Chapter Eighty-Five Desperate Times Call For Desperate Portals
“Hey,” Izzy says as we all migrate unenthusiastically toward the door. The root cellar may be the place to be, but between the hurricane and the monsters, getting there is going to be rough. “Do we really want to go out there?”
“Want? No,” Luis tells her. “Need to? Kind of. Because I’m pretty sure the Prince of Darkness over there isn’t going to be able to do what he needs to in here.”
Izzy flashes her teeth at him in a smile that’s definitely more of a threat than a gesture of goodwill before turning back to Remy. “I think you should try the portal thing one more time.”
He rolls his eyes. “I already told you, I’ve tried like five times. I can’t get us off this damn island.”
“We’re not trying to get off the island anymore. We just need to get to the root cellar. Surely, you can do that much.” She makes it sound like a dare and an insult all rolled into one.
“It’s not about what I can do,” he answers, looking insulted. “It’s about the portal block.”
“Which was lifted to create that shit show of a portal that got us stranded here to begin with. We already decided there’s something weird about this storm, that it’s trying to keep us on the island. So, again, stop being a baby about a little failure and get us into that root cellar.”
“I wouldn’t call it a failure.” Remy lifts a brow. “And what do I get when I actually get us there?”
“Not attacked by monsters?” Jude suggests dryly.
“Pretty much a win-win, in my opinion,” I add.
Remy doesn’t look impressed…at least not until Izzy flashes her fangs at him in a very different look than she gave Luis. “How about I bite you?”
“Not sure how exactly that’s a prize,” Simon murmurs.
“Spoken by someone who’s never been bitten by a vampire,” she counters with a smile that is anything but sweet.
“I’ve never been bitten,” Remy tells her.
Izzy lifts a brow. “Do this for me and we’ll see if we can fix that.”
Thirty seconds later, Remy has us all inside the root cellar in the pitch black. And, can I just say, it was a much smoother ride than that portal Mr. Abdullah and Ms. Picadilly created.
When I say as much to him, Izzy says, “Told you he’s got the portal mojo.” She sounds almost proud, a fact that definitely doesn’t seem to slip by Remy. All of a sudden, a massive crack of thunder booms overhead, and I jump. The storm sounds a million times worse out here, the doors rattling like they’re about to come off their hinges. I remind myself that it’s actually safer for us to be underground right now, but it’s hard to believe it.
I pull one of the emergency flashlights out of my back pocket, but just as I go to turn it on, a ghostly face appears in front of me. It’s the woman from yesterday, the pregnant one in the pink nightgown. But instead of calmly walking with a hand on her pregnant belly the way she was earlier, she looks bedraggled and in pain.
Her hair is sweaty and plastered to her face. Her pink nightgown is wet and bloody, and her face is contorted with fear.
“My baby!” she calls, and her hand is trembling as she reaches for me. “My baby!”
I have one second to register that she must be in labor, but as I do, another ghost appears suddenly right next to her.
It’s the terrifying one from Aunt Claudia’s office. Her eyes are wild, her hair limp, and she’s covered in blood. And when she screams, it’s not to ask for help. Instead, it’s the epitome of agony—low and long and desperate, so desperate. Her eyes are darting all around, just like they were in the infirmary, like she’s seeing past, present, and future all at once and it’s torturing her.
“What the hell!” Luis says, sounding totally freaked out. And that’s when I realize he can hear her, too.
“Who is that?” Mozart asks, sounding desperate. “How can we help her?”
“Hey. It’s okay,” I say soothingly, reaching for the ghosts even knowing it’s going to hurt. But they’re both so terrified, so in pain, that I have to at least try to do something. But before I can figure out what that something is, a third ghost joins them—the brown-haired girl in the Calder uniform and nineties beanie and sunglasses. She doesn’t look as scared as the others, just resigned. And sad. So sad. It’s such a marked contrast to the girl I saw on the center mall that it breaks my heart.
“It’s going to be okay,” I say again as I reach out to them.
“What’s going to be okay?” Ember asks.
I don’t answer, because the moment my hands touch the three ghosts, they merge into one. The moment they do, the physical pain inside me ceases. And for the first time, I realize I’ve been seeing the same woman in three different time periods.
And that’s when it comes together. She has always wanted me to see. And for the first time, I actually understand.
She lost her life and her baby all in one moment. And I was that baby.
Shock reverberates through me, has my knees shaking and my heart pounding out of my chest. All this time, all these years, and I never knew. I never knew.
I blink, and the ghost has faded into the background while her tiny infant, with its shriveled fingers and cheeks ruddy from crying, is handed to a young woman. The baby—it’s so hard to imagine that it’s me, but deep down I know it is—wraps a tiny hand around a finger tipped with a bloodred nail. My stomach plummets as a whole new shock vibrates through me. That hand belongs to my mother. No, not my mother. To the woman who raised me. Camilla.
