Chapter 16

The Surprise

Hand in hand, we run across the street, to where Wyatt’s old, white Land Rover’s parked. He opens the passenger’s side door for me and I jump in. Then he runs around and hops into the driver’s seat. Laughing, he leans over and steals one more quick kiss. Then he starts up the engine and a quiet, acoustic tune floats out from the radio. Easing my seat back a little so I can relax, I exhale in relief. Tonight was fun, but the excitement’s over now and we’re alone together, peaceful; no loud music and dancing mob, no party cups filled with vodka and worrying about the police. No Colleen Foley. No Matt Riley.

“It’s still early. Let’s go to my house,” Wyatt suggests. “We can talk to Oliver. He’s been researching our ghost.”

“Everyone keeps saying he’s my ghost. It’s a relief to share him. ‘Our ghost,’ I like the sound of it.”

“I don’t think we have a choice. He belongs to both of us now. Anyway, Oliver has some information and some ideas about how to find out more.”

“Okay, but I’d like to be in bed by midnight. We have practice at eight tomorrow morning and we’re taking the bus into Boston so we can go over the course for the race next weekend—the Coaches’ Invitational in Franklin Park.”

“Maybe I’ll come to the race. Cheer for my girlfriend.”

His girlfriend.

That happened fast, but I don’t argue. Instead, my lips widen into a smile that surprises even me. I kind of like being referred to as his girlfriend. I could get used to it.

“Don’t you have soccer practice on Saturdays?”

“Yes, but I haven’t missed one yet this season, so I can skip it. This is important. I’ve never seen you run, except for just now, dodging the cops.”

“Not really. I didn’t see any cops. We escaped early enough.”

“Just as I was opening the door for you, I saw a flashing blue light over on Prospect Street, heading toward Carolyn’s.”

“No way! We really were dodging the cops?”

“Yup, sweet little Annabelle Blake, varsity athlete, honor student, running from the law.”

“Not quite an honor student.”

“That’s right. I’ve noticed how you never know when there’s a test or a quiz in History class, which probably means you don’t study much.”

“See, I’m a real bad-ass…poor organizational skills and caught on video tape fleeing the scene of a crime.”

“Try no organizational skills. And lucky for you there’s no videotape. I’m the only eye witness. And my lips are sealed.” He lets go of the steering wheel with one hand and draws a finger across his lips. Then smiles. “We’re here.”

Wyatt pulls into Oliver’s driveway, shifts into park and turns the engine off. Before I can open the door, he puts his hand on my shoulder. “Hold on a minute, Annabelle.”

Half a second after his lips form these words they’re on mine like he’s starving. Like he hasn’t kissed me in a year. I hug my arms around his neck and pull him as close as I can in the cramped front seat.

He leans over me and at the same time, reaches down with his left hand and pushes the lever to lower the back of my seat. It plummets down with a jerk and he lifts his mouth up to laugh before he places it back on mine again, melting me like a chocolate bar in someone’s pocket on a summer’s day. I move a few inches to the right, to make room for him beside me. He tries to climb onto my seat, struggling to find a comfortable position.

All through this whole time he’s still kissing me. Our lips hardly ever lose their connection. He can’t get his arms around me or find a place to put his legs. We readjust ourselves a couple of times, but it’s way too difficult for someone who’s six foot three to make out in a vehicle. Either Wyatt’s butt or his foot or something hits the horn and we jolt apart.

Oliver’s front door opens and Jeff runs out of the house, barking his head off.

“Nice one, Romeo. Try explaining this to your uncle.”

“Hey, even Oliver thinks we’re together. Which means he won’t be surprised if he catches us kissing.”

“Yeah, but a simple kiss doesn’t blast the horn like that.”

“Good point. I guess I better cool it when we’re in the car.”

“Right here in the driveway, too. What will the neighbors say?”

“They’ll say that Oliver Finn’s nephew is one lucky dude.”

