“A demon?” Tam squeaked. “You mean, like the one that possessed Noah the night in the abandoned house? And the one I saw in the mirror at Mason’s place?”
Mary nodded grimly.
Tamara’s face was momentarily blank before it scrunched up in a clear image of disgust, shot through with a tinge of horror. “Eww! Oh my God.”
Beside Mary, Noah snickered. Mary herself could feel her lips tugging up into a smile that was destined to break into a laugh, but she couldn’t afford the luxury of uncontrolled vocal volumes now— not with her parents’ perceptive ears in the house, not when she and Tam and the three ghosts in their company were in the midst of doing something that would surely get them in trouble.
“Shh,” Mary shushed. “My parents might hear you. This may be my bedroom, but they have no qualms about barging if their paranoid minds think the noise means I’m in trouble.”
“Sorry, sorry,” Tam replied, not looking sorry at all. Unless looking like she wanted to puke was her new apologetic face. “I just can’t believe Mason made out with a demon possessing a corpse! He’s never going to live that one down.”
Mary couldn’t disagree with that. “Have you heard from him today?”
“No. Have you?”
Mary shook her head. Last night, Mary returned to Tam’s house treading water in spite of the wind blowing past her as she rode her bike through the dark, empty streets. Thankfully Tamara’s father didn’t ask any questions. He simply got her a change of clothes from Tam’s closet along with a towel. Then he drove her home. Her parents were curious about how her night had turned out; Mary could tell by the way they eyed her wet hair that they were eager to know the story behind it. She had told them that she and Tam had planned to watch Titanic, but she couldn’t have possibly gotten that into the movie. One pre-planned lie and ham and cheese sandwich later, Mary was dismissed to retreat upstairs to sleep after declaring that Tam was coming over the next day.
She’d spent the entire rest of the night thinking about Mason, replaying every moment they’d spent together over and over from the moment she found him in between the rocks to when he planted a sloppy, yet sure kiss on her cheek and thanked her before she left. She was worried about him, worried about the boy who cried into her shoulder, worried about where he was right now. She wondered what he was doing, and if he was okay. After all that had happened, she didn’t think he possibly could be, but she hoped he was too drunk to notice. She hoped he was already passed out on someone’s beat up couch, taking a pleasant vacation from reality.
Mary’s pills and subsequent exhaustion after receiving a good beating by the waves allowed her to easily drift off into a deep sleep. She was thankful, because otherwise she would have been too restless over the night’s events to even consider closing her eyes and powering down for the night. But when she’d awoken, Mason jumped right back into her thoughts all too eagerly. It was like he was a song she had hit pause on the moment she fell asleep, only to hit play again as soon as she came back into consciousness. Even now, as she sat with Tam in the middle of her bedroom floor with a pile of ghost equipment spread out over the wooden planks made chilly by the snow falling on this cold Saturday afternoon, Mary couldn’t help but think about whether Mason was home already, suffering from a killer hangover. She wondered how much he would recall about the night before, and a part of her felt guilty for selfishly wishing that he’d remember it all, because that would save her the trouble and discomfort of having to repeat it to him.
“Anyway,” Tam said. “Let’s move on to the real reason why we’re here.” She gestured to the ghost equipment settled neatly over a large towel. Mary had retrieved it before Tam had even arrived because she knew her ex-best friend wouldn’t tolerate her children making any subtle contact with a dirty, scratchy floor. The various devices gleamed in silver and black beneath the stream of midday sunlight pouring through Mary’s bedroom window; the occasional red or green eye blinked up at her. “I’m going to try and get in contact with Noah and his two ghost friends, and you’re going to pay very close attention to me as I explain how to do so with this equipment. That way we’ll both be getting what we want. Capiche?”
By "ghost friends", Tam meant Avery and Margaret, who had kept her word and shown up in Mary’s bedroom bright and early this morning. The two female ghosts were currently together; Margaret was untying the braids in Avery’s hair as the two sat cross-legged on the floor.
Mary nodded at Tam just as her cell phone buzzed in her trench coat pocket. She reached for it a bit too eagerly than she would have liked, and her heart gave a reluctant leap when she assessed that Mason had texted her.
Mason: i jsut woke up frm the wierdest dream. Holyshit
So he remembered. Perhaps not all of it, but enough for him to label it as unusual and tack on an amazed curse word at the end in order to convey his astonishment.
Peering over her shoulder, Noah giggled, and then Mary had to bite back a giggle of her own because Noah had just giggled.
She replied, wondering if Mason knew of such a thing known as autocorrect.
Mary: Oh?
Mason: Yeah. You ewre in it
Mary’s heart raced at the words. She could feel her face heating up with a rosy blush. Did that mean he recalled how close the two of them were, how easy she had given him full control of her body? She hoped not. If nothing else, Mary hoped he at least forgot that part of last night, because she didn’t want Mason to know how much of an effect he had on her. When it came to heartbreakingly handsome guys like him, she knew she had to be strong and in full control.
