by Kelly Creagh
Just when he would have touched me, the dream ended, and I started awake. And as I found myself back in my bed, my thick coverlet fortifying me against the creeping cold, I stole a groggy glance at my bedside clock.
Its face read 12:45. Which meant I’d been asleep for less than an hour.
My eyes then trailed past the clock to where I’d placed my mom’s angel figure. Where I’d replaced it.
Two days ago, before my first dream with Erik, I’d come into my room to find it had been moved.
At the time, I’d blamed it on my dad. Charlie wasn’t tall enough to reach my dresser. Now, though, I could only question that assumption. Because Dad never came into my room. And even if he did, he never moved my stuff.
These occurrences. The dreams. The graves. The stories. They could only really wind me up if I let them.
I rolled onto my back again, and as I gazed at the twin fissures crisscrossing the plaster of the ceiling, my mind returned to Erik and the vision I’d just left. One I couldn’t seem to shake the feeling had ended . . . because he’d made it.
EIGHTEEN
Zedok
I rose from my chair as I opened my eyes, simultaneously casting their glow upon the hearth.
Atop the mantel, my father’s clock ticked as it had in the dream, its chiding rhythm beating into the brain I no longer had.
As it counted the never-ending seconds, I stood in awe of what I had just done. Or rather, all that I had not.
My sole purpose in speaking to Stephanie at all had derived from my need to incite her and her family to leave.
And I had again delivered my foreboding message, yes, but far less effectively than I could have if I’d only stopped to think for one moment about my approach. But I hadn’t. Instead, I’d become possessed of the desire to gain a modicum of absolution from her.
I’d wanted to absolve Erik.
But . . . I wasn’t Erik.
That Cheney boy. That stupid boy. His jumbled version of the story had riled and incensed me. More than what he had gotten wrong, though, it had been the details he had gotten right that had angered me.
Yet, I should have counted his meddling as a favor.
If I’d had the presence of mind to appear to Stephanie in tonight’s dream not as the glorious Erik but as the horrendous masked figure she had finally begun to believe in—would not the boy’s precursory tales have only aided my efforts?
But no. I had elected to sit down with her. At the piano! As if the two of us were contemporaries. Or more ludicrously—as if she had been my friend.
And then there had been the music. Hesitant and clumsy, it had fallen unexpectedly out of her fingers to land incomplete at my feet—the fractured bones of a long-dead memory. But those notes. Though lifeless, they had still possessed enough of the soul of the masterpiece to send a shock through the scattered shrapnel of my own.
Though I should have liked to blame my derailment upon the music, the truth was . . . I knew better. There was something else at work here. For I had been diverted from my purpose before her fingers had touched those keys. From the very moment I had entered the dream. Or perhaps . . . even before.
Wrath’s prior visit swam to the surface of my memory along with the image that had manifested within the specter’s grim mask.
Stephanie.
As far as reasons went, I could only think of one that might explain why I had seen her, and it had everything to do with the fact that I had dared to become Erik.
In resurrecting him, even if only in image, I had done both myself and the Armands—Stephanie in particular—a critical misdoing. I had tasted forbidden fruit. I had been made to remember what life had once been like. What humanness had been like. And perhaps that was what Wrath had attempted, in his own way, to forewarn me of.
But a herald, no matter how ominous, was still only a herald.
So long as I took charge and changed courses swiftly, I yet had time to rectify my missteps. Thankfully, my blunders had done me the one favor of providing the means to their undoing. Through Erik, Stephanie had come to believe in Zedok. Enough at least that, to get to her, I no longer needed her sister to serve as emissary.
Tomorrow. It must be tomorrow that I—
I paused, sensing the presence of another mask in the room. Whirling, I drew my sword and, in the same motion, extended the blade toward the open pocket doors where I had expected to find Wrath.
But it was not Wrath who stood within the doorframe. Instead, a female figure watched me through the almond-shaped eyes of an all-white mask.
Not all of my masks were male. A few were and, in the instance of Hope, had been female in outward appearance. Unlike their male counterparts, my female masks had—until now—always taken on the guises of people Erik had known while alive.
This mask, though, I could not now recall having ever encountered either in life or death.
Her dress, a deep burgundy, complemented her raven hair, loosely wound into an elegant chignon.
“Who are you?” I demanded of her, forbidding myself to ascribe to her the likeness of another young woman. Not when there wasn’t any. Not when there couldn’t be.
The mask did not answer. Only lifted one lace-gloved finger, which she pressed to her lips before her figure began to unfurl to mist.
I could not fathom which part of me she represented, and I should have been glad to see her go. But her unraveling, just like her appearance, instead triggered within me a terror I was sure I had not entertained since that horrible night when the Egyptian priest had left me with all I had stolen from him and could not give back, passing once more into the hereafter to leave me . . . with me.
Powerful as my fear surrounding this new mask was, it still could not trump the deeper feelings of shame held over the harm I had caused the priest, whom I had ripped from eternal rest by dabbling witlessly in matters I did not understand.
His resulting fear and pain upon reawakening had since become all too understandable to me.
