“Hey,” Rolfe said. “Who said I didn’t believe? I understand about ghosts. I’ve seen a few myself. Right here in this house.”
“Really?” Devon asked. “Here?”
“I’ll bet nobody’s told you that I lived here when I was your age,” Rolfe said. “Right here. Probably in the very room you’re using. Did they give you the one right above the terrace overlooking the garden and the cliffs?”
“Yes,” Devon said.
“Figured as much.”
“Why?” Devon became animated all at once. “Why did you live here?”
Rolfe seemed to be considering how much he should say. “My father was the caretaker here before they hired that old gnome Simon,” he explained finally. “That was when Mrs. Crandall’s father still ruled the roost. He was a great old man.”
For a moment Rolfe’s eyes appeared distant, lost in time, a melancholy shadow passing across his features. Then he smiled. “So I encountered my share of ghosts.”
Devon looked up at him hard. “Did you ever go into the East Wing?”
Rolfe returned his look. “Have you?”
Devon nodded.
“Listen, kid,” Rolfe said, his voice growing serious. “You’ve got to be careful. I mean it. There are things—”
“Yeah, there sure are things. Locked behind a metal door in a closed-off room.”
Rolfe’s eyes bore down on him solemnly. “Come visit me at the restaurant when you get a chance. I’m there every afternoon.” He paused, studying the boy. “I think we have some things we could talk about. Just don’t let Amanda know you’re coming.”
Devon watched him walk off down the path. He disappeared around the bend and then Devon heard the Porsche kick into gear. The sun was edging the horizon now. Long low rays of golden sunlight reached across the estate. Devon headed back inside.
He heard it then: the sobbing.
Low, sepulchral, thick: the sound rose in waves, louder now, then hushed, obscured by the increasing chatter of birds heralding the sun. The house was veiled in long shadows. Soon—in minutes, really—sunlight would spill through the windows, and Devon was certain the sobbing would not endure the harsh reality of day. But now, in the procrastination of the dark, the sound persisted. It was the most wretched cry he had ever heard, the most heartsick lamentation he could possibly imagine.
The sound seemed to seep up from the floorboards and emerge from the air. Devon walked through the main corridor past the dining room, then through the study. He paused at the doorway to the East Wing. There was no mistaking the fact that it was louder here. It came from somewhere beyond this door.
Despite everything, despite all of Mrs. Crandall’s anger and everything that had happened tonight, Devon tried the door—he had to know the truth—and to his great surprise it opened. They’d been looking for Alexander in here earlier, he realized. Somehow—crazily—they’d forgotten to lock the door again.
He pulled the door open and peered into the corridor beyond. To the right another door stood open, revealing a curved staircase leading up. The tower, Devon figured. On the wall he flicked a light switch: a single hanging bulb popped tenuously into life. So much for the power being shut off in here. He made his way up the steps one by one, pausing on each to listen. Still the sobbing came, thicker now as he approached its source.
At the first landing he looked around. The sobbing continued from somewhere still higher. Devon continued climbing the stairs, round and round, padding through the thick dust that had accumulated on the broken cement steps. He could see the second landing above him now, where there was a door ajar. A small glow from a candle flickered from within. What could he expect to find in there? Whom could he expect to confront?
The flickering candle above was his only guide now, as the light from the old bulb below didn’t make it this high. Devon kept climbing through the darkness by feeling along the cracked plaster of the wall. Across his hand scurried something soft and furry. He pulled his hand back, imagining a large spider or bat. He cringed. His heart raced through his ears, but he kept climbing.
All at once, the sobbing pitched and then stopped. Devon was left in silence.
In the few seconds before terror overtook his rationality, he told himself that dawn’s first light would soon stream in from the tower windows along the old stone walls, lighting his way. But such rationality was shattered when he smelled once again the rancid breath of the demon in the dark and felt its cold, rough fingers close around his neck.
