Chapter 20

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
North Italy – Feliciano Vargas
South Italy –Romano Vargas

The big car of the Bonnefoy family is pulling up on a parking lot belonging to a cheap motel. Nobody in the car speaks, the kids being too tired to chat, annoy or even complain. One after another they exit the car. Each of them wears a coat over their pyjamas. As they walk around the car, they stay close to it, as the large van with Berwald and Tino parks beside them.
Only Matthew, who hasn't been moving yet as he was fixing his coat, notices how Francis still sits inside. He doesn't dare stepping closer, afraid of upsetting his father who sits with empty eyes, unmoved.

Only a few hours after their departure from the haunted house, the Normann couple are sitting on simple wooden chairs in a large but rather gloomy room. A cross as big as their chairs is hanging on the white wall and the lamps hanging from the ceiling do not provide enough of their yellow light to make the room any more friendly. But as the footage, that they gathered the last few days is rolling on the opposite side of the room on a foldable screen, any friendlier environment would have been an insult to the atmosphere the moving pictures transmit. Mathias keeps his eyes fixed on the screen, again living through the supernatural moments as Lukas, who sits beside him and holding his hand, keeps his stare on the two Fathers sitting on the other side of the camera, both wearing the black robe of their position as cleric. He studies their faces and reactions which manage to be different and alike at the same time.
Both sport auburn hair, but one is lighter with a copper shine and the other has a darker shade going into chocolate. Their expressions mirror their hair. The man with the lighter hair, Feliciano, looks genuinely afraid, having one hand on the arm of the other. His eyes fixed on the screen, widened in fear and eyebrows raised in disbelief. The other man called Romano, grips on his chair so that his knuckles turn white. Unlike his counterpart he glares at the screen. Lukas asks himself wether he would rather jump up and run out of the room or jump up and smash the projector to end his apparent displeasure.
As Lukas clipped the possessed hair from Matthew on screen, Mathias turns off the projector and towards the brothers who visibly relax again when the screen turns back to its original white.
Romano lets out a shaky yet still sarcastic laugh and wipes over his face with his hand.
"You weren't kidding."
"No," answers Lukas, answering the laugh with seriousness. The two brothers straighten up again in their chairs and Feliciano sighs.
"Sadly, this is complicated as the children are not baptised and the whole family does not belong to the church."
"Aw, come on!" interjects Mathias and almost rolls his eyes. As if such a detail could hinder getting help to a poor family.
"The approval must come directly from Vatican and seeing that one even has backgrounds to the English Church…" explains Romano.
Lukas and Mathias both groan more or less silently and lean back in their chairs, though Lukas takes up eye contact with Romano, using his best "polite" glare.
"We have never seen anything like this…"
Romano glares back into Lukas' eyes before lowering them.
"Neither have we." Feliciano picks up some black and white pictures that are lying on the table, depicting how Kyle sleep walks. But definitely not alone: On one is a white, blurry hand on his shoulder, leading him down the hallway, on the other is a little girl standing directly behind him, dressed in old fashioned clothes, blonde hair with the dark ribbon contrasting against the white and staring directly into the camera.
"They don't have a lot of time, Romano, Feliciano," insists Mathias.
Romano and Feliciano bandy looks and come to an agreement, after exchanging some quick expressions.
Feliciano smiles then softly at Mathias and Lukas.
"We try to get it through then."

