Between The Fences

5. The Black House

Cassidy was awakened by the sound of choking and retching. The odor of sulfur was pungent in the air, and as she looked bleary-eyed to the corner where Frankie was emptying her stomach, her own belly began to rumble a protest. She sat up slowly and noticed a door to her right. It was obvious that it was the front door to the Black House, and through the border windows the sunshine was a deep red hue, like blood. Nearly everything around her appeared as though it was part of an old black and white television show. The red light from outside only lit a select few items in the house, like the door trim and molding and the joints in the hardwood floor on which they sat. Frankie, still dry heaving, sat next to another door in the room. It was shut, and the contents of it were hidden from them. Above them was a low ceiling, but it was only about three or four feet wide, indicating a second floor walkway beneath the second floor ceiling. The girls were in a foyer.

Only a triangular part of the foyer could they see, however, as the rest was blocked by a shimmering wall, much the same as the shimmering border Cass witnessed before the Boogeyman dragged her through to this place. As she stared at the shimmering wall, the contents of her own stomach could no longer be contained. The red light played off the rippling and undulating of the shimmer, creating images that oozed and flashed and twinkled. It reminded her of the way a chain link fence appeared at one moment right where it should be, then the very next moment was all up in your face. Multiplied by a thousand. Cassidy’s stomach lurched and heaved, projecting her churned lunch and breakfast all over the hardwood. She vomited two more times until she felt better, relatively speaking. It was then that she realized that Frankie had been holding her hair. She helped Cassidy to her feet then gave her a long, hard hug. There were no tears, only silence.

“Cass, where are we?” Her question was accentuated by her trembling tenor. “What is this?”

“It’s the Black House,” Cassidy answered with bated breath. “Just like Grammy said…”

"The Black House? What do you mean, Cass? Where the hell are we?" Frankie's voice continued to tremble, and Cassidy could see the girl's fear rising towards hysteria.

Well, here goes nothin', she thought. She had never told anybody about the terrors she suffered at the hands of the night monsters, the childhood nightmares that prevented most kids from falling asleep at night for at least some of their younger years. For Cassidy, they had all been more than just figments of her imagination. They had been real... were real. And now she was in their world with her best friend. An awkward place to divulge a secret, but, at the least, there should be no skepticism from Frankie.

"Do you believe in the Boogeyman?"

The skepticism that Cass had hoped would not be there appeared immediately on Frankie's face. Her brow furrowed, her eyes widened, and an indignant smile spread across her face. "Not since I was six. What does this have to do with-"

Cassidy cut her off before she could finish. "They're real, Frankie. Trolls, the black-eyed children, leprechauns..." She shook her head back and forth as she spoke, trying to keep the tears away. "The Boogeyman. Frankie, they're all real. They've attacked me more times than I can count. They always seem to do it when I have to go to the bathroom. Then they attack me. They are the reason why I have a bedwetting problem, Frankie! They won't let me go!"

Even in this place, Frankie's skepticism held on. "Cass, for real... just tell me what the hell is going on. Are your parents witches, or something? Where is your backyard?"

But Cassidy held onto her best friend and pulled her close. "Witches, Frankie? How could I possibly hide that? This has nothing to do with my parents! Look around you! This is their home, Frankie! Who do you think pulled us through that whatever it was between the fences?"

As if timed for dramatic effect, the girls screamed as the Boogeyman let out one of its growls, low and long and terrifying. They turned their heads to the shimmering wall, instant nausea attacking both of them as the red light danced and undulated across the surface. Like a ripple in a pond, the shimmer formed concentric waves a moment before the black-skinned hand appeared. But then it was followed by a black-skinned arm. A foot... a knee... a shoulder... and a snout full of short, razor sharp teeth. Frankie screamed again when she saw its eyes. Even in the red sunlight, the piercing red of its eyes was terrifying. Frankie screamed again.

Somewhere inside of her, Cassidy found an area of calm. In the calm, she was capable of rational thought. And her first rational thought was a memory of watching an old 80s horror movie with her father. Mom had gone out with friends that night to celebrate a birthday and have a "girls' night". Dad decided that was a great time to introduce his daughter to the wonders of 40 year old horror cinema. One thing that Cassidy noticed, without much studious effort, was that there was always one girl in the film that would do nothing but scream. In the film she was currently cast in, where the protagonists have to face down the terrible monsters of the night, Frankie was that one girl who did nothing but scream. Who could blame her, though, honestly? How would you react if you came face-to-face with your childhood nightmares?

