“You can’t just leave,” I said desperately, feeling hot tears roll down my cheeks. Every cell in my body howled. “Please, I’m sure whatever it is with you and mom, you can work it out.”
He looked hesitant, his brows pinching together. “This has been a long time coming. Just know that it has nothing to do with anything you’ve done. You didn’t do anything wrong. This is just between Claire and me. I’m sorry that I wasn’t paying better attention of how things were falling apart.”
“But, dad, this is your home.”
He pecked my forehead, resting his rough, stubbly chin there for a moment. “It hasn’t felt that way for a while. Goodbye, kiddo. I love you.”
My stomach swan dove and I thought I would be sick. I wanted to scream after him to not leave. But I couldn’t say a word. He swept outside and jogged off towards the driveway.
I broke out of my paralysis and tore through the door. I followed yards behind him to his car, not ready to let him go yet. He didn’t even slow down, shoving his briefcase into the passenger seat and jumping behind the wheel. It began to rain, cold drops stinging my eyes and wetting my hair. I banged on his window and he rolled it down.
“Dad, please, can’t you just take a break and then come back?”
He didn’t answer me. I could see him start to tear up himself and I felt a mix of guilt and anger. I stepped back and he raced backwards out of the driveway, disappearing on the road. I stood, heavy and heartbroken, feeling the rain drench my clothes and hair.
I trudged back inside, wringing my hair out on the deck. The rain began to slow down to drips. I was holding the tears in now, my eyes burning.
My mother was still standing in the same spot she’d been when Hugh left.
“How could you just let him leave like that?” I asked her angrily. Years of keeping mum spurred me on. “You’re turning into a robot. I don’t know what mind control they’re performing on you at those meetings, but it needs to stop.”
“He’s been cheating on me, and now you’re taking his side?” Claire asked, completely disregarding what I’d said. Her lower lip trembled, but only for a second.
“You don’t know that he’s cheating for sure. You could have at least tried to talk to each other.”
“You don’t get to lecture me on how to react,” Claire sniped. She whipped around and stormed into her office. The door slammed so hard that two of my baby pictures fell off of the wall, glass shattered in the broken frames.
Next to me, the grandfather clock ticked steadily, the only sound in the too-quiet house. I watched the pendulum swing back and forth, unaware of our troubles.
###
For the next few hours, I was tormented by thoughts. I sat cross-legged on my bed, my hair wet from a hot shower I’d taken to clear my head, and mulled over what I’d witnessed.
I couldn’t believe my father had walked out, just like that. Were he and Callie really together? There was no reason they needed to text each other that much; he and Gwen had only texted at the most once or twice a day.
Despite him telling me that I hadn’t done anything wrong, I still felt as though I should have been able to reach out to him and make him stay. I didn’t know when we had stopped being so close. I’d been so busy worrying about Henry and Thornhill and ghosts, I’d ignored the rest of my normal life.
My mother’s coldness made everything worse. I felt anxious just knowing we were the only two in the house. Part of me felt guilty for not knocking on her office door and going in. But I couldn’t bring myself to do it.
Jenna was sitting next to me to comfort me, and I bounced ideas off of her. “They were so overprotective before, and I hated it so much. But it was better than being cut out and ignored, and then finding out there’s this disaster happening behind the scenes.”
“I had a feeling when they started fighting. I told you,” Jenna said artlessly.
“He also mentioned something about a prayer group,” I murmured. Jazz was blaring upstairs in my mother’s office, but I still felt uneasy talking about the prayer group, in case she could somehow hear me. “They were talking about it before, too, but I couldn’t get Hugh to elaborate. Apparently, Claire and some of the Thornhill people were a part of it in high school. Hugh brought it up in an argument. Some girl almost died.”
“That definitely sounds shady,” Jenna agreed. “You should look into it more closely. Thornhill’s ties must go back a lot farther than we assumed.”
