by Lisa Unger
“Okay, then let’s go after Sam and help her,” suggested Ian again.
Then, not waiting for a response, he went to the van and lifted out his equipment pack—who knew what might be needed at Havenwood?—shouldered it and headed out into the woods. He remembered the way there just like it was yesterday.
Had Liz been here with him, she would feel the energy from the ground beneath their feet. He didn’t remember feeling it when he was a kid, before he knew about vortexes and energy centers, ground that had been scarred and disrupted by battles, or murders, or any manner of human misery.
But he felt it now, a kind of agitated vibration, as he let the trees behind Merle House swallow him, Claire at his heels.
6.
Do you know what today is?” asked Avery March.
She was dressed down in faded jeans and a black hoodie, hiking boots. In the daylight, her eyes were the same stormy gray as her hair, rimmed red as if she had been crying.
Matthew looked in the direction of the woods, where his two childhood friends had disappeared into the dark between the trees, following his wife, who was following his daughter. He should be running after them; distantly, he knew that. But a strange heaviness, a deep lethargy, had taken hold.
“What?” he asked irritably. “What’s today?”
“It’s Amelia’s birthday. Our birthday.”
He didn’t know what to say, so he said nothing at first. Then: “That must be hard.”
She blinked at him. Man, she was a weird one.
“Did you ever meet Amelia?” Avery asked.
No one had ever asked him that after the first night they were questioned, because he hadn’t lived here full-time, hadn’t gone to school here. He’d grown up on the Gulf Coast of Florida, only spending the summers at Merle House. But, yes, in fact, he had met Amelia. Mason had brought him to the pizzeria where she’d worked, said they might get some free slices.
“No,” he said. “I don’t think so.”
She nodded, keeping those strange stormy eyes on him.
“I’ve been doing a little reading,” said March. “About your troubles back at home. That missing woman, the one with whom you were having an affair.”
Matthew didn’t say anything. That was best, he’d found, always. Say nothing.
“Seems statistically unlikely that someone would be connected, however loosely, to two missing women. And now your daughter has run off.”
He was about to make some vague denial when yet another car pulled up, a loud, beat-up old muscle car, black primer for a paint job. A young man whom Matthew had never seen before climbed out. He wore jeans and a retro Yankees jersey; not a young man, a kid, someone who looked barely old enough to be driving.
What now?
“Can I help you?” asked Matthew, annoyed, and growing more anxious by the second, about Avery’s questions, his missing daughter, and whoever the hell this kid was.
“I’m Eldon?” the kid said, running a big hand through floppy curls, looking up at the house.
“Is that supposed to mean something to me?”
“I’m a friend of Jewel’s.”
Oh, Eldon. Really? Matthew knew his name from the texts on Jewel’s phone. Some kid she’d met online. Perfect.
“Is that so?” said Matthew with what he hoped was an intimidating frown.
Eldon looked down sheepishly. “I—uh—we met online. I think she might be in trouble?”
“Why do you think so?” asked March, of course leaping on the moment.
It came out in a ramble—how they’d met on one of those ridiculous games, started texting, getting closer. She’d told him how they’d moved out to some house in the middle of nowhere, that she thought it was haunted. He went on about the online Ouija board, how the Dark Man had killed her on the game. And the last thing she texted him. He read it out loud:
“I see the girl again, the one from the graveyard. I think she needs my help. I’ll text you in a bit.”
Matthew hadn’t read anything like that. On the other hand, he hadn’t checked Jewel’s texts in a couple of days, caught up as he had been with his own issues. Then, when he’d checked the app after he’d discovered her missing, it was blank. All of it. As if things had been deleted. The app was glitchy in general. He clicked on it again. Still blank.
“When I didn’t hear from her again, I got worried,” Eldon was saying, talking fast. Rambling, really, the way kids did. So he’d done a little detective work and found out more about her, about Merle House. She’d mentioned the name of her new town once. He didn’t live far, just two hours away. He came because he was worried about his online friend, a girl he’d never met in the flesh.
