by Micol Ostow
It was the goddamn banging sound that woke me again—the boathouse door slamming away.
I turned toward my nightstand. 3:14.
Always 3:14. It was like a regular wake-up call.
Or, I guess, the call to my real-reality, I mean. It was getting harder—like even harder than usual—to tell the difference. The more time I spent at Amity, in Amity, the more it all ran together.
And the more it ran together, the less I minded.
I got up, moved toward the window, pressing my hand flat against the window and looked outside. From the river, this hazy mist drifted up. It made me think of smoke signals, like you’d read about in old Indian legends, you know?
Maybe someone was trying to send me a message.
The idea made me smile. And then the mist was moving, just wiggling its way along to the house. All crooked, like a beckoning finger.
It was creeping.
Toward me.
I felt the weight of Jules right behind me. “The mist,” I said. “It looks like a message.”
It is. Jules’s voice was thick. Are you afraid?
“No.”
Good, she said. Then let’s go.
I have something to show you.
I BLINKED, or maybe, like, looked away, just for a second, I mean, and then we were on the other side of that stone wall.
The red room. Being inside it was like coming home.
The proportions of the room were jerky and confusing; from one angle it was low and narrow, like a crawl space, but if I just turned an inch or two, the ceiling stretched, towering over me.
I reached out with both arms, brushing my fingertips along the walls. My nails caught on little trace markings, cave drawings or something, like a kind of proof, real primitive, that this place was really here. That I was here, in one reality or another.
The dirt was cold and crumbly underneath my bare feet. I flexed my toes, thinking about worms, you know, and other things that lived in the ground. I knew there were bones, bodies, lurking down there. Rolling around underneath me.
Waiting for me to find them.
This is where they were buried, Con, Jules said, Here.
It was like a curtain parted, right in front of me, so I could see exactly what she meant, what she—and the mist, and Amity, herself, what all of them—were trying to tell me:
Torn-up death shrouds, strings of chipped shells. Iron clamps, all rusted up and crusted over. I could smell it: disease, death. Older than anything. Older than forever.
This is where the massacre rained down.
Jules’s image floated next to me, sort of transparent. Her mouth didn’t open when she spoke, but I heard her perfect inside my head just the same.
This is where they hid for safety—
—Seeking out respite.
—Seeking out revenge.
You see?
I did.
I saw my father, and I saw myself, my hands slick, sticky, and stinking that bright, coppery blood smell. I knew right away that the blood on my hands was my father’s, not my own.
Jules pointed.
I saw:
The shovel. My shovel.
Dig. Jules was speaking for Amity now.
And I was acting for all of us.
Dig, she said again. There’s something buried here for you.
I GASPED, HACKED, AND SPUTTERED, and I was in my bedroom again, suddenly. I was bolt upright in bed, the sheets a sweaty mess at my ankles, the banging of the boathouse door sounding more like gunshots than ever.
I blinked and turned to the clock.
3:14.
Of course.
With one last angry crash, the banging outside stopped. I flinched, then laughed at myself in the darkness.
You imagined it all, Connor.
You’re losing it now. Just completely letting go, giving in to the voices in your head.
Digging something up in the red room? A crawl space between the walls? That’s not reality. You’re hallucinating. And that’s what crazy people do.
Monsters.
It was what the counselors would’ve said. But it was still damn near impossible to convince myself.
I wasn’t sure I wanted to convince myself.
But if I’d been inside the red room, if I’d used the shovel, then … where was whatever I dug up? I was alone, in my bedroom, just a normal guy in the normal, real world.
The reality and the waking dreams, they were bleeding together so much lately. It was confusing me, making me feel all blurry. Making me feel like I needed to do something strong, something powerful, just to snap myself back into place.
I reached to pull the sheets back up over myself.
My hands touched something cold and firm. Something metal.
I froze.
It was a shotgun.
In my bed. Next to me.
