Paranormal After Dark

by Rebecca Hamilton

  “He’s not worth it, Cresta. Don’t let him take you away from us. Pick your life. Pick me. Pick yourself.”

  It all broke around me. I let go of it, freeing Allister Leeman just as his heart was about to burst. He struggled and gasped for air, while I struggled to keep the tears back.

  “Thank you,” I whispered to Owen, but I wasn’t done. I reached down, grabbed Allister Leeman by his greasy ridiculous hair, and pointed his ugly face toward the sky; now complete with morning sun.

  “Do you see that, you arrogant son of a bitch?! You’re nothing. You’re no one. And I’m so glad that I’m the one who gets to see your face as you realize that.”

  Then I punched him.

  …But I didn’t kill him. The sun was up on the morning of my sixteenth birthday, and I hadn’t killed anyone. I stumbled over to my mother and lay beside her.

  Chapter 22

  Nothing in Heaven or Hell Part 2

  (a.k.a A Reason For Everything)

  THE REST OF it faded into a blur. I lay, pressed up against my mother, as Dahlia’s Breakers beat back Allister Leeman’s people. I barely moved as Echo picked me up from a circle of my mother’s blood, and completely zoned out as we traveled the seven hours back to Weathersby. The next few days were a haze of tears and images tinted with grief.

  Images; Casper sitting quietly at my bedside, Owen brushing strands of hair out of my face, marked the days. People came in and out; some familiar, others strange, trying to get me to talk, or eat, or do anything at all. The first time I left my room, was for Wendy’s funeral. Sandwiched between Owen and Casper, I was a zombie of myself, barely able to look up, let alone stand, kneel, or do any of the hand gestures that apparently came with laying a seer to rest.

  They buried her under an oak tree at the foot of the tower where she spent most of her life; now visible to everyone. One by one, Breakers would march up to her blank headstone, take hold of the white bone dagger that sat atop it, and make a mark. I couldn’t tell what it was at first; probably because I was too lost in my own mind, too busy replaying the events that got us here in the first place. As my turn came to grab the dagger, I saw what it was though. With each stroke, the Breakers had made a mural. All of their lines stitched together to create a perfect likeness of Wendy’s face, etched on the stone.

  But something about that didn’t sit right with me. They didn’t know her, not really. Two weeks ago, none of them even knew she existed. And now they were content to let this; this face on stone, define who she was and how she would be remembered.

  Not me.

  I took the dagger, laid it on the stone, right under the picture, and carved ‘Wendy’ in large sharp letters. That’s who she was. That’s who she wanted to be. And, like it or not, that’s how she was going to be remembered.

  I felt Dahlia at my back. I was sure she was going to chew me out right then and there, blame me for everything that I already blamed myself for. But when I turned to meet her, she just shook her head and walked away.

  Afterward, Echo stood to say some words about his daughter. It was the only part of this entire thing that made any sense to me. He talked about how kind she was, how she loved to watch the people of Weathersby from her window and how, more than anything; she yearned for the outside world.

  With tears in his eyes, he finished. “And, though my sorrow about her death could never be measured, I’m glad that, at least she got to see her beloved world before she left us. I just wonder if it was worth it.”

  When it was over, and I told him what Wendy said to me-

  Tell Papa it was. It really was.

  Echo cried so loudly and so bitterly that it drew a crowd.

  I didn’t see him again until the next day. He knocked lightly on the door of my room, but didn’t wait for me to answer before he walked in. The TV was on. A newscaster was talking about a tornado that ripped the small town of Crestview, Georgia apart, but curiously left the surrounding towns untouched. I turned it off.

  “How are you?” He asked. He was dressed all in white; something Owen had explained was a Breaker mourning tradition. “Because white, not black, represents the absence of all things.” He also told me that the death of a seer was the greatest loss a Breaker could ever endure. Watching Echo stand before, with his slumped shoulders, drained face, and tired eyes, I figured that there might be one worse; the loss of a daughter.

  “I’m okay,” I answered, not knowing whether that was even the truth. “What about you?”

