But when he handed it to her, she just held it limply in her hand—looking at it like she’d never operated a phone before. It fell to the ground. Her arms were shaking, like she was starving and weak, or didn’t have complete control over her muscles.
“I’m supposed to call her whenever I hear them,” she said, blushing deeply. A single tear ran down the side of her face, leaving a pale rivulet in the dirt. “They’re so loud. They’re laughing. They’re—”
“Who?” he said, grabbing his phone out of the dirt.
“The Furies.” She looked at him matter-of-factly. “I can hear them. It’s getting worse. Henry was just candy to them. That’s what they said. Just easy. Easy, easy, easy. Easy prey.” She spoke evenly—like they were talking about the weather—but her words were totally out-there. JD was completely mystified.
He stared into her eyes then for the first time, feeling a current run up his spine, raising all the short hairs on the back of his neck. The Furies. Those words again. He didn’t know what to say. “Listen, do you need me to make the call for you? Who’s Henry? Do you want to call Henry?”
“We can’t call him,” the girl said, suddenly desperate and shaking violently. “He’s dead. . . . Dead, dead, dead, dead—”
“Look, just hold on, okay?” JD punched 911 into his phone, praying the signal would be strong enough to connect.
“They’re just waiting for the next one. The next mistake. They’re everywhere. They’re watching.” He could hear a hysterical tremor in the back of her voice. She covered her ears and shook her head violently.
“It’s going to be okay,” he said. Shit. His phone call wasn’t connecting. Come on, come on. He could run to the road and try calling from there, but he didn’t want to leave her.
All of a sudden, female voices shot across the grounds, loud and jarring. “Lucy! Lucy!”
It took a moment for JD to realize that the voices were coming from the little cemetery road, where a sedan had come screeching to a halt. Two figures got out of the car, leaving the engine running as they came toward JD and the girl. As they got nearer, JD was shocked to see Skylar McVoy and the older woman who had accompanied her to Drea’s memorial service.
Meanwhile, the girl—Lucy, apparently—had calmed down. Her eyes were dull and her limbs now hung at her side. “She wants out,” she muttered to JD under her breath. “The others want blood, but she wants out.”
The gray-haired woman immediately went to Lucy and wrapped a blanket around her shoulders. “Sweetie. Are you okay? We were so worried. . . . ”
“I’m sorry, Aunt Nora. I had another episode. I got . . . confused.”
The woman nodded as if this was a familiar routine. “Let’s just go home, then.”
“Aunt Nora—” Skylar started to say. But she cut herself off when she saw JD staring at her. She just stood there, motionless, her eyes veering from JD to the two women and back. She looked down at herself; she was wearing flip-flops and pajama pants.
“We realized she was missing at five this morning. . . . ”
“Oh,” JD offered, not knowing what else to say. Clearly, Skylar had been hauled out of bed. He opened and closed his mouth several times. None of the questions in his brain were able to make it to his mouth. The older woman, Aunt Nora, began to shepherd Lucy toward their car.
“Thank you so much for finding her,” Nora said with a pasted-on polite expression. “We’re so sorry. She’s not well.”
“I’m sorry if I scared her,” JD offered, wanting to help. “I didn’t know what to do. . . . ”
The woman gave him a warm, sad smile. “She’ll be fine. This just happens every so often. She’s still recovering.” She turned and began to walk away.
He saw that Skylar was about to follow her. “Wait,” he croaked. He had to say something.
He came up to her and tried to meet her eyes. “She said . . . ” He licked his lips nervously. “I’m not sure if it matters. . . . ”
“What?” Skylar refused to look at him. Even though she kept her head down, so her hair swung forward, he could see her scarred cheeks were flaming red.
“She was talking about something—or some people—called the Furies,” he said. “She sounded pretty freaked out.”
The word seemed to jolt Skylar back to awareness. She stiffened and raised her face, which was transformed into a glare. “Forget it,” she snapped. “She’s out of her mind. Brain-damaged. Broken. Forget everything you heard.”
