The smaller wrecking bar he used for tearing out drywall and lath and plaster would have to do. Truth was, neither tool would be worth much against a gun, but it was his only chance. If she came close without seeing him, he could maybe get in a blow before the gun came into play. The right blow, and the gun would never fire again.
He came back around the corner, tiptoed as rapidly as he could across the entryway, peered around the corner into the ballroom. Sylvie was standing with her back to him, blocking Lissy's path. Lissy gun in hand, gathered herself up, covering her fear with a mask of contempt. Don had time to notice how much alike they looked, and yet how different. How jaded and world-weary Lissy looked, compared to the fresh beauty, the untainted grace of Sylvie's spirit.
"You don't have to move," Lissy said. "You're nothing. I can walk right through you."
She took a step toward Sylvie, who backed away, raising a hand to ward her off. Lissy lashed out with her left hand.
"No!" Don cried.
The hands touched. And to his horror, Sylvie lurched toward Lissy, then suddenly spun around in the air like a kite out of control in a storm, and then was sucked into Lissy's body.
"No!" Don screamed. She was trapped in the body of that murderous bitch and it was his fault, he had brought her here. Don lunged toward Lissy as the woman's face contorted, twisted with—pain? Confusion? She looked toward him but didn't seem to see him. The gun hung by the trigger guard from her hand. She was slackjawed, stupid, empty-faced. Don reached out to take away the gun.
Suddenly Lissy's body stiffened and she moaned, a long moan, rising in pitch, rising to a screech. And when it seemed she couldn't possibly scream any higher or louder, something leapt out of her body, flew up. For a moment it hung in the air, spread-eagled. It was Lissy again, a copy of her, a shadow of her, wearing only a t-shirt. She looked younger. Not like the body that had been called Sylvie for all these years. It was the spirit of the Lissy who murdered Sylvie that night more than ten years ago, now suspended in the air in the midst of the ballroom.
Meanwhile, Lissy's body came to life. The eyes opened. Looked at him. The gun clattered to the floor. The hands reached up to touch the face. The tongue flickered out to lick the lips. And the face changed. Came to life in a different way. No longer weary-looking, no longer cynical and angry. Those lines were still there, but the expression belied them. It was a face filled with wonder. With joy. "Don," she said. "It's me."
If Lissy's spirit had been flung out of the body, if it now hung in the air drifting toward the exact center of the ballroom, then who else could be in Lissy's body?
"Don, don't you know me?"
Of course he knew her. "Sylvie," he said.
The face smiled. And in that moment it was no longer Lissy's face. Oh, it was, by the superficial markers of a face, the bone structure, the lips, the eyebrows, the cheeks, the brow, the chin. The nose longer and narrower than Sylvie's had been, the eyelashes heavy with makeup where Sylvie had not had any such artifice. But the expression of the face, the way the mouth moved, the way the eyes sparkled when she looked at him—it was Sylvie's face that looked at him. Sylvie, in the flesh, in living, breathing flesh. In a body that knew it belonged to her. Sylvie alive. Sylvie whole.
He stepped toward her, reached for her. "Of course I know you," he said. He took her hand. He gathered her into an embrace. Not light now, not inhumanly light; she had the weight and mass of a real woman, the softness of flesh yielding against him as he held her. The breath warm on his chest. "Sylvie," he said.
"Did you know?" she said. "Did you know it would end this way?"
At that moment the spirit hanging in the air began to scream in terror. They parted, turned, looked up to see what was happening.
"I guess it hasn't ended yet," said Don.
The spirit was twisting in the air, turning over and over. But there was nothing simple about the movement. Parts of her were turning faster than other parts. She was being stretched, pulled, drawn out like elastic. Like a victim on the rack. Finally one hand flung itself out and smacked against the ceiling of the room, the arm drawn long and thin like an elastic, and so transparent it was a mere shimmering in the air. A foot leapt to the far wall, another hand to the floor, the other foot to the front wall of the house. The head spun, then leapt to the bearing wall.
What was left in the middle of the air lost all shape. It grew like a balloon, thinning as it grew, till it was nothing but the shining of a bubble, iridescent as it filled the room. Don felt it pass over him, through him, a cold feeling that chilled him to the bone. And then the shimmering reached the walls of the ballroom, the ceiling, the floor. The room glowed for a second or two, no longer. And then everything was back to-normal.
"She's gone," he said.
"No she's not," said Sylvie. "The house took her."
"Then she's gone," he repeated.
"No," said Sylvie. "I can't feel the house anymore. This is my only body now. Lissy's got the house."
They could hear it start, far up in the attic. Doors slamming. Windows rising and falling, rattling. The second floor now, the slamming, the rattling. The water turned on. The toilet flushed.
And now the room they were in. A window was flung up by invisible hands. Wind and rain sprayed into the room. The kitchen door opened, slammed, opened, slammed. Under their feet the floor buckled, a wave of it rippling across until it passed under their feet, knocking them down. Sylvie clutched at him; they held on to each other, helping each other as they struggled to their knees, tried to stand.
The vast expanse of the bearing wall beyond the alcove began to shudder, forming a new shape. The shape of a face. Lissy's face, huge, like a bas-relief made of lath and plaster. The mouth moved. They could hear the voice like the sound of a bass drum talking. "That's my body!" moaned the face on the wall.
They were so enthralled in watching the wall that it was only out of the corner of his eye that Don caught the movement at the entryway. It was his favorite hammer, flying through the air straight toward Sylvie. Don leapt up only just in time; the hammer struck his back, between the shoulder blades. The force of the blow was vicious, knocking him down to the floor, entangling Sylvie and bringing her down, too. Just as well, for the wrecking bar flew just over them as they fell.
"Are you all right?" Sylvie cried out to him.
"Get out of the house, Sylvie!" he shouted.
"I can't leave you to face her alone—"
"It's you she wants! Get out!"
He got up, looking around desperately for any more flying objects as he helped her to her feet. Stooped over, he half-dragged her toward the entry. The pain between his shoulders was excruciating. Bruised ribs? Or broken ones? Or a bloody wound? No time to worry about that now.
In the passage to the entryway, Don could see into the south parlor, where his tools were sliding and sliding in concentric circles on the floor. In the middle was the workbench. As he stood in the passage, the circles stopped moving, except where they cleared a path leading straight to where Don and Sylvie stood. The workbench began to slide, then hurtle toward them.
"Get out!" Don screamed as he ran toward the workbench.
It hit him at hip level, flipping him over it. But he caught it as he fell, held on to the leg of it, so it had to drag him, so it slowed down as it continued relentlessly toward Sylvie.
Sylvie was fumbling with the doorknob. "It won't open, it won't open!" she cried.
Don got enough of a purchase on the floor to get some leverage. He lifted upward on the leg of the workbench and it tipped and fell on its side. As if the house knew at once that it was no longer half so useful as a weapon, the bench stopped moving and lay there, inert.