Ink and Bone (32 page)

“I can’t get them to be qu-qu-quiet,” he sobbed. “They w-w-won’t leave me a-a-alone.”

She saw them all around him. They looked like angels in the snow. Abigail, Patience, Sarah, Priscilla—and others, so many others. The lost girls, the broken, abused, neglected, and murdered. All those Eloise had tried to help or save over the years but couldn’t, and some she’d never seen before. They were restless, angry, and oh so tired, just like Eloise.

“You don’t deserve silence, Abel,” she said.

Eloise released a series of shuddering coughs then. Her last visit with Dr. Apple hadn’t been a pleasant one.

“There’s still hope, Eloise,” he said, exasperated with her again. “But not without the treatment. Without the treatment, the way this is progressing, you don’t even have six months.”

“The cure is worse than the disease, Ben,” she said.

“Until the cure takes hold,” he said. “And then you live well again.”

Live well again. The truth was, she hadn’t lived well since Alfie and Emily died, since the accident that took their lives gave her these abilities. She’d tried to see what she did as a gift. She knew that she’d helped many people, that the world was a better place because of the things she had done. But it hadn’t been a better place for her.

“I want you to understand that I view your refusal of treatment as a form of suicide.” He was a serious young man about Amanda’s age.

“Don’t be so grim, doctor,” she said. “It doesn’t suit you.”

He’d released a frustrated breath. Outside, the day had been
bright and blue. She watched the wind blow the white clouds. They shifted and changed shape—a puppy, a dragon, a couple dancing.

“But there could hardly be a more grim situation,” he said, taking off his glasses and rubbing his eyes. “Surely you see that.”

Perhaps only doctors knew what Eloise and people like her knew, that life was a closed unit, a sphere you might hold in the palm of your hand, contained and finite. The body had its very unyielding limits, a thing youth never understands. But obviously the good doctor didn’t comprehend that there was so much more than the life of the body. That, in fact, that was the least of it.

“I can see that’s how you feel,” she said. “And I’m sorry.”

“Mrs. Montgomery,” he said. “Eloise. Please don’t do this.”

Now, the snow had stopped falling and the air had taken on an icy stillness. The boy was there, too, standing behind his father. He was broken, damaged, but not a stain like his father.

“Arthur,” she said gently.

He stepped into view, his head bowed. “I never wanted to hurt anyone.”

“Arthur, walk yourself through those trees and find a man named Jones Cooper. Tell him who you are and what you and your father have done. Tell him where to find the girls.”

“They’ll lock me away.”

“That’s what you must do,” she said. “You must make amends for the wrongs you’ve done.”

He sat on the ground and cried. “I can’t.”

She shook her head. “They’ll find help for you,” she said. “You’ll be all right.”

She wasn’t entirely sure this was true. Some things were beyond the reach of her sight. Some things were not for her to see. She had grown to accept this, as she had grown to accept so many things.

“Go now, Bobo,” she said. He stood, staring at her as she moved closer to Abel.

“Show me where you’ve put them,” she said. She was not angry with him; she did not hate him or judge him. She did not even fear him. That was for others to do. Eloise neither condemned the
wicked nor praised the good, because they were just two sides of the same coin. They were all one, all the same, even though so few ever seemed to realize that, would rail with fury at the very thought.

Sobbing, Abel Crawley turned and began to walk toward a path that led back into the woods.

They passed out of sight along the edge of the clearing where Eloise paused to watch Finley help Rainer into a police cruiser. Jones Cooper stood staring in her direction, though she was reasonably sure he couldn’t see her, back as she was in the safety of darkness. She saw Wolf and Merri Gleason, holding each other, oblivious to everything around them, grief was wrapped around them like a curtain. How cruelly Merri Gleason had been treated to think she was close to finding her daughter, only to have everything snatched away. Abbey Gleason was gone. Merri had to find a way to let go, or lose herself.

Eloise saw a light around Finley, something bright and good and strong. She was different from Eloise, a natural. She had a big ego, a strong spirit. She was ready. The girl wouldn’t let it rule her; she wouldn’t let it take everything. Eloise spent a long moment taking in the youthful beauty of Finley’s solid flesh, strong and flushed with life.
I’ll stop when my outer self looks like my inner self
, she’d said when Eloise had expressed distress over the girl’s myriad tattoos. Eloise still didn’t like it, but she understood now that Finley was exerting some kind of control over her body, making it what she wanted it to be. Part of her wanted to call to Finley, to hold her in her arms and try to explain. But there was no explaining anything to youth. And there was no such thing as good-bye. She knew that better than anyone. She kept after Abel Crawley.