And in removing his heart, had I left him with any other choice but to extract mine?
Though my remorse surrounding my egregious actions had always remained one of my keenest emotions throughout the decades, the knowledge that my heart had granted my victim passage home had always counted for me as a small measure of balm.
But . . . the appearance of this newest mask obliterated even that modicum of sustaining solace. For what else could she be but evidence that it was all happening again? That, due to the same enduring distortion in my soul, I was rushing headlong into even deeper spiritual debt—if that was possible.
Whatever the mask was, she served as an ominous reminder of how the greater and more terrifying mystery had always revolved around the question of which part of me had been debased enough to desecrate the priest’s consecrated form and disrupt his sacred slumber in pursuit of my own gain.
It spoke volumes that I still did not know myself well enough to say—not even after all this time. Yet the answer I suspected was the one I feared and loathed the most: that this particular corruption—the smear of hubris and the stain of entitled arrogance—lurked in every mask.
My soul had shattered so easily, and its enduring frailty suggested that there had not been much holding it together in the first place. Something that hinted at a more horrible truth still.
And that was this: that the true reason the curse was irreparable . . . was because I was.
NINETEEN
Stephanie
Unable to pay attention in any of my morning classes, I spent the first half of the next day replaying my latest dream encounter with Erik in my head. Over and over again, I heard his cryptic answers and, over and over again, I tried—and failed—to decipher them. Then the bell for lunch rang, and even though Lucas had invited me to the gym, I made myself go to the cafeteria. I even got in line, telling myself it would b
e a bad idea to seek Lucas out. Because what would Charlotte do if I interrupted the rehearsal that had been rescheduled because of me? But then, when I got to the tray station, it occurred to me that it would be far worse for Lucas to think I wasn’t grateful to him for coming over last night. Or that I wasn’t interested . . .
With that thought, I bailed on lunch and rerouted to the gym. On the way, though, I continued to vacillate, my steps alternating between quick and slow. I wanted to see Lucas, but I didn’t want to be a nuisance. Then again, Charlotte really hadn’t minded being one yesterday . . .
Arriving at the gym with little more than half of lunch period left, I stalled in front of the open double doors. My heart gave a flutter when Lucas glided into view, moving backward to one of his old-school doo-wop songs. An echoing flitter of jealousy flapped through my gut when Charlotte slid into view, extending a hand to Lucas, which he took.
I held my breath, my insides twisting as he pulled her close in a dance pose, his free arm wrapping her waist.
“Shoo-doop shoo-bee-doo,” chanted a quartet, the accompanying piano and pace-setting drums issuing soft and sultry from a nearby portable speaker.
Augh. Coming here had been a mistake. I started to back away before either of them could spot me, but then someone called my name.
Seated several rows up on the bleachers, next to Patrick, Wes waved a sandwich at me.
“What’s shakin’?” called Patrick through the otherwise empty gym. “Hopefully not your house.” He popped a Dorito into his mouth.
Dropping Lucas’s hand, Charlotte spun to glare at the doorway. At me.
Oh boy.
Lucas, his expression brightening, broke away from her and jogged to meet me. And he might have looked utterly ridiculous in his newsie-style cap, bow tie, cropped pants with suspenders, and tawny argyle socks if he hadn’t looked so smoking hot.
“Hey, you came,” he said, actually pulling his hat off. Like somebody from the jazz era might do before opening a conversation with a lady.
“Um,” I began. I shifted uncomfortably under his gaze. “Yeah. I—”
“Worry not, fair maiden!” Wes called to Charlotte. “I shall dance with thee!”
With that, Wes descended the bleachers. He closed the distance between himself and Charlotte before hauling her off her feet and tossing her over his shoulder. Charlotte yelped and then, unable to help it, she laughed as Wes began to fake waltz. He grinned at me while he turned with Charlotte.
“I told y’all we need to get a spray bottle for him,” said Patrick, kicking back with his soda. “Don’t tell me it’s not in the budget.”
I would have laughed myself if Lucas hadn’t chosen that moment to take me by the hand and lead me out of the room. He drew me up a nearby set of steps to an empty landing. Sunlight streamed in through the stairwell’s big windows, highlighting the faint sheen of sweat on his brow.
“Everything all right?” he asked me.
Why was he so warm? Probably, he was this way with everyone.
I pointed back the way we’d come. “Sorry I interrupted.” Again.
“You didn’t interrupt,” he said. “We were just cooling down. We’re actually in really good shape.”
Yeah. I would say you are, too.
“Uh.” Focus, Stephanie. “What exactly are you guys rehearsing for?”
“Oh.” He stuffed his hat under one arm. “Charlotte and I compete together. There’s a big shindig happening this Saturday. It’s an annual deal. We took home third last year.”
“Wow.” I grabbed one of my elbows, trying not to come off like I cared too much one way or another that Lucas and Charlotte had been dancing together for years. “You guys must be really good.”
He shrugged. “We’re better than we were last year. Which is good since the prize money really helps with supplies for SPOoKy. Last year, the winnings helped us get our thermal-imaging camera.”
“You guys are really serious about this ghost-hunting stuff, huh?”