For the first time, Cass was able to see the full majesty of the Boogeyman. From its lupine facial features to its talon-tipped toes, the beast stood nearly nine feet tall, despite its natural hunch. Its arms appeared too long, making her think of a gorilla. But its muscles bulged like a bodybuilder. The black skin covered the whole of its form with not a single hair to be seen. Nothing was visible between the legs of its naked form. It truly was an it.

Cass felt Frankie’s hand clench her own. The sensation was close to pain, but it was more of a trance breaker. Following swiftly behind the Boogeyman came three of the black-eyed children. So perfect did they appear that the black of their eyes was the centerpiece of their beings. With such platinum blonde hair, one would expect them to have sky blue eyes, the perfect representation of the Nordic ethnicity. Their clothes reminded her of photos she’d seen of European schoolchildren from the mid-20th century. A menace they carried with them, older folks would think that these kids would make Hitler proud of their demeanor.

Though the black-eyed children clearly walked to where the girls now stood, it seemed more as though they glided. One came to stand before Frankie, another behind her, and the third stood to Frankie’s left. Without a word, the one before her reached out and gently cupped the girls’ clasped hands in its own. Its touch was ice cold. And Cassidy’s mind said ‘it’ because to look at any of the three preteen children, she couldn’t discern whether any of them were actually boys or girls. Cass turned to look at Frankie, who was screaming once again.

“Cass! Cassidy! Cass-I-Dee! What is it doing?!” Frankie was yelling at the top of her lungs, Cass knew that just by watching. But it was like she was hearing it through cotton-stuffed ears, or those noise-blocking headsets you’re made to wear when taking a hearing test.

The chill of the child’s touch rippled through her like an echo in a gymnasium. It raised their hands in its own then bent its head toward Frankie. There was no resistance as Cass’s hand fell away. The child to Frankie’s left took her hand in its own, and the one behind her placed its hands gently on her shoulders. The quiet screams continued as they led her best friend toward the shimmering wall. It was clear what Frankie was screaming, make it stop! Make it stop! The calm part of Cassidy took hold again, but was unable to move or speak, only to think.

The maggots are in her brain. I’m so sorry, Frankie. I will find you, I promise. She didn’t know how, nor when, she’d be able to get to Frankie. Nor did she quite know how she’d escape the Boogeyman, but she had to try. Where are you Sandman? You’re supposed to help me. Her hand slipped unfeeling to the skirt pocket in which the tin of sand remained.

Though all Cass heard was a low, rumbling growl, the Boogeyman’s thought broke through her mental wall like a wrecking ball.

‘He cannot help you, now,’ the voice tremored inside her head. ‘This place belongs to Osiris. All here serve him.’

Hearing its voice in her head paralyzed her with fear. Even the rational part of her mind threatened retreat. Only the curiosity about what the creature said kept it hanging around.

‘Osiris? Isn’t he an Egyptian god?’ she thought in reply.

‘It is the god of this place,” the final word dragged out in a long hiss. ‘Osiris is charged with eradicating your kind, the scourge of the Great Master.’

‘Great Master?’

Its head tilted slightly to one side, making its lupine features more like a curious dog that hears a strange sound. There was no cuteness to this motion, however, only a violent menace.

‘The one who shall rule all of Creation,’ she heard the Boogeyman think. The tenor of the thought felt victorious.

Cassidy had no idea what was going on. Facing the nightmare beasts was one thing, but a demigod doing the bidding of some other god in targeting those of her “kind” was beyond her. The courage she felt through the rational part of her brain was quickly slipping away. She thought, maybe, that she’d be able to survive, but those odds seemed to be diminishing with each passing moment. Then she felt the vice-like grip of the Boogeyman’s hand around her throat. It didn’t cut off her flow of air, but the pain was keen. She tried to scream once again, but nothing would come out.

‘There is no escape, little one.’

‘Grammy escaped…’ Cass had hope that the thought remained in her own head, but the resounding laughter emanating from her captor, audible only as more, low rumbling, proved her false.

