by Heidi Lang
It would have been easier to know for sure if he could sense Aiden’s energy. Caden hadn’t realized how much he relied on that gift. Too much.
As Caden got to the bottom of the stairs, he realized he felt someone else’s energy now. Angry, roiling, bitter energy. It was like stepping into a cloud of exhaust, all dark and acrid.
His parents were arguing.
Caden swallowed, the heavy feeling in his stomach growing thicker. He glanced back up the stairs, but now he could make out words drifting toward him from the kitchen.
“—literally held my son prisoner for days, and we can’t even report them,” his dad was saying, his voice rising. “Instead, they send someone here to our house to offer fake apologies?”
“Shh,” Caden’s mom said.
“Don’t shush me, Eleanor. It’s wrong, okay? That company owns this town. They can do anything they like with impunity. What if they change their minds about Aiden and demand we give him back?”
“What do you want to do?” Caden’s mom asked fiercely. “You sure complain a lot, but do you have any solutions?”
Caden winced at the sharpness in his mom’s tone. It was like being stabbed with a thousand tiny knives.
“We can’t change how things are here. But we can leave.”
For a second, Caden thought he’d misheard his dad. Leave? Whispering Pines? His heart leaped.
“You know we can’t,” his mom said.
“Maybe you can’t.”
Caden’s heart came crashing back down.
He’d thought that it was Aiden’s absence that had been destroying his parents’ marriage. That once his brother was back, they’d return to being a loving couple. Instead, it felt like Aiden’s sudden return had only driven a bigger wedge between them.
He could feel the yellowish-green of his mom’s hurt, her rejection. He took a deep, cleansing breath and pulled his shields around himself tightly, blocking everyone else’s emotions out. Then he walked up a few steps and noisily came down them again, practically stomping his way into the kitchen.
His mom had already retreated. Only his dad sat there at the table, drinking tea and reading the local paper as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. “Hey, Caden.” He looked up and grinned, his smile just a little too wide to be natural, the newspaper rattling in his shaking hand. Caden caught a glimpse of the front-page article:
Three Green On! Employees Still in Critical Condition After Experiment Gone Awry
Whispering Pines, CT. Alternative energy company Green On! isn’t afraid to push the boundaries of science. “We can’t afford to be complacent in our quest for clean, reusable energy,” says senior consultant Patrick Smith. “There is too much at stake in this world. But unfortunately, sometimes there are unintended consequences.” He was unwilling to provide specific details about his company’s newest experiment, which left three workers in a catatonic state and—
His dad set the paper down before Caden could read more. “Sleep well?” he asked.
Maybe you can’t.
Caden forced himself to smile back. He didn’t want to think of the conversation he’d just overheard, didn’t want to imagine his dad leaving. He was supposed to be the one who moved away. “I slept okay.” He turned his back on his dad and rummaged in the pantry for a banana that he wasn’t sure he could eat. “I think I’m going to head out early.”
“Got a date with the neighbor girl, eh?”
Caden flinched. His dad thought he and Rae were still friends.
“You should have her over for dinner one of these nights.”
It reminded Caden that yesterday Aiden had been chatting up Ava, extracting his own dinner invitation from her. That feeling of dread in his stomach returned full force, and he set the banana back on the counter. “Maybe I will,” he told his dad. He scooped up his backpack. “I’ll see you tonight. Have a good time at work.”
His dad laughed. “The best time. Always.” He waved and went back to his pretend newspaper reading as Caden left.
Outside the air had that heavy feeling that meant it would probably rain in a few hours. Already clouds billowed, dark and ugly, across the slowly lightening sky. Caden watched them as he walked down his long driveway to wait for the bus. He was early, but it felt good to stand outside, storm clouds or no. Before the sun rose, it seemed like maybe anything could happen.
Maybe something good, even.
Movement across the street caught his eye, and he saw Rae and Ava in their driveway. He couldn’t hear them, but it looked like they were arguing. Not like his parents had been, not a real fight. He opened his senses just a little, enough to feel the good-natured energy, the bickering annoyance. It was strangely comforting.
