Page 43 of Mesmerized

“We won’t find it before dark,” Belinda said, her voice trembling.

“Perhaps not,” Olivia agreed, keeping her voice firm. “But when we literally cannot see, we will sit down and wait. It isn’t as if we’re in the middle of the woods. We have shelter. The worst is that we’ll be a little hungry and thirsty.”

“Yes, but it scares me. I mean, when you can’t see anything...and I keep thinking of that crying. What if it comes back? I wish we’d never tried to find it. What if it can’t be found? What if it’s something we can’t see?”

“I am sure it was a person,” Olivia said flatly. They had come to a complete stop. There was not any light to see to walk anymore. The enveloping blackness was rather frightening, she had to admit. She would have felt much more comfortable with a candle or two.

Olivia slid her hand along the wall and felt the recess, then wood, that meant a door. “Look, we’ve come to a room. We could go inside it and open the draperies, and then we wouldn’t be totally in the dark. There would be the moonlight and starlight.”

She turned the knob and opened the door. It was pitch-black inside. The draperies must have covered the windows completely, with no gaps, so that not even whatever faint light of stars and moon might be outside could filter in. They gazed into the empty blackness. Olivia could not ignore the shiver that ran down her spine. She closed the door.

“I think I’d rather be out here,” Belinda whispered.

“I would, as well.” They carefully edged past the door. “Shall we sit down?”

“I’m awfully tired.”

They slid down the wall to sit on the floor. Olivia tried not to think about the years’ accumulation of dust that might be on the floor. She was also trying not to think of such things as rats and mice that might frequent an unused building. The list of what she should not think about was growing rapidly as her mind lit first on the weeping sound they had followed, then went to the silent woman she had seen walking across the great hall the other night. What would she do if she saw that woman again here, without Stephen by her side or even a candle to light the corridor?

She cleared her throat, more to make noise in the silence than anything else. “We are not alone,” she said firmly, not quite sure whether she was reassuring Belinda or herself. “We have each other.”

“Thank heavens.” Belinda shuddered.

“And your mother knows that we went off to find the crying. She will tell Stephen and the others. They will start looking for us when we don’t come back.”

“But they won’t know where we are. We could have gone outside or—or vanished.” She said the last word in a hushed voice, as if speaking it aloud somehow gave it reality.

“I don’t think Stephen will assume we have vanished,” Olivia said dryly.

Belinda laughed lightly. “No, that’s true. Stephen will not think that the ghosts have taken us. We can count on him.”

“Yes. And I think they will search the house before they assume we went outdoors, as well. After all, we heard the sound inside. Surely, after a while, they are bound to realize that we might have wandered over into this wing of the house.”

Belinda nodded. Olivia could feel her straightening beside her. “Of course they will. They will find us.”

It was then that they heard the rapping.

The knocks were short and fast and came from above them. The hair on the back of Olivia’s neck stood up. For an instant neither of them spoke or moved. Indeed, Olivia thought she did not even breathe. Belinda’s hand squeezed convulsively around Olivia’s. There was silence, and then, just as Olivia began to relax, there came another noise—distant and faint and eerily like a voice.

For an instant Olivia was enveloped in a primitive terror. Then reason reasserted itself, and she jumped to her feet.

“Here!” she shouted, her voice ringing out shockingly loud in the dark. “We are here!”

“Olivia!” Belinda shrieked, rising up, too, in agitation. “No! Don’t draw it to us!”

“It’s not ghosts, Belinda.” Olivia cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted again. “Stephen! We are here!”

“What?”

“It is Stephen! Come to rescue us,” Olivia explained. “I’m sure it is. That knocking we heard was simply him walking across the floor above our heads, and then I heard a voice. If we hadn’t gotten into a such a state of fear, we would have realized it. It’s not ghosts, just people searching for us.”

“Olivia! Belinda!” There was the thundering sound of feet on the stairs, and suddenly a glow coming down another corridor toward theirs.

Belinda let out another shriek, this time of joy, and began to cry. “Stephen!”

They ran toward the light, and at that moment Stephen came hurrying around the corner, lantern held high in his hand. He saw them and set the lantern down with a thud, then ran the next few steps. Belinda jumped into his arms. Olivia, running with her, remembered belatedly that while Stephen’s sister had a perfect right to throw herself into his arms, it was not appropriate for her to do so.

Stephen, however, shifted Belinda into his left arm and with his right reached out and pulled Olivia to him. For a long moment the three of them stood that way, locked in an embrace of relief and joy. Olivia thought she felt the brush of Stephen’s lips against her hair.