There was an inch of space in which nothing had been written, and then Loretta Villiers Conway's hand began again:
It is done.
I am married to the Monsignor by his own authority, for neither he nor Father were able to prevail upon our priest to marry us. Sister Mary Anthony came to our house after supper, and though she would not set foot indoors, she gave me a gift of two small crosses made of pure gold, which she said could protect me, and one of my children as well. Then she begged God to forgive me my sins.
I suspect that He will not.
Nor will He forgive Monsignor Melchior, for I believe I know the truth of what lies in our cellar. It is Evil itself that resides deep within that hole, and I fear the Monsignor has become its Servant.
I have this day married the right hand of Evil.
The Monsignor has ceded himself-and the eldest son of all the generations to come-to the Evil that dwells beneath this house, and I know we shall prosper on this Earth, but I know also that we are damned-damned for all Eternity.
Why hadn't Cora cut from the Bible all the pages detailing the sins of the Conways? Even as he posed the question in his mind, he knew the answer: In Cora's mind, it was only this darkest secret that must be kept; all the rest might have been attributed to madness, but these first entries-the ones she'd hidden-proved the damnation of all the Conways' souls.
It was finally Monsignor Devlin who spoke. His voice quavered, as if the burdens of his years had suddenly grown heavier. "An exorcism," he breathed. "So that's how it started-an exorcism."
"A failed exorcism," Father MacNeill corrected. "He came to banish Satan, but gave up his soul instead."
Through the open window, the bells of St. Ignatius began to toll the darkest hour. Both priests shivered. An evil had been unleashed on St. Albans on a Halloween more than a century earlier. Now, on this Halloween midnight, had it spread over the town once more?
"Kimmie? Kimmie, come on!"
It was Jared's voice calling her name, and at first she didn't see him. Then she spotted him, fifty yards ahead of her, beckoning to her. They were in a meadow, and he was running toward a lake, and in a few seconds they would both plunge into the cool water, popping through the surface a moment later, laughing and splashing. She broke into a run, doing her best to keep up with him, but Jared was faster than she, and plunged into the lake before she could even get to the shore. She stopped at the edge of the water, watching to see where he'd come up, her eyes looking first one way, then another.
But he didn't come up.
"Jared!" she called out. Then again: "Jared?" When her brother still didn't appear, she ran a few yards along the lake's edge, first in one direction, then in the other.
"Mommy!" she called out. "Mommy, help! Jared's gone!"
But when she looked around, her mother was nowhere to be seen.
Then, as clearly as if she'd heard him shouting the words, Jared called to her again.
"Help me, Kimmie! Help me!"
With no thought but to save her brother, Kim dove into the water, plunging deep as she searched for her drowning twin. At first she saw nothing except sunlight filtering through the clear water, but as she plunged deeper and the light faded, she caught a glimpse of him.
He was far below, looking up at her, his hand extended as if reaching out to her. But as she watched, he sank deeper into the watery darkness, until she could hardly see him. She tried to dive faster, kicking as hard as she could, but no matter how fast she swam downward, Jared was always just a little beyond her reach. The water seemed to be turning to jelly around her now, and she struggled against it, straining to reach her brother before he disappeared completely. Then, for one fleeting moment, the tips of her fingers touched his. She tried to clutch at his hand, but he fell away into the blackness, disappearing.
Kim stopped swimming and let herself drift in the darkness. A great emptiness-as dark as the water surrounding her-yawned within her, and as she slowly let herself sink into it, the pain of not having been able to save her brother began to ease.
The darkness deepened.
Then, somewhere in the darkness, a point of light appeared. As Kim watched it, it slowly grew brighter. At first she thought she must be floating back toward the lake's surface. But when she finally opened her eyes, the water was gone.
She was back in the great cathedral-like chamber, which had somehow grown even vaster than before. Tonight there was no trace of the shimmering light she'd first seen here; tonight she felt as if she were utterly lost in the shadows that filled the huge space. Then, far ahead of her, she once again beheld the inverted cross, suspended in the shadowy light as if by some unseen force. Mesmerized, Kim moved toward it. As she did, the candles spread on the altar beneath the cross burst into flame. As the light grew, Kim saw the eviscerated body of an animal on the altar, a dagger plunged through its heart, its blood dripping into a silver chalice.
Two robed and hooded figures appeared at either end of the altar. They moved closer together, and for a moment her view of the altar-and the cross-was blocked. The two figures bent over, and a terrible feeling of apprehension came over Kim.
She tried to back away, but some unseen force held her in place.
Then the two hooded figures stepped aside and she once again beheld the cross.
A tiny figure, its face contorted in pain, was affixed to it.
Silver spikes had been driven through each wrist.
A third punctured the child's feet.
Blood dripped from a wound in the child's chest, oozing down the neck and face to mat into the already reddish hair.
Molly!
Kim screamed out loud, and in an instant that seared itself into her mind, the two robed figures whirled around.
Her father and her brother stood glowering at her, their faces contorted with hatred.
She screamed again, and jerked awake.
For a moment her head swam with the dying remnants of the dream. Her heart was pounding so hard she could hear it, and her skin was clammy with sweat.
A dream! she told herself. It was only a dream!
She eased herself back down onto the pillow and tried to erase the last fragments of the dream from her memory, but the faces of her father and brother kept looming up in the darkness, leering at her, almost taunting her.
She turned over in bed, but still the dream stayed with her, only now it was the twisted face of her baby sister she saw, hanging upside down from the inverted cross, impaled by the nails, her life slowly ebbing away.
Then the earlier dream came back to haunt her, the dream in which she'd seen Jared killing Scout.
She had convinced herself that it, too, had been just a dream. But when they'd gone to find Scout, he'd vanished from the house.
As the first faint light of dawn etched the sky with silver, Kim got up from her bed and tiptoed out onto the landing. The great house lay silent around her, and as she made her way around to Molly's room, she had the eerie feeling of unseen eyes following her.
She paused before the door, shivering in a sudden chill that seemed to come out of nowhere.
Finally, her hand trembling, she reached for the knob, twisted it, and slowly pushed the door open.
The chill reached deeper into her, touching her soul.
She stepped into the room, straining to catch a glimpse of her sister in the gray light of dawn, but all she saw was a mass of rumpled bedding.
"Molly?" she whispered, edging closer to the child's crib. "Molly? Are you okay?"
There was no movement at all from the crib. Kim, standing by its side, looked down at the tangle of sheets and blankets. Please, she prayed silently. Please let her be all right.