Now Entering Addamsville

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Now Entering Addamsville Page 21

by Francesca Zappia


  “Do you really think she’s gone?”

  “She would have sent word.” It wasn’t really an answer, and she looked back out the window when she said it. Steam clouded her expression. “Answer a question for me: do you still believe Addamsville is only a cute little tourist town?”

  I frowned at her. “You believe Addamsville is only a cute little tourist town.”

  Her lips curled on the rim of her mug. “Your mom would have a fit if she saw you acting like this.”

  “Like what?”

  “Passive. The one thing I always saw when I looked at you, no matter what the circumstances, was her unflinching refusal to be or to think the way anyone else wanted her to. She got on my nerves more often than not, but I envied her for that. I was so concerned with the hows and whys of becoming my own person that for a long time I let this town tell me who I was. Just one of those poor girls, lost in the woods. Dasree didn’t care about the hows or the whys of learning to be herself again. She didn’t wallow. She didn’t rest. We weren’t the same after we were kidnapped, and she had to know what had changed us. Those mysteries would have killed her, if she’d let them. But she didn’t; she went out and hunted them down. I think she found the truth, in the end.

  “She taught you to hunt firestarters because she hoped one day you might find the answers she couldn’t. She hoped you would go at life with your teeth bared, instead of getting beaten down by bad things that happen to you. Like I did.”

  She looked at me again. Dark and furious.

  “What’s going on now isn’t right. These fires. This unrest. I can deal with the living in this town, but that’s as far as my reach goes. I don’t know any more about firestarters than you. We both know there are answers here, and you’re one of the few people who can find them. So what’s it going to be? Death or hunting?”

  She watched me for a heartbeat, then returned to sipping coffee in the night.

  I took my water and stumbled back to the third floor. Artemis hadn’t moved even to swat a corner of the blanket off her face. I stopped at the end of the bed and stared at my boots on the trunk, both standing up. I tipped one over with a finger.

  I fell asleep a second time to a soft pounding in my head, like words spoken over and over, a chanted question that chased me into my dreams.

  Doubt or belief.

  Ignorance or truth.

  Death or hunting.

  28

  No one knew where I was.

  Aunt Greta told Chief Rivera I had disappeared after the incident at the bluffs. Rivera had relayed the news to the Harrisburg police. Officers Jack and Norm were out looking for me, but Rivera herself was busy dealing with the Dead Men Walking crew and Tad Thompson, still shaken over their ordeal, and now Buster Gates, who refused to admit he’d pushed the trailer off a cliff despite the deep tracks in the ground, the damage to his truck, and the fact that several of the people who had accompanied him there had already confessed.

  Early the next morning, Dad paced around the house for a while, speaking to Aunt Greta alone in the kitchen, then talking to someone over the phone. After he hung up, he said, “I’ve found a few people who are going to help me with the trailer. We’re going to see what we can get out of it, and hopefully the water didn’t destroy too much. This could take a while.”

  “We’ll be okay,” I told him, patting his arm. I sat on the couch and he leaned over me. “Go get our stuff; I don’t want all my things washing into the lake.”

  Someone stopped by in a white pickup to get him. Not even a week back from jail and he already had friends again. One trailer over the bluffs was enough to win us back some sympathy.

  Sadie watched him leave, then marched to the couch and loomed over me while she pinned her hair up. “Lorelei told Grim that you’re meeting up with her, Hal, and Mads today, and they’re helping you clear your name.”

  “It was their idea,” I said immediately.

  “I’m not accusing you,” she sniped back. “I’m telling you Grim and I are coming, too. I’ve got appointments this morning, but I can leave this afternoon. Grim’s getting off work early. When your friends get out of school, we’ll come meet wherever you are.”

  “You’re helping now? Are you actually going to believe what I say?”

  Sadie shoved the last pin into her bun and dropped her arms. She glanced at the kitchen door; Aunt Greta had gone outside to take the trash cans down the driveway. Artemis’s blow dryer hissed from upstairs. “Do you know how sometimes you think you hear someone say something when they didn’t? Or you hear a voice call your name, but there’s no one there?”

