Uncanny

by David Macinnis Gill

  “At school. St. Mary’s. Over on Fifth.” Remember coughed. “I can find her. Please, mistress, spare me.”

  Remember crawled across the floor, furiously gasping for breath. Her ears were ringing, and her eyes watered like a stream. The Conning girl didn’t go to St. Mary’s anymore, she remembered that. Willow Jane went to some high school now. The name escaped her, but the fact that the apartment door stood open did not. Her knees were raw, and she couldn’t catch her breath. She’d be damned, though, if she’d be slaughtered like a farm animal without a fight.

  “Do you not sense it, little one?” the Shadowless said, sniffing like a hound that had caught the scent of its prey on the wind. “The blood of the Uncanny is in this house.”

  “The Uncanny,” Remember whispered. “An old wives’ tale . . .”

  “Do we look like an old wives’ tale?” the Shadowless bellowed.

  “No, mistress, I— Mercy, please.”

  “This is mercy.” The Shadowless’s laughter filled the room as Remember’s left eye rolled back into her head. “The price of magic is blood. First yours, then the Uncanny’s, and so Malleus the Usurper shall rise again!”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  BY the time the bell rang to end the day, Kelly had cut two classes, smoked three cigarettes, and had a long crying fit in her car. Her head pounded like jackboots had stomped her skull, and when she looked in the rearview, puffy, bloodshot eyes and mottled skin looked back at her. She had skipped lunch but still had no appetite, only a ravenous thirst that a liter of bottled water hadn’t quenched. The All Saints game was about to start, and she yearned to run to the locker room, but that would require leaving the friendly confines of her VW, and the distance between the lot and the rink seemed too wide and perilous to cross.

  In the warm haze inside the car, she drifted off to sleep, wondering where Will Patrick was. Not that it mattered.

  Only sleep did.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  “WHERE the hell’s O’Brien?” Coach boomed as we jumped on the ice for the warm-up skate. “Captains! Get over here!”

  Our captain and assistant captains did a lap and joined Coach by the bench, while the rest of us ran drills. All Saints took the ice, and Siobhan drifted to the net so we could run the butterfly drill. Coach was still reaming them out about not accounting for all players, his face the color of Harvard crimson and spit flying from his mouth, when Siobhan stepped out to let the backup goalie take a few shots.

  “Coach is wicked pissed,” Siobhan said to me as she adjusted her leg pads. “Wouldn’t want to be them right now, huh?”

  “I wouldn’t want to be Kelly when he finds her,” I said, pinching the tape on my stick. I’d been lost in thought when I taped it and had done a crappy job. Too late to fix it now. “Wonder where she is?”

  “Probably off shopping. Or drinking with Will Pathetic.”

  “She wouldn’t do that,” I said. “Not when there’s hockey.”

  “Like she gives a whiz about hockey anymore.”

  I was about to argue when Coach whistled a new drill. Siobhan got back in the net, and I skated to my spot and smacked the ice for the puck. Get your head in the game, Conning. I lifted a wrister halfheartedly, worried where Kelly might be and what trouble she had gotten herself into.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  KELLY awoke with a start. The day had ended, and the sky was dark. Lights flickered in the upper two floors of Beacon, and the student lot was cast in shadows. Only one other car remained, parked fifty feet away.

  How long was I asleep? she wondered. The dash clock was blinking 12:00, and her phone battery had died, damn it.

  The game had started right after school, and now it was dark, and it must be half over. Coach would kill her for missing it. Maybe he’d even kick her off the team, a thought that should have terrified her but only made her smirk. What difference did it make? It was just a stupid game.

  She sighed and opened the door, expecting the dome light to come on. It didn’t, and when she found the keys in the ignition, not in her purse where she’d left them, she figured the battery was dead. Sure enough, the starter only clicked.

  Kelly giggled. It wasn’t funny, so she giggled again and slumped back against the seat, wallowing in a not unsatisfying malaise. She was too tired to get up, although she felt a strong desire to run screaming across the parking lot. Maybe she had hit her head or maybe she had caught the stomach bug that made Willow Jane splatter the cafeteria with puke. Her joints ached, and when she turned her head too fast, she felt a rush of vertigo and heard a wobbly sound—wobbly, flobbly, wob.

