Oddly, he looked relieved, like he welcomed the confirmation that this wasn’t all in his head. This only made Vera’s chest ache more, because it proved what she’d already suspected—he truly had no idea how bad this was going to get.
* * *
Vera cracked open the back door to her house, millimeter by millimeter, and crept inside. But before she could carefully close the storm door, her neighbor’s little white puff let out a yap. She swore that four-legged snitch was out to get her.
She narrowed her eyes, and the dog yapped on.
Vera shut the door, muffling its calls, then crept up the stairs and past her aunt’s room—not a stir. She slipped into her bedroom and tiptoed into her private bathroom, tempted to take a shower and erase the smell of flowers that clung to her hair and the tears that had dried on her skin, but it would be hard to explain a post–one a.m. shower to her aunt.
She clutched her phone. She’d called her parents during the drive. They didn’t answer. She left a message, not divulging everything but professing it was an emergency. She promised to stay up for their call. So she washed her face and waited for the ring.
Something happened back at that house. Not just with his mother, but with Vera. When she stood on the curb waiting for Maxwell, she wasn’t just drowning in fear and sadness, there was something else, something more shameful coursing inside her. Exhilaration. Vera’s world shifted into a primal battle of good and evil, right and wrong, black and white, and she could see how her parents would be seduced by this. There was a rush in knowing you were doing something life-altering, soul-transforming. All these years, her entire childhood, creeping past that basement door like a constant game of Operation where you couldn’t graze the edges, now gained a fresh perspective. Her parents were protecting the world from darkness; she knew that before, but she didn’t get it. Now she did.
Vera dried the water drops from her face, inhaling the scent of detergent on her terry cloth towel. It was her scent, her home. She padded across her bedroom floor, toes sinking into the soft fibers of her area rug, pink nails flashing back. She couldn’t believe she’d painted her toenails for him, like she actually thought this somehow mattered. Everything seemed so trivial now, the entire world outside of this situation dimmed, no problem nearly as vibrant.
She peeled back the covers to her bed and slipped in, the sheets cool from the hum of the air conditioner lodged in the window. Her eyes fixed on her whirling ceiling fan.
First Maxwell lost his dad in what she thought was the most horrific way possible; now he was losing his mother. His sister was only seven years old.
Vera refused to let this town devour another family.
This town…
What was wrong with this town?
Her eyes felt heavy, and she struggled against her exhaustion, gripping her phone. She forced her lids open, but sleep soon swaddled her tight.
* * *
In her dream, he’s wearing coveralls the color of dried noonday mud. A scratched white hard hat is firm on his head, shielding the feral look in his eyes. His pupils are too large, but his crew members don’t notice. It’s another day on the job. Vera can feel their complacency.
A man struggles with a jackhammer, Hulk-like muscles straining as sweat soaks his stained white T-shirt. Cars pull into the lot beside the workers, a line forming down the block.
He strides past. Vera knows his face. It’s been in the news.
He says he needs to enter the building, check the pressure before they disconnect the sensors and replace old pipes. No one stops him. He belongs here.
He cuts through the crowd in the lobby forming two messy queues beneath a sign that reads Tickets. A concession stand displays clear plastic cups full of ice and pink lemonade. The air smells of chocolate chip cookies. How can she smell that?
A frenzy of basketball sneakers squeaks in the distance. Vera’s heart encrusts in ice. She knows what’s about to happen; so does the man, yet calm emanates from his pores.
He descends the gritty concrete steps to the basement, and his dilated pupils cut across the dank room. The pressure gauge, it calls to him.
He approaches the round device, a white clocklike dial with crimson tick marks attached to a thick copper pipe. Its needle is steady and accurate.
He knows what he must do.
No! Vera mentally screams. Stop! Please!
A phone rings.
He doesn’t react.
Stop! Don’t do this! These people, they’re innocent!
The phone keeps trilling, quick melodic bursts. It sounds urgent. No, it feels urgent.
Where is it?
Who is it?
He lifts a bulky metal wrench high above his head, prepared to hammer down on the gas gauge, his muscles bulging.
No!
The phone screams.
Someone should answer.
No, she should answer.
The call is for her.
* * *
Vera blinked open her eyes and found herself standing in front of her rustic basement door, her arm outstretched, fingers reaching for the scratchy brass knob.
Her hand jerked back.
What just happened?
She swung in all directions. She stood in the kitchen, lit by silvery moonlight wedging through the horizontal blinds. The sun had yet to rise.
Did she sleepwalk?
She’d never done that. Ever.
And to the basement door?
Do not open that door, do not touch that door, and do not break the seal of the blessings. It was the family mantra.
Her heart stuttered as she fell back a step, disoriented. How close had she come to unleashing a den of evil onto the world?
A phone rang in the distance. She spun to the clock on the microwave: 2:32 a.m.
It all rushed back. Maxwell. Chloe. His mom. Vera’s mom.
She was calling.
Her bare feet padded through the living room and up the stairs, two at a time. She had walked all this way in her sleep, her body moving beyond her control. Her mind was someplace else—the dream, it felt so real, so vibrant. Like the others.
She threw open her bedroom door and dove for her cell phone on its final ring.