Besides, with Noah hovering over her, if Mason mentioned it the poor ghost would howl in outrage.
Mary texted Mason back, tuning out Tam’s lecturing babble as she explained how to turn on the EMF meter. Just click the button that says ON. It couldn’t be that hard.
Mary: Do tell me more
It took Mason a few minutes to respond, during which time Mary was enlightened with the fact that EMF does not actually stand for Eat My Fries, but for Electromagnetic Field.
Mary liked her version better.
A buzz tickled her hand.
Mason: wwell jugdging by the hangover im enduring rn im guessing i got pretty wasted at thr bonfire and usually when that happens i get v hor ny so that must be qwhy there was a nked girl with nice boobs
Mason: ps you were not this naked girl with nice booobs i swear
Mason: altohugh that wuld have been hot
Noah had stopped snickering at Mason’s turn in conversation. “You should probably break it to him now,” he told her, “before he gets carried away. His hangover-induced dyslexia will be the death of him.”
Mary was in the middle of thumbing the keyboard on her phone when Tam cried out so loudly she jumped and it fell from her hands, onto her lap. “Oh my God! Look at the number on that EMF meter, Mary, just look at it!”
Mary leaned over and peered down at this so-called EMF meter. It was a rather small device, small enough for Tam to hold in the palm of her hand. Its screen was a lit icy blue color showcasing the number 9.6 in black, blocky digitalized font. It released a temporary series of beeps that Tam silenced with a mute button for the sake of secrecy.
Tam was clearly about to explode with excitement; Mary couldn’t recall the last time she’d seen her ex-best friends’ eyes light up like that. She smiled. “I’m guessing that’s really high?”
“You’re guessing that's really hi—“ Tam broke off with an exasperated breath, blowing a raspberry as she did so. Her breath tickled her bangs, which lifted up momentarily along with her eyes. “Mary. This is super high! We’re definitely in the presence of some ghosts with crazy amounts of power. See, all ghosts carry around electromagnetic fields. The typical ones give reading spikes of about 0.4 to 1.2. But the ghosts here have to have a reading of at least 3.0 each, unless one ghost is more powerful than the other. Either way, it’s pretty impressive!”
“Heh, why thank you,” Noah said, flexing his nonexistent muscles.
Mary allowed Tam to bask in her moment of awe and excitement as she finished her text to Mason.
Mary: That wasn’t a dream, Mason. A demon did really try to kill you last night. You really did make out with a naked corpse.
“Okay,” Tam said rather breathlessly, high off her children, “okay, now let’s try the EVP tape recorder. And the voice box!” she squealed with a snap of the fingers. “We can’t forget the voice box!”
“Parents, Tamara,” Mary warned, hating to have to be the one to kill the mood. Her eyes never wavered from her phone as she spoke, and Tam was too preoccupied with her excitement to care and/or notice.
She continued speaking in her line of thought, her voice reduced to a low, urgent hush. “And after that we’ll set up the cameras and see if we can actually see these ghosts’ figures! How cool would that be? Oh my Gosh. Noah, I’m going to be able to see you! Kind of. And talk to you! Kind of. I’m so excited.”
“Me too,” Noah agreed. “Let’s do this, Tam.”
It was taking Mason a while to respond back, and Mary dimly wondered if this perhaps was because he was currently passed out on the floor from shock after reading her text. Or maybe his slow, hung over mind needed extra time to process what she was saying.
Three minutes passed, but it felt like more than that. Mary learned what EVP stood for: Electronic Voice Phenomenon. Mary had seen that particular device in action many times. It was like a typical voice recorder except it also caught snatches of verbal communication from the ghost realm. It was usually hard to make out what the ghost was saying, as the white noise made it sound crackly and muffled and whispery.
Six minutes passed. Mary learned how to turn the thing on.
Eight minutes. Tamara asked Mary to tell Noah and Avery and Margaret to gather near the EVP tape recorder, and take as much energy as they needed from either herself and Mary or her devices (but preferably from herself and Mary) in order to answer her questions using the tape recorder.
Tamara was in the midst of asking the first question when Mary’s cell phone buzzed.
Mason: your joking
Mary: you’re*
Mason: mary
Mary: I’m serious, unfortunately.
Mason:
Mason:
Mason:
Mason: jfc
“What are the names of the ghosts that are here right now?”
“Margaret,” Margaret said into the recorder.
“And Noah,” Noah added. He hesitated. “The third ghost can’t speak; she’s a mute little girl. But her name’s Avery.”
All too eager to hear if she’d caught anything, Tam discontinued her line of questioning and pressed pause on the tape recorder, making sure Mary was paying full attention as she taught her how to play back the audio.
Mason: holy fcuk
Mason: im gona throwup
Mason: wth
She couldn’t help but grin at his reaction. Sure, none of this had been funny yesterday, with Mason’s neck being seconds away from getting snapped in half. But now that the immediate danger was behind them, it wasn’t hard to look back at the situation and find a bit of humor in the whole thing.
