by J. S. Volpe
“I want in on this, too.”
“Donovan—”
He raised his head defiantly. “She’s my sister, too. I wanna help.”
Cynthia hesitated. Though Donovan could sometimes be easily swayed (usually by bad influences like Violet O’Donohue), he could also be very stubborn and determined when he wanted to be. Now was clearly one of those times. She couldn’t blame him.
“I’ll have to take it up with the others,” she said. “I mean, it’s not just me who’s involved, you know?”
“Uh-huh. Well, take it up with them, then, and make sure they say yes. Because I’m not just gonna sit around and wait for other people to do what needs to be done.”
She nodded. “I’ll do what I can.”
Just then Mom’s voice came shouting up the stairs.
“Aunt Wendy just pulled in!”
Chapter 18
Wendy Crow
1
When Cynthia saw Aunt Wendy walk in the front door, it was like she was seeing a whole new person. It wasn’t because Wendy had physically changed. Wendy looked the same as she had when the family visited her during their summer vacation in New England: same steely gray hair; same thin, angular face; same quick, green eyes peering out from the shade of the same wide-brim black hat. What was different was that Cynthia now knew the details of Wendy’s painful history, the details no one in the family ever talked about. She knew now why Wendy wore black. She knew now why Wendy wasn’t married. She knew now why Wendy rarely visited her birthplace anymore. She knew now that the thin lines that seamed Wendy’s forehead and bracketed her eyes and mouth were due as much to pain and tragedy as to advancing age. She saw Wendy’s dark eyes briefly fix on a section of the hardwood floor in the front hall, and she felt her chest and throat tighten in sympathy and sorrow.
After an exchange of greetings and hugs, everyone headed into the living room and sat down.
“Has there been any news?” Wendy asked.
“No,” Hannibal said. “Nothing.”
She tutted and shook her head. “Do the police have any suspects?”
“We don’t know. They’re not telling us much.”
She grunted, then frowned slightly and rubbed her forehead.
“Everything okay?” Brenda asked. She sounded a little excited. Cynthia realized her mom was hoping Wendy was having a vision.
“Just a slight headache,” Wendy said. “I don’t fly well.”
“Oh.” Brenda nodded, trying to hide her disappointment. “Donovan, why don’t you get your aunt some Tylenol and a glass of water.”
“Oh, no,” Wendy said. “There’s no need to go to any trouble.”
“It’s no trouble at all,” Brenda said. She nodded at Donovan, who had started to get up but then froze uncertainly when Wendy objected. “Go on.”
He hurried away.
“Is Krezchek still the chief of police?” Wendy asked.
“Yeah,” Hannibal said.
She snorted.
“The FBI have taken a big role in the investigation, though,” he told her.
“Thank goodness for that.”
“Is Chief Krezchek, like, not cool or something?” Cynthia asked.
“He’s an idiot,” Wendy said.
“Now, now,” Brenda said. “He’s doing his best.”
Cynthia couldn’t help but wonder why Aunt Wendy disliked Chief Krezchek so much. Had he been in charge of the investigation into Eugene Scott’s death? No, wait. That wouldn’t make sense. He would have been in his early twenties at the time, the same age as Wendy and Eugene. Maybe he had been a rookie patrolman and did something stupid that compromised the investigation. Or maybe he and Wendy had known each other personally. Maybe they had even dated. There was a freaky thought.
Donovan returned with two Tylenol and a glass of water. Wendy gulped them down.
“Thank you,” she said. She set down the glass, then heaved a deep breath and said, “All right. Show me Emily’s room. Let’s see if I can pick anything up.”
“Are you sure?” Hannibal said. “I mean, this soon? You haven’t even—”
“I’m sure. Bear in mind, I can’t guarantee results, though. My talents aren’t something I can turn on and off. The visions come when they come.”
“We understand,” Brenda said. But there was a brittle, hopeful gleam in her eyes that suggested she felt sure this grim situation would soon be resolved.
They trooped upstairs to Emily’s room.
