Dark Soul Experiments

by Bre Hall

  “Another power manifesting,” Peter mumbled, then, spoke clearly, urgently. “Did you see Lizzie’s death?”

  “Yeah,” she said. A flash of memory, Lizzie’s: Peter standing on the sidewalk, dark eyes narrowed. She glowered at him. “I sure did.”

  chapter

  22

  DARKNESS COILED AROUND THE FLATLANDS, and the chill of night sent shivers up Ren’s legs as she stood toe-to-toe with Peter on the rotting porch of the abandoned house. She studied his face. Looked for a waver in his dark eyes. Surely he had to know that she had seen him in Dublin just before Lizzie’s death. But if he did, there was no sign of it on his face. She feared what would happen if she confronted him on the issue. If she asked him if he’d actually been the one to kill Lizzie. If he’d been playing her the entire time. Her mind flickered back to the conversation she’d overheard Peter have with Beverly and Joe. End this, Beverly had said. Or I will. Ren had taken it to mean the experiments, stop them before they went too far, but she was second guessing everything. Every single word that had come out of his mouth since he planted the charm bracelet on her. But why do it at all? Why reveal to her the reality of her past? Why put the relics in front of her and show her who she once was? Why save her from the car on the highway? Why not let it kill her and be done with it? Why pretend to fall for her if he was just going to end her anyway? None of it made any sense.

  She pushed every thought, every question, every theory deep inside of herself. If Peter was going to act as if nothing had happened, then she would too. At least until she was away from the house. Then, her plan was to run through the fields and sandbars along the river. Sprint the back way to her house. Call Alfie. Get the hell out of town.

  She lifted up on her toes and kissed Peter goodbye. It was a cold kiss. Granite-hard. She wondered if that’s what their kisses had always felt like to him. Passionless. He slid his fingers around the back of her neck—was he trying to break it?—and pulled her close to his chest. She wanted to rip herself away and yell for him to cut the bullshit, but she held her tongue and leaned into the kiss. Her lips clamped hard around his and an electric shock zipped between them. Peter jolted back, fingers grazing his lips.

  “Jesus, Ren.” Peter rubbed his seared lips. “That was powerful.”

  “Oh,” she said. “Was that me?”

  “Maybe this one we work on,” he said. “You practically fried my lips off.”

  “Sorry,” she said, but all she could think was, liar, liar, liar. She forced herself to smile, then turned toward the steps. “Better get going.”

  Peter caught her by the wrist, stopping her. “Can’t you stay a little while longer?”

  She commanded her pulse to stay steady, but it was like trying to keep a squirming puppy still. Impossible. She took a shaky breath and shook her head. “N-not tonight. Meredith will—”

  “I think you have bigger things to worry about right now than an angry stepmother, don’t you?” Peter let her wrist go. She pulled it close to her chest, rubbing at the phantom feeling of his fingers ringed around it. She stumbled down a step, then another. Peter called out to her. A light, airy sing-song voice. Taunting her. “Goodnight, sweet Ren. Travel safely.”

  Her heart picked up then. Her veins sizzled with monster-under-the-bed-fear. Peter slipped into the shadows of the doorway and she didn’t hesitate as she moved across the lawn, the driveway. What Peter had said was reassurance enough. Her speculations were on-point. Had to be.

  She ran toward the bridge, sliding down the bank on the far side. She folded herself into the dark veil below and pressed her back against one of the concrete pillars.

  If only Alfie had stayed. If only he and Peter hadn’t hated one another. She would have someone beside her. An extra layer of comfort. An extra set of eyes to see the truth.

  No. If he had stayed, they’d both be in trouble. Her lungs filled with a deep breath of reassurance, knowing the person she cared about most in the world was safe. She pictured him reading one of his cheap paperbacks. Long legs sprawled over the top of his half-made bed. The soft glow of his bedside lamp warming the entirety of his little bedroom.

  She wiped at a singled teardrop—nasty thing—that had fallen unexpectedly. Both Charlotte and Lizzie’s deaths were quick, a surprise. But as her heart continued to flutter in her chest and her stomach knotted, she looked out over the surface of the black water, rippling with silver glints of moonlight, and wished she didn’t know what was coming. Peter would appear in a gleam of light, wings outstretched, and drown her in the river. Crush her beneath the weight of a rigid boulder partway buried in the bank across the water.

