Chapter 11: The History of Evil

The frown on Edward's face suddenly morphed into a smile, bringing a light to his eyes that was brighter than the soft glow of the nearby lamp. "Weren't you the one asking me that very thing a little while ago?"

Not sure how to reply, Alyssa nervously fidgeted with the hem of her skirt. He didn't look mad, but she had been nosing around his personal space without permission, so he had to be at least a little annoyed. She wracked her brain for an acceptable explanation for her behavior, but she couldn't come up with one. She had been poking around simply because she let her curiosity get the better of her.

"I'm sorry," she apologized hastily. "I was trying to find something that I..."

Alyssa trailed off. She really wasn't sure what she was looking for. After all, just what good would winding a clock do, anyway?

"I'm sorry," she said again. "I shouldn't have entered this wing of the house uninvited, even if it seems like everyone is gone."

"Oh, don't be silly," said Edward, brushing the issue aside. He stepped past her, shoved the pile of newspaper clippings out of the way and sat on the edge of the bed. "It's your house, not mine. You should be free to explore it all you like, no matter how long you've been away. Just ask me next time you want to admire my boudoir, okay?" he added with a wink.

"Okay," Alyssa agreed, with a small laugh.

Edward smiled at her a moment longer, before his eyes dropped to a spot near her feet. His expression grew somber as he reached down and picked something up off the carpet.

Alyssa recognized it as the last clipping she had read, the one with Jennifer's picture on it. The slender boy studied the image silently, his gentle eyes full of soft affection as they gazed at the girl's face.

After hesitating for several moments, Alyssa quietly voiced the question that had formed in her mind while she was reading the articles. "Did you know her?"

Edward nodded slightly, without taking his eyes off the scrap of paper. "We used to be very close. I miss her terribly sometimes."

Alyssa nodded and continued to fidget, feeling awkward. She had a pretty good idea what he meant when he said 'close'.

"What exactly were the..." She nudged a clipping with the toe of her shoe. "...'Scissorman' murders?"

Edward glanced at the mess at his feet before staring at the picture in his hands again. "Jennifer was an orphan, just like me. She and three other girls were taken to Barrows Mansion by a woman named Mary, where they would supposedly be adopted by a man named Simon Barrows. Only it was all a lie; they were lured there to die."

"So I read," said Alyssa, not sure she wanted him to continue, for his sake. For her own, too; she had had enough scary stories for one day.

But there was no sadness in Edward's blue eyes. Only fondness—and a hint of regret. "Simon Barrows had gone mad ages ago, and Mary, who was the true master of the house, kept him locked up like an animal. Deep within the catacombs beneath the mansion Mary ran some kind of demonic cult, and she and her followers preformed all sorts of horrific rituals, including human sacrifice."

The very idea made Alyssa shudder. "Was that what happened to the other girls?" she asked quietly, though she wasn't sure she wanted to have that question answered.

Edward shook his head. His eyes were still on the newspaper clipping, but his gaze had turned vacant and unseeing. "One of the girls ended up being a sacrifice, but the other two fell victim to Scissorman. No one really knows who or what he was, but after she was rescued Jennifer insisted he was the son of Mary and Simon, though no evidence was ever found to support this. The only things ever found were the rubber mask he wore and the giant scissors he carried."

Alyssa shuddered again. She could easily picture Jennifer running through the dark corridors of a creepy old mansion, a hulking killer lurking in the shadows behind her...

"Scissorman reappeared a year later, even though Jennifer insisted she had killed him before she escaped the mansion. Rumor was the criminal psychologist studying the case went out of his mind and adopted the persona Jennifer had been describing for him. Others say it was his assistant, who had an unhealthy interest in Jennifer. No one really knows for sure, and no one really knows why everyone involved in the case came to Barrows Castle here in England, either. Whatever the reason, all of them died when it collapsed."

"But what about..."

Alyssa glanced down at her feet; an article next to her shoe talked about the continuing Scissorman murders. The date marked on the corner was several months after the accident at the castle.

"Jennifer was an amazing girl; I've no doubt in my mind that she killed him, just like she claimed," said Edward firmly. "The other Scissorman was just a copycat, and the murders that spread across Norway were probably done by copycats, too."

Alyssa made a face as a picture of a group of men carrying scissors the size of pruning sheers and wearing masks formed in her mind. "Did the murders ever stop?"

"Eventually."

