Evil Returns

by Caroline B. Cooney

  Evil Returns

  The Vampire’s Promise Book Two

  Caroline B. Cooney

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  A Biography of Caroline B. Cooney

  Chapter 1

  “I DON’T THINK I want to sleep in the tower after all,” Devnee said to her parents.

  “Devnee,” said her father. He was really quite annoyed. “Half the reason we bought the house was because you wanted a bedroom in a tower.”

  They had rejected raised ranches, Cape Cods, and bungalows and bought a dark Victorian mansion in desperate need of repair. Mr. Fountain wanted the workshop in the high dry cellar. Mrs. Fountain wanted the glassed-in room to raise flowers. Luke wanted the yard so he could play basketball, baseball, and football.

  But Devnee had wanted the tower. How romantic a tower had sounded! Her own castle, her own corner of the sky. She would fling open the windows and a blue sky and a gentle sun would welcome her to a new town. She would curl up on her sleigh bed to read books, and she would brush her hair in front of a mirror with a white wicker frame, and somehow this time, in this town, this year, she would be beautiful and she would be popular and happy.

  The tower jutted out of the attic, but was not part of it. It had a separate stair up from the second floor. The tower was round, and its plaster walls were cracked, its windows tightly shuttered.

  Shuttered on the inside.

  Devnee had never come across shutters on the inside of a house. Their new home had shutters all over the outside—louvered, broken shutters that banged in the wind and creaked in the night. But the tower had another set on the inside, strapped down with black metal, as if the tower had once held prisoners. “We’ll just quick flip open these shutters,” her father had said yesterday afternoon, nudging at the hasps and bolts, “and then the sunlight will stream into your new bedroom, Dev!”

  But the armor of the shutters would not come free, and the moving men had been downstairs yelling where did Mr. Fountain want the leather recliner, and he had said he would get to the shutters later.

  They had moved her bed into the tower. It was a romantic bed, with its sleigh back and lacy white ruffle, high mattress, and sheets with dark mysterious flowers. They had moved her chest of drawers into the tower. The chest was narrow and had seven drawers; Devnee was not tall enough to see into the top one. She also had a chair, a computer, and a sound system, but they were still sitting in the downstairs hall. There had not been enough time to move them into the tower.

  The moving men left.

  Her parents and her brother, Luke, were starving and insisted on going into town for something to eat.

  Devnee made her first serious mistake. She told them to go without her, and bring her back a hamburger and french fries. She would stay alone in the house, and get to know her new room, and the new smell, and the new feel of life in a different state.

  She did not know, last night, how different a state could be.

  Luke and her mother and her father chattered steadily as they went to the car. The doors of the car slammed, and the engine of the car growled, and Devnee Fountain was alone in a house with a tower.

  Devnee played the game she always played when she was alone. The beautiful game. Where the lovely funny terrific girl on the inside finally had a match on the outside; where Devnee’s hair gleamed, and her smile sparkled, and her personality captivated.

  She had left the kitchen. Kitchens were no place to play the beautiful game. Kitchens, like Devnee, were useful and stodgy.

  She would go to the tower to be beautiful.

  No one knew about the game. Devnee was so dull and plain that people would have laughed at the mere suggestion of beauty, and then smothered the laughter in pity.

  She left the kitchen and walked into the large high-ceilinged center hallway, where the wallpaper was stained from the squares of long-gone portraits. She stood on the bottom step of the wide stairs that led to the second floor.

  Perhaps this time she would play bride. Or prom queen.

  She pretended to fling a mass of shining hair and to widen eyes that stopped boys in their tracks.

  Reality taunted Devnee Fountain. Right, it said. You? Beautiful?

  I don’t want beauty to be a game! she thought. I want it to be real. I want to be beautiful for real.

  A sort of reverse gravity began to pull at Devnee Fountain. The backs of her eyes and the roots of her hair leaned toward the tower. Her fingers crawled up the banister and dragged her arms after them. The stairs disappeared behind her. Her hand stuck to the round glass knob of the door that opened to the tower stair. Her head went up ahead of her, but her feet argued and hung back and tried to turn around. Her eyes leaped forward.

  The stairwell breathed. It filled its lungs like a runner after a race. Devnee’s lungs did not fill at all. She caved in. She cried out.

  And she climbed on, equal parts wind and weight.

  It was darker in the tower than anyplace Devnee had ever been. The dark had textures, some velvet, some satin. The dark shifted positions.

  The dark continued to breathe. The breath of the tower lifted her clothing like the flaps of a tent, and snuffled in her ears like falling snow.

  It’s the wind coming through the double shutters, Devnee told herself.

  But how could wind come through? There were glass windows between the outside and inside shutters.

  Or were there?

  The windows weren’t just holes in the wall, were they?

  What if there was no glass? What if things crawled through those open louvers, crept into the room, blew in with the cold that fingered her hair? What creatures of the night could slither through those slats?

  She had not realized how wonderful glass was, how it protected you and kept you inside.

  There must be glass, Devnee thought. Something has to stand between me and—and what? What do I think is out there, except the night air?