  Footsteps shuffled over the gravel above her, accompanied by a clang of metal. She clung tightly to the concrete pillar and watched as a human shadow wriggled over the water. Whoever was up there—Peter, Beverly, Joe—was taking their time crossing the bridge. She closed her eyes, swallowed loudly. Wiped at another ugly tear. She would not die cowering in the shadows.

  She inhaled deeply and, holding her breath, stepped out from beneath the bridge. She craned her neck to get a better view of the top. A tall silhouette with shining bleached hair walked a bicycle, the chain rattling, slowly over the bridge.

  Alfie.

  She exhaled a quivering breath. Alfie whipped his head toward the sound. He leaned over the steel railing of the bridge and squinted into the darkness.

  “Ren?”

  “Holy shit am I glad to see you,” she whispered.

  “What are you doing down there?” Alfie asked.

  “No time.” Ren scampered up the steep river bank. “We have to get as far away from here as possible. Quickly.”

  “Hop on,” Alfie said.

  She climbed onto the pegs of Alfie’s bike and he began to pedal quickly over the bridge and back towards town. Beneath the blur of rubber tires, the gravel road quickly became the cracked asphalt of Indigo Lane. The bike picked up even more speed on the smooth pavement.

  “Why did you come back?” Ren asked.

  “I didn’t want to leave in the first place,” Alfie said. “But I had to. I had to tell her.”

  “Tell who?” Ren asked.

  “You found out about Peter, didn’t you?” Alfie asked, changing the subject.

  Ren squeezed Alfie’s shoulders. “How do you know?”

  “She told me you would,” Alfie said.

  “Who?”

  “I knew all along.” Alfie’s shoulders lifted high, then dropped low. “From the moment he left you the bracelet. I wasn’t supposed to dissuade you. I was supposed to let you see him, but knowing what he’s done, what he’s going to do, just made me so angry. You’re stubborn, though. You don’t listen. Why don’t you ever listen?”

  “You’re not making any sense,” Ren said. “Start from the beginning. How did you know about Peter?”

  They buzzed passed the town limits sign. The streetlamps flashed above them like strobe lights. Ren looked over her shoulder to see if Peter was following them, but the road they had just traveled was dark and empty as far as her good eye could see.

  “I’ve said too much already,” Alfie said. They approached the intersection of Indigo and Main. Alfie leaned into the turn and pedaled them into downtown. “She wants to tell you herself. She wants to make sure you have all of the facts. The truth.”

  “Who?” she asked for what felt like the hundredth time. “Who is she?”

  Alfie sighed as they came to a stop outside of Richard’s Antiques. The shop was closed, but the light from the emergency exit sign above the door lit up the figure of a woman standing near the glass. Pressed, white pant suit. Tense shoulders. Blonde curls.

  “Meredith,” Alfie and Ren said at the same time.

  They hopped off of Alfie’s bike just as Meredith opened the front door of Richard’s. She waved a hand through the air, drawing them closer.

  “Hurry,” she said. “Before they see.”

  Ren was still trying to grasp at every thread that had been u
nraveled since she dropped back into her own body after Lizzie’s death. Peter, who she thought was trying to help her, had just been using her. Why, she didn’t know. Alfie, who had acted as though the discovery surrounding her past was new, had known what was going on all along. Most shocking of all, though, was that Meredith, her stepmother, the woman who had been criticizing her every move since she married Ren’s dad, was somehow involved in it all.

  Without much of a choice, Ren stepped through the open door of Richard’s. Alfie walked in just after, wheeling his bike inside. Immediately, Meredith closed and locked the door with her own key on a small ring.

  Meredith’s heels click-clacked down the main aisle of the antique shop. She motioned for Ren and Alfie to follow.

  “Are you going to explain the role you have in all of this?” Ren asked, following Meredith closely to the back of the shop. In the bleak of the night, the shop felt different. The shelves craggy and imposing above her, the piles on the floor reminiscent of predators curled up, waiting to strike.

  “Yes.” Meredith stopped in front of the basement door.

  Ren hugged her arms tightly around her torso to keep her stomach from sputtering uncontrollably. She couldn’t help imagining Peter or Beverly or Joe lunging out of the dark with a dull knife. Slitting her throat.

