence against his fellow man, against God, and against nature, Elijah was pulled from the town jail one midwinter's day and hung - oh, actually, here it is - hung from a tree for his sins. Although shamed by his son's misconduct...ha, I like that, misconduct...shamed by his son's misconduct, as town pastor Jeremiah still exerted enough influence to be allowed to administer last rites. The strain of the event, however, ultimately proved detrimental to Jeremiah's health, and he died in his home shortly after.'"

"Is that it?" Margaret asked.

"Why do girls keep saying that to me?" Jamie asked, staring up at the ceiling.

Margaret crumbled a napkin and tossed it at him, but couldn't help the smile creeping across her face. Jamie let the ball bounce off his nose, smiling gently. He closed the book and carefully inserted it back into its original spot.

"That's all that's written there," he said. "There actually was something else I wanted you to see, but I couldn't bring them with me."

"Why not?"

"They're being held at the history department." At Margaret's questioning look, Jamie continued, "I talked Emily into going back after Alex had his...episode, and it turns out there really was something in the kitchen. I have no idea how Alex found it, but there was this hidden compartment underneath the floor, and a bunch of things stuck inside."

Margaret leaned forward. "What kind of things?"

"A box, a book, and what looked like some dolls wrapped in cloth."

"That's a weird collection," Margaret noted thoughtfully. "I'd like to see this stuff, if possible."

"So would I," said a voice from the living room.

They both spun to see Alex slowly pushing himself into a sitting position on the couch. He was frowning intensely, and rubbing at his forehead as though to rid himself of a headache. A thin sheen of sweat coated his skin, and his face looked flushed.

"Oh, I'm sorry, Alex," Margaret said, walking to the couch. "I didn't mean to wake you. We should've done this in the guest room."

Alex dismissed her concern with a wave of his hand, but kept rubbing at his forehead and screwed his eyes open and shut several times.

"You didn't wake me," he said. "Bad dreams."

"Do you want something to eat or drink?"

"A little water, maybe," Alex replied, and turned a still-bleary eye toward Jamie as Margaret moved to fetch a cup. "Hey, Jamie."

"Hey dude," Jamie said, a hint of wariness in his voice. He stood slightly behind his towers of books, as though to use them for cover.

"I've been a dick. I'm really sorry," Alex said, leaning forward with his elbows against his knees. "Forgive me?"

"It's cool. You've been under a lot of stress." But Jamie didn't move from his bastion of antiquated books. "So we're okay?"

Alex gave him a tired sort of smile. "If you say we're okay, we're okay. Thanks, Maggie." He took the proffered cup of water that Margaret offered him and leaned slightly against her as she sat down next to him. She drew an arm around him, rubbing gently at his shoulder, and he said, "So tell me more about this stuff you guys found."

"Not much to tell. I didn't get a real good look at the stuff before Emily insisted on taking them back to Prince Hall. She said she didn't want to risk any of them getting damaged while we were inspecting them."

"I think Maggie's right. We need to see this stuff." Alex paused. "Do you think it'd be possible to have a look at them tomorrow, and maybe drop by the house as well?"

"I dunno - I can ask. Why, do you think you missed something?"

"Maybe. Elliot...said he found something in the floorboards, and then you found that stuff. I want to see if there's anything else to tell me what happened to him. Last time we were there I was pretty..."

"Loopy?" Jamie offered helpfully.

"Yeah, loopy's good," Alex conceded.

"I don't think that's a good idea, Alex," Margaret began.

"I need to see it, Maggie," Alex turned a steady look at her. "If there's anything there, I need to know, and I know better than you do what to look for."

They stared at each other for a moment, while Jamie yo-yo'ed uncertain looks at the two of them from the safety of his books. At length, Margaret said, "Fine, but I'm not letting you out of my sight."

"I'm not-" Alex began, then stopped, a rueful expression spreading across his face. "Yeah, okay."

Margaret leaned back and gave him a quizzical look. "I actually expected more of a fight. I've never known you to give up that easily on anything."

Alex laughed. "I figured it'd seem ungrateful if I dragged you down here and then proceeded to ignore everything you said."

Margaret smiled at that, reached down and took his hand. "We'll get through this, Alex. Sort it all out."

Alex just nodded.

"Feel like sleeping some more?" Margaret asked.

"Feel like trying, maybe."

Margaret nodded and got up. "We probably won't be able to do anything until tomorrow afternoon anyway, and you'll want to be well rested."

"Alright," Alex said, slipping back beneath the covers. "I'm glad you're here, Maggie."

"I know." She kissed him on the forehead, then drew the covers over his shoulder.

Jamie was frowning from his position at the dining room table when she looked up again, after Alex had fallen asleep.

"Are you sure that's a good idea?" he whispered as she rejoined him and started stacking the loose books.

"No," Margaret admitted, "but I'm open to better suggestions."

Jamie gave her a steady look, his lips thinning.

"Ones that don't involve psychiatric treatment."

"It's something we do have to consid-"

"Not for me, Jamie. Not yet."

"We might not be doing him any favors indulging him, Maggie."

"Alex isn't the type to just go off the deep end, Jamie. You know that." She stopped her book shuffling and looked him in the eyes. "You've already told me you didn't see this coming. No indication of instability, and you're around him almost every day. Until I see a reason not to, or until Alex shows he's a danger to himself, or others, I'm going to trust him."

Jamie returned her gaze, and they were silent for several seconds. Finally, he nodded.

"Alright. I'll give you a call soon as I have a set time, then," he said, making his way to the door. Margaret followed, opened the door for him. He paused in the doorway and, holding the stack of books up with his thigh, reached out and touched Margaret's hand. "I'm glad you're here too, Maggie. I hope...I think everything's gonna be alright."

"I hope so too. Thanks, Jamie." Margaret gave him a kiss on the cheek and watched from the doorway as he clomped his way down the stairs, made his way across the parking lot, and dropped the stack of books inelegantly into the back seat of his Cherokee. He waved to her once, then got into his car and disappeared into the storming night.

*************

It was still sleeting the next day; the heavens had dumped half a foot of pebbly gray ice onto the ground overnight, and with the sun rose a thick, clotted mist that further shrouded the landscape. By early afternoon the sky was a steel-colored screen that pressed into the earth, bleeding into the snow until everything flattened into an endless haze in which trees, houses, cars, and people floated like objects in an unfinished painting.

The university had chosen to cancel classes and close its offices in light of the inclement weather, and as a result the history department was nearly deserted. Most of the rooms were dark, lit only by the pale light creeping in through the tall, cloudy windows common to so many of the buildings on campus. The empty rooms gave sound a weirdly amplified quality, such that the slightest footsteps thundered through the tiled halls, and as a result their conversations took on a muted quality, as though the passages where they walked were in some measure hallowed.

"We're pretty fortunate the weather's so crappy today," Emily said as she led the three of them through the cluttered offices, passing desks so cramped with papers they looked ready to capsize and shed a snowstorm of fluttering pages all over the room. "Everybody's decided to stay home. If there were more people, I doubt we'd have been able to get either the time or the room to really have a look at the stuff we recovered."

"Thank you for agreeing to show us around, Emily," Margaret said. "Especially on a day like this."

"No problem," Emily replied, shooting a glance at Jamie. "Actually, I feel I owe you at least this much. If Alex hadn't mentioned it, I'd never have even thought about looking through the kitchen. Even though I knew where to look, it took a bit of searching to the find the compartment. He has some exceptionally sharp eyes."

Alex said nothing. Jamie coughed.

"What have you been able to find about the items?" Margaret quickly filled the silence.

"They're all very well-preserved. I'd have expected more water damage, given where they were found. Otherwise...actually, we're here. Why don't I just show you?"

