“Oh. Oh, yeah, of course, the tokens,” I said. “Harken said I’d need these.”
I dug in my pocket and produced the tokens that Harken had given me what felt like long ago. I placed one in each palm. Kelly’s, then Will Patrick’s, then Flanagan’s, and finally, the dead girl’s. As soon as they bowed and closed their hands, the sparks crackled and dissipated, leaving a sweet-smelling smoke behind them.
“Last but not least,” I said and gave Harken a copper, letting the moment linger.
He rubbed the token with his fingers. For a few seconds it seemed as if his hand were flesh again, then I realized that it was just wishful thinking. He closed his fingers around the coin and began to disappear.
“Wait,” I said, but Harken shook his head sadly.
There would be no waiting. Our time together had passed, and even for a girl who could control time, there was nothing to do about it. All that remained was an emptiness in my heart and one last copper token in my palm.
PART SIX
A TOKEN FOR CHILDREN
THE walls of our apartment were stripped bare, clean rectangles and squares marking the wallpaper where a lifetime of photos had been removed. The furniture had been carried downstairs to a waiting moving truck, and only a few cardboard boxes were left in the living room.
I was in the bathroom, brushing my teeth in the mirror. It was crazy, yes, wanting to complete this ritual on moving day, but owning my weirdness was the way I rolled now. I leaned down to spit in the sink, then looked up. Devon was behind me, hands raised like claws, white fangs jutting from her mouth.
“Jesus!” I yelped.
Devon popped the plastic teeth out and laughed maniacally, “Bwahaha! Made you jump, ya big ginge.” She threw her arms around my waist and held on tight.
“Stop,” I said, wiping my mouth. “You’re squeezing my guts out.”
We had a silly slap fight, and I found her tickle spots, too. Her dark hair bounced like a nest of slinky coils, and she laughed with abandon, the way only little kids can.
“I give!” she said. “Ma says to hurry. They’re taking the last boxes.”
“Be right there.” I rinsed the toothbrush thoroughly and shook out the excess water. “Had to brush. Can’t go to a new place with yucky teeth.”
“Sure ya can. I do it all the time.”
I dropped my toothbrush into the trash can and put the toothpaste and floss into my dad’s old dopp kit. I tucked it into a box and handed it to Devon. “Carry this to Ma. I’ll be right there.”
Then she was rocketing down the hallway, sneakers echoing through the empty rooms. I heard the front door swing open and Ma greet Siobhan and her dad. He said something that made Ma laugh, a sound that still made me smile. The heavy plod of his work boots on the landing meant he was already going back downstairs. Ma followed him, calling for me to quit dawdling.
I closed the mirror and looked at the reflection. The repaired wallpaper behind me was smooth, except for a few air bubbles, almost like it had never been ripped open. After the apartment house had changed hands, Ma decided it was time for the Conning girls to get a new place, far away from the ghosts of the past. A change was as good as a rest, she said. Little did she know how true that was.
I wandered into my old room. The bed and dresser were gone, already loaded on the truck. My closet was empty, and the floors were swept clean. I had grown up in this room, had visited magical worlds in the back of that closet, and had cried myself to sleep next to the windows, not only for my father two years ago but for Kelly in the days after her funeral and for Will Patrick and Flanagan, too. So much sadness and grief here, all mixed in with happiness and joy. It was time to move on, and in doing so, I hoped to take the good things with me and leave the bad ones behind. One thing for sure, Harken was a memory I was keeping close to my heart.
“Hey, loser,” Siobhan said, knocking on my door.
I wiped my face on my sleeve. “You’re the loser.”
Siobhan stood beside me. She put an arm over my shoulder, and we looked out at the street that had once been inundated with birds. Birds that had never returned.
“God, you’re short,” she said.
“In private, you can call me Willow Jane.”
She held up a hand for a fist bump. “Good one, Conning.”
“Thanks for giving us a place to,” I said and gave her a bump. “Y’know.”
“Hey, enough with the thank yous. We weren’t using that half of the duplex anyway, and Dad’s too cranky to let it out to strangers.”
“Still, it’s a big favor,” I said.
Our new place was the other half of Siobhan’s duplex. Her dad owned the whole thing, but he was a blue-collar guy who wanted to trust his neighbors. Siobhan said he’d always worried about us girls living alone after my dad died, and this was a way to help out. Once a Southie, always a Southie, I guess.
“Shut it,” she said. “You know I’ve got your back. Okay, enough of this reminiscence crap. The truck’s all loaded, and your ma sent me to get you.”
“You go ahead.” I sniffed. “I’ve got to lock up.”
“Five minutes.” She shook a finger at me. “Don’t let me catch you sitting in the living room, bawling your eyes out.”
“You won’t.”
“Won’t what?”
“Catch me.”
She smiled and squeezed my shoulder, then left the room. I listened for the silence, and when she was gone, I wandered into each room, checking to be sure the windows were latched, the closets were empty, and the lights were off.
Change was good. For the last month, Devon had slept through the night. You’d never know what she went through. Little kids really were that resilient. The show Ma was working on got extended, which meant a good, steady income for at least six more months and maybe a year. As for me, every day since the hospital, I had awakened, expecting to see the dead girl wrapped in rotting newspaper, but she, like Harken and all the others, was gone forever.
In the living room, I looked out the bay window one last time. I’d seen the same street corner every day of my life. Watched the neighborhood change bit by bit, while thinking that I never did. But it was me who was changing all along. There was no telling what the future would hold for me, but I knew that no matter what happened, the past would stay the same.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thanks to the bookmakers at Greenwillow, especially Virginia and Tim. Thanks, too, to the helpful readers who waded through drafts—Stacy Vandever Wells, Cheri Williams, Patti Holden, and Joy Pope. Many thanks to the patient and irreplaceable Rosemary Stimola. And to my family—Deb, Justin, Carolina, and Delaney—for putting up with the secret life inside my head.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
DAVID MACINNIS GILL, who spent many predawn hours haunting graveyards, Boston sewer tunnels, colonial jails, and bone-chilling hockey rinks to research this book, lives on the North Carolina coast with his family. He is the acclaimed author of Soul Enchilada and Black Hole Sun, among other novels.
www.davidmacinnisgill.com
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BOOKS BY DAVID MACINNIS GILL
Soul Enchilada
Black Hole Sun
Invisible Sun
Rising Sun
Shadow on the Sun
Uncanny
CREDITS
Cover art © 2017 by Claudia Holzforster/Arcangel
Cover design by Paul Zakris
COPYRIGHT
This book is a work of fiction. References to real people, events, establishments, organizations, or locales are intended only to provide a sense
of authenticity, and are used to advance the fictional narrative. All other characters, and all incidents and dialogue, are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real.
UNCANNY. Copyright © 2017 by David Macinnis Gill. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.
EPub Edition © August 2017 ISBN 9780062290182
ISBN 978-0-06-229016-8 (hardback)
17 18 19 20 21 PC/LSCH 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
FIRST EDITION
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Uncanny Page 29