  “And how is Alfie involved?” Talking helped. Kept Ren’s mind off of what she couldn’t control. “Why you didn’t just clue me in from the beginning?”

  “For once would you just wait and see?” Meredith asked as she turned the brass doorknob.

  “I knew you were doing something shady down here,” Ren said.

  “You’re a smart girl, Ren.” Meredith started down the steps. “But you’ve never been able to keep your nose out of other people’s business.”

  “Not true.” Ren wavered on the top of the stairs, debating about following her stepmother—if she could even call Meredith that anymore—or booking it out the back, down the alley, through the neighborhoods, and to the farmhouse. Alfie’s hand on her back made her jump. His palm pressed lightly against her spine, gently edged her forward.

  “Go on, Ren,” he whispered.

  Ren plunked onto the first step.

  “It’s not your fault you’re curious,” Meredith said. She reached the bottom of the steps, then gazed up at Ren as she waited for her to descend. “I blame it on being raised in this speck of a town. No one can keep a secret around here. Except Richard. For the right price, anyway.”

  As soon as Ren was off the stairs, Meredith swished across the near-empty room, to the grandfather clock that sat against the wall. She pulled another key out from the stack on her ring and wedged it into the padlock. Twisted.

  “That’s why you kept this here,” Ren said.

  “I knew Richard would keep his trap shut,” Meredith pulled open the grandfather clock and the pendulum, set into a velvet shadowbox, swung with it, revealing a narrow passage inside. Meredith whipped out a small flashlight from her pocket and shined it on a set of winding stairs. “I’ve been waiting for almost ten years to show you this. Let’s not waste any more time.”

  Meredith slipped through the clock, her heels tapping against the wooden steps within. The light quickly disappeared as she descended. Ren held open the narrow door, the hinges shrieking at the slightest movement, and looked back at Alfie.

  “You knew about this?” Ren asked. Alfie nodded. “And you didn’t tell me?”

  Alfie shrugged. “Meredith can be intimidating.”

  “I heard that,” Meredith said from somewhere deep inside the clock. “Come along, you two.”

  Ren rolled her eyes and ducked inside, Alfie following, catching and locking the door, before they started down the stairs. The inside of the clock smelled just as Ren had imagined: Stiff, old, and rotting. It was the same sweet and potent scent that Richard’s entire shop stank of so beautifully, but a thousand times more powerful.

  “How old is this?” Ren asked.

  “Old.” Meredith’s voice echoed in the dark.

  “I can’t see a damn thing.” Ren pawed the smooth curve of the wooden wall.

  “Language,” Meredith said through clenched teeth. Ren wondered if the real Meredith was as nagging as stepmom Meredith or if she had just consumed her personality for too long to change in an instant.

  “You’re the only one with a flashlight here,” Ren said.

  Meredith exhaled with force. Annoyed. “Alfie says you’re regressing into Lizzie, am I right?”

  Ren gaped back at Alfie, even though she knew he couldn’t see her. Not completely. “You told her?”

  “She made me,” Alfie said.

  “Clench one of your fists,” Meredith said, ignoring Ren and Alfie. “Gently.”

  “What?” Ren asked.

  “Just do it,” Meredith said.

  Meredith’s voice was shrinking, taking what little light there was in the staircase along with it. Ren could find her way in the dark. She totally could. But Meredith wasn’t exactly the coddling type. Who knows how far behind Ren would fall before Meredith would stomp back toward her, take her by the wrist, and start to drag. It had happened once after Wynn’s infamous spring parade when Ren was eight. As they’d been walking through a dense crowd, Ren stopped to glance at the corn on the cob stand, golden ears dripping in gleaming, yellow butter, and when she looked up, Meredith was gone. Ren had taken one measly step up the crowded street by herself before Meredith appeared again, latched on tightly, and pulled her back toward the car.

  In the black of the staircase, Ren curled her left fist, gave it a gentle squeeze, and pop, the same blue spark that had gone off at Peter’s snaked through the darkness. It pinged once off the closest step and then made a noise, like bacon in a frypan. A soft, yellow light began to glow in a boxy, glass sconce on the wall. The sizzling sound continued down the staircase as other bulbs began to illuminate the curling steps.