They'd stopped in front of a tall door set with a single pane of frosted glass run through with safety wire. Emily fished through her jean pockets and produced a large ring of assorted keys. She thumbed through them, unlocked the door, eased it open. The room beyond looked to be the size of a respectable auditorium and was arrayed with rows of metal shelves that stood in military-straight rows. Various artifacts, lumpy and hump-backed underneath cloth or bubble wrap, sat crowded on the shelves.

"Wow," Jamie said, poking his head in and scanning the rows of shelves. "Where the hell did you get all this stuff?"

"Not all of this is particularly significant, historically speaking. We share a lot of the space with Archaeology, and they partner with the Sanctuary Falls Historical Society, which does work all over the world." Emily paused, then smiled. "I don't have to tell you not to touch anything."

Jamie gave her an innocent look, holding his palms out in front of him.

Emily led them past several rows of shelves, stopped at a dimly lit aisle and retrieved a small tray containing numerous cloth-wrapped objects. She then made her way to a long table that sat underneath a row of lamps. An odd assortment of artifacts sat on the table, jumbled amidst a small mountain of yellow legal pads, loose paper, and open ledgers. At a glance, there were dozens of pitted arrowheads, several crudely carved statuettes of grossly stylized figures, numerous pieces of pottery, and a long, rusty saber with an ornate ivory hilt that looked to be of military origin.

Setting the tray on an empty corner of the table, Emily produced a wide cloth and spread it over the area, then carefully began unwrapping the cloth objects, laying them gently onto the strip of cloth one by one.

Margaret found herself crowding closer to Emily, even as Alex and Jamie both craned in for a better look.

The majority of the objects consisted of a series of crudely made cloth dolls, fashioned from a coarse fabric of some kind and sewn up using coarse black thread. Most of the dolls had been crafted in shades of gray or faded pastels, but a scattered handful had a more colorful and detailed construction.

"Yeah, that's not creepy at all," Jamie remarked, peering closely at one of the dolls.

Margaret silently agreed. The crude make and sheer number of the little figures gave them a strangely mocking, vaguely menacing air, as though a kind of malign intelligence peered out from their cord-sewn eyes. She shook her head to clear the fanciful imagery and watched as Emily unwrapped the last of the dolls, then unrolled a swathe of bubble wrap from an unremarkable box made of dark brown wood. The box rattled slightly as she set it down, as though it were filled with small pebbles or glass beads.

"What's in there?" Margaret asked.

"I don't know," Emily replied. "The lock's jammed, and I'm still debating the best way of getting the lid off with the least amount of damage to the box and its contents."

While Margaret examined the box, intrigued, Emily removed the last object from the tray and unwrapped it to reveal a large, worn, leather-bound volume clasped shut with a series of tarnished buckles. Numerous loose pages stuck out from the yellowed edges of its interior, looking curiously crisp despite their long years of confinement. Emily carefully unbuckled the clasps and laid the book onto the cloth.

"I didn't realize books were made like this back then," Margaret said, gesturing toward the clasps.

"They weren't, generally," Emily replied. "The lack of an actual locking mechanism suggests the buckles are only there to keep the book from accidentally falling open."

"What's in it?" Jamie asked.

In response, Emily gently laid open the leather cover and used a large pair of duck-billed tweezers to turn the first page, flipping it with a mother's careful touch. The page was covered with a rough black scrawl that looped in coarse circles and arcs, such that the center was a pitted black hole that gradually lightened toward the edges of the page. Emily held the page for a moment, then turned, revealing another roiling abstraction of charcoal swirls and whorls, in which strange, distorted faces could almost be resolved. Areas of the paper were crinkled and creased, slightly torn, as though the artist had pressed so hard in his ministrations he'd crumpled the paper. Margaret screwed her eyes shut, then opened them again, blinking several times. Crude as they were, the drawings held an oddly compelling, dizzying quality about them that unfocused her vision and brought tears to her eyes.

"Most of the book is filled with drawings like these," Emily said, flipping the pages to reveal one chaotic drawing after another. "Very dark, fairly abstract, done with a lot of energy and intensity from the look of it. There is, however, some scattered writing throughout the book."

Emily turned to the back. Here, alternately in ink and charcoal, was scribbled lengthy pieces in a hurried, sprawling hand, with no regard for direction, all done with the air of someone jotting down notes in a hurry. Several of the notes had clearly been copied from another source, using alphabets from different, ancient-looking languages.

"What do they say?" Jamie asked. "Is that...that looks like Linear A."

"Good eye. It is Linear A," Emily replied. "So I have no idea what it means. I'm getting someone better versed in ancient languages to take a look at it later this week. The guy who took these notes had to have some pretty extraordinary sources, though. There's stuff here written in ancient Greek, Aramaic, Phoenician, Latin, and a host of other languages."

"Anything you understand?"

"My Latin's a little rusty, but I managed to catch a few phrases here and there." She flipped a few pages and examined a paragraph scribbled in a precarious slant. "Ummmm...this passage makes a reference to the 'Leviathan' and some kind of 'God of the Seas' or 'Lord of the Ocean,' in the same way that God - the Hebrew God - was a 'Lord of the Mountains.'"

"Mythology?" Margaret asked.

"Apparently. I don't understand enough of it to really say."

"God of the Seas, huh?" Jamie remarked. "That seems pretty blasphemous for the time period. I thought Leviathan some kind of big fish."

"A sea monster, yes - a serpent or dragon that encircled the world and could sink continents. As a mythical creature it has a lot of similarities with the Nordic Midgard Serpent, which is probably more easily recognized. Or the dragon Nidhogg, which gnawed at the roots of the World Tree Yggdrasil, the fundament of all creation."

"I think I remember," Jamie said. "Destroys the world at Ragnarok, right?"

"Well it definitely helps," Emily said with a wry look. "Leviathan's referenced in Biblical apocrypha as well. A creature that swam in the oceans of the world before God came and separated the heavens and the earth from the sea. In some versions of the story, God had to strike down the Leviathan before He could really begin the act of creation, because the creature was too powerful and too destructive to live in the world He envisioned."

"That sounds kind of familiar," Jamie frowned. "Was it...Babylonian myth where some god had to kill a big serpent before he could create the world?"

"Babylonian, that's right. Marduk had to kill Tiamat, who was goddess of the seas and mother of the gods, and the embodiment of primordial chaos. He split her body in half, and from one half he made the earth, and from the other half he raised the heavens." Emily smiled. "You know your mythology."

Jamie grinned and made a waffling, so-so gesture.

"There seems to be a number of parallels between all of these myths," Margaret noted.

"It's common among seafaring civilizations for the ocean to play a major role in their creation myths," Emily replied. "And since all major civilizations end up touching the sea in one way or another, certain common elements start to emerge."

"Do you know who might've written this book?" Margaret asked, inspecting the yellowed pages more closely, as though the answer was sequestered in its rough ridges and crevices.

"It's hard to say. Jeremiah was the last known inhabitant of Parrish House, but any number of people have had access to it since then. I can't imagine Jeremiah writing a book of abstract art and pagan myths."

"It's a mystery, isn't it?" Jamie said in a particularly atrocious British accent. He turned toward Alex and said, "Hey Alex, what do you-"

He stopped.

Alex was looking hard at one of the cloth dolls - a colorful little figure cut in red and blue cloth, and decorated to rather more detail than the others. He was breathing heavily, and his fingers were gripping the edge of the table so hard his knuckles were turning white.

"Alex, what's the matter?" Margaret asked, alarmed, and moved to touch his shoulder. Alex flinched away violently, turning a wild look on her, as though having just awakened from a particularly vivid nightmare. Panting and running a shaky hand through his hair, he looked at the three of them, flushed a deep crimson, and averted his gaze.

"Sorry guys," he said, staring at the floor. "You startled me. I was miles away."

"Are you alright? Did you notice something?"

Alex's eyes flickered toward Jamie and Emily, and he shook his head. "No. No, it's nothing."

Margaret looked at him for a moment, then said, "Excuse us a moment, guys." Taking him firmly by the arm, she led him aside.

