The old man had to be really crazy. He believed so fully in what he was saying.
Except that…
Finn had seen the fog. Fog. A weather phenomena. It came and went so strangely. This was New England, if you don't like the weather, wait a few hours, it will change.
No, even in New England, fog did not come and go so quickly.
He was suddenly tempted to ask Fallon if he'd heard about a demon called Bac-Dal.
He held his tongue. Here was old Fallon, grumpy, Ichabod-like, stern and straight, like the Pilgrims of old, casting herbs into a cauldron.
He didn't dare trust Fallon.
"Certainly, Mr. Fallon. If your intent is to keep the property safe, then, well, more power to you, sir."
Fallon pointed a long bony finger at Finn. "Don't mock any of it, boy. Like I said, if you've got any sense at all, get yourself into a house of prayer. Whatever kind." He shook his head. "I'll not be seeing you after All Hallow's Eve. And that's a fact."
"You're right. We're taking off first thing the following morning."
"Aye-uh, boy. One way or the other. You'll be gone. Now, leave me be. I run this place. And it's not for the guests to be nosy and invading the kitchen late at night So…"
"Good night, Mr. Fallon," Finn said.
He turned and left the kitchen, walking back through the silent house to his wing, and his room. Once there, he very carefully ascertained that he was locked in.
Fallon's actions disturbed him.
Oddly enough, it was because he believed Fallon. The old man's chants and spells seemed entirely benign, as if he did feel the need to protect the house.
He also wanted to talk to the fellow, question him.
No matter how sincere he had seemed, and how innocent the words of his chant, Fallon wasn't to be trusted. No one here could be trusted.
He was exhausted; it was ridiculously late—or early—whichever way you looked at it. He desperately wanted to sleep; he was afraid to sleep. Megan had left him, but in all good sense, he had to be glad.
Because he didn't know what he did in the dead of the night.
He punched his pillow, determined on getting some sleep.
Megan should have slept well. She was happy when Finn left, as if she remained enwrapped with his warmth. He seemed to understand everything. He loved her.
But she tossed and turned for a long while, and when at last she slept, the dreams plagued her again.
It began with the sound of her name. Soft, echoed in her mind, whispered compellingly, erotically. Like a siren's call, that whisper-breeze of her name could not be ignored. She felt as if she drifted in response, following.
She returned to the forest, and the unhallowed cemetery.
Old Andy wasn't there to tell her tales this time.
The trees created a dark green canopy, and the place smelled richly of vegetation and the earth. She felt the pads of her feet touch down on damp ground and tufts of grass. She knew she was walking to the strange marble statue she had assumed to be an angel, but of course, there, in the unhallowed graveyard, was a demon instead.
She walked through the fog, hearing her name being called. There were whispers all around her. She was afraid to go forward, and yet compelled to do so.
She knew she was being drawn to the statue. There were little markers in the ground, for others who had lived long ago. Spirits seemed to rise like wraiths, or a part of the fog, as she moved. They whispered, sang… or chanted. Wisps of the fog, or the spirits, swept around her, and like the voices, urged her on.
She thought she saw faces, and she should know them, but she couldn't see clearly.
"So perfect," someone whispered.
"The voice of a nightingale."
Not that perfect! she wanted to cry. She wanted to tell them that they didn't want her, that the demon Bac-Dal didn't want her.
"In death, so there is life," someone else whispered.
"The time has yet to come," came another murmur.
"But He would touch, He would see, He would know!"
A figure stood before her. She wanted to turn and run, and she managed to stop walking. Megan argued with herself that she was a creature of free will, that she could fight the force that seemed to be carrying her forward. And so she could.
She looked back.
Yet… it seemed as if she still looked forward.
A figure, like the first, was behind her. Both wore capes with cowls, dark and swirling as if there were a great wind, but there couldn't be, because the fog didn't lift, it drifted and swirled around her feet.
She didn't know whether to run ahead, or escape, and run in the other direction. She heard her name being called again. Softly, tauntingly. She didn't realize she had begun to move again, but her steps were bringing her closer to the entity before her. Through the blue fog, she saw a blaze of red. Pinpoints…
eyes. She couldn't really see, but she had a sense of something fetid, rotting, dead. Instinct warned her that she must get away. She was not being held, and yet, it was as if there were arms about her, luring her ever forward. Ivory fingers seemed to dance in the blue light, beckoning.
