The northern air had a vicious bite to it today. More harsh than the chill I had become accustomed to in the wilds of Washington. There was a desolation here that drove to the core of my soul. How my dear friend had managed to remain in this empty place all of these years was a mystery. I supposed that the obligation of maintaining his family's estate had a strong pull on him, but I wondered if there shouldn't be reasonable limits on one's family debts. No one should be forced to live in this godforsaken wasteland.
As if in answer to my thoughts, a gust of wind blew dust and leaves into the air, and the harsh cold stung my face. I pulled the brim of my hat down over watering eyes and lowered my head, urging my horse onward. Even the beast I was riding was uncomfortable in this hellish place.
Only friendship could have brought me here. The urgent letter from James had been brief and to the point. His brother Stephen was dying from some unknown ailment, and James feared for his own sanity. Something was amiss, and James believed that I could offer some relief from it. Nothing in the letter had seemed in keeping with my memories of my old friend. There was no question but that I would go and do what I could to help.
James Ellison, Sr. had been an eccentric man, and it was never more apparent than now, as I approached the sprawling estate that he had built in the middle of nowhere. The region was, for all intents and purposes, a desert. The flat plains, dotted with straggling bushes and sparse vegetation, were a stark contrast to the beauty of my home in Cascade. The view before me made me long for the green forests there.
Looming up like a black, angry mountain in the midst of all the emptiness, stood Ellison House. Built of dark stone interspersed far too rarely with small windows, it looked more like a prison than a home. For all of his wealth, the elder Ellison had been a joyless and stingy man. His need for isolation had driven him to build a home in this remote place, and in his waning years he had retreated here, never venturing out.
It had fallen upon his sons to deal with the world, and James had enjoyed it. I fondly remembered evenings spent in the company of my friend. James was considered a handsome man, and we were never wanting for refined female companionship. James was an excellent businessman while I was more interested in intellectual pursuits, but our differences had somehow made our friendship grow stronger. A little over sixteen months ago, James had seemed deliriously happy, and was planning his wedding with a young woman he had fallen in love with, named Carolyn.
All of James' plans had fallen apart upon the death of his father. He had returned to Ellison House, prepared to make the necessary arrangements to sell the accursed place and take up permanent residence in Cascade, when his beloved younger brother had fallen ill. He had stayed to care for the young man and, as the months passed, became less and less communicative.
Although I faithfully wrote him, his responses were further and further apart. This odd behavior in my friend, who could usually be counted upon to write promptly on the first of every month, concerned me. I began to make plans to visit Ellison House, but an unexpected opportunity delayed me. I was offered the chance to travel to South America with an archaeologist of some note. My journeys lasted a year.
Upon my return, I found the ominous letter from James awaiting me. I was determined to do anything I could to raise the spirits of the depressed man, even if it meant removing both James and Stephen from the house and forcing them to the healthier climate of Cascade.
As I neared the entrance of the estate, a chill ran through me. The house was in a state of disrepair unlike any I had seen before. Weeds grew higher than the wrought iron fence which guarded the overgrown lawn. Perhaps the word lawn was an overstatement, as patches of brown dirt could easily be seen beneath dry and brittle grass the color of straw. At one time, there must have been a garden on one side of the broken stone drive, but now there was nothing but undergrowth here, as dense as the African jungle but filled with infinitely less life.
My horse skittered nervously and I feared that at any moment the animal would bolt. This place had a palpable presence. If I were less of a scholar, I might even have called it evil. As I gazed upon the dark windows of the house, my imagination ran riot. They seemed like vacant eyes in the face of a soulless demon. For a moment I wished to give in to my fears and allow the horse to flee, carrying us far away from this forbidding place.
Only for a moment, though. Imagining James here, alone with his thoughts, jolted me from my self-involvement. My friend needed help, and I was here to give it to him.
