“Our mom was not full-blooded fae,” Jade said, “not enough to make it physically obvious but enough to make her see things no one else did. She said she was between worlds and thought something was wrong with her—mental illness, an inherited trait—but she hid it, until she no longer could. For a while they treated her with drugs. They seemed to work, but she always regressed. Every time she fought her way back to normal, she would relapse. It became harder and harder to pull herself from the abyss. We were just little kids, but we knew something bad was happening.”
“Fortunately, Dad understood what she was going through,” James said. “He tried to convince her to go with him to the reservation and seek help from a shaman. But she wouldn’t. She went to psychiatrist. For a while it helped, but nothing really changed. She still had the same ‘hallucinations,’ the same bouts of ‘schizophrenia.’ ”
“They began to experiment on her,” Jade said. “The pharmaceutical company—the same one your mother works for—used her as a test case.”
“My mother doesn’t work for any drug company,” Abigail said. “She’s at a law firm. Ask Olivia. That’s where her mom works.” She turned to me. “That’s how she knows your mom, Olivia. That’s where she asked—begged—to have someone be my friend.”
Abigail’s mouth twisted at the word “friend.”
“How do you—” I caught myself.
“—know?” Abigail said. “Because your mom wouldn’t do it, not at first.”
What?
“That’s right. You didn’t know that, did you?” Abigail said, studying me. “Your mom said she had no right to pick your friends. My mom kept pleading and finally your mom said she would ask but she couldn’t promise anything.”
My mom said that? And all this time I thought . . ..
“You think you’re so smart,” Abigail said sneering.
“How do I know you are not lying?” I said. Her lips were drawn, her nostrils pinched. She looked convincing but liars often do. My grandfather said that’s how criminals end up on probation instead of in jail. They cry real tears at sentencing, but whether the tears are from remorse, or because they’re afraid of being locked up for a long time, no one really knows.
“I am telling the truth,” Abigail said. “I knew your mom asked you and that you hated it. You didn’t want to be anywhere near me.”
“You don’t understand.”
“No?” Abigail narrowed her eyes at me. “You’re doing the same thing they are, lying.”
“What is your mother’s name?” Jade said, taking a step closer. “Not her married name, her maiden name.”
Abigail looked as if she was trying to answer but was too scared to speak. I would feel the same way if Jade stared at me like that. Or was this more of the other Abigail, the one I never knew?
“Her name was Berquist.” A loud voice echoed around us.
The air wavered, red light shimmered, and the woman in red appeared. She looked the same way she did the night she invaded the gym.
Abigail shrieked but stood rooted.
“Beth Berquist,” the woman repeated, this time in a normal voice.
I cringed, expecting black ravens to swoop down from overhead, but none appeared.
The smell of stale cigar smoke hung in the air. Near her feet lay a shapeless heap. It was Mr. Morris, his mouth open, his face slack. He had always been a grouch. At times, he walked hunched over as if he were skulking. He could be threatening, too, and rude, but he never harmed anyone and didn’t deserve to come to an end like that.
“Why are you here?” Abigail said, her voice shaking.
“It looks like I am the only one left of our infamous group,” the woman said. “I have a vested interest and I do not like loose ends. I will tell you a little story now that we are gathered together as one big happy family.
“We were teenagers, you see. We were like sisters and they—the juvenile court system—put some of us in cages as if we weren’t human, a place called MacLaren Hall. That’s where Beth was. She hadn’t committed a crime. She was a runaway, incorrigible; no one wanted a headcase, not even her parents. Especially her parents. So, she joined our tribe, in a way.”
“I don’t believe you,” Abigail said.
“Oh, Abigail, shut up. I am quite sick of you. And I am tired of explaining. We do not have time—I do not have time. The police will arrive soon. You do understand it’s nothing personal.” She stroked the top of Abigail’s wet head.
“Don’t touch me.” Abigail tried to pull away, but the woman’s fingers crooked around her chin.
“You don’t belong here,” Abigail said, barely able to frame the words.
“No. You are wrong. You are the one who does not belong.” The woman released Abigail’s chin.
Her gaze slowly swept over me, Pamela, and Mindy who had not said a word. “In fact, only one of you belongs here.”
She stared at James, then Jade, and grimaced.
“Them?” said Abigail. “You mean the fae? You would choose one of them?”
“That would be foolish indeed,” the woman said. “I doubt if they would cooperate. No, not them. But who? We knew one of you had the ability to take it but which one?”
The woman turned away from James and Jade. “I thought it was you, at first,” she said to Abigail. “You did try—and hard—I’ll grant you that. But you were unable to keep it under your control.”
Abigail did not meet the woman’s eyes. Her gaze shifted to me. “It’s Olivia,” she said.
Me?
My eyes opened wide, my jaw dropped, and I shook my head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Olivia picked up the book,” Abigail said, as if speaking to herself. “I dropped it and she picked it up.” She turned to the woman. “But it was an accident. The book wanted to come back to me. That’s the only reason she was able to touch it. I am the true owner. I know I am.”
