William looked at him for several seconds, then nodded, sliding his palms off the barrier and adjusting his bloodstained waistcoat. “Thank you. That is very kind of you.”
Something happened between Elliot and him. A connection, an understanding. Their eyes locked, and they stared at one another like long-lost family seeing each other for the first time in years.
Knight abruptly stood up, smashing the door shut right in front of Fane’s nose. “Right. That’s it. You know what you wanted to know. You found out I was right all along. This tour ends here.”
“But he could still tell us so much…” Elliot’s went breathing frantic as he tried to understand what had just happened.
Knight fumbled with the bundle of keys and pushed one into the lock. “New rule. This room is off-limits. And in fact, no one will know we ever came down here. Is that clear?”
Elliot finally looked up into Knight’s eyes, clenching his jaw in determination. “I understand. This is better kept a secret. Knight… he’s there. Can you believe it?” Elliot could barely comprehend his luck. Ghosts didn’t exist, or so he’d believed all his life, and so he’d have been willing to consider this a hallucination brought on by excitement, but Knight had seen William too!
Knight growled and pulled Elliot up the stairs, tense as a bull about to charge at its opponent. “Maybe he’ll disappear if we take some shrooms. You know, like a reverse hallucination.”
“We both saw him, Knight. He’s there. He’s trapped. Just imagine the horror of solitary confinement for two hundred years.” Elliot was feeling sick just thinking about it.
“Shut it for now. We can’t have someone overhearing this conversation,” hissed Knight, all but running up the narrow stairs. Elliot took a moment to glance over his shoulder, at the locked door that hid William Fane’s personal hell.
Elliot didn’t know how or when, but he would talk to William again. Just feeling the raw energy the forgotten soul had exuded in the room still made Elliot shiver. For so long he’d wanted to enter the mansion, to walk its corridors for even a few hours, and now he got so much more. Maybe that was why he’d become so obsessed with William? Maybe William’s soul had been calling out to him helplessly all this time. The tiny thread that existed between them kept pulling Elliot closer to this place even at the risk of death.
He’d been chosen. He’d been granted the power to invite Fane’s soul back to the world of the living, and now the opening between two dimensions has been made. Nothing would close that door, no matter how much Knight wanted that to happen. Elliot needed to play his cards right, to avoid Knight’s suspicion, but once Knight was lulled into a false sense of security, Elliot would find a way talk to William Fane again.
His thoughts came to a halt when instead of leading Elliot back down the familiar route to the bare room, Knight rushed past the gargoyle statue and started a climb up the grand circular staircase. He took two steps in one stride, marching up the magnificent structure as if its intricate decoration or age meant nothing.
Elliot followed close behind, deciding not to ask questions. Instead, he took in their surroundings with his heart rattling from both the encounter with the ghost and climbing so fast. They passed a massive grandfather clock that looked out of place at the landing of the stairs, and Elliot yelped when two dark figures came at them out of nowhere.
Only half a second later he realized that there was a huge mirror randomly sunken into the wooden panels on the side of the staircase. Its strange, irregular shape was reminiscent of spilled water which made it look like a modern piece of art, so unlike the clock that had to be an antique.
He was so struck by the odd atmosphere that he didn’t notice a black metal door nearby, but Knight quickly opened it with a code tapped into the keyboard of an electronic lock. He couldn’t help but think back to the bolt securing the hidden door to Fane’s secret room in the cellar. Could it be that Knight also had a gruesome secret he wanted to share? Elliot’s lips curled into a smile at the thought.
As soon as the door budged, Knight shoved it aside, opening a hall illuminated by the moonlight coming in through huge windows. It was only when several lamps came on and revealed the most stylish of lofts that Elliot realized this wasn’t some room where Knight intended to murder him. Contrasting with the old-timey shape of the windows and some of the decorative molding at the ceiling, the furniture and overall interior design were something he’d expect to see in some cool Manhattan apartment on TV—because people’s homes, even the nice ones, rarely looked this stylish. His certainly didn’t.