  “Impressive,” Alfie whispered.

  “How did you know that would happen?” Ren called out to Meredith. It was then she realized the staircase had no railing. Just a cherrywood wall on one side and an exposed edge on the other. She kept a hand on the wall, pressed her shoulder to it, and kept moving.

  “I’ve seen you do it before,” Meredith said. Her heels had stopped clicking and her voice echoed twice as much as it had before. As Ren descended, she wondered if she would ever reach an end. The stairs were infinite. They made her dizzy. Lopsided. Queasy almost. She clung tight to the wall.

  “How could you have seen me light sconces before?” Ren said. “I just gained the ability tonight.”

  “Not in this lifetime, stupid girl,” Meredith said.

  “Which lifetime?” Ren asked.

  “The first, to be exact.”

  “You knew me as Samara?” Ren asked. “What? Are you a Discentem too?”

  “No. I’m an Auxilium, Lazarus Order,” Meredith said. Ren stopped walking. Alfie grabbed her shoulder as he steadied himself from the abrupt halt. Perhaps Ren had it all wrong. Maybe it hadn’t been Peter who was trying to kill her, but Meredith. But why wait so long? Why not get it done with quietly at home years ago? Why show her all of this? Why involve Alfie? Meredith spoke again, as if she could read Ren’s mind. “And before you go thinking I’m one of the Rogues that your boyfriend told you about, I’m not. I’m the one who has followed you through the years. I’m the one who has always been there. Always protected you.”

  “Prove it.” Ren started moving again. Three steps later, she was at the bottom—yes, there was an end. Meredith stood in a small room, no bigger than a closet. There was no door. No tunnel. No second set of stairs. Only a sconce with an eagle, snake in mouth, fashioned to its base.

  Meredith turned to face Ren. “You know it’s true. You’ve seen me before.”

  “No.” Ren shook her head.

  “Think, Ren,” Meredith said, taking a step closer. “Think.”

  “Apart from here, in this life—”

 
“Don’t let his lies be your truth.” Meredith grabbed Ren by the shoulders. “Think. I was there.”

  “Where?”

  “The plantation.”

  Ren turned away from her stepmother and tried to think back to the visions of Charlotte’s life. She wasn’t the mother. Too old. Too different. She looked at Meredith, a blonde curl falling down the side of her face. She squinted at Meredith and her features blurred. An image washed over her then. Blonde curls pulled back, dressed plainly. Face without reams of eyeliner, mascara, or lipstick.

  “Alena,” Ren whispered, barely audible, even to her.

  “Who?” Meredith cocked an eyebrow.

  Ren’s face relaxed. “You were the maid. You were Alena.”

  “Very good, Miss Charlotte,” Meredith drawled, her voice matching the one Ren had heard in the visions perfectly. Slightly off. Silky smooth. It gave her chills. She stepped out of Meredith’s grip.

  “Does Dad know?” Ren asked.

  “Know what?” Meredith asked. “That I’m some kind of ancient freak with wings? Are you kidding? Your father knows nothing.”

  Ren’s forehead became a rippled sea. “Did you marry him just to be close to me?”

  “I had to find you,” Meredith said. “I had to protect you this time.”

  “So, you don’t love him?” Ren asked. Alfie rested a hand on her shoulder, but she shrugged him off. Meredith stared down at her own feet. Ren took a step toward her. “Answer me.”

  “I’m quite fond of your father,” Meredith said, her hand flying up to grasp at the triple spiral pendant she wore around her neck. She squeezed it. Dropped it suddenly. “But Auxilium, we’re immune to love.”

  Ren’s heart tightened as she thought of Peter. If the Auxilium were not capable of love, then the charade he had been playing at for the past few days was just that. A front. For what, though? To make her trust him so it would be easier to turn on her?

  “If you knew what I was this whole time, why did you even let Peter into my life?” Ren asked.

  Meredith didn’t answer her. She simply put a hand on the eagle carved into the base of the light fixture and tugged it toward her. The sound of stone sliding against itself. A brush of cold air. A door-sized section of the wooden wall pulled back an inch. Meredith leaned against it and the panel swung inward. Another passage. Meredith shined her flash light down the corridor.