Grey Lore

by Jean Knight Pace

  “No,” Ella said. “I think my dad was an only child, but I know almost nothing about him. This is my mom’s older sister.”

  Mr. Calhoun nodded, but when Ella looked over at his profile, it looked like all his facial muscles had been snapped tight.

  She got out and thanked him. He nodded. Sam said good-bye and that they should hang out sometime. Ella tipped her head, not quite committing.

  When they got back home Robert Calhoun sat in the darkness of his room for a very long time. He knew just who Ella’s mother’s sister was. And it was not the woman living in that house. Robert wasn’t entirely sure who was pretending to be his dead wife, but he had a pretty good idea.

  Robert could hear Sam tap lightly on the door. “Dad, you still awake?”

  Robert did not answer. Let his son think he was asleep. Let him think that everything was okay and that they would stay in this haunted little town. In the morning, they would leave and never come back.

  Chapter 51

  Sam could tell when his father was ready to run. But he also knew that his dad would do almost anything to avoid getting the police or a social worker involved. And so Sam had run first.

  He didn’t want to hide. He didn’t want to worry his dad. But just because his dad was ready to bolt didn’t mean Sam was. He’d spent the day slouching along the south side, a black hoodie over his head.

  Dusk settled before the Napper Psychiatric Institution had even closed. Sam waited patiently, feeding bits of hamburger bun to the ducks in the pond at the center of the grounds until all the normal workers had gone home. The lights had come on along the pathways, and the building was locked up tight.

  Then he went and stood outside the side door in the nearly perfect darkness of the overcast sky. Sam had noticed something about cloudy nights. They left him feeling tired, a little weak, hungry, but listless.

  Tonight that didn’t matter too much because the lack of moonlight would cover a skinny white kid in darkness.

  He’d only typed in three numbers of the code when a groundskeeper appeared from around the corner. Sam gasped.

  The groundskeeper didn’t. He just looked at Sam and smiled. “I’ll tell you what, every time I think the old woman has lost it, she goes and proves me wrong again.”

  “Excuse me?” Sam said, his voice a whisper.

  The janitor moved closer. “Of course, we should be quiet. You’re right. The old woman,” he continued. “She said you would probably be here tonight. And that you would remember her number. Usually she gives it to me, but she was not even conscious till a couple days ago when she bolted up in bed, good as new. But she can’t remember her number. I told her she didn’t need it, and that I would help her out anyway. As a friend. But she told me you’d be here tonight to give it to me.”

  “Her number?” Sam asked.

  “Yes,” the janitor replied, stepping back as though worried he’d made a mistake.

  “The number she uses to get out of the hospital?”

  “Yes,” the janitor whispered, looking relieved. “Just type it into my phone.”

  “Which number?” Sam asked.

  The janitor shrugged. “Far as I know, she’s only got one. Uses it to pay me to get her out every time.” The janitor pushed a cell phone toward Sam. “Here, I already typed in the zeros at the beginning.”

  Sam stared at the phone for a very long minute.

  “Account numbers never work without the right number of zeros.”

  Account number. “So she just pays you to let her go?” Sam asked.

  “Pretty much,” the guy said. “Boss acts like he thinks it’s magic.”

  Sam blinked. Apparently being a witch was cool and all, but nothing worked as well as a good old fashioned bribe.

  The janitor went on. “If she was herself, she would have just given me the number.” He looked down at his keys like he felt a little sad, then looked up and said, “Somebody’s got to take care of the old crow. She might be a little quirky but she makes the best cake this side of the Mississippi, and probably the other side too. Plus she’s always been good to me.”

  “You’re extorting money from her,” Sam said.

  “Well, son,” the janitor said, pulling his phone back a bit. “I don’t see it as no bribe. I told her she didn’t need to give me nothing to get her out, but she insisted on paying me for my troubles. Truth is, I wouldn’t a let her go at all, money or no, except that every time she comes in here, she ends up looking worse than when she got here. Some hospital.” He shook his head.

