The Black (28 page)

"No," she barked. "I've known this boy since he was an infant. I trust him."

Adeipho wanted to argue but couldn't find the words. Mrs. Seaver softened and said, "He could have destroyed your daughter."

Adeipho glanced at the girl, who still looked pissed. He relaxed and took a step back.

"Thank you," Mrs. Seaver said. She then looked at me and her eyes went cold. "You. With me."

"Yes, ma'am," I said, and obediently followed her into the train.

The doors closed behind us and the interior lights came on. It was an ordinary subway car except for the furniture. There were chairs and a desk and on the far end, a bed.

"This is my home," she explained. "I don't like staying in one place."

The subway began rolling, but slowly. I looked outside at the crowd of clown-masked freaks who watched us slide away. It wasn't until we started moving that I realized I had left Damon's sword with them. I was totally defenseless, not only from these jokers, but from Damon.

"Uh, Mrs. Seaver, we're going uptown on the downtown track."

"Call me Ree. That's how I'm known here. Short for Terri, I guess."

"I can't call you Ree. You're Mrs. Seaver."

"Not anymore."

That sounded ominous.

"Okay. So, then,
Ree,
we're still on the wrong track."

"There aren't any other trains. This is my vision. I keep things simple."

"Shouldn't your vision be Stony Brook?"

She sat down in a worn easy chair, looking tired. We were
alone on the train, though somebody had to be driving.

"That would be too hard," she explained. "Too many memories. I went to NYU in the late seventies. It's where I first studied photography."

"You get to choose what part of your life you want to relive in the Black?" I asked. "I didn't know that."

"Not exactly. Spirits end up reliving a period in their lives that was important to them, good or bad. It's pretty much the whole point of being here. This is a time that started me on the path that led to my passion in life, so here I am. Other spirits find themselves in more difficult times. I think it's even possible to visit both. It all depends on what
each spirit needs to work on. The rules aren't hard and fast, but even then, this vision isn't . . . normal."

"What does that mean?" I asked.

"You'll see."

I hated surprises. "Where are we going?"

"To a place with answers. That's what you want, isn't it?" I nodded. Sure I wanted answers, among other things. "Do you have any idea how much trouble you're in?"
she asked.

"What I think and what I'm seeing are two different things. But, yeah, I'm knee-deep in it. I haven't exactly been resting in peace."

She took a deep breath and asked, "What's going on with Marsh?"

"How can you not know? Haven't you gone to the Light to check up on him?"

She looked pained. "No."

"But . . . why not?"

Mrs. Seaver—Ree—looked anxious. That wasn't like her. "Like I said, this vision isn't normal. You must know that."

"I know I can't leave whenever I want. When I was here
before, we had to move to some border before we could
leave. I haven't seen any Watchers here either, except at the edge of the vision."

"And you won't. This is a unique place in the Black . . . a kind of island. I guess you could say we're exiles here.
We control how spirits come and go. Or at least how they go. We can't always stop them from coming. We're isolated
by choice but it's a price we're willing to pay. Part of that
price is that we can't see into the Light. Or visit. It would be too much of a temptation. I haven't seen Marsh or my husband, Michael, or anyone else I knew. Including
you. You've grown up, Coop. I can only imagine what Marsh looks like now."

"What do you mean 'temptation'?"

"That's what I'm going to show you."

"Who are you people? I mean, no offense, but it looks like you're hanging out with a bunch of rejects from a cheesy sci-fi movie."

She smiled. "We're the Guardians of the Rift."

I had to let that sink in for a second. "Guardians of the Rift. What's 'the Rift'?"

Ree stood up and walked toward me. "You'll see, but first I want to know what's going on with Marsh. You said Damon was haunting him, but that's impossible."

"Well, sorry. Damon's been watching us both for a while."

"Both of you?"

"Yeah. That's why he killed me. To get to Marsh. Lucky me."

"But he can't get to Marsh."

"Yeah, he can. It all started when Marsh broke the crucible."

Ree looked like she was about to pass out. If she hadn't reached up to grab the overhead bar, I think she would have gone over.

"He broke a crucible?" she said, barely above a whisper. "How did he get it?"

"I don't know, but he did. I saw him break it myself. He was pissed off about something and threw it against a wall. The thing exploded with blood and then the ground started shaking. Damon said it had some kind of spell over him and breaking it somehow made it weaker. Does any of this make sense to you?"

Ree fell back into her chair. When she looked to me, I saw tears in her eyes.

"Unfortunately, yes."

I held back from telling her about how I knew about the other crucibles and that I was hunting for one in the Black. I didn't mention the poleax either. I wanted to know more before admitting to anything.

"How do you know?" I asked. "I thought you couldn't go to the Light."

"I discovered the crucibles when I was alive."

It was my turn to grab on to the overhead bar for support. "So that's how Marsh got it?" I exclaimed. "From you?"

"It's why I'm here," she said. "I foolishly set something
in motion that I'm desperately trying to stop before it goes
too far."

"What is it?" I asked. "What's happening?"

Ree wiped the sweat from her forehead with her sleeve. "The destruction of the Morpheus Road."

The subway car lurched and stopped. Ree stood up, wiped her eyes, and once again looked like her confident self.

"You need to see this," she said as the doors slid open.