  She knew that something was out there.

  She could hear it, crawling on the roof, filtering through the louvers.

  Devnee put her hands out to feel the shutters.

  In front of her face appeared some other hand. A hand with long fingernails of silver, wrinkled like crushed foil. Fingernails poked toward her, eager and grasping. The hand shifted the dark as if stirring ingredients, and it crossed the room toward Devnee like a growing stalk.

  Her own hands rose like vapor. Devnee knew she was going to hold hands with the hand.

  Devnee jerked her hands back, and tucked them under her arms for safekeeping, and staggered to the tower door. Stumbling and sick, she half fell, half flew down the tower stairs, down the second-floor stairs, throwing herself into the kitchen just as her brother came in with her bag of food.

  “Hungry, huh?” said Luke, tossing it to her.

  As she caught the paper bag with its red and gold logo it seemed to her that a second pair of hands also closed around the food: hands with fingernails so yellow and tarnished they were like old teeth in need of brushing.

  Who is in this house with me? thought Devnee Fountain. Who lives between those shutters?

  “If you’re not going to eat that, I will,” said Luke.

  “She’s nervous about her first day in a new school tomorrow,” said their mother affectionately and soothingly. “Everybody to bed now.
A good night’s sleep is what we all need, and we’ll worry about the rest of the furniture later on.”

  Devnee managed to smile. Her parents did not approve of complaining. They called it “whining” and felt that high school girls like Devnee should not whine.

  So Devnee tried not to. “It’s kind of creepy up there,” she said, striving to sound careless and relaxed. “I don’t think I want to sleep in the tower after all.”

  Her mother frowned. “It’ll be a darling, darling little room once we have it fixed up. I see it in peach and ivory. It cries out for soft pastel colors.”

  It cries out for me, thought Devnee.

  “The thing is, Dev, we have to do the kitchen first. That’s our priority. Once we have sinks and cabinets and a shiny new floor, we can think about things like painting the bedrooms.” Her mother smiled, a secret smile, her daydreaming smile. Devnee’s mother daydreamed of things like remodeling. She could hardly wait to go from store to store, studying samples of floor coverings. Her mother would actually say out loud, “Doesn’t it shine?” and “Do you really like this new finish?”

  Devnee looked at her family: sturdy father, overgrown weed of a brother, domestic mother. Her father loved television; her brother loved sports; her mother loved cooking.

  This was her life. This was the family she had drawn.

  How she wished for something more special! People who did not fit into such suburban stereotypes. People with personality and pizzazz. But this was the right family for her; she was just as dull and predictable. Plain brown hair, plain pale face, plain ordinary smile, plain acceptable clothing.

  Devnee crumpled the hamburger bag and dropped it in the garbage. She felt crumpled herself, exhausted from the silly beautiful game, the dumb tricks of her imagination, the nonsense of a tower that breathed.

  And so Devnee went up to the tower again.

  Night went on.

  Sleep did not come.

  Something damp and gelatinous brushed over her face.

  Devnee cried out, and a hand clamped down over her mouth. Not her own hand—some other hand: cold and horny and soft like rotting fruit; as if it would burst and evil would spill out.

  Devnee ripped the hand away from her mouth, whirled in the bed, and reached for the light switch on the wall. The blessed shape of the switch; the hard ivory-colored plastic. She flicked it up, and the room turned yellow and bright.

  Her heart was beating as fast as a rabbit’s.

  Nothing was there. No thickness in the shadows. No movement by the shutters. Nothing damp and nothing rotting soft.

  The only hands were her own, clutching the sheet hem as if she were a sailor for Columbus, falling off the edge of the world.

  Calm down, Devnee told herself. You’re just worried about the first day of school tomorrow. That’s all. You gave yourself the heebie-jeebies.

  For a long time she looked around the room, to see if anything came out of the cracks.

  Gradually she relaxed against the pillows.

  The room would be fine once the shutters were opened, pretty lacy curtains were hung, a rug put down. Once the plaster was repaired and the walls painted. Yes. She would choose cheery daytime colors and the rug would be thick and cozy-soft under her toes.

  Devnee yawned, trying to entice sleep. Then she stretched, trying to get ready to lie back down. At last she folded her hands on her chest, to calm herself. I must look like a corpse laid out, thought Devnee.

  She glanced down to see how she looked, and she saw something that could not be.

  Her shadow had not folded its hands.

  Her shadow was not attached to her.

  Her shadow was on the far side of the room, exploring by itself, its black elongated fingers, like the tines of an immense fork, raking silently over door cracks and shutter louvers.

  She tried to breathe, but the room itself was breathing so much it sucked up all the air. There was none left for her. She tried to think, but the ancient thoughts of all the people who had ever used the tower were swirling in the air, and she had no thoughts of her own.

  Mommy, she whimpered soundlessly. Daddy, Luke.

  Something came toward her, but it was not Mommy or Daddy or Luke.

  “Come here,” Devnee whispered to her shadow.

  But it did not come.

