Contents
Preface
1. Joyful and Lovely
2. Dark Outside
3. Five Months
4. The Only Battle
5. Concrete
6. Figuring It Out
7. Like a Disney Movie
8. Ray of Light
9. M&Ms
10. When You Smile
11. In the End
12. The Joker
13. Vessel
14. Help
15. A Little Guidance
16. Friday Night
17. Someone Else’s Story
18. Ryan Gosling
19. The Wizard of Oz
20. Sap
21. Ridiculous Timing
22. About Time
23. The Movie I’m In
24. The Bridge
25. Some Kind of Hero
26. A Sliver of Sunlight
27. Whole
28. Faith
29. The Ticking Clock
30. A Gift Returned
31. Totally and Completely
32. The Great Below
33. Not So Good
34. Restlessness
35. Freedom
36. Nothing to Fear
37. The Terrible Beauty of Being a Teen
38. Mounds
39. A Sign
40. My Prayer
41. Hurley’s Numbers
42. Lost for the Moment
43. Drum Song
44. Head Over Heels
45. Broken
46. 1820
47. A Light Blue Nightmare
48. Babysitter
49. Solitary for Starters
50. A Smell, a Taste, a Touch
51. Hundred-Year-Old Grandmother
52. Strong
53. Soon, My Friend
54. More to Say
55. Messed Up
56. Help
57. Armor
58. The Conversation
59. Surprises
60. Strength
61. Serious
62. A Mess
63. The Sun and the Rainfall
64. What Comes Around Goes Around
65. A Brief Lull
66. Bummer
67. Action
69. Stuck
70. The Memories You Try to Bury
71. Uh Huh
72. Weird and Surprising
73. Prayers
74. Freeze
75. Nowhere Fast
76. Magical
77. Midnight
78. Heading In
79. A Familiar Face
80. Protection
81. Sweet Dreams
82. Monster Story
83. Peace
84. Lovely
85. The Third Passage
86. Driver’s Test
87. Start of the Breakdown
88. The Wheel Goes Round and Round
89. What Is Imagined and What Is Real
90. Question Marks or Bite Marks?
91. A Night of Romance and Mystery
92. Tightening
93. Return of the Beast
94. What’s Your Deal?
95. Sweet Dreams Part 2
96. Something Else for the Scrapbook
97. Getting Out
98. This Jerk
99. No Light, No Light
100. Sæglópur (Do You Understand?)
101. End Theme
102. The Most Beautiful Song on Your Playlist
103. Now We Are Free
104. My Son
105. How You Carry On
106. Tick of the Clock
107. One Final Postcard
108. Going Away for Good
109. Rabbit Hole
110. Something I Should’ve Done
111. Fixed
112. Come Alive
113. Alone
114. Promise (1)
115. Promise (2)
116. The Thinner the Air
117. New Surroundings
118. Facing the Grave
119. The Pretty Picture in Front of You
120. Again
121. The End
122. All the Difference
123. Life and Death
124. Is Your Love Strong Enough?
125. Maker and Judge
126. Coming Out Party
127. Well, It’s About Time
128. The Road Never Traveled
129. Waiting to Exhale
130. True Faith
131. Triumph
132. Asleep
133. Just Like Heaven
134. The Living Proof
135. Crystal Clear
136. Solitary
137. All Flowers in Time
138. Tornado
139. Somebody
AfterWords
Three Recommended Playlists
Behind the Book: Say Anything
Acknowledgments
Extras
For Timothy
Reach out and touch faith.
—“Personal Jesus” by Depeche Mode
Preface
That’s no ordinary dog.
It looks more like a sickly and bloated leopard. It doesn’t quite have thick fur but does have something shaggy hanging off it, like dried leaves or clumps of mud. It’s snarling and growling.
That’s the same dog that attacked me on the Staunch property that one time.
I stop, unsure what to do. Keep walking and just ignore it? Put Kelsey down and try to fight it with … with a Zippo lighter? I’m all out of supernatural stuff in my pockets.
Why couldn’t I have found a magical dagger or something?
There’s a howling from behind me that sounds like a dying wolf.
No. No, don’t let there be more.
The demon dog starts walking toward me. Its open mouth is dripping gray spit. Its eyes are glowing, a disturbing kind of glow, not a majestic kind. I smell a rotten odor.
I back up. One step. Two.
I have to get to those woods.
The dog is coming faster, and I know I have only seconds.
Suddenly I hear the wild wolf sound again, but this time it’s ahead of me.
Then I see something coming out of the woods, rushing toward the demon dog.
It’s a wolf.
