As they reached the doors, Zoe pulled away; Caroline released her and grabbed the handles. The doors were locked. Caroline whirled, enraged.
“Let us out of here!” she cried.
“To go where?” Joya said, her voice carrying over the din of the room. “Back to the world you thought you knew? It doesn’t exist. You’ve been running for twenty years. It’s time to stand and face it.”
“Face what?” Caroline said, furious.
“The truth,” Josh told her. “Ours. And theirs.”
As he spoke, Josh moved toward her slowly, carefully; Caroline backed up like a trapped animal, eyes furtively searching for some means of escape. There was nowhere to go. And as suddenly as her rage had erupted, she seemed to wilt before them, as if some critical inner wall had turned to sand and crumbled against the press of an unforgiving tide. Caroline felt the entirety of her meticulously crafted normalcy collapse in the space of one fluttering heartbeat; she sagged and began to quietly sob, the raw pathos of unchained emotion welling up and out to touch them all.
They came to her then: Amy and Seth, Kevin and Josh forming a protective circle around her as Joya and the others watched. Zoe reached out to her mother; Caroline clung to her desperately.
“I’m so sorry,” Caroline whispered, hugging her.
“It’s okay,” Zoe said, returning the embrace. “It’s okay…”
But of course it wasn’t, and they all knew it. As they helped Caroline to a seat in the pews, Josh nodded to Joya, who had retrieved Justin’s hand and placed it carefully back in the casket. Caroline caught glimpse of it and shuddered.
“Is that really him?” she began. “How is that even possible?”
“Justin used the magick to cross over,” Josh explained. “But they tried to stop him, and something went wrong, and now here we are.”
“Who tried to stop him?” Seth asked.
“My family,” Josh replied bitterly, sounding both defiant and more than a little ashamed. “They’re trying to use the power, and the magick, for their own sick fucking reasons. Justin volunteered to try and get a message through…” Josh paused, weighing his next words. “And he wanted to see Mia…”
“Say what?” Seth said. They looked at him, stunned.
“But Mia is dead,” Caroline blurted. “She's been dead for twenty years…”
Josh looked at her and shook his head. And then proceeded to explain the tangled web fate had woven for them all.
21
Custis Manor. Underworld.
For Mia, it all happened in a heartbeat: one moment she was drugged and dying, falling backward into the mirror as Justin broke a chair over Simon's head. There was a jagged split second between, where her lover's face burned into her retinas like the image in an antique photograph. Then something grabbed her from behind, and she felt herself enveloped by cold, liquid dark. For one brief infinity's span, she existed in neither world. Then oblivion receded in a wash, leaving her afraid to move, afraid to even open her eyes. And she felt herself transported, carried bodily into a netherworld deep and dark, like a bad dream from which there was no awakening. Mia felt the last dregs of her strength drain away as the darkness swept over her.
And then, nothingness.
Mia groaned weakly.
Shhhhhh. A hand touched her forehead. She opened her eyes, saw that she lying in a tiny shack on a small wooden bed, ropes strung in lattice to a pegged frame, with a bare straw mattress. A man was kneeling before her on the earthen floor. His skin was the color of polished onyx. His dark features were sharp and regal, his eyes ice blue, at once piercing and infinitely kind.
Be still, the black man said as he stood and moved toward a small, rough-hewn table. He was thin but powerfully built, all sinew and lean muscle, wearing a loose white shirt and black breeches. His skin glowed in the light of the low hearth fire.
Mia shivered and brought a hand up to cover her eyes. There was a great puckering gash in the palm. It gaped bloodlessly. The skin was pale and papyrus thin. She held her hand up in horror; she could actually see firelight sparkling through it, as though the molecular substructure were breaking apart.
What's happening to me? she asked, terrified. She tried to sit up, fell back, trembling and weak. The black man returned with a small metal cup.
Drink, he said urgently, placing the vessel to her lips. The liquid was warm, with a coppery taint; and though there was a moment of repulsion, it quickly gave way to appetite.
