Chapter 18

Hong Kong – Leon
Canada – Matthew
USA – Alfred
Seychelles – Shelly
Australia – Kyle
England – Arthur /Artie
France – Fran / Francis
Denmark –Mathias Normann
Norway – Lukas Normann
Sweden – Berwald Oxenstierna
Finland – Tino Väinämöinen

Lukas can of course not leave this comment uninvestigated. As soon as Francis took over the care of Kyle together with Alfred, Matthew and Leon, he looks again at the wardrobe. He goes down on his four and crawls into the small narrow place in which Mathias found Kyle. He lights with his torch around and finds first only cobwebs and a lot of dust. But as he turns to his right and lifts the light cone up he finds two planks installed horizontally in between the walls, creating two shelves on which very dusty and aged toys are neatly placed. Lukas slowly gets up on his legs, the room barely big enough to let him turn around. He studies the old toys and notices a free spot, marked with a hexagonal form on which remarkably less dust settled. Lukas, being a quick thinker turns around and kneels down again.
"Can I get Shelly's music box?"

Mathias, watching outside over the small girl who refused to leave the room to watch the pair doing their job, turns to her and only has to ask with his gentle eyes. Shelly hands it to him and turns her head towards the door as Arthur steps in.
"How's Kyle?" asks Mathias, walking already towards the wardrobe.
"He doesn't remember anything."
Mathias nods and hands the small music box to Lukas who only had one hand stretched out from the entrance. Lukas takes it to him and gets up again, taking another look at the toy. He steps to the makeshift shelves and slowly puts the toy back where it originally belongs, making sure every edge fits the edge of the dust free mark. As he leans more forward, the light reveals a thick rope lying on the ground behind the planks. Lukas slowly squats and takes a closer look at it. The rope is as dusty as the toys in the room but only one end is to be seen. The other disappears in a small and dark gap between the opposite wall and the wooden planks that the floor consists of.

Lukas quickly jams his torch between his shoulder and head and takes then a hold on the thick rope. He feels the rough and dry texture of it, smoothened only by the heavy layer of dust. He slowly starts to pull it up. He gets about two meters before the rope stops emerging and it seems as if the end is stuck in the gap. Lukas frowns only slightly and pulls a bit harder and the rope gives in. Suddenly Lukas has a hangman's knot in his hands. He raises it with his right hand and retrieves with his left the torch from his right shoulder. He studies the knot, the light focused on it, with a growing realization to whom this knot belongs to. His breathing grows heavier and he gets back on his feet. He takes a step back and just wants to turn around again to get out as the wood under his feet breaks. He has no time to react as he falls down between the walls, wood and insulation material scrapping against his body. He screams out, startling everybody in the room. Mathias, who was still waiting just in front of the wardrobe instantly tries to get in to see what happened.
"LUKAS!"
But Lukas is falling down two levels of the house, down in the cellar, his fall slowed down by his hands and feet, trying to find halt and his back scraping against the wall behind him. He lands with a loud crashing sound in the cellar, dust swirling up all around him and debris landing first below and then on and around him.

He groans and plants his palms on the cold ground. He hisses at the pain emerging from his back as he tries to sit up and his legs and arm scream with all the scratches and bruises that will surely appear on them latest by tomorrow. Lucky for him the torch survived the fall as well and enlightens the cellar with its cold artificial light.

Upstairs, Mathias is already on his feet again, storming out of the room, ignoring everyone and everything that isn't in his way. He almost hits the doorframe with his head as he runs out and almost flies down the stairs to ground level.

Lukas decided to take it slower and first gets his legs under him and slowly pushing himself up with his arms, trying to move his back as little as possible. He slowly raises his head and sees that he landed under a workbench.

Mathias, not understanding yet, how far down Lukas fell, runs into the living room to the wall that is the continuation of the hollow one upstairs. He hits on it and tries to hear if his most important person in his life is trapped in there.
"Lukas!"
He walks up and down the wall, not quite sure where the exact spot is where Lukas must have fallen down, constantly slamming his palm or fist against it. The other watch him, not quite understanding what happened, but worried by the loud crashing noises, the scream and the distressed man in front of them.
"Lukas!"