She strode out of the train and I was right after her. The signs on the pillars of this station read 42ND STREET. As we climbed the stairs, we started passing people. They looked like more of Adeipho's soldiers. Or
Ree's
Guardians. Or whatever the heck these freaks were. None of them wore
masks, which was a relief, but they were still a strange mix of types. There were men and women. Some were dressed in ancient rags. Others wore modern suits. I saw nurses and soldiers and even a UPS guy. There was nothing that tied these
people together, other than the fact that they were in
Ree's
vision. Someone was stationed at every intersection, which made me think they were guards or sentries. Ree gave a quick nod to a few, but that was it. None of them seemed to care that she was there. They were too busy staring at me. I was an outsider. An intruder. Trouble.

We climbed out of a stairwell into a wide, well-lit corridor with a newsstand and a coffee shop that looked familiar. I'd been there before. In the Light, anyway. It was strange to see the place so deserted because normally it was loaded with thousands of people. I followed Ree around a corner and we stopped before entering the vast expanse of Grand Central Terminal. It was a massive indoor train station that could probably house a 747. I'd been there with my parents, and with Marsh when we took the train into the city. Dad passed through every day on his way to work. It was a magical place. A crossroads. It was designed to inspire, from the massive glass windows that let in soft daylight, to the soaring ceiling that was covered in twinkle lights that were arranged like giant constellations.

Besides the fact that almost nobody was there, the place was different from how I remembered it. There were huge lighted billboards covering most every wall, advertising everything from watches to whiskey. One entire wall of the concourse held a giant lighted mural that was a stunning photo of a snowy countryside. It was an advertisement for Kodak film. It was definitely Grand Central Terminal, but not the one I remembered.

"This is 1978, remember?" Ree said, reading my mind. Her voice echoed through the monstrous, empty space.

Oh. Right. All of those billboards must have been there back in her day. They were colorful but kind of tacky-looking, which is probably why they were eventually taken down to reveal the historic station. In spite of the ugly advertisements, there was plenty about the place that I recognized. The portals to the tracks lined the wall to our left. The wall opposite the tracks held the ticket booths, over which were the big train schedules. In the center of the huge room sat the information booth. I remembered there being a big round brass ball that held a clock on top of it. The brass ball was there, but the clock wasn't. From where we were standing I couldn't tell what had taken its place. What I did
see were four of
Ree's
Guardians standing around the booth as if protecting it.

"What's over there?" I asked.

"It's what I want you to see," she replied.

Our footsteps echoed through the empty cavern as we approached the guarded information booth.

"I'm sorry you were dragged into this, Coop," she said. "Both of you. It must be because of your relationship with
Marsh and his relationship to me. But like it or not, you're in it now."

"Yeah, whatever
it
is."

"I'll tell you what it
isn't.
It isn't about protecting Marsh, or saving yourself. It's far bigger than that."

We arrived at the information booth.

"Beneath this structure is the Rift," she explained.

"I thought there was a lower level to the station," I said.

"In the Light, sure. In my vision too, but the Rift leads to an entirely different place."

I looked at the information booth to see . . . nothing out of the ordinary.

"Gotta say, I'm not sure why this needs guarding. What exactly makes this a rift?"

"This isn't Grand Central Terminal," she said, sounding a little irritated. "This just happens to be my vision. It's something tangible for the Guardians to exist in. The Rift is real. It exists and it would be here no matter what the vision was."

"So what exactly is the Rift?"

"It's a tear in the fabric of existence," she explained. "There's only one and we're here to make sure there will never be another."

"A tear in the . . . ? You're making my head hurt."

"I know. I'm sorry. But you need to understand what it is, how it came to be, and why it's critical that we protect it."

It all seemed so incredible until I focused on the brass ball that used to hold the clock. It was a beach-ball-size casing that stood on a fancy pedestal. Circling the base was the word "Information." There were four large openings in the globe where there used to be four clock faces. The brass structure was empty, except for one small item. Suspended in the center of the globe was a small golden ball about the size of a plum that was covered with strange hieroglyphic-type carved symbols.

I had found the crucible.

"Tell me," I said, staring at the golden orb.

. . . and Ree told me the truth about her death, her afterlife, and why Damon wanted me to destroy the crucible.

Terri "Ree" Seaver's Tale

I've heard that curiosity killed the cat.

But I never bought into that because to me, curiosity makes things happen. The thirst for knowledge is what drives the evolution of societies and the advancement of everything from technology to art to the basic understanding of the human condition. I was drawn to photography out of curiosity. I found that by capturing images I could peel back the superficial layers of a subject to reveal an inner truth. A photograph freezes and captures a moment that can be studied in a way that is impossible in the fleeting moments of real time. A photograph is a window into another world. An honest world.

I say this not to justify the things I did, but to try and explain what led me into making the choices I made. I was not driven by greed or glory. That doesn't mean I was not responsible for what happened. I knew what I was doing
was wrong, but I told myself that there would be no harm. I was simply searching for knowledge.
What I found was that curiosity may not have killed the cat, but that's small consolation because there are some things worse than death.

"I found it!" Ennis yelled. "It is here, just as I thought!" Ennis Mobley had burst through the door of my hotel room clutching an ancient book with yellowing pages and a brown cracked binding. He was acting like Marsh on Christmas morning, thrilled with the anticipation of unwrapping newfound treasures. He opened the book on the bed and fell to his knees to leaf through the antique volume. "I told you, Terri," he said, teasing. "You should never doubt me. I am far too thorough."