"But they never figured out who was behind it all?"

Edward shook his head and set Jennifer's article on the nightstand. "No, and I don't believe they ever will. But it doesn't matter anymore. That was all such a long, long time ago."

Alyssa nodded slightly, remembering the dates. Nearly a decade had passed since Jennifer's death. And judging by his current appearance, Edward had probably been around ten at the time, which most likely meant that the older girl had played a sisterly role in his life. Alyssa felt silly when she realized this and wondered why she had jumped to her previous conclusion.

Edward suddenly patted the bed beside him. "You remind me of her a lot," he said as Alyssa sat down. "She was strong and brave, just like you are."

"I'm not all that brave," murmured Alyssa, remembering the terror she felt as she ran from the hammer-wielding killer.

"But you saved that little girl," Edward insisted. "Being brave isn't the same as being fearless, you know. To be brave is to feel fear only to do what needs to be done anyway."

"I suppose..."

"It's true," said Edward, suddenly taking her hand. "A lesser person would have curled up on the floor in a little paralyzed ball. You worked to find a way out of the situation you were in, even though something truly horrible was after you at every turn."

Alyssa grew quiet. Edward still sounded like he was convinced that her dream had really happened, but she was beginning to have her doubts again. Who was to say what she had read in the book about Entities was really true?

But despite her uncertainty, she found herself telling Edward all about it, and about the winding keys, too.

"There's that big clock in the dining room," he said promptly.

"I know, but what good will winding it up do? And what exactly is a 'Rooder', anyway?"

"I've no idea," said Edward with a sad smile. "It seems to me like you've got one heck of a mystery on your hands. I wish I could help you solve it, but I have a feeling this journey is for you and you alone."

Alyssa let out a heavy sigh and said nothing. All the unanswerable questions were getting her a little discouraged. She was starting to feel like her perception of her own life—not to mention reality—had all been an illusion.

"Well, I didn't get any answers sitting on my rear the last time, and I certainly won't get any by doing that now," she decided.

She had to keeping looking, no matter how strange things seemed. The answers had to be in the house...somewhere.

Alyssa got up from the bed, but she didn't head for the door; Edward was still clinging to her hand. "If you ever need anything," he told her, his voice soft and urgent, "come back any time you like, even if it's just to talk. I won't be going anywhere."

Alyssa nodded mutely, feeling keenly aware of his thumb as it brushed lightly across the backs of her knuckles. Something in his pale eyes confused her; he looked sincere enough, but there was something else lurking within those luminous blue orbs, something mixed with loneliness and longing.

Did he truly desire her friendship, or was he chasing after the memory of someone else?

She pulled her hand away. Edward watched her step carefully around the newspaper clippings that still coated the carpet as she made her way to the door. He sat up a little straighter as she took a step into the hall and for a moment she thought he was going to say something, but instead he just smiled at her. It was a small, simple gesture, but it helped calm her for some reason. Though parts of their conversation had left her confused, she felt a little better than she had a few minutes ago. It was encouraging to know that amidst the dark forces working against her, there was someone close by who was on her side.

Alyssa smiled briefly in return before closing the bedroom door and heading back to the entryway. Her hand absently slipped into her jacket pocket and fingered the twin winding keys as she tried to form a picture of all the grandfather clocks in the house. Aside from the one in the dining room she was pretty sure there weren't any more.

When she reached for the dining room door, she received a shock. Two memories, both of them vivid and clear, popped into her head; one of herself and Edward talking at the dining room table, and one of her mother keeping strict custody of the only set of master keys the house had. Her mother obviously wasn't around, so who in the world had locked the door?

Just another question with no answer, one that had her thumping her foot against the door in frustration. She briefly considered finding a way to take the door off its hinges, but that was a little extreme, and searching for the necessary tools would needlessly waste time. Turning away from the impassable barrier, Alyssa rubbed her temples and wracked her tired brain for another clock.

She had a vague memory of something ticking in her mother's room, but she couldn't picture the source of the sound. But the little voice, which had been quiet ever since she woke up, suddenly pointed out that all this had started in her mother's room, so that was a pretty good place to check again.

It was a logic she couldn't argue with, and she hadn't any ideas of her own, so Alyssa mounted the stairs again and returned to the hallway that led to her mother's bedroom.

