It's 13 years later. Lucky 13. Wolfhowl Manor has been rebuilt and resurrected as an occult museum. Liam has disappeared from college, telling no one where he's going. But when Rose learns of a death that hits close to home, she knows exactly where he's going. He's going home. He's going to Her.
Liam
I’ve never liked birds. I’m not sure why. I have this recurring dream. I’m standing in the dark. It’s a blackness so complete. I can feel it.
The flapping comes first. Just a flutter in the air to my right. Or is it behind me? I can’t tell where it’s coming from. How far away it is. How big it is.
There’s more now, so many more. The air moves with their wings. The terrible flapping surrounds me. Hundreds of them in the darkness, maybe thousands. What kind of birds are they? Do they have talons? Will they turn my skin to bloody ribbons any moment?
A feather brushes my arm. I flinch hug my body. Another touches my forehead. I close my eyes with a whimper when the first one lands on my shoulder. It’s heavy. I feel the talons digging into my skin.
That’s when the pecking starts, the tiny pecking of their sharp beaks like little needles. They peck at my ears, my fingers, my toes. Sometimes I wake up before they peck out my eyes. Sometimes I don’t.
Do I have the dream because I don’t like birds? Or is the reason I don’t like birds because I have the dream? I used to think the answer wasn’t important. Now I’m not so sure.
Moira
Moira Delaney drives down the dark road. Wild Texas brush creeps up on either side of her Volvo, broken only by a side route or driveway once in a while. A few more miles and she’ll make her own turn toward the humble ranch-style home she shares with her children. Liam is a broody thirteen going on twenty, and Rose, twenty-six, is hardly a child anymore. She shares the apartment over the garage with Beckan, her boyfriend of eight years. Moira hopes they get their act together and get married. Rose’s grandmother would be rolling in her grave if she knew her granddaughter was living in sin.
A flurry of snow streaks across the windshield. Moira mistakes it for road dust at first, but then several more appear and she laughs. Texas itself rarely sees snow, but this part? Moira isn’t sure she’s ever seen snow here – the Gulf Coast is less than fifty miles away for Pete’s sake. But she’s reminded of another time and place where the weather was unique, unexpected. Like a warm thunderstorm on Christmas Eve. Her laugh dies in her throat.
She suddenly wants to be home right now. She wants to be sitting at her kitchen table, all of the shadows burned off in the harsh fluorescent light. She wants to be holding a cup of warm chamomile tea, listening to the sound of her children talking in the next room. She does not want to be out in this strange snow. In the dark. Alone.
The flurries multiply. They’ve become full-fledged snowflakes. It’s not a white out, but the snow is heavy enough to blot out the crescent moon’s feeble light. Moira’s headlights reflect off the snow and she feels like she’s driving through an old Windows screensaver. The dirt road is slick, and she slows down.
“Well, this is just ridiculous,” she marvels. It’s winter, but it’s Texas.
She turns down the radio, quieting some country classic she can’t process right now. She’s leaning over the steering wheel, concentrating on the brush at the edges of the road, but even that’s impossible to see now. The blanket of snow on the road quiets the usual crunch of the Volvo’s tires on the dirt and gravel. It’s quiet inside the car. Just Moira bumping along. In the snow. In the dark. Alone. And yet…
Moira.
It is not the first time she has heard this voice. She knows it is real.
Biting back the fear, Moira stares straight ahead, concentrating on the road. She has only a few minutes to go before reaching the safety of home. Just a few minutes more.
Moira.
This time the voice is accompanied by movement from the corner of her eye. Movement from a figure in her passenger seat. She’s turned Her head toward Moira.
Still mine, Moira.
Moira can feel Her eyes boring into her skull. But Moira will. Not. Look.
MINE!
Moira flinches, just a little. It’s enough to jerk the steering wheel. The tires respond quickly on the slick surface. She overcorrects and skids across the road. In the dark, in the snow, she doesn’t see the lone stand of trees she knows as the landmark just before her final turn toward home.
When Moira isn’t home by nine, Rose begins calling local hospitals and Beckan is sent to trace her usual route home. He finds Moira and her car quickly. They are less than a mile from home. There is no snow. There is no one in the passenger seat. And Moira Delaney is dead.
It is Christmas Eve, 2015.
The Call
Rose
I’m standing at the kitchen sink, scrubbing the one plate I used for my lonely dinner. The window looks over a cracked asphalt driveway and the neighbor’s dying tomatoes. But for a moment I don’t see my aging SUV or the weeds along the chain-link fence. I see a sunset between the trees. I feel the humid breeze and smell the ocean. I hear crashing waves at the bottom of the cliff. I remember the fear.
