by Rio Youers
“Can’t be certain,” Sharky said. “But I’d say that hole in his head was put there by a bullet.”
“Jesus.”
“I see multiple wounds. Head, chest, shoulder. I think we can rule out suicide.”
Martin whipped around, heart galloping all the way into his throat. He looked at Jake again, then pointed at Sharky’s boat.
“Your radio … Can you call the police on it?”
“Surely can. Coast guard, too.” Sharky twirled one gnarled finger, indicating the storm. “But I’m not sure they’ll come out in this.”
“Try,” Martin said. “Please try.”
Sharky nodded. He started toward his boat while Martin picked his way along the dock.
“Hey, where’re you going?” Sharky hollered. “Whoever did this is still out there.”
“I’m going to find my daughters,” Martin shouted without looking back. He reached the steps and started to run, managing only six or seven desperate paces before his left knee gave with a guitar-string twang of pain.
41
Valerie walked through the opening, into the glorious light.
Her first steps were tentative—baby steps, in every sense. She felt a childlike innocence, new to a life in which every experience would shape her. She cried like an infant, too. Big tears broke from her eyes. Tears of euphoria, mixed with trepidation. This was everything she wanted. It was beautiful, but overwhelming.
Another step, surer than the one before. But she paused afterward, her breath trembling in her chest.
“It’s yours now,” the girl urged. “You’ve earned this.”
“Give me a moment.”
Her nervous excitement ebbed when she realized she wasn’t cold anymore. Her clothes were warm and dry. It wasn’t snowing on the Crossover. She smiled, running this new name through her mind. It wasn’t, perhaps, as poetic as the White Skyway, but it had a certain practical flavor, a realism that felt altogether right.
I’m here, she thought. This is happening.
She wondered what she’d do first—strip naked and run through her flowers, perhaps, or swim to the bottom of the nearest lake and huddle in the warm sand like a stingray. The Rhapsody had offered a taste of these things, but they were always dreamlike and over too soon. This was the real deal, and it was hers forever. The Crossover was traversable but Valerie doubted she would ever leave.
Why would I? she thought.
She squared her shoulders and walked with more confidence. The ground was solid beneath her feet, but the light had lifted and she got a sense of the Crossover’s height. She eased toward the edge and dared to look. For all the light above and ahead of her, it was matched by the darkness below. Pain and malady, she thought, and shuddered. The exotic matter. She kept to the middle of the walkway, plenty of light on either side.
Another step, looking only forward. A breeze rushed at her, filled with the Glam’s sweetness. It rippled her clothes and lifted her hair. She wanted to run but contained herself.
“You’re almost there,” the girl said. “So close.”
Valerie nodded. She wasn’t just warm now, she was positively hot. She loosened her scarf, unbuttoned her jacket.
“I’m coming,” she said.
With her next step, she felt the Crossover wobble beneath her foot. Not by much, but enough. Valerie looked toward the edge again, a jolt of fear passing through her.
That was when the cracks started to appear.
* * *
Edith felt Mother Moon’s coldness, but that was the least of it. She felt her disease, too—a wicked, destructive organism concerned only with its own survival. To have her so close was sickening, violating. Edith groaned and reached deep, struggling to hold the bridge together.
As much as she wanted to scream, she urged Mother Moon closer.
“Just a little farther,” she said.
* * *
“But something doesn’t feel right,” Valerie said. The exotic matter churned beneath her. She took another hesitant step and watched two cracks zigzag to the edge. The light dimmed. Everything swayed.
“What’s happening?”
“It’s almost over,” Edith said.
Valerie froze, her elation giving way to fear. The Crossover, it wasn’t stable. She hadn’t waited for the price to be paid, she should—
Another crack jagged between her feet. Valerie leaped to one side and looked up. The girl stood at the Glam-end of the Crossover, light flowing from the palms of her hands. The clearing loomed behind her, snow filling the air, trees bristling in the wind. This isn’t right, Valerie thought, panicked. She turned around, stumbling as the Crossover rocked from side to side. More cracks raced in all directions. It wasn’t this that made her scream, though. It was the sight of herself standing with her face drooping, eyes rolled back into her skull, an icicle hanging off her lower lip. That was when she realized that her body was still in the clearing, but her mind had been drawn into the place between.
