Sanctum (12 page)

“Right. Yeah. I just thought . . .” They were outside the back porch now. Micah didn’t seem keen to let them out of his sight again. Abby breezed by him wearing a big, fake smile. The kitchen was much less crowded at this point.

“Wow,” Jordan muttered. “Who needs a drink?” He went to the punch bowl on the counter and scooped out a cup for himself. Cal joined Micah in the doorway, and as they talked, Cal kept looking over his shoulder at them.

“You just thought what?” Abby prompted. They stood in a close huddle in the corner by the empty chip and dip bowls.

On the counter behind the bowls was a row of candles burning away. Dan stared intently at the candle on the far right, a dark red glob that was almost completely burned down, so that all that remained was the hint of a sculpted jaw and chin.

“I just thought anything would be better than silence.” He laughed pitifully at his own explanation. “If it gets quiet, I might see that little boy again. Or hear voices. I’m sure that sounds completely stupid.”

“It’s not stupid, Dan,” Jordan said softly. “I get what you mean.”

Abby opened her mouth to respond, and judging by her furrowed brow, it wasn’t going to be in the affirmative. She didn’t get a chance to say her piece, though—Micah had broken off from Cal and was now hovering over Jordan’s shoulder.

“Hey, guys, could I steal Dan for a moment?”

“He’s all yours,” Jordan said, grinning through clenched teeth.

“Thanks.” He didn’t give Dan an opportunity to say good-bye, just took him by the arm and dragged him away. A herd of drunken students thundered in from the living room, and Abby and Jordan disappeared into the crowd.

Micah brought him to the opposite end of the kitchen, where a shadowy alcove sheltered a butler’s staircase that hardly looked wide enough for one. This didn’t bode well—what if Micah was going to report them for running off? Maybe his host wasn’t nearly as friendly and forgiving as he seemed.

“What’s up?” Dan asked neutrally.

“I wasn’t going to mention this,” Micah began, wiping at invisible sweat on his brow. “But I need you to warn your buddy Jordan about Cal. I was just talking to him, and that boy was
all
lit up.”

Dan mouthed the words “all lit up” with one brow lifted.

“Drunk,” Micah explained. “Point is, his behavior’s been, uh, erratic lately. This stuff with his dad . . . He’s just unpredictable right now and he doesn’t always hold his liquor well. He can be a little on the mean side when he’s sober, but
drunk
? Look, a word from me might not mean much to your friend, but he’d listen to you. It’s nothing serious, I just think it’s best if we all keep a collective eye on them.”

“Is the drinking unusual?” Dan asked, still not fully following.

Micah nodded. “Bad drinking, bad grades, bad new crowd. It’s a mite early to say ‘downward spiral,’ but it’s getting there, know what I mean?”

It was Dan’s turn to nod.

“You see it lots,” Micah continued, scratching at his goatee. “More than you might think. Lots of pressure here to do well, to perform, sometimes it’s enough to make a person crack. Then his dad . . . It’s been a lot for him to handle. When I saw your friend dancing with him tonight I just thought it might be best to warn you.”

“So if Cal is on some downward spiral, what is he doing hosting a prospie?”

Micah laughed, guffawed really, pausing a moment afterward and staring at Dan. “Well, you know how I said his dad was a big-shot alum?”

“Yeah . . .”

“His pop was the dean. The whole administration has been on eggshells around Cal since he died. Cal could probably get away with murder if he had a mind to.”

“Ha.” Dan forced out a nervous laugh. “Well . . . I’ll, um . . . I’ll tell Jordan to be careful.”

“That’s all I’m asking,” Micah said, clapping Dan on the shoulder. “Thanks, man, I had a feeling you were a stand-up sort, and it’s good to know I was right.”

That night, after pulling Jordan aside to fill him in about Cal, Dan returned to Micah’s room and fell asleep without even glancing over the new clues they had collected. He collapsed into a heavy but fitful sleep, and even unconscious he knew the dreams would come, could feel them gathering on the fringes of his mind like a bank of growing storm clouds.

