by Rysa Walker
I’m not sure why I need to see the picture again. It seared itself into my head the first time. The image is a grainy, blurred still from a low-quality security camera. It shows a man kneeling inside an office building. A gun lies on the floor next to him. He’s holding a woman against his chest. Her body is limp, one arm dangling off to the side.
It’s Pfeifer. And he’s definitely touching her. I knew that, but some part of me needed to see it for confirmation.
Daniel took up residence in my head because I touched his hand when he was—briefly—dead. Jaden and Hunter came on board the same way, as did Will and the Furies. As did Graham Cregg.
I knew that my ability was inherited from Pfeifer. So why did it never occur to me that he might have picked up my mother’s spirit?
To be fair, it’s not something I spent a lot of time thinking about. I never expected to meet him, and even if I did, I wouldn’t have imagined that her spirit would still be here. Leah Johnson Pfeifer died in 2004. She should have moved on ages ago.
The longest I ever carried a hitcher was two years. That was Emily MacAllister, age eighty-two when she died. Emily was sweet, but I think she may have been somewhere on the obsessive-compulsive spectrum, because she couldn’t leave until we tracked down the specific crossword puzzle that she’d left unfinished when she died.
All my other hitchers departed within a year. Most of them left because I was able to help them achieve closure, but a few moved on without it. It was as though the tether holding them to this realm grew thinner and thinner until they simply drifted away, like a balloon in the wind.
Deo remains quiet, but I can tell he’s waiting for an explanation. I hand the phone back and point to the picture. My father’s arm, clutching my mother’s body to his chest.
“He’s touching her. Like I touched Daniel, and Jaden, and . . .”
His eyes widen. “Oh. Oh, wow. I never even . . .”
“Yeah. Me, neither.”
“You ran out pretty fast,” Deo says. “You don’t want to talk to her?”
“No. I do. But . . . there were just so many emotions hitting me all at once. I never thought I’d speak to her. To either of them. I put a lid on all the questions I’d never get answers to long ago, and also on the . . .”
I don’t finish the thought, but Deo knows. “The anger?”
“Yes. I mean, it’s not her fault that he shot her, but . . . it doesn’t seem like she left me in very good hands, you know?”
Is it unfair of me to be angry? I don’t know. Whoever left me in that food court clearly thought I was possessed—and they were, technically speaking, correct. There were no signs of abuse or neglect, according to the police report. They just didn’t know how to help me. Maybe they hoped someone else would know how.
“But it’s not just anger, D. My mom has been dead for fifteen and a half years. After I heard what happened to her, I’ve gotten used to thinking of her as being on the other side. Heaven, or wherever my hitchers move on to. And now I find out she’s been stuck here all along, inside the guy who shot her. That’s sad and also creepy. He must be keeping her from moving on.”
“Maybe.” Deo doesn’t sound convinced. “But Pfeifer’s been locked in a mental hospital. Think how much effort you’ve put into helping your hitchers. You were grounded for a whole month at the Wheelwrights’ house because you ran off trying to find out what happened to that guy Abner’s dog. If you’d been locked up somewhere . . .” He shrugs.
I know Deo’s right, but it still makes me sad—and yes, angry—that she’s been caged up all this time. Not just locked inside Scott Pfeifer’s mind but locked up inside a hospital for the criminally insane. I’ve spent time in mental hospitals. They suck. Fifteen years in one would have to change you. And I think that’s what bothers me most. This version of Leah Johnson Pfeifer could be stark raving mad, but since I can’t remember her, how do I know she wasn’t crazy to begin with?
On the other hand, this is the only chance I’ll ever have to talk to my mother. And it’s a chance I never thought I’d get.
“Kelsey helped you locate people a few times, too,” Deo continues. “And, um . . . speaking of Kelsey, she called while you were asleep.”
“Did you tell her—”
“That she was wrong on the whole Myron thing? Yeah. She believed me, so I guess whatever Cregg did is wearing off. I didn’t get into the part about Cregg influencing her, though. She’s probably pieced it together on her own, and she was already mad about me raiding her drug cabinet.”