Cynthia hadn’t visited Emily’s room since the morning they had found her missing, and Cynthia’s heart hurt to see her sister’s untouched things: the black cat coverlet on the bed; the pajamas neatly folded on the seat of her small white rocking chair; the jump rope draped over the knob of the closet door; the paperback copy of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets on her desk. The placement of her glow-in-the-dark jack-o’-lantern bookmark showed she had been nearly done with the book.
Cynthia wasn’t the only one affected by the sight of Emily’s room: Beside her her mom began to weep silently. Hannibal put an arm around Brenda’s shoulders. She clutched him tight.
Everyone watched in tense, expectant silence as Wendy slowly made her way through the room, pausing here and there to touch or handle something.
“Normally my visions come to me out of the blue, independent of anything,” Wendy said as she paused next to the closet. She grabbed one of the jump rope’s orange plastic handles, held it a moment, let it go. “But occasionally I can pick up feelings and images from specific objects or locations. That’s what’s called psychometry. That’s what I’m hoping to do here.”
She headed over to the desk and studied the papers and pens and knickknacks that littered its surface. Her gaze settled on one of the papers, and she frowned. She picked it up. It was a drawing of a coyote howling at the moon with the words “Happy Birthday John” at the bottom. It had clearly been intended as a hand-made card for Emily’s friend John Coyote, whose birthday was the same day as Emily’s: Halloween, a week and a half away. Wendy studied the drawing intently, her frown deepening.
“Are you, um, getting something?” Brenda asked.
Wendy didn’t respond for a moment. Then she shook her head slightly and set the paper back onto the desk.
“Just a feeling,” she said. She shrugged her black shoulders. “I don’t know. It’s probably nothing.”
She moved on to the rocking chair next to the bed and laid a hand on Emily’s pajamas, which were dark purple and adorned with pictures of cartoon fairies with dragonfly-like wings.
Wendy grunted.
“What—” Brenda began.
“Quiet, please,” Wendy said. She shut her eyes and held very still. Her breathing slowed. Ten seconds passed. Then fifteen. Twenty. Everyone glanced at each other, wondering if this was it.
Wendy opened her eyes.
“A yellow box,” she said.
“What?” Brenda said.
“I saw a large yellow box of some kind. That’s all. But I saw it very clearly. It felt important somehow.”
“How large was it?” Cynthia asked.
“It’s hard to say. Maybe about the size of a crate or a trunk. Except I think it was made of metal or plastic. Something shiny and artificial.”
“And it was yellow?” Hannibal said.
Wendy nodded. “It doesn’t mean anything to any of you?”
Everyone shook their heads.
Brenda heaved a shaky sigh. “Oh, well.” Her voice wobbled with emotion.
“Don’t despair,” Wendy said. “We’re not defeated yet. Just because I didn’t pick up anything on the first go-round doesn’t mean I won’t pick up anything later. Besides, I still have to try the clearing. There’s a much better chance of getting a result there. All things considered, the clearing’s more likely to have retained an impression.”
“An impression?” Cynthia said.
“Of emotional energy. Some people think that’s how psychometry works, that people’s p
sychical or emotional energy somehow imprints itself upon objects or places and lingers there for a long time afterward. Some people think that’s what makes so-called sick houses feel that way: that there was a big imprint of negative emotional energy sometime in the past that tainted the whole place.”
“Interesting.” Cynthia wondered if the concept of psychic-emotional imprints could be somehow connected with what had been going on in and around the woods over the last two hundred years. Could Turner and Hamilton’s vision of the dragon have been a lingering psychic imprint of the Mima’s belief in Wakansa? Could a massive buildup of negative psychic energy be driving people to murder and suicide? If so, where did it come from? And why didn’t it affect more people? And why did it affect the people it affected in such extreme and focused ways? No, there had to be something more at work. She should try to remember to bring this up with Mr. May. Then again, he had probably already considered it.
As they headed back downstairs, Wendy frowned and touched her forehead with the tips of her fingers.
“You okay?” Hannibal asked her.
She nodded. “My headache. It’s a little worse.”