An old memory floated to the top—my father watching out the door as Henry and Phillip drove away, informing me that the Rhodes had been residents of Hell before. All the color had washed out of his face, like he’d seen a ghost from his past.
Maybe he had.
Just the memory of his face made me tear up again. The fact that they’d been hiding so much from me made me feel betrayed. Even if they were trying to protect me, it felt like they didn’t trust me. “What if that really was it, Jenna?” I asked, hugging my pillow to my chest. “What if he doesn’t come back?”
“I don’t know, Ariel. But if your parents can’t stay together, I don’t know who can.”
###
My next step was decided for me in a dream. That night, after I’d run circles in discussions with Jenna, I was so exhausted that sleep found me quickly.
The world outside was forgotten, and there was only the pulsating innards of the orphanage around me. The fire was going to burst to life again soon. Time was running out.
I finally reached my destination. A hole had been blasted in the wall ahead of me, exposing the remains of the dining room where we had performed our seance. The jagged edges of the hole glowed gold, beautiful and sharp. I stepped inside carefully, avoiding shards of wood that stuck out like stingers.
I heard a clock ticking and turned to my right. The grandfather clock from our dining room was standing against the wall. Weird.
Out of the shadows stepped one of the orphans, an older boy of about twelve, wearing dirty nightclothes. He moved stiffly like a rusty toy soldier, his black eyes ringed with bruise-like discolorations. Tears leaked from the corners of his eyes and down his pale cheeks.
He held his hands out, and lying across his palms was Warwick’s hunting knife. I heard singing, far off but carried on the hot air that swirled thickly around us. The song was sad and discordant, the individual notes fading in and out.
Kill it, the boy’s garbled voice commanded in my head. I heard the dog snuffling and snorting in the corner, unaware of my presence. The boy’s words radiated in every cell of my body, igniting a deep, burning rage for the dog’s terrible crimes. All of the children had been left broken, and he had to be punished. The situation had to be made right.
I pushed the knife away. The children’s fight wasn’t mine. The anger was fleeting, leaving as quickly as it had been forced upon me.
The room was familiar, yet so many details were different. Hanging over the fireplace was a golden frame that used to contain a portrait of the house’s owner, John Dexter. Now the frame was empty. A chunk of the ceiling had fallen in and broken in half the long table where Henry, Alex, Theo and I had held hands and chanted. The chairs had been blown back onto the floor.
I inched slowly towards the dog. He was in the corner digging through a pile of ashes and rubble, matted, black fur clinging to his hide. I had the strong feeling that the beast was male. I couldn’t explain why, but I was sure of it. I tried to remain soundless, but he must have sensed me. His head shot up, and he twisted to glare over his shoulder. His black eyes fixed on me, muzzle covered in ashes, jaws dripping spittle. I held my breath, waiting for him to attack.
Instead, the dog stepped aside. He sat back with his oversized front paws firmly on the floor, watching me. The fear and trepidation were gone, my curiosity winning out.
I stepped cautiously towards him, trying to see if he was faking me out. But the dog stayed completely still, staring at me as though I should know why I was there.
I knelt down on the
floor to get a closer look at the pile of rubble. A brilliant flash of green glittered within the ashes. I reached my hand in slowly….
Opening my eyes back in my bedroom, I finally knew what the dreams had been telling me. I had to go back and get my grandmother’s necklace.
Because someone else was looking for it.
CHAPTER 10
THE NEXT MORNING there was an assembly about fundraising in the gym. I spent most of it napping on my knees. Breakfast that morning without my dad had been lonely. I wondered where he was eating and if he was doing okay, but didn’t go so far as to text him. Not yet.
On the way out of the gym, I glanced towards a display case set in the wall. I wasn’t the only person who didn’t jet right to class, so I pretended to study the vast collection of sports trophies. Without McPherson taking his usual time to meticulously polish them, they were getting tarnished.
