by Tara Goedjen
A wail came from somewhere—slow and drawn out. The room was still, and she couldn’t see anything hiding among the boxes. She kept going, treading as lightly as she could, all the way to the back of the attic. When she got close to the window, she felt fresh air against her skin—the glass pane was crooked, halfway open. The scratching came again, and her breath went shallow as she realized it was coming from beneath her.
Mae hesitated and then heaved a nearby box aside to clear some space. A small rug was rumpled under it and she pulled it away, revealing warped floorboards with wide cracks between them. Had an animal gotten trapped down there? She shoved the box with her shoulder to move it against the wall, but it was stuck. She shoved it again, glancing down to see what it was caught on, and then sank to her knees.
A brass hinge. She was staring at a pair of hinges in the floor. In another moment it registered: she’d found a trapdoor.
A chill shot down her back. Running her hands along the wood in the opposite direction of the hinges, she found a dime-sized furrow in one of the boards. She hooked her finger into the little groove and lifted.
A wave of heat hit her face as she stared at a narrow ladder, dropping away into darkness. Her heart quickened. Why had she never seen this before? And the bigger question: What was down there?
The scraping was louder now and Mae tensed. Part of her knew she should find a flashlight or go get Elle. But the other part of her couldn’t turn away. It felt like she was on the edge of a discovery and if she blinked it might disappear. Don’t blink. She gripped the floorboards and then started down the ladder, one foot at a time, going slow to let her eyes adjust to the dimness. When she got to the last rung, she was in a tunnel—some sort of crawlspace underneath the attic floor, running along the wall of the house. It was dark and narrow and hot, and hard to breathe.
Ahead light splintered through a small hole. The ceiling slanted even lower and she ducked down, her fingernails digging into her palms as she veered deeper into the tunnel.
And then the end came into sight. It looked as if it had been boarded up recently, planks of blond plywood stretched over what appeared to be a brick step. Mae turned, searching the corners of the tunnel, but nothing was on the ground. No animal lying there hurt, nothing to make that scratching noise she’d heard.
She stepped closer to the barrier. In the trickle of light, she saw that the boards nailed to the upper half of the boundary were dusty. She ran her hands over the wood and her fingertips hit air. An opening.
A brick at the base had been pushed through: there was a hole to the other side. The scratching started up again and she bent down, her pulse thudding in her ears.
Something was definitely in there now—it needed help—just beyond the barrier. She yanked the wood at the edge of the crack, trying to make it bigger. A plank swung loose and then gave way in her arms, and she staggered back, setting the board down and grabbing the next one. She tugged harder this time, dust showering her face as the wood pulled free. Now the gap was big enough to squeeze through.
“Hello?”
Mae heard the sound of breathing. Her heart was skidding in her chest as she forced herself to step through the hole she’d made. And then she was on the other side.
It was dark, the air blanket-thick.
She took a small shuffle forward, her foot knocking against something sharp. It thudded to the floor and she leaned down, her hand finding a box no bigger than her palm. She picked it up, its contents rattling—a box of matches? Her fingers worked fast to open it, strike a match.
There was a whiff of phosphorus and she gasped, blinking, as the light flared over glass. At her feet was an oil lantern, just like the one in the old photographs. She stared at it in disbelief and then the wail came again, behind her. Mae whirled and saw glowing eyes.
In the corner of the cramped space was the little black stray. It huddled against the far wall, trembling.
How had it gotten all the way in here? But she didn’t even know where here was. She’d expected the tunnel to winnow out, leading to another doorway or trapdoor, some other location in the house, but the small flame revealed yet another barrier, closing in the cavelike space. The cat had somehow found its way in and gotten trapped.
She lit the oil lantern and knelt down, holding out her hand. “Here, it’s okay.”
The cat flinched away before circling toward her, its nose nudging her wrist. She ran her hand over it, felt its ribs sticking out. It was half starved, its fur clumped with dirt and cobwebs, dried blood between its claws—it’d been trying to scratch its way out. She took another look along the floor for the calico, just in case it had gotten trapped too, but didn’t see it.
“Come on, let’s get you out of here,” Mae said, picking it up. “I’m glad I found you,” she whispered. It was small and warm in her arms, and she thought of the breathing she’d heard—too loud to be from the stray. Her imagination had gotten away from her in the darkness of the tunnel.
When she turned to leave, the light fell over the wall and she froze. In front of her was a charcoal drawing that spanned the entire length of brick. She held up the lantern to get a better look and felt her jaw drop.
At the top, near the ceiling, was an arc of stars and the moon. A foreign word was written beside it in capital letters. CHANA. She whispered it aloud and then remembered seeing it before. In the green book, maybe, jotted in a margin. It was so hot it was hard to think and she didn’t know what it meant. The lantern was flickering across the wall, casting shadows, and she wanted to leave, to breathe fresh air again, but her eyes were seduced by the charcoal.
Underneath the moon and stars was a rectangular shape, jutting up from what was meant to be the ground. It was a sketch of a grave. The cat trembled in her arms and she tucked it closer as she squinted at the drawing. Leading up to the large headstone were little lumps spaced out in a row.
