Chapter 5: The Price of Safety

Chapter 5: The Price of Safety

The mud-and-hair squirrel sat in his aunt's chair, a grotesque king on a leather throne. The rusty nail it held seemed to point directly at Leo's heart, a filthy, accusatory finger. He could smell the decay from across the room—the scent of the deep, dark woods brought inside and given a monstrous form. This wasn't just a message; it was an occupation. They had taken a symbol of his aunt’s power—her taxidermy—and created a diseased mockery of it, leaving it in the seat of her authority.

A wave of pure, unreasoning panic seized him. He backed away, his hands trembling, his breath coming in ragged, shallow gasps. He couldn’t stay here. He couldn't touch that thing. The entire house felt contaminated, the air thick and unbreathable. Every shadow seemed to twitch, every glass-eyed squirrel seemed to follow his retreat.

He fumbled his phone from his pocket, his thumb slipping twice on the screen before he could find Clara’s number, which he’d had the foresight to get from her clinic's sign. The line rang once, twice, a shrill sound in the suffocating silence.

"What is it?" Clara’s voice was sharp, devoid of pleasantries. She’d been expecting his call.

"They made one," Leo choked out, stumbling back towards the relative safety of the foyer. "A new squirrel. It's in her chair. It's made of mud and… and my hair, I think. It's holding the nail."

There was a heavy sigh on the other end of the line, the sound of profound weariness. "They've laid their claim-stake, then. They've anchored themselves inside. You can't run, Leo. Leaving the house now would be like a sheep leaving the fold with wolves at the gate. You have to reinforce the boundary. Tonight."

"How? Tell me what to do!" he pleaded, his voice cracking.

"In Steffy’s journal," Clara instructed, her tone shifting into that of a field commander issuing orders. "Look for the section on 'Threshold Wards.' Not the maintenance rituals, the full rite of sealing. You'll need coarse salt, three iron nails, and an offering of your own living essence."

"Living essence?"

"Blood, Leo," she said flatly. "A ward needs life to power it. It needs a piece of what it's protecting. Your aunt used her own for decades. Now it's your turn. The instructions are precise. Follow them to the letter. Do not deviate. Do you understand?"

"Yes," he breathed, the word barely a whisper.

"Do it at the main threshold—the front door. And be quick. They know what you're doing. They will try to stop you." The line went dead.

For a moment, Leo was paralyzed by the weight of her instructions. Blood. A full sealing rite. This was no longer about warding off pranksters; this was trench warfare against nightmares. But the image of the mud squirrel propelled him into motion. He grabbed Steffy's journal and flipped through the brittle pages, his shaking fingers smudging the spidery ink. He found it: The Rite of Sealing for a Besieged Dwelling.

The list of components was just as Clara had said. He found a half-full canister of coarse sea salt in the pantry. He remembered the jars on Steffy’s desk and found one labeled Iron, filled with old, hand-forged nails—not the clean, mass-produced kind, but thick, black, and heavy. He grabbed three. The final component was the hardest. With a kitchen knife sterilized in the blue flame of the gas stove, he pricked the tip of his thumb, watching as a single, bright ruby drop of blood welled up. His living essence.

He went to the front door, the heart of the house's defenses. Outside, the world was sinking into a deep, bruised twilight. The woods were a solid wall of blackness.

Following the journal's diagram, he began to pour the salt, creating a thick, unbroken line across the entire length of the threshold, from one side of the frame to the other. The coarse crystals crunched under the spout, a stark white line against the dark wood. The line must not be broken, Steffy’s notes warned. It is the bone of the ward.

As the last grains of salt fell, a sound began from outside. Faint at first. A child’s giggle, carried on the evening breeze.

Leo ignored it, his focus narrowed to the task. Next, the nails. One at the top of the doorframe, two at the bottom corners. He had to use a rock from the hearth as a hammer, the sharp thwack of stone on iron echoing through the house.

Thwack. Another giggle, closer this time. It was joined by a second.

Thwack. A girl’s voice began to sing, the same chilling melody from the woods. “Leo-Vance, come and dance…”

Thwack. The final nail went in. The nails are the ward’s teeth, the journal read. They bite what tries to cross.

The air outside dropped ten degrees. The playful giggles began to curdle, sharpening into something mocking and cruel. He could feel their presence now, a gathering pressure just beyond the door.

For the final step, he had to speak the words. They were written in a language he didn't recognize, a series of guttural, ancient-sounding syllables. He read them aloud, his voice trembling but clear, forcing the strange sounds from his throat.

"As blood seals flesh, as bone holds form, as salt scours clean, I seal this door."

He pressed his bloodied thumb to the center of the salt line.

The reaction was instantaneous and violent.

From outside the door came a collective, piercing shriek of pure, unadulterated rage. It wasn't the sound of children. It was the sound of something ancient and predatory being denied its prey. The happy, singsong voices twisted into enraged howls, the sound of grinding metal and splintering bone. He saw their shapes through the small glass pane in the upper half of the door—flickering, distorted shadows of children, their bodies contorting in fury, their empty eyes burning with cold fire.

A small fist, translucent and grey, slammed against the door, but it made no sound. The wood didn't shudder. The shrieks were immense, ear-splitting, but they were happening on the other side of a barrier that now felt as solid as a bank vault. They clawed and raged against the invisible wall he had just erected, their silent screams a terrifying pantomime of fury.

Leo stumbled backward, falling to the floor, his body trembling with adrenaline and exhaustion. The shrieking continued for what felt like an hour, then slowly, grudgingly, faded. The pressure outside dissipated. Silence fell, heavier and more absolute than before.

He had done it. He had actually done it. He was safe.

A wave of dizzying relief washed over him, so potent it was almost nauseating. He had fought back. He had won. He lay there on the floor for a long time, just breathing, basking in the profound quiet of his sealed-off sanctuary.

Eventually, trembling with exhaustion, he pulled himself to his feet. He had to get rid of the mud squirrel. Bolstered by his victory, he walked with newfound purpose towards the den. He would bag the hideous thing and burn it in the morning.

He stopped dead in the doorway. The mud squirrel was gone. The chair was empty.

His eyes darted around the room, landing on the glass display case that had once housed the squirrel with the fez. The case was empty now, the jaunty little creature gone. But something else was there.

Scratched into the interior of the glass, in thin, spidery letters that looked like they’d been etched by a sharp claw, was a new message. It hadn't been there before the ritual. He knew it with absolute certainty.

He stepped closer, his blood turning to ice as he read the words, scratched from the inside out.

THE LINE HOLDS US OUT. THE LINE HOLDS YOU IN. THE GAME HAS CHANGED. OUR PLAYMATE.