It was a shotgun, caked in dirt.
A crawl space between the walls. Digging something up. Something that Amity wanted for me to have.
It was crazy thinking, okay, yeah. It didn’t make sense.
But the gun was here. Cold, solid steel against my palm.
I wrapped one finger around the trigger.
And smiled.
DAY 18
IT WAS THE SOUND Of ABEL CRYING that woke me up. When I went downstairs to the kitchen, I found him in Mom’s lap, whimpering. Jules was standing over them, pressing an ice cube wrapped in a paper towel to his lip.
His swollen, bloody lip.
Jeez, there was a lot of blood, drying all in a clumpy beard along his chin. It looked kind of cool, honestly.
“What happened?” I asked, trying not to stare too hard at all of the blood.
“It’s nothing,” Mom said quickly. “Abel slipped.”
Jules rolled her eyes at me.
Slipped. Right. “Into Dad’s fist?”
“It was my fault for getting in the way,” Abel said, in the smallest, most little-boy voice he had. It got to me, just a little, which was kind of a surprise. “I didn’t mean to run into him. I was looking for Mommy.”
Mom smoothed her hand over Abel’s forehead. “It’s okay,” she said, in her mother-hen tone. “But I don’t know what you were so upset about.”
She looked up at Jules. “He came streaking into the bedroom like he’d seen the devil.”
Maybe he did, I thought.
From against Mom’s shirt, Abel sniffed. “I hate this place. There are bad things here hiding everywhere. I hear them at night.”
Mom shushed him. “Your father will be mad if he hears you saying stuff like that. There’s nothing bad here. Get that idea out of your head.”
He hiccupped, and Mom scooted him off her lap. “Let’s go rest for a little while,” she said and pulled him away. She flashed a last empty kind of look at Jules and me and then they were gone. Jules and I were alone.
“Pretty screwed up,” I said, after a beat.
“Well, yeah.” Jules sighed. She ran her fingers through her hair, then stretched her arms high above her head. “What the hell was he talking about, Con? I mean, really?”
“The kid’s six, Jules.” I stared at her, hard. “ ’Course he’s hearing ghosts in the corners. He lives with the freaking boogeyman, right? The kid knows from evil.”
He lives with the boogeyman.… And he lives with me.
At Amity.
Jules bit her lip. I could read my sister pretty well. Right then I had a feeling she was thinking about those squirrels, that shovel, all of the blood, and the mess.…
I had a feeling she was thinking about falling, getting pulled into the river that day.
She sighed again. “I just … well. Whatever karma is coming to bite Dad in the ass, I hope it gets here soon.”
I looked at her. “Right.”
But all I could think was Screw karma. I don’t need karma. Just an excuse to start things off.
And now I had one.
Just like all those years ago. Just like that time in the attic of the old h
ouse—
That excuse, it came from Jules.
Jules was the one who started it, way back when. Now I was ready to get moving, to take over. To finish the job.
It was time.
ANOTHER NIGHT, ANOTHER WAKING DREAM.
It was the scratching at my window that woke me.
I got up right away, really eager to see what the noise was. I mean, I know they say, Curiosity killed the cat, but …
I looked at the clock: 3:14. Of course.
The window was closed—not that it helped with the cold at all, but, whatever—so I unlatched it and slid it up so that I could look outside.
First, the sky was all clouded over. Like you couldn’t even see the stars, only fog.
And then.
Through the mist, I saw a glimmer.
No—two glimmers. Side by side.
Two glowing, red eyes.
Interesting.
I leaned forward, toward them, but the wind shifted. When I blinked again, the eyes—whoever, whatever they were—they were gone. Just vanished.
The eyes were gone. But something else was there for me.
When I turned around, Jules was waiting.
HER SKIN WAS GHOST-WHITE, and almost see-through. Her hair fell in tangles down her back.
And her shoulders …
Her shoulders …
Her shoulders were blood soaked.
