Chapter 2: Morning Revelations
I woke up on my grandmother's study floor with sunlight streaming through the windows and Detective James Blackwood crouched beside me, his hand on my wrist, checking for a pulse.
"Ma'am? Ma'am, can you hear me?"
I bolted upright, my heart hammering. The basement. The altar. The thing with no face.
"How did you get in here?" I gasped.
"The front door was wide open. I knocked, called out, then found you unconscious." His dark eyes were concerned but professional. "I'm Detective Blackwood, Ravenshollow PD. Are you Elena Voss?"
"Yes, I... what time is it?"
"Just after nine AM. Mrs. Henderson from next door called in a disturbance last night. Said she heard screaming coming from this house around midnight."
The screaming. That was me.
I struggled to my feet, trying to make sense of what had happened. Had I dreamed the entire basement experience? Sleepwalking brought on by stress and an unfamiliar environment?
"I'm sorry, Detective. I must have had a nightmare. Jet lag, you know. I flew in from Seattle yesterday."
But even as I said it, I noticed dirt under my fingernails and a scrape on my palm that I couldn't remember getting.
Detective Blackwood was handsome in a rugged, small-town way—tall and solid, with graying temples that suggested he was probably in his early forties. His uniform was crisp, and he carried himself with the confidence of someone who'd seen enough to handle whatever came his way.
Except maybe this.
"Ms. Voss, I hate to bother you so soon after your loss, but I need to ask you a few questions."
"About my grandmother?"
"About your timing." His tone was carefully neutral. "Lucy Ashford, a ten-year-old local girl, went missing two nights ago. That's the same night your grandmother passed away."
"I don't understand. Are you suggesting—"
"I'm not suggesting anything. Just following the procedure. Small town like this, we notice patterns."
I wanted to be offended, but something about his directness was reassuring. After my night of supernatural terrors, dealing with a rational skeptic felt grounding.
"Detective, I was in Seattle until yesterday afternoon. I have plane tickets, hotel receipts, whatever you need. I hadn't seen my grandmother in twenty years."
"Why the long estrangement?"
I hesitated. How do you explain to a police officer that your family might be genetically predisposed to delusions? "Mental illness runs in our family. My mother thought it best we keep our distance."
"What kind of mental illness?"
"Schizophrenia, mostly. Paranoid delusions about supernatural threats." I gestured toward my grandmother's occult library. "As you can see, she never sought proper treatment."
Detective Blackwood followed my gaze to the shelves of bizarre books. "These are... extensive."
"My grandmother collected anything related to the paranormal. Fortune telling, séances, demon summoning—you name it, she probably had a book about it."
"Demon summoning?" He raised an eyebrow.
"I'm a psychiatrist, Detective. I can recognize delusional thinking when I see it." But even as I said it, I thought of the basement, the symbols, the thing with no face. "Though I'll admit, spending the night in this place has me a bit rattled."
Something in my voice must have caught his attention. "What happened last night, Ms. Voss? And please don't say 'nothing.' I've been doing this for fifteen years. I know when someone's had a genuine scare."
I studied his face, trying to decide how much truth I could share without sounding insane. "I had very vivid nightmares. This house... it affects people. The atmosphere, the décor, the isolation. It's designed to create psychological distress."
"Designed?"
"My grandmother was disturbed. This whole place is like a haunted house attraction. She probably enjoyed frightening visitors."
Detective Blackwood walked over to the study window and pulled back the heavy curtain, letting more natural light into the room. In the brightness, the house felt less menacing, more like an elaborate theatrical set.
"Tell me about Lucy Ashford's disappearance," I said.
"Ten years old. Disappeared from her bedroom sometime between midnight and dawn two nights ago. No signs of forced entry, no ransom demand. Her father Thomas is... struggling."
"Any leads?"
"This is the fourth child to disappear in Ravenshollow in the past two years. Always the same pattern—vanished from locked bedrooms, no trace left behind."
My blood chilled. Four children. Just like the belongings I'd seen arranged around that altar.
If it was real.
"That's horrible. Have you found any connection between the disappearances?"
"All were between eight and twelve years old. All disappeared during the new moon phases. And all occurred within a half-mile of this house."
I felt the room temperature drop about ten degrees. "You think my grandmother was involved?"
"I think your grandmother knew more about these disappearances than she let on. Mrs. Henderson mentioned seeing lights in your grandmother's basement at odd hours. Voices. Movement."
"Detective, my grandmother was eighty years old—"
"Actually, according to town records, she was considerably older than that."
He pulled out a small notebook and flipped through several pages. "Cordelia Voss has been a registered resident of Ravenshollow since 1952. If she were eighteen when she first appeared here, she would have been at least ninety-six when she died last week."
"That's impossible. She looked maybe seventy-five in the photos."
"I've seen those photos too. Taken over the past thirty years, and she looks the same in all of them." Detective Blackwood studied my face. "How well did you know your grandmother, Ms. Voss?"
Before I could answer, my phone buzzed with a text message. The sender was listed as Grandmother:
The basement, dear one. Tonight, when the moon is dark. Come alone, and I will show you what you need to know. The children are waiting.
I stared at the message, my hands shaking. "Detective, what's today's date?"
"October 31st. Why?"
Halloween. Of course, it was Halloween.
And according to my phone, my grandmother had sent me a text message three days after she died.