The Gift of Illusion: A Thriller (24 page)

The group headed over to the staircase not
far from the double doors. The stairs led to the second floor of
the mansion, opening up at the top into a small rectangular room
with two halls on each side. From the bottom up, the staircase
gradually slanted inward, with the first step the widest and the
last step the thinnest. A five-foot tall black metal handrail
accompanied the stairs on each side, coiling up like a snake at the
bottom end.

As Simmons came upon the staircase, a
strange feeling washed over him.

He stopped, took a single step back, and
looked down at a crack in the stone floor. The crack was a
half-inch deep and a few feet wide. He focused intensely on it, not
blinking, and not sure why. In his head, he could hear someone cry
out. He took his eyes off the crack in the floor and focused them
on the ceiling high above.

“Simmons,” Isaac yelled. “Are you okay?”

Simmons looked down from the ceiling and saw
Isaac in front of him. He wasn’t sure if he could speak, but he
would try. “Yeah. I’m okay.”

Isaac didn’t question the durability of the
staircase, even keeping its age in mind. It wasn’t made from wood
like his at home; this one was solid stone all the way up. The
entire mansion was built to last the ultimate test, the test of
time, and it had done quite a fine job at well past a century old.
Nothing short of a massive earthquake could bring down this
monster.

Virginia led the way up the staircase. Isaac
trailed a short distance behind her, with Simmons at the rear. When
they reached the top of the stairs, they looked down at the first
floor for a moment then headed down the hall to their left. A
washroom waited at the corner just before the hall bent into a long
straightaway.

The others waited in the hall while Isaac
stepped into the washroom and tiptoed across a graveyard of broken
white tile. Halfway into the room, he stopped and pulled back a
grimy curtain to his right, revealing a dingy white tub and an old
wash bucket lying on its side.

A small circular window sat on the back wall
of the bathroom. Isaac peered through the dusty black pane hoping
to get a glimpse of the side yard of the house, or possibly a
forest looming behind a veil of fog, but did so with no such luck.
All he could see was his reflection in the dark glass and the drops
of rain sprint down the window from the other side, smearing his
face into a contorted bubble of flesh.

On his way back to the hall, Isaac stopped
and gazed into a mirror on the opposite side of the tub. His face
looked beaten and drained, as though he had aged ten years since he
left his house a few hours ago. Gray moons grinned underneath both
eyes. His hair was wet and matted, with a few dark brown clumps
hanging down on his forehead. It was difficult to tell if his face
was wet with water, or with sweat, and although he looked tired, he
didn’t feel it. He would search the shadows all night, forever if
needed, just to find his daughter. Whatever it took. No matter the
consequence.

Win or lose, alive or dead, he would find
her.

The group rounded the corner and continued
down the long, dark hall. They passed two rooms, one to the left,
the other to the right, and briefly peeked their heads through the
doors. Both rooms were completely empty, with no furniture or
objects of any kind, just a wide-open vacant space of nothingness.
Less than a dozen steps later, they came to another set of rooms,
again opposite each other, and again empty.

The cold, barren rooms reminded Virginia of
an old 18
^th
century asylum. The gray stone walls were an
exact match, and the stench of heavy fabric and dust (with just a
touch of vomit) really hit the spot. All the rooms needed were
small barred windows on the doors and the crossover would be
complete.

Isaac had seen his fair share of abandoned
homes through the years, but this one was on a level all by itself.
It seemed the investigators of long ago did their jobs well,
overlooking nothing in their path, and taking just about everything
as evidence. Not that it would have mattered much, by the time the
mansion was unpacked, Lucius was dead, and you can’t bring the dead
back to life to put them on trial, right? Well, young Lori Ackerman
somehow managed to do the unimaginable, but at some point in the
investigation the case took a shocking turn, the hunter became the
hunted, and it was no longer the illusionist given the trial, it
was Isaac.