  Sam looked at the phone and hesitated. Was he really going to give this number that was also a secret code to some random guy? Then he heard Zinnie’s words in his head. My number, she had said, If I ever need you to check me out of the hospital.

  Sam had to admit that he’d used that number in a lot of ways for a lot of things, but he’d never actually used it to get Zinnie out.

  He looked at the janitor. It didn’t really seem like he should trust some old guy who took money in exchange for releasing Zinnie. But then, it did seem like you could trust a nice, rich philanthropist like Napper. And Sam was pretty sure you couldn’t.

  Sam chomped on his cheek, his mind fluttering over the original thirteen numbers Zinnie had given him. Zinnie’s number. The one she had used to tell him so many things—the number that was a clue about The Ring of the Alpha, a code for the office of the Havensborough Unit, and now a credit card number to get Zinnie out of her confinement.

  Zinnie was the furthest thing from a woman with Alzheimer’s in the world.

  Sam looked at the janitor and decided that he was just the person Zinnie would trust with her money. Sam took the phone and typed in the number. “Take good care of her Mr., um…”

  “Marcus,” the man replied.

  “And I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t mention seeing me here tonight,” Sam added.

  “Right,” the janitor said. “I’ll just go help the old woman out now. What are you here for anyway?” he asked.

  Sam stared at the janitor, trying to think up a lie. He couldn’t. “A girl,” he said. “I came to see a girl.”

  “Well then,” the janitor said, winking. “You got my word.”

  Sam waited until the man was out of sight and then stood for a few more minutes before typing in the code and stepping quietly through the door. He walked soundlessly to Sarah’s room. Visiting hours had ended, but that didn’t matter to Sam. He knew where each fire exit was as well as the stair well, and an old fire escape that dripped down the south wall.

  The night nurses, however, he didn’t know. He figured that was best. There were only two on the floor after visiting hours. One had her nose in the computer and one had her back to Sam and was talking almost non-stop.

  Sam slipped around two corners. Sarah’s door had always been open when Sam had come. Which didn’t matter. Because her eyes had been closed. Every time. Once she’d groaned and said his name, moving her hand as though she was feeling around for something in a dark room.

  Sam’s heart had raced and he’d touched her hand, taking it in his, but then she’d gone limp—back into a restless, but persistent sleep that the institution called healing. This meant that during their visits, he’d done all the talking—apologized for getting her stuck here, touched her rust-colored hair, told her he loved it—everything he’d ever wanted to say, he’d said.

  Sam got to the door, pressing slightly on the handle.

  It was locked.

  It didn’t have a traditional key hole for a traditional key, or even the type where you slide a card through. Instead, there was a small port where a person might press a small square.

  Sam took out the bracelet Witten had given him. It was a hunch—a hopeless, crazy hunch, but Sam held the bracelet and awkwardly pressed the square into position. The light above the handle flashed red. Sam took it out and took a deep breath. Each sound he made seemed impossibly loud—the click of the metal, the scratching as he slid it out.

&
nbsp; He turned the square a quarter turn and pushed it in again. Another red light, and then a sound. From the room. Sarah had gasped.

  Sam pulled the square from the port. He heard Sarah moving, the crinkly plastic sound of the hospital bed, the press of a button.

  “Someone’s out there,” she whispered. “There’s scratching.”

  Down the hall, Sam heard the call go through at the nurse’s station.

  He braced to run. “Sarah,” he hissed, his voice low.

  “It knows my name,” she shouted to the intercom.

  Sam felt his muscles tighten, ready to sprint, until down the hall, he heard a laugh. “There she goes again. Wonder what it is this time? Big foot?”

  The computer nurse didn’t laugh. She let out a heavy breath. “I guess we’d better check on her. But first I have to finish this paperwork. Check the computer for her dosage,” she barked at the other nurse.

