by Adalynn Rafe
“It’ll be twenty nine if we don’t stop him!” I remind her. “The three lost girls, Sabrina, and I add another five!”
Mom straightens up. “You heard what Reinhardt said. Let the FBI control this.”
I can’t believe she is against me! “Fine!” I yell—but that is just to keep her happy.
We all know that we have no choice. We have to save the girls. Most importantly, we have to stop Leison from killing us. If only they would listen to us about the map, they could do it themselves. No one ever listens to teenagers!
Chapter 39
An orange sign hangs outside on a post. Elsie’s Apothecary and Fortunetelling Shoppe, it reads, in big purple letters. We stand in the outskirts of downtown, in the hippie district as we call it. Old, colonial style houses were transformed into shops, with wares ranging from clothing, to herbal remedies, to midwives.
In the west the sun is setting, sending flaming colors of pink and orange through the slits in the gray clouds. Supposedly, the storm is to be around for a few more days. These slices of color give me some sort of peace before we dive into the depths of hell tomorrow.
Hazel seems so excited to be here, so bouncy and energetic. “New age,” she corrects Darien when he mentions something about a shop with a crystal skull.
“Organic fruit and veggies,” Kelly says, looking down the road at a small market.
White and green party tents shelter the space from the elements and glow with the light emitted from fixtures found inside. On either side of “tent alley” are colonial houses with steep roofs, flat faces, and small windows, which had been turned into shops with added ornamentation to enhance the historic features. Essentially, that’s what the whole district looks like. This region dates back to before America was America.
I sigh, wondering why I agreed to this. Generally we love going to the hippie district, but today I just feel sick about everything. Curled up in my bed is where I belong. “Haze.” I look at her with reluctance. “We have school tomorrow––a big day, too.”
“That’s only if you find the map,” Darien reminds me. I glare at him. “What’s twenty minutes of your time?”
“Come on, Ces. You won’t regret it!” Hazel smiles and heads up the white wooden stairs and into the shop with the orange sign. “Come on,” she says, motioning me with her arm.
Sabrina sighs. “Let’s go, Cecily. It’s better than sitting at home all night and stressing out, right?”
Shrugging, I give in. “Okay, okay.”
A little bell sounds as the door opens and we all pummel into the small shop with orange walls. Instantly, I smell eucalyptus and lavender, maybe some rose as well. Small shelves are lined with soaps, oils, and lotions; really just potions in all sizes, shapes, and consistencies. In the corner, an illuminated square fountain spews out fog; above, little wind chimes and birdhouses crowd parts of the ceiling.
“I wonder if there is something for a headache,” says Darien as he looks through the essential oils.
“Try peppermint,” a woman says from the counter.
Darien makes a face. “I hate peppermint.”
She laughs. “Lavender it is.”
“Are you sure you shouldn’t try one for acne?” Sabrina teases him.
“Only if there is one for witches-wart,” Darien banters back. “It might be beneficial for you.”
They scowl at each other.
“Elsie!” Hazel yells excitedly, before running to the woman.
With long red hair and dazzling green eyes, she looks like a mermaid. Tall, slender, and overly mysterious, she towers a few inches above us and looks down at the new specimens that have entered her little cave of wonders. She even has a long, green tie-dye dress on. On her hips sits a twine belt with a large peace-sign buckle on it. Only her freckle-filled arms are showing. She’s like a hippie version of Daphne.
“Hazel!” she replies, a smile forming on her lips. “You found it okay.”
Hazel nods. “Ces and I have been to the area a few times. These are my friends, by the way.” Then she names us one by one and Elsie stares at me for what seems to be forever.
“You.” She points her finger at me. “You want your fortune told, correct?”
I shrug, unsure. “Yeah, I guess.”
Elsie smiles slyly. “I guess that’s a good enough answer for me.” She looks at Hazel and then to me. “Follow me,” she orders lightly.