"Alex, tell me," she said in a low voice.

"No. It...it sounds crazy."

"Let me be the judge of that. Tell me, Alex. I need to know."

Alex looked discomfited, but leaned in and said softly, "Those dolls. That one over there. It looks like Elliot."

Margaret looked back at the crude cloth figures sitting on the table, then turned an upraised eyebrow at Alex.

"I told you it sounded crazy!" Alex whispered fiercely, almost in a snarl.

"Well how does it...resemble him?"

"It's wearing what Elliot was wearing the day he...disappeared." Alex rubbed his forehead, agitated. "But it's not just that. It's this...feeling of familiarity, like when you pass someone on the street you're sure you recognize. Or that feeling when you have an incredibly vivid dream but it vanishes the moment you wake up, so that all you have is this intense feeling of having experienced...something...even if you can't remember what it was."

"What do you think it means?"

"I don't know. I wish I did."

"What do you want to do?"

Alex thought for a moment, his gaze periodically dancing to the cloth manikins on the table, then addressed Emily over Margaret's shoulder. "Did you say you found these in Parrish House's kitchen, Emily?"

"That's right. In a secret compartment in the floor, right where you said."

"Do you suppose you could show me? I was...kind of out of my head last time."

"Jamie did mention you guys were hoping to see the house again." Emily suddenly grinned - a bright smile almost startling in its cheerfulness. "If you uncover a cache every time we go, I'll take you as often as you like."

Alex laughed, and a great deal of the tension in the room eased away.

"Thank you, Emily," he said. "You've been an amazing help."

"Don't worry about it. Parrish House sometimes does play tricks with the imagination. Did you find what you needed here?"

"Sort of," Alex replied, with a sidelong look at Margaret. "If you find out more about any of this stuff, would you be willing to let us know?"

"Sure, I think I can manage that," Emily replied as she began re-wrapping the items. "It probably won't be for a few days, but I'll keep you updated on our progress."

"Thank you very much."

Jamie edged around Emily and put an inquisitive hand at Alex's back.

"What do you think you'll find in there?"

"I don't know. There's all this weirdness going on, and I can't piece together any of it. I'm just hoping there's something in there that'll help me make some sense out of all this."

"Scene of the crime, I guess." Jamie turned back to look at Emily, who was folding the wooden box back into its cloth cover with great deliberation, and brought Alex into a deeper huddle. "If you feel the urge to flip out, though, could you do it quietly? Think of my love life, dude!"

Alex flicked him on the nose. "I'll try not to disrupt your burgeoning romance with my impending madness."

"Aww...thanks, dude! You're so considerate!" Jamie clasped him affectionately about the waist and laid his head against Alex's shoulder.

Alex rolled his eyes, but smiled. "Asshole."

"Alright, I'm done. Ready to head off?" Emily interrupted, stepping in.

"Yup! We're good!" Jamie replied and bounded out the door. Alex sighed, threw an apologetic look at Emily, then followed him out.

*****************

The sleet had given way to cottony balls of a grayish snow by the time they left Prince Hall. The enormous flakes had already formed a thick blanket over the morning's layer of sleet, and now swirled in blinding waves upon razor winds. The combination of the snow and the iron-gray layers of clouds frosting the sky dropped visibility to a few scant yards, and the ice made even the mild slopes at the edges of the Quad treacherous. After only ten minutes they were all red-faced and panting.

"This really sucks," Jamie said, his voice muffled by his scarf. He pulled the home-knitted red and green monstrosity tighter around his neck and hunched his shoulders even more against the cold. "Why can't we ever visit the creepy haunted house when it's sunny and warm?"

"It was sunny the last time we came here," Alex replied, frowning and craning his head to look into the distance. Whatever he was looking for, it was largely obscured by the blinding snow as well as a tall, dense copse of trees. "Did we come this way last time? I don't remember all these trees being here."

"It's a bit clearer coming from the parking lot, over by the other side of Duck Pond," Emily replied. "It's the only nearby place to park, so you must've come from there."

"I honestly don't remember," Alex replied, looking disgruntled. He rubbed his face and expelled a loud sigh, his breath pluming spectrally in the air. "I feel like it's been years since I came here."

"You've been through a lot recently," Margaret replied. "I've got to admit I'm pretty curious now. I feel like Parrish House has been getting all this hype since I got-"

She stopped. They'd rounded a bend in the trail, and the location in question had suddenly loomed into view.

Margaret's first impression of Parrish House was of a slumbering beast, a monster of stone and wood that loomed four massive stories into the chalky sky. Its walls had been laid using rough-hewn bricks larger than a man's head, in various shades of greenish-gray, for a look that was undoubtedly elegant once but now looked faintly necrotic. Huge double doors of a heavy, faded oak stood centered at the front wall, shaded by a wide, white-washed wooden awning. A pair of enormous bronze rings could be seen sunk into the doors. Three windows stood to either side of the main entrance, with three more rows of eight windows glaring over the yard from above the doors, hiding their contents behind half-lidded brown storm shutters. Sloping alpine rooftops coated with a thick blanket of snow capped the building, although hints of the reddish-orange slate that comprised their structure peeked out here and there from underneath the white.

While Parrish House was undoubtedly one of the most imposing structures she'd ever seen, what truly caught Margaret's eye was the hill that rose from just behind the house - the same hill that had seemed to reappear again and again in her visit to Sanctuary Falls. The tall, leafless tree jutted from its snow-capped crest like a skeletal arm, lonely and black against the luminous gray of the sky. The wind blew again, piercing and insistent, and in its breath the tree swayed and writhed in a peculiar, alien dance that seemed vaguely obscene. Staring at the tree, Margaret felt as though a stone had dropped into her stomach, and even the chill winter air suddenly seemed stifling.

"Hey guys, what's wrong?" Jamie asked.

"Are you-are you serious?" Alex asked, and Margaret was suddenly aware that until Jamie spoke Alex had been standing shock still at her side. "Are you telling me that you don't see anything wrong?"

Jamie turned back toward Parrish House, scanning the horizon as though some minute detail would suddenly pop out, highlighting the key missing element. At length, he turned back to Alex with a puzzled look on his face.

"Um...it's really cold and snowy and we're...going into the scariest haunted house in the world? I've got no idea, dude. Throw me a bone here."

"Is that Parrish House?" Alex asked, pointing at the massive building jutting out of the landscape.

"Ummm...yeeeeaaaah..." Jamie replied, looking more bewildered still. "Is that...is that not supposed to be Parrish House?"

"No, it..." Alex took a step back, frowning intensely at Jamie. "Do you honestly not see anything wrong there?"

"No, dude, I don't."

"Is something the matter?" Emily asked, trudging back from where she'd been leading.

"No," Jamie replied immediately, turned back toward Alex and Margaret, and amended, "Well, maybe. Guys?"

Alex looked at the two of them, then at Margaret, then back at Parrish House with a look of aching indecision. Then his eyes scanned the horizon, lingering for an especially long time upon the tree on top of the hill, and upon the multitude of shuttered windows that hid the soul of the mansion from the world. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, and with a lurch Margaret recognized the motion. It was the same one Alex always used when coming to grips with a particularly unpleasant decision. Her suspicions were confirmed when he opened his eyes a moment later. A glittering sort of hardness had appeared in them, a firmness and conviction he used to steel himself against whatever it was he had to do. When he spoke, however, it was in a soft, weary, defeated tone.

"I don't need to go in there. I've seen enough."

"Um...what?" Jamie asked.

Alex sighed and rubbed his forehead, a slow flush making its way up his neck.

"I don't need to go in there, Jamie," he said without looking up. "I've found what I'm looking for."

"And what is that, exactly?"

"I thought I'd find some indication of where Elliot went and what happened to him. I'd been holding onto it even though there was no evidence that he existed anywhere except in my mind." Alex shook his head. "It's me, Jamie. It's only me."

