After fumbling around in the dark, I realize it’s a lost cause. There’s nothing in here but clothes, shoes, and some old books. It has to be packed up in a box in the attic.
I light a fresh candle and walk out to the hallway. I reach up to pull the string that will lower the attic stairs when I hear small, careful steps coming down the hall.
“What are you doing?” Mitch asks.
“Hey, buddy. I was just going to go look for something in the attic.”
“Dad said to come get you so you can eat something.”
I really don’t feel much like eating, but I know I need to. The last thing I ate was junk food. The attic will have to wait.
I follow Mitch down the stairs, unsure of what to expect. The last family meal didn’t go over so well.
The deep, orange glow of the fireplace fills the living room, and shadows chase each other across the walls. My father and Judy sit at the table, both chewing slowly on the chips and sandwiches before them.
I take my seat, picking up a roast beef sandwich. The meat is cold and dry and tough to chew. I would kill for some mayo. I wonder how people survived without electricity so many years ago. It’s been less than twenty-four hours and already I’m going crazy.
No one speaks, lost in their own thoughts. I can’t ignore the tension between my father and Judy, undoubtedly because of me. They’re usually so chipper and chatty it’s nauseating, but today they sit and stare, bitter tension hanging between them.
I finish my sandwich, washing it down with a glass of water, and take my plate to the sink. I turn on the faucet to rinse it before placing it in the dishwasher, and then remember there’s no water.
“Just leave it in the sink,” my father says, walking up behind me. “We’ll wash them in the morning.”
He picks up a book and walks to the living room, sitting next to the fire. I need to talk to him. I have so many questions about my mother, but more importantly, I want to talk to him about Reverend Carter. This will need to wait until Mitch is in bed, and possibly even Judy. I don’t want to talk about my mother in front of her former best friend.
I grab a candle and head toward the stairs, ready to explore the attic.
“Wait, Cait. I’m going to help you,” Mitch says, his chair scraping across the floor.
“Where are you going?” Judy eyes me like I’m planning to corrupt her son.
“I’m going to help Cait,” he says.
“Help her with what?”
Mitch turns to look at me, unsure of what exactly he’d said he would help me with.
“I need something out of storage. I was going to go dig through my boxes in the attic.”
“What is it?” she asks.
“Just something you forgot to unpack.” I don’t know why I should have to explain this to her. It’s my stuff.
“If you tell me what it is, maybe I can tell you whether I remember seeing it.”
“It’s the memory box my mother gave me.”
“And what’s in there?” Judy crosses her arms, eyeing me suspiciously.
“Not what you think is in there.” That’s somewhere else.
“Mmhmm, I’m sure it’s not. Whatever it is can wait. I don’t want you digging around in the dark.”
“Why not? It’s my stuff.”
My father looks up from his book, running a hand over his face. “Your stuff is in the basement. I distinctly remember putting all your boxes down there. The only thing in the attic is Christmas decorations.”
“Well, I definitely don’t want them in the basement. There could be rats down there, or snakes.”
Why is she so annoying?
“It’s not a big deal. Let them go. They’ll be fine. Cait’s responsible enough. Nothing is going to happen.” He’s obviously just as annoyed with her as I am.
“Responsible enough to run off last night and worry us half to death.”
“Stop. We’re not doing this today,” he says before she can continue. She huffs away to their bedroom and slams the door. Now who’s the bratty teenager?
I make my way through the kitchen to the mudroom and pull open the basement door. I haven’t been down here in years. The light from my candle guides us down the stairs. The air is dank and musty and I immediately begin to sneeze. I stop when my eye catches a glint of something off in the distance. I could swear I just saw someone step behind the beam at the back of the room.
“Why did you stop?” Mitch asks from behind me.
“Just trying to figure out where to look first.” I hold the candle higher, the dim light reflecting off the open beams. It feels like a dungeon down here. The stone walls give it a very gothic feel.
“All the boxes are over here.” Mitch pushes past me and walks in the opposite direction of the wall where the alleged person dematerialized. I must have been seeing things.
Mitch’s old toys and clothing fill the first two boxes I come across. A lot of this stuff could be donated. I finally find a couple of boxes with my name on them and begin digging through them.
Mitch sifts through some of his old toys, taking out an oversize police car that moves by itself when pulled backward. It drives itself along the cement floor, lights flashing.
“Hey, it still works,” he says.
After digging through two of my boxes, I finally find the memory box resting beneath a pile of old sweaters and school uniforms. I try to open it, but it’s locked. I dig through the box, searching for the key, but it’s not there.
“Whoa, what the heck? Cait, did you see that?”
“See what?” I ask, folding the box top back into place and returning it to where I found it.
“My car disappeared into that wall.”
“It what?” I pick up the memory box and the candle, then step over to join him.
“It disappeared,” he says, pointing at the far wall.
“Maybe it just ran out of juice,” I say, walking in that general direction.
