by Donna Hosie
Part of me wants to argue, but I’m hoping beyond hope that the girls are right. Alfarin is like my brother, and I would defend him with everything I had—until there was nothing left.
But their passionate reasoning has now opened up another door that I don’t want to go through.
If the Skin-Walkers aren’t screaming for me, and they aren’t coming for Alfarin, what if they’re after one of the girls?
We have to leave now. My legs wobble as I try to stand, but Medusa and Elinor instinctively grab hold of each arm and hold me steady. As I stumble, I think back to the early days of our friendship. Elinor was waiting for us all that time. Somehow we were bonded in life as well as death. Could fate exist after all?
“Alfarin, you ready to leave?” I call. My voice doesn’t sound as if it belongs to me. It’s detached, like an echo.
“I want my facial hair back,” says Alfarin, pouting. “My chin looks like a baby’s bottom.”
“Ye are still a real man without it,” says Elinor soothingly. She slips her hand into Alfarin’s, and his smile threatens to split his face open. He looks almost angelic.
“It could be worse, Alfarin,” adds Medusa. “You could be like Mitchell and take a century to grow a beard.”
“I would have to hide in the deepest cave for eternity if that fate ever befell me,” says Alfarin, wrapping a trunklike arm around my shoulders.
“Watch the burns, dude.”
Medusa clenches her fist and coughs into her hand. “Baby.”
I know how to shut her up, and seeing as Osmosis of the Dead has canceled my plans to go on alone . . .“Well, let’s see how brave you are, Melissa Pallister.” I hand Medusa the Viciseometer as her jaw drops. “You’re next.”
I give the hotel room one last glance. The white sheets on the enormous bed are crumpled and have been stained with what looks like dark-gray chalk. A big pile of dirty, wet clothes is heaped in a corner. The smell in here is ripe with mold and filth.
“Have you put the date in?” I ask Medusa.
“Yes,” she whispers. Her pale face has gone the color of sour cream.
I turn to Alfarin. “We need to keep hold of the girls even tighter than before.”
“I’m scared, Mitchell.”
The Viciseometer is spitting tiny red sparks in Medusa’s hand. It’s lying flat against her palm. She’s too afraid to clasp it tightly.
“Hang on,” I say. I twist around to pull my backpack from Alfarin’s shoulder. I unzip it and rummage among the clean underwear. As I reach my arm down into the depths, my fingers skim the edge of a glossy piece of paper and I grab it.
“Look at this,” I say to Medusa. I show her the photo of the four of us, gleaming rosily—eyes and all. My raggedy doll reappears as Medusa smiles and the dimples indent her perfect skin.
“I love that photo!” exclaims Elinor, laughing. “Didn’t Medusa fart or something just as it was being taken?”
Alfarin chuckles as Medusa makes an indignant humph noise through her nose.
“I burped, I did not fart. Ladies don’t fart.”
“You should tell my mother that,” says Alfarin, taking the photo between his sausage-sized fingers. “She has been known to flatten trees with her trumpeting.”
“Why are you showing me this?” asks Medusa.
“Because we’re a team,” I reply. “We’re best friends, and regardless of what may happen now, we can’t ever forget that.”
“Team DEVIL,” sings Elinor.
“Yeah,” says Medusa, but her voice is low and sad.
“Don’t let go of me, whatever happens,” I say to Medusa, tightening my grip around her waist.
“We’re going to see the Skin-Walkers again, aren’t we?”
“Only for a second,” I reply.
The four of us make a tight circle. I can’t see the date Medusa has put into the Viciseometer, but I know we’ll arrive in 1967: the so-called Summer of Love.
“Are you ready for this?” I ask.
“Reality can’t be any worse than the nightmares,” replies Medusa.
The Viciseometer appears to be hovering above Medusa’s hand. I gently close her fingers around the rim and I don’t let go.
“Close your eyes and don’t look.”
