Be Not Afraid Page 11

  “Nan?” I stuck my head inside.

  “Yes, angel! In the kitchen.”

  I didn’t move. It was harder to lie when I had to look at her. “I’m going into town for a little bit. I won’t be long.”

  “Be back for dinner, all right?”

  “No problem!”

  “Have fun!” Again, a singsong.

  If she only knew.

  “Shit,” Dominic said when I got back inside. “That was fast.”

  I fastened my seat belt, moved an empty Pepsi bottle to one side of the floor with the toe of my shoe. “You say shit a lot, you know that?”

  “Yeah, I know.” He backed up the car, resting a hand on the side of my seat as he looked out the rear window. His fingers were inches from my face, and the dull blue shape in his wrist was still, almost as if it was resting. “It’s a bad habit, I guess. I don’t even think about it. I’ll try not to say it anymore. I mean, around you.”

  “I didn’t say it bothered me.” I looked out the window, flushed by his offer. We drove in silence for a few minutes, the possibility of what was to come pressing down on us like a wall of mud. I was off and running, I realized, back on this road again despite all my efforts to stay off it. There were no directions this time either, no signs or maps to tell me if I was going the wrong way.

  I was just as lost as I’d been the first time. Maybe even more so. The only difference was that now I had someone with me. Someone who could help the situation. Or make it worse.

  Only time would tell.

  Nine

  If I had felt out of place walking into the Jackson house all those months ago as Cassie’s guest, walking in now for the second time felt borderline surreal. I had to force myself not to stop and stare at everything, astonished all over again by the obviousness of the Jacksons’ wealth. The inside of the house still looked like a museum, complete with black and white marble floors, corridor-like hallways, and an enormous chandelier that hung inside the front foyer like a glass jellyfish. A gold mirror edged with delicately hammered leaves hung at one end of the main hallway, and large oil prints depicting various ponds and trees decorated the walls.

  The only normal-looking object in the house was the large, sepia-toned family portrait that hung just inside the front door. Mr. and Mrs. Jackson were standing on a white beach behind a very young Dominic and Cassie, a cloudless sky above. I paused again, just as I had that first day, marveling at how happy they all looked with their arms around one another, hair tousled and windblown, tanned faces filled with contentment. Beneath the photograph, etched into a tiny gold plaque, was the word FAMILY.

  “That was almost ten years ago,” Dominic said, slowing behind me. “One of the last family vacations we ever took together.”

  “In ten years?” I stepped away from it, embarrassed, and ran my hands along my arms.

  “They go,” he said, indicating his parents with a thrust of his chin. “But we don’t. At least not anymore.” He shrugged. “Whatever. Come on.”

  The situation regarding Cassie and Dominic’s parents sounded more muddled than ever. What kind of parents went on vacation without their kids? And where were they now, considering their only daughter was so obviously ill?

  “Where are your parents?” I blurted out.

  “They’re at work.”

  “At work?” I tried not to sound aghast. “Today?”

  “Well, my dad is. He’s the head of a major corporation based out of L.A., which means he more or less lives at the office here or the one in California, no matter what’s going on. My mom was here all morning. But now I think she’s at her shrink’s office. She’ll be back later.” He sounded defensive. “They don’t leave Cassie alone or anything. The nurses are with her.”

  “Okay.” I followed him up the wide marble steps, forcing myself not to steady my hands against the glossy serpentine railing that ran down the length of it. I didn’t want to touch anything else in this house again if I could help it.

  “All right,” Dominic whispered, stepping into Cassie’s bedroom. “Here we are. It might look a little different. They’re redoing a lot of it. She wrecked most of the big stuff during some of her fits.”

  My stomach turned as I looked around. Most of the furniture was gone; only the periwinkle carpet bore the faded outline of where Cassie’s four-poster bed used to be. The walls had been stripped bare; there were no more posters of David Beckham or Justin Timberlake. Still, I would have recognized this room anywhere. Maybe even blindfolded. The smell of Cassie—a blend of sunscreen and ruthlessness—was everywhere, hanging like an invisible presence in the air.