So much for all that internet safety they’d taught Jewel, thought Matthew. If this kid could find her, then anyone could. He felt a rush of fear. What if she hadn’t just run off to create drama?
“When was that?” asked March.
“Late last night.” Eldon glanced at his phone. “A little after midnight.”
Last night? Jewel had been missing since last night and neither one of them had noticed? Parents of the year.
“I wasn’t sure what to do,” Eldon went on. “I mean, I don’t want her to think I’m stalking her or whatever. But from the things she said, I thought I should come try and help her.”
Matthew didn’t say anything, just stared at the kid, who shifted nervously from foot to foot. Eldon went on, his voice a little wobbly. “In the game, you know, she always had my back.”
Avery March was already headed for the woods, and after a moment of staring at this strange kid, Matthew followed. Eldon didn’t ask what he should do; he just headed after them into the woods.
7.
The room was luxe, big couches and plush pillows bigger than her torso, ultrasoft velvet throws. Above them strings of fairy lights twinkled, and Jewel felt relaxed to the point of being drugged.
“I thought you said you didn’t like it here,” she said to Amelia, who lazed on the couch across from her. Something passed across the other girl’s face.
“I miss my sister.”
Distantly, this connected to something Jewel knew, and for a second she could hear the shouting of her own faraway voice. But it was growing fainter and fainter. The fog kept swirling, and what stood outside the fog seemed like a dream.
“You can stay here if you want,” Amelia said. She twisted a strand of her long dark hair, bounced one long slender leg over the other. Her Converse sneakers were tattered and worn.
“Can I?” Jewel said.
“Yes,” said the other girl. “You just have to ask him.”
You just have to ask him. Never take anything from a stranger, her mother’s voice warned. And Mom’s voice was loud in her head, startling Jewel and making the fog dissipate some. She sat upright.
Amelia came to sit beside her and dropped an arm around Jewel’s shoulders. She was warm and smelled like flowers. There was another scent too. Something not as nice, deeper. Her breath was icy cold.
“I’ll take you to him,” said Amelia. “Just to talk.”
“Where is he?”
“In the basement.”
Amelia stood and did a kind of twirling little dance, her body lithe, her hair fanning around her—she was fairy and princess, a stunning beauty whom Jewel found utterly mesmerizing. When Amelia reached out her hand, Jewel took it and allowed herself to be led away.
The hallway was long and gray, walls crumbling. A row of painted doors, a peeling rust color, with heavy metal knobs and big dead bolts, seemed to stretch on forever. Some were locked tight, but others stood ajar.
Amelia danced ahead, and Jewel started to trail behind.
Somewhere, she heard her mom calling. And she remembered a day when she was a little kid. She’d been on the swings at a playground, and her mom was talking to another mom. There was a monarch butterfly on a flower, and when it fluttered off, Jewel followed it into the woods behind the swings. It wasn’t very long before she he
ard her mother’s voice calling and she could hear that her mom was really scared, but she’d kept following those beautiful black and orange wings. She heard her mother’s voice now. Amelia was the butterfly.
Don’t ever do that, Jewel. Don’t ever run away from Mommy like that.
Jewel came to a stop at a door that stood slightly open. Inside, she heard someone humming, soft and sweet. She pushed the door, but there was no one there. Just an empty cot with a thin, dirty mattress. A tattered pair of brown shoes looked as if they’d been kicked off and left askew in the middle of the floor.
There was a milky, grated window, and Jewel moved toward the light. Outside, she saw shadows gathering in the clearing.
Jewel. Jewel, where are you?
She tried to knock on the window, but it seemed made of air. She called out, but she had no voice.
“They can’t hear you.”
She spun to see a thin young man wearing brown overalls and a white T-shirt. He had close-shorn dark hair and a wild, desperate gaze. She backed away from him. He stuttered in the dim, there and then gone, like a glitch in the game. That was what this felt like. It was as if she were inside Red World, an environment created by someone else’s mind.