Neither a loud thunder rolling through the dark night sky, nor the heavy rain splashing against the window manage to wake up the sleeping Emil, snuggled up in his bed. Even Mr. Puffin, who is lying beside him only nestles even more to the warmth of Emil. Before bed, Emil took off the silver medallion and looked at the pictures of Lukas and Mathias. Carefully he hung it up then on the lamp on his night table, so he could take it back anytime when he'd need a lucky charm and so he would not lose it.
Even though the window is closed and doesn't let one breeze of wind inside and even though there is no one moving inside the room, the locket on the lamp starts to swing from one to the other side, left and right in an ever faster and harsher movement. The fine chain produces a metallic sound, almost too faint against the sounds of the storm outside and by now it moves in a circular, yet harsh movement, matching another necklace, lost in the cellar of a faraway house.
As the young boy suddenly gets pulled on his feet a good many centimetres down his bed, he wakes up with a jolt, feeling his heart falling down into his stomach. Mr. Puffin awakes too, cawing in protest and whipping with his wings. But he turns immediately silent after a second. The young boy sits up, propping himself up on his elbows and scans the room. One hand shakily pets his bird.
The room is dark and he can only make out the silhouettes of his furniture and toys. Everything is silent and the medallion stopped being moved violently and is only swinging out.
Emil rubs his eyes, a distant memory of his dream comes to mind. He slowly swings his legs over the edge of the bed and takes Mr. Puffin into his arms. One step after another he makes his way across the room, another thunder, more distant this time, growls.
Emil walks out of the room and looks inside the opposite one whose door is open. In there he sees his grandmother sleeping soundly, one hand under her pillow, the hair a bit messy but still braided for the night. He turns around, sure that his dream must have meant something. He turns and walks down the hallway.
"Lukie? Mathie?" he calls out, carefully as if not to disturb anyone. But no one answers him. A lightning illuminates the hallway shortly with its cold light and convinces with it Emil to turn on the light. But the hallway remains empty as before in the dark. Emil walks to the next door, the door that is open for him to enter during night time when he has nightmares but sometimes remains closed for him when he returns too early from school.
"Lu?" But this time no sleepy and messy haired head looks up when he opens the door with a soft squeak. No welcoming strong arms pull him close and make him feel protected and no tired yet loving voice soothes him back to sleep.
As Emil steps back from the unusual cold bedroom he holds his bird even closer to his chest. He swallows hard and his eyes lay their gaze upon an open door that always was closed and always should be closed. According to his brother and Mathias at least.
"Mathie?" he calls yet again but no one answers. As he lets his eyes wander around the room another lightning illuminates the room and lets him see that no living being is in it. He turns away, remembering the countless warnings. He did not see however how a certain glass case was empty, thanks to the lightning mirroring itself in it.

Just as he walks the first steps back towards his room the hallway turns dark. The small boy freezes and looks around, his heart beating faster again.
"Mathie?" He calls and pets the head of his bird who he felt was growing anxious as well.
"Scandi?" he calls, the most likely person to walk around by now. No answer. Emil just wants to start walking again as the hallway turns from the cold blue and grey shades to a pitch black. It consumes the entire hallway in front of him and as a hiss makes Emil turn around, he sees how the part of the hallway behind him got consumed as well. Emil clutches the whimpering bird to him and storms straight ahead into the next room. He slams the door behind him and steps slowly back. Mr. Puffin caws angrily at the door. Emil feels his heart beating up in his throat and he holds his breath. Suddenly something bangs forcefully against the door so it trembles from the impact. Emil's eyes widen and he lets out a scream. Another bang and Mr. Puffin answers it with his protective screech. The banging doesn't stop and Emil hides his face in the feathers of his best friend. He cries and his shoulders shake from the sobs that turn into scared squeaks.

The banging stops. An eerie silence lies upon the room. Emil slowly lifts his head. He looks down at who breathes quickly as if in shock. Slowly he turns his head to look over his shoulder and looks at whatever is behind him. Emil slowly turns, his hands are cold in sweat. There is still no sound to be heard aside of his quick beating heart in his chest. His eyes lock with the only thing moving inside the room. It is the rocking chair, slightly turned away from him, in which only a few days prior he was sitting with his brother. But not Lukas was sitting in there, looking outside thoughtfully with maybe a book in his lap, but an ugly old hag with fizzy hair standing up in every direction. She has one hand clasped around a doll, which Emil could until now only admire from afar. The woman in the chair brushes the copper coloured hair of the neatly dressed doll, even though it is still held in two braids down its shoulders.
The rocking stops as does Emil's heart. Not one muscle moves. Ever so slowly the head of the doll turns. The hag just sits and looks down at the puppet. She stopped brushing the hair. The rigid and dead eyes of the puppet are turned to the left, wanting to catch a glance of Emil. Her lips are curled up in an arrogant, red smile with a matching small tilt of her head, almost asking how Emil could dare to interrupt.

