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The lights still flicker, the doors slam shut one by one, and she lifts through the floor in front of me.
She doesn’t look like the woman she was.
This is the monster who killed her murder. This is the creature that sent every ill-intending visitor back where they came from.
She’s horrific and beautiful and Dylan finally takes a step back. He finally balks.
His eyes go wide. The color leaches from his skin and he takes a step back.
Jaw unhinged, she lunges for him and he backpedals.
One step.
Two steps.
On the third, he turns to run and crashes through the banister instead, falling…
The boards in the foyer splinter and crack as he slams into them—slams through them.
I go to look over the edge and Julia wraps her arms around me, holding me back from falling too.
“You can leave him here, or you take him back. But he will try to attack you again if you leave him long enough.”
“Will he attack me in the living world too?”
“I can’t speak for the living.”
And I can’t abandon him to hell… even if I might want to.
I hurry down the stairs and past the hole in the floor.
Jonas still swings wildly from the tree and I pull the chain from the branch Dylan hooked it to.
He hits the ground with a “EUGH”.
“If I unchain you, are you going to try to run away?”
“Not a chance. I want to get out of here.”
“Good. We need these for Dylan.” I unbolt the chain around his waist and pull it free. “And I need your help.”
I don’t wantto jump down, but we don’t have to. The cellar door isn’t locked here.
It opens, like the hinges are brand new and the eerie light filtering down shows Dylan, sitting in the dirt, weaving like he’s drunk.
I don’t waste time and Jonas doesn’t hesitate to help me.
I’ve never been in the cellar in the living world. I don’t know what’s different about this version of it. But I do know that Dylan shouldn’t be here and I am not going to let him stay any longer than I have to.
I start to drag him back up the steps, but Jonas pauses. “What is that?”
In the dirt, in a pile of ash, a heart glows bright. Molten beneath the cracked and brittle crust of burned muscle.
“That is Julia’s; don’t touch it.”
He looks up at me, wide eyed, but he nods, and follows me back up.
The floor in the foyer is fixed when we come back around and as if seeing the fully intact floor wakes him up, Dylan starts to struggle.