The trial would be a chess match, a battle
of wills, and the proceedings would begin and end while the world
slept, with only God and a few friends as witnesses. Soon the jury
would retire into the deliberation room to contemplate their
decision, and not long after, they would deliver the verdict—the
penalty.
They could order Isaac’s death, or the death of
many innocents, including one very special to him. He would be more
than content with the jury handing out the first verdict, if they
were so willing to spare the last.

No doubt, every living thing has a breaking
point; the point the illusionist sought to find in man. How much
longer would it take before the trial broke Isaac?

7

One final door waited at the end of the
hall. The group stopped in front of the door and looked over at
each other. They expected much of the same from this door as the
previous ones, just four corners with a load of emptiness in
between. But after twisting the knob, opening the door, and looking
into the room, they were pleasantly surprised at what they saw.

Behind this final door was a small semblance
of a former life. The room was quite large, many feet larger than
the asylums. The group stood in the doorway letting the light carry
into the dark room. Against the far wall was a tattered mattress
resting atop a bed with curved wooden legs. This room was quite
possibly the bedroom of the illusionist.

They stepped forward into the room and stood
at the edge of the queen-sized mattress. The bed was sheet-less,
with many holes and tears strewn in the cotton. Some of the shreds
were so severe there were puffs of wool protruding from them, like
an old teddy bear after being mauled by a dog.

On the right of the bed, against the far
wall, was an end table with two drawers and nothing on top.
Virginia walked over and set the lantern down on the table. She
looked over at Simmons passing by a tall cabinet on the other side
of the bed. The cabinet had two doors, each with a silver knob, and
a deep drawer at the bottom with a matching silver handle.

Isaac looked out the bedroom window. He
could finally see the yard on the side of the mansion, all the
water holes and hills, and the forest standing tall in the
distance. He watched lightning flash in the dark sky high above the
trees and waited for the resounding roar, but it never came. Then
he stepped away from the window and met Simmons at the edge of the
bed.

"Well, she's not here," said Simmons. "I
guess we move on."

"Yeah, were moving too slow," Isaac
added.

“Did you check the cabinet?" asked
Virginia.

Simmons shook his head. Isaac reached out
with both hands and grabbed the silver knobs. As he swung open the
doors, he imagined a body falling out on him, a skinned, partially
decayed corpse. Its fleshy hands would grip his face and its head
would flop down on his shoulder, with its colorless eyes gleaming
up. It would be bleeding from the mouth, maybe even mumble a few
words before choking on its tongue. The bloodied body would be his
daughter’s, too. He knew it. But it didn’t happen.

Instead he saw something much less
frightening.

"What the hell," Isaac said.

Virginia held the lantern closer. The
interior of the cabinet lit up and revealed its secret.

A square piece almost as wide as the
cabinet, roughly three foot by three foot, was cut out of the back
and a safe was put in its place—into the wall. The safe was almost
identical in shade to the wood of the cabinet, with no trim, fancy
carvings, or special ornamentation. It was obvious that Lucius had
built the safe with the purpose of blending in and not drawing any
attention to itself. The only thing that even gave it away was the
key lock in the center.

Virginia handed the lantern to Simmons and
then reached into her pocket. She pulled out the key they had found
earlier in the entryway. The three stood and looked down curiously
at the key in Virginia's hand for a moment like it was some strange
bug they had never seen before.

"Here goes," Virginia said, and slipped the
small key into the keyhole in the center of the safe. The key went
in smoothly, a perfect fit, and turned with just as little effort.
The lock voiced a sharp
clack
sound as it disengaged, and
the safe door slowly creaked open.

"What's inside?" Simmons asked, trying to
peer around Isaac.

"Can't see anything," Isaac replied. "It's
too dark. Bring that light over here."

Simmons switched places with Virginia and
then held the lantern up inside the cabinet. Light rushed into the
dark hole in the wall but revealed nothing. The safe was empty.
Isaac placed a hand inside to feel around, and immediately realized
why. It was empty because there was no bottom, and there was no
bottom because this wasn't a safe.

