Daphne was unsure what to do. Going down, deeper into the ground, hardly seemed like a way out. It seemed like a way of becoming more trapped, in fact.
What could the stairs possibly lead to? A cellar under the crypt? Why would there be a need for such a thing?
She could stand there and wonder, or she could find out.
She decided to take a few steps down, shine her flashlight, see what she could see, and if nothing looked promising, get out of there.
“Dear God, be with me,” she breathed.
Daphne took the first step down.
The stairs were made of wood, and she could feel them sag under her feet. The wood had grown moist and fragile sitting so long in the dark earth, and could easily snap under her weight. The stairwell was extremely narrow. No more than one person would be able to fit through at one time. It was also short, Daphne discovered, when her foot moved off the last step and felt solid earth, her head still only inches from the trap door.
The space under the crypt was no more than six feet; a tall man would have to walk with his head bent. As it was Daphne could easily touch the ceiling—solid stone—with her hand. The darkness down here was absolute, and her little flashlight did very little to illuminate it. But from what it did reveal it seemed that this strange cellar was empty—just a rectangle cut into the earth under the crypt, for reasons she couldn’t possible imagine.
She swung the flashlight across the space a few times, seeing nothing but earth and earthworms and cobwebs. She was about to go back upstairs when the flashlight passed over a bit of color. Red, she thought, but it was hard to tell in such darkness. She moved the light back in search of it.
There it was.
She gasped.
On one of the wooden beams that defined the four corners of the space, something was written, it seemed, in red spray paint.
She approached.
And made a sound of terror in her throat.
WELCOME TO HELL, DAPHNE
was written on the beam.
“Oh, dear God,” she rasped.
Who had written it? It must have been Christopher. He must have been down here. He must have been planning this for some time.
But there was something else on the beam.
An arrow.
Underneath the grisly message an arrow had been spray-painted, pointing down. With the beam of the flashlight, Daphne followed the arrow. It seemed to point to nothing, just earth.
Maybe it just meant hell was below them.
But she ran the flashlight beam along the floor, just to be certain.
The beam picked out something embedded in the earth.
She bent down to look closer.
“Oh, no!” she screamed, standing up suddenly, and in her terror, she dropped the flashlight. She watched as it flew from her hand and fell onto the earthen floor, rolling a few feet away from her, sending its light off in a wayward direction.
Did she really see what she thought she just saw?
With careful steps she moved across the space and closed her fingers around the flashlight, taking comfort once again in the coolness of its metal body in her hand. She lifted it and pointed it back to the area where the arrow was pointing. Holding on to the flashlight more steadily this time, she moved in as close as she dared.
Yes, she was right.
Protruding from the earth was a human skull.
It was partially buried, but its empty eye sockets stared up at her, its death grin seeming to mock her. Daphne forced herself to move the beam the length of the floor. There were more bones poking up from the earth at various points. An arm. A foot with the toes broken off it. And, to her surprise, two more skulls.
Her first thought was that these were the bones of Witherspoon ancestors. But those had all been carefully entombed in stone vaults. No, these were the remains of others.
She moved the flashlight back over to the first skull she had seen, and she understood in an instant just whose bones these were.
The skull was small.
A child’s.
These were the remains of the seven victims of Pete Witherspoon Senior who had never been found.
The monster had put them here, under his family’s crypt.
And his body reposed right above them.
Daphne felt as if she might get sick on the spot.
But she had no time to. In the very moment she realized the identity of the bones, she also heard a faint sound.
It grew louder.
“Oh, dear God, no ...”
All around the mulberry bush, the monkey chased the weasel....
“No,” Daphne cried, turning to face the little wooden staircase that led back into the crypt.
The monkey thought it was all in fun... .
She held the little flashlight out in front of her, like a weapon.
Pop! goes the weasel!
The tune started again, over and over, just like before.
