“You know. Like your grandmother. Someone—gone.” Haley kept her eyes on the table. She didn’t want to see Mel’s face.
“Like Gran?”
But Haley could hear the disbelief in her best friend’s voice.
And then she could hear the pity.
“Haley, you mean—like Jake?”
“No! Not like Jake, like—well, like Mercy.”
“Haley, really, are you still thinking about that? Because it’s kind of—”
“No, just listen. Okay? Listen.” Haley knew she shouldn’t have asked. Now she was stuck, she’d have to explain, but every word was just making things worse. “If they’re—not like some stupid horror movie or something, but if they’re angry, if things weren’t—right—could they, kind of, somehow, stay? For revenge, or something? Do you think?”
There was an awful pause.
“No,” Mel said.
Haley stared down at her mug of hot chocolate.
“People just—I don’t know what happens, Haley, I really don’t, if there’s Heaven or something or just nothing, but I know they don’t stay. I know Gran—not for that.”
The hot chocolate had gone cold. There was a scum of cocoa on top of the milk.
“I read about this stuff all the time, for Amnesty—people being tortured, horrible things, Haley, you can’t imagine, and just locked up for years and years. And sometimes they die. But they don’t hang around figuring out ways to hurt the people who hurt them. I know they don’t, Haley. Only the living do that.”
Haley shut the door to her room behind her. A glance out of the window revealed Mel making her way down the front path, and stopping to throw her last bite of cinnamon roll to a crow on the lawn.
She’d finally told Mel she was tired. That was true, anyway. She hadn’t slept much in Jake’s armchair.
Did one small truth balance out one big lie? Probably not.
But she couldn’t have told Mel the truth. She couldn’t have said no. That it wasn’t fine at all. That the thought of Alan and Mel talking all afternoon—Alan asking Mel out—Alan kissing Mel—made her feel strange. Disconnected and shaky. As if the last line connecting her to Earth had snapped, and now she was drifting free. With no idea of how she’d ever get down again.
Just one more person. One more person who’d walked away from her.
And the worst part was, she’d actually told him to. “You guys go on. Go without me.” She’d said it. And they’d done it.
Haley had to add stupid to the list of things she was feeling.
Her mouth tasted of sour milk; her clothes she had slept in felt stale on her skin. Maybe she’d feel better if she changed and brushed her teeth for real.
Her purple fleece shirt was clean, but there were no jeans in her drawer. Elaine would say that was because she hadn’t gotten her clothes as far as the laundry basket. Haley snagged a pair of pants from the floor. Jeans that had been worn for a few days were softer and more comfortable anyway.
She slid her hands into the pockets to make the jeans hang right off her hips and felt something there, something smooth and cool. She fished it out.
It was the silver chain she’d found on the floor of Jake’s apartment. Maia had distracted her, and she’d forgotten about slipping it into her pocket.
Haley trailed the chain through her fingers. It was strange, now that she came to think about it. If it wasn’t Maia’s—if it wasn’t Elaine’s—whose was it, then?
Jake didn’t have a lot of visitors, after all. And this necklace must belong to someone he knew. Someone who hadn’t noticed when the clasp broke and the chain fell to the floor. Someone who’d been standing right next to his chair, maybe even leaning over him—
And in Haley’s mind, something went click. A silver chain against a white blouse. She’d seen it before.
Haley snatched up her camera from her desk, clicked back through the images. It hadn’t been a good photo. She hadn’t transferred it over to the laptop. Had she deleted it?
No. She hadn’t.
Aunt Brown’s face was blurred. She’d moved just as Haley pressed the shutter. Her teeth showed, a smear of white.
Under the collar of her white blouse, there was a silver locket hanging from a thin chain. Haley had never seen her aunt without that locket on.
She zoomed in. The image was unclear, but the chain looked just like the one Haley held in her hand. And she could make out a swirly letter engraved on the locket’s surface. A D? A B for Brown? Or was it—
—it was. It was a P.
Only the living, Mel had said. Only the living make plots and plans to hurt other people.