Mia drained the cup, the liquid sluicing through her and carrying with it a feeling of strength, of wholeness. Her savior took the cup from her hands.
Sleep, he said.
It was some infinite time later that Mia came back to consciousness. Her mind felt somewhat clearer, her thoughts less dissembled. She looked around. A low fire burned in the hearth of the shack, its wan light making the shadows seem to pulse and writhe.
Mia sat up on the bed. There was a small and curtainless window behind her. She could make out a glimpse of angry sky, black veined with blood red. Mustering all her strength, she stood on the cold dirt floor and cautiously peered outside.
Oh my God, she gasped.
Custis Manor sprawled before her like a Boschian nightmare come to hideous life. The mansion squatted, dark and foreboding, mist clinging to its columns and stretching across its surface like tumorous ganglia. More tendrils of mist rose up and twisted into the sky like a pus-colored spike pinning the house to the earth. In the distance she could see phantom slaves stooping under the whips of demonic overseers. The moans of those who died under the lash were clearly audible, their suffering endless.
Mia heard a strange rumbling, mixed with the sounds of coarse, animal baying; as she watched, the spirits of those who had died trying to escape were run down by ghostly hounds that howled and savaged them. All seemed oblivious to anything outside their final, fatal patterns. Indeed, as she looked closer she saw deep, shadowy pits where their eyes should be.
A whirlwind howled in the distance, corkscrewing down from the roiling heavens. Coming closer.
Get back, a voice suddenly sounded behind her. Mia turned to see her benefactor emerging from the shadowed interior of the shack. As he pulled her back from the window, the storm blew past, bringing with it, and within it, the rumble of horses and the rattle of sabers, mixed with raging, inhuman cries. Mia watched in shock.
What are they? she asked.
Ghost riders, he replied. As they watched, phantoms of Confederate militia swirled and swarmed over rebelling slaves, murdering and being murdered in turn as the spirits fought their blind, eternal battle, locked in terrible, terminal embrace. The wind howled around and through them. And then, as quickly as it came, it was gone.
Mia trembled in the ensuing silence. Oh God, she whispered. I have to wake up now… please let me wake up…
I cannot, the man said. His voice was soft, genteel and cultured. It is a nightmare, but not a dream… He looked at her, a terrible sadness in his eyes.
Mia wavered, feeling suddenly dizzy. The mysterious black man helped her to the little bed, pulled a rough and threadbare woolen blanket up to cover her. As she lay back he regarded her curiously.
What is your name? he asked.
Mia, she replied.
I am Lucas, he said, a grim and strangely sad smile crossing his lips. Welcome to Underworld…
Mia visibly flinched. His words were shocking, but his every gesture was the soul of tenderness.
I don't understand, she confessed, trembling.
You will, he told her, then added: Rest now. You will need your strength.
Mia felt herself slipping away, back into the strange and heavy blackness. As her eyes fluttered, she saw him stand and gaze out the little window, and he murmured something else. She couldn’t quite make it out.
But she thought it was, And so will they…
Time passed strangely there, not so much in a straight line as in whirls and eddies. It was as if the plantation were caught in some stagnant continuum
, its inhabitants lost in the throes of a collective fever dream.
In the distance, the whirlwind would rage on its obscure course, revolving around its own vortex of death and despair. Mia saw the great barn burn in the distance, shrieks of agony filtering through the spectral roar as rebel slaves were roasted alive by marauding militia. The thin air would stink of scorched wood and blistered flesh. Then the maelstrom would sweep up and away again. And the vision would be gone.
They are trapped, Lucas explained. Forever chained to their fear and suffering.
Is that what we are? she asked, very much fearing the answer. Are we trapped? But Lucas shook his head.
Then why? Mia asked. Why are we in this terrible place? Anger and sadness flared in his eyes.
As long as they remain, he said, I cannot go. They must be freed.
But how? she asked.
