Black Feathers (44 page)

Bathing in the heat, the light, he moved toward the bed.

It was time.

The world had disappeared. Harrison no longer even registered the falling snow, the bitter cold. Everything had contracted to a single point of focus: the door at the side of the house. Getting there. Getting inside.

Plant the elbow. Pull.

Every stretch, every tug pulled at the wound at his side, forced another hot jet of blood against his hand. His vision swam and flickered as he fought against passing out.

Plant the elbow. Pull.

The snow looked so welcoming, so warm. He wanted to lower his head to his arm, nestle down in the soft white comfort, let himself float away. But he wouldn’t. He couldn’t.

He just needed to make it to the door. He needed to make it inside.

Plant the elbow. Pull.

He thought of Cassandra Weathers, helpless in the dark, not knowing what evil was lurking just outside her dreams.

He thought of Laura Ensley, her body splayed open on the garbage-strewn ground in that alley, the way her eyes had stared sightlessly toward the sky as the snow fell on them.

He thought of his daughters, tucked into their beds, thinking of nothing more than their stockings in the morning, full of wishes and dreams.

Plant the elbow. Pull.

The door wavered in his awareness. So close.

Three more stretches.

Two.

One.

Pulling himself down the two short steps to the door, he twisted and stretched, biting back a scream as the knife wound gaped and bled into his hand. He pulled himself so he was partially sitting, leaning against the door frame.

His hand shook as he reached for the doorknob.

Please let it be unlocked. Please let it be unlocked.

The door swung open almost silently, and Harrison allowed himself to fall into the apartment.

The monkey stared at the two girls.

For a long moment, it was silent.

Then: “You … you can’t be here!” Its voice was a petulant squawk.

Cassie felt Ali squeeze her hand. “But here I am.”

“How—” The monkey did a backflip, landed and glared at Ali. “This is
my
place!” The monkey’s voice had no trace of mockery now. Instead, there was anger, frustration. And something else, something it took Cassie a moment to recognize it was so alien, so unexpected.

Fear.

“No,” she said slowly, realization only gradually building in her. “This is my place. You just told me.”

“But this, this—” The monkey stepped toward Cassie. “You’re mine,” he snarled.

“No, I’m not,” Cassie said, calmly stepping between them. “You stole me when I was a little girl. I was never yours.”

Ali looked at Cassie and brought her other hand around to cup their two joined hands. Cassie felt a rush of heat, a slow, sure warmth. Ali.

The monkey’s eyes widened. “You can’t. You can’t.”

And something began to happen to its face. Its features blurred, flickered, like a television trying to find a distant station, shapes and images shimmering and swimming, never resolving, never settling.

Lifting her head, Cassie stared directly into the monkey’s eyes. “I was so scared, and you were there. You took me away. You made me think I was safe. But it was you all along. You stole me, and you kept me a prisoner of my own fears. Of things I didn’t understand. You built this place.” She looked around the void. “But it’s not going to work on me anymore.”

She turned to Ali. “We all have our own darkness,” she said. “We all fight it, every day.”

And then she turned back to the monkey. “The only power you’ve ever had is what I’ve given you and what you stole from me. And that’s gone.”

She turned back to Ali again, opened her mouth to speak, but the other girl was gone, the snow swirling like she had never been there at all.

There was a long moment of silence, then the monkey howled. “You see?” he said, his voice frenetic. “You see what I can do? She’s gone. Just like everyone who ever loved you is gone.”

But Cassie had seen the look of confusion on the monkey’s face, could hear the frantic edge under its words.

“No,” she said, and a stark certainty rose in her. “You didn’t do that. You couldn’t.”

The monkey stared at her. “I made her go away. It’s just you and—”

“No,” Cassie said again, feeling herself straighten, feeling herself grow strong. “You couldn’t. You didn’t.” She took a step toward the monkey, and the monkey stepped back. “You can’t.”

The strength vibrated through her, like blood flowing back into a foot that had fallen asleep. She tingled, and it felt like she was expanding. Growing. Already the monkey seemed smaller, weaker.

“I thought you were my friend,” she said. “And this whole time it was you. You kept me afraid. You made me doubt everything. Even myself.”

The monkey was small now, no bigger than he had been when she had kept him so close, had clung to him every night.

Then even smaller.

“You kept me weak.”

She was towering over the monkey now, standing between two worlds, inside both the null space that the monkey had built inside her, and the furnace room, the fire crackling nearby.

She shook her head. “You have no power over me.” She bit her lower lip with the sadness of the realization. “You never did.”

The monkey looked at the snowy ground, eyes wide and sad.

Then: buttons.

The sock monkey had fallen on the red blanket next to the wood stove. Next to it was her battered copy of
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz,
a slip of construction paper marking her place.

She had always loved the basement; it was always so safe, so warm. She would spend hours down here, reading or drawing pictures. Mom would bring her snacks, and when Dad came down to tend the fire, he would sit with her, read her stories, and they would laugh and talk, and it was the most wonderful thing she could imagine.

Cassie smiled even as the tears stained her cheeks. That had all changed. Her favourite place in the world had turned into a nightmare. A dream that she had lived through, over and over again, on that blanket, in front of the stove.

