In the manor's kitchen, their words made as much sense as Dr. Ose's had in the study. The same frustrated indignation built up in my chest, and all I wanted to do was destroy everything. Burn the place to the ground to get Gray out. They were all dead. Who was I supposed to trust? Nothing made sense. Not that ghosts ever had, but I imagined myself a decent judge of character, and I couldn't figure any of them out. The Governess felt evil. Mrs. Hayward didn't, but she trusted the Governess. Dr. Ose left a bad taste in my mouth, and he spoke in circles, wrapping me around myself as good a manipulator as any, so I could believe he was evil, but this new ghost - whoever he was - definitely seemed off. Not evil off. Crazy off. Rehab made sense, off. I didn't have enough information.
Drowning in unknowns, I asked the simplest I could find, "Who's Dr. Carreau?"
A chill - like fingers brushing across the back of my neck - crept over me. Shadows shifted, and the light bent like everything in the room had casually agreed to lean slightly, drawing out the lengths of the shadows before snapping back into shape.
Both ghosts watched, standing firm against the shifting for a moment before the ghost in a straitjacket screamed, twisting as the distortion focused on him. His hands slid through the bindings of the straitjacket. Then they curled around him, twisting back as if he were a marionette. Collapsing to his knees, he seized. Shaking and screaming silently - his mouth opened wide as terror contorted his face.
Kneeling beside him, Mrs. Hayward rolled him to his side, brushing a hand through his hair as she gently whispered, "Everything will be fine soon, Rory. It's almost over now. Just breathe."
"What's going on?" I demanded.
Her eyes narrowed, glaring up at me even as her tone remained soft. "Remember, you're already dead. He can't do anything to you now, Rory." The distortion snapped, and Rory sagged against the tiles. With a sigh, the cook looked at me. "Dr. Carreau is Dr. Ose's partner. He isolates his victims, warping their sense of self until - "
"They kill themselves or others," Rory interrupted.
Mrs. Hayward clucked her tongue. "You didn't kill yourself."
"I didn't pay attention. I knew they were onto me, but I just - just swallowed the pills like an idiot." He released a shuddering breath, adding in a whisper, "I knew there were too many. Didn't recognize them, but I just took them anyway."
My skin buzzed. A strange uncomfortable tingle like each cell in my body screamed in unison - get out! Get out now! But where would I have gone? Somewhere in this house, Gray existed. Stuck in limbo - not entirely dead if Rory was to be believed - somewhere, capable of one day being free and real and alive with me - Gray existed, so how could I turn my back on this? Even if everything in me suggested I'd more than likely end up dead?
Nodding, I said, "Okay. How do I do it? How do I save him?"
A sharp smile spread across Rory's face. His teeth swirled - a mix of creamy whites and pale yellows. From there, the swirling spread, and though I knew by the movement of his mouth that he was talking, I couldn't hear a word he said until the screaming started again. The whole kitchen dissolved into a Van Gogh painting. Then popped -
- and I sat up, slamming my forehead into Tom's.
"Shit!" he cried. "Ow!" Rubbing his brow, he glared at me. "You okay?"
"What?"
His hands dropped to his side. "You were screaming in your sleep."
I blinked. "Oh - nightmare, I guess."
"You really should go see a counselor of something, man. It's free," he reminded me, but he didn't press further, climbing into his bed.
Staring down at my hands, I counted my fingers. Not a dream. As if that helped. As if I didn't have the same number of fingers here as I did in the manor. As if the manor was really a normal nightmare. It didn't matter. I could feel it in my bones. I wouldn't get back there tonight. Nothing could ever be that simple.
Rolling over, I almost swallowed my tongue. A tall shadow loomed. It almost looked like a man in a long coat. Whipping around, I forgot to breathe until my eyes landed on Tom tugging up his blankets. It must've just been him. The shadow disappeared the moment he clicked off the lamp which curled around his bedpost. None of the other ghosts left the manor besides Gray. Most likely the rest couldn't. I had nothing to fear in my dorm room except annoying my roommate into hating me, and I had Tom. That would never happen.
