“I think the lighthouse,” she says. She wrings her hands rhythmically, her gaze darting down and to the side. She’s nervous with so many people around—even just the four of us. She’s been alone so long. “The lighthouse. Yes. We should—we should go to the lighthouse.”
We make our way single file down the spit of land. Salt-spray batters us and the delicate bones of birds crunch beneath our feet. With the sun down, it’s getting cold. We might not need to sleep or eat, but the cold still bites its way in.
The door is painted red, or was—faded now to dull wood and a few scraps of paint.
I push it open. The whole structure gives a hollow groan. A desolate, empty sound. The room is round and largely featureless. A staircase winds up—narrow, no handrails, tightening with the shape of the tower until it reaches a hatch in the ceiling.
I am overcome suddenly with weariness. I shrug off my bag and set it inside the door. The others follow suit. Kyle sits with his back to the wall, and Mel walks to the stairs for a more comfortable perch.
“Look at that,” Becca says. She points above the door. I twist to see. Carved in the rock are two words: Final Refuge.
“Does that mean we’re safe here?” Mel asks. I laugh, louder than I mean to. She cracks a crooked smile. “Dumb question.”
“Safer, maybe,” I say. “I’m going to go check out the top.”
“I’ll go with you,” Mel says immediately. I hesitate. I don’t want to be alone with Mel, really. I don’t have room right now to deal with what I feel when I’m around her. To grapple with what I want and can’t have—Mel isn’t interested in me, and even if she was, just thinking about it makes me feel selfish and shallow with so much horror around us.
“Okay,” I force myself to say, and head for the stairs. Mel’s footsteps echo behind me.
The trapdoor is heavy, but I manage to shoulder it open without Mel’s assistance—which is good, since by the time we reach the top, the staircase is barely wide enough for one person, much less two. We clamber up through the hatch and into a round room with a single narrow window. A wooden ceiling stands above us, along with another trapdoor, this one accessible with a ladder.
The only furniture is a cot, a little table with an oil lamp resting on it, and a bookshelf. The books are swollen and discolored, their titles illegible.
“Did someone live here?” Mel wonders.
“Maybe. Or maybe it’s just a prop. Like the houses around the mansion,” I say. I crouch by the bookshelf and pull down a book. The text inside is readable on some of the pages—if I could read French. The illustrations need no translation, though. A young girl dangles a noose from one hand. A man’s face is drawn in intricate detail, his eyes covered in clusters of fat, fleshy moths. A precise drawing, like a scientific illustration, depicts another man, this one composed of branches and thorns, with vines growing out from his shoulders like twisted wings.
“So,” Mel says. Too casually. “Anthony and Becca.”
I turn the pages, past a drawing of a snake twining through flowers. “Yeah,” I say. “What about them?”
“Did you know?” she asks.
“That they’re . . .” I wave my hand. They never really did define what they were. They just wanted each other. But he didn’t believe her about the dreams, about Lucy. Just like me. And so she found someone who did. “I knew. I wasn’t supposed to, but I did.” She was my sister. He was my best friend. I spent too much time around them not to put it together—the secretive texts, the whispered conversations cut off when I entered the room, the way they took such precise care to never stand too close together.
Plus, I was always a nosy little sister. I snooped.
“And you’re not upset?”
“I know that I can’t be the only important person in my sister’s life. It’s just weird,” I say, glossing over the selfish heart of my hurt. I have tried so hard to find her, and Anthony is the one who brought her peace by simply appearing.
“But you and Anthony,” she says, and stops when I look up in surprise. “I mean, you’ve always . . .”
I give her a quizzical look. “What are you talking about?”
“You. Have a crush. On Anthony,” she blurts out, brown cheeks reddening subtly.
I let out a sharp, startled bark of laughter and shut the book with a dull slap of sound. “Crushes are for twelve-year-olds,” I say with a more genuine chuckle. “And that’s the last time I had a crush on Anthony Beck.”
Her blush deepens, and she stammers. “But you guys were always so close.”
“He’s my best friend,” I say. “Or he was. But that was over long before he and Becca—you thought I still liked Anthony?”
“It would explain why you never dated anyone,” she mutters, hands jammed in her pockets.
“Who’s going to date the weird, sarcastic failed goth who never talks to anyone?” I ask. “Even before Becca. No one’s asked me out since sixth grade. Besides . . .” I almost tell her. Can’t. Crushes are for twelve-year-olds, and I should have shaken this one ages ago.
I put the book back on its shelf and walk to the ladder.
She looks like she wants to ask me more about it, but instead asks, “Where are you going?”
“Up,” I say, and climb. I tell myself it’s the responsible thing—exploring. Gathering information, definitely not running. I throw open the trapdoor at the top of the ladder and haul myself up. There’s no room for awkward revelations and rejections on the road.
The top level is the same size as the one below, but instead of a round and empty room with stone walls, the walls are glass, and the center of the room is taken up with the lighthouse lamp and the lens surrounding it—thick glass, shaped to bend the light of the gas lamp that sits at the center. Carved in the glass is a familiar symbol—seven concentric rings. It’s the same symbol from the preacher’s book.
