Chapter 25 #2
“Not if I can help it,” Devon replied. “And, if it’s not happening, why are you even up right now?
You should just go to bed and wake up tomorrow morning.
I’ll be right here, and you can just treat me as if I’m your mother,” she quipped, mirroring his angry mocking tone.
“I mean, it won’t matter to you, right?”
“But it won’t be her,” he grumbled.
“No, it won’t be her because I am right here, being me, and I intend to stay that way,” she snapped. “And you don’t have to live with me, by the way.”
Toby yelled, “I don’t care.”
“In that case, you can go to foster care, and that will be fine by me. Believe me, after finding out that you guys just wanted me dead this whole time, I’m really not too sure I want anything to do with you.”
At that, Tabby stared at her in shock. “But that’s not true.”
She stared at Tabby, not able to look at Toby. “What part of that is not true?” Devon asked, her tone turning very gentle. “Do you hear yourselves? What you’re planning on doing this very night, … and I’m supposed to just let you?”
Tabby blinked several times, but tears were in her eyes. “We thought it was all okay, that you had agreed.”
“And what do you think now?” Devon asked her.
Tabby shook her head. “I realize that you’re not okay with it and that it’s wrong,” she whispered, as she scrubbed her face, rubbing the tears from her eyes. “I don’t know what to do.”
“I’m sorry about that,” Devon stated. “I know this isn’t how you thought it would go.”
“Of course she did,” Camden argued, glaring at Tabby. “I mean, Toby said it plain and simple when he pointed out that they could do it if you were unconscious. You would think after all the planning Tabitha put into this, she would know exactly what to ask them to do.”
“But how would she, until she got here?” Tabby asked him. “You know yourself how it is when we try to do something, and it turns out bad because we didn’t have the experience at the time.”
It was a very adult thing for her to say, and Devon eyed her sideways, wondering if something had already shifted. Yet Tabby just looked more and more scared. “You’ve been talking to the ghosts, haven’t you?” Devon asked.
“Trying, but they don’t really talk.”
“Did they tell you anything about what happened?”
She shrugged. “Just that somebody wanted something he couldn’t have.”
“And you do realize that the killer lives here too, on the same block, right?”
At that, Tabby’s eyes widened, and she asked, “What? There’s a murderer here?”
Devon nodded. “Yeah, there is, in addition to the ones in this room.”
At that, Tabby flushed and went quiet again. Then she muttered, “I guess you would think so.”
“Of course it is,” Devon declared, as she settled into the couch. “I’m not exactly sure what’s going on right now, but, if I see your mother, you can bet I’ll have something to say to her.”
“She’ll get in trouble, won’t she?” Tabby asked.
“If there’s any justice to all this,” Devon replied, “I would think so. But I don’t know how that works if you’re a ghost running amok,” she admitted. “So, I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.”
“How can you be so calm, and yet we’re nervous wrecks?” Tabby asked.
“Because I have some idea of what’s coming,” she said, “and you don’t. You just want your mom back, but you didn’t think about the potential consequences.”
“We didn’t know there were consequences,” Toby clarified, looking at her. “We thought you were volunteering.”
“So why keep it a secret from me for all these years?” When Toby didn’t have an answer, Devon continued. “So now, even though you know I’m not willing, you’re still trying to figure out how to force me into it,” she pointed out, staring at him. “So, you’re not being completely honest yourself.”
He stared at her, and then his shoulders slumped. “I just want my mom back.”
“I know you do, and I know she spent a lot of time telling you lies about what you had to do to make it happen, so you feel as if it’s all on you. But that doesn’t mean that she’s strong enough or capable enough to pull it off.”
He just stared at her, almost as if trying to figure out if Devon had insulted his mother.
He was just too young to understand what was happening and how they’d all been manipulated.
As much as Devon hated to admit it, Tabitha had done one hell of a job in getting these kids completely messed up and set up to feel this terrible pressure and guilt.
“You do know that there’s absolutely no winning here, right? ”
Tabby turned to her. “I know. … I mean, if Mom does come back, I’ll always look at her sideways because of what she’s done. And, in theory, I guess she would never die, or, if she were to die again, what would stop her from just doing this again?”
“Exactly,” Devon agreed. “Plus, you’re already probably thinking, If I die, I can do this too. I can just go make somebody kill someone else off, so I can live too,” Devon suggested, with a wry smile.