I grimace. “So you told her.”
“Yeah. I figured it was better to admit it before she found out.”
“What did she say?”
“There was a really, really long silence, and then she said we’ll discuss it when I return to Sandalford. And that I should get back there ASAP.” He stares down at his hands. “She’s right on that front. Maria and Stan are getting nervous. He says some of the paths show things starting at Sandalford in a matter of days. And he’s pretty insistent that our chances suck royally if I’m not there as an amp. I’ve already had to delay training sessions with two of the adepts.”
“Okay, help me out here. This whole training thing is one of my memory gaps. I had a sense there was some sort of training going on to get the adepts ready to defend Sandalford if necessary, but in that meeting with Maria it was like everyone had been carrying around a Dumbledore’s Army coin except me.”
“Yeah . . . um . . .” Deo winces slightly. “That was intentional, once we suspected you’d picked up Cregg. We didn’t know if he was passing information along to the Senator.”
“He wasn’t. They were obviously allies at one point, but . . . something happened. I don’t understand Cregg’s motivations, but I’m certain he’s not working with his father.”
“Well, anyway, you kept asking about the training. Insisting that you wanted to watch. It was kind of creepy, so we started keeping things more . . . discreet. Not just from you, but also from Magda and the security team. And Kelsey, too, once we realized she’d been compromised.”
“Well, hopefully Kelsey’s head is clear enough that she’ll believe me about Cregg influencing her. And I’ll make it clear that you swiping the medicine is the only reason I’m me right now. Maybe she’ll go easy on you if I plead your case when we get back.”
As I say the word we, I realize not all of us will be returning to Sandalford anytime soon. We can’t leave Sophie and my father here on their own, and Daniel’s ability may be useful in controlling him. And based on the message Will just gave me, it’s entirely possible that I’m needed here, too, since my mother is helping to rein in the teeming masses inside my father because she’s worried they might hurt me.
Which brings me back around to the reality that sent me running out here like a scalded cat.
“You could be right about Pfeifer, I guess. He may not have intended to pick her up.”
“Even if he did, is that so bad, Anna? Would you feel better if you knew she was still wandering around that building where she was killed?”
“No, but . . .” I want to argue that she’d have eventually left that building in search of her “last happy place,” like most of my hitchers. Spirits seem to gravitate toward the place where they last felt safe and happy. Or at least that was my working theory prior to the past few months. Molly was the first of my hitchers who’d been murdered, and she made it back to the homeless shelter where she’d been staying with her mom shortly before they were both killed. I doubt most people thought of the shelter as a happy place, but Molly was happy to be with her mom, happy her mom wasn’t doing drugs at the moment, and happy they were, at least for the time being, away from Lucas. And she was happy to be somewhere with a piano. All it took to pull her on board was me casually running my finger along the keys when I was there to see Deo, who’d just had a disastrous visit with his mother.
But maybe my working theory needs more work. Molly was exceptionally driven. She was determined
to find her way back to her family, specifically to her grandfather, Porter, so that he could solve her murder and we could stop Graham Cregg and Lucas from killing again. Her quest wasn’t so much for revenge as it was for protecting others.
The Furies and the other spirits who were stuck inside The Warren, however, seem pretty hell-bent on revenge. They never moved on to their “last happy place,” and I have no way of knowing whether my mother would have either. Would she have found closure on her own or would she have been stuck there, nothing more than a cold spot a few perceptive individuals felt as they walked through the building on the way to the elevator?
“You’re right,” I say. “She’s probably better off. I was just feeling uncertain enough about talking to Pfeifer . . . and now it’s both of them and . . .”
Deo holds out his hand, palm extended, his brows lifted in an unspoken question. “Not sure it would help, but you said we needed to stop thinking of Jaden’s visions as a curse. Maybe it will give you some insight? Same rules as before, though. You tell me what you see.”
I consider it for a moment and then reach for his hand.
“First, get off the table so you don’t fall.”
