by Natasha Deen
“I think he’s trying leave you,” I said, rising to my feet. A quick look in Serge’s direction confirmed what I knew. They’d gone back to one form.
Serge struggled to his feet, wiped the blood from his face and ran to help.
Behind him, Craig followed.
“We are family. We don’t leave our own.” They melted into each other, formed a transparent glob with Kent at the centre, struggling for air and escape.
I grabbed a branch burning with the psychic fire and plunged it into the creature.
It screeched and shrieked as I shoved it deeper and twisted a ragged opening big enough to pull Kent out.
He coughed and spat the sticky phlegm of the legion. “As long as I’m here, Craig can’t come through. I melded The Family’s energy with mine, and I made sure it’s not reversible. If Craig hurts them, he hurts me.”
“It’s time, Maggie,” said Craig. “You had your chance—”
“Just a second!” Serge had died at his lowest point but had found redemption. If Kent died like this, there would be no redemption, there would be no chance for him to save himself. “Are you saying there’s no way to separate you?” I glanced over to the legion and Serge who held them at bay with the psychic fire.
He started to shake his head, then stopped. “There is one way.”
“What is it?”
“I have to die first.” He crawled over to the fire, took a torch, and held it out. “End me, you end their connection to me.”
“But you die—re-die—at your lowest point. That—”
“It’s too late for me,” he said, “but not for Rori. I can’t let her die. Not for my mom, either. Not for who I thought I could be.”
I wasn’t sure I could do it—I was supposed to cross him over. But there was a kid’s life on the line. I reached for the stick.
“How did it all go wrong?” The torch in his hand trembled but he didn’t let it go. “Save Rori. You’ll find her in the glades, on the northeast side of the forest. Tell her I’m sorry. Tell my mom I tried to be good—” He took the torch, ran it into his stomach, and set himself on fire.
Once Kent had killed himself, The Family couldn’t stand against Craig. A blur of fire and screams, them breaking into their individual souls and scaling him like demonic Lilliputians, him heating his skin, turning his scales to knives and slicing them into jagged, bloody pieces, then tossing a net over them, trapping them, and disappearing.
Serge, and I sped to the open field where Kent said we’d find Rori.
He texted Nancy and Nell.
I spent the entire drive hoping Rori would be okay and trying get the memory of Kent, on fire and screaming in agony, out of my head.
I parked the car and we took off running. Serge saw her first. She sat in the glow of a supernatural light, a circle of emerald grass under her, her red coat the only other colour amidst the background of hazy sky and snow. Her hand rested on the back of a large grey wolf.
“Hey Rori,” I said, my breath puffing into white clouds. “I see you found a friend.”
She turned. “Hey Maggie.” Her breath fogged the air. “Isn’t she nice? Mom and Dad won’t let me have a dog. I’m calling her Sabrina.”
The wolf watched me, panted quietly.
“She’s beautiful.” Serge sat beside the little girl and rubbed Sabrina’s head. “Has she been keeping you company?”
Rori nodded. “She knew I was cold and alone. She came and kept me company. I feel warm ’cause she’s here. She said the wolves always come to the lost. They protect us from anything that might try to hurt us. She’s a good girl, isn’t she?”
“The best.”
“I love her.”
I feel the same way about my dog.” Sitting down, I scratched Sabrina under the chin. “They’re loyal and protective.”
“Uh-huh.” Rori moved closer to the wolf. “I’m going to love her forever.”
Sabrina’s muzzle parted in a smile.
“I’m glad she’s here to keep you company. Your mom and dad are really worried about you,” I said. “You need to come home with us.”
Rori shook her head. “I like it here. It’s quiet.”
“It’s cold here,” said Serge.
“Out there it is. But it’s warm here with Sabrina. If I go home, I can’t stay with her.”
“Maybe she’ll come visit,” said Serge.
“You know that’s not true.” Rori hugged the wolf close. “I won’t get to see her if I go home. I like her. I want to take care of her. She wants to take care of me, too.”
