• chapter sixteen •
My phone rang the moment I stepped out of my art class. I picked it up, and before I could say hello, Zack's voice said, "Reddie? Are you free?"
"What? Um. I don't know. I was just going—"
"Great. I'm right outside that art centre of yours. 'Window to the Soul', right?"
"Yeah, but wh—"
"Meet me there immediately. I'm waiting."
"Can't you just tell—"
He hung up. I frowned at the phone. What was that about? I thought angrily. I wanted to ignore him, but his tone had sounded...urgent. Serious. Like he really wanted to talk about something.
I shoved the phone in my pocket and walked quickly towards the exit, and just like he'd said, his car was standing there. I opened the door and got in, putting my bag in the footwell. "Everything okay?"
"Yeah. I'm sorry I talked like that. I was just afraid that you'd ask too many questions and then say no."
I couldn't understand anything. "Say no to what?"
"Actually I— um, I want you to go somewhere with me," he said. I looked at him and started to say something, but he said, "please?" in such a beseeching tone that I couldn't refuse.
So he started the car. "Where are you taking me?"
He sat quietly, his lips pursed, as if wondering how to begin a long story. "I know you'll think I'm crazy, but...I've been searching for this William guy."
I tried to process this piece of information. "You do realize that he can't possibly be alive, right? He was in his twenties when he killed Mary. And now it's 2009." My hair lashed around me as the car picked up speed. "He must be more than hundred if he's still alive."
"Yeah, but it's not impossible, right?"
I exhaled. "Why are you looking for him, Zack? It's useless."
"At least I'm doing something," he said quietly. "So...you remember that dream you had some time ago, in which you saw how Mary died?"
"I remember."
"Well, I had the same dream a few weeks ago. It felt like I was inside Mary's mind, you know? I could hear what she was thinking. I could feel her anger. And when I woke up, it felt like some info from her brain had come into mine. It must've been because she touched me—" he shuddered, "Like, whenever I think of William, the name 'William Robinson' just keeps popping into my mind. I had a hunch that his full name must be that. So I got the Directory. There were around twenty Robinsons, none of them William. Maybe he changed his name after committing the crime. Then I noted down the details of all people named William. I... I stalked them a bit. All of them."
I blinked. "But if there's no William Robinson there, then he must have died."
"Oh my God, he's not dead! Do you really think she would be bothering us if he weren't alive?" he asked, frustrated. "Besides, she said that he's here. In this city. So his name has to be in the Directory. And if the name William Robinson is not there, then he must've changed his name after killing her to live safely. Maybe the whole name, in which case, we don't know how to find him, but we'll try."
"And what will we do then?"
"I don't know. Talk to him maybe?"
"And what good will that do?"
He swerved to the right abruptly, angrily, stopped the car, and slapped the steering wheel before glaring at me. "Can you stop being so discouraging? At least I'm doing something."
"I'm sorry. I'm not trying to discourage you. I just don't understand what you're doing."
He took a breath and started the car. The engine whirred. "I brought you with me because you had the dream, too. You might be able to help me." He drew in another breath. "Okay, here's the thing. I noted down the addresses of all twenty of the Robinsons, and I went to their houses. I was trying to look for their pictures when they were younger, since I know what young William looks like. I couldn't recognize any of them. So I thought you might be of some help. Two are better than one."
"You have been breaking into their houses, opening their cupboards or drawers or whatever, and stealing their pictures? Are you crazy? You could've been arrested!"
He grinned. "Well, I wasn't. So don't worry."
"Well, I'm not breaking into someone's house. No way."
"You don't have a choice. I'm not going to stop the car."
I wanted to say something, but I just gritted my teeth, folded my arms and looked outside at the peaceful orange and red sky and the trees rolling by. When I was little, Sana and I used to climb trees together. That is why I'd been able to climb all those trees when the four of us had gone for hiking up the Crescent View Trail. I wish I hadn't. I wish we'd never got out of that forest. I wish we'd never found the stupid sanatorium. I wish Liam had never taken us inside.
