Page 23

“You can’t save everyone, baby girl. But when you’re lucky, you can save what matters.”

—Eloise Dunlavy

On the sidewalk outside a definitively not haunted house, trying to figure out what happens next

E LSIE DIDN ’ T OPEN HER EYES as she was transferred from the homestead bed to the cold concrete sidewalk. She just lay there, silent, still, and far paler than I liked. I stooped to check her pulse, then turned to Agnes, who was glowing gently beside me.

“Can you stay here for a minute?” I asked.

She nodded, looking confused, and I disappeared.

Elsie was definitely sick right now, so even though she was an adult, I could be sure the anima mundi wouldn’t call me away while I was in the process of helping her. Less than a second after I vanished, I was standing in the dark living room of Phee’s boardinghouse, where I put two fingers in my mouth and whistled shrill and loud. It was a whistle designed for summoning children out of parks and back across fields, and it was only a few moments before people began popping out of the hall, bleary-eyed and unhappy.

I focused on Amelia. “You’re still here.”

“Nowhere else to go,” she said uncomfortably.

“How far from here to your swamp?”

She blinked, looking utterly baffled. “About an hour if we drive fast. Why?”

“Because I have a way for you to make up for what you did,” I said, and she blinked again, and maybe things were going to be all right after all.

Cryptid populations who have to keep themselves apart from humans for whatever reason, whether it be extra limbs, snakes for hair, or skin that would absolutely draw attention in a hospital environment, well, they tend to maintain their own medical services. It’s sort of necessary if they want to continue being alive.

Amelia drove a small SUV, and she loaded me and Phee into it before driving to the Covenant house as fast as she could reasonably go. Agnes was still on the sidewalk next to Elsie, who seemed to have grown even paler while I was away. Agnes wrung her hands as we picked Elsie up and loaded her into the back seat, and stayed with me and the car as Phee and Amelia went inside—through the simple expedient of crowbarring the door—and emerged with a blood-streaked, solidly unconscious Arthur. We put him in the back next to his sister, both of them united in unconsciousness.

Amelia held her nose as she got into the driver’s seat. She rolled down all the windows, turned on the air conditioning, and then pulled a little box from the glove compartment, smearing some sort of sharp-scented menthol gel under her nose. Her eyes were glassy as she turned to look at me.

“I can still smell her, but I think I can keep control of myself,” she said.

“Let me drive,” said Phee.

They traded places, Amelia taking the passenger seat with a grateful nod, while I hugged Agnes and got into the back with the kids.

“Go check on Jonah,” I said. “I’ll be there soon.”

She nodded and disappeared, presumably returning to her anchor. Most ghosts can’t move the way I do, but they can always flicker between the locations they’re rooted to. In her case, the garden she had learned peace to continue tending was almost certainly one of those locations, and the city hall was another.

I shut the car door, and Phee hit the gas, and we were off.

The next hour was a nightmare in slow motion. Elsie’s wound was well tied but still bleeding sluggishly, and the body only has so much blood it can lose before shock sets in and recovery becomes impossible. I didn’t know how close we were to that line, only that she should have been given medical care hours ago and not spent that time being possessed and bouncing from one layer of reality to another. She didn’t move but continued breathing, and under the circumstances, that would have to be good enough.

Amelia didn’t speak apart from telling Phee when she needed to make a turn, just kept her hands pressed flat against the dashboard and breathed shallowly through her mouth, shoulders getting tighter and tighter as the smell of Elsie’s blood and the combination of her pheromones mingled with Arthur’s filled the car.

Lilu pheromones can become overwhelming in sufficient concentration, causing people to agree to, or do, things they wouldn’t have done under any other circumstances. Phee glanced at her, mouth a thin line.

“It’s okay, Mia,” she said. “We’re almost there.”

“Not almost there enough,” said Amelia. “Left up ahead.”

We roared through the night, moving away from civilization, into the true dark of the space between cities, the ancient trees pressing in around us on all sides. Phee turned off on a narrow logging road, heading into the state park that housed the Hock omock Swamp, presumably avoiding any manmade barriers or ranger stations.