And from the trap door, a foot appeared. A foot wearing a purple, flapping, rubber shoe. A second, identical foot appeared.
Clown’s feet.
Daphne watched in mute, unthinking horror as the clown descended the stairs into the tiny, enclosed space. His puffy pants were yellow, covered in green and red polka dots. Soon its torso was in evidence, the same bright colors, with big buttons on its shirt. Then, finally, the ultimate horror: its grinning stark white face. Red nose, blue mouth, orange hair.
And the teeth. The snarling, gnashing yellow teeth.
From the wooden staircase the clown stepped off onto the earthen floor.
And it laughed.
From its shirt the creature produced a long, sharp razor. It ran it through its gloved fingers as if to polish it. The beam from Daphne’s flashlight reflected off of the blade.
The clown laughed again, and took a step toward her.
“No!” Daphne screamed.
But the beast was on her.
She felt the cold sting of metal puncture her neck.
SIXTEEN
From somewhere on the other side of her pain and terror she heard someone calling her name.
“Daphne! Daphne!”
It was Gregory.
A hallucination. A last wish, a burst of hope, before she died.
But he kept calling her name, over and over.
And suddenly he was there, kneeling over her, lifting her from the ground.
The clown was gone.
“Are you all right?” Gregory was asking her.
He held a light—a flashlight a thousand times stronger than her puny one. Daphne began to sob uncontrollably.
“It’s all right, baby. I’m here. You’re safe now.”
He lifted her in his arms and carefully made his way up the stairs with her. It was an extremely tight fit, but he managed.
It was then that Daphne passed out.
She woke up in Gregory’s car.
“Help! Help! Help!” she began to scream.
Gregory reached over and stroked her hair. “It’s okay, Daphne. You’re with me. I’m taking you home.”
She could see it was lightly snowing. The wipers kept the snow from the windshield.
“The clown,” she muttered. “It attacked me.”
She felt her neck. It was sticky with blood.
“I examined your wound,” Gregory told her. “It’s pretty superficial. It looks as if you may have scraped yourself when you fell.”
“No!” she shouted. “The clown did it! Didn’t you see the clown?”
“Baby, all I saw was you on the ground.”
Daphne tried to think. “How ... how did you find me?”
“Sheer luck. I got a call a few hours ago from Pete. He was demanding to know what I knew of your whereabouts.”
“Christopher locked me in there!”
“That’s what I gathered. Pete told me Christopher said we’d gone off together. To Pete’s credit, he didn’t seem to believe the kid. But he was still pretty pissed off.”
“Did he call the sheriff?”
“Oh, yes. But you know, it takes twenty-four hours before a person is considered missing. So I went out on my own. Christopher stuck to his story, refusing to give any clues as to where you might be, but I figured it had to be near to where I’d last seen you. The cemetery seemed a likely bet. It was hard to see anything, given how dark it was, but we can be glad that the ground was muddy, because I found footsteps in the mud ... and we can also be thankful that the snow has only just started. An hour later and all the footprints in the mud would have been covered. I’d never have thought to look in the chamber under the crypt.”
Daphne shivered. That was what Christopher had been counting on.
“The footprints led inside the crypt,” Gregory continued, “and then down the steps to a closed metal door. I was able to pull the door open, and that’s when I heard you screaming ... from that strange little cellar.”
Daphne could barely speak. “Did you ... did you see what else was down there?”
“The bones?”
Daphne nodded.
“I did see them.” Gregory let out a long, anguished breath. “I think they may be Pete Senior’s undiscovered victims.”
Daphne shuddered. “That’s exactly what they are! Don’t you see? Christopher wanted me to die down there with them. He must have had this in his plans for some time. He must have discovered the bones at some point, and told no one. But I remember now how one time he tried to coax me to go with him on a hunt to find the children’s remains. He would have done this to me then if I had agreed.”
“The kid is way sicker than any of us thought,” Gregory said. “He needs to be locked up.”