  Dominic opened the door to the closet, but only a little, as if something might jump out. “You okay?” he asked. “Can you do this?”

  I’d had bad dreams for weeks afterward, ones in which I would find myself naked and chained in a basement, the floor around me wet and moldy. Once at dinner, when Dad had said something about a walk-in closet in the home he had just built, I’d burst into tears. Later, I heard Nan tell him not to worry, that I was going through puberty, which made girls cry about everything.

  They had no idea. No one did.

  “Marin?”

  “Yes.” The answer surprised me, coming out of my mouth louder than I thought it would. “Yes, I can do this. Go ahead.”

  He swung the door open wide. I looked in. All of Cassie’s clothes were still in there, rows of sheer blouses and denim skirts, silk dresses and skinny pants. The wall of boxed and loose shoes was still beneath them, each pair packed neatly next to the other and arranged by color. Even the shelf of stuffed animals hadn’t moved; there was the black and white panda with the pink paws crammed into one corner, and the white and purple polka-dotted giraffe, both of which I’d glimpsed when Cassie had first pushed me inside.

  “Okay.” Dominic pointed to the wall on the left, where Cassie’s skirts were hanging. “This side?”

  I nodded. “I think so.”

  “Do you think you could show me?”

  I moved forward quickly, shoving hangers and tops to the side, until the pale wall behind it appeared. Nothing. I squatted down, moving more clothes, staring at more wall. Still nothing. A vague panic began to rise inside my chest, a trapped bird fluttering. He was going to think I lied about this too. That I was a first-class freak who—

  “There!” Dominic said. “Right there! I saw something!” He pushed his way around me, crouching down on his hands and knees, and pointed to a spot on the baseboard along the wall. I followed his finger until I could see it too: a small sunken circle, barely visible, embedded in the woodwork.

  “It could be,” I whispered. “Push it. See what happens.”

  Dominic put his finger on the circle. For a split second he looked at me, and when he did, I thought, Yes, we are on the same team.

  He pressed down.

  Cassie and I watched as a panel in the wall slid open. It moved heavily, as if being pushed by invisible hands, and then disappeared into a space inside the opposite wall. At the sight of it, Cassie’s whole face relaxed, like she had just been injected with some kind of drug. She yanked me to my feet and forced me inside. “Come on.”

  I gazed around the tiny space. It was less than a third of the size of Cassie’s regular closet, with a low, dropped ceiling and an unfinished hardwood floor. The faint smell of wax and spices hung in the air. Red drapes had been pinned up against the walls—maybe there was a window behind one of them, I thought, something I could throw myself out of—and the absence of light cast a sickly pallor against Cassie’s face as she closed the door behind her. “Go over there and sit down,” she demanded, pointing to a space on the floor. “Don’t worry, I’ll be right across from you.”

  A lock sounded, clicking into place behind me as I shuffled across the small space, and I whipped around, gasping. “Go on,” Cassie ordered. There was no key in her hand, nothing that gave any indication as to how the door had just locked, but I was sure I had heard it. I sat, clutching at my
self, still trying in vain to hide my exposed body. Was this some kind of sick joke? What was she going to do? Torture me? Keep me prisoner?

  “What is this place?” I whispered. “What are you—”

  “Marin, relax, okay? I already told you, no one’s going to hurt you.” Cassie walked over to a table pushed against the far wall. It was covered with a heavy red cloth, etched in a black and gold scroll pattern. Two white candles, the edges thick with dried mounds of wax, flanked either side. I wasn’t sure if I was even breathing anymore as Cassie pulled a lighter out of her pocket and lit the candles. First the right one. Then the left. The flames cast an eerie glow throughout the room, throwing wide, flickering shadows against the red walls. She picked something off the top of the table and came back over to where I was sitting.

  “Okay, now,” Cassie said. “We’re just going to play a little game, all right?” I stared at the little green book in her hand. On the front cover was a picture of a triangle inside a circle, the edges tipped in gold. She held it up, as if reading my mind. “All the rules are in this book.”

  “What kind of game?” I could feel the muscles in my neck spasming beneath my skin.

