The Black (49 page)

"Yeah, tell me about it. Who is Damon?" he asked.

I disappeared again and showed up on the other side of
the pool.

"A total foul ball," I answered. "But you know that.
Don't help him. Whatever happens, whatever you see, don't
help him."

"What is the poleax?" he asked.

"I don't know for sure, but he wants it bad. It's why he
killed me, Ralph. To get to you, to get the poleax."

Marsh looked about as confused as I'd ever seen him.

"But why?" he cried. "I . . . I don't know anything about a
poleax."

I disappeared again, and then showed up directly in
front of Marsh. He jumped back in surprise. Oops. It wasn't
like I had a choice.

"I'm doing what I can to help you," I said. "You know
that, right?"

He nodded. "Yeah. Thanks."

"Keep your head on straight. Don't believe the impossible. Damon can do stuff I can't. He's had a lot more practice than me. But remember, it's all an illusion."

"So what happens if he gets the poleax?" Marsh asked, clicking into analytical mode.

"Then it won't be an illusion anymore." There was no better way to say it than that. Marsh had to know what was at stake.

"I got your back," I said, flickering. "Just like always."

"I miss you, Coop."

There were so many things I had to tell him, but it seemed like my time was limited.

"Me too," I said quickly. "Those things I said? I'm sorry. I was mad."

"I know."

"And tell Sydney I think she's cool for what she's doing."

"She really cares about you," he said.

"Of course she does. She's not a total Agnes."

Marsh looked at me with wide eyes. I couldn't imagine how he was processing all of this.

"Don't be sad for me, Marsh. I'm okay. There's a lot going on. Some of it is pretty sweet. Then again . . ."

"Yeah," Marsh said. "Then again."

Marsh reached out for me, but I was fading. I felt the colorful mist rise up around me.

"Be cool," I said. "I'm around."

"Coop?" he called, but it was too late.

I was gone. Completely gone. Not just invisible. I was no longer in the cemetery. I found myself standing
in the center of Stony Brook Avenue. The Ave. My vision in the Black.

It was the right place to be. It was my home, or at least what passed for it in the afterlife. I was standing in front of Meade's Pharmacy. I wanted to go inside and talk to Donna the soda jerk and order a malted . . . and find out what
a malted was. I wanted to stare at the pictures behind the soda fountain that had been a familiar part of my life since I was little. I wanted to share a booth with Gramps and talk about growing tomatoes, then go to the toy shop next door and claim my teddy bear. I wanted to do all the things that would make me comfortable and convince me that everything was going to be okay.

But I couldn't do any of those things, because Meade's Pharmacy was destroyed. It looked as if a bomb had hit it, or maybe a World War I tank. The doors were blown in, the windows were shattered, and the roof was caved in.

The rest of the Ave looked even worse.

I stood in the center of the empty street, alone. There was no traffic. No pedestrians strolled along the sidewalks. Bernie the mailman wasn't making his rounds. My vision was as dead as
Ree's. And Maggie's. And Gramps'. The only difference was that my vision wasn't just deserted, it was destroyed.

It was as if a mechanized army had driven through, firing randomly at the buildings, blowing out huge chunks of the brick walls. I walked up the Ave, in a daze, scanning for signs of life. The building that had housed Santoro's Trophies was gone. All that was left was a rubble-strewn hole as if it had taken a direct hit from a bomb. The street
itself was torn up, possibly from the treads of tanks. The church that had held my funeral was desecrated. The entire front wall had been ripped down, revealing the wreckage of the pews and statues within. Across the street was the library. Hundreds of books were scattered across the front lawn of the beautiful building that was beautiful no more. Looking in through the shattered window, I saw nothing but black ash, the result of a fire that hadn't spared a single volume. The pocket park between two buildings was filled with piles of brick and wooden beams from the building
next to it that had collapsed. The Garden Poultry deli, home to the greatest fries in the universe, was no more.

As violent as the scene appeared, it was strangely quiet. There was no sound that would have hinted at the destruction that had happened. A slight breeze blew up from Long Island Sound, moaning in anguish as it passed the forlorn remains of what was once my hometown.

No, that was once the vision of my hometown. This wasn't the real Stony Brook. It was my home in the Black, which is why it was destroyed.

Damon had taken his revenge.

The Rift was sealed. His soldiers had been sent to the Blood. The Guardians had stood up to him and triumphed. I stood up to him, and for that, he destroyed my vision.

I didn't believe for a second that Damon was finished after his defeat in Grand Central Terminal, but I never imagined that he still had the power to create such destruction. I thought that protecting Marsh was going to be the final challenge with this monster, but I couldn't have been more wrong.

Seeing my vision was proof of that.

The disappearance of Maggie, Ree, and Gramps was proof of that.

The desperate Watcher was proof of that.

Damon was willing to destroy the Black to finish his quest. This was no longer about protecting Marsh and getting my life back.

This was about preventing the complete destruction of the Morpheus Road.

Epilogue

If I had told anyone a few short weeks ago that things would work out the way they have, I would have been called delusional. At best. At worst, insane. But I can't deny reality. What seemed far-fetched not that long ago has come to pass. At times I still question it, but the answer I come back to is always the same, as unbelievable as it may be.

Sydney Foley is in love with me.

Believe it. I do. Okay, maybe "love" is a strong word, but we are definitely in serious like. Would it have happened under normal circumstances? Probably not, but so what? People are brought together through shared experiences all the time, and what Sydney and I went through was definitely an experience. I only wish it had been less tragic. And horrifying.

