Page 102 of Black Curtain

Black sat down next to me.

Jax sat next to him.

Without planning it, or really even meaning to, we formed a circle on the dusty stone floor, facing one another with our legs crossed, our eyes closed.

I avoided sitting on what remained of the faded straw mats.

I didn’t know if those mats were the same straw mats we’d seen in the virtual version of the old sunroom from the 1700s that Brick showed us, but I knew they weren’t the house itself. They felt like costumery, like so much of what was here, and I didn’t want to get my signals crossed. If we were really going to try to get information from the house itself, I only wanted to be touching the parts that I knew for sure existed back in those years.

I wanted to be touching the house itself.

Some part of its bones.

I felt Kiko, Dex, and Nick watching us.

After a few more minutes, I nearly forgot they were there.

The four seers sitting on the floor seemed to gear into one another.

For a few minutes, there was nothing.

Nothing but a wash of black nothingness behind my eyes.

I felt peace. I felt that space and primordial darkness, stars and moon and deep, dark, ocean at night, like what Dalejem painted in frosting on my and Black’s wedding cake. The sheer peace I felt behind that briefly choked me up. I wanted so badly to be there, on that beach, in that water with Black.

In my mind, it was Fiji.

It was nighttime on our honeymoon, and we were out for a midnight swim.

Cool, clear, beautiful night, a floating hotel at our backs, dolphins darting under the clear water, bumping us with their noses. Fish nibbling at my toes.

God. I wanted to be there so fucking bad…

…and then, everything changed.

Every part of the view shifted around us.

I was back in the room, only it was night now.

I saw beings walking through the wide space.

They wove, ghost-like, around plants and furniture. I saw them pause, here and there: to look at the rows of alcohol bottles on the bar, the stuffed crow on the wall, the ceramic figurines. I saw them stare around with predatory eyes, dressed in expensive-looking clothes.

The women wore long dresses with high waists under velvet cloaks. The men came dressed in fitted jackets, with white, frilled shirts under black coats and tri-cornered hats. They appeared to be looking for something.

Or someone, perhaps.

The bodies were no longer on the floor.

This was earlier. Or later, perhaps.

These new visitors were pale. White as bleached bones.

Their eyes shone in the glimmers of moonlight and fire like cracked crystal.

They were inside the house.

They had been invited here. They had felt the invitation from very far away.

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