Liam. I tried to focus my thoughts on him. Like the day we first met. Or about how good it felt to share my favorite books and music with him. Or about that night we'd gone for a long drive together, just the two of us.
God, I so wanted to have a normal life with him. To live with him. To wake up and see his face first thing in the morning. To have my own studio where I could paint as much as I wanted to and get money for it, and have him kiss me good night before bed each day.
And then there was Mary, ruining it all. I clenched my jaw. My fingers curled into fists. I swallowed to soothe the lump in my throat.
Zack looked over. "Hey. Stop crying, Reddie." He reached over and wiped my tears awkwardly, trying to keep his eyes on the road at the same time. He ended up smudging the tears all across my cheeks.
I laughed. "Thanks. I'll do it."
"Grief doesn't look good on a face like yours. And I'm sorry for getting angry at you."
"That's okay. I'm not crying because of you." I sniffed. "I'll help you. I'll do whatever it takes to get rid of her."
"Whoo! I like that."
"So... where are we going, again?"
"I haven't been to all of the houses. So maybe we could visit some of them today."
I nodded. "Okay. Um. Do you remember Mary was trying to pick up a pen in the dream? And I remember she was thinking something like: I will never be able to kill anyone. So do you really think she can hurt us? I mean, she can't kill William on her own. She wants us to do it. So can she kill us?"
"That doesn't matter. She'll keep haunting us, and that is worse than death."
Some time passed. I looked at more trees rolling past us.
"On Prom night," I said, "you asked her why she couldn't kill William herself and she said that she didn't have enough energy. I think that's the main problem here. She doesn't have enough energy, and that is why she can't find William on her own. And she can't kill him either. And that is why she wants us to do it. All she can do is appear out of nowhere and scare the hell out of us."
"That's a big deal, okay? She can hurt us."
I wasn't listening. "Why does she want to kill him now? What was she doing all these years? Perfecting her skills? Did she live in Room 502 all that time? I can't believe she lived in that room for a hundred years."
"Eighty-one years," he corrected. "And I don't think she even realized that so much time had passed. In the dream, she sat in the corner for one second, and one hour had passed. Do you remember that part?"
"Yeah. I do."
"Maybe she waited so long because someone had to find her diary to be connected to her. And we just happened to be those people. Remember, she was thinking about casting dark magic on it? Binder, she called it, I think. There's a small blue notebook in the dashboard having the addresses. Give me that."
I opened the dashboard and found the notebook. He read the address when we stopped at a red light.
We arrived sometime later at a house that looked just like all the houses in Louisville: it was big, made of bricks, and had a huge front yard. There were a few rose bushes, but half the roses were dead. Zack followed my gaze. "Seems like the guy doesn't look after his plants. Come." He took my hand and pulled me behind a tree.
We stared at the house for a while. It was quiet. "I think nobody is home," I said softly.
"Yeah." We crept to different windows and peeped in. My window looked into the living room. I didn't see anyone. There were three sofas and an antique centre table made of wood.
Zack walked over to me. "No one's there." We went to the back door and tried the knob. It turned easily. The door opened with a creaking sound. I winced.
We tiptoed inside. It gave me the chills, entering someone's house like this. We both knew where to go. The bedroom was on the ground floor.
"Check the night tables," Zack hissed, opening the cupboard as quietly as he could.
I did. There was just an alarm clock and a bottle of water on the nightstand, so I opened the drawers. A novel, some medicines, a comb, a pair of socks. I ran to the other side of the fluffy bed. An old camera, a box of cheap ear-rings and...yes! A photograph in a golden frame, lying face-down.
The sound of toilet being flushed came from behind a door. Zack and I exchanged terrified glances. "Someone's in the house! Run!"
He banged the cupboard shut and ran to the window, which squeaked open just as noisily.
"Who's there?" a man's bold voice called out. The bathroom door opened. I didn't look. I just grabbed the photo and ran after Zack through the open window. "Come back!" he cried.