But then her hand closes around mine, and she lifts me to her chest and presses soft kisses against my head even as tears run like rivers down her cheeks. And she whispers, “No matter what, I’ll keep you safe here.”
And just like that, the picture—the flicker—fades away.
So much pain. So much love. So many lies and broken promises.
“Who’s crying?” Mozart sounds even more concerned than she did a few moments ago. “She sounds devastated.”
Luis, Simon, and Remy all take out flashlights, and as they move them toward the sound, I realize it’s me.
The ghosts are gone, and I’m the one crying, my newly mended heart breaking wide open all over again.
Mozart gasps and rushes toward me, but Jude puts himself between us. His hands are tender on my shoulders, his dark eyes solemn as they search my face. “What do you need?” he asks. “What can I do?”
“Let’s just finish this. I need it to be over.”
I still have questions that need answers, and breaking down won’t get me what I need. I’ll have time enough to think this through later. Right now, we just need to make the nightmare stop.
“I’ve got you,” he says and takes my hand. “Let’s get this done.”
I look around the room, a blatant ploy to avoid everyone else’s worried eyes, then freeze as I notice that something is very, very wrong.
All of the jars that had been neatly lined up on the shelves are now knocked over. Some are still on the shelves turned on their sides, while others are lying on the ground, and still others are smashed into pieces. The one thing they all have in common, though, is that they’re all open, their lids scattered haphazardly around the room.
“Gotta say, Jude, you’re not much of a housekeeper,” Simon teases, his voice strained despite his attempt at normalcy.
But Jude doesn’t even notice. He’s too busy looking at all the damage.
“This wasn’t him,” I say, and it’s my turn to squeeze his hand in support. “When I was here yesterday, they were all neatly lined up on the shelves.”
“Do you think the storm did it?” Mozart asks, but her voice is doubtful.
“I think the Jean-Jerks did it,” I answer as a combination of anger and horror courses through me. “I saw Jean-Luc snooping around out here yesterday.”
I don’t bother to go into the whole disappearance thing—it’s not important right now. What is important is Jude and what this means to him—for him.
“Hey,” I say, trying to gauge Jude’s state of mind. “Are you—”
“No,” he growls in a voice I’ve never heard before. “I’m nowhere near okay.”
But instead of saying more, he strides to the last shelf. On the top shelf is one lone jar. Not only is it the only one still standing, but it also still has its lid on it.
I start to ask what it is, but before I can, Jude grabs the top of it and tips it forward.
As he does, the ceiling pops open, and a full staircase slowly descends.
“What the hell is that?” Luis exclaims, sounding excited and disgusted at the same time. And I get it.
Luis, Eva, and I checked every nook and cranny of this place, but we never thought to check the ceiling. To be fair, who would? It’s a root cellar. Who builds into the ceiling of something that’s completely underground?
Jude doesn’t answer, just pounds up the stairs. He starts having to duck before he’s halfway up.
I start up the stairs behind Jude, while the others mill around, mystified but curious.
But I don’t even get to the top before he’s yelling, “Fuck!” and heading back down.
I’ve never seen Jude like this, so beside himself with rage that he’s barely coherent. “What’s up there?” I ask, wanting to check it out myself.
But he’s already brushing past me, visibly distressed.
“More jars,” he says curtly.
“They’re all open, too?”
“Every fucking one of them,” he growls.
“You know what this means, don’t you?” Remy says when we’re both back on the ground.
“It means I should have killed the other three when I had the chance,” Izzy answers nonchalantly. But there’s a rage in her normally distant eyes that I’ve never seen before.
Not that I blame her. If a Jean-Jerk showed up here right now, Izzy would have to wait in line, because I’m more than ready to decimate every single one of them myself.
What they did here is unconscionable. What they did here is… There’s not even a word for what they did.
“They let the nightmares out.” Jude says out loud what we’ve all already figured out because I think he needs to hear it. “I didn’t fuck up and let them escape when I was helping you. They did it.”
“Yes,” I tell him as I reach out to take his hand. “They did it.”
He swallows convulsively, and for the first time in the ten years I’ve known him, there are tears in his eyes. “I didn’t kill all those people.”
“No,” I whisper, tears pouring down my own face because his pain is as palpable as his relief. “You didn’t. That’s on them. They did that.”
“I didn’t—” His voice breaks, so he tries again. “I didn’t kill Eva.”
“No, Jude. No, you didn’t.”
He nods, then blows out a long, slow, shuddering breath as the others gather around him.
I glance at their faces, see the same devastated rage in their eyes that I feel. Because Jude doesn’t deserve this—and neither did any of the people who died.
Remy puts a supportive hand on Jude’s shoulder and says, “So what do you want to do?”
Jude doesn’t even have to think about it. “I want to fix that fucking tapestry, capture the monsters, and then feed the Jean-Jerks to them.”
Luis nods, then opens the tapestry and spreads it on the table in the center of the room. “Well, then, that’s what we’ll make happen.”