“Do you think it’s only linked to one of the locks?” Gabriel asks.
Shaun shrugs. “Maybe. If one of the locks and the bridge are somehow tangled up in an intense injustice or emotional devastation.”
“Whoever had the craziest breakup?” I ask.
“I doubt it. A manifestation this strong would be bigger than simple heartbreak. This is a life lost. Utter devastation. Energy of this nature is the scar that’s left behind.”
“A scar?” I ask.
Shaun leans in, dropping his voice. “People who visit Auschwitz say there is evil there that transcends faith or belief in the paranormal. Even the hardest of cynics feels chilled inside those old, empty gas chambers. They stare at the claw marks on the inside of the walls and they…feel something.”
We don’t respond. I’m not sure there is a response to information like that. Instead, the silence stretches long. The espresso machine steams and hisses. Customers murmur orders, and a barista clangs cups and punches buttons. Shaun sits back, and I’m sure he’s doing it for effect.
“You’re not looking for a ghost with a chip on his shoulder,” he says. “You’re looking for fingernail scratches on the walls of a gas chamber.”
Paige
I sit awake for hours in my dorm room, thinking of Theo and wondering why he’d want to scare me. My knees are pulled up, and Melanie is a softly snoring lump across the room. The room is quiet and still. My mind is neither.
The blood and the nightmares could be normal. I might have hit a capillary with my toothbrush, and a little blood seemed like buckets. Fear can do that. It messes with my perceptions. And the nightmares and sleepwalking could have easily been the sleeping pill.
It’s logical.
But meds and fear don’t conjure earrings or leave shoes on picnic tables. A person does that. Someone with hands and ill intent.
I still can’t wrap my head around Theo with ill intent. Theo showing up late, Theo blowing his lid, racing through a red light… All of that, sure. But wanting to hurt me? Impossible.
Could he be right about the haunting?
I think of the purse in the river. It left blood on my hands. It caught on my foot. Theo couldn’t have done that.
My eyes drag to the brown bag inside my closet. I dumped the sandals in there the second I got back. Folded the bag shut tight and pushed them away. A ghost doesn’t leave shoes.
But could Theo?
I drop my chin onto my raised knees and close my eyes. Theo’s always in my head. I can see him now, shifting back and forth on my front porch. Climbing trees. Sheepishly grinning at me in an emergency waiting room.
I love him most when I see him focus, when something manages to wholly captivate him. A flock of starlings in an oak tree. An airplane taking off. Highway traffic at night. And me, when we were kissing.
Heat floods my body as I think of it. His mouth was so impatient, so incredibly Theo. But his hands were slow and gentle, which surprised me. I felt like the only person in his world during that moment.
Could I see those same hands putting those shoes side by side?
I press my palms to my hot cheeks. It doesn’t make sense that he would do this to me. You don’t kiss people you want to scare.
But you hit those people?
He didn’t mean to.
Does it matter what he meant?
The thoughts chase each other through my head. I think of snakes eating their own tails. I think of all the attributes my therapist tells me about healthy relationships. Trusting, honest, open.
My insides are nonstop noise. I manage to keep my outside quiet until four a.m. Then the noise of my own thinking drives me out of bed.
I slide my feet into flip-flops and pull on a sweatshirt. I open the door carefully because I don’t want to wake Melanie. I don’t need her wondering where I’m creeping off to. I definitely don’t need her reporting it.
I’m not even sure she would. I could be inventing so much of this, her talking to my parents, Dr. Lutmer. Panic has gotten the best of me. Deep down, I know there’s only one way to turn that table. I need to confront my fear.
If the bridge is haunted, I want to see it. I want to go there and look this in the eyes once and for all. If I don’t, I’ll never really believe this is Theo. Not enough to let him go.
The dorm is quiet. The kind of quiet that plucks your nerves like bow strings. I move down the middle of the stairs, right on the carpet runner so my feet don’t scrape against the concrete. At the bottom floor, I pause.