Chapter Nineteen
Reading through Maddix’s list, I found a web of connected articles and urban legends - horrible histories which expanded back and back into the history of Crables Manor. Back to its building during the decade prior to the Civil War. Florence Wilson married a man from a wealthy family, who gifted them a large mansion with a widow’s watch. The land owned by the manor had once extended to the coast, though I couldn’t imagine any ship could be caught coming in when hard coastlines rather than beaches formed its property line.
The family - the Sullivans - had two sons. After the marriage of the eldest, the war broke out, and he marched south, leaving his pregnant wife behind. When the man - Henry Sullivan - died shortly after, his brother took over the family business for a short time before a mass tragedy, which led to a servant finding Florence Sullivan dead in the widow’s watch. She had committed suicide. Stranger still, her brother-in-law and her husband’s entire family were discovered slaughtered in the basement. Carved into bedrock.
All of that, I could confirm. It was the tales which arose around it which left me with an aching head and increasing discomfort.
According to urban legend, the Sullivans had practiced human sacrifices dating back to the twelfth century. At least two sons were born, but the eldest always died. Most went off to war, but others died of sickness. All very bland deaths. The sort people expected and wouldn’t question, but each generation, the family gained more and more power wherever they were. However, some had noted this only occurred if the first son was married with an heir conceived. Sometimes, the second sons married the widows. Others, they simply cared for them, but every single time, the first son’s child would also die - except at a very young age without stated reason.
Which led to speculation - as the Governess hadn’t had a child. In fact, they clearly stated she had miscarried after hearing word of her husband’s death.
That’s what they said, and with an incomplete ritual, the second son would have to be sacrificed in his brother’s stead to continue the line. Obviously, having knowledge of his brother’s death being less than above board, the second son wasn’t about to let that happen to him. Notes commented that Henry Sullivan’s mother was pregnant - despite her advanced age - seemed to confirm this theory for some, and they suggested the second son, Charles, had discovered that fact, leading to him massacring his family to avoid his brother’s fate; however, while the family wasn’t extensive, he couldn’t have cleanly killed them - and there weren’t specifics. Nobody knew exactly what happened, but some hypothesized backlash due to the incomplete ritual. Others suggested the wife’s suicide was actually a self-sacrifice as she demanded revenge, resulting in whatever occult being the family worshiped turning on them.
All of this seemed ludicrous, but I spent several weeks - months really - with a dead psychic from the mid-twentieth century, so who was I to judge?
One thing none of the history suggested? That she was a bad person. That the Governess would have any reason to hurt Gray. But - then I came across the pair of doctors who bought the manor, transforming into a sanitarium. Dr. Ose and Dr. Carreau - who later set the entire place on fire after nurses presented evidence that the two doctors were experimenting on their patients, encouraging them to give into their darker impulses. Homicide, suicide - every creepy story I’d stumbled across online seemed to be repeated either by them to their patients or their patients to each other. It was something out of a Edgar Allan Poe short.
It made the decision simple. Back in the kitchen, I leaned against the counter, studying Rory. He struggled, tugging at his bindings. His gums bled, but he kept gnawing as if that would f
ree him.
"I could try," I offered again.
He shook his head. "Won’t work."
"It is all in his mind, darling," Mrs. Hayward reassured me.
"Well, do you need to take it off to show me the marks I need to save Gray?" I asked, and his eyes sparked. The madness slipped away just a bit as he shook his hair out of his face.
Smirking, he nodded. "Yeah. I’ve got a picture. They took pictures."
"They?"
"Autopsy photos," he clarified, and my stomach lurched.
"Where would I even get those?"
He tilted his head. Eyes narrowing, Rory hummed, considering my question carefully. "They probably sent my brother some copies. I think."
"That’s not helpful. If it isn’t publicly available, I can’t get to them." Running my hands over my face, I sighed. "There’s got to be some other way."
"Possession would work," Mrs. Hayward offered, never looking away from her stew.
