Deception So Dark

by Clara Kensie

  I took a breath, then carefully raised the fog. And there they were, right there, as if they were sitting next to me. Jillian and Logan, as easy as that. Jillian’s hair was dyed brown again and cut to the length of her chin. Her gray eyes were duller than I remembered. Logan was wearing a black ski cap pulled down low over his forehead. With his gaunt features and distrusting glances, he looked almost menacing.

  Show me, I instructed the visions.

  ❀

  She and Logan sit in a dusty living room on a loveseat that perhaps was once white with metallic gold flowers, but is now gray with dirt. The smoky, dusty air clogs her throat.

  Lady Elke had offered them hot tea, and she is in the kitchen boiling the water. Logan mutters, “This is the worst place yet, Jillian.”

  “Be nice,” she says. “Maybe she can help us.”

  Logan scoffs. “I don’t see how.”

  “We can’t keep running from place to place anymore,” she says. “It’s too dangerous. Maybe that’s why Dennis Connelly keeps figuring out where we are. We’re too exposed. We need to stop and find a place to stay.”

  “You want to stay here?”

  “Maybe. It’s remote. I don’t care where we stay as long as it’s safe. Please, Logan. Just give her a chance. If she does anything suspicious, we’ll run. Or fight.”

  Logan purses his lips. “Fine.”

  Lady Elke returns with two mugs. They each take one, and she tries not to grimace at the dirty-dishwater taste.

  Lady Elke takes a long drag on her cigarette and studies them. “You have a secret,” she says.

  Her heart flip-flops. They have many secrets. Their entire existence is a secret. Does Lady Elke know they are hiding? Does she know about their psychic abilities? Does she know their family was murdered? Does she know they pushed that guy off the cliff?

  “You lost your family,” Lady Elke says.

  Another flip-flop. Logan puts his hand on her arm to remind her: don’t confirm or deny anything. Trust no one.

  “Do you have something of theirs?” Lady Elke asks. “I can contact them.”

  Logan rolls his eyes. “We don’t have anything.”

  “Wait.” She reaches into her getaway bag and pulls out Tessa’s Anne of Green Gables book. “We have this.”

  Logan frowns. “Why do you still have that?”

  “I just do.”

  Lady Elke takes the book and holds it to her chest. She twists her lips and looks up to the water-stained ceiling like she’s thinking hard.

  “This girl ain’t dead,” she declares. “She’s in art class. She’s drawing nightmare eyes.”

  Her heart stops flip-flopping and plummets into her stomach. Lady Elke is a fake, just like all the other so-called psychics they’ve seen. She avoids Logan’s “told-ya-so” expression.

  “She’s looking for you,” Lady Elke continues. “She needs to find you first.”

  “Okay,” she sighs. “Thank you for your time.” She reaches for the book, but Lady Elke grips it tightly in both hands.

  “But there’s more,” she says. “Everything you think you know is wrong.”

  “We’re done,” Logan says, and stands up. He tosses some money on the dirty coffee table.

  She snatches the book from Lady Elke, and they walk out the door.

  ❀

  I rose from my space between Tristan and Melanie, following the images of Jillian and Logan outside. Ignoring the cold wind, I stood on Lady Elke’s rickety, cluttered front porch. Distantly, I felt Tristan behind me, on alert.

  His blue rental car sat on the gravel driveway, and as I lifted the fog, it was replaced by a small white RV. Jillian and Logan were leaning against it, hunched over. Tired. Defeated. Crestfallen.

  ❀

  “You okay?” he asks. He sees Jillian is upset, but she held it together in there, so he decides not to mention the book. For now.

  “Yeah, I’m okay. Just disappointed.”

  “For a moment I thought she might be legit,” he says. “I mean, everyone has secrets. But when she said we lost our family? Wow. I got chills.”

  Jillian nods. “Me too. But look at us. We look like orphans.”

  “You’re right, though,” he says. “We need to stop running. We’ll look for someone to help us. Maybe someone will give us a place to stay.” He pulls a key from his pocket and tosses it to her. “Your turn to drive.”

  They climb into the RV. The front door of the house opens, and Lady Elke comes out. She waves at them to stop.

