Then there is only the slap of the water against the hull, and then the scrape of sand as he drives us all the way up onto the shore. He steps out and grabs hold of the prow, hauling it up another foot before holding out his hand to steady me. I shiver, a cold breeze cutting right through my wet clothing, and he settles his rough woolen coat around my shoulders. It helps a little. I chatter out a thank-you, but he only smiles and ducks back to the boat to fetch his box.
With the box, and the hand inside it, tucked under his arm, he heads up the beach and the slope beyond, leaving me to follow.
I’ve got no particular reason to trust him, other than the fact that he just saved my life, but I also have no other options and no direction to go but straight up the last sliver of light to the next section of road.
Sand gives way to scrub, which gives way to the road, and the path of light ends. John pauses, pats his sides, and then turns back to me. “Ah. In the pocket there, if you please,” he says, pointing to the coat hanging limply around my shoulders.
I get at the pocket awkwardly and find a flashlight inside. There’s tape over the bottom, and initials—M. N.—in Sharpie. I decide not to wonder about who it belonged to. I hand it up to him and he uses it to light our path. We walk another few hundred yards through shallow hills, trudging up and down, which at least warms me.
Up ahead, a puddle of light spills over the road. A campfire. And the figures around it—
“There are your people,” John says. “Go on, then. They’ll be eager to see you, but these old bones don’t move so fast anymore. Take the light, then, I don’t need it.”
I accept the flashlight from him wordlessly—because I can’t manage words. They’re alive, all of them. I’m alive, a fact that finally sinks in as I lope along stiffly, my bare feet slapping the stones. I run as fast as I can and it isn’t fast enough. I resent every second it takes me to cross the distance to them.
Mel spots me first and lets out a whoop, running to meet me. I slow down, but she still slams into me and wraps her arms around my sodden shoulders.
“Sara! Oh my God, she wasn’t lying. You’re okay? You’re you?”
“I’m me,” I say, and then, before I can think better of it, I kiss her.
The kiss tastes of ocean water, and a damp strand of hair gets stuck between our lips, but I don’t care. I don’t care who’s watching, either, only that Mel is there and she’s kissing me back and there’s one thing, at least, that this road can’t take from me.
When we break away, she bites her lip, flushed. Mel, shy—that’s new. “Turns out waiting is a terrible idea,” I say, and she laughs. And then I look past her, and see Becca, cheeks streaked with tears that haven’t yet had the chance to dry. Mel follows my gaze and steps back. Gives Becca room to come forward.
Becca draws in close. She puts her hands to either side of my face and leans her brow against mine. “Don’t you dare do that again,” she whispers. “You’re my little sister. I’m supposed to be looking after you.”
“I’m older than you now, remember?” I say. “Also taller.” I hug her, and this time her answering embrace is quick and sure.
“Barely.” She steps back and grins, relief pouring into her expression. Then she clears her throat—what she always does when she’s trying not to cry. My gaze skirts past her, and for the first time I notice that they weren’t alone by the fire.
A girl stands backlit, wearing a white dress, a blue ribbon around her waist. Her hair is red brown, and falls in loose curls to the middle of her back.
“That’s—” I begin.
“Lucy,” Becca says. “We found her.”
“More like she found us,” Anthony says. He’s a few steps back, close enough to the fire that the orange of its light is still stronger than my flashlight. “She and that other guy. We were going off track, I guess, and then suddenly they were there with this light. He just reached out and yanked our boat back on track and went with us the last couple strokes, out of the dark. Lucy asked where you were. She knew your name. She knew all our names. And when we told her what had happened, she hopped over into our boat and told the guy to go after you.”
A dozen half-formed questions come to the tip of my tongue, but none of them are complete enough to voice. I stare at Lucy, who’s close enough she can probably hear everything we’re saying, but far enough away she isn’t intruding too obviously. She stares back. Then she lifts a hand and waves a little, a fluttering of her fingertips.
“She said she wanted to wait until you were here to talk too much,” Mel says. “And you’re soaked. And I can hear your teeth chattering from here. Come on, let’s go up near the fire.”
She throws an arm around my shoulder. I lean against her a little and catch Becca’s hand, just my fingertips hooked to catch hers, on the other side. Kyle and Anthony trail behind.
We reach the firelight and Lucy dances back a bit, elegant little steps to give us room to maneuver. I get close enough to the fire to feel the warmth before addressing her.
“Hi. I’m—”
“Sara,” she says. She smiles, cheeks dimpling. “And I’m Lucy, if you hadn’t guessed.”
John tromps up behind us and then past, turning sideways with muttered apologies to fit by the group. He goes to the far side of the fire, where a stool sits next to a pile of boxes and bags, and sets the box with the hand on top of it.
“Did you encounter any problems?” Lucy asks him.
“Oh no,” he says, blowing out his cheeks. “Just the usual sort of hungries, and the candle’s burning low, but you knew that.”
He rummages in a bag beside him and pulls out a length of wood and a small knife, and sets to carving it with a level of concentration that suggests he’ll have no part in the following conversation.
