Wolfhowl Mountain

by Dian Cronan

  I think back to that night. Eileen’s scream, seeing the whites of her frightened eyes, like a deer right before it jumps into the headlights of your car. My own fear as I watched the front doors bulge open. My own scream and the strange voice calling to me.

  Let me in.

  I grab Eileen’s shoulders and turn her around, looking into her dark eyes, pleading. “Eileen…what happened that night?”

  Eileen’s eyes well up again and she chokes on a sob, looking away, but I force her to look me in the eyes again. “Tell me, Eileen. Please.”

  Eileen takes a deep breath and steadies herself with a nod, preparing to relive the worst moment of her life. “Okay… Okay.” Another deep breath. “I was in the basement,” she begins, “with Shane and Patty. We went intah the room underneath the stairs, the one with the dirt floor, right? I saw this little door in the back corner. And, I dunno, I just had to go in there…” She turns away from me, putting her hands back on the sink, and I watch her knuckles turn white.

  “As soon as I went in, the door closed behind me.” Her voice is quiet, made sinister in the echoing bathroom acoustics. “It was cold. Freezin’. It smelled coppery, like mud. And it was pitch dark. Couldn’t see anythin’. Then all of a sudden, there was this light comin’ from a mirror.”

  “The one with all the cracks?” I’m surprised to hear how hushed my own voice has become. I immediately remember my first and only encounter in the basement of Wolfhowl Manor; the strange dirt room, the broken kaleidoscope of a mirror, the strong, invisible hand on my shoulder… Dread cascades over me like an icy shroud.

  Eileen nods. “Curious, right? So, I went ovah to it. Looked intah the mirror.”

  A long silence passes between us, the deep thud of the D.J.’s bass barely penetrating the thick walls. I finally ask, “W-what did you see?”

  “Death.” Eileen’s voice is so low I barely hear her. “It was like watchin’ an old home movie, dark and kind of blurry. I saw my parents layin’ in their bed. But the covers weren’t right, their bodies weren’t… And that’s when I saw the light again. Only it wasn’t a light. It was a reflection. It was the glint off of my dad’s gun in his hand. And then I saw Kelly—”

  “Kelly?” I interrupt, the name ringing an urgent bell in my mind.

  “My little sistah,” Eileen smiles a little. “She just turned six… She’s got class with your brothah, right? Liam?”

  I swallow hard. My mouth runs dry. “Yeah.”

  “She’s just a tiny scrid of a thin’, you know? All of a sudden, there she was in front of me, in that cold little room, in the mirror. She was in her little princess bed, sleepin’ I thought. But her head was layin’ funny. Her neck was twisted. They were all dead. My whole family. Dead… And then this strange music began to fill my ears, quiet at first, but then loud. I thought maybe Shane and Patty had found an old music box or somethin’.”

  I think I know exactly what song Eileen heard, but I don’t dare interrupt her.

  “And then I was holdin’ a shard of glass in my hand.” Eileen holds up a hand, as if holding an invisible piece of glass between two delicate fingers. She brings it over to her other wrist, turns it up. “Must’ve been a piece of the mirror. I think… I must’ve pulled it loose with my nails, pried it off of the mirror. And I couldn’t look away from it. I couldn’t look away! My family was there, dead, splayed out before me like ragdolls and all I could do was gawk like some gawmy idiot…

  “And then I heard the voice.” Eileen turns toward me, her eyes unfocused, still far away, as tears fall silently down her cheeks. Her voice trembles with urgency. “It said ‘It’s so easy, Eileen. Easy.’ It said, ‘Look at them. Look how lonely they are. Your family needs you, Eileen. They need you. Join them, Eileen. It’s so easy.’”

  I watch, horrified, as Eileen moves the hand with the invisible shard of glass over her sinuous pale wrist, her veins fairly glowing beneath her skin. She makes a slashing motion, quick and angry. I can almost see the spurt of imaginary blood. It makes me nauseous.

  “I felt it, Rose,” Eileen says, looking at her hands for a long time, and then slowly lowering them back to the sink, holding onto the edges as if they’re the only thing keeping her standing. “I felt that shard of glass slicin’ into my skin as sure as I feel this porcelain.” She looks at me hard. “I thought I’d done it. I thought I was dead… All I remember aftah that is screamin’.”