She always cooked the same things. Stew or soup or something in that big pot of hers. Part of me always wondered if one day I’d lean over and see a human eyeball bumbling up like in a witch’s cauldron. I never got too close. Mrs. Hayward and Rory hadn’t exactly popped up in my searches yet.
"I’m not letting anybody possess me," I informed them.
Rory shrugged. "Don’t need to possess you. Just let me follow you back out of the dreamscape. Outside the manor, I shouldn’t be in this getup."
"So I’ll be able to see the markings?"
"Or I’ll have a free hand to draw them," the straitjacketed spirit affirmed.
Shaking my head, I couldn’t find a reason to object when I still needed his help. "Sure. Follow me back to the dorm."
"Great!" Rory leapt to his feet. Sauntering over to me, he grinned up as he stood on his tiptoes to look me dead in the eye. "Now…wake up!"
He slammed our heads together, and I groaned as I rolled away from the wall.
"You okay?" Tom called groggily.
Rubbing my forehead, I huffed, "Just getting acquainted with the wall."
"Then be quiet," he complained, rolling over to go back to sleep.
However, I wasn’t alone. Standing beside the bed in leather pants, a white shirt, and a leather jacket, Rory stood with his hair pulled into a ponytail at the base of his neck. Tattoos covered his body, and as he turned, surveying his new surroundings, I got the distinct feeling I would regret letting him come out. This worsened when he spun around to look toward Tom’s bed.
All calm dissipated from his face. Shrieking, he flashed between his cool leather-clad ensemble and the straitjacket horror movie maniac look. Back and forth, he went as his cry rang through the dorm, rattling the windows before he exploded. Just poof. A bright flash of light, and he disappeared. All the while, Tom remained asleep.
"Shit," I grumbled, jumping out of bed to look around, but he was well and truly gone.
Gray hadn’t done that before, but something told me that getting out of the room would help - or maybe I just didn’t want to be there when somebody came knocking to complain about the noise, so I grabbed my stuff and changed before running out. Out on the busy streets, I walked alone. The chill swept right through my sweater, but I wasn’t about to go back in without an explanation at what had made Rory panic. And explode.
"God, I miss sunlight," Rory complained, condensing right beside me.
He fell easily into step with me. Sunglasses hiding his eyes as he tilted his head back as if to preen in the sunshine. It was freaking cold, so I’m not sure how great it was when it did shit all to warm anything.
Pausing to wait for a light, I glanced around before hissing under my breath, "What was that about?"
"What? I like sunlight," he reiterated.
"I meant the screaming. In my dorm room."
Looking at me over his sunglasses, he asked, "What screaming?"
And he actually meant it. I could see the confusion in his eyes. For a moment, I debated wasting time to ask him, but he seemed fine, and I didn’t have time. Gray didn’t have time. In a few weeks, Gray would burn alive for the last time, and if I couldn’t reach into limbo and pull him out, he would be dead for real.
"Are all your tattoos for the ceremony? I’m never gonna be able to hide the neck ones," I told him, nodding at the black spiking up like a sharp collar.
"These?" Tugging down his collar, he revealed the twining barb wire. "Nah. Half of these are just mine."
Without being able to take a picture, my options were limited, but it wasn’t like I could get all the tattoos at once anyway. I had only so much money, and going too big too quick would probably catch attention. Thank goodness I was eighteen.
"We’ll start with the body tattoos and work out. Hopefully line art won’t be too expensive," I grumbled, crossing the road with the ghost in tow.
"I bet my old buddy Zeke still has his shop. It’s only been like twenty years, right?" Rory announced, taking the lead. "He’s superstitious, so if he knows you got me around, he’ll probably do it for free. Good cause and all."
"If he reports me as being crazy, I’m gonna be locked up," I grumbled.
With a shrug, he wove his way through the city. Despite having been in Boston for the last few months, I hadn’t explored too far beyond the area between my dorm and campus. The couple times I had, Tom had been there too, knowing exactly which way to go - or having someone else around who did, so I wasn’t exactly confident following a ghost from the eighties. Uncertainty still dogged me. Popping up when I least expected to find myself doubting. Perhaps I ought to have recognized it. That sinking feeling in the base of my stomach. As we moved further into the city - on new roads of which I barely caught the names, doubt churned inside me.
