Chapter 26
QUESTIONS ON TOP OF QUESTIONS
Jude opens the passenger side door for me.
I slip inside and watch him circle around the front of his car, the sketchpad on my lap. Lily was an artist. The faceless man in the Vandenberg display wasn’t a one-off. She drew a whole notebook full of dark and beautiful things.
Simon’s rebellious sister.
Another victim of the curse.
If he’s alive, what about her? What about their parents?
Questions stack on top of questions.
What has happened to Emma and Sienna?
What are Griffin and Lainey up to?
What was the deal with that rift in her basement?
And what can be done about the mark on Jude’s chest?
My brain feels squished.
My heart, sick.
And there’s anger, too.
It’s been trumped by worry, but it’s there—a tiny knot in the pit of my stomach. I don’t think I should keep ignoring it. So, when Jude slides behind the wheel and shuts the door, I turn to face him. “I don’t want to be mad at you.”
“Okay.”
“But I am. I’m mad, Jude. If it was just the roommate story, I could maybe get over it, but you told me your grandfather was dying.”
“I know.” He leans back in his seat and has the decency to look genuinely ashamed. “I shouldn’t have lied.”
“You really shouldn’t have.” It was wrong, hence the hard little knot in my stomach.
But even as I pay it some attention, it shifts to the side to make room for chagrin.
I’m being a little hypocritical. “I understand keeping the truth from someone because you don’t want them to worry.
That’s what I’ve been doing with my dad. ”
He opens his mouth.
I keep talking before he can get any words out. “The difference is, we’re supposed to be in this together.”
“You’re right,” he says. “I’m sorry.”
For a moment, we sit in silence while a man plays fetch with his dog in the square out in the cold. I wonder if he knows about Emma and Sienna. I wonder what’s happening online as we sit here in the quiet. I wonder what Harper’s going to tell her brother, Jake, when she gets home.
Jude pulls at his jaw. “I don’t say this as an excuse. It’s just—I’m not used to that part.”
“Which part?”
“The together part.”
“Oh.”
The hard little knot goes soft and gooey.
He’s right, of course. For the past several years, together hasn’t been a thing for him at all. Jude’s been on his own. The only family he has left is a stepmother who shipped him off to boarding school before his dad’s body was even cold in the grave.
“Well,” I say, squaring my shoulders. “You’re gonna have to get used to it. And I’d really appreciate if you wouldn’t hide things from me anymore. Even if they’re scary.”
“For the record, I’m not scared.”
“For the record, I am.”
Jude wraps his hand around the back of his neck and peeks at me apologetically from the corner of his eye. “Is there anything I can do to help with that?”
“For starters,” I tell him extending my pinkie, “you can promise to never lie to me again.”
“I won’t,” he says, glancing curiously at my proffered finger. “What are you doing with that?”
“Making it official.”
He quirks his eyebrow.
“It’s a pinkie promise,” I say, lifting my small appendage higher. At the blank look on his face, I drop my hand into my lap. “You’ve never heard of a pinkie promise?”
“Are they more serious than regular promises?”
“They are the most serious of all promises.” I reach across the console, muttering about living under a rock. I take his hand and curl my pinkie around his. “To make it official, you have to say, ‘I pinkie promise I won’t ever lie to you again.’”
Jude grins, and the sight of it is so dazzling, I have to press my lips together to keep from smiling back.
And dang it if he doesn’t play along.
With his eyes locked on mine, he adopts a look of utter sincerity and says, “Selah Mae Whitlock, I promise with the entire might of my left pinkie to never, ever lie to you again.”
I’m flying through the woods, carved out and hungry.
So incredibly hungry. Her auburn hair flashes in front of me and I lunge.
I tackle her to the ground. I pin her to the forest floor.
I lift menacing claws and rake them down her chest, then I watch in horror as she morphs into Jude, his mark spreading beneath my hands, expanding like a bloom of black blood I cannot stop.
He bleeds and bleeds.
Until his eyes are empty and dead.
Horrified, I back away.
I scuttle like a crab until my shoulders press into stone and I can’t go any further.
A howl echoes through the trees.
