The Mortal Sleep (Hollow Folk Book 4)

by Gregory Ashe

WITCHCRAFT IN THE MODERN WORLD

  Following the sensationalist trial of Miss Lillian Bellis, in which a parade of chorus girls and waiters and the armed thugs of Mr. Arturo Fabiniani described pagan rituals, many of them so obscene that they cannot be printed, much to the dismay of the prurient among us, a kind of infection has spread through the city. At least a dozen people have approached the staff of the Volant asking to publicize their eyewitness accounts of lewdness, debauchery, and violence committed behind Mr. Fabiniani’s walls. More surprising still are the tales these same people—by any other measure, hard-working, honest, industrious Christians—carry about demonic possession, incantatory powers, and secret workings. While such superstitions have often plagued the weak-minded, this latest surge of the supernatural seems directly tied to the Fabiniani scandal and the outrages that have been described from the witness stand. One might hope that ridiculous stories about women levitating above the Empire State Building, or men calling up spirits of fire to serve them, or strange faces interrupting a dream at night had vanished when Edison’s invention burned away those Popish shadows—Continued A4.

  The half-moon under my thumbnail had widened into a jagged gash, and I dragged my hand away from the paper, half-expecting the page to crumble or blow away. It didn’t. A column of ink smudged the side of my hand: f a k l e s r m, an acrostic that didn’t make any sense. Where the ink had come off the page, the letters had washed away almost to nothing.

  In 1951, my mother hadn’t been born. My mother had been born in 1981. And her name was Lily. Not Lillian. Lily Osprey, not Lillian Bellis. Lily Osprey Eliot.

  I turned over the page, found the dentist grinning at me about his Viceroys—a pack was tucked into the pocket on the front of his smock, I noticed—and so I turned the page face-up again. I wanted to read the rest of the story. I needed to read the rest of it. I needed to know about Lillian Bellis and Arturo Fabiniani. I needed to know about dark rooms and dungeons and . . . and—a force ran through me, stronger than a shudder, and the paper rustled in my grip—and about vacuum cords and cigarettes and candles with pink frosting clumping at the base. I needed to know about women who could fly over the Empire State Building, about madness, about witchcraft in New York City in the winter of ’51.

  How had my dad gotten this? How much had he known? How much had he suspected? Mertrice Stroup-Ogle was a nasty woman and a viciously self-interested reporter, but she had told me a lot of useful things. And one of those things came back to me now: she had told me that my dad had come to her, asking about Belshazzar’s Feast.

  Now, more than ever, I needed to know why. So much had changed for me over the last year. I had learned about the dark forces behind what had happened in Vehpese over the last two hundred years: the disappearing children, the murders, the trafficking of drugs and people, more. But it wasn’t just knowing the truth about the crimes in Mather County that had changed me. Everything at Belshazzar’s Feast—everything involved in the Dust Feast, what the Lady and Urho called the game they were playing—had opened a new chapter in my life. Being psychic was one thing; knowing that there was an immortal old woman trying to bring back her dead husband, knowing that she’d been waiting for centuries to find the right psychic to help her do the job, that was another.

  I studied the picture in the newspaper again. Mom, barely twenty. And she would have lived almost another fifty years before she had me. So that left two possibilities: this woman wasn’t Mom, or she was. If she wasn’t Mom, then she was doing one hell of a good impression. Maybe a grandmother? A great aunt? I snorted and wanted to flick my own ear for being stupid.

  Ok. So. This was my mom. Almost seventy years ago, someone had snapped a picture of her in New York City.

  What did that mean? I wasn’t sure I wanted to know, but I knew it meant something bad; that twisting, cramping sensation in my gut, like I needed to go drop onto the toilet fast, made me grit my teeth.

  It didn’t matter. The thought floated up, so beautiful and so clear that I almost laughed. It was weird. It was really fucking weird, but it didn’t matter. Mom was in my rearview mirror. I had so many other problems to worry about, so many real problems, right-now problems, that I didn’t have the time or energy to worry about Mom. So maybe she had an ability. That wasn’t starting to sound so weird. I’d been running into people with abilities my whole life; I had an ability. My dad didn’t, so my power must have come from my mom. She lived a long time. All right. Mystery solved. She lived a long time, and she was a royal bitch back then, just like she was today, mystery solved, case closed, show over.

