Witnessing such a display of paternal solicitude, Howard felt a deep, burning shame for what he had done to his own son.

My own son, he thought to himself, the full dismay of the night before hitting him. I killed my own son.

Desmond kissed his wife and made his way down to the basement. Once more, sleep eluded the family. Howard fretted. He was downstairs at daybreak. He and Douglas opened the door. There was the family patriarch, his body spread out on the floor, arms and legs extended in an X. All except one part of his body: his head, which lay on the other side of the room. The pitchfork that they thought had been replaced in the barn was stuck through his neck and into the floor, standing straight above him like an exclamation point. Clem walked the earth once more, doing Beatrice’s bidding. Once again, the floor of the room was covered in blood.

But that wasn’t the worst of it.

Douglas’s wife was screaming from upstairs. Rushing back, they discovered Douglas’s infant daughter Cynthia dead in her crib, her neck broken just like baby Malcolm’s. Down the hall, more horror awaited. Throwing open the doors to his brothers’ rooms, Howard found thirteen-year-old Timothy and sixteen-year-old Jacob smothered in their beds. Letting out a long wail, he fell to his knees.

He knew then that his curse was never to be selected in the lottery. Instead, he would live out his days watching his family die, one by one. And he knew he deserved such a fate. Rocking back and forth on the floor, keening like a madman, he knew he deserved all of this and much worse.

For the next eighty years, much worse was to come.

THE PRESENT

Chapter Thirty-eight

“It never stopped,” the old man said through his tears. “The horror just continued. All of us were ruined. My mother took her own life a few years later. My sister turned into a bitter recluse. One by one, the rest of my brothers died in that room, and then their sons, too. And I watched it all.”

Carolyn looked down at Howard Young with a mixture of revulsion and pity. But for Douglas, there was nothing but contempt in his voice.

“You killed her! You killed your own son!” he shouted. “And all for what?”

The old man looked up at him pathetically. “She gave me what I thought I wanted. She removed my brothers for me. Beatrice ensured that it would be me who became master of this house.”

Douglas turned away in utter disgust.

It was Jeanette’s turn to speak. “Uncle Howard, your actions that night…they cost my father and my brothers their lives. And consigned me to forty years of a silent, terrible prison.”

The old man just sat there sobbing, his frail frame convulsing.

“You are beneath contempt,” Jeanette said, turning away.

“I tried to end it,” he protested. “For eighty years I looked for a way. I hired so many to come here and try to cast Beatrice out of that room…”

“You hoped that the curse could be ended without ever implicating you in your part in it all,” Carolyn said. “That’s why you withheld so many details. That’s why you fired Dr. Fifer.”

The old man nodded. “The birth records had been opened finally, and he found the entry for Malcolm. Unbeknownst to us, Beatrice had told the midwife the name of her baby’s father, and the midwife included it on the certificate. It was Beatrice’s way of holding power over me. We never knew, because the birth records were sealed. But when they were opened, and Fifer got a copy and confronted me, I had to let him go. I couldn’t risk the family blaming me. Their love and respect was all I had.”

“But you could risk my father going into that room ten years later!” Douglas shouted.

“Oh, my little hoodlum. Fifer had discovered the identity of Malcolm, but had uncovered no strategy to end the curse of that room. Even if I had allowed him to stay on, he wouldn’t have been able to end the lottery.”

“But you can’t really know that,” Carolyn objected, “since you terminated him before he could finish his investigation.”

Howard Young looked at her, his yellow eyes imploring her to understand. “All I had left was the love and respect of my family!” he cried. “Can’t you see that, Carolyn? You must understand. Beatrice’s revenge was not just in taking away my brothers and their children. It ensured that I would be alone all my life. Never again was I to know the love of a woman. Never would I have the chance again to have children. I was destined to live my life alone here in this lonely house.”

“And become a fabulously wealthy man,” Douglas interjected, “while everyone else around you was killed off.”

“Beatrice’s punishment was giving me exactly what I said I wanted,” Howard Young said. “Believe me, if I could have exchanged that wealth for the life of just one of my family members, I would have.”

“How easily you can say that now,” Jeanette said. Michael put his arm around her shoulder, casting a glance filled with contempt at the old man.

“But my role in all this doesn’t help solve the problem!” Howard insisted. “I tell you now because I am old, and I can no longer keep it inside. But still the killings go on.”

Carolyn considered this. “Mr. Young, you believe that it was Beatrice who controlled that room in the beginning, who orchestrated the deaths. You called it her revenge.”

“As it was,” he said.

“So when Kip Hobart freed her spirit, allowed her to finally rest in peace, it was her son who took up the cause, so to speak,” Carolyn said.

The old man nodded. “Malcolm had seventy years to watch his mother at work. Now he is alone in that room.”

“And like any baby, frightened without his mother,” Jeanette added.

Carolyn was nodding. “We even took Clem away,” she said. “He’s all alone. And having a tantrum.”

“So how can we possibly reason with that?” Howard Young asked.

Carolyn looked at him. “We don’t need to reason with him. We just need to give him what he wants.”

“And what’s that?” Douglas asks.

“His mother,” Carolyn said plainly.

“Beatrice,” Howard said, his eyes flickering up to look at Carolyn with what she thought was perhaps a glimmer of hope. “But would she…help us?”

“She already has been helping us,” Carolyn said. “Mr. Young, even after all that has happened, she still loves you. That was clear from the recording Kip made. Yes, she sought revenge on you, but like all lovers scorned, the passion she felt was fueled by her love.”

“So now that she’s found peace,” Douglas asked, “she wants to help us? To end the vendetta she carried on so long against us?”

Carolyn nodded. “Yes, but it’s more simple than that. She’s helping us because she wants us to help her.”

“How can we help her?” Jeanette asked.

“By giving her back her baby,” Carolyn said. “Beatrice and Malcolm both want the same thing. They’re just going about it in different ways.”

“But how can we possibly do what she wants?” Howard asked.

“We can’t,” Carolyn said, looking directly at him. “But you can.”

He had no time to respond. Outside the room, Ryan’s screams had grown only louder. Now there came a terrifying crash. The young man was begging someone to stay away from him.

“David’s back,” Carolyn said. “And he’ll kill Ryan and then come for us.”

“I’ll go out there,” Douglas volunteered. “If I can get in some shots at him, it will at least slow him down and give us more time.”

Carolyn held his gaze for a moment. She knew it was likely that the killings weren’t over yet, that probably more of them would still die before they had a chance to reunite Beatrice and Malcolm. And in her gut she felt a terrible sensation that one of those who would die would be Douglas.

“Be careful!” she cried as Douglas turned and left the room. “Please be careful!”