The Ghost of Graylock (25 page)

N
EIL WAS RUNNING THROUGH THE DARKNESS
. Lightning flashed, illuminating a hateful sky and furious whitecaps out in the middle of the lake. Wind whipped his hair away from his face as thunder struck, sending his heart into a frenzy. He glanced over his shoulder and saw the flashlight in the distance behind him growing ever closer.

The only way out was through the reeds at the water’s edge. He knew what would happen if he went that way. But what choice did he have? He was barefoot and bleeding. And the man was nearly at his heels.

Neil stumbled into the shallows and immediately fell forward. The reeds bent and caught him, and he managed to find his footing before landing on his face. Over his shoulder, the bobbing light was closer. He heard the fall of heavy boots approaching.

Just get out past the weeds,
he told himself.
The open water will be safe. He can’t reach you there.

Neil pushed forward only to find the slimy stalks wrapping around his ankles again. This always happened — the nightmare was always the same. So why didn’t he learn?

“REBECCA …”
The voice bellowed in the space directly behind him.

I’m not Rebecca
, Neil wanted to call out. But a blow to his shoulder knocked him down. He sunk below the water. It filled his nose and mouth, and he choked.

Fuzzy strands of lake weed caught his wrists. The more he struggled, the tighter they became. He tried to spin, to see the face of the man who’d been chasing him, but the flashlight struck the water’s surface from above, obscuring what was behind it.

His clenched lungs grew weary, exhausted.
Let it go,
he thought.
Give up. Drown. It’s what happened to her. It’s what always happens.

Neil hadn’t dreamed about Rebecca Smith in a long time. Images of her death had disappeared from his imagination several months ago. Now that he was back in Hedston, the memories had returned.

The chase had been only one of many dreams in which she’d haunted him. The worst was the dream in which he clung to the edge of the broken floor in Graylock’s ballroom. Rebecca stood over him, glaring at him as she raised her foot and brought it down. He’d always wake with a start, the same question running through his head.

Why, Rebecca? Why?

He’d done as she’d asked — followed her glowing bread crumbs along the twisted trail. And his reward had been her betrayal.

Why?

Maybe she’d been blinded by her hatred of Andy, by her need for revenge. Maybe she’d wanted to give up, but something in her nature, or Nature itself, hadn’t allowed it. Neil was familiar with this problem. His mother had recently told him:
We ask our brain to stop worrying, stop obsessing, stop dreaming the same scary dreams again and again. But our brains rarely take requests.

He’d become resigned to the idea that he’d never know why Rebecca had done what she’d done. And so the dreams had come, presenting the question again and again. He wondered if Rebecca was sending them to him. But he also took comfort in knowing that sometimes dreams are just dreams.

In the water, in the dream, he yanked his wrists up and around. The light from above grew brighter as the weeds tightened even more. His fingertips began to feel numb. The cold seeped into his skin, injecting him with a chill he felt he’d never escape. His chest began to ache as his lungs begged for air. His skin cried out as those familiar pins and needles stuck him over and over.

This wasn’t supposed to happen. This felt real, not dreamlike at all. He opened his mouth to scream for help, but all that sounded was a pathetic cry muffled by bubbles.

If he didn’t get air soon, he’d die. He knew this was true.

With eyes open wide, he glanced around in the darkness for something to use to cut himself loose. There was nothing except emptiness and water and the beyond.

Then a pale face appeared several yards away. As it came closer, he struggled even more. Rebecca’s blue eyes looked into his own. Her dark hair swirled around her face, lifted by invisible currents. Her mouth was pulled back in an amused and terrible smile. As she reached out for him, Neil screamed again.

But then she touched him. Her fingers encompassed his captured wrists, and Neil felt a strange quiet. The smile she wore wasn’t terrible after all. Had it ever been?

“
Be still
,” she said. Her voice was sweet, echoing in the dark water as it would down a long hallway.

Neil stopped moving and watched in amazement as the weeds loosened, then fell away. The cold abated, and he found he no longer needed to draw air. He felt no pain. He hovered in the darkness with Rebecca — the girl he’d come to fear more than anything in his life, which was saying a lot. She stared at him as if in wonder, her mouth open as if she wanted to speak but couldn’t.