  I folded the broadsheet twice, and I moved to replace it in the stack, and then I folded it once more and stuffed it into my back pocket. I grabbed the other papers, skimmed off the birth certificate and the vaccination record with the donut crumbs and glaze pasted to it, and I shoved them in my back pocket too. I had everything I needed. Glancing the length of the apartment, at the silver-dollar spot of red on the carpet, at the door with its little red comets dragging their tails across the paint, I let out a breath. If Lawayne or the Lady or Urho wanted Dad, they could have him. I wasn’t going to fight any battles for him. I took a step for the front door.

  There was that one page, though. That one page at the bottom of the stack, that official-looking document from CPS with Ginny’s name on it. The one dated yesterday.

  My mind went back to the afternoon. Two phone calls. One from Austin. I thought about Ginny in my room, telling me she was sending me back to Dad. I thought of Sara saying, The minute you tell him—.

  Leave it alone. Leave it alone, please. I was begging myself like I was a total stranger. Just walk out into the night, into the red glare from the sign, into the way this whole state smells after the rain moves through, and get in the car and drive until you hit Salt Lake or until you hit the end of the gas or until you hit a bridge embankment. But just leave, just go, right now.

  The pile of pages toppled as I worked out the bottom-most sheet.

  It was a letter. A form letter, with phrasing that sounded like legalese and a few specifics tailored to the circumstances. I read line by line, but only phrases popped out at me.

  . . . interviews including foster parent(s), friends, and other significant individuals . . .

  . . . careful observation of biological father . . .

  . . . inadequate living conditions . . .

  . . . substantial improvement in behavior . . .

  . . . departmental belief that every effort should be made to keep children with their family . . .

  . . . happy to inform you of this provisional return of custody . . .

  And at the bottom, in uneven blue ink from a cheap ballpoint: Genevieve Coyote in Sage.

  They were giving me back to Dad.

  Interviews including foster parents. Interviews including friends. Interviews including other significant individuals.

  Who did that mean?

  They were giving me back to Dad.

  Foster parents. That was Sara.

  They were giving me back to him. Back to a guy whose only goal in life was to get stoned and get laid, and the second one was optional.

  Friends. Kaden? Becca? Kimmy? Joel?

  They were giving me back to the guy who hit me, who stole money from me, who spent all his cash on meth so that we never had food in the fridge.

  Other significant individuals. Austin? Emmett?

  I didn’t remember letting go of the paper, but it brushed against my jeans as it fell, rasping down my leg. The walls were shrinking down around me, not enough space for air or light or me.

  I found my backpack. I found the tape player, the sheaf of stolen documents, and the microcassette. I let the papers fall; they drifted like eiderdown, their edges curled like feathers. I jammed the microcassette into the tape player that Kaden had found for me. Interviews including foster parent(s), friends, and other significant individuals. The outline of the Play icon bumped under my thumb.

/>   Just go. Just go now and you never have to know.

  My thumb pressed down. The player clicked. The tape rolled forward. A woman’s voice came out of the tiny speaker.

  “I never want you to apologize for saying how you feel. You need to say how you feel. Your feelings are valid, even when they’re painful for you. Maybe especially when they’re painful for you.”

  The words were followed by silence. Then a hiccupping sob. Then more silence. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

  “In this place, you can say whatever you want—”

  My thumb hit the Stop button so hard that the plastic creaked.

  Austin. The woman was talking to Austin. And a string of lights went on in my head, one after another. Your feelings are valid. Austin was crying. You can say whatever you want. I’d heard that kind of talk before. That was shrink talk. This was a recording of one of his therapy sessions.

  Who had recorded it? The therapist? Or Austin? Or someone else?

