But when she shoved the pad away, she was left staring at the same cross she’d just seen hanging from around that stranger’s neck.
No. This doesn’t make sense, she thought, but she grabbed it anyway. She could cup it in her fist the way she’d seen her mom do with her car keys when they crossed a dark parking lot by themselves. God, her mom. She hadn’t bothered to read the email she’d sent from Italy. Shouldn’t her mother be worried by that? Shouldn’t she have called or texted to make sure both Vivi and her dad were still alive? Of course not, she thought. She’s too busy with that Kurt guy. She’s probably having the time of her life. Same went for Heidi and her other friends. The texts had gone from few and far between to nonexistent. That’s what happens when you’re the one who always texts first, she reminded herself. Even Heidi didn’t care about what was going on with her. It would be good to finally be rid of them all.
She fitted the cross into the palm of her hand, the long end sticking out from between her pointer and middle fingers like one of Wolverine’s claws. If that creepy short-haired woman came after her, Vivi would give her a fistful of silver right in the stomach. Or maybe her arm would fly through the woman’s torso, like punching air. But Vivi didn’t have time to think about things like that. She had to find her dad and get them the hell out of this house.
She was about to make for the door when she heard the soft chime of a text message. Her father’s cell phone was on the floor, glowing from between his desk and the wall. She snatched it up, flipped it over.
He’s looking forward to meeting you.
Another came after the first.
He can’t wait to meet you.
A third.
See you soon.
She dropped the phone onto the desk as it continued to chime, text after text blinking onto the screen. It was broken. It had to be. It was why her dad had left it downstairs, having abandoned it instead of taking it with him when he had gone to bed. Because he had to be in bed now, right? He was upstairs, sleeping. Where else could he be?
Suddenly, the idea of her father not being in the house at all turned her nerves electric with panic. What if he had finally seen the ghosts for himself? What if he had gotten so scared he had run out of the house without realizing he had left her behind?
“No, he would never do that,” she whispered. Except that he had left her mom, so why couldn’t he leave her, too? Was there really that big of a difference?
It’s not you, it’s him.
Her bottom lip quivered at the possibility. Her fingers tightened around the cross in her right hand. Maybe her dad really didn’t love her anymore. If he could stop loving Vivi’s mom, it meant he could stop loving anyone. And wasn’t that why she had been drawn to Jeff in the first place?
Why was she suddenly so scared?
Because it’s real, she thought. Because they’re here and they shouldn’t be. Because they’re dead and I’m alive and none of this should be possible.
And yet there she was, some strange woman waiting on the opposite side of the door, Jeff promising to come to Vivi the way she had hoped he would.
You’re getting what you want. So stop running away.
She turned and made her way to the door, scared to see the room that lay beyond it, terrified to see that woman standing there, smiling. Because maybe her eyes would roll into the back of her head. She’d open her mouth as if to scream and her mouth would only grow wider, so wide that she could hardly see her face at all. Or she’d start bleeding like the girl in the mirror had. That woman couldn’t be alive. She was one of them.
But she had to swallow her fear. She had to have faith.
With her hand on the doorknob, she sucked in air and turned her head away, as if looking in the opposite direction would somehow give her strength.
Vivi stepped into the living room that shouldn’t have existed, then bolted for the stairs. She took them two at a time, and yanked open her bedroom door, never looking back at who might have been right on her heels. But she stopped short of bolting inside, staring into the room that was supposed to be hers. The space she had come to know as her own was gone. Her red-and-black striped comforter and thumb-tacked band posters were replaced by a bed covered in an ugly brown blanket. A multicolored woven rug lay in the center of the room. A vase full of pine branches decorated the bedside table. The sweet scent of smoke filled her lungs.
But one item had been spared in the shift. The black paper rectangle of Vivi’s homemade Ouija board rested at the foot of the bed, waiting for her to continue what she had started before going downstairs.
She swallowed, tamping the butterflies that beat their wings against her insides. Everything about the room felt wrong. Reason told her to stay out, but she took two steps forward.
It was time to finish this.
It was time to meet Jeffrey Halcomb.
52
* * *
Saturday, November 20, 1982
Three Months, Twenty-Four Days Before the Sacrament AUDRA’S BEST CHANCE was to convince Jeff that what he believed about her wasn’t true.
She hadn’t lost faith.
She still loved him.
She wanted to be with him forever.
“I dreamed about you last night.”
Jeffrey sat next to her, his eyes diverted, both of his hands holding hers as the rain pattered against the windows of his room. He didn’t look up when she spoke. He hardly looked at her at all anymore, as though seeing her swelling belly disgusted him, but she could tell he was listening. The muscles in his hands twitched just slightly, as though something about her statement had flipped a switch that had been off for far too long.
“I dreamed that I was walking through a field of wheat in the sunset, and there was a man in the distance silhouetted in gold. The closer I got, the more I knew I was in the presence of God, and even though I was scared, I kept moving forward because I wanted to see his face.”
Jeff finally looked up. His expression was thoughtful, hopeful.