“But you feel okay now?”
“Yeah, I feel strong and I have energy.”
I’m very aware of that.
Wyatt continues. “But I’m closely connected to Anthony all the time. We know each other’s thoughts and we could easily trade places. What if we changed places for good? I don’t think that could happen, but it scares me. What if Anthony and I switched places and I couldn’t come back?”
“Does Nathaniel ever feel that way when he’s channeling?”
“No, never, he always feels in control. In the beginning, Nathaniel told me that Anthony couldn’t take over unless I let him, which sounded reassuring at the time, but now he can take over. Nathaniel was wrong. When he’s channeling, he’s never formed that strong of a bond with a spirit, like the one Anthony and I have. Sometimes, when I don’t consciously allow Anthony in, he pushes his way in. I might have let him in anyway, but he gets impatient. He surprises me. I don’t realize what’s happening until it’s too late. He’s in control and I can’t reclaim my own body.”
“Maybe it’s because you care so much about him.”
“You’re right. We both feel an incredible empathy toward one another. Sometimes I feel like he is me. And I’m him. Once he’s inside me, he doesn’t want to leave. After he’s left my body, he gets nervous that he won’t be able to get in again. I know what that’s like for him, because when he’s in control, I worry that I’ll never get back in again. It scares the crap out of me but how can I not feel sorry for him? I feel his sadness in my core. I’ve never felt that way toward anyone before. His pain is my pain and it’s twice as intense because there are two of us.”
“Two souls.”
“Yes. But only one body. Mine.”
This doesn’t sound to me like a situation that can be controlled by hanging a sock over a doorknob. Perched for flight, at the opposite end of the big overstuffed sofa, I turn my head and meet his eyes. “What does Nathaniel think?”
“That’s another thing that scares me, because Nathaniel’s my mentor, but how can he mentor me when what’s happening’s beyond his experience? Like the cold; we always feel so cold around Anthony. Nathaniel said that he’s felt cold spots before. It’s common, when a ghost is nearby, to feel cold, but the chill that surrounds Anthony is way colder and much deeper and it lasts longer than anything Nathaniel’s ever felt before.”
“He brings the winter with him. It’s a clue to the way Anthony died.” The words tumble out of my mouth before I’m even aware that I thought them up.
“How do you know that?”
“I just do. It isn’t some kind of psychic revelation. It makes sense on a conscious level. Daniel died on February 10th and we think Anthony died that night too, even though there’s no official record of his life or his death. February’s usually the coldest month of the year.”
I don’t explain to Wyatt that my intuition, which has grown stronger and more intense since my encounter with Anthony in the abandoned hospital a year ago, confirms what logic tells me is true.
My logic announced to me a long time ago that the extreme cold of February must factor into the mystery surrounding Anthony’s death. But now I’m certain the deep freeze encircling everyone in his presence is a clue to the way he died. I’m almost ready to tell Wyatt about my beyond-normal intuition, its dawn and its progression, but not quite yet. So I continue to pass on knowledge gained through leaps of unexplainable understanding, letting it masquerade as conscious thought, born of normal, natural and earthly imaginings. Psychic ability is only a small jump beyond this type of thinking anyway; therefore I’m almost telling the whole truth.
“I have a theory. Nathaniel often feels sympathy for the souls he’s channeling, but he never comes close to the level of your feelings for Anthony. You don’t feel for Anthony, you feel with him.”
“Anthony and I have so many things connecting us, the first and most obvious being you, Annabelle. We both love you. It binds us together and pisses me off. I hate sharing you with him, but it’s like sharing you with myself. When he touches you, I hate it, but he touches you with my hands. It’s hard to explain and even harder to deal with.”
“No one we know has ever been through anything like this before, just you and me and Anthony. Not even Nathaniel knows what it’s like.”
“He’s talked to a couple of other mediums about it, too, and they’ve never experienced anything like it.”
“We’re explorers on a new frontier.”