“You have not learned, have you?” The woman said. “I hate spilling blood unnecessarily, but I do as the situation demands, and you are an inconvenience.”
“Did you kill him, too?” I said, in a strangled voice. She seemed ready to slice us into little pieces and I wanted to distract her. Instead, my question puzzled her. Did she not know who I was talking about?
“Him, Mr. Morris.” I pointed at his lifeless body.
“Oh, that. Of course, I did,” she said. “I asked him to alert me if any suspicious activity took place at school. Imagine my surprise when he said two girls had lost something and were looking for it in a dumpster. A dumpster.” She smirked, paused, and went on. “They did not tell him what it was, but it was important enough to ask where the trash was taken and then pretend it did not matter.” She reflected again, then said, “I never expected him to bring me any useful information, but when he did, I almost ignored it.”
The corners of her mouth curled upward, as if thinking back. “However, Mr. Morris does not—did not—use discretion. He had a habit of being confrontational with the wrong people. An inappropriate remark, an idle boast, especially if it could be tied to the death of a student, was something I could not risk.
“Leaving him at school was out of the question. Unfortunate timing yes, but he will be useful in a different way. You may yet see his surly face again, whether you want to or not.”
She paused, as if waiting for one of us to speak, but no one did.
How the standoff would end, I had no idea, but if Mr. Morris was an example, we would all be carried out in body bags—if anyone ever found us. Who would come here on a night like this?
Then I remembered what had sounded like a car door slamming. James and Jade might have driven here, but the way they looked now, and with the things they said, and the fact they appeared out of nowhere, meant they did not need the usual transportation.
Sirens wailed in the distance. A line of flashing red lights snaked its way up the hillside. Farther away, near where we left the bus, a light flickered. A lone police car must ha
ve arrived earlier, called for backup, and waited for them to arrive.
“Complications, more complications,” said the woman. “It is just as well. This place is not to my liking. My apologies, but your time is over.”
She raised her hand and pointed at me. I swung my right arm up over my head, an automatic response, the way you do if someone throws a rock and you don’t want it to hit you in the face.
A firebolt exploded against my arm. Wind howled; screams echoed. I no longer felt my right arm. I forced my eyes open and saw wildly spinning colors. The wind seemed to swallow me. I squeezed my eyes shut as my hair lashed across my face. I could not feel my right arm and didn’t know if it was still attached. I tried to bring my left arm across my body, but air pressure held it back. My legs were pulled in different directions. I struggled to bring them together but did not have the strength.
A wave of nausea swept over me as I pinwheeled through space out of control. At the apex of my flight, everything stopped. I was swept into a whirlwind and pulled downward.
Chapter 26. Transported
For the second time that night, I thought I was dead.
Wrong again.
I opened my eyes and saw a vaulted ceiling above me. A chamber? A tomb? I tried to turn, and pain stabbed the back of my head. I winced, shut closed my eyes, and reopened them when the pain passed.
Moonlight seeped through tall windows. The spaces between the windows were too dark to see anything else, but as I looked slowly around the room, I saw strangely shadowed walls, as though their surfaces had been carelessly plastered.
My hands rested on coarse fibers. I pressed down firmly and felt a rug beneath me. It was not threadbare as I expected, but thick and plush.
I turned my head to the side and saw a shiny, round stain glowing like liquid mercury on the carpet. It was damp to the touch, and when I pulled my hand away, my fingers left four shimmering streak marks.
From overhead, a drop of silver fell, then another. At first, I saw nothing above me except the arches that soared into darkness, but as my eyes became accustomed to the deeper shadows, I saw a body hanging from the ceiling. It rotated a few inches one way, stopped, and then rotated back the other way.
I pushed myself up and as far back from the glowing stain as possible; my ragged breathing made worse by what I had seen.
Around me were the familiar faces of everyone who had been at Finder’s Hill. Jade and James lay on their backs, their eyes wide open. They did not turn their heads but stared straight up as if stunned. No one else had awakened.
The woman in red stood impassively at the front of the room observing each of use. When she saw me, her eyes bored into mine and I froze. As she held my gaze, her eyes burned bright, then dimmed.
She turned her head and then stared again at each person. When she seemed satisfied none of them were in any condition to go anywhere, she turned back to me.
“You did this,” she said. “You were the first to awaken.”
“Me?” I said, barely able to protest. “That’s impossible. I wouldn’t have—I couldn’t have done it. I don’t know where we are or how we got here.”
Despite my bleary condition, I knew I could not admit the truth, that until that moment at Finder’s Hill when I was thrown in the air, I had never gotten seriously dizzy. Even when we were little kids and went on wild rides—upside down, sideways, corkscrews—I was the one who never got sick or wished she hadn’t gone on in the first place.
So why did she say that? Was she toying with me the same way she had with Abigail? Whatever game she was playing, I had no intention of humoring her.
“I am not speaking of equilibrium,” she said. “But you do present an unforeseen complication. No one defies me.” She paused, then said. “No one has been able to defy me, not like this.”
“You’re not going to use me,” I said. “If you think I can do whatever-it-is better than Abigail, you’re wrong.”
