Beyond the Grave (20 page)

How had I missed it? How many times had I studied the EVPs and heard the whispered voice and not realized that it was my own mother?

As I made my way to Bliss's house, I played the recordings. Even with the volume turned up all the way, it was difficult to hear. Mom's words weren't clear, and even though she spoke in a hoarse murmur, I knew it was her. The doctor had mentioned once that there had been an increase in her brain activity at night. She had been communicating with me. But how was that even possible?

I had too many questions and not nearly enough answers. I pulled up to Bliss's house, where both she and Michael were waiting for me. Before I could count the gnomes, Bliss and Michael were getting into my car.

“Drive,” Michael instructed.

Bliss sat in the back. She rifled through an oversize canvas bag that appeared to be stuffed full of papers. “My house isn't safe anymore. We have to get away from here.”

That was all I needed to know. “Where to?”

“Get on the highway,” Michael said. “We're going to Potion.”

“Beth's not there,” I said. “She's with my mom right now.”

“I can get us in.”

As I navigated the familiar route to Potion, Bliss filled me in. They had been cleaning out the dining room, she said. Papers whirled around them as they hauled away boxes full of old wire hangers and empty medicine bottles. Bliss was carrying an armful of tattered sheets across the foyer when the front door slammed shut, preventing her from leaving the house. Then the dead bolt clicked into place.

“Michael tried to help me, but we couldn't open the door,” she said. “Then we looked out the window and saw it.”

I didn't ask what they'd seen. I was too busy trying to merge onto the highway without getting flattened by a semi-truck.

“It was the burgundy car,” Michael said. “It was right in front of Bliss's house.”

“How do you know it was the same one I saw?”

“We knew,” Bliss said. “We both felt something at the exact same time. And it wasn't good.”

“A man was behind the wheel, but we didn't get a clear look at him,” Michael added.

“But you think it was the Watcher?” I asked. “That he's some guy driving around town?”

“Yes,” Michael confirmed. “He's our guy.”

“I thought you said there were two of them. Was he with anyone?”

“We have a new theory,” Bliss said. She seemed hesitant to share it with me, so Michael took over.

“There's only one, but he's strong enough that defeating him will require two of us.”

“So Bliss is also my Protector?”

“No.” She cleared her throat. “I'm here for Noah.”

I remembered her asking me for his number and how she had said she really needed to talk to him. “At first, I thought he could be the Watcher, but we've figured out that isn't the case.”

“Then what's happening to him?” I asked. We were approaching the exit that would take us to Potion. “He's not right.”

An uncomfortable silence followed my question. Michael finally spoke. “Charlotte, do you understand why the Watcher has targeted your family?”

“He's trying to punish me,” I replied. “He thinks I've seen too much of the other side.”

“Yes, but it was never only about you.” Michael's voice was calm, like a kindergarten teacher's as she patiently explained a story to her students. “It's about your family and what they do. This thing has been monitoring your family for a long time, since before you were even born. It came after you as a way to hurt your parents, to make them stop their investigations.”

Bliss spoke up from the backseat. “And he was unsuccessful. So now he's after Noah as a way to hurt you.”

I almost turned the car around. “So let's go get Noah! We have to protect him!”

“He's gone,” Bliss said softly. “I failed.”

“You didn't fail,” Michael said. “Don't say that. We still have a chance.”

“Where is he?” I yelled.

“We're not sure.” Bliss sounded close to crying. “But we know the Watcher has him. We saw him get in the burgundy car.”

I was close to tears myself. Michael placed his hand over mine. “Just drive,” he said. “I have a plan.”

When we arrived at Potion, Michael pulled out a key and let us in. “Beth has some emergency stuff stored here for me,” he said as he turned on the lights. “Bliss, will you show Charlotte what we found?”

While Michael went to the back room, Bliss and I sat on the floor between racks of dresses. She opened up her canvas bag and pulled out a manila file folder.

“We figured out the name using old inmate records and cross-checking them with names from the prison you visited in Ohio last year,” she said. “Since the Watcher first came into power there, we figured there was a connection between the prison and the penitentiary here.” She opened the file. “We were right.”

“Was his name Marcus?”

“Marcus was his middle name.” She handed me a photocopy of an old newspaper article. “Meet Lloyd Marcus Greene.”