  My mind is overloaded with images and sounds. I search for something comforting to say, something to make Eileen feel better, but come up empty. Instead I ask, “Is Kelly okay?”

  Eileen frowns. “I dunno. She hasn’t been to school all week. Mom’s been takin’ her to doc aftah doc.”

  “Why?”

  Eileen shrugs, a helpless gesture. “She stopped talkin’ aftah…” Her voice trails off.

  “After what?”

  “Aftah I told her what happened on the mountain.”

  “You told her?”

  “She was askin’ a lot of questions,” Eileen explains desperately. “She has a little thin’ for your brothah, you know? A crush. So she was askin’ me all these thins about you and your family and Liam… And I couldn’t get away from what happened that night. I’ve thought about it every second of every day. Dreamed ‘bout it at night. I couldn’t talk ‘bout it with anyone and heeah Kelly was, askin’ me all these questions . I thought… I thought if I told someone, maybe it would all go away…”

  I sigh. I want to tell Eileen she’s crazy. You can’t tell a six year old something like that. For a six year old to see her teenage sister’s naked fear is to take away all safety and innocence from the world. But I don’t say this. I can’t; I know exactly how Eileen feels. Liam’s cherub-like face pops into my mind and my heart grows heavy.

  “I never thought ‘bout suicide before. Never,” Eileen says, shaking her head. “But evah since that night… I think about it all the time. All the time. I don’t know why. I don’t want to die… but deep down, it feels like it’s only a matter of time before I end it. It’s only a matter of time, and I can’t stop it.”

  Eileen’s words chill me to the bone.

  “D’you think she’ll be okay,” Eileen asks. “Kelly? She’ll be okay won’t she?” Eileen’s dark brown eyes are begging. C’mon, Ghost Girl. Tell me my little sister will be okay.

  “Yeah,” I lie. “She’ll be okay. Of course she’ll be okay.”

  Eileen smiles weakly. “Thanks, Rose. Thanks for list’nin’. Bet you’re glad you asked, right?” She laughs, but it’s mirthless, a dead echo against the porcelain and tile. She turns back to the mirror with resolve, an emotionless mask sliding over her features. She rips off another square of toilet paper and goes about fixing her makeup. “Well, you bettah get back tah the party,” she says. “You don’t want tah keep Ronan waitin’ too long.”

  “Yeah. I’ll see you around, I guess.”

  “Yeah,” Eileen replies without turning around. “See you ‘round.”

  I back slowly out of the bathroom and return to the gym, now thumping with nineties club music. Someone should let the D.J. know it’s okay to play songs from this decade.

  “Rose!” Ronan calls me over to a table where he’s talking with some of the usuals from his lunch table. He stands as I approach. “I was startin’ tah worry,” he says, irritated.

  “Sorry,” I reply, trying to sound normal, unflustered. “Ran into some friends in the bathroom. You know, girl talk.” I manage a convincing smirk, hoping he’ll think I’ve been talking about him for the last fifteen minutes.

  “Oh, well,” he says with a smile, “I suppose I can forgive you.” He puts his hands on my waist and pulls me close. “Want tah get back tah the dance floor?”

  Ronan is really letting his accent come out around me, like the night at the waterfall. Without Mary hovering around him and demanding perfect diction, he’s more relaxed. I look at the dance floor. On the opposite side Letta and Beckan stand with Patty and Shane. The four of them
huddle close together, talking animatedly. Shane says something funny and they all laugh. Letta tilts her head back and puts her hand on Beckan’s arm. He starts, surprised by the familiar gesture. When he looks up, his eyes catch mine. He raises a hand, as if to wave, and a surge of bitter anger overtakes me.

  I turn back to Ronan, laying my hands on his chest and letting them slide up toward his neck. I pop his collar and pull him close. For a second he’s startled, but then he smirks, and leans his face in. We kiss.

  Ronan’s lips are cool, familiar. He’s delicate with me, but I’m not in the mood to be delicate. I guide his lips apart with my own and bite his bottom lip.

  Ronan pulls away with a pained, surprised smile. “Well aren’t you friendly?”

