Lucy was torn up and bits of her skeleton shown through her white dress. Amber had no eyes and a large scar strained across her neck. Allen had stab wounds in his heart. They entered the room and fell against the wall. The phantoms appeared to turn to stone and they stayed on the wall. More families came down the hallway, more victims of the witch. With every family, there was a wife with no eyes and a child who had been brutally killed. The husbands had almost no marks except a small wound on their chest or heart.
Dozens of families passed by and turned to stone on the wall. Jane's fear transformed into a deep anger. She turned back, but Annabelle was gone. She looked back down the hallway and saw Annabelle with an older man; she was helping him down the hall. He was a blind man; he couldn't find his way to the hall from the room, which had now vanished into the molded wood of the wall.
Annabelle had his hand and walked him towards the room. "Come on, it's not too far now." She said reassuringly. The man must have been her father. She looked just like him. "Will you be coming with me, Annabelle?" The man's voice was deep, and oddly calming. "I will be soon; I must take care of something first." The man nodded and entered the room alone. He held out his hands and found an empty spot on the wall. He turned around and, just as the others had, turned to stone. There was a place beside him for Annabelle. His hand was held out a little for her to grasp.
A tear slid down Annabelle's cheek as she turned back to Jane. "Come." She said and she traveled down the hallway, towards the vanished door. She stopped where the door was and pointed down. There was a small wooded trapdoor with an eighteenth century handle. Jane reached down to pull the grip but Annabelle stopped her hand. "Not yet, you must wait until the stroke of midnight to venture into the cellar." An antique grandfather clock appeared across the hall from the hatch. It read 11:55.
Jane didn't have a weapon to kill the woman with so she stood there, watching the clock and fidgeting with her hands. Annabelle stared at the clock with her watching the pendulum move and listening to the clock gears tick. She pointed to the clock and said, "Open the door and look behind the pendulum."
Jane walked up to the clock and looked up at the face; she only had two minutes left. She sighed and opened the small door. Behind the swinging weight she saw a silver flash. There was a steel sword leaning on the back of the clack wall. She took it out and, with the impression of her grasp, the sword became a dagger.
She turned and saw Annabelle moving towards the door. She was going to join her father. Jane took in a deep breath and reached for the handle. She was shaking, but her anger overpowered her fear until there was nothing but the hatred for the woman lying behind the wooden entrance.
The clock stroke midnight and the house shook with every crash of the ringing. Jane opened the hatch and cold air rushed towards her and blew the hair away from her empty eyes. Her anger rose to her throat as she walked down the decaying stairs to what could be her death.
As she reached the bottom of the stairs, she saw a small chain hanging from the ceiling in the darkness. She pulled the chain and light appeared from the middle of the room. She saw an old woman sitting in the middle of the room, her eyes closed and her feet converting to ash.
The woman looked up, her old voice echoing through the room. "I see that Allen succeeded in his attempt. Well his project won't live long." She was trying to simulate fear. There was nothing she could do to her. She wasn't strong enough to cast a spell or curse, she is too withered and helpless to get up and fight, this woman wasn't strong enough for anything.
Jane took a step forward and felt pressure on her chest. A light push held her back and kept her from the old woman. Her brow furrowed, she was unable to kill the witch and free herself and the many others from the accursed house of horrors which they had all been lured to.
Jane took a strained step forward and her leg, surrounded in blue light, passed through the weak red barrier. This barrier was the only thing protecting the witch from the death which she deserved.
Jane strained to take another step before the barrier became stronger and pushed her back out. She looked up at the old woman and was surprised at what she was seeing. The woman was not moving nor speaking, she just sat there staring at Jane with her big sorrowful eyes.
The woman finally spoke again, "You may kill me if you wish, but the spell will not be broken. You have been betrayed and forsaken here to be drained of power. You must leave this place before you wither away like I am."
Jane stood there, wondering who to believe. Annabelle had tried, and successfully managed, to kill Lucy. The old woman had killed all of those families. Annabelle manipulated her and used her to complete the task the old woman gave her. Who was she to believe?
Jane's anger throve and she held out the small sword and pointed to the stairs. "You killed all of those people. How am I supposed to believe you?" The woman sighed, "Those people were killed by my daughter. I regret teaching her the craft. Only one of the people up there had I meant to kill, and that was her father. He was leaving me. I was young then, and I thought with my ignorant mind that I would never find anyone like him again. I was right but, I was eternally damned for my wrong use of the ability."
Jane lowered the sword back to her side and she considered the theory. If this was true then Annabelle wouldn't be in that room with her blind father. She said the blindness curse was supposed wear off after death, it was still working. Annabelle was being kept alive by another spell. Or was she still alive? How was she supposed to know it wasn't both of them working this magic?
