by Keary Taylor
Maybe I’ll just get a job.
I internally laugh at myself for the thought. Just imagining it, me working some construction job, before eventually I start vomiting blood. Before I pass out on the scaffolding. Because Roselock will never let me go, especially this close to my death date.
The stretch between the dump and town cuts through fields and farms. Through the dark, Iona quietly directs me back to town where we can return the truck.
Up ahead, I see the bridge we passed over earlier. Only a mile back into the city.
“What sounds good for dinner tonight?” I ask, scratching at my beard. “Tortellini or spaghetti?”
Iona doesn’t respond and I glance over at her. She stares out her window, silent and dark.
“Iona?” I probe.
She sets the two pieces of paper on the seat between us.
“Did you hear me?”
I look back forward, making sure I keep the oversized vehicle in my lane as the road narrows to cross the bridge.
The sound of wind rips through the cabin.
Iona flings the door open, and leaps out.
“Iona!” I bellow, slamming on my breaks, causing the back end of the truck to skid, swinging to the left, across both lanes crossing the bridge. Before it has even come to a full stop, I fling my door open and leap out.
My shins bark in pain, but I dash around the front of the truck, smacking a hand down on the hood to catch myself. My feet can’t move fast enough, until they see a still figure, wrapped around the first post of the railing of the bridge.
“Iona!” I scream into the night, closing the distance between us. Gravel flies everywhere as I drop to the ground next to her.
Her stomach is pressed up against the concrete post, her legs curled up, her chest against it as well, wrapped around the post. Carefully, I run a hand down the side of her face, only to come away with my palm coated in blood.
“Iona, can you hear me?” My voice quakes.
She lets out a little whimper of pain.
“Iona,” I breathe. “Is anything broken? Do I dare move you?”
She lets out another little cry. “Sully?”
“I’m here,” I whisper. Carefully, so carefully, I help her roll over.
There’s a big gash above her right eye, and the right side of her face looks as if it scraped through the gravel. She winces, holding her right arm, a hiss of pain.
I swear, guilt instantly clawing its way into my stomach. “Your arm? Your collarbone? Do they feel broken?”
She lets out another sob of pain. “I don’t know. Everything…” She tries to suck in a breath, but it doesn’t want to fully cooperate. “Everything hurts.”
“I have to move you, Iona,” I say. Panic is eating its way up my spine. Clawing its way through me like a rabid beast. “We have to get you to the emergency room.”
As gently as I can, I scoop her up into my arms. She gives a little cry of pain, but not as guttural as I expected. Careful to make my steps as smooth as possible, I half run back to the truck. She bites her bottom lip to hold in a scream as I set her back on the seat, and lock the door before I close it.
I slam on the gas the second I get back inside. And I reach over and take Iona’s hand in mine, to give her something to hold on to, and to make sure she doesn’t try to jump again.
Five minutes later, I screech into the pull-through in front of the emergency room doors.
It’s a flurry of activity as people rush out, as they help Iona onto a stretcher, and all of us race inside.
“She fell asleep on the drive back,” I lie on my feet. “She was leaned against the door when it popped open and she fell out.”
Lies. Because the truth… Even I don’t understand the truth.
We reach the entrance of a room, and I’m told to go back to the waiting room.
I stand outside that room, my hands fisted in my hair. Feeling utterly helpless.
No more.
I can’t let this go any further.
Because she easily could have died tonight. She could have smacked her head against that concrete pillar. She could have fallen off the bridge and plunged twenty feet to the river below.
This is getting too out of hand.
“Sir,” a nurse says as she walks down the hall. “You need to go back and wait in the waiting room.”
I nod, and begin walking back toward it, hoping and praying no one recognizes me from my own stay just last week. But suddenly, an idea dawns on me.
“Excuse me?” I say as she begins walking away. “Is Viola Faye on duty right now? She works in labor and delivery.”
“As a matter of fact, she is,” the nurse says.
“Can you please help me find her?” I ask in desperation. “Her sister Iona is in that room right there.”
Chapter Fifty-Two
IONA
Such dark weight holds me down. Which is good, because the fog in my brain would probably make me float away.
A sliver of light sears my brain, but instinctually, I flutter my eyes open, blinking five times fast, before I raise my hands up to block out the light. Only something binds my right arm.
And everything hurts.
“Don’t move around too much.”
A familiar female voice cuts through the cotton in my ears. Gentle hands grab mine, and guide them back down.
“Viola?” I ask groggily as my eyes adjust to the light and blink them open.
“I’m here,” she says. And she comes into focus. She sits at the edge of my bed, wearing her work uniform.
I blink, looking around, and remember that I’m in the hospital.
“Where…” I struggle to make my words form. Everything in me is sluggish and tired. “Where is Sully?”
Viola shifts, sliding closer up the bed toward me. “He tracked me down last night and asked me to stay with you. He said he had to go take care of some business and fix all of…this.”
And instantly, I’m one hundred percent alert.
Roselock. Jack.
Sully went back to confront Jack.
