Free A Family Affair: A Novel of Horror by V. J. Banis Page B

her death. There, just in front ofher, the platform on which she had been walking suddenly ended. The wood had rotted and fallen away long ago. Another step, and she would have walked over its edge, falling to the ground before the very eyes of the people watching below.
    Trembling, she inched her way backward, afraid to turn about until she felt the framing of the doorway behind her, and she was through it, back safely into the little round turret room. Her breath came in rapid, uneven gasps, and her heart still pounded at a frantic pace.
    I might have been killed, she told herself, trembling anew as the thought came to her. I could have fallen and broken my neck. And no one had tried to stop her or warn her; not one person had raised a hand to save her life. They had all stood on the lawn far below and watched her make her way forward, knowing what lay before her, and knowing that she would surely fall.
    In those few moments Jennifer’s fright at what had nearly happened to her had erased any other considerations from her mind. As the first shock waves receded, she thought of something else. The woman, the stranger she had been following; what had happened to her?
    She had not fallen; there was no sign of a body sprawled upon the lawn, as there certainly would be. And she could not have gone on around the turret, without walking on air.
    Or had she even been out there? Jennifer wondered. Had she even been in the turret? The dust here looked undisturbed, as if no one had been here in years. Indeed, all of the house looked the same way.
    Had Jennifer deceived herself into thinking the woman had come this way, tricked into that belief by an open door below, and a creaking one above?
    She looked about again. There was no other way out of this room save for the little walkway outside. The woman could not have been here at all. She had gone through another door of the many along the hall, and left the entrance to the stairs open as a decoy.
    Jennifer made her way down the spiraling stairs to the floor below, and carefully closed the door after herself, lest someone else make the same mistake she had. Aunt Christine was just hurrying along the hallway toward her.
    â€œThe turret is rather dangerous,” Aunt Christine greeted her as she approached. “We never use it these days.”
    Jennifer looked at her for a moment without replying. Then, still saying nothing, she went by her and let herself into her own room, and locked the door.
    She had nearly been killed, and no one had cared. Indeed, if anything, they had seemed quite fascinated by the show, as it seemed to be for them.
    For the second time, Jennifer realized that she might be in danger here, surrounded by a houseful of madness.
    â€œI must get away from here,” she told herself, and immediately asked, “But how?”
    * * * *
    â€œJennifer, it’s time for lunch,” Aunt Christine called from the hall,
    Jennifer remained stubbornly silent, her eyes on the door. After a time she saw the knob turn as Aunt Christine tried the door and found it locked.
    â€œJennifer,” Aunt Christine called again.
    This is silly, Jennifer told herself. I’m not hurting anyone but myself by sitting here and pouting. She half rose to answer the door, then seated herself again on the bed. No, it would do them good to worry about her. Maybe they wouldn’t think their little game was so funny if they thought she really was going to starve, and they might have a corpse on their hands.
    After a little while she heard Aunt Christine moving away down the hall. Jennifer opened her purse and again removed the letter that she had originally received from Aunt Christine. She had been studying it most of the morning already.
    Take Bellen Road off Peters Road...but that still didn’t tell her anything about where she was. She had been driving north, and then west—no, east, because the sun had been behind her when it set. And then she had gone right; or