* * *
Edith smiled despite the cold, despite the violation. She felt Mother Moon’s horror—a miserable, twitching thing—as comprehension dawned. The light dulled and flickered around her. She looked at Edith with a broken expression. It was chilling.
“Light’s out,” Edith said.
She closed the window.
* * *
Valerie screamed again. She took three shaky steps toward the clearing before the Crossover shattered like ice. Manipulative little bitch, she thought. I’m going to cut her in half. I’m going to feed her to the crows. She lunged for her body but it was too far away.
The ground disappeared beneath her.
She fell a long way, into pain and malady.
Into darkness.
42
Martin staggered from the orchard, dragging his left leg. He passed the storage barn. Its wide door stood ajar, all dark inside.
“Shirley!”
The island was white and silent. Martin groaned. His fear was like a timber wolf that had sprung from the forest and clambered onto his shoulders. It breathed close to his ear.
“Edith!”
Cabin lights glimmered through the snow. Martin clamped his knee in one hand—just like he had when he’d raced to the school on the day Laura was killed—and limped toward them. He paused only once, to wipe snow from his eyes and listen for a response. There was nothing, only the wind and the trees shaking. He lumbered on and almost tripped over Ainsley Moore, partially buried in the snow. The hole in the back of his head was dark red and still warm. Martin backed away, stumbled, and fell. Pain blasted through his leg and he suppressed a cry.
This is bad. This is so fucking bad.
Laura was in his mind again, showing him the bullet in the box.
“What the hell is going on here?”
He recalled Sasha at the White Lantern saying, One woman. She killed them all. Was that what this was? Had Mother Moon gone postal—killed everybody on the island just like she’d killed everybody in that little room? Another thought occurred to Martin … that Mother Moon somehow found out he’d been snooping around behind her back, and this was the payback. One last massacre before the curtain came down.
No, he thought. Please God, no. Not my babies. Please.
Martin pushed himself to his feet. He ignored the cold, the pain—but couldn’t ignore the timber wolf growling into his ear.
“Shirley … Edith. It’s Dad. Where are you?”
* * *
Edith left Mother Moon slumped across the same cracked boulder the cardinal had taken shelter in. Snow fell into her open eyes.
“You’ve definitely gone somewhere,” Edith said. “But I don’t think it’s Glam Moon.”
Mother Moon said nothing. The corner of her mouth twitched.
Edith walked into the woods and crouched behind a fallen tree. She blew warmth into her hands, then closed her eyes and crossed once again into the place between. This time she distanced herself from fear and anger. They were present, but
she held them at bay. She focused on love.
Shirley?
She reached for that connection …
Talk to me, Shirley.
Emptiness at first, then a response, but not what she expected. A voice called to her, so protective and familiar that warmth flowed through her and tears of relief burst from her eyes.
“Daddy,” she said, her voice breaking with emotion. She got to her feet and started toward the sound. “Daddy … Daddy.” The closer she got, the louder and more urgent her voice became, and soon she was flying between the trees, crying his name over and over, “Daddy, Daddy, DADDY.”
* * *
Cold, huddling for warmth, they’d heard the boat approaching, followed a short time later by voices. First Martin’s, then Edith’s. The relief Alyssa felt was painfully brief.
“He’ll hear them,” Brooke whispered, echoing Alyssa’s thought.
She looked from their hiding spot: an old tree with its lower branches touching the ground. No sign of Nolan, only the gloomy, trembling woods.
“Brooke, stay on lookout,” Alyssa said. “I don’t think you’ll see Nolan, but if you do, move from this spot quickly and quietly. If you don’t, stay here until it gets too dark or too cold, then loop back to the cabins. Find an empty one. Hide inside. Stay there until you’re sure this is over.”
