The Fall of Never(145)
“Kelly!” Becky’s voice boomed just as a light fixture above Kelly’s head exploded in a display of sparking wires and a spurt of gray smoke.
They both hit the floor and started running down the hallway that communicated with the main foyer. Beneath their feet, the floor bubbled and ruptured. Geysers of plaster and sealant spewed from gaping sores along the floor. At the top of her lungs, Kelly began screaming: “Get out! Get out! Get out!” The echo of her voice slammed back at her face in the small confines of the corridor. The walls protested their escape, grew prong-like extensions and tried to grab at them.
Aside from the vibrating sway of the immense chandelier in the center of the ceiling, the commotion had not yet reached the foyer. The sweeping stairwell along the far wall only groaned under an unseen strain. A shuffle of footsteps came thundering from the upstairs hallway. Glancing over her shoulder as she ran, Kelly saw her parents standing in their nightclothes, peering down at her from the landing. Their faces were blank and colorless.
“Mom! Dad! Get out!” she cried up to them, but they didn’t move. Even the sight of Becky at her side did not appear to stimulate any emotion on their faces. “Get out!” she screamed again. “Get the hell out of the house!”
Beside her, Becky screamed and slammed her body against Kelly’s. The force of the tackle was nearly enough to knock her over. Stunned, Kelly spun around and saw Glenda standing in the broken light of the foyer. She was tying a housecoat about her waist with deliberate slowness, seemingly ignorant of all that was going on around her.
“Glenda,” Kelly breathed, “the house…you have to get out of the—”
“Becky,” Glenda said firmly. Her eyes did not even acknowledge Kelly. “Rebecca Kellow…”
“Glenda!” Kelly shouted. Above her head, the bulbs of the giant crystal chandelier began blinking on and off, on and off. “We need to get out of here!”
A coy smile on her face, Glenda finally met Kelly’s eyes. The intensity of her stare froze Kelly on the spot. There appeared to be a countless ream of emotions behind those eyes, calculating and contemplating…
“Kelly,” Glenda half-whispered, “what did you do?”
“What?” The world was starting to spin out of focus again.
“What did you come back here for? To bring such destruction, such havoc?”
Shaking her head, her heart thudding feverishly in her ears, Kelly could only mouth the word again: “What?”
“Did you kill him?” Glenda took a step closer to her, out from the shadows. Her feet moved in perfect parallel division. “Where is he? Is he dead?”
“Dead?” Faintly, she could feel Becky tugging against her arm. “Glenda—”
“What are you trying to do here, Kelly?” the old woman repeated, her voice rising. “What are you trying to do to me? Do you have any idea what it’s like to live your entire life here, to raise a child only to have her run away from you and never come back? Do you know what that feels like?”
The floor started to shake. A statue atop a marble pedestal near the front door was shaken to the floor. The beams in the ceiling creaked and groaned.
Glenda took another step closer. “And now you take him away from me too?”
“Kelly!” Becky shouted, seemingly from very far away. “Kelly, no!”
Kelly’s mind reeled. “Glenda, what is this?”
“Little Baby Roundabout,” Glenda half-sang. “Someone let the Baby out, Kelly.”
“She’s bad!” Becky screamed, her voice choked with tears. “Kelly, she’s bad! Kelly! Kelly!”
“How do you know about him?” Kelly whispered.
Glenda threw her hands up, her face suddenly red with fury, wetness glittering in her eyes. “Do you see what you leave me with? Nothing! You leave me with nothing! My own daughter—”
“I’m not your daughter.”
“You were more mine than theirs,” Glenda hissed. “You goddamn know it, Kelly!”
“I’m…” She faltered and turned to see her parents still standing on the landing, unmoving. In their silence, she could see a tear trace down her mother’s cheek. After all this time, like a shock from a light socket, she felt a strong urge to forgive her parents, and to almost comprehend where they were coming from. Because in a sense, this house—this thriving, beating heart—had kept the same hold over them as it had kept on her. Only she had power, had strength, had abilities. Her parents did not. Doomed, the house had sucked the life from them since the beginning. Since, she suddenly understood, before she was even born. The image of herself curled into a fetal position in some dark corner—the result had she given in to Simon—returned to her…and only now did she understand that that image was exactly who her parents had been for years. That without her power—and the power Becky undoubtedly carried inside her too—she would have grown cold and empty and beyond emotion just like her parents.
She glanced down at Becky, petrified against her, and back up at Glenda. “You knew about this all along,” she marveled. “You knew what lived in those woods—”
“You two aren’t the only ones who get lonely and afraid!” Glenda cried, tears spilling down her face. “I’ve been here for so long! Do you know what it’s like to have no children of your own? And when you raise the children of others, they just turn around and leave you. Kelly, I didn’t want them to put you away. I wanted you here with me. I tried to stop them.”