I step outside . . . and instantly a wave of dry heat surrounds me. I seem to have entered a rocky desert. Beside the potholed road only a few scrubby plants peek out of the pale reddish dirt. But as I run toward Hank and Elizabeth, the climate seems to change before my eyes. About five feet behind the car, I see the “Welcome to Summer Falls” sign and suddenly I’m walking on vibrant green grass. The road from here on looks smooth, new. When I’d looked down at the valley from the falls, I’d told myself that regions don’t shift that abruptly and, up close, the change in landscape would be subtle, gradual, not a clear line where green meets gray.
Yet here in front of me is a clear line between Summer Falls and the world outside it.
As if Summer Falls were somehow exempt from the surrounding drought. Free from the punishing dry wind and barren soil. Saved from the grayness and poverty they lead to. I stare at the line, remembering the angry faces of those three young men from Green Vista who crashed our fair and kidnapped our yearly town photo. No wonder the areas around our town feel such a bitter rivalry toward us. We seem to be immune to Mother Nature.
“How the hell did you get out?” Hank grabs her arm and tries to pull her along with him back toward the car.
“Take your hands off her!” I yell, though Elizabeth is doing great on her own. She won’t cross the line into gray land. It’s as if she’s got superstrength.
Hank’s breathing heavy, and finally he gives up. “What are you, some kind of witch?”
Of course. She must be an occultist. That must be why she doesn’t have to run from the ghosts.
“I answer to a higher law than you, baby boy,” she says, as if by way of explanation. “Don’t take it personally.” Then she pats him on the head. He really does look as lost as a child. “You’ll forget. Soon.”
Those words send a warning chill to my bones. Wandering toward the highway from a nearby thicket of aspen trees is a familiar pigtailed figure, still in her peach frilly apron and baker’s hat from the fair. Hazel. Confusion roots my feet to the ground. Did she escape from the asylum? Do people get let out after all?
Then Hazel stretches her skinny arms toward Sheriff Hank. His mouth forms an O just before he crumples onto the spongy, forgiving Summer Falls grass. Hazel grins at me next, her apron fluttering in the breeze, her pale, papery skin shimmering. My heart jumps in my throat. Poor Hazel never left the asylum. She must have died there. Her body’s probably still frozen in a morgue locker, but her spirit’s back in Summer Falls. Her hungry eyes focus on me.
I don’t have to wait for Elizabeth to yell, “Run like the wind, girl!”
I race for the car, tumble into the driver’s seat, and slam the door.
Even as I turn the ignition and hear the engine come to life, Ghost Hazel’s still chasing me in the rearview mirror, and then—bam. Just as she reaches the town limits, it’s like she hit an invisible wall. She turns around and wanders off, away from me. Once again, Elizabeth doesn’t bother to run from her.
So a ghost can’t get past the edge of town. Weirder, neither can Elizabeth. That’s why she wasn’t worried about going to the asylum. Well, either that or because she’s crazy. But Sheriff Hank was right: She must be doing magic. What other explanation is there? If Marshall were here—then I remember I’m driving to the asylum and might never see Marshall again. For the best.
I drive along the empty highway and follow the signs toward the state mental hospital. I’m expecting the asylum to be some creepy old castle at the top of a hill. But the hospital complex is extremely modern-looking, surrounded by a gate, not a moat.
I drive up to the gate, hoping that if there’s no free visitor parking I can maybe try to charm whoever’s manning the entrance into letting me through. Instead of an attendant though, there’s just an electronic card reader. Crap.
I reach into the glove compartment, pull out a white card, and swipe it. The gate parts, letting the sheriff’s car through. Once in the indoor garage, I make my way to the elevator—keeping my eyes peeled for nosy personnel—where I swipe the card again. I hit level four, the top floor, “Catatonia.” That’s where the Summer Falls people will be. Maybe where Grandma Bets will be.
The elevator drops me off at a landing with double doors.
There’s no glass window on the door, so I can’t peek. I have no choice but to walk through and take the chance of being instantly caught and removed . . . or worse. I take a deep breath and walk through the double doors.