As Mary read over Mason’s stream of frantic texts, she could hear the tape recorder’s speaker replaying the audio it had just caught. Tam asked her question, and right after, so faintly it could have passed as a whisper, one could hear the crackle of Margaret’s one-worded reply. Tam played it a few more times to make sure she heard it correctly. “Margaret. Am I right?”
“Yep,” Mary answered as she texted Mason back. She could hear a collective cheer from Tam, Noah, and Margaret, and her lips broke out into a huge grin.
Mary: You should probably go wash your mouth a couple hundred times. And take a few showers while you’re at it.
The next part of the recording played, in which Noah spoke feebly and breathily. It was a lot harder to make out what he was saying because he was saying so much in comparison to Margaret. Tam spent at least five minutes pausing and playing and replaying, muttering beneath her breath and shaking her head to herself in a gesture that bared an endearing resemblance to actions that characterized her father.
“Geez, it sounds like I’m breathing into the recorder,” Noah commented, scrunching up his nose. “Like that kid in the wheelchair from Malcom in the Middle.”
Mason: U read my mind princess but befor I do tht when cani see you
Mary: I was actually going to go do some research with Salazar later today. He’s going to pick me up
“I heard the word ‘Noah’...” Tam began slowly, “… the third ghost is a cute little girl? Named Ava?”
“Close,” Mary said. It was actually quite a good listen, considering the poor quality of the recording. As she spoke, her phone vibrated. “Noah was telling you that the third ghost is mute. She’s a little girl named Avery.”
Mason: ew dn’t get into a car with that creeep I don’t trust him and niether does oanh ill pick u up
Mason: time?/
“Oh. Mute. Not cute. Okay. Hi, Avery. Sorry I butchered your name.”
Avery grinned and waved her tiny hand at Tam, happy to be acknowledged.
Mary: 4-ish
Mason: ill be there. Now excuse me hwile I go cleanse muself of the taste of death and teh touch of evil
Mary left him to do just that, sliding her phone back into her coat pocket just as Tam casually asked, “Who were you texting so much just now?”
“Mason. He thought the entire thing with the demon last night was just a really weird dream.”
She choked on a laugh as she exchanged the small EVP tape recorder with the black, bulky voice box. “What an idiot. I mean, I don’t blame the demon for wanting a piece of that, but he should have known better.”
Mary bristled. “He was drunk.” And sad, and lonely…
But she wouldn’t dare tell Tam about his breakdown. No way.
“Clearly,” Tamara snorted, pressing buttons on the voice box. “Why else would he hug you like he did before you left? And kiss you on the cheek? Mason’s not really known to get very cuddly, even when he is under the influence. So this must have been a whole new level of drunk.”
“Maybe he was just thankful,” Mary said. “I did save his life.”
She ceased her ministrations on the device on her lap and lifted her eyes to Mary’s.
“Oh, Mary,” she sighed. “You really don’t know Mason at all. The only time he’s ever thankful is if you give him access to the one thing he only ever wants: your body.”
Mary didn’t believe Tam’s words. Or maybe she couldn’t. Maybe she didn’t want to.
In the ensuing silence, in which Tamara had gone back to working on her device, Noah said, “Okay, no more Mason talk. God, it’s like I can never escape that kid. Even when he’s not here he’s causing problems.”
“Noah wants to stop talking about Mason,” Mary told her flatly.
Tam nodded. “Me too. But just so you know, Bailey got pretty jealous about the hug-and-kiss thing. She didn’t show it, but I could tell. I told her it was nothing; Mason was just drunk and overly appreciative. The whole school probably knows by now. She likes to spread things like that.”
Mary resisted the urge to roll her eyes. She put every ounce of effort into pretending to look like she cared about some petty high school drama when she had bigger things to worry about.
“Anyway, let’s move on. Mary, watch what I do with the voice box here…”
Mary watched, but it was with the sort of glazed interest she’d usually have when watching a teacher’s lecture in class. Tam more than anyone should have known that Mary wasn’t very adept at paying attention; she always found it quite a challenge to focus solely on one thing when there were a million other things going on right now, things running through her head like what Tam had said about Mason and what Mason had said about meeting up later and—
“Got it?” Tam asked her, and Mary realized she had been explaining something to her regarding the voice box. Probably how to turn it on, considering its speakers were now alive with an annoying crackling sound that was too loud for comfort.
Mary blinked. “Yes.”
“No you didn’t. But whatever, I’m not going to repeat it. I’m sure Noah saw what I did. Right, Noah?”
“Right.”
And then the voice’s monotone, robotic box spoke: “Right.”
Tam cheered and clapped her hands excitedly. Avery tilted her head at the box as if it was a new toy she was sizing up, and Margaret hummed with delight. Noah grinned. This was what the voice box did: it caught a spirit’s voice and processed it through a screen that displayed the word being spoken as it repeated the ghost’s word with its robotic voice. It was much clearer than the EVP tape recorder, but the only major drawback was that it only caught one word at a time, and couldn’t speak in whole sentences.