‘The dowager wench escaped me by mere chance. Osiris had not yet graced our presence when I took her.’

The only thought the creature heard for a response was a groan and a whimper. It lifted Cassidy off the floor and brought her close. Hot breath wreaking of death and decay swirled with the already sickening odor of the sulfur in the room. It was the olfactory equivalent of watching the shimmer of the wall behind it. Cass’s belly convulsed, but nothing came out because of the hand around her neck. Then the shimmering wall came closer as the creature led her to whatever lay beyond it. She thought of Frankie’s terror as the black-eyed children led her through the wall.

‘Don’t hurt her, she’s innocent,’ the thought came before she realized it.

Only the sound of the Boogeyman’s laughter came in response.

6. Torment and Sand

Going through the shimmer was a dive through bitter cold water combined with full-body pins and needles. It was exquisite and excruciating pain that lasted only an infinite moment. Cassidy didn’t have any idea of what to expect on the other side of the shimmer, and she felt almost let down (even in the face of being a near catatonic prisoner in a strange house to a childhood creature of nightmares) that it was a continuation of the space she left. Black and white with red-lit highlights. She strained her eyes to take it all in and remember it. The staircase to the right that led to the upper floors. The entryway to the dining room just in front the staircase. Upon the table were the remains of a meal that would never be finished, covered in delightful layers of mold, fungus, and dust. All of the doors on the second floor that opened onto the walkway were closed.

The Boogeyman spun around after bringing Cassidy through the shimmer, sending her view into a complete one-eighty. It prevented her from seeing where she was being taken, but she continued to memorize what she saw.

‘No good will it do you, girl,’ came the beast’s words in her head. ‘You shall never see this again.’ The message was as clear as the stars on a moonless night in the middle of the desert.

Keeping her focus on her surroundings, Cassidy was mildly repulsed by a kitchen that was in worse shape than the dining room. There was food covered in the same spores, molds, and dust, but there were also two skeletons in the last stages of decay, their bones still “juicy”. A short hall later and she was back in the dining room, they had walked in a near circle. Before the Boogeyman did an about-face to let her know she was in the dining room, she saw what it was turning to face. It was a doorway without a door, the staircase to the basement. The flickering light from below must’ve come from torches.

In a minor and instant psychotic break, Cass laughed at the thought that she was being taken to a dungeon. The Boogeyman growled as it spun to face the doorway. It pulled her close and she could see the black skin up close. She was reminded of a video she stumbled upon on TikTok of a man prancing around erotically in a matte black rubber suit. But beneath this black was muscular terror, though, not an emotionally challenged man struggling with his sexuality. Then the world jumped up, and she was seeing the dining room from a perspective just above floor level. The beast had jumped into the basement.

No stairs, she thought. There was no response from the Boogeyman. Cass’s mind had the TikTok video on repeat as she thought it. Interesting. Still no response. You can’t hear me, can you, you ugly, horrible, smelly whore beast? The Boogeyman kept walking. She kept the video on repeat. Here goes nothin’… Sand-

Her thoughts were cut off as she felt her body accelerate and stop immediately. Head bouncing off the metal table she landed on, Cass’s breath was slammed out of her with a grunt-scream. The terror had returned a hundredfold. She felt her bladder let loose, but that was the least of it. She was paralyzed with fear, making the Boogeyman realize that he didn’t even have to strap her down. She watched as the creature lowered a device and hooked it to the sides of the table. It was nothing more than a thin bar with bearings on either end. The end to her right had a handle, letting her know that the device was meant to be turned like a rotisserie. In the center of the bar were spikes that went around the circumference. As her terror went into overdrive, Cass finally noticed the screams coming from the direction her head was pointed. The paralysis still had her, so she couldn’t crane her neck to see what was happening. But she knew it was Frankie, and she could only imagine what the black-eyed children were putting her through.

‘I’m sorry, Frankie,’ she thought.

‘Sorrow is everlasting, child,’ came the monster’s thought. And this time even its real world growl sounded like its thought-laughter.

Its face was now hidden in the shadows above the light that shined down on the torture table. She watched in sheer panic, though, as the black hand came into the light and, with its index finger, penetrated the skin just beneath her left rib. The pain was indescribable. Then it got worse as the beast pulled a loop of her small intestine out of the puncture. It pinched the organ between its finger and thumb and used its long fingernail to sever it. Bile and blood oozed from the open end as the Boogeyman pulled it up to the spikes on the rod. Cassidy’s screams were deafening as the spikes pierced the end of her intestine and the black hand began turning the handle. She was being disemboweled.