She barked a laugh, and it was not from humor.
“I have no special power, no special ability, no special anything. I—I won’t even make varsity next year.”
She smirked at my explanation. As the others awakened, her expression changed. One by one, they raised their eyes and stared at her, then looked up at the body hanging from the ceiling.
I squinted up at the darkness again, and recognition dawned. It was the Firefly. I looked agape from him to the woman in red.
“A nosey fae disguised as a paranormal investigator,” she said. “He came a little too close to the truth.”
“Fae?”
“You’ve never heard of the fairy folk?” she said, as though amused at the thought.
Of course I had but they weren’t real, or so I had been telling myself.
“Investigator?” I said. “What was he looking for?”
Her gaze swept over the large armoire in the dark corner. It had two glass doors and behind them someone was locked inside, unmoving. At first, I could not tell if it was a man or a woman, alive or dead, until moonlight slanted through an overhead skylight and illuminated the face.
It was the same man I had seen months ago when I swerved off the road. He stood behind the glass as if petrified, his eyes closed, his long silver hair askew.
“The investigator was looking for something that no one knew existed,” the woman said.
“He was real,” I whispered. “I saw—” Knowing I had not been hallucinating would have been a relief—if not for the man hanging from the ceiling, and the woman in red staring through me. I pressed my lips together so I would not blurt out the wrong thing.
“Real?” the woman said. “You’ve seen our silver-haired man before?”
“No,” I said, wanting to kick myself for opening my big mouth.
“You are a very poor liar. Where did you see him?”
“I didn’t. He looked familiar that’s all.”
“Oh? Just another man with iridescent wings and long silver hair?” She chortled.
She was right, I’m not a very good liar, unless it’s with Mom. I was probably wrong about that, too.
“Why did you kill him—them?” I said. My eyes were now adjusted to the darkness. I saw the length of the ceiling and imagined where each of us would be hanging when our bodies were found.
“The investigator simply got in the way. To be accurate, I did not kill the other fellow, the one behind the glass, although he is not doing terribly well. He tried to escape—and did for a while—but we found him. There are many places to dispose of people who become a burden.” She paused and stared hard at me. “I hope I make my meaning clear.” She paused again.
“His name is Arion,” she went on. “He is temporarily encased—for his own good, of course. He is one of them.” Her eyes shifted to James and Jade. “Although not quite the same. I cannot let him remain here any longer; it is too obvious. The walls, however, are another matter.”
She studied the dark walls and the sight of them seemed to reassure her. “This place is familiar, is it not?” she said. “If it isn’t, it should be. My friends and I were responsible for its notoriety.”
“It’s the Glasspool mansion.” Jade braced herself as she struggled to sit up.
“I am not speaking to you,” the woman said. Then to me, “But she is correct. You have been here before, I assume.”
I hadn’t, but I had heard about Glasspool mansion. Justin told me about it one night when we were trying to outdo each other telling scary stories.
His version of the Glasspool legend was that a woman had been found raving mad wandering through the mansion claiming not to know what had become of her family.
The police came and they had a K-9. The dog went straight to the wall and stayed there scratching and sniffing, while the police dug and scraped. They cut away reinforcements and removed large chunks of plaster.
“They found body parts, human and animal,” Justin had said, his eyes exaggeratedly large. “No one knew who they were . . . they had been chopped into
little pieces.”
I had gotten scared and made him stop, but the next day I had begged him to finish and he did. He said the rest of the Glasspool family lived far away but they claimed the woman, Charlotte Glasspool, was not guilty. The jury thought otherwise and convicted her. While awaiting sentencing, she had hung herself in the jail cell—or so the police said—and no one had disputed it. She was buried but vandals had dug up her body and desecrated it.
At that point in the story, Justin’s eyes had bugged out again and he got overly dramatic. “She found the jurors who convicted her,” he had said, “and strangled each one. Then she hid in a secret place. Years passed . . . everyone forgot. But she’s still there somewhere, watching and waiting.”
Justin’s drama had ended there. But now as I recalled what my had grandfather said a few days ago, and put it together with Justin’s exaggerations, I knew what had happened next. The worst of the publicity hounds had finally given up. After years many passed, Glasspool mansion had been re-opened. Tours were given and the legend attracted many tourists. The mansion always closed before dark—the same way it was tonight—but the trespassers kept coming. I had read online that some had claimed they saw a woman in red wandering through the mansion, screaming at everyone she saw.
“The rumors are true,” the woman said, as if reading my mind. “I am the notorious Charlotte Glasspool. And I have had enough of him—and of you.”
She snapped her fingers.
The Firefly burst into a shower of sparks. Gray smoke rose from the empty noose hanging from the ceiling.
“One less fae to worry about,” she said.
Jade and James slowly stood up and each took a step to the side of Charlotte Glasspool.
“Oh, please,” she said. “Do not try to surround me. You played your games at All Hallows Eve, or one of you did, with your death mask. Now it is my turn.”
She pointed at them and they stopped midstride. She lifted her chin and called out in a voice that echoed through the room, “Zenda!”
One of Us: The City of Secrets Page 18