The Fall of Never(17)

After twenty minutes they passed a hand-carved road sign, half hidden by underbrush and masked in darkness, with one word carved onto it: SPIRES. The roadway deteriorated into a scored dirt path, crunchy with frost and rock. Still, the woods grew denser. A heavy ground fog now impeded her view, and she turned away from the window.

“How did my father track me down?”

“I’ve not been properly informed about that, ma’am,” Rotley rumbled again, briefly glancing at her reflection in the Cadillac’s rearview mirror.

“Who is Jeffery Kildare?”

“Mr. Kellow’s personal assistant.”

“What happened to my sister?”

This time Rotley stared longer at her reflection in the rearview. Then: “I’m sure I don’t know. My apologies again, ma’am.”

Yes, I’m sure you don’t know. I’m sure you’re just as blind as everyone else my father deals with. No questions asked, just do your job like a good little robot and everything will be just fine.

She turned and looked back out the window. Spires, New York was perhaps the darkest place on Earth. She watched the tops of the trees blow in the strong wind (she could hear it blowing strong against the Cadillac, could feel the difficulty Rotley was having keeping the vehicle straight and steady). It was a fairytale forest, deep and enchanting, just like a small child’s dreams. And nightmares.

Something about a dog, she thought suddenly. I remember something about a dog in those woods, something about a dog and it was hurt and I can’t remember exactly what happened, but I know something did. Or maybe I’m just recalling some ancient, forgotten dream.

The car twisted along through the woods for perhaps another ten minutes. Soon, the forest receded and a series of squat houses, almost hut-like in appearance, materialized through the fog. These were new; Kelly did not remember them from her youth…although there was a lot she could not remember about her childhood. Like the memory of the dog—and what had that been about?—everything seemed like just a half-memory, like a memory that was not truly hers, but maybe someone else’s she had been allowed to borrow.

“Who lives here?” she asked Rotley. “I don’t remember houses being here.”

“I’m not familiar with anyone around here,” was all the driver said.

Thanks, Shaft, you’ve been real helpful. Much obliged.

And then—there it was. Leaning forward in her seat and peering through the Cadillac’s windshield, Kelly could see the looming monstrosity atop its grand sloping precipice, brooding and haunted against the backdrop of the pitch-black night. The compound, she thought, hating that word even as her mind brought it up. It was almost surreal, this Frankenstein image, this postcard from a distant world, and she found she could not take her eyes off it as they approached. The house’s silhouette was all spires and points and arrowhead roofs—something out of an architect’s nightmare. Like a clawed hand ripping out of the ground, reaching for heaven.

It became difficult for her to breathe, and the inside of the Cadillac no longer seemed cold. Rather, she’d broken out in a sweat, could feel droplets of perspiration running from her armpits and down the sides of her ribs.

Rotley maneuvered the Cadillac around a dirt turnabout and passed through an open iron gate. Rocks popped and snapped beneath the crunch of the car’s tires. Slowly, as if the climb were too strenuous for the vehicle, Rotley urged the Cadillac up the face of the precipice.

Ahead in the darkness, and like an unavoidable illness, the compound grew closer.





Chapter Six


Jeffery Kildare looked like an eagle—all right angles and aquiline features, with a sloping brow and dark ink-spot eyes. When he spoke, he did so in a manner that communicated unquestionable superiority, as if each word was its own enigma spoken for the sole purpose of being solved. In a way, he was very much like the house itself, Kelly realized.

Walking up to the house with DeVonn Rotley leading the way, Kelly caught a glimpse of the ghostly man as he passed behind one of the sprawling first floor windows—a tall, gaunt figure that moved with a refined yet calculating determination. Mounting the series of stone steps to the front porch, she could hear the front door being unbolted from within. Nostalgia had yet to hit her, and she attributed its absence to the mere fact that she really could remember nothing at all about the place. About all of Spires, for that matter. And in a half-hearted attempt to recall some memory, any memory at all, she cast a glance over her shoulder and peered down into the steep, sloping valley below. The midnight fog was so great that she could not even make out the tiny houses at the foot of the precipice from such a height. The treetops, black in the night, pushed up through the fog like fingers through cloth.

The front door eased open, letting warm, yellow light pool out onto the porch. The tall, gaunt figure stood on the other side. Immediately, Kelly knew he was the man who’d left the message at her apartment.

“Mr. Kildare,” she said. Vapor blossomed in front of her face.

“The older daughter,” Kildare said, his face expressionless. He was dressed in a dark, modest suit with his hair combed meticulously to one side. Surprisingly, there was a slight southern air about him. “I trust your flight went well? Please come inside, it’s cold.”

“Ma’am,” Rotley said and took her bag from her, carried it into the house where he quickly disappeared among a maze of expansive corridors.