The closer I get to the back wall, the colder it gets. A brisk breeze seems to blow toward me, but how is that possible? Then, I see it. A door made out of rock at the far end of the basement. Mitch’s car sits wedged between the edge of the makeshift doorway and the wall.
“Did you find it?” he asks from where I’d left him.
“Yeah, it just hit the wall.” I stoop down and pick up the car, peering behind the door. I lift my candle enough to see what’s behind it. I expect a small closet, or maybe another room. What I don’t expect to see is a large tunnel snaking away from me. It looks like I may need to do some exploring tonight after everyone else is asleep.
Chapter Eleven
I spend the next couple hours tearing up my room, searching for the key to the memory box. I consider breaking it open, but I can’t. My mother gave it to me.
“Cait?” Mitch’s voice calls to me from the other side of my door.
“Come in.”
He pokes his head in my room, his eyes searching my bed before he finally finds me sitting on the floor near the closet. “Dinner’s ready.”
Didn’t we just eat?
“What time is it?” I ask.
“Dad said it’s close to eight.”
Wow. Time flies when you’re scrambling around in the dark. “What are we having?”
“More sandwiches,” he says. “I’m sick of sandwiches.”
“Get used to it, buddy. We have six more days of this.” I place the box on my bed and follow him down the stairs. When we get to the kitchen, I’m surprised to see that my father sits alone at the table.
“Where’s Mom?” Mitch asks, taking his seat.
“In our room. She’s not feeling well,” he says without conviction. She’s punishing us with the silent treatment, a tactic she uses often.
“I’m tired,” Mitch says after finishing his sandwich. “Cait, will you sleep in my room with me tonight?”
I start to object, but realize it will be easier f
or me to sneak down to the tunnels if I don’t have to maneuver around the creaky stairs.
“Sure,” I tell him. “But I’m not ready for bed yet. You go ahead and go to sleep. I’m going to hang out with Dad for a bit.”
My father glances at me, surprised. I don’t think I’ve willingly asked to hang out with him since I was ten.
Mitch crawls down from his chair, stifling a yawn. “You promise you’ll come in? You won’t forget?”
“I promise. I’ll be in later.”
“Dad, don’t let her forget,” he calls as he walks down the hall.
I grab my dad’s empty plate, placing it on top of mine, and carry them to the trash. He’d decided on paper plates tonight. Smart move, since dirty plates and glasses already fill the sink.
My father sits by the fire, rubbing his temples with big, calloused hands. The light from the fire casts half his face in worried shadow. I walk into the living room, all the questions I have for him burning my lips, unsure of where to start. I’ve never really talked to him like this.
“How are you doing?” I ask. It’s the only logical conversation starter I can think of.
“I’m hanging in there.”
I pick at the fuzz on my sweatpants. This is extremely awkward.
“This hasn’t happened to our family in years,” he says. “We’re the first in generations to be chosen.”
“But, you didn’t know they would choose us. No one knows,” I say, trying to make him feel better. “Besides, it’s me they want.”
“Don’t let what Judith said get to you.” He only uses her full name when he’s pissed at her. “We’ve all done things we’re not proud of. It could be any of us. “
“It’s scary. Not knowing when they’ll come, or who they’ll take.”
“If I had my way, I would make them take me,” he says. “None of you deserve to go.”
An icy fist wraps itself around my stomach. Though my father and I have never been close, I can’t imagine not having him around. Judy would have me shipped off to a convent in no time.
“Can I ask you a question?”
“Sure,” he says, stifling a yawn.
“Did you know Mom when she lived here?”
His eyes immediately snap to mine, a surprised expression on his face. “How do you know she lived here? Did she tell you?”
“I found something last night—in the library. There are books in the basement that contain everyone taken by the Redeemers in a given year. I just happened to pull the one from 1981, and there was a picture of Mom when she was a little girl. Her name was written under it. I recognized the picture.”
He takes a deep breath and shifts in his chair, gazing into the fire. “I knew her. We went to grade school together.”
“She was taken by the Redeemers,” I say. “I thought once they take you, you’re gone. Forever.”
“That’s how it’s supposed to be,” he says. “Somehow, she got away.”
“But, how?”
“I honestly don’t know. She was the fourth one taken,” he says, lost in thought. “I remember feeling sad when I found out she was gone. She was always different. Kids at school laughed at her, but she was always so nice to everyone. Two days after the seven-day cycle, I remember walking to school and seeing her on the front steps of the church covered in dirt and dried blood. No one knew how she got there. The next day, your grandparents packed up and moved out of town. I never saw her again until ten years later.”
“Did you ever ask her about it?”
“I mentioned it once, and she made it very clear that it wasn’t something she wanted to talk about. It was because of her that we never visited here when we were still a family living in Tacoma. She refused to come back.”
“Is that why Nana didn’t like her?” I ask, point blank.
“It probably has something to do with it. My mother never liked your grandmother. She said she was evil—a witch.” He tosses a hand to the side, waving away Nana’s crazy notion.
My hand instinctively goes to the black stone pendant hanging around my neck. “Why would she think that?”