  “I have Weathersby to run,” he said, as though that was an answer.

  “I’m so sorry,” I said.

  “You’re not to apologize to me again, Cresta,” he sighed. “I’ve told you, what happened was not your fault.”

  “It feels like my fault,” I said, sitting on my bed. That, I knew to be the truth.

  “Well, you’re young. Your feelings are supposed to lie to you. “ He sat beside me. “I don’t want you killing yourself . What happened to your mother, what happened to Wendy- There are plenty of people to blame for that. No need to throw you on the sword as well.”

  “Tell that to Dahlia,” I muttered.

  He put his arm around me, as if that were answer enough. “I talked to the Council of Masons. Sometime within the next few months, you’ll have to meet with and give them an account about what happened. But I’ll be with you and there will be no punishment. They feel that since your actions led to the capture of Allister Leeman and his defectors, and since you’ve now be proven not to be the Bloodmoon-All’s well that ends well, I suppose.”

  “That’s a funny way of putting it,” I said.

  “Tell me about it,” he squeezed my shoulder. “I saw your mother that night. She was far away, it was just for a split second, and I don’t think she saw me, but I’m sure it was her. She was just as beautiful as ever.”

  He stood. “I have something for you. It was found on Allister Leeman’s person as he was being prepped for transfer. When questioned, he admitted it was yours.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out an object, letting it dangle in front of him. It was my necklace, the one my dad gave me before he died, the one I hadn’t seen since the morning my whole life changed.

  “I figured you would want to have it,” he said, placing it in my hand and closing my fingers around it. “Listen, I know that nothing can bring your mother back, and I know that I’m a poor substitute, but you always have a place here. I hope you know that.”

  “Thank you,” I said. I was looking at my locket, but I meant to thank him for so much more than that. At the end of the day, my mother had been right. Morgan Montgomery was a good man.

  “Dinner’s in two hours,” he said, opening the door to leave. “We’d love to see you there.”

  As the door closed behind him, something I never thought possible happened. My locket opened. A small sliver of paper fell out of it, coasting like a feather to the floor. Picking it up, I saw that it was an old faded picture. Two babies lay on a white rug. One was asleep. The other stared at the camera with strange smiling eyes.

  Turning the picture over, I found an inscription written on the back in large flowery letters:

  Cresta and Poe- 3 Months old

  “Who the hell is Poe?” I muttered, but there was no time to wonder. Suddenly, a sharp sensation flowered inside my head and, with it, a familiar voice.

  :My darling Cresta,: the voice said inside my mind. I recognized it instantly. It was Dr. Conyers,my biological mother. :I truly hope you never hear these words. Because, if you’re hearing them, it means that both of your protectors are dead. If that’s the case, then the days ahead of you are going to be very perilous. I want you to know, my sweet girl, that you are not alone. Even when it seemed like no one was there, even though it may seem like that now, I am with you. I will always be with you. If you take nothing else from my words, know this. Your father and I love you more than the sum of all things. You, my darling one, my beautiful daughter, are what keeps us going. And we will not fail
you. Even now, with the opening of this locket, things are in motion. We will find you, wherever you are. You will be safe. You will always be safe. It’s important though, in this perilous time, that you know everything. There are people who would use you for their own means, and to arm you with the knowledge you will need to stop them, I must open your eyes. Remember my dear, everything I have done, I did for you.:

  Pictures started playing in my mind. At first, the images didn’t make any sense. My mother and Dr. Conyers running from an exploding building, a red door with a crescent moon slamming shut, a woman falling off a cliff and into the rocky sea below.

  Then though, I saw myself. I was in Chicago. It was the night my father died. I was in the back of an ambulance with that horrible pink blanket wrapped around my shoulders. Mom was with me, and Dr. Conyers. But that wasn’t right. I didn’t meet Dr. Conyers until I came to Crestview. I would have remembered that.

  “No one can know!” Dr. Conyers said pacing. I was a mess of tears and shivers.

  “Of course not,” Mom answered, pacing in circles on the pavement. “But she’s just a girl.”

