Yes.
Curious, I smile and move nearer. For the first time, Arself makes me feel powerful with new knowledge. I step up to a large window and peer into the dim interior. Old shelves have been pushed to one side, and the long, angled counter is bare. A soap dispenser on the floor is surrounded by a sticky black puddle. Yet when I wave my hand over the same scene, the shelves are centered in the room and filled with colorful merchandise: key rings, stuffed animals, tee-shirts, and coffee mugs. Spotlights illuminate every corner, and the counter shines with polish. It has to be an illusion, but it’s so vivid I can see every detail, right down to the price tag on a Tiffany lamp.
I thought you didn’t have your old files, I say to her.
These are our home memories, she says simply.
Surprised, I feel a spark of sympathy for her.
But you didn’t exist when the park was new.
Even so. We’ve been over Grisly endless times.
Beside me, Linus remains in shadow. I don’t have to ask if he sees the magical visions. He would have said something.
“Are you okay?” Linus asks me. “Do you still hear something?”
“No, it’s gone. I’m fine,” I say, and the illusion drains away so that the reality of decay and neglect is visible again. I hate to think my parents could be inside.
Using my flashlight, I crack a hole in the glass pane of the nearest door. Glass tinkles as it falls, and I reach inside to undo the doorknob. The place has a stale, hollow feel, and I’m careful to avoid the glass as I step in. Burnham passes me and opens a door into a back room. I lean over the counter to check behind it. The floor is bare, a checkerboard of black and white, with a faded animal cracker box in the corner. No parents.
I slump with relief.
“Nobody’s here,” Linus says.
“Did you see this?” Burnham asks.
He’s holding a framed magazine cover, tipping it toward the security light outside so I can tell the issue features the start of The Forge Show, back in 2043. The cover shows the quad of the Forge School from a bird’s-eye view, with students crossing the paths, lounging on the grass, and throwing Frisbees.
“Weird,” Linus says.
“Why is that here?” I ask. “Grisly wasn’t open yet in twenty-forty-three.”
“It must have been memorabilia,” Burnham says. “Want to keep it?”
I shake my head. It gives me the creeps. “No. Let’s go,” I say. “We have six more places to check, plus the vault.”
“We could split up,” Linus says. “It’s all bigger than I thought.”
“No,” I say. “We stay together.”
“I still can’t see anything,” Dubbs says over my earphone.
“There’s nothing to see,” I tell her. “We just finished the gift shop, the first place. Now we’re heading toward the keep. Do you see anything on the other cameras?”
“No,” Lavinia’s voice says. “The reaper and Scylla are quiet.”
Back outside, I look hopefully for the top of the keep through the trees, but I can’t find it from this angle. Still, I’ve memorized the layout of the park, so it’s almost instinctive to turn southeast.
That’s right, Arself murmurs.
Linus and Burnham fall in behind me. Unchecked nature and time have added a layer of creepy on top of the original version of spooky in the Backwoods Forest, and it seems to grow denser the farther we go. Ponderous oaks have been overrun with gnarly vines. Thorny bushes have outstripped the hedgerows that once enclosed the mazes where visitors waited for rides. A false owl decays on a branch, with its marble eyes black and strangely alive.
A real animal skitters in the shadows just as I step into a veil of spiderwebs. I jump back with a gasp and hurry to wipe them off my ears and hair.
“All right?” Linus asks.
“Spiderwebs,” I say, with a shiver.
“Want light?” Burnham asks.
“No,” I say.
Linus brushes off my hair and shoulders, and then turns me to check my back. I feel his hand stroke swiftly over my shirt.
“You’re good,” he says.
“Thanks,” I say.
Burnham pushes through a last layer of branches, and we pause to stare up at the dark stone walls of the Keep of Ages. It rises from an island of thorns in the empty moat. Moonlight touches the roof, and the dragon hunches in its old, silent place. It holds one of the double spires with its clawed feet, and it’s as motionless as a tombstone. Then Arself shifts and passes my left hand in front of my eyes again, like she did at the gift shop. Immediately, the stones of the keep seem to darken even further, to a deeper, impossible black. The empty moat fills with a shimmery fog, and blue lights illuminate the steps of the bridges. With a thrill of fear, I look up at the dragon again to find its eyes are glowing red now, and it starts to turn, searching for me.
My heart kicks into gear.
You’re doing this, aren’t you? I ask Arself.
Yes. Don’t you want it?
I shake my head. No. I need to see what’s real.
I keep watching the dragon, waiting, and his eyes gradually fade to black. The keep returns to its normal, decaying hue.
Don’t do that again, I tell her.
All right. We won’t unless you ask.
“How do we get in?” Linus asks.
“Something’s wrong with Rosie,” Burnham says. “What’s going on?” he asks me.
I fix my gaze on the dragon again, and it’s a motionless dark statue. I lick my lips. “Arself sent me a couple visions,” I say. “It feels like special effects in my head. She’s me showing what the park was like before, when it was open.”
Linus shifts directly in front of me and takes me by the arms. “If you can’t trust what you’re seeing, we shouldn’t be here. I mean it, Rosie. It’s too dangerous. We need our wits working. Take another look at the keep. Tell me what you really see.”
Slowly, doubtfully, I lift my gaze to the top of the keep where the dragon hunches, holding the roof. Its eyes are black, so black I can barely make them out. I let out a sigh of relief.
“I see a dragon clutching the tower. His eyes are black,” I say.
Linus squeezes my hand. “Good,” he says. “Don’t listen to your fear.”
Arself isn’t simply fear, I think, but I don’t object. It’s scary, what she can do to me, but it’s also pretty amazing. If I understood her better, she’d be practically a superpower.
“I told her not to do it again,” I say. “We’re okay.”
“We?” Linus asks.
“I. I’m okay,” I say.
“Then let’s go. How do we get into the keep?” Burnham asks.
It looks like a bridge once crossed to the back of the keep from this side, but all that’s left of it now is a pile of rubble in the moat. The next nearest bridge is part of the double staircase in front of the keep, near where I planted Lavinia’s camera by Scylla. It’s a more open area where security cameras are also likely to pick us up.
“We’ll have to go around,” I say. “Lavinia, can you hear me?”
“Yes,” she says into my ear. I touch my earphone for a better connection.
“Do you see anything from Scylla? Anything out of the ordinary?”