Frogs and insects sang outside the car, occasionally broken by the screech of a distant owl. The car began to bounce as we drove over ruts and rocks and breaks in the road, and I understood why an SUV had been important. Anything smaller would have gotten bogged down, if it didn’t break an axle. Amelia’s barked directions become more common, and we left the main logging road for a series of smaller, narrower paths through the trees.

We hit a particularly large divot and Arthur startled awake, blinking blearily as he turned his head back and forth, trying to figure out where we were. I leaned across the motionless Elsie and set a hand on his arm.

“It’s all right, baby,” I said. “It’s okay. We’re almost there.”

“’Most where?” he mumbled.

“A place where Elsie can get some medical care, and we can get something with a lot of sugar into you.” Sugar helps with shock, in my experience. Maybe that’s not scientific or modern, but sometimes you can’t focus on being as modern as possible. Sometimes you just do what works, and hope it doesn’t kill anyone.

Rather than looking soothed, Arthur looked alarmed. He sat up straighter, blinking faster as he tried to clear his vision. “How?”

“That is a very long story, and trying to explain it all right now isn’t going to do any of us any good, but please, Arthur, it’s me, Mary. Just trust me when I say we wouldn’t be doing this if it wasn’t going to help your sister, all right?” I tightened my grip on his arm slightly.

The pressure seemed to soothe him. He stopped shifting in his seat and took a deep breath, clearly forcing himself to relax before he said, “Okay, Mary. If you say so.”

“We’re almost there,” said Amelia.

Arthur stiffened again, narrowing his eyes as he focused on the back of her head. “ You, ” he spat.

“Me,” Amelia agreed. “I’m sorry about what I did before. Those Covenant people made some big threats against my entire species, and I panicked. Maybe I shouldn’t have done that, but I did, and now we’re trying to make it right. Can you please try to trust me long enough for me to make it right?”

“I’m keeping an eye on you,” he said.

Amelia’s laugh was small and bitter. “Don’t worry, kid. I’m keeping an eye on me too. Turn right up ahead, Phee.”

“There isn’t any road there.”

“There’s a road. Just—come on. You know I know these woods. Turn right now.”

Phee turned right, seeming to steer directly into the middle of a patch of old-growth cedar trees. I braced for an impact that never came as we continued smoothly down a better-maintained dirt road. Looking back, I saw that the spacing of the trees formed a perfect optical illusion of impassibility while barely concealing a reasonably clear passage. We rolled deeper and deeper, surrounded by trees, until those same trees began to open up and make room for us, leaving us driving into a meadow of sorts, if it can truly be called a meadow in the middle of a swamp.

It was large, whatever it was, and dominated by a fort that could have been stolen from a period piece about American colonization, even down to the lashed-together log wall surrounding the main structure, cutting it off from easy view. There were a few other vehicles parked outside the wall, and flickering torches set along the top, confirming that people were awake inside.

I would never have known this place existed if it hadn’t been directly in front of me. Even from the final road, there had been no indication we were going to find a walled settlement. Phee pulled onto a flat piece of ground and turned off the engine, handing the keys back to Amelia, who looked at me in the rearview mirror.

“Can you and Phee carry her?” she asked. Her cheeks reddened. “I don’t want to get her blood on me.”

That was less a hygiene concern and more a matter of Lilu blood being an even-more-powerful aphrodisiac than their pheromones. I nodded. The day I couldn’t help carry one of my kids was the day I gave up on my position in the afterlife.

Amelia looked relieved and got out of the car.

Arthur was awake enough to walk on his own, with a little nudging, and working together, Phee and I were able to lever Elsie out of the car and hoist her between us, feet dragging on the ground as we walked her toward the wall. Amelia was already there by the time we arrived, talking fast and urgently with the gate guards in a language I didn’t understand. Then she flashed us a relieved smile, and we were ushered inside.

The gate slammed behind us like a vault door closing, and there was a finality to it that made me flinch. But we’d come this far, and I wasn’t going to give up now. Amelia gestured for us to follow her, and we did exactly that, not looking back.

Never look back when you can help it.