The resident advisor’s door is closed, but there’s a stretch of tile between me and the front entrance. I’ll have to cross that tile, tumble the lock, and push open the heavy wooden door to get out.
I did it a few nights ago, without even waking up. But now my heart pounds as I take my first step. I stare at the resident advisor’s door. Will she see the shadow of my feet? Will she hear me? My fingers shake as I reach for the lock. The metal is cool under my fingers. I can hear every breath I take.
Do it. Just do it.
The lock turns with a scrape and a clunk. I clench my teeth and stare over my shoulder at the resident advisor’s room. There’s no sound. No fumble of a recent college grad waking from sleep and vaulting herself out of bed. No one’s awake. No one’s going to rush out or stop me.
I twist the brass doorknob and push. It opens with a soft whoosh, and it’s done. I’m outside. The air is cool and damp, fog clinging low on the bushes flanking the buildings. The world is still asleep.
I stay to the sidewalk and move quickly. It’s easy to smell the river in the morning. I can even hear it, the slow rush of water pushing through the valley. There are poisons in that water, but I can’t smell them. Can’t see them either. Poisons are very good at hiding.
I’m at the mouth of the bridge before I know it, but I hesitate. The bridge isn’t welcoming at night. The walkway is lost in shadow. Black arms arch overhead, and fog lies heavy on the water below, a pillowy presence creeping up the banks.
I cross my arms over my chest. Maybe this can wait. I might not find anything anyway. Having a panic attack on a bridge at four in the morning doesn’t sound like my best life choice.
A breeze drifts around the bridge, whispering through the grass. The hum of wind chimes. I’ve heard that before, chimes that brush against each other like fairies laughing.
A tiny white flower pokes up by the entrance to the walkway. Snowdrops. But snowdrops bloom in March, and it’s July. I crouch down and touch the white flowers. A chill runs up my back.
This isn’t right. These flowers or the chimes. Nothing is right here, and I should be afraid. Any other time, this would terrify me. But tonight, the fear is behind a thick wall of glass. I walk forward like I am not alone in the dark. I move as if there is nothing waiting for me up here. But something is waiting.
I can feel it.
It’s the way you know when someone is standing too close behind you. Your skin prickles. Goose bumps rise on the backs of your arms. That’s happening now, but I don’t turn and I don’t run.
My feet make soft slapping noises against the wood of the walkway. There is no comfortable rubbery thwack of my flip-flops. I am barefoot. I don’t know when this happened. I can see my flip-flops back there, at the other end of the bridge, pink and strange.
Water rushes. My pulse surges. A lump of clothing twists near one of the joists. The wadded-up fabric is a flash of lime green. Theo’s shirt, which he probably forgot after he took it off. If I pick it up, the front will read Froggy Daniel’s Hole in the Hollow. There will be a tear just under the left armpit. I was there when he snagged it, jumping over a fence.
I take a step off the walkway, to the space where trains once ran. The tracks are broken. Thick, squared-off logs reek of creosote. Some are covered in moss. I see another snowdrop blooming in the rotten wood.
/> That’s my sign. I’m supposed to go to that shirt. To that toolbox underneath it.
I’m careful moving closer to the frame of the bridge. My heart is slamming into my throat now. I should not do this. This is not safe. But then I look again at the snowdrop and I’m moving. I walk toward that lump of lime green and the red toolbox.
The pillar is steady, encased in the same thick concrete I found in the water yesterday. I press my hands to the cold steel beam above it and let my heart slow. My focus sharpens on each of the folds of the shirt below me.
“There’s nothing here,” I say aloud. My voice is rough and shockingly loud in the quiet.
I feel like I’ve broken a spell or maybe a rule. The steel feels cold against my back now. I don’t remember turning around. I look back toward the entrance to the bridge where my flip-flops sit, forgotten.
I still don’t remember leaving them. Maybe the bridge isn’t haunted, and Theo isn’t evil. Maybe this is me. Were my parents right to worry about me? To think I should stay home?