He and Aiden had never had that kind of relationship.
A pang of loss hit Caden deep in the pit of his stomach. He watched Ava get in the car and drive off without Rae, watched Rae stomp down the driveway, scowling, her brown hair pulled back in a high ponytail that bounced with every step.
She saw him and stopped, one foot lifted. And then she turned away, wrapping her arms around herself tightly.
He wasn’t quick enough to pull back his senses, and so he was hit with the haze of greenish-yellow that swirled around her. It was so like his mom’s own hurt and rejection that he couldn’t look away.
Caden knew his mom could never leave Whispering Pines. She was in charge of keeping the rift between their world and the world of the Other Place closed. It was why he could never leave either, unless Aiden somehow got his powers back. A Price had to stay here to guard that barrier and the cosmic evil trapped behind it.
His dad knew it too. Even if he didn’t fully understand it. He knew their mom would never swerve away from her duty, no matter what. So if he left Whispering Pines, he would be leaving her, too.
Caden was hit with the realization that he was angry with his dad. Not just angry. Furious. It wasn’t his mom’s fault that she was stuck here. His dad wasn’t being fair, threatening to leave, demanding that she fix things that were broken beyond her abilities. Forcing her to choose between him and her biggest obligation…
As Caden stared at Rae’s hunched shoulders and clenched jaw, the truth smacked him hard enough to drive the air out of his lungs, leaving him gasping.
He was just like his dad. He’d demanded that Rae choose between her friendship with him, and her obligation to find her dad. Sure, he had promised to help her in her search, but Patrick, with all the resources of Green On!, probably did have a better chance of assisting Rae. Obviously she couldn’t turn that down.
All this time he’d been mad at her for rejecting him when it was really the other way around.
“Would you stop staring at me?” Rae demanded, whirling to face him.
“I’m sorry,” Caden said.
“Don’t be sorry. Just stop.”
“No, I mean…” Caden paused, his mouth dry. He swallowed, tried again. “I’m sorry, Rae. For…” But the words escaped him again. For what? Ignoring her? Gaining her trust and then stomping it into pieces? He wasn’t sure what he could say to make up for any of that.
Rae’s eyes widened, then narrowed dangerously. “You’re sorry?”
“I am. Really.”
She shook her head. “Unbelievable.”
Silence fell, thicker and harder than the road between them. Then Rae sighed, loud and dramatic. Still scowling, she stalked across the street and stood a few feet away from him. “You are not forgiven.”
“I understand.”
“Don’t do that!”
“What?” Caden asked, bewildered.
“Don’t act all contrite and reasonable! You haven’t talked to me in more than a week! Not only that, you pretended I was a ghost.”
“Not true,” Caden said. “I talk to ghosts, remember?”
Rae’s scowling mouth wobbled, her lips turning up in a brief, amused smile before it was gone again.
“I don’t trust Green On!,” Caden said.
> “I don’t either. But Patrick told me my dad might have been working on a Green On! contract when he disappeared. He didn’t have any other information yet, but he promised to dig into it if I signed up for his internship.” She adjusted her backpack. “That’s the only reason I’m doing it.”
“Did you still want my help too?” Caden hated how small his voice sounded. Of course Rae was going to turn him down. He’d messed up everything, and she’d moved on, and he never should have said anything now, should have left well enough alone. His thoughts ran in a circle of anguish, trapped like a rat in a wheel.
“That would be nice, yes,” Rae said.
Caden blinked. “What?”
“Also, you owe me ice cream.”
“Me?”
“Obviously you.” She scrutinized him, her brown eyes serious and searching. Caden wondered what she was looking for. He stood up straighter, feeling strangely vulnerable under that gaze. Like for once someone was actually seeing him. Not seeing Aiden’s brother, or one of the Price kids, or that weird boy. But him, Caden Price.