The Face of the Madman
He did not surrender without a fight. Jackson Muir might have been stronger, but Devon struggled mightily to break free of the warlock’s grip, trying with all his might to scream. But the breath was being choked out of him. He began to feel light and heady, as if he’d lose consciousness.
Then a filter of sunlight transformed the darkness, and the first thing he noticed was what was cinching his neck was no demonic hand but rather a length of old rope. In that instant the grip was suddenly relaxed, and Devon tumbled to his knees. He coughed, spit, rubbed his burning neck—and turned around to look up into the malicious face of Simon Gooch.
“You tried to kill me!” Devon gasped.
“I will kill ya,” the ugly little man barked, “if I ever catch ya in here again.”
Devon stood, clutching his chafed neck where Simon had tightened the rope. “I don’t think Mrs. Crandall will be too pleased to hear how you attacked me.”
Simon grinned. It was a horrible expression. There was delight in the man’s eyes, a sadistic pleasure gained from Devon’s pain and fear. “She wouldn’t be too pleased to hear that you disobeyed her about comin’ in here neither,” he said through clenched teeth. “She’s already pissed at ya enough for scarin’ the boy.”
Devon was silent. They stood there glaring at each other for several seconds, and then Simon laughed. “You get out of here or else I’m locking you in,” he snarled, turning and clomping back down the tower steps in his heavy work boots.
Devon looked back up at the door above, then sighed, following Simon. The caretaker’s sour body odor lingered in his path. When Devon reached the last step, the little troll was waiting for him at the door back into the main house. He grunted for Devon to get moving. The boy did, taking one last look up into the tower, and then walked out into the morning light.
He showered quickly and met a groggy-eyed Cecily at the breakfast table, ready for school once again. The day passed in a blur: two nights of no sleep were taking their toll. Devon had more meetings with teachers, more classroom discussions he couldn’t follow, more textbooks piled high on his desk. After classes the gang again piled into D.J.’s Camaro and headed over to Gio’s, where they wolfed down pizza. D.J. and Marcus got into a burping contest, but Devon was too tired to participate.
All day, he’d been a star. Girls had gazed over at him longingly in the corridors, and guys looked at him with a mixture of envy and apprehension. “You the man,” Crispin told him—and if the rebels liked you, you were certifiably cool.
Word travels quickly in high school, especially when a new kid exhibited nearly superhuman powers. At the pizza joint, Gio told him their cheese-and-pepperoni was on the house. “You’re welcome here any-a-time,” Gio gushed. “You can protect old Gio’s business from the cretins.”
Yeah, Devon thought. Guess I might have to do exactly that.
But thankfully, no “cretins” disrupted them this afternoon. In fact, an uneasy quiet seemed to fall over Ravenscliff during the next several days. Devon was able to get to bed early, collapsing into an exhausted sleep, a pattern he followed the rest of the week. He was able to make a little headway into his studies, finally catching up a little. He even raised his hand a couple of times in political science class and participated in the discussion.
Could life have actually been returning to normal?
Cecily remained as affectionate as ever, but she was silent about Devon’s powers. Neither did she mention the ghosts, or
the padlocked door, or Devon’s suspicions about Jackson Muir and Alexander. It was almost as if she didn’t want to think about any of that anymore—the way, Devon believed, she’d always dealt with the unexplained and the unexpected at Ravenscliff.
Mrs. Crandall mentioned nothing further about the incident with Alexander. Neither did the boy, who greeted Devon the first time after his harrowing disappearance with a cherubic grace, a smile that belied the mystery within.
Yet whenever he encountered him, Devon just looked intently at Alexander. There was something in those round button eyes that shone like counterfeit silver. Even in the boy’s most banal moments he seemed to be laughing at Devon, lying in wait for the next opportunity. Devon studied the boy’s every word, every glance, every movement. When would he pounce again?
“You seem fascinated by something, Devon,” Alexander observed finally, a week after all the fuss.