I slouch down, my shirt catching on the rough cement. It snags and pulls up my shirt until it scrapes my back. I sit on the rotting wood, next to Theo’s shirt. I move it carefully, bunching it fold by fold.
It’s just a shirt—what else did I expect? I unclasp the tool chest and flip open the lid. Wrenches and screwdrivers turned this way and that. Nothing is organized. Gum wrappers litter the bottom of the tray, every flavor you can imagine.
I finger a Juicy Fruit wrapper with a sigh. There’s nothing here but Theo. Nothing scary but me on a bridge, barefoot and half insane. My fingers trace over a metal tin, and the lid pops loose. I try to push it closed, but it pops free again. Something’s sticking up too high, a screw or nail. It won’t latch.
Leave it.
The words are so clear that I’m sure I’ve heard them. And those goose bumps are back, tracking up the backs of my arms. Something is close now. I can feel it behind me, not heat or movement. No, this is a presence.
Leave it be.
I desperately want to do just that, but my fingers don’t care. I watch them move like they aren’t attached to my hand. Like I have no power over them at all. My fingernails catch under the unlatched lip of metal. I’m moving it up. Opening it wider.
It’s not so dark that I don’t recognize the hard, white kernels I find inside. I know my own teeth when I see them.
Theo
It’s four twenty in the morning, and I’m still arguing with Gabriel on his grandfather’s back porch. I didn’t think any guardian type could beat mine in the art of throwing up your hands in an I-don’t-know-what-to-do-with-him parental shrug-off, but I was wrong. Gabriel’s grandfather either spends every minute he isn’t at the library so stoned he can’t find his ass with both hands, or he’s decided fifteen is as good as adulthood.
It’s not like I’m trying to hurt the kid, but damn, the guy didn’t even introduce himself to the obviously older guy hanging out all night. The one with dirty jeans who showed up talking about a giant power saw he picked up that afternoon.
Gabriel jabs his finger at the laptop screen on the coffee table between us. “I’m telling you, you shouldn’t randomly cut off the locks. Like Shaun said, we need to find which lock is the source.”
“If we cut all the locks, we won’t need to search!” I argue. “I’ll leave yours there, okay?”
“And what about the other good ones? What about the high school sweethearts who have their kids’ pictures taken with their locks?”
“Are you seriously arguing sentimentalism with me here?” I ask. “The locks have creepy-ass voodoo energy that makes me smell things and sometimes knocks me out. Plus, if you haven’t forgotten, the locks have to go anyway! It’s part of our contract.”
“If we don’t strike that energy at the right source, how are you going to cut them all? Like you keep reminding me, the last time you cut off a handful of locks, you passed out.”
“With a power saw? Trust me, it’ll work. And if it doesn’t, then I’ll cut off the damn railing and drop it into the river.”
“Yes, I’m sure replacing the entire length of railing would be both affordable and easy.”
I pick at the scratched edge of the couch arm, feeling unsettled. Gabriel has the patience and steadiness for this, but I’m champing at the bit, waiting for daylight. I want to cut the bastards off. I need to do something, because it feels like my life is falling into hell.
Paige hasn’t called in two days and isn’t responding to texts. Denny came home piss drunk and bitching about the three-day rental period on the Sawzall and warning me he can’t afford another broken tool or me wasting time wandering around town or getting sick on the job.
I push my hands into my hair. “I have to take some action, Gabriel. I can’t ignore this forever, because the longer I wait, the worse things are getting.”
The worse I think they’re getting anyway. I’m not sure about how Paige is doing, but her radio silence is scaring the shit out of me. She gets quiet like this when her anxiety is spiraling out of control.
“What if your impatience is making this worse?” he asks. “What if the answer is one book, or even one article away? Even if it is a lock, it could be one of the ones on the ballasts up high. You’re not even planning on getting to those, are you?”
