Page 2 of Spelunking Through Hell

And if she was waiting for him in the living room in the middle of the night, it was because she was finally coming to collect.

“Please,” he said, and when she gave a minute shake of her head, he sighed. “At least, not here?”

“You don’t have a lot of options, Tommy,” she said. “I was able to convince them to let me wait until you came down instead of snatching you out of the bed, but that was all they were willing to give, and they only gave it because there was too much of a chance Alice would have been able to force her way through after you if they’d taken you upstairs.”

If not for Mary, Thomas might have protested that Alice would never do that, would never risk leaving Kevin alone. But he knew his wife, and he knew how much faith she placed in Mary’s ability to protect the children, and he could understand how Mary had been able to spin it into letting him wait. Into giving him just a few more precious hours.

He hadn’t kissed her before he left. He should have kissed her. He knew she would ask the mice, and they would tell her the truth: they would tell her he’d walked away without even kissing her on the forehead, and that would be the last she knew of him before he left her a widow with two children to raise alone.

They’d be able to unlock the Price family vaults if they needed money, but they’d have to go to England if they wanted to do that, and Alice’s sensible fear of the Covenant would close that avenue before it ever had the chance to open. He was leaving her with nothing.

“Please,” he repeated. Then, with a bit more certainty, he added, “At least the kitchen? You can take me in the middle of a cup of tea. It will hurt her when she finds it in the morning.”

He knew it was true, and still he hated himself for saying itbecauseit was true, because it had to be true to convince the crossroads. And the last thing he wanted to do was hurt his wife.

Mary sighed. “You’re right, of course,” she said. She cocked her head to the side, listening to something he couldn’t hear. “They’ll allow a cup of tea, although you won’t finish it.”

“Excellent. Thank you.” He bowed stiffly in her direction, overly formal for a man in a nightshirt and shorts, and walked toward the kitchen, pausing to grab his wallet from the bookshelf next to the door. Mary didn’t stop him. Her instructions hadn’t said anything about preventing the man from picking things up along the way. Once again, he didn’t look back.

The ghost of Mary Dunlavy followed him. Water ran, and a few minutes later, the tea kettle whistled. A few minutes after that, there was a sound like a sheet of tin foil being ripped, and everything was silent. For the first time in years, the old Parrish place sat completely quiet and serene.

It was the silence that woke her, rather than the absence of another body in the bed. Alice opened her eyes, blinking blearily up at the darkened ceiling. “Thomas?”

There was no reply from the empty room. Not even the mice seemed to be stirring, which was odd but not alarming. Alice rolled onto her side and levered herself into a sitting position, grunting with the effort. Pregnancy was rewarding in its own way, but it was also sostupid. She had never felt this alienated from her own body, not even when she’d been recovering from the damage done by the Bidi-taurabo-haza that almost killed her. Standing up shouldn’t have been so hard.

“Thomas?” she called again, louder. She didn’t want to wake Kevin, but she had the distinct, itching feeling that something was wrong, and you didn’t survive in Buckley as long as she had by ignoring feelings like that.

Resting one hand on the slope of her stomach, she left the room and made her way down the hall, only pausing to peek into her son’s room and reassure herself that he was still there. Kevin was on his back, one hand loosely gripping the taxidermied jackalope that was currently his best friend in the world. She smiled and eased the door shut again, continuing on.

For the second time in one night, a Price descended the stairs and found Mary Dunlavy waiting. Mary’s clothes had changed, replaced by the simple cotton dress she had most often worn when babysitting for Alice herself.

Alice froze, hand clenching on her belly until her nails dug into her skin. “Where is he?” she asked.

“Alice, you know this isn’t my fault. You know what he did, and you know why I’m here. I’m so sorry, sweetheart, I would have delayed it longer if I’d been allowed, but he—”

“Whereishe?”

“Not here.”

Silence fell, heavy as a thunderstorm, nearly smothering. Alice broke into a run, straight through the spectral babysitter and into the kitchen. She didn’t slow down, not even as the chill of Mary’s disrupted form wrapped around her limbs.

Mary was proud of her for that, and a little bit proud of herself. She’d helped raise a child Frances Healy would have been proud of and had managed to balance her duties to the crossroads and her duty to the family long enough to see that girl grown and starting a family of her own. Part of this was hers.

Mary disappeared, reappearing in the kitchen behind Alice, who was staring at what looked like a rip in the air, a jagged hole through which glimpses of a long, blue-tinted tunnel could be seen. She looked like she was gearing herself up to jump.

“Alice, you can’t,” said Mary. Alice’s head whipped around, blue reflections dancing in her eyes. “You can’t. Think of the baby. Think of both the babies.”

“You’ll be here,” said Alice. “You can take care of the babies.”

“I can’t go into town. Everyone knows I died years ago. Is there enough food in the house to get us through to when Laura comes?” Mary kept her tone soothing, not pointing out the obvious issue with her staying to take care of the babies: if Alice jumped, the baby she was still carrying would jump with her. “And what happens if the crossroads call me while I’m alone with the children? You know they’d love the chance to take out the whole family.”

“You can’t just expect me to stand here and donothing!” shouted Alice.

The rip was closing. It had been more than twice this size when Thomas was yanked through; if Mary could keep Alice talking, she wouldn’t have the chance to follow him. All she had to do was keep her talking. All she had to do was distract her.

“I expect you to allow your husband, a grown man who made his own choices, to pay his debts before my employers decide the sins of the father can fall to the son,” said Mary. “Youknowhe’s been waiting for this. You know you can’t go after him. You have a responsibility to that baby in your belly. Youknowthat.”

Alice made a sound, and it was the worst sound Mary had ever heard. It was tight and choked and brokenhearted and crushed, all at the same time, and all she wanted to do was go to the girl she’d loved for longer than she’d been alive and take her into her arms and hold her, and tell her things were going to be all right. All she wanted to do was fix this.

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