For Eloise, however, the scales had tipped. There were more that needed her on the other side now than here.
She crunched through the snow, The Whispers louder than the wind. Those million voices all around her, telling her their stories of sorrow and loss, of love and joy, of birth and death, and lives lived well or otherwise. It was the chorus of humanity in all its beauty and discord. Sometimes lovely, other times painful to hear. Eloise had been listening for so long. And she was very tired, tired to her bones, as if they didn’t have the strength to hold her anymore.
She pushed through the clearing. The roof of the old church was covered in snow, caps of white resting on the gravestones, heavy frosting on the branches of the trees. She heard the voice of a woman she used to know, singing.
Little flowers in the garden.
Yellow, orange, violet, blue.
Eloise could see the lights off in the distance, the klieg of red and white shining up into the sky like a display of aurora borealis. She’d seen the Northern Lights once, eerie green dancers in the sky, the stroke of a cosmic paintbrush on the night. There were so many beautiful and mysterious things about this world. It almost made up for all the rest of it. Almost.
“Abel Crawley, what have you done?”
He stood at the low wall of the graveyard, weeping. Eloise was not one who believed in evil, per se, though she’d witnessed many evil acts. As far as Eloise was concerned, there were only two ways of being in the world. You either walked through life acting out of love, or you acted out of fear. But Abel Crawley made her wonder. She’d known some black spots on the fabric of the universe, and he was certainly one. Like an ink stain on a wedding dress, they spread their blackness, and it worked its way into the delicate weave, damaging it, and leaving an indelible mark.
He’d been a terrible boy—a bully, an animal sadist, an arsonist. He got smart and learned to hide himself, and then he was more dangerous still. He liked young flesh, he liked fear, he liked misery and pain. And yet he moved among the people of The Hollows invisible, mowing lawns and trimming shrubs, and peering in windows for that special light, the shine of the Dreamers.
“I can’t get them to be qu-qu-quiet,” he sobbed. “They w-w-won’t leave me a-a-alone.”
She saw them all around him. They looked like angels in the snow. Abigail, Patience, Sarah, Priscilla—and others, so many others. The lost girls, the broken, abused, neglected, and murdered. All those Eloise had tried to help or save over the years but couldn’t, and some she’d never seen before. They were restless, angry, and oh so tired, just like Eloise.
“You don’t deserve silence, Abel,” she said.
Eloise released a series of shuddering coughs then. Her last visit with Dr. Apple hadn’t been a pleasant one.
“There’s still hope, Eloise,” he said, exasperated with her again. “But not without the treatment. Without the treatment, the way this is progressing, you don’t even have six months.”
“The cure is worse than the disease, Ben,” she said.
“Until the cure takes hold,” he said. “And then you live well again.”
Live well again. The truth was, she hadn’t lived well since Alfie and Emily died, since the accident that took their lives gave her these abilities. She’d tried to see what she did as a gift. She knew that she’d helped many people, that the world was a better place because of the things she had done. But it hadn’t been a better place for her.
“I want you to understand that I view your refusal of treatment as a form of suicide.” He was a serious young man about Amanda’s age.
“Don’t be so grim, doctor,” she said. “It doesn’t suit you.”
He’d released a frustrated breath. Outside, the day had been bright and blue. She watched the wind blow the white clouds. They shifted and changed shape—a puppy, a dragon, a couple dancing.
“But there could hardly be a more grim situation,” he said, taking off his glasses and rubbing his eyes. “Surely you see that.”
Perhaps only doctors knew what Eloise and people like her knew, that life was a closed unit, a sphere you might hold in the palm of your hand, contained and finite. The body had its very unyielding limits, a thing youth never understands. But obviously the good doctor didn’t comprehend that there was so much more than the life of the body. That, in fact, that was the least of it.
“I can see that’s how you feel,” she said. “And I’m sorry.”
“Mrs. Montgomery,” he said. “Eloise. Please don’t do this.”
Now, the snow had stopped falling and the air had taken on an icy stillness. The boy was there, too, standing behind his father. He was broken, damaged, but not a stain like his father.
“Arthur,” she said gently.
He stepped into view, his head bowed. “I never wanted to hurt anyone.”
“Arthur, walk yourself through those trees and find a man named Jones Cooper. Tell him who you are and what you and your father have done. Tell him where to find the girls.”