Jamie stared at him, exchanged a speechless look with Margaret, who was struck equally dumb at the abrupt change. Slowly, hesitantly, she walked forward and laid a hand on his shoulder. He didn't move away, but averted his gaze from her face. Emily looked at the three of them, then solemnly withdrew several paces to the side, suddenly absorbed by a loose thread dangling from her coat sleeve.

"Alex...how do you know?" Margaret asked. "You were so convinced that Elliot...what changed your mind?"

Alex was quiet for a long while. Then he flicked his head toward Parrish House and said, "The house."

"What do you mean?"

"It's four stories tall, with an attic, and made of granite from that local quarry. The roof looks like it's slate underneath all that snow. There are eight windows on the second, third, and fourth floors, and six on the first - three on either side of the door. Is that right?"

"Yes, that's right," Margaret replied, mystified.

"Is that where we went, day before yesterday, Jamie?"

"Yeah, dude," Jamie replied, with another glance at Margaret.

"That's not where I remember going," Alex said. "The place I remember going into was a small house, not an eighth the size of that...mansion over there. It was made of wood mostly, rotting and falling apart, with a front porch that went across the whole front. There couldn't have been more than five or six rooms in the whole building."

"Oh. Um..." Jamie looked back at Parrish House, scratching at the back of his head. "I don't know what to tell you, dude. That's...not...really it. That not where I remember going."

Alex simply looked at him, silent.

"Maybe...maybe we should take a look anyway," Margaret suggested. "Alex, you don't know for sure-"

"No. I never want to step foot in there again," Alex replied. "Let's just go home."

He thrust his hands into his pockets and, glaring at the ground, started back in the direction of the Quad.

Margaret gave Jamie a helpless look, then quickly strode over to where Emily appeared to be inspecting an ice-coated branch with violent interest.

"Emily, thank you so much for your help, especially on a day like this. I'm sorry, Alex-" Margaret glanced behind her, toward where Alex was doggedly slogging through the snow with his head down. "He's-it's been rough, lately, but we really do appreciate-"

"No worries, Margaret, I understand." Emily took Margaret's hand and gave it a squeeze with both hands. "I hope everything works out alright. I mean it."

"Thank you."

Margaret turned and ran to catch up with Alex. He neither looked nor spoke to her as she took pace beside him, but allowed her to loop her arm through his. Through the thick layers of winter clothing she could feel the iron tension in his arm, and see the rigid cast of his entire body as he walked. Jamie caught up to them a moment later, taking Alex's other flank, and laid a reassuring hand on his friend's shoulder. Alex looked for a moment at Jamie's feet and made no other response.

Their silence continued the entire ride back to Alex's condo. As soon as they walked through the door, Alex shrugged off his heavy coat, threw it onto the couch, and simply stood in the middle of the living room, staring hard at the bookshelf and the rows of framed pictures decorating its top level. Jamie and Margaret stood just inside the doorway, tentative, waiting for him to speak.

Finally, he said, "I'm going to bed. I'll figure out what to do tomorrow." Alex turned and strode toward his bedroom, pausing only to say, "Jamie, can you crash here tonight and keep Maggie company? I don't want her alone."

"Yeah, dude. No problem."

"Thanks."

Then, without looking at them, he walked into his room and closed the door. They heard a soft click as he locked it from the other side.

*************

They said nothing for the better part of several hours. Jamie scribbled furiously on a flip-top pad while Margaret cleaned the living room and kitchen, endlessly scrubbing at the same stains while her thoughts banged around her head like swarms of angry flies. The silence stretched and grew, swelling into a great beast that made itself at home in the condo's living room and kitchen, glutting itself on the words that both of them wanted to say but couldn't. And so the silence remained unmolested, save by the occasional rustle of paper as Jamie turned a page, the wood-sawing noise when Margaret scratched particularly vigorously at the formica surface of the kitchen counter, and the occasional scatter-shot of pitter-patter from the window as a fresh wave of the newly returned snow-sleet mixture blew against the glass.

The thin gray light streaming in through the living room window gradually darkened, taking on deeper and deeper shades of blue, and the shadows in the room lengthened by bits and inches until the furniture took on a spectral cast in the dimness. At length, Jamie rose and flipped a light switch hidden in the book case, sending a scattered cone of illumination from the hanging lamp that lit up the dining room table and very little else. He stood by the bookshelf for a long time, looking at Margaret as she rinsed out her Brillo pad in the kitchen sink.

"Maggie," he said.

"I know, Jamie," Margaret said, squeezing a wash of white suds from the Brillo pad. She twisted it in her hand, wringing it until her hands shook with the effort. "We'll handle it tomorrow."

"Maggie," Jamie said again. "It'll be okay. He'll be okay."

Margaret relaxed her grip on the pad, letting warm water wash over her hands and soak into the pad. Her hands were red and raw from the hours of scrubbing, and her skin tingled underneath the warming flow.

"I know," she said.

Jamie walked over to her and laid a hand on her shoulder. He gave it a light but firm squeeze.

"Alex is asleep, Maggie. You don't need to-"

"What am I supposed to do, Jamie?" Maggie asked, "Fall apart? Start sobbing about how unfair all of this is? It is unfair, but it's not worse than any of the other shit Alex and I have had to deal with, and crying about it isn't going to help or change anything."

She squeezed the Brillo pad one more time, then squeezed some more detergent onto it and resumed scrubbing at the stubborn stains on the kitchen counter.

"I'll let him sleep tonight, and we'll talk about what needs to be done after he wakes up. There are plenty of good doctors in town. We'll find out exactly what's going on, and we'll go from there."

"And in the meantime you're going to strip the Formica from that countertop?"

"At least he'll have a clean kitchen!"

Jamie laughed and gave her shoulder another squeeze. "Well, I've got your back, both of you, whatever happens."

"I know. That's part of why I don't feel as bad about this as I probably should." Margaret put down the Brillo pad and pulled him into a hug. "Thank you, Jamie. You're a good friend."

"You kidding? I'm a great friend! A great friend that you're getting all sudsy, I might add."

Margaret smiled and gave him a pat on the cheek. Pain suddenly lanced behind her eyes. She winced and half-stumbled against the kitchen counter.

"What's wrong?" Jamie asked, moving to help steady her.

"Headache," Margaret smiled weakly. "All the stress recently keeps setting it off. It's alright, I have some Fioricet with me."

She pushed herself over to her bag and rummaged through it. The familiar orange bottle wasn't there. She frowned and put down the bag, trying to remember where she had last seen it.

"Can't find it?"

"No." Margaret thought for a moment, then cursed. "I think I left it in Alex's room."

"I'm pretty sure Alex keeps some Advil around here."

Jamie dug around in the kitchen cabinets and finally produced a small white bottle. He rattled two pills into his hands, filled a mug with water, and handed both to her.

"They're not much, but better than nothing."

"Thanks."

Margaret smiled at him, took the pills and downed them with a gulp of water. Outside, there came a sudden rumble of thunder, and a wave of pebble-like sleet rattled against the windows. A bolt of lightning crackled in the distance, casting sharp-edge shadows all around the room. In the wake of the flash, the room fell into an uneasy silence.

"That's kinda weird," Jamie remarked after a few moments.

"What?"

"That lightning came after the thunder. I've never seen that before."

The two of them wandered over to the window, squinting into the distance and searching for the source of the strange phenomenon. A heavy mist had rolled in, shrouding everything in a hazy purple curtain in which the sodium lights of the street lamps glowed with floating orange halos. The apartments next to Falls Place Condos were dark and still, silent hulks crouched in a frozen night, taking on a predatory air in the soundless shadows. Margaret leaned closer to the window and listened - nothing. Not even the distant slide of tires on wet asphalt. She looked down at the parking lot, at the soft orange light reflected in blazing jewels off the wet droplets on the cars, and the black bands of tire treads cutting through the snow. Something about what she was seeing was off, something just barely at the edge of her awareness. It nagged at her, and she frowned at the parking lot as she scanned it for the source of her disconcert. A moment later she found it, and her heart dropped into her stomach.