The dream swallowed him up whole.

He stood in the entryway to a shabby house, stamping the fresh mud off his boots. There was an umbrella in his hand and he shook the rain from it. He checked his pocket watch, a well-polished antique, and felt himself become overwhelmed by the tedium of this visit. There was so much to do. His time was so precious. Why did he waste it on these cretins and fools?

That was when Harry stumbled into the dining room. Rows and rows of stuffed mailbags filled the room, grayish and fat, like sows turned onto their sides. He went to one and toed it, which made Harry visibly recoil. It didn’t matter. Harry, like all of them, was a tiny man and a tiny thing. But tiny things could be made to grow, and that, he knew, was his calling.

“Letters, letters, none for me,” Harry was saying, worrying over the mailbags, tending to them like a doting father. “Never any letters for me.”

“They’re all for you, Harry. You’re the minder of these things. You’re the keeper. That gives you power. You bring the letters where they need to go. For a while, at least, all letters are for you.” That seemed to calm the man; he stopped compulsively tucking his stringy hair behind his ear. “But you’ve been naughty again, haven’t you, Harry? You’ve been snooping, reading what you shouldn’t.”

“Yes. Naughty. Yes, I shouldn’t. . . .” Harry tucked his hair behind his ear, and again, and again.

There was nothing to do but sigh and nod. “Who is it this time?”

“The girls. The girls write to each other, but never to me. Letters, letters, never any for me.”

“I told you, Harry, they are for you, if only for a time. How does that make you feel?”

“Good. It makes me feel good.” Harry, gnarled and hunching, straightened up a little.

“I’m not here to cure you.” He consulted his pocket watch again. Running late. Ah well. He detached the watch and cradled the warm metal heart of it in his hand. “So put yourself at ease. I’m not here to cure you, Harry. . . .” Then he smiled, and beckoned Harry closer. “I’m here to set you free.”

Dan woke in a cold sweat. It was just his imagination, obviously. He had been in that old house with Abby and Jordan and now his mind was making up stories. Micah had left the window open a crack, and a steady breeze seeped in, unpleasantly damp. With jittering hands, Dan nestled down under his blanket, the tremor getting worse when he thought of Felix’s sure, strange voice.

You see things you shouldn’t be able to see. You know things you shouldn’t be able to know. Like other people’s memories.

That wasn’t a
thing
, was it? Dissociative disorder was a thing—a thing that was hard enough. And who knows, maybe that’s what Felix had, too, and he just had a more severe case or something. But Dan’s dreams and visions felt so real, about things he couldn’t possibly know. Unless they were totally in his imagination, there was something else going on here, something deeper that was wrong.

Dan wasn’t sure which was worse—the idea that he was actually being haunted or
possessed
or whatever, or the idea that this was all in his head.

Chapter 14

“M
icah didn’t
have
to say anything,” Dan was explaining, aiming for casual but landing somewhere closer to petulant. “I’m just glad Jordan knows to be on alert. What were they doing dancing together, anyway? It doesn’t seem like Jordan even likes the guy.”

“Oh, come on. When do you think he’s ever gotten the chance to be himself? I can see why he’d want to let loose a little. It’s not like he gets to dance with boys at prom.” Abby cradled a steaming cup of coffee in her mittened hands. They had stopped at the student union just as it opened. Dan could hardly stay awake this early, but the caffeine helped.

“I hadn’t thought of that,” Dan admitted.

“Jordan’s not an idiot, he knows not to get attached. We’re only here for three days,” she said lightly.

“Our hosts do seem interested in getting to know us, though, don’t they?” he replied. “I can’t tell if that’s a good thing or not.”

“Right? Under normal circumstances I’d be flattered, but these aren’t exactly normal circumstances.” She had ordered a skinny vanilla latte with an extra shot, and, not knowing what to get for himself, he’d asked for the same.