Mel emerges behind me. We look out over the water. “We need to get across,” I say.
“How?” she asks. “The beach is part of the road. The water isn’t. We need to follow the shore.”
I shake my head. She’s wrong. I can’t explain how I know it; I just do. “We need to cross the water, like we did when we found Zoe. And look.” I point downward, leaning out so I can see the base of the lighthouse, barely visible in the light of the stars. A boat is moored at the edge of the water, bobbing up and down, oars tucked inside.
“There’s no way across without leaving the road,” Mel insists.
I sigh because she’s not wrong. I know there must be a solution, but I can’t see it.
“You’re really not mad at them? Becca and Anthony?” she asks.
I look her straight in the eye for the first time. “Sometimes I’m angry that Anthony wouldn’t believe Becca. If he’d believed her, maybe she would have told me about all of this. If she’d told me, maybe I could have convinced her not to go. Or gone with her,” I say. “I could have kept her safe. But no, I’m not mad that they’re together.”
She stands beside me in silence for a while. Up here, I feel almost safe. Nothing but the sea lurks outside, and thick glass stands between us and the waves. And it’s the first time I’ve been alone, quietly, with Mel in who knows how long. Even when we were spending most of our time together, our friendship was never quiet. But this—this feels nice. A peace steals over me that I didn’t think was possible here on the road. I’m not sure it would be possible if anyone but Mel was standing here. “Do you want to go back down?” Mel asks.
“Not really,” I say. “I’d rather stay here with you. For a little while. If that’s all right.”
“Yeah,” she says. Silence again—silence that I wish I could live in forever. And then, “Do you think we’re going to die?”
“I don’t know,” I say. “I hope not. Obviously.”
“If we do die . . .” She pauses. “If we do, or
if we don’t, it feels stupid not to say anything. So. I kind of like you, Sara. I came for you. Not for Becca. I came because I have . . . feelings. For you.”
Surprise comes first, and almost in the same moment the smile, a spy sneaking through the city of dread within me. “Feelings. For me,” I echo, in the same stilted tone, and she groans.
“How is there not a non-stupid way to say that?” she asks. “Look, I know that just because you’re bi it doesn’t mean ta-da, rainbows and unicorn farts, you must like me, too, and I don’t want to make things awkward, and this is the worst fucking time to bring it up, but—”
“I like you, too,” I say. She blinks. “I’ve liked you for a long time.”
“Then why didn’t you . . . ?”
“I didn’t know if you . . .”
“I always thought you and Anthony . . .”
We break off, weary laughter chasing our words. “We’re kind of slow on the uptake, I guess,” I say.
“You’re telling me—I just found out my information is off by about five years,” she says. “And here I thought I was a keen observer of the human condition. But seriously, why didn’t you say anything?”
“I guess I was scared,” I admit.
She laughs. “Come on. You? Miss Nerves of Steel? You’re the only one of us that’s managed to keep it together in the face of doom, gloom, and six-story stag-men, and you’re saying you were scared of me?”
“I was scared of losing you as a friend. I thought it would make things too awkward,” I said. “Also, I’m completely terrified and I have been the entire time.”
“You don’t show it.”
“It’s not that hard to hide your emotions, once you get a little practice,” I say.
“For you, maybe. I can’t even fake being excited about my grandma’s weird Christmas presents,” Mel says with a shake of her head. A smile sneaks its way into the corner of her mouth. She tries to smooth it out and just ends up with a grin, as if to prove the point. Finally she clears her throat, shakes her head, and manufactures a neutral expression. “So what does this mean?”
“I don’t know,” I say. Part of me wants to ignore everything around us—hold her, kiss her, laugh with her up here and let the road wait. But the dark water lurks outside, and I can’t bring myself to forget it. “I don’t think I can sort through anything I’m feeling right now. I mean, Trina, and . . . It’s all too much. But as impossible as it is to feel happy, I did. I do. So I think . . . I think in a while, when we’re home, and we’ve had like a hundred years of therapy . . .”
“Dinner?” she suggests. “Movie?”
“That’s a start,” I say. I let my hand brush hers, and her fingers hook around mine as we look out over the dark ocean. However much we might wish otherwise, there isn’t room, in the grief and the fear, for more than that.
But it’s something.
“No therapist is going to believe this,” Mel says.
“No one’s going to believe this,” I say.
“Someone will. If this is real, other things must be real,” Mel says. “And other people must have encountered them. People who can help us. If we can even get home.”
I frown, a memory faint at the back of my mind. My fingers tap out a rhythm on my thigh. “Count the crows,” I whisper, almost to myself.
“What?” Mel asks.
“Nothing. I don’t know.” I rest my fingertips against the glass for a moment, frowning out at the water. “We’re going to get home,” I promise. She nods, and the look in her eyes is bright with faith. With hope. With, for maybe the first time, anticipation of what might be waiting for us, when we get back. Some scrap of joy at the end of the road. I try to mirror her expression, but it feels false.
