The Color of Fear (7 page)

“To the dance—and it’s none of your business!”

“Bollocks. You’re off to the graveyard. I’m coming.”

Caitlin glared. “
Not
gonna happen! Don’t even think about it. And if you don’t go back into the apartment right now, I’m calling Dad. Then we can both stay at home, and you’ll wreck it for both of us.”

Natalie clenched her jaw as the elevator door opened. Inside stood a male Queen Elizabeth and a very pretty vampire with fake fangs. Caitlin joined them and pressed L for lobby.

“Fine.” Natalie crossed her arms in a huff.

“And next time don’t try to freak me out by planting those dumb garbanzo beans in my closet.”

Queen Elizabeth’s eyebrows arched in surprise.

The elevator door began to close. Natalie looked dumbfounded.

Genuinely
dumbfounded.

If it wasn’t her … ?

One, two, three, four.

Caitlin counted the corners of the elevator’s ceiling before exiting it and ambling out the front door of her apartment complex.

A curious feeling overcame her as she stepped out into the night and began the walk to Waterloo station.

She felt as though she was following in her own footsteps, like she was stepping into footprints in the sand. And for the briefest of moments, she didn’t feel afraid.

The breath of night was cold and damp against Caitlin’s cheeks. She tucked her hands under her armpits and strode briskly along the gleaming, wet streets of Central London.

The atmosphere was charged with Halloween magic. Brooding shadows waited around every corner. Clouds began to shroud a treacherous sky.

On the next block, five drunk and rowdy guys masquerading as bikers and werewolves reveled in the street, brandishing beer bottles and lit cigarettes. They scoped her out as she strode by on the sidewalk, whistling and shouting tasteless remarks.

Trying not to appear bothered, Caitlin casually picked up her pace. Soon she was scampering as fast as she could toward Waterloo station.

Before long she reached a street that was humming with pedestrians and busy shops.

The semicircular Victory Arch entrance to Waterloo station soon came into view.

She darted towards the white-gray stone structure.

When she arrived at the station, Caitlin trotted up the stairs and entered the main concourse. She found Waterloo station’s famous four-face clock hanging from the glass atrium roof. It read 6:31 p.m. She scurried to the departures board. Her train was due to leave at 6:40 p.m. She bought a ticket and boarded a half-full train bound for Guildford.

After the train departed the station, Caitlin pulled out her phone and did a Google search for Mount Cemetery. She found a map. Located Dodgson’s grave. Marked it. Then she mapped out a route from the Guildford train station to Mount Cemetery. It would be about a fourteen-minute walk. Not too bad.

Caitlin exhaled a big breath, sank into the warm seat and peered out the window. She focused her thoughts on Jack, on the delight she felt when he had asked to her to the masquerade ball. She’d never expected it. And then on Jack asking her—not Piper—to participate in this daring cemetery escapade. She even let herself imagine being more than friends with Jack, imagine it being more than her one-way crush. Suppose if, just maybe, he really did like her?

Charcoal-colored storm clouds sparked with internal flashes of lightning outside her window, interrupting her thoughts.

Caitlin bit her bottom lip.

Her body sensed the vibration of the train riding the rails full tilt. They were long gone from the station. Traveling farther and farther from home. She was alone. Heading to that graveyard in …
Guildford
.

Caitlin was suddenly thirteen again. It was one year ago.

Her mouth dried up. Neck muscles tensed drum tight. She picked at a fingernail. Sometimes she would pick a nail till it bled because the shock of seeing her finger bleed took her mind off the breathless panic attack—the lesser of two evils.

There were no paper bags on board this train. There was no getting off this train. And, as utterly foolish as she knew the thought was, she couldn’t help thinking that there was no magic wand to wave away the tide of anxiety rising in her chest.

She became light-headed. Her
breaths became shorter and faster and more irregular.

She was seized by a sudden urge to flee this wretched train, to get back home at that very instant. To the safety and warmth of her bed.

The train was cruelly indifferent to her horror: it hurtled onward like a bullet.

She sat on her hands.

Caitlin Fletcher was in the middle of a full-on panic attack. And there was no one to help her and nowhere to go.

Caitlin was certain she
was going to pass out any second. Then she remembered a technique she read about in a book on anxiety.
Do the opposite of
what your stress-fueled impulses are demanding
.

Caitlin did it. She held her breath. She did it in roaring defiance of a panic-stricken mind that screamed,
Breathe, girl, breathe
!

If she listened to her irrational thoughts, they would control her. If she defied the urge to guzzle air by the gallon, her nervous system would eventually force her to sip oxygen. It would force her respiratory system to function in a calm, regulated manner. At least, that’s what was
supposed
to happen.

After about twenty seconds of holding her breath, Caitlin’s mouth burst open with a slow, soothing exhalation. As she blew out the deep breath, she immediately felt a sense of calm. She held her breath again. She waited until her body compelled her to exhale. The calmness and depth of her breathing deepened deliciously. She was still shaky, but the insanity was passing. She had survived.

