Blackwood (17 page)

  
Someone else had already been in the house, but not one of them. The girl gave a short nod, and they took seats on the couch in wordless agreement.

  
They didn't speak. There was no point. They needed more time to know enough to have anything to say.

  
A whine sang to them from inside the room that held the uninvited guest, followed by a low voice soothing the troubled dog. Then, the silence returned.

16

Missed

The silence didn't last, inside or outside Phillips' head. When morning came, he laid on the bench listening to the first clues that something big had taken place overnight. The staccato din of ringing phones, shouted queries, and fast footsteps reached his cell.

  Chattering voices also buzzed in the background of his mind, but they weren't anything like the screaming horde that had smashed into him and taken over without so much as a
do you mind
? or a
thank you
. This was the rain without the storm, the never-alone sensation he associated with the island – only dialed up a notch because the voices bore a disturbed edge, sharper than usual. The voices were upset.

  
Not the only ones.

  He must have freaked everyone out in the most major of ways yesterday – including Miranda. Trapped Miranda, who truly couldn't leave.

  He stood and confirmed that he still wore his jeans and Tshirt, instead of a terrible jumpsuit. At least they'd left him in his own clothes. He had to get out of here.

  He gripped the cell bars in either hand, pressing his forehead onto the metal. Wasn't he supposed to have a tin cup he could drag back and forth over the bars until someone came to shout at him? The one time Phillips had broken out of jail he'd still had the force's amused graces on his side and been able to talk his way out. Now that everyone knew his reputation, that wouldn't work.

  Why
was
he even in here? All he remembered were his parents and Roswell and… frowning strangers in dark suits, barking questions he wasn't able to respond to. Who were they?

  His mother rounded the corner and padded down the hallway, a styrofoam cup of coffee in one hand. The dark smudges around her eyes nearly matched the depressing gray cement wall behind her. She almost dropped the steaming cup, clearly surprised to see him standing.

  "Mom," he said, "good morning."

  She straightened. "Is it?"

  He tried to ignore the buzz and hum raining through his head. "Better than yesterday."

  "Anything would be better than yesterday." She must not have slept more than a few hours, if that. She took a sip from the coffee.

  "Why am I in here?" he asked.

  Her head snapped up. "You don't remember."

  Given the busy noises coming from the station floor, he doubted anyone was snooping on their conversation. He spoke softly anyway. "It wasn't like anything that ever happened to me before – all of a sudden the voices just… overpowered me." He paused, attempting to make space away from the buzzing chatter inside. "Is Miranda OK? How freaked out was she?"

  His mother shifted so she rested against the bars beside him. She didn't want them to be overheard either, he realised. "Phillips, you're in here because the FBI think you and Miranda worked together to murder her father."

  "But I wasn't even here when he died! I was a million miles from here. Well, several hundred." Their theory was as far off as the moon.

  She gripped her cup with one hand and reached out with the other to touch his. "I know, hon. But they don't understand where the body could be."

  Something in his memory clicked and a snatch of the shouted questions directed at him drifted through his mind.
"What did you do with the body?"
one of them had asked, a man. An FBI guy.

  "Someone took Miranda's dad's body," he said, not a question.

  She said, "And you guys were in the funeral home. Why exactly were you in the funeral home?"

  So he was in trouble with his mom, too. "Miranda needed to see him and–"

  "And you couldn't just ask your dad to arrange it." She sighed. "Phillips, what happened to you yesterday? You were gone. Unreachable. Do you know why it was so bad?"

  His forehead touched the bars. "I don't understand it either."

  "And the voices are back, aren't they? The regular ones you hear?"

  He nodded. "How did you–"

  "Your eyes," she said, waving her hand next to her own. "I can tell when you aren't alone in there."

  She checked her watch, looked over her shoulder. Was it possible there was more gray in her hair from one night? "The agents will be coming in soon. Maybe we should ask them to transfer you to the mainland. I don't want to ever see that happen again."

  Phillips frowned. His mother was on his side, always. "I'm not leaving. Where's Miranda?"

