by Gwenda Bond
Phillips located Miranda's voice, still distant. She was talking to her father. "Dad, you know you're dead, and we need to keep it that way. Is he inside you?"
"He…" The man's words in response were weak, shaky. "He left."
She didn't know Dee had taken over Phillips.
Roswell fell, then, wearing a dreamy smile as he died.
Crazy as he was, he didn't need to die. No one else needed to…
In the first second, Miranda didn't move, busy gaping at Roswell's glassy dead eyes. In the next, she turned to Phillips in confusion. "What happened to him?"
Dee was barely aware of her question, busy making his way through every cell of Phillips' body. Phillips had to retreat, back inside the cocoon of voices, the spirits talking to a version of him that wasn't home anymore, telling that him things he couldn't understand.
Dee learned his new vessel quickly. When he noticed Miranda's attention, it was like a spark flaring into fire. He wanted her. He shifted Phillips' body toward her, close enough to use one of his arms to grip the back of her head.
Miranda frowned, still confused. Phillips' heard his voice say, "Such a beauty," felt his arm pull her closer.
The spirits he hid among were talking and talking and he had no way to warn her.
He didn't need to. She figured it out, tearing free of his grasp. But she didn't run, not this girl. She put her hands on Phillips' shoulders and shook them. She snapped her fingers in his face. He barely heard. Within him, Dee's cold rage surged.
"Phillips. Your grandmother, remember what she said – you need to use your strength, all you have. Don't let him win."
Dee was ready to punish Miranda now. She'd rejected him for the last time. Her lips were still moving, but no matter how Phillips scratched and clawed against the voices to get to the surface, he couldn't hear her. Phillips' effort only revealed the voices – and his hiding place – to Dee. And Dee knew the spirits for what they were.
Dee didn't try to push the voices of the spirits back like Phillips usually did. Instead he wrenched power from them, and turned it on Miranda. Phillips could suddenly see and hear everything, sharp and clear. He wasn't hidden any longer, only trapped.
"You may not be her," Dee said, using Phillips' lips to deliver Miranda's death sentence. "But you are just like her. I had hoped for redemption for you. But it is not to be." The last words were whispers. "Alas. Goodnight."
The wide ribbon flooded out of Phillips' body and into Miranda. She gasped, her father's hand still clutched in hers. He stood ashen and confused beside her.
Miranda choked out, "Phillips. The letter," and bowed like a weak branch under Dee's onslaught.
Dee was using Phillips' gift to kill her. Miranda was going to die while he watched.
Phillips searched and found the corners of the memory. What had his gram's letter said? But he lost his grip on the crinkled page fluttering in his mind as he experienced a wash of intense pleasure. Dee enjoyed watching Miranda suffer. He showed Phillips a flash of what he had truly wanted with her. Mary melded with Miranda. There was more punishment. And sickness.
Sickness.
Dee's satisfaction increased as she faded. Her heart squeezed in his unseen fist, her lungs emptying like bellows stomped by his heavy feet. Her soul tasted sweet to Dee, like honey wine. He rolled Phillips' tongue over his teeth, across his lips. Tasting her.
The letter. Phillips tried to grab the memory…
It had said to use his gift, and that he wasn't alone. What gift? All he'd ever had was voices. Chattering. Telling. Helping in theory, but not in practice. In practice, they were too strong for him. The letter didn't help.
And Miranda didn't have much longer. She reclined on the stage, her eyes wheeling. Sidekick was stretched out an arm's length away from her. Her father knelt beside her, jerky in his own body, saying his daughter's name over and over.
All Phillips could see was Miranda. His place inside his own mind was so small. The voices that were left surged and swam against him, crowding him, as Dee pulled on them. Used them.
He used them through his control of Phillips' body.
In that moment, Phillips finally stopped fighting and listened to the voices that surrounded him. The spirits were attached to this island. They were desperate to be free of Dee's influence. They wanted him and the colonists gone.
Phillips had an army of ghosts. He just had to control them.
He stopped listening, and talked back to the spirits. Whatever part of you he's got hold of, use it to shove him out. Get your hands on his slimy soul and shove NOW…
Phillips forced his limbs to lunge in front of Miranda's father, to grasp his shoulders. The man was too weak to push him off.
At Phillips' command the spirits' energy stopped draining into Miranda and crashed against Dee. Phillips combined his own strength with theirs, pushing against the invader Dee's hold, pushing him out…
Phillips exhaled, then held his breath.
Mr Blackwood's head ticked down as Dee returned to his body.
Phillips experimentally moved his arms, but he knew it had worked. The voices were a soft chorus in the background of his mind, because he controlled them now. But Miranda still lay on the stage, not moving.
