by Lisa Unger
Finley had been here when the woman died, when she’d been beaten to death with a flashlight. Not there, not in the flesh. But she had borne witness from some vantage point. Finley could hear the wailing she’d heard in her dreams, and the cracking soft thud of metal meeting flesh and bone. Was it this woman’s blood on Finley? She swayed between her dream memory and the present moment. The cold, the sound of Jones coming through the trees, the wind, that was now. She held on to it.
Jones came up behind her, his breathing labored with effort, and he shined his light on the corpse.
He came to his knees beside Finley and pointlessly put a hand to the woman’s throat. If there was ever a person more obviously dead, Finley didn’t want to see it.
“Who is she?” he asked.
“He calls her Momma.”
“Who does?” he asked.
“The boy from the trail,” she said. A name swam in her consciousness: Arthur.
“He killed her?” Jones already had his phone out.
Finley shook her head, not certain now. “I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe.”
She could see the flashlight coming up and down and hear him wailing. But it wasn’t a boy’s arm that she saw. It was a girl’s hand, small and pale but powerfully strong. She couldn’t explain what she was seeing. Was it memory or vision or some hybrid of both?
“We have a body up here,” said Jones into the phone. “I’ll send you a pin of my location. You’ll see my vehicle where we came in through the trees. It’s possible we have a lead on Abbey Gleason.”
He released a breath, listening to whoever was on the line. Then, “Don’t ask.”
His flashlight beam fell on the white trunk of a birch that was red with a dripping, bloody handprint. Finley could see the broken branches, a smear of blood on the next tree. She got up and started to move, Jones’s voice growing fainter as she drew away.
“Jesus, kid, where are you going?” he called after her.
But she didn’t stop to wait for him, kept moving toward that light.
“Head for the light,” she called back.
“What light?” he called. “Wait for backup.”
But he was already far behind her, and she kept moving. She heard the call of the rose-breasted grosbeak, even though she knew that they had long ago flown south to warmer climates. The only other sound was the crunching of her movements, the wind.
When finally she came to the narrow road that ended in a low gate, she saw the tiny bird. He was black and white, with flashes of red, fat and happily singing his pretty song. Little bird. As she watched him, the white became snow, and the black faded into the darkness, and the red became the bloody handprint on the gate. His song faded into the wind.
Finley saw the source of the light she’d been following: a lamp burning over the doors of a barn, the ground around it a field of white. The door to the main house stood open. A red water pump sat on a raised platform, a bucket beside it. Squeak-clink. And she heard the worried lowing of a cow. This was it, the place she was supposed to find. She knew it. She’d never been more sure of anything in her life.
“Abbey!” she called. “Abbey Gleason!”
The wind picked up and blew a drift in the accumulated snow, sprayed glitter into the air, but that was the only answer.
“Abbey!”
Finley felt the cold for the first time as it seeped in through her thin jacket. Her shoes were soaked, the blood on her jeans cold to the touch.
She was about to call out again when a girl slipped from between the barn doors, which stood ajar. Finley took an eager step closer, her heart filling with relief, when another girl, this one with dark hair, emerged from the trees. Finley stepped through the gate, only to see another terribly thin child laying on the ground making snow angels.
Finley’s heart dropped, and she stood rooted watching them as they watched her. Waves of emotion pulsed through her—fear, anger, sadness. She gripped the icy gate to support herself, and the cold was razor sharp on her skin.
When the girl from the barn drew closer, Finley recognized her. Finley moved to go get her, to scoop her up in her arms and carry her away. But something stopped her. She stayed rooted as the girl moved closer, walking through the snow but leaving no trail behind her.
“She’s gone,” the girl said. “You’re too late.”
“No,” said Finley.
“You’re too late for all of us,” she said.
