Before I Disappear

by Danielle Stinson

  “He’s alive.” Tears of gratitude stream down my face.

  Ian sucks air through his teeth. “That arm is in bad shape.”

  I’m more worried about the things we can’t see. For all we know, Blaine could’ve broken his spine. And then there’s the dark pulse. It has full control of him now. If the Black Nothing takes his mind, it won’t matter what we do with his body. There won’t be any bringing him back.

  “Come on.” I stuff down my panic. “Help me move him.”

  A hmmmph echoes through the ravine as Jeremy hits the bottom.

  “Stop!” He jogs over, his handsome face as serious as I’ve ever seen it. “Keep his head still. If his back is broken, it could be fatal to move him.”

  I scan the ravine for some way out of this. We have no idea how bad Blaine’s injuries are, or if he can be moved. We don’t know if Becca and Charlie made it to the river, how soon the fire will reach us, or if the Black Nothing has already stolen Blaine’s sanity completely, trapping his mind in the dark.

  Before I can verbalize any of these thoughts, there’s a flash of black curls. Becca emerges around a bend in the ravine. She’s limping badly, but she’s here and she’s safe.

  One of the knots inside me comes undone.

  Horror twists her features when she spots Blaine. “What happened?”

  “He lost it,” Jeremy says. “Ran right over the ledge.”

  “We’ve got to get him back,” I say.

  “Let me check him first,” Jeremy begins.

  I hold him off. “If we don’t go after him now, the Black Nothing will own him. Then nothing you do will make any difference.”

  “What about the fire? And Charlie? Have you seen him?” Becca asks, scanning the ridge above us, where it’s already leaking smoke into the ravine.

  “Charlie will show up.” Conviction flows through me from some invisible source. I can sense him. Like a bolt of pressure in my chest that keeps ratcheting tighter the closer we get to Fort Glory. He’s close. I know it’s true the way I’ve known everything else in the Fold. Without having to understand why.

  “One of us will follow Blaine into the Black Nothing,” I say. “The rest will figure out a way across this river. So when Charlie comes, we’ll be ready.”

  Jeremy stares at Blaine lying motionless on the riverbank. “I’ll do it. I’ll go in after him.”

  There is no diplomatic way to say this so I don’t even try. “The threads depend on the connection between you being solid.” Blaine and Jeremy can barely stand to be in the same room together. There definitely isn’t enough space for both of them in Blaine’s head. “You might not be the best person for this, Jer.”

  “That’s exactly why I have to do it,” he tells me. “I owe Blaine. I screwed up, but I won’t run away. Not this time.” Jeremy’s eyes stray to Ian before returning to my face. He makes a grab for my hand. “I can save him, Rose. I can do this. It has to be me.”

  We can do it, Rosie.

  We can keep them safe.

  We can.

  Jeremy’s gaze is a magnet, pulling me in. This is his chance. His opportunity to make up for some of the shitty things he’s done, and as hard as it is to let go, to trust someone else with something this important, I can’t take it from him.

  “Okay,” I say.

  Jeremy nods and turns to Becca. “It’ll be all right, Becs. I’ll come back. I promise.”

  She returns his shaky smile with one that is full strength. “I know.”

  Jeremy squeezes her hand before reaching for Blaine’s. His brow contorts in agony, and then his expression dissolves into pure blankness.

  Becca sits on the beach, as close as she can get to Jeremy without actually touching him. She hugs her knees and waits for her brother, trusting in his promise to bring Blaine back, because sometimes, trust is all you can do.

  I join Ian where he stands at the edge of the river, facing the opposite bank thirty feet away.

  I study the raging river in front of me and try to work out a way across it that won’t leave anyone behind. Most especially Charlie. My mind goes through an inventory of the materials at our disposal. It’s a depressingly short list. “The canal is narrower here than it was where we found Becca,” I realize.

  “That just means the current will be stronger,” Ian says. “There’s no way we can swim it.”