There appeared to be no servants about, and I wondered at that. Perhaps they were inside keeping warm. I decided to stable my horse myself, but as I approached the doors the beast reared up, knocking me to the ground and bolting in the direction of Cascade. I suspected that he would not stop until he got there. That settled any thoughts of my own departure, as I would have to borrow transportation from James if I wished to return home. Sighing in resignation, I brushed the dust from my coat and ventured to the massive front doors of Ellison house.
After waiting for what seemed an interminable amount of time out in the cold, I finally decided that the door would not be answered, and opened it myself. I was too uncomfortable to worry about the propriety of entering uninvited, and I assumed that there were no longer servants in residence.
Ellison House was as cold on the inside as it was on the outside. Perhaps more so. The floors were of smooth grey stone, dotted here and there with frayed and faded rugs from the Far East. A thick layer of dust hung upon everything in sight, confirming my suspicions about the lack of servants. A massive stairway lead up into murky and unlit reaches. The gloominess of it all only served to make the contrast of the fire, glimpsed through open doors at the far end of the hallway, that much more noticeable. I was drawn to its cheeriness and hastened towards it, hopeful that I would find my friend there.
I spoke his name as soon as I entered, searching the room for the familiar figure. A large and comfortable chair was pulled up close to the fire, and my friend sat there staring into it. His appearance was shocking to me. The last time I had seen him, he had been in robust health, a tall man with short brown hair and sturdy body. James was an avid sportsman, and a week did not pass when he was not involved in some outdoor activity. Now, as I gazed at him sprawled limply in the chair, I saw that the color was gone from his skin, and his clothes hung loosely around his gaunt frame. There were dark circles beneath his eyes and he continued to stare vacantly at the flames, as if he had not heard me call his name.
I approached him hesitantly, fearing for a moment that I was too late and that he had died while I was on the road. I sighed with relief as I saw the gentle rise and fall of his chest. Still, he had not heard me. I knelt down before his chair and put a hand on his arm. I spoke to him gently, trying to draw his feverish gaze from the fire.
His eyes did not waver. I recognized the look. I had seen a man in a club in Cascade who had entertained by mesmerizing volunteers from the audience. The look in their eyes had been similar. I remembered how the hypnotist had awakened his subjects, and I lifted my fingers and snapped them in front of James' face. It did no good.
At a loss, I grabbed James firmly by the shoulders and began to shake him gently. When I still received no response, I admit that I became frustrated and perhaps a little frantic. I shook him harder, and raised my voice.
He blinked then, slowly, and turned his gaze to me, seeming surprised by my presence, as if he hadn't been expecting me. He spoke my name in a cracked voice. Embarrassed, I released my grip and stood up to greet him in a more civilized fashion.
When I received no response, only an unwavering gaze, I began to babble in defense, complaining of the cold of the region and my long trip. I told him of my horse's skittishness, and that I had been thrown and stranded here with no more than the clothes on my back.
James stood, and his expression of concern was one I recognized from our long friendship. He reached out and touched my arm, inquiring as to my health and checking me for injuries, although I assured him I was merely bruised. For that moment, he seemed more like his old self, and less like the haunted skeleton of a man that had so disturbed me moments ago.
When James had taken my coat, settled me in a chair opposite his near the fire, and procured for me a cup of hot tea, we began a friendly exchange of news. Or, perhaps it would be more truthful to say that I provided the news, and he listened intently, asking questions if my monologue began to flag. I spoke for a long time, telling him of my travels in South America and the tribes I had met there. He seemed genuinely interested, although in days past, he had endured my stories out of courtesy more than anything. Perhaps he was just glad to see me again, and to hear my voice. He had been alone with his ailing brother in this place for more than a year.
In any event, after an hour or so of my ramblings, I decided to broach the subject of Stephen. His eyes turned cold, and he began to grind his teeth. I feared that I had angered him in some way, but finally he spoke.
He told me that his family had been cursed with an unknown affliction. Stephen was wasting away from it and rarely ventured from his darkened room. He could eat nothing but bland porridge; drink nothing but water. The slightest sound made him cry out in agony. James both feared and hoped that death was near for his younger brother. He wished only for Stephen to be freed from the torture of his senses.
