Chapter 45

The grind of stone against stone wakes her. Saoirse retreats to the right-hand wall of the catacomb, as far away from the sound of Emmit’s return as she can get. She needs time to see from where he is entering, to see what he might carry in his hands. He said he would see her as the protagonist of Poe’s—and his—greatest story of all, and she imagines him walking toward her with all manner of torture devices. The muscles in her chest tighten, but she thinks of the syringe in her pocket and wills herself to be calm.

“Serrrrr-shaaah,” Emmit calls, materializing from behind a sheath of stone, scanning the chamber for her. She watches the wall behind him, the seamless way in which the stone doorway fits back into the frame. Emmit follows her gaze, then turns to her and smiles his charming half smile. “While a good magician never reveals the mechanism of a trick”—he pauses, cocks his head—“there’s no reason not to let you in on the secret now.” He slips his fingers into a groove, pulls upward, and the door swings open like a secret bookshelf in Holmes’s library.

“Sometimes,” he says, “the truth is right before us. A flyer on a foyer table. The ghost of a dead woman standing behind you as you write.” He raises an eyebrow, as if to say, Can you believe how brazen I’ve been? Saoirse keeps her gaze—and her emotions—level, refusing to rise to the bait.

Emmit regards the empty bottles of water and sleeve of mostly eaten crackers. “I see you’ve taken advantage of my generosity. I knew all your talk about needing your medications was inflated. You’re ready to take on the final endeavor, then? Your very own pit-and-the-pendulum conundrum, as it were.”

She tries to recall the plot of “The Pit and the Pendulum.” Something about darkened catacombs that are slowly illuminated and a prisoner exploring the area in which they’re being held captive? Hasn’t she been in “The Pit and the Pendulum” all along?

Emmit walks toward her, pulling a length of rope from the waistband of his jeans. “Scholars claim the first trip Poe ever made to Rhode Island was in 1845. ‘The Pit and the Pendulum’ was published in 1842. If Poe didn’t discover the room containing the pit and the pendulum within these catacombs, then I can only assume he built it himself.” He tilts his head, considering something. “It’s actually more likely he built it himself, since he didn’t base the elaborate torture scheme of the story on any parallels with the Spanish Inquisition, during which the tale is set. Conversely, the unnamed narrator must face his fate—either evisceration by the swinging, razor-edged pendulum or forced into a depthless pit by red-hot, advancing walls—separate from any historically accurate method of prisoner torture.” Emmit comes a few steps closer, and Saoirse gauges the distance.

“It’s a few chambers over,” Emmit continues. “An exact match to what’s described in the story: wooden frame facing the ceiling, a picture of Father Time above a foot-long pendulum.”

He takes three quick steps toward her in time with the words “foot-long pendulum.” Saoirse’s muscles twitch, but she stays crouched, refusing to envision pitch-black rooms or creaking pendulums swinging ever closer as they descend from ceiling to floor.

“I’ve placed a bucket of raw meat there,” Emmit says casually, as if inviting her to dinner, “though I doubt the bait will draw the rats as effectively as it did in Poe’s story. If it does, I imagine it’s even more of a long shot that the rats will chew through the leather straps, allowing you to escape. That part of the story seems mere fiction to me. I’ll give you the option, though, to fling yourself into the pit before I strap you to the board beneath the pendulum. That’s the whole point of the exercise, of course. The way your mind works, the way you chew your way out of being backed into every corner ... that’s where my obsession lies. You remain my Muse even after refusing to serve my art the way Sarah served Edgar’s.”

Lunging from her crouch against the wall, Saoirse lobs the tote containing the remaining food at Emmit’s head with one hand, gripping the flashlight with the other. Emmit cries out and ducks, and Saoirse darts past him, but he recovers quickly. He grabs for her, just missing her sweatshirt. Saoirse sprints for the stone frame, letting fear and adrenaline pump her arms and lift her feet. She reaches the door, slips her fingers into the horizontal groove the way she’d seen Emmit do, and pushes up and outward. The door swings forward, and Saoirse slips through, then pushes it shut behind her.

She was prepared to dash forward with only the flashlight to guide her, but there are sconces along the walls, lighting the chamber. Warm candlelight flickers against the stone like serpent tongues. She doesn’t hesitate; her bare feet are already pounding the floor when Emmit bursts through the door behind her. Grit and gravel sting her feet and panic defibrillates her heart, but she does not slow.

The chamber narrows into a tunnel, and the sconces disappear. Even with the flashlight, it’s like running through the blackest part of night with a rocky cliff looming ahead. Emmit’s footsteps smack the tunnel floor behind her, and Saoirse tries to concentrate on her breath, to ignore intrusive thoughts of hidden pits and swinging pendulums. For all she knows, she’s heading straight toward Emmit’s final trap.

Better to die running. The moment she thinks it, Saoirse’s steps become lighter. Her breath, too, comes easier, filling her lungs more completely than it had before. The tunnel is brighter, until Saoirse realizes it’s because her vantage point has changed. She is floating above herself, watching a woman in a black sweatshirt and black leggings sprint for her life, watching herself—despite a failing heart and terrified mind—outrun her captor in a desperate bid for freedom, eyes wide in the inky dark, panicked but determined, exhausted but persevering.

If I die down here, Emmit will write a book based on my soul, on my spirit. I will endure through his words, through his awful, stolen take on my life. I cannot let that happen. I cannot. I have more things to say, more life to write. More life to live. Sarah Helen Whitman may be known because of her connection to Poe, but she lives on through her poetry. Edition after edition of her own words, printed and bound, circulated, proliferated. Celebrated.

I’ve survived too much to give up now. To give in to someone like him .

The floating-Saoirse beckons the running-Saoirse forward, who aims the flashlight to where the tunnel widens into another catacomb. A half circle of evenly spaced sconces lights the chamber ahead; Emmit must have come from this direction before. Saoirse bursts forward, into the chamber, where the stone walls of the tunnel are replaced with mildew-stained plywood and the haphazard zigzag of sagging boards.

The floating-Saoirse can see this is the area beyond the alcove below 135 Benefit Street, the one Emmit fell into during their felonious exploration of the Shunned House basement after defecting from the ghost tour. Someone had plans, once, for this space—it’s like an abandoned construction site—but now the chamber is a collection of perilously leaning planks and swaying scaffolds, of sliding half-finished walls and yawning chasms in false floors.

Saoirse stops running and scans her surroundings. She’s breathing hard, deciding whether she should find somewhere to hide or press forward. If she can locate the alcove, climb out of it, and make her way through the main portion of the Shunned House basement and up the stairs, she’ll be street level, that much closer to rescue. But Emmit’s right behind her. Hiding might be the only option there’s time for.

Keep running, she begs herself, at the same moment the floating-Saoirse yells, Hide! and the furious voice of Jonathan shouts, Give up! You don’t deserve to live!

Her two selves, cleaved by starvation and exhaustion, unite the moment Emmit bursts into the room. But the reintegration comes too late. He grabs a fistful of her hair with one hand, shouting incoherently, used up of all his pretty words.

With the other hand, he drops her to the ground like a fallen star.