“Yes. But my body is the frontier and I like this body. I’d like to stay here in it for a lot more years. I’m excited about the whole supernatural experience and I feel close to Anthony, like no one else will ever know. I don’t have a brother, but I think I love him like one. Except sometimes it’s horrifying.”
“I think we need to hold onto the fact that my mother senses no evil from him. She’d never let him near me if she did.”
“You’re right.”
“He’d never harm us.”
“Okay, I’ll hang onto that. That’s good. He isn’t evil. His intentions aren’t evil. He means us no harm.” Wyatt’s gaze grows unfocused and he says it again. “He wouldn’t harm me. He wouldn’t harm you.”
“Plus, I know stuff.”
“What are you talking about?”
“It’s because I have some unusual ancestors.”
“I know you look like a girl from another century whose name was also Annabelle Blake. And I know about the curse and the Wampanoag tribe and the witches.”
“It turns out I’m just beginning to discover and develop my paranormal talents. I never knew for sure that they existed until recently. My mother thought I’d start coming into my own around my eighteenth birthday, so she was going to wait to share the family stories with me until then, but stumbling into Anthony, up in room 209 last fall, rushed things along before anyone was ready. Everything came raining down on me: the dreams when he kept opening my door and then meeting you. The three of us connected, like pelting rain, bolts of lightning and earth-shaking thunder.”
Wyatt continues with the weather analogy. “Like a funnel cloud begins and then a tornado forms and then it touches down and sucks up houses and roofs and cars.”
“And this tornado has sucked up the three of us. We’re stuck in the epicenter of this incredible situation and we’re tumbling around; out-of-control.”
“There must be somebody somewhere who can help us.”
“I don’t think there is. We have to do it ourselves.”
“Maybe if we try harder, Annabelle.”
“We know Anthony’s a ghost and you’re a medium, but what am I?”
“What are you, Annabelle? You’re something. Is there a name for it?”
“I’m not sure yet, but I know I can do one thing. And it’s different from what everyone else does; different than your talent or Nathaniel’s. I know stuff and I don’t know how I know it. I know things no one taught me or showed me or explained to me. I never observed these things. I just know them. I’ve always been a little bit aware of this and it’s made me feel different, separate and alone. Then you came along and now I don’t feel so alone anymore. But this above normal awareness is getting stronger and it will get way stronger before I’ve reached my full potential. I’m not nearly there yet.”
“So, what do you know that might help us out?”
“I know that you and Anthony are inseparable because your parents abandoned you. He felt your loneliness immediately and it was a lot like his. Your warm front met his cold front and ‘Boom!’ Thunder and lightning. You crashed into each other and then connected because you’re so much alike.”
“Yes. What else?”
“He was your age when he died. He was eighteen.”
“How do you know that?”
“I just do. It makes sense and I know it. It’s part logic and evidence and then a leap built on an intuitive feeling. The rain and the wind part of the storm started with me and Anthony, last year, but the tru
e forces of nature collided when you stepped into the picture. And that’s because Anthony’s parents left him at Wild Wood. They felt repulsed by him and he frightened them. So they abandoned him, even though he had no control over his condition. Your mother wanted to lock you up in a residential psychiatric facility, too. Only Oliver saved you.
“Jackson says that Anthony was severely autistic and he might have been schizophrenic. His inability to communicate frustrated him and he had violent outbursts. The people who were supposed to be caring for him at the hospital made his behavior worse with the way they treated him. So he became more violent out of frustration and anger. The poor kid couldn’t help it, though. He couldn’t interpret facial expressions or language. He was born that way and his parents rejected him because of it.
“Your mother did the same thing when you began having paranormal experiences, even though you couldn’t help it. You’re a medium. You were programmed at birth to become one, just like Nathaniel. Adolescence arrived and so did your paranormal talent.”
“Exactly.”