She followed him deeper and deeper into the woods, away from the mine opening that was now crawling with police and to another one a bit farther north. When they reached it, she followed him into the opening that was so well hidden that most would pass right by without seeing it. Just as she plunged into darkness, she heard Finley’s voice.

Mimi? Mimi! Is that you?

“Faster, Abel,” said Eloise. “They’re coming.”

THIRTY-THREE

F
inley didn’t know what made her turn in time to see Eloise and Abel Crawley move through the trees. In fact, she couldn’t even say she
saw
them exactly. There was a tickle, something that made her turn away from Rainer. She had been standing there, leaning against a police cruiser, trying to get her head around the fact that the girl she’d saved was Eliza and not Abbey. How could she have been so wrong?

She’d watched Wolf Gleason collapse, weeping. “It’s not Abbey. It’s not Abbey.”

And Merri had stood over him, gray faced and catatonic, broken.

Finley’s throat was closed from crying, the blood rushing in her ears. Eliza had been carried from the scene, her mother called. There would be a joyful reunion tonight, just not the one Finley imagined. It was all so complicated, so fraught, wasn’t it? No joy without sorrow, no sorrow without joy. It was then that she saw them, but maybe it was just a shadow, a shifting of light, something.

“Mimi?” she called. She didn’t even know why. Finley moved quickly toward the trees, a sudden feeling of urgency making her pulse quicken.

Jones Cooper moved into step beside her. “What did you see?”

“I saw my grandmother,” she said. The sky had cleared, a wide high moon hung silver in the blue-black sky. “With Abel Crawley.”

Had she seen that? Surely not.

“Up here?” said Jones. “I don’t think so.”

The wind howled, and Jones frowned as they came to the edge.

“Mimi!” she called again. “Is that you?”

Finley and Jones exchanged a look, a worried energy passing between them. They both knew that Eloise turned up when she was least expected. Some people were always just where you thought they would be. But Eloise was exactly where she needed to be—wherever that was. Jones put the beam of his flashlight to the ground, and it wasn’t long before it fell on two sets of tracks, one large, one small. Finley recognized the snowflake tread of her grandmother’s boots.

“Those are her boot tracks,” said Finley, a rush of fear making her hands shake.

“What would she be doing up here with him?” asked Jones, sounding in equal parts mystified and annoyed. “Your grandmother has to be more careful with herself.” There was a note in his voice, the deep concern of friendship. And something else.

“Why did you say it like that?” Finley asked.

His glance told her that he knew something that Finley didn’t—or rather hadn’t wanted to know.

“She’s an old woman,” he said. “She should be at home knitting blankets.”

“Oh, please,” said Finley, picking up her pace, following the tracks.

Another voice. Another flashlight beam. “Where are you two going?”

Detective Chuck Ferrigno trailed up behind them, panting. He was not sure-footed in the woods, looked out of place even in his parka and heavy boots. Finley had a new jacket too, given to her from the trunk of a prowler. Thick and navy blue, hanging down to her thighs. Jones told them what they saw, and Chuck Ferrigno took out his walkie.

“It looks like they’re headed for the north entrance to the mine,” said Jones. “Have your guys block the head we already discovered.”

“We have Arthur Crawley,” said Chuck. “He turned himself in. But he was looking for you, Jones. He said: ‘Eloise said Jones would take care of me. That he’d make them understand.’ Freaky-looking kid, covered with blood, blank in the eyes.”

“He asked for me?” said Jones.

“He said ‘Eloise’?” asked Finley.

Finley didn’t wait for Detective Ferrigno to answer; she just burst into a run, following her grandmother’s tracks, calling after her.

For the first time as she ran, she heard The Whispers, as Eloise referred to them.
It’s the sound of all the voices of this place and others, telling their stories to anyone who will listen
, Eloise had explained to her.
Some of them are sad, some joyful, some horrifying, some uplifting. It’s the full rainbow of human experience.
Finley had been glad to never hear them; she had enough unwanted visitors.

Do they ever stop?
Finley had asked Eloise.

No
, said Eloise, as if considering for the first time.
I don’t suppose they do. Sometimes they’re quiet, sometimes loud. But, no, I don’t believe they’re ever completely silent.

