“Maybe you don’t have friends because your definition of friendship is kind of lofty.”
“Don’t pretend like you’re too cool for a meaningful examination of one of the most basic human experiences.”
“Too many big words today.”
Artemis rolled her eyes.
“You talk about how I deflect all the time,” I said. “None of this had anything to do with whether Mads knows you. Mads definitely knows you. She was talking about you at work last week.”
“She was?”
“She was wondering what you use on your hair to make it so shiny.”
Artemis yanked her scarf over her face. “Ohhhh. Oh no.”
“‘Oh no’ what? Isn’t this a good thing?”
“She’s too cute! I don’t know what to do with my body when she’s around!”
“You were talking to her the other night, at Hal’s!”
“Yes, but I wasn’t looking at her. When you want to date someone, you have to look at them.”
“Ugh. I’m too asexual for this.”
The marching band passed us. Artemis did look. Mads glanced our way. I waved. Mads pointed her baton and waved back. Artemis buried herself in her scarf and squeaked in defeat.
“Mads is going to be at Hal’s tonight, by the way,” I said. “You should come ask her—”
Artemis jabbed a finger across the street. “Bach.”
My mouth snapped shut. I followed her finger to where Bach stood on the sidewalk outside the library, surrounded by empty space, no townspeople, dead or alive. Sunglasses hid his eyes, the breeze ruffled his hair. Except for the sunlight, he looked appropriately vampirish. Tall, dark, ageless. He never came to public outings. One of the hazards of having an immortal body was people noticing that you never aged.
He wasn’t watching the parade. His head roved slowly back and forth, like he was scanning the street and the sidewalks. Looking for something, or someone. I tried to catch his gaze, but he didn’t look my way. His eyebrows furrowed. Worried. The ghosts nearby had scattered. The ghosts all the way down the street had scattered. The ghosts in town were used to Bach by now; they wouldn’t have left because of him. I grabbed Artemis’s wrist.
“What is it?” she said.
“The firestarter is here,” I said.
The floats turned down Valleywine. Four of them, one for each grade, all depicting the Addamsville football team crushing Harrisburg. The freshmen had made a giant game of Mousetrap with the Harrisburg’s Eagle Pete as the mouse; the sophomore float was Morty the Dead Miner jumping out of a grave in a mini end zone to scare Eagle Pete to death; and the juniors had carved a giant Eagle Pete headstone out of foam and half the JV football team sat on it, singing the Addamsville High fight song.
The senior float rolled past to uproarious applause. On their trailer, another mound of foam had been carved and painted to look like the straining bodies of Harrisburg football players, all of them holding up a throne occupied by none other than Hal Haynes III, the hero who made a sixty-yard Hail Mary pass to win the 2011 homecoming grudge match against Harrisburg in the rain and mud, with a sprained ankle to boot. Up on that float he looked every inch the all-American boy: bright eyes and a white smile, apple pie and fireworks.
His blue and gold jersey and his glittering homecoming crown were set off by his dark-brown skin, and he wielded a golden scepter that flashed in the sunlight. He nodded and gestured to his subjects as he passed, and at one point stood up and yelled, “ALL HAIL ADDAMSVILLE! MAY THIS GAME BE BLESSED!”
The crowd cheered again. I scanned faces, looking for one out of place. But the only person not entertained by Hal’s theatrics, it seemed, was Bach; he’d straightened, now focused on my side of the street. I tried to follow his line of sight, past the float, past the oncoming color guard, but there was only Tad “Ratface” Thompson and his crew of goons. No cameramen or producer, no dead nearby. Tad saw me, smiled, and winked.
The senior float exploded.
Screams shattered the air as the crowd fled. The color guard scattered. The band screeched to a halt. Artemis had a death grip on my arm.
The senior float was in flames taller than the bank, hot enough to feel from our perch. I stared, frozen. Blood pounded in my ears. Fire spun. So fast. It had gone up so fast. The light and the size of the flames and the smoke. Twisting, curling. Foam blackening. Throne melting. Ghosts were gone. Hal lay sprawled next to the float, and someone ran up to grab him and haul him to the sidewalk. Dad.