“Hi, Noah,” Tam told the box.
“Greetings,” Noah replied, and the box echoed his statement. Tam’s smile was so big it lit up the entire room more than the overcast skies outside did.
“Okay, now let’s try the infrared cameras. If it works well, I should be able to see your silhouettes, at least.”
Mary shook her head. “If my parents walk in and see the cameras we’ll be in deep trouble; we can't hide those in time. They think the whole reason why I went crazy—aside from Noah’s death, anyway—is because we used to mess around with spirits and demons with this equipment. Oh, and they removed the lock on my door so anyone can come in at any time. I’m genuinely surprised they haven’t done so already.”
“When did they do that?” Tamara asked, outraged. “Remove the lock?”
“Sometime during my temporary stay at the insane asylum,” Mary replied wearily. “Apparently the doctors suggested it.”
“Boo, they suck,” Tamara said with a pouty frown that she had most certainly acquired from someone like Bailey. “But okay. I’ll just stick to the equipment here on this towel, and then we can get into the next part of our day: figuring out why Noah’s still here. Oh, and his friends, too.”
Tamara was pretty adamant that the curse of Lock-and-Key was not the reason why Noah and Avery and Margaret were still on earth. She insisted that this entrapment was fixable, that Noah was just the average trapped spirit case they’d encounter back in the old days, and all they had to do was follow the routine they always carried out and Noah would be walking through to the other side in no time. Just like old times.
A sudden pang of pain hit Mary’s chest at the thought. She shook her head. She should have felt happy that Noah was going to find peace, not like a part of her heart was threatening to crumble into dust if this worked.
This is what a good friend would do, she told herself. They would try to help the ghost of their friend find peace instead of selfishly keeping him here because they couldn’t bear to lose him a second time.
Selfish. Mary wouldn’t allow herself to think that way again.
After Mary was thoroughly instructed and thoroughly confused in the art of using complicated pieces of machinery for paranormal communication, Tam declared that it was time to get down to business. She handed Mary the EVP tape recorder and demanded that she turn it on, crossing her arms and puffing her chest like some imperious proctor eyeing an examinee with scrutiny for the smallest sign of failure.
“I don’t want you to communicate to me for them,” she said. “I want to hear them myself.”
Luckily, Mary had Noah to help guide her fingers to the right buttons, and soon Mary was clicking play and Tamara was asking her first question.
“Noah, what’s your most valuable possession? Sentimentally, of course. If we can retrieve it, I’ll take it to my backyard and burn it.”
Mary thought he’d reply with something like his limited edition Star Wars figurine set, but he didn’t. Instead, he cast his gaze down and said quietly, “A necklace that used to be mom’s before she died. I used to sleep with it under my pillow every night.”
Mary was so stunned by his answer that she’d forgotten to pause the tape recording, so it dragged on a bit longer than necessary, a stream of white noise. She replayed it for Tam, hoping to convey her sympathy to him through her gaze. He quirked his lips in a halfhearted smile that didn’t touch his pained brown eyes and shrugged a shoulder.
Eventually, Tam caught onto his words. “Oh, Noah,” she whispered sadly.
“I brought it with me. I knew you’d probably want to burn it to see what happens, so I went to my room to find it. Did you know my dad packed up everything into boxes? It’s just an empty room with stripped furniture now. I found the locket necklace in his room. I got it and blipped over here.”
The locket hovered before Noah; he eyed it with a sort of sad wistfulness as he spoke. Tam gasped and stumbled back onto her palms at the sight of a levitating object, but she quickly composed herself as it made its way to her, landing gently on her waiting palm. She clutched it and shut her eyes.
“I can’t burn this, Noah; I can’t.”
“You have to,” Noah said, and Mary replayed it back for her to hear.
Tam shook her head but placed the necklace in her purse, looking like she was about to cry.
“I have something as well,” Margaret spoke up. Mary quickly hit play on the tape recorder, gesturing for Tam to be silent. “Noah informed me that I needed to bring something that is most dear to me. I feel terrible stealing it from my husband, but if this is what must be done so that I can one day see him again in the afterlife when he passes, then so be it.”
Floating over to Tam now was a sparkling wedding ring with a gold band and an intricate series of small diamonds that came together to form a heart. It was breathtakingly beautiful, yet modest, too—not over the top by any means. Tam held it in her palm, pinching it admiringly.
“It’s gorgeous,” she said sadly.
Margaret smiled. “Please take care of it.” Mary replayed it all for Tam to hear, and after a few moments spent trying to make out the words, she nodded.
Finally, it was Avery’s turn. Mary reached into her bag and pulled out the My Little Pony doll she had looked at the day she went into her room without permission and Mason caught her. Mason had given it to her when she’d told him about her plans with Tam. Apparently it was her favorite toy. Avery came to it quickly, her face glowing with happiness. She kept reaching for it, but her pale, translucent hands would go right through, and the joy in her eyes dimmed. Mary handed the doll to Tam, her heart broken.