Finley bowed her head against a powerful rush of shame and anger. The blow of failure was so brutal that it nearly doubled her over. It filled her throat and took her breath. If she’d followed her instincts, she’d have come up here sooner. She knew that time was running out. Instead, she listened to everyone else. And now it was too late. How did Eloise stand it? The failures. No wonder she always looked so haunted, so sad. Instead of sadness, Finley felt the heat of anger. This was so wrong, so unfair.
When Finley looked up again, fists clenched, all the girls were gone. Jones came up behind her, panting with effort.
“Is this the place?” he asked.
“She’s not here,” said Finley. She bit back her tears of rage. “She’s gone.”
“You don’t know that,” he said. He put a strong hand on her arm. But she did know it. The whole place vibrated with negativity. Terrible things had happened here, just a few miles away from people who could have helped. It was infuriating, like trying to keep sand from slipping through your fingers.
Jones pocketed the flashlight he was holding, drew the gun he had in a leather holster at his waist. Finley looked at it and realized that she’d never seen a gun up close. It was flat and black and full of menace, gripped in his hand that was red and raw.
“Stay here,” he said. He gave her his signature frown—something between concern and disapproval. “Meaning, don’t go running off by yourself. You’re flesh and bone, you know. You’re not invincible.”
She was shivering now and hung back at the gate, trying to collect herself, while Jones knocked loudly on the door.
“Investigator Jones Cooper,” he said. “Your door is open and I’m coming inside.”
When he disappeared, she marveled at his nerve. Could he do that? Just walk into someone’s house? Then she thought about following him inside. But unarmed she was just a liability, wasn’t she? There were other sounds now, sirens and the approach of vehicles, though still distant. The police were coming. Too late.
Finley walked across the clearing to the barn and pushed open the big door, its hinges emitting a long squeal into the night. She saw the cow she’d heard, some chickens in a coop. The relative warmth of the indoors was a relief, even though she could still see her breath in silvery clouds. Her sinuses tingled with the smell of hay and the scent of animals in an enclosed space.
The little bird perched on an overturned bucket, singing its pretty song. She moved closer to it. It sat, puffed up and pretty, black eyes shining like jewels. When she reached for it, it disappeared. She moved to where he’d been, looking hard at the area around her. What had he wanted her to see? And then she saw a seam in what from a distance had looked like the wall of the barn. It ran from the ceiling to the ground. She looped her finger into a knot in the wood and pulled. It was a door and it opened out toward her, revealing a hidden room.
A tiny cot, a chain with a cuff attached to a ring in the floor, a battered baby doll, a broken mirror on a beam over a small, cracked sink. Finley pushed away the ugliness of it, the horror that radiated from the floors, the wall. She bit back another choke of tears, that terrible anger that burnt like acid in her throat. This is where they hid her. When the police came looking, she was in here. How many others? Where were they now?
Over in the corner, a small girl wearing a pair of jeans and an owl tee-shirt, her hair white blonde, her skin moonstone, stood.
“He took us because we’re like you,” she said to Finley, as if she had been waiting. “He calls us Dreamers. We see the other things, the people who are
n’t there.”
“Who took you?” Finley asked. “Who calls you that?”
“The old man,” she said. “You’ve seen him. He knows you.”
Finley took a step closer. For a moment Finley flashed on the girl’s face as it had been, bright with innocence, the glitter of mischief, a big toothy smile that could light the world. This girl was solemn and grim, her eyes just shining black holes containing all the knowledge of the world. Not a ghost, just a form of energy that Finley could recognize and understand. She couldn’t stop shivering.
“You can still save her,” the girl said.
“How?” asked Finley, moving a careful step closer. A rush of hope. “How can I save her?”
A shot rang out, shattering the quiet of the place. She felt the sound rattle her bones, spinning toward it. When Finley turned back, the girl was gone.
TWENTY-SEVEN
Wherever he was, it was so dark that he was essentially blind. He couldn’t even see his hand in front of his face. And he had some vague awareness that he was hurt in a significant way; his leg felt odd, as if it didn’t quite fit on his body the way it was supposed to. There was pain, but it was oddly distant like a siren just out of earshot. Where was he? How had he gotten here?