"You sure you know where you’re going?" I demanded.
He scoffed, glancing over his shoulder at me. His bright eyes narrowed. Curling up on one side, his lips smirked at me. "Relax, kid, this city isn’t exactly everchanging."
When I opened my mouth to remind him just how long it had been since he had been alive - let alone free, he glared, stunning me to silence. What was I supposed to do? Keep arguing with the guy only I could see?
Besides, it was pointless. Forty minutes later, we were there. Zeke’s shop remained. A black sign marked it out: Zeke’s Tattoos. The neon sign insisted it was open, but nobody seemed to be around. I’d never been to a parlor. Good Christian boys didn’t get tattoos - or so my parents said. Not that I asked them. Dad just scoffed, making snide remarks when he saw somebody with a tattoo. Especially women. Not that his critique of anything remotely outside his own experience turned out positive, so there I stood, my first time in front of a tattoo parlor - with a ghost.
"Not the most creative shop name, sure - but this guy’s brilliant," Rory assured me. I nodded, and he shoved his hands in his jacket pockets. "You gonna go in?"
"Yeah - just give me a minute."
Cocking an eyebrow, Rory leaned back against the window. "How are you gonna get runes all over your body if you can’t even walk into the store?"
Ghost had a point, so in I went. Everything smelled clean with a burnt edge. Like someone had tried to wipe down lit bulbs with industrial cleaner. As I stepped inside, a sensor on the door rang, and a burly man stepped out of the back. The picture of a Hell’s Angel - the guy looked almost seven foot and at least three hundred pounds. Completely bald with a Bruce Willis sort of shape to his head, he had multiple brightly colored tattoos down both arms and around his neck. His dark brows furrowed, and he lumbered over.
"I’m guessing you’re not Shannon," he murmured, glancing into a book behind the receptionist’s desk.
"Ah, no."
He sat down at the stool behind the stand, studying me. "If you’d like to make an appointment, I have some time open tomorrow morning. I’m afraid I’m doing inventory at the moment."
"Zeke!" Rory cried, surging forward as if to hug the man. "You got old, you fat bastard!"
His arms went
right through the guy, who kept watching me with an increasingly concerned expression. As Rory reeled, Zeke asked, "You okay, kid?"
"You Zeke?"
"Yeah. I’m the owner."
I nodded, fighting the urge to turn tail and run. "I’m looking to do some full body tattoo work, and I’d like it done as quickly as possible."
"Sure. I’ll write you in," Zeke assured, pulling out a pen. "What’s your name?"
"James."
Rory growled and leaned over his friend’s shoulder. "Shannon’s not in for another couple hours. Get this guy to schedule you." Unable to answer him without looking crazy, I sent Rory a pointed stare, and the ghost rolled his eyes. "Tell him I sent you. Tell him the idiot Crow sent you."
What did I have to lose? "The - the idiot Crow sent me."
Zeke fumbled the pen. His head snapped up, and he stared at me, gaping. "Excuse me?"
Rounding me, Rory whispered in my ear, demanding I say word for word what he said, and despite feeling like a freak, I did. "The idiot Crow said if I needed a tattoo, I should get it from - from your bald self. Considering you still have the shop after the watertower fiasco, Rory suggested I should be equally impressed and concerned, especially since he’s seen your aim when you were drunk - and he highly doubts you’ve gotten significantly better - "
"Stop," Zeke held up a hand, cutting off Rory’s weird rant. "What the hell is going on?"
"I’m not lying," I told him. "Rory said you were my best bet."
"Rory Haggard died before you would’ve even been born," the gruff looking man returned, but he spoke softly - as if just saying the words brought him unspeakable pain.
"Ask me something," I offered. "Ask me something only Rory would know."
Running his hands over his face, Zeke inhaled slowly, but the air didn’t seem to inflate him, and when he breathed out - staring almost blankly at me - he seemed to collapse just a bit more. "Why’d he do it? Ask him that."
All That We Say or Seem Page 10