  His mother's eyes landed on the wall behind him. "She took off – she's currently evading federal custody. Any idea where she is?"

  Miranda Blackwood, federal fugitive.
I'm a bad influence
. Phillips couldn't stop his grin.

  "I don't know," he said, and the truth of that sank in. He didn't know her well enough to know where she'd go, but he knew she was stuck here. "She's still on the island. Mom, you have to get me out of here – I'll find her."

  There was a renewed force to the clamor in the front room, and someone broke out in a cheer. It wasn't like they were watching basketball out there. They might have, even in the middle of the apocalypse. But this was the wrong season, the wrong time of day.

  His mom's coffee cup vibrated. Her hand was shaking.

  "Mom, what's going on?"

  The question rested between them for a moment.

  She set the coffee cup on the cement floor. Then she rose and put both hands over his.

  "They're back," she said.

  "Who are?"

  "The missing people. Your dad's scheduling a… group cattle call at the courthouse, to do a head count and make sure. But I wouldn't be surprised if it's all of them." She let him process the news, but went on before he could ask anything else. "So why don't I feel like the danger has passed? The danger to you."

  The missing had come back to Roanoke Island. He allowed the brittle edge of the voices to bite into him, sure the dead's return was linked.

  "Because this isn't over. But you don't need to worry about me – I need to get to Miranda.
She's
the one in danger."

  His mom removed her hands from his, refusing to meet his eyes. She never refused to meet his eyes.

  "Then maybe this is the safest place for you," she said, tapping her fingers on the bars.

  "No," he said. "No."

  "I'm… I'm sorry. I think it is, and I'm your mother."

  "Mom, you have to trust me."

  "This is new territory and… I can't let you go wandering around in it. My job is to protect you. This is the only way I have to do that. You can go back to being bad boy genius when this is over."

  She didn't bother to pick up her coffee cup. She just turned and walked up the hall, leaving him there.

Miranda thrashed in her sleep. Sidekick's periodic low whining had made for a restless night. She'd been tired enough to get some sleep despite that, but not at ease enough to do it soundly. Instead she watched her dreams play, like movies she hadn't bought tickets for.

  At first, the images had been of the sinister black ship, sailing ever forward. But this dream, the one that would finally wake her, took place in a beachside clearing that she recognised as the settlement that the theater mimicked. There was no ship, but there were people.

  The dream settlers stood in rows facing the Sound, packed sand beneath their feet. They wore clothes that resembled costumes from the show, with one change. Long gray cloaks hung from their shoulders like so many pairs of broken wings. A storm had soaked the beach, and thick thunderheads above threatened its return. The settlers chanted words Miranda couldn't make out. As they raised their arms, their cloaks floated in the air, broken wings straining to fly, and always, always, the settlers passed between them some object hidden from her by their bodies.

  She woke as the last of them began to turn, the secret about to be revealed.

  Polly sat on the edge of the bed, looking at her.

  Miranda scrambled from beneath the covers, questioning whether she was still asleep.

  "Your face is a welcome sight," Polly said.

  Her expression was oddly serious, but other than that she appeared normal. Premature gray hair, T-shirt with paint spatters, familiar brown eyes. A copy of a John White nature sketch hung on the wall behind her like a floral crown.

  "When… Where… What happened to you?" Miranda forced out.

  Sidekick wasn't growling or whining, but he edged closer to lay his head flat on top of Miranda's feet. His furry eyebrows twitched up and down with worry.

  Polly said, "I'm not sure I can explain to you."

  "But you're OK?"

  Polly inclined her chin. "Why are you here?"

  Miranda searched for a place to start. Her father dead, a cute boy swooping in from the past, Roswell's revelation about her ancestor… "I'm sorry about taking your bed. It's a long story. We didn't know if you'd be back or when–"

  "We?"

  Phillips. Miranda hoped he wasn't still being eaten by wild voices. But that didn't matter to Polly. Polly, whose expression had yet to change.
Solemn as fake Virginia Dare telling the audience the settlers will never return. Weird.

