88

I left Florence at her insistence to find Koen. I took the stairs, flagging behind Wes, who was moving faster than I had ever seen him go.

“Slow down!” I yelled ahead to him. “We don’t know what the hell we’re running into!” My pleas were breathless and frantic as Wes disappeared into the darkness ahead of me.

“Wes!” I called out to him without response but Koen’s screams had halted and an eerie lack of sound fell over the entire cellar. I pulled my flashlight from my back pocket, flicked it on, and shone it across the pitch-black space.

“Wesley!” I barked again, and this time he responded.

“Over here!” He yelled, his massive frame curled over what looked like a heap of earth but, as I got closer, I realized it wasn’t that at all. Vines curled tightly around Koen’s body, cutting into his skin and pulling him down into the damp earth beneath.

“He’s trapped!” Wes shouted. “Cut him loose!”

That’s why the screaming had stopped. The vines were crushing the air from his lungs, and there was nothing left. Koen’s eyes flickered open heavily, the green in his pain-filled gaze so bright I could feel his suffering as I dropped to my knees next to Wes.

We began to saw at the vines with our knives, one by one, but no matter how many we broke apart, they seemed to materialize out of nothing, wrapping tighter around Koen until he was barely visible anymore beneath the writhing plant.

“It’s not fucking working!” Wes moved faster, his anger and fear fueling him as the threat of losing Koen loomed. “He’s going to suffocate to death.”

“Just keep working at them,” I encouraged forcefully, but the words barely made it out. Wes wouldn’t survive Koen’s death. It would be the end of him. The thorns of the vines cut into my skin as I sawed at the plant furiously without results.

“Orchid Manor,” Florence’s voice was chilly as she walked up from behind.

Seeing her made my blood run cold.

I hated that my whole being could still love her, with Koen dying at my feet.

My mind wrestled with my heart, wanting so badly to believe that she wouldn’t hurt us, but unsure if she even had a choice in the matter any longer. She hadn’t been herself. I was sure of it. The words weren’t hers. They couldn’t have been.

I looked around at who she might be talking to but found no one but us and the mound of earth that pulsated and throbbed with vines, threatening to steal Koen from our grasp. There wasn’t even a flicker of spirit, but her eyes weren’t focused on any thing in the cellar. She was staring directly into the vines.

“What are you doing?” Wes spat out, never taking his attention away from freeing Koen .

“The Manor doesn’t want him, it doesn't want any of you.” she said, her voice steady and even. She seemed devoid of emotion, almost in a trance like she had been on the day of the storm. She had been slipping away so much lately, descending into the darkness of her mind. Now it seemed It had finally taken over her completely.

“Florence?” I watched her circle us and kneel at the base of the mound. Her knees sank into the mixed pool of blood and dirt. Her eyes were glassed over, as she stared into the distance and seemed to wait.

Her chest filled with air and as she exhaled, her body fell, and relaxed against the cold dirt floor like she was being commanded to sleep. Wes flinched when she slumped to the side but I put my hand out.

“Don’t touch her,” I said quietly, unsure what would happen if we interrupted the moment between her and the Manor.

Florence was so still, her cheek smeared with dirt and blood as her cold, distant gaze closed over, and she was pulled away into the darkness that called to her from the other side. I could feel tears hot against my cheeks.

The question hung between us as we worked at the vines until finally, after a long moment, Wes opened his mouth.

“Is she—” Wes stumbled over his words, but we didn’t have time to wonder whether or not she was. I didn’t want to know. I couldn’t bear it.

The vines dissipated, and almost immediately they opened and pulled back from Koen, releasing him from the twisted, thorny prison. Wes sobbed when he saw him, reaching out and gripped him from under his arms. Koen’s entire frame was limp and covered in hundreds of painful gashes. He slipped roughly into Wes’s lap .

“Move,” I said, not giving Wes a second of relief as the vines started to move against the dirt, writhing and twisting with sloppy, wet noises as they extended and grew. “Wes, move !” I said again with more urgency, jumping up from my spot and hauling him backward with my hands beneath his arms as he gripped tightly to Koen’s unconscious body.

Koen startled to life, his hands clawing at Wes’s arms to ground himself in reality, his heart no doubt beating far too fast as he gasped for air.

“You’re alright,” Wes calmed him as we watched the vines grow alarmingly fast. “We need to get out of here. Can you carry her?” He asked me, and I nodded. “Good. Move your ass, we can't stay here.”

I acted quickly but when I tried to reach her I was shoved backward against the brick wall, the air knocked from my lungs. Wes stopped at the base of the stairs and Koen pulled in his arms, fighting to stay.

“Get him out of here!” I pushed what air was left out of my body to yell over the sound of the rotating vines in the dirt.

Wes nodded and assured me, “I’ll come right back!”

He struggled under Koen’s weight but eventually got him up the stairs. He disappeared from my view as I tried again to reach her, but there was no way around the barrier between us.