Yeah, because I want to go to jail, I thought. I turned my head just a little and waved the photo. "This is all we're taking! We didn't steal any money!" I caught a glimpse of the man. He was young, in his forties maybe. Totally wrong house.
Zack was already in the car. He had opened the passenger door for me. The moment I collapsed into the seat, he started, and we zipped off. I gasped for breath. "That...was...close." Once my breathing was normal, I looked at the photo. It was the man's wedding picture. He was plump and had dark brown hair and a pale face. The bride was very pretty.
"It wasn't him," I said, disappointed. "This guy was young. William is old. And when he was young, he had black hair and full lips, and a pale face. And he was thin. What a waste of time."
"Never mind. Next destination: Edward Robinson."
It took us thirty minutes to get there. Edward's house was pretty far from the other place, on Terry Road. There were very few houses here, and some cars parked. The rest was just grass and trees and open sky. I would have enjoyed the view during daytime, but it was getting dark and I wasn't a fan of open deserted places at night.
Edward had a big house with a big yard, surrounded by a white fence. We parked the car a little away, where it won't have been visible to the occupants of the house. There was some noise coming from inside, of metal clinking against metal. One window was lit, and we could see a very old woman wearing a pink apron, cooking in the kitchen. She was stirring something.
We sat down under a tree, and looked over the fence through that open window.
An old man with a walking stick came in and kissed her on the cheek. She smiled. Zack shifted next to me, trying to get comfortable. "What color were William's eyes?"
"I don't remember so precisely," I said. "I had that dream much before you did."
"I think they were green. His are green too. Look closely."
But I couldn't make out from so much distance. "Your eyesight is pretty good if you can see his eye color from here."
He bit his lip. "Why do I get the feeling that he's William?"
"Because you're dumb," I replied. He raised his eyebrows at me. "How can you decide that he's William without stealing his photographs?"
"I don't know. I'm just getting a feeling that he's William, just like I had a feeling that William's surname is Robinson. Like a sixth sense. I don't know."
We sat for some more time. A while later, the front door opened and light from the living room flooded onto the porch. Edward shuffled out, leaning on his cane. All we could see of him in the dim light was his silhouette.
"Should we try to sneak in now? There's just one old woman there."
"Or we could just go up to him and ask him if he is William," Zack suggested.
I laughed. "Seriously? As if he'll tell us 'Oh yes, of course I'm William, and I changed my name because I killed a woman long time back'. I say we try to sneak in."
"I say we threaten him with a knife till he confesses." I heard him taking something out of his pocket. I squinted at the thing in his hand. My eyes widened in horror. He was holding a knife. No, not a knife, a dagger.
His eyes were fixed on the man, following his movements. He was sitting on his toes, about to jump over the fence and pounce on him.
I grabbed his wrist. "What the fuck are you doing?"
"Leave me. I know what I'm doing."
"You don't."
"All of this will end if he confesses! That ghost can come and take over and we will escape and all of this will end!"
"How do you know she will come? It's not in our hands. And if she doesn't come and the man calls the police?"
He tried to push me away. I tightened my grip. "I won't let you."
"Leave me! He'll get away!" He shoved me into the fence. My head banged against the wooden pickets. I saw stars and it felt like my skull had cracked open, but I still didn't let go. "You can't do this! Do you want to spend...the rest of your life...behind bars?" I asked through gritted teeth.
He smashed the hilt of the dagger into my jaw. I fell onto the ground on my back. He made an attempt to get away, but I wasn't giving up that easily. I grabbed his leg. "Think of all the people who love you! Your family. Ashley. Liam."
He tugged his leg, struggling to free himself.
"Think of Claire!" He paused. For a moment I thought I'd knocked some sense into him, but the madness returned in his eyes. "I have to kill him."
"No!"
The wind picked up. The air chilled, the sky seemed to have turned darker. Dust flew up in a mini-tornado and blinded me and went into my mouth. I spat. The cold was freezing my bones. We both sat without moving as she slowly materialized in front of us.
