CHAPTER 136

Checking the basement was the most nerve wracking. It was dark, and he was convinced something would leap out at them. The only thing that made him jump was the occasional moan that came from above, and when they finally got around to the stairs, he had Yuki take the lead.

Once on the second floor, they checked out the other rooms first. There were extra rooms here, too, and he even recognized some of the creepy dolls that had been there before. He stood for a moment in Beth's room, then tried to open the passageway to the Labyrinth in her closet.

The process failed. He looked over at Yuki and smiled. "This place is as ordinary as the day I moved in. It's kind of weird, actually experiencing it again as if it's the first time. This room is the same, but look out here." He took her in the hall and showed her the other rooms. "This one is yours, but there's an extra one next to it. And I guess this is where our mystery door is now, right?" He opened the door to reveal an ordinary bedroom. "I remember them now. I haven't thought about any of these rooms since that very first night. So now I wonder if this means those rooms exist and are locked away, or if this is just an old house that my home is modeled after."

"Mm-hmm." She wasn't paying any attention to him. Her eyes and ears were focused on the master bedroom. From behind the door, they could hear the sound of a woman crying.

Mike shivered. "Okay, well...guess it's time to rip the band-aid off." He walked down the hall and was about to turn the knob when Yuki shoved him aside.

"Me, first." Her green eyes were now glowing with energy, as she shoved the door open and stepped inside.

The first thing Mike noticed was how cold it was. He thought it may have been Yuki's magic, but this was a different kind of cold that felt like the energy was being drained from him. Once they were both inside, there was no sign of Emily.

"Where are you?" Yuki growled, and the hair along her arms and neck stood up. "I know you're in here, Emily. You may as well come out where we can see you."

The curtains fluttered about as if caught in a breeze, and Mike noticed that there was a nasty stain on the wooden floor approximately where Emily had died in the real world. It occurred to him that they had never gotten a chance to clean up the stain and replace the wood beneath it.

It also occurred to him that no light seemed to reflect off of the stain. It was just a pool of blackness that sucked the light out of the room.

Yuki sniffed the air and then growled, revealing a pair of nasty fangs.

"What is it?" Mike asked, and then noticed the shadow that was forming along the opposite wall. On his shoulder, he heard Daisy buzzing angrily, and the little fairy popped out and hovered before him.

The shadow stretched and distorted, then Emily stepped through the wall. It was as if she was being transmitted through an old tube television, only the reception was shit, because her image had a bad case of rolling static. After flickering for a few seconds, she settled into place, and her feet hit the floor. Most of the color had been leached from her body with but a few highlights of color scattered along her ethereal form.

However, the thing he really couldn't take his eyes off of was the giant hole where her right eye should have been. Cylindrical in shape, it went all the way through and allowed him to see the wall behind her. There was no gore—her insides were just more static that flickered about as if she was full of flies.

"Um—" he began, but she opened her mouth and let out a shriek that modulated through several frequencies before she exploded.

Mike grabbed Daisy, and Yuki grabbed Mike's other hand and pulled him out of the room, but when they made it into the hall, they were now standing in the office.

Emily sat in an ornate wooden chair and held a book in one hand and a pear in the other. She took a bite of the pear and used her pinky to sweep the juice off of her chin back into her mouth.

"What is this?" Mike asked. His voice sounded odd, like it was coming from somewhere else. He let go of Daisy, and she resumed her perch on his collar.

"A memory." Yuki held onto his hand and pulled him closer to Emily. She swung her icicle like a club, and it passed harmlessly through Emily's head, but her body flickered like a candle's flame for just a moment.

"But why?"

Yuki looked back at him, her lips curled into a sneer. "Gee, I don't know. Let me check my So You've Encountered Your Dead Ex in Purgatory, Now What? manual and I'll get back to you."

Mike debated sharing his idea for a chapter title, but thought better of it. "If it makes you feel any better, I'm not detecting any danger."

Her ears twitched, and she swung the icicle again. Nothing changed. "It doesn't," she added.

He shrugged and watched. A couple of minutes passed, and just before he was about to speak again, a large, black book fell onto the desk. It looked like the book was bound in leather, and there was a closed eye on the front.

Mike swore he saw the eye open for a moment.

Emily jumped out of her seat, then reached down to pick it up. She surveyed the room, and then there was a crash out in the living room.

"Emily?" It was Yuki's voice, but it was coming from inside the house. "Jenny got out of the Vault again!

"Shit." Emily ran out of the room, leaving the book behind on the desk.

Mike was about to follow, but the room filled with smoke, then cleared.

They were now outside at the edge of the fountain, and Emily was busy looking at the book. Naia was singing to a small flock of birds that were bathing in her fountain, and Amymone was across from Emily on the ground, her nose buried in a book of her own.