Glimmer (17 page)

“So that’s why you hate asking people for help.”

“That, and I’m a guy,” he agrees.

I glance back at the cabin. It looks like it’s a hundred years old. “Do you think Joe even has electricity?” I ask. “I don’t understand anyone who would come to this town
knowingly
.”

“Occultists know how to set up their own defenses,” he says, with a touch of that cold voice I remember from the dream-spell. Too late I realize it sounded like I was criticizing his parents. His dead mother. Whose hiking boots I’m wearing. I let the subject drop.

The wide, paved trail leads us toward the roaring sound of the falls. We cross a footbridge over a sparkling brook and the trail narrows some. Then after a quarter mile or so, it starts to climb at a steady grade up rocky slopes. Here the trees are smaller but packed more densely. The scents of earth, bark, pine, and dead leaves mingle; twigs crunch under our feet and several times we have to brush branches out of our way. Scrambling upward through the green canopy of moss and brilliant red rocks, I feel like an ant. Every time I glance at the sheer drop on my left, I think of Tomoko hurtling to her death. I’m grateful to be wearing shoes with traction.

The falls come into view, majestic, tumbling down a craggy red wall of mudstone. Beyond the chasm, on the opposite side of the falls, the Kiowa glacier towers above it all, a giant river of ice stretching up the mountain. Glare from the midday sun makes it shimmer with a blinding purity. I shield my eyes and look lower, at the rushing water falling and falling, emptying into a lake far below us. From here I can see a panoramic perspective of town—Main Street, the school. Marshall’s neighborhood. The grounds are all verdant, the colors of the buildings and houses bright and new. The sky above them a brilliant blue. But just beyond Summer Falls, everything looks different. Maybe it’s a trick of perspective or light, but the towns around it look poor and barren in comparison, the ground, the sky, and the buildings all painted similar dull shades of gray. It must be my imagination, I tell myself. Landscapes don’t shift that abruptly.

I’m uncapping the thermos when I realize Marshall’s not next to me. I panic, thinking of Tomoko slipping and then falling off the cliff. But he’s on my left, only a few steps away, staring. Staring behind the falls, beyond the trail, at a rock overhang, like a shallow, wide-mouthed cave carved into the mountainside. Inside it is a still and silent natural pool.

“It’s so serene here,” I say, though even that word can’t convey the pool’s secret beauty.

“I know this place.” Marshall’s voice is odd. “This is where my mother . . . where she died.”

“How do you know this is the place?”

“Because I’ve been here before. In dreams.”

I stand beside him, close enough to touch. “Tell me about them.”

“I’m always dying in the dreams.” He swallows. “But somehow it’s okay, because I’m doing something good. I’m sacrificing. My future. And it’s worth it.”

“No, Marshall.” I shake my head, terrified for him. I’m about to tell him no cause is worth losing him for when we run smack into a figure coming down the trail from the other side of the falls. An orange-and-white letterman jacket. Oh shit. Marshall slips his arm around me protectively.

“Elyse!” Dan beams his golden-retriever smile at me, but it fades instantly. “What are you doing here with him?”

“Dan.” Dread in the pit of my stomach. “It’s none of your business who I’m with. We broke up; it’s over. Remember?” But of course he doesn’t.

“How could it be over?” Dan takes a step toward me, shaking his head as if he couldn’t have heard right. “You’re my girlfriend.”

“
Ex
-girlfriend. I told you, I don’t want to be with you anymore.” I feel cruel spelling it out again, but what else can I do? Suddenly I wonder how many times he and I have broken up and slipped back into each other’s arms with no memory of the pain. How does anyone ever break up in Summer Falls? If I don’t give up, it’ll have to stick eventually. “We’re not right for each other,” I say firmly.

“You’re right for me,” he says. “You’re perfect for me, you’re the one, Elyse . . . I love you.” His voice is choking up, and it’s hard for me to go on, knowing how much I’m hurting him. After all, he really does think our relationship was perfect. He doesn’t remember all the parts that weren’t, and that’s not his fault. But I’m telling the
truth
, so I keep going.

