by J. W. Ocker
She pulled her phone out of her pocket and tapped at the glass until she got the answer she needed. Sunrise was at five twenty-three a.m. Only about five hours away. She tapped again at the phone screen, this time writing a message to Radiah and Crystal, wherever they were: I’m OK. Outside Totter. SM can’t get me but won’t let me come back. I’ll sleep here till day. Parents will think I sleepwalked. She finished it with a sleepy face emoji.
She didn’t hit send. The last word in her message chilled her.
Sleepwalking was the perfect alibi for being outside in the neighborhood all night, but what if it ended up being true? What if she fell asleep right there, and then stood up and walked into the arms of the Smashed Man?
The Smashed Man continued to stare at her as if that was exactly what he was waiting for.
She would have to stay up all night. That was the only way to guarantee her safety. But even as she thought that, she realized it would be impossible. She was too tired. She’d have to move, now.
She made the decision in a second. She retrieved the bucket of darkwash, then walked right up to the Smashed Man until he was inches away, barely the width of the border separating them. She could see the texture in his glowing purple irises; the slit of darkness between his teeth; the stringy, oily blackness of his hair; the moistness of the exposed muscle and bone in his cheeks and forehead and on his arms and legs.
She threw the bucket of black goo at his face.
It hit him full-on, a torrent of thick blackness obscuring his features. He staggered back, clawing and tearing at his face like she had thrown burning tar on it.
She threw down the bucket and ran past him.
She could see that Crystal’s front door wasn’t open, so she aimed for Radiah’s, deeper within the dead end. However, as she passed the first house on the block, she realized that not all the houses on Totter Court were protected after all. She’d missed painting a new Amberonk on the last one on this side of the street.
She snuck a glance over her shoulder and saw the Smashed Man capering about near the Dread End sign, swiping at his face and jiggling around like a puppet with a bad puppeteer.
She altered her course and swung by the front porch of the house. She had used all the darkwash on the Smashed Man, but she still had a brush in her hand covered in it. She painted the fastest Amberonk of the night on the wall beside the door with their previous Amberonk on it, barely pausing to change her trajectory to continue to Radiah’s house. She didn’t turn around to see if the Smashed Man was chasing her, because it didn’t matter if he was or not. It only mattered that she ran as fast as she could.
For a second, she wondered if she should run to her house instead, since she had the key. But an open door and two girls standing underneath a porch light told her that she was running exactly where she needed to run.
Radiah and Crystal jumped up and down when they saw her, their arms waving in come-here-fast gestures, as if that would help Noe run faster. It did.
She sprinted across Radiah’s lawn, and the two girls moved inside the door. Noe tumbled in after them, with Crystal and Radiah grabbing her to absorb the force so she didn’t smack facefirst into a wall.
Nobody shut the front door right away. There was no need to. The Amberonks were all on solid, unmoving walls now, protecting the entire house.
The Smashed Man was nowhere to be seen.
Twenty-Eight
A loud dinging pulled Noe slowly out of sleep. It took her a long time to piece together where she was. She saw dirty rafters. Cobwebs. Cardboard boxes scribbled on with black marker. Furniture legs. She was lying on an old rug on the floor. For a moment she thought that she had been sleepwalking, but the pillow her head rested on and the blankets she was wrapped in went against that idea. Then she realized she was in an attic. Radiah’s attic. She heard the dinging noise again and looked over at the white plastic box on the wall that was the intercom. She saw Radiah and Crystal slowly moving into wakefulness on Radiah’s bed.
They looked fine, if bleary. She hadn’t attacked them in her sleep.
“What does your mom want so early in the . . .” Crystal checked her phone. “Afternoon.”
“That was some professional sleeping,” said Noe, her jaw cracking through an immense yawn that communicated that her body wouldn’t mind going back to work for another shift. The daylight leaking through the dirty window fought the dimness of the attic, catching clouds of glowing dust motes. Noe thought it was the most beautiful thing in the world at the moment.