"Jamie," she hissed, grabbing at his shoulder.

"What?"

"Where's Alex's car?"

Jamie looked at the empty parking space, and at the light dusting of snow that had fallen over the rectangle where a car had shielded the asphalt from the day's precipitation.

"Shit," he said.

Margaret turned and strode briskly toward Alex's bedroom, banging her leg against the coffee table in her haste. She cursed, but didn't break stride as she rubbed her shin. She stopped outside Alex's door, leaned an ear against it and knocked.

"Alex, are you awake?"

There was no answer. She tried the doorknob, but the door had, of course, been locked from the other side.

"Jamie-" She began, but turned to see Jamie approaching with a small flathead screwdriver.

"Here, I've got it."

Jamie inserted the screwdriver into a small slot in the doorknob, gave it a quick turn, and was rewarded with a brassy spring from the other side of the door. Twisting the knob, Jamie gently pushed open the door and peered in, with Margaret shadowing him.

The bedroom was dark, but for a dim orange glow that spilled in through the window and limned the bed in ruddy curves. They'd taped a trash bag over the window to cover the broken glass, and the plastic pulsed thunderously in the wind. Margaret frowned - Alex had wrapped himself in a cocoon of quilts and bedsheets, tucking his head under the covers and curling into fetal position. She hadn't seen him do such a thing since he was seven. She stood for a moment, wondering whether her initial anxiety had been unfounded after all. Realization hit her a moment later, and with a sharp intake of breath she walked over to the bed, stripped off the sheets in a single pull.

There was nobody underneath the covers. A bundle of pillows, sheets, and clothing had been carefully arrayed to resemble a sleeping body. A piece of paper taped to the top of the bundle fluttered in the sudden breeze. Margaret gestured for Jamie to turn on the lights and picked up the note as they came flickering on. It read, "Don't follow me. Take Jamie and get out of town until I call you."

"Idiot!" Margaret flared, crumbling the note into a tiny ball.

"What is it? Where did he go?"

"Where do you think? He's gone to that goddamn house!" Margaret thrust the ball into Jamie's hand, shoved open the window, and looked out. There was a tiny ledge just underneath the window, barely large enough for a man to stand on if he were holding onto something. Far below in the snow were two small humps and a wide skid mark where Alex had clearly jumped down, tumbling a bit to catch himself. Margaret cursed and hurried past Jamie, who was reading the uncrumpled note.

"Christ," he said, turning and following her to the hall, where she had shrugged on her jacket and was wrestling with her shoes in jerky, abrupt motions. "Then what the hell was all that this afternoon? The whole-" He stopped as it came to him. "He didn't want us to go with him. All of that 'it's only me' bullshit he threw at us was just to keep us busy!"

"He tricked us! I can't believe that little bastard tricked us!" Margaret fumed, equal parts anxiety and fury storming in her chest. "God, I should never have let him be alone."

Jamie quickly threw on his own jacket and pulled on his shoes. As they rushed out the door, he fished his keys out of his pocket with one hand and flipped open his cell phone with the other.

"Shit, he's had a good three and a half hours on us. We can take my car. It'll handle better in this weather. "

He clicked a few buttons on the phone as they clunked down the stairs, unlocked his Jeep with a quick press of his electronic keys, and brought the phone to his ear as they got into the car.

"It's going straight to voice mail."

"He's probably turned off his phone. Let's just get there."

They drove in a fretful silence, the only sounds the wet slide of the windshield wipers and the steady clicking as Margaret tore vengefully into her fingernails. Main Street was empty of people and cars; it stretched out before them in eerie silence. As their lone vehicle made its way down the street, leering buildings glared at them through darkened windows. Thunder rumbled ominously in the distance, like the growl of an angered beast, and the sky flashed white, although no fork of lightning could be seen.

At length, they turned onto the gravelly, twisted bends of Duck Pond Trail, and as they crunched past the snow-covered fields surrounding the road Margaret caught sight of the Honda Civic sitting alone in the white vastness of the Duck Pond parking lot.

"There's his car," Margaret pointed. "I knew it. Come on."

Jamie swerved into a haphazard parking position. Margaret was out the door and running toward Alex's car before they'd even stopped moving.

"Look," she pointed at the ground as Jamie ran to catch up with her. Sunk into the snow next to the parking lot were a series of water-filled footprints, still relatively fresh, leading toward the Duck Pond and curving behind a dense bough of trees.

"The house," Jamie agreed.

They took off at a dead run, slowed by the soggy snow and wet grass, following the trail of footprints Alex had left behind. The fields glowed weirdly against the blackness of the forest and the radioactive orange of the clouds overhead, and Margaret cursed that she had forgotten to bring a flashlight. The house would be pitch black at this hour, and the thought of stumbling through it in the dark sent shivers down her spine.

They rounded a bend, and Parrish House abruptly loomed over them like a midnight stranger from behind a darkened street corner. It glared at them through its heavy-lidded rows of shuttered windows, and the pale light scattered from the snow around the house cast strangely hard shadows over its hewn stone walls, giving the entire structure an unearthly air. Behind the house, the ubiquitous hill rose like a white ghost into the purple-orange sky, the solitary tree at its apex a bolt of black lightning that thrust from the ground. The front door of Parrish House stood ajar, and only darkness could be seen beyond the crack of the opening.

Margaret took a deep, steadying breath, then started toward the house, only to be stopped as Jamie's hand shot out and grabbed her arm.

"Wait," he said. "We should let someone know we're here."

"Jamie-" she began.

"Someone needs to know we're here, Maggie," Jamie insisted.

He pressed a few buttons on his cell phone and brought it to his ear.

"Hey Emily. It's Jamie. I guess you're busy or something. Ummm...look, Alex is missing. We're pretty sure he's gone into Parrish House, and we need to find him before he hurts himself. Maggie and I are going in to look for him, but I'm letting you know that we're in there. It's...if I don't call you again within an hour, I'm gonna need you to call the police. And no matter what happens, don't come in after us by yourself."

Margaret gave him an incredulous look as he hung up the phone.

"We're not going on some kind of secret mission, Jamie. It's just a house."

"Look, it's a huge house, an old house, and we've already seen that there are secret compartments in there. I don't wanna - I don't know - fall into the basement or something and then not be able to get a signal to call for help."

Margaret stared at him.

"Okay, and the place creeps the shit out of me, okay? It makes me feel better knowing that backup is on the way."

Margaret laughed and touched his hand. "Alright. To be honest, the place creeps me out, too. I'm glad someone else knows we're here."

Jamie gave her a brief smile, then took a deep breath and walked over to the front door. He slowly pushed it halfway open, glanced once at Margaret as she moved beside him. She put a reassuring hand at his back and the two of them went in.

***************

The first thing she noticed was the ticking - a solid, mechanical click that echoed endlessly through the house, so that the sound seemed to emanate from the very walls. The air inside the doorway was liquid heavy, weighted with the musty smell of cobwebs and damp carpet, the oil scent of kerosene, the barest hint of the ice and rain drizzling outside. Underneath everything, however, there was the impression of an odor, not smelled so much as tasted; a sticky-thick sensation of rotting fish and other less pleasant things.

They stood in a foyer whose walls were lined with old but serviceable wallpaper - faded pink roses on a light brown background. A pair of kerosene lamps burned at the sides of the room, shedding a dim, buttery light that did little to chase away the shadows pressing into the corners of the room. Submerged in the darkness at the back wall, a narrow staircase snaked past the high ceiling and vanished into the unseen stretches of the second floor. A pair of dark hardwood doors stood to either side of the room, and next to both of them, on neatly covered desks, sat fresh white candles in polished silver candelabras.

