Girl of Nightmares

by Kendare Blake

  In between mutterings and spitting out the window, Thomas told me he’d need at least a week to research the Lappish drum and the proper ritual to channel Anna through. I put on my most understanding expression and nodded, the whole time fighting the urge to find the nearest stick and start pounding out a solo on the drum in my lap. It’s stupid. Being careful and doing things right the first time is pretty much a requirement. I don’t know what’s going on in my head. When I get inside my house, I find that I can’t sit still. I don’t want to eat or watch TV. I don’t want to do anything but know more.

  My mom comes through the door ten minutes after I do, a gigantic pizza box on her arm, and stops when she sees me pacing.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” I say. “Had an interesting visit with Thomas’s dead aunt this afternoon. She gave us a way to communicate with Anna.”

  Aside from a slight widening of her eyes, there’s a total nonreaction. She almost shrugs before trundling through the living room into the kitchen. A quick spark of anger tingles in my wrists. I expected more. I expected her to be excited, to be happy that I might get to talk to Anna again, to make sure she’s all right.

  “You had a conversation with Thomas’s dead aunt,” she says, calmly opening the pizza box. “And I had a conversation with Gideon this afternoon.”

  “What’s the matter with you? I didn’t just tell you that there’s a new blue plate special over at Gargoyles restaurant. I didn’t just tell you that I stubbed my toe, though I’m sure that would have gotten more attention.”

  “He said you should leave it alone.”

  “I don’t know what’s going on with everyone,” I say. “Telling me to let it go. To move on. Like it’s that easy. Like I can just keep on seeing her like this. I mean, hell! Carmel thinks I’m a psycho!”

  “Cas,” she says. “Calm down. Gideon has his reasons. And I think he’s right. I can feel it, that something’s happening.”

  “But you don’t know what, right? I mean, it’s something bad, but you don’t know exactly? And you think I should just let whatever is happening to Anna keep happening, because of what? Your woman’s intuition?”

  “Hey,” she snaps, her voice deep.

  “Sorry,” I snap right back.

  “I’m not just your worrying mother, Theseus Cassio Lowood. I’m a witch. Intuition counts for a lot.” Her jaw is set in that particular way that she has when she’d rather chew through leather than say what she wants to say. “I know what you really want,” she says carefully. “You don’t just want to make sure she’s all right. You want to bring her back.”

  I lower my eyes.

  “And, my god, Cas, part of me wishes it were possible. She saved your life and avenged my husband’s murder. But you can’t walk down that road.”

  “Why not?” I ask, and my voice sounds bitter.

  “Because there are rules,” she replies. “That shouldn’t be broken.”

  I raise my eyes and glare at her. “You didn’t say ‘can’t.’”

  “Cas—”

  Another minute of this and I’m going to flip out. So I put up my hands and head for my bedroom, closing my ears to everything she says as I go up the stairs, choking on a million words I want to yell into all of their faces. Thomas seems like the only person remotely interested in figuring out what’s going on.

  Anna is waiting in my bedroom. Her head lolls as if on a broken neck; her eyes roll up to mine.

  “It’s too much, right now,” I whisper, and she mouths something back. I don’t try to read her lips. Too much black blood spills through them. Slowly, she moves away, and I try to keep my eyes on the carpet but I can’t, not quite, so when she throws herself through my window, I see her dress flutter as she falls and hear the thump of her body when it hits the ground.

  “God damn it,” I say in a voice caught somewhere between a growl and a moan. My fists hit the wall, my dresser; I knock the lamp off my bedside table. My mom’s words twitter through my ears, making it sound so easy. She talks like she thinks I’m a schoolboy with fantasies of heroes who get the girl and ride off into the sunset. What kind of world does she think I grew up in?

  * * *

  “It’s probably going to be blood,” Thomas says in a regretful tone that doesn’t match the devious excitement in his eyes. “It’s almost always blood.”

