“Yes, but where? You said he was a professor, right? Are we going to his school or something?”
Mike shook his head. “He said it’s not safe there.”
“Not safe?”
“Said his coworkers couldn’t be trusted with what we’ll be discussing.”
“You mean my sister’s music and how it makes people go crazy?” She thought it sounded crazy but she couldn’t say she disagreed with the theory. Not with the way Mr. Fuller and Mia and just about everyone else in the world was acting.
“Yes,” he said. “Among other things.”
“Such as?”
He stopped at a red light, turned right without answering the question.
“I had you pegged as a talker the other night,” Shawna said. “You know, when you kidnapped me?”
“I didn’t kidnap you.” Eyes on the road. Hands clenching the wheel until the knuckles turned white.
“Then what would you call it?”
He slammed a fist onto the wheel, blaring the horn in the process. An old woman on the sidewalk looked up. She’d been checking her mail but the envelopes fell to the ground as she watched them pass. “I let you go, didn’t I?”
She shrugged. “Barely.”
“Look, I’ll explain more when we meet Professor Foster. Gary Foster.”
“This Gary guy—you think he can actually help us?”
“I hope so.”
They grew silent. She stole glances at him every so often. Not an ugly man by any means, though she wasn’t exactly an expert, but he wasn’t Ryan Gosling either. It was clear he’d been better looking before his job had gotten the best of him. Wrinkles bordered his eyes and lips, making him look ten years older. His eight o’clock shadow was turning gray by the minute.
“Where are we meeting him?” she said to break the silence. Normally she didn’t mind the quiet on account of her condition, but lately she cherished background noise. Because lately she had a certain song stuck in her head.
“A recording studio.”
“Say what?”
He nodded. “His friend is a producer. Helps him out with his experiments.”
“Experiments.”
Mike sighed. “Look, enough questions, okay? Usually, I’m the one doing the asking.”
She rolled her eyes. “Fine. Ask away.”
“What happened to your sister?”
“How do you mean?” She knew exactly what he meant. She just didn’t want to think about it. She’d fought so hard to forget about certain things. Certain creeping things. Some days were easier than others. Today was not one of those days.
“I mean something must have happened when you guys were younger. She couldn’t have always been like this. Who the hell taught her to sing?”
Shawna rubbed her eyes. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d slept. “Do we have to talk about this?”
“Sooner or later. Might as well make it sooner.”
She closed her eyes. “Okay, but you’re going to think I’m crazy.”
“Do you remember how many pictures of dead people I had hanging on that wall?” Outside, the wind picked up as they headed closer to the studio, wherever it was. “Try me.”
She called them the creeping things but in reality they were stubborn memories that refused to become repressed. She’d managed to keep them in the background, stored in some distant chamber of her mind, but they were always there.
And if, by some miracle, she went a few days or, rarely, a whole week without thinking of the creeping things, that’s when the nightmares came around. Only the nightmares couldn’t match what had happened in reality. Nothing could match that.
It had been harmless at first. Before the spells and the thing under the bed, etched into the floor, it had just been them and an invisible woman named Ethel. Their mother had thought it was cute. Two girls and their imaginary friend. Except the longer the game went on, the more Shawna suspected Ethel may not have been all that imaginary.
“She’s real,” Angie had insisted on so many nights, huddled under their comforter, flashlight under her chin like she was about to tell the world’s scariest story.
“She can’t be,” Shawna would insist.
“Why not?”
“Because she’s just make-believe.”
“Ghosts aren’t make-believe.”
Most of the ghosts she’d been exposed to were of the friendly variety. Scooby-Doo and Casper. Innocent apparitions that wanted to be your friend or, at the most, cause mischief.
Shawna couldn’t remember their first encounter with Ethel. It was probably a combination of things: too many late nights sneaking glances into the living room while their mother and father (before he left) watched horror movies.
There seemed to be no transition about it. One moment it was Shawna and Angie, twin sisters and best friends, and the next there was a wedge driven between them. A wedge by the name of Ethel.
“Why’s her name so ugly?” Shawna said about a month after their friend appeared, though Angie had been the only one to see her.
Angie rolled her eyes. “She didn’t get to pick it. That’s just what it is. Why’s your name Shawna?”
“Because that was our great grandmother’s name.”
“Okay, so maybe that was Ethel’s great grandmother’s name too. And don’t say it’s ugly. She doesn’t like that.”
It was Shawna’s turn to roll her eyes. “How do you know that?”
“Because she told me.” There was a knock at the door then, probably Kristen checking they were in bed.
Except their mother’s voice did not come. No voice at all in fact. Just slow, steady breathing.
“What was that?” Shawna said, tears forming in her eyes.
“That was Ethel. Now do you believe me? She’s as real as your stuffed animals. And she wants to be our friend, okay? So stop calling her ugly.”
Shawna didn’t bring up their supposed friend for a few days after that. They were at the school playground, playing hopscotch, surrounded by their real and tangible classmates.
Shawna pulled Angie away from the group. “What did you mean the other night?”
