Chapter 16

Jesse sat with Dom on the camp’s porch steps, eating a bowl of cereal and watching a chipmunk poke his nose between the stairs, looking for the peanuts which their Papa regularly fed him. It was the first time in a long while that she had eaten breakfast, but it was a rather late one, about 10:30 in the morning, Friday, July 28, and she really did feel a little hungry. Dom fed some of his cereal to the chipmunk, but Jesse would not, fearing he wouldn’t be able to digest it properly. She was already a little concerned that the salted peanuts they usually fed him weren’t good for his health.
Other than her fears for the chipmunk, it was a fine day, sunny but with a chill wind, and she looked forward to a lazy day of swimming and relaxing.
The chipmunk scurried under the porch to stay when Nana’s car pulled in and stopped a few feet away from them. With a sense of foreboding, Jesse wished she could have followed him. It was unusually early for Nana, who was known to sleep til ten and often eleven. They soon learned the reason for her unexpected appearance.
“Take those things out of the back seat and bring them in,” she called out to them as she walked around from the driver’s side - as though they were much farther away, or harder of hearing, than they actually were. As they emptied the back seat of pots and pans, some filled with food, and bags of ingredients, they learned that she was driving to the city with Papa for an appointment at three o’clock, and had company coming over to dinner that evening. Added to that, Mrs. Petrick had suffered a stroke and was in the hospital, and had asked Nana to bring some things for her from her house. As soon as the car was unloaded, Nana began working on dinner, and the cousins were dispatched to pick raspberries for the cheesecake she had decided to make for dessert. By the time they were finished that, they were required to help straighten up the camp. With a sigh, Jesse said goodbye to the anticipated day of relaxation, wondering who could possibly be coming that Nana would think it necessary to clean for. She couldn’t remember it ever having been done before.
At one o’clock in the afternoon, Nana was satisfied with the appearance of the camp, and dinner was ready to go in the oven when she came back. But there was still the cheesecake to do, and she hadn’t gone to Mrs. Petrick’s yet. This was how Dom and Jesse happened to be sent there. Jesse was excited, having wanted to see the inside of the stone house for years, and never having the opportunity before this. Both were also a little nervous, though. Neither had forgotten the scare they’d had a few weeks ago, while admiring the house from the water.
They walked slowly, passing eight or ten camps before reaching their destination. Here there was a fork in the road, the right lane leading away from the lake to somewhere unknown, the left going, presumably, to Mrs. Petrick’s. The triangular patch of ground formed by this split in the road dipped down to form a hollow, and was filled with tall grasses and wildflowers, out of which grew a little forest of tall, slender birches and a few poplars. The light through the leaves was tinted a light green, different in quality from the darkness of the evergreen forests all around it, and birds sang and flitted from tree to tree, giving the place an enchanted feeling.
Jesse and Dom took the left road, and soon the birch grove opened up to show them the stone house. Like their camp, it hugged the treeline on the right side of the property, to best catch the light and heat of the southern sun. The porch, which was partially covered on the lake side, was shaped like an L with one arm along the south end, but here it was open and sunny, without a roof. It seemed very pleasant and well-situated, though the grass was overgrown, and filled with weeds and wildflowers. There was a wild look about the place which Jesse was not altogether against.
They climbed the porch steps to reach the side door, and opened it with the key Nana had given them. The room inside was very dark. Jesse stepped in first, and was chilled by what she saw. It was no wonder that it was dark, for all the curtains were dark colours and drawn together. It smelled of dust and smoke, and some other unseen quality sent shivers up her spine. Dom came in behind her, but did not stop on the threshold as she had. He passed her and went into the room - it seemed a large kitchen, living, and dining room all in one, like their own camp, only bigger - and went to the fireplace, which was a huge stone structure in the centre of the living area, to their left. He looked at it in awe, then scanned the room. It was crammed with furniture and nicknacks on every surface, all covered in a thick layer of dust. Cobwebs hung on the walls and in corners, and Jesse spied a spider in one, where a shaft of light sneaked in between the curtains and illuminated it temporarily. She wondered how many others there were, hiding in darker corners and crevices in the furniture. This one’s black legs were thin and not hairy, but it was as big around as her hand. It did not scurry away at the sight or sound of the intruders, but sat where it was, perfectly still. It could have been dead, but its web was new, made that day.
Jesse was so scared, she would have quickly grabbed the suitcase, which was behind a large stuffed chair in the living room, and left the creepy premises directly; but Dom had found a door in the opposite wall, and called her over. She joined him only to tell him not to snoop, but he already had the door open, and she could not then retreat, much as she would have liked to.