“We’re as serious as you can be about anything when you’re in high school,” he said, doing his underplaying, dismissive thing. “But enough of my blabbering. What’s something you like to do? What are you passionate about?”
Even in the face of these questions, I managed to keep my smile intact this time. The words to answer him with, though, proved more difficult to conjure. What was I “passionate” about? It used to be music. It used to be singing. It used to be chasing notes and sometimes still, when I got the itch, writing down words to songs that didn’t exist. Then Charlie had appeared.
“I guess I don’t have a lot of free time these days.”
“You’ve got to help your dad a lot,” Lucas guessed, stuffing his hat into a back pocket.
“We help each other,” I said. “Charlie helps, too.”
“You and your sister are pretty close,” he observed.
“She drives me crazy sometimes,” I laughed. “But she’s . . . well, she and Dad are . . . everything.”
Lucas nodded, listening—actually listening.
“Speaking of Charlie,” he said. “Sheeee . . . have an okay night?”
I gave a nod. “More or less.”
He frowned at that, tilting his head at me. “Did she mention another encounter?”
“Um, no.” I folded my arms and leaned a hip against the wall, trying to gain a little distance from him so some of my brain cells could regenerate. Because that smell of aftershave mixing with his sweat? It kept bringing me . . . images.
“Well, it seems like there’s something,” he said.
That morning—all day, in fact—I’d spent as much time waffling on how much to tell Lucas as I had on whether to seek him out in the first place. And now here I was, face-to-face, wanting to tell him about my dreams with Erik. But after Erik’s adamant warning that I needed to keep Lucas off our property, I’d convinced myself not to. Though Lucas could probably offer insight into my theory that Erik, if in fact he was real, was being held prisoner in the house by Zedok, I could think of no better way to have Lucas tromping straight back into Moldavia than to open my mouth about it.
Then again, what if Lucas didn’t believe me? Would telling him about my conversations with Erik just convince him I was as attention-seeking as Charlotte had accused me of being?
For the time being, until I could get proof that Erik was real, it was probably best to keep Lucas out of my house.
“Things are . . . okay at the moment,” I said, which wasn’t a lie. Of course, it also left me high and dry regarding the reason for my being there.
“Soooo . . .” He gripped the window ledge, leaning into it and maybe even a little into me. “Since you’re not here to tell me there’s blood dripping down the walls—”
“That doesn’t really happen,” I chided him, but only because I wasn’t sure.
“What I was saying,” he went on, “was that if you’re not here about your house, then, well, you must have come for your dance lesson.”
My mouth popped open, but a smile fought its way through my shock. “Oh, I don’t think so.”
He pulled his phone from a back pocket.
“Let’s ssssee here,” he muttered, his thumb tapping the screen until, suddenly, music started pouring from its speakers.
Stiffening, I glanced up the stairwell and down. No one was there. But it wouldn’t be too much longer before the bell rang and the halls flooded with people and—
“Wait a second,” I said, glancing toward his phone. “Is this a Buddy Holly song?”
“Who?” he asked, taking hold of my hand after setting his phone on the windowsill.
I didn’t get to say anything else, because that’s when his other hand went to my waist. My free hand went to perch on his bicep, which might as well have been forged from iron. I mean . . . holy Winter Soldier, Batman.
For one heart-stopping moment, I felt sure he would draw me against him like he had Charlotte, but he stopped short, keeping a middle-school-dance distance from me instead.
“The basics go like this,” he said. “Take your right foot and step back, then rock back onto your left again.”
My head swimming from his nearness, from this delicious trap I’d somehow fallen into, I did as I was told.
“Good,” he said, the scent of his good-boy Dial soap and whatever styling gel he used to get his hair to do its all-American thing washing over me. That, along with his heated touch, made my blood simmer under my skin.
“Now,” he continued, “take three steps to the right. Then repeat to the left.”
Smiling in spite of how ridiculous I felt, I again followed his lead.
“One, two—one, two, three, one, two, three,” he said, marking our time until we had a rhythm going. And then, suddenly, we were dancing. To a Buddy Holly song. With Lucas now giving me the subtlest and sexiest of practiced pushes whenever we returned to the rock step.
“See?” he said. “I told you everybody dances.”
“You’re giving me way too much credit,” I managed. “We’re pretty much just doing the same thing over and over.”
“That’s how it starts with everything you learn,” he said.
He raised his arm, gave another one of his expert pushes, and spun me. The world blurred for a second, the sun and the stairs and Lucas all whirring by until he stopped me, bringing us together, his arm now wrapped most of the way around me.
Never before had I been given the opportunity to examine a bow tie so closely.
“Ope,” he said, releasing me. “S-sorry about that. Force of habit.”
He stepped back, straightening his glasses with the hand that had all but burned its imprint into my back.
The silence pulsed between us, filling the space that, a moment before, hadn’t existed. A space I wished had stayed nonexistent, if only a moment longer.
“Uh, listen,” said Lucas at last, his hands delving into his pockets again, his gaze falling to the floor. “The bell’s going to ring, but while I have you here, I want to ask you something.”