"Leave her to me," she rasped, glaring at me. She looked angrier and more terrifying than ever. Her hair and black gown were flying wildly around her. She narrowed her eyes, and my stomach knotted in pain.
I couldn't feel the ground beneath my feet. I felt weightless, and I realized I was being lifted up. My back hit the trunk of the tree, and instead of sliding down, I stayed pinned to the trunk.
And then the real pain started. It spread from my stomach to my legs, breaking every bone, tearing every tissue, and then went up to my arms. I couldn't breathe. I screamed.
It went on forever. Then I heard a voice interrupt mine.
"What's happening?" It was an old man's voice. I looked over at him, but my tears didn't let me see clearly. "Why is she hanging from the tree like that?" his quavering voice asked.
The pain went away just as quickly as it had come. I fell down in a heap and stayed curled up like that at the bottom of the tree.
Zack held up the dagger. "Go away, and I won't hurt you."
He moved back a few steps. "Why are you troubling the girl? I'll call the police."
"No, you won't."
Mary hissed: This isn't William.
"What, it's not him?" Zack said. "Shit."
"Who are you talking to?" Edward asked. We all ignored him.
The ghost looked at Zack now, and narrowed her eyes. The knife dropped from his hands, and he clutched his stomach, gasping with pain. But that was all that happened. She began to fade, and it looked like she didn't want to. Like she was fighting it.
The dust settled down, the wind slowed, and she was gone.
Zack looked at me. I was still curled up on the ground in pain. The old man was watching us. "Reddie?" Zack touched my shoulder. I didn't respond, so he picked me up in his arms and carried me toward the car.
"Where are you taking her?" Edward called. I tried to imagine how it all must have appeared to him. He obviously hadn't seen the ghost. He must have thought that Zack was trying to kill me with that knife. And now he was carrying me away. And I wasn't moving, so it would appear like I were dead.
I craned my neck to look at him. "I'm fine! He wasn't trying to hurt me. I'm okay."
He nodded once, confused, and shuffled back to his house.
My body hurt all over. My arms were sore, and there was surely a bruise on my jaw. Zack put me in the car, and sat down himself, and started driving without a word. I don't know what I was expecting. An apology, maybe. Something. Anything but silence.
When I realized that he was totally ignoring me, I closed my eyes and napped. He shook me awake when we were parked outside my house. Then he cleared his throat nervously and fingered the bruise on my jaw. "Does that hurt?"
"Of course it does, asshole."
He wasn't surprised at my tone. "I'm really sorry. For everything. I took you without even asking you. Then I beat you up."
For some reason, that made me laugh. He smiled too. "I've been such a bitch to you."
"Bitch is a female word," I pointed out.
"Okay. I've been a dog to you." His voice was humourless and shaky. He raked his hands through his hair. "What has gotten into me? I was planning to accost him with a knife? Thank you for stopping me, man. You must hate me."
"No. I understand what drove you to that point. I feel like that myself sometimes."
"Don't tell Liam and Ash."
"I won't," I promised. He hugged me goodbye. I jogged up the driveway to my house.
I didn't go to sleep immediately. I wouldn't have been able to sleep anyway, even if I'd tried. I looked at the clock. It was 9 pm.
So I sat down on my orange and white desk and took out a thin notebook with a pen. Then I travelled down the memory lane, thinking back to the day it had started. The hiking.
We found Mary's diary. It said something about a secret, and that William was unhappy with her. When we touched the diary, we all felt dizzy, I wrote. Some days later, there was a note on my painting canvas saying we had to kill William. On Liam's birthday, there was graffiti all over the walls of the city. On Christmas, I saw her for the first time. On Valentine's Day, she appeared again and she said she was too weak to kill anyone herself, that's why we had to do it.
I paused to rub my eyes. What had happened next? I'd gone to that bookstore. I'd found The Book of Souls.
I remembered that it had said that ghosts got weaker over time, and so they took energy from other souls. This was called...breaking? No, Fracturing a soul. I wrote this in the notebook.
