EIGHTEEN

ALTHOUGH ELLIE AND JAY spent another twenty minutes in the museum, their research only confirmed what they knew already: Willowbee, founded by the disciples and progeny of Nathaniel Grace, was notable for its clinic. The small facility had an unusually high success rate. They left the library in the mid-afternoon and found a diner that sold ice cream near the public park. They each bought a cone (Jay chose rocky road, while Ellie fulfilled her pistachio craving) and sat on a bench beneath a poplar tree to regroup and plan.

“Dark secrets are usually well hidden,” Jay said, squishing a mushroom under his thumb. “I guess it was silly to look for them at the library.”

“Not really,” Ellie said. “It wasn’t a total waste. Pieces are falling into place.”

“You think your cousin learned the Willowbee secret? Maybe Dr. Allerton’s kid spilled during class. After that, the cult of Nathaniel Grace had to silence your cousin to preserve their healing rituals.”

“I wondered about that,” she said, “but here’s the problem: my cousin didn’t know anything about Willowbee’s weirdness. He told me that Dr. Allerton’s attack came as a surprise.”

“That makes sense,” Jay said. “Just based on your cousin’s last words, he wasn’t paranoid. He was helping somebody.”

“Yeah,” Ellie said, thinking of the words that were and probably always would be burned into her mind. “He was. It’s like my cousin …”

“Like he was driving home from work?”

“Uh-huh. And then saw a car accident along the road.”

“So he offered to help.”

“Jay,” Ellie said, so horrified that she didn’t feel melting ice cream drip down her hand. “If that’s what happened, I … I think we’re close to answers. Do you have access to old newspapers? Are there any in the Herotonic electronic archive?”

“Sure. Most are digitized these days.”

“That’s perfect. Can you check Texas papers from mid-October 1906? Look for anything about a bear attack. The victim will have a mangled leg.”

“Easy,” he said. “Anything else I should look for?”

“Hm. Unexplained deaths near Willowbee. Any time period. Maybe we can solve this mystery before the week ends.”

“What about the clinic?” Jay asked. “Want to check it out?”

It was tempting. They were just a few miles away from the intersection of Grace and Sanitas. She and Jay could walk to Allerton’s workplace if they wanted.

“Maybe,” she said. “When me and Mom drove by Allerton’s house, we got threatened, remember? The mansion was surrounded by cursed folk. One of them wanted to hurt Baby Gregory. But that was at night, and we were isolated, too.”

“Yeah. If we visit the clinic, we’ll be on public property in front of witnesses.”

“So, it’s the silver lining of that extreme attention?” Ellie wondered. Subtly, she inclined her head to the right, using her brow to indicate the diner across the street. Several pairs of eyes stared through the line of windows that faced the park; she and Jay were being watched by an elderly couple eating hamburgers, a waitress in a bright yellow apron, and a grizzled man with a shake in one hand and a fork in the other.

“Have they been staring at us this whole time?” Jay asked.

“Pretty much.”

“I told you! Weirdos.” He twisted, hiding his face from the observers. “I’m going to pretend that they’re starved for entertainment. Considering how excited this town gets about a bicentennial, these locals must be bored.” He lowered his voice to an urgent whisper. “Are they still staring?”

“Shamelessly,” Ellie said. “I just held eye contact with the waitress for five seconds. She didn’t look away.”

“Seriously. What is wrong with them?”

“Either those diner people think windows are actually one-way mirrors, or they want us to know that they’re watching us. Ugh. On second thought, I don’t think it’s a good idea to get any closer to Allerton without Kirby. Unfriendly witnesses can be worse than friendly witnesses.”

Kirby had been sleeping all day. Ellie intended to keep her promise: no ghostly business until an elder weighed in on her brush with the prehistoric ocean. However, it was more difficult than Ellie had expected. She wanted to talk to Kirby again, tell him about life stuff. She’d always chatted with Kirby, even when he was a flesh-and-blood dog. Ellie didn’t think he understood most of the stuff she said, but the springer spaniel acted like he enjoyed her chatter anyway. Dogs were perceptive. They could look at a person and glean emotions from facial expressions, body language. From the tone of their voice.

What was it about company that made a moment seem more meaningful? If she could wake Kirby, Ellie would tell him how ice cream melted too quickly in Texas. She’d ball up her hair scrunchie and throw it like a tennis ball. Their game of fetch would startle and amaze any pedestrians who noticed the wad of fabric float over the green grass. She and Kirby hadn’t had time to truly play since the night of Trevor’s accident. Since the surge of pain and violence sent Kirby howling through the house in the middle of a training session. It seemed like a memory from another lifetime.

“Jay,” Ellie said.

“Yes?”

“It’s funny.”

He leaned closer, rapt, a smudge of chocolate on his upper lip. “What?”

“Texas. In the summer, it’s so hot, ice cream tastes better than it ever will. But it also melts like butter on a skittle.”

“The faster it melts, the sooner you can buy more,” he suggested. “Can I get another for the drive back? I should have asked for two scoops. The ice cream girl just put a lump on top, didn’t even fill the cone like you’re supposed to. She was so mean.”