A trail of animals. A bird, a cat, a snake, and a deer, or a horse, maybe. All sleeping, their eyes in the shape of little X marks.
Not sleeping, then. The animals were supposed to be dead.
Next to them was a woman in a dress, rising up toward the charcoal moon. She was suspended—there was air underneath her feet, almost like a ghost. Standing on the ground beside her was another figure, this one darker, filled in like flesh.
Mae searched for a signature and found a small scribble in the bottom corner. Setting the heavy lantern on the floor, she crouched down to read it, but the artist had left only a single word, followed by numbers. Psalms 3:5. A Bible passage.
Sharp pinpricks ground into her arm. The cat was digging in its claws as it trembled. Mae felt the same way inside. Anyone in her family could have drawn this sketch, even Ro, and someone had tried to keep it hidden by walling up the room.
The cat wriggled again, letting out a cry this time, and Mae shifted it in her arms. “You’re right,” she whispered, “let’s go.”
She picked up the lantern with her free hand, carrying the cat in her other. One last glance at the charcoal and then she wedged through the small opening and raced into the tunnel and up the ladder, shutting the trapdoor behind her. She quickly pushed the rug and the box over it, trying to make it look exactly how it was before. Maybe this was why her granddad never wanted to leave the attic, insisted on sleeping up here too. Maybe he’d been trying to protect its secrets.
The cat squirmed, its claws hooking into her thin shirt. “Come on. We’ll get some food in you.” The stray twisted itself, diving off her shoulder. It hit the floor, darted onto the box she’d just moved, and then jumped up to the windowsill.
“No,” Mae said, making her voice soft. “Come down.”
Before she could coax it further she heard a piercing whistle, and the cat lunged through the opening, disappearing out of sight. Shocked, Mae ran to the window, expecting to see the stray clinging to the roof or sprawled on the ground.
But there was only the sandy driveway, the beech trees by the old fountain, the wood
s swelling out under dark clouds.
She held on to the windowsill, a tingle creeping down her spine. Her chest felt tight from all the dust, and she took in deep gulps of fresh air. The tunnel, the cat, the drawing, the book, everything whirled in her head, and she didn’t know what door to put it behind and she didn’t want to hide it away anyway, because she needed answers. She blinked, leaned farther out the window as she gazed at the lawn below. What was that?
She rubbed at her eyes. Someone was standing by the fountain, staring at the house.
AROUND HIM THE WOODS HAD gone quiet. He was at the Coles’ beach—a tiny spread of sand that hooked inward, sheltered by trees that bordered the dunes. Ahead of him the narrow dock reached across the water. The pilings underneath it were thin and shadowy, clumps of seagrass rising up around them. He hoped that being out here on the beach where it happened would help him remember.
It was dark for late afternoon. The morning sun had been replaced by low-hanging clouds and the smell of rain. Cage struck another match and held it above the book he’d taken from Mae’s bag. He tried to find the line he’d been on, something about viselike headaches. It had caught his attention, since his own head felt like someone had shoved a tire iron into it and was prying open his skull.
He huddled over the log he was sitting on and focused on the page toward the end, near the missing back cover. Ro had told him about that too. She’d seen the book intact when she was a kid and thought her granddad had hidden part of it from her. He didn’t know if she’d found the other half, but wherever it was, it wasn’t here. The page in front of him had a list, with Signs of the Raised at the top. He wanted to search through the writing as much as he could, in case it’d jog some memory. He was tracing his steps like his mother always said to do, as if his memory could be found like a lost set of keys. Forget where you put them? Trace your steps. Here he was, holding the very book Ro had shown him, but it wasn’t much help. Instead he’d gotten stuck on this list.
He’d laugh if his head didn’t hurt so much. The page was like the horoscopes Ro used to trawl through. Viselike headaches, great thirst. General enough to rope in just about everyone. His headaches were from the gash on his head, not from being raised, whatever that meant, and he was extra-thirsty from being dehydrated. Simple.
Cage dropped the spent match at his feet and struck another. When the light flared, he read the end of the list again.
Throat like scorched earth, great thirst with dreams of water. Hunger dwindles, food soon forgotten. Sleep broken by visits from those now gone. Painful steps, painful breaths, passing between two worlds. Visions of the dead and whispers. Breath that comes and goes, the body overrun with magic.
It was absurd, and none of it had anything to do with him. But he couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten, and his thirst was constant. Throat like scorched earth. He’d drunk half the rainwater tank at the barn already and could drink the other half right now. And what about the hallucination he’d had of Ro at the cemetery last night? Visions of the dead and whispers.
If he thought it was more than a dream, he was bullshitting himself. But he could remember every detail. Ro with her hair wet, standing in front of him. Water glistening on her skin. Blood on her teeth as she’d smiled. She’d seemed as real as anything—real as the barn and the boat and the trees around him. Here he was, back at Blue Gate, all of last year a wide-open blank, and now he was either hallucinating or…or he was seeing Ro.
