Beyond the Grave (7 page)

“Can you show me the hallway?” Shane asked. I was so absorbed in my work that I was barely aware of his presence.

“Sure.” I clicked on a segment.

Shane wheeled his chair closer. “Crap. That might be a problem.” He showed me original shots of the hallway. Compared to the more recent shots, there was a definite difference. The graffiti had doubled, and some of it would need to be blurred out if the show was going to air on television.

“I can't believe Pate thinks we're the problem, when obviously people have been sneaking in for over a year,” I said.

“And coming up with inventive new ways to describe bodily functions,” Shane added.

Something on the opposite wall caught my eye, and I opened a clip that showed it more clearly. In tall, lopsided black letters was a single sentence that stretched from one end of the hallway to the other:
The gate is now open.
Beneath it, a shaky arrow pointed toward the execution chamber.

“Was that there last year?” I asked.

Shane checked his footage. “Nope. That's new.”

“The gate is now open,” I whispered. On the surface, it sounded so simple and nonthreatening. But it bothered me. I studied the still image, trying to pinpoint what it was about the line that made me shiver a little. How had I not seen those words during our recent visit? We had walked down that hallway several times, and the huge letters would have been difficult to miss.

I closed the clip and returned to my work, but the sentence lingered in my mind. It was probably nothing. Meaningless graffiti scrawled in the middle of the night was not my concern. But every time I dragged through the new footage, it was there, and I couldn't shake the feeling that it was not supposed to be there.

Or maybe we weren't supposed to have gone there.

The next day I signed in at the nurse's station. I concentrated on the white walls and speckled floor, afraid that if I allowed myself to really take in the surroundings, I might not be able to breathe. I hated this place. They tried to make it seem more homey by decorating the hallways with brass-framed pictures of the quiet countryside and a few shiny oak tables, but the antiseptic smell that drenched the air and the perpetual beeping of a hundred machines working to keep people alive provided a constant reminder that this was a sad, sick place.

After I had made my decision to finally fulfill the promises I had made to Dad and Annalise and even Bliss, I knew I had to act quickly, before I thought about it too much and changed my mind. I had called Noah and asked him to come with me, but he was swamped with schoolwork.

“I wish I could be there for you,” he'd said. “But Morley has me taping a game tonight. I'm training two freshmen.”

I didn't think the AV teacher had ever asked Noah to give up a Saturday night before, but I didn't press it. Visiting Mom was something I needed to do on my own, without Noah present to serve as my emotional crutch. We made plans to
see each other on Sunday, and I grabbed my keys and wrote a note to Dad about where I was going.

“It's nice to see your mother get so many visitors,” said the nurse behind the counter.

“I'm glad.” I handed back the sign-in roster.

“In fact, there's someone in there with her right now.”

“Really?” I was surprised. No one had told me they would be visiting today.

The nurse examined the roster. “Yes. His name is Mills Davidson. He signed in an hour ago.”

“Mills is here?” I had spoken with Annalise earlier. Why hadn't she mentioned it?

There was a flash of confusion in the nurse's eyes. “He's on the approved visitor list.”

“Yes, he's family. I'm just surprised that he didn't say anything to me about coming today.”

“He's been here several times this week. In fact, he's here every other day, always at the start of my shift. He's a nice boy, isn't he?”

Mills was not a boy, I thought. He was older than the nurse. I thanked her and walked down the hallway, still puzzling over the nurse's words. I had no idea that Mills made the hour-long trip to visit Mom so often. It seemed like something Annalise would mention to me. And why was he coming here without my sister?

I opened the door to Mom's room. A young man was sitting next to her bed, holding her pale hand in his. He looked up at me, immediately letting go, and I realized he was the guy from my English class.

“Who are you?”

He stood up. “Charlotte.”

“Are you following me?” I took a step closer. “Tell me who you are or I'm calling security.”

“Please don't.” He looked anxious. “I only wanted to help. There was no other way for me to see her.”

“Why do you need to see my mother?” Could he be an overzealous fan? Or maybe someone sent by Pate?

“It's my job. To help her, I mean.” He grabbed his jacket from a chair and pulled a small card from the pocket. “Here,” he said, handing me the card. “She can answer your questions.”

I took the card but didn't look at it. The guy brushed past me, but paused at the door. “Your mom's getting better, no matter what they tell you. Believe that.”