I inquired about James' own health, and he admitted he was a victim of the same disease. Eating had become almost unbearable for him. Any spices burned his throat as if he had swallowed fire. Candlelight seemed to him to be as bright as the sun. The smells of dank water and rotting food were nearly more than he could bear. Worst of all of it was the noise. From a mile away, James had heard the clatter of hoof beats as I made my way to Ellison house. The closer I got, the more excruciating the sound became. His senses were so overwhelmed by it, that although he heard me thrown from my horse, he was helpless to move to aid me.
James' face became filled with fear and regret, and I hastened to reassure him of my health. I tried to convince him that the house was the cause of his melancholy, and that he and Stephen should accompany me back to Cascade, reasoning that their health had never failed while in the city. In truth, sick or not I would have wanted James to travel back with me. Although I did not want for company at home, I missed the companionship of my best friend.
It was impossible to convince him. Stephen would never agree to leave, for he feared the chaos of the city, as did James. He was certain it would drive both of them insane.
I pointed out to him that he was perilously close to madness already. Ellison House was not well-suited for the recovery of the spirit. I suggested a trip to the mountains if it was quiet he craved. He had always been fond of the fresh air of the Cascades. James shook his head adamantly and declared that he would never leave his brother to die alone. His nobility was frustrating to me, for I feared losing a friend.
James urged me to return home, telling me that I could do nothing to help him. I proclaimed myself as stubborn as he and refused.
His arguments after that were minimal. James was relieved, I think, not to be alone in his suffering. I went to work immediately, pouring through the books in his vast library, trying to find some reference to his condition that would be of help. I suspected that no one in his family had read any of the medical and science texts I found there. It was considered a sign of status in the days when the house was first built to have a large and well-stocked library. James' mother had been obsessed with status, and I privately thanked her for her vanity as I searched through the books.
In the moments when James made an appearance, I tried to keep him occupied, regaling him with humorous stories and legends from my travels. It was at those times, when I had his full attention, that he seemed most alive and like his old self. I would be flattering myself if I said that the sound of my voice had a calming effect on my friend, but that is exactly how it seemed to me. When he was alone, or I was silent, his face became stone-like, and he was given to staring off into the distance. Usually I could regain his attention with a word, and I took it upon myself to speak whenever he was in the room. It seemed the only way to keep him with me, and I had begun to become panicked at the thought that he might succumb to this strange disease of the senses.
I asked after Stephen frequently, but saw him only once. He wandered slowly past a doorway, never looking up when I greeted him. He was so thin that I imagined I was watching an animated skeleton. His eyes were sunk deep in his head and he moved lethargically, barely gathering enough energy to move forward. His skin seemed paper thin, almost translucent, and his veins could be seen easily through that thin covering. It chilled me. He looked enough like his older brother that I could see James in him. If I did not find a way to help him, this was what he would become.
My efforts to find a cure for my friend re-doubled after that. I spent many long nights buried in books until my head felt as if it would burst from the information I was pouring into it, but still I found nothing that would help. I had been trying to grasp a memory which had been dodging me from the moment James had described his problem to me. Somewhere in my travels I had heard of a reference to something similar, I was certain of it, but the more I tried to find it, the more the information slipped away.
One night when I was up late scouring the books, the solution seemed very close to the surface of my mind. Just as I thought I might hit upon it, it was gone again. In my frustration, I hurled the book I was reading across the library. It crashed into a vase which shattered on the floor loudly. At the same time, I heard James scream. I hadn't known he was in the room and as I turned in shock, I saw him curled up on the floor with his hands covering his ears, face etched in pain.
I rushed to his side and dropped to my knees begging his forgiveness. He grasped my hand so tightly I felt the bones grind together. It didn't matter. I had failed my friend, and he was dying. I'd been denying it for days. No longer. His thin frame, once strong and fit was almost as skeletal as Stephen's. Only in the throes of excruciating pain, did he have any strength left.