“All right,” Tam said, sighing heavily. “Mary, we have to arrange a time for you to come over so we can burn these. Since Noah keeps insisting he be the first one, we’ll burn the necklace first and… and see what happens. We’ll have to say goodbye beforehand. Just in case.”
Mary nodded in agreement, her throat thickening with the threat of tears. The prospect of saying goodbye was too much to handle.
Don’t be selfish.
“Now I want to explore some other reasons why the three of you might be trapped here,” Tam continued. “Yes, it could very well be because of a curse, but it could also be because you guys have some unfinished business here. Something you never received closure for. Anyone feel like that might be the case with them?”
Margaret frowned to herself, her eyes faraway, in deep thought. Noah scratched his head, suddenly looking a bit uncomfortable. Avery kept trying to make her doll float, but it wouldn’t get any more than a few inches off the ground.
Tam caught Mary’s eye. “Are they speaking or thinking?” she whispered.
“Thinking.”
Just then, her phone vibrated in her pocket. Mary pulled it out eagerly, grateful for the distraction.
Mason: I’ve bathed and brushed my teeth four times each and I still can’t remove the feeling of that demon’s lips on me help
“Noah?” Tam inquired, voice unusually sharp. “Anything?”
Mary: That sounds like a personal problem
“Not that I can think of, no,” he mumbled. Mary paused the recording and played it back.
Mary: And suddenly you’re typing like you don’t have crossed eyes?
“Maybe the reason you’re still here is because you need to help Mary with the whole gate thing.”
“Yeah, but when I died I had no idea this was going to happen. I was at peace. I was ready to go, I swear.”
Pause. Play back.
Mason: Four showers and some accidentally swallowed toothpaste really does the trick when it comes to hangovers, who would’ve thought? My head still hurts, but I don’t feel as shitty as before
“You swear? Are you sure about that, Noah? There’s nothing that you regret not doing before you died?” Tam’s voice was edgy. “Nothing at all?”
Mason: I’m totally naked, btw. Just thought u should know
Mary: Thanks for that
Mason: You know what I remembered while I was in the shower?
Mary: Oh, God, Mason. I’m not sure I want to know
Mason: It’s nothing like *that*. Well, nvm. It’s something like that.
Mason: I remember pushing you up against a rock and wanting to do dirty things to you
Mason: And I almost kissed you but I didn’t
Mason: I should have
Mason:
Mason:
Mason: I’ll see you at 4.
“No.”
Mary looked up from her phone at Noah. She had been so engrossed in her conversation with Mason that she hadn’t detected the cold tension in the air, the silence that had occupied the room for longer than necessary. She played back Noah’s single word, which had rode out of his mouth in the form of a trembling whisper. His hands were clenched, his jaw locked, eyes blazing. Tam must have upset him, but Mary had only paid half attention to their conversation. The rest was stolen by Mason, who most definitely recalled their little moment in between the rocks at the cove. She knew it meant nothing to either of them except that it had been a pleasurable physical experience, but she hoped he never tried something like that with her again, now that he knew she was weak. Because Mason might be that type of guy, but she wasn’t that type of girl. She wasn’t going to kiss him just because; she was going to do it because she wanted him as something more than a friend.
And she did not want him that way.
Tam huffed out yet another sigh, suddenly looking very tired. “Whatever. Anyone else?”
Margaret shook her head. Avery simply stared up at Mary like she held all the answers to the universe.
She wished she did. That would make her current life a helluva lot easier.
“Nope, nothing,” Mary said.
“Well, I guess we’ll trying burning those things, then.” Tam still appeared a bit bothered by whatever happened between her and Noah. Noah himself had closed himself off completely and was now gazing out her window at the falling snow with his ghostly hands clasped behind his back. He looked years older than he actually was when he stood like that. “We’ll talk about a date and time. For now I should probably get going. But before I go…” she hesitated. “How’s the whole demon fighting thing going? I know you fought one last night, but that was by accident. You said you guys are looking for a pattern, right?”
“Yeah. But we haven’t found anything.” Mary grimaced. Practically an entire week spent poring over newspaper clippings and books and internet sites, and nothing to show for it except for more questions than answers. “It would be easier if we had a lead, you know? Something to go by. I’m starting to think there wasn’t ever a pattern at all. It was just a theory, anyway. A good one, but still.”
Tam shook her head. “A lead would be easier. You guys are walking blindly right now, just going off the first piece of information you find. You need a map, a guide. You need to sort everything that you’ve gathered so far, just spread it out and look at the big picture. Maybe then you’ll be able to make some connections.”
It was quite possibly the smartest thing Tam had ever said, and Tam had said a lot of smart things. Even Noah turned around from the window at that, a considering look in his squinted eyes.
“That’s great advice, Tam. I’ll be sure to use it. Thank—” Mary broke off at the creaking sound of footsteps tapping quickly up the stairs. She was familiar enough with the sounds and movements of her home to determine that this particular brisk, light pace belonged to her mother’s.