I punch him in the arm.

“Ouch.” He rubs his arm for a second, grins and points toward the house.

Oliver’s standing on the front walkway with Jackson and they’re both laughing their asses off. They wave to us then turn and walk back in with Jeff following, wagging his humongous tail.

I push my tousled hair back, away from my face, and we both get out of the car. Wyatt helps me smooth my damp, rumpled clothes back into their rightful places, picks a couple of blades of grass out of my hair and chuckles. Putting his arms around my waist, he steals one more kiss.

While we’re walking through the front door together, he says, “I have a little something planned for tonight. Nathaniel’s going to help me. It’s all gonna be good.”

“What’s all going to be good?” Nathaniel calls out, from inside the living room.

“You know, Nathaniel, tonight. We’re going to try it out—the séance.”

“What? I’m not ready for this.” Shoving Wyatt’s hand off of my waist, I try to turn around and run back outside. But he stops me by blocking the doorway to the hall.

“Just hear us out, Annabelle. Come in and talk to Oliver and Nathaniel. It’s not as weird as it sounds.”

I’m having trouble denying him anything tonight; especially when I look into his face and read the history of his loneliness.

“I’ll listen, but I’m not promising anything.”

Nathaniel speaks up. “We talked to your mother. She’ll come over if you want her to.”

“No, I’ll be okay. I just need a minute. You guys really sprung this on me. I feel trapped. Like all of you were lying in wait and everyone knows everything except me. Even my mother’s in on it. You can start explaining any time now.”

Nathaniel begins. “I promise nothing bad will happen. I’ve done this kind of thing tons of times before. We’ll all sit right here.”

I look around Oliver’s ordinary living room and see five comfortable chairs, arranged in a circle. One of the chairs is Nathaniel’s wheelchair and he’s already sitting in it. Jeff’s lying over by the fire, snoozing.

Nathaniel continues. “We don’t need to hold hands or sit around a table or anything like you see in the movies. We can even keep our eyes open. All of us will focus, however, on the boy from Wild Wood Hospital, the ghost you saw in room 209. Oliver can give you some background. He and Jackson have been researching the events surrounding the closing of the hospital in 1986. They think they’ve uncovered some information related to what you’ve been experiencing, Annabelle.”

Nathaniel nods in Oliver’s direction and Oliver starts in.

“I remember when the hospital closed, although there wasn’t a lot in the newspapers. It wasn’t a big story. There were some problems with government funding in the early eighties. I searched the archives of the local papers from around the time the hospital closed down for good. About a month before the official closing, a patient died; a thirteen-year-old boy. There was no investigation into his death. He must have died of natural causes. Only his young age made his death unusual and noteworthy.”

“He was only thirteen?” It seems so tragically young.

“Yes. The obituary was short and pretty uninformative, though. Probably because his family had abandoned him at the hospital. That happened a lot. Families just dumped their mentally-ill relatives off and never visited them. Never saw them again. We think this boy’s parents admitted him to the hospital and then neglected him, even leaving him to be buried by his caretakers when he died.”

“I remember reading about stuff like that when Meg and I were doing the research for our film.”

“Anyway, I assume the poor boy had no connection with his family anymore, so there was no one to kick up a fuss when he died. The event of his death wasn’t considered newsworthy. The hospital probably tried to keep the whole thing pretty low key. Jackson and I looked at all of the local papers’ online archives. We only found one article about the incident. Evidently, an anonymous source leaked something to the press. Someone who worked at the hospital contacted a reporter and told him the dead boy had shared a room with a violent patient who may have killed him.”

“That’s pretty shocking and I would think newsworthy.”

“I know. This one reporter latched onto the story and tried to make something out of it. But he couldn’t prove much of anything. There was no record that the dead boy had even had a roommate. The article ended by revealing the only officially documented fact about the child’s death. He had died during an epileptic seizure, a condition for which he was being treated at the hospital. The seizure could have been the result of a violent encounter with another patient. But nobody could find any evidence or proof. The dead boy’s name was Daniel Warren.”