Margaret had never been particularly afraid of the dark, nor was she superstitious, but standing in the flickering, uncertain light of the kerosene lamps, feeling the clock ticks reverberating through her bones, she suddenly felt very afraid. The stillness of the house seemed to take on a malevolent air, a sensation of amused expectancy in the way a cat might be amused by the struggles of a mouse locked in its claws, and she couldn't shake the feeling that she was being watched. Margaret felt Jamie's hand slip around hers and give a small squeeze. She turned to look at him, and he smiled at her. It was tense, anxious, as visibly unnerved as she felt, but the gesture was unexpectedly reassuring.

"He lit the lamps," Jamie said, pointing.

"He probably also forgot to bring a flashlight," Margaret replied. "I'm surprised those lamps still have kerosene in them."

She walked to the desk on her left and pulled open its front drawer. As she had hoped, three neat stacks of matchbooks and a small LED flashlight sat inside.

"People do occasionally visit the house," Jamie said, walking up next to her. "I bet the history grads occasionally come by and refill the lamps."

Margaret nodded as she checked the flashlight. It blazed with a magnesium-white glow, startlingly bright for such a small device. "Can you check that other desk? I'd prefer not to use candles if we can avoid it."

Jamie crossed the room and pulled open the other drawer. "Nope. Nothing."

"Alright."

Margaret struck a match and lit the candle, frowning slightly at the tiny flame that resulted. She pocketed the three matchbooks and glanced up at that ceiling.

"What's that noise?" Jamie asked.

"It sounds like a clock," Margaret replied. "That wasn't ticking the last time you were here?"

"No, this place was almost dead quiet last time we were here."

"Why would he take the time to wind up a clock?"

"I have no idea," Jamie frowned and rubbed his forehead. "I really hope Alex hasn't gone completely off his rocker."

Margaret looked at him for a moment, considering the statement.

"Which way to the kitchen?" she asked finally.

Jamie gestured toward the door on their right.

"Alright, I'll lead."

Margaret handed Jamie the dimly burning candle, then moved to the right side of the room. She pushed the door open a crack, thrust the flashlight through the opening, and peered in. The circle of brilliant light fell upon a long hallway lined with that same faded floral wallpaper, and covered with a thick, luxurious red carpet that seemed curiously absent of dust. The same bell-shaped kerosene lamps that were in the foyer studded the walls at intervals, shedding an inconsequential amount of light. Three doors stood against the left wall between them, facing three tall, darkened windows through which could be seen closed shutters. All the doors were slightly ajar.

Frowning at the open doors, Margaret edged into the hall and nodded for Jamie to follow. He closed the door behind them as he did, and as it shut the ticking of the clock abruptly muted. In the silence their breathing seemed unusually loud, and they shared a nervous glance. Jamie suddenly smiled and nudged Margaret forward.

"Go on, you're leading, aren't you?" he whispered.

Margaret rolled her eyes at him.

"You know, it's always the stragglers who get snatched up in horror movies."

"I'm the plucky hero. I can't get snatched."

Margaret laughed.

"Think we should check those rooms?" Jamie asked.

"What's in them?"

"No idea. We skipped them last time."

"Then we'd better take a look."

Margaret moved to one of the doors, stared at it for a moment, then nudged it open with her foot and turned the flashlight into the room. It looked like some sort of sitting room, with a gorgeously ornamented fireplace sitting empty in the corner. Ghostly white tarps draped over numerous pieces of furniture, obstructing most of the room and sending a mass of shadows dancing over the walls as the flashlight's beam swept over them.

"Alex, are you in here?" Margaret called softly, and felt vaguely silly in doing so.

"Seriously, Maggie? I really don't think Alex is randomly hiding behind some old furniture, just waiting for us."

Margaret gave him a steady look, then scanned the room one more time before pulling the door firmly closed. At the same time, there came a sudden clatter of metal, like a distant tumbling of pots and pans. Both of them spun toward the source of the noise.

"The kitchen's in that direction," Jamie said.

They glanced at each other, then abandoned caution and ran down the hall, their footsteps thudding dully on the thick carpet. The hallway turned left after about forty feet, then ended at a door sitting half-open at the entrance to what looked like a dining room. From across the top of a cloth-covered dining table, through the glittering shards of a hanging chandelier and the frame of an open doorway, they could see a dull orange circle of illumination moving in the kitchen.

"Alex?" Margaret called softly. There was no response, although the flashlight beam continued moving.

She glanced at Jamie, then scrambled around the dining table and through the door. The kitchen was empty, but it looked as though a hurricane had blown through. Cabinets all around the room were open, revealing empty shelves and dark, dusty corners. A large iron pot sat askew in the mouth of a fireplace tucked in the back of the room, next to an open door that led out onto the snow-covered back yard. Upon an ancient-looking cutting table in the center of the room sat a lit flashlight, pointed toward an open door at the left wall. The flashlight was still wobbling on the slightly concave table surface.

Margaret rushed into the room, stopping first at the flashlight, then running to the open door at the left. The cold light of her own flashlight illuminated a narrow wooden staircase that led down, then turned left into abrupt darkness. Through spaces between the stairs, she could see hints of a rough stone wall and what looked like loamy black earth.

"Alex?" she called again. Silence answered.

She moved from the stairwell to the back door as Jamie entered the room. The back yard was glazed in snow, with only twenty feet or so between her and the enormous hill that loomed over Parrish House. It rose in a steep white swell, the solitary tree at its peak almost touching the heavy orange clouds.

"Maggie?" She heard Jamie call from behind her.

Thunder suddenly rolled across the horizon, and a moment later the clouds flashed white. In the harsh light Margaret saw someone standing on the lowest branch of the tree jump down, then jerk to a halt in midair with a short length of rope stretching from his neck.

"Alex!" she screamed, and ran toward the hill.

Time lost meaning. For a long moment that seemed to stretch into hours, she was scrambling through the snow, hobbling over foot-deep drifts that slowed her to a virtual crawl, and all the while nothing existed except the tree, the hill, and the intervening miles of ground. She wasn't aware that she had reached the bottom of the hill until she slipped for the first time. The grass underneath the layers of ice and sleet and the dusting of snow was slick, offering little purchase even to her winter boots, and she found herself clawing at the slopes to gain ground, frustration and panic mounting all the while like the rumbling crescendo of thunder overhead. Wind howled, spitting a fresh wave of snow like bullets into her face, but she groped at the slopes, finding a foothold underneath the featureless white of the hill. And, somehow, despite the suddenly vicious weather, she progressed, focusing on just putting one foot in front of the other as she dragged herself up the deceptively steep ascent. She was more crawling than walking when she reached the top, but with a frenzied burst of strength she pulled herself to her feet and dashed to the base of the tree.

It was larger, far larger, than it looked from a distance. The branches curling and twisting up into the storm might have been small tree trunks themselves, and they had a blasted, fire-blackened look to them. From the lowest of the branches dangled a simple hemp rope, expertly tied into an empty noose. If anyone had occupied either the rope or the hill, there was no sign of him now.

Margaret could only stare at the rope for a moment, icy dread stabbing at her chest. Then, numbly, she stumbled around the hill, looking for signs of other people, of a struggle, of her brother's six foot frame lying in a twisted wreck, of anything.

There was nothing. The hilltop was pristine, the snow utterly undisturbed save where she had come charging in.

"Alex!" she cried, stomping through the snow around the tree. "Alex, where are you? Alex!"

"Maggie?" Jamie asked from behind.

"I saw him," Margaret said, almost in a sob. "I saw him drop from the tree. I saw him in the noose."

"Maggie, please-"

"I saw him, Jamie!" Margaret yelled, then stopped. She was suddenly aware of a bluish light flashing dimly against the snow and illuminating the trunk of the tree in slow pulses. She turned.