And then I’m not looking out the window anymore. I’m standing on the edge of the cliff, my toes touching air. Far below me, waves rush up and around jagged rocks. If I lean forward just a little bit…
Rose.
My phone rings and I’m returned to the kitchen. The faucet is still running and the sink is about to overflow. I shut the water off and pull the plug. Wiping my hands on a towel, I reach for my phone, but I freeze when I see the Caller ID. Before I can decipher my feelings – anxiety, dread, but also a little happy? – voicemail takes the call. His text comes a few seconds later.
Beckan: Stop staring at your phone and answer it.
My phone rings again. This time I answer.
“Did he call you?” That wasn’t what I meant to say. Hello. How are you? Where the hell have you been? I miss you. I can’t bring myself to say these things.
“Who?” Beckan’s voice is a pitch higher than normal. I caught him off guard. The disappointment nearly chokes me.
“Liam! Who else?”
“No. Why—”
“He’s not there, is he?” A sudden knot in my stomach. “Please tell me he’s not there.” I realize I’m gripping the edge of the counter and try to relax.
“No, Rose, course not.” Beckan’s voice is like honey, like warm sun. I didn’t realize how much I still miss it, miss him, until this moment.
There’s the sound of shuffling. I picture him pulling up to his rented apartment, digging around in his truck for his wallet and keys among the fast-food wrappers and crumpled invoices. “Isn’t he at school?” The snick of a lighter and a deep breath – smoking again.
“You know he isn’t… Don’t you?” Liam doesn’t tell me anything anymore, but I know he still talks to Beckan. I’ve encouraged it. But if he isn’t talking to Beckan now either…
Beckan sighs. “No. Liam and I… We haven’t talked in a while. I keep meanin’ to call…”
“He’s been gone a week,” I tell him, slumping into a kitchen chair. “He didn’t say anything to his roommate or his girlfriend…” Or me. “No one’s heard from him.”
“Did you call the police?”
“He’s eighteen,” I reply, the bitterness still there. “He’s not missing. He’s an adult with every right to drop out of school and avoid his sister. You really haven’t heard from him?”
“No, Rose,” Beckan insists. “I’d have called you immediately… You know that, don’t you?”
“Yeah, of course.” I’m not sure I believe him. “I just thought… When I saw your name… I mean we haven’t talked in a while.” Two years, but who’s counting? “Why else would you be calling?”
Beckan doesn’t reply right away. I listen to him breathe, the sound of him inhaling and releasing the smoke like it’s some kind of relaxation exercise. It reminds me of lying next to him in bed, of listening to his breaths grow slower as he fell asleep.
“Pop’s gone, Rose.”
“Gone? Gone where?” Beckan doesn’t reply, but I don’t need him to. I know what he means. I just can’t wrap my brain around it at first. Derry gone? That tough as nails bulldog? “But he’s so strong,” I say stupidly. “What happened?”
“I’ve only just found out myself.”
“He died today?”
“I didn’t have anyone else to call.”
How many unspoken emotions are tied up in those terrible words? The only family he had left is gone. He has no friends to call. The only person in the world he has left is an ex-girlfriend and her brother, half a country away.
“I’m so sorry, Beckan. Are you okay?” It’s a stupid question and I know it, but it’s what you say.
“I need you, Rose.”
My heart jumps into my throat. How many times have I imagined those words in his voice?
“I need you here.”
My stomach drops. “What?” Cold seeps into my bones. “You want me to—”
“I know what I’m askin’ of you, believe me I do. And I know I’ve no right to ask it.”
“Beckan. I can’t.” It’s so absurd, I just manage to bite back the burble of laugher.
“There are things that have to be done up here…” Beckan’s voice hitches. “I can’t get through this without you. Rose, please.”
I close my eyes and shake my head. No, no, no.
But I say, “I’ll leave in the morning,” and hang up.
I sit at the table for a long time, my eyes closed, my body shivering. I’m not cold anymore. But I am afraid. Because I have to go back now. Derry’s gone and Liam’s missing. But I know where to find him. Where he went, where he’ll go. I’ve known all along.
He’ll go home. He’ll go to Her.
* * *
Polly
I’m standing at the end of Rose Delaney’s driveway when she wheels her suitcase through the front door. It’s early morning, the sun just an impression of color on the horizon. Rose’s aura glows in the semi-darkness. She’s been more red than anything the few times I’ve met her–a fiery color for a fiery woman. But today the red is faded, nearly obliterated by the blue and the white. She’s anxious, thinking hard, barely in this realm. She looks wrung dry.