“What is it?” Viola asks, her own eyes widening. “What’s wrong?”
And I realize I’ve given away too much with my panicked expression. So I force myself to calm down. To lie back in my bed. “Nothing,” I lie. “I just wish…wish he didn’t have to go.”
Viola looks at me intensely. Warily. She’s studying me, looking for answers.
“So what’s broken?” I ask, turning my attention to my body to put off the hard moments I know are coming shortly.
It works. Viola tears her eyes from mine, looking over my body.
“You’ve got eight stitches above your eyebrow,” Viola says, her eyes rising to look at the spot. “The gravel kind of ate up your face, though it probably should have been much, much worse. You’ll have some scarring, but not too bad.”
I’m not worried about scarring too much. It’s been a long while since I really cared about my appearance. But I do want to see the damage in a mirror.
“You fractured your right collar bone,” my sister continues. “You’ll need to keep it in the sling for about two weeks. No big movements or it might actually break.”
“Anything else?” I ask, half sarcastically.
Viola’s eyes narrow, annoyed. “There should have been a lot else,” she says, her tone biting. “What the hell happened, Iona? The doctors all think the door just popped open, but Sully said I need to ask you about the truth.”
Internally, I curse.
No. He wouldn’t go and do that. Get my sister involved in this craziness.
“He said that I need to ask you about Jack and who he really was.”
Ice-cold acid drops in my stomach, burning a hole.
“What did he do to you, Iona?” my sister asks. But her tone eases up. It’s pleading, and scared.
I look over at her, not saying a word. Evaluating.
Isolation. That’s one of the things Jack made me do.
Isolate mys
elf from everyone I loved, besides him.
I used to be close with my younger sister. We used to be best friends. Were, up until Jack inserted himself into my life.
“You won’t believe me,” I whisper.
Viola stares intently at me. “Please, tell me,” she says as she slides further up, and takes my good hand. “I promise, I will believe you.”
There’s so much pleading in her eyes. So much sincerity.
“You can’t tell Cressida, or Mom,” I say. My voice grows quiet. So, so quiet. “They won’t understand. They’ll think I’m crazy.”
Viola hesitates at that. Studies me for a long moment. And I can see her evaluating. Deciding if maybe I am crazy. If I’ve lost it.
But she nods. “I promise.”
I swallow once. My heart rockets into my throat. My entire body breaks out into a sweat.
I’m scared.
So scared to tell anyone the dark secrets of the truth.
But I take a breath, and I tell her everything.
Chapter Fifty-Three
SULLY
Leaving after dark was a bad, terrible, reckless idea.
But I wasn’t going to wait a moment longer.
I took the moving truck, considering I hadn’t bothered to find out where my ancient Cadillac had been towed to, it was my only option.
Iona likely wouldn’t be driving any time soon, but I couldn’t bring myself to take her only mode of transportation.
So, in the moving truck, I took off into the night. I drove the two hours back to Roselock.
At the turnoff from the highway to the town, I stopped. Right in the middle of the road.
With Iona’s purse right next to me, sitting on top of Jack’s diploma and certificate, proving what he was allowed to practice, I sat in the road, in the dark.
My breath filled the cabin in a cold billow. Crystals of ice formed in the corners of the windshield. Slowly, slowly, I let off the brake, shifted the truck into gear, and crept forward. The temperature continued to drop with every foot I rolled further into town.
A yipping yelp sounds through the night, the first signs that I have arrived back within the godforsaken borders. It grows louder and louder, more frantic.
My breath pulls in and out of my chest faster.
Don’t go out at night.
Don’t go out at night.
Something hits the side of the truck, in the back. A small, but fast ping. A moment later, it’s accompanied by another.
I push harder on the gas, as more and more arrows strike the side of the truck, coming from every side. There will be no evidence of the insanity of the night come morning, but here in the dark, it’s very real.
Gunshots fire through the darkness, hitting the rock beside me, blasting it apart.
Screams echo through the night. Crying grows and grows until it reaches a frantic decibel.
I rip down the crumbling street. Past the homes of my friends and neighbors. Soon, there is the roundabout, and the truck threatens to tip onto two wheels, but moans and settles as I whip around.
Cresting the hill, I feel the drag, as if a dozen hands have grabbed hold of the bumper, and threaten to pull me back.
The tires slip. Spin.
“No!” I bellow, throwing my voice out into the dark. “I must speak to the dead and you will not stop me.”
A moment of considering hesitation. And then there’s a give, and the tires find purchase once more, and I rocket forward.
Cresting the hill, I listen.
The cacophony of the night has quieted marginally. As if they’re holding their breath for me. Waiting.
I park in front of the church, and look up at it.
Home.
This wicked, damned place is what I call home.
Ticking, ticking, ticking away the seconds left of my pathetic life.
Taking in a deep breath, gripping the steering wheel like my life depends on it, I steel myself for a moment.
And then I shove the door open and barge out. Immediately, my boots slip in the slick red beneath my feet. The dim moonlight glints on the wet red, but I keep my focus, crossing the half a dozen steps to the entry of the church.