“John’s been on the road for quite a long time,” Lucy says. “Even longer than I have. I wouldn’t have survived its trials without him, but he’s—he’s not what he used to be.” John shows no visible offense at this, only whistling and working his knife into the wood.
“He’s the man your brother saw you with,” I say.
Lucy blinks at me. “My brother?”
“Your brother followed you into the woods, and he saw you get on the road with a man in a broad-brimmed hat,” I say. “That’s what the newspapers said.”
“Ah,” she says. “I think someone may have told me that story before. Sometimes I have trouble keeping track. I’ve worked hard not to lose my senses quite as much as dear John, but I’m hardly immune. I am eighty years old, after all. Even under normal circumstances, my memory might falter.” She smiles. “I didn’t know my brother was following me. John was already playing ferryman back then. He’s a very good person. Or was. He could have gotten off the road, but he decided to stay behind, and risk himself going back and forth to help people along. He told me I should turn back, but I was quite set on traveling.”
“Why?” I ask. “If he warned you, why would you—?”
“It calls to some people,” Lucy says, a little wistfully. “It’s lonely. It calls to the ones it thinks can make it to the end.”
My skin prickles. Maybe it’s just the cold. “Can you help us get to the end?” I ask.
She sighs. “The thing is, this is the end,” she says.
Seven gates. Everything we’ve come across has been consistent in that, at least. “We’ve only been through . . .” I count them off in my mind.
“Five,” she says. “The Liar’s Gate, the Sinner’s Gate, the Blind Man’s Gate, the Gate of Many Doors, the Sailor’s Gate. Sometimes they have different names. Sometimes they come in a different order, and the details of each change to suit the traveler. But to get here, you passed through five. I know. There ought to be two more. Come with me.”
She turns and walks into the dark. John stays put, whittling his stick and whistling through the bristles of his
beard.
Lucy leads us down another hill and up the side of the next, then stops, pointing.
At the base of the hill is a wreck of shattered stone. An eruption of the earth, and the road beyond it utter ruin. Brambles grow over the hills beyond, and then a thick snarl of trees, a forest that stretches to the dark uncertainty of the horizon. Here and there I think I can make out a paler patch among the shadows, far beyond the limits of our flashlights, where another scrap of road remains.
Mel moans as we come to a staggered stop. “That’s it?” she says. “It just ends? Then how do we get off?”
“You have to leave the road,” Lucy says.
“But if we leave the road, we die,” Anthony says, taking another step toward the end of the road and squinting as if a solution will reveal itself.
“It isn’t that clear-cut,” Lucy says. She looks at me. “Sara left the road.”
“When I was running after Kyle,” I say. “How did you know that?”
“I’ve been keeping an eye on you all,” she says. “When I can.”
“That beast would have killed you if Trina hadn’t stopped it,” Becca says.
“But she did stop it,” Lucy says. “And while the words are one of the more explosive things to find their way onto the road, they’re hardly the only tools at our disposal. The gates may be gone, but enough of the road remains to follow it—if you have the right connection to it, and to your destination. You all have keys, I presume. Have you all used them?”
I think through quickly—Becca must have used hers at some point, because she nods. Kyle opened that first gate, Anthony opened the gate after the water, Mel handled the third—which leaves me, and the gate at the beach.
“Good,” Lucy says. “That ties you to the road. If you’re careful, and stay focused, it should be enough. Well. Could be. But we don’t have any option but to risk it.”
“We?” I say.
Lucy blinks at me. “Isn’t it obvious?” she says. “I’m coming with you.”
EXHIBIT M
Email sent from Rebecca Donoghue to Andrew Ashford
April 29, 2017—Ten days before interviews
To: Andrew Ashford
From: Rebecca Donoghue
Subject: help
My sister gave me your name. My name is Rebecca Donoghue. We live in Briar Glen, in Massachusetts. Something happened. I don’t have time to explain.
Look up Lucy Gallows. I have pictures. I’ll attach them here, I think I can do that.
We need help. Something’s wrong. Sara said you could help us. She said Miranda told her, but Miranda’s dead so I don’t know how that could be true.
I can’t explain.
I’m attaching the pictures.
Please come. Please help.
Please.
INTERVIEW
REBECCA DONOGHUE
(Audio only)
May 4, 2017—Five days before interviews
The background of the recording is noisy—clinking plates and silverware, the murmur of voices. It seems to be a public place, probably a restaurant.
ASHFORD: Miss Donoghue. Rebecca.
BECCA: Becca, please. No one calls me Rebecca.
ASHFORD: Becca, then. Do you mind if I record this?
BECCA: Why? To give to the police?
ASHFORD: I try to avoid contact with the police whenever possible. I can assure you that I will do everything I can to see that this recording, and the rest of the materials I may collect, will not come under scrutiny by anyone other than myself and my associates.
BECCA: Associates, huh?
ASHFORD: Mostly just Abigail. You’ll meet her later. My point is that any information you share will be quite safe with us.
BECCA: What more do you need to know?