Elinor has done the same. Alfarin nods to me and tightens his grip on the axe. We don’t say it, but a kind of telepathy is bouncing between us. Alfarin and I have enough eyes for everyone. We’ll both keep ours open, and woe to anything that attempts to break the circle.
“In three . . . two . . . one . . .”
The tight group is immediately thrown apart as the Viciseometer hurls us into the past. My eyes stream as heat and flame tear at my face. The Skin-Walkers surround us; the wolf pelts on their heads come alive in the darkness. Blackened, razor-sharp teeth snap at my neck as cries of pain echo in the vortex.
But this time I recognize one voice in the darkness. A continuous cry of terror that is beyond my reach. It calls to me, begging me not to let go.
The sun-parched grass shatters beneath my hands. I’ve landed on all fours like a dog. It takes me a second to realize I’m panting like one, too. A pernicious, bright sun hovers high in the sky; its rays are cooking everything in sight.
Medusa and Elinor are lying on their backs, their faces still scrunched up. Elinor has her hands over her ears.
Alfarin is gagging where he stands.
I crawl over to Medusa and take her face in my hands. My thumbs trace uneven lines across her skin.
“Wake up, we’re here,” I whisper. “It’s over.”
The lids of her eyes are threaded with tiny veins that spread across the thin skin like ink on tissue paper. Medusa’s dry mouth parts just a little; her lips look as if they’re glued shut. I pull myself away and look at Alfarin and Elinor.
“What was it like that time for you two?”
“Worse than before,” says Alfarin, “and I heard one particular scream more clearly than the others.”
“Me too,” says Elinor.
Medusa stays quiet. She has propped herself up on her elbows, but her eyes are open. They’re as bloodshot as her lids.
“Did either of you recognize it?” I ask.
Alfarin and Elinor shake their heads. “Did you?”
My eyes drift away from the three of them and toward the red steel bridge that stretches into the distance. I don’t care for the sightseeing; I just don’t want them to realize I’m about to lie.
“No,” I reply.
There’s a smell of smoke in the air. In Hell, you get pretty good at deciphering the different stenches of burning. Wood, for example, will make your eyes water if you inhale it for too long. Cigarette smoke is unique because of the chemicals; it’s almost sweet. Burning fatty flesh will instinctively make you gag, and paper leaves just a discreet trace in the air. San Francisco is a melting pot of all those flavors, minus the burning flesh. That has been replaced with the pungent smells of barbecued food and sweat.
Medusa has taken us to a large park next to the Golden Gate Bridge. There are people all around; most are lazing on the scorched earth, but no one appears to be paying us any attention. Music fills the air: singing and lamenting guitars. I love music from the sixties, but I’m guessing the living here are all too stoned to care right now how important this moment in time is. Several bonfires dot the brittle yellow grass, and groups of hippies circle most of them. One couple, oblivious to the world, are making out while balancing on a low-hanging branch that looks like an elephant’s tusk.
“Is this the day ye died, Medusa?” asks Elinor.
“Yes,” Medusa replies softly. Her eyes are fixed on the bridge.
I turn to Alfarin and Elinor. “Can you two wait here while I walk with Medusa for a bit?”
They nod in unison and walk over to a blackened tree. Names have been scored in the rotting bark. Most have hearts carved around them. Alfarin starts to scratch away at the tree with the edge of his blade as Elinor watches. He manages an
E and then an L before a loud crack splinters the air and part of the tree falls beside them. Dying leaves explode into the air like confetti and then gently float back down to the dusty earth. Elinor starts giggling as Alfarin picks up the branch and attempts to reattach it to the tree with spit.
“They make such a cute couple,” says Medusa. Her voice is still really sad.
“I don’t know how Elinor managed to keep her secret all that time,” I reply. “Especially from Alfarin.”
Medusa slips her hand into mine. “We all have secrets, Mitchell.”
