A few feet away, the top of a staircase was visible.
Riley begged to go in, to see the tunnels that everyone knew were under the mill.
I held my breath and then let it out in a relieved rush when Noah refused.
I had followed Riley faithfully all summer, but I had not wanted to follow him into that dark.
Here there be monsters.
We are the monsters.
Seeing that phrase in Skylar’s head couldn’t have been a coincidence.
Heart hammering, I head inside and down to the basement.
Aunt Jet had called the antique dealer, but he hasn’t come yet. The monstrous desk is still here—along with its overstuffed drawers and the hunting knife I had left resting on its surface. I dig through the old journals and ledgers until I find the one filled with blueprints of the old textile mill.
I flip to a diagram of the tunnels. Short, angular lines—just like the lines on the map I had taken from Riley’s room.
Riley had been mapping the passages beneath the mill.
Skylar is adamant that Joey is innocent. Given that, wouldn’t her greatest fear be that Joey is found? And if you were Joey—if you were obsessed with Montgomery Falls and its history and its ghosts—wouldn’t the tunnels be the perfect place to hide?
Thirty-Four
THE FIRST TIME I SAW MONTGOMERY TEXTILES, MY FATHER and I had been hiking through the woods on a nature walk. We had just reached a break in the trees when Dad stopped and said, “There’s the old dragon.”
And from afar, if you squint just right, the mill really does look like some sort of hulking beast: the peaks on the roof resemble the spines on a dragon’s back; the smokestacks could almost be horns; and the outbuildings and rusting machinery trail out behind the main structure like a tail. It’s only as you get closer that it shifts into something else. Less dragon, more postapocalyptic ghost town.
According to Joey and Chase, this place is the most haunted spot in all of Montgomery Falls. One thing’s for sure: it doesn’t feel like anything good could happen here.
I leave the safety of the trees and follow the fence, looking for an opening. When I finally find one, I can’t be certain that it’s not the same one Riley and Noah and I found all those summers ago. It feels the same as I drop to a crouch and squeeze through the gap. The sense of déjà vu is so strong that if I look up, I’m half certain I’ll see Riley holding the wire back to help me.
I come out the other side and head in what I think is the right direction. Five years is a long time, and the maps in my backpack—pages of Montgomery family history ripped from the books in Aunt Jet’s basement—don’t show all of the outbuildings.
I try not to think about how upset and worried Jet will be when she realizes I’m gone. Or about how it’s entirely possible that I am being very, very stupid.
A rabbit darts across my path, and I yelp. “Smooth, Cat,” I mutter to myself. “Really smooth.” My heart is still hammering in my chest when I spot Aidan. He’s standing thirty yards away, his back to me, in front of the building I had described on the phone. The late-afternoon sun catches bits of gold in his hair.
A small knot of tension eases in my chest. Aidan had been skeptical and kind of reluctant on the phone—not that I blamed him. Until this moment, I wasn’t entirely sure he would show up.
Once I had made the connection to the tunnels, I hadn’t known what to do. I did, however, know that I couldn’t go to Noah.
I don’t want to believe Noah is actually capable of killing Joey, but if I’m wrong and I were to lead him here . . . Luckily, I guess, the universe has taken things out of my hands—at least where safeguarding Noah’s soul is concerned. I doubt he’d answer the phone if I called. I don’t think he’s ever going to speak to me again.
But I can’t let myself think about that right now.
After what happened with Harding, you’d think going to Jensen would be the smart thing to do, except . . .
Skylar.
Her parents haven’t seen her since this morning—I called and talked to her mom—and she hasn’t replied to a single text from Aidan or Chase. She might be down in the tunnels. Given how quickly Officer Buddy had reached for his gun yesterday—and how could that only have been yesterday?—I don’t trust him, or his fellow officers, in a creepy underground labyrinth with a bunch of guns. They might shoot first and ask questions later.
They might hurt Skylar.
Unable to go to Noah or to the police, I’d gone to Aidan and Chase.
Gravel crunches too loudly under my feet as I walk forward, but Aidan is so lost in thought that he doesn’t seem aware of me. It isn’t until I’m a few feet away—so close I could pluck a pebble from the ground and hit him—that he turns.
He gives his head a small shake, like someone just waking from a nap. He rubs his palms against the sides of his jeans and smiles.
After the way Noah stared at me, it’s nice to have someone look at me and smile. “Where’s Chase?” I ask.
“His mom grabbed him as we were leaving. He said he’ll meet us here.”
I let out a relieved breath. Three people feels way safer than just two.
Aidan walks over to the small building and peers inside. “Let it never be said that you don’t take me to the classy joints.”
I go to his side. Broken glass, cigarette butts, and what looks like the remains of a campfire are all visible from the doorway. I pull out the diagrams from the Montgomery journals. “That staircase in the corner should lead down to the tunnels. I think Riley was mapping them.”
“So you said on the phone. I’ve heard of the tunnels, but I’ve never been in them.”
“You didn’t go down that time you were here with Riley and those guys?”
“Never got the chance.” Aidan shrugs. “That whole ‘getting caught’ thing. Joey and Chase tried to drag me out here once after that, but Jensen was pretty clear on what he’d do to me if I ever got caught on the grounds again.”