Daphne said nothing. Maybe Gregory was right.
They turned up the winding road that led to Witherswood.
“If I had my way, I’d be taking you back to my place,” Gregory said. “But Pete insisted that I bring you back to Witherswood if I found you, so that he could confront Christopher.” He turned to look at her. “But I mean this, Daphne. I want you out of that house tomorrow.”
“I appreciate your concern,” she told him, her hand on her wounded neck. “But only I can decide that.”
He sighed. “Sorry. Of course. Didn’t mean to sound like a male chauvinist.”
“It’s okay.” She looked up at the great house they were approaching. All the lights were on, even as the eastern sky was starting to turn pink. “I may make that very same decision myself. After what happened today, I know things are only going to get worse.”
They parked in front of the house, and Gregory escorted her inside.
“Daphne! Thank God!”
It was Ben who rushed across the foyer to greet her. Behind him, Gabriel rolled forward in his wheelchair, and Daphne caught a smile on his face as well.
They’re actually glad to see me, she thought to herself. This house is not completely bad.
Ben was embracing her, and now Ashlee was approaching as well.
“Thank God indeed,” Ashlee said, putting her arms around Daphne after Ben let her go. “Where were you, sweetie?”
“I think Daphne should sit down before she tells her story,” Gregory said, “and maybe someone could get her some tea. She’s chilled to the bone.”
“I will determine how and where and when Daphne tells her story,” came Pete’s voice, as the old man strode out of the parlor. “Your services are no longer needed here, Winston. Thank you for bringing Daphne back to us. Good night.”
“Not so fast, Pete,” Gregory said angrily. “I’m not just your errand boy, someone you send out find your son’s governess and then summarily dismiss. Your son attempted to kill Daphne—and I want guarantees this will never happen again.”
“Why don’t we all go in the parlor and let Daphne tell us what exactly happened,” Ben suggested. When no one objected, they all proceeded through the parlor doors.
Daphne saw that Christopher was nowhere to be seen. He had probably been ordered to stay in his room. But other than the boy—and Louella, who hadn’t emerged from her room since Donovan’s death—the entire household was present, including Suzanne, who had come for her things and had stayed the night due to the approaching storm.
Standing to one side, Daphne noticed with some revulsion, was Boris. She made eye contact with the butler. Had that been him in the crypt, terrorizing her? But if so, how had he gotten out without Gregory seeing him?
In soft, measured tones, Daphne explained everything that had happened. When she told the part about Christopher closing the door on her, she saw Pete stand and cover his face with his old, gnarled hands.
For the moment, she left out telling them about the clown. She described finding the secret cellar, but said her screams that lured Gregory into finding her were produced when she discovered the bones. There was general astonishment from everyone present that the undiscovered victims had finally been found, and Ben said he would call the sheriff and let him know.
“What a relief for their families this will be,” he said.
When Daphne was finished speaking, there was a kind of stunned silence in the room. Even Suzanne seemed horrified, and a trace sympathetic. Finally Pete spoke.
“Christopher will be sent away,” he announced.
“I think,” Daphne said, before Pete could say anything else, “that we ought to allow Dr. Duane to weigh in on this. I think too often in the past Christopher has suffered because professional opinions were not taken into account when decisions were made concerning him.”
“Daphne’s right,” Ben said. “We should get Duane up here as soon as possible this morning.”
Pete sighed his assent. He seemed beaten.
“All that is well and good,” Gregory said, “but I think Daphne is owed some assurances that such a terrible thing, or anything like it, can never happen in the future.”
“We’ll all be vigilant,” Ben promised.
“And might I just raise the possibility,” Gregory said, “that if the boy was capable of the attempted murder of Daphne, he might be capable of the real thing?”
“Are you suggesting,” Gabriel asked, sitting forward in his wheelchair, “Christopher may have killed Donovan?”
Suzanne gasped at the idea.
“I’m just asking if he is capable of such a thing.”