“Nathaniel’s talent emerged under different circumstances, but it was just as inevitable. His mother accepted him and loved him when he discovered his paranormal abilities. When your talent became evident, your parents turned on you. Your father moved out shortly after your first encounter with a ghost and when your supernatural experiences became more dramatic and your mother couldn’t ignore them, she wanted to lock you up in a psychiatric hospital.”
“My dad moved out because he met someone twenty years younger than my mother and they hooked up.”
“He left first and then he met her. He left because you saw ghosts and these experiences fascinated you. As soon as that happened he was out the door.”
“Oh my god, you’re right. It’s true, but I never thought of it that way. He left right after we found the ghost at Jackson’s church. My mother was mad that I saw Mariah’s spirit, so I didn’t talk about it much in front of her. But I talked to my dad. He seemed interested and supportive, but shortly after that, our family started falling apart.”
“Can you remember exactly what happened?”
“I went to Eastfield with Oliver and we helped Jackson with the ghost of Mariah, the crying bride. After I came back, my mom got mad whenever I mentioned it. Dad didn’t get mad or anything. He just left. He packed his stuff and got on a plane and we haven’t seen him since. He got married right after he moved to California, so I assumed he dumped my mother for somebody he’d met before.”
“Nope, he met her in California and then they fell in love and got married. He left because of you. He moved across the whole United States to get away from you.”
“Thanks for pointing that out to me. I feel so much better.”
How could I be so stupid? I could’ve phrased it in a less hurtful way. I try to make it up to Wyatt. “I love you and Oliver loves you, along with your paranormal talents and because of them, too. We love and accept the whole beautiful package that’s you. Your parents are a couple of idiots who are missing out big time, but that’s their loss.”
“If you love me so much, come over here.” He pats the couch beside him and moves the pillow that was lying between us.
I grab the pillow and push it down into its important position in the middle of the couch. “Leave that pillow alone. I’m not coming over there. It’s too distracting. We need to talk. This is really important.”
“It’s important that I hold you. Just one hug. A little one. I promise.”
“Nope. I don’t trust you.”
“Maybe you’re just saying you love me. Maybe you don’t really mean it. Oliver loves me. He would let me hug him right now if he were here and I asked him for a hug.”
“And then you’d both stand aside and continue the conversation. I won’t say he loves you like a father loves a son, because your own father doesn’t love you that way. Oliver loves you much more than your father or your mother does.”
“I know it. And I’m grateful for it. Now come over here. Cuz the way I feel about you is way different, just as intense, even more so, but really different, so please come here. I need to hold you.”
If Wyatt turns his puppy-dog face on me, with those sad, changeable eyes, I’ll be a goner, but he doesn’t. He lunges for the pillow instead. I’m too quick for him, though, and his move is way too predatory; not cute or cuddly at all.
I sit up straight, with the pillow still between us, and keep my distance. “Anthony never had anyone like Oliver or me. He had Daniel, but it wasn’t the same. They lived together in that awful room, but neither one could communicate with the other. Daniel had selective mutism and Anthony couldn’t even think in language. The physical world bombarded his senses and he couldn’t tune out any of it or control his reaction to the chaos that constantly tumbled around him and inside of him.”
“But Anthony’s not like that anymore. He’s not violent.”
“No, he isn’t. When Anthony lost his living, breathing place in the physical world, all that ended, but he still felt lost and alone. It’s why when I found him and then you found both of us, we formed an instant bond. The first night, when Meg and I were filming in the hospital, we both heard him crying. We both saw the blankets on the bed move on their own and we both felt Anthony’s presence, but only I saw him. In one brilliant, speedy flash, I saw him. Meg didn’t and the camera didn’t either.”
“Everything changed for you.”
“Yes. And Anthony knew it too, from the second that he spotted me, standing in the doorway of room 209. After that, I figured out that the door opening by itself in my bedroom had something to do with what happened at Wild Wood. I didn’t admit it to myself, though, until you came along.”
“Then everything grew clearer.”