Beside that case were built-in, open bookshelves displaying the yearbooks from all of the years past. Before the rebuild, the original Hawthorne building had been around since the 1950s, so the shelves were full of the violet and gold covers.
I pulled out the one from my parents’ senior year. Looking around to make sure I wasn’t being watched, I slipped it into my backpack. I knew I could only borrow it for a short time; someone would definitely notice the gap in dates eventually.
In study hall, I pored over the black and white pages. The pictures were grainy and nondescript, ghosts in motion caught on film. My parents’ school portraits were telling; Claire’s smile was huge, surrounded by a halo of wavy hair, and nerdy Hugh grinned like he was hiding a secret.
I flipped to clubs and after-school activities. On the third page, I saw a group photo of a bunch of students holding hands. They were bending their heads around the flagpole outside with a miniature brick wall erected around it. The caption read Hawthorne’s devoted prayer group meets twice a week. Members are Phillip Rhodes, Cheryl Glass, Bruce Slaughter, Cliff Ford, Rachel Jenkins, Deana Waverly, Edgar McPherson, and Claire Brown. Umbra Regnum.
My mom was holding hands with Phillip, plain as day, completing the circle—the circle that was otherwise exclusively made up of Thornhill people. Their modest young faces stared at the camera, looking cheerful and unknowing. I had no idea what “umbra regnum” meant, but it sounded like Latin to me.
Hugh had told me that Claire and members of Thornhill had been friends in school, but I didn’t realize just how tightly bound they’d been. This prayer circle seemed very suspicious, especially in light of Hugh’s revelation about the girl who almost died. There was no other mention of the prayer group in the book. Claire was listed under various other activities, as were the other members of the group, except for McPherson.
He appeared to have only been involved in the chess team, along with my father, Mr. Golem and—I noticed with an uncomfortable shock—a young Robert Warwick. The three of them smiled out from around a table on which a chess board had been set out. McPherson and Hugh were playing against each other, a Knight between the fingers of my father’s upraised hand. Both wore thick, round glasses and ugly clothes, including a fur vest that I would have to remember to tease Hugh about if I ever saw him again. The thought made me swallow thickly.
I flipped to the back of the yearbook and laid it flat. Written on the binding in pencil was the faint symbol of a bundle of sticks.
###
At lunch, I was sitting with Theo and Alex like usual. They were debating the finer points of comic book superheroes. Across the room, I noticed Madison trying to get my attention. She wasn’t exactly smooth about it, standing up off her chair and gesturing wildly with one hand.
“What does she want?” Theo asked, chewing on her juice straw.
I shrugged. “To catch a home run. I’ll be right back.”
At the same time that I got up, Madison rose from her seat. I followed her out of the commons into the deserted band hall.
“What’s going on?” I asked her, checking over my shoulder. No one had followed us.
“I talked to my parents,” she said. “And they were short on the straight answers. They told me I shouldn’t worry about things.”
“I was kind of expecting that. Did you ever hear anything about a prayer group? Phillip and some of the other Thornhill members belonged to it in high school.”
Madison frowned, thinking, then shook her head. “No, sorry.”
“Worth a shot. We should be getting back so no one misses you.”
I settled back down at my table, trying to act nonchalant. Theo stared at me. “What was that about?”
“Madison’s feeding me some inside information,” I said.
“Just be careful she doesn’t poison you,” Alex warned. “She has a habit of being toxic.”
###
“Maybe I shouldn’t ask him, after all. If he gets too suspicious and tries to stop me, then what do I do?”
It was after lunch and I was crouched in the back stairwell at Hawthorne, arguing with the Hellcat mascot painted on the wall. His angry maw was twisted open in a snarl, sharp claws ready to shred the losing team. At least he listened without offering unwanted advice.
“I have to go back, I have no other choice. If I keep having these dreams, it’s going to drive me nuts.”