I've been there... And I never want to go back. That's what Grandma had said to her almost a lifetime ago. The memory was still, after all of these years, too much for her to take. Through her terror and pain, Cassidy understood why. But the regret of not pressing her grandmother to learn how she escaped hung in the air like a noose. She was having her innards removed. How was she supposed to survive this? Terror, pain, regret, sorrow, and sadness, all at once flowed through an eleven year old girl being disemboweled by a monster. It's too much, she thought. I can't do this anymore. Cassidy laid her head back and let the emotions drown her like a tidal wave. The growl-laugh of the Boogeyman mingled in her ears with the screams of her best friend, Francesca DiRomano, who was an innocent caught up in a surreal situation over concern for her friend. Here, Cass mused, they would both die.

She closed her eyes and let her mind wander. Would her parents hold a funeral? After all, they'd have no body. A picture formed in her mind of her parents standing over an empty casket, ready to go in the ground, as a priest recited a poetic benediction in Latin. The rest of her family was there, too, tears streaming down their faces. Her mind's eye settled on the old woman in the wheelchair, Mother Grassly. Cass saw the old woman sitting stone-faced. No tears. Only defiance. Had her trek in Black House hardened her so much that she couldn't even cry for her granddaughter? Cass even thought that she looked angry. Was she pissed off because Cass failed where she had succeeded? The shock was only mild for Cassidy, as this moment hadn't even happened yet. Besides, she'd be dead when it did. Why should she care?

Then she saw her parents in the premonition. It broke her heart. She knew that her mother would never speak to Grandma again. Cass was perceptive enough to catch the expression on Mom's face as she approached the doorway after the conversation with Grandma and Conall. She would blame Grandma for her daughter's death, despite the fact that there was no body to conclusively tell them what had happened. Cassidy didn't know if her mother would be indignant enough to wish for her mother's death and celebrate the day it happened. But again, Cass would be dead and have no earthly cares.

As the Boogeyman continued pulling her intestine from her body, a single tear rolled down Cassidy's cheek for her father. She was a daddy's girl, through and through. Her death would not only break her father's heart, but it could break his mind, too. Her mind's eye watched him as the priest spoke. His face was red with the struggle of holding back sobs of sadness. She could almost see all of the emotions that she was currently going through being held back inside of him.

Cass was tired of the sorrow. She shut her mind's eye to the funeral that lay ahead for her family and went back to what had given her some distracted comfort before being slammed down on a torture table. This time, her mind's eye opened onto the TikTok video of the man in the black rubber suit. May as well die laughing, right? And indeed, a little chuckle escaped her lips as she lay dying on the torture table. But something happened then that she did not expect.

As the man in the video was gyrating like an epileptic belly dancer, in the mirror behind him Cassidy saw the blurry form of a man in a blue overcoat.

Sandman?

'Yes, Cassidy!' His thought-voice was tender and calming. 'I'm here.'

'You have to help me! How do I get out of here? I don't wanna die!' She saw the blurry figure in the mirror bow its head slightly in acknowledgment.

'I know you don't, little one. And you're not going to!' The encouragement felt good to her, and it set a little crack in the wall of sorrow and sadness that had built up around her since her torture began.

'What do I do?'

'First, you must realize that what's happening to you isn't real!'

Not real! The image of the Sandman in the mirror and the TikTok video slipped from her mind. ‘Not real!’

She felt the glare of the Boogeyman shift at the thought. Cassidy lifted her head and stared again at her intestine being slowly wound around the torture device. The pain hit her like a ton of bricks and her scream was blood-curdling.

‘It’s as real as your impending death, little one,’ the Boogeyman responded.

She could imagine the beast’s snouted mouth making the best sneering smile it was able to. Frankie’s scream joined hers in a crescendo of horror and pain. Sorrow and hopelessness stormed back into her reality. Once again, Cass quieted and laid her back down to await death. The TikTok video returned, as did the Sandman.

‘Your torture is not real, Cassidy! Stay with me!’ Sandman’s words were urgent.