“My mom’s going upstairs,” Mary said quickly. “She’s probably going to check up on us. Quick, hide the stuff.”
“They aren’t stuff, they’re equipment,” Tam corrected as she slid the towel and the contents wrapped inside it beneath Mary’s bed.
Mary’s bedroom door opened just as she plopped down across from Tam, in front of a previously prepared setup for a card game of Go Fish. Both Mary and Tam looked up to see Mary’s mother standing at the doorway, looking confused.
“Oh, hi Mrs. Durward,” Tam said with a small wave. She held up a fan of cards that were spread out in her hands. “Want to join us?”
“No,” she said slowly, looking just a tad bit suspicious, but mainly dumbfounded. “I just heard a lot of noise up here. Like, robotic noises. Just wanted to make sure everything was okay.”
“Oh, that was just Tam,” Mary said with a wave of the hand. “Did you know she can burp while talking? It actually does sound kind of robotic, now that you mention it.”
Tam caught Mary’s eye, humor sparkling in them. The two were clearly trying to hold in their laughter, biting their lips as their faces turned red.
“Oh, my. Well, then,” Mary’s mom said with raised eyebrows. “Um. Continue on with your burping conversations. Although I’ll have you know, Tam, it’s not very ladylike.”
“I know, I’m sorry. We were just having fun.”
She smiled warmly. “I know. Anyway, now that I’m here: do you two want anything to eat? I can order pizza.”
The two girls exchanged glances and shook their heads. It was ridiculously difficult to keep a straight face. The laughter was water being held back by a dam that was about to break.
“All right. Sorry for interrupting,” her mom said. “Go back to having fun.”
She closed the door and Mary and Tam erupted into a fit of laughter that left them doubling over, clutching at their stomachs and lying on the floor gasping for air.
†††
The first thing Mason did when Mary, Noah and Avery got into his car was hold up his hand in a silencing gesture and meet Noah’s gaze through the rearview mirror. The ghost had clearly been about to say something, as evidenced by the frozen gape to his translucent mouth.
“Don’t even,” he told Noah, his mossy eyes hard, adding power to his demand. “Don’t. Even.”
Noah closed his mouth reluctantly, yet a smug smile sat upon his lips the entire ride to Salazar’s trailer.
†††
In the depths of the underground library, Mason expelled a heavy, drawn out sigh and leaned back into his chair, stretching out on it like a cat.
Mary tugged on the chair’s backside just enough to make Mason think he was about to topple backwards.
“Whoa—hey!” he cried out, his limbs flailing. Mary broke out into a meek laugh—her parents had allowed her to go out with Mason so long as she’d ingested her pills beforehand. It was like they knew she wasn’t going to go study in a library but was actually conducting research that could help save lives.
Mason righted himself, the panic that had been residing on his face simmering down just as quickly as it had sprung up. “Not cool.”
“We’re supposed to be researching,” she told him, plopping a big, fat book onto the table before him. To Mary’s satisfaction, a cloud of dust flew out from it, causing Mason to sneeze. “Not lounging on a chair like a king.”
“But I am a king,” he insisted, opening up the book. “And you’re my queen.”
Mary rolled her eyes, sitting down beside him with a book of her own. “Sure, Mason. Sure.”
All was silent for a few moments as the pair flipped through pages of their respective books. The only sound came from the quiet crinkling and scraping of paper and of Salazar’s movements in one of the rows to their right.
“How’s your hangover?” Mary inquired, not tearing her eyes from the faded blue lettering of her white, glossy-paged book.
“Much better than when I woke up. God, that was bad. I felt like I’d gotten hit by a saucepan a couple thousand times, and not in a kinky way.” He seemed especially disappointed to be saying so. “But I took some Advil and threw up a few times and showered and brushed my teeth like I told you. Now it’s just a mild headache. But I’m exhausted.”
“Me too,” Mary sighed. “I was with Tam today, learning how to use her equipment. I gave her Avery’s doll. We’re supposed to meet to burn Noah’s special object sometime.”
“And if it works? My sister will be… gone?”
“She’ll have moved on to where spirits go after death, yes,” Mary mumbled.
Mason was silent for a few beats. “I want to be there when that happens. If that happens.”
“You will be,” she assured, turning another page of the book. All she saw were words, words, and more words. She had no idea what she was looking for anymore.
It took her a moment to realize Mason was eyeing her.
“What?”
He shrugged. “I just wanted to thank you for saving my life last night. I’m not sure if I did so yesterday, but if I did it doesn’t matter because you deserve to hear it from me sober. I meant to thank Noah in the car, but I couldn’t stand to look at him because of the goddam smirk on his ugly face.”
“You can’t help him for wanting to poke fun at you for that. I mean, you kissed a corpse,” Mary giggled, and he shot her a severe glance. “But anyway. You’re welcome. It was my pleasure, actually.”
Mason gave her a look, rolling his eyes. “No it wasn’t.”