“What happened?” I asked. My voice wasn’t totally right. There was so much blood, like a waterfall, all down her back.
There was an accident. Jules was matter-of-fact about it, doing that talking-inside-my-head thing that happened in these dead-of-night times lately.
“Who did this?” I asked.
You know. Blood bubbled in the corner of her mouth.
“But when? Where are we?” I was shaking now, could barely choke the words out. “Are you showing me the future? Is this what’s going to happen to you, Jules?”
Is it, Connor? Her voice was light and silvery. You know what we have to do, Connor. You know what you have to do. To stop him.
“Dad?” I sputtered. “Dad did this to you?”
He’s a demon.
Fury grabbed me by the throat. “Yeah.” He was a demon, no secret there.
You know what you have to do.
I knew: the shotgun. That’s what it was for.
“I can do it,” I said, my breath coming fast. “I think.”
It was a lie, though. I didn’t think. I knew. I knew all too well:
When it came to my father, I could. Of course I could.
I didn’t need karma. Just an excuse.
An excuse, and the shotgun.
And Amity.
NOW
DAY 20
RO’S IMMINENT ARRIVAL HAD A DIFFERENT EFFECT, a different tone, from the first time she’d come to visit. Before our house had been light and airy in anticipation, but now the mood at Amity had soured, frayed into a stale jumble as fractured and gray as my own thoughts. Luke was all but buried alive in the basement, and my mother seemed angrier at me for noticing this than concerned by its implications.
She was worried about the visit. She’d said so to my father the night before last, hissing in frustration behind their bedroom door.
Of course, sound carries in Amity.
“I don’t like it,” she snapped, the breaks in her words suggesting evening rituals: bedclothes being turned down, books being stacked on a nightstand, lamps switched on or off again. “Whatever Gwen’s worried about, it’s nothing she didn’t create for herself. She’s letting it happen. Letting her mind go. And bringing Ro here, it just validates all of the … imaginary fears, the delusions. It makes her worse.”
Another ominous beat.
“Maybe we should just send her back now. Laurel Valley will make the space for the right price. Maybe she needs it. She can’t go on like this, you know.”
(go away, crazy)
My throat closed, my vision narrowing to a pinprick. I couldn’t go on like this, true. But I was deathly afraid of how the end of this, of whatever this actually was, might reveal itself.
A muffled hum, my father protesting. A scattered handful of clarity: “Or, she could talk Gwen down. Sometimes Ro is good at that. They’re both so … strange. Unique, I mean. They see eye to eye.”
Also true.
“I’d rather they didn’t.” Mom’s voice was sharp as razor wire. “It’s not healthy.”
My pulse seemed to miss a beat. From across the hallway, an ornate sconce flared and popped, the bulb sizzling out, sending a hint of ash into the air.
The door to the shared bath swung closed with a clap and a rattle, and I shivered, turning.
Slowly, warily, I made my way to my bedroom. Aunt Ro would be back again, tomorrow. What happened beyond that, we’d have to see.
RO CARRIED A BAG AS SHE MOVED FROM HER CAR up the walk to the front door, a bulky linen tote that peeked out beneath her smaller woven purse. A flare of hope blossomed in my chest when I saw that bag, even as my mother sighed, breathing her warm resentment past me, over my shoulder.
Ro paused at the front door, her features tight. When she knocked, I saw more hesitation than I would have expected, than I would have hoped for.
I ran to open the door—my mother made no move to do so herself—and gave Ro a small, anxious smile. “You’re here.” I stepped aside and ushered her in, pretending not to see how overwhelmingly ill at ease she looked.
Pretending not to feel the same way myself.
“IT’S JUST RIDICULOUS.”
My mother took Ro’s bags from her and set them on the tall, marble-topped console table beside the front door. “You were here, what, three weeks ago? And you were supposed to stay over then, too. And you blew out so suddenly, no explanation. Then you and Gwen are off having secret conversations—and you can both thank me, by the way, that the phone’s back up and running. And now you come rushing out here, so dramatically. I just … I don’t know what to make of it.”