  “Sure.”

  “I’ve been hearing things like that my whole life. All the time. At school, in town. The only place it stopped was at home. It’s really annoying, you know, when people are whispering in your ears all day long, especially when they say things about death and sadness and grief—” She shuddered and wrapped her arms around her middle. “I thought something was wrong for a really long time, but I could ignore it, so I did. But when you told me what Mom and you could do, I started thinking maybe all these distant voices I hear when I walk through town, the half sentences, the weird mumbling, maybe it’s not my ears going haywire.”

  “You can hear them?” I said.

  “Can’t you?”

  “No. I can only see them. I didn’t think they could speak.”

  “At least you knew they were there. I thought something was wrong with me. I always thought people were talking behind my back. Tricking me. I used to get so angry about it, but after high school it just got exhausting to be so angry all the time. It was—it is—distracting.” She flattened the hem of her shirt. “I don’t think Mom ever knew.”

  “She didn’t,” I said. “If she had, she would have explained to you what it was.”

  Sadie looked down at her fingers now, nodding.

  “After all this is over, I could help you,” I went on. “Like, we could do some tests. Find a ghost, talk to it. If you want to. Maybe if you know who and where they are, hearing them won’t be so distracting.”

  “I’d like that.” She looked up. “Dad doesn’t know about any of this, does he?”

  “I . . . I think he might. At least part. The ghost-seeing part.”

  “And he’s okay with it?”

  “We didn’t talk about that.”

  “Do you think we should tell him?”

  “Maybe. Maybe . . . after the dangerous part is over.”

  Ask for forgiveness, not permission. Grand Slam Sadie’s old motto.

  Sadie left for work. Artemis came down after finishing with her hair and joined me on the couch.

  Aunt Greta swept around the corner from the kitchen. Her hair bounced in ringlets of Hallmark glory, her shoes clip-clipping on the hardwood floors. She had her purse over one arm and her car keys in her hand. “I have to go into town to speak to Chief Rivera about what happened last night.”

  “I thought you already gave her your story?” Artemis said.

  “I told her what happened,” said Greta. “I didn’t give an official statement. After that I have errands to run. I’ll be out for most of the day. You’ll be safe by yourselves. Don’t open the door for anyone.” She clip-clipped past the couch and out the front door, only pausing to look back at us, look back at me, for a second. Then she locked the door behind her and disappeared down the front walk.

  Artemis turned to me. “Where are we meeting the others?”

  “Wherever Bach is going to be.”

  “And how will we know that?”

  I held up her phone. “Already texted him. Your passcode is really easy to guess, by the way. Two-four-six-eight? We’re going to meet him at the cemetery.”

  She swiped the phone back, sullen. “The cemetery? In the middle of the day?”

  “When was the last time you saw someone in that cemetery? Even Pastor Keller?”

  “Well, I don’t go there that often, so—”

  “Exactly. No one
goes over there anymore; it’s creepy as hell.”

  Artemis held her phone to her chest, the sullenness giving way to worry. “Are you really sure it’s safe to involve Bach in this? You’re sure he’s on our side?”

  “Bach will help us. Forester won’t. And as long as Forester’s in the picture, Bach’s not safe, either. But I have a plan for that.”

  “That sounds promising.” Artemis leaned her head back on the couch, stretched her legs in front of her, and let out a long, weary sigh. “I’m missing a calculus exam for this.”

  “You’re fucking welcome,” I replied.

  Black Creek Church looked especially old in the stark October sunlight. White paint flecked off the outside, and what remained had grayed over time. A bird’s nest poked out of a hole in the steeple where the wood had rotted away. Fallen leaves littered the small hills around the building, its front walk, and its parking lot. The only nice part of the building was the sign out front, which Pastor Keller could be seen repainting every two months or so: BLACK CREEK CHRISTIAN CHURCH painted on fresh white in dark blue and gold.

