“I’m sorry,” I said. “I will call next time.”
“It’s okay, Ivy,” she said. “I know you will.”
“Yes,” I said, glad not to have to lie for once. “Anyway. Google. Translating. Fun.”
“I’ll do it!” she chirped. “It’s Russian. My grandmother spoke it. My mom’s grandmother. Before my mom died she wanted us to learn, and I still practice just in case.”
I didn’t want to ponder in case of what. “You really don’t mind?”
“No!” she trilled. “Speaking Russian with Gram was one of my favorite things to do back home. Our old home, not the mobile home we live in now. That one wasn’t on wheels.”
When I didn’t immediately hand over the journal she wilted a little. “I mean, I know it’s probably private and all. And everyone knows I can’t keep my mouth shut. I did a search on the internet about disorders that make you talk a lot, but I don’t think I have those, I think I just like to talk. I used to mostly talk to my parents, but now my dad has two jobs and he’s way too tired at night.”
I thought back to Doyle telling me I was going to have to trust somebody here in Darkhaven. He’d been talking about himself, but I held the book out to Betty. “I know you won’t tell anyone about this. There’s nothing in here that I don’t want you to see. It’s just a . . . storybook . . . that somebody illustrated.”
Betty’s smile powered back on like a Christmas tree. “I’ll meet you after your practice, in the library!” she practically shouted. Everyone in the hall turned to look at her, and she blushed and shuffled away.
I tried to stay away from Valerie while we ran laps, but Mr. Armitage paired us up for a relay race. She looked at me with her head tilted. “How’s Doyle?”
I bit my lip. That was a loaded question if ever there was one.
“He texted me and said he had the flu,” she said. “I know you live near him. Is he going to be in school tomorrow?”
Doyle had missed classes? That was news to me. I looked over my shoulder, back to where he usually waited for the last bus when I had practice. The parking lot was empty.
“I have no idea,” I said truthfully. “I haven’t seen him since the weekend.”
Mr. Armitage blew his whistle into my ear before Valerie could say anything else. “Rejoin us on planet Earth, Ivy!” he shouted. “Let’s get this show on the road.”
I had a terrible practice. I was slow, stumbling, and couldn’t manage to clear out my brain and just run like I usually could. I avoided everyone afterward and found Betty in the library. She was hunched over the book, a spare pencil shoved through her bun, and she shrieked when I touched her shoulder.
“Shhh!” the librarian hissed.
“Sorry!” we both hissed back.
“I’m almost done,” Betty said. “Give me ten more minutes, and I’ll have it worked out.” She traced her finger across the mirror-image drawing. “Not just one person wrote this. The first couple of pages are old. Like, gaslights and gramophones old.”
“Most stuff in my house is old,” I said. I sat down at a computer and logged on. I had decided one thing on the track—I was going to find out what happened to make my mother leave Darkhaven. Abusive boyfriend, my grandmother’s suicide, some sort of criminal trouble—not totally out of the question, knowing Mom—whatever it was, people didn’t just drop their entire life when they were pregnant and alone and run off to the other side of the country for no reason. Mom was a black box on that score, just like she’d been about everything, so I was going to have to be smarter than her.
I typed in Bloodgood + Darkhaven and got a bunch of news articles about the manor house and Simon giving to charity. Mom used to say that computerized records made things almost too easy—it was amazing what was public information if you searched a county’s archives. Property assessments, court documents . . . everything a phony psychic needed to milk every last cent out of her marks.
Knox County’s website wasn’t stellar as far as those things went, but I searched arrests, civil cases, births, and deaths, and after a moment I had a screen full of birth notifications and obituaries for Bloodgoods, going as far back as the 1820s. Nobody had been arrested recently—in fact, no Bloodgoods had made the news in a serious way since my great-grandfather had murdered the members of the Ramsey family. SIX SLAIN—ONLY SON LEFT ALIVE, the headline blared when I clicked through to the local paper’s online archive. Other than the press surrounding the murders and the inquiry—my great-grandfather had killed himself right after he’d finished with Doyle’s family—it was just marriage, birth, death for the last seventy-five years. To look at it from this angle, our family was positively boring.