Someone grabs my arm.
Nails bite into my wrist.
Lily Vandenberg huddles next to me. We hide together behind a tombstone in the Vandenberg graveyard while not more than fifty yards away, a rift glows in the tree line.
A way out.
I grab her hand and squeeze, like the gesture might infuse her with strength and speed. But she is weak. So very weak. Which is all the more reason we need to hurry.
Lily won’t survive in here much longer.
A second howl pierces the night—closer this time.
We have to run.
We have to go.
“Now!” I shout.
We leap to our feet.
Gritting my teeth, I sprint toward the rift—our freedom, our escape, a way out of this nightmare we’ve been trapped inside.
I keep going.
I don’t stop.
Until a scream turns my insides to liquid and a ferocious snarl lifts every hair on the back of my neck.
A giant, four-legged beast bares its blackened fangs and lowers its front end to the ground, its ember eyes fixed on Lily.
She backs away.
The beast lunges, tackling her to the ground.
I grab a spade lying nearby and swing it with all my might.
Iron cracks into skull.
There’s a piercing yelp as the hound flies into a tombstone.
I don’t wait for it to recover.
I scoop Lily into my arms and run.
The rift is gone.
I’m not sure it was ever there to begin with.
I sprint through the woods, commanding her to stay awake, to stay alive. I don’t stop until I reach the marble bench in the Water Garden where she used to sit and draw. I lay her upon it and try to staunch the flow of her blood.
But her lips are turning a purplish white.
“I’m so cold,” she rasps.
I know she is.
I can feel it like ice spreading through her veins. My own hands burn as I try to plug up her wounds. To make the bleeding stop.
But it won’t stop.
There’s so much blood.
My sister is dying.
And I will be next.
I tear awake with a loud gasp, caught in a tangle of sheet and comforter as something thuds to the floor.
Lily’s sketchpad, caught in a pool of soft morning light.
I set my hand against my chest, trying to still my beating heart.
Last night, I fell asleep looking through the pages.
Perhaps this explains such an awful dream.
But then slowly, as if knowing what I will see before I see it, I turn my gaze to the plant in my window.
A second skeletal leaf has grown, and it glows like the first.
I untangle myself from the covers and tiptoe across the room.
With my heart in my throat, I touch the leaf.
Lily’s voice rises inside me.
I’m so cold.
I see it happen all over again.
The beast that killed her.
De Zwarte Muil.
A hellhound.
A knock sounds on my door.
I twist in the window seat as Dad pokes his head inside. “Hey kiddo, just making sure you’re—” At the sight of me, his expression clouds with concern. “Is everything okay?”
“Of course,” I reply, out of breath. Like I really did just sprint through the woods.
He steps into my bedroom. “What is that?” he asks, nodding toward the window sill. “Are you growing something?”
I make myself bigger in an attempt to hide the plant, but he just takes another curious step.
Then he stops short and says in surprise, “Oh.”
I’m afraid to look.
But when I do, the leaf is no longer glowing.
The plant is just a plant—a very strange, ugly plant. Growing in a sour cream container. When I turn around, I can see him making the connection to my mother, who also used to grow plants inside sour cream containers.
I laugh nervously. “I found a seed in the woods and I thought I’d give it a shot at life.”
Dad rubs his chin. “Well, be careful with it.”
“Why be careful?”
“It’s a pretty invasive weed. It was a bear to remove from the hedge maze.”
“The hedge maze?”
“Took me and my three-man crew a week to get rid of it all.” He scratches the top of his head. “It’s great wanting to give something life. Just maybe don’t let it outside?”
With a subdued smile, he leaves me to get ready for school.
I stare—transfixed.
The hedge maze…
A loud buzz interrupts my reverie.
My phone lights up with a two-word message from Twig.
Check podcast.
Curious, I open our hosting app and do a giant double take.
Our follower count has quadrupled overnight.
Our downloads, too.
Almost all of them attributed to our most popular topic.
The Vandenberg Family Cold Case.
News of Emma Rollins and Sienna Clark has spread across the internet and the curious are making connections. Foggy Hollow is a town where people disappear.