The drift started like all the others, like a stream of water running down a painter’s palette. One color ran into the next, one sound wove into the spaces between a different memory. Almost like a dream, but not quite.
I saw men sitting around a campfire, their eyes lit by whiskey and flame.
This was Rory’s drift. Her memory. When the men spoke, their words were muffled, like they were coming through water.
I never heard what they said, because she never let her drift show for long.
I saw ripples of other images. Eva’s was of a couple entwined on a beach—an affair. Seph’s was a crumpled piece of paper—a daughter’s suicide note that was thrown in the trash instead of given to her parents.
I didn’t know why we were all connected like this. Why some things spilled into the center when we slept near each other. I didn’t realize it until we came to the Boneyard. I’d only ever been around Fabian, and we didn’t share anything but ash-filled nightmares that could have belonged to either one of us, so we never noticed the overlap. With the others, sometimes it was a memory, sometimes a glimpse of their secret. Sometimes it was through our own eyes, like watching a movie, and sometimes it was through the eyes of the Hushed. Or the human the Hushed belonged to. Sometimes it was nice. When we slept, we all shared each other’s burdens.
Sometimes it was not nice.
I tried to pull out because I could feel the sinking, cold, brittle fingers of something I didn’t want to face. I smelled smoke. Not woodsmoke, but cigarette smoke. The image of concrete walls fluttered up around me, then sharpened. Dull gray light filtered in through the one window on the left side of the basement, and a desk lamp sat on a workbench under the stairs.
This one was always vivid. This one, the one I was thrashing against, felt like oil-covered vines slipping up my calves. It was Reed’s.
I saw it through the eyes of a child; I could tell by the small hand that gripped the comic book in front of my vision and the thin legs that stuck out from the beanbag chair. For a moment, everything was still. Then, the door above the stairs opened, and a jagged silhouette spread down the sparse concrete stairs. Fear was like static in the air. My hands started to shake as they lowered the comic book. I pulled back from this as hard as I could. A man’s work boot appeared on one of the highest stairs, and then the basement was gone.
I was yanked upward, my head a flurry of echoes and whispers. But there, in the swirl of color and chaos, something stopped me. A face caught my eyes, and everything slowed down. I was suspended, there in the soft mist of sleeping and waking, and a little boy I’d never seen before smiled at me. It was an easy smile, with missing teeth and a scrunched-up nose. Peanut butter on his chin, something like paint on his cheekbone. It felt personal, like it was just for me. His dark blond hair was messy, and he crossed his arms across his chest as he sat on a window ledge. The ocean sprawled out across the horizon behind him. I saw it for no longer than a space of a breath before I fell hard and fast, waking up in my bed with a jolt.
I was dripping sweat, and I looked over at Seph. She was sitting up in her bed across the room, her short black hair sticking out around her head. It was still dark outside. My clock read 2:15.
“Reed’s?” she asked, putting a hand over her heart.
“Yeah,” I said absently, running a hand through my hair.
“I told him to lighten up. He had like three beers tonight. He always drifts more when he’s been drinking, and I told him I don’t want to see that shit!”
I was trying to call the image of the little boy in the window back to my mind. I thought about saying something to Seph, or even running to Fabian’s room and shaking him awake.
I remember something.
The thought pounded against my chest like a second heartbeat.
I think I remember something.
Did they see it, too? It happened right as I was waking up, but maybe one of the others caught a glimpse of it.
I expected terror, or something. I expected fear. Blood. Darkness. Something bad. The little boy’s face was still lit up behind my eyes.
“Did you . . . did you wake up right after? Did you see anything else?” I asked, tentatively.
Seph shuddered. “I saw that man’s face as he got to the bottom of the stairs. Then I pulled out,” she said. She slipped her socks on and walked to the door.
“Did you see something else?” she added as an afterthought at the doorway.
“No,” I lied. My feet found the cold floor, and I felt the lie sit heavy on my tongue.
* * *
“Don’t even start with me,” Reed paced in front of the fireplace, his sweats hanging low on his lean, bare torso. Fabian stood opposite him, his hands braced against the back of the couch.
We’d all drifted with Reed before, but some nights were worse than others. The clearer the memory, the angrier Reed got.
It wasn’t as bad as it could have been. Once, after Reed mixed some muscle relaxants with gin, we saw it all. We watched what happened when the man in the work boots came down the stairs. We heard the man tell the boy that if he told anyone, especially the boy’s mother, the man would kill her in her sleep.
The man in that memory died seven years ago, and Reed woke up in that basement. He belonged to a child molester, and he lived and breathed hatred because of it. When I remembered that, I hated Reed a little less. He could tell, too, and that made him hate me even more.
“All of you need to get the fuck out of my face,” he seethed.
“We can’t do that,” Rory said, stepping around the side of the couch and walking toward Reed with an outstretched hand.
Reed stopped pacing as Rory came closer. He looked at her tentatively, like he couldn’t stand the fact that she could make him stand still.
“We can’t leave you alone,” Rory repeated, stopping when she was just a foot in front of Reed.
A year ago, Reed took too many of those muscle relaxers on purpose. It was only because Seph came home early from school that she found him in time. The Internment launched a full-scale investigation as to how Reed got the pills, and it almost cost us the Boneyard.
“We know how you feel,” Rory said lowly. “That’s what this place is all about. That’s why Hushed stick together.”
