Chapter 28
ON VANDENBERG PROPERTY
Igive the mold on the top shelf of our refrigerator a gentle shake.
The lime Jell-O concoction, which includes cranberry juice, walnuts and—to Twig’s perpetual disgust—finely chopped celery and carrots, was always on Dad’s Thanksgiving table.
His mother made it from the time he was young, and my mother loved it the first time she had a taste.
So after they were both gone—his mom and mine—Dad and I carried on the tradition.
The first time we brought it to the Calloways on Thanksgiving, Twig scrunched up his nose like we came with roadkill instead of a perfectly suitable holiday side dish.
“You put carrots in Jell-O?”
Mrs. Calloway had scolded him gently, then made room in her crowded refrigerator.
She went on to have a respectable serving with her meal, and finagled Mr. Calloway to do the same, who ended up loving it as much as my mother.
Twig watched him take each bite, convinced he was bluffing, until he got himself a second serving that was even bigger than the first.
“How’s it looking?” Dad asks.
I turn around.
He stands at the bottom of the stairs sliding his belt through the loops of his jeans, donning not just an ugly Christmas sweater, but an ugly Christmas sweater vest.
“Wobbling to perfection,” I say, shutting the refrigerator. “And you look amazing.”
“Yeah?” He clasps his belt, his hair still wet from the shower, his face cleanly shaven. “You don’t think this is too… subtle?”
The vest is white, red, and green with alternating embroidered squares of candy canes, holly, and jingle bells. “I think it hits just the right note.”
“Well that’s a relief, because this thing wasn’t cheap.”
I smile.
The monstrosity was absolutely cheap. I found it on a rack at The Lucky Penny. Dad’s a good sport for wearing it. I join him at the bottom of the stairs, give him a quick kiss on the cheek, then head up to my bedroom to put on my own ugly Christmas sweater.
I grab it from my wardrobe, then stop at the sight of my warped reflection in the mirror on the inside of the wardrobe door. I peer into the glass—into my own eyes—and speak Rafe’s name three times out loud.
Nothing happens.
I stand a little taller, take a deep breath, and try again, this time with more formality. “Raphael Vandenberg. Raphael Vandenberg. Raphael Vandenberg.”
Still nothing.
I glare up at the light, willing it to flicker.
It doesn’t so much as dim.
Frustrated, I pull the sweater over my head, fix my hair, and shut the wardrobe doors.
The plant glows on the other side.
There’s no new leaf, but tiny twinkling dots dance up and down the thorny stem and spread across the skeletal leaves.
Dots like Lainey’s.
Dots like Griffin’s.
I creep closer, then slowly slink onto the window seat, beholding this insidious weed that once infested the hedge maze. Where my mother first entered the hedge maze. The trapped teens, too. Mesmerized, I reach out my hand and touch one of the leaves.
My mother’s voice doesn’t rise within me.
Neither does Lily Vandenberg’s.
I experience no visions.
Just a faint hum, like it’s coming from somewhere in the distance, outside my window.
Or perhaps, much closer.
The air crackles.
A shock of heat shoots up my arm.
My dad calls my name from downstairs.
I jerk away and clasp my tingling fingers.
“You almost ready?” he shouts.
“I’ll be right down,” I call back.
I turn around and gape at the plant in my window.
The glowing dots are gone.
The air has returned to normal.
But my fingers still tingle. Adrenaline courses through my veins. Because here is the answer I’ve been looking for. A rift was about to open right here inside my bedroom.
I’m sure of it.
This strange plant growing in my mother’s sour cream container has given me a way into the Overlay.
We arrive with our Jell-O salad still in its mold.
It’s 11 a.m. and the house smells like Thanksgiving—roasted turkey, rosemary and sage, freshly baked rolls, nutmeg and toasted pecans.
My stomach rumbles approvingly as Tony Bennett croons about treetops glistening and children listening for sleigh bells in the snow.
Other than my ugly Christmas sweater and Dad’s ugly sweater vest, it’s the only hint that Christmas season is upon us.
