Thursday, 27 January 2005, 9:00 PM

Basement

Haji stands in the center of the room, arms folded. Brett and Ari file in from the stairs and stand off to the side, watching Kaitlyn and each other. John follows, spots Kaitlyn, and smiles.

“My name is Haji. I’m Naida’s brother. I don’t want to be here.” He looks at each face in turn. “But you’ve opened a door, and it needs closing. If I allow it to be left open, it will be Naida who pays for it. I ask you now—all of you—to reconsider your decision to be involved tonight.”

Scott enters last. His usual joviality has been replaced with something more solid and reserved.

“Scott,” Kaitlyn says, stepping forward, “is Naida—”

“She’s resting,” he says, his voice firm and hostile. “She wanted me to come here. I wouldn’t have otherwise.”

Kaitlyn swallows and introduces Haji.

Scott nods at him once, and the anger and resistance on his face seem to satisfy the Mala priest.

“I’m trying to convince you to leave. Don’t get any more involved in this. As you’ve seen, it is no game.”

“We’re not leaving,” Ari says, stepping close to Kaitlyn.

John shifts. “I think we’re all agreed that leaving isn’t an option. But, for my sake, would you mind telling me what exactly we intend to do?”

Haji regards them all. “You are all so stupid,” he mutters. “Very well. Kaitlyn and I will be performing the same ritual as was performed by Naida.”

“Are you joking?” Scott snaps. “Did you not hear what happened to Naida? You want a repeat of that?”

“There will be no repeating that fiasco. I will get us into Kaitlyn’s mind—this Dead House you described,” he adds, in Kaitlyn’s direction. “We will all go. We will search the rooms—all of them—for the door that leads beyond her. You will know it if you find it.” His eyes move around every face. “If you do—do not go through it. Call out, and keep calling until we all come to you.”

“Are we seriously doing this again?” John demands. “Kait?”

She nods. “I’m seeing this through until the end.”

“I wish you’d just leave it,” he mutters.

“No standing off to the side this time,” Haji says, looking at Kaitlyn. “You are the ritual. You need to take control.”

“I’m ready.”

“Good. Sit down.” Haji reaches into a pouch on his hip, withdraws what looks like flour, and pours it into a sigil on the floor, one mirrored in the charm around his neck.

John steps up to Kaitlyn. “Are you really going to do this after what happened? After Naida?”

“Yes. I told you.” She takes his hand and squeezes it. “Are you with me?”

“I’m in,” Brett says from across the room.

“I guess that’s the answer, then,” John says “I won’t leave you alone.”

Kaitlyn blinks, then turns away. “What do you need?” she asks Haji, who is sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of a wooden bowl. Inside he has placed three eggs and a sprig of sage.

“Your blood.” He puts out one hand to Kaitlyn. In the other, he holds a knife with a curved blade.

Kaitlyn holds out her hand without hesitation. Her sleeves hide the stitched-up mess of her forearms.

“Hold on a minute,” Brett interrupts. “Is this wise? Her blood? Isn’t that… extreme?”

“And Naida wanting to kill that rooster before wasn’t extreme?”

“Yeah, but her blood? That’s, like, bordering on Satanism or something.”

Haji gives him a distasteful once-over. “You just pray she won’t need to give her life.”

“Hang on, what?” John says.

“This is mental, Carly—Kaitlyn. It’s just… too much. Naida nearly died, and now your blood? I think maybe it’s asking too much.” Brett speaks quietly.

“Just get out if you’re not going to help.” This utterance, delivered with sharp venom, comes from Ari, who steps off the wall and walks forward. “Cowards, all of you. Piss off and let us work. Or stay and actually help by shutting your gob-holes.”

This silences all of them, but Brett is red in the face and his lips are a thin white line. John merely shrugs and folds his arms.

In all the commotion, no one noticed Haji slice Kaitlyn’s palm or the blood trickling into the wooden bowl on top of the eggs and sage sprig.

“It’s done.” Kaitlyn looks around. “Can we get on?”

“Bloody hell,” Scott mutters, but backs off.

“Keep going,” Ari says. “Everyone sit around the bowl.”

Each of them complies, and silence falls.

Haji cuts open his own hand with the already-bloodied blade. “Respect, Gorro, spirits, Olen. We weaken ourselves for you, we show you our good intentions. Accept this blood sacrifice and hear our bargain. Gingerroot for spice, beetroot for sweetness, tobacco leaf for pleasure, athair lus, the snakeroot, for connection.” He bows low after adding the items. “Hear us, great spirit of the Olen, hear us, Mother Karrah, Father Gorro. We call on your aid to help us find a lost soul. Bless us. Let us pass and bring our passengers with us. Here is the vessel.” He touches his bloodied palm to Kaitlyn’s head. “Let us enter.”

He leans forward and lights a rope of mixed dry herbs, and smoke begins to plume. “Close your eyes,” he instructs them.

No movement is seen for five full minutes, at which time the motion-activated camera switches off.

[END OF CLIP]

94

Diary of Kaitlyn Johnson

Thursday, 27 January 2005, 11:59 pm

Chapel Confessional

I can still feel them, lingering in my mind. The scent of them, almost… their imprint.

Haji said, “Close your eyes.”

And then I felt a pull. I was dizzy, felt it in my throat, and then smelled the house fade in, growing up all around me from an unknown hell like dead creeper vines, blossoming with deadly blooms.

I opened my eyes, and they were all there with me again. And I saw what knowing me had done to them. Brett’s pristine grace had been replaced with a bruising around the eyes, a lankness in the hair. Scott, once such a joker, looked around the house with hard eyes and a set mouth. John, once my escape, now seemed as much of a trap to me as the house, but how could I trust that? How could I trust my mind, which seems so much of a trick these days—a Dead House of a mind that even I can’t control? I couldn’t ask him to leave, though I wanted to. He was my John… and I am still terrified of him. The only constant, the only unchanged thing, was Ari, standing beside me, holding my hand.

“This,” Haji said, “is Kaitlyn’s mind. Her self.”

“I remember,” Brett breathed.

“Let’s split up,” Haji suggested, taking control.

“No,” I insisted, right away. “We won’t do that again. Scott with Ari, Brett with John, me with Haji. No one goes anywhere alone.”

I said this, even though I knew the house was empty.

Deathly

Silently

Absolutely

Empty.

Haji looked at me for a moment and conceded with a slow nod. “Very well. There is no way to keep time here. When you hear this”—he broke off, placed two fingers in his mouth, and blew out a shrieking whistle that echoed down every hall—“then come back here.”

We went into the Empty House.

It was very strange, Dee. So different from the first time. The house was solid and real, cold and empty. I could feel them all walking around inside it—inside me. Was this how it was supposed to be the first time? Did Haji do something that Naida failed to do? When Scott and Ari entered a room, it was a memory, and I felt them there too.