I went back to the birth records. I found Simon and Mom, two years apart. I wasn’t there—I had no idea where I’d actually been born. Probably in the back of some kind of mass transit, like a crappy country song. I also found a tiny obit for my grandmother, practically a cut-and-paste job. Simone Ellen Bloodgood died Saturday of natural causes as an inmate of Mid-Coast Psychiatric Institute. I raised an eyebrow. Suicides were “natural causes” now? I guess if you had as much money as Simon you could whitewash anything unpleasant right out of the public record.
“Got it!” Betty exclaimed, scaring the hell out of me and getting us another murderous glare from the librarian. She spun the book around to that creepy drawing of the facing figures again. “It says ‘The Children of Cain shall walk upon the earth as men, though they are not men, and you may know them by the darkness of their brow, and the malice of their presence. They will wither land and boil sea, and all men will tremble before them.’”
I didn’t answer. I was transfixed by the next line on the screen, and Betty leaned across the table. “Ivy? Are you okay? I didn’t make you mad, did I? I have no idea what this means but it’s spooky. I don’t think whoever wrote this was totally sane. This drawing is kind of creeping me out, honestly—”
“Betty, shut up!” I snapped. She drew back, her mouth shutting, and bowed her head. “Sorry!” I whisper-shouted. “I’m sorry. Really.” I looked back at the county records for my grandmother. The obituary in the paper was plain, but the actual official birth record for Simone Bloodgood simply read Born 1934. There was no death date. Fingers shaking, I clicked over to death records and typed her name in. 0 RESULTS blinked up on the screen. It could be a mistake, but I doubted it—and if she’d died in 2002 like Simon stated, her death certificate would definitely be in the computerized records.
“I need to go,” I told Betty, grabbing the book. “Thank you, and I’m sorry again. I’m not mad at you.”
The book of Mary Anne’s wasn’t what I should have been focusing on. Rather than being excited I’d uncovered someone babbling about monsters that looked like men, I should have looked at what was right in front of me. If I’d done that, I might have realized days ago that my grandmother was still alive.
I spent the entire boat ride home deciding whether to tell Simon what I’d found. We hadn’t really talked since I’d had my episode in the cellar and asked him to make me a doctor’s appointment. Confronting him with this wasn’t going to make him anything but pissed off at my snooping. I didn’t know my grandmother, and I had no idea what her relationship was with Simon. For all I knew, he didn’t know she was alive and hadn’t been lying to me at all. Mental patients who’d been institutionalized for decades didn’t usually have the wherewithal to fake their own deaths, but who knew what she was capable of?
She could be dead, and an overworked county employee could have never filed a death certificate. She could be in witness protection for all I knew. It didn’t have to mean Simon was hiding anything. It didn’t have to mean he’d been lying to me.
But it could.
I called Doyle the second I got in the door. His phone rang and rang, and nobody picked up, not even a machine. I huffed as I hung up. Now that I was theoretically rich, I really needed to get a cell phone.
I decided to go down to the beach, just to move and get out of the stu
ffy air and the press of my own thoughts. I stopped by the lighthouse before I descended the steps, looking up at the glassy, cracked panes staring out sightlessly at the sea. Had it really only been five days ago that Doyle had saved my life up there? Only five days since I’d spun completely out of control?
Something white tucked into the rusted lighthouse door caught my eye. It fluttered, and the plastic bag protecting it from the salt spray ripped as I pulled it free.
The graveyard at 9. Light a candle in the mausoleum if you’re there.
I shoved the note deep inside my coat pocket. After the nightmares I’d had, the last thing I wanted to do was spend any more time near dead people, but if Doyle needed me, then it was sort of the least I could do.
After a long walk around the grounds I ate dinner, by myself again. I hoped that Mrs. MacLeod’s supply of awful, bland stews wouldn’t run out before spring came because they were about the only food in the fridge on any given day.
I heard Mrs. MacLeod’s laptop going strong, canned yelling and shooting from some Netflix show drifting into the hall. Simon’s office and his room were dark. Wherever he was, it wasn’t here, and that was the best possible place he could be as far as I was concerned.