There’s no tree with tinsel. No twinkling lights around the windows.
No stockings hanging from the mantle. Mrs. Calloway firmly believes each holiday should have its own turn.
So Christmas decor remains in the crawl space until they return from visiting Mr. Calloway’s parents in Bedford.
Like every other year, they’ll leave early tomorrow morning and return late Saturday night.
On Sunday after church, they’ll invite me to go with them to Pine Haven tree farm, and within a twenty-four hour span, this same home will be transformed into a winter wonderland.
Her only exception?
Christmas music on Thanksgiving.
Twig’s seven-year-old twin cousins streak past us in a blur of maniacal laughter, so chaotic Dad has to lift the Jell-O mold over his head.
“Stop running!” Mrs. Calloway’s sister scolds from the kitchen.
With a cackle, they zoom down the hallway.
Mrs. Calloway takes the Jell-O mold and Dad slips off his coat.
“Oh my.” She laughs. “That is quite the vest.”
“It’s tradition,” he says ruefully.
“Dad’s a sucker for tradition.” I clap him on the shoulder. Truth is, I’m the sucker. We’ve been wearing ugly Christmas sweaters on Thanksgiving for as long as we’ve been eating this Jell-O.
A loud shout rumbles up the stairs.
“The men are in the den watching football,” Mrs. Calloway says, bringing the Jell-O to the refrigerator.
The men would be Mr. Calloway and his brother-in-law.
Stereotypical gender roles have always been on full display here in this house on Thanksgiving.
Mrs. Calloway wouldn’t have it any other way.
Anytime one of the men offers to help, she shoos them off.
She adores Thanksgiving. She loves to cook.
And only her sister is invited to join her in the sanctuary that is her kitchen.
So, Dad heads downstairs.
And I grab Twig by the arm. “Let’s go put our coats in your parents’ room.”
As soon as we’re inside, I check under the bed and behind the curtain in case the twins are in here hiding. When the coast is clear, I shut the door. “The plant can open a rift.”
“What?”
“The plant. In my bedroom.” I pull him deeper into the room. “Before we left, it started glowing. There wasn’t a new leaf. I didn’t have another vision or anything. But there were these dots, like the ones on Lainey’s wrist, and when I touched it, the air started to hum.”
“Great Scott,” Twig says under his breath.
“Yeah,” I say back.
“So, what happened?”
“I let go. It stopped glowing. And we came here.”
“But you think…?”
“If I’d held on, it would have opened a rift. I know it would have.” Deep down in my bones. Without a single doubt. “The plant is our way in. We can get to my mom and Simon and maybe even Emma and Sienna. I just have to figure out how it works.”
I sit on the edge of Mr. and Mrs. Calloway’s bed and stick my thumbnail between my teeth. “Even if it does start glowing again, I can’t open a rift in my bedroom. Something is hungry and hunting on the other side. Whatever it is, I’m not giving it access to my dad.”
“I think we both know what it is,” Twig says.
We look at each other, then say it at the same time—the Hollow Walker.
A hunter of souls.
Eternally hungry.
With a pack of beasts bound to do his bidding.
Black as soot.
Thin as a winter crow.
With eyes like glowing embers.
That’s exactly what attacked Lily in my latest dream.
Somehow, on Halloween night, we woke it up. We woke them up. And now, they are hunting.
“If I can figure out how to activate the plant, then I can bring it somewhere remote, like St. Fortuna’s. I could open a rift, slip inside the Overlay, and take a look around. Maybe there’s some sort of clue that would lead me to Vorat.”
Twig glances at the door. “I keep thinking about Rafe.”
“Why?” I ask warily.
“He’s appeared to you three times now.”
I give him a look, like so what?
“Let’s say he’s not a ghost. Let’s say he’s alive, trapped inside the Overlay, trying to contact you. First at the hospital. Then at Evermore. This last time, at school.”
“Never at the estate,” I say.
“When Megan Carlisle was on the estate inside the Overlay in 1998, she said she heard howling, close enough to make them run. According to your latest vision, Lily and Simon were in the family graveyard when a hellhound attacked her.” Twig removes his glasses and cleans them on his shirt.