Instead of a waiting room or nurse’s station, I find myself in a giant dorm room with octagonal black-and-white floor tiles and equally ancient-looking, lumpy single mattresses with faded puke-green sheets. Some people are lying in bed, staring at the wall pensively. Some are even tied to their beds, staring at the ceiling. Most are older, like Kerry said they would be, but not all. I nearly trip on a pale, small-boned young woman sitting cross-legged near the doorway. “Sorry,” I say, leaning over to make sure she’s okay. She just keeps gaping at the far wall.
I follow her gaze . . . and my eyes lock on the very familiar young face of the guy leaning up against that wall. He’s wearing a green gown instead of the orange jacket I know him by, his luxurious golden hair has been shaved, and his cheerful swagger has been replaced by a slump, but I know that face. Only days ago, I was kissing that face.
“Dan, are you okay?” I rush to his side, kneel down, and wave my hands in front of his face, but he doesn’t acknowledge my existence. Is this my fault too?
In the corner sits an olive-skinned man with glasses and shaggy hair graying at the temples. His legs are straight ahead of him, his green eyes focused on the far wall, his brow furrowed, as if deep in thought.
I can’t look away from his eyes. So much like mine.
Oh my god.
“Dad?” My voice is tiny. “It’s me. Elyse.”
The man’s expression stays somber, carved, implacable as a mountain.
“You don’t remember me,” I say, wondering if he can even understand me. “I remember you, a little bit,” I say. “You pushed me on the swing set. You and Mom held my hand on either side so I could jump—it felt like flying, but I knew you were holding me tight and you’d never let me fall.”
He blinks once, twice.
Heartened by even this tiny response, I go on. “I remember learning to ride a bike, when you ran behind me. My journal says you disappeared that year, and Mom cried in the garden, but then—”
Suddenly the man who was once my father lunges for me, his eyes wide, his flat hand heading fast for my face. But strangely my body doesn’t flinch. I go still and silent as his hand covers my mouth.
Half a second later, I hear the elevator buzz and footsteps in the hallway. Voices. No, one voice. The doctor’s on his cell phone. Shit shit shit. What now?
Just as the double doors open, I dive into the bottom shelf of the supply closet and the man who was once my father covers me with a thick, scratchy blanket. Darkness envelops me.
My heart’s pounding so hard, I can barely hear what the doctor’s saying on his cell phone as he enters the ward.
“. . . and we are so close to a cure for this tragic illness,” a friendly male voice says. “Our researchers have narrowed its cause down to a metallic toxin, the makeup of the local soil, or just the air itself. . . . Ten mill would go far, yes. Fifteen would get us further. Thank you. I look forward to hosting the grant committee in Summer Falls again.” Click. The doctor sighs, then hits a button on his phone.
“Preston,” he says in a decidedly quieter tone. Preston? Is the doctor really on the phone with the evil town founder himself? “There’s nothing I can do without more staff. Problems keep increasing. Oh, really?” His pitch rises. “Well, if you have such a problem with my stewardship, why not come out here and run the asylum all by yourself? Oh, wait . . .” He snaps his finger. “I plumb forgot. You can’t leave town! Ha-ha-ha.”
Preston can’t leave town? Is he just too busy or . . . suddenly my mind flashes back to the
sheriff struggling to get Elizabeth back into the car, but her body just wouldn’t budge across that line. She literally could not leave the town. “I answer to a higher power than you, baby boy.” My mind is racing. All this time I’d been thinking of the founder as a man, William Phillips Preston. But if someone can magically own a town and live forever, what’s to stop him from changing his gender at will too? There’s probably a spell for it, even. What if Elizabeth is the founder of Summer Falls? But then . . . why would she be constantly vandalizing her own creation? But if it’s not her, who else could it be? The answer is: it could be anyone. Or no one. Terrifying thought: the founder is probably powerful enough to take any form.
“I’m going to tell it to you like it is,” the doctor goes on, “because I have no reason to kiss your ass. Your spell’s fading. As they do, after a hundred years. What’s the matter, having trouble finding overambitious suckers to hire these days?” He gives a hearty laugh. “You’re kidding, right? Boy, you must be desperate to even ask. No thanks, boss. You know I like my body intact and my pocketbook comfortably full.”