“Who is she?” JD asked helplessly. There was a pause, in which every one of his senses seemed to be at high alert. Blood pumped around his joints and insects hummed in the woods that bordered the graveyard.
“She’s my sister,” Skylar spat, before spinning around and stalking off into the fog.
* * *
You can’t call him. He’s dead.
JD knew one dead Henry, though it took him a little while to remember who he was. Henry Landon, Ascension High School’s handsome, smart, deceased English teacher.
Henry was just candy to them. Easy prey.
And hadn’t Skylar McVoy been the one to find Henry Landon’s half-frozen body in the reeds deep within the Haunted Woods?
The Furies. I can hear them. They’re laughing.
JD checked the clock in his car. He’d already missed first period. Why not go crazy and skip second period too? He pressed on the gas and made a U-turn, feeling something like lightness in his chest as he drove out toward the Behemoth. He turned up the volume on WMPG, the Portland radio station he loved. He felt surprisingly free, not being where he was supposed to be. A light rain began to tap against his windshield as he drove.
Something was happening, something strange. And JD wanted to understand what it was.
Easy prey . . .
For there to be prey, there had to be a predator. JD recalled how Ty had referred to Ascension’s recent deaths as murders. At the time, he’d written it off as bad word choice, but maybe it wasn’t a coincidence. Was the spate of recent deaths really just bad luck?
Or was there something more sinister going on?
Once he’d parked and locked his car, JD set off into the woods. He was pretty sure he knew where he was going—past the charred spot where AHS kids held their bonfire parties, past the odd clearing with the brown, scratchy grasses just on the edge of the lake. He knew the chances he’d find any indication of the exact spot where Landon had died—or of what had killed him—were next-to-none. The police had been involved. A body didn’t get hauled out of a pond every day. And Landon’s body was discovered weeks ago—he wasn’t about to find a preserved footprint in the mud or something.
Still, he kept walking, compelled by something he couldn’t name: a drumming sense of unease, a foreboding flickering at the edges of his consciousness. A sense that he was being given clues to a puzzle he was barely even aware of. A light spring mist was falling from the sky, hovering in slow motion before sliding onto the leaves and bark and roots. The soft shhhhh of rustling branches mixed with drizzle was all around him, creating a veil of sound into which he walked deeper. He trudged through the forest, sidestepping muddy patches and stopping occasionally to break off a fresh branch—like Hansel with his bread crumbs, JD wanted to be sure he could find his way out.
The ground grew spongier and JD knew he was getting close to the small pond tucked into the trees. The drizzle turned to full-on rain. There it was. Surrounded by short reeds and cattails and bushes that would be rainforestlike in less than a month. He took a few steps nearer, wondering where exactly Mr. Landon’s body had been found. Squish. Was this where he’d died? Squish. Was this?
Was this where Henry Landon had been marked as easy prey?
A bird called from the trees, a harsh, mocking cry. JD had the sense that he was very out of place. He looked behind him and squinted into the trees up ahead. Raindrops and fog settled on his glasses, obscuring his view.
Something glinted in the mud. Right there, just past that rock. JD squatte
d down, thrusting his hand into the wet dirt and pulling out a gold pendant.
His fingers went stiff. It was a snake charm, similar to the pin Drea had always worn.
They’re everywhere. They’re always watching.
A delicate chain dangled from the pendant. It was broken, like it had been ripped off instead of removed deliberately. He held it in his hand and ran his thumb over its engraving. The snake’s scales were intricate.
He’d seen Em kill a snake in the cemetery. There had been a snake carved into the hilt of Ty’s knife.
His glasses slipped down his nose. His sweater was heavy with moisture. His shoes were soaked and the lake looked gray and angry. Suddenly all the nature around him seemed tinged with malice. Spring was a time of growth and chirping and flowers, but here it seemed darker. More parasitic, creeping, clinging. He felt as though the muddy ground he stood on were sinking—it let off a faint hissing sound. Sinister. He had the sudden sense that if he stayed too long in this spot, he might never get out.