I didn’t slip up this time. We, I said, instead of you. But I haven’t failed to notice—there are five of us.
Which means at least one of us won’t be getting home.
SUPPLEMENT A
Text messages between Andrew Ashford and Abigail Ryder
May 9, 2017—Day of interviews
Ashford | Abby
Are you done reviewing Miss Donoghue’s written statements?
Mostly.
You’ve had them for over a day.
She wrote a _lot_.
I’m looking over your notes. Obviously the Nick Dessen thing is disturbing.
I also think that given the messages from Jeremy Polk’s phone, something’s off about the bridge where she met up with Anthony.
Interesting that she doesn’t say anything about the dreams.
I would go as far as to say “key,” not just interesting.
Yeah.
You don’t trust her.
You do?
Not precisely. But I want you to be certain that you are remaining objective.
Why wouldn’t I be objective? Because of Miranda?
You know Sara knows more about her than she’s saying.
I believe so, yes. But again, we do not know the reasons why.
Sara Donoghue is a victim in all of this. Our responsibility is to her well-being.
We’ll see about that.
She is arriving in a few hours. Please make sure that everything is prepared.
You’re the boss.
I am not sure I am comfortable with that classification of our relationship.
If you can think of a less sketchy version of a teenage orphan hanging out with a balding middle-aged disgraced professor, crossing state lines and inappropriately involving ourselves in ongoing criminal investigations, let me know.
I admit there does not seem to be a suitable alternative.
I’ve been telling people I’m your intern.
Please . . . don’t.
I could tell people you’re my dad.
Abby.
You don’t think we look alike?
Just get everything ready. The syringes are in the glove box.
Sure thing, boss.
INTERVIEW
MELANIE WHITTAKER
May 9, 2017
Abigail Ryder sits across from Mel and flips through a legal pad of notes.
ABBY: Sorry. Just trying to make sure I’ve got everything fresh in my mind.
She rolls her neck and rubs one shoulder.
MEL: We’ve been at this awhile.
ABBY: Yup. We don’t know how much time we’ll have, so we want to get everything out of the way all at once. Are you holding up?
MEL: Yeah, I’m okay. I mean. Not really. I still feel like I’m going insane half the time.
ABBY: You’re keeping it together pretty well. From everything I’ve seen, you were pretty much rock stars on the road. Most people fall apart when supernatural stuff starts happening. I did.
MEL: I was wondering how you ended up . . .
She waves a hand vaguely.
ABBY: It’s kind of a long story.
MEL: I’m not going anywhere.
ABBY: The short version? Ashford saved my life. He saved both of us.
MEL: Us?
ABBY: Me and my sister. Something was after us. It killed our parents, but Professor Ashford helped us get away. For a while, at least. I’ve been traveling with him ever since.
MEL: What about your sister?
ABBY: She was with us for a while, too.
MEL: Where is she now?
ABBY: You saw her more recently than I did.
MEL: I did?
ABBY: Miranda. She’s my sister. Or she was.
MEL: I—oh.
Abby nods, tries for a smile. It fractures.
ABBY: That’s her. The thing that was hunting us caught up with us. I tried to protect her, but I couldn’t. Not even Ashford could . . .
She stops and look
s away for a moment to compose herself.
ABBY: I guess she decided to keep up the work, even after . . .
MEL: So that’s why you’re here.
ABBY: No. Or only sort of.
MEL: But you are trying to find her.
ABBY: Of course.
MEL: And what happens if you do?
ABBY: I have no idea. But I think that Sara knows something that can help. And I think it might be the key to helping Sara, too.
MEL: You think she needs help?
ABBY: You don’t?
MEL: I don’t know. I haven’t been around her like Becca has. If she knows something about your sister, why wouldn’t she just tell you?
ABBY: That’s another question we’re trying to answer.
MEL: Got a theory?
ABBY: Yeah.
MEL: But you’re not going to tell me.
ABBY: Not until we know for sure. I think that we have everything we need from you.
MEL: Does that mean I can go?
ABBY: Not yet. We’d rather keep everyone until everything is settled.
MEL: That sounds ominous.
ABBY: Yeah. I guess it is pretty ominous, isn’t it?
MEL: Has anyone ever told you that you need to work on your people skills?
ABBY: Probably.
23
DOWNSTAIRS, BECCA AND Anthony stand in quiet communion. Becca’s head is tilted in until it almost touches Anthony’s, her mouth moving in a murmur, but when we enter she straightens up and clears her throat. “We need to get across the water,” she says.
“Sara said the same thing,” Mel replies. “I still don’t see how that makes sense.”
“I know because Lucy told me,” Becca says. She fiddles with her sleeves, picking at the seams. “I had dreams of her before I got on the road, mostly. But now I can hear her. She tries to help, because she needs help. She’s trapped, here on the road. And she says that we need to get across the water.”
My mouth is dry, and my heart thuds in my chest. Find me. My finger taps that odd rhythm against my thigh, and I think of dark-feathered wings. There’s an inexplicable ache in my chest, and the persistent feeling I’m forgetting something.
Rules for Vanishing Page 19