My boyfriend Henry was still recovering, and for once I didn’t want to talk to him. There would just be too much to explain. He’d let me know that they just released him from the hospital, since he had recovered well from being stabbed by McPherson. But I hadn’t seen him in school.
The biggest surprise was that Hugh had seen ghosts. It never popped into my head. All of the ghost-seers I’d heard about were female: me, Claire, Eleanor. That a boy could see ghosts was something I’d naively not considered. Sure, Henry had seen the shadow shapes that sometimes lurked around us, but that had been different.
Hadn’t it?
I jumped off of the bed and went into the bathroom. Even though it was late, I stripped down and turned on the shower. I watched clouds of steam float out, filling the already warm room. The chill inside of my bones wouldn’t go away. Turning the water up as hot as I could stand it, I let it blast down on my face as I shut my eyes.
I was not going to fall apart. I had to do whatever I could, and draw on the strength that had to be somewhere inside of me. I wasn’t going to fall off my depressive precipice again.
I finally collapsed back into bed, my fluffy bathrobe wrapped around me. My brain was still running a mile a minute, but I managed to shut my eyes and drift off.
In my dreams, I saw a strange, twisted black tree. The tips of the orange leaves were on fire. The roots moved in the ground like dark, restless snakes. I walked towards it as the leaves rustled, whispering to me.
###
I heard noises before I woke. I opened my eyes and saw Hugh banging around in my dresser drawers. I sat up, still wearing my bulky robe, the belt twisted beneath me. A suitcase lay open on the bed, and Hugh was throwing my things in it.
“What’s going on?” I asked, instantly panicked. “Where am I going?”
He assessed the suitcase quickly, then flipped the lid shut and fastened the clips. “We’re leaving town.”
“What?” I shouted, jumping out of bed. I almost fell, but I shrugged off the robe. “What are you talking about?”
He was already dressed, and I saw his own suitcase at his feet. A line of anxiety burned from my heart down to my stomach. Hugh sat down and patted the spot on the bed beside him.
“Phillip Rhodes wants us out of town,” Hugh explained. “Well, convenient timing for us, because we need to go out of town to get answers.”
“But what you said, about not running away…” I protested.
“We’re not running away, kiddo.” For the first time in a while, a genuine, enthusiastic smile had crept its way onto his face. “We’re going to get help. And if Phillip and Thornhill think we’re gone, that will buy us a little more time. Whatever they’re planning is still not going to happen for a while, at least from my evidence. Don’t worry, we’re not leaving forever. We’ll come back as soon as we get what we need.”
“There’s no changing your mind, is there?” I asked, crossing my arms.
“Nope.” He hopped up, grabbing both suitcases. “Get dressed. We’re running on a tight schedule.” He left the room.
I got dressed hastily, throwing my hair into a ponytail and grabbing a t-shirt and jeans. I assessed my bedraggled dresser and realized that he hadn’t packed much. So the trip he was planning must not be a long one. I tripped into socks and shoes and joined him in the kitchenette.
He was a chugging a mug of coffee, his jacket hanging on his shoulders. Retrieving his baseball cap, keys, and wallet, he nodded at me.
“Ready?” he asked, high color on his cheeks.
I zipped up my own coat and retrieved my gloves from the pocket. “You’re not going to get away from answering the rest of my questions, you know. Even if we go to Antarctica.”
He came over and kissed my forehead firmly. “You’re just as tenacious as your mother. Don’t worry, kiddo. I plan to answer them shortly.” He checked his wrist watch. “We have an appointment to get to.”
“But Hugh…”
He grabbed my chin gently but firmly, and peered into my eyes. “No more of that ‘Hugh’ stuff. Your mother was the one who started that tradition. Call me dad, like a normal kid. I like the way it sounds.”
I smiled. “Okay, Dad.”
###
During the mysterious car ride, I thought about Jenna. I wanted to know why she was taken back into the Dark realm.