“Actually, I was thinking the other way around. Like, if it doesn’t work, we don’t get to see her again. Yet, if it does, we do, but we don’t get to see you again.”
At that, Devon raised an eyebrow at her. “This last week or more has been pretty rough in this house, while I was trying to figure out how to survive your nefarious plans for me, while you were just waiting for the time to be right for me to die. And here we are.”
“I know,” Tabby muttered, “and I’m sorry.
I’ve been thinking that our whole lives—especially these last few years—how you’ve been more of a mom to us than she was.
It’s only now that it’s come time that I’ve really had to think about losing you, and I realize just how strange and awful this will be. ”
Devon snorted. “If Tabitha makes it through whole and healthy, it might be fine. However, if she can’t, I don’t know what to say,” Devon pointed out. “Obviously I probably won’t care because I won’t be here—or I’ll be trapped inside your mom and making everybody’s life a living hell.”
When Tabby paled at that, Devon nodded. “See? No easy answers. So, talk to me more about the ghost you spoke to here.”
“Talking to ghosts worked just that one time, and I really don’t know what I did or how I got that information.
I’m not even sure if it was out loud or in my head.
It scared me, so I never did it again.” Then Tabby looked over at Toby and asked him, “We never really tried to talk to them together, did we?”
“No,” Toby noted, “but maybe we should, considering we’ve got such a big mess here.”
Devon got up and announced, “Let’s go talk to the ghosts outside.”
“Why?” Toby asked in an angry tone. “They won’t help me.”
“Help you what?” his sister asked. “Help you find a way to see Mom?”
“Let’s see if we can find a way to get you to see your mom,” Camden suggested. “I have somebody who might be able to call her.”
“Call her? On the phone?” Toby asked, frowning.
“No, not quite,” Camden replied, “but you guys seem to be under the impression that, when she comes back, she’ll be totally normal—but that can’t be promised.”
Devon watched as Tabby’s face paled. She asked Tabby, “You’re starting to realize that a lot of things can go wrong, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” Tabby said. “I’ve been trying to research it, but I’m only getting horror stories of half-zombies and not real people.”
Camden nodded. “And, in some cases, they do come back with a whole lot more than you would want them to. Sometimes they completely take over everything, and they’re quite capable of all kinds of terror,” Camden added.
“Sometimes they’re scary partial versions, and sometimes they can’t do it at all the way, but they’ve opened the door for somebody else.
That’s the part that’s really scary because then you have no idea who made it back in.
For all you know, it’s a serial killer, and you will be their next victim. ”
Devon shushed Camden. “Let’s not scare them any more than they already are.”
“Why not? They deserve to be scared for what they’re trying to do to you,” Camden declared.
“My mother tried before,” Tabby wailed, her voice breaking.
“I asked her about it at the time, a couple times, asking her how and why—why she could do it when nobody else could. She told me that she had trained for it, that she had special abilities, and that she could talk to people on the other side.”
“Lots of us talk to people on the other side,” Camden pointed out, staring at her. “That doesn’t mean we’ll sit here and kill people in order to live longer ourselves.”
“Right.” Tabby frowned. “I get that.”
“I don’t care,” Toby snapped, glaring at them. “I just want my mom back. Period.”
Devon turned to him. “Yes, but you want her back the way she was, right?”
“Sure,” Toby replied, “but she already told us that it wouldn’t be her body. It would be your body.”
“Right. So she would just take mine over. But there are no promises that she’s the same.
Sometimes they are the worst versions of themselves.
” By this time, Devon had already walked to the back door.
She opened it and stepped outside. One by one, the entire family trooped out behind her.
As she stood here, looking at the bits and pieces of energy outside, she called out, “Anybody want to talk?”
Tabby muttered, “It’s not like they’ll just talk to you.”
But, as it turned out, a lot of the energies turned, slowly facing her.
“Oh wow,” Tabby cried out softly behind her.
Devon asked, “Can I help any of you find peace?” Several of them shimmered a little brighter. Devon nodded. “Is anybody here who wants to go to the light?”
When an even brighter shimmer evolved, Devon smiled. “Let me show you how.” She looked over at Camden and smiled back at them all. “I’ll walk down there and show them,” she told Camden. “Keep the kids here.”
“I don’t want to be here,” Toby blurted out.