The article was a hundred years old, and it was a bad copy. The letters were smudged together into a blurry black mess. The only thing I could read clearly was the headline: Bloody Baker Convicted on Thirteen Counts.

“Bloody Baker? Please don't tell me he stuffed his victims into an oven.”

“He didn't.” Bliss took out another paper. “They called him that in reference to the thirteen murders. You know, a baker's dozen?”

“That's bad.” I took the next paper, which was an article announcing that Greene had been sentenced to death.

“Let me guess. The electric chair?”

“Yes,” Bliss confirmed. “But there was a problem.”

The night of Greene's scheduled execution was also the night of one of the county's worst thunderstorms. I could almost picture the flickering lights and slashes of lightning
illuminating the dark interior of the penitentiary. Greene had been strapped into the electric chair, but when the switch was thrown, it didn't work. Despite several attempts, the warden had been unable to execute the Bloody Baker.

Greene had escaped death and then had become a kind of cult figure among the other inmates. He'd said he couldn't die, that he'd sold his soul to the devil. He'd cultivated a large following of men eager to escape death. But another inmate had taken Greene's boasting as a challenge and stabbed him during lunch one day. Greene died on the floor.

“While he was on trial in South Carolina, he was also under investigation for murder in Ohio,” Bliss said. “He spent time at the prison there before being extradited.”

“This is our guy.” I handed back the proof to Bliss. “You did great work.”

“Thanks. But there's something else you need to know.”

“Right.” It was time to get down to business. We had the name, but now what? How did we use that information to close the gate?

Bliss glanced toward the back room, where Michael was gathering materials. “The thing is, this Marcus connection? It's more important than you might think.”

“What do you mean?”

She set aside her papers. “Tell me what you remember about him. Tell me about the Marcus you knew.”

It was a painful memory, one I had avoided for a long time. I had only met Marcus a few times. The first time had been on Christmas, when he was assisting his boss in a paranormal investigation at the same time as my family. The last time I'd seen him was when he had been fully taken over by the Watcher.

“His eyes were black,” I said. “A dull black, like someone had drawn over his eyes with permanent marker.”

He had tried to kill me. He had tried to kill my parents and almost succeeded. He had lifted Noah by the neck and left a permanent bruise. He had done all of these things, but it wasn't really him. His body was basically a puppet for the Watcher. And I had ended it—temporarily, at least—with a blow to the chest.

“Before he died, his eyes went back to normal.” I had trouble getting out the words. “He was lying on the floor. He looked at me, and I knew it was him, not the Watcher.”

I hadn't known what to do. Marcus was mortally wounded, and all I could do was watch as his life slipped away.

Bliss took my hands. “It wasn't your fault. You know that, right?”

My friends had said the same thing after it had happened, but I needed to hear it again. Maybe I needed to hear it for the rest of my life.

“The Watcher attaches itself to a person,” Bliss said. “And once it does, that's it. There is no way out. The person can't live without the Watcher.”

I nodded. “Marcus said that he tried to fight it. Those were his last words, that he tried to fight it.”

I looked at Bliss, hoping she would offer more comforting words, but her eyes were looking beyond me. I turned my head and saw Michael standing a few feet away.

“Those were his last words?” His voice sounded strained and distant.

I turned around so I could face Michael. His eyes held tears. And that's when it clicked. I understood the connection we shared, why he had seemed familiar to me.

Marcus was his brother.

“I'm so sorry.” I stood up, but I couldn't look at Michael. “You have no idea how sorry I am.”

“You were the last person to see my brother alive.”

I bit my bottom lip and tried to keep from crumbling. Even if Marcus's death wasn't my fault, I felt diminished in the presence of such pure grief. They had been brothers. They had kept sleds in their bedroom so they could slide down the snowdrifts outside their window. Marcus had been loved, and he had taken his last breath on the floor of a strange house.

And my eyes were the last he'd seen.

Michael placed his hands on my shoulders. “I don't blame you. Please don't think that. I blame
it
. The thing that destroyed him.” He hugged me, and I felt a wave of calm pass through me. “Now it's time to fight back,” he said.

I was done with living in fear. I would not allow it to chase me anymore.

It was time to close the gate. For good.

Close the gate.

That was our three-word plan, but I had no idea what it meant or how to accomplish it. I was still stunned by the fact that Michael and Marcus were brothers.

