“And he was strong and brave?”
“Definitely,” she said. “Just like you.”
He smiled a little at that, climbed off of her. He was a little boy in a big boy’s body. Just like her little cousin Jared, who was a wild toddler prone to tantrums. She could always talk him out of it, just by listening and figuring out what he wanted. He had a hard time making himself understood, and then he’d just go crazy because none of the adults around knew what he wanted. Somehow she always knew.
“Let me go,” she said. “Come with me. We can both leave here. You won’t have to work all day and hunt for Poppa. I know you don’t like to kill the animals. I’ll take care of you.”
Momma came through the trees, looking haggard and terrified. She washed over with relief when she saw them. But then anger set her features into a tight fist. Her long gray hair was pulled back into a tight ponytail, and she wore a barn jacket that was frayed and dirty, jeans that were too big, and thick boots. Her face was a landscape of lines and grooves. A hideous storybook witch, a crone.
“Bring her back,” Momma said, in that stony voice she had. “You’re a bad girl, Penny. You scared your momma.”
Bobo stood and yanked her to her feet, his grip an icy garrote.
Something big welled up from inside her, a sob of rage. “My name is
not Penny
,” she shrieked. All the fear and rage that she’d kept buried exploded. “Penny
is dead
.”
Bobo stared, wide-eyed with surprise.
“Penny can’t find peace until you let her go,” she yelled. Her voice was so loud, and all the other sounds around them, even that strange whispering went quiet. “She’s trapped here even though she doesn’t want to be because you
won’t let her pass
.”
People always thought that the dead haunted the living, but she knew now that sometimes it was the other way around.
Momma stood, white and stiff, her hands clenched into hard fists. Bobo still held Abbey tight, though she struggled now, trying to get free as Momma moved closer.
Momma drew her hand back and slapped Penny hard across the face, then drew back her hands to her mouth. Penny saw stars, felt the hot sting on her face, the ache in her jaw.
“I’m sorry, Penny,” said Momma. “I’m so sorry.”
Sheer hatred pumped through her. She spoke slowly but loudly, some blood spilling from her mouth warm and salty. “I’m. Not. Penny. And I want to go home.”
Momma stared at her and long moments passed. Still the air around them was blissfully silent, until she started struggling against Bobo’s strong hug.
“Put her with the others,” Momma said to Bobo.
“Momma,” said Bobo, pleading.
But Momma started to walk away. “I won’t do it, Momma,” said Bobo. “I don’t want to.”
Momma stopped in her tracks and turned around, her face ugly with anger.
“She doesn’t love you,” the girl said, rage pulsing. It was so big, so monstrous, like it couldn’t fit in her body. She didn’t even recognize the sound of her own voice. “She never did. She only loves Penny. You don’t have to do what she tells you.”
Momma moved in close to them, and Bobo shifted away, still holding on tight to her. She tried to drop her weight so that she could slip out of his arms, but still he held her, his grip strong as chains.
Then Momma had sandpaper hands on her wrists and started pulling. “Give her to me,” she said, yanking her away from Bobo.
She dropped to her knees, and Momma, with her tireless, sinewy strength dragged her across the ground while Penny screamed and fought, using every ounce of power she had in her.
Digdeepdigdeep
.
It happened so swiftly, the shift of shadows. Penny wasn’t even sure what she was seeing at first. Momma seemed to freeze, stunned. Her arm dropped like a doll’s arm, falling limply to her side. Bobo held the flashlight aloft, the lens turned red with blood. He brought it down again, hitting Momma with a revolting crack across the head. Her head snapped to the right with the blow. It was almost comical, like cartoon violence. Then the old woman dropped to the ground, slumping into a stiff-legged seat. Bobo moved in fast knocking her flat. Then he sat astride her, hitting and hitting again.
An inhuman sound escaped him, a horrible wail of rage and misery.
Moooommmaaa!
The girl—not Penny—lay still, staring, her heart hammering. Then she got up and ran. She didn’t even notice that it had started to snow.
TWENTY-ONE
R
ainer could tell, just by the way she got out of bed, that Finley wasn’t quite awake. Awake, she moved quickly, walked so fast that he almost couldn’t keep up with her, all her movements purposeful and swift. But when she was like this, she moved slowly and deliberately. She sat up, her white skin glowing.