Slowly, James came back to himself, his ragged, gasping breaths calming to mere shudders. His grip on my hand loosened, and he looked up at me with defeat and friendship in his eyes. I apologized again, and promised to work harder to find a cure for him. Again he tried to convince me to return home, fearing for my health if I continued to work myself to the point of exhaustion.
The anger that welled up within me was unreasonable. How could I be angry at the pathetic figure before me? But I was. I refused absolutely to leave this accursed place; a place that I had come to loathe more than any other. I informed my friend that he would have to remove me bodily if he wished me to leave. The answer lay somewhere in the vast library, and I would not give up until I found it.
James did not have the energy to argue and remained on the floor. We sat quietly for a moment until I inquired as to his presence in the library so late. He fixed me with a look which I could not decipher and informed me that Stephen had died in the night. He had come to ask for my help in moving his casket to his tomb in the cellars.
Hopelessness descended upon me like a shroud. I had clung to the hope that, as long as Stephen lived, so would James. Now his death seemed too close. Even if I found a cure, how could I reverse his steady decline?
I followed James to his brother's room with a heavy heart. Stephen had already been sealed in his casket by James, and I wondered morbidly if the younger Ellison's coffin had resided in his room with him as he died, and if my friend's room was similarly furnished.
With difficulty, we carried our heavy burden to the cellars beneath Ellison House. I had not thought anything could be colder than the house itself, but I was wrong. The place reeked of mildew and rot, and there were scuttling sounds in the dark corners that I did not try to identify too closely. I had expected James to be incapacitated by it, but his senses seemed to notice not at all. I was curious about that, but did not venture to interrogate him while he was battling his grief.
At length, we came to a section of the cellar closed off by an iron grill. Inside I could dimly make out two other caskets and imagined them to contain James' mother and father. It was a cold, oppressive room, and I had difficulty drawing breath there. The hinges of the gate were old and rusty. As James fitted the key in the lock and dragged it open, it caused a discordant sound that made me wince and cover my ears. James seemed oblivious to it.
We settled the coffin upon the floor, and when James declined to say anything, I spoke up, giving a short prayer. It was too hasty, and not worthy of me, but I had become increasingly nervous in this dank and dark hole, and wanted to return to the relative warmth of the library. I was still determined to try until the end to find a cure for my friend.
After his brother's death, James became even more withdrawn. At first I thought that it was simply depression, but then I began to notice other things. I would be speaking to him, regaling him with one tale or another from my travels, and he would suddenly spin around in his chair and stare intently at the door, as if he had heard a noise. He often urged me to speak more loudly, claiming that he was having difficulty hearing me, but I suspected that my voice was being used to obliterate the sound of something else. At other times, he would become mesmerized, and I would have to use all of my skill to cajole him from that state.
James spoke of Stephen as if he were still alive, telling me that he would soon be reunited with his brother. I began to despair for my friend; for if I could not find a cure for his malady, he would surely go mad, and no medicine in the world would help him then.
After two more days and nights of intense study with no sleep, I retired to the chill of my bed chamber. I did not wish to rest, but I could no longer refuse my body. The wind had picked up outside, and I moved to the small window to shutter it against the storm. Beyond the walls of Ellison House, the wind gusted and moaned like a tortured soul. I gazed at the impenetrable blackness and wished for something, anything to appear outside. It was as if nothing existed in the world but this house and the tragedy unfolding within it. My heart began to pound with a sense of impending doom. I shuttered the window against those morbid thoughts and closed my eyes.
I almost dismissed the vision as a figment of my imagination, brought on by overwork and lack of sleep. A panther stalked slowly through a familiar jungle. It stared at me with yellow eyes for a long moment before transforming into an Indian in shaman dress. Finally, the man spoke. One word. "Sentinel."
My eyes flew open, and the rush of memory nearly made my knees buckle. In Peru, I had heard of such men. Guardians of their tribes. Why had I not seen it before? Sentinels were fabled for the acuteness of their senses. What was but a whisper to a normal man, was a shout to a sentinel. These men had companions or guides who helped them to focus their senses. I had never heard of madness amongst these men, but that was surely because they knew what they were. If James had these senses...
