Chapter Six
I didn't know what had awoken me, but for once it wasn't a nightmare. I heard a creak, and cracked my eyes open just enough to see Thomas slipping out of the room.
My heart filled with dread as I wondered why he was sneaking around. I sat up and listened trying to hear where he was going, and the sound of the front door closing behind him was unmistakable.
I got out of bed and pulled my robe on, rushing to the main door in the hopes of being able to see which direction he had gone, but he was out of sight.
I closed the door and looked out through the peephole, so I could at least see which direction he returned from. I waited for over half an hour and was about to give up when I finally saw him approach the door from the left, the direction of the main staircase. As quickly and quietly as I could, I retreated to the bedroom, pushing the door to and peering out through the sliver of a gap. My field of vision was limited to a small section of the living room but since the curtains weren't drawn, allowing the moonlight in, I could just about see.
I watched as Thomas, crossed the room, carrying what appeared to be a small box, then he moved out of sight.
Where had he been? What was in the box?
I stayed where I was until a few minutes later, when he reappeared entering the short hallway to our room, sans box.
I threw my robe back over the chair and scrambled into bed, my back to the middle so I was facing the door, closing my eyes and breathing as deeply as I could to feign sleep, but my heart was pounding and I was certain he knew I'd been watching. I heard Thomas disrobing then felt the mattress dip as he climbed back into bed with me. When his arm fell around my waist I almost flinched, but all he did was slide closer and spoon me, then he pressed a kiss to my shoulder.
I continued to breathe deeply but my mind was reeling. Where had he been? What had he been doing? And what was in that box?
I wanted to stay awake until I was sure he was sleeping, but my exhaustion caught up with me and I fell asleep.
***
I awoke the next morning to something breaking and a string of curses. Thomas wasn't beside me so I grabbed my robe and headed in the direction of the noise.
I found him in the kitchen, with a broken mug on the floor, the kettle sitting on the hob and Thomas muttering under his breath as he opened the grill and oven, trying to find where to light it.
"Problems?" I asked rather smugly.
"I was trying to make tea," he admitted, "but how do I light this contraption?"
I chuckled a little at his bemusement and stepped forward, wrapping one hand around his waist as I took the kettle from the hob and set it back on its base, flipping the switch. At least he had filled it with water first.
"Kettles are electric these days, as are most ovens and hobs," I explained. "Just sit it on the base and push that down. When it's boiled, the light will go out."
I didn't even want to start on the oven yet. Who knew how many fires he might cause if I explained how to use it?
I pottered around, getting the pot and tea out as he watched me, a ridiculously attractive smile on his lips which made me blush like a schoolgirl every time I looked at him.
"Did you sleep well?" I asked as I bent down to sweep up the remnants of the mug with the dustpan and brush, trying to sound nonchalant and keeping my back to him.
"Like a log," he assured me.
I was glad he couldn't see my expression.
"I thought you might be restless, first night back in the real world and all."
"It was just nice to sleep at all," he assured me.
I turned to face him, knowing it was safe to let my confusion show.
"You didn't sleep in the other place?"
"I don't know. Not as we understand it, anyway. Sometimes I would just sit still and... cease to be, if that makes sense. I believe that might have been a form of slumber, but without days and nights and the passage of time, it isn't what I would call sleep."
I nodded, wondering why he wasn't telling me about getting up last night, or what was in the box he had returned with.
I knew I should just ask him but I was afraid of the answer. I know it's stupid, I've only know him 24 hours (well, as a flesh and blood person at least) but I already felt more for him that I had my last boyfriend, and we'd been together a year.
What if Thomas was scheming behind my back? I knew logically that it was better to know sooner rather than later, but what would I do if he was? And not just because of my feelings for him, but because he was my only ally and without him, I would truly be alone in my fight.
I knew it was cowardly, but I have never felt so far out of my depth before.
Just because I was afraid to confront him, didn't mean I was going to let this slide though. At the first opportunity, I would search the apartment to see if I could find the box, but how could I get rid of Thomas for long enough to do so?
While the tea brewed, I made us both eggs on toast. I was distracted by Thomas's deception, wondering if there could be an innocent explanation, and wondering what our next move should be.
"Did Edith's diary have any information on what we're hunting for?"
I shook my head. "All she had was feelings and suspicions." Much like me, I silently added. "Your story was more telling."
"How so?"
"Well you said that Lucille didn't die in the fall but soon after you arrived in that nether world, right?"
"Yes."