“You can’t go out there,” Brooke hissed. “Have you lost your mind? What are you thinking?”
“I’m not thinking,” Alyssa said. “I’m doing.”
* * *
Martin had checked their cabin—dark, empty—and had just stepped back outside when he heard Edith calling to him.
“Ede,” he said.
Too many emotions. They combined to light a fire beneath him. He entered the woods north of the cabins and reeled toward the sound of his daughter’s voice, stumbling from one tree to the next.
“Daddy,” Edith called. She sounded so scared. “Daddy.”
“Babygirl,” Martin gasped, then called out to let her know that he was coming, he was close. “I’m here, baby. Daddy’s here.”
The questions, the fears … so many, and each tried to weaken him, drag him to the ground and feed on him. He shook his head—refused to give them light.
“Daddy.”
“It’s okay, sweetheart. Daddy’s coming.”
He saw movement ahead and to the right. It was difficult to tell who it was in the gloom, but he started that way, thinking it must be Edith, then she called out again—from a different direction—and he shifted course without a second thought.
“Edith!”
His knee felt as if someone had strapped a firecracker to it and set it off. At one point it gave beneath him and he fell. He picked himself up quickly and staggered on, pushing through the pain. He’d crawl if he had to.
“Daddy.”
“I’m coming, babygirl.”
Close now. So close. He peered through the trees, then saw a flash of her blond hair, a blue jacket that looked three sizes too big. He called her name and she looked up—saw him.
“Daddy,” she said. “Oh, Daddy, Daddy.”
“It’s okay, Ede,” Martin gasped. “I’m here now.”
She threw her arms out, still thirty feet away, moving clumsily in her too-big clothes. It reminded Martin of how she used to raid Laura’s side of the closet and play dress-up, a memory that filled him with melancholy and love. She’d looked so small, so new. Martin blinked at tears. She didn’t look all that different now.
He might have carried this thought a moment longer—all the way into her arms, perhaps—but his attention was again snagged by that movement ahead and to the right. His eyes flicked in that direction.
Oh God, no—
Nolan emerged from the gloom, blood smeared across his face and dripping from his right sleeve. It trickled all the way down to the gun in his hand. He raised it and aimed at Edith.
She never saw him.
“Daddy,” she cried, arms wide open.
“Ede,” Martin whispered, then Nolan pulled the trigger. The report wasn’t deafening. It didn’t echo across the island or startle the birds from the trees. It was a muffled, unspectacular sound. Martin—in the split-second fashion such thoughts occur—wondered if it was even a real gun, or if it had somehow misfired, then the bullet struck Edith and blew her clean out of her boots.
43
Going to Edith was the wrong call. The moment he did so, Nolan would put a bullet in him, too, and if Edith was still alive, he wouldn’t be able to help or comfort her.
This thread of logic flashed through Martin’s mind, then rage took over—a screen of red so wide and bright that it blotted out the snow, the trees, the island, everything. He had no soul. He felt no fear or pain. He was a falling tree, a tumbling boulder. Nolan aimed the gun at him and fired. Martin didn’t flinch. The bullet hit a tree to his left. Splinters flew. Nolan aimed again but either couldn’t get off a clean shot or couldn’t steady his hand. Martin half limped, half ran at him, using the trees for cover. He rose up on Nolan’s left and caromed into him.
Nolan went one way—the gun popped from his fist, hit the ground, disappeared in the leaves and snow—and Martin went the other. Both men fell. Martin got up quickly. He grabbed a hefty branch and used it first to support his injured leg, then as a weapon. He raised it over his right shoulder and swung for the fences. Nolan was on one knee by this point. The end of the branch connected with his jaw and swiveled his head sharply. Teeth flew.
Martin drew breath and reestablished his grip on the branch. His second blow wasn’t as ferocious for two reasons: the branch snapped when it met the back of Nolan’s skull, and Martin’s left knee gave out a split second before impact. He went down, his leg twisted beneath him. It should have hurt but didn’t. He scrabbled around like a new animal, half got up, then fell again.