I sank to my knees, creeping against it as closely as possible, and pressed my fingertips against the violent energy radiating from it. It stung my skin but didn’t lash out at me as I lowered my head even with her closed eyes, cheek pressed to the ground.

“Florence,” I whispered to her as the wind in the cellar started to whip harder. “ Love ,” I pleaded, holding the shake in my voice at bay. She never stirred .

“You have to get up,” I urged, unable to do much else as the vines continued to wrap their thorns around her body. “You can’t let it have you.”

She belongs here.

A chilly thought spoke in my mind and spread goosebumps across my arms.

“She doesn’t,” I fought back, feeling the barrier surge with energy, electricity tickling down my fingertips, but I didn’t move from my spot. “You don’t belong here,” I said to Florence’s unconscious body. “You belong out there with us. Adventures,” I implored her, my throat growing dry, “music, poetry, potential, Freedom. ”

I couldn’t help the tears that streamed down my face as I begged her to wake.

“I’m not leaving this god-forsaken Manor without you, none of us will. I know it feels like we're against you, like you don’t know what’s real and a lie. But we’re real. I’m real. The love I feel for you is so real it’s tearing me apart to see you like this.” I bit my bottom lip to keep from crying out as the vines started to pull her into the mound. It was taking her.

“You thought you didn’t have a choice.” I closed my eyes, unable to watch.

She’s mine.

The sound ripped through me like needles, piercing my muscles as it traveled through me. Was that what Florence heard constantly, what she felt?

She’s mine!

I pushed back on the voice.

“You thought it was you or us, but it doesn't have to be! It can be everyone. We can fight this, but you can’t let it take you.”

It all clicked into place too late.

Orchid Manor was never a spirit. It wasn’t a siren or ghoul. There was no curse that had been placed on it, and it was never a god. It had been exactly as she had been saying since the moment we came here. It was so obscure and yet so simple, we had been dealing with something much more esoteric than I had thought.

It was a Sapient House.

Florence had been right all along.

The answer, now obvious before us.

The house was alive.

Like any sapient creature it was self aware; conscious of its decisions and intelligent in the worst ways. It took pleasure from the damage and carnage it created. It was entirely capable of complex thoughts and emotions, and manipulation was obviously this one’s favorite.

Agatha, for what little we knew of her, must have been just like Florence once. Held captive for who knew how long before the Manor tired of her, then she had lured Florence here as her replacement.

“ One day you will understand why, and I hope that when you have to make the same choice I did, you will forgive me just as I have now forgiven……..”

The words from the letter made sense now. She was also a victim of the Manor and the sick entity had forced her to find her own replacement. But one thing Agatha hadn’t considered in her letter, was that Florence would have never allowed a successor to take her place and be a victim in her stead. She had fought so hard to keep us safe.

Orchid Manor had been keeping Florence as a pet and when we stumbled upon the damned place, it was the perfect opportunity to feed its narcissistic cruelty. It had always been about making itself look like the hero, like her savior. We had all been toys, chess pieces to move around the place at its will to cause as much strife and excitement and overwhelming emotions as possible, and one by one we had all become targets as we fell for Florence.

Love had blossomed instantly, and the Manor had been threatened.

It’s plan went awry when we didn’t harm her like it had expected.

That’s why Florence had become sick. The Manor flooded her with hatred. It wanted her alone and scared, so she turned back to it, back where the Manor believed she belonged.

“You don’t belong here, Florence,” I said, my heart in pieces, knowing it was truly too late, and we were unable to save her.

Orchid Manor was determined to prove me wrong as it wrapped her in vines and hugged her tightly into its earth. And there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it besides lay there with her as it took her.

Tears rolled down my face as her eyes fluttered open, her face framed by vines and blossoming flowers that made her look painfully delicate in her final moments. Auburn hair tangled with greens and pinks, dancing against her pale skin—a horribly poetic enclosure, for the most beautiful of wildflowers.

“I’m sorry,” I said, not knowing what else I could do.

There wasn’t a book in the world that could help me now, not a weapon strong enough to break through and bring her close to me. The cruelest of punishments was the last. Watching her die mere inches from me without a single thing I could do to stop it. Having her sacrifice herself for us, to die in the cage she so desperately wanted to be free from. Her worst nightmare for our freedom.

“I feel it all,” she whispered, a small smile lifting the corner of her mouth. It struck me, a clean shot through my heart as she made peace with what was happening. There it was, complete confirmation. This beautiful, courageous woman, who’d had her life stripped from her by unimaginable circumstances- sacrificed herself to save us.

I beat my fists against the barrier, my heart screaming for her as the pain cascaded through my muscles. She didn’t want this.

“I felt it all, too.” I dropped back to her, catching one last glimpse of her big, emerald eyes before the vines swallowed her whole, and she was consumed by the Manor.