by Laura Ruby
Tess ran to her brother; no sense of self-preservation there, either, thought Jaime. But Jaime was here, on an abandoned island, wandering around a ghost house, a house likely surrounded by bears and who knows what else, so he had to wonder about himself, too. He tucked a finger into his left front pocket, where Ono was dozing.
“We’re okay, Ono,” he muttered.
“Oh no,” said Ono.
“Not helping,” said Jaime.
Jaime came up behind the twins, looked over their heads into what was once an auditorium. The rows of seats had collapsed—or had been crushed—and layers of dirt and dust were thick on the floor.
“What kind of performances did they have here, do you think?” Tess said.
“Hamlet,” said Jaime, backing away. He kept walking down the hallway until he reached the back door, still intact. The wood and the walls here were pockmarked with small tidy holes. He ran his hands across the divots. Then, he opened the door to look at the other side, where the holes were ringed with spiky shards of wood. What could have made these kinds of holes?
Oh no.
“Okay!” said Jaime. “This isn’t the hospital. Let’s get out of here.”
“I want to look upstairs for a minute,” Theo said.
Jaime pointed to the holes in the door. “I can’t be sure, but I think these are bullet holes.” He showed them the outside of the door, where the holes were splintered. “The guns were shot from the inside.”
Theo examined the holes. “Those could have been shot decades ago.”
“What’s your point?” said Jaime.
“That whatever the people were shooting at is surely gone,” Theo answered.
“How do you know that?” Jaime said.
The twins were quiet for a moment, then said, at exactly the same time, “You’re right. Let’s go.”
They didn’t run out of the house exactly, but they didn’t walk, either. And they weren’t as careful in the woods outside, stumbling and tripping over curbs hidden in the undergrowth and vines that snaked along the ground. When it seemed safe to do it, Jaime turned to take one last look at the house.
And he saw a face in the upstairs window.
He shuffled backward and fell, knocking the wind out of his lungs.
“Jaime!” said Tess. “Are you okay?”
“I saw a—” Jaime began, but when he pointed at the house, at the window where the face had been, there was nothing.
“A bear,” he said. “I saw a bear.”
“Very funny,” said Tess, holding out a hand. He took it and she helped him to his feet. He checked the windows of the house one last time, but they were as vacant as they had been when they had first approached the house.
He was losing his mind.
“Let’s look at the map again. Try to figure out which of these buildings is most likely the hospital,” said Jaime.
“We could try this one,” said Theo, pointing. “Looks like it’s the biggest.”
They headed for the next building. Branches clawed and grabbed at them, the dirt and leaves sucked at their shoes, willing them to stop, to lay down, to sleep, to stay, to stay here forever, to—
“Jaime!” said Tess.
“What!”
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.”
“You seemed like—”
“—you were having a spell,” Theo finished for her.
“This place is freaking me out,” Jaime admitted.
“Me too,” said Tess. “The sooner we find the next clue, the sooner we can get out of here.”
But they made it to the next building with no more ghost sightings, no hint of bears. It felt huge, the stone towering over them. Here, too, ivy crawled all over the surface, small birds flew in and out of the broken windows. Between structures, there were tangles of pipes, portions of collapsed roofs or porches, rusting metal boxes that could have been generators.
As soon as they entered and saw the vast sheets of blue tile still affixed to the walls, they knew they’d found the right place.
“The blue,” said Tess. “So the clue is here.”
“We’re looking for red on blue, whatever that means,” said Theo.
“But where? This place is huge.”
Theo said, “Maybe we should split—”
“Don’t even say it,” Jaime said, regretting every scary movie, every horror comic he’d ever read. “We are not splitting up.”
“But we could—”
“No. We stay together, okay?”
Theo shrugged. “Okay.” He checked the watch his aunt had given him. “We have an hour left.”
“We’ll go room to room. And nobody wanders off. You hear me, Theo?”
“Yes, Dad,” Theo grumbled.