“About what?”
“When you said Ethel wants to be our friend.” She winced at the name.
“She says she wants to cross over. And she needs our help.”
“Cross over? You mean, like, into our world or something?”
Angie nodded, a hint of a smile contorting her face. It was much more human-like back then. “We have to help her, Shawna. Please.”
“Why does she want to come to our world so bad?”
Angie didn’t answer. Not at first. Not even as they helped Ethel cross over. Not until the spell was complete. And by then the answer was pretty damned obvious.
Vengeance.
It was all about vengeance, though at the time, Shawna hadn’t understood the word’s definition.
The night they invoked Ethel, their parents had gone to a Christmas party. It seemed absurd, dabbling in amateur witchcraft while light snow fell outside their window, the sounds of Frosty the Snowman drifting upstairs from the living room television. Their babysitter, Anne Marie, sat on the couch making out with her boyfriend. She had only one rule: don’t tattle on her and she’d hold them to the same standard. In hindsight, Shawna wished Anne Marie had tattled instead of getting to second base.
Angie had taken a trip to Esmeralda’s Ye Olde Magic Shoppe earlier that day. Though it was only a few blocks from their home, Kristen had warned them never to go. “I don’t like that place,” she’d said on more than one occasion.
“It’s cool,” the girls would counter in unison. “None of that stuff is real. It’s just potions and powders. They’re like toys.”
Shawna had her headphones on, lying on the bed the way young girls do: stomach down, feet in the air. She flipped through a J-14 magazine that didn’t hold her interest. Boy bands and divas, something her sister would eventually become, were boring as hell. She much
preferred the rock and roll bands her father listened to. Her head bopped along to Guns N’ Roses. The kids at school had given her grief when they learned of her musical tastes but she didn’t care. Besides, the doctors had warned her hearing would eventually worsen. Why not enjoy the music she actually liked while she still could?
Halfway through the CD she heard something like a creaking door over the music. Then there was a hand on her shoulder. She spun around and nearly screamed.
Angie held up a brown paper bag. “I got the stuff.”
“What stuff?”
“The stuff we talked about. For the spell that will bring Ethel to us.”
“You mean provoking?”
“Invoking. At least that’s what Esmeralda called it.”
“The fat lady at the witch store?”
Angie nodded. “She’s nice. And I think she actually knows what she’s talking about.” She turned her attention toward her bed across the room. “You wanna try?”
“How’s it work?”
Angie’s face contorted with a smile that was more like a snarl. For a moment, Shawna swore her teeth were all wrong. Jagged and uneven. Like a vampire or something. Probably just her imagination. “I’ll show you. Help me with the bed.”
“What’s under there?”
Angie didn’t answer. She grabbed one of the posts while Shawna grabbed another. They struggled and pulled until the bed was at a perpendicular angle.
Downstairs, the television muted. They could hear the sounds of wet lips before they stopped suddenly. Anne Marie’s boyfriend groaned in frustration. “What’re you guys doing up there?”
“Just playing.” Angie grabbed the blanket that had been laid over the floor.
“Keep it down, will you?”
The television returned, Frosty’s husky voice once again filling the house.
“What’s under there?”
Angie pulled the blanket and revealed a symbol of some sort. At first Shawna thought her sister had used a Sharpie to draw it but the longer she looked, she realized it had been scratched into the floorboards themselves. A circle and star in one, except the star seemed wrong. “You drew it upside down.”
Angie shook her head. “That’s how it’s supposed to be.”
“Mom and Dad are going to kill you.”
“Us.”
“Huh?”
“They’re going to kill us. And only if they find out. We keep it between us.”
“What do you mean? I wasn’t even here when you did this.”
“They don’t know that.” From the paper bag she pulled out several candles and a lighter of the cheap plastic variety. There was a generic graphic along its edge: a sexy witch, breasts practically bursting out of a low-cut top.
“What’re you doing?” Shawna didn’t like the idea of playing with fire, though she didn’t yet know that was the least of her worries.
“You’ll see.” Angie lit the candles and placed one on each point of the star. Next she grabbed a jar of pink powder from the bag and spread it along the outer circle.
“You’re making a mess,” Shawna said.
Angie ignored her. She pulled the last remaining item from the bag—a small, leather-bound book that reminded Shawna of the bible her parents kept in the cupboard downstairs. But when her sister flipped through the pages, she saw it couldn’t have been more different. There were pictures of monsters and demons and things meant for nightmares.
“A spell book,” Shawna said.
Angie nodded.
Downstairs, Frosty giggled, as if in response.
Angie settled on a page and wrinkled her brow. “Seems more complicated than when Esmeralda explained it but I think we can figure it out. Hold my hand.”
“What?”
“The spell, silly. We need to hold hands in order for it to work.”
“I’m hungry. Are you hungry? Maybe we should make some nachos and watch the rest of the movie.”
“You mean watch Anne Marie’s boyfriend touch her boobs? Gross. Stop being a wuss and grab my hand.”