We start to walk farther into the park, beyond the couple in the tree and past three girls who are dancing in long dresses that skim the dirt. They’re all barefoot. Medusa is wearing skintight jeans and a red-and-black-plaid shirt, which she takes off and ties around her waist, revealing a tight gray tank top. I like casual clothes on girls, especially pretty girls like Medusa. They don’t needs sparkles or bows or makeup to look attractive. Just beyond the dancing girls is a man with flared brown trousers and no shirt. His hairless chest has writing scrawled all over it in black marker. He’s selling paper packets filled with small strawberries. I hand him all my loose change, hoping he won’t notice the difference in the coins from 1967 and the New York of the future we just left.
“If you aren’t ready for this, we could jump straight ahead to my death,” I say, popping a ripe red berry into Medusa’s mouth.
Medusa leans into me and tightens her hold on my hand. “I think I’m ready now.”
“Are we going to see your stepfather?”
“No,” replies Medusa. She pauses, as if she wants to say something more, but she doesn’t.
“If you want me to do something, anything, to him for hurting you, you know I will in a heartbeat.”
“You don’t have a heartbeat anymore.”
“But I will soon.”
We pause by the trunk of an enormous tree. Medusa pulls me around to the other side so we’re partially hidden from Alfarin and Elinor. Not that I think they’re looking anymore. Alfarin could be in a crowd of thousands, but he would only ever see Elinor. He can be romantic without trying.
I’m just trying.
“Tell me a secret, Mitchell,” whispers Medusa, pressing her hands against my chest. “Tell me something no one else in Hell knows.”
“Why?”
“Because I want something from you that’s mine forever, just mine.”
“Hey, I tried to give you my jacket, remember?”
“I could have gotten one of those anytime I liked,” she replies. “I want something from in here,” and she spreads her hand across my dead heart.
I don’t know what to do with my hands. It’s harder to touch her when she’s so self-assured and confident around me.
“If you tell anyone this, even Alfarin or Elinor, I will never speak to you again,” I say.
“I promise.”
“I want something from you, though.” The bark digs into my back as I slide down the trunk of the tree. The ground is dusty and my jeans quickly become layered in dirty red chalk. Medusa straddles my lap. It gives her several extra inches in height, but my mouth still hovers in front of her button nose instead of her mouth.
“You can have anything,” she whispers, running her fingers through my hair.
“When I was alive, my mom didn’t call me Mitchell.”
“She called you M.J., didn’t she?” says Medusa. She’s smirking and showing off one dimple.
“How did you know that?”
“Septimus told me.”
“How did Septimus know?”
“Septimus knows everything.”
I puff my cheeks out and blow upward. My hair is too short to ripple, but Medusa’s hair dances like cobras under a spell.
“I think it’s cute,” she adds. “My M.J.” Her thumb traces a line across my chin.
For the first time, I don’t mind Medusa sharing the nickname with my mom. It’s kind of a shock, how natural it sounds. And it’s suddenly crystal clear how much I want to hear it again, from Medusa, the one person who gets me—all of me. The good and the bad. She instinctively knows what to say and when to say it. It may not be what I want to hear, but it’s usually what I need to hear.
“My M.J.”
It’s definitely what I need to hear. In this moment, for one sweet second, the anger I feel about being dead is diluted. The pain doesn’t go away, but Medusa covers it like a Band-Aid.
Her mouth is inches from mine. I feed her another strawberry and she does the same to me. Her juice-stained fingers sweep through my hair again and then down my neck and across my chest. A look of concentration is carved onto her face, as if she’s committing my body to memory. Every internal organ I possess is wriggling and squirming out of place. It’s a good thing I don’t need to breathe, because I think I’ve been holding my breath longer than is humanly possible.
“I know I’m not as pretty as other girls.”
“You’re prettier than any girl I’ve ever known, Medusa.”
“Prettier than Patty Lloyd?”
“You’re a level one compared to her six hundred sixty-six.” That brings a smile to Medusa’s face—the big, toothy kind of smile that people give when they’re really happy. I can see Medusa’s tongue resting behind the gap between her two front teeth.
“Close your eyes,” she says, and I do as I’m told. I know she’s moved her head closer to mine because I can feel her mad hair on my face.
