by Val Crowe
Negus was what was important.
Admittedly, everything was a little confusing. I remembered being with Mads last night on the ride, and she had said that I was in danger here, and that I should climb over the fence and get out. But…
Well, I didn’t think Mads was lying or anything. I knew that she wouldn’t do that. But I thought maybe she was being overprotective. Because I wasn’t in danger. The spirits here were doing things to appease me. Like making Mads corporeal. I had rejected what they’d done with Lily, so they had given me Mads instead.
The spirits were on my side.
It was everyone else—Patrick and my mother especially—who were against me. They wanted to leave this place, and I couldn’t leave until I found Negus.
It was stupid thinking this through over and over. I was decided. I knew what I was doing and why I was doing it. Why did I feel like I needed to justify my actions to myself? I shouldn’t need to do that. I wasn’t going to do it anymore.
I’d taken the phones and that had been a good call, because it meant that no one could call the police. And with the gate closed, we were all stuck here. Which was the way I wanted things.
My mother was giving me a sympathetic look. “Well, I didn’t really think so, kiddo. It was only that Patrick said that maybe it was you.” She turned to Patrick. “It’s not Deacon doing these things.”
“Oh, we’re just supposed to take him at his word?” Patrick sipped at his coffee and glared at me. “I don’t think so.”
My mother bit down on her lip. “Well, Lily, what do you think?”
“I don’t know.” Lily spread her hands. “I mean, I didn’t know that ghosts could steal things. Or lock gates.”
“Well, they can’t,” said my mother. “I don’t think they can. They can’t affect corporeal things.”
Patrick eyed me. “He was saying something about possession.”
My mother blanched.
“I’m not possessed,” I said.
Patrick sucked in a breath, as if it was hard for him to say the next thing. “You said that Lily was possessed.”
Lily stood up. “Wait a second, you think I took the phones? Why would I do that?”
“Let’s all calm down,” said my mother. “Assuming that the ghosts even could do any of these things, why would they want to keep us here?”
No one answered.
“Well, we should have a seance and ask them,” said Patrick.
“That’s not going to get us any real answers,” I said.
My mother shot me a wounded look.
“Why won’t it get us real answers?” said Patrick.
“It might,” said my mother, raising her chin. “You heard all those knocks last time. And then we all saw Molly. She was a fully-formed specter. That’s very rare for something like that to be visible to all of us. The spirits here must be very powerful.”
I felt uncomfortable and confused again, because of something that Mads had said last night. Something about the spirits using me up and leaving me a husk. And when Lily had been possessed, she had sucked out my essence, just like Negus used to do and—
I shook myself. I had promised myself that I wasn’t going to think about this stuff anymore, hadn’t I?
A thought surfaced, that I was the one powering the spirits, just like back in Ridinger Hall with Wade and Rylan.
Wade. He’d called me, and I hadn’t called him back.
Screw this. I poured myself some coffee. “Look, if the spirits took the cell phones, maybe they left them in the park someplace. I’ll go and look for them.”
“Go and look where?” said my mother.
“I don’t know. The maze. The carousel. The roller coaster. All the usual spots. We’ll see if I can’t find anything.” I put some cream and sugar in my coffee. Then I took my coffee and walked off. Trying to have that conversation was only confusing me.
* * *
A few steps away from them and my head started to clear right up. Nothing was bothering me anymore. I knew what I needed to do. Not find the cell phones, of course, but find out information about Negus. I’d locked us all up in here for that precise purpose, after all. The spirits thought that what I wanted was a corporeal Mads, but they were wrong. I wanted information on Negus.
And I was going to get it, no matter what.
I walked through the park, sipping my coffee. When I was finished, I set the cup down and kept going.
I strode into the center of the park, right next to the maze, and I spread my arms wide. I threw back my head and yelled at the sky, “I’m waiting!”
When I lowered my head, Molly was standing there.
Her hands were outstretched, and ropes of pearls were spilling over her fingertips. Nestled in her palms were glittering rings and pendants.
Huh. Look at that. The jewelry.
I really didn’t care. I strode over to her, and I tried to take her by the throat.
But I went straight through her. She flickered out and then reappeared, right where she’d been when I walked through her. Now, her back was to me. She was talking.
“Please, it’s worth more than what you asked for,” she said.
I strode around her, staring her down. “Hey, Molly.” I snapped my fingers. “Let go of this incarnation you’re stuck in and talk to me about Negus.”
“I couldn’t get cash,” she said. “I tried, but this was the best I could do. I swear to you it’s real.”
“Molly,” I roared. “Focus. I need to know about Negus.”
“These are my mother’s jewels,” said Molly. “And she’s gone. It kills me to let them go, but I know she’d want him gone, the one I’m hiring you for. You are going to take them, aren’t you?”
“No,” I said. “I’m not.”
“Why?” Her eyes were filling with tears.
“Because,” I said. “I don’t want your stupid jewelry. I want to know about Negus. When I came here, I was promised information. You claimed you had it. And instead, you’ve been killing people and throwing various girls in my path. But all I want is information.”
She flickered again. Her face twisted, and she laughed.
