by Simon Holt
“Thanks, Aaron, for being straight with me. I get it, why you brushed me off for so long. I’m really sorry about Reggie.”
“Thanks” was all Aaron said.
“So you didn’t know that girl was a Vour when you were waiting for the train?” Quinn asked.
“No, I didn’t. Maybe I should’ve.” Aaron thought back to the platform, to the girl jumping in puddles. “There are signs, but they’re subtle. She was playing in the cold rain and didn’t seem to be bothered by it. And the vision she sent me, it wasn’t like the others I’ve had. Most of the time they’re nightmarish, like unbelievable things happen but they feel real. But this time, there was no fantasy involved. A girl’s playing on wet asphalt, she slips, she falls on the tracks. It’s a freak accident, but believable.” Aaron paused. “I’ve come to know when I’m seeing a Vour vision, even if I can’t fight against it. I know that it’s happening to me. But this—this was real.”
“Why do you think this one was different?” Quinn asked.
“I can’t be sure,” Aaron said. “But when Vours send visions, it’s usually either to incapacitate you, or just to mess with you, drive you crazy. I think that girl wanted me to jump on the tracks and get hit by the train. She was trying to kill me.”
“And everyone would think it was suicide, or an accident.”
“Welcome to the wonderful world of the Vours.”
“But the reason I started feeling especially cold is because I can detect them,” Quinn went on. “That’s what we think. This is further proof. But with Henry at least—it’s not an exact science. You can tell that a Vour is close, but it doesn’t pinpoint them.”
“So it’s handier if I’m in a room with one other person than in a crowd.”
“Exactly.”
“Still, it’s something.”
“Yes, it’s something.”
“So what’s in New York? Is that where you think Reggie is?”
Aaron hesitated. This was not necessarily part of the tale he was anxious to bring Quinn in on. Quinn sensed this.
“Come on, I’m in it now. Whatever you’re up to, I want to help.”
Aaron exhaled.
“Not Reggie. Her mother.” Saying it out loud somehow made it more real. After all this time, could they really have found her?
“What’s she doing there?”
“She… left… a while ago. Disappeared, changed her name, the works. But when we find and rescue Reggie, she’s going to need to disappear as well. I’m hoping that her mother will take her in.”
“You’re going to rescue Reggie?”
“Of course.”
“How?”
“We’re still working out the details.”
“You and this Machen guy?”
“At any rate, it’s imperative that we have a plan for Reggie after she’s out. She can’t go back to Cutter’s Wedge. It’s too dangerous.”
“It might be too dangerous for you, too, you know.”
“I’ll do anything to make sure she’s safe,” Aaron murmured to the car window.
They didn’t talk much for the rest of the trip, and Aaron’s thoughts turned to Mrs. Halloway. He wasn’t going to engage her on this trip, if it really was her out there in Brooklyn. He just needed to confirm her identity. They’d have to wait until after they’d found Reggie to approach her—no point in doing it before then and risking the rescue operation. On the one hand, he hoped that as her mother, Mrs. Halloway would drop everything to ensure her daughter’s safety; on the other, it’s not like she deserved any awards for motherly instincts as of late.
Aaron had always liked Mrs. Halloway, too. Sure, she had been a bit frazzled at times, but that made her fun. She would do the unexpected, like wake Reggie and Aaron up on sleepover nights to go for midnight ice cream runs, just because she was having a craving. Or secretly give the two of them driving lessons on backcountry roads when they were only thirteen. Aaron loved his parents deeply, but theirs was a somewhat regimented household. Once upon a time, the Halloways’ had been an escape for him, a carnival where new rides were always opening.
