Nor was there any longer any question that the bawling child was Molly.
Janet came at last to the bottom of the stairs, and the closed door to Jared's room. The pulsing rhythm was all around her now, drowning out even the pounding of her heart, but still she could hear Molly crying out. She put her hand on the doorknob to Jared's room and paused, a terrible feeling of foreboding passing over her. Suddenly, she wanted to turn away from the closed door, to escape the throbbing beat of the music and the terrible cold.
But she couldn't.
Not until she'd found Molly.
The doorknob was so cold it numbed her fingers, and when she tried to turn it, she thought at first that it might be locked.
Then the knob turned.
The light above her blinked out.
Janet froze in the darkness.
The bulb. It was only the bulb. No one was above her; no one had turned the light out. Yet all around her-everywhere and nowhere-hidden in the darkness, she could feel a presence.
The blackness held her to the spot where she stood like an insect pinned in a display case. She had a terrible sense of being watched, as if some unseen being were above the case, peering down at her as if at some strange species.
A feeling of utter helplessness came over her. The throbbing rhythm grew stronger still. The cold and darkness threatened to strangle her. With every fiber of her being she tried to free herself so she could flee back up the stairs and escape from the horror that held her in its thrall.
Then, once again, Molly cried out.
This time her voice was filled with terror. In an instant all of Janet's maternal instincts rose within her. Her own fears vanished and she threw off the bonds of the cold and blackness. She pressed against the door.
It opened a crack and a flickering light crept through.
Janet pushed the door harder, and it swung open.
As she saw what lay beyond, a terror beyond anything she'd ever felt before gripped Janet.
She began to scream.
And scream. And scream…
The sound of her name was so faint that at first Kim barely heard it. But then she heard it again: "Kiiiimmm"-the single syllable drawn out as if whoever was calling out to her had almost despaired of her responding. Then, as the cry came a third time, it seemed suddenly sharper.
"Kim? Kim! Kim, can you hear me?"
Hands gently shook her. She opened her eyes and looked up. Three faces loomed above her, but their features were lost in the glare of the bright light behind them. Then, as her eyes adjusted to the light, the faces came into focus.
Sister Clarence. Father Bernard. Father MacNeill.
But where was she? She'd been in the lake, trying to save Jared, but-
She tried to sit up, but Sister Clarence's hand held her back.
"It's all right, Kim. Don't try to get up. Just try to tell us what happened."
"Jared!" Kim blurted. "He needs me! He's-" But then, before she finished the sentence, her mind began to clear. "Molly!" she cried out. She pressed her hands against her eyes and shook her head as if trying to deny even the memory of what she'd seen. "They cut her up! They cut her up, and put her in jars, and-" Now her sobbing did overtake her, and a moment later she felt Sister Clarence's arms go around her. The nun's hand gently stroked her hair.
"It's all right, Kim. We're here. Nothing's going to happen to you. Just try to tell us what you saw."
A kaleidoscope of images was tumbling through her mind, and she instinctively clutched at the tiny golden cross her aunt had given her. "What is it?" she whispered. "What's happening to Jared? He-"
"Hush, child," Sister Clarence soothed. "You're safe with us. Everything will be all right." But even as the nun spoke, Kim knew that Sister Clarence didn't believe her own words.
"Just tell us," Father MacNeill told her. "Don't worry if none of it makes sense. But you have to tell us everything."
Kim's voice choked as a sob rose in her throat. "Mommy says it's just dreams, and-" She broke off again, remembering the terrible scene of Sandy and Luke making love in front of the candlelit altar. "I can't," she whispered. "It's… it's…"
"I know," Father MacNeill said. He reached out and laid his fingers on her forehead, as if baptizing her. "But no matter how terrible it seems to you, you can tell us. You can tell us. You can trust us."
As the priest's cool fingers continued to stroke her brow, Kim felt the terror inside her begin to lose its grip. Slowly, she began relating all the nightmares she'd had since she and her family moved into the old house on the edge of the town. She told them about Muffin's disappearance, then Scout's, and about the humiliation of Sandy spitting at her. "And then later this morning," she concluded, her voice breaking as she choked back her tears, "I-I thought-oh, God, I thought Jared and my father were killing my baby sister!" Her eyes fixed on Father MacNeill. "I was in the biology lab, and I saw-"
She faltered as another sob threatened to choke her, then went on. "I saw Molly. She was all cut up, and they'd put her into jars of-of-" She gazed beseechingly at the priest. "What is it, Father? What is it?"
Instead of answering Kim's question, Father MacNeill's hand covered Kim's as she clutched the cross. "Where did this come from?" he asked.
Kim frowned. "M-My aunt," she said uncertainly. "Aunt Cora gave it to me just before she died."
The priest nodded. "And there's another one, isn't there?" he asked.
Kim started to shake her head, but then the scene in her aunt's room at the Willows came back to her, and she nodded. "It was for Molly," she breathed. "My mother took it."
Now Father MacNeill took both of Kim's hands in his own and looked into her eyes. "I want you to think carefully," he said. "Did your mother put the cross on Molly?"
Kim shook her head. "She said she'd keep it until Molly got older."
"But it's in the house?" Father MacNeill pressed.
Kim nodded. "It's probably in Mom's jewelry box."
"And just now you heard Jared calling you, is that right?"
Once again Kim nodded. "But it wasn't really him, was it?" she said. "I mean, wasn't it you who was calling my name, trying to wake me up?"
The priest's hands tightened on Kim's. He looked straight into her eyes. "I'm going to tell you something, Kim." The timbre of his voice brought all of Kim's terrors flooding back as the priest continued to squeeze her hands. "You have to be strong, Kim," he went on. "Can you do that?"
Kim hesitated, then forced herself to nod.
"They weren't dreams, Kim," Father MacNeill said. "None of it. Everything you saw-everything you thought you dreamed-really happened. All of it."
CHAPTER 37
It wasn't possible. None of what she was seeing could possibly be happening.
Janet's last scream hung in the air, fading away, only to build once again, as if somehow the vast chamber into which she'd stumbled were amplifying it and reamplifying it.
Every muscle in her body had gone flaccid, and for a moment that went on forever, she thought she would collapse to the floor.
Her mind cast out in every direction, seeking something, anything, that would make sense of what she was experiencing.
A nightmare?
But she was awake! She knew she was awake.
An hallucination. That had to be it-everything she'd seen, the strange look to the house, the bizarre alterations to her trompe l'oeil, none of it could be anything but an hallucination.
Her eyes flicked over the impossible vision before her. Jared's room, that musty, black-walled chamber, had vanished. But what had taken its place couldn't exist. As the door had swung open, the piercing light from within blinded her for a second, but then her vision had cleared and she'd seen it: a space so vast it seemed to go on forever, its farthest reaches lost in shadows so black they devoured the harsh, cold light that seemed to come from everywhere-and nowhere. But what had made her scream-the image that had ripped an anguished howl of pure horror from her throat-was the altar that loomed in the distance, dominating the entire space, although it appeared so far away as to be unreachable.