Desperate. The founder—who he, she, or it was—was desperate for fresh blood, for occultists to refresh the ritual. Occultists who were “overambitious suckers”; in other words, Marshall’s mother, who’d dreamed of claiming the place of power for herself but had died there instead. And Marshall seems determined to follow in her footsteps.
I have to go back. Have to warn Marshall. If I can make it out of here alive.
Chapter 28
MARSHALL
I search the crowd of fairgoers on Main Street but can’t see Elyse, and I get tired quickly of drunk and dropped tourists constantly bumping into me because they didn’t notice I was there. So I shuffle back home, half expecting her to be there already. But no, the only person there is my dad, snoring on the couch while ESPN drones in the background. Where the hell’s Elyse? Don’t be another Dan, I tell myself. Back off, give her some space. She has a right to be upset. She needs time to regroup, then she’ll come back. In the meantime I wind up the music box, light my candle, and wait for the movie of my past to start playing a scene.
—
Ding-ding.
For an unsure moment, Bill and Eva and I sit speechless at the kitchen table, forks frozen over our bowls of stew. We’ve never heard that sound before.
Then I spring up, excited. “It’s the doorbell! I’ll go see who it is.”
My best-case scenario is a special delivery of some spell books Eva ordered from Peru. Instead, standing on the rain-soaked doorstep is Elyse.
Her hair’s soaked straight, stuck to her neck in wet clumps. Cheeks pink, like she’s been sprinting. White puffy jacket and jeans drenched. I’ve never seen anything more beautiful than the sight of her.
She squints at me but can’t quite see me through the protection spell.
“Hey.” I wave at her.
Immediately her eyes focus on mine. “Hey,” she says. Then, “You said I could come by anytime.”
“Yeah, I meant that,” I say. “Come on in. I’ll set another place for dinner,” I add, like this happens all the time. Like my heart isn’t thrashing around in my chest.
She deposits her sneakers by the door between my work boots and Eva’s ballet flats, unpeels her wet socks and stuffs them inside each shoe. I catch her staring at Bill’s giant Doc Marten boots (size 17). In fact, she stares at everything in our living room. Dad’s set of dumbbells. The IKEA bookcases overflowing with ancient clothbound volumes.
“You guys have more books than the library!” I can’t tell from her tone whether that’s a compliment, an insult, or sheer disbelief.
I reintroduce Elyse to my parents (“Her parents run the bed-and-breakfast, remember?”) and move some books and papers from the end of the kitchen table so she can join us for dinner.
“Nice to see you again,” says Eva, though I know she’s forgotten Elyse.
“I was exploring a root-vegetable theme tonight.” Bill eases a steaming pot onto the centerpiece trivet and ladles out a bowlful for Elyse. “Petite carrots, yams, parsnips, and celeriac.”
“Wait . . . you cooked this?” Elyse glances from him to Eva and back, then blinks over and over, as if her brain is still trying to process that. My parents keep eating, ignoring her as deftly as they ignore me.
“This stew reminds me of winter,” Eva says after a while. “Real winter.”
“Well, it is winter,” Elyse says, looking confused.
“She means actual, freezing-cold winter,” I say, again with the nervousness that comes out smug. “Like we had back in Vermont, or Bern. Or Siberia.”
Elyse sets down her fork. “I get it.” She holds my gaze. “You’ve been everywhere, and I’ve been nowhere.”
I can feel a hot blush spread across my face. I hadn’t meant to come across as a show-offy asshole, but I can see why she thought I was being one. Suddenly, instead of wanting to impress her, I want to win her approval, but I don’t know how. I sit there, tongue-tied.
“I love your ballet flats, Eva,” Elyse says politely, changing the subject. “Where’d you buy those?”
Eva smiles. “Hong Kong,” she says, glancing at Bill.
He cracks up. “God, was that a crazy trip . . .”
“Year of the Monkey!” they both squeal, grinning and nudging each other.
“Just ignore them,” I mutter. “They kind of live in their own world.”
