“Why can’t we find it?” Evie asked. “I don’t understand why I can’t find the entrance. It was here before. It’s almost…” It’s almost as if the house is hiding it from us, she’d started to say. “Let’s keep looking. I’m sure I must be remembering it wrong. There’s a parlor to the right.”
They came to it, but the parlor’s pocket doors were closed. “These were open before.”
With effort, they slid them open. Jericho’s flashlight moved slowly around the room. But it was different, too. The sheets had been removed from the furniture.
“It wasn’t this way before,” Evie whispered.
“It’s like it was expecting us,” Jericho said quietly.
“Why did you say ‘it’?” Evie asked. Jericho didn’t answer, but they were both feeling it—the house. The house was waiting.
Evie’s flashlight beam crawled across the walls. They seemed to bow outward just slightly. Like lungs, breathing, she thought, and then chased the thought away. It was hard to see anything in the gloom. Her beam traveled to the broken mirror, blinding her with the reflection. She blinked, and in the afterimage she could swear she’d seen somber, ghostly faces. Gasping, she swung the light around, but there was nothing behind her. The house groaned and creaked.
“I don’t like this,” Jericho said.
“What choice do we have? If we don’t stop him now, tonight, he’ll manifest fully. And then we can’t fight him.”
“But we don’t have the pendant anymore. How are we…” He lowered his voice, as if the house might be listening. “How are we going to bind his spirit?”
“We’ll find something else,” Evie whispered back. “Or we’ll burn this place down if we have to.”
Jericho moved his hand up and down. “Do you see that light?” He followed the thin beam to a rosette carved into the fireplace. “I think there might be something behind this.” He put his face close, trying to see.
“Jericho, don’t!” Evie called suddenly.
A gust of dusty air blew into Jericho’s face. He coughed and sputtered and waved it away. It had a sickeningly sweet smell, like dying flowers. Jericho blinked and shook his head.
“Are you all right?”
“Yes. Fine,” he said, but his voice shook.