The Hockomock Swamp Beastie medical center was located in a low wooden building that looked as old-fashioned and well weathered as everything around it. Once inside, however, we found ourselves in a fully modern clinic, complete with glaring fluorescent lights overhead and uncomfortable chairs in the waiting area. Elsie was whisked away into a curtained area at the back, while I stayed up front with Arthur. He drooped in his seat, hands between his knees and head bowed. I sat down next to him after asking the receptionist—they had a receptionist—for a cup of apple cider, putting a hand on his shoulder.

“Hey, buddy,” I said. “How are you doing?”

“He just… stepped in and took me over,” he said. “I couldn’t fight him. It was like my body wasn’t even my own anymore, and he said I was barely holding on to it, that it would be easy to stay where he was and push me out just a little bit at a time. He said he could just take over. Was he telling the truth, Mary?”

“Possession isn’t easy, and it’s not something I’ve ever really tried to do before,” I said. “But I think he might be right that you’re not as anchored in your body as someone like Elsie is. You belong here, and you’re still my family—I hear you when you call—but you weren’t here from the very beginning. I think it’s possible that he could have pushed you out, given time. For right now, I’m not going to recommend you go on missions that involve a lot of ghosts. I don’t think they’re very good for you.”

Arthur lifted his head, giving me a plaintive look. “Does that mean I’m possessing the original Artie’s body?”

“No, I don’t think so,” I said. “You were built to live there, you’re not an uninvited spirit taking over a house that isn’t yours. This is your home.”

“And you wouldn’t make me leave if Artie came back?”

There was fear and hope in the question, enough to make me pause. What would we do if Artie started to resurface? He was the boy I’d helped to raise, the one I’d known and loved since he was born. Arthur wasn’t an intruder, but he wasn’t Artie, either.

My pause must have been more telling than I realized, because he began to pull away. I winced, catching his shoulder before he could slip from under my hand. “If Artie started to recover, we’d find a way to keep you both,” I said. “We’d find a solution. Because you’re allowed to live as much as he was, and it’s not your fault he had to go. But you’re not a possession, and you didn’t steal anything, and we love you whether or not you’re him.”

Arthur made a thin choking noise and twisted to throw his arms around me, and I embraced him back, letting him cling to me as long as he needed to.

We were still like that when someone cleared their throat, and I looked up to find one of the Hockomock Swamp Beasties standing there, wearing a white doctor’s coat over gray scrubs. “You’re here with the, uh, Lilu?”

“I’m her babysitter,” I said, standing. I didn’t let go of Arthur, just allowed myself to turn insubstantial long enough to pass right through him. “How is she?”

“She was in hypovolemic shock when you got her here; any further delay might have been fatal,” said the doctor, sternly. “The bullet went through her shoulder and out the other side; it didn’t hit any bones or major arteries. We were able to repair the damage and transfuse her, and she should make a full recovery. Did Amelia tell you how things work here?”

“No,” I said, almost too giddy with relief to hear what he was telling me. “Please, just tell us what we owe you, and we’ll figure it out.”

“Ten units packed red blood cells, and five units saline,” he said.

“Done.” I could steal them from a hospital, even though neither I nor Arthur could donate. “I assume your community is cross-compatible with human blood products?”

“We are.”

“Then it won’t be a problem.”

“We’ll also ask you to replace any medications she uses before we can discharge her.”

“Understandable, and of course.”

The doctor frowned. “You’re agreeing awfully easily for outsiders.”

“You saved her. That’s all that matters right now. Lilu can’t go to human hospitals without causing riots.”

“She almost caused a riot here. We had to drench our surgical masks in peppermint oil. Two people fainted.”

“Thank you for going to all this trouble for us.”

He looked at me sternly, searching for signs that I was making fun of him. Then, frowning, he nodded. “She’s not awake yet. I’ll send someone to bring you back to where she’s resting when she recovers consciousness.”

“Thank you again.”

He nodded, then turned and walked away. I collapsed back into my chair as Arthur wrapped his arms around me, and for a little while, we just held on to each other.

That was really all that we could do.