They looked into a large bedroom without seeing it. If there were windows, they were completely blacked out. Dom searched for a light switch, and found none. Long as they peered into the blackness, they could see nothing, save the corner of a four-poster bed on which a faint light from the doorway fell; this was quickly devoured. Their eyes could not adjust to this darkness. Jesse’s chest constricted, and she felt she could not enter that room for any reason, never mind idle curiosity. It’s darkness was not only an absence of light; it was an entity in itself, one that could be felt, like thick black ink painted in the air.
Dom apparently did not feel what she did, for he took a step into that evil room. Jesse could not let her cousin’s folly doom him, however. Very courageously, she thought, she reached into that room and caught the back of his shirt in her fist, just in time, and yanked him back. It took all her strength to do it, as Dom towered over her and was not easily budged from his purpose; and with all her effort, she succeeded only because she had surprised him. When he was safely on her side of the lintel, however, she pushed him against the wall with determined force, and spoke in a hoarse whisper.
“Stay out of that room!” she warned, clutching the front of his shirt.
“Why should I?” was Dom’s angry reply, straightening himself and his clothing, after wrenching out of her fierce grip.
Jesse was shaking. He didn’t see what she was so freaked out about, but then he did see that she was terrified. His anger immediately dissipated into concern. He reached out to put a reassuring hand on her shoulder, but before he could, her head snapped to the right - at the closed bedroom door. She looked back at him, her eyes wide.
“Something’s in there.”
An illogical, but very real fear possessed her; worse even than the self-inflicted panic that still drove her to run from invisible bears in the darkness between the outhouse and the camp door.
“I can feel it,” she mouthed breathlessly.
Dom pulled her out of the house running.
“I didn’t close that door,” Jesse said when they were safely out on the porch. “I didn’t hear it close, either.”
“Neither did I,” said Dom. “Let’s go.” Still holding her hand, he tried to take the steps, but she held her ground.
In the light of day, the rationale of the physical world once again presented itself. “The suitcase,” she said. “We forgot it.”
“I’m not going back in there,” said Dom. “Nana can get it herself, if it’s so important.”
“You’d send your own grandmother in there? And what are we going to tell her, that a door closed and we’re scared to go back in?” She paused to steady her breathing, and her voice. “I’ll get it.”
She walked back briskly, acting confidently without feeling so, and was in the house again before Dom had a chance to argue. Unable to do anything else, he watched her from the doorway.
She felt nothing when she re-entered, except disgust for the dirtiness and clutter. She glared at the spider, still in its corner, as she left, but avoided looking at the bedroom door.
“Hurry!” urged Dom, anxious to leave, not feeling entirely safe even from the open doorway.
The rather heavy suitcase was retrieved without incident, and the cottage was locked up safely. They hurried back to camp, and though it felt longer, they had only been gone 20 minutes when they arrived. Nana’s cheesecake was almost done, and when it was, she left them with instructions to mow the lawn and straighten up the mess in the kitchen, as Papa wouldn’t have time for the first (and she felt he was straining himself unnecessarily these days), and she had no time or inclination for the second.
They spent another hour on the porch before complying to these requests. Dom wanted to know what was in the stone house that had sent them running.
She didn’t know how to explain, at first. It had been a feeling, but more than just that. It was a sense. She had sensed something, but not with one of the usual senses. Something within her simply knew.
“There are evil spirits,” she explained. “They aren’t ghosts, because people who die cannot come back, just like people don’t become angels when they die.”
Dom looked confused, so she went to the beginning, as far as she knew.
“Before God made the world, he had made Heaven, and all the angels. Thousands, if not millions, of angels. The angels were good, and served God. But one angel, Lucifer, led a rebellion against God, trying to overthrow him and become God himself. God and his angels won, and Lucifer and the angels who followed him were thrown out of Heaven. Lucifer is the devil, and the angels expelled with him are demons, or evil spirits. They are free to roam the earth as much as they wish. But when Jesus came, he had power over the demons. He was able to cast them out of people. Some of his followers were also able to do this in his name.”
Dom wanted to know if there was a spirit in the house.
“I don’t know,” Jesse said honestly. “I’ve never read about an evil spirit possessing a house. But I guess if someone in the house invited demons there, they would come.”
“Can they hurt us?” he asked.
Jesse took a moment to think before responding. “I suppose, if the demon was possessing a person, it could make that person hurt someone else. But they can’t harm anyone, at least not a Christian, without God allowing it. God let Satan kill Job’s children. But I don’t think a demon can possess someone who has the Holy Spirit inside of him. The two spirits couldn’t live in the same person, and an evil spirit isn’t strong enough to displace God’s spirit, surely. But yes, I think they could hurt someone who didn’t have that protection.” She thought a minute more. “That’s probably how I knew,” she said finally. “The Holy Spirit inside me sensed the demon. It wasn’t me.”
Dom looked grave, but intrigued. “What did it feel like?”
She didn’t know how to describe it.
Dom grew serious then. “I didn’t feel anything,” he said dully. “Why didn’t I feel anything?”
