Doyle drove us down to a parking lot at the public beach, and we sat in the car for a long time, watching the waves roll in and out without speaking.
“You wanna talk about it?” Doyle said finally. He leaned over and flipped the passenger heating vent toward me, gesturing for me to put my hands on it as warm air billowed out. I felt a sharp tingle in my palms and realized the beds of my nails were blue.
“Not really,” I said. Doyle looked back at the ocean.
“I’m sorry that wasn’t what you were looking for,” he said. “I know how it is when you go looking for something you think will help you understand, and it all goes wrong.”
“I just feel stupid,” I muttered. “Stupid for thinking anything Mom was involved in wouldn’t just be a massive ball of screwed up.” I hesitated. “And really stupid that you saw me lose my shit like that.”
“Don’t,” Doyle said. “As far as berserker rages go, you can’t hold a candle to my brothers and cousins after about twenty beers.” He shifted, leaning back against the seat and staring at the ocean, letting out a sigh that mingled with the blasts of lukewarm air from the heater.
“It’s not even that,” I muttered. “I don’t know why I thought finding out anything about my father would do the least bit of good.” I sighed. “And I didn’t find out anything new, other than he’s apparently the devil and I’m the devil’s kid.”
“That old bat was way far gone,” Doyle said. “People like her love to yell about the devil.”
I was glad he was looking out at the ocean and didn’t see me flinch. Flippant remarks about crazy people were hitting close to home these days.
“I’m sorry I wasted your day,” I said. “Let’s just go home and forget I was ever this stupid, okay?”
Doyle rubbed a hand over his face, then turned to look at me, arm on the back of the seat. “Look, I don’t tell people this, but about a year ago I ran away and went to live with my mom’s extended family up in Canada. Ass-end of the Yukon, all survivalist and shit. I thought if I left, I could get away from all the small-town politics and all of my dad’s crap.” He rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. “It sucked. They were these überconservative, insular rednecks who treated me like shit because my mother had left the family and married an Irish Catholic. Then divorced him and moved to a blue state. Between the ultraright screeds and having to field-dress more deer than any one group of people should be able to eat in ten years, I had to admit I screwed up and came home. Then my dad was pissed at me too.”
I knew it was just the shock and the general awfulness of the day talking, but I started to giggle.
“What?” Doyle demanded.
“The Yukon,” I snickered. “Doyle, you’re half Canadian.”
“Yeah, so?” he grumbled. “Not the good kind.”
“Hey, so, I’m the school bad boy, eh? So sorry about your mom, eh?” I said, trying to bite back laughter.
Doyle grunted, but then he smiled. “And you Hulk out when you get mad.”
I felt like shit again. Mary Anne’s words wouldn’t leave me alone. The devil. Your father.
Doyle turned on the radio while we drove back to the marina, and I was glad we didn’t have to talk anymore. I thought I’d be relieved to know anything concrete about Mom. Instead, Mary Anne had left me with ten thousand new questions.
You didn’t start referring to the father of your friend’s unborn child as the devil unless something seriously messed up had happened between them, so bad that Scary Anne back there clearly thought there was some dimension of actual supernatural evil to the man. I didn’t believe in God, so the devil was also a nonstarter for me, but knowing Mom’s taste in guys, the chances were good that my father was a grade A scumbag at the very least. Was he doing something so bad—stalking her, beating her, threatening my safety—that she’d had to run away?
I dismissed that idea. Mom may have taken stupid risks and picked shitty men, but it would have taken more than an evil ex-boyfriend to drive her out of her home. It was just like I’d always thought—she’d left because she wanted to. That was the only reason she did anything.
“Thanks,” I said to Doyle when we were on the boat, cruising out of the harbor and toward the island. The sun was going down, and a thin line of orange ate away the horizon, burning through the cloud layer. “I’m sorry it was such a bust.”
He shrugged and then reached inside his jacket. “This might help make up for it.”
I looked down at the leather-bound book in his hands. It was oversized, like a Bible, hand-stitched with thick, rough thread. I took it and turned the pages. Every one was full of scrawled, blurry handwriting and detailed pen drawings, lines so dense that they soaked through the paper and blotted out the text on the other side.
“What the heck is this?” I said.
“It’s a journal,” Doyle said. “Entries start around 1998. I saw it on Mary Anne’s side table when you started throwing stuff, so I grabbed it.”
“Doyle . . . ,” I started, then tucked the book inside my own jacket. “Thank you.” I wasn’t about to lecture him for stealing—more impressed he’d been so cool and light-fingered.
“I figured it at least might tell you something about your mom,” he said. “Or what they were up to right before she ran off.”
“This means a lot,” I said. Doyle grinned.
“I don’t usually have to resort to burglary to impress girls, but whatever works.”
“First of all, that’d be petty theft at most,” I said. “Second of all, you have a girlfriend, and if this were a date, it would be pretty fucked-up.”