“Do you want another Tylenol?” Brenda said. “We could—”
“No, no. I should probably give these more time to work.” She went into the living room and grabbed her purse and her wide-brim hat. “Let’s head out to the clearing.”
“Now?” Hannibal said.
Wendy nodded and clapped her hat on her head. “Let’s get this done.”
2
Five minutes later Wendy, Hannibal, and Cynthia were tromping through the woods on their way to the clearing. Brenda and Donovan had opted not to go. Cynthia didn’t blame them. She wasn’t sure she wanted to be there if her aunt saw something. But she felt that she needed to be there. Not just to keep tabs on things for Mr. May, but for herself. And for Emily.
They crossed the river at the stepping stones, then headed north toward the clearing. They were halfway there when Wendy paused, frowning. She leaned against a tree trunk with one hand.
“Are you all right” Hannibal asked her.
“My headache…”
“Do you want to go back?”
She didn’t answer. Instead she peered north, squinting like someone trying to see through a heavy rain.
“There’s something there,” she murmured.
“What?” Cynthia said. “What do you mean?”
Wendy continued squinting into the distance for a moment, then shook her head.
“I don’t know,” she said. Her voice was low, puzzled.
Cynthia and her dad exchanged a baffled glance behind Wendy’s back.
“Are you sure you don’t want to head back?” Hannibal asked Wendy. “We could—”
“No, no.” Wendy pushed herself off the tree trunk and strode forward. “Let’s go. Emily needs us.”
They headed on. Less than a minute later Wendy paused again to lean against a tree. Her face was drawn and pale. She rubbed her temple with one hand as she stared north toward the clearing.
“What is that?” she muttered.
“Wendy,” Hannibal said, “why don’t we just stop? We can come back later.”
“No. We need to do this. We need to do it for Emily. And I need to know what this is.”
“Is it, like, a psychic thing?” Cynthia asked.
“Yes. At least I think so. It’s not like anything I’ve ever encountered before. It’s—it’s like…” She shook her head. “I’m not even sure how to describe it. It’s like…static. Or heat. It’s like there’s a huge furnace up ahead and I’m feeling its heat. I’m pretty sure it’s what’s giving me the headache, too. It’s not jetlag. It’s…” She tilted her chin toward the clearing. “That. Whatever it is. I need to know.”
“And it’s connected with Emily?” Hannibal asked.
Wendy opened her mouth, shut it, shook her head. “I don’t know.”
She walked on. Cynthia and Hannibal followed. They barely took their eyes off Wendy, partly out of concern, partly out of hope that she would suddenly fling up her hands and cry, “I can see it all,” and announce where Emily was. But she didn’t. Instead her steps grew unsteady and her breathing grew labored and irregular. By the time the first glimpse of the yellow police tape that ringed the clearing came into view up ahead, her face was the color of chalk and sheened with sweat.
She froze about thirty feet from the clearing, her eyes fixed straight ahead. Cynthia followed her gaze. Through the foliage she saw bits and pieces of the clearing—swaths of green grass, a few fallen red and yellow leaves, an edge of the burned circle.
“My God,” Wendy whispered. “What is that?” Her purse slid from her shoulder and thumped to the dirt beside her. She didn’t even notice.
Hannibal looked down at the purse, then at Wendy, then at Cynthia, then back at Wendy. He stooped and snatched up the purse.
“Wendy—” he began.
“A dome,” Wendy said. “It’s a dome.”
“What?”
She lurched forward. Hannibal and Cynthia hurried after her. Wendy stumbled over tree roots and tore through brush, and all the while she never once took her eyes off the clearing up ahead.
When she reached the police tape, she kept walking, seemingly unaware of the yellow ribbon pressing against her belly. The tape stretched farther and farther, and bit deeper and deeper into her stomach. The black letters that read “Crime Scene Do Not Cross” grew elongated and barely readable. Just when Cynthia felt sure the tape would snap, Wendy stopped.
Wendy looked up and down, then from side to side as if she were studying some vast object in the center of the clearing. Then her gaze dropped to the grass midway between her feet and the burned circle.