“Why are you laughing?” I said. Rage was building inside me. I didn’t want to be toyed with. I wanted to take this whole stupid park by the shoulders and shake it until it gave me what I wanted. “This is not a joke. This Negus thing wants to kill me. He’s already tried, through my mother. Now, if you won’t tell me what you know—”
“Then what?” said Molly. “If we don’t tell you what we know, then what?”
I opened my mouth to answer, but I didn’t have a response, and she knew it.
She laughed again. She advanced on me, gathering up the jewelry into her hands. Her face flickered, and it wasn’t Molly for a second, but something beneath, something with dark pits where its eyes should have been, something with sharp teeth. And then it was her face again, and she was on top of me, and she was prying open my lips and shoving the jewelry between my lips, cramming my mouth full of pearls.
I fought her, but my hands went through her body.
How could she touch me when I couldn’t touch her?
“We have given all we will give,” she whispered, still pushing. Pearls were crowding my throat. I gagged. She continued to push. “It’s time for you to give now, Deacon.”
I tried to punch her. Didn’t work. I tried to grab at her hands, but I couldn’t do that either. Instead, I got a finger into my mouth and hooked it around the pearls. I began to pull the long string out of my mouth, out of my throat…
And Molly was gone.
I vomited jewelry onto the ground. But it faded out in midair.
* * *
“Hey!” Patrick’s voice. “There you are.”
I was still recovering, coughing and gasping on the path next to the maze.
Patrick was running up to me. He’d come from the camp area, obviously.
I coughed one last time and wiped my lips. Okay, so that sister
Molly of his? Total bitch. Why she wouldn’t pony up the information promised, I didn’t know. Maybe she’d been disagreeable in life too. I thought about asking Patrick about it, but then he’d start pestering me with stupid questions. He wanted that jewelry pretty bad, after all. I didn’t feel like getting into that. “Look, I haven’t found the phones,” I said.
“Yeah, screw that,” he said. “We don’t need phones. We need bolt cutters.”
Seriously? Couldn’t this guy let up for two minutes? All I needed was my information, and then we could leave this place. But no, he had to screw everything up. I glared at him. “Great idea,” I said tightly. “I’ll help you look.”
“Great,” he said. He smiled at me. “Sorry about accusing you earlier. I guess I’m just stressed out. I mean, not only is it awful about what happened to Oscar, and I don’t think I’ve even come to terms with that, but I’m kind of freaked out, because what if something happens to us? If there are malevolent spirits in this place, and they can possess people, well… I mean, anything could happen.”
“Yeah,” I said. “It’s cool. I get it.”
“Well, all the more reason to get out of here,” he said.
I nodded.
He looked around. “Okay, well, I think that I saw something that looked like a big shed out behind the roller coaster. You want to head that way?”
“Why not?” I spread my hands. I smiled at him, but I’m pretty sure it didn’t reach my eyes.
He didn’t seem to notice.
We set off for the roller coaster.
“Hey, uh,” he said, “I’ve been meaning to ask you about what’s going on with your mom.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, I couldn’t help but notice that when Molly’s ghost appeared during the seance, she was being chased by, um, something that looked like your mother. It was changing into different things, but sometimes, it was your mother.”
“No, it wasn’t,” I snapped. There was no point in talking about any of that. My mother wouldn’t talk about it. She wanted to pretend it never happened. Maybe that was the best thing to do, anyway.
“Okay,” he said. He furrowed his brow. “Well, I guess it doesn’t really matter, because what I’m thinking about, it’s got something to do with me. That thing that I can’t remember. It’s associated with your mother somehow.”
“You just met my mother,” I said flatly.
“I know.” He shook his head. “Not her, not exactly her. Something… about the feeling of that thing that was chasing Molly.”
And then, suddenly, as if we had summoned her by invoking her name, Molly was there, screaming and running between us, clutching the jewelry to her chest. “You double-crossing bastard!” she shrieked.
Hot on her heels was a man with a gun with a beard and a shaved head. He was shooting after her, spitting bullets every direction.
Patrick cried out and doubled over, blood spurting out of his chest.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Patrick fell to his knees, gasping.
I caught him, bracing him by his shoulders. I’d seen this before. “No, come on,” I said. “It’s a ghost. It’s not real. It’s an echo.”
“It feels fucking real,” said Patrick. He lifted his bloody fingers and stared at them.
“But it’s not,” I said. “They’re not here. They’re ghosts. Come on, if you stop believing it, it goes away.” Damn it, I hoped I was right. This had been true in Boonridge, but what if that was a special case? What if the spirits here were even stronger than the spirits in that ghost town? What if—?
Patrick let out a noisy breath. “Oh, okay, okay. You’re right, it’s gone.” He was feeling around his stomach, making sure.
“Thank goodness,” I said. And then I had another thought at the back of my brain, a thought that slithered out. Should have just left him. Would have tied off the loose end.
Patrick turned, looking in the direction that Molly and the gunman had gone. “That was… my sister. She had my mother’s jewelry.”