“You wouldn’t feel it if you weren’t a Christian.”
“I’m not,” he admitted.
Jesse searched his face. “I saw you with a Bible,” she said gently. “Why are you reading it?”
Dom turned away from her and hung his head. “May gave it to me, a long time ago. I never read it...and then I found it again last year in my closet behind a bunch of stuff. I - I thought it might be a good thing, to read it, y’know? May...she was a good person.”
“She loved you,” said Jesse. “She wanted, so much...for you to be saved.”
Dom grinned. “Yeah, I know she did. When we were younger, before you worked at Bible Camp, she tried to tell me things. I listened because I wanted to make her happy, but I never believed any of it. What she said...it just seemed ridiculous. I think she knew I didn’t believe her, because she cried sometimes.”
Jesse hadn’t known her sister had taken such steps with Dom. “And you still don’t believe it, do you?”
“Sometimes I wish I could,” he told her, “but I can’t. I’m too bad, Jesse. I can’t believe in something as easy as forgiveness.”
“It’s not an easy thing, Dom.”
But he was done discussing the state of his soul. “So,” he said with a mischievous grin, “you still want the stone house?”
Jesse just glared at him.
“Have you ever sensed a demon before?” he asked, after a while.
She did not answer that question, either.
************************************************************
Jeremy’s grip on her wrist was solid. When she indignantly tried to slap it away, he only grabbed her other wrist, too, and tightened his hold on both. It seemed darker, somehow, as she tried to search his face for a hint of what was going on.
“Jamie?” she asked shakily.
“Put her in the truck,” the stranger behind her ordered. When Jeremy began to comply, she followed the instructions her mother had drilled into her head, though she’d never expected to use them: she kneed him in the groin. Suddenly released, she ran hard. Behind her was the scary guy in the leather jacket, to her right she heard someone come from the truck. Ahead, back up the sidewalk, she knew there were no houses or open businesses for more than a block, and she was not a fast runner. She veered to the left, into the cemetery. She had a vague idea of making another left, doubling back to the house at the bottom of the graveyard - the only one on this road. It never happened. She thought she heard Jeremy joining the chase, and instantly regretted not kicking him harder. She looked behind her once. Something smacked her in the shins and threw her to the mud. On the way down, unable to see anything, her head connected with another gravestone, making a sickening crack that she never heard.

She came to, cramped and belted in the back seat of a pickup truck going way too fast on a gravel road. Her wrists and ankles were tied with ropes, and there was a person beside her whom she had never seen before in her life. She stared at him, and he stared back at her, looking only mildly interested. He sucked on a candy, and seemed to enjoy her embarrassment when he looked her up and down. She bit her bottom lip and said nothing.
“We’re awake back here,” the boy beside her said.
The leather jacket in the driver’s seat laughed. “Good! That’ll make it more interesting.”
After a while, she saw the lights of a house ahead.
Jeremy turned around to the boy beside her, handing him something.
“Gag her,” he said.
She would not be gagged. Her hands and feet, though tied, still made good weapons, and she used them as best she could in the small space. But when Jeremy leaned over the seat to help, the two boys together managed to pin her, and the gag was secured just as the truck pulled in the laneway - on the front lawn, really, as the driveway was full. Music blared, even louder when the truck doors were opened. She was dragged out by Jeremy and her back seat partner, but the leather jacket then grabbed hold and sent Jeremy inside, telling him to “make sure he was seen,” and “come down after half an hour.”
They brought her, struggling against their hands and the ropes, around to a back door that led straight into the basement. They locked it behind them. She was hauled down stairs, through a hallway, and into a small, dark room with a cot against one concrete wall.
In that room, she felt the presence of evil.
************************************************************
Mrs. Petrick died early the next morning. Jesse had never even seen her. The funeral was scheduled for Sunday afternoon, and Nana intended to go. She would have made Jesse come too, if she didn’t have to go to Rocky Bay.
Jesse finally got her day of relaxation on Saturday. Dom was life-guarding during the day, and Nana and Papa were around, but today they didn’t have any jobs for her. She swam and read most of the morning, and when it clouded over early in the afternoon, she went canoeing. She passed by Mrs. Petrick’s stone house slowly. It looked so peaceful from here. She never would have guessed what was on the inside.
She paddled on to the far corner of the lake, where the water was shallow, the bottom was muddy, and her canoe drifted through stands of reeds. It was wild here, blackflies and mosquitoes plagued her, but it intrigued her because it was different. The bottom of her boat almost touched the bottom, but she would not have stepped out of it for anything. Her feet would be sucked in to her ankles in the muck. She let herself drift lazily along in the still, shallow pool, till the bugs became too much for her.