It explained why Michael hadn't been there when the Watcher had attacked my family. He'd been halfway across the world, trying to save Marcus. But he'd gotten there too late.

“We're not going to the penitentiary right now, are we?” Bliss asked.

Michael was busy packing a duffel bag. “I have the tools Beth said we'd need and we're less than twenty minutes away. I want to end this now.”

“So do I. But it's almost dark and Beth said we should wait for her.” Bliss frowned. “Do you really think we're prepared to go storming in there?”

I was torn. As much as I wanted to pull Noah away from danger, Bliss made sense. Were we ready for this? I knew I wasn't, but if we were going to save Noah, we definitely didn't have a lot of time.

“Pate probably has the police checking on the place at night,” I said. “Noah might not even be there yet. And if we get caught, there's no way we'll be able to go back later. Maybe we should wait until morning.”

Creeping into the potential portal to a demonic realm was bad enough, but sneaking in at night? It wasn't paralyzing fear that told me that was a bad decision—it was pure logic.

“You're not coming with us, Charlotte.”

I looked at Michael, confused. “Of course I am. Noah needs me.”

“He needs you to be safe and so do I. You're staying here.”

“No. I'm not.” I held up my hand before he could begin arguing with me. “I'm a part of this, too. I can help. I'm the only one here who's actually faced a Watcher. And I'm incredibly stubborn, so there's no point in fighting me on this.”

He didn't like my answer, so he looked to Bliss for support.

She didn't give him any. “I say she comes with us. At the very least, she can drag Noah out of there.” She turned to me. “But if things get really bad, I want you to get out, understand?”

“I understand.” We looked at Michael. He sighed but gave in. We also convinced him that rushing to the penitentiary at night and without Beth's help might not be the best idea.

“You two really know how to gang up on someone,” he muttered. “But I don't want to drive back home tonight. We need to stay close by.”

“Then we stay here.” I was already forming a plan. “We spend the night in the store. It's safe, right? And Beth can meet us at first light.”

“Sounds good to me,” Bliss said.

Michael finally agreed. While he called Beth to let her know what we were doing, I called my sister.

“Is Noah with you?” she asked.

I froze. I didn't want her to know that there was a problem. “No, he's not with me.”

“I'm here with Trisha,” she continued. “The high school called and said he's been absent all week. We can't get ahold of him. No one knows where he is.”

“Annalise, I need you to tell Trisha that everything's fine and Noah will be home tomorrow,” I said.

“What's going on? Where are you?”

I explained that I was at Potion with Michael and Bliss and wouldn't be back until the next day. “Cover for me, okay? I don't want Dad to worry.”

“I don't like this.”

“Please trust me.”

“How can I trust you when I don't know what's going on? You're scaring me, Charlotte.” She took a breath. “We just got Mom back. I don't want you to put yourself in a situation where you could get hurt.”

“I'm safe,” I assured her. A thought occurred to me. Maybe I was secure inside Potion, but what about the rest of my family? How could I be sure that the Watcher wouldn't make a surprise stop at my house?

“Can you and Dad spend the night at the care facility?” I asked. It was one place I felt my family would be out of harm's way, especially with Beth still there.

“Dad's already there,” she said. “Do you think I need to leave the house, too?”

“Yes. Just in case. And Annalise, I'll be home tomorrow, okay? This will all be over tomorrow.”

“I'm holding you to that. If I don't hear from you by noon, I'm calling in a SWAT team.”

“Deal.”

We got off the phone. Through the store windows I could see that it was nearly night. Bliss had made tea in the back
room and offered me a cup. Michael wanted to go over our plan, so we gathered in the middle of the front room. Potion featured shelves of brightly colored blankets. We each took a few and made comfortable little nests on the floor. We turned off the overhead lights and Bliss lit a candle and placed it in the middle of our circle. She gave us a wry smile. “It's supposed to be a stress relief candle,” she said. “I figured we could use some of that.”

“Tell me about what we're doing tomorrow,” I said. “Are we really going to walk in there and start shouting this guy's name?”

“It's not that simple,” Michael said. “And it's going to be dangerous.”

