She stood up and paced the room.

“You look like you have to tell me I have terminal cancer.”

Naida stopped, pressed her lips together, then continued. “I think you’re possessed.”

I remembered the girl from the Mala nightclub, how she writhed and shrieked and scratched that man’s face. I couldn’t be… possessed. Not like that. Not like her.

“Somehow,” Naida continued, oblivious to my screaming thoughts, “I think… I think Carly opened the doorway. I don’t know if she knew she was doing it, but I think she did it all the same.”

“Carly? Why do you think she did it?”

“Well… did you?”

“No,” I snapped, irritation bubbling up inside me. “But maybe you did with that stupid Olen board of yours at Halloween. Or with your little Mala group last year, I don’t know!”

Naida stared at me for a moment, and I thought she looked a little pale.

“I’m not accusing her, Kait. I’m just trying to find answers.” She took a breath. “It just seems likely that a door like that could only be opened from within. Anyway, it doesn’t change the fact that I think something’s in there with you.”

“Possessed. Possessed like needing an exorcist, or like that crazy girl at the club? Possessed like, like—” I could feel myself panicking.

“It’s okay, sugar. All I mean is… If I’m right, then I can’t do this ritual alone. You have to help me. You have to take me into yourself. Let me into that Dead House of yours. We have to find that door, the door Carly was taken out of. And then”—she paused, swallowed—“then we have to go through it.”

12 pm

I slept a little, I think. I’m not sure anymore.

Possessed.

I am possessed.

The word keeps ringing around in my head like an echo bouncing off invisible walls and coming back to me. Something is inside me. Inside my head. Can that thing read these words? Can he know them from my mind before I’ve even written them down?

Is the thing her? The dead girl? Aka Manah, the snake, the dark shape, the Olen? Are they all one and the same? A single entity, trying to invade me? Trying to confuse me?

I feel so violated. So dirty.

And what about this “door”? If it’s a door leading out of my mind, then where does it go? What does my mind have access to? Some dark realm I can’t remember? Right inside my head?

Is there a chance I could slip through it, by accident, and lose myself in the process?

Is the thing inside me getting closer? Could he bring even more vile things back with him? I’ve been reading Carly’s journal to make myself feel better. Her early entries, when things were still normal. I’ve started tearing out the pages. I’m going to stick them in here. Keep them safe.

Torn-Out Page from the Diary of Carly Luanne Johnson

Undated

I think I’m half and half. HA! I just realized what I wrote! Half and half, not in the Kaitlyn sense, but in the sense that I’m two different sorts of people. Because I hate company sometimes, because I’m shy and quiet and awkward. I want to be left alone. But then when I am left alone for any length of time, I get lonely and I need to find company. That’s only been the case since Naida. She’s brought so much life into my life. How funny. I just read that back. The only downer to needing company is, well, Brett. He’s just always around. And I just want to spend time with Naida. I don’t even mind Scott, because he makes her happy and he makes me laugh, but Brett is always here… always just a little too close.

89 9 days until the incident

Naida Camera Footage

Monday, 24 January 2005, 11:00 PM

Naida’s Dorm Room

Naida positions the camera in its customary place on her desk, then she sits on her bed facing it. Her hands are shaking.

“Something keeps telling me to call Haji.” She wrings her hands, but they still shake. “I want to. I want to hand this over to him and let him take control. But he’ll try to stop me. And I’m so scared I might even let him.”

She covers her face, and when she pulls back her hands, her cheeks are wet with tears.

“If I fail, I could lose them all,” she whispers, her eyes wide with panic. “I could lose Carly forever, and Kaitlyn, and Ari and Brett and Scott—there are five lives in my hands! What if it goes wrong? What if the Shyan is too strong, what if I’m not good enough—Oh, Gorro, Mother Karrah! Bring me to the light and hold me in your hand.”

Naida inhales deeply, then exhales and wipes her face. She is still shaking, but she balls her hands into fists.

She reaches forward and switches off the camera.

[END OF CLIP]

Naida Camera Footage

Monday, 24 January 2005, 11:26 PM

Basement

“You’ll open your eyes. You’ll be in a—” Naida breaks off and glances at Kaitlyn, who is sitting beside her. Scott and Brett are nearby, while John and Ari are hugging the walls. The room, normally lit by the unreliable bare bulb above them, is illuminated by the dancing flames of six black candles.

“It’s a house,” Kaitlyn says. “It’ll be a room. You’ll be in a room.”

“Right. I want you to check every single room of that house. Look for some kind of doorway. You’ll sense that it doesn’t belong. I’m not sure how—maybe it’ll look out of place, maybe you’ll just know it doesn’t feel right.”

“This is mental,” Scott mutters under his breath. Naida looks pointedly at him, but then her expression softens and she takes his hand.

“Everything’s going to be okay. Once we find that door, you call me. Don’t go through it. We don’t know exactly where it leads—maybe some kind of other world—but we think Carly was taken out that way. If you see it, yell like there’s no tomorrow. I’ll come quick as lightning, and that’ll be it for you.”

Scott leans forward. “What about you?”

She swallows and glances at Kaitlyn. “We have to go through the doorway. We have to find Carly.”

Brett, who has been sitting silently up to this point, blows air through his lips. “You’re asking us to believe something… huge.”

“It’s real,” Kaitlyn says. “Brett, it’s real. I need your help.”

He stares at her for a moment and then smiles, the crystal blue of his eyes melting into something warmer as he looks at her.

She smiles uncertainly and looks toward Ari, who is watching the display impassively.

“I don’t think I can do this,” John says. He steps away from the wall and crosses his arms.

Kaitlyn looks at him and then into her lap.

“That’s okay,” Naida says. “We need a lookout. You stay behind and make sure no one comes down here.”

He looks at Kaitlyn for a full ten seconds before he nods assent.

“Well, I’m coming,” Ari says, and he walks over to Kaitlyn and sits beside her. He takes her hand and rubs it between his own. “What do we have to do to… uh… get there?”

Now it’s Naida’s turn to look uncomfortable. She steels herself, then removes the cover from a box that has been sitting to her left. It is a wire mesh cage, and within it slumbers a plump black rooster.

Scott’s eyes widen, and he turns slowly to Naida. “You’re not… babe—”

“I have to…”

He shakes his head, raising his voice. “No, no—”

“I don’t want to… but…”

“What are you talking about?” John asks.

Scott gets to his feet. “I’m not going to let you pull some Mala bullshit, okay? You told me it was dangerous!”