The girls wandered downstairs, still in the same clothes from the previous night, to find a nice little summer feast laid out on the kitchen table. There were hot dogs and corn bread and cantaloupe slices and strawberries and a pitcher of the brightest yellow lemonade that Noe had ever seen. Noe felt like she hadn’t eaten in a week.
Radiah’s mother was flitting around the kitchen like she was an engineer in the engine room of a giant ship. “Good morning, sleepyheads,” she greeted them. “I figured since you all missed breakfast, you might like a nice lunch.”
“Thanks,” all three said, more or less at the same time, as they dropped into the hard kitchen chairs around the table.
Radiah’s mother placed deviled eggs in front of them and sat down in a chair. “So what adventures were you all up to last night?”
“Nothing much,” said Radiah, grabbing two of the deviled eggs and dropping them on her plate. “Played games.”
“We did a little bit of painting,” said Crystal, taking a bite out of a cantaloupe slice and not making eye contact with anyone.
“Hope you didn’t make too much of a mess. But then again, it’s the attic, so I guess it doesn’t matter,” sighed Mrs. Harris. “So, Miss Christmas, are your parents getting ready for the summer bonfire? It’s next month, you know.”
“I think so,” Noe answered, pulling the green hair off a strawberry. “I guess I don’t know what they have to do to get ready, though.”
“Well, nothing really,” said Mrs. Harris. “Other than gather all the stuff they want to burn from your yard. Everyone else will cart theirs over in wheelbarrows. Except Mr. Hanson. He always hooks up a wagon behind his riding lawn mower and drives it over. He loves driving that thing. And we all bring something to eat. A big potluck. I’m thinking I’ll bring potato salad.” Mrs. Harris tapped at her empty plate with a fork. “It won’t be the same without Erica’s family, but it’ll still be fun. It’s always fun. Goes late into the night. You’ll have a good time. Isn’t that right, girls?”
Neither Crystal nor Radiah answered, and all three girls looked like they were buffering, they were so still.
Noe was the first to say anything. “Late into the night?”
“Oh, sure. Everybody likes to stay up for it. We roast marshmallows and make s’mores. You know, like summer camp.”
They continued to eat, although with much less enthusiasm and with Mrs. Harris doing most of the talking. Eventually they all finished and helped Mrs. Harris load the dishwasher.
“Everybody’s going to be out of their houses at night,” said Radiah once they were back in the attic. “I can’t believe I didn’t think of that.”
“We never had a reason to be scared during the bonfires before,” said Crystal. “The Smashed Man was always stuck in our basements.”
“At least the adults are all safe,” said Noe.
“We think,” said Crystal. “Who knows why the Smashed Man ignored Ruthy’s dad?”
“Yeah,” said Noe. “But let’s hope it’s true. Because we’ll have our hands full worrying about the three of us and Len.”
“Can’t we make another border around your yard?” asked Crystal.
Noe thought about it. “Maybe, but it seems complicated. With a house, we just protect each wall. Do we paint Amberonks on all the trees at the edge of my yard? That’s a lot of trees. And what about the spaces between them? And what about the parts that don’t have trees, like most of the front lawn?”
; “The Neighbors figured out how to do it,” said Radiah.
“But Fern said that the Amberonks around the neighborhood are layered and interconnected. I don’t know. I’d rather figure out how to keep us and Len inside my house while everybody else bonfires it up.” Noe headed for the stairs. “I’m going home. I need a shower.” Although what she really needed was not to have to worry about the Smashed Man ever again.
She left Radiah’s house, throwing Mrs. Harris a quick “Thanks for breakfast!” as she passed her in the living room. Mrs. Harris was lying on the couch with a paperback book in one hand and her phone in the other. Noe walked out the door and across the asphalt, staring at the pair of Amberonks on the front of her house, one on the door and the other beside it on the wall. If they really were Egyptian Eyes of Horus, her house was staring at her right now, and it was thinking how bad she was at making plans that worked.