  I give him another light peck in response and his eyes reappraise me.

  “Do you want tah get out of heeah?”

  “Yeah,” I say with another glance over his shoulder. “I do.”

  As Ronan takes my hand and leads me toward the exit, I catch sight of my friends across the dance floor. Letta and Patty share an O-shaped gape while Shane stares with a raised eyebrow, but Beckan… Beckan looks confused, and maybe a little hurt.

  I smirk. Good.

  Chapter Forty-Five

  The Portrait

  Beckan pulls his truck into the gravely patch serving as the O’Dwyre driveway a little after midnight. A steady drizzle falls, dampening his mood as much as his clothes. Although it’s a frigid evening, he didn’t wear his flannel coat over his dress shirt – it seemed wrong somehow to pull something so casual over his formal attire, and he was nervous enough attending the dance to begin with that a coat hadn’t seemed important five hours ago.

  When Letta came to his door earlier that evening, he’d steadfastly refused to go along with her scheme. He’s a twenty-year-old high school dropout whose unpopularity followed him into adulthood. Attending the dance was a stupid, ridiculous, utterly insane idea… How had she ever convinced him that his opinion on the matter was wrong? I’m an idiot for listening, he thinks. It was a total disaster. Rose practically burst into flames the second she saw him, her anger flowing off in heat waves so hot he felt them across the gym. Why was she so angry? What had he done to invoke such bitterness? He’d thought he’d finally broken through that icy wall of hers, had himself convinced she cared for him, that she was finally realizing what a great person she could be beyond all of the superficial crap.

  And then she’d left the dance with that haughty asshat.

  As if he needed a reminder, Ronan’s BMW speeds down the mountain’s steep driveway as the sound of the closing red doors echo toward him. What did they do after they left the dance, he wonders. He’d stayed for Letta, who was determined to pretend to enjoy herself. True to her word, she’d tried desperately hard to have a good time – dancing to every song, singing along with Patty, laughing at everything a little too loudly. But even though Beckan hardly knew Letta, he could tell it was all a show. He saw the sadness through the smiling mask and found himself wondering if the rumors he’d heard about Letta and Ronan were true – that would certainly explain her odd behavior. But he didn’t dare ask her. She deserves more respect than that.

  After the dance, they’d gone for a late night snack at The Wharf Rat with the rest of the dance-goers. Shane and Patty were syrupy and languid across from his stiff form and Letta’s twitchy energy. Others stared at Beckan and Letta – they made an awkward couple – and he’d felt his ears burning all night long, knowing people were talking about him. It’s a feeling he was unfortunately familiar with.

  But where did Ronan take Rose? They weren’t among the rest of Port Braseham’s teens flooding the only place in town still open. What had they been doing for the last few hours? Abruptly, the image of Ronan with his wiry arms around Rose as they kissed floats before his eyes.

  With ugly, unpleasant thoughts, Beckan stalks to his own front door and enters the blackness of the cabin, slamming the door like a petulant child.

  Derry waits for him in his rocking chair by the hearth, Lady at his feet. She lifts her head for a brief scritch between the ears before Beckan sits heavily across from his father, the wood of his own rocking chair letting out a protesting creak. Derry holds a steaming cup of tea in his mitts and his chin juts toward an identical mug on the coffee table. Beckan picks it up but doesn’t drink, instead letting it warm up his hands.

  “Well,” Derry says, his deep voice making Beckan’s tea erupt in small ripples.

  “I don’t want tah talk ‘bout it.”

  Derry sits silently, ever so slightly moving his chair back and forth. He stares at his son, his little pinhole eyes boring into Beckan, the only sound the groaning of the wood beneath their chairs and the hissing crackles of the dying fire in the hearth.

  “She’s so stubborn,” Beckan finally says when he thinks the silence might kill him. “And angry.”

  Derry doesn’t reply.

  Futility wraps around Beckan like a blanket. He sags, his heart sitting ever so slightly lower in his chest. Lady crawls over to him and lays her head in his lap with a whine and a thump of her tail. As he pets her soft head, the moisture brims up behind his eyes. The urge to cry becomes stronger and he fights it with all he has in him. He hasn’t cried since his mother’s funeral and he suddenly feels like a small boy again, watching the undertaker crank the shiny black coffin lower, lower, lower… until it disappeared into the shadowy abyss of the grave. Then, as suddenly as the image appeared, it’s gone, and he steels himself with resolve. No. He won’t cry over her.