He knew he had something to ask her, but his mind had gone blank.

He looked into her eyes, and the word came.

“Why?”

Rebecca’s face drew in on itself — a look of profound shame. If she’d been capable of spilling tears, Neil understood that she would have filled the lake with salt water.

“I’m sorry
,” she said. “
Forgive me.”

Was this enough? After everything she’d put him through? He thought of his mother, of how difficult it had been for her to come so far, and she’d had help. Rebecca had been alone for such a long time before she’d found someone who might understand. She’d chosen him. And he’d chosen to listen.

Was this enough? Probably not. But if he were to listen to her now, he would need to make another choice. To forgive.

Surprising himself, he nodded slightly. Rebecca’s mouth curled into a sad smile.

They stayed that way for several more moments, holding hands in the darkness. Then Rebecca glanced toward the surface. When Neil looked up, he noticed that the light from above appeared to have changed. Instead of bobbing like a flashlight beam, the illumination cast a diffuse glow that fell through the water like the moon’s silver gaze.

She looked once more into his eyes and said, “
Thank you, Neil
.” She released his hands and kicked for the surface.

Quickly, he realized there was no surface. They were floating in a darkness deeper than the one at Graylock Lake. And he knew that the light was farther away than the moon was from the Earth.

Rebecca appeared to grow small as she ascended into an illusion of distance. When both she and the mysterious silver light had finally gone, Neil woke up.

All was dark, and for a moment he had a difficult time distinguishing this room. But soon, his eyes made out the bedposts near his feet. He was at the aunts’ house. It was November; the night before he and Bree and Eric and Wesley went back to Graylock Island, to film the interview with
Ghostly Investigators
.

Neil sat up, filled with a discomforting, unnameable emotion.

Someone sat on the end of his bed, a hunched shadow, long hair falling past her shoulders, hiding her face. Neil gasped. The figure reached out and touched his leg. “It’s just me.”

“Bree?”

“Who else?”

Rebecca’s face flashed through his mind. Neil felt for his sister’s hand. “I just had the strangest dream,” he said.

Bree sniffed. “Why do you think I’m here?”

Neil bit his lip. “She came to you too?” Even in the darkness, he saw her nod. He considered what this meant. So many things.

“She apologized,” Bree said.

“Why did she wait so long?”

“I don’t know. Maybe she needed us close by. In Hedston.”

“Yeah. Or maybe she was scared what we’d say if she tried.” How odd it was to think of a ghost being scared. He supposed he had Bree to thank for that.

“Either way, I don’t think she’ll be visiting us again,” said Bree.

Neil had imagined that hearing those words come from his sister’s mouth would have filled him with a sense of joy. But they didn’t.

“Shove over,” said Bree, laying down on top of the covers. Neil made room. Together, they stared silently at the dark ceiling for a long while, listening to the creaking, cracking sounds that came naturally at night in an old house.

By the time the pale dawn light began to filter through the bedroom’s gauzy curtains, Neil had stumbled upon a deep and welcome sleep in which his dreams were finally his own.

To my friends and family, who are always so supportive while I write these crazy things.

To Nick Eliopulos, my supereditor; and to David Levithan and the awesome team at Scholastic for making this book happen.

To Barry Goldblatt for kicking all the necessary butt.

To Libba Bray, Robin Wasserman, Colleen A.F. Venable, and Barry Lyga for commiserating at cafés.

To Shane Rebenschied for the glorious cover illustration and to Christopher Stengel for the beautiful design.

To Richard Hawkins and Sharon Hird for all they do.

And finally, to everyone who’s sent kind letters and e-mails about my books …

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

D
AN
P
OBLOCKI
has traveled New Jersey as a bathing-suit salesman, played the role of Ichabod Crane in a national tour of
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
, wrangled the audience for
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?
, and has done research at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. He is also the author of
The Stone Child
,
The Nightmarys
, and the Mysterious Four series. Dan lives in Brooklyn and maintains a website at
www.danpoblocki.com
.