I listened to the sound of his footsteps as he left, then crossed the room to the window, which overlooked the parking lot. I gazed out at the tops of all the cars, and waited. I saw the guy hurrying outside, weaving his way around the cars until he came to his vehicle. I was half expecting him to drive away in a burgundy car, but he opened the door of a black sedan instead.

I turned over the card he had given me, even though I already knew what it said.

After all, I had one exactly like it tucked inside my purse.

 

I
DROVE WAY TOO
fast, prompting more than one driver to honk his horn and flash me the finger. I didn't care. I had to get to Potion immediately. My visit to Mom's room had been cut short, obviously. I had spent a few minutes at her bedside, making sure that none of the tubes she was connected to had been removed. I paged the nurse, just to make sure. Then I held her hand for a brief moment and, unable to look at her still face any longer, fled the building and slid into my car.

Normally it would have taken me more than an hour to reach the store, but my speeding got me there in 45 minutes. I parked on the street, jumped out of the car and pushed open
Potion's front doors so hard that the bell above the frame seemed to shriek in protest.

There was no one in the main room. Gentle music pulsed from the ceiling speakers, urging me to relax. But I was too wound up, too angry. I walked swiftly to the back room. Beth was there, dipping a tea bag into a mug.

“Charlotte.” She didn't seem surprised to see me. “Would you like some tea?”

“What I'd really like is some answers. Have any of those?”

Beth sat down at the round table in the center of the room. “Have a seat.”

Although I wanted to remain standing, I reluctantly pulled out a chair. Beth's calm demeanor annoyed me. I was seething mad and she was acting like she had been expecting me. I wanted her to apologize profusely for sending a guy to spy on me at school and sneak into the hospital to see my mom. Instead, she sipped her tea as if she'd done nothing wrong.

“I'm happy that you went to visit your mother. She needs you right now, more than you know.”

“How did you know—” I shook my head. “Right. You know everything. Your spy does quality work.”

“He's not a spy.” Beth stared into her mug. “I'm sorry you're so angry, Charlotte. It wasn't my intention to upset you. Please understand that I'm only trying to help.”

My anger diminished slightly. I knew Beth. She had been kind to me and my entire family. Of course she wasn't intentionally doing something to rattle me. But why all the secrecy? Suddenly I knew. Her way of helping me meant protecting me from news I might not be able to handle.

“Something's happened, hasn't it? Something bad.”

She shook her head. “Not exactly, but we have reason to believe something may happen. We need to be ready.”

“We? Who's we?”

The bell above the front door jingled. Fast footsteps approached the back room, and the guy from my English class burst in. “She's on her way here—” He saw me and stopped.

Beth introduced us. “Charlotte, I'd like you to meet Michael.”

“I think he already knows me,” I snapped, my anger resurfacing for a moment. “But I don't know him.” I glared.

“Are we going to tell her now?” Michael asked Beth. “I thought you said we should wait a while longer.”

Before I could protest about being talked about when I was sitting right here, Beth turned to me. “I'd really like it if you would have some tea,” she said. “It's very calming, and what I'm about to tell you might not be easy to take.” She nodded toward Michael, who retrieved two ceramic mugs and poured the steaming, amber-colored liquid into them. “Here,” Beth urged. “Take one sip, and I'll tell you everything.”

I eyed the mug in front of me with suspicion. “Is it drugged or something?”

Behind me, Michael scoffed. “It's just herbal tea.”

Beth was asking me to have faith in her. She wanted me to show that I trusted her. I sighed and took a sip of the bland, hot water.

“Now, then.” Beth sat back in her chair. “Let's start at the beginning.”

 

I
ALREADY KNEW
some of the beginning, knowledge earned the hard way after the attack on my family. There was an entity called the Watcher, something like a demon but not confined to an underground realm, if such a place even existed. Beth had told me that a Watcher was something that had once been human but had lived such a despicable life that the soul could not move on. It also could not remain on earth, so it was confined in between, in a place that was not a
place, where it could observe life on both sides of the curtain separating life from death. When someone pushed back that curtain and glimpsed the other side, the Watcher was pulled forward, driven by an enraged need to punish those who did not stay on their side.