  Just rest here for a while, she thought. You’re too stupid to walk alone.

  Bare knuckles rapped the window. She was too tired to jump, even if the sound startled her. Her head lolled to the side, where she found the pallid face of a disheveled Will Patrick pressed against the glass. She hit the button to roll the window down, then realized the power was dead, and so was Will Patrick.

  His flesh had turned to paste, and his mouth was a ragged maw where his lips had been sliced off. Dried blood and spittle were caked on his jaw and neck, and his left ear hung from a thread of skin. If exhaustion hadn’t rendered her helpless, Kelly would have screamed, especially at the dead pool eyes that stared blankly at her, as Will Patrick clawed at the handle, trying to get into the car. She shut her eyes tight and recited as much of the Lord’s Prayer as she could remember.

  Then, as abruptly as he had appeared, Will Patrick was gone.

  Kelly finished the prayer, and when she opened her eyes again, she found nothing but a smear of spit and blood on the window, dotted with chunks of what she hoped wasn’t skin. She realized her lip was bleeding and dabbed it with her tongue. The blood tasted salty, and she guessed that she’d bitten it while praying.

  “You hunger for the taste of your own blood,” the Shadowless said, sitting beside her in the passenger seat. She wore a trench coat that stank like a butcher shop, and when she shifted her weight, a pair of tailor’s shears poked from the sleeve. There was blood on the blades, fresh blood, which made Kelly think of Will Patrick’s lipless mouth.

  No more kissing for you, Will Patrick, she thought and giggled. “You killed him. And Flanagan.”

  “We have punished many boys. What are a few more?”

  “What did you do to Will Patrick?” she said.

  “When we found him,” the Shadowless said and smacked her lips, “the boy said he was thirsty. You are as well?”

  “I’m not,” Kelly said, covering her mouth and lying. “Not thirsty at all.”

  “We only hunger, and now the boy shares our hunger, too.”

  The Shadowless pulled her trench coat wide, revealing rotted skin and decayed bones. In her chest cavity, pink tail entwined among the ribs, was a rat the size of a house cat, foaming at the mouth and hissing.

  The rat launched itself at Kelly.

  Kelly caught its thick body and held it at arm’s length. It chewed through her fingers, ripping out chunks of skin. “Get. The hell. Off me!”

  Anger and terror fueled her, and she slammed the rat into the window. Its neck snapped, and it fell to the floor dead.

  “You took its life,” the Shadowless said. “Now you must devour it.”

  “But it’s a rat. I can’t eat a freaking rat. You can’t make me eat rat.”

  “We do not make a human do what we want. We make the human want to do it. If you will not eat the rat, then you will do something for the Shadowless instead.”

  Kelly stared at the dead animal twitching on the floorboard. She squeezed herself against the door, pulling on the handle, but the door wouldn’t open. There was no escape.

  “Serve the Shadowless, and you will not eat rat.”

  “What if I refuse?” Kelly said. She was so thirsty.

  The Shadowless smiled. “The boy refused. You saw what became of him.”

  “What?” Kelly said, her mouth dry. So, so parched. “What do I have to d
o?”

  “You know a girl. The daughter of a seamstress.”

  “Willow Jane? You want me to get her?”

  “It’s not the girl we want,” the Shadowless hissed. “We want what the girl loves most.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  THE next time I looked up, the scoreboard read HOME 3, VISITOR 2. With Kelly out of the lineup, Siobhan had stood on her head to keep us in the game. When the announcer called, “One minute left,” in the third, I had the puck on my stick and Coach was screaming out orders.

  “Puck possession!” he bellowed. “Puck possession! Time and space!”

  I skated the puck into our defensive zone and nodded to Siobhan, who’d taken fifty-two shots and let only two sneak in. The All Saints captain, a winger named Radcliffe, jumped out on a line change and rocketed toward me.