“Fin?” he said.
She stood naked, the perfect curves of her body painted from the light washing in through the curtain from out in the shop. In the darkness, he couldn’t see the art on her skin, just her dark silhouette. She dressed, and he watched as he quietly pulled on his own clothes.
“I’m coming with you,” he told her.
“Okay,” she said easily.
That was the other thing. When she was like this, she never argued. If she’d been awake, she would have told him that it was time for her to go. And if he tried to stop her or go with her, she’d get mad. Tell him that he was trying to control her, not respecting her boundaries, being a Neanderthal. He didn’t get it. Did girls want you to take care of them and protect them, or not?
Girls want what they want in the moment
, his dad always said.
The next moment they want something else. You just have to give it to them and not ask too many questions. That’s the trick to getting along with the ladies.
So far, Rainer hadn’t seen anything that proved his father wrong. “
All right, baby, whatever you say.” That phrase right there is the key to my successful marriage.
Rainer’s parents, unlike the parents of most of his friends, had been happily married for thirty years. So there must be something to that.
Rainer had first seen Finley in high school detention, though he’d heard about her before that. Freaky Finley they called her. Or Finley Firestarter. He wasn’t sure why she had those names. But there
was
something different about her, those dark, bottomless eyes, that cool half-smile she wore, like she was in on a joke that no one else was getting. Rainer didn’t believe in love at first sight—until he saw Finley.
Her hair was longer then, an impossibly thick jet-black mop around her shoulders. She didn’t have any ink, just a row of piercings in her right ear. It wasn’t anything physical: not her snowy skin, or the perfect curve of her ass, or the beautiful swell of her breasts. Something about her called away a piece of him, and it floated through the air and she breathed it in, and it was forever lost to her. Loving her was like trying to get that piece of himself back, a deliciously pleasant, totally lost cause.
“Miss Montgomery,” said Mrs. Patchett that day. The gym teacher was affectionately known among the badly behaved of Roosevelt High School as Miz Hatchet. “What are we in for today?”
“Tardiness,” said Finley quietly. A couple of the girls in the front row laughed. Even among the misfits, she was a misfit.
“Take a seat,” said Miz Hatchet. “No phones, music, video or e-books. Homework only. Or quiet reflection on what brought you here in the first place. In your case, tardiness. You might do some thinking about what your being late means to others.”
Rainer watched Finley walk up the aisle, a big pack over her shoulder, a notebook clutched to her chest, willing her to sit where he could watch her. She picked the seat over by the window, took out her notebook and textbook and proceeded to do what looked like algebra homework. The rest of the losers just sat, staring outside or discreetly texting each other. Miz Hatchet pretended not to notice, staring at her own phone.
School motto:
What I am to be, I am now becoming.
Rainer wasn’t sure what that meant. It sounded more like a threat than a promise. He was in detention for smoking out behind the gym when he should have been in class—but every week it was something else.
Last week it was for arguing with a teacher. The week before he’d smashed a locker, pissed about something. A typical (for him) bad temper moment, where everything just crowded in on him and he needed to bust out of it all. What had he been mad about? A test he’d failed even though he’d studied hard? A comment that annoyed him? Someone knocking into him in the hallway? He honestly didn’t even remember.
He was failing or barely passing every class, except for art. The only thing he cared about was ink, helping his dad with his gigs at night (unloading and setting up equipment, then taking it down again and partying in the meantime), getting laid by the band groupies (who would have thought a middle-aged Aerosmith cover band would have young, hot groupies?), scoring the occasional joint. He wasn’t sure whether a high school diploma was going to be of much use to someone like him. He already made more with his dad than most people made working some shit nine-to-five job, and his apprenticeship at the tattoo shop was nearly done. And then he could make some real money, once he had his own clients. Would it matter that he was getting a D in algebra?
He’d thought about just getting his GED. But his dad wanted him to stay in school, said dropping out was the biggest mistake he ever made. So Rainer agreed to try to graduate.
Don’t just graduate, son. Learn something.