“Hello,” she panted into the receiver.
“Vera, honey, it’s Mom. What’s wrong?”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Vera
The next morning, Vera crawled into work with bleary eyes. After the conversation with her mother, following her dreamy wandering, questions bubbled in her brain all night. There were no good answers.
Vera yanked the metal latch on her hospital locker, tossing in a fresh set of clothes. She was meeting Maxwell after work to recap the call, which included her mother insisting Vera go nowhere near the Oliver house again, not until they returned home. That left Vera to decide whether to defy her parents or abandon Maxwell.
“Hey, you!” Chelsea cheered as she barreled into the changing room, her scrubs as bright as a fresh-cut lime.
Vera wore blackish-red scrubs so dark a patient could spit blood on her chest and no one would notice. She didn’t understand why the entire staff didn’t wear the same. She didn’t understand a lot of things lately.
“Hey.” Vera yawned.
“You look awful.” Chelsea grimaced.
So much for the under-eye concealer. Vera slammed her locker.
The doors pushed open and Samantha sauntered through, pecking her girlfriend’s lips and smiling as if they hadn’t just seen one another the night before. Vera’s chest sagged more. She’d never had that with anyone, and maybe for the first time, she wanted it—not in a general sense, but with someone specific, someone she was pretty sure didn’t feel the same way. How could he? His family was in a deadly, otherworldly situation, and there was no way he had space to c
onsider anything more than that. Vera was the girl he thought could help. He didn’t choose her, at least not in the way she wanted.
“What’s up with you?” Samantha eyed Vera’s wilted appearance.
“I was up half the night.” Vera pulled at her knotted neck, remembering her mother’s words.
You are in too deep. That was what she’d said when she learned of Vera’s sleepwalking. Not “You’re okay,” or “It’s happened to me too,” or, what Vera secretly hoped, “I always knew.” A tiny piece of Vera’s soul longed for the sleepwalking to confirm a connection to her parents. Maybe she was like them after all. But her mother stomped that hope under her foot, even from across an ocean.
The darkness is moving in, Mom insisted. Do not invite the demon any closer.
As if Vera were consciously choosing to wake up in the kitchen with her hand stretching for the basement door. As if she were tossing around Evites to every demon on the block. Was it really that impossible to believe that Vera could be inheriting a smidge of the power her family possessed? Apparently, to her mother, it was. Vera could hear it in her voice—she thought that her daughter was too weak to handle this situation and that the demon was taking advantage.
Cue the late-night hours staring at her ceiling fan, afraid that if she closed her eyes, a hand with knives for fingers might pop through her mattress and lead her down to the demonic basement.
“You know, someone at TSC recommended this herbal Sleepytime tea. It’s really helped. I could bring you some,” Samantha offered.
“The Sunshine group? I didn’t realize you were going to meetings.” Vera cut her a look.
Last night, when she’d walked to the basement, she’d been dreaming about Seth Durand, that he caused the explosion on purpose. She watched him slam a silver wrench into the gas meter. She didn’t know if the dream was true, or if it was just her overactive mind inventing scenarios, or if her brush with Maxwell’s mother left a mark on her subconscious, but the Sunshine Crew was started by Seth Durand’s wife and son. And despite the glaring hypocrisy, Vera didn’t feel comfortable with her friend cozying up to that family.
Besides, Maxwell’s mother had been a member and look at her now.
“Mostly I just go in the chat rooms.” Samantha’s voice was nonchalant.
“Well, I wouldn’t get too close,” Vera hedged, trying not to sound judgey.
“Why?” Samantha shrugged. “It’s been helping. I think everything bothering me about Brian’s death stems from a rigid mindset. I’ve been stuck in a cycle of destructive thinking.”
“Ugh.” Chelsea rolled her eyes. “Those are nonsense words.”
“No, they’re helping me find peace,” Samantha huffed, slipping on her hospital sneakers. “My mom is like a new person.”
“Because she’s brainwashed,” Chelsea mocked.
“She is not! Stop it.” Samantha swatted her arm.
“Whatever. Just don’t buy me a yellow hat.” Chelsea shook her blond hair, swinging toward Vera. “By the way, did you hear about Mr. Gonzalez?”
“No. What?” Vera’s brow furrowed.
“He croaked. Late yesterday.” She sounded like it was good news.
Vera’s shoulders caved. She had completely forgotten to mention him to her mother; she was too consumed with sleepwalking and Maxwell’s mom. Now the old man was dead. Before that one horrible experience, Mr. Gonzalez had been a gentle soul who loved, and dearly missed, his wife.
Vera closed her eyes, offering a silent prayer. Mr. Gonzalez, I hope you find peace with your wife….
“What are you doing?” Chelsea asked.
Vera lifted her lashes. “Saying a prayer?” It came out like a question.
“Oh, great.” Chelsea’s face twisted. “First her with the TSC. Now you’re finding Jesus.”
“Well, (a) I was raised Catholic, and (b) the man died.”
“After he threatened you.”
“He was sick and confused and alone.”
“Actually, he wasn’t that alone. His son was here earlier.” Chelsea shifted to one hip. “And he threw that shrine in the trash.”