“I know. I've kind of been through this before.” And I did not want to go through it again, but it felt like something I was supposed to do, as if I'd been chosen. It made me think about the other time I'd been selected for a paranormal errand. I told Bliss and Michael about the other Charlotte, a girl who had been dead for more than a hundred years, and the spirits of her parents, who had followed me because I shared their only daughter's name.

“Is that why the Watcher chose your brother?” I asked. “Because they shared the same name?”

“It may have been a factor,” Michael said. “Or simply an evil coincidence. Names have power, more than we realize.”

Michael said we would use some of that power when we called out the Watcher by name. He was attached to the name he had used during his lifetime. It was like a string that lightly tied him to the sliver of self that remained human.

“After we call him out, Bliss and I will try to force him back through the gate.”

“We think it's inside the electrocution chamber,” Bliss
added. “Not a real gate, but some sort of entry he uses to cross into our world.”

I remembered the way both Pate and Noah had suddenly jerked their heads to the left. The action suddenly made sense. “That's where the gate is,” I said. “It will be on the left side of the room.”

“Good to know,” Michael said. “Let us handle it. Your main job will be to get Noah out of there.”

I wondered if Noah was there now, scared and trapped by something immensely powerful. Maybe we should have gone to the prison instead of camping out in Potion for the night.

“I think he's okay,” Bliss said softly. She was looking at me. “He's not dead. I would know—I would feel it.”

“What if we don't get there in time? What if we're too late?”

She didn't have an answer for that. We watched the candle flicker inside its glass holder. “I've been thinking about something,” I said. “About what's happening inside Bliss's house.”

I had noticed the way that most of the boxes leaned to ward the front windows and door, as if someone was pushing them. The front door had locked so no one could go outside when the Watcher was there. The clutter never hit Bliss directly. And I knew how much she had loved her grandfather and been loved in return.

“He's not angry,” I said. “I think he's trying to help. It's just coming out wrong.”

Bliss considered this. “His energy is trying to move all the stuff he held on to. Maybe he wants us to start over?”

“I think so, I really do.”

“That's a nice thought.” Bliss smiled. “That would fit in with his personality, actually. He could be very determined.”

Sleep came eventually, but it felt more like a light nap than
deep rest. It was still dark when we left Potion. A ribbon of pink curled across the horizon. Sunrise was approaching.

Michael drove my car. Bliss and I sat in the backseat. She talked me through some of the rituals she wanted to try, rites I was already somewhat familiar with. A circle of salt to offer protection, candles for light, and some prayers in a little notebook, written in Bliss's neat handwriting.

We parked a few blocks from the penitentiary and walked the rest of the way, cutting through backyards and avoiding the main roads. It didn't matter—the town was still asleep.

We approached the building from the back, where there was a delivery entrance. It was locked with a rusty metal chain, but Michael pulled out a pair of bolt cutters from inside his duffel bag. The chain fell to the ground with a clang. “Ready?”

“I thought we were going to wait for Beth,” Bliss whispered.

“She'll be here soon,” Michael said. “I don't want anyone to see us standing out here.”

My heart was a loud hammer as we stepped inside the windowless hallway. The cement floor sloped upward and I realized it had not been used simply for deliveries. It had also been used to wheel out the bodies of dead inmates.

The hallway ended in a massive kitchen. Dusty windows allowed a shard of light into the dank room. A rat scurried across the floor, startling us. We followed Michael out of the kitchen. He seemed to know exactly where he was going, whereas I had no idea. My two previous visits had begun at the front door, so I was turned around and confused by the layout.

As we ventured farther into the belly of the building, it became darker. Our footsteps echoed as we climbed dirty stairs and came to the main floor. Michael pulled open a heavy
door, which led to yet another hallway. This one was lined with empty cells, their doors pushed open as if inviting us to sit down on one of the metal bed frames. It was slightly easier to see because each of the cells had its own tiny window. Pink sunlight glowed behind the glass.

We came to the end of the hallway. I was beginning to recognize my surroundings. To the left was the hallway that would end at the front doors. Taking the right would lead us to the execution chamber.

And in front of us there was a body.

Michael crouched down next to the person spread out on the floor and pressed two fingers to his neck. From his size I knew the man wasn't Noah.

“He's cold,” Michael announced. “I think he's been here awhile.”

I didn't want to be near the body, but I needed to know if he was someone I could identify. I took a step closer and looked down. I immediately recognized him.

It was Pate.