Jamie stood only a few steps away, just barely cresting the hill, his face flushed and his breath fogging in the cold. Emily stood a few paces behind him, staring at her through glasses beaded with water and ice. Behind him, some distance away in the gravelly rotunda of the Duck Pond parking lot, illuminated by the brilliant orange sodium lamps, were a pair of the white and blue sedans belonging to the Sanctuary Falls Police Department, and the boxy form of an ambulance. Their strobes were on, flickering a bright blue even at this distance. She hadn't heard them approach.

"Emily...you're here," Margaret said faintly. "Has...has it been an hour already?"

"An-an hour?" Emily asked, looking perplexed.

"Maggie..." Jamie looked at the noose and shuddered. "This is somebody's idea of a joke, Maggie. It's a sick fucking joke. There's nobody here, Maggie. Nobody's been here for days. Come on, let's-let's go home."

"But Alex-" Maggie looked around wildly. "I saw him. I saw him here. I saw him...I saw him drop from the tree, Jamie!"

Emily suddenly brought both her hands to her mouth, but a squeak escaped her, and she spun around in the snow, her shoulders shaking softly. Jamie's face quivered a moment, but his voice was even as he said, "No you didn't, Maggie. Come on, there's nothing here. There's nobody here. Please, let's go home."

Margaret stared at him, looked at Emily for a moment, then turned back to him. Jamie's stance was carefully neutral, hesitant, and he moved with the air of someone approaching a skittish deer. His motions were slow, tentative, but tense with readiness, as though he were ready to spring onto her and wrestle her to the ground.

"Jamie, what's going on?" she said, surprising herself with the evenness of her voice.

"Nothing. Everything's fine now. Let's just get you home, alright? Come on."

"What the hell are you talking about, Jamie? We haven't found Alex."

A look of frustration danced across Jamie's face, but it quickly returned to its carefully assumed neutral expression. He took a deep breath and took a step toward her. She promptly backed up a step, staring at him warily. He stopped, raising both his hands, palms toward her.

"Maggie-"

"No, dammit! What're you-I'm not leaving without Alex!"

Jamie pulled off his cap and ran an aggravated hand through his hair, raising a mound of spikes. He glanced at Emily, who still stood resolutely with her back to them, and turned back to Margaret. She was shocked to see lines of raw grief etched onto his youthful features, the tell-tale signs of suffering that surely weren't there fifteen minutes ago. With visible effort, Jamie smoothed his expression, turning his face back into a neutral mask.

"It's fine, Maggie. Alex is-Alex is home. We're taking you to see him, alright?"

"Oh goddammit, don't patronize me, Jamie!" Margaret snapped. "I know damn well Alex is not at home. What the hell is wrong with you?"

Jamie froze, staring at her, the jagged lines of grief reappearing even deeper than before.

"Oh god, you've found him," Maggie gasped. She looked at Emily's silently quivering form, then at Jamie, then back. "Where is he? Take me to him!"

"Maggie-"

"Take me to him, Jamie!"

"Maggie, listen-"

"Goddammit, take me to him, Jamie!"

"Alex is dead, Maggie!"

Margaret froze shock still at the words, and for a moment everything hovered in silence. Then she shook her head.

"No. No, I don't believe it. Who found him? Emily, was it you? I need to see him."

"You don't remember." Jamie wiped a hand across his face, which did almost nothing to clear the tears that were suddenly streaming openly down his cheeks. "Jesus, Maggie, you really don't remember."

"Remember what?" she almost screamed. "What are you talking about? I need to see him! Take me to him!"

"He died last year, Maggie. Don't you remember?"

The words were so ridiculous for a moment Margaret couldn't make any sense of them. "What are you talking about? We were just talking to him this morning! He came with us to Prince Hall, to look at the things you guys found in Parrish House! I came down...I came down from Pennsylvania to help him. I came down because he was looking for his boyfriend, Elliot, and-"

"Elliot's dead, Maggie!" Jamie said, his voice cracking. "He drowned in Duck Pond last winter. Remember? He was ice skating with Alex, but it was too early and he skated out too far and the ice was too thin, and-"

"I don't know anyone named Elliot, Jamie-" Margaret began, but Jamie steamrolled past her objections.

"And by the time the paramedics got to him there wasn't anything they could do," he said through gritted teeth. "And Alex...Alex..."

Emily suddenly broke into loud sobs beside him.

"He killed himself, Maggie! He hung himself from this...god...damn...tree!" Jamie jerked at the noose with each word, rattling the branches and sending a small blizzard of ice and snow tumbling into the ground. A sob finally escaped from his throat as he pulled at the thick hempen rope with all of his strength, which was sadly insufficient for the task. "WHEN I FIND OUT WHAT SICK BASTARD DID THIS, I'M GOING TO TEAR HIS FUCKING THROAT OUT!"

Margaret just stared at him, turned and looked at Emily's weeping form, and shook her head numbly.

"No. No, this is wrong. Alex is...he has to be in the house somewhere. He-we didn't look hard enough. He's still in there."

She started past Jamie, striding purposefully toward Parrish House, and was blindsided when Jamie suddenly launched himself at her, grabbing her from behind and locking his arms around hers.

"Please, please stop, Maggie," he said, sobbing. "You haven't been taking your pills. Why haven't you been taking your pills? Awww god I'm so stupid! I'm such a fucking moron! I thought it would help. I thought-Jesus, I should never've suggested you come down. I should never've-please don't do this to yourself, Maggie. Please just come home."

"Let me go, Jamie!" Maggie screamed, and thrashed in his grip. Jamie was deceptively strong for his height, and he locked her arms against her sides, almost picking her up as he tried to stop her from going back down the hill. Maggie kicked out, sensing her feet strike solidly against his legs several times, but Jamie never relented his hold. And then Emily was in the mix too, trying to hold her back, the entire time crying, "Please stop, Maggie! Please don't do this!"

"No! Goddammit, let me go, Jamie! This is insane!"

And suddenly there were three men dressed in the full body blue of the Sanctuary Falls Rescue Squad there as well, flanked by a pair of policemen, and with experienced motions they separated her from Jamie and Emily. She struggled with all her strength, and felt a momentary satisfaction when she caught one of them solidly between the legs, but then her foot slipped out from underneath her and she dropped to her back in the snow. Two of the men pinned her arms down while a third jabbed a syringe into her neck. There was a sharp pain, and then the world swam. She had seen people get sedated in movies and there had always seemed something unreal about how quickly the medication worked, but now her head felt like a helium balloon, in which her thoughts bounced and scattered and refused to focus. Try as she might, she couldn't maintain her struggles, and her last thought was how remarkable Parrish House looked from the top of the hill with its field-like rooftops capped in snow.

***************

It was less like waking and more like rising out of cold, turbulent waters into a still colder, rocking boat. First came the awareness of motion, the myriad tiny bumps and jostles she initially couldn't quite process, but which eventually informed her that she was no longer lying still. Then came sound - a series of fuzzy, distant noises that reverberated like a bad loudspeaker in a vast, empty room. With the sound came nausea, fatigue, pain, which intruded themselves sequentially into her consciousness almost like blurry images coming into focus. And then she realized that her eyes were open, and that she was staring into a jaundiced-looking fluorescent light that seemed to hover just inches above her face. The watery light reflected off the polished walls of a small, cramped space, revealing what looked like rows of shelves containing towels, blankets, syringes, and a host of other basic medical supplies. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see what looked like a automated defibrillator mounted to the wall, along with a stethoscope, an automatic blood pressure device, and a fire extinguisher.

For a disoriented moment she tried to struggle, but her arms felt dull and leaden. She thought she could feel her fingers by the wash of pinpricks in her hand - tiny needles jabbing in and out of her skin - but she couldn't feel the fabric of the stretcher that she lay upon. Her wrists felt tight, constrained, and when she tried to move something cut into them. Something else wrapped around her chest and her legs, binding them fast. She tried to turn her head, to take a better look around, but the room suddenly swam and she was almost overwhelmed by a wave of nausea. Everything shimmered, as though heat-glazed, and for a moment she felt soft shadows pulling at the edges of her consciousness.