“I told you, Valerie and I aren’t anything serious,” he said. “I just don’t want to break up with her right before the Halloween dance. That would be a dick move.”
I felt a flare of heat just under my heart and tried to keep my face neutral. “Yeah, that would be. Cheating your significant other out of a dumb couple’s costume is just the worst.”
“Look who’s jealous,” Doyle purred. I hated the way I knew I should tell him to knock it off, stop trying to play his flirt game with me, but I didn’t want to. I liked that he was interested in me. I liked that my crazy didn’t faze him, just pulled him in closer, like metal to a magnet.
“I’m not jealous,” I said. “I don’t have a jealous bone in my body. I’m just that awesome.”
“And who’s your date to the dance?” Doyle said. “Betty?”
“Oh, stop,” I said. “She’s not that bad.”
Doyle winced. “Okay, if you say so.” The island loomed large in the windscreen of the boat, and he turned to take us around the point and back toward the old dock at the manor. “Good luck,” he said as he cut the throttle and glided up to the dock. “Call me and let me know you survived the walk home, okay?”
I nodded, hopping onto the dock with his help. He didn’t let go of my hand, and I stayed suspended for a moment, with him looking up at me. His eyes were slightly luminous in the impending dark, and he gave my fingers a warm squeeze before he let me go. “See you later, Ivy.”
I watched until the boat disappeared around the cliffs by the lighthouse, then turned and climbed the stairs back to the manor house. The book was a heavy weight inside my jacket, even heavier than my thoughts.
Nobody noticed that I’d been gone all day, which would have irritated me if I wasn’t so relieved. It was like Simon and Mrs. MacLeod only noticed me if they wanted something or I was in their way. I didn’t think Simon had a job—certainly not one where he left the house—but I had seen a lot of letters and packets laying around his office from brokerage firms and a money manager, so I figured he spent his days being nerdy with numbers, minding the Bloodgood fortune. I’d never been rich, but I’d helped rip off enough actually wealthy people to know managing old family money could be a full-time job.
I heard a vacuum whining somewhere upstairs, which I hoped meant I was free of Mrs. MacLeod for the evening. I microwaved some leftover sludge in the fridge with my name scrawled on the Tupperware, which turned out to be beef stew, and ate it while I looked through the stolen diary. Mary Anne’s handwriting was even tinier and more inscrutable than Mom’s, and to top it off, the book was in what I assumed was Bosnian. Certainly nothing I could read. There was bad art too, scattered among the crazed spider-track handwriting. The largest drawing showed two figures standing face-to-face, one dark and one light, with lines of text between them in an alphabet I didn’t recognize.
If I’d had a computer, I could have translated the writing, or tried to at least, but the only laptop was in Mrs. MacLeod’s room, and I didn’t even want to try to think of a lie elaborate enough to cover why I needed to use her internet connection to translate pages from a journal I stole from a stranger.
My mother had had a similar book for a while, probably a sequel to the diary I’d found in her room, but she lost it somewhere along the way. I’d always thought it was a leftover from one of the few times she’d tried to be a street artist, selling paintings and drawings of fairies and elves and demons—things that weren’t real. This book of Mary Anne’s was almost too real, dripping with the sort of thick insanity you usually only saw in exhibits at a murder trial.
I fell asleep fast after supper, which surprised me, and managed to not only not dream but to sleep through my alarm. Mrs. MacLeod pounding on my door snapped me awake.
“Breakfast has gone!” she shouted when I grumbled I was awake. “Get dressed or you’ll miss the boat, and I will not be writing you an excuse note.”
“What’s your excuse?” I muttered, putting on the same clothes from yesterday and stumbling downstairs. The book was in my backpack, hidden inside a folder. I wasn’t taking any chances on Mrs. MacLeod finding it and ratting me out to Simon.
“And did we sleep well?” Mrs. MacLeod sneered as I crossed the foyer.
I didn’t even bother responding as I walked down the steps and across the drive. Mrs. MacLeod shouted something else, but it might as well have been “Blah blah blah, I’m a mean old witch” for all I cared.
I decided to hide the book in my locker until I could get some time to translate it, but just as I was stacking my econ worksheets on top of it, someone snatched it out of my hands.
“Wow!” Betty exclaimed. “Is this what you were doing on Saturday? I love estate sales. You should have called! I’m awesome at thrifting!”
I was way too tired to decipher her babbling, so I just blinked. “Excuse me?”
“You went to a vintage store, silly!” Betty exclaimed. “This thing is awesome. Is it like an antique?”
“I . . .” I shook my head. “No, Betty. It’s just a . . . family heirloom. I was going to go plug it into Google later and see what the writing says.” I couldn’t quite meet her eyes. Betty was annoying and in serious need of some chill, but it wasn’t like me to be an asshole because I was so wrapped up in my own crap. Considering she was one of two humans who’d been nice to me since I got to Darkhaven, I definitely needed to pull my head out.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I will call next time.”