  Behind the church, the graveyard stretched into softly rolling hills until it met the line of the woods. Headstones ranged from unmarked rocks to seven-foot-tall monuments topped with stone angels. The only ghosts you really find in a graveyard are the ones there to look for other members of their family. Parents standing over the graves of their children. Ancestors searching for descendants. The dead don’t hang around their own graves much; they have better places to be.

  There were none here today. Too much firestarter activity in town.

  We gathered at the edge of the graveyard near Black Creek Woods, our cars pulled off onto one of the dirt paths that wound through the graveyard.

  “Okay,” Hal said, leaning against the trunk of a maple, face screwed up in concentration, “tell me if I’ve got this. There are demons in Addamsville, Hermit Forester actually did commit the Firestarter Murders, and now he’s in a turf war with a guy called Ludwig. He blackmailed you like a low-rent mob boss to find Ludwig so his enforcer”—he motioned to Bach—“can do some cleanup on behalf of the family. Oh, and also, you’re the Ghost Whisperer. Is that about right?”

  I stretched my legs out on the leaf-strewn ground and rested my head back against my own tree. “They’re not demons and I’m not the Ghost Whisperer, but sure, close enough. Good analogy there, Hal. Does anyone else have questions?”

  Artemis, Sadie, and Grim stood to my right. Lorelei haunted the space between Grim and Hal, and Mads had placed herself between Hal and Bach. I was the only one within arm’s reach of Bach.

  They’d all been staring at me for the last ten minutes, either too shocked or too overloaded to call me a liar.

  Mads raised her hand, looking at Bach. “I’d ask why we should trust you, but Zora trusts you and we’re here to help her. So: What’s your plan? How do you kill him? Does it involve anyone else in Addamsville being put at risk?”

  Bach shifted forward. “You don’t kill him; you can only subdue him. I don’t have much of a plan right now. The plan depends on where Ludwig is, and the risk depends on how much of a fight he puts up.”

  Sadie choked. “Excuse me? You don’t have a plan?”

  Bach actually had the audacity to look sheepish. I rolled my eyes. “I have a plan,” I said. “Because I think I know where he is. I’ll need Sadie’s help to confirm it, but I think Ludwig will be at the junkyard.”

  “You need me?”

  “The junkyard?” Artemis said at the same time.

  “Think about it. Ludwig was trying to get rid of me, because he knows I can help Bach and Forester find him. I escaped, and now he doesn’t know where I am. But he knows where my car is.”

  Sadie’s head swiveled around on her neck like a possessed doll. “He’s going to do something to the Chevelle?”

  “Everyone in town knows we love that car,” I said. “And they know it was Mom’s car. It was her weapon of choice. If he wants to draw me out, he’ll hold the Chevelle hostage. He’s had to have seen enough of Buster Gates to know I’d never leave Mom’s car with that pig. No offense, Lorelei.”

  Lorelei gave a wispy shrug, then said, her eyes huge and round, “But if Ludwig wanted you gone, he could have killed you at the motel.”

  “He doesn’t want you dead,” Bach said, and everyone turned to him again, like animals constantly aware of a predator in their midst. Bach let out a long sigh. “If he did, yes, he would have burned you on the spot. Don’t be surprised if he makes a second try to win you over.”

  “So, hypothetical,” Sadie said. “We find out he’s at the junkyard with the Chevelle. He’s got to be smart enough to lay some kind of trap.”

  “Right. Whether he’s at the junkyard or not, he’s going to know that I can find him, and he’s at least smart enough to make a trap. That’s why we don’t go in. We draw him out.” I pushed myself up and brushed off my pants. “He told me what he wants. Grimshaw House. He wants to find Hildegard. He thinks her entrance is there.”

  Bach made a noise. “Ah. He thinks if he owns the house, it will reveal something to him. So he’s trying to drive Sammy out so he can get the deed from us.”

  “Why would ownership show him anything?” I asked.

