It took a moment to grasp—then Katrina gasped. The framed photographic portraits along the whole back wall were askew, as if someone had brushed by the entire length of the wall, or an earthquake had jarred the house and deranged them.
The electromagnetic frequency reader in Brendan’s hand started beeping louder and faster. “It’s reading twelve,” he said, excitement crackling in his voice. “That’s extremely high.” Tyler had the camcorder up to his shoulder and was shooting footage of the pictures on the wall.
“Is it still here?” Katrina whispered. Laurel knew exactly what she meant. It felt exactly as if they were chasing a presence from room to room, as if a child were playing hide-and-seek with them.
“Let’s see.” Tyler lunged for the heavy round table with the lazy Susan built in, and knocked his knuckles sharply on the wood surface. The sound was very loud in the room.
There was a pregnant silence … then the knocking started again, on the far side of the house.
“Goddamn it,” Tyler swore. He turned to the library door and took off running.
“No!” Laurel called behind him, but he was out the door, footsteps pounding in the hall.
Brendan and Katrina followed, and again Laurel found herself a beat behind, trailing, as they ran into the upper hall of the main house.
Running down the hall she was very aware of the pitches and tilts of the floor. It rolled, a feeling like a wave, like seasickness. One moment she was running down it and suddenly she was tripping, flying, and sprawled on the floor—right in front of Brendan’s room.
The door was closed again, though she knew it had been open when they left it. She stared up at it, and felt chills start from the base of her spine, a feeling of pure, black terror. She scrambled away from the door, and up to her feet, and bolted after the others.
They all arrived in the servants’ kitchen, breathless, to find Tyler standing in the middle of the floor. The knocking had stopped.
Tyler kicked the table.
A skillet jumped off the hook where it hung on the wall and crashed to the floor behind him. Katrina gasped; they all spun, staring … and waiting …
The knocking began again in the dining room, below.
Tyler tore out of the kitchen like a madman and pounded down the back stairs. The others hurried behind … down the stairs, through the house office. They had just bolted into the downstairs kitchen when the knocking stopped, followed immediately by a cry of rage from Tyler in the next room.
Laurel and Brendan dashed for the doorway. Tyler was in the dining room, shouting at the walls, at the ceiling. “Show yourself! Come on! Come out!”
There was silence … and then knocking began from all the places they had heard it before, except the one they were standing in.
“You made it mad,” Katrina said to Tyler breathlessly. The knocking grew louder, waves of it, pounding around them.
“It’s trying to get in,” Katrina said, and the blankness in her sweet, light voice was chilling.
“It is in. Isn’t that the point?” Tyler said roughly.
Brendan spoke, and his voice was very distant. “No—it’s trying to get over. Over, or through.”
He had his clipboard out and was writing down the numbers from the EMF meter, which had gone off again, beeping frantically. Now he strode to the doorway to the great room. “I’m checking the audio …”
He stopped just inside the door.
Laurel came up behind him to look, and felt her stomach drop, a vertiginous jolt.
The paintings hung on the walls in the great room were not crooked, but upside down.
“Whoa,” Tyler said behind them.
Laurel felt a sudden pressure in the air. She gasped for breath. Katrina cried out beside her, a strangled sound. “Oh my God!” The girl raised a trembling hand. And then Laurel and Brendan saw what she was pointing to. The screens of the monitors were shattered. Glass glittered on the table and floor around the table.
Brendan ran to the monitors.
“Did it record?” Tyler demanded.
At the monitors, Brendan’s back stiffened. He checked the power cords, jiggled switches. “Damn it. The equipment’s off. Completely off.”
Tyler strode to the monitors and checked.
“Look.” Katrina pointed again. The lamps on the mantel of the fireplace were shattered—the glass bowls lying in heaps of glass on the marble.
Laurel felt a wave of disorientation. But they weren’t broken when we walked in. I know they weren’t. And I didn’t hear any crashing, either… .