The Haunted

by Jessica Verday

  Katy nodded, and Nikolas’s eyes looked worried.

  Leaning forward, I said to Nikolas, “Please tell me. What is a Revenant?”

  He locked eyes with Katy. “A Revenant is sent to help the living half cross over to the Shade half. Caspian is dead, yet he’s here, because he is a Shade. A shadow caught between two worlds. The black stripe is the brand that marks him as this. Did you have a near-death experience?” he asked Caspian. “Before your actual death.”

  Caspian nodded.

  “That is when the mark came. You were destined to be one of us. I had a near-death experience of my own.” He turned to look at me. “You are his other half, his living half. His partner and companion. Attuned to his frequency, in a sense, and destined to fill the missing piece of his soul.” Nikolas rested his hand on top of Katy’s, smiling lovingly at her. “A soul mate.”

  I gulped and peeked over at Caspian. He had his hands spread wide on the tabletop and was staring down at them.

  Nikolas resumed talking. “Katy and I have been completed. We call it, in the Dutch language, een koppeling. A coupling. That is why we are here at this place. What happens when you and Caspian are completed… I cannot say.”

  Thoughts were slowing arranging themselves in my brain, and I started to put them together. “So all this living half and dead half, and crossing-over stuff… Are you saying… ?”

  Katy looked at me and nodded. “You are going to die soon, Abbey.”

  The room grew very still, and everyone waited, all eyes on me. I let out a breath I didn’t even know I’d been holding. “Oh.”

  “I am sorry we did not tell you before, when you came to see us,” she said. “How does one bring up the nearness of death? But once the Revenants find you, a choice must be made. They found me a year after Nikolas and I had met. We both thought that perhaps it would be longer for you.”

  “That’s why I urged you to reconsider,” said Nikolas. “To stay away from Caspian. To pay attention to what I could not say, in a desperate hope that it would save your life.”

  “You told her to stay away from me?” Caspian asked.

  Nikolas gave him a hard look. “Have you even seen two sides of a whole? There is usually a dark half and a light half. Now, between Katy and me, I know that I am the darker half. I have much blood upon these hands as a soldier for hire in my past life, and I’m betting that between you and Abbey, she is the light one. So what dark secrets do you hold, boy?”

  Caspian looked angry. “Did you ever think that things might have changed? We don’t live and die by the sword anymore. I may not have a lifetime of darkness to atone for. Maybe I just need her to be the star in my night sky. To hold back the darkness and to let me see the light.” He looked at me then, and my throat went dry. “Or maybe it really is as simple as something in her fills the hollow in me. The black void disappears when we are together.”

  I linked my hands together and stared down at them, in awe of what he’d just said. His words filled my heart until all the cracks that had once been there were gone.

  “If that is what she means to you, then you are the one,” Nikolas said. “And I extend my hand.”

  I looked up in time to see them shaking solemnly, and I mouthed the words I love you to Caspian. He smiled his breathtaking smile at me, and my toes went numb.

  Nikolas cleared his throat, and I blushed, realizing that my feelings were probably written all over my face.

  “Okay,” Caspian said, directing us back to the topic at hand. “So now we know why the Revenants are here.”

  “Actually, that is the problem,” Nikolas replied. A fretful look was back on his face. “Revenants don’t work alone. They are paired into teams of two, and only one team is needed.”

  “So when Katy… passed, and the Revenants were here, there were only two of them?” I asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Why are there five of them now?” said Caspian.

  “We don’t know,” Katy replied.

  “Tell me more about this Vincent Drake,” Nikolas asked me. “He was aggressive toward you?”

  “Yeah, he was.” I remembered that moment in the alley, and I shivered. “And he grabbed Caspian by the throat and threw him.”

  Nikolas shook his head. “That does not make any sense. Revenants help, not harm. This is a troublesome situation. I am fearful of what it means.”

  “It means that I’m going to die soon, you don’t know what’s going to happen to me and Caspian once I die and we’re completed or whatever, and the Revenants may or may not be here to cause that death!” Everything suddenly felt like it was crashing down on me, and I buried my head in my arms.