  “I’m losin’ her, Pop,” he says quietly.

  “Ayuh.” Derry sighs sadly, thickening the air of desperation in their little cabin.

  In the distance, a wolf howls and Lady thumps her tail on the floor with another whimper.

  ***

  As I approach the bloody doors of Wolfhowl Manor, I turn and wave to Ronan. He waves back, a little disappointedly, before speeding away.

  This evening was certainly interesting. It had started out with such promise, such potential… and then had gone so quickly and steadily downhill that I’m as angry and depressed as ever.

  Beckan and Letta showed up at the dance together. Unshakeable shock and betrayal clamped down on me like a vise. How could Letta do that to me? I shake my head to rid it of my depressing thoughts, but they refuse to loosen their grip. How could I have been so wrong about Beckan? And Letta – who was supposedly my friend? They don’t really care about me. They aren’t my friends. I’m nothing to them. Nothing. Like ships passing in the night, we’d had our brief and fleeting moment, and now Rose Delaney will fade into the darkness, becoming another piece of Port Braseham folklore.

  I pull out my keys as I remember kissing Ronan at the dance. It’d been an impulsive reaction to my anger, something Texas Rose would’ve done. He’d practically sailed out of the dance with me, smirking ear to ear. He drove me to some deserted spot. It was dark and lonely, thunder rolling in the background. He barely had the car in park before pawing at me. I played along for a while, but leading him on wasn’t my intent. I’d just wanted Beckan and Letta to feel a shade of the anger I felt.

  Ronan’s hands were greedy. He was gentle at first, but then became more insistent, passionate even, and his strength in the lonely darkness unnerved me. I’d barely managed to fend him off. I know what Ronan was after of course, and I have zero intention of giving it to him – I didn’t achieve popularity among the boys in Texas by giving them what they wanted. It was not giving them what they wanted that kept them interested, kept them coming back with puppy dog eyes, begging for more like little orphan Oliver. I’m a conquest, a challenge…and boys, especially those like Ronan Quinn, crave a challenge, want to add Rose Delaney to the notches on their belt.

  Now, with Ronan hooked, I may as well use his influence to better my situation. I’m done playing the role of social outcast, done taking a back seat to Mary Donovan, done carving myself into the bottom of the totem pole.
I deserve my rightful place, deserve to be wanted and adored by my classmates, and with Ronan on my arm, I’ll finally usurp Mary’s throne. After all the grief Ronan and his friends have caused me, he owes me that much.

  So, I played coy. I’d cocked a sly eyebrow at him, adjusted my wrinkled dress, and gave him a smile. “It’s getting late,” I’d said quietly. “I’d better be getting home. Mom will start to worry soon.” He has no way of knowing that’s a total lie.

  Ronan returned my smile with a crooked one of his own, something dark lurking behind his eyes. He leaned back and straightened his jacket, taking a deep breath. “Sure,” he said with a great deal of control before reaching for the key and starting the engine.

  Ronan begrudgingly offered to take me for some ice cream before going home. We’d talked for a while, sitting in a convenience store parking lot and eating ice cream sandwiches, but Ronan was moody and I just wanted to forget this whole night ever happened.

  And now, here I am, back home. Bitter. Angry. Sad. With a long sigh, I open the door and go inside. I’m surprised to find the chandelier still on and it takes a moment for my eyes to adjust. When they do, I’m confused to see Mother at the top of the staircase, standing outside the fire room’s door. She’s as motionless as a statue, one hand lazily resting on the banister. Her long, fiery hair is pulled back into a loose ponytail, a few errant strands pasted to her cheeks by sweat. Her eyes are unusually dark and far away, like Eileen’s when she told me what happened in the basement. She wears a long form-fitting nightgown. The ivory color glows in the yellowy light of the chandelier like a ghostly aura. Something about the thin straps of the shoulder, the low v of the neck with the pearl embroidery at the center is familiar. Where had I seen it –