He hoped she wasn’t disappointed.
“Don’t ever do that again, okay?” she said.
Caden nodded.
She looked away, and the quiet crept up again around them. “Now this is awkward,” she muttered.
Caden laughed. “I know, right? Where’s that bus already?”
Rae smiled at him, a full smile this time. And for the first time since Aiden had reappeared, Caden could feel the knot in his stomach loosening.
13. RAE
Rae spun her locker combination, her mind whirling just as fast as that small dial. She wasn’t sure how she really felt about Caden’s apology. It had hurt more than she wanted to admit when he’d started ignoring her. But then again, he had saved her life when she’d been attacked by the Unseeing. That probably earned him a second chance.
Her locker popped open, and she hung her backpack inside, moving slowly, her arms and back still aching from her fall yesterday.
She didn’t want to think about yesterday. About that goat, and the tunnel, and those other dead animals. And the bugs, stained pink with blood…
Nate had gone for the police as soon as Rae had made it out of the pit. He lived close enough to walk home, so he promised to take care of all the reports while Rae hitched a ride home with Vivienne and her mom.
“Rae-Rae?” Vivienne said.
Rae turned. Vivienne was looking very odd, her hands twisting together, her mouth doing something similar. “Everything okay?” Rae asked.
“Well. Um, you remember that bug we found?”
“No, I’ve totally forgotten it.” Rae rolled her eyes.
“Yeah, okay. Silly question. I’ll just get to the point.” Vivienne took a deep breath. “The bug is gone.”
Rae stared at her. “Gone? What do you mean, gone?”
“I mean, it’s no longer here.”
“Like, dead?”
“No.” Vivienne sighed and set down her backpack, rummaging inside and producing her water bottle. “Like, missing.” She held the bottle out, and Rae took it.
There was a pile of dirt, and something in the dirt. Something gross and slimy-looking. And… there was a hole in the top. A small, chewed-up hole, right through the plastic lid. “It ate its way out?”
“Looks that way to me.” Vivienne took the bottle back. They both eyed her backpack. “I already checked,” she said. “It’s not in there. Man, I really hope it’s not in my house. My mom would flip out.”
Rae shuddered.
“At least it left us this present.” Vivienne shook the bottle, and that disgusting lump inside oozed a little.
“What is that?”
“I’m pretty sure it’s, um…” Vivienne coughed. “It’s, uh, you know.”
“Poop?” Rae guessed.
Vivienne nodded.
“You don’t want to say the word poop, do you?” Nate asked, popping up behind them.
Rae and Vivienne both spun.
“Would you stop lurking around us?” Vivienne snapped. “Jeez.”
“We’re teammates. I have a right to lurk.” Nate adjusted his glasses importantly. “Now. My fellows. What is this I overheard about our specimen going astray?”
* * *
“Faster, Roadrunners!” Coach Briggs bellowed. Rae sped up, the finish line in sight. Rain fell against her in sheets until it felt like she was swimming more than running.
She crossed the line and stumbled to a halt, breathing hard.
“You okay?” Vivienne stopped next to her, barely winded.
Rae nodded. “Used… inhaler earlier…,” she gasped. “Just… tired.”
The rest of the Dana S. Middle School cross-country team finished their final lap, all of them wet and shivering and exhausted.
Coach Briggs blew her whistle. “Circle up!”
Rae and Vivienne huddled with the others in front of her.
“You’re looking good out there, but not good enough,” Coach Briggs said. “It’s almost like you’re afraid of a little rain.”
“A little rain?” a boy asked incredulously.
Coach Briggs fixed him with a stern eye. Her long brown hair swung in a braid down to her waist, and she wore her usual neon shirt and shorts. The only concession she’d made to the weather was that she’d pulled her socks halfway up her calves. “At least you have daylight,” she said. “Do you know when I train?”
No one answered.
“I do my running at night. After the whole town has gone to sleep. You keep whining, and I’ll make our next practice a midnight one.” She stared around at everyone, then blew her whistle again. “Dismissed!”