  “Maybe we don’t have to.” I nod at the sandbar forming a narrow island in the center of the river. “If we can get to that strip, it might be enough to protect us from the wildfire. We can anchor your rope to that driftwood over there and pull ourselves across. I’ll stay behind for Charlie. When he shows I’ll grab him, and you pull us over.”

  “Jer!” Becca cries out behind us before Ian can comment on my plan.

  I turn to see Jeremy’s eyes open. He takes in the world in rapid blinks. With a groan he pulls himself over Blaine, who is just starting to stir.

  I scramble over and drop down beside them. Blaine lets out a low moan saturated with pain. My breath hitches when I place my hand across his chest to keep him still. “Shhh. It’s okay, Blaine. It’s going to be okay.”

  More words. Promises I’m not sure I can keep.

  Tears flow under the bridge of Blaine’s lashes as he turns toward the sound of my voice.

  Blaine turned his neck.

  Across from me, Jeremy’s soot-stained face lights up. “Don’t talk. Just listen to me.” Jeremy places his hands on both sides of Blaine’s head. “I’m going to tap your leg. Right above the knee. Blink once if you can feel my hand.”

  Blaine blinks, and my spirits lift. If his back isn’t broken, we can move him. If we can move him, he might just make it out of this ravine alive.

  “Good. That’s really good,” Jeremy says. “You’ve got a few broken bones, but you’re gonna be fine. You hear me, Blaine? You’re gonna be fine.”

  At that moment, the fire reaches the edge of the ravine above us. The trees go up like votive candles. Flaming branches crash and roll down onto the narrow beach. Bits of burning bark ignite the vines curving down the side of the ravine. They start to writhe.

  “We need to get him across,” Jeremy says.

  “I know.” I’ll help them get Blaine to safety, but there’s no way I’m leaving this beach without—

  Movement on the ridge above us.

  My heart takes one giant leap as a figure in a green hoodie emerges from the trees.

  Charlie. His name forms on my lips.

  And dies there.

  The world goes in and out of focus, and then I’m on my feet without remembering how I got there. My mind is tripping over itself to understand the thing it’s seeing.

  Because it is impossible.

  I stumble toward my brother on legs that feel like they don’t belong to me. I’m almost at the edge of the ravine when someone steps in front of me. Ian. He grips my shoulders and leans in close. His mouth is moving, but I can’t make out the words. I can’t hear anything but the banging of thoughts inside my head.

  I move around him and find Charlie up above us. My brother is walking toward us through the fire. Not running. Not screaming in agony. Walking. The smoke forms a screen, hiding his face, but his green hoodie is a beacon among the flames. They twist and turn around him. Almost like they’re afraid to touch him.

  “He’s not burning.” My voice is raw with smoke and wonder.

  “Who?” Ian steps in close to my side.

  I point. Ian follows my finger to the edge of the ravine above us. A flicker of fear flashes over his face. He sees it too.

  No human can walk through flames and survive. But Charlie is doing it. He’s moving through the blaze, making no effort to rush or even shield himself as he sets a course right for us.

  “Who do you see?” Ian’s voice is a warning bell sounding deep in my head, but whatever it’s trying to tell me, I can’t focus on it right now.

  “Charlie. He’s here.” I swing toward my friends only to find them all staring
at me with uniform expressions of worry and confusion.

  Terror is a knife slipping between my ribs.

  “Rose,” Ian says gently. “There’s nobody there.”

  THIRTY-FOUR

  The figure walks through the fire to the edge of the ravine. Flames shield him from view as he starts the long slide down.

  Loose tendrils of smoke drift over the beach, keeping him concealed until he reemerges at the bottom of the incline, a smoky silhouette facing me across ten feet of smoldering riverbank.

  A gust of wind howls through the ravine, creating a break in the smoke line. I steel myself to meet my brother for the first time since the town disappeared—since the dark pulse cracked his mind, but no vision could prepare me for the sight of the face, peering at me through the miasma of gray.

  Because there isn’t one.

  The thing in front of me isn’t a person. It’s a monster. A human figure wearing stained jeans and a green hoodie. The shadow-thing’s face eddies and ripples, giving a sense of movement and expression without any clear features. The harder I look, the more I think there’s a real person underneath the shadow skin, trying desperately to break free.