  Jillian sighs impatiently and rolls the window down.

  “That girl. She feels eyes everywhere,” Lady Elke says. “They’re black. They’re from her nightmares. She feels them watching her.”

  Of course this one-eyed woman would be obsessed with eyes. “Right now, in art class?” he says, sarcasm dripping like poison from his voice. “That’s why she’s drawing them?”

  “Yes! Exactly,” Lady Elke says. “She can’t escape them.”

  He loses his patience with the crazy woman, and silently commands the RV to drive away. It jerks to a start and pulls out.

  She runs after them, shouting something about two girls named Lily and Brooke, but her words get lost as the RV rumbles away, kicking up gravel and dirt.

  ❀

  “Tessa, she’s ready,” Tristan said from behind me.

  I called in the fog, blinked, and looked up at him. “She was so accurate that Jillian and Logan thought she was a fake.”

  Tristan snorted at the irony. “Any other clues?”

  “They’re driving an RV,” I said. “That moving square where Melanie saw my book? That was probably a box in the RV, or a cabinet. And they’re looking for a place to stay now instead of driving around aimlessly.”

  “That’s good,” Tristan said.

  “Maybe. We saw them a lot while they were on the road. It might be harder for us to find them once they settle somewhere.”

  “But if Lady Elke can tell us where they are right now,” he said, “we should be able to catch up to them before that happens. Let’s get back in there and get that reading.”

  I sat back on the dirty loveseat, making sure to sit between Tristan and Melanie again. Lady Elke’s lip curled up at the sight of me. Tristan handed the sheet music and ballet shoe to her again.

  Without releasing the cigarette from between her fingers, Lady Elke grabbed the items. She held them to her chest and twisted her lips, then looked up to the ceiling in deep concentration. “These people ain’t dead,” she said.

  “We know,” Tristan replied. Still, I felt relieved to hear it.

  “It’s them kids who was here this morning,” she said.

  “Yes,” Tristan said, offering no more information. “Where are they?”

  “He’s driving. She’s playing with her charm bracelet.”

  I tapped my foot anxiously. Logan was driving. Jillian was fiddling with her charm bracelet. But knowing what they were doing didn’t answer our question. “Where?” That’s all that mattered: where.

  Lady Elke closed her eyes. “He doesn’t like this new car. It’s too small. The RV had more space.”

  They got rid of the RV, Tristan flashed to me. “What are they driving now?” he asked Lady Elke.

  She licked her lips. “It’s shiny.”

  “Lady Elke, I need you to tell us where they are,” I said, trying to be patient. “The name of a town.”

  “I don’t see where. I only see what.”

  “Well then,” Tristan said, “what do you see around them? Street signs? Buildings?”

  “It glitters and glimmers.”

  “The sun?” he asked.

  “Sparkles and glows.”

  I brought my shaking hands to my mouth. “Tristan…”

  He exhaled with frustration, then tried a new question. “Are they driving toward the sun, which would mean they’re heading west? Or away from it, which means they’re driving east?”

  “Everything is sparkling,” Lady Elke br
eathed. “It’s so bright.”

  “No, where is the sun, in relation to their car? North, south, east, or west?”

  “Silver.” Lady Elke’s single-eyed gaze wandered around the room. “All those faces. All those people.”

  “My nightmare,” I said, nerve endings igniting with alarm. “Tristan, she’s seeing my nightmare.”

  “The eyes.” Lady Elke shook her head, as if she was trying to shake my nightmare from her head.

  Tristan went rigid. Tessa, get out of here. Take Melanie with you, and get out of here now.

  Tristan told me to get out of here; he was having a warning premonition, but I couldn’t leave. I couldn’t move.

  “Melanie,” he whispered. “Get out of here. Run.”

  “Where should I go?” she whimpered. “What do I do?”

  “Outside! Go. Now.”

  Melanie squealed and darted from the house. But Lady Elke didn’t spare her a glance. Her one eye glared at me, weighed me down. I was frozen in her gaze. The Nightmare Eyes too, burned into me, trapping me, holding me prisoner.

  Tristan stood, pulling me up with him, and backed toward the door. “You stay away from her.”