  “You’ll see. It’s gonna be amazing.” She put the book down, smoothing a page with the side of her hand, and arranged the blue silk bookmarker along the crease. “First you have to take my hands.”

  I did as I was told, biting my lips to stop them from trembling. Cassie’s hands were damp with perspiration. They felt like paws around mine, her fingernails like talons.

  “I know you’re scared.” Cassie sounded almost sympathetic. “But you really don’t have to be.” Her face softened. “You’re gonna be so happy when you see what happens. You’ll be so surprised.”

  “At what?” I tried not to cry.

  “Trust me.” Her eyes got wide. “You’ll see.”

  “I don’t want to see.” My voice was pathetic, a whimper, but I couldn’t help it. “I really just want to go. I don’t know why you need me to—”

  “Marin.” Cassie leaned forward, her face straining with earnestness, her hairline damp with sweat. “Listen to me, okay? There’s no one else. Don’t you understand? You’re the only one.”

  “The only one what?”

  “Who can complete the ritual with me.”

  “Ritual?” The word filled my head like blood pooling. “What ritual?”

  “The conjuring ritual.” Cassie squeezed my hands, as if to reaffirm the benign nature of the experiment, and scanned the inside of the book again.

  “Conjuring?” My voice was a whisper. I couldn’t remember exactly where or when I’d heard such a word before, but I seemed to recall that it had something to do with evoking spirits. Calling on the dead. “Oh my God, Cassie, please. I don’t want—”

  “Shhh …” She repositioned my hands inside hers, gripping them with a little more pressure this time, as if I might try to make a run for it. “Okay, now that we’re holding hands, I have to read.” She looked up at me, her eyes wide with excitement. “Ready?”

  I stared at her, blinking back tears.

  “Holy shit,” Dominic breathed as the wall slid aside. His eyes swept the inside of the room as he entered, ducking his head so that it wouldn’t knock against the ceiling. “Holy shit. I can’t believe this. This is where she brought you?”

  I nodded.

  “This is unreal. I mean, what is this place?”

  I said nothing. The truth—the honest to God truth—was simple. I still didn’t know. My primary thought, racing over and over again throughout my head after Cassie pushed me inside the closet, was only how I could get back out. As quickly as possible. Afterward, when it was all over, I hadn’t let myself think about it. At least not in detail. I’d shoved it to the back of my head, tied it up in a neat package marked “Fine,” just like I’d told Nan and Dad that night at dinner. And then I’d tried to forget about it.

  “How’d she get this in here?” Dominic sounded dumbstruck as he pointed to the table with the gold and red cloth covering. His fingers moved over the cloth absently, as if trying to place it. “And these candles …” His voice drifted off as he picked one up, studying the heavy glass holder up close. “These look like the crystal candlestick holders my grandmother used to keep in her china cabinet.” He turned it upside down and then set it back on the tabletop. “Oh my God,” he said. “This must’ve been my grandmother’s room.”

  “Your grandmother’s?”

  “This is her house. Was her house, before she died and left it to us. She must’ve …” He did not finish the thought. His eyes took on a vacant look, as if trying to recall something from long ago. “There were rumors once, when I was a little boy, about my grandmother being a medium—”

  “A medium?” I interrupted. “Like someone who calls on spirits?”

  “Yeah.” Dominic looked at me. “That was the rumor, but we never took it seriously. I already told you she was a little weird. Kinda off. Like, she was always wearing big rings and crystal necklaces. It was easy to pin stuff on her, you know? I even asked my dad about it once, and he said it was bullshit, that people were always spreading lies about his mother because they were jealous of her money.” He paused, examining the bottom of the candlestick holder again, and then nodded as if finding another piece of proof. “And because every so often, she acted a little strange. But this … the tablecloth, the drapes, the candles, this is all her stuff. This must’ve been her little room … where she …” He bit his lower lip, letting the thought trail off. “No wonder Cassie insisted on getting her old bedroom when we moved in. She must’ve already known about the closet and the secret room. All of this.” He raised his eyes until they were level with mine. “Which means that even after my grandmother died, Cassie must’ve kept on doing the same things in here.”