But then everything had changed. It had happened slowly and subtly; Aaron couldn’t even put his finger on the moment when he had realized that Mrs. Halloway was somehow different. She just grew more distant, and cared less about what Reggie and Henry were doing. She’d disappear for hours at a time, leaving Reggie alone to babysit Henry without any explanation as to her whereabouts. Mr. Halloway had always worked long hours, and the fights between him and his wife had begun in earnest when he would routinely arrive home to find Reggie preparing microwave meals for the family and no sign of her mother. Reggie didn’t openly complain, trying to shield Henry from most of the strife, but she had grown more reserved, withdrawing from almost all of her friends except for Aaron.
He had mentioned Mrs. Halloway’s behavior to his own mom at one point; being a psychiatrist, she had told Aaron to look for signs of alcohol or drug abuse, since they were often involved in cases of such drastic personality shifts. But Aaron had never found any evidence to suggest that Reggie’s mother was drinking or popping pills, not that that proved anything. Addicts became experts at hiding their vices. And then Mrs. Halloway had simply disappeared.
But now she had been found. Hopefully.
When they stopped for gas, Aaron offered to drive. Two hours later they were rolling into Brooklyn, and half an hour after that, Aaron parked on a quiet neighborhood street in front of a redbrick building. He peered out the windshield. The sky was getting dark, and a light flipped on in a second-story window.
“She’s home,” Aaron said.
“So what now?” asked Quinn.
“I guess we have to wait until she leaves,” said Aaron. “I have to make sure it’s really her.”
“But she could be in for the night.”
Aaron shrugged.
“You’re the one who wanted to come along.”
Quinn frowned and slumped in his seat. When they’d been waiting for twenty minutes, a pizza delivery guy pulled up and headed to the building’s front door.
“Hang on, I’ve got a better idea.”
He jumped out of the car before Aaron could stop him and waved down the pizza guy. They chatted for a few seconds, Quinn handed over a few bills, and the guy gave him the pizza. Then Quinn began to climb the front stoop.
“What the hell?” Aaron hopped out of the car and ran after Quinn. “Quinn!” he hissed. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“Delivering pizza,” said Quinn, looking at the names on the buzzer.
“I’m serious.”
“I’m just going to get into the building, then go knock on her door and say I thought the pizza was for her. She doesn’t know me. Then I’ll pretend to get a phone call and snap a picture of her with the phone cam. Genius, right?”
Aaron grudgingly agreed.
“Yes, that’s pretty good.”
“Then let me get to it.”
Aaron retreated down the steps and back to the car. He heard the buzzer go and the door slam as Quinn entered the building. This time he sat in the passenger seat, and he noticed his stomach rumbling. The pizza had smelled awfully good.
His cell phone buzzed, and he pulled it out of his pocket. Expecting his mother’s or father’s name on the caller ID, or perhaps Machen’s, he was shocked to see “Reggie” flashing on the screen. He touched the answer button and slowly put the phone to his ear.
“Hello?”
“Aaron, is that you?” It was Henry—this was Reggie’s home line, not her cell. Aaron felt foolish.
“It’s me, Henry. What is it? Is everything okay?”
Henry spoke softly and quickly.
“I don’t have a lot of time. I just wanted to tell you that Dad is going to see Reggie next week.”
“He’s what?”
“Whatever you said to him at the library, he’s been acting weird ever since. And then today he told me that he set up an appointment for us to g
o see her.”
“When? Where?” Aaron felt his hairs standing on end.
“He didn’t say where. But next Saturday.”
“Henry, this is fantastic. Listen, I’ll talk to Machen, but we’re going to need your help. You’re going to need to spy for us.”
“I’ve got to go. He’s coming.”
There was a click and Aaron’s cell lost the call. He bit his thumbnail, lost in thought. So his words had struck home. Mr. Halloway wanted proof that Reggie was on the mend. Now it was just a game of surveillance, certainly something Machen knew how to organize. As long as Henry could pull it off, they would finally learn where she was. It was the break they’d been waiting for.
The door opened and Quinn got into the car. He had a funny look on his face as he slid into the driver’s seat.
“So?” Aaron asked. “Did it work? Did you get the picture?”
“Ye-es,” said Quinn hesitantly.