After dinner Elyse lingers at the table until Eva excuses herself to go back to her desk to work, and Bill starts washing the dishes. Elyse offers to dry them, but Bill says, “Why don’t you go start your homework?”
“Sure. I mean, I guess I could stay longer, if you don’t mind.”
She wants to stay here longer, despite my being such an ass and my parents being weirdos? I toss her a soda and try to play down my nervous excitement. Elyse, hanging out in my room.
Must pretend I don’t care about the mess, that’s the only way to play it.
“So, you want to start with our math homework?” she says, sitting on the floor and opening her backpack.
I’m about to reach for my Trig book when it occurs to me that I may never, ever have this opportunity again. Elyse is in my room. I have to make it count. “What’s the point of doing math homework, really?” I say.
Her eyebrows go up. “Grades, graduating?”
“One day won’t make a difference. You’re going to California to be in movies, so wouldn’t it be more educational to spend the evening watching an Oscar-winning performance?”
She grins. “Okay . . . just this once.”
Wisely avoiding the bed, we sit side by side on the floor in front of my laptop, browsing descriptions of recent Oscar winners for Best Actress. She finally picks Erin Brockovich and we both sit there, riveted. She’s riveted by the story of one heroic woman fighting for the truth against powerful forces of corruption. I’m riveted by her, the one girl in Summer Falls who knows what’s going on.
When it’s over she says, “I’ve never gotten so into a movie before. I don’t want to go home. I feel so relaxed here.”
“Even with my crazy parents and their passive-aggressive weirdness?”
She snorts. “That’s nothing. You have no idea what it’s like to be running scared all the time. I don’t think I even knew until I walked in here. I feel almost . . . safe?”
I touch her arm, just for a moment. “You are safe.”
She takes a deep breath when I say that and lets it out. Her eyes look shiny. I hit some kind of nerve. Found her weak spot. A good person would back off of this train of thought, suggest another movie. A PG comedy.
I’m an evil person. I want to see the real Elyse, under all that armor. I want to know how it feels to have the queen of Summer Falls High School crying in my arms.
I push a lock of hair out of her eyes and say it again. “You’re safe here, Elyse. Nothing bad can get you here.”
Her eyes flutter, like she’s blinking back
tears. But she doesn’t cry. Instead she leans in and kisses me, hard, grinding her lips against mine. My mind is numb with shock, but I feel my body respond instantly. Before I know it my hands are in her hair, grabbing it, pulling her close to me, and my tongue’s parted her lips. She’s softly moaning.
I pause. “Hey, um, what about jock-boy?”
“I don’t care.” She grabs my shoulders and looks into my eyes. “I don’t care about him, I don’t care about anything, just don’t stop.”
“Whatever you say.”
Her lips brush the side of my neck, then she bites it. A growl escapes me and I yank the back of her hair. I roll on top of her, covering her mouth with mine, her low happy moans melting into the lower, softer sounds coming from me. She guides my hand under her top, to her smooth warm stomach. Suddenly the darkness is interrupted by a blue light.
She pulls her mouth from mine. “What’s that?”
“Nothing.” I climb off her, embarrassed. “This just happens to me sometimes.” When I’m really happy or excited. Rarely. Almost never. “It’s a surge of magic.”
“Oh, okay. That’s kinda cool.” She reaches for me again.
“Wait, you’re not weirded out by it?”
“Not really weirded out by anything.” Her hands are behind her back now, undoing her bra. “Remember, you’ve seen the world. But I’ve seen Summer Falls.”
—
Afterward, she puts her clothes back on, silently, mechanically, under the covers so I can’t even see. It’s like she’s a different person now. The aloof ice queen she used to be, the girl who could hardly believe I’d have the gall to approach her in school. It’s hard to believe we were as close as it’s possible for two people to get only a minute ago.
“Hey, I just want you to know that I’ve been tested,” I say, because now that I’m back to my senses too, bullshit is back to flowing from my mouth. Lies to make myself seem more suave, less vulnerable. I’ve never been tested for STIs, for the excellent reason that I never needed to be. The whole V thing.
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