Page 67

Penny

THE BLEACHERS ARE EMPTY, AND THE FOOTBALL FIELD IS QUIET. THE evening light is crisp, but the clouds are moving fast. The sky is an unnatural purple. Penny sits at the top of the stands, her eyes darting around.

Something isn’t right. It’s like the air is angry.

The answer comes to her immediately, as if someone is whispering it in her ear: You shouldn’t be here. This place isn’t meant for you yet. You’ve still got life ahead of you.

Penny blocks that out, focusing instead on the voices of her friends, chanting to keep this door open for her. It reminds her there isn’t much time.

Penny stands up. She’s not even sure what to look for. Everything about this duplicate reality is a threat; it’s like she’s stumbled onto a model of what the football field should look like, but it’s wrong. There are no scuff marks on the seats, and the grass is too even. In the distance, there’s no high school or parking lot. Instead, there’s only a faraway horizon.

“Penny.”

Penny’s breath catches. Slowly, she looks above her. Floating upside down a foot over her head, like a strange mirror image, is her mother.

“Mom,” Penny says.

“You found me,” Anita whispers.

Words catch in Penny’s throat. She wants to vomit, partly from relief and partly because this looks wrong. Unnatural.

“I’m asleep, aren’t I?” her mom says. “I don’t feel dead.”

“Yes, you’re asleep. You’re in the hospital right now. I’m here to bring you home.”

Her mom’s eyes look tired. “Are you sure I can go home? I’ve tried to find it so many times.”

Penny glances around them, but as soon as she looks away from her mom, she sees something out of the corner of her eye. It’s barely visible, but there’s a thin string tying her mom to something in the far distance. It looks worn, as if it’s about to snap.

“That’s my lifeline,” Anita says. “It won’t hold much longer.”

“Where’s the Shadow?”

“I don’t know. You shouldn’t be here, sweet pea. It’ll want you now. It’s hungry.” Anita whispers that last part, as though the Shadow is listening.

The air around Penny flickers like a flame, and a thin beam of light blooms from her own chest and extends all the way to the horizon. This is her own lifeline, and unlike Anita’s, it glows with strength. It’s like a ribbon showing them the way out of a maze.

Penny reaches her hand up to her mother. “Take my hand and don’t let go. Home is that way.”

Anita is uncertain at first, but then she smiles. “My hero,” she whispers, and she takes Penny’s hand.

On the bleachers in front of Penny, the Shadow appears. And with it, another string materializes between the Shadow and Penny’s mom, but this one is taut. Bloody.

It’s the curse.

Penny gasps. “Mom, run!”

But the Shadow doesn’t reach for Anita. Instead, it wraps its hand around Penny’s throat, just like it did in the pharmacy. This time, there are no visions, no voices.

Because it means to kill her.

Penny does the only thing she can think to do: She pulls the vial of honey free of her necklace and presses it against the Shadow’s chest.

The Shadow gasps, its voice high. Soft. Its face goes from blank nothingness to human.

It’s Tanya Barrion. Corey’s mom.

“Mrs. Barrion,” Penny says.

She gasps and lets Penny go. But the ward is still pressed to her chest, and she reaches with her Shadow hand to keep it in place.

“I remember you,” she says. “Penny Emberly. Anita’s daughter…” She glances up, and when she sees Anita, her face twists in agony. “Not you, too.”

Her face shifts again, becoming Jason Chaudhary, Julian’s dad.

“You’re not safe,” he says. “Get out as fast as you can.”

“I need your help,” Penny says, but the face is already shifting again. The Shadow becomes Ramón Hirsch, then a man Penny doesn’t recognize with a bushy mustache and sad eyes. Finally, it shifts again, and it becomes someone familiar.

Ellie Barrion.

“You made it,” Ellie says. “I was hoping you’d find a way.”

“You’ve been trying to tell me something about the curse, right?” Penny says. “I don’t understand yet, but I want to.”

Ellie closes her eyes. “You have to keep holding this right here.” Her Shadow hand squeezes Penny’s hand, keeping the vial of honey pressed against her chest.

“I will,” Penny says.

The world around them flickers, and once again, Penny is transported to the past.