They were both in the playroom, Alexander in his beanbag, Devon on the floor. They were watching a movie on Hulu about aliens coming down to Earth, but Devon had been glancing more frequently over at the younger boy than at the TV set. Alexander’s eyes were on the program, but he wasn’t really watching either: at least, not the way he watched that creepy clown.
“I am,” Devon admitted.
Alexander smiled. “Care to share what it is?”
“I’m fascinated by your composure, actually. Your ability to bide your time.”
The little boy raised his eyebrows. “Bide my time? What do you mean?”
“I mean,” Devon replied, “that I am left to wonder when next you might lock me in a room, or run off in a storm, or tell your aunt that I have filled your head with ghost stories.”
“Oh,” Alexander said, returning his gaze to the television, “is that what has gotten you so piqued? Never fear, Devon. We’re friends now. All that’s past. I was just testing you.”
“I want to be your friend, Alexander. But something won’t let us be friends.” He narrowed his eyes at the boy. “Tell me what it is. Do you even know?”
Alexander seemed to consider his answer. He smiled, looking up innocently at Devon. “Perhaps it’s the fact that I feel abandoned by my parents, and I’m desperately seeking attention.” He paused, assuming an expression of mock fear. “Or it might be Jackson Muir has come back to claim my soul. Might it be either of those scenarios?”
“You tell me.”
The boy laughed, a high-pitched sound. He reached into his shirt pocket and withdrew a stick of gum. He unwrapped it carefully, folding it into his mouth, and began to chew. He turned and grinned up at Devon.
“I know there are answers here,” Devon whispered. “And I’m going to find them. You can tell that to him. He can’t stop me. I’m going to find the truth.”
“Alexander has always acted strange,” Cecily assured him.
“I know. But there’s something—” Devon searched for the words. “I really believe Jackson Muir is working through him.”
They were in the stable again, propped up against a haystack. Pearlie Mae was behind them, calmly chewing her cud.
“Oh, Devon,” Cecily said. “You know I trust you. You know I believe you. But it just feels crazy, you know. You show up here and suddenly the ghosts of our house take possession of Alexander. Come on. It feels like a movie on Mystery Science Theater. All that’s missing are those little robots in the first row telling us how dumb we’re being.”
“I know it’s hard to believe, Cecily.” He sighed. “But the Voice … I trust it. If it tells me something, I can’t deny it.”
She made a face as if she was still not convinced entirely.
“Look,” he told her. “Once, when I was ten, we had this deaf kid in our class. Sammy Silbernagel. And one day, after class, I just couldn’t stop looking at him. The Voice was telling me something about him, but I couldn’t exactly figure out what. All I could hear was that he was in trouble. That he was going to get hurt.”
Cecily blinked. “So what happened?”
“Nothing.”
“So the Voice was wrong.”
Devon laughed. “No. It was right. Because I followed Sammy out to the playground and kept watching him. He was lost in thought, just walking along towards the street. He walked right out into the path of a bus—and totally didn’t see it coming. I was too far away to catch up with him but I yelled out for the bus to stop. And it did. Sammy just kept on walking, not knowing a thing, but the bus driver was all shook up and came out to tell me that if I hadn’t yelled, he didn’t think he’d have been able to stop in time.”
“You saved Sammy’s life,” she breathed in awe.
“Whatever. The point is the Voice was on target. It’s always been that way. Big things like that, but little things too. Like once when I couldn’t find my dog, Max. The Voice told me where he was.”
“That is so cool,” Cecily said, clearly more persuaded. “Is that why you’re an honors student?”
Devon shook his head. “I tried once passing a history test without studying, thinking the Voice would tell me the answers. I failed miserably.”
“I knew there had to be a catch somewhere.” Cecily smiled. “So why do you think you have this Voice?”
“I don’t know. The Voice, the weird powers—they’re what make me so determined to find out who I am. It has to do with—those things—those creatures—that are always after me. Cecily, that guy at the pizza joint was right. The kid who attacked him did have claws. It was a demon—like the kind I’ve told you about.”
