by Abe Moss
“What’s wrong with her?” Emmett asked.
“She isn’t in charge anymore,” his mother said simply.
Eventually Dr. Marks—using her own keycard—led them through a set of double doors into a room Emmett had only seen once before, the night of his arrival. Their steps echoed under the high, domed ceiling. Emmett shrank beneath the many lights shining down on them from every angle.
That neon-red emblem hung high on the wall above the reception desk. A sun, a moon, a star. A baby’s mobile. Once Emmett saw it, he could hardly look away. An omen to any who arrived. Though of what, he couldn’t say. He wished to tear it down off the wall, and then the rest of the building with it.
A young woman watched from behind the reception desk, stunned with terror at the sight of them. Emmett held up the severed head, like that would explain their business.
“Help me!” Dr. Marks cried out, as her body continued leading them in the opposite direction. “Please, send help! Stop them!”
The woman hesitated. Unable to peel her eyes away, she cautiously slinked away from the desk, through the door behind it, and disappeared.
“We need to hurry.”
They followed Dr. Marks toward a sliding glass door, which opened at their approach and brought them to the garage. Giant and spacious and white. A row of white vans were parked uniformly on one side. Dr. Marks followed the perimeter until she came to some kind of lockbox hung on the wall. Her keycard opened it, and from the box she acquired a keyring with a single key attached.
“It’s really happening,” Clark said. “We’re leaving…”
Emmett could hardly believe it himself. Only now did it truly occur to him. Soon—in a matter of minutes—they would be putting this place behind them, hopefully forever.
Emmett’s and Clark’s feet slapped the smooth floor noisily in their haste as they followed the doctor toward the row of vans. The key she’d picked belonged to one in particular.
“Emmett,” Clark said. “Do you know where we’re going?”
Lifting the severed head, he peered into that calming, pink light.
“Somewhere deserted and quiet,” she said. “A place we can finish this. Without interruption. Together. This time, Emmett, we’ll get it right. You and I.”
Emmett knew exactly where they were headed. He wasn’t entirely looking forward to it, but it made the most sense.
“What did she say?” Clark asked.
“Back to the Holmes house,” he said. “That’s where we’re going.”
Dr. Marks unlocked one of the vans and they all climbed inside. She got behind the wheel, her puppet body doing its best to manage with its single hand. Emmett sat in the passenger seat, Officer Hollings’ head in his lap. Clark sat on the floor behind them, happy to be there.
“Are you ready for what comes next?” his mother asked.
“Yes,” he said.
“Are you afraid, like last time?”
Dr. Marks wept softly beside them as she started the engine. She reversed the van from its spot, put it in drive, and upon nearing the garage door it rumbled upward on its own.
“No,” Emmett said, though his heart was nearly beating out of him.
The tires gently bumped as they descended the driveway and met the gravel. Clark shifted in the rear of the van, moving toward the back doors, watching through the windows. Emmett watched in the side mirror as the illuminated door began to shrink shut.
It was happening. They’d escaped. The horrors of that place could never touch them again. No more drugs. No more tests or evaluations.
He only wished the others had made it, too…
“Don’t be sad,” his mother whispered, as if sensing his thoughts. “Everything will be right soon. The world will be right. There’s no need to worry. Not ever again.”
The van vibrated over the gravel as they approached the final gate. Noticing their approach, the officer stationed there simply pressed his button to let them through. The gate rattled open. Dr. Marks cried for help from her seat as she waved to the officer in the booth. Then the forest swallowed them up.
Emmett watched once more in the side mirror as those tall spotlights disappeared behind the trees, flashing between their branches as they followed the winding road.
“Emmett?”
“Yeah?” he said, The Cradle’s light fading from his eyes.
“Happy birthday.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
THE RITUAL
I’m tired,” Emmett said.
Clark was somehow asleep in the back, rocking and sliding on the van floor as they twisted and turned.
“It’s not much longer. You can sleep if you’d like. We still have many hours before morning.”
It was a mostly quiet car ride, once Dr. Marks quit her frightened whimpering. Rather peaceful. Emmett watched the nighttime forest through the window, wishing he could sleep if not for all the things there were to think about. To worry about.
“Mom…”
“Yes?”
He looked into the dead, light-filled eyes held between his hands, unable to read them and frustrated for it. He wished he could see her face again, just one last time.
“Dr. Marks told me you killed those people.” He paused, remembering. “You told me they died in their sleep, but… she said you poisoned them.”
His mother didn’t answer immediately. Was she thinking of a lie, he wondered, or how best to tell him the truth? He figured after all of this, there wasn’t any more room for lies.
“What she told you is true.”
He loosened with relief—the fear of being lied to cast aside.
“She said they were my grandparents. Is that true, too?”
“They were your grandparents, yes. My mother and father. Believe me when I tell you, Emmett, that they weren’t good people. I’m glad you never got to meet them, as selfish as that sounds. Even if I couldn’t give you the best childhood, I’m grateful you never experienced the things I did.”
“What things?”
A lipless sigh. “Let’s just leave it at that, all right? Trust me on this.”
He decided that, while he didn’t have all the answers, he had enough for the questions he’d wanted answers for the most.