A crash jarred me from my thoughts as James stumbled into my room and collapsed against a table. I tried to tell him of my discovery, but he interrupted.
"He is coming for me. Stephen. Can you hear him?" James was trembling in fear, and pointed a shaking finger at the doorway. "He comes from below to take me with him. I can hear the shuffling of his footsteps upon the stair. For many nights I have heard him, scratching at his coffin. I tried to ignore the piteous moans of my dead brother, but I could not. Did you not hear the screeching of the gate? He is on the stairs. He comes for me."
I tried again to tell him that I had found a cure, but James kept glancing at the doorway with wild eyes, and I began to feel an unaccountable sense of dread. If my theories were true, and James was a sentinel, then what noises had he heard in the dark cellar? Who could be in Ellison House, climbing the stairs? My gaze was drawn to the doorway, and I felt myself shuddering in sympathy.
James was nearly incoherent, now. I pulled the cover from my bed and wrapped it around his shoulders. I repeated again and again that I had found a cure, and eventually he looked at me, his eyes clearing somewhat. I assured him that all would be well, and that I would investigate the sounds for him. My fear began to be replaced by fierce determination. I would not lose my friend now, just when I had discovered how to help him.
I almost faltered as I stood and approached the corridor. I too, could hear an ominous shuffling, as of something encased in cloth being dragged down the passage. Could it be Stephen? Nonsense, I told myself. My gaze lit upon a fireplace poker, and I grasped it in shaking hands. The shufflingI almost faltered as I stood and approached the corridor. I too, could hear an ominous shuffling, as of something encased in cloth being dragged down the passage. Could it be Stephen? Nonsense, I told myself. My gaze lit upon a fireplace poker, and I grasped it in shaking hands. The shuffling had reached the top of the stairs now, slowly and unrelentingly coming nearer. A crash of thunder made my heart stop, but I steeled myself and crept closer to the door. The sound of wind and rain beating upon the shutters had obliterated the sounds of the intruder.
Closing my eyes and mumbling a prayer to all of the gods I knew of, I stepped into the hallway. By the flickering glow of too-faint candles, I saw it. My knees went weak, but I managed to remain upright. The apparition before me filled me with stark terror. A tall figure, enclosed in the gauzy fabric of a funeral shroud, was making it's way slowly toward me. The hands were free, and I could see that they were stained with blood. A low moan issued from the throat of the thing. I opened my mouth to scream in terror, but no sound came out. Frozen, I stared in grim fascination as it stopped within inches of me, the smell of sickness and death emanating from it in waves. Without warning, the figure lurched forward, unable to remain upright, and took me with it to the floor.
Some time later, awaking from my terror, I gently pushed the still form away and sat up. Wrapping my arms around myself, I struggled to stop the shudders that traveled through my nerve-wracked body. On the day I had arrived at Ellison House, I had fought the urge to flee this evil place. Now that compulsion had magnified tenfold. Underneath it all, my insatiable curiosity began to stir. I could hear labored breathing coming from the shrouded figure, and my reason returned. This ghastly figure must be Stephen. James had sealed him in his coffin when he was not yet dead. I banished the horror of that revelation from my mind and turned to the practical matter of helping the ill man beside me. When I had removed the shroud, and attended to Stephen as best I could, I returned to James' side.
James did not believe me when I told him that his brother lived. I pleaded, begged and cajoled for long minutes before I convinced him to stand and accompany me to the hallway where his brother lay. I spoke to him softly, and after a time, he seemed to come back to himself. He understood that his brother was alive and not some apparition coming to escort him to his death. When I explained that I had found a way to help both of them, he began to cry in relief. Overcome with emotion, he embraced me, and I felt myself returning it, surprised by my own tears of relief and exhaustion.
All was not yet well with my friend, but for the first time since I had arrived in this godforsaken place, I had hope.