Page 32 of You Can Make Me (Carnival of Mysteries #28)

“Well, for me it was only a few weeks. You can imagine my surprise when Kal and Ryan picked me up and told me it was twenty nineteen.”

“I can. Wait, how do you know about Granddad? Did you meet him?”

“I might’ve? I don’t remember a lot of things about my time there, but I saw him–at least I think it could be him—while using the board.” He looked to Walter, who nodded.

“I thought the board was lost in the explosion,” Denny said.

I must have looked confused, so Dane explained. “My board was lost in the tunnels of Virgil Evans’ hideout.”

“Until it wasn’t,” Walter said, shooting Denny a look. “It’s tricky like that. When you two came back to town, it showed up.”

“No shit?” Denny breathed.

“It’s true,” Walter said. “We used it. It showed us a tall, blond man walking through the carnival.”

Dane smiled. “He looked a lot like Cooper.”

I shook my head. There was so much information coming at me, and I wanted it all, but safety needed to be our first priority. “How does this board factor into what happened to you, and to me?”

Dane took a deep, cleansing breath. “I used it when I got to the house with Ryan and Kal. I helped Walter identify the man I’d seen at the carnival, Hunter Holland.

Then I used it to locate Holland, Virgil, and all his sentinels.

It worked. We used it the night we found you, but we were too late to help you. ”

“But Dane, you couldn’t have known.”

Dane blew out a breath and looked to Walter, who gave him a sad smile. Then he turned back to me with a deep frown. “We thought if we used it again, it would lead us to Evans, but he’s gone silent. Whatever psychic link we had, it’s gone quiet.”

“Search teams working for the task force found a body at one of the sites where he’d worked,” Walter said.

“There’s other evidence there, but I don’t think it’s him.

I think he knew that he had a psychic link with Dane, and he cut it off to evade capture.

I don’t think he’s dead. Neither does Charlene. ”

“Shit. It couldn’t be easy, huh?” Denny swore. “I’m inclined to believe Charlene, too.”

“What do you mean by psychic link? And wait, what does Virgil Evans have to do with the man who attacked me?”

Walter exhaled. “Virgil Evans is the man who killed Tess Miller, and we discovered that he is the one who attacked Dane all those years ago. He is able to form psychic links with people. He claims it was something he learned to do in prison, but it must have been some innate gift he had that grew stronger once he was incarcerated and isolated. It’s hard to know how much he was capable of back then, or what he can still do now, if he’s alive. ”

“Virgil sent Holland to find Dane, and we believe Holland was trying to break free of his hold when he attacked you,” Denny said.

“You weren’t part of Virgil’s plan. That was something Holland wanted to experience.

And killing himself was the only way he believed he could break free from Virgil’s hold. ”

“Once they showed me a picture of him, I immediately recognized him from Tess’s place,” Dane said.

“He was always trying to get access to her. We tried to keep him away. The night he attacked me, he assumed Tess was with me, and he saw my death as a means to get me out of the way so he could get to her . When Kal and I used the board, when you saw us, we’d just made contact with Evans and he told me everything. ”

“You had answers, but the price you paid was staggering. Wait.” I held up a hand. I was starting to get a headache from all of this data. “How did he tell you everything? Aren’t those boards for communicating with spirits?”

“This particular board is special. As far as I can tell, it’s spelled or something.

The only ones who know would be the old ladies, or maybe someone at the carnival.

When I went in, Evans was there, in my mind.

He told me all kinds of stuff, showed me horrible things.

He couldn’t help himself. He confessed to everything. ”

Walter added, “He used Hunter Holland because he couldn’t get into the carnival himself, and then he used several other individuals to try to get to Dane, one of whom attempted to kidnap Ryan from the house in Laurel Canyon.

Evans also sent them to stop us from rescuing you.

We were run off the road and shot at just before we got to you. ”

I turned to glare at Denny. “You didn’t tell me they shot at you!”

Denny gave me a rueful smile. “We had more important things to worry about, baby. Like getting you well.”

“I’m sorry we weren’t faster, Cooper. I really am.” Dane’s voice was full of despair.

I wiped at my face. “It’s not your fault.

I should have listened when Gene told me to stay away.

I sort of lost all sense of self-preservation when you mentioned the carnival in our interview.

I’ve been searching for it for so long, though now that I really think about it, I’m not sure why I was so hellbent. ”

Dane cocked his head to the side. “What do you know about it?”

I blew out a breath. “Not much, but my granddad used to tell me stories. He used to joke that if he couldn’t be a newsman, he’d want to be a carnival director, and that when he died, he’d go to that ‘great carnival in the sky.’ Then when I was a teenager, I met some performers who said they were visiting from a traveling carnival. ”

God, I was embarrassed to tell that story in front of Denny.

“They, um, were really something. I was mesmerized by them—likely a byproduct of being a newly realized baby gay who’d met his first totally out-and-proud gays.” I left out the part about getting drunk at an after-party and practically throwing myself at them.

“What were they like?” Dane asked.

“They were otherworldly in their talent, their bodies did things humans shouldn’t be able to do.

I tried to follow them when they left, just to get a peek, but I never caught a glimpse of where they came from.

Only in my dreams do I see the carnival, and it looks exactly how Granddad described it.

I’ve been dreaming about it a lot over the past few months?—”

Dane stood suddenly. “What do you mean? What do you dream about it?”

I glanced around at the men, startled by Dane’s intensity.