I grabbed my coat and a flashlight from the hooks by the kitchen door and headed for the graveyard.
It wasn’t just the dreams that made the graveyard the last place I wanted to be—the temperature went through the floor on the island as soon as the sun went down, and wind snatched my hair out of its braid, cutting through my jacket until my hands shook so hard I could barely hold my flashlight.
I avoided looking at the spot where my mother was buried. I didn’t need to see the cement block where a headstone would sit once one had been carved, the still-fresh earth frozen in stubbly humps of dead grass and shovel marks.
The Bloodgood family mausoleum was downright ornate, for a graveyard no one but the rest of the family would ever see. The iron mesh in the door was twisted into a rose motif that mimicked the real ones gathered around the foundation. The inside was tiny, just a stone bench, recessed spots for five coffins, and a cross carved in relief high on the wall.
I found a waterproof box of matches, a moldy Bible, and a water-stained map of the cemetery plots under the little altar, and lit one of the mostly melted, yellowed candle stumps hanging out in the indentations on top. I turned off my flashlight and waited, until I got twitchy not being able to see who was coming up the hill. Rule number one of a successful life on the lam: always be able to see them coming before they see you. I went out and sat on the steps, shivering until I saw a dark-haired figure approaching in the moonlight.
Doyle stepped through the gate, its rusty hinges screeching like some kind of night creature. “I heard you had the flu,” I called, but I felt the smile drop off my face as he got closer. Doyle had gotten the crap beaten out of him. His lip was split and swollen, and there was a cut on his cheekbone, angry and red like it had been inflicted by a rusty nail. His left eye had a crescent moon of blue-black riding under it.
“Doyle . . .” I trailed off. He hunched his shoulders and waved me off.
“Don’t worry about it.”
Before I could stop myself, I reached up to touch the cut on his cheek. He hissed and bared his teeth.
“What happened?” I said.
He shrugged, kicking a hole in the grass with his boot. “Dad got pissed that I took out his boat without asking.”
I could have climbed up on the lighthouse all over again, and this time actually thrown myself off. I knew all too well the burning that churns deep in your stomach when somebody has smacked the crap out of you and you still have to look other people in the eye. Doyle had gotten hurt trying to help me. His dad was a bastard, and it was my fault Doyle had gotten the brunt of it. I gently rested my palm against his cheek again, and he didn’t pull away. “Does it hurt?”
He grunted. “I really don’t want to talk about it.”
I started to say something dumb, like he didn’t deserve it, people who hit their kids because they couldn’t hit what they were really mad at were scumbags, but I stopped myself. Doyle knew all that. I knew all of it. It hadn’t stopped Mr. Ramsey, and it sure as hell hadn’t stopped my mother.
I dropped my hand down and knotted my fingers with his. “I’m sorry.”
“I’m not,” he snapped. “It’s not like he can hit that hard. He’s an old man.”
I’d seen Doyle’s dad, and while he wasn’t a teenager, he was built more like an aging pro wrestler than your average middle-aged dad body. “I’m glad you came,” I said. “Truth, I had a bad shock today, and I can’t tell anyone about it. Plus, you helped me, and now your face is bloody, and I feel like I’m going to be sick.”
Doyle brushed my damp hair off my forehead. “I want to be the person you call, Ivy. No matter what happens after.”
“My grandmother is alive,” I blurted. “I mean, I’m pretty sure, I think Simon . . .” I dropped my head and inhaled, really not wanting to say the next words. “I think Simon might have known she didn’t die and lied about it.”
“No might about it,” Doyle growled, and then flinched when I dropped his hand. “I told you the guy was shady, Ivy. I warned you. You can’t believe what he tells you.”
“I could live without your gloating,” I said. “Simon hasn’t done anything except welcome me and treat me well. Forgive me if I don’t instantly suspect every single person in my immediate vicinity is up to no good.” I had, just a few short months ago. But a lot had changed since then. I felt a heavy knot in my stomach. I’d actually gotten a little used to trusting that not everyone was out to screw me, which made this potential betrayal sting even more.