He’s right. Denny’s already said we’re only taking down the locks on the railing. There are dozens of others that get to stay because they’re out of the way, inconvenient to remove. And any one of those is just as likely to be the source.
“Fine,” I say, my voice croaky. “What do you suggest? You still think it’s the girl who got kicked out?”
“I know what Shaun said, but she seems like a good lead. She obviously had issues.”
“Issues that probably had nothing to do with the bridge. You heard what Shaun said. We’re not looking for some sad sorority-girl confessional; we’re looking for real tragedy. Let’s go back to that suicide for one second. It’s the only real death we can tie to the bridge.”
Gabriel sighs. “I promise the suicide is a dead end.”
“How do you know?”
“I just know.”
I lean forward, my calves scraping against the rough fabric of the couch. “You’re totally weird about this suicide, man. Tell me why you’re so sure this isn’t behind it.”
“Because it was my father.”
I am stunned into silence.
Gabriel watches me, unblinking, and then goes on without me prodding.
“He was schizophrenic. My father.” He tilts his head. “You know what schizophrenia is?”
“A little bit, yeah.”
“He was a college junior, and my mom was a high school junior when she got pregnant with me. It was a four-year age difference. You know how four years means absolutely nothing for adults? Well, between high school and college, it’s different.”
“People weren’t cool about it, I’m guessing.”
“My grandfather told me it was hard. They loved each other and had planned to get married. But my father started having symptoms. Outbursts. Even hallucinations. My mom was six months pregnant when he jumped.” He scuffs the ground with his foot. “Maybe it could have been different. But mental health treatment options weren’t great around here back then, you know?”
“I know they’re not a hell of a lot better now.” I frown. “I also know that’s a damn awful thing to have happen, Gabriel. That’s a devastating loss.”
He bursts into motion, pushing his hair back and straightening the books on the table. “He’d tried to kill himself three other times. The bridge is where it finally worked. It wasn’t special or significant—it’s where it ended up happening, you know?”
“Okay,” I say softly.
“And in case you’re wondering, there isn’t a lock on the bridge with his initials on
it. I checked everywhere.”
“I’m sorry, man. I didn’t know.”
But now that I do know, it hits me—we’re still no closer than we were before.
I stand up. “Look, I’ve got to get to work.”
“I don’t know why I’m holding out on the locks,” Gabriel says out of nowhere. “I know cutting them off makes sense. Logically, it might work.”
“But you’re not convinced.”
“I’m…afraid of them,” he admits. “Those locks knocked you out. That was when you only cut a few. We don’t understand how this energy works. Even Shaun doesn’t, you know?”
“Yeah. But if the locks are the source of power, destroying them seems like a solution.”
Gabriel swallows hard. “Except that’s when the haunting was strongest for you before. It wasn’t less powerful… It was more. Cutting them made it stronger.”
I clench my jaw, memories of the voices drifting just beyond my ears. My stomach slides sideways when I think about what happened before. “I don’t know what else to do.”
“I know. But if I find something?”
“I’m game to try just about anything.”
I smile to reassure him, but I don’t think he’ll find any new details. In the end, I think it comes down to sawing those locks free. And hoping to God we destroy the power instead of unleashing it.
Outside Gabriel’s, I cut down the narrow steps to his townhome and head for the bridge. There are long smudges of pink across the charcoal sky by the time I get there, and I wish we’d agreed to start work a little later now that I’m not climbing around on the bridge day after day. It’d be nice to get an hour of sleep.
Denny’s truck is not here, so maybe he decided he could come in later.
I consider running home for a nap, but if Denny’s on his way, he’ll lose it if I’m not here today. He’s been a constant stream of commentary on me being a team player, so I lope up the ramp, wishing there was somewhere to get a coff—
I stop dead. Paige is on the bridge. She’s dressed this time, a gray sweatshirt and a pair of ratty shorts. One look at her, and my head is full to bursting with the feel of her lips against mine. I can feel her breath coming fast and her hands on my arms and—BAM.
We All Fall Down Page 18