Cass held the blurry image's gaze, trying to contain her surprise and not slip back into her torture.

‘It can’t hear us, can it?’

‘The creature lives in both worlds,’ Sandman began. ‘Its power derives from being in the real world and harming you through your dream world. The creature has control of your dreams right now. You have to take it back!’

The guy in the rubber suit gyrated through her field of vision as she tried to comprehend what Sandman was explaining to her. Cass kept her focus on her blurry ally, thinking about his words. How do I- Her hand slipped to the tin in her pocket.

‘The sand!’ She hadn’t been this excited since opening her roller skates on Christmas morning. Sure, it was retro to want roller skates and not roller blades, but she fell in love with Roller Derby last summer when her father had her watch reruns during a stormy day. This was so much better than that because it meant that she wasn’t going to die. ‘But how?’

The dancing freak again obstructed her view of the Sandman, but she stayed focused and imagined his blurry form taking on a professorial demeanor. ‘The beast is focused on your dream self, Cass. Split your mind. See the torture and react to it, then use the other half of your mind to get the sand.’

Easy for you to say! The snark she kept to herself. She accomplished this by seeing herself saying it while also focusing on Sandman’s blurry image. Cass’s very next thought was to use that very ability to pull off what the Sandman was asking her to do. She drew into herself as much as she could and closed her eyes. In her mind, she kept the TikTok video playing, then overlaid the image with the torture her dream self was suffering. Brick by brick, at roadrunner speed, Cassidy built the wall between them. Her dream self and her real self were now two separate entities.

Like slowly letting out a leash to give a dog more space to roam, Cassidy gave her dream self some reactive autonomy. The screams frightened her, but she kept her real self focused on the Sandman. It was the weirdest out-of-body experience she’d ever had. Yet, she reached down into her pocket and took the tin of sand in her grasp. The moments passed like ages of the universe as she set the tin down on the table and slowly spun the top off of the tin. Her internal clock told her that she was taking too long. Any moment the Boogeyman would catch on to what she was doing and actually kill her.

Finally, the cap was off and she dipped her fingers into the fine, white sand. Two grains were all she needed. She had no idea what would happen if she used more than one in each eye, and the fear that she may never wake up crossed her mind at the same time the gyrating, rubber-covered moron crossed her thought vision.

Hurry, Cass! When she felt the sand on the tip of her finger, she pushed the open tin under her butt to prevent it from spilling. Taking the time to put the lid back on felt like a waste and a danger. She let the leash out a little further for her dream self and raised the arm of her real self to her eyes. As she placed the first grain, there seemed to be a slight shift in power, and she had to further let out the leash. Then she placed the second grain.

Both her dream self and her real self reached out and touched the leg of the Boogeyman. The creature began to react, but Cassidy was too swift. Dream Cassidy half-rolled to her right and grabbed the hand turning the rod. She noticed that it was only the rod that it was turning. Her intestine was back in her belly and the puncture wound was no longer there. The strength that flowed through her made her feel like a superhero. Dream Cass pulled the Boogeyman fully into the Dream World… her Dream World, and threw it against the basement wall. It let out a roar, but it was one of pain, not threat.

Real Cass suddenly heard Frankie’s screams stop. The black-eyed children! Knowing now that she was lucid dreaming, she chose to take full control. She would become a superhero! Dream Cass jumped off the torture table and turned to face the three demon children, their black eyes wide with fear. She grew herself to adult size and moved at vampire speed to the children surrounding Frankie. Taking her dreaming to the max, she reached out and took each child by the scruff of their neatly ironed shirts. She had each in a separate hand (didn’t you ever dream about having more than two arms?). In one lightning-fast motion, she pulled all three into the dream world and introduced them to the solid basement wall, just as she had the Boogeyman.

‘That’s it, girl!’ the Sandman cried out in encouragement. ‘Now trap them!’

Two more arms appeared at Dream Cass’s side. She also spread bright white angel wings as a shield to the two trolls that were coming up behind her. One of her two new hands picked up the Boogeyman by the neck while it howled in dismay, the other came to rest on the basement wall. As she held the nightmare monsters, the wall began to seethe and writhe like a vat of hot glue. Two more arms appeared and reached under her wings to grab the trolls by their ankles. Then all of the creatures were plunged into the liquid wall. When she released her grips on them, the wall immediately hardened into stone. They were trapped.