To escape them, she went through the middle of the lake, heading directly back to camp instead of following the shoreline. While passing by the stone house again, from a distance, she noticed a red car pull in the driveway, from which three people exited. Two entered the house without ceremony, but the third walked around to the front porch, and leaned on the railing overlooking the lake. Jesse knew he saw her, and continued paddling. She had every right to be on the lake. The man on the porch was called, and finally, he too entered the house. Jesse prayed that whoever they were, they would be safe. She heard a window opened loudly as the house slipped out of her view, but no screams of terror. She was relieved, and only a very little bit disappointed.
That night over supper, Nana and Papa discussed the fact that Mrs. Petrick’s house had already been put up for sale. Nana wondered how they would ever clean the place out.
“Was it filthy when you two went over to get her suitcase?” Nana asked her.
“Yes, very.”
“Well, it’s a nice house anyway,” said Papa.
“Yes, but think of all the work cleaning it!” said Nana.
“Can’t be much worse than cleaning our house will be!” replied Papa, to which Nana laughed.
“Yes, I suppose you’re right,” she said, without apology. “It’ll take years to clean that place out. Unless Horace just moves in. I wouldn’t clean it for anything. I won’t even clean my stove. When it gets too dirty, I just buy another one at a garage sale for ten dollars.”
“And what do you do with your old one?” Jesse asked.
“I sell it at my garage sale. Or I get your grandfather to bring it to the dump.”
Papa contradicted her. “What garage sale? You haven’t had a garage sale in years. You’d have to sell something.”
“Well, it goes to the dump, then,” said Nana.
Papa expected an open house the following weekend, and asked Jesse if she’d like to go with him. She gave a noncommital answer, knowing that if she refused outright, there would be questions. She would think of an excuse not to go next week; there was no way she was stepping in that house again.
That night, however, she couldn’t sleep. A cobweb in the corner of the window screen in her room fixated her. Her mind kept returning to that house, an object of both horror and intrigue. Yes, there was something horrible and frightening inside, but she also knew that she couldn’t run from it. If it was there, it could be anywhere. She couldn’t always be running, and she didn’t like backing down. She had wanted that house, and in spite of everything, she still wanted to make it hers. She had never wanted anything more. Want was almost the wrong word. She saw her future there, she felt as though it were hers already, her place of rest, and a well-earned one. She was not prone to feelings of self-entitlement, but a longing for home was one selfish desire she had no qualms about indulging in. Whatever was in there, she wanted to face it. She wanted to defeat it. She wanted to know that there was a strength in her stronger than the strength of Hell. Because if there wasn’t, she had nothing left to live for; and if she did, she could finally stop being afraid.
She dressed, took a flashlight, and made a valiant effort to quell her fear of bears as she walked up the road to Mrs. Petrick’s. There were no vehicles in the driveway. From the kitchen window, she saw the results of an afternoon’s hard work: boxes were stacked everywhere, in various stages of being filled, and the clutter of smaller and medium-sized objects was considerably reduced, though the larger furniture remained. She noticed a stairway that she and Dom had not explored. She wondered what, if anything, was upstairs. Mrs. Petrick had probably been too old to make the trip up very often.
Walking around to the front, she shone her flashlight on a window that must look into the bedroom. The panes had bits of pieces of tape on them, as though they had been papered over, and someone had removed the paper hurriedly, leaving behind a lot of the tape that had held it. Cupping her hands over the surface, she peered inside, and her eyes gradually adjusted to the darkness. She saw the outline of a bed, and four strangely-shaped posts at the corners.
A noise startled her - an engine. She flicked her flashlight off. Who would be here at, she checked her watch, 11:19 pm? The engine cut off. The sound of a car door, footsteps on gravel walking around the car, and then on the boards of the porch. Keys jingled. Thank goodness, the side door opened. An inside light came on. The stone walls muffled any footsteps she might have heard. She should leave while she still could, but she didn’t. Instead, she watched the dark window, hoping the intruder might enter that room.
To her surprise, the door did open, and revealed the dark outline of a man. She couldn’t believe her good fortune. The shadow hesitated briefly, then entered, walked to the side of the bed and turned on a lamp.
Jesse gasped. She knew the face that looked around the room. It was Michael’s.
She ducked. It was silly, she knew. In the darkness, he couldn’t see her, unless she were right up close to the window. It was just shocking, that’s what it was. She’d never seen Michael outside of Bible Camp, and for him to be here, at her camp, was unthinkable. It was like seeing a teacher at the grocery store, only a thousand times worse. People from camp went to the city on the weekend, not Hanger, never mind the tiny Lake Conrad. She recognized and appreciated the fact that Rocky Bay and Lake Conrad were separate worlds. It took some time for her to recover from the collision of the two.
When she forced herself to stand up again, Michael was gone. The lamp was still on, but the room was empty. Her mind barely had time to register that fact, when another light came on: the outside porch light. She had no time to do anything. The front door opened, and she stood face to face with him.