“Your grandma Charley helped people in nonconventional ways. When doctors couldn’t help what ailed them, she would cook up some concoction and have them back on their feet in a matter of days. People would go to her in secret asking for help with their crops, sick cattle—everything, and somehow she could help. After a while, the town grew suspicious. They said what she was doing wasn’t Christian.”
“Trusting murderous spirits to give you wealth and prosperity by offering seven children as a sacrifice isn’t exactly Christian either,” I say. “Even if they do it in the name of the Lord.”
“I can’t say I disagree,” Dad says.
A scream pierces the air, shattering the calmness. Both my dad and I run down the hall to their bedroom. Judy sits on the bed, staring out the window. Outside the open curtains the thick mist swirls around the base of the tree. A chill runs down my spine as I remember it chasing me.
Grabbing me.
Pulling me.
“What is it?” Dad sits next to her. I stand in the doorway, afraid to go in.
“Someone was standing outside the window,” she says, clinging to him.
“Caity!” Mitch’s voice hits me from behind, and I run to his room.
“What is it?” I ask, staring into the blackness of the room, trying to focus my eyes on him.
“He was at my window again. I saw him.” I fumble around in the dark, searching for a candle and matches. I finally find them and just as I’m about to light the candle, a loud banging comes from the front door. Mitch screams at the sound, and I feel my body stiffen.
They’re here. They’ve come for me and I don’t have the answers I need.
I walk into the living room, heart tickling my throat. My entire body pulses, half with fear, half with pure adrenaline. I’ll fight them. They’re not taking anyone tonight. Not from this house. I’ll make sure of it.
“Cait. What are you doing?” My father’s voice comes from behind me, but I ignore it. I move to the door and grasp the doorknob.
Deep, mournful moans hang in the air on the other side of door; they’re both frightening and depressing.
“Get away from the door,” my dad says, grabbing me by the shoulder. “You can’t go out there.”
The windows begin to rattle. The entire house seems to shudder as though an earthquake has hit.
“Dad!” Mitch cries.
Judy does her best to sooth Mitch. I stand frozen in front of the door. The stone around my neck pulses just as it did last night when the Redeemers were after Trevor and me.
Loud banging comes from both the front and back doors like an entire army is trying to break through. The moaning grows louder and the windows continue to rattle. My head feels like it may explode.
“Enough!” I cry, hands clamped to my ears. “Go away!”
The moaning stops, and all rattling and pounding ceases. The house settles back into the quiet and solitude of before, like nothing happened.
Is this it? The calm before the storm?
I back away from the door, almost expecting it to burst open at any moment, invisible hands pulling me into the night, slashing my body the way they slashed poor Mr. Edwards. Everything is still. The door remains closed, and the stone around my neck loses whatever energy that was just pulsing through it.
“Are they here? Are they coming?” Mitch wraps his arms around my waist, his terrified eyes trained on the door.
“It’s okay. I think they’re gone,” I say, stroking his tangled mop of blond hair. “Go back to bed.”
“Come with me. Please?” he pleads, tugging at my hand.
I silently follow him to his room and crawl into his bed. I’m suddenly exhausted. All thoughts of the memory box and exploring the door in the basement escape me when I hit the pillow and immediately fall asleep.
***
&nb
sp; The air around me is quiet and still. Through the dense fog, a single bright light beckons to me. Like a ship following a lighthouse in a storm, I move toward it, gliding across the cold, hard earth. Just as I get close enough to the light it draws farther away.
“Cait?” Trevor’s voice calls. “Cait, it’s me.”
“Where are you?” I call, my eyes unable to see anything other than the light.
“I’m here.”
I turn to the right, but see nothing.
“Over here, Cait.” The voice now comes from my left. “You have to hurry.”
“I can’t find you,” I say, turning in circles.
The deep, mournful moans of the Redeemers fill my ears, surrounding me.
“Hurry, Cait. Hurry. You’re almost out of time.” As he speaks the words, his form appears in front of me. I rush to him, stopping short when I see the blood oozing from his chest.
“Too late.” The sound of the second voice chills me to the bone. Standing behind Trevor is Jonah, a bloody knife in his hand.
“Cait?” As soon as my name leaves Trevor’s lips he’s jerked backward into the fog.
Jonah walks toward me slowly and with purpose. The moaning of the Redeemers grows louder, and I scream as arms grab hold of me, pressing down on my shoulders.
“Cait. Caity. Wake up.”
Mitch’s voice pulls me out of my nightmare. Sweat covers my shaking body.
“You’re okay,” Mitch says from beside me, patting my shoulder. “We’re safe. I stayed up all night and watched so they wouldn’t take you.”
“Thanks, buddy.” I offer him a small smile. I sit up in bed just as the distant sound of the morning bells begin to ring, announcing our three hours of freedom.
My father pokes his head inside Mitch’s room. “Time to get dressed, kids. We have to leave in ten minutes.”
Fingers in the Mist Page 11