“Jay, is this really about more ice cream?” Ellie asked.

“Mostly,” he said, shrugging. “I guess I also want to know how they’ll all react if I return. It’s not like the waitress can refuse my money. We haven’t done anything wrong.”

Ellie shook her head, smiling. “You’re so whi—I mean, right, Jay. Be sure to grab a lot of napkins, too. Mom is really strict about messes in the car; she’ll notice a single crumb on the upholstery. I’m surprised that the dented roof hasn’t sent her on a killing spree.”

“I can’t wait to buy my own car. It will have a tray just for crumbs.”

“Are you sure you want a car?” she asked. “Not a motorcycle or a Segway?”

“No! I would have helmet-head every day!” Jay patted his hair. He had arrived with a springy wave of hairspray-fixed bangs, but the heat in South Texas caused the style to wilt. Now, a lock dangled between his eyes, and the rest of his bangs were tucked to one side of his forehead. Ellie had to admit that her hair was better suited for a helmet. She just had to secure it in a tight braid.

“Go get your ice cream,” she said. “I’ll wait outside and take care of an errand.” When he got up to return to the diner, Ellie called Ronnie Ross.

“You aren’t driving anymore, right?” Ronnie asked. No hellos. No how-are-yous. There might have been a time, before caller ID, when people said, “This is so-and-so. Who’s calling?” But greetings like that were time wasters now, and Ronnie Ross never seemed to slow down.

“If my parents caught me using a phone behind the wheel, I’d lose both the phone and the wheels,” Ellie assured her. “Plus, it’s bad form. Jay said you wanted to talk?”

“Sure. Eventually. This can really wait, girl. You have so much on your plate.”

“Not yet. Jay’s waiting in line for ice cream.”

“My question just seems so frivolous.”

“What seems so frivolous?”

“In the hypothetical event of my wedding …”

“Hypothetical!”

“… want to be a bridesmaid?”

“Oh.” Ellie hadn’t expected that. In fact, she’d never expected to be a bridesmaid, full stop. It just had never crossed her mind. What did a bridesmaid do, anyway? Besides wear a color-coordinated outfit and smile? She figured that her friends wouldn’t start getting married until their twenties or later. Plenty of time to Google “wedding etiquette.”

“Sorry,” Ronnie continued. “I’m trying to get my ducks in a row. If, hypothetically, I get married, it’ll be soon. You can say no, though. Don’t even stress.”

“How about yes, on the caveat that I have no idea what I’m agreeing to and may not survive the summer.”

“Don’t talk like that. Listen to me!”

“Hm?”

“You’re part of my starting lineup now. We won’t let some rich jackass hurt our own.”

Too little too late, Ellie thought, but she appreciated the sentiment. “Thanks, Ronnie.”

“Anytime. Also? You can bring a guest to the wedding, but nobody too weird. I get that you’re asexual, so, like, it can be a friend or zucchini or …” She trailed off, sounding a bit uncertain. “Yeah. Just. Nobody my parents would hate. They already don’t like the groom.”

“Cool. Does my dog count as too weird?”

“You are so funny. Oh my gosh. Make a speech after my first dance or something. Okay. I’m adding you to the starting lineup messaging group. It’s not just for wedding stuff. If you need help, say. All together, we can bench-press over a thousand pounds. I’m gonna hang up to add you.”

“Bye.”

Jay returned with more pistachio and rocky road.

“Apparently,” Ellie said, “I’m on something called a starting lineup.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Oh. So you’re of Ronnie’s bestest friends? It’s a basketball thing. They’re all on the same team at Herotonic.”

“Huh. Does a bridesmaid have to make a free throw? Because I’m really bad at it.”

“No,” Jay said. “Why are you asking that?”

Ellie laughed awkwardly. “Oh, boy. Do I have some news to share with you!”

---

During the drive out of town, Ellie paid more attention to the people around them. Maybe she was just oversensitive to attention, considering the people at the diner and Jay’s warning earlier, but the townsfolk did seem to stare. As if Ellie and Jay were more interesting than the average pair of teenagers.

“It’s like we’re a bunch of zoo animals,” Jay muttered. He raised a hand, blocking the scrutiny of outsiders by pretending to hide from the sun. “Can today be any stranger?”

Ellie hesitated. Should she tell Jay about the trilobite incident? Would he worry like her mother? She hated when people fussed over her.

“Did I mention that an elder is coming to dinner later this week?” Ellie said.

“What is that?” he asked. “One of your grandparents?”

“Ah, no. Not an elderly person. An elder is an individual who is wise—that part does take time—and has plenty of traditional knowledge.”

“You’re entertaining a VIP.”

“Uh-huh. Dan. He’s on the tribal council. I need his guidance. Something weird happened yesterday.”

“Uh-oh.”

“I might have stumbled into the land of the dead.” Ellie explained the incident in the park. How the world transformed around her. How animals born a quarter billion years ago swarmed around her feet. How whales—some larger than the largest megalodon—swam overhead, singing to one another with voices that no longer belonged to the living. How she hugged Kirby, as if he’d never died.