“Can she really do that?” Rae asked Vivienne as they squelched across the wet grass and back to the school. “Make us run at midnight?”
“She’s done it before,” Vivienne said. “But it’s still a code peach fuzz right now, so they probably wouldn’t let her this time.”
Rae thought of all the animals they’d found in the tunnel and then wished she hadn’t asked.
“Hey,” Alyssa said, catching up to them, her blond hair plastered down her neck.
Vivienne blinked, obviously startled. “Oh, so you’re talking to me again?”
“I was never not talking to you.”
Vivienne snorted.
“I just haven’t seen you much, is all,” Alyssa said defensively. “I mean, since we’re on separate teams now.”
“And we all know whose fault that is,” Vivienne muttered.
Rae nudged her.
“Hi, Alyssa,” she said, hoping to get past the awkwardness. “How’s it going?”
Alyssa pushed her wet bangs back. “Right now? I feel like a fish.”
“You look a little like one too,” Vivienne said. “Your lips are blue.”
There was a tense few seconds while Alyssa seemed to decide whether or not to be offended. But then she smiled. “Thanks. It’s a new look I’m trying.”
“Well, blue always has been your color,” Vivienne said, smiling back. And just like that, some of the tension between them eased.
“How’s your mystery going?” Alyssa asked. “I mean, unless you don’t want to talk about it.”
Rae and Vivienne exchanged a look. “Well,” Vivienne said, “we found something strange. But we ran into a bit of a roadblock in solving it.”
“It ran away,” Rae added.
“It’s bug related,” Vivienne said. “That’s all we can say, though.”
“Yeah, pretty sure I don’t want to know more.” Alyssa ran her hands down her arms and shuddered dramatically. “I hate bugs.” She pushed open the side door of the school and they walked inside, their shoes squeaking on the gym floor and leaving little dirt marks as they made their way to the locker rooms in back. “My mom is going to be a little annoyed about this mess.”
“What about your mystery?” Rae asked. “Can you tell us anything about it?”
Alyssa glanced at her, a
nd for a second Rae thought she wasn’t going to answer. Then she shrugged. “Ours is… well. It’s weird. Blake picked it. It has something to do with the Watchful Woods. That’s all I can say, though.” She flashed them a smile.
“Oh, come on,” Vivienne said. “You told us practically nothing!”
“Hey, all you told me was that yours is bug related.”
“Yeah, well, you said you didn’t want to hear more. We can give you more details if you’d like.”
“They’re creepy-crawly little buggers,” Rae said. “With lots of legs.”
“So many legs,” Vivienne added.
“Stop,” Alyssa said. “Seriously. You’re grossing me out.” She opened her gym locker. Then she sighed. “Fine. You know that wall in the woods?”
“The stone one?” Rae said, remembering it. The last time she’d seen it was when she’d followed Ivan to his dilapidated home in the middle of the forest. She could still remember how he’d leaped over it, refusing to touch the stones. That should have been her first clue he wasn’t human. But no, she’d gone ahead and followed him anyhow. Straight into a serial killer’s shack.
“You okay?” Alyssa waved her hand in front of Rae’s face.
“Sorry. Thinking.” Rae twisted the combination on her gym locker.
“You’re not much of a multitasker, are you?”
Rae frowned. “I can multitask.”
“If you say so.” Alyssa tossed her wet ponytail over her shoulder. “Anyhow. Blake’s been studying it for a while, trying to figure out why its pattern changes. I guess that was the reason he moved into that yurt with his uncle. Or part of the reason, at least. So he suggested that for our mystery.”
“Wait, hold up,” Vivienne said. “Blake was already studying the wall before Patrick assigned this task? And now all of you are helping him with it?”
“That’s what I said.”
“But that’s cheating! You can’t jump into a half-solved mystery.”
“Patrick said it was okay.” Alyssa pulled her dry clothing out of her locker. “And besides, I really need to win this.”