  “You need to pay, Tessa,” she rumbled, her voice heavy with rage. “You need to bleed. You need to spill your tainted blood.” She giggled with hysteria as her eye rolled in its socket.

  She knew my name was Tessa. She knew my blood was tainted. And was—was her eye black? Tristan do you see her eye it’s black it’s Nightmare black…

  “How did she do that?” he yelled. “Tessa, run!” He grabbed me around the middle with one arm and ran outside, dragging me with him. Once I was out of Lake Elke’s sight, I was able to move again. Able to breathe.

  Melanie was waiting just off the porch, scrunched down behind a post. “Is it over?” she quivered.

  “Ye—” Tristan’s eyes widened as another premonition struck him. “No!”

  We needed to run, we needed to hide, but there was nowhere to go. I spied something across the yard—a weathered, crumbling shed. “There! Go!”

  I grabbed Melanie’s hand, dragging her as I ran with Tristan to the shed. He forced the door open, and I glanced behind me. Lady Elke came lurching out of her house, barefoot in her cutoff shorts and stained tank top, clutching something long and silver and shiny in her hand. A knife.

  Of course it was a knife. Not quite the same as the one in my nightmares, but the blade was just as long. Just as silver. Just as sharp.

  Lady Elke stopped in her tracks, gulping in air. Looking for me. The knife reflected a ray from the setting sun.

  She spied me in the shed’s doorway and howled with rage. Tristan dove with Melanie and me inside, then slammed the door shut behind us.

  The wooden shed was old and corroding; sunlight streamed in through the dirty windows and several holes that had rotted through the roof and walls. One ray landed on me like a spotlight. Wind blew through the holes with a constant echoey whistle.

  “Tristan,” Melanie cried. “What should I do?”

  “Get back there and hide,” he whispered, and pointed to the back of the shed.

  Shaking, whimpering, she squeezed herself into a dark space next to a rusty snowblower. Grunting, I pushed a lawn mower in front of her to hide her better. Tristan held the door shut with one hand as he strained to reach the tools that hung on the walls. Shovels, hammers, screwdrivers. Rakes, hoes, garden shears. Saws, circular blades, a chain saw blade, hedge clippers. The setting sun reflected on the tools’ smooth blades, making them glimmer and glitter, sparkle and glow, illuminating the walls with silver.

  Lady Elke flew at the shed, crashing into it with such intensity the walls shook. “Tessa!” she screamed. “Killers’ Spawn!”

  This was it. This was Deirdre’s dream.

  A little house with silver walls.

  And soon, the silver will change to red. Red with blood.

  “Spawn! Killers’ Spawn!” Lady Elke pounded on the shed. “You need to spill your filthy-dirty-tainted-foul blood! You need to bleed. You need to bleeeeeeeed.”

  I was going to bleed to death in this little house with silver walls, and since I had led Tristan and Melanie here, they were going to die too.

  “Killers’ Spawn,” Lady Elke howled outside the shed. “You need to bleed! You need to bleeeeeeeeed!”

  The door jerked as she threw herself at it. The entire structure rattled and swayed, creaking and screeching, screaming for me because I could not.

  The shed wouldn’t hold for long.

  Keeping the door pulled closed with one hand, Tristan reached again for the tools hanging on the wall. His fingertips knocked a pickaxe to the floor. He dragged it over with his foot, then grabbed it. He raised it in his clutched fist, ready to fight.

  “Tessa,” he whispered. “Get back there with Melanie.”

  “No.” I wasn’t going to hide and let Tristan fight for me. I was not Melanie. Shaking, I took the hedge clippers from a hook and held them up like a dagger.

  “Tessa!” Tristan hissed. “Go hide!”

  I planted my feet, drew a breath for courage, and tightened my grip on the hedge clippers.

  Panting and wheezing, Lady Elke rattled the shed, pounding on it. It creaked and shook, causing the sunrays to dance merrily, making the walls so silver-bright I was blinded. Terror sang in my ears, time moved in tiny increments.

  And then Lady Elke stopped screaming. Stopped pounding. The shed stopped rattling.

  In the silence I whispered, “Where did she—”

  Tristan’s eyes flew open wide. “Tessa she’s coming you need to hide NOW!”