Henry was supposed to be joining me any minute. I figured the stairwell was better than the spooky, burned out hallway. I’d slipped out of study hall without too much trouble.
The door creaked open and I flinched. Henry breezed in, looking even more attractive than usual in a dark sweater and pants. I refused to be distracted by his looks, however, or my unstable chemistry. He headed down the stairs towards me, taking them two at a time.
“I’m starting to run out of excuses for getting out of class,” he said with a grin, and gave me a quick kiss. “You’re going to have to help me brainstorm.”
“Having a good day?” I asked, stalling.
“So far, so good. About to get better, I have a feeling.”
He grinned at me again and leaned in for another kiss, but I pulled back, not wanting him to think that’s all we were there for. A look of confusion crossed his face.
I was too nervous all of a sudden to actually smile. He tilted his head to one side and furrowed his brow. “What’s going on?” he asked in a soft, concerned voice.
“I’m losing my mind,” I mumbled.
“What’s wrong? Is this because of your dad? I’m really sorry that he left….”
“No, it’s not that. I don’t want you to think I’m buttering you up. I need to ask you a favor.” I shut my eyes, gathering my resolve. “I want to know if you can help me get back into Dexter.”
He assessed me for a moment, his dark eyes flashing angrily. “Why?”
“My grandmother’s necklace.” At least it was true. “My mother’s going crazy now that she knows I’ve lost it.”
“Why now? You lost it over a year ago. I’d forgotten about it.” He dropped down on the stairs and pressed his chin into the knees of his jeans. He’d smoothed his features back out into a careful, emotionless mask, like he was trying to keep his anger under control.
I shrugged, not coming up with an answer on the spot. “You know Claire; she wants what she wants.”
“No, Ariel,” he said firmly. His dark eyes were trained on me, his expression serious.
“But—”
“Ariel, we can’t,” he pleaded. “It’s not worth the risk. My father is jealously guarding the keys now. He won’t let anyone but his top people there, and he’s expressly forbidden me from going within a mile of the place because he said it’s dangerous. No doubt it is.”
“Or he has other reasons,” I said, budding anger rising in me, too. I fought the urge to grit my teeth together.
“Be that as it may, I still don’t want to piss him off. He even put cameras up on the fence to spot intruders. I don’t know who his security team is; he might have a guard watching it all time.”
“He real
ly is paranoid, isn’t he?” I asked, biting my lip. “Has he still been hitting you?”
Henry shook his head. “Not in a while. Not since he shot Warwick, actually.”
“Do you know that your dad and my mom had a thing together back in the day?” I asked him. The idea of it was still too crazy for me to wrap my head around.
He looked as shocked as I felt. “That’s wild. You mean, like back in the day? How did you find out about that?”
“I heard it during one of my parents shouting matches. The one that broke them up.”
“I’m really, really sorry, Ariel. You don’t know how much I mean that. But I’m sure your mom will understand you not having the necklace.”
“I could be in and out in ten minutes…”
Standing, he grabbed my hands to steady me and brought them to his lips, locking eyes with me. “Ariel. We can’t go back. I don’t want to invite his wrath. For a while there, he was pretty rough. He has enough baggage against me.”
Guilt pinched at me; I didn’t want Henry to get hurt.
“Why is he so protective of Dexter?” I asked, resting my head on his shoulder. “Doesn’t that strike you as… off?”
“Of course it does,” Henry said. “He even paid the city not to condemn it.”
“How do you know that?”
“I heard him talking over the phone. He didn’t even try to hide it; he doesn’t have to. Even the mayor is in his pocket. I’m almost positive he knew about what happened to your friend underneath the shed. Just tell me you won’t go back there.”
“I won’t go back there,” I said.
He pulled me into his arms and hugged me tightly. “You know I would go if I didn’t think it was dangerous. If you want, I’ll help you look for a new necklace at the antique store to replace the old one.”
Luminosity (Gravity Series #3) (The Gravity Series) Page 9