“Do you know about the other worlds? You said something about Dark?” I asked.
“I know a few things, mostly what your mother told me and what I figured out myself. I get that Limbo is the place most ghosts hang out, and Dark is more like where the wild things are.”
“Jenna was with me for a while,” I said, studying my hands. “But then, when they were taking mom in the ambulance, she disappeared. Like the Dark force took her over. I saw the same thing happen to other ghosts. What do you think it is?”
“Dark is getting stronger. The power is leaking over. They’ve been using old mining tunnels built back in the 1800s to get around secretly. In the 1950s, most of the entrances were sealed off, but there are still several that are open. Whatever they’re doing is very unstable. ”
“Could we bring her back?”
He frowned sadly at me. “I don’t know, Ariel. I don’t know what ties her there, if it’s not the seal. It’s probably a strong binding alchemy. If we stop them, though, it should release her.”
“Do you know that Phillip has a brain tumor?” I asked.
Hugh nodded. “Callie told me, said she was violating about 1,000 HIPAA laws. That’s why Briggs came to town.”
“I snooped on a conversation between the two of them. And he said that what he was planning was in May.”
Hugh glanced at me curiously. “Really? That’s a good bit of information.”
Hugh pulled the Mazda in front of Erasmus. I was completely hit with surprise. I had come up with all kinds of possibilities for our journey, and this wasn’t one of them.
“What are we doing here?” I asked, unable to contain my annoyance.
He got out and opened the door for me. I let out a sigh and undid my seat belt, following him up the sidewalk. It was snowing out, and leftover holiday lights lit up the stores on the block. At the end of the street was the ballroom that Thornhill had renovated as their office, but there were no cars there. Must still be shut up for the holidays, I thought.
Hugh was busy undoing the locks on Erasmus’ door. “If I’m going to tell you everything, it needs to include what I’ve been doing these past few years,” Hugh said. “Those phone calls and text messages, for example.”
Now he had my attention. I followed him inside as he flicked on the lights. I could hear faint conversation from deeper inside, behind the break room door. I stared up at him quizzically. “Who else is here? Gwen?”
He took my arm and guided me steadily to the break room. I could see someone moving beneath the door. Instead of answering me, he rapped on the wood three times with his knuckles. The voices instantly ceased.
“It’s me,” Hugh called. Someone unlocked it from the other side. I didn’t even know the door had a lock.
Smiling at me with a tinge of unease, he opened the door for me and I stepped inside.
CHAPTER 3
I TOOK A second for my eyes to adjust, to take in what I was seeing. The table inside was crowded with people in the middle of a conversation. Extra seats had been set up to accommodate more. And I recognized nearly everyone. Their eager, worried faces were all trained on me.
“What’s going on?” I asked my dad, feeling lightheaded and weak all of a sudden, like my legs might buckle. Hugh must have noticed me going pale.
“Noah, can you get her a chair?” he asked.
“Of course.” Mr. Golem brought a folding metal chair over and set it beneath me. I slumped down, still staring at all of them. The gallery’s assistant, Gwen, was there, with her husband and her new baby sleeping against her chest. So was Callie, her temporary replacement and my dad’s close friend. I would have exp
ected them.
But there was also Madison’s parents; Jenna’s father, Joe; other teachers from school; my Aunt Corinne. I recognized cashiers from our local restaurant, Dante’s, and the owner of the pet shop. About thirty people in all crammed into the small back room. Then I noticed Theo and her mother seated on the other side of the room.
“You’re back?” I asked. I wanted to run and give her a hug, but she looked as bewildered as I did.
“We just got here,” Theo said. She was wearing her tortoiseshell glasses instead of her contacts, and looked like she had just rolled out of bed. “This is a little scary. Like I feel like in a nightmare.”
“Dad, what’s going on?” I asked, more forcefully. He sat down beside me.