Soon, he replied. When you are stronger…
Bit by bit, Lucas nursed her back to something like health. She was weak at first, lapsing into deep periods of unconsciousness in which she had terrifying visions of her family and friends: growing older, moving on, living lives without her… and of Justin, the look of terror on his face as he watched her disappear…
In the real world, her wounds would have been fatal. The deep slashes across her torso made breathing the thin and vaporous air difficult, the sensation only abating briefly after drinking from the cup Lucas always brought. Gradually, her strength returned.
The next time she awakened, her wounds had faded. The time after that, they were gone.
Your last moments in the Manor, Lucas said as she drank. What do you recall?
Mia didn’t know how to answer, or how to explain the drugs, the party, the chaos and carnage that ensued. So she answered in the most elemental way.
I remember pain, she said. And fear. She paused. And I remember the mirror…
Lucas nodded. Every mirror is a doorway, he explained. This is what the bruja teaches… this is how the magick works.
Bruja? she asked.
Sorceress, he explained. I learned the way of power through her, and I used it to save you, stealing you through in the moment before Death could claim you.
Mia thought of those last fearful moments. Am I alive or dead? she asked.
Both, he replied. And neither. We are body and soul in the spirit realm. But just as spirits are unseen inhabitants of the material world, we are unseen to them. They can sense your presence, but they will not be able to find you… He paused gravely. So long as you feed.
Something in the way he said the last word chilled her. Mia looked at the cup and felt a burning desire for more of the potion that sustained her.
What is this? she asked.
Lucas looked at her and produced a razor-sharp blade, then lifted his shirtsleeve. Before her eyes, he sliced open his arm, black blood flowing out in gleaming rivulets. As the cup filled, the incision sparkled and closed. She looked at his arm.
There was no wound.
Lucas held out the cup to her. Mia looked at him and began to violently retch.
No, she gasped. Oh no… She was horrified both at what she had consumed and at the realization that though her mind recoiled, her body craved more.
What have you done to me? she asked.
Lucas looked away and did not answer. But Mia saw the look in his eyes, and it frightened her.
It is a matter of survival, he explained. You need blood to hold your physical self together in the spirit realm. To keep from becoming trapped like the others.
Again he offered the cup to her. Mia took it, hands trembling, and drank. Repulsed at first. Then greedily.
As she finished, she threw the cup down in disgust and started to cry. Lucas picked it up.
I’m sorry, he told her.
If I feed on you, she asked bitterly, what do you feed on?
You don’t want to know, he said.
Lucas looked at her gravely, then away. When I first came here, I fed on the dark and slithering things in the swamp. Then I fed on… other things. He paused and stared out the little window, a shadow of revulsion passing over his dark features. And after a time, I did not have to feed at all.
He looked back. Mia met his gaze, her voice tremulous. I’m scared, she told him. I want to go home…
Lucas looked at her, his eyes deep and unnervingly clear.
So do they, he said.
22
Lucas led Mia through dark and murky woods to a spot on the far edge of the hellish grounds. Mia picked her way through the nightmare landscape carefully, her senses attenuated to the absolute strangeness of all she saw. The manor had receded to a distant and foreboding glow; the thickets of surrounding trees were spindly and ashen, their branches knitting together overhead like skeletal fingers. She dared not look for too long though, as when she did Lucas was quickly enfolded in shadow, making her feel entirely too alone. She moved faster, hastening to keep up.
Where are you taking me? she asked.
Shhhhh, he hushed her. You will see…
Lucas led her onward, then stopped and looked up. We’re here, he said. Mia followed his gaze and gasped.
A body was hanged and dangling overhead: a pathetic wasted stick figure twisting in the grip of rough hemp ropes. Its hands were gone, hacked off just above the wrists. Its skin was the color of leather and potash, covered in gray and crusted sores. Its limbs were shriveled and shrunken, the face sunken and grimacing. It looked dead, and in a just universe it would be.
But still it moved: weakly writhing, tormented. It was alive, if barely, and in pain beyond measure.
Oh God, Mia exclaimed. She stumbled backward and tripped, falling to the ground. As she got up she turned and saw others, spaced every few yards in either direction, as far as the eye could see.