The voices brought her back. They were fuzzy, indistinct, but understandable, and she realized they belonged to two men who couldn't have been sitting more than a few feet beyond her head.

"So what's the deal with her?"

"Post traumatic stress, maybe. Her brother's boyfriend died in Duck Pond last year, and her brother committed suicide out here a little while afterward. I heard he was pretty much the only family she had. The friend said she came down to visit his grave, but wasn't taking her medication and got it into her head that he was still alive. Came out here to look for him."

"Man, she wouldn't've lasted the night in this weather."

"No kidding."

"Oh wait! Oh shit, you're talking about Alex Duke, aren't you? There was a whole thing about that! They had a fence around Duck Pond, like, all winter."

"Man, did you just figure that out?" A laugh. "How the fuck did you pass your registration?"

"Oh shut up, dude. Man, so she's his sister? That is some fucked up shit, man." There was a rustling sound, and a dark shape suddenly appeared over her head, momentarily blocking out the yellowish light. She stared into the shadows, trying to make out the features of the man staring down at her, but there was nothing. She might have been staring at a cardboard silhouette for all she could see.

"Hey, she's awake. Ms. Duke? Can you hear me?"

The silhouette pulled away for a moment, and in its absence she suddenly realized there was someone else in the ambulance. A man stood beside her, tall and dark, his face shrouded by the wide-brimmed hat that he wore. A shock of adrenaline flooded her system, and with a burst of clarity she thrashed against the bonds that held her in the stretcher.

"Shit! Shit, she's struggling! Calm down, Ms. Duke, calm down! We're with the rescue squad! You're suffering from exposure and dehydration. We're taking you to the hospital. Shit! Dude, we're gonna need the midazolam!"

She might as well have not heard the words. The man continued looking at her, even as the paramedics in the ambulance struggled with a small tray off above her head, seemingly oblivious to his very presence. She barely felt it when the syringe pricked her neck, but then her strength fled as suddenly as it arrived and she collapsed back onto the stretcher. The light in the ambulance seemed to grow magnesium white for one long moment, then began to fade.

"It's alright, Ms. Duke. We'll be at the hospital in just a moment. We've got you."

Margaret tried to shake her head, to point at the man standing in the corner. The light was slowly fading, but in her muddled state she couldn't tell whether that was her or the room. Then the figure was leaning over her, and in a voice as dry and as cold as a midautumn night he said, "He told you to leave. You should have listened."

"We've got you, Ms. Duke."

The light continued to dim. With supreme effort, Margaret managed to turn her head, to look into his face, but he stood between her and the only remaining light, and all she could see were the pale moon circles of his spectacles shining against the shadows of his face.

"Jrmah," she mumbled. "Jerma...Parsh."

The man said nothing. As the room finally faded into darkness, there boiled up a horrific stench, like rotting fish and excrement and something else she couldn't identify: a meaty smell with a sharp, coppery tang, and a hint of something like disinfectant. With the smell came weird, squelching noises from above and below, accompanied by a high-pitched, inhuman squeal that bubbled and popped. Only a few at first, but growing in number until a cacophonous chorus surrounded her.

Then the voice came again, almost pressed against her ear.

"It's far too late now."

She could still hear the paramedic talking, but he was far away, and she could no longer make out the words he was saying.

Then, barely a whisper but clearly audible in the dark.

"Welcome home."

End Part Two



*********

(Old ending)
She woke in a plain white room, tucked into a smooth bed with polished chrome guards put up on the sides. The halogen ceiling lights were off, but a dull yellowish light peered into the room through safety glass embedded into the door. Her limbs felt strangely stiff, and she realized that thick leather straps bound her wrists and ankles to the bed. They also snaked around her chest and legs, effectively immobilizing everything except her head. After a moment's disorientation, during which the room rang with the sound of her panicked struggles, the events of the evening flooded back like the surge of the tide.

"Alex!" she gasped, shocked into stillness by the memory, then began her struggles anew. "No! Alex! I don't-"

An indeterminate time passed, where the steady yellowish light never wavered, nor did her bonds loosen, and at length she laid back, exhausted by her efforts.

The door to the room gave an electronic beep, then clicked, and a tall, slender man of about forty stepped into the room. He wore a white lab coat and was accompanied by two appropriately burly and stoic orderlies clad in hospital blue, one of whom was pushing a small cart that rattled as they entered. The doctor's hair was turning gray at the temples, but his hazel eyes sparkled at her cheerfully over a pair of rimless bifocals as he flipped on the lights. He then tapped a blue gel pen twice against the side of the clipboard in his hand, jotted down some quick notes, then pulled up a chair and sat congenially beside her. His medical ID read, "Jacob Turner, MD."

"How are you feeling, Margaret?" he asked.

"I feel like crap. Where's my brother?"

Dr. Turner's lips thinned slightly, but his tone was light as he said, "He died last year, Margaret. Remember? You came down to Sanctuary Falls to visit his grave."

"The hell he did!" Margaret grated. "I don't know what's going on or what you people want, but I am not buying any of this crap! Alex asked me to come down because..." She stopped, a flicker of uncertainty dancing across her mind. "Because he needed help looking for his boyfriend."

"Yes. Elliot," Dr. Turner sighed. "Elliot died in the accident, Margaret. Do you remember?"

"No, I don't fucking remember!"

"Why did you stop taking your medication, Margaret?"

"What medication? I take Fioricet for my migraines. That's all! Alex isn't dead! He's not dead! I just saw him yesterday!" Margaret struggled against the leather straps, galvanized by anger and frustration.

"Margaret," Dr. Turner laid a hand over hers. "I understand it's hard. Whoever had the exceptional bad taste, the cruel and juvenile sense of humor necessary to put up that noose...we'll find them and we'll see that they're punished. But Alex is gone, Maggie, and you're still here. It's time to move on."

"Move-!"

Something about the situation, the absurd gravity and quiet sympathy in Dr. Turner's voice, combined with the absolute clarity with which Margaret could remember the events of the last two days, struck a strange chord. Margaret burst out laughing - peals and peals of high-pitched laughter that refused to stop, until her sides hurt and tears rolled down her face. She was vaguely aware that Dr. Turner had sat bolt-upright in his chair, his startled expression slowly being replaced by one of pained concern before it vanished underneath a veneer of professional repose. That somehow seemed even funnier, and Margaret had to turn away. She was aware of how demented she must have seemed, but in the face of everything that had happened around her it didn't seem a particularly troubling thought.

Dr. Turner waited until the laughter had faded slightly, then got to his feet and jotted a few more notes on his clipboard.

"I'll come back tomorrow," he said, with much of the sparkle in his eyes faded. He slowly walked over to the cart, opened a vacuum-sealed bag and pulled out a syringe. "In the meantime, I'm going to give you something that will help you sleep."

"I don't need to sleep!" Margaret snapped. "I need you to let me out of here so I can find my brother!"

Dr. Turner sighed and filled the syringe with clear fluid from a small vial. He tapped the side of the syringe twice, pressed gently at the plunger until drops of liquid appeared at the needle's tip, then walked over to where Margaret lay. She began struggling anew, frustration and panic flaring as she watched him approach with the needle, but the orderlies moved to hold her down and her bonds held tight. Dr. Turner swabbed her arm, then gently pressed the needle in. There was a brief, sharp pain, and then a great lassitude fell over her.

Tossing the syringe into a small yellow container, Dr. Turner patted Margaret's arm.

"Don't worry. Everything will seem better in the morning."

He nodded to the orderlies and the three of them walked out of the room. The door closed with a solid snap, then a long electronic beep. Margaret's head swam as the sedative took effect, and it barely registered when the ceiling lights buzzed once, then shut off, once again leaving only the watery yellow light filtering in from the hallway. Margaret blinked twice, trying to clear her head, to force her eyes to stay open, but her body refused to obey her will and her head slowly lolled to the side.