What do they want?
Finley had asked.

Eloise regarded Finley with a bemused squint.
They just want to be heard. They just want us to listen to their stories.

Are you sure that’s all they want?
Finley had asked.
Why would you be able to hear them if they didn’t want something from you?

If they want more
, she told Finley,
I have no idea what it is.

Hearing them now, Finley knew that Eloise had been wrong. It wasn’t just a radio broadcast for those few who were able and willing to tune in. There was something more, something selfish and grasping.

The mouth of the tunnel was up ahead, Jones and Chuck lagging behind.

“Finley,” she heard Jones say faintly. “Don’t go in there alone.”

But she did, she had to. There was no time, no time at all. Even though she was blind heading into the dark, she heard sounds. Movement, breath, a distant calling, her own heartbeat banging out the uneven rhythm of exertion and fear.

“Mimi,” she called, reverting to the name she used as a child. “
Mimi!”

The darkness, the tunnel seemed to grow and expand. Her hands touched the hard walls, the crown of her head skimming the ceiling,
the wetness, the closeness all around her. Her breathing was labored and jagged. She felt the world wobble and tip, and it dropped her to her knees. And then she wasn’t in the tunnel anymore; she was back in the graveyard.

*  *  *

It was a beautiful day, Finley’s favorite kind. When the air was newly warm, and the sky was bright blue with high white clouds. The trees were lush with green, and the wildflowers a chaos all around. Eloise sat on the steps of the church, looking as Finley had never seen her. Once in an old photo album, Finley had found images of a beautiful woman with a dark pixie haircut and glittering black eyes. She had heavy lashes and high cheekbones, and she glowed. Her tiny frame was poured into a white lace shift, her tiny veil like a halo, pearl slippers, a bouquet of white roses.

“Mimi,” little Finley had asked. “Is that a princess?”

“No, sweetie,” Eloise had said with a laugh. “That’s your Mimi and your grandpa Alfie.”

“That’s
you
?” she said with childish carelessness. “But you’re so—”

“Young? Pretty? Not old and wrinkly,” said Eloise, laughing. Her grandmother was never a vain woman, never quick to be insulted.

“You’re still beautiful,” said Finley. She’d been raised by a very vain mother, so she knew how to dole out a compliment—quickly when need be.

“I was very young,” said Eloise. “In my twenties.”

“That’s not young!” said Finley. “That’s old!”

“You think so?” said Eloise, pretending surprise. “Well, I suppose it must seem that way to an eight-year-old.”

“You were so happy,” said Finley.

“I was,” said Eloise. “I loved your grandfather very much. So, so much.”

“Where is he?”

“He’s gone from this place,” she said. “But he’s all around us. In you, in your mommy and little Alfie, in my heart and dreams.”

“Do you still see him?”

“I do,” she said. “He seems to turn up whenever I need him most.”

Even at eight, Finley didn’t need that explained to her. “He has glittery eyes and such a nice smile. He looks just like
our
Alfie.”

“He does, doesn’t he?”

The Eloise who sat on the church steps looked like the girl in the picture, youthful and full of joy, everything ahead of her. The golden light that emanated off of her was warm, magnetic. Finley realized that she was lying on her belly on the ground among the gravestones.

Towering oaks shadowed the white church with its small steeple and bright red doors. A dappling light danced, sunlight fingering through the trees.

“It’s a lovely spot to rest, isn’t it?” said Eloise. “The Three Sisters deserve their place here, don’t you think?”

Finley pulled herself to her feet and basked in the warmth of the air. She looked down at her wet and blood-soaked clothes, which were suddenly dry. The parka she’d been wearing was gone. She walked over to her grandmother, and Eloise patted the spot beside her, looking at her with a loving smile.

“Just the grave markers will be enough,” said Eloise. “All they want is a remembrance. They just wanted to be known. All that youthful energy, combined with the injustice of their murders—it creates such chaos when trapped.”

Finley didn’t have a voice. Emotion was a ball of cotton in her chest.

“We hold on so tightly to it all,” said Eloise. “All those negative emotions. We just cling to them. Or maybe it’s that they cling to us.”

“Or a little of both,” managed Finley, her voice just a whisper.

“Yes,” said Eloise. “Like a haunting. Places cling, too.”

“He took them because they were ‘Dreamers,’ ” said Finley. “Like me and like you. All those girls were somewhere on the spectrum. Why did he want them?”