“Yeah,” I said, rolling my eyes. Great. Now, we were going to get all preoccupied with trying to figure that out. But who cared? His sister was dead. She’d been shot by that guy. He hadn’t taken her jewelry. Or maybe he had taken it after he shot her. But if she was giving it to him anyway, why bother shooting her? Wasn’t that a lot of extra work for nothing?
Didn’t make a bit of sense, if you asked me, and I didn’t want anything to do with it.
“Look,” I said. “There’s the shed you were talking about.”
“Right,” said Patrick, but he sounded distracted.
I started for the shed, even though I wasn’t sure why I was doing that. After all, I didn’t want him to find any bolt cutters, now did I?
Patrick brought up the rear, trailing behind me, seemingly lost in thought.
When I got to the door of the shed, I wished for there to be a lock there, so we couldn’t go in.
And wonder of wonders, there was a padlock, but it was hanging open. I could lock it myself. Maybe he wouldn’t see
But I didn’t. I simply stood there, staring at it, and trying to think what my next move was going to be.
Patrick stopped behind me. “I think I’m remembering,” he whispered.
I turned back to look at him.
He looked pale, his lips bloodless.
Wait, had that bullet actually hurt him after all? My heart leaped at the prospect, but then I could see that there wasn’t any blood, and that he was fine. No, he was reacting to whatever he was remembering. Probably some stupid revelation about his sister that would help us all understand how she died out here and what happened to the jewelry, and then we’d probably have to go dig it up from somewhere and—
“My father used to hurt us,” whispered Patrick.
Okay. I hadn’t been expecting that.
“I blocked it out.” He was shaking his head in disbelief. “How did I block it all out?”
“People do that with trauma,” I said blandly. I leaned against the door of the shed. Well, if he was talking, he wasn’t looking for bolt cutters. Gift horse, mouth. I shrugged.
Patrick dragged his hands over his face. “We were young, all of us. Molly was the oldest, but I remember that I used to try to distract him when he was mad at the girls, or even at Mom. Because I was the boy, and I thought that it was better if I took it, not them. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t.”
I sucked in air. I didn’t really want to hear this. I was thinking that it was lucky that I didn’t have any brothers or sisters when my mother had gone all crazy with Negus in her. I was thinking about the things she had done to me, and I—
“He never left marks,” said Patrick. “He would do this thing where he would grab me by the neck and he could make me just… pass out. I remember never knowing if I was going to wake back up or not. And he used to lock us inside this closet in my house. It was dark, and there were no windows, and he wouldn’t let us out, not even if we had to go to the bathroom—”
“Okay, dude.” My teeth were clenched. “You had a shitty childhood. Who didn’t? Can we skip the trip down memory lane?”
“Mom left him.” He folded his arms over his chest. “She should have had him arrested and thrown in jail, but she didn’t. She settled for getting away. We ran from him and he never found us. But then… Mom passed away. She was in a car accident. I was seventeen. Lily was fourteen. Molly was twenty.” He swallowed. “Molly was so freaked out about Lily and me going back to Dad’s custody. But I’d blocked it all out. I didn’t even remember.”
I waited.
He was silent, contemplating his shoes.
“So, what happened?” I said finally. “You had to move back in with him? What did he do?”
“No.” He raised his gaze to mine. “No, our Dad died too. He was killed in a break-in. And then we went into the system for a while. But after I was eighteen, we filed paperwork to get Lily emancipated. She came to live with me. We inheri
ted a little money when Dad died. Enough to keep us going for a while, enough for us both to go to college. It all worked out.”
“Well, I’m glad,” I said. Although, what was I saying? I was glad a man was dead? He didn’t sound like a particularly nice man, so I guessed it was all warranted.
“Yeah,” he said softly. He gestured at the door. “I guess we should look in the shed.”
“Fine,” I said, moving away from the door.
He opened it up and walked in.
I stayed outside, peering in after him. “You, um, you see any bolt cutters?”
“Not right off,” he said. “Oh, wait! Actually, yeah, right there. They’re hanging up. I might need something to climb up on to get to them.”
I slammed the door of the shed on him. Then I locked the padlock, clicking it into place.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
After all that, I found that I was hungry, so I went back to the camp area to see if my mother had made anything for lunch. But she hadn’t. She wasn’t even there.
Lily was.
She had found the broken cell phones and she had them all spread out on the table in front of my mother’s motorhome.
I walked right past her and the phones and went into the Airstream. I opened my fridge and began getting out the things I would need to put together a sandwich.
The door to the Airstream opened and Lily came in. “Where’s Patrick?”
“I don’t know,” I said, smearing mayo on a piece of bread. “Why would I know?”
“He said he was going out there to find you and that you guys were going to try to find bolt cutters to open the gates.”
“Well, he never found me,” I said, slapping some swiss cheese on top of the mayo. “I see you found the phones, though.”
“Yeah,” she said. “I don’t even know what to make of that. Someone did that to them. I don’t think it was a ghost.”
I shrugged.
“It was you, wasn’t it?”
I looked up at her. “I thought you were on my side, Lily. Aren’t they still inside you?”
She narrowed her eyes at me. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. But I have this weird memory of being out on that carousel, and you were buttoning my shirt crooked.”