  That last part buzzed in my head, an ugly little conspiracy thought, and I shooed it away. That left two options: the therapist or Austin. Interviews including foster parent(s), friends, and other significant individuals. That line from the letter settled in my gut. Austin had recorded this, I decided. Austin had kept it. Some bullshit effort at self-improvement. And when Ginny had asked him about me, he’d handed it over.

  Why?

  Just go, I told myself. Just go. Just walk out the door, take a cold breath, clear your head. This is like eavesdropping. A really nasty, really dirty kind of eavesdropping. This is Austin’s private conversation with his therapist, and you’ve never asked him about therapy, you’ve never pried, you’ve always told yourself you respect people’s privacy. You wouldn’t read his mind, would you? So put down the tape player and walk outside and maybe go for a walk, maybe just walk forever, but don’t listen to this.

  I ran the tape back. I pressed play.

  “—not even really his fault.” Austin’s voice was steady, with a frustrated twinge at the end. “I know that. None of it is his fault. He can’t control what other people do. I get that.”

  Then the slight hiss and scratch of a cheap microcassette in a cheap player. Say something, I thought. He was paying this woman, this therapist, to get his brain straight, so why didn’t she say something, why didn’t she open her fat mouth and say one thing, one simple, fucking thing that could make this better for Austin, why didn’t she just say—

  “It’s just, sometimes I think it’d be so much easier if he weren’t here.”

  Through the speaker, his sob sounded like it came from inside a tin can. He gasped for breath. He choked. He sniffled. The background noise, steady and shrill, sounded like an emergency warning on broadcast TV.

  “I know I’m—”

  I punched the Stop button. I let the player drop into my bag. I staggered out into the living room, and the papers that I had let fall slid under my sneaker, and I collapsed onto the sofa, and the vinyl squeaked. I lay there for a moment, not really standing, all of my weight held by the sofa’s wooden frame. Then I punched the cushion. And I punched it again. And again and again and again. My breaths were soft little grunts. I quit when my arms gave out and I was just too tired, and then I lay with my stomach across the sofa’s back because I couldn’t get up.

  Eventually, though, my legs worked again. I patted my cheeks. Dry. No sweat. Nothing. Dry, with a hectic heat that I could feel turning my skin red in patches. I staggered for the door. I plunged out into the night like it was ice-water and I was a burning man. Rainbow light ribboned across the asphalt, and I hit one of those shiny patches and my foot went out, and my knee—the same one as last time—smacked the pavement. I scrambled up. Adrenaline put my heart in my ears, and it was so loud I heard everything else like it came underwater: a semi whooshing past on the state highway; the thud of music from within Slippers; a caw of laughter.

  They were sending me back to Dad. And they’d talked to Sara and Austin and Emmett and Kaden and Becca and—and everyone, and they’d let it happen. And the rational part of my brain knew it didn’t matter. The rational part, which was small and hard and compact like a diamond at the bottom of a mine, totally out of my reach, the rational part told me I was running away, and I shouldn’t get so worked up because nobody could make me stay with Dad.

  But it did matter. It mattered because I had trusted Sara. I had trusted Austin. I had trusted Emmett. I had trusted Kaden, Becca, Kimmy, Jake, Temple Mae, all of them. And they had let this happen.

  Austin had let this happen. Austin had wanted this.

  Sometimes I think it’d be so much easier.

  The betrayal of it went through me with claws and teeth, shredding and biting and tearing up my insides. I staggered again, and I cracked hard against a bumper, my elbow clanging against the trunk and denting the sheet metal. Someone cawed laughter again, and then the laughter choked off.

  “Hey, man. What the fuck? What’re you doing to my car?”

  The rest of them, Sara and Emmett and Becca, the rest, they had let this happen. They had sat there, and they had looked Ginny in the eyes, and they had let it happen. Or—

  Horror prickled up my spine. Maybe they hadn’t just let it happen. Maybe they’d wanted it to happen too. Sara had gotten tired of grounding me, of feeding me, of talking to me. Becca wanted a new career and a new life without all the drama. Emmett just wanted to fuck me over because he still hated me for everything that had happened with Makayla.

  “Fuck-face, I asked you a question. What are you doing to my car?”