Vanilla-scented steam rose through the tiny hole in the top covering his drink. He breathed it in, using the warmth like a shield against the October chill. Fog rolled across the crisp grass, unfurling around them like a cloudy carpet. Abby kept leading them off the paths that crisscrossed the campus, taking the most direct route to the street that led east toward their destination.

“Well, I for one am glad to get away from Micah for a minute,” Dan replied. “I mean, I’m glad you and I get to spend some time together.”

She paused, cocking her head to the side. Finally, she said, “Me too. I don’t think I could have made this trip by myself.”

“How was Lara’s art thing?”

“Her senior installation? Oh, it’s beautiful, Dan, really haunting. She’s so talented, I can’t help but be a little jealous.”

When Abby texted that morning to ask if he wanted to go with her to see her aunt Lucy, she had mentioned going first with Lara to see her installation-in-progress. Apparently, Lara did all her best work at sunrise. Dan couldn’t imagine being up even
earlier
after the night they’d had, but he seemed to be the only one—Micah had been dressed and ready to go the moment Dan woke up. He’d made sure to confirm plans with Dan for lunch, at which point he’d know whether Dan could sit in on Professor Reyes’s seminar or not, and he’d reminded Dan that the carnival was still going on that night. Once he was alone, Dan had called his mom to tell her about how great things were at Georgetown.

“You and Lara seem to be hitting it off. Do you think you’ll stay in touch with her after we leave?”

They were at the edge of campus, the paved paths giving way to sidewalks. The campus chapel rose up on their left, and just beyond that stood the library.

“I hadn’t thought about it,” Abby said, sipping from her coffee. “Sometimes I feel like it would be best to just leave as much of this place behind as I can.”

There was that horrible word again,
just
.

“I don’t know how you can do that,” Dan said, not totally sure if they were talking about the same thing anymore and unable to keep all the hurt out of his voice. “I can never seem to stop thinking about this summer.”

Abby nodded and held her coffee up close to her face. She touched the warm surface of the cup to each of her pink cheeks. “But if you
could
leave it behind, if you could, I don’t know, magically just make yourself forget or move on completely, would you?”

He didn’t have an immediate answer for her.

Smiling, she touched her elbow to his jacket sleeve. “Thought so. Obsessions aren’t healthy, Dan, I know you know that. When we leave this weekend, whether we find anything to explain what’s been happening to us or not, you have to try to put some distance between you and all this. Have you talked to your therapist about it? Not that it’s any of my business . . .”

“I have, but she doesn’t say much, she just lets me talk, which is good, I guess. . . .”

Dan stopped, feeling his pocket buzz. He pulled out his cell phone to find Jordan had just texted.

Where are you guys? Need to talk ASAP

“It’s Jordan,” Dan said absently, texting back.

We’re by the chapel on campus, going to visit Lucy.

Wait there for me plz

“He wants us to wait. Sounds urgent. Do you mind?” Dan tucked his phone away, taking a half step into the sun for more warmth.

Not even ten minutes went by before Jordan appeared in the mist, sprinting toward them. He careened to a stop, out of breath, the buttons on his coat done up incorrectly.

“What is it?” Abby pressed, touching his shoulder.

“It’s . . . Cal . . .” Jordan bent at the waist, panting. When he looked up, his wild eyes fixed on Dan. “Your BFF wasn’t lying. Something is not right with that kid.”

“What happened?” Abby began rubbing small circles on Jordan’s shoulder.

Jordan stood upright and shook his head, his breaths still coming short. “He was pretty hammered when we got back to the room last night. I figured he’d sleep in, try to take the edge off his hangover. But when I opened my damn eyes he was right there. I mean
right
there, standing over the futon staring at me.”

That rang an uncomfortable bell for Dan. “Did he say anything?”

“No! He was just watching me sleep. It was the creepiest thing ever, and I have seen some seriously creepy shit lately.”

“Did he snap out of it?” Abby asked, still rubbing his back.