  A whimper escapes my lips as I lurch down the beach to a small pool of standing water. I kneel beside the pool and gaze down at my own reflection.

  Light brown hair. Pale face, painted with soot and a handful of bruises. Faded blue eyes, and at their centers, two swirling whirlpools of bottomless black.

  Tears leak down my cheeks and drop into the pool.

  Plop. Plop. Plop.

  The water takes on a rosy tint.

  I touch my wet cheeks. My shoulders start to tremble. “Is this real?” I tear my gaze away from my bloody fingers. The worry lines around Ian’s mouth say it all.

  I’m crying blood.

  “What’s happening? Where’s Charlie?” Becca asks. “What’s wrong with Rose?”

  I stare at the shadow.

  The shadow stares back.

  “He isn’t real?” I ask the question even though I already know the answer.

  “Tell me exactly what you see.” Ian helps me to my feet.

  So I do. I tell them about the shadow creature standing on the riverbank, quietly watching us with eyes it doesn’t have. It hasn’t moved for the past several minutes. It wants something. It has wanted something all along.

  This time, it isn’t leaving until it gets what it came for.

  The wind gusts around the shadow bringing its stench across the sand. It hits me with the full force of memory.

  Whiskey and cigarettes.

  Copper. Powder. Fear.

  I want to take off screaming, but I’m stuck here between a deadly forest fire and the wormhole.

  For the first time in my life, there is nowhere left to run.

  “It’s in my head, isn’t it?” I ask. “It’s the dark pulse messing with me?”

  “Do you know why it’s taking this shape?” Ian asks.

  His question has my mind whirling. With everybody else, the dark pulse has manifested as something specific to them. It made Becca’s body almost as invisible as she felt. It gagged Jeremy with every word he never said but should have. It blew out Blaine’s eardrums with the voices from his past, the ones that called him names and insisted he wasn’t good enough.

  And Ian. It’s burning him up with the anger he fights so hard to control. The anger that turns him into someone I don’t know.

  All of these manifestations. There’s a pattern to them. But this shadow and these red tears don’t follow it. They’re the pieces that won’t fit. No matter how hard I try to force them.

  I’m so tired of trying.

  “I don’t know.” My voice breaks. “I don’t know why my mind is showing me this.”

  CREAK.

  Another tree collapses on the ridge. It topples over the ledge, down onto the beach a few feet away.

  A storm of burning embers shower over us.

  “We’ve got to get across,” Jeremy says.

  Ian tosses me the harness. “Put that on.” He rips the sling from his arm and removes every bandage except the one actually covering his wound. From his pack, he takes some chalk and covers his palms.

  Before my mind can put these pieces together, Ian breaks into a run. Using speed, he propels himself up the incline and vaults onto the side of the boulder. His good shoulder bulges as it takes most of his weight. He hangs there for an agonizing second before he swings sideways. His feet hit the rock and then he’s scrambling over the ledge to the top. A moment later, his body rockets over the river. Momentum sends him rolling onto the sandbar.

  He stands slowly, motioning me forward with his good hand.

  On autopilot, I hook myself into the harness, adjusting it to my legs. Grief and sorrow turn my limbs to lead as I wade into the river. The current batters me on all sides, but it’s like I can’t even feel it. I can’t feel anything.

  The fire. The current. None of it matters anymore because Charlie isn’t here.

  Charlie was never here.

  Every time Charlie has shown himself, every time starting with that first night in the Fold, I’ve been the only one to see him. The voice Blaine heard in the woods and outside the cabin. We assumed it was Charlie, but it was the dark pulse working on Blaine. Just like this shadow creature is the dark pulse working on me. He isn’t real. He was never real.

  Which means there is no way out of this now. For any of us.

  Somehow, I make it safely to the island in the middle of the river. Becca follows next. Jeremy uses Ian’s discarded sling to immobilize Blaine’s arm before he hooks himself into the harness. Blaine moans as Jeremy walks into the river holding him against his chest. It takes all three of us to pull them across.

