A laugh so horrible and so evil that it chilled me to the bone reverberated through the hall and into our room. I felt as if I’d been physically punched by it. In my mind’s eye I then saw the image of Heath, running along the side of the castle, dodging the rain. He kept looking over his shoulder—as if he was running away from something—and all the while he got closer and closer to the edge of the cliff without slowing down.
A thousand warning bells went off in my head just as the phantom twirled in a tight circle, and with a whoosh, it was gone.
Moving all my spikes to one hand, I reached back for John and shouted, “Let’s go!”
Running as fast as I could, I bolted through the old kitchen, down the corridor, and back to Gilley, Meg, and Kim. Without stopping to explain what had happened, I put a hand on John’s chest, ordered him to stay with Meg and Kim, then hauled a very startled Gilley up off the floor where he’d been sitting by the fire. “Come with me!” I demanded.
Gilley opened his mouth to say something, but I was in far too much of a panic to let him utter a single word. “Don’t speak!” I yelled, grabbing his hand and bolting out the door.
Thankfully, Gilley cooperated and ran stride for stride right next to me. Gil had been a sprinter on the track team when we were in high school—and he’d also been crowned state champ in his day.
I needed Gilley’s speed if I had any hope of saving Heath. “Where’re we going?” Gil shouted after we’d been running through the rain alongside the castle for a bit.
Instead of answering him, I gasped, nearly tripping when I finally saw what I’d been looking for up ahead. I pointed to the figure of Heath, running through the rain, covering his ears with his hands and blind with fright. He darted right, then left, dashing away in short zigzags. At intervals he also stopped and turned in a circle, as if he were blind and deaf to anything else but the nightmare playing out in his head. To add to the horror, just behind him lurked the phantom. It towered over Heath by at least three feet, a black menacing shadow, stalking our friend, herding him ever closer to the edge of the cliff.
Gilley squealed at the sight and abruptly stopped.
I had to stop myself and wheel around to come back to him. “
What are you doing?
We have to get to Heath before he runs off the cliff!”
Gilley was white with fright. His wet hair hung in his eyes, and his sweatshirt sagged against his frame. “But the phantom!”
“You’re wearing the sweatshirt, Gil! It’ll protect both you and Heath! But you’ve got to make it to him, and you’re the only one who can sprint to him in time!”
Desperately I looked back over my shoulder, and gasped when I saw that Heath was now just a few yards from the edge of the cliff. Grabbing Gilley again by the hand, I hauled him forward and shouted,
“Heath! Stop! We’re coming!”
Gilley ran with me without fighting. I poured on the speed and Gilley matched me with every step, courage coming to him with every new stride. “Go, Gilley! Get to Heath!” I yelled as he began passing me.
I saw the firm set to Gilley’s jaw as he moved on by, his feet moving faster and faster and his arms pumping for all he was worth. Heath continued to stumble and hold his head, and now I could hear his agonized voice.
“Make it stop!”
“Heath!” I shouted again, desperate to get his attention before he moved too close to the cliff.
Gilley charged right for Heath, who was now only feet from the cliff’s edge. The phantom stopped then and it had the appearance of turning to face me. There was no substance really to its form, just a giant black shadow watching Gilley running straight for Heath.
I hoped that Gilley’s sweatshirt was enough to make it back off, and my heart pounded in my chest as much with exertion as with anxiety.
“Go, Gilley!”
I shouted again.
Gilley’s stride came quicker still and he dug in with everything he was worth. I could hear him groan as he stretched those final yards, whizzing right past the phantom, who whirled away from him and darted to the side.
Heath meanwhile teetered on the very edge of the cliff, and I could tell that Gil would not make it in time, no matter how fast he was running.
“Please!”
I cried, and honestly, to this day I don’t know whom I was calling out to, but at that moment a white light appeared between Heath and the edge of the cliff, causing him to twirl and fall back away from the edge, right onto his rear. The light appeared only for an instant, but the image of Samuel Whitefeather—Heath’s grandfather—flashed through my mind.
