Andrew talks to Rapley in the Devil’s Tongue as he straps him into place, but Rapley cannot understand, grateful that he does not have this knowledge. He lets the monster talk, and closes his eyes.
She is running fast.
Come on, Roan urges herself. Come on! Though she knows it must be late afternoon, the light is terrible—she is choking on it.
Rapley appears before her on the mountain. Only… not Rapley, exactly. His nightwalking form.
“Rapley!” she cries, stumbling. “What have you done?”
He shakes his head. “I’m at the bottom of the Underneath with Andrew.” He smiles at her, and she goes cold. “I need to finish it.”
Roan reaches for him, but her hand passes straight through as it would the mist itself. “Wait for me. We can do it together.”
But Rapley shakes his head. “He wants you. If he gets you… You’re too powerful.” He reaches out for her. “I love you.”
Roan screams when Rapley vanishes in a hole of fire that isn’t there, and it echoes through the mountain. The ram watches.
Roan closes her eyes and speaks words she has not dared to before. When she opens them, she is in the Underneath.
Andrew’s head snaps in her direction, and his grin widens. “Ah…”
Rapley is half-strapped to the enormous wheel, which pulses with vile energy. As Andrew focuses on Roan, advancing, Rapley unties himself.
“I’ve been waiting for this,” Andrew says, spreading his arms. “I knew the moment I saw you. You write those silly letters backward… just as I taught Da Vinci to… upside down and backward of God. You are unique.”
“I have nothing to say to you,” Roan snaps, “except good-bye.”
They lunge for each other, a burst of uncanny speed and strength, mere blurs to Rapley’s eyes. He hurries to the shelves, throwing down the medical jars that crowd them, spilling embalming fluid and alcohol everywhere. He reaches for his torch, some feet away, and then throws it at the liquid.
Roan!
He thinks her name with all his might.
She looks at him, smiles, and then—faster than Rapley can see—forces Andrew into the flames.
She grabs Rapley’s hand and they run for the stairs to get out of the cavern.
“Cage,” Rapley says urgently, turning back. And there… eerie and still in the roiling smoke… stands Seamus, his eyes moist with rotten tears.
“No time!” Roan yells, pulling him on.
They take the stairs three at a time, Roan pulling Rapley fast and hard.
We’ve done it, her mind screams. We’ve done it!
But as they are clearing the stairs, a pale hand emerges out of the flames and grabs Rapley’s leg. Rapley looks up at Roan, his eyes wide and terrified, and reaches out a hand.
She grabs it, remembering her vision. Remembering his wide, pleading eyes, which now stare up at her, the palest gray she has yet seen.
He will die on this mountain.
I’ve got you, she thinks—
and they are all pulled into the flames.
ZOEY
NOW
Chapter 43
MY LULLABY
I wonder what our bones will look like when someone finally comes looking.
Bones are all I can think about.
We’ve been saying how weird it is that nothing lives on this mountain. But it does. The snakes, the rats… Those things seem just fine. And it will be those things that finally have a decent meal with our bodies.
Of course, not Len. How long can she live on rats? What about water? We blew up what I guess was the only source on this poisoned mountain.
Eventually, I’ll need to ask her.
It comforts me to imagine our bones, though. Picked absolutely clean.
When I talk to Pole, I don’t expect a reply. He spits vile words in my direction, sticks out his tongue, leers, and makes sexual sounds. It has no effect on me. I don’t seem to care about very much. It was all a waste anyway.
Len and I don’t discuss the future anymore. We’ve run out of water. I’ll die soon.
I can’t believe I’ve done this to my mum and Greg. I won’t get to see Dexter grow up. I hated having a half brother, but now I think it could be kind of fun. Except he’ll never get to know me.
And my dad… he won’t even know I’m not there. Ha-ha-fucking-ha! I did this all to save him, and he won’t even know he’s lost me. He doesn’t know. And I lied about texting Dexter my location and now I’ve killed Pole too.
What have I done?
Arms are getting stronger.
Writing.
Dragging myself around.
Almost freed Pole.
Len stopped me.
Who cares if he kills me?
He’ll get to eat.
Camera Footage
“How long have you been here?”
Zoey is slumped next to a sleeping Poulton, leaning against the piano in the Red Room. Poulton’s head is not tied to the piano, but the rest of him is. Arms, torso, and his legs tied together.
Len, sitting on the floor some way off, has been staring at a tapestry. She turns her head.
“Drop it, Zoey.”
“You don’t die. How old are you? Where are you from? What do you like? I don’t know you at all.”
Len closes her eyes. “Please, Zoey…”
“You’re a fucking stranger,” Zoey spits. She picks up a piece of cloth, the debris clearly from Pole’s “ropes,” and throws it fiercely at Len, then collapses back, panting. “I don’t know you at all.”
Len wipes away a tear. “Don’t say that.”
Zoey’s eyes narrow. “How. Long. Have. You. Been. Here.”
Len inhales shakily, more tears falling. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
“HOW LONG?” Zoey yells, waking Pole, who looks blearily around before starting to roar and shake his head, banging it back against the piano over and over. The piano gives off-key protests each time.
