Chapter 36
The house groaned, loud and shaking. The floor shifted beneath me.
Abby screamed. “No, wait. I didn’t mean … no, no!”
The same pleading repeated in my own head. Please, this couldn’t be true.
I peered down the staircase. I gagged, unable to tear my eyes away from the gruesome scene.
At the bottom, Sariah laid in a crumpled mess.
Crimson liquid pooled out from her head like a crown.
Her neck bent awkwardly, misplaced almost to her shoulder.
On an impulse, I shouted for help, but there was no one to answer my cries.
Abby jumped down the staircase several steps at a time until she collapsed at the bottom. At once, I stood a few steps above her watching her through a rain of tears. Abby knelt on the floor beside her sister.
“No, Sariah, no.” Abby gripped Sariah by the shoulders. Blood poured faster from a large gash at the back of her head as she lifted her.
“Get up. Get up!” She shook Sariah, but her head only lolled back and forth. Sariah’s eyes stared upward, hollow and empty.
Abby whimpered as she cradled Sariah’s head into her lap. Blood dripped onto her skirt as she sobbed. My own heart fissured as I watched, unable to aid her. In all of my most horrible imaginations, I could never have dreamt up this reality.
Abby scanned the room.
“It’s going to be okay, Sariah,” she murmured, like she was trying to convince herself.
She carefully lifted her sister off her lap and stood.
As she bit down on her red-stained thumb, I realized what she contemplated. The next step in the nightmare.
Abby dashed back up the stairs. Within moments, she returned carrying the vibrant floral bedspread I’d seen earlier on Sariah’s bed.
Her hands shook as she dragged the body onto the blanket.
Red soaked through the beautiful quilted squares in seconds, staining them with a permanent reminder of this sin.
Bending down, Abby took hold of the edge of the fabric and pulled.
Slowly, the body inched across the entryway.
Blood smudged against the grain of the wood as the sickening procession—Abby dragging the body of her dead sister—moved, leaving a soiled trail of scarlet in its wake.
Sariah’s head flopped to the side and more drops of red splotched onto the floorboards.
But Abby didn’t stop or even look down at the mess she was creating.
Abby managed to drag Sariah through the doorway and across the parlor. She hesitated as she noticed the crimson soaking into her hands and she wiped them against her apron. She began to pace.
But I already knew where she would go.
Abby’s eyes lit up. She flung open the door to Jacob’s study with a kick of her foot.
She bent down once more and hauled Sariah over the threshold, only stopping when Sariah’s feet hung just outside the doorframe.
I moved toward Sariah’s boots and then, all at once, I found myself in the study tucked up in the corner.
Abby frantically wiped her hands again. She began to rummage around Jacob’s desk. Throwing open drawers, she dug, tossing items that rolled away or fell to the ground. Her fingers held up at last what she sought—a small vial of yellowed liquid.
Consecrated oil. Priesthood brothers used this substance to anoint and bless the sick.
Abby glanced up at the shelves. Jumping to her feet, she reached up and pulled a book down from the shelf. My heart slammed into my chest as I saw she was carefully holding Jacob’s black book of scripture.
“He said he kept those notes from Brother Brigham’s instructions in here,” Abby murmured to herself.
The book from my nightmares popped open on the floor beside her. Rubbing her hands repeatedly down her skirt, she reached out and with the barest touch flipped open the pages. They flew with the flick of her thumb until they landed open on the page marked with the folded piece of paper.
Abby unfolded the note and read it aloud under her breath.
Her fingers left dark prints on the edge of the paper.
Rolling the vial between her finger and her thumb, she unscrewed the lid and lifted her sister’s lifeless head, then shook the oil until drops poured over the hideous, gaping wound.
I pressed my fingers to my mouth to hold back sickness as the oil congealed with the blood over the exposed bone and tissue.
Abby didn’t bother to replace the lid, instead tossing the vial to the side.
I inhaled through my mouth, barely able to keep myself standing; the metallic stench invaded the small room. I knew already she was reaching into a well of desperation.
“I will heal you, Sariah. This will be fine. I can heal you,” Abby said to her sister’s lifeless body. Trembling, she placed her hands onto Sariah’s head. She glanced down at the instructions for a blessing scrawled in Jacob’s looping words, and cleared her throat.
“I command you, Sariah Manwaring, to return to your body. Be whole.”
Sariah didn’t stir. The room breathed heavily with me.