A sharp yip from Sunny made Haley jump. The dog hadn’t followed Haley into her room. Still staring at the camera, Haley opened the door and leaned out into the hallway. “Hey, Sunny, quit it. Come in.”
But Sunny wasn’t waiting outside. She was standing near Eddie’s room. Her body stiffened; her nose nudged into the crack between the door and door frame. The door swung open.
Sunny growled.
“That’s fine for a dog who hid under the bed last night,” Haley told her, one eye still on the camera’s viewscreen. The silver chain belonged to Aunt Brown. Aunt Brown who never left the house—except that yesterday, she had.
The day after Haley had found the chain on Jake’s floor, he’d been sicker than usual. Maia had said he was worse.
Sunny’s growl trailed off into a whine.
“Quit it. You’ll wake him up.” And then the whole house would be in chaos, as usual. Haley needed peace and quiet to think, and that meant she needed Eddie to stay asleep. She walked over to grab Sunny’s collar.
Then she hesitated. Last night, somebody had been in Jake’s apartment. And Sunny had known.
It couldn’t be. Not again.
As quietly as possible, Haley pushed the door open.
Nothing out of the ordinary in the quiet, dim room. Toys scattered across the floor. Shades down. No sound from the crib.
“Sit,” Haley told Sunny, low-voiced. “Stay.”
Sunny whined again, but lowered her hindquarters obediently to the floor.
Careful not to step on anything that would break or squeak, Haley walked the few steps over to the crib. There was Eddie, sleeping faceup, a lump huddled among stuffed giraffes and kittens and the panda bear he had loved almost to shapelessness.
Haley looked down at him. In sleep, his face looked so innocent. All curves, his chubby cheeks and round forehead and the relaxed pout of his lips. It was hard to believe what a little terror he could be when he was awake.
Then Haley’s gaze dropped to the little boy’s throat.
And she screamed.
Hours later, Haley sat alone on the couch in the living room, hugging her knees close. She didn’t even notice the wet, muddy footprints her sneakers were leaving on the yellow cushions.
Her eyes were dry and sore. Every time she blinked, a scene flashed across the inside of her eyelids, lit as if by a strobe light.
Eddie, asleep. Dull red blossoms of blood staining his neck and the folds of the fuzzy white blanket tucked around him.
Elaine’s face when she appeared in the doorway of Eddie’s room. All the color in her cheeks had drained away; her eyes had looked huge and dark, big enough to swallow up her face. Haley’s dad had grabbed at her elbow. Elaine hadn’t even put Eddie in the car seat on the way to the hospital. She’d held him on her lap, hugging him, telling him over and over that he would be fine. Her thin, high voice trembled with tears but never quite broke.
The doctor at the emergency room, looking worn-out and tired in his white coat. Haley had to concentrate hard on his words to understand them. Pallor. Weakness. Iron deficiency. Blood tests.
And then her dad’s voice, only a little unsteady, but pausing in odd places, as if he could only get out so many words in a row. “My nephew has—has some kind of blood disease. No one’s been—able to diagnose it. His mother, my sister, too. Could this be—related?”<
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“We don’t know yet . . . more tests . . . have to wait . . .” The doctor’s words blurred in Haley’s memory. But her father’s voice rang clear.
Oh, yes, she thought. This could be—related.
Her dad and Elaine had sent her home in a taxi. They’d told her to stay by the phone, to ask Mel to come over, that they would call as soon as there was news.
But sitting and waiting weren’t things that Haley was planning to do.
She wasn’t going to cry, either. And she wouldn’t just get angry. She’d do something.
Mercy had died. And Edwin. Jake was dying. Not Eddie too, Haley thought grimly. No matter what she had to do, this—thing—would not touch her little brother.
Haley’s suspicions, worries, fears, beliefs, came tumbling out, half incoherent. Jake simply sat, attentive, frowning a little. The family tree with no dates under Patience’s name. The face on her camera’s viewscreen, the heartbeat in the graveyard. Aunt Brown walking down the street. Mercy’s bloodstained glove. The warning written in the dust. The silver chain.