“You yell and yell,” he said. “But they can’t hear you.”
She tried to shout for Amelia, but only breath came out, a hoarse whisper. The boy held up his forearms to reveal long, gaping, open wounds on each arm. Blood flowed down his arms, dripped from his elbows into pools at the floor.
“Once they bring you here, they can’t get you back. Even if they wanted to. And sometimes they don’t want to.”
She sank to her haunches and buried her head. She tried to calm herself—orient was the word her doctor used. Am I dreaming? she asked. But her dream self wouldn’t answer. This is not real. He’s not there. She said more forcefully to herself, I’m dreaming. Wakeupwakeupwakeup.
“Don’t listen to anyone here.”
Jewel looked up to see Amelia where the boy had been. She was smiling as if Jewel were some little girl, afraid of monsters under her bed.
“Everyone here is a liar,” she went on.
“But,” said Jewel, “you’re here.”
Amelia’s smile froze and went a little cold. She held out a hand, and Jewel found herself rising.
“He’s waiting for you. And he won’t wait forever.”
8.
When Ian and Claire made it to the clearing, Samantha was standing there facing Havenwood, staring up in awe.
“Jewel,” she shouted, her voice hoarse and desperate. “Jewel, where are you? Come out here this minute.”
Ian came up behind her and put a hand on her shoulder. She spun away to face him.
“My God,” she said, throwing her arm back at Havenwood. “This place is a nightmare. Why is it even still standing?”
He looked up at the building. It seemed much smaller than he remembered. Still, it radiated a kind of nastiness, a petty malice, like a bully on the playground, one you knew could kick your ass and would.
The sky had turned moody and dark gray. It smelled like snow. That would be perfect, if it started to snow, thought Ian. Had he heard about a storm rolling in, a big, early-season northeaster? Maybe. The drive here was kind of a blur, like he’d been on autopilot.
Samantha moved closer to Havenwood, but Ian put his hand on her arm. “Wait,” he said. “Let’s all go in together. I have a light; let me get it out. You don’t want to go there alone. You can’t help Jewel if you get hurt.”
Nothing to do with ghosts, the place was falling apart.
Samantha shook him off but stopped her progress toward the house, turned and started calling for her daughter again.
If you were here, Ian thought, you’d know what to do.
He’d told Liz about Merle House and Havenwood, about the Dark Man. About the night in that basement, about Mason’s wish, and how Ian had carried it with him. Ian had never told anyone about it until he’d told his wife; he’d let it disappear into the past. He’d told her how he’d made a wish he hadn’t meant to make.
“Claire, Mason, and Matthew—they all saw him at some point or other. But I never did. Still, I felt something that night. And I’ve never stopped looking for that thing again.”
She’d gazed at him thoughtfully. She never judged, always listened. That was why she was good at her work.
“A haunting can be like a virus,” she’d said. “It leaches out of the ground, out of structures. It can infect people. Even if you never get sick, you can carry it with you.”
Had he caught something that night? Carried it with him all these years? And it was only now, in grief, that he was open to the Dark Man’s promises? That was why he had only just found Ian at Astrid and Chaz’s house.
Ian felt the weight of the pack on his back. It held his best and lightest camera, flashlight, electromagnetic wave detector, a silver cross, a bag of shaman-blessed crystals, some other talismans.
But standing before the dark behemoth of Havenwood, all of it seemed like the junk that it was, toys to convince simpleminded people that they had some control over the dark forces in their lives. Still, he lowered the pack and fished out the flashlight.
I am a believer, he said to Liz now. I believe in the darkness. I just don’t believe we have any power over it.
You have more power than you think.
He could still hear her voice. Liz was always with him. She was the haunting he wanted, one from which he hoped never to be freed. He wanted to be with her forever, whatever that meant.