“Somebody needs to stand up against Thornhill,” Hugh said gently, taking my hand. “I realized that early on. Phillip is basically amassing himself a small army to make sure that his ritual goes through exactly as planned. He’s planning to basically become some kind of demon master.
“So, I got together a group people that I knew, some of whom were present last time. All who had a reason not to trust Thornhill. And we convinced the others with as much evidence as we could muster.”
“You guys all believe in ghosts?” I asked skeptically. A few of those seated shook their heads.
“But we believe something bad is going to happen,” Madison’s mother spoke up. “And that bad things have already happened.”
“All of the phone calls and the text messages?” I pressed. “The ones that mom found, to Callie?”
Callie was already right behind him, her long hair in a braid. “I’ve been working as a messenger to everyone, spreading information between members of the group. Thornhill doesn’t suspect me, because I didn’t grow up in Hell and I have no ties.”
“Why didn’t you tell mom about this?”
“She was too integrated with Thornhill,” Hugh said, his old bitterness still showing. “There was always a chance she might let them know what was going on. I hated the idea that she thought I was unfaithful, and I always meant to explain…after…”
“Where did the seals come from in this first place?” I asked, trying to rush away from the uncomfortable topic of my dad’s supposed affair. “I mean, somebody must have built them. Why?”
“When the town was settled, a group of early founders were occultists,” Callie explained. “They sensed quite a bit of Dark energy coming up from certain thin spots in the ground. They sensed it out like evil dousing rods. They built the seals to channel the energy for their own purpose.”
“All this time, you knew what Thornhill was up to. Why didn’t you guys stop them?” I asked.
“We didn’t know how,” Callie said. “The whole town supports them, thinks they’re doing great works. If your dad or I, or the rest of us tried to protest, we would be laughed out of Hell. As best as we’ve been able to figure, Thornhill is made up of different rings of communication. Only the inner circle knows exactly what their plans are. And they have plenty of fall-guys, like Warwick and McPherson, to take the blame when things go wrong.”
I looked out over the group that was listening to Callie’s explanation. All this time, and I hadn’t known. It made me feel a little better knowing I wasn’t alone, that there were actually adults on my side who might know the next step to take.
“We were as careful as possible, but he still knows something is working against him,” Hugh said. “He’s never trusted me, of course. We normally don’t even all meet in the same place, but today is different.”
“They are working up to some kind of end game,” Hugh said. “Originally, he only knew of one seal. Then he discovered the others. They’ve activated three seals, and there is only the main one left.”
“Phillip told me that one of them was broken.”
“Phillip was lying.”
That didn’t surprise me. “He also said there wasn’t a seal beneath the orphanage, but I’m guessing that’s a crock, too?”
Hugh nodded. He addressed the others. “Ariel says she overheard him talking about his final plans being in May.”
“That would make sense,” Golem agreed. “All signs seem to point to that time period right before graduation.”
“Why is it only girls that are sacrificed?” Theo asked. “Sounds pretty sexist to me.”
“We don’t know exactly why, but it has something to do with the girl’s blood,” Callie said. “Blood is present more for girls than for boys, if you know what I mean.”
“Ah, like tampon time? Gotcha.” She snickered a little.
“John Dexter did kill some of his weaker male charges, but most of the boys under his care were adopted out,” Hugh explained.
“So, what’s our next move?” I looked back and forth between Callie and Hugh. Mr. Golem stepped forward, seeming a little shy.
“My brother has information that can help you. He’s been holding onto something that might be able to assist us.”
“What kind of something?” Corinne spoke up.
“Something that Ariel might be able to use,” Golem said quickly.
“We need to get out of town anyway,” Hugh explained. “Rhodes kidnapped Ariel the other night at gunpoint and threatened her to get out of town. He specifically mentioned me.”
“Not a good sign if they want you gone. They might know,” Callie said.
“Not just me,” Hugh said, turning his attention to me. “After what you told me last night, I also think they want you out of town.”