"And when Edith screamed 'go away' at you and Lucille, you were both pushed away from her by some kind of force."
"You think Edith was supernatural?"
"No, but in her diary, Edith wrote about how Lucille was very interested in her baby and kept feeding her some awful herbal tea."
Thomas looked blank. "I don't understand."
"I think Lucille was dying, or her body was, and she intended to steal your baby's body. In preparation for that... body jump, she fed Edith some kind of potion, possibly mystical or magical or whatever it is we're dealing with. When Edith was scared and frightened, she unknowingly called on some of her baby's ability and was able to not only push you and Lucille away, but actually send you well, Lucille, back to where she came from."
Thomas was nodding slowly as I spoke. "That might make sense."
Really? That was his only response? I mean, sure, his baby was little more than a cluster of cells when that was happening, but shouldn't he feel something... more? But I didn't have time to focus on that right now. In a little over a week, I was going to be possessed by Thomas's psychotic sister, and that thought sent a shiver down my spine.
"So we know we're looking for an entity than can possess other people's bodies, and we're possibly looking for an entity that prefers children's bodies," I said.
"Do we know enough to say that though?" he asked.
"Well she had a perfect candidate in Edith. If she wanted to inhabit an adult, Lucille could have just taken her body, especially given how she feels about you. That would have made her your wife, but she didn't do that. I would hazard a guess that while she can possess adults, it's better for her if she can take over a body from infancy, perhaps because she can prepare the body with that magic potion, or maybe children's souls are easier to evict, I don't know, but she must have been after your child, rather than Edith for a reason."
"Agreed." He nodded.
"We'll go through your list of Lucille's character traits you wrote after breakfast, and see if we can't find some more clues, or make some more deductions or theories about her."
"Good idea," he smiled warmly at me, and I wondered how I could ever doubt him. I did still have my doubts, of course I did, but my conviction wavered frequently.
Once we'd finished eating, I stacked our plates but he stopped me by taking my hands and turned me to face him.
My heart skipped a beat as I looked up into his warm blue eyes, and I wondered how I could suspect him, and yet still want him so badly.
"I don't know what the future holds," he told me, "but I couldn't wish for anyone better to face it with." He raised my hands to his lips and kissed each in turn.
"You don't even know me."
"I know you," he assured me, gently squeezing my hands. "I may not know everything about you, but I know that you have a good heart."
His words both pleased and saddened me, partly because I couldn't say the same back to him, and partly because I wondered if I was being played.
"I'm glad you're here too," I said, because I had to say something.
"Are you?" he surprised me with his insight.
"I'm the one who brought you here, aren't I?"
His answering smile was gentle and warm. He pressed a soft kiss to my lips again then released me.
***
The idea that I was going to be possessed by Lucile was terrifying, and the only way I could deal with the ever present threat was to try and forget about it.
I had some experience at repressing negative emotions so while not completely successful, it did allow me to damp down my fears enough to function. Still, every now and again the gravity of my situation would hit me and for a few seconds, until I got myself back under control, I would feel as though I was falling, that same awful sensation you sometimes get at night, just as you're dropping off to sleep, only more prolonged.
The morning brought no new insights into Lucille, but I received a call at midday from reception to tell me that a parcel had been delivered. I asked Thomas to go down and retrieve it, then I took the opportunity to do a quick search of the living room but I didn't find the box he had brought back last night. I didn't get a good look at it, so I wasn't entirely sure what I was looking for, but I had to try. I was unsuccessful and when I heard the key in the lock, I dashed back to my laptop and tried to look relaxed.
"What is it?" he asked, handing me padded envelope nearly three inches thick.
"It's a book on alchemy." I replied. "Lucille mentioned that Faust freed her and this book has some references to him. Have you read the book you left for me?"
"Yes. I saw it in Lucille's room and was able to read it sometimes from the other side. Once the renovations began, I was able to move it to the attic."
"How, if you were trapped in another dimension?" Focusing on the minutia helped me to forget what the stakes of this research truly were.
"I turned pages the same way I moved your glass." He answered. "It doesn't always work but I didn't exactly have much else to do. I thought I might find answers in there, but I couldn't."
"We'll take another look through. Maybe with what we know now, you'll notice something you missed before. I'll read this new one, then we'll swap."
Thomas nodded his agreement and we settled on the sofa to read.
***
'Faust claimed he was receiving messages from the demon Beelphegor...'
My heart began pounding as I realised that I finally had a tangible lead and each sentence I read further confirmed my suspicions that we finally had a name for our foe.