Mary touched me when we were going home, trying to show me that William had killed her.
I got another note from her, when Liam and I had just started dating. It said something like—
I gasped. Shit!
The note had said: I gave you many chances. Now I'll have to take your soul.
So this was what she was planning to do! She wanted to take energy from us so that she could finish the job on her own.
Oh my God. I couldn't let it happen. I started to get up, thinking that I would go to the bookshop and get The Book of Souls. The one comforting thing about seeing her was that I could be sure she won't make another appearance anytime soon. But then I remembered it was night. Tomorrow.
∞
I was woken up the next day by Sam's call at ten in the morning. I groaned. I'd missed my time to jog! Why had I slept so late?
I picked up the phone and mumbled a sleepy 'hello'. But she was super-excited. "I've got awesome news! The date for that dinner has been fixed. 30th July. Agents will be there, some great artists will be there, and before the dinner, we have an exhibition so that they can view your work. So I want you to make some paintings. Use different mediums in each one, okay? Acrylic paints, oil paints, I don't care, just use different mediums for each painting. Show them all you got."
Suddenly I was very awake. "Sam, is it possible for me to go to New York after my scholarship ends?"
"You want a job there or you want to go to NYU?"
"It's too late to apply for NYU, so I guess I'll do a job."
"It's not late. You can photocopy your best paintings and send them with your application, and if they come to know that you're here on an art scholarship, they'll totally take you. 'Window to the Soul' is a pretty famous organization."
"And what happens to this house?"
"We'll have another competition this year and five new teenagers who win the scholarship will live in these houses."
"Why do you put one person in one house? There are two bedrooms. Two people can share one house. Plus, it's not very fair that you only select five people from a country. Select at least ten or fifteen. Give more opportunities."
She nodded. Or, I think she did. I couldn't tell over the phone, obviously. "Okay. I'll talk to them about it. But you, young lady, just make those paintings." She hung up.
I messaged Sharon and Sana on Skype, telling them about NYU, because they'd wanted to know if I was going to college.
Then Zack called me, saying that all four of us were going for ice-cream to Baskin Robbins.
We walked all the way. Liam held my hand. That was good. I wanted him as close to me as possible, now that I knew what Mary wanted.
We sat on two separate benches, Zack and Ash on one, and Liam and I on the other. A while later, he cleared his throat. "There's something I want to tell you."
"Yeah?"
"I'm going to Paris with dad. Two days later. It's just a vacation," he added quickly, seeing my panicked expression at the thought that he was saying something about going to Paris forever. "We go to Paris every year in July. It's where mom and dad met, so..."
"And when are you coming back?"
"After a week. What's the date? It's the tenth of July, isn't it?"
"You'll miss my birthday," I said quietly.
He grinned. "No, stupid. Your birthday is on the thirtieth. I'm coming back one week later."
I shoved him. "You don't even remember my birthday! It's on the twentieth!"
"Ohh," he said, but then he grinned that adorable grin again. "But I'm coming back on nineteenth night." He tipped my chin up with his finger and kissed me, sending a warm feeling flowing through me. "Don't worry, Hazelnut. I won't miss your birthday for anything. It's your eighteenth."
That reminder made me nervous. Eighteen. Whew. An adult.
He finished his cone, and then snatched mine and started eating. "Give me that!" I grabbed for it, but he swung it out of my reach. I tried pinning him against the back of the bench, but he was too strong to be pinned, and we wrestled awkwardly.
He dropped me to my house. I stood at the door till he was out of sight, then started jogging. I didn't want him to come with me. I didn't want to tell him why the ghost was after our souls, because that would trouble all three of them. It was better if I kept it to myself.
I went to the bookshop, and straight to the shelf where I'd found The Book of Souls. It wasn't there. I checked if this was the right shelf. It was. I checked the whole store. The big black book wasn't there. The lady who sat on the counter had no idea about it.
The book was gone. I gritted my teeth. Why had I not come earlier? There was nothing left for me to do except slump to the ground and cry.
∞