Through the flames, Bach appeared.
He hadn’t moved. He met my gaze and held it; it felt as if hundreds of seconds passed while we stared at each other. Then he bolted. With the rest of the crowd, toward his sleek black Mustang parked in front of the auto shop.
I pried Artemis’s hand off my arm. “Go see if Hal’s okay!” I told her, and leaped off the bench before she could stop me. I sprinted away from the fire, away from the screaming, to the Chevelle in the town hall parking lot.
I gunned the engine and peeled onto Elmwood Lane. Bach couldn’t use Walton Street because of the parade route block off, so he’d have to turn down Cherry Hill where it intersected with Elmwood. I was right; I reached the intersection in time to see the Mustang roar past, heading south. I whipped out behind him and followed.
The Chevelle rumbled like a panther after its prey. We curved down the strip of the Goldmine, out past the Denford farmland, over the long wooden bridge that spanned Black Creek. Black Creek Church, surrounded by the cemetery, stood stark and uninviting against the pale blue of the sky. Bach sped down the dirt road, hardly pulling back even on the rough terrain, even when he slipped into the forest.
Black Creek Woods was a different kind of haunted than the rest of Addamsville. The rest of Addamsville was tourist haunted. Postcard haunted. Haunted in a regulated way, so you were always safe. Even though Forester House and Maple Hills were in the woods, they, too, were policed carefully by the living, used as tour locations and hot spots.
The woods were like the coal mine. Unregulated territory. Feral hauntings happened here, and you were always being watched. The trees grew tall and close together, a phalanx armed with shields and spears of underbrush. The canopy blocked out the sky, plunging the world below into an gloom. Two cars could barely pass on the dirt road. Bach’s taillights swung right at a fork in the road, heading west.
The west road dead-ended deep in the woods, in enemy territory. The one place Mom had told me never to go. The most dangerous place in Addamsville.
Forester House.
The woods swallowed the wings of the house so only the arched front entrance could be seen from the roundabout driveway. The gable roof pierced the gray sky, shadowing the long steps up to the front porch and a shuttered entryway. The wind rustled the trees to a slow rhythm, as if the house itself was breathing.
I braked at the edge of the roundabout. Bach had stopped his Mustang by the porch. Now he stood at the base of the steps, watching me.
“Get out of the car, Zora.”
I tightened my grip on the steering wheel. Bach was alone, and the house was still.
I unbuckled my seat belt and got out.
“Why’d you run?” I called from behind the Chevelle’s open door.
Bach didn’t try to come any closer. “I ran because it would have looked suspicious if I hadn’t, and because I needed to get back to Sammy right away. This firestarter is showing itself in the open now. It wants to be known. It could have burned Hal if it wanted to, but it didn’t. It burned the float instead.”
“Why? They’ve attacked in crowds before”—Bach had, actually, when he killed Hermit Forester’s Aunt Yvette in the grocery store parking lot—“but that was to kill. Not to injure.”
“To send a message,” he said. “To you. Think, Zora. Who was attacked? Where? And what did you do immediately afterward?”
Hal, my friend. In public, where everyone could see. I ran.
I ran from the scene of the crime.
<
br /> “It’s trying to frame me?”
“And send you a warning.”
The wind howled through the trees now. Raindrops darkened the pavement. Shadows hid Bach’s expression.
“Why didn’t you stop when you noticed I was chasing you?” I asked slowly.
“Because I needed you here. To show you something.”
Bach pointed to the front of Forester House. On the double wooden front doors was burned a large and crude L. The stumps of my fingers itched horribly, and my chest felt too tight.
“When we first came here, Hildegard and I, we weren’t alone,” Bach said. “Hildegard brought another of her offspring. He called himself Ludwig. She banished him once for threatening Sam, and he’s tried before to come back. He’s back now, and he left this for us. He knows you.”