Two more strides and Gilley launched himself, landing right on top of Heath and hugging him fiercely as he pulled our friend away from the deadly drop.
I was a good two dozen yards back and I came to a stop, winded and emotionally exhausted. I bent double and sucked in air until a cold chill prickled my spine. I stood up tall again and eyed the phantom, now planted firmly between me and the boys. “Oh, shit!” I said, realizing the demon was now thinking of me as the target. Whirling around and running back the way I’d come, I bolted away as fast as I could. By now my legs felt like rubber and I began to trip and stumble. I was also trying to get the two spikes I still had in the belt I wore around my waist, but my mind was quickly filling with awful images. I tried to focus on the ground ahead of me, but my vision became compromised as the pictures in my mind turned uglier and more intense.
My heart was racing with panic and fear and I couldn’t seem to suck in enough oxygen. My hands were also shaking so hard that I had to abandon the effort to get the grenades loose. A terrible terror was welling up inside of me and I couldn’t seem to get away. Somewhere, in the very back of my mind, I knew that I wasn’t far from the front door to the castle, and the safety of John and the spikes, but I didn’t think I’d make it in time. What was more, I felt something cold and cruel creeping up along my left side. I darted right out of instinct, but it kept coming.
A rational thought seeped through a crevice in the wall of terror filling my mind. It said that moving right would take me away from the center of the rock and move me out to the edge. Warning bells rang, but I felt helpless to stop the panicked dash away from that cold horror still creeping along my left.
I started to cry and shake, blinded by the nightmare images flashing across my mind and the terrible presence of the phantom. “Go away!” I shouted. “Get away from me!”
But the phantom kept coming, pushing me ever farther from safety. I cried out and for a split second I thought again of the white light that had saved Heath and of Samuel Whitefeather.
“Sam!”
I screamed.
“Help me!”
A buzzing sound rang in my ears. I stumbled and fell to the ground. Closing my eyes, I covered my head with my arms and began to pray. The buzzing sound intensified and white light pushed away the awful nightmares, but I could still feel that cold menacing presence behind me. Still, in my mind I sensed Sam was doing his best to help protect me.
“Sam!” I shouted again, trying to cling to him for all I was worth.
Focus, M. J.!
Sam’s voice said in my head.
Think brave thoughts. Gather your courage. Do not give in to the phantom!
I squeezed my eyes as tightly closed as I could and attempted to call up every ounce of courage I could muster. “It’s not real,” I whispered desperately. “It’s not real!”
Slowly I could feel the menacing presence ebbing away from me, and that bolstered my resolve. “It’s not real!” I said a bit louder. “It’s all a mirage!”
And with that, another whoosh sounded nearby along with the bright light shining in my mind, and I became conscious of the rain again, and the cold wind, and Gilley shouting at me from somewhere behind.
Lifting my chin, I watched as he and Heath approached. Heath looked terribly shaken and somewhat confused, but otherwise unharmed. Gilley had a death grip on Heath’s arm while he tugged him forward as quickly as he could.
When they got to me, both boys were quite out of breath.
“Are ... you ... okay?” Heath asked, sinking to his knees to look me over and wipe the hair out of my eyes.
I nodded dully. “Yeah,” I said, my voice cracking. “I’m okay.”
“Jesus, honey!” Gil said, dropping to his knees as well to lean in and hug me fiercely. “When I saw that thing turn to chase you, I nearly had a heart attack!”
I laid my cheek against his damp hair and took several deep breaths, soaking up Gilley’s body heat and the fact that I wasn’t reliving my worst nightmares. When Gil pulled away, I looked back at Heath. “How you doin’?”