Cage looked down at the page again and hated himself for thinking it possible. Sleep broken by visits from those now gone. If this part of the book spoke of things he’d experienced, then what if the rest of it was real? That raising ritual, the one Ro had talked about. I know I can bring my mother back. I’ve come close before. She’d been so serious, and he’d laughed at her.
He wasn’t laughing anymore. Painful steps, painful breaths, passing between two worlds. Maybe the motorcycle accident had been worse than he’d thought. Maybe he hadn’t walked away from it. What if Mae had done the ritual? What if she’d found the book and tried it, and instead of Ro coming back, it’d been him? Or it’d been him first?
His stomach turned to lead; he wasn’t thinking straight. His mother would be doubled over cackling—she’d be telling him the accident had given him brain damage. She’d say he was being a fool. She’d spit out that word. That’s what love does, she’d say, makes you a fool.
Except last night in the woods he’d seen Ro. It hadn’t just been a dream or a hallucination. He’d seen Ro and then passed out. Asleep for what, ten hours, twelve? Lucky no one had found him. He’d woken up on the dirt and grass, right outside the cemetery gate. His hand on the book.
He wasn’t going to leave Blue Gate now, not yet. Not if he might see Ro in the woods again. If she was only a dream, then so be it. If he got caught by Sonny or that cop Childers or by Elle and her rifle, then so be it. But at least he’d see Ro. And then he might know more about what had happened. About what he’d done to her.
Cage felt hot, unbearably hot, and his headache was in full force. He lit another match and flicked to the last page, the one with the smudge in the corner. A Ritual for a Raising was at the top, and then that clumsy scrawl. The whole thing reminded him of a folk song or a hymn, at least until the blood part. He read it again.
Please follow carefully:
Harbor love in your heart,
while in your hand
hold the loved one’s belongings.
Then begin the offerings.
For death feeds life
as blood feeds the ritual,
and little creatures show the way.
A cat for nine
And that was it. Did he really think those few words would bring someone to life? He shifted on the log and felt it dig into his jeans, and then flipped backward from the last page, rifling past another heading, Putting to Rest the Raised.
Another wave of heat hit him, and he couldn’t think. The pages fluttered and settled as he peeled off his shirt. The bruising on his chest was spreading. He breathed through his teeth and then stared down at Ro’s book. Before, he’d never wanted anything to do with it. It reminded him too much of his mother, the way she used to tease him about the father he’d never met. You got magic in your blood, that’s what your daddy always said. What a joke. A lot of good it did you. And now here he was, reading a book of spells. He’d done all he could to avoid it before, but now he was desperate to understand it, to remember everything Ro had told him about it. If it all came back to him, all of his memories, then maybe he’d remember the one thing he needed to.
The day she died.
His lungs felt like someone had taken a fillet knife to them, and he clenched his jaw, tried to breathe. After counting to ten he lit another match, held it over the ink, and then stopped. The match shook in his hand.
Ro’s handwriting was all over the page he was staring at. That slanted alphabet, he’d know it anywhere. The lines blurred, and he wiped his face with his sweaty shirt so he could see.
Part of being gifted this book is that we’re supposed to write in it. It’s meant to be a living thing, meaning everyone who gets it keeps adding to it. Now it’s my turn.
His heart was going wild in his chest. The match ran out, singeing his fingers, and he dropped it onto the sand. A hiss as he struck another one, holding the flame out. The next line was simple, and unexpected:
A Ritual for Love
It was followed by another list that he couldn’t get his head around. It reminded him of a poem, and he hated poetry, the way it got stuck in his head like a bad song and hardly made any sense. But this was her handwriting—it was something from Ro, and he could imagine her saying the words aloud as he read them. It felt like she was sitting right beside him. Like they’d just come in from a swim and here she was, perched on the log with him, her skin cold from the water and her hair smelling of salt.
A Ritual for Love Is This
Open mind, soft heart.
Listen, then speak.
Keep no secrets
unless they hurt.
Always talk
with words or deeds
& remember to say
thank you.
Cage balled up a fist, focused on his raw knuckles to keep from shouting out. It was painful to know she’d written this, to wonder if she’d really loved him. What if she’d kept secrets from him, thinking they’d hurt? He let out a breath, checked the woods around him, and then turned back to the book. The next line was still in her handwriting. A Ritual for a Ritual was in darker ink, like she’d run her pen over it several times. It seemed like more poetry, but he read on anyway, couldn’t stop if he tried.
Old mouth warned,
spoke of danger.
Young hands buried it
under the thorns.
Little statue watched on,
along with other eyes.
It looked like a few more lines had been added in a hurry. The match glowed over her writing, burning down to his fingers again.
As per the instructions
this is the direction.
What was torn out
is now underground.
If it’s raising you seek,
then dig.
The rest was blotted out, blackened by ink. He turned to the next page, but it was a blank, a big nothing. He flipped back and read it once more, hesitating on the lines about the little statue and the thorns. Ro was talking about the gift cherub in Blue Gate’s garden—she hadn’t tried hard to disguise it. She’d found the other half of the book and buried it, that much was obvious, but the rest didn’t make any sense. He skimmed the pages that followed, trying to spot more of her writing. There were too many sketches and different sets of handwriting packed together, and he’d always been a slow reader.