  “Possession is important to our kind. When we own something, it becomes part of us, and we perceive the world differently through that ownership of the thing. In this case, Hildegard made the Grimshaw will the necessary document to prove ownership; only the owner can find its secrets.”

  Sadie looked at Grim, who was staring off into the distance.

  “Okay.” My head spun. “Okay. So he wants Grimshaw House, and he knows you and Forester have ownership of it. If he thinks something is going to happen to Grimshaw House, he’ll try to stop it.”

  “Something like what?” Sadie asked.

  I glanced at Bach. “Something like fire.”

  The words rattled in my chest. Even suggesting setting a fire had my nerves on edge. “Not to burn Grimshaw House,” I went on, “just a bluff. Enough to make him think you are. He comes to find you, you take him out, we get the Chevelle.”

  Bach crossed his arms and didn’t say anything. The others looked between us, waiting.

  “At least I had a plan,” I snapped.

  “I’ll be making a scene,” Bach said.

  I met his stare. “Yes.”

  “You’d rather I do it in the street. In front of everyone.”

  “Right on the money.”

  “Someone will get video—” Artemis began.

  “Lots of people will get video, I bet,” I said.

  Bach smiled a bit, flipped his sunglasses out, and put them on. “Well played, Novak.”

  “So you’ll do it?”

  “It was better than my idea. I should be able to subdue him without causing more damage to the town. Ludwig’s not smart, but he’s always been strong, even if he doesn’t have as many dead as I do.”

  I looked around at the others. “The rest of you don’t have to do anything. Stay home. It’ll be safer there.”

  “Stay home while you screw over the asshole who blew up my float?” Hal scoffed. “No way. I’m coming with you.”

  “And obviously I can’t let all of you go without me,” Mads said. “You need someone to make rational decisions.”

  “And I can help you get into the junkyard to get the car,” said Lorelei, face flushed with color. “You have to take me with you.”

  “You’re jerks,” I said.

  “Meet back here tonight?” Artemis said.

  A round of nods.

  Grim, as usual, looked like he was somewhere faraway, occasionally glancing northward, along the line of the trees. Now, as everyone went quiet, he turned to Bach. Despite having known both of them for years, the spheres they occupied had never touched, at least in my mind. Bach was always of the mysterious, even when he seemed like only a person. Grim was always only a person, even when he said or did something m
ysterious.

  Now, Bach’s shadows couldn’t stand up against Grim’s druidic concern.

  “What about Tad Thompson?” Grim said.

  Bach shook his head. “Tad Thompson is gone. When we possess a body, we destroy the person who once owned it. There’s only Ludwig now.”

  Grim stared him down like he had some divine truth-sensing ability, and for a second I believed he did. He could see straight through the most mysterious of creatures, and his own strangeness kept them from harming him, as if he lived halfway between this plane of existence and another.

  Finally he looked to the north again. Bach had told the truth. I felt a little twinge of regret: Tad Thompson hadn’t been my favorite person, but possession seemed like a nasty way to die.

  “Who was yours?” I asked Bach. “I mean, that body isn’t yours, right? Was it someone from Addamsville?”

  Bach dipped his head. Ran a hand over his stomach. “Ah. Yeah. A while back. So we’re on for tonight?” He glanced around at everyone, then moved past the headstones that hid us. “Zora can check with Masrell first and text where Ludwig is. I’ll go south. The rest of you head north. And stay out of his path once he gets going.”

  He shoved his hands into his pockets and made his way toward his car.

  “Guilt gets the best of us,” I said, then called to him, “Hey! What was his name?”

  “Everyone in Addamsville knew his name!” Bach yelled over his shoulder.

  “Dude is cryptic as hell,” Hal said. The Mustang pulled out of the graveyard.

  “What if Ludwig kills him?” said Mads.

  “This is bonkers,” Sadie muttered, rubbing her forehead.

  Lorelei was talking to Grim in undertones. Artemis had gotten a strange look on her face and wandered the way Bach had gone, then stopped to look at a headstone. “Bach chose this spot, right?” she asked.

 

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