“I need to know,” Douglas said, kissing the top of Carolyn’s head. “Do you love me? Do you love me the way I love you?”

Carolyn once again lifted her face to look him in the eyes.

“Yes,” she said. “Yes, Douglas, I love you.”

They kissed, just as Uncle Howie rapped on the door.

“It’s time,” the old man said, peering inside.

“Yes, okay,” Douglas replied.

“I love you,” Carolyn said again. She wouldn’t move. She just stood there clinging to Douglas.

“I need to go,” he whispered gently.

“I love you,” she said again, as if only now realizing it fully. “I love you! And you love me!”

He gently caressed her cheek with his hand.

Carolyn’s eyes lit up. “That’s it! That’s what she was trying to tell me!”

“Beatrice? Trying to tell you what?”

Uncle Howie stood in the doorway. “We must hurry,” he said.

Carolyn was in a state of agitation. “Love! That’s what it was all about for Beatrice! Remember when Kip recorded her… She was saying ‘love’ over and over again. That’s why she didn’t let Jeanette die! Because she understands a woman’s love! And Jeanette loved Michael!”

Howard Young stood in the doorway, his face hard. “You make no sense, Carolyn. All I know is that it’s time. If we delay, we risk far worse.”

“Listen to me!” Carolyn cried, tugging even more aggressively at Douglas’s shirt. “What will save you more than that amulet is the fact that we are in love! I believe now that Beatrice was a woman in love. Remember what Harry Noons said. She told Clem she wouldn’t marry him because there was someone else. She’s carried that love with her beyond the grave.”

“This is nonsense!” Uncle Howie shouted. “Come along, Douglas! We must go downstairs now!”

“Yes,” Carolyn said, releasing her grip on Douglas’s shirt. “It’s time that Douglas went into the room.” She paused, looking from the old man back to Douglas. “And I am going in with him.”

Chapter Twenty-five

“That is impossible!” Howard Young declared.

Carolyn eyed him fiercely. “There was never any instruction that forbade a non-family member from entering the room, was there?”

The old man struggled for words. “Nothing was ever written. My father had a dream in which he was told to inaugurate a lottery. It was the only way, he was told, to prevent a full-scale slaughter of the family. We would have to sacrifice one a decade so that the rest of us might live.”

“You’ve never revealed that detail before,” Douglas observed.

“What did it matter? All I’ve cared about is finding a way to end this curse.”

“Who gave him the instruction?” Carolyn asked. “Who appeared to him in the dream?”

“He never told us.”

“But whoever it was, there was no prohibition of a non-family member accompanying a family member into the room?” Carolyn asked.

Douglas suddenly gripped her forearm. “No, Carolyn,” he said. “I can’t allow you to go into the room with me.”

“I’m not in any danger,” she assured him. “Never has a non-family member been killed in the whole eighty years of the lottery. And I believe Beatrice’s appearance to me the other night was her assurance that she would protect me.”

“The way she protected Jeanette?” Douglas shook his head. “That’s not very reassuring.”

“It will be different this time.” She looked him straight in the eye. “Because we’ll be together. Together we will be able to fight off the force in the room.” She gave him a smile. “It’s all about love. Beatrice has told us that. She’s made it very plain.”

“No,” Douglas said.

“Do you think I would risk doing this if I truly believed we wouldn’t survive? You know I would never leave my sister Andrea willingly. She’d be lost without me. You know that, Douglas. I wouldn’t leave her alone in this world. So I must honestly believe that I will survive that room-and that the only way you can survive as well is if I accompany you.”

“We can’t afford to argue any longer,” Howard Young said. “It’s after midnight, the time when the room has always been entered. Who knows if we’ve already breached the rules too much? Douglas, whether it’s you alone or with Carolyn, you must go downstairs now!”

“Trust me,” Carolyn said, her eyes imploring Douglas.

Douglas hesitated for a moment, then grabbed her hand. Mr. Young stepped aside as they hurried out of the parlor and across the foyer, heading for the door to the basement.

“May God protect you both,” the old man said as they passed.

There was no time for any further good-byes. Down the stairs they rushed. Carolyn only had time to pick up a flashlight from one of the shelves. The door was open, waiting for them. Mr. Young would be downstairs momentarily after them to lock it.

They entered the room.

It looked just as it had the other day, except that every once in a while lightning flashed from the small window, illuminating the room.

“What do we do?” Douglas asked.

She gave him a small smile. “I suppose we just sit on the couch and wait.”

Douglas brought his hands together in a prayerful gesture, his fingertips touching his lips. “So many people have died here,” he said. “So many people have stood where we stand now, with the same kind of terror.”

They heard a small click. Uncle Howie was turning the key in the lock, sealing them in there for the night.

“Why would he never tell us about his father and the dream he had?” Douglas asked. “Why withhold so much about how the lottery started?”

Carolyn took a seat on the couch. “I’m not sure,” she said. “It’s as if he’s felt the fewer details known by the family, the better.”

Douglas sat beside her. “And so decade after decade we’ve trooped in here to die, without ever knowing why.”

“Your cousin Paula said it was like mindless sheep being herded to slaughter.”

Douglas looked at her with determination.

“Well, we’re not sheep,” he said, taking her hand. “We will walk out of this room in the morning.”

Carolyn nodded. She believed that. She honestly did.

Then why was she still so terrified?

They sat in silence. She was aware of their breathing. How long before something happened? They had no idea of the sequence of events in this room. Everyone who had ever been selected by the lottery was dead-except for Jeanette, and her voice had been silenced, apparently forever. They might have to wait all night. Perhaps nothing happened until it was close to morning. Perhaps there was no rhyme or reason at all.

“When we get out of here,” Douglas said at last, “I want to marry you.”

Carolyn just gripped his hand.

Outside the thunderstorm raged. The small lamp that sat beside the couch sputtered and died. They’d lost power. Carolyn switched on the flashlight that she held in her lap. A column of white light shot straight up toward the ceiling.

Only then did they hear the scratching.

“What is it?” Douglas whispered.

“It might only be a mouse,” Carolyn whispered back.

But it grew louder. Where it was coming from, they couldn’t be sure. Scratch, scratch, scratch. They drew closer to each other on the couch.

“Why don’t you just show your face?” Douglas finally said out loud. “Reveal who you are.”

But only scratching was heard in return. Louder and louder.

Then a flash of lighting lit up the room. In that brief instant, Carolyn saw a face.

“Dear God,” she gasped.

It was the face of a baby. Looking exactly like the face in Dean’s photograph.

The baby was crying.

Now its shrieks replaced the scratching. Low at first, then high-pitched. It seemed as if the baby were everywhere in the room. Its cries came at them from every corner.

“The poor child,” Carolyn said. “Whatever force controls this room controls that baby’s spirit. Refuses to let it find peace.”

“Whoever murdered Beatrice must have murdered the baby, too,” Douglas said. “What if that was the way it happened? What if the baby was murdered too, and my family never found it a home?”