Abby pressed her hands again to Sariah’s head. I could hear the squish of blood and flesh as she shoved harder. Crimson soaked her front as she leaned over the body. My nostrils stung with the rising bite of the rusty gore.
With a strain in her voice, Abby tried again.
“Be ye whole, Sariah. I command ye.”
But nothing changed. Sariah’s head drooped back into her chest with a squelching plop.
Abby placed Sariah’s head back onto the floor and curled up into herself. Her hands grabbed her own cheeks, streaking them red. Her eyes grew wilder and brighter as she rocked herself.
“No, no, no … Sariah.” Tears rolled down her cheeks, smearing the mess of red. “I couldn’t have—I didn’t …”
I pressed my eyes shut, praying this nightmare would end, but when I opened my eyes again, I was still in the study. Death hung heavy in the air.
Abby let out a gruff shout and picked up the scriptures beside her like she meant to throw them but stopped midmotion. Dropping the book carefully back down so it wouldn’t touch the mess around her, she leaned over and reexamined the note. I remembered the words I’d read in the middle of the night.
What you bind on earth is bound in heaven.
“A binding,” Abby said. A smile cracked her miserable face like this sentence was the answer to all her problems.
“This is it, Sariah. If we bind you here, you’ll have to be—you won’t be …” She trailed off and again placed her hands on Sariah’s head and cleared her throat.
“Sariah Manwaring, I bind you to this earth. To this house. I bind you to stay here with me.”
Her profane words ricocheted through me.
I watched as if in slow motion as her hands pulsed on Sariah’s head again.
“You will obey me, Sariah. You will obey me,” she shouted. “I. Bind. You. Here. In the name of—in the name of God, the Devil, whoever!”
She gritted her teeth.
“I will keep you here, in this house, forever.”
She let go of Sariah and smacked her bloodied hands against the floorboards.
“For once, someone listen to me and what I want! Give me back my sister!”
I knelt to the floor beside her. Blood was all around, but it didn’t stain me. I reached out to grab Abby’s hands, to comfort her, but my arms went straight through her.
Around us the floor rumbled. Abby’s eyes widened. An iridescent light broke through the lines in the floorboards like the foundation of the home turned into a brilliant sun. All around, the walls shook and heaved, sending items falling from shelves and furniture bounding across the floor.
A loud clap like thunder struck the room, at once silencing the shaking house.
Light cracked in the air like a door opening slowly.
With each second, the light widened in the air.
Abby sat back, her hand shielding her eyes.
The light wasn’t brilliantly white, but it glowed strong against the darkness of the falling night.
I shrank back, unable to believe this truth.
The radiance formed into a shape. A body. It manipulated and pulsed until a final burst revealed the figure floating right before us. Sariah stared down, her eyes blinking as she gazed around in confusion.
Abby let out a cry of excitement and climbed to her feet.
“Sariah! You’ve come back. It worked, it worked,” she said, hope edging into her voice.
But Sariah appeared as only a husk. Her eyes sunk hollow into her face, her visage dim and lacking. As if staring into a distorted mirror, the wrongness of her presence sent a shiver through me.
Extending her hand, Sariah gestured toward the floor. Abby followed her movement and gasped. The body still lay on the floor, lifeless and empty. The apparition glided backward, her cold and accusing stare boring holes into Abby.
“No, Sariah—this cannot be. You’re here, you’re here.”
Abby began to sob, her whole body shaking.
“What have I done to you? What have I done?”
Sariah faded away, piece by piece.
A shadow darkened the doorway.
Hope lit Abby’s voice.
“Sariah?”
But as she turned, her eyebrows raised in panic.
“Jacob, I …” she trailed off.
Jacob took in the scene, blinking back what might have been a moment of shock and then it was gone. Without saying a word, he squatted, leaning his arms on his knees as he examined Sariah’s body. His expression was now stone.
“Well, Abby. I see you’ve finally done it,” he said.
Abby sobbed once more.
“I knew I’d break you eventually. You see now why you need me? If you’d only been more obedient, then it wouldn’t have come to this! But not to worry, dear. I won’t tell a soul, as long as you obey.”
His finger grazed the pool of blood, then reached out to slowly paint it down Abby’s cheek.
“Remember you’re always mine, Abigail Manwaring.”
He crushed her jaw, blood dripping from his finger to floor.
“That Sister I spoke of, Flora, has already agreed to join the family, so nothing is lost. There is still time for your redemption.”
His words drifted off as the scene blurred before me.
Someone gripped my shoulder, and I screamed.