A Guide to the Other Side (15 page)

“Yeah,” I mumbled. “It happens sometimes, I have no idea how to control it.”

“What was it?”

“A minivan hit a truck, and then a bunch of people rushed out to help. Whoever left the memory must have been really shocked. That's usually how it works, some kind of strong feeling behind it.”

He blinked at me, bewildered. “That just happened a couple of days ago. It was the loudest bang I've ever heard. Everyone was freaked out.”

“Oh,” I said, nodding. “Hope no one was hurt.”

“Everyone was fine,” he said slowly, like he . . . like he didn't know what to think anymore. He was clearly confused that I knew about the accident, and I realized this was my shot to get him talking.

“Would you mind telling me about your dad?” I asked quietly, trying not to sound too desperate. “I'm just trying to figure out what he wants. I'm trying to figure out what he did when he was alive that was so bad.”

He was looking at his hands, which were clenched tightly together, and I thought he was going to tell me to shut up. Miraculously, he started talking.

“The man was a machine, Baylor. Super successful. Good shape. Then he married some chick named Angela, got dementia, and left her all his money, and now my sister and I are broke, and there's nothing we can do about it.” He looked up at me. “So if it is him, maybe he feels guilty for marrying some greedy, gold-digging monster who dismantled our inheritance, stole it for herself, and left his kids out to dry. Does that answer your question?”

“I'm sorry,” I said. “I didn't mean to make you mad.”

“It's not your fault, kid,” he said, standing up. “I've dealt with it, it's whatever. I've moved on. My sister got out of Dodge, my mom stayed in Winchester, and God knows where Angela went. She didn't even show up to his funeral.”

He said her name with an exaggerated Spanish accent, so it sounded like “An-hell-a.”

“Maybe that's why he's visiting me?” I suggested, also standing. “Maybe he wants to make it right somehow.”

“Do you really think we haven't tried?” he laughed. “We tried, many times. The legal documents were rock solid.”

Part of me was panicking. What if the Sheet Man was going to stay with me forever? Will was my best chance at making this whole thing stop. “There has to be something we can do.”

“We?” he said. “There's no ‘we' here, Baylor. You're just a kid. You're not going to be able to do anything we haven't already tried.”

I stood there frowning.

He sighed. “I wish you luck, Baylor,” he said. “I really do. I'd love it if you found a way, but I know you won't be able to, so I'm not bothering to offer my help.” He turned away and started to walk to the counter. “Cool trick with the sugar, kid.”

I lunged over the sofa and grabbed his arm. “Can I at least get your number in case something comes up?”

He sighed. “Fine.” He grabbed a napkin, bent over the counter, and scribbled his number. “Here.”

“Thanks!” I said. “I'll leave you mine, too, just in case.”

“Great,” he said, although I strongly suspected he didn't think it was great at all. After he marched away, I went back to the counter, where the barista had been watching us.

“Did you enjoy your macchiato?” she asked.

“Not even a little bit,” I said, setting down the still-full glass on the counter and wondering if that awful taste would ever go away. “Could I get a water and maybe some mouthwash if you've got it?”

  *  *  *  

Across the street Aiden and J were sitting at a table, chatting merrily about Debate Club. J was the president of the club, and Aiden was the worst-performing member. When I sat down, they were debating about what the next topic for the club should be, and Aiden was finishing an impassioned speech about sandwiches.

“I'm telling you, it's the perfect subject,” he said, his arms flailing. “Everyone has their own very specific favorite sandwich, with a million different variables, and it's the sign of the truly skilled debater to convince someone why theirs is the best.”

J was giggling and shaking her head as she turned to me.

“So how'd it go, Baylor?”

I frowned. I didn't know what I had expected. Maybe a tearful, grateful son, sharing all his knowledge about his father with me? Maybe an angry person with a clear story as to why his father was most certainly at home in the evil part of the other side?

But what I got from Will wasn't helpful. Leaving your kids no money is pretty bad, but it doesn't make you evil. I still had no real answer for what was happening with his father.

It seemed safer to keep them both in the dark as much as possible about the Sheet Man, so I just told them the practical facts of what Will had told me, and how none of it was very useful.

“Well, that's annoying,” J said. “But at least you learned the ex-wife lives in Winchester? Maybe you can visit her next.”

I hadn't even thought of that. “Brilliant, J!” I said. “You are
brilliant
.”

“She
is
brilliant,” Aiden said dreamily. We both turned to him, and a look of horror dawned on his face that he'd apparently uttered those words aloud.

“Uh, time to go, guys, right?” he said, hopping up. “Let's get a move on.”

I'd never seen Aiden move that fast in my life unless a pepperoni sandwich was at stake.

“Wait a second!” J said, looking at her watch. “The next bus to Keene isn't for an hour and a half.”

Aiden turned around, slow-motion style, emanating a silent but very real distress signal out to the world, his eyes begging for help from me, from the barista, from a hole in the ground that would swallow him up and take him far away from here.

“What are we going to do for an hour and a half?” he croaked.

“We could do some sightseeing?” I suggested. “Anything close to here?”

“It's Boston!” J said, her eyes bulging with excitement. “The birthplace of the American Revolution. There's
so
much to see. We could walk part of the Freedom Trail and visit the key sites of the Revolution! The Boston Massacre, the Old State House, Paul Revere's house, and oh, I think Paul Revere's grave is on the trail too. You might like that, Baylor!”

“Uh,” I said, horrified by my mistake. “I think the river's nearby. Can we just go look at that?”