“We always call her Aunt Brown,” Haley finished breathlessly. “But what’s her name? Her first name?”
Jake frowned. “I don’t know,” he said slowly.
“Isn’t that weird? And isn’t it weird that we call her ‘Aunt,’ but she’s not Dad’s sister, not your mom’s sister. Is she Granddad’s sister?”
“No,” Jake answered, even more slowly. “No, Granddad called her Aunt Brown too. I remember.”
“But she can’t be his aunt. That would make her—what? More than a hundred years old? It’s just like—she’s always been there. Out in that house. All by herself. Isn’t it—”
She faltered. Jake picked up the chain from where Haley had put it down on the table by his chair. He wound it around in his fingers. Was he thinking over what she’d said? Or thinking over how he’d break it to her dad and her mom and Elaine that she’d lost her mind?
“And last night, here, I kind of—interrupted. Um. So maybe she—” Jake still wasn’t looking at her. “Maybe she needed—you know, more—and Eddie—”
“Eddie. I know. Your dad called from the hospital.” Jake rubbed the bandage on his neck. “Haley. I know this is—terrible. What’s happening with Eddie. But you can’t—”
He had that look on his face.
“—can’t make it let you—”
She’d seen that look on Mel’s face. On Mr. Samuelson’s. On Elaine’s. Even on her dad’s.
“—think something like this.”
But she’d never seen it on Jake’s.
“This is crazy. It’s not real. It’s not what the world really is.”
That look of pity. Of smothering sympathy. That look of understanding that didn’t understand anything at all.
Haley had never, ever seen Jake look at her like that.
“But what if it’s—” How could he do it? Look at her like he knew everything and she knew nothing? “—not like that? Not the way we think?”
If she could just find the right words, he’d change. He’d listen. He’d believe her. He’d be Jake again, the one who was always on her side.
“It’s like all those people—no, listen, Jake—who thought the world was flat. If somebody said it was round, they’d call him crazy, right? But it really is. The world is round. What if, what if the world really is—something we think it isn’t?”
“Not something like this, Haley.”
“Yes, something like this!” Haley knew she shouldn’t shout. But she couldn’t help it. She wanted to keep her voice calm and even, but it was getting louder all on its own. “I saw that writing in the dust. I heard her heart! In the graveyard! Mercy’s been trying to tell me—”
“Mercy’s dead, Haley!”
“Aunt Brown isn’t!” Haley had jumped to her feet. “I saw her outside! Look at that chain, Jake. It’s real! It’s hers! It was here!”
Jake let the chain pour out of his fingers into a bright puddle on the tabletop. “Anyone could have dropped that, Haley.”
“You’re not listening to me!”
“Sometimes bad things happen!”
Haley stopped, shocked. She never yelled at Jake. Jake never yelled at her.
“You’ve been fighting really hard not to admit it for a long time,” Jake told her as he reached into his pocket. He took out a pack of cigarettes, put one to his lips, and lit it.
You promised you wouldn’t. Haley didn’t say the words. He knew. He knew what he’d promised.
The cloud of smoke that Jake breathed out coiled and twined in the air.
“But they do; bad things happen even to people you love. Even your own family. I’m sorry, Haley. I’d fix it for you if I could. But making up some crazy story isn’t going to help. Bad things just happen.”
“The bandage on your neck,” Haley said softly.
“What?”
“The bandage. It’s bugging you, isn’t it? Itching? Take it off.”
“Haley, what are you—”
“Just, please . . . take it off.”
One corner of Jake’s mouth twitched in exasperation. But he tugged a corner of the bandage loose and pulled it away from his skin.
“You can’t see the cut,” Haley said. “It’s gone.”
Startled, Jake rubbed his fingers over the smooth, undamaged skin.
“Go look in the mirror.”
Frowning, without a word, Jake did so. He left the door to the tiny bathroom open and stared at himself. Haley could see his reflection, along with her own. He looked lost. She looked almost angry.
“You have nosebleeds at night, right, Jake? Blood on your pillow. What if the blood’s really from a cut—one that heals really fast? Unnaturally fast?”