Snow flicked between the trees. The wind howled. It wasn’t as cold or loud as whatever roared through Martin. He threw his weight against a mossy boulder and hoisted himself to his feet. Nolan was up, too. He’d lost a lot of blood. His mouth was a bright smear.
“Kill you,” he said.
Martin recognized these as words but didn’t know what they meant and had no reply; the red screen blanked everything. He and Nolan came together with a thud. They grappled. They threw punches. Nolan was the stronger man, but he was handicapped. His left arm drooped. His right spurted blood from the sleeve. Martin’s rage compensated for their difference in ability, although he was injured, too. He was reminded of this every time he put weight on his left leg and it threatened to crumple beneath him.
“Kill you,” Nolan said again. He swung his bloody right fist and it caught Martin—not hard, but square. His head filled with a bright, clear light, and he stumbled backward. Nolan rushed at him, shoulder first. Martin had no defense. He folded when Nolan hit him and they both thumped to the ground. They rolled down a shallow embankment, crashing through ferns, coming to rest at the base of an old yellow birch. Nolan grabbed Martin’s hair and cracked the back of his head against the birch’s surface roots. Four times … five. Nolan spat blood and laughed, then clambered off Martin and staggered up the embankment.
“Gun,” he said, kicking through the foliage.
Martin rolled onto his side. Pain had broken through the red screen. He rose again, but slowly, shaking the bright spots from his field of vision. He started after Nolan but his leg buckled and he dropped. Nolan gave him a sideways glance and went back to looking for his gun. Martin pushed himself up, left hand in the dirt, right hand clutching a rock. It was the size of a baseball but shaped like a bird’s skull, a dull point on one side. He came up behind Nolan with his arm swinging. The rock glanced off Nolan’s head, grooving skin and bone—not the clean hit Martin had hoped for. Momentum sent him sprawling to the ground once again. The rock toppled from his hand and bounced out of reach. He felt something else underneath him, though. Another potential weapon, maybe. Groaning, Martin reached beneath his ches
t and pulled out one of Edith’s boots.
“Oh,” he said.
He turned and saw her lying facedown not fifteen feet away, blood blossoming through the hole in the back of her too-big jacket. But there was something else: her hand, it was moving … fingers spreading, then clenching.
“Hey, asshole,” Nolan growled. A flap of scalp hung from the groove in his skull. It fluttered in the wind.
He’d found the gun.
Martin struggled to one knee but couldn’t find his feet. He threw the boot at Nolan. It purred harmlessly wide. Nolan grinned and stepped toward Martin. He raised the gun. It wavered, but not enough.
He was too close to miss.
* * *
Shirley wiped sweat from her brow and tried to steady her breathing. The mall was suffocating, the air heavy with bright lights, body odor, and noise. She’d be agitated even without thirty pounds of shrapnel and explosive materials packed into her jacket.
A bald-headed man bumped into her but didn’t apologize. He disappeared into Old Navy. More people streamed in and out of Forever 21, GameStop, Victoria’s Secret … Everywhere she looked, they bustled and barged. Nolan had told her not to make eye contact with anyone, to walk with a sense of purpose, but it didn’t matter. She could have ridden an elephant through and only those she trampled would have noticed. Nolan had also instructed her to detonate the bomb in the busiest location, but she could do it anywhere and cause staggering damage.
She looked at the watch. This would all be over soon.
A security guard patrolled nearby, his eyes flicking scrupulously from left to right. Shirley went the opposite direction. She walked into Gallagher’s, a new department store with greeters dressed as dollar signs. Christmas music piped from a ceiling draped with twinkling lights. Shoppers droned through the aisles, programmed for one purpose. Shirley clasped the zipper, then took her hand away.
There was a water fountain in the middle of the store. Children flipped coins in, making wishes. Shirley wondered if the fountain was her dad’s idea. It was the kind of lovely, unnecessary thing he might come up with. A sad smile touched her lips. I’m sorry, she thought, and wiped a tear from her eye. It was in these wistful moments that Mother Moon’s voice was loudest.