“Get out,” she said, frightened.
“It’s true.”
Devon stood up suddenly. He was angry, but not quite sure why.
“You know what it’s like, Cecily?” he asked. “For all your life to have this fear in the back of your mind that no one can take away? I wasn’t like other kids, whose parents could come into their rooms at night and reassure them that there was no boogeyman, that there were no monsters under their bed.”
He kicked the wooden planks of the straw bin.
“Because there were monsters under my bed! There were things crawling around in my closet! There really were voices inside my head! I grew up never knowing why—why they picked on me but not on other kids, why I was the one who always had to be strong. I never knew why I could do these weird things with my mind—things that if anyone ever learned about would make me into a freak. Would make people scared of me.”
He slumped his head against his chest.
“I just want to know why, finally,” he said. “I want to know why I am the way I am.”
Cecily was standing up, embracing him. “Oh, Devon. I’m sorry. It sucks. It totally sucks.”
He looked into her eyes. “I’ve only been here a little more than a week,” he told her, “but already I know one thing for sure: this is where it originates. All the mysteries of my life. They come from here. And there are forces that don’t want me here. They don’t want me to find out their secrets because I can destroy them. My dad always said I was stronger than any of them. Why, I don’t know. But I am.”
“But not Jackson Muir,” Cecily reminded him. “You said he was stronger than you.”
“Maybe. But if that’s the case, why hasn’t he just snuffed me out? Why’s he playing around with Alexander?” He took her face in his hands. “Tell me everything you know about Jackson Muir, everything you heard growing up.”
“Not much,” she told him. “Mother never speaks of him except to say that he was evil. He was her father’s brother and he died when she was little. He scared her, I think. She said she stayed as far away from him as possible. Then there was the tragedy with his wife, Emily. And there were other things, too. Simon has said some things.”
“Like what?”
She made a face as she tried to remember the exact words. “He called him a Great Necromancer,” she said, shuddering. “Isn’t that some kind of twisted sex?”
Devon shook his head. “No. I saw that word in the locked room so
I looked it up. It’s a form of sorcery. Magic. So how does Simon know about Jackson?”
She shrugged. “I’m not sure. Simon was only hired after my grandfather died, so he didn’t know Jackson Muir. But Simon seems to know a lot stuff about our family.”
Devon considered all this information. “Rolfe Montaigne told me his father was caretaker here before Simon.”
Cecily nodded. “Yeah. I guess that’s when all the bad blood between Mother and him started.”
“Tell me what you know,” Devon said.
She looked up at him. “Let’s go into the village. I feel like I’m going to go mad if we stay here. I’m feeling just a little freaked out, and seeing people will help.”
“Okay,” he said. It was Saturday night, after all. They could still have some semblance of normal lives, he supposed. “Where do you want to go?”
“Stormy Harbor. We can get a platter of fried clams and a pot of mussels and gorge ourselves while we talk.”
He agreed. They passed across the lawn and down the cliffside staircase. The night was purple and fairly warm. A thin, salty fog was settling over everything. For most of the way they were silent. But once they were on the coast road, heading into the village, Cecily piped up again.
“Does Alexander know you suspect him as being in league with Jackson?” she asked, the waves crashing not far from them on the beach.
“We have these sparring matches,” Devon told her. “But I think it’s Jackson I’m sparring with, not an eight-year-old boy.”
Cecily shivered. They’d reached Stormy Harbor. “I can’t think about any of this right now,” she said, pulling open the old wooden door.
The place was packed. A heavy gray cloud of smoke hung low around the ears of the crowd. The doorman greeted Cecily warmly. He was a severe-looking young man with close-cropped dyed black hair and purple mascara. Devon and Cecily sat at a table off to the side.
“Hey, if it isn’t our New York boy,” Andrea said, arriving with pad in hand. “With Mistress Crandall herself.”
Sorcerers of the Nightwing (Book One - The Ravenscliff Series) Page 15