Jake rubbed the skin on his throat again. With his other hand, the one that still held the cigarette, he clung to the edge of the sink, as if he were afraid of falling.
“And Maia said you have nightmares. Jake, what do you dream about?”
“About—” Jake didn’t turn around. In the mirror, his face was even whiter than normal. “Something—holding me down. Crushing me. I can’t breathe. Something standing over me, and then—” He stopped.
“And Sunny!” Haley went on, eagerly. Jake was about to believe her, she could tell. He was so close to listening, to understanding. “Sunny went crazy last night. Your neighbors say she was barking, right? That’s part of why you wanted me to take her. You never heard her, but they said she was barking at night. Right? Jake?”
“No, Haley.”
Jake didn’t move. He didn’t turn around. But he met Haley’s eyes in the mirror, and he shook his head.
“Jake!”
“This can’t be it. It can’t be true. I’m sorry, Haley.” He put the cigarette to his mouth with a hand that trembled. He breathed in hard. Smoke came out of his mouth with his next words. “I can handle dying. I’m kind of used to it. But I can’t—I just can’t think about—something like this.”
Haley left him standing there. She shut the apartment door gently behind her and locked it carefully. She knew better than to leave something like that for Jake to do.
He didn’t believe her.
She walked stiffly down the hallway, as if her knees didn’t quite remember how to bend.
Well. Well, that was—fine. Jake didn’t believe her, and that was fine. She’d just have to—
—she’d just have to—
—what would she have to do?
Haley opened the door to the street. A gust of cold wind blew around her. Her jacket was hanging open.
Haley had no idea what to do.
She’d thought Jake would help her. That they’d figure out a plan together.
Now she’d have to do something all on her own. At the thought, cold fear gripped her so tightly that she could barely breathe.
All on her own. Without anybody to help. Without Jake.
Maybe, maybe, maybe Jake was right. Had she made all of this up? Made it up
because she was so scared about Jake going away and leaving her that she’d rather believe anything else?
Would she rather go crazy, Haley wondered; would she rather be insane than be alone?
“Haley?”
Haley stared blankly at the battered blue car that had pulled up by the curb. The window rolled down and a concerned face looked out at her.
“What’s wrong?” asked Alan O’Neil.
Luckily Elaine liked to cook with a lot of garlic. Haley had one whole clove in her jacket pocket, another for Alan. She’d made the stakes by splitting firewood with her dad’s hatchet, whittling them into sharp points with a kitchen knife. The cross she’d gotten at her first communion was around her neck.
She was having a lot of trouble getting used to the idea that Alan O’Neil believed in ghosts.
In other things, too, apparently. In angels and spirits and monsters and everything Jake had just told her was crazy.
And the thing was, he wouldn’t stop talking about it.
“I told you about my great-great-uncle, right?”
“Uh. No.”
Alan’s rattly little car bounced down the street. He had to talk loudly for Haley to hear him over the noise of the engine.
“He dropped dead of a heart attack in the barn one morning. This was back in Ireland. Every morning after that he’d still go out to milk the cows. My great-great-aunt got so used to seeing him, she’d just wave.”
“This isn’t ghosts.”
“Right, right, I know.” Alan’s fingers tapped on the steering wheel as he drove. “I’m just saying, things happen. All the time. This world, it’s weirder than anyone wants to admit. People get all comfortable in their safe little shells and they don’t want to even think that things could be different. Like your cousin. I mean, he should at least have listened to you, right?”
“It was a crazy story.” Haley bristled. “Nobody would have believed it.”
Alan looked at her sideways.
“Watch the road!”
He jammed on the brakes for a stop sign. A woman in a green SUV gave them an irritated look as she drove through the intersection.
Haley had no idea why she was being so cold to Alan. She ought to be grateful. He’d been worried enough to stop and pick her up. He’d been patient enough to listen to the whole insane story that, to Haley’s disbelief, had come tumbling out of her mouth. And without a moment of hesitation, he’d announced that he was driving her out to her aunt’s house so that they could see for themselves. He even had a bulb of garlic in his jacket pocket.
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