Chapter 30

“N oooooooo!”

A hideous wail, a cry of anguish and of horror rose over the ballroom, causing a thousand candles to flicker and bend low.

It took Nora a long while to realize that the howl had come from Simon Fear.

Frightened, she took a few steps back as Simon rose from his wheelchair. The old man’s eyes were wide with horror. He pointed a trembling finger at the three-clawed disk around Nora’s throat.

“Nooooooo!” Another animal howl escaped Simon’s lips.

Still pointing, he staggered toward her.

But his legs would not support him. He stumbled. Trying to steady himself, he leaned against the cart and pushed over the cake.

Angelica began to shriek as the enormous cake splattered to the floor.

“Daniel, what shall we do?” Nora cried. But her words were drowned out by yet another howl from Simon and by Angelica’s shrill cries.

“Daniel, what is happening?”

A small carpet caught fire first. Then the entire room was ablaze—as if all the candles in the ballroom had suddenly fallen and flared into tall flames.

“Daniel, please! Daniel!”

She couldn’t see him. He was hidden behind a bright wall of fire only feet from her.

Flames leapt from the floor and danced off the four walls.

How could the room be burning so quickly? Nora wondered, choking on the thick smoke, choking on her fear. “Daniel? Daniel?”

It was so bright, so blindingly bright.

As she stared into the flames, surrounded by screams and terrified cries, Nora saw a struggling figure emerge from the yellow-orange brightness.

“Daniel? Where are you?”

The figure grew closer, clearer.

Nora raised her hand to her mouth as she realized she was staring at a girl about her age, a girl struggling against a dark wooden stake, surrounded by flames, a girl burning, burning, burning, screaming as she burned. Susannah Goode, burning at the stake beside her mother.

And as Nora gaped in open-mouthed horror, other tortured figures invaded the room, rising up through the crackling, blistering flames.

Nora saw Rebecca Fier, her neck broken, hanging by a rope from a dark rafter. Old Benjamin Fier rose into the room, impaled like a scarecrow, a wooden shaft pushed up through the back of his skull.

Nora screamed and tried to shut her eyes. But she had to watch, she had to bear witness as the other victims of the past emerged in the burning ballroom.

As she stared in silent horror, she saw Matthew and Constance Fier, skeletons behind their walledup prison. William Goode, his head exploded, his skull showing through rotted flesh, hovered into view.

The ghost of little Abigail Goode floated overhead. Abigail’s mother, Jane, staggered stiffly after her, her face bloated from drowning. Kate Fier rose in front of them, a knitting needle through her heart. Hannah Fear came next, a sword through her chest.

Then Nora saw Julia Fear, scratching the air, scratching at nothing, her fingernails cut and bleeding. Poor Julia, buried alive, but back now to join the other victims of the centuries.

The victims, the phantoms of the past, Fears and Goodes, roared around the room, their cries louder than the thunder of the flames. They swept round and round, faster, faster, until they became a raging whirlwind of pain, of brutal death.

“Daniel, where are you? Daniel?”

Nora stared into the swirling flame. “Daniel, oh, Daniel!”

Unable to find him, unable to endure the howls of the dead, their cries of agony as they swept around the room, Nora covered her eyes and fled.

Moments later she was in the cool darkness of the night, watching the blaze from the front lawn, trembling from the sudden cold, gripping the silver medallion with both hands as villagers made their way from town and gathered, muttering about the evil of the Fears, about the centuries of evil that had led to this night, to this final fire.

“Daniel! Please come out, Daniel!”

Nora called his name again and again.

But as the flames raged, swallowing the Fear mansion in their eerie light, and the terrifying howls rose up in the night like a symphony of pain and horror, Nora knew she would never see Daniel again.

Дата добавления: 2015-07-20