Laura V. Keegan
Copyright 2014 Laura Keegan
All rights reserved.
Published in eBook format by Luxlane Press, LLC.
Converted by http://www.eBookIt.com
ISBN-13: 978-0-9904-5980-4
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, establishments, organizations or locales are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Dedication
This book is dedicated to my sons, Blaine, Kyle and Connor; my husband, Tim; my mom, Elvira and my dad, Richard. You are my joy and my inspiration. Thank you for your constant support in this years-long endeavor.
Prologue
We will begin when we end.
That is the rule of eternity.
The end. The beginning.
The finalization of life, the birth of the haunt.
“Do it! Now!” Gabe mustered all his waning strength to shriek his final words to his sister. “Pull the trigger, Helen!” Closing his eyes, he bellowed. “Now!”
Helen hesitated. Her hand trembled. She sat to her brother’s left in a solid low-backed chair turned sideways so she could brace her arm and steady her aim. She drew a long, slow breath, then cradled the thin, bony wrist of her shooting hand with her left. She couldn’t miss—it would be unthinkable. Another deep breath. She was ready. Helen pulled the trigger.
Gabriel Lindeman’s body pitched violently backwards. His head bounced off the pillow carefully wedged behind him. Helen threw her arms up and yelled triumphantly, “I did it!” She watched her brother collapse sideways onto the hard, cold attic floor. His body slammed the wooden planks, bounced once, then settled in a pool of his own blood. Gabriel died instantly.
Without a moment’s hesitation, Helen began the ceremony. She lit the nine black candles, watching to make sure they remained burning in the drafty room. Around Helen and Gabe’s perimeter was a circle of highly polished onyx stones.
Helen sat tall and straight, her thin legs crossed, head bowed, eyes closed. She chanted: “Lucifer! Obsecro. Dona vitam aeternam ad hoc impia et diabolica peccator cuius nomen est Gabriel Lindeman.” (“Lucifer! I beseech you. Grant eternal life to this most unholy and diabolical sinner whose name is Gabriel Lindeman.”)
The hairs on Helen’s arms stood on end, her skin prickled as a bone-chilling coldness enveloped her. She opened her eyes. Beside her a black, translucent vapor hovered. Helen repeated the sacred incantation nine times. Her voice, soft at first, became louder and louder until it reached an earsplitting crescendo that echoed off the bare walls of the attic, as if her voice were many voices, all screaming the mantra for rebirth.
Helen focused her rheumy-blue eyes on the flickering candle flames. A swift stirring of cold air assaulted her, dislodging the ivory stick that held her hair in an austere bun. Her white hair blew across her eyes, into her mouth—she was unaware. A high-pitched howling emanated from the mist beside her. Warily she reached her hand into the black fog. Indeed! It had substance—oily and cold. Slowly it began to take form: first the eyes, icy blue like her own; the nose sharp and beaklike; lips thin and pulled tightly over teeth yellowed from age and sickness; and then the outline of the jaw, the chin, the forehead.
Helen continued chanting, not looking at her brother again until he whispered in a soft hiss, “Helen, you’ve done it. I live!”
Helen smiled, got quickly to her feet. There was no time to waste. She dragged Gabriel’s corpse from the inner circle to the bed against the west wall, easily lifting his diseased and withered body onto the bed. She placed the blood-soaked pillow beneath his head, then covered the body with a blue chenille bedspread.
For the next three days Helen sat in the circle of stones with her brother’s reborn spirit. Together they chanted endless verses from The Book of the Occult. Hour by hour, day by day, Gabriel grew stronger.
On the fourth day, Helen and her brother were ready. Helen took her place with her back to the wall, a pillow behind her to cushion and soften the final blow. Beside her, Gabriel steadied her hand—he was not yet strong enough to hold the gun and pull the trigger with any guarantee of accuracy. She would do the deed herself. A murder-suicide—as planned. A look of profound shock registered on Helen’s face as the bullet penetrated her skull. Like her brother, she died instantly.
Immediately, Gabriel began the ritual. He chanted from the sacred book. Flames from the black candles cast undulating shadows on the walls of the attic bedroom. Helen’s mist was black and almost formless at first. Within an hour, she too was reborn. For three days, brother and sister remained in the circle of stones until her transformation was complete, her strength renewed. Helen and Gabriel’s souls were intact.
In death, as in life, the Lindemans were the essence of evil. They would remain and walk the halls of Remington House. After all, this was their home.
Chapter 1
Tom’s wife, Elise, had been dead for nearly two years, years Tom endured the dark depths of desolation and despair, immersed in an illusionary existence, fighting desperately to restore the delicate balance between reality and delusion—he battled to regain his sanity. Over time, with a halfhearted conviction, born out of a necessity to get on with his life and forgo his pain, Tom accepted the truth—he was not responsible for her death. Elise. He loved her madly. He hated her passionately.
It was time to leave Jamestown. Time to start over. On this bleak, sunless October day, Tom was leaving his damnable house and its memories of the tragic and untimely death of Elise. He was moving to Ravenswood.
The wind howled around the great, stone house. Dried leaves, like clouds of gold and crimson, sailed in the strong gusts, tossed higher and higher, then abandoned to float gently to the ground, swept up again and again in an endless, rhythmic cycle. Fog, heavily laden with moisture, drifted across the expansive front lawn forming a curtain that slowly obscured the house.
A cherub statue stared vacantly from the fountain, its half-lidded eyes dull and empty. Tom felt unsettled as he passed the imp-child, its eyes watching, following his every move. He’d be thankful to escape its penetrating gaze. A steady stream of water flowed from the urchin’s tiny, stone penis into the icy fountain; clouds of steam formed, hanging heavily in the air. Perched on the statue’s shoulder was a large raven, feathers shimmering black and midnight blue. As Tom passed, the impressive bird raised its expansive feathered wings, cawed eerily, then flew into the thickening haze.
Tom quickened his pace, hurrying down the tree-lined sidewalk to the waiting cab. Through a momentary break in the fog, a movement from the upper window of the house caught his eye. The wind stirred the white lace curtain of the room that had been Elise’s bedroom. For a moment Tom thought he saw the pale outline of a woman. Then the swirling mist completely shrouded the window. A shiver ran down his spine.
Tom handed his luggage to the cab driver and wrapped his wool scarf tightly around his neck against the cold. How fragile the mind, how easily deceived. But that’s all it was—a cruel trick of a tired mind. Elise was dead.
“Let’s go,” Tom said, slamming the taxi’s door. Finally, it’s over. The car pulled into the street, taillights flickering red as the driver slowed for a curve. Tom