  The guy was basically a bulldozer with legs: blunt face, thick from his neck to his knees, a lot of muscle packed under yards of flannel.

  I looked from him to the car, a little Ford Fiesta that had probably rolled off the line in the late ’70s, its original color obliterated by a chop-shop job of lime spray paint.

  “Your car?”

  “That’s my car, fuck-face. Get the fuck off it.”

  They had wanted this. Of course they had. The thought was like a bad fluorescent light flickering on and off in my head. They had wanted me gone. They had wanted me back where I’d come from.

  Sometimes I think it’d be so much easier.

  I took a breath, but it didn’t help. That flicker, that on-and-off in my head, disrupted any kind of real thinking. I was out of control. I was out of myself. And there was only one way to fix that, only one really good way, only one way that put me back at the center, put my hands on the wheel, put me back in charge.

  “Your car?” I dropped my elbow again, and this time the sheet metal buckled, and the dent looked like something a really good piece of hail might have left. “This one? Is this the car you're talking about?” Clang. This time, the dent was something a baseball might have left, like a kid had knocked one out into the parking lot.

  “What the fuck’s wrong with you? I’m telling you that’s my car.”

  “Oh. This. This is your car.” I sidestepped, brought up my foot, and drove my heel through a taillight.

  “You’re dead.”

  He rushed. Guys like him always rush. Guys like me, we rush too, and so I barreled into him. His first punch clipped the back of my head, and it was like someone had shaken up a hive and sent the bees swarming into my brain. I rocked to the side but kept moving. His second punch came around low, clobbering me just above the kidney, but I was still moving, and he had a bad angle, so it glanced off. Just a blip, just a hot little blip.

  Then I caught him under the jaw. It was a classic uppercut. It was so damn classic you could have found a picture of it in a textbook, and if the guy had been sober or smart or halfway decent in a brawl, he would have recognized it and ducked his chin or pulled back or tried to knock the blow off course. He wasn’t any of those things, though, and my fist connected like I’d been following a dotted line.

  The force of the blow ran through his face like shockwaves. He didn’t come off the g
round, not exactly, but his toes peeled back. His eyes were wet and reflective, just like the asphalt after rain, and there was something funny about the way he fell, like he was trying to sit down and forgot how. It was really, really funny. A little like the Three Stooges, like Moe getting bopped between the eyes and going down in slow motion. I’d tried to get Gage to watch the Stooges, and he’d told me they were too old; they were dumb. I hadn’t tried with Austin. Then I didn’t feel like laughing anymore.

  A couple guys still huddled together near the drainage ditch. Their cigarettes winked, and one said something to the other, but they didn’t make any other moves. Maybe they didn’t care that I’d knocked out flannel-guy. Maybe they didn’t want to get in the same kind of mess. The orange tips of their cigarettes described a wavering point in the distance.

  At the back of my head, that swarm of bees was still buzzing. The guy might have gotten me better than I realized. I dropped to my knees next to him; he wasn’t moving, and I wasn’t moving, and my head was fucking killing me all of the sudden. His flannel-covered chest rose and fell; his breathing bubbled at the end of each exhale.

  Sometimes I think it’d be so much easier.

  A couple of lousy punches weren’t going to knock that kind of thought out of my head. Picking a fight with a drunk, picking a fight with a fat, dumb drunk, wasn’t going to knock that kind of thought out of my head. At the back of my head, where that black hole was quietly, invisibly pulling me apart, metal gleamed and whirred and spun.

  I didn’t want to cut tonight. I wanted something else. I stumbled to the Impala, jammed the key in the lock, and got the door open. The glove box held a map of Wyoming, an LED flashlight with the batteries dead, the Impala’s owner’s manual, and a flattened sleeve of Ritz crackers. The sandy crumbs sounded like a rainmaker when I bumped them. Fifty-seven cents in loose change in the ashtray. I thumbed the plastic covering, a hope sparked. But no. The electric lighter was gone. Three pale, soggy McDonald’s fries hid under the seat, with leaves and gravel and salt tracked in over autumn and a long winter.