  “Which is exactly why it has to be done,” Dr. Conyers answered, chancing a glance at me. “If they find out about this, that it’s already happened, there will be no stopping them.” She walked closer, putting her hand on my cheek. “We have to do it, for her.”

  The thing I knew, I was in the car with my father. It was right before the accident. The Beach Boys had just started playing on the radio. But this time, I was driving. That wasn’t right. Why was I driving?

  Oh God.

  It all opened up to me now. I had begged him, pleaded even, to drive home that night. “I’ll have my license in a year!” I had said. “All the other dads let their daughters drive.”

  He had let me. It was true. I remembered it all now. I had been driving. I, not my father, lost control of our car. I ran off the bridge that night. I killed my father.

  The visions left with my revelation, replaced instead by a thick sickness in the pit of my stomach. My mom, my mothers, took the memory away from me. They didn’t want me to have to live with the memory of killing my dad. They-

  “I killed my dad,” I choked out, realizing all the reasons they did what they did. They didn’t just want me not to know. They didn’t want anyone to. I had killed someone. All I had done, all everyone had done to stop the prophecy from happening, it was pointless. It was over before it started. I was the Bloodmoon. I had always been the Bloodmoon.

  Two days later, with the rush of everything still fresh in my mind, I sprinkled my mother’s ashes off the bridge in Chicago where I had lost my dad. He was down there somewhere, and now, at least they could be together again. It was where she belonged, where she would have been happy.

  I had made the trip with Owen and Casper. It was amazing how much leeway Echo and the crew at Weathersby gave me now that they thought I wasn’t the Bloodmoon. Or maybe they felt bad because of all that I had been through. Either way, for the first time since I could remember, I could ride the open road without worrying that someone was following me.

  We were halfway through Tennessee, along some farming town named White House (which reminded me so strongly of Crestview that I winced a little) when Owen pulled onto a back road. Casper was asleep, as was his nature, or else he would have probably asked what was going on. I was glad for that, at least. This was going to be hard enough without having to explain it to him beforehand.

  When I shook him awake, we were pulled over alongside a dirt road. There was nothing on either side of us except empty barren fields. Corn would have been there if it were a different time of year, stretching up toward the heavens. But right now, it was just vacant space.

  In front of us, a cherry red Dodge Dakota sat. The keys were in the ignition and there was a bow on the top.

  “What’s going on?” Casper asked, getting out of the car to join Owen and me.

  “It’s yours,” I said flatly.

  “Mine? You’re giving me a truck?” He asked, looking it over. He walked over to the truck and opened the door. Inside, was a suitcase full of clothes and a duffle bag full of money. Sitting beside them, splayed out so that he could see, was a driver’s license and social security card. “You’re giving me a truck full of crap to start a new life with?” His tone was anything but playful. He slammed the door and turned back to me, his teeth gritted and his eyes fierce. “What the hell is this?”

  “Owen, could you give us a minute?” I asked. Owen nodded and went back to the car.

  Once we were alone, I continued. “It’s the only way, Cass. This-this isn’t the place for you. You’re a good person, and you could live a good life.”

  “This crap again?!” He yelled. “How many times do we have to go through this Cress? I want to be here. I do. I don’t-I’m not gonna leave you, not ever. Why can’t you understand that?”

  He kicked at the dirt. Casper wasn’t the type to get mad, but I was pushing his buttons.

  “Things aren’t like before, Casper,” I said, walking toward him. A breeze caught his hair, and sent it flying in flame colored curls.

  “No. They’re not!” He said. “Your mom is dead; really honest to God dead. She’s not coming back. That means us, me and you-We’re all we’ve got”

  “That’s exactly why I’ve got to do this,” I said. Tears ran wet down my face. “You’re the only family I have left. You’re the only piece of who I was, who I am, that’s survived this whole thing. If anything ever happened to you, I’d die.”

  Another thought entered my mind, a darker one. If anything ever happened to Casper, that might just be enough to send me over the edge, to nudge me into becoming the awful thing the prophecies talked about, the awful thing that I know knew for a fact was meant to describe me.