She did as her sister asked. Angie’s hands were not cold and clammy like her own.
Angie began to read the spell but Shawna cut her off. “What if it’s not her?”
“Not who?”
“Ethel. What if it’s something that’s just pretending to be her?” The thought appeared from nowhere. She’d been thinking of their imaginary friend for days now but hadn’t formulated the theory until that moment. She didn’t like her choice of words. Something instead of someone.
“And why would something pretend to be an old woman named Ethel?”
Shawna shrugged and posed another question. “What if it is her but she’s not nice?”
“She’s been nice the whole time.”
“But what if she’s just faking it so we’ll help her? What if she’s secretly a bitch like Mrs. Fielding? Or worse.” Diana Fielding, their fifth-grade teacher, was the epitome of pure evil in their eyes. She gave every Disney villain a run for their money.
“Are you going to help me or what?” Angie said. “This stuff cost me a week’s allowance and we’re almost done. Those candles aren’t going to last all night.”
“But—”
“But nothing. You can either sit here and hold my hand while we say the spell or you can go listen to Air Smith.”
“Aero.”
“Whatever. You can listen to old people music while I summon our friend. What do you think Samantha and Jill will say at school on Monday? You think they won’t make fun of you when they hear that you chickened out?”
Shawna gulped instead of answering. Her sister had her at a standstill. The only option was to go on with the spell.
She closed her eyes while Angie read the words aloud. Her pronunciation seemed off, though the phrases themselves were strangely put together. More Pig Latin than English. Or maybe just Latin Latin.
“Repeat after me,” Angie said.
Shawna wanted to run but her sister’s grip tightened. The sooner she got this over with, the sooner she could head downstairs and pretend to be interested in the cartoon.
Angie’s speech grew faster. Louder. And . . . different somehow. As if she wasn’t the only one speaking anymore. Her mind did the math against her will.
There were three voices now.
A cool breeze blew through the room even though the windows were shut.
“It worked,” Angie said some time later. Shawna wasn’t sure how long. She’d kept her eyes closed so hard they felt glued.
“What do you mean?” A single tear tried to crawl out of her eye.
“Open your eyes and take a look, silly.”
Shawna could practically see the grin on her sister’s face even in the blackness. That same grin from earlier that didn’t seem all that human.
She opened her right eye, too frightened to see the whole scene. That stubborn tear made its way out just fine, trickling down her cheek. It was followed by more when she saw not one but two individuals sitting on the floor before her.
“It worked,” Angie said again.
“We’re almost there,” Mike said.
Shawna expected him to laugh or sneer. Instead, he scratched at the stubble along his jawbone, perhaps in thought. Perhaps trying to decide if he ought to drop her off at the corner and tell her to find the nearest insane asylum.
“That isn’t the whole story,” she said. “There’s plenty more.”
“There’ll be time for that later.”
She hadn’t realized how long she’d been talking. According to the clock, an hour had passed. They were no longer in the suburbs. Skyscrapers lay in the distance. They’d reached Boston.
Mike pulled off the highway and soon there were brick buildings for as far as she could see. An industrial part of town. “Where are we?”
He pulled into a nondescript parking lot. The building in front of them had tinted windows that matched those of the RV. The brick was crumbling in several places and she wond
ered if the place hadn’t been condemned. “We’re here.”
She had one last, panicked thought about Officer Mallory. What if this was all some elaborate plan? Make her think he was on her side but really he just wanted to isolate her so no one would hear her scream.
He started to get out of the car. “Wait,” she said.
“What?”
“Aren’t you going to say anything?”
“About what?”
She unbuckled her seat belt. “I just told you about how we conjured a dead woman and you have nothing to say?”
“I have plenty to say but I’ll let the professor take it from here. Whatever your sister is, we’re going to put an end to her.”
He stepped outside and entered the closest door. A dark hallway awaited. He’d left the keys in the ignition. She didn’t have her license, couldn’t afford driving lessons on account of her mother’s crippling debt, but she was a fast learner.
But where would she go? Back to Salem, where everyone seemed to be losing their minds? Her hometown didn’t feel safe anymore. Nowhere felt safe. Sitting in the RV with the tinted windows, in the nondescript parking lot, she felt hundreds of eyes on her.
The dark hallway didn’t seem all that sinister anymore.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
MORE ANSWERS AND MORE QUESTIONS
JOSH SPENT MOST OF THE day at the hospital. It was two hours before he was given an update. Both he and his ass had fallen asleep in the emergency room. The chairs were hellish, made from plastic that felt more like concrete. In the upper corner of the wall, a muted television played news stories about suicide bombers and school shootings. During every commercial break there’d been at least two advertisements for Angie Everstein’s debut album, featuring the titular track.
The closed captions had been turned on. Though he couldn’t hear her voice, his skin still tingled at the sight of her lyrics scrolling across the screen. He crossed his legs to hide his excitement. What the hell was happening to him? And while he was on the subject: what the hell was happening to the world?
A Voice So Soft Page 11