No, it’s not a wolf. It’s the wolf, the one I’ve seen before. The gray wolf that I saw at the creek and also near the barn after Jocelyn died.
I hear its teeth ripping something apart and then hear the high-pitched wailing of the dog. It’s awful and makes me close my eyes.
Another wolf comes out of the woods and attacks from the other side. And I realize—not all animals around here are possessed or evil.
Especially not these wolves.
I hear gnawing and biting and growling and wailing, and then it seems like the air around us gets sucked in and the lights go out for the moment and I feel a chilling breeze
death
blow past Kelsey and me and then it’s done.
The dog and the smell are gone.
The wolves are sniffing the ground where it was standing and seem as puzzled as I am about the disappearance.
They turn and face me, and I look at them. I want to say thanks or toss them a hamburger or something. I’m not sure what to do.
The gray wolf bolts into the trees and is followed by the darker one. The path ahead is empty now. Empty and safe.
I just hope that it’s not too late for Kelsey.
1. Joyful and Lovely
The first thing I see when I unlock the front door to the cabin and turn on the light is Lily.
I freeze and clutch Midnight a bit too tight.
Lily is dead. I saw her die with my own eyes. I can still close them and picture her body in the woods after the car she was driving took a sharp turn over a mountainside and ejected her. I still feel fortunate I was wearing a seat belt, but when I think of Lily, that word doesn’t come to mind.
Regret is more like it.
I shut my eyes as I hear Mr. Page’s truck backing out of the driveway and heading back home. I know I’m just seeing things. It’s just the stress of having flown back from Chicago with Kelsey and somehow managing to keep the truth from both her and my father. It’s knowing they’ve taken Mom, of knowing she’s not here, of knowing that I’ll open my eyes and Lily won’t be anywhere—
The golden-haired goddess gives me a flirty smile as she stands.
No.
This is not happening. Not now.
It’s too soon.
I just got back to Solitary. We need a little warm-up, folks.
We can’t get the dead girl waving in the opening scene, can we?
“Welcome home, Chris.”
Something about the way she says my name isn’t quite right.
I stop breathing.
Midnight jumps out of my hands and scampers into my mom’s bedroom. She’s probably going under the bed.
I wonder if she can see what I’m seeing.
Lily flips her long curly hair over her shoulder and grins. “I won’t bite. At least not today.”
I have a weird case of déjà vu as I swallow and then shut the door, knowing this is one of those things. I’m still not sure what to call them. Episodes. Visions. Occurrences.
Somehow I’m the chosen one to see faces of the dead like this.
I’ve already been seeing weird things since leaving Chicago. Perhaps these are all signs that tell me I should’ve stayed there. But I had no choice. I had to come back or Mom would be hurt. Or worse.
“Do you want to play a game, Chris?”
There it is again. The thing with the name.
Did she say Chris or Chrissssssss?
I start to back up.
“You still want me, don’t you, my dear little boy?”
She starts to laugh in a weird way I don’t remember ever hearing.
This is just a dream just a bad spooky thing to start my stay back in Scary I mean Solitary, North Carolina.
As she smiles, I see her face suddenly become hard, as if the makeup has dried up and is starting to crack and flake and fall off.
“It’s time to see behind the mask, Chrissie-pooo,” Lily says.
But of course it’s not Lily and I know this and I’m about to open the front door when the lights go off.
I expect a cold, dead hand to touch me, grab me. But instead I hear the shuffling of footsteps upstairs.
My body is shivering. I can’t tell if it’s from the cold January night or from this cold greeting inside.
Suddenly my stereo is blasting upstairs. No, strike that. Uncle Robert’s stereo is blasting. I recognize the song but can’t really think of the title or the group because I’m about to pass out.
I’ve got to get out of here but I know this is just a dream or a vision and it can’t hurt me. Right?
The droning singer upstairs calls out, and I know this is a message. Perhaps this is something I need to know for the battle ahead. Or for the ongoing war.
The song grows louder with each step I take. The light is on, and I know it wasn’t on when I first stepped into the cabin. When I reach the bedroom, I don’t see Lily or the Lily-thing anywhere. I just see the familiar record player turning and a record sleeve on the bed.
I pick it up and see the image of a stone angel lying on her back with one arm outstretched and her other hand covering her face. Above the image is the song title.
“Love Will Tear Us Apart.”
I know the Joy Division song. There’s nothing joyful or lovely about it or the image.
So I wonder why the ghost of Lily wanted to share this joyous song with me as I scan the room and see the outline underneath the blanket on my bed.