“Gradually I accepted who I was and what was happening. I not only accepted it, I sought it. I’m obsessed with it now. I need to know how it’s going to end. What happened to Anthony that night?”
“How did he die? What happened to Daniel?”
“What did Mike Donahue do to them?”
“How will we find the answers to those questions?”
“I don’t know everything, but I do know that the answers will come from both worlds; this world and the next: the unknown world, the one where Anthony exists.”
“So in this world, people like Oliver and Jackson can help us find answers and in the other world it’s up to your mother, Nathaniel, you and me.”
“Yes. But mostly you and me. And Anthony. You’ll have to let him in again, not now, not tonight, but again. And we have to trust it’ll turn out all right.”
“Because he means us no harm.”
“He isn’t evil.”
“Just lonely and scared.”
“Except when he’s with us.”
“You mean except when he’s me and he gets to be with you.”
Chapter 31
The Fire Pit
Wyatt picks me up at eight o’clock on Friday night and the drive to Jen’s house only takes a minute because I live a mile away from her, on the same street. Connor’s car is parked in Jen’s driveway, up close to the garage. Ryan’s is behind his.
A centuries-old forest stands next to the right side of Jen’s garage. The primeval woods are dense, scary and dark, even during the day. This New England version of a jungle goes back for miles, and like most of the heavily-wooded areas in Eastfield, the trees thin out gradually to reveal part of the great Hockomock Swamp.
On the opposite side of Jen’s house there’s another house close to hers. If she doesn’t pull down the shades at night, her neighbors can see into her living room.
She has a big backyard with a ramshackled wooden swing set that her parents haven’t taken down yet, even though Jen’s eighteen and an only child. She also has a tree house where we still have sleepovers in the warm weather and there’s an old above-ground pool but it’s closed for the winter now. The large half-oval of her yard is surrounded by woods three-quarters
of the way around, across the back and on the right. On the left stands a section of wooden fence separating her yard from the too-close neighbor’s.
In the center of this outdoor space sits a large, round iron fire pit, ablaze with thick logs. The smell is heavenly. Wyatt and I join the other two couples, who’re sitting down in the white plastic lawn chairs circling the fire. Our front sides stay all toasty and our backs are cool. Before the four of us arrived, Jen and Connor collected six long, thin sticks and stripped the bark off the ends of them, for toasting marshmallows. The sticks’ bare ends are still greenish, the best kind for cooking over a fire.
“Hey, great sticks! Thanks you, guys!” Wyatt grabs two of nature’s cooking utensils and hands one to me.
“I brought some hotdogs and rolls over, too.” Connor thought of everything. Even though we’ve all had dinner already, everyone plays a fall sport and consequently none of us can ever get enough food. Jen and Meg are on the volleyball team and Connor’s on the golf team. They never ride in the carts, either, so they’re out walking around in the fresh air every day.
We start with a first course of hotdogs on rolls and sodas and then move on to marshmallows and chocolate on graham crackers. Even Wyatt feels stuffed after about an hour. We gossip and tell jokes and stories about pranks and other stuff.
Ryan has a great story about making a submarine sandwich with cat food and leaving it in the refrigerator:
“I wrapped the sandwich up in the same kind of white waxy paper sub shops use, so it looked like real take-out. Next, I put a sign on it that said, ‘Glen, do not eat!’ Then I waited for my older brother to get home from football practice. Sure enough, Glen took the sign for a personal invitation, like he always does. He woofed down half the sandwich in three bites before I told him he had just eaten Fancy Feast.”
Connor cracks up. “What did he say?”
“He didn’t say anything. He finished the sandwich.”
We laugh our asses off.
My brothers have played so many pranks on me throughout the years; it’s hard to choose one. I’m not proud to admit that I fell for every one of their stupid tricks, too. If I was squeamish about reptiles or insects, my life would’ve been a living hell. Clem and Joe were always putting some poor turtle that crawled up from the swamp, under the blankets on my bed, along with a frog or two.
Enter If You Dare Page 24