  “Evocatio Spiritualis de Endor …” The strange words came out of Cassie’s mouth awkwardly, as if she had tried to say them before and failed then too. But what language were they? And what did they mean?

  “Endor! Endor!” Cassie uttered the word with reverence, almost as if she was pleading with someone. “Pareo pactum quod servo mihi!” She tripped over another word, and then two more of them, pausing to recollect herself and say it again. “Recolligo, phasmatis flamma!”

  She repeated the odd phrases two more times, still with difficulty. After the third time, she tilted her head back, exhaled, and closed her eyes. “Fiat, fiat, fiat. Amen.”

  I wondered if I was in a dream, one of those sickeningly real ones where even the smell of things felt tangible. Any minute now I would wake up, stare up at Johnny Depp, feel the softness of my quilt beneath my arms, wait for the day to begin.

  Cassie’s hands were still clutching mine, the perspiration even more slick against her palms. With less than six inches between us, I could smell her breath, a mixture of strawberry gum and cigarettes that mingled with the burning scent of the candles still flickering across the room. I felt faint, as if I might pass out, and I fought against it. Cassie’s eyes were still closed. Should I lunge now, start swinging until I tasted blood, heard the breaking of a bone? Inside my shoes, my toes curled; the cords in the back of my neck tightened.

  Cassie opened her eyes. She got to her feet and walked over to the little table, where she retrieved the two candles. I made a quick, sudden movement, as if to run, and then eased back down again as Cassie glanced at me over her shoulder. “Don’t try anything, Marin.” She sounded more annoyed this time than angry. “You don’t want to make us both regret something we don’t have to.” I swallowed hard, watching as she moved toward me again. The faint, rubbery scent of burning wax drifted across the room as she held out one of the candles. I took it, wondering what might happen if I lunged forward and shoved it down her shirt.

  “All right.” Her voice was low and tremulous as she sat back down and closed her eyes. The flames flickered across her hard features, softening them around the edges, and for a split second she looked like just
a regular girl. “Now we wait.”

  “Go back a minute,” Dominic said, digging inside his pocket for the little green book. “To the very beginning of the ritual, when Cassie grabbed your hands. What was the word she used? What kind of ritual did she say it was?”

  “Conjuring,” I said. “She said it was a conjuring ritual. Like she was trying to conjure someone up, I guess. To talk to them. I don’t know.”

  Dominic thumbed through the pages, stopping at one of them. His lips moved, forming words without sound, and his face turned pale. He turned the book around so I could see the heading, and I leaned in to read it:

  CONJOINING SPIRIT RITUAL.

  “Conjoining?” I repeated.

  He nodded. “There is no conjuring ritual in this book. Only conjoining.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t get it.”

  “Cassie read it wrong. She must’ve thought it said conjuring, which means to summon, right? To call on someone? Conjoining is a whole other word.”

  “That means to bring together,” I finished. “To make as one.”

  Now we wait? My blood ran cold at Cassie’s words. Wait for what? I sidled a glance to the right of me and then to the left, hoping Cassie didn’t notice. Was something going to come rushing out from behind another panel? Some wild animal or … Panic filled my chest, and I held my breath, trying to suppress it. Okay. All right. What had she said this was? A game, right? It was just a game. Nothing was going to happen. Nothing could happen. We were just two teenage girls from Connecticut in the good old United States of America, sitting in a closet. Yes, one of us had muttered some strange words in an attempt to lead some kind of “ritual,” and sure there were candles burning on an altar across the room, but nothing was actually going to come of anything. We weren’t witches, for God’s sake. This wasn’t Salem.

  I could do this. I could “wait” with Cassie until nothing happened and we had no choice but to leave. She would be disappointed no doubt, and maybe even take her frustration out on me, but I could bear anything now as long as it meant we were getting out of this room. I crossed my legs and leaned back against the red drapes, trying to steady my breathing. My heart knocked against my rib cage like something trying to get out, and my bladder was uncomfortably full. In our hands, the candles flickered to and fro, the flames dancing like pale scarves in the darkness. I closed my eyes and then opened them again as something shifted behind them.