  “Yeah? Well if it’s going to be more than a pint, let me know now, so I can bank it,” I reply, and he grins. We’re at his locker, talking about the ritual, which he still doesn’t have nailed down. But to be fair, it’s only been a day and a half. The blood he’s referring to is the conduit—the link to the other side—or the price. I’m not sure which. He’s talked about it both ways, like a bridge, and like a toll. Maybe it’s both, and the other side is basically a toll road. He’s a little bit nervous while we talk, I think because he senses my eagerness. He can probably tell I haven’t slept much either. I look like total shit.

  Thomas straightens when Carmel walks up, looking ten times better than we do, as usual. Her hair is up in a clip, bouncing jauntily in a sweep of blond. The sparkle from her silver bracelets hurts my eyes.

  “Hey, Thomas,” she says. “Hey, zombie-Cas.”

  “Hey,” I say. “So I guess you heard what happened.”

  “Yeah, Thomas told me. Pretty scary stuff.”

  I shrug. “It wasn’t that bad. Riika was actually cool. You should’ve come.”

  “Well. Maybe I would have if I hadn’t been kicked out of the club.” She lowers her eyes and Thomas goes immediately on the defensive, apologizing for Morfran, insisting he was out of line, and Carmel nods, keeping her eyes on the floor.

  Something’s going on behind Carmel’s lowered lashes. She doesn’t think I’m watching, or maybe she thinks I’m too tired to notice, but even through the exhaustion I can see what it is, and the knowledge makes me hold my breath. Carmel was happy to be kicked out. Sometime in between rune carving and being tacked to a wall by a pitchfork, it all got to be too much. It’s there in her eyes; the way they linger regretfully on Thomas when he isn’t looking, and the way they blink and sparkle fake interest when he tells her about the ritual. And the whole time Thomas just keeps on smiling, oblivious to the fact that she is basically already gone. It feels like I’ve watched the last ten minutes of a movie first.

  * * *

  Spending the entire school year at the same school is something I haven’t done since eighth grade, and I have to say, it’s sort of obnoxious. It’s the Monday of the last week of the year, and if I have to sign one more yearbook I’m going to sign it in the owner’s blood. People I’ve never spoken to are walking up with a pen and a smile, hoping for something more personal than “have a neat summer” when such hopes are futile. And I can’t help but suspect that what they really want is for me to write something cryptic or crazy, some new clue they could use for the rumor mill. It’s been tempting, but so far I haven’t done it.

  When there’s a tap on my shoulder and I turn around to see Cait Hecht, my botched date from two weeks ago, I almost back into my locker.

  “Hey, Cas,” she smiles. “Sign my yearbook?”

  “Absolutely,” I say, and take it, scrambling to think of something personal but all that goes through my brain is “have a neat summer.” I write her name and then a comma. What now? “Sorry about the brush-off, but you reminded me of a girl I killed”? Or maybe, “It never would have worked. The girl I love would disembowel you.”

  “So, are you doing anything cool this summer?” she asks.

  “Uh, I don’t know. Maybe travel around a bit more.”

  “But you’ll be back here in the fall?” Her brows are raised politely, but it’s just small talk. Carmel says Cait started dating Quentin Davis two days after the coffee shop. I was relieved to hear it, and am relieved now that she doesn’t seem upset in the least.

  “That is a very good question,” I say, before giving up and scribbling “have a great summer” into the co
rner of the page.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Looking out the window of Carmel’s car, there’s no light except for stars and the pale glow of the city behind us. Thomas waited for the new moon. He said it was the best time for channeling. He also said that it would help if we were near the place where Anna crossed over, so we’re headed for the wreckage of her old Victorian. It fits. It makes sense. But the thought of it makes my mouth dry, and Thomas is going to explain everything once we get there, because I could barely sit still to listen back at the shop.

  “You sure you’re up for this, Cas?” Carmel asks, peering at me in the rearview mirror.

  “I have to be,” I say, and she nods.

  When Carmel decided to do the ritual with us, I was surprised. Ever since that day in the hall, when I saw the detachment lurking behind her eyes, I haven’t been able to look at her the same way. But maybe I was wrong. Maybe I was hallucinating. Three hours of sleep riddled with dreams of your girlfriend killing herself will do that to you.