Isaac carefully climbed into the cabinet and
crouched in front of the hole. Then he took the lantern from
Simmons and held it inside, followed by his head.

"What do you see?" Virginia asked.

"Darkness," Isaac said. He backed out of the
hole and handed the lantern to Virginia before climbing out of the
cabinet.

"That's odd," Virginia said. "He left us a
key to a safe with nothing inside."

"It's not a safe."

"Then what is it? You said you didn't see
anything."

"I said I saw darkness," Isaac replied. "And
on the inside of the wall are metal rungs leading down into it. Not
a safe. A passage."

"A passage?" Simmons repeated.

Isaac nodded. "Who wants to go first?"

8

The cabinet had no purpose other than
concealing the fake safe, so they pushed it out of the way. The
hardest part now would be getting into the cramped hole in the wall
safely. One foot slip and you're falling to an unknown depth, and a
certain death. Isaac figured the best way to approach it was from
the side, one leg at a time, making sure the first foot in had a
good grip on one of the metal rungs before turning around and
climbing the rest of the way inside. It was an imperfect
calculation, but it worked well enough, as Isaac managed to go in
first without killing himself. Yet. Virginia handed him the lantern
once he was inside. They had all agreed that Isaac was the
strongest of the three and would have the least trouble navigating
down the steps with only one free hand.

Virginia went down second.

Simmons, easily the largest of the group,
naturally had a difficult time climbing into such a confined space.
There was a moment when he had one leg dangling inside the hole,
his foot searching for some security, his balance wavering, that he
considered giving up and getting out. But the thought of having to
go back the way they had come by himself and in complete darkness
gave him reason to try harder. That, and he wouldn't be able to
live with himself if he just left them. He didn't want to let Isaac
down.

No one spoke a word as they descended the
ladder, each step slow and steady. This wasn't the time to be
careless, or claustrophobic. Isaac counted the steps as they went
down.
One. Two. Three. Twelve. Twenty-four. Thirty-six.
At
around step forty-five, he had begun to get tired and lost
count.

Though she tried to keep her thoughts
positive, Virginia couldn't help but imagine that they were
climbing down into the pits of hell, with a hearty heaping helping
of eternal damnation waiting for them at the bottom.

When Isaac reached the end of the line, he
put the lantern down on the ground beside him and then helped
Virginia down from the ladder. Simmons took a little longer to get
to the bottom, but thankfully he didn't need Isaac to catch
him.

The secret passageway had dumped them from
the ceiling into a hallway not much wider than the hole and with
only six feet of clearance. Of the three, Isaac was the only one
who couldn't stand straight up without hitting his head. For once
in his life, Simmons was happy he was the shorter guy in the room.
Other than them, there was nothing else in the hallway. No welcome
mat, no furnishings, no pictures or paintings, and no Amy. Nothing
but the cold stone of the walls and their giant shadows the light
casted upon it.

Virginia picked up the lantern. It had done
a fine job thus far (much better than she had initially expected)
filling the mansion with enough light to pass through safely. When
the lamp was in her hands, she felt a sense of security (even if it
were a false sense), as long as she could see, everything would be
okay.

Isaac looked both directions down the hall.
Both ways were long tunnels of blackness with no end in sight.
"Which way?"

"I don't think it matters," Virginia
replied.

"Why do you say that?"

"Because I have a feeling they both lead to
the same place."

The group went left and wandered down the
dark passage with Isaac leading the way. Less than thirty feet
later they hit a corner and continued to the right down a short set
of stairs. At the bottom, the hallway grew wider and taller. Isaac
could finally walk like a normal human being.

Maybe it was just his imagination (which
seemed to have kicked into full gear after he took that first step
through the front double doors), but just after the hallway took a
turn, Isaac could feel the temperature drop by at least ten
degrees. The air, once as chilling as a hotel lobby, now felt like
the inside of a morgue. And if the air hit his face from a certain
direction, it almost smelled like a morgue, too. It was as though
they had stumbled inside a coffin, surprised to find the scent of
old, rotting death.