The set of her mouth said otherwise. She knew. She had formed her own opinion, and carved it out in stone. She simply wasn’t happy about what she thought she knew.
“I just wanted to see her, Mom.” Surely that explanation was innocent enough.
Mom ignored me, concentrating all of her energy on her sister. “We thought the move would be a fresh start.… We thought it would be good for Gwen.” She put her hands on her hips. “I just don’t understand.”
Ro flashed a glance over Mom’s shoulder at me.
To my mother, she said, “I know you don’t.”
AUNT RO ALLOWED HERSELF A GLASS OF WATER
(and, I thought, a moment to gain her bearings). We sat, tense and awkward, around the kitchen table.
“Hal went to pick up some food for an early dinner,” Mom said, her voice faltering slightly. “We thought barbecue. The oven’s been acting up a bit.”
We’d discovered the pilot light was unreliable, leaving us in constant danger of unwittingly filling the house with gas. Just another of Amity’s quirks.
Ro was quiet, noncommittal. I was reaching to pour myself more water when Murray’s sudden, insistent barking turned all of our attention outside, down toward the river.
Toward the boathouse.
Mom sighed. “That dog didn’t take to the move very well.”
“He’s high-strung,” I said, defensively. I could relate.
“Why don’t we go check on him?” Aunt Ro tilted her head at me. “I never did see the river the last time I was here.”
I swallowed.
“Okay. I’ll take you.”
THERE WAS A STILLNESS TO THE AIR OUTSIDE despite the way that Murray’s whining grated.
I made my way down the grassy slope barefoot, feeling dew squelch between my toes. Closer to the river, the grass was soggy and overgrown. Our feet sunk deeper and deeper with each step as we moved toward the shoreline.
Abruptly, Murray’s whining stopped. He caught sight of me at
the same time I did him, cocking his head in my direction and pawing insistently at the ground.
“What is it, boy?” I wiped the sheen of sweat from my upper lip. “What are you so upset ab—”
I saw.
IT WAS A BIRD, a heron, I thought, although I was no expert. Several feet long with a slim, pointed beak. Slender, willowy tree-branch legs. It must have been quite majestic once.
Before it was killed.
It had been killed, sometime recently from the looks of it. It lay on one side, talons jutting stiffly out, split open at the breastbone. Gore streaked its underside like a grotesque bib, twig-like bones peeking through the slippery mess. Its eyes were empty, bloody sockets, gazing blankly, screaming a silent accusation at me.
Murray pawed at it, sending it into a logroll downhill, trailing bright strings of viscera in its wake.
I raced to the river and vomited.
“WHAT ARE YOU DOING DOWN HERE?”
I was hunched by the edge of the river, Ro crouched beside me with a hand on my back, when we heard Luke’s voice from above. I wiped a line of spit from my chin, splashed some river water on my face, and straightened to find him staring at us.
I fought the urge to flinch. Had Luke killed the bird? Killed it … and torn it apart?
My stomach gurgled again. Looking into his face and finding nothing there but pure, sharp anger, I thought it seemed possible. Probable, even, though to what end I couldn’t say.
Best not to ask.
Luke shifted, regarding Ro. “Forgot you were coming.” He scowled at her.
“Oh?” She didn’t move to greet him. The heady, rotten-fruit smell of the bird lingered in the air.
“Murray was outside.” I pushed my hair out of my eyes self-consciously. “We came to get him. Ro hadn’t seen the river yet.”
Luke smirked. “Well, here it is.” He swept his arm toward the Concord, and the puddle of pale froth that was my vomit. Shame licked at my cheeks.
“And here he is.” He pointed to Murray, who now cowered at Ro’s side, giving my brother a wide berth. “Take him away, would you? He’s in the way.”
