Chapter 8

"You must drive faster," Barnabas insisted.

"I can't," Julia snapped.

The pair sat in her car as she drove along the main road to Collinsport. Traffic was non-existent so that they couldn't confuse the tracks they followed with anyone else's, but that was the least of their problems.

"The tracks are disappearing. We must hurry," Barnabas reminded her.

"It's precisely why they're disappearing that I must go slow," she growled as the car fish-tailed on the slick road.

Julia tapped on the brakes and got all the car moving straight. She leaned over the wheel and squinted into the darkness. Her twin headlights barely illuminated the road. She pursed her lips and slowed to a stop.

"Why are you stopping?" Barnabas questioned her.

"Because I can't see the tracks any longer," she announced.

Barnabas scanned the road. "They must be here somewhere."

Julia glanced over to him, but something past him caught her eyes. She nodded at a dark road on the right side of the car. "Isn't that the road to Eagle Hill?"

"Yes, but-" Barnabas paused and whipped his head in that direction. "Sarah!"

"The family tomb," Julia agreed as she backed up the car and turned them onto the old road.

While they ventured closer to their friends Willie was venturing into the unknown. The darkness that had engulfed him and numbed his pain receded, and when he could see again he no longer lay in the tomb, but in that dark, endless room.

Sarah's small form ran out of the blackness and crashed into him. She wrapped her arms around him and buried her face into his chest. "Please help me, Willie! Please!"

He grasped her in a tight hug and shook his head. "I don't know-"

Then he heard it. The clacking sound of sharp claws on a hard surface. He looked at where Sarah had come from and his eyes widened as he watched a gray wolf emerge from the darkness. The thing was larger than any wolf he'd ever seen, even in the zoos. It stopped at the edge of his vision and bared its fangs at the pair. Its eyes glowed with an unnatural yellow light.

Sarah shrieked and pressed herself closer to Willie. "It wants to eat me! Please don't let it eat me!"

"G-get behind me," Willie ordered her as he drew the shivering girl behind him.

The wolf turned right and stalked them in a circle, forcing Willie to turn to keep facing it.

"Here they are!" Messenger's voice shouted from the darkness. "Devour them whole as my sacrifice and in exchange return to me my daughter, protector of the dead!"

The wolf stopped its pacing and snarled at the pair. It crept closer, its hideous eyes set on their throats.

"Stay back!" Willie shouted as he inched them away from the approaching beast.

"Willie, my ball!" Sarah yelled

Willie looked down as she shoved her precious toy into his face. He took the toy from her, but shook his head. "What am I supposed to do with this?"

She half-turned away from him and pointed at the wolf. "Throw it at him!" The wolf snarled at her finger.

Willie shrugged and drew back his arm. "I guess I got nothing to lose."

The wolf let loose a terrible howl and lunged at them. Willie threw a fast-ball at the beast and his aim was true. The ball hit the wolf square in the forehead. The beast yelped and dropped in a heap onto the ground. A plume of smoke rose from the spot where the ball had struck it, and the scent of singed hair wafted over the area.

The ball tumbled onto the dark floor and rolled back to them. Sarah picked it up and gave it back to Willie. "Again!"

The wolf staggered to its feet and swayed from side-to-side. The ball had burned away all the hair on its forehead and then some. It shook itself and caught its balance as Willie aimed the ball. The beast sprinted to their left and took a sharp turn toward them. Willie threw the ball and it struck the wolf in the center of its chest.

The ball disappeared into its thick mess of mane fur and a bright light burst outward. The wolf dropped to the floor and didn't move as the light engulfed its body and spread outward. Sarah clutched Willie as he held tightly to her with his eyes shut as they were engulfed.

There was a brief pause of silence, and then a cold breeze made Willie open his eyes. They were back in the tomb and Sarah was still in his arms. The pair stood at the foot of Sarah's coffin. The dagger that had stabbed him lay on the top covered in his blood.

Willie looked down at himself. His shirt sported the slice of the blade. He opened his shirt and revealed smooth, healed skin. Nothing but a faint scar showed that anything had happened.

A strangled gasp made him look up. Messenger stood rigid on the other side of the adjoining coffin. She gawked at them with a mixture of shock and outrage. The outrage quickly won over and she balled her hands into fists. "H-how could you escape death? How?" she screamed.

Sarah turned and scowled at her. "Because you're evil and evil doesn't win!"

Messenger picked up the book and flipped through the pages. "There must be some way to bring back my baby! There must!" The monster in the doorway groaned. She whipped her head up and glared at him. "Shut up, Ben! You want our baby back as much as I do!"

Ben groaned again, louder and more persistent. He shambled into the room and reached out his hands toward her. Messenger's eyes widened and she stumbled away from his rotting fingers. "S-stay back! So long as I have this book-" she held up the tome, "-you have to obey me!"