And more importantly, he did trust her.
As would always be the case.
✽ ✽ ✽
Not intending to fall asleep, Emmett opened his eyes at his mother’s behest. The van was still in motion, rocking and dipping in its ascent.
Ascent.
He blinked. The forest was dark as ever.
“We’re almost there,” his mother said.
He put his face nearer the window, his nose touching the glass. Ahead of them, their headlights illuminated the bumpy road and not much else.
He startled as Clark leaned forward between the seats.
“We’re almost there, aren’t we?” From the corner of his eye, he stared at the head in Emmett’s lap. Perhaps eventually his medication would wear off and he’d be appropriately terrified by everything. For now, though, he seemed mostly indifferent. “Does it talk to you?”
Emmett nodded.
Clark looked between Emmett and the head, undeniably skeptical. Of course, he couldn’t deny the magic on display. He’d seen it clear enough with his own eyes in The Cradle. It was only the source of the magic he questioned. Was it something else entirely, which Emmett chose to believe was his mother?
“Hello, Clark,” Emmett’s mother said.
Even in the van’s dim interior, Clark visibly paled. Much to Emmett’s delight, he’d heard her that time.
“You heard that?” Emmett asked, grinning broadly.
Clark opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again. Then, without saying anything, he excused himself back into the rear of the van. Emmett could only smile.
The road leveled. There was a bend up ahead which Emmett thought he recognized. In the daylight, if he looked through the trees, he would see its shape looming nearer. It
s tall, steeply angled roof. Now, though, he saw nothing. Only felt it. Waiting.
The road straightened. Emmett leaned forward, head bowed to get a better look. He saw it now. A dark shadow of itself…
“We’re here,” he said.
Hands touched the dash beside him as Clark leaned into the front of the cabin to see for himself. His wide, observant eyes hardened as he recognized it. Likely he thought of that night, too. It was impossible to return and not think of it.
“What’s that?” Emmett said, spotting something in the clearing.
“Show me.”
He held Hollings’ head up to the windshield, glaring the glass with the pink light. His mother made a sound, spotting it as well.
A green jeep was parked near the front porch.
✽ ✽ ✽
They parked the van behind the jeep and killed the engine.
“It’s Eileen’s car,” Clark said. “Do you think she’s here?”
Emmett’s insides swarmed with butterflies.
“We need to be cautious,” his mother advised. “Don’t want to frighten her.”
How could they not, Emmett wondered?
He climbed out of the van, swinging the bodiless head against his leg, fingers wrapped through its hair. Clark climbed out after him, stretching and groaning. Dr. Marks made her way around the car to join them, her movements stiff and robotic.
“Her keys are in the ignition,” Clark said, peering through the jeep’s passenger window.
“We need to find her before we start anything.”
Emmett gazed upon the house, tall, black, cold, and empty.
Well… mostly empty.
Dr. Marks was made to stand outside by the cars, keeping watch. On soft, quiet feet, Clark and Emmett crept up the front porch together. Emmett paused at the door. He held up the head.
“Shouldn’t we wait?”
“No,” his mother said. “We don’t have much time. Just be careful.”
Emmett opened the door as delicately as he could. It whined on his old, heavy hinges. No helping that. He peeked through the gap.
“I can’t see anything.”
“Go on.”
He pushed the door a little wider, enough to slip inside. Clark followed. They left the door just barely open behind them.
The bottom floor was entirely dark. The upstairs hallway and balcony as well. Deafeningly silent. If Eileen was there, the house showed no signs of her.
Emmett walked a few paces into the foyer. As his eyes adjusted to the dark, he turned toward the reading room where he barely made out the bookshelves along its walls, and Mrs. Holmes’ reading chair. He turned to the kitchen—
—where everything had gone wrong that night…
The bodies were missing now, of course. But he saw what appeared to be dark patches on the floor—the dried blood they left behind.
“You have painful memories of this place,” his mother said. “I wish I could take them back.”
Emmett shrugged. He returned to the bottom of the staircase. Peering up, the hallway was just as quiet and lonely at the top. But she was up there, he knew. He sensed it, somehow. A sorrow. Just like her mother’s, he remembered. All through the house.
“She’s up there,” he said.
“You feel it, too.”
Carefully, softly, he started up, Clark close behind. The stairs creaked. At the top they continued straight, down the lightless hallway. Emmett paused as he passed their old room. He peeked inside. Their beds remained, but their belongings were cleaned out. That was all right, he thought. He had all he wanted dangling around his neck.
“I wouldn’t mind never sleeping here again,” Clark whispered.
They moved on. They turned the corner at the end of the hallway and started down the next. The door was open at the end. Mr. and Mrs. Holmes’ bedroom. A distinct sound came from there. In the dark, Emmett gestured for Clark to be extra silent. The closer they came, the more they both heard it.
Sniffling.
Emmett waited just outside. Keeping to the wall, he leaned into the doorway, peering in with a single eye.
The curtains to the balcony were drawn, letting in a pale ray of moonlight. She was sitting on her mother’s bed, shoulders slack, staring into that calm light. Something was in her hands…
“Stop her, Emmett,” his mother said. He gazed down at the head in surprise, not sure what she meant. “You have to stop her.”