“Well, you’re not right for me, and I’m sorry, but I don’t love you anymore. I need you to leave me alone.”

“But I’ve never felt like this before.” Dan’s trembling. “I can’t stand it.” He grabs my shoulders, not that hard, but I gasp because they’re so sore.

“Please let go of me.”

“No. You said you loved me forever!”

“Let her go.” Marsh is at my side. Dan lets go of my shoulders, then suddenly shoves him hard. I gasp as Marshall stumbles on a rock, sliding two feet away from the cliff side.

He rises to his feet quickly, ignoring the bloody scrapes on his leg. “Chill out, man,” he says. “This isn’t the place.”

Dan’s answer is to take a running jump at Marshall, who throws an elbow in his ribs.

“Stop it!” I scream. They’re both too close to the cliff. I launch myself between them, praying it’ll bring an end to the fight, but the next thing I know Marshall’s pulled a crystal out of his pocket and when Dan takes a swing again he dodges, grabs his arm, and pulls him along, throwing him with his own momentum into the pool.

From below, a deep throbbing tremor rings upward through the air. Like the buzzing of an angry beehive, only so low it’s more vibration than sound.

I look at Marshall. “Can you hear that?”

He nods, unable to take his eyes off the clear water. “I don’t just hear it,” he whispers. “I feel it.”

I nod. “Me too.” It’s almost like there’s something alive down there. . . . Not a person, exactly. A force. Some kind of wild, ancient consciousness. Lonely, ravenous, but clinging to its life nonetheless. Like the spirit from that children’s story Carla read in the library.

“The spirit’s still down there,” Marshall says suddenly, as if reading my mind. “It’s not the waterfall that’s the place of power, it’s
here
.”

Dan’s blond head bobs back up to the surface, glaring and spitting water, just as Marshall grabs the thermos out of my hand and dips it in the pool. The buzzing grows ominously louder, sending a chill up my spine. Now the spirit sounds livid.

“Dan, get out of the water,” I say, trying to sound calm. I hold out my hand to him. “Please.”

He only snarls at me, but his chattering teeth steal from the effect, making him look like a little kid distressed in the water. The suddenly dark water. Looking down, I can see that the pool’s dark because it’s completely full of ghosts. Dozens of them, rising fast to the surface.

“Dan!” I scream.

Marshall’s eyes narrow, his body freezing to hyperalert. “Where’s the ghost, Elyse?”

Before I can manage more words, the surface of the pool breaks as the ghosts start to emerge, surrounding Dan from all sides. Men and women ghosts, young and old. A teenage guy with hippie dreads, a woman with a fifties beehive, a man with a top hat and monocle. I can only imagine what he sees, water dripping down bodies that aren’t there. The right side of Dan’s mouth twists up in alarm; he probably thinks there’s been an earthquake. Then a circle of ghostly arms reaches inward toward Dan, pushing him onto his back. His head is like the center of a flower, and their arms are the petals. He kicks once, then his eyes close and his body goes slack, spinning slightly in his float as they feed.

The lifeguard in me knows we have to fish Dan out of the water or he could easily drown. But I’ve never seen that many ghosts all at once. My cowardly feet are frozen to the spot.

Luckily Marshall’s already kneeling on the mossy rocks next to the pool. He reaches as far as he can to grab hold of Dan’s ankle in mid-spin. I watch in terror as, one by one, the ghosts clutch at Marshall, their long arms outstretched, but with a flash of blue his magic sends each one flying backward, disappearing under the surface. Patiently he reels Dan in closer, pulling him by his legs back onto solid ground.

“All right, he’s safe. Let’s go before he wakes up.” Marshall backs away, and we both run down the trail, not stopping till we hit the main road. He collapses into a sitting position on the ground, leaning forward, and clutching his knee to his chest. “I swear, if I’d known the pool was full of ghosts, I never would have thrown Dan there.”