“Look at the river?” She looked bewildered, turning her head back and forth from me to Aiden. “But all the stuff I just . . . oh, come on, guys, you at least have to see the Boston Tea Party ships!” She smiled eagerly at Aiden, but he didn't notice, since he was still mentally berating himself.

“Sure,” I said. “Is it on the river, right over there, steps away?”

She frowned. “No.”

“Darn,” I said, picking up my bag. “To the river!”

  *  *  *  

We crossed Storrow Drive and wound up on an embankment along the river. It was freezing—the wind was blasting like a high-speed train over the river, apparently arriving fresh from the Arctic Circle.

“Isn't this great?” I said, teeth clattering, to J, who was clutching her arms over her chest. “What a view.” The river was a dark, choppy mess; the sky was gray and bleak.

“Yeah, Baylor,” J said sarcastically, “this was your best idea ever.”

Aiden, still too afraid to say anything, stood motionless, looking like he wanted nothing more than for the wind to pick him up and carry him swiftly away.

“Let's just go,” J said. “We'll get to the bus station early and have some hot chocolate.”

I set my backpack down and took a step closer to the concrete balustrade on the edge of the river. “You want to leave already? We just got here.”

“You've got thirty more seconds until I kick you into the river,” she said between shivers.

I looked out at the gray sky; there was such a thick layer of clouds blocking the sun that it felt like a miracle the light was making its way through at all. I remembered the nonsense that Kristina and the colonel said when we made the talisman, about the sun knowing only light, so the moon's light in the darkness was more special. I scoffed. What did they know? Look at the sun now, doing its best to shove its rays through the nearly impenetrable Boston sky.

A prickle of chills lightly spread on the back of my neck, a different sort of cold than what we'd been experiencing.

“Baylor, let's go!” J said defiantly. “I've had enough.”

“One second,” I said, leaning far over the railing, the concrete hard against my stomach. There was something there, some kind of presence. I could feel it.

Any color that had been in the sky seemed to disappear.

I turned to look at J and Aiden, but they were gone. The chill in my neck now pulsated throughout my body, and I swung back around to face the river.

Over the violent waters the Sheet Man was gliding right toward me.

THE EYES WERE FOCUSED ON
me, unblinking, little black holes soaking up light and energy. The sheet was perfectly still despite its quick movement through the fierce wind and thrashing waves.

The talisman! It was in my bag steps away.

I crawled off the railing, dismayed to see I was totally alone. J, Aiden, all the other pedestrians that had been walking by—were they really gone, or was Alfred transporting me to some other realm, some sort of perpetual limbo where only he existed?

I lunged for my bag, but before I had the chance to unzip it, the Sheet Man was there, so close I could reach out and touch him. My breathing became shallow and I felt light-headed. This was it. He'd finally gotten me. I noticed the shoes were gone, so his bare feet hung there, the toenails yellow and shriveled.

And the eyes. I looked back at the feet because the eyes were scarier than I remembered, especially this close up, like ash was smeared around them.

“Can I help you, Alfred?” I asked, clutching the bag, sneakily attempting to open it, trying to keep my voice from shaking.

No response.

“I met your son today. William? He was disappointed in you.”

Still nothing. He just floated there like a casual ghost friend of mine. He didn't seem to notice my hand inching into the bag.

“He said you didn't leave him or your daughter any inheritance. You left all your money to your new wife.”

I'd struck a nerve. A strange scream erupted from somewhere inside of him, and then, like he was giving birth to another evil Sheet Man, a spirit hurtled out from under the sheet. It was tangled in the fabric, the arms tied up like they were handcuffed. The spirit unraveled itself, and I gasped.

“Kristina!” I yelled, dropping the bag. “What the . . . how the . . .”

“Baylor!” she yelled. “The wife! Talk to the—”

And then they disappeared.

At the same moment Aiden and J came back into focus, screaming my name over the railing by the river.

“I'm here,” I shouted behind them. I noticed they were no longer alone; people had stopped to help them.

“How did you do that?” J yelled, running over to me, Aiden hot on her heels, tears streaming down their faces. “You disappeared”—she snapped her fingers—“like that.”

I was barely paying attention to them. How could I? Kristina was caught in whatever limbo the Sheet Man existed, and there was nothing I could do about it.

“It was like an alien beamed you up,” Aiden said, bending over, huffing loudly.

“It was him,” I said, my voice hoarse. “The father of the guy I visited today. And he somehow took Kr—another ghost hostage.” I swallowed, the lump in my throat huge, the tears seconds away. I was too afraid to say her name out loud. What if it somehow affected her? “I . . . I don't know what to do. This situation is absurd. They're all dead. There's no one I can call. There's no one I can turn to.” I looked at their tearstained faces, and I wondered if they were somehow in danger just being around me.

Where was Colonel Fleetwood? Surely, he had to be aware of Kristina's absence. Unless he had been kidnapped too?

“I need to go home,” I said. “I need to light a million candles.”

Before I knew what was happening, a gruff pair of hands turned me around.

“You gave your friends quite a scare there, son.” A police officer was looking me up and down. He'd walked over from the river, and I noticed an ambulance was pulling up behind him. “They thought you'd fallen into the river.”

I turned to Aiden. “You called nine-one-one?”

Aiden raised his hands limply. “We didn't know what to do, Baylor. We thought you were drowning.”

“Luckily, I was nearby and could offer my help,” the officer said, puffing out his chest. “Your parents around, son?”

I gulped. A chill entirely unrelated to the Sheet Man or the cold entered the pit of my stomach. “We live in Keene.”