  "Is it just you who's back?" Miranda asked.

  "No," Polly said, her features shifting into a frown. "I believe everyone managed to return."

  "Return from where?" Even if it was negative, Polly's showing any emotion was a small comfort. What had she been through?

  Polly rose. "The others have breakfast."

  Miranda glimpsed herself in a small round mirror hanging on the wall. The snake crawled up her cheek, and she had to fight the urge to touch it. At least Polly didn't seem to have noticed. She glanced over to check the position of her bag against the wall, without really understanding why the idea of leaving it made her uncomfortable. Other than the fact it held the possibly sacred, possibly evil, almost certainly magical gun inside.

  "Come on," Polly said from the doorway. "Breakfast."

  Miranda had no choice but to go with her or make a scene. Sidekick moseyed along behind her. In the main room, she found two more familiar faces at the small table in the kitchen – she felt guilty that she hadn't really worried about Polly's missing roommates. Kirsten and Gretch were the type who stayed out late and picked up tourist boys on vacation. Miranda didn't know them that well.

  All three of the others were dressed in real clothes, while Miranda fingered fuzzy pajama bottoms printed with penguins in top hats.

  "Hi," Miranda said, uncertain.

  Polly grabbed a seat at the table, smiling toward the other girls in a way that didn't reach her eyes. Miranda pulled out the chair next to her and sat, trying not to be so obvious in observing her friend. Which left her the other girls to watch.

  They had the same serious expression as Polly – more disconcerting on them than on her. Miranda's memories of them not at work involved giggling and downing fire-red shots at after-parties.

  The redhead, Kirsten, gripped a donut in one hand. She took an enormous bite of it, chewing with an energy that said she was either starving or the world's biggest donut fan.

  Gretchen said, "Good morning… Miranda…"

  The way she trailed off left Miranda waiting for more, but Gretchen said nothing else.

  "Have some donuts." Polly filled the silence, tapped the box. "Kirsten would talk of nothing else."

  Having finished her previous, the girl with red hair selected an enormous cruller shaped like a curled hand from the box and bit into it, using her other hand to shove the box toward Miranda.

  "Um, OK," Miranda said, taking the smallest donut in the box, though she was more of a chocolate than a glazed girl. The box, soggy with icing, proclaimed its origin at the Stop and Gas less than a mile away. "When did you guys get these?"

  "I walked for them." Kirsten spoke around a mouthful of cheap pastry. "The man at the gas station showed me a picture of us." Her eyes flicked to Gretchen, who tilted her head in curiosity.

  "You didn't say before," Gretchen said.

  "No, you didn't," said Polly.

  Kirsten chewed, and said, "They were not good pictures." She paused, "Photocopies. He knew we were missing. The picture said so."

  Miranda managed to swallow the one bite she'd taken. "Everyone knew you were missing. There were a lot of you."

  "We know," Polly said.

  "He gave me the donuts," Kirsten said.

  Maybe they'd been taken by a cult after all, if this was what people who'd been brainwashed acted like – not like themselves, but not entirely different. "That was nice," Miranda said. "So, what happened to you guys?"

  Kirsten hadn't lowered the donut, and the three of them gazed openly at one another, having a private conference without speaking. "We can't tell you," she said. And Polly added, "Yet. We are not ready to tell you yet." Polly attempted to soften the words with a smile, which made Miranda even more uneasy. She needed to talk to Phillips.

  Unfortunately, he was in jail.

  "Have you checked in with the police?" Miranda asked. "They've been looking for you guys. You should probably go over there."

  "I called," Polly said, "and after breakfast we will go to the courthouse. That is where they want us to go."

  Relief nearly made Miranda fall off her chair. To get out of this house, away from these stiff, donut-scarfing girls, she'd take her chances at being caught.

  "Great," Miranda said. "I can drive you, if you want–" Polly was frowning at her, so she came up with a reason "– you know, if you don't feel up to operating heavy machinery."