“Rori—”
She shook her head. “It’s quiet here.”
I watched the wolf. The cold was seeping into my clothes, leaving my jeans wet, and time was running out.
“It’ll get quiet at home.”
The little girl shook her head, again. “It’ll be a bad quiet. I feel it.”
“Rori, you’re a smart kid,” said Serge, “but you’re still just a kid. And I don’t mean that in a bad way—”
“I know—”
“—you need your mom and dad.” Serge raised her hands in a pleading motion. “You need to go home.”
“They don’t need me.”
“Of course they do,” I said. “Their lives won’t be the same without you.”
“They fight all the time. They don’t see me.” Rori hugged the wolf. “Not like Sabrina. She sees me.”
The wolf rose, circled Rori, then lay down.
“See?” asked Rori. “She wants me to stay with her.”
“Are you sure about this?” I asked. “You’re still here—”
“I was waiting.” Rori stopped talking as Nell ran our way. “I knew you’d call her. I didn’t want to go without saying goodbye.”
Nell screamed Rori’s name, again and again. She slid toward us, collapsed into the snow, grabbed the little girl’s body and held it tight. “I can’t feel her pulse! No! Rori!”
“It’s too late, anyway.” Rori watched Nell holding her body.
Serge transcribed her words for Nell.
Nell dropped her phone but kept clinging to Rori’s body. “Please don’t. Give me another chance to help you—”
Rori got to her feet. “You know that.” She lifted her face as the steady beat of wings came our way.
A ferrier—Rori’s ferrier—touched down. In her supernatural form, she looked like Craig, except bigger and darker.
Rori smiled up at her. “I’m ready.”
The little girl wrapped her arms around Nell’s neck.
“She’s not supernatural,” I said to the ferrier. “She can’t tell what Rori’s doing.”
The ferrier put her hand on Rori’s shoulder. White light surrounded her spirit and turned her visible to Nell.
When Nell realized the spirit of Rori was hugging her, she let the little girl’s corpse slip gently to the ground. Sobbing, she threw her arms around Rori’s spirit. “Please, Rori. I love you—”
“I love you too, Nellie.”
“I can make it better.”
Rori pulled away. “No you can’t. Where I’m going is all better. It’s going to be quiet and sunny. There’s peace there, Nelly.”
“I know but —”
Rori turned to me. “Tell her, Maggie. Tell her all the things you see when you’re on this side.”
“But I won’t see you, ever again,” said Nell.
Rori hugged her. “But you’ll feel me all the time because I’ll think of you all the time.”
Nell cried and tightened her hold.
Rori gently pried herself free, took the ferrier’s hand, and called Sabrina to her.
A rectangular portal opened. The love and peace of the other side surrounded us in a halo. A bright light enveloped the group and they disappeared from this plane.
/>
I stood off to the side, holding Nell, and watching as Nancy led Mr. Pierson—his hands handcuffed—and Mrs. Pierson to the location of Rori’s body. Mrs. Pierson fell to her knees beside her daughter, cradled her, and keened her name.
The yearning, the loss, and the heartache in her voice made my hair stand on end, gave me so many goosebumps my skin hurt.
Mrs. Pierson’s voice stabbed my heart and in the rising octave of her mourning, I had a flash of memory, a shocked moment of understanding, and I knew it was something I could never tell Dad. The Voice was my mother.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Craig drove us home in Nell’s car and the four of us sat in the silent interior.
“It sucks,” Nell spoke. “No matter how much I try to live in the love Rori’s now living in, my heart’s been blown apart.”
“I’d say give it time,” said Craig, “but even now, I have cases I can’t let go of.”
“I don’t know that I’ll be able to let go of this, either,” I said. “I was supposed to transition Kent and not only did I fail, but a little girl died because of me.”