The door stood open, and the sight made Alyssa's mind wander back to Edward's story of how he found her unconscious on the floor. She tried not to, but she started picturing him lifting her and carrying her all the way down the hall to her own room. She wondered if it had been difficult for him; it wasn't a short trip. He hadn't seemed at all tired when she awoke; those slender arms of his must be stronger than they appeared.

Alyssa closed the door again before turning and surveying her mother's bedroom, her eyes pouring over every inch of the large space. As her gaze passed over the bed, still bathed in sunlight from the nearby window, she saw something she hadn't noticed before.

It hardly seemed any later than it had been when she entered the room the first time. Her mind had been on other things when she peered out her own window a little while ago, so she hadn't noticed that the sun had barely moved from the spot it had been when she first came home.

She couldn't be sure how long it had really been, but her time in war-torn London had felt like hours. Whether it had been one hour or ten, it was still late afternoon here, and the odd feeling she had experienced in her room earlier came back with a vengeance. It was like the house had become completely disconnected with the rest of the world.

Feeling dizzy, Alyssa leaned against the desk. As her fingers curled around the smooth edge, her ears reminded her of what she was supposed to be doing; the rhythmic tick of a large clock was nearby.

Moving away from the desk, her eyes scanned the back of the room and soon found a tall, rust-colored shape tucked far in the corner. The grand old clock was almost lost in the shadows, so much so Alyssa didn't wonder why she had had trouble remembering it.

It was thinner than the clock downstairs, with smoother curves and rich detail. Tiny crystals sparkled on the slender pendulum as it slowly sliced back and forth, keeping perfect time. Alyssa thought the decorative piece was rather feminine, more of a Grandmother clock...if there was such a thing.

Fingering the keys in her pocket again, Alyssa started inspecting the back of the clock. When she found a large winding instrument already present, it finally occurred to her that the small keys she carried were for changing the position of the hands, not for winding the clock itself.

Frowning at this new puzzle, she studied the pair of holes beneath the clock's face as she wondered which time she was supposed to move the hands to. She frowned harder the more she thought about it; even if she figured it out, just what purpose would it serve?

The clue wouldn't have been left if it weren't important, the voice said.

Sighing, Alyssa continued to study the clock face, and when the scattered celestial images circling the hands didn't offer any advice, her tired eyes wandered back to the room itself.

Nothing had changed from the last time she saw it, right before the piano music had frightened her. The picture she had knocked down was still lying next to the desk. Bits of broken glass glistened on the rug, and the book was still lying next to the bed, face down. Alyssa went over and absently nudged the silver letter opener with her toe as her eyes continued to wander.

As her gaze swept from one end of the room and back again, she kept returning to a spot on the wall opposite the bedroom door. Specifically, to the aged painting hanging above the small fireplace. It looked funny to Alyssa, mostly because she couldn't remember it being there before. Curious, she moved closer and studied the elegant maiden and her glossy pink gown.

There wasn't anything particularly unusual about it, but it still struck her as odd. Her mother had always favored paintings of landscapes, especially images of rolling green hills and rushing waterfalls—and those still took a back seat to family photos. A portrait of a brunette woman dressed in something that vaguely resembled a gown from late renaissance Italy didn't really run to her mother's tastes.

And then a small detail in the painting jumped out at her, something small and almost hidden in the shadows behind the smiling maiden; an image of a slender, stately clock.

Heart thumping with disbelief and excitement, Alyssa peered closer; the clock in the picture was almost identical to the one in the room. They were a little hard to see, but once she was able to pick out the thin, arrow-like hands from the dark background it was easy to tell they were pointing to exactly three o' clock.

Alyssa straightened and looked at the clock in the corner again. As closely as she had been staring at it a moment ago, she hadn't paid any attention to the time. With winding keys in hand, she hurried over and saw that it was almost exactly five after three—still startlingly early, considering all she had done.

"Easy enough," she said to herself, before setting the keys in place.

After a few seconds of fiddling, she soon discovered that each key didn't move one hand at a time, as she assumed they would, but both at once. Turning the left key moved the hands backwards by quite a large amount, and the right key moved them forwards, but only about half as far.

It wasn't long before her brief moment of feeling in tune with the flow of time again faded and was forgotten, and she began grumbling under her breath in annoyance as the hands moved further and further from their goal each time she turned them.