“It’s okay, Ivy,” she said. “I know you will.”
“Yes,” I said, glad not to have to lie for once. “Anyway. Google. Translating. Fun.”
“I’ll do it!” she chirped. “It’s Russian. My grandmother spoke it. My mom’s grandmother. Before my mom died she wanted us to learn, and I still practice just in case.”
I didn’t want to ponder in case of what. “You really don’t mind?”
“No!” she trilled. “Speaking Russian with Gram was one of my favorite things to do back home. Our old home, not the mobile home we live in now. That one wasn’t on wheels.”
When I didn’t immediately hand over the journal she wilted a little. “I mean, I know it’s probably private and all. And everyone knows I can’t keep my mouth shut. I did a search on the internet about disorders that make you talk a lot, but I don’t think I have those, I think I just like to talk. I used to mostly talk to my parents, but now my dad has two jobs and he’s way too tired at night.”
I thought back to Doyle telling me I was going to have to trust somebody here in Darkhaven. He’d been talking about himself, but I held the book out to Betty. “I know you won’t tell anyone about this. There’s nothing in here that I don’t want you to see. It’s just a . . . storybook . . . that somebody illustrated.”
Betty’s smile powered back on like a Christmas tree. “I’ll meet you after your practice, in the library!” she practically shouted. Everyone in the hall turned to look at her, and she blushed and shuffled away.
I tried to stay away from Valerie while we ran laps, but Mr. Armitage paired us up for a relay race. She looked at me with her head tilted. “How’s Doyle?”
I bit my lip. That was a loaded question if ever there was one.
“He texted me and said he had the flu,” she said. “I know you live near him. Is he going to be in school tomorrow?”
Doyle had missed classes? That was news to me. I looked over my shoulder, back to where he usually waited for the last bus when I had practice. The parking lot was empty.
“I have no idea,” I said truthfully. “I haven’t seen him since the weekend.”
Mr. Armitage blew his whistle into my ear before Valerie could say anything else. “Rejoin us on planet Earth, Ivy!” he shouted. “Let’s get this show on the road.”
I had a terrible practice. I was slow, stumbling, and couldn’t manage to clear out my brain and just run like I usually could. I avoided everyone afterward and found Betty in the library. She was hunched over the book, a spare pencil shoved through her bun, and she shrieked when I touched her shoulder.
“Shhh!” the librarian hissed.
“Sorry!” we both hissed back.
“I’m almost done,” Betty said. “Give me ten more minutes, and I’ll have it worked out.” She traced her finger across the mirror-image drawing. “Not just one person wrote this. The first couple of pages are old. Like, gaslights and gramophones old.”
“Most stuff in my house is old,” I said. I sat down at a computer and logged on. I had decided one thing on the track—I was going to find out what happened to make my mother leave Darkhaven. Abusive boyfriend, my grandmother’s suicide, some sort of criminal trouble—not totally out of the question, knowing Mom—whatever it was, people didn’t just drop their entire life when they were pregnant and alone and run off to the other side of the country for no reason. Mom was a black box on that score, just like she’d been about everything, so I was going to have to be smarter than her.
I typed in Bloodgood + Darkhaven and got a bunch of news articles about the manor house and Simon giving to charity. Mom used to say that computerized records made things almost too easy—it was amazing what was public information if you searched a county’s archives. Property assessments, court documents . . . everything a phony psychic needed to milk every last cent out of her marks.
Knox County’s website wasn’t stellar as far as those things went, but I searched arrests, civil cases, births, and deaths, and after a moment I had a screen full of birth notifications and obituaries for Bloodgoods, going as far back as the 1820s. Nobody had been arrested recently—in fact, no Bloodgoods had made the news in a serious way since my great-grandfather had murdered the members of the Ramsey family. SIX SLAIN—ONLY SON LEFT ALIVE, the headline blared when I clicked through to the local paper’s online archive. Other than the press surrounding the murders and the inquiry—my great-grandfather had killed himself right after he’d finished with Doyle’s family—it was just marriage, birth, death for the last seventy-five years. To look at it from this angle, our family was positively boring.
I went back to the birth records. I found Simon and Mom, two years apart. I wasn’t there—I had no idea where I’d actually been born. Probably in the back of some kind of mass transit, like a crappy country song. I also found a tiny obit for my grandmother, practically a cut-and-paste job. Simone Ellen Bloodgood died Saturday of natural causes as an inmate of Mid-Coast Psychiatric Institute. I raised an eyebrow. Suicides were “natural causes” now? I guess if you had as much money as Simon you could whitewash anything unpleasant right out of the public record.