“Okay, it wasn’t,” she agreed, and the two chuckled.
“I can tell you one thing, though,” he said as he flipped through a couple of pages of his monstrous text. “Mason Montgomery is going to take a break from girls for a while.”
“And by a while you mean… about a week or two?”
Mason looked horrified at the prospect. “Oh, God no. More like a day or two. You know, so I can shake off the feeling of that demon’s hands all over me. Then I’ll be back and ready to spread my services throughout the community.”
“Community service, is it? Did you list your special services to women on your college applications?”
“Of course I did,” he replied, and he said it so nonchalantly that for one brief sliver of a second Mary thought he was being serious. “Anyway, I’m not done thanking you.”
“If you’re going to thank me for that moment between the rocks don’t bother,” Mary said with a wave of the hand. “That was my community service. Charity work for the needy.”
Mason’s eyebrows shot up past his hairline. “So now I’m needy? I see how it is, Mary. I wasn’t talking about that, by the way. I was talking about what you told me about blaming myself for Avery’s passing. I remember every word of that speech, you know. Even though I was so drunk I thought the moon was a giant cookie, I remembered that. And it helped, so, thank you.”
Mary was touched. “I’ve been there,” she said quietly, casting her eyes down to her wrists which were covered by the thick material of her coat. “Sometimes I think I’m still there, but I’m trying to convince myself I’m making progress. Tam and I used to be best friends, and I know part of the reason why she distanced herself from me was because she blamed me for what happened with Noah. I hated myself for so long, and I… it led me to do some pretty drastic things.” She stopped, unsure if she should venture into this dark topic of self-harm and suicide with Mason. She wasn’t sure if she wanted him to know about her own personal demons. She took a deep breath and met his evergreen gaze again. “All I’m saying is I know how you feel. And if you ever want to talk about it, I’m here. Just please be sober,” she added with a small laugh.
Mason was resting his cheek on the palm of his hand, gazing down at her as she spoke. The corner of Mason’s mouth quirked up. He tugged at the sleeve of her trench coat, pinching his eyebrows together with curiosity. “Why do you always wear that thing, hm? The only time I’ve ever seen you with it off, you were wearing a hospital gown instead.”
“It was once Noah’s; he gave it to me,” she said quietly, feeling the fabric between her fingers. “It was a birthday present the year we started playing with the dead. I used to wear it only when we went out to investigate haunted places. It was like my uniform. I felt like a detective, all professional with my heavy coat. I was convinced it gave me good luck.” She could feel her reminiscent smile fading as she continued, “When Noah passed away, I missed him so much. You know how it is. There’s like a gaping hole in your chest you can’t fill.” Mason’s face had gone unreadable, but he nodded grimly. “I just wanted to have a part of him with me, wherever I went. I was desperate to get as close to him as I could, and the only thing I had that suited that criteria was this coat. So I wore it every day, and it felt like he was with me. I thought if I concentrated hard enough I could smell him, buried beneath the fabric. For the first week or two after he passed, I’d fall asleep with it, crying.” Mary shook her head at the dark memory. She had so many, it wasn’t fair. “Then I started using it to hide the scars.”
Mason stilled. “The… scars?”
Mary couldn’t believe she was about to let him in like this, but there was something about Mason that inspired nothing but pure, wholehearted trust from her, in spite of what people like Tam and Noah said.
“Yeah,” she mumbled. She rolled up her sleeves, and the thin razor cuts glared back at her, the majority of them silvery with time. The dim glow of the library touched them with an ugly tinge of yellow-orange. Her veins snaked through them, winding rivers of purple and green and blue, easily visible beneath the thinness of her pale skin.
Mason sucked in a breath. He grabbed her wrists lightly, as if they were fragile pieces of skin and bone that could break beneath his fingers. His thumb roved over the skin of her right arm's underside, almost as if he were caressing the sewn up flesh, the damaged lumps that hadn’t healed properly, the ugly works of art done by the artist in her darkest moments of despair and fear and loneliness.
Mary closed her eyes, a small sigh escaping her.
“I don’t…” He trailed off. Mary parted her eyelids to see that he was still staring down at the undersides of her arms, yet instead of looking horrified he now looked… in awe. “I don’t know what to say. I can tell you that there’s nothing more beautiful than a battle scar, but I’m not sure if you’ll believe it. That’s what these are, you know.” He met her eyes, lifting her wrist. “Battle scars. Except they’re battles you’ve faced with yourself.” He cocked his head, gazing back down at them. Mary suddenly wanted to burst into tears. “You know, along with your veins, they sort of look like lines on a map.”
Mary’s gaze wandered away from his penetrating eyes, the ones that made her want to combust or melt and shrink away into nothing. With her gaze she traced the image of a pentagram opened on a page of her book.
And then a recent memory tickled her mind.
You need a map, a guide. You need to sort everything that you’ve gathered so far, just spread it out and look at the big picture. Maybe then you’ll be able to make some connections.
“A map,” Mary whispered, her eyes widening. “We need a map.”