Finally, after many minutes had ticked by and she had lost all concept of what time it really was, she took a step back and tugged the keys out of place in frustration, with the intention of taking a break for a moment and then start over. To her surprise, the hands wound around on their own--until they returned to their original spot at five past three. Alyssa felt puzzled for a moment, but it quickly dawned on her that if the hands were allowed to move properly, they would set off whatever was supposed to happen when they reached the three o' clock hour. Shaking her head, Alyssa wondered just how long her mother had spent setting all this up as she returned the keys to the holes.

This time she paid close attention to just how many minutes went by each time she turned a key; forty minutes for every turn backwards, and twenty-five minutes for every turn forward.

It took several more tedious minutes of experimental turning, but then—finally—the hands locked into the three o' clock place with such a loud click it made Alyssa jump in surprise.

The graceful clock chimed musically three times—and then the wall behind it began to groan and quake, and dust and plaster puffed away from the wallpaper in bursts of white powder.

With another noisy groan and a loud rasp that sounded like a heavy gear grinding, the wall between the clock and the fireplace slid open, like an elevator door. For a moment Alyssa could only stare, feeling like she had stepped out of her old life completely and into someone else's, someone who lived in a fairy-tale instead of the real world.

The room beyond the new doorway was even more surreal. The papered walls and marble floor were brilliant scarlet. To her left was a short chest of drawers with bottles and jars of various sizes lined across its top. To her right was a cabinet with glass doors, and through them she could see more jars and other curious objects. To the left of the cabinet was a broad desk half covered with an embroidered white cloth. A short brass desk lamp sat on one corner of the cloth, illuminating stacks of paper and other writing tools.

And on the shining floor someone had drawn a set of circles. Between the first and second larger circles were six smaller circles, each one bordering an intricate pattern. Beneath them was a third, final circle, and inside it was another intricate, mysterious pattern. Though the lines were dark, Alyssa recognized it at once as the pattern of symbols that had appeared and circled around her feet just before the glass bottle transformed into the strange bow.

Kneeling down, she ran a finger over the outer circle and was surprised to see that the image was beneath the surface of the floor, like it had been drawn on the other side of a piece of glass.

When she stood up again her eye fell on a white envelope propped on the desk; her name was neatly written in her mother's handwriting across the front. Alyssa darted forward and snatched it up.

'If you are reading this now,' the letter inside read, 'it means that you were successful in your first real battle. I'm so proud of you!

'I would love to say that everything is all right now, but the danger that follows you grows closer with every passing moment. You must stay strong, my darling daughter. Stay strong, be quick, and when all else fails—fight. You must fight as hard as you can if you are to survive.

'I wish I had more time, but the only thing I can tell you now is about how to use the portal that's beneath your feet.

'These special symbols have the power to link any two places in the world, no matter how much distance—or time—lay between them. Whenever you come across one, you can activate its powers by purifying it. Just be careful when you do, dearest Alyssa; our enemies know how to use them, too.'

For once, Alyssa didn't feel confused. She knew now beyond all doubt that what she had seen was real. The evils—the Entities—she faced were real, and there were more out there, waiting. Waiting on the other side of the portal she was standing on. Where or when it would take her, Alyssa didn't know, but she knew she had to find out.

Whatever was going on, her mother must have tried everything she could to keep it from happening. At the same time, she had left Alyssa the tools she needed in case something went wrong. And, Alyssa realized, she needed to make use of those tools as quickly as she could. Her mother's letters often mentioned her fifteenth birthday as being a particularly important—and dangerous—day. She didn't know what that meant, but her instincts were telling her that she needed to act before that day rolled around. Something was going to happen when she turned fifteen, and if she didn't do something to stop it now...tomorrow it would be too late.

Purifying the circle was obvious enough; after all, what was purer than holy water?

Kneeling down again, Alyssa uncapped the blue bottle and began carefully trickling a line of water along the outer edge of the pattern. As she worked her way along the large image, she wondered for the first time just how much water the bottle held. Half-way through she paused to give it a shake; it felt as full as it had the first moment she picked it up.

She repeatedly tested its weight while she worked before finally deciding that it somehow never ran dry, and didn't bother to think about it anymore. When she reached the place she first started, the mystical pattern suddenly lit up like a beam of white light was rapidly tracing across the intricate lines. Once lit, the group of symbols in the center pulsed slightly, and there was a faint humming sound in the air.

Alyssa returned the bottle to her belt and, after taking a deep, quavery breath, stepped onto the glowing pattern and gave herself over to wherever it might take her.