Len hurries over and secures his head so that he can no longer move it; he spits at her and says something in a guttural language. Len replies, her words even more venomous and savage.
“Tarvok arra” she growls, and he falls silent, but continues to smile manically, his eyes bright with madness and fever.
“Give me a fucking answer! I’m going to die, so give me that at least,” Zoey says, her voice harsh and dry.
“Five years,” Len says, turning away and returning to her spot on the floor. “I’ve been here five years.”
Zoey, it seems, had not expected that answer. Her mouth falls open and she blinks slowly, dumbly, trying to speak. Eventually, she chokes out, “Five… years?”
Len looks away. “I didn’t want to hurt you.”
“Oh, Len…”
It is Zoey’s turn to cry.
Weird thing about dying: It’s much slower than you think it’ll be. I was convinced I wouldn’t wake this morning. I couldn’t eat yesterday. I thought: this is it. Over. I could barely hold this pen.
And yet, here I am, munching on rat and snake, hungrier than I’ve ever felt.
Len’s feeding Pole like an animal. Tearing off bits and using the old iron fireplace poker to get it to his mouth. He broke a couple of teeth trying to chew the iron itself in the beginning.
Now he’s learned.
The other weird thing about dying: remembering stuff. Stuff about your life, and things you’ve done and not done. It all ends up seeming so pointless. Like, what did I add to the world? What have I given that makes things better or worse? Have I made a difference? And for me: No. Aside from killing myself and dragging Pole with me, I haven’t done anything.
I’m a blip.
Here in a moment, gone in a blink.
And we think we’re so important, don’t we? We think we’re so special, convinced of our own uniqueness, our own destiny. I was destined to come here, find some great revelation and take it back to free my father.
And why?
For a
noble reason? HA! I did it because I wanted him back. Not because he needs me back. He doesn’t know who I am. He’s happy in his little care home with the nurses checking in on him twice a week. He doesn’t need what he doesn’t remember.
And I rejected Greg and my half brother and I left my mum…
For a dream.
A wish.
An illusion.
I remember when Mum took me to the park near our flat in Finchley when Dad was still… Dad. I jumped on the roundabout next to the seesaw, my favorite thing ever, and Mum started spinning me. I was lying down on it, looking up at the sky, watching the autumn leaves falling. I remember the feeling so clearly… like I’m spinning on it right now. I can hear Mum laughing! And then, when she couldn’t make it go any faster, she’d jump on it next to me and we’d lie together, watching the sky spin until eventually we stopped. We would lie there, panting and grinning, and then I’d beg her to do it again, just the same.
Nothing could make me leave, nothing. Not even bribes of ice cream. The only way she got me home was when she started to walk home without me. I would fill with terror of losing her, and I’d jump up and chase her all the way back to the flat.
She would ask me, later at night, what I was thinking and I would tell her how scared I was when she walked away. I was scared she would disappear. She said she would always be there. That she was only a bedroom away and that whenever I felt scared, I could come and talk to her. No matter the hour.
And I did. For years.
When we lost Dad, I did it less. And then, when I turned eight and saw the black form at the foot of my bed, I stopped telling her anything.
I’m sorry, Mum. I’m so, so sorry.
Camera Footage
Zoey’s face is drawn, thin and haunted.
“Mum,” she says, her voice breathless like a sigh. “I wanted you to know that I’m sorry. I’m so sorry for coming here, for running away, for the last things we said to each other. I want you to know that I know, in my heart, that you didn’t mean what you said. You were angry. I understand that. I got your temper.” She laughs. “Anyway. I hope that someone finds this and gives it to you so that you know I was thinking of you the whole time. And also because I wanted to remind you of the park days in Finchley, and that one day I told you I was afraid you’d disappear. You told me that night I could tell you everything.”
She pauses to wipe away a tear.
“There’s something I never told you. No, it’s not my coming out,” she jokes. “I’m pretty sure you knew that already. I never felt like I had to say it, despite your jokes about Pole and me. I think… it was your way of trying to get me to tell you. But you knew. What I wanted to tell you was a secret I’ve been carrying for a long time.” She sobs, and it takes a moment for her to continue. “So, so long. I’ve been… seeing something. Since I was seven or eight. Right after Dad left to go to the hospital. For years, I’ve been haunted. I don’t why I didn’t tell you… Maybe because I was scared you’d think I was like Dad… that it was a sign I was going mad. And maybe it was. But… see, that’s the reason I came here.”
She wipes her face, then grunts as though wanting to shake away her emotions.
“I came here because of Dad’s obsession, his trip here when I was little, his madness and forgetting… but also because of the black figure. At night, it would sit there in the corner of my room on your old rocking chair, rocking back and forth, this… horrible presence. And it would whisper… ‘Mill House… Mill House…’ over and over.
“That horrible voice, that croaking whisper—those words… they were my lullaby for years. So I had to come. And I regret it. I regret everything. But I had to tell you. You said I always could, and I’m so sorry it took me this long.”
She rests the camera on her legs so that her chin and torso are in the shot with part of the ceiling.