“Got it!” Betty exclaimed, scaring the hell out of me and getting us another murderous glare from the librarian. She spun the book around to that creepy drawing of the facing figures again. “It says ‘The Children of Cain shall walk upon the earth as men, though they are not men, and you may know them by the darkness of their brow, and the malice of their presence. They will wither land and boil sea, and all men will tremble before them.’”
I didn’t answer. I was transfixed by the next line on the screen, and Betty leaned across the table. “Ivy? Are you okay? I didn’t make you mad, did I? I have no idea what this means but it’s spooky. I don’t think whoever wrote this was totally sane. This drawing is kind of creeping me out, honestly—”
“Betty, shut up!” I snapped. She drew back, her mouth shutting, and bowed her head. “Sorry!” I whisper-shouted. “I’m sorry. Really.” I looked back at the county records for my grandmother. The obituary in the paper was plain, but the actual official birth record for Simone Bloodgood simply read Born 1934. There was no death date. Fingers shaking, I clicked over to death records and typed her name in. 0 RESULTS blinked up on the screen. It could be a mistake, but I doubted it—and if she’d died in 2002 like Simon stated, her death certificate would definitely be in the computerized records.
“I need to go,” I told Betty, grabbing the book. “Thank you, and I’m sorry again. I’m not mad at you.”
The book of Mary Anne’s wasn’t what I should have been focusing on. Rather than being excited I’d uncovered someone babbling about monsters that looked like men, I should have looked at what was right in front of me. If I’d done that, I might have realized days ago that my grandmother was still alive.
I spent the entire boat ride home deciding whether to tell Simon what I’d found. We hadn’t really talked since I’d had my episode in the cellar and asked him to make me a doctor’s appointment. Confronting him with this wasn’t going to make him anything but pissed off at my snooping. I didn’t know my grandmother, and I had no idea what her relationship was with Simon. For all I knew, he didn’t know she was alive and hadn’t been lying to me at all. Mental patients who’d been institutionalized for decades didn’t usually have the wherewithal to fake their own deaths, but who knew what she was capable of?
She could be dead, and an overworked county employee could have never filed a death certificate. She could be in witness protection for all I knew. It didn’t have to mean Simon was hiding anything. It didn’t have to mean he’d been lying to me.
But it could.
I called Doyle the second I got in the door. His phone rang and rang, and nobody picked up, not even a machine. I huffed as I hung up. Now that I was theoretically rich, I really needed to get a cell phone.
I decided to go down to the beach, just to move and get out of the stuffy air and the press of my own thoughts. I stopped by the lighthouse before I descended the steps, looking up at the glassy, cracked panes staring out sightlessly at the sea. Had it really only been five days ago that Doyle had saved my life up there? Only five days since I’d spun completely out of control?
Something white tucked into the rusted lighthouse door caught my eye. It fluttered, and the plastic bag protecting it from the salt spray ripped as I pulled it free.
The graveyard at 9. Light a candle in the mausoleum if you’re there.
I shoved the note deep inside my coat pocket. After the nightmares I’d had, the last thing I wanted to do was spend any more time near dead people, but if Doyle needed me, then it was sort of the least I could do.
After a long walk around the grounds I ate dinner, by myself again. I hoped that Mrs. MacLeod’s supply of awful, bland stews wouldn’t run out before spring came because they were about the only food in the fridge on any given day.
I heard Mrs. MacLeod’s laptop going strong, canned yelling and shooting from some Netflix show drifting into the hall. Simon’s office and his room were dark. Wherever he was, it wasn’t here, and that was the best possible place he could be as far as I was concerned.
I grabbed my coat and a flashlight from the hooks by the kitchen door and headed for the graveyard.
It wasn’t just the dreams that made the graveyard the last place I wanted to be—the temperature went through the floor on the island as soon as the sun went down, and wind snatched my hair out of its braid, cutting through my jacket until my hands shook so hard I could barely hold my flashlight.
I avoided looking at the spot where my mother was buried. I didn’t need to see the cement block where a headstone would sit once one had been carved, the still-fresh earth frozen in stubbly humps of dead grass and shovel marks.
The Bloodgood family mausoleum was downright ornate, for a graveyard no one but the rest of the family would ever see. The iron mesh in the door was twisted into a rose motif that mimicked the real ones gathered around the foundation. The inside was tiny, just a stone bench, recessed spots for five coffins, and a cross carved in relief high on the wall.
I found a waterproof box of matches, a moldy Bible, and a water-stained map of the cemetery plots under the little altar, and lit one of the mostly melted, yellowed candle stumps hanging out in the indentations on top. I turned off my flashlight and waited, until I got twitchy not being able to see who was coming up the hill. Rule number one of a successful life on the lam: always be able to see them coming before they see you. I went out and sat on the steps, shivering until I saw a dark-haired figure approaching in the moonlight.