  “I think Abbey should go home and get some rest,” Caspian said.

  “I’m fine,” I mumbled.

  “No, you’re not. You need to get some sleep and have some time to process this.”

  I lifted my head. “Hey, I know! We can go on the run. Leave town. If we stay away long enough, maybe Vincent and the Revenants will leave.”

  “They will find you, Abbey,” Katy said. “It may take a month, it may take a year, but in the end it’s only a matter of time.”

  “So is it like a bloodhound thing?” I asked. “They have my scent now?”

  “Something like that,” Nikolas said. “We are not certain of everything.”

  I laughed, and even I could hear the note of hysteria in my voice. “All I should have to do then is change my perfume. Ha! Great.”

  Caspian stood up abruptly. “Let’s go.”

  He gave me a stern glare, and I reluctantly stood up too. “I could just stay here,” I argued. “I’d be safe here.”

  “Home. Bed. Now,” Caspian ordered.

  “Okay, okay. It was just a suggestion. Geez.”

  He ushered me out of the house, and we found ourselves back on the path. I let him take the lead, and he did a good job of getting us back to the cemetery without any wrong turns into the forest.

  It was almost dawn now, and we walked silently back toward the main gate. Once we hit the path that would lead us there, Caspian stopped. “I want to show you something.”

  “Can it wait?” I was frazzled, full of raw edges and nervous energy. I really just wanted to get home and crash.

  “It won’t take long,” he promised. “But you need to see this.”

  He turned to lead me to the side of the cemetery that I hardly ever went to. When we came to a stop, we were standing in front of two extremely old, faded red headstones. They were the type to have elaborate winged skulls and angels dressed as the Grim Reaper on them.

  Or they would have, if they were still intact.

  Now they were completely shattered. The fronts of them nothing more than cracked, bleeding stone. Carved names and dates were lost forever to time. I gasped as the sun rose, revealing the full extent of the damage. It was a horrible sight.

  “I don’t want there to be anything between us,” Caspian said. “Do you remember when I told you about how I was angry and destructive?”

  I nodded.

  “I did this,” he said quietly. “On my first day here, I was so frustrated, so mad that no one could hear me, I picked up a rock and threw it at them again and again. Smashing them to pieces so they’d be broken and unrecognizable… like me.”

  I gazed at him in disbelief. It didn’t seem right. It didn’t seem like him at all. “I heard about some tombstones being vandalized, but they said some kids did it.”

  Caspian shook his head sadly. “Not kids. Me. And I come here every once in a while to remind myself of it.”

  He held my gaze, and his eyes were highlighted by the sun. They were so vivid.

  “This is what I always have to remember, Abbey.” He flexed his hands and looked at them. “I might be invisible, but I can still touch things… hurt people.” He looked away and mumbled, “Hurt you.”

  A sick feeling started roiling in my stomach, and I knew where he was going with this. Crossing my arms, I shook my head. “Oh,
no. You are not doing this again, Caspian.”

  He looked at me with pained eyes, and I stalked closer, jabbing the air in front of him with one finger. “You broke my heart once before, during Christmas, with that I-just-want-to-be-friends note. You are not doing that again.”

  “It’s better this way—”

  “I’m not listening to you, and I’m going home now,” I said.

  He suddenly bent down to pick up a dead leaf from the ground and held it out to me. Slowly closing his hand, he crushed the leaf. It crunched between his fingers, and when he opened his fist, only a pile of dust remained. “This is me. Dust. Ashes. I’m dead, and you have to face that.”

  Frustration and fury bubbled up in me, and I had to fight to keep a cool tone. “You know what? I will face that. Where are you buried?”

  He blinked once. “What?”

  “Where are you buried? I’m going to face it. I’m going to visit your grave.”

  “Why?” he whispered.