My breath caught in my chest, morphing into a hot, tense sensation like my heart was on fire.
“Why would they want her out of town?” Madison’s mother asked, adjusting her glasses.
Hugh took a deep breath. “She has the Sight.”
There were audible gasps around the table.
“How is that possible?” Corinne squawked, jumping to her feet. She came around to stand in front of me, assessing me like I might start glowing. “You said that you didn’t pass it down to her.”
“I didn’t think we did, Corinne,” Hugh said. “I wanted to protect her, so I didn’t push the issue. But she’s been keeping it a secret from me.”
Theo and I locked eyes across the table, and her brow furrowed. I felt suddenly very much under scrutiny and I squirmed in the seat.
“Would have been nice to know earlier,” Madison’s father grumbled.
“If she had let us know, we might have been able to harness her power, and then my sister wouldn’t be dead!” Corinne shouted. I shut my eyes, feeling tears creeping up behind them.
Hugh stepped forward, glaring coldly at her. “She didn’t know. This is a whole new world for her. I should have told her my suspicions. We can’t unwind the clock, Corinne. I loved her, too.”
Corinne pinched her lips together and gathered her coat and purse, slamming out of the room.
“When are you two leaving?” Callie asked when she was gone.
Hugh turned his attention back to Golem. “Does your brother know we’re coming right away?”
Golem nodded. “I told him to expect you within the next 48 hours.”
“Right away, then,” Hugh said. “Can you come with us?”
Callie’s eyebrows lifted apologetically. “I would love to, Hugh, but I have work. I can’t call it off, I’m already covering tonight’s shift as a favor.”
“I completely understand.”
The intimacy that passed between them did not go unnoticed. But I figured my father needed comfort right now. Their relationship had grown since Hugh had moved out, and while I felt better about the reasons for their text messages, I knew that their relationship wasn’t strictly professional.
“I can go with you,” Lucy piped up, standing on her feet with her purse already over her shoulder. “Theo can stay with her father.”
“No, I’m going with you,” Theo said firmly. “I don’t want to be odd man out.”
“Good,” Hugh said, nodding. “You and Ariel can catch
up.”
Neither of us said anything about the fact that we’d barely talked. Hugh didn’t know about our falling out. I didn’t know if Theo even considered me as a friend anymore, and that made my heart ache more than it already was.
The group broke up, wishing Hugh and I good luck and promising to hold down the fort in Hell. Callie hugged him before she left.
“Are we going by land or air?” Lucy asked as we were heading outside. It had started to snow again, a flurry of huge flakes. The temperature had dipped lower than yesterday, and the sky was a flat, dove gray. Theo and I held awkward silence between us, when all I wanted to do was talk about everything with her. Seeing her made me realize how much I’d missed her.
This was all happening so fast; it felt like my world had been pancake-flipped upside down. We settled on taking Lucy’s car, because it was better on gas mileage. Hugh didn’t want to fly because we didn’t have the extra money.
We stopped by their house so they could pack a couple of bags, and then we were off on our journey. The roads, at least, were salted. A row of zombie snowmen, decorated with red pop, lined the area around the ‘Welcome to Hell’ sign.
Theo and I sat in the back seat, not saying a word to each other. I don’t think either of us knew how to start.
###
Golem’s brother was located in Georgia, so it was a long trip. We stopped a few times for fast food on the way. Theo and I both remained mute, as Lucy and Hugh exchanged banal conversation in the front seat. Theo was drawing the whole time in a notebook.
I watched the landscape morph and blend from towns to fields and forests, then to strip malls and car dealerships with bright flags waving.
A few times Theo or I would open our mouths or look at each other as if to speak, but neither of us got that far. I put my earphones in and listened to music, feeling my eyelids droop. I was still exhausted, the weight of all the recent revelations dragging me down.
Velocity (The Gravity Series) Page 3
