Eerie (9 page)

Squeezing her eyes shut, she set the note next to the rose and rubbed her face. She hated riddles.

Hope's greatest fool? A weeping cesspool? What did that even mean?

Just as she decided to read it again, both the note and the rose began to fade.

No, no, no!

She made a grab for them, but all she came up with was a fistful of air, and when she looked again, they were gone. Vanished.

She stared wide-eyed at her nightstand for several seconds. Then she sank into her bed and pressed her hands against her heart, wondering if she was losing her mind and hoping she hadn't just imagined that maddeningly cryptic poem-puzzle. It was the closest thing to a love letter she'd ever seen.

Chapter Twelve

The Silver Envelope

“Being ignorant is not so much a shame, as being unwilling to learn.”

- Benjamin Franklin

Hailey stepped into the shower fully clothed, peeling her garments off one piece at a time as she rinsed them free of graveyard dirt. Twenty minutes later, she was finally down to her skivvies and able to hear out of both ears again. By the time she turned the water off, there was enough clay at the bottom of the tub to make a pot.

As she wiped a swath across the mirror, it instantly re-fogged and there, written in neat letters through the steam was the word, “Tomas.”

“Tomas?” she said thoughtfully. “Is that your name, you little trouble-maker?” she said into the mirror, but he didn't answer. Gathering her wet clothes inside her towel, Hailey peeked into the empty mirror one last time before opening the bathroom door and scurrying across the hall.

Very nervously, very hesitantly, Hailey joined her uncles for breakfast, not at all looking forward to the stern lecture, the tsk-tsk-tsk'ings and expressions of utter disappointment, which surely awaited her for sneaking out in the dead of night.

Her uncles stood and nodded their good mornings as she slid into her seat at the table, and then they went back to their coffees and papers and morning banter, behaving as if the world were still spinning normally. Nobody looked very seriously at her at all or even hinted at her late night jaunt to the graveyard.

Could it be they hadn't noticed anything out of the ordinary during the night? Hailey slowly relaxed into a more innocent posture and munched on some bacon.

She shouldn't be surprised. After all, they hadn't noticed a toothbrush sticking out of her head—why should they notice that she ran away to die or that someone or something had chucked her back into her bedroom, soaking wet and caked in cemetery dirt?

Absently, she flipped through a stack of mail on the table, stopping suddenly at a large silver envelope.

“To Holly and Hailey Hartley,” it read in shaky lettering, and the return address was printed in two lines:

Bear Towne University

The Middle of Nowhere, Alaska

Ever so lightly, Hailey ran her hand across Holly's name, smiling as she remembered the hours they'd spent at the kitchen table, writing wild scholarship essays for Bear Towne.

Very carefully, she tore an opening along the edge of the silver paper and with trembling hands, pulled out a letter.

Dear Misses Holly and Hailey Hartley,

Congratulations on your full scholarship to study ParaScience at Bear Towne University in the Great White North.

Upon your arrival in The Middle of Nowhere, you will have already completed the course requirements for ParaScience 101, An Introduction, which is a 3-credit course conducted during your 10-hour flight aboard the Bear Towne Luftzeug.

All incoming ParaScience freshmen are required to attend this course, and should be advised not to panic.

Please arrive at the Pittsburgh Executive Airport no later than 1000 on the first of August to board your flight, and hold all questions until your arrival on campus.

Enclosed with this letter, you will find important information regarding your move to Alaska and life in general at the Bear Towne campus. Follow the enclosed instructions and please adhere to the packing list. As a reminder, percussive instruments are expressly FORBIDDEN at BTU.

Once again, congratulations,

Simeon Woodfork

Dr. Simeon Woodfork

Dean of the College of ParaScience

Bear Towne University

Hailey turned the letter over then shook the silver envelope, looking for the promised information, but all she found was a note scribbled on parchment and folded asymmetrically, which advised her to bring no more than one piece of luggage—purse size.

Not much of a packing list.

“How am I supposed to fit everything I need into one small bag?” she wondered out loud, deciding on the spot that she was going to Alaska in the fall, without panicking, and by way of Luftzeug, whatever that was.

Why not? She hadn't received any other offers of scholarship or even admission from anywhere else, and there was no way she'd spend another year waitressing at the pub.

“Did you say something, dear?” Uncle Pix asked from the kitchen, and everyone turned their attention to Hailey.

“We got accepted to a college in Alaska.”

“Alaska?” said Wimp, his voice full of foreboding, and Hailey looked at her letter again, her chin poked out in a half frown.

“Yeah, Bear Towne University. Full scholarship.”

The brothers exchanged worried expressions.

“Holly won a full scholarship too,” she said, smiling sadly.

“Let me see that letter.” Uncle Pix strode across the floor and snatched it out of her hand. He skimmed the page and squinted at the signature on the bottom.

“What's up?” she asked.

Her uncles chatter-answered at once—the same message but in vastly different tones, some sad, some proud, and one very anxious, which rang through the others:

“We're worried about you going to Bear Towne,” Wimp said with a frown, and she looked up at him in confusion.

“You've heard of Bear Towne University?”

“Sure, that's a feckin mad place.”

“What does that mean? Is a ‘feckin mad place' . . .is that good or bad?” She looked from Wimp to Pix and then to Dale, who had suddenly found a hangnail on his thumb which was very conspicuously demanding his full attention. Hailey honed in on him.

“Uncle Dale,” she said. He grimaced before he looked at her. “Have you been to Bear Towne?”