He handed over his phone, which showed a picture of a pretty woman with dark hair. She was slimmer, but it was definitely Sheila Halloway.
“That’s her,” Aaron said excitedly. “It’s her—it’s Reggie’s mom.”
“Aaron, there’s something you should know.”
“I did it. I found her!”
“Aaron!”
“What?”
Quinn took a deep breath.
“When she opened the door, I felt it. The cold. Like all the heat in my body was gone.”
Aaron gaped at him.
“You’re saying—”
“Yeah. She’s one of them. She’s a Vour.”
The dirt crumbled all around her, blinded her, suffocated her, but still Reggie crawled on through the tunnel. She dug forward with her hands, shoving the earth out of the way, ignoring the pain in her fingertips where her nails were cracked and bleeding.
And then finally she felt air. She pushed forward and her arms were free of the tunnel. They were sore beyond measure, but she pulled herself out and sucked in the oxygen.
It wasn’t the cleanest breath: She appeared to be in some kind of cavern now, lit dimly by moonlight, and the air was dank and close. But it beat the hell out of breathing dirt.
A gray abyss surrounded the cave entrance; she had been seeing this emptiness throughout the entire fearscape, the decay of memories that signified the human victim, Jacob, had been trapped here for years, maybe decades. Indeed, it was the most eroded fearscape she’d ever been to, as if it could crumble away into nothingness at any moment, and there was still no sign of Jacob. There was no sign of anything—no people, no monsters, no tangible objects. These outer layers had not been occupied for a long time, and whatever horrors once populated this realm had since melted together and hardened into emotionless, lifeless chunks of psychic rubble. Wherever Jacob was now, it was deep, deep down.
Reggie suspected he had long since been propelled to the core of the fearscape, where his existence would be one of only isolation and immobility in a fathomless dread. She knelt and sifted through the ash-colored dirt, seeking out anything that might offer a clue as to where Jacob now dwelled. No magic door would open, no chute would suddenly appear beneath her feet here. She needed to find a symbol of Jacob, some lingering bread crumb that tied him to this place. Through all her journeys, Reggie knew that while the Vours could strip away the identities of their victims, it was something else to destroy them completely. Jacob’s identity was hidden, but it was not gone. At least, she hoped it wasn’t.
Her fingers struck a small box caked in sand. She rubbed the dirt away, revealing the soft purple velvet exterior. She tried to pry it open, but it was locked tight. She shook it, but nothing sounded from inside.
“What are you telling me, Jacob?” Reggie asked herself. “What’s in the box?”
A constant drip drip drip echoed in the cave. She hadn’t noticed it before, but now the noise seemed to drum on the inside of her skull.
She walked toward the dripping sound but never drew nearer or farther away; it remained constantly beyond her ear, beyond her grasp. Paths and caves twisted and turned on one another, creating a sealed maze with no physical exit. Reggie knew she could sit down in the dust and wait forever. This place brought on the weighty feel of an infinite solitude. The immediate peril was nonexistent; the loneliness was eternal.
Reggie walked on, clutching the box and rubbing the velvet between her fingers.
“What’s in the box?”
And then she took a step, and the ground fell away beneath her. She tried to pull back, to grasp anything that would stop her fall, but her hands found nothing. There was nothing behind her, nothing in front of her—she was tumbling into the abyss. She had walked off the edge of the fearscape.
Reggie thrust out her arms, grappling at the air, willing herself to find something to hang on to, but there was only the emptiness of the gray matter. She fell and fell and fell. This is it, she thought. There was no way out, nowhere else to go. She would be lost forever in the oblivion. Her comatose body would remain in Unger’s prison as her psyche unraveled and at last dissipated into this void of forgotten memory.
Then, suddenly, she stopped. She did not hit ground—she simply stopped.
Around her there was nothing. Her mind struggled to comprehend, but it could not. It was not black or gray, viscous or dusty, dense or light. It was nothingness.