Valid point. I sit on the bench across from Deo, taking his hand across the table, like we’re about to arm wrestle. There’s a much longer pause than usual, enough time to feel the warmth of his palm next to mine. Enough time to wonder whether it’s going to work. Then that weird metallic hum kicks in.
nnnnNNNNN
I step out into the sunshine, almost painfully bright after the dark interior of the van. That’s partly due to the sun’s reflection on the water, and partly due to all of the white surrounding us . . . the concrete sidewalks and the pristine tarplike covering of the amphitheater.
A shimmering veil of shattered glass covers everything around the tower—the grass, the bushes, even the rocks surrounding the railroad track. Someone seems to have swept the sidewalks, but even there, you can see tiny gold specks like glitter. A bit like the gold flecks in Aaron’s eyes.
No. No. I will not go there. Aaron and Taylor are fine. They have to be. Deo is fine. Kelsey is fine. They are all completely fine, and I’ll see them soon.
My father bends down to place his hand inside the area cordoned off by the police tape. He seems almost oblivious to his surroundings, completely absorbed in his task. Is this how he looked when he stared into the microscope, working on various iterations of the Delphi serum?
That thought gives me a slight shiver, or maybe it’s just the sense that we’re exposed, standing out here, snooping around a police barricade. And the police aren’t the only ones who might have the area under surveillance. The Senator’s people could be watching, as well.
Sophie opens the back door of the navy-blue van and waves for us to hurry. There’s a large Coldwell Banker magnet on the door. I see Miller behind her. He’s staring straight ahead, motionless.
“We need to go, Dad.”
He looks up at me, his expression startled, as though he’d forgotten I was there. The bruise just above his left eyebrow is a deep bluish purple now.
“Come on,” I say. “We have—
NNNNNnnnn
I keep my head down for a moment after the vision ends, trying to cement the specifics in my mind. Who else was there? Sophie, my father—and Miller? A van, but it wasn’t a Vigilance van. My thoughts were so focused on the scene in front of us that I wasn’t thinking about much else, except for that stray thought about everyone being okay.
“So . . . ?” Deo asks when I lift my head.
“I’m . . . not exactly sure. I do know I wasn’t here. Let’s go in, okay? I’m cold and they’ll want to hear this, too. Plus, I should apologize for freaking out.”
Deo gives me a teasing grin. “You can skip the apology. We’ve kind of gotten used to it.”
“Fair enough. Anna freaked out. Must be Tuesday.”
“Actually, I believe it’s Saturday. And yes, I got it. Have I ever missed a Buffy reference?”
We open the door, and Taylor slides over to make room on the couch for Deo. I sit on the edge of Aaron’s chair. He flinches when I wedge my feet between his leg and the cushion to warm them up.
“Jeez, they’re like ice cubes.”
“It’s cold out there. Sorry about running off like that. I knew my father was in there, obviously. But I just learned he’s been carrying my mother around in his head for the past fifteen years.”
Aaron squeezes my ankle. “No wonder you freaked.”
“I don’t get it,” Taylor says. “That’s a good thing, right? You get to talk to both of your parents. But you don’t look happy.”
“I am. No, really,” I insist, in response to Taylor’s skeptical look. “I’m glad. It’s just complicated. Maybe I’ll feel less conflicted once I talk to them.”
Daniel frowns. “You’re not doing that tonight. They just tried to torch the place. We need to hold off until tomorrow at the very least.”
“That’s Anna’s decision,” Aaron says. “Like I told Deo, I didn’t sense any violent thoughts, at least . . . not near the surface. It’s more like what I’d sometimes feel when Daniel was your hitcher and he was angry about something. Like a kettle on low boil.”
“I think that’s a pretty fair assessment. The message I got from Will was that, even if they wanted to hurt me, my mother would hold them back.”
“How?” Daniel asks.
“Mama-bear instinct,” Taylor says. “Haven’t you heard those stories of a panicked mother lifting a car off her kid?”
“I don’t care how protective she is,” Daniel says. “You guys saw what happened to Whistler and Davis last night.”