Megan, Megan, Megan…
Then…
The creature. The creature she had seen at the museum. The face of a man, but with horns at the temples, a sharp, jutting chin, evil, burning eyes.
Megan… !
With a smile, he whispered her name, intimately, as if it were a caress.
She turned at last, running; there was the figure behind her. She must reach it, because help had to come from behind…
She ran and ran and ran, and came to a dead stop.
And there he was once again. The figure that had seemed to be behind her… but was not. It was the horned creature, who had been before her.
She screamed, seeing him stretch open the great wings of the cloak he wore, ready to entrap her within the folds.
Fingers, yes, touching her now, stroking over her face, her arms, her arms… the arms tightening around her.
She screamed, breaking free.
"No… I ran away, away. I ran away. To the other!"
The creature began to laugh and laugh. And again the voice came, like an evil caress.
"Don't you see, we are one and the same."
She awoke with a violent start.
Daylight flooded the room. She could hear birds chirping.
She was drenched in sweat. She swung her legs off the bed, eager to reach the bathroom and douse her face in cold water. The room was chilly and she fumbled around with her toes to find her slippers.
She looked down.
Little pieces of dirt dusted the carpet. She frowned, then lifted her feet. The soles were encrusted with earth and bits of grass.
Impossible…
She pressed her face between her hands, swallowing back a scream. She leaped up and headed immediately into the shower, furiously scrubbing her feet, because, once the dirt was gone, the impossible image was gone as well. She swore, for the water, whirling into the drain, carried a touch of streaky red…
Blood.
She'd scratched the bottom of her foot. She couldn't recall the pain, or the blood on the sole when she had seen the dirt, but then… her feet had been dirty. Now, they were bleeding as well, so it seemed.
Had she walked outside in her sleep? Lord, these nightmares were truly getting to be too much. So real…
She should have called Martha—told her about the dream, and her feet.
Martha! She wanted to see Martha right away, and feel her practical sense of sanity and reason!
Megan finished her shower, dressed quickly, and raced out of the room. "Aunt Martha!"
There was no answer, just a note on the kitchen counter. "Out shopping, dear—make yourself at home!"
So, she'd have to wait, but she would talk to Aunt Martha, and there would be sense made of it. Maybe she had taken a few steps out when Finn had left last night… maybe they had dragged the dirt when they had come in, and she had picked it up from the carpet onto her bare feet then. Certainly, that was the logical explanation.
Finn.
She wished he was with her. She should tell him…
Maybe not. He'd been insisting it was her, that she had dreamed things, that he had not. But that wasn't true. He was having dreams as well. Behaving far too strangely.
Better to talk to Martha. To someone with a little distance. She couldn't tell Finn about this, and she certainly couldn't tell Morwenna, who would read far too much into it.
She tried to tell herself again that they must have tracked dirt in onto the carpet.
Ridiculous, and she knew it.
There had been too much dirt for such a simple explanation! Whether she wanted to believe it or not, that was the truth!
But then again—she hadn't been walking in the woods in the wee hours of the morning, that was for certain!
Maybe, she forced herself to admit, she had been sleepwalking, and actually had gone outside, and then walked back in and crawled into bed. She couldn't have wandered all around town, and made it out to the cemetery!
And yet…
The vivid memory of the dream was uncannily real.
Despite the late hour he went to sleep, Finn was up and in the dining room by ten. Susanna gave him something of an evil glare, since he had made it just in the nick of time for her to cook, according to the hours listed on the Huntington House brochure. He was pleased to see that though there were no adults remaining in the room, Joshua and Ellie were still at the table, apparently waiting for their parents to go back to their rooms for their coats.
When Susanna was out of the room, he leaned forward and whispered to the children. "Mr. Fallon is a Wiccan. He told me that he was preparing a protection potion for the house."
Ellie sat back in her chair, gaping.
Joshua shook his head doubtfully. "Do you think he was telling you the truth?"
"Well, I heard him chanting one of his spells, and it sounded like a good one to me."
"How come he looks so creepy, then?" Ellie asked.
"I don't know, I guess he's just a creepy-looking guy," Finn said.
"I still think we should keep an eye on him," Joshua said.