“Really?” Samantha sounded shocked.
“Yes, really.” Chelsea’s eyes narrowed. “Those shrines are popping up all over the hospital, and they’re freaking people out. A whole group is planning to bring it up at the next staff meeting.”
“Good.” Vera nodded. She didn’t want to reveal how much she knew about the dangers of demons and idol worship, but the less creepiness spreading through town, the better.
“I thought you said it was religious expression?” Samantha glared at Vera like she’d switched sides. “Everyone has their own way of grieving. Peace comes in many forms.”
“I know, but this isn’t healthy,” said Vera.
“Says who? Why is the Angel of Tears different from a cross? Or the Star of David? Or a statue of Buddha?”
Samantha knew the idol’s name. Why? Vera’s gaze narrowed.
“Because the Angel of Tears has nothing to do with spiritual fulfilment. It’s about taking advantage of people who are already vulnerable and suffering. Just look at the name. Kinda ominous, don’t you think?” Vera didn’t want to tell them about her parents’ work, Maxwell’s mom, or the face of the Angel appearing in the fog (they’d think she was losing it), but she had to offer a little glimpse behind the demonic curtain. “Besides, worshipping idols, especially creepy ones that cry black tears and convince you to pray for death, is like playing with a Ouija board in a cemetery on Halloween.”
“Well, maybe death isn’t so bad.”
Vera blinked at her, momentarily stunned. Then she snuck a peek at Chelsea, whose lips were also parted in shock.
“Are you okay?” Chelsea put her hand on her girlfriend’s shoulder.
“Just forget it,” Samantha huffed, shaking her off. “When you guys lose someone close to you, come back and tell me how you deal with it.”
Then she marched out of the room.
* * *
At lunch, Vera waited outside the hospital’s main entrance. She and Maxwell agreed to find a place away from the clattering cafeteria talk.
Vera ran her hands along her cotton scrubs, scanning the cars for the candy-apple-red truck she’d seen parked in his driveway. Eventually, he emerged in a Mets cap, his sunglasses glinting in the afternoon sun.
“I parked in the far lot,” Maxwell called as a greeting. “I needed some air.”
“Understandable.”
Then he hugged her. There was no hello, he just wrapped his arms around her like they were meant to be there. After last night, maybe they were. A collective fear had bonded them. She squeezed her hands around his neck, fingering the cotton seam of his hat.
“You okay?” she asked, her lips close to his skin.
“As good as I can be.” He pulled back, not far, only a few inches, and he kept a hand on her hip. She liked that more than she hoped she let on. “Chloe is staying at her friend’s tonight.”
“The girl from yesterday?” Vera remembered the mom.
“Yeah. Her mom’s not as bad as she acted. Really.”
Maxwell didn’t need to apologize. In fact, if he tried to atone for all the people in Roaring Creek who treated Vera like a wart-nosed witch luring them into an oven, he’d need to block off some serious time.
“Does Chloe have any idea what happened last night?”
“No, nothing. She slept straight through it. But get this.” He took his hand off her hip. “Before she left for Alexis’s, she told me she left an apple outside our mom’s door, so—and I quote—‘Mom will get Sophie to invite me to her pool party on July Fourth.’ What the hell is that? Why does she think Mom can do stuff like that?”
An edge of uneasiness pricked at Vera’s gut. Interacting with whatever was inside his mother was
terrifying, but leaving it offerings or asking it for favors felt like DMing a serial killer. “Kids are really susceptible. They trust more. They’re fooled more. You’ve got to keep her away.”
“I will. I’m trying.”
“I know.” Vera nodded once. “How about you? How are you doing?”
He fiddled with the curved brim of his hat, hiding his eyes, but she could see the muscles flex in his jaw. “How do you think?” He gestured to the footpath. “Let’s walk.”
Vera followed him past the splintered bench where they had sat the afternoon he came to meet her. It oddly felt like weeks ago, not days.
Maxwell followed her stare. “I guess you believe me now,” he joked, remembering their interaction.
“I’m sorry I was so tough before. It’s not that I didn’t believe you…”
“No, I get it. Anything makes more sense than what’s actually going on.” He strolled so close his fingers brushed the back of her hand, and she wondered briefly if he’d take it.
They neared the footbridge arching over the creek and traipsed to the center. Maxwell put both hands on the railing, carved from twisted natural branches, resting his full weight like he needed the support to stand. She pressed beside him, gazing at the rushing water. The sounds of a soccer game rose from behind the tree line—a whistle blowing, a crowd cheering. Farther down the creek, classmates lounged on the banks of Devil’s Pool, where a taller stone bridge soared across the widest and deepest part of the stream. A figure in a cherry-red bikini dropped from the apex, plummeting to the rippling surface as her squeal traveled on a breeze that smelled of fresh-cut grass.
“You know, I’ve never swum in the creek,” Vera admitted, watching her classmates bathe in the blistering sun.
“Seriously?” He side-eyed her.
“It always felt like something you needed to be invited to. I mean, I know it’s a public place, but…” She gestured to the group, small as insects from where they stood, but unified as a swarm. “Everyone knows each other.”
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