“I’m sorry,” comes a voice from far off. “I came to check on you… I wasn’t prying.”
Zoey shrugs and the camera shakes on her lap.
“What you said… about the form…” She comes closer so that part of her leg is in the shot along with the edges of long, red hair. “Have you seen it since we came here?”
Zoey shakes her head.
“I never told you what my Unclosed ability is. I didn’t want to scare you away.” Len sits down beside Zoey, but Zoey doesn’t move. “But I’ve learned to trust you. I don’t want to hide anything from you.”
“Because I’m dead anyway.”
“No,” Len says fiercely, taking one of Zoey’s hands so that the camera falls, angling so that Len’s face is also now fully in the frame from beneath. “Because I care about you. I… I love you, Zoey. So much. More than anything. And I know it’s true, because the thought of losing you has had me thinking about how to kill myself. Fire, drowning—how can I escape this life?”
Zoey reacts for the first time. “No, Len! I don’t want that. I want to stay here. I want to live. I want to spend a lifetime with you. More if I could.”
Len grabs her face and then they are kissing, the camera forgotten. When they pull away, both are crying. The moment is ruined slightly by the cackling of Pole nearby. He is not in the shot.
“Cccccccccyyyyeeeeeeewwwwt,” he drawls, his voice high and ragged. “Burn in hell with me, you lesbian whores!” he mutters.
The girls ignore him as though his heckling has become so normal that it doesn’t faze them. They don’t even break their gaze to look at him.
Len licks her lips and Zoey waits. “Necromancy. My Conjure. I commune with the dead… among other things.”
Zoey looks at her for a moment, and then looks down at the camera on her lap.
“Mom, Greg, I want you to meet my girlfriend.”
Len’s eyes widen and then she bursts out laughing. Zoey laughs too, in a tired, alarming way.
“She’s a necromancer,” she adds. “Hot, right?”
“What if… what if I could call your ghost, if that’s what it was… What if this is all about that black form? What if it’s the key?”
“What if it was a delusion?”
“Then no harm done. It could be something darker though, which is why I want your permission before I try.”
“Darker…”
“Something… sinister. Demonic.”
“It never hurt me. If anything, it always seemed… desperate. And when it was with me, I was terrified, yes, but also sad.”
“Let me try to call it.”
“I tried once,” Zoey said. “And you turned up.”
“You’re not a necromancer. You’re a beautiful, wonderful Finder. Leave the dead to me.”
Len gives Zoey a kiss on the cheek, then gets up and walks out of the shot.
Zoey looks back down at the camera. “She’s a keeper, eh?”
I am sickened in body and soul and mind. John and what men remain took my Nebula, my sweet, dear friend. Nebula’s head did roll across the mountain, down, down, down, and I saw whence it landed; her mouth opened and closed and she frowned most heartily, blinking as though indignant. It took so long, so long for that head to stop moving, and when it did, I loosed a cry as a wolf and fled, my book and flint and candle in hand.
I must hide. I must escape. For what can happen now that has not already happened?
A dreadful night.
THE LAST DIARY ENTRY FROM
HERMIONE SMITH,
NOVEMBER 1588
ZOEY
NOW
Chapter 44
HERMIONE
Camera Footage
Len places the camera down on a surface. “Here?” she asks, turning back to Zoey, who sits in the middle of the floor. They appear to be in the kitchen in front of the large fireplace, which is lit without any logs. Symbols have been etched into the fireplace in chalk.
“Yes,” Zoey says. “That’s fine. I want to record this.”
Len joins Zoey on the floor. Zoey has been zipped into her sleeping bag, her arms free.
&nbs
p; “Don’t be alarmed by what you see,” Len says. “Remember what I am, and trust me.”
Zoey nods.
“And most importantly—do not speak. Not a sound. No matter what happens. It’s important.”
Another nod from Zoey, though now she looks a little afraid.
Len cricks her neck left, right, then closes her eyes. She might be meditating. Beside her lies a fresh supply of chalk, as well as Pole’s penknife, a pad of paper, and a pen.
Len begins to speak. Her words are not human. Not English, not French—but the same guttural sounds as before. They are quiet at first, rising in volume as she continues.
She begins to breathe heavily, taking great breaths between the sounds, until she is shouting, her neck taut, her fists clenched and arms straining. The sounds reach a magnitude of volume, then as quick as wildfire, Len snatches up the penknife, flicks it open, and slits her flesh from forearm to wrist.
The blood pours from her and coats the floor. Zoey inhales, covers her mouth, and seems to inhale her scream.
Len’s voice changes all of a sudden—it is no longer her voice. It is inhumanly loud, deep, and raw as gravel, her teeth bared in an animalistic snarl. She whips forward, her torso bending like rubber, until she laps at her own blood pooled on the floor.
She continues to growl the words, her teeth still bared like a wolf’s, only bloodied now, the spray hitting Zoey in the face.
Even through all this horror, Len remains preternaturally glorious. She is an awesome, terrifying specter of savage beauty. Her hair begins to move on its own, as though there is static in the air, then at long, long last, Len throws her arms wide in the mimicry of a crucifixion, spraying blood across the room—
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