“True,” Aaron says. “But remember what I just told you about sensing something under the surface? We don’t know how long she’ll be able to hold them all back. Maybe sooner is better.”
He could be right, but I think back to the vision. Scott Pfeifer walking outside, relatively calm and at ease, even though the surroundings were in chaos.
“Maybe. But . . . I think his chill is going to last for a bit longer.” I tell them about the vision, filling in as many details as I can remember.
“You don’t know where this was?” Aaron asks.
“No. Like I said, there was a tall object near us, because I could see this elongated shadow. A tower of some sort, near a theater. And there were tiny gold sparkles in the bushes outside the crime-scene tape. Irregularly shaped . . . glass, maybe? My father was crouched down near a bush. I think he was inspecting them. I was worried that someone would see us. The police, or maybe the Senator’s people. And . . .” I hesitate, and then look at Aaron. “I was worried about you and Taylor. Also Deo and Kelsey, but it seemed separate. Telling myself that you were fine, but still worried. So I know you weren’t there. I don’t think Daniel was there, either.”
“Why were you worried about us?” Taylor asks.
“No clue. It was only a stray thought. I didn’t want to dwell on it. It was just me, Sophie, and my dad there. And . . . Miller, but something was wrong with him.”
“Miller?” Daniel asks.
“The ass Magda hired as head of security,” Taylor explains. “You were there with your father willingly?”
“I think so. Or at least, I don’t remember feeling afraid. Just a little wary, nervous that we might be exposed. I would have been looking for escape routes if I didn’t trust him.”
Deo looks directly at me. “You trusted him. In the vision, you trusted him.”
He sounds absolutely certain on this point. Much more certain than I am, and I’m the one who had the vision.
“How do you know?”
“Think back. What did you call him a moment ago?”
I give him a puzzled look, still not following.
“Anna. You said it was you, Sophie, and your dad. You called him dad.”
He’s right. I haven’t once thought of Pfeifer that way, and my discovery about my mother hasn’t exact
ly filled me with warm fuzzies where he’s concerned. Something must change between now and whenever this vision happens. And there’s unfortunately no way to tell when it happens. The shortest amount of time between the preview and the main event has been a few hours. The longest has been around six weeks.
The bedroom door opens, and Scott Pfeifer—or Dad, as I will apparently think of him in the (literally) foreseeable future—crosses the hallway to the bathroom on the other side. Sophie doesn’t follow. In my ongoing mental prep for talking to Pfeifer, I’d envisioned him still strapped to the gurney, like he was this morning. But that was over twelve hours ago.
He doesn’t look my way. That feels intentional, as though he’s giving me space. Like I’m a frightened animal who might run if he makes the wrong move. Not an unreasonable comparison, given the way I bolted across the lawn a few minutes ago.
I glance down at the bulky sweats I’m wearing and then run a hand through my messy hair. My hair and teeth are both unbrushed.
“I need to run upstairs. But yes, Daniel. I am doing this tonight.”
My bag is next to the bed. I pull on jeans and my last clean shirt. It’s crumpled from being crammed in with everything else, but I smooth most of the wrinkles away. When I’m dressed, I risk a quick glance in the mirror. No spider-rat. Just me, with bed hair that’s in dire need of a brush and another dose of midnight-blue dye.
I’m almost presentable when Aaron walks in and wraps his arms around me from behind. “You look beautiful. But I also thought you looked beautiful before, so . . .”
“Baggy sweats aren’t the first impression I want to make on my parents. Although I guess it’s not, strictly speaking, a first impression. For either of us, and . . . I’m babbling. Sorry. I’m nervous.”
“Do you want me to come in with you? Or . . .” He stops, shaking his head. “I was going to say Deo could, but I don’t think we need anyone with amp powers that close to Pfeifer.”
Like all of my other feelings right now, I’m of two minds. On the one hand, it would be really nice to have Aaron there for moral support. But I also don’t want an audience, and I don’t think my father will either. And while I’m fairly confident that I’m safe, I’m not sure whether that safety net extends to anyone else.