Twenty-Nine
“I’ll get it!” yelled Noe from her room. She was pretty sure that it was Radiah or Crystal knocking on her front door. For the past month, they had been desperately trying to figure out what to do about the summer bonfire. It was only a couple of days away now, and they didn’t have a plan for staying inside their houses. They had thought about all of them faking sick, but that would leave Len on her own. Worse, the bonfire night was only part of a larger problem.
The Amberonks on the houses seemed to be working, but it was a short-term solution. They didn’t have to worry about somebody opening a door at night anymore, but it was only a matter of time before a kid was caught outside after sunset, especially with fall and winter approaching. Sunset at its earliest during those seasons would be sometime between four and five o’clock, only an hour after school was let out. And that didn’t even count the danger of Noe or Len sleepwalking outside.
Noe had been extra careful about that last issue, making sure the baby gate was always locked and tied with her robe sash every night. Tying herself to the bed. And sometimes even getting Len to sleep in her room. It had worked so far, but it also wasn’t a permanent solution.
The only permanent solution was to get rid of the Smashed Man.
The Dread Enders would stare out their windows at night and see the Smashed Man wobbling furiously around the neighborhood, in and out of the forest, behind one house and in front of another, trying to find a victim or any way into a house or out of Totter Court. It was almost worse than when he was in their basements.
Ruthy was still at the hospital with no change in her condition. The big discussion among the adults in the neighborhood was whether Mr. Larson would try to find a specialist, like Erica’s family had. Except that Erica was still in a coma, so it didn’t seem worthwhile to sell his house and move to a faraway state yet. The girls had visited Ruthy twice so far. It was devastating to see her unconscious in a hospital bed.
Noe had even finally tried meditating to see if she could get any answers that way. She had been too embarrassed to try at home, but she had gone to the white house a few times and tried it. She hadn’t been able to get it to work by herself, though, even with the metronome, and that depressed her. Fern had made it sound like all the answers she needed were just a meditation session away, but it hadn’t turned out to be like that at all. The first time hadn’t even done much other than chase Fern away.
Noe descended the stairs, half expecting her mother to beat her to the door and not at all expecting the person on the other side of the door when Noe opened it.
“Hello, young lady,” Fern said, looking down at her like she didn’t know who Noe was. “Is your mother or father at home?” She was holding a brochure in her hand.
“I’m her mother,” said Mom. Noe hadn’t seen Mom standing in the other room.
“Hello, ma’am. My name is Fern, and I’m handing out brochures for my new restaurant downtown.” She handed the brochure to Mom.
Noe’s mother looked it over and nodded her head. “I like Mexican food.”
“Great! There’s a coupon in there for twenty percent off. Please come on down. Kids eat half off on Sundays.” She nodded down at Noe like Noe was six years old.
“Sure, we’ll check it out,” said Mom.
“Great! Have a good day, ma’am and ma’am,” She bowed her head and left, the crutch clacking beside her.
“That was strange,” said Mom after she’d closed the door.
“Why?” asked Noe.
“There’s a mailing sticker on the back of this brochure with our address. Why would she hand-deliver that? Should have been in the mailbox with all the other junk mail.” Her mom dropped the brochure on a side table. “What are you up to today?”
“Nothing much, but I think I left my phone at Radiah’s house,” said Noe. “I’ll be right back.”
“Okay, but your dad needs some help clearing brush at the edge of the yard for the bonfire, and I think somebody is bringing over tables. He might need help setting those up too.”
Noe exited the house and started around the bulb of the driveway like she was taking her time to Radiah’s house, in case Mom was watching out of the window. She even kicked a few stones on the way for good measure. Once she got to the white house, though, she saw the door standing open, so she disappeared inside immediately.
“Looks like this neighborhood has been vandalized.” Fern was sitting in her camp chair with her elephant teacup in hand. On the cardboard box in front of her sat the matching tray and teapot and, Noe saw gratefully, another cup.