ASHFORD: A great deal, actually. But for now, let’s talk about why you emailed me. Often when people call me, what they’re looking for is confirmation. Someone who can tell them that what they saw was real. That they aren’t crazy.
BECCA: I don’t need anyone to tell me it was real.
ASHFORD: No, you said you needed help. What sort of help?
Becca hesitates. Someone drops a plate and swears in the background. Then something shifts in her tone; she has come to a decision, decided on a course of action.
BECCA: There’s something wrong with my sister.
ASHFORD: Wrong how?
BECCA: She did something to her.
ASHFORD: Who did something to your sister, Becca?
BECCA: Lucy.
ASHFORD: Lucy Callow? The girl who disappeared in the fifties?
BECCA: We shouldn’t have trusted her. But it was the only way to get home. And now Sara is . . .
She takes a shuddering breath, her voice trembling at the edge of tears.
BECCA: You have to help her. Please. You have to save her.
ASHFORD: Miss Donoghue, I promise you that we are going to do everything we can.
SUPPLEMENT B
Email from Andrew Ashford to Abigail Ryder
May 5, 2017—Four days before interviews
To: Abigail Ryder
From: Andrew Ashford
Subject: Briar Glen Setup
Abby,
We are going to need a secure location. At least two rooms to use for interviews, with sturdy locks. Soundproof, or at least in an area we are unlikely to alarm any neighbors.
Please approach this as a standard interview. We want the subjects to be comfortable and to trust us. We will collect standard written statements from all of the survivors who have agreed to talk to us. Given the police involvement in this case, we need to tread cautiously, though it appears that the usual effect is in place and the matter is being mysteriously overlooked and forgotten by the authorities. Convenient enough for us, I suppose. It isn’t as if they would be able to help in these circumstances.
I want everything recorded. Multiple angles in the interviews, if possible, and I want you to review all of the material that Miss Donoghue has supplied and make copies for our records. Pay attention to every detail.
One of them is lying.
—Andrew
25
HERE IS WHAT Lucy tells us.
She came this far with John, all those years ago. She had an easier time of it than most, and John already had a great deal of experience by then. They got this far, and could go no farther because John couldn’t leave the road, but he assured her that once he shepherded another lone traveler here, they could hazard the journey to the end. He had sent others that way, but did not know if any of them had made it.
She waited for a very long time. It was years before anyone else came, and when they did there were two of them, and she could do nothing but wave them onward. Years after that, John discovered another lone traveler, and together the two of them attempted an escape. It was a failure. The things beyond the road killed Lucy’s companion, and she barely made it back to the road herself.
She begged John to leave with her, but he could not give up his task, his purpose. Nor was he certain that he could leave the road anymore. And so she waited. And waited. And became, perhaps, a little bit less of our world, and a little bit more of the road’s. She learned to watch among its curves and turns, in what she called the gaps between moments—sneaking looks at who was coming. Who might need John’s help. She learned to whisper to a few travelers, though she could rarely manage to whisper anything that would provide real guidance.
She watched travelers die—most of them. She watched them reach the end of the road—a few of them. But in sixty-four years, she hadn’t yet found someone who would take her with them.
“That’s why we came to get you,” she says. “That is, we would have helped in any case and we would have helped sooner, but going back�
��it makes you more part of the road. I’ve only done it once. I could tell that if I did it again, I’d be like John, and never get away at all. But the point remains: there are five of you. We can leave together. Two and two and two. I can finally escape this place. And I can show you all the way home.”
She smiles, eyes sparkling. She still looks ready to prance down the aisle at a wedding. She looks pristine, especially next to the rest of us, with our bumps and bruises and torn clothes and bedraggled hair. Perhaps her smile is a little too wide. Perhaps her skin is a little too perfectly pale.
“What is it like? Past the end of the road?” Mel asks. I’m at the edge of the group. Becca stands with me, both of us silent, as if we’re listening to some sound, some hum in the air, that only we can hear.
Find me. More memory than sound.
“Less and less anchored in reality,” Lucy says. “It’s difficult to explain, and it’s different for everyone. There is a certain cohesion to the road. You may trust, to some extent, that what you see is the same as what the person standing next to you sees. It becomes less true, out there. More like a dream. It’s disorienting.”
“All the more reason to be glad we have a guide,” I say. Lucy’s cheeks dimple.
“Do you mind if we talk among ourselves for a minute?” Anthony asks. Lucy shakes her head cheerfully.
“Of course not. Take your time. I have waited this long,” she says, and heads down the road a ways to give us room.
Anthony drops his voice. “Do we trust her?” he asks.
“Why wouldn’t we?” I say. He frowns at me, as if he isn’t sure how to answer that. I frown back at him.
“She’s helped us get this far,” Becca says. “Sometimes her whispers were all that kept me going.”
“Becca’s right,” I say. “She and John saved me on the water. The least we can do is help her get free of this place.”
“You don’t think it’s a bit weird?” Mel asks.
My brow furrows. “Which part?”
Rules for Vanishing Page 21