“How do I know this is true, and you didn’t make it up to cover yourself—burn your own door to make me believe?”
“Believe that I wouldn’t hurt or lie to you unless Sammy ordered it, and he’s not going to lie to you about a firestarter he wants removed.” Bach’s voice was a rumble of thunder. “Ludwig is very real. He knows who you are. He knows your friends. He knows your reputation in this town. Because he’s fought you before. He’s been here before.”
I ran through the list of firestarters I’d gotten rid of myself and the ones I’d helped Mom with. It wasn’t a long list, but none of them had named themselves the way Bach had. Or they all named themselves and I never waited around long enough to find out what their names were.
“When?” I asked. “When was the last time he was here?”
“Almost a year ago,” Bach replied, and my heart sank before he finished his sentence. “He was the one who took your fingers.”
17
I drove away from Forester House in a daze. Rain pelted the windshield.
Bach was going to talk to Hermit Forester; with such a public display of firestarter powers, even more attention would return to the murders thirty years ago, and he was sure that kind of pressure would make Forester agree to help me. I wasn’t normally big on taking help from murderers, but I didn’t have many other options.
Alone in the Chevelle, with the rain drowning out my voice, I said, “Hey, Mom, if you were thinking about coming back, now would be a great time.”
Ludwig knew who I was. He’d been just another firestarter to me. Last year I’d found him almost by accident, patrolling around the Denfords’ cornfield because Artemis had mentioned to me in passing that she’d felt a little weird there the night before. Ludwig’s entrance had been inside one of the Denfords’ barns, and he’d been camped out near it, probably just come through. He hadn’t even had time to kill anyone or possess a body. I’d gone after him with only my axe, because he seemed so small and weak, and I was so angry all the time I never stopped to think.
He found out pretty fast he couldn’t burn me, so instead he caught my hand and ripped my fingers off.
I still had my left hand to hold the axe, and adrenaline or fear or some combination helped me get his head off and throw it through his entrance, but not before the field caught on fire. They saved the barn. I went back only once, six months later, to retrieve Dad’s wood axe where it had fallen in the weeds by the barn door. I ran away that night and hid behind Happy Hal’s, curled up on myself and close to tears.
Now he was back. He’d already killed once. He’d taken a host, if he was at the parade today. He’d threatened Hal, and by extension, everyone I cared about. Mom had not prepared me for this.
Dad and Sadie were already there when I got home. Dad yanked me inside, pulled off my hood, and snapped, “Where have you been?”
My legs quivered. “I—I followed Bach—he ran from the scene and I thought he might—he didn’t do anything, but I thought I’d check.”
Dad ran a hand over his face. Behind him, Sadie crossed her arms. “People saw you running. They think you had something to do with it. You and Bach both.”
“Is Hal okay?”
“He’s in the hospital. He got some nasty burns, but he’ll live.”
I put my head in my hands. I almost poked myself in the eye with my thick plastic pinkie, so I tore my gloves off and then my prosthetics. Sweat coated my hands. My finger stumps ached. I pressed the heels of my palms into my closed eyes and gritted my teeth to keep from making any sound.
“You’ll have to stay home until this blows over,” Dad said. “You can’t just go running off like that, after everything that’s happened, the way this town thinks about us now. It’s too dangerous, and you’re only giving them more ammunition.”
My molars squeaked. He was telling me this? He was telling me how the town would react to this, as if he’d been the one who had to live with the ramifications of what he did instead of us? As if he’d been here for the past three years?
“I’m fine,” I said, not caring that no one had asked. I shucked my boots off and stomped to the bathroom.
Twenty minutes later, I was sitting in the shower, hugging my knees to my chest. The water was already turned off, and two long wet strings of hair dripped between my feet. I wished I could have kept the water running so no one would hear the sounds I made and come knocking at the door, but wasting anything was a sin in this house.
The only knock came after ten minutes, and Dad said from the other side, “You okay?”
“Yes,” I replied. “Just want to be alone.”
“Chief Rivera is here. She wants to speak to you.”