Looking again, he saw it. Glimmering steel. She cradled it in her lap. Heavy. Powerful. She straightened on the edge of the bed, getting ready. She wiped her eyes, then put both her hands around it. Cleared her throat.
She turned the gun toward herself and opened her mouth.
“Wait!”
Eileen screamed. She jumped to her feet, the gun at her side. She stepped back, bumped into her mother’s nightstand, where several items fell over onto the floor. Emmett stood in the doorway, breathing heavily as she did. It took a moment before she realized who it was, and even then she didn’t believe it at first.
“Emmett? Is that you?”
Now he didn’t know what to say.
“What are you doing here?” She hid the gun behind herself, as if he hadn’t seen it already. “Clark? What are you both…”
She looked them over in disbelief, and as her eyes fell to Emmett’s hands, resting on what was held at his side, she visibly stiffened.
“What is that…”
“Let me see her,” his mother said. “Quickly.”
He did as his mother asked. He lifted the severed head, stepping toward her. Eileen stepped back again, bumping into the nightstand a second time. As Emmett came closer, she got a better look at the gruesome item in his possession and she screamed.
She burned pink in his mother’s light.
That otherworldly language filled the room, the light growing brighter, and in an instant Eileen’s demeanor shifted. Her face relaxed. Her body, too. Her eyes grew heavy, and then—
“Catch her!” his mother ordered.
Emmett stepped forward, arms open, as did Clark. Eileen crumpled to the floor and together, clumsily, they barely managed to keep her from hurting herself. They lay her gently there, unconscious.
“What happened?” Emmett said.
“She’s asleep for now.”
“She was scared. She… she…”
“Yes. She was going to run away.”
“Why didn’t we let her?”
Clark picked the pistol up off the floor, gleaming in the moonlight.
“She came here to end her life, Emmett.”
Emmett looked sorrowfully upon her, her cheeks still wet with tears.
“What are we going to do with her now?”
Part of him wished they hadn’t come back, that they’d gone someplace else.
“She means a lot to you, doesn’t she?” his mother asked. “She helped take care of you?” Emmett nodded. “Perhaps we can help her. And then… maybe she’ll help us.”
Judging by the look he’d seen on her face at the sight of his mother’s current form, he thought it unlikely she’d want anything to do with them.
He looked sternly into his mother’s light.
“You’ll talk to her… without magic?”
“No magic. Just the truth.”
He agreed they could wait for her to wake up. There wasn’t really an alternative, after all.
✽ ✽ ✽
With Dr. Marks’ help, they managed to carry Eileen’s unconscious body down the stairs and into the foyer. Clark brought a blanket and pillow with them to lay her on, next to the wall on the far side of the room, near the kitchen. Emmett’s mother decided they would perform their ritual there in the middle of the foyer.
“This home is full of energy,” she explained. “It’s the perfect place.”
Clark fetched a shovel from outside, the same one they’d used to dig their fort so many months ago, as well as the graves by the side of the house. He also brought a few candles do
wn from Mrs. Holmes’ room, which they lit around the foyer to give some light.
Emmett took a knife from one of the kitchen drawers, doing his best not to look too closely at the blood on the floor. On the table. Tyler’s blood. Bailey’s blood. Her father’s blood.
He returned to the foyer as quickly as he could.
“I have it,” he said, and put the knife on the ground where Hollings’ head rested for the time being.
“We’re just about ready, then.”
In her other language—dreamy and spine-tingling—his mother instructed Dr. Marks. Though the words uttered were less like instructions and more like tools themselves, each sound a manipulation of the invisible strings attached to Dr. Marks’ limbs, operating her like a marionette. She continued to whimper through her tasks. The urgent look in her eyes made it clear she was trapped inside somewhere, aware of everything she did but helpless to stop it. Even knowing who she was—who she’d been—Emmett felt the slightest bit sorry for her…
Dr. Marks picked up the knife and offered it to Emmett, who stood back nervously.
“Take it,” his mother said. “She’s got one hand. You’ll have to do it for her.”
“Do what?” he asked, taking the handle of the knife.
Giving it to him, Dr. Marks then offered the flat of her palm. Just the mere thought, Emmett hurt all over.
“I don’t know if I can…”
“Emmett. I need you—”
“To be brave. I know…”
He did as she asked. He pressed the blade to Dr. Marks’ palm, preparing to draw it down in a straight line. Instead, she unexpectedly pressed her hand into it herself. Emmett gasped. Her flesh broke open in a wide wound, the blade deep inside. The blood was pouring in an instant.
“Woah…” Clark said.
Emmett couldn’t pull the knife away fast enough. He stepped back, tossing the knife onto the floor. His mother sighed.
“Clark, would you please get another clean knife from the kitchen?”
Emmett watched as Dr. Marks squeezed her wounded hand, letting it drip onto the floorboards. Then she got on her knees and pressed her palm flat to the ground. She stood and took several steps back.
“You should stand back as well,” his mother suggested.
Emmett was more than happy to do as she said.