“I…I’ve dreamt about it since I was a kid, what it looked like, and I’d always be filled with anticipation, and then left bereft when I woke up.

Then Granddad would talk about it, and definitely after I met the people at Circus Circus, I dreamt about it more vividly.

And now, I’ve been dreaming about it again since the attack.

First it was just flashes of the tents from afar, but now they’re more vibrant and radiant.

I think it’s because you mentioned it when I interviewed you, it was fresh in my mind.

It seemed to me at the time like a strange coincidence that you worked at a carnival.

The whole thing had my Lois Lane senses tingling. ”

Walter cursed, Dane gasped, and Denny tightened his hold on me.

“That’s not good. You didn’t tell me about all that.”

I laughed at Denny’s statement. “It’s not bad.

It’s a carnival . But, like, in my dreams, I’m never able to go inside.

Sometimes I’m talking to my granddad at the gate, and other times it moves away from me, and sometimes it…

” I shuddered. “It turns into a nightmare. I’m being dragged again, but not by Holland. It’s someone else.”

Dane’s eyes flared, and he moved closer to Walter.

“They’re just dreams. I’ve always been a lucid dreamer. My imagination goes wild when I sleep, I suppose.”

“No, Cooper. They’re not just dreams.” Dane glanced at Walter, and something unspoken was shared between them.

“What’s wrong?”

“The dreams you’ve been having since you got hurt? There’s a good chance it’s Evans. He would have seen you through Holland’s eyes, would have watched him…hurt you.”

“But how?”

“When I spoke to him, before the tunnel collapsed on us at his hideout, he described that same experience—that he saw the carnival but every time he tried to walk towards it, it kept moving away. Cooper, he’s formed a link. With you . Or he’s trying to.”

“But no,” I said, confused. “No, it’s only Granddad there. He… Wait. Once, he looked past me in my dream and said, ‘You don’t belong here.’ Oh God .”

Denny pulled me into his body and tried to soothe me as my chest tightened and I couldn’t get a full breath.

“Baby, just breathe. You’re safe.”

I put a hand to my head as pain sliced through. I hadn’t had a significant headache for a couple of weeks, but this one was vicious.

“Here, trust me, baby. Lay back and close your eyes. I’ve got you.”

I frowned at Denny, but I let him support me as I floated in the water. He’d done this a number of times at the cabin. The water acted like a sensory deprivation tool. The silence made everything stop. Soon the pain was gone, and my breathing slowed to normal.

Water lapped at my cheeks and lights danced beyond my eyelids, but it was peaceful. All I could hear was my own breathing, and I concentrated on slowing it down. Weightless except for Denny’s palms against my back, I let my body go lax and tried to get out of my head.

“I’m sorry the carnival didn’t come for you, Cooper, but you had a savior. And you have a purpose.”

“You’ll want to know, but at what cost? You seek answers meant for others. Weigh your options, son. Take care where you trespass. Watch where you tread. Your curiosity could be the death of innocent souls.”

He’d looked beyond me and frowned.

“You don’t belong here.”

The pain subsided as more frustrated tears spilled down my cheeks. Denny cradled my face.

“Tell me what you’re thinking?”

“I’m thinking of what the old ladies by the general store said to me all those years ago. Granddad said the same words to me in my dream. I didn’t put it together until now.”

“Can you remember the words?” Dane asked.

“Yes,” I said, my chin quivering with my tears. “Yes, I can.”

You seek answers meant for others

You trespass upon the fears of mothers

You tread upon the bonds of brothers

And it will be your undoing

You question the righteous

You goad the innocent

You cater to the immoral

And it will bring about your demise

Your curiosity will lead you to death’s doorstep

Your pleas will go unheard

Your bargaining will fall on deaf ears

And your life will be forfeit

So dwell on the consequences

Weigh your options

Settle your debts

And the Reaper may pass you by

But continue on this path

Remain on this road

And upon the area of rest

The swipe of the blade will be the ultimate test

“Cooper, when I use my talking board, those are the kinds of words I get, rhymes that require analyzing. Have you thought about what it means? Because that’s what counts. Not what anyone else thinks.”

“I’ve thought about them a lot. I must have, I committed them to memory. I figured it had to do with warning me, you know, for when I became a reporter. Do no harm? Isn’t that what witches are all about?”

“But after what happened, do you feel like there are any other connections?”

I blew out a breath and it was as if the words were in front of me, swirling around close enough I could reach out and grab them.

“My curiosity definitely led me to Death’s doorstep. The end part obviously means my attack. But what are my debts? What immoral people? I don’t understand? And what does any of this have to do with the carnival? God, it hurts my head.” The pain returned, the harder I tried to work all of this out.

“Shhh,” Denny said close to my ear. “We’ll help you figure it out. You’re safe.”

“Cooper, I can help you. We can use the board together, but you have to be careful. You cannot engage with the man in your dreams. You can’t trust that it’s your granddad, and you can’t tell him anything.

Understand? Evans will bring you under his power, and by the time you realize he’s got you, it might be too late.

Hunter Holland was under his control, and look what he did.

And there were many others. Don’t be one of them.

He might be trying to use you to find the carnival. ”

“What does he want with it?” I asked, feeling the lull of sleep. I was so tired, my body was tired of fighting, my mind was overtaxed.

“He wants its…”

Something yanked me under the surface of the water and everything went dark. I tried to swim to the surface, but I couldn’t move.

“Thank you, my dear boy. You’ve done very well.”

I opened my mouth to scream and water flooded my lungs.