“Do you think that Daniel Warren is our ghost?”

“Hold on, Annabelle, let me finish.”

“Sorry. I know I get too impatient sometimes.”

“It’s okay. We’re all anxious to uncover the facts. Shortly after Daniel’s death, a writer from Boston Magazine decided to do a story about New England’s psychiatric hospitals and he visited Wild Wood. He exposed the overcrowding problem and the administrators’ disastrous solution. The hospital was housing nonviolent patients and violent patients in the same rooms. The whole situation had been kept pretty quiet until then. Whether this practice directly contributed to Daniel Warren’s death or not, the article drew attention to the hospital. State investigators stepped in and found out that somebody in charge had made some bad decisions. As a result of the investigation, Wild Wood lost a lot of its government funding, along with some grant money, and the hospital soon closed.”

Oliver’s story makes sense when I think about what’s been happening with Wyatt and me and our ghost. So I try again. “You still haven’t answered my question, Oliver. Do you think I found the spirit of Daniel Warren?”

The Lonesome Boy might finally have a name.

Nathaniel answers me. “We want to contact the ghost and ask him. Oliver, Jackson and I have been talking with Wyatt and we want to try channeling his spirit through Wyatt again, here tonight in a controlled setting. We want to ask your ghost some questions.”

At this point my curiosity wins out. Fascination with the paranormal got me into this predicament and recent events have turned my passion into a love/hate relationship. But the love side still thrills me. I’ve never felt so enthusiastic about a school project before or since Meg and I filmed at Wild Wood. And now I want to know more about the haunting. My mother feels okay about me participating in the séance and I trust Oliver. He and Jackson make an excellent research team. Nathaniel has a lot of experience with the paranormal and he’s a good mentor for Wyatt. I know Oliver would never let his nephew do anything truly dangerous, so I decide I’m in.

“Okay, let’s try it. Let’s contact Daniel.”

“Great.” Nathaniel smiles. “First I have to put Jeff out in the van. He hates ghosts.”

Jeff lifts his head and growls suspiciously at Nathaniel.

“It’s okay, buddy. Nothing bad’s gonna happen.”

After this reassurance, the dog stands up and starts barking. Nathaniel shushes him and gestures for him to go with Wyatt.

“Go on, boy. Follow Wyatt.”

Jeff obeys and together they lope out to the van, which is parked under a single streetlight, next to the curb in front of Oliver’s house. Standing at the window, I stare into the darkness and watch as the giant beast climbs into the van and offers one more bark of protest before he quiets and Wyatt comes back inside.

Behind me in the living room, Oliver turns off the lights. The fire’s our only source of illumination. Enthroned in his electric wheelchair, Nathaniel sits with the flames at his back, Wyatt to his right and me to his left. Oliver and Jackson complete our circle. The logs in the fireplace crackle and shudder as the hellish spikes devour them. Lit from behind by the glowing flames, Nathaniel’s curls form a halo around his shadowed face. He looks like an angel from Hell.

In a solemn voice he begins.

“Wyatt, focus inward and think about how it felt to let someone else in. Where did you go?”

“I was here but not here, gone but not completely gone. Even though I possessed none of my five senses, I was aware of what was happening and what was being said.”

“How did you feel?”

“I wasn’t inside my body. I felt like fog. Like an icy mist. Then finally like snow. But the cold didn’t affect me because I wasn’t inside of my skin. He was.”

Wyatt’s pupils roll up and disappear. I lean across Nathaniel, coming part way out of my chair. Nathaniel touches my wrist and warns me with his eyes, so I sit back down but still lean forward, toward Wyatt.

His eyes open wider. With only the whites showing, they look like small shiny half moons in his ashen face. Wyatt’s mouth grows slack and falls open. Then he slumps down in the chair, completely limp. His head lolls to the side. I realize his soul has left his body and I jump up. Nathaniel grabs my wrist.