  I leaned in, close enough for a kiss, and whispered back, “Because I love you, Caspian. I love you. I’ll do whatever it takes to be with you.” I held up my left hand. The red scratch that Vincent had given me was still clearly visible. I should have realized there was something more—he was something more—when he gave it to me. “And because I don’t want any secrets between us either, I have to tell you something. I lied to you about this. About how I got it. Vincent scratched me when he stopped by my uncle’s shop.”

  Caspian’s face turned dark with fury, and for a second I thought he was mad at me for lying to him. “I am going to return the favor,” he said, between gritted teeth. “Times ten.” He put out one finger and traced it down my palm, going right through it.

  I felt the tingle all the way down to my toes.

  “West Virginia,” Caspian said softly. “Where we used to live. I’m buried in Martinsburg, West Virginia.”

  I crashed as soon as I got home, and when I woke up, thoughts of Revenants swirled through my head, darting like angry bees. But as I pushed my hair out of my face, I pushed the thoughts from my mind.

  Right now there was only one important thing to take care of, and two potential roadblocks standing in the way.

  I found Mom and Dad downstairs in the living room watching a movie. It was almost over, and I waited until the credits rolled before I sprung my big idea on them. “I want to go look at colleges in West Virginia,” I blurted out.

  Dad paused with the remote in his hand, mid-mute for the commercials, and Mom sighed happily. Her whole face lit up. “You do?”

  They exchanged a Can you believe this change of heart? look, and I felt guilty for the lie. But not guilty enough.

  “Yeah, there are some really great schools there, and with my senior year coming up, I’d like to rethink some of my options.”

  “We’ll set everything up,” Mom said excitedly. “Oh, honey, your first college tour! Such a big moment. We’ll have to make sure to check out the campus and the dorms, of course, and—”

  “Mom.”

  “The town. You want to make sure the town is safe. A lot of people don’t think about things like that.”

  “Mom!” I gave Dad a helpless look, and he grinned at me. “Mom, stop.”

  She stopped. But the look of excitement was still there.

  Ah, damn it. Now I felt bad. “The thing is… I want to go on my own.” There was utter silence, and Mom’s mouth gaped open.

  “No.”

  “But Mom, I really want to do this, and I think it will be good for my independence. I’m growing here, and I feel like my feathers are getting all tangled.”

  “Feathers? What…”

  “Baby bird,” Dad said. “I get it.”

  I shot him a grateful look.

  “How will you get there? Where will you stay? You’ll be all alone.” Mom’s face crumpled.

  “I can take a bus. And there are hotels there. I’ll be fine. I’m seventeen. I can do this. In some countries girls my age are getting married, you know.”

  “M-married?” Her lower lip quivered.

  Uh-oh. Wrong thing to say.

  Dad came to the rescue. “Do you have any friends that could go with you, Abbey? I’m sure that would make your mother and me feel safer.”

  “Friends? Well, there’s always Ben,” I quipped. “He’s dependable.”

  Dad nodded. “Yes, he is. You’ll have to get separate rooms, though. And I’m going to call each night to do random bed checks. No bed hopping on this trip.”

  “What? Are you serious? He’s a teenage boy, Dad. You actually want us spending unsupervised time alone together?”

  “Well, considering the other options… He’s been tutoring you, hasn’t he? Has he made any inappropriate advances?”

  “No, he’s been the perfect gentleman.”

  “Then I think it’s a good solution. He has a car, right?”

  I nodded.

  “See about making the arrangements, then.” He patted Mom’s hand. “Your mother and I will stay here.”

  Mom looked close to tears again.

  “I’m serious about the bed checks though,” Dad called, when I got up to leave the room. “No funny business.”

  Shaking my head as I climbed the stairs, I wondered the whole way what planet I was living on and where my real parents were. Obviously, the ones in there had been replaced by pod people.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  ROAD TRIP

  Certain it is, his advances were signals for rival candidates to retire…

  —“The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”

  I talked to Ben about going to West Virginia with me, and he quickly agreed, saying that he was always up for a road trip. “Are you sure you don’t mind driving?” I asked him again, cradling the phone to my ear.