CHAPTER TEN
On Friday afternoon, Em dialed Skylar’s number as soon as she got home from school. It was still light out, but barely. “Is your aunt back yet?” Em said.
“She got back this morning,” Skylar replied. She sounded exhausted. Em thought about reminding Skylar she’d promised to call the second her aunt returned, but decided against it. “Do you want me there when you talk to her?”
“Yes, yes, absolutely,” Em said. “She won’t talk to me otherwise. I’ll come right over.”
“Don’t come here,” Skylar responded quickly. “We’re, ah, doing some renovations and everything is a mess. Meet me at the Connor Greenhouse—do you know where that is, in the nature preserve off Rambling Brook Road? My aunt volunteers there some evenings.”
Em did know where it was—she’d driven by it a few times on her way to and from Drea’s house. She confirmed and hung up; as she crammed her feet into her muddy boots and threw on a light jean jacket, she could feel her blood buzzing in her veins.
She was getting closer to the truth—she knew it.
Nora had to have some answers. The picture of her with Hannah and Edie meant something—it had to.
The time passed in a blur as Em waited for Nora’s return. She’d exchanged a few random texts with Crow, but his normally permissive parents were freaked out by his recent brush with the law—his court date was coming up in a couple of weeks—and were keeping him on house arrest. And on some level, she was relieved, because it meant someone was watching him. She hadn’t really realized how worried about him she was, until now.
Still. She’d been at a complete standstill for the past twenty-four hours, and every day she could feel the darkness, the anger, the evil, surging more powerfully in her veins. Her skin felt tight and ill-fitting, like she was on the brink of shedding it for good.
But no. She wouldn’t let that happen. She couldn’t give in to the transformation. She had to stop it somehow. She had to save herself.
* * *
It was almost five by the time Em pulled up at the greenhouse, which sat glowing yellow-green against a dusky sky at the end of a winding driveway, just past Drea’s neighborhood. The preserve encompassed marshy fields and a small arboretum, all of it pulsing with new life. As Em got out of her car and walked toward the glass-domed structure, her shoes sucked in the mud. It had been a wet spring.
The rusty door creaked open to reveal a warm room, abundant with lush greenery and vibrant flowers. Had she been there under different circumstances, Em might have marveled at the beauty. But tonight, she felt claustrophobic. The air seemed heavy and close, like she was stepping into an open mouth. Moisture clutched at her bare skin.
There was a round wooden table in the middle of the greenhouse, paint peeling off it like snakeskin, and Skylar was sitting there with two other women. As Em got closer, she recognized not only Skylar’s aunt Nora, with her silvered hair and arched brows, but also the woman next to her—Hannah Markwell, the university librarian who had shunned Em and Drea during one of their research missions. Em stiffened involuntarily.
“Well,” Nora said finally. “Here we are.”
“Thank you for agreeing to meet with me,” Em said. Her voice sounded loud and overly formal to her own ears. She felt the sudden inappropriate urge to laugh. They looked like they were all about to start a séance.
“I didn’t want to at first,” Nora said.
“I know,” Em said.
“But Skylar told us that you tried to warn her. About . . . them. To talk sense into her while she was under their spell. So, I’m willing to give you a chance.” She folded her hands on her lap. Only her fingers, which were trembling slightly, betrayed her anxiety. Em looked around at Skylar, who was tearing at her cuticles, her hair curtained forward over her face, as always. Ms. Markwell was sitting ramrod straight, as though preparing to bolt. Em pulled back a chair and took a seat.
Silence built on silence, and Em swallowed, tried to choke out the words she so desperately needed to say. Finally, she managed: “I know you knew Edie Feiffer. And she knew the Furies. I need to find out what happened to her. I need to find out what you know.”
A shadow passed over Nora’s face. Sadness. She exchanged an almost imperceptible glance with Hannah, who nodded.
Nora cleared her throat. “We were best friends,” she said, looking down at her hands. “The three of us were inseparable. Edie, me, and Hannah.”