A dream that she had survived.

She sniffed deeply, suddenly aware of the tears coursing down her cheeks.

When she left the furnace room, she left the monkey on the blanket, button eyes staring unseeing as she climbed the stairs, her eyes fixed on the rectangle of light at the top.

She would never come back here again.

“Cassandra.”

She stopped, convinced that she was imagining the sound, the singsong cadences of her name.

“Cassandra.”

She clutched the railing, knowing better than to trust it with any of her weight as she climbed the stairs.

“Cassandra.”

She shook her head, tried to will the sound away. “No, no, no,” she muttered.

She knew that if she reached the light, it would be okay. If she could just get to the light …

“Cassandra.”

She climbed faster and faster, counting the stairs as she went, the old habit still there, even in her dreams.

Nineteen, twenty-three, twenty-eight.

“Cassandra.”

Thirty-one, thirty-seven, forty.

The rectangle of light wasn’t getting any closer, no matter how far she climbed, no matter how fast.

“Cassandra!”

Finally, she burst through the doorway at the top of the stairs into—

For a moment she didn’t know where she was.

No—she recognized Ali’s pillows, the bedroom, the shelf beside the bed with the alarm clock. It was Ali’s room, she knew that, but something was wrong. The room was too bright. Something was—

And then her heart stopped.

Ali was standing in the corner, her eyes wide with fear, staring wordlessly at Cassie.

Tears rolled down her cheeks, but she didn’t make a sound.

Someone was standing behind her, holding the blade of a knife to her throat.

“I thought you’d never wake up, Cassandra,” Brother Paul said, stretching out the syllables of her name like they were a prize, almost singing them. “Or is it Dorothy?” He smiled, revealing his teeth. “It doesn’t matter.”

Cassie shook her head, tried to make the image go away, tried to force herself to wake up.

“Oh, you’re not dreaming,” Brother Paul said. “God knows it was hard enough to wake you.”

Cassie struggled to rise, but Brother Paul shook his head. “No, no, no,” he said, almost clucking his tongue. He tugged back on Ali’s hair, pressed the knife harder against her throat, drawing a fine line of blood.

Cassie froze. She held up her hands to reassure him and slowly raised herself to a sitting position.

“I’m not moving.”

And then nobody said anything.

“What … what are you going to do?” Ali said finally. “There’s nothing. Take whatever you want.”

Brother Paul smiled again.

“You killed Skylark.” Cassie’s voice echoed into the silence. Ali flinched, and Brother Paul blinked.

“Your friend,” he said.

Cassie’s breath burned in her throat.

“Did you know that wasn’t even her real name?” He looked as if Cassie should be surprised by this revelation. “It took some convincing, but she eventually told me. Laura … something.” He seemed to be savouring the memory.

Cassie could imagine Skylark’s last moments: scared and begging for her life, crying, cowering, but still holding fast to her deepest of secrets.

What had he done to get her to tell him her name?

“Why?” she asked softly, unable to help herself, knowing that he wouldn’t answer.

But he did. “Why did I kill her, your little friend?”

Cassie hesitated, then nodded. “She loved you. She trusted you.”

Brother Paul nodded deeply. “I know,” he said, his grin growing impossibly wide. “That made it so much better.”

Ali gasped, and the knife slid against her throat, opening another fine cut.

The pain stilled her, but large tears slid from her eyes. She looked desperately at Cassie.

Her eyes flickered, the tiniest of motions. Cassie tried to look like she wasn’t looking, kept her gaze fast on Brother Paul as he spoke.

“But … why?” Cassie had no ideas, no plan. She just knew that as long as he was talking, he couldn’t do anything else.

Ali’s eyes flicked again, first to Cassie, then to the open bedroom door, then back to Cassie.

“Because I wanted to,” he said. “No, I’m sorry. That was flip.” He drew the knife along the side of Ali’s throat again, drawing another line of blood, another suppressed shriek. “Because I needed to.”

Ali’s eyes flickered toward the doorway, back to Cassie, her face tightening with an expression of urgency.

“I was never much into safaris,” he said, retightening his grip on Ali’s hair. “I had friends in school who would summer in Africa with their parents. I never really saw the point. Until I realized how brilliant it was.”

Ali’s eyes—to the door, back to Cassie, to the door. When Cassie finally figured out what she was trying to communicate, she had to fight to keep her face still, to not respond.

Ali wanted her to run.

“A world, just for hunting,” Brother Paul said, oblivious to everything passing between Cassie and Ali. “So every so often I build myself a wildlife preserve.” He smiled and licked his lips. “You have to go where the wildlife is, of course. So I watch the news. I see reports of unsolved murders, like Victoria, a few months ago. Cliff Wolcott.” He shook his head. “You use the natural terrain, the camouflage. Once you’ve found the right place, though, you wouldn’t believe how easy it is.” He shook his head slightly, and in that moment of distraction, Cassie shook her head at Ali, the slightest of motions, barely a twitch, but firm enough to show that she was sure: she wouldn’t leave Ali.