After a few stops in the forty-two-minute ride, the train slowed and braked to a halt at the Guildford station.

Although there were still quite a few passengers on board, only the oddest-looking of the bunch disembarked with Caitlin. One man in particular was rail thin, with an elongated neck, a protruding Adam’s apple, and oversize eyes. He reminded Caitlin of an ostrich.

She quickly made her way to a lonely sidewalk. Hulking tree branch shadows, cast by streetlamps, nodded at her as if they knew why she was there. She checked the map on her phone. Mount Cemetery was located atop a hill that overlooked the Guildford town center.

Though it was damp outside, it wasn’t very cold. She checked her phone for the time: 7:22. She was late, but at least Jack would be there by now and she wouldn’t have to wait alone.

Fallen autumn leaves littered the sidewalk, making it slippery.

After she had gone just a few blocks along Wodeland Avenue, the street began to slope downhill. Thick trees lined both sides of the road. Caitlin then came to a crossroad.

The street crossing Wodeland was called The Mount.

She had forgotten whether she was supposed to make a right or left turn. She lifted up her phone to consult the map. From out of nowhere, a blue British Shorthair cat darted out from the shrubs. The cat shrieked as it ran right in front of her ankles, startling Caitlin and causing her to drop her phone.

At least it wasn’t a black cat.

Caitlin retrieved her cell from the sidewalk. Her shoulders slumped. The map was gone. And she no longer had a signal to download another one.

The cat meowed and scurried off to Caitlin’s right, disappearing into the dark on The Mount. Caitlin continued on in the same direction.

The Mount was a long and extremely narrow road that ascended to the top of the city of Guildford. Clumps of yellow-and-brown leaves littered the pavement. Caitlin wished there were more streetlamps.

Lining the road to Caitlin’s right were detached and semidetached Victorian brick houses clumped together tightly on a rise.

Jack-o’-lanterns lit the sloped landscape.

The pumpkins were perched on garage rooftops, brick gateposts, and on the bottom steps that led up to the houses.

A light drizzle began to fall.

She was anxious to find Jack.

She was soon short of breath—not from anxiety this time, but from the steep trek up The Mount.

The last flickers of candlelight seemed to be dying in the pumpkins as she reached the halfway point up the hill. After a few more minutes of climbing, Caitlin arrived at her destination.

On her left stood its gates. Somehow, she thought, they looked like they were expecting her.

Mount Cemetery.

The burial place of Charles Dodgson—aka Lewis Carroll.

But there was no Jack waiting for her.

A black, curving, wrought-iron
gate guarded the cobblestone entryway to Mount Cemetery. Drizzle reflected off its gleaming black bars. The bolted gate was affixed to two red brick posts.

Jack must’ve arrived early. He must be waiting for me at Dodgson’s gravesite.

A sign on the gate read hours of operation: 8:00 a.m.—7:00 p.m. And while the cemetery itself was quite ancient, the lock on the gate was not. After she gave it a few hearty pulls, it was obvious to Caitlin that the gate wasn’t going to open until some gravedigger came to unlock it in the morning.

How had Jack gotten in?

Caitlin chewed the ends of her hair as she glanced around. The evening was hushed except for the soft sounds of raindrops spattering pavement and the faint hoot of an owl.

She checked the time on her phone: 7:35 p.m.

Jack might have thought she wasn’t going to show up!

A sharp meow interrupted the quiet. The shorthaired blue cat appeared again. The sopping wet feline hopped atop the cobblestone wall and slid between the brick post and hedges, past the gate, and then jumped into the cemetery.

Ever so clever idea, Caity-cat!

Caitlin hoisted herself up the wall and stepped through the same narrow opening.

She sat on her butt, then hopped down.

She was in!

Wide lawns that flanked both sides of a narrow road were dotted with gravestones and a scattering of trees.

Caitlin checked her phone again.

Five bars!

She downloaded another map and searched for the location of Charles Dodgson’s burial site.

As she walked the roadway toward Dodgson’s grave, she could swear she heard something out of the ordinary. Maybe not.

Wait!

She
did
hear something. Behind her. Footfalls.

Did those sketchy thugs follow me? Was it Jack? It had to be Jack!

Caitlin froze in her tracks. The crisp night air filled her lungs. She called out in a loud whisper, “Jack, is that you?”

The response was a disturbing silence. Something was wrong here.

Caitlin kept moving in the direction of the gravestones. A whining wind brushed the tree branches.

Footsteps were still on her tail.

Rain dripped into her eyes.

Hold your breath, Caitlin. Wait for your body to force the air out of your lungs.

Her sweater stuck to her back, itching her skin.

She heard Natalie’s taunting voice in her mind: “Caity-cat, fraidy-cat!”