“Okay, then,” he said. He started down one long hallway littered with piles of dust, rotting wood, and ceiling tiles. In one room, an old claw-foot bathtub and sink sat in the middle of a pile of bricks. In another, brown vines, bare of leaves, snaked across the walls and ceiling. Piles of books were randomly strewn, some rotting, some still intact. Tess picked up a book.
“Studies on the Effects of Tuberculosis,” she read.
Jaime picked up another. “Baltimore Catechism.”
They dropped the books and kept walking. In another room, they found an old bed, possibly an operating table, that looked more like a torture device. On the floor, in a soup of melted soap, they found a spray of copper keys turning green. In still another room, this one with tile yellow as old teeth, a large rectangular metal container squatted below a ferocious-looking spigot.
“Is this for washing clothes or washing people?” Tess said. Nobody answered her.
After they’d explored most of the bottom floor, they ventured upstairs. Some of the rooms still had steel bed frames in rows where the tuberculosis patients or typhoid patients were housed, some of the rooms had a single bed frame by a window. Graffiti covered many of the walls:
BERTRAND WAS HERE, 1898.
Tell Richard I will love him forever.
I AM ALREADY A GHOST.
Let me out,
let me out,
let me out.
Jaime stopped to look out of one of the windows. He had a perfect view of the sapphire-blue East River and Manhattan sparkling like a mirage on the other side of it. He couldn’t imagine being quarantined here and seeing that city, knowing it was so close and understanding that you might never see it again. He shivered.
“I wish we knew what we were looking for,” said Tess. “We don’t have that much more time.”
Theo said, “That’s why I suggested we split—”
Jaime glared. Theo shut up.
They moved on. Pawing through books and papers, sifting through piles of wood and rubbish, reading the notes and graffiti. Just as he was beginning to despair that they would ever find what they were looking for, they came across more graffiti chalked or etched into the walls. One line curled around the blue-tiled room from one wall to the next, scrawled in chipped red paint:
BURY ME RIGHT NEXT TO LOUIS MG,
THE MOST TALENTED MAN IN THE WHOLE OF THE CITY.
“Who’s Louis MG?” said Tess.
“I don’t know,” Theo said.
“Me, neither,” said Jaime. He pulled out his sketchbook and wrote the message into it.
“Do you think it’s any more important than the others?” said Tess.
“It’s the only thing written in red. And it’s the only writing we’ve seen that indicates a last name. And something about the word bury.”
“Buried treasure?” Theo said.
“Maybe,” said Jaime.
Just then, a loud crash made them all jump. Tess grabbed Theo’s arm; Jaime grabbed Tess’s.
“What was that?” Tess whispered.
“The house settling?” Theo suggested. “At least, that’s what Dad always says.”
They stood as still as they could, listening. Jaime couldn’t be sure if it was his imagination, bu
t he thought he heard footsteps somewhere down below. His skin prickled.
“Do you guys hear that?” he said. Say no, say no, say no.
“Yes,” said Tess. “Someone else is here.”
“Aunt Esther,” Theo said, but he did not sound confident.
Jaime said, “There has to be another staircase on the other side of the building.” He pointed, and the three of them crept as carefully and quietly as they could down the hallway toward a staircase they could only hope existed, and was still usable. But Jaime was right. At the end of the hallway, there was another staircase. They stood listening on the landing.
“Nothing,” said Theo.
“I don’t hear anything, either,” Tess said.
“Maybe it was something else?” Jaime said, relieved. “An animal or—”
Another loud crash, like someone or something charging through a rotting wall. The three of them took the stairs so fast that Jaime bit his tongue as he ran. They burst from the building, stumbling through the vines and bushes, looking for the East River to come into view. But it was only when they’d been running for too long that Jaime realized that they were running in the wrong direction, moving away from water, from their meeting spot with the twins’ aunt. He stopped, both hands on his knees.
“We have to go back the other way,” he said. “This isn’t right.”
Tess turned in a circle. “Which way? Everything is the same!”
“What’s that?” Theo said.