“He’s just a child,” sniffed Abigail.
But no one else raised much objection to the idea.
Except Daphne. “Christopher didn’t kill Donovan,” she said. “I can’t believe that much. He is not a bad child, deep down.”
“After what he did to you, sweetie?” Ashlee asked. “How can you say that?”
Daphne didn’t reply. But in her mind, she was remembering the clown she had seen in the crypt—the same she had seen in the tower and on the street and at the inn. That was no little boy playing dress-up.
She felt terribly and utterly exhausted then. All she wanted to do was sleep. Everyone in the room agreed that was probably for the best. Gregory kissed her hand, and said, in front of everyone, that he would return sometime that afternoon to check on her. “And if she wants to leave here,” he announced, “I will take her away.”
No one dared object.
After Gregory had left, Ashlee escorted Daphne upstairs.
“When Dr. Duane comes,” Daphne said, “please wake me. I want to be present when any decisions are made regarding Christopher.”
“Of course, sweetie,” Ashlee assured her.
First, a hot, vigorous shower. Daphne was tired enough, however, that while it removed the mud and grime, it did not rouse her. Gratefully, she climbed into bed. Once more she touched the wound on her neck. Had the clown only meant to scare her, and not kill her? Or had Gregory really scared it away in the nick of time?
Or had she, as Gregory suggested, only scratched herself as she fell?
Was the clown real, or her imagination?
Was it a ghost? Was it Boris? Or was it someone else?
A ghost wouldn’t have been frightened off by Gregory’s arrival.
Or would it have been?
She drifted off to a deep sleep that, thankfully, for once, wasn’t plagued by dreams.
When Daphne awoke, the light seemed unchanged. A glance at her clock told her the reason why. She had fallen asleep at dawn; it was now dusk. She had missed Dr. Duane! She leapt out of bed, wrapping her robe around her. Outside, the snow had continued falling all day. The grounds were now covered in a deep blanket of white, and it was still coming down.
Once again she gave thanks to God that Gregory had found her when he did.
Otherwise, I’d still be down there ... in that place.
And I might be dead.
She hurried down the hall to Christopher’s room. The door was open, and the room was empty.
“Oh, dear,” Daphne mumbled to herself.
Had they taken the boy away? Committed him to some institution? Without allowing her to talk with Christopher, confront him about what he had done, and ask him why?
Daphne hurried down the marble stairs into the foyer.
Boris was standing there at the bottom, looking up at her. Daphne recoiled, slowing her descent.
“Good evening, Miss May,” the butler said in that terrible high voice of his. “Axel told me you were very interested in our past here at Witherswood. I’d be glad to tell you all about it some time.”
He smiled, exposing those horrible sharp teeth.
Daphne said nothing as he moved away, a surprisingly agile corpse.
She saw no one else. Cook had taped a note to the refrigerator in the kitchen. She was leaving due to the storm, she wrote, but she’d made sandwiches and salads for them all to eat for dinner. Daphne was suddenly ravenous, having not eaten since early the day before, and helped herself to a ham-and-cheese on a bulky roll and a tossed salad. She felt better after she’d eaten.
But where was everyone? And most particularly, where was Christopher?
Daphne was surprised at how little enmity she felt for the boy. Oh, she wanted there to be repercussions for him, and she wanted him to see the seriousness of what he had done. But she also wanted Christopher to get the help he needed. It would do no good to simply rant at him and leave him even more disturbed than he was before.
This was the conversation she’d wanted to have with Mr. Witherspoon and Dr. Duane. What could they do that would help him, and not just punish him? She would be very upset if they’d shipped him off somewhere without any input from her.
She could hear the wind whipping outside the house. Peering from the window over the estate, she could see that the snow was already a couple of feet on the terrace, and it was drifting. Once again she said a silent prayer of thanks that Gregory had found her when he did.
“Hello?” she called, heading down to the study. No one there either.