Just as I close my hand around the doorknob, the chaos lets loose once more. I don’t look around, don’t let the sounds overwhelm me. I yank the door open, step inside, and slam it closed behind me.
Instantly, all sound dies.
This church is my hell and my sanctuary.
Clutching Iona’s bag in my hand, I stalk through the chapel. I slide past the organ and through the doors to the private quarters.
It’s bone-chilling cold inside, but with the hatred of fury burning in my veins, I don’t worry about another dance with hypothermia.
The Sunday School room is the coldest of them all with that draft. Even a little lick of sound drifts out from the cracks around the window, letting in the howling and screaming cries of those long surrendered of this world.
I close the door and set to lighting the candles, barely able to see with the moonlight trickling in through the filthy window.
The pounding in my veins propels me onward. To stand before the seat I put Iona’s purse upon. And reach inside.
As if guided, my hand goes straight to the pocket watch and closes around it.
“Where are you, Jack?” I growl into the dim light. Looking around, the world blends with another. One darker, as if looking at everything through a black veil. It’s fluid and has motion to it. Ever shifting, ever darker.
“I summon you, Jack Caraway,” I say evenly. “I have questions and you will answer them.”
A shifting movement over my right shoulder draws my eye and I twist, trying to follow it. But it disappears, gone, slithering into another dark corner.
“I won’t let you kill another,” I say, turning, looking in all the dark recesses of the gate. “You’ve had your twisted fun. Spare Iona, and move on.”
Another movement, and I twist around.
To see Jack Caraway standing in the corner.
“I think you’re actually as brave as you look, Sully Whitmore,” he says. He stands with a sly smile pulling on one side of his mouth, his arms crossed over his chest. He leans one shoulder against the wall. “I think after learning a few things about me, most wouldn’t be so anxious to speak to me. But here you are.”
I stalk forward, my teeth gritted together tightly. I place a hand on the wall behind either side of his head, boxing him in. I bring my face within inches of his.
“How do I reverse what you’ve done?” I growl.
Jack smiles. Shakes his head. “How do you expect to reverse it, when you don’t even really know what it is I’ve done?”
And suddenly Jack takes a step forward, through me.
It’s as if ice-cold acid was dumped over me. So frigid, so arctic. My body immediately shutters for a moment, unable to handle merging with the dead.
But the instant Jack steps through me, I feel human once again.
A growl on my lips, I spin around.
Jack walks casually around the room. Looking down upon the dirt and dust and leaves. He waves a hand casually over the flames of the candle.
“She’s got you wrapped around her dainty little fingers, doesn’t she?” he asks, finally looking up at me from beneath his lashes. “You keep chasing me down, dragging me back from that horribly lonely place. But this time, she’s nowhere to be seen. You’re here of your own accord—for Iona.”
“Don’t even speak her name,” I very nearly whisper.
“I will speak her name if I like,” he says, that coy smile beginning to return. “Because, you see, I own Iona Faye. I am Iona Faye.”
It’s instinct that makes me act. When my fist swings forward, looking for a chiseled jaw to connect with.
But there’s only air and ice.
Jack simply laughs and takes three casual steps across the room. “This is entertaining,” he says. “Watching you squirm like a dog. Riling you up until you sn
ap your sharp teeth. Only the bite has nowhere to land.”
“Better a dog than a poisonous snake,” I say, watching as he continues to walk around the room.
“But the snake doesn’t have much to worry about, does it?”
That smile of his makes me want to rip his lips from his face, and pluck every one of his teeth from his head, one by one. “Only the shovel coming down on the back of its neck from the grieving brother of the one who was last bitten.”
Finally, the smile on his face falters.
“We have about five minutes until the gate to the other side is going to drag you back,” I say as I lean back against a wall and watch Jack. “I’m going to get some answers.”
“You have no leverage against me,” Jack says. And I can see it now, one of the things that must have made him so charming: he has absolute confidence.
“As I understand it, you have no siblings, both of your parents are dead,” I say. “You have no friends because you move every two years. So no, I don’t have any leverage against you. But know this, that if you had anyone left on earth who mattered to you, I would go after every single one of them. I would do to them whatever it takes, until you talked, until you begged me to have mercy. That is the kind of man that I am, and that is the kind of force I will use to keep Iona from taking things just a little further and ending her life.”
His expression is a little more unreadable. Contemplative, angry, considering. He just watches me for at least a minute. There must be some kind of debate going on inside his head, considering how much to tell me.
“So she’s close,” he says, and a tug of that smile pulls on his mouth once more. “The dangerous actions have started?”
A spark lights in me.
A direction.
A door to some answers.
“She jumped out of a moving truck just four hours ago, barely missing falling off the bridge, just outside of Ander,” I explain. “She’s in the hospital. It’s the most recent of some very terrifying, inexplicable acts.”
Jack smiles, something satisfied. “It’s impressive, isn’t it? That even in death, my little burrow into her mind still holds?”