Doyle stepped through the gate, its rusty hinges screeching like some kind of night creature. “I heard you had the flu,” I called, but I felt the smile drop off my face as he got closer. Doyle had gotten the crap beaten out of him. His lip was split and swollen, and there was a cut on his cheekbone, angry and red like it had been inflicted by a rusty nail. His left eye had a crescent moon of blue-black riding under it.
“Doyle . . .” I trailed off. He hunched his shoulders and waved me off.
“Don’t worry about it.”
Before I could stop myself, I reached up to touch the cut on his cheek. He hissed and bared his teeth.
“What happened?” I said.
He shrugged, kicking a hole in the grass with his boot. “Dad got pissed that I took out his boat without asking.”
I could have climbed up on the lighthouse all over again, and this time actually thrown myself off. I knew all too well the burning that churns deep in your stomach when somebody has smacked the crap out of you and you still have to look other people in the eye. Doyle had gotten hurt trying to help me. His dad was a bastard, and it was my fault Doyle had gotten the brunt of it. I gently rested my palm against his cheek again, and he didn’t pull away. “Does it hurt?”
He grunted. “I really don’t want to talk about it.”
I started to say something dumb, like he didn’t deserve it, people who hit their kids because they couldn’t hit what they were really mad at were scumbags, but I stopped myself. Doyle knew all that. I knew all of it. It hadn’t stopped Mr. Ramsey, and it sure as hell hadn’t stopped my mother.
I dropped my hand down and knotted my fingers with his. “I’m sorry.”
“I’m not,” he snapped. “It’s not like he can hit that hard. He’s an old man.”
I’d seen Doyle’s dad, and while he wasn’t a teenager, he was built more like an aging pro wrestler than your average middle-aged dad body. “I’m glad you came,” I said. “Truth, I had a bad shock today, and I can’t tell anyone about it. Plus, you helped me, and now your face is bloody, and I feel like I’m going to be sick.”
Doyle brushed my damp hair off my forehead. “I want to be the person you call, Ivy. No matter what happens after.”
“My grandmother is alive,” I blurted. “I mean, I’m pretty sure, I think Simon . . .” I dropped my head and inhaled, really not wanting to say the next words. “I think Simon might have known she didn’t die and lied about it.”
“No might about it,” Doyle growled, and then flinched when I dropped his hand. “I told you the guy was shady, Ivy. I warned you. You can’t believe what he tells you.”
“I could live without your gloating,” I said. “Simon hasn’t done anything except welcome me and treat me well. Forgive me if I don’t instantly suspect every single person in my immediate vicinity is up to no good.” I had, just a few short months ago. But a lot had changed since then. I felt a heavy knot in my stomach. I’d actually gotten a little used to trusting that not everyone was out to screw me, which made this potential betrayal sting even more.
Maybe Simon wasn’t lying. Maybe Doyle was just biased and I was just panicking.
But there was uncertainty now, tainting the trust I’d extended to him, and it made me feel sick. If I didn’t at least wonder about Simon’s level of honesty, I’d be gullible, and that was the one thing I’d never, ever been.
“He’s fine now,” Doyle grumbled. “But it wasn’t always like that. My dad has known Simon since Simon was a little kid. And Dad is a bastard, but he’s not a liar. He said that Simon used to scare him. Dad said he was a bad seed.”
The thought of my rail-skinny, five-foot-ten and balding uncle scaring somebody with both the temperament and size of Mr. Ramsey did give me a pause. I had seen Simon lose it that one time. That had sure as hell been scary when it was happening.
Then again, Mr. Ramsey was a dick who beat his kid, so why should I take his word for anything?
“Betty translated some pages from Mary Anne’s book,” I said, deciding the safest thing to do until I had this straight in my own head was change the subject. Doyle I trusted, but I didn’t trust his family, and if he let it slip there was trouble between Simon and me, I was genuinely terrified of what they might do if they suspected anything about the bloody shirt, what I might have done to Neil Ramsey, my mental illness, any of it. This situation was the kind that ended with bodies buried in shallow graves and true-crime shows covering the story for years.
“She can be annoying in a whole second language? God help us,” Doyle said.
I shot him a glare. “Betty’s not nearly as annoying as half the bumpkins in that school, and you know it.” I sighed. “Anyway, the journal is all just ranting about children of Cain and some tent-preacher crap about demons in the guise of men, so that was a totally useless crime you committed, sorry to say.”
“Wait.” Doyle frowned. “Children of Cain isn’t crap.”
I felt a cold tendril of unease worm its way up my throat. I could already tell this was going to be something I didn’t want to hear. “Oh?”
“Well, not in the same way the Bloodgood gold and Bigfoot are crap, anyway,” he said.
“The cave full of gold,” I said. “Right. I think that’ll be mine on my eighteenth birthday. And my very own pet Bigfoot too.”
“Jealous!” Doyle said, hissing in pain when he smiled. “My family rented some land to the Children in the eighties, I think. They were some kinda hippie commune, and all they did was drop acid and howl at the moon. My dad got into it with a couple of the guys once. ’Course, my dad gets into it with everyone eventually.”