“That’s not on you, that’s on Kent.” Serge spoke up from the backseat. “But I didn’t help—I was supposed to be your partner in helping him cross over.”
“No one failed,” said Craig. “Ghosts have autonomy, the same way the living do. Decisions were made and this was the outcome. Ultimately, Kent decided his fate. So did Rori. If you love her—” he made eye contact with Nell via the rearview mirror. “You have to respect the decision she made.”
“But she was just a kid!”
“A smart kid who saw both sides and made her choice,” he said. “And we all have to live with it.”
The car went quiet, again. Streetlights cast their shadow on the interior in an alternating pattern of light and dark. After a few minutes, I told them about The Voice and my theory.
“Are you sure?” Nell asked.
I nodded. “I didn’t realize it until I heard Mrs. Pierson wailing for Rori. She sounded exactly like The Voice when it’s calling out to me.”
“I think you need to call back because she’s done some seriously psycho stuff with you.”
“It’s her fear and the different dimensions getting tangled,” said Craig. “Unless you have the power to communicate through the dimensions, trying to get a message from that side to this one is like a PC talking to Apple without the right software. Everything gets garbled. She’s calling out to you because she’s trying to warn you. She’s scared and by the time it manifests on this end—”
“It’s more violent than she intends,” I finished. “But how is that possible? Is she stuck somewhere or lost or is she some other kind of supernatural thing…”
Craig shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t get to access that kind of information.”
“Are you going to tell your dad?” asked Serge.
I shook my head.
“God, Maggie,” said Nell. “Seriously? You and your dad don’t keep secrets.”
“He carries a weight with her. When she left us, I think he hoped she left to find happiness. I can’t tell him she’s dead. You know my dad. He’ll start wondering how she died, and what if she died in a bad way? He’ll blame himself. It’s better for him to think she’s alive and happy.”
“Are you sure you can keep this from him?” asked Nell.
“It’s for his own good,” I said. “I can keep this secret. But I have to find out more,” I said. “I need to know what happened to my mother.”
“I’ll do everything I can to help,” promised Craig. “Though it might take a while.”
“What about Kent?” asked Nell. “Or Rori? Can you find out about them?”
“Time on this end and time on that end aren’t the same. I’ll ask, but it could take a long time before we find out anything.”
“What do you think they’ll do to Kent?” I asked.
“When he deals with his life,” said Craig, “it won’t just be the decisions he made in this one. It’ll be the decisions he made in his past lives, if there was any growth in this incarnation, why he made the decisions he did.”
“But he kidnapped a kid,” I said.
“But he sacrificed himself to save her,” said Craig, “and that will count for something. He made some terrible mistakes in his life, and he’ll be held responsible for them. But he’ll also be held responsible for the steps he took to try and fix those mistakes.”
“In the meantime,” said Nell, “he’s gone, Rori’s gone, and two families are decimated. Dead Falls is living up to its name a little too well.”
“What about you? How are you feeling?” I asked.
She shook her head, the tears fell. “I don’t understand why she had to die. I did everything I could, I did everything right—I even did the wrong thing to help her—”
“The lesson that sucks the most about living,” said Craig, “is sometimes you do your best, you give it everything, but everything falls apart and terrible things happen.” He looked over at me.
I nodded and squeezed his hand.
Serge turned to Craig. “How do you handle this? Don’t you get tired?”
“Sometimes, but I remind myself there’s hope and where’s there’s hope, there’s joy. And that’s the thing I hold on to. Amidst all the terrible things, there’s good.”
“What’s the good in this?” challenged Nell. “Dr. Pierson’s life is over, Kent’s dead. His parents hate each other even more. Mrs. Pierson’s probably going to find the end of her life at the bottom of a bottle. Rori will never know what it’s like to grow up.” Her voice cracked. “Where, Craig? Where is the good?”
“Here,” he said. He reached back, and she put her hand in his. “With us.”
It was all we had, but tonight, it was going to have to do. We continued down the quiet road.