“The accumulating evidence seems to be pointing to one very particular conclusion.”
We stare at one another in the quiet of his parent’s bedroom. The Hollow Walker’s domain is on Vandenberg property. If he really has imprisoned my mother and Simon, then they are also on Vandenberg property. Just beyond the veil. I think about the times I have heard her voice whispering my name.
Come find me.
A loud bang sounds on the door.
We both jump.
One of the twins sticks his head inside the room. “Is Kate in here?”
“No,” Twig and I say together.
But he comes in anyway, gets down on his belly, and looks under the bed.
“Spencer,” Mrs. Calloway calls, “would you and Selah mind setting the table?”
In the dining room, I take a stack of china and set a plate in front of each chair, my mind on Rafe, who is possibly alive, trapped in the Overlay. Trying hard to get my attention. He knew Lainey wasn’t Lainey. What else does he know?
I think about Halloween night.
Our trek to Dante’s tomb.
How disorienting it all was.
But not for Rafe.
He navigated the Overlay like a pro.
When I’m finished with the plates, I pick up a stack of disposable napkins decorated with cornucopias of pumpkins and squash. In the kitchen, Mrs. Calloway and her sister sing along to Here Comes Santa Claus while more shouts rumble in the basement.
One of the twins sprints through the living room, the other in hot pursuit.
Their mother reprimands them, but neither listen.
They tear down the hallway.
A door slams so hard, the hanging light above the dining table rattles and a bolt of static interrupts the song.
The lights in the kitchen go out.
Thing One and Thing Two dart into the living room. “We didn’t do it!” they chirp in panicked unison as their mother gives them a scolding.
“Not to worry, not to worry,” Mrs. Calloway says, waving her sister off as she walks toward the stairs. “I’m sure we just plugged in one too many crockpots.”
Kate comes out from her hiding spot behind the couch.
The twins point and shout, “Found you!”
“Honey,” Mrs. Calloway calls into the basement. “Could you reset the breaker? The power’s out in the kitchen.”
“What’s that?” comes his reply.
“The power is out in the kitchen. I need you to reset the breaker.”
“On it!” he hollers.
Twig and I stay where we are, across the table from one another, a cold feeling creeping up my neck.
The lights go out in the dining room.
The music stops.
“Shoot! Sorry about that,” comes Mr. Calloway’s voice from below.
The light quickly returns.
The power in the kitchen, too.
Mrs. Calloway cheers.
The twins join her.
The radio, however, warbles with static.
Mrs. Calloway sweeps into the dining room to fiddle with one of the knobs. “Now why is this misbehaving?”
“Maybe because it’s from the ice age?” Kate suggests.
A burst of static explodes from the speaker.
The twins clap their hands over their ears.
Someone whispers my names.
I grab the back of a chair.
It’s Rafe—his voice cutting through the static which cuts through the Christmas jingle, barely loud enough to decipher.
“Get… me…”
Kate unplugs the radio.
“No!” I yell, taking a lurching step toward her.
Everyone stares at me.
I clear my throat and laugh sheepishly, heat pooling in my ears. “Sorry. I, uh, really like that song.”
Kate plugs the radio back in.
The song I really like returns, as clear as crystal.
She looks at me the same way she’s been looking at me ever since Twig and I tried telling her the truth the day after Ivy’s vigil.
“Thanks,” I say. “For fixing it.”
Then, with a tight smile, I excuse myself to the bathroom.
“Rafe?” I whisper, gripping the sink. “Are you here?”
That cold feeling on the back of my neck returns.
But the lights hold steady.
I don’t know if he’s here.
I don’t know how this works.
I just know I’m tired of this impasse.
Something has to give.
I narrow my eyes and stare hard into the mirror.
“Midnight at St. Fortuna’s,” I tell myself, and maybe him, too. “I’m going to open a rift. If you’re trapped and you want out, then you better be there.”
If this works, I just hope he’s grateful enough to help me in return.