  Quickly, Sam turned the square again, but he was shaking now. The nurses would be coming, and inside the room, Sarah seemed to be crying softly.

  “They’re trying to get in,” she said over and over. “I can hear the wolves scratching.”

  Sam wanted to cry too. Could he do something, anything, that wouldn’t hurt her?

  He turned the square again to the last possible side. The key still didn’t let him in, but this time it made a noise—three angry beeps in quick succession. He jerked out the key just as he heard one of the nurses jump up. “Oh crap. Someone is down there, tampering with the key coder.”

  She ran down the hall—the plodding footfall of a heavy woman. Sam was glad for that. He could easily outpace her.

  “Jenni,” the nurse said, panting. “Hit the button to lock all the doors. And call security!”

  Sam banged through one of the fire doors, setting off an alarm.

  “Jenni,” the other nurse screamed.

  “I’m calling security,” Jenni shouted back.

  “Hit the button.”

  “Where is it?”

  “Under the desk.”

  Sam heard her chair go down—knocked over in her haste. But that was all he heard because after that he was standing on the south side fire escape—hand over hand down the old rungs until he jumped the last eight feet.

  It hurt, and for a moment Sam cursed the clouded night. He’d landed unevenly, jolting one ankle much harder than the other, but he didn’t have time to feel sorry for himself.

  Around the corner came the long beam of a bright flashlight, and attached to the beam was the strongest-looking security guard Sam had ever seen. The guard ran, shining the flashlight in every direction.

  Sam pulled his black hoodie over his head and sprinted away—his ankle stabbing every time his foot hit the ground. He turned in to a stand of trees, zigzagging out at a different point.

  When he did, the guard was there. He caught Sam’s profile in a beam of light. “Hey, kid!”

  The security guard ran after Sam, beginning to catch up, but Sam knew the paths better. He ran along the quiet, grassy sections, darting. In the distance, he heard sirens—screeching down Main Street in his direction.

  Sam stopped.

  He was nearly cornered, and almost ready to give up and make up some embarrassing excuse about why he was trying to break into a girl’s room in the middle of the night when he heard a voice straight above him. “Climb, son.”

  Sam looked up, and nearly at the top of the tree sat his father petting the little cat Gabby. Sam stepped up a low limb, climbing as quickly as he could, favoring his right ankle.

  When he reached the top, he saw the security guard run onto the path—the flashlight shining every direction but up. The guard kept running until Sam could tell he’d reached the street because the screaming of the sirens stopped and Sam heard voices, shouting back and forth.

  The voices fanned out across the area.

  “They’ll find us,” Sam whispered.

  “Shhh,” his father said. “And no. The guard is a human.”

  “So,” Sam said.

  “Humans never think to look up.”

  “And the cops?”

  “I don’t know what they are, but look.” His father scooted into a hollow area of the thick evergreen. Sam looked straight at him and still almost couldn’t tell he was there.

  His father gestured for him to come over. “You’re just lucky,” he said, “that Gabby saved you a spot.”

  Sam slept squished against his father, a purring cat on his lap. In a way, it reminded him of when he was young and they’d driven across the country. Sam had sometimes fallen asleep slouched against his father’s shoulder. He hadn’t done that in years and was surprised when the sleep slipped over him just like it had then.

  In the almost morning, when the pre-dawn gray pressed itself across the sky, his father finally moved. “Come on, son,” he said. “They’re gone.”

  Stiff and cold, they climbed down from the tree and walked—two dark shadows turned to men as the pale December sun creaked over the horizon.

  Late in the afternoon, Robert Calhoun woke up. Spending the night in a tree was exhausting. Spending the night in a tree with a boy who had a thick band of silver in his pocket was worse.

  Robert walked to The Property, counting his way along the cast iron fence posts until he got to the one he knew was there. Licorice or not, there was no way he would make it through it. Through the bare winter trees he could see the small hut. It looked frail, but a thin wisp of smoke snaked out of the chimney—the chimney his son had built.