Noe poured herself some chai and settled back into the couch. “We were protecting it from the Smashed Man.”
“You were acting foolish again.” Fern sipped her tea. “Did it work?”
Noe told her the story, finishing up with the looming bonfire. “Can we use the Amberonks on the backyard?”
“No, that’s silly. Houses only have four planes of protection, but for an open yard edged by a forest like yours, we’re talking countless planes of protection. The Neighbors would all have to work on it for months to figure out that math. Best you and the others just stay inside during the bonfire.” It was the same conclusion that the Dread Enders had come to already, so it wasn’t too much of a disappointment for Noe.
Fern leaned closer, the red lenses of her glasses reflecting Noe’s teacup. “I’d like to say that I’m impressed that you’ve faced down the Smashed Man twice now.” She took a sip of tea, not looking at all impressed. “But it feels like you keep making your situation worse, and therefore my situation worse. Still, you might be interested in this.” She plucked a flat wooden box about the width of the tea tray from the floor. It was polished to a deep brown and carved with intertwining palm trees and shorebirds. She handed it to Noe.
Noe opened the lid. Nestled on a cushion of shiny cream-colored silk were two rows of what looked like enamel pins. There were six of them, all iridescent purple, each flat and about four inches long, and not made of any material that Noe recognized. But she recognized the shapes.
They were sigils. An Amberonk, a Nonatuke, three whose names she didn’t remember, if she had ever known them, and an Elberex.
“You froze the snake!”
“Not exactly,” Fern said. “But it is solidified darkwash.”
“What? How? Why? When?” Noe didn’t know what question to ask, so she asked them all.
“Your cells, is the answer to most of those questions. That Erica girl’s diary is the answer to the rest. Do you understand states of matter? Liquid, gas, solid, plasma? Do they teach that in New England schools?”
“Sure,” said Noe, getting the word out of the way so that she could say the words that she really wanted to say. “Can I hold one?” When Fern shrugged, Noe went right for the Elberex.
“We had never considered the darkwash as having states before,” said Fern. “In fact, all our experiments had us leaning toward it being a nonmaterial substance.”
“But it’s purple. How did you . . .” and then she remembered the end of her meditation session. “Heat,
” she finished.
“Yes, like in your meditation. But that wouldn’t have been enough to give me the idea if I hadn’t seen that girl’s diary. I figured the darkwash must have congealed from all the weeks it was exposed to the heat of the dryer.”
“So the heat turns it purple, too?” Like the black liquid darkwash, the solid sigils looked like they were full of twinkling stars, except against bright purple instead of black.
“It took an extreme level of heat to make those, and a lot of experimentation by some of the Neighbors to find the right method, but once we did . . .” Fern twirled a hand in the direction of the box.
“What are you going to do with these?” Noe asked.
Fern shrugged again and sipped her tea. “I don’t know. We’ll keep experimenting. Keep sorting through our subatomic particles, looking for answers.” Fern placed her elephant teacup back on the tray. “Or we could sort through yours. Have you tried meditating since I’ve been gone?”
Noe nodded her head slightly.
“Did it work?”
She shook her head just as slightly.
“I want you to try again.”
This time Noe shrugged. She had been hoping Fern would say that, because the only time she had been able to achieve a meditative state was with Fern. And if Fern could get it to work again, then maybe Noe could discover some answers. Any answers. She was desperate. Still, it didn’t seem right to show Fern her eagerness, especially since Fern was treating her like a lab rat. Noe walked casually over to the corner while Fern got the metronome.
Noe settled down on the carpet. She still held the Elberex tightly in her hand. A few moments later, she heard the ticking start behind her. She relaxed into it and started her om chanting.
Entering the meditation was as difficult as it had been the first time, maybe even more so. She almost gave up multiple times, but the sight of Fern sitting in the camp chair staring at her like she expected her to fail made her keep trying.