He had a foggy recollection of Finley kneeling over a woman who was obviously dead, her face smashed. And Rainer had been trying to pull her away. Clearly, they were out of their depth, and the snow was getting heavier. They were both getting frostbite; Finley’s mouth was literally blue. It was time to take charge of the situation, he remembered, thinking, and if Finley thought he was being controlling and overbearing, well, that was too bad.
“Finley,” he said. “She’s dead.”
Finley hadn’t said a word, just kneeled there, rocking in a weird way. She’d gotten blood all over herself, and it was seriously freaking Rainer out. He was about to lift her to her feet and carry her out of there, when he saw something in the bushes, a dark form that slipped in and out of the trees and then was gone.
“Who’s out there?” he called. He didn’t like that his voice sounded high pitched and scared.
Man, he really hated the fucking woods. There was a primordial wildness that unsettled him. It was like you could die out here and your body would just become one with all the other organic debris. Animals and insects would come and feed on your flesh; your body would decompose in its own acids, and the earth would rise up to swallow it. No grave, no headstone. There was nothing clean or sanitized or palatable about it. There was not some part of you that stayed forever, body preserved in a coffin, ashes in an urn on someone’s mantel. You’d be gone as if you never were, just absorbed like a rotten log. Only your bones would bear witness to the form you’d held.
“But that’s what it is,” Finley had said, though Rainer hadn’t said a word. She’d done that before when she was like this. “That’s as it should be. We are one with the earth.”
“Sure,” he said. “But not today. We are out of here, Finley.”
He saw the shadow again, and then there was the laughter he’d heard before. Or was it just the strange way the wind sounded, caught in the hollows of the trees, whistling?
“I have to help her,” said Finley.
He leaned in as close as he could stand to the bloody mess on the ground. Dead. Definitely dead, skull smashed in, face just a mass of ruined flesh.
“She’s dead,” he said. “The only way we can help is to get the police.”
Finley was light, and he hoisted her easily.
“Put me down,” she protested weakly. Rainer headed back the way they came, with Finley pounding on his back. That’s when he saw her.
“What the fuck?”
He put Finley down, and she immediately ran back to the dead woman’s body.
That girl in the shadows; he’d know her anywhere. It wasn’t just the moonlight of her skin or the ice of her eyes. It wasn’t just the twisted spools of her fire-kissed hair, or the delicate lines of her neck. It was her scent—something grassy and clean; it was her essence. He’d come to know her as he etched her picture into the delicate flesh of Finley’s body. Abigail, the oldest of The Three Sisters.
There was a deep intimacy to ink work, especially when he worked with Fin. He saw what she wanted him to see. And when he put the needle to her skin and inked those images onto her flesh, he was closer to her than he was at any other time. She trusted him, opened herself to him. She let him mark her body with total faith in their connection. Even when their other connections—as lovers and friends—were strained, that remained. In that bond, Abigail dwelled.
“You’re not real,” he said. “I’m losing it.”
It was the cold, right? Hallucinations as hypothermia set in?
Abigail just smiled.
“Finley,” Rainer said, his own voice sounding wobbly and scared.
But Finley was in her own world, lost to him.
“Fin,” he said again, louder still. “Will you wake up?”
Then he was following Abigail, because there was just no way not to follow. She danced like a sprite through the trees, and he found himself running to keep up. He’d see a flash of red, a starburst of white, hear the bells of her laughter. Even though he knew that she was leading him away from Finley, he followed anyway. Even though he knew that Abigail was a bad girl and not to be trusted, he found that he couldn’t help but play her little game.