“What if Jensen catches you with Chase and me?”
“Well, if you’re right about Joey and Skylar being down there, Jensen will probably be too busy to care about me.”
“Seriously,” I say, “what’ll happen if he catches you?”
“Does it matter? There’s no way I’m letting you and Chase go down there alone.” He frowns thoughtfully and glances back toward the mill. “Question: What makes you think Joey and Skylar would head for the tunnels when there’s an entire hulking space aboveground they could hide in? Don’t you think we should check the main building first?”
Even though light streams through the broken windows, some of the graffiti is in shadow. I slip the diagrams into my pocket and pull an industrial-strength flashlight from my backpack. I turn it on and sweep it over the far wall until I find the familiar letters: We are the monsters.
“Skylar quoted that line to me.” And she did—sort of.
“All that proves is that she’s been here.” Aidan takes the flashlight from my hand and shines it over the debris on the ground. “Judging from the look of things, I’d say plenty of people have been here.”
I step away from the shadow of the building, out to where the sunlight can warm my skin. There’s an old wooden beam in the overgrown grass; I sit on it, using it as a makeshift bench.
If I look to my left, I’ll see the path Riley and Noah and I took that day. If I follow it, I’ll find the exact spot—I know I’ll be able to find it—where we stumbled onto that girl.
I don’t look to my left.
“I can’t explain how I know the words are tied to Joey,” I say, forcing myself to focus on Aidan’s question. “I just do.”
Aidan joins me on the beam. It’s the first time we’ve been together since the trailer. I don’t really know what to say or how to act. Bringing up the kiss feels ridiculous, but not bringing it up doesn’t feel right, either.
“Cat . . .” Aidan turns the flashlight over in his hands. “I know there are things yo
u haven’t told me. You can trust me. You know that, right?”
I do trust him—as much as I’m able—but it’s hard. I trusted Noah not to hurt me, I think with a pang, and look how that turned out. “You thought you could trust Joey.”
“That’s different. Joey is an anomaly.”
I shake my head. “You trust me, but for weeks, I’ve known that Aunt Jet has been thinking of selling Montgomery House. For weeks, I’ve been lying to you.”
“Cat, no offense, but your aunt isn’t exactly a secret agent. You would have to be completely oblivious to have lived in that house for the past few months and not realize she’s been emptying it out.”
“I still should have told you. Why aren’t you angry at me?”
“Did Jet ask you not to tell me?”
I bite my lower lip. “She doesn’t want any of the tenants to find out. Not until she knows if she’s going to sell.”
He spreads his hands. “I get it. I wish you had told me, but I understand why you didn’t.”
It doesn’t seem human: how understanding he’s being. I think about the kiss. How soft his lips had felt against mine and how strange it had been to touch someone and see only myself. It was perfect. He is perfect.
So why does part of me wish Noah could be the one to go down with me into the dark?
“Chimney swifts,” I say suddenly and awkwardly, to hide my confusion. “See them? Those black smudges swirling like ink in water. In a few hours, there will be thousands of them. They nest in the old smokestacks.”
Pointing out the chimney swifts doesn’t help me not think of Noah, of course.
Aidan gives me a long, steady look, one that makes me wonder if I’m just babbling incoherently. I swallow. “How long do you think it will take Chase to get here?”
“Ten minutes. Maybe twenty.”
But ten minutes pass and then twenty. Neither of us seems to feel like talking, and we’re both nervous and restless: I keep checking and rechecking the contents of my backpack and Aidan can’t seem to sit still for more than a few minutes at a time.
“Maybe something happened,” I venture finally. “Maybe his mom wouldn’t let him leave.”
Aidan hands me the flashlight and pushes himself to his feet. He hauls his cell from his pocket, tries calling Chase, and then frowns. “Voice mail.” He ends the call and glances toward the sun. “There are only a few hours of daylight left. It probably doesn’t matter, since we’re going underground, but . . .”
“It matters,” I say, standing quickly. It’s not logical, but the thought of being in the tunnels after dark makes my skin crawl. Besides, I could be wrong about Joey and Skylar being underground. We might need to search the outbuildings or the mill. That, too, is something I would rather not do after the sun goes down.
What was it Joey had said that first time we met—something about how the presence of a Montgomery might make the ghosts angry? With a small shiver, I force myself to walk into the building.
Aidan follows. Glass and bits of garbage crunch under our feet as we make our way to the staircase.
“Are you sure about this?” he asks as I shine the beam from the flashlight down into the darkness below. “You don’t have to go in. It’s not too late to call Chief Jensen. Or Noah, if you want. Or we could start with the mill.”
“I can’t call Jensen. And Noah . . .” My words trail off as I pull a second flashlight from my bag and hand it to Aidan. I can’t tell him what happened with Noah. “You don’t have to come with me.” It scares me to think about going down there by myself, but Aidan doesn’t owe me anything.
He shoots me a small, tight smile. “If you go, I go.” He waits for me to start down the stairs, waits for me to be sure, and then follows.