Jaime was afraid to look, afraid that he’d see a ghost or a bear or a ghost-bear lurking in the trees. Instead, he saw something large and squat and boxy. Another building, one not on the map, nestled in the undergrowth, painted green, almost indistinguishable from the surrounding foliage. But why do that? So that it wouldn’t be visible from the sky? A brand-new fence surrounded the property, barbed wire spiky along the top.
“I thought the whole island was abandoned,” said Tess. “I thought you could be arrested if you were discovered here.”
They crept closer to the fence and then stopped abruptly when they heard more footsteps, these louder and heavier than the ones they’d heard before.
From around the building, a shape emerged, impossibly tall, dark-feathered but with spots along its neck. Its feet appeared to be on backward, and a long, vicious claw sprouted from each ankle.
“What is that?” Theo said.
“Jumbie,” said Jaime. “It’s a jumbie.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Tess
At first, Tess did not, could not, move, as her brain tried to make sense of the creature approaching the fence. Feathers? she thought. Spots? Claws? Its knees bent the wrong way, and the tiny head upon its long speckled neck jerked like a chicken’s. But it was the size of a rhino, if a rhino were perched on stilts. It stopped, stared at the woods where they were hidden, then broke into a trot, jumped, launched itself at the fence. Tess, Jaime, and Theo fell back at the same moment the creature hit the wire, bending it outward. It launched itself again and again, screeching.
Only one question churned in Tess’s brain: What is it? What is it? What is it? What—
A beak snapped over their heads, tearing shrieks out of the three of them. The creature didn’t care that the barbed wire bloodied its neck. It launched and screeched and snapped.
Movement behind the creature caught Tess’s eye. A large black cat crept low and stealthy.
“Nine?” Tess breathed. “Nine?”
“Nine isn’t black,” said Jaime. “It looks more like—”
“What?”
The enormous creature snapped again, almost catching Tess in the nose.
“We’ve got to go,” Theo said.
“Nine!” Tess yelled. “Nine!”
The cat glanced up, startled out of the hunt. Tess would have known those eyes anywhere.
“That’s Nine!” Tess said. “That’s her face, that’s her tail, those are her eyes!”
“Tess,” Jaime said.
“IT’S HER,” Tess roared, over the screeching of the feathered creature. Tess had to save the cat, had to, had to free her from his place, from this creature, whatever it was. Nine was brave and strong, but she couldn’t be a match for this sad and angry thing.
But the creature had noticed the cat now and had a new enemy. They circled each other warily. Tess yanked off her pack, searched. Held up the pair of wire cutters Aunt Esther had given them. Just in case.
“Tess!” said Theo.
“Are you sure it’s her?” Jaime said.
“Yes,” Tess hissed, going to work on the wire, sawing at it, squeezing with everything she had. Jaime grabbed at the edges of the cut wire and pulled to make a hole. As soon as it was big enough, Tess crawled through.
“No!” said Theo, “Let Nine come this way!”
But Tess wasn’t listening. She waved her arms. “Hey! I’m right here!”
The creature whipped around, then around again, unsure who was the bigger danger—or the tastier meal—girl or cat.
Girl.
The creature lunged at Tess. The cat jumped, her own vicious claws unsheathed. She raked them against the creature’s back, feathers flying. The creature screamed. The cat ducked and dodged, heading for Tess.
“Nine!” said Tess. She had just gathered Nine into her arms when a man in a green uniform came out of the building carrying some kind of weapon.
“Here!” said Theo. “Tess!” He and Jaime had their arms stuck through the hole in the fence. Tess dived for them. Theo and Jaime hauled her back through.
“Nine! Nine, come on!” said Tess, reaching for her cat.
The man shouted, “Hey! Who’s there?”
His weapon was a crossbow. At least it looked like one. She had only seen them in movies.
Nine hissed. The creature snapped. The man took aim. Shot. The ginormous creature squawked, then drooped to the ground. Tess grabbed for Nine’s collar, pulled.
And someone else—Jaime? Theo?—hauled Tess up by her collar and pushed her.
“Nine!” Tess said, reaching for the cat.