  “This might not work at all, you know,” Thomas says.

  “Hey, it’s okay. You’re trying, right? That’s all we can do.” My words and voice sound reasonable. Sane. But that’s because I don’t have anything to worry about. It’s going to work. Thomas is strung tight as a violin, and you don’t need a tuning fork to feel the waves of power coming off of him. Like Aunt Riika said, he’s more than witch enough.

  “Guys,” he says. “After this is over, can we go get a burger or something?”

  “You’re thinking about food now?” Carmel asks.

  “Hey, you haven’t spent the last three days fasting and doing herbal rue steams and drinking nothing but Morfran’s gross chrysanthemum purification potions.” Carmel and I grin at each other in the mirror. “It isn’t easy becoming a vessel. I’m freaking starving.”

  I clap him on the shoulder. “Dude, when this is over, I’ll buy you the whole damn menu.”

  The car goes quiet as we turn down Anna’s road. Part of me expects to round the corner and have the house curl into our vision, still standing, still rotting on its crumbling foundation. Instead there’s empty space. Carmel’s headlights shine into the driveway, and the driveway leads to nothing.

  After the house imploded, the city came out and cleared the debris in an effort to determine the underlying cause of the blast. They never found it, though true to form, they didn’t really try. They poked around in the basement and shrugged their shoulders and filled it in with dirt. Now everything that was left is concealed completely. The place where the house stood looks like an undeveloped lot, packed dirt and scrubby, fast-growing weeds. If they had looked any closer, or dug any deeper, they might have found the bodies of Anna’s victims. But the current of the dead and unknown was still too close, whispering that they should walk softly and leave it alone.

  “Tell me what we’re doing, again,” Carmel says. Her voice is steady but her fingers are curled around the steering wheel like she’s going to rip it off.

  “Should be relatively easy,” Thomas replies, scrounging around in his messenger bag, making sure he’s remembered everything. “Or if not easy, then at least relatively simple. From what Morfran told me, the drum used to be used by Finnish witches on a regular basis, to control the spirit world and talk to the dead.”

  “Sounds like what we need,” I say.

  “Yeah. The trick of it is to be specific. The witches never cared much who they got. As long as they got someone they figured they were wise. But we want Anna. And that’s where you and the house come in.”

  Well, we’re not getting any younger. I open the door and step out. The air is mild and there’s only a hint of a breeze. When my shoes crunch against the gravel the sound brings a flash of nostalgia, a jolt that takes me back six months, when the Victorian still stood and I used to come at night to talk to the dead girl inside it. Warm, fuzzy memories. Carmel hands me the camping lantern from the trunk. It illuminates her face.

  “Hey,” I say. “You don’t have to do this. Thomas and I can handle this one on our own.”

  For a second she looks relieved. But then the trademark Carmel squint is back in place.

  “Don’t say that shit to me. Morfran can ban me from his dead tea party if he wants, but not you. I’m here to find out what happened to Anna. We all owe her that.”

  When she walks by, she nudges me with her shoulder, to buck me up, and I smile even though the burns are still sore. After this is over, I’m going to talk to her; we’re all going to talk. We’ll find out what’s on her mind and set it right.

  Thomas is already ahead of us. He’s got his flashlight out and is strobing it around the lot. It’s a good thing that the nearest neighbors are half a mile away and separated by dense forest. They’d probably think a UFO had landed. When he gets to where the house once stood, he doesn’t hesitate, just jogs into the center. I know what he’s looking for: the space where Malvina poked a hole through worlds. And where Anna blasted through it.

  “Come on,” he says after a minute, and waves to us. Carmel goes, moving carefully. I take a deep breath. My feet won’t seem to cross the threshold. This is what I wanted, what I’ve waited for since Anna disappeared. The answers are less than twenty feet away.

  “Cas?” Carmel asks.