Phillips tumbled down beside her, his fingertips against her throat to find a pulse. "Live," he pleaded. "Live."
His gram's voice then: Lay on hands. For the first time, an image in his mind instead of just words. His grandmother in the kitchen of their house, a woman on the tile floor not breathing. Gram placed her hands on the woman's chest, eyes closed, and…
He pressed his palms over Miranda's heart, called on the spirits to provide whatever energy they could. He didn't know what he was doing. There was no ribbon of power leaving him. But he willed her to wake, to fight. He lifted his hands.
The not-CPR was all gram had shown him. He looked over at Roswell's glassy stare into the sky. Dee's cloaked followers didn't seem to be sure what to do, or maybe their master's weakening had an effect on them too. Whatever the case, they had hushed, walling off the action on the stage again. Phillips heard his father barking commands somewhere not far off. They wouldn't be isolated for long. Miranda's dad was wheeling, flailing, struggling against Dee while Eleanor grabbed clumsily at the body.
And still Miranda lay, peaceful. A sleeping beauty. He put his palm against her face, brushed his thumb over the cursed mark. He wanted to tell her that he'd finally figured out how to use the voices. He wanted to tell her everything.
He pressed his forehead against hers. The touch felt so natural. If only he didn't also feel like his own heart had stopped in his chest.
29
Till Death
At first, Miranda saw nothing but darkness. Her eyelids fluttered, and it took a universe-sized effort to see. Blinking, she made out a face above her.
Phillips' face. A flicker of light and hope shot through her, before she remembered that he'd tried to kill her. He'd nearly succeeded. He wasn't Phillips anymore. He was Dee…
She dragged in a ragged breath, lungs protesting like she'd been underwater. Raising her arms, she pushed him as hard as she could. "No!" she shouted.
She attempted to roll her body away from him, but his hands pressed her into place.
"It's me," he said. "It's me."
She looked up at him. Brown-black eyes. Not flat and black. Worried.
"It's you," she said. "But where's…"
She turned her head to find her father nearby, his arms flailing again. "Help me up," she said, clutching at Phillips' arm. She found she could tell her body what to do and it mostly followed orders. He wasn't controlling her, and she didn't seem to be broken, just bruised.
Phillips said, "Dee's in there, but I think your dad's holding his own. Miranda, I put him back in your dad."
"Thank you," she said.
She paused, standing over Sidekick. He looked far too peaceful.
"I don't know if Sidekick's OK," Phillips said.
> "After this," she said, cringing at the way her voice broke. She dragged in another breath. "After I do this one thing. I can't until then."
"What one thing?" Phillips asked. "Miranda, I'm sorry I had to… Your dad was there and I knew Dee's soul could go into him."
"Don't be sorry." She didn't have time to explain.
Polly's arm was around her father, who was caught in a fit of mighty flailing. Miranda stumbled toward them, and told her, "Let go of him. Now."
Phillips was there if Eleanor protested and Miranda knew he had her back. But Eleanor's expression was slightly dazed, and her protest was weak.
"He can't keep the master at bay for long," Eleanor said, releasing him. She looked like she might collapse.
Phillips said, "They're not as strong because your dad is fighting him."
Her father's arms windmilled, but Miranda quickly had an arm around him, supporting him. He stilled, trembling. She looked at him, discovered her dad there in the eyes. "He's in you, and he must stay in you. You have to hold onto him, keep him there," she said. "Understand?"
Chief Rawling thundered onto the stage, shouting, "Clear this area." He had a host of uniformed helpers with him.
"Phillips," she said, "we need to take Dad to the water. Can you keep yours out of the way?"
Phillips' question was clear on his face, but he yelled, "Mom!"
The chief and some officers scuffled with the cloaked figures of the returned – to them just townspeople – trying to get them off the stage. Sara must have been with them, because she was at Phillips' side in an instant, no longer wearing her cloak. Miranda could tell she wasn't under Dee's influence any longer. And Phillips must be right about the returned being affected by Dee's struggle with her dad, because the cops were making serious headway.
It gave her hope.
While Phillips talked to his mom, Miranda got her shaky father's attention again. She wished she had time to talk to him about life instead of death. "I'm going to walk you to the edge of the surf and you will… you will leave this island. Dad, you have to keep going. You're not alive any more. You can't be alive. And neither can he. So you're going to walk right off this island. OK?"
She gripped her arm around him harder, held one of his hands in hers.
"Those stories. Dad, they were all true. You understand?"
Her father's head nodded, a quick jerk, then smoother as he got better control of his body.
Phillips had heard what she'd said and, by the look on his face, figured out what she meant to do. He moved to help when Miranda slowly started across the stage with her father.
They were headed for the beach that gave Waterside Theater its name. The sour, rotten smell of more dead fish washing out of the Sound stung her nose.