I’m taken into this room that’s dimly lit and smells like burnt flower petals––or incense. My nose scrunches at the smell. What little light there is comes from a few lamps and from chunks of red salt crystal whose insides have been carved out and replaced with light bulbs. It’s toastier than I like, but I figure that I won’t be in here very long.
“Have you had your palm read before?”
She sits down in a black velvet-lined chair. Her hand motions for me to sit in the one opposite. “Please.”
“I’m not really into this type of thing.”
I sit down at the small round table with a black velvet tablecloth. There’s also a crystal ball in the middle. A sense of mysticism lingers in this dark backroom that wasn’t there in the main shop.
“Why are you here, Cecily?” Elsie stares at me as she reads my energy.
My hands fold together in my lap. “Hazel dragged me here.”
“You can’t really blame it all on your best friend, can you?” She smiles, but her eyes remains serious—exposing minute wrinkles. “If there isn’t something you personally seek, you wouldn’t be sitting here.”
Shrugging, I glance to the side to find a bamboo plant sitting on a copper perch. Perhaps she’s right . . .
I extend my right hand to her and watch anxiously as she starts to trace the lines on my palm. She says something about wealth. Then she releases a small gasp and her eyes widen.
She slowly looks at me, her pupils large. My right hand drops to the table. “Your left hand—” Elsie is eager to see what the other palm has to reveal.
My left hand extends more reluctantly than the right. An ache in my temples suggests that my jaw has been clenched too tightly for too long . . . that, or the incense is giving me a headache.
After another examination and complete silence, she places my left hand on the table. She just stares at me, evaluating everything about me.
“Well—” My throat is a little froggy from being nervous, so I clear it and try again. “Well?”
Elsie leans forward onto her pointy elbows. “Welcome back to the realm of the living.”
What??
I chew on my lip. Suddenly I don’t feel like playing this game.
Cold, pale hands hold my right hand again. “Cecily, have you had an out of body experience?”
Bumps fill my skin and I shiver. “I think . . . ?” What am I saying? I don’t even know her! My gaze directs up to see stars painted on the black ceiling. Chills hit again and I gulp. This isn’t right. “Maybe,” I mumble.
“What have you seen?” Elsie is dead serious, her eyes glued to mine, a slit for a mouth.
“I saw––” I pause, considering how crazy this will sound “—I saw myself.”
Elsie’s eyes widen. “What did you say to yourself?”
“I––I don’t know. One minute I’m getting ready to go to a party, a bad one, and the next minute—a shimmering version of me shows up. The next minute I wake up on the floor, wondering why in the world I’m dressed like some teenage hooker!”
“Something bad was supposed to happen? You said you planned on attending a party?”
Inside of me something aches painfully—into the fiber of my being. “Yes.” My lips purse as I slouch back into the seat. “I was going to commit suicide that night.”
Nodding, as if she already knew this, her eyes soften and her head tilts. “The shimmering version of yourself helped you reconsider your options?”
“I would like to think so.”
“Cecily, this is my opinion,” the way she says this makes
me nervous, “and perhaps you’ve died previously and this is a reboot of sorts, a second chance.” My head shakes—I’m confused. “Perhaps the spirit version of you was sent back to earth. I believe there could have been something you were meant to do. When you died you very well could have left a hole in the universe you lived in.”
It’s hard for me to accept what she’s saying. I nod anyway.
“A ripple effect. Perhaps you are the dam that keeps the water in the reservoir.”
Cocking my eyebrow, I hardly buy it. “Hazel called me a dam, too.”
“Think about it for a second. How would your suicide effect the people around you?”
Of course, my mind goes straight to Adie and her bone marrow transplants. Then Hazel—I don’t know what she would have gotten herself into without me . . . not that we were in the best of states today. My heart breaks a little when I think of Sabrina being used and raped by Leison; she would have died in his hands.
Kelly . . . I couldn’t live without him. Literally.
I took a shallow breath. “Why did you ask if I had a lover?”