  If I turn off the light, thought Devnee, that would end my shadow.

  But the darkness of the tower was so full of shape and texture and edge. Perhaps the shadow would stay alive even in the dark. Cruising through the room. Touching things. Touching perhaps Devnee’s own cheek in the dark.

  I’ll close my eyes, thought Devnee, and calm myself down. This is not happening, and when I open my eyes, it will be an ordinary room with an ordinary shadow attached to my ordinary body.

  But the experiment did not work, and she did not stay calm and serene.

  The night was long.

  A sort of dark path was lit across the room, leading to the shutters. She did not get out of the bed to follow the path. Her feet were bare, and the wood floor would be cold as pond ice in January. And the path—who knew where it led?

  When Devnee awoke in the morning, the bedroom light was off.

  At breakfast she said, “Did you come up and turn my light off, Mom?”

  “No, darling.”

  “Did you, Daddy?”

  “Nope.”

  She didn’t ask Luke. Luke slept like a brick, which reflected his brainpower and personality. Even if every light in the house were on at two in the morning, Luke would never think of turning them off. Luke did not do a lot of thinking. Devnee was not sure her brother would think of mentioning fire if the house went up in flames. Luke was a big lug who played ball, and that was the limit of his mastery of the world.

  In the kitchen, among the debris of remodeling and the mess of their first breakfast, she felt safe and warm. What could go wrong in a room that smelled of pancakes and maple syrup? Last night was not worth thinking about. There was too much of today to worry over.

  Devnee had had difficulty deciding what to wear. Would this be a school in which girls dressed sloppily, with torn sneakers, too-big sweatshirts, old jeans? Or would they look chic? Or preppy? Or some style she had never encountered before?

  Schools should send a video before you enrolled, so you could see how the kids dressed, and not get it wrong.

  But then, what did it matter if Devnee Fountain got her clothes wrong?

  She might be going to a new school, but she had her same old looks.

  I wish … thought Devnee, aching to be a different person. The kind of girl who made people light up and turn to face her and call out her nickname when she walked in. A beautiful girl.

  If you were beautiful, everything came with it: friends, laughter, company.

  This was her chance! Her chance as the new girl to start a new life.

  Oh, let it be a better life!

  It was early; they did not have to leave for school yet.

  Devnee walked outside. She did not know why. She was not an outdoor person. Certainly not in winter. Something drew her.

  How cold it was in the yard. Frost during the night had whitened the grass, and water in a tilted old birdbath was frozen. The high hedge of hemlocks that encircled the mansion was more black than green, and the winter morning sky was not sunny, just, less dark.

  When you wish upon a star … Devnee sang to herself.

  No wind, and no clouds. Just a faceless gray morning and a queer damp chill. She felt she should not stay outdoors too long or moss might grow on her face.

  Devnee looked up at her tower and the moment her gaze landed on the circling shutters, one of them banged.

  But there was no wind.

  The shutter banged a second time, and the broken louvers on the shutter seemed to curve upward in a secret smile.

  Devnee kicked her shoe in the dirt. She had decided on black shoes, quite new, but not new enough to look desperate. They would blend with any fashion.
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  But I don’t want to blend in! thought Devnee, as filled with pain as a heart attack patient. I want to be beautiful!

  I wish … she thought forlornly.

  Devnee had not put on a coat. The chill wrapped around her, as if it had folds and fabric, like a winter coat. The chill warmed her. It was as if she had become some strange new animal and the blood in her veins would decide what was warm.

  Cold was warm.

  If cold can be warm, thought Devnee, perhaps plain can be beautiful. How I want to be beautiful!

  Even her knuckles and fingers begged for beauty, turning white, clasping each other, beseeching the powers that be to turn Devnee Fountain into a beautiful girl.

  The wish was not mild and passing.

  It was sharp, intense. Every girl, every day, wishes for changes in her body, or her heart, or her life. But few wished so desperately as Devnee Fountain.

  Devnee went back inside, into the warmth.

  Her words lay on the air.

  I wish …

  The wish left, as her shadow had, and went on without her.

  In the darkness of the hemlocks around the mansion, against the dark shingles of the house, more darkness gathered. Thicker darkness. A darkness both velvety and satiny.

  The dark path caught the wish and kept it.

  Something bright glittered in the branches of the hemlocks, like a row of tiny silver bells.

  Or fingernails, wrinkled like old foil.

  The dark path curled around the base of a tree, and waited for the rest of the wish.

  Chapter 2

  BACK AT THE BREAKFAST table, nobody had moved. Her mother was still pouring orange juice into the same glass.

  The juice seemed to slide out of the cardboard box and into the glass forever and ever, as if her mother was just a hand holding a pitcher.

  Her father was still holding a fork above his pancakes, and her brother was still lifting his napkin.

  Devnee shivered.

  Had she gone outside at all? What had happened to the time she had spent out there? Was it her time only, and had it not existed for the three inside the house? What was happening in this house, that time flickered differently wherever you stood, and fingernails crept out of cracks, and shadows peeled away from your body?