“They were here,” I said, feeling my mouth open and cold air worm its way down my throat. “Here on the island.”
“Yeah.” Doyle shrugged. “I mean, back then, everyone who was cool was in some kinda cult, right? They believed some real weird shit. My brothers and I went up there to the old campsite once when I was like thirteen with a Ouija board and some whiskey, but we didn’t conjure up anything except a hangover.”
“Your family let a cult move onto the island?” I said, feeling my eyebrows trying to crawl up into my hair.
“Listen, for real, they were just stoners who read a few too many tarot cards,” Doyle said.
“What did they believe in?” I said. “How many of them were there?” My mind and my heart were both racing. If a cult had taken up residence on the island, a member of said cult would be a strong candidate for “the devil” Mary Anne had been ranting about.
“I don’t know,” Doyle said. “It all happened way before I was born and my dad and uncles were also pretty stoned for most of the eighties and nineties, so they don’t exactly have a lot of detailed memories. All I know is they were a real thing—real enough to pay rent for the land to my dad.”
“Did they live here a long time?” I said.
Doyle shrugged. “No clue. They left all their stuff, though, when they went. My dad and my uncles still talk about the radio and the guitars they snagged. Plus one guy had this real sweet leather jacket that got my uncle Matt a ‘freight train’s worth of tail.’ That’s a quote, by the way. Uncle Matt is a dickhead.”
I felt a swell of nausea at the memory of my dream. It had seemed so real, but it wasn’t. Doyle was telling ghost stories, and I was falling for it. “The story in the book you stole was a lot older than Led Zeppelin and LSD,” I said. “Like, gaslights and carriages. I’m thinking your dumb-ass cult was just copying something way before their time.”
“There is another story about the Children of Cain that goes around my family this time of year. Halloween and all. They used to tell me when I was a kid to try to scare me into going home when we’d sneak onto this side of the island,” Doyle said. He looked out at the ocean and then back at me. “We should sit down.”
We leaned against the granite wall, feeling salt spray hit our faces. I pressed myself into Doyle’s side, feeling his warmth through my jacket, liking the way his voice vibrated through my whole body. “Neil was actually the one who enjoyed trying to scare the piss out of me with this story,” he said. “It goes that Cain killed his brother on purpose as a blood sacrifice to the beasts of the wild, so that he could hold dominion over them. And that Cain also drank that blood and became something that wasn’t entirely human. Something that he passed on to his bloodline, which in turn bent the force of their will in unnatural ways.” Doyle let out a small shiver. “Made people lose their minds, murder, steal free will.”
“They sound cuddly,” I said.
“Cain became something that was totally against nature,” Doyle said. “Half demon, half man. He had more relation to the things that dwelled in hell than someone who was flesh and bone anymore. He had many wives and he spread his descendants far and wide, all of them the same beast in their heart. Connor Bloodgood was one of them. Evil powers, murderous rituals, whole nine yards.” He snorted. “Cute story, right?”
I turned to look at him. “Your cousin told you all that as a kid?” Maybe I was just a little sensitive to the whole “totally against nature, unnatural freak” angle of the story right now. I never thought I’d be looking forward to a brain scan, but right now that appointment couldn’t come fast enough.
“It’s just a story,” Doyle said. “It’s crap. But it does explain why the IRL cult morons came out here.” After I stayed quiet he said, “I’m sure if your dad was one of those cult people he wasn’t that bad.”
“You don’t have to try to make me feel better,” I said. “My mother has—had—shitty and prolific taste in men. Nothing would shock me in the dad department. But if they were around in the eighties, I’m safe. They were long gone by the time Mom got knocked up.”
The moon was starting to crest the sky as we sat there, and Doyle kept looking back at the road that would take him to his side of the island.
“It’s okay,” I said. “Go home. I don’t want to get you in more trouble.”
We stood, brushing off the sand and grit from our jeans, and I got on my toes and brushed my lips across the cut on Doyle’s cheek before I could stop myself. His skin was so warm, and he smelled so good, I just wanted to sink against him and stay that way until I’d gotten my fill of being close to him. Instead, I dropped back and waved awkwardly as he gave me a crooked smile and loped through the tombstones and down the hill. The screeching gate was the last sound I heard before everything went quiet again.
I blew out the candle and shut up the mausoleum, flicking the flashlight back on. The beam burned through the misty night air and hit my mother’s grave.