Maybe Simon wasn’t lying. Maybe Doyle was just biased and I was just panicking.
But there was uncertainty now, tainting the trust I’d extended to him, and it made me feel sick. If I didn’t at least wonder about Simon’s level of honesty, I’d be gullible, and that was the one thing I’d never, ever been.
“He’s fine now,” Doyle grumbled. “But it wasn’t always like that. My dad has known Simon since Simon was a little kid. And Dad is a bastard, but he’s not a liar. He said that Simon used to scare him. Dad said he was a bad seed.”
The thought of my rail-skinny, five-foot-ten and balding uncle scaring somebody with both the temperament and size of Mr. Ramsey did give me a pause. I had seen Simon lose it that one time. That had sure as hell been scary when it was happening.
Then again, Mr. Ramsey was a dick who beat his kid, so why should I take his word for anything?
“Betty translated some pages from Mary Anne’s book,” I said, deciding the safest thing to do until I had this straight in my own head was change the subject. Doyle I trusted, but I didn’t trust his family, and if he let it slip there was trouble between Simon and me, I was genuinely terrified of what they might do if they suspected anything about the bloody shirt, what I might have done to Neil Ramsey, my mental illness, any of it. This situation was the kind that ended with bodies buried in shallow graves and true-crime shows covering the story for years.
“She can be annoying in a whole second language? God help us,” Doyle said.
I shot him a glare. “Betty’s not nearly as annoying as half the bumpkins in that school, and you know it.” I sighed. “Anyway, the journal is all just ranting about children of Cain and some tent-preacher crap about demons in the guise of men, so that was a totally useless crime you committed, sorry to say.”
“Wait.” Doyle frowned. “Children of Cain isn’t crap.”
I felt a cold tendril of unease worm its way up my throat. I could already tell this was going to be something I didn’t want to hear. “Oh?”
“Well, not in the same way the Bloodgood gold and Bigfoot are crap, anyway,” he said.
“The cave full of gold,” I said. “Right. I think that’ll be mine on my eighteenth birthday. And my very own pet Bigfoot too.”
“Jealous!” Doy
le said, hissing in pain when he smiled. “My family rented some land to the Children in the eighties, I think. They were some kinda hippie commune, and all they did was drop acid and howl at the moon. My dad got into it with a couple of the guys once. ’Course, my dad gets into it with everyone eventually.”
“They were here,” I said, feeling my mouth open and cold air worm its way down my throat. “Here on the island.”
“Yeah.” Doyle shrugged. “I mean, back then, everyone who was cool was in some kinda cult, right? They believed some real weird shit. My brothers and I went up there to the old campsite once when I was like thirteen with a Ouija board and some whiskey, but we didn’t conjure up anything except a hangover.”
“Your family let a cult move onto the island?” I said, feeling my eyebrows trying to crawl up into my hair.
“Listen, for real, they were just stoners who read a few too many tarot cards,” Doyle said.
“What did they believe in?” I said. “How many of them were there?” My mind and my heart were both racing. If a cult had taken up residence on the island, a member of said cult would be a strong candidate for “the devil” Mary Anne had been ranting about.
“I don’t know,” Doyle said. “It all happened way before I was born and my dad and uncles were also pretty stoned for most of the eighties and nineties, so they don’t exactly have a lot of detailed memories. All I know is they were a real thing—real enough to pay rent for the land to my dad.”
“Did they live here a long time?” I said.
Doyle shrugged. “No clue. They left all their stuff, though, when they went. My dad and my uncles still talk about the radio and the guitars they snagged. Plus one guy had this real sweet leather jacket that got my uncle Matt a ‘freight train’s worth of tail.’ That’s a quote, by the way. Uncle Matt is a dickhead.”
I felt a swell of nausea at the memory of my dream. It had seemed so real, but it wasn’t. Doyle was telling ghost stories, and I was falling for it. “The story in the book you stole was a lot older than Led Zeppelin and LSD,” I said. “Like, gaslights and carriages. I’m thinking your dumb-ass cult was just copying something way before their time.”
Dreaming Darkly Page 15