“Keep them closed,” she instructs, and I do, even though I can feel something wet against my face now. It’s like a trickle of water from a dripping tap.
“I love you, Mitchell,” sobs Medusa. “I always have.”
Her mouth is on mine, and it is way better than kissing Patty Lloyd, because this means something. The heat of Medusa’s skin scorches mine, but it feels like home.
Medusa was under my nose all this time and I never realized. I take my hands off the ground and move to touch her.
Suddenly her weight is gone. I open my eyes with a start as a blast of hot wind sucks at my clothes like a vacuum cleaner.
Medusa is nowhere to be seen.
I peer around the tree and see Alfarin and Elinor running toward me. Elinor is screaming.
“Where’s Medusa?” I yell.
“She’s gone, she’s gone!” cries Elinor.
I can’t move. My legs feel like dead weights. There’s an ache in my chest as if my dead heart has been replaced with concrete. I fall to the ground and my fingers grope at the Viciseometer, flickering feebly between two exposed tree roots.
Medusa has left us, left me, ripped away like a Band-Aid, and I have nothing but the taste of strawberries on my lips and the stain of my best friend’s tears on my cheeks.
22. Bridge to Nowhere
“What did ye say to her?” screams a distraught Elinor.
“I didn’t say anything!” I yell back. The Viciseometer is in my hand once more. I clasp it to my chest.
“Did Medusa tell you she was going to use it, my friend?” asks Alfarin. His eyes are darting in all directions, even upward into the trees, as if Medusa is a bird that has tricked us all by flying away.
“She told me . . . to close my eyes . . . and then . . . and then . . .” I can’t finish. My throat has gone into spasms. I look at the date on the Viciseometer. It reads: 18 June 1967. The time: eight o’clock.
Elinor snatches it from my hand. “It’s okay!” she cries. “We have the date and the time. We’ll just follow her and bring her back.”
“We don’t know where Medusa traveled to, though,” says Alfarin. His deep voice reverberates like the chime of a grandfather clock.
“Then we go back in time a few minutes and stop her from having the Viciseometer in the first place,” sobs Elinor.
“But we can’t!” I cry. “Once that button is pressed, it becomes a fixed point in time, you said so yourself. We can’t stop her—and she must have known that.”
I wipe my mo
uth and then my tongue on the back of my hand, trying to remove the taste of strawberries. The paper packet I bought just moments ago lies discarded in the dirt. Red juice, like diluted blood, seeps through it. I stand up and stamp it into the ground with my feet until there’s nothing left but a smeared crimson pulp.
And in that instant I know who the Skin-Walkers have been coming after all this time.
“Do ye think she has gone to stop her death without us?” Elinor’s question jolts me from my thoughts.
I snatch the Viciseometer back from her and look again at the date Medusa entered into it as I sat like a love-struck fool with my eyes wide shut.
“But this isn’t the date of her death,” I say, completely confused. Either San Francisco is spinning or I’m swaying where I stand.
“How do you know?” asks Alfarin.
“Because I looked up Medusa’s records once on the computer. I wanted to know how she died, but the details were classified.”
“But ye definitely know the date of her death?”
“She died on the twenty-fifth of June in 1967, which, if she was telling the truth, is today’s date. We’re a week forward from the date she just set in the Viciseometer.”
“So why has she gone back a week?” asks Alfarin.
I squat down and put my head between my legs. Think, Mitchell, I say to myself. Think.
Medusa has rarely talked about her life—her living life, that is. I know she wanted to be a ballerina when she was four, and then a doctor. She told me she had lived in Texas for a while when she was thirteen, but that was only because her parents had split up and her mother was staying with relatives until she got back on her feet. They moved back to San Francisco when Medusa was fourteen and her mother had remarried again . . .
The answer suddenly hits me.
“It’s her stepfather.”
“What about him?” say the other two together.
“Do you remember what she said the first night we were in New York?” I shout. “When she woke up from the nightmare. She said she wished she had taken him with her.”