Reggie had no concept of time or space here. Emotions drained away, including fear itself. The only sensation she had was that of her existence slipping away. The feeling was not painful or sad. It was nothing. It was this place. It had always been this place, and she had always been one with it. She no longer mattered. Nothing mattered.
Nothing.
A small entity fluttered by her ear. Reggie called out from the nothingness that was both her and not her. The thing tickled her ear, only for a moment.
What are you?
“I am nothing,” Reggie answered. “This is nothing.”
I have dwelled in nothing forever. You are more than nothing. What are you?
“I…” Reggie struggled to trace a thought. “I am here…”
Why?
“… to save you…”
Tiny wings fanned her face.
Please… find my soul.
Jacob. It was Jacob.
And she…
“My name is Reggie,” she said, pulling her mind back from the peaceful emptiness. “And you… your name…”
I have a name?
“Yes. Your name is Jacob.”
Why am I here?
“You were taken. Stolen.”
I remember… fear… neverending…
“It is ending.”
What has kept me here?
“Nothing, Jacob. Nothing at all.”
Reggie felt velvet, soft and warm in her fingers. She lifted her hand and held the box aloft in her palm.
“This is yours.”
The flutter of wings.
“Open the box, Jacob.”
She could see it now. A faintly lit mothlike creature flying around her hand. It circled over the box, the wings buzzing closer with each revolution.
“Open it.”
The box glowed white. The hinges creaked back and the box opened. From inside came the most unexpected of sounds.
A man’s baritone voice sang out loud and clear into the void. It was one of the most beautiful things Reggie had ever heard, strong and rich and deep and sad. It took her breath away, and for a few moments she actually forgot where she was, and her heart soared.
And then, a few moments after that, as the man continued to sing, thousands of tiny lights began to pierce the darkness, and they grew steadily, white light blasting away the black. As Reggie’s eyes began to adjust, she saw the most incredible thing. A tiny moth, fluttering here and there, began to grow and shift and stretch, until it had two legs, and two arms, and a torso, and a head, and the most lovely of voices. It was Jacob as a young man, tall and lean and proud.
He cont
inued to sing until all the darkness had faded away, and they were standing in the blank space of the obliterated fearscape. Only then did Jacob end his song.
“You found me,” he said to Reggie. “I was so lost.”
“So was I,” she said.
A revolving door appeared. Jacob squinted and pointed upward, and looked the slightest bit afraid once again.
“What’s that?” he asked.
Reggie was not surprised. Victims often witnessed something inside the defeated fearscape—something she could never see herself.
“I don’t know.” She gestured to the revolving door. “But this is the way home.”
Jacob took her hand.
“Let’s go, then.”
6
Aaron tapped incessantly on the center console of Machen’s car. He was lying stretched out in the backseat, mostly covered with a blanket so that he was hidden from the sight of people passing by.
“Not built for stakeouts, were you?” asked Machen, hunched down in the front seat.
“I’m sorry, I don’t have the Zen master thing down yet.”
It was Saturday afternoon, and they were parked on a side street not far from the school, around the corner from the house of one of Henry’s friends. The plan was for Henry to tell his father that he was spending the night there, but when he got dropped off, meet Aaron and Machen instead. But they’d been waiting there for almost three hours, and there had been no sign of Thom Halloway’s pickup truck. Every time a car drove by, Aaron’s head would pop up, inciting disapproval from Machen.
“The point is for people not to see us sitting here, loitering suspiciously in the car,” he said.
But Aaron could barely contain his worry. So many things could have happened—what if the Vours had found the hidden camera Henry was carrying? What if they’d taken the Halloways hostage or, worse, killed them? How could he and Machen have been so idiotic as to let that kid risk so much on his own? A small part of Aaron’s brain replied to this, and he wasn’t sure he liked the answer: Like he had told Quinn, he would do anything to save Reggie, even if it meant putting her little brother in danger.
The front passenger door opened and Aaron jumped. Henry hopped in the car and buckled his seat belt.