“You have a new superpower!” Jay said, and judging by his grin, he didn’t understand that she easily could have been trapped in the Devonian reef section of the afterlife.

“I hope so,” she said, “but it’s probably closer to a super curse. I want Dan to teach me how to avoid the, er, underworld. See, it just happened. I didn’t intend to visit all those pretty souls in their supernatural habitat.”

“If you survived once, you could do it again, right? It’s like you discovered the next best thing to a time machine, Ellie!”

“I’ll ask Dan if there’s a way to stay safe,” she said.

“Ask him if you can bring a friend next time, too.”

“Jay! No. You’d be safer doing backflips on the Herotonic Bridge.”

“No advanced gymnastics for me,” he admitted. “I’m more of a ‘carry other people’ cheerleader.”

“You did a perfect cartwheel during the end-of-year pep rally. It was like watching the spokes on a rolling wheel.”

He beamed. “You noticed! Have you watched my videos too?”

“Videos?” she asked.

“I just started an instructional series on basic tumbles and dance steps. It’s called ‘Improves Your Moves.”

“If you link me the channel, I’m definitely watching that.” As they idled behind a truck, waiting for a red light to change, they sat in contemplative silence. Beside them, a pair of men were pruning the branches of an oak tree alongside the road. One of the men stood on an elevated mechanical platform; he wore a bright yellow helmet and a bandana around his forehead that was wet with a long day’s ration of sweat. Ellie wondered if Kirby could be trained to float like a balloon and trim branches from trees. Could he also rescue cats? Grab them by their scruff and gently place them on land? She imagined the city as a playground for ghosts. What would the world be like, if everybody knew how to train their departed pets?

Dangerous.

Ellie hadn’t taught Kirby how to kill. But it was possible. The dead were more deadly than guns. After the Civil War ended, the souped-up United States Federal Army fell upon Texas and slaughtered the men, women, children in her tribe. With her six-great-grandmother dead, there was nobody to stop them. So the surviving Lipan people hid, and in secrecy, some escaped the genocide.

If the US had also controlled an army of dead hounds, there’d probably be no Lipan left alive. It was difficult enough to survive their deadly magic, powers that weren’t the same as ghosts. Magic came from an alien place, and the use of too much corrupted the natural state of the Earth. That’s what scientists were reporting, anyway. Elements from a different realm were slipping through atom-sized fissures at busy Ring Transport Centers, adding trace amounts of helium and argon and who knew what else to the atmosphere, and major spells left obvious mutations in nearby bacteria. In fact, that year, the Intergovernmental Panel on Magic Use, which was backed by over two hundred scientists, published a warning that excessive magic posed an existential threat, one nobody understood completely and very few people seemed to take seriously.

Ellie’s ancestors had known—hundreds of years before any report by an intergovernmental group—the damage magic could cause.

“There! Grace Lane!” Jay said. “Look! We’re about to drive past! Last chance to investigate.” He pointed to a green street sign that read GRACE. It marked the first intersection beyond the stoplight.

The light turned green.

As Ellie stepped on the gas, she thought about the diorama in the library. The small-scale replica of Allerton’s clinic had been so innocuous. What about the real thing? There had to be something off about it. An energy, an unwelcomeness. A conspicuously locked cellar. Barbed wire around the parking lot. “Nurses” with sharp teeth and red eyes. Something.

Then again, Ellie’s parents would be lividly disappointed if she visited Allerton’s den away from home. Even if she just drove by the clinic. The risk was not worth the potential reward. Right? What could Ellie accomplish by a detour down Grace Lane? How could she remain safe without summoning Kirby and potentially falling back into the underworld, Jay in tow?

She approached the intersection. Slowed. Considering. Tempted.

Jay’s videos.

Would Allerton be bold enough to threaten a couple of seventeen-year-olds? Sure. He might. And if they filmed him, that would give her concrete evidence that the doctor was less kindly than he seemed.

Grace Lane, lined with breeze-rustled trees and pretty little New England–style houses, was directly to their right. Decide now, she thought, and she flicked on the turn signal, yanked on the steering wheel, and jerked the car to the right.

“I know this sounds like the setup for a creepy found-footage movie,” Ellie said, “but we should check out the clinic and video the whole thing. Get your sister to watch us and record the stream. Just in case. What do you think?”

Hopefully, Ronnie would agree to help, because Ellie couldn’t ask anybody from her family to stream the video. Vivian would revoke her car privileges for even considering the risky plan, while Lenore might get carried away and charge into the clinic with a crossbow during the investigation. If anyone was getting arrested that day, it would be Dr. Allerton.

Jay glanced at his phone, which was connected to the car’s USB charging port. “Well,” he said. “My battery is at ninety-nine percent. So we’re safer than most found-footage characters. What’s the plan?”

“Nothing too involved. I wanna see the place. Get a sense of it. If we’re lucky, Allerton will incriminate himself.”

Jay held up crossed fingers while Ellie drove to the joining of Grace and Sanitas.