  “I don’t mind, Abbey,” he said.

  “And I told you about the dad thing? He’ll probably be obnoxious about calling to check up on me.”

  “You told me. Twice,” Ben replied.

  “Are you cool with dropping me off ? I don’t want you to be stuck hanging around.”

  “It’s cool. My dad has a friend who owns a junkyard near there. I’ll check him out.”

  “Thanks, Ben. I really appreciate this.”

  “What’s the name of the college?” he asked.

  Luckily, I was sitting in front of my computer, and I quickly turned to Google. “It’s um…” I typed in colleges in West Virginia. A listing came up showing at least a dozen of them, and I scanned through. I couldn’t believe my luck when Shepherd University popped up within ten miles of Martinsburg. “Shepherd,” I said.

  I clicked the link and arrived at the university’s website. Pictures of tall buildings and smiling students littered the home page, and the “About Us” page said that it was a liberal-arts school. Wow. Perfect.

  We decided to take the trip two days later, and I hung up the phone feeling a sense of accomplishment. This just might work. And the school looked pretty cool, too. Too bad I didn’t have any plans to actually check it out.…

  I wasn’t sure how to tell Caspian about the trip, so I waited until the next day. I still hadn’t figured out the best way to say, “Oh yeah, I’m going to be spending the entire weekend with Ben. Alone.”

  We were in the mausoleum, sitting on the bench together, when he suddenly stood up. “I almost forgot. I have something I wanted to show you.” He crossed over to his boxes, reached into one of them, and pulled out a tiny acid-washed blue-jean backpack.

  “Classy,” I said, raising one eyebrow.

  “I know, right? But I think you mean classic. This is vintage eighties style right here.” Unzipping the backpack, he came over and sat back down. “What’s even better, though, is what’s inside.” He pulled out a fistful of cassette tapes, and then produced a small, neon-pink tape player. “Portable.”

  “That is better.” I grinned at him. The sight he made with the bright pink, girly tape player in his hand was comical. “It’
s your color, too. Pink.”

  “Matches my eyes.” He held the player up and batted his eyelids.

  “You made another trip to the thrift store, huh?” I said. “What did you leave this time?”

  Caspian ducked his head and fiddled with the battery compartment. “I sort of, um, didn’t?” He looked up at me. “I don’t really have anything left, and there are only so many books a guy can read before he goes crazy. It’s not an iPod, but at least it’s something.”

  “I don’t think they’ll miss it. What songs did you get?”

  He held out one of the tapes. “Christmas Kids Sing the Blues,” I read. “Wow, that’s kind of an oxymoron.”

  He gave me a half smile and flipped through the remaining cassettes. “We also have… Grover and Me Sing-a-long, the Sheldon Brothers…”—he raised both eyebrows—“and… Debbie Gibson.”

  “Now that’s what I call an eclectic music mix.” I laughed.

  Caspian put one of the tapes into the player, adjusted the volume to low, and pushed play. “I’m open-minded.”

  A mariachi band started up.

  I wrinkled my nose at him. “Now we know what the Sheldon Brothers are.”

  He pushed stop and switched the tapes. An instant later soft piano and synthesizers came out of the tiny speakers. “Better than the mariachi band,” I said. A female voice started singing.

  Caspian tapped his foot along to the beat, and I gave him a skeptical look. “Really? You’re enjoying this?” He cocked his head to one side but didn’t say anything, while Debbie sang about silence speaking a thousand words. I raised an eyebrow at him.

  “Don’t you get it?” he said finally. “My silence is speaking a thousand words.”

  I rolled my eyes. “My silence is going to speak a thousand words too.”

  “Is your silence answering my silence?” he asked, a teasing glint in his eyes. “Because my silence is getting very suggestive right now.”

  I blushed and looked down at my hands. Will I ever get over this whole embarrassment thing around him? I sure hoped so.

  My phone beeped, and I took it out of my pocket, flipping it open in one fluid motion. Ben’s number was there, and instantly, guilt flooded me. I still hadn’t told Caspian about the trip.