Free Rise the Dark by Michael Koryta Page A

there she looked nothing like Lauren. Then she took another step away, into the darkness, and in silhouette she could have passed for his wife once more.
    Were you here, Lauren? Were you ever inside this house?
    He dearly hoped not. He knew that she hadn’t been killed here, but all the same, he prayed she had never been inside. It was that kind of place.
    From the landing, he noticed what he thought at first were odd shadows on the walls. Then he realized they were actually paintings, and when he leaned close enough, he saw that the pictures had been painted directly onto the wall. The ancient plaster was the only canvas.
    The paintings were strange symbols. Mark couldn’t make them out very well in the dark, but they seemed heavy on circles and triangles. Masonic symbols? He leaned closer to the wall, trying to identify the shapes. Not Masonic symbols, or at least not any he’d seen before. The triangles blended into a circle with what appeared to be a spiral at the center. In the uneven moonlight, the spiral drew the eye and made Mark feel suddenly dizzy. He put a hand against the plaster to steady himself.
    Dixie Witte came back down the steps, took his belt loop again, and let her body press against his. When she spoke, she reached up so that her lips were next to his ear.
    “She’s close to us now, Markus. I can feel her. It’s so special. I can’t explain just how special it is. But if you can trust, if you can open yourself to the energy…you’ll feel her too. Are you able to trust?”
    “I’ll try.”
    “Don’t try, just believe. Soon my energy will cease, and hers will replace it. You’ll know when it happens. You’ll feel her within me.”
    The house felt too hot, with none of the fresh breezes scented with oranges to cool him here. He wondered if she’d paid the boy, the strange boy who spoke of the dead. Fifty cents if I do the whole tree, he’d said. Someone cut off his hands. Put them in a cigar box, he’d said. You ever seen something like that?
    There was sweat on Mark’s forehead and he was breathing hard, as if the stairs had been a laborious climb. Dixie moved her hand to his forehead and wiped off the beads of perspiration gently. Her hand felt cool and wonderful. He didn’t want her to step away. If anything, he wanted her to come closer, press tighter.
    You’ll feel her within me.
    What he felt was sick. Disoriented and dizzy. Were there no fans in this damn house, no open windows? It was like a tomb.
    “Trust,” Dixie Witte breathed in his ear. “You’ve got to trust.” Then she stepped away again, heading up the next flight of stairs. “She’ll have the answers for you. She knows if it was Garland Webb. She knows, Markus. She’s the only one who does.”
    He climbed after her, sweating freely now. At the top of the stairs Dixie turned toward a room that was on the side of the house facing away from the moonlight, which left it in total darkness. Mark followed her in and his sense of claustrophobia rose to new heights. The room was small but it was also blacked out, with thick curtains over the windows, and smells of sage and other incense hung heavy in the air. Cloying and unpleasant, nothing like those cool orange-scented breezes in the yard. He thought of the strange boy again and wondered if he should ask about him. She would know who he was, who had told him that story about the man named Walter with the severed hands. Maybe it had been Dixie. She certainly seemed right for the part. Or maybe one of the people who’d passed through, the angry people. They come and they go, the boy had said.
    “We’ll try to make contact with her now,” Dixie said. “With Lauren.” She stepped close to him and then, in a strange and sudden motion, she slid down to her knees and took his hands, gripping them tightly, bowing before him. “Close your eyes and trust. You’re resisting. You’re not open yet. Just trust.”
    He could barely make out her shape. The room was that dark.