He shook his head, sighing heavily. “I have.”

“ . . .and?”

“Well, you'll be safe there,” he said with a strong, conclusive nod.

“Safe from what?”

“Everything,” Pix answered her, very clearly indicating that would be the end of the conversation.

Hailey shook her head. She was getting tired of these riddles, half-answers, and cryptic talk.

“You guys and your secrets are killing me.”

Leaving the table in a huff, she turned her back on them and plopped on the couch with her arms folded.

From the kitchen came a flurry of whispers and hisses, which culminated in a hushed, but very defined, “FINE!” and the sound of many feet scurrying down the hall and up the stairs.

Pix joined Hailey on the couch.

“Hailey,” he said, “we've decided you should know some things about your family.”

Hailey uncrossed her arms, anxious to hear whatever her uncle was about to share.

“You see, dear, a long time ago—a very, very, very long feckin time ago,” he said with clenched teeth, but then he relaxed, “my brothers and I met a . . .a man, who asked us to watch over . . .eh . . .you and your sister.”

“How long ago? Who asked you? And . . .and why?”

“Long before you were born,” he said with a dismissive wave, but she furrowed her brow at him until he expounded. “It's been a few generations now. Started with our sister in Ireland. Then her daughter and her daughter's daughter and so on.”

“How . . .old are you—wait” She held up her hand. She didn't want to know. “Just tell me you're my uncle.” She left off the great-‘s, because, honestly, at this point she didn't know how many to add, and she didn't care how distant his blood was anyway. She still had family. That's all that mattered.

Pix nodded, his eyes softening. “And it was more of a ‘what' than a ‘who,' dear.”

“You mean an Envoy.” Finally some information on her nightmare monsters!

“Monsters, all of ‘em,” he said angrily as if he could read her mind. “They don't belong on this Earth, dear, but they're trapped here. They want to go home, and you girls were . . .eh . . .helping them by living a good, long life.”

“How does that help them?”

“That's a story for another day.”

He patted her leg, and then he pointed to her letter.

“One exists at Bear Towne, and most of us think he meant to keep you and your sister safe.”

This sounded vaguely like something Hailey had dreamed, but she couldn't quite remember.

“What do you think, Uncle Pix?”

“I think that we can't protect you here,” he said, looking at her sadly, “but this one in Alaska . . . I think this one might be friendly, might want to protect you.”

“Protect me from what?”

“I think you already know what killed your sister,” he said ominously. “I don't think it will bother you, especially not at Bear Towne.”

“What do you know about Bear Towne?” she asked.

He drew a great breath.

“Eh . . .” He shook his head and crossed his arms. “Strange place, for sure, and cold—feckin cold in the wintertime and swarming with bloodsuckers in the summer. Couple'a earthquakes and an explosion here and there, too.”

Hailey's face fell.

“But,” he said more cheerfully, “eh . . .the staff are very, very knowledgeable. You'd learn a lot studying under them. And Woodfork is a good man. We've known him for . . .well, for quite a while,” he concluded with an exaggerated nod, which Hailey recognized. Uncle Pix was done talking about this.

Sighing, she leaned back into the couch and caught a whiff of cologne.

“Where do you suppose Fin is?” she asked.

“Who the hell cares?” was her uncle's response.

“I thought you liked him.”

“He's a pain in the arse, and he's probably off chasing women and getting into trouble.”

“Oh.”

It was probably no use asking if Uncle Pix was worried about him. She was pretty sure she already knew his answer. Hailey stared at the floor, but caught a glimpse of white flit through the reflection on the coffee table.

She pointed at it excitedly.

“Did you see that?”

“See what?”

She debated whether she should tell him about the albino hairdresser living in their bathroom mirror.

Vanishing roses, disembodied hands and ghosts in the mirror . . .? He might think she was losing her mind.

That night, Hailey collapsed, heavy-hearted next to Holly's empty bed with more questions than answers about her sister's murder, about the Envoy that killed her, and about the creature that anticipated her arrival in the great White North.

Asher stood, eyes fixed on the horizon and seemingly deep in thought when Hailey emerged in the Aether. He made no move to greet her, which was strange.

“What is it?” she asked as she approached, and he finally turned to her.

“In your dreams, you belong to me and only me,” he said almost angrily.

Hailey stopped dead in her tracks.

Whoa.

Asher started toward her, and she knew not to retreat even though her legs shook.

“I'm no longer content in the Aether, and I wish to see you on Earth again,” he said in a far more gentle voice as he closed the distance between them.

Hailey heaved a great sigh of relief.

“For a moment I thought you were angry.”

“I'm not angry . . .not with
you
,” he said looking away and with a not-so-subtle emphasis on “you.”

Hailey swallowed hard.

“One of your human friends touched you yesterday, and I find his demand for your attention . . .troubling.”

Hailey wrinkled her brow as she searched her memory.

“You mean
Tage
?” Tage was hardly a friend, and . . .“Asher, are you . . . jealous?”

“I don't know,” he said with genuine confusion. “You're mine, and when that
boy
put his lips on you, I very nearly tore him apart.”

Asher pulled his hands into tight fists, and his whole glowing body pulsated.

“Is that . . .jealous?” he asked.

She nodded, her heart pounding. “I think so,” she breathed. She had to concentrate on not running away. “You really shouldn't want to kill someone just because he touched me, Asher—that's crazy,” she scolded him, her voice quivering.