Dream Cass turned her back on them and scanned the rest of the basement, waiting for more nightmare monsters to show themselves. Real Cass, still focused on the TikTok video and the Sandman, got up from the table and ran to Frankie. Her friend was awake, but she was scared shitless.

“Frankie!” Cass yelled. “Snap out of it! Frankie!”

Frankie sat up straight, eyes wide and fearful. She slowly turned her head to look at Cassidy, her breathing heavy.

“Cass! What’s happening?”

“I’ll explain it to you later, I promise.” She pulled Frankie off the table and to her feet. “We gotta get the hell out of here.”

The girls held hands as they started towards the basement's exit. Cassidy took a moment to put the lid back on the tin of sand and put it securely in her pocket.

"What was that?" Frankie asked.

"Magic sand," Cass answered.

She didn't go any deeper into it. With the TikTok video still replaying in her mind, she asked the Sandman how they were supposed to get out of the dungeon. 'The stairs are gone. How do we get out?'

'You're in both worlds at once, Cassidy. Cross over.'

It took a moment to understand what the King of the Dream World was implying, but once she got it, it didn't make Cass feel much better.

"Danger, Will Robinson," she said aloud. She had never actually watched a single minute of Lost in Space, it was just another Dadism she learned.

"Who?" Frankie asked.

"Nevermind," Cass said. She was more focused on the danger of doing what the Sandman asked of her.

The girls stopped below the doorway that now stood seven feet above them. As they both looked up at their escape to freedom, Cassidy closed her eyes and released the leash fully on Dream Cass.

"Hold on," she said to Frankie.

The wall that she had built to partition her mind began to crumble. Dream Cass had become something fully out of Real Cass's expectation. She only had to remember that it was still her. The question was if she was powerful enough to stop the power returning to the night monsters. Dream Cass, now appearing as a sort of angel-winged, white fire balrog of Middle Earth, had slaughtered an entire group of the night monsters, and the howls of the Boogeyman and the screams of the black-eyed children continued from their entrapment in the basement wall. The corpses of nearly two dozen other creatures lay at her feet. Trolls, leprechauns, several more black-eyed children, and even two more boogeymen, laid in heaps of body parts and stinking offal. But as the wall in Real Cass's mind broke down, Dream Cass's attention shifted.

With a roar that startled both girls, the balrogette, now visible in the real world, took the two steps over towards the girls. Real Cass was aware of what Dream Cass was seeing, and it was disorienting to say the least. She watched as she was lifted by herself, and watched herself lifting herself. Cassidy realized it would take a long time to come to grips with everything she had experienced in this place. In Dream Cass's peripherals, she saw another leprechaun, with weapon in hand, come charging. With no effort or interruption, the balrogette sprouted an arm and stopped the creature in its tracks. Like a hot knife through butter, a wingtip separated the little monster's head from its body. The body was unceremoniously dropped to the floor and the head caught in the hand that had let go.

By that time, Real Cass and Frankie had made it to the dining room of this God-awful house. Dream Cass reached out and took Real Cass's hand, in it she placed the head of the decapitated leprechaun. Did she really see that coming? The wall in her mind was mostly rubble, but how much autonomy had Cass really given her Dream Self that she couldn't anticipate its every move? As the prancing freak once again came between her and the Sandman, she realized that she didn't have time to think about it.

'How do we get out of here?' Her voice was insistent, almost like an adult. I don't want to grow up, yet. The thought was forlorn because she just wanted to get home, and she would be anybody to make that happen. Even an adult...

'The same way you came in, little one. The portal is still open, I can feel it.'

Cass could feel the excitement in his voice. She decided that she'd feel the same way when she had the chance. She nodded to her Dream Self and darted for the foyer, Frankie in tow, not bothering to take the long way as the Boogeyman did when it took her to the basement. She didn't even feel the ice cold numbness of the shimmering wall when they passed through it. From her scream of surprise, it was obvious that Frankie did feel it. The smell of sulfur and vomit was thick in the air of the foyer, but this time neither girls noticed. All they cared about was the shimmer that now stood before them. Not like the shimmering wall behind them, just a shimmer that reminded them of heat waves rising from asphalt on a hot summer day. The girls looked at each other and smiled. They were going home!