Despite the broken glass and garbage, the stairway itself seems unnervingly normal; it’s like something that might lead down into an ordinary basement or a parking garage. But parking garages don’t smell like damp earth and rotting things, and the farther down we go, the worse the smell gets. It wraps itself around me and slips into my lungs, and it’s easy to imagine that the crunching under our feet isn’t garbage, but small, delicate bones.
Eventually, we reach the bottom and an open space that must have been a storeroom.
I shine my light over the walls, over spray-painted devils and song lyrics and names linked together and surrounded by hearts. What kind of person would want to immortalize their love in a place like this?
“Jenny loves Ray. 4EVAH. Beautiful,” says Aidan. The words are meant to be light and mocking, but it’s hard to find anything funny down here. “You okay?”
I nod and haul out the diagrams. I’m not sure how much help they’ll be. They’re old and there’s no way of knowing how many of the passages are still passable—even then, the pages show only a fraction of the tunnel system. I wish we had the map Riley had made. Both because it would at least be more recent and because it might be comforting to have something of his with me down in the dark.
Having something of Riley’s would help me remember why I’m doing this.
The room we’ve found ourselves in has three archways, each opening to a tunnel that leads to a different spot on the grounds. Judging by the diagrams, most of the other tunnels branch off these three arteries.
Somewhere down one of these passageways, thirteen men died.
“Which one?” asks Aidan.
“Right?” I hazard. It’s as good a guess as any.
The walls press in uncomfortably close, and if the ceiling were any lower, Aidan would have to duck. Distantly, I can hear the sound of dripping water.
It doesn’t take long for us to reach another branch, but this time, the decision is made for us: the left passage has caved in, and the opening is half hidden behind a mound of broken brick, dirt, and tree roots.
“Right again,” says Aidan. He hums a little under his breath, so softly that I can’t make out the melody.
Between the lack of sunlight, the stale air, and the sensation that we could be crushed at any minute, it takes everything I have to keep going, but he actually seems comfortable down here. He trails one hand lightly over the dirty old bricks that line the walls. A few small pieces break free, and I remind myself that Chase knows where we are. If we get trapped, he’ll figure it out and send help.
After a few hundred yards, the tunnel widens into another room, this one so cavernous that I don’t need to check the diagram to know we’re underneath the mill. Old pieces of equipment—huge iron machines, the purpose of which I can only guess at—hunker together along the walls. People have partied down here, too. Crushed beer cans and discarded underwear dot the floor. There’s even a paper skeleton, torn and headless.
I tilt the flashlight up toward the ceiling. It’s too far above us to see whether or not the beams are black from the fire.
The place would be a perfect set for a scene in Joey’s script.
I remember the way he tried to manipulate us that day up in Aidan’s room. What if he wants us down here? What if he wants someone to come find him to fulfill something in his stupid movie? I tell myself that if that were the case, it’s already in the script, and Jensen has the script. Ergo, if Joey wanted anyone down here, Jensen would already know and would have already searched. Because he hasn’t, Joey isn’t expecting us.
My reasoning is perfectly logical, which would make me feel better if it weren’t for the fact that very little about the past few days has felt like it has adhered to logic.
A wide stone staircase hugs the far wall. Aidan bounds up it and tries the door at the top. “Locked.”
Two tunnels branch off the room. One on each side.
“It’s like one of those old Choose Your Own Adventure books,” says Aidan, rejoining me. “Have you ever seen one of those? Choose right and we go to page ninety-six. Choose left and we go to page forty-three.”
“I wish there were a third option,” I admit.
“There is.” He studies my face for a long moment. “Yo
u just put the book back on the shelf. We go home and forget we were ever down here.”
It’s tempting—so, so tempting. As I swing the flashlight back and forth between the two doors, though, the glow catches something on the floor.
“Aidan . . .” Worried suddenly about how far sound might carry, I try to keep my voice low. I crouch down and pluck Skylar’s Bela Lugosi button from the ground. “It must have fallen from her jacket.”
Something that looks almost like approval crosses Aidan’s face. “Good catch.”
I turn Skylar’s pin over in my hand and bite my lip. Skylar is down here somewhere, and she trusts Joey. She doesn’t understand how dangerous he is. He could do anything to her down here.
“We can’t just leave Skylar. She’s our friend.” I pull in a deep breath. “Left. Let’s try left.”
“Why left?”
I shrug and start walking. “A hunch.”
If the thinning graffiti is any indication, we’re venturing farther than most people have dared. The air is staler here and probably filled with toxic mold or asbestos or God only knows what else. The walls feel like they could collapse on us at any moment. Even if we find Joey, I’m not entirely sure what the heck we can do other than club him over the head and tie him up with the rope in my backpack.
“You know,” says Aidan from behind me, “some people in town say the Montgomerys are witches.”
“I’m pretty sure Chief Jensen would tell you to swap that w for a b.”
“Jensen is an idiot. He’s the kind of guy who never actually manages to find Waldo.”
I’m not so sure. It’s tempting to write Jensen off as an idiot, but I think he just lets his personal feelings impair his judgment—and he cares more about protecting the town’s image than individual people.
You Were Never Here Page 28