  Head on a swivel, I thought. Play the hips, not the puck. Quick feet. Wheels. Win the battle of time and space. I retreated to the corner. Draw her closer. Closer. When she was six feet away, I did something totally crazy: I handed her the puck, then stepped aside. Her eyes big as saucers, she caught an edge and slammed into the glass. The puck bounced back into play, but Radcliffe didn’t.

  Now! Skate hard! I grabbed the biscuit. Dangle! Time and space!

  And broke into open ice.

  The All Saints goalie was skating toward their bench, and their net was wide open. Head on a swivel! If I put a slapper between the pipes, the game was over, baby! I wound up and—

  “Time out!” Coach bellowed. “Time out, ref!”

  WTF?

  The ref whistled and made the signal. Both teams skated to their benches. I looped behind Siobhan and gave her a push to the bench.

  00:57 left in the game.

  “Nice move on Radcliffe.” Siobhan pulled off her helmet. Her face was soaked with sweat, and she stank like a pound of moldy corn chips. “See her face? She was all like, whaaa?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “But I had an open net!”

  “Bring it in!” Coach clapped his calloused hands. His face was the color of a rare steak. “You know the drill, ladies? Soon as the puck drops, they pull their goalie. Whoever wins the draw, no icing, so don’t shoot on their net unless you clear the red line first. We don’t need a face-off on our end against six shooters. On three.”

  “One-two-three,” we shouted. “Go, Beacon!”

  But I had an open net!

  “Teams! On the ice!’ the ref shouted and skated to the circle.

  Our center took the draw. On the drop, she planted a shoulder in the All Saints center and won the puck back to me. The safe play was to take it behind our net to invite their forwards to chase.

  Don’t be safe, I thought, seeing an opportunity I couldn’t pass up.

  The All Saints winger had tripped. She lay on her back, legs in the air like a turtle flipped on its shell.

  Be great, Conning.

  I raced up the boards and across the red line. My stick went back for the shot. I swung an instant before Radcliffe hooked my skate, and the puck slipped away.

  “She tripped me!” I yelled at the ref.

  “Play on!” he shouted.

  00:42 on the clock.

  Radcliffe skated into our zone. She lined up for a slapper, and our center dived across the ice, taking the puck off her chest. It bounced right back to Radcliffe, who flicked a quick wrister on net.

  Siobhan blocked it with a sliding split save.

  The rebound popped out to me.

  00:11.

  Eleven seconds to glory.

  As both All Saints defenders closed in, I zigzagged almost to mid ice and threw the puck at the empty net. It landed on its edge and playfully rolled past the crease, then hit the boards on the back wall and felt flat, unmoving, mocking me with its stillness.

  The ref whistled. “Icing!”

  “Conning!” Coach screamed. “Get your head outta your ass!”

  “Sorry!” I yelled and skated to our face-off circle. I bumped Siobhan’s glove. “Sorry. My bad.”

  “No worries,” Siobhan said. “Today I own these beotches.”

  “Don’t get cocky, kid.”

  “Telling a goalie not to get cocky is like telling a fish to ride a bicycle.”

  I shook my head and lined up for the drop. “That’s a terrible analogy.”

  The ref whistled and fired the puck at the ice. Slamming sticks and elbows, the centers clashed like gladiators hungry for blood. The puck squirted free, and their center kicked it backward. It rolled right to Radcliffe. She wound up for a monster slap shot.

  I saw the shooter’s stick flex as the blade hit the ice. The shaft shattered, and the puck rocketed toward the goal as chunks of carbon fiber and tape flew out in all directions.

  “Oh, shitburger,” I said.

  The shot whistled past Siobhan’s outstretched blocker. It rang like a chime on the crossbar and bounced into the crease. Siobhan spun and dived as the puck rolled over the line, an inch from the tip of her glove.

  The ref extended his arm. “Goal!”

  The horn sounded, and just like that, our victory was gone. Cheers erupted from the All Saints bench, and Coach pointed at the scoreboard, screaming that time had run out before the shot. I knew he was wasting his breath. The puck had crossed the line with one second left.

  One lousy second.

  All Saints rushed to center ice and made a pig pile, throwing gloves and sticks into the air. I’d never seen a team so happy with a tie.