7. Closure?

The bright white of the sunshine and the aroma of flowers and dirt washed over the girls like hot shower water on a cold winter’s night. Stuck between the fences they may have been, but it was glorious to be away from the red-tinged, black and white world of the Black House. Back in the Black House dungeon, Dream Cass disappeared, leaving the monsters of the night to go about their highly disrupted business. Many of the survivors would not tarry long, as they knew that Osiris would rage at their failure. But Cass and Frankie gave none of that any thought until much later.

The girls hurried to the end of the fences and freedom, where they hugged each other and cried. Nobody survives trauma of that magnitude unscathed, but Cassidy and Francesca had gone through it together, and so the bond that was forged on that day in May would see them through all the hard times in their lives to come. That bond would survive the jealousy and envy Cass developed in high school. It would survive the broken road to freedom for Frankie as she, at first, defended the abusive marriage she was in, then left it in the nick of time before it claimed the lives of herself and her son. The bond would even survive the fight that led to Frankie’s expulsion from her family. Both girls would marry a few years after high school. While Frankie’s marriage was abusive and violent, Cassidy’s was simply one of convenience. Eventually, that convenience ran dry and she was demonized as lazy by her husband and his family. The divorce was ugly, and the obviously biased judge left Cass with nothing. Frankie came to her rescue.

On their wedding day, Cass and Frankie delighted in each other and their children; Frankie’s son Gerald, and Cass’s daughter Macy. Francesca’s family would have nothing to do with homosexuality. Their Catholic faith was rigid, and all forms of contact were severed. Frankie was distraught, to say the least, but Cass and her family never wavered from Frankie’s stand against them. So, despite the wedding being a single family affair, there was still an overabundance of joy and celebration.

But that was years down the road, a sneak peek at what appears to be a happy ending. For now, the girls had a lot to answer for. Shortly after bursting into the open from between the fences, Cass’s mother came storming through the back gate.

“Where the hell have you been, Cassidy Nicole?! Your father is combing the neighborhood looking for you! We’ve been home for nearly half an hour! We told you not to go anywhere!” Kathy said this with one hand on her hip and her other pointing a finger at the girls.

But Cass wanted none of Mom’s silliness, and a glance toward Frankie told her that she wanted none of it, either. The berating kept up for nearly another minute. It was an impressive tirade from Kathy Beaumont, and a little out of character. Though, it had been that kind of day. The experience, Cass noticed, must’ve lengthened the Mom fuse in her brain, but it wasn’t long enough.

“Enough. Mother!” Cassidy screamed. The expression on her face gave her mother a moment of pause. Another surprise in a day just chock full of them. Kathy stood in stunned silence. “Give me your hand, Mom.”

Kathy reached out reflexively, her thoughts returning to her own childhood when her mother would scold her for bad behavior. She half expected her daughter to slap the top of her hand like a British schoolteacher would slap a student’s knuckles with that damnable stick. Cass took her mother’s hand and faced it palm up, then she placed the severed head of the leprechaun in it. She hadn’t even taken a moment to look at the face of this one, and now that she did, she felt pride and satisfaction that it would never again draw breath.

The only similarities this leprechaun had with Conall were the red hair and bushy eyebrows. The little monster’s frozen expression revealed a mouthful of little, sharp teeth. Its skin appeared nearly black from the buildup of years and years of dirt. And it was beardless, giving it an air of youth through its evil. It wore the quintessential green bowler hat over greasy, unkempt red hair with a twinge of gray. Nasty little shit!

Even as that thought coursed through her mind, Cass looked her mother dead in the face and waited for her to look away from the head and into her eyes. Several moments passed before that happened, and Cass watched as her mother’s face morphed through surprise, disgust, fear, and finally realization. Cass only said four words in response.

“Now, will you believe?”

Believe she did. And in the following years, Cassidy Beaumont, Kathy Beaumont, Vera Grassly, and Francesca DiRomano became a force against the creatures of the night. They were feared and respected. And everything that they accomplished against those forces of darkness went unrecognized by the world, but for a select few. They learned a little more about Osiris, but not much. It turned out not to matter, however, as Osiris seemed to have disappeared a few years after these events. The Black House, however, and the portal to get there that shimmered between the fences, remained.