Alarmed by the sight of this horrifying transformation, I start toward the door. I’m desperate to quit this nightmare. Nathaniel’s grip tightens, reminding me I can’t abandon Wyatt. Wherever he is. When Nathaniel finally lets go of me, I collapse back into the chair.

Suddenly, he speaks. Rather it speaks, using Wyatt’s voice.

“I want to touch her.”

“Annabelle, switch seats with Oliver. It’s okay. You’re safe and so is Wyatt.”

Nathaniel gives instructions with an assuredness I suspect he doesn’t feel.

With a nod of his head he sends a calm look at Oliver who appears to be very freaked out.

Oliver and I follow his directions and trade seats. Now he’s on Nathaniel’s left and I’m on Wyatt’s right, except Wyatt isn’t Wyatt anymore. He turns to me, his eyes sunken into the dark hollows of their sockets. Thousands of prickly goose-bumps swarm over my skin and I shiver. Wyatt reassures me in a voice that seethes up from his throat and out of his mouth.

“I won’t hurt you, Annabelle,” he hisses.

Feeling like I’m in the presence of a monster, I’m both revolted and petrified at the same time. I want to run so badly that my feet are twitching. But then I remember the tragic story of young Daniel and strive for self-control.

“I know, but I’m still scared.” Seeking reassurance, I look at Nathaniel. He looks intensely serious but still calm.

“He wants to be near you, Annabelle, so you should ask the questions. It’s all right. I’m here to protect you and Wyatt.”

My voice quivers. “Is your name Daniel Warren?”

“In life I couldn’t speak.”

I try again. “Is your name Daniel?”

“I didn’t know any words or names.”

“What did you know?”

“Nothing. My world was nothing but a storm of random sounds.”

“What was it like to live in your world?”

“Torture. Confusion. Hell. My world was hell.”

“I don’t want you to feel like you’re in hell. I want to help you. I want to know what happened to you when you were alive. Can you remember ever hearing the name Daniel?”

“Daniel,” he repeats. “I have Wyatt’s words because I’m inside Wyatt’s mind, but it’s all completely new. And confusing.”

“Try to remember.”

“I’m trying, but that day with you, Annabelle, in the basement, was the first time I have ever spoken to anybody.”

He pauses. A grimace contorts the ghoulish version of Wyatt’s face.

“I think I’ve heard the name Daniel said aloud, maybe once.”

He grows silent for a moment and I observe how he looks like Wyatt, but different than Wyatt, in a subtle way.

Daniel’s eyes are darker and set in hollows of gray. His face looks thin and pale with no trace of Wyatt’s healthy tanned complexion. Sharp, slanted lines define his cheekbones. When Wyatt is Wyatt, even his face looks well-fed and muscular, but with Daniel hiding inside of him, he looks gaunt and hungry. Staring at the dead boy, I become lost, imagining what life must have been like in room 209.

Suddenly, he springs up to his full height, like a monstrous jack-in-the-box, and lunges at me.

Grabbing my arms, he pins me to the chair. Literally frozen in place by his icy grip, I sit like a statue, paralyzed with shock. Oliver shoots up like a rocket and Nathaniel zooms closer to Wyatt’s other side. Both men grab his arms and attempt to pull him away from me.

I call out, “No, it’s all right. I’m okay, just cold.” My teeth are clicking together uncontrollably.

Daniel moves his hands up to my shoulders, stares into my face and speaks. “You’re my only hope.”

I can barely get the words out, my teeth are chattering so hard. “I want to help you but I don’t know how.”

“Go back to the hospital.”

And he’s gone. Wyatt’s hands move down. As he caresses my bare arms, they grow warmer and he hauls me up, out of the chair, into his arms. Staggering backwards, he collapses into his chair and pulls me onto his lap. Cradling me like a child, he kisses my hair and whispers my name.