Miranda talked to her dad as they went. "You can do this, Dad. It's not so far," she cooed. "I'm your daughter. I'm your good daughter. You said so yourself." It couldn't hurt to help her dad keep hold of reality. In truth, it was a comfort for her too. "It's not so much further. This will all be over soon."
"Miranda, this is your dad," Phillips said.
"I know. And we're going right down to the Sound, aren't we, Dad? You're going to drown in the deep water. But it won't hurt, because you're already dead."
Please, let that be true.
Phillips managed his side of the support, but said nothing more. They stumbled down a short flight of stairs at the back of the stage with her dad, curving around behind it.
The rocky beach met them, a long pier thrusting out over the water nearby. Stinking heaps of dead fish lay stranded on sand and stone. The chunk of moon above reflected on the Sound like a long mirror, fading into the pinprick lights from the shores of the outer islands in the distance. The sloshing of the waves drowned the shouts from the stage.
Phillips said, "Miranda."
"He's dead, Phillips. This is the right thing."
"Right. Thing." Her dad choked out his agreement.
They had to hurry. Dee's soul might be confused, depowered, but that wouldn't last. She wasn't sure this would work, but Roswell's notes had said the transition from death to life could only be made once. They had said that the boundary wouldn't allow more than a single crossing.
And Dee's curse meant that her father's body shouldn't be able to leave the island and survive.
"It's a good plan," Phillips said.
She wasn't surprised he'd figured it out, given a handful of minutes. Their eyes met behind her dad's head.
"I learned from the best."
The surf lapped the beach, the waves a few steps away. Slimy fish slicked under her feet, and she righted her steps. Her father's body began to flail – Dee was resurfacing. Maybe he knew what was about to happen.
They had to make it.
They careened over the rocks and sand and fish, tripping into the water. Miranda held onto her father as he jerked.
"Phillips," she said, "give me a sec."
Phillips didn't look like he wanted to, but he stepped back onto the shore. He left her alone with her father.
"Dad," she said, "go." She took his flailing arm, fought to get his hand in hers. And she walked her father's body forward into the surf…
"Miranda," Phillips called a warning.
But she knew. She only had a few steps to travel with him. She stopped with the water at her knees, splashing up her legs. She wasn't far enough out yet for it to hurt.
Miranda squeezed his hand. Her father looked at her, and then Dee was there, flat and black, lip curling. But the eyes gave way to her father again. His features calmed. Even in the near darkness, she knew it was him. He was coming through for her, after all these years.
"Let go," he said.
And she did.
Her father walked, and kept walking, until his head sank beneath the waves. White foam broke over the spot where he disappeared, broke all around her. He didn't resurface.
Phillips waded to her, pulled her against him. She said her goodbye in the silence, wondering who her father would have been without the curse they bore, and who she'd be if she made it through this night.
"It's over," she said, finally, when he didn't resurface. "I think maybe it's over."
The shouts from back on the stage spiked, frantic, reaching them.
"It's not over," he said.
"Something's happened." She palmed tears off her cheek, not embarrassed by them. She was surprised that she wasn't embarrassed.
Phillips held her hand tight in his as they navigated through the dead fish shoreline and back up the steps to the stage. The reason for the noise became clear.
The bodies of the returned had wilted like so many flowers. They lay sprawled where they'd fallen across the stage. The police officers were checking for pulses, for breath. Other townspeople had joined them, hovering over loved ones. The rest of the theater was hushed, the people still left in the audience not knowing what to do.
"It worked," Miranda said, dully. "He's gone. And so are they. I did this."
She spotted Chief Rawling then, kneeling beside a fallen form. Sara.
"Mom!" Phillips released her hand, moving through fallen bodies to reach his parents.
Miranda followed, afraid the death wasn't over. What if she'd made everything worse?
Then a wave of sound rolled across the stage. Sudden intakes of breath – gasp after gasp – as the returned stirred back to life. Some sat up drowsily. Others stretched, and climbed onto unsteady feet.
Miranda listened to their laughter, to confused questions.
"It's really her," someone said. More laughter. The buzz of happy conversation. Shrieks. Miranda called out, "Polly?"
"Here," a weak voice said.
On the other side of the stage, Polly was touching her shoulders in confusion, like she didn't know where or who she was. She reached back to tighten her ponytail in a gesture Miranda knew well. She seemed surprised to find her hair was down instead of up.
"They're really back," Miranda said.
Her grin died when she turned back to Phillips and Chief Rawling. Sara was still unconscious.
Phillips shook his mother's shoulder, gently as if she was breakable. He moved to check her pupils. Her eyelids fluttered beneath his fingers. Her eyes opened.
"Mom, you OK?" Phillips asked.