“Edie Feiffer.” Em confirmed softly, thinking of the creased photo in her purse, of the stooped woman she had seen in her vision—or memory—earlier today.
Hannah nodded. “Your friend Drea’s mom.”
Em nodded. Drea’s mom, who had been a victim of the Furies. Em remembered the first time Drea told her: She was being haunted. I’m sure of it.
There was no time to waste. “Why was she marked?” Em asked point-blank. “And did she fight back?”
Nora and Hannah exchanged another look. Nora toyed with a gold bracelet, twisting it endlessly around her wrist.
“She wasn’t marked.” Hannah spoke up now. Her voice was surprisingly deep.
“I don’t understand,” Em said, frowning. “So she wasn’t being haunted?”
Nora looked as though she was on the verge of tears. “Edie was the one who summoned them in the first place,” she said, her voice a hoarse whisper.
There was another second of silence. Em felt a yawning pit in her stomach. Edie had summoned them. Em shook her head, confused. That didn’t make any sense.
Hannah jumped in, pursing her lips before starting to speak. “We all grew up together,” she said. “And Edie was a wonderful woman. Full of life, and so passionate. But she had her share of problems, too. Her first husband was just awful. A drinker. He hit her too, more than once. A twisted man. Played all these mind games until she almost broke. She had these . . . blue periods. Just stretches of sad, sad time. She’d withdraw.”
Just like Drea, Em thought.
“When she remarried, she seemed to get better,” Nora said. “Especially when Drea came.”
“But he was always lurking in the shadows,” Hannah said.
“Her first husband, you mean?” Skylar piped up. Em had practically forgotten she was there.
The women nodded, and when Nora looked up Em could see that the tears were starting to overspill her eyes.
“We’d all heard stories growing up about three women who haunted the woods, taking revenge on people who had sinned,” Nora said. “My grandma—your great-grandmother, Skylar—used to call them ‘Dirae.’ Some said they were ghosts, or demons. This is New England. People are superstitious.”
That was true. No matter how many malls were built or iPhones were sold, people in Ascension, Maine, would always like to tell stories: about ghosts and witches and things that went creak in the night. Em had been, what, five years old the first time she heard the legend of the Haunted Woods? Ghost stories were like a rite of passage around here.
“I never actually believed all that stuff,” Nora continued. “But Edie—she believed.”
“Well, she was always looking for something to believe in,” Hannah said authoritatively. “Whether it was crystals and healing stones or witches in the woods, she wanted something external to fix things. I don’t think she thought she could fix them herself.”
Em took a deep breath. She hadn’t anticipated how hard it would be to sit here and listen to the truth, to hear about all of this old pain and old blood, dredged up and restored. She didn’t want to rush Nora through what was obviously a traumatic retelling. But it was more than that—some part of her didn’t want to hear, or know.
Blinking back the sudden desire to cry, she looked around the greenhouse. An explosion of color and green: plants growing up and out, stretching their way along the interior of the glass. They so clearly wanted out. All this life, condensed into this one artificial structure. Protected from the cold and the snow, but aching for fresh air.
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Nora asked, watching Em’s eyes roam the building.
“Yes,” Em said shortly. She cleared her throat. She couldn’t waste any more time. “Can you—can you tell me more?”
Nora sighed. “Edie found out about three women who burned to death in the Ascension woods, and she started gathering what she considered to be evidence of dark forces—unsolved crimes; murders and accidents that went unexplained; mysterious fires. And then she found the book. . . . Conjuring the Furies.”
A jolt went through Em and she sat up straight. “I have that book,” she blurted out. Hannah looked at her sharply. “I—I found it. In Sasha Bowlder’s things.”
“We never thought she would do anything with it,” Nora said, rushing on. There were red splotches on both her cheeks. Guilt, or anger, maybe. “But when Drea was three, Jack—the first husband—came back around. He threatened her. Saying he would take Drea, make it so that she could never see her child again, do things to Drea.”
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