I wonder how much she knows about me, how much Liam decided to tell her – or not tell her. My intuitiveness, as my mother calls it, sometimes gets me into trouble. But it’s one of the things Liam likes about me. He’d warned me his sister is overprotective, overinvolved. She probably wouldn’t understand someone like me, wouldn’t approve. I’m used to it.
Of course, Liam is just as oblivious as most men. Rose’s real problem with me isn’t even about me. It’s that she still sees Liam as a little boy, as her little brother who needs her protection.
As Rose walks toward her car, the colors of her aura fade and flicker, like glass caught in the sun. I squint and raise my hand to shield my eyes. The movement gives me away.
“Oh!” Rose starts, her key poised at the driver’s side door. “Polly?” She looks down to the suitcase at my side and then back to me. Her eyes narrow. “What are you doing here?”
I can see in her face that Liam has told her about my intuitiveness, but I can also see she doesn’t believe it. She’s surprised to see me. I don’t know where she’s going yet, but I know it’s about Liam.
“I’m coming with you.” I keep my voice respectful but firm. I don’t want her to dismiss me. I’m a twenty-year-old woman of my own means, not a kid.
“Come with me? I’m sorry, Polly.” She shakes her head and looks away. “I’m not sure where you think I’m going—”
“You’re going back to Maine. To Port Braseham.” I wasn’t sure until it was out of my mouth, but I can tell by her flinch I’m right. For the first time since Liam disappeared, I am afraid.
I don’t want to force Rose to take me with her, but I will if I have to. She doesn’t know it yet, but she needs me. Liam needs me. I have something she’ll want, something that’ll get me into her passenger seat, but it’s not the right time to use it. Not yet. I take my wallet out instead.
“I can pay my own way,” I tell her. “I can pay yours too. I can buy us both plane tickets right now, first class. Get us there before lunch.”
Rose holds up her hands, giving me the superior look Liam complains about. “Please don’t pull out your daddy’s credit card to impress me.”
“Daddy’s a deadbeat I haven’t seen since I was six and Mama’s a bank secretary,” I reply. “It’s my money, and there’s a lot of it.” She doesn’t need to know how much or how I earn it. Not yet anyway. “And it’s going to get us both to Liam a helluva lot faster than that jalopy.” I nod at her rusting SUV. “So. What do you say?”
She hesitates. I already know her answer, but I let her work it out on her own.
She sighs, not happy, but also relieved she’s not going back alone.
“Get in.”
I don’t remember much from our time in Port Braseham. There are some fuzzy recollections: my kindergarten classroom, a couple of kids that were friends, maybe? A picnic with Beckan and the beat-up truck he still drives. Even after we moved away from there, things are still fuzzy. My memories don’t become clear until we moved back to Texas, when I was seven or eight. Rose says I should feel lucky, about losing two or three years of my life. But how’s anyone supposed to feel lucky about something like that?
Trauma-induced amnesia is what they called it, but giving it a name didn’t help, especially one like that. What trauma? What don’t they want me to remember? Why don’t they want me to remember? My old therapist wanted to use hypnosis to help me remember, but Mom and Rose fought that battle hard. I wanted to try it, to remember, but what I wanted didn’t matter. Since I wasn’t an adult, the doctor couldn’t proceed without Mom’s permission. What a joke.
She had nightmares sometimes, the kind where she woke up screaming. It scared the shit out of me. But she refused to talk about it. I couldn’t even mention Maine without putting her into a state of near catatonia. Her fear kept her quiet, I knew that much. But fear of what? What the hell is everyone so afraid of?? I think it’s the not knowing what I’m supposed to be afraid of that makes me pretty much afraid of most things.
Rose refuses to talk about it and won’t let Beckan tell me either. Not that he even wants to – he agrees with her. It’s about the only thing they do agree on. But I know my sister remembers every second. She thinks keeping these secrets protects me. But they eat away at me, a little more each day. I could never really put it into words until I met Polly, and she put it into words for me.
Polly was sitting at the registration table on Orientation Day. I went by myself, I had to beg Rose to stay home. I couldn’t stand the idea of her fussing over me all day, spreading her anxiety around on the very day I’m supposed to begin sowing my independence.
When I made it to the front of the line, there was Polly. I thought she was pretty right away. I stood there staring at her big brown eyes and the light brown braid pulled over a shoulder, suddenly nervous and unsure what to say. And then she looked right at me, inside me. And I felt seen, really seen. And then she said, “You really don’t know who you are, do you?” And then she handed me an orientation schedule and asked my name.
I thought Polly was the beginning of something big, something important. And she was, but I thought in meeting her I’d met someone who’d finally be able to help me find my past. But it was Alistair who helped me figure it out. It was Alistair who gave me the key to everything. And it’s because of Alistair I’m going back.