He’d had a friend like that when he was growing up, Scott from three doors down. Rainer’s folks weren’t always around. His dad worked nights, slept days. His mom worked days and wasn’t usually home until right before dinner. But there were rules and chores, and he knew his parents loved him. Scott, on the other hand, was a stray dog. He never seemed to have to answer for where he was, skinny, rangy, dirt under his nails. He was smoking by the time they were ten, got Rainer his first beer when they were twelve. He was the kind of kid who said, “Hey, let’s go set these bottle rockets off in that abandoned warehouse.” And even though you knew it was a bad idea, you did it. With Scott, Rainer shoplifted, drank, smoked, explored a condemned building, and nearly got stuck inside an old refrigerator. Scott was dangerous; Rainer knew there was no bungee attached to that kid, nothing to pull him back from the hard landing of ugly consequences. Still, Rainer followed. There are always going to be people like that, Rain, warned his dad. They open dark doorways and invite you to walk inside. Just remember that you don’t have to go.
But that was the problem. Rainer wanted to go. He wanted to find the edge and push it, see how far you could go before you broke the seal and fell through. He always believed that he could pull himself back—just in time. And so far he had. He eventually graduated from high school, though several of the kids he hung with did not. He wasn’t dead like Jeb or in a wheelchair like Raife, who got into an accident drag racing. He wasn’t in jail like Scott, who was serving time for grand theft auto. It was like Finley always said about The Three Sisters, that she suspected they couldn’t get her to do anything that on some deep, dark level, she didn’t want to do herself. Rainer didn’t want to go all the way down. He just wanted to peer over the edge and see what was waiting below.
But this time, as he chased Abigail through the woods, the ground beneath his feet gave way. And he fell and fell, knocking against protruding objects on his way down and landing hard. He could barely comprehend anything but the surprise of it at first, his stomach lurching as he knew he was falling, calling out for Finley, who he knew couldn’t hear him. The pain, the fear came later.
And now, here he was in the darkness. He could hear the dripping of water somewhere, but that was it. And his own breathing. The ground around him was cold and wet, and he thought that if he died here no one would ever find him. Maybe a few years from now, some kid out in the woods with his friend would fall as he had and find Rainer’s broken bones down here far beneath the ground, the rest of him long ago eaten away.
Shit. No way. In spite of the rockets of pain shooting
up his leg, so bad he had to cling to consciousness and breathe deep to keep himself from hurling. One hard push and he was sitting up unsteadily, sick, but not flat on his back. He forced himself to run a hand down his leg. Warm, slick and sticky with blood, but there was nothing sticking out, like a bone. He hadn’t impaled himself on anything. All good things.
That girl doesn’t want you, Rainer. His mother always knew how to cut right to the quick. If you follow her to that place, you’re just asking for heartache.
But his heart was already aching. It never stopped aching for Finley. From the minute he saw her, he was hopeless.
If you want her, if you love her, go get her, his dad said. If it doesn’t work out, at least you’ll know it wasn’t for lack of trying. Otherwise, you’ll always wonder. That’s why he’d followed her from Seattle to The Hollows, because he never wanted to wonder. Now he was wondering what would have happened if he’d just stayed in Seattle. At least he wouldn’t be down whatever hole he’d just fallen in.
Rainer felt on the wall for something to hold on to and found a grip. What was it? Wood, like a two-by-four. He knew where he was then, in one of those abandoned mine tunnels that Finley was talking about. He’d looked at the maps, marveled at how vast was the network, how deep and far the tunnels stretched. Finley had said that a kid falls into one nearly every summer, in spite of repeated warnings not to veer off park trails, in spite of the rangers’ attempts to find and cordon off weak areas. She said that a man hid down there for months while the police hunted for him. Did she say if they ever got him? Was he still down here? Surely not.
His heart was pumping—with fear, with effort—he tried to slow his breathing. He’d heard Jake talk about the mines, too, hadn’t he? Jake was some kind of history expert about The Hollows, was a total geek for the place, a lifelong member of The Hollows Historical Society. He said that there were climb-outs, places where ladders had been placed and led to openings, many of which had been sealed off by the park rangers.