Just get out of here do what Midnight did and scramble for the closest dark corner and hide do it Chris come on!
But as the song continues on, I move toward the head of my narrow bed and then pull back the comforter, squinting because I’m unsure what I’ll see.
I jerk back, and the blanket pulls back with me.
The lifeless figure on the bed is not … it’s not human.
For a minute I just stare, wondering if it’s going to move. I’m shaking. The song ends, but I hear the record continuing to turn and the crackling through the speakers.
I’m standing in my room, staring at a mannequin. But this isn’t just any mannequin.
It’s wearing the same thing that thing was just wearing. A shirt and a black jacket and jeans.
And the face and the hair actually resemble Lily.
I take a deep breath and walk over and touch it. It’s hard and cold.
My heart is racing.
I shiver as I take in the blank look staring back at me.
I’m back in good old Solitary, and this is how it begins.
Wonderful.
2. Dark Outside
When the phone rings, I gladly answer it.
“How’s your mom doing?” Kelsey asks.
It’s only been an hour since I walked into the cabin and found that thing. After freaking out and then regaining my senses, I finally managed to bring the mannequin downstairs and put it in the laundry room. But it’s very real. And I swear—if I hear the washing machine going tonight, I’m seriously going to move out.
“Everything’s cool,” I say.
This is technically not a lie, because I’m playing it cool to keep things cool. I don’t know where Mom is and don’t have any idea when I’ll find out. All I know is I can’t say anything to anybody or she will die.
“Tell her thanks again for the plane ticket,” Kelsey says.
“Sure.”
I know I don’t sound like myself and after the time we just spent in Chicago with my father, Kelsey is surely picking up the bad vibes.
“I didn’t mean to call so soon—”
“No, it’s fine.”
“Look, I don’t mean to pressure you or anything.”
“Kelsey, it’s fine. Seriously. I’m glad you called.”
Because there’s this mannequin in my cabin that resembles that hot chick I got to know over the summer.
“Thanks,” she says after a pause. “For everything.”
“Thank you for coming.”
For a moment I remember why I asked Kelsey to come away with me. It wasn’t to temporarily escape this crazy place. It was so she would live past midnight on New Year’s Eve.
I’m really glad to hear her voice.
“School seems far off,” she says.
“So does graduation.”
“We’ll make it. It’ll be here before we know it.”
“And then what?”
“And then … I don’t know. Drive off into the sunset.”
“Can we do that now?�
�� I ask.
“It’s pretty dark outside.”
“Yeah.”
I know that. And I have a bad feeling it’s going to stay dark outside for a really long time.
3. Five Months
Blink and it will pass you by. This place, a town always in the shadows, an address no one pays any attention to.
It’s close to midnight, and I sit on my motorcycle, looking at the sleeping buildings and feeling the stillness. I’ve been back for just over twenty-four hours and everything feels the same. Bleak and cold and lifeless. Not just this town, but me.
I rub my chilled hands together. The only sign of life I got today was a text from an unknown number. It said to be downtown at midnight.
Lots of people could have sent me that text. I’m hoping that my mom sent it, but I’m afraid that it belongs to the people who have her.
If she’s even still alive.
I try to silence that voice, but it keeps popping up inside my head. It’s been wondering the same thing ever since I discovered that the rugged mountain man happened to be Uncle Robert in costume and that Mom had been kidnapped. The same thing the next day when we discovered the plane tickets from “Mom” for flights from Chicago to Asheville. The same question that greeted me as I opened the door to the cabin and felt the cold inside.
Is Mom still alive, or did they kill her?
The good news is that Mom spoke to Dad before emailing the tickets, explaining that she was too busy and too tired to make the drive up to Chicago. I think she said a few other things, perhaps some relationship stuff that Dad didn’t feel like mentioning. He never questioned the tickets or the call or anything.
I have enough questions for both of us.
It’s strange how I feel. The chilly, empty feeling is there, but the fear isn’t. Looking at the darkened buildings and the black windows doesn’t frighten me. Waiting out here doesn’t frighten me. The thought of dying doesn’t even frighten me.
All I hope is that it’s not too late to save Mom.
I see the bright lights and the big SUV, and I know who it is without even needing to hear the voice inside. I get off the bike and walk over to the street where the massive Hummer waits. I open the door and see Staunch behind the wheel, just like the first time I ever saw him.
“Get in.”
“Where’s my mother?”
He jerks his head and then grits his teeth. This guy doesn’t get many people refusing to do what he’s asking.
Especially teenagers.
“Boy, I’m gonna tell you this once: get in the vehicle now.”