  “Right behind you,” I say, but every platitude I’ve ever heard about ignorance being bliss or being better off in the dark flies through my brain in an instant. It occurs to me that I shouldn’t have wanted this to be real. I should hope that the answers I get tonight tell me that it wasn’t Anna at all, that Riika was wrong and Anna is at peace. Let whatever is haunting me be something else, something malevolent that I can fight. It’s selfish to want Anna here again. She’s got to be better off wherever she is than being cursed and trapped. But I can’t help it.

  Just a few seconds more and my feet unfreeze. They carry me across the fresh dirt the city used to fill in the basement, and I don’t feel anything. No cosmic zap; not even a chill down my spine. Nothing of Anna or her curse remains. It all probably vanished the second that the house imploded. Mom, Morfran, and Thomas must’ve checked ten times, standing at the corners of the property and casting runes.

  In the center of the dirt patch, Thomas is drawing a large circle in the ground with the tip of an athame. Not mine, but one of Morfran’s—a long, theatrical-looking thing, with an engraved handle and a jewel at the end. Most people would say it’s far prettier than mine, and far more valuable. But it’s all show. Thomas can use it to cast a circle, but it’s his power that forms the protection. Without Thomas to wield it, that athame would be best used to cut a good steak.

  Carmel stands in the center of the circle, holding a burning stick of incense and whispering the protection incantation Thomas has taught her. Thomas is whispering it too, two beats behind hers so it sounds like a round-robin. I set the camping lantern down, inside the circle but off to the side. The chanting stops, and Thomas nods at us to sit.

  The ground is cold, but at least it’s dry. Thomas kneels and sets the Lappish drum on the dirt in front of him. He’s brought a drumstick as well. It looks basically like a regular drumstick with a big, white marshmallow at the end. In the low light, you can hardly see the designs painted across the stretched leather of the drum. When I had it with me in the car ride back from Riika’s, I saw that it was covered in faded, reddish stick figures that looked like a primitive depiction of a hunting scene.

  “It looks so old,” Carmel comments. “What do you think it’s made of?” She smirks at me. “Maybe dinosaur leather?”

  I laugh, but Thomas clears his throat.

  “The ritual is pretty simple,” he says, “but it’s also powerful. We shouldn’t go into it with too light a mood.” He’s cleaning the dirt off his athame, wiping it down with alcohol, and I know why he’s going to the trouble. He was right when he said we would need blood. And he intends to use that athame to get it from me. “Since you’re curious, though, I can tell you that Morfran su
spects this drum was made from human skin.”

  Carmel gasps.

  “Not a murder victim or anything like that,” he goes on. “But probably from the tribe’s last shaman. Of course he doesn’t know for sure, but he said the best ones were often made from that, and Riika didn’t mess around with second-rate product. It was probably passed down through her own family.”

  He talks distractedly, failing to notice the way Carmel swallows and can’t quite stop looking at the drum. I know what she’s thinking. With this new knowledge, it looks completely different than it did a few seconds ago. It may as well be a human rib cage, dried out and sitting in front of us.

  “What exactly is going to happen when we do this?” Carmel asks.

  “I don’t know,” Thomas replies. “If we succeed, we’ll hear her voice. A few texts have vague references to fog, or smoke. And there might be wind. All I know for sure is that I’ll be in a trance when it happens. I may or may not know what’s going on. And if something goes wrong, I won’t be much use to stop it.”

  Even in the sparse light from the camping lantern, I can see most of the blood drain out of Carmel’s cheeks.

  “Well, that’s just great. What are we supposed to do if something happens?”

  “Don’t panic.” Thomas smiles nervously. He tosses her something that glitters. When she opens her hands, she’s holding his Zippo lighter. “This is sort of hard to explain. The drum is like a tool, to find the way to the other side. Morfran says it’s mostly about finding the right beat, like tuning in the right frequency on the radio. Once I find it, the gateway has to be channeled by blood. The blood of the seeker. Cas’s blood. You’ll have to drip it onto his athame, which we’ll place in the center of the circle.”

  “What do you mean, I’ll have to?” Carmel asks.