Mia shuddered violently. Then she noticed that not all the clothing was period, and indeed some of it was astonishingly contemporary. And she realized: she wasn't the first person Lucas had brought body and soul to this place, and the others hadn't fared so well.
This is why you brought me here? she cried. To end up like them?
Before she could cry out again, Lucas grabbed her, one hand covering her mouth, the other forcing her to the ground, his weight pressing her down into the loamy earth. She started to thrash…
…and then she heard the rabid, snarling growls coming from the stand of trees just off to the left. She froze, looking up at Lucas, and saw his eyes go slit thin, scanning the tree line. The snarling grew louder. And suddenly, they were not alone.
There were two of them: squat, hideous creatures with bandy legs and monstrous gravid bellies, lurching through the underbrush, led by their beasts. They were pop-eyed and porcine, pocked skin giving way to thin wisps of hair speckling their scalps and shoulders like grease-fire victims. Their arms were long and knobby, ending in large-knuckled hands with grotesquely long fingers. Each carried a coiled bullwhip and a long pike. One carried a lantern, its green glow sickly bobbing.
The beasts that strained before them complemented their masters completely: hides blotched and scarred from countless battles. Huge jaws gaped from tiny skulls, exposing tongues that dripped with foam. Sharp and uneven teeth glinted beneath their red and lidless eyes.
The guards grunted and muttered. One hound snarled and leapt as it passed a hanging wraith in a Gatsby-era dress, snatching a stray leg in its maw like a demonic chew-toy. There was a sickening snap as the offending limb came off; the beast worried it like a fetched stick.
Mia and Lucas stayed down as the guards passed, stayed down until their lamp was but a tiny bobbing green light receding into the distance. Lucas released her and they stood.
Guardians, he explained. Servants of the Great Night, given wholly over to the darkness here.
Uh-huh, Mia said, and nodded as if he had just said the most reasonable thing in the world; she kept nodding as her legs went suddenly rubbery beneath her. Lucas caught her as she started to fall, and gently eased her do
wn. He kneeled before her.
You must understand, he implored her. Had I not taken you when I did, you would have been lost, your spirit forever in the Great Night’s grasp.
What about them? she murmured, indicating the lost and writhing victims hanging from the trees. Lucas looked away shamefully.
I cannot, he said quietly, his voice melding with the rustle of trees and twisting hemp. Not without revealing our presence. But every one of them knew the risks. And they went willingly.
Why? she asked bitterly. What could possibly be worth that?
Come. Lucas held out his hand. I'll show you.
The ghost of the slave shambled down the path leading to the wharf when Lucas grabbed him. At his touch, the shade began to thrash blindly. The phantom was both horrid and tragic: its face gaunt and grimacing, its eyes sunken, withered pits. Mia watched as Lucas pressed it to the ground and ripped the shade's shirt open, exposing its scarred, scrawny chest. Extending one finger, he drew a line down the center of the slave's breastbone, like a surgeon wielding a scalpel. The shade went instantly rigid. The line began to pulse, then to glow a dull and angry red. Parting the luminous fissure, Lucas stuck his hand deep into the body cavity, working his way inside.
The shade took a great gasping breath as twin sparks of light went off in its shriveled eye sockets. Its entire body went limp as Lucas pulled his hand out. There was no wound. No scar. Lucas slumped back, visibly spent from the psychic surgery.
What is your name? he asked.
T-Thomas, the shade replied in a voice as faint as the rustle of dry dead leaves. Thomas looked around, weak and confused. Where’m ah?
You're dead, Thomas, Lucas told him. I'm sorry.
The shade shivered; a teardrop the color of quicksilver trickled down its cheek. Ah wanna leave dis place, it whispered, terrified. Please lemme go…
Lucas took Thomas by the arm. You will, he said.
And though he spoke to the ghost, his gaze never left Mia's face.
And that was when she truly understood: it was an ethereal underground railroad, smuggling souls to freedom. Lucas looked at her. Can you help? he asked, then confessed. I cannot do it alone…
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