  From outside, an agonized shriek howled over running footsteps, and the door burst open, sending Tristan crashing to the floor. The shed flooded with light. Melanie screamed.

  Lady Elke’s single eye swirled maniacally in its socket, until it landed on me. The silver walls gleamed blindingly bright, forcing my vision to narrow, narrow, narrow, focusing it on that black Nightmare Eye. Dark as a starless night and black as a cavern of coal, it held me frozen.

  Distantly I heard Tristan shouting, but I remained frozen, unable to move, unable to look away from the vengeful, gleeful, triumphant Nightmare Eye.

  “Tainted Tessa, tarnished Tessa,” Lady Elke cackled. With both hands, she raised the knife over her head.

  Then she collapsed with a thud.

  “Gotta admit, I might not have stopped her if it was just you two trapped in this shed,” John Kellan said to Tristan and me. Victorious, he stood with one booted foot on Lady Elke’s crumpled form as he slid his tranq gun back into its holster. “But I wasn’t about to let this woman kill my niece.”

  “U-Uncle Johnny?” Melanie whimpered from her hiding spot in the back of the shed.

  Brushing past me, Kellan tromped over Tristan to push the lawn mower away and help her up. “I tracked you all the way here through your phone, sweetheart,” he cooed.

  Cheeks soaked with tears, she wouldn’t look at either of us as Kellan gently guided her from the shed.

  “Melanie,” Tristan croaked from the floor. “Mel, I’m sorry.”

  Two guards in black APR jackets stood outside. Kellan cocked his head at Lady Elke. “Get that woman and transport her to the Underground.”

  They pushed me aside as they lifted her, one by her shoulders, the other by her knees, and carried her out. Her head fell back, and her one eye stared out into nothing.

  Her mossy green eye.

  That woman tried to kill me today. I’d grown up thinking that Dennis Connelly wanted to kill me, but he was only trying to rescue me. When Kellan abducted me from Twelve Lakes, I had believed he was going to kill me, but that was just a ruse to get my parents to surrender. Even my mother, who had once flown me against the wall in a fit of sleepless rage and who had sliced open my stomach in a fit of panicked terror, had never wanted to kill me.

  But Lady Elke, she wanted to kill me. It wasn’t a lie. It wasn’t an act. Lady Elke had looked into my
mind and saw my shame and grief and guilt, and it was so strong, so deep, that she’d fed upon it. It made her eye turn Nightmare black. It made her want to spill my tainted, tarnished, Killers’ Spawn blood.

  I dropped the hedge clippers, then slumped to my knees as my muscles lost their strength and all energy drained from me.

  Lady Elke’s knife had dropped when she collapsed, and from his place on the floor, Tristan angrily shoved it away with the heel of his shoe. With a huge exhale, he sank back to the floor. He scraped his hands in his hair, then stayed like that, his arms hiding his face from my view.

  “Tristan,” I whispered. “Are you okay?”

  It took him a long time to answer. “You almost got us all killed, Tessa.”

  “I know. I’m sorry.”

  “This was what my mother dreamed about,” he said. “Brinda drew it too.”

  “I know.”

  “This shed is the little house. The tools are the walls of silver.”

  “Yes.”

  He sat up, leaning on his elbows. “You knew this would happen if you left Lilybrook, and you did it anyway. You didn’t tell anyone you got a lead. You sneaked out of town. You flew out to some godforsaken place in the middle of nowhere, and then not only did you almost get yourself killed, you almost got Melanie and me killed too.”

  I crawled over to him, crawled through the tools and junk and dirt. “Tristan, I’m sorry.” I put my hand on his arm, but he flinched.

  “All I’ve ever wanted to do is keep you safe, Tessa.” Slowly, he stood, the setting sun making his shadow fall over me. “But I can’t. I failed you again. I am always going to fail you.”

  Then he turned, and walked out.

  The wind howled as I knelt in the dirt of Lady Elke’s cluttered shed, watching Tristan leave. His shadow stretching long, he trudged across the littered yard without looking back.

  All he’d ever wanted to do was keep me safe, but he couldn’t. He thought he had failed me, that he would always fail me.