  “Conning!” Coach screamed, his mug blood red with fury. “This one’s on you!”

  It was. It was all on me. I had let the whole team down. “Wish I could have a do-over,” I whispered.

  The last horn became a steam kettle in my skull, and a series of blue and red triangles ripped through the center of my vision. The droning became louder and louder as the rip became a black hole surrounded by colored light.

  At center ice, the All Saints players jumped out of the pile. Gloves and sticks flew into their hands, and they skated backward to our end of the ice. The ref skated backward, too, and I ducked as his blades passed by me.

  His hand went up.

  The whistle left his mouth.

  The puck rose from the back of the net, bounced away from the crossbar, then slowly floated until it was inches from Siobhan.

  “Stop!” I said.

  The puck stopped. It hung right there in midair, suspended as if dangling from a piece of invisible thread. No one else moved—not the ref, not the players, not even Coach, whose spray of spittle hung from his twisted mouth.

  The clock showed 0:02.

  “Holy time warp,” I said.

  My thumb hit my stick, and I felt a stab of pain. The hard bump was inflamed again, boiling red and angry, with a thin silver filament emerging from the middle of the abscess. And I didn’t care. I was happy, the ecstatic I-got-what-I-wanted-for-Christmas happy that makes you want to twirl around and belt out lyrics from “Happy” at the top of your lungs.

  Which I did.

  Because I was.

  Giddy like a New Year’s reveler drunk on Asti Spumante, I skated over to the dangling puck. I lowered it three inches, angled Siobhan’s blocker a pinch, and skated back to my spot.

  “Go!” I yelled and . . .

  Nobody moved.

  The players were still as statues on the Boston Commons, staring blankly into an abyss that only they could see.

  “I said go, dammit!”

  I looked at the real clock. Its hands were frozen in time.

  Time. It was all about time. And my thumb. My thumb was the key.

  I put the digit, which burned like it’d been cauterized with a white-hot needle, up to my lips and licked.

  My neck made a cracking sound, but then I realized it wasn’t me—it was the stick shattering in Radcliffe’s hands. Ping! The puck rang off the crossbar. It flew over the goal and into the glass.

  “No goal!” the ref yelled.

  I grabbed the rebound.
Their defenders rushed me hard. They hacked at my stick, my hands, and my legs all the way to the boards, but I didn’t drop the puck until the buzzer sounded.

  Coach whooped as if we’d won the Stanley Cup, and my teammates tackled Siobhan. My attention, though, stayed focused on the clock. Real time hadn’t stopped at double zeros, and the minutes kept ticking by.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  FIVE minutes later, the rest of the Beacon School Lady Lanterns were in the locker room in various forms of dress and undress, celebrating. I sat on the bench, my uniform in a pile on the floor, my wet gear stuffed into the locker. I’d tied my hair into a pony and was pulling on a pair of sweats.

  “I say All Saints, you say sucks!” Siobhan yelled. “All Saints!”

  “Sucks!”

  “All Saints!”

  “Sucks!”

  “Willie!” Siobhan yelled at me. “All Saints!”

  “Tried really hard, too?”

  “Boo!” she jeered, and the team fired their wet towels at me.

  I made no effort to avoid the onslaught. The game was over, and I had other obligations. Last night I had gone to bed as a fairly normal teenager, and just now I had stopped time and then reversed it and changed the outcome of the game. To quote Siobhan, what the frickdoodles did I do?

  Just get the egg, Willow Jane, and go from there, I thought. But I can change things. I can make them like they never happened. A conversation. A game. Maybe even more?

  Should I, though? All Saints tied that game fair and square, and I cheated to win. Maggie Mae Conning never raised no cheaters. Could I wish to redo the do-over?

  “Yo, bender!” Siobhan plopped beside me, totally naked and smelling shower fresh. Her hair hung like raven feathers over her shoulders. “Cheer up! We just kicked ass. Well, I did. You mostly just witnessed my badassery.”

  “That’s me.” I forced a smile. “Your badass witness.”

  “This whole Will Pathetic and Kelly thing, huh? That’s why you look so down?”