Elsie smiles at me. “Someone in the other universe was fond of you. He died young . . . just as you had.”
I think of the instant attraction we shared. “Could it be someone related to Kelly?” I wonder. “Elsie, it was like I had met him before somehow.”
“Perhaps.” She shrugs casually. “The other man loved you, but you weren’t his to love.”
I laugh. “You’re saying that I committed suicide in an alternate universe, met some version of Kelly and fell in love . . . then was sent back to here to repair the tear that I caused when I died?”
Elsie’s forehead tenses. “More than repair the tear, dear girl. You’ve been sent back to stop something evil and sinister—something that threatens to consume the lives of the ones you love.”
Stomach churning, I close my eyes, not wanting to believe it.
His stare is imprinted into the insides of my eyelids. His snickering laughter travels through my ears. Even the memory of his disgusting cologne haunts my nose.
Dark and demonic eyes stare back, black like tar and radiating evil.
Someone most certainly sinister stalks this town.
Stop the epic disaster. Be the hero. It makes sense now . . .
Leison and his hostages. “Did Hazel tell you about that?” I wonder.
She shakes her head. “About what?”
“Um . . .” I debate telling her.
Elsie stares directly at the curtain that separates this room from the shop. That look on her face, the look of oh, crap, is the fiercest expression I’d ever seen. “You need to leave,” she states, her tone calm. “It’s not safe to be here right now.” Her vision seems glued to that spot. “Now hurry, you must leave.” Elsie stands up and shoo’s me out the door.
“What’s the matter?” Hazel asks as she’s being pushed out of the small shop.
Elsie kisses her cousins forehead. “Something bad is coming here. Run, Hazel, go,” she warns her.
Elsie grabs my arm. “Remember, you are more important than you think.”
* * *
Next thing I know I’m being pulled into the bushes by my friends.
Twenty seconds later Leison is walking past us and into the shop.
Sabrina is freaking out and my hand is over her mouth while the rest of us are being deathly quiet. Ten minutes pass and the creep leaves the shop and heads away. Leison carries a small paper bag in his hand.
Finally, we all take a breath and look at each other warily.
“I knew he was in town,” Sabrina whispers, nearly crying. “And he has rose oil, the same he uses on all his victims.”
“What does he use rose oil for?” I ask Sabrina.
Sabrina shakes her head as she begins to cry once more. “He’s a sick man, Cecily.”
Then I remember the smell in his classroom, the very peculiar smell. He didn’t use oil with me, so . . .
He must have another victim.
Chapter 40
Years ago I had a peculiar dream. I am standing in the church looking down at my father’s corpse lying still in his casket. Suddenly his brown eyes pop open and he stares at me. But they’re lifeless eyes and I’m all alone, with my corpse father who is eerily staring at me. Neither of us moves. At last, his eyes close and the casket bangs shut. I wake up shivering and so cold, like nothing in the world could bring the warmth back into my body.
That same cold fills me now.
Laughter is practically stifled by fear. The occasional smile that we crack is like a beam of sunlight straight into a darkened day. Regardless, we gather together. Darien and Kelly are here, as are Daphne and Jema, who know some of the story. They sit in the living room talking, but I’m by myself.
I’m standing at the kitchen sink, staring out the window into the darkened backyard. The old wooden fort my father built remains out there, even though it is over a decade old. Leaves have gathered on the old rusted tin roof. Aged wood that once held the mini-murals of Adie and Cecily has lost its color and now splinters off in large pieces. The inside is filled with random odds and ends––mainly Papa’s old things––where little beanbags used to sit.
It’s as if I can see Papa nailing that old roof on while I paint suns and butterflies along the walls of the fort. Adie always drew flowers and stars. Mom would bring us fresh lemonade to quench our thirst after working on the fort all day. Then at night, Papa grabbed his big lantern and we’d lay down pillows and blankets on the wooden floor. Adie and I would be sandwiched between Mom and Papa and they’d tell us stories of faraway lands as we stared up at the old tin roof.