Lukas managed to get upright in a sitting position. He strokes his hair out of his face and tries to calm down his head to be able to think rational again. He looks around the illuminated room, feeling the coldness not only on his skin but in his soul and heart too. A sad wail lets his blood freeze in his veins. He lets his gaze wander around quickly, taking in every dark corner in which danger could lurk. He grabs the pocket lamp and swings it around, aiding his eyes. As he moves a bit forward, his free hand brushes against something metallic. He illuminates it with the light and discovers that the music box fell down with him as well. He grabs it and turns its key quickly so it will open up. It does and when the music plays he looks into the mirror and lights with the torch behind him. Like this, he continues his search for the source of the so unpleasant feeling in his chest and the mournful wail in his ears.

As he turns he suddenly sees the dead body of Lily in the lap of a man. Her pretty face is white and the blonde hair in which the ribbon is still braided in lost all its shine. The dead green eyes stare at her upside down, as her head dangles down from the arms of the young man. The man shakes as he cries, holding his sister close to him. In the other hand he holds a bloody knife, made to slice meat. His hair is as blond as that of Lily and like her, it lost all its shine long ago. The skin is white as well and the vintage clothes have a grey shade on them because of the dust. Over and over again he mumbles the same sentence:
"She made me do it. She made me do it."

Slowly he turns his head and locks eyes with Lukas through the mirror. The music already stopped playing. Lukas slowly turns his head away from the mirror and towards the spot, where the man and the small girl were sitting. But he finds no one. He looks back into the mirror and lowers it and his heart stops beating as he comes face to face with the dead man, his green eyes staring into his, his face forever frozen into a mournful frown. Lukas leans back, finding his breath and heart beat again, feeling no danger coming from the ghost.
"She made me do it."
Lukas only stares at the man, feeling unable to do more than to be silent and to wait, feeling that the ghost merely wants to warn him. The green eyes suddenly lose their focus on Lukas and even the ghost suddenly seems to freeze in fright. Slowly his eyes wander to his right and look up, his expression deepening in anger and fright. Lukas follows his gaze, but sees nothing. The man disappeared already and Lukas decided that now the time has definitely come for him to get the hell out of the cellar. Just as he wants to crawls from underneath the workbench a pair of feet fall down and dangle in front of him, a dirty nightgown covering the legs and the ugly sound of a rope being stretched and moved fills Lukas ears. He falls back on his rear and screams against the appearance out of fright and anger. His hand clutches the torch which illuminates the pale skin. He scrambles backward again, his sore back hitting the wall. The body slowly stops dangling from one to the other side. The cold menacing feeling is back again intensified. Lukas breath quickens against all his used will and he feels panic raising inside of him, cold sweat breaks out. He turns to his left and scrambles as quickly as he can from underneath the table. As he gets on his feet again to bolt out of the room he makes the mistake of looking back and straight into the face of Bathsheba. The haunting yellow eyes seem to stare right into his soul and the menace and coldness seem to take over Lukas. He drops the torch but his feet carry him still and the eye contact gets broken. He runs for his life through the far too big cellar.

Mathias is now in the hallway, continuing to knock on the walls and calling over and over Lukas' name and is near to tearing the whole house down if that is what it takes to find him.

Lukas can just make out the stairs in the dark as something pulls hard on his hair and on the necklace he wears around his neck. He cries out, the necklace almost choking him and he ducks. Suddenly the pulling stops. He makes the stairs and runs upwards, calling for his husband.
"MATHIAS!"

Mathias looks up as he hears the muffled voice calling for him. He immediately run to the door leading to the cellar and pushes it open.
"LUKAS?!"
Lukas runs up the stairs, his sole focus on his husband, surrounded by warm and welcoming light, who has his arms open for him to embrace.
"I know what she did!" is the only thing Lukas manages to get past his lips as he finally feels the warmth of the living body of his husband.