“Go!” a rough voice said. “All of you!”
They ran, crashing through the trees and bushes. Through the foliage, more green structures were visible, more fenced-in creatures. They were a blur of fur and claws and skin and teeth and teeth and teeth, but Tess didn’t stop running. Behind them, a hum filled the air, a vibration that wriggled its way under Tess’s skin and made her itch. Another weapon? Some sort of device that produced sound waves? But she didn’t stop running until they hit the thin strip of scruffy sand at the edge of the island, the blue of the East River in front of them.
“Where’s the dock?” said Theo. “Where’s Aunt Esther?”
“Where’s Nine?” Tess said.
“We ran the wrong way! The dock is around there,” Jaime said, pointing to his left.
On the water, two shapes appeared. Boats, speeding toward them. The two boats split. One heading toward their left side, one heading right.
“They’re trying to trap us!” Theo said.
“Police!” said Tess. “We can’t be caught! Come on, we have to go back.”
“Go back?” said Jaime, his eyes wide and incredulous.
“Through the woods,” Tess said. “We can hide in there, at least.”
“With all those jumbies?”
“With all those what?”
They dove back into the trees, jumping over fallen branches, bumping into ancient fire hydrants covered in ivy, slipping on once-paved roads hidden by vast slicks of wet leaves. In the darkest part of the forest, a pile of bricks and rotting wood appeared, once a cottage or storage house. The fallen roof and rotting wood formed a sort of cave.
“In there,” Tess said. She crawled into the darkness. Theo followed, then Jaime. They hunkered as low as they could. The wood around them groaned, then settled. A million thoughts swirled and smashed in Tess’s head, and she quivered with the strength of the collisions. What was that thing in the
fenced yard? Who had built this facility? Who had told them to run? Who had taken Nine? What was she doing here? How would Tess get her back?
“A giraffe-owary,” whispered Theo.
“Shhhh,” said Jaime.
Of course, Theo was right. A giraffe and cassowary, made vicious through genetic manipulation.
But what for?
The growling and the barking grew louder, men shouted. If those were dogs barking, even if they weren’t enhanced dogs, Tess and the others would be discovered. They would be captured. Maybe they would be experimented on themselves, turned into something else entirely, mixed with snakes or rhinos or lions or bears or spiders or lobsters or—
Jaime and Theo each gripped one of her arms to still her shaking. She closed her eyes and tried to breathe. When she opened them again, her gaze settled on scratches in the plaster in front of her. Crosshatches marking the days. So many crosshatches, years’ worth. Next to the crosshatches, words:
I WILL HAUNT YOU TILL
THE END OF TIME.
Outside, a dog—or something that was once a dog or like a dog—howled. Footsteps came close, closer.
“That way!” said a deep voice. “Under that wood pile!”
Tess, Jaime, and Theo went rigid with terror as the men and the dogs surrounded their hiding place. And then there was a confused “Hey! Who are you?” and another sound, “Ooof!”
A dog yelped. And then another. Tess risked a peek between the slats of wood and saw the animals vanishing into the trees. A man lay on the forest floor, holding his head. Tess looked out the other side of the structure. A small figure in a long silvery-gray coat, face hidden with a hood, kicked one man and then the next. The figure jumped up, banked off the trunk of a tree, and took down two more men in some sort of split kick. The figure swept the legs out from under another man and then brought a fist down on the head of the last. He fell as if an anvil had dropped upon him.
Then the figure turned, the long coat swirling all around like a cape. The figure stopped and called back to them in a low voice. “There’s not that much time! Come!”
They didn’t discuss whether they should follow, they simply scrambled after the figure, hoping they weren’t making another terrible mistake. The figure led them through the trees, past structures new and old so fast that Tess’s sides cramped and she had no time for terror, only the questions that propelled her forward. This time, when they broke through the trees to the beach, they saw the jagged wood of the old dock sticking out of the water, and another sight. The sight of Aunt Esther in her boat, wielding an oar, slugging a man trying to drag her out of her boat and into another one.