Reed laughed, a derisive, cutting sound. “Know how I feel? Like hell you do. Yeah, your secret is bad, but at least you keep it on a leash. And you?” He pointed at Eva. “An affair? All you have to live with is a fun little voyeuristic fantasy?”
Seph took a step forward, and he held his hand out, gesturing for her to stop.
“Your human found the note his twin sister left when she committed suicide, a note that would’ve destroyed their parents’ lives, and he never told them. That’s nothing, so stop trying to act like keeping the secret is hard for you—”
“No one is trying to compare, Reed,” Fabian said.
Reed eyed Fabian. A smile slunk up the side of his mouth, like he was grateful someone finally pulled the trigger on his rage.
“You,” Reed whispered, looking from Fabian and then to me. “And you. Both of you can get off your high horse and shove this sticking together thing up your asses. Because you have no clue,” Reed hissed, looking back at Fabian. “You’re a freak of nature, and you don’t belong here any more than you belong in your precious church.”
“That’s enough, Reed,” Eva said, her voice wavering with emotion as she looked to Fabian, who went stock-still. His knuckles were white as he grasped the back of the couch.
“Reed.” Rory’s voice cut through the thick silence.
“Why do you even care, Fabe? Why do you care if I swallowed six different bottles of pills? Won’t I just . . . come back, somehow? Don’t you believe in second chances?”
Eva ushered Seph out of the room, and Seph reluctantly let her.
“Exhumed are a myth, Reed. And even if they weren’t . . . that’s not how it works,” Rory said. Reed looked down, turning his smirk slightly more in the direction of her voice.
“Why don’t we talk, just you and me?” Rory asked.
Reed turned at her words. He searched her face, his hateful expression yielding ever so slightly as his eyes took in the sight of her. He blinked as he swallowed hard, like she was a voice calling him out of a bad dream. For a second, it looked like he’d follow her.
Then, Rory glanced at Fabian. It was a quick look that lasted a fraction of a second, but the spell was broken. I saw the rage pool back inside him like a backdraft, and I braced for it.
Reed sneered and wrapped his hands around Rory’s throat, every muscle in his back tightening with the tension.
“You think I don’t know what you’re doing?” he cried.
Rory’s hands reached up and wrapped around Reed’s arm.
I didn’t even have time to scream before Fabian launched himself over the couch and tackled Reed to the ground, freeing Rory from his grip. I ran to help her up.
Reed rolled, flipping Fabian onto the corner of the fireplace. I heard the sickening thud of flesh on brick, but Fabian recovered quickly, turning Reed on his back and then wrapping his arms around Reed’s, pinning them to his side in a bear hug as he pulled them both to their feet.
“Let me go!” Reed screeched.
“You need to take a deep breath,” Fabian said calmly, putting his face over Reed’s shoulder.
Reed threw his head back, trying to hit Fabian, but Fabian leaned away, tightening his grip.
Reed laughed as sweat dripped down his forehead.
“Well, well. Little preacher man, getting into a death match over a piece of ass,” Reed choked out.
Fabian clenched his jaw but didn’t say anything.
Rory stepped back from me. “I’m fine,” she whispered, though I could see her hands shaking as she tied the band back into her hair. She left the room, and Reed’s gaze followed her, a trace of sorrow gathering between his eyebrows as he frowned. He took a sharp breath through his teeth and yanked away from Fabian, who let go.
Reed ran a hand through his hair and looked to Fabian, his chest heaving.
“Don’t fucking touch me again,” he said.
“Then don’t touch her again,” Fabian said quietly.
Reed stalked back to his room, and no one followed him. Voices rose from the kitchen—Seph and Rory talking quietly as Seph made tea.
I found Fabian by the stairs, but he snatched his coat from the hanger by the door and stormed out into the night before I could talk to him.
My chest thrummed, the adrenaline in my chest slowly seeping out of me. I slipped up the steps, making sure to be soundless as I dipped back into my dark room.
I didn’t have the strength to do anything but slide back in between my sheets, listening to the electricity crackle under my skin, slipping between all my thoughts.
Don’t you believe in second chances? Reed’s words raced through my mind.
I don’t think any of us believed in Exhumed. Not even Fabian, who had more faith than anyone I knew. It was a myth, the thought that if the exact same secret happens twice, the exact same Hushed comes back to carry it. This was not the same as multiple Hushed coming from the same shared secret—two people having different Hushed about the same affair was common, but they had two different experiences, two different perspectives, and two different Wounded. Exhumed were a myth because the idea was rooted in the belief that Hushed made sense, and we didn’t. There was no rhyme or reason to which Hushed carried which secret. But if you believed that there was a design to it, then I guess the logic worked.
Sarah used to tell me it would be like an explorer discovering a lost kingdom and then dying before they told anyone. A Hushed would carry that. Then, if something happened to that Hushed (killing Hushed has always been a human-favored pastime), the secret would be loose, like all others. Then, let’s say . . . centuries later, another explorer found the same lost kingdom and then kept it a secret. When that explorer died . . . the same Hushed would return. They would be an Exhumed.
It made no less sense than us existing, I guess. But I didn’t buy it, and I knew Reed didn’t either. We’d never heard of it actually happening.
I shut my eyes, and the image of the little boy was there.
Three years of nothing, and then, there it was. I was too stunned to panic. Too stunned to do anything but look up at my ceiling.
I remember something.
I think I remember something.