It’s amazing how drastically my father changed in just a single memory. From a lifeless corpse to the man who built forts with us. I wish he were here, guiding me through this real-life nightmare. I wish he were here to shoot Leison till he was dead.
“Cecily.” Sabrina has entered the room, bringing me from my thoughts.
Now shadows fill the abandoned yard, mainly shadows of overgrown shrubs and trees. I hate how dark it has become, how desolate the fort is now that Papa is dead. It terrifies me. I look back at the fort, sitting beneath the old willow tree, aged and forgotten.
I turn to look at her. “Sabrina, what if the map isn’t there tomorrow?”
I stare back into the darkened yard. All I feel is dread. Tomorrow we’ll chase a serial killer, or be chased. Either way, our fates rely on the hands of an overly cocky FBI agent who thinks she knows everything about everything. It is the only way to stop Leison, though.
Sabrina comes over to lean on the white countertop next to me. She sighs as her head tilts to the side. “Do you really think he’d run for it? Like, he got his oil and skipped town?”
My head drops to my chest and I close my eyes. “No, he’s here. Creeping around.”
“Cecily, what if it’s not the right map?”
I look at her coldly. “If it’s not there, I think I’m done with this. I’m tired of being scared–– Aren’t you? They can hide me away until they catch him for all I care.”
Sabrina leans closer to me. “You can’t give up.” I look down at my hands, knotted up in each other. “You know that those girls are dying, starving to death, probably bound and tied up. Can you imagine?”
Knots take over my stomach and I want to puke. Just the thought of something so inhumane, so horrible, makes me sicker than a dog. I look into my yard again to avoid Sabrina’s disappointed gaze. “If the map isn’t there, then there is nothing else we can do.”
“If it’s not at the school, it could be at his house. What if we send Darien and Landon over to his house to snoop around?”
“We’re talking about the redhead, freckle-face, paler-than-a-vampire Landon?”
“He knows everything that has happened. He’d put his life on the line for me.”
“I won’t allow it.”
Sabrina shrugs. She acts far calmer than I expect. “The map is the onl
y way to catch Leison. It’s the only way to get the FBI to take the their heads out of their––”
I give her a look. “Chasing a serial killer . . . it’s already stupid. Going to his house is flat out suicidal. Sabrina, think about what you’re saying!”
“Do you want him caught and behind bars, or would rather have him hunt you for the rest of your life?” Sabrina stares at me. “Personally, I want the creep dead.” She leans even closer, poking the counter with her long finger. “If we don’t do this, those girls are as good as dead.”
“They’re dead anyway,” I hiss. “So, shut up about it already!”
Sabrina looks out the window and into the darkened back yard. “As are we if we don’t stop him.” She stands up. “Don’t let fear override logic.”
“I’m not scared!” I blurt out, louder than I meant to.
She leans toward me and whispers. “You will be when he gets his hands on you . . .” My limbs feel heavy. Leison wants me and he’ll do whatever he has to in order to get me. “You’ll never feel whole again, not after what he’ll do to you. Living with a shattered psyche and a beaten body stripped of all things virtuous is worse than death.”
“I get it. I know he’ll rape me if he gets the chance,” I hoarsely whisper, bravely.
“Worse than that, Cecily . . .” Sabrina suddenly stands beside me, grasping my bicep because I’m somehow falling to the floor. “Come on, you’ve got to get up and fight!”
Arms wrap firmly around me and hold me up. “Breath with me, Ces,” Kelly whispers in my ear. He begins to breathe in and out in a calming motion. “It’s okay—nothing is going to hurt you.”
I close my eyes and do as I’m told. Soon, my throat opens once more and the air feels so good in my lungs. When I turn around, Kelly’s glaring at Sabrina, eyes full of blame. Blame for all of it.
“This all ends tomorrow, Cecily,” Sabrina says before leaving the kitchen.
“What was that?” Kelly says in a low and concerned voice.