He forced a smile and I took in the haunted look in his eyes. “It wouldn’t stop,” he whispered. “I mean, it chased me through the castle, and then it left me alone for a little while, but when I went back to try and find you guys, it came after me again. I couldn’t get away from it, M. J. In the back of my mind I
knew
it was pushing me toward the cliffs, but after fighting with it again and again, I just didn’t care anymore. I wanted it to end.”
I knew exactly what he meant. “Let’s get out of this rain and back to the others,” I suggested. Gilley helped me to my feet, which was good because my limbs still felt rubbery and weak; I’d pushed myself well beyond my usual limits that day. Gilley then hooked his arm through mine and the other through Heath’s and we started to walk.
After going only a few steps, Gilley looked at me curiously and said, “M. J., what’s that?”
He was pointing to my hair. “What’s what?” I asked, reaching my free hand up and running it along the back of my wet head. I connected with something tangled there and pulled it out, gasping when I realized what it was.
Gilley gave me a half smile. “How’d you get a white feather stuck in your hair out here?”
Heath’s eyes locked with mine. “My grandfather,” he said. “Our last name is Whitefeather.”
“Looks like Sam saved both our lives today,” I said, tucking the feather inside my coat. “Sam,” I said, lifting my chin, “wherever you are, we owe you huge for that.”
* * *
We found the rest of our group safely gathered around the fire back at the castle. Well, everyone except for Gopher, that is. Heath and I collapsed next to each other by the fire, both of us spent and exhausted.
No one spoke for a very long time while we waited for our clothes to dry and periodically fed the fire with wood we found scattered around the great hall. Outside, the storm picked up again and the steady rain gave way to another round of thunder and lightning. Everyone was so on edge that we all jumped with every loud boom.
Finally, John broke the silence. “We’ve got to get off this rock. It’ll be dark in a few hours and there’s no way I’m staying here all night.”
Gilley frowned and gave John a disapproving look. “We can’t leave without Gopher.”
But John had had all afternoon to work himself into a foul mood. “I say we leave him here,” he groused. “The guy goes wandering off. Let him find his own way back.”
“We can’t leave him,” Gilley snapped. “You saw what happened to Heath! What if the phantom tries to push Gopher over the cliffs too?”
John got up and went to look out the door at the raging storm. Turning back to face us, he said, “Well, we can’t stay here, Gilley. I don’t care how many magnets we have—that thing is way too freaky for us to handle. We can’t search the castle in the state we’re in. Look at M. J. and Heath! They’re exhausted! And we’ve been waiting for Gopher all afternoon and there’s no sign of him. We can’t just sit and wait for the phantom to come back and pick us off one by one. We’ve
got
to get outta here!”
“You think we’ll be any safer at the base of the rock?” I asked. He looked at me like I’d insulted him, so I was quick to add, “The storm surge is probably still covering the causeway. We can hope that by six thirty, when the tide is at its lowest point, we’ll have another window to cross, but if not, we could be stuck here all night. And I’m not sure the shore is any safer than here, but I do know that at least we’ll be dry and somewhat warm inside the castle.”
“That’s true,” said Heath. “But at least down on the shore the phantom can’t push us off the edge of a cliff. I’m with John, M. J. I don’t know how much longer I can stay here. Can’t you
feel
that thing?”
I could. Even with every magnetic spike we owned out and exposed, I could still feel the phantom, lurking somewhere close, just waiting for one of us to become vulnerable again.
And I knew I was too exhausted to go looking for Gopher. He hadn’t shown up and it’d been hours.
“Maybe we can find an overhang to camp out under on the shore, M. J.,” Gilley reasoned, suddenly switching sides. “Or a cave or something. We could take a bunch of wood down with us and get a fire going. I’d rather take a chance at getting out of here tonight than stay in this place another minute.”
“Are we really prepared to leave Gopher here?” I asked the group.
John came back to squat down next to me. “We’ll send a search party for him the moment we get back to dry land, but for now we’ve got to get off this rock and find someplace else warm and dry.”