There were many Watchers—no one had any idea how many—and they searched for a person to inhabit, someone susceptible to their control. When a Watcher came after me, it used the body of Marcus, a young man who had been working as an assistant to a self-proclaimed demonologist. I had seen Marcus die. Some might say that it was by my hand he had perished. And my hand still showed the scars, a swirl of lines that blended with the others on my palm. But I felt the truth: I had not killed Marcus. The Watcher had done that. I had removed the Watcher, but I hadn't killed it, either, because a Watcher couldn't die. It was a soul. A dark, broken soul, but a soul nonetheless.

I listened patiently as Beth recounted a history I was already familiar with. “But there is something else you should know about,” she said.

Fear crept into my stomach. “Something worse than the Watcher?”

“No.” I had been listening to Beth so intently that I had forgotten Michael was behind me, standing against a wall. Now he came over and sat down beside Beth. “There's nothing worse than a Watcher. This is something better.”

“Okay.” I looked to Beth for confirmation. I didn't know Michael, and so much of this demented-soul-on-the-rampage stuff was hard for me to digest. Yes, I'd seen it happen and knew it was real, but the theories behind it were just that: theories. Everything we knew, every technique we had employed to protect ourselves had been based on semi-educated guesses. We needed a dose of solid science. I was hoping that
was the “something better” Beth was getting ready to tell me about.

“The universe works on a balance principle,” Beth started. I leaned forward a little. This was good. This was a scientific theory. We could use this.

She explained that every time a Watcher came into power, so did its opposite. “A Protector,” Beth said. “Something with positive strength to combat the negative energy of the Watcher.”

“Oh.” I should have been more excited, but this news wasn't what I had hoped for. I wanted information about a fantastic new piece of equipment, like a laser gun or something that we could use to blast this thing into oblivion. “So a good spirit takes over the body of someone and battles it out with the Watcher?”

Michael laughed, but Beth took my question seriously. “No, that's one of the differences between them.” She explained that possession was a trick used only by negative energy. Positive energy simply added its strength to a person. And the stronger a Watcher became, the stronger the Protector became.

“So where was this great Protector when my mom was hurt?” I wanted to know.

Michael and Beth exchanged a quick glance. “There was a situation,” Michael said.

“He was detained by forces far beyond his control,” Beth added.

“So this Protector guy isn't too reliable.” I turned to Michael. “Is that why you're here? To keep an eye on me until the real help arrives?”

“No,” he replied, his voice hard. “That's not why I'm here.”

My cell phone buzzed. I didn't care who it was—I needed to get out of the room for a minute. Without saying anything
to Beth or Michael, I jumped up and answered the call out in the main room, surrounded by racks of bright dresses and shelves practically bursting with candles and incense. “Hi, Annalise.”

“Hey! Did you visit Mom?”

Great. I had walked out of one uncomfortable conversation and into another. “Yes, I saw her today.”

“And?”

“And she's the same. No major progress.”

“Oh. But it was a good trip, right? Did you talk with her doctors?”

I tried to sum up my micro-visit with a few details. I talked with the nurse, I said. I sat with Mom for a while. Then I left but would return soon. My promise had been kept, so now she and Dad could back off a little. I knew she had expected that I would experience something deeper, something that would inspire hope. And maybe if finding Michael in Mom's room hadn't rattled me so much, it would have been better.

But I doubted it.

“I have to go,” I told my sister. “I'll call you later, okay?”

“Sure. Okay.” Her disappointment was clear.

I hung up and returned to the back room. Beth and Michael were deep in a conversation that stopped the moment I walked in.

“Why did you say that you could help my mom?” I asked Michael. “The nurse said that you visit all the time. What's that about?”

“That was my idea,” Beth said. “And we can talk about it later. For now, we need to get back to discussing the Protector. I don't think you understand what this means.”

I remained standing. “You're right. I don't understand.”

“This is a good thing, Charlotte,” Beth said. “We have power now. We can be ready when the Watcher returns.”

When
it returns. Not
if.
Beth's choice of wording did not slip by me. “Something has happened, right? That's why Double-O-Seven has been hanging around?”

Michael crossed his arms. “I've been helping your mom. Feel free to thank me.”

Beth rubbed at her temples. “I was hoping this would go much more smoothly.”

She sighed. “Let's try it again. Charlotte, meet Michael.” She looked me in the eyes.

“He's the Protector.”