  “So you won’t let anything happen to me,” Casper suggested. “You’re a badass superhero now, in case you hadn’t noticed. Besides, you think I’d fare any better if something happened to you? And that’s exactly what I’d be thinking, Cresta. I’d be driving this fancy truck, thinking my best friend in the world was dead in a ditch somewhere.”

  Now he was crying too.

  “It doesn’t matter,” he sniffed. “The scary part is over. We won,Cress.”

  “I killed my dad,” I said in a low voice.

  His face twisted confusedly.

  “I did,” I said. “My mom, my moms , hid the truth from me. But I was the one driving. It was my fault. He died because of me.”

  “I’m sorry. Cress,” he said, and walked toward me.

  “No, you don’t get it!” I yelled. Casper stopped in his tracks. “I killed my dad. I killed somebody! I’m the Bloodmoon!”

  “No,” Casper shook his head. “That’s not right. That’s not what that meant. You didn’t mean to hurt your dad. It’s not…It’s not…Is it?”

  I didn’t answer. Casper rushed me, scooping me into his arms. They were safe and familiar and, if I not for what I had to do, they might have actually made me feel better.

  “Come on. Let’s go,” he whispered. “We’ll get in this truck, and we’ll drive until they can’t find us.”

  “They’d find us, Casper. We had a seer with us and they tracked us down in a day.”

  “Then what are we gonna do? I’m not gonna let those bastards hurt you!”

  “They won’t,” I pulled away. “They don’t even know. Nobody knows, and that’s how it’s going to stay.”

  “What about Echo. That dude’ll dig the truth out of you. You can’t lie to him,” Casper answered.

  “Owen thinks that, since I can manipulate the shade, I’ll be able to fake him out.”

  “Owen?” Casper asked, looking back toward the car. “You told Owen?”

  “Of course I did,” I answered.

  “Dammit Cresta! You know who he is. You know what he is! He’s the dragon. You can’t trust him, especially not now.” Casper’s hands went to his hair nervously.

  “I do tr
ust him, Cass. He won’t hurt me.”

  “Well, forgive me if I don’t have your eternal optimism, but I don’t want to see him standing over a body bag with you in it!” He started to pace. “No! I will not leave you. I don’t care what you say. I don’t care what you want. If you won’t leave, then I’m not leaving either.”

  “I knew you would say that, Cass” I leaned up and gently kissed his cheek. “That’s why I’m not giving you a choice.” I turned to Owen. “Now. Do it now.”

  “What?” Casper seemed shaken, but he was quick to pick up on what was going on. “You’re gonna make your boyfriend mindwipe me?” He shook his head. “Cresta, no. Don’t do this.”

  Owen neared and Casper’s voice took a turn for the frantic. “Cresta, please don’t do this to me! You said I was your family. Don’t take me away from you. Cress…”

  I didn’t answer.

  “What am I gonna do without you?” He asked.

  “That’s the pojnt,” I said, with my back still turned to him. “Anything you want. You can live a normal life. You can finally have everything you deserve.”

  “I just want you,” he said

  When he yearns for you, don’t turn him away.

  I shook my head. I couldn’t think about that now. This had to happen.

  “Cars drive on roads,” he told me. “Cars drive on roads!”

  I turned back to him.

  “Where are my hands Casper?”

  A slow heartbroken smile spread across his face. “Hands in pockets,” he said.

  “Hands in pockets,” I repeated.

  Somehow, that seemed to settle him. He looked to the ground, gathered himself, and looked back at me. “Will I remember anything about you?” He asked, tears making his green eyes shine.

  “God, I hope so,” I said, crying as fiercely as I ever had.

  Owen was in front of him now, his blue eyes drilling into Casper’s.

  “If you hurt her,” he started through clenched teeth.

  “I love her,” Owen said. “More than I ever imagined was possible. There’s nothing in this, or any future that could make me do anything but love her. As a Breaker, as a friend, I promise you.”