Willie leapt across Sarah's coffin and landed between former-husband and wife. He snatched the book away from her and dove over to the far side of the tomb where he held up the tome. "I've got it now, Ben!"

Ben bowed his head to Willie before he returned his attention to Messenger. He curled his lips back in a hideous snarl and lunged for her. Messenger screamed and ducked out of the way. She raced around Sarah's coffin and out the door, nearly crashing into Julia and Barnabas. The frantic woman shoved her way through them and ran off into the woods. Ben rushed out of the tomb and past the startled pair as he followed his former wife into the darkness.

Julia blinked at the vanished pair and glanced at Barnabas. "What in the world was that?"

He shook his head before he returned his gaze to the tomb. "I don't know, but we must look inside."

The pair hurried up the short flight of steps and into the tomb. "Hiya," Willie greeted them as he dropped the book onto the floor.

"Willie!" Julia cried out as she hurried to his side and grasped his quivering arms. "Willie, what happened?"

"I'll tell you later," Willie promised as he sank onto Joshua's coffin. "Right now I just want to sleep."

Barnabas didn't pay either of them any heed. His attention lay on the short figure that illuminated one corner of the tomb. He knelt down and stretched out his hand to her. "Sarah," he whispered. She hesitated. "Sarah, I've missed you so much. I've tired to do good as you wanted. I really have."

She grasped her hands behind her back and searched his face. "But you did so much evil, Barnabas. I don't know if I should forgive you."

"But it's Christmas," Willie spoke up.

Sarah pursed her lips, but her eyes flickered back to Barnabas. "I suppose. . ."

A wide smile brightened Barnabas' face. "Then you forgive me?"

Sarah returned his smile with one of her own and gave a nod. "I forgive you."

Barnabas opened his arms and she rushed into them. After nearly a hundred and eighty years the siblings once more embraced one another. Barnabas stroked her long, silky hair. "Oh Sarah. Oh dear, sweet Sarah."

While one family found peace, another was at the end of their days. Messenger stumbled through the thick woods without a thought for where she was going, and close at her heels was her monstrous ex-husband. The distance between them slowly closed as branches laden with snow slapped her in the face and her feet tripped over hidden rock and root.

Messenger reached a clearing with a small hump in the middle. In her rush she tripped over a rock and stumbled onto the mound, catching herself with her hands. A noise behind her made her hair stand on end. She stood and spun around to face the angry monster, her very own creation as he raced toward her. Cold revenge lay deep in his eyes.

"Please, Ben! Please don't-"

Ben reached her and wrapped his hands around her throat. Messenger leaned backward away from him to escape. Her foot slipped on the wet snow and they tumbled backward into the old well. Messenger's scream echoed up and down the stone walls until there came a loud thud, and then there was silence.

A short time later found the Old House reoccupied and a warm fire burning in its hearth. Barnabas sat in his usual chair with the family album open on his lap. He flipped through the pages with a smile on his lips as Julia entered the room.

"I've put Willie to bed," she spoke up as she took her seat in the other chair.

Barnabas looked up from his perusing. "How is he?"

"A little shaken, but otherwise unharmed." She sank into the chair and shook her head. "But I still can't understand how he survived Messenger's knife attack."

A coy smile slipped onto Barnabas' lips. "The world between the living and the dead grants favors as well as curses. Perhaps in this instance the innocence of Sarah brought back the lost soul of Willie and repaired the damage."

Julia shrugged. "I suppose, and I wonder how much more of Sarah we'll see."

Barnabas closed the book and leaned back with a smile on his lips. "Much more, and that is a Christmas present that was worth the wait."

Upstairs Willie's room was quiet and dark. He lay in his bed with his eyes closed.

"Willie," a soft voice called to him.

Willie opened his eyes and saw Sarah standing beside his bed with her hands behind her back. He sat up and smiled at her. "Hiya, Sarah."

She blushed and looked at the bed. "I. . .I have a present for you." She drew out one of her hands and revealed her ball. "I'd like you to have this. It's not much, but I hope you can accept this Christmas gift."

Willie shook his head. "I couldn't."

"Please. It would mean so much to me," Sarah pleaded.

Willie smiled and took the present. "Thanks." She nodded and turned away from him. "Wait. Where are you going?"

Sarah stopped in front of his window and half-turned to smile at him. "I won't be far, and when I come back will you play ball with me?"

He clutched the ball in both his hands and gave a nod. "I'd like that."

Willie blinked and in the brief instance Sarah had vanished. Still, he felt her soothing presence as he lay down with the ball clasped against his chest. He closed his eyes for some well-deserved sleep. It had been a frightening but wonderful Christmas, and one he would never forget.