Claire stood beside him, their arms touching. He hoisted the pack back on his shoulders, shoving the light into his pocket.
They hadn’t seen each other in years, but it felt more like days. That was the way it was with some friends, the years between time spent together mattered not at all. Matthew, on the other hand, seemed like a stranger, distant and cold. But then again, Matthew’s daughter was missing. Fear did ugly things to people.
“I can’t believe we’re back here,” whispered Claire.
“It’s time,” said Ian. “It’s time to face this thing. Whatever it is.”
“Is that why we’re here?” She looked up at him, questioning.
“Why else?” he asked.
A shadow passed over her blue eyes, and he saw the dangerous depths of depression there, a kind of blankness that drew the light in. Depression was bad for facing down the darkness. It was a weapon that could be used against you.
“Claire,” he said. “Are you okay?”
She seemed about to say something, but then Avery March came through the trees. And Claire pressed her mouth into a tight line, went quiet.
They stood in a loose circle—Samantha, Claire, Ian, and Avery. Ian could hear Matthew’s voice as he drew closer. Who was he talking to? They were missing only Mason. If Matthew had reached out to him, Mason hadn’t come.
“Mason Brandt claimed that the last time he saw my sister, it was in the basement of Havenwood,” said Avery.
“I’m sorry,” said Samantha, lifting a palm. “But we’re here to look for my daughter.”
She held up the phone, the blue dot pulsing in the blank green space, close to where they were. They all stared at it; then each in turn looked back to the house.
Matthew came through the woods, a young man behind him.
“Who’s this?” asked Samantha, pinning the young man with her gaze.
“This is Eldon. He’s a friend of Jewel’s,” said Matthew. He filled her in about how Eldon and Jewel met online, the text Eldon received, and how he’d come to help.
“I can’t listen to this right now,” said Samantha, shaking her head.
Eldon offered an awkward shrug.
Samantha stared at him a moment longer, then turned. Seeming to have reached some internal decision not to wait for the group, she then moved quickly to the structure and disappeared into the darkness of Havenwood. Ian realized he’d never given her the flashlight.
<
br /> A moment later, her voice carried out through the broken windows, the open door.
Jewel! Jewel! Where are you?
Matthew followed her at a run; Avery March waited a beat, then went as well. The young man stood, looking toward Havenwood, then back toward the trees. He stayed rooted.
“Go home, son,” said Ian. “You don’t want any part of this.”
“I want to help StarGirl,” he said. He was young, face open and skin clear, eyes earnest. “I mean Jewel. In Red World, she’s called StarGirl.”
Ian had no idea what the kid was talking about. “Then go get some help. I think we’re going to need it.”
Eldon stared a moment, then broke off into a run back through the trees.
Ian and Claire stood still, lingering behind as they had that first visit.
“What did you ask him for?” Claire asked. “That night. What did you say to the Dark Man?”
“Just—I don’t know. I just said I wanted to be happy. I didn’t mean to ask him for anything. It just popped into my head.”
He didn’t want to tell her that he had just seen the Dark Man. In fact, he wasn’t even sure he had. Maybe grief had caused him to depart from the real. In fact, maybe they were all crazy. Was this some kind of mass hysteria? Could madness be like a virus, something you caught, that wormed its way into your psyche over time?
“What about you?” he said.
“I didn’t ask him for anything,” she said. “I didn’t like the terms.”
He looked down at her and she smiled. He found himself smiling back, remembering her as she was when they were kids—oblivious to her own beauty, brave, funny, smart. She was still all of those things.
“The terms,” he repeated.
“Yeah. You know, tell me what you want and I’ll give it to you. You just have to do something for me, maybe now, maybe later, who knows what. It sounded like a scam. My mom always told me, if something seems too good to be true, it probably is. Anyway, I didn’t want anything then. Not really. I was just a kid.”
“Do you want something now?”
“Now?” She looked up at the sky. A hawk made ever-widening circles overhead, hunting. “Now I just want to be free.”