Mason, who was still holding her wrists, brilliantly said, “Huh?”
Mary turned to him eagerly. “What if these demonic attacks are being done by location? And what if—what if there’s some sort of pattern to it, like a shape or—or a rotation, like counterclockwise or clockwise?”
Mason’s gorgeous eyes widened with understanding. “Salazar,” he called out. “Can you find us a map of Cullis Port? Mary’s onto something.”
“I’m on it,” he called back.
“And a pen!” Mary said, her mind racing. She turned back to the book she had been looking at, fingers tracing the lines of the pentagram as she whispered to herself. “Lines on a map. But lines require you to connect the dots. So that would mean—”
A rather large poster of a map of the city of Cullis Port was plopped down before her, over the book. Mary was handed a pen, and for a moment she simply stared down at the intricate web of lines that marked streets and expressway routes, little logos that symbolized a restaurant or a hospital or a museum.
“Let me see the list we drew up of all the deaths so far,” she said. She knew her heart would have been pounding with the prospect of sudden discovery, had it not been slain into a completely lethargic state by her antianxiety pills. She bent down with the pen and started marking the location of each death with a dot. It was a slow process, mainly because there were so many lines and street names it was difficult to follow with heavy eyes that yearned for sleep. But Mason and Salazar caught onto what she was doing, and grabbed their own pens. Soon they were completely done.
“Now step away,” Mary said, taking a few steps back from the map. “Look at the big picture.”
They obliged. At first, Mary didn’t see anything. Just a map with a couple of random dots all over the place. But through further inspection, she realized that most of the dots were arranged in a manner that hinted at a shape. An eastward dot there, another one directly across from it, westwards. Mary bit her lip. There was definitely a shape here. A circle? No. Not all the dots fell into a single curving line. A triangle? A—
“A star?” Mason said, and Mary wondered why he said it as a question when he was definitely right, except it wasn’t just a star.
She thought of the image printed in the book she’d been looking at.
“A pentagram,” Salazar corrected, looking more alert and hyped than she had ever seen him. He stepped forwards. “The dots form a pentagram. Not all of them. Four of them. One for each point of the star, except we’re missing one.”
“No we aren’t.” Mary reached his side and began connecting the dots. “You didn’t count the attack yesterday. The demon said someone was supposed to die at the cove aside from Mason. And look at where the cove line’s up.”
“The fifth point,” Salazar breathed. Mary was so giddy she couldn’t help but grin. They’d done it. They’d actually figured it out.
Well, almost.
“So it’s safe to say that the demons are killing pure souls located at each point of the star,” Salazar said slowly. “But—“
“Not just each point of the star,” Mary corrected. “Look at the intersections. I’ll bet anything that the demons plan on killing people at each of those places where the lines intercept. The lines themselves don’t have any deaths directly on them, but they could also be possible locations.”
“So really, only five pure souls have gotten taken,” Mason said. “Well, actually four, since last night’s attempt failed.”
“I wonder who she was after,” Mary whispered. “I wonder if the demons will try to get that person again, at the same location.”
“Or if they’ll try again at a different location,” Salazar said.
“What’s the pattern here?” Mason asked. “I mean, I get the whole pentagram thing, but do the demons just choose a random point of the star and attack? Is it based on a person’s souls’ purity?”
Mary and Salazar were silent, contemplating. Mary scanned her eyes over the list of deaths, paying special attention to their dates of birth and dates of death for any sort of pattern. Her eyes kept darting to the giant pentagram they’d drawn over Cullis Port, looking especially daunting in bold Sharpie.
“Got it,” Mary said. “It’s counterclockwise, based on these deaths here. The demons are killing people at each point of the star, counterclockwise. And they’re doing it at random; there’s no special pattern to these death dates except that they get increasingly newer as we go around the pentagram. I’m guessing they wait for a chance to present itself at the specific point, and then they strike.”
“So, really, it can be any soul deemed pure enough for their needs,” Salazar stated. “As long as they get increasingly purer as we go around the star, it can simply be a right-place-right-time situation.”
“Which is why the demons are taking so long to complete the star,” Mason realized. “They have so many restrictions; they can’t just take any pure soul. It has to be like Salazar said: at the right place at the right time.”
Mary blew out a breath. “So where will they strike next?”
“Could be the cove again,” Salazar suggested.
“Could be,” Mary agreed. “Either that or… “ She eyed the map, her finger hovering over it. “Here. The first spot going counterclockwise inside the star, where the lines intersect.”
“Where the hell is that place?” Mason asked. “I’m guessing it’s near water, judging by all the blue.”
“Marina Harbor,” Salazar replied, tapping the little anchor symbol over the location. “If we’re right, the next attack is going to be at Marina Harbor."
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A/N- Its long i sorry i just really want to get into the main part of this story which starts next chapter! First person who knows the title reference gets a dedication (or you can goggle it, w/e). Let me know if you're confused I know it was a lot to take in at the end there. Thanks for reading and please vote/comment! <3