The light dropped from my fingers into the dirt at the sight of what had happened. Instead of fresh earth and spiny rosebushes, a berm of brush had been erected, like someone setting up for a bonfire. At the top of the pile, just an outline in the beam of my flashlight, was a smaller pile, crude figures stitched out of burlap, their eyes black thread crosses, mouths smeared with some kind of dark, shiny liquid. The same as the strange little fetish doll I’d seen in my cellar nightmare—or whatever—when I’d found the cavern of bones, except there were a dozen of them, bigger and more detailed. One, sitting on top, had a wisp of copper-red yarn stitched to its scalp, and was wrapped in a scrap of black fabric. Not wanting to look closer but unable to stop myself, I bent down, scrabbling for the flashlight, and focused it on the little burlap figure. It wasn’t yarn, I realized, my stomach rolling over. It was a strand of my hair. The black fabric wasn’t actually black—it was stained, and each of the dozen or more was wrapped in an individual piece. The fabric was stiff, soaked with the dark substance, and I pressed a hand into my mouth so hard my teeth dented my palm. Each doll was decorated with a piece of my bloody tank top, the one I’d been stopped from digging up and destroying. Each doll’s mouth was smeared with fresher blood.
All of the dolls were me.
I whipped around at the sound of a branch cracking in the forest, the scream that had been building dying in my throat. “Doyle?” I whispered, my voice a terror-muted squeak. The flashlight started to flicker, and I smacked it frantically against my palm, but it flared one last time and went out.
Another crack, two in succession, like firecrackers. Or footsteps.
I wanted to run so badly I felt myself vibrate like a plucked string. But I made myself go forward instead, reaching into the thorny branches on top of my mother’s grave and grabbing at one of the crude little dolls until it pulled free, ripping along the seams. Clutching it in my hand, I turned and let myself run, hitting my shin hard on the cemetery gate. It screeched as I ran, and I was almost to the bottom of the hill when I heard it again, the cry and groan of rusted hinges.
Somebody was following me.
I clearly couldn’t get ahead of them—whoever they were, they were coming up faster than even my seven-minute mile could beat. I took a hard right turn into the far edge of the hedge maze on the mansion grounds, pushing myself into the spiny, naked branches and trying to still my raspy breathing. I normally wouldn’t be panting after barely a half mile, but panic had knocked the wind out of me.
I waited there, for so many thudding heartbeats I lost count. I had just about convinced myself I had to take whatever cash I could find in the manor and get to the mainland. I could buy a bus ticket and be someplace like Chicago in under forty-eight hours. I could steal the cash for a fake passport, go to Canada, and disappear, just like all those times Mom drilled me on an exit plan for if things went really wrong. She’d known a guy for everything—fake ID, jobs across the border. If I cut my hair and started wearing different clothes, I could pass for eighteen easy. Maybe twenty if I really classed it up.
I’d have to forget about San Francisco and my plans. But nobody from Darkhaven would ever find me. Especially not whoever was chasing me through a graveyard in the dark. But none of this would matter if I didn’t get away from them, so I plunged into the maze, hoping that I’d make it through to the other side.
I stumbled out of the hedges on the gravel path leading back up the gentle slope to the manor house, and almost smacked face-first into a figure dressed all in black.
I screamed and lashed out, but whoever it was caught my wrist. “Calm yourself, young lady,” Doyle’s father growled.
“What is wrong with you?” I yelled, yanking my hand away from him.
“I could ask you the same question,” he said. He glared at me, his face a blank black mask in the dark. Just the shine of his eyes was visible, and I shivered.
“I was going home, because I live here,” I said. “Last time I checked, you don’t, so . . .”
He sighed sharply. “I had business with your uncle, but I might as well just tell you directly—you stay away from my son. My whole family is off-limits to you as of right now.”
My breathing was finally under control, and I snapped my head up to glare right back at him when he said that. “Who the hell do you think you are?”
He mirrored my outraged look. “Who I am? You’re nothing but trailer trash who washed up on shore and you have the nerve to talk back to me?” He shook his head, turning to walk away. “Unbelievable.”
“I may be trailer trash,” I said loudly, above the wind rattling the hedge maze. “But at least I don’t have to hit my son to feel like a man.”
Liam’s shoulders clenched together like I’d shot him with a dart. He turned slowly, advancing on me. I stood my ground, even though I could feel every inch of me quivering from the rise and crest of adrenaline triggered when I fled the cemetery. “What happens in my home is none of your damn business, Ivy Bloodgood, and if you want to stay healthy, you’ll keep it that way.”
“You don’t scare me,” I hissed, even as I moved up on my toes, ready to run. The kind of guy who’d threaten me without a thought was definitely the kind I didn’t want to be out here alone with.
“Then you’re even dumber than you look,” Liam said, his voice no longer angry, just low and hateful, like a rabid dog growling. “You know that sooner or later I’ll find out what happened to my nephew. I know you either had something to do with it or you know who did.” He was close enough to bump chests with me, and he looked down, almost blocking out the light from the moon and the manor’s porch lamps. “You should be plenty scared of me, little girl, because I don’t stop once I’ve got somebody in my sights.”