  “Zinnegael,” he called through the fence.

  She did not answer, but the small tabby appeared at the gate, her smooth long tail curled around her like a scarf.

  “Gabriella,” he said formally.

  “You’ll have to use the front door,” the cat said. “I do hope you haven’t had any meat.”

  He hadn’t. He hadn’t had meat for the last sixteen years, and he’d barely eaten anything these last two weeks.

  Slowly, he walked back to the fence, the padlocks hanging open except for a small one on the bottom. Without her staff, the witch’s magic was now too weak to open them all. Robert jiggled the lock, then stomped it with his foot, breaking it. He slid through the gate and up the path into Zinnie’s house, then sat down, breathing heavily.

  The house was warm, but just barely. Zinnie wore a thin shawl over her narrow shoulders and walked now with a significant stoop. The house itself seemed smaller, the furniture ragged and old. Only Sam’s handiwork looked newer—and even that seemed to have acquired some wear.

  “Hello, Robby,” Zinnie said. “I was just thanking your son for all he’s done.”

  Sam was sitting at a small table, cinnamon roll in hand. When he saw his father, he stopped chewing, the bun hanging loosely from his fingers.

  “You got in?” Sam said.

  His father didn’t reply. He only waved a hand at Zinnie who was trying to put a cinnamon roll on his plate and said, “Just tea for me, thank you.”

  “Sam’s done a lovely job with the chimney and stove, don’t you think?” Zinnie said, pouring the tea. “I know you don’t normally take sugar and cream, but I’m adding a spot anyway.” She tossed in two cubes of sugar. “You look too thin.”

  “He’s done well,” Robert replied, taking the sweetened tea without argument. “But it won’t last long, will it, Zinnegael?”

  The old woman pursed her lips. “No dear, it won’t.”

  “I’m sorry,” Sam broke in, as though trying to process all that was happening. “But how did you get in?”

  “I broke a lock,” Robert replied.

  Zinnie frowned, aware it seemed, of what that meant. “Oh, but I do miss my staff,” she murmured under her breath.

  “You know how he likes his tea,” Sam said. “I didn’t even know he liked tea.”

  “I don’t,” his father said. After a short pause, he continued, “There are some of our kind who know Zinnegael very well. She is a guardian of the forest a
nd its kind, a controller of storm and wind. She is a protector of those who wish to hide from the Alpha. Though it has cost her much.” Robert nodded with a touch of gratitude to the stooped woman. “Right now she is the only reason they can’t smell me.”

  Sam shook his head. “And what do you mean, the chimney won’t last? I know it’s not perfect, but it should last for a little while at least. I did the best I could.”

  “And it is very good,” Zinnie said, refilling his cup, though he’d barely drunk any tea. “But there are powers outside of your control, and the medicine has become very strong.”

  “Medicine,” Sam asked.

  Zinnie ignored him. “When my age catches up with me, it will catch up with this house as well. And then we will crumble.”

  Sam set his sticky bun on the table.

  “But your work on the house has been like a little vitamin for me,” she added fondly. “A boost that will extend my time longer than the Alpha expects.” She laughed. “So before this house and I return to dust, I have several batches of cookies and a few good tricks up my sleeve. Now,” she said, “take your father home.”

  Chapter 52

  It had been many, many years since Witten had worked at the compound—hired to keep their records. At the time, they’d not known who he was. At the time, he himself had just been figuring it out.

  Had they known that he was one of them but not the same, had they known the lineage of his family—they would have ripped his throat out before he set foot on their property, much less plunked his nose into their important documents.

  The human boy had been hired to work on the cars. It was unusual to have a human worker on the compound, but all could agree that the humans were superior in their use of tools and the welding and crafting of metals. They assumed he would look at The Ranch as an exclusive sort of retreat and nothing else.

  What they had failed to assume was that he would notice the two sisters, brought to the psychiatric ranch retreat in order to cure their acute case of pTr4 hallucinations.