I crouch down to take his hand. “It’s not like he hasn’t had a heatnap before,” I say, trying to reassure both of us.

“But there were so many of them.”

“I’ve never seen anything like that,” I admit. “Why were there so many of them in there?”

“Spirits are always drawn to a place of power,” he says. “Even living people are, to some extent. Like the founder was, and my mom. And me too, I guess. But ghosts are even more susceptible.” He looks at me expectantly. “You think he’ll be okay?”

“Sure.” I pull him to his feet. “He might even forget he wanted to kill you. On the downside, he’s going to still think I’m his girlfriend.”

—

Marshall’s dad is asleep in front of the TV when we get home. There are Chinese lanterns on either side of the couch, a pipe and lighter on the coffee table. The whole room smells like pot, giving me a hint of how he makes it through the day.

We head back into Marshall’s room, where he lights the yellow candle. To save time, I open the thermos and start pouring water into the box.

“What are you doing?” He grabs it out of my hands, sounding panicked. “I have to do this myself or it won’t work.”

“Oh. Sorry.” Trying not to feel hurt, I sit back on the bed as he lights more candles. “So your dad didn’t help your mom?”

“Not with actual spells—the talent didn’t run in his family. You’re born with it or you aren’t.”

“Got it.” And god knows Liz and Jeffry are no occultists. I sit on my hands, hoping I haven’t already ruined the spell.

He pours water from our flask into the box, submerging the tiny baseball player up to his belt. Then he shuts the box and winds it up. Holding the dusty black book open, he recites the incantation in his new, brutal alien language. Then he opens the box and starts saying it again. As the miniature baseball player starts revolving around his little platform, “America the Beautiful” begins playing, each note tinny but deliberate, as if there’s a tiny harp inside the platform.

The top of one candle flame undulates gently, and after I stare awhile I can see a faint blue aura shaped like a heart around each one. I can’t hear Marshall’s voice anymore, but it takes effort to tear my gaze away to check on him, and when I do I see he’s sinking to his knees. I reach out my hand to him but feel myself pulled to the ground by force. The music slows till it feels like there’s a full second between each note. Now all the candles have blue auras around their flames, and when I look back at the baseball player he has an aura too. My eyelids feel heavy. And then the space between the notes widens to a field. I’m pulled into the sunny, soft warmth of the flame.

—

Phew!
I blow out all six candles on a square snow-white bakery cake decorated with swans.

“Happy birthday, Ell-bell!” An olive-skinned man with warm green eyes behind glasses bends down to kiss my cheek. He smells like soap and cotton. His face is a little scratchy with stubble, but I don’t mind.

“I hope you wished for a bike.” Liz winks at me just as my eyes treat me to a close-up of a shiny red one-speed with a banana seat.

Suddenly the scene changes. The man—my father—is outside on the street with me in front of our house. I’m sitting on the bike but not moving. He’s holding the bike and me up. “You move the pedals now,” he tells me, “and I’ll hold on as long as you need me to.”

I sit on the bike, feeling a tiny bit nervous when my feet leave the safety of the ground. But I can see my father’s shadow behind me, running along the concrete. I can feel his strong hands holding the bike steady, keeping it vertical. I’m not scared, even as we pick up speed. And then we’re really racing, flying, my feet turning the pedals and his shadow is farther behind me, no longer touching my bike’s shadow. “You don’t need me anymore, sweetheart!”

“Dad!” I yell, because I didn’t know he would let me go. Not yet. My feet forget their job and the pavement swims toward me, but before I can hit the ground the scene changes again.

I roam through the house, searching each room, but Dad’s not there and Mom isn’t either. Finally I can see her in the garden, kneeling over the bed of purple camellias, her head slumped over into the dirt. Heatnap. I run to her side, wait for her to wake up, then ask the question that’s been on my mind. “Where’s Dad?”

She smiles. “He’s down in the basement watching the football game.”

I run downstairs . . . but I never get there.

I’m racing on a track, the pack of slower runners at my heels. Faster, faster, got to finish first. I’m number one.