I always thought ghosts were the stuff of fables and urban legends until a vengeful spirit found his way into my
head, discovered my most personal fears, and made them real. I would hunt down a dozen poleaxes if I thought it would keep that spirit away from me. But I've been warned against that by my best friend, who happens to be a ghost. And since Cooper has been protecting me from beyond the grave, I have to believe he knows what he's talking about. I trust Coop. Always have.

Now that I know life continues beyond death, I guess I'll trust him forever.

A month has gone by since his funeral. Nothing out of the ordinary has happened since then, other than my relationship with his sister. At first I worried that we were only together because of the haunting and that once it was over we'd realize we had nothing in common. I'm happy to say that I was wrong. To try and get back some form of normal life I helped her study for the SATs. In return she sat through a screening of my entire DVD collection of
The Prisoner.
And she liked it. Who knew Sydney was a closet
geek? The irony! After what we had been through I needed a silver lining. Sydney is my silver lining and I hope that I am hers.

It took a few weeks before I could relax enough to get a full night's sleep. It was still summer vacation so I went back to work at Santoro's Trophies and Sydney tutored math at Stony Brook Junior High summer school. At night we hung out together. We never went so far as to pretend like the haunting didn't happen, but after a few weeks of normal I began to allow myself some hope that it was over. For good. That hope grew stronger
with the passing of each uneventful day, each time Sydney and I kissed and laughed, and every night that went by without a disturbing dream.

There was a moment. A great moment. One I'll never forget. After weeks of looking over my shoulder and wondering what might be around the next corner, I finally allowed
myself to believe that I was no longer going to be tormented by spirits from the afterlife. It happened while I was riding my bike home from Sydney's house. The sun was going down and I wanted to get home before dark, so instead of riding along the street, I took a shortcut that Coop and I always used when we rode to each other's house. It was a well-worn path through a field of dry grass that served as our baseball diamond, army battlefield, and rocket launching zone. When I turned my bike onto the dirt path, I instantly thought of my friend. I couldn't help it. The place held so many great memories.

I hadn't sensed Coop's presence since the cemetery and my day of reckoning with Damon. Riding along that path gave me a feeling of peace. As comforting as it was to look back and remember, I knew it was time to move on to whatever the next adventure would bring. It was a moment I will never forget. I would do anything to recapture it because an instant later it ended . . .

. . . and the next adventure began.

I came over a rise to see a girl standing in the path several yards ahead. The wild grass was tall, making it impossible to ride around her so I stopped.

"Hey, how's it going?" I called out.

She didn't react. I didn't recognize her, which was odd because I thought I knew pretty much everybody around my age in Stony Brook, even if they didn't know me. She had long, curly dark hair and wore a man's business suit, which seemed odd but . . . whatever. Her dark eyes were fixed on me. Staring. Unblinking. Sad.

I got off my bike and walked it toward her.

"Do you live around here? I've never seen you—"

The girl vanished.

I stopped short, my heart in my throat.

"Oh no," I muttered. "No, no, no . . ."

I wheeled the bike around to head back the other way but saw another visitor blocking my way. It was an old man with thick, oversized glasses wearing a plaid flannel shirt. There was nothing threatening about him, except for the fact that he was there. No way he could have snuck up behind me that fast. The guy was looking my way but his gaze traveled straight through me.

It took a second for me to realize that I knew who it was. "Mr. Foley?" I said, barely whispering.

It was Cooper's grandfather. Cooper's
dead
grandfather. "What do you want?" I yelled. "What are you doing here?"

He answered me by disappearing.

I fought to control my breathing. "Home. Home," I said to myself, like a mantra. "Gotta get home. Gotta be around people."

I dropped my bike and turned to run for home. For Dad. For sanity. I didn't get more than a step because a third spirit had arrived. I had already seen two ghosts, but I could have seen a hundred and still would not have been prepared for the
vision that stood facing me in that deserted field. Standing in the path, as real as the others, was my mother.

I fell to my knees. Whatever sense of well-being and stability I'd managed to put together over the past few weeks was shattered, as wounds that had taken years to heal were ripped wide open.

"Mom . . . no," I cried. "What's going on? Why are you here?"

She looked straight through me the way Coop's grandfather had. There was no recognition, no acknowledgment that she knew who I was or that I was even there. It was the first time I had seen her since the day she had left home . . . to die.

"Say something!" I screamed. "Talk to me!"

She didn't react. It was as if her image was there but her spirit wasn't. Still, it was my mom. I staggered to my feet
and stumbled toward her with my arms out to hug her. I reached forward, closed my arms around her, and grabbed only air. The image was gone.

I fell to the ground again, crushed under the weight of grief as if I had just lost her for a second time. I hadn't
even reacted like that when she died. It was like my heart had been torn out. I couldn't move. I didn't want to move. I curled up into a ball and hugged my knees. I wanted the visions to end, but I knew they wouldn't.

"I'm sorry that happened, Ralph," came a clear, strong voice.

I dared to peek over my arm to see yet another spirit.

Cooper was back. He walked toward me along the path and knelt down a few feet away. Unlike the other three spirits, he was looking right at me.

"That wasn't right," he said.

"Are you really here?" I asked tentatively.

"Yeah," he assured me. "But not the others."

I didn't dare take my eyes off him for fear he would disappear.