Mr. Puffin is the first to break the tension and screams angrily at the puppet. He flaps with his wings to make Emil move and to shield him from the capturing gaze of the doll. Emil turns on his heels, not minding the wings hitting his chest and arms. He clutches the door handle and pushes it down but the door doesn't budge no matter how much he pulls on it. He screams in frustration and fear, feeling the menacing stare in his back and neck.

Scandi wakes up to a distant screaming and banging on a door. As it gets apparent to her that this is not yet another dream of hers she opens her eyes and gets up, her age barely slowing her down.
"Emil?" she asks as she walks to the door and looks out into the hallway. The genuinely scared sobs and cries of Emil let a chill run down her back. Even though her hearing is not the best anymore she identifies the room Emil is in as the study and she hurries down the hallway. As she arrives at the door she tries to open it but neither she nor Emil manage it.
"Emil, open the door!" She demands futilely and she slams on the door in frustration.
Emil tears up, understanding that the only person that could help him is in fact helpless. He dares to turn his head towards the doll. But it vanished together with the hag but he rocking chair still moves and the chill in Emil's bones remains.

A car just turns off his lights outside of the house and after the engine and the radio gets cut off, the storm is omniscient. Lukas looks upon the house and feels a chill run down his back and manifest in his body.
"There's something wrong."
This is enough to make the two men storm into the house. They only stop a second in the entrance. But Emil's screaming and Scandi's frustrated yells make their bodies move on instinct and both bolt down the hallway and around the corner. Mathias is the first at the door, pushing Scandi aside. He immediately understands the problem and he pulls down the door handle.
"Emil, step away from the door!" And he slams the full weight of his body against the white door.

Emil, hearing the so longed for voice of Mathias sobs. But the relief is only momentarily as he hears something being scraped on the floor. A quick glance shows the rocking chair slowly moving away from the window and facing him. Mr. Puffin flies up from his arms and tries to shield Emil again, black feathers get thrown into the air. Mathias continues to slam against the unmoving door, driven by the desperate sounds of the boy. Lukas has planted his arms against the door, pushing whenever Mathias throws himself against the door as there is not any space left for him to help more.
Emil's eyes widen as he realizes what the rocking chair will do to him. He lets out a high pitched scream just when the door finally springs open and two strong hands grab him. The chair gets pushed with an inhuman force across the room, barely missing Mr. Puffin who manages to fly upwards with a pair of desperate beats of his wings. The chair crashes just beside the door where Emil stood a second ago.

Mathias pulls Emil into the embrace of Lukas who immediately wraps his arms around the distraught boy. He strokes his back, kisses his head and as he leans back he softly strokes the hair out of his face. He looks at him endlessly loving and worried before pulling the now softly crying boy back into a heartfelt hug.
"There was a hag in your rocking chair and the doll, Annabelle was with her and she stared at me and then …" Another sob interrupts his explanation and Lukas softly cradles him more.
Mathias in the meantime looks around the room which looks as usual apart from the bits of wood at his feet that were once a rocking chair. As Emil mentions the doll he locks eyes with Lukas and without a word he hurries downstairs and into the room with the artefacts. He turns on the light and with a few steps he walks past cabinets, small tables and shelves towards the glass case.
There she sits on her small red chair, eyes staring dull into the distance, her cocky smile still on her lips and her hair the same as when they got her.
Mathias quickly checks the locks on the glass case and tries to open it but the glass case holds. He walks out again and closes the door behind him. Lukas, Emil and Scandi look at him expectantly. Emil's cheeks, nose and eyes are reddened and glister from the small stream of tears that just began to subside.
"It's okay now…" whispers Lukas and kisses his head. Emil wraps his arms around his neck and hides his face in his big brother's shoulder. Mr. Puffin is in the hands of Scandi who gently pets the bird whose feathers are still in disarray.