I toweled dry and put on my sweatpants and my ratty Apocalyptic Seagulls Midwest Tour T-shirt, then crept out to meet the chief in the living room, dripping on our doormat. She had me recount everything I did up to the parade, during, and where I’d gone afterward. I didn’t detail my conversation with Bach, just said that he denied doing it. When I was finished, she put a hand on my arm and said, “Thank you, Zora. Hang in there. We’ll find who’s doing this.”
She left, and I slipped back to the bedroom before Dad or Sadie could lay into me again. I curled up at the head of the bed, which now smelled a bit like Dad, and opened my phone.
Artemis had already texted me.
Where’d you go?
What happened?
people think you set the fire and fled the scene
I told them you didn’t but I don’t think they believe me
Where are you?? are you okay?
did you go to the woods???
I started mashing out a response, then gave up and called her instead. It rang once before she picked up.
“Oh my god, what happened?”
I told her what Bach had said. Ludwig’s name, that he knew me. Artemis listened carefully. It felt better, talking about it. Like while I was talking about firestarters, they couldn’t hurt me. Ludwig couldn’t be sitting right behind me now, or lurking outside my window.
When I finished, Artemis was quiet, then said, “Bach might be able to help now. That’s good.”
“Yeah.”
“Are you okay? If he’s the one from last year—”
“I’ll be fine.”
“I can—I can do it, if you want. I could take the Chevelle and try to—”
“No. It’s my responsibility.” Why. Why did it have to be mine?
A knock came at the door.
“Can I call you back?” I hung up as the door pushed open. Sadie stuck her head in. “What is it?” I said.
“Jesus, I didn’t even say anything yet.” She slipped into the room.
“Sure, you can come in,” I said.
She shut the door and planted herself at the end of the bed. She wore an old Addamsville High sweatshirt, a scarf, and a pair of mittens she’d made during her knitting phase, and her hair was half up in a ponytail. The other half had fallen out. Dark bags ringed her eyes.
“I didn’t sleep last night.” Her hands hung loose at her sides. Her lips pressed together. “I need to talk to you.”
“I’m sorry about running away. I know it looked ba
d.”
“That’s not why we need to talk. What do you know that I don’t know?”
I stopped and blinked at her. “About what? The float? I didn’t—”
“I know you didn’t do it, but you know something about it that I don’t. Mom’s notes, her pictures. What it all meant. You and Artemis both knew something.” Sadie’s face grew paler as she talked, her eyes shadowed by the lamplight. “Mom always spent more time with you. She was always taking you places, showing you things.”
“She loved us both.”
“I know that,” Sadie snapped, “but there was something—you know something about her that I don’t. You always have, and I always knew that, but I didn’t say anything because I figured some parents just have favorite children.”
“I wasn’t her favorite—” I stopped myself. Was that even true? Had I been Mom’s favorite? I’d never thought about Sadie being the outsider—Sadie had Dad—but I’d also never thought about Mom not spending as much time with her as she did with me. “I—” I sighed. “It’s worse, knowing it. She said never to tell you and Dad, because it would be worse.”
Tears rimmed her eyes and anger sharpened her voice. “Nothing is worse than not knowing. What’s going on? Is it the reason she went missing?” She swallowed, hard. “I’m her daughter, too. I deserve to know.”
She was right. What was the point of keeping it from her now? She’d seen the notes and the pictures. Maybe Mom would want her to know, at this point. Maybe knowing would keep her safer.
“You know the stories about Mom talking to ghosts?”
She nodded.
“They’re true.”
Sadie stared at me, black eyes swallowing the light.
“Mom could see them. So can I. Artemis and Aunt Greta can feel them.” I told her about the firestarters and the corrupted ghosts, about Forester and Bach, and what it meant that we’d found Mom’s notes in Grimshaw House. “She disappeared while hunting. So now it’s just me, and I’m not very good at it, and I was hoping she’d left something for me with all her stuff, but there’s nothing. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before. I wasn’t supposed to.”
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