Rainer couldn’t keep his eyes off of her that first day. He wondered how it was that he’d never seen her before—but of course they were in different classes, and he cut as much as he came to school. He had his sketchbook out and abandoned his drawing to try to get her profile—fine, high cheekbones, a cute little upturn to her nose. Big doe eyes, moppy black hair. She was like an anime princess. He found himself thinking impure thoughts. Then she turned and looked at him, right through him, as though she knew everything in his head. She smiled, a very bad girl, but still kind of a sweet little smile.
He looked away, but her spell was cast. That was four years ago. She was in him, under his skin—even when she tried to leave him,
he couldn’t let her go. Even though he figured that she was probably better off without him, he still followed her.
That’s not love
, she told him.
That’s control. Different things, Rain. Really different.
Now, she was moving toward the door, taking her jacket off the hook. Where was she going tonight? He’d followed her all sorts of places when she was like this.
“I’ll drive,” he told her.
“Okay,” she said.
Outside, a light snow had started to fall. It was too early for that, wasn’t it? He’d seen the news, a big storm coming. But he thought it was the usual hype. And truly it didn’t look like much.
“Where are we going?” he asked. The engine rumbled to life. He was always a little amazed when it did.
“To the lake house,” she said. Her voice was dreamy, her eyes blank. She wasn’t sleepwalking, not quite.
“Where’s that?” he asked gently.
“Drive out of town,” she said. “North toward the mountains.”
He did what she said, turned when she told him to turn, and finally they came upon a sign that said
CLARABEL’S LAKE HOUSE
.
“Turn here,” she said.
He took the long drive and wound up before a dark house. No lights on inside or out. She climbed out of the car and moved purposefully around back. He followed, shivering in his tee-shirt and light jacket. She moved past the dock and up a small path until they were at a trailhead.
“He took her up this way.”
Rainer knew that this had something to do with the case she was working on with Jones Cooper, the maps she’d shown him that night, the mines he hadn’t wanted her to visit. Eloise and Cooper might have talked sense into Finley’s
brain
. But whoever was she when she was like this? That chick didn’t listen to
anyone
.
“Are you sure?” he asked.
She started walking.
“Finley,” he said. It was so dark, unnaturally quiet for a city boy.
It made him laugh that people were always so afraid of big cities. These quiet rural places where no one was around to hear you scream? These were the places that gave Rainer the creeps. Anyone, anything could be lurking in those woods. “Let’s get someone. This isn’t safe.”
He didn’t really expect her to listen. She was already moving fast. He lingered, took his phone from his pocket. The signal was weak. They didn’t have any food or water. They weren’t dressed warmly enough, and the snow was still falling, heavier now.
“Do you hear it?” she asked from up ahead.
“No,” he said.
He never heard what Finley heard or saw what she saw. Only when he drew for her body did he get pictures sometimes, things he saw as vividly as if he were watching it on a screen. People like The Three Sisters or the boy with the train. But he suspected that it had to do with her and not with him, some kind of vibe she was shooting off. He wasn’t like her. If there was something more to the world than what he could see with his eyes, he’d never experienced it. Dreams that came true; people that weren’t there; sounds that no one could hear? No. He’d dropped acid a couple of times, but even those hallucinations were tame and meaningless.
“Fin,” he said. He’d lost sight of her, so he jogged a little until he came around the bend and saw her slight shadow up ahead.
Then he
did
hear something, some kind of distant wailing. All the hair came up on the back of his neck, his arms. Was it an animal? A person? Shit.
“Finley,” he yelled. He had to run now to catch up with her. When he did, he grabbed hold of her arm. She stopped and turned to him, but her eyes were blank.
“Let’s go back,” he said. “We’ll go get that guy Cooper. Or the cops.”
He heard it again, the distant wailing.
“You go,” she said and tugged her arm back, kept walking.
Rainer stood. He should go back; he knew that. He should get Eloise or Cooper, or even the police. Or he should pick Finley
up and carry her back. She was no match for him physically; he could easily pick her up and throw her over his shoulder and carry her back to the car, even kicking and screaming. But he didn’t do any of those things. He did what he always did when Finley took off. Into the dark, with the snowfall growing heavier, he followed. He couldn’t be sure, but he thought he heard the faint sound of laughter.