  Becca and I are dragging a shivering Blaine up onto the sand when the fire hits the beach. The flames hiss and scream where they kiss the water.

  “What’s the shadow doing now?” Becca asks me.

  “Nothing. It’s—”

  The shadow stirs. It lifts one dirt-crusted finger and points. Directly at me.

  No. Not at me. Behind me.

  The tugging starts almost immediately. A yank on my insides that tries to spin me around. I keep my eyes on the shadow monster.

  “Rose, what’s happening?” Ian demands.

  “It’s pointing across the river.”

  The shadow seems to smile, which is weird since it doesn’t have a mouth. It inclines its head over my shoulder. The pull on me grows stronger.

  I turn.

  “Oh shit.” Jeremy swallows.

  There’s something on the horizon. At the end of the trees, everything just … stops. The shapes and textures of the forest blend together in an eerie haze that makes the whole world seem out of focus.

  My eyes struggle to make sense of what they’re seeing. It isn’t fog or even mist. It looks like the static you get when your TV loses picture. Like the forest has broken down into a million pixels searching for the right way to come back together.

  At the center, a hulking mass of matter twists and churns—an iridescent whirlpool of Color. Light. Sound. It reaches up into the clouds.

  The wormhole creeps toward us through the trees.

  I turn my back on the wormhole and face the shadow. It isn’t on the beach where it was just a few seconds ago. Instead, it’s waiting on the opposite bank. The one on the same side as the wormhole.

  I meet its veiled gaze, and the tugging flares back to life in the center of my chest. A pressure that comes from somewhere deep inside of me, and at the same time, somewhere too far to reach. Charlie’s familiar frequency slides through my mind like a skeleton key, unlocking door after door.

  Everything that’s happened. Everything I’ve seen and felt since I fell into the Fold comes flying back to me. A hundred images. A hundred moments crash together and break apart again, over and over in a kaleidoscope of memory.

  “Are you afraid of the dark?” I pressed my shoulder into yours. />
  You shook your head. “Without the dark, there are no stars, Rosie.”

  “Then what are you afraid of?” I asked.

  “Forgetting.”

  Forgetting.

  Forgetting.

  Then the answer is hanging right there in front of me. Where it’s been this whole time.

  Understanding burns through my brain. “I know.”

  “Know what?” Jeremy studies me like he’s trying to ascertain my level of sanity.

  “Where Charlie is. I know what he’s been trying to tell me. That we don’t have to be afraid. Not of the dark.” I repeat the words Becca said two days ago. “Even in the dark we aren’t alone.”

  “What?” Blaine rasps from his sandy bed beside us.

  I meet his pain-shot eyes. “I’m the only one who’s seen Charlie in the Fold, and the thing I’ve been seeing … that isn’t my brother.” My shoulders tremble uncontrollably, but my voice gets stronger with every word. “The visions I’ve been having. They were the reality all along. It was Charlie. In the Black Nothing. He wasn’t trying to tell me how to find him. All this time, he’s been trying to show me.”

  I should’ve figured it out sooner. The dark pulse can prey on our inner demons, but it can’t create demons where none exist. Charlie would never terrorize me. He would never push me into a river. Because it isn’t in him.

  I sit up straight when I realize what this means. “There’s no darkness in Charlie. That means there isn’t anything for the Black Nothing to amplify. He’s got access to something in there. A force that’s working against the dark pulse. I could feel it when I was in there with him, lighting the threads between us. Whatever he’s tapped into, it’s allowed him to beat back the dark and survive. It’s how he’s been able to help us and keep his own light from disappearing.”

  “He’s the brightest light,” Becca says. “When he showed me the stars, he was the brightest one of all.”

  “Wait. You’re saying the stars he showed you in the Black Nothing weren’t stars? They were actual people?” Jeremy demands.

  Becca smiles. “Two thousand two hundred thirteen. Charlie caught them in a net of silver thread. He’s keeping them turned on.”

  Ian meets my eyes. “Two thousand two hundred and thirteen. That’s almost the exact population of Fort Glory.”