I started talking without thinking, in some kind of weird survival reflex. “You know what I think? I think that you’ve lived on this island across the water from a shitty little town for so long you think you’re God. But I’m not from here, and I’m not impressed by you. Maybe the Darkhaven cops don’t care what you do, but somebody, somewhere will. You keep harassing me and see what happens. You have a lot of boats and cars and fancy guns for a guy with no job, Liam, so I bet the state police would be interested in what you do with your time. Maybe the IRS and the DEA too.” I swallowed, throat desert-dry. I had no intention of telling anyone about what the Ramseys were doing—I didn’t hate Liam enough to risk bringing somebody more competent than local cops to look into Neil’s death. As far as I knew, everyone had, like Simon, put it down to a vendetta or a jealous husband, like Doyle thought, but if the state police or the Feds got involved that could change real fast.
But Liam didn’t know that. And I must have struck a nerve, because he lunged at me, hand up, before I could get away. Somebody grabbed me by the elbow and hauled me back, so hard I tripped and fell in the dry grass by the path. Liam’s blow whiffed harmlessly through the air, so much force behind it he stumbled a little. “You little bitch!” he hollered.
“That is enough!” Simon shouted. Liam started for me again, and Simon put his body between us. “I mean it,” he said, so low I almost couldn’t hear him. Liam’s barrel chest was heaving, his face blotched with red rage spots visible even in the low light. He stayed where he was, though, and didn’t make a move at Simon.
“I see her on my property again, she’ll get a lot more than a slap,” he muttered, then turned and stormed away down the path.
Simon came and helped me up. “Are you all right?” he asked.
I nodded, accepting his hand.
“Good,” he said. “That brings me to my next question: What the hell were you thinking?”
That was a good question. Threatening a man like Liam Ramsey was literally one of the dumbest impulses I’d ever had. I stayed quiet. I was just embarrassed, honestly. Spend a few weeks without grifting and scamming people and I was losing the ability to sweet-talk my way out of bad situations. Soon I’d be a normal person who mostly told the truth. That was a terrifying thought.
“Ivy,” Simon said quietly, guiding me back toward the house. “You can never do something like that again, understand?”
I nodded numbly. The adrenaline had worn off, all my muscles ached, my butt hurt where I’d hit the ground, and I still had to deal with knowing my grandmother was alive and Simon had lied to me for some reason.
“Good,” he said. “Go get cleaned up and get some rest. I’ll make you a cup of tea.”
“I’m good,” I said quickly. Bitter horrible herbs were not going to help this sick feeling. “I just want to sleep.”
“You won’t sleep like this,” Simon said. “Take a few moments to relax before bed. I’ll make it herbal, so you won’t wake up.”
“Simon,” I said, clasping my hands in front of me. “I get that tea and snacks and stuff are your way of letting me know you care for me, and I appreciate that, I really do, but free advice?”
He inclined his head, looking surprised but not mad. I normally wouldn’t have been this open with anyone, but I figured after our little family drama at Mom’s burial I could at least talk to him like he wasn’t a moron.
“I’m a teenage girl,” I said. “And sometimes we just want our parental figures to stay out of our business and let us be.”
Simon didn’t get mad; he actually gave a small chuckle. “Fair enough, Ivy. You sleep well.”
“You too,” I said. “Good night, Uncle Simon.”
I went up to my room, stripped out of my damp clothes, and put on sweats, and a T-shirt. I felt in my jacket pocket for the doll. It was gone.
I cursed, throwing my jacket to the ground. It must have fallen out of my pocket when I was running. And I couldn’t go back out now. Not with Liam Ramsey prowling around.
If I’d even really seen what I thought I’d seen, or picked up anything at all. I had the terrible, pricking idea that if I did go back out there, I’d see nothing but the same old temporary headstone and frozen earth. No funeral pyre, no dolls.
I got in bed, pulled the covers over my head, and tried to block out the never-ending wind.
I tried that for about an hour and couldn’t sleep, so I flipped my light back on and dug around in my backpack, under my homework and my mother’s tarot cards, to find one of the crappy vampire books. I also pulled out my track team schedule. I’d made the decision without even realizing it, pretty much as soon as I’d found those county records. There was an away meet in Portland in two weeks. We’d be gone overnight, and I’d have plenty of time to drive to the hospital where my grandmother had last been committed.
That way I’d know for sure whether Simon was lying to me, and if he was, whether it was motivated by good intentions or the more usual reasons why people lied. Then I could figure out what to do, if I got to stay here or if I had to pack up and get the hell out all over again.
I didn’t sleep much and woke up around dawn to the faraway honk of the ferry going between the mainland and the nearby populated islands. I sleepwalked through school, avoiding Doyle and everyone else, and told Mrs. MacLeod I wasn’t feeling well when she tried to press some kind of meat loaf on me for dinner.
Two weeks seemed like a year. I didn’t sleep again that night, and dawn didn’t bring me any relief.