The static on the radio answered, “Do you have to?”
“Yes, please, we think there may be things inside that will help us figure out what Dante did to you.”
“Do you promise not to dispel me or smudge me out or do whatever it is witches do to get rid of a ghost?”
“As long as you don’t attack us,” he confirmed.
“Okay, you can come in, but I don’t know how to open the door.”
“I think I do,” Taran said, and stepped up to the door. He tapped the top left corner, then the right, then moved to the bottom right, then the left, and back up to the top left, all while saying, “Wither ward, dissolve your hold, gently I command.”
With quiet pops, the wood split down the middle and parted into a swinging door. Taran pushed one side gently, and it moved inward. He pushed it all the way back as Eilonwy held the lamp.
Three feet ahead was a bookcase. It held books from top to bottom, along with a snow globe, a jewelry box, and a few plushies.
“The air isn’t terrible. All I can smell are dried herbs and candle wax,” Eilonwy said.
“Can just Eilonwy come in?” Haley’s voice said faintly through the radio, as though she were far away.
Taran gave her the lamp and stepped back. Eilonwy picked upthe radio with her other hand. She didn’t like having her hands full, so she placed the radio on the floor in front of the bookcase.
“I’ll make sure you don’t get trapped inside,” he whispered.
“Thank you,” Eilonwy replied, and walked through the door.
The corridor formed by the bookshelf was dark and tight. Just past the shelf’s corner was a twin bed with a body on top. She was laid out upon a colorful quilt and under a red satin sheet, her hands folded across her chest, holding a large black feather. Her nails were painted red, a lacy white pillow held her head, and her eyes were covered by a purple sleep mask. Long, honey-blond hair was carefully curled around her face and across her neck. The weirdest thing was her lips; they were still plump. Then Eilonwy realized she had been preserved with some kind of beeswax. It was strangely colorless, or possibly tinted to her flesh tone.
“Welcome to my tomb,” Haley said through the radio.
“You are well-preserved,” Eilonwy said loudly enough for Taran to hear.
“Thanks. He took a lot of time.”
“Is there a light in here?”
Just as Eilonwy said it, a soft light came on over the bed, and another at the end of the room, above a rack of scarves. A curtain was also pulled over a doorway.
“What’s in there?” Eilonwy asked.
“A bathroom. It has a window where you can look outside and watch the world go by without you.”
Eilonwy took the lamp to the curtain and was about to pull it aside.
“Please don’t look in there.”
“Why?”
“It’s where the blood and guts are. I watched everything he did, and I don’t like to think about it.”
“It might help me figure out what he is.”
“Fine, but I warned you.”
A light came on over the medicine cabinet. It was the smallest bathroom she had ever been in. There was the window that overlooked the sink. The lower half had privacy glass, and the top could indeed be seen through. There was a toilet, a pedestal sink, and a tiny tub with a shower stall, only big enough to stand in or take a bath if you bent your knees close. Stacked inside was jar after jar, made of clay and sealed from sunlight. It smelled a little like death, and she guessed Dante had opened the window to air out the odor.
The medicine cabinet was odd. Inside were the usual cosmetics and creams, but behind those, scribbled on the wall in black permanent marker:You love me. You are the art. We are together forever. This is love. All is well.Various geometric symbols that seemed familiar, but not quite right, were scribbled on the interior side of the door, and then she realized those were scribbled in blood.
Eilonwy closed the medicine cabinet and went back out to the bed. “I can see why that would upset you.”