'...associated with lewd behaviour...'
Well, she did lust after her brother. Thomas's list of information about Lucille also said that she had taken many lovers, despite society's disapproval.
'...a demon who made people distrustful of each other...'
Wasn't Edith suspicious about both Thomas and Lucille? And now, wasn't I?
Of course, there could be a very good reason to feel paranoid, but my initial instincts had told me to trust Thomas, and I had learned to trust my intuition because it was usually right. Was this demon the reason I now distrusted Thomas so much?
'...seduce men with money and wealth...'
The Sharpe family had been wealthy for generations and although my dreams had told me that Thomas married Edith for her money, they had also shown me that the family was far from poor, and had more than enough cash reserves to build a new house, just not quite enough to keep propping up this old dilapidated one.
I looked over to Thomas, who appeared tired. We were on our second day of reading and aside from a food breaks, and a few rests for sex, we hadn't stopped looking for answers.
To be honest, sex was the only time when I could totally lay my worries and fears to rest, because Thomas was so very good at it, he was able to completely distract me. Not to mention that I couldn't sleep without him wearing me out first.
"Beelphegor," I said, observing him closely.
"Bless you," he answered, without looking up from his book. In fact, he gave no signs at all that the word meant anything to him, his eyes didn't even pause in reading.
"Do you recognise that?"
He looked up at me and shook his head. "Should I?"
"I don't know," I hedged. "Carry on, I'm just going to check on something."
I went to my laptop and did a search for Beelphegor, from which I discovered a few other tidbits.
Apparently the demon gave people ideas, often inventions which made them successful, then used their own greed against them. He or she was believed to be strongest in the month of October, and had been Satan's right hand man, so to speak.
Depictions of the demon showed either a hideous, skeletal form, much like the one I had seen in my dream and the creature I had encountered in the strange alternate dimension, or it was drawn as a beautiful young woman.
I was almost certain that this was the demon I was looking for, when I discovered something called
Beelphegor's Prime. Why would a number be named for a demon? Intrigued, I studied the number.
1000000000000066600000000000001.
Two number ones. Two groups of 13 zeros and a central grouping of 666, the mark of the demon.
1, 13 zeros and 666. Why did that seem familiar?
"Where's that brochure you picked up last night?" I asked Thomas.
"Uh," he looked around. "By the lamp." He pointed and I snatched it up, leafing through until I found the section on the house history.
'Crimson Peak is notable for having 666 windows, especially considering that the window tax was in force when the house was built and most aristocrats were trying to minimise the number of windows, often going so far as to brick up existing ones.'
666 windows. That rang a bell, touching on something I'd learned or read, but the information was ephemeral and just out of reach...
Calendar houses! They had some ridiculous planning like 365 windows for 365 days, 52 rooms for weeks, 12 chimneys for months, 4 wings as seasons and 7 external doors for days of the week.
"How many rooms does Crimson Peak have?" I looked over to Thomas to see him watching me curiously.
"Um, Edith did count them once... 31, I believe. Why?"
Well that didn't fit. I needed, 13 or 26 of something, and one or two of something else to represent the one at the beginning and end. Unless...
I counted the number of characters in Beelphegor's Prime and found that there were 31.
666 windows, 31 rooms.
"How many chimneys does the house have?"
"Um, 13, I think."
"And wings?"
"Four, although that's unofficial."
Damn, that didn't fit.
"Entrances?"
"Two, a main door and the servants' entrance."
1+1=2, the number ones at the beginning and end.
666 windows, 31 rooms, 13 chimneys and 2 entrances. This was a house built for Beelphegor.
"I think I know who Lucille is," I told him. "Or the name of what possessed her."
He came over and I laid out the evidence for him, in a rather frantic manner, I admit, but he kept up with me. My heart was pounding (with excitement rather than fear for once) and hope bloomed in my heart because now we had a name and that could help us defeat her.
"So she is a demon," he said with a sad sigh.
I turned to look at him. "Did you doubt that?"
Thomas looked away and walked to the window, keeping his back to me.
I waited for him to speak but when he finally did, it was to ask, "Do we know how to kill her?"
"Um, not yet," I admitted.
"Then that should be our next move," he said, his voice flat and lifeless. He came and sat next to me and I wondered why he was so subdued.
"Are you alright?"
He turned to me and offered me a weak smile.
"I'm fine."
I didn't believe him.
And who could blame him? He'd just had confirmation that the girl he was raised with, that he loved like a sister, was demonic. That would upset even the most cheery souls, I should think.