“I think it’s underground, too,” she said. Her voice was thick and slow as if she had been drugged. “It’s…” She looked up and all around again. “A sphere.” She frowned. “Or is it a hole?” She cocked her head. Her eyes narrowed. “I think it’s both.”
“Wendy,” Hannibal said gently. He took her elbow. “Why don’t you—”
She wrenched her arm away and stalked forward. The tape snapped. The two halves fluttered to the grass as she plodded into the center of the clearing. She stopped with her feet planted squarely on the burned circle.
“Oh, my God,” she gasped. She raised her arms and let her head fall back as if she were basking in applause or sunshine. Her black hat fell off and landed upside-down on the grass. She let out a long, low, almost orgasmic moan that dissolved into a breathy laugh. “This is incredible. This is…this is…”
Her words were replaced by a thick gurgle from deep in her throat. At the same moment she began to shudder violently as if she had touched a live wire.
“Wendy!” Hannibal screamed.
She toppled backward onto the grass, crushing her hat beneath her. She writhed about, her arms and legs flailing, her gurgles growing louder and shriller. Her eyes had rolled up so far that only the vein-squiggled whites were visible.
“Do you have your phone?” Hannibal cried.
For one weird moment, Cynthia thought he was talking to Wendy. Then he seized Cynthia’s arm and yelled, “Your phone! Do you have it?
She tore her eyes from her aunt’s thrashing, gurgling form. “I—” She touched her pocket to make sure, and felt the bulge there. “Yeah.”
“Call 911! She’s having a seizure!”
“But…”
But she hasn’t had one of those since she was a little girl, she wanted to say.
Instead she turned away and made the call. She had to stride a little ways out of the clearing to hear the dispatcher’s voice over the horrible turkey-gobble noises Wendy was making. By the time the dispatcher assured her that help would soon be there and Cynthia hung up, Wendy had fallen silent.
Cynthia returned to the clearing. Her dad was kneeling on the grass next to Wendy, who now lay on her side. She wasn’t gurgling and thrashing anymore. She wasn’t doing a
nything. For a moment Cynthia thought that that was a good thing, that the seizure had passed and Wendy was exhausted or unconscious but otherwise okay.
But then her dad threw his head back and let out a horrible wail. Tears spilled from his eyes. The cords in his neck stood out like cables. And that was when Cynthia noticed Wendy’s eyes were still wide open and showing white, and Wendy’s chest was still.
Cynthia felt her own eyes burn with tears. She was about to hurry over and join her dad on the grass when she became aware of a faint silvery light suffusing the clearing. At first she thought the light was a byproduct of her tears—some kind of weird shimmery halo effect or something—but when she swiped the tears from her eyes, the light was still there. It was real. Or at least it looked real. Her dad was kneeling right in the middle of the light and he didn’t seem to notice anything. But then, his eyes were shut, and his mind was on other things.
The light grew brighter and more defined, and Cynthia discerned that it didn’t quite fill the whole clearing; it stopped about ten feet from the edge. And it was curved along the top…
A dome! That was how Aunt Wendy described what she had been seeing! Somehow Cynthia was seeing the same thing.
And then she wasn’t. In the space of a heartbeat the light vanished. The clearing was normal once again.
Cynthia stood there, stunned and scared, while her father’s anguished cries echoed through the woods.
Chapter 19
Black and White
Roger Grey stood at his living room picture window and looked out at the sunlit street. He didn’t know what to do. Twenty-four hours had passed, and Emily Faux had not returned. Neither had the FBI. Which was good, of course. But he couldn’t help fearing that the FBI had returned, just not openly, that Emily Faux’s assistance yesterday hadn’t helped as much as he had thought, and the FBI had pegged Roger as a prime suspect and set up surveillance on his house.
His eyes returned for the umpteenth time to the Stillson house across the street. Or rather the ex-Stillson house. The Stillsons had moved out three weeks ago. The house’s windows were dark and empty, and a For Sale sign stood on the front lawn. That would be the most logical place for a surveillance team. He hadn’t noticed any signs of activity there, but he wasn’t sure if that meant anything one way or another.