“Abel Crawley had his own agendas,” said Eloise darkly. “He
was a pain giver, a misery maker. As a child, he was content to hurt animals. As he grew older, his appetites changed. Even his own wife Millie didn’t know what he was, or at least that’s what she told herself.”

Finley watched as Eloise deftly linked wildflowers into a chain—yellow, orange, violet, blue.

“But his daughter Penny knew what he was. She tried to kill him but killed herself instead trying to escape him. But Millie clung to her, blaming herself for not knowing what her husband did when she was gone working.”

The chain of flowers grew longer and longer in Eloise’s thin fingers.

“That clinging love kept poor Penny in these woods. And Abel brought the Dreamers, the ones who could see her—for his shattered wife and to fulfill his own dark needs. Abel Crawley is a bad, bad man.”

Eloise shook her head, slow and sad.

“How could she stay with him?” asked Finley. “After everything he did.”

Eloise looked up at the sky, as if the answer might be there, then back at Finley. “Millie Crawley was quite undone by the loss of her daughter Penny. And she wasn’t all there to begin with, had a touch of what her son Arthur has, a slowness. She stayed because she had nowhere else to go, because she couldn’t leave Penny alone in the woods.”

Finley knew that it was so. She understood in that moment that it was Arthur she’d inhabited, his childish mind so confused, angry, and afraid. He was trapped here too with Abel.

“And then when Abel was done with them? Or Millie was? Or they became too much trouble? Then he just killed them?”

Eloise nodded grimly, her mouth pressed into a tight line of anger.

“He was also a Listener. He couldn’t stand the sound of The Whispers. He knew, like you guessed long ago, that they wanted something, all those voices.”

“
What
did they want?” asked Finley.

“They want to go home,” said Eloise.

“So,” Finley said, struggling to understand. “He thought the girls could quiet The Whispers, give them what they wanted—or needed?”

“Yes,” said Eloise. “Among other darker, more hateful things. He thought because they were Dreamers that they could show the lost ones home. But they were far too young. And their passing was as wrong and ugly as the others’. Even you wouldn’t have been able to help them, Finley. You would have just wound up trapped here, another voice in the trees, calling.”

“Calling who?”

Eloise lifted the flowers, which she’d turned into a necklace, and hung them around Finley’s neck. “Calling me. All this time, and I had no idea.”

“No,” said Finley, a sob nearly taking the word.

“Everything has its time and its season.”

“I’m not ready,” said Finley. She knew it was selfish, but she didn’t care. “I don’t want to stay here without you.”

“You were born ready, my girl,” said Eloise. “You are electric with power. It comes off you in waves. And you’re smart, and stubborn, and have an iron will like your mother. You were more ready at eight than I have ever been.”

“But I don’t want this,” said Finley. Tears fell, big and wet, an embarrassing flow, impossible to stop. Finley’s shoulders shook with her choking sobs.

The young and pretty Eloise leaned in close and kissed Finley’s tears away, pulled her close and then released her, rising.

“We don’t choose, Finley,” she said, her voice warm with loving kindness, but also somehow distant with resignation and understanding. “We are chosen.”

“Mimi,” cried Finley. “Mimi,
please
.”

Eloise opened the door to the church, and Finley found herself backing away from the energy that seemed to flow out of it, the same glittering black pull that emanated from the hole in the mine.
It wasn’t tugging at her anymore, it was pushing her away, farther and farther until she stood on the other side of the stone wall that surrounded the graveyard. She was just an observer here, allowed to bear witness.

“Why do they need
you
?” Finley yelled. “Why do you have to be the one?”

“It’s my time,” said Eloise, as if she were talking about an appointment she’d made. She gave a wry smile. “It’s on my way.”

At the door, Eloise opened her arms, and Finley watched them. Abigail, Patience, and Sarah danced and tugged at one another. Faith corralled them toward the doorway, giving a fleeting glance back at Finley. Then The Burning Girl dimmed her fire and she was just Priscilla Miller, another victim of violence and neglect. She skipped through the open door. Abbey and the other Snow Angels, as Finley had come to think of them, moved uncertainly, and Eloise extended her hand. And there were others, faces Finley had never seen, so many others. They, too, moved into the luring darkness. But it was not dark at all, not really. It was the presence of all color, a great twist of all the shades and hues of this life and the next. It was the most beautiful and terrible thing Finley had ever seen.